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#also its probably likely that will sacrificing himself is actually the wrong choice but no one knows that
pinkeoni · 10 months
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How fucked up would it be if we got the byler confession + kiss, there is this super happy moment where they are both in disbelief and we get a beautiful display of love and joy, and then shortly after we get a huge bombshell regarding Will and his connection to Vecna, and at first it seems like to only way to end everything is a sacrifice from Will.
And Will just thinks it’s tragically funny. Of course it was too good to be true. Of course he wasn’t going to live long anyways. Of course he wasn’t going to get the future. Hasn’t this been his fate the whole time? Why put it off any longer?
AND THEN we get Will at a crossroads. Will has to decide if he sacrifices himself for everyone else, or if he tries to fight for himself? Should I stay or should I go? And who better to convince him to stay, to fight, to keep going, othan than his heart?
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ravel-puzzlewell · 5 months
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imagine if writers gave a single fuck about wyll tho. man, there is so much potential. like i think he has THE most interesting and potentially complex setup out of all characters.
like, he's a son of a duke and a legend, a national hero. he was raised on these legends, in a culture of hero worship, and on "principles of valor" that he says his father taught him. of course he grew up wanting to be a hero. no, not just wanting, EXPECTING it. he jumped into water on his birthday bc he thought he saw a mermaid. he saw himself as the Main Character of a story, probably not even as much in a hubris way, but in a "this is very minimum i HAVE to be to live up to my distant father's legacy". but also OF COURSE he's also deep down scared he that isn't good enough to live up to this legacy. he knows he's not perfect. what if he won't be strong enough? he learns to show this bravado of a golden child, of obvious hero in the making, masking his insecurities.
and then he receives a dream and literal hero's call to action. of course he listens. this is just like the stories. btw i have to admit i disagree completely with game's framing of his decision as actually the only way to save the city. he was left in charge of the entire military forces! He could have just. NOT go alone, and a squadron of flaming fists would have steamrolled these like 20 cultists. imagine if you heard that head of military of your country received anonymous call and actually went alone to the meeting. it's a very bad tactical decision.
this is not an attack on wyll, btw, he was a literal child primed to be a hero. this should have been critique of his father, who raised him in this way and then left 17 yo in charge of city's defenses, AND of the entire culture of hero worship. wyll wasn't ready to be a leader who thinks in terms of resources he has, he was not raised for this. he was a kid under the weight of expectations who thought being a hero is THE only correct way and that being a martyr is what a hero should choose. he NEEDED to become a hero, but didn't have enough power, and so when the way to obtain that power was given to them that he could frame as martyring himself, of course he took it. this was not his fault, but its a tragedy bc this was always going to end like this. the deal with the devil is just the most blatant metaphor for making bargains with consciousness bc you think you can do more good with the power and this is the only way, bc you're not strong enough by yourself.
also, in this hypothetical rewrite since duke ravenguard is supposed to be like. an actually good person whos distant, but loving of his child, and not a convenient cardboard cutout, he doesn't throw wyll out. he listens to him. he realizes this tragedy and takes responsibility for his own part in it. he says i'm sorry i failed you, my son. but wyll cannot be an heir anymore, not under the infernal thumb. he's removed from his position. and he can't take it! first of all, he can't agree with his father that he made a wrong choice as a leader. he sacrificed himself! thats what heroes do! and his father didn't fail, this is all mizora's fault! and now he has to endure the humiliation of nobles gossiping and snickering, speculating what the golden child did that was so bad for his father to remove him from flaming fists leadership? it's unbearable. so he runs away by himself.
he constructs this persona of Blade of the Frontiers, this folksy hero, hides his infernal contract. He believes he was right and he believes this is part of a story. He will become famous as his own hero, not under his father's shadow, and he will find a way to break contract, and then he will return to his home, triumphant, and his father will realize he was wrong and be finally proud of wyll. All of misery, fear, loneliness, humiliation, anxiety, terrible shit mizora inflicts on him will be worth it as long as Blade of the Frontiers remains a perfect image, and so he hides all of this. He dissociates. He is literally processing his life in terms of the Blade of the Frontiers' narrative, first thing he thinks is how he will frame\describe things for his books.
and then mizora turns him into a devil. this throws him into crisis, bc his perfect image of Blade of the Frontiers is threatened, he can't spin it into existing narrative, everything he went through will be for nothing!
when mizora offers him a second deal, one of the clauses is turning back to human. he can go back. he can be a perfect hero, Blade of the Frontiers once again, and no one will know his shame, and he will save his father and his father will be proud of him, and he can feel pained pride at being a martyr, at giving a sacrifice once again AND validated that his choice was right. he keeps playing a vigilante, larping as princess bride's westley and writing books about the manicured, idolized version of himself, while behind the scenes sliding more and more into corruption, making deals with consciousness that its fine to do things mizora asks, which keep getting worse and worse, little by little, because heroic deeds he'll do with gained power will outweigh it.
OR he can go through painful realization that living like a hero in a story does NOT mean making best choices. that he was not ready to be in charge of the city years ago. that whats important is achieving the goal, not being a saviour, and that he can ask others for help. he had flaming fists before. he has a party of manchkins who steamrolled several god's chosen now. he might not be powerful enough by himself, but he has resources. he doesn't need to sacrifice himself for that strength. he refuses the deal and saves his father by himself, still looking like a devil. the perfect image of a folksy hero is no longer salvageable, but he doesn't need it anymore. he learns to live with the consequences and stop hiding his scars, and he steps back to his place as the duke's heir, not just a hero, but as a leader first.
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lizaluvsthis · 4 months
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For your SMG34 headcanon who was the first one to fall in love and when did those feelings turn mutual?
Okay I think I might share some of that smg4 episodes here-
(COUGH this is gonna take too long than just a simple answer. Forgive me-)
I'd be likingly to say that Smg4 felt like he and three somehow 'linked' together after their first encounter. In this time- four thought it was nothing and is just a shove-
But when coming to the episode "The Monster"
Three and four actually made a basic contact with each other. Four asking how Three's day was like- DUDE- HE'S LITERALLY YOUR ENEMY... but three responds back boring than usual.
Then this was their first interaction with each other.
In WOTFI 2012
Three asks four if he really thinks coming to hell would solve all of his problems. Then four responding in agreement. "Yes actually, seeing your face and thinking where did my life go wrong"
He wanted to destroy four so bad until mario saves the day- he never interracted to them after that.
In S.M.G. club. Smg3 happens to be the one who works there. I mean- a CLUB WITH A WHOLE LOOKALIKES OF SMG4?????????????????
WHAT NOW??? But as mario left three the scene ends there from his appearance.
The Mystery of the missing white and blue
This EPISODE is where Smg3 is probably the FIRST one to actually reveal is slightest hint of crush for smg4 when he said he would be his "girlfriend" and he would be the "boyfriend" now I may have thought about it- what if after his interraction with four during The Monster episode is actually where he started to consider having him on part of his life?
Enemy or not.
He worked in a literal look alikes of four in the club. Did he have an obsession with four that much?
Maybe he started to have that thing planted and started growing a tiny sprout during the missing white and blue?
Maybe he was trying to show he wasnt that mean and evil. (Literally saved four's life and everyone here)
In Birthday Freakout
Enzo's birthday- Four asks three "you're gay for me?" Then three punches him out of the room.
Three does change little by little from wotfi 2018 where he called up as a certified psychiatrist, Three's appearance was shown after getting his award for saving the universe and without his help- Waluigi couldve destroyed everyone.
During the episode Mario's spicy day
Four thought three has got something from his sleeve and wrecked the whole place that three worked hard for down.
This made three so sad- and it really did broke his heart seeing the reason why he maybe was wrong to actually change into a good person. And to actually have this deep feeling for Four.
This changed three's perspective change back from where they used to be enemies again. Theres how you got 2020 of wotfi
Back on his world of dead memes- he actually changed- he gave up on destroying four (again) and actually calmed himself down
Perfectly balanced episode is where his feelings with four actually started to plant its seed again. Tho its not visible but it is seen on the 10th year anniversary where he calls him out for a baka- right after when smg4 calls him a tsundere.
And there got the episode after smg0's appearance. MARIOS OKAY⁷
Thats where the two had held hands with each other for the first time and actually the part of also training their meme powers together. (To work it off- from the other episode where smg3 sacrificed terrence in exchange for his meme energy to transport into mario for an escape) he didnt let or didnt used the choice of using anti-meme energy.
He didnt want him and four to go insane even tho the power he gain attraction to. He simply gave out terrence...
Ykw? Theres just too much- lets just include the main one. Mario does tiktok challenges where three and four kissed off screen. (i hate susan for that)
All i want for christmas is mario to FREAKING SHUT UP
Is the episode where smg3 finally has that smile on his face being there with smg4- thats the moment he got mutually connected to him and probably well- starts to have more interactions with eachother offscreen.
-
Smg4 felt like him and three were linked with each other after the first contact. And Three starting to have a small crush on four during/after his job on thhe S.M.G. club.
I have a feeling that he was slowly trying to change after his constant fails from finishing off four with his stupid evil plans.
And starts to change for a chance to make it up for a fresh start.
Three losing his feelings for four but ends up right back again after the arc and does change. He starts to actually have a mutual connection with four.
(Now for four I was thinking that it was his late-turn to actually have feelings for three after wotfi 2021 sorry i couldnt add more because these two are so gay that I could barely say anything-)
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butteronpancakes · 5 months
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Thoughts on Blade's recent characterisation
(Crossposting from reddit because I love my tumblrinas)
Does anyone else feel Blade, and by extension Yingxing, had inconsistent writing 1.4? I'm wondering if I had just read his character wrong to begin with due to my personal biases and was hoping someone could clarify some aspects of Jing Liu's companion quest that confused me such as:
1) Mara 
Blade's mara feels like some convenient plot device. I was under the impression it flared up when confronting anything that conjures up painful memories such as his meetings with Dan Heng. Kafka even specifically told him in her companion quest to avoid seeing familiar faces again. Yet, he was somehow keeping himself together up until the peak of the battle with JL? Which leads me onto my next point.
2) Blade and Jing Liu
There is a huge tonal disparity between his voice line about JL and how he interacted with her in the CQ. The 1.4 trailer gave me the impression he was going to throw hands but he just kinda asked her to try killing him again. Which is fair, it reinforces his ultimate goal of wanting to die and feeds into JL being a harbinger of karmatic debt that shaped his identity as a vengeful weapon. I have nothing against this but it makes the previous voice line about her feel needlessly aggressive and out of place. 
3) Yingxing and Baiheng 
This is admittedly more of a personal gripe but I feel they should have established his relationship with Baiheng a lot more. It's obvious BH was extremely dear to him given that, according to JL, the entire sedition (which is a subject with its own share of differing narratives) was an attempt to resurrect her. 
I actually really like how this reinforces that Baiheng was the glue of the HCQ and that it makes sense as it was her that gave YX the confidence boost he needed as a child. 
However, at the same time I feel conflicted because it completely destroys the entire point of Yingxing's character? YX took pride in being a short-life species that was able to surpass the XZ natives through his hard work and passion, forgetting to even sleep or eat. He was so driven on avenging the family the abundance took from him at such a young age despite facing prejudice from the other craftsmen. He literally never shuts up about it, 
"In fact... I also have lots of work to do, and won't live very long unlike the celestials on the Xianzhou. "
"I'm a short-life species, you think two hours isn't enough? It will be done"
This line in particular speaks for itself,
"I'd rather leave this world in a blaze than live until the end of time. I will let all of the Xianzhou know that a brief moment of my life is worth more than their long meaningless live."
The reason why Blade's story is so tragic is because he was robbed of this and thereby, everything that made him Yingxing. 
