#and cannot explain to your brain WHY you cannot have the next episode right now

[exhaustedwerewolf]

terrible time to catch up with VALENCE immediately vibrating with the need to know what happens next

[madhare0512]

A Comprehensive List of Spideyfist Interactions (pt.7)

Hello and welcome back to: reasons Spideyfist is canon. A series where I take you through each episode of The Ultimate Spiderman and show you why I believe that Peter Parker and Danny Rand are dating in canon, or at least that they are each other’s favorites- and also give you commentary on the show itself as I do

Warnings for: episode spoilers, season spoilers, action/injury description, unsolicited commentary, probable cussing, violence, caps lock

this part features episodes 14 through 20 of season 2

S2E14 The Incredible Spider-Hulk

- No notable interactions

- Fuck SHIELD and their bullshit Hulkbusters

~

S2E15 Ultimate Deadpool

- I'm not gonna lie to you, in the process of making this post, Tumblr glitched and I lost a lot of progress, this episode and the entire episode above. I'm not rewriting it, so the gist of the first 2 minutes is: I don't like that Deadpool just stole the show and the audience from Peter because Peter is "boring." I also don't like how Fury has set up the team against Peter.

- taking deep, calming breaths Shooting your ally/trainee in the back is akin to telling them that you cannot be trusted or relied on. Fuck Coulson.

- "Not impressed." Yeah, well, you shot your trainee in the back with zero warning or previous experience. Fuck you.

- Also, you can only hear Sam and Ava laughing in the laugh track, so honorable spideypowerfist mentions. Also counts to spideyfist

- You're showing your fucking favoritism you asshole. Do fucking better

- You are spraying it RIGHT IN HIS FACE

- "Somone explain. Now." Nova goes to explain "NOT Nova" Reason number whatever why I don't ship them

- If Peter replaced Deadpool in the show does that mean that Deadpool was the leader before Peter?

- Listen, I fucking love Deadpool in the movies and the comics, from what I've heard, are fucking superb. In this iteration? No. No, I hate him. I hate Deadpool and SHIELD in this show

- There is WAY too much emphasis on this alleged agent for me to believe a word Deadpool says.

- Peter is being singled out for training and it's disGUSTING

- There are no snitches among the Ultimates. Not today anyhow

- Deadpool is a liar and master of manipulation

- My poor dumb boy

- Okay, the more I rewatch, the more it becomes clear to me that Deadpool and Peter are supposed to be parallels or mirrors

- "I'll give you 1000 bucks for your brain!"

- "Sleep them with the fishes"

- "Nice of you to finally visit my school" Forshadowing~~~

- Okay I hate him but he's funny

- SEE? SEE???

- Deadpool is scary when he's actually trying

- "How about telling me the truth?"

- Deadpool's origin story is so wack

~

S2E16 Venom Bomb

~ Is this the-? looks at the episode number Oh, no. Not yet, I think.

- Saving the teammates like a boss!

- The nightmares Peter must have every time he faces the Goblin

- In the fight, Danny strikes after Peter, which counts

- Danny and Peter are standing RIGHT next to each other after a battle againnnn

- Peter WANTS to be able to take the win, but he knows his adversaries too damn well for that

- Hey, they're standing right next to each other again!

- Peter doing his best with Harry when he's Spiderman

- Ock just gets weirder and weirder looking the more time goes on

- They're gonna study the fucking symbiote but not try to find a cure for Osbourn?

- Infectious Venom disease!

- Goblin being absolutely AWFUL to Venom

- Where's the team in all this??

- One of the worst things you can do to Doc Ock's character is pretend he's evil for fun. This show doesn't do that, but the fact still stands

- And again I say, people forget that Peter is an accomplished chemist just the same as he's a wonderful hero

- Because you're Spiderman and Spiderman is a hero and you're a wonderful, selfless, brave person, Peter Parker

- Peter and Ock working together lmao

- Peter’s a goof, I love him

- At least Peter gets his damn props

~

S2E17 Guardians of the Galaxy

- Oh!! This episode indirectly has big evidence!!

- Peter using his abilities to shove garbage into the can

- PETER SEES A TALKING RACCOON AND ASSUMES HE LOST IT OMG

- Okay, so remember how in The Journey of Iron Fist, Peter follows Danny to his home country to find out what's going on and get Danny back? That's not exactly what's happening here. Peter was accidentally abducted in this one

- Peter was so fucking respectful and kind when regarding Danny’s home country and turf, but when it's Sam, he's snarky and complains the whole damn time

- Rocket is just so fucking casual about this

- See, even under attack, Peter is complaining about Sam getting him in trouble!

- Peter demands answers from Sam, he didn't do that with Danny, he was very calm and respectful when asking for answers with Danny

- Peter doesn't listen to a WORD Sam says ever, he's oblivious and not a good listener, reason number whatever why I ship what I ship

- It's literally only after he figures out Earth is a target that Peter decides to work with the Guardians

- Peter gives these "Ki-ya!" shouts that sound almost exactly like Danny’s

- This episode and The Jouney to K'un L'un are literally parallels

- Even if he doesn't LIKE Sam, Peter still considers Sam a friend, still loves Sam as a brother

- Peter didn't accept Danny going back to K'un L'un for a single second, but when Nova says he wants to stay with the Guardians, Peter accepts it without hesitation

- And then once Sam's back on Earth, Peter's right back to fucking with him like nothing ever happened

~

S2E18 The Parent Trap

- No notable interactions

-One of my favorite things that Luke does is he just fucking throws people for funzies. That's his whole thing, he THROWS people when he's fighting and needs to team up

- We're going through the team's backstories this season, which I think it's fun, and it's actually kinda funny

-Yes, Peter, 'parents' parents

-They're so fucking biased against Peter and it pisses me off

-I love the way these guys protect and look after each other, it's super cute and lovely

-See this is what happens when you start harping on your teenage heroes. They start ignoring you and don't listen when you try to offer important information

-Luke wanting a perfect reunion is so fucking relatable

-Spiderman only calls his friends by name on missions when it's important or in an emergency, the team members who know his identity don't call Peter by name unless off mission

~

S2E19 Stan By Me

-No notable interactions

~

S2E20 Game Over

-Danny talks about how fun the LMDs are and Peter immediately starts going into detail.

-I love that the team gets to go all out here

-Danny wants to retreat, Peter says "looks like we're gonna have to 'assess' with our fists" which I count because Peter's not the kind of guy to retreat even if it's deadly and he talks like he was going to agree

-Annd we're in a slow zoom (in the ready room lol) and Peter and Danny are sitting right next to each other

[littlespoonevan]

I've followed you for a while (for gallavich actually but your buddie fics convinced me to finally watch 911!) and we've always been of the same mind about the likelihood of buddie happening in canon. But after Buck fell asleep on Eddie's couch and now all of 6x13, I now feel like it's inevitable that the show IS actually going to make it explicitly romantic. How're you feeling about canon buddie these days?

ahh hey bud!!! i'm honoured i was able to convince you to watch the show lmao 🥰

okay i'm gonna try and organise my thoughts bc my brain has been going in a lot of different directions these past few weeks. so. i don't think i'll ever be able to confidently say buddie canon is happening until we get a very deliberate Moment with either buck or eddie where it's clear something has changed for one of them.

by that, i mean i need another 'just make sure you're following your heart, not christopher's' eddie-face-journey-esque moment where eddie looks at buck or buck looks at eddie and we know (and by we, i mean the whooooole general audience, not just the fandom) they're looking at each other differently

and it's not that i think everything that's happening right now isn't deliberate, it's more just that it's not quite confirmation in the overt sense for me???? particularly as far as them being attracted to each other etc. (i know they love each other, i know they're a family but are there feelings, y'know)

however

there has been a lot happening in the past two episodes that's been making me go 👀👀👀

firstly. the couch. that fucking couch metaphor has me by the thROAT and has done since 6x01. and genuinely i cannot explain the narrative of 6x12 as anything other than proof that eddie is the couch. like. i have an english degree. i legitimately analyse texts for a living and there is no other way to interpret this whole thing other than the idea that the couch that buck has been quietly searching for all season (which is repeatedly conflated with a romantic partner and happiness), is eddie.

buck wants to pick the right couch. margaret chooses for him but it's Not Right. buck goes to eddie's and falls asleep on his couch in seconds before opening up to him and effectively highlighting to us that his safe space is at eddie's house. it's just???????????

(also the fact that oliver said the other couch will be gone by the end of the season my mind is sPINNING)

next. the buckley-diaz family of it all in 6x13. i've said a few times this week that this ep felt like a speedrun season 3 (i'm also currently rewatching s3 which i think is why it's on my brain). as in, we have buddie and chris paired off while the other couples have their own plot. we did have that quite a bit in s4 and 5, don't get me wrong, but it was rarely something that wasn't tied to an overarching plot like the shooting and eddie's subsequent breakdown. whereas these were fun scenes just because. so we had the season 3 dynamic back but there was so much more weight to it because of all that's changed since then.

there are plenty of posts about it but their family unit was emphasised A Lot in 6x13. both in the scene with chris' homework and the baking for chris' class scene. like it's heavily established in this ep that whether it's at buck's place or eddie's, the three of them spend their days together. and not in an organised, 'let's have a movie night' kind of way. as in, they exist in the same space together the way any couple and their child would and that's so!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

also the baking for christopher's class scene literally dO NOT get me started i can't believe they did that askjdfhsa

on a smaller scale, buck and eddie's dynamic had a very Particular energy about it in the poker scene. i don't necessarily wanna say flirty bc i legit haven't rewatched since i first saw it tuesday morning when i was barely awake but there was a sort of tension there that i'm very interested in tbh bc i don't think we've seen that in a long time??? also i'm soooo suspicious of captain mehta's re-emergence and how arbitrary the whole poker thing was in the first place @ 911 i have questions!!!!

finally. i can't quite articulate this yet. but something about the episode titles is making me very askdhfs

mixed feelings. performance anxiety. lost and found. love is in the air. it's just. like, yes every episode title has multiple meanings but also every episode title has a level of suggestiveness that has me paying attention. lost and found bc of the tsunami connotations and chris asking buck in his dream if he can help him find his dad. and love is in the air bc it's giving me buck actually vibes and we all know i fully believe buck actually is where buck's story post-abby really begins and i will clutch at every romcom coded metaphor this show throws at me askjdh

TL;DR at this point i think we're going somewhere. like, i feel as though we're on the precipice of something and all it would take is one tiny moment to fully tip us over the edge. if and when that moment comes, i can't say for sure but gOD i'd love it if it did ✨

[sortasirius]

What the Fuck Happened to the SPN Finale?

Okay so here it is, my Charlie Kelly style manifesto.

Before I get into it, I recognize that I will look like this to many of you, and that’s okay, I understand:

Secondly, your personal Takes about the writers don’t interest me, I don’t need to hear them. This, as I’ll explain, is going to remain a writer positive blog, and that’s the end of it.

Third, and most importantly: some of what I’m going to talk about is fact, and some is highly educated speculation. I will notate what is speculation, just so there’s no confusion or hot takes in my inbox that I’m a conspiracy theorist or stirring shit up for no reason.

A list of what I’ll be discussing

The episode in regards to the rest of the season

The episode issues: length, editing

Scene placement and speculation of scenes cut

The scrubbing of Jack, Cas, Eileen

Network involvement and general timeline of when things were cut

Misha: theories on where he was, official company line, why we can’t expect to hear anything directly

The silence of the cast post episode (in Misha’s case, mid episode) and what this might mean

Jensen speaking with Kripke about the ending: why it doesn’t mean what you might think (also why kripke remained positive on the ending)

Walker, and why this episode had a major shift

Why the network would do this or get involved

Why the writers of the show simply aren’t the bad guys here, and what I “want” out of this post, since I know it’ll get asked

This is very long and under a cut, but I hope you’ll give it a read.

The Episode In Regards to the Rest of the Season

So, I’ve discussed this already here, but it’s the most obvious thing to me, and that’s the way this episode simply doesn’t fit with the rest of the season.

These people in this room have, truly, been nothing but consistent when it comes to their arcs, especially this season, and the marked dropoff in quality for the finale episode is just too sus to discount to me.  Dabb’s whole focus has been character-based.  In his seasons, we’ve moved far away from MOTW and bro-codependency, the found family taking it’s place.  Does it really sit right to anyone that that was all thrown away in literally the last episode of the entire show?

This is speculation on my part, but as a writer myself, there is no way I would be happy or willing to stamp my name on something that I didn’t think would, at the very least, wrap up the season+ character arcs that I and my team had been crafting.

And before anyone comes in here saying, “well GOT did that!”  Bruh.  The writing was on the wall for GOT long before the final episode.  You could tell that the showrunners just wanted to be done (not only from the plot, but from the fact that they lobbied for a shorter season).  Miss me with that, it doesn’t apply here.  Andrew has, besides Singer and J2, been with the show longer than anyone.  He cares, he is meticulous and detailed, and this ending feels worse than anything Bucklemming has ever written, let alone Dabb.

Additionally, I’ve seen a lot of people say that Dabb was never behind Destiel, that it was all Bobo and Meredith and no one else.  That is reductive to the point of insult of the work Dabb has done to get this greenlit.  This man did not write the s13 Dean grief arc to be slandered like this.  That being said, YES, Bobo and Meredith were the leads on the DeanCas arc this season, but ANDREW IS THE SHOWRUNNER, TO GET EVEN THE CONFESSION APPROVED BY THE NETWORK HE WOULD HAVE TO HAVE THEIR BACKS.  AND HE DID.

Finale Issues

So, now that we’ve gotten the fact that this episode doesn’t hit on any of the major themes the show was barrelling towards all season, let’s discuss the fact that the episode is just...weird.

Not only is it shorter than any other episode (I think with the intro and the credits/crew thing at the end, it was around 38 mins), but it was also...idk, 90% filler?

One of the lovely humans in the POLOL server did the legwork here, and broke it down:

This is weird, y’all.  Most series finales are LONGER than normal (Lost, SOA, Longmire are the ones I can think of off the top of my head), and for the final episode to be this?  I saw more than one person point out that we only really needed 19 episodes, what was the point of 20?  AND THAT’S EXACTLY IT?  WHAT WAS THE POINT OF THIS FINAL EPISODE IF THIS WAS ALL WE WERE SUPPOSED TO GET?

It simply doesn’t make any sense, the first half of the episode was rushed, a final monster hunt gone wrong, but in the second half?  Nothing really happened?  Sam lived his entire life and Dean just drove around.  It doesn’t make sense to have all the emotional arcs left unaddressed in an episode that definitely needed some kind of spark.

Here’s the speculation I have: the episode seemingly went through a lot of changes between the initial inception of the final season and when we actually got it, but I think it would have been passable (as in, we wouldn’t be sitting here asking each other why each arc feels incomplete) until the editing room got ahold of it.  The only think that makes this episode make sense is network fuckery.  Truly, that is the only thing.  It explains the weird, cuts, the rushed pacing of the first half followed by nothing in the second half, the double montages of “Wayward Son” back to back, and Dean just...driving around for the last half of the episode.

Scene Placement and Speculation of Scenes Cut

Before I get into this section, the info of the shots in the episode I have come from a source that @occamshipper​ got a week or so before the finale.  She’s talked about this here.

So here’s what Min was given:

1-5: 1 INT MEN OF LETTERS – DEAN’S ROOM Dean is greeted by Miracle

6-10: 6 INT MEN OF LETTERS – HALLWAY/SAM’S ROOM Sam has his routine

D1 1 11-15: 15 EXT FARM HOUSE Establishing

N1 1/8 16-20: 19 Dad’s journal, marker, drawing of masked man in journal.

21-25: 23 INT IMPALA – PMP Driver picks the music

N2 1 3/8 1,2 26-30: 28pt2 INT BARN: A face from the past

28pt3 Sam and Dean say goodbye

28pt4 Shot early for technical reasons, presumably the overhead shot

N2 31-45: 41 INT MEN OF LETTERS – SAM’S ROOM Sam’s alarm goes off D4 1/8 1 46-60: 56 INT N7glasses for Sam, laptop.

So...it all fits right?  It all tracks with the actual episode, where it lands, etc.  The issue is between shots 29-40 which were apparently “too big to spoil.”  Uh.  Where are they?  And where’s 28 pt4?

After Dean dies, the next scene is Sam burning him, then shot 31, the shot of his alarm going off.

So.  Where are those 11ish shots?

PLUS we have the boards, which are scenes we KNOW were actually shot:

As well as scenes for 20 that were shot in 19.

It’s just...weird, it’s weird and again hits on the fact that the episode is so short and like 80% montage.

The Scrubbing of Jack, Cas, and Eileen

So now we have to reckon with the fact that Eileen was last mentioned by Sam after she got snapped by Chuck, Jack’s last mention is that he’s off being God somewhere, and Cas’ last mention is a ~knowing look~ between Dean and Bobby.

I’m sorry, make it make sense:

????????  That’s the end if it?  They don’t need to be discussed after this???  It’s just simply not something a writer would do, they would not introduce these characters, these arcs, without thinking there’s going to be some kind of follow through here.

So not only were three major characters (including two leads and both of the original characters’ love interests) completely wiped from the finale episode, it was as though Sam and Dean never even needed them, which just...ain’t it.

So why Eileen and Jack too?  Why not just take Cas out of it if they were afraid of the gay?  Because, ultimately, the episode went back to Kripke’s original story: just the bros, they only need each other and no one else.  They don’t want anyone else, they don’t need anyone else.  Easier to go back to something they knew was successful than trust the writers and their audience and take a big leap.

Alex even said he shot for 20 with “some of the guys” here.  What happened to that footage?

The complete 180 of it all still shocks me, I still cannot believe that we were essentially at the finish line, and the network just stopped short, and decided to go run another race, at the expense of the arc of this fifteen year legacy show.

Network Involvement and When Things Were Cut

Okay, now into the juicy stuff.

So I’ve pretty well established that network fuckery is clear, but how much did they get involved, what was the original intent?

Well again, we may never actually know what Andrew’s original script was, but I think, at the least, it would involve Dean speaking his truth to Cas and Sam living a life with Eileen.

Now, it seems today, that Misha said that Jimmy Novak was supposed to be in the finale in one iteration of the script, and while initially my brain was like “that truly makes no sense and he’s either straight up lying or telling a half truth,” I think what may be happening is Misha talking about as much as he can right now.

So Jimmy right.  Weird as fuck.  Why would he been in the Roadhouse and not Cas?  My current thought (this is about as reachy as I’ll get) is that Jimmy had no lines, could he have been in the Roadhouse as a red herring, like it said “Jimmy” in the script but it was just Cas in human clothes, a way to get around the network saying Cas couldn’t be in the final scene.  Also, you’ll notice that Misha didn’t say that Cas wasn’t supposed to be in the ep at all, just Jimmy in the last scene.

All this to say, there have clearly been multiple versions of the script, getting lighter and lighter with Cas and Eileen as the network pulled further and further back.  Remember, Dabb has to get things approved before they get shot, and if the network kept asking and asking and asking to cut Cas and Eileen, he had to find a way to work around it.  Granted, I still think that if we had been able to get a Dabb script that wasn’t torn to shreds in editing, it wouldn’t be so bad.  It may not be what a lot of us wanted (Dean speaking his truth to Cas and a reciprocation), but doing everything he could to give it to us in subtext or visual clues.

Plus, in all honesty, my man can’t keep his story straight anyway.  He said twice in his panel that the Empty and offscreen Heaven ending weren’t his original ending either.

In addition, remember that Jensen did ADR post episode 18, AND said in a meet and greet last weekend that Dean’s reaction to Cas’ confession was “cut down.” (Source here).  Many of us clowns got excited when we first heard about ADR, because we thought it would be upping the ante on Dean’s reaction, but I remember being a little sus when it was just crying.  My speculation on that is that they cut out Dean actually SAYING something, @winchestersingerautorepair​ spoke about that here.

The biggest sins were, in my opinion, committed during editing, where the network got too gun shy and sliced the episode until it was nothing but a heartless bro-fest of a finale, not mentioning anything about the other major characters that we all love, and letting the boys just suffer in separation until Sam died and finally joined Dean in Heaven.  The editing came by cutting all the major emotional beats between anyone other than Dean and Sam, leaving the skeleton of the story intact, just shorter and less...poignant than it was ever supposed to be.

Misha

We know Misha was in Vancouver, we know he quarantined, but we also know he wasn’t in the final scene, when he spoke about being in the last moment of the show months ago.  We were not crazy, he was there, he quarantined, and, in all likelihood (speculation but fitting with the timeline), he actually may have shot something (not much, but something).

I have sources here, here, here, and here showing where Misha was at that time.

Remember, the man was completely open about coming back until they finished shooting (look at this thread).  The switch happened, just like everything else, halfway through them shooting.

Please also remember Jake Abel posting his “Where’s Misha” video here.  Jake isn’t malicious, he isn’t being nasty here.  Misha was there, and everyone that’s trying to convince people he’s wasn’t just...isn’t telling the truth about it.

This is one of the things that makes me really mad, because they’re literally attempting to gaslight people into thinking, “oh we were totally wrong he was never supposed to be there” WHEN HE WAS THERE, WE KNOW HE WAS THERE.

So we’ve already heard from several people (Meghan Fitzmartin, Jay, a PA on the set of 19 (WHO WAS NOT WORKING FOR 20), Misha himself) that this was all down to Covid restrictions.  Ultimately, as this post says, we’ve heard FIVE versions of where Misha was.  None of it makes sense, but the Covid protocol seems to be the company line that others are repeating.

You may ask: why?  Why lie to all of us when we have questions?  Why, in Jay’s case, say that we’re all spreading false lies to stir up trouble, when we just have questions and things that do not make sense.  Simply?  Warner Brothers is absolutely massive.  These people have their careers to protect and are likely all under NDAs.  They want to work for WB again and don’t want to burn bridges, including Misha.  It sucks, but that’s why it’s unlikely that we’ll hear someone come out and say, “yeah we’re lying to you.”

Silence of the Cast Post Episode

So this is...probably the worst part of all this, at least in my opinion.

The guys had all been pretty excited about the end of the show (especially Jared, but Jensen’s panel last week was Jensen as happy and jokey and positive as I’ve ever seen him.  He was so excited about episode 18, about what it meant for Dean and for Cas, and I just cannot buy that he would have been that excited unless he thought there was something more in the episode.

Misha live-tweeted the episode, and was watching it with his kids.  It’s well known that Misha and the kids don’t watch the show because it’s too scary, and let’s ask ourselves, why would he have them watch an episode that he’s barely even mentioned in?

He also stopped live-tweeting at a very specific point in the episode (Dean’s death) and has not mentioned Supernatural since then. 

None of them, not Jared, Jensen, Misha, or even Alex, said anything about the episode for nearly 36 hours, when Jensen posted a salty photo on instagram.  It’s just...not what you’d expect for the end of a 15 year show, when the cast and crew are so close to the fans, so close to each other. 

My theory?  They didn’t know.  They thought Misha was, at least, going to be in the episode in some way, and when he wasn’t, they decided not to say anything.

You really think that Jensen “Heller” Ackles would have been so excited about the end of the show last week if he thought Cas wasn’t going to be in it at all?  Nah son, doesn’t make any sense.

Even today, in Jared and Misha’s panels, they seemed sad and...more than a little careful, both saying that there were things they couldn’t say, both talking around things that we all have questions on.

Jensen Speaking with Kripke

So this is where a lot of people are getting fodder to take shots at the writers, saying that Jensen hated it from the beginning, but I don’t think so.  I actually think I know what Jensen went to him about, and it wasn’t the lack of Cas or the weird pacing or the montages (which I don’t think were there when Jensen got the script); I think it was the manner of Dean’s death.

I know a lot of people were upset about that, upset with how...normal it was, coming off an episode where they literally beat God.  I actually didn’t mind it, I thought it was an interesting thematic take to be like: you can be a hero all your life, but sometimes shit happens, and you just die.

But imagine how hard that was for Jensen to read.  He would run to Kripke for that, because for him, Dean dying by being impaled by a piece of rebar had to be tough to swallow.

So, why didn’t Kripke say that?  Why didn’t he say, “oh well he had a problem with Dean’s death, none of that other stuff was in the script.”

Guys.  Why would he get involved?  He’s not going to burn bridges any more than anyone else is.  He said the ending was good because it’s the easy thing to do, it’s simple, will cause him no problems in his career, and he can just ignore the people trying to engage with him on it.

Walker

Something else to talk about is the major shift this episode had from the rest of the season: the shift from Dean to Sam.  I am NOT saying that Sam isn’t important, he definitely, absolutely is, but it was DEAN who really needed to wrap up his arc, Sam just needed to move on, get married to Eileen, become the leader he was always meant to.  So what changed?  What was with the shirtless scene, the Austin number and random case there, most of the episode being heavily Sam focused, going through his entire life in a montage?

Anyone else notice the 375 Walker promos, or Jared’s little spiel about Walker and how he hoped SPN fans would “come along for the ride.”

It’s...kinda obvious?  CW wanted to appeal to who they think the key demographic of SPN and Walker is: rural areas in the South.  It would explain a lot, why so much editing, why so Sam focused, the Austin number, the number of Walker promos, all of it.

I’m not saying this is fact, I don’t know that it is, but it is a little suspicious that even in Jared’s panel today, he talked A LOT about Walker and how he hopes SPN fans will watch it.

Why Would the Network Get Involved?

Simply put: $$$

If they think Walker can be the new SPN, and that those crazy SPN fans liked it originally, it’s a lot safer to go with the “original intent” of the show than do something risky (like making one of your two original leads queer).

And?  They don’t care.  They don’t care that the episode didn’t make sense, they don’t care that all the emotional arcs were left hanging, they don’t care by (potentially) smashing together two of Dean’s monologues (one to Sam, one to Cas) that it came of as...gross. ( @curioussubjects​ wrote a beautiful post showing how part of that death speech was likely meant for Dean here).  They don’t care, they never have, they just want to make their money and move on from the too-loud fandom that fought for representation too hard for too long.

It can’t help but feel insidious, which, honestly, it might be, but it really all comes down to the next cash cow, which, they think, is Walker, even at the cost of the fifteen year legacy show.

The Writers and What I Want

So here it is, all this weird, sus shit laid out on the line.  And you know what?  To me, there is no way to blame the writers, because they didn’t want this.

I don’t think Dabb and Bobo would have gone ahead with the confession in 18 without thinking that there would be some closure to that arc, they wouldn’t have done that not only to the fans, but for the sake of their own story as well: no writer wants to start something that they can’t finish. (And this applies to both Cas and Eileen).

Here’s a basic rundown of what I think happened: they had a clear arc from 18-20, ending in reciprocation at some level from Dean, Sam marrying Eileen, Hunter Sam as the new Bobby, Dean in heaven with Cas and big roadhouse reunion at the end. Covid prevented a good amount of that. Network had to stare at big gay 18 for six months, got cold feet. Thought about Walker, target audience and alienation of the rural areas if it went full gay. Misha quarantined and likely shot something (not much), he was then cut by execs and went home. They likely added in lines referencing Eileen and Cas to make it clear but more subtextual. They wrap, editing gets it and hacks it to pieces, so we get a shorter episode that’s mostly montages and jarringly bro-centric with nothing else. Arcs are left hanging. Dabb gets episode but it’s too late, there’s nothing he can do. Actors aren’t told so they can continue to do positive PR for the ending, they all found out at the same time we did: hence almost complete silence about the finale.

And you know what?  They warned us.  I talked about it here, but they’ve been telling us all season that Chuck wasn’t the writer, he’s the network.  I don’t think, still, that they thought it would be cut up like this, into something so unsalvageable that it’s been panned by almost everyone, even people who didn’t care much about Dean and Cas.

Finally, a masterpiece can be ruined by editing, and while I’m not sure even the script they ended up shooting on was a masterpiece (due to the network meddling already), but to me it’s blatantly obvious that it’s no one but the network that caused this, that took away closure for Dean, Cas, and even Sam.

So what do I want?  Nothing really, there’s nothing we can do, but I wrote this mostly to show people that the writers are not your enemy.   In fact, to the people trashing them?  You’re doing exactly what the CW wants you to: blame the obvious targets, blame Misha, blame Jensen and Jared, blame Dabb.  Scream and yell at them on Twitter and about how the show is ruined because of them.  The network keeps their engagement levels high, they don’t get as targeted for their behavior, and just keep moving along.

Just, please, think about who did this,  Mourn the show, be angry, but not at the people who fought tooth and nail for this for literal years, not the people who wanted it more than we did, not the people who cannot say anything because of their careers and the NDAs they’re bound by.

