#I hate how my ref sheet of him looks so I’m not posting that….

[fyzzyfuzz]

Hhhhhhhhhhh fuckiiiiiinnthe bidding animatic is so gooooodddddd

uhh

I didn’t want to draw these mfs much because I’m bad at it but I feel forced to now

*shakes fist* darn you jash and opal (surprscrib to opal or I will commit violent acts/lh)

[ashintheairlikesnow]

imagine: Chris’s survival instincts kick in and he fuckin shoves Nova onto the floor and runs. Nova may or may not get injured from this. Chris then feels guilty about it and doesn’t explain to anyone what really happened because he knows she’ll get in serious trouble for that, possibly removed from the house even

(follows directly on this post)

CW; Noncon touching, noncon kissing, very brief emeto ref, Nova's fucked-up whumper discussed, past noncon reference, conditioned response, trauma response

"It'll help you feel better," She coos against his ear, and Chris's stomach does backflips around inside of him. It feels like his panic knocks against his rib cage like wings beating desperately to escape, but he can't do anything more than pant, mouth open, pulling in air that smells like Nova's shampoo and skin.

"It, it, it d-doesn't-" He can barely force out the words, his tongue nearly as frozen as the tips of his fingers, hands down gripped into his sheets, fabric twisted until the fitted sheet is pulling off one end of the bed. "Please, it's, it's not, please-"

"You don't have to be shy," Nova whispers, kisses his cheek, his jaw, back to his neck. She's already sucked a red mark there, right where a collar used to be, once upon a time.

When Chris swallows, he can feel the leather he hasn't worn in years, tight around his throat. He can very nearly hear the clinking of the metal tag at the front.

Her hand is untucking his compression shirt, baring skin to the air, to the heat of her hand. She's sucking on his neck again, biting down hard with her teeth, a flash of pain and then the heat and wet of her tongue, and he groans, disgusted and shivering.

Her other hand is hard at work, and he hates it, he always hated it, he never wanted hands there. Or anything. His wrists jerk, he wants to push her away or tap or hit or do something, but his body is still, only shifting his hips into the rhythm of her hands on sheer instinct from training that his body hasn't forgotten, no matter how badly he wants to.

"I'll make you feel better," She says. Her voice is so soft and sweet, higher-pitched, entirely unlike Laken's deeper husky almost-growl. There's no maliciousness in her face when she pulls back to meet his eyes, no sparkle of joy at how helpless he is.

There's something else there.

Genuine, open desire.

Is that better? Or worse?

"Nova," He says, voice strangled and barely-there, nearly a whimper, "You h-have to stop to, touch-... stop, stop, touching m-me, I can't, I can't do, I I I I-"

"But you were crying," She replies, rubbing her thumb over him between his legs in a way that makes his legs jerk under her weight, his breath catch in his throat. "Because of your fight. I can fix that. You had a bad day, and I'm here. I'll make it better, Chris."

Something filters into Chris's thoughts, cracks through the ice of his fear.

Don't be shy, sweetheart, I've had a hard day and I want something pretty to fix it.

She tucks her chin just a little, head tilted to the side. Her top teeth press, just a little, into her lower lip.

Tell me how much you want it, darlin'. You know that always cheers me right up.

"I want to do this with you," She whispers.

It breaks the spell.

Chris lets go of the sheets, puts his hands up, and shoves.

Nova falls backwards off of his legs, tries to twist and catch herself, loses her balance and goes off the bed, smacking hard on one side into the rug on the floor. She looks up at him, long hair hanging in her face, nearly covering up one eye.

He stares back at the shock, the lack of comprehension. His heart is pounding in his ears, the unwanted awful warmth in the pit of his stomach is still there demanding attention, release he doesn't want. He looks down at himself, face red with shame, and back up to meet her eyes as they fill with tears.

"I'm trying to help," She says, and he has to force himself not to apologize at how hurt she sounds.

"I-I... I, um, I know you are," He manages, with difficulty. Words are getting harder. There's a noise inside of him, more feeling than sound, buzzing against his fingers and toes, pushing against the inside of his skin. It makes the words he needs to say harder to find. "But, but, but, but this-... this, this doesn't, um, this-... doesn't... it, it, it it it doesn't, doesn't, doesn't... help me."

"Yes, it does." Nova sits slowly up. One of her shoulder straps is falling down her arm. "It's what makes us feel better, because we're-"

"Not," Chris interrupts, putting a hand up to stop her before she can finish. He knows what comes next. He knows.

Don't cry, Handler Petrus whispers in the back of his mind. Not my fault you had second thoughts about this, slut. Should've had them before you signed up to get on your back for me.

"I tried-... I tried to, to say no." He pushes himself further back into the corner where the headboard of his bed meets the wall. Pulls his knees up to his chest, hands up over his face. One thumb rubs over the healing scar on his forehead, the other hand runs back and forth over his hair, feeling the softness of it, soothing himself with the motion.

"That's how you do it," Nova says, sounding puzzled. He doesn't look up at her again. "One person says don't do it, stop, please, and the other person does anyway, and then everything is better after."

"Better for-... who?"

He doesn't really need the answer to the question. He knows.

"You," She says, pulling herself to her feet. He sees her as a blur in the corner of his eyes and he doesn't look. He feels himself rocking, forward and back - tries to still himself - then starts rocking again. "And my Miss. Her friends. Everyone feels better, after."

"Not me. Please, please, please go."

"But-"

"Nova." He looks up at her, tears building, and she looks back, wide-eyed and startled by the expression on his face. "Please. Please."

"You really didn't like it?" She tucks her hair back behind her ear. "But... you didn't?"

He shakes his head, slowly, digs his hands into his own stomach, starts to tap, desperate to soothe the disgust slithering around underneath his skin.

"Was I not doing it right?"

"I don't-... I, I, I don't, um. I don't like... being, being t-touched... there." He can barely force out the words, they're spat out like disgust and not the fear he really feels. "I, I-I don't want y-you to, to, to to to to... touch me. At all."

For a second, he thinks she'll hit him.

Her face goes very pale and then suddenly bright red in the cheeks, and she turns away from him, races from his room, slams the door shut behind herself. He hears the sound of her footsteps down the hall, another door slamming - probably the room she shares with Sarita.

His phone, long-ago forgotten on the bed, vibrates with a text. He looks over, but the words swim and don't come together. He can tell the text is from Laken, but he can't read what it says.

He can't read.

Chris slowly slumps sideways, against the wall, lets his head thump there once.

What now?

-

FIRST | SECOND | THIRD

@burtlederp @finder-of-rings @endless-whump @whumpfigure @astrobly @newandfiguringitout @doveotions @pretty-face-breaker @gonna-feel-that-tomorrow @boxboysandotherwhump @oops-its-whump @cubeswhump @whump-tr0pes @downriver914 @whumptywhumpdump @whumpiary @orchidscript @nonsensical-whump @outofangband @eatyourdamnpears

[fruitcoops]

I know this isn’t a prompt but can you please do Remus or Caps point of view after grayback took Leo down and Remus beat him up. I need to see some protective Loops. Thank you for writing all these!

It’s like one in the morning where I am but I couldn’t help myself and it’s almost 2k words. Cap’s POV will be out later today! I’m so glad you enjoyed this! Credit for Coops/ Sweater Weather goes to @lumosinlove

TW for a panic attack, fistfighting, and ~spicy smut~ at the very end. It’s nothing graphic, but it’s there!

Remus had fucking had it. Cornering him, pulling apart his shoulder, and blackmailing him for four years was one thing. Targeting Leo Knut and wrapping him around his own goal posts for the crime of being better was another.

He saw the hit coming two seconds too late—by the time the collision happened and the stadium erupted, his eyes were set on Greyback and his vision went redder than blood.

He grabbed Greyback—no, Fenrir, he didn’t get the dignity of the name on his jersey—and hauled him off Leo, his right arm already in motion. His ungloved fist collided with the side of Fenrir’s face and he hit the ice hard. Remus went down with him.

One.

Leo in the PT room, shyly showing his rainbow bracelet.

Two.

The feeling of the mats digging into his cheek as pain exploded in his shoulder, too afraid to do anything but silently cry while Fenrir hissed in his ear.

Three.

Leo’s laugh over dinner with the cubs when Logan and Finn each pressed a kiss to his cheek at the same time.

Four.

You don’t get to have that.

Five.

You don’t get to have me.

Six—strong arms wrapping around his chest from behind, a voice shouting in his ear. “Don’t fucking touch my goalie,” Remus snarled deep in his throat, keeping his fingers locked in Fenrir’s jersey.

“Let go, Remus! You have to let him go!”

“If you even breathe on any of them again I swear to God—”

“Remus! Sweetheart, that’s enough!”

Sirius. Remus’ knees came off the ice and he released his hold instinctively as Sirius lifted him off Fenrir and practically dragged him to the boards. He was vaguely aware of spitting more low threats as Fenrir scrambled to his feet and stumbled to his own side, where the refs were waiting.

“—to breathe, Remus, take a deep breath.” Sirius’ voice shook slightly as Remus fought against his grip.

“Get off me, I’m not done with him yet.” He hardly recognized his own tone. He never spoke to Sirius like that.

“Yes, you are. Leo’s going to be fine and Greyback’s going to get kicked out. You need to stop before you do, too.” Sirius was unflinching, speaking in a low murmur that rumbled against Remus’ back through his pads. He sagged, feeling the fight leave him in a slow rush while adrenaline lit him up from the inside.

"Leo—Leo, he was around the goal post—”

“They took him off on a stretcher. The game’s over, we won, he’s going to be okay. He was talking to the medics last I saw.”

Remus felt his knees wobble in relief. Talking was good. Talking meant Leo could breathe and understand what was happening. No brain damage. Likely no breaks. Probable bruising around his ribs and the soft tissue if Remus remembered his textbooks right. “Finn and Logan?”

“Waiting for news.”

“Lupin!” Coach Weasley walked over—when had they entered the bench?—and Remus could hear the fury in his voice. “What the hell were you doing out there?”

“Sorry, Coach,” Remus panted. Sirius released him slowly but kept an arm around his waist and one hand on his chest as he forced himself to make eye contact with the coach. “Wasn’t thinking.”

The rage reddening his freckled cheeks faded into concern and he frowned. Remus wondered what could possibly make the great Arthur Weasley look at him like that. He didn’t remember Fenrir getting any hits in. “Alright, Lupin, why don’t you head back into the locker room for a bit. Black, make sure he’s okay.”

Sirius led him past the team and into the tunnel in a blur of motion, ignoring any and all questions. “I’m okay,” Remus said, weakly pushing at his hands. “Sirius, I’m—”

His legs gave out and he crumpled against the tunnel wall with a choked noise. The adrenaline vanished so fast his head spun and he squeezed his eyes shut; his hands shook too hard to properly grab anything, so he braced them on the wall and prayed he would pass out soon.

“Bad,” was all he managed to say. “Bad, this feels bad, oh my god I hit him.”

“You did.”

“Sirius, I hit him. I’m not scared of him, I’m just so angry.”

“I think you’re a lot of things right now, honey, so just open your eyes.” It took a couple tries, but he finally blinked and Sirius came into focus, kneeling in front of him and holding on to his upper arms. “You’re in the tunnel and it’s just us here.”

“Fuck, there is so much happening right now. I can’t stop shaking.” Remus was coming apart at the seams. He was terrified for Leo and the fact the he couldn’t remember getting to the tunnel. He was burning with rage at Fenrir. He was panicking over the fight and somehow so breathlessly relieved. Fenrir Greyback couldn’t touch him anymore and now he knew the consequences of coming after Remus’ team.

