#despite not even being a normal functioning teen

[babacontainsmultitudes]

Let's Talk About Lincoln And His Dads, Okay?

I think people claiming that Lincoln and Grant "aren't so different after all" because, like everyone else in the show, they both have blood on their hands, have mostly missed the mark on where the core of Lincoln's issues with his dad(s) lie in the first place.

Moreover, I'm tired of people insinuating that Lincoln's troubles pale in comparison to Normal's or Scary's or Hermie's, and I'm tired of people saying that Lincoln is overreacting, or that Lincoln is a hypocrite for calling out his dad's behavior, or that he is in the wrong for setting boundaries, or that he's ungrateful, or that he's responsible for ensuring his dad's emotional wellbeing and not the other way around!

*breathes* So let's. Let's finally talk about Lincoln and Grant (and Marco also him).

[WOAH THERE! Hey you, yeah you, this is a long-ass post, mhm, it's one of those, so please keep that in mind before venturing below the cut. Maybe grab yourself a drink or a bite to eat first, yeah? Additionally, sorry the transcript stuff is a bit messy in this one, tumblr has a 30 image limit and well, I had to find workarounds. Also, I haven't yet added alt text for the transcript screenshots- I plan to when I have a bit more energy for it, but I apologize for any inconvenience this may cause in the meantime!]

Part 1/4: "Honesty is hardly ever heard, and mostly what I need from you"

Lincoln is certainly a pacifist at heart (in more recent times important examples of this include Lincoln's refusal to harm Scary in the Swallows household, as well as Lincoln being the only one of the teens to successfully avoid using violence in front of d00d during their most recent standoff with Willy), and in good paladin fashion functions as the group's moral compass the majority of the time.

Despite this, Lincoln's morals are not so simplistic and idealistic as to not differentiate between different motives for violence, nor does he view acts of violence in and of themselves as signs that a person is "evil" or "irredeemable". He can for example, see the difference between the acts of Willy and those of the kiddads, as he tries to explain when confronted by the other teens on the matter:

In fact, even after Grant tells Linc all of this during the incursion:

Lincoln's primary goal is still to save his dad first and foremost, then offer him the room to explain himself, without immediately chalking him up as a bad person because of what he has done.

Lincoln certainly doesn't approve of Grant and his violence, though he can understand that things are seldom black and white. But the killing is far from the only issue here. In fact, it's not even the main issue.

Grant creates a foundation based on trust and accountability whose importance in the Li-Wilson household is hammered in from the very first episode.

And we see throughout the early episodes of the season just how strongly Lincoln believes that Grant would never lie to him.

Then of course the incursion point encounter happens. There are several elements of this encounter that we will gloss over for now and go back to later, but of immediate importance is the fact that this interaction serves as direct confirmation for Lincoln that his dad has in fact been lying to him his entire life.

Additionally, he learns that Grant possesses a deep hatred of himself, wants to die, perceives himself as "broken beyond repair", and fears that Lincoln will somehow wind up just like him. That's a lot for one kid to have dropped on them, let alone all at once and without warning!

So- Lincoln wants to confront his dad after this both because he wants his dad to explain himself and take accountability for his dishonesty and for his actions more generally, and because he is concerned for his dad's wellbeing.

Now let's look at how Grant has, over the course of the season, responded to Lincoln's attempts to get him to take responsibility for his actions, and talk about his mental health:

The first thing Grant does is pull a classic Wilson "we'll talk about it later". Then the very next thing he does is lie to Lincoln again, now pretending that his plan is to fix things with Erin by offering her a gift (when of course he's actually set out to steal the sun)

Then as a deflection when Lincoln further tries to confront him about the lying, he indirectly equates everything he has kept secret from Lincoln (see the incursion point stuff) to "little white lies" and, contrary to the philosophy he so heavily instilled in Lincoln, argues that sometimes lying can protect the people one cares about:

Which as a point of interest I would like to compare and contrast to something Lincoln says in an earlier episode:

"lies can protect" vs "protecting is also trusting"- anyways moving on,

From there Grant's plan to steal the sun eventually comes to light (heh) and gets foiled, forcing the teens to be the mature ones in the situation and try to negotiate something with Erin. While he is certainly disappointed by everything going on, however, Lincoln's priorities vis-à-vis Grant are still, first and foremost, to ensure that he is safe, and when time allows for it get an apology from him and get him to talk openly about everything he has withheld. At this point in time Lincoln, while obviously angry at his dad, still very clearly cares about his dad and just wants to be able to talk with him without all the lies or deflection or excuses.

Then the teens are backed into a corner when their attempts at negotiation go sour, and ultimately wind up helping Grant steal the sun. Once that is over, Lincoln tries to confront his dad again, now with regards to some of the things he said about himself:

(Do note that last bit especially as it will be of relevance in the next section)

Then after Grant ignores the other teens when they try to talk to him, Lincoln calls him out and once again asks him to apologize, in part for having told Lincoln previously that they were dangerous and that he was not to hang out with them:

(as you might have guessed, Grant does not apologize).

Then it is established that the "zone of truth" in the Li-Wilson household isn't actually a spell but an agreed upon promise between Marco, Grant, and Lincoln to tell only the truth when someone calls upon the zone of truth, further cementing the degree to which honesty is an important Li-Wilson family value. Whilst in the zone of truth, however, Grant beats around the bush with regards to his intentions, and the teens ultimately decide that they do not want him to come along with them to the church of the doodler, as he is untrustworthy, in addition to Lincoln saying that he needs some space for his own sake. Grant then pretends to respect this decision, though he is in fact once again lying through his teeth, and sneaks back on later.

Before exiting the bus for the first time, however, Lincoln tries to get his dad to open up a bit about his feelings. Grant's response?

Time after time after time, Grant refuses to confront himself and address anything from what occurred at the incursion, and in fact adds on to everything with a whole new slew of lies, and with each failed attempt at connection the rift between Lincoln and Grant increases. And Lincoln, true to his values and how he was raised, is not a hypocrite in wanting openness and accountability from his dad. Lincoln is not and has never acted like he is perfect and beyond making mistakes, but Lincoln takes responsibility for his actions, even when the degree to which he is actually complicit in the crime at hand is questionable. He writes a letter to the families of the firemen because he feels responsible for their deaths. He apologizes to Taylor for lying to him about the bracelets and helps not only Taylor but also Nicky escape the clutches of the FBI, even though the consequence of doing so could easily have been his own death. When he thinks he may have inadvertently lead Hero on, his immediate decision is to take accountability for it and clear things up. All of this in addition to consistently apologizing to his friends when he thinks he may have hurt them for one reason or another.

This is also an important thing to consider when we talk about the place of violence in the show. Yes all the characters, including Lincoln himself, have had to kill at some point or another for the sake of survival and protecting the ones they love. But Lincoln does not use the blood on his hands to justify violence in future decisions. Despite the fact that he has had to kill before, Lincoln, as mentioned in the beginning of this essay, continues to try incredibly hard to act as pacifist whenever he can, choosing to protect those around him with as little collateral damage as possible. Does he have a perfect track record? No! Does he still try his damned hardest to choose kindness and mercy? Absolutely! And this is an important distinction especially between Lincoln and Grant.

And then Grant kills Terry. Now Lincoln must shift his priorities towards protecting his friends from his dad, but in running after Scary still finds himself forced to confront him. So what does Grant have to say regarding his actions?

Both Lincoln and Scary are right to be furious with this response, Terry Jr. is dead and all Grant can offer in response is what is essentially another excuse. Grant's mental state does not absolve him of responsibility or accountability for his actions, which as Lincoln points out (and repeats later) consist not only of the singular choice of shooting Terry, but of every choice he has made before and after that. "I'm sorry your dad is broken" obviously doesn't bring Terry Jr. back, but perhaps more importantly demonstrates that Grant is still not willing to reflect on his actions any further than that and work on himself moving forward.

So Lincoln does what is perhaps the most difficult thing he has done in his life, and disowns his father. This is not a rash, impulsive decision. As established, Lincoln has given Grant many chances throughout the season to address his behavior and at least fucking *talk* with Lincoln about his mental state, but he refused. He refused, not because he means harm, but because Grant truly believes himself to be fundamentally broken and irreparable, and doesn’t see the effect that his own suffering is having on his son. This, in addition to continuously failing to take Lincoln seriously and treat him as more than a little kid, both in failing to listen to Lincoln's voices of concern as well as in disregarding any of his proposals to go about things differently (whether that means avoiding violence, trusting rather than lying, or both).

So when Lincoln says:

"It's not about what you just did now, Dad. It's all your choices. You chose me. There wasn't some passion, or, or just a kid. You chose me as your kid, knowing you were broken. You can't take that back. And… I love you, and I hate that you made me love you, when… you are who you are and you knew it."

This isn't Lincoln saying that Grant should not have had a kid because he is mentally unwell or has trauma, it is Lincoln saying that Grant continues to make choices without acknowledging his agency in those choices and the effect they have on those around him, instead choosing to pin his mistakes on his perceived brokenness without any resolution to do something about that.

And before you say, "but Grant didn't have a choice in becoming Lincoln's parent since he saved him from the Titanic":

This simply isn't true, as strictly speaking there was nothing stopping Grant and Marco from putting Lincoln up for adoption if one or both of them did not feel themselves to be ready or capable of taking care of a child and

Ignoring Lincoln's exact phrasing, "choosing to be a parent" is not just about the literal choice to have a child, it's about every choice you make before and after that. It's choosing not to express your concerns over parenthood with your spouse, which based on Grant's track record:

-Is definitely in-character for him. Conversely, in Marco's case, it may be choosing not to ask your partner about their feelings on the matter (because, really, asking Grant on the spot while literally on a sinking ship if he's okay with adopting the baby they just found is kinda rough). It's choosing not to go to therapy (not that we know whether Grant specifically did/does or not but all the same). It's choosing not to apologize when your child is upset with you because of something you did. It's choosing not to take them or their friends seriously. It's choosing to lie instead of trust. It's an endless amount of choices that Grant (and Marco) made every step of the way!

As a final note for this section, what's particularly unfortunate is that even with Lincoln's disownment, Grant still has failed to show any major signs of change. Note this telling exchange (from episode 40):

Grant: I-I understand that. I just thought. Just something that just occurred to me. Hey Dood.

Dood: Yeah?

Grant: Why did you kill those two guys?

Dood: Because I love you so much and I wanted to protect you.

Grant: Okay. That's all I wanted to know.

In which Grant is still making excuses rather than owning up to or apologizing for anything or striving to change his behavior in the future. What's great about Grant's "point" here too is that the two guards that d00d killed were absolutely unnecessary deaths, so this example does anything but work in Grant's favor.

Part 2/4: "My mother hates her body, we share the same outline"

But this is only part of the problem. As aforementioned, we learn early on and see repeated on multiple occasions that Grant thinks ill of himself to the point of believing that he deserves death, and does not want Lincoln to be anything like him.

This affects Lincoln in two major ways. Perhaps most obviously, it leaves Lincoln greatly concerned for his dad's wellbeing, which in turn acts as his main motivation for trying (and failing) to get Grant to explore and explain those feelings. Additionally, however, Grant's self-loathing also has a passive but deeply damaging effect on Lincoln's self-worth. The most important indication of this is when Lincoln says:

"Okay. Look, Scary, I just... You know what? I don't even care. I just needed a friend and I don't know… I don’t know what you're going through, but… no, my dad always said you can't love somebody unless you love yourself, right? Well, last time I asked him if he loved himself, he… He doesn't. So… I don't know, so maybe he doesn't love me either. And you seem to know what that's like, and, you're my friend! You're dealing with these things and I'm just here. I just, I don't know! I don't love myself either! I don't know! But I know that more people will die if we can't do this together, and you're the only person, like, in this group— I mean you guys are, I mean— [sighs] Look, you can go. I'm not going to stop you. You go if you want to go. I'm done."

Also classic Lincoln move to say he doesn't care then proceed to hug Scary through an Eldritch Blast. In this essay, on why people misuse the word "apathy" in applying it to Lincoln,

Though the issue comes up again in a less obvious but very interesting way when Lincoln says that:

Which I assume probably seems pretty out of left field. To explain a bit what I'm trying to get at here, consider the following scenario:

Your parent, who you care about immensely, possesses certain qualities (say, idk, intrusive thoughts or mood swings or delusional thoughts or *something*) that they possess great shame over, and truly, wholeheartedly believe makes them "evil" or unlovable or even outright deserving of death. Of course, you do not believe that your parent is any of these things, it hurts to see that they feel this way about them-self, so you try your best to support them, even if you know deep down that you are their child and this should not be your responsibility. Your parent does not see the effect that their mental state is having on yours, does not take your voices of concern seriously, and mostly leaves you feeling like you are talking to a wall.

This hurts already, but it gets worse. You are your parent's child, and you are human, and so you inevitably find yourself with some of the characteristics that your parent loathes so much in them-self. Maybe you have similar thought patterns. Maybe you've made similar mistakes. Your parent doesn't love them-self because of these qualities that you now see in yourself, so how can you be sure that they do not hate you for them too? Do they believe that you deserve to die for these things as well? Your parent obviously assures you to the contrary, after all, they love you more than anything. But your parent fails to offer any meaningful line of distinction between their flaws and yours (after all, there isn't one, not really), and continues to assert that, unlike you, they really do deserve to die. Your parent is a hypocrite, and their reassurance does little to convince you.

Hopefully that makes some sense. With regards to the "dreams about killing my dads" part, mostly what I'm trying to say is that these dreams, while certainly very different from Grant's conscious thoughts about violence, still tread the line of mimicking them to some degree, and Grant's "I deserve to die because of how my brain works, don't be anything like me because that's bad!" really doesn't leave Lincoln with a healthy way to process and interpret this fact about himself, even if these dreams don't actually say anything about who he is as a person.

Anyways all that to say, on multiple levels Grant's unwillingness to even try to love himself and treat himself better has been having effects on his son that he can't even begin to realize, in addition to everything discussed in the first bit.

"But baba," I hear you say, "what about Marco? Why has Lincoln seemingly disowned both of his dads?"

Part 3/4: Three is the loneliest number

Well, I think there's a couple things going on here. For one thing, I think in a sense Lincoln sees his dads as kind of a "package deal", which is to say that from his pov disowning Grant means Marco would have to pick a side, and though it pains him immensely (as we see evidence of on several occasions), Lincoln would ultimately rather give up Marco than have Grant be left alone without either of them, because he will always love and care about Grant, and because he's selfless that way.

Additionally, for a good long while, Lincoln doesn't actually appear to harbor any resentment towards Marco:

However, this later part of the season has brought with it a new wave of disillusionment, and in its wake Lincoln has finally come to question the last major issue characterizing his relationship with his parents: social isolation.