Now I get it, that must have meant that he loved Baiheng so much to completely turn around all his values on living one's limited existence to the fullest and being against the abundance to use the flesh of an emanator on her. Grief changes you, one's personal philosophies may not necessarily apply to other people, BH was already notorious for escaping near death situations, he probably had it in his head he will die first out of the Quintet, and he and DF were proud, arrogant jackasses who thought they could actually pull their Full Metal Alchemist arc off.
But you see how there are some fairly subjective assumptions needed to be made here in order to justify such a drastic shift in YX's characterisation that was consistently built up since the beginning? It also doesn't help that this quote can either come across as him respecting the situation or sounding bitter about it. 
"Yes, none of us are special! Each of us has only one life, sacrificing for this, dying for that... it's all our own choices. Just like how she chose to save you and Jing Liu... just like how she chose to let more people live on!"
I understand it on paper but I feel there was loss potential and not much concrete in-game content to drive home the emotional impact. Blade barely mentions Baiheng in his character stories aside from the vague "beloved", there are no voice lines, mirage echoes or any other readings aside from the Zhuming one prior to 1.4. Heck, that one closed beta content about her was removed and they only kept the lore about DF (at the risk of sounding like some annoying shipper, they established DF and YX being partners-in-crime so much to the point it is more convincing that he assisted mostly out of loyalty to DF) . I get it that Baiheng isn't explicitly stated to have any present counterparts (even though BH = Bailu theory is super implied at this point) but that didn't stop JL from having her dead centre on her phone case.
Also for those entertaining the possibility that YX mostly did it to go along with DF's ulterior motive of creating a new HE and/or uprooting the Ambrosial Arbor, the bracer lore implies that YX was the one who originally brought up the idea of supposedly resurrecting BH.
"This person (DF) who stubbornly adhered to their plans with the unnamed (YX)"
I'm not saying at all this approach was bad or any logic leaps had to be made (it's honestly pretty straightforward) but it felt like the rug was pulled from underneath for those who were invested in YX/Blade as a character. I've also seen the argument that YX's arrogance was repeatedly mentioned, so it's no surprise he had a wack moral compass, but didn't that conceited behaviour also stem from his virgin XZ natives vs chad short-lived outlander mentality?
I've said this before but the narrative told in JL's CQ is good in a vacuum but it made some of the previously established lore come across as contradictory, hence all these theories about JL being a unreliable narrator and conspiracies about writers intentionally messing up the HCQ lore.
I'm not sure, is what I'm saying making sense or did I just make up an oc in my head?
TDLR; It felt like they were changing around previously established aspects of his character for JL's companion quest and the parts that did make sense lacked context that it being the sole reason to throw away all the foundation themes YX embodies just rubs the wrong way.
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dolphin1812 · 11 months
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This will probably be short, but I was fascinated by this quote:
“A convent is a contradiction. Its object, salvation; its means thereto, sacrifice. The convent is supreme egoism having for its result supreme abnegation.”
This comment reminds me of what Fauchelevent said about Valjean forgetting everyone he’s helped being a way in which he’s self-centered, his good deeds actually reflecting his “egoism.” The convent, like his lifestyle, encourages sacrifice; with the exception of Cosette, Jean Valjean minimizes everything he needs, surviving on the minimum and saving his money. Even as mayor, his residence was known to be sparsely decorated. On the one hand, it’s reasonable that he wouldn’t be extravagant. He doesn’t want to draw attention to himself. On the other, he does see his “salvation” as sacrificing himself for the sake of others. Many of his risks – like saving Fauchelevent – are noble, but as Fauchelevent pointed out, he doesn’t dwell on them, treating them as isolated deeds. To Hugo, this is a “contradiction.” Perhaps salvation can’t come from sacrifice if there’s nothing left to save.
Hugo also compares being in a convent to death, paralleling Valjean’s comfort with the thought of dying. If being in a convent is choosing to be entombed, we know that’s a choice he wouldn’t find completely abhorrent; he’d likely even find it reassuring. Since our last chapters with him dealt with him and Cosette, the source of love and joy in his life, the flaws in his mindset have been less clear. The similarities between his ideas and the convent, though, remind us of the dangers in his “contradictory” thought process, which takes ills for goods as long as they’re at his expense.
The idea of “reigning” is also intriguing. Valjean doesn’t seem to be controlling, so it seems to be a point of contrast. However, his lifestyle does lead to many limitations.
spoilers below:
Valjean has the best of intentions when it comes to Cosette and tries to offer her freedom by leaving the convent. In this sense, he “abdicates.” That being said, he still “reigns” in that his fear of being caught controls their lives, nearly overriding Cosette’s desires. They leave the convent, but Valjean’s mind is a convent of his own, one that Cosette must live with as well. At the same time, Valjean’s fears aren’t unfounded. If society is unjust for allowing the physical convent to exist, then it is just as wrong for constructing the psychological convent that dominates his life.
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Hii, i would be very happy to hear your opinion about this
in medici ep5 of s2 it was implied that giuliano was mad that lorenzo didn't ask him to be his son's godfather, it's natural that giuliano is hurt since he's the baby's uncle while Francesco is a random outsider but then idk if he would be a good godfather since we saw he was quite carefree. He was literally late for piero's christening and we also didn't see him bother to come to see the baby while we saw both bianca and Francesco on screen with the baby after the christening. So i doubt if he was choosen to be the godfather would he be a responsible one? Given how carefree he was i doubt if situation was reversed, he would have raised piero as responsibly and affectionately as lorenzo has raised guilio. But then he actually in a way sacrificed his life for lorenzo so maybe he would be worthy if given a chance but i am not sure. What do you think?
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Sorry this took me so long to answer lol, I had a lot of thoughts about this and had to make sure not to go off on a tangent lol
Okay, so yes, in ep 5 of season 2, its implied that Giuliano is hurt, and feeling left out, although I don't think it is specifically about Francesco being Piero's godfather and not him. I think that is probably a part of it, but I think it is more, that Lorenzo brought Francesco into the Medici family and wanted to work closely with him and the Pazzi bank to ensure everyone got along, and I imagine that kinda of made Giuliano feel left out, Lorenzo can also be an idjit and probably treated Francesco more like a brother than a working partner, and didn't work very hard to keep Giuliano in the fold, but I don't think that small fall out between Giuliano and Lorenzo was completely Lorenzo's fault. Giuliano probably felt left out and went off to sulk and pulled away instead of trying to fix things.
Nah, I don't think Giuliano would have been a responsible Godfather, he was the younger son, and liked to enjoy himself and indulge, but he was never ready to be in charge of a child. Francesco on the other hand, wanted kids, and I think if things had gone differently Francesco would have been very involved in Piero's life. He would have taken the role of godfather seriously, whereas Giuliano might have just seen it as a title since he is Piero's uncle.
I also think Lorenzo wanted the making of Francesco, Piero's Godfather to be something to make Francesco feel more like family, and I don't think he did it to snub Giuliano. At this point in the series, Guliano had pulled away and wasn't really present.
I think if something had happened to Lorenzo and Clarice and Giuliano was left with Piero, Giuliano would rise to the occasion. Neither of the Medici sons is one to shrink from duties or responsibility. So Giuliano would have had some growing up to do and learning, but he would have raised Piero as his own like Lorenzo did for Giulo.
I also think, maybe on some level Lorenzo knew that Giuliano was younger, he wanted his freedom, he is the younger brother. Francesco is the older brother, he practically already was a father to Gugielmo, so yeah Francesco might have been a more obvious choice in that area.
But I don't think Lorenzo's choice to make Francesco godfather was supposed to snub Giuliano. It was to bring the families closer together, especially since Jacopo was a wild card, and I think Lorenzo genuinely wanted Francesco to be a part of their family. Francesco never had a core family growing up and I think Lorenzo knew that. And like I said, at this point Giuliano had pulled away so maybe there was some distance between the brothers and they were both going about that the wrong way. The Medici brothers are pretty but at times they can be pretty dumb lol
Hope that answered your question! Thanks for the ask! 🙂 🩶
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faverna · 4 months
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Ok it's loki season 2 finale rant time bitches
!¡ SPOILERS and crying ¡!
Ok so first, omfg its a tree
With fruit! Or sparkly whatever things. Doesn't matter. I could be thinking too much (I am) but I think it's kinda of cute to think about how loki takes all these lives and choices and worlds and helps them grow into a beautiful living force of nature. One that creates life and great things all on its own. This contrasts the whole loom idea. The loom takes all these lives and choices and worlds, chooses the ones it wants, and weaves them into a single, artificial, "perfect" thread. It's like nature vs. industry kind of.
Second, AAAAAAAA LOKIUS
The way mobius' ending line echoed and it zoomed in on loki's face is my new roman empire. Also the way mobius turned New York alien invasion loki into self-sacrificing, god of stories loki is crazy. Ship them or not that's amazing. They are besties and also definitely in love (imo) your honor. Back to the original train of thought. I would assume loki can see/hear into timelines to a certain degree. Which means he could be watching mobius from afar which is enough to make the tears start. And does mobius know this? Is that why he waits there a little longer? I can see him sitting in a room alone talking to loki and just hoping loki can hear him. And maybe loki responds despite knowing no one can hear him 😭 cryimg. Maybe they don't even speak they just sit there knowing the other is thinking about them. It's so tragically cruel that just as loki realizes that what he really wants is his friends back and to not be alone, he loses his friends and becomes alone forever. He finally gets his throne. Which is another thing. I might be wrong but I think I remember loki talking about how he never wanted the throne of asgard he just wanted his father's love and stuff like that (idr what movie) which is even more painful. He chased a throne he didn't want his whole life in an attempt to gain other things. When he realizes he has what he wants he loses it. Similar to how in ragnarok thor tells him he was always loved, loki just didn't realize. And how thor says loki could've been more if he just let himself be more. And mobius told loki (who didn't get to ragnarok) he could be someone good. Loki finally finds the truth in these things, he can be good, but he loses everything he really wanted in return.
We arrive at three, mobius leaves the TVA
This scene hurts too. Mobius says he belongs at the TVA and he likes it there. And honestly, I (because as not him I am oh so qualified here (sarcastic)) agree. I can't see him living the life he has on the timeline. I can see him settling down but idk something feels off (it's not with loki /hj). After loki leaves he looks absolutely miserable at the TVA though. Mobius lost his purpose when loki found his </3 and now the only thing he can do is try to live some semblance of a life. Loki lost his best friend but so did mobius. And now he has to leave his life's work and try to live like a normal person who hasn't had their world ripped away from them. Me personally, I would feel hopeless.
Oh and fourth, where the fUck is he
It was probably said at some point but I don't remember, I'm too lazy to look, and I don't actually need an answer. But what kind of messed up outer space dimension are they in? Where is the TVA? Can't be in space because then someone would conquer them. And where did loki go? He ripped open space and now he has a chair somewhere. Speaking of which. My man has a chair. Just a chair. A rock chair. Barely a throne. Ignoring all the awful stuff I just spent ages typing that's a pretty awful way to spend the rest of time. Speaking of which part 2. Is loki immortal now? Because last I checked he had a lifespan of 5000 which is not "for the rest of time" sooo?
I'll probably think of more I wanted to say but hopefully I got most of it. Just needed that out of my brain it was and still will take up too much space.
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inventedfangirling · 10 months
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PatPran & Sacrifice
This post is borne out of my genuine confusion about what people mean when they say pat's sacrifice (to stay in the closet to be with pran) is so great that pran will never be able to repay it.
First of all the universe of the show doesn't even have homophobia so the closet in this context is something that is uniquely made just for them and them alone and is not something that a person unfamiliar to their family dynamics will understand.
So then even if we do consider this closet that both pat and pran are in, why do we say that pat is in it for pran and has therefore made a huge sacrifice when pran literally has done the same thing for him?
