#posts that will look completely fucking insane out of context

[lucabyte]

i feel like people are sleeping on the occam's razor situation of how buckwild it is to outright accuse a guy of being a clone of your friend even if you DO have a lot of circumstantial evidence. there's other options is what im saying. they could just be like. a guy. that's a sensible deduction. you should explore that deduction. ignore my shirt that reads I <3 RED HERRINGS.

i still think odile has the correct theory on lock but she's smart enough to know it needs like... a real smoking gun to be able to bring it up without sounding insane.

anyway. (mirabelle voice) i know its rude to speculate but has anyone else noticed the grieving? they seem to be grieving. does anyone have any thoughts on the grieving? i have some thoughts on the grieving.

[theevilfishywizard]

The complete dismissal of context when people talk about laurance and what happend at the wedding is kinda insane actually because I do not know how you can look at that situation and say "oh it's because laurance cannot handle being jealous." Genuinely did we watch the same show?

He was MIA for 2-3 days with a woman who defiantly does not respect consent, is brought to the werewolves where he learns aphmau is being human trafficked and married off against her will, then is immediately ordered to be executed. Laurance does not know fenrir, he has no way of knowing what kind of person he is, what he might have forced aphmau to do already. He sits in a cell awaiting his execution until the wedding where Aphmau tearfully says she's sorry to him under his breath as she passes. A woman who has only displayed unshaking determination in the face of adversity is meek and crying.

And if that wasn't enough, they skipped 15 years, he found his dead wyverns grave robbed, he learned his only other father figure died in that time and he never got the chance to see him one last time. This sounds like I'm pulling every trama out of my ass to defend him but it's been literally TWENTY fucking episodes since the beginning of the season all of this has happened right next to each other. Everything's fresh. This isn't a display of jelously, this is a breakdown.

I'm genuinely shocked anyone can see it as anything else. This has been built up since he came back from the nether as a shadow knight and refused to discuss anything that happened there. You look me in the eyes, and tell me that if you were in his position and you saw someone you loved being literally TRAFFIKED INTO AN ARRANGED MARRIAGE you wouldn't fight like hell to get them out if that situation.

Edit: Sorry, I know the post above sounds a little heated but I just keep seeing this circulate and needed to throw this into the discussion. I didn't mention it that much above but laurances losing control was absolutely a byproduct of being a shadow knight because I can say with absolutely certainly that were laurance not a shadow knight he would have refrained from killing anyone. (He even does it later with michi. Even though I wish he'd just let aphmau ice her) It's hard to differentiate what personality changes take place because he's a shadow knight vs what is caused by the trama he's experienced but since there's implied to be a sort of bloodlust I'd wager that's the more likely option. He reached a breaking point and lost the self control that was preventing him from basically rampaging. The reason the kiss worked wasn't because laurance "got what he wanted" or whatever it's because the action was so shocking it basically hard reboot his brain and cleared the red fog of violence that was clouding his thinking.

[cricket-of-the-hill]

So what's the deal with Fiddleford McGucket? Why's he like that?

Fiddleford as a character is so FUN because he's so complicated and tragic and honestly a little pathetic. On one hand you have this absolutely brilliant scientist with the potential to have been the in universe Steve Jobs who figured out that the universe is a hologram and built an honest to betsy transdimensional portal (with Ford's help, yes, but let's be honest: as mathematically brilliant as Ford was, I think his intelligence laid more in the theoretical side of things, really doubt he could have actually built the portal himself).

On the other hand, we have this man who up and leves his FAMILY to chase after a college friend who calls him one day saying "hey, I'm out in Oregon building a portal to another dimension. Little help?" and he doesn't even think twice before being like "bet" and getting his ass to Oregon. And even if you take in the context clues that things weren't going well with his marriage before he left (as pieced together by the brilliant @divorcedfiddleford in this post), he still had his son and McGucket Computermajigs and he just sets all that aside for this guy, which... 😶

I am gonna write this whole post on the assumption that Fiddleford was in love with Ford, but look, even if that's the case it doesn't make any of his actions less unhinged. Break here, because the post gets kinda long 😶‍🌫️

So here's the thing: in the fandom, it's fun to think that Fidds knew about Bill and they had some sort of taunting rivalry/love triangle thing going on and that's really fun to mess with, but FIDDLEFORD HAD NO IDEA ABOUT BILL. Ford never told him! So even if Fidds leaves California thinking he's gonna have his hot girl summer/queer arthouse romcom where he reconnects with the love of his youth and they spend the summer working in this secluded house in the woods where they can finally live out their romance, what he actually gets is a fucking psychological horror thriller where the guy he loves and is kinda trapped with is either slowly going insane or straight up getting possessed.

Now, all that is 😵‍💫 enough, but it gets worse because instead of doing the normal person thing and getting the hell out of Dodge, Fiddleford stays. He continues to help Ford to build the portal despite how weird the other man is getting, he continues to go cryptid hunting even after the nightmare goblin almost eats him, even if Ford clearly doesn't appreciate the work he does (research assistant? Not even partner? Come on), and never reciprocates the kind of gestures Fidds has towards him (like the infamous double Christmas gift bonanza).

Here's where the duality of Fiddleford Hadron McGucket kicks in: the thing is that he is incredibly brave in some ways and obviously really smart but also kind of a coward and an idiot when it comes to his relationships with others. He'll hit Thee Krampus upside the head with his banjo one day to save his friend and run away to Oregon instead of discussing divorce with this wife the next. He will leave everything he knows to pursue this one guy, but he will never ever ever confess to feeling anything other than friendship towards him. He'll put up with Stanford's creepy as all hell behavior but will never confront him about it even as Ford loses more and more of himself into his project (so no little intervention not even to help this man he's giving so much up for). Like, what was he expecting to get out of all this? If he was never planning to confess to Ford or leave his wife, what was he going to do once the portal was completed? Just keep on bouncing between wherever Ford went next and his family? Did he really think his wife and son wouldn't mind him leaving them behind without so much as a thought?

Operating under the assumption that Fiddleford is a closeted queer guy from rural Deep Down South Hillbilly County Tennessee (said with love, I'm also from the south, but we all know what homophobia looks like here) during the '80s (height of the aids pandemic which would have made everything worse) one can maybe understand why Fiddleford is like that. Why he is so so so afraid and why he ultimately chooses to erase his memories rather than just go back to his family.

So picture this: you are in love with your best friend but you can't tell him 'cause best case scenario he leaves you out to dry and worst case scenario maybe someone finds your boots down by the river and lets your parents know (and we know Ford is sweet and fruity himself and with a thing for outcasts and would never. Fiddleford probably knows that himself, but let me tell you that when you grow up with that fear it goes deep. Because you've most likely seen people who are kind get absolutely bent out of shape when confronted with the mere idea of someone like you existing in their near vicinity). Eventually, you get married and have a son because that is what you were supposed to do all along and even though you love your son and maybe even love your wife everything feels wrong. They expect you to be something you are not, you can never let your guard down, never be yourself, not even in your own home. So then that call comes and it's like a golden thicket: you can leave, give it a rest for a little while, go see your friend, stretch out those inventing muscles.

As much as the fandom clowns him for it, I honestly don't even think he went out there with the intention of cheating (emotionally or otherwise). BUT I do think he was hoping something would happen. It's just that it all depended on Ford taking that first step because Fidds sure as hell wouldn't. And then Ford didn't because he was too busy doing the sin cos tan with his trigonometry homework, but if he had, we could have had a brokenback mountain situation on our hands, lads. Then Fiddleford could have just gone along with it, and done all sorts of mind parkour to convince himself that that's somehow less bad than "outright" cheating on his wife.

So he gets to the cabin, right? And maybe things are good for a little while, like when they were in college. Fiddleford lets loose a little, Ford is happy with the company, they're friends! And I get the sense that they're the kind of friends that mesh really well, like their energies really match. As much as the fandom paints Fiddleford like a sweet cinnamon roll, that man is also a freak. He's out here building psychotic post divorce revenge pterodactyl robots and drinking abducted cow milk just to see what it's like. He's a bit unhinged! He and Ford are the two people in the world that can be like "I think the universe is a hologram." "Cool! Let's prove it mathematically, bro" and "I want to build a portal to another dimension. Just cause." "Catching a ride to your place with my toolbox as we speak, buddy." (My own personal head cannon is that Fiddleford didn't really become such a shaky jelly until the nightmare goblin got him. Like, he was never as adventurous as Ford, but I think before that particular traumatizing event he was all right for it).

Anyways, things are good for a bit, but the real world is still out there. Fiddleford has to make trips home every now and then, and every time he comes back it seems like something is different. A little off. At first it's nothing big, just a smile a little sharper than usual, a coldness in a look, Ford calling him "Specs" where before he was always a variation of his name. Then it's pointed comments that Fidds chalks up to a lack of sleep (is Ford even sleeping at all? Because he could have sworn for the past three nights he he has appeared in the same place Fidds left him when he went to sleep). Then it's a flash of yellow eyes, a maniacal laugh that Ford never used to make before, spells where he seemingly forgets how to use his body (bumps into things, tries to drink soda with his eyes?). As time goes on it starts to become more and more obvious that something is seriously wrong with this friend. And things back home are just getting worse and worse, Emma May isn't happy about Fiddleford skipping town so often, Tate wont stop asking for him, and look, was Fiddleford even making money while he was with Ford? He gettin' paid? Is Emma May back home trying to bring home the bacon while virtually single parenting? (How was Ford even supporting himself while studying anomalies? I can't imagine there's a lot of grants for that.)

But Fiddleford can't leave his friend and he can't really own up to how much messier things are at home because of this whole thing. So he keeps coming back to Gravity Falls, where he also can't really face up to Ford and either demand a clear answer as to what is going on or try to get him some help (an exorcist, maybe). Because if he does say something and Ford decides that he doesn't want Fiddleford around asking questions he's gonna have to go back home where after the Christmas thing he's honestly not sure he's really wanted anymore, not really sure he deserves it if he still was. So he keeps on doing his thing, telling himself "this is fine 🙂," while he sits in a room on fire with a bill-possessed Ford hanging from the ceiling like a spider and an disapproving Emma May looking in through a window.

I think the portal incident was what finally opened his eyes to the reality of his situation, in an ironic way. He destroyed his relationship with his wife and left his son for nothing. Left his own dreams and aspirations aside just to find out that when push comes to shove his opinion and well-being matter so little to this man he was ready to break the laws of physics for. He can't stay with Ford, and he sure as hell can't go back home, because that would mean having to face that he's done burned down all his bridges. So where do you go from there? Let me tell you, if I had the chance to forget the lowest, most selfish, stupid thing I did for a person who didn't even notice it, I'd do it in a second.

