micechicken · 3 days ago
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Some rambling on this scene.
A lot of things I've seen about this is just talking about how this is D's full switch into violence. And while that is true I think it's just everything at once.
I should also mention that this is seen as Orion betraying D, by disallowing him from killing Sentinel. He feels betrayed his friend isn't on his side even though he at every point has shown he doesn't want to kill Sentinel. So while I can see it this way, I think this is a lesser point for him.
Immediately after he catching him he asks "Why did you do that?" Just blaming Orion for stepping in the way and getting hurt. He can't explain it to himself at all. Before this moment he justifies violence. When anyone above his rank beats down on him or his friends he justifies it by saying "he deserved that" or "he'd had it coming". It's a (bad) coping mechanism because justifying it as deserved is easier to him than to face the reality of it.
When he realizes Sentinel's betrayal he justifies his desire to harm him with the fact that "everything was taken from him", which he continues to use to feel his desire is the correct course.
When fighting Starscream he builds that desire to harm others and even thinks of it as okay, even harming the others when fighting them away to get to Sentinel. But here. He didn't want to harm Orion. He couldn't say that Orion deserved it. Cause it was his best friend, and despite butting heads at this point, he still wanted to stay with him.
Even if he could do something in this moment, like pulling him back up, he choses to let him fall. Which I think is multiple things.
It could be a mercy, for if he fell hard it would kill him imminently, but we see him slowly die as he falls, so that's not even true. And either way he still ends up being responsible for his death.
It could just be him killing him for the sake of killing, allowing himself to fall into this violent form.
I most think that he wanted to let him die, so he couldn't see him fall further into this violent version of himself. Obviously, given he chose to step in the way, he was never going to be okay with him going down this path. The plead of "No." to him to choose another path as a final request (his final words even). So if he could choose to have Orion only know this end, to die not seeing what he further choose to do, then he'll have that. He doesn't want to have his bestfriend see him fall more and more mad. Which is how I view the "I'm done saving you". To leave off this end with a full cut, no regrets or remorse. No remembering the good. Just end it in that moment. A hope that Orion will only view him in that way (not that it works).
I don't think D/Megatron believes that Orion will come back. Even if he hoped he could. To him that was truly the end of Orion's life once he turns around.
Which leads me too:
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He cries at the end of his fight with Optimus.
Aside from getting his shit rocked by his best friend. He failed to kill him again. Once again he chooses to try and end him instead of any other route. This both plays into him fully descending into violence and his desire to prevent Optimus from seeing this fall.
He also sees the one he thought was truly dead, alive again. With the way he reacts to his exile, I also feel he hoped that in this new form, his friend would forgive him. The dimming of his eyes is both him realizing the gravity of the situation but also the fact he may never be forgiven.
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Side note: he's absolutely hiding his feelings here by keeping that guard up.
And Optimus' line about crossing a line, I absolutely feel is him also trying to cut off the way he feels (in relation to the "I'm done saving you")
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His friend had also become the thing he claims to hate: all Primes. The one he had full faith in is now something he hates.
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And while Orion had often dragged him into crazy and dangerous situations, he ultimately wanted to lift his friend up. Unfortunately it only leads to his decent.
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burning-academia-if · 5 months ago
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Burning Academia: Chapter 2 Release
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Play Here | Intro Post
Burning Academia is a 17+ paranormal dark academia IF about family, magic, school politics, and the ghosts which haunt you.
Total Word Count (w/code): 89.2k
Words Added (w/code): 47.9k
Chapter 2 Features:
Have a weird encounter at work
Enjoy an almost normal day for once, or another bad one
No really, if you have a bad day this time it's on you
3 endings, each with their own lasting consequences
3 achievements, if that's your kind of thing
Content Warnings:
Severe: Discussions and depictions of death, gaslighting, emotionally unstable parent
Moderate: Scopophobia (eyes/staring), references to alcoholism, references to unhealthy coping mechanisms
Mild: possession
Chapter 1 Change log:
Added piercing and facial hair options during the customization screen
a handful of variable fixes
gonna be honest, I edited this chapter a few months ago and I don't remember what else I fixed, but I remembering fixing them
Upcoming in Chapter 3:
Consequences for your actions...or not
Go to your magic elective and listen to the voice in your head roast your professor
Pop quiz, because said professor hates you
Hit up the town, go to the freshman party, or break into one of the school buildings. You can even do two of those things, if you're lucky
Notes:
Chapter 1 saves might not work, but if you have any saves from the end of the prologue, those should work so you don't have to start completely from the beginning if you don't want! I'd recommend keeping a save for a chapter prior from now on, ie keeping a chapter 1 save for chapter 3, since there's always a possibility I will need to fix or adjust things in chapter 2.
Also I just wanted to give a vague update schedule. So 3 things: Zoe's backstory is going to be released in July! This is the only thing with a set time frame for release. Next, I want to focus on updating/fixing the UI before anything else, just because it's kinda been bothering me. This will be the next "game update" for BA. After the UI release will come Chapter 3. I'm hoping chapter 3 doesn't take 5 months this time, but that's up to life which has had a sniper riffle on me for the whole of 2024, so we'll see.
Lastly, as always, if I broke something feel free to send an ask or submit it through the google doc here!
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siffrin-enthusiast · 2 months ago
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hey chat i’ve been having Thoughts about siffrin again.
tws for heavy discussions of unhealthy coping mechanisms, self-harm & suicide in the game in stars and time, spoilers for the entire game act 6 twohats etc etc. if anyone reads this and thinks of any more tws i should add, send them in and i'll add them to the top of this post.
your last warning of heavy discussions VERY unhealthy coping, the urge to and methods of physical and emotional SELF-HARM, and the weight of SUICIDE. i just want to reiterate that IT IS A LOT. use your best judgement before & while reading this post and PLEASE BE CAREFUL.
last last warning. just to be sure.
siffrin self-harms in the loops. we all know this, right? from the increasingly barbaric means they use to loop back, the glass shard they pick up and use, the bigfrin fight where your only craft skill is "(don't attack.) can't hurt them. attack the only person left" and the party visibly reacts to you using it. it's not exactly subtle.
it makes sense that the pretty popular headcanon is that siffrin doesn't drop the habit of self-harming after coming out of the loops. i agree with that, but i also think that it's not done in the way most people are thinking! let me explain.
siffrin's self-harming behavior in the loops boils down to three major (and very intertwined) truths about their situation.
siffrin does not recognize the value in his life. this has been a thing since before sif joined the party. they happened to cross paths and stepped up to defeat a "particularly strong Sadness" (and for reference, fully leveled storming the house Mirabelle gets nervous about fighting a Sadness. they will freeze you in time. they ripped out siffrin's eye in one blow. they are DANGEROUS.) and siffrin comes along to save this country because "there's nothing else for you to do". and then the loops start. siffrin realizes he can die and. well. holy fuck. we've all played the game. siffrin is literally killing himself, killing himself, for convenience because it's annoying to walk to a tear. and it's his idea!! if you do it enough times, the death text changes from (You killed yourself.) to (You saved yourself some time.) loop has a line about advising siffrin against suicide because they'll see themself as "disposable" and...yeah. yeah. they do.
siffrin will not let physical or emotional harm come to the other members of their party. again, this is something seen before the loops, when siffrin loses his eye defending bonnie from a sadness, and how they still cringe over being 'inconsiderate' to mira months ago during their travels across vaugarde. when the party panics after (just attack), siffrin loops. when the party dies in loop's hangout, siffrin loops. when bonnie is taken by the king, siffrin loops. when isa is taken aback by bad touch, siffrin loops. when odile realizes they're in a time loop in kinda sus, siffrin loops. when the party watches siffrin hurt himself in the bigfrin fight, siffrin attempts to loop. good god, there's a scene where if you try and use the dagger on your family members siffrin blames his intrusive thoughts and stabs themself. because of their intrusive thoughts. his dreams are about the fear of hurting their friends. their worst, most traumatizing moments are about other people getting hurt.
siffrin's actions in the loops are reversible. if something is done, it can be undone. it can be scripted around. their party will not know unless siffrin chooses to tell them. none of their actions have consequences. sif delights in this (until realizing beating the king doesn't free him from the loop). fuck up bonnie's friendquest? loop! miss a key? loop! say the wrong thing? loop! everyone dies horribly? loop! loop! loop!
and after the loops? let's take a moment to reevaluate siffrin's situation:
siffrin does not recognize the value of his life. still.
siffrin will not let physical or emotional harm come to the other members of their party. still.
siffrin's actions are no longer reversible. there is no time loop. what happens now happens--no second chances, no undo button. they are permanent. especially now that they've seen sif try to loop, the smell of burnt sugar that precedes it, and odile figured out how to shut it down. all of their actions have consequences.
immediately after the bigfrin fight, mira asks where sif is going and bonnie LITERALLY says "Yeah, you're stupid if you think we're leaving you to do whatever you want right now." and the party double-checks that siffrin is going to see loop before letting them run off. and then twohats happens. when siffrin gets back, isa comments "We were getting worried." in siffrin's small absence (despite knowing exactly where siffrin was, talking to loop, who the party has a favorable opinion of) and then mira calls them out directly for looking sad.
the party is watching siffrin like fucking hawks.
i fully believe that siffrin would feel the urge to self-harm. i fully believe that the party knows this too. and i think siffrin would at least suspect that the party is going to be looking very, very closely for signs of more physical self-harm.
there's a phenomenon i don't have a name for but that i've seen repeated where someone trying to recover from using an unhealthy coping mechanism can slip into using a different unhealthy coping mechanism instead. in school, perfectionism can lead to avoidance. if a person shuts down for too long, they might start acting out or doing other attention-seeking behaviors as a cry for help. and after we experience continuous trauma, a lot of people will seek out or be more attached to unhealthy relationships (of any time) and find comfort & stability in the abuse endured. obviously this isn't the case every time, and i don't even know if it's a Thing i actually read about in psychology classes or just a pattern i've been noticing! i'm no professional.
for siffrin, actions and their consequences are now permanent. so i really, really don't think he's going to self-harm unless they're 100% sure they're going to get away with it (and i doubt the opportunity will arise for months). because if the party finds out they self-harm, that breaks sif's rule of not letting physical/emotional harm come to the party. they're going to be devastated. we already saw how they acted when siffrin did it in front of them when he was using the dagger to loop, the bigfrin fight. when dagger looping, siffrin was more shaken up about watching their family watch siffrin die than the literally killing himself part. they do it in front of their party and in the bigfrin fight because he thinks he can loop back. but that is no longer siffrin's reality. the party will be devastated if siffrin hurts himself and siffrin cannot undo that hurt.
