#boat boys hits different for some reason

[mysticwinterkit]

“You haven’t played Hermitcraft before. It’s very different, Joel.”

Boat Boys on Hermitcraft…

[c-is-for-circinate]

It feels like there's this narrative that fandom keeps wanting to explore, with Steve Harrington, about this very specific type of martyrdom where self-sacrifice is an expression of a lack of self-worth. And, like, yes, write the narrative that's meaningful to you, and yes ok Steve does admittedly get beaten up a lot, but -- legitimately I do not think this narrative is actually Steve's story.

Like, without gendering things too much, there is something in the Steve fanon that I keep seeing that's so reflective of the specific kind of sacrifice and societal pressures exerted on girls, specifically -- this story of 'you make yourself worthy and worthwhile by carving pieces out of yourself', of believing that you must always give and never receive to justify the space you take up in the world. Yes, boys can experience this same pressure (and obviously trans and nb people of all genders run into it as well! sometimes a lot!), but especially in the mid-1980s cultural context where Stranger Things takes place, it's just...really not likely to be a dominant narrative for Steve to be operating under? It doesn't even really match the Steve we see on screen -- who is happy to make sacrifices for the sake of others, yeah, when needed, but who's not particularly kind or giving unless somebody asks first.

And Steve does get hurt a lot on other people's behalf! And this is a problem! It's just a completely different problem than the one fandom keeps writing.

Steve, and I'm going to say this forever, is a story about toxic masculinity, which the show may or may not even know it's writing. The archetypes influencing Steve's character as it shows up on the screen (and the stories and messages that Steve would actually be surrounded by in his actual life) are not deconstructions of suffering heroes who never should have had to fight in the first place and were destroyed by it. That's the Buffy the Vampire Slayer story. Steve's not Buffy. Steve's cultural context is Indiana Jones.

Steve is The Guy! And part of being The Guy is that you're expected to take the hits -- not because Steve is less important than the women-and-children he's supposed to protect, but because, the story says, he will get less hurt. Why should Steve get in between Billy and Lucas? Because Steve is an eighteen-year-old athlete and Lucas is in middle school, and of the two of them, Steve actually stands a chance. (And yes, Steve got badly hurt there, and Max had to save him -- but if Lucas, if Max had taken that beating they would not have been running through those tunnels later.) Was somebody else better-qualified to dive down to the uncertain bottom of a cold lake in the middle of the night? Steve doesn't list his credentials there as a way of justifying some ideal of martyrdom; he is literally the most likely person on the boat not to drown.

And make no mistake: when Steve's pulled into the Upside-Down, he survives the bats long enough for backup to get there. Realistic or not, he's apparently tough enough that he's physically capable of hiking barefoot through hell without much slowing down. Steve is the tank for the same reason as any tank: because he literally has been shown to have the most hit points in the group. You cannot honestly engage with Steve in this context without dealing with the fact that he's right.

AND THIS IS A PROBLEM! This is still a problem! But it's not the same problem that fandom seems to expect. It's not an expression of caretaking or the need for self-sacrifice; it's not an issue with Steve valuing himself less. It's an issue of toxic masculinity so ingrained that Steve doesn't even recognize he's suffering from it, because one of the tenets of toxic masculinity is that Big Strong Guys don't suffer. It's just a concussion, it's fine, he'll walk it off. It's not that Steve thinks he deserves to get hurt, or even that he's less deserving of safety than the others. It's that absolutely nothing in his cultural context allows him to admit that he can be hurt in a significant way.

There's still so much tension that can be gotten out of this situation, I swear. There's so much that can be explored in writing! Hell, the show itself is deconstructing some of this trope, believe it or not, by giving us a Steve who absolutely can take all the hits thrown his direction but still doesn't know what the fuck he's doing with his life. It turns out that doing his job as The Guy is only mildly helpful in horror movie situations (mostly by buying time for smarter, squishier people to do the damage from behind him), and somewhere a little worse than useless in everyday life.

But Steve does not go out of his way to self-sacrifice, he really doesn't. He just does his job. He's The Guy. Of course he's not going to let a kid or a girl or some scared skinny nerd who just learned about monsters yesterday take the hits. Of course Steve's got this.

[gamerphobe]

i know we all love michael afton, and like i get it, i love him too, but sometimes it really feels like the fnaf fandom cares sooo much about sadboy michael being the saddest boy of all time that they pretend other characters had better lives just so michael seems sadder by comparison

objectively i think elizabeth and the crying child get the worst of this, but especially elizabeth. theres this persistent idea that elizabeth was williams favorite and beautiful angel and he loved and doted on her so much while poor poor mike got nothing. so often i see the dynamic put forward that william was physically abusive but only towards michael. which is ridiculous for a lot of reasons, but especially because we only see william get physical with any of his kids once, and its when he hits elizabeth in the silver eyes.

obviously, the silver eyes is a different continuity. whatever. its still canon, so the things it tells us about the general world and characters still applies. and it outright shows william as an abusive and neglectful father to His Daughter. and EVEN if you want to completely disregard the books, william obviously didnt “love” elizabeth enough in the games to not want to electrocute and experiment on her when he 100% knew she was possessing circus baby. elizabeth was a means to an end to him the same way michael was. he didnt even love her enough to properly keep an eye on her even though he knew she wanted to see a robot that would kill her. if william cared about elizabeth half as much as people pretend he does she would still be alive, because he wouldve put half a mind towards keeping her safe

+ cc is in a similar boat. william had a million chances to be a decent father and try to step in between cc and michael before things went too far. the bite happened at ccs birthday party, literally all william had to do was show up to his own sons birthday and he could have stepped in but he didnt. like, we all know william was using the fredbear plush to keep an eye on cc, so theres no doubt he knew the kid was being bullied. and not only does he do nothing about it, he also 1) actively feeds into ccs fears about the animatronics 2) still makes him go to the establishment housing the animatronics hes terrified of

and the way william talks about them. “you are broken” “i will put you back together” like william views his kids as objects. broken things he can fix. these are not words said by a loving parent

and its not even just the aftons! henry is no where near as horrible as william is—i Am Not suggesting henry was abusive—but he also wasnt a great dad! building a robot to watch your daughter instead of watching your daughter yourself does not make you a good parent! henry loves charlotte, but the emilys were not some perfect family with no issues.

obviouslyyy michael suffered a ton and was a victim no one is saying he wasnt but i promiseee that does not have to come at the cost of pretending no one else was a victim too. things are just as if not more interesting if you acknowlede other characters guys i promise i promise

[munsonkitten]

They say it’s for his own good. Because he’s dangerous. But Steve doesn’t feel any more dangerous than he did before this whole mess. Like, seriously, he could kill literal monsters with nothing more than a bat covered in rusty nails. He doesn’t feel any more dangerous now than he did when he hit Billy Hargrove with a fucking car or when he held back in all the fights he’s ever lost. Because he could kill fucking monsters. He wasn’t gonna find out if he was capable of killing teenage boys too.

He sees Eddie sometimes.

Eddie looks dangerous, but then he always has. Even if he never was. He always had that look to him, with his leather and chains and heavy boots. Dangerous in a good way.

Now he looks bloodthirsty.

Well, ha, Steve thinks. That’s because he is.

Steve is too, but he doesn’t think that’s grounds for imprisonment. He doesn’t think that’s grounds for being held hostage in the newly reopened and renovated Hawkins Lab.

They say it’s because he’s dangerous, but if that’s the case then they should’ve locked him up years ago. They should’ve seen what was wrong with him back when he was that asshole popular kid at Hawkins High.

Every time he sees Eddie these days it’s when they’re being shoved down hallways. They have Eddie in a mask to prevent biting. Some clear plastic thing that shows his snarling face as he’s pushed. His teeth are sharp and pointed, and he has this wild look in his eyes. There’s blood inside the mask more often than not. Whether it’s someone else’s every time, or if it’s Eddie’s, Steve never really knows. A mix of both, most likely.

They make eye contact and Steve tries to tell him they’ll get out of this mess, and Eddie looks back at him like he wants to believe him, but just can’t.

Steve doesn’t blame him. He’s lost track of how long they’ve been here. He stopped counting after six months, after the lines he carved into his wall with a sharp fingernail — talon, really — became too numerous to hide behind the one pin-up girl poster they gave him for good behavior after the second week.

Weird reward, if you ask Steve. The orderly that put it up for him smirked, said something about tissues in the cabinet in the corner of his room, and then left without another word.

Really fucking weird.

The head scientist comes into Steve’s room. Steve can’t remember his name. Matthews or Mathson or… Something. Doesn’t matter. Not like Steve really needs to know. He’s just called The Doctor and that’s that.

“According to our records, today’s a very special day, indeed. Happy birthday, Steven,” he says, looking down at Steve’s chart.

So it’s February fourteenth… But —

“How old am I?” Steve asks.

“Twenty-two,” the doctor answers.

Twenty two… Which means it’s 1988. Steve’s been here over a year and a half, since June ‘86 when they took him in the dead of night. Things had been weird before that. He’d been having cravings, and Eddie came back from the dead, clawed his way out of the Upside Down all by himself. He came back different, but still the same Eddie that Steve had mourned.

Twenty two years old and he doesn’t even remember turning twenty one.

“Since it’s your birthday,” the doctor continues. “We decided you deserve a reward for being so cooperative during your stay. Something you choose yourself, anything you want — within reason, mind you. Don’t ask to get out of here because that won't be happening. But if we can get it for you, it’s yours to keep.”

“Eddie,” Steve blurts out. “I want Eddie. I want him moved into my cell permanently. Get us bunk beds or some shit.”

“Ah, yes, well,” the doctor sighs. “Mr Munson is quite….”

“Dangerous? Insane? I can keep him in check,” Steve says quickly. “Look, we were friends before all of this and now we’re in the same boat. I understand him. If you want to get through to him, do this for me and I can help.”

None of that is true, of course. He’s not gonna make Eddie do shit, and he really doesn’t think he could if he wanted to. He’s wild, a little more monster than Steve is. It probably has something to do with being stuck in the Upside Down after he died. Different, but still Eddie.

Steve doesn’t blame him for the trouble he’s been causing. He’s seen it firsthand only a couple of times, but sometimes his doctors go missing and never come back. Sometimes they’re covered in blood when they come to see him after being with Eddie.

It’s not hard to guess what happens there.

“We’ll try it,” the doctor says. “But I can’t imagine why that’s what you want.”

He writes something down on his clipboard, clicks his pen with a sigh, and stands.

“I will see what we can do.”

And then he‘s gone.