[kiyomitakada]

what draws you to misa amane?

oh this is such a good question let me see if i can do it justice.

two of my favorite themes in anything are

characters who are performances

what if love was not good

and misa is basically like if you took these two and smashed them together in a way perfectly calculated to obliterate me

like she's so! our first introduction to her is her pretending to be someone else (the first kira) so well that she even fools the audience. our second introduction to her is rem telling her that she is only alive because someone loved her, someone was killed by their love for her, and misa looks down for a second — looks almost sad — and then smiles and immediately starts scheming to kill her too.

who the fuck does that? what is wrong with her?

i think what misa understands fundamentally is that love is a weapon. if you asked her she'd laugh and say that's silly, she's a romantic after all! but she knows how attraction works and she uses it like a physical object with rem and higuchi and her jailor (when she thinks she's being tied up by a stalker and she starts offering bits of herself in order to get them to give her more freedom. mr stalker, the video won't be interesting if i can't move. oh, i'll give you an autograph, i'll shake your hand…)

and like, sure, that's how any femme fatale works, but crucial to the entire act is that misa doesn't admit it. she acts stupid on purpose! she's a cute little girl, she's misa-misa! all of this is literally in the text but she is just so good at acting that people forget about it! she isn't your usual scheming seductress character (also a character archetype i'm obsessed with, incidentally) because she knows better than to let anyone see her scheming.

look at this bit where she's specifically trying to get sidelined and successfully gets light to sideline her

+ i literally just posted about it but this scene where she decides to go behind everyone's back to uncover higuchi as kira drives me up a wall. the way she immediately covers it up with asking light to come to bed to her. i've seen so many people just screenshot that last part out of context because it really does look like a normal misa thing to do, haha misa and her conviction that light is in love with her, so funny! and that is the exact thing she is relying on to make sure they don't catch onto her. she pulls the same trick on the reader that she does on the characters. isn't that! insane! and it works every time!!!!

and of course talking about misa is never really complete without talking about her and light. it is my personal belief that she has a bpd favorite-person fixation on light that she convinces herself is actually romantic, but mental illness headcanons aside i am obsessed with the way she conceives of their relationship? on their first meeting she says out loud that she doesn't care if light just plays the part of her boyfriend ("i'll work hard to make you love me") but she doesn't want him to date other girls in public. she doesn't actually mind that he doesn't have feelings for her (yet!) but she cares about the appearance of their relationship. about the facade. she keeps putting both of them in danger by showing up to see him when he's told her not to. she gives up her actual memory of light but is relieved that she doesn't have to give up her feelings for him, specifically. she is over the moon when L and rem say she's in love with him (not the other way around!). and this

this fucking scene added a decade to my lifespan

rem: you tried to kill yourself over this boy misa: (sincere) that's awesome!

like she isn't actually enamored with him. she's enamored with how in love with him she is

oh that reminds me. addition to my favorite themes in anything list:

3. SUICIDALITY

misa halves her lifespan twice. risks her life to catch kira multiple times in yotsuba arc. as aforementioned goes to meet light even though it threatens both of them. literally says aloud i'd rather die while i'm still young and pretty

her parents are dead. she is nineteen years old and incredibly traumatized. the conclusion here is very straightforward.

misa calls kira her savior even though she knows kira isn't the one who actually saved her life with gelus. kira doesn't even save her parents, just avenges them by murdering their killer. so why is he her savior? because kira gives her a reason to live again. her goal now is to meet him, and then after she meets him, get him to fall in love with her. this is impossible because of the way light is and in some ways i think that is ideal for misa: there's always something to keep going after, some reason for her to not die yet. but she keeps throwing herself at death anyway in the meantime because if she's going to die then she wants it to be for love. i did all that for light? that makes me so happy!

the two times i think misa is completely entirely honest with the audience are when she's in confinement and when she's in the forest alone, right after getting her memories back:

christ.

this is imo why she sides with light over kira in the yotsuba arc. because what she actually wants is to not be alone, to have a reason to live, and kira helpfully provided that for a while but now that she's under constant surveillance to make sure she's not siding with kira and now that her boyfriend is also trying to catch him, she's going to side with the boyfriend so that she can keep light by her side.

what i really like about this is that it's so… amoral? misa does think kira is doing good for the world but she personally doesn't care, she just wants to be loved. she will twist her morals into whatever necessary to make sure that she is loved. she really doesn't care about anything else. she frames her good friend for the kira tapes. she places zero value on her own life and by extension zero value on anyone else's — even light's, to be honest, see above about how she's willing to put them both at risk to see him — and it's the most entertaining thing in the whole world! it's so awesome! she's so awesome!

and the best thing is that this comes back to bite her so hard in the second arc because now that she's lost her memories she can't remember why she's with light in the first place but just like in yotsuba arc she understands that this person is the only reason she is still alive, that she has to be in love with him, that he has to be in love with her, and it doesn't matter how either of them actually feel because that is How The Story Goes for a cute little girl. it doesn't matter that she's canonically developing alcohol dependence issues (see her dinner with kiyomi) or that she never sees her fiance anymore. she's still misa-misa. she's still everything.

her trick folds in on itself. she's been pretending to be a good non-murderous girlfriend for so long that when she loses her memories and her internality she has to believe herself. she becomes the shell she was putting on for light

where's the post. here. [light, about misa]

like isn't that the coolest thing in the world! she's been acting for the audience both in- and out-of-universe for so long that she has nothing else to believe in! becoming the mask is a form of ego death! isn't that the most meta thing ever! i love her so much im going to die

oh god this is getting long. umm. conclusion

there's this framework i like to think about characters with that i call zoom-in and zoom-out, where the zoom-in focuses on their internal life and conflicts and feelings etc. and the zoom-out focuses on their role in the narrative, outsider-pov style. the best characters are the ones that are compelling both zoom-in and zoom-out style.

zoom-in: misa amane is a deeply lonely and deeply suicidal teenager who latches onto the first reason she finds for living and clings onto it (him) for the entire rest of the series while constantly putting on a moe act for the sake of survival and then just because she has nothing else

zoom-out: misa amane is the second kira, stalks a high school boy to his house, kills over a hundred thousand people at his command with the same bright smile, and is such a good liar that people still come away from this show calling her stupid.

[katstiel]

After just having finished Teen Wolf for the first time, I can't stop thinking about Sterek. I am just so fucking fascinated by the phenomenon of this ship.

What is fascinating about it, is that there is BARELY any textual support for the ship at all. These two characters pretty much stop interacting after 2 seasons. If I'm being honest, their chemistry isn't even anything that wild. Any overtly shippable moments between the two can be counted on one hand.

What is fascinating, is that I firmly believe this ship exists due to the meta-textual context surrounding the show. Imo there are 2 main parts to this:

1. Sterek is a perfect example of queerbaiting in the original sense of the word. Because despite not having seen the show at the time, I vividly remember the boat video circulating. If you don't know what boat video I am talking about, just search YouTube for 'Sterek boat'. It is probably the most insane marketing stunt I've seen for a show.

And, after looking into it, it seems that the creative forces behind the show actively encouraged fans to ship Sterek through Asks here on Tumblr and other social media posts.

If this marketing hadn't happened, I don't think Sterek would've ever been as big as it became.

2. Derek as a character has no real purpose in the plot of Teen Wolf, except in the 1st and maybe half of the 2nd season. He is there mainly for the gratuitous nudity and objectification. Tyler Hoechlin is shirtless in so many scenes that frankly, it's a little ridiculous. In most other YA shows from the same era, he would occupy the love interest role for the main character... Except, Teen wolf's main character is, unlike most other fantasy/ya shows at the time, a guy. More importantly, the male main character Scott's entire motivation in the first few seasons revolve around his own love interest, Allison. So obviously, Scott isn't available to pair Derek up with. That leaves Stiles. Stiles isn't technically the main character, but he is the closest after Scott.

Stiles is also queer-coded like crazy. I don't know how the fandom reacted to the S3 moment where he talks to a bisexual girl, but if I had been in the fandom at the time, I would have taken it as explicit confirmation that Stiles is bi. There is no other way to interpret that scene, and no other purpose for it to be in the show.

So we have a classic, hot love interest character with no obvious romantic partner, and a queer-coded, almost-main character. The logical result is Sterek.

So like. Without the marketing or the context of similar shows of that time, there really is no reason to ship Sterek other than a vague "their dynamic is fun" that could be equally applied to many other pairings on the show. Which, for the record, is a completely respectable reason to ship something, but it would never have resulted in one of the biggest ships on Ao3 (at one point, it was second to only Destiel) on its own.

I'm not even gonna apologize for how long this post turned out because if I could, I would write an entire academic research paper on how this ship came to be. It is genuinely a fascinating case.

[spaloonbabooguuscooties]

You could drink your whole life away and still never get that taste out of your mouth.

half commission for @salempie half completely self indulgent dreck pieced together from our insane conversations abt franke and elka. told myself id finally write a big explanation for all of the dum shit between these two for context so Thats Under The Cut.

so I already wrote some stuff about elka and franke's relationship back in whispering rock so feel free to look at that too . it goes over elkas blindness/‘seeing’ with clairvoyance and how her and franke started talking & all that good stuff

SO FOR STARTERS. a lot of thsi wont make sense without a big breakdown of elka herself. because elkas potential as a character is like insane to me. like just the idea of her in the long run of her life reads as something so potentially tragic; a young girl whos plagued with visions of doom and destined to be an outcast even in her own home for things she cant control and clings to the One vision of her wedding that she thinks is 'happy' even despite the fact she doesnt really love the person in it. im choosing to take the li-po doc as canon here because its funny shes the only one with backstory-

but my fucking god even the smallest look into what her parents are like is soo fucked up to me. and i do think elka especially gets a lot of influence from her mother; its funny how easily you can fit mabel doom into a box just from what elka says about her. knees deep in an avon-esque pyramid scheme and leaning into her daughters depressing ass visions & taking her to therapy at age 11 (which would be good if not for the kind of person you can already assume she is & so i doubt the therapist she has really does her any good. i think they share one). she reads as a very I Am My Daughters Best Friend type of mom to me and i can see elka being a centerpiece of the conversation when she has her Amway Girls over for drinks. wine-mom that lets her kid sip from the glass so she can feel like a big girl type deal.

and you can tell that elka is trying to hard to be too mature for her age even in her campster posts. how she writes letters to nils' mom and exchanges baking recipes with her and that feels like she really only interacts with middle aged women and not really many people her own age outside of camp (like her moms friends). which makes sense shed feel the need to ‘grow up’ early when shes probably had to process so many hard things at a young age bc of her visions.