We have known from basically the first episode of the season that Lincoln has lived a very isolated, lonely life, and that the only reason he's even going to public high school now is because he finally convinced Grant to let him:

As a side note, I have seen discussion of the fact that since Lincoln was rescued from the Titanic, it's possible that he was homeschooled solely because he did not legally exist. The above statement from Matt seems to work against this theory, in addition to the fact that if Lincoln was missing legal papers to get into elementary school... That would also prevent him from going to high school. Also, I mean. If you actually were to find an abandoned baby there's a whole legal process you're supposed to go through, and since Lincoln surely wouldn't have any close blood relatives around, that would still leave the possibility for Grant and Marco to adopt him legally if they wanted to (and if they chose not to go through said process, that's kind of on them?). Which isn't to say that this theory is out of the question, but in any case being homeschooled is one thing, whereas the actual degree of social isolation Lincoln goes through growing up is way more than just that, as we will delve into.

Now, we know that Grant eventually puts an end to Lincoln and Normal seeing each other on the basis that Lark and Sparrow are dangerous, which... Itself is actually fair tbh, in particular given what we now know about Hero. Not fair to Lincoln or Normal, obviously, but understandable. Much less acceptable, is the fact that Lincoln actually grows up without any friends his age whatsoever:

We understand of course that the motives behind this extreme social isolation are not malicious or otherwise done with ill-intent, but that doesn't make this even remotely okay! Of course then Lincoln is very clingy and perhaps even territorial over his dads, to the point where one of his biggest fears is his parents having another child who would take some of their attention away from him- they've created an environment in which they are basically all he has!

As a direct result of this, Lincoln gets lonely very easily, and when he finally does make some friends of his own, he will do anything and everything for them, even if it means risking his own life (at least then he isn't alive and lonely!)

This is also why Lincoln is so especially distraught after the loss of Mr. Kicks, a digital avatar whom he considered his best (and only) friend.

Additionally, Lincoln's fear of returning to his lonesome childhood creates an unfortunate scenario in which he cannot be honest with his dads about the fact that he is being bullied at school

Even though that is definitely the case (and in fact we see it first-hand on many occasions), because to do so would run the risk of his dads taking him out of public school, and that, to him, is worse.

Lincoln beginning to view this aspect of his childhood (the isolation but also the over-protectiveness and overbearing attitude more generally) for what it is is why Matt's intros have recently shifted from "schooled at home" to "schooled in prison", in addition to pretty directly saying that high school was like heaven compared to his home life (in episode 40), and I don't think Lincoln is even remotely in the wrong for looking back at his isolation and thinking "hey, even if you had good intentions, that was kind of fucked up actually, and I need to distance myself from you for my own sake."

Not that Lincoln wanting freedom from his overbearing dads is a new thing! I mean apart from what one can logically infer from Lincoln convincing Grant to let him go to public school, Matt does drop a bunch of telling details here and there such as Lincoln's favorite sound being "the silence of being home alone and free". It's just that now is when these feelings are finally starting to come to the surface.

It is also something that Lincoln naturally would hold against both Grant and Marco, because they are both aware of and responsible for this aspect of his upbringing (whether Marco acted actively or as an enabler in the matter notwithstanding- though I would look no further than both Grant and Marco getting red cards the one time they tried letting Lincoln play soccer with other kids to observe how that family dynamic plays out), hence feeling the need to cut himself off from the both of them in order to set a long-overdue boundary. That said, to be honest with you, I really don't think he's actually all that upset with Marco, and would mostly just like to see him again.

If the events of the Titanic help to ease any aspect of Lincoln's frustration, it would be this one. Not in the sense that it magically makes what Lincoln went through growing up okay, but it does still recontextualize Grant and Marco's degree of overbearingness and (part of) why they are how they are, and I absolutely think that Lincoln would have sympathy for that.

So, where does that leave us?

Part 4/4: What remains (+ the case study of Scary)

"But baba," you say, "Grant and Marco are not just their mistakes! They've both done so many things right as parents, and they love Lincoln more than anything!"

I turn to you, tears in my eyes. "I know," I say, "I know, but that does not contradict or erase the fact that they have inadvertently hurt Lincoln in many, many ways, and he has a right to be upset with them, and express that, and set boundaries if he feels the need to."

You sigh. "So do you think Grant is a good dad or a bad one?" you ask.

I shake my head. "He's just... He's just a dad. A dad who's had a rough swing of things from the beginning. He never meant to hurt Lincoln, and I truly believe he's got a good heart, but I want to see him try harder. I need to see him try harder than he currently is to better himself, for Lincoln's sake as much as his own."

Is... More or less how I feel. I absolutely agree that as a parent Grant obviously gives a shit, and my intention here is absolutely not to say "hey actually, Grant is awful!"

As I mentioned at the very beginning of this essay, however, collectively I have found over the course of the season that Lincoln's trauma and struggles have gone severely understated and undermined, sometimes to the point of even turning him into the bad guy or depicting him as acting dramatic for a decision that I think was very brave of him, actually. So... It does feel necessary to me to point out that, as much as I care about Grant and recognize that he's suffered immensely too, he's still made a lot of mistakes over the course of the season, and still has a lot of room to grow as a person.

As things currently are, I would not blame Lincoln if he did not forgive Grant by the end of the season. Do I think that's what's gonna happen? No lol.

If you'll excuse a mini side-tangent, because for now I don't really want to make this a separate post, the mid-season evolution of Lincoln and Scary's relationship is actually a great case study for Lincoln's capacity for forgiveness, in addition to his inability to give up on people:

Tony Pepperoni's murder is, I would argue, an attack against Lincoln most personally (relative to the other teens). Aside from Lincoln having the strongest pacifistic tendencies of the group, it's in his home, it's in front of Marco, as established in the 3rd section Tony Pepperoni, by virtue of having been over for dinners at the Li-Wilson household before, is someone Lincoln knows more personally than the other teens and one of the only people in his life he could have possibly approximated to a friend. Most importantly though, Scary goes behind Lincoln's back in letting Willy out and disclosing the location of the party, and that is a significant breach of trust.

So Lincoln kicks Scary out of the house (and more or less out of the group by extension) because protecting the others from her is the most important thing at that point in time (sound familiar?). For the next bit, Lincoln's behavior towards Scary becomes a juggling act of keeping a close eye on her to make sure she doesn't cause more harm (and yes, it's also when they are meanest with each other), but also keeping a close eye on her to look after her (a notable example of this being that he doesn't leave her behind in the hall of mirrors, even when it would have been easier and perhaps even "beneficial" to do so in the context of the anchor quest).

And yet despite all the mutual hostility, Lincoln without question also fights the hardest to get Scary back. He breaks the pick as a sign of trust (and as Freddie put it: "that's love babeeey") and to show her she's welcome back in the group, follows through on this decision despite the fact that it creates a temporary rift between him and the others (Normal and Taylor) who oppose her return (perhaps a good time to also say as a reminder that Lincoln was the most against letting Willy out in the first place), breaks a door down to protect her from Willy even when everyone else in the house treats him as crazy for doing so, refuses to fight Scary when she goes on the offense, and hugs her through a god damn eldritch blast because he can't let her leave and hurt more people but still cares about her to the point that he would literally choose to die before hurting her or giving up on fighting for her. Like, if that's not love and forgiveness, I don't fucking know what is. This in addition to him encouraging the others to go easy on her and otherwise looking out for her past that point.

So do I think Lincoln Li-Wilson has it in him to forgive Grant in spite of it all? That is a resounding yes from me. Will the events of the Titanic facilitate this if only by painting Grant's situation in a more sympathetic light and showcasing some of his virtues? Totally, I mean, there's a reason Anthony decided to make the arc go this way. But will I be a bit disappointed if this forgiveness comes without any major growth on Grant's part? Also. Also yes yeah.

MM. I DON'T REALLY KNOW HOW TO END THIS ONE TBH. Heh. Well, thank you for one thing, for taking the time to read a post this long. If you're reading this not too long after I posted it I am most definitely pacing around rn going "oh god they hate it!" but uh. Well that's a me problem lol. Anyways, I hope this proves to be at least somewhat insightful? ...Yeah no apart from that I really am struggling to end this properly and honestly I'm real sleepy lol so I'll just say again (whether you agree with the points listed here or not) THANKS FOR HEARING ME OUT Y'ALL AND TAKE CARE.

[astrolavas]

Ok ok, but now is turn for the grimwalker HCs!! Give us the creature👀

!!!!! BET

once a grimwalker is "formed" they simply turn mostly organic, just like how palismen are live animals instead of wood (when activated). so even though the ingredients are still THERE technically, they appear as just like... normal stuff, so grimwalkers are mostly biologically the species that their ortet was, almost indistinguishable (hair is hair, skin is skin, there's blood flow despite there not initially being a heart, the galdorstone is there but it functions very similarly to a heart, etc etc) and yet sometimes the original ingredients' features somehow still "show up" in unique-to-grimwalkers ways. ㅤ

i imagine grimwalkers used to be like a more popular/frequent occurence in ancient demon realm. the process of creating a grimwalker was like a sacred magic ritual, only allowed in special cases (like maybe if a witch lost a child early and wasn't able to have another one, sth of the sort) so it was still very rare even back then and would have to be approved of by most of the community. however, then the tradition died off as ingredients started becoming more scarce, and most of knowledge about it was eventually lost to time. nowadays, grimwalkers are considered to be an extinct species as well as an urban legend/myth by boiling isles habitants, like a "supposedly extinct but there's no certainty if they ever even actually existed" situation (without taking hunter and his possibly-openly-a-grimwalker-in-the-future thing into account just yet). the books we saw hunter read in labyrinth runners have some right information but also lots of misinformation in them, since they're far removed from the direct source, based on only tidbits of actual info, and have been written by witches/demons, with no grimwalkers consulted (obviously); lots of it is speculation, and lots of it is wrong. (i imagine the only actual, entirely truthful info is in those scrolls and books we saw in belos' grimwalker lab, but even that isn't fully complete; and belos wouldn't have wanted to share it with the public anyway, for obvious reasons) additionally, i feel like grimwalkers have a sort of cryptid-like reputation in the boiling isles' pop culture. there are stories made up about them. there are teens making pink-eyed grimwalker ocs on the demon realm equivalent of deviantart and making up things like "grimwalkers can shoot lasers out of their eyes" or "they can raise the dead with their thoughts" LMAO. hunter gets a headache when he discovers all that. ㅤ

grimwalkers are semi-immune to boiling water. the selkidomus scales give them a lot of immunity so boiling water is not actually lethal to them but still, being exposed to boiling rain for a long while or full-on diving into the boiling sea may hurt a bit and prolonged contact with boiling water may leave them with blisters/burns. ㅤ

when grimwalkers' skin is wet for a long time, it gets somewhat scaley ??? scales-resembling texture ?? instead of just being pruney/wrinkled. when dry, their fingertips have a sort of wood-rings-y look. ㅤ

grimwalkers' hair naturally grows incredibly fast, but especially when they spend lots of time in the sun. plant magic may also affect its growth positively. ㅤ

grimwalkers' eyes are reflective and can glow/shine in the dark. ㅤ

when it comes to human-based grimwalkers (the golden guards), sometimes their ears would turn out rounder and human-looking, sometimes they'd look pointier but still not fully witch-like. belos preferred them to be round cuz obviously he preferred "caleb" to be human-looking, but with time he started modifying some grimwalkers' naturally round ears to be pointier just so that they could blend in easier and so they'd believe that they're witches too. he'd "mold" their ears during early creation or sometimes modify/cut them after, like he did his. (hunter's ears are naturally pointy and generally look like a witch's ears but, upon closer inspection, the details of his ears differ from a normal witch's ears juuuust slightly) (ears of the grimwalker that we saw in ftf were fully round because belos was counting on this one to be the golden guard post-day of unity, seemingly brought up as human and in the human realm) ㅤ

just like stonesleepers, grimwalkers often have a slightly sensitive spot behind their ears. ㅤㅤㅤ

palismen can somewhat sense that grimwalkers are also made of palistrom wood so they naturally cling to them more (big win for mr palisman enthusiast/carver hunter owlhouse!) ㅤㅤ

again, when it comes to specifically caleb-based/the golden guard grimwalkers, i can imagine that belos' first attempts were....... FAR from perfect. since i imagine he got all the information from different incomplete ancient scrolls, there were many things he had to come up with and re-discover himself. the very first grimwalkers he made probably didn't even survive for longer than a few minutes/hours. and when they did survive, i feel like the ingredients used were much more distinguishable at first too, not fully transformed into their organic counterparts; like for example some grimwalkers had more selkidomus-like or stonesleeper-like features, or were visibly wooden in some places, etc etc. i feel like belos didn't succeed in making a fully functional, stable and human/witch-looking grimwalker until he met the collector, and then did so thanks to their help. ㅤ

grimwalkers are already "harvestable" at early infancy and that's when you're "supposed" to unbury them, but they can technically emerge at any age (they just have to stay underground and age for the amount of time). i feel like there were also times when belos tried to speed up the process and age his grimwalkers up faster so that they'd be of use to him quicker, but that would also often result in the grimwalkers being unstable; so not really a good idea. (i envision that hunter was probably one of the youngest- if not the youngest- grimwalker belos had ever made, and that's also why he had high hopes for him lasting longer than the others; because he manipulated him since early childhood, starting in his most pivotal developmental years) ㅤ

i like to believe that the reason why flapjack was able to save hunter in thanks to them was because hunter's a grimwalker. if hunter had been a normal witch or a human, i don't think flapjack could do anything to help. (something abt the thing that hunter was ashamed of and hated abt himself ending up being the exact thing that makes saving him possible... you know?) ㅤ

for specifically caleb-based grimwalkers, i imagine that since they're mostly human in biology, they might also have issues with eating some particular demon realm food. not as much as luz of course, since they're not completely human + after years of living in the demon realm and basically eating ONLY demon realm food i can imagine your stomach would get mostly used to it, acclimated and all, but it probably still could result in some problems and discomfort. ㅤ

because of their stonesleeper lungs, grimwalkers are usually pretty still and motionless sleepers. they breathe very slowly when sleeping. ㅤ

you can't make a grimwalker out of a grimwalker. you can try, but the magic simply won't work correctly.

[buckybarnesss]

it's amazing derek's functioning in s1.//

His sister was killed. Killed by his uncle. Who was the feral alpha. That bite a teenager. And there was Kate, who shot him and torture him.

And yet, he never try to take revenge. Is incredible that after all that. He really tried to do his best. He called Scott brother, he tried to make Scott trust him. He try to save him. When he was mad a Scott teen crush, he was seeing himself with Paige.