Sirius began slowly rubbing up and down his arms and his skin tingled as feeling returned to his hands. His knuckles stung. “Take your time, you’re okay now.”

“Why do I feel like this?” he gasped, frantically grabbing at Sirius’ elbows for support. Every breath raked his throat.

“That’s a lot of trauma to work through in a very short period of time.”

“It is, it really is,” Remus laughed, leaning his head back against the cold concrete wall. His laughter quickly transformed into huge, hiccupping sobs that tumbled over each other as Sirius gathered him into his arms and made soft noises of comfort. “I hate him and I feel so much better.”

The world faded for a while after that. Remus didn’t know how long they stayed locked together; once, he thought he heard someone else talking, but Sirius’ embrace never faltered for an instant as he let every bottled emotion flood out. They went straight to the car after that, not bothering with the locker room or anyone who might still be lingering, and Remus rested his pounding forehead against the cool glass all the way home.

Doors opened, keys entered locks, a dog licked his hand, and then they were in their bedroom. It was unchanged since that morning, even though the rest of the world had tilted on its axis. Remus’ fingers trembled as he undid clasps and buckles, but Sirius’ were steady, and they were down to their skin in record time.

The heat of the water brought Remus back into himself a bit. It scorched away the sweat that had built up from playing, fighting, and the fear-induced adrenaline that had been keeping him going for hours now. He closed his eyes and let the warmth soak into his bones until a hand smoothed down his back. “Is this okay?”

“Yeah, it’s good.”

“…are you okay?”

Remus paused for a moment as Sirius washed his back and shoulders. “I think so? I feel lighter. I don’t know yet. Did I scare you?”

Sirius laughed a little behind him, clearly surprised. “What?”

“Your voice was shaking when you pulled me away. I was worried.”

“You scared me a little, yeah, mostly because you didn’t seem like you.” Sirius moved on to his neck and Remus sighed at the feeling. “You were fighting me like I was going to hurt you, and then in the tunnel you just kind of dropped. I was expecting something to happen once the adrenaline wore off, but it was really fast.”

“It felt fast. Oh, that’s nice.” Remus leaned into Sirius’ palm as it ran through his hair. This closeness was wonderful, soft and warm against the cold hard ice of the game. He could live in it forever. He turned around and cradled Sirius’ face between his hands, looking into his silver eyes. “Hey.”

“Hey.”

“I love you.”

“I love you, too.”

Remus rested their foreheads together and Sirius’ hands ran down his arms, leaving a trail of honey lavender in their wake. “Are you using my soap?”

“You always complain about mine.”

“It does have an intense smell,” he admitted. It wasn’t his fault Irish Spring smelled like toothpaste on steroids, though. “You make it work.”

“Thanks?”

Remus laughed, then placed a kiss to Sirius’ nose.

One.

Hidden glances across locker rooms and ice rinks and dinner tables.

Two. His left cheekbone.

Pre-game kisses on the bench.

Three. His right cheekbone.

Spine-melting nights in tangled sheets, both gasping at the closeness and the all-consuming love.

Four. His jawline.

Walking hand in hand, Sirius still snickering at a bad pun as Remus swung their arms casually.

Five. His lips.

Long and slow, water coming down around them as the world righted itself. Sirius’ hands on his hips without anything but contact on his mind. Remus’ arms resting lazily over his shoulders, silently thanking him for being there.

“Are you ready to go to bed?”

“I’m not tired yet.”

Sirius smiled against his lips and squeezed his hipbones lightly. “Okay.”

They only bothered with a towel to get the majority of the moisture off their bodies and away from the sheets—Sirius shook his head like a wet dog and Remus laughed as the droplets hit him in the face. His dark hair lifted up at the ends as he guided Remus to the mattress, interlocking their fingers and pressing their hands down above his head before kissing the breath from his lungs.

Remus arched up, pushing their hips together in a slow roll that made Sirius’ abdomen jolt against his own. Sirius released his hands only to wrap a palm around them both and slowly tug; Remus’ head fell back into the pillows and he hitched one leg around Sirius’ waist on reflex. He wound his fingers in those ink-black curls as a hot mouth attached to his pulse point and bit down gently before soothing it with a slow lick down to his collarbone.

He whined as Sirius left a hickey in the hollow of his throat and moved back upward to pepper kisses everywhere but his lips. Sirius’ other hand was a constant pressure around him, pulling and sliding until Remus felt a familiar buzz spread all the way to his toes. “Baby—Sirius—Sirius, please—”

The bed disappeared. The world disappeared. Remus’ hands tightened in Sirius’ hair as he shook apart with a series of short gasps, melting into the heat that surrounded him. Distantly, he knew he was babbling some string of “I love you” and “fuck”, but he couldn’t bring himself to care.

When he came down from the high, he was more exhausted than he had ever been in his life. The fog of terror and fear from earlier had long since dissipated, and the euphoria of being pressed and pulled until he fell to pieces left him sated. He felt more like himself than he had in over a week.

“You with me?” Sirius asked, his lips in the divot of Remus’ shoulder.

He smiled. “Yeah, I am.”

[elecman108]

Man, I forgot to post 90% of my art here for the past while. I’m gonna do an art dump in this post under the cut. Enjoy the bonk emoji if you don’t click the read more, and man am I dumb and forgetful lmao.

Includes: OCs getting names, a Sonic impression, a D&D map, homosexual energies, a sheep floating in the astral sea, a birthday drawing I already posted, Hex Maniac Ender, D&D Characters, D&D Characters as Miis in Miitopia, Little Hater Axel, local Demon in the consciousness of my D&D character yelling at him, illegal plants, a necromancer being cute, an actual event that happened in a D&D game two days ago, and Mermay drawing.

That’s everything in here as a TL;DR, I guess. Enjoy your day!

I’m gonna try and sort of have them in chronological order, oldest first, but I may end up putting them in the wrong order. If I do... Whoops, I guess?

[04/14/21] - This isn’t really new art, but I started to work on giving the four OCs of mine without a full name full names... I have not finished this bit, though. So Hunter and Akira have full names, and Warlock and Assassin only have temporary names. This may end up like Seven where I put in their names as a temporary name (7th OC I’d made at that time) and it just kind of... sticks. Lmao.

[04/20/21] - Alone on a Friday Night? God, you’re pathetic. I didn’t colour this one because it was a half-attempt at a meme image I still like it, though, so I might end up colouring it. It’s gonna appear again whenever I do my “unfinished drawings art dump” at some point probably in... June? I know I said I’d post them last month but forget it, lmao, it’ll happen eventually.

[04/20/21] - A D&D Map! This was to help me visualize the layout of my D&D character’s ship he used to be on. Also for my DM if they ever put us aboard the ship. The little fella in the corner is just there to vibe. This map is made of free to use assets from This Website, so while I’m gonna say DONT USE MY MAP WITHOUT PERMISSION, feel free to make your own!

[04/26/21] - Lesbian Day of Visibility drawing of yours truly, the disapointment! That’s... really all I have to say about this, honestly. It was just for that one day and that was it, lmao. I mean, I accidentally lined it in dark pink, so.. .That’s different, I guess?

[04/30/21] - Do Astral Seas dream of Ensorcled Sheep? Does the City know what Sheepleb is going to do? What crimes he may commit? Who knows! This was fan art of Critical Role ep. 134 if I remember correctly, right at the end when they jumped into the portal into the astral sea and Caleb was a sheep. Using my knowledge of the German language, I knew the word for “shit”, and had to use it.

[05/07/21] - This was already posted, but it’s going in here to dilinuate that it was drawn at this point. Also, aside from playing Miitopia, this is all I have to show for myself until the 12th.

[05/12/21] - Hex Maniac Ender challenges you to a Pokemon Battle! WIll you win against my team? My sis, who loves fairy types, pointed out to me that there’s a fairy girl and hex maniac duo, so I’d be the hex maniac. I spent... Over a week drawing this, because I basically had to redraw the Hex Maniac art from scratch in a higher quality size, and then draw myself over it. So... You can excuse the low-effort background for once. It was basically this, and then my birthday doodle from May 1st to May 12th, and then I took a break to draw up several D&D characters quickly for fullbody references.

[05/12/21] - Remember this art I made several months ago? I finally added my other two completed characters! I have three more named but without character sheet D&D characters, so for now this is just Kara, Axel, Golden Shadow, Kau, Cecillia, and Miri. Kress, Tempest, and Melia will have to wait until I make character sheets for them to be posted, and... For when I probably make more D&D characters. I have at least 9 additional, incomplete character ideas floating around, so... I’m never gonna be done this art, huh?

[05/12/21] - Speaking of D&D characters, did you know I’ve been making them as Miis in Miitopia? So here is their finished full body art next to their Miitopia self! Some of them look a little off (Golden Shadow, Cecillia) because of limitations of the editor and shading issues, some of them look a little off (Kau, Kress) because this is a human face canvas that I’m using to make a non-human face, and some of them (Melia, Axel) look REALLY GOOD. Common traits among my D&D characters include green eyes and tall. You wanna know why? Because I am tall and... despite having red eyes, I do have green eyes under the coloured contacts.

[05/15/21] - More D&D stuff! This is based around my D&D group’s current Rime of the Frostmaiden campaign where our Goliath Fighter, Nioh, ends up getting a little bit of hate for being cocky, and our little (well over 6′) hater, Axel, is just a man full of irritation. These are the tallest two characters of the group at the moment. Someone send help. Nioh belongs to one of the other D&D players, Axel (and his stupid additude) belongs to me.

[05/15/21] - This is what me playing D&D feels like. Me, the demon entity trapped inside the head of my D&D character, yelling at them to do things while the dice decide that they’re gonna get bopped a hundred times by a yeti and somehow still survive. This is also a reference to our first or second game where I just ran off like sixty feet to one side of the battle map to fight a Crag Cat and was just in Gay Baby Jail until like two turns later when I could run back to the others. I also drew him not in his winter gear even though this is a bit from when we were atop Kelvin’s Carin in an icy cave, so maybe that’s why he’s at low HP.

[05/15/21] - Melia has good gardening tips, such as Use A Mars Mii Trap To Hide A Body Because They Are Endangered And It Is Illegal To Dig Them Up. I love her a lot, because she’s the youngest of four, all four sisters based around the different seasons. She’s based around Autumn, so she’s all orange and yellow and brown and is so cute. Also she’s Chaotic Neutral, as if she didn’t need to be mildly more threatening.

[05/15/21] - Cecillia is my Tiefling gal who lived in a very northern town plagued by cold weather and snow, and Axel is my Pirate guy who spent most of his time further south on the high seas and warmer weather. So, naturally... I’ll use the guy more acclimatized to the hotter weather in the campaign where we spend 99% of it in the snow. She uses Tarot Cards as her spell focus, and I decided to sneak my other D&D characters onto her Tarot cards so naturally, Axel is The Hanged Man, given his backstory and personality. She’s a very cheerful and friendly Tiefling Necromancer of the Hexblade, so she’d for sure take care of those around her to ensure their success. Especially if they’re on her Tarot Cards, and their spirit comes to her aid when she asks for them.