("Yeah, you're stupid if you think we're leaving you to do whatever you want right now.")
i think that since physical self-harm is banned for siffrin, he's going to subconsciously shift to emotional or at least more subtle self-harm. keeping that unhealthy emotional distance. getting angry and frustrated and bitter. overly helpful. denial and minimizing and suppressing the loops. alcoholism. dissociating from their feelings. keeping their expectations so, so soul-crushingly low. passivity. whatever was left of his self-esteem is going through a woodchipper. self-sabotage his relationships. impulsive behavior. throwing themself into the party's problems to forget his own.
little things, subtle unconscious displays of siffrin's utter loathing of himself that he thinks on some level he can get away with. that their party won't notice, won't be hurt by. there won't be consequences! no one will be hurt (except siffrin, but as previously discussed, siffrin does not value themself). the party is going to be watching; their refusal to let siffrin go to dormont alone says as much. and siffrin is not going to start opening up and becoming the coping mechanisms master; their non-mention of the fight with loop (only saying "i said thanks to loop" instead of "loop is me and also tried to kill me") says as much. there's...a long road ahead, that much is clear.
i think siffrin will eventually get better. isafrin only happened because siffrin reached out for isabeau instead of waiting on isa to do it, which i'm interpreting as a very positive sign of sif learning he has to reach out for help to receive it. it's going to be messy. it's going to take a while. but the time will pass anyways. siffrin will eventually get better.
those are just my thoughts as a non-professional. i'd love to hear other people's thinking about siffrin. if you need it, here's tumblrs official mental health resources post with resources sorted by different countries. stay safe and be well, everyone :)
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konigsluvr · 1 year ago
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Hey hey! I'd like to request König headcanons please. I was thinking more of his childhood but it can be anything really :D thanks x
Also I'm an Avatar fan too! Don't seem to know a lot of people who are into both #teamneteyam
Hey!! I looooove Avatar so much, I haven't been reading it much lately but 2 months ago I was on tumblr all day, everyday just reading various Avatar fics (best days of my life). I miss neteyam so much :(( I really hope this is to your liking<3 i have included some NSFW headcannons, but there will be a warning, if you are uncomfortable, just skip. Reposts are highly appreciated. I will literally marry you. And of course, here I present...
★ navigation ★ masterlist ★
König Headcanons
Includes: Childhood König. König x fem!reader. Fluff. Spice. Smut.
☆ As said in his biography, he has suffered from severe social anxiety throughout his life. This probably started developing in maybe late childhood/early teens.
☆ I can picture him as the quiet kid in school. Had a couple chill friends that he was comfortable around and hung out with after school.
☆ I think König was average grade student (like me lmao), not bad grades but not super good either, he just did what he had to do at school.
☆ He liked helping around the house so he could contribute and help his parents save time.
☆ He applied to the military at 17, having a job that allows him to blow off steam would help with his anxiety sometimes but if it's a more dangerous mission than usual, his anxiety might peak but he could have coping mechanisms.
☆ Even though he is 6'10" and literally all muscle, he can't stay still. Due to his anxiety again, he is fidgety at times depending on the social situation he is in. Now this leads onto the relationship stuff.
☆ With him being fidgety, I feel his love language is physical touch. He can sometimes struggle with his words but you always know that he loves you when he cuddles you or does little things like playing with your hair or holding your hand whenever you are in public.
☆ König isn't the best at working with technology but you'll show him how he can text you and phone you, so whenever he has free time at base or whenever he isn't with you, expect him spamming you with texts because he misses you so much :((
☆ He has a gym at home for when he wants to work out but with him having such a physical job he doesn't feel the need to workout everyday, maybe 3 or 4 times a week when he's home with you but at base he'll do it more as its like the only thing to do there.
☆ He enjoys going on walks. When he's home with you he'll love going on a walk in the woods or just wondering around town with you, go shopping to get food for supper or something, he'll sneakily buy flowers to surprise you. At base, he sometimes can't sleep well so he'll just walk around for some fresh air to clear his mind.
☆ His down time with you would be watching your favourite show or a random movie. He would do it just to cuddle up or be with you but he will get invested. Like I watched the notebook last night and I was thinking about König crying as you watch the notebook together.
☆ Like you'll be watching the movie and a sad scene comes up, you are already crying and you hear a sniffle but it isn't from you. You turn to your left and see a tear rolling down Königs cheek. This will make you cry harder as you wipe away his tears and cuddle into his neck.
☆ With König having a high payed job, he has a lot of money that he doesn't know how to spend. Lucky him, he has you. You would tell him its no bother, that you have enough clothes and pretty jewellery to last you a lifetime but he drags you to the car to your favourite store and you can't help but give in.
☆ He would get a former guard dog and train it to only command you and him, this dog would stay at home with you all the time. You would take it out walks and just spend your whole day with it. He wants to make sure you are safe all of the time.
NSFW AHEAD!!
☆ He likes to take it slow, make ethereal love to you and treat you like your made of glass. You would let a few tears roll down your cheek from his sweetness.
☆ Pussy eater!!! He is like a god with his tongue. Worships your clit like its his favourite thing while his fingers work in and out of you. It doesn't matter if you are crying from overstimulation, you have a safe word. His only mission is making you cum.
☆ Loves face sitting, literally just loves your pussy on his face and your thighs pushing against the side of his head. You would tell him that you are too heavy, he huffs frustrated and pulls you down on him and instantly gets to work. Let's just say, you forgot about what you said 3 seconds ago.
☆ Breeding kink. Sorry, not sorry. In all his fantasies about you, it's you all pretty n pregnant with his baby. You will have that pregnant woman glow and he just can't keep his hands off of you. He doesn't really wear condoms but you'll usually be on the pill, he still struggles to pull out but it's nearly impossible for him. But when he does cum in you, he finds it the sexiest thing ever. He'll use his fingers to plunge his load back into you to feed his growing hunger.
☆ He loves when you top him and take your time with him, but he also enjoys being in charge and having his sole focus on you, even if you just came for the fourth time from his tongue and his cock is rock hard.
☆ The ratio between him giving you head and you giving him head is very diverse. He loves a good blowie but only does it when you want to, he will never ask you.
☆ Isn't one for quickies, he wants to take his time with you. He wouldn't like the risk of someone else seeing you being intimate with him, that is a sight only for him to see.
☆ Isn't afraid to make noise in the bedroom. Whimpering. Moaning. Whining. Groaning. He does it all.
I hoped you liked this!! If you have any more requests don't be shy. Stay safe and take care of yourself my lovies xx
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bananakeiky · 5 months ago
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This isn't about Hoyo I just needed to vomit some AFTG thoughts into a public space and I just finished ToS and I'm rabid. I have no idea how many of y'all even read this series but spoilers. And trigger warnings. Anyways.
Okay what the fuck ever the thing about ToS isn't just about of the extra trigger warnings and things that made me wanna throw up and cry at the same time. It's about how horribly, tragically awful it is that Jean is full of so much love. He always has been. It's not just haha what a pansexual no. Jean craves affection so fucking much. He's weak to pretty people and devastated by kind people. He clung to Kevin. He clung to Renee. He even clung to Thea, who affectionately called him Paris as he trailed her like a little duckling. He spits and rages and claws at them all, calling them every rabid name in the dictionary and beyond. He has a laundry list of insults for Neil, who freed him, one of the only people he truly trusts. It's just that he never expects it back. He never wants it back because it hurts so much worse when it's gone. People hurt him when it's gone. He says "I can take it" and "this is normal" because he would burn if he couldn't.
This is why he rejects the Trojans. Every "don't you see" and "why do you look away" is well-meaning but twice as hurtful because accepting it would mean Jean didn't hurt because he deserved it. Without that crutch it means he suffered for nothing. He hurt for nothing. Accepting it would mean that Jean would have to open up and fully comprehend the absolute horrors that were done not just to his life but to his personhood. To him. He was a child and a victim and he deserved to be saved and he wasn't. Not until it was too late. All of those years after being sold by his parents, yearning, aching to be loved by somebody and used as a toy and a scapegoat in return by anyone who touched him. Love is painful. Trust is painful. And Jean will love and love and love until it kills him and he knows it.
But this is why Kevin sent him to the Trojans. They may not understand survival and suffering the way the Foxes do, but they're genuine. They may be misguided with some of their efforts and need to take time learning how Jean works but they try and try and keep trying. They understand their own faults and healthy coping mechanisms and how to treat your worst enemies with respect. Hell, nearly the entirety of Jeremy's inner circle are in queer relationships with each other except for himself because he's too busy thinking about other people to work on that. This is what Jean needs to learn, that people can give without asking for anything in return. That people can be selfless and care for one another without ulterior motives. That love can be healthy and beautiful and not cruel.