He wasn't the best communicating. But he tried.

He never used other or try to make them do something that they didn't want to. But Scott, he made Derek to bite Gerard. When Derek told him that the bite was a gift.

Scott is not a saint.

derek hale is probably one of the most traumatized characters to grace television and that's before we're introduced to him. i don't think derek had a break in life since before paige's death and he'd been existing in survival/crisis mode for years by wolf moon.

i'm of the mind that derek didn't receive the proper support he needed after having to mercy kill paige. which was an act of compassion to minimize her suffering a drawn out painful death. however, due to the circumstances her true cause of death had to be covered up and along with it derek's grief surrounding not just her dying but his participation in it.

this is what kate argent took advantage of to get close to derek. i think it's reasonable to assume that the substitute teacher angle can still be considered valid. we know the argents use this tactic and it was used in the on fire novel.

her being a sub would've put kate in position of trust and authority over him not to mention paige's death would be recent enough for her to easily find out about it as well as derek's connection to paige.

in fact, i think it was paige's death that was the impetus for kate even being in beacon hills but i digress.

all the adults in derek's life failed him.

the thing about derek hale is that never gives up and he never stays down despite the things life has thrown at him. he learns, he changes and he evolves as a person.

when scott and derek meet in wolf moon it's the worst possible time for them both and that impression is what lingers between them. derek's has a hard time not seeing scott as a reflection of his younger self and derek is so, so, so viscerally angry with teenage derek. it compounds when he believes scott is making the same mistakes he did.

scott, of course, responds to derek with bullheaded stubbornness because not only is scott a super independent person but he reacts very badly to male authority figures who want to exert any form of control over him.

rafe mccall is a piece of shit and i will stand by that. there is no one incident when your parent is an alcoholic but maybe it's my own personal bias showing. it's just hard to believe rafe only did something once especially when the supposed only incident is a grown man grabbing a small child with enough force that when the child resists they fall down the stairs resulting in losing consciousness.

the show makes it's clear melissa and rafe argued frequently and loudly, that melissa believes they're better without him. that says abusive household. hell, the man also seemingly checked out of his son's life for years and with the money issues the mccall's are shown to have does he even pay child support?

scott responds negatively to not just villains like peter, gerard, and duecalion but to also to normal power tripping mr. harris. his relationship with chris argent gets development so scott eventually respects him but it takes time and allison literally dying.

there's also the fact derek is not more than a few years older than him so scott does see derek as more of a peer throwing his weight around than he sees an adult with authority. derek using the "we're brothers now" line on scott triggered him and frankly derek it's a weird thing to put in your welcome speech. it's trying to inorganically force a relationship that isn't on that level. it's why it's both funny and sad when scott uses the line later on liam and stiles cringes so hard his soul leaves his body.

the only two male figures scott carries respect for throughout the show is sheriff stilinski and dr deaton. which is why it's so easy for deaton to get scott to go along with his plan in s2 without him thinking the repercussions entirely though.

don't misunderstand me scott's double cross in s2 is terrible but i think people forget deaton's role in it sometimes. there's a reason stiles wasn't in the loop on it like nearly every other plan scott does. i wish the narrative put more weight on it but i'm not surprised it was glossed over as teen wolf keeps everything snappy and fast paced. we don't frequently get time to dwell on things which is a shame because it could've provided interesting development.

if anyone tries to make scott a saint than they're lying but also the opposite is true. scott isn't evil like some fans seem to want him to be.

derek and scott's relationship is never straight forward and always complicated. they're both shitty to each for reasons due to their respective histories that the other has no way of knowing at the start.

but also like it's not teen wolf if there's not a failure to communicate to drag the plot out.

[hungry-dragon-hugs]

for those who were wondering, here's the OC from the last post (and my pfp lol)

she's a D&D OC of mine, completely unrelated to any other work i may have. absolutely nothing about her is canon-compliant, but fuck WoTC i do what i want.

character lore and facts (and apparently an entire extreme cuddling short story, i got REALLY carried away lmao) under the cut :>

as stated in the image, she is a monk. despite this, her weapon of choice is an absolutely massive zweihänder. in D&D rules, monks should only be proficient in simple one-handed or versatile weapons. in this case, i made the executive decision that if she can swing a sword that big one-handed she should damn well be allowed to ^-^ (same goes for the presumably very heavy partial plate armor.)

as for the "half-dragon" bit- Kos's dad is a true red dragon, who one day became infatuated with her mum (a normal dragonborn) and disguised himself to flirt with and eventually court her- the affair resulting in her being banished from her clan. when her daughter was born, she named the child Kosjaverthi, meaning "little mountain." the name was meant to represent steadfastness and beauty, but eventually took on a sort of irony- Kos's true-dragon genes quickly became clear when she grew to be literally twice the height and relative bulk of everyone around her.

as one does when blessed with thick scales and enough strength to crush a skull in one hand, Kos set out on the path of the adventurer from a young age. when she was only early in her teens, she dedicated herself to a monastary, living up to both her name's intended meaning and the cultural pride of dragonborn through rigorous honing and mastery of her body and mind.

finding her skills to be satisfactory after multiple years, she set out in search of something to put them to the test. unfortunately, she kept running into the issue of simply being too intimidating- very few low-level targets would even fight her, and many potential contractors would immediately slam their doors on her rather than deal with the possibility of any complications with her during a job.

eventually, luck turned her way, and she found a friendly group of adventurers who welcomed her with open arms- and happened to be in the business of hunting monsters, much more worthy foes than the cowering bandits Kos was previously sent to deal with. she quickly proved her worth and became a valuable member of the team, often acting as a sort of "secret weapon" to turn situations around once they've gone bad. how could something as big as her be a "secret"? simply put, nobody ever expects 3 tons of dragon muscle to move with her level of trained finesse.

and now to address the giant half-dragon in the room: the whole "eating people" thing. the explanation isn't too complicated (i think), but i also didn't check with D&D rules at all for this one because idgaf. the basic idea is, one of the most fundamental parts of her monk training was somatic mastery- essentially the ability to use Ki to control all bodily functions with extreme precision and ease, not just the normally voluntary ones. this allows her to start, stop, carefully limit, or "lock" functions including circulation and, of course, digestion. she can even cause them to do things they weren't previously able to, such as circulating clean oxygen from her bloodstream through membranes in her intestine and into her stomach- or causing her blood to glow by partially activating the magical essence from her draconis fundamentum (fire-breathing organ) directly within her veins rather than expending it in one burst through her lungs.

the inciting incident for her man-eating tendencies was during a trek through a snowy mountain pass on an errand for her monastary- she was often chosen for transport of goods and messages between the establishment and nearby towns, due to her near-immunity to the freezing cold and lack of any risk of robbery. at some point during the journey, though, she came upon a half-elf girl slightly younger than her- lost, freezing, and barely conscious. immediately disregarding her intended deadline, Kos picked up the girl and used her body heat to warm her back to her senses. brief questioning revealed that the girl's name was Lynn, she had come from a town closer and slightly east of the one Kos was bound for, and she had been kidnapped by highwaymen after wandering off during a family outing a few days ago. she had managed to narrowly escape, but had gotten lost and caught outside during a snowstorm the night before.

Kos knew she couldn't leave Lynn to die, and immediately planned out a detour to the girl's town, but she had a problem. if she wanted to keep her warm, she couldn't carry Lynn in her arms the whole way, as the weather would quickly strip any remaining warmth from her. fire-breath was an even worse idea which could only result in Lynn being returned frozen or charred. but, after a few minutes of thinking, she had a solution. drawing on her monk training, Kos would be able to carry Lynn within her own stomach completely harmlessly, keeping the girl warm by the heat of Kos's core while leaving her own hands free.

unfortunately, this left her with the issue of convincing Lynn to willingly let a gigantic half-red-dragon swallow her whole and alive. luckily, though, the girl's desparation combined with Kos's care and gentleness up to that point made the task easier than it sounded. Lynn only had to think for a few moments after the question was sheepishly presented to agree, helped by the clear logic of the suggestion. and so, after repositioning the girl in her arms and whispering a few reassuring words, Kos bent down, carefully unhinged her jaw, and swallowed Lynn whole.

immediately, she was struck (and somewhat concerned) by how good it felt as the small half-elf squeezed through her esophagus and into her belly. Lynn's movements were like a warm massage for her throat, and the gentle weight of her form in Kos's gut was relaxing and somehow... comforting. she took a moment to inspect her swollen abdomen, marveling slightly at the feeling of having an entire living person completely within her. Lynn, for her part, seemed comfortable enough after a bit of fidgeting around, and quickly began to doze off in the squishy, warm space as Kos picked herself up and began trudging along her now-altered route once more.

after almost a day and a half of traveling, Kos finally arrived at Lynn's small town. being a detour from her usual route and one that she hadn't often visited before- especially not on her own- she received her share of strange and distrustful looks from the townsfolk. even so, she went to the address Lynn had told her, jostled her stomach a few times to wake the girl up, and knocked on the door. she was confronted by a tired-looking couple who immediately froze at the sight of her towering form on their doorstep, but couldn't suppress gasps when she told them that she had found their daughter. their elation was short-lived, however, as they soon asked where Lynn was.

never before in her life had Kos seen the mixture of emotions that passed over the pair's faces as they watched their daughter be regurgitated right in front of them, happy and unharmed (and only slightly slimy). but, after a long hug goodbye, Lynn guided her stunned parents back inside, and Kos was on her way. she turned up back at the monastary three days late and with a strange story to tell. years later, long after leaving to make her own way in the world, she never forgot that cozy feeling she got when she held Lynn in her stomach- and now, after making her party members thoroughly aware of some of her "quirks," it is not uncommon for her to show affection to those close to her by taking them in for the night, holding them deep within her core.

so yeah, there's my big dragonborn girlie :> i definitely put way more into that backstory than there probably needed to be, i hope you enjoyed it if you read it all the way through! god why can't i just get this level of detail and coherence out of my actual main projects why do all my creative energies funnel into making characters eat each other help

[clover0101]

Weakness - Haruka Sakurai analysis

aka: rewritting my old analysis because I missed so much visual clues and I don't know how to cope with that

(CW: themes of neglect, ableism, animal cruelty and other sensitive topics ahead)

Water is a fairly recurring symbolism in the two videos we have to date. A way of representing that Haruka, in the situation she finds herself in, is drowning. Dying by drowning is for many one of the most agonizing and desperate deaths. By trying to breathe, asking for help, talking or struggling you only make your own situation worse, little by little losing the energy to keep trying until you let yourself go. This time, the water falls on him like a strong wave after seeing himself in the mirror, remembering what life was like for him as a child and knowing that those days will never return.

The blue light in the video literally represents 'being the focus of attention'. Haruka, as a child, was. He received the love of his parents and his basic needs were met. From a certain point in his life (presumably as he entered his teens, around age 12) his family began to leave him behind. Haruka was very close to his mother, so he was especially hurt by her. And why did this happen in the first place? Haruka is a neurodivergent person, his specific condition is up for interpretation, but it's clear that he struggles with learning difficulties. As he entered his adolescence, his condition became much more evident, denoting that he would not be able to do what others can, thus causing rejection and mistreatment by his parents.

We can see in shots like these that Haruka, even when present in the family environment – living in the same home, sharing the same space – always takes the position of a spectator. Someone who, despite having tried everything, is not capable of influencing the world enough for these efforts to bear fruit. It seems that there is something separating him from everyone else, from his family, from those who should love and support him. As if he was looking at them through a glass wall (or from inside a fish tank, as we will see in akaa (?)

Something that is also important is that the video makes a clear separation between Haruka from the present and the one from the past. The child is shown as someone happy and innocent, never acting to harm anybody, however, present Haruka carries all the negative feelings and subsequent bad actions. Haruka seems to be envious of his past self, even pushing him out of focus so that he falls and drowns, just like he is now. My interpretation is that when we see Haruka interacting with himself as a child, we are actually seeing how he interacts with the girl who appears later in the video; her victim. The reason why he is shown as himself in Weakness is because Haruka projects onto her the happiness he felt at her age. His parents' neglect may have started shortly before or with the birth of his sister. Haruka mentions in his interrogation that his name was chosen because his mother wanted a girl. Having a daughter, and also one without any condition that hindered her development, led her to give all her time and attention to her, and to completely leave Haruka aside, because the more he grew, the more it became clear that he could not function as a “normal person” could without any special treatment or attention. His childish or incapable attitudes were normal to see at the age of a child, but when they persist during adolescence they become annoying for his caregivers. Ableism and ignorance leads many people to be negligent when having autistic children or with some type of developmental problem that makes their upbringing difficult, culminating in abuse instead of looking for tools and help to handle the situation correctly.

This sequence is particularly interesting to me because the well she falls into is not something "real" as such, but is made up of scratches and drawings that Haruka himself made. Haruka longs for roles to be reversed, even if it means condemning her to suffer the same as him. But this suffering that he pushes her into is not genuine. They are circumstances made by his mind that will never come true, because Haruka will continue to be ignored; and before that truth Haruka sinks again.

The translation of the original video is a bit inconvenient in my opinion because it's difficult to extend due to grammar errors (?) so I'll be using this fanmade translation to complement some things.

The fireworks event is particularly important because Haruka mentions it as something he remembers well. It's possible that, due to his condition, he was unable to attend such event (or, for example, see the fireworks during a celebration) because he's sensitive to loud noises and cause him anxiety and discomfort. "The future correct, unfairly, chose the wrong me." Haruka sees himself with his sister because he wishes he could be there with her, enjoying this special event. He thinks that if they were both the same age, or if he was a "normal person" everything would be better. If he didn't have this condition, he would like to be able to get along with his sister and be friends, which would be possible if only he was able to "do the things that others can do without trying." Again, his life passes before him without his decisions or thoughts having any real importance. It is repeated through the chorus that Haruka wants to be pitied. He wants to be seen completely, with everything and the weaknesses that have been blamed on him throughout his life. He just wants to be accepted and loved even with those flaws, without having to make an effort to be someone he is not or to fit into what is "normal" for others.

The flowers that surround Haruka are yellow garden roses (although after looking up they seem quite similar to Golden Celebration or Graham Thomas, but I can't tell for sure). The meaning of yellow flowers and roses varies; in a more positive lens (in this context not so much) it could reflect the desire to communicate or take action to achieve a goal. Yellow is also popularly associated with envy, jealousy, and betrayal. According to color theory, being exposed to large amounts of yellow in a room or space can be irritating – so it could also reflect how Haruka is perceived by the people around him as someone that's better to treat in "small doses", because living with him daily is suffocating. Taking action, along with jealousy, fit well with the next sequence, where Haruka reaches up to reach for the girl and kills her, and is then seen laughing on top of her body. That's when for the first time in the video Haruka is the focus of attention. However, it was all a nightmare. This would reflect how little by little Haruka is thinking that the only way to get back what was taken from him is by hurting others, but in the end he sees himself scared with his own thoughts. For now, he wouldn't act to make them a reality.