theres a lot of filling the blanks here of course.

elka obsesses over nils to an overbearing degree even despite the fact he treats her like shit ('you promised no talking' and so on) and she treats him bad right back. she leans onto stereotypical heterosexual ideals like taking care of him and overblowing how Manly and Protective JT is and she admires romance stories like pride and prejudice and it feels like she Projects Soooooooo much of what she wants onto boys she barely feels anything for without knowing what its actually supposed to feel like. and clearly she WANTS that ideal future, a happy marriage, an actual romance- but according to nils even when they were dating she ignored him most of the time, which just seems Very Telling

like shes filling a role, overcompensating for emotions and lacktherof she cant digest quite yet, and it only makes more sense when you know shes had visions of their future together. how could that be bad for her? shouldnt it be like the books and movies? but she doesnt really connect the fact that her visions are only for Doomed futures, and if she does she certainly doesnt show it. Doomed relationships. it's been a part of her family for generations and she isn't turning out much different, is she? i dont think she even realizes thats all she ever sees yet, just that its Going to happen. that it's Her future, and it always will be

and like, her only reference for a real marriage so far has been her own parents, and she already Knows they have an affair, and theyre doomed to split, (and i actually like to think they were in rough waters anyway and elka was a child meant to mend a crumbling marriage but thats a whole other thing) and so without a framework for what an actual healthy relationship is supposed to be like she cant really grasp that her relationship with nils Isnt that and isnt ever going to be. she can only cling to this one happy idea of the future, and thats why she keeps chasing him, self fulfilling the actuality of her situation and creating and fostering the unhappy life they will inevitably live together.

and that bleeds into everything else in her life, of course, because as the years go on, as the visions grow in number it just makes sense for her to fall into the predictability of her life. she always knows whats going to happen, her visions are Never wrong- so why try to change things? shes had time to process tragedies days, weeks, months, years before they happen, shes had time to settle into every crack of her life. her parents divorce, her various break ups, her future with the psychonauts.

“and she's already seen so much of a future with [nils] she feels trapped almost. Like she has to be happy in it or else it just means her life is miserable. And it's a mixture of pride and fear of the unknown that keeps her clinging to the One thing she knows. BUT LIKE!!! She knows what's gonna happen! It's easier to grieve when she's been grieving for years... She wants so badly to be happy, But to do that she has to step into the unfamiliar. And that's more terrifying than staying the same miserable person she's always been.”

and thats where franke comes in— and yeah you Do have to take a lot of liberties for frankes character since it’s basically, like, all the info for her is just that shes a Supreme Baby Dyke but thats enough for me. i think she has protective butch itch in her . on campster shes defensive over other women evidenced in the way she keeps watch over the girls cabins for lili when elton is pursuing her . but shes also eager to please and constantly trying to make kitty laugh and also Very naive. but she tries! and i think it only solidifies more as she gets Older and really gets a hold of her feelings & her powers. this is incredibly franke to me

and i think as they grow older together— because i think franke and elka Do stay friends, both because elka is just pathetic and needs that positive connection even if she doesnt realize it and because i think franke is a very Loyal person & annoyingly persistent if you let her be . and i am also a kitty/franke truther. because kittys also important in this web we weave

because i think franke and kitty stay together after camp, to a point— theres a falling out facilitated on kittys end and they break up, but reconnect, and franke kind of... saves kitty from herself a little, from her strict military father whos love only extends thru finances , from her own stifling future , she drives all the way to bakersville in her shitty van handmedowned from her dad and they move in together eventually . they get jobs at the motherlobe , because it’s a pipeline to a decent job, because it’s whats easy, because franke doesn’t really have a future, because she’s never really been good at much, because shes never had much sense, because franke doesnt really care as long as she can live and help, sometimes, if she can, and because kitty’s there, and because elka’s there, and shes so used to being elkas eyes now and shes good at it. shes good at being the muscle of the missions when her colleagues lack it, when hypnosis and predictions arent enough. she likes it that way.

and elka appreciates frankes company. she listens, shes sweet, she does little things for her that no ones ever really put the effort for before; she likes her. franke is strong and bold and makes her laugh and shes always there but god elka cant let go of that future, of that box shes put herself in, that her mothers put her in, of being a Good Wife to a Loving Husband, of getting married normally and falling into unfailing familiarity. thats all shes ever wanted and shes not going to jeopardize that . not for franke, who may not be a boy but is handsome like one, whos always held her after every break up with nils and the men that filled empty days inbetween.

and elka is too stubborn to recognize those feelings anyway. too prideful to accept a way out. too set in her cycle no matter how much she hates it, her little self fulfilling tragedy of her own making, wallowing in her own doom. she struggles for control of her own life when she feels like every choice has been made for her anyway, she puts up her walls and carefully constructs what people see. but franke was always harder to trick, because while empathy isnt a particularly useful psychic power it’s certainly an inconvenient one. all franke has to do is get too close and all those carefully crafted walls fall apart, and elkas control is gone, and thats all she really has. and she tries to distance herself, really she does, but franke is also too persistent. and elka wears gloves, keeps contact that would make her walls crumble from happening as best as she can, but she cant really keep herself from the brief moments where she feels like someone actually fucking cares about her.

and that slightest lack of control, the need to wrestle it back is why she proposes to nils the next time theres a falling out— she knows how it happens, she plans every detail. and he accepts, despite everything. gets her a cheap ring and it feels like lead on her finger and its nothing at all like how shed thought it to be when she was a kid, theres no feather light feeling in her chest, only that dreadful reality that she cant turn this back. BUT WHAT CAN U DO LMAO

elka doesnt tell franke about this engagement until later, on their way back from a mission. late at night when neither of them can sleep, and franke invites elka to smoke in her van, because its been so long since theyve been alone like that, because elkas been so strangely absent lately. and because of everything, because frankes always so damn nice, because elka hates the feel of the ring on her finger, because she let herself get high alone with franke fucking athens whos always been so good at pulling her apart— the truth of it all spills out and its messy and emotional and she hates it, she hates the life shes made for herself, but franke makes it easier to bare and now shes here and shes so close and god she wishes she could see her smile again, she wishes she could see franke, thats all she needs right now and she cant but she can touch her and she can hold her and for tonight, she can be known, she can let those walls crumble, she can be something else just for once here with franke . she can kiss her here in this van, touch that happiness for just a moment, and forget the future that waits for her outside of it. franke begs her to forget the wedding, to just let herself be happy— and god, she wants to, but it means turning her back on everything shes known and everything shes saw to be inevitable, and franke has never been in her future, so if it were supposed to work out why hadnt she seen it and she cant, she cant take that risk but she can have this, even if its temporary, she can have it.

and just as soon as she gets a taste of it, its gone. after that night, after the missions over and theyre back at the motherlobe and have to pretend like nothing happened (franke doesnt, of course she tells kitty about it, she tells kitty about everything.) but that brief moment together haunts elka every time she sees franke, sees herself through frankes eyes, sees herself in her wedding dress because god its all franke can think about! of course it is! she knows how much elkas destroying herself she knows how much misery shes wallowing in that kiss in the van felt like an emotional punch to the teeth and she hasnt ever forgotten it and all she can do is sit and watch while elka throws herself into a loveless marriage. she can come to her wedding and see the way the bride and groom kiss with the emotional weight of a wet towel no matter how hard elka tries to hide it under a pretty dress and bouquets of flowers and meticulous planning.

and elka resents nils but she cant really hate him, its not his fault, not really. he feels trapped just like she does and his feelings of misery only cycle back into hers . they fight and gnash and wear away at each other and its a relationship thats crashed and burned a million times before elka even said i do. and its inevitable that she falls into her mothers habits, a sip of wine here and there to loosen up, until it turns to a glass, until it falls into a bottle on nights when whatever work nils does runs late.

but franke’s still there. shes always been there, hasn’t she? always trying to play knight, always trying to save her, dragging her home when shes stumbling over herself because god who else is going to do it but her? who else is left to care? certainly not nils. never nils. because franke knows her. because franke pities her. shes always pitied her. shes always known. and elka hates it, she resents it, but god in the same breath she’s desperate for it, she envies it to her very bones. elka is a mess but after frankes done with her she has someone to go back to that loves her. and god what elka wouldnt do to have that. to take it and keep it for herself because shes never ever got to have that movie romance shes always wanted.

so now comes this.

because elkas particularly miserable and particularly spiteful and she needs to get franke to understand, just for a moment, drink with her and get on her level and she needs her there with her no matter how her pity makes her feel. no matter how much it makes her shake with anger and envy and desperation, but god the way franke looks at her, the way she still tries to salvage what they have, the soft, slurred way she tells her that it’s okay but its not okay, none of this is okay, it never has been and she just wants franke to shut up and see that, and if she cant then she’ll show her, she’ll show her all the raw angry desperation, with too much teeth and hands that claw and grab and she’ll know why everyones always said she’s too much.

and she knows this puts her on nils’ level too. that this makes her a cheater, that shes no better than he is now. no better than her father and his affair. but god, she wants to be selfish. she wants to be in control. just for once. she wants to feel right and she wants to feel happy and she wants to feel loved. thats all shes ever wanted. and franke will let her have that, just for a little while, at the very least.

anyway. sorry. sorry for being crazy . this isnt even getting into the shit after the comic takes place . elkas stupid brainworld thag she has to overcome in order to finally be allowed in the polycule and live happily ever as worlds first lesbian divorceman

sorry for all the shit i make up instead of caring about actual characters with screentime . bye !

[kenzan-brainrot-mp4]

You’ve talked about the post credits scene a bit, but what are your thoughts on the elixir being called “The Heart of the Dragon?”

Ohhhhh ive seen people talking about this quite a bit lately, especially on other platforms it's so aughhhh

I will say first of all that that was so crazy of them. I'm gonna be completely honest, initially during the whole elixir-hunt ordeal I didn't even consider that it could be connected to Kiryu at all, so when they just casually dropped the fact that it was called The Heart of the Dragon it was like getting slapped in the face (/pos). It makes you immediately think of Kiryu, to make Sure that you get the full impact of the big reveal at the end of the game, which. OUCH. Well played RGG you really got me there (Yeah I know most people seeing this will probably be like "no shit lmao subtle foreshadowing" but I personally am still reeling over it okay so)

Also I think it's a little crazy how Majima doesn't fully regain his memories until after fighting the giant squid again (which is basically right before they discover the treasure). Of course who knows when he finally regained the memory of his purpose for going to Hawaii, but to have him finally remember everything, only to learn almost immediately after that they probably weren't going to find the Heart of the Dragon, the dream that he, too, has been chasing after from the very start like everyone else... damn.