Steve waits two days. Two days where no one comes to see him, to poke him with needles or flash lights in his eyes. He’s delivered his meals through the slot in his door, but that’s all that happens. He drinks the blood they give him. Animal today, he knows. They switch it up on him, and he’s found he can tell the difference easily now. It’s not the same as human, but it does the job.

It keeps him alive. It keeps him from wanting to tear himself limb from limb because of hunger and thirst. There’s still an itch in his throat and a nagging in the back of his mind saying he’s not satisfied, but it’s better than nothing.

On the second day, he’s told to stand against the back wall, and he complies easily. Complying means rewards — it means he doesn’t get hurt. The first few days he was here he was uncooperative and they beat him. It was too much like being in the Russian bunker beneath Starcourt again.

So he stopped fighting back. He stopped spitting and hissing, he stopped trying to sink his teeth into anything he could reach. And in turn he got rewards. He’s given more time outside his room, more time to sit in a room with a rainbow around the walls and a bunch of old children’s toys.

He knows he’s at Hawkins Lab. He can feel it, can feel something in the back of his head that tells him his family is close. His real family — Robin and Nancy and Dustin and everyone else. He knows he’s in Hawkins Lab and he can’t help but wonder if El lived in the same room as him, if she pushed around the same Hot Wheels car he does when he’s bored.

He stands in his room now, and it’s really a cell, but he doesn’t like to call it that, and he watches as two men carry his bed out. Two more come in with bunk beds that look like two of the regular beds welded together — thin metal frames with thin mattresses. Straight out of a prison.

The doctor comes into the room and he’s carrying a box in his arms. Steve can’t see what’s inside it, but he thinks they might be the few personal belongings Eddie has. The box gets set on the bottom bunk. An orderly comes in with a pile of extra blankets and two pillows. Those get set on the beds, too.

They all leave without a word, but Steve knows he won’t be alone for much longer. He knows that they’re going to get Eddie to him, and soon enough, they’re both going to be able to escape. Together.

Steve doesn’t know how long he sits there on the bottom bunk, but it’s a while. He only spares a single glance into the box, and he sees a spare hospital gown, and some clean underwear inside it. There’s a book sitting on top, tattered and splattered with blood. At least Eddie has that, Steve supposes.

The heavy metal door to Steve’s room opens and Eddie is shoved in, snarling and snapping at the guard behind him, holding his hands in shackles behind his back. They have heavy wool mittens on him, his plastic mask covering the bottom half of his face. Steve’s surprised they don’t just put him in a straitjacket and throw him into a padded room.

They make eye contact, Eddie’s formerly chocolate brown eyes now deep red. His hair is pulled back into a ponytail and shows his slightly pointed ears. Steve’s look the same, and his eyes are still mostly brown, but he can see the red swirling around inside them during the few occasions he can look in the mirror.

Eddie sniffs the air through his mask, bares his teeth. Steve can see the blood in his mouth through the clear plastic.

Maybe this wasn’t a good idea. What if Eddie hurts him too? What if he’s… What if he’s not Eddie anymore? If the last bits of his humanity have drained out of him, if he’s been forced to let the monster inside take full control… Steve doesn’t know what he’ll do.

I’d let the monster take me, too, he thinks, and then immediately regrets it. He doesn’t want to be that, and in his head he’s holding a snarling beast back with wrought iron bars, in a cell not too different from the one his physical body stands in. He’s gotten this far. It would be a waste to not even try.

The guard leaves Eddie where he stands, still cuffed, and backs away to the door. He slams it shut and locks it, then slides open the food slot. Eddie growls, jerks at his cuffs, trying to get free.

“Munson!” the guard barks. “Back up against the door.”

Eddie backs up until he’s against the door and Steve hears the key unlocking the cuffs around Eddie’s wrists.

The mittens come off next, and both things get pulled through the slot. The guard quickly slides it shut. Eddie is free from his restraints, and now he and Steve are alone.

Read more on AO3

[dekusleftsock]

HMMNGGGSHSHHSHD IM SO LATE TO THIS BUT THERES SO MANY THINGS IVE WANTED TO SAY FOR SO LONG AND IVE JUST BEEN TOO DEPRESSED OR BUSY TO DO IT

I did just re-read the chapter, hazbin/helluva hyperfixation is gone y’all I’m back and ready for more.

Okay so, a couple of things I noticed. Let’s start there.

Throughout this chapter, it really is heartbreaking to see how Izuku regards one for all as Allmight’s power, and therefore a disrespect to him to give that away. Which is quite frankly insane given the nature of what the power is, but regardless it still shows me just how deeply he still cares for and admires allmight.

It also makes the transfer Izuku makes to Katsuki in the heroes rising movie all the more intimate; izuku wouldn’t just give the power to anyone, if not for himself (which is also clearly due to that fact since he still sees ofa as the thing that makes him a hero, not his characteristics), then simply out of respect for allmight and his legacy.

It’s just the anger you can see, feel in those words as he demands to know why. I’ve personally been in the boat of “Izuku dislikes Kudou immensely bc he hasn’t proven to be heroic and amazing like Katsuki has, and also he insults him a lot why would he like him”, since Izuku does genuinely have self respect (a common mischaracterization imo), he’s just also more forgiving and faithful to those he admires or loves (or both).

SPEAKING OF SELF RESPECT AND MISCHARACTERIZATION!

I want to highlight the words “But even so, this boy refuses to throw in the towel”, bc it’s such an important part of Izuku and his character.

He isn’t overly self sacrificial, he isn’t a masochist, he isn’t even a martyr—especially not a martyr.

Izuku is stubborn. That is not the same thing as wanting to constantly die for others; izuku is like Katsuki, he wants to fight for others. Giving up just simply isn’t in his morality.

And if “giving up” also includes letting someone die or failing to save someone out of his own negligence, that’s not because he wants to die.

I can’t explain how much the interpretation that Izuku wanting to die, even for others, is so fucking out of character. Izuku is stubborn, he’s stubborn in the way that he won’t just fall over and let the ground take him. Given the circumstances, Izuku would fight for his life just as he would fight for another.

THIS HAS BEEN THE CASE SINCE, I DONT KNOW, CHAPTER FUCKING ONE?

“Idiot! If I’d really jumped, you’d be charged with bullying me into suicide!! Think before you speak!!”

“Idiot…”

Like he’s so unaffected by the awful comment outside of being angry at the DISRESPECT of said comment. This is why all those damn suicidal Izuku fics have always felt so ooc. Izuku isnt a moody, brooding ball of depression, he’s a stubborn, courageous, and angry ball of depression. There is a difference.

Even before this, he literally attempts to say something or fight back to Katsuki, honestly it looks like he’s about to punch him here.

The only reason he DOESNT is bc HE DOESNT WANT TO GET HIS ASS BEAT

Btw for anyone who has or ever will be in Izuku’s position, punch him. I love Katsuki But hit him in the fucking gut. If you get your ass beat at least you can say you can took it like a champ.

Speaking from someone who regrets not punching three girls who were trying to gang up on me in middle school🫶🫶🫶

Anyway, I’d argue that Izuku not taking Katsuki in a fight was made out of self preservation, something he very much has.

And last but not least, we get to this lovely fucking page.

First of all…

Hm, ain’t that strange?

I’m not saying it’s fully a parallel, I’m just saying it’s something to consider.

Especially with the context that I don’t think Izuku feels shameful here.

He’s been a hero who didn’t look like one once before, I’m sure a snide comment through Shigaraki is nothing in comparison to the literal hundreds of civilians afraid of him.

Or, even more interestingly, what if he’s shameful of it, and okay with that? Now THATS some control over your emotions. This is demonstrating the very thing Banjo told him in the first place; using his emotions to fuel him. Let himself live with them, breath with them. They exist, and they hurt, and that’s fucking okay.

But it begs the question…. Why bring attention to it?

Clearly horikoshi WANTS you to see that Izuku is the one who looks like the monster now. He even looks devil like, blackwhip coming out of his back the way it is just feels like wings.

But maybe… maybe this is how he stops sweeping problems under the rug. Maybe this is him, Izuku, at his most animalistic form. Him. At his core. This is the Izuku he doesn’t want people to know.

The faceless, long clawed, oozing black monster.

He’s a kid who can take a fucking beating. He’s not Deku the useless doll, nor is he Deku the hero. He’s simply Izuku.

And you know what’s even more likely?

The black pit of anger that Shigaraki has formed, fueling his uncontrolled emotions and anger and despair, with the light tear showing something underneath…

What if, this was Izuku’s black ball of anger and shame, except this one is escaping his body, pouring out and showing all of that for what it truly is. Pent up rage, uncontrolled emotion, anxiety and shame, all mixed into one hell hole of a person—but a ball that can be molded, controlled, torn apart from the inside out.

See, the same way Kudou tears at Shigaraki’s mental breaking to see what’s underneath, so have the ofa users for Izuku. Slowly, but surely, the people in Izuku’s life have, while created that ball in the first place, also worked to destroy it. The final piece of the puzzle is for Izuku to choose to let it happen, and he is.

Learning to sit in one’s fear, doubt, hatred, anger, sadness, grief, happiness—without that emotion having to be something, simply something that flows through you, that you can choose to act on or not; this is where Izuku’s arc is coming to its tipping point. We are nearing the climax, I can feel it.

[spqcebunsforever]

Finally Reunited

Pairing: LA Buggy x Reader

Summary: Y/n and Buggy used to be best friends when they were little but time split them apart but because Y/n is a part of a crew that contains a certain stretchy pirate who stole something that the clown pirate wants he and Y/n will be reuniting sooner rather than later.

Y/n's Pov

Me and Luffy have known each other from the very beginning. I was friends with Shanks and for some reason, Luffy admired him so he and I got very friendly and I grew to be very fond of the boy. Luffy since he was very little had always said that he wanted to be a pirate and join Shanks crew but he would always get turned down and always for the same reasons. I was there when he tried to poke his eye out to show how determined he was to be a pirate. I along with Shanks got him cleaned up and bandaged after it was tough trying to get him to realize that he was only a child and children couldn't be pirates.

I also remember the day Shanks had gone away to try to find the one piece he had come to say goodbye to me after he had spoken to Luffy and I remember him saying how devastated he was that he was never coming back. Shanks had always been brave even when we were growing up but along with that, he had always been stupid as well. "I can't believe you are going to really do this it's like you have a death wish" he just gave me a small smile "Yeah but just think about how cool I'll be when I find it". With tears in my eyes, I gave him the tightest hug I could give. I knew that this would maybe be the last hug that we ever share so I wanted to at least make it different from the rest.

A few years later Luffy had come up to me and told me that he was leaving to become a pirate and that he was going to create a crew and find the one piece. I was not about to let this boy that I had grown so fond of just leave so I packed all my stuff and told him that he had his first crew member. His smile was huge when I told him I was coming with him and that's what we did set off to go find the one piece. And that brings us to the present with Luffy jumping around on this boat that we stole and Nami trying to get the map to the grand line out of the safe.

