#and even now they find themselves still stuck in that same mindset from when they were five and overheard their parents discuss their debt

[vibbybee]

“and then I go and spoil it all by saying something stupid like [it’s not enough]” cho

[year2000electronics]

do you have any tips or suggestions for someone wanting to make their own oc story? your ocs and their stories are so insanely cool but i have no idea where i’d even begin to make one!

also happy y2kvr-versary ! late i know but it was still the ask blog that caused me to follow you and i’ve just stuck around for your other content after. :)

HMMMM lemme just spill a bunch of my thoughts all at once, this is just some stuff i personally like doing with my own oc stories! by no means is this a comprehensive list and i am not a professional!

1. accept the fact that you’re probably going to need minor/side characters. of course that isn’t always the case, there are story types that only focus on a handful of characters, but let’s use the reckoning as an example: even though i love all the characters there dearly, it’s about sinclair and his donning and subsequent subverting of the “mythological hero” mantle by taking on the vices’ challenge. montez and duncan, the other two archangels, are there to serve as a secondary antagonist in holy orders and bring some more life to the story’s world respectively, and That’s Okay. recognizing that not all your characters are gonna be the most specialest boys is a great place to start with structuring an oc story imo!

2. KEEP AT IT. the reckoning as it exists now didn’t truly come together until 2020, which is when the ask blog was made. cardine (the city the vices reside in) is such a key, important concept that drives the story along and the reckoning wouldn’t be nearly as good without it, and that only got introduced in one of the final drafts pre-ask blog!! reworks, practice with laying out the events, thinking and re-thinking of stuff and spending years with it is really good. it’s healthy. i mean a lot of great films and tv get ‘saved’ at the last minute from being terrible by one terrible concept being scrapped so revising and not being afraid to change things is your best friend

3. learn some rules. i’m of the firm belief that storytelling should be an all-access hobby for everyone, so you don’t have to read all of save the cat and then write out a full script or anything, but like. turn on a movie you like, or read a book you love. think about what they’re doing to convey primary themes to you. pick out the themes, actually, that’s good too. being able to pick up on themes that aren’t just being stated to you as if it’s dialogue from sonic heroes is a great teacher on how to subtly weave those themes into your story

4. don’t be afraid to break those rules! a lot of that stuff is great to pick up but at the same time they’re YOUR characters, and if you find yourself getting bored by playing too “by the book”, nobody said you can’t change how things work. for example, a lot of my oc stories have “villain protagonists” because i just really connect with the way ‘villains’ present themselves in media. if you find yourself fixating on a side character and brushing your main character aside? screw it! you can just make the story about them! what if a 7/11 clerk went on an adventure instead of the main guy!!

5. INSPIRATION IS YOUR FRIEND. WEAR IT ON YOUR SLEEVE. i don’t mean you have to publicly disclose every single thing you were inspired by, but the amazing digital circus is REALLY big right now, and gooseworx has told people IHNMAIMS and the raggedy ann movie were big inspos and she clearly loves those things because they uplift the work higher! (plus it gave people a new appreciation for those things) and, imo, understanding what inspires you and celebrating it is a lot better of a mindset than going into something out of sheer spite (like you’ll see a lot of people online making very inflammatory “i alone could fix a piece of media that had to go through an entire writer’s room as well as corporate mandates, gosh why doesn’t everyone just Make Things Good?” type posts on social media, and i find myself straying more and more away from that). best example i can think of are all those very ill-fated “original alien stories” that su criticals made back in the day that were even more confusing than the gems and everyone had to pretend that “of course it makes more sense for the aliens to be flowers, gosh, why didn’t rebecca sugar think of this? we’re so smart”. my point is hate and shame can fizzle out quickly but creativity is forever

6. and of course, always make sure you’re actually having a good experience with the process. fun, catharsis, importance, etc. if it sucks, you can literally hit the bricks. i say that with experience because before my original superhero story existed (iris of the storm), there was another (problem students). it was dormant as a story for a really long time because i had accidentally made a superhero story without any of the superhero tropes i loved, but i couldn’t just… delete it all! OH WAIT. YES I COULD. i started it all over and got rid of ocs that i was glad i made but don’t need anymore, and i’ve never been happier cos iris of the storm is actually fun for me.

BUT YEAH THATS IT. thumbs up

[heliosoll]

Jay how do you deal with certain realities that you want to shift to but have circumstance that are vastly different from this reality? for example if you were from an isolated country like NK or a war-torn country and war was all that you associated your country with but now you want to imagine that same country as a peaceful and developed one.

this question might seem weird but it's a problem that several friends of mine who have actually shifted struggle with, they would go to different realities easily but when it comes to situations like the one mentioned above they just fail to shit and mostly find themselves in different realities where the circumstances are still the same.

I have a lot of thoughts about that actually! I'm going to put them under a keep reading section since not everyone will want to see this.

TW: discussion of trauma and mental illness

People tend to identify themselves with their trauma. It makes sense, when things are traumatizing, it changes a person. It can change your personality, your fears, anxieties, how you think about life, how you act around others. It's especially damaging when people are stuck in that traumatized, survival mode for years. At that point, it feels like there's no return - like you'll never be able to get to a point where you don't feel or know that trauma.

And that's not necessarily true, but it's hard to get out of that mindset, especially if you're still living through it. Some people might call this a victim mindset but honestly I hate that, it's really a survivor's mindset. I mean, picture it this way, if someone lived through a zombie apocalypse for their entire life, it'd be odd to see them suddenly switch up and be okay even if you took them somewhere safe. Surviving has become their main goal and so much of what they do, how they think, and how they act is going to be based on survival. Expecting them to just... be okay after that is insane imo. It takes time and healing for people to accept a new, non-traumatizing lifestyle when they've known that pain for so long.

A lot of shifters struggle with this because it's hard to imagine separating yourself from the pain of normal day life in certain realities. If you live in a reality with war or murder or assault, that shapes the way you think, even if you've never personally been through it. It's hard to imagine yourself without the pain, fear, and anxiety that comes with living in these traumatizing realities. People know that they would think and act differently if they never had to deal with it, and that's why it's so hard to get away from it. You're not just shifting to a different reality, you're changing aspects of your own identity and personality.

As for how to actually deal with this, acknowledging it is the first step. After that, it really depends on the person. Some people find it helpful to just stubbornly shift to their DR without thinking about it. Others find it helpful to imagine how they might change in response to a safer, better reality. Or they might find it helpful to get excited about their DR and be relentlessly positive about these changes. And others find it more helpful to address their current trauma, fears, and anxiety before shifting. It really depends on the individual as everyone has different coping mechanisms and thoughts toward mental health.

Personally, I like to be really stubborn about shifting even when I know it'll be startling and potentially upsetting to see a reality that's so much nicer than others. It can make you feel really envious of people who were "born" in these nicer realities and it brings up thoughts of what you're getting away from. It's... not for everyone, but I know that being stubborn and just shifting regardless of how I'll feel later works for me in the end.

For your friends, I'd recommend asking them if they're thinking about the realities or themselves. For example, is it hard for them to imagine a reality that doesn't suck or is it hard to imagine themselves in a reality that doesn't suck? Are they unconsciously identifying themselves with their trauma? Do they feel like they wouldn't know who they are without their trauma? Are they overthinking what a better reality would be like to experience? Just get them to think about what could be "blocking" them so to speak. (obviously, nothing can actually block you - it's all in the mind.)

[thesherrinfordfacility]

the analysis on aziraphale that exactly one person asked for✨ and that i churned out at a speed that surprised even me, but i wanted to get it out without having seen s2 on 26th/28th and therefore being influenced in any way with further aziraphale content...

anyway, i said in an ask that i find aziraphale really challenging and emotional to analyse but by god am i going to do my best✨ (im not sure when exactly i gained the emerging reputation for calling out two of my favourite literary characters, but we move-)

aziraphale has a real big issue with faith, misplacing that faith, and turning that faith into idolising certain things. now the obvious one is the blind, naive faith in heaven. there's also arguably, at times, issues with his faith in humanity, in that his faith was placed elsewhere (see above re: heaven). but lastly, he also has an issue with his faith in crowley. ive waxed lyrical on the last one already, but didn't really delve into the effect that this has directly on crowley, so let's touch in this a little now.

similarly to what i feel about crowley, i think that whilst aziraphale has a more natural affinity for kindness and compassion, im not entirely convinced that he is inherently a good person - certainly not in the show, in any case.

he is however certainly more 'good' than the majority of his kin. and not all of that is due to his literal being an angel, because we know first hand that being angelic is not synonymous with good. we know that other angels actively distort the perception of their association with 'good' (michael when talking to ligur, "of course you can trust me... im an angel!") to benefit themselves. ultimately, the literal antithesis of altruism, and so it can't be the case that aziraphale has propensity for good just because he's an angel.

as far as we are aware, he has had the relatively same experiences, on earth particularly, as crowley. the only notable exception to this is the fall, which obviously aziraphale did not go through. crowley comes out of the fall, in my opinion, very much stuck at that point in time, and hasn't truly moved on or grown from it, mentally or emotionally. so all of his experiences through the next 6000 years have been endured whilst he's still in this almost childlike mindset. this mindset might be due to (if we're applying human emotional concepts here) abandonment trauma, and a part of me agrees, but i think its predominantly out of bitterness, resentment, and possibly even arrogance and plain denial.

aziraphale however did not go through the fall, and therefore when we see him skipping through time and into the present day (s1 era), he still holds a stake of faith in heaven and its machinations. however, what sets him apart from the other angels is that he has had experiences that they have not, by virtue of being on earth and experiencing first- and second-hand the repurcussions that heaven's games have on humanity... the community that aziraphale is now essentially exiled to be a part of. part of what aziraphale has learnt, i think (and was pointed out very succinctly by the Longwinded Anon✨ in a previous ask - now officially their name), is literally how to learn from error.

aziraphale's faith in heaven gets torn down when he realises that they are choosing to retcon humanity just to be able to prove to hell that they are superior. this is something that aziraphale ultimately perpetuated in his compliancy and inaction where heaven's overall agenda is concerned, but also in his blind faith that heaven surely wouldn't want the earth destroyed, god's ultimate creation... surely not? well, that proves to be the case, and aziraphale finally twigs that heaven was not a Good Place. it was his error - his blind faith in and subservience to heaven - but he learns from it.

his faith in humanity is still a work in progress for most of s1, in that he has one foot in thinking that they are capable of great things, but also one foot out because he knows that they have capacity to wreak utter horror and terror all by themselves (just as crowley remarks time and time again). however, he has his growth moment where this is concerned, in the form of accepting that humanity is truly a mix of both good and evil, and that without one, humanity cannot truly be defined as the other. he expresses this revelation to adam during the timestop; that adam is human incarnate by being neither good nor evil, but perhaps a mix of both. it feels like an apology, an apology that could be interpreted as one aziraphale is giving to all of humankind. he's apologising for not committing to his faith in them. it was an error - but he learns from it.

but what about crowley? well, as already agonised over, he goes so far in having faith in crowley that, in my opinion, he's built crowley in his mind to be someone else entirely, and yet somehow exactly who crowley is. aziraphale knows that crowley is altogether a bit of a bastard (understatement, frankly), but he trusts that crowley will always know what the right - good - thing to do is. is this misguided, misplaced? yes, i think it is. and i think crowley knows this, at least on some level, and again in his arrogance takes advantage of this.

but what effect does aziraphale's faith have on crowley? well, i don't necessarily think it has a detrimental effect on him, because i think it ultimately benefits crowley - who, again, in his childlike mindset still, has someone who believes in him and will follow him and want to know him. id even say that crowley, faced with the prospect that one wrong move he could end up truly alone, will peversely do some pretty questionable things to keep this. a specific highlight being the tempting aziraphale to kill warlock; if he were truly trusting in aziraphale, i think he'd actually ask and explain why he needs aziraphale to do it instead of him. instead, he tries to tempt him into it and giving him quite underhanded rationalisations as to why it's necessary. this comes to a head at the bandstand when aziraphale flips this on its head, and suggests that given that he's an angel, and crowley is a demon, it should be crowley that does it.

this is where i come to the point where i think aziraphale fails as a friend and possibly is equally damaging to crowley as vice versa; he holds his status as an angel over crowley's head. he remarks pretty consistently throughout that crowley is a demon, and he is an angel; whilst on one level this is just simply an observation, it also feels like he has to clarify the power and status imbalance for a specific reason. im not necessarily clear on what this reason is, but my main thought is that it's out of insecurity with his place in heaven, amongst the angels, on earth... and with crowley.

he seems to constantly need to reassert himself as the better of the two, and at times can be outright patronising ("I am an angel, you are a demon, we are hereditary enemies... get thee behind me, foul fiend!"). now some of this equally is for comedy's sake, and in part for exposition to us as the viewer, but the clear integral theme for me is that he expects crowley to just accept it, and not to challenge it. because of course, how could crowley challenge it? it's true, it's a fact.

but the way i kind of interpret these moment is that aziraphale reiterates it very purposefully whenever crowley begins to toe the line of, 'im a demon but i might possibly want to be better than a demon... not an angel, per se, but just better'. so we can take this as crowley finally wanting to move on from his Fall-mindset, and he needs the support of his friend to do it, but his friend won't let him due to his own insecurity and instability. does he fear that crowley would supplant him? or that crowley would stop needing him? start pulling away from him, when all this time these two lonely individuals have danced around in orbit of each other, locked together in a holding pattern borne out of their respective co-dependent necessity for each other?

aziraphale's ultimately a very lonely individual; crowley was, for whatever reason he fell, ripped away from the kinship and camaraderie that he felt in heaven. but aziraphale wasn't shown this kind of perverse mercy; he has to feel the debilitating agony of knowing that on paper he still belongs, but that instead he's ostracised from heaven because of who he inherently is and has continued to become because of his experiences in earth. it stands to reason therefore that he puts crowley on a pedestal as aziraphale originally saw, and wants to see, him. he selfishly (imo) keeps trying to contain crowley, because if he changed, and then suddenly found he doesn't have any need of aziraphale anymore... well, what purpose would remain for aziraphale, a purpose that he truly cares about, if crowley's dependency were to disappear?

where would that leave aziraphale?

[teaveetamer]

The idea that "criticizing female wrongdoers is evil" is not exclusive to Edelgard stans, unfortunately.

Back when Once Upon a Time was on the air, Regina Mills committed mass murder, rape, brainwashing, etc. Yet she had a similar "Cult of Personality" fanbase that would constantly scream at you at the top of their lungs if you criticized Regina even slightly. And they actually managed to succeed in turning Regina into a "Black Hole Sue" that constantly had everyone (including her biggest victims) kiss her ass.

And in the Avatar fandom, Azula fans have gotten crazier, screaming at the top of their lungs that Zuko is a terrible person because he ran away from the sister who tormented him for years.

And in the Castlevania fandom, fans make excuses for Lenore, who treated Hector like a sex slave through magical enslavement.

And don't even get anon started on Ragyo Kiryuin from Kill la Kill, who sexually abused her own daughter, and still had fans make excuses for her.

Something about modern fandom culture seems to drive people to worship female abusers and murderers, as if women aren't subject to the same laws and consequences as other people. It's a dangerous mindset, and worst of all, it's spreading.

Every generation of young people becomes the next generation of leaders, and anon fears for the future when these people will eventually be running the world.

I feel like female antagonists are a lightning rod for it right now, but I wouldn't say it's even exclusive to fictional women. I wouldn't even say it's really a modern fandom culture problem. It's a human problem. Humans in general have a fascination with authority, power, and confidence. That's why authoritarian regimes rise and fall throughout all of human history, and why so many of our oldest tales are about remaining humble and not abusing power.

It is something we have dealt with countless times before, and it's something we will continue to deal with until we destroy it or it destroys us.

I find several things far more concerning for the future of our society than the media being consumed and/or justified by modern fandom. Because I don't think media causes the problem, I think the way fans behave about media is a symptom of the problem (and sometimes that behavior needs to be called out, but it's not the media's fault necessarily).

Speaking as an American, I think the biggest thing threatening our youth, at this point, is the infantalization of adolesence, the ridiculous amount of monitoring and controlling of children and teens, and the intense social isolation born from essentially being a prisoner in your own home until you're 16 years old (and longer if your family can't afford to get you your license or a car).

I don't honestly believe that most kids and teens would spend so much time consuming media and arguing about it on the internet, basically living tethered to social media, if they were allowed to walk to the park by themselves and play with their friends, or if a teen could reliably get to their friends' house across town and hang out somewhere with them where they wouldn't be seen as a nuisance or dangerous, or if they could get to meetups and hobbies and meet people without needing to beg mom and dad for a ride every time. No one wants to be terminally online, but what choice do a lot of kids even have these days? When walking to the corner store down the street is so dangerous that it's basically a death sentence, because there's no sidewalks and everyone is driving Sherman tank sized SUVs and trucks 25 miles over the limit?

Like I was a kid before a lot of this stuff was getting really bad, and even I feel like I was robbed because I had to waste so much of my adolescence stuck behind a screen. There was no one to talk to IRL unless you were lucky enough to live in the same neighborhood as your friends (I did not), nowhere to go, nothing to do, and no way to get there until I turned 16. That's absolute murder on your mental health, so it's no wonder kids are latching onto anything to fill the gaps.

And I dunno. It's sad that these days our childhoods are defined not by who we knew or where we went or what we did, but by what corporate schlock we consumed.

That's not even getting into how that extreme isolation and inability to escape intensifies abusive environments. Imagine being a 14 year old queer kid in a hostile household, and the nearest LGBTQ+ community center is a 45 minute drive away. Not only are you stuck in an environment that's rapidly deteriorating your mental (and possibly physical) health, you need to ask your abusers to drive you to the place where you might find community, acceptance, and resources. That, or you need to get very adept at figuring out who is a safe adult to ask for that stuff, with the knowledge that every person you tell risks outing you to even more people who might wish you harm, or bringing backlash on you in the home.

