#Call it anything but that even though the average person is not doing this intentionally its just like. Christ

[surpriserose]

Just saw a post about a cishet romance book described as found family if it wasnt time to pack it up before it definitely is now

[eelfuneral]

Some of the discussion that happens within the Star Wars fandom, particularly discussion of the Jedi, can be really upsetting to observe if you have certain disabilities. In fact, I’m having a hard time even liking the Jedi right now because I can’t help but associate them with some really ableist takes that I’ve seen in their defense.

Let me explain: a lot of people with certain disabilities (such as autism, ADHD, bipolar disorder, and C-PTSD) deal with something called emotion dysregulation, which means that you feel emotions more intensely than the average person and that this strong emotional state sticks around for far longer than it should. When you have emotional regulation issues, an event that might make somebody else a bit sad or mildly frustrated has the ability to put you out of commission for hours or even an entire day. Emotion dysregulation is very stigmatized, even in people who go out of their way to avoid harming people or lashing out while dealing with an episode. People with this specific issue are often told that they are “dramatic”, “attention seeking”, or “future abusers” for what amounts to an automatic emotional response that a person cannot control. This constant pushback forms a metaphorical blister that can easily be popped back open when you see anything that reminds you of what caused it in the first place.

Now, let’s move on to the Jedi. While it can be argued that their teachings were intended to instruct people to reign in their BEHAVIOR as a result of their emotions, several lines in the fist six movies sound an awful lot like they are condemning having negative emotions at all. Yoda literally tells both Luke and Anakin that emotions like fear and anger BY THEMSELVES are of the Dark Side, and these lines were very difficult for a lot of people who have dealt with trauma, neurodivergence, or other issues that cause “big emotions”. These lines, intentionally or not, mirror a lot of the things that real people have said to those of us dealing with emotion dysregulation, and people have every right to talk about this in their own spaces unmolested.

Some of the defenses of the Jedi in the context of how they are instructed to deal with their emotions come off as dismissive at best and ableist at worst. Yes, if you dig through Star Wars canon enough, you can find portrayals of the Jedi and emotions that point to a more nuanced view where choices and actions are the source of evil rather than the emotions, but this does not change the fact that the Yoda lines and other emotionally repressive applications of the Jedi Code very much exist in parts of canon. A person who found the emotionally repressive variant of Jedi teachings to be upsetting due to a disability will likely feel as though you are trying to dismiss their feelings and belittle them if you “correct” them for “misinterpretation of the Jedi”. I get that it sucks to see people bash your blorbos, but if someone is doing it because they are dealing with something IRL like trauma or ableism, then it’s best not to engage and just let that person work through it.

I have also seen people who are defending the Jedi make statements that outright attack people for having intense emotions. I remember a take that basically said that you were a baby or a psychopath if you found the Jedi code regarding emotions to be “too hard”. I’ve seen people dismiss the trauma that Anakin went through and its possible effect on how he reacted to some aspects of the Jedi order in a way that mirrors the invalidation that those of us with emotional regulation issues have experienced for being “too much” for all of our lives. Yes, it is important to avoid harming others when you are in a bad place, and no Anakin was not a great person, but so many of these takes are devoid enough of nuance that they read as if they are just trashing people who have “too many”emotions.

Feel free to defend your favorite characters all that you would like, but please spare a thought for those of us who might not dig everything about them for reasons connected to disability and trauma. The Jedi aren’t real, but we very much are.

[dufferpuffer]

Can I get your take on some er.. interesting discourse I saw today? There was an ask floating around asking if Remus would be an abusive partner. Now I personally think literally anyone is capable of being abusive as humans, but putting that aside for a moment, I don’t necessarily think of Lupin as being anymore likely than the average joe to be abusive in a relationship (atleast not physically, I could possibly see emotionally). This is a very hypothetical question with a lot of factors at play so I also think it’s very hard to answer. I think your pretty fair and balanced and I trust your judgment on the character and their relationship dynamics so I came to you for your thoughts on this one. (Though if it’s too dark you can skip it, id totally get it)

Yes. ABSOLUTELY - if not reigned in. But not intentionally. Remus naturally does things to defend himself, even if the ideas he is defending against are unrealistic and anxiety/paranoia based.

-- Would he hit/hex his partner? He had the shortest argument in the world with Harry and hexed him into a wall. He has 'physically lashing out' in him... but only a short burst before he is crying down the hall. He HATES tension. He would want to run away before he gets that heated. Harry surprised him. I could see him breaking a plate or something, but only the one, and not as a way to intimidate. He is just angry. Fuck this plate.

-- But if his manipulative habits aren't kept in check... ...He manipulates people to like him. He makes himself the sort of man they will think positively of. He holds his tongue on his true thoughts and tells lies so people perceive him how he wants. See: How he treats Harry... especially vs. how Sirius, or even Severus treat Harry. Remus bases his behaviour on how Dumbledore acts... but while Albus is doing his best to play magical 5D chess before a war. Remus is only nursing his own anxieties. If his partner is weak to this: he will abuse that. Constant white lies, sweeping problems under the rug... The more he gets away with the more he does. He will make himself seem better than he is, more responsible and in control, gaslighting his partner to believing lies - telling himself: 'I will become like this. It's ok if I lie now, because my intentions are good... and I don't want to lose their trust early before I'm good enough for them...!' Even if his partner can call him out whenever he starts - and he can trust that they love him even at his worst... ...other people can't love him at his worst.

-- He will try and control what his partner says about him in public. ...beyond a 'don't talk about my toilet accident at the party' request. It starts out more reasonable, 'please don't bring up that little fight we had...' But the more control he feels, the more his anxiety wins: + 'Don't bring up your depression... everyone will think I'm not doing enough!'+ 'Why did you talk about the new shirts I bought...? Yes I know they are nice, but... but what if they think I'm shallow?!?' + 'Look, just don't talk about my work - let ME talk about my work.' Eventually his partner is scared to say anything to anyone, because Remus wants to be in charge of conversations so he can control how he is perceived through his partner... all the way to asking them to act certain ways for certain people. And if they upset him...

-- He is a guilt-trip king. Remus isn't the type to blame everything on his Lycanthropy. On the contrary - he will push himself when he really shouldn't. 'No, no - I should pull my weight and go do the shopping, like I promised.' But he does like to feel accepted and his pains appreciated, like a grumpy old man whinging and fishing for compassion: '...I'll go do the shopping. But oof, my back is really killing me after last Full Moon... and these cuts on my armpits sting when I lift my arms up - see? Look at that - they pull! New scars for sure. I'm still getting dizzy spells... oh, but I'll go, I'll go! I'll walk all the way to the shops and back.' ...perhaps hoping he doesn't have to do the shopping without feeling selfish for asking. But that's not abusive, just somewhere between cute and annoying.

What is abusive... are threats. Threats to himself, to the relationship. eg. His partner says they aren't going to avoid talking about their depression - just because he worries it'll make him 'seem bad'. + 'Oh, so we can talk about all our little problems to anyone now?? Well then I'll go and make sure EVERYONE knows that I am so stressed out, all the time, and your clothes are always on the floor of the bedroom, and-' (not the best example ik - I'm just trying to get across that he will make a big deal of tiny things because he is worried that they will go poorly if he can't control them.)

And of course, ever the classic: "Well if I'm such a bother then I'll go. I'll leave! Goodbye! You won't have to see me again, or deal with my 'problems'..." He feels the relationship is always teetering on the edge, even when it isn't - so there is catharsis for him in having the power to 'end' it. Of course the only way to deal with such behaviour is to give him the agency to do that if he wants... but let him know he is wanted. His partner can't bend the knee and give in to the demands, nor FORCE him to stay... but they can wave goodbye and say the back door will be unlocked whenever he wants to come back. ...I think there is a case to be made that leaving without much contact is abusive in its own right.

-- Basically: I think Remus is highly susceptible to being abused. Once he gets genuine affection he wont be able to quit it even if it turns cruel... ...But he is also very likely to be the abuser. The type of abuser that justifies all their actions as being needed, because they are all born from him trying to manage his anxieties.

He knows they are 'wrong', but the more they work the more necessary they seem. He see's himself as a 'special case' and that dating him will NEED some unconventional methods. It all comes back to his Lycanthropy, but indirectly. His anxiety is caused by him not wanting to be distrusted for his condition - but it has seeped its tendrils into everything.

I think anyone who dates Remus needs to be very emotionally mature and have a thick skin because they can't let him engage with this bullshit... while also helping to shoulder his anxieties. He can't just stop freaking out about how he is perceived on a dime. He will likely ALWAYS be anxious about it, as its born from a real source: People will treat him like shit if they find out he is abnormal.

But he needs to know his partner is on his side. That they can be trusted not to sabotage his image. They like him with all his imperfections and struggles. And threats won't work on them. Trust and communication will.

All of these issues are 'they started as small favors and comforts... and then as they worked, they grew bigger and bigger'. None of them are 'Remus wants to control and hurt.'

I think the essence of what I want to say is that Remus has lots of poor coping strategies and unhealthy behaviors he has had to lean on to survive... and he needs to be shown betters ways, and supported.

[mortallyclearwonderland]

Wish - True Ruler

I think Disney intentionally or unintentionally reveled a huge part of the plot.

This is King Magnifico.

This is Asha or Princess Asha.

Do you see the connection? Asha is Magnifico's daughter! Or is she? Let's speculate!

1. Option number one, Magnifico is an evil stepfather. This is very likely because it's a very common trope, especially back in the day for Disney. Wish is supposed to celebrate 100 years of Disney films and it's going to be full of easter eggs and probably similar plot points. Now instead of the evil stepmother, we have an evil stepfather.

2. The second very likely option is that Asha isn't a real princess but gets the title from the Disney Princesses brand. Mulan isn't technically a princess, but she's the main female character of a movie and is marketable.

There are legitimate princesses from Disney movies who aren't included because their movies were flops and/or are forgotten.  

3. Another popular trope Disney might draw inspiration from is ''a rightful air to the throne gets lost/kidnapped/thrown away but grows up raised by a kindhearted person''. There is a lady who wears a pretty similar outfit to Asha which hints at them being related in some way. Maybe she adopted Asha, or is a relative, she and Asha look similar enough, more than Magnifico that's for sure.

''But how did she got lost in the first place?'' you may ask. Well, in true villain fashion he killed his brother/sister and their spouse but didn't finish the job properly and the kid got away. Instead of killing Asha himself, Magnifico ordered his evil sidekicks to get rid of her but they obviously fail, because they don't go to check if their target is really dead or something. (I know there isn't an evil lackey in the trailer but it's just a teaser and if it's truly an homage to old Disney classics there has to be at least one if not more. They have a talking animal sidekick.)

Or maybe it's just a friend. Disney just run out of colors and I'm grasping at straws here.

4. And last and probably the most anticlimactic option, Asha is just your average village girl but she defeats the evil king and that makes her the ruler. It's an old trope for female characters to be called princesses even when by all logic they should be called queens. I guess it was because of the association with queens being evil and princesses being good popularized by Walt Disney himself with his first movie Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.

This one seems the least likely to me since the stigma is gone now. Look at their most popular characters! Elsa used to be a queen and Anna is a new queen. (Even though the general public still calls them princesses for simplicity's sake.)

Also, I doubt that modern Disney company would pass up the opportunity to make their female character a queen and pat themselves on the back.

What do you think? Did I miss anything?

[a-tiny-voice-against-war-crimes]

A note on statistics, global horrors, apathy and empathy

With things like war, genocide, climate change, capitalism and epidemics on a scale so, so much greater than anything we can wrap our heads around, it's easy to just shut down and forget the horror of it all. To read statistics like 1,000,000 or 20,000 and feel nothing.

The death toll for Gaza has reached over 26,000, including over 80 journalists and over 130 UNRWA aid workers. The death toll for Ukraine has reached over 500,000. And that's just humans and deaths- what about just how many animals and pets have died and how many cities, beloved homes and natural areas have been utterly destroyed? The amount of people that have been physically and mentally scarred for life, if they'll even survive, those who have broken bones or lost limbs and are struggling with filth and infections, lack of basic resources and accessible medicine?

Distance and a sense of helplessness are some of the roots of apathy, and big numbers are a third. We humans just aren't wired to be able to picture a million or a billion or even a hundred of anything, to wrap our heads around it.

If you saw a person dying in front of you today, violently or even peacefully, you wouldn't be able to stop thinking about it. You hear that an unnaturally extreme flood caused by climate change has killed thousands on the news, and you go about your day without a second thought.

Maybe this is one of the reasons figures in positions of massive power find it so easy to ruin thousands of lives based on their personal whims and beliefs. To see huge groups of people as faceless, identical, and brand them 'mobs', 'aliens' and fundamentally inhuman for their differences- and when the time comes, to let so many individual, living, feeling fellow humans die.

And along with the seemingly inversely proportional relationship between the scale of a problem and how much empathy we afford it, (i.e the bigger the problem the less time we spend thinking and caring about it) we humans also have a wonderful cognitive bias called the Action-Inaction bias.

Basically, if somebody intentionally does something and it results in a death for instance, we see that as worse than if somebody intentionally doesn't do something and it results in a death, though objectively both have caused the exact same level of harm. Whether you are pulling a lever to kill somebody or not pulling a lever to let them die, in the end somebody is dead and you are the cause of that.

There's also of course the Bystander effect- TLDR; the more people there are witnessing a bad thing happening the less personal responsibility each person feels and the more we think somebody else will do something about it, so the likelihood of any individual person acting decreases- which also comes into play when we're facing big numbers.

So whenever somebody tells you you're being oversensitive for crying over the news or some massive societal issue, tells you it's not your responsibility or to just not worry about it, or worse, that there is nothing you can do about it:

Remember.

Caring less is the first step to watching an atrocity being carried out in front of your very eyes and doing nothing to stop it.

And when what is happening now becomes what people call history, it's the first steps to being what is thought of when the people of the future ask; 'Why didn't any of the average people watching this happen do anything to stop it?'

Look at graphs that show data in a more visual way

Look at photographs and videos

Read individual accounts, talk to people and follow influencers experiencing the effects of these things personally

Remember every single 'thing' making up that hundred or thousand or million is or was a person. A life, a countless number of feelings and opinions and dreams that they have had, and an infinite number they could've had if they had not been killed.