When she finally opened the safe Luffy couldn't have been happier. Nami opened up the map and we all looked at it Zoro who had been taking a nap in the back had also come out to check out what was going on. Luffy asked Nami where exactly the grand line was so we followed her to the back so she could explain but while she was explaining we all heard bangs. Our first thoughts were that the Marines had caught up to us but when we got on the deck to see what was going on instead of cannon balls hitting us it was red smoke. Before I could even think about what was happening I felt my body go stiff and fall to the ground.

When I woke up I realized that I was on a bed and a very comfy one. Once my eyes had fully opened and were adjusted to the light I started looking around the room. It was a very nice room it had lots of gold stuff all around it, it looked like whoever owned the room was trying to impress someone. Before I could take another look around I heard the door creak open and I immediately moved back into the bed getting ready if I needed to fight. What I didn't expect to see was blue hair and a red nose from someone who I hadn't seen in years.

Buggy came into the room with a straight face I didn't like that whenever I had seen him he had always worn a smile but now it was completely different. "Ah, your awake good" I just continued staring at him so confused "Buggy is that you?". He walked further into the room and shut the door "Oh so you remember my name I'm surprised I thought you would have forgotten". I just again shot him a confused look "Of course I didn't forget your name why would you think that". His mood immediately changed from straight-faced and calm to rage "Why because you left me to go with Shanks!". I felt my eyes open in shock "What you know that's not true I didn't leave you for Shanks".

"Yes you did you left me for Shanks and betrayed me and to think that I ever liked you!" He realized what he had said and for a second we just stared at each other both our faces pink. Buggy put his hands over his face and slid down the bottom of the bed frame trying to hide himself. I couldn't help the small smile that appeared on my face he was still buggy.

I carefully moved closer to the bed frame still sitting on the bed. "Hey, you remember when we were little and we used to see how much food we could steal without getting caught by the chef". He didn't say anything but I knew he was listening "I remember because one night you had stolen 3 cookies from the boat's kitchen and I really wanted to beat you so I went down and tried to steal 4 but that's all that was left so in the morning the chef was so angry because he knew someone had stolen and before I could confess even though you knew I had done it you said you had done it and got toilet duty".

He still wasn't responding "Or I remember when you tried to open a door for me when we were younger but instead of opening you hit me with it and I ended up with a nose bleed and you started acting like I was dying asking if I was going to faint or if I was going to puke remember you carried me back to my bed after that as well you told everyone you didn't care but that night you brought me soup to make me feel better".

I started giggling at the memory but he still hadn't moved from his position hiding at the bottom of the bed frame. I started to think of something that I could say and then it hit me. "But my favorite memory from when we were little was when we were stargazing on the ship I think that one is my favorite because that night was actually the night I admitted to myself that I liked you". I felt my face again turn pink finally admitting that to him but I heard him move and his head popped up making eye contact with me.

"Is that true did you really like me". I just playfully rolled my eyes "Yes of course I liked you and listen I'm really sorry if I made you feel like I ditched you for Shanks and I'm sorry that I left you in general I should have stayed with you". Buggy then moved onto the bed with me sitting in front of me. "As long as you say you like me more than Shanks I will forgive you". I touched his cheek with my right hand "I like you way more than I like Shanks hell Bugs I love you". He accepted my touch and put his hand on mine. "Now could you please tell me where the rest of my crew are" Buggy rolled his eyes "Why are you a part of their crew come join mine we can be happy just us together".

I really thought about it I really did but I had to shake my head. "Not now bugs I need to make sure that he stays safe if the offer still stands in the future I'll of course join but I just need to make sure that he doesn't kill himself first". Buggy looked a little bummed but still gave me a smile "The offer will always stand for you no matter what". I gave him a quick peck on the cheek "Well now please show me to my crew so we can as nicely as we can kick your butt". Buggy got up and opened the door for me and this time I didn't get hit. As we were walking out buggy put his arm around my shoulder and gave me a smirk. "Yeah, I'd like to see you try sweetheart".

[steveshairychest]

here's some merman Eddie that I got a little carried away with <3

~

Steve's dad has been taking him fishing for years, it's the only thing they can do together without fighting.

It's always over summer break. They pack their bags and fly out to the same island every year and spend nearly every day out on a rented boat just fishing and making small talk here and there. His mother usually sunbathes on the beach and waves at them with her book every now and then to ensure them she hasn't passed out from heat stroke.

Steve will admit he doesn't actually go because he likes fishing. He really hates fishing. He hates sitting in the sun for hours on end, hardly ever catching anything and having to listen to his dad drone on about the stock market. No, he comes to the island for a very different reason.

He first met this reason when he was 9. He saw it from his bedroom window one night, splashing in the shallow end of the water. At first, he thought it was a beached dolphin or a baby whale, so he ran down to the dark beach without bothering to wake his parents, but by the time he made it down to the waterfront, it was gone. A pile of shells and pretty rocks sat in the water where the splashing had been. Steve took one of the pearly white shells and placed it on his windowsill.

The splashing happened again the next night, the sound of fins hitting water so loud it woke him up. He peeked out his window once again, but this time, the moon was large and bright in the sky, and it illuminated the shape of a boy in the water. Steve panicked. He was only 9, he didn't know what to do when someone was drowning but that didn't stop him from running down to the water with one of his floaties. The boy didn't notice Steve until he threw the floatie at him and yelled, "Grab on! I'll save you!"

Dark eyes shone under the moon and stopped Steve in his tracks almost immediately when they narrowed at him from just above the waters surface. Steve's floatie bobbed in the water next to the boy, but he made no move to grab it. Steve was scared, unable to move when the boy lifted his head out of the water and pointed at him with webbed fingers. "You. Give it back." He snarled through sharp teeth.

Steve opened and closed his mouth, trying to force words to come out, but he was too afraid. The thing in the waves looked like an ordinary boy, he was probably even the same age as Steve, but he was terrifying. "The shell. Give it back. It's mine." It shoved Steve's floatie away as it bumped into him and swam closer to the waters edge. Soft waves lapped at his bare torso as he sat in the shallows, his legs - no, tail, sitting out in front of him. Steve stared in shock, his mind screaming so many warnings at him, but all he could think was 'pretty'. He thought he must have been dreaming. "The shell. Go get it." It splashed water at Steve angrily, which caused Steve to finally unfreeze and run back to the house. He tripped multiple times as he kept turning back to make sure he wasn't hallucinating, that the boy was still angrily sitting there.

"I - I'll go get your shell. Wait there!" He yelled behind him.

Steve didn't learn the creature's name until he was 15.

Every summer break, he practically dragged his family to the airport so that he could visit the boy with the glittering tail that visited him under the light of the moon. Steve asked him his name many times, but each time the boy shook his head. "Names are sacred. I can't trust you with it yet." He only ever spoke in short sentences, and sometimes he sat for a while, his dark gaze focused on something beneath the waves as he struggled to find the right words. English wasn't his native language. He taught Steve a few words whenever they waded in the shallows together. He'd hold up a shell and say what he called it, and when Steve repeated the name correctly, the boy would smile so wide Steve could see nearly all his razor-sharp teeth.

It was Steve's last night there when the boy finally told him his name. They were out a bit deeper, Steve treading water and enjoying the slight brush of the boy's tail against his legs as they talked about the stars. "That is my star." He pointed with a webbed finger up at one of the brightest stars in the sky. "It is named Eddie, after me."

It took Steve a moment to realise what he said. His eyes widened and he nearly slipped under the water as he excitedly exclaimed. "You told me your name!" After 6 years of swimming and learning about this boys' strange underwater world, he finally knew his name.

The boy - Eddie nodded once and looked back up at his star. "You are special. Can trust you." Steve could have sworn he saw a blush creep across his pale cheeks that night. Before Steve could say anything else, Eddie swam closer to him and whispered, "You must not tell anyone else. My name is yours to keep. Yours only." This was important. Steve could tell by the way Eddie held his gaze, something he rarely ever did. This close, Steve could see just how much he's changed over the years, not anything drastic, it was all little things. The sharpness of his jaw, the scar on his brow, the markings on his chest and arms, the length of his hair; it had been just above his jaw when they'd first met, but now it hung in waves and brushed the tops of his shoulders. He wondered what other changes would happen in the years to come.

He hoped he could be around to see them all.

Steve had his first kiss, well, first kiss that really mattered, when he was 18.

He was aware of his feelings for Eddie for a long time but he was too scared to act on them. He dated other girls, never guys, and searched for that warm, tingly feeling he felt whenever he was with Eddie. But he never found it. At night, he opened his window and stared up at the brightest star in the sky, Eddie's star, and hoped that Eddie was looking up at it too. He started to hate coming home from their island holiday. Each year, he felt more and more of himself be left behind with Eddie in the comfort of the waves.

"I hate leaving you." Steve whispered while tying a new shell into Eddie's hair. Every year he visited, Eddie handed him a shell and told Steve to tie it into his hair. He told him it was something to remember Steve by. "I have nothing to remind me of you." He said while gently touching the first shell he ever tied in; it was the shell he stole all those years ago, the one Eddie forced him to return.

Eddie looked down at the water and hummed in thought. They sat on a rock, so only the end of his tail was submerged and he repeatedly lifted it out of the water before letting it splash softly back down into the cold sea as he thought. He always seemed so fidgety whenever they sat like this, his hands fiddled with the necklace that sat just above his collarbones and his eyes were never off the water for long. "I can give you something." He said after a moment of silence.

Steve perked up immediately. "Really? What is it?" He asked, unable to keep the eagerness out of his voice. Eddie never let him take any shells home so he knew it wasn't going to be that. A rock, maybe? He'd be happy with one of Eddie's favourite rocks.

"Close your eyes." Eddie said softly, his cold hand rested on Steve's thigh and caused him to shiver. "No peeking." Steve immediately did what he instructed. He screwed his eyes shut tight and listened for anything that could give away what Eddie was going to give him. Cold hands brushed against Steve's neck before resting on his bare shoulders, the touch almost feather light. Maybe the gift is a necklace? "Don't move." Eddie whispered.

And then there was a gentle pressure against Steve's lips and he felt that warm, tingly feeling spread throughout his entire body as he realised that Eddie was kissing him. Before Eddie could pull away, Steve threaded his hands into his soft, wet hair and deepened the kiss. It was wet and messy and a little uncoordinated, but it was the best kiss of Steve's life. When he slipped his tongue into Eddie's mouth and traced the sharp edge of teeth, Eddie made a noise that sounded a lot like a growl, and he pulled Steve as close as possible. Sharp nails lightly scratching his skin.