[05/16/21] - Content Warning; Ryma thinks too much into local stupid moron’s lack of knowing how to answer a question and thinks too much into the reputation of Pirates. Poor Axel, man doesn’t know how to socialize with people who aren’t pirates and is used to being hostile towards everyone, so when he’s asked a question that his answer to is “uhh... no?”, he panics and ends up making a mistake that leads him to think that Ryma can read his mind. Ryma belongs to another of the D&D players. I guess me drawing all those spicy Cow Costumed OCs earlier just brought me to drawing Axel being a bottom in this, huh?

[05/16/21] - It’s Mermay, which means more OC drawings! Here’s Theo after drinking some potion that turned him into a mermaid, and Seven, tiredly, collecting his stupid boyfriend so that Lailah can fix the fact he’s turned into a mermaid. Mer!Theo is based around his sword’s colours of indigo-purple with red accents, which looks a little weird since Theo is the Blue one of the group, but... it looks cool, I guess. Seven’s just the same outfit as always, just no gloves this time.

--

And that’s it for the art dump! This was, frankly, MASSIVE. I’ll try and remember to upload both on Twitter and Tumblr at the same time, but... Ah... I have been drawing a fair bit. Just mostly sketches and linework that I haven’t finished and may not actually finish. If they’re not completed, I’ll dump them all into something at the end of the month or whatever. Maybe you’ll get the old sketch of the Axel face in panel 3 because in the sketch phase it was an Ahegao face, in the clean sketch it was a lip bite, and in the linework and final it’s just horny face. lmao.

Top ten things I have to remember for drawing: AXEL HAS A SCAR AND GREEN EYES. I remember his eye colour now, but if you look at his fullbody ref, he’s got brown eyes. And, naturally, I keep forgetting to put in his scar. He has more, but most of them are located in areas covered by his clothes. So if I ever draw him shirtless I guess I’ll have to place them somewhere.

Also maybe finish the reference sheets I have left to finish so I can post more of them, since I have two “Pets” completed (Roko and Mona’s nameless pet), but I have to do up Hunter, Warlock, Assassin, Akira, Myuut, and Stella. I’m betting when I do complete two more, it’ll be Hunter and Akira. Those two are the most fun to draw, at least.

[kounkibou]

HC: Nagito’s Parents

After a lot of encouraging from friends and followers, I’m actually going to make this post. It’s something that I’ve alluded to a few times in posts and replies, but I’ve never said outright. I’m aware it’s a “hot take” among people who RP Nagito, and that’s why I’ve been hesitant.

It’s my RP blog, though, so I can do what I want.

So let’s do this. Let’s talk about Nagito’s parents and his relationship with them.

One of the first things I do when I take on a character is think about their upbringing and what sort of things they went through. With Nagito, a lot of it was put out there in his FTEs. He glosses over most of his traumatic experiences, but we can tell that’s just how he deals with stressful situations. He’s been through so many of them that his coping mechanism is to hope for something good afterward, to count on his luck to give him something in return for the misfortune.

I mention this because stating something like watching your parents die horribly in front of you in a matter-of-fact way with a smile just shows how traumatic it was for him.

The hot take in this headcanon is simple. Nagito’s parents loved him, and he loved them. I understand where the opposite comes from as Nagito in the first trial says (Full Disclosure: this is taken from Ultimate Luck and Hope and Despair but he says pretty much the same thing in game.) “I’ve never received a compliment for my appearance before. Not even from my own mother.” I’ve actually noticed that this is really more of a trend in the English-speaking audience as most Japanese artists I’ve seen imply a good relationship with them. I’m not sure if it’s a translation thing because I don’t know enough Japanese to read the text or understand the audio, but it’s something to think about.

My problem with this is it’s such an offhanded comment, and he doesn’t elaborate on it in his FTEs. In fact, from those FTEs, we can infer the opposite. This is something my good friend Nova ( @theultimatemusemess​ ) pointed out to me way back. If Nagito’s parents didn’t love him, why would they take him on a vacation with them? They could afford for someone to look after him while they were gone. If they really didn’t care, they could even just leave him by himself.

I know quite a bit about wills and/or transferring belongings after death, but not much about how it works in other places. However, Nagito received all of their wealth and possessions. We could put this up to inheritance laws designating the child to be the recipient of properties, and Nagito has no other living relatives. However, these two were wealthy. I imagine they either of their own volition or under someone’s advice put a will in place.

Nagito says that his inheritance gave him independence, which is scary considering how young he must have been. He says he was in elementary school. That gives us an age of 6-12. No matter how you swing it, that’s young to be living on your own.

Why does this matter? Nagito was little when his parents died. That’s a large span of age possibilities. Depending on how young he was, he might not remember a lot of his life before. His parents’ death was a big event. Anything before that pales in comparison. Plus, Nagito has lost so many people, he tries to distance himself from everyone. I imagine he tries to belittle his attachment to his parents to protect himself from the grief.

To put it simply, as I said in my tags, Nagito isn’t a reliable narrator in his own story.

That’s all of the canon and albeit limited research I have to offer to excuse my reasoning. Now, let’s get on to the actual headcanon part. I’m going to introduce you guys to Nagito’s parents, who I lovingly put together as I do parents for most of my muses.

All I have as references are doll makers. (This one specifically) In the future, I’m hoping to have actual references for them, but for now, we have this.

Nagito’s Mother

Here’s the ref sheet that I put together for her. It includes a quick rundown of information as well. Note: For both of them, I took colors for skin/hair/etc. from Nagito himself.

As it says on the tin, Miwako is a real estate agent. She’s high up in a particular agency that deals with foreign properties and buyers. As a consequence, she travels quite a bit and speaks several languages. If the agency is experiencing a problem, they ask her to resolve it as she notices details and remembers things that others put in the back of their minds. She’s been known to work herself too hard and fall asleep where she drops. 

On the outside, Miwako is stone faced and looks like she’s locked on and ready to kill. It comes in handy when she’s working, but it hinders her in her social life. She cares about other people and their well-being. It’s just...hard for her to convey that properly. The only people who can easily do that are her husband, son, and close friends.

The only problem is her work doesn’t leave a lot of time for her child, who she loves very much. She carries pictures of Nagito on her person and goes from :| to :D when asked about him. Think of Maes Hughes pulling out tons of pictures of his daughter, and you have a good vision of how Miwako feels about Nagito.

One thing Miwako loves is reading. She funds a local library and donates books once she’s finished with them. Her favorite way to bond with Nagito is to read to him, starting his love of literature. Sometimes, she enlists her husband to do silly voices so they can all spend time together. A few times, she’s accidentally read Nagito bits from her own book (sleepily) before opening a children’s book when she gets in bed. Oops.

It was Miwako’s idea to get a dog. Since both of them worked so much, they wanted their son to have a companion while they were gone. Thus, they got Taiki shortly after Nagito was born. He ended up being keeping track of Nagito, who, as I’ll touch on in another headcanon post, got into trouble and got lost frequently. This stressed both parents out because that’s their baby and he ends up in these terrifying situations too often for comfort.

Miwako is really a nice person. She just finds it hard to communicate with others on a personal level. She loves her family, but she doesn’t have a lot of time for them.

Nagito’s Father

Kozei is an interesting character. His specialty is medical research, something that he got an interest in as he grew older and watched parents, grandparents, etc. decline in health. He wanted to come up with ways to help ease the pain of aging and improve everyone’s quality of life. 

Partially because of his family name and partially because of his own abilities, he rose up in the ranks and ended up at the top. This is something he isn’t always happy about because he hates doing paperwork and going through valid procedures. He also prefers to do things on his own rather than having other people do them for him. Kozei ends up doing actual work more often than his fellow big-wigs would like. He’s dedicated to his work and truly believes in it.

Personality-wise, Kozei is a bit of an airhead. He seems lazy on the surface, not always dressing formally or caring about his appearance. Getting him to brush his hair is an ordeal. He likes to make jokes and keep things lighthearted, one of the ways he was able to break through Miwako’s tough exterior. He’s a little forgetful sometimes, but when it comes down to it, he’ll remember small things like a person’s favorite color or a food they said they liked one time in passing.

Kozei’s work schedule is just as heavy as Miwako’s, but he gets home earlier and doesn’t have to travel as much. Some days when he feels bad about leaving his kid, he takes Nagito with him and sits him at his desk in his own special chair with crayons and paper. Kozei has so many drawings up in his office, and he’s proud of them. His son made those.

He has the more excited personality out of the two. Kozei’s thing is science. Anything science. Chemistry, biology, physics, you name it. He loves scientific advances and will nerd out about them. He’ll lay in bed late at night and talk Miwako’s ear off about something cool that she doesn’t understand. He’ll explain astrophysics to five-year-old Nagito, who just thinks he’s talking funny and laughs.

If you need someone to pick up your spirits, Kozei is your guy. If he believes in something, he believes in it ride or die, and that includes your friendship as well as his medical research.

Kozei and Miwako’s Relationship

How did these two meet? Simply put, Miwako sold Kozei’s father property, and since Kozei’s father was trying to involve him in his affairs as preparation for the future, he was there. They got to know one another, and on the last day they were going to interact, Kozei asked Miwako if she’d like to meet up sometime...possibly over dinner. At first, she had this face like “Are you serious?” but he did this thing where he gestured expectantly at her with this goofy grin that gradually got more nervous as the silence went on. Something about that tickled her funny bone, and she lost it. This nerd was asking her out, and he obviously knew how much of a stretch it was. She had to say yes, you know? He made her laugh.

They actually dated for a few years since their schedules made it hard to meet up a lot. After a few months, Kozei was on board for the long haul, ready to make the big commitment. Miwako was the more cautious one about things, wanting to feel it out before getting too caught up in the romance. He proposed to her after taking her to the same restaurant they went on their first date. (Obvious Spoiler: She said yes.)

They were fairly set financially, and they both wanted to have a child. However, it took quite awhile for pregnancy to happen. Miwako isn’t the best at doing romantic things, so the way she told Kozei was really just...

Miwako: *walks out* Hey, I’m pregnant. Kozei: Oh. Kozei: Wait what?!

As a couple, they have an open, honest relationship. If they have issues, they talk to one another and make sure they’re both on the same page before talking about doing anything big. Kozei tries to make Miwako laugh when she gets stressed. Miwako lets her guard down in front of him because she trusts him, and he’s a sweetheart. If asked, Kozei would tell you that his wife does most of the hard work and is a genius. He’s her biggest fan.

They’re honestly just really supportive of each other and will do anything to make sure the other is happy.

Nagito & His Parents

Like any new parents, they weren’t experts. They did some kind of silly things. Kozei may or may not have forgotten in a sleepy haze to put Baby Nagito in his crib, and the two of them may have had an exchange something like:

Kozei: Where's the baby? Miwako: I gave him to you. Kozei: shIT! NAGITO WHERE ARE YOU? Miwako: HE'S A BABY! HE'S NOT GONNA ANSWER!

The two of them find him later comfortably on a cushion that fell on the floor.

Because they work so much, they had to arrange for someone to care for Nagito while they were away. They had housekeepers and other staff to help who they paid well for their efforts. (They could certainly afford to, and they weren’t stingy with their money.) A lot of Nagito’s time was spent with a caretaker, but when his parents were home, they doted on him. They loved him very much. Nagito thought the world of them. He couldn’t wait for his parents to get home so he could tell them about his day.

They taught him as much as they could, and he learned some of their behaviors. A lot of Nagito’s body language mirrors Miwako’s, and his excitement about things he’s passionate about reflects Kozei’s. They weren’t in his life for long, but he had a close bond with them. They spent time with him and took him fun places when they had days off so they could all bond.

I wanted to compile some of the funny scenarios I’ve thought of, so here’s a one.