Even if we assume that pat no longer gives ming the power to dictate things in his life and thus can see and be with pran as he pleases, and even if it's cos of dissaya's opposition to any association between their families that has forced them into this fake break up drama, it is still a decision that both of them took based on what they wanted alone.
Pat wants to be with Pran, whether he gets to be public with their love or not. Ideally would he prefer shouting it from the rooftops? Yes. But he also doesn't think its worth it if it means losing pran, like he showed in ep8 when he apologised to pran and told him he wouldn't post stuff on social media anymore if it bothered him so much. So here he was willing to give up doing that, to do what he actually wanted to do- be with pran.
Pran similarly offers to give up his need for privacy and living a lowkey non social media flaunt-ey life (free of threat of getting transferred and uprooted again) cos he wants to be with Pat more than he wants all of that. And in this context it is Pran who ultimately gives it up by allowing Pat to post pictures which he immediately does too.
And look at completely smitten babies smiling after having offered to give up something for the other, communicating through the shitstorm that is carrying all that intergenerational trauma.
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That's love and that's love by choice.
Now flashforward to the fake break up and the continued pretense of being exes while being lovers. Pat has given up the chance to flaunt his relationship (like the heart on sleeve guy he is) to be with Pran. But the crucial thing here is he wants to be with Pran more than wanting to flaunt the relationship. He isn't giving up any alternate happy future with somebody else where he could be open about who he loves, because the one he loves is Pran and if he gives up Pran it is he himself who would be the most miserable. He loves Pran and he wants to spend his life with him and so there isn't any alternate in front of him for him to give up to be with him. This is his one and only option, the only choice he wants to make and he is evidently more than happy with that decision as we see at the end of episode 12 even if ofc he does miss pran terribly cos he's in singapore.
Coming to Pran, i dont understand if im reading it wrong, or if i haven't read the right posts yet but a lot of what i read feels like he doesn't sacrifice anything. {It is a whole different thing that Pat keeps offering help to Pran and Pran accepts it, but we also see Pran do a lot for Pat without being asked, and its just their way of expressing love being different. And them recognising that. This isnt about that}. What im so confused about is the way it feels like there is general acceptance of an imbalance (that Pat gave up so much more than what Pran did) in the ultimate sacrifice that is the fake breakup because if Pat sacrificed something then didn't Pran sacrifice something exactly similar too?
If Pat's sacrifice is giving up the chance to be in a relationship where he doesn't have to hide, then why are we ignoring Pran giving up the same? Or am i missing something? It's not like Pat is the only who can pursue alternate relationships. Pran could too. Dissaya would be very supportive of any other relationship he chooses to be in. And he could probably find somebody who is more similar to him who doesn't mind not flaunting the relationship and having it be lowkey and stuff. These are all possibilities that are open to him too, and yet, it doesn't even occur to Pran ( like it doesnt to Pat) because Pran loves Pat and wants to be with Pat and while ofc it is terrible to have to hide your love and a part of yourself, and while ofc it would be great if they didnt have to hide, if thats what takes to be with each other he would do that, they would do that .
Look at them yelling and teasing each other in full audio range of both their families, smiling from ear to ear having the time of their lives. The closet be damned.
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That's 2 men who have gone through shit side by side and continue to choose to love each other daily. No matter how obvious (to eo) that choice might be. Let's never forget that it was intentional.
So to conclude, the fake breakup pretense was a mutual choice, based on their own self interests and any sacrifice was made for their own sake, and it was equally done from both ends. And if anybody disagrees with me, Pran has something to say to you.
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navysealt4t · 7 months
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HI BLUE! :D
deposits a snip of wtds in your inbox for the first time in probably months bc its actually been months since ive touched this fic
[...] It doesn't make any sense. But then again, when has anything here ever made sense. It's just the way it is. He has to keep moving, even if he's just meandering. Moonlight is cold, so unlike the warmth of the sun that he's really started to miss. But, it's safer this way. He has to be awake at night. He doesn't have a choice— well. He does have a choice. And it's one he already made, one he made when he decided to set foot out in the maze in the first place. When he sacrificed himself for them. He's alone. Pandora is alone, and he has to live with that. A fighting spirit and a weak body don't mix very well; one will always give before the other, and he can only hope for the best. "It's been quiet," he tries, but it comes out wrong. The sound echoes and bounces off the stone walls surrounding him, practically a taunt that he's playing with fate. Instead, he affirms it, "it's been quiet," shaking off the lingering threads of fear winding in his chest. "The creature's missing again. Which isn't exactly a good sign, but it does grant me a little bit of time. At least until it comes back. I have time enough to explore without too much worry, even if… I'd rather not leave the sectors I've already checked. It's too risky. There's too many traps I won't be able to get out of on my own." Heading down a path he normally would avoid, it takes him away from the clearing. Even though tonight it sounds like nobody's waiting for him, he'd much rather not push his luck. Almost getting caught multiple times because he didn't take enough precautions wasn't going to help. No matter how much he wants to go back. It's for the greater good. It's the right thing to do. He'll only hurt them. He can't hurt them. [...]
what if i said this is the fluff chapter. like. it genuinely is PDDNJK the angst is just seeping through the cracks
aaaaand! song! bonus!
(song: anachronism by crywolf)
ooooo :0 i fucking. i love the eeriness of this whole scene. the "its been quiet" and talking to himself and descriptioon is just soo fitting. also!!! reads very 'calm between the huge ass storm' lmao
also totally get the angst seeping through. so many of my fluff fics have ended up as hurt/comfort bc i forgot to dial back the angst lmao
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ngc-5194 · 9 months
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Hihihi Lemon Drop!!! Hope you're having a lovely day 💛💛💛 Answerer's choice Sora Kingdomhearts or Joshua Kiryu Twewy for the ask game mayhaps??? :0c
hihi happi!!!!!!!!!!!! i'm having a pretty good day, thank you!! and! as u comand <3333333
Sora:
Sexuality Headcanon: bi!! and aromantic sometimes when the moment strikes. he is just a little guy who loves his friends oh so much <3333
Gender Headcanon: transmasc! he can contain so much transmasc swag its unreal. also every kh character is trans because i say so thank you for your time
A ship I have with said character: sorikai is soooo cute. who doesn't love childhood friends to lovers, especially when they all have two hands <33
A BROTP I have with said character: i need him and vanitas to be friends somehow so badly you don't understand. but of the actual relationships he has already him and roxas are so Important to me it's not even funny
A NOTP I have with said character: i'm gonna be real i just don't really get the princess ships. that or like him with any of the wayfinder trio. or just anyone who knew him as small kid when they were grown up.
A random headcanon: i think sora was the first of the island kids to learn how to swim but pretended to not be able to until riku and kairi could as well. he didn't want to swim until they could all swim together.
General Opinion over said character: I LOVE HIMMMM. he's so silly and kind and loveely. i am holding him in the palm of my hand and showing him off to everyone like a cool bug. i am feeding him little treats .i am forcing him to stop sacrificing himself for once in his life
Joshua:
Sexuality Headcanon: look at him. that's a homosexual. a very annoying one in a boring outfit but a Homosexual nonetheless. however. specifically he's homoromantic asexual. to me.
Gender Headcanon: trans man who gets just a little spicy with it (he/they/it in general but He/Him when he's feeling Annoying and she/her on the occasions he feels like it)
A ship I have with said character: i'm BORING okay <- joshneku. however joshbeat is also very funny to me i am smashing them together like barbie dolls.
A BROTP I have with said character: i think josh and shiki would be an incredible duo if they do not kill each other in the first 20 minutes. rather, if she does not kill him. again. also this is probably just dream drop distance talking but joshua and rhyme's dynamic can be SO.
A NOTP I have with said character: i suppose i'm not the biggest enjoyer of him and haz, but honestly i don't really care that much.
A random headcanon: ok this is a pretty common one but that boy definitely killed himself. most dramatically ironic if he did it from falling or a gun but no matter what that boy died by his own hand before he tried doing it again through neku
General Opinion over said character: i hate his ass so much. if anyone insults him theyre right but they are also so so so wrong. no one understands him like i do. i don't understand him either. i would punch him immediately if given the chance. someone needs to drag his ass to therapy yesterday. he's (probably) my favourite twewy character. i hate his stupid gay ass.
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thekingofwinterblog · 3 years
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It’s all for his sake - Endeavor and the Sunk Cost Fallacy
My hero academia 301 is a pretty interesting chapter, but for me, the most notable piece of it was how Endeavour reacted to the realization that Touya couldnt surpass All Might.
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upon realizing that his son might not be able to do it because of inborn physical limitations, he immediatly stopped his training, which frankly was the responsible and adult thing to do. 
This stint of real parenthood did not last long however.
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After taking the matter to a doctor, he is flat out told that not only cant Touya achive what endeavor wants, but it is a direct result of his incredibly selfish and irresponsible attempt to play god, by trying to breed the “perfect” hero into being.
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It is how you react when you lose however, that shows who you really are, and endeavor illustrates that very, very well.
Upon being told in no uncertain terms that his attempts at Breeding an heir failed magnificently, producing a child that was not capable of resisting his own immense power, but also admonished by his doctor for even attempting it, and adviced not to try again, Endeavor instead doubled down, while focusing on the child he screwed over from the start with his attempt at genetic manipulation.
It was all for him you see. Endeavor doesnt use those words, but that is how he spins it here. it was all for Touya, all for his sake. if i stop now, then Touya was all for nothing, a mistake, im doing this for my son.
if im doing this for my son, then im not responsible for any of this.
his wife however, calls him out on it, as she understands Touya much, much more than endeavor does. or rather, she sees him fully as a human being, instead of as a thing, a weapon, a failed attempt at an heir.
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Unlike Endeavor, Rei is able to see the way this all is affecting her son. She is able to see, and understand that Touya has fully accepted what Endeavor wanted him to be. a stronger, and better version of himself. however, unlike Endeavor, she only cares about him as a person.
Endeavour by comparison isnt completely uncaring about Touya. like most abusive parents, he does possess love for his offspring, but it is forever tainted by the fact that however much he might care, or not care about Touya, any familial love he has for his son is tainted by the fact that to Endeavor, he is a failed experiment, a failed heir, not his child. 
He is the golden child that Endeavor was building up as his true and only heir, who he breed, trained, and molded to for that single purpose, and now that he’s reached a point where he cant continue that legacy.
so, its time to abandon him, and start over new, despite literarily having just learned how stupid this plan was, and that it can, in fact, go completely wrong, with a quirk that will fuck over the person he brings into the world.
Of course, Endeavor doesnt use those words to frame it. there is no way to pretend to be a hero, if you phrase it like that after all. Intead, this is the words he uses.
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this is a very important series of panels for a great number of reasons, some that can be debated, argued, and we will probably never know the full truth to the questions because this is a series published in 2020′s shonen jump, and there are things that probably wasnt gonna fly with Hori’s editors, if it was the case.
but lets start with what can not be debated. Endeavor’s words here.
“If we want him to give it up, then we have no choice... Touya... Cant surpass him.”
These are very telling words, and however you believe The third and fourth children of the Todoroki family was concieved, there is not denying the meaning of what he’s saying here.
The only way that my son will stop being an idiot and fall into line, is if we have another baby. that is the only Right way to move forward. it is morally right, because if we dont do this, then he’s going to destroy himself.
there are two ways to interpret this scene.
The charitable way is to read it as the fact that he used Rei’s oldest son’s mental state as a justification of guilting his wife to have a third child, to give this attempt at a superpowered breeding project another shot, despite the fact that they now know that this can lead to a child who is essentially born crippled from his own powers, and despite the fact that Rei obviously understands the effect of them continuing this insanity will have on their oldest son.
the uncharitable way to look at it, is that he used this as justification for flat out raping her, and forcing a third, and then later a fourth child on her.