(Throwing in these screenshots. For no particular reason of course. (Nobody knows!! Nobody fucking knows that he was looking for The Heart of the Dragon for his own personal reasons too (even if he wasn't aware of it at the start of the game)!!!!! Grah!!!!!!!))

And Then of course the big part that people have been pointing out: just the fucking name itself. That, because of the elixir's name, Majima has essentially been chasing after/pursuing "The Heart of the Dragon" this whole time WHICH. IM GONNA BE REAL I FEEL LIKE A FOOL FOR NOT THINKING ABOUT. LIKE, FUCK. I don't even have anything to add to that honestly that just speaks volumes on its own. rgg really just went "yeah, Majima's dream was to find the Dragon's Heart. Yeah, he was chasing after the Dragon's Heart this whole time." Like Okay. Okay,

Also, as far as I can tell/find, the part about it being essentially called "dragon's spittle [fragrance]" in Chinese is true (please correct me if I'm wrong with that), but to have it be named specifically the "Heart of the Dragon" (both in eng and jp) by the treasure hunters in-game was a choice made by rgg Themselves. Which could mean Nothing, of course. But. You Know

Also the fact that Majima ultimately failed in obtaining the Heart of the Dragon.... And by the end of the game has to come to terms with the reality that it was likely never gonna be obtainable in the first place.... something something double meanings Again

holds head in hands

God. Calling the thing that Majima has been chasing after literally The Heart of the Dragon, having the final chapter of the game be called fucking White Whale (<- this detail in particular in the context of Majima and Kiryu makes me So Sick), absolutely insane of you rgg thank you for this </3 Keep up the good work

[sabertoothwalrus]

OK PREFACING WITH IM SORRY IF I ALREADY SENT THIS EXACT ASK BUT MY WIFI KILLED ITSSLF AS I SENT IT SO IDK IF IT ACTUALLY WENT THROUGH. but in case it didn’t . i know youve gotten this countless times in the past because i blog stalked just in case youve mentioned something similar before but i need to know if you have any specific inspirations when you draw exaggerated expressions specifically like these two images of marcille. ive actually cried laughing over this comic and being able to communicate this type of visceral emotion is such an insane skill and ive followed your art for probably close to a decade through various fandoms so watching you develop this style has been fucking awesome and epic. like i cannot articulate how funny these are to me i just need you to understand i look at this comic to inspire me to draw now. the closest comparison i can draw to the feelings they evoke are like those mspaint reaction images and also mspaint tails i included for reference even though you probably know exactly what im talking about anyways but its actually so much harder to do that intentionally when you study art. also i lied you literally don’t even need to answer this i just had to let you know how obsessed i am over your silly comics and now ive written out a whole ass discussion post about it. im sorry if this is weird at all i think my daily prescribed amphetamines r wearing off and i know this is such a dumb specific thing to fixate on and im so sorry if its not something you want to hear about your art. ive just always seen that as an artist this type of expressive stupid silly style is something that comes after a significant amount of time and practice and study and style development despite being “simple” in theory. its just so cool to have worked with your own style so much that youre able to go “off model” from it and still maintain consistency with the rest of the piece. i said it already and im sorry this is actually rendundant now but the ability to communicate such raw emotion somehow decreases from at its height when someone is a beginner artist learning how to proportion and keep a steady line and what looks “normal” but somehow it all comes full circle because taking all that experience and using it to almost return to where you started but in a fully informed and intentional way so you can make choices to draw characters like this when the situation calls for it is just dhcidogakgoshfhw. i think i need to cut myself off or im going to talk in circles im sorry tumblr user sabertoothwalrus i just am fascinated by your style and progress and the years you’ve dedicated to art can be seen in so many places but this is just one that stands out to me specifically.

MMMMM what a fun question!!!

I'm not gonna lie, I think it's just Letting A Drawing Be Bad. I definitely think the people that struggle with this the most are people who have genuinely very pretty art styles, to the point of being kind of perfectionist about it. and to Draw Funny often means Drawing Fast and Weird. Pretty is kind of the antithesis of funny (unless being pretty is the punchline). do drawings that make yourself laugh. tracing/lining funny sketches almost always makes them less funny.

one of my favorite types of humor is when it skews more deadpan, actually. This is one of the reasons I love Adventure Time. minimal expressions and flat line delivery + absurd context is a really good combo. the key to comedy has more to do with contrast! if your drawings are allllll crazy ren & stimpy all the time, they're not funny anymore cause it's just "normal". if it's all subdued UNTIL it's extreme, and vice versa, then it's funny. The reason this comic is so funny is because of the complete lack of any expression. I feel like the one you sent of Marcille shouting "WHAT" is funnier when you know how much she tries to be dainty and feminine and delicate, how much she values her appearance, and how averse she is to "gross" or "weird" things.

something I find really annoying (and this is with comics/animation in general, not the expressions themselves) is when the joke goes on for too long. Like you'll have the joke, then the punchline, and THEN the characters reacting to the punchline??? Like the author didn't trust that their audience would find the joke funny, so they basically drew in a laugh track. But, this is distinct from a character's reaction being the punchline (like how the examples you gave from my Marcille comic are). MY POINT IS sometimes expressions aren't as funny on their own as you think, and context can affect how you feel about it!

as far as inspirations go!

my own face! even if I don't have a mirror, I like making the expressions myself so I can "feel" where the points of tension on my face are, and it gives me a sense of what to exaggerate.

my brother's art, believe it or not! we've been trying to make each other laugh with our drawings since we were kids, and he's really good at it.

ATLA has some great expressions

OK KO has been a reallyyyy good source for me lately. That show is so tailored to my sense of humor and the expressions and line deliveries feel exactly like the kinds of things I'd come up with. The tone, timing, and art style are all really close to the tv show pitch I'm working on, so when I feel like I've "strayed" too much from it (like after drawing a bunch of dungeon meshi, and my art feels tighter and... idk "manga-ier"?) I like to go and watch a couple episodes of OK KO to loosen back up

A lot of things like OG Spongebob, Calvin & Hobbes, the Simpsons, Chowder, etc etc

memes in general. if it makes you laugh, keep it in mind

and lastly, I wouldn't say I ever try to mimic funny expressions I see. Like if I watch a show for inspo, I'm not pausing it to copy specific drawings, I'm just trying to notice patterns and pay attention to what about it I find funny.

talking about being funny is really bizarre and I dunno if it makes it lose some of the magic. Ultimately it's something you can't think about too much, and just gotta go with your gut.

[strange-guy-in-the-forest]

harper appreciation/analysis rant

i think harper would hate anything that would make them feel weak or vulnerable BUT they would get turned on by it. they'd be mortified but also grateful for the unique experience then go jerk off about it or maybe make their patients re-enact it for them.

i also don't think they mind appearing weak. they are after all just a humble doctor who takes on tough cases like traumatized orphans, not a mayor or high elk or whatever, despite being a skilled hypnotist. as long as they feel in control in a situation, it doesn't bother them. probably because they think they're the smartest person in the room and out-scheming everyone else.

they're also just, so, so, so. all of the harper love points are gotten through being sexually receptive to harper, in situations where harper is in complete control. harper is vulnerable when they're overtaken by lust! they're stuttering and no longer the logical doctor so it makes sense that they'd much rather enact their lust through voyeurism + masturbation where they don't have to look like a fool. or they only enact it on people (cough cough orphans, the insane) whose opinions don't really matter. harper feeling affection for a pc who sees them in this maximally-controlled vulnerability and is responsive to it, is just, cute.

im sorry-not-sorry but harper is an evil monster but an adorable pathetic evil monster.

but like the patheticness doesn't detract from the scariness and that's like the best part! harper is deeply bitchless BUT you're going to be their bitch whether you like it or not. and, you will like it soon enough.

i just love the combo of them being this evil pervert with a need for control. they are so excessive in their lust and it's just boiling under this professional persona. like you can guilt Harper over the fact that they're a doctor into not abducting PC! they do seem to take actual pride in their work, it's not a complete farce. they're very against even letting other people directly force PC to do things. the elk cult seems like it's existed in some form for a long time, i wouldn't be surprised if harper's thought the cult was inevitable and that they were being a good person by hypnotizing sex slaves into enjoying it, so everyone's happy.

harper actually considering morals in their actions is just the cherry on top. im trying to avoid referencing the q&as as those aren't canon, but vrel has said that harper has a code of ethics and that harper's greatest flaw is that they don't do the right thing when no one's watching. like you're telling me harper feels GUILT when they're being a shameless rapist. that's fucking delicious. like their giving into their lust not only overpowers the ability to appear professional and intelligent it also causes them to loose their actual morals. like the guy who is trying to get people to give up their minds to lust is actually also giving up their mind to lust too! that's like the one morally consistent thing harper does actually!

and i dont think sexual abuse occurs because people "give into lust" or whatever, you can just get a dildo (at sirris' shop! but this isnt going to turn into a sirris post). harper's abusing their institutional power because they can get away with it. but this analysis is in the context of a game where there is evil magical horny corruption. though, i will say institutional violence is a big theme in dol, especially in relation to harper.

i just love the tension between harper's intelligent kind professional persona and their animal lust. the lust threatens to overwhelm this doctor who i think actually thinks of themselves as kind and intelligent. it's just we see pc's POV where they are cruel to the "lessers" of society. they are in a situation where they can abuse anyone and in a way their freedom to give into their lust, controls them! honestly, it probably scares them, going back to them feeling out of control from their lust. it's why they're a voyeur and why they prefer their sexual partners hypnotized or drugged.

harper isn't trying to fuck pc, they have these ethics where they think turning PC into a happy brainless slut is the right thing to do but they understand its wrong to take advantage of their patients, but they just can't help themselves to have some of pc too. and so them abusing their power to have sex with pc is also, a vulnerability and corruption of their self.

anyway i feel like im reaching and/or repeating myself now so this is all to say:

Harper is both very powerful and very vulnerable when they're lusting over PC and so PC should fuck them in the ass and take their virginity. 😋😋😋

[st4rrygrl]

The blatant lies in plagues (@/blood.plagues) "explanation" and more allegations. (Part 1)

While reading plagues explanation on @/seireitonin's post, multiple people found the inconsistent lies on both his text messages and also the posts that his friends made to defend him. This post will be separated into multiple points.

1) Talking to minors inappropriately.

"The only other supposed proof of him being 'flirty' was towards adults who consented."

This is from one of his friends posts made to address the situation, while *some* of the images in seireitonin's post were taken out of context, there are MANY examples of plague making sexual jokes towards minors, even if they aren't moderators or his friends.