Just. Fuck car-centric infrastructure, okay? Fuck it all to hell. I hate it here. Bully your representatives at every level of government to transition to walkable, human-scale cities with mixed use development as the standard. It's better for the environment, better for your health (both mental and physical), better for the community, and better for life. I genuinely believe this is one of the problems that, if we fix it, is going to domino effect into fixing a whole lot of other shit.

I got a little off topic, look up Not Just Bikes on Youtube he's great at presenting persuasive arguments you can bring around to your representatives.

[sonoda-oomers]

i think it was shanspear on youtube that raised this point that really stuck with me. it might be impossible to have productive conversations about AI when there's still so much profit incentive behind it.

like people are not that naive. they can acknowledge how exciting it could be to make an image from their imagination with the help of a machine. they can see the interesting and thought provoking potentials of machine generated art. i doubt i'm the only one who thinks the AI art = evil mindset has a bit too far especially when it's led to more kneejerk reactions against machine calculated tech that has existed since forever like video game npc behaviors. all of the conversations online feel so jarring when real world consequences actually happen like adobe kneeing in on the topic to tighten the noose on copyright laws to profit corporations even more. when it comes to the everyday person arguing on the internet, both sides are being played

and then somebody who heard about the adobe bullshit sees the writers and actors strike demanding against AI and opposes that bc now suddenly anti-AI is bad

and the thing is i can't really blame that person nor the anti-AI artists who probably supported the adobe bullshit before they knew the outcome. bc like. AI rapidly taking over really came out of nowhere to the average person and i think it's really unfair to expect people to immediately know the ins and outs of it. it's like when nfts were popping and artists were suddenly expected to navigate ideas from fields they have no knowledge of to legit culty mentalities, they're expected to know so much just to argue with some guy who doesn't know the first thing about what makes a drawing nice to look at. can you really blame every artists for not being able to write dissertations on how AI works and why they think it's illegitimate and should be regulated? they're busy actually making art and managing 14 social media accounts at once to keep themselves relevant and in the eyes of potential client so they can affording fucking rent. if they're presented copyright laws as a crutch to get this problem out of their mind of course they're going to take that as an argument, and may even support it.

like hell back in the nft days japanese artists got sold the system as a way to really combat disrespectful usage of their art by other people when in truth it did none of that, the market in fact encouraged theft.

ignorance is objectively bad, but at the same time can you really blame them when these techs keep seemingly pop out of nowhere and spawn societal issues and artists feel like now they have to have a stem degree and become a fucking humanitarian to tell people to Stop. when the simple fact is it really fucking sucks to work on your craft for so many years, to actually put in effort and spirit to do a good job, and then find out your potential clients would be fine with what a machine took 5 seconds to spit out. while artists are arguing with little twitter gremlins gloating to them about how artists are nothing compared to AI, some publications are already using AI instead of commissioning illustrators, and in every industry people are legit getting replaced by AI bc it costs less and it saves the suits at the top from having to treat people like people. and then you realize you can't really argue against the fact that human CAN be replaced. but you know just because it's true doesn't mean that it's good and should be allowed to continue. and no matter what opinion you hold there's corporations and agents and pr people left and right waiting to weaponize your feelings because there's money to be made money money money. the money that artists already weren't making before fucking algorithms could do their job for much less in return.

like i just wanna fucking draw man. and i think i'm allowed to hope to make a living from the skills i have. a few months ago posts kept coming out about how to watermark your art and use services to make sure really sure 100% sure this time that their art won't be added to a dataset. people delete their art after hearing about the theft, not knowing it's already been included in the dataset and there it will remain. do you know how fucking exhausting that is? there's a reason not everybody became a scientist or a programmer, we can never not live in a reality where we're not depending on other people to excel in what we can't and trusting that they're doing their job well. and then one day some guy in tech decides we're actually done depending on artists for being artists now, we want to make the money that they could make. every AI user can't help but think people with anti-AI criticism are attacking them personally. and it's not even those AI users that directly caused hollywood to want to screen actors' likeness to make a robot do their job forever and make execs so much fucking money.

[bezelatia-ematopea]

He was right, 100% hands down end of discussion. (REDDIT)

Considering the period of high musical ramifications (both technical and philosophical) in which Ravel lived, I suppose this quote refers to a personal distaste for the approach championed by Schoenberg and his peers, and then further developed by the likes of Boulez and Babbit.This is to say, a gradual prioritization of the figure of the composer compared to their listeners and a more technical view of music writing, eventually effectively perceived as "Science" which can (and should) get complex to the point in which a layman can no longer understand it.

That's a rather limited view of the spectral experience that serialism, and atonality in general, can bring though. In truth, most of the academic composers coming after the Second Viennese School could be accused of this same blindness, engulfed in their own perceived Elitism (I think about people like Wuorinen for example).Emotions aren't a consequence of the inner qualities of music but are rather a reflection of the tastes and backgrounds of the people experiencing it.

I think about cases such as Ives, whose upbringing made him sensitive to polytonality, or really, any child who lives in an academic music background right now.They are truly able to connect with a piece regardless of its components, simply because that's an aesthetic they have grown used to.As proof that any music can be appreciated as long as one's household is open-minded enough, we could also point out the case of Chaya Czernowin's son Ko who despite having both parents working in an academic context (her mother even being a major figure in the scene) still decided to move to the field of indie music.The whole family admitted being still able to "learn" from each other despite these differences, and I think that's a healthy mindset to have.

Always look for the new instead of getting stuck in the past, which is fine for entertainment purposes, but lacking for the soul in my opinion. After all, you won't even know whether you like something until you try it (in most cases, emotions are a rather complex, subjective, and ambiguous topic).So, I think music being more or less "intellectual" should make no difference to an open listener. All they need to do is to leave all preconceptions behind and try to enjoy the moment or work for what it is, which is an attitude best found in Noise and Experimental Music listeners. Don't look for the old, but for the new. This is the best way a person can grow and better understand themselves and the world.

Even considering the intentions of the composers themselves (which again, should have no authority over our feelings for a work) we should remember how most of the pieces by the Second Viennese School itself are rather romantic and full of lyrical intent.While I personally find all works by Schoenberg to have a rather melodic quality he never truly left, the more accessible Berg is closely related to Late Romanticism and the "ethereal" Webern never truly ventured into the extremist aesthetic of certain later works.Dallapiccola is known for using dodecaphony in such a way consonance and enjoyment are still a big part of his contributions, and most composers now use the method as a guideline for the discovery of alternative colorful harmonies.

I think the quote reflects the preoccupations of the time in which he lived, but now we know there is no music that is inherently more or less intellectual or emotional. These terms are simply as heavy as listeners and musicians make them out to be. Thanks to the internet, people are exposed to all kinds of ideas and aesthetics, and younger folks are among the most tolerant of listeners when it comes to new sounds (and peer pressure isn't involved).All music can be emotional, it's just up to us whether we want to feel it or not.

[thelazyhermits]

Gonna finally talk about Book 3 underneath the cut. Prepare yourselves for a very long post lol

Like Book 2, I’ve mentioned Book 3 in previous posts, but I definitely haven’t gone into as much detail as I’ve had with Book 2, which is why I wanted to make this post.

Since I’ve already mentioned this before, I won’t go into details about the start of Book 3, but I’ll give a basic summary of that part.

Right before Yuu and her friends go to check out the exam results, Yuu has a vision that shows her what kind of trouble the idiot trio has gotten themselves into, and she sees snippets of what’s supposed to happen when she and Jack go to the Mostro Lounge to investigate.

Because she’s upset with the idiot trio, Yuu chooses not to go after them and instead joins Jack at the Savanaclaw dorm and hangs out with him, Leona, and Ruggie to de-stress like I mentioned in a previous post. 

She refrains from going to the lounge because she deems it unnecessary since she’s already gotten the info she needs thanks to her vision, and she wants her friends to suffer the consequences of their actions for at least a little while. 

Originally, I had Yuu receiving more visions and starting her planning while at the Savanaclaw dorm, but I’ve change my mind and want to spread things out a little bit.

However, Yuu does tell the SC guys that, even though it would be smarter to leave the idiot trio to suffer, she won’t, because, even without her Quirk, she already knows that Crowley is gonna approach her about this. She can feel it in her very tired bones lol

Plus, while she wants her friends to learn their lesson, she doesn’t want them to be enslaved to Azul for the rest of their time at NRC. She may be upset with them, but she’s not that mad.

Most importantly, she needs to drive home that important lesson of: Nobody messes with what’s hers and gets away with it, not without her permission.

Those are her idiots, and she does not approve of Azul doing as he pleases with them.

Because she intends to get involved/really has no choice in the matter, Leona/Ruggie secretly tell Jack to keep an eye on her cause they don’t want her doing anything stupid, and Jack agrees since he feels he owes her for helping out Savanaclaw during Book 2. (And they’ve started to become friends by this point thanks to their morning jobs and exam study sessions, but of course, he won’t admit that lol)

Just as she half-expected, when Yuu returns to Ramshackle, she finds Crowley waiting for her, so he can dump the task of stopping Azul on her like he does in canon lol

While it’s exasperating, Yuu is still in the mindset of “I need to make myself useful if I want to remain here and not get sent back home.” So she doesn’t want to do anything to get on Crowley’s bad side.

However, she still finds herself asking him what would happen if she didn’t accept the task, which leads to him making the same threat he does in canon.

Obviously, Yuu doesn’t want to lose the funding he’s been providing her, so she quickly agrees to accept the task.

(As far as Yuu’s mindset is concerned, it eventually does change, so she’s not stuck on always pleasing Crowley. Eventually, she grows comfortable enough to realize that she shouldn’t be afraid of getting sent back since he’s clearly not putting any real effort into finding a way home for her. Plus, she has friends who will support her if Crowley doesn’t, so she doesn’t have to always bend to his whims.

Of course, more often than not, she does have to follow Crowley’s orders since she’s just that unlucky lol)

That night, as she’s thinking over how the hell she’s going to solve this mess, Yuu gets a vision that shows her making a deal with Azul and learns that he’s after Ramshackle.

And then it all makes sense. Now, she gets why the Octotrio reached out to her in the first place. Azul had his eye on Ramshackle as a potential branch for the Mostro Lounge and it became a viable option once it started getting renovated thanks to Crowley, who did the bare basics, and Leona, who pretty much gave the interior an entire overhaul.

Now, all the little comments here and there about her dorm that were made while she was working at the lounge make sense. The guys were gleaning info out of her, and she was none the wiser since she never expected anyone to take an interest in that former dump of all things.

Yuu had always been suspicious of her first encounter with the Octotrio, but she never could figure out what their goal was. Now, she has finally figured it out.

Since she knew there was some kind of ulterior motive to them getting friendly with her, Yuu doesn’t really feel betrayed/used. She’s just annoyed that she gave them info that they wanted without realizing it since she thinks she should be smarter than that.

And honestly, she’s a little impressed with how smart Azul is and how smoothly he handled this whole situation, which is one reason why she’s somewhat reluctant to stop him since he put in a lot of hard work to make this scheme work and he technically didn’t cheat so he earned all that enslaved labor “fair & square”.

As I’ve mentioned before, Yuu really likes/admires hardworking guys, so Azul is someone she respects as a boss and as an upperclassmen. So she normally wouldn’t go out of her way to cross him.

However, Yuu has to make an exception this time since Azul is essentially picking a fight with her. She can’t just allow him to target her friends and do whatever he wants with them without retaliating. 

That’s why Yuu won’t back down from this challenge. If Azul wants to enter a battle of wits with her, so be it. She’ll make sure he regrets messing with her and what’s hers.

That night, Yuu starts having dreams about the Little Mermaid and memories of Azul’s past which continue for the next few days. One thing that’s different here is that she sees Azul’s memories from his POV which isn’t what happened with RIddle’s & Leona’s memories. I wanted to do that since I didn’t wanna ruin the surprise of Azul’s appearance as a kid which Yuu is going to love haha

The following day proceeds like in canon with Yuu & Jack observing Azul, which was Jack’s idea. Even though she already has a decent grasp of Azul’s character thanks to having worked under him, Yuu goes along with the idea in case there’s more info she can glean.

All the while, Yuu spends the whole day going over countless strategies, trying to figure out what she needs to do to beat Azul at his own game.

In the end, Yuu realizes that she really only has two options: Make the deal or find a way to destroy those contracts.

The latter would obviously be the most preferable, but Yuu is smart enough to realize that there’s no way that such a feat would be easy, even with her being a part-time employee at the Mostro Lounge since she has no doubt that she’d be under constant surveillance while there.

Plus, considering what she saw in her vision when Azul’s victims tried to attack him, it didn’t look like the contracts could be destroyed. However, Yuu finds it hard to believe that they’re truly indestructible because, just like with Quirks, every great power has a drawback. There’s no such thing as a completely invincible power.

Considering what she has seen of Azul’s office in the Mostro Lounge, Yuu figures that he must keep the contracts in that huge safe he has. It’s the only feasible option, considering how many contracts he must have written to enslave all the guys she saw in her vision about the sea anemone first appearing.

Since Yuu has no idea how to break into the safe, that’s not really an option for her. Even if she could do that, she knows it would be heavily guarded.

As long as Jade & Floyd are a viable threat, Yuu doesn’t want to approach the lounge carelessly. While her agreement with Azul protects her from serious harm, she still doesn’t want to know what will happen to her if she gets caught trying to steal/destroy those contracts.

No matter how she looks at it, Yuu will need to make that deal despite how risky it is for her. Of course, she doesn’t think her chances of getting that picture from the museum are any better than her chances of getting ahold of those contracts.

Yuu is smart enough to know there has to be a catch. There’s no way getting that picture will be easy, so either the security at the museum is state of the art or Azul will set a trap to prevent her from getting to the picture and that trap will likely involve Jade & Floyd who have the freedom to interfere unlike Azul.

(By this point, Yuu knows that the guys are mermen, so she know that, if Jade & Floyd are sent after her, she won’t stand a chance.

Of course, she feels that about them on land too since she knows how dangerous those two are lol)

Neither of her options look good to Yuu, but thankfully, she eventually gets the idea of combining them so as to make an option where she actually stands a chance.

The way she sees it, Yuu needs to pretend to play Azul’s game if she hopes to get him to let his guard down. She needs more information about him and his contracts as well as info on the Tweels if possible, and the best way to get info out of people is to get their guards down.

Yuu needs to make Azul think that he’s winning and has the advantage. Only then does she think she’ll be able to notice some chinks in his seemingly impenetrable armor. 

Which is why, when she and Jack eventually head to the Mostro Lounge at Jade’s invitation like in canon, she goes there with the intention of making that deal.

Like in the game, Jade initially tells Yuu/Jack that Azul has a client with him, so they’ll have to wait a little bit. Then, there’s the scenario of Ace complaining about the heavy workload.

However, unlike canon, Ace doesn’t try to drag Yuu/Jack into helping. He does consider it, but before he can get those words out, he sees the unimpressed glare Yuu, who realizes what he’s about to do, is wearing and promptly shuts his mouth like a smart boy lol 😂

At this point, Yuu’s not in a good mood, both because of what Ace almost pulled and because Jade had been roughing him and Deuce up right in front of her, which earned Jade an irritated glare. Jade, of course, just found her reaction amusing.

Not only that, Jade brought up the “You’ll have to buy a drink if you stay in our lounge” rule. Like hell, Yuu was giving up her hard earned money like that. It doesn’t matter that it’s not a lot of money; it’s the principle of the matter lol

So Yuu is ready to take Jack out of there, claiming that she’ll just come back on another day when Azul isn’t busy since she’s not in any hurry to talk to him.

(She is not fond of being manipulated, so she is ready and willing to put her foot down. She wants them to see that she is not someone to be trifled with.)

Before she can leave, Azul arrives on the scene and secretly wonders what happened to leave Yuu looking this irritated since he’s not used to seeing her like this lol

After shooting some suspicious looks at the obviously amused twins, Azul invites Yuu & Jack into his office and things proceed like in canon.

The only real difference to mention is that Yuu clears any misconceptions of her doing all this just for the sake of saving her friends cause she’s too nice.

While it’s true she wants to save them, Yuu also feels they deserve their current fate because they reaped what they sowed, so she was honestly conflicted about the whole matter, although she definitely didn’t want them stuck as Azul’s slaves for the whole time they’re at NRC.

Saving her friends and Crowley’s order to take care of this situation are two reasons for why Yuu is doing all this, but her main reason, above all else, is that she refuses to back down after Azul picked a fight with her by going after her idiots.

Yuu has her pride, and that pride demands that she make an example of Azul to show him and everyone else at this school what happens when you mess with someone under her protection.

(She had no choice but to be looked down on, taken advantage of, etc. while she was in the underworld, but she refuses to allow that to happen here where she finally has the freedom to fight back.)

She throws down the gauntlet and tells Azul that she’ll play his game and win, so he’s going to see how dangerous she can be when she’s serious. While she likes/respects Azul, she has no intention to go easy on him, so he best prepare himself.

Jade & Floyd naturally get a big kick out of this. Meanwhile, Azul maintains his usual professional demeanor and acts like he’s unaffected by her words; he will never admit that he felt a chill run down his spine when he saw the scary glint in her eyes lol

After the deal has been made and Yuu gets all her stuff out of Ramshackle, which is now in the possession of Azul, she finds herself outside with Jack and the idiot trio.

(Jade had offered her a room at their dorm for a “reasonable” price which she promptly refused. Then, Floyd said she could share his room with him, and she refused that offer even quicker cause she knew nothing good could come from that idea, considering the broad grin he was wearing lol)

Ace/Deuce make the same offer as in canon for Yuu/Grim to stay at their dorm since they’ve gotten Riddle’s permission. However, rather than her share a bed with the guys, Riddle said Ace/Deuce would have to share one while Yuu/Grim get the other one because he won’t allow a girl and guy to share a bed in his dorm lol

Jack also offers up Savanaclaw, and Yuu takes him up on that offer since she knows that his dorm has an available room since she has spent the night there before.

However, she tells Grim to go stay with Ace/Deuce since she wants the three to spend some time together reflecting on their mistakes and wants them to realize why she’s so irritated with them since Grim still doesn’t understand why she’s still so upset.

At this point, none of the three have given Yuu a proper, genuine apology, so she still hasn’t forgiven them for getting themselves and her into this huge mess. 