[henrysglock]

okay okay i love talking about dnd - dnd anon back again

just general fyi, there's multiple editions for dnd. new monsters get added over the course of them, some stats change, game mechanics get reworked ect. we're on E5 right now. the party in ST would be playing with E1 which came out in the early 80s (E2 came out in the late 80s and is definitely relevant to anything S4 and onwards). i know most of the original 80s stats, but just mentioning here that some numbers went up or down a few digits over the years

okay and now breaking this down:

in dnd you have CRs (= Challenge Ratings) which are a number between 0 and 30. those give you an idea of the general strength of an enemy, the higher the stronger. that's generally how you as a DM decide what to throw at your party since you don't want to give and absolute BeastTM to you Lvl. 1 party (CRs also aren't always 100% reliable since DMs can tweak stats slightly to fit their parties better, but CRs DO give you a pretty solid idea of how fucked you're going to be on average going into an encounter)

and long story short, a Mindflayers CR is 7. Vecna's is 26. and yeah that'd basically already be enough said, one of these is Not like the other. Tldr: Vecna is an absolute Unit and wins this competition every time

but now also, more in depth:

first more stats: CR only give you the General difficulty of an enemy. you also have AC (Armour Class) and HP for every enemy for example:

AC -> MF: 15, V: 18

HP -> MF: 71 (potentially up to +13 with additional roles when creating the enemy), V: 272 (with a roll up to +128)

Vecna, again, unsurprisingly given the CR, wins everything here BY FAR. but besides stats, the actual game lore is also interesting:

for one, i said A Mindflayer intentionally because there's actually multiple. it's not a unique enemy type (it's still rare though). they're also called Illithids and are actually much more human looking than on the show -> a bit of a wizard type - also much more human sized than the one in ST. their faces are very much spider tentacles tho so I'm guessing that's from where we got the visuals for our favorite Big Guy. (also, fun fact: Illithids/ Mindflayers tend to show up in combat with a handful of followers they're mindcontrolling, very similar to the plot of s3 actually, just think that's neat :D)

and then there's VECNA. THE Vecna. the ONE and only (ha). totally unique. actually, as of E1 Vecna wasn't even a fightable enemy with stats yet. he was only Referenced in the monster manual (where all the dnd enemy lore at the time came from) + his eye (or arm actually? sorry not sure which one it actually was) were super strong items you could find. but no Vecna in the flesh yet - he was just this elusive evil in the background. only in E2 did Vecna actually get a stats sheet and was something you could actually try and fight. and Vecna is Big in dnd, a bit of a staple figure actually - especially in E2 at the time. Mindflayers may be more of an enemy class than a given "name" for one specific person/monster. but oh boy did Vecna sure make a name for himself alone. multiple names actually, that's the guy people call "the Arch Lich" and "the Undying King" to name a few, if there's One wizard you're going to be sweating to fight in late 80s dnd it's THIS guy. Hard as Hell to beat! and a dnd icon on top of it!

and even the fighting in itself is going to be an absolute Bitch, so here a general idea of how combat works:

aside from attacking, you constantly roll saving throws. that's how you avoid dying/ taking damage/ suffering negative effects like poison or burning etc. the saving throws are all in a specific attribute so Intelligence or Wisdom for example. you roll with a D20 and need to get something higher than a certain predetermined number to actually get the save and avoid whatever made you roll for the save in the first place. depending on the stat you're rolling in, the numbers for the MFs are basically all between 6-7. but for VECNA they're all between 12-15.

the combat system in E1 and E2 is slightly different than today and i'm not Totally in tune with it, so i'm not Completely sure if/how saving throws might have worked a bit different back then,

but the HIGH requirement for saves (consistently rolling over 12-15 with a D20 is Fucked btw) is also why we see the game in S4 go down the way it does. the entire group makes it to the final boss alright but then starts falling like flies. because you'd have to consistently roll REALLY high to keep hitting saves and not chip your health down slowly or get CRIT'ed in one go. and even if you're lucky with rolls, the longer the combat goes on the more likely you are to start missing saves and either die from a direct hit or get a negative effect that kills you over time. which is why we see the entire party go down alongside Mike during Eddie's game, except for Dustin and Erica who are both still 1 hit from death.

even the parts of the game sequence we actually get SEE on screen in s4 show us this directly, when we see Mike going first in the combat order and look upset immediately when he presumably fails his first save right away (unlucky) -> i've seen people confused why Mike looks upset but an Enemy figure gets knocked down on the board instead of his paladin. this is why as far as i can tell here. he might have still won against whatever he was fighting but took massive damage or got a passive negative effect from failing his first save. he zero'd out later at some point, since only Erica and Dustin are left by the end, but i probably wasn't Directly after the first hit he took (even though it could obviously be Because of that hit, since it might've been a passive effect which can kill you with a few rounds delay)

so Yupp, that's the general breakdown here! so tldr Again: if you had the choice between facing the Mindflayer or Vecna on the condition that everybody sticks to dnd rules you do NOT go for Vecna. Ever. that guy is Horrible to beat. literally the chance of fucking up like Mike here and missing your FIRST save right off the bat is 60-75%, that's BAD, that can KILL you

me with my melted ice cream brain: yeah what u said

but actually yeah looking at the numbers it’s v clear who’s the big bad even from the dnd framework. and it also makes sense why El et al. are able to defeat the mindflayer twice but not Vecna/Henry even once

[comic-bastards]

Review: Rat City #1

By Dustin Cabeal 

It has been a long while since I have read a Spawn comic book. I find it infinitely interesting that it is still being published monthly, probably as one of the most consistently published monthly books from Image in general but also from a founder of image. That sheer fact alone makes it an anomaly in comic books as every other creator that founded Image or has moved on from the publisher or is almost incapable of producing a monthly comic book. Eric Larsen is possibly the only other person, but even then, the irregularities of the scheduling of Savage Dragon and its spin-offs makes Spawn a standout and now in 2024. It seems Spawn is expanding its universe; it is becoming More than just Spawn and a few miniseries. I have noticed increasingly that I am seeing different titles related to Spawn, but Rat City caught my attention more than the others.

Cybernetic Spawn is not anything new to the Spawn Universe. I think it actually exists in some form in the action figures first and foremost, but it is relatively new to have an ongoing series about a cybernetic-esque Spawn. Rat City is just a catchy, grungy futuristic name. I mean, no one thinks of rats and goes, that's pleasant. Rat City gives you this futuristic Judge Dread-esque, grimy city to deal with which is a perfect fitting for Spawn and a Spawn spin-off book.

The story, however, begins a bit average. A bit formulaic and especially in the Spawn Universe. Injured Soldier, probably turned on by their government. We see an overjealous kill machine on a Black Ops hit team shooting and killing civilians, and anyone else in the way. As they look for their target, a supposed villain/weapons dealer. The target knows why they are there and reiterates to them that they are a businessman, your government's lying to you, but it does not matter. He is shot in the head and disposed of. Upon exiting their caravan is blown up by someone who knew they were there, even though the mission was clean and completed. Two of the soldiers wake up in a medical bay being told that they are going to be given prosthetics and nano injections to make them improved and more useful to their governments. We follow our main character, Peter Cairn, as he goes through the program. Eventually he washes out because he is not making the benchmarks that they want to see. He is not a big enough super soldier for the project, so they wash him and others out of the program.

Now, he is a city plumber. I guess. I don't know. He's just in a giant hole dealing with doo-doo looking water and referring to himself in the third person but using his terrible call name introduced during the first mission. An event that happened in Spawn that I am completely unaware of having not read the issue, has affected/lapsed into this this universe. Whether it is somewhere in the future or on the same timeline, even a parallel Earth, I do not know. It is not super relevant to the story. It is just an origin point for our character. We are teased with the coming origin of this new Spawn who lives in Rat City. We are teased with the potential of the government portrayal that created him and possibly intentionally so he would be fed into the system that creates cybernetic super soldiers.

There is not a lot that you have not read before in terms of the story, but it is okay. It is competent enough. It is enjoyable enough and in a strange way it is refreshing to have a thoroughly well put, consistent comic book like this. It is nice. No, it is not going to get five stars on the rating because it is just not that groundbreaking or anything like that. But it is a solid comic book, and it is a book that I would gladly pick up monthly. That and I’m not giving everything I read a rating anymore.

A lot of that has to do with the issues art, the art is good and has a dynamic look overall. There’s good action and violence. It has this grimy futuristic used feel to it. I am curious to see if they can do solid world building and build the city into a character. I mean, it is called Rat City. So, you would hope and think that the city itself is going to play into being a character and that is going to be the only thing that could potentially sink the art. I remember the first time I read an issue of Spawn, the alleyway really came across as a larger than life set piece and hopefully, they can accomplish the same in Rat City.

Otherwise, the art is what you would expect from not only just a Spawn comic or an action military comic book. It has ripped dudes with lots of muscles with Cybernetic muscles that have muscles somehow. And it just presents itself in a nice package. I was concerned when I saw that it had three different colorists, but it was so consistent between the three of them that I never noticed the change, even though there was a very stark line of this colorist ends on this page this colorist begins on that page. It flowed nicely and overall looked great. There is a sense of style and personality to the art and again it fits with that Spawn universe. It is not Spawn from the 90s. It is not Spawn from the early 2000s, but it just has this very Spawn feel to it. I think that, is important if you are going to do a shared Spawn Universe, it must look like a consistent artist house style in a way or at least have the same sensation since we do not really do that in comics anymore.

Overall, the art was stronger than the story. Maybe even hindered by it a little bit at times but again it is a consistent solid first outing. I would be curious to see how this plays out in future issues or as the series grows and develops in the writing. The writing and art team grow and develop with each other. I think so often that is forgotten and that a first issue is just a hard intro. Everyone is getting their footing. You want to make your best presentation to get more readers, but it is that growth, it is that stride that hit somewhere after issue six that it just kind of kicks in and you can really see the art and the craft grow and develop together. Sometimes the first issue just needs to show that potential for me as a reader to get me to that next stage. I will stick around to that next stage and see what happens. For that reason, I am very curious to read more Rat City. I think for a first issue it is a solid outing. It makes me want to read more. It gets me interested in reading more Spawn comic books. Whether it be the long-running ongoing series that has somehow stayed afloat, this entire time, or some of these other spin-offs that I have been seeing, and that alone is a success for first issue to entice me with the rest of the universe/brand.

Rat City #1

Script/Plot: Erica Schultz Art: Zé Carlos Colors: Jay David Ramos, FCO Plascencia, Marcello Iozolli Lettering: Erica Schultz Publisher: Image Comics

[stealingyourbones]

Danny Phantom meets Superman. More accurately I should say that Danny Fenton meets Clark Kent.

Let me make this clear cause people seem to forget this: superman is smart. Clark kent is a very intelligent guy. Hes an INVESTIGATIVE journalist. He works with Lois Lane whos a multiple Pultizer prize winner and you know damn well that Lois wouldn’t work with anyone that cant keep up with her in both wits and smarts. He’s good at his job and in some comics he gets Pulitzer Prizes from some of his articles as well. Dude is dumb but he’s smart if you get what I’m saying. High Int. Low Wis.

With that in mind, During an assignment by Perry White, Lois and Clark meet the Fentons in their Amnesty residence to get some quotes on an article that discusses “Everything we thought didn’t exist is now real. Superheroes, Aliens, even Vampires, so why do we not Believe in Ghosts?”

Clark Kent spots Danny and notices instantly that MANY things are wrong with this child. His shoulders are hunched in a way that is intentional and tensed. Like he doesn’t know if he should fight or flee. His eyes are darting around and constantly taking in their surroundings like he’s waiting for something to barge in. His heart is beating far slower than it should. The kid intentionally makes his chest rise and fall but he’s not breathing in any oxygen. All of those are concerning but they can happen in metas. The thing that isn’t normal is that Clark can’t hear any of Danny’s other organs working. Like the kid is a revitalized corpse and his body only thought to bring back half of its needed functions.

So Clark does some digging. He doesn’t want to tell any of the Justice League because this isn’t a Superman job, this is a job for Clark Kent. He gets some help from Oracle and with her word that she won’t say anything to batman, He agrees to update her regularly about the kids situation.

Oracle sends over some VERY concerning documents from an organization called “The Ghost Investigation Ward”. Oracle tells Clark that she’s working on tipping off the Bats and Birds so they can help dismantle the organization.

While sifting through the documents Clark comes across a profile of a “Danny Phantom”. As I said, Clark isn’t stupid. There is definitely a profile of Danny Fenton as well since he’s the son of two world renown ghost hunters. He puts the two and two together and uncovers just the horrible treatment that Phantom has been receiving from his parents, the government, and his peers. Clark is outraged and can’t just stand aside and let this kid suffer. So he makes another trip to the Fenton residence under the guise of needing another quote and sits Danny and Jazz down and tells him that he knows of the terrible lab safety, the immoral experiments his parents do on the regular, the neglect of the kids in pursuit of scientific discovery. He knows and he wants to help. Clark tells Danny and Jazz that there is an apartment available right nextdoor from his and that he can help them get to a safer location and apply for emancipation.

The Fenton kids are shocked at this guy and his immensely kind heart. Danny knows something is up though. Something is up with Clark Kent. He looks like all his life would be spent in the gym when he isn’t at work and yet Danny can’t find a thing on Clarks interest in working out. His baggy clothes somewhat cover up his muscles but his frame is far too wide to be hidden. Clarks heartbeat is slightly faster than the average persons. No human eyes could be that startlingly sky blue. And Danny knows that he has seen Clarks face somewhere but he cant put a pin on it.

The Fenton kids agree and they get brought to metropolis and the emancipation case is no problem with the evidence Clark managed to collect. The kids get the apartment next to Clarks and Clark helps them grow and get better mentally and situationally. Clark knows that in a way he’s trying to make up for his neglect on Connor but he still knows that helping these kids is the right decision.

After a month or so, Clark and the Fenton kids have a rhythm of meeting at each others apartments, getting doted over to make sure that the fentons are well fed and have everything they need and are getting settled into their new life.

Clark hasn’t told the league. Oracle keeps her promise to keep the Fentons out of Batman and the Justice League’s radar. Clark knows that he will have to tell them soon eventually. He knows that things like this wont last. He tries his best to keep these kids happy and support them how an actual caring parent should act.

A few months into the Fentons stay in Metropolis on a cool autumn afternoon, Danny is sitting on a beanbag chair reading a ratty old book that Clark lent him as Clark is typing away on his computer writing up an article for the Daily Planet when Danny looks over to Clark and says,

“I’m Phantom.”

Clark pauses typing and shoots a small smile towards danny, “I know.”

Danny nods in relieved acceptance as Clark straightens up from his hunced over position on his computer.

He pulls back his shirt collar slightly to show the blue suit and red cape. “I’m Superman.”

Danny looks at him and smiles, “I know.”

They both just sit and continue reading and writing with soft smiles on their faces. Comforted at the exchange and that it’s finally out there and eachother knew.

After a while Danny’s obsession gets to be too much. He tells Clark about it and that he has to find a way to sate his obsession of protecting and Clark accepts that it was only a matter of time and invites him to meet the League.

When Superman brings Danny to the Watchtower, saying that the rest of his fellow superheroes were shocked would be an understatement. The Man of Steel and this ghost kid are talking like a father and son.

To say that Batman was pissed that he wasn’t informed of this child is also an understatement. But there is also some amusement and respect under that frustration. Superman managed to keep this kid under wraps and didn’t even alert Batman. Superman smirking and saying under his breath to him “Looks like the World's Greatest Detective isn’t so great huh?” Makes Batman respect the man even more.