And listen. I've been rooting for Jerejean for eight goddamn years. You have no idea how hard I fell when I realized that the ship that embodies the entire idea of healing, self-growth, and respect had been actualized and it's everything I ever wanted and more. The fact that Jeremy helps Jean buy his very first possession. The fact that he's so protective of Jean and thinks he's more important than exy, that Jean will be his success story. When he holds his hands and begs him to open up and backs off when Jean needs space, but never leaves and never gives up. How he spends so much time organizing people and schedules and events just so Jean can feel safe walking around campus. He never pushes too hard, but he never stops pushing. He's so patient. He wants Jean. He wants him so bad, but more than that, he wants Jean to love himself above all else. He's there when Jean has a panic attack at the pool, and sticks around as close as he can after Jean gets attacked. He stays up by the door all night when Jean goes out with Neil to an unknown location. All of this on top of revitalizing the Trojans, dealing with his shit family and the shittier rumors, having to train Jean out of killing his team and teaching his team to trust Jean in return.
Even after all of that his number one priority is always Jean, his head is filled with Jean, making the world comfortable and safe for Jean. It's making sure all of his friends know Jean. Never letting Jean be alone. Getting another twin bed so he can room with him. Always correcting himself, slowing down and speeding up so he can match Jean's pace. Fucking Barkbark. And yes, Renee could have done this too. She was the right person, and yes, the wrong time. But Jeremy found Jean at the right time, a time where he would dedicate everything to Jean. And if Jean one day turns around and wants to give that back, he'll be there, but he'll be just as happy knowing Jean is going to be okay.
ToS is a story about healing. It's about growth and battling the consequences of a life you did not choose. It's about unfairness. It's about what happens after a tragedy, and how to cope with yourself as much as you cope with the outside world. It's about becoming. It's about demons. It's about loyalty. It's about love. It's not about romance. Not yet. But it's about a romance that couldn't exist without it. It's setting up a story about someone who learns to accept that, tragically, he deserves to be treated like a human being. With love. And that he can still have it. That it's right there, waiting for him, when he's ready. He just has to reach out and take it.
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queerfandomtrifecta · 1 year ago
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S2 is driving me nuts like anytime I try and find any sort of semblance of a tangible theme it’s just not there.
I thought it was gonna be learning how to heal from trauma correctly, because Ed’s whole Kraken era is a bad coping mechanism and we got what felt like this massive narrative plant in e1 with Frenchie saying there’s a box in his mind where he puts all the awful things and he never opens it.
Nope. Not that. Never addressed and everyone just gets over everything because “not moving on is worse”.
I thought it was gonna be atonement/apology/forgiveness, because of Stede’s “I think I hurt him pretty bad” and Izzy’s “you and me did this to him” and all the messed up ways Ed tortured the crew and everything he did to Izzy.
Nope. Ed forgives Stede after one(1) conversation and watching Buttons turn into a seagull. Influencer non-apology from Ed to the crew is just accepted by most of them. No apology to Izzy that takes accountability, but somehow a massive apology from Izzy, who has a long track record of already apologizing correctly so it’s not an arc, on his deathbed for something that had been resolved several episodes back in multiple ways and was barely even believable to begin with.
Identity in terms of being what you’re expected to be vs being happy was a massive theme in s1 but that was such a mess in s2. Like we sort of have that with Ed but not really. He threw away his leathers, then got them back. Stede is apparently trying to become a more effective captain, and aside from the fact that s1 already established his different way of doing things was what made him that already and that I’d never have known it if I hadn’t read it in an interview, he leaves piracy completely at the end of s2 so that very very forced arc for him doesn’t even play out.
The only actual arc that happened in s2 was for Izzy. He got a redemption arc, he suffered, he saved everyone, he was accepted seemingly as the leader of his new found family. It was done so well in episodes 1-4 for him. It gets hazy after that and ends in a way that doesn’t even make basic storytelling sense. He had to die for Ed to be truly free?? We wrapped that up multiple episodes ago. Ed hasn’t struggled with the “consequences” of Izzy pushing him to be Blackbeard since the end of s2e3, and we don’t even see that happening anymore in s2 at all. Izzy isn’t “feeding the darkness”. He actively tries to stop it in e1 and DOES in e2. If Jenkins hadn’t said in interviews what Izzy’s death was supposed to represent, it wouldn’t have been interpreted that way at all. And if you’re having to explain it because it’s not clear in the text, you’ve done a bad job conveying your story.
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super-paper · 1 year ago
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"Thank you for such wonderful comedy."
I've been wanting to talk about how MHA plays with the concepts of "fiction vs reality, the characters vs the actor, the world vs the stage" for awhile now, bc I believe understanding how MHA utilizes these concepts is pretty crucial to understanding our Big Bad (and Tomura!) (...and Izuku!) (.. etc!) (y-yeah...!!!) (wooo.....!!!!!)
If this post is more incoherent than usual, I apologize-- I'm just really enthusiastic about stories that play with the fact that they're stories and characters who throw themselves into a fictionalized role as a means of coping. I love the way MHA handles these concepts in particular, so I lost all sense of restraint as usual.
Hori: "I'm Like Dropping Hints That Hero/Villain Personas Are Actually Coping Mechanisms Lol"
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"As Tomura Shigaraki and Tenko Shimura, I've got just one wish: the total destruction of everything that created that house." "If my origin as Touya and Dabi was such a simple thing, then... No, there are still things I want to say. Arguments I want to have."
I've seen a few ppl saying that it sounds awkward/strange to have the characters repeatedly asserting themselves in the third person, but imo, the emphasis on real names versus hero/villain names during these particular scenes plays into the idea of the villain/hero identities being "alter egos" that might not actually have the same core desires as the """"actors"""" that are behind these personas.
Tomura and Touya invoke both their real and villain names while asserting their respective wishes. Himiko also invokes her villain name, though it's less obvious to english speakers because she uses her real name as her villain name (in the raws, "HIMIKO TOGA" as a villain name is written using katakana-- and this is what she uses when asserting her wish). MHA plays with the idea of "fiction"/"Alter Egos" as a form of escapism and as a coping method, and at this point in time, the Dabi/Tomura/"Himiko" identities are still being utilized as a crutch/mask by these three very hurt individuals.
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*loud, terrifying chanting* PEAK FICTION PEAK FICTION PE--
Ochako's fight being like the second most thematically important fight in the whole series still makes me unreasonably giddy btw.
To contrast, Ochako uses her civilian name alone when asserting her wish-- and imo we're meant to read this as Ochako wanting to save Himiko as herself, not as Uravity. Saving Himiko is not something she can accomplish as her alter-ego-- Ochako is able to save Himiko by stepping off the stage and becoming a "real" person, while also acknowledging the person behind "Toga Himiko (villain name)".
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Izuku hasn't had his "I'm Izuku Midoriya"/"I'm-saving-you-as-Izuku-not-as-Deku" moment yet-- instead, we see Tomura intentionally making that distinction between the-hero-and-the-true-self by constantly referring to Izuku by his real, full name. And I'm pr sure Izuku is also the only one he does this to-- we see him referring to all the other heroes he encounters by their hero names alone, or by insulting nicknames (l-lol). Correct me if I'm wrong, tho!
(side note: Tomura switching to calling Izuku just "Hero" in the aftermath of Bakugate is actually a big step backwards imo-- it reads as Tomura trying to push Izuku away by shoving them both back in the hero/villain box and doubling down on enforcing their respective "roles." Not that I ever expected mister doomdere to make things easy, but, woof. Good Fuckin' Luck, Izuku ( ´・ω・) )
TL;DR The final arc has mostly been about tearing off the hero/villain masks to reveal who is hiding underneath— MHA's careful use of names and monikers plays heavily into that and its distinction between "alter-ego"/"true self" a lot. Which is... probably one of the many reasons why All For One still doesn't have a given name, as someone who has all but completely lost himself in his character.
Anyway! That brings us to the meat of this post: how does MHA take the concepts of "reality vs fiction" and "the character vs. the actor" and apply it to All For One (...and Tomura) (and Izuku--)?
"Pay No Attention to That Man Behind the Curtain!"
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"If you refuse to submit, then I'll just rewrite the story." - it's amazing how all of this coulda been avoided if someone had just introduced AFO to Demon Lord x Reader fanfiction. (/j)
AFO fancies himself as the author of MHA's greatest tragedy (the desecration of Shimura Nana's legacy via the sacrifice of Shimura Tenko), while simultaneously inserting himself into its overarching narrative and treating himself as the leading villain of the story-- it's self-indulgent and intentionally invasive in the way that most self-insert fanfiction tends to be invasive, with him going to extremes to make it seem as though the whole story revolves around him. AFO wants to be both the author and the leading character and the leading antagonist. This greed is typical of him, but it also establishes him as a character who's more caught up in (read: trapped by) his relationship to "fiction" than anyone else. Again, MHA explores the use of fiction and alter-egos as an escape from a painful reality-- so, it's entirely reasonable to assume that this applies to AFO as well.
To me, so much about AFO reads as an escapist fantasy of someone who is utterly terrified of being put in a position where he is truly seen. The idea of being vulnerable, of being naked, of being "human," is intolerable to him. But by not allowing himself to feel and "be a human," he has effectively cut himself off from what he wants most. The character of “Shigaraki Tomura” is as much an escapist fantasy for AFO as it is Tenko-- It's just another (younger, prettier) layer of skin he can hide his true self in.
"so basically you're saying that AFO is a never nude" yes, actually :)
AFO dehumanizes Tomura through his attempts to turn the boy into his personal comic book character, but he also dehumanizes himself by desperately trying to insert himself into that “character." It's only fitting that Tomura’s innate humanity and capacity for feeling ends up rendering AFO himself painfully, painfully human-- and ultimately causes AFO's carefully constructed character to start crumbling.
