#don't get me started on expanding bullets and their uses...

[aylish91]

Favorite comment, hahaha! So true! Down deep dark rabbit holes...

This is why I read the reddit comments

[masterwolftfs]

THE ATTIC CLEAR OUT: CAMO JACKET

@buck-whitman was bored. He'd been doing the same job for years now, and had next to no time or energy to start any new hobbies. His coworkers would regularky invite him for drinks, but he was always too tired and burned out after work to go. His old college friend Hunter would invite him hunting.(and while the pun was not lost on Buck, it was lost on Hunter a lot), and again, even though he wanted to, who had the time? If he was honest, he was scared of trying the new hobby anyway. What if he was bad at it? Right now, he was in a position where he was comfortable, and good at what he did. So what if he was a little bored? Isn't everyone his age?

He'd not taken a holiday day off all year though, and it was reaching the cutoff point to use it, so with his friend's consistent nagging combined with his works HR department forcing him to use it, he had no choice but to finally bite the bullet and give it a go. Looking online for hunting gear, he came across my post. A camo jacket, perfect for wearing when hunting, for free? There had to be some catch, surely. But as he scoured the listing for any fine print or clue that would expose his info getting stolen, or it being a scam, he couldn't find anything evidencing that worry. He'd been worried for too long, he decided. Maybe this time, he'd just finally do something new. He messaged, and within an hour confirmed delivery. That was it, he thought. I did it.

A few days later, the jacket arrived, and he hastily shoved it in his backpack and rushed out the door with all the equipment he'd ordered for the trip. Hunter was waiting in the drivers seat of his car, tapping his hand on the dash impatiently.

"You ain't going dressed like that, are ya?" His friend asked, the southern drawl slipping out. "It's gonna be fucking freezin campin out, ya not gotta jacket or coat or sumthin?"

"Yeah, theres a jacket in my bag. I'll put it on." He replied, grabbing the jacket out his bag and slipping it on. He felt a shock on the back of his neck as he did, but he chalked it down to static after checking the spot with his hand and feeling nothing, not noticing the callouses forming on his hand as he did.

They drove, catching up about each other's lives as they did. Hunter was living in West Virginia now, running his own small farm and living off the land. He'd come out as gay a few years back, and his family had disowned him, so now it was just him, the fields and his farm. As Hunter spoke, Buck's posture was shifting, his bones elongating and muscles growing, causing him to shift and manspread a little in the car. His arms were expanding slowly filling out the jacket nicely.

"Ya been working out, man? Those arms are darn impressive if I say so maself." Hunter said, smirking and admiring Buck's arms.

"Um... no, I guess I've just put on weight somehow recently and not noticed? Haha..."

"Nonsense, but if ya don't wanna tell me ya secret, I won't push." Hunter laughed.

They continued on, Buck's arms slowly growing all the way, and when they inevitably reached the site they'd be camping, and set up their tents (one each, Buck didn't want to share with someone else, despite Hunter being fine with it), they settled in for the night. Buck headed into his tent to rest, while Hunter sat by the campfire, humming to himself and looking at the stars. Normally, the humming, paired with the faint rustling of tree leaves would've driven Buck insane. But tonight, it helped him slowly drift to sleep.

In his dream, he was running. The forest stretched out endlessly, and he ran, desperately chasing something. With each step, his legs felt stronger, wider, more muscular, and he got faster. But not fast enough to catch up to whatever it was he was chasing. Buck didn't know what it was either, he only know he needed to reach it, more than he needed anything else. More than he needed to breathe.

As he ran, he heaved and breathed, struggling at first to keep up breathing with his speed. Each breath empowered him though, strengthening his lungs, forcing them to grow stronger, better. His breaths getting more deep, and powerful, and heavy, helping him more and more.

Still not fast enough, he thought.

He hit a rock and tripped, eating the dirt. He shouted, bellowing in rage, stood back up, and ran again. His voice was deeper, manlier, huskier. And he had a slight southern twang.

He poured everything he could into running, desperate to catch the thing. His body strengthened in reply to his desires, doing everything it could to assist his pursuit, and after what felt like an age, he caught up. He pounced, grabbing the thing with his now massive arms and-

It was Hunter.

He paused, confused at why he felt such a need, and attraction to Hunter. Why did he want them so much. But as he opened his mouth to speak, Hunter kissed him. Tongue flitting into his mouth, and he immediately gave in, kissing Hunter back, moaning in pleasure and enjoying the moment. His face shifted as they kissed, a moustache growing in and tickling them both, his face getting more square, hair shortening, making him manlier.

"I love you, Buck." Hunter gasped between kisses.

Buck woke suddenly, the cold night air pinching his skin. He could hear Hunter humming outside, the tune matching the song they danced to at their wedding, and old country tune. He'd been married to Hunter for 3 years, the day of their engagement being the same day both their families denounced them for being gay. But he was so happy with him, life was so much better with him than it was before, so he didn't care.

He clumsily stood and moved out of the tent, his new body causing him to adopt a wider stance, making him walk with a swagger, and he snuck up behind Hunter, being sure to not make a sound.

"Boo." He whispered, grabbing Hunter from behind in a warm loving embrace, causing Hunter to jump.

"Ya scared me! What'd you do that for-" Buck leaned in and kissed Hunter. "Ohhh..." Hunter melted into Buck's arms, savouring the kiss. It was just them, now. Hunter, Buck, and their farm. And they were gonna hunt and fuck for this week, then go back to the farm life they'd known and loved for years.

"I love you too, Hunter."

[linkspooky]

DOOMED SIBLINGS: THE TODOROKIS VS. THE FIRE NATION ROYAL FAMILY

I received an ask in my inbox about how Zuko doesn't owe Azula any forgiveness. Truthfully I wasn't even going to respond because this isn't an avatar blog, but then I watched this video.

Not only do I disagree with the basically everything in this video, but I am going to make the argument that both Zuko' and Azula's arcs are both incomplete with the way the show left the two of them in the final showdown.

In order to make my argument I'm going to compare Azula and Zuko's relationship in avatar to Shoto and Toya's relationship in My Hero Academia and use the latter as a more positive example.

Unnecessary Redemption Arcs

The common fandom opinion I want to argue against is this idea that Azula's ending is a perfect tragedy, and therefore doesn't need to be expanded upon. There's also a sentiment that redeeming Azula would somehow ruin the impact of this perfect tragedy.

I'm about to argue against both of these points.

Azula's arc doesn't work as a tragedy.

Because of this her arc is unsatisfying and unfinished.

I'm going to address the first bullet point but before that let me add another disclaimer. The reason why I think Azula's arc isn't an effectively written tragedy isn't because I like Azula.

Before we even get into the My Hero Academia comparison let me bring up something completely different. I do like Azula, but I like Terra Markov from Teen Titans a lot more and I would not change a thing about her tragic end.

AZULA'S ARC IS NOT A WELL-WRITTEN TRAGEDY

Terra in the comics is what a lot of people accuse Azula of being. She is stated in the text and by her creators to be an unfeeling sociopath. She was also never intended by her creators to be redeemed.

[About Terra] The very first time we see her, she’s trying to blow up the Statue of Liberty. It’s just that all the fans assumed because we went out of our way to make her cute — but not too cute, with the buck teeth and everything — everyone would assume that she was gonna become good by the end and that was never the case. First thing, we made a promise that day that we would never renege on our view that she’d never become good. It’s sometimes hard to do that with characters you like. You want them to become good or something like that. But we never liked the character enough—because we knew what we were doing with her—we never allowed ourselves to fall for the character. Because that’s bad. That’s bad storytelling. You’re doing what you want as a fan at that particular point, not as the creators. T

Now let me clarify, both creators of New Teen Titans say some nasty things about Terra and don't recognize her sexual abuse, but here's the thing. You don't have to read a story 100% the way the author intended, sometimes the story says one thing and the text says something different.

I am going to use Judas Contract as an example of a story where the character from the start was never intended to be redeemed and why that's a positive in this case.

Terra is a teenage girl, the bastard daughter of the king of Markovia and a random American woman who presumably has had no stable home her entire life because she's working as a mercenary at fifteen. She teams up with a man that is in his mid fifties and even starts a sexual relationship with him (this is statutory rape she cannot consent) and Deathstroke uses her to infiltrate the Teen Titans and learn as much as possible.

Terra is sent to live with the team and spy on them for several months. The whole time she only ever engages with them in a fake spunky persona, and never shows her real cutthroat self. She leads Beast Boy on in a fake romance to make him trust her and secure her place on the team. The way you'd usually expect this arc to go is that Terra would grow fond of the team and be torn in her loyalties.

Yeah, that never happens.

Terra loathes the Titans. In fact she's developed a superiority complex about her meta human abilities and she doesn't understand why anyone would use their powers to help others. She despises the concept of superheroes in general, and because of that never bonds with any of the Titans. Her feelings never change from start to finish, because her creators intentionally wrote her as a character that can't be redeemed.

Terra is written to be a psychopath, but even with that intention in mind there are scene that shows a greater range of emotions. She has what could amount to a trauma flashback when Beast Boy too aggressively flirts with her and tries to kiss her and she reacts violently, trying to bury him under the earth.

Let's go ahead and interpret Terra as what is used as the fictional definition of a "sociopath" that is someone who feels no bonds with other people, someone with shallow emotions and someone devoid of guilt. Even if we interpret her that way, her story is still meant to be read as a tragedy.

Terra succeeds in her mission of infiltrating the Titans. Slade captures most of them, and the only remaining member Dick Grayson goes missing. Dick Grayson then unites with Slade's son Jericho, and the two of them team up in order to rescue the rest of their friends.

Even after all she's done the Titans try to make pleas to Terra during the final battle, which she not only rejects but responds to with violence. Which only confirms what I said above, Terra never grew to love them, she never regretted her actions, she only ever engaged with them with lies.

(Terra always lies, Terra always lies, Terra always lies).

Terra is declared by Raven to be devoid of emotions: "Her thinking is unlike ours. She feels no true love or hate. Her soul is corrupt. What she does is done without remorse."

Even after Raven declares this, however she still pleads with Terra to stop because she's going to hurt herself. Terra feels Slade betrayed her because he favored his son Jericho over her, so she decides to take both Slade and the Titans down. As the Titans fight her she begins to mentally fall apart ignoring their appeals to her and lashing out at everything around her. Eventually she makes one last attempt to everything around her, but the Titans escape and she only manages to bury herself.

At no point in the fight do the Titans give up on trying to reach her even as she's loudly screaming how much she hates them. Even after she's buried and it looks like she's dead, Gar and Donna both try desperately to dig her up on the slim hope she's still alive. When they find the body they even give her a funeral afterwards, even though they all think that Terra was beyond redemption.

Even the prose narration that accompanies her death is incredibly melancholy and bemoans her fate, at the same time as it calls her a outright sociopath.

There's no reasoning with her now. However slim, whatever sanity Tara Markov possessed is gone. Now there is only primal hatred! Hatred born, nurtured, and fanned. Hatred that festers and grows without care, without feeling, without plan. her pursed lips part and the sounds which echoes force are garbled and inhuman. Hot, boiling blood gushes wildly from the earth's open wounds, its skin fractures and cracks, and if a world could cry, it surely would. Her name is Tara Markov and she is little more than sxiteen years old, and due to the fault of no one but herself she is insane. No one taught her to hate, yet she hates without cause, without reason. No one taught her to destroy, yet she destroys with glee, with relish. Don't look for reasons which do not exist, plainly Tara Markov is what she is, and she has taken a great power and made it as corrupt as she. Hers was the power over the earth itself she could have brought life to deserts, hat to the frozen tundra, food to sraving millions. She could have damned raging rivers, and tunneled water to packed lands dry and dead. her powers were limited only by the mind which controlled them. A mind which sought not hope, not love, not life, but death.

If you go with the text that she is just a sociopath beyond redemption who hates and hates and hates for no reason, the narrative still mourns her because a sixteen year old with her whole life ahead of being consumed by hatred and then dying because of it is in fact sad.

If you read into the subtext then you can argue that the events of the story, contradicts what the narration is telling us. Terra is being sexually groomed and groomed as a child soldier by a man who is much older than her, even if she thinks he's a partner he clearly has all power in the relationship.

If you think about it that way then Terra is the ultimate bad victim. She doesn't cry and call for help as a victim of sexual abuse, instead she tries to claim power for herself, she manipulates, and she destroys any chance she had for a genuine relationship because she only sees all relationships as transactions she can gain or lose from.

Even if you only go with the first interpretation, the narrative still remains tragic because the Titans themselves did not want to give up on her, they did not want to watch this sixteen-year-old girl destroy herself. They never stop reaching out for her and it doesn't work, because there was no way out for Terra but death.

Here's the thing I don't think Terra's status as a sexual victim automatically means an ending where she dies is offensive. It reflects a reality that victims like Terra often go unseen because they don't present their victimhood in palatable ways, and by the time anyone notices it's far too late. Sometimes tragedies are meant to reflect a reality where many people do not get saved.

There's two reasons that Judas Contract works as a tragic story. Number one the creators planned Terra's ending right from the beginning. Which meant they never gave her any moment where she shows that she's redeemable. There's no genuine bond between her and the titans, no wrestling with the guilt of her actions, nothing.

Number two, Judas Contract is Terra's story from beginning to end. It begins with her betrayal of the Titans, and ends with her death. The death is also brought upon herself by her fatal flaw her hatred, which is what makes her the protagonist of a tragedy. Tragedies are stories where heroes are undone by their flaws. Terra also goes out on her own terms. She buries herself underneath her own rocks. Her death is a direct consequence of her inability to let go of her hatred. Terra's not fridged for anybody else's arc, she retains her agency until the exact moment of her death.

To simplify into bullet points, Judas Contract works because:

The creators thought out what they wanted to do with Terra.

Judas contract is Terra's story.

Now, getting to the part where we actually talk about Avatar, and I start complaining about that awful, awful video.

AZULA'S ARC IS NOT WELL THOUGHT OUT

I just went on a long tangent on how Terra, a character written to have no redeemable qualities can still be tragic. How the creators marked her as clearly doomed from the start, and how she brought about her end on herself, how there no redemption for Terra. How this girl had no real chance, and how regardless of the fact Terra is a lil baby sociopath her fall is still tragic because of how well structured the tragedy is surrounding her.

It's awful to kill off a sixteen year old victim of sexual abuse, but the ending just fits because Terra represents a certain type of bad, unsympathetic victim who doesn't get saved.

Azula's arc isn't as well structured. The ending does not fit. I'm going to start by refuting some points in the awful, awful video I did not like.

"Maybe it's okay if Azula's story ends where it does in the series we would separate how we would treat a real 14-year-old girl from a villain in a series, ad that's why any redemption arc isn't need i a story after all. A character needs of deserves a redemption arc when it becomes the most meaningful way to explore their character and place in the story, but a character deserving redemption usually comes before the story really needing it, and I don't think Azula's done anything to deserve it yet. They've got to exhibit some willingness and action to change..."

So the main reason I'm using Terra as my first example is because Terra is the kind of character that Hello Future Me is describing. Terra was written with the specific intention she'd never experience a change of heart, all of the friendships she makes with the Titans are fake, she very loudly experiences no remorse, or even self-reflection over what she is. Terra's pretty proudly a monster and she never experiences any kind of self-doubt or regret over what she's become.

I can disprove right away Hello Future Me's blanket statement (with no actual cited examples, just trust him guys) that Azula never did anything to hint she may deserve redemption. That suggests Azula is an entirely selfish character who uses, manipulates and thinks she's right and worst of all is comfortable being the way she is, and therefore incapable of doing the self-reflection necessary for change.

Azula does show the capacity to do selfless actions several times in the narrative, and even consider the feelings of others. There's the apology scene with Ty Lee and the way she interacts with her friends in general with the Beach where when she's not fighting in a war or trying to complete a mission for her father Azula 1) interacts with her friends in a normal way and 2) seems to express a desire to experience normal relationships not the hierarchical ones she's experienced all of her life.

However, that's not the example I'm going to use as her save the cat moment. I generally intend to interpret that as a sign that even though she treats Mai and Ty Lee as subordinates and that power she holds over them eventually leads to them leaving her, their friendship isn't just Azula abusing them and lording her authority over their heads 24/7.

No, Azula's save the cat moments all revolve around Zuko. Which is funny, because the entire fandom seems to regard Azula as Zuko's evil little sister who exists to do nothing but torment her.

The first and biggest is Azula deciding to bring Zuko home in Ba Sing Se, and telling a lie to her father that he was the one to slay the avatar.

Ozai: I am proud of you, Prince Zuko. I am proud because you and your sister conquered Ba Sing Se. I am proud because when your loyalty was tested by your treacherous uncle, you did the right thing and captured the traitor. And I am proudest of all of your most legendary accomplishment: you slayed the Avatar.

Zuko: [Shocked.] What did you hear? Ozai: Azula told me everything. She said she was amazed and impressed at your power and ferocity at the moment of truth. [Inspired partly by this post]

Now the show seems to regard this action as Azula being an evil temptress who is there to tempt Zuko back to her side with everything he thinks he ever wanted.

That's only if you regard it from Zuko's perspective.

Think for a moment from Azula's perspective. Number one, Azula is someone thoroughly indoctrinated into Fire Nation propaganda who measures her self-worth based on 1) military achievement and 2) her father's approval and assessment of her talents. In Azula's own logic (wrongheaded as it is) she's helping Zuko. She's bringing him back home with his place in the line of succession restored and his father's approval.

Azula doesn't benefit from this gesture at all, in fact if her father discovers the lie she has as much to lose as Zuko does.

Now Zuko insinuates that Azula only brought Zuko along and told her father that he was the one who killed the avatar so she could let him take the fall if the avatar turned out to be alive.

However, if you look at the actual order of events that doesn't make sense. Azula saw the avatar die, she didn't know about the spirit water, and therefore had no way of knowing Aang could come back. In fact, it's Zuko who 1) knew about the spirit water and 2) decides to keep the spirit water and the fact the avatar might have survived a secret that is throwing Azula under the bus. After all she has as much to lose as he did and instead of sharing that information with her he decides to keep it all to himself.