Someone is going to spill eventually, but until then, we just have to wait, and continue to be loud.

[sophiapathic]

Sk8: The Infinity - A Take on Love

Because my six unfinished assignments can wait until I throw this into the void, scream for five hours and after my voice gets hoarse, I resort to watching the beach episode on loop until next Saturday.

This was entirely sparked by the recap episode, which really pressed the reak havoc and theorize button in my brain. I am truly losing my grip on reality. Help. I apologize in advance, creatures of Tumblr. 

Me right now:

Anyways... 

I saw people mention here and there screaming that “we need canon relationships and they will get trust issues if a romance isn’t confirmed by the end of the series”. I think that mindset is harmful to have in this case. You can’t really avoid being disappointed if you get into the series expecting it to deliver on your wishes of gay romances. So, this might be controversial, but stay with me please. The anime and manga are both confirmed to be based primarily about the characters themselves and of course the sport -skating. I was hoping to take a closer look at what the series intends to do with certain dynamics and relationships according to yours truly. I also want explain my reasoning behind it not being queerbaiting, though it being inherently queer-coded, through the current lense of the canon.

Sk8: The Infinity is unquestionably a love story.

We need to state the genres this series is in, because some of us tend to forget. It is in fact not a shounen-ai, not a yaoi, not a romance, not even a josei. Say it with me it is a series in: COMEDY and SPORTS.

(Source is the official US Sk8 website.) The spotlight is udoubtedly on skating and what it means. Another important highlight of the show is how the definition of the sport relates to the characters, and how vastly different they are from what we expect. For example, when we see Shadow first, we pigeonhole him into this vulgar indecent rock and roll persona, only to find out later that he is actually a stweetheart at a flower shop. Joe is another very good case study. When we first see him we think of him as a womanizer muscle-head, later we find out he has a heart of gold and is very emotionally intelligent. We’re also quick to judge Miya as the cold, unfeeling prodigy then we discover how lonely and normal he is on the inside. And so on and so on. 

The show continues to defy our expectations of what each character should be like. In a way it is about breaking the conventional stereotypical roles we subconsciously assign to certain looks. We see that even in anime, multifaceted characters can exist without distrupting or damaging the delicate dynamics of a traditional sports anime. We successfully established the second focal point of the series as disproving stereotypes and presenting strong, diverse and unexpected personalities.

How about the defition of skating? What does it mean in the context of Sk8: The Infinity then? Where does a love story come into the picture? Skating is repeatedly described as a ritual of love within the anime, an idea that our villian, Ad*m, is obessed with. In a sense skating is a language of love canonically.

Then skating itself is love. Throughout the series we see varied styles of skating therefore different ways of expressing love, affection. We get to experience several metaphorical ways of “being in love” through characters skating with each other. Each dynamic shows us a type of love. Healthy, disfunctional, outright abusive. 

The way Reiki teaches Langa to skate can be interpreted as a direct metaphor for someone learning to love again after losing a person close to them. Langa’s father has died and Reiki literally brings him out of his shell again. It can also be interpreted as a queer kid’s experience of a world of romance that feels similar to his previous one, that being snowboarding, yet it still being new and different. Skateboarding. When due to Reiki Langa’s potential is discovered and his hunger for more and more develops, especially next to Ad*m, Reiki’s main frustration stems from them not being well-matched or on equal footing anymore. He feels like he cannot give Langa what he needs anymore. Which would obviously go againts the literal description of a healthy romance. Two people with mutual respect who both bring equal assets to the table. He feels like he needs to catch-up to be with Langa again. The only thing he doesn’t consider is Langa’s deep appreciation of him and the fact that literally he was the one who helped Langa experince the feeling of love again.

Kojiro and Kaoru’s relationships, to me, is very much representative of two people  wanting to be in each other’s presence, but due to their different language of love, miscommunicating horribly. Them bantering and insulting each other is the only way they know what to do with the other. The only way they can ensure the other’s attention and eyes are on them. This has worked so far. They are literal opposites, but both have a very clear definition of their form of love. To Joe skating, or love itself, is about the feeling and going with the flow. Being spontaneous. Whereas for Cherry, every move needs to be calculated and executed perfectly in order to be “efficient”. Their frustration comes from both wanting different things from the other, but not communicating their need properly. Despite this, they stick together due to a magnetic pull they obviously feel towards the other. The attraction is there, the trust is there, they are even well-matched in skill as we see them neck-to-neck constantly. They could give each other what the other wants. Only if they could express themselves well... This is why Joe pushes Reiki towards reconciling with Langa. he wants them to not fall into the same trap of not stating their  needs and thoughts properly.

Now Ad*m and Langa are obviously problematic and I don’t really want to have to explain, honestly guys. I really don’t  (since I have trauma regarding this subject), but I need to go into this a little bit. This is a textbook toxic predatory relationship. Where the older, twisted, damaged person, has an obsession with a young, outstading child. He wants to lead him into “Paradise” and show his “Eve” what love is really about. (Ain’t that disgusting you guys...) His form of love is inflicting pain, so I really can’t imagine a scenario where he and his “Eve” live happily ever after and everything is fine and dandy. He needs someone who he can torture. He literally is looking for someone who can handle his way of expressing affection, his “love hug”, who has the same type of crazy eyes for adrenaline and danger. His Eve. In his distorted mind, this all makes sense and Langa is that someone he was looking for thoughout the years. The problem is, he disregards Langa’s side where the relationship becomes problematic.

Cherry and Ad*m during their younger years seems to be a very innocent infatuation on Kaoru’s end. It is a one-sided relationship where someone is in love with the idea of a person long gone. They were discovering the world of skating, or the world of love together with Ad*m taking the lead. Cherry immediately became infatuated with him, wanted to learn his love language, wanted to be at the same level he was. It probably started very innocent. At first, Ad*m being gentle, because that’s how Tadashi was with him too, then after whatever happened between those two, Ad*m, disappointed in the way of love, or skating, Tadashi showed him, returned to what his aunts taught him. Maybe after injuring Kaoru with the “love hug”, therefore eliminating him from being his potential partner, started looking for his “Eve”, gradually became more agressive in love as in skating. Kaoru was distraught and wanted the Ad*m he originally learned love from back. Holding out some hope even years after. Trained to get used to his “love hug”, to literally condition himself to be able to get close to him. Ad*m, however showed Cherry brutally that he truly cannot handle his way of love.

Ad*m and Tadashi. *sighs* As of this post, I don’t really have enough information to give you a good overview of what I see this relationship representing. As far as I can tell Ad*m was abused horribly and to ease the pain and make him forget, Tadashi showed his another way of expressing affection. Skating or love. Basically a first love gone horrible bad, scarring an already abused child and turning them into a monster. Tadashi himself reinstates this during one of the episodes. It was his fault that Ad*m turned out the way he did. Their love slowly became strongly abusive throughout the years. Tadashi is stuck in it because he feels like he deserves it. This is a metaphor for  dangers of an emotionally and physically abusive relationship, where one person feels responsible and the other is using power. Tadashi’s guilt keeps him next to his master and he even endures abuse, now he is trying to break out and show Ad*m he messed up and I think this could potentially be a good representation of how difficult that process truly is. 

As far as Reiki’s, Miya’s, Shadow’s skating goes. Their main arc relating to love is first and foremost learning to accept themselves and aprecciating their uniqe way and style of skating. Only after can they become people who can truly be accomplished in love/skating (in Miya’s case I’m obviously talking about platonic feelings). Each of them had a preconception of their persona in love/skating, which gets questioned heavily throughout the series. Miya gets defeated, Shadow’s soft side gets discovered, Reiki... well. I get sad. :c Even though he taught someone to love again, to appreciate life again, he ended up discovering how dissatisfied he truly is with himself... These three all need to learn to love every aspect of themselves to reach fulfillment and to really experience healthy human relationships.

Sk8: The Infinity is unquestionably a love story, without explicitly being a romance, meaning that it is a tale about love, both romantic, platonic and everything inbetween through a queer-coded lens, showing both dysfunctional, abusive and healthy relationships, ways to express emotions and even delves into self-love and the idea of nature versus nurture in the villian’s case.

That is why I, personally don’t scream for a canon couple. To me, the show gets its main point about affection and love across, without making any of these relationships explicitly stated. Not to mention that it does justice to both of its assigned genres. Comedy and Sports as well. Yeah sure, I wouldn’t complain, but I think these dynamics are more than satisfying to watch, and much deeper than bishounens wanting to bang each other, which is, in my opinion, inherently sexualized. If they want, yeah they can confirm, make it canon without forcing it to be a center storyline. Hell, I would even be happy about it. I would clap with all of us. BUT, as the series currently is, I really see it taking the other route because of the above. This way audiences who want a yaoi or ikemen going at it, won’t be disappointed with the series when they find doesn’t revolve around that, straight viewers will just find it flamboyant, and people who look for subtext and want to read between the lines will certainly do that with the amount of crumbs and hints the writers gave us. 

We don’t need outright, written in black and white gay representation in Sk8 to experience very real types of love. The queer theme is secondary to me, just like queerness is, in most people’s lives. Yeah sure, it is a big thing, but not the only attribute a person has. My life doesn’t revolve around my queerness. I rarely talk about it. If I was a main character this would be a side-arc. Just like Sk8 doesn’t revolve around the characters coming out. It’s just them living their lives and possibly being queer while doing so. If you look at it this way, it is almost normalizing attraction between same-sex people by just showing it as regular love. If you can, why not interpret it this way, so it can be a liberating experience instead of a disappointing one.

Please don’t attack me! I am fragile and this is only my opinion. c:  *crawls back into her hole*

[ericspinkhair]

wedding fun pt. 2

pairing: dom!Eric, dom!Sunwoo x sub!reader

word count: 2k

synopsis: avoiding Eric and Sunwoo after the wedding is unsuccessful and you end up having sex in the bathroom after filming the first episode of Kingdom and Queendom (just imagine both are taking place at the same time)

a/n: you can find pt. 1 here

please send in requests!!

masterlist + requests

Ever since your sister's wedding you had completely been avoiding your brother. This probably made him even more aware that something was wrong but you just couldn't face him after what you'd done.

Sometimes you'd wake up at night, your panties soaked to the core with your arousal. The memories of that night kept haunting you in your dreams and you just couldn't forget how good they had felt on your skin.

Nevertheless, they were Changmin's friends and also his members so you shouldn't have crossed the line. Especially since you were an idol as well and were expected to not have any romantic, let alone sexual relationships. Luckily you remembered having used protection so you at least didn't have to worry about possibly being pregnant.

Despite not answering any texts, you probably couldn't get around talking to Changmin today. You also were going to see Sunwoo and Eric for the first time after the wedding.

Today was the start of both Kingdom and Queendom respectfully and the boyz as well as your group had been invited to the show. Shortly, you would have to perform the song with the most wins and your performance would be broadcasted live through mnet.

It was hard to tell whether you were dying of nervousness because of that or because you had to face Changmin, Eric and Sunwoo. Right now you were waiting for the announcement for your group to be called in. You were already wearing your outfits and had the makeup on but you were sweating so much that you felt like the paint was melting off your face.

Finally, you got the cue to go inside so your group walked through the huge door hand in hand.

The inside was very familiar as it was the same set that you had seen in Road to Kingdom. You were the last group to go in so everyone else was already seated and all eyes were on you.

"Oh, y/n!" someone exclaimed and when you turned to the side you saw Changmin waving and smiling at you. You awkwardly smiled back, feeling the two boys next to him stare at you intensely.

The other groups were cheering for you and you were bowing in respect for your sunbaenims. Meeting all of these seniors was so exciting. If only you weren't that occupied by different thoughts.

Nevertheless, your performance went well without any mistakes. During the rehearsal you encountered some problems but during the livestream everything went smoothly. It felt like such a privilege to be able to watch all these amazing performances for free. Of course the boyz wowed everyone with their mesmerizing dance moves and concept. You couldn't keep your eyes off them and allowed yourself to watch Eric and Sunwoo while they were concentrated on something else.

Gosh, they were so beautiful.

Throughout the rest of the recording you made a point to stare intensely at the mcs and not looking in their direction at all.

After everything was done, everyone went back to their assigned dressing rooms to remove the makeup and to put on normal clothes. You decided to take a trip to the bathroom on your way back and when you were on your way to the dressing room some of the the boyz members were coming in your direction. Changmin was luckily not one of them but both Sunwoo and Eric were there. You quickly turned on your heels and fled back into the bathroom.

This was so embarrassing. You had briefly made eye contact with Eric so you knew he had definitely seen you run away. You stood in front of the sink and looked into the mirror. Your cheeks were red from embarrassment and you looked like you were about to cry.

Suddenly the door opened and you quickly turned around.

"This is the women's bathroom," you said flustered as Sunwoo and Eric entered. They just shrugged innocently.

"We just wanted to talk to you. Last time we saw you, you just disappeared," Sunwoo smirked at you. So they definitely did remember what had happened that night and felt the need to talk about it.

"You cannot tell Changmin. He can't ever know."

"Oh, we won't tell him." "But we should do it again."

"What?" you asked dumbfounded. Do what?

"We should have never done it. We crossed the line and we can't do it again. We are not only idols but you're also my brother's friends and members," you tried to explain to them. It's not like you didn't want to but more like you really really shouldn't.

"Do you regret it? I had a feeling you enjoyed yourself," Eric teased you. You didn't answer because you were on the verge of admitting it.

Sunwoo stepped dangerously close to you. "If I were to kiss you right now, would you let me?" he asked. His face was mere inches apart and you could feel the excitement running through your body. His lips looked so soft and plumb. Biting your lip, you nod. Stupid brain!

He took no time in pressing his lips onto yours and slowly but surely moved them against yours. With his hands he was holding your hips and you put your arms around his neck, pulling him closer.

"Can I, too?" you heard Eric ask from behind. You breath out a 'yes' and immediately felt his lips on your neck. This seemed like major deja vu of the wedding night. The difference was that now you couldn't blame your actions on the alcohol. Also a bathroom in mnet's building was much more public than a private wedding venue.

Your lips connected with Eric's as Sunwoo started kissing down your collar bone. Eric's tongue slipped past your lips and your tongues were dancing together.

As Sunwoo was probably giving you hickeys he started caressing your still clothed breasts. To make it easier for him you disconnected from Eric and pulled off the dress you had been wearing for the evaluation. In seconds your bra was unclasped and Sunwoo had free access to your boobs.

Sober, you realized that the man really knew what he was doing. He was paying special attention to your nipples, sucking on them, swirling his tongue around them and slightly biting them just hard enough so it wouldn't hurt. Your breathing was become more and more irregular and you also noticed how bulges were forming in their pants.

Without any reason, you became brave and started palming both of them with your hands. Neither of them were shy of moaning and the tension in the room was becoming higher.

Then you sank to the ground and started unzipping Sunwoo's pants. Simultaneously Eric unzipped his and now you had two beautiful cocks waiting anxiously for you to touch them. Sunwoo guided you to his and you gave it a lick before deciding to take the whole thing in your mouth. He moaned out your name which encouraged you to go deeper. Sunwoo really had to refrain himself from just pushing your head down and fucking your face but he had to remember that you still were very inexperienced and he shouldn't cross your limit. With your other hand you were stroking Eric's dick and he had his eyes closed, enjoying the sensation.

"y/n," Eric whined. He clearly wasn't getting enough satisfaction and wanted what you had been giving Sunwoo. So you took his length in your mouth and started pleasuring him this way.

At the same time, Sunwoo carefully pulled down your soaking wet panties and slid his index finger over your pussy. Your whole body shivered at that. He was slowly rubbing it before he started lapping at your pussy. His tongue was doing wonders and you had a hard time keeping yourself upright. That's why Eric lay down on the floor to make it easier for you. You went into the 69 position so your pussy was hovering right above Eric's face. Now he had perfect access to your clit while Sunwoo was able to stimulate you with his long fingers. Having both of them work on you quickly brought you to the brim of an orgasm. Noticing your increased breathing and moaning they suddenly stopped. You were disappointed but then you understood why.

"Ride me!" Eric proposed to you. You were a bit unsure but still positioned your pussy above his dick after they had put on condoms. You sank down slowly and it felt less uncomfortable compared to before. You began to move soon but you were very unsure what to do with your body. Last time they had done all the moving so this didn't feel very natural. Eric started meeting your thrusts and at some point you had to rest your upper body on his because it felt so overwhelming. While you might have been on top, he was still in control, thrusting from below and making your whole body shake. At the same time, you tried to pleasure Sunwoo with your hands but Eric made it hard for you to concentrate on anything else. What was it about these boys that made you lose control?

At one point, you really were just lying there, letting Eric roughly pound you from below. You felt an orgasm approach again so you already knew you were probably going to be denied again.

And you were right. Now it was Sunwoo's turn and he picked you up and put you on the sink. You were sitting and he was standing. He was roughly grabbing your hips to have better control while slamming into you. He turned your head and you could see him fuck you in the mirror. Why did it feel so good when it looked so dirty?

You wondered whether or not they would let you have an orgasm this time. After all the stimulation you were ready to let it all go. Clenching around his cock, Sunwoo went even faster and you had to grab onto his shoulders to not fall apart. Your eyes were rolling back and you were moaning/screaming out his name as the orgasm finally washed over your body. He let you ride out your orgasm on his cock, before pulling out. You were a bit confused because you were quite sure he hadn't come yet.

"Can we come on you?" he asked and you saw Eric stare at you excitedly. You motioned Eric over and started rubbing them once again. It didn't take long before they shot their cum on you, most of it landing on your tummy and boobs. Breathing heavily, they each silently thanked you with a kiss.

You slid down from the sink and looked in the mirror. Your hair was a mess and you had a lot of cum dripping down your body. Eric and Sunwoo quickly made sure to clean you and themselves up.

"Changmin really can't know. Our managers neither," they told you. Seems like no one wanted trouble just some fun.

"Can we have your number?" they asked you. You gave it to them but just because you were quite sure that you didn't have enough self restraint to say no. Having sex with them also felt better than anything else in the world. Your hand could not compare to the touch of Eric and Sunwoo.

This is how your friends with benefits relationship started. During the shooting for the show, you had sex every time. You also started visiting Changmin in the dorm. You pretended that everything was normal but then quietly had a quickie with one or both of them. This was your dirty little secret.

[urimaginespimp]

Untouchable (This Love pt 8)

Bucky x reader (elemental witch)

Set during TFATWS mainly episodes 4-5

Note: Little references on You All Over Me

Previous Part: Happiness

--------

“I’m letting you go, Bucky.”

It felt like he watched a part of himself die as soon as those words left your lips. How could he have been so late to realize that he’s in love with you? And in the worst possible time ever; When you finally look like you’re in peace and ready to open yourself once more to the world.

“I’d really like to be friends with you again someday. Maybe as you’ve said before, I will thank you.” You genuinely smiled at him and he almost wanted to yell at you to take it back. To say that you still want to be together.

But that would be so cruel of him. So he merely returned a smile, hoping that it came off genuine.

“You go alert Sam. I’m gonna try my best to stall Ayo and the other women. Though I doubt I could buy you more than a few seconds once the eighth hour rolls around.” you grinned and turned to go find where the Dora Milaje were waiting.

--------

Eight hours have passed and you were now taking the Dora Milaje to where Sam, Bucky, and Zemo would be.

Only when you were outside the door, you could hear an unfamiliar man’s voice almost threatening Sam into a fight.

“He’d die before he thinks he can hurt a friend to the throne.” Ayo commented, and before you knew it, one of them have thrown their spear before the man who you now can assume as discount Captain America could even raise a fist to Sam.

You walked in beside Ayo and based on Bucky’s expression, their business with Zemo wasn’t even close to done yet.

“Even if he is a means to your end, time’s up.” Ayo declared out loud in the room. “Release him to us now.”

“Hi. John Walker. Captain America.” The man interrupted. You bit your lip to stop yourself from laughing. This didn’t go unnoticed by Bucky however, who was mentally kicking himself because now was not the time to be reminded that he knows how those felt against his. The little taste of heaven he got.

“You were like a little sister to Steve Rogers, right?” He turned his attention to you with a cheery voice. “Happy to finally meet your new big brother?” He jested.

“Sorry. That positions been long taken over ever since the potty mouth racoon started exchanging memes with me.” you retort with a shrug, which made Sam cough to hide his chuckles, and Zemo to look at you as if that was the craziest thing he’s ever heard.

“Well, let’s uh, put down the pointy sticks and we can walk this through, huh?” Walker tried to gain control over the room’s atmosphere.

“Hey, John. Take it easy.” Sam butted in. “You might wanna fight Bucky before you tangle with the Dora Milaje. Or even worse, Y/N.”

“Yeah, I think I can take some water or rocks being thrown at me.” He smirked at you, making the side of your lip twitch.

“Careful, Walker, I’m almost twitching to blend that bloodstream of yours. I can control you like a puppet and I wouldn’t even have to move an inch from where I’m standing.” You smiled at him almost eerily, and Bucky was sporting a proud look on his face.

But of course, you weren’t gonna do it. You’ve long vowed to put puppeting the living off the table unless it was a life and death situation.

Walker gulped before turning once again to Ayo. “The Dora Milaje don’t have jurisdiction here.”

“The Dora Milaje have jurisdiction wherever the Dora Milaje find themselves to be.” You could almost see steam coming out of Ayo’s ears as she spoke. She could also feel that something didn’t feel right with this man.

Looking at his companion, you could see that unlike Walker, he was getting nervous.

“Look, I think we got off on the wrong foot.” Walker played it off, before he layed his hand on Ayo.

Then all hell broke loose.

--------

Ayo literally disarmed Bucky. Both of you shared the same shocked expression.

Walker was catching his breath after they handed his ass to him, and was failing miserably to remove the spear that held the shield up on the table.

Ayo opened the doors to where Zemo had last gone into, only to find it empty.

One of the women took the spear off effortlessly and picked up the shield as Walker was now on the ground looking defeated.

“He is gone. Leave it.” Ayo told her.

Picking his Vibranium arm off the ground, Bucky was still trying to wrap his head around what just happened.

“Did you know they could do that?” Sam asked, just getting up from the floor.

“Guessing from his reaction, no.” You commented as he attached it back and tested it. “Are you alright?” you approached him. His arm worked just fine. Relief flooded him.

“Yeah. How about you? You still got cuts and bruises from Madripoor.” He reaches out and holds a side of your jaw to turn your head as if to assess the minor damages on your face, causing your breath to hitch.

This was the first time he got to touch you again after all the distancing and avoiding you’ve been doing before. He smiled at you sweetly, making you confused. Sam was also giving Bucky a questioning look.

“I think I’m gonna help them look for Zemo. You guys gonna be alright?” you stepped back away from him and turned to Sam, and he nodded before giving you a hug and told you to be safe.

You gave Bucky a smile before leaving to catch up with the Dora Milaje. As soon as you were out of earshot, Sam turned to him with a smug expression.

“Have something to share, Bucky?” He asked playfully, already having a hunch why Bucky was acting all weird.

“Sam, I’m in love with her.” He replied, still staring at the direction where you just exited.

“Yeah, I figured.” he snorted in reply. It was about damn time.

“But just when it hit me, she then says she’s letting me go. Now I’m the one caught up in her.”

“Well that’s some angsty shit right there, man. Let’s grab something to eat first and talk about how your cyborg brain finally named the feelings you’ve had all this time.” Sam pats his shoulder before muttering that he was gonna need food for this discussion.

--------

You had an inkling that Zemo was heading to Sokovia. And it seemed that Bucky had the same though as he caught up on you and the Dora Milaje on your way there.

The moment you saw him, the dried blood on his face raised your concerns, and he was trying to hide the fact that he was enjoying your attention when you insisted on patching him up, and you were oblivious to the Dora Milaje’s teasing glances thrown his way, and even when one of them mouthed the word simps to him.

He made a mental note to look up what that means later.

I thought you’d be here sooner.” Zemo spoke as he got nearer. “Don’t worry, I’ve decided I’m not going to kill you.”

“Imagine my relief.” Bucky replied, clicking the gun on his side.

“The girl has been radicalized beyond salvation. I warned Sam, but he didn’t listen to me. He’s as stubborn as Steve Rogers before him. But you... they literally programmed you to kill. James, do what needs to be done. Karli has people everywhere, and there’s only one way to make sure she cannot continue her mission.” Zemo rationalized.

“I appreciate the advice. But we’re gonna do it our own way.”

Zemo chuckled softly. “Yeah. I was afraid you would say that.”

Raising the gun to his head, there was no once of fear in Zemo’s eyes, rather it looked like he was ready to be reunited with his family. This was further shown when he actually nodded at Bucky.

Only that nothing happened as he pulled the trigger. Instead, he raised his left fist, and as he opened it, the bullets fell off, clanking on the ground.

Just then, three of the Dora Milajes marched up behind him, ready to take him away this time.

“Ladies...” he acknowledged them before turning back to him. “I took the liberty of crossing my name in your book. I hold no grudges for what you thought you had to do.” Bucky nodded, appreciating the gesture.

“Parting words of advice...” Zemo spoke again, this time lower as he knew you might be somewhere nearer and might hear what he’s about to say next.

“Like every other dollar in our pockets, you can’t change where it’s been, James. Much the same goes for you. But Y/N... She loves you nonetheless. And if my eyes don’t deceive me, I’d say you feel the same but she’s doesn’t know that.” he smiles at him

“I’d only realized it myself recently.” He confesses, only then realizing that the three women were listening and now had their brows raised in surprise.

“Don’t be too late.” Zemo grinned in satisfaction of his confession.

“I’m gonna work on that, thank you.” He returned the smile.

“Goodbye, James.”

As you saw them lead Zemo to the ship, you took that as your cue to finally approach them. You’d witness the entire thing, except that it was all inaudible from where you’ve been standing.

“It would be prudent to make yourself scare in Wakanda for the time being, White Wolf.” You heard Ayo advise him as you were finally in earshot’s way.

“Fair enough.” he replies in understanding.

Ayo nodded at you as you came closer to where they were, and she shot you a teasing wink, confusing you while Bucky cleared his throat in embarrassment.

“We’ll wait for you in the ship.” she told you.

“I didn’t know you could be so theatrical, Bucky.” You grinned teasingly at him.

“Had to give you a little inkling to what was happening since you were so far away.” He gave you a boyish smile.

“You’re gonna pick those up later, right?” you gestured at the bullets still on the ground.

“Yeah, just after all of you are gone. Don’t wanna ruin the magic of that scene.” He replied scratching the back of his head, making you laugh.

"You’re going back to Wakanda with them?” Because if you are, then the universe was definitely punishing him since he can’t really go there right now as he pleases.

“Yeah, I’m long overdue for a visit.” You answered. “Don’t worry, I’ll explain everything to them. You’d be in their good graces again in no time.” you assured.

As you spoke, the sun was just starting to set behind you, creating a golden outline of you. The sight was making his heart pound. To him you were burning brighter than the sun.

Yep, the universe is definitely fucking me. He thought to himself.

And as you stepped closer, he felt like he was coming undone when you hesitantly pulled him in for a small hug.

“Take care of yourself, James.” you whispered.

James. She called me James. Heat was rising up in him.

Breaking off from the hug, you were blushing. “It’s alright if I call you that too, right? I mean I know I said that’s what I called 1940s you when we were testing the time portal, but it’s still you, you know, and-”

“You can call me whatever you want, sweetheart.” He cut off your rambling, smiling at you. “Just not Barnes again.” He added.

“Why?”

“Well, you were mad at me the whole time you did so.”

“Okay, dipshit.”

“Y/N.” he feigned offense.

You laughed at his expense. “I’ll let either one of you know if I’m back in New Asgard.”

“We’ll have a lot of catching up to do by then.” He smiled, and you turned to head to the ship where unbeknownst to you, the women and Zemo have been watching the two of you interacting.

“Hey Y/N?” Bucky called out to you at the last second.

“Yeah?”

He was contemplating whether he’d just tell you right then and there about his feelings. It was starting to eat him up, but then he shook it off, knowing that he and Sam still had a mission to finish first.

“I... I may have another favor to ask Wakanda.”

--------

When he got to Sam’s hometown, he saw that there was a community of people helping repair a boat. It reminded him of his time working with in the docs.

He’s now offered his services to help Sam repair their family boat. He’s also met his sister Sara, nad he was surprised that when he made an attempt to be charming, it actually kind of worked.

They were now enjoying a drink together after a day’s worth of fixing.

“Talked to Y/N, yet?” Sam asked him, taking a swing of the bottle.

“She’s a lot more friendly to me now which is both a good and bad sign for me. But I haven’t told her yet. Not really a good time.” he answered in dep thought.