In the Watchtower, Danny meets up with Teen Titans/The Team/Whatever They’re Called Now, and meets Conner. Conner is understandably pissed and spiteful that Danny got to have Superman as a father figure.

Conner knows that Superman treating Danny this way is definitely a way of him trying to make up for the faults and breaks he had with his parental relationship with Conner. he agrees with himself that he shouldn’t hate Danny for having Superman as a Dad and the two get along like tinder and matches. Connor still has a grudge against Superman don’t get me wrong, just not as much as before.

Sometimes while the League is in battle, Superman likes to just look for Danny and watch him hold his own against world ending threats. Danny is now truly confident and it’s no longer a facade. He’s no longer hunching into himself to look smaller. He laughs more often now and seems to be genuinely happy. Superman fondly looks at his son as his kids eyes flicker with green fire as he says a shitty ice pun and freezes Metallo in his tracks with ghostly ice.

[spoookydoesart]

Please let me have this. The concept of Jervis is so good even though his comics aren’t…great…..and writing a Wonderland-loving weirdo as a Wonderland-loving weirdo just sounds fun. So, I guess you’d call this my…

• JERVIS TETCH Headcannons / Interpretation •

• ——— •

Jervis Tetch- or, the Mad Hatter- was a once respected neurologist turned criminal. Unassuming at face value, he creates chaos through his backwards intelligence and hypnotism, molding Gotham to fit his vision of ‘home’.

• ——— •

Jervis was a neurologist, studying the subconscious. He was lonely, with few friends as a result of his social anxiety and awkwardness, but otherwise lived an average life.

This loneliness would bubble up into desperation, driving him to begin his criminal career before he would dawn his alter ego- the result of an unreciprocated crush on his coworker. He’d inconspicuously use hypnotism to make strangers steal gifts to impress her with, the small scale and lack of traceability leaving Jervis guiltless. But eventually his crush would catch on, refusing his gifts and eventually demanding he never talk to her again. In a panic, he would hypnotize a group of bystanders into stealing a large sum of money, which accidentally lead Batman straight to him. Batman would find Tetch begging for the woman to willingly leave Gotham with him, promising anything she wants with the stolen money.

His intelligence and fondness for mind control would land Tetch in Arkham Asylum, which was more than a shock to him. Of course he knew he was risking jail time, but Arkham?? He didn’t think anything he was doing was THAT bad! But now, he was sitting next door to some of the Gotham’s worst villains, amongst their ranks! He could never live a normal life again…. He didn’t want linger on those thoughts, escaping through one of the few distractions he had at his disposal- a copy of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. He reread and escaped from the reality of the Asylum so often that it soon became his most important influence and, in addition to acclimating to his criminal status, resulted in the creation of his alter ego- the Mad Hatter.

• ——— •

Jervis is deceptively non-villainous- pleasant, soft-spoken, and chipper. He enjoys “helping” others, and has moments of ditziness and anxiousness. If you had met him on the street unknowingly, you’d likely think he was just a well meaning eccentric with his head a little too far in the clouds. He does, however, have an awful temper, and is also quick to shift blame away from himself.

Many say he isn’t ignorant to this perception, with debates whether or not he knowingly plays up his personality to manipulate others. Generally, the people who know his history don’t typically respect him, but also don’t put down their guard around him. After all, there is no arguing his use of hypnotism and mind control, and the wacky schemes that are difficult to crack because of the nonsense logic that only he finds sense in.

The Mad Hatter has two main goals:

Make Gotham into a Wonderland. Causing general chaos, really. What he means by this isn’t clear (perhaps intentionally) as his schemes can be inconsistent. However, it’s usually with two underlying themes- regaining control, and not being alone.

To kill Batman. Ooooh he wants him dead. Jervis blames Batman for the loss of his old life, and sees this more that anything as a service to the people of Gotham, protecting the “innocent” from having their lives ruined as well.

• — — — •

(Character Concepts / Sketches)

[cinnamonest]

Okay so for some reason, the last post I just made posted very strangely and cut off a bunch of my sentences? Anyway, reposting with screenshot:

Oh no you're absolutely correct lol I am self-aware of it, kinda like when I made this post a long time ago Fun fact: abnormally high sex drives are one of the qualifiers for obtaining a vision! Celestia just looks at a person like "oh you're like HORNY horny, here's a vision". But anyhow, what this tells me is there is a need for analysis. We are doing this. I want to say they're all on like the 7-10 range with a few outliers. Kinda like the severity scale but for horniness. There's also a matter of like how perverted/horny one is versus the amount of times a day they actually have sex... of course for fully human boys, usually they can only have so many orgasms (average is like 4 for an adult male) before they're shooting blanks, but that doesn't apply to non-humans. Either way, even the boys that only fuck like once or twice a day are still more horny than the average person (the average for an adult is about twice a week), so they earn their ranks.

Here is my objectively correct mathematically calculated and scientifically tested conclusion:

7: Chongyun*, Zhongli 8: Diluc, Bennett, Ayato 9: Xingqiu, Thoma, Scaramouche 10: Venti, Kaeya, Childe, Albedo, Kazuha 11: Gorou, Razor, Xiao* 

----------- Xingqiu, Bennett, and Chongyun all have that horny teenage boy energy going on, but the thing is Chongyun has very specifically and intentionally trained to deal with it in the sense of the normal "sporadic thoughts" type of drive. He can calm any such "urges" and can sort of keep the horny at bay. The asterisk is there, though, because he can easily jump up the scale to a 10 when under the influence of mania, particularly for any extended period of time. The unfortunate thing is that said mania is easily triggered by like... anything. Like, he can control the default sex drive and intrusive thoughts, but gods forbid you hold his hand or something or he cannot be held responsible for the following actions. Overall: if he can control himself, he can wait until nighttime and do it once or twice before falling asleep, but would go more if you let him or if he's extra horny. Very good at keeping it out of his thoughts.

---- Zhongli probably fits into this tier (but like... still literally an 7/10) solely because similar to Chongyun he has learned over time to have really good self-control so he can focus on necessary tasks, to the point that if he has something that must be done, his mind will concentrate on that matter. But it's also due to having a sexuality that's what you might call "progressive sexuality", in which arousal sort of builds slowly under certain stimuli. This is actually a very good thing because unlike with some people you won't just get cock shoved inside you at a moment's notice, it's nice and slow and there's a good buildup to everything you do. ...Also note that this applies pretty much only to him now. Morax of back-in-the-day was... another story, probably more in line with Xiao later on down the list. Overall: often once or twice a day, but very long, drawn out sessions themselves. Perfectly capable of separating his thoughts and saves sexuality for when it's appropriate and he's not too busy, but can appreciate little "distractions". But all of this can quickly be overwritten if you make him too hot. ---- Amongst the small boy squad™, Bennett is in between Chongyun and Xingqiu. He just doesn't quite match Xingqiu's drive, but he lacks Chongyun's self control. Unlike both of those two, though, he can actually manage to do romantic things and enjoy them for what they are without immediately wanting to turn it into a sex thing, and to be honest, a lot of his thoughts are more romantic and wholesome, it's actually really cute. He's also much better at controlling himself specifically around you, for the time being... although he's still going to jerk off a lot when he gets home, he'll still actually wait until then, he can keep himself from doing anything to you. If you've reached a point where you're comfortable with him, though, he still likes doing a lot of wholesome things and romantic things and fun things, but they end up leading to sex at the end of the day. Overall: very good at self-control, thoughts tend to be wholesome but can get sexual. Maybe once or twice a day depending on how your day goes. ---- Diluc is still relatively high drive, but it's very dependent on his emotional state. He needs to be in the ideal emotional state, because he's a lot more sensitive than he lets on and if he gets in a mood where you said or did something to make him all hurty and upset, he won't be able to be horny or anything... you have to usually wait for him to get over it on his own, as attempts to offer sex as a means of making him happy will be met with suspicion. Similarly, his other moods can impact his drive as well -- if he's under a lot of stress or mad about something unrelated to you, it's actually a lot higher, because he's conditioned himself to use orgasms as a method of stress relief, and ever since he got you, you have become his equivalent of a stress squeeze ball. However, under normal circumstances, he's sort of like Zhongli in that it's a buildup/progressive, but progresses much faster. Overall: 2-3 times a day, but with a LOT of buildup/the sessions themselves are very long leading up to the actual sex. ---- Ayato I feel like has basically been forced to learn to hyperfocus on the task at hand, similar to Chongyun. So he gets hyperfocused on certain matters that need to be dealt with, and gets so absorbed in that that he can't really think of anything else or focus on other needs while resolving some major problem (it's not the only need he neglects too, sometimes you have to remind him to eat and sleep because he's so involved with something). He's not so much the type to take breaks to get out the stress like some and prefers to push straight through without stopping, but this actually has an amusing result because that just means it bottles up without him realizing it. It's as if his body has a "pause" button, but when you unpause the entire video starts playing at 3x speed to catch up for the time paused. When he's done with the task, all those pent-up hormones tend to come out all at once. So essentially, his drive varies from day to day -- you'll get a few days of next to nothing, and then immediately followed by a few days getting so stuffed with cum you feel like a water balloon. Overall: some days literally 0, followed by like 4-5 in a single day and repeat. ---- Thoma kinda is in an unfortunate position because his drive is higher than, but has a similar attitude to Bennett/Chongyun where he wants so badly to be a good respectful boy... it's not his fault his darling has fleshy parts that look very grabbable... what other reason would you even have them to begin with, if not to be used as handlebars?? But no, no, he keeps telling himself to be good and respectful... so he tries to take his mind off of it. Through frequently jerking off at night, he manages to make it so that he's too spent in that regard to get horny throughout the day, and thus keep the libido down. ...That being said, while it keeps intrusive thoughts at bay, it doesn't help with his body's natural reactions to visual stimuli. But he's still able to think about other things and keep it down. Overall: 2-3 times a day, if you've accepted him, a good of thoughts and easily stimulated, but he pushes the thoughts away and clears his mind quite a bit. ---- Scaramouche is a bit of an interesting case because it's a lot higher than it comes off. If you went on his outward behavior alone, you'd think he's more around like. A 3 or 4 or so. A lot of it has to do with his general discomfort and embarrassment on the subject and need to get comfortable with you with time. So he never really shows it outwardly, but yes, it is on his mind a lot more often than he lets on, and he also jerks off a lot more than most people would think, although he holds himself back a lot, which makes him more frustrated. But around you, he feels too vulnerable and pathetic if he made it obviously clear he desperately wants to fuck you, so he tends to just pass it off as if he's bored or just wanting to harm you. Interestingly, one of the few ways to actually see his drive in full, unmasked force is a darling that, be it by mindbreak or just something about your nature, actually loves the bastard and just allows him to be the way he is without complaint, and is openly affectionate no matter what. In which case, he gets more used to it, and both the transparency of wanting it without having to come up with an excuse and the frequency will greatly increase. Overall: drawn-out sessions, lots of intrusive thoughts, maybe 2 times a day for normal darling and 4-5 times for a loving affectionate darling. ---- Xingqiu is basically just unrestrained. He was definitely allowed to get away with a lot in formative years and while he was taught restraint and self-control in literally every other aspect of life, this is the one area where he wasn't. Nor, you know, respect for the autonomy of others... sigh. Especially not if you're already basically his or in an arranged marriage sort of deal, in which case he has no reason to show restraint. As aforementioned, he's got your typical horny teen boy jacked up on hormones thing going on, leading to him just having sporadic cravings at random throughout the day. Also note that unlike Diluc, you can make his mood do a complete 180 if he's upset by being like "hey you want your dick sucked :)" to which he will immediately forgive most things and go back to being very happy because his hormones are just kinda like "so uh you done being sad yet bc--" Overall: 3 times a day-ish, whether or not there's a lot of buildup varies. Sometimes there's a lot of building up tension and heat, and sometimes it's very sudden. ---- The 10 tier are all just horny bastards. Venti is probably the worst offender here as far as openness. Venti can and will whip his dick out without the slightest hint of shame at a moment's notice and that is a threat. Like if you call his name in a way he can interpret as remotely suggestive to come into the room where you are, he will be naked and fully hard in the 3.7 seconds it takes to walk to you. But it's also more just perpetual perversion too - the whole thing where he just sort of take every opportunity to get "hugs" that just so happen to stuff his face into some tiddy, upskirt you, grope and generally be a little voyeur perv -- although he's very open about it and doesn't really try to hide it. So basically it's not always necessarily a drive to actually physically have sex then and there, just that he thinks about it very frequently, even when he's not actively trying to get inside you. Overall: very horny, lots of thoughts, but likes to draw stuff out. Maybe only 2 or three times a day, but near-constant perversions you're subjected to.

---- Kaeya is... the way that he is. He's certainly never going to say no. He's a "sex is the answer not the question" type of guy. The only real difference between him and Childe below is he manages to not let the horny seep into his public persona... not too much at least. He's still a fairly flirtatious person, but it doesn't come off as being like, overtly sexual unless it's to a darling. He still has an air of dignity and preservation of his self-image and doesn't want to come off as immature or anything, especially in a workplace setting. That being said, it's still in his head a lot, lots of intrusive little thoughts throughout the day, and when it is you he's dealing with, he gets a lot more aggressive and sexual in the way he interacts. More suggestive, and more importantly, more touchy. His thoughts sort of bounce back and forth -- he can focus on work and other things, but can also get completely "distracted" within a single instant. In private is when it all really comes pouring out, in which case, it's just like Venti and Childe where it's not like he's 24/7 trying to get inside you, but he's certainly trying to do something vaguely sexual most of the time and will certainly grope and rub his way into fucking you multiple times, repeating that cycle over and over, and will do literally anything to obtain it. 

Overall: focused but can easily be distracted by stimuli, your existence sort of serves as stimuli. Intrusive thoughts are frequent but not too bad, but made worse with stimuli. 4 times a day if he has a day off, but if he's super tired from work can only fit in like 2-3.