I personally believe the last one, given a number of factors shown in this chapter(the way this page is framed, the fact Rei obviously didnt want a third child, given she predicted exactly how touya would react, the way her eyes would latet turn when she looks at who is presumably touya which really brings to mind how she would later react to her youngest son’s face after her mental breakdown, etc.), but i’ll frankly admitt that withouth a direct quote from Hori, its impossible to know for sure one way or another. 
either way however, this is a very good example of Endeavor both being influenced by, and using Sunk Cost Fallacy to justify bringing another potentially crippled child into the world for his own, selfish goals.
sunk cost Fallacy, is a mental reaction to when you invest more time and resources into a project, that you becomes so emotionally invested into said project that you will continue to invest into it, even if it reaches a point that it becomes clear that the resources you put into it, far, far outweighs the potential gains you can achieve.
because if you give up after having invested years, and years of effort to breed, raise, and train a kid, and then all that effort was absolutely wasted. hence he choose to keep going, despite having learned what a terrible idea this is.
He doesnt care about the fact that his next child might be even more crippled than his firstborn, he doesnt care about his son’s actual wellbeing. he cares about the fact that if he doesnt continue this insanity, then not only will he not achieve his dreams, but everything he did to get to this point was for absolutely nothing.
and endeavor cannot accept that. and so long as he can justify breeding more children into the world, and there being any chance they might inherit both quirks perfectly, he doesnt care about anything else.
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and the moment he realised that this kid wasnt gonna cut it either, he did it again. it is not a coincidence, that the age gap between Endeavor’s second, third, and fourth children were all 3-4 years apart. because thats the age where you can usually tell when a quirk will manifest or not, as established earlier in the series.
While she isnt brought up directly by Endeavor as a justification, it is very telling that Endeavor decided on having a third child, only after his second child was old enough that he could tell that that there was no chance she could take the place as his heir instead.
So, he had his third child, and as time passed and it became obvious that he wasn’t gonna be able to fulfill Endeavor’s goals either, he dumped him, and instead breed a fourth child into existence.
and finally, he struck gold. he did it. he produced Shoto.
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everything was finally worth it, and now, everything would be absolutely fine. the cost fallacy had reached its end, and it was now all full sails ahead.
except of course it wasnt.
His oldest son, now in middle school, had been raised from birth to believe he would surpass his father, only to be thrown away, and getting to see his father try to replace him, not once, but twice.
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frankly, this scene is probably my favorite in the chapter, because it goes to show Endeavor’s mindset. Natsuo made a point that their father completely ignored his older children. and he did... from Natsuo’s perspective. however, having a more thourough picture of things, we can clearly see that this wasnt the case with Touya.
Endeavor genuinly cared for Touya, enough that once he got that child he tried to breed into existence 4 times, he genuinly wanted him to just abandon trying to be a hero. he genuinly thinks of himself as a good dad here, wanting his son to abandon the mission he set out for him before he was born. of course, with context, this heartwarming scene is incredibly sad and insidious, because we understand why Endeavor got so attached to his oldest child. because he WAS the golden child. he was the child Endeavor genuinly cared about, and invested in, and trained personally with great warmth and enthusiasm.
And not only did he abandon him as a failed project the moment he realized he wasnt gonna live up to his ridiculous standards, but he literarily created 2 more kids to try and replace him, just as his oldest son was old enough to understand what exactly his dad was doing. over the course of this chapter, we get to see Touya’s start as a 5-8 year old, his deteriorating mental state over the years, until he finally seemed to reach the breaking point with Shoto’s birth sometime in his middle school years 12-15. 
Endeavor is in this scene, just not capable of understanding why Touya so desperately wants to become a hero, when obviously he isnt physically able to do so. he isnt able to understand that he is 100% to blame for the fact that his son is having a full emotional breakdown after literaly being replaced by his siblings. 
In other words, Endeavor genuinly think’s he’s a good person. a person who has made a few mistakes along the way sure, but a person who was always justified in the end, and now that he’s having to face the fact that as dabi would later say “The past never dies” and has to face the aftermath of his inane attempt to play god for the pettiest of reasons, things simply arent going to work out.
He isnt going to have a happy family, who can now put the awful early years behind them, he put way too much effort, caused too much suffering and sacrificed too many years of his life for this not to work out as he wants.
after all, if he walks away from this project now, and lets Shoto have a normal childhood, and decide for himself, with no pressure from him, wheter or not to become a hero, then the sunk cost fallacy will have reached a negative end. it will all have been for nothing.
and we know he did eventually double down on this mentality, literarily beating into Shoto that he WAS going to become a hero, and there was not but’s or no’s about it.
there was no way that Endeavor was EVER going to let things be for nothing. His treatment of his older children could not be for nothing. His treatment of his wife could not be for nothing. His treatment of Shoto, and the way he beat him black and blue to train him, could not be for nothing.
Because if it all was for nothing, if everything he feels guilty about was for absolutely nothing, then he was in fact, a bad, bad person, who had no justification for anything he ever did.
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bigstripeylie · 3 years
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Ghosts theory- “sucked off” edition
Apologies for the title.
I have a theory about how each of the ghosts in Ghosts has a parallel with another Ghost and how this could be the key to them finally being able to move on, or “be sucked off’ as Mary would say.
Putting it behind a cut as this is extremely long and rambly. Spoilers for pretty much every episode of Ghosts
First of all I was listening to Mat and Jim on the Empire Spoilers podcast and Mat said something really interesting about how he intended “you stays how you dies” to refer to the ghost’s mental and emotional state, as well as physical. So Thomas always being obsessed with seeking love is because he died broken-hearted and Fanny always being so grumpy is because she died angry at her husband. 
I believe, therefore, that if the ghosts were able to overcome each of their emotional blocks that would be the thing that would allow them to move on. Furthermore, each of the ghosts has another ghost that seems perfectly suited to be able to assist them in that.
Let’s go through them:
Thomas- Thomas died believing his love never loved him back and now is forced to spend eternity seeking for love as a ghost. If Thomas was able to find someone who could reciprocate his affections, this would the resolve that issue. In the Series 2 episode “About Last Night” when Alison drunkenly tells Thomas “if you were alive and I was 200 years older, then we might have…” we hear a choir start singing and Thomas is pulled, as if compelled, through the wall, similar to how Fanny is pulled forwards towards the window to jump when she “doesn’t even realise [she’s] doing it.” Thomas desperately craves love and affection from another person, but in life was constantly rejected by the people he loved most. You know who else that sounds like? Kitty.
Kitty- Like Thomas, she is from a wealthy family who sheltered her a lot growing up, but is ultimately good and tries to be honourable. Kitty also craves love and affection as well as companionship and she tries to seek it, first in Eleanor and then in Alison (because Alison reminds her of  Eleanor, like how Alison reminds Thomas of Isabelle). However it comes up again and again that Kitty’s relationship with Alison isn’t as fulfilling to her as she would like it be because her being a ghost prevents her from sharing every activity with Alison, and Alison cannot show her physical affection. Kitty is trying to recreate aspects of her relationship with Eleanor using Alison as a substitute but this isn’t very healthy for her, as it simply traps her in the constant state of seeking affection that will not or cannot be returned fully. We don’t know the exact circumstances of Kitty’s death but after Series 3, if seems likely that her sister was in some way involved. Maybe what is keeping Kitty trapped as a ghost is her need for approval and love that she never got in life? But by seeking it in people who remind her of Eleanor exclusively, she is further trapping herself.
If Kitty and Thomas could find love with each other, they could each fulfil the other’s need for reciprocated affection. They are both equally needy so this quality wouldn’t likely annoy the other. Kitty seems to genuinely enjoy high romance in earnest and in finding an outlet for her love in Thomas, she could finally move on from her sister. Thomas would also find someone to love him and could devote himself completely to someone who would actually return his love, instead of fruitlessly pursuing women who remind of Isabelle’s rejection. This could lead to the resolution of both character’s finally moving on from their deaths.
Next up, let’s look at The Captain-
The Captain’s central conflict is obviously his sexuality. I believe that the resolution to this conflict would be him finally accepting and coming to terms with being gay and feeling comfortable with that part of his  identity. Which ghost could best help him in this?
Fanny. 
Maybe not the answer you were thinking, but hear me out. The Captain already has a strong positive relationship with Fanny built on mutual respect. He is more likely to value her opinion as an equal that any of the other ghosts and he seems to align himself with her on most issues. Which makes his choice to go against Fanny and defend the same-sex wedding and its guests to her in “Perfect Day” really remarkable.
In “Perfect Day”, Fanny expresses some pretty disapproving remarks about the wedding guest’s attire and some homophobic opinions about the same-sex wedding in general, which prompts the Captain to defend one of the guests to Fanny. “It’s chic, it’s now, and if it makes her feel fabulous…”
Imagine a scene where The Captain has to defend himself towards Fanny in a similar manner after coming out, showing that he is finally accepting of his sexuality as being the right thing for him. 
Anyway, that was a slight digression…
Fanny is still struggling to deal with the circumstances of her own death which was brought about in part because she caught her husband having an affair with other men. Fanny needs to accept and come to terms with the fact that her husband didn’t love her and that while he was obviously wrong for murdering her, she needs to move on so she can stop reenacting it by jumping out the window every morning. Because she died feeling angry and betrayed, she is trapped in that state in death. Discovering that one of her closest friends is gay and realising that it is possible for someone to be both gay and a good person might prompt her to think differently about her own life, as she started do with Humphrey in Perfect Day. 
The Captain, in turn, could be driven by Fanny’s ability to accept his sexuality into thinking ‘if she can accept that part of me, then maybe I can too.’ Personally, out of all the ghosts, I think it could only be Fanny who could prompt him to think that because it would mean the most to him coming from her.
Humphrey- Humphrey died because he was trying to protect Sophie, who rejected any attempt to get to know him and who he believed didn’t even like him. In death he is trapped in a state of being a selfless self-sacrificing people-pleaser and desperately wanting to be included in the other ghost’s activities, even allowing himself be kicked and thrown around if it means he can just be involved. In ‘I Love Lucy’ he even attempts to make a relationship with Fanny work, showing he is willing to sacrifice his own happiness for the sake of others.
Julian, by contrast, is the most selfish of all the ghosts at Button House. Deep down he feels guilty that his selfishness negatively affected the relationship with his daughter but seems not to be consciously aware that he feels like this. Julian’s selfishness to not spend time with his family ultimately leads to his death in Button House, as he neglected his family to spend more time at work and was clearly cheating on his wife, showing he is driven by selfish impulses.
If Julian were to perform a completely selfless act to the benefit of Humphrey, then Humphrey would get to feel as though someone was putting him first for once and valuing him the way he seeks to be valued. Julian would also break the pattern of selfish behaviour that caused his downfall.
The rest are little less well-defined:
Pat is the probably the ghost that we know the most about, through seeing his death and actually meeting his family in “Happy Death Day”, to the numerous anecdotes he reveals about his life throughout the show. However, I can’t decide for sure what is the thing that is keeping him a ghost. Pat himself seemed to think it was that he was missing his family, but this was ultimately proved wrong after he saw them again in ‘Happy Death Day’. Even meeting the boy who killed him and forgiving him in ‘Perfect Day’ didn’t cause him to move on. It could be something to do with Carol’s affair with Maurice but I just don’t know for sure. I like the idea of him fitting in with the plague ghosts. I think his personalty and leadership style would get along better with them than say, The Captain, who is too authoritarian. I also think Pat is someone who thrives in a group setting.
Robin and Mary are also tricky to work out what the thing keeping them as ghosts is because we know so little about their lives and deaths compared to the other characters. I think these are the only two ghosts who have not yet received a flashback to their lives. We know that Mary was in some way involved a witch-trail and this has traumatised her. Robin also has experienced a lot of trauma in his life but he seems to be more philosophical about it and accepting of it. He shows great empathy towards others both in trying to comfort Pat about his death in “Happy Death Day’ and Kitty in “About Last Night’, he could use his experience of trauma to help Mary deal with hers. They both seem to be looked down upon and ‘othered’ by the other ghosts due to their perceived lack of intelligence even though they are both very emotionally and socially intelligent.