“You know before we got ourselves tangled into this mess, like way before Walker happened and you decided to show up, we were in constant communication.” Sam shared.

“Yeah?” he failed to hide the jealousy in his voice, causing Sam to crack up.

“Don’t get your metal panties in a twist, man. We were mostly talking about you." he clarified. “She knew you didn’t want to see her - which I beg to differ by the way – but she was somehow hoping you would at least be talking to me.”

“I’m sorry for ignoring your calls and text.” He says to Sam, which the man assured him was fine. “There were instances at night where I couldn’t sleep and my thoughts would be plagued with her. That I wish I hadn’t been so rash with making the decision to be alone and leave her the way I did.” this was the first time he talked about it to someone. His own therapist didn’t know a thing about it.

“Let me ask you something. Where do you want to stand in her life after all of this is over?” Sam knew this wasn’t what co-workers would be talking about but he knew that this was for the good of you both.

“I want to spend the rest of my years making it up to her. To let her know that while it took me long to realize it, we were actually always in the same page.” He found himself replying with no hesitation. Sam was satisfied with this answer.

“And how are you gonna convince her to give you a chance?”

He shrugged. He didn’t know just yet.

“Tell you what. The younger people around here know their stuff when it comes to matters of the heart. I’ll have them make a manuscript you could read, or a video tutorial.” He chuckles. He had no idea Sam was being serious.

“Well...” Bucky got up and clinked their bottles together. “Gotta catch my flight tomorrow. Get a hotel for the night. Crash, you know?”

“You’re just gonna set me up like that, huh?” Sam grinned, shaking his head.

“Well I don’t wanna make it weird for your family.” He shrugged.

“Just stay here. The people in this town are the most welcoming people in the world. They don’t care if you wear small T-shirts, or if you have six toes, or if your mom’s your aunt, or that I work with a reformed cyborg that’s in love with a witch that’s practically an avatar, who apparently single-handedly secured her adoptive father’s kingdom’s economy-” Bucky chuckled at Sam’s ramblings.

“Okay, I get it. I mean, you know, the people are nice.” he concedes.

“But don’t displace your feelings for Y/n by flirting with my sister.” Sam pointed at him. “Cause if you do, I’ll have Carlos cut you up, feed half of you to the fish, and send the other half to New Asgard so they could to feed you to their fish.”

“Okay.”

--------

He was gazing up at the stars, feeling the soft grass underneath his lying figure. The comfort and peace it gave him was almost nostalgic.

“How is it possible that this place also has the best set of stars for us to look at?”  A voice spoke next to him. Turning his head to where it came from, his heart fluttered as he welcomed the sight of you lying next to him, looking up the sky with such wander in your eyes.

He recognizes this scenario. He had just woken up once again from a nightmare, and couldn’t fall back asleep despite your presence. So, you proposed you’d both get some fresh air and just lay out on the field while the rest of Wakanda was fast asleep.

At first he was hesitant, not wanting to keep you up any longer, but you insisted that you haven’t been able to sleep a wink before he woke up from his nightmare. That’s how he groggily got up and took the hand you offered up to him as you lead him out of your shared hut, and into the wide field before you.

“Ayo said you’re having progress.” you turned your head to look at him. This time, he was the one stuck looking up the sky. He merely let out a small grunt as a response.

“I’m proud of you, Buck.” He could almost hear the smile from your tone. The genuineness of it all made the side of his lip twitch.

Getting up halfway to face him, you were supporting yourself up with your elbow. “We could celebrate if you want.” you suggested.

“I’m not even fully recovered yet.” he replied.

“So? Every milestone to recovery should be celebrated.” you shrugged. “C’mon old man, it doesn’t have to be grand. Any piece of treat you have in mind?”

“I’ve been meaning to try sushi.” He muttered shyly.

“Consider it done.” you beamed at him, laying back down.

There it was again. The tingly feeling he had in his stomach, which only ever occurred every time you were near. Maybe this was the feeling of gratitude. You’ve never been less than nice to him.

Yeah, that explains it. He thinks to himself.

“Why are you so fine with spending your days here anyway? Don’t you have someone waiting on you out of Wakanda? Steve said you’re more social than him.” He found himself asking.

Still looking up, you were sporting a gentle smile on your face. “I spent a great deal reading up classic romance novels when I was just learning the Midgardian ways. And I’m still in love with the whole chivalry, slow-burn romance thing. Imagine my disappointment when the first civilian man I found inherently cute outright asked me if he could have some in the bathroom.” you pursed your lips, making Bucky crack a soft laugh.

“My ma would’ve had my head if I ever said that to a lady.” he replied smiling, his eye crinkling at the thought. “...is that why you said you find me incredibly attractive?” he found himself asking, surprising both of you.

Even underneath the stars, he could see the heat rising up your cheeks. “Oh, you remember that?” you chuckled awkwardly.

“It’s not every day a girl would say that to the world’s deadliest assassin whose just been accused of a bombing incident.”  he was mentally kicking himself for even opening up the topic.

“It’s Steve’s fault. He wouldn’t shut up about how charming and a gentleman you are. And it didn’t help that you’re annoyingly handsome.”

He shifted in his position. “Bet you’re disappointed now.” he said in a low voice.

“Not really.” you argued. “If anything, you’ve added the words hot and strong to the list.” you teased, poking him on the arm. He shook his head at how casual you were being.

“Sooner or later Buck, it won’t be just me crushing on you. Maybe you’d even find yourself falling for a civilian.” There was a hint of sadness behind your smiling eyes. Everybody in the kingdom knew of her allegedly having a crush on you, curtesy of Steve’s blabbering mouth, but this was the first time she actually admitted it.

He didn’t say it, but the thought of what you just said didn’t appeal to him. It felt almost wrong to imagine himself casually being open and carefree with someone else.

Carefree. This was what your conversation now felt like. You managed to somehow make him talk, far from his usual quiet and grunting self during daytime.

He opened his mouth trying to think if a reply when you cut him off.

“Don’t respond to that. You’ve already managed to make my drowsy self, confess having a crush on you.” he turned his head to look your way again, only to find that you now had your eyes closed, a small smile playing on your lips.

Letting you finally get some sleep; he turned his attention back to the sky.

And it's like the million little stars above him were spelling out your name.

Just then he wakes up from the dream, as the little whispers by the doorway caught his attention. Sam’s nephews were playing with the shield.

“Hey!” he raised his hand to greet them while still lying down on the couch.

“Put it back.” one of them said to the other. “Hurry, hurry.” and they both took off.

Alone once more, his thought went back to the dream of a memory he had with you.

He found himself smiling.

--------

Y/N: Thanks for all the love! We're one chapter away. I'm just waiting for the last episode (brb crying) to decided where we go from here.

@eternalharry @iheartsebandchris @lizzarooni @the-ayo-lit @tanyaherondale @eliwinchester-barnes @knowyourworth-sellyoursoul @ebxny27 @just-a-littlebit-of-everything @fadingdreamersportsmaker

[old-hyper-super-clover]

For the requests‚ what about a family trip to the beach with Purgatory Hall + the royals and MC? Like Simeon and Barbatos setting up a picnic table meanwhile MC and Luke play around in the sand searching for shiny or strange things to building a sand castle (everything also keeping Solomon and Diavolo far from the preparations for the picnic)‚ playing with water guns or swimming. And after eating maybe playing a match of volleyball sand, admiring the sunset till it's nigth time and before going back‚ playing with fireworks, do a little stargazing or something--

Feel free to ignore this and thanks in advance anyway~

FINALLY I've come to write something for this lovely request. It's packed with so many fun ideas that I kinda went overboard with it xD this means the story is so big I'll have to split it into two posts!

To Bisshitu: I wanted to thank you for your continuous support! I see you in my notifs a lot and I really appreciate it!! (ALSO I AM SO SORRY YOU'VE WAITED SO LONG I HOPE YOU WILL STILL ENJOY THIS CHAOS)

Literally just 13 idiots on a beach trip~

Part 1

MC was leaning against one of the walls in the giant entrance halls of the House of Lamentation. Standing next to them, Solomon handed MC an opened bag of spicy newt chips. "Want some?" He asked and MC gladly took a few while constantly watching the commotion that was going on in the rest of the hallway.

Who would've guessed that going on a vacation with the seven rulers of hell would involve the most panicked, loud and chaotic packing of bags to have ever existed?

Well, let's be real, MC did expect it, but maybe not to the degree that they were in amusement about now.

The oldest brother had called the others for a "luggage check" as he had been sceptical of his brothers' talents in packing reasonable items in an, likewise reasonable, amount of suitcases and bags.

And of course, the first one to show up had to present his luggage in the form of... nothing.

Yes, Beelzebub came up to Lucifer, only the remains of a sandwich in his hand (which didn't last longer than three more seconds), confused when Lucifer mustered him with an angered glance.

"Where's your luggage?" Lucifer asked, to which Beel only gave a shrug.

"We're going to the beach, right? Which means I'll only need my swimming trunks, and I wear those underneath my pants."

Now the confusion has wandered over to rest on Lucifer's face. "But... Won't you need clothes to change into, or at least pyjamas for the night?"

"Hm..." Beel scratched the back of his head while thinking about Lucifer's words. "Nah, I don't need those. I'm planning to stay at the beach all the time, so..." Then suddenly, he gasped as he remembered something. "Wait, I do have something else prepared to bring along!"

Beel reached into his pocket, and when he pulled out a hand-written list that unrolled itself, plonking onto the carpet and rolling all the way to Lucifer's feet, the avatar of Pride knew exactly what said list was going to be.

"There are a few food stands that I'd like to try out..." Beel announced, eyeing the paper. "First of all, there's one selling shaved ice, which I want to compare to the ice-cream from this other stand, but who's also selling parfaits of which I kind of want to try all twenty-five flavours... Also then there's of course-"

"Beel" Lucifer interrupted the avatar of Gluttony in a strict tone. "Go pack a proper bag."

"But-"

"Now."

Letting out a sigh, Lucifer watched as Beel left.

But little did he know, this had only been the beginning of the chaos...

Moments later, Lucifer has found himself explaining to Satan why taking 70 different books with him would be ridiculously much. Also Mammon had taken this opportunity to "lend" some of his brothers possessions, arguing that he "needed those for the beach". This had worked until his swift fingers touched Levi's limited edition Ruri-chan sunscreen.

So, as Lucifer was spam-calling Belphie to wake him up and finally have him start packing, a sudden argument could be heard from upstairs:

"... How dare you steal my precious Hana Ruri 'magical sun ray protective lotion for all blooming heroes of justice'?! This very sunscreen is an homage to the legendary beach episode where Azuki-tan got a sunburn and couldn't help Ruri-chan in the intense battle against the evil kelp-army that was threatening to overgrow the local reef-"

"OKAY OKAY, HERE'S YOUR STUPID CREAM NOW LEAVE ME ALONE"

"S-STUPID CREAM?!?! DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA HOW PRECIOUS THIS ITEM IS TO A FAN LIKE-"

That was all Lucifer could understand as an awfully annoyed scream Mammon let out was drowning Levi's gibberish. Rubbing the bridge of his nose, Lucifer knew this vacation was going to be one intense experience...

An hour later, the group found itself where this little story had started off. The Purgatory Hall crew had already arrived long ago, enjoying the chaos together with MC -- who, btw, had been the only one to pass Lucifer's vibe luggage check right away.

Slowly it felt like most of the brothers were ready to go, only Asmodeus was left in the judgemental glare of the avatar of Pride.

But Lucifer noticed they already were way behind the time they were supposed to meet Diavolo at his castle. So, to Asmo's luck, he let off of trying to see what's inside the pretty boy's suitcase and announced the group's departure.

In enthusiasm shared by almost everyone, they let out a big cheer:

"Off to the beach we go!"

Some of the demons had whined about wanting to visit the human world beach. But as those idiot boys literally couldn't be trusted to act responsibly (which is okay, we love them regardless), Diavolo offered to stay at the beach resort he created in the Devildom.

Looking over the endless ocean, surrounded by the equally large beach and glistening in an artificial sun's light, MC was wondering just how powerful the demon prince must be to have created all this. But they were left only little time to be in awe over the location, as their friends demanded their attention shortly after having arrived.

Without going into much detail -- the day was packed with lots and lots of fun. MC was running around the beach, playing and goofing around with their friends, only to take a collective rest and then go do something silly again. Only a few other demons were to be found at the resort, but those were some acquaintances of Diavolo's family, and the group seemed to have scared them off of the beach after, like, an hour or so. Hence, the whole beach served as their playground for whatever activity they wanted to do, until in the afternoon, most of them were about to collapse from exhaustion and hunger.

"That's right, we didn't really have a proper meal since coming here" Asmo noticed as several tummy grumbles undermined his statement.

"We DID bring a picnic basket..." Satan mumbled. "But some genius had to let Beel carry it."

The culprit gave an immediate pout. "I had to hurry, 'kay?!" Mammon huffed. "MC was already at the beach and I--" he stopped. "... U-uh... I mean..."

Gaining a round of sighs and shaking heads, his brothers however decided to let Mammon's... mammon-ness slide for once. Mostly because, approaching from the distance, Barbatos and Solomon were getting closer, their hands full with bags that seemed to be stuffed with food.

"Y-yoU BroUGhT S-nAcKs?!" Beelzebub was already on his feet running towards them but Barbatos' stare was actually enough to make him stop.

"Not before the dishes are prepared, Beelzebub" Barbatos explained calmly, but with this very weird hidden tone in his voice that gave everyone chills despite the scorching summer heat.

"We figured everyone must be starving by now, so Barbatos suggested we'd make a little picnic party with everyone" Solomon cheered, presenting the bags in his hands.

"That sounds lovely" Simeon could be heard among the general noise of approval. "Let me help you prepare everything, Barbatos."

The demon butler beamed him a smile, thanking the angel for his help.

Then, Solomon spoke up again, and every bit of joy vanished from all their faces: "Thank you, Simeon! With the three of us working together the food will be ready in no time!"

--------------

Barbatos was putting all kinds of spices into a bowl to create a delicious sauce. Right next to him, Simeon prepared mouth-watering sandwiches.

And behind their back, there was this chopping sound. Chop reaching their chop ears in an chop never- chop ending thread, over and chop over again...

Swallowing his tension, Simeon was fighting a frown. "He's only cutting the fruits..." He whispered. "You shouldn't be able to mess up a fruit salad..."

"I know" Barbatos mumbled back. "However I cannot fight this unease that urges me to check if he's really-" He was interrupted by a very unsettling "oops" coming from that certain sorcerer at the cutting board.

In honestly quicker than the blink of an eye Simeon and Barbatos were at Solomon's side, frantically scanning the table for whatever Solomon must've messed up. When all they found were slices of fruit that, well, might have been chopped a bit wonky, they gave Solomon a confused stare.

"I cut off too much of this poor Hellberry's pull" Solomon explained. "Oh well, I'll just cut around the stem and add it to the fruit salad like this."

Both Barbatos and Simeon couldn't help but stare for a moment longer, their brains not really comprehending NOT finding an abomination in Solomon's cooking.

"Can I help you two with anything?" The sorcerer then asked.

"U-uhm, no..." Simeon mumbled. "It's all fine, we just..."

"We wanted to see if there's anything we can help you with" Barbatos jumped in to continue.

"Thanks, but I'm fine. Actually I'm almost finished, so maybe I can help one of you afterw-"

"Nononononono...!" Simeon almost whined. "I-its fine! We're actually almost finished ourselves, so..."

Solomon looked back, raising an eyebrow. "Doesn't look like it to me..."

Suddenly, another voice joined the group.

"I agree! You two are likely just being humble again" Diavolo had walked up to their working station a moment ago, but neither of them seemed to have noticed in their stress. The prince continued: "That's why I decided to lend you a hand as well. This is a vacation for all of us, so I should not burden my loyal butler with all the work."

"That's a commendable attitude for royalty like yourself" Solomon cheered. "Well then, I think Simeon and Barbatos could use a hand."

Diavolo was already squeezing his quite broad body into the tiny cooking space, this certain over-excited sparkle in his eyes as he mustered the food.

Barbatos and Simeon on the other hand were exchanging glances, so immensely stressed that their thoughts were almost audible:

'Barbatos I don't think I can handle any more of this stress' Simeon stared.

'We shouldn't have let Solomon help in the first place, our kindness was foolish' Barbatos stared back.

'What do we do now Barbatos this is the only food we have left, they cannot ruin it'

Thankfully, the perfect butler was not planning to let their "help" threaten the food for any longer. "Young master, I highly appreciate that you thought of my well-being. Which is why I indeed have a request for you and Solomon."

Simeon almost barged in on a frightened impulse, but Barbatos continued before anyone could raise their voice. "There is dessert stored in our hotel's main storage. Would you be so kind and bring enough for our whole group?"

A little surprised, Diavolo agreed. He waited for Solomon to finish cutting the fruits, then they went off to the hotel.

Finally able to catch a breath, Simeon shot Barbatos a last glance. "That was easier than expected. Why didn't we let Solomon bring the desserts earlier?"

Back to mixing spices, Barbatos didn't look up at the question. "What desserts?" He simply asked.

"... Uhm..." Simeon was quite startled. "Are there... Are there no desserts in the storage room...?"

"Oh, I sure hope there are" Barbatos said. "Otherwise I will have some explaining to do..."

-------------

(To be continued...)

Find my summer event Masterlist and Rules for the requests here <3

[allmightluver]

All Might’s Mental Health is  Declining

Toshinori Yagi wanted to be a hero, wanted to help people ever since he was a boy

and with Nana’s help, the quirkless kid got his wish.

But being a hero isn’t for the weak of heart. You’re going to fail. People are going to be hurt. And ultimately, you’ll be alone. Toshinori had to learn this quickly in his life as Nana, his mother figure, died for him at an early age.

The other person in his life, Gran Torino, trained him to the best of his abilities, but was a no nonsense, brutal teacher.

His methods were effective, but scarring, as Toshinori has been terrified of him ever sense. 

He was sent to America on his own to develop his quirk, where he eventually learned to become a hero. But again, that meant work was his life, and he had no social life. Sure he was popular with the media, but as far as developing a lot of personal relationships, he wouldn’t have time for them. Plus, as typical of a hero, in order to keep everyone safe, All Might couldn’t be seen with people he was close to. He most likely kept himself busy the majority of the time to keep from being lost in his own thoughts. People need companions, it’s part of our make up. Toshinori’s surely had to have been a very lonely life. 

And then All for One happened. And defeating him almost killed Toshinori, in fact, there’s no good reason he’s still alive, other than to pass on One For All, he should be dead. *Warning graphic details following*

All for One said himself (English Translation), “A wounded hero is a most frightening animal. Do you know that even now, I sometimes dream of you charging at me with your entrails strewn across the ground.” His entrails. His internal organs. All Might was gravely wounded, yet he still forced himself to fight All For One, even while the hole in his side freely leaked his own body’s contents. In the picture above, All Might kneels above All For One’s lifeless body in a pool of blood, a mixture of both their blood. AFO’s head crushed.

I cannot stress enough the mental impact of this singular event. All Might stood for absolutely NO killing. He would resolve conflict while being careful NOT to kill or even critically hurt anyone. But in this instance, Toshinori killed a man. And the way he did, crushing a man’s head with his bare hands until the skull gave way and his brains were scattered on the pavement below. For someone who believes in no killing, this was a brutal execution. One that, unfortunately, had to happen for the safety of the world, and only All Might was capable of doing it. 

This alone must have severely messed with his head. While he lay in hospital, only capable of healing, AFO haunted his dreams and thoughts. He took another life, blood permanently staining his hands. And now he has to mentally pretend this never happened and act as if everything is fine to the public who hadn’t heard of this fight.

Despite the mental trauma from this, the physical trauma was worse. While he could fake the emotional lasting effects, he couldn’t hide the physical. 

This injury took a lot more of him than just his mental stability. It took his stomach, a lung, most likely his spleen, and perhaps more internal organs. Living like this now means lots of medications. Supplements to make up for the lack of stomach, drugs to protect against infection, and pain medication to list a few. Something that big has to hurt like crazy. And all that scar tissue pulling while you try to fight? Torture. He’s most likely had countless corrective surgeries from the scar tissue alone, which only reopens the wound and leaves less and less skin to work with. You can see how caved in the scar is, indicating just how much of his body is missing. His destroyed respiratory system forces blood to fill the remaining lung he has left when he overexerts himself, which is all the time. He probably has to have blood tranfusions regularly to make up for the loss, as well as other injections to assist his body in running properly. There’s probably an oxygen tank by his bedside to help when he’s choking on his own blood in the middle of the night. His body wasting away until his very skin stretches like plastic wrap over nothing but bones. Muscles being eaten away in replacement of food.

But what sucks the most? The time he can be All Might is decreasing more every day. The one thing he’s wanted his whole life, to help people, is starting to become difficult to do. He has to hide his true form from the public, he doesn’t want them to fear for their lives if he can’t help anymore. Now he spends more and more time in his own mind because he can’t distract himself anymore. And what’s worse than the mental pain is the physical accompanying it.

Now BESIDES all this happening, we also have Nighteye’s betrayal. Sir, the man who was his sidekick for years, the guy he’s probably been able to grow the closest to, betrays All Might’s trust and looks into his future. And what does he see?

In six to seven years, Toshinori will meet a villain, and meet a gruesome demise. The betrayal makes him and Nighteye go separate ways, losing a friend.

Now with his declining health and the death sentence hanging over his head, Toshinori has to think about what he hoped he wouldn’t for years yet. He needs a successor. Someone to give this power to before it’s too late. 

Insert Izuku.

A young, quirkless boy who just wants to help people. Sounds familiar. Izuku is an obvious choice despite everyone telling Toshinori he’s not the right fit. (Like Nighteye whom Toshinori tried to tell, but was only shot down.) So once he hands over One for All to Izuku, the problem, despite the boy destroying himself as he tries to use it and Toshinori being unsure how to help him, is that his power is decreasing even faster now. Which, of course, is to be expected, but that doesn’t mean it’s easy to deal with. His time limit is drawn shorter and shorter until All for One starts to make a reappearance.

So not only did Toshinori not kill him, all the trauma he went through was for nothing, but now the world is in danger, again. And he doesn’t know if he can help them. Which means he has to involve his young ward in this mess that killed his mentor, almost killed him, and could potentially kill the boy as well.

So he tells Izuku of the origin of One for All and All for One. But he doesn’t tell the boy that by the time Izuku fights this guy, Toshinori won’t be around anymore. 

He doesn’t let on how much the power is draining out of his body, and doesn’t enlighten the boy on his own upcoming death. Which unfortunately means he has to lie and give Izuku a false sense of security. 

And then, All for One shows up.

And this time, All Might’s true form is exposed to the public. His weakness. Now the world knows that All Might isn’t invincible. Despite this, he’s still able to force his broken and exhausted body to beat All for One again, while using up the last of One for All, and leaving it up to Izuku.

Now he’s that quirkless boy who wants to help people again, only this time, he can’t.

Now he can’t be a hero, the one thing that’s kept him going all these years. And people on the street who don’t recognize him right away, criticize how he looks, which again, is out of his control. So he continues to hide himself in shame.

Gran Torino has told him he’s not being a proper mentor to Izuku, but the boy is already surpassing him with his schooling from other teachers. So, without heroing and mentoring, all Toshinori has left is being a teacher. 

And unfortunately, Eraserhead has told him he’s also mediocre at that as well.

Then Izuku meets Sir Nighteye, and questions Toshinori about their relationship, while also questioning his own successor-ship. 

Which leads to a very emotional scene of Toshinori telling Izuku exactly what happened all those years ago, as well as his death sentence that, oh by the way, is coming either this year or the next.

Toshinori is fairly emotionless while explaining this to the boy, I imagine he’s fairly disconnected with his own emotions by this point.

But seeing how upset Izuku was is enough to make him try and console the other that he won’t simply roll over and die, that he’ll go down fighting.

And THEN, he gets word that Sir Nighteye is in grave condition and most likely won’t make it through the night. Even after their falling out, Toshinori goes to his friend’s side, and the resemblance is scary.

Now he can see why Nighteye looked into his future, to see if Toshi had any chance on living. Being put in this position, he can understand. You can even hear Toshinori’s voice break (Japanese version) when he tells Sir that he needs to stay alive to allow Toshi to repent for his sins. But Nighteye can’t stay. And when facing the man who’s always been known for his smile, who can’t do it anymore, Sir says to him: “Smile. Live on, Toshinori.”

But for what?

The most recent episodes have a relatively emotionless Toshinori.

Like in today’s episode, the best he can give Izuku is a small smile, barely anything. He doesn’t even emote when he catches Hatsume’s stray baby.

He clearly still has the reflexes of a hero, but he can’t physically be one anymore. His health is too fragile. *Manga spoilers ahead*

Then there’s this scene with Aizawa.

He had long since accepted his own death, maybe even longed for it. But Izuku made him decide to try and live, even though he’s not sure how to anymore.

This poor man has been through Hell. And now he feels useless and helpless. Thank God he finally said something to Aizawa, but he needs more than just this, he needs to have a purpose again. I hope Aizawa and the others can help him find it again.

[why-this-kolaveri-machi]

just because you’re afraid it doesn’t mean you’re broken.

Titans 3.05

once more into the cold dark void of the internet with my stream-of-consciousness take on a superhero tv show...

spoilers ahead.

1. i cannot believe that among the first things i get to hear in this episode with my own two ears is the line 'eluded our overdudes'. why must you give me such pain along with so much joy, show?

1.5. scarecrow stringing jason along on this path to red-hood-dom is not something i would’ve ever expected, but does kind of make sense. 

1.55. i don’t know all the details of the original resurrection arc in the comics but i like that jason, weirdly, has a greater role to play in his own demise and rebirth? i think it makes it easier to draw a line between his past trauma, the demonstrably shitty and terrifying responsibility of being robin, the ways bruce and the titans wronged him, his responses to that, the reasons he turns to scarecrow, and his final evolution to red hood. it makes for a smoother character arc rather than a one that was interrupted for two decades before somebody went oh hey let’s resurrect that kid that the audience once voted to kill and make him an anti-hero!

1.75. what’s crane giving him? anti fear toxin? anyway, crane is a fucking creep and i’m not sure i want to see a whole lot of him on my screen.

2. oh, um, heads up: there’s a long sequence of unsteady cam + flickering lights right after the title card upto the 3:16 mark. it’s a bit headache-inducing so if you want to skip, you can go ahead and do that. 

2.45. that’s... weird... why would he dream about... donna...

ok, who am i kidding. i’m going to jump right into my theory about Why Titans Makes Sense Actually because the show itself is apparently not interested in explaining itself:

a) it makes no sense for jason to be conjuring up donna--who famously did not care much for him!--in his dreams. (he wasn’t even there when she died.) or for her to be telling him don’t go or there’s still time.

b) this leads me to think that that’s actually donna, in some sort of limbo between life and death, the kind of place where jericho used to be

c) rachel has demonstrated that she has the power to link the minds of the titans across great distances--she called jason and hank/dawn for help in 2.01, she linked up everybody later in the season, projected dick’s hallucination of his father into their brains without even realising she was doing it, and in the finale, she managed to get dick into conner’s brain. she’s in themyscira now. is this how she gets donna back to life? but reaching out to her in that non-space between life and death?

d) the next obvious question is: why isn’t donna appearing in the dreams of the other titans? she probably is, but they have better reason to be dreaming about her since they were actually close to her, unlike jason.

e) but why would she warn jason in particular? does she foresee jason entering the afterlife--however briefly? does she have an idea of what jason plans to do and what he will become?

f) anyway, more trippy mindscapes and weird psychic powers, yay!

2.5. my heart clenched when bruce comforted jason post-nightmare: clearly i’ve been reading way too much batfam fic. this is a side of bruce we haven’t really been told to expect by all the characters on the show calling him a ‘psychopath’ (*cough*unreliablenarrators*cough*) and him getting jason to speak to a professional speaks volumes about the kind of self-reflection he’s done post dick’s departure, and maybe some of the regrets he has with regards to how he dealt with dick’s traumas.

i mean, just look at him when jason dismisses his concerns! BRUCE IS TRYING JASON

anyway, i have a whole lot more i want to say about this, but i’ll save it for later. 

also: LESLIE THOMPKINS!!!!

3. i really like molly--and i love that she’s a friend from before jason got taken in by bruce, the implication that they meet up regularly and that she’s a grounding influence on him (tho clearly not grounding enough to not go along with his dumbass idea about confronting a child trafficker alone). 