---- But then there is Childe. I want to say he's basically horny at all times except fighting, but to be honest I'm pretty certain violence actually makes him rock hard so not even the art of battle is sacred. Unlike Kaeya he doesn't even have the sense of dignity/appropriateness or maturity thing going on, he has the maturity of a 14-year-old boy sometimes and will make constant vulgar innuendos and jokes. Often at your expense/about you. Often in settings where he very much should not be saying those things. Sigh. He's sort of like Venti in the sense that he's not going to be literally trying to have sex every waking second or anything, but will more or less have it constantly on his mind and his actions reflect that that is the way he is inclined to think. He's stressed? Let him just stuff his face in your chest. He's sad? Flash him please. Just one, one second of tiddy is all he needs to see and if not he's going to die of deprivation. Unlike Kaeya/Venti, his thoughts are pretty much always there in some capacity, on the back burner of his mind so to speak, whereas those two are very frequent but not so near-constant as him. His horny nature tends to bleed out into hearing him talk about anything else. Also, he seems to never run out of energy for it somehow. Overall: perpetual intrusive thoughts, maybe 5 times a day, never too tired to fit in as much as he can, sessions are of average length/low buildup because he gets impatient. ---- Kazuha is similar to Scaramouche (and Albedo below) in that it almost seems contradictory. He's so soft-spoken and sweet that you wouldn't really realize how frequently he's got fantasies going on in his head (or the degree of their depravity). Kazuha is actually our #1 winner in the "fully human" division of boys, the above him are all non-human in some capacity. One unique thing is that in his formative years, he had a lot of time to himself out in the open in solitude, and he got to a point where fantasizing literally became a way to just pass the time when he had nothing else to do but stare at his feet as he walked. So he has learned to have a lot of thoughts without needing to immediately deal with said thoughts, but because he has conditioned himself to it, at even just a few minutes of boredom or the slightest lack of anything to do, his brain sort of automatically switches into fantasizing mode, even if the situation is something normal and inappropriate/public like waiting in line at a street vendor, stuck in a boring conversation with someone, or when he's trying to fall asleep at night. With you, he retains the same level of thoughts, but his actual drive to act on them goes up a lot, he's slightly got a reactive sexuality, and he's very touchy. He's actually like a normal guy in the sense that he will start getting dry orgasms around 3-4 times, but he just... keeps fucking you anyway because somehow he's still horny. Overall: 5 times a day or so, constant intrusive thoughts. ---- Similarly, Albedo is actually very high, you just won't know it. Not until you have no choice but to learn that fact, at least. He's one of those boys that can just sit there with a completely straight face and speak in a monotone voice while absolute unspeakable filth is going on inside his brain. And he does -- he's slightly hypersexual, has a lot of intrusive thoughts more or less all throughout the day that just pop into his head at random, which is how he's learned to keep a straight face and calm demeanor all the while and continue to do work while he fantasizes (unlike Kaeya/Ayato, he's basically mastered the art of somehow managing to do both at once so there's no need to focus). A lot of times in your early days together before he takes you away, he does the thing where he's zoned out and will sort of "...sorry, what?" and you chuckle because haha, he's so absent-minded sometimes... like, yes, his mind was on other things, namely picturing what you would look like with his hands around your throat. However, his sessions aren't drawn out nor have buildup, it's very sporadic and short. Oh, and fun fact, he was very specifically designed to be able to cum more times a day than a normal human. So for the average adult male, they can go about 5 times on average before having dry orgasms, but for him it's more around 8. Overall: 6-7 times a day on average, constant thoughts. ---- Notably the 3 in the 11 tier are all there because of their animal ties/biology and physiology. Gorou's is a given, obvious. Breed. It's a biological imperative. It's a need. And hey, have some understanding and empathy for him! Knots can feel so painful when they swell up and have no hole to put them in :( You will provide him with much-needed relief. He's actually less perverted/has less frequent intrusive thoughts than the five boys on the 10 tier, but he earns his place on this tier solely because of how many times a day he can go. He's actually very focused on his work and missions, but if he gets distracted, he gets really distracted, to the point of being unable to control himself. Which is a big factor at play here: his brain simply has very low self-control if he gets too into the heat of feelings and urges. He just wasn't thinking. You try to take some preventative measures of wearing more covering clothing and the like, but it seems to be to no avail. He has his limits, but you usually find yourself begging for no more today before he hits that limit. Normally, he gets horny in intervals as he trains -- an intense training or sparring session can get him a little too excited and he has to run back to his quarters to get that excitement out or else the rather prominent bulge will become noticeable. Which sounds reasonable, except it happens like... a lot, far more than a human could manage, and is ready to go several more rounds once he finally is off duty for the day. Overall: around 10-11 times a day, not so much intrusive thoughts so much as extremely sensitive to stimuli. ---- Xiao has the asterisk because it's sort of a complicated thing. See, prior to your presence, he actually had a virtually non-existent drive. Once a day or every other day or so, he would get that weird pressure feeling, go up to a mountaintop somewhere far away from anything else, and just use his hand to get rid of the problem... it actually irritated him, he saw it as a waste of time to have these stupid urges. His brain sort of shifts when you come along. It's like turning on a light switch. Before, his body had no reason to be horny, no holes to breed, poor thing... now, his brain has registered that he has a mate. Now there is a reason, and his brain tells his body to kick it into full gear. Which is unfortunate for you, due to his lack of any refractory, as well as a lack of an orgasm limit -- again, not only regarding how guys essentially run out of cum and start having dry orgasms, but you know how if you keep having orgasms several times in one day, each one tends to get a bit harder to achieve? Or how after a while if you keep having orgasms over and over, you stop really feeling as horny? He doesn't experience that. There is simply no limit. And more importantly, as always, he has a hard time understanding that you are different from him and literally, physically cannot take it. Truly a menace. Overall: ∞ times a day, you have to be the one to forcibly tell him no more, and you will because if you do not he will continue to (unknowingly) test both the physical limits of your pussy and your sanity. ---- And then there's Razor. Razor is a biological anomaly. Razor's sheer iron-strength unstoppable force of a libido can and will baffle Teyvat's finest scientists. Because there's nothing in Razor's biology that should make him the way that he is. At the end of the day, raised by wolves or not, biologically he's still just... some guy. A human. Science cannot explain how this boy can nut so many times in one day and still be producing cum. He beats out Xiao solely on the fact that he doesn't need a darling to possess the drive, nor does darling intensify/increase his drive -- it's already pretty much at maximum capacity and literally cannot go higher, but now he just has something other than his hand (and the poor small hydro slimes he has... experimented with... they're basically a DIY make-your-own fleshlight waiting to be used, can't blame him) to channel that drive into. If you could look into his mind at any given time that he's just staring into space doing nothing (which he does rather frequently), and project his thoughts somehow, it's like... 50% a static tv screen and 50% thoughts about breeding darling. His brain is determined to breed by all means possible and produces the sheer willpower necessary to nut in darling as many times as physically possible. Your life will never know peace. Overall: there's... probably a limit there somewhere? But you'll likely never find it. Head empty, only darling.

--

So, to summarize, if we're going from lowest to highest: Chongyun < Zhongli < Bennett < Diluc < Ayato < Thoma < Scaramouche < Xingqiu < Kaeya < Venti < Childe < Kazuha < Albedo < Gorou < Xiao < Razor This has been an educational PSA.

[robininthelabyrinth]

Imagine if Meng Shi begged and bargained and collected favors till she was able to send her A-Yao to education with the Lan Sect, perhaps even become a cultivator with them. Would he take that change? Would he become a rogue cultivator? Would the strict rules help curb his inner muderimpuls or enrage him or teach him to hide better?

A Good Fit - ao3

“The…Lan sect?” Meng Yao said doubtfully. “Are you sure?”

“I am sure,” his mother said, her mouth tight. She looked upset, the way she always did these days when he referenced, intentionally or otherwise, the original plan that she had had to send him to join his father, sect leader of Lanling Jin. She’d raised Meng Yao on a steady diet of stories of what his life would be like when his father finally took him back the way he’d promised her he would, stories that had filled his days and nights for years and years and years, and then just last year she’d suddenly stopped talking about it entirely. It was as if the person who’d told those stories had nothing to do with her.

Meng Yao didn’t know what had happened, but he assumed it must have been pretty bad.

“It'll be a good fit,” she added.

“Then I’ll go to the Lan sect,” he said, and pretended not see the way his mother relaxed a little, relieved that he wasn’t asking too many questions. “I’ve heard they are gentlemen there, righteous but gentle; it will be the best match for my personality, I’m sure.”

A lie, of course. ‘Gentlemen’ were just as likely to come to the brothel as brutes, and they were all the same once they had a cup of wine and a beauty in their arms – Meng Yao tried not to have any illusions.

“Can we afford it?” he asked instead, since that was something he was sure his mother would have thought of, would have expected him to ask. “Gusu is so far away…”

“I have obtained a letter from the local sect recommending you to their sect leader, Lan Qiren,” she said. “He’s the one that teaches the classes – the one that sent out the summons asking the subsidiary sects to look for individuals with raw talent to join his classes and offering them an extra seat for their sects for each nameless orphan they find that lives up to Lan sect standards. Only the Heavens know why he’s doing something like that…I assume they’re trying to expand.”

That seemed like the most reasonable explanation. Meng Yao nodded. “So I’ll be traveling with the local sect?”

“That’s right,” his mother said, and raised her chin a little. “At least this much, your mother was able to do for you.”

She’d begged and bargained and traded favors for it, then, Meng Yao thought, and yet taking him along was to their own benefit: if they were looking for inherited cultivation talent sufficient for the Lan sect, then the bastard son of another Great Sect leader would be a better bet than some random nobody. She’d probably humiliated herself for nothing.

“Will you come with me?” he asked, more concerned with that – it was too easy for women of ill repute to disappear into the depths of the city if they didn’t have someone to watch out for them.

Even someone as young as he was. He wished he was older.

“You can come back to visit me during the Spring Festival,” she said, which meant no. “I’ll be all right, A-Yao.”

Meng Yao wasn’t so sure.

Still, not having him around would at least remove a visible reminder of his mother’s age – she’d been kicked out of the better brothels because of him, because no one wanted a woman who was a mother. Leaving would at least do that for her.

“I’ll write,” he finally said. “I’ll write as often as they let me.”

“And I’ll write back,” she promised him, kissing his cheek. “I promise.”

With that, Meng Yao supposed he had to be satisfied.

-

The Lan sect was both exactly like what Meng Yao expected and absolutely nothing at all like anything he could have dreamt.

For the first, his cynicism was almost immediately confirmed: the boys raised there were snobby as anything, looking down at the rest of them as little better than barbarians, and many of the adults were the same way. It was clear that this whole business of recruiting talented nobodies was a project of the sect leader’s – the interim sect leader, no less, not even the real thing – and nobody else’s; they were only just barely going along with it. Adding to that the fact that there were dozens if not hundreds of rules, and Meng Yao could glumly foresee a future of having his lack of knowledge held over his head as a fault, even with his marvelous memory to act as his backing.

For the second…

Well, there was Lan Xichen, who was – as unbelievable as it seemed – to actually embody all those things that people said about gentlemen, all kindness and gentleness and fierce upright pride, except only for real. There was Lan Wangji, who was basically perfect in every way and kinder than he gave the impression he was, willing to help tutor anyone who asked if only they dared disturb his solitude long enough to do so. There was the boy Meng Yao shared a room with, Su She, who’d punched the boy from the Yunping cultivator clan in the mouth for calling Meng Yao a son of a whore and pretended it was because they weren’t allowed to talk about that sort of thing, when actually it’d been because he hadn’t wanted rumors to get around that might make Meng Yao’s life harder in the future.

There was Lan Qiren, who was strict and a little boring but fair, painfully fair, handing out punishments with an equitable hand no matter that it meant that he was punishing the locals as often if not more often. It’d been his idea to bring people like Meng Yao into the Lan sect, and defending the idea was the only time he truly seemed moved to passion. Now that they’d passed the initial examination and been judged to match Lan sect standards, Lan Qiren announced, as far as he was concerned, they were Lan sect just as if they were born there, as if they’d been children of his own.

And he even seemed to really believe it, too.

Today, Meng Yao’s head was still warm from when the stern Teacher Lan had put his hand there, gentle and approving, and his ears still burning from the murmured “Well done, Meng Yao, as expected.”

“I think I would kill someone for him,” Meng Yao said dreamily to Su She, who snorted.

“You’ve got such father issues,” he said disdainfully, as if he didn’t have entire family issues. That was just Su She’s way, though – he bitched and moaned and complained without end, and he’d probably kill someone for Meng Yao if Meng Yao so much as hinted it was something he’d want. They’d made friends for a reason. “You know the bit about the poor kids being his own children is a lie, right?”

“I know which sect’s leader is my father, thanks,” Meng Yao said, rolling his eyes. “I’m well aware it’s not Teacher Lan. Like he’d ever have kids of his own, anyway.”

“That’d require noticing when someone’s flirting with him,” Su She agreed, all solemn for just a moment, and then he dissolved into sniggering giggles. Meng Yao couldn’t blame him: it was, in fact, extremely funny when women (and sometimes men) tried to flirt with Teacher Lan, mostly because of the way that he very genuinely and completely missed that that was what was happening each and every time.

“Laugh all you like,” Meng Yao said peaceably. “You’d kill for him, too.”

“Probably,” Su She agreed. “But only because of you.”

That was fair enough. After getting the lay of the land, Meng Yao had arranged for them to ‘accidentally’ be overheard by Teacher Lan while talking about the misconduct of one of the teachers who was the most biased against guest disciples, one of the ones that had been harassing Su She in particular for over a year before Meng Yao had arrived, and despite Su She’s initial nervousness about the plan, it had all gone splendidly. Sure, they’d been punished to do five copies of a treatise on upright conduct because they’d breached Talking behind the backs of others is prohibited, but the teacher in question had been sentenced to two hundred strikes with the discipline rod for abusing his position and three months of enforced seclusion to contemplate his misbehavior, and then, Teacher Lan had said, his expression dark and threatening, they could discuss what role would be the best fit in the future.

The other teachers had taken notice and shaped up very quickly, after that.

Comparatively, those five copies made in the nice cool Library Pavilion instead of having to do chores on the hottest days of summer? Practically a pat on the back for bringing it to his attention.

Su She would never have dared to raise anything if it was just him, Meng Yao thought; he had a strange fear of authority figures that combined envy and misery in an explosive combination – he would have just suffered and suffered and suffered until he’d been pushed too far and then it would have all burst out at once. He wasn’t like Meng Yao, who was unwilling to keep to his “proper” place and was more than willing to use his greater-than-average share of brains to get what he wanted, no matter what rules he broke in the process. He was the sort of person who was willing to do whatever it took to obtain his desires – no matter what it took.

Well, maybe not no matter what. He wouldn’t want to disappoint Lan Qiren too much.

(Okay, so maybe Su She was right and he had some unresolved father issues. So what if he did? Whose business was it but his?)

-

It’d taken Meng Yao a while to fully adjust to the Cloud Recesses.

Some parts he’d figured out right away – the way they all flattered themselves as gentlemen even if they were actually little more than hypocrites (Teacher Lan and his personally taught nephews exempted, of course), which of course meant that Meng Yao’s ability to act pitiful at the drop of a hat and cleverly turn black into white made him a teacher’s pet at once. The vegetarian meals were easy enough to adapt to, given that his mother hadn’t had the money for meat all that often, and the training and cultivation and all that wasn’t any challenge for his excellent powers of retention – he had ambitions of becoming one of Teacher Lan’s aides one day, and worked assiduously towards that goal. Even waking and sleeping early, which was practically the opposite of his schedule at home, was something he could adjust to, given time and incentive.

It was his mentality that took some time to adjust.

Meng Yao had perhaps grown up with too many of his mother’s stories, painting an image of a matchless paradise – at the start, he looked at everything around him, serene and elegant but not quite as rich and shining and thought that it would do, for now. When he’d first arrived, he had had every intention of making a good reputation for himself and using that reputation to get his real father’s attention – he’d liked Teacher Lan from the beginning, despite his best attempts to not let his heart be swayed, but he’d reasoned that if a teacher was like this, then a blood-related father would be even better.