Until they show true remorse, Yuu has decided to remain angry with them since it seems only fair.

However, despite feeling this way, Yuu does express some regret over this decision when she’s later walking with Jack to his dorm. Since she trusts him to be honest with her, she asks him if she’s doing the right thing in regards to how she’s treating Grim and the others.

Yuu has never had friends before coming to NRC, so she really wants to treasure the friendships she’s formed here. At the very start, she decided to be the best friend she could be in hopes that she’d be able to keep these friendships.

However, Yuu also feels that she has every right to be mad at her friends since they went behind her back and did something so stupid, causing a huge mess that she now has to bail them out of, and they haven’t even given her a proper apology.

Yuu feels very conflicted about this, wondering if she’s being too harsh and should just forgive the idiot trio because they’re her friends.

Jack tells her that he doesn’t see anything wrong with how she’s treating her friends. Rather, he thinks it’d be stupid of her to just forgive them after everything they did, so she should keep up what she’s doing until she gets the apology she deserves.

If they’re really her friends, then Jack thinks they should act like it and not make Yuu do all the work, so until that happens, she should just do what she wants and not let herself dwell on how her actions are affecting them.

She should prioritize herself, plain and simple.

This is a new concept for Yuu since she’s not used to getting the option to prioritize herself. She grew up being treated like she was useless/worthless, so she unconsciously always puts others above herself and only really puts her needs first when it’s for the sake of survival.

Her situation is different now, however. Now, she’s allowed to prioritize herself, and once she realizes that, she decides to follow Jack’s advice.

(It won’t be easy to change that mindset since it’s been ingrained into her for the last decade, but slowly but surely, Yuu will learn to treasure herself more.)

After talking with Jack, Yuu feels a lot better about the situation with her friends, so she decides not to worry about that matter anymore and to instead dedicate all her attention to defeating Azul.

To express her gratitude for his help, Yuu gives Jack a big hug and tells him how awesome he is and how she wishes all her sons were like him. Jack tries to act annoyed, but it’s hard to believe that he dislikes her actions as much as he claims when his tail is wagging rapidly lol 

At this point, Yuu has become very fond of Jack because he’s so honest and hardworking and he has done so much to help her out when he doesn’t have to. 

She has adopted him despite his repeated attempts to tell her that she’s not his mother and to quit calling him her son lol 😂

(Eventually, Yuu wears him down, and he stops putting up a fight about it. It’ll just take some time haha)

While she’s hugging him, Yuu asks if she can dote on Jack since she’s going through doting withdrawals due to being mad at her other sons. She’s the type who enjoys doting on others, so since she hasn’t done that in a while, she needs someone to dote on to help her feel better/get over her current stress.

Plus, it might make the idiot trio jealous which would be an extra bonus cause it’ll be her way of getting revenge for all the trouble they caused lol

Jack tells her to dote on Ruggie & Leona instead since he knows they’ll let her and will appreciate being spoiled way more than him. (Of course, he won’t admit that he’s just too embarrassed by the idea of being doted on lol)

Which is why, when they reach the SC dorm and find Ruggie & Leona who had been waiting to hear how the meeting with Azul turned out, Yuu is quick to latch onto Ruggie and ask if she can dote on him.

Ruggie is very confused at first, but once he hears the whole story, he’s perfectly fine with it cause doting includes her making food for him and why would he ever turn that down? All the physical affection is a nice bonus haha

Before they can get too off track, Leona starts asking about what happened with Azul, so once they’re all congregated in the lounge, Yuu & Jack tell him and Ruggie everything that happened.

Unsurprisingly, Leona thinks she’s an idiot for making the deal while Ruggie calls her crazy lol However, once Yuu properly explains her line of reasoning, they realize that she actually put a lot of thought into her plan and that she’s not being as careless as they initially assumed.

She also explains why she’s doing all this to begin with, so they know she’s not just getting involved because she’s too nice for her own good.

(During this conversation, Yuu also reveals the fact that she’s been working part-time at the Mostro Lounge for a while now, which Leona/Ruggie had no idea about. They weren’t particularly enthusiastic about this, Ruggie especially since he thinks it’s too dangerous for her to be around guys like Azul and the Tweels.

She then tells them about the agreement she made with Azul the first day she met them to assure the SC guys that she’s safe from the Octotrio.

Ruggie gets even more worried cause he wonders what the hell did the Octotrio do to her that Azul wants to keep her from filing a sexual harassment suit lol

Once she assures them that nothing bad was done to her, Floyd was just being very physically affectionate, the SC guys feel better about the whole matter, but they’re still not completely happy about it haha

Leona does praise Yuu for managing to force Azul into an agreement that benefits her more than him, though, since no one has ever pulled that off before.)

While he still thinks it’s stupid to make deals with Azul, Leona understands what Yuu is trying to accomplish and does think she has a better chance of getting what she wants if she makes Azul think she’s playing right into his hands.

As of right now, Yuu doesn’t have a clear cut plan for how to defeat Azul. She knows she needs to visit the Coral Sea first to get an idea of just how difficult Azul’s assigned task is and to see if she can gain any useful information from this trip.

Yuu’s expecting that trip to end in failure, which is fine since that will make Azul think he’s one step closer to winning. She wants this because she wants him to get cocky since arrogance usually results in careless mistakes.

Leona suggests her trying to go after the contracts after the failed museum visit since that’s something Azul will expect, so this provides another opportunity to make Azul think he’s winning. In return, Yuu is more likely to gain useful information since time is slowly running out and she’s showing no signs of succeeding, which will lead to Azul becoming more convinced that he has this victory in the bag.

Right now, this is all a game about predicting your opponent’s moves and manipulating them accordingly to get the desired result. Yuu & Leona are treating this discussion much like they would a chess match.

(Meanwhile, Ruggie & Jack are realizing that Yuu can be just as cunning/devious as Leona when she wants to be. In this moment, those two really look alike lol)

The key to victory here is patience. Yuu realizes that this isn’t a game she can win right away. She needs to bide her time, so she can get everything she needs to formulate a winning strategy.

After the strategy session finally comes to an end, Yuu finally remembers to ask Leona if it’s okay for her to stay at the SC dorm until she wins Ramshackle back.

While Leona is fine with it, he doesn’t immediately say as much and instead asks what she’d do if he said he wasn’t. 

Yuu answers that she’ll just go over to Heartslabyul and share a bed with either Ace or Deuce, more than likely Deuce since Ace seems like the type who thrashes a lot in his sleep and she doesn’t want to get punched in her sleep lol

When Jack brings up how she doesn’t have to share a bed with the guys, Yuu tells him that they’ll likely be asleep by the time she gets over there, and she doesn’t want to wake them. Plus, she thinks it’d be funny if whomever she’s sleeping with wakes up and has a heart attack when he sees her in his bed haha

Ruggie is very against that idea and tells her that she’s staying in their dorm where she doesn’t have to share a bed with a guy 😂

This is all according to Yuu’s plan. While she didn’t really think Leona would turn her away, she knew Ruggie would intervene if he thought she’d have to share a bed with a guy lol

Leona’s exasperated about how easily she manipulated Ruggie, but he doesn’t make any complaints about her staying at their dorm so she’s free to use the room she’s used in the past.

The next day, Yuu goes to the Coral Sea with Jack, Ace, Deuce, & Grim like in canon, and there’s some slight tension between her and the idiot trio since they have still yet to properly apologize. 

In Deuce’s case, it’s because he feels so guilty. Disappointing Yuu is almost as bad as disappointing his own mother lol So he’s just having a hard time properly facing her.

Like in canon, Jade & Floyd arrive on the scene in their eel forms, so all Yuu gets to do is look at the museum from afar rather than observe its security from up close like she had wanted to do. 

Rather than freak out at the sight of the twin’s eel forms like her friends, Yuu thinks they both look really cool and are as beautiful as one would expect of merfolk. She temporarily forgets the situation at hand cause she’s so caught up in seeing mermen up close for the first time haha

(Her friends all think she’s insane. Meanwhile, Jade & Floyd are enjoying all the positive attention, although they were initially surprised that she wasn’t afraid like the others.)

Eventually, everyone gets back on track, and Jade/Floyd confirm that they’re there to prevent Yuu’s group from succeeding in getting the picture. 

Because of her agreement with Azul, Yuu is confident that Jade & Floyd won’t do anything to her, so she’s not in any danger. Everyone else in her group is a different story, however.

Yuu tells Jade/Floyd that if they do anything to her favorite son, Jack, she’ll make them regret it, much to their amusement and Jack’s embarrassment/exasperation. Meanwhile, Ace and Grim are complaining about Yuu being biased and not defending them lol

When Floyd asks about the rest of her children, she explains that until she gets a proper apology from those three that they’re on their own, which Floyd takes to mean he can do whatever he wants with the idiot trio haha

(It’s during this moment that the twins hatch a plan that Yuu doesn’t find out about until it’s too late.)

Like in canon, Jade & Floyd end up chasing Yuu’s group back to the mirror they came through. During this chase, Yuu learns about Floyd’s UM, and she stores away that important information for later since it’ll likely be very useful.

The last ones to get to the mirror are Jack & Yuu who have been swimming hand-in-hand since he’s been dragging her around the whole time.

(Yuu was very grateful for this since she doesn’t actually know how to swim since she never got the opportunity to learn. Thankfully, because of the potion that allows her to breathe underwater, she was okay despite not knowing how to swim since she could either just push off against things or slowly pull herself along when she wasn’t holding onto Jack’s hand.)

Just before they can pass through the mirror, Floyd wraps his tail around Yuu while at the same time Jade uses magic to send Jack flying through the mirror. 

As a result, Yuu finds herself trapped in the Coral Sea at the twin’s mercy, completely caught off guard about this turn of events. She internally curses her Quirk for not warning her about this, and she also curses herself for underestimating the twins.

She had assumed the Tweels wouldn’t do anything other than follow Azul’s orders under these circumstances, but she was wrong - very wrong.

When questioned about this, the twins tell her that they’re still following Azul’s orders. As long as Yuu remains in the Coral Sea, they’re both obligated to keep an eye on her to ensure she doesn’t go after the picture.

Ergo they found a loophole to exploit and did so eagerly lol

Having accepted her fate which she sees is the result of her carelessness and stupidity, Yuu asks the Tweels what they intend to do with her since they’re not allowed to hurt her thanks to that agreement she made with Azul.

Floyd, of course, says he wants to have some fun with her and play for a while. Meanwhile, Jade says that they decided to do her a favor since acts of benevolence are par the course for their dorm.

Since she appears incredulous after hearing Jade’s answer, he explains that, after hearing that her children have still yet to give her a proper apology, they wanted to help her out by teaching the guys the important lesson of knowing how to value their “mother” and how their foolish actions can affect her.

Because Yuu was the one carrying the water breathing potions, her friends have no way of getting back to the Coral Sea, not until they can get more potions. In the meantime, they have to deal with the fact that they’ve left her all alone with the fearsome Leech brothers which will surely weigh heavily on their minds.

Basically, Jade & Floyd want to have some psychological warfare fun while also having fun with Yuu lol 

While Yuu is still mad at the idiot trio, she isn’t too fond of this idea since she doesn’t want to worry them that much. However, she also realizes that she has no choice in the matter since she’s at the Tweel’s mercy until they finally decide to let her go.

So, as a result, Yuu ends up spending the next few hours exploring the Coral Sea with Jade & Floyd, enjoying all the sights and collecting little souvenirs here and there to take back with her.

(Yuu made sure ahead of time to ask the twins if there were any areas that would be unsafe for her since she learned from Tokumei that the human body is a sensitive thing that can be easily affected by changes in water pressure and temperature, which had made her worried about venturing too far from the museum which she had deemed as a safe place for humans to visit.

After taking that into consideration, Jade made sure they only visited places that would be safe for her since he genuinely doesn’t want any harm to befall her while she’s with him and Floyd.)

(Since I haven’t really addressed the subject of Yuu’s relationship with the Tweels, I’ll mention that here while the focus is on them.

Jade & Floyd find Yuu interesting since she often does things they normally wouldn’t expect from a human, like being willing to hug Floyd and saying that she’ll find a way to win if she had to fight Floyd to the death or genuinely enjoying talking with Jade about mushrooms and purposely making puns to make Jade laugh.

Even though there’s some obvious wariness when she interacts with them, Yuu isn’t afraid to talk to them, and from their POV, she seems to genuinely enjoy interacting with them.

Which is the truth. She finds them intimidating, but she also thinks they’re both really interesting. She admires their skills in cooking and can’t help but respect how strong/smart they are.

Yuu also finds them cute during certain moments like when Jade is talking about mushrooms/laughing at her puns or when Floyd’s having fun squeezing her. It really amazes her that people who can be so terrifying can actually be adorable under the right circumstances lol

This is a relationship that just slowly grows with time, so while they’re slightly interested in her when she first meets them, they grow more interested/attached the longer they know her.

Eventually, it comes to the point where, if they’re not bugging Azul with their antics, they’ll just go bug her instead.

For example, Jade will show up uninvited at Ramshackle one day to drag Yuu out of bed so they can go on an early morning hike/mushroom hunt before school starts.

Meanwhile, Floyd invites himself over in the middle of the night and demands Yuu entertain him cause he’s bored, and eventually, she has to resort to using her lap pillow on him to knock him out so she can finally sleep 😂)

Because she gets so caught up in having fun exploring the Coral Sea since she had never visited an ocean before, Yuu completely forgets about the time limit of the water breathing potion she drank.

Thankfully, Jade’s been keeping tabs on her time limit, so the Tweels are able to bring her back to the mirror that’ll take her back to NRC before her time limit runs out.

When she returns to NRC, Yuu is surprised to find Ace, Deuce, Grim, and Jack in the Mirror Chamber, apparently getting ready to go back through the mirror. Ruggie and Leona are also there for some reason.

Upon her arrival, Grim immediately clings to her while Ruggie starts checking her over, asking what the Tweels did to her while they held her captive.

Yuu quickly assures everyone that she’s okay and that the twins just wanted to play with her until they were satisfied. They didn’t do anything to her besides take her to places they wanted to show her.

There’s some incredulity after hearing that the Tweels truly didn’t do anything to her, but more than anything, everyone’s just relieved.

That’s when Yuu learns that, upon returning to the Mirror Chamber and realizing that Yuu had been left behind in the Coral Sea, Jack immediately sought out Leona/Ruggie to tell them what happened while Ace/Deuce/Grim tried to get ahold of more water breathing potions so they could all get back to the Coral Sea.

While they hadn’t intended on joining the others on their return trip, Leona & Ruggie had come to the Mirror Chamber to see the others off which is why they’re there now.

After explanations are out of the way and Yuu gets dried off thanks to some wind magic, Deuce does a full body bow and apologizes to her for playing a role in her getting in this mess.

This whole time, he’s been feeling guilty for disappointing her and causing her so much trouble, but it really got to him when she got stranded in the Coral Sea with the Tweels. Anything could’ve happened to her during that time, and in his eyes, it would’ve been his fault.

Grim also apologizes since he came to a similar realization as Deuce. Plus, thanks to talking to everyone else, he realizes that she had been especially upset with him because they’re supposed to be partners, so he does feel bad for letting his henchmen down.

While it’s clear he’d really rather do anything else, Ace finally gives in and apologizes since he also realizes how much he screwed up and that Yuu does deserve an apology after everything she’s had to go through because of his actions.

Upon hearing their sincere apologies and seeing that they’ve learned their lesson, Yuu tells them that she forgives them, but if they do something like that again, she’ll really let them have it, which leads to them swearing they won’t ever do something this stupid again lol

(All the while, Yuu finds herself feeling grateful to Jade & Floyd since they really did end up helping her out. Of course, she���s still displeased with them sabotaging her attempt to get the picture/find out more about the museum’s security, so she probably won’t ever thank them lol)

Now that things have been resolved between Yuu and her friends, they all go back to the Savanaclaw dorm to host a strategy meeting for what to do next.

In the end, it’s decided that they’ll follow Leona’s suggestion of going after the contracts since Yuu wants a better look at them if possible. Plus, she thinks it would be beneficial to see what kind of security Azul currently has around the Mostro Lounge.

So, the second day of the deal goes pretty much exactly like how it does in the game. The main difference being that Yuu realizes how suspicious it is that Azul would just happen to “accidentally” leave a contract out in the open. It just screams “this is a trap!” lol

Which is why Yuu quickly tries to stop anyone from attacking/touching the contract. Unfortunately, in the process of this, she ends up making contact with it and getting zapped like what happens in canon. This leads to Deuce & Ace also getting zapped since they had automatically reached out to grab her.

While Azul appears smug when he and the Tweels walk onto the scene, he’s internally panicking over Yuu getting zapped because of that agreement they made. The plan was for Floyd to use lightning magic on whoever touches the scroll, but Azul had planned on stopping him if Yuu had been the one to reach out to grab it since he never breaks his agreements/contracts.

Unfortunately, Floyd acted before Azul could stop him, resulting in the current situation at hand. Azul can only hope Yuu doesn’t figure out the truth since that would mean he technically broke his side of the agreement.

Thankfully, Yuu’s sturdy enough that she doesn’t remain down for the count for too long, so she’s able to run when her group manages to eventually escape Azul’s office.

All the while, Yuu’s taking mental notes of everything that transpired and is especially focusing on how upset Azul got when Floyd dented the safe.

After they escape the Octanivelle dorm, Ace/Deuce head to their dorm. While she initially moves to go to the SC dorm with Jack & Grim, Yuu tells them to go on ahead because she wants to go on a walk to do some thinking and gather all her thoughts together.

That’s how she eventually finds herself standing outside Ramshackle alone, her feet having taken her there unconsciously.

When she thinks about how she can’t go into the dorm, she feels a pain in her chest because this is the first place that has ever truly felt like home to her. 

While she was willing to put this place at risk for the sake of saving her friends, Yuu doesn’t want to lose Ramshackle, not after it has become so dear to her.

This is when Malleus arrives, and this visit is like it is in canon, just like his first visit with her.