If anyone has any thoughts about these last two pairings or any of the others, then please reblog and add your take!
I am not in any way saying that I think this is what will happen in the next series or what even I think should happen, but that this is one possibilities for much further down the road when the ghost are all ready to move on.
Also I have spent way too much time thinking about this…
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waithyuck · 3 years
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PUPPY
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pairing: werewolf!lee jeno x reader (f) *halloweenie special*
genre: smut, supernatural au
word count: 4k
warnings: mature content, excessive explicit language, sexy times (meaning sexual content), I used the word ‘penis’ ONCE and only ONCE, mentions of a knot, knotting (I’m sorry), slight impreg kink, cumming inside, unprotected sex, blood, aggressive behavior, other stupid cliche werewolf things that are most definitely prob in hundreds of fics, jeno does NOT like being called a puppy even tho he’s called it oNCe
a/n: the first release of the dreamie halloweenie series! I hope this one sets the tone for what’s to come 👀 sorry to anyone who hates werewolf cliches and for the extreme lack of any substance or plot lmaoooo anyway I hope y���all enjoy reading
| next >
~10/10/2020~
~~~~
“are you cool with jeno staying the night?” your brother shot out, startling you as he spoke, not even looking at you as he spread too much peanut butter on a slice of bread nestled in his hand.
you looked up from where you were sitting at the kitchen table to face your brother, not saying anything in reply as you got lost in your thoughts.
jeno was an oddball. he was nice and he wasn’t creepy or even that weird, he just had his moments that were just well, odd. he was your brother’s friend of about six years; they met in their second year of high school and have been inseparable ever since. because of that, you have also been surrounded by jeno in all that time as well.
in the first couple years, you didn’t notice anything strange about him. he seemed like a normal and healthy young teenage boy. he was incredibly handsome, so of course your poor soul developed a small crush on him that only grew as the years progressed.
since you paid such close attention to him, you could pick out the oddities in his behavior occasionally pretty well. just from that, you’ve deducted that his sense of smell was almost god-like, like he could smell things that a normal person couldn’t.
now, you supposed that it wasn’t that weird that he had a good sniffer; there were probably tons of other people in the world with the same ability...but it wasn't just his sense of smell that had you curious.
sometimes he would act strangely at night; not often, but enough to have you questioning it. he would either disappear completely without a word or come up with a half-assed excuse to leave and then run away like a frightened animal.
it was just plain odd...and you couldn't get over it, no matter how much you tried to will yourself not to think about it.
snapping out of your stupor, you felt your heart jump at the thought of jeno coming over, even though he’s been here countless times, but you didn’t let it show and you shrugged your shoulders.
“it’s not like I have a choice in the matter,” you stated truthfully, looking down to pick at your nails. “you would have just said he was coming over anyway if I said no.”
your brother smiled at you, beaming as he placed the bread down and patted your head.
“you know me so well, y/n.”
you rolled your eyes, shoving him away. “yeah,” you retorted, slightly annoyed. “It’s not like you’re my brother, or anything.”
he didn't say anything further and you left him alone with his sandwich, getting up and making your way to your room where you could successfully hide for the rest of the night. before your cold make it far, you heard your brother yell something about jeno coming around 8, but you didn't say anything back and just minded your own business all the way upstairs to your room.
you pathetically holed yourself up in your dark room for about four hours, only coming out to quietly sneak to the bathroom and then you would go back into hiding once again.
even when you got word that there was pizza downstairs, you ignored it and continued to watch horror story narrations on youtube.
you just couldn't deal with being in the presence of your long time crush today. it took everything in your power to stop yourself from going downstairs and being potentially spotted, but you managed to pull through successfully and be a pathetic hermit in your room.
it was around 3 a.m. when you were finally finished with watching youtube videos, and you felt gross. you supposed that the two boys would be sound asleep by now, considering your brother never ever sacrificed his beauty sleep for anyone. you grabbed some clean clothes and gathered them in your arms before trudging tiredly to the bathroom, swinging open the door without a second thought, not realizing that the light was already on when you got there.
your heart almost jumped out of your chest as your eyes bulged out of their sockets.
“holy fuck!” you screeched as you took in the sight of jeno, in the middle of the bathroom completely naked, stroking his painfully hard cock right before your eyes. you couldn’t tear your eyes away from the show and you accidentally discovered that there was something not right about the way it looked...
your mouth fell agape and you barely heard him gasp loudly before trying to cover himself with the closest towel.
“jesus christ, y/n!” he yelled back, both of you not even considering your sleeping brother that was just three rooms over.
your eyes stayed glued to where he was covering himself with the towel, still thinking about the oddity of his dick. it seemed to be swelling at the base, which was definitely not normal for a human penis to do.
“what the fuck is wrong with your dick?” you blurted out unapologetically, causing a blush to cover his entire face and neck. you tore your eyes from his covered crotch to look at his eyes, which were now a shocking shade of bright yellow. you jumped back, dropping your clothes on the floor as you watched him breath heavily, most likely trying to calm himself down the same as you.
“oh my god, what the actual fuck is happening?” you murmured out loud, your eyes wide and never leaving his own as he stood silently in front of you. “am i dreaming? am i fucking high?” you tried to reason out as to why you were seeing what you're seeing, but jeno didn't give you much time to think before he spoke.
“you’re not dreaming,” his voice came out low, almost like a growl, and you felt your heart freeze up. “I dunno if you’re high...but what you're seeing is as real as it gets.”
your mouth opened and closed like a fish gasping out of water, trying to formulate the words to say next. your brain literally couldn't think of anything except his abnormally large and weird dick.
“okay…” you trailed off, your hands coming up to rest over your racing heart. “so then I’ll ask again: what the fuck is up with your dick??” and then you quickly added, “and your eyes??? I'm so confused right now, jeno.”
he sighed heavily and turned around, giving you a full view of his ass before he gathered his clothes to get dressed and cover himself. you really should have looked away, but your eyes wouldn’t listen to your internal screaming no matter how hard you physically tried to stop staring.
when he pulled his shorts on he finally turned to face you once more, forgoing a shirt much to your dismay (but really, you were dying on the inside at the sight of his abs). he stared at you for a second, his eyes back to their natural deep brown color.
“...there's a lot we need to talk about.” was all he said before grabbing your wrist in his scorchingly warm hand and dragging you out of the bathroom and down to your room. you didn’t protest and you let him practically drag you all the way there, closing the door behind him and guiding you to plop down on your bed. jeno walked to the opposite side of the room, distancing himself from you as much as possible.
“um..so,” he started hesitantly, trying to form his words correctly. “I’m uh, I'm a werewolf.”
your eyes bulged out of your head in disbelief, but you didn't say anything in reply. you both stared at each other across the space of your bedroom, not uttering a single word.
at first you were ready to call him crazy; there was absolutely no way that it was true. but then you thought about his eyes, his sense of smell...and then thought about his cock...holy shit wait, was that a fucking knot??
“um, yeah, it was…” you heard him say suddenly. you jumped out of your skin at the sound of his voice, not expecting him to reply. did you say that out loud by accident?
“you did.”
okay fuck, you needed to stop thinking and pull yourself together. what were you supposed to say to that? ‘oh cool, your cock has a knot and you’re a fucking werewolf, that’s super, jeno!’
jeno went on to explain the ins and outs of being a werewolf to you over the next twenty minutes, the small pink blush on his cheeks never truly leaving as he went into detail about everything. he even corrected certain cliches that were not true, a scowl making its way to his features with each inaccuracy you brought up.
“so...my brother doesn’t know?” you questioned quietly, looking down at your lap.
“no one knows besides you and my family.” he confirmed, and you looked up again to see him lean against the wall behind his back, eyes gazing sharply at you.
you panicked slightly, thinking that holy crap, now that you know, he's gonna have to kill you so the secret doesn't get out.
“oh my god,” you whimpered out, “are you going to kill me now?”
you watched his eyes widen before he choked, coughing violently before composing himself. he straightened his posture, but still didn't make any move toward you, still keeping his distance.
“what?!” he practically shouted, startling you. “of course not! why would I do that??”
you felt your face grow hot and you looked away once again, wringing your hands together on your lap. you shrugged, murmuring quietly, “i dunno...I thought you'd kill me to keep the secret, well, you know, a secret…”
you heard him sigh exasperatedly before hearing his soft voice grace your ears from across the room.
“I don't kill people, y/n.” he sounded slightly sad, and you then felt bad about assuming something so terrible of him. “the only time I kill is when my instincts become too much to control, and I snap.” his head hung low, but he quickly added. “but I’ve never actually killed a person, even if my instincts were screaming at me to.”
you tried to wrap your mind around what his wolf instincts were like; he only briefly touched on that topic earlier, seeming like he didn't want to talk about it too much. you being yourself, of course you had to pry.
“so like, what you’re saying is,” you started, your hand cupping your chin in thought as you pondered over your thoughts. “that if you were to like, hypothetically, snap right now and go all feral, you would want to kill me?” the question came out inflected as a statement, but you nonetheless awaited his answer patiently as you took in the sight of his face going through about five different emotions in the short span of a couple seconds.
“I don’t think…” he trailed off, looking down at the floor while clenching his fists. “I don’t think killing you would be my first instinct,” he looked up at you, his eyes blazing a slight yellow again as he seemingly stared into your soul. “...if you catch my drift.”
at first you were completely confused, not sure what other instincts he could express while being feral, but then it all clicked and it had your body heating up at the thought.
“oh.” you simply retorted, your eyes glazing over at the implication of him pinning you down and taking you as he pleased. “oh, fuck. you’re fuckin’ serious?”
his eyes were dark as he drank you in, his nostrils flaring slightly as he subtly sniffed the air between the both of you. dear god, you hoped that he couldn’t smell the sudden arousal that consumed you. you watched his eyes glow into a bright yellow and you felt your instincts screaming at you to run, but you held his gaze as he let a low growl escape his mouth.
“y/n,” he said, low and strained as he tried to fight his animal instincts. “you need to leave if you don’t want this, right now.” his words were final, no room for questioning.
you briefly tried to think it over; what would actually happen if you stayed and let him have you? you could probably die, first and foremost, but you shook that thought away even though it was a very real and serious possibility. you couldn’t deny your arousal at the whole thing, being taken like a bitch in heat by a guy you’ve been thirsting over for a while now. you may not get the chance to fuck a werewolf again, so you quickly made your decision.
“I’m…” you trailed off, dragging your gaze down to his neck and collarbones where you could make out the sweat forming on his perfect skin. “I’m staying, jeno.” you spoke softly to him, watching his brow furrow in confusion before smoothing out again.
you made your way to him and he stiffened up, watching your every move like a predator as you tentatively stopped in front of his panting form. reaching a hand up, you caressed his face, your breathing shaky as you leaned in closer.
“you can have me, puppy.” you threw in the last little jab with that sudden nickname just for fun, your heart soaring at the sound of the deep growl he let out upon hearing it. you fought the smile off your face as he practically pounced on you, pushing you over to the bed and pinning your body underneath his in one swift movement.
“I’m a puppy, huh?” he questioned darkly, his glowing eyes roaming over your face before his head dipped down to nose at your throat. you whimpered softly as his teeth nibbled on your sensitive skin, earning a satisfied growl from him.
you felt your shorts stick to your core from how insanely soaked you had become, and you grew hot at the idea of him pulling them down to find that you were, in fact, pantieless. he had your wrists pinned down against the mattress, not allowing you to touch him much to your annoyance. you tried to struggle against his supernaturally strong hold, but was met with a deep snarl in response. you immediately grew pliant underneath him out of pure instinct.
he pulled back, sharp canines prominent in his mouth as he fixed you with his glowing stare, red swirling with yellow in his bright irises.