Now Azula does imply that if the avatar were to turn out to be alive all of Zuko's glory would dry up, but this is only after Zuko 1) throws accusations at her and 2) makes it's pretty clear he's lying to her putting her on the defensive.

This is also a scenario where Azula doesn't have much to gain by bringing Zuko back, if you look at it from her perspective. If Azula just lets Zuko rot in a ba sing se prison, then her claim to the throne is secure. With Zuko back he's restored in the line of succession. She also, when making the decision to invite Zuko to her side probably didn't need him for her plan to succeed.

There is a dramatic moment of Zuko choosing to side with Azula over Katara which turns the tide in Azula's favor, but Azula can't see into the future and therefore wouldn't be able to predict that happening. If you look at it from Azula's perspective she 1) successfully infiltrated the city, 2) already had the Dai Lee in her pocket. She likely already thought she had the city secure at this point so her decision to extend a hand out to Zuko is therefore likely motivated by selflessness instead of self-interest.

That's important because usually when Azula usually only gives her help to others if it also benefits her in some way. Azula might genuinely see her recruiting Mai and Ty Lee to her side as a member of the royal family extending her favor and giving them status and security in their positions but it has the underlying motivation of 1) she keeps them in a position to beneath her and therefore in her complete control.

Azula will interact with Mai and Ty Lee like friends on the surface, as long she maintains control over them, but if they do anything to something that displeases her she'll do anything to regain her control.

Mai: I thought you ran off and joined the circus. You said it was your calling. Ty Lee: Well, Azula called harder.

This is set up in Azula's very first interaction with Ty Lee. Azula greets her like an old friends, Ty Lee even seems happy to see her, but the second Ty Lee tries to say no to her Azula goes to extreme lengths to "persuade her". Azula's friendship with Mai and Ty Lee is an abusive friendship because there is a power differential and even if Azula feels genuine affection for them both it's clear they're not allowed to say no. Mai and Ty Lee are put into positions where it's in their best interest to please her, and live in fear of the consequences if they don't do just that.

Here's the thing, I'm not arguing that Azula didn't deserve any consequences for her actions. I'm arguing that the setup doesn't match her eventual ending. Azula is set up to have Mai and Ty Lee leave her from the very first scene that Azula interacts with Ty Lee. It's satisfying because the set up matches the pay off.

It's also tragic because it's Azula continuing the chain of abuse. The video isn't entirely wrong (which is why they came to the wrong conclusion frustrating).

Azula's fall is about how differenting parenting styles can a child. Ozai's affection is exchanged for being useful. Something Azula would go on to repeat with her friends, whereas Iroh's affection is something freely given with patience for imperfections and failures, something Zuko goes then on to repeat.

It's like... there it is it's so close. Here's the thing, Azula is set up for a tragic falling out with Mai and Ty Lee (and one she deserves) but the set up is different with Zuko. Azula's save the cat moment revolves around Zuko, and her genuine attempt to bring her brother home.

Yes, the first time Azula interacts with Zuko in season 2, she tries to take him home by force. However, by the ending of the season Azula's perspective on the matter has obviously changed because she begins by trying to bring him back as a prisoner, and by the end of the season invites him back as an equal.

There's no moment in Season 3 where Azula treats Zuko the way she does Mai and Ty Lee (unless Zuko provokes it first and puts her on the defensive) in fact most of her interactions are either them interacting normally (such as when Azula goes to find Zuko at their old beach house because she knows he'll be there and advises he leave instead of dwelling on their depressing memories) or Azula deliberately trying to look out for Zuko such as when she advises him not to go visiting with Uncle because it'll make others suspicious.

On the other hand, Zuko never at any point looks out for his sister the way Azula is demonstrated looking out for him. He doesn't say, try to tell her where he's going on the Day of Black Sun, or try to convince her the fire nation is wrong. There's a scene in the later part of Season 3 where Zuko is watching Azula fall to her death while sitting on a flying bison and not only sits there and does nothing about it, but sounds disappointed when she doesn't hit the ground and become an Azula Pancake.

That's pretty much the opposite of a save the cat moment. It's a "let the cat fall to their death" kind of moment.

Yes they were enemies at that point, but Zuko's the one who's supposed to learn that affection is something freely given with patience for imperfections and failures, something Zuko goes then on to repeat.

How exactly is he doing that in this scene?

The thing is... this setup doesn't have to be bad. Of course Zuko has trouble has trouble empathizing with Azula, he doesn't even think about sending a letter to Mai, Zuko's shown at this point to be like a healing abuse victim who's understandably focused on himself.

This in fact could be excellent set up with step 1) learning what genuine love and forgiveness is and 2) demonstrating those two things by applying it to others.

However, that's not where we got. We got Zuko watching his sister have a complete emotional breakdown, crying and screaming while chained to a grate and looking somewhat sad.

And once again to bring Terra into this, Terra is what Stay at Home and parts of fandom argue that Azula is. Terra screams at the top of her lungs how much she hates the Titans, how much she was always lying to them, and the Titans STILL try to reach Terra with words, try to de-escalate the conflict, when she's about to bring the rocks falling down on herself warn her she's going to hurt herself, and then when she's buried under rubble try to dig her out begging for her too still be alive.

Terra who's intentionally created by her writers to be as hatable as possible, is shown more compassion by the heroes in her ending than Zuko ever does to Azula. They also give Terra multiple opportunities to change until literally the very last minute, which Zuko doesn't do either.

What's set up is Azula has this save the cat moment with her brother, that Zuko is pretty much the only person she doesn't treat like a subordinate in the story (because she just like Zuko has a craving for familial love she tries to earn from her father). However, her ending with Zuko just taking her down doesn't fit that setup.

Azula's ending only fits if you consider her arc entirely from Zuko's perspective, which is the underlying issue. Azula's not the protagonist of her own tragedy, she's a plot object that's used to benefit Zuko's arc.

Azula's is written to have a downfall, the same way that Zuko loses everything at the ending of season 1 b/c of his inability to give up on the obsessive search for the avatar (and his father's love with it). Azula is written to be left by Mai and Ty Lee (this is the strongest point of writing when it comes to her since it comes from the beginning).

However, she's not written to be left completely alone and insane with the only empathy being shown is that her brother looks kinda sorta sad. That's only good if you view her as an object to further Zuko's arc, because isn't the ultimate culmination of Zuko beating his sister who has always been ahead of him at life? Azula needs to torn down completely without even some small glimpse of a hope of recovery so Zuko can be built up even moreor at least the writers of avatar seem to think so.

However, even Azula just existing for Zuko's growth and character development doesn't have to necessarily be a bad thing. This is where we get to MHA, which does the tragic siblings and the final Ag Ni Kai about 1000 times better with Shoto and Dabi.

THE GOOD

The comparisons between Shoto and Dabi to Zuko and Azula are made pretty often by the fandom. Shoto has a scar, Dabi has blue flames. Shoto has an arc about healing and learning what it means to be a hero, Dabi's arc is about self-destruction.

Dabi's not the center of his own story, he exists to foil Shoto and help Shoto reach the endpoint of his character development however that's not necessarily a bad thing. These are both two pairs of tragic siblings, the main difference is that MHA doesn't feel the need to tear down one sibling in order to build up the other. In fact, the final step to Shoto's arc is HELPING Dabi, not PUTTING HIM DOWN.

Not only that but the decision to help Dabi is a decision that Shoto makes on his own, and him going against the tide of a society that has already given up on Dabi and would much rather have Shoto shoot Dabi like a mad dog. Which makes the decision to do so even more powerful and emblematic of Shoto's growth.

Now you could say that Shoto and Zuko are too different to compare their arcs, Zuko has a redemption arc, and Shoto has what most people would probably term a healing arc. Shoto starts out the series as a hero.

However, this is what annoys me about the redemption arc debate. A redemption arc is really just a normal character arc. However, calling it redemption drags things like morality and forgiveness into the debate. if you take remove the discussion about moral philosophy both Zuko and Shoto have character arcs where they start the story defined entirely by their home situations and their father's abuse (hence why they have big obvious scars on their face), recover from their trauma, and go on to find an identity outside of their father and form healthy non-abusive connections with others.

In fact I'd see the theme of both arcs are the same, to literally find balance within themselves. Shoto is divided quite literally into right and left sides, fire and ice, and even seems to view himself as half of his father and half of his mother. Zuko is someone who's permanently marked and dishonored by the burn scar on his face. He suffers from an internal imbalance as well. Iroh says that Zuko is the descendant of both Roku and Sozin and therefore both pathways are open to him (but wouldn't that apply to Azula too). Zuko says to his father that the fire nation has destroyed the balance to the world and he's going to leave to assist the avatar in order to fix it.

Shoto's balance isn't just about fixing his internal trauma though, it's also about finding a balance between his family which has defined his entire life up until this point, and his desire to become his own hero not the hero his father groomed him into.

It's why the culmination of his arc is Shoto reaching out to save his family member Toya, because it's the ultimate balance in wanting to heal his family, and also the kind of hero he wants to be, someone who saves and brings peace to others instead of just violently putting down villains. He can bring peace to his family and become his own hero in one action.

However, let's go back to the beginning of Shoto's arc, because saving Toya as an endpoint to his arc is set up pretty early on.

Shoto's arc begins with Deku, a stranger breaking down Shoto's walls as an outsider in order to allow him to look past his own trauma and recall for the first time what he wanted outside of his resentment towards his father. This sets up the idea early on for Shoto that sometimes you need outside interference, help you didn't ask for, especially when you can't see outside of your own problems.

What Deku brings about ultimately is a change of perspective, Shoto's so hurt by the memory of his mother throwing boiling water in his face and everything that came after that he can't recall the memory of her telling him he could be who he wanted to be.

But, you want to be a hero right?

Shoto takes away two things from this arc, sometimes you need help even when you're not asking for it, and sometimes a change in respective is required in order to take the first step forward.

He goes to demonstrate these things multiple times, but here's two exaamples. The first Shoto demonstrates immediately after the tournament arc. When Iida is about to go down a dark path and commit a revenge killing on Stain. When, as a result of that IIDA is paralyzed and about to die in an alleyway, it's Shoto who both notices Midoriya and Iida are missing and shows up in the clutch. He's practicing the same thing that Deku taught him in the last arc: Giving help that's not asked for is what makes a true hero.

He even mentions the second idea, that a small change in perspective can be all it takes to save someone, and he wants to do for Iida hat Deku did for him. His words are the one who convinces Iida to stand back up again when he's paralyzed.

If you wanna stop this, then stand up. Because I've got one thing to say to you. Never forget who you want to become!

However Shoto's arc doesn't end here, because one of the major conflicts in MHA is that heroes don't pick and choose who to save and a true hero will give help even to those people who don't ask for it.

This is a point which further develops when Shoto's abusive father starts to show a change of heart at the end of the Pro Hero Arc. Shoto still holds his father accountable for what he did in the past, but he also acknowledges that if he had the capacity to change then so does Enji. This isn't about whether or not Enji is forgivable, this is an extension of what Shoto learned. Shoto originally believed he was controlled by the circumstances of his birth, that his fate was set in stone, but a change in perspective allows him to realize he can determine who he wants to be. So, Shoto is just applying what he's learned, Enji has the capacity to grow.

There's one final piece of setup that I want to cover before showing how these separate dies all culminate in saving Dabi. Shoto's not only someone who has to find balance between his family and his desire to be a hero.

The theme of balance is written into the quirk itself. Enji basically practiced eugenics to create Shoto as his masterpiece. He noticed a flaw in his own quirk where he could only make his flames so hot without overheating. So he arranged a quirk marriage with Rei who possessed an ice quirk to create a hybrid ice and fire quirk that he could use to cool himself off to prevent him from overheating.

Enji only ever cared about the fire half of Shoto's quirk. His ice quirk only exists for his flames to grow stronger. This is shown when Enji is trying to force Shoto to learn all of his signature moves, because he only cares about Shoto's flame quirk. Shoto was created to carry on his father's legacy, and surpass him with an even more powerful flame quirk. Part of his character development is him learning how to use his quirk in his own way.

This is a theme that continues in the class training arc where Enji is still repeating the behavior of trying to force Shoto to learn his signature moves instead of considering what he wants at all, because still Shoto only exists in Enji's mind to carry on his legacy.

This all culminates in Toya's decision to save his brother. The first is his action in choosing to identify with his brother. If Shoto believes in his own capacity to change, and even his father's, then why would he deny Toya that same chance to change?

The foiling between Shoto and Toya isn't supposed to reduce the two of them to "Shoto is the good one, and he's the bad one", but instead Shoto and Toya were both in a point where they were consumed by hatred and couldn't see any other path in life. Therefore if Shoto was able to change because someone gave him help when he didn't ask for it, then Toya not only has the capacity to change - but in order for Shoto to stick to his stated beliefs that the smallest of things can bring about a change in people he has to be the one to give his brother that chance to change.

It's not about whether Dabi is worthy or not, it's about the themes in Shoto's arc finally being paid off.

Shoto's identifying with Toya, and even parts where he tells Bakugo he'll make Toya sit down and make Toya tell him his favorite food indicate that from the beginning Shoto's intention was to find a way to stop Toya without killing him (which is what several of the adult heroes were encouraging him to do).

@stillness-in-green does a more succinct summary of this plan.

Just me?

Because, like, Shouto had a plan. He spent the time between the two war arcs specifically developing a brand-new combat technique that he planned to use to shut down Dabi's combat advantage without killing him. He convinced his dad not to change the plan like Endeavor was hesitantly sounding him out about[1]; he went out and talked and asked questions, and even if they weren't the right words every single time, he did his best and he did it with intention. If Dabi proves to be dead, it won't be because of anything Shouto did to him; it'll be because Dabi himself chose to stand back up, take a warp gate across the country, pick a fight with the guy who doesn't have the power set to shut him down without unduly hurting him, and trying to replicate an Ultimate Move specifically tailored for someone with a balanced power set Dabi doesn't have. And if Dabi lives, it's still going to be because Shouto booked it across the country and used that same technique to stop him again.

Shoto's decision to save Shoto is also a continuation of his decision to help save Iida from Stain. It's not enough for Shoto to experience a change of heart about his own life, he's got to take what he learned about people's capacity to change, and the importance of connections and then put that into practice and help others the way he was helped.

However, it also further develops the theme of giving help that's not ask for from Iida because Shoto's not saving a mostly heroic kid, he's saving Toya to help break a familial cycle of abuse (because murdering the abuse victim isn't how you end the cycle of abuse... actually).

Shoto's last lines to Dabi are also a refutation of this idea of destiny that he once thought he was ruled by. It's once again, Shoto teaching someone else the lesson he learned. Toya says a warped rail can never mingle with a straight and narrow one! In other words Shoto can never understand or get along with Dabi, because Dabi will forever be defined as the failure because of the circumstances of his brith, whereas Shoto will always be the success.

His final action is a decision to break the cycle they were born into: no, we're gonna mingle whether you like it or not.

Shoto's ultimate move Phosphor is not only a move he designed far in advance to take down Dabi non-lethally, it also is a rejection of his father's teaching method. Toya says he only ever taught me how to turn up the heat. Enji only valued both Shoto and Toya for their flame quirks. Developing his own quirk and breaking away from what his father wanted, specifically in order to save his brother. It's Shoto rejecting what his father created both of them for (a successor to his quirk) and finding his own path. By using that move to take down Dabi he's not only teaching Dabi their flame exists for more than just destruction, he's also by letting Dabi live giving Dabi a chance.

From a conversation with @class1akids

Dabi was the last push to unlock Shoto’s full power. Until then he was on the track of mastering flashfire like Endeavor planned for him (except for his own reasons) but realising the fighting Dabi with fire was gonna kill them both and also he’s simply no match fire only helped Shoto to fully take control of what his quirk is Like his quirk development goes parallel with how he faces each member of his family and finally meeting Toya is like the last piece of his puzzle to find his own full power and identity.

It's not just Shoto decides to save his brother because he's just that nice, his arc is literally incomplete without it. The act of creating phosphor a move specifically to save Dabi is both him unlocking the full power of his quirk (by balancing the fire and ice sides of his quirk) but also achieving balance between trying not to leave his family behind while at the same time becoming his own person and hero outside of his family circumstances.

Citing my conversation with class1akids again:

Toya is endangering everyone at Gunga. Endeavor has no means to stop him and when he tries to murder suicide Rei interrupts and his “hero way out” is taken. All he can do is watch helplessly as his family is about to burn to death with a bunch of strangers he tried to protect. But it would do Shoto dirty to use his heart technique to kill his family and the strangers so he comes in a clutch and I see that confrontation as the power trauma vs the power of healing in the family. With Shoto who is a true hero, they can put the fire out and save the family and strangertoo. Shoto become a balanced hero and bring relief and reassurance, Endeavor was completely helpless, and Toyas inner child got the attention he wanted, plus depending on how you read it, he may have become less suicidal.

Shoto also, and I want to point this out desires to stop his brother not to take him down but because he doesn't want him to hurt any more people. He's again finding a balance between two ideas 1) Shoto needs to stop his brother in order to stop him from creating more victims and 2) Shoto needs to find a way to stop him that's not just putting him down because Toya himself is a victim.

Shoto also, and I must point this out for the comparison between Zuko and Azula goes out of his way to engage Dabi in conversation, ask him why he didn't come home and what happened to him in the years after he died. This is especially poignant because unlike Zuko and Azula who grew up together, Shoto basically had no relationship with his brother (and the rest of his siblings really) before Toya died because Enji purposefully kept Shoto separate from all the "failures."

So yes, the act of saving Toya is more for the completion of Shoto's arc than any redemption arc for Toya but Toya's not just a plot object to move around for Shoto's arc, Toya has his own agency all throughout. In fact it's the fact that Toya resists being saved every step of the way that provides the challenge that Shoto needs to grow in order to be able to save him.