Upon hearing his talk about the gargoyles, it all finally hits her. Yuu realizes why Azul’s earlier behavior was bothering her so much. 

After thanking Malleus profusely and promising to invite him over for some tea and snacks that she’ll make for him as thanks, Yuu hurries back to the SC dorm to share her revelation with Leona and the others.

When she makes it back to the SC dorm, she finds Jack, Grim, and Ruggie in the lounge and tells them to follow her to Leona’s room since she figures that’s where he is.

Unsurprisingly, she’s right. Leona’s napping in his bed when she finally finds him.

Because she’s so worked up, she forgets her usual manners and just tackles him due to her excitement, instantly waking him up.

Before he can tear into her for daring to wake him up, Yuu eagerly tells him that she figured it out. Azul’s contracts really aren’t indestructible; otherwise, Azul wouldn’t bother to keep them in a safe. They’d just be left out in the open.

Sure, one was left out on Azul’s desk earlier, but that was clearly a trap since Azul and the Tweels had known Yuu’s group was there. 

Leona immediately forgets his irritation since he’s putting the pieces of the puzzle together like her and realizing what the truth is behind the “indestructible” contracts.

He correctly deduces that lightning magic was used earlier when Yuu got zapped, and Yuu guesses that Floyd’s UM was used to protect the contracts in her vision since magic attacks bounced off the contract she saw in her vision just like how Ace and the others’ attacks bounced off Floyd the day before.

(This makes Yuu realize that Azul technically broke his agreement since lightning magic was used on her, so she saves that information for later since she figures it’ll prove useful.)

As everyone congregates in Leona’s room, Yuu starts brainstorming since now she knows that the contracts can be destroyed so the key is to get them out of that vault and away from Azul.

Obviously, they can’t just do a repeat of what her group tried earlier. No, something has to be done about Mostro Lounge’s tight security if they hope to stand a chance of getting those contracts, which means something has to be done about Jade & Floyd, her two biggest threats.

Thankfully, yesterday proved that there is a way to get the Tweels away from the Mostro Lounge, so what she needs is extra helping hands to take care of the Mostro Lounge while her group goes back to the Coral Sea.

Yuu pulls out her puppy dog eyes and asks Leona if he’d be willing to help her since she doesn’t think she can beat Azul without his help. She knows there really isn’t anything in it for Leona, so if he’s not interested, that’s that so all she can do is hope that he’ll throw her a bone.

It’s at that moment that Yuu’s Quirk activates and shows her a vision of Azul’s Overblot, which successfully puts an end to the good mood she had been in thanks to finally figuring out a strategy to defeat him.

All her vision shows her is a quick view of Azul in his OB form before her Quirk deactivates, but it isn’t hard for Yuu to figure out that her latest plan is likely the reason for his OB since she can’t think of anything that would upset him more than losing those contracts.

Naturally, Yuu feels very conflicted since, while she wants to defeat Azul, she doesn’t want to do it at the expense of making him Overblot. However, at the same time, this plan is her only shot of saving her friends and keeping her home.

If she wants to beat Azul, she can’t afford to go easy on him. She has to pull out all the stops.

This OB hits her the hardest since Yuu is the main reason behind it. Up until this point, she’s stopped OBs for the sake of saving lives, but now, she’s the one putting a person’s life in danger.

In her eyes, no one’s more cut out for being a villain than her.

(To make matters worse, Yuu’s starting to worry about how often these OBs have been happening. They’re supposed to be rare, yet this will be her third time seeing one and she’s only been in TW for a few months. Surely, this can’t be just a coincidence.

Could it be that she’s somehow to blame?)

Thankfully, Leona snaps her out of her depressive funk and makes her tell everyone what she saw in her vision. Because her drawback won’t allow her to give the details, she just tells him that what happened to him and Riddle is going to happen again, and Leona quickly realizes what she means.

After Yuu confesses her conflicted feelings, Leona tells her that she should prioritize herself, not Azul. Besides, these events are always supposed to happen no matter what, right? Then, there’s nothing she can do to prevent Azul’s OB; it’s out of her hands, just like his own OB was.

Yuu knows he’s right, so all she can do is follow through with her plan and formulate a strategy for how to deal with Azul once he Overblots.

Because she sees herself as responsible for Azul’s OB, she has every intention to save him since it’s the least she can do for him. Plus, despite recent events, Azul is still someone she likes/respects, so she definitely doesn’t want him to die.

Once she makes it clear that she intends to help Azul when he Overblots, Leona tells her that Savanaclaw will help with her plan to destroy Azul’s contracts, but on one condition: Yuu’s not allowed to push her Quirk to its limits like she did during her battle against him. Instead, she’ll rely more on him and everyone else who will contribute to the battle.

This catches Yuu off guard, especially since Leona’s wearing quite the serious expression when he makes that demand. 

(What she doesn’t realize is how much seeing Yuu’s fever-ridden state affected Leona and everyone else who saw her in such a horrible state, especially when she started seizing. No one wants to see a repeat of that.)

Yuu agrees to Leona’s condition since she knows she won’t be able to succeed without him. Plus, she doesn’t want to use her Quirk like that unless absolutely necessary anyway.

Now that she has acquired SC’s help, Yuu explains her plan of filling up Mostro Lounge with customers while Ruggie swipes Azul’s safe key and steals the contracts for Leona to destroy with his UM.

From there, they work out all the details for that plan before discussing possible strategies for how to deal with Azul’s OB.

After all those plans are worked out, things proceed like they do in canon with Yuu’s group succeeding in distracting the Tweels while Leona/Ruggie acquire the contracts and destroy them.

However, I will add that, after her group acquires the picture from the museum, Yuu takes the time to examine it to see why Azul would be so interested in it.

This leads to her realizing that Jade & Floyd are in the picture, which surprises her. She then looks for Azul in the picture since she has always gotten the impression that the Octotrio has known each other for a while, so she wouldn’t be surprised if they have always been classmates.

Eventually, Yuu finds Azul in the picture, and she has to fight the urge to squeal when she sees how adorable he was as a kid. It doesn’t even really register just how large he was; all she can think is how cute he was and how she wishes she could’ve known him back then and gotten the opportunity to hug him lol 

Another funny thing I’ll add is, when Jade & Floyd arrive on the scene after her group has acquired the photograph, Yuu promptly shoves the picture down her shirt and tells them that they won’t get their hands on it if they don’t wanna deal with a sexual harassment suit 😂

And if the Tweels try to kidnap her, they’d essentially be helping her out by delivering her to Azul so she can turn in the picture to him and complete her end of the deal, so they can’t just take her back with them to the Mostro Lounge.

Grim thinks she’s a genius while Ace/Deuce/Jack get flustered and argue that this is a horrible idea.

Jade & Floyd find this hilarious. Yuu’s bold move doesn’t really deter them, though, since they decide that they’ll get her away from her friends and decide how to get the photo without actually bringing her to Azul later lol

Thankfully, the Tweels don’t get to follow through with that plan since the contracts get destroyed before they can get ahold of Yuu. While the twins retreat to check on Azul, Yuu’s group hurries to the Mostro Lounge where they find that Yuu’s vision has come true.

With that, the battle against OB Azul begins, with Yuu’s group teaming up with Leona and Ruggie as well as the Tweels who agree to lend a hand since they want to put a stop to Azul.

The group gets split into two, with Leona/Jack/Jade/Floyd being in charge of attacking Azul’s OB creature while everyone else distracts Azul and deals with his tentacle attacks.

Like with the other battles, Yuu uses her Quirk to predict Azul’s movements and warn everyone of his attacks. However, as she promised Leona, she refrains from pushing her Quirk to its limits since, while Azul is just as brilliant as Leona, his movements are more emotionally driven in his current state which works to their advantage.

Plus, Leona’s UM was way more destructive, so Yuu had wanted to avoid any serious damage caused by it at all costs. Azul’s UM is, of course, also dangerous, but it’s easier to dodge in comparison.

(It’s during this time that Jade & Floyd finally find out about Yuu’s Quirk, although all they really know is that she’s able to predict Azul’s movements somehow. 

Now, she has made herself more interesting since she’s pulling off something they’ve never seen before and has piqued their curiosity. Floyd probably yells questions about her Quirk at her during the battle and has to get told to save them for after the battle’s over lol)

(Also, like with Leona, Yuu does end up punching Azul at the very end of the battle. However, it’s not because she’s angry with him but because she figures that knocking him out is a good strategy for stopping his OB so she might as well try that on top of everything else everyone is doing lol

I feel like a punch to the face would be more effective on Azul than Leona. Azul would still be way stronger than the average human since he’s a merman, but I think it wouldn’t be too difficult to actually knock him unconscious via this method.

Yuu makes sure to apologize to him later for it since she does feel bad. Thankfully, Azul doesn’t force her to make reparations since he’s too busy trying to save face in front of the Tweels who are laughing when this subject gets brought up lol)

Thanks to everyone working together, it doesn’t take too long to save Azul, so Yuu’s post battle state is similar to what it was like after Riddle’s battle. Her fever would probably be slightly higher since Azul took longer to subdue, but besides that, there are no major issues with her health.

Despite this, Ruggie still wants to take Yuu to the infirmary immediately, and she agrees only if the unconscious Azul gets taken as well since he needs to be examined just as much as her.

This leads to Ruggie telling Jack to carry Azul to the infirmary while he takes care of carrying Yuu. 

Jade politely asks them to look after their dorm leader while he and Floyd take stock of all the damages done to their dorm thanks to Azul’s rampage and take care of properly closing the Mostro Lounge, which had been evacuated during the battle.

Azul regains consciousness when they all reach the infirmary, and he reacts just as he does in the game when he learns that he Overblotted.

He’s also very surprised/confused by the fact that Yuu is in an infirmary bed like him since she doesn’t appear injured, so she has to explain her Quirk and its drawbacks to him and how she came from a different world.

Yuu also tells him that she knew about his goal to make a deal with her before she had visited his office three days ago, but she still went through with it because of all the reasons she gave him when they made that deal. 

She adds that she foresaw his OB which she knows she’s partially to blame for, so she apologizes for playing a large role in his suffering.

Leona, who has made himself comfortable in one of the other beds, calls her an idiot since Azul’s OB wasn’t something that could be prevented. Even if it could’ve been, it would’ve been at the cost of giving everything up to him, which she couldn’t afford to do.

Everyone in her group feels similarly and thinks it’s stupid for her to blame herself when it’s only natural to prioritize oneself at this school.

Much to her surprise, even Azul thinks it’s stupid for her to blame herself. After all, she was the one who told him at the beginning that she wasn’t going to hold back against him, so she just followed through with that promise.

Of course, it’s not like Azul is okay with the loss of all his hard earned contracts. He just dislikes the idea of Yuu showing regret over not going easy on him since that’s just an insult to his pride.

It’s a relief to hear that Azul feels that way. She’s especially glad that it doesn’t look like he hates her, which she had been expecting after everything he went through because of her. 

While she was ready to accept that possibility, it would’ve made her sad since she really does respect/like Azul, so she would’ve hated ending up on bad terms with him.

Surprisingly enough, the exact opposite happens since, upon hearing that she has come from another world and has a special power, Azul grows excited at the prospect of all the money-making possibilities and how she can greatly benefit the Mostro Lounge lol

This is something she had been hoping to avoid by keeping her Quirk a secret since she didn’t want to end up being used again like what happened with Mumei, but she knew she had no choice in the matter since Azul would’ve found out about her power from the Tweels if she didn’t tell him herself.

While she respects Azul, Yuu has no intention to become a money-making tool and tells Azul as much. 

He surprises her when he says that he intends to do no such thing. Obviously, if they were to collaborate, they’d be equal partners in this venture since someone as benevolent as him would never dream of taking advantage of his dear employee.

There’s a lot of eye rolling at that remark, but Yuu can tell Azul is being honest when he says he wants to treat her as an equal, which means a lot to her since she grew up always being treated like she was unimportant/worthless.

It’s while Azul is making his big business plans and talking about exploring the realm of otherworldly cuisine that Jade & Floyd arrive at the infirmary.

Floyd wastes no time in questioning Yuu about what he saw her do during the battle and threatens to squeeze her if she doesn’t give him all the fun details, which leads to Azul reprimanding him and reminding him of the agreement lol

That reminds Yuu that the agreement was technically broken when lightning magic was used on her yesterday, not to mention the fact that Azul attacked her multiple times during the OB battle.

The others in her group also remember that fact, and Ruggie brings up the fact that Azul owes Yuu one for failing to keep his end of the deal.

Naturally, Azul is not pleased with this turn of events, but he can’t deny that accusation so he will make amends.

After Yuu tells him that he doesn’t have to worry about that now, she gives the Tweels the same explanation about her origins and Quirk as she did Azul.

Jade is absolutely fascinated about the idea of another world filled with superpowers and the fact that she can see into the future. He also finds all her drawbacks very intriguing since she admitted that most Quirks don’t have nearly as many drawbacks as hers does.

What Floyd likes the most is how Yuu’s eyes were glowing when she used her Quirk lol But he does think the idea of being able to see the future sounds really fun even though her drawbacks sound like a pain in the ass.

After they all finish discussing her Quirk and home world, Yuu remembers the picture they stole from the museum, which she had moved to her pocket after leaving the Coral Sea, and brings it out since this subject still hasn’t been properly addressed.

This leads to the discussion from canon. However, it does end up diverging when Yuu finally adds her input, which basically consists of her telling Azul that he was an adorable kid and that those kids must have bullied him because they were just jealous that he was way cuter than they were, cause he was definitely one of the top cutest kids in his class.

Azul gets increasingly embarrassed when Yuu heaps praises on him. Meanwhile, Floyd & Jade are having the time of their lives at his expense. Honestly, pretty much everyone is laughing or trying to contain their laughter except for Yuu and Azul.

Eventually, the laughter dies down, and the subject of returning the picture to the museum gets brought up. Azul is less than thrilled by the idea, but he reluctantly agrees.

So the next day Yuu and her friends go to the museum with Azul and the Tweels to return the picture like in canon.

When it’s just Yuu & Azul alone together, which happens because she wanted to talk with him rather than because she didn’t trust him to return the picture, Yuu tells him that she’s really glad that he doesn’t hate her for what she did since she would’ve been really sad if that’s how things ended up turning out.

While she disliked what Azul did to her friends, she knew they were just as much to blame for their circumstances, so that didn’t stop her from liking/respecting Azul.

She really admires how hardworking he is and thinks he’s amazing for everything that he has accomplished because of his impressive diligence. No matter what anyone says about him, there’s no denying that Azul is an amazing guy who could probably do anything if he really set his mind to it.

His future might be one of the ones Yuu is the most interested in seeing since there’s so much potential in Azul. Not only does he have the brains and the skills, he has that unshakeable drive that not many people can copy, so she knows that the possibilities are endless for a guy like him.

Azul, being Azul, takes all her kind words in stride and puts on his usual professional front since it’s hard for him to completely believe in all that praise.

However, he also can’t ignore the fact that she has always been a genuine person, which makes it hard for him to completely disregard everything she says as insincere praise.

In the end, Azul tells her that she’ll just have to keep watching him and working under him if she wants to continue to see impressive feats since he’s still far from done with his ambitious pursuits.

And of course, he expects her help as a business partner to help with his dreams since he sees a lot of potential in working with her. She has proven what a formidable foe she can be, so it’s only good business sense to make someone like that an ally.

So, as far as the Azul & Yuu relationship is concerned, Azul would describe them as business partners since she contributes a lot to his money-making plans by providing information about her world such as recipes and other ways she knows of making money.

Azul would say this relationship is strictly professional, but there’s no denying that he develops a fondness for Yuu since she treats him with genuine respect and sincerely enjoys hanging out with him.

These two mesh well since they’re both the hardworking type, and they’re both penny-pinchers lol They’re both really good at saving money and will sometimes even have discussions about the impressive feats they’ve pulled off to save a dime haha

Yuu is also very quick to heap praises on Azul, most of which entail her complimenting his handsome appearance, intellect, and diligence. 

Azul reacts with a mixture of embarrassment and exasperation since the cynical part of him can’t completely believe her words while the other part of him can’t help but wanna soak in all the positive attention.

Eventually, Azul becomes more comfortable with her compliments since after spending more time with her he realizes that she’s not trying to flatter him/butter him up. She’s just the type to say what’s on her mind and feels that complimentary words should be shared rather than kept to herself.

In regards to the agreement the two made when they first met, Azul genuinely apologizes for breaking it and tells her that he’s ready to do whatever she asks to make amends as long as it’s within reason.

And he wants to make another NDA cause he’s still worried about possible future sexual harassment suits. He’s even more worried than before cause Floyd is even more physically affectionate with her and now Jade’s getting in on the fun since she has become more interesting to them lol 😂

In the end, Yuu asks for what she calls an “SOS call”, which she then explains is the ability for her to call Azul for help if she ever ends up in a really tight spot and needs his assistance to get out of it.

At this point, she has gotten paranoid about Overblots, so if one does somehow happen again and she ends up in a situation where she could use help from Azul and the Tweels, she’d like to be able to rely on them and not have to worry about signing a deal to request their services.

Thankfully, Azul doesn’t think this request is unreasonable, so he grants it which comes in real handy during the events of Book 4.

(What Azul doesn’t say is that he would’ve likely come to help her out even without this agreement since it’s not like he would seriously leave a girl alone when she’s in serious danger, especially since he feels he owes her for helping out with his OB regardless of the fact that she played a role in him Overblotting in the first place.)

This book would end on comical note, with Yuu sandwiched in between Floyd and Jade, who want to fight her while she’s using her Quirk and study her Quirk respectively, while Azul is writing up the new NDA for her to sign haha

[ruby-whistler]

Why c!Dream should (and probably will be) redeemed

Hi! I’m bad with intros. You’ve read the title, so, let’s start with the definitions.

In this essay, we are considering the popularized definition of “redemption” instead of the classical one, which is, as per the Oxford Dictionary, “the act of saving or state of being saved from the power of evil; the act of redeeming.” That’s not however the way the word is used in fandom and media.

/dsmp /rp

The definition of redemption I’ll be working with in this essay is not forgiveness by the people who c!Dream has hurt, nor is it removing himself entirely from his past actions, but moreso the decision to change for the better and abandon destructive mindsets for himself and others.