“don’t fucking move,” he spat, his voice coming out low and gutteral, causing a flood of your own arousal to escape you down below. his nostrils flared for the second time that night, and he breathed in deeply at the scent of your wet and begging cunt. “be a good girl and take what I give you.”
the statement was final, and you barely had time to nod before he was tearing your t-shirt in two, biting the skin of your shoulder. his sharper teeth did not sink deep into your flesh, but when he drug the canines across your skin, you felt them rip you open. you let out what could be considered a poorly concealed scream, but it came forth as more of a moan as you felt hot blood trickle down your arm.
your shirt was in ribbons, and he looked extremely pleased as he took in the beautiful sight of your naked breasts, no bra in his way. he watched as your chest heaved up and down in anticipation, and he released your wrist to gently trail both of his hand over your body.
“your tits are so pretty,” he murmured, diving down to take one of your nipples into his mouth. he worked your other boob with one of his hands, kneading it and flicking your sensitive nipple.
your back arched into his touch, and you tried your best to stay as quiet as possible in fear of your brother hearing you.
he suckled hard; nibbling your nipple and dragging his teeth along it, causing shivers to run up your spine and your core to clench around nothing. your shorts were without a doubt ruined at this point.
your nails scratched down his back and he continued to ravage your chest, alternating between both of your breasts and teasing your sensitive buds with no remorse. it felt like hours of play, but eventually he pulled back to roughly grip the fabric of your shorts and tear them down your legs, exposing your dripping core to his hungry eyes.
you whined as he stared at you, reaching your arms out towards his own pants, wanting to see his cock again now that you were laying there, desperate and pouting for it.
his eyes shot to your face, smirking as he watched your brow furrow and your lips purse, your hands trying to grab at him from your place on the bed.
he didn’t allow you to pull his shorts down for him; instead he hooked his own thumbs in the waistband and pulled them down slowly, exposing his cock inch by inch before it finally sprung out, slapping against his stomach proudly.
your mouth watered at the sight of him once again and you moved to try to sit up, but didn’t get very far. he grasped your non-bleeding shoulder and roughly shoved you against the mattress once again, not saying anything. the stare he gave you oozed enough dominance for you to clearly get the message that he was trying to send.
jeno didn’t waste any time spreading your thighs open, two of his fingers immediately swiping through your embarrassingly wet slit before easing inside your tight hole. the stretch burned at first, considering he was starting you off with two fingers instead of one, but you welcomed the slight pain that mixed with the pleasure of him reaching up with his thumb to graze over your throbbing clit.
jeno thrusted his fingers into you gently at first, gradually picking up the pace as he went along. before you knew it he was adding a third finger, stretching your more than you’ve been stretched before.
you gasped at the feeling, your back arching off the bed as you cried out while he started finger fucking you with earnest.
“shhh, baby,” he said quietly, his movements never ceasing. “just gotta open you up for me, make sure you can take my knot.”
you held back another moan at that, thinking of how his cock would stretch you open, and how full you would feel with his knot nestled inside you.
he abruptly pulled his fingers from you, causing your back to arch again as you protested the loss of stimulation. his strength amazed you, and with one hand on your belly he pinned you down completely, sucking on the fingers of his other lewdly while stating you in the eyes.
after licking his fingers clean, (which caused heat to crawl it’s way down your belly), he kissed you sloppily on the mouth once again before gripping your waist and roughly flipping you over onto your knees.
your chest was flush against the mattress as well as your face, and your hips were lifted high in the air and you could feel the heat radiating off of him as he positioned himself behind you.
his nails drug down your sides and he gripped one of your hips with his hand, using his other to position himself at your leaking entrance. you wiggled your hips in anticipation, whining as he drug the head through your folds before slowly sinking inside you.
your fingers gripped the pillows as he bottomed out, his knot already slowly forming at the base of his shaft. it stretched you ever so slightly at the entrance of your core, and you whimpered out in pleasure as he started thrusting in and out.
the small form of his knot caught on your entrance with each precise thrust, and you were finding it very difficult to stay quiet. jeno’s breaths were heavy and every so often he would let out a soft growl as he felt his tip pound gently into your cervix.
your small whimpers were short and staggered, escaping your mouth with each thrust, which spurred him on to create a faster and harsher pace. he leaned over your back and didn’t relent as his cock punished you pussy, and when you let out a cry that was just a little bit too loud, he shoved your face right into your pillow to silence you.
“shut up,” he panted, a rumble low in his chest following his words. “just fucking take it.”
you nodded your head in response to the best of your ability, biting your lip to keep quiet as the presence of his hand left the back of your head.
he seemed to be getting close now, and you could feel yourself teetering on the edge as well. it was uncommon for you to cum without any clitoral stimulation, and you were amazed at his ability to reach all of the most pleasurable spots inside you.
you felt your stomach tightening up and you gasped sharply when you felt his cock press right against your sweet spot, making you reach your high almost instantly.
you clamped around him, barely registering that he buried himself completely inside you and was now stretching you to the max with his fully developed knot. the pain of the stretch only intensified your orgasm, which had you screaming into your pillow to muffle your cries of ecstasy.
jeno growled loudly as he came shortly after, biting the back of your neck aggressively and painting your walls with his cum, emptying completely inside of you while his knot kept a single drop from escaping.
he withdrew his teeth from you, surprised that it didn’t break your skin, and gently moved the two of you to lay on your sides as you basked in the afterglow of what just occurred.
your chest heaved as you fought to catch you breath, you pussy still stretched to its limit as you laid with him. you reached an arm around to caress his face, a small show of affection as you smiled in bliss.
after catching your breath, you sat in silence for a bit, just bathing in each other’s warmth, before you had to go and open your big mouth again.
“so your knot is supposed to like, plug me up?” you questioned, your voice still sounding slightly out of breath as you panted. “to make sure I get like, hypothetically, pregnant or whatever?”
he groaned in response and gripped your hips tightly, his hips bucking and causing his still painfully hard cock to sharply jab against your sensitive insides, making you yelp.
“dear god, y/n,” he whined, his nails digging into your skin. “don’t say things like that, fuck.”
“oh, so you like that idea?” you teased, turning your head to try to look at him to the best of your ability considering your current position. “fucking me full of babies?”
his eyes stared down at you intensely, the color of his irises brightening up as he growled lowly at you. he suddenly gripped your hips and turned you both over, his body completely laying on your own as you were pressed against the mattress on your stomach.
“keep talking, y/n,” he growled out lowly, his hips pressing tightly against your ass, the head of his cock kissing your cervix. “I’ll fuck you again right now, and give you my fucking babies.”
he couldn’t see you, but you smiled contently, preparing yourself for another intense round with this beast of a man. there was a small chance that you would actually get pregnant, considering the IUD you had…but the thought of it had you ready to go at it again.
in some fucked up way, you were content with this, and you threw your hips up to grind back against him, grinning even wider as he pinned your body down even harder.
jeno fucked you like an animal until the sun came up, and your brother was none the wiser.
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bestworstcase · 2 years
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on ‘villainy’ and varian’s and cassandra’s moral codes
for all that varian’s and cassandra’s villain arcs get compared to death they’re really more different than they are similar, and i think one of the more interesting distinctions is the characters’ moral perspectives on their own actions--namely that varian recognizes his own choices as villainous and consciously self-identifies as a ‘bad guy’ and cassandra not only…doesn’t do that but appears legitimately taken aback when varian says she’s ‘become the villain.’ from this we can infer that varian is transgressing his own personal sense of right and wrong while cassandra isn’t.
and… well with varian i think it’s pretty straightforward: he’s a kid who desperately wants to make the world a better place and make his father proud, but his impulsivity and recklessness and general disregard for lab safety foil his plans and get him into trouble. then one of his accidents puts his dad into what is essentially a magical coma and varian becomes singularly focused on reviving him--and, when he realizes that the king is more invested in covering up the problem than fixing it and his only hope lies with a zealously guarded relic belonging to the kingdom, he decides that the only way to achieve this goal is to start breaking the rules.
so he asks rapunzel--his friend who promised to help him--to retrieve some information the king is trying to steal from him, and then persuades her to help him access the sundrop vault; then when she balks at stealing it he makes it clear that he no longer trusts her and escapes with the flower. at this point he’s in the morally dubious zone; being strategic about what he tells rapunzel to make sure she helps him, spiking cookies with truth serum to sow chaos and get information he needs, and doing things that are crimes on paper but also largely victimless. i think these were things varian could probably rationalize as okay--not exactly good, but no one got hurt and he got what he needed.
except the flower’s magic is gone. he drugged the palace, manipulated rapunzel and broke her trust in him, and committed treason all for something useless because the actual magic of the sundrop is in rapunzel herself. now he’s in trouble, because he needs rapunzel’s help but his desperate measures guaranteed she won’t be willing to help him again. and this is when varian realizes that his only options are 1. give up on saving his dad and turn himself in and hope rapunzel takes pity on him, or 2. accept that no one is going to help him now and do whatever it takes to free quirin himself.
so--mutating ruddiger, attacking the city, kidnapping arianna and threatening her with encasement in amber, building an automaton army to defend him while he works--these are all things that varian feels are wrong, but chooses to do anyway because he doesn’t trust that anyone else will even try to save his father. despite his anger and his rationalizations, at the end of the day varian sees himself as doing bad things for good reasons. (“Believe me, I know/I’ve sunk pretty low” & “I’m the bad guy, that’s fine”)
and when his reasons fall through--when he fails to free his dad--he falls quickly into guilt and despair over having hurt people for nothing. he stews for a year in how unforgivable and ashamed he feels, and even when he teams up with the separatists, he’s doing it in, basically, pursuit of a reset button: he wants to take back what he did. and when rapunzel shows him that he can be forgiven, he can have a second chance, he does have people who are willing to help him and trust him again, he drops the memory-wiping idea and his alliance with the separatists without a second thought--because what rapunzel actually does is give him a way to pursue his goals without sacrificing his conscience, which is what he really needed the whole time.
now, cassandra, on the other hand…
cass is an interesting character in this regard because, while she does want to be a hero, she’s not at all altruistic. she’s consumed by her lack of autonomy and she craves not only control over her own life but also respect from the people around her--her desire to be a hero is very self-interested, at its core. and moreover she has a somewhat fatalistic view of the world wherein some people (not her) matter and some… just don’t. 
moreover cassandra, despite her ambitions of becoming a guard, doesn’t so much as blink at eugene’s or the pub thugs’ criminal pasts--she is suspicious of lance at first, but on the grounds that he’s an unrepentant thief who showed up out of the blue under suspicious circumstances to ‘reconnect’ with his old partner in crime; eugene is also distrustful of lance, for the exact same reasons--and of course she doesn’t think twice about breaking the law herself. literally one of the very first things we see cassandra do is commit treason to make her friend happy. cass doesn’t care about the law, and she only wants to be a guard because she associates getting the job with having her dad’s approval and it’s also her ticket out of lifelong servitude.
on the other hand, cass does seem have a strong sense of right and wrong where people she cares about are concerned. she is constantly putting the desires and well-being of her friends ahead of not just her ambitions (e.g. in beginnings for rapunzel, or great expotations for varian) but also her own safety (e.g. risking her livelihood and home to sneak rapunzel out for the night in bea, or setting aside her misgivings about the sketchy bird people in freebird). 
which is all to say--cass isn’t exactly amoral but the moral framework through which she sees the world is… more complicated than varian’s. she doesn’t seem particularly motivated to help strangers but she’ll move mountains to help people she cares about; she doesn’t care much about rules or laws except insofar as she doesn’t want to get caught breaking them, and she has this hierarchical mindset that some people matter--meaning, they get to make decisions for themselves and have people care about what they need and want--and some don’t, and that she herself is stuck in the latter category despite her best efforts to climb out of it.