If All the World’s a Stage, Then Let’s Destroy the Stage
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"That stage is gone now. The theater's knocked down. How much longer can we afford to be spectators on the sideline?" "Once upon a time, a man named All Might showed all of us how to be a hero. But somewhere along the way, people forgot about the heart and soul that made the man." -MHA, Chapter 325
Tomura is attempting to destroy the stage, because without the stage there can be no "Shigaraki Tomura" (Or "All Might," or "All For One," or "Endeavor," etc etc etc). Without the stage, there are no more "characters" and no more tragedies. But-- without the stage, there are no more stories period. There are no more tragedies, but there are no more happy endings either. The world never recognizes the actor behind "Shigaraki Tomura" without the stage. The stage is not inherently a bad thing, so long as people can remember that the actors on the stage still exist outside of it.
But Tomura himself cannot imagine what happens after the curtains fall, and all that's left is Shimura Tenko. He is stuck in a role that was written entirely for someone else, but remains convinced that the role was always his and that the role defines him.
Tomura rebels against the story the only way he knows how--against an "author" who *LITERALLY* views him as a spicier self insert, and against a "setting" that treats his death as a happy ending-- but even so, Tomura still can't picture an ending that doesn't end in tragedy. His rebellion is not about him trying to wring a happy ending out of a miserable, mean-spirited book-- it's about burning the whole damn library down so he never feels let down or hurt by a story again.
Basically: Tomura cannot act outside the confines of his "character" in a way that will truly save him. Even as he rebels, he's rebelling in a way that is painfully consistent with the way his "character" is written-- and that's why AFO (the author) still poses such an enormous threat to him. Destruction cannot save him from this story when he was explicitly penned to destroy.
The only way to break this narrative is to act in a way "the author" doesn't expect, and to tap into all the traits that AFO desperately attempted to "write out" of him-- Shimura Tenko is someone who has always rebelled against his writing, his author, and the unfairness of this story with his kindness and his willingness to accept those that no one else will.
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AFO cuts off Tenko's own power at the root by reinforcing Tomura's belief that the world will always inherently reject him, without fail, always and forever-- so he should just reject the world, too (and I've talked at length about this before, but this is why a story that ends with Tomura dying or locked away from society is an ending that fails in its goal to save Tomura). The more Shigaraki Tomura rejects everything and the more Shigaraki Tomura is rejected by everything, the more he distances himself from his root and the source of his power-- and the more Shimura Tenko gets lost in this character.
While AFO is terrified of someone seeing behind his mask, Tomura longs for it. Tenko has been there since the beginning and has been begging for someone to finally see and acknowledge him (both in-universe and out of universe).
"I’ll Be There, Changing Fate by Your Side."
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AFO: "Blah Blah Blah Do you still believe myths can save you? Foolish creature. Let me be clear: every version of the story ends with you being slaughtered yadda yadda yadda :) :) :)" ENTER, MIDORIYA IZUKU WITH A STEEL CHAIR.
Izuku's role is that of a completely average boy who gets pulled into a narrative ''that wasn't for him"-- he has no heroic lineage, no hidden powers, and no connection to the centuries old conflict that drives the plot. He's just a boy who did the right thing at the right time and was rewarded for it. Izuku is someone who was "never supposed to be a hero" the same way Tenko was "never supposed to be a villain" per the "rules" of their world-- and Izuku, like Tomura, is someone who exists to destroy those rules and the expectations of their narrative, completely changing the ending.
But rather than burning the book and ending the story forever (like Tomura wants to do), Izuku believes that the story and characters can still be salvaged. There's always something worth saving. It doesn't have to be a tragedy, they can still change the ending. They can talk specifics after Tomura's crazy ass puts the lighter down.
Izuku, like Tomura and so many other characters, throws himself into an alter-ego in an attempt to redefine himself and escape from pain ("Nobody's been saved yet. Don't be the worthless old Deku who can't save anyone" 😬). He almost loses himself in the role of "OFA's torch bearer" the way All Might did-- but just as Izuku managed to find Toshinori Yagi and helped in convincing him that his life as Toshinori has meaning, Izuku ends up getting saved by his friends who couldn't care less about OFA's ~protagonist power~ and know that Izuku is just a goofy, awkward, human boy who needs help.
Like.... If we explore quirklessness as like... a narrative stand-in for characters that the story typically views or dismisses as irrelevant extras/npcs, then AFO's barely restrained anger at Izuku and Toshi (and possibly Yoichi if we're being honest) for daring to ''act beyond their roles'' becomes even funnier. AFO can't stand the idea of his power/the protagonist role being passed on to someone who seems so utterly unworthy, unremarkable, and plain. He can't stand the idea of someone without a quirk/"role" standing up to him, the leading character. Dude really is a toxic comic book fan to the core.
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afo really said "I didn't like how things were going so I stopped reading and just wrote a better ending to the story :^)" like...... @mhareddit that's u buddy...........................;
Anyway...........!!!!! AFO is someone who cherry picks what he likes about a story while ignoring the actual intent/message of the work (#theabsolutestateofthemhafandom), but he has no intention of breaking down the dichotomy between heroes/villains and instead actively enforces it (.............#theabsolutestateofthemhafan--). He just wants to flip what side wins in the end.
Tomura wants to break the narrative because he sees that as the only way to escape from his pain (but in doing so, he permanently cuts himself off from being a part of a story with a happy ending). He wants to destroy the dichotomy between heroes and villains because heroes and villains "will never understand each other and never stop creating each other" (lol. lmao, even).
Izuku wants to break the narrative because he's realized that there's something more to this story than your standard "Hero versus Villain," "good vs evil" affair and that he cannot explore what lies behind those masks and labels without tearing them down, first.
These three work together well as a narrative set of Fucking Nerds, and AFO works well as both Tomura and Izuku's villain for all of the above reasons (& also bc he's the only one who is actually benefitting from their current society) ((which basically offers him an endless buffet of hurt and angry children he can exploit on a silver platter)).
Anyway! Kick his ass, Izuku.
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finleyforevermore · 7 months ago
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Hey guys! How've we been since I've been away? Hm? Not good? Yeah, I thought so.
I was AFK (which means Away From Keyboard for those who weren't aware, or didn't think to Google it /nm) because my mom had taken away my phone for a bit but I could still use it to help with my math homework.
I did lurk around Tumblr a bit, and I did "officially" come back online for a bit, but I mostly lurked.
And how delightful it was to see (can not clarify enough how sarcastic this is) that someone I follow but am not moots with decided that March 20th was the day they were doing to commit suicide. They did not succeed. But they sure as hell scared the fuck out of me. Same story I've seen before with my other friends, abusive parental figure, and possibly SA'd like some of my other friends. Lovely.
And then ANOTHER friend as it turns out has an extremely abusive mother and got fucking strangled by aforementioned mother, then said in the posts of a vent post, "something something maybe she should've killed me".
Being technically AFK I had to go on anon for a bit and try my damndest to prove to my friend that their mother is beyond saving, and there's no use seeing her in a positive light, and they by no means deserve what happened to them. I don't know if it worked. If you see this, I'm sorry if I came off as rude. But that really was the straw that broke the camel's back.
I'd been trying to keep together fairly well but I had been thinking of Liam, Nex's death was ruled a suicide (and now his murderers will not be charged), all of my other friends are traumatized and now I've discovered another friend has an abusive parent, and someone tried to fucking kill themselves.
And so, we have this. This song has been my coping mechanism for the past several weeks and what I can best describe as my theme song. Whenever I see something tragic with either my friends or someone else my first thought is the words of this song. Largely because of the themes of getting salvation for the unjust wrongs done upon Sweeney or in this case my friends.
I really don't know why I was blessed to know such wonderful incredible beautiful people only for them to suffer relentlessly and have gallons upon gallons of trauma.
Do bad things happen? Sure. But with my friends it's non-stop. One traumatic event after another after another after another and I'm. Just so done. I'm so sick. And I'm so tired. Of everything. Of all the pain and suffering. Of the fact I can't do anything. Of the fact I feel too much. This probably shouldn't be impacting me so much but for some reason it is.
I would've been apprehensive posting this because I'm kind of self-conscious about my voice but some of my friends are suffering 24/7 so I think my voice is the last thing I should be worrying about.
Enjoy if you want. Or don't. That's ok too. Love you guys.
@literatureisdying
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anna-jupe · 23 days ago
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Something that I feel isn't talked about enough is the fact that Rafe's never gotten the help he's needed. I'm prefacing this by saying that this obviously doesn't excuse his actions, but it is a very interesting thing to examine.
In 2x03 after Ward and Rafe get the gold back, Rafe is clearly on the brink of a panic attack and EVEN SAYS he's not okay. This moment is MASSIVE. Rafe's concern isn't about Sarah's well being like Ward first believes, it's instead about his own psyche. Rafe is freaking out because he shot Sarah and Peterkin and he's feeling himself lose his grip. He says "I keep having these thoughts in my head and I don't know if I can control them... I'm afraid of what's gonna happen." This is the first and only time we see Rafe ask for help, saying "What if I'm not okay. I'm not okay."
Instead of listening to and trying to help Rafe, Ward makes him shove down these emotions and concerns by smothering Rafe with a hug and telling him that after a good steak and a good night's sleep, everything will be better. This bottling up of emotions is likely something Rafe has been taught from an early age in an effort for Ward to save face. Rose even says in 2x04 that there's something wrong with Rafe that they've been ignoring "since he was ten years old". From this we can infer that Rafe has shown signs of mental instability for years that has never been looked into. Instead, he has been taught unhealthy coping mechanisms like suppressing his emotions which then lead to explosions of rage.
It just makes me curious. I wonder how different Rafe could have turned out if he had been raised in a different environment. Where instead of being constantly compared to Sarah, ignored, and taught to suppress his emotions and needs, he learned how to cope with his dangerous thoughts and feelings. We see goodness in him when he asks for help. A part of Rafe is afraid of his own mind, and of where it might lead him if he keeps going down the path he's on. Like most villains, Rafe is not a bad person. He is instead a product of his unfortunate environment, someone who has needed psychological help and never gotten it.