Another symbology reflected in Haruka's drawings becomes much more evident; eyes watching him after doing something he knows is wrong and his different perceptions of his mother, during his childhood (first image) and in the present (possibly second image, though I'm not sure if that's his mom). Haruka has this tendency to draw people or things he sees as villains like that, like he also does with the family dog.

The following sequence has been the cause of my nightmares and my suffering both when watching it and when writing this essay. We are presented with what would be Haruka's first murder, the victim being precisely the family dog. What stands out above all is the fact that not only does Haruka's home seem to have an unconventional structure to say the least (?), but even though it's implied that the dog ran off into the forest, there are details that go against this, the most notorious being the pieces of wood on the floor that remain as a constant. Another interesting detail is that the outside world looks more like a collage or something artificial created by the mind of someone who doesn't know how it really looks. This may suggest that Haruka and the animal did not leave the house, which I also find credible given the symbology seen later in AKAA, where Haruka spends most of the video locked inside a small room unable to see what is outside or even go out.

While little Haruka looks for his dog following the tracks he left behind, at one point he looks at his hands and sees them covered in the animal's blood. He then switches to revealing that the perpetrator of the crime is the current Haruka, who even looks horrified after realizing what he has done.

This part of the lyrics especially expresses a lot; “You complimented me on being crazy”, aka, the only thing Haruka's mother acknowledges that he does well is being crazy, to which he replies “thank you, I'll do my best.” He wants to be the best at the one thing he's told he does well, which is kind of sad in my opinion (?) “How many times do I have to do this to be seen as a human?” The hostile environment in which he grew up has led Haruka to believe that he's much less than a person, and that this is the only way for him to put himself on the same level as others, to be recognized. Only if he becomes despicable would he be able to be seen again. "I have become a victim, my loneliness was wanted (by you)" his mother kept him isolated from the world, knowing the damage it did to him, because Haruka is seen as a disappointment. He's a victim of abuse, and tries to convince himself that his motivation for doing what he does is acceptable as a victim.

Now, when Haruka is face to face with the corpse, the flash of blue light over him is present for the first time in the video. However, it doesn't cover him completely, only illuminating a part of him. It's here when he realizes that of everything he has tried the only thing that manages to capture the attention of his environment is this. It's the only thing that worked out, and quickly his options narrow down to just that. Because, as he mentions in his second voice drama, what else could he have done?

During the bridge Haruka is standing, crying. His tears come out of his right eye, the one that his hair covers, so it may represent how his suffering has been ignored or conveniently obscured/covered so as not to be recognized. The fireworks are back in the background. This time, the blue light is drawn on him with crayons, along with the silhouettes of various people and eyes watching him. It's what Haruka longs to achieve.

Haruka tries to reach his mother again, but he fails and she disappears along with the light. "Even if I keep trying (to hide it), it's already broken." Her relationship with her was broken from the beginning, wanting to have her back are and will always be wishes in vain, because he won't be able to make her turn and look at him again. Using just the fanmade translation as a base, this line could also refer to himself. How trying to hide or change his flaws is never going to repair the kind of person he's become, or on a more fundamental level, how his condition is the part of himself he considers broken, and for obvious reasons he can't get rid of it. “The things that are not here (or that I do not see/see), the ones that you don't need, do they still exist somewhere else? (Or are they just a dream?)” I interpret this line as Haruka trying to make sense of his own existence. Unloved, unneeded and ignored, he tries to see other possibilities – to see if he might still be able to exist in the same world as everyone else, perhaps finding a normal life that meets his wishes. It's as if he's asking permission to continue breathing the same air than others. (who else does that in their video- oh no mu kusunoki from the hit series MILGRAM please get out of my house) In the end, Haruka gets tired of watching, longing, and wishing. He decides to act, attacking his sister and suffocating her. Now, being over her corpse, the focus of attention is entirely on him. Even if he's reproached, hated, or disapproved of, he is fine with it. Because in the end he achieved what he wanted.

[loving-family-poll]

ok hold on lemme elaborate. first and foremost lemme preface this by saying that on a personal level the resemblance is superficial at best. when I say "parallel" I mean "there is a narrative parallel" not "stewy is similar to logan as a person". the second statement is truly nonsensical. HOWEVER... both stewy and logan represent an image of an american dream of a self-made man, and, more than that, seek to embody this image and Become it (to the detriment of their respective moral characters). logan is an immigrant that has built his business empire from nothing, he is the archetypal Self Made Capitalist. Stewy is an immigrant that has built a Perfect Life for himself from nothing, and HE seeks to embody spirit of a Newer capitalism (his area of work is not a part of the "real" economy, his job is to exercise the most predatory form of market pressure). both have fundamentally abandoned their humanity in the process, logan is supposedly "doing everything for his kids" while. not spending any meaningful time with them for the sake of the Business, and stewy is "always honest", but. his name is STEWY. this man has buried every aspect of his cultural identity for the sake of success. he kills the man he was yesterday every time he wakes up in the morning.

additionally, stewy is Positioned in the narrative as a mirror to logan. he is a mirror to tom (outsider to the family, metaphorial groom for one of the siblings), and, well. we all know about tom. additionally, we have the whole... dinner for winners thing. which positions stewy above kendall in the hierarchy of logan's approval, but, well, that will never mean anything because stewy is not white. nevertheless, stewy is a winner.

ADDITIONALLY, i strongly believe that kendall's love language is being led. he has to have someone giving him pointers and directions, we see it obviously with logan, when logan isn't there he asks rava for it, etc etc etc. logan himself recognizes it (through the words of brian cox), by describing the situation in the end of s1 as "kendall is under this corrupt influence of stewy" (yet another case of logan being a jealous jealous old man btw).

there is ALSO the aspect of food. stewy and logan are among the few characters that in this show eat, and eat confidently, whenever they want (another notable specimen is TOM). there are approximately 5 thousand essays written about food in succession, so I won't delve very deep, but. it's about a show of power. and about being able to take have and enjoy whatever they want.

returning briefly to the "kendall's love language is being led": all of kendall's relationships are in some way influenced by his relationship with logan. they are either a way to validate himself In Front of logan or they are about filling the logan-shaped hole in him. I strongly believe that stewy "I think you should do cocaine with me, despite the fact that you are very much in recovery right now" hosseini is capable of filling that hole.

anyway. I love stewy. I could talk about him forever. muah.

love, succ anon

Yeah I guess I just disagree with your analysis. For one, you're just incorrect about Stewy's origins - he isn't an immigrant, or if he is, his family must've immigrated when he was a young child. He certainly grew up in the U.S., we know he and Kendall were in at least university and high school together, and possibly knew each other even younger. And Stewy isn't self-made, he, like Kendall, was born into immense wealth. They are two rich boys who met as teens, did a ton of coke together, blew daddy's money (and each other 😉), and became lifelong besties and worsties. Also Stewy is positioned not as a mirror to any of the Roy's or Tom, but in contrast with them. He is neither a patriarch nor under the thumb of one, he couldn't give less of a shit about Logan, he is as far as we see a functional if shallow human being who's capable of normal relationships with others. Stewy doesn't really control or direct Kendall, he enables him, which the cocaine thing is an example of. I also disagree with the idea that Stewy is dishonest bc of his assimilation into white hegemony? That's not reflective of Stewy's character, but of the necessity of erasing personal identity and conforming to white supremacy in pursuit of weath. If anything, Logan and Stewy are opposites - the self-made industrialist patriarch of a bygone era vs. the new born-rich investor generation

[system-of-a-feather]

Man, I'm (Fei, final fused state) listening to the Loki Season 2 Part 2 Soundtrack and the line "Purpose is often more burden than glory" really sticks with me cause man 0 if there is anything to summarize the core locus that defines the "Riku Part" in relation to the rest of the system, the thing that makes the basis for every elaborate dynamic and role they have with the other parts, it would be best summarized as "Purpose and/or Passion". Everything about their role in the system boils down to them being the sole carrier and center of purpose and passion and that they are functionally there to provide that not only for themselves but the entire system - and ever since our childhood / original host situation got fucked up around age 7-10 they've been living that on full drive as a host / one of the hosts / one of the most frequent fronters since then.

And honestly, having to be responsible for giving, providing, and generating a sense of purpose for the system - a genuine "why" to keep going - when growing up being abused, being targetted for MC-related stuff from a snake of a sister that was our "only non-abusive older person in our life" who gave us up to predators and left us for daring to be hurt by that, being disabled and having multiple mental health issues, being otherwise a lone, and having almost every friendship we invested to end with no closure (moved without goodbyes) or turned abusive - was both an insane pressure and a mammoth of a task, especially when you consider that save for the first and last two years, they were the ONLY host and they lived through MOST of the last half of our childhood

They had to experience and endure the garbage of life as a teen and then the climb out and survival in college as the main person experiencing it, and still - despite it all - keep their head up and never waver in their purpose because if THEY lost sight of it, if they stopped believing in it, if they wavered, the system as a whole would collapse beneath them. And that sounds like a catastophization, but as a fused state of all our parts, I can say for certain that - especially during any point before we graduated college - if they ever did genuinely stay down for more too long, we would have imploded. Most other parts don't have any motivation to heal, recovery, or keep trying. Most don't have motivation to try to do better or even really live on their own. Some parts - even with Riku's radiating vision - barely managed to hold faith in them to not just off and kill themselves or go off and commit crimes that would end in a rather short life.

And thats what XIV - hell most of the parts that are otherwise headstrong, angry and closed off and/or smarter, wiser, and more capable than Riku on their own - respected the most out of them despite the fact that they're fucking idiots 95% of the time. Out of context, Riku is really nothing special - they're stupid, they've got shitty stamina and are completely whiny about any level of physical discomfort, they are the worlds largest hypocrites because they know whats right and struggle A LOT to actually do what they suggest, they are control freaks and particular as fuck and there are alters here that can do almost everything way better than they can and yet a lot of the time they are stubborn and even though they CAN easily switch with any of the other parts, they choose to make themselves suffer. In our trauma therapist's words that Riku agreed to - they are addicted to their own misery. (Which probably comes from the fact that they find it easier to find and see their purpose better when they are suffering than when they aren't suffering)

All in all, Riku out of context is a very mediocre and an average normal person (a generalist, which isn't bad, but as a stubborn control freak it is very frustrating from the specialist views) in relevance to the rest of the frequent fronters (a lot of us being a lot more specialists in that we have very specific extreme skills and huge deficiencies elsewhere), but within the context - Riku is beyond a specialist in their sheer resilience and ability to always see something worthwhile in the garbage of everything.

In a similar but very very different way than XIV, they never loose because they never see an end to the "why" and more than anything else, thats what really got us to our place in life. Thats why I am able to sit here and be me, a fused whole for the time being, writing the genuine insight to the host of 15 or so years that somehow always kept their head up and kept trudging through.

It's why Riku as a part is known in this system for being the part that no part can genuinely hate for long. There are so many reasons a lot of parts have to hate them, or be frustrated with them, or want to usurp their central role to the system, but in the end of the day - they really believe in the most for all parts of our system, in the world, and others. They see the most potential in others and look at the most dismal situations and "give up on it" situations and both internally as a part, internally as a system, and to those around them, really dedicate to wanting to see people reach where they belong. To them, those they come to know have a place to be, a great thing to become - maybe for the world, maybe for society, maybe for their close peers, maybe just for themselves - and they just really genuinely like to see all that potential grow and flourish against all preconsceived notions of what is possible.

It's not anything "special" for them, it's just their way of existence because its their extreme that they got from our childhood, our trauma, and our disorder. They see potential - a why - in almost everything and anyone they spend enough time with and they love to see that why be realized.

I dunno, I feel like Riku and XIV have spent time trying to pinpoint and explain the nature of Riku and how - despite being considerably average to the other parts in the system - Riku is by far the most respected and loved parts in our system. Perhaps its cause they're so average as well that they are the best.

You know, "Sometimes the best horse is the worst horse, and the worst horse is best horse, because the best horse learns too easily and misses the marrow of the practice where as the worst horse will fail and struggle and yet persevere to deeply understand the practice and when that worst horse learns the practice, he will have a much deeper, much more full understanding and appreciation of the practice" - the allegory(?) from Shunryu Suzuki that our system loves, I think best summarizes the nature of Riku.

[na-baekjin-love]

Weak-Tober 2023: 03 Insane Asylum

For a long time Na Baekjin had avoided anything remotely connected to what was in the past called an 'insane asylum'. It was a mixture of prejudgement, media stereotypes that had him dislike what should be properly called a psychiatric hospital.

Being put into one was always a fear, as illogical as it was. As long as you functioned in society, weren't pulling attention that made you seem 'insane' and weren't a risk to yourself, the system wasn't eager to have you waste money staying on one. Getting better and getting back out also was something that happened. You needed a rather severe condition to be stuck in one for life.

Despite all that, it had taken him a long time to talk to do more than just take medication for his issues and get himself to talk to a therapist.

Almost dying did that to you.

And not being able to take the medication, due to it interfering with the stuff the hospital gave you for all the wounds inflicted by a truck also hadn't helped matters.

Mental health was not something openly talked about in society though. It had taken a long time and admitting to himself that he feared being legally locked up somewhere for something that was just inside his head.

But the inside of the head was powerful, especially when it was about how you saw yourself and how it made you perceive your own actions and the world's reaction to them.

It was still rather surreal to walk into a psychiatric hospital, even if it was only for a visit. As normal as a visit to such a place was. It had still taken some self-convincing to go, though. For one, he hadn't even known the other teen had been moved into one, hadn't cared to look, too busy getting his own body back up to task after the accident.

Yeon Sieun had a whole gaggle of friends always surrounding him, more than enough people offering support in a tight spot, no matter of what kind. It had felt like a pretty bad joke to get a call from Park Humin of all people, making this kind of request.

But here he was, walking into the bright entrance area, full with beige and pastel colours and some nurses in uniform walking around from one place to another, some glancing his way, some not.

It didn't even take long to talk to the receptionist, being forwarded to a doctor and then being led around the facility to a visitation room.

The only person, who had almost made him lose a fight, was looking rather pathetic. Even thinner than back then and paler. It was a matter of morbid amusement that Baekjin was still paler than the other teen, whose head snapped up in surprise at seeing him enter the room and sitting down opposite of him.