3.5. aw, jason. robin was his armour against everything in the world that would throw him down and chew him to bits, but san francisco proved that even robin wasn’t enough to protect him. it’s really interesting how ‘disillusionment with the idea of robin’ is so integral to the traumas of both dick and jason but in such different ways. 

4. LESLIE!!!!!!! i even forgive her office being so goddamn blue because leslie! 

4.5. it makes so much sense for titans!verse leslie to be a therapist, because this show is so inward looking anyway, and therapist sessions are a useful tool to showcase this character work in a story. besides, at least in fanfic, leslie often seems to double up as a counsellor anyway. 

4.6. oh man. i’m not terribly convinced by walters’ red hood (tho i think that may be the point--argh. i’ll come back to this thought later. have to stop getting distracted!) but he plays the asshole kid that’s trying not to let any real emotion seep through really well.

“you’d like me to punch you, wouldn’t you”

5. not sure what to think of batman’s little trophy case other than the show winking unsubtly at us and going look look - catwoman! the riddler! two face! you excited yet?! it’s like the scene from the end of amazing spiderman 2 when they were trying to drum up excitement for a sinister six spinoff by having harry osborne walk by a bunch of display cases with stuff from iconic villains in them.

... but then again, bruce does like to display a lot of shit in his batcave, including his dead robin’s bloodstained costume, so.

5.5. bruce is so soft with jason it’s killing me. beyond just trying to learn from his mistakes with dick, it speaks to his own genuine desire to balance his dedication to gotham with doing the best by his sons, although he’s often not successful with that. 

i love that titans is really playing the long game with bruce wayne, with each season and character-perspective sliding in fresh pieces of a bigger puzzle. titans’ bruce has always been a phantom of other peoples’ making, but now we’re getting the idea that he’s a whole lot more complicated than other people make it seem.

5.75. it really recontextualises some of his actions from previous seasons: the fact that he locked dick out of his security systems in 1.06 is likely his way of respecting dick’s independence and his desire not to be associated with batman/gotham anymore. jason knowing about bruce’s tracker while dick doesn’t is probably bruce trying to be more honest and upfront with his charges. bruce sending jason packing off to sanfran to spend time with the titans is probably not him passing on a big responsibility to dick (as i first uncharitably thought) but him trying to get jason out of the toxic influence of gotham for a while and a sign of his trust in dick as a leader and a mentor,

5.8. i mean, bruce is a prick, but he’s also human.

6. i think leslie is doing some good work with jason here, though she may have overstepped the line with her line about robin as a construct being projected by a man with BPD. her speculations about bruce’s diagnosis have no place in her session with jason, and if bruce confides in her, an egregious violation of patient-therapist confidentiality. 

(about the diagnosis itself... i don’t know. i can’t really confirm or refute this without a whole lot more information, and i’m not sure if the writer of this episode means BPD in the same way an actual professional might.)

6.5. i think a huge thing that gets missed out in a lot of recent comics as well as movies/shows is that bruce didn’t create the robin persona out of whole cloth. dick did. he’s the starting point of that legacy and to call it entirely bruce’s creation is blatant erasure of that. in fact, i’m surprised that dick doesn’t feature more in the conversations they’re having about the pressures of being robin. after all, the guy had been robin--bruce’s partner--for such a long time before jason. 

6.8. (and here’s the primal part of me that resonates the deepest with dick grayson--the Eldest Daughter part--that’s sort of resentful: that jason gets the therapy and softness and the learning from mistakes when it took years and years for bruce to reach out in any meaningful way to dick.)

7. oooh that was a great scene!

it’s fun to do these stream-of-consciousness live reactions, because the moment you step down from your soapbox, the episode goes right into tackling what you were just complaining about. bruce means well, he’s learning, but he goes about exactly the wrong way to help jason: taking away robin now can’t be read by jason as anything but a devastating judgment call from bruce. and iain glen really sells the moment that bruce realises this--too late--and his helplessness in trying to get jason to see that it isn’t jason’s fault that he’s trying to do this. he loves jason enough that jason is enough. 

7.5. aaaah so jason brings up the elephant in the room at last. dick got everything makes sense from his perspective, where getting to put on a costume and fight crime means approval, means being something stronger and better than you are. dick got to be robin, then nightwing, and a leader of a whole team of other costume-clad heroes. 

8. ... how did jason just walk into arkham????? this is ridiculous.

8.3. i mean, clearly jason’s not thinking straight, but betraying batman like this puts his possibilities of being robin again even further away. 

8.5. watching that chemistry experiment montage was strangely funny. this guy is looking for an antidote to fear? well, constantly mixing up and inhaling gases concocted by a mad-scientist supervillain is something only the very fearless--reckless to the point of foolishness!--would do. what’s to say crane’s not given you a formula for a drug that will keep you tethered to his every will and whim? hmmmm?

8.7. so he sought out the joker to... test the formula??? 

9. wow the “loud and clear... boss” hits different after a whole episode of them referring to each other as father and son.

9.3. waitwaitwait HOLD UP. wait a DANG MINUTE. you’re telling me that scarecrow had enough resources that he could not only have folks on the outside steal jason away and dunk him in a lazarus pit (i TOLD you that this show would bring up and dismiss ra’s al ghul in a ten second aside! I TOLD YOU) but also have his own little chemistry lab in the basement, AND have enough resources for jason to build his red hood persona???????? all of this in barely twenty four hours?

well there goes my ‘jason orchestrated his death’ theory. it was nice while it lasted. *cups hands to the sky* fly away, my baby.

9.6. a part of me is gleeful at the rushed nature of such an iconic transformation though, especially when compared to all the character work that went before it. we’re so used to getting the opposite that it’s fucking delightful to have a show that’s more interested in exploring its characters’ minds rather than battle scenes or recreating transformations from the comics. that’s taken such bold and exciting steps to fully convey all the nuances of its most recognisable character, bruce wayne, from casting an older actor to play him to unflinchingly showing just how damaging the vigilante lifestyle has been to him and the people he loves. BRILLIANT

*sporfle*

10. again, heads up: a whole lot of flashing lights between 40:28 and 42:00. 

10.3. i guess it’s the super-compressed timeline that’s really throwing me off. where did he have the time to get/develop the mind control thing from? or is it something that he got from the cabal of villains that he intimidated at the beginning of 3.02? very messy.

10.5. i love molly, i hope she shows up again this season.

11. aaaand that’s it! that was a solid episode as flashback episodes go, but now i can’t wait to return to the present.

[kaypeace21]

Some of your favorite characters are Will’s split personalities (psych/narrative analysis)

This is part 2 of my DID analysis. Part 1 focusing on how the supernatural events of the series correlate to Will’s past with Lonnie. Before, I explain who I believe are alters of Will’s (previously called ‘split personalities’). I think I need to explain a crash course on what Dissociative Identity disorder (DID: previously ‘multiple personality disorder’) entails. And the supernatural manifestation within the show as well- Before explaining which characters I believe are alters of Will’s and why. So let’s begin.

There are 4 hallmarks of a potential dissociative disorder

“Dissociation is when instead of staying present in the face of stress you exit your thoughts, feelings, and bodily sensations and zone out. . It’s as if your body is a computer that reaches overload for input then just shuts down.’ It’s considered a defense mechanism in psychoanalytic theory.”

‘An individual struggling with dissociation or a dissociative disorder may only experience one of the following or may experience multiple. Each individual’s experience with dissociation can be varied. Symptoms can last just a matter of moments or return at times over the years.” 

1)“Identity confusion and alteration -When an individual forgets who they are or takes on a new personality unlike themselves.” (Aka his possession).

2)Dissociative Amnesia-”The forgetting of a major event, such as a childhood trauma or forgetting (traumatic) things happening in real-time.Many survivors of are able to “forget” until sometime later …when memories are triggered by certain events or when the body and mind are no longer able to conceal the memories.” (Aka Will’s ‘now memories’. The reason he refers to them as “now-memories” is because they are things he’s already experienced (as memories) but he’s only now remembering - because of his “dissociative-amnesia’

3)”Derealization-Feeling like the world is not real or is foggy.” (the upsidedown)

4) “Depersonalization-The sense of not being in control of, or not being connected to, one’s body.”

vocab and definitions (about DID) to keep in mind 

CORE/HOST- “The core is considered by some to be the person first born to the body. The host is the alter who most commonly uses the body (which may or may not be the core).”

ALTERS - “are dissociated self states that can be highly differentiated from each other. They can have unique names, appearances, ages, gender identities, sexualities, memories (pasts), skills, faiths, political views, abilities, and ways of viewing and interacting with the world. Alters can even perceive themselves as different species, inanimate objects, or as members of a different race, gender, age, or ethnicity/race.No one can choose to have alters or what their alters are like. Alters' creation is entirely unconscious. Most alters have their own sense of identity.  A host  cannot actually control the alter.An individual with DID has one brain and one body. Dissociative barriers between alters are not literal boundaries, and knowledge, memories, skills, preferences, and traits may bleed through.Alters usually have a role or multiple roles in a smaller system- these roles may or may not appear contradictory.”

SYSTEM-”A system is a collection of alters within one body.Subsystems are two or more groups of alters that might have developed separately, and they may or may not be aware of the other group.”

INNER WORLDS-”it could be a house, to a city, or multiple locations-where alters go when not in control of the body. The innerworld is where alters can interact with one another and where there physical appearance is how they describe .Communication between alters may happen face-to-face (in each other's respective bodies, via the internal world). Expansive internal worlds can result when highly imaginative or dissociative systems use their inner world to retreat from the outside world and so play out entire stories within their mind. Alters may be perceived as having internal lives when not active in the outside world, and these inner lives may involve travel to other internal locations. Many internal happenings may be metaphorical or highly symbolic of the core’s past. Inners worlds may also have characters  called "NPCs" (taken from the roleplaying term "non-player characters") that can interact with alters but they are more similar to imaginary constructs rather than actual alters (they can’t control the body and some are made consciously unlike alters-although that’s not always the case). These npcs can be background characters to make the world more real, and it’s not uncommon for parents, family members, or friends of alters to be NPCs.They can feel just as real as natural-born people . Different subsystems may reside in different locations in an internal world or may have non-overlapping internal worlds.”

INTEGRATION- This is essentially the closest thing an alter can do to die- but frankly I consider that comparison harsh. It’s “ when an alter permanently combines with the host or another alter.Fusion occurs when identities merge together and become a unified whole (retaining the memories and some traits of both merging identities.)  Integration into a single, individualized identity IS the goal for some in therapy.  But it is not, and does not have to be, for everyone.  It is possible to achieve full healing by processing memories, establishing communication across the whole mind, lowering dissociative barriers, and showing aptitude in everyone working toward a common goal - all without actually integrating.  Others may choose to integrate SOME parts, or "downsize", but still leave a small system to go about their life.”

“They may retain any number of independently acting alters. Reasons for choosing not to fully integrate can include: feeling that full integration is unnecessary; not understanding what integration actually entails and being afraid of "losing" their alters; uncertainty over how to navigate the world as one integrated person; being used to having alters around for company, entertainment, or support; alters having their own unique relationships that they're hesitant to lose; alters wanting to remain separate for their own sakes.”

SWITCHING-”Switching refers to one alter taking control of the body at the expense of another alter who was previously in control of body or ‘fronting’. Switches can be consensual, forced, or triggered.Switches can be slow, quick, or uncontrollably rapid. Switching can take seconds, minutes, or even days to occur.Stress (Will’s anniversary effect) or even a reminder of a trauma, can trigger a switch of alters.  * I’ll talk more about this later

ALTERS DYING-“Even if mock deaths or temporary experiences of alters “dying” from old age (or other means) have been acted out in some systems, they aren’t actually dying. You cannot kill off a collective part of the conscious mind like you can a person. Their thoughts, memories, emotions will all still be there, so they must be as well. The part may have gone into extreme hiding/dormant, been momentarily immobilized, or merged with another part of the mind (integration), but they most assuredly did not and can not disappear entirely or “be killed”.

Next we’re on to the supernatural concept they chose to use for this disorder.

We see in the first episode.  Will mentions x-men 134 which is about the dark phoenix . The show is litered with x men references like Dustin giving cerebro ( a machine belonging to professor x) to Will. Dustin also asks if El was born with powers “like the x-men.” And Mike also says  El channels Will and Dustin once again says “like professor x.” Now- does anyone know who professor x’s son (David) and the ‘shadow phoenix”are ? Well his son is considered the most powerful mutant in the world and has Dissociative identity disorder (DID).At one point some of his alters literally escape his head and enter the real world as tangible people. The ‘shadow phoenix’ is also a sibling to the ‘dark phoenix’.And this ‘shadow phoenix’ (a ‘shadow monster’ if you will)   terrorized David’s alters and forced them to integrate back into 1 personality . 

In ‘scanners’ one psychic mentions how he “opened the door” to the people trapped in his own mind in order for Daryl to be Daryl again.  While in ‘altered states’ the man (who saw flashes of another dimension) met his ‘unborn self in the crack in the void.’Similar to how Mr clarke and Alexi describes the portals of other dimensions being opened as a ‘door’. However, these doors were created before El- we see El created the one at the lab, but that doesn’t take into account the ones in the tree or the cave. There’s more portals we’re unaware of that allowed alters and npcs to escape and become part of the real world even before El opened the gate in s1. And unbeknownst to some of the characters and the audience we’ve already seen other ‘inner worlds’ of Will’s -besides the upsidedown . Which people (not part of the system) have interacted with . As Dustin in s1 said about the other dimensions / vale of shadows , it’s “ A dark reflection or echo of our world ...It’s right next to you and you don’t even know it” . 

We see both mr clarke stab a pencil into a plate and Alexi a straw into a box to illustrate this. What’s interesting is the one other time we see this motion is when Lonnie says “someone should be held accountable” (referring to what happened to Will), as he hammers into the wall and it transitions to Mike mimicking mr clarke. Implying that Lonnie is responsible and will be held accountable in the future.

-There’s also the fact the ‘dark phoenix’ mentioned in the first episode of St is highly associated with fire- having pyrokinesis (like Will the wise) and  who “had able to warp reality on a universal scale” .  It’s like how the show talks about physics often, like in s3/1 (plank’s constant or Hugh Everett’s many worlds interpretations) - and Einstein who believed quantum mechanics wasn’t real said “God does not play dice with the universe."  So since he was wrong , cause quantum mechanics is real , the quote should be “god plays dice with the universe.” Like Will does in the beginning of the first episode.Will is captured by the demogorgan (in the game) so he was captured in real life because he rolled a 7. I talked more about this more in the mf section.

- It’s similar to one of the Duffers admitted biggest inspirations for the series ‘altered states’. Who’s mental illness alters reality . He hallucinates  seeing flashes of another dimension like Will.

We’ll talk about more evidence of this concept  in the character breakdowns (mostly in the mf section). So now on to the alters (and Npcs) who escaped Will’s mind into the real world as tangible people. 

Tr*gger warning now, because of how DID is caused. “The dissociative aspect is thought to be a coping mechanism - the person literally shut off or dissociated themselves from a situation or experience too traumatic, or painful to assimilate with their conscious self.As many as 99% of individuals who develop dissociative disorders have recognized personal histories of recurring, overpowering, and often life-threatening disturbances or traumas at a sensitive developmental stage of childhood (usually before age 6). It cannot form AFTER the ages of 6-9 years of age, aka 10 and up (though, once you have DID you can develop new alters at any time).DID is rarely diagnosed in children (and is usually diagnosed in adulthood or late teens), despite the average age of appearance of the first alter being 5.9 years old . ”

They’ll be brief mentions of dark subjects in this psych/narrative analysis because of this. I’ll also be listing movies said to inspire s4 of st  (according to st writers), or mentioning movies name dropped by  the cast, the Duffers ,  or in the show itself . 

ALTERS

Max Mayfield & Billy Hargrove 

When Max is first introduced - Mr Clark talks about “brain cells working together as one” (while talking next to a brain).  Similarly, dustin/mike mention mr clarke when saying what’s essentialy a did system “A collective consciousness. this is the thing that controls everything. this is the brain.” This concept about Max , is mentioned again when mr. clark discuses phineus Gage saying he had “a total change in personality that even his friends called him no longer gage.” And emphasizes max and Will in this scene- showing one in clear focus, while another is blurry, and as they make eye contact Max turns away . 

Both are poor, their bio dads aren’t around, both like horror films, comics and videogames. Both their bio dads left them . And both use bats in anger when emulating their abusers ,and both are heavily associated with rainbows. On Halloween she dresses up as a character who as a child dressed up as a clown on Halloween (Will’s fear/ what triggered him on Halloween) and whose surname is Myers (Byers?)

 Billy, like Will , have nicknames for their real name-  ‘william’. Both have abusive dads who called them  homophobic slurs, and forced them to play baseball to man-up.  Billy’s old baseball team is even tigers (the mascot of Will’s elementary school and matching Will’s tiger painting in his room in s1-2).The “it was a 7 “ vs “the wave was 7 feet”. Both hit with needles, into rock music , attracted to Wheelers ,and were the main subjects possessed by the mf. At one point the dark phoenix fails to merge with jean so goes to merge with her clone body as the next best thing. In this case the mf went to Will’s second alter William/Billy. And as Will states “another me.”  And both say about the mf “I’m sorry, he made me do it.” 

Neil and Lonnie both push Jon and Billy against a wall. And Jon tells of a time where his dad made him kill a rabbit . And Billy’s last name “Hargrove” means - “grove filled with rabbits" . While, ‘Mad-max’ her nickname is based on the male 80s film character ‘mad max’ a man being terrorized by a r**ist biker gang who attacks both men/women. It’s also possible that Billy’s appearance was based on Will seeing mrs wheeler’s romance novels? 

In the film “don’t breathe’- the reason why the siblings are from California is alluded to in a flashback of  Jon & Will.  The older sibling (with abusive parents) takes care of the younger sibling like a parent and the little sibling says she wants to be a surfer despite living in a land locked state (without an ocean, like Indianna). Older sibling says one day maybe they can live in California together  . And the Older sibling tells a friend about how their dad left them, and how they were thrown in a dark trunk by an abusive parent as kid . Which was alluded to in s1, when Jon checked the trunk to see if Lonnie put Will in there.And we see the mf (who is emulating Lonnie) doing the same thing to heather, and tom (hitting or strangling them and then throwing them in the trunk).

Certain scenes, are alters re-enacting  past scenes of trauma. “The family dynamics will be played out in a variety of ways but will most obviously be noted in the way the survivor splits off their system.Some survivors will internalize their family into their own DID system. Some alters may reenact trauma and ab*se, sometimes reinforcing ab*sers’ lessons to prevent further ab*se but sometimes serving as a permanent component of an internal flashback.“The reason, Billy acts/is racist is because he’s emulating Neil (but more accurately Lonnie) who told Will not be friends with lucas and thus recreates that moment with Max .lonnie in the s4 films is very racist. Another example, is Will has shown a fear of doors opening (in s1-2) shown by how the demogorgan unlocks the door telepathically (like El does often).And the mf opening doors by themselves in the house and arcade. Neil demands Billy opens his door. And right after Max stares at Will-Billy yells to open the door and tells Max “I’ll cut you b*tch” if she doesn’t open the door. This is because Lonnie said and did similar things to Will if he didn’t open the door.

What connects all 3 is that they all have an absent parent and have baseball associated with them mimicking a familial ab*ser. Even the mf is associated with the sport.

Alexi

Some “ alters can even speak a different language than the host. Despite, the host personality not knowing a single word of the language.’

Similar to Will who won the science fair for 4 years in a row- Alexi is a scientist who has a child like disposition . Will has a fear of clowns (a clown even triggered him on Halloween), and we see that after he’s attacked by a lonnie-look alike he dies surrounded by clowns. 

He also sees a friend strangled by the lonnie-look alike  (using 1 hand) and die. throughout the season the mf who emulates lonnie strangle people the exact same way, with one hand (doing this to joyce, el, heather, and jon). probably cause Will either saw Lonnie strangle someone or was strangled in this way. There’s also the fact when we first see Alexi - lights flicker like in s1 (illustrating a supernatural element associated with Will and others).

And stangertheory pointed this one detail out, when watching woody the woodpecker he says “can we watch loonie toons, now?” murray: ‘no’/ “can we play d&d , now? crew:no. 

Also, “woody in the cartoon is terrorized by Andy and PAPA panda. To Woody's surprise, Andy's attempts prevail, and Woody is taken away to the psychiatric hospital— but not before his captors prove to be crazier than he is” (cough s4 spoiler, but that’s a post for another day).We also have a scene where murray compares him to a child bringing shit in and tries touching his junk with a metal detector. And when Alexi says to stop, Murray says he’ll do as he pleases in his house. Probably a re-enactment .  And Murray mistranslates what he says occasionally as being “n*ked or exposed”, “penetrating a hole”. Also ‘alexi’ may also be a reference to Alexy in russian folklore. A clever-minded priest's son (Lonnie is alluded to be a religious zealot in s4 movies) who wins by tricking and outsmarting his foes and defeating a dragon by trickery. This is another connection to Will who is heavily associated with dragons- for a huge spoiler related reason - let’s just say  mf’s can create dragons, Will drew a dragon, has a dragon poster, read a dragon comic in a s1 flashback , was there for the dragon video game, and Dustin mentions a dragon in s3 because of foreshadowing.

**The mindflayer (previously known as ‘Will the wise’) -persecutor alter 

 “A child that is heavily into fantasy might have alters who present as certain fantasy creatures that the child sees as being capable of protecting them from being hurt again.All of the personalities begin as friends and allies…” We see this with Will’s first alter- Will the wise. Who Will described as having fire powers to attack smart bad guys. And who is based off the rules of d&d.

“ Persecutors are alters who purposefully harm the body, system, host, core, or other alters. Most of the literature on the development of these persecutory alters reports that they usually begin life as protectors and then, for some reason, turn on the host, becoming persecutory. Kluft, in 1985, describes the persecutors as initially "taking all the suffering for the others (alters & host). Persecutory personalities originate from the shame and anger related to the traumatic experience and to the perpetrator. “ 

‘It is usually during the transition between childhood to adolescence when childhood protectors becomes a persecutor.” And begin mimicking the ab*ser. We actually may have seen this transition at the end of s1- where WW became the mf. In d&d lore, mindflayers are created by inserting a tadpole into a human- like what we saw at the end of s1 where Will coughed up the slug from the upsidedown. Meaning all that supernatural stuff we saw Will do in s1 was actually Will the wise (ww) before he turned into the mf. While the flashbacks in s1 (and singing in castle byers) were of the Will we saw in s2-3.

Will says WW is a wizard ( writing on a music tape in s3 “will the wise-wizard mix’ and having his password for castle byers be ‘rhadaghast’- a lotr wizard.)The way they describe d&d Wizards matches Will/mf perfectly “Wizards are adepts and magicians . wizards are able to create spells of explosive fire, sparking lightning, subtle deception, and gross mind control. Their magic summons monsters from other planes of existence, predicts the future, and turns defeated enemies into zombies. Their most powerful spells can transform one substance into another, summon meteors from the sky, and open portals to other worlds”.

Nancy even accidentally calls the mf the “mind -flamer�� (aka fire powers of ww ). Dustin says the mf “takes over minds using their highly developed psionic powers” (like wizards).We see Will the wise described as having fire/lightning powers and in the first ep we see him leave Mike’s house causing the lights to flicker, turn on his bike light with his mind (before being attacked by the demogorgan), blink once for yes and twice for no to communicate with Joyce, cause lightning to spark out of the phones twice, and be proficient in guns like Lonnie.  We know the mindflayer is also associated with lightning/storms (but that’s only because it’s one of Ww’s abilities). When Hopper sees Joyce’s phone he even says “storm bq-ed this pretty good.“ And in s2 a scientist said the same phrase while in the upside down looking at the burned equipment the mf created. Showing a correlation between Ww and the mindflayer. CAUSE THEY’RE THE SAME PERSON. In the comic we see electricity come out of Ww’s hands. And in s1 he drew his wizard character with lightning (BEFORE) he went to the upside down.  And in s2 WW was drawn with flames on his cloak.

Will in his cannon journal even draws the mind flayer with red lightning, and later  uses red paper to sketch clouds/lightning and pastes a picture of himself on to it. Because deep in his subconscious (along with the memories of his father- he realizes he created the mf/ww). And Joyce even describes the tunnels he draws as “like lightning.” And note in s1 we are told Lonnie taught Will baseball (and this was when Jon told Will not to mimic him)- and suspiciously there is a baseball and baseball-mitt next to the ‘shadow monster’ (mf) drawing and a bat (next to the ww drawing in castle byers). Cause mf= ww.  Will lies and says the mf is just a sketch for a story he’s writing- but even if that’s not exactly true. The mf is still something he unconsciously created.And of course Will is called ‘zombie boy’ and in s3 when Will watches a zombie movie and writes a d&d story about juju zombies- the mf creates zombies and creates a monster resembling the thing (because when Will was writing his d&d story he was next to the ‘the thing’ poster in s3. In s2 Will playing dig dug which is about underground mazes- so the supernatural underground caves are made. And it’s a callback to the s1 d&d game with “troglodytes “ (cave men). And in s3 the Russians had the underground lab too - sort of being the troglodytes in a way.And similar to s1, after Will watches poltergeist Will/ww is thrust into the same scenario as the little girl (being trapped in another dimension- where the mothers can only hear their voices and communicate to them through electronics ). Like how rolling the 7 in d&d caused him to be captured by the demogorgan in the game and real life. Nancy saying: “So this thing is like a brain that’s controlling everything.”Hopper then says “So how do we kill this thing shoot it with fireballs?”And Dustin says “ No, No, fireballs you summon an undead army.”But Mike actually nails it on the head when he says, “If the brain dies the body dies … closing the gate will kill him(referring to Will).Because it’s not the mindflayers’ brain - it’s Will’s brain- that both Will and the mf share!

In the episode after the mindflayer  enters Will - the episode is literally titled “ Will the wise”. Here we see a ‘slow switch’ occur.”Slow switches are when two or more alters (Will and mf) are co-conscious to varying degrees and slowly blending and retreating to allow one alter (mf) to gain prominence .Some indicators that a switch may be about to occur include feeling "spacey.”

In this episode we don’t see A full switch but ‘blending’. “ A full switch is rarely necessary. Instead of an alter switching to front, they can exert passive influence on the alter currently at front (Will) . Passive influence can be described as intrusions from alters that are not currently prominent in the mind or using the body. This may manifest as ego-alien thoughts, knowledge, memories, feelings, emotions, opinions, preferences, urges, abilities, or actions. These intrusions may vary in strength and influence and may result in the fronting alter taking actions or voicing opinions that they can't explain or account for.” 

We see this with Will’s ‘now memories’ the reason he refers to them as “now-memories” is because they are things he’s already experienced (as memories) but he’s only now remembering them- because of his “dissociative-amnesia’ .  An example is  Will fearing the tub, and  yelling at his mom -confused at his own reaction. Because ww is the one afraid of the tub not Will.This is because this is one of the locations abuse often takes place. There’s at least 20 movies where a bad guy tries drowning someone in a tub. In splice, the cell, and the ring  all incorporate an ab*sive father trying to drown his young child. In the cell the father would beat his son, burn him, called him homophobic slurs, and almost drowned him and causing a seizure.When Will tries to take a bath it’s overplayed with Mr Clarke saying (in front of a model of a human brain) -  “Organisms instinctively respond to danger, expose a bacterium to a toxic chemical and it will flee or deploy some other defense mechanism. We’re very much the same.” As a flash of  Will’s “now-memories” occur as he stares at the tub. And we see a zoom in shot of the back of his head (which Will said is associated with memories) . And Mike stares at Will’s empty desk.Meaning, Will’s starting to fear the bath as he’s  starting to remember (subconsciously) what previously occurred there because of WW- Lonnie/tubs being the ‘toxic chemical’ in the analogy. 

WW fully takes control/switches in the following episode ‘Dig dug’ when he wakes up from the nightmare of Hopper being attacked in the cave- this is indicated by zooming in on the drawing of ‘Will the wise’ before he wakes up. And explains his odd behavior- of being oddly quiet . Looking up surprised at all the cave/vine drawings on the walls. It’s common for alters to pretend to be the host when they switch. He displays being able see into the future (like Will describes WW him being able to do in s3-  like when ww in s2 says Hopper will die), and he late tracks Hopper’s location by closing his eyes like the drawing of ww. Mike mentioning he’s a ‘superspy’  right after he finds Hopper- the next episode is even called “the spy” as Mike realizes he’s the mf and says he’s  “the spy”. He initially tried to help until the soldiers burned him (causing a seizure like Lonnie previously caused) and later when they burn him again. He decides to kill them- similar to how El killed 2 men for putting her in solitary confinement multiple times.