Toya's not just after revenge against his father that's the surface reason, Toya is also just blatantly suicidal. Toya's birth is marked as a failure, his death wasn't even acknowledged by his family and everything stayed the same in his absence, so he created Dabi while praying at his own shrine in order to mourn Toya. Dabi can't find any meaning in his life where he was born as a failure, so he'll use his death taking revenge against Endeavor for having been born in order to give his life meaning.

What makes Avatar look especially bad in its treatment of Azula in comparison to how MHA treats Dabi, is that Dabi is way, way less redeemable than Azula. For one Azula has clearly proven affection both her friends and her brother (and I don't think she even deserves Mai and Ty Lee's forgiveness they had every right to walk out on her and want nothing to do with her again.)

Dabi is probably the ugliest victim of the League of Villains. The rest of the league have far more moments in their bonds with each other. Toya is the outsider to the league even if there are some subtle hints to his affection (he tries to show up to save Twice, and also burns down Toga's family house to comfort her). The villains are mostly shown to be redeemable by their positive friendship with each other, and Dabi at several points denies the league's bond (he pulls a Terra and yells out loud at the top of his lungs none of the league matter to him). Unlike with Terra you can argue this is most likely Dabi trying to cover up his real feelings. However, the fact that he feels the need to hide his affection from the league shows he's purposefully distancing himself from any bonds whatsoever.

Unlike Azula who has gone out of her way to help her brother in one major way, and also shows hints in early season 3 of having that sibling bond with him Dabi just straight up wants to murk Toya. Azula also tries to murk Zuko, but that's only when Zuko leaves on the day of Black Sun (one without telling her, and two something that probably left her alone to deal with the consequences of lying to her father for his sake). Either way, Azula's behavior in early season 3 is setup for the fact that their sibling bond can be salvaged.

Dabi is way worse to Shoto in comparison. Dabi in the first part never saw Shoto as his own person, just a puppet of his father (puppets have no autonomy or personhood). His feelings towards Shoto only went so far as Shoto was someone who could kill in order to upset Enji. Dabi also doesn't particularly care for the rest of his family as well (only calling out Natsu's name when his brain is literally melting), they're either ways to hurt endeavor, or he wants to drag them in hell with him. Heck his last words after being saved is telling everyone to die and go to hell.

Dabi doesn't bother to make bonds with the league or have any lingering affection for his family because Dabi's determined to seslf destruct. He's given up on life the moment he saw that he died and nothing changed in that household, now all that's left is for him to create a meaningful death by dragging his family to hell with him.

Dabi is also even as a child made out to be an unpleasant victim. He attacks baby Shoto with his flames early on out of jealousy (even though he later admits that he was being unfair to Shoto). He makes the situation in the house worse by loudly screaming and demanding his father's attention. He screams at his mother and throws her complicity in Enji's abuse in her face.

This is in comparison to Shoto who in childhood flashbacks we are only ever seen either 1) crying, and 2) trying to comfort and protect his mother. Toya's even made out to be difficult to empathize with as a child - which like flew over half of the fandom's heads because he got accusations of somehow abusing his father and the rest of his family in that chapter at 10 years old. However, that in a way illustrates my point.

The fact that Dabi is so disliked by a certain portion of the fandom is because Horikoshi paints such an ugly portrait of Toya in the way he expresses his victimhood. It's done deliberately too, because number one Toya by resisting Shoto's attempts to save him and trying to self destruct instead retains agency as a character. He makes decisions even though they're bad self destructive ones, he's not just a prop. Number two, the fact that Toya is intentionally portrayed as such an ugly victim makes Shoto's decision to break the cycle of familial abuse by saving Toya and not leaving a single family member all the more poignant.

Toya is an uglier victim than Azula, actively trying to kill himself in a way that Azula isn't, and treats Shoto way worse than Azula ever treated Zuko and yet Azula isn't shown the sympathy or given the salvation that Toya is.

Because once again, the writers didn't think about the ending of Azula's arc or of Azula as her own character. Shoto defeating Toya is the culmination of his desire to break the cycle of abuse in his family. Zuko putting Azula down is just to make Zuko look better. It's in service of Zuko's character instead of both of their characters.

THE BAD

Avatar isn't setting up some gritty ending where the bad guys can't be stopped, they can only be killed. In fact it's pretty close in tone to MHA.

Season 3 especially is the season that really begins to hammer in on the themes that even the people on the enemy side are still human after all. The headband shows that Fire Nation children are indoctrinated into the war, but they are in the end still children. There's the story between Avatar Roku and Sozin, and once again Iroh saying that Zuko has both options becoming like Roku or becoming like Sozin available to him (but not Azula I guess). There's Zuko joining Team Avatar, even after he betrayed Katara in Ba Sing Se and should have burnt that bridge then and there. There's Zuko working to earn their trust again when no one on the team really owe it to him.

The main character of the show is a pacifist, who deliberately learns a way to stop Ozai without killing him before the final battle because he doesn't want to break the values taught to him by his culture.

If the entire theme of season 3 is redemption, healing and that the fire nation are not inherently evil then why does Zuko's sister and character foil end the last shot of the series screaming and crying with no one comforting or even attempting to sympathize with her. Why is this one character marked for tragedy in a show that is about redemption and healing and showing compassion to your enemies and very specifically not a tragedy.

Toya literally burns all of the flesh off of his body, and somehow he has a gentler ending than Azula, because at least Toya's arc ends with all the members of his family showing up to try to cool down his flames, and when he's on the ground burnt to a crisp his father finally apologizes to him. Toya is a skinless burnt chicken wing, my boy has no skin, and somehow he's better off than Azula.

I don't think the writers gave Azula such a cruel ending because they don't like her, but rather because they just didn't think about her ending outside of what it meant for Zuko. Which is why you get moments like Aang who is apparently a pacifist who doesn't want to kill the Firelord, watching his daughter fall to her death while sitting on a flying bison and doing absolutely nothing to save her. ALL LIFE IS PRECIOUS (except for Azula I guess).

It's not bad because a victim doesn't get saved, it's bad because it doesn't fit in with the rest of the story.

Not only is Zuko saving Azula a very natural conclusion to his arc, but there's far more setup for Zuko reaching out to his sister and saving her than there ever was for Toya and Shoto. Both Toya and Terra are screaming at the top of their lungs "I HATE EVERYONE, YOU SHOULD ALL JUST GO TO HELL." They're both making decisions and committing to their self destruction while Azula is a 14 year old girl having a mental breakdown.

Anyway, time to quote the bad bad video again.

"When does a villain deserve a redemption arc? When do we deserve a redemption arc? I know this is gonna hurt, but characters are not people. They are tools. They are represetations of people. They can be used to say other things. They can be symbolic representation of other ideas. Azula's story is not just about a fourteen year old defeated by her brother for the throne, Azula is Zuko's character foil, where she is ruthless and practical, Zuko is empathetic and emotional. Where Azula's a prodigy, Zuko has to work hard to earn eve a fraction of her power.

I specifically chose to cite MHA, because of how differently it decided to use Shoto and Toya's character foiling. Shoto recognizes himself in Toya, and how different their paths were in life. This is explicitly motivates him to save Toya. It's also the culmination of everything that Shoto has learned because Shoto is a hero who believes that actions speak louder than words. It's not enough for Shoto to resolve his own inner struggle, he also has to help Dabi with his because that's showing Shoto has grown rather than telling us.

I think that is where the major difference lies between Shoto and Zuko, we're told that Zuko has chosen the path of empathy and healing, that he's learned to give people love and patience like Iroh has but instead of showing that the culmination of his arc is having a fist fight with his sister in a denny's parkinglot.

Azula is Zuko's character foil, where she is ruthless and practical, Zuko is empathetic and emotional. Where Azula's a prodigy, Zuko has to work hard to earn eve a fraction of her power.

If Zuko is empathic and emotional and that is why he's gained friends while Azula is now alone after having lost her friends due to the way she treated them, then like... what a great opportunity for Zuko to SHOW that quality of empathy.

However, Zuko doesn't do anything that Shoto does in the final fight. He's not even here for Azula, Azula's just an obstacle for taking back the crown. He doesn't talk to Azula, engage her in any way, try to de-escalate and avoid the fight.

If you want to make the tragedy that Azula and Zuko have taken such different paths in life that that Zuko fighting with his sister is unavoidable you could um... at least show Zuko being sad over the prospect of fighting his sister or being reluctant in any way.

(Before you come in here with "Zuko doesn't owe Azula anything take" this isn't about whether or not Azula is a terrible sister to Zuko, this is about the story that avatar is attempting to tell. Shoto and Dabi's fight is tragic because Shoto doesn't want to fight Dabi, he wants Dabi to come home and for their family to be complete. Zuko never expresses anything like that so where does the tragedy come from?)

If it were 100% committed to a tragedy like Terra's death then I wouldn't mind. if it were 100% committed to a story of redemption like Shoto reaching out to Toya then I wouldn't mind. My issue arises from the fact they want to have their cake and eat it too.

They want to give this tragic end to Azula, and use it to illustrate how Zuko has grown as a character. However, you can't have both.

If Zuko's growth is about learning that his father's love based on achievement and 2) learning he needed to get lost in life in order to find himself then why doesn't any of Zuko's actions demonstrate this lesson Zuko has learned about love, and about how you can be your own person outside what your father expects from you.

If Zuko has grown as a character he should be able to show those actions. He does show his new understanding of love and friendship to Team Avatar, but as I said that's easy mode. That's Shoto's attempts to save Iida, it's a step in the right direction. It's also not really Zuko demonstrating a selfless love, because he's also at the same time trying to earn their trust and earn his way into the group.

It's also not Zuko breaking the cycle of abuse in their family in any way. Shoto is trying to break free from his role of his father's masterpiece, and at the same time helping Dabi break free from his view that he's the failure.

It's also such a natural ending for Zuko's arc, to take the lessons he learned from Iroh and give them to his sister who needs them so they can both break away from their father's parenting. As I said Zuko does solve the internal conflict within himself, but he doesn't really demonstrate that by helping someone else find their balance.

If you wanted the tragic end, then it would have to be about Zuko's failure to reach out to his sister, because he hasn't learned how to reach out to her. Or because he tries and is unable to. The writers don't seem to understand that though, they think the tragedy is about Azula bringing it all on herself, and not the inherent tragedy of a fourteen year old girl being unable to be saved.

The set up is right there too, because number one avatar is about balance. So, wouldn't the true ending be finding balance between the siblings, not having Zuko rise and Azula fall. Number two, Azula being alone and friendless because of her own actions is again a parallel to where Zuko was in early season 2 at his lowest point. Except Zuko can be the better person in this situation by reaching out to her.

Zuko doesn't break the golden child / scapegoat dynamic, he just flips it so now he's the success and Azula is the failure.

While Azula's fall comes from cruelty and rejection from friends and allies it is Zuko's humility and kindness and friendship that ultimately wins the day. Him sacrifcing herself for Katara and her bringing Azula down and then her healing him. Azula ending up imprisoned isn't something happening to a real person, it's a deliberative narrative choice by the author to say something about how people like this isolate themselves and end up alone. "

As I've stated above, I'm not saying Azula didn't deserve to take a fall. Her fall is actually set up from the first moment she met Ty lee. However, there's no set up for her fall being permanent.

Azula's given way more humanizing moments than characters like Terra or even Dabi. Which is why Azula being in an insane asylum for the rest of her life doesn't fit as an ending at all.

Azula is one link in the chain of abuse. Her father only gives out affection in regards to her usefulness. No matter what Azula is an asset first and a daughter second. Azula then repeats the cycle and treats her friends the same way. She has been shown through an improper model of parenting of using fear to dominate others with power and control and she replicates that in her other relationships.

Therefore, Ty lee and Mai leaving her is not only deserved, it's the perfect opportunity to pull the rug underneath Azula and to show her that her understanding of how relationships work is completely wrong.

This also mirrors Zuko's arc, because part of Zuko's arc is realizing just how wrong Ozai is for making both children earn his love, and that he doesn't need to measure his self-worth based upon his father's approval. He also learns about healthy expressions of trust and friendship from the gang.

Azula loses in part due to her own inability to form healthy relationships is losing people rapid fire, her brother leaves and joins the enemy side, Mai and Ty Lee betray her in favor of her brother, then her father in one action of leaving Azula behind and throws the title of Firelord to her after it's become completely meaningless reminds her of her place. Azula learns in about five episodes what Zuko had in 3.5 seasons to process that her father's love was always conditional and no matter what she did she would never truly "earn it."

People leaving Azula isn't exactly the problem, the problem is that Azula ends up alone permanently without being given the same chance that Zuko is. Terra, and Toya both get opportunities to turn back. They both refuse the hand that's reaching out to him. Mai and Ty Lee leaving is caused by Azula's own choices, but her ultimate end isn't. She's not even given the chance to turn away being saved like Terra and Toya do because Zuko doesn't even bother to try saving her. Her ending is not entirely brought about by her own choices, because the writers need her to take a fall to uplift Zuko.

Azula ending up imprisoned isn't something happening to a real person, it's a deliberative narrative choice by the author to say something about how people like this isolate themselves and end up alone.

I think once again it comes from the author's misunderstanding things because they don't want to look at the story from Azula's perspective, only Zuko's.

Stay at Home almost had it when he said the tragedy of Zuko and Azula was there to show how two different parenting styles affected these children.

The tragedy is that Zuko and Azula started in the same place, but Zuko had persistent guidance and someone who modeled for him a healthy kind of love. The difference is that Azula has never experienced any kind of healthy love or support on the level Zuko has, so she models all her relationships on the way her father treats her. It's not that Azula is offered some chance for change and rejects it, it's that Azula isn't even aware of the fact that there's another way because no one is there to show it to her.

Which is why I said once again, Zuko being the first one to show Azula the lessons he himself was shown by Iroh is such a natural place for his character to end.

Azula also even while completely alone and with no idea what healthy love is, knows that there is something wrong with her and is troubled by that fact in a way Dabi and Terra aren't.

Azula: I can sit here and complain about how our mom liked Zuko more than me. But I don't really care. My own mother... thoguht I was a monster... She was right of course, but it still hurt.

Then there's the famous mirror scene:

Ursa: I didn't want to miss my own daughter's coronation. Azula:Don't pretend to act proud. I know what you really think of me. You think I'm a monster. Ursa: think you're confused. All your life you used fear to control people, like your friends Mai and Ty Lee. Azula: Well what choice do I have?! Trust is for fools. Fear is the only reliable way. Even you fear me. Ursa: No. I love you, Azula. I do.

Both of these scenes indicate that Azula thinks of herself as a monster and is deeply uncomfortable with the idea. Considering Ursa is a voice in Azula's head and not a ghost, it also shows on some level Azula knew what she did to Mai and Ty Lee was wrong and feels conflicted over it.

Once again she's much more in conflict with herself than Toya and Terror ever are, and who's someone who's constantly warring with himself? Who's someone who could help resolve her inner conflict... Zuko (too bad the way the show's written he never does).

Azula doesn't choose to self-destruct the way that Terra and Toya did. Azula's ending isn't brought about by her choice not to change, because she's never given the chance to change in the first place. Her tragic ending would make sense if it was entirely of her own choices, but Azula doesn't retain her agency in the end it's literally taken away from her. She loses control of her mind, and her ending is being chained to a grate screaming and then thrown into an asylum.

I'm not arguing against Azula's ending because she's my favorite character and I don't want bad things to happen to her. It's because her tragedy isn't about her it's about Zuko, and her ending actively takes agency away from her where at least Toya and Terra both retain their agency up until the end. It's not good writing because the tragedy doesn't fit in with the rest of the story which is about balance and healing - and it's also ableist as hell.

THE UGLY

Azula's ending is unfitting to the tone of the story she's in, makes her and Zuko's arcs feel incomplete, and also is ableist as hell.

Here's yet more evidence that Azula's tragic ending is poorly thought out. Azula's mental breakdown doesn't exist in service of her character, but Zuko's.

Azula's issues pop up out of nowhere after episode 15, and take place over the last 6 episode of the series. The idea of Azula having a mental breakdown isn't necessarily a bad concept, but it's executed poorly.

The first way it's executed poorly is just how rushed it is. There's basically no hints of any mental instability beforehand. Of course people can have mental breakdowns spontaenously like that in real life, but this is a story and stories require foreshadowing. Azula spontaneously developing mental issues doesn't feel like it's planned as a part of an arc. First off, because the writers don't seem too sure about what Azula's symptoms even are. Hallucination, paranoia, manic laughter, but apparently she's still able to bend lightning just fine. Secondly, the writer's intentions for giving Azula a mental breakdown are pretty transparent.

The writer's room needed to come up with a believable reason why Zuko would suddenly be able to fight on equal terms with Azula, so boom sudden mental illness. The intent was not to create a sympathetic portrayal of a young girl struggling with both paranoia and delusions. The intent was to nerf Azula because they couldn't think of any other way this plot could end, other than Zuko and Azula fighting in a denny's parkinglot.

As I said they use mental illness as a plot device to take Azula's agency and choices away from her. It's not done with the intention of humanizing her, and in fact except for one small scene with her talking to her mother in the mirror it's a pretty negative and unsympathetic portrayal of mental illness. Not because the writers hate mentally ill people, but because they needed Azula to have a mental breakdown in order for a plot point to happen. Which is why they didn't think of the potential implciations of such a writing choice at all.

Now, people are going to argue about me so I'll use one final example. Azula's ending may be controversial but it's universally agreed upon that the Game of Thrones Ending was bad, right?

Game of Thrones uses mental illness as the exact same plot device, to explain why Daenerys Targaryen turns from a hero to villain in the last few episodes with absolutely no foreshadowing. In fact, the all of the show director's interviews about that choice are just blatantly ableist.

Rant from @hamliet

This quote is (likely unintentionally) gaslighting, ableist, terrible logically, and downright offensive. 

First, ableism: why, why, why are we conflating madness with evil? She was driven to madness so she killed a bunch of people and had to be put down? And you think this is a great message in the year of our Lord 2019? [...] Additionally, while good writing is to an extent subjective, there are general consensuses on what make good writing--and Game of Thrones hit all the general consensuses for bad writing, from bad pacing to confusing character assassination. Critics are like, pretty united on this front. No one thought Dany’s turn made sense, even the ones who expect Mad Queen in the books. Maybe if people love a character who is meant to be evil you're not writing them correctly... or maybe they aren't meant to be evil. 