Kozei: Your mother works hard. Without her, I'd be some idiot rambling about science and probably homeless. Nagito: But science is cool. Kozei: I KNOW RIGHT?!

Another where Miwako is teaching Nagito what to do in case of an emergency.

Miwako: What would you do if you found me or your father on the floor and we wouldn't wake up? Nagito: Go to the kitchen and eat whatever I want. Kozei: *snorting*

And one last one after Miwako actually cooks dinner.

Miwako: How was it? Nagito: *not impressed* It tasted bad. Kozei: That's very mean. She went through all the trouble to cook for you. Say something nice about it. Nagito: Thanks, Mama, for trying.

These are just examples of the dynamic and how they’re pretty normal parents.

Their Death

I did way too much research about this vacation they went on. I looked at the location, what things people could do there, and what kind of flights needed to be taken. The last time I checked, it took...three different flights to get from Tokyo to San Cristóbal. (I can’t check right now flights right now are sketchy. Future Tiki who survived the pandemic, fact check me.) It’s a lot of flying.

There’s not a definitive answer as to whether this was right after they landed or right before they took off. I like to think it was the latter because I hate happiness. What’s better than a nice, fun vacation that ends with dead parents? (Heavy sarcasm.) I’m going to go with that.

The basics are that the plane was hijacked and a meteorite the size of a fist killed the hijackers and also Nagito’s parents. The truth of the situation is muddied mostly due to the fact that Nagito only provides that much information. He likely blocked out that memory and is going off of what he’s been told. This is just my take on it, but I imagine his information is so, for lack of a better word, flat because he doesn’t want to remember the situation first hand. His explanation is like that of an outsider, not someone who was there in real time. That and he was a child. (For the record, I place him at about 7 or 8.)

My interpretation of events is as follows. The plane was hijacked still on the runway. The passengers are afraid. These two have a young child they want to protect. They were probably fairly close to the hijackers since we don’t have the details of anyone else being hurt in this situation, though I do think it’s possible there were more.

In order to protect their child, maybe they tried to reason with the hijackers. Maybe they wanted to resolve things peacefully so everyone could go home and the hijackers could get a lesser punishment. Either way, both parties were killed, and Nagito became an orphan.

Now this child not even in double digits is in a different country, his parents just died in front of him, there’s strangers all over the place, and there’s a whole investigation likely happening. He’s terrified and alone. These people are talking around him, and a lot of what they’re saying doesn’t make sense. (Whether it’s the language barrier or just because he’s too young to understand doesn’t matter. Maybe it’s both.) Just imagine how scary that would be.

Imagine this tiny child saying he just wants his mom and dad and that he wants to go home. It’s heartbreaking.

How Nagito Copes With It

I’ve said it several times, but I’m going to put it all right here to make sure my thoughts are together.

Nagito tells Hajime that this event gave him his independence. It was one of the first incidents that showed him his “luck cycle” in action. In hindsight, he sees this event as more evidence that yes this is what’s happening. He looks back on it as a positive to protect himself. He was the last person left in his family, all alone. I like to imagine there were still people who worked in and around the home, but as a whole, he was by himself.

Without fully realizing it, as he grew older, Nagito ended up dealing with this grief by burying the happier memories. He built up this narrative that his parents were indifferent to him in order to avoid mourning them. The reason he doesn’t talk about them, what he says about his mother, how nonchalant he is when he mentions what happened? It’s his way of keeping himself safe. If he thinks of them as people who didn’t have an attachment to him, he won’t miss them. He won’t feel sad.

To put it simply, Nagito fabricated a narrative where his loving parents weren’t as loving in order to keep from feeling the pain of losing them and not having them there as he grew up.

There you have it. That’s the long, in-depth post about Nagito’s parents! If you read through the whole thing, thanks! I’m still nervous about posting it, so hit me up if you have any opinions or ideas or if you want me to talk more about things!

[traincat]

I think I Kno the answer but I like the way you explain things so; would you ever write superfamily?

This is the sort of stone cold ‘no’ where it’s literally one of the only things I say I will not write on signup sheets. You’d have to pay me to write it. Substantially. If there’s one Marvel fandom-specific trope I hate above all others, it’s this one. I ‘flames on the side of my face’ gif loathe it. And because you played to my ego here, anonymous, I’ll explain why it bothers me so much. (Joking aside, I do genuinely appreciate that people want to hear my thoughts on things! Thank you! I’m sorry for how seethingly bitter I’m about to be, but anon, I suspect you knew what you’d be getting when you asked this!)

Frothing hatred, a discussion about the integrity of the character of Peter Parker, and The Importance of May Parker – all beneath your friendly neighborhood cut.

Superfamily in this instance refers to a specific fic trope in Marvel fandom where a pair of superheroes, traditionally Captain America and Iron Man (the superhusbands, hence the superfamily) although I’ve seen other pairings especially as of late, are written as the fathers of Peter “Spider-Man” Parker – usually adopted, sometimes biological, but ultimately legally. 

In general I don’t really enjoy this kind of fic where two characters who aren’t related (by blood or otherwise) are re-envisioned as relatives. It’s not that I think it’s inherently a bad concept, but what I would hypothetically want out of it – an exploration of how these characters change as a result of being related in this version – is almost never what it actually is, which is that Characters A and B are the author’s OTP, and the author wants to give them a child, and Character C, who is off over there minding their own business probably with their own supporting cast, is right there. 

(While trying to come up with comparative combinations on a tangent I ultimately dropped, I did think “Maria Hill and Natasha Romanoff are the parents of Daisy Johnson, costarring Nick Fury as the mysterious uncle” and apparently there are versions of this I would read. Make superspyfamily the next big thing.)

There’s a lot of other things I don’t like about the trope: the diminishing and infantilization of Peter Parker, a ~30yo man in the comics with his own complicated web of connections and relationships – including, if we wanted to go here, a surrogate father figure in Joe “Robbie” Robertson. The twisting of Peter’s personality in order to make his a Good Earnest Kid, his Grand Canyon-wide independent streak and his anti-authoritarian nature stripped away in favor of making him beholden to two characters who are, you know, not his parents. Two characters who aren’t even, striking a stint in the ice where Steve Rogers is concerned, that much older than him in 616. The fact that, over the years, Iron Man and Spider-Man have clashed several times, often aggressively on Peter’s side of things. 

(This post isn’t meant to be a criticism of Tony Stark – even if I was interested in taking that angle when discussing this trope, which I’m not, I frankly haven’t read enough Iron Man comics to offer a valid criticism – but rather a statement that Peter Parker is an aggressive character by nature, and that sometimes two characters with the best of intentions can have damaging interactions with each other. That’s the beauty of having a canon with 80 million different characters – every possible dynamic exists. And that’s why there’s several canon instances of Peter attacking Tony in my Spider-Man refs folder. Listen, I like when he punches people, okay.) The invention of a totally fake dynamic that has become so widespread and latched on on a fanon level to the point where it was shoehorned into the latest Spider-Man movie adaptation to the detriment of Spider-Man’s actual supporting cast. The fact that when I read Spider-Man fic, I want to be reading about Spider-Man, not someone’s Peter Parker shaped OC. And maybe most importantly: the erasure of May Parker. Without May Parker, there is no Spider-Man, not as we know him. 

I’ve spoken before about the importance and gravity of Ben Parker’s death and how without knowing the exact circumstances, I find it difficult to know what form Peter’s actions will take. (The differences in his crime fighting methodology 616 vs Marvel Noir, for instance.) But while Ben Parker’s death made Spider-Man, the vigilante, I think it’s May Parker who makes him a hero, every day. 

And, my line on her to Peter is that he got his powers from the spider but he got his strength from May. Because that backbone is what made him who and what he is today. The choices that he makes now come of her having raised him a certain way. – J Michael Straczynski (x)

Look, I think there’s a simplicity to Superfamily that contributes to its overwhelming, infuriating, kudzu-like popularity: Spider-Man is one of the biggest superhero properties on the planet. He’s often, however incorrectly I would personally suggest this is, depicted as a kid. He is, as we all know, an orphan – he has no parents, and he lives with his aunt and uncle, and then – robber, bang, power, responsibility – only with his aunt. And I think sometimes when people hear “orphan” and “aunt” they kind of feel a distance – a disconnect. Or maybe it’s an age thing – the idea that May’s somehow too old to be his parent, so she’s discounted. Maybe it’s just because she’s not a superhero, I don’t know. I don’t think it’s entirely a coincidence that early Marvel is populated with non-traditional family models – the Fantastic Four, for example, are not a team but a family – when these stories were created by Jewish people living in a heavily Jewish area in the shadow of WWII. In the face of decimation, you come together however you can. Orphaned Peter Parker and his aunt, his father’s brother’s wife, alone together. But May Parker’s a lot more than just that.

In Amazing Spider-Man #33, Peter finds himself hopelessly trapped under rubble while Aunt May’s life hangs in the balance – if he cannot free himself, it’s not only his life but hers that’s forfeit, and through his love from her he finds the strength to literally move mountains. (Speaking of removing May from the picture in favor of Iron Man, I’ll never forgive Spider-Man: Homecoming for recreating this scene so that Peter derives his strength from him and not from, you know, the woman who raised him and who he loves more than his own life, in favor of the inherently more marketable Iron Man brand.)

A lot of times in Superfamily fic, they just kill May off. Okay, fine, whatever. I might hate it (I hate it a lot) but like, alright! Fine! If you gotta go here! May’s often been in delicate health, especially in older comics, and if an author needs to take her out of the picture, her literally being dead is basically the only in character reason she wouldn’t be there for Peter if he needs her. I might personally have a grudge against about it, but hey, as we’ve established, I have a grudge against the whole trope. Lately though, and I suspect because of the advent of Homecoming’s Hot Somewhat Younger May – I’d like to suggest that 616 May is not as old as one might think looking at her first appearances and that, as the sliding timescale moves along, we have to address the fact that people both live longer and look younger today than was expected in the 1960s –,  I’ve been seeing a different trend. (Yes, I’ve been known to hateread, I’ll admit it. How else would I know how much I hate it! Also it keeps ending up in the JohnnyPeter tag and I make poor choices re: deriving enjoyment from my anger over fanfic of all things.) Lately, more and more, I’ve been seeing fics where Tony adopts Peter from May – as in, she signs the forms giving up her child, because obviously he loves him so much more. Fics where May is just the cover story so Peter Stark can escape media attention – so great, now she’s an employee. And at least one tweet about how great it would be to see a fic where Peter comes out to May and she throws him out in a homophobic fit but wait! The Avengers can rescue him! So now she’s demonized for the Drama. Gag me. (Not that I think it should matter at all for the sake of this argument, but we have May’s actual word in Amazing Spider-Man v2 #38 on what would happen if Peter came out as gay to her, and that it’s she’d love and support him no matter what.) And listen, like, part of me is like let it go! The majority of this content is written by younger fans just figuring out what they want to write, dipping their toes into the swampy waters that is Marvel canon! But the problem is, this perpetuates. It gets popular, and people form their opinions based on headcanons and not on canon and it becomes a vicious cycle, and suddenly Peter’s the Kid Avenger like, ACTUALLY, and May’s role in the story has been demoted to Roommate With a Car at best. Just there until better, cooler parental figures show up at the doorstep with adoption papers. 

Because, listen, May Parker is Peter’s mother. 

One thing I find fascinating about Peter Parker in 616 is how he relies on and draws strength from other people’s goodness, and none more so than May. It’s her well of inner strength and kindness that enable him to be kind of superhero that he is. 