"Never forget me." Eddie said against Steve's lips.

"I couldn't even if I tried."

Eddie does end up giving Steve a necklace to take home. It's made of a variety of shells and stones, and it becomes a source of comfort when he leaves.

His friends ask why he turned down every girl that seemed interested and, unable to tell them he thinks he might be in a relationship with a merman, he shrugged and said that none of them were his type. He knew that whatever was going on between him and Eddie wasn't healthy or sustainable, but he's never felt more alive than when he's diving underneath the waves hand in hand with Eddie. Sure, Eddie didn't always understand him, was nocturnal, ate an exclusive diet of fish, and sometimes even brought Steve dead fish he'd just caught, but those were all things he loved about him.

Oh. Oh.

He was in love with Eddie.

His parents no longer come to the island, his father says he's too old, and his mother doesn't talk to him anymore. Steve's 22 now. He's turned down every beautiful girl his parents have tried to set him up with and instead of taking up his father's offer to join their family business, Steve works as a conservationist on his lover's island. He lives in his parent's holiday house, which is now equipped with a salt water pool that connects to the sea, and has a dog to keep him company during the day while Eddie is sleeping.

He's happy, content, and so, so in love, it's ridiculous. Eddie wakes at around 5pm every night and usually spends the first few hours awake with his family; who Steve has actually met. They sometimes come up with Eddie to Steve's pool and watch him potter around his house at night. After a while of listening to his family ask Steve nonstop questions, Eddie flicks his tail in irritation and hisses at them to leave in a language Steve's slowly learning. "Mine. Not yours." He growls at them. Steve's learned over the years that Eddie is very territorial and doesn't like sharing what is his, which includes Steve.

"Hi, my love." Steve sits down on the pools edge and smiles down at Eddie as he rests his head on Steve's lap. Some nights, they just sit and talk, Eddie's getting better at English and loves when Steve teaches him a new word. Some nights, they swim for hours and add to Eddie's shell collection that lines the edges of Steve's pool.

"I have something for you." Eddie says softly one night, only his head poking out the top of the water as he wades in the waves. A pale, webbed hand lifts out of the water and beckons Steve to leave his spot on the sand and join him in the icy waters. "Come here, my Steve." He calls into the night.

They're chest to chest in the water now, the scales underneath Eddie's eyes glitter in the light of the moon as he looks up at Steve. "Your people give rings to their lovers, yes?" Steve nods, fingers brushing over the scales at the base of his spine. "My people give pearls." He reaches into the little pouch that is tied around his waist, he keeps all his treasures in there, and pulls something out. He keeps it hidden in his fist and holds it out for Steve. "I made this for you, for us." He's nervous, Steve can tell by the way he keeps looking down at the water instead of at Steve.

"You made me something?" Steve says in awe as he lifts his hand and accepts the small treasure from Eddie. It's light and fits perfectly in the palm of his hand. When he looks down at the gift, his heart feels like its about to jump out of his throat. "Oh, Eddie." There's tears in his eyes as he carefully picks up the silver ring, a beautiful pearl adorns the top of the ring and catches the light of the moon as Steve slips it onto his finger. It fits perfectly. "It's beautiful. I love it."

Eddie beams and lifts his other hand to show Steve the matching ring on his finger. It doesn't sit as far down on his finger like Steve's because of the webbing. "We are- what's the word? Wives?"

Steve laughs and leans forward to rest his forehead against Eddie's. He's changed so much since that first day on the beach. There are more scales dusting his cheeks and neck, more shells in his hair and lines around his eyes when he smiles up at Steve. "Husbands is the word you're looking for."

Eddie hums and wraps his arms around Steve's neck, his cold fingers playing with the short hairs at the base of his neck. "Husbands sounds nice." He kisses his favourite mole on Steve's cheek and sighs happily, his tail brushing against Steve's legs.

"Yeah, yeah, it does."

[thehomophobe]

Trouble comes in Threes (A Human!Sun, Moon & Eclipse x F!Reader Fanfic)

Chapter 1:

Hitting the road Jack!

Written by me!

In the rugged roads of a rural town, there lived three brothers. Three brothers who’ve been together through thick and thin, now working in a small restaurant to earn some money. Ever since their parents died at a young age, the brothers had to work harder in order to make a living. 

Eclipse, the eldest brother and the ringleader of the little circus he’s made. Cunning, charismatic, the one in charge of anything that happened in the household just like the older brother he is. But ever since they had to leave that house behind, he’s been working under other managers. And boy did he not like being told what to do. Especially from layabouts, the ones who don’t put any effort into anything. Gold eyes would glare daggers at his bosses. And now he’s the “humble” chef of the rotten kitchen of the restaurant. With his long orangey hair tied firmly into a bun, he’s currently cooking as much as he can. With the little food that was available.

Moon, the second eldest, was not the most friendly person you would meet. He always kept to himself as he rather not talk to people. Piercing red eyes like his usually keeps those around him away, a sign of trouble if one would engage with him. Though he was reserved, he was considered the brains of the three. Any problems that passed by was answered with some sort of rationale crafted by him, often acting as the voice of reason. So what reason would suggest that he would have to wash dozens upon dozens of disgusting dishes? Money. So tying his noir black hair up and rolling his sleeves, he prepares for the worst.

Finally, Sun, the youngest. Always radiated an infectious joy that seemed to defy the troubles of the world, all with a smile. He brought laughter and levity wherever he went, no matter the job. There’s always a bounce in his step and a song in his head as if he’s walking on sunshine. His brothers may think he’s a little carefree; especially for their situation, but that negativity won’t stop he cheerful, happy-go-lucky spirit. Hence why he’s a waiter, an outgoing personality like that is perfect for the guy. Fluffy golden curls bounce with each step as he makes his way to a man at a booth.“

Good morning friend, I hope you’re having a wonderful day today.” Sun greets said man with a smile as he hands him a menu. “Anything you’d like?” 

You can imagine what he looks like idc “A nice cold beer would be good.” The man responded as Sun writes that down. “And some hot cakes.” 

“Coming right up!” Sun smiled as walked back to the counter, clipping the order to the right side. He skipped along to the next customer who walked in. You see, the brothers may not have it all yet, but they sure can get a head start somewhere. Their differences make each part of a plan work and nothing’s going stop them from making a living.

Right?

While waiting for the food to come out, a whistle blows from the side of the restaurant. A black cab drives up to the restaurant, inside was a man. The mail man, Oswald, or Ozzy for short. The whistle alerted Sun, who had an ecstatic look on his face as he ran to the car. Finally! Today’s the day!  Today’s the day! 

“Ozzy!” Sun waved excitedly, almost tripping over his feet while doing so. The sweet old mail man waved back, a smile mimicking the sunny server. While Ozzy was still in the car, Sun still gave him a hug from the side. Boy was he happy to see him. 

“Have you got it? Have you? Oh tell me you do!” Sun’s beautiful blue eyes gleamed as he jumped on the side of the car making it rock back and forth like a boat. 

“Quit jumping for a minute and let me look.” Ozzy warn the man. He didn’t want his car to tip over. The man looked into the back seat, where the bag of letters billowed out. He sorted through them a little slowly. Sun didn’t want to be rude but the anticipation was killing him. 

“Here let me help.” He started shifting through the bag, letters falling out and flying away. Ozzy tried to catch the stray letters. He knew the golden-hair goofball gets excited easily, like a kid on Christmas he jumps for joy. But who wouldn’t? This check was gonna change the brothers’ lives forever. Now if only he could find it. 

“Is it in there? Is it in there?”

“Now, boy!”

“If the letter's here, it's here!”

“Your looking won't put it here!”

“Please hurry, Ozzy.” Both men claw, sift, and sort through the letters. Where is it?!

“It'd be addressed to one of your brothers?”

“Yes, to Eclipse.”

”Mister Eclipse Stellato?”

“Oh, please, please, please, please.” Sun pleaded. He hoped that the check was here. It’s been weeks after the brothers heard that the will of an old friend, who died recently. Supposedly, they were friends with the brothers’ parents and owned an estate near their old home. The money was supposed to go to their parents, but ever since they passed, the money was to be sent to the them. 

“Here. Here it is!” Sun pulled out a yellowed envelope, a joyful smile grew on his face. The destined letter was in the younger brother’s clutches. He checked to make sure it was from the right person. Yep! All clear.

“Oh thank you Ozzy!” Sun gave the humble mail man one final hug. While he might be the shortest of the three, he makes up for it with an unusual amount of strength. Ozzy chokes out a “you’re welcome” before fixing himself. The car backs out the restaurant as Sun happily runs into the kitchen. 

“Eclipse! Moon! Look it’s here!” The happy shrills of Sun echoed through the kitchen. Moon and Eclipse stopped working as they faced their younger brother, who almost tripped over his feet again. 

“What is it Sun? Don’t you have customers to serve?” Eclipse chided. He can’t have his brother distracted by anything. Neither can he distract them. Any moment that his brothers aren’t working means their hours wouldn’t be counted and they wouldn’t get paid. Eclipse never really liked working; and he didn’t like to be looked at as a stickler, but the streets aren’t really that warm and welcoming as a cramped apartment. 

“Oh they can wait but here. Open it!” Sun handed the letter to the oldest. Eclipse yanked it out of his hand while Moon analyzed it. His eyes widened in disbelief.

 “It came today?!” Moon asked Sun.

 “Mhm!” He nodded. “Ozzy brought it in.” The sound of ripping paper made Sun focus on the yellow letter of destiny. He whined as Eclipse struggled to open a piece of it.

“Come on hurry, ‘Clipse.”

“Alright alright don't hurry me. Don't get me excited.” Eclipse huffed as he open the letter and skimmed through the text. “Um, "According to the final will...therewith, therefore and whereas-"

”Oh get to the point quick Clipsy!” Sun urged.

“How much is our legacy?” Moon added.

“All right. Here it is.” Eclipse cleared his throat. “And your share of the estate...to be divided equally with you and your brothers…” He stopped.

“Well what is it?”

”What’s the matter?”

“$55,000!” Eclipse shouted. He looked at the number. Once, twice, thrice! Just look at those zeros.

“55,000!” Sun gaped. He couldn’t believe it. None of the boys couldn’t believe.“I knew it! I knew it! I knew it'd be that much!” Well, maybe Eclipse had a hunch a while back. But Sun didn’t and Moon didn’t care as they danced around with each other around the cluttered kitchen. Finally! Their lives would change. For better instead of worse! Ha ha!