Daenerys and Azula are incredibly similiar characters. They're both dragon themed, alligned with the element of fire, they're both colonizers they both represent the warrior princess archetype.

I'd say Daenerys is more of a tragic heroine though, because while Danerys is essentially doing the same thing as Azula, waging war in a foreign land and a culture that's not hers, for the purpose of then bringing back soldiers to her home continent so she can wage war again - while she is definitely a war mongerer she has good intentions. Daenerys for all of her faults, genuinely wants to break the chains and help out people.

I think Azula definitely sees herself as the hero for winning the war for the fire nation's sake, but she's completely uncritical of her own culture and she doesn't really have the good intentions that Dany has. She does it more out of a sense of duty, and her belief of divine right, not because she wants to break people free.

Daenerys's problem is that she doesn't understand the culture she's invading and the complicated world she lives in and despite all good intentions, is as I described above, invading a foreign power so she can go back and wage a war to reclaim the throne. Even if Daenerys would then proceed to go on to be the bestest queen ever that wouldn't change the fact her methods to get to the throne were incredibly violent, and she's sort of failing to break free from the cycle that led the Targeryen rule to fail in the first place.

Azula's problem is she sees herself as the hero and is therefore uncritical of fire nation values. She doesn't have any nobler intentions either other than service to her country, she just like Zuko is just trying to fulfill her duties as daughter and believe her birthright puts her above others. (I mean Dany does too but digressing).

Azula's more of a tragic villain who plays the antagonist role in the story, Danerys is one of the three heroes. However, she's more of a tragic villain in the sense that she's first season zuko pre character development just way more competent.

However, while Daenerys is a much more heroic character than Azula, here's the thing. I still think she's going to die. She is foreshadowed pretty heavily to die, and fail for her quest for the throne, because her entire story is a deconstruction of the warrior princess and the liberator archetype.

However, the story that GRRM is building throughout his books with Dany as an incredibly flawed heroine is different from what we got in the show, which was Daenerys going crazy and starting to murder people. That's because Daenerys turn to darkness wasn't about her character at all, it was just making her into a plot device to move their bad idea for a plot forward. That's why the turn is so unnatural and makes little sense with her character, that's why it's so rushed.

That's also why it's ableist, because it's using mental illness as a plot device to make a character unsympathetic and monstrous and give the other characters a reason to put them down.

The same for Azula, outside of one scene where he's talking to her mother, Azula's mental illness manifests in her screaming, maniacally laughing, looking like the joker did her makeup, and her instability also makes her violent and dangerous to be around. (Ignoring the fact that most people who experience delusions in real life are harmless, and more likely to be the victims of violence).

Her sudden mental illness isn't even used to make her more sympathetic in say Zuko's eyes and make him realize she's a victim, no it's just there to nerf her so she can be violently put down. The way she's drawn, the way she acts, it's to paint her as monstrous as possible. Her last action is like sobbing and screaming while being drawn as ugly as possible. She's not even given a small hope for recovery, because it just ends there. That's a pretty great message to send people that experience delusions, not only will you not recover or be shown sympathy, you'll also get sent to a mental asylum for the rest of your life. The choice for both Azula and Dany is not to portray any kind of mental illness in a respectful way, but to make a plot point happen.

As I said I expect Dany to die in the books, but there's a difference between dying as a tragic hero succumbing to your flaws but still having your good intentions acknowledged and just turning into a villain for no reason and being put down like a rabid dog.

(This is a quote I stole from a Shigaraki post but): "Why does she need to be put down in the first place, she has trauma, not rabies."

The problem isn't bad thing happened to my favorite character, the problem with the ending is it doesn't take Dany's setup into consideration.

Stealing from @hamliet again:

The thing about tragedies is that you have to manage expectations and clearly show that your tragic hero is doomed from the very early on–ie you have to show them making steadily worse and worse decisions (see: Eren Jaeger in SnK), if not directly tell your audience at the very beginning that this is a tragic story (ie see Greek choruses and Shakespeare, the prequels from Star Wars because everyone knows Anakin is Vader–plus I’d argue Anakin’s arc only works because we know he comes back to the light in the end. Audiences don’t like reversing on set up/undoing structure. To make Dany a tragic villain is to go against the structure of her arc in both show and book. That’s why people don’t like it, even if the books makes it seem more believable.

Kate then goes onto describe a character that's much more comparable to Azula's. Honestly Arianne is closer to Azula than Daenerys is.

You know who is set up as a tragic heroine destined to descend and die because of her flaws in the books, whose arc has almost certainly been combined with Dany’s in some sense in the show? Arianne Martell. (and another character known as f!Aegon) In the books, Arianne is incredibly ambitious, and especially resents her brother and his quest for power. Like Margaery (another tragic character), Arianne seeks power and is intelligent and manipulative in her quest for it. But Margaery’s fatal mistake is that in seeking power and prestige, she’s become more a pawn than anything else for a villain (Cersei). She chose to play with lions, and she’ll be torn apart; that’s not surprising. Arianne, as her chapters hint, is going to almost certainly marry f!Aegon, playing with fire, and die burning for it.   Arianne’s grasping for her own power is never portrayed as cruel or stupid like the main human villain (Cersei); on the contrary, we empathize with a girl who truly cares about her people, but resents her father’s preferential treatment towards her brother. That’s the difference between Arianne and Cersei: Arianne cares. She is not cruel. But her pride is still going to get her killed.

There's a lot of game of throne females you could compare Azula to because GOT is full of queens, but like. Azula may be a tragic villain firmly on the side of the antagonists but she's not Cerseie. She's not queen, she doesn't wield the power that Cersei wields. In fact one of Azula's downfalls is finding out she doesn't have as much power as she thought she had, and ultimately was just a tool of her fathers.

She's not Rhaenyra or Alicent, because yes she may be grabbing for power but her character isn't affected by misogyny. Because once again, the writers simply didn't think about misogyny except for a really surface level "girls can be just as strong as boys" way so we really have no idea how women are seen in the fire nation. The show doesn't really explore if being a woman makes things harder, or makes people treat her differently than Zuko because the writers just didn't consider Azula's perspcetive on that matter.

Azula is alike to Danaerys in several ways, but as I said I think her ultimate end comes from Azula understimating her own importance in her father's eyes, and quickly realizing when her father is her only family left she never had his love or loyalty in the first place.

But Margaery’s fatal mistake is that in seeking power and prestige, she’s become more a pawn than anything else for a villain (Cersei). She chose to play with lions, and she’ll be torn apart; that’s not surprising.

Azula's most famous quote is about how Long Feng isn't even a player, only to find out her father considered her a pawn from the beginning and be broken by the revelation.

The difference being of course that Avatar is not Game of Thrones and it won't even kill the evil fascist dictator so it doesn't make a lot of sense to hand Azula the ending that Arianne got. They have the same fatal flaw.

Anyway, I made this big post but I can explain why Azula's tragic ending down't work in one sentence.

AVATAR THE LAST AIRBENDER IS NOT A TRAGEDY.

Maybe the reason Azula should get redeemed is because THE SHOW IS ABOUT F&%CKING REDEMPTION.

[erwinsvow]

omg stoppppp

my brain and my pussy can’t handle thoughts of stepbro!pope 😵‍💫🫣

no. because let's do a little deep dive shall we. i have been thinking about this because every story with julia it's something where andrew had to save her or he beat someone up who was bothering her and she was the only person who was ever nice to him and i just !!!! i have many thoughts about over protective guard dog pope but over protective guard dog big brother pope!!!! so idk how she ends up interwined with smurf's family since she hates any girls being closer to them than she is but we have to expand our minds outside of the canon here temporarily. trust me it will be so worth it. so it must be some daughter of an old associate and maybe her parents are gonna snitch on smurf or something and she comes to tell her demonstrating loyalty (which is the only thing that might overshadow the fact that she's a girl) so then obviously she gets to be taken care of. my readers are always nice sweet girls so i think in this reader's world like she can be as nice and sweet as she wants but no one is feeling like any sort of protective urges over her (no one meaning baz, craig, or deran). like as nice as she is and as much as she tries to help (she can't help much since i don't think she'd be in on jobs. but maybe she helps canvas or plan jobs or has some kind of a job that gets them the resources they need. imagine like her working as a secretary or something in town hall so she can get blue prints and files and stuff like that? idk doesn't make much sense but all i know is that she has to be useful and smurf definitely isn't letting her out of her control (going to school or something). the other thing that always works in their world is if she's a nurse and she's always there to help patch up when things get messy (maybe she proved her worth by taking out a bullet that would have required a drive to tijuana or something. idk i gotta stop building her lore that's not even the most important part.) so she helps a lot where she can and she's a sweet girl who is under smurf's thumb ands somehow in the you-can-pick-how-many years before the show starts and before pope goes to jail, she is already in there lives.

that's where i'd start the lore for her. her routine is work, helping smurf make dinner and dessert, requesting days off from work when they have jobs, going inside to canvas if they need it. not stupid—keeps a gun in her car and doesn't trust anyone very much but maybe she has an unwavering trust in smurf since she saved her life or parents were shit anyways or whatever (similar to the baz relationship but not copying it because for reasons). and maybe she tries to get close to the others but it just never happens. except for, of course, andrew. andrew who blames himself at some point for what happened to julia. who despite protecting her as much as he could, didn't do enough. who let her get sucked up into their terrible life when he should have been getting her away from it. how many times do you think he blamed himself for losing the one person who was ever nice to him to drugs and letting baz take whatever he wanted and the weirdos that smurf had around?

i don't know where the story starts but if it's before he went to prison, he starts by just. watching. when you're home alone he's a few steps behind you all the time. and you've grown up with this maybe so you're used to it but now it's very different. now you're one of them, so he needs to protect you. no one else seems to be stepping up to the job and you're not particularly strong and though you seem like a good girl (something he likes very much—you don't drink too much and you don't do any drugs with the others and you go to bed early and lock your door every night. he knows. he makes sure. like clockwork ten minutes after you get into bed, andrew stops by your door and makes sure it's locked and says good night quietly from outside. and you say goodnight from inside.) and he has a very basic, primal urge to protect you. so it manifests in making sure when you leave the house, that he drives you. during parties he stays by your side, doesn't let you drink something unless he got it himself, walks you to your bedroom at the end of the night. can imagine some random drunk stranger at one of smurf's parties not leaving you alone. he had stepped away for a second before the predators lept in for the deer. wants to beat him up until he's bleeding all over the tile but you bring your hand to his arm and say quietly "it's okay, andrew, let's just go" and he listens. maybe smurf doesn't exactly know the effect you have on him—that he listens to you. she doesn't know every single thing he's doing so this is something that maybe stays off her radar? i mean a pretty girl her in house with her boys is definitely on her radar but she thinks, like everyone else, you're too scared of andrew to actually do anything not to mention that it's a whole "your brothers now" vibe. there's more too—like after a job when he gets hurt and the other are off drinking, celebrating and it's just you and him in the bathroom as you stitch up his arm and clean the cuts on his forehead. just silence and heavy breathing. he grabs your wrist and says "thank you" and you kind of stop breathing for a second. "of course. anything for my brother." and i think it's a little tip toeing the line like you trying to be a good girl who is not trying to get on smurf's bad side, maybe a little dumb and ignorant that this is andrew's way of taking care of you. it's just a heavy and foggy big brother protecting his sister vibe but it just turns into something more!!!

if he went to prison, you'd be the one writing him letters and visiting every week and telling him how it's not the same without him. he asks if you're okay one day during a visit, seeing a bruise on your wrist, and you lie through your teeth but he knows some guy was probably bothering you and grabbed you and he wasn't there to protect you. which bothers him so much his skin feels like it's on fire. but then if it's after, you're both still living in smurf's house and it turns into knocking on his door because you can't sleep. had a nightmare he had to go back to prison and you really don't like this house without him. turns into sleeping in his bed. he says that's okay, that can be normal for siblings. at some point you have to say "but it's okay. we're not really related, so it's okay, right?" and maybe [shea here. i'm freaking out] he goes "i'm still your big brother." eventually it does turn into something obvious that others can see—smurf is gonna notice your clothes in his room and how only one bed is messed up the next day. how andrew seems better when you're around, how his jaw clenches and fist tightens when your name is mentioned. he defends you when you're not there and you defend him when he's not there. no one maybe cares enough to say anything but then smurf has to drag you aside and have a terrible painful conversation with you about how she took you in and made you part of this family and you wouldn't repay that by messing around with one of your brothers, would you? good thing she dies because then it's really. something. playing house and you two get caught making out on countertops and naked on the couch and just doing everything you couldn't do before. just. yeah <3 sorry i have more for another day!!

[mercwiththem0uth]

he has risen, baby girl

warnings/themes; deadpool/wade wilson x fem!reader, detailed smut (18+), established relationship, strong language, missionary sex, no use of condoms, use of sex toys, dirty talk, phone sex, pet-names (lol), lowercase intended

i started writing this monthsss ago and i finally finished and uploaded it (you're welcome). anyway i love wade wilson i need him in a way that is unhealthy.

the ending is poor as i didn't know how to finish it lol p.s this is not proof-read as it's past 2am sorryyyy

you laid spread out on the bed, completely in the nude, waiting for your boyfriend to come out of the bathroom. it was often that the two of you would have sex when he returned home from a mission, because all that fighting and anger always got him so riled up and turned on. however this evening was slightly different. he came limping through the front door, hands clasped over his crotch, because in his words, the "crown jewels have been destroyed". he had been shot. through the dick.

and naturally he was extremely pissed off about it, because sometimes "the only dignity a male has is in his manhood"... but mainly because his girl had to wait even longer before she "got a good pounding". again, his words...

he had been in the bathroom cleaning up, and waiting (praying) for his cock to heal and regenerate. you were growing impatient, and increasingly horny, listening to your boyfriend's muffled moaning and grunting from the ensuite. you felt bad because you knew his noises were purely from his pain, but he had made it abundantly clear that you were not allowed in there to help him. "some things are just not meant for you to see, princess". you also felt bad about being ready for sex when your partner has a literal bullet-hole through his shaft, but you had been craving him all day, and you knew that wade would still try and fuck you on his deathbed if he could. besides, he literally instructed you to be out here ready and waiting for him, so you could hardly say no.

the core between your legs ached, and your attempts at squeezing and rubbing your thighs together were not cutting it anymore. "wade? everything okay?" you called out, and only received a "mhmm" in return. you huffed and rolled over, reaching into your bedside drawer and retrieving your magic wand vibrator. going to turn it on, you sighed at the low battery light flashing at you. you would have ignored it and used up the last of its power, but wade was going away for a few days tomorrow, so, much to your dismay, you decided to plug it into charge, knowing that you'd be grateful for this sacrifice right now when you're due to have a lonely night.

you lowered your fingers to your clit, beginning to lightly trace it with your fingertips needing to release some pressure, when you suddenly heard many excited "yes" and "finally"s coming from the bathroom. you perked up in excitement, moving your fingers against yourself faster through the eagerness.

the bathroom door suddenly swung open, your boyfriend's naked, muscular figure appearing in the doorway, arms outwardly expanded, with an erection on full-display. "he has risen, baby girl" he called out, like he was determined for the world to know. you smiled, biting your lip as you watched him slowly walk towards you. he stood over you at the side of the bed and sighed with deep relief, proudly looking down at his penis that he rubbed gently in his hand. "thank the heavens for that, sweet cheeks. i thought i'd never get to fuck you again."

"well that's what it certainly feels like" you teased, a hint of seriousness in your voice as you looked at him, still horny out of your mind.

"ohh, giving me a bit of attitude are we?" he snarked, climbing slowly onto the bed and laying down to face you. "well i'm sorry baby doll, but i don't think you would've wanted me to take you to pound-town with a gaping crater in my cock." you tried to resist a smirk at his silly remark, as you reached down to take him into your hand, your thumb rubbing over the fresh area of skin. his eyes closed as he began to relax, before you spoke up. "i don't think so, mister. no handjobs tonight. i just need you to fuck me." he opened one eye and raised an eyebrow at you, watching as you let go of his cock and laid down on your back, waiting for him.

he rolled to hover over you, resting his weight on his elbows as he leaned down for a kiss. you wrapped your legs tightly around his waist in an attempt to bring him closer to you to finally have him where you needed him the most. you felt him try and add some tongue to the kiss, but you pulled back breathlessly. "just put it inside me already" you weren't in the mood for foreplay, you were already too far past that point.

"that wasn't very polite, princess" wade said, pulling back to sit on his knees as he straddled your lap. "i think you'll have to ask nicely first."

you huffed and threw your head back against the pillows, a frustrated groan escaping your throat. that's the thing about wade, he gets off on teasing you and making you beg, even when it's most inconvenient for you. "please" you said half-bluntly, watching as wade shrugged and shook his head. "oh darling, i think you can do better than that."

you scoffed as tears brimmed in your eyes, having been pushed past desperation. wade watching closely, "you're such a spoiled brat, you know that?" he cooed in a hushed tone, leaning forward to brush some fallen hair out of your eyes. "i'll let you off, just this once." you didn't have much time to process his words before his tip was slowly entering you. you gasped at the feeling, your body finally getting what it wants. "so wet," he whispered to himself, "absolutely soaked".

he sunk all the way in, the both of you moaning loudly as he reached full capacity. you gasped, gripping his shoulders as you attempted to grind and roll your hips against him. "ah, ah," he tutted, grasping your waist tightly to halt your movements "patience, kitten." he leaned forward to hover over you again, your legs naturally raising in the air, as he began to finally rock into you. you moaned loudly, running your hands over his head and neck, finally feeling so much relief. "so needy for deadpool" he whispered into your ear, giving the lobe a gentle nip with his teeth. "aren't you?" he continued, "getting yourself in such a mess for daddy."

all you could do was nod your head, wade's quickening movements completely knocking the words out of you. he fully sped up, your legs weakening as they dropped down against the bed lazily. the loud sound of skin slapping roughly together was almost completely drowned out by your moans and shouts of profanities. "fuck," wade grunted in your ear as he continued to plough into you. "your whining is so fucking hot." his dirty talk only made you whine louder, nails digging roughly into his back.

wade eventually slowed his movements and sat back up on his knees, dragging you slightly down the bed with him. you remained on your back, the back of your thighs resting over his, as his hands hooked underneath your legs to hold you in place before thrusting into you again. the new position added new waves of pleasure, causing you to throw your head back and choke on a moan. he gripped your legs tightly, thrusting steadily, his large cock filling you up so deeply with each movement of his hips. "wade-... feels so... good".

something to the side of the bed on the floor caught wade's attention, and you didn't notice his eyes narrow with his exciting plan. you groaned as he stopped his movements and pulled out, lifting your head to look at him in annoyance, but furrowing your brows in confusion when you saw him leaning over the side of the bed. "what are you d-" your question was cut off when he sat back up holding your retrieved vibrator. he looked at you wiggling his eyebrows, causing you to smile and roll your eyes. "been having some fun today, princess?"