However,  I need to point out “ protectors are still and always protectors. What changes is the protective behaviors no longer look obviously protective and in actuality may be harmful and life threatening to the host.” He still acts as a protector saying he got upset when they hurt him/Will. And participating in a supernatural-extreme version of ‘thought snatching’.”thought snatching" (taking away your thoughts) can be caused by the actions of alters.” So he incorrectly tries wiping all of Will’s thoughts/memories to shield the body from past trauma.

Mf is also hinted to be under the category of a ‘ demon alter’- Will being handed the “devil’s baby” firework and in the background is a sticker of a demo(n)-dog  . “Demon alters are often a form of protector known as a persecutor.Some people have alters which are supernatural beings. These are regarded as possession-form identities, if a person is consciously aware of the actions of the alter then the person may describe themselves as feeling "possessed" by an outside person, spirit, deity (god), or demon.”

“Attempts to banish them using religious techniques such as "deliverance" or exorcism do not work permanently, can be harmful and may prolong any internal war between alters and preventing healing .”

“Ignoring them, trying to shut them up or restrain them, punishing them, or any of the various attempts at “getting rid of them” will not only never work (their needs will only become greater and louder), they’ll become more and more traumatized as you confirm to them their every belief about the world. 

“You can’t actually “get rid of them” anyway, so it’s far better to try and understand them. “  

So yeah- our heroes literally did everything wrong to make it worse.And literally mimicked Lonnie who tied him to chairs in his shed (and like Brenner did to joyce/ Russians did to Robin & steve) or to a bed (like brenner to Terry/lonnie to Will) and hurt and burned him (like Lonnie). Also, FYI the person who was calling Joyce at the beginning of s2 and freaked her out, and later called during the excorcism was Lonnie- why WW freaked out over the call.Noah was even told to watch the excorcist for the burning scene at the end of the season. Even the movie implied it was all based on a similar trauma and it was in the girl’s head- she even while possessed had the male voice of the man who was implied to have ab*sed her and said phrases he said in the film. Similar to WW’s deeper non-human voice he used to try and tell them to ‘let him go.’

So in the next season he was worse than ever and wanted revenge on the people who tried to kill him. Because he fears they’ll come after him again and hurt him- similar to Kali who says the people who are still after her ( and burned her with a taser stick/nancy with burning stick) are still after them and will kill them. 

 We also see the mindflayer despite in the show and d&d lore be sensitive to sunlight pick the summer to come back. Now, why is that? The answer is simple it’s when Will started to realize his romantic feelings for Mike. Joyce at the beginning of the season says “You won’t think it’s gross when you fall in love”?But due to his ab*se - WW DOES! And Will just responds to Joyce , unconvincingly, saying  “I’m not going to fall in love.” But he already has! 

“Even non-ab*sive romantic relationships may provoke the protector’s vitriolic reaction if the relationship takes on a meaning which feels threatening. Simply feeling the possibility of closeness to another person may be the trigger because of the protector’s prior learning that trust and dependency lead surely and inevitably to ab*se and hurt.”(Mierendorf, 1993). EX: a persecutor alter who identifies herself only as "Me, Myself" was questioned about her anger  and violence to the host.

" she began becoming interested in boys, and dates, and all that [she trails off], and I hated it and I didn't want any part of it. So I quit, I wasn't going to do any more ... nobody was ever gonna touch me ...And whenever that would happen with Gretchen [the host] it would hurt me and I would hate it and I'd hate her, and I'd hate her for letting that happen . i wanted to k*ll her”

Whenever the Mf is close and Will touches his neck it relates to his romantic feelings for Mike. 1st time it’s on one of their ‘movie dates’, 2nd time when Will is sad when Mike and El walk off together down the hill to make-out, , 3rd time right after he smashed castle byers after Mike says “it’s not my fault you don’t like girls”, 4th time (after the fight with Mike) when Billy is yelling to open the door (a trigger) and confides in Mike, 5th time when Mike asks him to go away so he can talk to El in the hospital waiting area, and 6th time when Mike says he loves El. 

And in s3, Mike says on a rainy day “it’s not my fault you don’t like girls” (and similarly Lonnie called Will a “fag” and a “queer”). Then he leaves Mike’s house, tears-up all his sketches, comics, a pic of mike (things he loves). And uses a bat that Lonnie taught him to use -to destroy castle Byers (which was also built on a rainy day , after his dad left).He uses a bat, despite saying in s1 he doesn’t like baseball. He has a bat in castle byers (next to a WW drawing) and a mitt/ baseball in his room (specifically next to a picture of the mindflayer.) and Will looked at the Will the wise drawing and then destroys castle byers with a bat. Showing WW/mf are the same person and that WW (and even Will to some extent) is still not taking Jon’s advice about not mimicking Lonnie.He uses the bat (lonnie taught him to use) to try to “man-up” and destroy or even taint the things he loves- castle byers & Mike . And after this, he grabs his neck (which in s2 he said he associated with now-memories) and then says “He’s back” (aka Lonnie’s influence/mf). And then everything supernatural begins to escalate.

-“   another ‘threat’ the, the persecutor believes the host may pose in adolescence or adulthood is breaking the silence about the ab*se and/or the multiplicity. We then witness the protector’s desperate attempt to control the client, to “save him” from the expected dire consequences of revealing the secrets.”

“The persecutor frequently protects the host through scare tactics; through fear and intimidation. In order for this scare tactic to work the host must be convinced of the persecutor's capacity and willingness (even desire) to use the utmost in force and destructiveness. The persecutor must, in short, be viewed as Putnam described: "a fearsome, loathsome, deamon-like entity” .When the danger posed comes from outside the system  the persecutor uses the same scare tactics, trying to impress the intruder (in this case the therapist, etc) with his or her ferocity and proclivity to violence.The persecutor therefore becomes increasingly loaded with hostility toward the host, to the point where the original protective function can be lost to their consciousness.Finally, it should be obvious that the persecutor who uses threats of violence to protect the host may be quite worried about either the host or  others uncovering the underlying protective intent of their actions because it disarms the power of their threat.”

EX:” Susan was a 31 year old woman who came in for treatment when she started recovering memories of inc*st which had begun with f*ndling and proceeded to r*pe just prior to adolescence. Susan reported a host of dissociative symptoms as well as feeling as if she had a "monster inside me who wouldn't allow me to heal.”Before the next session the therapist received a letter from an ego state named Shadow. The letter detailed how big and fierce Shadow was and how she was supposed to be feared, have control, and all the power.In the next session Shadow revealed that she had been using fear to prevent Susan from disclosing the ab*se. Shadow firmly believed that Susan's father would kill them if the abuse were disclosed.”

“As Putnam notes, while the persecutor displays “extreme contempt toward the host,” paradoxically, “the dominant emotion of the persecutor may really be love” (1989, p. 207). In fact, it is this very love which propels the persecutor in the harassment of the host -feeling it is a way to protect them from perceived threats. “

“  They are NOT the actual ab*ser.They are just copying behaviors shown to them by bad people, not harboring the intent, sadism or immorality of the actual perpetrators. We understand this change ( from protector to persecutor) and  displaying ab*sive behaviors does not reflect an underlying character structure.Instead we understand the change as demonstrating a past adaptive instrumental use of violence in an attempt to preserve the system in the face of a [perceived] threat.’

**Another words,  for anyone confused- WW went from childhood  protector to teen persecutor because of perceived threats. Will (the host) becoming aware of his romantic feelings for Mike and Will slowly and subconsciously gaining his memories of past ab*se - and WW fearing once he remembers he’ll tell someone. So he wants to prevent this by scaring Will and others .And does this by playing the role/character of a scary monster- mimicking the scariest things he knows Lonnie and the mf from d&d. It’s also possible like some persecutors he’s forgotten his original protective function or like other persecutors he’s simply masking how he’s trying to protect Will (because if anyone knew he cared for Will the threat wouldn’t be affective anymore).

‘Alters "should be treated with equal kindness," despite their behaviors.Persecutors are often  "misguided protectors" which can be negotiated with. With ‘patience, persistence and kindness" they can be allowed to choose a different role once the person is safe from ab*sers. The persecutor can be "turned into a constructive force" (Watkins, 1978, p. 397) and become “one of the therapist’s strongest allies and can play a major role in the healing of the patient” (Putnam, 1991, p. 205) (*I’ll talk more about this in my s4 analysis) .With healing a non-human alter can even turn human again! "I have an alter who was a persecutor for a long time. A lot of people see persecutors as bad and sometimes even the persecutors themselves see themselves as bad. This alter saw herself as an ab*ser and carried an awful lot of self hate, but she wasn't bad really because her motives were to protect us even though she wasn't going about it in a very good way. She thought that if she punished us and scared us into 'keeping in line' then other people wouldn't have to hurt us. Eventually she learnt that hurting us wasn't necessary, so now she is trying to learn how to protect us in more healthy ways."

-Wizard

There’s also important inspirations for the show to mention that support this theory:

Montauk Project’- The original title for Stranger things was “Montauk”- in reference to the Montauk Project. It was about experiments conducted on psychic children, where the scientists would “break” them psychologically to strengthen their powers and to program them. Duncan who could “open portals to other dimensions-  let loose a monster from his subconscious.”

‘A wizard of Eathsea’ (which suzie mentions in s3)- Is about a male wizard Ged (Will) who casts a powerful spell, but the spell goes awry and instead he releases a shadow creature! The new Archmage, Gensher, describes the shadow as an ancient evil that wishes to possess Ged. But the ‘shadow’ turns out  to be a representation of the darkest aspects of his personality. And the only way for the chaos to stop is for ged and the shadow to merge.

‘the dark crystal’ movie poster in Mike’s room is about a race called urSkeks who inadvertently divided themselves into two separate beings; the violent, materialistic Skeksis, and the gentle, contemplative urRu. It was only when they merged back together as one could harmony and peace be restored to the world.

‘Long kiss goodnight’- both (’good’ and supposedly ‘bad’) personalities also integrate into 1 happy personality.

In d&d  “it’s also possible, although rare, for an extremely powerful mind flayer wizard to become a true lich, also known as an illithilich. illithid's last desire upon death was to be rejoined with its elder brain.” ( Will’s mind/ he wants to integrate with Will).

Even the way the mindflayer/ ‘shadow monster’ functions is similar to the ‘shadow phoenix’/how integration in DID works.  “They considered feeding on brains as a euphoric experience as it absorbed its victim's memories, personality, and fears.”

The dark phoenix (referenced in s1ep1)  fails to merge with jean so goes to merge with her clone body as the next best thing. In this case the mf went to Will’s second alter William/Billy. And as Will states “another me”. Later Jean, Phoenix, and madelyn (clone) merge into 1 person- the new-jean now having the memories and personality traits of all 3.

in s1 Mr clarke describes the vale of shadows (later the upsidedown) as being created by “necrotic” (’dead’-zombie boy) and shadow (shadow monster) magic. In d&d the Vale of Shadows, is  as a lush valley hidden in the mountains that holds a sacred pool with the power to make dreams reality. (In this case nightmares representing past ab*se). He even describes his ‘now memories’ as ‘like a dream’.

In ‘never ending story’ referenced in s3 -  the land of Fantasia represents humanity’s imagination and is thus without boundaries. However ‘the Nothing’ (the physical manifestation of darkness) which has taken over Fantasia and it’s inhabitants is a manifestation of the ‘loss of hopes and dreams’.  

Silent hill videogames/movies (duffers cited as inspo):. “The bad guys faked Alessa’s death. Kaufmann prepared a substitute body of alessa;  and performed the fake "autopsy (like Will) .Alessa believed that their current world must be cleansed with fire (WW’s fire powers). Alessa had a very dark, violent, traumatic and ab*sive childhood: r*ped, beaten, tortured, and even burned , all by the age of 7- “it was a 7″). She had supernatural powers and was called a witch. She had precognition (future/intuition) and pyrokinesis (fire) which developed after her ab*sive mother burned her (like ww). It’s  also implied Dahlia her mother would lock Alessa in their house's dark attic for long periods of time for any irreligious behavior (the trunk).Alessa was "always"  sad, and  Alessa only found respite when escaping to other worlds through fantasy to cope with and comfort herself in the face of her harsh reality. At times, Alessa seems to completely withdraw inward, perhaps as a result of years of trauma as there are many instances of her becoming unresponsive when questioned.Because of  all of her ab*se  Allesa’s soul split in 1/2 (becoming Alessa and Cheryl).Selfless at heart, she cared for her second half /reincarnation more than she cared for herself, wanting to spare them the hellish nightmare she endured at the hands of her ab*sive mother and her cult. For seven years (it was a 7), Alessa endured her suffering because she had not wanted to destroy whatever small happiness her other self was able to enjoy, but little by little, it became more than Alessa could bear. Alessa's latent psychic abilities are triggered and she shrouds Silent Hill in fog and an altered reality to prevent her mother's scheme from advancing. Many of the drastic changes that befall the town in the game, such as the horrific creatures that come to inhabit it, are conjured from her imagination and delusions. “ ( personally i think Lonnie went to the house offscreen in s1 and tried to take Ww- why when lonnie is at the byers house they zoom in on a bullet in the tv for some reason with no explanation on how it occurred).  Cheryl and Alessa also later merge again .

mystic river-in the 80s, a young boy who plays baseball is r**ed by 2 men in a cabin in the woods and escapes and runs into the forrest . He  imagines perpetrators as werewolves and vampires as a way to cope. And imagines he’s in a scary world that no one else can see (that disappears when he turns around). And he even has a split personality. He wishes he could turn into a undead monster so he doesn’t have to feel the pain of being human anymore.

other DID movies/show inspirations for St (some realistic /some more supernatural so resemble DID) : prince of tides,primal fear (realistic DID ,caused by childhood se*ual trauma).supernatural/ or non realistic DID:  elfen lied, exorcist, and Audrey rose .

 Now on to the next point- “chronologically, it is the persecutory alter personality who creates the first split. Helper alter personalities constitute the second split, and as such, constitute a defense against the first split. These two successive splits constitute the basic dissociation. Further alter personality formations are only of secondary nature. In order to cope with the first split, the host personality produces companions resembling [him] as a second defense.The alter personalities developing in the second phase originate from the desire of the host personality to regain her previous strength and from her striving to create alter personalities resembling herself who share the same aim with her.”

So to make it simple some alters are more based on Will in order to combat the alters more based on WW/mf (the 1st alter/. protector- persecutor). So let’s talk about other alters based on ww/mf.

Kali Prasad (avenger alter/ different race alter) 

“The avenger holds the rage from the childhood abuse and may attempt to avenge themselves or seek retribution from the ab*ser.”

”Different race alters are generally created for the stereotypic or imagined qualities of that race, as experienced or perceived by the host personality.  Fike gives the example of a Caucasian patient with a Native American alter personality who represented spirituality and other-worldliness. “ we actually see  Kali who is the embodiment of her religious counterpart.Kali is a (Hindu goddess). And Prasad is a holy offering to gods and goddesses in hinduism.

 Kali’s name means “destroyer of all evil forces” and in mythology she was considered “ a divine protector and the one who bestows liberation to her children”. However , the goddess Kali’s iconography is generally associated with death and violence and paradoxically (at the same time) “motherly love”. Kali is sometimes considered the goddess of death but more accurately she “brings the death of ego”. She only kills demons.  She is considered one of “the most compassionate of the gods because she provides liberation to her children”. She is commonly depicted holding a sword and the head of a demon. “A latitude soul sees mother Kali as very sweet, affectionate, and overflowing with incomprehensible love for her children” (the numbers and her gang of misfits).She is called the Divine Mother  & Mother of the Universe. And when talking to El the sign there’s a says ‘spiritual advisor’  behind her.

“ It has been suggested that a male child that is being ab*sed might create a female headmate because he needs a "mother" role in the attempt to soften what might be angry and aggressive behavior on his part as a male DID sufferer. “

we see other evidence of her being an alter as well. Her saying she feels ‘whole’ with EL around. And In the episode before Kali is introduced. Will describes his now memories as “spreading” “growing” and “killing”.  Meanwhile, after this Kali describes her and El’s wounds (caused by their father) in the same fashion. Kali describes how El has to face her trauma or else, like it did with her it will “spread.” Kali later makes a imaginary Brenner to tell El the same words Will said earlier- saying she has to face her trauma or else it will “grow” and “spread “ and “kill” her. in never ending story (reffed in s3) Sebastian who unbeknownst to him created an imaginary mythical world with characters who’d copy phrases their creator  Sebastian said.

She also says everyone sees her and El as monsters because of their powers- something ww/mf feels (literally becoming one because of this and his ab*se).  And Kali and El say that people hurt them -so they should be allowed to kill them. Kali making the distinction (more aligned with the mf) saying the people who hurt her are still after her -so she’s just making the first move and killing them as preemptive self defense. Something the mf also does, saying in s3 El could have killed him, and targeting those that hurt him and said they wanted to “kill” him in s2 . It’s the same logic as Kali. 

And before kali and El talk we see kali look up to el, as they pass by  graphiti that says ‘barbelith” which in the comics ‘the invisibles’- is the connection between humanity and the holographic world that we see. Aka her and Kali interacting in what’s actually the innerworld. Like Dustin said about the upsidedown “it’s a parallel world existing right beside you, without you even knowing it.”

why the tv of Kali’s tormenter (who tased her as a kid) is watching a show about a kid having a nightmare about being held down and having a needle put in her arm that kept getting bigger and bigger. Like how WW was pinned down and forced to take a shot in the arm.

Even the butterfly she creates could be possibly connected to WW- because butterfly decorations are above the byer’s phone (WW electercuted). And similar to Kali’s description the ficitonal russians (npcs) are also very stereotypical based on what an american kid might hear about ‘evil soviets’. They also use the same tasers as Kali’s ab*sers in the lab. In some movies it’s implied Lonnie may have tased his kids so maybe that’s why? And we see like how the gang tied up the mf to a chair, and shot him with a needle needle- the russians do the same to robin & steve.We also see Kali and El attack a man at a gas station -similar to the russian hitman npc from s3.

And Kali rescues a girl (npc) from a mental health hospital -called ‘dottie’ which is a term for being mentally ill. Lucas also claims El may have escaped from a psych hospital. Personally, i think this is foreshadowing of Mike helping Will out of one (like how Dustin and Lucas bring up ‘myers’ escaping one), but I digress.  in Kali’s place grafiitti also says ‘o’bedlam’a poem about neglected mentally ill beggers .  And compares her crew (of npcs) to herself and El- like dottie (mentally ill) because she’s part of a did system.  Axel with his knife (lonnie loves his hunting knives and used to threaten Will with them and thus did so to el). And El and Will share the same stuffed bear- ‘so there’s the care bear’, one of kali’s crew even wears a clown mask, and axel wears the mummy mask seen at Melvald’s where Joyce works. There’s also the connection of the ‘rainbow room’ (with a rainbow drawing) on the door - relating to  Kali & El and Will’s rainbow-ship drawing.And kali also likes rock music like Will/Billy. And when El first sees her-she’s near fire (ww connection).

El  (caretaker & gate keeper alter)

“A gatekeeper is an alter who controls switching or access to front, access to inside or certain areas inside, or access to certain alters or memories. The existence of a gatekeeper is highly stabilizing for a system because gatekeepers can to some extent prevent unwanted switching, failure to switch when necessary, or failure to switch to the correct alter. They can help to prevent traumatic memories from bleeding from the alters who hold them to alters who could not yet handle them. They might police the boundaries between subsystems.These alters help prevent traumatized alters from fronting. This can be important because there is a chance that the trauma holders may want to harm the body.”  In case you haven’t realized ... el is a horrible gate keeper-opening the gate and leaving it open for a year, not sensing it being reopened in s2 or 3 (too busy thinking about mike in s2/ dating him in s3), and thus causing more trauma to Will (who started to remember old confusing and traumatic memories), and causing Billy, and Max to be traumatized.

she’s also most likely a caretaking alter-“Caretaking alters are a type of a protector, they help manage and care for other alters, and sometimes external people (for example children).  “

“They are often motherly, and may be modeled on a real person (WW’s appearance- WW looking like Will except having brown eyes, and El looking like the female equivalent).  “Caretaking alters lack awareness of self-care and become exhausted easy; they only have a limited role and have little capacity for play, exploration or socializing.” El fighting to exhaustion, being isolated for most of her life and being in the cabin for 9 months (s2-3), comforting billy/Will, and again only not abiding by this when Mike is involved -hurting Max out of jealousy.

Her inability to speak well could be from neglect and social isolation, but  ‘Ab*sive groups are known to have created alters which appear either "crazy" or learning disabled, for example training alters to scramble or garble words so they can’t report ab*se.Alters may be disabled when the body is not, for example a mute alter may be created in response to abusers instructions, e.g. "Don't talk.”

El also shows the trait of ‘memory sharing’.

Memory sharing

“We’ve managed to create a system within us. In order to grant access to memories with each other we have to come to know each other and gain each other's trust.  Caroline says “when the memory sharing happens- the best way I can describe it to a non DID person is by asking you to remember/think about a movie with Wizards or characters like from twilight where they have the power to touch you and let you see their visions and/or memories. Sounds crazy I'm sure— but that's as close as I can possibly describe it.The memories literally pour into me exactly like that. “

After Will disappears, El appears to the audience for the first time. Having similar sounding names and having a striking resemblance (and 1 syllable nicknames ending in L) . Troy, Benny, Hopper, and an eyewitness all initally assuming she was a boy. Hopper even tries to track down El, assuming it was Will who’s hair was shaved-  asking “could it be Lonnie’s kid?” and the man responding “could of been the Byers boy”. Mike even says “Do you really think it’s a coincidence we found her in the same place Will disappeared?”The answer being No. The song “Alice” (from alice in wonderland) plays when El is at the restaurant -indicating El has entered a new world (our world). *Also, both Alexi and El are bribed with hamburgers to give the adults info they need.

El is an alter based on WW . Like WW she is afraid of the underwater sensory deprivation tanks her dad made her go into (Lonnie and ww with the tub). in s1 El used the pool/sensory deprivation to contact Will- the episode is even called “the tub” . And she thinks of this idea to talk to Will -after staring at the tub in the byers house and then remembering the deprivation tank. When in the pool or ‘tub’ at school the water slowly becomes dark as she enters the darkness- the void is a connection to the mf/ shadow monster. 

She unlocks doors and it’s framed ominously just like the demogorgan does in the first ep. In d&d lore Mindflayers have “telekinetic abilities akin to mage hand (El was called a mage) and telekinesis.” I still think the mf may now have her telekenesis  (which was originally his to begin with). We also see El fade away with the demogorgan as she and the demogorgan mimic each other’s body language. This was probably supposed to be El most likely integrating with the demogorgan (until the Duffers admitted to changing their minds).  And In s1/2 she has black veins appear while not being possessed. 

Dustin in s2 mentions the mf “doesn’t know it’s true home.” which is illustrated by  El wandering around as Hopper, Becky, and kali try to convince her they’re her home. El saying she’s the monster in s1 is also how the mf aka WW feels about himself.  And Will/ww was thrown in the dark trunk by Lonnie (perhaps after refusing to shoot an animal ) so for El it became Brenner throwing her in a dark room in solitary confinement after refusing to kill a cat. in s1 El draws similar to Will/ww and draws Brenner with a 3rd leg (cause even if brenner didn’t do so to her - the memory bled through from ww).  Benny suspected El has been “ab*sed or something” and she didn’t seem to understand privacy -undressing in front of the boys.

El cries thinking of the time she killed a squirrel (typical hunting game) and eating it and somehow knowing how to make a fire (a Ww skill). El when re-enacting this forgotten experience of WW’s , spots a sketchy ominous hunter and throws a fired projectile at him and runs. Like WW who uses his fireballs to hurt the bad guys- in this case the hunters (Lonnie and his buddies). Similar to the demogorgan who killed 2 hunters in s1. 

When she goes into the void and sees the demogorgan- we even hear a clock ticking in the background indicating this is associated with the past. When Will encounters the mf a similar thing happens- as the clock moves unnaturally. And similar to the mf she attacks her abusers and throws them into a wall (which mf did in s3). Throwing Nancy into a wall after she burned him.

Unfortunately in the ‘long kiss goodnight’ a girl with multiple personalities (Will/ww) was thrown and tied up in a trunk and when the trunk was opened the main villain tried to sell her for... you know . Then she escapes and jumps off a cliff into the water to escape the r**e (quarry flashback?) . This guy later tries to drown her too. While in skyfall, number-tattoos on the wrist were indicative of being sold into the s*x tr*de (El/kali’s tattoos- Will saw something?) . I really hope this isn’t the case - but this is the man who wanted to make money off his son’s death to to pay off his gambling debt. In one movie the bad guy sold his gf for a case of beer and some smokes, while playing a card game. And unfortunately, the fact Will was triggered to see the mf after Mike says “i’m not pr*stituting my sister?” may indicate something from the past as well (maybe Jon saying something ?). Along with El  being chased by “bad men”. It’s possible those 2 hunters were pals with lonnie and got what was coming to them. On to the next point-

El - is the Cannanite (male) god associated with “salt water “ (pool filled with salt in s1) who “dwelled in a tent” (in s1 Mike’s blanket fort) . In s1 El owns a male lion doll and Will has a female lion . The fact El first appeared looking like a boy,  is named after a male god, El in spanish translates to “he”, and she has a male lion toy could symbolize a few things.  In ‘prince of tides’ when the boy cried the dad yelled for him to go put on a dress.In ‘the cell’ the ab*sive father beat his young son with a belt, burned, and drowned him (causing a seizure), threw homophobic slurs at him, and called him a ‘women’ multiple times while beating him. And said “I’ll teach you to be a woman.” Some specialists say one of MANY possible reasons a boy may have a female alter is cause they were “forced to cr*ss dress “ but obviously that’s not the only possible reason. (And no, this doesn’t apply to trans women- making sure no one tries putting words in mouth). I think of the moment where boyish-looking El runs away into the woods, and takes off her wig and screams in anger at the reflection of herself in the water -may be a recreated event from the past). The fact El [is a male god]  and in spanish El (the way it’s spelled in the show means “he’)  is also possibly intentional . In addition to the fact El is the only alter who physically resembles Will and is the only one with a buzzcut , unlike Kali (who in the flashback at Hawkins lab had all her hair) is something to take note. El could be an inverse of Will’s experience. El as a girl was stripped of her femininity from her papa.  Because Will was a boy forced to dress girly cause of his dad . El having a male lion and Will having a female lion being used to symbolize this. WW was the one who went through this abuse and also had brown eyes  like El ( unlike Will)- so in regards to physical appearence she is his ‘girl version’.Since like many ab*sers Lonnie gave Will mixed messages he could never abide by . In mad max furry road the villain named ‘daddy’ forced his sl*ve to shave their head and branded them with a tattoo like El (he also had 3 s*x s**ves)

-in s2 the song ‘don’t mess around with Jim’ plays. Upon character introductions of lyrics “Jim walker” pans to Jim Hopper and “boy named Will-ie Mccoy” (pans to El).

-Hopper in ep1 mention (El)eanor Gilipse-surname of girl in silent hill with powers/DID.

-the never ending story ref also alludes to how El was created by Will similar to another superpowered human (ww).  El is atreyu and Will is sebastian. El is atreyu- who is said to be the chosen one. He falls from a great height and on to the beach shore, and comes across abandoned ruins, and then the villain gmork latches his jaws on to his leg (like El). It’s revealed atreyu isn’t actually the chosen one and everyone was wrong . And it was actually the poor human kid (Sebastian - who has a bowl cut and one parent and secretly had imagination-powers ) .  Atreyu is told to look at the mirror of his ‘true self’ and is shocked to see Sebastian (his unknown creator) looking back at him. “turn around , look at what you see. In her face- the mirror of your dreams.” 

-In the novel Sebastian even temporarily went evil when he lost all his memories  except those of his father- similar to Will/ww. Sebastian created the whole fantasy story and it’s inhabitants (with their own sentience).  So only he had the capability to remove the darkness from the fantasy world they inhabited. The darkness representing the loss of hopes and dreams.

-Elfen lied (another inspo for the series according to the duffers)- has a Super-powered protagonist/anti hero/ and tragic villain.”She has three split personalities due to past trauma . The three are Lucy, Nyu, and Kaede.  Kaede : (childhood love/friend of Kouta) from ‘mapple house’ (cough- ‘mapple street’/ Will). Nyu: is mentally the age of a young child in the body of an adult, who can barely speak, and found by Kouta after she escapes the lab who experimented on her .Nyu is like a very sheltered child and has a very tiny outlook on the actual world and can only speak one word at the start of the anime (El).Lucy:Her violent personality, who has a distaste and hate for humans after humans traumatized her as a child. Although deep down she wants to be human (mf).”