Thank you for coming to my TED Talk, I'd love to hear you guys' thoughts on this as well!
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iwritenarrativesandstuff · 1 year ago
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Trimax Thoughts Vol. 4 Pt. 3
Alright. Bit of a heavier one for tonight. I want to talk Vash's relation to his own feelings of anger and how these tie into his suicidal thoughts, because it's tragically fascinating and I still can't really make heads or tails out of it - specifically in that I don't think anyone is a reliable narrator in this situation so I'm left a little lost as to who to believe.
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(ID: A screenshot of four panels from Chapter 7 of Volume 4 of Trigun Maximum. A conversation between Hoppered and Vash takes place, in which Hoppered says "I bet you want to kill me too, right? Of course you do... You want to tear me limb from limb." A somewhat grainy image of Rem, smile visible but eyes hidden, is shown, before Vash replies, his eyes narrowed, "Yeah... I do..." End ID.)
Warning! I am going to be discussing Vash's no good, very bad mental health. It's nothing worse than what is obvious from a read of the manga but if you're not in the headspace for it, you might want to skip this one. I had a bit of trouble writing it, if I'm being honest.
Volume 4 basically solidified what had kept cropping up all throughout the manga - Vash is keeping himself going only through his goal of "settling the score" with Knives. On the next page, Vash says the following:
"That's why... you can go right ahead and kill me. But... before I give you that chance... before I let you bind me in chains, lock me up, and torture me to death... I will send Knives to hell!"
Yikes buddy. This has been a running bit of characterization all throughout the manga - Vash survives because he has to. He takes small moments of joy where he can, tries to smile even when he's not feeling it, looks on the bright side even when things seem hopeless, because that's the only way he can survive to do what he has to. <- There's nothing especially wrong with this. This is a coping mechanism and as far as his coping mechanisms go, it's not so bad at all. It's actually pretty good, all things considered.
Problem is, he also has to embody the ideal he strives for - that no one needs to die, that he will never kill. And herein lies the issue, because Vash already feels like a monster because of July. Any deviation from the peace loving pacifist image he tries so hard to maintain brings Vash's self-loathing to the surface.
Ex. Vash sees the moon his angel arm blew a hole in and goes from denying culpability for the destruction of July to hardly resisting and calling himself a murderer.
Ex. Vash expresses that he holds murderous sentiment towards Hoppered. He sees this as a justifiable reason for Hoppered to kill him.
Even the thought that he has or could still deviate from his promise made in Rem's memory causes him immense amounts of shame. Vash does not want to harm people. Is it out of love? Is it out of guilt? I think at this point, there's no separating them. Vash doesn't kill out of a mix of these two emotions that are so intertwined in his core they have become inextricable.
The thing is... Vash's driving emotion appears to actually be anger, specifically, anger against Knives. He wants to "settle the score", which is a pretty retributive mentality for someone trying to embody pacifism. In fact, that kind of motivation strongly clashes with that image in a way that imo cannot coexist. It's reasonable in his mind to take that stance against Knives, who is not one of the humans Rem died to save, but against humans, it's unacceptable. So, Vash represses his anger constantly.
A great example of this is watching the contrast between Vash fighting Leonof and Wolfwood fighting Ninelives. Wolfwood fights with his emotions on visceral display; he is loud and cocky and desperate and violent. Vash, on the flip side, is almost dangerously quiet and composed, to the point Wolfwood seems a bit disturbed by it - but it's all repression. He needs to stay focused, his motions are calculated to reduce harm even against the puppets, he's eerily silent and his facial expressions are controlled and muted for the most part; all methods that Vash uses to stay in control (<- this is important!).
Here's the thing. I don't know that I necessarily, fully believe that Vash wants to kill Hoppered. I don't know that I trust anyone's narration in this scene - first of all, Hoppered is mad projecting his animosity onto Vash because he needs to secure the image of Vash as unrepentant destroyer of July; if Vash isn't the demon he believes him to be, his quest for revenge was for nothing (well, sort of. Vash obviously did destroy the city, but the intent was not there - and the latter seems to be what Hoppered is banking his hatred on). Hoppered earlier accused Vash of enjoying the fight... which is pretty clearly not true, so that it was Hoppered who prompted Vash's admittance above is a little suspect. Second, we've seen what Vash looks like when actually violently angry.
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(ID: Two separate images screenshotted from the Trigun manga. The first shows Vash raising his gun at a recently reborn Knives, angrily shouting the other's name. The second shows Vash having jammed the barrel of his gun into Monev's eye, clearly close to pulling the trigger. End ID.)
To me, I see little indication in the build up to this of Vash legitimately wanting to kill Hoppered. He had no desire to kill Rai-Dei after all, and that was after he knew the GHG were targeting Home. Hoppered is probably the most sympathetic of the GHG. Vash is also in a self-destructive mindset in this scene, having just called himself a murderer after seeing the damage done to the moon again.
Is he agreeing with Hoppered's projection because he wants Hoppered to continue to hate him enough to punish him for the deaths of all those people? (The image of Rem then becomes symbolic of his having already failed to uphold her sacrifice.) Or should I be taking his words at face value and he really does want to kill Hoppered? (In this case, the image of Rem is out of guilt for voicing something aloud that goes against his image of her.) Is it possible that a combination of his self-loathing in this scene and fear of himself has him agreeing with Hoppered out of resignation that despite his best efforts, he is doomed to destroy? (Like in fifth moon's "we were no good from the start". The image of Rem is thus the image of someone genuinely good and kind to him, an image he feels he cannot embody no matter how hard he tries.)
I find it very ambiguous honestly. Any interpretation is compelling from a character sense. Perhaps they all hold merit to some degree.
Regardless of how you interpret the line though, Vash is obviously angry, and for good reason - Hoppered, Midvalley and Zazie have taken Meryl. He's also likely afraid for her too - dude did jump out a window for like no practical purpose whatsoever before Zazie even finished talking. Like that's really sweet buddy but you accomplished absolutely nothing of use lol. Anyways. The point is, even if Vash was angry enough to want to kill Hoppered (and it would be for this reason, since nothing else would really warrant that), then that still wouldn't make Vash secretly evil and awful - first off, having a thought does not mean you will actually act on it, and second, what's the thing we keep getting shown and told, again and again?
Anyone will pick up a gun when their loved ones are threatened.
It's very natural to feel animosity for a person who may have harmed someone we care about. In that sense, Vash is behaving very human.
However, there's an extra layer here that complicates things. Vash has never been shy about his anger, but I think there is a bit of a progression of Vash kind of... tamping down on it faster, reeling it back in a little sooner after an initial flare of rage. ...Ever since Fifth Moon, actually. We also know that he has a strict training regimen, he does not miss a target, even blindfolded - Vash clearly maintains strong control over himself, all to mitigate the potential damage he could cause.
But then there's his Plant abilities. The angel arm. Something destructive he clearly does not understand, and has little if any control over (never mind that control was literally wrenched away from him but whatever). I don't think it's a stretch to say Vash is terrified of losing control.
Any human can feel hatred and anger and potentially cause moderate amounts of harm and damage, but these are likely to be targeted and can be more easily contained. Vash feels hatred and anger and has the capacity to level a city and blow a hole in a celestial body in the blink of an eye, and there is nothing anyone can do about it. That must be terrifying.
Because, see, the no-killing thing is out of respect for Rem, but Vash also strongly wants to, needs to believe that non-violent solutions are possible, that people are good, that anyone can change. Vash, out of some combination of love and guilt, does not actually want to harm anyone, but Vash is also a living gun just under the surface of his iron self-control. And being reminded of that deeply fucks him up, to the point he believes he is a danger by nature, incapable of living up to the standard of kindness he wants to put into the world, so even just the thought of wanting to inflict harm on another is enough to send him spiraling - because what if that is the point he loses his control? "I should never have been born" indeed...
It's interesting to me that Vash should call Wolfwood out on his lack of hope in a future for the world, when he so clearly has little if any hope in a future for himself. He allots himself no place in the world. Maybe you should allow yourself to heal a little, buddy. You have some people pretty close by who, in spite of it all, like you quite a lot...
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saturdaysky · 7 months ago
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So… the God of Curiosity! How does he relate to the Lords of the Golden Hill? Is he invited in, is he seen as an interloper or usurper? Absolutely adore these two!
What a great question! I spent the morning refreshing myself on the Lords of the Golden Hills, which is the 5e gnomish pantheon, if anyone's unfamiliar. They are more active in the lives of their followers than other gods.
Also, sorry, this is where I reveal my superpower of being unable to write short answers to anything.
what's a god to a mayhew
Mayhew's parents are historians who take the name "the Forgotten Folk" as a personal insult, so he was weaned on myths and histories of the Lords of the Golden Hills. The Lords set Mayhew's expectations for what gods should be: invested and actively working to make things better.
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(couldn't resist drawing mayhew and mamahew)
In game, Mayhew ran into many awful situations that he thinks good gods could have fixed, but didn't. Refugees slaughtered for sport, children locked in Cazador's dungeons for eternity, families enslaved and used as hostages, children murdered by Gortash's Steel Watch, you name it. These people surely prayed, but gods did not save them. Do gods who do nothing deserve worship?
Not to Mayhew. He was FULLY on board with Gale's astral boat scene logic of "we will be gods but BETTER because we CARE and DO STUFF." Mayhew is not a long-term thinker, especially if people are hurting right now, right in front of him. He sees only trees, never forests.
He views himself and Gale as being on their own side. All of his post-ascension decisions are based on them being an inseparable pair shaking up the system. He's not interested in being part of Lords of the Golden Hills.
what's a mayhew to a god
The Lords probably have mixed feelings about him. They would not invite him into their brotherhood. However, his goals often align with theirs, and as long as Mayhew didn't rock their boat too much, they'd be tenuous allies. More about Godhew and other gods under the cut!