"i wish," you said sarcastically, tilting your head to the side, "i was gonna use it when you were in the bathroom, but it was almost out of charge."

he nodded, muttering to himself "naughty girl, running it dry" before turning it on to see the battery level. "just over half-way. that'll do nicely." he held the base of his penis and ran it over your pussy, smothering himself in your juices before entering you again, rocking his hips slowly. you soon heard the buzzing noise of your toy and waited eagerly. he remained on his knees, bringing the toy down to your clit as he continued to pump into you. as it made contact, your mouth gaped open with a gasp and your head flung back, your back arching slightly. he relished at the sight and couldn't help but speed up, fucking you harder and causing you to cry out.

"fuck! wade!" you almost screamed, eyes screwed tightly closed.

"yeah," he grunted, "you like that, don't you baby?" his voice was strained and rough, struggling to focus on anything but the pleasure. you just moaned in response, unable to form any coherent words or thoughts.

wade's thick shaft was bottomed out inside of you, his hips rolling and grinding against your own. his head was cradled in your neck as he leaned over you, gently moaning in your ear. his thumb remained over the control settings of the vibrator, pressing random buttons to increase the speed and send you over the edge. your thighs shook rapidly as you climaxed, the tight coil in your stomach finally unravelling, letting you see and feel fireworks.

you'd never orgasmed so hard in your life.

wade let you ride out your high before pulling out and ejaculating all over your lower stomach, moaning loudly. his hand dropping the vibrator and swapped with his cock, pulling every last drop out of himself.

you laid completely breathless underneath him, chest heaving and legs still trembling. wade leaned down and pressed a few kisses to your chest and neck, before heading to the bathroom. he returned with a warm flannel cloth and gently cleaned you up, chuckling lightly to himself as you squirmed under his touch. "oh kitten, so sensitive" he whispered.

he laid beside you, pulling you into his arms. "you did a number on me, wade wilson" you mumbled tiredly into his chest, already feeling exhausted.

you felt him smile against your hair as he pressed kisses to the top of your head. "when i go away, you need to use that during phone sex. need to hear those pathetic moans."

"noted", you yawned, using the last of your energy to lightly kick the wand off the bed, telling yourself that you'll clean it and charge it in the morning.

it was a few days later, you laid on your bed with your phone pressed to your ear and your fingers down the front of your panties, listening to wade talking filth to you.

"come on then sweetheart, get that vibe out" he purred, staring down at the tight tent that was forming in his underwear. you rolled over and reached into your drawer, beginning to rummage frantically when you couldn't find it.

"shit..." you cursed under your breath, leaning your head over the side of the bed to peer underneath it.

"fuck!" you exclaimed angrily, spotting the wand laying under the bed, where you had discarded and forgotten about it just days ago.

"what's the matter, doll-face? out of charge?" wade asked, and you could practically hear the smirk stretching across his face.

"... you knew, didn't you?" your voice lowered as you sat flustered and frustrated on your bed.

"i don't know what you're talking about, baby cakes" your boyfriend teased.

"why didn't you remind me" you whined, squeezing your legs together to ease the aching, just like you had done a few nights prior.

"it's more fun this way" his laugh crackled down the phone, a frustrated groan erupting from your throat as you dramatically laid yourself down against the bed.

"you're such an arsehole!" you cursed at him, listening as he continued to laugh.

"i'll see you tomorrow, sweet cheeks", he said teasingly, "have a fun night." he made kissy noises as he hung up, leaving you horny, annoyed and alone.

he had no idea that when he returns, he'll be in for a long night of teasing and silent treatment.

[absolute-flaming-trash]

Been a hot minute, my friends, and I'm sorry for that.

This is something that has been sitting in my drafts for a bit and with how long it's been taking me to get other work out, I figured why not even if I'm not fully pleased with it.

I hope you enjoy regardless 💛

Pairing: Yandere!Chrollo x Reader

SFW

Word Count: 910

Warnings: Yandere, Kidnapping, Forced relationship, Murder (mentioned)

Please be nice, I don't write for this man often

“May I ask you something?”

It was a simple question, but one you regretted the moment it left your lips because of how it silenced the room.

Gone was the soft scratching of pen against paper as Chrollo looked toward your seated position, his expression thankfully that of neutrality mixed with a hint of slight intrigue.

You swallowed and looked down at your lap. Better than annoyance, you supposed.

“I just… I can’t stop thinking about it, and I have to ask...” Your fingers picked at the frayed ends of the couch while your graze returned to his. “Why me?”

He arched a brow, amusement creeping into his eyes. “Why you?”

Stupid. Stupid. Stupid.

“Yes.” You replied with a little more conviction in your own tone this time. “Surely keeping one person alive when the rest were doomed to die is more trouble than it’s worth.”

“Are you saying that you would’ve preferred to have shared the same fate as the rest of your fellow party go-ers?”

Your cringe followed by a beat of silence was more than enough of an answer, but you felt obligated to continue since you were the one who started this conversation in the first place.

“...No.” Your teeth found your bottom lip while you tried to gather your thoughts in a way you hoped would make sense, all while pushing the memory of the fundraiser-turned-bloodbath out of your mind. “I’m saying I don’t understand.”

Chrollo leaned back in his own seat, still looking directly at you. “You’re here to keep the police from doing anything foolish.”

“I know that!” The frustration in your chest made itself known. “But you could have taken anybody. One of the sponsors of the damn thing, or even some other random woman, yet you kept me alive. I want to know your reasoning for it.”

He didn’t seem upset by your outburst, if anything it just served to increase his growing interest in the conversation.

Likely because these were the most words you had ever spoken to him at a given time.

Bastard.

“I liked you.”

Such a simple answer, and one you did not expect from someone who typically played their cards so close to the chest. It threw you off whatever balance you mentally had, and you recovered with a scoff.

“You liked me?”

“Yes.”

A twitch went through your eye when he didn’t expand on that - the sound of pen on paper filling up the room once more. You refused to let the conversation die there.

“I don’t believe you.”

That was a lie, but one you were willing to risk if it meant bringing the topic back to life, and boy did it work.

Not only did he stop writing, he set the pen down on the desk in front of him and turned his whole body to face you. “Oh?”

Shit.

“I mean, I don’t know how you could decide using something like that in a situation that was such a spur of the moment.”

“What makes you think any of what I do is ‘spur of the moment’?”

That made you pause. He had a point there. In the short time that you knew him, he had proved himself to be anything but impulsive…

Your temples throbbed with a quickly encroaching headache.

“If it wasn’t, then what? Your choice was made before the bloodshed started?”

The words were spoken sarcastically, but you had no idea just how right you were until you saw his expression change from amused neutrality to one of…

Come to think of it, you had no idea what to call the look on his face. Admiration came closest to mind, but that didn’t feel right.

“You catch on fast, well done.”

You made a face, not a fan of the condescending tone. “So, what? If I’m not sacrificed to the cops in a hail of bullets, you’re going to keep me as some kind of pet?”

Amusement crept back onto his face. “Is that what you think?”

“If it is, I hope you know I’ll fight that with every fiber in my being.”

He hummed lowly, your promise of violence completely brushed to the side. “As intriguing as the notion is, I have no intention of doing such a thing to you.”

“Then what do you intend to do?”

A small smile appeared on his face, but he didn’t answer, allowing you a moment to draw your own conclusions.

When you did, you frowned.

“Not a chance.”

“Why?”

You gave him an indignant look. “You can’t seriously expect me to willingly be with you after everything that has happened.”

“I don’t, hence your current circumstances.”

Silence filled the air again after that. A nice reminder that whatever outcome you could’ve hoped for during this exchange, you were doomed to lose regardless.

All you could do was shake your head in malcontent and pick at the frayed ends of the couch again, unable to come up with anything further to say.

More amusement flickered across his face. “You do not wish to be my pet, nor to be my lover.” He sat back ever so slightly in his chair. “Tell me then, what do you wish to be?”

“Free.” You replied without a sliver of hesitation, locking eyes again with him once more. “But we both know that will never happen, will it?”

Chrollo threatened to genuinely smile at your answer and he shook his head once.

“No. It won’t.”

© absolute-flaming-trash 2023. Do not repost, modify, copy, or claim.  

[the-pessimist-and-his-cat]

Alright. Thoughts on this stupid vroom vroom alpha bl show that will consume my mind for nearly three months! (I haven't read the books, but apparently Charlie gets memory loss?)

Kim.... you are the real winner. I always love it when people speak their minds instead of letting it fester (I hope he stays that way).

Babe... really? Starting with you being grumpy and a sex scene! Classic Babe behavior, but I don't fault him. After all, being a hot dude with an appetite, do be like that sometimes :)

Willy.... he's gonna be an A-hole but seeing Babe and Willy's first interaction being all hostile, it's gonna go one of the two ways: [I] Babe is going to use Willy to rile Charlie up (he wants Charlie to be the one who defeats Willy or he wants angry sex). [II] he wants to know Willy's motive and finds him suspicious or wants to find his weakness, so he acts like a 'Playboy' <but of course, none of these will go well because I'll explain in the end>

North and Sonic..... sorry for those of you who ship these two, but I never understood their dynamic, and they aren't interesting to me, but if the show does expand on their characters by going beyond "forever BFFs who secretly like each other". then you got my interest.

Chris.... now do I like to see actors coming back to the show as another character.... nope. My reasoning? Do it, but at least have the doppelganger/twin sibling/clone to be shocked! If I were Chris (even if I knew who Way was and I was a secret spy), I would totally lose my goddamn mind! Someone who looks like me?! What are the chances! But I do hope he doesn't break Pete's heart.

Pete..... since when you snatched the DILF title from Alan? But I hope you don't give your heart too easily to Chris and maybe check his background throughly??? Because what are the goddamn chances!

Alan.... I have no words other than look out for your boyfriend, and please be respectful when Kim snatches victory from Babe. That boy acted professional, so should you. (Also, you look good as always and when you and Jeff are gonna have kids i-)

Jeff.... why did they name you that? From the first season till now... whenever I hear your name, I hear that meme, "My name is Jeff," but alas, nothing can be done about it. Now, will this season toy with Jeff's life because the visions take a toll on him? (And maybe the skill-erasing machine will be his salvation? We gonna find out!)

Dean.... did you die? But I swear that in one of the trailers, you and Winner and Kenta were in a van soooo maybe a bullet to the leg or a graze?

Tony.... an A-hole with multiple watch lists to be on, but that hair is still serving and I can't hate that face. I think in the episode 2 preview, he said that he has a spy, so it's either Chris, Willy, or the new mechanic.

Charlie.... the biggest red flag of all the characters... just because that boy is bound to do something stupid and have Babe go on a depression cycle again. Oh, I know what he's gonna do. When he sees Babe with Willy, he's gonna be like "I'll bring back his senses so that Babe wins and we'll be done with Willy", and he goes to the machine, which is STILL experimental and uses it and voila! Memory loss, BUT if the show does do that and then show Charlie being all hot bad boy with side-pieces all over him, then I'll forgive him. He has the potential to be a bad boy, and I WANT to see it. :)

Well, I hope we see Babe's father again.

Manifesting Jeff's pregnancy right this fucking now. Maybe because the visions take a toll on him, he uses the machine, and it backfires and turns him into Omega...... oh my god.... what if there is no omega in this world, and Pete's research has invented a machine that not only turn off Alpha's powers but also turns them into Omega?! A new subtype?!?!? I'm cooking, folks!

7/10 for Ep 1.

Edit: I forgot to mention that I liked it when they introduced Chris in the 1st episode rather than tiptoeing around it.

[darklygophilia]

Questionable Things About ABC's "Once Upon a Time..."

Ok, firstly, this post disregards any and all ships. As I like to say, "Don't shit on other people's rainbows." We all have reasons why we ship a couple, no matter what TV show/book/movie they come from. However, since I was bored and decided to re-watch "Once Upon a Time" recently, there are just some things that I need to get off my chest and out of my head.

The Nit-Picky Things...

I'll get these out of the way first as they probably aren't the most important, but are still hard for me to just dismiss entirely.

The CGI in this show was TERRIBLE from the start. I don't know why they decided to do everything from Fairytale Land on green screen. Just build a handful of sets and re-use them as needed. I've always believed that CGI should be used to touch-up a scene, not be used for EVERYTHING! Ugh, I could forgive it for the pilot episode if they were unsure that they were going to be green lit for a full season, but the entirety of the show. "The Vampire Diaries" "Supernatural" hell, even shows from the 90s like "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" "Angel" and "Charmed" all had far better CGI and had a lot of magic/supernatural elements throughout the show. So, what is "Once Upon a Time's" excuse. I remember in the early seasons, when I used to watch it live, how almost everyone I knew that also watched, preferred the Storybrooke scenes over the Fairytale Land scenes. Because Storybrooke looks and feels real. The CGI in Fairytale Land breaks the reality for the viewer because its just THAT bad.

Costumes...I really wish they had calmed down the costumes in Fairytale Land. Like, if they'd gone more "Ever After" style where they were at least attempting to be realistic or 'historically accurate.' No, some would say, "it's fantasy, who cares how crazy the costumes or CGI are" but for me, it's about grounding even the most fantastical things in reality that help make a fantasy feel real. Look at the "Lord of the Rings" films!

Everything Else...

This might get serious, even dark.

First things first, if they intended to do redemption arcs for any villain characters, than they needed to not go so hardcore evil for Regina at the beginning of the show. I think it's around episode 5 or 6 that we really start to see a softer more grey side of Regina, but even then.

This is also why I feel like season one should have been the entire Fairytale Land storyline and than season 2 is Storybrooke storyline and trying to break the curse. All the flashbacks and moving around is utterly incoherent and messy. To the point that the entire timeline is off from the get go! TV show writers need to learn how to tell a cohesive story without going all over the place!

This leads me to my second main point and I know this has been discussed throughout the "ONCE" fandom, but pitting Regina and Emma against each other because one is Henry's adoptive mother and the other is his birth mother...well, I can see why the show was criticized for demonizing adoptive parents. This idea that family, real family can only be blood related is bullshit. If anything, other than the CGI, this is one of the things that really ages the show. I can't even begin to tell you how many TV shows/movies/books embrace the 'found family'. But, this pitting adoptive mother against birth mother is not just in the first season of the show, its throughout the entire show. And, I know, context...Regina is the Evil Queen...but if I were to explain this show to someone who'd never seen it using the bullet point system, it would seem like a really backwards show. They even expand on this element in the Ashley Boyd/Cinderella storyline, by having Ashley change her mind about giving the baby up for adoption. Yes, it's her choice, but the part of that episode that I hated most was how hard Emma was fighting for Ashley keeping her baby without really knowing what kind of person Ashley is. Like, that moment when Emma negotiates with Gold in the hospital, I kind of wanted Gold to tell Emma, "But you have to tell the adoptive parents why they won't being getting their baby." Have Emma see that there are consequences even to good actions. Maybe there should've been another couple waiting in the waiting room of the hospital waiting for the bay they were about to adopt. (But, than again, the show would've had to have been morally nuanced from the get go!)

Also, something that seems weird both in context and out of context. The Henry problem. Like, I get that we need Henry to bring Emma to Storybrooke in order to break the curse. But, the way this show approaches Henry's 'issues' with Regina from the beginning. It only makes Henry looks like an awful brat of a kid. We get no context for Henry's life with Regina other than "my life sucks" back in the pilot episode. (Even the episode on season 3 that shows Regina adopting Henry doesn't show her in that bad of a light. The adoption process is stressful, I don't put her anxiety as part of her being 'evil' and the fact that she erases her own memory so she can focus on being Henry's mother as opposed to living in fear of when the 'savior' might arrive in town. Again, not that bad.) For all intents and purposes, Regina seems strict. That's it! That's a pretty shallow reasoning for why Henry thinks she's the Evil Queen! And at the beginning of season 2, when Henry references that Regina made everyone in town think he was crazy for believing in the curse. Um, no kid, that was ALL you! Hell, if I lived in Storybrooke and some kid believed everyone was a story book character and that they'd been cursed...I'd think that kid was crazy, too. That's just human nature! Also, the fact that Regina puts him in therapy, from the town's perspective would make her look like a good parent for worry about her kids mental health. If anything, a lot of the attitude that Henry treats Regina with would make me think he was an ungrateful kid. Now, I know, she really is the Evil Queen and she really did curse everyone, and hell, she's probably just using basic human nature to her advantage. But, still, a lot of this does not reflect well on Henry. I think of the show had been more nuanced, it would've shown Henry growing up and realizing all the 'petty' things he held against his adoptive mother were just that, petty and shallow. He even admits mid-season three that he regretted bringing Emma to Storybrooke to break the curse because now he has to go to New York with Emma and forget all about Regina and he very clearly doesn't want to. Because, having a strict parent when you're younger can be hard, but than you grow up and realize they weren't as strict as you thought, they were just...you know...doing what parents are supposed to do...parenting.