 “Well boys, that's the end of that! We’re home free. ” Eclipse unleashed his fiery hair from the oppression of the hair tie. “Moon, how much is a third of 55?” He asked his genius little brother. Moon slowed down and fixed his hair as he tried to calculate their earnings. 

“A third of five is…” He pondered for a bit. The math calculated in his head as if the numbers swirled around him like planets. 

“Let's see what it looks like.” Sun scanned through the letter trying to find the amount. “$4,352.86?” He frowns. 

“Let me see that.” Eclipse yanked the letter out of his younger brother’s hand, Moon looked of his shoulder as he read the reasons for their low allowance.

"Twelve percent federal tax, six percent state tax, three percent probate tax, $2,500 administrators fees, $4,800 to lawyers and therefore after these deductions the balance is $4,352.86." The brothers scowled. The money that was supposed to change the lives of the three was nothing but a dud. Yes it was a lot, but not enough to exactly thrive. To put it in perspective, each brother would only have around $1450 to spend. What are they going to do with $1450?!

“Well…” Moon pulls his hair up again, ready to plunge into the murky waters of the kitchen sink. “So much for that.” He says with defeat. Crushed dreams crunched underneath his feet as he headed for the sink. Eclipse pulled his hair up as well, disappointed in the check that was sent. Sun sulked at the fact that the check wasn’t as much as he wanted. Today’s was supposed to be the day. The day where things were going to be better for him and his beloved brothers. He took the letter, eyeing the bold lettering highlighting the total and all the taxes behind it. He was just about to throw it in the trash until he remembered something…

“Wait Moon, aren’t you forgetting?” He turned to his older brother.

A little plan he made a while back…

“No, Sun. We’re not going to use your plan. We might even lose the 4,000.” A stern look responses to the idealistic blonde.

“But we agreed didn't we? That if it was less than 10,000, it was the only thing we could do?” A pleading face emitted from Sun.

“Well, I say if we put it out in postal savings at three percent with the good old U.S.A. behind it-“

“Oh no, Moony. We can't get rich that way.”

Eclipse stepped away from the stove after turning it off. Their conversation interrupted the cooking, but peaked his interest. He didn’t know that the little guy had a scheme. Reminded him of the old days; pickpocketing, getting out of the house, escaping from prison perhaps. (Naughty boys 😏) “Your idea is such an awful chance, Sun. It’s crazy!"

“Crazy?! What's crazy about marrying a millionaire?”

“That Southern Texas Gas and Power Corporation is a mighty nice, safe investment.”

“Oh, please Moony.” Sun turned to the eldest, who was leaning over the table with a hand holding up his chin and a smirk on his face. “Clipsy, you still want to go through with it, don't you?” Sun doesn’t remember that he never told his plan to Eclipse. It’s fine, he got the jist of it.

“Well~, I didn’t know you could be a little devil. And here I thought you were the golden child.” Eclipse teased. Which was an answer Sun didn’t accept. 

“Clipse.” Sun whined.

”Alright, I’m all for it.” He wrapped an arm around his younger brother. “Been a while since we’ve had any fun. Besides, it's just as easy to fall in love with a millionaire as it is with a truck driver.”

“Yeah, just like the 50 truck driver outside waiting for you for service.” Mr. Donald Deans, their manager, scolds as he enters the kitchen. Deans wasn’t one for waiting, especially when he has employees to work for him. But honestly, there’s other people, he should really be scolding at them. 

“Sorry Mr. Deans, we’re—“

“Quitting!” Sun interrupts Moon’s apology. Deans was in shock. “That's what we're all three doing, Deans. We're resigning! Walking out on you! And we're going to Miami!

“Miami?” Deans raised a brow, his teeth grinding against each other. 

“That's right, Miami. Where rich people are as plentiful as grapefruit and millionaires hang from every palm tree!” Sun pantomimes before leaving the kitchen in a huff.”

Come on!” Eclipse and Moon looked at their younger brother, then at each other and smirk. Wet towels smacked against the floor as aprons tie off and hair ties flick the face of the manager.

“So long!”

[jessejamesmaybank1]

JJ Maybanks fic prompts.ideas

some of these may be silly or stupid (kinda lots of ooc), but pls don't judge, dm me or leave the link in the comments if you use any of these pls!

JJ sometimes visits his dad in a form of self-destruction/self-harm, so now that his dad is gone, he doesn't know how to deal with or process his emotions - this could be used in many ways, but my main idea is that JJ is depressed after they get the gold (after pogue-landia or being "alone"), so he kinda shuts down or smth

During 1x05 when John B. and Kiara start slapping the mosquitos, The pogues involve all of each other In the activity, but it triggers JJ or he gets worried about the pogue's continual fighting

Barry or one of Luke's dealers has a problem with Luke and can't find him or smth and takes it out on JJ, maybe by beating him or badgering him for money - this could be REALLY dark, or simply hurt/comfort

JJ insults one of his friends on accident and has anxiety and regret over it - that's it, but I feel like you can do a lot with it, create different reactions, and display the inner workings of the pogue's relationships

A parallel to the Sarah and Kiara scene where they tricked them onto the boat to solve their fighting, what if Big John did the same thing when JJ and John B were having a huge fight as kids. I think that Big John is irresponsible enough to do it and the boys would be petty enough as kids to need it. Ik it was pope's idea, but I think it would be so cute to see the little pogues.

Barry going to attack JJ to get his revenge but ends up seeing him getting beat by a kook or smth and relating to him bc of when Ward beat him or smth in his past (even just the relation of kooks vs pogues). I think that the development and atmosphere of the fic would be interesting.

I would DIE for a fic abt when jj was little and his parents both were in love with each other (like only had eyes for eachother and had the rest of their life planned out together) and they were eating dinner or some other normal family things and his parents were talking about their dreams of moving to Yucatan, and that is one of jj's favorite moments with his family and he remembers that as his parents perfect dream (before drugs took over their life and they abandoned/abused him), sooo I think that that alone would be beautiful, or you could add how he always want to go to Yucatan to solve their problems, because he thought that Yucatan would solve his mom and dad's struggles. Ik this was confusing, but if you understand, this would be beautiful 🤩

This may be confusing, but in the seen where he fights back against his dad and has the wrench held up and says "well I ain't scared of you no more" what if his dad usednto threaten him with tools or if he really did, so jj is taking the high road or is just like having flashbacks or smth - this one is kinda stupid and a real stretch, but I feel like Luke could have hit jj with one of his tools bc jj interrupted his work or something. Idkkk y'all

This is more of a headcanon, but I love the idea of jj being named Jesse James after his mom (Jessica - her name isn't mentioned in the show) if you wanna make it a fic, it could be abt him being bullied for having a girls name and his mom comforting him or abt his dad telling him that he will never live up to her name - I read a fic (I don't remember the name, but it COULD have been 'mental Polaroids', but idk) and Luke was yelling abt jj having the same "fucking weepy-ass eyes' as his mom

This is again just another headcannon, but jj has younger brother energy sometimes, and I think he was born in June or August for some reason - probably the youngest of the pogues, maybe celebrating his birthday ro smth

I think we can all agree that John b. is sometimes an ass-hat, so maybe a fic abt him getting reeaaaalllly drunk and upset over his dad in season 1 and trying to fight jj bc jj was insensitive or for another reason

[veerbles]

thoughts about dream thieves (and some predictions!)

After probably almost a decade of thinking to myself, I’m an adult who’d like to read more and also enjoys YA, I should finally pick up TRC, I finally picked up TRC. I finished Raven Boys and immediately started Dream Thieves, so I didn’t pause to gather my thoughts on the first one, but here I am now. Ready to unleash several K’s of words by using my limited information to analyze characters and make some predictions that may or may not come true.

• I really enjoy the whole magical-realism, bordering-on-alternate-dimensions theme, but I’m SO SORRY Cabeswater gives me the creeps. I can read context clues and infer from the fact that Blue and Gansey both love it that it’s not meant to be sinister? Probably? But like, talking forests and time loops and magical possessions have, in the history of literature, revealed ulterior motives. I’m mostly side-eyeing the way Adam’s sacrifice to Cabeswater immediately derailed his life and mental stability. It might just be an Adam thing. It’s probably an Adam thing. But like, if I were these kids I’d be a biiiit more wary of the scary time-defying magical land I stumbled upon.

• The sudden emphasis on how time is circular kind of came out of nowhere. There was definitely a point made in the first book about how time doesn’t flow the same way inside Cabeswater, but mid-second book the nonlinearity of time was suddenly a huge thing and all the Sargent seers made a point of how every prophecy is something that both happened already and hasn’t happened yet. I’m totally down with some time-fuckery, but I would’ve liked some more build-up. Also, is this meant to play into Blue’s prophecy? Adam’s visions? Gansey’s fate? Glendower’s fate?

• I was preparing myself for a long, drawn-out love triangle B-plot, and I’m glad it didn’t happen. I couldn’t tell if I missed some subtext and Blue’s intense attraction to Adam faded before their fight at his room, or if it was a direct result of it, but I like that their thing (he called her his girlfriend and I was kind of like… is she? Who established that?) was short and not too well-developed. I think it mostly served as a lesson that Blue can influence her fate, but she can’t run from it (“Why couldn’t it be Adam?”). 

• Also, I think the marketing of the first book did it a HUGE disservice. I have nothing against romance as a main plot and maybe I would have enjoyed that as well, but adventure and the found family trope have a much stronger pull. Was really glad the romantic relationships aren’t really the main focus (at least yet?).

• On the same note, these books are so far really good with show not tell. The numerous unspoken hints about the Blue/Gansey attraction did such a good job making me root for them. The slow progression from Gansey caring an inordinate amount about how Blue views him, to Blue dedicating large chunks of her time analyzing him and trying to figure out all of his layers, to Gansey definitely growing aware of his feelings but not doing anything explicit because of Adam… The boat scene with Orla was pure comedy, lmao. Tell me you’re 16/17 years old without telling me you’re 16/17 years old.

• The Blue/Adam “break up” scene was so good because it evoked true emotions in me. I think a reasonable percentage of teenage girls were once The One Girl in a group of guys, and Blue’s feelings of being treated differently because she’s a girl really hit right where it hurt. I think Adam’s inability to understand that she wants to be his friend first and a love interest later was so real. I also do think that this scene brought up multiple points and maybe Blue’s character would have benefitted from addressing each of them separately, even just in her own head. She feels left out because she’s a girl, and she feels he only views her as a Girl and not as a friend; she’s wary of his anger issues and feels she doesn’t know him; she has feelings for Gansey; she has an ominous prophecy hanging over her head. Ultimately, her saying he’s not “the one” is what hurt him most, because she hit him directly in the insecurities, but it wasn’t really the most interesting or impactful point. Who is Blue Sargent and what does she really want in a relationship (or in general?)