A “redemption” in a narrative sense would be circumstances and a character arc that would allow that kind of healing and betterment.

I’d like to start this off by the fact that being “irredeemable”, in this sense, also doesn’t exist; redemption is a thing of conditions and choice, not of being allowed by someone else. You can’t gatekeep healing from people who seek it, just to be clear, and that even goes for people who have done terrible things.

Since I understand there is a lot of concern for c!Dream’s past actions, here is a post from people who are much more fit than me to speak on the matter, about the way in which they see a possible c!Dream redemption arc.

Another disclaimer, I am not going to be considering c!Dream only from the perspective of c!Tommy in this essay. c!Dream appears in other people’s perspectives and he himself has his own, unseen perspective. As a character, he is an individual person in his own right rather than just the antagonist of c!Tommy’s story, and so I do not have much concern for their narratives intertwining too much should this writing choice occur.

I’d also like to note that redemption is, in this sense, always a positive thing for everyone involved - someone who’s been prone to doing bad things in the past deciding not to do them anymore and try to change, or just simply heal enough to consider it, isn’t going to have a long-term negative effect in any of the characters, but rather the other way around. Healing is an unlimited resource, and the victims do not have to heal first for the person who hurt them to consider being better.

Here’s a well-written thread on Twitter that elaborates a bit to finish off this point, and let’s move on to actually talking about redemption in the context of the Dream SMP, and c!Dream specifically.

Why a c!Dream redemption arc is not only a good writing choice, but in this case the only good writing choice;

c!Dream, as we all know, has been subject to mental and physical abuse to the point of straight up torture by both c!Sam and c!Quackity (to different extents). He has been in indescribable amounts of suffering for the past 74 days at the time this essay will be published. That is six and something times the duration of the entire exile arc in canon.

Whatever the interpretation of his words in prison is, what is undeniable is first of all the fact his mental stability is absolutely crushed at this point, second that no human being could possibly ever deserve to undergo this, and third, his stay in the prison is showing off his humanity and making him out to be sympathetic.

Now, consider this; how would it feel if c!Tommy died at the end of the exile arc? Empty, there would be no catharsis to such an end, especially because of all of the hurt he’d gone through. Objectively, a bad writing choice.

Let’s compare, narratively of course, this situation to the prison arc. Even though I would never say one of them is “better” or “worse” than the other, since both are terrible and undeserved, c!Dream’s current state checks off all of the boxes that would make his death unsatisfying in the storyline; even if people want him gone, there would still be the dissatisfaction at the current build-up and why they even did it in the first place (it really wasn’t necessary to anyone else’s story to make him out as a victim, and yet they did) if they were planning to kill him off anyways. And since the prison arc is naturally meant to induce sympathy, even from an angst perspective it would simply not make sense within the themes and writing of the plot.

So, c!Dream can’t die, and he also can’t stay in the prison forever - the build-up must lead to something, which is logically a breakout. Great… what now?

Well, the Dream SMP prides itself in accurate representation of trauma and mental instability, specifically cc!Tommy and cc!Dream who have pulled it off incredibly during the exile arc.

Now, undoubtedly, after the prison, c!Dream is going to be just terribly traumatized- considering the writers’ past creative decisions, would it make sense for him to play the role of a dangerous, heartless villain in other people’s stories, while completely ignoring the logical fallout of what he’s been through?

In my mind, no. The most possible result is that cc!Dream is going to rightfully portray someone who’s been hurt so much he is broken, scared and tortured into submissions over months of agony and slowly stripping away of his agency, his dignity, his humanity. And that is… not going to be pretty, nor is he going to be in any way the same as before.

After everything, I’d be surprised if he can properly look at shears without shaking. That’s not villain behaviour, that’s the behaviour of someone who needs help.

Which leads me to another point, which is relatability. Believe me or not, there are people out there who heavily relate to c!Dream because they have been through things that allow them to see themselves in the character - abandonment, mental illness, etc. - or who have had destructive mindsets they have struggled to let go of in the past.

To them, as well as to the viewer, redeeming c!Dream could actually be a very good example, showcasing that anyone who has done bad things or has been hurt in the past can learn that it is possible to be better, to move on, to not be stuck in a loop but to actively seek help and then use that support to find the path to healing.

Making c!Dream a better person, who in a way, wins over his past, over his trauma, over the hurt he’s caused, and manages to actually get better… is inspiring, in a sense. It shows that you can abandon unhealthy mindsets, you can find a support group of people who care about you, you can make your life better simply by deciding to be better and then sticking to that, no matter how difficult the process.

This is why I believe that redeeming c!Dream would not be bad writing, but quite the opposite, and that the prison arc is an obvious set-up. Alright, but how does that work with the character? How could someone so widely hated mentally improve in such a seemingly violent and terrible environment? Would it even make sense within the context of c!Dream’s character so far? Well,

Why c!Dream has the capacity for healing and the Dream SMP the ability to provide it;

First of all, let’s remind ourselves that through c!Dream’s entire spiral he wasn’t ever directly given a chance to change. He was regarded as someone to defeat in order to accomplish a happy ending, or as someone who needed to be removed in order to achieve power on the SMP. Ever since the 16th, which is when the corruption of the character is the most obvious, there have been no attempts to reach out or to help him. I do not blame the characters for this - I am simply pointing out that since it has never happened before, we do not know how he would respond, and that, after everything he’s been through, any bit of kindness or compassion towards him will be a new concept he will have to learn to deal with somehow.

This point is especially driven home by the fact that both c!Quackity and c!Sam would often tell him he is a monster who deserves nothing but to suffer, and that what he’s going through is never going to amount to all the hurt he’s caused - basically removing any possibility for ever getting better (because by this logic, he doesn’t deserve support, and he doesn’t deserve to get better) from his line of sight.

He also hasn’t had a support system since shortly after the 16th, when his friends left him over c!George’s dethronement and made no effort to mend their relationship afterwards. c!Dream isn’t used to having allies and people on his side, but to being hated; again, wouldn’t that mean positive reinforcement could very well be all he needs to make the choice?

His bad mindsets - attachments are weakness, ends always justify the means, people will consider you a bad person no matter what you do - have been continuously proven right by his environment, even in prison. Any kind of subversion, plus an explanation as to why they are wrong, could be of great help to c!Dream.

Just another disclaimer; I do not believe c!Dream would change thanks to the treatment in prison, but rather despite it. His mental stability is non-existent at that point, and in order to get better he needs genuine emotional support from the people around him as well as to heal before he can redeem himself.

Alright, but… c!Dream has hurt a lot of people. Who would be fit to help him?

Let’s start off with the worst option and why it’s impossible the writers would even attempt this; c!Tommy.

c!Tommy has no responsibility to help or ever forgive c!Dream - not to say he could. The two, as it is, would drag each other down instead of helping in any capacity, and only make matters worse. The two of them shouldn’t even interact in the best case scenario - the best thing for both of them would be if they got enough healing and support individually that they could live around each other and not get their trauma or toxic habits triggered when interacting for whatever purpose of the plot.

So, if not c!Tommy (and c!Tubbo neither by extension), who could redeem c!Dream?

Well, he can’t do it on his own for sure. Being in nature with animals is nice, but further isolation from other people would merely help with the prison trauma, not with the state of his tendencies when interacting with others. He, once again, needs positive reinforcement from other people for him to heal properly.

There are two main options for this in my mind, and then there’s a few individuals he could also find comfort in, including people from both groups or those unaligned.

1) Kinoko Kingdom

From the people of this new country, c!Dream has never negatively interacted with c!Karl before, he has never hurt c!George and he hasn’t directly harmed c!Sapnap. Although the relationship with his old friend group could be difficult to rekindle, none of them have grudges against him that are too personal, and they have been canonically close friends since the beginning of the SMP, so it would be very much possible to rebuild burnt bridges. They’d be familiar, and with the addition of c!Karl they could be a good source of comfort for c!Dream after he either breaks out or is released from prison - just gotta convince c!Sapnap not to kill him first.

2) The Syndicate

From the Syndicate, c!Dream has never directly interacted with c!Nikki, and from what I know of her character she never seemed to be very affected by his actions - even doing his work for him when he was planning to burn down the L’Mantree. c!Techno is an ally who doesn’t have anything against him, and as for c!Ranboo, here is why I believe c!Dream being in the Syndicate could be positively influential on his character arc as well;

c!Ranboo and c!Philza have had a conversation about change, during which c!Ranboo made it clear he thinks everyone can change except for c!Dream; who, in his mind, is “too deep down the rabbit hole”. c!Philza replied that he thinks anyone can change if given enough time.

… you see what I’m getting at?

c!Dream has been implied to be an ally to c!Ranboo’s enderwalk state (or the state when he has access to his full memory), and hence would most likely not behave negatively towards him at all. While it might make it more difficult for c!Ranboo to deal with his own issues, it might also give him more motivation to get to the bottom of it as well, especially since he now has access to the person who, presumably, started this all. While this is going on, c!Dream would show himself in a much different light than c!Ranboo sees himin, which could lead to confusion, realization of the flaws in his own logic, and hence, positive character development.

Here’s a great post about why c!Techno as a character could be a great asset in c!Dream’s healing process & redemption, and why there is not much need to worry about him not knowing or finding out about c!Dream’s actions.

Of Kinoko Kingdom and the Syndicate, as far as I know, neither c!Tommy nor c!Tubbo have ever been directly involved with these groups, nor are they planning to.

Another important point to make is that, while c!Tommy needs to be kept away from c!Dream in order to heal properly, the same goes for c!Quackity and c!Sam in c!Dream’s case. While c!Quackity has high chances to interact with either Kinoko Kingdom or the Syndicate in the future, there’s an even higher chance, in that situation, that c!Dream would be offered protection, which is also important; there is no healing from trauma without the knowledge of safety, to some degree.

So, this was an essay as to why I think c!Dream’s recovery and redemption (one needs to come before the other, naturally) is not only extremely possible but also could be pulled off well and have a positive impact on both the characters, and the audience.

[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*

[kusagrasskusa]

Michael Myers X Murderer! Reader - Headcannons - "Death Card"

Also, thank you (Wattpad Person) for requesting this :) I know your the last request I got, so I prolly should have done someone else's request first, but your's was just easiest to find. (Also, I have it bad for Michael so )

Have fun reading this! I'm writing this on my laptop instead of computer so sorry if the formatting turns out worse than usual :/

Also...someone made fun of me for putting, "eight," and, "11," in the same sentence. I guess not many people know this, but anything under ten is supposed to be written out unless their fractions or decimals.

By the way, these basically aren't headcannons lol. It's just me wanting to write out a story but not being good enough to so I just write it down in simpler terms.

Enjoy~

Not only is Y/N just another famous murder who casually takes the lives of people, but she's amazing at hiding

..........until-

Y/N was an abusive home after her parents died when she was a toddler. Her aunt and uncle neglected her but karma came back at them when their car fell off a bridge, causing the pair to drown. The downside for the young Y/N was that she was put into a foster institution. And we all know by now that foster care are full of fights, drugs, weed, alcohol, and shitty employees.

As a young girl entering such a bad place, she was always a target. You know that sense of fear, worthlessness, and loneliness fucked with her head to where she felt lashing out felt great.

She would be unable to stop herself as she plunged a sharp object in and out of this prick that held her down for so long. But once she heard voices from other kids, she ran.

The story made headlines as the next big attack from yet another child. That's right, next. There was someone who inspired her to do what she did.

Of course, she always had that memory in the back of her head. That boy's violent actions filled her with immeasurable awe when she saw the news. However, she always had something more important to think about.

With so much dissatisfaction with her past, she could only fill herself up with adding things on to her in the present, and more in the future.

Y/N would steal Poker cards from people and always use the Ace of Spades to mark her kills by sliding the card into a wound. After all, betting games were the highlight of her day in the foster institution. She was always so good at it that it became her pride.

All these headlines and stories about how evil she is became such a big deal in her head. Such an overwhelming feeling of adrenaline every time she heard the name people would call her.

"The Death Card," is another name for Ace of Spades in most English countries. It was the perfect fit for Y/N.

(Ya'll, I feel like a fucking genius for coming up with that lol)

She was so good at hiding, truly. Kill someone in Kentucky, then move to Missouri. Killing someone there and move to Georgia, and so on.

Only in her hometown was she caught.

Michael was the one who started it all for her, as their same age and hometown made her feel connected to him, and finally where he got caught would be the same place she did.

14 years of hiding and killing led her to meeting him

Michael spent these 14 years sitting in complete silence. No talking, no humming, no singing, nothing. It's like he was always in his own world of thought, too busy in his imagination to interact with the real world.

Of course, there was times when he did pay attention to what's around him.

The news was the only thing he'd really pay close attention to. After all, what if something happens to Haddonfield while's he's stuck in there, and that causes plenty of people he once knew to move away?

But per usual, there was nothing about it

But there was something that caught his attention even by a little

"After 14 years, the notorious Death Card or Card of Death has finally been caught," says the Haddonfield Police Department. "While we're unsure of her motives thus far, we have been able to learn of who she is. Y/N L/N made the headlines once in 1980 at the age of eight as one of America's biggest crime cases with children as the culprit, having brutally stabbed a 15 year old boy. This happened just two years after the Michael Myers case, when a six year old boy stabbed his older sister in 1978. All else the HPD are saying is that her frantic behavior may lead her to a mental institution rather than letting her make legal decisions in court."

Michael paid attention to all the details of the report. For this report to be made about Haddonfield, chances are they'll be meeting each other soon.

The Death Card was a violent killer Michael heard of plenty of times however he never paid close attention to.

(Holy shit these are just headcannons so why am I writing long paragraphs)

He had to say, hearing about her violent stabbings were the highlight of his week. Even if he never felt strong about hearing other people having fun with their lives like she was, he couldn't help but almost feel pushed to do what she is. Living freely and ending those who cross his path...

Saying he was jealous or inspired would be a stretch though

He would spend his days painting paper mache masks while thinking of doing what she was for sure but he hated how she would show off by using those cards as if she didn't have a goal in mind, which was annoying to him. If you have nothing to live for, then kill yourself was his mindset.

Michael watched as Y/N stepped into court. He know hundreds- no thousands- of people watched as this woman of pure evil stepped into the courtroom. Her H/C hair flowed as she walked passed everyone, glaring at them with her cold E/C eyes.

A look of slight intrigue replaced his normal dull expression as he watched the girl stand up before the judge, smiling sassily at the cameras as to tell them to fuck off. Michael can recognize that look of intrusion on her face as she was practically interrogated. Clearly, she hated it there.

He watched contently as all the mystery surrounding the Card of Death was revealed to everyone in this world. Days went by of this court case before finally, she pled insanity. After all, she was known to have some underlying mental conditions as she remained so calm when talking about the varies of ways she would kill.

It's easy to see that many felt bad for the girl. Such trauma growing up led to the creation of this unfortunate human. But Michael? He didn't feel bad at all.

He never was sad or truly sympathetic however...he did feel pity. Somewhere in his soulless eyes held pity for this sad, sad girl he was soon to meet. Not exactly sympathy, but simply pity. And with that came respect.

The day that Y/N stepped foot into those doors was the day the two would meet for the very first times. Over 63 counts of first degree murder in 14 years led to the meeting of these two serial killers. At the time, they were both only 20.

Tables were scattered across the room with people talking or simply sitting alone by themselves on them. There was TV in a few different places around the room and board games in a couple of shelves. In the back of the large room was windows that showed the outside that felt so out of reach forever.

As the metal doors slammed behind her, she felt eyes on her immediately. Y/N slowly scanned the room as she gulped back the intense fear gathering in her stomach. Her lips parted open as she began to breath heavily and press her back on those metal doors.

She was so trapped and scared when she first entered that foster institution. She couldn't help but think of karma when her aunt would hurt her so badly for those five years before she died. But 63 murders are so much worse, so what could karma do to her to balance her evil deeds with punishment?

Laughter and giggled filled her ears as she shut her eyes tightly and covered her face with her arms. Her vision was going blurry; she was having a panic attack. Tears fell from her eyes as she whimpered quietly to herself.

She may be the Card of Death however she never had to be in a large group of people in so long.

Her body jerked as she was suddenly pulled away from those metal doors. She cried out when she saw a large man, around 6'7 (204cm), pull her away.

In just a few seconds, she was pulled to a metal table and forced to sit as the large man stood behind her with his hands on her shoulders.

Her body tensed unimaginably as they remained still for a few seconds, quiet aside from the occasional sobs of Y/N.

Then suddenly, the pressure on her shoulders disappeared. She heard nothing until the sound of creaking from the seat in front of her interrupted.

Y/N felt eyes on her. They were so intense over her.

A minute passed before her own eyes fluttered open, meeting the man's eyes in front of her.

A shiver ran down her spine when she came face to face with stone cold blue eyes that seemed to hold nothing within them. No light, no soul, and no sympathy. Not only that, but a orange mask made of paper mache covered the rest of his face as well.

The man tilted his head before lifting his hand onto the table, sliding something over to her. Y/N looked down at what he gave her.

"Don't speak. Write."

Michael had given her a paper with these words. His handwriting was hard to read considering he nearly never wrote anything so it took a moment before Y/N got the message. When she did, she looked back up at the man and nodded just a little so it was barely recognizable.

Obviously this conversation was to be secretive so she knew to barely show signs of interactions. The camera couldn't pick up on such a small nod to what evidence is there of them even interacting?

Michael slid the paper back to him and brought a pencil to the paper after erasing the original text. When he slid it back to her, it read, "Don't let anyone know what we say Y/N. They watch everything." When Y/N looked back up at him, she saw him dart his eyes from something behind her to something on the wall between them. She turned her head slightly to the side, noticing a camera on the wall. So she understood.

Michael had dropped on the pencil on the table, meaning it was her turn to reply. She erased the previous text before writing down, "Who are you? How do you know me?" When she slid it back, Michael took the pencil in his hand again.

"Michael Myers. I was a well known case two years before you. We heard a lot about you on TV."

"As in the boy who killed his sister at the age of six?"