Mayhew himself has many Glittergoldian qualities about him -- he's an elusive tale-teller and a sneak, and if you pried his coping mechanism sense of humor from him, he'd probably die on the spot -- so I think he'd get on with Garl Glittergold and Baervan Wildwanderer. Mayhew's not easily flustered, and he'd find it a hoot to be pranked by Garl, so I expect he'd pass any test of character Garl might run an upstart godling through.
Baravar Cloakshadow, god of illusions and deceptions, would be interesting. Mayhew is a born liar (deception is his second-highest skill after history) who cares deeply about protecting others, so on paper they're aligned. However, Baravar counts Mystra among his allies, so this alliance would be a strained one.
But the biggest reason Mayhew isn't interested in becoming a Lord of the Golden Hills? They're concerned primarily with the welfare of gnomes. As a god, Mayhew has broader designs than that.
a god for whom?
Mayhew cares about everyone, especially people who are unimportant. He was a latchkey kid who wandered all over the city from a very young age, poking his nose everywhere it shouldn't be and talking to people just to hear their stories. He probably even made friends with the sewer kobolds, despite historical bad blood between gnomes and kobolds. Most of the alliances Galehew make after ascension are Mayhew's doing. Gale is always grander and more powerful, but Mayhew is better-liked and better-loved by gods and mortals.
In particular, bleeding heart Mayhew is an ally and protector of children. Troublemakers, especially. The most common name he ends up being known by is the Children's God. In 5e, there doesn't actually seem to be a god FOR children, simply gods with "family" as part of their portfolio. To me, that reads as a god for parents. But Mayhew adores kids! In game, he looked out for all of them and spoiled them shamelessly via the barter menu. All the urchins got cash, clothing, trinkets, snacks, protective magical items, etc. He bought soup from Yenna every day. He gave Mattis 2000 gold (😭) for a key he never even used (😭)...and gave the amulet of greater health (😭)...and some grenades because all children should have a chance to make bad decisions...
To kids, he's like an imaginary friend who'll help you out of a tight spot, aid your capers, and shield you from terrors. When a child ages out of needing an imaginary friend, he's there as the God of Curiosity -- and what is curiosity without drive? Perhaps they'll follow their dreams in the footsteps of his partner, the God of Ambition. Completely unintentionally, Mayhew probably ensures the longevity of the Galerian religion this way.
Not all of Mayhew's ideals survive ascension, though he goes in with good intentions. He loses some of himself, but his love for people is the core of him. It doesn't change.
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daisychainsandbowties · 2 months ago
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Sunset, car, lake with Lilith
she wakes to wetness, again. this is not so unusual - now, here, feeling damp breath crawling over the cartilage that writhes up the landscape of her throat. 
catching on a cut, stinging wetness tugging at her like teeth wrapped around the fullness of a bottom lip. pressing down and breaking, breaking-
but she can’t break anymore. the cut is open and lingering because she asked it to. this, according to beatrice, is one of her bad habits. a sentence whose ending always comes with a cough drop tone wrapped around it.
“why?” tracing the slope of her throat or her forearm or her abdomen, variously trailing blood. “do i always fall asleep listening to your wounds?”
“they do not make noise, beatrice.”
“to me they do.”
she sleeps better this way - bleeding, sour from wounds that make the fear leak out of her, the tension in her shoulders, her jaw, her mouth. so many years and she can’t sleep easy until she knows the hurting has been done for the night. no waking up to it and the taste of whiskey on another tongue. 
they have words for this now.
big, and bright and shiny
PTSD and trauma and coping mechanism
lately lilith has been learning about how steam engines work. 
beatrice is curled up against her, wearing both lilith’s shirt and her own because she is new and weak and cold about it. ten years as a vampire is not very long and sometimes lilith can still taste the human in her when they are hungry on the road and the urge to drink is so powerful that they stand face to face. lilith with her fingers curled around beatrice’s elbow and wrist as she opens up the long pretty vein in her arm.
cupping her mouth around the spill. up, looking up through the messy fall of blood to see beatrice with her eyes shut. exultant.
her fingers always twitch when she’s being tasted. head tilted back to expose old fingerprints of blood at the cusp of her jaw and against the nape of her neck from her own less skilled application of her teeth to where lilith is soft on the inside of her wrist.
“what do i taste like?” she always asks this when the pair of them are walking afterwards, unsteadily. it’s a stupid thing to do, really, but lilith is half in love with the need for it. how beatrice takes to staring at her like she’s a meal.
she has always tasted divine.
but,
“right now?”  and her red-slicked nod and-
watery, with hints of lemon spiking at the back of lilith’s teeth. usually she is sweeter because she tends toward women. prefers to eat them – (“the quiet of it. once you’re in their throats they are very quiet. and soft”)
she talks like a predator now, wiping blood off her mouth and onto her sleeves with a wry twist to her lips as though she knows about lilith out the back of their house on rainy days trying different chemicals to get the red-brown out of linen, silk, cotton cuffs. too much caution in her.
“what do i taste like?” and the lie running after it.
“oh, the usual. citrus and heat.”
they are sleeping in the ruins of a building. once a café, lilith thinks, because she keeps shifting around on broken teacups and cutting the skin on her back. she lets these small annoyances fade though they steal at her strength. the cuts go away and they are gone, smooth and vanished and she hates it a little bit that her body takes everything now like bruises. those, she has had all her life in various places.
perhaps that’s part of it. the bleeding all day long from certain cuts – stinging, aching, darting pains instead of dull ones. this way her agony is like a flash of light in the dark, and  sometimes that is almost the same as feeling something good.
broken teacups bite her as she fits her body around beatrice to make the ground into a soft shape, a girl shape. by sunset there will only be ribbons of red following the slopes of her ribs where they crawl to her spine, following all the slants of all her muscles.
it is peaceful, save for distant explosions. the sky might be eggshell blue outside but no trace of light makes it through the rubble and thick canvas that lilith piled up on them. beatrice, exhausted, sleeps with her head on lilith’s naked chest. they are sore and bruised in the way of the undead (invisibly).
blood streaked on limbs, a stripe of it tucked under bea’s jaw. lilith can sense it in the dark because she is a monster and grown old in it. she is all of 500 years.
a huff. beatrice stirring in the dark, exhaling hard and her breath is carrion. their last meal sits uneasily inside her. she is not used to this. times when the world is ruin and the blood knows it, runs with it and tastes of it and there is nothing you can do but sit and wait for people to be happy again. they taste better that way.
lilith likes when the world is quiet.
as it is, even lilith’s guts have clung to her spine and there is a strange tugging in her belly like the feeling you get when you fall asleep on a long journey and wake up minutes from home. it is, hand in hand, a sensation like hunger and also the knowledge that outside it is sunset. outside there is night, falling.
it washes over them both and lilith stirs, frets under her breath. decades ago, she would slip out into the city just as night fell and cut things fine with the last faint slivers of day still reaching down certain streets at certain angles. tight-knit Prague and Paris with always an accommodating doorway to lounge in, to watch the light retreat from her.
to test its burn on the ends of her fingers.
but they are nowhere now. camped beneath broken teacups and overturned tables and the fangs inside of lilith’s gums are aching. hunger is an odd thing for a vampire; closer to lust in lilith’s estimation and now it makes her hands achy and her gums hot, and all she wants to do it turn her back on the flares and the smoke and the sound of distant shots. maybe there is somewhere warm and wet on this continent where a little bit of blood will not be missed.
here, no one is missed but everyone has gone missing.
the war is dying, but not very fast. lilith can smell Molotov and Cyrillic script on the wind in one direction. American cigarettes in the other. the memory of blood in the back of her throat.
but she holds still in the quiet dark, clinging to the last dregs of sleep, the last mouthful of this warm fog. 
beatrice’s hands are… somewhere. she is all contorted around lilith, moving in her sleep and moaning and whimpering and saying half-sentences so suddenly it often makes lilith jump. her palms…
(lilith shuts her eyes, concentrating on placement. she could play a whole chessboard with her perfect stillness)
…they are flat against the sheen of sweat on lilith’s back, pulled meniscus-taut by the closeness and the cold.
certain people disabused her of the notion of god when she was young, but still lilith thanks Him for the fact that she can sweat. there it is, slippery on the hands that hold her – a sort of nonsense barrier between them.
i miss fucking you, she thinks. a terrible want to have here, somewhere far east of France and not quite in Russia. war-torn, smoke on the air that slips through shattered masonry to find them. ghosting over the shapes of two girls, huddled together as though for warmth. 
(as though, as though, as though)
and yet beatrice shivers a little in her sleep and lilith tries to make more of herself. she is always doing this.
she knows the body tangled around hers. how it feels on her tongue and what to do with it, to it. hips pushing forward, bea bea bea sitting in her lap with lilith’s fingers busy between her legs.
bea’s head lolled back on her shoulder. the slow play of tongue & teeth over untested territory while bea’s hands twitch at her wrists, wanting desperately to grab but afraid to interrupt the rhythm of lilith fucking into her and lilith every so often asking how many fingers. demanding a number. 
at times, on certain days, she can convince herself that she knows what beatrice wants.
(how she fucked you because you listened to her and liked her and looked at her. and she wanted to be an archaeologist and go digging things up in the desert and then she met something terrible. a girl.)
(and she ran to confess her sins and you found her. and she called you an angel before she died)
waking up so beautiful, so bloodred when lilith took her hunting the first night. she is not shy about it – the part of her that is not human but still another sort of animal.
(you, telling her “you don’t bite the blood, you suck it” as a body thrashed beneath her. a boy, pretty and very alike beatrice if you glanced, if you cared as little for gender as lilith did)
(later and, “you don’t bite this either, you suck it.”