• I have a hot take, but don’t kill me for this. …Adam gives off real Peter Pettigrew vibes. I’M SO SORRY. I really hope he gets more character development later on, because right now he’s straight on the path to evil villain. Or, okay, maybe he veered off that path after his talk with Persephone and their quest to fix the ley line, but for a minute there I was like… My guy, I get where you’re coming from, but you’re slowly gnawing on the leg that you used to stand on. It’s okay to be mad at the world because you were handed a worse hand of cards, and it’s okay to want to climb your way up to prove your own worth. But a minute ago your whole point was that you HAD worth, and now you’re acting out because you feel worthless? Adam’s getting eaten away by his insecurities and thinking/saying/doing really uncool things to his friends, and it’s just Not It. At this point of time, I personally would not have made him Secret-Keeper of the house I’m hiding in.

• Direct follow up: Honestly? Gansey should punch someone. As a treat. Gansey certainly has flaws, but he’s also certainly the most self-aware of the whole bunch. He is continuously harder on himself than anyone else is hard on him, and trying to make things right, and he’s kind of getting stepped on by his best friends. Adam stole his most prized possession and sneaked away to do exactly what Gansey didn’t want to do on GANSEY’S search quest, and then took the offer of networking but spit it back in Gansey’s face, and admitted he’s going to fight Gansey for Glendower’s favor because he thinks he deserves it more. Ronan ALSO stole his most prized possession after letting Gansey clean up his messes, and didn’t even really apologize? Like, it’s somehow okay because after he stole it he wrecked it and then dreamed it back? Nah dude. It wasn’t okay you took it to begin with! Now, I definitely think it’s not a black-and-white situation; Adam brings up plenty of good points in his arguments, and Ronan, to the best of my recollection, never asked to be cleaned up after. They’re both super traumatized and Gansey chose to stick by their sides through that. But everybody else gets to lash out and make stupid decisions and I, personally, think Richard C. Gansey III should pull a teenage boy move and punch one of his best friends. Which one is up to him. The punch can be metaphorical.

• This book focused mainly on Ronan and Adam’s journeys, and I have to say I loved the night terrors as a symbol of self-loathing. But I remain unsure about Ronan himself. Unlike Adam I don’t think he’s doing villain-y things, but he’s definitely doing very normal teenaged self-destructive things. And that’s fine. It's expected. But it’s also not really productive to self-acceptance? Which he somehow reached at least partially by the end of this book anyway? My point being, Ronan kind of lost it when Gansey was gone and went on a weird dreamer-bender and took all kinds of suspicious drugs and made all kinds of bad decisions, and I expected that to have ramifications. He didn’t really face any of his self-hatred or made efforts to be a better friend. He did kind of face (literally) his grief over his father, which is obviously huge, but I would have liked him to take down some of those walls, be vulnerable, apologize? Face some of his obvious inner homophobia? Anything before that wholesome ending. I guess I just stay hopeful that it’d happen in the next two books.

• On that note, the whole goddamn Lynch family needs therapy. What the fuck. Hated Declan significantly less than the last book, but all three of them should get some professional help for their asses. Their mother is a dream? Ronan’s new friend’s mother is dating his father’s murderer?? Ronan’s dad kicked him out of his home on the heels of his tragic death to teach him some lesson about… dreaming??? So much shit happened in this book. However: loved the idea of Ronan having an actual parent and functioning sibling relationship now. Hopefully, that would do some good for everybody involved.

• Very happy at the subtle queer themes and foreshadowing that led up to Ronan’s very understated sexuality revelation. I could smell it coming from a mile away without it being spelled out for me, which is good: it means it was written into his character really well. I was both thrilled and kind of confused by some of the Adam/Ronan hints in this book, though. Ronan… slept on the floor by Adam’s bed…? ("Surely he would wake up soon and find himself [...] lying on the floor beside Adam’s bed at St. Agnes.") This was literally mentioned in one line and then never again. And he doesn’t spend too much time thinking of Adam, but somehow the epilogue still explicitly states that his secret is Adam and not his sexuality as a whole. I’m rooting for them, but I’ll need more convincing in later books that this apparent crush didn’t spring out of nowhere. 

• On the subject of themes I didn’t see coming, the redemption arc for The Gray Man with the gray morality surprised me. It’s not that I’ve never read or enjoyed books where this subject was explored, I just didn’t expect it to happen in this book series. It seems to me like so far every character we’re supposed to root for is very clearly that, and evil characters give off hints in advance. Gray Man definitely did some dubious things in this book, even if you disregard the killing itself, so I expected his ending to line up with that. I guess it still might? Truthfully I find the subject of responses to trauma and how it affects your moral compass very interesting, and I’m definitely into characters’ redemption arcs, but I just don’t know if romantic entanglement with a known dissociative killer is a smart thing for a mother of a sixteen-year-old. If the Gray Man drove away at the end and started a new, less-violent life, I’d be far less conflicted. But he very clearly stated his attachment to Henrietta, which just… leaves me mostly confused. 

• Speaking of, I love how a major theme of this odd little magical book is how different people handle childhood trauma (Adam, Ronan, Gray Man). No further notes, just love it.

• I also really like that adults are directly involved in this story, instead of being intentionally kept out of the loop like in most YA stories. In the majority of the YA books I’ve read I really felt like 70% of the problems could be solved by a whole ass grown up swooping in instead of letting a bunch of kids handle real life-endangering shit all by themselves. The 300 Fox Way women are certainly a specific breed of adults, but they are adults, and they do intervene when needed and are kept mostly informed. It’s a nice change of pace. 

• Going to quickly mention my only real point of criticism and then move on. The dialogue in this book isn’t very realistic, and the clear preference for dramatic chapter endings is a little excessive. I can forgive the dialogue issue, because it does help create the atmosphere that this isn’t a real place in the real world but a magical and intriguing town in some mystery land, but I don’t know if this is what the author actually intended. In every other way, the kids are all pretty well fleshed-out and realistic depictions of teenagers. But every time they open their mouths I think: this is not how a natural conversation sounds. And the dramatic chapter cliffhangers isn’t terrible, because it does keep my interest, but I think it’s fine to have a few chapters not ending with a dramatic one-liner, lol.

Predictions! 

Gansey is a reincarnation of Glendower’s. This is not a certain one, but if it’s not true I feel like it’s a missed opportunity. Gansey is constantly described as “both very old and very young”. He died, but mysteriously didn’t die. He has this connection to Glendower and for some reason connects his sense of self to him. It would tie in to the theme of nonlinear time. I think it could be a good ending for this journey, a la “the thing you were looking for was in yourself all along”.

Gansey answering with “That’s all there is” will have more meaning later on. It could be that dialogue thing again, but I found it to be a weird response in the context of that scene. Since I am of the firm belief that this is all heading to a Blue/Gansey kiss, Gansey dying and then undying, and Blue somehow walking him back down that corpse road, I feel like that quote could maybe tie in to that future scene.

Is Adam’s vision really “gone”? In the scene where Adam makes peace with his powers and returns to Cabeswater he remembers the vision from the dreaming tree and thinks: "That wasn’t going to happen now. He’d changed his future. He’d chosen a different way." And I simply can't help but think that that's just... too easy. Why mention the vision so many times if it's not going to happen now? On the one hand, it would be far more interesting if it did happen, but it had a whole different connotation to it than Adam can currently imagine (he specifically says Gansey is dying, not dead.) On the other hand, it does seem like that vision fits in the reality where Gansey dies back in the first book on Neeve's pentagon, if Adam hadn't rushed in and made the sacrifice. I just feel like it's going to make a comeback.

Noah should not be a ghost. There was not once a good explanation for why this happened. Because he died on the ley line? Presumably, if the ley line runs through the US, many people die on the ley line. Gansey’s backstory is that he came back to life from those hornet stings because someone else who should not have died has died. But Noah is like. Not exactly dead? I’m assuming this will need to be addressed later on and serve as some sort of plot resolution.

Persephone has a connection to Cabeswater. She essentially told Adam that she was in his place once (“They won’t understand,” Persephone said. “They didn’t when I came back.”). That lady has something weird going on with her and this tell me it will have some sort of connection to Cabeswater. She kind of gives off the vibes of someone who will get forever lost in a magical forest. Also I feel like maybe one of the psychics won’t make it out alive, and I dread it’d be her or Maura.

Artemus is definitely a Cabeswater creature. I think this was almost explicitly stated? He appeared suddenly and disappeared suddenly? Almost like the surges and outages the ley line causes? Also, I don't remember the specifics from the first book but I think Maura needed Neeve's help to find him because he was in that "place where they can't see", or something like that - presumably Cabeswater. Also, his story does not give human.

[vera-deville]

They're Not the Same!

02/23/2024 - 09/10/2024

Pairing: None Word Count: 694 Warnings: Some cursing Gender: GN Notes: This is a pretty short fic for an idea that I've had lying in drafts for a while, but I do plan on releasing longer works soon and get back to requests!

"I've never gone kayaking before. Is it any fun?"

Your eyebrow ticked.

"When're you goin' kayaking again? A young boy with lavender hair asked with his head leaned on top of his textbook.

Looking up, you decide that you've finally had enough. "Thursday, and for the last time, it's canoeing."

Epel frowned, scrunching his nose as he deliberated your point. "Yeah, but they're like the same thing Y/N-" Ace tried to explain. You grabbed your eraser and threw it at the red-head, who ducked just in time.

Unfortunately, your eraser ended up hitting a completely unsuspecting first year.

"Ow, what the fuck-" Deuce yelled as he tried to figure out what hit him.

"Sorry Deuce!" You apologized, "that was my eraser. I was trying to hit Ace!"

Deuce shook his head. This kind of behavior was silly, however, seeing as the target was supposed to be Ace, he figured that you had a pretty good reason as to why you were projecting erasers around. "What did Ace do this time?"

"Hey, what the hell's that supposed to mean?"

"He keeps trying to tell me that there's no difference between canoeing and kayaking."

"There's a difference?" Deuce asked.

The only reason why you didn't pull your hair out in frustration was because Deuce genuinely seemed confused and clearly didn't know that there was a difference. No biggie, lots of people boat without even realizing what kind of boating they're doing. "Yeah, there's a few differences, but basically canoeing is when the boat has an open design and you're sitting or kneeling, while kayaks usually have closed designs, and you sit with your legs outstretched." Deuce seemed to understand, so you continued, "Typically, canoers use a one-bladed paddle, whereas kayakers use two-bladed paddles. Obviously there are exceptions, but that's usually the case with the paddles."

"That's actually a lot simpler than I thought it would be." Deuce remarked. "How come Ace didn't get it?"