And so, for the first half-year, he’d treated his time at the Cloud Recesses…not lightly, no. He was extremely serious about making sure to get the maximum benefit he could. And yet, at the same time, he still was not really committing himself to the place.

This wasn’t where he was going to live his whole life, he reasoned; it was just a stepping stone to a better future. That meant he would exert himself to point out things that made him look good, to eliminate obstacles in his path, to win himself allies, but not bother with those longer-term problems, the ones that really ought to be fixed but which would take a great deal of effort with little reward other than annoying people.

His feeling of superiority and emotional distance lasted right up until the first discussion conference.

From a distance, Jin Guangshan was everything Meng Yao could have imagined – perhaps a little too similar to the clients that his mother often saw, a little dissolute to pull off the air of a refined scholar he affected, but wearing more gold than Meng Yao had ever seen in his life, with a retinue of servants that dwarfed the other sect’s. Each of those servants were dressed more finely than even main clan cultivators in some of the smaller sects, and though Meng Yao’s Lan sect guest disciple clothing was of such quality that he didn’t need to fear their disdain, he couldn’t help but be secretly impressed.

He'd exerted himself more than usual to trade away all of his chores and duties, freeing himself up to take on patrol duty near the Jin sect. He’d perhaps daydreamed about some sort of encounter – nothing active on his part, of course, but he couldn’t quite resist playing through some fantasy of catching someone’s eye by chance, getting called over, a “You have a familiar set to your chin, who’s your father?”, a shy halting admission, recognition, a joyous reunion…

Instead, his father spent the entire night getting drunk and cursing the Lan sect’s hospitality for not providing him with girls to go with his liquor, calling Lan Qiren a miserable prude with a stick up his ass right in front of the Lan sect disciples that clenched their fists in barely concealed rage. He’d seen Meng Yao all right, ordered him to come forward, but it’d only been to mock him in front of all of his servants – and not even for being his bastard son, no, that would involve bothering to pick him out from the crowd or to ask who he was. No, he’d mocked him simply for being one of the poor disciples that Lan Qiren had taken in, all because his accent was marked with the distinct tones of Yunping rather than the sweetness of Gusu.

“Tell me, boy,” he said, breathing fumes into Meng Yao’s face and making him feel suddenly as if he’d never left the brothel – that the Cloud Recesses had all been a vague dream, and now he’d woken up and lost it all. “How does that old fart Qiren expect you to pay him back for all he’s done for you? I heard the Lan sect includes a pretty face as one of its standard requirements…”

Meng Yao put his gaze above his father’s head and pretended to be deaf.

“It seems like rather a lot of effort,” one of his father’s attendants remarked. “Even if Second Master Lan wanted a boy to warm his bed, couldn’t he just buy one like any normal person?”

“Bah, boys,” his father said, and leaned back, waving his hands in dismissal. “Why would anyone bother with a boy when you could have a soft woman instead? Just as long as they’re stupid enough – you know, there’s nothing worse than a woman who’s talented and knows it, too smart, always trying to get above their station…”

“You’re thinking about that whore in Yunping again, aren’t you? The one that interrupted your dinner and made a scene, claiming you’d promised to take in the son she bore you?” the attendant said, laughing. “I told you, you should’ve just killed her for her impudence rather than just having her beaten and thrown out. That way the matter wouldn’t still be bothering you…”

“Go away, boy,” another servant said to Meng Yao, who was frozen stiff in belated terror, nausea churning in his stomach as he realized his mother could’ve gone out one day and never come back, and he would never have known why – or maybe it was that he’d been spending his considerable time and brain on pleasing someone who would have done that, who nearly had done that. “Your accent’s brought back bad memories, don’t you see?”

Meng Yao left.

No, to be more blunt: he fled. He ran away, hot tears filling his eyes until he couldn’t see – belly full of regret and disappointment, crushed dreams feeling like broken shards of glass in his mouth and throat.

He tried to tell himself that it was better to find out now, when they were still distant, before he'd sold his soul for the futile chance to get that horrible man's affection, but he couldn't quite throw off the shame of knowing that if he hadn't heard such a thing up front, he probably would have done that. Would have humiliated himself like that, and for what? A man who regretted not murdering his mother?

He ran right into Lan Wangji, who was also on patrol.

Lan Wangji took one look at him and grabbed his wrist, dragging him away from the main pathway and all the way to his uncle’s rooms.

Lan Qiren was still awake despite the late hour, writing something at his desk, but he set aside his brush at once. “What’s going on?” he asked, frowning. “Wangji – Meng Yao – one of you report.”

“Meng Yao was on patrol by the Jin sect,” Lan Wangji explained as Meng Yao furiously tried to dash away his tears using his sleeve.

“Who permitted that? First year disciples aren’t permitted to patrol during discussion conferences,” Lan Qiren asked, his frown deepening. “It wouldn’t be proper – ah, but no, I recall now. I suppose it was inevitable. Wangji, well done, and thank you. You are dismissed.”

After Lan Wangji left, he turned his eyes on Meng Yao.

“You volunteered, didn’t you?” he asked.

Meng Yao felt his back go cold: Lan Qiren knew, then. It had never been said out loud by anyone as far as he knew, and yet it was clear that Lan Qiren knew who his father was – and probably his mother, too.

He knew that Meng Yao was – that he wasn’t anything more than –

“You are one of my most promising disciples, Meng Yao,” Lan Qiren told him, and poured him a cup of tea from his own pot, pressing it into his hands. It was finer tea than Meng Yao had ever had in his life, full of smoke and flavor. “The rules say Be loyal and filial, but they also praise reciprocity. You have not been recognized, and have not received your forefathers’ grace. You can fulfill your obligations to chivalry through your respect for the parent that raised you.”

Meng Yao stared down at the teacup. Lan Qiren had completely misunderstood the nature of Meng Yao’s concern – he was disappointed in what his father was, not worried about not living up to his obligations of being a filial child. And yet it was a little nice to hear that as far as Lan Qiren was concerned, the rules said that he could tell his father go hang for all he cared…

And that he ought to honor his mother, which was something no one who knew her had ever said to him.

“Even if she –” His voice stuttered. “Even if she’s a…”

He couldn’t say the word.

“Appreciate the good people is not qualified by class or profession,” Lan Qiren said, and his monotone voice was blissfully without emotion, as if this were just another lesson in class, and not the deepest hurt of Meng Yao’s life. “I have never met your mother, Meng Yao, but you are a good child – diligent, organized, sincere, with good judgment, and you clearly adore her. That tells me everything I need to know.”

Meng Yao burst into tears.

-

Meng Yao liked Lan Xichen a lot, but he also had to admit that sometimes, the older boy was, well…

“Dumb as a pile of rocks,” Su She announced.

“Do not criticize other people,” Meng Yao said piously, but then chuckled, shaking his head. “Say, rather, that he’s naïve and sheltered, and overly inclined to believe the best in people.”

“Like I said: dumb as rocks. How many times is going to get himself swindled into being someone’s sword or shield before he figures out that the problem is him?”

“Some people don’t have the capacity to understand the depths of humanity’s foulness –”

“Yeah, dumb ones.”

“Su She, please.” Su She held up his hands in surrendered. “At any rate, if Lan-gongzi is going to keep falling for people’s tricks, it’s beholden on us to help protect him.”

“You just don’t want Teacher Lan to be sad about something serious happening to his nephew,” Su She said knowingly, but he was already nodding. “All right, what are we going to do about it? He outranks us. We can’t exactly tell him to his face that he’s being…”

He paused.

Dumb as rocks went unsaid, but then, it didn’t need to be said out loud for the meaning to be clear.

Meng Yao sighed.

“You can only trick someone so many times,” he said. “If we want to keep him from getting tricked by other people, then we have to trick him first. And better.”

“What do you mean?”

“Lan-gongzi likes to save people,” Meng Yao explained. “He really sees himself as a chivalrous gentleman – he puts chivalry first, even though Teacher Lan says Learning comes first. That’s why he always sides with whoever he perceives to be the underdog in a given situation, no matter how wrong that impression is. That’s how most of the people who’ve been tricking him have gone for it: playing the victim, appealing to his sense of righteousness, pulling the curtains over his eyes to obscure what’s actually happening.”

“Okay. So?”

“So, we’ve both got miserable backstories – you being taken from your family at a young age and then bullied, me with my mother and, even worse, father. If we get him on our side, early on, he’ll side with us over anyone else – that way we can keep him from getting roped into other people’s private grudges.”

Su She frowned. “That seems a little manipulative.”

“It’s for his own good, and that’s what’s important,” Meng Yao said, and smiled faintly. “Wouldn’t you agree, Lan-er-gongzi?”

Su She jumped, turning around just in time to see Lan Wangji, who had been standing in the shadow of a nearby tree, step out.

He had a serious expression, as always, but a thoughtful one.

Meng Yao waited patiently.

“You cannot take advantage,” Lan Wangji finally said, and Meng Yao knew he’d won the most important ally in the battle to save Lan Xichen from himself. “That would change it from a virtuous act to a selfish one.”

“Like we need anything from him,” Su She said haughtily. “Maintain your own discipline.”

“Arrogance is forbidden.”

“It’s not arrogance if it’s justified! It’s just self-confidence!”

“Do not argue with family,” Meng Yao quoted, and was pleased to see both of them drop it at once. “Listen, we all share the same goal, and we have to start somewhere, don’t we? We’re stronger together than apart. Together, we can do anything, even protect Lan-gongzi.”

That and more, he thought as the other boys nodded, following his lead. Lan Xichen is just the start.

-

“The Wen sect will make trouble sooner rather than later,” Meng Yao said thoughtfully, one day. His friends turned to look at him. “Yes, I’m serious.”

Lan Wangji nodded, serious as always, but Su She scoffed.

“You can’t even convince that Wei Wuxian boy to leave poor Lan-er-gongzi alone,” he said snidely. “How exactly are you expecting to bring down the Wen sect?”

“I don’t convince Wei Wuxian to leave Lan-er-gongzi alone because Lan-er-gongzi doesn’t want to be left alone,” Meng Yao said. “Obviously. Isn’t that right?”

“You should call me by name,” Lan Wangji said, which wasn’t answering the question and definitely wasn’t denying anything. “You were saying, about the Wen sect?”

Meng Yao smiled.

-

“What brings one of Teacher Lan’s most promising disciples to the Unclean Realm?” Nie Mingjue said, peering at him thoughtfully. “You’re at the wrong time to be one of the usual messengers.”

Meng Yao smiled at him.

“I think you’ll find that we have similar goals, Sect Leader Nie,” he said. “When it comes to making sure that certain people in our lives don’t get hurt by the bad decisions of others, I mean. In your case, it’s your younger brother, who’s a friend of mine –”

Friend, source of information, it was all about the same thing in the end. Meng Yao didn’t have real friends outside the Lan sect, but he’d been very careful to cultivate good relationships with all his most important peers.

“- and for me, well. A teacher for day, a father for a lifetime. I’m sure Sect Leader Nie can understand the importance of protecting one’s father – right?”

“You don’t need to use any sophistry on me,” Nie Mingjue said, rolling his eyes. “If you have an idea on what we can do to stop the Wen sect before they go and burn someone’s house down, I’m all ears.”

By chance, Meng Yao did.

It was a good plan, too, daring and brave in equal measure. If it worked the way he hoped it would, he’d win enough fame to get Jin Guangshan to beg for him to join the Jin sect – not that he would, of course.

Meng Yao knew what he wanted, and he knew how he was going to get it, too.

-

“This is a lovely house, A-Yao,” Meng Shi said, running her hand along one of the soft tapestries on the wall. “Truly lovely. Whoever you rented it from has good taste.”

Meng Yao bowed. “Thank you for the compliment, Mother. I put a lot of thought into it.”

“You own it?” she asked, surprised. “But don’t you live up the mountain, with the sect?”

“I do. This is for you.”

“For – me? A-Yao! This is too much – how much must it have cost–”

“I saved the Lan sect’s core texts from being destroyed,” Meng Yao said. “I’m an inner sect disciple now – I could ask for a dozen houses like this, and they’d grant them to me without blinking twice. Teacher Lan would insist on it.”

“Teacher Lan,” his mother murmured. “That’s the one you’ve taken to treating as your own father, isn’t it? You’ve spoken so much of him, in your letters…”

“There’s no need to scheme,” he told her. “He wouldn’t notice your flirtations, anyway.”

His mother arched her eyebrows at him.

“He’s really oblivious.”

“Still…”

“Really no need,” Meng Yao said, and couldn’t help but smile at the memory of Lan Qiren pulling him into a hug when he realized that the books – and Lan Xichen – were all safe from the Wen sect’s attempt to burn down the Cloud Recesses, and, later, again, that Wen Ruohan was dead. He may have deliberately schemed for that second hug, and he might or might not have plans for more. “He already takes me as a son.”

His mother relaxed.

“Good,” she said, and smiled herself. “So, A-Yao, was I right, all those years ago? Was the Lan sect a good fit for you?”

“Yes, Mother,” Meng Yao said. “Yes, it was.”

[zirkkun]

just before.

just before. (Undertale fanfic - based off of Wickedtale by @alch3mic​ - rated M by AO3 standards.)

+ soldier!sans x dancer!reader (they/them prns)

+ 4456 words, english

+ prologue to soldier’s story. first time he ever meets dancer.

+ cw: mentions of murder, classism, yandere/obsessive personality, abusive/controlling parents

+ “he hadn't heard that phrase in years. so constantly aware of the corruption plaguing the world... well, as it seemed, there was still one highlight to live to protect.”

+ AO3 link

Ebott City. The corrupted hell hole that was somehow above ground, while the actual hole the "monsters" came from had been far more palatable. At least, in one case. Many didn't have the same experience he did, but… whatever. That didn't really matter. He didn't really care about it anymore. Why dwell on the past? There's too much shit going on in the present to even have time for something like that.

Day-to-day life was flooded: constantly moving, constantly working, never slowing, never stopping. There's no time for that. The day he gets time to take off and sleep, get whatever medication he's sure he needs for his horrifically weak non-stomach, and lead a healthy and safe lifestyle while retaining his wealth? Ha. In dreams, maybe. This city wasn't kind enough for that. Though, maybe if his ambitions weren't so specific, he wouldn't have fallen into this path of endless work… but it's a little late for that.

His brother had made use of their skills the two of them had attained growing up, and with that opened a dance studio where others of all sorts could come through and learn how to dance. A small corner of peace in this awful world, that little building, where monsters and humans could both dance without feud, where rich and poor could both talk without judgement. Maybe it was ironic, maybe it was fate, or maybe it was straight coincidence that his brother had named the place "Enchanted Dancing." He knew that the name was merely in reference to the magic of their home where everyone had their own sort of dances they practiced, which they all soon found was very different from most other monsters who had battle magic specialties. But even still… heh, ah, it just further proved his point. The only decent place in the world was the Underground, before they ever surfaced.