Without May Parker, Peter Parker would be a totally different character – and I don’t want a different character. I like this one. (For a canon story about how Peter would be different without May, check out Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man #8.)

Like I said above, the great thing about having 80 million characters is that those characters get to be different things, and as superheroes they get to protect different things. Iron Man is a futurist. The Fantastic Four are about discovery. The X-Men protect a world that hates and fears them. Spider-Man isn’t here to save the world. Spider-Man is here to protect ordinary people – people like May Parker. 

In conclusion: fuck Superfamily as a widespread trend.

Anyway I had to see an actual article about the MCU refer to two characters as Spider-Man’s “Avenger dads” and another suggest that Dr. Strange and Spider-Man are the father-son combo we never knew we always needed (it’s not, and we don’t), so I guess I’m going to go live in a cave and throw rocks at innocent hikers who stumble upon my Spider-Man Opinions cave now.

[seenashwrite]

“Sweetheart,” Dean said, looking right into her eyes, “I think you should...”

Careful! How you finish that line is gonna make-or-break how well you’ve captured Dean Winchester in that fic you’re working on. Why, you may ask? Keep reading. And to you who are familiar with this topic... 

NOTE: Any subsequent “add-ons” via others sharing their thoughts on the topic which resulted in other posts will be linked at the bottom!

Abstract

Persistent usage in fandom writings ascribing one Dean Winchester a mannerism that relates to interactions with those he is romantically involved - specifically, the substitution of their name with “sweetheart” - is shown via evidence-based research to be in conflict with this fictional character’s established persona and speech patterns thus far.

Data

For your quick ref convenience, “sweethearts” meant in the traditional sense of the word have a ❤️ by the episode title. Let us begin. The facts are these:

SEASON ONE

1.02 Wendigo

[TO FEMALE CHARACTER] Well, sweetheart, I don’t do shorts.

1.16 Shadow

[DEAN looks at MEG, who smiles at him] Oh, sweetheart—you’re dumber than you look…

Later–>

MEG: You know, that shotgun’s not gonna do much good. DEAN: Oh, don’t worry, sweetheart. The shotgun’s not for the demon.

SEASON TWO

2.06 No Exit

[TO JO] Sweetheart, this ain’t gender studies. Women can do the job fine. Amateurs can’t.

SEASON THREE

(The writers’ room got a real hard-on for it this season)

3.04 Sin City

[TO FEMALE CHARACTER] You know, you’re piling it pretty high there, sweetheart. I’m not sure I’m buying.

3.06 Red Sky at Morning

[TO BELA] Well, sweetheart, I don’t need your kind of help.

3.07 Fresh Blood

[TO FEMALE CHARACTER] Well, I hate to tell you this, sweetheart, but your blood’s never pumping again.

3.11 Mystery Spot

[TO FEMALE SERVER] ‘Scuse me, sweetheart? Can I get sausage instead of bacon?

3.12 Jus in Bello

[TO BELA] Oh, I’ll find you, sweetheart. You know why? Because I have absolutely nothing better to do than to track…

3.15 Time Is on My Side

[TO BELA] Sweetheart, we are weeks past help.

SEASON FOUR

4.01 Lazarus Rising ❤️

[DEAN approaches the IMPALA, runs a hand along it] Hey, sweetheart, did you miss me?

SEASON FIVE

5.09 The Real Ghostbusters

[FEMALE CHARACTER walks into the room nervously] I don’t wanna do this.

[DEAN leans around the corner] I’m right here sweetheart, I’ve got your back. Trust me, this is going to work. [he then pulls back so he can’t be seen grimacing]

5.11 Sam, Interrupted

[FEMALE CHARACTER walks in their direction]

[DEAN spots her] Oh, no, no, no. Not today, sweetheart. Come on, keep walking…

5.12 Swap Meat

FEMALE SERVER: Here you go, guys.

DEAN: You know, do me a favor, sweetheart. Would you bring me a cheeseburger with extra bacon? And fry an egg on top of it, would you?

SEASON SEVEN  

7.17 The Born-Again Identity

MEG: That hurts my feelings. I’ve been good to you, Dean.

DEAN: No, you’ve been good to you, sweetheart.

SEASON EIGHT

8.08 Hunteri Heroici

FEMALE CAREGIVER: You’re not supposed to be here.

DEAN: Well, trust me, sweetheart, you got bigger fish.

SEASON TEN

10.02 Reichenbach

[FEMALE DANCER is disgusted; she moves to leave]  And we’re done.

[DEAN grabs at her] Hey, hey, hey. Song’s not over, sweetheart.

SEASON TWELVE

12.17 The British Invasion ❤️

[DEAN looks down sight of newly-returned Colt] Welcome back, sweetheart.

SEASON THIRTEEN

13.16 - Scoobynatural ❤️

[DEAN prepares to swing sledgehammer at enchanted TV] Sorry, sweetheart.

.

SEASON FIFTEEN

15.10 - The Heroes' Journey ❤️

[DEAN grabs the grenade launcher] Hey, sweetheart.

Analysis

Of 15 seasons and 320 total episodes aired as of this writing, "sweetheart" appears in [*adult] Dean's dialogue 20 times in 19 episodes. So, 19 is 5.9375% of 320. That's not even one quarter.

He just doesn’t use the word often, folks.

[Note: to get a precise percentage of its appearance in his actual dialogue, you’d need to count every single word the man has spoken - I’d think taking out “a”, “and”, “the”, and “I” would be acceptable - and good luck, there. I ain’t your girl. Another possibility would be to compare “sweetheart” to other nicknames he’s given people - again, knock yourself out. This is just to illustrate its appearances across seasons. A tangential comparison? Take your number of fics involving Dean - i.e., your # of episodes - count the “sweethearts”, and do your percentage.]

Of the 20 usages, 4 are of a clearly affectionate nature: once to Baby the Impala, once to the Colt, once to the enchanted television, once to the grenade launcher.

The remaining uses - all directed at female characters - are of a false comfort, patronizing, and/or manipulative nature, because a portion of Dean’s persona is that of an irredeemable asshole. The character is greater than the sum of his parts, true - but that is an undeniable part.

Thus, this does not seem to be a substitute name Dean Winchester bestows upon persons of a beloved nature. It is scantly, possibly endearing - albeit patronizing - when he’s used it as a substitute name for waitresses.

Visual Aids

[Note: Someone jokingly asked for a pie chart last time - ‘cause hello, what’s a Dean topic without PIE! - and I did them and they were silly. Here’s the replacement, which IMO is an improvement and completely scientifically accurate, I’m sure you’ll agree]

Wrap Up

Could there be any exceptions?

Sure. If he's Demon!Dean and it's not romantic and is a pure smutty hate f*ck - in that instance, the data would most assuredly support the author’s choice.

Also supportable would be complete off-the-rails AU fics [as in: Dean's not a hunter, he's a mechanic from Regular Town, USA] because in those cases, no one expects him to be canon-friendly.

Here, have a cheat sheet:

.

And what’s my personal opinion?

Dean doesn’t call people of significance by that endearment in a heartfelt manner, reserving it solely for inanimate objects (Baby, the Colt, the TV, and the grenade launcher), because they pose no threat of rejecting him. So... maybe it actually does mean something loving and sentimental to him. Maybe that’s why he hasn’t used it on someone he’s crazy about.... has he met that person yet? Again, maybe. Are the writers doing this purposefully? Is Jensen maybe slipping a handful of ‘em in, as well? Ya got me.

In any event, there’s the obvious: They’re all objects to him, useful for specific tasks regarding things he needs/wants - food, beer, sex, baiting a ghost, mindless entertainment - or they’re an adversary who is standing between him and something he needs/wants. Either way, all ultimately disposable. That ain’t sweet, nor does it have heart.

Bottom line

If you are professing that your story is canon?

Stop. Having. Dean. Call. You. Sweetheart.

You, your O.C., the friend you're writing into a fic so they can get boned by Dean, any other character you're having Dean bang-a-rang... if they don't go VROOOOM or go BOOM or go ZOOM, it's an inappropriate nickname.

Hypothesis on overall reception by SPN fanfiction authors, specifically those writing Dean in sexual/romantic encounters?

Utter rejection.

* Final Note: there is Teenage Dean usage of a snot-faced “sweetheart” that further supports the hypothesis, however it has been excluded due to age - as the topic is Dean in romantic/sexual fanfics - and due to the fact this was already a slam-dunk case. 

Astute data-crunching followers have also pointed out the use of “sweetheart” by one John Winchester in a patronizing manner towards a female vampire. 

The original data crunch - linked at top - also noted the use of an affectionate “sweetheart” by one Mary Winchester, which was directed towards Baby. 

Sam is not covered here because I don’t care about him.

I’m kidding. To not care would be something, and I nothing Sam.

I’m kidding. 

See? He gets me. 

(Sources: Available SPN Wiki transcripts)

ETA: More sweetheart talk via “Dear Nash” HERE and HERE

ETA #2 [Feb. 2018]: Nash’s breakdown of how to assess & choose a NON-sweetheart endearment specifically for “Dean In Love” situations is HERE  

.

* Up to date as of July 2020 *

[miximax-hell]

Happy birthday to me. /o/ And that’s the first and last time I mention it in this post. I don’t care and you shouldn’t either—I just want cake.

FubuGabu is back! Not by popular demand because, well, no one has asked for it, although the feedback I got was lovely. But, hey, I had this material ready, so might as well do something with it, lame as it might be.

These are some early and not-so-early doodles of FubuGabu. The latter was pretty much the base of the final design, but the former… that’s from 2014 or something wild like that. I actually had many more doodles and concepts, but I hated them all so much that I erased most of them. I’m surprised I could save that one. I might have kept it because it was a full lineart, I guess. In any case, I’m glad I could find that much.

Since it’s fitting to do, let’s talk about FubuGabu’s design today! There’s a lot to talk about, but my memory is awful, so I’m sure I’ll forget about some things. I hope it won’t betray me too much.

Anyway, as usual, more under the cut.

Well, well, well. Ain’t this boy one little shit. Fudou gave me nightmares. Kidou is still giving me nightmares (to the point where I’m considering changing the idea I’ve had for around a year now). Someoka was awful to draw and make sense of. Max’s tail was awful to work with. But Fubuki? Fubuki is on a whole different level.

Let’s start by talking about the final design, since that’s the better one. Not even good, just better. That’s an epic victory as it is, so who cares.

FubuGabu’s design, as the reference sheet and my last post states, is not based on Gabumon, but on Gabumon’s line. What this means is that it has elements from (almost) every single one of Gabumon’s evolutions. Just for the sake of satisfying people’s curiosity, namely @IshidoShuuji’s, I’ll list the different elements here, since that’s the easiest and most straightforward way to explain it:

Tsunomon: eyes, colour of the face.

Gabumon: horn, face stripes, teeth, hair ears.

Garurumon: eyebrows, pretty much all of the hair, hair tail, forehead marks.

WereGarurumon: nose stripes, pretty much all of the hair, earrings, eye scar.

So, no, MetalGarurumon, Punimon and Omnimon/Omegamon aren’t part of the design. …Or are they?

Just kidding. They are not. ww But you shouldn’t rule them out just because of that. Well, no—rule Omnimon out. There will be no Agumon miximax, so that isn’t going to happen. I don’t want to keep people’s hopes up for nothing. I made it pretty clear from the start that I wouldn’t use a franchise twice, but I bet most people don’t know that. So, yeah.