“lilith, i will get right back out of this coffin.”)
lilith can feel the body tucked against hers under the blanket, one leg wrapped around hers, a hand low on her stomach, brushing the waistband of her boxers. two fingers stuck underneath in sleep grazing the utmost trim of her hair. she can’t remember if they fucked last dawn. it would have been impolite of them, but now the whole countryside is a graveyard and there’s nowhere else to fuck but in ashes, in ruins, in the dirt.
she looks down, eyes adjusting quietly to the dark as it steals the last few whispers of light that makes their little space faintly luminous in just the wrong way for lilith’s eyes. she is a nighttime thing. beatrice’s fingers unearth themselves, tucked into lilith’s boxers. she tries to remember – it would have been slightly sad, of course, the pair of them whimpering somewhere in that near-collapsed house before dropping down into their hasty grave.
if they did fuck, those fingerswill still taste faintly of her, of both of them, of bea laying there, staring at lilith as she fucked herself. she is tired now from all the bad blood in this direction. Europe is malnourished and afraid and angry and the blood tastes of it and is not filling. not rich and loud like American blood.
so, lilith has been taking care of them both. she has the energy for it and she has been attentive in the past. she has watched beatrice fuck herself for long enough to know what she likes. her fingers circling, brushing, darting fast & slow & then steadier. 
the little needy arch of her hips toward her fingers because she waits a little longer than beatrice does to put fingers inside. wet sounds. lilith leaning down to kiss her, brushing the back of bea’s knuckles where they’re fisted in her shirt.
memories. fog. sleep. 
licking into bea’s mouth and feeling those fingers wander up, tugging at the edge of lilith’s jaw until she breaks from her. spit-strand following, clinging, connecting them both before snapping back toward the O of bea’s mouth. when they have eaten it is a long dark thread.
bloodred.
she is grateful for this – for the fact of bodily fluids and how beatrice sounds when she is half-mad with it and she is, often, more than half-mad. tangling her hands in lilith’s hair, slick with saliva or blood or other things entirely. lilith is always combing hard knots out of it and enduring the shadow of beatrice behind her, watching.
for the sake of this she misses their bathtub back across the ocean. claw-footed and sturdy as a steamboat. now the rivers carry everything away before she can watch the evidence unfold, bloom in the water above the refracted sight of hers or beatrice’s naked body beneath.
“you have made a mess of me”
and beatrice is always making her own candlelight with her own eyes, sitting low in the water or off to the side of the tub with a book open in her lap. “ and i promise to do it again.”
here, underneath the rubble, it is warm and hazy like death, and lilith does not want to wake up. she shuts her eyes again, whispering to all her restless limbs that there is no blood about, anyway. there is nothing worth moving for while beatrice is here, breathing out of habit and turning the air coppery with her exhales.
“goodnight,” she whispers to the only creature who has seen the truth of her and lived. who knows the rest of it. everything that makes her feel small.
who has seen the paintings and, indeed, slaughtered a whole train carriage of men to retrieve one of them. she thinks of last night, near sunrise and (yes, they did eat yes. the taste and the tingle of bea’s mouth was red and red and red)
down by the lake where lilith was mostly staring at the reflections of stars on the water and the little flies that dart across the surface. the reeds singing.
the tip of a bayonetted pressed to the back of her neck. roughly because it had to pierce thick winter coat. it had to draw blood. lilith turning, unconcerned, ignoring the German voice telling her to do things with her hands.
he’d pressed the blade in, harder, and she’d let it slice a crescent from the tip of her spine to the column of her throat. she knows German but is ungentle toward that tongue, that night. she can smell corpses out on the lake.
and there she was. in the trees like a silhouette poured onto the landscape. her eyes lighter than the rest of her. golden and terrible in their hunger. they’d been thinking of fishing, even though lilith hates the taste of fish blood. at least swine are close to humans and cows are close to dogs and dogs are eating most of the same things humans are, now.
to the trees at large (the small shape inside them), lilith spoke. “i have one on the hook, darling.”
and the rest was violent.
very.
but she is always beautiful. beatrice, bloodred. kneeling beside the body of that soldier as though in prayer (she hasn’t done this in years. the praying that was once a muscle in her, seizing into genuflection at the slightest excuse but she has not done it since that night
the confession booth and lilith’s hands turning it to kindling. the scent of oiled wood in the air when the priest ran and she put her fist through his skull. just to be dramatic, to show beatrice that she could. for the sake of that, too, she’d stepped on his femur to slip back toward beatrice 
“i lay down with the devil, and she has roots in me” 
and in that thick sharp crack of bone, she broke something in beatrice too)
now, she only kneels as though in prayer. blood dripping off one exposed canine, off her jaw, onto the collar of her shirt though she has no other, no spare. and they have nothing in this war-torn place. 
lilith once knew it as Europe. home. 
she watches her lover drink, head tilted back as the body beneath her twitches, wheezing. she has broken him cleverly. something spinal and final and slow, but he could live for hours still. his wrist gurgles blood to mingle with mud and discarded shells and exploded ordnance, down on what passes for a beach in what passes for a world. the war is almost over and lilith’s grasp of the Russian tongue is useful here. perhaps it will be for a long time. 
“just like the others.” beatrice says when she stands at last, licking blood off her lips. she comes close (thoughtless about it. an old choreography of theirs) and lilith checks over her shoulder and the boy still breathes, so she teases a few missed spots of blood from beatrice’s mouth. slow, careful licks all the way to the edge of her jaw.
she expects this to be disarming but beatrice speaks anyway.
it’s alright. lilith loves her for this among so many other things. “the blood is weak here too.” she hisses (really does, and lilith feels herself react. not with fear) 
beatrice makes no mention of it. she is in her archaeologist mood. the one where she stares at bones or rocks or impressions in the ground for hours, like there is meaning anywhere but in eating and in fucking and in loving and being loved. she leans her head into lilith’s chest now for the reminder of her heartbeat or for her heat or-
well. inchoate reasons, as always 
“my theory is rubbish,” she sighs.above the killing cut of her mouth, beatrice’s eyes are the colour of dropped coins, and lilith mourns nothing but she regrets this. losing the deep pitch-touched brown they were before.
god, this creature is dramatic. a sigh she feels on her throat like a wet kiss. “the boy wasn’t malnourished at all. should have tasted lean but fat-laced, even on dry rations and stolen sausage, but…”
she spits onto the ground, red-tinged. 
“the war is inside them.” 
lilith smooths her bloodstained collar. “are your answers truly worth all this?” she does not bother to gesture.
“they have to be.”
she was already pulling away (carelessly strong now that she had eaten), jarring lilith’s elbow a little in departing. pacing down toward the shore, and it took a moment of staring at her back for lilith to remember her throat.
open. right.
many parts of her, then, had wanted to follow beatrice to the shore. to ask her what if, what if
what if they are not worth it? what if we find nothing here about the origins of vampires? what if you are a child still looking for god? what if i am tired?
and she was tired, so she just turned and stepped over to the still-twitching boy to make him dead. he was making the night creatures too quiet and she was not hungry in any case. tomorrow she would eat fish for their haemoglobin. or whatever terrible thing lived in the living and made her move.
now, in the coppery dark, lilith looks at the thing beside her. they will go further today and see bad things and in the end, she thinks, it will be just them. it will always be just them and that is the bargain she struck.
with a human girl in a church (running from you) who wanted so badly to repent, or to never ask for forgiveness again. a vampire is a long promise to make.
she would make this one again.
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gatorseverywhere · 4 months ago
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I will send you Transformers thoughts.
- Tarn wants Megatron, but what he needs is a dommy mommy. Or a cat.
- Overlord is a sub.
- Cold constructed mechs would have really fucked up ideas about sex and intimacy. The differences are incredibly pronounced between the survivors of the first batches versus the last ones under the "3 step class"
- Prowl's longest lasting relationship is a monstrosity of a coffee machine that he salvaged from his old station's trash because it, in his opinion, was still operational and gave him the best brew for breakthroughs. Said machine produces a sludge that unfit for most mechanisms consumption and can be classified as a food war crime. Not to Prowl though. He knocks it back with a straight face.
- Megatron most definitely fucked the cassettes.
- Nautilator has a sheet for mechs to fill out their kinks and icks because of the Voice. He also memorized a variety of Megatron's speeches and speaking mannerisms so he could nail the imitation and do things on the fly.
- Riptide has two dicks.
- There should be more cultural misunderstandings between the Lost Colonies and Cybertron. Or have a language barrier.
- Solus Prime was a buff femme with shoulders to bench Megatronus.
- Liege Maximo is a short king with heels.
- Starscream could be trans. All his frame works and trades versus his True Form.
There is a mention of nsfw, proceed with caution
I love all of these-
Tarn definitely wants megatron, he's so down bad for him, Megatron is the only mech who could ever truly put tarn in his place, but the angst possibility is also phenomenal, especially with Meg's defection.
Im not quite sure what you mean by the cold construct bit, but i agree about the fucked up part.
I can not say i agree with overlord being a sub, but maybe when it comes to certain mechs. He's dominant until someone who isnt scared of him actually steps up to his authority. At first, he definitely considers killing the mech, but he decides it could be a fun challenge to let the mech try to dom, then he finds out he definitely does not mind it-
Prowl can stomach the most VILE coffee ever. As long as it keeps him wide awake, he'll drink it. He's tried the alternative, calming things to help him sleep better, like tea (decaf), but it never helps, so to cope with his inability to sleep, he just forces himself to stay awake. Also, yeah he can't hold normal relationships to save his life. Most mechs can't handle his lifestyle.
Meg's and the cassets would be a sight to see bro, he rewards them for doing so well, especially on infiltration missions where they're small enough to sneak into autobot base.
I'm sorry i dont no nautilator very well unfortunately 😔
Two spiked riptide, i love it, he looks like a shark so ofc he gets the double dicks.
Culture difference, i love it, especially when practices are so different, and it's just a culter shock.