We also see both the Will/mf and El called spies, have ptsd, described as ‘quiet’, and had their dads force them to kill animals. El growls like an animal after the mf growls at her first.  And in regards to the supernatural Ww and El both have powers. They both could communicate through different dimensions using electronics. Both of their moms’ had “crazy aunts” . Both  are called “schizos” in s2 because of their powers (did is most commonly misdiagnosed with schizophrenia which i do think that will occur initially- mrs driscoll not being believed about the supernatural because of her being a ‘paranoid schizophrenic’ is foreshadowing). Both Will and her had their brain waves monitored at the lab and their measurements were off the charts, plus they were being unknowingly recorded on video.They both tore through walls (with that pink gunk between the normal world and upside down). El even goes through the entrance covered in goo (like a baby) as a hint she was born from the upsidedown! 

We see in Terry’s place (El’s room) symbols associated with Will- clowns and rabbits ( like how Lonnie made Jon kill rabbits on hunting trips). They even chose white rabbits- like those in Alice in wonderland and earlier associated with El.

El/ww can also both can track others when concentrating -Ww found Hopper, El found Will. Both communicated psychically by transferring their conscious- El to talk to Mike in his basement using the void (in s2) & Will to his mom in the living room (in s1).  Also before Will goes missing , he asks Dustin for his X-men comic- later in reference to El, Dustin asks “Do you think El was born with her powers like the X-men?” And when Mike says El is “channeling him (Will)”. Dustin says “like professor x”-clearly hinting that they were both born with powers, like the X-men.

However, El is how Max described “her own person.” When Dustin says she’s “like a wizard (like ww) Mike corrects him and says “more like yoda.” And the longer she stays in the real world the more differences she has to Will/ww as she evolves into her own person. She doesn’t have many interests in common with Will :d&d, scifi, computers, science, horror movies etc. And like i’ve explained in other posts - she isn’t actually in love with Mike. And her obsession with mike not only inhibits her role as an alter but her own independence/personhood , along with Will’s healing ( which depends on Mike and other’s support).  I think the main reason we never see Will & El interact significantly (despite the parallels) is because they’re growing apart as they develop as people and go on divergent paths. I feel like if someone doesn’t integrate it’s most likely El (and probably Max). While Kali most likely integrates- since she was brought to tears by seeing another alter and said  she feels “complete” with El - hinting she’ll probably desire to integrate into Will/ww in the future. in ‘annihalation’ a poc woman with a 8 tattoo on her arm integrates with others into a god like creature too . EL may eventually go by Elle [in french means ‘she’] when she becomes her own person, and gains independence, perhaps? 

demogorgan (fictional alters or ‘fictive’)

“Fictional introjects specifically are based off of fictional characters. These characters can be from television shows, movies, books, fantasy, and other forms of fiction.They don't have to think, act, look, or feel in the exact same ways that the fictional character does. Some fictional introjects can be ab*sive, and form as a way to continue traumatizing the system.” 

“ One of the main purposes of a father introject is to control your behavior when you are away from the father with the same intensity as if you were right in front of him. The father may have a variety of parts that are loyal to him, his beliefs, his ways, etc.’

 in d&d a demogorgon  is a  “demon from the abyss”. And are also called “the deep father”  , indicating his connection of being based on Lonnie. We even see Lucas hand Will a ‘devil’s baby’ firecracker (and behind will is a sign that says demon-dog) to indicate that Will’s father is the ‘devil’. The demogorgan is also first referred to as “the man without a face” in the show. Steve suggesting he does have a face but he was wearing a mask. And when Lonnie first ‘comes back’ to Hawkins Jon says “mom, did that thing (demogorgan) come back.” And Lonnie cuts him off after the comment saying ‘that’s enough’. Lonnie also mentions to Joyce he explored the woods where Will went missing. And later Jon mentions how the demogorgan only ventures several miles from his house -like lonnie.  Jon also tells Nancy about how his dad forced him to go on hunting trips and in s1 we see the demorgorgan kill a deer (typical game), attack hunters, and capture Will in the shed (which contained the riffle and sleeping bags for camping). We are also told in s1 Lonnie taught Will baseball, and when the demorgorgan knocks the bat out of Jon’s hand he gets on top of him- putting his face close like he was about to kiss him. We even see in s2 - the pic of the mf next to a baseball bat and mitt.  And the demogorgan  on multiple occasions was mistaken for a bear (which Will sketches and El also is into teddy bears) and bears symbolically represent “wisdom” (will the wise).

And Lonnie when closing the hole in the wall says someone has to be blamed for what happened to Will- and it transitions to Mike tearing a hole in paper and explaining what happened to Will with the demogorgan. Lonnie caused the ‘tear’ in Will’s psyche. Lonnie is even the one to mention how people ‘make things up to cope.’And how people in the city are “more real” (possible alter foreshadowing).

 In  d&d demorgorgons also have 2 heads with distinct personalities, one wanting to stay as one and the other wishing to separate (a hint at Will’s DID and the fight between WW wanting to integrate personalities and Will not wanting to do so).

~El ,Kali, and the demogorgon being alters is why we see  the lights flicker when the demogorgan appears , and (sometimes) when El and kali use their powers- cause they’re based off ww who has lightning/electricity powers  which we saw in s1. Causing the lights to flicker at Mike’s place,  turning the bike light on with his mind,  causing sparks of electricity to come out of the phone 2x , using lights telepathically to talk to joyce (blinking ‘once for yes and twice for no’, and using the lights to tell Joyce to “run”).

demodogs/dart (animal alters)

“In some cases, what presents as an animal is really a child alter acting as an animal.  This is found in cases where the abused child was forced to act as an animal, usually a dog.”

 In mad-max the r**ist biker gang - ties up one of their victims on a leash like a dog. In unleashed the adoptive father made his son where a collar and called him ‘his dog’. ‘Orphan’ the girl wore a collar and the bullies pulled on it calling her a ‘doggie’ and she starts screaming and having an episode in school. In s1 Hopper says he likes the book cujo , that one of the guards is reading, and at the end of the book they replace the dog Cujo with a dog named Willie. In ‘the cell’ the villain put dog collars on his m*rder v*ctims cause he wanted to ‘own them’. In ghost Busters, Mike -is Venkman- and Will -is Dana Barret. Dana finds a demon-dog in her fridge, and hires the ghost busters. And right before Venkman goes on a date with her she is possessed by the big-bad, Zuul,  (who controls demo(n)-dogs). The s4 movies also allude to Lonnie possibly k**ling chester his dog cause when he was stalking Will (offscreen) chester would bark at him - like how he barked at  the demogorgan - one of the only other times we hear a dog bark is when we see Lonnie (at his place).

*There’s also the parallels of Dart to El. Dart killed a cat. While El’s papa tried to make her kill a cat (which dogs stereotypically don’t like-Lonnie most likely forced Will to kill a cat. ).Heck the russians even reference cats -linking them to El and the demodog. El/Dart also both have sweet tooths (eggos and 3 muskateers). Both were called traitors and ran away- and initially caused a rift in the group. And dustin and Mike said they made “promises” to El/dart and that  dart/el “trusted them” (mike &Dustin)”. Lucas in s1 also called El a ‘dog’ and El asked, annoyed,  if she was Mike’s “pet”.

Jim hopper  : Introject & adult alters

“System introjects are alters who are replications of a person from the outside world , who often believe they are the actual person (and not the replication).  They may adamantly believe that they are a different person . These parts contain a lot of memories, factual information, emotional realities for how it was like to be near the outside person.Introjects can also be based off of  figures that the dissociative child found strong, courageous, heroic, or otherwise worthy of being emulated and internalized and could theoretically protect them.”Jim even means to “supplant” (replace) or “supresede” (take the place of a person or thing previously in authority or use). Meaning, there was a Jim Hopper (Joyce knew in highschool) and a Jim Hopper alter based on him.

“older adult alters are created to serve a nurturing or parenting role, thus serving as a protector. (*protecting Will/el) . However, sometimes the age is related to taking on the identification of the ab*ser, and can therefore take on any of the other more hostile roles... Introjects which are mimicking ab*sers are trying to "keep you inline" in order to protect you from external ab*sers. They don’t dare relax their vigilance or let you fall away from the OLD RULES that were once so important.They are trying so hard to keep you safe. “

We even see the convo he has with El,  is similar to Neil and his ex wife- a man berating the girl after coming home, calling her a liar, and asking about what man they saw. And El yelling and saying Hopper is “like papa” when he yells at her  (the same season dr owens called him Will’s “pop”.  Would not be surprised if Lonnie would berate Will about seeing Mike. There’s even a physical resemblance- blonde, blue eyes, and similar moustaches to him and Neil.And he also parallels Billy & Max in s3 with the ‘door’ imagery.

“Being an introject is a difficult and thankless task. This member of your system has spent all these years acting out a role that they dislike every bit as much as you do.” *(berating El about the rules- that were most likely initially Lonnie’s. A part of me suspects that cabin wasn’t Hopper’s grandfather’s but Lonnie’s secret cabin where he took Will. And berate Will about seeing Mike. He was shown in s1 fixing the hole in the wall. And Hopper says about the cabin “ A LOT OF HISTORY HERE’ ). 

We see other alter hints too -He taught El morse code (which Will already knew). Murray says Hopper reminds Joyce of a previous “bad relationship” (lonnie). And the russians in order to get info, t*rture steve and threaten to rip out his finger nails , while, Hopper threatens to break the mayor’s fingers for info. 

And when a Russian goes into the carnival game in a room with tigers and clowns,   the speaker says “ if you dare enter the cave of horrors you may never know what you may find around the corner (clown laughs) . Don’t show your fear in the presence of the tiger or you may never escape this cave alive”.As he jumps out the tiger roars in unison with Hopper leaps out to attack.

The song you ‘don’t mess around with jim’ (from s2 and 3 that Jim dances and sings to ) is about a boy named Willie beating up a thug (who wears a hat) named Jim (representing resentment of father figures).  We see Villains have zoom in shots of their cigareete trays- like the h*tman, Billy posessed by the mf, and Hopper before he yells and threatens El in s2.  

In s1 It’s implied Hopper is addicted to pills , was an alcoholic (both him and Lonnie have many beer cans and cigareettes in their house- would not be surprised if Lonnie also had a pill addiction too) .

Introjects “ are NOT the actual ab*ser. They are a victim, a single part within a large beautiful mind, bred from the survivor's essence.They are just copying behaviors shown to them by bad people, not harboring the intent, s*dism or imm*rality of the actual perpetrators.”

“The introject in your system was there to help you when the stakes were very high and their job was deadly serious. It’s difficult for them to let go of that level of urgency. introjects represent how important it was, at one time in your life, to always be vigilant. Danger was always near you and you had to be careful of every move and every word, because your very survival might depend on not doing or saying the wrong thing at the wrong time.”

‘ introjects also represent the desperate hope that, if you could only do everything just right, obey all your ab*ser’s rules and anticipate exactly what was wanted of you, that it might lessen or even prevent some of the ab*se from happening. And gain approval or love from the ab*ser.”

We also see how he’s based on the mf/ww in a few ways: he describes his depression in s3 as being in a “deep dark cave” (the supernatural cave in s2/cave of horrors at the fair) and in s2 he says he thinks of himself as a “black hole” that will destroy everything around him including his daughter (the mf/Lonnie).

Now, cause people will mention it. We can’t take everything David says about Jopper seriously- he filmed s4 in advanced and lied constantly about the duffer’s not contacting him prior to this. I think he bs-es a lot and occasionally throws in hints. Like how in behind stranger things after mentioning Lonnie and Bob he compares jopper- to Jack and Evelyn from china town (who slapped her for lying -like Neil did to his wife. And we see duffers laugh hysterically and shawn  exchange a look with them cause they know David is giving a hint that isn’t positive). And evelyn was also r*ped by her father (there’s at least 30+ st movies the Duffers have cited with that dad plot point, unfortunately . Along with about 6-10 DID movies).  David said in an interview with  total film : “ In terms of Stranger Things, you’ll be able to look back at season one and see a lot of things that happen further down the line that relate to that.I’ve had those discussions with them from the very first season. We were always interested in that idea of the Gandalf resurrection – Gandalf the Grey who fights the Balrog and then becomes Gandalf the White.” Well this is a lothr ref (Which Will is into) but i think it’s also just a Will and ww hint -since in silent Hill when Alessa and cheryl mege back into 1 they become a deity- a serene white-clad figure, even the dragon relates to Will. But,  there’s also the fact David in multiple interviews  describes  Hopper as a ‘little boy’ . After s4 started he said about Hopper with Gold DERBY “  he’s also like a little boy who has been just so traumatized and so hurt that he can’t really have relationships with people that are full and that are honest... it makes it difficult for him to get close to people... all the joyce st-...There’s a lot to be revealed around the complexities of that story . Because when we know the ending you’ll be able to go back and watch it and see what we were planting in s3 , that paid off in s4 and s5. That will make those intimacy issues a lot more understandable.” 

Since Hopper-alter thinks he’s the real-Hopper (Joyce’s old friend/ possible ex) he hits on Joyce.There’s the references to back to the future. Steve incorrectly saying it’s about alex keaton “trying to b*ng his mom.” And stobin’s exchange about the movie alludes to what Jopper actually is  “I think that lady is trying to bang her son/ no, but, they’re the same age?/ He needs to get back to the future ,which is his time, cause he’s stuck in the past (trauma)/ W-What?” 

And the season where Jopper was the most evident we see another alter (Billy) hitting on someone who is old enough to be/ resembles his mom. Her being a wheeler could also represent Will’s repressed feelings for Mike. Along with Illustrating his subconscious issues with parental figures cause of Lonnie. Dianne (Hopper’s ex wife) - even is a roman goddess of hunting.

In s2 Nancy asks Steve how his “grandpa’s time in the war is a metaphor for your life?” And steve compares the mf to the germans in the war. Dr owens mentions Will has ptsd like “ (vietnam) soldiers’, Hopper saying he had buddies like Will . “In the 70s there was a study that compared the post-traumatic stress symptoms in Vietnam veterans and adult survivors of childhood s**ual ab*se. The study revealed that childhood s**ual ab*se is traumatizing and can result in symptoms comparable to symptoms from war-related trauma.” Hopper isn’t actually in Russia -but in one of the innerworlds (after he jumped through the rift of the machine- into Will’s mind). We’ll see flashbacks but also present circumstances of his imprisonment echo Will’s past with Lonnie (if the movies indicate anything)- being starved, guards getting payed in order to let other prisoners  r*pe a gay prisoner (than claim incorrectly because of his sexuality he wanted it) , as well as a gang of sadist men who r**e others and a warden using that as a threat to be compliant , being thrown in a dark room of solitary confinement and starved when they didn’t obey the warden, the warden being religious, etc. And the Anerican soldiers (in Vietnam) in the movies aren’t much better and do similarly horrific acts to civilians like r**e and bragging/ happily k*lling women, children, and the elderly. The drill sergant in vietnam calling them homophobic slurs & women, and chocking one of the soldiers with one hand, slapping one for not believing in christianity. Tying up a soldier in a bed , gagging him, beating him and saying “remember it’s just a dream.” Only praising them when good in fire arms.(movies : fullmetal jacket, papillon, shawshank redemption, platoon, welcome to marwen, etc ) . My assumption is while in solitary he has flashbacks of his life- and it’s more hints about him being an alter -the boxes in the basement are “vietnam” ,“dad”, and “ny” (and these are the memories of his we’ll see). And some of the bad characters in said stories will also parallel Lonnie . For instance in s2, Jonathan mentions Indiana writer Vonnegut- In his book ‘slaughterhouse 5′- Vonnegut begins the story of Billy Pilgrim, a man who has “come unstuck in time”. It accounts of Billy Pilgrim's capture and incarceration by the Germans during the last years of World War II, and scattered throughout the narrative are episodes from Billy's life with his dad, and his own wife and kids.Billy is forced to be part of the war and similar things against his free will. The moments start from his childhood when his father throws him in the water to teach him how to swim. He was unwillingly drafted into the war. Later, he is kidnapped by Tralfamadorians  (aliens that are implied to be caused by his mental health issues/trauma) against his will. Therefore, he realizes that this concept is just an illusion. 

We also see Hopper being violent/aggressive to Mike foreshadowing how Lonnie will treat Mike (difference is it’ll be played completely serious).

Sara : “littles “ also called a child alter (not based on ww)

“Child alters often talk in a child-like way, but unlike a biological child they can normally understand abstract concepts and long words. Some child parts may ...  be playful and fun-living and have only positive memories. A child alter may also be an idealized representation of the "perfect child" from the "perfect" family, for example the "good boy/girl."

we see this in a few ways- Sarah winning the spelling bee (like Will winning the science fair) and Hopper describing her as very intelligent, but not knowing where she gets it from. She in the 1st episode is said to love science like Will (who won the science fair 4x) , and knows how to spell words like ‘odontalgia’.  In s1, Joyce and Hopper pretend with Sara and Will to be a witch and an ogre eating them.And in s1 Will and her both own cat plushies.  she has a tiger plushie (mascot of Will’s school, like with billy’s baseball mascott also being a tiger/ Will’s painting). And her hospital gown has clowns on it (Will’s fear). Hopper even pauses and has a flashback of sarah’s tiger when he sees Will’s lion plushie in the upsidedown .And when Will has a vine  in his mouth imagines sarah with tubes in her mouth.We see despite the fact Hopper didn’t move to Hawkins until after her death- she appears to be at Hawkins lab?

And Holly’s drawing is similar to el’s in s1.And , in s1, like Will she has an episode alluding to her seeing the void as she turns her head scared seeing something no one else can.Then in s2, Hopper says Sarah became obsessed with blackholes - and latter says that blackhole (mf?) got her. It’s possible she saw the void or even the mf and misinterpreted it as a blackhole. And  so she didn’t actually die of cancer - it was probably just symbolic of her integrating into the mf/ww (the blackhole ‘getting her’). Or it’s possible she’s just alive/in stasis in the innerworlds  after her ‘simulated death’

Also can we mention how there’s lions, tigers,and bears (as plushies)- oh my.  Along with the whole “home references”. Wizard of oz is on the movie list, and 2 wizard of oz movies shown in s3.

Robin Buckley

Robin Buckley (possibly an alter?)- Robin discusses with steve the legend of Prometheus , who not only gave human beings the gift of fire, and therefore civilization, but created them, giving them the gift of life. El watches frankenstein in s2 whose novel was titled “the modern prometheus”(another hint WW/Will created El). Steve when looking at Robin even says the biblical verse “let there be light” (the beginning of creation and human beings-i.e Robin).”And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.” (wow this doesn’t sound just like the black-watery-void in the upsidedown at all) XD. Robins were also considered holy birds by the God thor (the god of Thunder and lightning).  She’s gay, into comics, rides a bike,  and is afraid of drs just like Will is, and was tied to a chair for info like ww. She references surfing (billy) and has a spy storyline. She’s a smart,  into rock music and wants to fit in . And makes fun of her friends’ love-lives to hide her own insecurities about her own romantic feelings and sexuality (that weren’t accepted at that time). And has feelings for a girl who can’t sing (mike) who pays too much attention to a person who didn’t even like them (Steve/El) . Buckley could be a ref to a ‘buck’ deer (like the one the demogorgan killed in s1/ typical hunting game). And another legend says that the Robins were red because it scorched its bre*st in the fires of Purgatory, mercifully taking drops of water in its beak for the lips of the parched souls in torment( the opposite of devil-lonnie).Robins also feature in the traditional children's tale Babes in the Wood, the birds out of kindness cover the de*d b*dies of the 2 abandoned children found in the woods with strawberry leaves (who had been k*lled by an abusive family member) .  Not sure if mrs driscoll (being a strawberry name is a coincidence to that whole cherry/strawberry/heathers movie ref with alexi? Robin is also a unis*x/male name like most of the other gals on the list. While her crush ‘tammy’ (means ‘twin’. could be a clue about Robin being an alter?).  

the rebuttal could be simply: buckley can mean ‘goat’ which would match her bff’s surname Harrington (’he-goat’). And just be a cute little nod to them.While Robin means ‘bright fame’ just like our fallen super-hero Bob ( since robin and bob are nicknames for Robert)- so could also be a simple nod to him.But her names could be both a nod and a deep ref-  who knows.

Barb

Barb- Barbara means “strange” or “foreign” , while Barb means “stranger”. Her name could also be based on the saint Barbara- who was carefully guarded by her father who kept her locked up in a tower (like Hopper & Brenner to El/Lonnie to Will) in order to preserve her from the outside world . He later tries killing her. However, as punishment, he was struck by lightning on the way home and his body was consumed by flame (connection to ww who likes using fireballs against bad guys and who also has lightning powers). She’s best friends with a wheeler (although pictures show us unlike byler they’re not childhood friends). she may have been queer coded and had feelings for her bff  (moping after Nancy leaves to sleep with Steve) . In a s1 flashback Will specifically watched ‘poltergeist’ with his mom- and is then thrust into the same scenario as the little girl (being trapped in another dimension- where the mothers can only hear their voices and communicate to them through electronics ). And barb’s pool scene echos the pool scene in the movie too-a women being attacked in a pool ( and could be considered similar to being attacked in a tub/sensory deprivation tank). And similar to El , she wakes up in the upsidedown and pukes up a white fluid calling for Wheeler- but gets no help. Unlike Will. For Halloween she also dressed up as a scary clown (Will’s fear) when Nancy dressed up as a bunny (an animal lonnie forced them to kill).  She also is dragged away in a similar way to Billy -down stairs.

Her mom’s first name (Marsha) also has the same meaning as Martin Brenner- ‘war like’. A hint Lonnie is violent or maybe was a vet?

Other npcs

Besides the russians, we also have some of the americans who experimented in Hawkin’s lab: most notably Brenner and becky/terry Ives.

“Some survivors will internalize their family into their own DID system.“

Brenner and Lonnie have similar appearances (and in the original script he was suppose to be unshaved and wear plaid and jeans... prob too obvious to keep) . They forced their kids to kill animals, threw them in a dark places, submerged them into water, and also praised them when violent, and tied people to beds (yes lonnie did that - why mf and terry are both tied up there). Brenner even means- ‘someone who cleared forests by burning (showing his connection to ww with fire, and because forests is where hunting/ab*se took place).His collegue - the blond women’s name , Fraizer means -  “of the forrest men” (the male hunters who terrorized Will/ww most likely).

Terry/ Becky Ives.Becky means “snare-a trap for catching birds or animals”. While Terry (Teressa means “huntress’) .While Ives means-  yew wood (a tree).Terry’s backstory should also raise eyebrows when we see when going to Hawkin’s lab that the Byers’ car is there (a tip off this story isn’t reality but from Will’s subconscious). 

Terry also turns in pain on the bed and sees sunflowers. And Will has a sunflower book next to his bed.

While Terry has an appearance similar to Jon’s (blonde and almond shaped brown eyes and Terry is a unis*x name) and both steal guns and drive a long distance in order to help rescue Will/el. This is the season of ‘mr mom’ after all (where Jon takes pics of Will on Halloween just like the other moms). Becky also compares Terry to Joyce too by saying Hopper would have been her type . And both joyce and terry/becky have a “crazy aunt” and were both deemed as ‘crazy’ when not believed about their children being kidnapped and indeed alive. we also see in El’s room (that Terry decorated) -bunnies (that lonnie forced the boys to kill) and clowns (Will’s fear). Along with fox’s which were in castle byers.  We also see Owl’s in both the byers’ and Ive’s house (which also represent ‘paranomal wisdom’).  And Winona mentioned the movie ‘prince of sands’ in an st interview. In that the psychiatrist interviews the older brother to fill in the memory-gaps of his sister (who has DID so can’t remember) he eventually admits both were r*ped as kids. And also tells a story in therapy about how their mom m*scarried and the dad threw the st*llborne in the freezer over night-so let’s hope throwing the demodog in the freezer and Terry’s miscarriage doesn’t have that traumatizing meaning. It’s also possible Terry isn’t an npc but a type of alter-given how her and El participated in ‘memory sharing’ and Terry’s power’s affected lights.”An alter may be stuck in an eternal flashback or refuse to accept that anything has changed since the period of time during which they experienced trauma“ (Terry being trapped in the time-loop after being tied to the bed/attacked).

Npcs ...but possibly other alters

I believe susie was a npc created because Will felt bad for Dustin - after the max/lucas situation. so he made what he assumed would be the perfect girl for him. She even has the same name as Max’s mom:susie vs susan. He met her from camp ‘Knowhere’ ( she’s from no where). The blonde american spy (who is also an npc) even mentions a science tech camp in s1 that dustin goes to in s3 .She has space related stuff in her room like sarah, wizard of oz poster (referencing Will), and she reads the ‘wizard of Earthsea’ -about a boy-wizard named jed  who realizes the evil ancient shadow he’s been fighting is actually the dark part of his personality -and he needs to merge with it to bring balance. Everyone questions if she’s real or exists- similar to el asking Kali “are you real?”Stranger things instagram posted a fake movie poster- emulating ‘weird science’. A movie about 2 boys creating a ‘perfect women’ from scratch for them and comparing this created gal to susie (they aren’t endgame with this girl in the movie-despite her original programing). Like susie/dustin not being endgame.

Dustin on his canon spotify playlist even has the song ‘weird science’.Her appearance is based off what most boys liked, celeb ‘phoebe kates’. And it may be just a narrative device but in s2 Max lies about mormons at the door, the season before she appears.

And of course her song alludes to what’s happening in the narrative. “Make believe I'm everywhere Given in the light (demogorgan/ lonnie in shed) .dream a dream and what you see will be ( his nightmares based on his ‘memories’)/Rhymes that keep their secrets WILL unfold behind the clouds (mf on his clouds and lightning).And there upon a rainbow (Will/ his powers/ accepting his queer identity and healing) Is the answer to a never ending story.’

Similarly, Heather Holloway is most likely from Will’s mind (my guess an alter)-and her appearence is also based on Phoebe.  In the show , they reference ‘fast times’  where Phoebe wears a red bathing suit just like Heather. Billy also mimics phoebe by slow-mo walking in a red bathing suit to the same song phoebe did in the movie. 

After El and Max see the pic of Heather and her dad the lyric  ‘loving you is a sin’ plays. And she shows an aggression mostly to her father- with her mom she simply dr*gs her but for her father she hits him in the head with a bottle and gags him with a rag and ties him up and throws him in the trunk after she was similarly tied up and thrown in the trunk (unlike the mom who was in the back seat). Billy and Heather were the ones with the most focus during their possessions - and Will said the mf would target “another me” ( another Will). She is str*ngled in the shower and later drowned in a tub into a dark abyss screaming for help before merging with the mf.  Both susie and heather are names symbolizing flowers.Susie- means Lily. While Heather is  also a variety of small shrubs with pink or white flowers which commonly grow in rocky areas.Holloway is a topographic surname, which was given to a person who resided near a physical feature such as a hill, stream, or type of tree. Also her dad (Tom- means ‘twin’ which could be another DID hint.like Tammy Tompson along with their names being associated with the nature/woods where ab*se took place).

Possible npcs or  alters (BUT possibly just normal people from the real world) : 

Murray Bauman (possibly an npc or alter?)- Between seasons Joyce mentioned going to Chicago with Will for therapy- where murray is from. Similar to Will who has a ‘do not enter” sign . Murray  has a  “keep door closed”. Both are proficient with shotg*ns . Murray drinks and smokes a lot like Hopper/Lonnie. He makes up a story about how what happened to Barb being a chemical leak. And next season the possessed are consuming chemicals and the npc russians are experimenting with chemicals. Hopper lied in s1 about having a friend from the times- and in s2 Murray from the times magically appears. He says Jon is easier to read than Nancy and immediately pegs his issues with his dad. He references Wizard of Oz by saying “people don’t like looking behind the curtain” (in the movie what was behind the curtain was a wizard-Will). He also has cameras everywhere like the american npcs. Also, it’d be pretty funny if he was investigating crazy conspiracies like aliens but never realized he was a part of one all along.