This leads me to my next point. I think other shows like "Breaking Bad" "Game of Thrones" "House of the Dragon" "Rings of Power" etc. really have given a rise to viewers wanting complex thoughts on morality. "ONCE" completely lacks moral relativism or moral nuance! The Bad Guys are bad, even if they occasionally attempt to do some good. The Good Guys are ALWAYS good even if they do something truly evil, they're still ALWAYS good. It's really hard to watch especially as you get older as a viewer of the show. This show came out when I was a junior in High School. As a 32 year old woman attempting a re-watch, I can tell you that a lot of the simplistic black-and-white world view of the characters, and much of the fandom, is deeply concerning! Emma is the 'savior' she's always that 'savior' even when she's the Dark One she's still...the...SAVIOR. It's downright tiring to watch.

And if I'm being honest, I only made it to season 4 on this particular re-watch. I just can't find it in myself to keep going. I watched the show live, when it was airing. I've re-watched my favorite episodes countless times on Netflix over the years. But, since the show ended I've only done one full re-watch, which was when I was bored during COVID. Since then this is my second re-watch and I've only made it through season 4. "ONCE" in my personal opinion is one of those shows that just gets so much worse with re-watch. Rumpelstiltskin is the only really interesting character! Belle is ok, I feel like they deeply retconned her character as the show went on. Regina is 50/50 for me. I love her mostly because I adore Lana Parilla, but I also see why people can't stand her. Emma is someone I loved in seasons 1 and 2, but since she hooked up with Hook (lol) she just kept getting insufferable to watch. Hook...meh...I like him as his own individual character, but hate him with Emma. Mary Margaret/Snow White is awful. I only liked her in season 1, but beyond that she is a terrible friend to Ruby and Belle and an awful mother to Emma. I genuinely like David/Charming (we all need a himbo in our life and he's mine), but thought he should've divorced Snow (I know I'm being really controversial right now, but I'll explain in my next point).

There all some weird points/patterns that get dropped throughout the show that really just make me do a double take. The first being that moment in the pilot episode when Snow tells Charming "she [Evil Queen] once tried to poison me just because she thought I was prettier than she was..." Um, that is not why Regina and Snow have conflict. Like, has poor Charming been under the impression that Regina cursed EVERYONE because of vanity!? WTF!? As season 1 progresses, we, the viewer, obviously know this is NOT true. In the early episodes of season 2 when Daniel/Stable Boy gets revived, I can understand why David/Charming was so freaking confused in that episode! But, what I don't understand is why this was never addressed later. Like, maybe David needed to have a sit down with his wife and talk abought what else she might be keeping from him. Ugh! One of those threads in the show that go nowhere, but should've because that would've been really interesting!

Perhaps the most questionable pattern of the show is showing abusive/toxic relationships and never really addressing them. I know Regina taking Graham's heart and making him her 'kept boy' is something that gets brought up a lot. It lacks consent and is legitimately rape-y. But also, the fact that Regina is FORCED to marry King Leopold. Like Regina had now agency and no sense of consent for THAT. This is what makes Regina such a weird character. She has been horrifically abused by her mother, which as a viewer I have immense sympathy for her for that. However, she also contributes to that cycle of abuse by doing to others what was done to her. So, I have NEVER been ok with a lot of what she does, but I do understand where it all comes from. She was shown/taught from a very early age that this abuse of power was right and good and necessary. It does make it hard to judge her entirely on her own actions because those actions are based off of learned behavior. So, is she truly evil or is she just a means to and end for the story to get its own skewed ideals of power and concepts of good-and-evil across. Regina is basically reduced to n object, a blunt instrument for the writers to wield whenever they want. She's not a real character, she's a knife.

Next weird patter...so many of the villains are victims of abuse and come from impoverished backgrounds. Rumple, Cora, Zelena, Regina is only one generation removed from what we would call 'trailer trash', and even Killian comes from a lower class as a sailor before he became a pirate. These villains dare to strive above their station, they grasp at power because they know what it's like to have none, they are social climbers not because they want to rule the world, but because they want to have basic human respect. They want to be treated like people and not like gum on the bottom of one's shoe! The only villains I can think of that have power and wealth from the get go as villains are King George (but it's repeatedly stated in season 1 that he comes from a poor-er Kingdom compared to others) and the Snow Queen. There's Lady Tremaine, but considering which version, she's often credited for also being a social climber. And the only two characters I know that come from poverty/abuse that 'make it big' are Cinderella/Ashley Boyd (who is too dumb to live because she signs a contract with the most powerful man in all the realms without reading it! I never not be over this!) and Charming/David himself. But neither Cinderella nor Charming grasp for power. It is simply handed to them! They both conveniently marry into money/power! Coming from a working class background myself, it puts a bitter taste in my mouth when people use, for example, Rumple's background as further evidence that he's evil. Just because he dared to be more than what he was. One of my favorite quotes about systemic issues comes from "Ever After" (which got the concept from real-life author Thomas Moore), "If you suffer your people to be ill educated, and their manners corrupted from infancy, and those manners from which their first education disposed to them [education of life and society], than what is there to conclude that you first make the criminal and than punish them." And that is what it feels like for so many of the villains once this pattern is realized. Most especially for Rumple and Regina. Poverty, Abuse, and Social Circumstances created the villain and now, the very Fairytale Land society that created them, now gets to punish them. Over and over again.

That's it for now.

[frodo-with-glasses]

Dreams in the House of Tom Bombadil (and the Four Elements of Trauma)

Now that we've gotten to the point where the hobbits spend the night in Tom Bombadil's house, I'd like to expand on this bullet point from my chapter review:

Much apologies to my girlies on the server who headcanon the hobbits with phobias corresponding to the four elements; sadly, Tolkien is not on the same page as us this time.

For context, I present to you these screenshots of messages sent on the Fig Tree Discord Server back in January:

This started as a half-joke, but it's since evolved into something of a shared headcanon for some of us. Pippin has a Thing about fire, because of the Pyre of Denethor. Frodo has a Thing about water, because his parents drowned. Bri has since told me that she headcanons Merry has a Thing about air, specifically cold air, after his encounters with the Black Breath. And that leaves Earth to Sam.

The good news is that this is a really fun headcanon; and when you look at LotR through this lens, it's actually kind of staggering how well it fits with the events of the book.

The bad news is that Tolkien did not write LotR with this idea in mind; and the whole thing with Old Man Willow, and the subsequent nightmares that the hobbits have in Tom Bombadil's house, make that abundantly clear.

After all, what does Old Man Willow do to Frodo? Lulls him to sleep and then tips him face-first into the water. He almost drowns. He almost drowns. Sam finds him face-down in the water, unconscious, held down by a root and not struggling; there's water in his nose and his mouth and his eyes and ears and he can't breathe, he can't breathe, he nearly goes out the same way his parents did, in a river that connects to the one where they died. If Tolkien was writing Frodo with hydrophobia, this probably would've gotten a bit more attention than it did. But no; in Tom's house, Frodo dreams of Gandalf and Black Riders, because he's the protagonist and Tolkien needed an efficient way to foreshadow things a bit.

What does Old Man Willow do to Merry? Closes its roots over him, so that only his legs are sticking out; and when Frodo and Sam set fire to the tree, Merry screams, and begs them to put it out. "He'll squeeze me in two, if you don't. He says so!" He could feel the roots of the tree clamping like a vice under his ribs, squeezing, crushing, bruising; he could hear the voice of the tree in his head, demanding he communicate the ransom message. And as our beloved former anon, Meg, pointed out: Could he breathe in there? Was it dry and stuffy and stifling inside the tree? How much air could he even draw in, when his lungs were being crushed and had no space to expand? He screams with what little breath he has left, but can they hear him? He's going to die. He can't breathe. He's going to die.

But, ironically, he's the one who dreams about nearly drowning, and his dream-brain convinces him he's lying in a "soft slimy bog" before he wakes up and finds himself in Tom's house again. He's not the one who got tipped into the water, but go off Tolkien I guess.

What does Old Man Willow do to Pippin? Closes its roots over him completely, with a click like a lock snapping into place; and when Frodo and Sam set fire to the bark, and Old Man Willow gets angry, they can hear Pippin's "muffled yell" from deep inside the tree. Fire. Smoke and ash and anger. Could Pippin smell the burning wood around him? Could he feel any heat or sting? Did he hear Old Man Willow's voice, the same way Merry did, cursing the flames and threatening to smother him if it wasn't put out?

His nightmare, out of the three of them, is the only one that makes sense to me; he dreams that he is again inside the willow, hearing the wood creak as it sways in the breeze over him, and hearing the voice of the tree laughing at him again. But, sadly, no mention of fire.

All of that to say, if I wrote Lord of the Rings—which I realize is a terribly presumptuous thing to say given that I am, unlike Tolkien, Not A Genius, but hear me out—I definitely would have Frodo's nightmare be about drowning, Merry's be about suffocation, and Pippin's be about burning alive. This would then be foreshadowing for the later horrific stuff they're going to encounter concerning water, air, and fire respectively.

I dunno. It just seems like a missed opportunity is all. Which is probably why, despite how much I adore the “nightmares revealing inner turmoil and then characters waking up in safety and comfort” trope, I never really liked this sequence in the book all that much.

Sam, meanwhile, is welcome to continue sleeping “in deep content, if logs are contented". Good for him. 10/10, no notes.

[eurydicees]

WIP AMNESTY ASK GAME

the tldr: 

just send me a number 1-10 and i’ll post whatever i currently have of a wip that i'm struggling with, in the hopes of receiving feedback and encouragement <3

all other actual details for this under the cut!!!

some background: 

i know i literally posted a fic today lol but i’m starting to hit a block on a lot of the projects that i’ve been trying to work on and it’s driving me a little up the wall. overall i want to write but i’m feeling super demotivated about it. 

some of these projects are looking like they’re either never getting finished/posted or i need, like, MAJOR encouragement for them that i’m not getting if i don’t talk about them lol. 

i WANT to finish everything by the end of the year, or, you know, like before i die or whatever, but…look, writing is hard.  

details on the game: 

send me an ask with the number of a working title of a wip that you’re interested in, and i’ll post what i have on it! (titles are below)

i’ll post whatever i have, no matter what state of distress it’s in and no matter how little exists. this might be a few sentences, a half baked chapter, a bullet point outline, whatever. 

if what i have already is bigger than a reasonable length tumblr post, i’ll just ramble about it for a bit and then post a snippet or two of what exists. 

my hope is that by posting what i have, i’ll either feel more motivated to work on it or i’ll have enough closure that i can move on to other projects. so for these snippets, please feel free to leave constructive feedback, any encouragement, general love, whatever ideas you have for me to expand on in it, and/or any other comments!!!

(it would also be super fun if other people did this game with me btw…everyone is welcome to steal this idea and use it for themselves…pspspsps let’s all get motivated together…)  

ok finally! here are some of my working titles below (in no particular order): 

you be the leash to my wrists and i’ll be the collar to your neck (but one day we’ll both be free)

dreamsharing au part 6 

the ten thousand year ko (or: i confess that i have begun to desire being alive)

moffat and gatiss WISH they could have written fic like this 

a map of all our limitations 

[redacted fandom] character study re-writes to finally fucking post 

technicolor-verse 

that goddamn thing about cages that i’ve been trying to write for *checks notes* three years 

matchmaker matchmaker make me a match! / jane austen eat your heart out

be still my foolish heart don't ruin this on me or whatever hozier said

[clovers-housetree]

Baby Steps: Drinking Water!

This is the first installment in a series of posts I'd like to do expanding on some of the things I've talked about here (which- blew up by the way??? thank you all so much??? <3) and here!

Long intro/backstory to this post series below!!

I often tend to immediately tense up at the thought of handling a big upcoming project or tackling something I've procrastinated on or neglected to do, even adding things to my daily routine like brushing my teeth or wearing my retainer- even drinking water, since I've spent a majority of my time in my room just sitting, over the past few years.

I know I have different little posts 'n' such that talk about these things already, but I want to expand on things and get a little more in-depth on advice and things that have worked for me and helped me out!

This series is separate from everything else, though I'll probably list more things in other "regression activity lists" or scenes- You might see some of the same content in multiple posts, is what I'm trying to say- but I do that because different things work for different people, and I know regression in particular isn't all sunshine and rainbows for everyone. I want to try to appeal to a wider audience and learn more from the community, be a bigger part of the community so I can help people out, because that's something I enjoy.

My regression in particular is voluntary and solely for stress-relief, so to me, I kinda feel like I only know surface-level things about it, although I've been doing my research.

There may not be that much to it anyhow, I just-

I just wanna help people as best I can, I think. ^^; Which is why I'm so intent on interaction and explaining that I don't know everything but that I want to learn, so that I can help y'all out.

Anyway!!

★ This will probably be a repeat bullet point in this series, but if you have a device that can set alarms, maybe a timer of some sort- any kind of time-keeping device that dings in certain intervals, I'd recommend using it.

Alarms on your phone, timers, any little reminders you can make to help you with the things you struggle with, if you're like me and stuck sitting a lot or don't do much during the day (or are the complete opposite and do so much during the day) that you tend to neglect taking care of yourself.

★ Fill up or grab a water bottle whenever you start your day or are about to do something, and keep it with you! This way if you do end up thirsty, you don't have to stop what you're doing and worry about getting water, you'll already have it on you!

When it gets empty, that's what you've got your reminders for! Maybe every half hour or so to check how much water you've got and if you need to refill, or maybe make something as a reminder once the bottle's empty to refill, just so you've still got water and don't have to go back and forth to fill up a cup so often.

★ You could also put ice or fruit in your water! Different shapes or sizes, and whatever fruit (or veggie? I've heard cucumbers taste good!) you want if that sounds yummy! I like my water with lemon sometimes. -w-

I'm not recommending any sort of flavoring or those Cirkul water bottles with the flavor pods because I'm not sure how healthy or reliable they are, or how much sugar they have, stuff like that. If anyone has any info on those sorts of things they use and would recommend, please feel free to share!

Edit: Check the notes, we've got insight! Thank you to everyone for their input!! :3

★ You can customize your water bottle, sippy, bottle, bowl (for the pets!) with whatever you want! Maybe stickers, maybe a straw, you could get one with your favorite characters on it- make it fit and customizable so it works for you, have fun decorating it and make it something appealing to the eye so it might get you to take a sip!

If you have any other tips, feel free to share! ^w^

Know that I'll always be here for you if you need me, and I'm very proud of you for trying!

"Fluttershy protects this blog! SFW interaction only, please and thank you! ^w^"

"Wouldn't show a kid? Doesn't belong here!"

[babymetaldoll]

Are you mine - Chapter eight: "Every ending is a new beginning"

Summary: Spencer and his wife are starting to think about leaving the BAU after an unsub kidnaps a family member of the team. But instead, they make another choice for their family.   Warnings: Cursing, lots of violence ('cos it's a very dark case) kids in danger, sad moments.  Word count:  5.200 words A/N: I really feel sorry for Spencer and his wife. Life keeps getting harder and they don't have the guts to walk away from the FBI... honestly, I can relate to that. I wanna quit (SO BAD!!) but I can't.

Series' Masterlist - Author's masterlist

Previous chapter | Next chapter

Spencer's point of view

Over the years, there have been so many signs warning us we had to leave the BAU. I feel stupid and blind for ignoring them all along. One of the biggest warnings was Kate's case and all that happened to her niece, Meg. I never wanted to expose Raven to any of those threats. And yet, my whole family has always been at risk only by working at the BAU.

If only we had left on time.

Back then, Kate was pregnant and having trouble with her niece, who felt replaced by the baby. It wasn't weird, considering she was a teenager who had been through her share of family drama after her parents died when she was a baby. (Y/N) told me she even got a belly button piercing and asked Savannah, Derek's girlfriend, to check it when it got infected. It was clear she felt the baby was a threat and that Kate was going to it more than she loved her. Which, if you ask me, it's crazy. Kate would take a bullet for her niece, and she was more of a daughter than anything else.

The day Meg disappeared we were killing time before going home. We were at our desks eating leftover pizza from lunch. JJ and Derek were sitting around our desk, as my wife sat next to me and heard me rambling, as usual.

- "Although the observable universe is continually expanding, there's really no way of knowing if the whole thing is gonna ultimately collapse into one gargantuan black hole."- I said and looked at my crowd staring at me, confused.

- "Wow, there's actually something our little genius doesn't know."- Morgan teased me and JJ chuckled as Kate walked to us and sighed, exhausted.

- "I will tell you one thing for sure, my universe is expanding and it is pretty frickin' stormy. Gotta love nausea and vertigo."

- "Which is why I got you these."- (Y/N) quickly replied and handed her friend (yes, they were good friends) a bag with saltine crackers, ginger and lemon tea, and some jello.

- "You are a lifesaver."

- "What can I say? I know exactly how you are feeling."- Kate's phone beeped as we chewed our pizza and her face changed completely, and stepped from happy to worry in a second.

- "What's wrong?"- my wife asked her, noticing her change as well.

- "I'm not sure. It's Meg. Have a panic code, "pepper," and I just got a text from her saying "pepp."

- "Maybe it's just an accident?"- JJ suggested, but Kate dismissed it as she called her niece.

- "Damn it. Straight to voicemail."- and that's when (Y/N) stood up and walked to her friend, openly worried.

- "Meg still acting out?"- Morgan asked, but Kate didn't reply, she dialed again and started talking with a woman who I guessed was the mother of Meg's best friend. I looked at (Y/N) and her eyes were already on me. When you are a parent and you hear a kid is in danger, it hits you differently. No doubt about that.

- "Stay put. I'm gonna have agents there asap."- those were Kate's last words before she walked away from us. (Y/N) followed her quickly and I stood there wondering if Meg was just acting out because Kate was pregnant or if she was really in danger. I really hoped it was the first option. But we couldn't risk it, so I left my pizza and ran to Hotch's office to tell him what was going on. In a minute, he was gathering the team. We most likely had a case.

The next couple of hours were rough, to say the least. I watched Kate crumble and fight, and try to stay logical to help bring her kid back home. But it was hard for her, of course she was. Not only was she alone in her pregnancy, but she was also too involved in the case. Meg was her life. I don't think I could ever stay rational if anything ever happened to Raven.