"Yes. You know me?"

Y/N's eyes widened slightly as she frantically wrote down a reply. Without even noticing, the knot in her stomach had completely disappeared without a trace.

"I remember seeing your case. I thought about everyday."

Michael didn't reply immediately after reading. Instead, he waited a few minutes and stared down at the table. A look of confusion remained on Y/N's features as she impatiently waited. Then suddenly, Michael erased what was on the paper and simply drew a masked person looking somewhat like himself with a knife in his hand. He drew dead stick figures around it with blood splattering everywhere.

Michael knew that this picture would cover up all the eraser marks and writings that were still slightly visible. So when the guard that walked up behind Y/N without her knowing popped up, he didn't see any text.

Of course, this did lead to the paper being taken away. Then minutes after that, both of the pair was taken away.

If there's one thing as scary as analyzing The Shape and caring for him, it's that person who cares and analyzes him finding him interacting with someone else for the first time.

Whenever Y/N got sat down in her cell, she knew what was about to happen. She was sat down in her bed as a man she'd never seen before sat down in the chair that came with her little desk in her cell with a guard next to him.

Have you ever spoken to Michael? Are you related to him? How do you know him? How does he know you? Have you ever met his family? Why did he interact to you? Why was he drawing things for you? Does he like you? Does he hate you? Did he write to you? Did you hear him talk?

So many questions were asked by this Dr Loomis in such short amount of time. "No, no, I don't, no, I don't know, I don't know, I don't know, I don't know, no, no," and mostly these were your responses. No matter how many times Loomis asked, you dully replied.

You simply said he sat you down and you began to draw together, both filling in a piece of the drawing together.

And eventually, you got out.

Another day went by of "talking" to Michael.

And another.

And another.

The talks were nice and casual. What goes on in the asylum? What goes on in the outside? Who should I avoid? What's the reputation of the HPD?

Do you want to escape?

But it was only a matter of time before finally the two were friends.

Y/N was kinda just in her cell one night in bed. Then she just gasped and widened her eyes. Wait, are we friends? We're friends, right!

Michael already knew of their friendship like two weeks before she did. It felt so...wrong for him. He had always been alone and silent. How could someone like her even be so likeable to him? He didn't really understand it but he knew he hated it.

One day, the two were writing to each other per usual. Michael unintentionally added a pun in one of his comments, causing Y/N to giggle. Michael cocked his head to the side in confusion, strangely feeling heat rise his face and his heart speed up. It was air conditioned so he suspected he may have gotten sick.

Whenever the two had to go back to their cells, that feeling suddenly disappeared. Then it hit him. Oh fuck-

Hell, only a week later did Y/N feel herself experiencing the same symptoms. Michael notices that Y/N would shake and fidget a lot when they interacted, making him wonder of she was cold. As a friend, it was only right for him to sit next to her and hold her close to keep her warm, right? Y/N's face went red and damn that was embarrassing. But of course, that didn't mean Y/N wouldn't hug him back.

Eventually the two were basically cuddling. The two hugging each other warmly as Y/N rested her head on his chest, struggling to stay awake as they got more comfortable by the second.

But of course, Dr Loomis caught eye of that.

The doctor had been looking deep into al the interactions these two evil beings have had. They act so casual, so normal with each other, surely more than just drawing is happening between them, right?

The doctor had pulled them into his office separately to interrogate them. While Y/N bluntly answered his questions to make him just shut up as quickly as possible, she couldn't help but think to herself. She knows that she and Michael are mentally ill, but he should definitely be fixed by now. He's smart and creative and can casually talk to people, so it's like the only thing keeping him here is that the doctors are so ill-equipped that they can't make the necessary breakthrough to save him.

Of course, just a month later, another incident happened like this. Y/N was having a bad migraine so Michael got her to just sit down and wait for him during lunch. He brought over two trays of food for them and was sure to trade with Y/N so she can eat the things she likes and he could have the things she dislikes.

Another time, a bipolar guy ran into Michael and shoved him as if it was his fault. Michael shoved him back instinctively, causing a fight to disperse between the two. As security guards took notice, Y/N was quick to push Michael away softly and ball a fist to punch the fuck out of that guy- like a, "YO WHATCHU SAY ABOUT MY MAN?" type shit. Y/N did this to seem like she was hitting back and that Michael hadn't done anything wrong.

And when each other's birthday's rolled around, they had their own celebration. Y/N was given her own paper mache mask as a gift and a small cupcake from the cafe. Michael was given stolen art supplies that were taken from other guests and also a cupcake.

Y/N slowly stopped having panic attacks, but she definitely had her moments. Of course, Michael sat with her through it.

Dr Loomis recorded all this shit so he can gather data on Michael. Then the question hit him: How would Michael react if Y/N was gone for a few days? Does he truly care about her or is he just using her?

If you think Michael hated Loomis before, wait til he pieced together the disappearance of girlfriend and the extensive eyesight on him from security guards. For the hell he raised about it, he had to get sterilized and put into a cell without being able to get out for a few days.

Y/N remained bored in her cell for days. So what better could she do than annoy the guard watching her? She would just talk nonstop for what felt like hours and hours. The dude watching her was just getting more pissed off by the second.

"Would you shut up? Crazy bitch," he hissed, hitting the cell door. Y/N giggled cockily, shaking her head. Even if she deserved to be yelled at for continuing to talk, the Card of Death refused to back down. But when the guard went inside her cell and locked the door behind him, she got a bit worried.

Y/N got off her bed and threatened him cockily, to which he responded with physical force.

Of course, Smith's Groove is ill-equipped so even with proof of being hit and tazed, Y/N couldn't do anything to get the guard fired. But Michael?

A full month without seeing each other was like a slow suicide. But when they finally got to see each other again, the two was sure to write so much about their time alone as if they were teenage friends discussing their fun weekends. However, things turned dark whenever Y/N brought up the guard.

Michael didn't show any emotions at all, no matter what happens. But Y/N learned to guess how he's feeling depending on how long he takes to respond. Slowed blinking as if he was in thought, and slower reading as got analyze her writing closer were typically bad signs.

About a year had passed since they met at this time. A year to plan to escape. By now, the two were both 21 and fully prepared to leave once and for all.

Whenever that security guard had walked passed Michael's cell one night, Michael had knocked on the door to signal him. Michael slipped a paper through the doorslot, as he was given paper since he doesn't talk, saying he found a dead mouse in his cell. The guard just huffed and let himself inside. Michael pointed to where the mouse supposedly was; and that was a mistake for the guard.

Right as that guard went to look, Michael got behind and covered his mouth before stabbing him in the neck with a paint brush that's but carved into a small blade. Within moments, the guard dropped dead onto the floor.

Taking the keys from the guard, Michael was able to let out nearly every single prisoner to this hell out of their cells. Including Y/N.

The world sister was the only thing left of the pair as it was engraved into the door of Michael's cell. And just like that, the two were gone.

How they got there so fast doesn't matter but eventually Y/N and Michael found an abandoned house to station at until the search around the area disappeared and they could move around quicker.

"I can't fucking believe it," Y/N cheered as she felt tears run down her face from happiness. She swayed across the room, taking in the smell of dust and air. Even something dirty felt so new to her that couldn't help but love it at the moment.

Michael would watch her as he sat down in an old wooden chair, cocking his head. His body was in complete shock as the realization of all that's happened in the past years came crashing down on him. This was the real world? This is what dust smells like? This is what shattered glass and broken wood looks like? This is what trees look like up close? This is what things look like without glass tinting the color?

This is what it feels like to celebrate with someone you love? Michael reminded himself that the girl in front of him changed his life so much. His urge to harm all around him was always so strong, but the thought of her being hurt felt a bad taste in his mouth.

He stood up from the chair, walking towards the ecstatic girl as she cried happily to herself and picked up random things to remind herself of what they feel like and all she takes for granted. She turned her head to him, smiling, "Michael, look, I found a-"

Y/N gasped as Michael gripped his mask and slowly moved it. Y/N watched in awe as for the first time, she saw her only friend in this world's real face. That pale skin and soulless eyes that she grew familiar with became so new to her again.

"Michael..." she whispered, stepping closer to him. Her face heated up as she felt the weight his eyes staring down at her. She lightly bit her lip, a shiver going down her spine.

He took a few steps closer as well, making the two remain inches away from each other. Now at this point, Y/N is questioning if Michael is gonna kill her or is gonna kiss her as he awkwardly put his hand to her cheek, brushing her hair away. She leaned her head into his hand, keeping eye contact with him the whole time.

In just a matter of moments, the two came together in a soft kiss. The moment was quiet as the two did their best to remain calm and together as this moment that was little way's overdue continued.

When the two pulled away, Y/N was quick to wrap her arms around him. Now she wasn't going to cry about it, but damn was that contact she needed so badly. The Death Card and The Shape were basically Yin and Yang with how one is emotional and the other in emotionless but their need for pain and each other is what kept it healthy.

Just imagine how much suffering families went through since the two got out.

[bestworstcase]

on ‘villainy’ and varian’s and cassandra’s moral codes

for all that varian’s and cassandra’s villain arcs get compared to death they’re really more different than they are similar, and i think one of the more interesting distinctions is the characters’ moral perspectives on their own actions--namely that varian recognizes his own choices as villainous and consciously self-identifies as a ‘bad guy’ and cassandra not only…doesn’t do that but appears legitimately taken aback when varian says she’s ‘become the villain.’ from this we can infer that varian is transgressing his own personal sense of right and wrong while cassandra isn’t.

and… well with varian i think it’s pretty straightforward: he’s a kid who desperately wants to make the world a better place and make his father proud, but his impulsivity and recklessness and general disregard for lab safety foil his plans and get him into trouble. then one of his accidents puts his dad into what is essentially a magical coma and varian becomes singularly focused on reviving him--and, when he realizes that the king is more invested in covering up the problem than fixing it and his only hope lies with a zealously guarded relic belonging to the kingdom, he decides that the only way to achieve this goal is to start breaking the rules.

so he asks rapunzel--his friend who promised to help him--to retrieve some information the king is trying to steal from him, and then persuades her to help him access the sundrop vault; then when she balks at stealing it he makes it clear that he no longer trusts her and escapes with the flower. at this point he’s in the morally dubious zone; being strategic about what he tells rapunzel to make sure she helps him, spiking cookies with truth serum to sow chaos and get information he needs, and doing things that are crimes on paper but also largely victimless. i think these were things varian could probably rationalize as okay--not exactly good, but no one got hurt and he got what he needed.

except the flower’s magic is gone. he drugged the palace, manipulated rapunzel and broke her trust in him, and committed treason all for something useless because the actual magic of the sundrop is in rapunzel herself. now he’s in trouble, because he needs rapunzel’s help but his desperate measures guaranteed she won’t be willing to help him again. and this is when varian realizes that his only options are 1. give up on saving his dad and turn himself in and hope rapunzel takes pity on him, or 2. accept that no one is going to help him now and do whatever it takes to free quirin himself.

so--mutating ruddiger, attacking the city, kidnapping arianna and threatening her with encasement in amber, building an automaton army to defend him while he works--these are all things that varian feels are wrong, but chooses to do anyway because he doesn’t trust that anyone else will even try to save his father. despite his anger and his rationalizations, at the end of the day varian sees himself as doing bad things for good reasons. (“Believe me, I know/I’ve sunk pretty low” & “I’m the bad guy, that’s fine”)

and when his reasons fall through--when he fails to free his dad--he falls quickly into guilt and despair over having hurt people for nothing. he stews for a year in how unforgivable and ashamed he feels, and even when he teams up with the separatists, he’s doing it in, basically, pursuit of a reset button: he wants to take back what he did. and when rapunzel shows him that he can be forgiven, he can have a second chance, he does have people who are willing to help him and trust him again, he drops the memory-wiping idea and his alliance with the separatists without a second thought--because what rapunzel actually does is give him a way to pursue his goals without sacrificing his conscience, which is what he really needed the whole time.

now, cassandra, on the other hand…

cass is an interesting character in this regard because, while she does want to be a hero, she’s not at all altruistic. she’s consumed by her lack of autonomy and she craves not only control over her own life but also respect from the people around her--her desire to be a hero is very self-interested, at its core. and moreover she has a somewhat fatalistic view of the world wherein some people (not her) matter and some… just don’t. 

moreover cassandra, despite her ambitions of becoming a guard, doesn’t so much as blink at eugene’s or the pub thugs’ criminal pasts--she is suspicious of lance at first, but on the grounds that he’s an unrepentant thief who showed up out of the blue under suspicious circumstances to ‘reconnect’ with his old partner in crime; eugene is also distrustful of lance, for the exact same reasons--and of course she doesn’t think twice about breaking the law herself. literally one of the very first things we see cassandra do is commit treason to make her friend happy. cass doesn’t care about the law, and she only wants to be a guard because she associates getting the job with having her dad’s approval and it’s also her ticket out of lifelong servitude.

on the other hand, cass does seem have a strong sense of right and wrong where people she cares about are concerned. she is constantly putting the desires and well-being of her friends ahead of not just her ambitions (e.g. in beginnings for rapunzel, or great expotations for varian) but also her own safety (e.g. risking her livelihood and home to sneak rapunzel out for the night in bea, or setting aside her misgivings about the sketchy bird people in freebird). 

which is all to say--cass isn’t exactly amoral but the moral framework through which she sees the world is… more complicated than varian’s. she doesn’t seem particularly motivated to help strangers but she’ll move mountains to help people she cares about; she doesn’t care much about rules or laws except insofar as she doesn’t want to get caught breaking them, and she has this hierarchical mindset that some people matter--meaning, they get to make decisions for themselves and have people care about what they need and want--and some don’t, and that she herself is stuck in the latter category despite her best efforts to climb out of it.

which brings us to the subject of the moonstone, and cassandra’s villain arc, and why cass, unlike varian, doesn’t consider herself a bad person.

i think what it comes down to most is this: taking the moonstone is an act of defiance against not only rapunzel but also fate itself. waiting in the wings sets up cassandra’s resigned acceptance of this hierarchical order and her own cosmic insignificance, and then in crossing the line she REJECTS that same order. she’s raging against rapunzel but also against the cultural and legal and destined systems that put rapunzel on top and forced cass into subservience. she is very literally fighting for her freedom against the universe itself.

and when cass was not an altruistic or heavily morally motivated or even particularly law-abiding person before, and when her conscience has always been predominantly oriented around taking care of her friends first and herself second, and when the thing that drove her to this breaking point was her friends spitting that back in her face… well.

it’s easy to say “cass literally tried to murder rapunzel a bunch of times, how can she possibly believe she’s the good guy?”--but rapunzel maimed cass, blamed her for it, and consistently prioritized her destiny over cassandra’s wellbeing; and rapunzel represents the cosmic order that cass is fighting to liberate herself from. and while i know that the -popular- take on be very afraid is “cass is terrified of hurting rapunzel,” i submit it’s actually “cass is terrified of having to fight rapunzel, because she still believes that fate is literally tilted in rapunzel’s favor and she can’t win a direct fight with rapunzel.” that’s why she’s so scared; that’s why rapunzel seemingly deleting the red rocks hardens her resolve; that’s why she marches into corona with maximum drama and bluster and builds a fortress and tries so hard to mess with rapunzel’s head before the battle begins. she’s trying to even the odds. and that’s why, when rapunzel stomps her into the curb, cassandra’s immediate response is “i need an army.”

cassandra isn’t scared for rapunzel. she is scared OF rapunzel.

we do also see cass trying not to harm people she considers to be innocent bystanders; she uses the truth serum on varian bc she needs the incantation, but afterwards she doesn’t even bother to restrain him until after he starts pestering her, she says flat out that she doesn’t want him to get hurt when she fights rapunzel; similarly she is willing to hurt calliope to force rapunzel to comply, but--despite her deep personal dislike of calliope--uses a minimum amount of force and again verbally expresses that she doesn’t particularly want to hurt her, that it’s a means to an end and nothing more. attacking rapunzel? that’s fine, rapunzel is her enemy. attacking eugene? of course, he’s rapunzel’s closest ally. mind controlling the brotherhood? that kills two birds with one stone--eliminating powerful enemies with a vested interest in taking the moonstone away from her and turning them into allies who can level the playing field between her and rapunzel. and when she does finally snap and raze corona to the ground? the people of corona attacked her first. i think cass ABSOLUTELY sees herself as fighting a purely defensive war against people who have or will hurt her.

and this is, of course, ultimately why varian failed to get through to her during ‘nothing left to lose’--he appealed to her sense of morality and her sense of morality shrugged. 

as for the thing that snaps her out of it? the moment that forces her to question whether she’s really as right as she thinks she is? it’s learning who her new friend really is. it’s the shock of finding out that she’s been allied with, confiding in, taking advice from a legendary villain, from a monster she likely grew up hearing stories about. cass takes it as a given that zhan tiri is evil--and if she’s friends with zhan tiri, what does that make her? and even then, cass is resistant to the idea that she might be a villain--“No, no, I’m nothing like you. Just because I’m pursuing my destiny doesn’t make me a bad person!”--which is, ultimately, very telling of her whole mindset. she’s not a bad guy, she’s fighting for her freedom. she’s not a bad guy, she’s protecting herself against people who want to exploit her. she’s not a bad guy, she’s just putting herself first for once.

and OAH generally, i’d argue, is not actually about cassandra trying to reconcile with rapunzel or redeem herself or be a better person, it’s… literally cass trying frantically to prove she’s NOT the bad guy. it’s “oh yeah? you think i’m a bad person? well could a bad guy do THIS? *lies and impersonates a former coworker and gets up on a stage to justify her own actions in front of a crowd*” it’s “a bad guy wouldn’t apologize, rapunzel never apologized for anything, and to prove i’m a better person I’M going to apologize! see? SEE!?”--and then everyone in corona attacks her and she goes “FINE, i’m the bad guy, fuck you all” and wrecks the place.

only then--only in plus est en vous--does cassandra get into a mindset similar to varian’s, of “i am the bad guy but if i can pull this off it will be worth it.” she’s not sorry. she still sees rapunzel as an enemy trying to get her under control again, and the only thing that’s really changed is cassandra acknowledging that she has in fact done bad things too.

and… i would argue that by the end of plus est cassandra… feels some guilt but isn’t sorry. “i’ve failed” and “i’ve done terrible things” and “i tried to prove i was more than everyone thought but they were right”--her anguish is not like varian’s anguish in RR, where he was consumed with despair because no one could possibly forgive him for the things he did. cassandra is upset because she did awful things and failed and she perceives that failure as proof of her own worthlessness. she’s right back to feeling how she felt in waiting in the wings but with a hefty new helping of self-disgust and shame for having been stupid enough to believe she could change anything for herself. 

she’s not sorry. she’s not pleading for forgiveness. she just wants rapunzel to give up and leave her alone--& then, after rapunzel convinces her that she’s wrong, and she does have worth as a person, and she does have a destiny of her own, cass does what’s necessary to clean up the crisis she created and then… just bounces. she gets the freedom she wanted and leaves without a backward glance.