One of these examples was already posted by @/t4tesmuu (you can check their reblog for more information, it's really insightful.) and @/insomniac-shado.

The translation for the message was "Are you a guitar or why do i wanna grab you by the neck". Even if this was a joke, it's completely out of pocket and genuinely disturbing. There is no reason for an adult man to be talking to minors this way even if its a joke.

More screenshots down below. Some of the screenshots will say "yesterday" but the actual timeline would've been somewhere in July.

Keep in mind that turtle, cass, ? and Moew are all MINORS. There were more situations, specifically with one of his mods who is FOURTEEN but the channels and messages were deleted, I assume out of fear.

There is literally no world where talking to minors sexually or inappropriately even as a joke should be accepted. Some of the conversations we saw in his server that are now deleted were genuinely scary. It's insane how people will defend his behaviour because either he hasn't done it to them, or because he tells them it's okay because he "asked for permission". Again, if you have to ask permission to make a joke, then there's no reason to make it. I'd argue there's no reason for plague to be interacting with minors as friends either way, because of the major power imbalance. Many minors will see his behaviour and think its normal because they look up to him.

Again, there's no reason for him to make these jokes just because his humor is like that. If you can't control the things you say around minors, then you shouldn't be around them at all. All of this could've been avoided had he made his server 18+ or just.. kept his distance with minors. There are many more screenshots that I have, but due to tumblrs 10 image limit per post, you can ask for them in DMs.

And again, I'm sorry, but i can't state this enough, there is NO REASON for him to make these jokes. it doesn't matter if they're friends, it doesn't matter if they consented to it, because at the end of the day, MINORS CANNOT CONSENT. He could've just not made those jokes in the first place. I don't know what was going on in his head before sending these images. As an adult, you shouldn't even feel the urge to make inappropriate jokes towards/in the presence of minors.

To anyone who's going to defend this behaviour by saying "but minors make sexual jokes all the time!" there's a big difference. Plague is an ADULT directing these "jokes" towards his minor "friends". There's really no way i can explain it to tell people why it's wrong because it's literally common sense. Plague is incredibly immature for acting this way and doubling down on it instead of admitting his mistakes and deleting the server entirely.

Many of his friends in their borderline ai generated statements have mentioned that these jokes are "private", which is a fucking lie lmfao. You can literally find all of these messages in his server unless he's taken them down by now. There are probably so many more that we missed because plague just loves deleting chats and channels out of fear that people would take them out of context. No amount of context that he can give can explain WHY he wants to make these jokes so bad. It's so fucking easy to just.... not make a vore joke to a 15 year old.

2) His "Dark and Sexual Humour"

- Plague has admitted **multiple** (and I mean a lot like at the LEAST 20 separate occasions) times that he has "dark and sexual" humor. Some of his humor includes being weirdly obsessed with black men for some reason??? as I am not black, I got my friend Laila (who is black) to offer their statements on the images below.

"Hiii so im here to speak on the whole plague and his weird obsession with black men. This makes me feel like im a fucking joke to him, like "i head cannon toby to send pictures of black men while someone is venting" what the fuck plague. I am black and I take HUGE FUCKING OFFENSE to this?? like are we seriously a joke to you plague?? nothing is funny about fetishizing black people, like this is seriously so offensive and heartbreaking because genuinely what was going through your brain when making these jokes. And don't even blame this on your "dark and sexual humor" when this is just straight up racism?? The way you find black men literally just existing so funny is odd to me, and its really odd you did this stuff ONLY with black men. you could have chosen german or white men to make fun of, but NO you decided for black men to be the butt of your "dark and sexual humor". Also you joking about saying the n word??? Like thats not something to even joke about even if you meant "nitro". Like fym "I pause trying not to say the n word"...?? Plague be so serious with yourself, you aren't funny at all. Saying something like that is **EXTREMELY FUCKING OFFENSIVE TO THE BLACK COMMUNITY JOKE OR NOT PLAGUE.** ANYONE that tries to defend this is definitely not fucking black like I don't want to hear ANYONES say on this unless your black. If you're not black you get to have ZERO say on this. Plague, please leave the fucking internet and never come back you walking biohazard."

I also want to say that if you are NOT BLACK then you don't have a say on this. It is not your place as a white/non-black person to decide whether or not these "jokes" are racist. Stay in your lane because it had nothing to do with you. It doesn't matter if it was just a joke, it's still offensive and disturbing.

- Another thing he's done is just straight up say a homophobic slur towards lesbians. This was on August 10th, of THIS YEAR. This happened THIS MONTH. There is no way to explain yourself for this one, it's not funny, nor is it amusing nor does it fall under "Dark humor"; and you can't say you were "ignorant" either. Using dark humor as a way to shield yourself from being outed as a fucking freak will harm you in the long run. A statement from one of my friends:

"Hey, i wanted to talk about plauge saying a slur towards lesbians. Plauge is a boy, BOYS CANT BE LESBIAN, he should never even use that word at all. As a Lesbian, people shouldn't use those types of slurs, since it's only used to harm someone. If the slur has been said once, it sure has been said MULTIPLE times. Lying about others saying unreclaimable slurs while you say unreclaimable slurs is kinda crazy, since you were being so confident about!! Plauge is NOT a child, he's an adult. He should know better than to do these type of things, especially since he has a big following and most of them are minors. He should NEVER say slurs that he cant reclaim, even as a joke, because that's just offensive. There is no excuse. His 'dark and sexual humor' means NOTHING."

Also, for the uninformed people, bisexual people CANNOT say derogatory lesbian slurs. It's a very simple concept that is easy to understand. If you're not a lesbian then you can't say slurs against lesbians. I don't know how his friends are defending this because it's literally insane.

There is literally no way plague could justify these things. Borderline racism and homophobia is NOT dark humor, plague. the only way to get out of these is if you formally apologize and delete your social media presence. like please be honest with yourself, there is no way you could explain yourself for these other than you're legitimately dense and stupid.

3) Spreading lies about people.

- When a group of people first *tried* to come out with this information, plague immediately shut them down and started spreading fake allegations about them. He said that they doxxed people, they tried doxxing him, they sent gore to people, they make nsfw jokes towards minors (they're all 14), that they're n@z!s, and that they say slurs they can't reclaim. All of these are obvious lies, he got these accusations from one of his moderators who told him MULTIPLE times that it wasn't them, and that they were talking about other people. Despite this, he KEPT spreading this even after they apologised to him. When seirei came out with her post about this, he blamed it on that group of people while saying the same stuff about them and when someone corrected him, he didn't respond or elaborate.

- After seirei came out with her post and deleted the tiktok videos, plagues minions went out and made multiple tumblr posts "debunking" the allegations and essentially calling seirei ableist when that wasn't her fault, it was the anon's fault. They blamed her for "mishandling" the situation (which literally just means they didn't want her coming out abt this) and said that she was irresponsible and immature. They also just straight up said that seirei admitted that the situation was "petty" about this situation with no proof or evidence, so it's safe to say that they were lying about this as well.

- 2 specific people who had been part of this situation got ran off of social media due to the constant harassment from one of plagues moderators, Asher. One of these people was TWELVE. They harassed a TWELVE year old off of social media because they spread lies about them. That is genuinely disgusting behaviour. They lied about them making fun of asher getting groomed, which never happened, nor do they have proof of. Asher also made a video on tiktok where they basically dissed one of the people in the caption and people shit talked them in the comments. It's hard to tell whether or not he told asher to do this, but considering he made a server just to shit talk the people he doesn't like (specifically the people who are vocal about this) I wouldn't be surprised.

My final statement: there will probably be another post about this in a few days with MORE screenshots and evidence. if people want, I'll make a reblog with more screenshots. I'm aware that this is all discord drama but the things that plague and his company are doing and defending are NOT okay and shouldn't be left unchecked. These people have harassed and lied and gaslighted so many people that its genuinely terrifying. I will not be taking this post down nor will I hear any "explanation" about this. We have all the context we need and won't take this down.

Also, about plagues ridiculous conspiracy theory that everyone who's being vocal about this is the same group of people, I just wanna let people know that this is NOT true. A lot of people are working together to gather more evidence, and those people all have different experiences with plague and his server. Just because they're all cooperating doesn't mean it stems from the same people. The fact that there's 60+ people messaging seirei about this already proves that there's a lot of victims of his immature behaviour.

The only plague can make people let go of this is if he deletes his entire social media presence, including his server. If you're gonna defend this behaviour, just know that you're defending a legitimate freak. You will be blocked if you try to spread misinformation.

[lastofthewardens]

okay fuck it i wasn’t going to post this but i'm having a moment.

i know we kind of know nothing at this point. a lot of filming has been away from the public eye since there are actors who haven’t been seen on set that we know for sure are in the show. plus anything we have seen is out of context. so really any assumptions would be jumping the gun a little bit, which means this is my disclaimer that i hope i'm completely wrong about what i'm saying and look very stupid later but.

it’s looking more and more like this show completely fumbled foggy nelson and kirsten mcduffie and just gave their roles to karen? which is crazy because as much as i love the OG show they already did that to ben urich (which they were criticized for by comic fans) and then of course there are the many debates about elektra among various sections of fandom. but repeating the ben mistake with foggy while also doing it 20x worse to a character that's even worse to do it to and then just giving kirsten NOTHING to work with is fucking crazy.

and as someone who also ships k*redevil, thought they had a real chance at something after s3, always imagined they would've been together in canon by the end of the OG 5 seasons they originally wanted, and wants them to be endgame (because sadly and unfortunately, neither show was ever going to make foggy and matt happen lol), this is so insanely off-putting to me, to the point that it may start putting me off things i previously liked if that’s what they did come next year when s2 comes out.

the way karen was originally ignored by this new show is wild and stupid, but i really don’t think the reverse should be happening like this or that karen should be getting literally everything now, all at the expense of the entire rest of the comic book cast, particularly dd’s most important longest running supporting character foggy and arguably matt’s best comic book love interest kirsten (she's SO much more than that too obviously, but like.. the new show isn't letting her be those things either?)

karen has been dead in the comics for a long time. i've always thought her show version should survive and that they shouldn’t kill her, and i stand by that, and i was impressed and glad when they subverted it in s3. but they could’ve kept karen alive and kept her a main character and gave her all the importance she deserves and even had a k*redevil endgame without it being done like this.

there's absolutely a world where they respect foggy's place and importance in matt's life and keep him included and alive, kirsten is treated as the badass she is and gets to do all kinds of law stuff with matt and foggy (and be a supportive friend, if they didn't want to do love interest, because they could still honor the spirit of their relationship), and karen still gets to be everything that was already awesome about her in the OG show.

the writing for this show (yes, even in the new episodes by the new team) is not good enough to justify the decisions being made or the disrespect to almost literally every character.

if you want to diverge from the comics, you don’t solve the issue of karen not being alive anymore by just deleting everyone else's relevancy and replacing every other character that exists with her so you can prop her up. she doesn't even need that, the character the OG show created in her was already awesome. you create new stories and show what having her around would’ve added. you bring back older stories she was in and recontextualize them. you respect the other characters that matter instead of taking things away.

you definitely DON'T antagonize and dismiss and disappoint fans of the source material who care about this stuff just to push your agenda. and this will just turn some fans even more against the ship and the character when they already had a hill to climb with some parts of this fandom. which sucks because i originally hoped that in a world where this show was good that people would change their minds about k*redevil and see it more positively, but now i feel like i can't blame them anymore. in the words of matt (apparently), 'fuck it'.

this new show is literally like a dark twisted mirror version of the series i love, like the ultimate be careful what you wish for, and i’m so sad about it today. wish it just stayed cancelled at this point.