Now that I have broken down the elements, let’s look at them from up close. This is truly a difficult design to understand, so I’ll get the explaining done as I move along.

Let me start with Tsunomon’s part. I used the colour of Tsunomon’s skin because it looks human: I didn’t want to turn Fubuki into a furry—I mean, have him all covered in hair, because it just looks weird. It was either Tsunomon’s skin or Gabumon’s, and he’s BRIGHT YELLOW. So you’re welcome.

The eyes have changed very dramatically. Tsunomon’s aren’t all that complex compared to Gabumon’s, for example, so it was easier to pull off without screwing up too much. That’s in the early concept you can see above, Fubuki has eyes based on Gabumon’s instead and it looks like he’s using about 4kg of eyeliner, hah— You’re gonna run out of money if you wear so much of it every single day, pal.

They’re not exactly Tsunomon’s eyes, although it’s a rather radical change. As I mentioned when I talked about Creature miximaxes, eyes get rather distinctive shapes when animals (or monsters) are involved. I did something that goes against my analysis, though: I added light to FubuGabu’s eyes. Just because I hate myself and because it looked kinda weird without it.

While Tsunomon’s eyes are completely round, FubuGabu’s actually follow the shape of Fubuki’s eyes, although vaguely. The irises are Fubuki’s, period. I simply extended the lines to match the new shape of the eye. The lower eyelid creates a straight line based on the hypothetical line of Fubuki’s eyes, which is visible in coloured art. The outer part of the eyes also matches that of Fubuki, not to mention that I kept the fold over the upper eyelid and the little marks below the eyes. The main difference, therefore, is the thicker contour (which is linked to the spikes) and the curve that replaces the right angles on Fubuki’s usual eyes.

Let’s move on to Gabumon. His marks were probably the toughest to place, and it doesn’t help that Fubuki’s refs are so BAD. REALLY. Many, most characters have references that match. Maybe not perfectly, but almost. But Fubuki? Fubuki ain’t need none of that crap. When you are this FABULOUS, no one cares about your face changing size and shape in every screenshot or your hair going longer and shorter every 5 seconds. Everyone is blinded by your sparks, anyway, so who will notice?

I noticed. But anyway. ww

Since Gabumon only has markings on half of his body (since the rest is all yellow), I let FubuGabu borrow those on Gabumon’s nose. Actually, if you were to strip FubuGabu (please don’t do that), you’d see that his whole body is covered with markings. I like to think that those belong to Gabu, even if they could easily belong to Garuru or Were instead. Still, that means that the marks on his neck are Gabu’s.

As for the marks on his cheeks, they were very easy to place on the front view and frustrating to figure out elsewhere. I just gave up on them at some point and thought, “meh, Inazuma has pulled off weirder stuff!” They’re supposed to end somewhere behind the jaw, though, but before reaching the neck. Hence why I actually drew the jawline ww

The horn and the teeth are pretty self-explanatory, but I’ll point something out about the latter: I only added two teeth even though Gabumon has many because I wanted some kind of parallelism with Someoka. He, too, has two teeth, but they grow on the opposite direction. True teammates who complement each other!

Now, for the hair ears, aka those things growing from the sides of his head. Those are 100% hair—they don’t really serve a purpose. As such, using Gabumon’s seemed like the best idea. After all, what makes WereGarurumon’s ears interesting are the earrings, but how do you put an earring on hair? As for Garurumon, his ears are just more boring than Gabumon’s. Gabu’s ears are kind of quirky and worn out, which is a cool little thing that I felt like adding. Also, Garuru’s ears go upwards and I didn’t dig that.

Regardless, Garurumon is probably the star of this design. Most of the bigger elements are based on him, after all. You could argue that many of them also belong to Were, but I was looking at Garuru when I designed them. I guess that’s enough of a reason. I guess.

There was an element of Garuru’s design that I really, really wanted to add to Fubuki: the feather-shaped hair growing from his back. You know, these things:

After fiddling with that idea a whole lot, I eventually realised that it was best to keep it simple and shape Fubuki’s hair to look like those… however you wanna call them. I’ll just call them feathers. It may not be a perfect resemblance (and it may not make perfect sense either lmao), but I definitely thought it looked the best. These are actually not too hard to draw:

The first feather (from the top) follows the natural curve of Fubuki’s hair, but instead of curving down again, it creates an arrow-like shape.

The second feather starts and ends in the exact same spots as Fubuki’s, but instead of curving upwards, it’s completely horizontal.

The third one is the trickiest: it’s long and doesn’t match Fubuki’s normal hair. The part that touches the second feather starts where it should, but the part that touches the fourth one doesn’t. It’s tough to explain, so here’s a picture that will hopefully make it all clear:

The last feather is shorter and isn’t as diagonal as the third one, but it does start and end at odd places, too. The “trick” to draw it is keeping in mind that the third and the fourth feathers end at pretty much the same height:

The fifth feather isn’t even a feather; it’s just a simple spike. Nothing relevant there ww

Garurumon is also responsible for the marks next to the ears and the one on the forehead, not to mention the top of the head in general. The ones on the ears weren’t too bad, but the forehead was frustrating. As I mentioned, Fubuki’s references are a mess and I draw over them for the sake of keeping the original proportions, but it backfired in this case. Since they’re all so different from each other, Fubuki’s forehead grows bigger or smaller depending on the view, so the forehead mark is radically less visible sometimes, even though it technically shouldn’t be. Still, rather than repositioning it every time, I thought it made more sense to place it correctly to settle for a specific place, so that’s what I did.

Now, the top of the head is tricky. Let’s start by saying that it’s based on Garurumon’s back. Maybe WereGarurumon’s too, but I couldn’t find a single picture of Were’s back, so who knows. As you can see in the following image, Garuru’s back has a long, thin line that goes from his head to his tail, and that’s exactly what happens to FubuGabu too. You can’t quite see the end of the line because of the hair, but it’s still there… technically.

That thin line sprouts into a bunch of rugged lines, and that’s exactly what happens with FubuGabu too. The lines are rather random (and I didn’t spend much time figuring the size out, whoops), but they do follow some certain shapes. The closest line to the face might be rugged, but it goes straight down. The second one starts from way back, but it’s shaped like an arrow pointing at the face. The tips of both lines are fairly close, too. The third line is way smaller than the rest, and is also the last one you can see, but definitely not the last one in general.

Let’s talk about Fubuki’s little sprout as well. As you know, Fubuki’s sprout has two locks of hair, but FubuGabu’s has three. That’s because FubuGabu’s is also based on Garurumon: to be more specific, on this part:

I tried adding that part just the way it is by sticking it to the forehead, but I didn’t like the result at all, so I figured it was best to do something funny with Fubuki’s sprout instead. Oh, well. Choices! And talk about choices, I added Garurumon’s tail simply so the hair would be a complete portrayal of his figure. As I mentioned in the post I linked to above, miximaxing with creatures often leads to that, so yeah.

The hair is obviously the biggest and most visible part of FubuGabu’s design, but Garuru hogs quite a few other spots. Not Gabumon, nor Tsunomon, nor WereGarurumon (nor Punimon) have eyebrows, so I was pretty much forced to use Garurumon’s. Not like I mind, because they’re pretty awesome. It’s kind of sad that they’re usually not visible, but, to be honest with you guys… they’re kind of a pain to draw because of their very specific shape. So I’m secretly glad. ww

And last, but not least, WereGarurumon. Ah, what a little shit. How come there are official linearts for MetalGarurumon, but not for WereGarurumon? Anyway. ww

Were’s contribution is pretty straightforward. Earrings, a scar and marks. There are a couple of things worth mentioning, though.

For the earrings, I noticed too late that Were has both white and red earrings. I was going to use the red earrings because they stand out more, but I noticed that the visible ear was on the side of the white ones… And it was too late to change the design completely, so I just went for the white. Too bad, but life is simply unfair. Especially when you don’t pay attention.

Now, the nose marks are funny. I struggled so much with those. As you can see on the second picture of this post, they were originally going to be shaped like triangles, but I didn’t dig that. And even after I changed the design, I couldn’t get them right, which was… frustrating.

(Also, it took me a long time to realise that the bridge of the nose would be hiding one half of the marks in every view except the front one. After I did, though, everything finally looked better. Thank goodness.)

Anyway, I think that pretty much covers the final design, but let’s also talk about the early designs real quick.

Nothing much to say about the second picture of the post. I just made sure to make some sense out of the markings and retouched the elements I mentioned above. Well, I tried to polish everything, really.

Now, the first picture of the post is easily over 2 years old. It was one of the first, if not the very first, concept of FubuGabu. And, man, what a mess.

It was like, “what does Garurumon have? Feather thingies! SO LET’S ADD THEM EVERYWHERE.” The feather thingies appear on his forehead, the locks of hair over his face, on his hair and even behind his head. I could never figure the latter out—but, man, did I spend hours trying to make those work. And all because Garurumon has feather on his face and on his back, so I felt like FubuGabu needed two layers of feathers too. Thankfully, I eventually realised many of these elements simply weren’t needed, like that second layer of feathers, the earrings on Garurumon’s ear (which, again, are made of hair, so wtf), and… the ring at the end of the tail? Where did that come from? This is Garurumon, not Gatomon! Geez, self!

Some of the early elements made it to the final design. The overall shape of his eyebrows, the markings on the head, the neck and the cheeks and even the horn, just to mention a few. The final feel to it is completely different, though.

This is probably because of how different the hair looks. FubuGabu’s original hair was full of feathers, but they didn’t fit Fubuki’s normal hair. They were randomly coming out of his head for whatever reason. Not to mention that the hair falling over his face looks like tentacles rather than anything else. It looks like a miximax with Squidward rather than with Gabumon. Ugh, I hate myself. XD

One last note: I don’t know where the forehead mark on that first design comes from. I guess it’s meant to be Gabumon’s, somehow? I forgot and I’m too tired to investigate it. It probably never made sense, anyway. XD

I think I covered everything! But, phew, that took long. Still, if anything isn’t clear or there’s something I forgot to mention, please let me know!

(Also, I’m too tired to re-read this post, so excuse the many typos that I probably made. I’ll check it out... eventually.)

[mirroralchemist]

Untitled FEELS trash: The Fif

(you are totally awesome if you get the title ref)

Nevermind I never posted the third or fourth, I like this title too much.

Word Count: 1766 Notes: HOLY SHIT SPOILERS FOR EP.35 I loved the particular confrontation too much to not write about it. I feel that Mir would be more hostile about it since she’s been through something similar. I’ve been really struggling with the end and it kinda shows so sorry about that.

It was the moment of truth for us now. I hid underneath the stairs of the school. It was almost noon and soon our blackmailer was going to make her appearance. My heart was pounding, fists were clenching. My emotions were just begging to come out now. I needed this confrontation for Iris’ sake.

“Take deep breaths.” Nathaniel whispered.

I glanced up at him for a moment. He was oddly calm. I felt his hands push my hair out of my face. His small gestures were calming me down, little by little. I realized just then how much I was grateful to have him by my side in this. By now, I should be used to having his support.

It still amazes me how much I am supported for my actions. As impulsive they can be at times.

“Come on, lets go.”

I gave a nod as the two of us left our hiding spot to Iris’ locker. Hearing a locker door open only hastened our steps. We had to reach her, now. My daily runs and track background made me faster so I was the first to approach the scene. My eyes widened at the familiar figure.

Then they slowly lowered into a glare.

“So it was you.” I said.