(which. good for her.)

tl;dr: varian’s villain arc explores his moral scruples and what it takes for him to be willing to ignore them, whereas cassandra’s villain arc explores her incendiary reaction to a lifetime of injustices; she isn’t amoral but her sense of right and wrong is, unlike varian’s, very contextual and personal. varian is a pragmatic idealist who wants to be lawful good but is capable of setting his own morals aside in pursuit of a goal he considers to be important enough, and cassandra is one radicalizing incident away from realizing that her grievances are not a unique personal failing but a systemic problem and then leading a class uprising.

[niqhtlord01]

Humans are Weird: Pack Mentality

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The shift bell screeched across the construction yard and one by one the workers began filing out.

Florp was high up on the five story metal frame when the bell rang out. He had been welding two beams together at the time and had just finished his final weld.

His species were known as Zepoids and were a jellyfish like creature with no eyes, mouth, or other orifice to speak. One might might even be forgiven for mistake them for a large pile of jello upon first contact. Yet the Zepoids were fully sentient and could alter their body structure to fit any shape needed, even going so far to grow several different arms capable of the most delicate of touch or, in Florp's case, strong enough to hold on to a raw structural beam without slipping.

Carefully deactivating his welding torch and putting it inside his jelly like body, Florp detached from the beam and fell several stories to the ground of the construction site with a loud "Foop!". The benefit of being a jelly creature lacking any bones was not lost on Florp and he was often picked to handle jobs more often considered hazardous to his fellow workers.

Rolling along the hard surface to the toolshed Florp popped out his welding torch and then left for the exit along with the rest of the workers.

Most of the workers had gotten used to Florp working with them and weren't scared or uneased by the goo like creature rolling around and over time Florp had made some companions, though the human word for it was "Fir-en-sds".  One of them just happened to walk next to Florp after they left the yard.

"We're going to head over to the Drunkards Gallows for a few beers," Ronan said as he walked alongside Florp, "want to join us?"

Lacking any form of muscle to help produce sound Zepoids never needed to communicate using sounds until after their discovery and inclusion into the galactic community. To compensate for this they had learned how to control their bodies mass and inhale air before forming specific openings and exhaling. As the air left through these openings it would generate specific sounds which Zepoids could use to form words if altering the shape in rapid succession.

"Yeeeeesh." Florp spoke through his wind tubes.

Ronan smiled and turned to some other workers who had been following.

"Florp's in." he said and they smiled and nodded.

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

The bar was packed tonight but the group was able to find a table near the back. Alongside Ronan and Florp were Jack, Paul, and Moxford; though everyone just called him Moxy.  

Florp did not understand the concept of socializing as his existence had never been dependent upon the interactions of others. Yet as he had interreacted with humans more and more he had realized that it seemed highly dependent for them to survive. Over time Florp had adapted this mindset as well oddly enough as he seemed to enjoy his time in the company of others than alone.

He had joined his fellow workers on such outings before often to the same bar and found himself in his usual stool; occasionally reaching out with a goo tentacle and grab several peanuts from the bowl and let them be dissolved slowly in his body.

It was in one such instance when some passers by bumped into Florp's stool and knocked it over throwing him to the ground. He landed on the floor of the bar and splashed out like a water balloon from the impact. Some of the other patrons who had bumped into him then stepped on Florp while he was on the floor and slipped, throwing them to the floor as well.

One of them tried to right themselves by bracing their hand to the floor, but to do so had put their hand straight through Florp's body that was still dissolving peanuts.

"Fucking shit!" The patron cried as they felt the skin of their hand slowly start dissolving.  They pulled back their hand and cradled it as their friends came over to see what happened. One of them pointed to Florp who was slowly regaining his blob like form.

"That alien freak just attacked us!"

The others of their group sounded off as well.

"Why'd they even let that freak in here?"

"Go back to your shithole you piece of shit!"

"The fuck you thinking hurting our friend?!"

Florp was taking in all of these questions at once and was trying to respond when he felt a bottle thrown against him. One of the group had picked up a nearby beer and chucked it at him while he was still on the ground. The bottle impacted Florp but then became stuck in his body as if it had been thrown into a mound of snow.

Before another bottle was thrown Moxy was beside Florp and shoving the harassers back.

"The fuck do you think you're doing to my friend?"

Moxy was now standing between Florp and he reached down and pulled out the beer bottle that was still stuck in Florp's body.

"You're alien freak burned my hand!" The harasser held up his hand to show a thin layer of his skin had dissolved.

"Then maybe you should watch were you're going." Ronan said as he joined Moxy while Paul and Jack looked on but kept drinking.

"Who the hell are you?" They pointed to Florp. "This things owner?"

"His name is Florp," Ronan said, "and he is my friend."

The other group snickered and laughed.

""Friends" he says" one of them chuckled. "I guess when you've a face that ugly you'd put your dick in anything."

One of them threw another bottle at Florp but this time Jack was there. He grabbed the bottle mid toss and without beating a stride chucked it right back at the prick who threw it, striking him right in the face sending him toppling to the floor.

Moxy and Ronan looked startled at Jack's intervention but he just stood their wiping his hands.

"You mess with one of us you mess with all of us."

Florp was confused as to what was going on but as the man who had been knocked down got back up to his feet he pointed at Jack and shouted "Get him!"

As they rushed forward Paul put down his drink and calmly grabbed hold of his wooden stool and threw it like a club right into the chest of the first one rushing sending them flying.

Another tackled Jack to their table and they struggled for a moment before the wood broke under them and crashed to the floor. Moxy and Ronan raised their fists and starts swinging left and right while Florp rolled around the floor dodging this foot and that.

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

An hour later after dodging the cops the group had broke off down and alleyway and took a breather. They bailed on the fight just as the squad cars rolled up outside and fled out the back door several blocks away.

Florp rolled in front of Ronan and stretched himself high enough to match his height.

"Why.........fight......them....?" He gasped the words out.

Ronan just let a soft smile cross his face as he kept taking deep breathes.

"You're one of us mate." He coughed out before slapping his knee and straightening up. "When someone messes with one of us.."

"...they mess with all of us." Paul finished as he adjusted his grip on Jack who was still dazed from the bottle of gin that struck him.

Florp pondered this and looked over his friends.

"Thank...you."

[linkspooky]

Eren’s Dissocation

This month’s chapter has a lot of people confused on Eren’s actions. Why would Eren choose the worst option possible? Why force himself to do something he clearly doesn’t want to do? Why, when he’s given options to back out, does he instead double down on the bad decision making? Why, when no one is holding a gun to his head does he pick the worst available choice? 

The narrative obviously isn’t sympathizing with Eren so we’re meant to question his choices. So let’s get into Eren’s headspace. A place where clearly even Eren doesn’t want to be.

1. Other People

Eren displays a lot of paradoxes in his reasoning this chapter. His every action is a contradiction. He goes out of his way to save a child, and then crushes them later without lifting a finger to help. He says he wants to do this all for the sake of freedom, and yet he’s espousing ideas like a fixed future, and acting helpless to his eventual fate. Eren begs and cries for the child to forgive him for what he must do... when nobody is actually forcing him to do anything. 

It’s not only that Eren makes bad choices, but he also acts like he’s the victim of his own bad choices. He acts like he’s completely helpless to do these things. Eren says one thing, and then deliberately does another to contradict it when he DOES NOT HAVE TO. It seems like Eren is going out of his way to ruin everything and people are questioning what pushed Eren to this point of deliberate self destruction and acting like he was all out of options when he very, clearly wasn’t. 

Eren’s motivations make no sense.  Yeah.  They make no sense because Eren is trying to reconcile two irreconcilable ideas. The ideas of predestination and freedom are complete and total opposites ideas that cannot coexist in Eren’s mind. Eren can’t reconcile them. So he doesn’t.  Rather than try to justify himself or struggle to find the right answer Eren settles for the wrong one. Rather than try to justify his actions Eren avoids any confrontation of his actions all together. Eren distances himself - from his actions, the consequences of his actions, and his role in everything that happens.

It’s a simple idea, but also a complicated one which I will do my best to explain. How does Eren do this? How does Eren end up in this very contradictory mindset, where he just keeps making things worse, on purpose. And it starts with the way Eren sees other people. 

There’s a reason that Eren is made out to be so childlike and petty in this chapter. It’s because he is. This line is very vague, but if I were to explain it I would say. 

Eren is very bothered by the fact that other people exist. 

What I mean is, other people have thoughts, feelings, and entirely different opinions from Eren and Eren doesn’t really want to deal with that. While yes, it could be a line about how Eren saw the same oppression outside the walls as he did in Paradis, I think it’s a lot pettier than that. Eren got really, really, bothered by the fact that the world he imagined as empty was in fact crowded with other people besides him. 

In child developmental psychology there’s an experiment called the “Three Mountain Problem.” In the experiment a child is shown a model of a mountain from one perspective and asked to draw what it looks like. They’re asked to draw what they see.Then, a doll is placed behind the mountain looking at it from a completely different angle. The experimenter then asks the child to draw what the doll sees. The doll would see something completely different - but the child doesn’t comprehend that. They draw the exact same picture the first time. Children lack the ability to imagine that other people don’t. A child only sees the world from one point of view. 

You know what’s really frustrating? Arguing with other people. Sometimes even if you know you’re right, even if you state your argument perfectly and show the facts that person still won’t agree with you. It’s frustrating to deal with the fact that you can influence, but you can’t really control the opinions of others. 

Eren is fundamentally, unable to see, and deal with other people as people. By that I mean, their perspectives, their feelings, he can’t really see or understand those things outside of his own perspective. Other people ask things of him, require things of him, that he can’t give. Other people disagree with him, fight with him. 

Eren’s not an eco-terrorist.  He’s not bothered by the fact the world isn’t a natural paradise outside the walls. It’s the people themselves, that Eren finds disappointing. 

Eren can’t deal. On a micro-level. Let’s forget about the plot at large and just focus on Eren for a second. Who are the people that Eren has chosen to surround himself post-timeskip.

If Eren’s ultimate ideal is freedom why does he choose to trust Floche of all people? A sycophant, and someone who is practically begging to have all of his choices taken away from him? 

It’s also because Floch is also someone who won’t disagree with him, or question him the way his friends might. Eren just can’t deal. 

Eren claims that everything he does is out of love for his friends. He fights for his friends, sacrifices for his friends. He has to be the one to die so his friends can live. 

But, when Eren hears that Mikasa has the exact same motivation for him. That Mikasa wants to protect him, and fight for him the same way he wants to fight for her. When Eren hears that Mikasa might love him and show that love by always fighting for him, which is the exact same way Eren tends to show his love for his friends he doesn’t... get it. He can’t accept her feelings in any real way. He can’t even really understand them.

Eren wants to love Mikasa, he wants to love his friends, but he either can’t accept their feelings, or he just doesn’t want to. He’s allowed to love Mikasa, Mikasa can’t possibly love him back. Even when Zeke just straight up tells him to his face, Eren dismisses Zeke and says what Mikasa feels for him doesn’t even matter because he’s going to die in four years. Eren avoids her feelings, otherwise. 

That’s the key word here. Eren’s avoidant. In every single person he deals with, he’s avoidant. That’s how his very contradictory views of people are maintained. There’s a lot of examples I could list of this. Eren wants his friends to be free, but he goes out of his way to lock them up. Eren says he’s doing this for the sake of his friend’s happiness, and then antagonizes them as cruelly as possible. The reason he’s able to do these things, is that he avoids truly looking, or confronting his actions, and also the people he’s surrounded with in any real way.

Not only with Mikasa, you can see it in his interaction with Historia. 

Eren and Historia grew close because Eren said he wanted to get to know the real Historia. But, then he specifically asks Historia to do something that is the opposite of everything she stands for. When she disagrees with him, because she wants to live as an individual with her head held high with pride and make her own choices, do what she thinks is right as Ymir told her. When Historia tries to assert herself as an individual who doesn’t completely agree with him, Eren then switches tactics and tries to browbeat her into doing what he wants of her. 

Eren’s view of the world is very isolated, and insulated from others. Whenever somebody challenges his view, he makes the choice to retreat back inside of his own head rather than try to change. 

That’s also a natural consequence of Eren not seeing people as people. Because he avoids the thoughts, feelings, opinions of others it means his own thoughts never really change. He deprives himself of the ability to see things in a different way. Eren is stuck in a rut, but also Eren doesn’t want to leave that rut he wants to bunker down. 

2. Eren Himself. 

Eren’s head what a terrifying place to be inside. 

Dissociation is a mental process that causes a lack of connection in a person's thoughts, memory and sense of identity. Dissociation seems to fall on a continuum of severity.

Dissociation is a defense mechanism of the brain. So is avoidance. They are both learned defense mechanisms that the brain uses to protect himself, and they are also behaviors that people fall into to protect themselves. 

This is why Eren is depicted as a child over and over again. This is why Eren is shown constantly flashing back to his mother’s death. It’s because Eren never really got over that initial trauma, Eren has been stunted and never grew or developed from that point. 

Eren’s a big old manchild, and that makes sense just from what he’s been through. It’s easy to forget that Eren is a child soldier who like, never had a stable environment after losing his home. The reason he hyper focuses on his mother, and that initial incident is because that was the start of everything all the insecurity of his life. Eren adopted all these mechanisms to cope in a situation where he was truly helpless, and yet even after the situation changed, Eren’s internal mechanisms never truly did change and he kept on coping in the same broken way. 

Dissociation, and Avoidance. 

Dissociation is when a person divorces themselves, from their actions, from their own body, from their thoughts and feelings. 

Avoidance is when Eren deliberately goes out of his way to avoid any kind of real conflict with other people or having to deal with their feelings because he’s not equipped to handle them. 

Eren is hopelessly stuck inside of his own head right now. I don’t know what’s a better metaphor for that, then Eren literally... just being a head. It almost lapses into solipism. Eren has distanced himself from other people so far that he has... literally become a brain in a jar. 

Eren’s perspective is the only one that exists to him. But he also disagrees with himself. 

Eren wants the freedom to do whatever he wants. But he also, doesn’t really want to be doing what he’s doing right now. So, why does he use his freedom to do these things?

If Eren distances himself, both from the thoughts and feelings of other people, but also his own thoughts and feelings, where is he? 

He’s god.

Eren imagines his ideal world as one where he’s above the clouds, in an completely open sky. These are the symbols associated with the idea of god in most religions. Somewhere distant. Somewhere far away. 

Eren’s key operating word is distance. He is distancing himself from both other people, and his own actions at the same time, because he can’t really bear or even process the guilt of dealing with both. 

Let me explain Eren’s bad decision making with a simple metaphor.

So spiderman, right. Spiderman gets bitten by a radioactive spider. He has kind of a shitty life. He has no parents, he’s bullied in high school. He’s an average every day loser. Suddenly, he gets all of these super powers. It makes spider man feel special. He has super strength now, he doesn’t need to wear his glasses anymore. 

Then a robber runs by him, and Spiderman doesn’t lift a finger to help. Even though he has the special ability to help, he doesn’t take any responsibility for it. 

As a result of this choice, his Uncle Ben dies. 

Spiderman wanted the super powers, but he didn’t want like any of the added responsibilities of having super powers. In essence until Uncle Ben died, what Spider Man was living out was a power fantasy.

That’s what Eren is in the middle of. He’s always been this very weak and helpless child. He’s always felt like the person who just watched, unable to do anything when his mother died right in front of him. The way he’s dealt with that has always been imagining himself as getting stronger, and stronger, and stronger. 

Eren wants power, but he doesn’t want responsibility. 

The Sasha scene is literally the Uncle Ben scene. Eren kills a lot of innocent people, he makes a choice to do that, and as a direct result of his actions, someone else important to him dies. It’s a direct story consequence. Eren steps on Gabi’s friends -> Gabi becomes vengeful -> Gabi goes the extra mile to avenge the deaths of her friends sneaks on board and shoots Sasha. 

Eren’s mechanism however, is avoidance. He doesn’t want to be at fault. So he’s not. Which means when Eren makes bad decisions. When those bad decisions result in things getting wrose. Eren ignores the consequences of his actions, and is therefore unable to deal with those consequences in any real way. 

That’s why we see Eren get worse, and worse, and worse, and worse. Because he’s not learning from any of the choices he is making. Because from Eren’s perspective he doesn’t have a choice. 

To summarize the contradiction:  Eren wants to kill people, but he doesn’t want to feel like a murderer. 

Eren can’t make sense of that, because there is no making sense of that so he looks away. He looks away so he can’t learn, or even really see what he’s doing to people. This causes Eren to spiral. When people have gotten genuinely that bad, when people spiral to the point where it seems like every single thing they’re going to do is going to make things worse what do they start wanting?

Eren’s dream of killing all the titans, is paralleled exactly with Reiner’s urge to just, kill himself so he can be done with everything. That’s the real reason essentially. Yes, it’s extreme, but Eren might be y’know, an extremist? The micro-level informs the macro-level. 

Eren has gotten so bad in his mental spiral he’s reached the point where nothing else matters, where he just wants to give up and committ suicide. He wants to make the world disappear. He can no longer deal with the struggle against the world. He sees the only way to escape his problems is to either just wipe everything away, and wipe himself out. That’s metaphorical suicide. 