"Hey, I got it just fine-"

"No he didn't." You said, effectively stopping Ace and causing the other first-years around you to chuckle. "No matter how many times I tell him that canoeing and kayaking are different, he keeps telling me, me, that they're not!"

Deuce said, "While I get that they're two different things, why're you guys even talking about this in the first place?"

You stared at Deuce.

"Deuce..."

"Yeah?"

"You do realize that you're on my team, right?"

You watched as Deuce's face contorted into one of utter confusion.

"What team?"

You smacked your head on the table.

"We're going on a canoeing race, remember?" Looking at Deuce's face, it was clear that he had no clue what you were talking about. "Deuce! What in Twisted Wonderland have you been doing? How do you not know about this? We've been getting emails about the canoeing race too-"

"Wait, I've read through some of them!" Deuce exclaimed, as though he'd found the answer to a difficult question in an exam.

"Some of them!?" You yelled, exasperated.

"I thought the canoeing was optional..." Deuce meekly said after taking in your expression.

"Coach Vargas has literally been micro-managing our schedules because he wants us to be in best-shape for the race on Thursday-" You tried recounting everything that Deuce had somehow missed. "How do you not know this?" Spinning around to the other first-years, you asked your question again, "How does he not know this?"

Ace wisely kept his mouth shut, and Jack sensed that perhaps now was a good time to get his daily exercise in.

"Oh yeah, I have potions next!" Epel said and began packing his bag. "Still can't believe that Vil isn't disgusted by frogs and stuff. Even I find them icky."

"I think frogs are pretty cute." You said.

"Then you try holding them and their weird ass bumpy skin and warts." Epel said, shivering in disgust.

Everyone looked at Epel.

"Epel..." You began.

"Yeah?"

"Those aren't frogs kiddo. Those are toads."

Now Epel looked really confused. "What's the difference?"

Rolling your eyes, you begin explaining the difference between frogs and toads.

"So they're essentially the same thing." Ace said, annoyed.

"They're not the same thing!"

Author's Note: Apparently I've had this thing lying in my drafts since February 23rd, but I genuinely do not think it's been that long even though it's already September now, but here we are. Like I already mentioned, I will be getting back into requests and other writing soon, so please be on the lookout for that! Masterlist

[cattyanon]

👀

Oh I suppose I can share.

So technically it's the Sonic of No Place that's the siren. Although now I'm considering exploring something where Sonic becomes the siren cause why not... His name is Spindrift (which i researched a bunch of water related words for the coolest sounding thing) backstory is that during a giant storm he fell off the Angel's Voyage and in a stroke of 'luck' he comes in contact with a magical gem (i'm still not sure if I want it to be the Paradox Prism itself or just something made up) that turns him into a mermaid. And no, mermaid wasn't a typo- but there's an explanation! >:)

Anyways, after the initial freak out he's like "I gotta find some way to reverse this!!" And although he tries to be careful about who he asks for help since he knows people can be assholes his plan goes awry. You see the plan was for him to hang out kinda close to a random docking place and then when a ship takes off he'd tail it for a little while and eavesdrop in order to figure out if they're good people. Unfortunately he wasn't being as sneaky as he thought and word got around of a mermaid being spotted in the area. As you can probably guess, this doesn't end well for him and he ends up captured by bad people and put onto a black market.

He goes through the wringer and is passed around/sold many times and despite trying to cling onto hope, one day he breaks. I don't have anything specific on what happens but one day he hits his limit and he SCREAMS at the top of his lungs in a mix pain, sadness, and anger. And the scream is abnormally loud. So loud it shatters all and any glass around him and ends up rupturing the eardrums of anyone too close.

If you guessed that means he went from being a mermaid to being a siren- you're correct! I even made some lore about it~

So basically when a mermaid gets consumed by hatred they turn into a siren. It's a very rare occurrence though, so there's not that many sirens in the world. Sirens are shunned by mermaids and despite their reasons for becoming one (like Spindrift was basically tortured) they're banished from anywhere mermaids reside.

There's a few main difference between mermaids and sirens besides the obvious siren powers gained upon transforming. Here's a list:

Can breathe above water for longer periods of time. This is how Spindrift managed to drag himself back into the ocean without suffocating to death. It was a really close call though.

They have claws.

More prone to anger.

Carnivores instead of omnivores.

Maybe a slightly longer lifespan...?

Anyways, Spindrift no longer trusts anyone else. Least of all blindly. In fact he actively hates what he (eventually) refers to as surface dwellers. After finding somewhere pretty secluded (which ends up being the Devil's Lighthouse) he settles down and makes the area his home. But sadly there are pirates greedy and daring enough to try and get to whatever treasures may lie in that area... and Spindrift hates trespassers.

After at least a few boat sinkings, somebody manages to survive and spreads the word about how there's a siren guarding the Devil's Lighthouse. Spindrift earns the nickname Rupture and, upon learning of said nickname, eventually embraces it. He loves the looks of terror upon people's already terrified faces when he reveals/confirms his nickname. It brings him a sick sense of pleasure that derives from the torture he endured at the hands of pirates. It was like payback.

When Dread first tries to get to the Devil's Lighthouse, he doesn't get enough of a good look at Rupture to to think he's Spindrift. Combine that with the fact that Spindrift was kindhearted and should be dead and the thought never even crosses his mind.

Then Sonic Prime happens... and boy is everybody in for a shock. And a bit of whiplash at the sight of Sonic. :p

[golbrocklovely]

i mean how sam always seems to have the final say, sam and his new gf got colby with someone they picked, sam dominates opinions during interviews even if colby speaks sam always has the final say, he says things like people shouldn’t live life via a book (talking on christianity whilst sitting next to his christian best friend) but then lives his own life via self help books and preaches them at every chance (whats the difference?). the structure of their videos now are basically everything sam wants to do (rituals and such), it was him and his family who made the financial decisions for the both of them and they share a bank account (this was probably smart when they were 16 and im sure they have personal accounts too)

i also saw people on twitter saying colby looks like hes starting to figure it out. how also sam would not have made it half as far in his career without eye candy colby standing beside him. how sam treated kat and how many colby is seeing similarities with his own relationship with him.

colbys codependent on sam so he would never walk away but i hope sam isnt taking advantage of him or manipulating him in anyway to make colby stay around.

a lot of this isn't really manipulation. at least i don't believe it to be.

sam is a control freak who thinks he's always right/is too stubborn to listen to others. and colby goes along with a lot of what sam says bc one, that is his best friend and business partner, and two, colby doesn't see himself as intelligent like sam so sam's able to get his way a lot bc colby won't rock the boat/trust his own opinions.

it would be manipulative if sam fed into those insecurities colby has and told him "yeah we should go with what i want bc your choices are poor" but colby actively deciding to go with what sam says just bc he thinks his idea is good is not sam being manipulative.

for everything else, i'll break it down how i think it is.

colby was going out with ms singer, k's other friend, before all going out with m. and that didn't work out so that's why k introduced m to colby and they hit it off. that's not really sam playing a part or manipulating colby to date someone just bc. i think that was just happenstance tbh.

sam just talks a lot more than colby. i personally think also as of recently colby seems disinterested in a lot of the outside content they have been doing, and i think that's from burnout and the fandom et large just constantly berating him and it tiring him out.

the christianity/self help thing is just sam being hyprocritical. it's also why i find his argument of not like astrologers to be stupid. just bc it don't make sense to you doesn't mean it's lesser than. i think it's dumb to read a book written by (basically) a get rich quick scheme artist who hasn't had any hardships but knows therapy speak relatively well, and for some reason that makes them qualified to tell me how to live my best life. but hey, to each their own lol

the structure of vids… eh, i think they both agree to that layout. and i think part of that also comes from the comments and what some ppl want as well.

sam's family being involved has less to do with sam and more to do with colby's family just not taking his dreams and career seriously. not to mention, sam's dad was already retired by the time snc were getting started so it makes sense that that man knows a thing or two more about business. and also he tried to be in their lives and it seems as if colby's parents (minus his mother) didn't so again, not really sam.

and the boys, i would assume, have both the business account and their own personal ones. they just talk about and use the same business account more (probably for tax write offs lol).

i do think colby wants time away from the brand and business, but i don't think it's sam's doing that makes him want to leave, at least not fully. i think the over working and the constant long hours/having little to no time off has definitely put a damper on things for colby. and some of that is also tied to sam wanting them both to constantly work and needing to do something "productive" at all times. but i think that's also why they have reduced their work load a lot.

i think in the long run colby will not be in this business as long as sam might want him to be/will be. colby seems about ready to dip out to me sometimes, but i think that also comes from the pressure of the fans and how mean they can be. how invasive they can be. how careless they continue to be towards someone they claim to love. colby keeps a lot inward, and this tied with his own personal struggles (along with his cancer and such), i think colby wants time away that he feels like he can't take. and whether that's bc of sam or other facts is not something we really know 100% about.

i believe they are both very codependent on each other, mostly bc, as they have mentioned, they are the only ppl in their lives they feel they can be 100% themselves around. not to mention every bad and good moment in the last 10+ years has had each other in it, so of course they are gonna rely heavily on one another. i do hope they eventually take some time to be by themselves, away from one another. just to get some space. i don't think that's happening any time soon, unless something major transpires.

but short answer, no. i don't think sam is being manipulative towards colby. i think colby can make his own decisions, regardless of sam. he actively chooses to be with sam daily. i'm sure if he didn't like it he would have left by now lol

[loveemii]

Hey lauvissa!! I’m making that request!

So we all know how flirty and shameless zenitsu can be, where he throws himself on the girls and all (lol).so I was going to request something where zenitsu flirting ( w/ reader) is successful and he makes fem reader all blush and embarrassed. And zenitsus just like “ we’ve done it bois, mission success 👍”

the setting can be in the normal era or in a modern au whatever really floats your boat 😊

thanks for reading my request and I hope we can become good friends!

p.s. if you just don’t vibe w/ this idea that’s no problem! Be safe and keep warm!

hii! ty for making this adorable and amazing request! i can definitely make this one! the setting will be at the estate, i hope that’s ok lol. and ty, you keep safe and warm as well! (≧◡≦) ♡

♡︎♥︎♡︎♥︎♡︎♥︎♡︎♥︎♡︎♥︎♡︎♥︎♡︎♥︎♡︎♥︎♡︎♥︎♡︎♥︎♡︎♥︎♡︎♥︎

Zenitsu x reader! - gender neutral :)

☆ ★ ☆ ★ ☆ ★ ☆ ★ ☆ ★ ☆ ★ ☆ ★ ☆ ★ ☆ ★ ☆

You walked out of the estate and into the courtyard where everyone else was. You stood beside the Kamaboko trio as Zenitsu and Tanjiro were talking, as well as Inosuke of course was running around asking some of the Hashira to fight him. Soon enough your gaze fell over to Inosuke’s behavior and you were giggling at the sight.