[shigayokagayama]

Could you do Teru for the ask game?

oh boy. ok.

Sexuality Headcanon:

gay. specifically. ok. maybe my most strange and specific take. but i feel like teru being into girls would kind of make his character arc... weaker? bizarre sentence i know but. hear me out. of the shots we get of him before mob enters the picture, 2/3 of them involve him flirting with girls. post mob we never ever see him with a girl again aside from one omake where there are a crowd of them trying to ask him out on valentines day who he is turning down. i feel like we are supposed to see these relationships as being a part of his fake, "perfect" persona he sheds rather than anything that came out of general interest. he's dating them because he's the handsome popular guy and that's what he's supposed to do, not because he's actually interested at all.

Gender Headcanon:

i like bigender teru a lot

A ship I have with said character:

terumob GIANT ASTERIX in the very specific context of being post confession arc. i see heart eye panel as the exact moment his false, idolized image of mob fades away and he sees him for what he truly is and still chooses to love him flaws and all. i really do think they are able to understand each other on a much deeper level than most people because they have both seen each other at their lowest and still chosen to continue wanting to be in each others lives. they both coped with their powers by creating these perfect masks to show the world (teru's as the prodigy and mob as the nice guy who will do anything for you and never ask anything in return) and were the first to be able to identify each other's facade because they recognized themselves in them and 💥. they mean a lot to me. also i do think the "they dont hang out much post canon" thing is a slight misconception, teru says they dont plan hangouts much and usually just run into each other and hang out from there. that with teru's "you should ask me to hang out more" gives such "im so used to other people making the first move that i havent developed the skills to let people know that i want them in my life" energy it makes me a little insane. anyway.

A BROTP I have with said character:

i need him ritsu and shou to run in circles hitting each other with rocks. i think any two of them on their own hang out normally and if you have the three of them + mob its normal but just the three of them and they start inventing games like "powerline volleyball"

A NOTP I have with said character:

pre confession arc terumob. like mob would never because tsubomi but if they did date it would last one month and they would never speak again itd be so bad (spoken from experience by a person with similar attachment issues who has dated people ive been hyperfixated on before)

A random headcanon:

HES SUCH A FILM BRO I KNOW HES A FILM BRO. this kid's letterboxxed is comprised solely of 1960s horror films made on a budget of 2 dollars and if you watch any of them with him he will provide trivia the entire film. also he has npd source fucking look at him

General Opinion over said character:

hes my favoriteeeeeeee the first time he showed up with the wig i went "alright this is gonna be my favorite character" and i spent the first half of season 2 mournfully going "i miss haystack boy :(" every episode he wasnt in. and then i read the manga and i got crazy insane over him. i really do feel like the anime dumbs him down a lot manga teru is a completely different person and hes so interesting i need to like. tear holes in my drywall. god. teru.

[saltydkdan]

Salty i wanna get into Baki which one do you recommend,the manga or the anime?

Oh you just woke up the fucking beast (I'm so sorry).

I LOVE this question, and as a recent Baki fan myself, I can tell you that getting into the series as a Western consumer can be rough if you don’t have a basic guide to know what you’re getting into…. so that’s what I’m gonna make this post (TEEHEE).

This series has gotta be one of the most insane shonen- actually no- one of the most INSANE PIECES OF FICTION I've ever experienced, and I NEED more people to check it out. Like, LOOK AT THIS SHIT DUDE.

Baki out of context somehow even puts Jojo's Bizarre Adventure to shame. The way I usually pitch it to people is that Baki is as insane as people THINK Jojo is before they read it. Shit is just... MAN LMAO. OBAMA IS FUCKING IN THIS.

Unlike more popular stuff like Dragon Ball and Hunter x Hunter, a lot of this series has just never been officially localized, so knowing where to start, and even how to support the series, is a hard task if you don’t know what you’re doing.

Thankfully THAT’S WHAT YOU HAVE ME FOR. This Tumblr post is gonna be your one stop shop for how to get into Baki as an English speaker (and it’ll give me some space to ramble about one of my latest favorite series).

But uh before we get into the nitty gritty, wanna put some trigger warnings for the series for those who may want to know. Listen, I know how some of these are gonna look to the average person, but this series just be like that sometimes, if you can’t take stuff like this trust me it’s insanely valid. You’ll understand if you choose to take the plunge.

SERIES TRIGGER WARNINGS:

Animated Blood/Violence, some animated gory imagery, Incest (???), Nudity, Urine stuff, Bigfoot/Animal Violence, Death, Uncomfortable looking muscles, and one instance of sexual violence (offscreen)

If you are comfortable with all that (and again, valid as fuck if you aren’t) then let’s talk BAKI!

First off, Manga or Anime?

You would think that either would be fine, but my personal recommendation for Baki as a beginner, is to watch the anime over reading the manga. Simply put: The anime is a lot more widely available and accessible in English speaking territories, and is fairly easy to support officially with its current iteration.

For whatever reason, the manga just never really took off in the West when compared to other series, so it was only ever officially released in English a handful of times, and they only ended up publishing the first few volumes. Theoretically, you can read the first few books to start, but the entire series all together is legit longer than One Piece at a whopping 1,203 chapters, so you are gonna run out of material real quick. The fraction of officially available manga barely scratches the surface of the series.

Even if you’re stubborn about reading the manga and want to try reading fan translations, they come with their own separate batch of issues. Plenty of fan scans you can find online range from wildly outdated, to generally being poor quality at best. There’s even some fan translations that just straight up make shit up and don’t even properly translate the original script. Adding in extra dialogue and slurs randomly to make the text seem way edgier than it actually is.

Full disclosure, I wanna cut through my bias here and say that there are indeed some great scans available on the internet if you look hard enough, especially for the more recent content! But they aren’t super easy to track down with how the series is formatted, and you may accidentally find yourself reading the story out of its proper order.

The watch/read order of Baki is a bit of a toughie for new people, but is actually pretty simple once it’s explained. The story of Baki is split up into multiple different series, kind of similar in format to Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure. Though instead of “Parts”, Baki is split up into completely different manga and TV series. This is why many fans get confused initially, especially with the watch order, because it isn’t laid out in an easy to understand way at first glance.

The most well known series are currently streaming on Netflix, but those aren’t the ones you wanna start with. Nope, the story of the Baki anime actually starts way back in 2001, in a TV show that isn’t streaming officially online. Now if you want to watch out of order, I’m not gonna stop you. You can do whatever you want, by all means, but you’re gonna be missing some VERY important story context, and some characters just won’t hold the same weight.

So if you DO want to watch in order, come with me my friend. Let me show you-

BAKI’S SUPER COOL AND NOT AT ALL CONFUSING WATCH ORDER:

Baki the Grappler (2001) (24 episodes)

This is the original 2001 anime adaptation, the very start of serialized Baki anime. You’re gonna wanna start here trust me.

This series isn’t streaming anywhere officially online, but you can find it… places. Seek it out, trust me, because otherwise you’re gonna pay way too much for out of print DVDs on Ebay. Thankfully though you have options! The series is both subbed and dubbed (as well as every series I discuss from this point forward.

This show is the very start of serialized Baki anime, the very beginning of Baki Hanma’s story. Although it’s not in the way you may think. Despite this being the earliest point in the Baki timeline, it’s actually an adaptation of a later story arc from the manga.

Now I know what you’re thinking, “Didn’t you just say this is where I should start? Why is it adapting something from later in the story?”, and yeah it’s valid to be confused. While yes this is the first ever Baki anime, for some reason the staff behind it made the decision to move this later arc up a bit from the original manga. In my honest opinion, I feel like this is actually a great decision.

As you will see as you watch, this honestly FEELS like this should be where the story begins. The escalation of power and storytelling from this point onward feels very natural, and you won’t miss out on anything or spoil yourself whatsoever on later events.

This is the de facto best starting point.

Grappler Baki Maximum Tournament (2001) (24 episodes)

This is effectively the second season of Baki the Grappler. For whatever reason they decided to title it something else, and while this is the norm for the series later on, this name change is weird because it adapts an arc from the original manga just like the first season of anime I just talked about.

Whatever lol.

Anyway this series, much like the previous, isn’t officially available as of now. So your best option is to SEARCH for it. SEARCH on the INTERNET. Or y’know. The good ol’ expensive out of print DVD on Ebay route.

In my opinion, compared to the first season, this one feels a bit slower paced and a bit of a slog at points but HOLD STRONG TRUE BELIEVER. This season is the introduction to a lot of mainstay characters in the series. Many of which you will come to love, even if you don’t know it yet.

BAKI (2018) (39 episodes) (NETFLIX)

This is the modern adaptation of Baki. After the last series ended in 2001, the anime went on hiatus for 17 years before it was announced that it would be coming back with a modern coat of paint.

Contrary to what you may think, this isn’t a ground up reboot. It’s a continuation of the exact point they left off years ago, right after the Maximum tournament. The only thing that kind of sucks about this is that, at least for the English dub, they replaced most of the voice cast. Most of the new VAs do a great job, however you may need to get used to Yujiro Hanma having Shadow the Hedgehog’s modern VA from the games haha.

Thankfully, you can officially support this series easily via Netflix. Normally I’m pretty eh on Netflix as of late, but this being the only way you can support the show officially in the west, I personally recommend it.

Baki Hanma (2023) (39 episodes) (NETFLIX)

This is the most recent anime! It’s also on Netflix.

Me and my friends just got to this on our watchthrough together.

Anyway, this is my list! If after you catch up you wanna hop into the manga and read the fan scans, I’ve heard that you can start on Baki Hanma/Baki Son of Ogre (chapter 183).