Her face looked white as a sheet to my presence. I glared at her with all the hatred I could muster. She quickly covered it up with her usual emotionless look.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about Gallade.” she spoke.

“Oh really?” I asked, making sure she clearly felt my sarcasm, “Then what are you doing at Iris’ locker?”

“This is my locker, I don’t know what you-”

Both of us were startled by a hand hitting the locker. I turned to look that Nathaniel had indeed caught up and held his hand at the locker door, preventing her from trying to close it.

“It says ‘Iris’ right on the door! Do you need reading classes Charlotte?”

I don’t think Charlotte was expecting for Nathaniel to be so blunt in his emotions now. He wasn’t the overly polite boy she first knew him as.

“You disgust me, truly.” he said.

I had to hold back a wince at his words. He was now displaying that cold side he has when he was legitimately angry.

I shook my head while digging out the earring I found last night. Once she saw that, Charlotte’s face paled. Her hand instinctively went to her other earring.

“I know you’ve been blackmailing Iris, Sweet-Queen. How dare you even threaten her? Even as going as far to ruin Iris’ reputation? Over a boy?”

“You have no proof.”

“Oh, but we do. We know about those little mysterious messages you’ve been sending to her. Armin has a copy of them on a usb drive and we have physical copies. You might as well just admit it.”

Seeing her face blanch made me grin.

Then she went into her reasoning. How she didn’t want to lose her boyfriend over a ‘loser’ like Iris. Like Iris intentionally was doing that to her. She explained she just saved those suggestive photos off her boyfriend’s computer and used it to get revenge on Iris.

I felt sick listening to her.

“That’s enough!” I screamed.

I punched the locker door, making both her and Nathaniel jump. I was breathing hard. Gone was the Ami who was cautious in not wanting to cause conflict.

“How fucking dare! How dare you think you’re justified in your actions? Iris knew nothing about your relationship. And even if she did, you have no right to take it as far as you did. If you want to blame someone, blame your dumb as shit boyfriend. He played both of you.”

I remembered how broken down Iris looked in the past few days. How she cried about getting a bad grade. Even how she completely lost herself when we went to her house. I couldn’t forget her sadness. In my moment of anger, I was a bit amazed that despite all of that Iris was still here.

Sad and betrayed, but she was still around.

My hands balled into a fist, ready to strike. I wanted Charlotte to feel physically what Iris felt emotionally. In Charlotte’s face, I saw the girls who threw me into the shower stalls and drenched me. Those same girls who pulled and yanked on my hair intending for it to come out in clumps. It was why Iris’ situation felt so personal to me. Once upon a time, I was the target because I got close to a boy that was apparently “off limits to a loser”.

And it wasn’t even my intention.

In much the same way, I wanted to be the one to defend Iris the way she should be defended. The small sadist in me reveled at the thought of breaking Charlotte’s face in with my hands. Feeling the bone give way to my blows. My left arm was poised and ready to strike.

Or it would have it wasn’t for Nathaniel holding me back.

“Ami, no. She’s not worth it.”

“But-!” I started.

“No,” he reaffirmed, “we’re not going to do it this way, okay?”

It took a minute to finally calm down. That part of my mind wanted to go fuck it all and just do it anyway. If I really wanted to, I could wrench myself away from Nathaniel and just do it. But seeing the disapproving, yet concerned look on his face was enough to calm those tendencies. I mentally chuckled to myself.

I must really be in love with Nathaniel for his words to calm me down just like that.

I nodded before turning my eyes over to Charlotte again. Just because I couldn’t physically hurt her, doesn’t mean I couldn’t intimidate her. I kept the facade up in me wanting to harm her.

“But Ami, this doesn’t mean we still can’t get police involved. I think we have enough of a reason to have them look into this right?”

Oh!

Oh...this man is devious.

“Y-you’re bluffing!”

I moved my hand away from Nathaniel to pull out my phone. I had already started to dial the non-emergency number to the police. Each beep of the numbers made Charlotte’s face pale more and more.

“Wait!” she shouted.

I was just a few digits off from completing the number and pressing send. For some reason, she started to smile. Like the past couple of minutes didn’t happen.

“You think I don’t notice how you two are when no one’s looking? The way you two cling to each other? I wonder what would happen if this relationship went public? I’m sure there would be quite a few people wanting you to break up if it did. Get rid of the evidence and I won’t go to Peggy.”

“Oh.” I spoke, “You think you’re in the position to hold that over our head?”

I looked to Nathaniel and he looked to me. In his eyes I could basically hear the conversation he was having with me. I cocked my head to the side, wondering if he was sure. His nod only seemed to reaffirm his decision.

It wasn’t ideal. But I guess it was about time.

In sheer defiance I placed my hand into Nathaniel’s. He held on to mines tightly. Charlotte realized what we had decided and her face went back to being shocked. My free hand was still on my phone.

“Tell her. We have nothing to hide anymore. I love him with all my heart and your petty threats will not make me hide away from that.”

I pressed one number.

Two.

Three.

“Okay!...okay, I’ll get rid of everything. Just don’t tell the police. God, if my parents found out...”

I studied her face to see if there was any hint of lying. There wasn’t so I cleared out my dial list.     I threw her earring back at her while sneering.

“See that you do. I hope this won’t require another meeting. Now get out, your presence disgusts me.”

I kept myself firm as she sped out of the hallways. Once she left, I knelt to the ground. The intimidating image I had to put up was more draining than I realized. I let out a deep breath. I stared at the floor silently. My mind was trying to process the past few minutes, mainly how I was.

I almost didn’t believe that I was capable of such a feat.

“Are you okay Ami?”

I looked up at Nathaniel. I noticed he still looked a bit concerned for me. I felt ashamed that he saw that side of me. I looked back down on the ground.

“Sorry...just that-Charlotte reminded me of something back then. How people of their ‘status’ think they are justified in doing whatever they want for retribution. They don’t care who they hurt, just as long as they get their revenge.”

I balled my fists up thinking about that again.

“It makes me mad.” I continued, “I hate people like that. It makes me want to just beat them up. See how it feels to be on the other end. Heh, I probably sound terrible to you. Your girlfriend sounds so sadistic.”

He didn’t say anything at first. He just helped me up from the floor. He then kissed me. It was passionate, like usual, but somehow different. When he released me finally he just smiled.

“You don’t sound like that at all. You’re perfect to me, flaws and all.”

I stared at him in pure shock. No one had ever told me that before. Ever. It took a moment for me to process his words. It was weird to have someone who loved me for who I am. Even with my shortcomings.

“Is something wrong Ami?” he asked.

“No! No...just that, I did something good in my past life or something to have someone like you in my life. No one has ever really told me that. Blessed be the woman who marries you.”

“Who’s to say that isn’t you?” he teased.

Then silence.

I think it sunk in this was the first time marriage was brought up. Even in a joking manner.

“Ami, I mean..”

I silenced him.

“I know, it’s too soon and who’s to say. I know I know.” I responded, “I would be severely concerned if you were serious. I don’t even want to think about it until after I graduate. Anyway, we should go tell Armin our results. I bet he’s dying to know.”

[halcyyonnwrites]

Netball Agreste ||| Sport One Shot

This is a one shot I wrote for a challenge on Miraculous Amino, if you want to check out my profile there, my username is Iamcathchild.

1575 words

The first thing Adrien noticed when he arrived at the netball tryouts was that everyone else there was female. Nino was apparently right when he said netball was a ‘girl’s sport’. Adrien really should have listened to him, but he was too caught up in his new-found knowledge that Marinette Dupain-Cheng was the captain of the team, and Adrien had the slightest crush on her.

“Everyone, line up!” Marinette called, clapping her hands together to catch everyone’s attention. Girls started to place down their water bottles and walk over, standing on the line painted across the court marking the centre third, “Thank you all for coming to these tryouts. As you might know, a netball team has seven places in it, wing attack and defence, goal attack and defence, goal keeper and shooter, and centre. Just fill out the sheet that’s coming around and then we’ll get started.”

 Taking the piece of paper, Adrien noticed that out of the group of nearly thirty people, he was one of the only ones who hadn’t played netball before and was the only person who was not a girl.

 Alya Cesaire stood next to Marinette, handing her a pile of colour fabric with different letters on them. Alya turned to the group, searching for the clipboard of names. One of the smaller girls handed it back to her and she counted each name, “Alright, now that everyone is written down, everyone can do some stretches and run some laps to warm up.”

 Mimicking the actions of the girls around him, Adrien stretched, trying not to look out of place. When he saw some of the girls start to show off, he shook his head and went to grab his water bottle.

 Alya and Marinette both stood next to the benches, looking over the list of names.

 “We have enough numbers for four teams and reserves,” Alya pointed out, “maybe we should rank people and put them into teams that way?”

 “We’ll also have to look at who will show up for competitive games and who can wear the dresses,” Marinette looked to the bag of netball dresses sitting against a wall. There were nearly all the sizes possible in the bag, but nothing that Adrien could wear if he made one of the competitive teams. That might be a problem.

 Nearly everyone was running laps by the time Adrien ran back onto the court. Some girls were being overly competitive and sprinting, running laps around those who were just jogging together. They seemed like they were here purely to show that they were better than everyone else. Adrien thought Chloe would fit in perfectly with them, if she didn’t hate sport so much.

 Alya and Marinette returned to the court, standing directly under one of the goals. Everyone slowed down and in a matter of minutes, the entire group had reformed. Marinette placed five brightly coloured cones on the ground, evenly spaced apart, “When I give you a colour, stand behind the corresponding cone. They will be your teams. You will not be judged on your team’s score at the end. Alya and I will be choosing teams based on how well you play and how well you communicate with your team.”

 Marinette walked through the group, giving people random colours and stopping to check if the teams were even. She got to Adrien, “Green.”

 Adrien walked over to the green marker and looked at the five girls standing behind it. Two of them were the group of competitive girls, the other three were in the group that was just jogging. Both the competitive girls looked at him in disgust, but the others smiled kindly at him.

 “So, have any of you ever played netball before or do Carly and I have to do all the work?” One of the runners said. She was blonde, taller than most of the other girls, but shorter than Adrien. Her eyes were brown and judgemental as they stared into Adrien’s soul.

 “I’ve played netball before. You two aren’t the only ones, Tasha,” another girl said, crossing her arms and stepping in front of Tasha and Carly, staring them straight in the eye. She was probably the tallest one here, apart from Adrien, and had blue eyes and short brown hair cut at her shoulders, “Nice to meet you, I’m Raelynn. Most people just call me Rae, though.”

 “Adrien,” Adrien said, smiling.

 “We all know who you are, most girls seem to be obsessed with you. If you need any rules explained, feel free to ask me or any of the others. This is Ella, Zara, Alexis and Grace. They’ve all played netball for a while, too.”

 Each girl waved. Ella had freckles covering her face and her hair tied back in a low ponytail, Zara had dark brown hair that fell just below her shoulders and braces, Alexis was short and pale with light brown hair in a braid and Grace had her hair in the same style as Alexis, only hers was tied with brightly coloured bands and she was Ella’s height.

 “I’ve never really played before, could you just go over the rules from the start?”

 “Sure. You’re tall, so you’ll probably be in goal somewhere, you have to stay in a set area. When you catch the ball, stay in one place and throw it to someone on your team, but make sure it’s in the section you’re in at the moment or the next one, otherwise the other team gets it. Also, stay a metre away from someone on the other team if they have the ball. That’s the basics. You should be fine, you’ll pick it up pretty quick,” Grace explained, pointing to the lines painted on the ground.