"Yeon Sieun," he greeted the Eunjang student. "I heard you blame yourself for my accident."

[festeringfae]

The dual settings of Yellowjackets really highlight for me how even well-written media centered on depicting women as complex, multifaceted people struggle with imagining or depicting scenarios where women's emotional struggles are not based on their relationship to men.

In the comic that inspired the Bechdel-Wallace test, Wallace's expy specifies that the last movie she was able to see was Aliens. That means, the last circumstance she knows of where a movie believed it was plausible that two named women would talk about something other than a man is a situation as dire-- and unrelatable-- as being attacked by an intergalactic space monster. In Yellowjackets, it takes an all-girls team, a plane crash, AND a supernatural threat to provide enough justification to imagine interpersonal dynamics between girls that don't solely revolve around boys.

And even then, when the girls become women in the "normal" world of 2021, the show seems unable to think of ways to move the narrative forward or progress the women's characterization without disproportionate focus on their relationships with men.

Obviously, many women have multiple, very important relationships with men in their lives. I have no issue with depicting that, and Yellowjackets depicts it in more honest and dynamic ways than most other media. That's why I'm using it to make my point: even with the best, this still happens. And even as someone annoyed by it, it still takes me one episode into season 2 to even notice it.

At the beginning of season 1, the first time we meet Natalie, she reveals that she thinks the motivation behind her self-destructive tendencies is that when she left the wilderness, she "lost her purpose," and implies that she thinks she's found it again. Based on the context we're given, we can perhaps assume this purpose is to hunt down whoever sent her the threatening postcard. Which, yes, she does focus on doing for the rest of the season-- but that purpose becomes convoluted very quickly with her mourning & needing to know what happened to Travis. That's a real, frequently occurring dynamic outside of fiction, and it really is related to the overall plot, so I don't mind it much. I mind goth freak Kevin Tan is conveniently a cop, but not much more, and like some parts of it for similar reasons related to exploring the complex messiness of grief. I mention these instances primarily because of their small piece of an overall pattern.

A pattern maybe best exemplified with Shauna. Now, Shauna's narrative subverts and inverts a lot of sexist tropes, and I give credit to it for that. A teen boy is given next to no personality because he exists only as a catalyst to analyze the relationship between a friendship between two girls. A manic pixie boy is fridged by Shauna for her womanpain and to progress her narrative. Her husband actually loves her despite her moral depravity. I love all that!

But when I look at the Adam arc from the perspective of someone who doesn't know what greater purpose it might serve in the narrative beyond S2E1, it's inclusion and construction really makes me marvel at how easily we, as audience members, are limited in imaging women having relationships outside of men. Because while yes, Jeff dealing with loan sharks is played for laughs, and realism is not an innate virtue in entertainment (especially in fantasy/horror)...if it turns out the only function of Adam's existence was to have Shauna accidentally murder someone/create further distance between her and Callie, would it not make more sense for that character to be...literally anyone besides a guy weirdly unfazed by being rear-ended, who inexplicably has no interest in promoting the art he rents an entire studio to regularly create, and who also doesn't come up on Google as a staff member at an autoshop for some reason?

I'm not trying to rewrite the show, but go with me for a minute here: why was I, as an audience member, willing to suspend my disbelief for all of that at the end of last season, even as I raised an eyebrow at it seeming a bit unnecessarily convoluted? Why did the writers imagination go to money troubles= mob= misunderstanding= deus ex machina boyfriend = callie strain + stabbing the wrong person, before it went to money troubles= moving back in with in-laws= callie strain + stabbing the wrong person?

Again, I'm not trying to rewrite the show, and I think the psychosexual element of young Shauna/Jeff/Jackie completely justifies the narrative wanting to give her an affair outside of that dynamic to explore. My point of contention is mostly with myself, and a larger pattern in media. How many shows and movies would sooner introduce loan sharks & manic pixie deus ex machinas before it considered a subplot entirely focused on the dynamic between a mother or mother-and-law and a 40-something daughter or daughter in-law, and how it impacts their respective relationships with a teenage [grand]daughter? Why did "thinking the judgmental, overbearing old lady whose house you live in might have stolen your journals & snitched to the cops, but turns out she didn't so you killed her for nothing & yr husband and daughter are gonna find out" not occur to me as an alternative possibility for the length of the entire season break?

Moreover, why is every conflict within Taissa and Simone's marriage centered around Sammy, with little to no commentary about their relationship outside of motherhood and the campaign? I don't think Sammy's gender is relevant here-- but Simone's is. While I don't believe it makes sense the show to give Simone POV scenes (although, credit where due, it does in the S1 finale), none of her scenes with Taissa characterize her outside of her roles as The Good Wife or The Good Mother. The most Taissa has to say about Simone in a confessional manner to Shauna is that she lacks the It Factor of Van-- characterization as vague as it is disposable. There's no divorcing this dynamic with Simone from the show's anti-Black colorism (the only other deep-skinned Black woman or girl we've seen is a JV whose name I can't recall and who I didn't see in the cabin during S2E1). It must be acknowledge that when media asks, "who can be the Black Best Friend to a Black Girl?", the answer a lot of media comes up with is "an even darker girl" (see also: JV and young Taissa). That being said, I think this dynamic exists in tandem with Simone and Taissa being More Than Friends. Since Simone can't know about the details of the plane crash or the supernatural elements going on, the writers would have to actually consider what two adult Black women who don't appear to have any men in their professional or personal lives talk about. The only answers we are given is: child, and a campaign that, by definition, has only been going on for much less time than their relationship. What else exists between them? We don't know, and my point is, it's horrifying how infrequently it seems to occur to people to ask. We know Jeff sells sofas and likes Sports Center. We don't even know what kind of apology present Simone would like, because it doesn't even occur to either Taissa or the writers to bring her one along with Sammy's.

Finally, Misty. If you've read this far, 1) thank you, holy crap, and 2) you might be thinking "what about Misty! Adult Misty's narrative isn't tied to any man!" And you're right, no matter what ends up happening with Elijah Wood's character down the line (although I will admit to a bit of anticipatory side-eyeing.) I have no issue so far with the Young Misty and Coach Ben stuff in terms of her focusing on him, and I'm not sure if Adult Misty ever says more than 2 lines to a man in season 1. But frankly, while I don't think this specific show should play this specific character any differently, there IS a broad pattern, I think, of shows looking at an adult, single woman with no kids, and deciding that her plotline therefore must be that she's ✨Crazy✨ in a quirky, endearing way that is as intentionally ironic as it is legitimately frightening. There is a vague backstory to provide even vaguer explanation for Why She's Like This, but never anything concrete or broad enough where you could picture years of therapy having any kind of effect. She's the Manic Pixie Dream Girl (Dark Reprise).

Again, I'm saying none of this to shit on Yellowjackets, or even ask them to change anything (except the colorist misogynoir: That's Gotta Go.) What I'm wondering is, if it takes a show as good at portraying women and girls as Yellowjackets is to get me to even CONSIDER such basic possibilities-- what would TV and film look like if less fantasy-based projects also considered exploring the POV of women over age 30, who talk to other women over age 30, about their relationship with each other?

[media-illiterate]

your rant in the tags about coursers is so correct btw i want you to know i share like. 90% of those headcanons. the other 10% i dont know enough about to agree yet but im sure i will soon

@orange-coloredsky Thanks! I have more

First: the original tags

Now: more

Some general courser headcanons

I really honestly think that them being elevated from regular synths is ridiculous. They're custom made out of FEV enhanced tissue and superior components. Picking the most "tenacious and independent" units is such a dumb idea. Tenacity and independence are warning signs that a synth may go rogue, not signs you should give them superstength and guns!

Note: synths being FEV enhanced is actually canon. Coursers being EXTRA FEV enhanced is, iirc, also canon. I didn't make that up. Check the wiki.

Also, this is just a general synth headcanon: the recall code doesn't wipe a synth's personality all by itself. Instead, it causes total loss of motor control, essentially trapping the synth inside their own head. When they go into the reclamation chair? They're still fully conscious...

The recall code can also be reversed by reading it back at them. They resume motor function as if nothing had happened. Institute scientists have noted some adverse symptoms (hyperventilating, increased heart rate, adrenaline spikes) to be common upon reversal. They assume this is a glitch, but have yet to find the source...

Everyone in the institute is afraid of coursers. Synths, humans, doesn't matter. They don't act like normal synths, or like normal people even. The way they walk, the way they look at you, the way they're just THERE where you weren't expecting them: coursers scare the shit out of people.

The only people in the institute NOT scared of them are in the SRB. Members of the SRB are in on a secret nobody else in the institute really understands: Coursers are actually more afraid of them.

All Coursers live in a state of fear. As the main instruments of the SRB, they know EXACTLY how thin a line they live on. Coursers are under more scrutiny than anyone else in the Institute, for obvious reasons. They know they're just one slip of the tongue away from being reset.

This is the reason for their jockeying for position and constant paranoid infighting. They're all trying to make themselves indispensable to the Institute so they can have even a tiny bit of a safety net in case someone decides something is off with them. The Institute also rotates underperforming Courser units out of action (recall codes them and puts them in stasis).

The Institute only has a few Coursers active at any one time. 12, 15, maybe 20 max. They have an equal amount in "storage" (recall coded) to replace losses and rotate underperforming units out of active duty.

Coursers are actually physically outmatched by Supermutants, by an order of magnitude. (Courser physical stats are in the high teens. Supermutant physical stats are in the high 20s). Their superior training and equipment usually means they come out on top. Usually.

The Institute could honestly make Coursers scarier if they wanted to. But the need for control outweighs any impulse in that direction. After all, if they were too powerful, what's stopping them from turning on the Institute?

This is the reason they immediately vivisect any and all Psyker Coursers; they have absolutely no understanding of how such powers might be counteracted, and thus cannot allow for the possibility of a Psyker Courser going rogue. Its only happened a handful of times, so they still haven't figured out how it works...

Y3-66 HEADCANONS (haha new oc ;-;)

The first sign that there was something wrong with them was that they became highly agitated in the SRB.

(A lot of death or pain in one place leaves behind some truly rancid psychic vibes. Personality Death counts. To a psyker, the SRB is a horrible, horrible place...)

They didn't join the railroad, despite the offer, because they got the same feeling from the Memory Den. They told their contact they wanted no part of any of it, and bolted.

(It's a choice that the Railroad presents to the synths they help, it really honestly is. But it's not much of one, now is it? And even if it is their choice, that doesn't make destroying your personality any less terrible...)

All they wanted to do was watch the sun set in peace. Just once. And the Institute couldn't even let them have that...

Chase still regrets not getting to them in time. But Y3 would have fucking hated the Island. They would have hated it so much.

(To a psyker, the fog is far more than just fog. To a psyker, the fog has eyes...)

[chocolix76]

An unstarted project: Rupert and the Misfits

Just a few months back, I came up with an idea for a FNAF fangame called Rupert and the Misfits. Since I lack coding ability and the money to hire a team at the moment, this game probably won't go into production for another year or two. The premise of the game is subject to change but so far it was a 14-night game, each night averaging about 7-8 minutes. The storyline follows two protagonists, Melanie (the night shift worker) and Leon (the dayshift worker) trying to piece together what's wrong with the animatronics at the restaurant while surviving their shifts.

The restaurant The Misfit's Dine & Drink is geared towards older teens and young adults. It gives them a place to be themselves and feel represented and empowered while enjoying a nice meal, entertainment, and even making a friend or two. The animatronics not only play in a band but also do interactive events such as comedy or D&D nights and when they aren't providing entertainment on stage, they're roaming around the building and interacting with patrons. They're programmed for a more mature audience and are allowed to operate with a limited set of rules as to how they should behave. However, they are always respectful to patrons unless rudeness is deserved and aren't allowed to harm patrons unless the restaurant or the animatronics themselves are in danger.

If more people show interest, I'll gladly go into more detail about how the game itself works, but for now, I'll just talk about the main animatronics! There isn't any concept art for them yet and probably won't be for a while, but I'll open up asks about the game if people are interested!

Rupert: She's a fennec fox and the main vocalist of, well, Rupert and the Misfits! They have more of a rough and self-centered personality, wanting to be the center of attention most of the time. However, they are fine with sharing the spotlight with her bandmates every once and a while. Unlike the other members of the band, she has a two-toned voice which means that when she talks normally, she can speak in both a male and female pitch. When they sing, they have the ability to sing songs that require duets all by themself. To fit with their design as a fennec fox, she has sensitive hearing that allows her to stay on pitch with the music they're singing so they're always on pitch and in tune.

Osmo: He's a raccoon and the bassist of the band and overall the most chaotic of the group. Patrons sometimes joke around saying that he lacks any common sense because there have been times where he has gotten in trouble with the staff for attempting to set things on fire just because he's bored. Much like Rupert, he is a bit rough in nature and enjoys teasing patrons or just messing around with them, but he's really a softy at heart! Despite his more rough personality, he's a gentle person in reality and knows his limits and when to leave certain patrons be.

Oswald: He's a quokka and the drummer of the band as well as the gentle giant of the group. Oswald also has the ability to play woodwind/brass instruments thanks to a tube built into his throat that can extend and blow into an instrument if needed. While most of his other bandmates are more outgoing and don't mind breaking a rule or two for the sake of having some harmless fun, Oswald is more laid back and would rather go with the flow and watch from the sidelines than engage in the shenanigans himself. Rather than causing trouble when he's not performing, Oswald prefers starting meaningful conversations with patrons, ranging from simple small talk to deep almost therapeutic conversations.

Spencer: He's a calico cat and the guitarist for the band. Like Oswald, he also has a function where he has a tube in his throat that allows him to play woodwind/brass instruments. Despite being more reserved, he's the most active with interacting with patrons and will often flirt with anyone he deems can handle it without things getting strange. The staff has specific outfits picked out for each animatronic, but Spencer often refuses to wear the outfits chosen for him and will take the more punk outfits and switch them with more feminine clothing. He's in charge of D&D nights and comedy sets and though he can often be quiet, he more than makes up for it in stage presence!

[doubledyke]

Im picking at random: 16, 22, 8, 7, 4 9

Thank you for humoring me!! Again, all of these thoughts are in regards to EddEddy as adults, obviously. Except maybe the first one I guess.

4. Describe their first kiss.

I haven't given this one much thought, weirdly enough. I don't have a specific timeline in my mind about how they end up getting together or any specific scenarios, really. I imagine they would have their first actual kiss in late high school. I think Edd initiates it and Eddy gets super freaked out because of how much it affects him. It sends him into a spiral about his sexuality and he starts to feel super awkward around Edd for a while. Edd also feels awkward but only because he's worried he did something to upset Eddy - Edd accepted and understood his sexuality from a young age I'd imagine. I do, however, also really liked sweeteggy's depiction in their nanomango comic from wayyyyy back in the day where Edd and Sarah are dating, break up and he and Eddy share a kiss for the first time as adults. I'm cool with whatever, I suppose.