Zenitsu noticed how Inosuke was taking up your attention. Zen of course wanted your attention WAY more than the other two. And so he wanted to get his way. He came up to you with blush all across his face as he immediately clung onto your uniform. You were surprised by his action and it made you look at him.

You gave him a little chuckle.

“What are you doing?”

He continued to his little plan.

“Y/N CHAAAAAN!”

He sung with his heart and soul.

“Y/N CHAAAAN, SO GORGEOUS/HANDSOME!”

He sang once more. You got his hands in yours and detached him from you.

“Ok ok! What is it?”

You asked him as he gasped how you were holding both his hands in yours. He started blushing even more.

“Y/N LOOK! Your holding my hands! How does that make you feel huh? huh?”

You rolled your eyes at his teasing and let go of his hands all together. His expression changed a little but he quickly got over it.

“You know Y/n I think you look really cute/handsome in that uniform of yours.”

He said as he came closer to your face. His warm and hot breath brushed up against your collar bones. His actions began to make your stomach twist and turn. You hadn’t felt the warmth of your cheeks grow as well as a light blush. You didn’t really pay attention to Zenitsu all that much before cause he flirted with everyone and anyone he came across. But with you it was a little different.

“You seem different than usual, are you ok?”

You asked him as you tried to step a little further back from him you ended up almost falling, that was until Zen caught you in his arms and held your hands with a grip to keep you from hitting the ground.

“Are you alright?”

He asked as he moved his face closer to yours, for some reason he seems bolder than he was before. At this point you can barely form a sentence.

“O-ooh, yeah. Thanks.”

You said as he lifted you back up onto the ground. He then hugged your waist and was almost back to his normal self.

“Geez your so sweet! And gosh so pretty/handsome too!”

Your arms moved a little up as he kept his grip around your waist. Zenitsu’s face turned to see Tanjiro.

“Isn’t she just the most cutest thing on earth?! My heart can barely take it anymore!”

And with that said you couldn’t help but pull him up and kiss his cheek. His whole entire body turned red as he jumped into the air rambling things about how he loves you so much and so on. He then came down ack to earth from heaven and looked at you dead in the eyes and said-

“Can I have another one on this cheek too?”

You felt so light on your feet as you leaned into his other cheek to place another kiss on him. You then began to speed walk away from the scene.

“B-bye!”

Yeah a little awkward but he found it adorable.

Zenitsu then leaned against Tanjiro.

“She wants me.”

He said with confidence. Tanjiro couldn’t help but giggle at the scene.

(≧◡≦) ♡ thank you for requesting @simpitsu !

i hope you enjoyed it! <3



[buddy-daddies]

theory time: is "suwa" rei's real family name ?

buckle up, friends, for this one is a wild ride that i don't have a lot of faith in, but it's been haunting me for a bit now.

i keep thinking back to the scene in ep3 where kazuki and rei are talking about their respective childhoods, and one thing seems a little odd to me.

it's clear that the only thing kazuki really knows about rei's family is that it's a filthy rich one. he calls rei a "rich boy" in ep4 and makes an off-handed comment in ep3 that rei's family "sounds like a pain."

from the character bios on the official buddy daddies website (translated here by the amazing @skeletonpunching), we know that rei was born into a huge mafia family. i would think it would be strange for kazuki, who a) has been in the criminal world for many years and b) works primarily in intel gathering, would not have made the connection that rei is from this prominent mob family.

is it possible that rei goes by a different family name, then ?

his reasons for doing so could be numerous. we know he doesn't exactly have the best relationship with his father (who literally tells him not to call him "father" at all), so it could have been to distance himself from that family name that brings him so many awful memories and nightmares (like in the start of ep3.) is he maybe in the same boat as miri and an illegitimate child that the father had with a mistress ? maybe the father didn't want his bastard son to carry the family name but kept him as a pawn in his mob family army.

what, then, could rei's real family name be ?

my guess ? ogino

sound familiar, right ?

that's this guy's family name.

the next part of my theory is that ogino ryo and suwa rei are related.

the most likely possibility ? ogino is rei's uncle.

rei and ryo are very close given names, so it's quite possible that was an intentional choice by the showrunners and a small hint that they're somehow related.

(i am not going to even begin to entertain the thought that ogino ryo turns out to be rei's real father. that would be a CRAZY TWIST but i will stick with uncle for now.)

also, look at them. they both have sunken in eyes and do not know how to look at people normally.

this is not to mention the fact that they're both pale as all hell, have dark hair, and even have somewhat similar eye colors.

we see a scene in the opening where rei's on his motorcycle, and then it shifts to ogino rolling down the passenger-side window of his car.

there is also a scene in the trailer where ogino (i THINK it's him, correct me if i'm wrong !) asks (presumably) rei, "why do you kill ?" it's asked over a scene of rei in an unknown vehicle, which i think might be one of his father's men chauffering him, and then we hear rei reply right after. very fishy.

the lovely @albertinesimonet has a theory, born from the conversation between kyu-chan and the boys in ep5, that rei might have been there with ogino the day that kazuki's wife died.

could kazuki (or even his wife ?) have done something (intentionally or on accident) to warrant the organization placing a hit on them ? was rei involved in the death of kazuki's wife, and has he kept that knowledge from him this whole time ?

the idea has led to some very intriguing discussions about whether rei took kazuki in and lets him jerk him around on the regular out of guilt and feelings of atonement...

much to think about...

[kosher-martian]

Napoleon & Josephine

Spoiler warning for Napoleon.

So this weekend I had an opportunity to see Ridley Scott's Napoleon. It was weird.

The movie has some problems. I'm not going to mention the historical accuracy of the film (it takes the same liberties all other historical dramas do) nor am I going to talk about the dialogue / delivery (though I will gladly let "You think you're so great because you have boats!" live rent-free in my head for the rest of forever). I think the movie had too much material it wanted to cover in one film, but tried to cover it anyway (the exact opposite of the YA movie "Divided for Adaptation" trope that swept Hollywood ages ago). Before some (likely extensive) edits the final film was probably close to 3.5 hours long, so they cut an hour's worth of scenes from the final product resulting in the choppy mess with massive pacing issues that have divided audiences and critics alike.

Scenes play at breakneck pace one after the other, each in a different location, with different characters, and occurring at different points in history, but there was either no attempt at linking the scenes together or the majority of those bridging scenes hit the cutting room floor. As a consequence, the movie just comes across as a feature-length recap of the previous season of some prestige historical drama show. If this were a pre-existing show the scenes make sense. You vaguely remember last season and you are only watching to jog your memory before jumping into the next season. But if you are going into this without familiarity of the subject matter (or only mild interest) and expect the film to tell you a narrative about the life of Napoleon Bonaparte, it's just a cluster of confusion. I had a similar experience with the Saoirse Ronan / Margot Robbie Mary Queen of Scots film. It had almost the exact same "not a film, just a series of scenes" issues. Unlike with Napoleon, I was less familiar with the historical events surrounding Mary I of Scotland and Elizabeth I of England. I ended up disliking the film and only ever watched it the one time.

So now I want to pivot to the reason I'm making this post at all. I want to posit a ludicrous and patently untrue conspiracy theory: They made two movies and then spliced them together!

To be clear, I don't actually believe this happened, this "conspiracy theory" will be more my wishful thinking than anything else.

Contrary to all evidence, I want to believe that Hollywood had planned Barbenheimer from the very beginning. Warner Bros, Universal Pictures, and other major studios saw the collapse of "cinematic universe" films on the horizon and wanted to create a new fad that would be both cheaper to produce and more easily controlled: Pick two films with markedly different audiences, market them as being in competition with each other, and use polarizing social media pushes to drive people into two constituency groups. With this model, studios could take two films that would otherwise have middling performance and turn them into blockbuster hits of then summer with marketing alone. People would go running back into the theaters to ensure their constituency's film "won" the battle. Hollywood solicited ideas for film pairings from a variety of sources. Ridley Scott got wind of this secret operation and decided he would condense the idea into an even easier exercise: Make the same movie twice for two different audiences.

Scott would direct two films with the exact same cast. One film (the "boy" film) would be an epic film covering the military triumphs of Napoleon Bonaparte, his tragic fall from power, his unlikely return, and his final defeat. This film, titled Napoleon, would feature fantastic set-piece battle scenes, tons of meme-able lines ("You think you're so great because you have boats!"), and gorgeous special effects. The "girl" film, Josephine, would depict the contentious and all-too-captivating private life of Napoleon and Josephine. It would be a more cerebral and emotional work, showing the complexities of their relationship. It would place the competing demands of Napoleon's ambition and longing for true love at center stage. Josephine might have made Empress Josephine our focal character or it may have continued to use Napoleon as entry way into the rich interior lives of the Emperor and Empress of France, but in either case the film's overall story would have been those moments when they were alone with one another or totally alone. Napoleon's story is the story that shaped the modern world, so it was more than enough to support both films. Audiences could choose which movie to support or might have found the format of "two films, one story" just too enticing to pass up seeing both.

But then something - and I'm not sure exactly what - happened. Instead of creating both films and releasing them separately, the decision was made to condense the two films down to one. Both films had nearly finished production. Two interpretations of Napoleon, one the legend and one the man, now needed to be brought together. Left with tonally dissonant films, the choice was made to just try to make the editing "choppier" and more "modern" (code for "we know flashy cuts and transitions won't save this colossal mistake, but we've got sunk cost fallacy now"). Scenes were lifted wholesale from both films and spliced together seemingly without regard for the final product. It's possible the final dirty work was handed to a trailer house, as evidenced by the trailers release earlier this year that paired action sequences from the film with modern music that not only didn't fit the film's aesthetics, but also didn't fit the scenes used.

Did this happen? No. As stated previously, Napoleon's story is too big to be contained in one film. The only film to pull it off was the 1927 silent film, which runs anywhere from 4 to 9.5 hours long depending on the cut. That's why other films focus on extensive portrayals of discrete battles (Waterloo), specific parts of his life (Eagle in a Cage) or his romantic life (Desiree, though it does show other aspects of Napoleon's life). Some artists have tried to do a broad retelling of his life, but those are always multi-part miniseries.

But go watch the movie yourself and tell me there's not a Josephine movie lurking on a hard drive somewhere in Hollywood. I know it doesn't exist, but also there's no way it doesn't exist, right? Too many scenes fit perfectly into another movie for it not to exist. Napoleon is not a cohesive film, it's a compilation of scenes from two separate movies featuring the same actors.