which brings us to the subject of the moonstone, and cassandra’s villain arc, and why cass, unlike varian, doesn’t consider herself a bad person.
i think what it comes down to most is this: taking the moonstone is an act of defiance against not only rapunzel but also fate itself. waiting in the wings sets up cassandra’s resigned acceptance of this hierarchical order and her own cosmic insignificance, and then in crossing the line she REJECTS that same order. she’s raging against rapunzel but also against the cultural and legal and destined systems that put rapunzel on top and forced cass into subservience. she is very literally fighting for her freedom against the universe itself.
and when cass was not an altruistic or heavily morally motivated or even particularly law-abiding person before, and when her conscience has always been predominantly oriented around taking care of her friends first and herself second, and when the thing that drove her to this breaking point was her friends spitting that back in her face… well.
it’s easy to say “cass literally tried to murder rapunzel a bunch of times, how can she possibly believe she’s the good guy?”--but rapunzel maimed cass, blamed her for it, and consistently prioritized her destiny over cassandra’s wellbeing; and rapunzel represents the cosmic order that cass is fighting to liberate herself from. and while i know that the -popular- take on be very afraid is “cass is terrified of hurting rapunzel,” i submit it’s actually “cass is terrified of having to fight rapunzel, because she still believes that fate is literally tilted in rapunzel’s favor and she can’t win a direct fight with rapunzel.” that’s why she’s so scared; that’s why rapunzel seemingly deleting the red rocks hardens her resolve; that’s why she marches into corona with maximum drama and bluster and builds a fortress and tries so hard to mess with rapunzel’s head before the battle begins. she’s trying to even the odds. and that’s why, when rapunzel stomps her into the curb, cassandra’s immediate response is “i need an army.”
cassandra isn’t scared for rapunzel. she is scared OF rapunzel.
we do also see cass trying not to harm people she considers to be innocent bystanders; she uses the truth serum on varian bc she needs the incantation, but afterwards she doesn’t even bother to restrain him until after he starts pestering her, she says flat out that she doesn’t want him to get hurt when she fights rapunzel; similarly she is willing to hurt calliope to force rapunzel to comply, but--despite her deep personal dislike of calliope--uses a minimum amount of force and again verbally expresses that she doesn’t particularly want to hurt her, that it’s a means to an end and nothing more. attacking rapunzel? that’s fine, rapunzel is her enemy. attacking eugene? of course, he’s rapunzel’s closest ally. mind controlling the brotherhood? that kills two birds with one stone--eliminating powerful enemies with a vested interest in taking the moonstone away from her and turning them into allies who can level the playing field between her and rapunzel. and when she does finally snap and raze corona to the ground? the people of corona attacked her first. i think cass ABSOLUTELY sees herself as fighting a purely defensive war against people who have or will hurt her.
and this is, of course, ultimately why varian failed to get through to her during ‘nothing left to lose’--he appealed to her sense of morality and her sense of morality shrugged. 
as for the thing that snaps her out of it? the moment that forces her to question whether she’s really as right as she thinks she is? it’s learning who her new friend really is. it’s the shock of finding out that she’s been allied with, confiding in, taking advice from a legendary villain, from a monster she likely grew up hearing stories about. cass takes it as a given that zhan tiri is evil--and if she’s friends with zhan tiri, what does that make her? and even then, cass is resistant to the idea that she might be a villain--“No, no, I’m nothing like you. Just because I’m pursuing my destiny doesn’t make me a bad person!”--which is, ultimately, very telling of her whole mindset. she’s not a bad guy, she’s fighting for her freedom. she’s not a bad guy, she’s protecting herself against people who want to exploit her. she’s not a bad guy, she’s just putting herself first for once.
and OAH generally, i’d argue, is not actually about cassandra trying to reconcile with rapunzel or redeem herself or be a better person, it’s… literally cass trying frantically to prove she’s NOT the bad guy. it’s “oh yeah? you think i’m a bad person? well could a bad guy do THIS? *lies and impersonates a former coworker and gets up on a stage to justify her own actions in front of a crowd*” it’s “a bad guy wouldn’t apologize, rapunzel never apologized for anything, and to prove i’m a better person I’M going to apologize! see? SEE!?”--and then everyone in corona attacks her and she goes “FINE, i’m the bad guy, fuck you all” and wrecks the place.
only then--only in plus est en vous--does cassandra get into a mindset similar to varian’s, of “i am the bad guy but if i can pull this off it will be worth it.” she’s not sorry. she still sees rapunzel as an enemy trying to get her under control again, and the only thing that’s really changed is cassandra acknowledging that she has in fact done bad things too.
and… i would argue that by the end of plus est cassandra… feels some guilt but isn’t sorry. “i’ve failed” and “i’ve done terrible things” and “i tried to prove i was more than everyone thought but they were right”--her anguish is not like varian’s anguish in RR, where he was consumed with despair because no one could possibly forgive him for the things he did. cassandra is upset because she did awful things and failed and she perceives that failure as proof of her own worthlessness. she’s right back to feeling how she felt in waiting in the wings but with a hefty new helping of self-disgust and shame for having been stupid enough to believe she could change anything for herself. 
she’s not sorry. she’s not pleading for forgiveness. she just wants rapunzel to give up and leave her alone--& then, after rapunzel convinces her that she’s wrong, and she does have worth as a person, and she does have a destiny of her own, cass does what’s necessary to clean up the crisis she created and then… just bounces. she gets the freedom she wanted and leaves without a backward glance.
(which. good for her.)
tl;dr: varian’s villain arc explores his moral scruples and what it takes for him to be willing to ignore them, whereas cassandra’s villain arc explores her incendiary reaction to a lifetime of injustices; she isn’t amoral but her sense of right and wrong is, unlike varian’s, very contextual and personal. varian is a pragmatic idealist who wants to be lawful good but is capable of setting his own morals aside in pursuit of a goal he considers to be important enough, and cassandra is one radicalizing incident away from realizing that her grievances are not a unique personal failing but a systemic problem and then leading a class uprising.
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Castlevania Season 4: I’m not mad, just disappointed
Season 4 is poorly written fanfiction, which is...better than a lot of things could be, I guess.
Spoilers below the cut.
Content warning: trauma, sexual assault, psychological manipulation
The Gods Have Had a Change of Heart
Or, “Season 3 Blocked and Ignored”
Season 3 felt like the fabric of the universe had been twisted just to inflict additional pain. Season 4 overcompensates in the other direction; trauma evaporates, and good things happen for no other reason than to make our favorite characters happy.
The Season 3 finale left two characters in particular totally devastated: Alucard and Hector. Alucard is violently betrayed in a horrifying sexual assault by the first two people he’s spoken to since Trevor and Sypha left. He ends up killing them in self-defense and puts their bodies on stakes outside the castle, alluding to his father’s habit of doing so and potentially hinting at a turn toward evil. Hector is seduced by Lenore and then enslaved using a magic ring.
Yet at the start of Season 4, it’s as if these things never happened. Alucard is troubled, but not totally devastated, certainly not evil. Taka and Sumi are referenced in exactly one conversation with new character, Greta, in which she says the rather tactless throwaway line, “I had a boyfriend and girlfriend at the same time once. But they never tried to kill me.” Hector is nominally imprisoned, but immediately seems highly agentic, perhaps even more so than before. He studies, lays traps, and makes secret plans with other people. Furthermore, his relationship with Lenore is completely transformed. From falling to his knees in abject horror and despair at being enslaved, he suddenly switches to light banter, in what is apparently a basically okay, mutually enjoyed romantic/sexual relationship. Manipulative, selfish Lenore is now a sympathetic character struggling to reconcile her own role and feelings with Carmilla’s plans.
The events of season 3 happened, remaining canon in the most basic, literal sense. But the emotional weight attached to them has disappeared into thin air.
Not gonna lie, I did breathe a sigh of relief when I saw that Alucard and Hector were okay. I’m soft-hearted! I don’t like seeing characters I like suffer! I mean, conflict is important, and I can deal with (or even enjoy in a certain sense) seeing characters suffer if it makes sense and serves a narrative purpose. But as far as I can tell, the season 3 finale was nothing more than lurid, meaningless violence. I probably wouldn’t have continued watching the show if it devolved into nothing more than finding novel ways to torture the characters.
Still, it doesn’t feel quite right to pretend like nothing happened either. Or, really, not that nothing happened, but that those things didn’t matter, didn’t hurt, didn’t leave lasting scars. That’s...almost kind of worse.
But, I thought, I can sort of forgive this sudden shift in the stars, given that there may have been some sort of change in creative direction relating to Ellis’ decreased involvement with the show.* Plus, season 3 was insanity. It’s not like it was full of great writing choices, so if we quietly ignore some of them, maybe that’s for the best.
*I only later learned that Netflix actually chose to continue with Ellis’ season 4 scripts. It is not lost on me that maybe Ellis doesn’t know how to write about the lasting effects of traumatic sexual experiences or how power dynamics can make a sexual relationship problematic because he doesn’t understand that those things exist.
Characters Being Nobody and Nothing Happening
Pretty Pictures, Not Much Else
Unfortunately, the disconnect between seasons 3 and 4 isn’t the only problem with this season. Although I felt that season 4 was a bit less boring than season 3 (I particularly enjoyed some of the earlier episodes of season 4), it suffers from the same basic problems of Characters Being Nobody and Nothing Happening.
None of the characters experience any significant development, let alone any sort of coherent arc. Sypha has changed slightly, becoming more rough and jaded. I did really like the scene where she talks about becoming the kind of person who says “shit.” I think it really speaks to how entering into a relationship with someone means taking on aspects of their lifestyle, and how that can change you in ways that you can’t predict and therefore can’t exactly “agree” to. Sometimes those changes are good, sometimes they’re bad, sometimes they’re neutral, and sometimes it’s difficult to know. But you have to accept that you’re sacrificing some aspects of the person that you could have been if you chose to live completely independently, or with someone else.
Trevor really hasn’t changed since season 1 when he first decided to take up the mantle of hero again. Likewise with Alucard. Hector and Lenore change, as previously noted, but that change is sudden, jarring, and occurs completely off screen in between seasons 3 and 4. Carmilla dies as exactly as she lived: bitter, angry, and violent. Saint Germain just kind of...gets fucked over in a nonsensical subplot, which is its own whole can of worms.
We also get several new characters in season 4, none of whom have developed personalities or motives, nor do they develop any of those things over the course of the season: Greta, Zamfir, Varney, Ratko.
And nobody. Does. Anything.
Trevor and Sypha spend the entire season trying to explore and aid Targoviste, which comes to absolutely nothing. They’re unable to help anyone, Zamfir dies, and they end up just jumping through a magic portal to the actually relevant subplot in the finale. Carmilla literally does little more than draw maps until she’s ultimately killed. Hector plays a minor role in Saint Germain’s extraction of Dracula from Hell; otherwise, he and Lenore basically just exchange banter. Saint Germain does sort of do some stuff? But it’s often unclear how he’s made his connections, who the people who are helping him are, or what exactly he’s doing in terms of his magic beyond “whatever it takes to get back to his lover.”
Sure, there are fight scenes, but they feel meaningless. There’s no context, no stakes. There’s also a LOT of dialogue, and it is. Not well written. Exposition is embarrassingly clumsy at times, and the philosophical musings are cliche at best, muddled and confusing at worst. There’s just not all that much going on.
That is, except for Isaac. But more on him in a second.
What Kind of Show Is This?
When the plot line adapted from Castlevania III: Dracula's Curse ended with season 2, the show struggled to establish a new identity.