7. I did answer this one previously. Thanks nonetheless!

8. What do they like least about each other?

Hoooooo boy. Eddy can't stand how aloof Edd can be at times. I think it takes Edd a long time to adjust to actually living with someone, and despite his polite and caring disposition, he is pretty self-centered. I think Eddy lacks the patience that's required to deal with someone who has severe anxiety and OCD, so at first, he is easily annoyed when Edd has his moments and he ends up doing more harm than good. In fact he probably gets a little creeped out when he and Edd begin living together and he sees some of Edd's weird behaviors for the first time. I also think Edd is prone to bouts of depression and tends to isolate himself, maybe without even realizing. Eddy doesn't know how to handle it in any way other than becoming annoyed and/or blaming himself. Eventually of course, he knows the signs and what to look for when Edd starts displaying certain behaviors.

Edd's favorite thing about Eddy is also the thing that brings him the most grief in a way (how profound 🧐). He appreciates that Eddy speaks his mind and takes charge, but can't stand his stubbornness and how quick he is to anger. When Eddy gets angry, he's inconsolable. It scares Edd. Eddy is irrational and impulsive (moreso than normal) when he's angry, and Edd doesn't know how to help. His logical approach just makes Eddy angrier. "Why don't you use your faggy psychology on yourself then, huh?" They're both super sensitive in their own ways and the arguments are plentiful in their early relationship. But as with any normal functioning adults (ha) in relationships, you learn more about each other, grow as people and eventually find ways to help, redirect and console each other in ways that actually work. Especially once they claw out of their angsty teen/young adult stage.

9. Similar to what I just yapped about for 40 minutes, I'd say it's still the differences in their personalities. Bickering is like flirting for them. Like it just gets them going for some reason. So they can argue about nearly anything, and it's usually only half serious. I guess on a real note, I do think that they'd run into some actual issues when Edd is in school/just starting his career. Kind of plays back into him being aloof. He'd become so preoccupied with his education or job that he and Eddy's relationship might begin to suffer as a result. He doesn't even realize it, or justifies it to himself because he's knows it's for the best in the long run. Eddy eventually explodes over something minor and Edd has to really pry for Eddy to tell him what the hell is wrong. Similar to your tattoo fic! But probably overly dramatic in my retelling, lmao.

16. What kind of couple's vacations and getaways do they prefer?

Something gay and tropical, I would imagine. Despite the fact that Eddy does not tan, he loves to pretend like he's getting some color (that color being red). They'd probably go on lgbt cruises and would love to go on road trips as well. I think all 3 Eds would try to keep a tradition of yearly cross country road trips. Outside of the occasional cruise and road trip, I can't think of anything that they'd specifically enjoy as a couple.

22. Describe the wedding.

Oof. Well, we all had some discourse around this topic already. I agree that they'd probably hold out on marriage until they're semi-geezers. And in that scenario, I think they might actually go all out. Huge ceremony, huge reception. All the bells and whistles for a couple of veteran gays. Ed is the only person in the wedding party, and plays mediator between the gagging grooms. Edd lets go of any hopes he might have had about a simple, down-played wedding and lets Eddy handle all of the creative details. He handles the seating chart, the cost breakdown, the schedule, the invitations, etc. I'm half tempted to say that a couple weeks before the wedding, Eddy decides that it's too much to think about and begins insisting they just elope in Vegas instead.

Thanks again for asking! My brain is fried from training for my new job, but this was a fun little distraction from my plight 🥴

[geminmyeyes]

Chapter 1 - Beyond Light and Shadow (Tumblr Backup Edition)

Inspired (?) by the Ao3 outage, I have decided to take the time to back up my chapters onto tumblr (and hopefully later, my own site) and to try to reach here as well.

Rating: Teen and Up audiences for violence, swearing, and mature themes Characters: A vast majority of the original Shadowside cast (so Natsume, Touma, Akinori, Ayame, etc.) as well as several new Yokai and characters Other Tags of Note: Sequel Fic, Focus on Mythology (namely Hindu and Chinese mythology) Premise Synopsis: Two years have passed since the Soranaki incident, and everyone’s been living their happy lives. Though, while some things have changed, the youkai are always a part of it. Now, the happy peace is disturbed with murmurs of A Queen of 100 Demons and The Sacred King’s Armory, all colliding with a boy who’s entire arm is a watch. Will everyone be able to stop this new threat, or will the human and youkai worlds be plunged into a reign of bloody malice?

Next Chapter ->

I barely remember anything about myself, or who I was before that oni promised me I would be able to live a normal life.

But did he really? He possessed my body to do things I can’t even recall. Then if he needed to appear in his full form, discard me back to where I was until he needed to be a human boy again.

Now, I’ve been discarded for good. Back being bedridden with only about half of a functioning heart.

I was used to this, however I wasn’t used to hearing a serendipitous string of syllables.

“We can fix your truly vexatious instance of congenital heart disease with breakthrough but experimental surgery. Are you willing to take this chance?”

After having my body possessed and paraded around, I should have probably known to reject the idea of miracles. Yet, and yet, a part of me still hopes. Still hopes for things to get better.

Since despite it all, I believe in a hopeful future.

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

It had been about a little over two years to the day since Soranaki was defeated, Shuka and Kuuten finally being at peace after what felt like an eternity of endless suffering.

Since then, life has gone mostly back to normal, though with a few changes. 

First it was Ayame who said she was going to study in Europe, not only for training in different forms of magic, but also to study becoming a patisserie. Her eyes sparkled when she mentioned her plan to be learning the sciences of baking by day, and practicing magic at night. She does her best to keep in touch, especially Akinori, despite the difference in time zones.

Then it was Akinori, who needed to focus on becoming on par with his grandma full time for the most part. Even though the woman was capable physically, death would come to her eventually so it was vital to teach Akinori absolutely everything she knew, even the boy ditching to go to high school completely to focus on magic training.

Finally there was Touma, who ended up being enrolled in a completely different high school from Natsume’s. It was by sheer cruel fate it seems, different programs and benefits appealing to their different needs, despite how much in common the two shared. But, even when she moved when they were young, they managed to still have a small spark of friendship. Hell, that spark grew brighter and stronger into a supernova by the time Oni King Rasen was done and over with. 

Natsume was, well, still Natsume. She was still trying to live an average but happy life to the best of her abilities, even after harboring the soul of a powerful princess for who knows how long and only letting her rest two years ago. 

Right now her focus was on High School, which would be starting in a few days. But before then, she and the others were going to have a small reunion party tomorrow afternoon. Well, at least the ones that could physically be there, but Ayame said she’d set an alarm to make sure she was up in her timezone.

It was hard to try to go to sleep, the lights in the teen girl’s room haven’t even been turned off yet. The faint buzzing of lights were the only noise Natsume could focus on, thoughts racing constantly through her head.

“Somethin’ buggin you kiddo?” Jibanyan asked, startling Natsume right back into reality in the process as she fumbled a bit from the shock.

“Ah! Uh…umm…no? Well, maybe? I don’t know…” Natsume gave her best answer despite her scrambled thoughts. “It’s just, you know, High School is starting soon. My life to this moment has felt like this major now or never moment as I live the best years of my life! At least, that’s what I’m told by my parents, by a few friends, by all the shows on TV about high schoolers doing all sorts of incredible things…”

Jibanyan gave a well meaning sigh. “Ah, I get that feeling quite a bit, a lot of stuff you humans have hype those up as the best years of your life where you can be running from death only for a knight in shining armor to save your sorry ass. But really, your life doesn’t get worse the moment you finish up your graduation ceremony. The arcades and wherever won’t kick you out just because you hit twenty five.”

Natsume nodded, understanding what her feline friend was getting at.

“Yeah…I guess after all that happened two years ago with Shuka and Kuuten and all of them, I am prepared to expect my high school years to be even crazier than all that, and we faced the near apocalypse then!”

“I get ya, I hadn’t been on a crazy adventure like that in a very long time, and I had faced paw to paw with a reality bending flying whale. Seize the moment and all that, but don’t expect to get whisked away into fairyland, alright?”

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

Morning was starting to shift into afternoon, and the time for the Youkai Detective Agency reunion party was drawing near. Having had a smidge of trouble getting some shut eye, Natsume found herself scrambling out the door in a hurry.

So much in a hurry she didn’t realize it was raining cats and dogs outside and she didn’t grab an umbrella. Had time for a raincoat, but not an umbrella. Ah well, it wouldn’t kill her if she showed up with a wet head of hair, nothing a towel can’t fix. 

In fact Natsume was in such a hurry, she didn’t notice someone turning the corner, running right into them like a perfectly calculated throw by an expert bowler for a satisfying strike.

“I’m s-so sorry about th-that!” Natsume muttered in an instinctive yet trepidation fueled response.

The person she ran into was silent for a bit, but didn’t seem angry. He was a university aged student, skin a rich and deep chestnut hue with hair like a deep ocean and eyes like the silver lining in the clouds.

“It’s alright,” the young man began, giving a slight sigh. “It’s understandable that you youths refuse to waste a moment.”

“Call me Shirogane Inazuma,” He answered without a second thought.

“Wait what about–” Natsume made a valiant effort to ask, but she realized that Shirogane had gone the other way. Who was that guy anyways?

A few swift (but more careful) steps later, Natsume made it into the detective agency safe and sound. 

“Natsume, you’re here!” Touma spoke, his soft spoken voice trying its best to bring in enthusiasm, even if it was hard to express at times.

“Hey! It’s been way too long, it’s great to have you here!” Akinori gleefully added in, the two boys hugging their friend. Really, even if they had small meetups and the like over the weekend, it felt like far too long since they’ve all properly met together in the same old place as before. Youkai cases weren’t as severe in needing all of them, usually something Akinori could now handle on his own for the most part.

Everyone knew the meeting began when the tablet set up on the desk had its screen flash indicating a video call was being started by Ayame. Now, when that video call would be answered, it truly would be a reunion party!

“Bonjour! Hoi! Top of the morning to you all!” Ayame greeted from a living area in a dormitory, bright and chipper as ever even though it was the dead of night where she was. Behind her was another girl, turning at the sound of her friends greeting one another.

“Who’s that behind you?” Natsume pointed out.

“Oh that’s my dorm mate, Dorothea, she’s two grades higher than me and we ended up together due to an error that couldn’t be fixed before the year started. We don’t start classes until the day after tomorrow, so they wanted us to get nice and cosy in our dorms first,” Ayame pointed out, leaning back to look at the older girl, who was saying something in French that wasn’t quite understood by the other side. “Do you want to say hi to my friends?”

Leaning into view was a beautiful young woman, with dark tawny skin, naturally curly black hair and deep brown eyes. She had pink sunglasses resting atop her head and a plain but fashionable top as expected for the future trend setters of France.

“H-h-hello…!?” Dorothea said to the best of her ability, her french accent thick as she attempted to communicate across language barriers. Everyone waved hello as she spoke to Ayame some more French, likely that she was going to probably grab something and then go to her room to not interrupt the call further.

“So how’s everyone been lately?” Ayame asked sweetly.

“Things have been going well! Been training up my yojitsu extra hard to the point I can maybe do a little bit of magic with Suzaku summoned, but it’s still a bit risky,” Akinori began without hesitation, heart racing all the while. “You should see about coming over sometime, there’s been an Ayame shaped hole in my Ayame shaped heart after all!”

“A few things have happened,” Touma started to give his response to the prompted question. “Firstly I had returned the Youseiken keys of the Azure Heaven Blades, the Righteous Heaven Axe, and the Great Spirit Spear to Suzaku, Genbu, and Byakko respectively. It just didn’t feel right having that much power in my hands, especially since we’ve defeated Soranaki and I can probably face off threats just fine with the Genma and Fudou Muyoou. Besides that, I’m going to start high school soon, and managed to get into a more technical oriented school to pursue computer science and programming.”

“Oh I’m uh, well, still me,” Natsume gave a sheepish shrug. “I start high school soon! It’s at a different school than Touma’s and especially yours, but it’s something! I still have no idea what I want to do, so I’ll just see what I’m dealt.”

“Well gaze your eyes on this!” Akinori said with bright enthusiasm.

The image of the engraving was moderately blurred making the infer details hard to decipher, but not to the extent one might have when witnessing a cryptid in the wild. What could be made out in the image was an engraving of five weapons similar to the Youseiken, even down to largely the same colors of dark blue, cyan, green, magenta, and red.

However, things started to differ slightly. Sure it was clear whatever the green one was, it was still a blunt force weapon like the Genbu Righteous Heaven Axe, there were a set of twin blades in one engraving, and finally a spear, but that’s where the similarities ended. The spear was the one with red coloring, not cyan like the Byakko Great Spirit Spear. Even some weapons never seen before with Kenbumajin like a bow and chakrams were present, even one just out of frame was present that was extremely difficult to make out any details. How strange…

“These are what Great King Enma called The Sacred King’s Armory! As for what that is, they’re the original Youseiken and Kenbumajin folks!”

“Didn’t we already run all over the place looking for the Youseiken? Or is this a completely new set of them?” Natsume inquired, Akinori simply stroking his chin, knowing this was his moment to explain this exciting new information.

“Allow me to explain that one, you see the Youseiken we were scrambling for two years ago that ended up awakening Soranaki…they were a ruse as well despite the power being very real. The ongoing theory is that Soranaki tricked five different ordinary youkai into getting great amounts of power at the cost of acting as his keys. Some of them were dangerous, like Fudou Muyoou having to be sealed by all the previous kings of the Youkai World! The whole princess awakening stuff was playing off of how I think one of The Sacred King’s Armory is used in coordination rituals in the Enma clan.”

“So that explains why Byakko, Suzaku, and Genbu are Kenbumajin and not Kirin or Seiryuu. They are typically depicted as equals with different elements and abilities. At least, going off where I first heard of these creatures, Explosive Shooting Bladespin Force ZX.” Touma commented as he pieced the information together.

“It’s all quite strange how history can be altered like that,” Whisper commented, having not made his presence known earlier. This resulted in everyone jumping out of their skin in a startled fright.

“Regardless of history being altered and lost to time, it’s my duty to protect Natsume!” Micchy added in as well to the conversation, the aforementioned Natsume being miffed.

However.

When a blood curdling scream and the sound of something hitting the trees in the nearby forest of the temple could be heard, any and all jovial joys had stopped right there.

There was silence, everything processing despite all the panic beating through everyone’s hearts faster and faster.