A beep. 6:00 P.M. Work.

Or, rather, his second line of work.

While he'd abandoned his dance skills long ago, he never really fully disconnected with music as a whole. It's not like he really could when he doesn't have anything else to his life or history -- he doesn't know anything else. So, he made it a pastime to make his own musical works, trying to sell them online for money, but quickly found it's not exactly easy for people to find your work… let alone get them to pay for it when they do. He had run low on money fast -- so fast that he needed something quick and easy that he could do to not end up on the curb in a weeks' time.

He doesn't remember how he heard about it, or really what possessed him to go along with it anyway; but somewhere along the line, he'd caught word of some pretentious wealthy human furiously rattling off how their reputation would be "demolished" if the rumor that had begun about their business didn't come to a halt. How they would pay "insane amounts of money" to have that rumor "eradicated." You know, without really doing any work themself, or trying to better the work that they were doing, or fixing the root of their problem to begin with… Yes, because throwing money at the problem until it's pushed onto someone else is the better solution.

And yet… when someone comes up to you in your hour of despair, presenting to you an arguably invisible layer of protection in this world of work or die, something to get you out of the dark and stop the ticking clock of your otherwise inevitable doom…

It's not like he was going to turn down the offer.

He'd forged some sort of alias -- whatever it was at the time no longer mattered, since he'd had many over the half year or so he's been doing this -- and scribbled out a note of sorts explaining what was, at the time, a feigned, short "resume" for work as an information broker. The note was left with the pretentious prick, who did, in fact, end up contacting him in the end, offering more money than he thought he'd ever see in his waking life. Needless to say, he took the job… and found the issue to be so incredibly simple to resolve that even a child could have done it.

Well, no.

A child would have had more sense of morality.

... probably.

Who was he kidding here, honestly? He complains about the rich on a regular basis, their foolish waste of money, their apathy towards those that didn't have any money, just pure care for only money.

But here he was.

Morality erased.

Lives ruined.

Bank account overflowing.

Doing the same things they were doing.

The very least he could do -- and the very least he does do -- is support those whose music he'd wanted to support while he was on the edge of homelessness. Even some of his online friends, music composition friends, were consistently met with the cash they needed in a moment's notice. "Where did you even get this kind of money?" they would ask him. He would just jokingly say that an old witch blessed him with unending wealth, or something else to that extent of unbelievable ridiculousness.

But, unfortunately, not all of his money could go towards such good causes. While he did have far beyond the money to sustain multiple dozen families, at least a third of it was thrown right back into the exchange as he paid person after person for job after job he was unwilling to do.

There was no blood on his hands. No dust caked into his bones.

But it was splattered all over the money he handed out like trick-or-treat candy.

He'd met two others, notably, that did a lot of work alongside him. A crafty cat and a wily wolf… figuratively, of course. The three of them sharing the same first name, they merely tossed nicknames at each other. More often than he probably realized, they took much of his budget for work he was far too lazy to bother with. You know, scouring the dark web for information, stalking people to track their pathing… the occasional hit here and there. Sometimes, he would do it himself, but only if he really felt up to it… and frankly, he was never in the mood for murder. But that damn wolf was shockingly willing -- for the right paycheck.

He did recognize, however, the two of them did seem to have a mutual similarity that he, personally, did not share.

… he did not have anyone close to him. He didn't have anyone who looked after him, cared for him. It didn't bother him until recently, when apparently that damn wolf managed to lock the object of his affection into a relationship. Even the cat seemed bitter when he heard the news. Someone so fucked as him still manages to find someone?

… the world was just trying with his emotions at this point. Taunting happiness at the end of a pole taped to the back of his head, leaving it just out of reach, but always in his way and always in his line of sight.

Of course, he had his brother…

... who he doesn't talk to for weeks at a time…

... and he keeps turning down his offers to meet up again…

… yes, he had his brother. A strong emphasis on the "had."

He was alone. He knew that. But, at least for the case of his brother, he'd done it on purpose.

The last thing he wants is to have his brother, someone so passionate and pure, hands still clearly clean of sin; find out he has the richest humans of the city wrapped around his fingers out of both fear and dependability.

So, frankly, sometimes he found himself jealous of the other two. The other two who had someone to care for them.

He supposed the trio of them could sort of be friends…

He'd met the wolf a few times in person, both intentionally and not.

He'd bumped into the cat, wasted in a bar, more than once.

… No, they really weren't his friends. Co-workers is the best way he could probably describe them.

Yes, he was just jealous of them.

He was alone.

…

… Well, work isn't going to start itself. He pulled his phone back up to his face, clicking it on to see how long he'd zoned out for. 6:03 P.M. Not too terrible. He slammed shut his laptop, pushing back from his chair as he went to put on the outfit that had practically become his "uniform" at this point. A dark under layer of tight leggings and a fitted long-sleeve athletic tee with a zip-up turtleneck; a desaturated over layer of a baggy, now sleeveless hoodie and equally as baggy gym shorts. And, of course, a hat, as usual… but he wore those no matter the time of day.

His apartment door clicked shut behind him as he left, and once the door was locked, he evaporated into thin air.

-- only to appear, moments later, in front of one of the most lavish mansions in the richest part of Ebott City. It was so bleeding with "I'm such a rich, extra asshole" energy that it made his Soul twist with disgust. The walls were marble, shimmering from small lights below them to show off their sparkling, smooth surface. Each edge of the building was lined with gold-plated metal, even the rails to the stairway. Arching windows stood on either side of the front door, which was probably big enough for an average sized elephant to fit into with some extra ear room to boot.

Thank the stars he didn't have to go inside again. He already knew what his job was for the night, and to be back inside that disgustingly overdone building these pretentious humans called "home"... Just thinking about it made him feel beyond insulted.

He took another shortcut -- this time, finding himself on the rooftop. Although the sun had not yet fully set, even so, it was still much darker here than standing in front of the artificially-lit trophy they called a front entrance. He popped open his phone again. 6:05 P.M.

Unlocking it completely, he pulled up a message from the cat he'd gotten this morning.

morning soldier~ i managed to get done what you needed me to for today last night. which, you owe me BIG-TIME for, mister.

i was up until 4 am doing this!!

Soldier checked the timestamp. Yesterday, 11:34 P.M. Does that cat think he's an idiot? Whatever, it's not like this was the important part of the message. But, if anything, he's getting docked pay for really bad lying. It's not like the guy needs more alcohol money, anyway.

here's a list compiled of all the parties in ebott tonight. i only looked for ones starting after 6 pm like you asked, but there was still far too many… the list is very long (Ｔ▽Ｔ)

[file download link]

i hope you're happy!!! cause im not looking any more than that!!!!! ☆⌒(> _ <)

He downloaded the file to his phone, browsing through it to see what parties had been collected into the spreadsheet. He only could assume that's what was bringing them out, at the very least.

Oh, yes, his job for the evening. That's integral information, I suppose.

The mansion whose roof he sat upon currently was owned by a human family with the surname King. They had twelve children, all adopted, but were all also kept on very rigorous and strict schedules. The eldest of the children very recently had been caught sneaking out of the house every evening by one of their siblings, and sleeping noticeably late in the morning, their final semester of university was suffering from this all as they refused to finish their thesis. So, naturally as it is for all the rich, they threw their money at the problem hoping that would fix it.

Today's "that" was the skeleton monster sitting on their roof, waiting to see when someone would eventually leave the house.

With a hefty sum of money, upfront payment, as usual; Soldier was told to follow their child for three nights, and to report back after that time with what they had been up to. Seemed easy enough. Of all the jobs he'd gotten, tailing someone for a few days and tracking their every move was probably the easiest he's ever had the misfortune of doing.

He continued to scroll through the list. He had been given absolutely nothing to work with from the Kigngs as to where their kid was headed or when they tended to leave the house, or any information of actual use; so he was going into the job without a clue as to what he was really looking for. It was probably the most difficult aspect of the job -- hence why he outsourced the bulk of it. As for the "where," parties seemed like a reasonable assumption to make for a human college student. That's a rather common stereotype of sorts, college students getting drunk at party after party, is it not? Better than nothing, he supposed. Nothing else really came to mind anyway, but that doesn't mean there wasn't another option. Even still, it's a better start than nothing.

Now he had to just wait for the "when." He had the list in front of him, hoping he could deduce when the human would leave their house… but the more he read it over, the more bored he got. Guess the cat wasted his time. Oh well. That's not Soldier's problem.

Just as he locked his screen shut, planning to come down from the roof and investigate any exits that might be hidden to most of the house, he heard an absurdly loud sound he initially thought was a gunshot, followed by a raspy huff of various curses. Peering over the edge of the rooftop, after shortcutting there silently to avoid making attention towards himself; he noticed there was, in fact, no gunshot, but rather, an awfully messy and junky trap door of sorts, seemingly made of plywood. A human, who he assumed was the one who swore earlier, grabbed a bush that had been sitting next to it, picking it up like it was nothing and placing it over the door. It was in line with several other, similar bushes. The human dusted off their hands before walking, keeping a close eye on the mansion walls to their side.

Well, looks like he's found who he's supposed to tail.

He kept watch over them for as long as his eyes could follow, and then, the moment they left his vision, he shortcutted to where they had been moments ago, though slightly distanced as to be hidden nearby; and simply repeated the process. Soldier knew this part of the city better than the back of his hand, so he knew where he was at all times, as well, making shortcutting silently even easier.

… However, what he didn't understand was where the hell this human was headed. A few times he tried clicking on his phone, scrolling through the list again, but they weren't headed in any direction towards any party. And even when they started heading in the direction of one… they would end up taking a "wrong" turn and dodging it completely.

…

… this was taking a really long time…

It's… almost been an hour by now. Soldier's starting to recognize this area a little less. He knew the map layout, but not all of the details about where they were or what was distinctly different about each street. They were outside of the rich part of town, but not quite in the poorer side that he was used to, either. If he was remembering correctly, this was in the direction of downtown. Unless this human's planning on breaking into some probably-already-crashed college dorm party for the night, they definitely weren't planning to party at all. Okay, well, that throws that plan out the window.

But now he had no idea what to expect. Were they banned from getting help, so they're actively seeking it out? Unlikely. Were they secretly addicted to drugs? Unless it was alcohol, getting away with drug smuggling in downtown was a horrific, nearly impossible idea. Did they have a significant other that their family wouldn't let them see? Well… he had no idea. Thoughts and questions and possibilities kept cycling in and out, but he never lost sight of where they were going.

And, sure enough, the bright downtown lights descended upon them as they started making their way across the long bridge leading to the most eventful point of the city. Due to the sheer length of the bridge, and the fact that Soldier was not as well-versed in the map of the downtown Ebott area… he resorted to traditional stalking, mimicking their every step as casually and nonchalantly as possible, as though to avoid being spotted.

He pulled his phone out of his pocket. One new message.

weeeeell? was my work useful? >:3c

He merely huffed half a laugh before typing out his response.

i didnt use it at all

what?! Σ(･口･) soldier, i went through all that hard work, and you didn't even LOOK at it???

i looked at it

i didnt use it

...you're at least still paying me, right?

no

you are the WORST 凸(｀△´＋）

i'm never doing anything for you again >:(

you dont need the alcohol money anyway

But the cat never responded to that one. Well, Soldier's never been the best at landing most jokes, despite his tendency to make them. Clearly sarcasm wasn't his strong point either. Whatever. He'd pay him later.

He put his phone back in his pocket, putting his attention back to his job as the bridge finally began to end. If the human was suspicious of his following them, they showed no signs of it. Good. Frankly, being silent by stalking someone in this manner isn't his strong suit. He had assumed they would have stayed nearby… not gone to the other side of the city.

The sun had set, but even still, downtown was overwhelmed with artificial lighting, and frankly, it was already giving Soldier a headache and he hadn't even been here for more than 10 minutes. Curse his ridiculously weak and sensitive body.

The human kept walking along, though their pace was beginning to hasten as they flickered their gaze between stepping and a phone screen. Naturally, he also quickened his footing, although unsure as to why. Maybe they were running late for something?

They took a sharp left into a shady alleyway; Soldier shortcut to its entrance, spotting them sprinting down it as fast as they could before eventually climbing up a wooden fence at the end, reaching its peak and jumping over it with ease. Like they'd done this many times before. Soldier, confused, checked the name of the buildings on either side of the alleyway… but neither were significant. One was even an apartment building of sorts, but it looked abandoned at best. Well, might as well continue.

Reaching the end of the alley and pushing himself over the fence with magic to avoid making as much sound as possible, Soldier's feet landed on the concrete of the other side. It was surprisingly… clean. As if someone kept it nice regularly. He went to take a step forward when he heard chattering, and instead, tucked himself behind the smallest edge of the nearby wall, barely peering over its edge to see the rest of the area.

It was like a very small park. Perhaps a courtyard? But it was too barren for that. Well, all except the trees. There were four skinny trunks sprouted from the ground, all of different kinds, and probably no more than two and a half meters tall. Around them was a square-shaped sidewalk of the same concrete he was standing on.

But, at that center of the trees, were two humans, not one. He recognized the one he'd been following up until this point -- vaguely, and mostly just from the color of their clothing -- but the other was new.

"I'm sorry I'm late, I was held up worrying I was going to get caught…" the human he'd followed spoke. "My dad apparently hired someone to follow me for a few days. One of my sisters told me… she apparently ratted me out -- she was forced to -- and now my dad's on a manhunt to find out what I'm doing."

"Yikes," the other person responded. They had a higher pitched voice, but a lower tone of interest. "Sorry to hear about it. You didn't need to come racing here to tell me that, you know. You could have stayed home and texted me to move the lesson."

Lesson?

"No, it's fine. I came because I wanted to. It probably would have been better if I waited… but I was too excited about tonight," the human explained. "It's the first time we're practicing the whole dance routine straight through. I've been practicing on my own some other nights, too."

… dance routine?

The other human let go of a heavy laugh. "You've really been practicing for two weeks straight with no other dance party breaks?"

"I said on some other nights!"

The both of them laughed.

But Soldier was stuck on "dance routine."

A phrase he typically only heard from his brother anymore, and he barely talked to him as is.

A phrase he'd never said himself in… so long.

An act he hasn't tried since they were still trapped Underground…

An act that, even back then, he'd sworn off doing after so many years of it.

It's like he'd been punched directly in the Soul. Possibly even with a knife.

"Well, are you ready to start, then?"

Soldier's attention peered back to the two humans.

"Yup, whenever you are!"

There was a brief period of silence.

Then the music started. He didn't recognize it at first…

But the realization that it was his own piece hit him in the face like a truck. Some sort of shivering heat rushed through his body. … embarrassment? ...maybe? He… wasn't sure.

But even still…

He soon became entranced by their dancing.