Despite nominally dealing with themes like whether humanity is inherently good or evil and how to cope with wrongdoing and loss, seasons 1 and 2 ultimately boiled down to a pretty generic action-adventure/fantasy plot with found family/power of friendship elements. Main characters Trevor, Sypha, and Alucard don’t really wrestle with big philosophical questions or suffer any major defeats. They know that they have to take down Dracula for the good of the world, and they work together as a team to do it, with a little character development relating to their various backstories sprinkled in.
Then season 3 happened, and things got weird. The trio is broken up for what feels like a pretty trivial reason—Alucard has to protect the castle and Belmont hold, I guess? And the result of that decision is that the dynamics for the three main characters are completely unbalanced.
Ellis openly admits that he basically went feral with the writing of season 3, and it shows. The messaging in seasons 1 and 2 was cliche, but consistent. The message of season 3? Anyone’s guess.
Season 4 reversed the darkening of tone from season 3, but shares its inability to pick a story and tell it.
Isaac is the Main Character
Always has been.
While I can’t say that his character or arc are perfect, I can say that he actually has a character and an arc. He starts off motivated by his fierce loyalty to Dracula, then has to struggle to find his purpose once Dracula is gone. He goes from subservient to agentic. He goes from fully endorsing the genocide of humanity and not caring about his own life to seeing some worth in humans and genuinely wanting to live. He has an interesting moment that deepens our understanding of what night creatures are, while also serving as an exploration of the meaning of one’s fundamental nature. Most importantly, these changes happen naturally over the course of the show. They never feel forced or out of the blue, and while I feel like even more could have been done with Isaac’s character, there’s a lot to appreciate about what is there.
If there’s any thread holding Castlevania as a single, coherent work together, it’s Isaac. Not only is his character the best executed and the most coherent over the course of the show, his character explores themes that are larger than himself and relevant to the show as a whole, like those mentioned earlier: misanthropy versus a belief in the value of humanity; the ability to go beyond one’s “nature” or initial circumstances; and how to respond to being wronged or losing something important to you. Exploring the individual lives of characters is great, but really good writing usually requires going beyond that to reflect on broader questions and ideas. Isaac is the only character here that serves that larger purpose.
Sorry...I Just Don’t Buy It
The season 4 finale is crazy, although in a different way from season 3′s.
Varney being Death makes no sense on several different levels. I’m not going to spend a lot of time picking that particular plot twist apart, but I will talk about why I think it doesn’t work at the largest scale, and how I think season 4 might have been done better.
Last minute twists with zero foreshadowing are rarely a good idea, and this is no exception. Why introduce this “Death” entity at the last minute to be the most important battle of the season? The finale of the entire show, even? Besides the lack of logic or emotional buildup, this robs the show of the opportunity to make use of the antagonists that it already has. Since Dracula died, Carmilla has been the obvious choice for a new big bad. Why hasn’t she done more?
Season 4 feels crowded with characters and plot lines that amount to nothing. Why not bring some of these characters together? If Carmilla is the main antagonist, how come she never meets any of the protagonists (except Hector, who is a pretty minor player in this ecosystem) or even affects them in any way?
Season 4 feels like maybe it was trying to make something out of season 3 and the model that it presented, but it ultimately fails to do so. The writers throw the trio back together at the end anyway, so why not have them rejoin sooner and work together? Maybe Sypha and Trevor’s past experience with Saint Germain could have helped Alucard and Greta piece together what he was plotting sooner, rather than all four of them being completely blindsided by it in the penultimate episode. (Sypha and Trevor know that someone is trying to resurrect Dracula, but they fail to find out any actual detail about the plans, despite their supposed attempts.) Have characters actually do stuff, figure stuff out, advance the plot!
Likewise, maybe Carmilla becomes aware of Saint Germain’s scheming, sees it as a threat, and tries to take him down. Maybe she tries to get involved and somehow use alchemy or the Infinite Corridor to her own benefit. What does it look like when power-hungry Carmilla, who wants to rule the world, finds out there’s an entire multiverse out there? That could easily set her up to be a foil to Saint Germain, causing him to realize that what he’s doing is wrong.
What actually ended up happening in the show feels disjointed and often empty. In particular, most of the events that happen in the last two episodes just don’t really work for me. I didn’t like Trevor suddenly sacrificing himself to this random, new, super powerful enemy, or how the gems and dagger that he found just happened to be the perfect weapon to kill this new enemy, or how he inexplicably returns from the dead.
This kind of thing is what I mean when I say that this season feels like fanfiction. Trevor comes back from the dead for no discernible reason other than that it would really suck if he died. Greta as a character seems to literally only exist to be Alucard’s girlfriend and support him so that he doesn’t have to continue to be alone and potentially turn evil. Alucard’s trauma from Taka and Sumi and Hector’s trauma from Lenore are both conveniently erased. Even Dracula and Lisa are resurrected somehow and get their happy ending. And it’s like, I guess I prefer deus ex machina to the opposite (Does that have a name? When everything is going well but then something terrible happens for no reason other than to make things worse for the characters?), but they’re both bad writing.
God. This isn’t even getting into what happened with the Council of Sisters. And I don’t even really like those characters, but that doesn’t mean I want to see their characters handled poorly.
I’m not sorry that I watched until the end, but I can’t in good faith recommend the show as a whole. If you’ve yet to watch Castlevania, just stop at the end of season 2. While there are some shining moments in seasons 3 and 4 (4 more than 3), it’s just really not worth it.
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softer-ua · 3 years
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i can't be the only one who wants izuku to get fucking pissed at his situation, at all might, start questioning what the fuck is going on with OFA.
because if you're going to trust a fifteen year old with something like OFA and bind them to the life of a symbol, you do not get to withhold information. deku was not told he'd be dealing with an enemy like AFO when he got the quirk, nor was he told that basically its whole point was not fighting some vague concept of evil, but fighting a very tangible very dangerous villain. he wasn't told that up until all might, inheriting this power was guaranteed suicide, and even after all might you only have a vague chance of survival. to be offered such a life altering "gift", Izuku should have been warned of everything. from the start. and if not then then from the very moment izuku started seeing vestiges, or at least when AFO resurfaced. WHY IN GOD'S NAME WOULD YOU HIDE ANY, ANY BIT OF INFORMATION ON A QUIRK THAT IMPORTANT?????
no because, if you look at it cynically, All Might took this kid who had nothing and who looked up to him as effective god. He took this kid who he knew had no sense of no self-care or self-preservation. This extremely reckless kid who he saw putting his life at risk three times (sludge v1, hanging on to AM as he jumped, sludge v Katsuki) within 24 hours. He picked this kid who he knew would give everything (because Izuku had "nothing", and therefore nothing to lose) and "gifted" him with a ticking time bomb. Of course Izuku is willing to break himself if it means using OFA to max potential. So much of his self-worth is based on OFA. He's said time and time again he isn't sure if he deserves it, that it's a borrowed power. If you've taken this kid and given him everything practically overnight, of course he'll go to self-destructive lengths to prove himself worthy of it. Who'd want to go back to being nothing after all?
And this is a logical conclusion. Someone like Izuku, someone like All Might probably used to be in his youth and still kind of is, they're perfect to be put on this kind suicide mission. They're a perfect vessel. Sure they're heroic and brave and selfless, but most importantly they're willing to die for the cause. OFA the quirk knows this. Literally two seconds after Katsuki sacrifices himself telling Deku not to do shit alone, Deku renders said sacrifice useless by doing exactly what Katsuki warned him not to😭 And the quirk and vestiges encourage him. They don't give a shit about repercussions and Deku's chronic pain or possible arm paralysis. They just want to beat AFO. You go son you break those arms 🤠
Doesn't it all feel a little bit exploitative?
Look at it like this. A kid is born with no power. This kid wants to be great, but the world says he can't. He meets his hero, and the hero says he can't either. Then the kid acts heroic, but reckless. The hero sees an opening. This kid is good and doesn't care one bit about his well-being? Jackpot! He offers the kid a deal. Great power, an extraordinary gift at surface layer. But one with so many more hidden strings attached that hurt and break and haunt the kid, that he was never warned about or taught how to deal with. But he can always give it to someone else! Can he, really? Can he go back to being nothing? With a personality like his, well nope. And that's why you pick the overly selfless reckless ones. The ones that will feel indebted to you to a ridiculous degree.
Isn't it like dare I say... like a deal with the devil?
As we progress more and more into the lore of AFO and OFA, I can really see why Katsuki's started to view it as a cursed power. And with how wildly different from expectations (at least mine) + far more nuanced the Todofam drama has revealed itself to be compared to what it seemed upon first intro, I'm inclined to believe there's more to the OFA story than clean cut, young bro good guy vs mean big bro oppression.
TL;DR - All Might is the metaphorical devil jr who gave Izuku a passed down deal, and neither he nor broccoli boy read the fine print.
Bakugo’s ghost sent me this ask 💀
Lol but seriously, these are all excellent points and I’ve been sitting on this ask until I had time to answer it because you’re absolutely goddamn right
This shit is explotive af, and I’ve got a suspicion as to why
I don’t think Deku was a random choice, there’s a layer of fate/mystic woven into the bnha world that gets over looked.
Sir had insane fortune telling abilities that were never once wrong about anything except when it came to the 2 OFA users fates. Deku even specifically says he’ll smash any fate in his way, and I think on some level he knows he can because he has a different destiny.
The vestiges break him from Shinsos hold, meaning the can have some level of control over Dekus body. You think AM noticed every time something like that happened? AM didn’t even notice Bakugo internalizing all the blame for his retirement even after watching his mom force him to apologize for it??
“I keep forgetting that your still a child” AM, sir, this is the third time you’ve admitted out loud that you were just gonna let Bakugo suffer his own fate 💀 please stop indicting yourself and at least pretend you care about Bakugo outside his relationship to Deku jfc
Also what are the chances you get nine random holders and none of them turn out to be corrupt or at least too self serving to die for the cause??? Slimmer than the pages bnha is printed on.
There’s something pulling some strings here, and I think it’s the true power of First users quirk.
What would be the point of transferring a quirk if that’s it’s only power?
What would be the point of this quirk being essentially password locked?
What would be the point of this quirk being able to forced on to someone?
There’ wouldn’t be any.
But what if that’s not what the quirk is?
What if the quirk is actually passing something along, and that’s why it’s dna based, it’s the transfer of an integral part of them.
Something that would change a person if forced on them but would possibly eradicate someone if stolen. Something like a souls desire? That could be a dangerous thing to give to someone else especially if it’s something they didn’t want, now they suddenly have to?
Then you give this quirk a strength enhancing quirk?
Now it’s got some juice, how much stronger did it get? Can it sense others with a similar goal, can it make its host gravitate towards those people?
Is the firsts quirk purposely finding exploitable heros, like Nana AM and Deku. All people who were/are willing to give up everything for the cause. How much of the first is in there, how much sentient power does this quirk have?
We know that Nana gave up her family, her child, for the cause. AM never bothered cultivating a family and pushed away Sir and anyone else who is anti him dying, and now we’re seeing Deku do the same.
Deku who had no friends to begin with, a dad who’s out of the picture, and an already slightly strained relationship with his mom?
Is this quirk capable of learning? Does it know that having people you care about slows you down from sacrificing yourself?
Does this quirk compound with the other users goals make the drive stronger each time?
Idk but there’s a glimmer of hope that Deku isn’t doomed to be a glorified meat puppet, and it exists in the form of Kacchan.
No one else had someone so deeply rooted to them, who could fight right along side them. Bakugo is an outlier in this story, almost the exact opposite kind of hero OFA wants, his connection to Deku breaks the cycle.
Deku would never give up on Katsuki, and even if he tried Endeavor will start coughing up ice cubes before Bakugo lets him. He couldn’t leave Deku alone when he was convinced he hated him, there’s no way he’d do it now.
Dekus story will be different from the other users that’s for sure.
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