“Are you guys okay back there!?” Ayame asked worriedly, whereas the Youkai Detective Agency panicked in trying to figure out where that sound was coming from.

“I’m sorry Ayame but we gotta call this meeting off right now, I’ll call you back later tonight if this is just a minor incident,” Akinori reassured, the boy and the others rushing out to see where the noise was.

Everyone had rushed out to the woods behind the shrine. The group was greeted by Shutendouji, who looked beaten with only an inch of his life left. He was clearly shaking as he tried to get back up despite the numerous wounds that painted the grass with blood.

“What on earth happened here?” Natsume asked, Shuten coughing a bit as he tried to get his composure back.

“I…someone who I contracted with…they betrayed me because of the power The Queen of One Hundred Demons gave him…” Shuten tried to riposte with a pathetic wheeze in his shaking breath. “K-Kid unleashed something I had never seen before and it was horrifying, Princess.”

Natsume would have given a snarky correction to the oni, but things were looking dire so she bit her lip to hold back. “Is there anything else you know? What kind of power was it?”

Shutendouji looked towards Touma, handing him back the Asura Wildfire Blade he had been given two years ago. 

“Listen, squirt, I can’t use Kenbumajin but you sure as hell can. Because you got to understand, what that kid unleashed was a Kenbumajin I had never seen before, and he was no joke…” Shuten instructed, Touma taking the small red key and looking at it intently.

“What kid are you talking about?” Touma worriedly inquired, only to get a response to that very question.

“The hell are you doing, trying to defend such a worthless youkai?” A voice asked, a bit more ridden with angst but the appearance was unmistakable to everyone.

“H-Haruya!?” Natsume choked out in shock. “But, you’re just Shuten’s human disguise!”

“Beating yourself up just isn’t physically possible!”

“This…This better not be some kind of sick trick…! Sure the scarf and vintage look is new, but I don’t trust it…”

‘Haruya’ gave a seething “tsk” at that comment. It was true, he looked mostly the same as before with pale white skin, ice blue eyes and carbon black hair, but had gained a long, slightly tattered scarf made from a cloth and a few new threads that wouldn’t look out of place from magazines that were cutting edge vogue fifty years ago.

“Is that really what he called me when he was using my physical form like it was his shiny new puppet? Ugh,” ‘Haruya’ cursed, gritting his teeth.

He raised his left hand, showing that something similar to a Youkai Watch wasn’t strapped on, but physically grafted on his arm in a way only thought possible in sci-fi movies and comics. With a swift snap of his fingers, a portal opened and he managed to kick Shuten’s quivering, bloodsoaked body through it, closing without a sign of struggle.

“I am the blade of her greatest majesty to grace the Youkai World,” A proper introduction was finally given, his face far more grave and less smug than when Shutendouji possessed him. “It’s my duty to help in claiming the throne of the Youkai World as her own,”

“What!? You’re trying to take over the world?” Natsume asked, Chiharu cold as ever as he shrugged.

“I’m not taking over the world, I’m merely carrying out the wishes of her majesty,” Chiharu answered. “The Queen of a Hundred Demons. She was the one who was able to make me live more than a corpse with thoughts, so I pay the favor by capturing anyone she points me to or reduce to marks on the floor.”  

“H-How can you be so certain she’s not just using you!?” Touma spoke up in a rather shocking amount of trembling anger, giving even Natsume and Akinori a bit of a frightened shock. “

“Her Majesty saved my life and gave me an actual life to live! Do you think it’s foolish to not repay someone who did that?” Chiharu snarled back. 

 “She’s probably just using you! I know how a lot of these sorts of things go!” Natsume backed up Touma. “I saw it happen to a close friend of mine before my eyes, his emotions being taken advantage of and everything!”

“But how can you be certain this will end differently?” Chiharu’s eyes narrowed, exhaling with a sense of annoyance. “You might prove yourselves to be a thorn in her Majesty's side, and I’ll have to exterminate you ahead of time. Bear witness to the power of the Youkai Watch Tenou!”

Raising his left hand, Chiharu adjusted a dial on his watch, shifting it slightly.

“Six O’Clock, set. Now, combine our strengths!” Chiharu yelled, his eyes glowing a deep magenta as he pressed down on a mechanism on the watch, becoming enveloped in a vortex of energy.

Once it died down, standing in front of everyone was no longer Chiharu, but rather a formidable youkai, energy oozing from a form that looked seasoned, yet with his hair slicked back and pulled into a ponytail with a sense of a wild energy. Both of his hands carried large blades, one of a burning flame in his left hand, the other of a freezing ice in his right hand.

“Musashi, arrives!” The youkai announced, his voice a deep bassy tone that could make just about anyone tremble.

“Think this might be a rough fight, we got to hold nothing back!” Natsume thought aloud, grabbing her most reliable arc in her arsenal. “Summoning, Shadow! Please come out my friend, Jibanyan!”

Without a moment to spare, the monstrous cat youkai made himself known with a loud hiss, holding his claws out.

“You haven’t brought a single blade to this fight,” Musashi commented, giving a little heh. “This may be interesting, with your naive belief that the paw is mightier than the blade.”

A mighty swing of the fire blade opened the fight, Jibanyan managed to sidestep just in time, but was blind sighted by the ice blade hitting him from the side. Everyone gasped in worry, but then quickly turned to cheering when the large feline managed to do a kick in the gut with his knee, followed by using both of his large paws to punch Musashi in the side of the head, before punching the other into a nearby tree.

“That should take care of that pain our a–” Jibanyan tried to say, before noticing Musashi getting up. The sword wielder got a grin on his face, putting the fire blade in his right hand and the ice one in his left. Once they switched hands, so did their element, the fire turning into sparking electrical shocks and the ice one being of a strong, mighty gale.

“You think you’ve won?” Musashi opened, using his left blade to create a vortex of wind that sent Jibanyan into a nearby tree. Not down and out, but needed time to recover.

Taking the advice Shuten had given him, Touma jumped in, running with red blade already inserted and ready to go.

“Possession, Kenbumajin! Asura! Lend me your strength!” 

After a jaunty little tune, the burning Kenbumajin appearing in Touma’s place with the blade of wildfire in his hands.

Musashi didn’t have much of a comment for Asura, despite being in the presence of one of the legendary Kenbumajin right before his very eyes. All he knew is that he had to grit his teeth to try to take down such a mighty being.

A flurry of flame, gale, and lightning commenced, Musashi being much quicker with his strikes to try to take Asura down. He quickly switched his blades again, going back to the fire and ice that he started the fight with. Sure, the fire blade might not be able to do much of anything, but the ice one might.

“Take this!” Asura yelled, slashing his smoldering broadsword to smack the other like a baseball. Musashi kept his cool, jumping back from such a hard strike to deliver an effective slash from the ice blade, knocking Asura back a little. 

“Never thought I’d be toe to toe with a god of the sword, yet here I am about to finish you off–” Musashi tried to say, getting cut off by Jibanyan managing to recover just in time to deliver a powerful kick to the head that knocked the dual sword over.

“Alright big guy, now!” Jibanyan said, Asura getting a grin on his face.

“Quake in fear, and witness my power! Great Flame Overlord’s Blade!” Asura yelled, releasing a devastating slash of fire onto Musashi, enough to knock him out and Chiharu returning.

Asura pointed his blade at the child, smirking a bit. “Have you thought about surrendering yet? We defeated your Kenbumajin easily.”

“Did…Did you think that was my Kenbumajin?” Chiharu responded, getting a slightly more cocky look than the actual Kenbumajin before him. “That was merely a Genma I had, but if you want to meet him, I can do the honors.”

Out of one of Chiharu’s pockets, he pulled out a Youseiken without a doubt, even if it looked a little different. The blade part was a jet black, accented by an elegant gold color scheme. The intricacies were vague, but seemed to be solar themed from what could be gleamed. Asura however, was taken aback a little.

“That’s…That’s…one of the Sacred King’s Armory…!” Asura gasped, looking a bit frightened. “It has to be, the patterns look all so familiar–”

“O’ great king from the sun, come forth, Kenbumajin!” Chiharu yelled, the name of the Kenbumajin not really getting through the sheer shock that he wasn’t going to waste any more time. “Make them fear our power!”

A harsh sunlight enveloped Chiharu, tossing the Youseiken after doing the summoning call to reveal it to be…a bow of all things? But that wasn’t even getting into the Kenbumajin that was summoned, a slight grin and all.

What was summoned from the Youseiken was something nobody was prepared to see. The energy that radiated felt like the concentrated essence of the harshest of summer weather in a single humanoid being. His hair was dark and tipped with orange-reds much like magma peeking through dried lava, a long, thin, near body length ponytail being concealed by a series of golden rings. In fact, while most of his cloth was pitch black, he was adorned with armor that glistened like the sun’s very rays. His skin was a rich, reddish mahogany brown, highlighted by gold and scarlet colored tattoos. 

His golden eyes concealed by a sky blue sclera looked down with a smirk. He held a simple but somehow elegant bow in his hand, looking similar to the one that the Youseiken turned into, but somehow a little bit simpler?

“You’re the ones challenging me huh? Heh, just because you’re a bunch of brats doesn’t mean I’ll go easy on you,” the nameless Kenbumajin spoke, his tone calm, yet managed to deliver a sarcastic snide effortlessly. 

“Just who do you think you are?!” Akinori demanded, the Kenbumajin continuing to have a confident look on his face.

“Please, I don’t think I can tell you and still be standing,” The solar Kenbumajin answered, grinning. “Now let’s stop chatting and get to the good stuff!”

Arrows of light manifested, three being loaded at a time and he fired away, one hitting Jibanyan and forcing the cat to retreat, two hitting Asura and forcing him to take significant damages.

“I think I’ve heard of you…some sort of…uncrowned…king…” Asura’s breath started to heave, before dissipating and Touma returning unscathed but still a little shaken. What in the world was this Kenbumajin, and what power does he possess!?

“Quick Touma, use Fudou, I’ll try helping out in getting this guy to buzz off!” Akinori assured, getting out the Youkai Watch Aminas.

“Descend! Genjuu Kirin!”

Right on cue, the Genjuu appeared, with Akinori going from feeling like having a full night’s rest to having pulled an all-nighter. Ah well, such was the cost of summoning a Genjuu.

“Alright, Kirin! Ram into him to knock him over!” Akinori commanded.

“On it,” Kiron responded, leaping to fight against the deadly new Kenbumajin.

As instructed, Kirin tried to charge towards the Kenbumajin, avoiding any arrows shot his way, to make a valiant effort to knock him over, but he just held a hand out and the Genjuu came to a full stop.

“Now now, you can be a little less ruly, horsey,” The powerful being called forth, Kirin being subdued long enough to have golden reins appear around him. 

“K-Kirin! What are you doing!? This is no time for horsing around!” Akinori tried to reason with the Genjuu, but there was not a single word from him, nor did it seem keen on obeying the boy’s commands. In fact, he allowed the Kenbumajin to get on his back like a horse, no problem!

“This guy is something else..” Touma muttered, grabbing for the golden yellow Youseiken of the fully awakened and ever powerful Fudou Muyoou Kai. 

“Possession, Kenbumajin! Fudo Muyoou! Lend me your strength!” 

The great Kenbumajin, the one who’s blade allowed Soranaki to be at peace, appeared with cracks of thunder that made him appear formidable. The other Kenbumajin was however, not easily moved even if he seemed to be taken aback just ever so slightly.

“Bring it on big guy, I’m not afraid of you!” The other Kenbumajin taunted Fudo Muyoou, keeping a stern, determined demeanor in trying to confront the Genjuu-back riding Kenbumajin.

Arrows of light, slashes of thunder, all lit up the sky above the woods as their fight took them higher and higher, Fudo Muyoou trying to gain in closer, whereas the solar Kenbumajin tried to keep him away with arrows.

Finally, a cleave of the legendary lightning blade knocked the other clean off, but not before having Kirin be let loose and tackle right into Fudo Muyoou. Shortly afterwards, the beast had retreated, Akinori going back to feeling like he had gotten a good night’s rest before.

Both parties landed still standing, but the Kenbumajin still standing. Despite taking a bit of a beating from the almighty Fudo Muyoou, he still stood, quite smugly, knowing that he survived being hit by such a powerful being and living to tell the tale.

His armor glowed, turning into light to form around his bow, making it look even more powerful and deadly than before. With his hair no longer concealed, it flowed freely like a solar flare and the new burning energy around him.

The arrows he loaded up were much larger and missile-like, and smothered in an absolute corona of flare.

“Now even you’ll cower before the might of a gift bestowed upon a weeping god!” He loaded one up, a grin on his face as he watched Fudo Muyoou charge right at him. Just as according to plan. When it looked like the immoveable thunder king was about to unleash his ultimate technique, one of the larger, deadlier arrows was fired.

It went straight through Fudo Myoou’s chest, the mighty being catching on fire before shriveling up into absolute nothingness. 

Falling to the ground, Touma looked fine, but his mind, dear gods, his mind wasn’t. Not only did he now know in excruciatingly painful detail what it was like to be set on fire, but could feel a pain in his chest. The same one from that winter night, the one he was nearly dragged by the reapers to the other side suddenly. Even if that part was healed thanks to the Onimaro trio, it still stung if it was brushed up against in the right place. 

The poor boy couldn’t move. The Immoveable Thunder Sword having been reduced to being completely grayed out, no sign of color or the Kenbumajin that was once proudly engraved into it being present. 

As far as Touma knew, Fudou Muyoou, the one he proved so much worth to, a legendarily powerful youkai, was dead. Sure, youkai only died if they were forgotten, but there was no telling how long it would take for Fuduou Muyoou to either regenerate or reincarnate, it would probably be long past his feeble lifetime.

The other two watchers did their best to comfort their friend, but it was far too short, with the killer still looming over them. He knew damn well he could win without breaking a sweat, giving a haughty laugh.

“I’m hoping you snots were asking for a western style funeral, because I can send you over already cremated!” Those worrying words got everyone to look in the direction of the mighty spirit, loading up another arrow while reveling in glee.

Moments before a second one of the death arrows could be launched, there was a strong gale as something ran past at accelerating speeds, binding the Kenbumajin within bolts of binding red and blue dark energy. A portal opened as the mysterious rescuer made themselves known.

“All of you, come this way right now!” The one coming to everyone’s rescue, Yami Enma, insisted worriedly. “He can only be kept put for so long, so there isn’t a second to waste!”

Quickly, the three Watchers went through the portal, leaving the dangerous Kenbumajin to go on a hunt for them or retreat. Either option, while not ideal, was better than dying in a horrific, burning manner.