Somehow, Hotch convinced Kate to stay at home and rest as we all teamed back at the BAU. That was when Kate told us via video conference she knew who had taken Meg and her friend, Markayla.

- "After we closed the Riverside torso case, I couldn't let it go, so I revisited the crime scenes and started asking questions." - she started explaining as she kept pacing in her room.

- "Aaron, you looked at that case, too, and the evidence indicated the torso killer was working alone."- Rossi pointed out.

- "Kate's working a different tangent."- Hotch explained

- "I also kept tabs on missing women."- Callahan continued talking- "There was a female jogger in Modesto, Eileen Banks, categorized as voluntarily missing, but oddly killed in a car accident a few weeks later all the way in Maryland. She was never autopsied."

- "How is that related to this?"- the C.A.R.D agent helping us asked, not getting where Kate was going.

- "She had been flirting online with a young new boyfriend before she ran off, but it was the same Bobby in that picture from Sam."- Callahan finally explained and sighed defeated by reality. Her eyes were desperate and her face filled with guilt and concern.

- "It must have been the same group that took the girls."- Morgan added - "If this is related to that case, then these abductors are mobile."

- "We'll get an emergency warrant, we'll exhume the jogger's body and do an autopsy."- Hotch commanded.

- "I'll expedite it with Judge Lynch."- the cop said.

- "They were taken because of me."- Kate was desperate - "I was getting close."

- "No, Katie. This is not your fault. You were just doing your job."- (Y/N) tried to comfort her, but it was an impossible task.

- "The unsub knew that grabbing an FBI agent's daughter would bring a firestorm down upon him."- I pointed out, but I don't know if it was what anyone wanted to hear.

- "He's an extreme risk-taker."- JJ added before Garcia interrupted her with the news.

- "Ok, I got the 411 on this Bobby photo. It originated 6 years ago. The guy's name is Sven Sorensen, from Sweden. He's now 25. He still lives in Europe."

- "They used the picture to lure the girls."- Kate kept walking across her room like she was being held in a cage.

- "Whoever did this is most likely not a pedophile, but rather a preferential adult offender and long-term child abductor."- I pointed out, trying to give her some comfort. At least Meg wasn't in the hands of a child abuser.

- "But he targeted the girls."- JJ seemed confused.

- "Only because Kate was targeting him."- (Y/N) explained and we all made a long pause. It didn't look good. I held (Y/N)'s hand tight and she looked at me, fighting the tears in her eyes.

Hotch ended the video call with Kate and asked her to get some rest, for Meg and the baby. I was sure she wasn't going to be able to do such a thing, as a parent, you are alert 24/7 when it comes to your kids.

- "Not only did they wipe the girls' devices clean, but they also went after Kate because she was digging into missing person cases."- I pointed out as we kept looking at the files of the investigations Callahan had done.

- "Because Kate was onto something." - JJ added, which if I can say, was pretty much obvious.

- "Yeah, this isn't some loner who wants to keep girls in a dungeon. This feels like trafficking."- Morgan verbalized what we were all thinking, but neither wanted to say.

- "That's the worst-case scenario."- the agent from the C.A.R.D team said and we all nodded.

- "Well, if it is trafficking, the upside is we've got a better chance of finding the girls alive."- Hotch murmured, clearly affected. My wife sighed and looked at him.

- "That if they don't sell them first."- there was a thick silence in the room after (Y/N) said those words. - "I know we all know Meg and this is hard for everybody in the team. But he has to try to stay objective and honest about our chances. And we know if they don't comply, they'll be beaten into submission or killed if they try to escape. So, what's the plan?"

(Y/N)'s point of view

We got a call an hour later, which was more like a miracle than anything else. Meg's friend, Markayla, had managed to escape and was transferred to the nearest hospital. Hotch asked me to go with him and talk to her and her mother. The minute I stood in front of that poor teenager my heart ached. She didn't have to go through that at that age. Not then, not ever. How can we protect our kids from all the evil around us? I kept asking myself that day, and I still haven't gotten the answer.

- "Hi Markayla, I'm agent Reid, this is Agent Hotchner. We work with Kate and we are helping her find Meg."

I introduced us because I was the less threatening person for a traumatized teenager, all things considered. I kept my phone in my hand the entire time. Kate was at the other end, she needed to hear what had happened and how Meg was holding up.

- "He killed him."- Markayla whispered, looking frightened and still shocked.- "He killed him right in front of me."

- "It's ok, Markayla."- I assured her in my sweetest voice. -"You're ok now. But we need to know, who were you meeting at the library?"

- "It was supposed to be Bobby."- she whispered, embarrassed.- "We were talking to him for a few months online. He seemed so cool. He said he had tickets to the 4for1 concert tonight, but he got stuck at work, so his mom picked us up instead."

- "And she was driving the van?"- Hotch asked her and Markayla nodded.

- "Yes. And she seemed nice, too, until we started asking about Bobby."

- "And what did she do?"- I questioned.

- "She locked the doors. Suddenly this guy popped up from the back and stabbed us in the neck."

- "Can you describe either of them?"- Hotch was asking the impossible but we depended on anything we could get from that poor kid.

- "They were white with brown hair. The creepy guy they gave us to had a wide face."- Makayla said, her eyes filling with fear just by remembering their faces.

- "I'll get a sketch artist."- the C.A.R.D. agent said, but Markayla started mumbling.

- "We had a plan."

- "What was the plan?"- I moved closer and cut her a simple smile.

- "Meg said Kate taught her what to do. Told me that if they tried to hurt us, we could buy time, role-play, get into their heads. That if they moved us, she'd distract them. That was our best opportunity, I had to escape and get help."

Tears ran down Markayla's cheeks as she remembered everything Meg had instructed her. I could only imagine how was Kate on the other side of the phone, hearing that conversation.

- "That's right. Kidnappers are most vulnerable at transfer points."- I assured her. - "Meg was doing the right thing."

- "Did the older man say anything about where he was taking you?"- Hotch asked her and she shook her head.

- "No, he just said he had plans for us. And then I ran. And that's when he shot the younger guy for losing me."- Markayla bit her lips as her chin quivered and she broke into tears- " Look, I didn't want to leave Meg, but she said you guys would never stop looking for her. That's what she said."- the poor girl sobbed and hugged her mother, who cried along with her. I excused myself that minute and left the room.

- "Did you get all that, Kate?"

- "I told Meg everything."- she sobbed at the other side of the line.- "I told her about sadists and that the only way to undermine them was to not show fear."

- "You taught her well, Kate. She can get through this."- I assured her because that was all we had to think about while we did our job, that we were going to save Meg.

On our way back to the BAU, I called Mikey. It was late, but I knew he would be up.

- "Nugget, how is work?"- he asked as soon as he picked up the phone. - "Please tell me you found the girls."

- "One, she managed to escape. But Meg is still missing. How is everything at home?"

- "Birdie is fast asleep. We had dinner at seven, then a warm bath and straight to bed. I'm watching her from the baby monitor and I'm pretty sure she is snoring, just like you do."- I smiled and sighed at the image of my baby resting safe and sound in her crib.

- "Thank you for taking care of her, Mikey."

- "Any time, Nugget."

- "I'll talk to you in the morning, my mom should be there around seven. I don't know if we'll have time to stop by in the morning to shower. We could just work until we find Meg."

- "Ok, I'm gonna try to get some sleep, but I'll call you or doc if anything happens. Which won't', 'cos uncle Mikey is here."

I took mental notes to get Mikey, Frank, Lu, and Mom a special gift to thank them for always taking care of Raven while we were gone. They were the ones we could always count on.

Back at the BAU, we delivered the profile to the police force while Rossi and JJ talked with the media. After the autopsy of the voluntarily missing runner, we analyzed the cases across the country and came to the worst conclusion about the unsubs.

- "This is sex slavery"- Hotch sighed. - "They are selling victims to serial killers."

Like we needed things to get even worse.

- "The operation's actually simple."- Hotch continued talking. - "The killers get to live out their fantasies, and in exchange for supplying the victims, the brokers make them agree to a disposal method."

- "This way he and his team are insulated from the investigation."- Rossi added as Aaron nodded.

- "Just like in the torso case, the behavior and forensics of the kills will only lead us to the customer who actually did the killing, not the broker."- Spencer pointed out and I nodded along.

- "Exactly. And he's smart enough to protect his network by encrypting all communication with his customers."

- "So if we can capture a killer while he's online, then Garcia can hack his system and lead us right to Meg."- Morgan suggested and I nodded one more time.

- "Just say the word."- Pen replied immediately, ready to search down the entire web to find Meg.

- "Garcia, the accident that killed the jogger in Modesto, Eileen Banks, who hit her?"- Hotch asked and she quickly typed.

- "Uh, Marcus Townsen hit the car over the embankment. He was admitted for minor injuries and then released."

- "Can you give us his background?- I asked as Garcia nodded and kept typing.

- "Searching munchkin. Holy heck, his license, registration, and insurance are all bogus."

- "Well, if it was a car crash, they would have checked his blood alcohol level at the hospital."- JJ said and Morgan added

- "Garcia, run the DNA of that blood sample through CODIS."- and that's when Penelope gasped.

- "Ok, he's on a sex offender registry. His real name is Miles Hendrick. He started off stalking a neighbor's kid and got busted in the elementary school bathroom."

- "Now he's graduated to this. Where does he live now?"- Rossi asked.

- "Largo, Maryland."

- "Let's go."- Hotch commanded as we all stood up quickly. - "Rossi, Morgan, and JJ, we'll send you the address. Reids, you are staying here."

- "I'm gonna call Kate. If we are worried, I can't imagine what she is feeling like."- I grabbed my phone and walked to my desk. It was already night, Meg had been missing for over 24 hours now. I didn't want to run the probabilities of her safety.

Spencer's point of view

When we heard from the team, they had Hendrick and Hotch immediately asked Garcia to break into his computer. Which turned into something harder to do than we imagined. While she tried to get the info from his browser, Morgan and Rossi were breaking Hendrick, getting all the info they could. In the end, he admitted to buying the girl he murdered and gave them the info Garcia needed to hack into his system.

- "Sweet mother gross."- Garcia scrolled down the screen and watched hundreds of pictures of kidnapped girls and women, ready to be sold. - "It's like Tinder for sociopaths."

- "They're selling women all over the country."- I stared at the screen disgusted as my wife stood next to me in silence.

- "Do you see Meg anywhere?"- Hotch asked as we all glued our eyes to the screen

- "Wait, wait, wait. Go back."- (Y/N) asked Penelope and pointed a picture. - "That's her. He dyed her hair."

- "She has been sold."- Garcia murmured in horror.

- "Can you tell to whom?"- Hotch demanded

- "No, 'cause the firewall's worse than the other one and I'm upset and I need help focusing!"- it was clear, Garcia was nearly having a meltdown.

- "What about the IP address? That should lead us back to the broker."- Hotch kept his head in the case and didn't even hesitate. He could remain cold-headed even at the worst times.

- "Yes, yes, very good, sir."- Garcia was typing as if her life depended on it. - "There it is! His name's Alex Zorgen. He's in Oakton, Virginia, and he's on his computer right now."

When the team came back with Zorgen and his partner, Paige, the interrogation began. Luckily, Hotch left me and (Y/N) to work together with the partner. She was broken, Zorgen had kidnapped her, tortured her, and raped her for years, but still refused to talk. Until we told her the truth about what had happened to her son, and how Zorgen had killed him. (Y/N) sat across the table from her and described how the man who had ruined her life had also taken her kid's.

Finally, Paige gave us all the info we needed, and Penelope was able to trace the IP address and give us Meg's location. And while the team drove to rescue Meg, me and my wife sat with Paige as she listed all the other serial killers who had been buying girls to torture and kill through the years. The list was surprisingly long, but it allowed to rescue over fifteen women.

(Y/N) was on the phone with Kate as I gathered all our things from our desks, ready to finally go home and get some rest with our daughter. That was when I caught JJ eating saltine crackers and raised an eyebrow.

- "Not you too!"- and she turned around, smiling, completely busted.- "Am I getting another godson?"

- "Probably"- she replied and grinned. - "Or maybe goddaughter."- I smiled and congratulated her, I loved the idea of our BAU family expanding.

- "I can't wait to tell (Y/N)! She is gonna be thrilled!"

And she was. We were all happy JJ was having another baby, but those news were soon overshadowed by the news of Kate's departure from the team. It hit (Y/N) pretty hard, she was her friend, her close friend, and of course, it made her feel incredibly sad. I guess it's a recurrent thing at the BAU, you get close to people and then, they leave.

We understood Kate, though. You can't continue doing a job when it jeopardizes your whole family.

After a few days, we were in our living room after Raven's bedtime. We were both sitting on the couch, reading in silence, an Ella Fitzgerald record playing as quiet background noise, until I heard her whisper what until then seemed to be the unthinkable.

- "Do you think we would ever leave the BAU?"

It took me by surprise that she'd ask me that. I can't lie, the subject had been in my mind for the last couple of weeks, but I guess I didn't think she'd be wondering something as important and huge as that.

- "I do."- I closed my book and looked at her. She seemed worried. - "When we are ready to take that step."

- "I don't wanna wait until something like what happened to Kate and Meg happens to us to leave."- she added and I held her hand, moving closer to her on the couch and feeling her cuddling against me.

- "I would never forgive myself if our kids are ever in danger only because of what we do for a living."

- "Don't think that ma cherie."- I kissed the top of her head and caressed her hand in mine. - "Nothing will happen to Raven or any future kid we have. They will always be happy and healthy, and we will take incredibly good care of them."

- "Promise me?"- she pouted and looked at me with her big beautiful eyes.

- "I promise."- she sighed and cuddled on my chest as I held her tight and closer to me.

- "And what would we do if we weren't Federal Agents?"- I heard her whisper a few minutes later.

- "I think I'd like teaching."

- "You'd be a great teacher. The hot teacher I would have had a crush on."- I smiled and kissed her head again.

- "Would you be my student?"

- "Hell yeah! Though I can't guarantee I'd ever learn anything. I'd be too busy staring at you."- I chuckled and watched her grinning at me for a moment before I asked.

- "What would you like to be? If you weren't with the FBI?"

- "I have no idea."- she whispered and sighed. - "What can I do with a PhD in Sociolinguistics?"

- "You can always teach, write books, work on research... what would you like?"

- "I honestly don't know."

- "You could be a stay-at-home mom if you want."- I don't know why I suggested that if I knew that had never been her dream. And I continued talking the minute I noticed her eyebrow raising as she stared at me. - "I mean if you want to take some time off and think about what you want to do. I don't wanna rush you."

- "I understand. I just don't picture myself waiting for you at home every day, like a 50's housewife."

- "In that fantasy, are you dressed like one?"- I joked and made her chuckle immediately.

- "You are a dirty boy, Dr. Reid."

- "You started, with the whole professor, student thing."

- "I was just being honest, you are being dirty."- she chuckled as I leaned and kissed her. It was the first time we ever talked about leaving the BAU, but trust me, it wasn't the last.

(Y/N)'s point of view

Though the thought of leaving the BAU had been a serious issue after what happened to Kate and her family, soon another idea invaded my entire being: baby fever.

JJ was pregnant again and her second pregnancy had been amazing. She was glowing and looking like a model with her tiny baby bump, though she was already over 33 weeks pregnant. She had gone with us on cases until she was six months old, and she barely had any symptoms. No morning sickness, no weird over-the-top cravings. It was the perfect pregnancy. And suddenly having a second kid seemed like the thing to do.

- "Everything looks great, (Y/N)."- Savannah, Derek's girlfriend, said as she looked through some of my medical exams and smiled at me. - "You are ready to start trying for a new baby, Dr. Reid."

- "That's still confusing."

- "I'm pretty sure you and Spencer know how to make a baby,"- she joked and I chuckled.

- "I mean the "Dr. Reid" part. It's confusing enough when Hotch calls us both Reid at work, adding the Doctor to it makes it impossible to tell us apart."- Savannah laughed as we both stood up and walked to each other. She wrapped her arms around me and gave me my exams back.

- "You just have to relax. Are you two planning any vacation soon?"

- "With this work and a toddler? Wish us luck!"- my cell phone rang and my friend simply sighed, staring at me as I read the screen.

- "I know what that sound means."

- "Duty calls. Thank you for helping me, Sav."

- "Anytime. Call me next weekend for brunch, double dates with little Raven are always fun, and it helps Derek get used to being around kids."

- "Are you two planning to add a little Morgan to the party?"- I nearly beamed at the thought, but Savannah shook her head as she continued smiling.

- "Not yet, but I like that he gets used to the idea."

- "Raven loves her uncle Morgan, so count us in."

Yes, Morgan, Savannah, me, and Spencer started double dating. I don't know when it happened, or why it happened. I just know it was a thing. And it made it pretty obvious we were drifting from being with JJ. Why? I don't know, but something started feeling off at some point. Besides, Morgan and Sav were adorable, funny, and more like us. The "siblings" relationship going on between Derek and my husband made things incredibly fun. It felt like hanging out with family, not friends.

During the months to follow we were deep into work. We had lost Kate, and we had JJ staying in Quantico for the last weeks of her pregnancy, so it was all down to Hotch, Derek, Morgan, Spencer, and me. Even Garcia started coming with us when the cases needed it.

Being two teammates down meant we were swamped with work, which sadly also meant we didn't have as much time as we'd like to be at home with Raven. Our baby daughter had already turned two years old, and she was growing up so fast. She was brave and loved climbing every game at the park near our apartment. Mikey and Frank would take her there at least twice every week. She loved baking with my mom and eating everything they created together. They would sometimes wait for us with homemade cookies or cupcakes.

On the weekends, we played a lot. On the weekends we were at home, of course. Spencer took her out every Saturday morning for their "father and daughter exclusive time." He started doing it the first week she was born, and it was his way to let me sleep and rest a little every Saturday morning. They would walk to the park and play. Sometimes they went to the bookstore and picked out new bedtime stories. But they would always come back home with some delicious breakfast to share with me.