Erica-Not on the inspo list but she could be like Buffy’s sis from buffy the vampire slayer. The memories of Buffy and her associates were altered, along with relevant records, so that they believed Dawn always existed as Buffy's sister. Dawn is, however, a real girl, Buffy's biological sister, and has real memories of her fictional childhood. Erica has rainbows/sunflowers in her room in s2 (connected to Terry). And Erica is a plant that means “HEATHER”.

what all these possible alters /npc’s generally have in common is unlike ‘natural people’ they all have names associated with hunting or the woods (because that’s where a lot of the ab*se most often took place). name meaning : becky - snare (a trap for catching birds or animals). Teressa-huntress. Dianne (Hopper’s ex wife) - is a roman goddess of hunting.  brenner- ‘someone who cleared forests by burning’. the blond women, Brenner worked with,  Fraizer-  “of the forrest men” (the male hunters who terrorized Will most likely). mayfield- open country (field) where madder (mæddre) grows', Hargrove-grove filled with rabbits" , Holland- wood land, Bruce (who was also possessed) - means WILLow lands .ives- yew wood (of tree) ,Bauman: comes from the German word "baum," or "boum" in Middle High and Old German, meaning "tree’. Bauman may have originally been a nickname for someone who lived by a tree. Holloway is a topographic surname, which was given to a person who resided near a physical feature such as a hill, stream, or type of tree. Suzie-  lily flower. Susan (Max’s mom)- means lily, lotus flower or rose.  Heather is also a variety of small shrubs with pink or white flowers which commonly grow in rocky areas.  Neil -cloud. Buckley- buck deer. Rhadaghast (Will’s castle byers password)- is a wizard who protects the forrest and it’s creatures.

or an association with fire/lightning/god: robin- bird of the God Thor , sara- married abraham who tried to k*ll his son for god, barabara- saint who’s ab*sive father tried to k*ll her for not believing in his religion- so he was electrocuted and lit on fire by god. Kali/El are names of gods

the main exceptions being Hopper an interject . Although Hop could be a bunny pun, he even references bunnies in s3. And Jim meaning to “supplant” /“suprecede” ( replace/take the place of a person or thing previously in authority or use) hints at him being an interject.And heather’s dad Tom (who was possessed means ‘twin’) like Robin’s crush  Tammy (’twin’) Thompson (’son of tom’) . And Marsha Holland (barb’s mom) & Martin Brenner both have first names meaning ‘war-like” (a hint at Lonnie being warlike, or being a vietnam vet perhaps?) 

Ok, guys that’s about it- I hope you enjoyed. :)

[thinkingisadangerouspastime]

(pt 1) i really enjoy all your atla analyses & you've done a great job breaking down the usual arguments re how eip shows that kataang shouldn't have happened. i'm curious about your take on one specific argument that i just saw today, in an analysis of the show by a zker that was otherwise quite good and respectful (i know you've already talked about eip a lot, so no problem if you don't feel like rehashing). the premise: aang didn't just pressure katara in eip, he threatened her.

(pt 2) they point to when katara joins aang & asks if he’s alright: “aang: no, i’m not! i hate this play! katara: i know it’s upsetting, but it sounds like you’re overreacting. aang: overreacting? if i hadn’t blocked my chakra, i’d probably be in the avatar state right now!” the suggestion is he’s threatening her when he says ‘i’d probably be in the avatar state right now’ to describe his anger. i think this take exaggerates and oversimplifies it, but interested in your thoughts on it.

Hello my friend!! It is true I am Old inside and don’t like rehashing dhdlksjslks BUT your comments on my posts are always incredibly kind and insightful so I am more than willing to do a bit of rehashing for you 🥰 Besides! I’ve seen this general take before a few times and it’s always irked me for the exact reason you point out - it simultaneously exaggerates and oversimplifies the situation (and honestly that’s an impressive duality since it’s seemingly contradictory, so hats off to them lmaooo) - and now is as good a time as any to address it. So, for starters, let’s go ahead and get the excerpt they love to focus on so much:

Cut to Aang standing alone on a balcony. Katara enters and walks up to him.

Katara: Are you all right?

Aang: [Angered.] No, I’m not! I hate this play! [Yanks his hat off and throws it on the ground.]

Katara: I know it’s upsetting, but it sounds like you’re overreacting.

Aang: Overreacting? If I hadn’t blocked my chakra, I’d probably be in the Avatar State right now!

Here’s the thing about so-called analyses of this excerpt: in a manner extremely convenient to the poster, they never seek to contextualize this moment. (I mean, to do so would deplatform their entire “argument” - perhaps that’s why they avoid performing a full analysis?) So let’s avoid that pitfall from the start.

Firstly, below are some links to related posts; I’m going to do my best to summarize the most relevant parts, but for anyone who desires greater detail, I gotchu 😤

This post explains why EIP (the play, lol) is imperialist propaganda and is intended to belittle the entire Gaang.

This post explains how Aang never acted “entitled” to Katara’s affections, particularly in regard to EIP.

This post breaks down the infamous EIP kiss like Snopes Fact Checker, covering common misconceptions, important perspectives to consider, etc.

Alright. With that out the way, it’s time for some context.

Aang and Katara have this conversation on the balcony after watching 95% of “The Boy in the Iceberg,” a play chock-full of Fire Nation propaganda that demeans the entire Gaang in order to prop up the Fire Nation as superior (hence why the play ends with Ozai’s victory). Here is my general breakdown of Aang and Katara’s treatment in particular from a previous post:

- katara, an indigenous woman, is highly sexualized and portrayed as overly dramatic and tearful, because the fire nation objectifies women not of their own people and views them as less intelligent and less emotionally stable

- aang, the avatar, the sole survivor of the fire nation’s genocide of the air nomads who is incredibly in-touch with his spirituality and femininity, is portrayed as an overly-airy and immature woman. the fire nation portrays him with a female actor to demean him (like, that’s classic imperialistic propagandist tactics) and furthermore writing his character as a childish airhead reinforces the fire nation sentiment that the air nomads were weak, foolish people who did not deserve to exist in their world

In other words, these kids have just watched almost an entire play that preys upon their insecurities and depicts them using racist and sexist stereotypes about their respective nations. It is completely understandable that tensions might run a little high and that their interactions would not be as balanced as usual (Katara and Aang have a great track record of communicating well with each other, as it happens!).

So we have to keep that in mind when examining the aforementioned excerpt. But there are other factors to consider, too! Namely: they are kids. Children. Teens. Aang is 12, Katara is 14.

If we want to be scientific, a person’s brain doesn’t finish developing until they are 25, lmao, and the preteen/teen years are when the prefrontal cortex that controls “rationality,” “judgement,” “forethought,” etc. is still developing. This doesn’t mean Aang and Katara are irrational and make poor decisions 24/7 (obviously not), but it does mean that in an intense, highly emotional situation, like after watching a play that intentionally demeans them and depicts them as inferior, they are more likely to overreact, more likely to be emotional, and more likely to make mistakes. Like, I’m serious, lol. “Teens process information with the amygdala.” That’s part of the brain that helps control emotions! It’s why teens sometimes struggle to articulate what we’re thinking, especially in situations that require instinct/impulse and quick decisions, because we’re really feeling whenever we make those choices. Acting more on emotion. Our brains simply haven’t finished developing the decision-making parts, lmao.

In sum: Aang and Katara are both kids, not adults, and should be interpreted as such. This doesn’t negate their intelligence, because they are both incredibly smart and Aang is arguably the wisest of the Gaang, but they are human. Young humans. They have emotions, and we should not be so cruel as to assume they’d never act on them.

So taking that all together, we can now acknowledge the high stress Aang and Katara are under, understand why they might be upset (*cough* imperialist propaganda is hurtful *cough*), and examine how their youth might play into their emotional reactions. And funny thing - all analyses that come to the conclusion of Aang “threatening” Katara here do not usually bother with this context. I can’t imagine why!

And you know what, let’s add one more piece of context: Sokka states that Aang left the theater “like, ten minutes ago,” which is what cues Katara to go look for him on the balcony. The reason I mention this line is because to me, it suggests Aang knew he was more worked up than usual! He chose to separate himself from his friends so he could process his frustration! He did not take his anger at the play out on them; instead, he purposefully took time and space to be alone.

With that in mind, I don’t understand at all how Aang’s Avatar state quote could be interpreted as a threat? Canonly, Aang is someone who was aware enough of his frustration to separate himself from the others - yet the logical next step is him threatening Katara as a result? He knew his intense emotions were because of the play (which he says himself), so the logical conclusion is that he then pinned the fault on Katara? What?? Sorry, that interpretation has no textual basis, lmao. But I digress!

Aang tells Katara, “If I hadn’t blocked my chakra, I’d probably be in the Avatar State right now!” As you said, this is the line people point to in an attempt to justify their (baseless) conclusion that Aang is “threatening” Katara. So let’s bring in the two key pieces of context: imperialist propaganda and age. Given that Aang is 12, and given that Aang has just watched almost a full play that demeans him and everything his people stood for (and let’s not forget it also mocks his and Katara’s love for each other)…

His reaction is understandable. An exaggeration and needlessly dramatic, but understandable. He feels vulnerable and insecure and Aang is human. He is human and flawed and he overreacts here and I love that A:TLA shows how even our heroes, even people who are truly good at heart and in soul, can get overly upset (especially given the aforementioned circumstances!). Would Aang actually be in the Avatar state at that moment, had it been possible? Of course not! He’s young and he’s hurt and as such he says something dramatic to convey his anxieties and frustrations. The line is not meant to be taken literally, and seeing people do so despite all the factors that should be taken into consideration when analyzing it… Cue a long, tired sigh from me and so many other A:TLA fans.

And to be honest? I cannot fathom how people watch this episode and come to the conclusion that Aang is “threatening” Katara. To me, this episode - besides being a recap episode - is one that humanizes our cast even further. Aang snaps at Katara, kisses her when he shouldn’t (which the story appropriately treats as wrong). Katara pushes down her true feelings and retreats into herself, afraid to start a relationship with the boy she loves because she’s already lost him once before and can’t bear to do so again. Zuko further confronts the hurt he’s enacted upon others, especially upon Iroh. Toph practices being vulnerable and accepting vulnerability from others by conversing with Zuko. Sokka witnesses how others have erased his contributions and labelled him as nothing more than the token nonbender in the group. Even Suki learns that she is not the only person who holds a place in Sokka’s heart and that she can never replace what he has lost.

To watch this episode where our heroes must come to terms with how the Fire Nation deems them inherently inferior, with how they have more fights to overcome in the future with the Fire Nation than a single war, and to come to the conclusion that… that what, Aang is abusive? A monster? Irredeemable? That he would threaten his best friend, someone he loves in every way?

Wow. That says more than enough about the viewer, doesn’t it?

[jikooksgirl19]

My Soulmates 1

Genre:Soulmate AU, fluff,angst, eventual smut

Pairing: Idol Jimin x Lawyer Reader x Idol Jungkook

Warnings: some swearing (Y/N has a trash mouth sometimes)

A/N: I’m so excited to bring you my story. I hope you all enjoy this first chapter.

Please read the teaser and prologue first if you haven’t already.

*********************************************************************

October 7, 2018 4:36pm

The boys had been practicing since 8am that morning with limited breaks, and were tired and hungry. They were all going to dinner and begin making their way to the elevator, laughing and joking with each other. Namjoon was deep in thought when the doors of the elevator opened and a woman came out barreling right into the midst of the group. Her head was down, and she seemed absorbed in something on the iPad she held in her hands when she must have realized what she had done. Namjoon heard her gasp and reach out towards Jimin and Jungkook and thought she might be trying to steady herself as they were reaching out to her as well. He couldn’t believe it when they all began collapsing on the floor, the other boys trying to catch them. He noticed that the three were still grasping onto each other, and a red ring began to encircle their ring fingers and travel up their arms. The other boys were staring at this as well and they looked at each other shaking their heads. All of them mumbled the same thing

...”Oh Shit!”

You felt warm and cocooned for some reason. It was so cozy and you didn’t want to wake up. Wait, when did I go home? Your thoughts were hazy and you were trying to figure out where you were. You tried to stretch and found yourself bumping into something hard. As you started groping around you realized that this was not your pillow at all but felt like a chest. A mans chest. You have never moved so fast as you just did sitting yourself up. “What the hell...!” You look and see you are on a bed with not one but two boys cuddled up around you. Fear immediately sets in as you look around the room and see sleeping figures on another bed and couch.

“What the fuck...!” You said out loud quickly slapping both your hand over your mouth so as not to awaken the men in the room. You are in bed with, and surrounded by BTS. They are the worlds most famous boy band. They are the Nations Treasures. THEY ARE YOUR CLIENTS!!! Your mind explodes right then and there. You think to yourself ’What Tumblr, A03, Wattpad fanfic did I just wake up in.’

‘OH MY GOD IM IN A COMA!!!! That has to be it. There cannot be any other explanation. I’m in a coma and I transported into some sucky ass wannabe Hallmark Movie’.

All you can think of is that you have some sort of brain tumor and have fallen into a life altering, dream fugue-like state and all your teenage and young adult fantasies are blending together therefore you have conjured up some poly bias delusional weirdness in yor muddled brain. This isn’t real...this isn’t real... this isn’t real....... You pinch yourself and...oh shit that hurt. You struggle to get off the bed which isn’t easy by any means when two pairs of arms AND legs keep trying to pull you back down. You debate screaming bloody murder when you hear someone speak.

“You’re awake”. You turned your head and saw someone sitting up rubbing his eyes looking at you. You recognized the leader of said boy band Namjoon from the many many posters around BigHit.

“I am” your voice sounding more calm than you felt. “Can you tell me where I am and why I’m here with all of you like some weird slumber party?” You we’re holding on the the last shreds of professionalism that you could before screaming to the high heavens.

“You don’t remember finding your soulmates” he asked?

“Excuse me, my what now?” You cocked your head like you didn’t hear him right. “What on earth are you going on about? Soulmate, I don’t have a soulmate.”

“Soulmates” he corrected. By now some of the other members were starting to wake up.

“I AM in a COMA”. You were starting to babble incoherently in a mix of Korean and English with some well placed Spanish swear words your mother used to use when you were little and she was mad. You we’re starting to panic and began trying to climb off the bed all the while the two boys on your bed were snoozing away like nothing was happening. You managed to fall off of the bed and skittered backwards like a crab til your back hit the wall. You slapped your cheeks willing yourself to wake up.

Namjoon looked next to him and asked “Jin can you call Yuna? I think she may be able to help out with...” he looked at you realizing he didn’t know your name. Jin got up and walked towards the window to call someone.

“Y/N. Sona Y/N.” I...I..I’m a temporary lawyer working at BigHit on some of your international contracts. I’d like to say nice to meet you but maybe when there’s a less murdery vibe and location.” You were quickly getting your bearings together and began to gather your composure. “Now can you please tell me why I’m here being cuddled to death by those thing one and thing two over there” you point towards the bed. Several giggles and laughs were heard at this. You on the other hand were not sure what was so funny.

A deep voice in the corner answered this time. “Well thing one and two as you called them, or as we like to call them Jimin and Jungkook are your soulmates “ he said matter-of-factly like it was everyday normal. “I’m Taehyung, you can call me Tae or Tae-Tae to piss them off if you want.” His big boxy grin made him look like a mischievous child You couldn’t help but give him a wary smile. Someone else, you think it was J-Hope came towards you and thrust forward a hand. You cautiously took it and he helped you up from the floor. You began dusting off your skirt and straightening your blouse internally thanking the almighty upstairs that you were still clothed while eying all of them suspiciously. “I’m Hoseok, but you can call me Hobi if you want.”

Jin turned around after hanging up and offered you the only chair in the room. You quickly shuffled over sitting down and tried to ask again why you were here. In a bedroom, on a bed with your soulmates and their band mates all in the same room. “ Can someone please just tell me what happened?” Your voice staring to crack as you were close to tears. “This just feels too extrodinary to believe. You keep saying I have soulmates, as in plural. I didn’t even know that was possible.” It was then that you looked at your left hand and saw the red string tatoo. “WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK IS HAPPENING TO ME....Did I have a stroke? How...what...why...” your words became so jumbled you weren’t making any sense and you were pretty sure a panic attack was just a moment away from tackling your neurotic ass into submission. Jin kneeled in front of you telling you to breathe. “ In through the nose....out through the mouth Y/N. You can do it just breathe in and out, in and out...that’s it, you got it, in...out.” You sat there holding his hands while Tae began rubbing your back in circles as they were trying their best to calm you down. Jin explained to you that he also has a soulmate named Yuna and she is ready to come talk to you about what being attached to an idol can be like.

Across the room you heard a groggy voice “Uugghhhh....get off me Jungkookah. Why are we in bed? What happened” could be heard from the bed you just left. Jimin was sitting up while shoving Jungkook off of him and staring around the room. Jungkook fell off the bed. He jumped up and was getting ready to tackle his hyung who knocked him down when his eyes landed on you. He was confused as to why a woman, a very pretty woman, but a woman nonetheless was sitting in their studio bedroom at BigHit, surrounded by four of his hyungs. “Um, hello” he said quietly making Jimin look in the same direction. Eyes got wide when he also said a quiet hello and then proceeded to ask Namjoon “ What’s going on. Who is she and why are we all in here. I thought we were going to dinner?”

“See, I’m not the only one confused” you exclaimed louder and much squeakier than you meant. “Apparently we are soulmates” you say while gesturing to the both of them and yourself. “Surprise “ you say throwing up jazz hands and beginning to laugh at the outrageous looks on both of their faces.

“Who, who is your soulmate?” They both say at the same time.

Namjoon looks at you knowing you are barely holding on at the moment and answers for you. “All three of you are soulmates”.

They stare at each other then at you then at the group and both start laughing. “Ok ok, good joke hyung, stop playing around. Did you knock us out and this is a mystery mission? “ “Are we on a run BTS episode we didn’t know was being filmed?” They took turns asking like this was a prank or something.

When they see no one other than you are deadly serious they stop and start to freak out as well. “ARE YOU SERIOUS?” They look at each other only to both shout out that they couldn’t be soulmates. Why is it just happening now after knowing each other all these years. Brothers yes, soulmates no. NOPE. NO WAY, WHAT THE FUCK.

You get up and walk over to them. You grab both of their left hands and show them the tattoos. You peek inside your shirt and confirm you have the soulmates date above your heart, and tell them to check their chests as well. You strangely feel calm being around the two of them and less like a victim of some K-Pop Serial Killer drama that you stepped into, and you realize they also both settle down while you’re holding onto them.

Namjoon gets up and begins to explain that though it’s rare, there are known cases of multiple soulmates. They are harder to find because all of the mates must be together for their souls to connect. Once they do connect though the bond is stronger than a normal soulmates bond and can come with difficulties due to the relationship aspect of it. Prejudice often follows a poly soulmate connection due to the narrow mindedness of society and can often be looked down on. He tells the three of you that you should tell management right away so they can have a plan in place. Fans aren’t always supportive of their bias’s soulmates, and Y/N having two of the most popular idols in Korea as hers are going to come with challenges. Especially with you being a foreigner.

You three look at each other and back at Namjoon, silently agreeing to these terms. He also suggests you three need time together alone to get to know about each other because you all three had different lives leading up to today, and it would be best to figure out where you all should go from here. Other people’s feelings and relationships are going to be affected by what has happened and you all needed to be prepared for any backlash.

“Ok, now that this is all settled can we please get some dinner?” You hear from the other bed where apparently Yoongi has been napping throughout all the mental breakdowns.

To be continued...

Taglist: @mrcleanheichou @itsminniekat @dreamescapeswriting @seaoffangirling @4evahevah @sonderkook @bisexualmess007 @chxustuff @aviwasabi21 @skyys-universe @ally22042000 @ramblingsofawolfgirl

[spiderling-space]

Henlo Liho-san~! A new follower of yours uwu May I ask for hcs of how the dorm leaders would react with having an f!s/o who is mostly respectful and polite, suddenly about to throw hands with someone as they may or may not have said or complained about the dorm head they were dating. It was not a compliment in any way or form- I hope I didn't cross over any rules! But if I had to pick 5 out of 7 of them, it's Riddle, Azul, Idia, Kalim, and Vil. Thanks a bunch if you notice this~! Good Luck!!♡♡

Hey yo Nocturne! I know of you from liking I and Brew’s OC (twisted-whimsies): Mozerella Trein and a couple TW related posts of mine.

Prefects and Vice Prefects are exception from character limit.

After finishing this, I realized I wrote something between a ficlet and headcanon. I hope you’ll like it though 💕

My German knowledge is bugging me to write Vil’s surname with ö instead of o yet my order-loving side is telling me to stick to how it’s written in TW

Before I start I’m gonna add a quote from a fandom of mine 👀 one look at my OG blog would reveal which fandom it is.

“Fallaces sunt rerum species”

Meaning: The appearances of things are deceptive

🥀🥀🥀🥀🥀🥀🥀🥀🥀🥀🥀🥀

Riddle Rosehearts

Riddle can handle himself. At least he could before his overblot episode. No body dared to talk behind his back.

But now he holds back, not using his unique magic frequently anymore which caused some students think he became too lenient and a couple students started to abuse this leniency

Every time someone tries his patience he counts to 10 internally or just ignore them. Don’t get him wrong, he still sticks to rules and makes his dorm follow the rules but he cannot force people to stop talking about him

Today is going to one of the days when he would ignore any bad mouthing because he is with (Y/N), the sweetest person he ever met

(Y/N) already saw at his worst when he overblotted. He doesn’t want her to see any more incidents such that.

He and (Y/N) decided to take a walk in Rose Gardens as a date. Then decided to get into Rose Maze, holding hands strictly for to not get lost.

“Prefect Rosehearts became such a softie. He is no longer fit to be our prefect.” “He never was. Mommy Issues needs to go back to kindergarten.”

(Y/N) and Riddle were in East side of Rose Maze when they heard 2 Heartslabyl students talking which made (Y/N) stop in her track. Riddle tugged her hand to move on but she didn’t budge.

“Riddle, honey, either push away those bushes or I’ll climb over it and have a nice chat with them.”

“There is no need.” — “okay then I’m climbing”

And she did. Riddle didn’t know how but she managed to go to other side of bushes by climbing to them.

“Hey jackasses! Would you like to say that again?” The two students were shocked to see Riddle’s girlfriend jump from above. “Wh- what?”

“I asked if you wanted to say those to my face.” And no answer.

Meanwhile Riddle was on the other side of bush walls, listening what’s happening.

“Did Riddle or did he not manage to increase Heartslabyl’s average grade?” “He did...” “Did he or did he not helped your dorm to have better ranking at Magift?” “He did...” “Did he treat you unfair ever since he fixed how he acted?” “No...” “Then what makes you say he is unfit? Is it because he is more tolerant on rules? Is it because he cares how his dorm mates feel?” No answer again. “I hope you come to your senses now because next time I hear something like this will be the first and last time you taste my wrath. Are we clear?” — “Yes ma’am!”

(Y/N) climbed over the bush again and landed in front of Riddle. With a kiss to his cheek, “Just because you give less punishment doesn’t mean you need to let people bully you. If anyone else acts this way, I’ll have a talk with them.”

She held his hand and pulled him into the maze again. Meanwhile Riddle was still wondering how his girlfriend climbed over a maze’s wall.

🦁🦁🦁🦁🦁🦁🦁🦁🦁🦁🦁🦁

Leona Kingscholar

Leona is used to people bad mouthing about him back in his palace. While in Savanaclaw, his dorm mates respected him and didn’t dare to oppose him. That is until they saw his vulnerable side during his overblot accident.

He heard a couple dorm mates say “He can’t do anything by himself.” “Good for nothing.” “All that lazy lion does is sleep.” “He must have lack brains to repeat the same year over and over again.”

He is used to ignoring them and sleeping it off. And his favorite pillow, (Y/N), helped him to dismiss their thoughts.

Leona only asked (Y/N) out because he figured she would be great body pillow. Certainly not her lively and cheerful attitude, nor her bright smile.

Leona asked (Y/N) out for a night date in Savanaclaw. It’s because he wanted to nap in his dorm. It’s absolutely not that Savanaclaw lounge looks romantic at night.

When (Y/N) arrived, she unfortunately heard those.

Leona tugged her arm to lead her to where their date suppose to take but no avail.

“Hold my purse, kitten.” (Y/N) handed her purse to Leona and went where those dorm members stand.

“Hey there is something in your face!” The main jerk looked up “Huh?” Proceeded with a punch to his face. “It was PAIN!” And ended with the guy falling to ground, holding his nose.

“Does anyone else have something on their faces?” The remaining ones shook their head in NO. “Good.” She turned on her heels and went to Leona’s side.

All Leona could do was admire her right hook. He did not think how she wouldn’t feel out of blue in Afterglow Savannah if she were to live there because women in his hometown are strong and fighters.

🐙🐙🐙🐙🐙🐙🐙🐙🐙🐙🐙🐙

Azul Ashengrotto

(Y/N) first caught Azul’s eye when she sat down for 7 hours to read every single detail in his contract and demanded a change in certain conditions. Azul refused to make contract with her then offered her a job in Mostro Lounge.

With persuasion from the twins, Azul gathered courage to ask (Y/N) out. And she accepted.

They often stayed late hours in Mostro Lounge to spend some alone time.

After their quick date followed by closing of Mostro Lounge, Azul walked arm in arm with (Y/N) until the mirror passage. As they were walking, 2 Octavinelle student were messing around.

“Look at me! I’m the crybaby who hides behind two eels!” — “No one is making contract, I’mma cry now!” — “Maybe I can turn my crying into money. I can sell all the ink I cry!” “Nice one dude!”

One look to Azul’s face, (Y/N) understood he would deal with them either personally or the twins would play with them.

Not today Satan!

(Y/N) let Azul’s arm go and slowly approached the duo. “I am (Y/N), you can’t insult my boyfriend like that; prepare to die... socially I mean...” — “What are you saying?”

“I don’t have patience, time nor crayons to explain this to you but I’ll let you on a secret. Sometimes a nasty rumor, which doesn’t have to be true, can ruin someone’s entire school life. Maybe telling everyone your secret wish that you once asked from Azul or you offering a different type of payment to teachers to pass the grade.” — “You can’t do that!” — “I can and I will unless you cut the crap, ask for forgiveness and work for free in Mostro Louge for a week.” — “It’s a deal!”

Azul came to (Y/N)’s side as the two boys run away. Azul once again saw his angelfish using her wits to get what she wants. He knows she didn’t need to do that but he is flattered by the fact that his girlfriend wants to protect him.

🌞🌞🌞🌞🌞🌞🌞🌞🌞🌞🌞🌞

Kalim Al-Asim

Kalim asked (Y/N) out after spending time together after Jamil overblotted.

He is still the sunshine bean that brings smile to everyone’s faces. (Y/N) is as cheerful as Kalim and that’s why he hit it off

Kalim took (Y/N) to another carpet ride as a date. She loves the feeling of wind on her face on top clouds.

As they returned to the dorm, they heard a couple students talking.

“I don’t care what Jamil did. He was right! Kalim is unfit to represent us. After he became prefect, we became the last at everything.” — “How many Kalim can change a light bulb? None because he is too idiot and too incapable to change one. Hehehehe”

(Y/N) saw tears building up on Kalim’s eyes then she snapped. She made carpet to fly over them in law altitude then she jumped down in front of them. “Surprise motherfuckers!” Before anyone can understand what happened. (Y/N) kicked the one that made bulb joke between his legs then held and twist the ear of the other two. “You have 10 seconds to reconsider what you just talked. I suggest not to waste time.”

The trio tried to dismissed what they said but the glare they received made them comply. “Prefect Kalim, we are sorry to make fun of you.”

Kalim as the personification of sunbeams forgave them. Then turned his attention to his beloved. He was impressed by how she jumped down and was ready to protect him without any hesitation. He never thought someone as kind and happy person as her could hide a fighter in her. Not going to lie, he loves seeing this side of hers

👑👑👑👑👑👑👑👑👑👑👑👑

Vil Schönheit

Being with Vil is exhausting. Don’t get her wrong, it’s not him (Y/N) is complaining. It’s the people around them.

(Y/N) started paying more attention to her appearance

(Y/N) was waiting for Vil to get ready, sitting on his bed. Vil had free time that day and they were going out.

As they went out of the room, whispering ensued as always but this time, for the first time, a Pomefiore student bad mouthed about Vil.

“He is compensating his wretched personality with his looks!”

Vil isn’t someone to care opinions of a no-mark but (Y/N) is

“Hold my earrings, my love.” (Y/N) took out her earrings and handed them to Vil. “I’m going to snatch his wig!” — “He’s not wearing a wig...”

“I take it you weren’t burned with overabundance of schooling. You think you’re a Gucci but you’re not even Lacoste. Now apologize before I think your face needs a makeover.” — “Gucci? Lacoste?” — “And I suggest hide your jealousy better. You can’t get near Vil as a fan and you try to make up for it by talking about something that you have no idea on. Honestly I am jealous of people who haven’t met you.”