Only the human he had been following was dancing the routine. Every step timed perfectly to every beat and measure… so meticulously performed with such dedication. But then, some old part of him started to creep back from where it had been shoved away, as he started judging the technique of their every move. Sure, they had a… beautiful dedication to every step they took… but much of it was wrong. Though, they were not missteps. Everything planned was executed with confident perfection. The moves themselves were wrong. Some of them didn't match the tone of the piece at all, and it was clear that they were self-taught, just based on how they were moving in between each one. He wasn't mad, no… no, rather… he was utterly fascinated.

Soldier stood and watched the whole routine, start to finish. Though, he couldn't help but have a yelp from his own Soul every time they did something his own memory was screeching to be incorrect. It was yelping because… he wanted to correct them. He wanted to walk up to them, tell them what was wrong with their choices, and point them in the right direction. He wanted to… take them by the hand, directing their movements through his, teaching them how to dance the way he was taught. He… couldn't stop staring…

A scream. Soldier shortcut in a panic. He was now on the opposite side of the wooden fence, back in they alleyway.

"What, what is it?" The voice of the second human.

"I… I thought I saw someone." A breathy, horrified tone from the dancer. "I thought someone was watching me but… th-then I blinked and… they were gone."

The second human huffed angrily. "You haven't been getting proper sleep lately, have you? Maybe you should go home and rest."

Still breathing heavily, the dancer hummed a sound of malcontent. "I… Can I finish the routine first?"

"Really, now…" But with a sigh, the second human allowed them to start again from the beginning.

Meanwhile, Soldier…

He was doing his best not to scream on his own. So many emotions overwhelmed him entirely. Most of which he could not identify. But one thing would not stop looping in his mind. One thing other than a raging beat echoing in his skull from the sound of his own Soul racing, that was. In fact, that only heightened.

The thought of taking their hand. Teaching them to dance.

The overwhelming feeling of hearing someone else not just listening to his work… but expanding upon it. Being able to express themself through it. Being able to see themself through him.

The raging passion burning deep inside of him, regretting his forgone dancing career. It ate at his Soul, bit by bit. Begging his laziness to cave for them and them alone.

The fact that all of these thoughts happened in the very same millisecond that he made eye contact with them… he felt unexplainably and weirdly hot.

That eye contact. Their eyes, their face. They were almost as beautiful as the dances they performed… no… perhaps even more so.

Another loud beat echoed in his skull. The song was reaching its end. He knew he needed to start going home before he was caught.

But part of him wanted to be caught.

Part of him wanted to catch them.

… And all of him wanted to see them dancing… just one more time. Once more, that's all he asks.

Just one more time.

Maybe… maybe that will suffice.

Maybe that will drive away the fortissimo thoughts clouding his sense of reality. Maybe he'll be able to go back to…

A thought. A separate one, remembered from earlier this same evening.

"Alone."

He was… alone.

…

Did he really want to go down the same paths as…?

No, not really.

But it seemed his Soul was not giving him much other option. The mere thought of never being able to label himself as lonely… and if it was because of someone as beautiful as them…

Well. He already was a hypocrite, chanting against a society he partook in regularly. What other damage could be done by reaffirming what he already knew?

Besides. His Soul was desperate.

He wanted that dancer for his own.

No… no, this was most certainly a need.

[zsocca55]

this might be a weird question, but do you have any opinions on Hungary's characterization or anything that annoys you about her character/anything you find fitting about her character?

Thank you for the question!

I thought about it and wondered if you meant Hidekaz’s characterization or the fandom characterization, so in the end I collected a few thoughts on both. (I’m a history teacher graduate by the way so I feel like I have more insight than an average person but my opinion is still just an opinion and not something that should be taken too seriously.)

Hidekaz’s characterization of Hungary: I find this approach quite appropriate. The whole story about ‘Hungary thinking she was a boy and then found out she is in fact not’ works surprisingly well with the way our historians describe how Hungary used to be a serious power in Central Europe until the second half of Middle Ages came and she somehow got stuck behind. Simply put, the male countries around her grew stronger as puberty hit, haha.

But from a historian point of view, Hungary is considered a very masculine nation in characteristics, even today. And this is shown in the series too.

Also her emotional, easy to anger and aggressive nature fits Hungarians quite well. One thing is slightly off though: Hungarians are not this happy-go-lucky on a daily basis. In the series she is shown as somewhat an optimist with a bright smile on her face all the time. Meanwhile in reality, even we admit is, we are pessimistic, hard to approach, borderline gloomy, and we complain a lot. You could say an average Hungarian is whiny. Bad habit, and we often call ourselves out for it. We have a harsh tongue and we critique ourselves a lot. (And other nations too if they hurt us in some way. Oh and we hold grudges forever. We don’t forget. We will bring it up. Again and again.)

Hungary’s realtionship with other nations is also an interesting thing in the series. Historically, we have very little to do with Prussia. Germany is an other case, as Hungarians tend to worship germans for some reason (if something is german-made it surely is the best etc.) and we show unique respect towards them when they visit our country.

Poland is a beloved nation, our best friend, as we have often fought for each other and refused to attack the other during world wars. But this isn’t shown in the series at all. I miss this, as Hungarian-Polish interactions happen on a daily basis, especially in the online world. This missed opportunity is the biggest disappointment I find regarding Hungary’s interactions.

Lets not forget Austria too, as he deserves a spot in our history books....yeah, he takes a lot of pages. Here is another little mischaracterization in our relationship: Hungarians and Austrians had a love-hate thing with each other. Austria was controlling, Hungary was rebellious. But in the end, when Austria was in trouble, we would dive headfirst into battle and save him, or just intentionally miss opportunities to backstab him. Hungary wanted her freedom but she also never wanted to quit his Empire. It’s....complicated? We are fascinated with him, though. One could say an average Hungarian envies an average Austrian and wishes they could live there. We also call them “in-laws” for being family. They call us their “favorite neighbours” and sometimes refer to us as family too.

That thing about generally not liking Romanians is true as well. Ugly things happen even nowadays. It’s all because of Transylvania. It’s a touchy topic.

So yeah, all in all, her character and her relationships are more or less on spot.

Fandom characterization of Hungary: The palette is broad, so I try to point out the most prominent trends I’ve noticed.

Aside from the fact that her gender role is all over the place, people like to think in extremes so she is either written as the girliest girl or an overconfident tomboy. In my opinion she is neither. She has embraced her femininity but she also knows her strength and isn’t afraid to show it. No need to overthink that.

As for historical accuracy, I noticed that an average fan usually doesn’t do enough background check when writing her character. It’s not like I say someone’s required to read a whole history book just to get her character right, but at least her correct name (which is one of the sore points for me) and the main national traumas should be kept in mind before writing Hungary. These are the things that had shaped her way of thinking and these are what make her tick. Even today, Hungarians are quick to get offended when their national traumas get ignored or disrespected. These traumas are: Ottomans (Turkey), Habsburgs (Austria), Soviets (Russia) and the worst of all Trianon. So when writing interactions with her and these characters listed, one should thread carefully and do some research.

Otherwise, I find the slightly mischievous, soul of the party characterization of her appealing and on point. Hungarians aren’t all that bad, we know how to get some fun afterall! :D

But again, everything is up to interpretation and there is some place for author’s creativity too! I hope I answered your question! :)

[personuhh]

okay so awhile ago you posted something about Yosuke (crazy, right?) and in the tags I believe you mentioned something about how you don’t like Yosukes parents? Could you elaborate? bc I have not stopped thinking about it since you mentioned it (sorry this is so vague my memory is horrid skjdjfjgj)

OYSUEJGHHBKEJHDSGVDH oh my god okay SO. At first I just got ~vibes~ from him... like, I couldn’t quite pin down what made me think he had abusive parents, because obviously he never says anything to indicate it explicitly, but then I started noticing... small things.

I don’t want to say outright that I think they’re abusive (physically or verbally) and I also don’t think that Yosuke hates them, or necessarily even sees anything wrong with how they treat him, but I do think that their behavior has severely impacted Yosuke and led to a lot of the negative traits he displays.

To me, the most telling example is this conversation where he talks about Teddie being praised by his parents for being “thoughtful” very pointedly in front of him. It seems to be a reoccurring thing where they compare him to other people (primarily Teddie) and make him feel inferior. Yosuke’s a bit of a pushover, and frequently gets taken advantage of monetarily, and in this case he’s caved and lent Teddie a significant chunk of his savings for their trip to Tatsumi Port Island... only for him to spend it on presents to suck up to Yosuke’s parents which makes Yosuke look unthoughtful. Yosuke clearly sees it that way, even if Teddie hadn’t intentionally planned it out from the start as such (he calls Teddie “surprisingly shrewd”).

Yosuke gets told off either because a) he didn’t want to fight back/argue, and instead just took a passive stance instead of telling his parents that he was the one to lend Teddie the money in the first place, and thus didn’t have any left to buy them gifts, or b) his parents think so little of him that they don’t believe him at all. He specifically says he doubts his parents understand, which makes me think that he did try to explain the situation.

There are also several instances of a large Junes event being Yosuke’s responsibility, or at least of him thinking that he has to scramble to make things work, like the Junes concert, where he says he’ll have to move away if it doesn’t pan out; maybe this is his own thinking, but I also wouldn’t be surprised if it was something his dad said to scare him into helping, especially considering he MUST know that Yosuke is friends with Rise, or the time during the summer where he calls Yu and begs him to help out. Yosuke isn’t a manager, but he’s still got all the responsibilities of one, and even tries his best to work out other employees’ problems as well (look at his SL).

The Junes concert in particular really sent up some red flags for me, especially because Yosuke says this.

“Awfully nice for some reason”?

Yosuke’s got terrible self-esteem, there are countless times where he’s shown to be overwhelmed and embarrassed by completely genuine praise from his friends. In one of the drama CDs he mentions that he intentionally doesn’t try his best in school because he doesn’t want to disappoint himself by doing poorly while also knowing that he gave his all. It really makes me think that his parents just have an abysmally low opinion of him, and he’s adopted that same view of himself.

There’s also several scenes where he talks about his parents finding his porn (or Teddie showing it to them) and in his SL he says his mom “read the title out loud to [his] family” which on top of obviously indicating his family is pretty conservative about that kind of thing, also means he’s had to learn to be secretive with them to some extent. In Arena, Yosuke’s mother goes as far as burning the porn Teddie finds. Even if it's meant to be humorous, Yosuke's property is still being destroyed.

Now these next few things are more... abstract and can definitely be argued, but personally I still find them important to point out when discussing the topic.

Yosuke obviously struggles with toxic masculinity, and similarly to Kanji, feels like he needs to be the ideal, strong man that protects the weak, etc. Even without looking at specific dialogue, you can tell that Yosuke’s been raised to think he needs to be a “real” man, that displaying more “feminine” behaviors is a sign of weakness; because that isn’t just subtextual, it’s something he very visibly displays, it’s part of his arc. He can’t mourn and cry, he has to get revenge (because he couldn’t protect Saki at the time and he watched helplessly as she died, it makes it his fault), he says hugs are for girls (a common sentiment, but he had to learn it from somewhere), and any time he slips up and reveals his actual feelings, he has to overcompensate, let everyone know that he’s just your average teenage boy who’s definitely interested in women. Yosuke’s not the most masculine guy, he likes fashion and cares about his appearance (the bar is so low) and I’d bet that if he were given space to explore his interests without any expectations, he might actually find he’s into stuff that goes against what he’s been taught. He admits to liking crossdressing, then walks it back; not because he’s ashamed of it (on the contrary, once he realizes people found him cute, he openly brags about it), but because he thinks he SHOULD be ashamed of it.

It’s why he feels so threatened by Kanji, who completely takes him by surprise when he realizes his outer appearance and interests don’t match up. Now Yosuke’s got to compete with Kanji over who’s the manliest, show that he’s not like Kanji, because Kanji’s already accepted that side of himself, and it totally goes against everything Yosuke’s been taught to think is “normal”.

So then we look at lines like this.

On its own it’s nothing special, but it’s not just the slogan itself, it’s the way that Yosuke specifically says that his dad is still saying it. Combining this with what I mentioned previously about Yosuke’s behavior, and a few other tidbits, like Teddie mentioning that he watches violent war movies with Yosuke’s dad, it definitely makes me think he’s the type of guy who’d try and push Yosuke into being more masculine, being a traditional, unshakable, unemotional man.

Lastly, there’s the recently identified album on Yosuke’s shelf in arena, and what do you know, one of the songs on it (The Chain, by Mr. Big) has these lyrics...

In my mind, I see Yosuke’s mother as an incredibly controlling, strict woman who expects her son to be utterly perfect, and even when he’s good, it’s never good enough. Yosuke’s father is busy with Junes, and while he isn’t around the house too often, Yosuke sees him at work quite a bit, large and in-charge, not allowing anyone to see weakness, he leans on his son because he can’t bring himself to ask for help. Yosuke’s left to pick up the slack, and he’s taught by example that relying on others is cowardly, that being intimidating gets you further than being “nice”. Even though Yosuke obviously goes against this, he can't fully commit for fear of standing out and disappointing his parents, and that makes him passive; he ends up being a pushover, and neither of his parents are happy about that. He’s a “disappointment” to them, it’s one of his defining traits that everyone loves to bring up. It's something that's shown to really get under his skin, but he can never do much more than get angry, because he truly thinks he is a disappointment, he doesn't think highly of himself, even if he protests.

Maybe I’m reading into all of these things a little too much, but... I don’t know, I’ve said it before, but I just don’t see how half of Yosuke’s personality would have been shaped by anything other than his parents being Not Great.

[forcefully-awoken]

Disruption of Nowhere

Chapter One: It Happened One Night

Read on ao3

Masterlist

Summary: You were a mechanic just trying to make it in the resistance, working on the Falcon. A confrontation between you and Rey leads to one of the most thrilling moments of your life. You two fall into each other, and into a relationship that explores the darkest parts of each other. Set during The Rise of Skywalker, though I will be playing fast and loose with canon.

A/N: This was originally posted to my ao3, I’m in the process of moving it over here as well.

Warnings: force choking, horny dreams.

Word Count: 3,019

Pairing: Rey x Reader

This wasn’t the first time you had been called to work on the Falcon, not by any means. But this was the first time you had been called by name for it. It was the first time someone had seen something in you. Now you would be in charge of servicing possibly the most important vessel in the resistance.

At least that’s the mantra you repeated to yourself as you walked down to the Falcon, making sure not to trip over any of the vines criss-crossing on the ground. The jungle was alive around you, the gentle hum of all the machinery blending in with the distant animal noises. It frightened you when you first arrived on Ajan Kloss, the thought that there could be anything out there, but nothing had ever happened. This was your biggest moment to date-- now you would have the chance to prove yourself in your own right, that you were not a leftover from parents who were better and more skilled than you. Now you would be able to prove that you were a skilled mechanic in your own right.

And then someone bumped into you, barely even glancing back to see if you were okay. You huffed, adjusting the supplies you were carrying before moving forward once again. You didn’t want to let anything ruin your day: this moment was yours. That was, however, before you saw the condition that the Falcon was in. It looked like someone had tried to make the Kessel run in it again and failed miserably.