 “Okay, I think I get it,” Adrien nodded, trying to understand everything.  

 “Green team, you’re on the bench. Grace, do you mind being a ref for one of the games with Nikkala?” Marinette called from across the court.

 “Sure, but who’s going to fill my place in the team?” Grace asks, taking a whistle from Marinette.

 “Lila! You’re on the green team,” Marinette called, turning to greet the newcomer. Lila groaned, but dropped her bag with the others and walked over to where the rest of the team was. Surely, she could have a little more respect considering she turned up late.

 “Green and orange teams, court near the fence, blue and pink teams, with me!” Alya called, pointing to the respective courts. Adrien and his team walked over to the court near the fence, where a girl that Adrien assumed was Nikkala stood holding two netballs. She lobbed one over to Marinette, placing the other on the ground near her feet.

 “Green team, I have your bibs,” Nikkala called, holding up brightly coloured green bibs, the same as what Marinette and Alya had been holding earlier in the tryouts.

 Adrien ended up playing goal keeper, as Grace had predicted, and as everyone on his team was so good at netball, there was only a couple of times he had to defend the goal. The rest of the game he watched the others play, trying to pick up the different rules and techniques.

 By the end of the game, Adrien felt like he could play in a proper game, but by then, the tryouts were over.

 “Thank you for coming, everyone. All the games looked great, and the results will be posted on the notice board outside the library by the end of the week with the teams and reserves. I hope everyone had fun and you’ll come back to tryout again next year!” Marinette said cheerfully, smiling at everyone. Looking around, Adrien noticed Lila had disappeared again.

 Everyone started to leave, but Marinette pulled Adrien aside, “What’s up, Marinette?”

 “You played really well today, especially for someone with no experience, but I can’t put you on the team, the official competition only allows girls,” Marinette said apologetically.

 “That’s fine, I really only came to try something new. It was fun, regardless of whether I’m on a team or not. Thank you anyway.”

 “You are more than welcome to come back to training, if you want. Maybe if you got really good and knew all the rules you could help referee with Alya and I, or you could get another six boys and make a team yourself. It’s really up to you,” Marinette said, “and I would love to see you back at training. The goal shooter had a hard time getting anything past you.”

 Adrien laughed, and Marinette couldn’t help but to join in. Despite only being here because of his crush on Marinette, he really considered coming back, just as she had suggested.

 ~

Two days later, Adrien was walking past the library when the list of netball teams caught his eye. The teams were who he expected they would be, Lila was on the third team, despite being late, because she had played quite well, Alya and Marinette were in team one and two, Aurora Boreal was on team two. The girls from his team were split into team one, two and three, and his name wasn’t on the list, just as he had expected.

 “I forgot to add a name!” Marinette said, bustling up behind Adrien, a stack of papers in her hand. She raised a pen and wrote Adrien’s name, writing the words ‘honorary netball girl’ underneath, “Welcome to the team, Agreste.”

[thenotoriousgib-blog]

Havin’ a Few Drinks and Watching: Judgment Day ‘08

The title of these posts are self-explanatory. Occasionally I will have a few adult beverages and watch an old PPV. All the writing (aside from this introductory paragraph) was written live by me throughout the night and unedited from its original form.

My first reaction of the night is that I already absolutely loathe this PPV’s theme song three minutes in. It is called “Take It All” by some Danish band called Zididada, and I’m convinced that it’s the same line over and over again. I hate it more than I hate myself.

According to research, the dark match for this show was World Tag Team Champions Cody Rhodes and Hardcore Holly (what) defeating Carlito and Santino Marella. Can’t believe they didn’t air that sure-to-be greatness.

The show starts with JBL fighting John Cena in a match I already regret watching. If you’re curious what period of time we’re in, there’s a sign that says “JBL = EPIC FAIL!” so we’re right smackdab in the middle of when “fail” was A Thing. Another sign says JBL stands for “Judgment Day’s Biggest Loser.” Get fucking wrecked, Bradshaw. John Cena is wearing an NES Cover-inspired T shirt that I wish I owned. This match had some solid heat. The people love John Boy (I believe this is before the “JOHN CENA SUUUUUCKS” chants) and hate JBL (as everyone should). However, everything else is putting me to sleep. I’ve never really enjoyed Bradshaw in the ring, and this John Cena isn’t the Greatest In The World John Fucking Cena we’ve got 10 years later. JBL dominates most of the match with a slow pace. Cena’s selling really looks goofy as hell. JBL’s just destroying Cena at a really deliberate pace, and then out of nowhere Cena hits the FU for the win. Classic “Super Cena” that would get people to hate his overpowered characters before he became Actually Good in recent years. This match was bad and the ending being so sudden and nonsensical didn’t help matters. If we’re rating stuff it’s probably about *3/4.

We cut to Raw GM William Regal as the match is finished. He seems to have enjoyed the match just as much as I did.

We get clips from an episode of “The Dirt Sheet” (which you can see first every Sunday on WWE.com) with Miz and John Morrison. They’re going to face off against Kane (the ECW Champion) and CM Punk (Mr. Money in the Bank) for the WWE Tag Team Championship. Miz-as-Kane and Morrison-as-Punk have potential, but goofy ass sound effects (FART!) take away from whatever comedic value the segment would have had. Miz is wearing a fedora, a “chick magnet” shirt and some goofy-ass short pants (long shorts?) and it’s nice to see an entirely different Miz have the same level of hate-ability. Mike Adamle keeps referring to Punk as just “CM” and it sounds weird. Punk gets taken to Slamtown with a Moonlight Drive after getting distracted by Kane chokeslaming Miz into oblivion. It’s a fine match. There’s not too much that stands out but I enjoyed the ride. **3/4-***.

Third match of the night is Shawn Michaels vs. Chris Jericho, so hopes are high. I’m not as big a Michaels fan as I used to be, but he was still a heck of a wrestler. Combine that with the GOAT Chris Jericho and you’ve got a stew goin’. That scumbag Shawn Michaels faked an injury to get the edge on Batista in a match where Jericho was reffing, which is how we got here. Jericho’s IC champion, but it’s non-title for whatever reason. Match starts out with some nearfall exchanges and Michaels’ smarmy, cocky ass pissing Y2J right off. Slightly off-topic, but no matter how many times I see them, I will never get used to Shawn Michaels’ Jesus-themed assless chaps. Match is fun, and it’s hard to be snarky or insightful when things are simply “fine.” Michaels tunes up the band right into a codebreaker OUTTA NOWHERE which was a fun moment. Ending is kinda weird. Jericho goes for Lionsault, but Michaels has double knees up. Jericho somehow sees that coming and prevents himself from landing on the knees but Michaels reverses into a pinfall. So that’s why it was non-title. This isn’t a classic match like these two could have, but it’s still very good, even great. **** overall methinks. Jericho and HBK shake hands as a show of respect. Regal reacts to the action by staring off into the distance some more.

JBL interrupts Todd Grisham and Mickie James by saying that actually he beat John Cena and not the other way around. Also he’s not mad, he’s actually laughing right now.

We’ve got a Women’s Title match with Beth Phoenix vs. Melina vs. Mickie James. Because this is a women’s match in 2008, everything feels rushed. Even introductions. Lillian Garcia takes absolutely no pauses in the introductions. Just gets it done. You can tell all three women want to get as much of their stuff in as possible in their token 5 minutes of the show, and things are fast-paced but still pretty smooth and REALLY fun. Beth Phoenix lifts both Melina and Mickie for a backbreaker, and it gets one of the best reactions of the night. Mickie finishes Melina with a DDT in less than 5 minutes. They really made the most out of the time they had. They left me wanting more here. ***1/4

Next up is the World Heavyweight Title match, which was stripped from Taker by Vickie Guerrero. Vickie’s fiancée Edge is naturally the one in line for the shot. There’s a sign that says “I only came 4 Edge,” which… extremely same, IF YA KNOW WHAT I’M SAYIN HERE. There’s also a man in the first few rows wearing a very large, floppy sombrero, and I hope whoever was behind him beat the shit out of him after the show. As for the match? It’s an Edge vs. Undertaker match. So just imagine you’re seeing one of the many Edge vs. Undertaker matches, but not, like, one of the BEST ones. Just a good one with some shenanigans thrown in. LITTLE BABBY versions of Curt Hawkins and Zack Ryder show up to distract Charles Robinson while Edge exposes a turnbuckle. Undertaker wins by countout, but Vickie makes sure to note that the title can’t be won on DQ or countout. So we get a countout finish and still no champ. Fun stuff! Match is like a ***1/4-***1/2 overall. Taker’s mad so he gives Edge a tombstone after the match for his troubles.

WWE only scheduled six matches for the night, so MVP is out to complain that he’s off the card. He challenges anyone who wants to fight. United States champion Matt Hardy comes out to accept the challenge for his Brother Nero. The crowd’s loving the impromptu Jeff appearance since he had just returned from a wellness suspension. Apparently MVP is the highest-paid athlete in Smackdown history. I like him just fine but that seems like a poor investment, doesn’t seem worth it. Like we just saw a match with Edge and Taker. You’re paying MVP more than them? Is everyone on like crazy cheap Steph Curry contracts where you didn’t know they’d be this good? Anyway, the match is mostly okay, but nothing too special. Weeeeeeeird ending though. Jeff misses the Swanton Bomb. MVP sets him up in the corner, misses the charge, and loses to a Whisper of the Wind literally like 20 seconds after the missed Swanton. Sloppy as hell there. **1/4.

There is nobody I hate more than Sombrero Guy. Seriously. Imagine paying hundreds of dollars to be sit up close at a PPV only for some dude in a floppy ass sombrero to block your view.

I am starting to feel very sleepy. It is 2:15 a.m. as I write this. All that remains is the main event. The main event is Triple H vs. Randy Orton in a steel cage match. There are few things that seem less appealing than this match in this moment. Lillian Garcia pronounces Randy’s last name as “Or-taaaaan.” It starts with a moment where Randy immediately rushes for the door and dives (heh) for the exit before it’s even closed as the bell rings. I’m not expecting too much more where either guy really rushes to do anything, though, because this is a Triple H and Randy Orton main event, and we’re gonna have to sit and suffer through it, dammit. There’s a comment about how these are the kind of matches that shorten careers, but really all this match is shortening is my patience am I right? You know what looks silly as hell? When Randy Orton’s selling submissions and just randomly starts flailing around like a Bayley buddy. When dude’s trying to reach for the ropes he looks like a cat trying to paw at a ball of yarn. A chair comes into play as Randy grabs one while being dragged back into the ring. We get a few spots based around that. Lots of cage-climbing spots down the stretch. I complain, but I do like the overall oldschool feel of the match in that they’re not going overboard and keeping it simple. Lots of focus on escape, no run-ins, only one weapon introduced outside of the cage. How well it works is obviously up to debate. But I give it some credit. The match isn’t bad, honestly. It’s just that Trips and Orton lack the chemistry to bring it a step above “good,” and it lacks consistency because Trips has gotta have his matches be more “epic” than they need to be. I’m tired. Triple H retains with a Pedigree. ***1/4

Overall, Judgment Day 2008 is a decently solid show. There’s only one match that’s too essential, which is the Jericho-Michaels match. However, the Women’s triple threat, Edge-Taker, tag team match and even the main event don’t make me regret watching too much. The MVP-Jeff Hardy match is easily skippable, and the JBL-Cena match is straight up bad. I’m not gonna rush to revisit even the better matches soon, but you could do much worse than this on the Network.

Overall Grade: C.