Buff femmes is my kryptonite, i need solus to bench press me
Leige maximo is so fine for no reason
We all know starscreams original name was Pretty Poison, so now that means he used to be a femme with that name and changed his name to Starscream. We love a trans king.
Thank you for the asks, i adore all of these ❤️❤️❤️
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nattyscuddlycabin · 1 year ago
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Sparks Fly
Natasha Romanoff x f!Reader
Warnings: red room ways of raising girls, bad coping mechanisms, mission gone wrong, deaths of people (not major characters), language, mentions of blood, gauze, and wrap
Genre: Angst + Fluff ending
Summary: Natasha’s mission failed, leading to civilian deaths, and she ends up coping in a way she was thought by the Red Room.
A/N: Reader is Bulgarian in this because I am lazy and I don’t feel like dealing with google translate right now, so I just used my home language cuz it’s also slavic, ok? Ok!
Translations:
Bulgarian:
любов моя - my love
мое златно сърце- my golden heart
Russian:
Детка-baby
(メ﹏メ)
The mission was for the team to rescue the Hydra “experiments” then blow up the base. However, the outcome of the mission ended up being a blown up base with just two or three experimented on kids being saved. It was all a miscommunication, but Natasha blamed herself for it. She thought that she should have been able to help fix the chaos and save the rest of the kids, but there they were, back at the tower, filling it with thick melancholy in the air.
Y/N tried to soothe Natasha and help her not think of it all as her fault. She wasn’t at the mission, but she knew that Nat wasn’t fully at fault and that Nat did everything in her power to get the mission to go right. Natasha Romanova may seem cold but she always does her best to save everybody.
Finally, Nat just told Y/N that she wants some alone time to process things. Y/N wasn’t sure that it was best for Nat to be alone at such a time, but she let her have her personal time.
Hours later, Y/N was concerned that she had still not heard anything from Nat, so she went into her room, only to find no one there.
“Jarvis, where’s Tasha?” You ask worriedly.
“Miss Romanova has left the tower. She appears to be in a ballet studio Downtown.”
“Oh shit… how long ago did she leave?”
“Miss Romanova left the tower at 1 pm today.”
“Jarvis, send me the location of the ballet studio.”
“Yes, Miss Y/L/N. It has been sent.”
You look down at your phone, putting on navigation to the studio, and run off to the elevator.
After a few minutes, you park in front of a studio with blurred windows, but you only see one person inside.
Running off to the door, you walk in slowly, knowing you probably startled the redhead inside. She looks at you for a second before hiding her face away from you and continuing her “practice.”
“Hey baby, I need you to pause, okay?”
She just quietly continues dancing to the music of the silence in the room.
“Nat. I’m serious.”
She ignores you again.
“Natalia, stop,” you say in a low, stern voice.
She stops, slowly lowering her arms and leg from the position she’d been in, still refusing to face you. She lowers to the ground, rolling up in a ball and hiding her face in her legs.
You walk over to her, sitting down next to her. You hug her.
You speak, softer than before“Baby, you have been dancing for…” You check your phone, seeing the time being 5:04, “four hours now. You are hurting yourself. You don’t deserve to be punished, sweetheart. You aren’t there anymore. I’m here, okay?”
A quiet sob escapes her lips as she whispers, “I killed them…”
“No, you didn’t. You have never killed anybody on purpose, любов моя.”
She just keeps crying quietly for a bit.
You softly caress her foot and ask, “can I take them off?”
“Mhm” she mumbles out, sniffling quietly.
You slowly untie the ballet shoes, sliding them off her feet. Noticing how bloody her feet have gotten under her ballet shoes, you sigh in concern and open your little bag you carry around, finding the gauze and wrap, putting on the gauze on the worst places, and wrapping it up to secure it in place before softly massaging each foot, enough to make her feel a bit more relaxed, but not too much, careful not to hurt her.
“Baby, can you look at me, please?” You ask in a whisper.
She looks up, her reddened face wet from tears. You move your hand calmly up to her cheek, brushing away the last tear prickling down her beautiful face, and giving her a loving smile.
“I will always love you,” you whisper.
She looks at your eyes and smiles slightly, whispering back, “I love you too.”
You get up, reaching for her hand as you pull her up, hugging her. As you are hugging, you slowly start moving side to side, as she rests her head on your chest.
“Drop everything now…” you begin singing slowly, slower than the tempo of the actual song.
“Meet me in the pouring rain, kiss me on the sidewalk, take away the pain, ‘cause I see sparks fly whenever you smile,” you twirl her and continue dancing while looking at each other, “get me with those green eyes baby as the lights go down, give me something that’ll haunt me when you’re not around,” you boop her nose and she giggles, “cause I see sparks fly whenever you… smile,” you smile as you see her already smiling at you.
“Okay let’s go home now, okay? We don’t need your feet hurting even more. I love you, мое златно сърце.”
“I love you too, детка.”
(¯ ³¯)♡
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moistvonlipwig · 23 days ago
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some thoughts on angel's pov on the buffy/angel relationship in the later seasons of the buffyverse, under the cut because b/a shippers may not want to see it. this is an angel-positive post though, i'm interested in looking at his mindset, not tearing him down:
it's interesting and imo telling that post-early s3 of ats, angel only seems to bring up buffy & get caught up in the idea of a relationship with her when he feels like a failure of a hero. when he's happy with baby connor he never says aw gee i wish buffy could be here to meet him. when he's sad and needs comfort (e.g. when connor gets kidnapped) he never says god i wish i could talk to buffy about this. it's only when jasmine takes cordelia and connor away from him and he lets it happen and he signs his soul over to wolfram & hart to try to save the last bit of connor that's left that he goes crawling back to buffy all like, if buffy still wants me then maybe i'm not the worst most pathetic biggest failure in the universe. maybe i can pretend i'm still the cool hero guy she always thought i was. and in s5 it's only when spike comes back from the dead full of swagger and seemingly the champion angel feels like he no longer is that angel suddenly starts obsessing about which one of them buffy likes more, and again nearly always explicitly in the context of feeling like a failure of a hero.
(even in tgiq there's the context of angel literally planning to go on a suicide mission in a couple weeks. he certainly was not under the impression that he and buffy had any kind of actual future together. it seems more likely to me that he saw an opportunity to say goodbye and when spike interfered it raised his hackles and made him defensive again.)
post-buffy's resurrection, as much as the writers liked to throw bones to buffy/angel shippers (imo to the detriment of both shows' narratives), it still doesn't actually read as angel still wanting to be with buffy so much as angel idealizing his time with buffy as a simpler time when he felt like a good person just by dint of being around her. she isn't someone he super wants to hang out with (unlike, say, cordelia), she just represents 'goodness' to him and when he feels like he is running out of his own goodness he grasps at her image to try to make himself feel better. it's no coincidence that he seems to regress in maturity every time the shows try to bring back his feelings for buffy in btvs s7/ats s5, because at that point in his arc, when he retreats into his old feelings for buffy, he is essentially taking comfort in a childish ideal to avoid facing reality.
it does frustrate me that the shows never let him realize this and let go of this coping mechanism (because, again, i think they wanted to keep shippers on the hook), but at the same time i think it's pretty textually obvious that that's what's going on in his head. it's not that he hasn't actually moved on from her or is incapable of doing so, it's that when things get too hard and he loses his actual support system, angel (unlike poor billy pilgrim) becomes stuck in time, longing for the days when he only cared about one person and his life was easier for it. easier -- but not better. and he knows that, which is why, per "awakening," he doesn't actually wish he could go back to those days. not truly. he just wishes his life didn't suck quite so bad.
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my-castles-crumbling · 7 months ago
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Hello,
I recently got back into the Harry Potter fandom, mostly because of tumblr. Otherwise I wouldn't even consider talking about my hyperfixations with my real friends.
So here's the thing, I know JKR is problematic and that is an understatement. I know this. And I came across a post which basically condemned her and said you shouldn't need more reasons to drop HP than this or something along those lines right.
And I completely agree with them. So I reblogged the post adding to it saying that the only way I am connected to this fandom is through this site.
Idk if this sounds like someone just like pettily complaining about people or whatever. They reblogged that post with my additions saying it's bad to even connect with the fandom, it gives her more support and kind of shamed me for still being a part of this.
Idk I just feel so guilty rn. And I just wanted someone to say it's okay to be here I guess. Until now I have loved HP content here, and this has been such an important part of my life. I can't just let it go.
I just wanted to let it out somewhere. Ughh as I type it out I feel I'm overreating but still. It's kinda been eating me up.
No, don't feel guilty at all! This is such a real feeling, and something I struggle with.
I guess to me, it's a personal decision.
Some people view loving harry potter (and any potter-related fandoms like the Marauders) as support of JKR. And that's...I can't fault them for that. Because people are so excruciatingly MAD. As someone who grew up literally idolizing her, it was absolutely devastating to see her turn into this. It was literally a betrayal. Like...the queer community used to really love her for pushing the idea of love and being yourself and fucking....not living in a closet. SO when she turned into this? It was really upsetting. People have literally had a staple of their childhood tainted, and for some, that's enough to completely write everything HP off completely. And that's fair.
For other people, they've decided to take the series as their own. To basically steal it and say- nope. Sorry, bestie. Not yours to be an author of anymore. I think that's more my view. Harry Potter (not even exaggerating) probably saved my life when I was a child, and got the through so much that I can't just get rid of it. It's quite literally a part of me. So while I respect the people who can't do it anymore, I just can't let go of something that really was a coping mechanism for years.
And then there are some people (like a newer generation) who never saw JKR as the author. It's always been the fandom. And I think that's also valid.
I think it's fair to say JKR doesn't have control over the fandom anymore, and we've made it our own. I don't lose sleep over being a part of it. But again, I think it's a personal decision, and one you can only make for yourself, you know?
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