Hope you enjoy the funny man punching show! Feel free to report back and tell me how you feel about it (positive OR negative)!

Like I said, I've been watching the series with friends on Discord every night or so when we're free and MAN. Baki is fucking AMAZING WITH FRIENDS. It just never slows down after a certain point, and it just gets stranger and crazier.

[kiyomitakada]

what if kiyomi was the first Kira and misa was still second Kira

i wonder!

(bleh that's one of my older ficlets it's before i realized L is polite to literally everyone except light… so it ought to be takada-san but that's fine.)

anyway this ^ was my first attempt at the idea but it has been plaguing me for months and it looks very different in my head now. here are some Thoughts:

kiyomi as first kira

kiyomi is a very outspoken character who is relegated to the most passive position in the narrative. i don't think this was intentional, i think it was Misogyny of the Author, but it is very interesting to me in the context of this AU. i imagine she picked up the notebook fully intending to throw it away but hung onto it for instincts unknown (light also says in canon that "that notebook has a power that makes you want to try it"; i don't really subscribe to the idea that the notebook controls you but i feel like it's fair enough to say it has some kind of weak draw), and then didn't try it until ryuk showed up and she freaked out.

ryuk would be like well if you don't want to use it then just give it back to me. kiyomi "superiority complex" "control freak" takada refuses immediately. i think she'd rather die than get her memory wiped (i have not thought far enough to get to yotsuba arc yet. don't worry about it) and the idea that ryuk dropped it randomly and giving it back might result in some ~mass murderer~ getting it would be horrifying to her.

so of course she has to use it.

i actually have a different post in my drafts about how i think each dn character would use the death note but here is what i have for her

kiyomi: picks up the death note out of curiosity, scoffs, fully intends to throw it away but forgets until ryuk shows up. at which point she starts killing specific government officials at a rate of about one per day (she can't stomach indiscrete killing the way the others can). all the officials are found with a fingerprint-less knife stuck in their chest, so the police suspect a mundane serial killer, but no level of protection has been enough to save any of them yet. kiyomi probably tries to make them write down political demands as her "calling card" and then gets mad when she can't do that (the death note doesn't allow people to write things they don't know). instead she has to send tapes to sakura tv, where she interns, to get her manifesto out. the one time a knife isn't immediately available, the death note makes the politician die of a heart attack, which the media naturally attributes to stress. but Something Feels Off to L… do you know how much i would pay for the protagonist kiyomi takada version of death note do you KNOW she'd be so insane in a completely different way

i stand by this. kiyomi is way more politically minded than light, she talks to him and mikami about supporting kira entirely of her own volition, her first move when light tells her to start airing her own opinions is to talk about how she thinks the education system should start teaching kids about kira and how kira should instruct the army on how to act. kiyomi takada is fucking terrifying. Do Not Let This Girl Into The Government.

"but she supports the canon kira so wouldn't she act like him?"

well the problem is kiyomi has the intention but never has the resolve until pressed

(i have the manga panels to prove this but i can't be bothered to dig them up right now. sorry. One Day i will write a full kiyomi analysis and it will even be decent)

in this way she is much like chapter 1 light yagami. light going on a murder spree because he thinks his soul is about to be taken = kiyomi shaking and bloody in the back of mello's truck thinking i have to judge as many people as possible right now.

so in this scenario, since she didn't start killing until ryuk showed up and explained things to her, kiyomi is not motivated by fear for her life but rather fear for her memory + her canon support for killing everyone + "if someone else had this they'd do much worse than me" (just like light, with that one) (who else would have the guts?). so she does kill people but not as many. she puts thought into each one. ideally she wants to kill as little as possible for maximum impact.

i think she wavers between staging these deaths as suicides (invoking the societal stigma around them & so that there would naturally be a suicide note, etc) or making them obvious murders and would eventually go with the latter because she . also has a god complex. i mean nooo obviously it's because politicians will be more scared if they know someone's out there to get them!

anyway

what the fuck does the first arc look like

kiyomi imo gets just as mad as light does about being called evil. but unlike light she has more experience being called a cold bitch, snake, little miss perfect, etc, so she sees lind l tailor and does deep breathing exercises because killing him on air would do nothing but traumatize generations of children

so basically the broadcast ends and nothing happens until sometime around midnight lind l tailor drops dead of a heart attack

interpol was originally very mad at L for staging this whole thing because he has far less evidence that the killings are supernatural in this one, but they're kind of creeped out by this because of that other politician who had a heart attack — tailor was in the prime of his health and everything (L picked the death row inmate with the least history of cardiac disorders)

anyway [sighs really hard] this whole plot has to be reworked from the bottom up because kiyomi doesn't have access to police information and, unlike light, is not invested in The Game as much as she is societal change, so she wouldn't want to draw L out and eliminate him in the first place.

(i think kiyomi and light share the same fundamental loneliness in their souls — "if you were smarter this could've been interesting" / "you're the only man i've ever actually admired" — but kiyomi is drawn not just to intelligence but to people who share her principles, whereas light is drawn to people who can beat him at his own game. this is one area where they are different! thank god!)

(you could argue kiyomi is too, considering her reaction to misa, but her immediate response when misa starts getting under her skin is trying to leave)

(and besides i'm not even sure if kiyomi ever realizes lind l tailor was a scheme. like presumably she knows L is still alive and panics the day after when L is like hi. im still here. but since her killing was time-delayed L might not be able to get as much information and so he has no reason to gloat.)

anyway kiyomi's not giving L any clues so basically things are going to be a lot harder for L

but she's also going to spread kira's message through news stations so…………… more information source there? better not fuck up with that voice modulator kiyo

misa as second kira

oh thank god, l lawliet thinks, a development, i was about to die of stagnation

thankfully no matter how things shake out in first arc i think misa would still try to use the tv stations & the fake diary to get to kira, so that doesn't change. although since kira's voice is already becoming established she might have to do it in a more roundabout way (remember she also didn't want the cops to figure out she wasn't the first kira)

maybe this is how we can get manga misa to sing i'll only love you more????

anyway. they meet in aoyama, still. kiyomi went for the same reason light did: she has to size up her threat (see: inviting misa to dinner)

light & kiyomi significant difference no. 2: perceived gender

misa voice kira is a GIRL?!?!?!?!

she still buys all the information she can get on kiyomi. ("kiyomi takada… what a boring name.") (fun fact kiyo's pretty much the only character in death note with an entirely normal name; this is why her death is so shocking)

so misa shows up at her house all casual-like

light & kiyomi significant difference no. 3: where light's thought is "this girl isn't as stupid as i thought" kiyomi's thought is "this girl is the most dangerous person i have ever met"

like as far as kiyomi knows L is kind of useless. misa is the first direct challenge she has ever faced. misa can kill just by looking at a person. misa has a death note and she is sure as hell not giving it to kiyomi.

because if you interpret kiyomi this way, she hasn't avenged misa's parents

(i wonder if i could come up with a reason for her to do that because i admit the whole misa arc doesn't make as much sense otherwise… but let's assume not for now)

so why does misa want to meet up with her anyway?

well. who else is there who would understand.

anyway i kind of picture them close to this yagamane dynamic (sorry yagamane i'm stealing your valor). misa doesn't have any reason to be grateful to kiyomi, but she does want to be useful still, wants to have a purpose. wants to have people she can talk to in perfect honesty, but also has kiyomi's real name dangling over her head at all times and wants her to know that

also. crucially. she wants to have a perfect family because of course she does. in canon light is her gateway to this: by becoming his girlfriend she can integrate into the family dynamic. calls soichiro her dad, calls sachiko her mom… but this doesn't work with kiyomi because she's a girl and misa, as we all know, is totally one hundred percent heterosexual.

so. so:

Kiyomi sighs. "Okay. I… I suppose it's a deal." "Yay!" Amane jumps up and flings her arms around Kiyomi's neck; she's warm and unexpectedly bony and smells like artificially flavored shampoo and Kiyomi's heart spasms in her chest. It's been a long time since anyone's hugged her like this. She's a mature young woman and that means she doesn't hug people. "You won't regret this, Kiyo-chan!" "I am already," Kiyomi mutters. It's far too mean, far too revealing, but — oh, who cares, Amane already knows she's a serial killer. Amane's triumphant smirk as she pulls away carves its way into her skin regardless: she knows Kiyomi didn't mean to say that. "I'm so happy," Amane keeps going, patting her dress down like she's worried Kiyomi's gotten lint on it. "I've always wanted a little sister!" Kiyomi stares. "What." The look Amane casts her is pitying. "Didn't you know? You're a year younger than me." "That is not the problem here," Kiyomi hisses. (It is sort of the problem.) "I'm an only child!" "I know," Amane says very patiently, "I bought all your records, remember? I'm an only child too!" Is this a bonding moment? Is Kiyomi finally experiencing Lady Macbeth insanity? "We don't look anything like each other," she points out. "If you're planning on another disguise—" Amane rolls her eyes. "Ugh, you're so serious all the time. Lighten up a little! I'm joking! We can just be sisters from different mothers, or whatever they say. Together forever, you know? Through thick and thin? You won't die on me, will you?" Kiyomi, being an only child, is not entirely sure what having a sibling is like, but she's pretty sure the rage(?) coiling in her stomach isn't it. "…Not unless you kill me." Amane smiles. It's not as wide as usual. "Well, that's a start."

[lovexjoe]

The reader is a famous actress and dated Jacob for 3 years / ended he finds out he has a child at the bb4 premiere one year old

The ANGST 😭

You and Jacob were dating for 3 years till you guys called it quits…well he called it quits. Your relationship was very private so he appeared single to the world. It was half your idea and half his idea. Apparently his manager said it helps if he appears single cause it draws more attention to him. After shooting Bad Boys Ride Or Die he barely returned your calls and was just acting completely off. You couldn’t believe that someone you knew since high school could treat you like this, but fame will do it to ya. You let it be and took your loses.

2 months after the breakup you found out you were pregnant. You left endless calls asking Jacob if you guys can just talk in person one last time. Without context, you sounded desperate but you just didn’t want the potential of your phone calls being leaked. You managed to grab a job in the music industry under a stage name. You produced a few beats for the movie and with that you got invited to go. Greaaaaat. You didn’t really have a choice either cause your management needed you to get more exposure.

You birth a beautiful baby boy all by yourself and today on the day of the premiere he was one year old. You did a few interviews while your baby sitter had Alex inside away from the crowd

“Omg Y/S/N you look stunning tonight! Congratulations on your baby boy turning one today!” The interviewer gushed over a few pics you posted of Alex earlier.