The detective agency had arrived safely to a chamber within the palace in the Youkai World, sighing in relief that they were all safe for now at the very least. Yami Enma unfused, Lord Enma and Snake King Kaira appearing.

“That was close, I wasn’t expecting one of the Sacred King’s Armory Kenbumajin to appear so soon after recovering information on them,” Enma began, trying to save face as his usual self but was clearly a bit worried. “Especially not…The Forbidden Armory. That was the secret ace of the Hundred Demon King’s Army during the Great Throne War.”

“Yeah, Asura was saying something like that, how the patterns were familiar,” Natsume began, looking to be in deep thought.

“I believe it might be because they’re from the same region and era in the Youkai World’s History,” Kaira said, recalling what he had seen. “It was after Soranaki had annihilated a majority of the Oni tribe and the surrounding society. There was a power vacuum, leading to a succession crisis on who would rule the Youkai World now with the Oni leadership long gone. It led to the Great Throne War, the Mikado tribe just barely able to secure the throne. Why and how the Hundred Demon Army is back is beyond me, but I don’t like their plan.”

“The forbidden armory, it’s affiliated with one of the Sacred Kings, but one that refused to be on the side of the others for whatever reason,” Enma said. “That is still something being figured out, but what we do know is that he’s incredibly powerful. He may have not been kind towards you, as you were his enemy, but he is said to have been nothing but kind and loyal to his friends and even strangers. So kind in fact, it brought the gods to tears, giving them no choice but to immortalize his feats alongside the other Sacred King’s Armory.”

“Wait so you’re saying the guy who tried to fry us into nothing is actually nice!?” Natsume sputtered in such a confused statement. 

“To some extent, good and evil can’t really be defined by a rigid definition. Some people may find setting trash on fire to be a good, noble thing, or others might think it’s foolish to give your life for another,” Kaira stated, closing his eyes. “Humans, Youkai, Gods, it doesn’t matter, we’re all a bit confusing creatures.”

“So…So what should we do now?” Akinori asked.

“The best option would be to look for where the Sacred King’s Armory could be, of course. But, unlike Kenbumajin who are also Genjuu, they are a bit trickier,” Enma answered, looking to be in deep thought. “Instead of having an alternate form of a great beast, they take a perfectly innocuous human disguise, blending in perfectly within human society. Not even I can pick up their presence unless they so choose to reveal themselves.”

“But, that means they can literally be anywhere in the world! At any time or any place!” Natsume responded, trying her best not to panic. “And even if we do find one, how will we know it’s really them?”

“I’m not sure, but I know they are drawn to individuals who show a great amount of traits considered important to becoming a King,” Enma added in. “Fortitude, Trust, Wits, Compassion, there is also Justice, but that’s more of a part of the King’s Coordination Trial with The First Enma himself. I met the guy long ago, he isn’t really the type to hand his Youseiken, and his location changes constantly so people don’t come to his door asking for power. So not even I remember where he is.”

“So what we have to do is hope these divine kings are within our town, be brave, trusting, smart, and nice to people and they’ll show up with divine weapons ready to go?” Touma finally spoke up, finally getting the will to speak after not only being shaken up, but taking in so much information.

“Ideally that’s the case, but the weapons themselves could be scattered all over the place,” Kaira shook his head. “Though, perhaps finding the actual armory themselves could bring the attention of the legendary kings themselves.”

“Right, if you can get us a clearer picture of that engraving, we might be able to find the weapons no problem!” Akinori concluded, the duo kings nodding before presenting the engraving itself, in its full glory without any blurs to get in the way.

The layout, now more clear, showed the cyan Kenbumajin had a bow, the pink one a set of chakrams, the green one with a large mace, the indigo-blue one with two blades, finally the red one in the center holding a mighty spear.

Studying the details intricately (and taking a few clearer pictures), it was time to start the biggest mystery that the Youkai Detective Agency would have to take on for sure. And they didn’t have a lot of time either, as Chiharu and whatever else the forces of the Queen of One Hundred Demons had, would likely be pursuing them to stop their goal.

[thinkatoryprocess]

do you have any fem!Kendall ideas? how would it change things, if Kendall was the eldest daughter instead? how would it change how Logan sees her? would she remind him more of Rose? would he be gentler or more strict? how would he respond to Ken's manic or depressive episodes? would she marry Stewy then, do you think?

I set this one aside for a day because I wanted to give it the attention it deserved.

I think Logan would view all of Kendall's flaws as the weakness of a woman, because he's very sexist that way and requires women to be a certain way in a way reminiscent of Roman's preferences. He would resent his first attempt at a child after Connor being a girl instantly, because I believe it took him time to believe that women could hack it (and we're talking late 1970s for Kendall's birth). I think the standards would be ABSURD for Kendall in this situation and she'd live in constant anxiety of living up to them - eventually she'd manage to hide her drug use and be totally functional in the midst of it, because it would be the only way to cope with never knowing if her dad would ever respect her. It'd be the most important thing to her in a way it wouldn't be to Shiv, because Shiv was a spare kid to both Caroline and Logan and I think we know it. Shiv and Connor were just extra weight.

Logan realizes that Kendall has some kind of mental illness pretty early in, when she causes a lot of problems around the age of 12 and can't explain her erratic behavior despite normally being able to verbalize this kind of thing. He seriously considers tossing her in an asylum, but Prozac is handy around these times, so they basically force it down her throat. What they aren't taking into consideration is that Kendall is bipolar, and with bipolar Prozac just heightens the manic episodes and makes them last longer. She has an incredibly rough time in her teen years and starts to use heavily just to survive. Eventually they switch the meds when they realize Kendall hasn't slept in a week and institutionalize her to get her back into shape. Logan never forgives her for this show of weakness, and almost hits her before he has flashbacks to Rose; he starts to cut himself off emotionally from Kendall at that exact moment, in his head "for her own good".

BTW, this changes Roman's relationship with Logan. Even if we factor in any of Roman's quirks and damages, I think Logan still buckles down and seriously tries to make Roman his heir despite Kendall excelling (because of course he would, the alternative is losing Dad's attention). I think Roman is also closer in age to Kendall in this situation, because they are very quickly trying for a boy. It's a year, year and a half age difference max.

Kendall both adores Roman and hates him vividly and this fucks them both up really badly, but in their own way they're totally inseparable. Roman has his dad's attention, but what he wants more than anything is Kendall's love without all of the resentment attached. This is even worse in contrast with how Kendall effectively raises Shiv with as much genuine emotion as she can muster, because maybe she can get this one thing right and make one of them feel okay. Logan sees this, and doesn't really bother much with Shiv. As long as Kendall doesn't break her, that's under control.

[philsmeatylegss]

Yeah I worked with autistic kids. In my time at that job, I was slapped, had hard objects thrown at me, got hit in the head with a large plastic tub, had mud thrown at me, had water dumped on me and had my personal belongings thrown across the room. My clients would scream and cry on the floor and pick up whatever was around them and destroy it. One of my client's moms had her expensive electronics smashed several times. All of them were either non-verbal or miniminally verbal. Then people who are actually autistic but are not as special needs or are self-diagnosed based on a few tiktok videos have the nerve to say that trying to change these behaviors is abuse. I've also seen a lot of these ppl being nasty to the moms of autistic children. They can't vent about their struggles or talk about how it effects their mental health without being accused of being ableist. I saw the toll it took on the parents first-hand. I saw my clients' moms break down crying because they desperately wanted to help their children but had no idea how. They try so hard every day and then get abused by teens on tiktok who have never been around a real autistic person in their lives. Yes, autistic people deserve love and acceptance and accommodations. But the people who live with autistic people also deserve compassion and understanding.

I feel like you somehow heard my thoughts and wrote them in this ask. That’s another thing people don’t talk about. It is very common for lower to mid functioning kids to lash out violently (obviously not just to be mean, they can’t control it). And when you’re dealing with a kid and maybe it’s just a few scratches and bruises, that’s seen as cute and “it’s worth it😽.” But people forgot autistic kids get older and bigger and their disorder still makes them lash out and there’s a huge difference between a five year old pushing, screaming, and hitting you and a fully grown heavy man. Once again, I know it’s not their fault, but that’s the reality people don’t talk about. Some very bad things happened because of my sibling consistently, violently lashing out every other day and he was already very big. Tall and very heavy. Though he never attacked me, he could’ve easily over powered me. Fun fact, it was the violent lashing out because of his Autism that led to my eating disorder i still have to day. Fun story. Also I can’t go to my grandparent’s vacation home without always having a small feeling of wanting to throw up.

Also I truly believe that people who work with severely mentally disabled children, teens, and adults should be paid more CEO’s and politicians. They wouldn’t last a day. Yet the pay for this job is very low, leading under educated or not educated at all people to be in charge which is unfair to both the kids and the person.

The violence. No one ever talks about the violence. Yes, some cute autistic kid may be smiling as he plays with his trains and someone takes a photo commenting about how beautiful autism is. Then they leave the room when they lash out and bite, kick, punch, and throw objects possibly for hours. And it happens every day.

Mental illness is what broke me as a person. Untreated severe personality disorders taking care of an autistic child and a “normal” child. The bottom line is that I’m super fucked up and used to be insanely more fucked up years ago. Autism (not autistic people) broke me in a way that I’ll never be able to repair. AND YOU FUCKING THINK ITS A QUIRKY TRAIT? Oooo I overstimulated because the lights were too bright. THATS NOT ENOUGH TO PROVE YOURE AUTISTIC.

Also the autistic mom things is spot on. I don’t even think about commenting because I’d be ripped to shreds despite being in the exact same position for eighteen year and first handedly witnessing it. You know what? Raising an Autistic child is hard. Even the best parents in the world will have moments where it’s too hard. If I was left with all this damage just being a sister of an autistic child, how do you think it was for my mentally ill parents??? Parents deserve to vent.

This is a topic where if you haven’t gone through it, you don’t have a say. It’s a thing you can’t describe and you will never understand unless you’ve gone through it. It’s fucking hard. It’s also hard for the autistic child as well. They want to communicate and be like other people. You don’t have a fucking say in how parents or siblings of autistic children should feel and you should be fucking ashamed if you ever have

I just want to add as I don’t think I made it clear earlier that there is absolutely no shame for leaving that job. It is physical abuse. It takes a super specific personality to be able to be okay with that and most people don’t have it and it’s fine. Once again, the people who shame you for leaving have this fucking fake, quiet, peaceful image of smiling kids sitting and drawing, maybe stimming once in a while. Yes, at times they can be like this. But a lot of time is spent lashing out, putting themselves and others around them in danger. Even if they’re small children. That is a job that needs to express what it will contain before you take it. You should’ve been warned your safety was at risk. Resources both in and out of schools are underfunded with employees that are often undereducated on Autism and how to handle symptoms, are underpaid turning many people off, or both. It’s such an insanely bad topic that isn’t a fucking trend. It took part in ruining me. I just will keep ranting if I don’t stop

[eggxdragoon]

I hope to stop talking about my personal life and circumstances to anyone now because the only times I have, people claim to understand and support me through it but then instantly switch and rudely use it against me as if they want to blame me and say it's my fault, as a way to insult me the second they start to hate me for other reasons

anyone who blames me for being stuck in life at the moment and finding it hard to progress in any of the ways one is expected at my age, despite knowing the reasons are fucking scum. especially when they rub it in my face like I'm just some lazy horrible stubborn piece of shit despite the mental and physical agony I'm in on a daily basis

I had years of my childhood stolen by all the horrible traumatic and depressing shit I went through that I don't even speak of and also forced isolation throughout all teen years so I never knew what it was like to be social. I'm still a stranger to the world who hasn't talked to anyone outside family in years because it's so hard and scary to even fathom now

I have anxiety that can be debilitating because the reason I was successfully lured into forced isolation is when it was initially taken advantage of by an abuser saying "see everyone hurts you and is dangerous and out to get you and are your enemy, people suck and it'd be better to live far away from all human life" and I was manipulated into believing it was true for years and when I tried to break out of that mindset I was still trapped physically because they had me trapped

I'm sick of people just being like stfu idiot and get meds and go into therapy in a condescending way even when they know this. it's so insensitive and rude and I don't care if their intentions are to help. motivation and support is going to be better than "it's all your fault you're a fucking idiot go take meds and therapy and become someone I like better and is accepted by society" those are reasons my brain tells me I deserve to suffer already, it's encouraging me to stay in it

I can't take meds for all that because the amount my mom has to be medicated and how she still uses drugs and alcohol to cope on top, how she still treated me despite that, and all the side affects that would massively fuck up my life even more as someone who already has low empathy, bouts of intense numbness where I'm especially suicidal, and how the last thing I need is for that to improve and for my dick to stop working on top of that has made it not for me, I have to find other ways

and therapy is a lot and something that's taking a lot of effort to even consider let alone push myself into it, going from someone who hasn't talked to anyone outside family for years to talking to a stranger about darkest thoughts and memories and secrets would be scary. either way I don't feel I'll ever be able to properly talk about my worst problems anyway because the things I'd have to share would be incriminating for abusers so it could be genuinely fucking dangerous and I'm scared

and then there's the way I'm so depressed it kills me and it's like I've I inherited my mom's major depression but again I can't be medicated for it. and I have to act used to it and joke about it a lot to family but the physical fatigue and chronic pain I feel is really fucking agonizing. I can't remember what it's like to not be tired and aching and sore. I can't remember what it's like to sleep normally. I wish just getting out of bed wasn't such a challenge for me mentally and physically

so fuck you for saying they're just excuses and that I'm just rejecting the idea of getting better. I CAN'T right now because the abusive fucking assholes made sure of that. I can't be a normal functioning adult because I didn't even get to be a fucking kid. not that I'm going to let the abusers win but just staying alive as long as I'm stuck in this will always be enough of a challenge as is. I'm fighting so fucking hard and nobody will understand or appreciate that effort when all I want to do most of the time is die

and this is the tip of the fucking iceberg because all the disgusting and fucked up things that happened to me that I can't talk about causes enough deep mental anguish that I can't even bear to uncover and consider taking with me to the grave. and then comes my living situation and all the tragedy in my life. but even when people know all this, as soon as they hate me I'm apparently just a liar. apparently I'm just a suicide threatener and manipulator. apparently my pain isn't real. I fucking wish it wasn't. fuck you

I've been given every reason to start repressing myself and my feelings around others again. I'm spiralling back into those thoughts of "everyone hates you and wants to hurt you" like I was taught. everyone who yelled at me about needing therapy and blaming me for not being able to and all the reasons I need it made it even harder and set me back in it. thanks a lot assholes it was already fucking hard enough as it is and you just make me reflect on it even harder when you push the idea that I'm not even trying and haven't made any progress at all

I'm sick of being so angry and miserable and in pain everyday.