“POE DAMERON!” you shouted, momentarily forgetting all pretense of professionalism, as you knew the so-called daring pilot and incredible pain in your ass had to be around here somewhere. The call had come to you quickly as the Falcon needed immediate repairs. “I know you are around here somewhere!”

“IT WAS FINN’S FAULT!” came Poe’s immediate reply as he quickly came around from the back of the Falcon. He pointed accusingly at the man following him. “He distracted me and I’m only so good, you know!” They both looked about like the Falcon on a good day- just slightly scuffed up.

“I did no such thing!” the former stormtrooper shouted, pointing his own accusatory finger right back at Poe. “I heard you yell at Poe last time!” Both of them were distracted by the approach of Rey and Leia. The approach of the General and the last Jedi forced them to quickly abandon their argument.

You rolled your eyes as you marched forward to the Falcon. You made small notes on your datapad and annoyed noises under your breath as you took in the damage, of which there was a lot. You sighed when you realized that it would take a week to fix everything. Maybe less if you worked through the night, which you were often asked to do. The Falcon was a symbol to the resistance: the ship they toted out the most. It would have to look as good as it could and fly like new.

“Get out of here and let me get started,” you muttered before looking around to see that there was nobody else around now. You wondered what you had missed now, stuck in your own little mechanical world. With a small shrug, you went about the first and easiest round of repairs. Despite these repairs being the easiest, they still kept you working well past dinner. You were only aware of the passage of time when your stomach began to growl. You blinked a couple of times, in an attempt to wet your eyes again. You came to a stopping point and rolled your shoulders, forcing yourself to release the stress that had gathered there.

With your most recent repair finished enough not to explode or ruin anything else, you made your way back through the jungle to the main camp. The one tent that had been designated as a cafeteria was barely even a quarter of the way full of people. You grabbed some food off the table, not caring what you got. You sat down at a table alone like you did most nights, even when the caf was full of people.

It wasn’t necessarily that you wanted to be alone, but people were complicated. Especially now, with everything seeming so dire after everything that happened on Crait. You thought there was a rumor of a spy going around camp, but that side of the resistance was foreign to you. Another reason why you often ended up eating alone--too busy thinking about the next repair to try to carry on a conversation.

“You’re working on the Falcon,” a voice said, jarring you out of your thoughts as you ate. You looked up to see Rey. You knew of her, of course, having been rescued by her along with everyone else, but this was probably the first time Rey had spoken to you. You were struck very suddenly by how close she was to you, and for the first time you truly saw her face up close. There was something about her eyes that sent a pang to your cunt. They were dark, and there was something that looked like anger in them. You couldn’t figure out why she would be angry at you

“I, uh, I am,” you managed to mumble out, swallowing hard to clear away any nerves before you dared to speak again. Rey had her Jedi powers, which was frankly intimidating, but from all accounts she was a decent enough person to not use them on you. “I am working on the Falcon. Why? Was there something you wanted me to do?”

“I want you to not break it,” Rey immediately fired back, a frown on her delicate features. “That’s Han’s ship, you know; you have to be careful with it.” You were taken aback by the hostility in her voice. You two had never spoken before, and you had been making smaller repairs on the Falcon for ages before someone finally noticed you doing more than the average mechanic and called for you. Where did she get off with this superior attitude?

“I’m well aware of whose ship it is! I was in this fight long before you showed up,” you replied, not bothering to watch your tone with her. New Jedi Order be damned. Suddenly you weren’t that hungry anymore, and the food on your plate looked less than appetizing. You stood up, forcing her to back slightly away from you. Rey was taller than you, you realized now, by a few inches. You had to look up at her. Your eyes met, and you could see something in her eyes--curiosity? You imagined almost everyone on the base naturally deferred to her, but you had been here for years with your parents, and quite frankly, you didn’t care about her weird powers.

“I’m going back to my repairs now,” you told her. You were forced to move around her when she stood directly in your way. Your arms brushed for just the briefest of moments, and there was no denying there was a spark this time.You made sure not to wince when Rey jerked herself away from you. You told yourself you didn’t feel her eyes on the back of your head as you walked away, thankful there was nobody else around to see you.

You made your way back to your tent in a haze, trying not to read too much into the interaction. You knew what desire felt like, having had previous partners. But never had you felt anything from someone intentionally trying to antagonize you. Part of you wanted to turn around and go back to apologize. The other part of you wanted to go back to demand an apology from her. You did neither.

It was only when you had gotten back and your roommate commented on it that you realized you still were holding your dinner. You put away your leftovers, in case your appetite returned later. You sat on your bed, scrolling through your datapad and prioritizing the remaining repairs, adjusting the list until you were happy with it. The leftovers would give you an excuse to skip breakfast the next morning and get back to work faster. With a plan decided on in your mind you set the datapad aside to finally sleep. As you tried to settle into bed it seemed impossible to quiet your mind enough to drift off to sleep. Your thoughts compounded upon themselves, and you tossed and turned until you were too exhausted to keep your eyes open a moment longer.

Her lips were soft but insistent upon yours, parting your mouth with ease, pressing her tongue in right after. You moaned into her mouth, eagerly trying to grab at her, only to find your wrists held down by some invisible force. You struggled against it, your naked torso needing any sort of stimulation, but the woman in your dreams only pulled away from you and chuckled, her voice dark.

“You’re a needy little thing, aren’t you?” she asked, the voice sounding so familiar to you, but in your lust you could not place it. Her face was obscured by some sort of mist, and you were only able to focus on her mouth. You nodded, agreeing to whatever she wanted, desperate to get her hands or her mouth back on you. The woman laughed again, and it sounded dangerous.

Without warning, her hands shot between your legs, pressing them apart so she could settle herself between them. She reached up to part your lips, her fingers going immediately to your clit. The sensation of her fingers there shot pleasure through you like lightning. Her touch was not yet quite what you needed, too light to truly send you into an orgasm, and you threw your head back with a loud groan.

“Please,” you begged, looking down into brown eyes as the woman’s face finally swam into focus, “please, Rey..”

You woke up with a jolt, breathing heavily, trying to ignore the lingering tingling between your legs. You couldn’t believe you had had a dream like that about Rey. It had been a while since you had been laid, but to have a wet dream about a stranger was completely outside the norm for you. Your thoughts tended to stray towards previous encounters, or the intense novels you kept hidden on your datapad.

You were too keyed up to go back to sleep, though, and decided to work through some of your dream-induced lust with some more delicate repairs on the Falcon. When working, you were free to drop into a peaceful, thoughtless zone. Your hands would be the thing you had to worry about. Just the parts in your hands, and nothing else. The focus of doing repairs on the Falcon would help you ignore your dream.

You slipped through camp as quietly as possible, not wanting to wake anybody else at this time of the night. You had barely dressed, only tugging on proper pants with your night shirt to give the appearance that you weren’t running naked through the night. You didn’t need to add any gossip that you were having a secret tryst. You wanted to focus on yourself in the wake of everything that had happened.

It was the best time of night. Everybody had finally gone to sleep; even Poe and Leia had ceased their battle planning for some much needed rest. The two were prone to working late hours, with others coming and going as they planned out as much as they could. The camp was as quiet as it could be despite strange creatures making their strange noises all around you in the forest. There was an undercurrent of mechanical whirring, something that usually lulled you to sleep. But now it only reminded you that there was still more work to be done to get the Falcon to rejoin the symphony.

Everything in the Falcon sounded too loud when there was nobody else around. The hiss of the ramp as it went down. The lights as they clicked on. It all sounded like it would wake the whole camp and bring them running. You made your way up the ramp, fingers tracing over the familiar paneling as you made your way towards the cockpit. The Falcon was something you could see--and had seen before--in your dreams. It was beneath your eyelids when you blinked after you had worked on it so often. You weren’t sure when its repairs had become your job, but they had. Today was the first day of many, you were sure, when they would call for you to focus on it until you had fixed everything. You were one step closer to your goal of becoming a lead engineer.

You settled into the pilot’s seat, picking up a couple of frayed wires, as you reached around into the toolbox. You weren’t sure what the hell Poe had gotten into this time, but it must have been bad for the Falcon to have such extensive damage. You didn’t like to think about all the dangerous missions the others went on while you were stuck planetside. You had known Poe nearly your entire life, thanks to your parents. But that had been before everything changed. For a time you had wanted to be out there too, risking your life, but you knew deep down you would be better working on the ships rather than flying them.

Time slipped past you as you worked methodically, checking and double checking your work as you went. You were on the very last of the cockpit repairs when you realized you could hear someone else on board the ship. You figured it was another engineer, someone else who couldn’t sleep and wanted to be useful rather than toss and turn. The footsteps came closer, and you thought about pausing to see who it was, but decided that if they truly needed to talk to you, they would.

“What are you doing?!” Rey demanded, her voice harsh. Before you could reply, you were thrown out of the chair and slammed into the wall beside you. Her lips twisted into a snarl and she threw her arm out in front of her, using the Force to keep you suspended above the ground. You felt pressure around your throat, like her hand was there, squeezing it.

“Who said you could do this?!” Rey asked, though it didn’t seem like she was interested in an answer as she increased the pressure around your throat with a twitch of her fingers. You tried to gasp, fingers flying up to claw at the invisible hand around your throat--your lungs screamed for air. As they burned, your head started to swim. Everything combined to bring you teetering to the edge of pleasure.

She leaned in close to you, her eyes ablaze. Unbidden, your lips fell open, and your tongue darted out. Rey’s eyes immediately traced it as it happened, and they darkened in a different way. She changed the pressure on your throat yet again, and you moaned.

With that, the vice around your throat disappeared and the moment was broken. Rey jerked away from you like she had been burned. You took a long breath, sinking to the floor as she released the Force pressure that had held you in place. You felt a throb between your legs that you ignored as you looked up at Rey with wide eyes. Her face was completely red, a deep blush coming up from her neck. Her eyes were wild in a different way now; there was nothing but fear in them as she stared at her hand in horror.

“I-I-I’m sorry!” Rey burst out, running from the cockpit as soon as she realized you weren’t terribly hurt. You knew there would be a bruise forming tomorrow. You struggled to your feet with blood rushing back up to your head. You wanted to call out after her, but you weren’t sure what you would say. You didn’t think you should apologize for your reaction, but something nagged at you. Maybe it was the look on her face.

You finally made your way out of the Falcon a few moments later, as soon as you were totally sure you would be alone again. You rubbed at your throat lightly, trying to make sense of the reaction to the Force being used on you. You had never experienced anything like it before.

The sex you liked before always had been a bit on the rougher side, but there was something dangerous about adding the Force into the mix. You were forced to totally surrender yourself to something in that moment--you had no control over anything that was happening at all. It thrilled you.

But, besides, even if you had liked it--what about Rey? The look on her face had been horror struck; she seemed afraid of what she had done. You knew nothing about Rey and her previous experience. A new fear crawled into your mind--was Rey afraid of what she had done or was she afraid of the reaction you had given?

Sleep evaded you for the rest of the night, and you tossed and turned in your bed. Your mind raced with the different possibilities. Should you seek Rey out? Would she come to you? Were you to simply ignore everything that had happened? Part of you wondered if you should tell someone else that Rey had so easily lost control of herself. Nothing about this had an easy path out.

You heard your roommate stir when it was time to get up for the day, but you buried yourself in your blanket and waved her away, mumbling some vague excuse about not feeling well. You knew someone would eventually come to check on you, but you hoped to be asleep by then.

After a few more attempts to get comfortable and push the thoughts of your night out of your head, you were finally able to drift off, and thankfully, your dreams were pure nothingness.

[cqlfeels]

sangcheng and songxuexiao for the ask meme please (:

Thanks for playing! Under the cut for length

Sangcheng

(I don't usually go here so that's gonna be interesting lol)

falls asleep on the couch: Is NHS asleep or does he just not want to walk all the way to bed? Who knows, not JC. Joke's on NHS, though, because JC will have an entire crisis over whether he's supposed to leave him there, carry him to bed or just wake him up and now NHS is stuck feigning sleep for 3 hours straight

makes friends with the neighbors: NHS, but he's not nearly as outgoing as people expect him to be. The neighbors adore him tho

is the adventurous eater: NHS, but he's gonna complain for a week if he dislikes what he tries. JC doesn't oppose to trying new things but he knows what he likes and sticks to it

hogs the covers at night: NHS, come on, this one is a no-brainer

forgets to do the dishes: NHS remembers the dishes, does nothing about it all day, and then when JC goes into the kitchen in the evening, NHS loudly proclaims himself an airhead for forgetting to do the dishes - and that's how JC always ends up doing the dishes

tries to surprise their partner more often: NHS. Not because he's an evil mastermind, I just think he'd have fun finding the perfect gifts to give for no reason

leaves dirty laundry on the floor: Neither, but it's more because both of them care too much about their own clothes than to be considerate of each other

stays up til 2 AM reading: Reading? Neither. But good luck dragging NHS away from a painting that isn't going the way he wants

sings in the shower: NHS but it's not obnoxiously loud or anything, and it's not an everyday thing either

takes the selfies: NHS has mastered the effortlessly perfect selfie, but the camera does love JC

plans date night: JC, technically, but NHS is constantly dropping intentionally unsubtle hints of exactly what he has in mind so let's call it a team effort. Having said that, just for the record: if left alone JC could plan a perfectly adequate date, it's just that NHS is likes to be involved

Songxuexiao

falls asleep on the couch: I know the expected answer is XY and I'm not disputing that, but I wanna make a case that XXC can easily sleep anywhere

makes friends with the neighbors: Genuinely makes friends? XXC. Is charming when it suits him but would sell the entire neighborhood for half a stale cupcake? XY. SL isn't friendly but he volunteers to wake up at 6am on a Sunday to help the neighbor he doesn't talk to take down Christmas decorations

is the adventurous eater: Not SL™️. XY thinks everything is a challenge he loses if he backs down from, and XXC is just your average adventurous eater

hogs the covers at night: XY, of course. He's not even cold, he just has that kind of habit and let's not think too much about why or this gets sad really fast

forgets to do the dishes: No one! SL is the most responsible and well-adjusted person you'll ever meet, XXC gives Disney princesses a run for their money in how cheerfully he keeps a house going, and XY is aggressively into living out his domestic dreams. Also important: XXC and SL thank each other for handling chores and XY thinks it's disgusting until he does it on accident and bluescreens for a moment

tries to surprise their partner more often: XXC canonically leaves candy on people's pillows. Come on. He's leaving loving post-it notes on the milk or something.

leaves dirty laundry on the floor: XY but only when he's being passive-aggressive

stays up til 2 AM reading: SL? I feel like SL doesn't need much sleep for some reason

sings in the shower: I can't emphasize how much XY likes to blast music while taking bubblebaths that last two hours. If it bothers XXC and SL, they can just find something more interesting for him to do, XY is sure they can think of something

takes the selfies: You know what? No one

plans date night: SL and XY almost get into a fight over it so XXC has very diplomatically decided that each one of them gets a week and the fourth week of the month is for family and friends 🥰