“Awww thank you so much, it’s insane that he’s already a year old. Time flies!” You continue chatting it up with each interviewer. Happy that everybody was really sweet and respectable. You didn’t realize until the last interview that Jacob was right behind you in line for interviews. You felt his eyes on your back. Oh fucking great.

You hurried your way through the crowd hoping you could lose him. When you made it inside you cut the corner to go to the bathroom but you felt a hand grab your arm. He pushes you in the family bathroom, locking the door.

“Y/N do you want to explain to me, why the fuck I wasn’t informed that I have a child?!” Jacob’s jaw was clenched and it was the first you really seen him pissed off. But you know what? So tf were you.

“Oh hi Jacob! Maybe if you returned the 20 missed calls I left you asking to speak to you, you would know! You don’t get to be pissed! You left me! I did all of this by myself and I fucking hate you for it!” At this point you had tears streaming down your face. All the pain, lonely nights, sleepless nights: rushed to the surface.

It broke his heart that you went through pregnancy alone. He was crying as well. He couldn’t believe he missed this crucial time with you and his son.

“Y/N I’m sorry just please please let me make this up to you.” He pulls you close, wiping away your tears. It would be wrong to be petty in this situation cause Alex needed his father.

“I’m not gonna make this easy on you.”

“I understand. I fucked up but I need you and my son. I lost too much time already.” You nodded as he pulls you in for a hug.

You two fixed yourselves up, walking out the bathroom hand and hand. You met up with your babysitter and Jacob couldn’t believe his eyes. You gave birth to a baby him.

“Alex meet your daddy!” You placed Alex in his arms and he was immediately in awe. Alex was already giggling and grabbing Jacob’s face.

You were hurt, yes. But you wouldn’t change this for anything.

Taglist: @yeahnohoneybye @cardi-bre91 @onlysarang @romanreignsluver1 @minwn

@armandosbabymama @dyttomori @bbyplutosblog @vergilnelosparda @believeinthefireflies95

[yellowocaballero]

hello i am here to gush. genuinely obsessed with all of your fics but this time ab star wars specifically bc i got into clone wars recently and CANNOT stop thinking ab roleswap AU. both the regular and no chip versions make me so fucking insane. i have never encountered a parent/child relationship that breaks my heart quite like that one. the fact that literal-solider-raising-a-kid-in-an-active-war is the LEAST fucked up part ab their dynamic is incredible. also i love thirty with my whole heart

Aaaahhh thank you!!! This ask is so appreciated lmfao. I am VERY CLOSE to being done the No Chip rewrite (I have decided to rewrite every story in the AU and add another one, because I'm insane) and I'm struggling so hardcore with the last story I need to complete before I finish. I want to share them with y'all so bad because a few of them are really freaking good and people need to witness it. I will take the encouragement and hopefully it shall help power me :)

Regarding the insane Cody & Obi-Wan thing: it has to break your heart. Originally, the gulf between them was due to their difference in stations, social status, and personhood, and Cody's unwillingness to close that gap even if Obi-Wan waned him to. But in no chip the gulf is pretty much 100% shitty decision after shitty decision after shitty decision. There are huge themes of cycles of abuse, authoritarianism, and toxic masculinity, and although the effects of these things are a problem in almost every clone, it's definitely worst in Obi-Wan and Cody.

Cody feels helpless, I guess. He has zero control over his life. He can lead the GAR, he can lead the Imperial army, but no matter how much power he tries to take he can't fill that pit of helplessness-induced despair inside of him. He can seize power again and again, he can exert control over Obi-Wan's life more and more, and he can justify everything terrible thing he's done by saying that it's to keep the people around him safe, but he knows that there's no way to do that. The heartbreaking part is that he cannot protect his kid and his family. He'll never have the power that he thinks a father needs to have, the power that Jango had and that he coveted so much. And that his endless struggles to do the impossible causes 80% of problems in the story.

There's a recurring motif in the story about how love can ruin (This Is Star Wars.). I can't really say if Cody's a good person or a bad one, but I can say that love has made a ruin of Obi-Wan's life.

Thirty loves you too. I also love Thirty. I'm doing the Ben POV rewrite now and he's gotten so insane.

Thank you for the encouragement! Please subscribe to my channel so you can see when the story is finally posted. I am vaguely ballparking that it's 200k words, plus the Ben POV rewrite. Snippet of the Order 66 story under the cut :) What I like about the O66 story is that this snippet is cute out of context and very horrifying in context!!!

Another nightmare came. 

They didn’t get any less scary. The terror was the same, again and again. Obi-Wan thought he was going to die three times a month at least, he faced down armies of battle droids again and again, he had come face to face with a Sith. Maybe these things used to be scary, but Obi-Wan was fourteen now. Nothing freaked out fourteen year olds. Look at Quinlan, he didn’t give a kriff about anything. 

The nightmares never changed. They were just as scary as the very first time. But Obi-Wan knew that everyone was sick of dealing with them, so he had convinced Master and Grandmaster to just ignore them when he woke up in the middle of the night again. Fourteen year olds did not make three people wake up just for one nightmare, and Obi-Wan had to shape up.

Cody said it was always okay to wake him up. And clones didn’t need that much sleep. And…and Obi-Wan’s soul was really convinced that he was going to die, that one day everybody was going to die, and somehow Obi-Wan ended up knocking at his cabin door at 0100. 

Regret hit instantly. Cody opened the door almost as quickly as regret, blinking down at the sleepy and terrified Obi-Wan wearing his robe over his sleep clothes. Obi-Wan second-guessed all his life decisions. 

“Uh,” Obi-Wan said, “wanna hang out?”

Cody, still wearing his day armor, leaned backwards and obviously looked at the clock. Obi-Wan started sweating.

Then Cody looked back at him, shrugged, and stood aside. “Alright. If you stay quiet, you can stay as long as you like.”

And then Cody let Obi-Wan into his room.

Cody had been inside Obi-Wan’s room over a dozen times, but the other way around felt different. Clones were insanely private people, and although Obi-Wan’s newfound access to the barracks had opened up a world of wonder and mystery, certain people still remained enigmas. Cody was one of them. For somebody who was so dominant in Obi-Wan’s life, he didn’t actually know a lot about him.

The cabin didn’t help. It was completely bare, with one trunk at the end of his bed containing his personal belongings and identifications. It was the same trunk every clone had, probably with the same personal belongings and identifications. Obi-Wan couldn’t help but be a little disappointed. He was at least hoping for wall-mounted heads of vanquished enemies. What he deserved for thinking Cody might have a personality. 

The reason why Cody was still wearing his armor became quickly evident. His small desk bolted to the wall was piled high with formwork, and the softly glowing white lamp evidenced how Obi-Wan had interrupted him in the middle of his midnight formwork. 

Obi-Wan squinted judgmentally at Cody. Cody refused to be ashamed. Obi-Wan squinted further, insinuating that shame was the only appropriate emotion to feel when you were up at 0100 doing formwork. Cody abruptly looked very frightened. 

“When did you get so good at that?”

“I pick up some stuff, you know.” Never would Obi-Wan ever admit how much. He shucked his robe and carefully hung it up on a peg next to Cody’s bucket, bouncing over and depositing himself on Cody’s cot. He’d never seen such neat corners. “Can I help you with your formwork?”

“I have it handled. Take the cot and get some rest.”

Obi-Wan looked dubiously at Cody. “Then where are you going to sleep?”

“I already slept.”

“You liar.”

“I only lie if it’s important.” Cody sat down at his desk, swiveling the stool back and re-asserting his focus over the formwork. He picked up a stylus, only to halt hard. “Do you…want to talk about it?”

What was there to say? It was just the usual. Death, destruction, a million voices crying out in pain before being silenced. It wasn’t anything Cody hadn’t heard before. That Obi-Wan hadn’t felt before. Yet Obi-Wan still couldn’t beat it. 

“Don’t take any vacations to Alderaan,” Obi-Wan said wisely.

“I don’t take vacations.”

“You’re fine, then.”

“Go to bed.”

Obi-Wan embraced the slightly surreal experience of snuggling under Cody’s thin blanket and tightly fitted sheets. Cody turned the lamp low, leaving a single dim star shining in the cabin’s darkness, and soon Obi-Wan heard nothing but the omnipresent hum of the ship’s atmo control and the creaking of Cody’s stool. 

“...Cody?”

Cody spoke without looking up from his work, implying his complete lack of faith that Obi-Wan would stay quiet. Harsh but fair. “Yes, Commander?”

“I seem pretty stupid, right?”

Cody continued signing the formwork, completely unphased. “Not at all. The future’s a scary place.”

Obi-Wan pulled the thin blanket higher, trying to bundle up in it. It was such a thin and scratchy blanket. He was literally a Marshal Commander, why didn’t he have nicer blankets? Obi-Wan had a soft and fluffy one brought over from the Temple. 

“Are you scared of it?”

A little wryly, he said, “I’ve been reliably informed that I’m not afraid of anything.”

Obi-Wan would absolutely believe that, but Cody didn't sound as if he did. “Then what are you scared of?”

Without pausing, almost absentmindedly, Cody said, “Something happening to you.”

Oh. Wow. Obi-Wan pulled the blanket up higher, close to his ears. “Really?”

For the first time, Cody halted. He looked up, staring at the wall. Obi-Wan couldn’t see his expression, but he spoke slowly and strangely. As if he was surprised, or had come to a belated realization. “I…suppose so.” 

Alright, Obi-Wan had to feel guilty now. He had really thought that Cody scolded him for doing dangerous things because it was against regs. “Sorry for jumping off a cliff with that rocketpack Rex stole.”

Cody leaned back a little, running his hands through his hair. He didn’t turn around, and Obi-Wan had a hard time reading his microexpressions. The dim light cast him in a strange glow, a shadow against the dark. “I - remember that. I remember watching you jump off that cliff. I didn’t even see the pack. I just saw you, and…I’d never felt like that before.”

“Felt like what?”

“Petrified,” Cody said distantly. “Like my galaxy was in its last second before neutron collapse. I think I’m scared of that feeling too.”

“I promise not to jump off any more cliffs,” Obi-Wan said, truly distressed. “No more cliff-jumping for me, I swear.”

Cody just huffed a silent laugh. He bent back down over his formwork, but his heart clearly wasn’t in it. “Maybe I’m just scared of you, Commander.”

“What? Me! I’m not exactly going to turn Sith and start commanding a droid army, you know.”

“Goodnight, Commander.”

Obi-Wan didn’t say anything.

He quickly slid off the bed, trotted over to Cody, and gave him a very tight and very awkward hug from behind. Cody froze. Obi-Wan released him, trotted back to bed, and slipped back underneath the covers.

“Goodnight, Cody.”