It’s just Eren’s always projected outward. 

Rather than deal with his own internal flaws, he tries to change the world around him. Eren has just externalized his own internal conflict to such an extreme extent. 

And yeah, Eren is literally just a head right now. Only his own internal conflict, only his own hurt feelings, matter. That’s what Eren does to the child. 

The reason that Eren draws the comparison to Eren is because that’s what Reiner did exactly to him. 

Eren is the hurt and injured party here. Reiner’s direction actions and choices killed Eren’s mom. However, it’s not about Eren’s feelings, Reiner makes it entirely about his own feelings. His own guilt. His own regret for what he did. How bad he feels about it. Reiner breaks down crying and is so self-involved he forgets that Eren is the one who is hurting here. 

Eren repeats the same action. He breaks down crying in front of a child and apologizes again and again. But it’s really about Eren. Eren makes it about himself, and his own guilt and remorse rather than the person he’s wronging. 

So yeah. It’s the end of the world and Eren’s just making it about himself. That’s the best way to explain it. It’s easy to kill another person if you don’t see, or truly care about their pain. 

Eren is a tool. And by that I mean he wants to take certain actions. Eren is violent, and wants to stir up conflict. He is because he’s a child soldier who has been raised that way all his life. Eren also knows that these things are wrong. Which is why he wants to take these actions, but in no way feel responsible for them. A gun is not responsible for a bullet leaving the barrel and shooting someone. Eren wants to be the gun, rather than the person holding the trigger.

Which is why Eren is now inside of a giant flesh monster that’s bent on destroying everything. He is the mechanism that destroys the world. It’s the extreme result of that line of thinking. But once again Eren’s entire character can be summarized in one line.

“Eren Jaeger is an extremist.” 

[onelinemanytimes]

To all people who enjoy content:

There is a HUGE issue that needs to be addressed in how people react to things online and how they decide to deal with perceived issues. Specifically, in regards to content creators online, and the content they create.

I want to clarify, this post is talking for the most part about creators who did something multiple years ago that they currently don’t agree with. I’m not talking about people who are CURRENTLY horrible people, but if you want to know please do ask.

Basic synopsis: Purity culture is being used to shame people for their interests and to actively control and manipulate what people are “allowed” to like, which is often harmful and toxic; it is also being used to condemn people for the entire rest of their lives over doing something in their past, with no regards to if an apology was offered- which is harmful to people trying to unlearn toxic mindsets and be better people in the present day.

So, let’s talk about Purity Culture. I don’t know what else to call it, so if someone has a better name for it go ahead and say it- but, essentially, “The idea that every piece of media you consume must itself be good, AND has to have been made by a “good person”,” with no exceptions. This belief means that if a creator is seen as a bad person, or the media itself has a troubling aspect, you are NOT allowed to like it, DO NOT INTERACT, YOU’RE PROBLEMATIC AS HELL TOO IF YOU LIKE IT!!!!

That may sound like an exaggeration, but it’s only mildly so. There is, however, a much more harmful part to this mentality: Judging people for things they did years ago, and not allowing them to apologize and be forgiven, and USING this purity culture ideal against THEM as well. The idea that people can’t be forgiven, can’t change, and have to have been perfect always to be valid is extremely, extremely toxic and harmful, full stop. There are so many underlying issues that can both lead to someone being “problematic,” but that is so much less the issue than the fact doing this discourages real change.

People DO change over time. And if you find out someone did something in their past, you ARE allowed to not forgive them! However; That does NOT mean you should condemn them and everything they do as problematic horrible and unforgivable, and ATTACK other people and make WARNING posts in the tone of them STILL being “””Problematic”””! That is in some cases, BLATANT MISINFORMATION, and in most cases, encouraging the mentality that people don’t change.

Now, who is this a problem for? Because someone saying horrible things about minorities of any kind is legitimately harmful in its own right, and can hurt people who find it, which deserves to be addressed. (Again, YOU are not required to forgive them, and you have the freedom to not engage.) Purity Culture hurts People with RSD (Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria), and people who cannot control what they hyperfixate on. It can ALSO harm people who are struggling to get past toxic mentalities for any reason, and people who are trying to improve themselves and be better., and people who HAVE improved themselves and gotten better after being a person with (arguably) horrible views.

For people who experience RSD, seeing people denounce a piece of media for “””Something problematic””” (creator or otherwise), and in some cases seeing people ATTACK those who enjoy that media, can be physically painful and extremely, extremely stressful. Especially with the prevalence of this mentality right now, it makes engaging with anything a VERY stressful experience, because if what you enjoy isn’t perfect in every way you will be shamed for it, and rejected for it, and actively hated for it, and there is NO compromise on that point.

This is twice as volatile an issue when you ALSO cannot wholly control what your brain hyperfixates on. Hyperfixation (the word) has two main uses; in regards to a single task/activity (in which you’re unable to pull yourself out of said task and cannot switch focus to anything else), and in regards to media consumption (having an intense, very focused interest in media or a character, that can feel very consuming and intense in some cases. This extends even MORE so to special interests).

 Hyperfixations in those who are neurodivergent (don’t think the same as the wider population- such as people with ADHD and Autism, amongst other things) are NOT typically something they can control. Not without exceptional effort and potential detriment- one of the fairly unfortunate coping mechanisms I have for this (speaking, yes, as someone with ADHD) is to Completely ignore new media, wholesale, to avoid gaining a hyperfixation in relation to that media. Even still, I obviously still SEE things because I exist in the world and things are everywhere- and while I can enjoy content normally, it is MUCH different when I see something and feel unable to focus on ANYTHING else for WEEKS on end.

You can hyperfixate on something before learning about “X problematic thing,” and then when you’ve already gotten very attached and deep into the media people will start attacking you with it! And saying “Oh, you like THAT??? That was made by a super problematic person, you can’t like that!!!” It’s EXTREMELY difficult to explain how harmful that is when I A: Can’t control it, B: Didn’t know, and C: Suffer from RSD in the first place. It DOES NOT stop you from engaging with the content, because you are hyperfixated on it and you literally can’t avoid it, but it DOES overwhelm you with guilt and make you withdraw from the people around you because now YOU must be problematic and horrible and you’re a horrible person for liking this media and everyone must HATE you.

The above was not an exaggeration. That is legitimately how it feels.

People are talking about how “Cringe Culture is dead,” but it being replaced by a MUCH more insidious “Purity Culture” that is MUCH MORE toxic, MUCH MORE manipulative, and also inherently flawed to begin with!!! You CAN’T and SHOULDN’T be a perfect person, that is why you CHANGE AND GROW. You should ALSO be judging a piece of media on its OWN merits, NOT on the merits of what’s behind it (not wholesale like people are intent on doing).

Now, all things in moderation. If a piece of media was created with malicious or biased opinions in its core: It IS important to address that, and to acknowledge that this aspect is not something you should support, and something to be mindful of when thinking about the content. It’s also good to be aware of how people currently are when participating in media spaces- you don’t have to be perfect at this, but if you don’t want to engage with things made by people who have horrible current views that is absolutely your choice.

However, this doesn’t excuse constantly shaming and attacking people, ESPECIALLY people who are aware of a media’s flaws and able to both recognize that and amend that in a respectful, understanding way. You can enjoy a story about a murderer without also being a murderer and knowing that murder is wrong. This extends to other actions as well by the way (and the desensitization of people to murder in modern day media is also a wild topic for another day because wow some people really be out here like “yeah literally ending someone’s life in fiction is fine but x is absolutely abhorrent and unforgivable,” like what??). 

The real thing here is, this: If you don’t like content, or you cannot in good conscience enjoy that content knowing about something that happened relating to it: Don’t interact! If you are for some reason, stuck participating in and interacting with something you personally feel is horrible, don’t shame and hurt other people for more honestly enjoying it, especially the good parts. What you CAN do is inform people, respectfully!

And with ALL the details please. Because I see a lot of times, especially with creators: Someone will dig up something the creator said years ago and say, “THIS CREATOR IS (X) YOU CAN’T SUPPORT THEM OR ENJOY WHAT THEY MAKE BECAUSE IT’S PROBLEMATIC!!!” And, actually: They have since apologized for what they said, and actively made efforts to change. “But they did it in the past” Is NOT a valid argument, and honestly?? If you’re the same person you were even two years ago, that’s wild, and I hope you’ll understand that some people can change drastically in that time after being properly informed about issues.

Again: If you don’t want to interact with a piece of media, okie dokie! It’s up to us to respect that, and to tag our stuff and not shove it down your throat, y’know? But maybe, if you don’t like something, you shouldn’t decide to hurt the people who do like it, because I think that’s pretty harmful, and man imagine someone digging into your life 3 years ago and finding one sentence you said to judge your entire life on and force people to hate you with. Haha that’d suck, right?

If you read all this wow thanks, and also I’m well aware most my fellows with ADHD probably skimmed it because yeah it is a lot man whoops- I’ve just been thinking about it for a while because yeah. Yeah. “I do not control the hyperfixation” is not just a funny meme y’all it’s a thing and it’s legitimately exhausting and painful to see everything you enjoy be hated and be told you’re wrong for liking it in any way, shape, or form.

[kcatta-wodahs]

MC Who Does Not Fear Death x OM! Demon Brothers

Or maiming, or apparently any other consequences. You’ve walked into this situation with absolutely no filter and no fear. Time to tear down every structure of Devildom society.

Lucifer

You look at him with a withering stare when he tries to intimidate you into behaving.

“I was summoned out of my trashy apartment to this place, where literally anyone could snap me like a twig on accident. I’m just working on the assumption that I’m already dead.”

He sternly looks at you. “You’re under my protection during your time here. No harm will come to you.”

You snort derisively, which visibly irritates him. “Don’t worry about it. I won’t come back to haunt you if it happens.”

As you continue through your life in Devildom he keeps calling you out for meddling and all that, like usual, and he HATES that you literally *do not care* when he threatens you.

Like HE knows that he wouldn’t hurt Diavolo’s transfer student but YOU are supposed to be AFRAID of him dammit.

His frustration at this ends up turning into a form of respect. You’re about the only person who will stand up to him, and tbh like you’re so fucking fragile but you’ll yell at him all day? That takes guts. Annoying guts. But you’ve got guts.

But also STOP IT. He has enough stress in his life and now he’s constantly terrified that you’ve decided it’s a great idea to adopt a baby balrog

Which you did once. He’s just afraid that “Flamin Hot Cheeto” is going to come back since you somehow managed to imprint on it.

despite the fact that the BABY could easily tear your arms off on accident

Not to mention he gets the flack for EVERY SINGLE ONE of these following stories. You stress him out so much. Please. Please, stop. 

He’s almost to the point of begging. The Avatar of Pride is three steps away from either locking you away for the rest of the year or begging on his knees for you to calm down. 

 But you know you’d find a way out if he locked you up so no worries. It’ll be a good challenge.

Mammon

“Well you WON’T be dead because it’s my job to protect you! Are you doubting the Great Mammon?!”

Stupid human. Yeah, you’re fragile and weak, but that’s why HE’S your bodyguard now, and there’s no way in hell (lol) that he would let you die on his watch.

Lucifer would kill him.

You welcome the challenge, and he thinks it’s funny at first but quickly becomes a flustered mother hen.

“NO, we are NOT going out to Madam Scream’s at 3am! Do ya know what kinda CREEPS are out there at 3am?!”

And you sneak out the fucking window.

He has had more heart attacks in the past week than he has had in the last 100 years of life.

He starts agreeing to your ridiculous adventures JUST because then he can actually keep an eye on you. 

He adores the chaos of the laugh that bursts from you every time you narrowly escape death. 

He HATES how often you have to NARROWLY ESCAPE DEATH. So he will never tell you.

He almost doesn’t have time for his own shenanigans anymore, because all his time is taken up by trying to make sure you stay alive.

And you’ve figured out that if you turn *any* of your ideas into a money-making one, he will join you whole-heartedly.

So you bribe him because what’s money to you anymore anyway?

Leviathan

I mean he doesn’t leave his room much, so tbh he probably just gets texts from you that make him want to scream.

‘hey uh levi say if someone were to hypothetically be stuck in a succubus’ devil basement to become an unwilling sacrifice to asmo what would that person, hypothetically, do?’

‘probably die’ is usually all he sends back

You always come back, because he always sends a text to the other brothers. In that case Asmo came to rescue you himself and scold the succubus.

You become the friend that he makes funny throwing-shade reddit posts about. (Devvit? Devil reddit? Eh??)

‘Levi so this has nothing to do with anything but is there a cure for a dangerously potent ‘always win at rock-paper-scissors' curse? Asking for a friend’

‘Friend is being held hostage tho so maybe be quick about a response’

He didn’t even know that kind of curse existed. None of them did. What the fuck did you do.

How did you get taken captive by playing rock paper scissors?

He doesn’t know. Nobody does. He expects the play-by-play so he can recommend it as a new anime to his favorite producers. 

Somehow your chaotic plans end up with stories almost as great as TSL. 

Beelzebub

He physically carries you around.

He’s like “fuck this you can’t get into trouble if I’m holding you.”

If Beel’s on MC watching duty, he’s almost the only one who is successful, just because you physically cannot get away. 

But at the same time, he is very easily bribed. 

So yes, he’ll go to Madam Scream’s with you at 3am. Sounds like fun.

But he is very protective after losing someone he cares about (who you remind him of so much….) so he keeps you close when you’re out and about too.

If you start getting into a fight with some other demon he literally just takes the fight for you and wins with no trouble at all.

You like having Beel with you.

Especially finding street festivals! You’re in a whole new world and there’s a MILLION things to try. Beel is more than happy to try them with you.

But that leads to arguments about whether deadly creatures to humans are still deadly when dead. 

“No, you can’t eat that it’s on fire. I know even small fires hurt humans. I’ll eat it for you.”

“That hot sauce makes every demon I know cry. You really shouldn’t buy a bottle. Please. No, don’t try it. No, that’s too much for one-- oh. Oh no.”

He forgives you as long as you don’t actually get hurt and you give him your leftovers.

Asmodeus

“If I get wrinkles because of you I promise you will never hear the end of it. I will curse you forever.”

He swears on every single one of his lovers that you have started giving him grey hairs.

GREY HAIRS, MC.

Why can’t you just settle down and let them all take care of you? You don’t have to prove anything to the other demons!

But you will. You’re living in Devildom now, and by everything unholy, you are going to live that life to its fullest extent.

He was thrilled at first when you were all for joining him at his nightclubs and parties. Now he hides every party’s date from you.

That time you almost threw yourself off a balcony to try and emulate a very drunk demon’s newest dance move.

“I need to stay TRENDY, Asmo!! I’ll be fine!!”

Ever since learning Demonus doesn’t affect humans you have challenged every single stuck-up tough boy to a drinking contest.

And every single time you win, Asmo has had to *narrowly* save you from being killed by said demon.

And you just say “he deserved it” every time.

And like, yeah okay, he probably did but YOU’RE NOT ALLOWED TO DIE.

Somehow, you manage to out-party Asmo.

dON’T TELL THE OTHERS but he lives for the times when you practically fall asleep on his shoulder while coming home from a rager. You may not get drunk, but when you’re sleepy, you’re so affectionate and something in his heart melts.

Satan

At first, Satan was all for the rebellious “life life with no restraints” thought process you explained to him.

I mean, he didn’t like the assumption that he and his brothers couldn’t control themselves to not accidentally kill you, but also… fair.

But he didn’t realize that this mindset followed through for EVERY demon in ANY place.

Including RAD, where old and wizened demons were *really* not used to being contradicted

Which led to you “accidentally insulting” your 5000 year old Human Studies professor by giving them a pop quiz on current memes (which they failed).

And left Satan as the one who had to make sure that said professor didn’t kill you. 

And the thing is, this keeps happening.

You’ve written all over the school’s library books, pointing out every error.

You *continue* to argue with the demons who threaten to kill you when you say silly things like “No, Solomon did not learn his sorcery at Hogwarts because Hogwarts isn’t REAL.”

(Solomon, meanwhile, refutes you vehemently and seems to grow three inches taller every time you glare at him.)

Satan assures you that he values knowledge and truth and all that, but could you maybe find a less dangerous way to push it?

No can do, Satan, because you already had plans with Mammon to use a curse that writes the history of the actual Sorceric Academy that Solomon attended like 400 years all over the desks in Human Studies. It’s activated by anyone saying “Hogwarts”. 

No, no, Satan, it’s brilliant, because you can’t do magic. It can’t be you who did it.

Satan, no don’t tell Lucifer.

I thought you hated him. Satan, wait. 

You are the only person in the history of ever who convinces him to come to Lucifer for intervention. You wear that badge with pride and also deep, deep, bitter sadness. 

Belphegor

Like, through the plot your willingness to be a thorn in anyone’s side just to get more information really works for Belphie.

He’s like all I gotta do is ask? Sweet. Yeah. Go, human.

But then when he’s all big and threatening and “im gonna kill you” and you just kind of look at him and nod like “yeah, this checks out.” 

Frankly, that’s rude, MC. 

And then he keeps threatening to kill you and it doesn’t even PHASE you like. You just keep listening to him rant and going “OH i think i get it now”

He liked that you were always looking for more information when he was the one pushing you around, but now?

No. Human, he is going to KILL you here, STOP ASKING QUESTIONS.

And then you do the time-travel bit, and see that he *literally has killed you in one timeline* and you just like

Shrug it off and keep talking about Lilith???????

Tbh what probably stopped him from doing it again is just that you’re fucking insane, MC 

“MC, you literally just saw yourself dead in Mammon’s arms”

You wave your hand vaguely in his direction and say, “Yeah okay, but can we talk about the lack of communication in this household because it is tearing this family apart.”

What the fuck MC

When he’s back to normal, tbh he loves that side of you. He loves getting into shit when he’s not sleeping. He will 100% encourage you and be there to make sure that you *don’t* actually die again.

He’s the only one who doesn’t actually try to stop you. Who knew he was so into chaos.

But if you try to drag him to a plan when he should be sleeping he will be like Beel and literally just hold you down while he naps dammit. You brought this on yourself. He needs sleep.