(Y/N) waves back the boy, going back to Vil’s side then putting her earrings again.

Vil is quite pleased what has occurred. Not only he saw how (Y/N) can destroy someone with just words but he also saw a glimpse of what she thinks of him. Maybe he should hire some people to insult him so he can see this side of hers again.

💀💀💀💀💀💀💀💀💀💀💀💀

Idia Shroud

Idia tries everything he can to stay in his room but there is an anime con that he and (Y/N) are going so he needs to get out of his room.

Idia and (Y/N) dressed up as his favorite anime couple.

Idia left his room voluntarily without any compulsory reason! It became a quick hit topic in Ignihyde.

Idia and (Y/N) went to anime-con and Ortho tagged along to record the ordeal.

They had to return early because some drunk in the con spilt juice on (Y/N).

So they returned NRC then Ignihyde. Ortho left for somewhere as Idia and (Y/N) walked in Ignihyde lounge.

“He doesn’t even go Dorm meeting but doesn’t have a problem with going a stupid con! Idia is an embarrassment to Ignihyde! All he does is play games and ramble about them!”

(Y/N) coughed gathering attention from the group.

Idia freaked out by being in highlight, hand pulled his chest, eyes widened.

“Baby, get behind me.” (Y/N) stepped in front of Idia and strutted to the Ignihyde student that was shit talking. “Pick a God and pray.”

The boy gulped. “Wh-What?!”

“Did I stutter?”

“I don’t know what—“ He threw his hands to air in frustration. (Y/N) grabbed his wrist, twisting and pulling his arm. The momentum caused the boy to fell face forward. (Y/N) still holding his arm twisted, “Now, dear, you’ll apologize and promise that you’ll never speak of Idia that way. Then get out of my face or else..” — “Yes ma’am!” The boy did as he was told.

Idia couldn’t guess in a million years that his goody two shoes girlfriend was capable of pulling this stunt. What he saw right now made him think the fighter beautiful ladies in anime. It was like a dream come true for him.

🐉🐉🐉🐉🐉🐉🐉🐉🐉🐉🐉🐉

Malleus Draconia

People feared Malleus for a really long time that he couldn’t remember anything else.

People avoided and tend to talk behind his back yet those didn’t reach insult level.

Who was stupid enough to dare that?

Malleus asked (Y/N) if she wanted to explore Diasomnia dorm and hear about the gargoyles of Diasomnia.

Of course she would love it. She loves when Malleus goes on about gargoyles for hours. And she is the only member in his club. Plus nightly strolls are their dates.

“He has no friends and no body loves him. For goodness’ sake, his intimating aura makes rest of dorm unapproachable! Can’t he just be gone already!?”

No genius is needed to know who that Diasomnia student was talking about.

Malleus’ mood turned sour immediately. He could curse that boy but this would only prove those wretched rumors.

(Y/N) finds Malleus’ sulking face extremely attractive (he is too attractive to be real) but no one has any right to upset her beloved.

“I’m about to end this man’s whole career.”

“Dear, wait me here. I’ll be back in a minute.”

Off (Y/N) went to defend Malleus’ honor.

“Hi there! Couldn’t help but hear you. Have you ever thought you have no friends because you’re an ass?” — “Who do you think you are? Oh it’s you.” — “It’s me Mario!” — “Huh???”

“Now now, let’s talk shall we? All you do is complain yet you don’t do anything to improve anything. You hold others accountable when you fail while there is no one but you to blame. You’re so wrapped in your tiny bubble that you can’t see outside world. That’s what small minded people do. Whoever told you to be yourself simply couldn’t give you any worse advice.” The guy was left speechless, gaping like a fish out of water. “Close your mouth or else you might swallow a fly.”

(Y/N) went back to Malleus side, winking at him. His heart skipped a beat, thinking this was such a queen act. Defending her beloved with her words. To be fair, Malleus finds everything (Y/N) does a fitting trait for a queen, the way she rambles, snorts, breaths, smiles...

Malleus only wishes he met (Y/N) ages ago.

[gdcee]

Road to Nowhere

Pairing: Loki/Sigyn - mild, might have to squint to see it.

Summary: Loki and Sigyn talk while she escorts him to Kid Loki's Kingdom.

Warnings: Panic attack.

=================

"You know I'm only going to keep pestering you until I have the answer."

"I wish you luck in your endeavour," Sigyn returned coolly, stepping lightly as she began to climb the massive pile of garbage blocking their path. "Nevertheless, my lips remain sealed."

Loki huffed, a slight quirk at the corner of his lips which was not quite a smirk. He set off after her, determined to be the first to the summit of Rubbish Peak.

He had to admit he was quite intrigued by that tantalising crumb of information this Sigyn (so very like and yet not quite like his own) had dangled before him. Of course he was curious about the identity of the lucky bastard who had won her fidelity.

All he had was a preferred pronoun. That at least eliminated half of his (admittedly rather short to begin with) list of possible lucky bastards.

After he had gone through the list (which did not take long because as stated earlier, it was really quite short), he started throwing out random names to see if any of them got a reaction.

No such luck.

His attempts to tease and fluster the information out of her had been just as ineffective.

Her reaction to his puppy dog eyes routine had been...perplexing. He'd gotten one soft, achingly tender smile before a heavy melancholy had descended upon her. Like the dark shadow of a mourning veil stealing the brightness from her eyes and the colour from her cheeks.

She had not reprimanded him, but he made a note not to pull that trick again anyway. Besides the practical reasons for keeping her goodwill (survival, information, mental stimulation), the simple fact was that she was Sigyn.

He didn't want to be the cause of her unhappiness. Not anymore.

Being a harmless annoyance and pest was still perfectly acceptable though.

He stood atop the great mound of refuse, his hands and face smeared with oil and other liquids of questionable origin, grinning triumphantly down at Sigyn. He vanished the grime he'd accumulated before gallantly holding out his hand to her.

Sigyn huffed a soft little laugh, the barest hint of a smile at the corner of her mouth. Without any hesitation, she reached out and allowed him to pull her up.

Loki glanced down to where they had started and noted that it was a long drop. Not nearly enough to kill an Asgardian or a Frost Giant, but enough to hurt.

Trust.

It made him feel as giddy as the first time he'd tasted the enchanted, heady liquid gold that was the mead brewed from honey harvested from the hives of the talking bees that resided near Iðunn's famous apple orchards.

"Ahem."

Loki realised with no small degree of embarrassment that he was still holding Sigyn's hand. He hurriedly worked a spell to remove the dirt under her fingernails and let go. Then to cover up his embarrassment, he resumed pestering.

"I don't understand why the identity of your beau necessitates such secrecy," he sighed with the lightest touch of a pleading whine, "Do you think I would object to your taste? He can't possibly be worse than Theoric."

"I think my life choices are none of your business."

"Exactly! You should forget about my opinion. Shout his name to the world and damn the naysayers and killjoys."

"I would but sadly, Alioth has a sense of hearing."

With that, she picked up a flat sheet of metal lying loose and proceeded to slide down Rubbish Peak on the improvised board. Despite being only at most a quarter Ljósálfar on her mother's side, she moved with their characteristic effortless grace.

Loki peered down, did a couple of quick mental calculations and snapped his fingers. He disappeared from the summit with a flare of green light and reappeared at the bottom no more than a second later in similar fashion.

"Good to see your teleport still works," Sigyn tossed her wind-mussed hair out of her face, "Why didn't you use it earlier to get to the top?"

"Too much debris and no decent eyeline. I didn't want to risk getting stuck under a foot of garbage." He frowned, pondering. "Still works?"

"Not a reference to you personally," she moved forward without looking behind to see if he followed, "Just something I noticed about some of the other Lokis around here."

"Power loss? Nothing to do with you and that coven of other Sigyns whose domain I and the other Lokis are forbidden from entering, I presume?"

"No, I've seen it even in Lokis on their first trepass - if something is limiting their power it's not us. In any case, we would never do anything to permanently disable a Loki's magic. There's just some things you don't do to a fellow mage, you know?"

"You just rough them up a little and kick them off the property?"

"More or less. Except for the kid and alligator."

"Do I want to know how one instance of me ended up as a semi-aquatic Midgardian reptile?"

"You can ask him yourself when we get to the Kid's Kingdom," she paused for a moment, as if she'd just remembered something, "Or maybe not, I think only the old man you knows how to talk to him."

Loki blinked.

"There's an old me?" He asked, disbelieving, "As in a wizened, wrinkled, looks like your grandmother me?"

"Eh, not quite as old as Grandma Hretha. Maybe about 4,000? 5,000?" She shrugged, "Either way, your vanity may rest easy; you look perfectly fine as an old man."

"Thank you for that milquetoast endorsement of my future self's good looks," Loki said dryly, "I was more perturbed about...something else."

Curiouser and curiouser.

How had the aged variant escaped their destined end? How had he managed to grow old before the TVA arrived to arrest him for cheating his final death?

He thought about the tape featuring all the TVA approved highlights of his life.

He thought about that other Loki, the Loki who had played out the role assigned to him and how very young (the same face as his own) and terrified (the same fear as his own) he had looked with the Mad Titan's monstrous hand around his throat.

Loki swallowed thickly and pulled at the collar of his TVA issued office shirt which suddenly seemed far too tight. The tie impeded his work and as he struggled to loosen it he could feel his terror rising up to choke him.

there will be no realm, no barren moon, no crevice where he cannot find you

inevitable

you think you know pain?

Inevitable

HE WILL MAKE YOU LONG FOR SOMETHING AS SWEET AS PAIN

He felt his legs buckle and his knees hit the ground as if it were happening to someone else.

"Loki!" Sigyn's voice was close but he heard it as if a great distance separated them, "Loki, breathe."

"What do you think I'm doing?" He wheezed.

"I am going to remove the tie and unfasten your collar," Sigyn continued as if she had not even noticed his rudeness, "I will need to touch you to do this. Alright?"

Needing help for such a pitifully simple task was galling. But he didn't want Sigyn to leave him. Loki managed a shaky nod. He let her ease his trembling, sweaty hands from his shirt collar. With quick, brisk movements she pulled the tie loose and tossed it somewhere to join the rest of the garbage.

"Follow my breathing now." Her voice was clearer to him now, more present. She was kneeling next to him, so close and warm and oh, her hair did still smell like apple blossoms. He watched the regular rise and fall of her chest and tried to match it. "That's it. Very good. Nice and slow."

Her fingers were at his throat for a mercifully short time. Just long enough to pop the top button loose and push the starched fabric away from his neck.

"Stay with me. You're doing very well. Breathe with me. In. And out. In. And out."

Without really thinking he grabbed her hand and pressed her palm against the centre of his chest. Perhaps he was possessed by some irrational notion that the pressure against his breastbone could keep his thundering heart from beating right out of his chest.

She didn't try to pull away. Her hand was warm, even through the shirt fabric. She moved a little, and one of her dainty fingers slipped into the open gap of his unbuttoned collar and brushed against the dip between his clavicles. His breath caught in his throat for a moment before Sigyn's gentle prompting had him matching her rhythm once more.

"Feel better?" She asked after what seemed an eternity.

"Yes," he breathed, "Yes, much." His chest still felt a little tight but the worst of that dreadful episode was over.

"Good." She lifted her hand from his chest and patted his shoulder firmly - a gesture that he had seen Týr bestow upon struggling Einherjar recruits after they'd passed the final leg of their training. "You did very well."

He didn't feel like he'd done anything worth praising. He'd collapsed like a pack of cards. This wasn't the first time he'd experienced terror but every time before now he had been able to push past it - stamp it down through sheer force of will and that primitive, animal part of his brain that knew that danger was never far away.

Why had he folded now? Now - when he was probably the most at ease he'd been in ages (months? Years? How long had it been since New York?) and the threat of Thanos was no longer an issue-

...a terrible thought suddenly occurred to him.

"Just out of curiosity," Loki tried to sound nonchalant, "Have you ever come across a fellow by the name of Thanos here?"

"Thanos?" Sigyn's brows drew together in a frankly rather adorable expression of pure befuddlement.

Ah. Well, at least he could place whatever nexus event had led to her pruning as occurring before Ragnarok and Thanos's massacre of half the Asgardian survivors.

"Big purple fellow," he explained, "Quite ugly, enormous chin, has rather disturbing ideas about resource management."

"Uh, no, I can't say that I've ever met anyone like that here."

"You're not just saying that to make me feel better?"

She quirked an eyebrow. "I can swear on my magic if that would reassure you."

Sigyn had always been very leery about oaths, especially ones bound with magic. Most mages worth their salt were.

And yet...he couldn't really explain why, but he'd always felt like her issues with them were less about best practices and more about some personal grievance.

That she would offer him such a thing...

Loki felt completely undeserving.

"No," he said hurriedly, "No, no, it's fine. I...I trust you."

Sigyn smiled. It was the first real smile he'd seen so far and it was like watching the sun come out from behind a cloud. He didn't know if it would last - if that melancholy from before would snatch away the sweetness of this moment.

So Loki ruined the moment before it could be stolen from him.

"...even though you refuse to tell me about your paramour."

Sigyn scoffed, all exasperation but it was better than seeing her sad.

"You are insufferable."

"Thank you, I do try."

She snorted and shook her head. "Alright, come on, you goose," she helped him up, and even though his legs were slightly shaky, he stood and did not fall. "Our first rest stop is about 20 feet...thereaboutish-" she waved vaguely in the direction of a mostly empty grassy knoll upon which a gaggle of the oddest creatures scurried. They resembled iridescent headless chickens with little purple spheres hovering over their severed necks.

"I still think we should have taken the car."

"Ugh," Sigyn wrinkled her nose, "Cahrs. Nasty, noisy, smelly things. I swear, Midgard really went downhill after those monstrosities were invented. "

[youwontlikethisblog]

I Don't Believe He Desires Me

Before I continue I want you to know I will be talking a lot more about Betty in this post and there will be a brief mention of r*** in this post.

I keep mentioning how Betty is more than just an insecure girl, that she's more complex than that but I don't really explain it all too well.

I've been lingering with this thought for quit a while now and though this is something that is mentioned in future episodes and I try not to bring such far away episodes into the breakdown of the current episode I feel like it's important to do so in this post.

Betty's first time.

We're still in the same day as Betty with her new look. Aura Maria and Betty are sitting outside talking and Aura Maria is asking her if she desires her boyfriend and Betty explains that their relationship is more than just seggs but an intelectual relationship where they talk about thought provoking subjects and things that stimulate their brains.

Betty has mentioned in the past when she's writing in her diary that she is really attracted to Armando in a physical sense but I noticed a hesitation from her when talking about this with Aura Maria and isn't only because she's not used to talking about this but for another reason because its while Aura Maria tells her that she might be weird if she doesn't even desire him to a small level or that he might be gay that Betty confesses that she is attracted to and that she does desire him. Betty isn't that uncomfortable talking about the subject with Aura Maria so why does she hesitate?

Her first relationship in the romantic aspect was traumatic on it's own however in the physical sense it was more than traumatic.

Betty thought of herself so hideous before Miguel that she thought no man would ever be interested in her until he came along. He really did force Betty to have feelings for him. He courted her, her sought her out and he manipulated her through small gifts and cards with poems and dedications that soon Betty started to develop feelings for him. Once he had her in love he plain out pressure her to have seggs.

Though we are only told the general story of it we can understand why it was painful.

See Betty in love has always been unconditional, she has been sweet, kind, loving, and faithful. She has been unwavering in loyalty. She wasn't any less of that in her relationship with Miguel. The same way she is right now with Armando and his gifts is the same way she was with Miguel. Miguel's attention built her self-esteem, it built her self-worth.

Miguel manipulated Betty's innocence's and her low self-esteem to serve his own agenda without ever feeling anything, not even empathy, towards Betty. He made her feel special, desired, wanted, and attractive to him. He worked so hard to build her self-esteem just to pressure her to sleep with him so he could win a bet.

How does this affect Betty to this day?

I once mentioned that to Betty this translated that she was so heinous that not even her love convinced Miguel to love her.

Diving in deep it translated to something so much worse.

[This is your warning to skip to the next [RED].]

Her first time must've felt like r**e in the after math. I've thought about this for so long that it's the only way I could ever explain it.

For Betty that first experience has left her feeling like no man would ever be attracted to her in a physical sense, that no man would ever be attracted to her because of her personality. That she is so disgusting, so worthless that no man would ever notice her and the one who did was horrified by her body and felt a disdain towards her as he had seggsual relations with her. She was left bare, naked, and destroyed and the entire neighborhood laughed at her expense. They spoke badly of her for what Miguel did to her. She herself said that he "Suggested" that they have relations and though at fist she didn't want to that she decided to because she loved him and she gave all of herself to him that first time.

Her first time is enveloped in guilt, shame, embarrassment, and self-hatred that it causes her to not aspire for more in the relationship she is currently in. To keep herself safe and away from harm she doesn't want to believe that Armando would ever be attracted to her in anyway other than admiration for her intelligence and she doesn't want to feel guilty or like she forced(r**p) him.

[You may proceed below.]

She doesn't aspire for Armando to be attracted to her in that sense. She doesn't aspire for Armando to desire her or want to sleep with her. She's content with the kisses, with the dates where they dance and have intelectual conversations. Though she does desire him, she doesn't aspire for him to feel the same way. In an effort to self preserve her subconscious pushes her to only view Armando as a man who isn't seggsually driven, however Betty is fully aware that he is and she denies this fact for the sake of her heart.

She knows that he is, she says it herself that night at the museum but this time Betty says that she doesn't want to pressure him to do something he doesn't want to(like desire her or have relations with her, again this goes in hand with the idea that she has that she is so hideous no man would ever be attracted to her enough to desire her and that if they ever did have relations with her it would be forced.)

While Betty and Aura Maria are having this conversation in another part of the city Armando and Mario are having the same conversation(huh I just realized both of these side kicks are named Maria, except well Mario is the male version... and they're talking about the same thing, interesting...).

Armando, scared, asks Mario if he really believes that Betty would jump his bones of those days, to which Mario says that Betty is crazy for him so he does.

In the previous post(Betty's New Look) I mentioned how these episodes are to push Armando to accept to some degree Betty's physical appearance and his attraction to her(even if it's based on personality it is still attraction) and that he also had to confront his inner self that he's Betty's boyfriend.

In this scene he not only has accepted this but he also accepts that he has a relationship with her as he tells Calderon that the relationship he has with Betty is based on more intelectual stuff.

Mario then goes on to say than what's the point of having a lover if all he's gonna with her is have cerebral conversations, that the point is to have as much s. relations and for it to be good.

Armando proceeds to say that that's why he has Marcela and that's the only thing that keeps them together.

Back to Aura Maria and Betty:

"Betty remember, nothing about cerebral relationships or intellectual or anything like that. A relationship is maintained by appearances, you keep it with the bed involved, mija, otherwise someone more experience comes along and takes him and you end up like the fool."

"No Aura Maria, truth be told, I think he admires me for who I am, for my knowledge, for my career but I don't think... I don't believe he desires me." she looks at her embarrassed and sadden.

"Ay Betty, be careful, because of that guy doesn't manifest himself seggsually break up with him, mija, break up because there's only two reasons. One he's gay or you don't inspire him at all." Betty looks off, worried and confused her self.

This is why Betty starts acting so...heavy in the next couple of dates because she's testing him to see if he does desire her, if he does want to be with her, if he is attracted to her because she knows! She is fully aware of how seggsual the man is.

Back to Mario and Armando.

Mario has now told him that s. is the best way to compliment a woman because it means you desire her however Armando tells him something.

"I don't desire her, I am not crazy about, especially now with that new look.(can't understand what he says at the end)"

When Mario and him talk about plastic surgery. He does entertain the idea but dismisses it when he says that Marcela wouldn't allow that as well as tell us that Marcela is so controlling that she checks his bank records. Personally, I don't care how many people think that Betty would agree to get that plastic surgery if Armando told her to, she wouldn't. She said it herself in previous episodes that she doesn't believe in plastic surgery and that true love goes beyond what is skin deep. She said so in the first episode and when Bertha was talking about getting lipo. She said that with her self-esteem being non-existing and having no ego and her ego has grown just a tad bit since starting that relationship with Armando.

Even in this same episode when Aura Maria tells her to get plastic surgery Betty tells her that she won't because that's for women who like to get attention, that she is more discreet. One could argue that for love Betty would do anything, but even for love she didn't go all out on her new look because though Betty is unconditional one cannot fight the subconscious nature of our brain and the desire to maintain itself safe so even if Armando did agree to the plastic surgery and told Betty about it she wouldn't go ahead because her issues are far beyond just skin deep and she knows that.

In the next scene Betty is faced with AA's picture on Armando's desk and we hear Betty remembering what Armando said about AA. As she stares at this picture Daniel walks into the office and clears his throat.

"How are you, Sir?" Betty hurried to stand by her office.

"Worried, displeased, surprised. You and I ma'am agreed that as soon as money came into the company that you'd deposite what was mine to my account and in my account there's nothing."

"Yes I understand, Sir. I'm embarrassed with you but we had to pay roster but by first hour tomorrow we'll deposite your money." Betty proceeds to smile. "You've got my word, Sir."

Daniel proceeds to look her up and down and tell her "Is your word as serious as your look." and her proud smile disappears. "'cause that attire, that hairdo, more than an assistant to presidency, you look like an circus assistant." Betty stares at him hurt.

"Excuse me?"

"Yes I know Armando is a clown and that this entire company is just clownery but that doesn't mean that you should be dressed like one. You have to have a little discretion."

Betty here tries to stand up for herself and tells him "Excuse me Sir but you're offending me."

"No the one that's offending here is you." and Armando is seen walking towards his office, through the open double doors we see him stop on his tracks and look at Betty. "What were you thinking? When you got dressed in that clothing? What went through your head when you were doing your hair? Did you think you looked devine?" Armando now looks at the back of the head of Daniel like a bullseye. "No ma'am you look worse, so much worse."

"Sir please, respect me. You're treading on something personal."

"Tsk tsk tsk. I'm butting into the imagine of my company. Do us the favor to come like a normal person. Are you convinced that because you have a boyfriend(Armando for a second unfocused and turned to look at Betty and then focuses again on Daniel and his anger) you can do what you want and finish with peoples retina? Please, pity humanity."

"Daniel Valencia." Armando prepares to yell at him furiously. "Get the hell out of my office! Now."

"Hello Armando." Daniel turns to him.

"Hello nothing! Get out of my office now! and stop disrespecting my assistant."

"The one who is disrespecting everything here is her. She is disrespecting aesthetics, the company, the retina. Someone with such an important title. Someone who practically manages the company under the incapability of her president. Someone who has under her command a company that designs style, fad, and color can't be dressed like that."

"What? Did you not understand me Daniel Valencia? Get out! Now!" Armando grabs him by the caller of his blazer and they spin(honestly this reminds me of valet lmbo).

"Sir, please."

"Out!"

"Be very careful. I am not one of your clowns. Don't you ever place your hands over me again."

"Oh no?"

"Much less push me."

"You didn't like that Danielito? You didn't like that?" He moves to grab him again but Betty goes to hold him back. "What then? What then!" He yells.

"Sir, please." Betty pleas.

"Get out!"

"I understand that you defend the economist but her bad taste?"

This retaliates in him understand that Armando in the past defended Betty's job in Eco Moda and that he was aware that she is smart but for him to defend her on something so personal, he doesn't.(You're blind, Danny boy).

"No then, Tarzan and cheetah(someone explain this to me... why cheetah? Tarzan killed it.)."

Now lets bring the previous post and this one to a concluding halt with the following break down.

After watching this exact scene so many times I feel confident in my understanding of what we are being shown and told here.

In this exact day, when Betty wasn't around, Armando showed to be upset and furious at Marcela, Patty, and Hugo for their jokes about Betty's new look and the jokes they were making about her boyfriend. Since Betty wasn't around we can conclude that it wasn't projecting or him faking it because he didn't have to prove anything to her right there since she wasn't even there.

Now in this scene Betty's eyes are always on Daniel, never drifting or shifting between Daniel and Armando but focused solely on Daniel and what he is saying. You can tell she's upset, hurt, feeling humiliated but even then she respectfully tries to stand up for herself. Since Betty hasn't taken notice of Armando in the background and Armando isn't even paying attention to Betty but solely focused on Daniel we can asume he isn't doing this for show but in fact feels furious at Daniel exclusively for the way he is talking to Betty.

For a moment though he does look away from Daniel and that's when he mentions that Betty has a boyfriend like all of a sudden he's been hit with the ole "Betty has a boyfriend?" and then realization comes "Right. I'm her boyfriend." and he returns to focus on Daniel. Why is that the thought I decided was in Armando's mind at the time? Because he blinks repeatedly and looks confused for a second before no longer being confused. It's either that or he wondered if Betty told him about the boyfriend or how he found out but decides not to care and only focus on his anger.

Armando up to this point has always been very composed towards Daniel, never shy to to show his dislike and even hatred towards him, however he's never been close to throwing hands. Even when he yelled at him to mind his business(RagTela telling betty they'd give her a commission of 10% if she got them the business deal with Eco Moda and Danny Boy went and snitched on her.) he did so because he was mad that he wouldn't let him do anything in the company without spying on him and he wanted to be left alone but he didn't even make a move to throw hands, he just yelled. This time, just like that night before, Armando is ready to throw hands.

Why does he do this with everyone else except Mario? With Mario, though he says that he doesn't like Betty's new look, that he doesn't have the imagination to sleep with her, and that she's ugly, he doesn't really talk make fun of her. He complains(this doesn't make it okay) but he doesn't say the really cruel things that Mario does and he says really bad things about Betty, like naming a list of all her physical flaws and not once does Armando stop him. He doesn't even tell him to shut up or look angry like in the past. This time he looks concerned, worried, and pained.

While yes he does hate that people devalue and disrespect Betty he doesn't have the balls to actually defend her to Mario and that plays such a huge role. It also shows that Armando is still very much in denial and ignorance towards his attraction to Betty.

Betty is visibly hurt here. She tries not to frown while Daniel says all these awful things to her and even then tries to be respectful while she defends herself. She don't need no man.

When Daniel leaves Armando takes notice of Betty's arms around him, holding him back and though he looks panicked for a second he rolls his eyes and turns to comfort her(see he's forced to place Betty's needs before his own).

"Easy Betty. I just don't like it when people mess with you, for them to bother your or make fun of you." He gently passes the back of his hand against Betty's face in an affectionate way(which he's been doing a lot more as their dates progress 😏).

"Don't worry, Sir, because he's right." Betty turns around and walks to her office while Armando disagrees. When Betty shuts the door to her office Armando stays in his and turns to look at the opposite direction, sits on his desk, and looks thoughtful.

Like I mentioned in the last post; Armando is being forced to accept Betty's appearance and not only because of what Mario told him but because he has witnesses everyone making fun of her while he is now having stronger feelings towards Betty.

This is such an important thing for him to achieve, not only because of his feelings but because this literally is what moves him to be more accepting of said feelings because you really do start to see Armando become more attentive to Betty. He becomes more affectionate, little by little like touching her face a lot more frequent(if I were Betty I'd tell him to keep his hands off my face because acne, like hello?) wanting to kiss her and not pulling away right away.

At the ending this all comes full circle. These episodes are critical to what happens on the B-Day episodes and Armando's reaction for not knowing it was her B-Day.

BONUS:

When Armando enters her office and tells her to not listen to Daniel Betty tells him that it wouldn't hurt her if was all just speculation but she thinks he's right about her new look. Armando lies and tells her her new look is great and she looks devine.

"Really Sir?" Betty looks at him, "Because It for you, only for you. So you could see me differently." She says timidly and laughs softly. Armando's entire expression softens and a smile creeps on his face while he stares at Betty.

He's happy to know that Betty would do something only to make him happy, which again, shows that Betty is the first person to ever truly love Armando while the same thing could be said that Armando is the first person to truly ever love Betty.

Though Armando is lying straight outta his...teeth this is different under context because he's not lying to keep Betty in an affair that means he gets to prove he's better than Nicolas and that Nicolas won't take away his company which is a disguise for his fear that he'll take Betty(though he is worried about Eco Moda too except it's not really his main priority). This time Armando is lying to her to not destroy her self-esteem. In his mind what he is doing is telling her a white lie while also convincing her to go back to her old look. Yes he's lying here but at least it isn't all based on selfish things.

Imma be real with ya, it really concerns me how they NEVER shut the doors in his office whenever they're having "romantic" moments in the office, like yeah son no one is going to walk in there and overhear y'all talking about love and ish.

Anyway again, I need sleep.

'Til next time :)