But if you ask me now, I regret wasting so many weekends chasing serial killers. Weekends I could have spent with my baby girl, teaching her how to bake cookies, or taking pictures as she climbed every game in the park. Instead, I got the pictures our family sent us, while we were anywhere else, trying to make the world a better place for them.

- "Mommy? Can't sleep."- Raven woke me up one night, standing right next to me. I quickly opened the bed and she climbed until she was laid next to me.

- "Come here birdie, did you have a bad dream?"

- "No."- she whispered and clung onto me, as her tiny hands rubbed my cheeks.- "I miss you, Mommy."- my heart broke with those words.

- "I'm right here with you now, birdie."

- "But you go."

- "I won't go. I promise. I'll always be there for you."

Spencer's arms around us let me know he was hearing the entire conversation. He kissed the back of my neck and caressed Raven's hair as she slowly drifted back to sleep. My heart ached to think my daughter could ever think I might ever leave her. The saddest part was knowing if Hotch or Garcia called us, we would have to leave.

- "When JJ comes back, we should take a few days off."- I whispered and Spencer hummed in agreement.

We never did. We couldn't. But I wish we did.

A few weeks later, JJ had her second son, Michael. And the team welcomed a new member: Tara Lewis. She was funny and smart, and she had the best comebacks every time Morgan teased her. I loved her from the first day. She also made me miss Prentiss like crazy. That's why Spencer and I talked about it and decided Emily would be the godmother of our next kid. As a way to force her to visit more often.

Nearly four months later, Spencer and I sat on the edge of our bathtub, waiting for the result of a pregnancy test. I was already over ten days late, but still tried not to get my hopes high. Spencer was grinning like a little kid on Christmas morning. The alarm on my phone went off, and the two of us stayed still for another few seconds.

- "Ready to find out if we are gonna be parents again, Mrs. Reid?"- Spencer asked me, and I giggled nervously.

- "Would you do the honors, Dr. Reid?"- I replied as we stood up at the same time and walked to the sink. Spencer grabbed the test and turned it around. In a matter of seconds, his eyes filled with tears as the warmest smile lodged on his lips.

- "It's positive"- he whispered and wrapped his arms around me right away, and I started laughing, feeling tears of happiness rolling down my cheeks, as he held me tight against his body.

- "Really, honey bunny?"

- "Yes, chipmunk. We are gonna be parents again!"- Spencer kissed me sweetly as I could barely contain my happiness. Until one thought froze me.

- "Now... how are we telling Raven?"- I looked at Spencer, and he opened his mouth, but surprisingly, no word came from it. - "Yeah, that's what I thought."- I chuckled and shook my head- "Come on, let's get dressed before our baby wakes up."

Wanna know how Spencer and his wife told Raven? Read the one shot here.

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[idontmindifuforgetme]

Hi Cianna, just wanted to say I really admire your study ethic and general vibe on this blog (you inspire me to do better!)

Do you have any advice/tips for good study habits and staying focused? I find that I get some work done, but after a break I can't get back on track

Sorry for the long ask/ studyblr type of question;; what is your favourite hairstyle that you do with your hair! (I also have curly brown hair :)

Have a lovely day also <3

🌻🌻

hi! i touch on a lot of points in this other ask, but a few specific learning techniques i abide by are:

parkinson's law. parkinson's law states that work expands to fill the time. basically if you have an essay that's due in a week, it will magically take you one week to get it done, even if the task itself could've been done in one day. to counter this i just set artifical deadlines for myself--even if an essay is due in a week, my personal deadline has it due in two days.

prime your brain prior to learning. if you need to study a biology chapter, pre-skim it the night before. this is not the time to go into detail--it's the time to familiarize yourself with the overview of the topic, so you should only be making a quick scan of the chapter. another priming method is to make a concept map of topics before diving into a chapter. as you skim write down key terms haphazardly, google those you don't recognize, and draw a concept map linking them together. this is effective bc it requires you to actually put effort into connecting the topics, takes no longer than 15 minutes, and speeds up the learning process that follows. it doesn't matter if you find out you're wrong once you dive in; what's important is you're actively thinking of how these topics coexist, as opposed to mindlessly taking notes or highlighting only to forget what you learned a couple hours later. i'm also a fan of concept maps bc i get to go back and highlight stuff i'm weak in, which is always a plus.

if you like to take notes, use it as another means of active recall. don't just passively take notes as you go along. what i like to do is i read a paragraph, close the book, then try to take down notes based off memory alone. this helps me both phrase the topic in my own words and realize what my learning gaps are, rather than just passively summarize without putting effort into truly understanding/memorizing something. anything i get wrong i hammer into my brain until i can't get it wrong anymore.

take notes effectively. our brain does not learn in sentences and paragraphs. it learns in bullet points, diagrams, and figures--and that's how i like to frame my notes. first i ask myself if i actually need to take notes to begin with, or if there are online notes out there i can use to save time (which, as a stem student, there typically are). if i do decide to take notes, i never mindlessly summarize. i always condense the material into bullet points, diagrams, concept maps, or visual representations. i also like to phrase my notes as questions rather than just passive summaries, so that when i review them i'm already testing myself in a way. most people would not understand my notes bc they're either very low-yield stuff, stuff i'm weak in, or bare-bones fragments of information.

always prioritize weaknesses. if you're weaker at chapter 18 of your textbook vs chapter 1, maybe start with chapter 18. don't spend 6 hours taking notes on chapter 1 if you're already strong in chapter 1. always attack your weaknesses first.

practice practice practice!! so so important. i owe all my As to mock exams, quizzes i make myself, end-of-chapter questions etc etc. imo practice matters a lot more than passive content review.

interleaving concepts helps with retention. an example of this is i like to do biology and chemistry one day, biochemistry and organic chemistry the next day, physics and psychology the day after... i'm not just doing biology all day, every day. another thing i like to do if i'm in a massive rut is i hop between tons of different subjects on the same day, which keeps me from getting bored/helps me understand the subjects better through distinguishing their differences.

retrospective timetable. an example of this is if i find i'm pretty weak in a particular physics topic, the next few days will disproportionately focus on physics over other subjects. inversely, if i just breezed through a biology chapter, the next few days will have less biology than initially planned. i'm constantly going back and revising my study timetable based on my performance of the day, rather than relying on a rigid prospective timetable that doesn't take into account my progress.

less passive learning, more active. spaced repetition is a big one. i love anki for this bc there's an algorithm that dictates how often topics come up again based on how well you answer them. other methods include active recall, having friends quiz you, and trying to teach the topic to others (or the plushie in your bedroom haha). if you find you're struggling to simplify topics and explain them, that's a sign you don't understand them very well yourself.

[koreanbibliophilegirl]

(Previous)

Okay so I think the magical girl weapons would be made from a special metal, one that's only found near the magic mineral growths.

The metal reacts by expanding when it comes into contact with the mineral when it's activated & is starting a magical chemical magi-chemical reaction. It can be fine-tuned by making alloys, so some parts expand more and some parts expand only a little bit. The scientists make each of the magical girl boys(?) specialized weapons.

Techno has one of those double-chain necklace things, with his gem and a tiny model of a sword/axe combo(I have a basic design & mechanism in mind, I'll add a diagram to a reblog later- if I do manage to draw something) hanging from it. I was gonna give Tommy a bracelet that can be separated into two parts to make a pair of nunchucks, but the option of making him a Murder Maid(yknow, that trope of super-competent maid assassins) is looking increasingly attractive. Should I give him a gun instead... hmmm. As I mentioned before with bows and arrows though, bullets would be hard to refill during battle. Hm. :/ I still wanna see Tommy pull a Moechakkafire though. Maybe he keeps stealing("temporarily borrowing") a gun from somewhere nearby? BBH absolutely freaks out of course. Not bc of firearms usage though, only the stealing. BBH is fine with guns. He even gives lots of helpful tips! Anyway this keeps happening, and the scientists end up having to make Tommy a gun of his own.

Phil might have a katana, usually hidden as a hat charm? Or just kept inside the rim of his hat? Ranboo has short swords or daggers hidden inside pom-poms that are made of thin, narrow strips of the expanding metal. Usually disguised as- either a choker(while folded up) or a pom-pom keychain. They specifically requested pom-poms to go with their cheerleader outfit. He's very committed to the bit. (TBH I think Ranboo should be the one who's most invested in the magical girl thing. Maybe magical girl animangas still exist in-universe? Like how they still exist in <I Don't Wanna Be A Magical Girl>.) Tubbo gets.... clubs? A warhammer? Ooh he's an inventor, a warhammer might be a good fit. He keeps it in his belt to use as an actual hammer when he's not using it as a deadly weapon.

Oh oh I guess the crew would need magical girl powers too! They all get increased stamina, strength, speed, recovery speed, etc. and enhanced senses, but specific gems should give specific powers. Techno's gives him pinpoint accuracy(for the honor aspect) and healing abilities(both for himself and for others- for the bravery and mercy/kindness aspect). Healer Techno pog. Tubbo can fly(for freedom) and has a kind of instant analysis power, that lets him do things like immediately knowing what material was used for a doorframe, or estimate how many people are in the room by analyzing the sounds coming from inside(for the discovery part). Ranboo's solidarity and teamwork is... mind-reading and telepathy? Like, knowing what other people are thinking & talking inside their heads. Ranboo could be the communication line/information scout for the gang. Tommy's self-expression and confidence is, hm, vocal projection(like Present Mic from BNHA/MHA) and light manipulation? bc ✨️Shiny✨️™️, and also he could probably make things invisible or make illusions by making light bend around things/bounce outwards despite nothing being there. Phil's justice/peace/prosperity would be.... making plants and lifeforms grow...? Okay I've been getting into JJBA and this just sounds like Gold Experience. How about I just let Phil control the life cycle of living things. Rewind, fast-forward, stop and loop.

....Let's say the priestess whose wishes grew the green gem had a very specific philosophy on justice and 🍨 okay, that emoji was a typo, but that ice cream next to the word "justice" reminded me of the phrase "just deserts". How about if the priestess believed everyone would get their just deserts in time, so that's why the green gem can manipulate life cycles. So that can be justice/peace/prosperity all at once, but let's say Phil also has some degree of foresight. Nothing specific is given, but it's enough to tell a little bit of what might happen.

[midnight-mourning]

Good morning, mourning! is it possible for you to show us how you make an outline for writing a chapter sometime in the future? like what does your first rough rough draft look like?🤔

also whats your favorite vine/meme at the moment?🫣

Hi pip!!

I can actually show you RIGHT NOW as I keep all my outlines (for the most part) saved in their respective chapters

*added a read more post-answering bc this got LONG lol*

So, it's sometimes a bit dependent on the fic, what I'm writing at the time, and where I'm at in the process. I usually have two different methods I stick to and typically combine in some manner:

bulleted list of important scenes/ideas to expand out upon from there (typically how I start out ideas for oneshots)

big blurb paragraph of a flow of ideas from start to finish (typically how I start out chapter-based fics, and what I do for Confused Spirit)

From there, I'll then combine the two methods in some way if it's a oneshot, and if I'm struggling to get the words flowing for a chapter-based fic, I'll use the list to expand out upon things I wrote originally. For example, this was ch. 34's outline (spoilers for those who haven't read it yet):

and then the list I added once I got started properly, which I crosssed out as I went along. Fun fact, you can see where I hit a moment of greatness in that last bullet and the chapter came together as a whole from there:

the blacked out is things I've pushed back for later (or just general spoiler stuff), so you can see that inital plans and even those I make WHILE writing the chapter are still subject to change as I go into actually writing it. Another good example would be from ch. 32:

in this case, I went back and added to the original outline (I think you can tell where lmao) and didn't utilize a list

I'd love to find chekov's gun, bc that one was REALLY good if I'm remembering correctly but I think it's buried somewhere in the Dialogue Dump unfortunately 😔

Adding on to that, I write a lot of scene ideas/mainly dialogue for things that happen in the future as the ideas don't typically come to me in chronological order. the party from 33? like a month into writing the story. the team meeting Michael? mid-arc 2. Chekov's gun? the start to midway point in the first couple days of writing and then basically finished within by the middle of august (started in July for those that don't know)

My point being that there's a lot of things that I have saved for certain arcs/plot points that I then insert into their proper place in the story once I find where that is. For arc 3 in particular I took the approach of gathering all the dialogue i KNOW was going to be in the arc, wrote my lil blurbs for all the chapters, and then started placing them accordingly. stuff has (and probably will continue to) gotten shuffled around, but for the most part has stayed in their original places.

a rough rough draft beyond that is basically adding to those base scene ideas (sometimes in order, sometimes not) typically writing dialogue and then filling in the blanks from there! sometimes if I'm lucky I can write a chapter from (mostly) start to finish in a span of four hours or so but that's only when i'm REALLY cookin'

Sorry for the super long winded response, didn't realize how much I wrote until I did it 😅

TL;DR, blurb of ideas, organize those ideas/add to them or adjust, full send it from there (with the potential help of some dialogue along the way)

As for my fav vine/meme currently? Probably the lump fish guy, everytime someone says 'very mindful, very demure' (I am not on tiktok so I do NOT understand this one) I instantly think 'very beautiful, very powerful'

thanks so much for the lovely ask!!! <3 <3 <3

[wikipediapictures]

Updated submission guide!

Hello, and welcome to wikipediapictures! This blog is not run by a bot; I am a human, and I select every photo and tag each post that you will see here (except submissions). Part of what helps me run this blog and continue posting content is your submissions and suggestions. Because I love to see what you guys can find in the vast collections of Wikimedia Commons and Wikipedia articles, I have created this new and improved submission guide!

If you read all this and decide it's too much work, that is A-okay! You can always shoot me an ask with a topic or article title that you'd like me to post from. Now, with all of that out of the way, let's get started.

1. Choose an image

Maybe you want to contribute, but you don't have a specific image in mind and aren't quite sure what to look for. Not to worry, there are plenty of ways to find something you like! If you have an image picked out already, perfect--you can skip past the next 3 bullet points.

Wikipedia Main Page - This is a great place to start! There are a variety of daily topics and images that can help spur your imagination ("Today's featured picture", "On this day", "Did you know...", etc.) Just click on one and start exploring!

Wikipedia app (Google Play and iOS) - Wikipedia's app is great for reading and has a variety of features that are designed to help you explore new content. In particular, the "Random Article" feature located on the homepage will help you discover topics, people, and places that you have probably never heard of before. Personally, this is my favorite feature to use when I'm not feeling particularly imaginative, and I utilize it a lot when I'm mass-queueing posts.

Wikimedia Commons - Just searching Commons is great when you basically know what you're looking for but haven't decided on anything specific. Or maybe you find an article on a topic that really interests you, but it doesn't have pictures or the pictures aren't good examples of the topic. Chances are, searching Commons for the subject you want will get you some great results. Some of the best posts I have here are photos that I (or my followers) found by just searching Commons until I saw something I liked!

Before moving on, please check if I have posted your photo before! Statistically it isn't very likely, as there are nearly 100 million photos on Commons, but I have posted many photos from popular articles and commonly searched categories. I tag pretty aggressively, so you should be able to find what you are looking for by utilizing the search function on my blog. For example, if you wanted to submit an image from the Wikipedia article titled "Moon", searching that keyword on my blog will get you these results.

I reserve the right to not post any submissions that I recieve. I haven't had to veto anything yet, but as a rule I won't post any overtly sexual or NSFW content.

2. Saving your photos from Wikimedia Commons

No matter where you found your image, you will need to save the original file that is hosted on Wikimedia Commons. I know this is a bit confusing, but bear with me! Chances are, the photo you see in the article has been compressed. By going back to the source file on Commons, you can save the highest resolution version and locate the photo description that was posted with it, which you will need for the next steps. Here are step-by-step instructions on how to do that on desktop/mobile browser and the app.

If you found your photo by searching Commons, just click/tap the "More details" button located at the very bottom of the expanded view of your image and follow steps 3-4.

Desktop/mobile browser:

1. Go to your article of choice and left-click or tap on the image you wish to use.

2. Left-click or tap on the "More details" button on the bottom right hand side of the page. On the mobile site it will just say "Details".

3. You are now viewing the file preview. Underneath the image, left-click or tap on the link that says "Original file" (highest resolution).

4. You are now viewing the full-resolution Wikimedia Commons file. Right-click or hold down on the image to save it to your computer/camera roll. You can now move on to the next section!

App (I have iOS, but it should be the same on Android OS):

1. Go to your article of choice and tap on the image you want.

2. Tap or double-tap the information icon in the bottom right hand corner (circle with a lowercase “i” inside it). After this point, the steps are the same as 3-4 in the section above.

3. Formatting your submission

So you have a photo you want to submit, perfect! Now's the time to format your post. Start by opening a new submission and selecting your chosen photo fom your computer or phone camera roll. Take a quick look at what I have on my blog and you will notice a pattern of how I like to format things. There are a few important parts to consider: the caption title, the link, image description, and tags.

Caption title: if you are submitting a photo you sourced from an article, the post caption should be the title of the article. If the photo is not in an article, just use the file title that you see on Commons. Here is an example of a photo sourced from an article, and here is an example of a photo sourced from Commons. You might ask, "Well, why not just link everything from Commons if they all originate there?" The main reason is that I like providing context, which is what referencing the article does. Most photos on Commons arent in any articles, so there isn't an alternative.

Link: Same as with the caption, if you are sourcing from an article, link the article. If you are sourcing from Commons, link back to Commons. Please view the source links for the two posts I just mentioned in the previous bullet point to see what I mean.

Description: ALWAYS use the description from the original file as it appears on Wikimedia Commons, regardless of where you sourced the image. This is because an image description in a Wikipedia article can be changed to anything the editor wants independently of what the original file description said, and oftentimes those descriptions are wrong. You can find this description under the image when you are viewing the file on Commons; just copy and paste the description into the body of the submission underneath the linked caption and finish it off with " - via Wikimedia Commons". If this description is the same as the file title or only slightly different (like in the moon post linked above) feel free to leave it out.

Tags: You don't have to tag with relevant tags if you don't want to, though it definietly helps. The automatic tags are sufficient and you've already contributed a lot just by choosing to submit!

4. Hit "Submit" and wait for me to review and post it!