#dont worry. this is not the end of it. it gets worse

[1800-lemonadeg1rl]

Sleepless nights

Natasha Romanoff x reader

Minors dni!! Masterlist°•☆

Summary - you go on a routine mission which ends badly how will your girlfriend react

Warnings - gunshots, violence, bullet wounds, mention of stitches, likely medically incorrect, blood, hospital? Not proofread

word count - 1.5k

A/n - I dont know what happened while writing this its all a blackout. As always any feedback is rlly appreciated!!!

It was just supposed to be another simple routine mission. Over and done with in a matter of hours. But of course nothing was ever as easy as predicted.

It had all been going with relative ease until you and Clint were fighting off agents left and right. Something you were usually both good at. However where you'd found yourselves was very much enclosed meaning you couldn't run and you had no idea how many or where these agents were coming from. Your backs were against each other as you moved in circular motions around the room.

"You did this you know, everything was going just fine until you said 'wow this mission has been quite the breeze.'" You mimick Clints earlier words in a squeaky high pitched voice while taking out a couple agents. "Couldn't have just waited till we were on the quinjet could you?"

"Look I really thought it was over. At least I wasn't the one who knocked over the vase alerting everyone in the Tri-state area of our location." He pipes back as you both fall into the usual bickering banter you often did, squabbling like small children. You and Clint had always been close and worked well with each other despite the constant pecking at each other. You'd become even closer once you'd gotten together with his best friend Natasha. Well, after he stopped threatening you about breaking her heart that is.

"Okay well atleast I'm not stupid."

"Yeah real mature. What does that even mean?" He retorts back with a chuckle at how quickly you begin to lose an argument and just throw childish insults at him.

"I thought you'd be smart enough to understand a simple senten-.." You trail off as you see an agent aiming at Clint, one he hadn't noticed. Though you considered letting the agent hit him and getting to be considered the better fighter it wasn't worth letting your friend die just to one up him.

"Clint watch out." You yell frantically as you watch the agent take aim. Clint wasn't going to have time to move. You panicked and shoved him to the floor knocking him from the bullet.

You don't think much of it when you don't see the bullet land or even when you vision blurs. It's only you notice somethings up when you see a blood splattering on your hand. Instinctively you look for Clint worried something hit him but you find him staring right back at you. That's when you feel the searing pain from your hip. Placing a hand over it to find out what's wrong, you feel a cold and wet substance spilling from it.

Thats when everything starts spinning. Moving too quick but not fast enough at all. The pain feeling worse, like nothing you've ever felt before as the adrenaline wears off and the severity of the situation sets in.

"Y/n look at me." Clints voice is grounding and calm making you briefly feel better. "There's no agents left okay. We're going to walk together to the quinjet, don't rush yourself it's going to be okay." You nod along even though your unsure you'll be able to walk that far as your vision fades in and on like a flickering TV.

He moves over to you and presses your hand firmly over the wound. "Keep your hand there and apply as much pressure as you can." Despite the way you stumble around as you try to apply any pressure at all to the wound he still sounds calm like he believes you can do this.

His hand hooks around you helping hold you up as the two of you begin a slow walk back. Things aren't looking too bad at first I mean sure you can hardly see infront of you an everytime you open your mouth to speak the only thing that sounds is a groan of pain but your managing it, you feel yourself believe you'll be able to do this walk back.

That is all before you trip over a stone which sends you tumbling onto your front, directly where the bullet wound is is where you hit the hardest when you fall causing you to scream out in pain with a noise you never knew you'd make. Clint immediately tries to pull you back to your feet while telling you how close you are to getting home but it's no use as your body goes stiff, legs refusing to move.

"Natasha is gonna kill me." I mumble half heartedly as he holds me up and my vision fades for what I believe might be the final time.

"Not if she kills me first." He chuckles and that's the last thing you hear before everything goes black.

Two days. Two whole days they said you were out for. You missed two days. Two days where you didn't see Natasha but she saw you, she sat by you every minute she could and when she couldn't sit anymore she slept by you not leaving for a second. She wouldn't even leave your hospital room for food. Clint having to practically force food down her throat so she didn't end up in a hospital bed alongside you.

You blinked awake. You'd been awake about an hour prior but were too drugged up to process anything going on and had quickly fallen back into your slumber. This time you were much more determined to stay awake, that and your pain medication was wearing off and you could begin to feel a sharp pain replacing the previously dull one.

As you woke yourself up to the bright white fluorescent lights of the hospital, those lights which practically felt blinding. Giving you little time to adjust to being awake, Natasha started speaking.

"So what happened?" She sounded angry. A little rough maybe as the Russian tinged her accent slightly in a way you only heard few times. As you located where her voice had come from, a small chair just to the left of your bed. Now that you could see her she seemed more worn out or stressed out the angry. Dark circles lurked under her eyes as her forhead creased showing visible lines.

"Uh.. didn't uhm.. Clint... tell you." You slowly mumble out as you try to push myself into a sitting position but before you can Natasha is up and pushing you back down to lie down.

"The doctor said you can't sit up yet or you'll move the stitches. And no he hasn't explained anything, so you better." She lays your head back on the pillow with such a contrasting softness to the way she's speaking which is almost as if she's interrogating you.

You roll your head over the side to face her as you recount what you remember from the mission. "So basically me and Clint, well especially me are kicking ass knocking these agents to the ground. But then one aims at Clint and I push him out the way and now we're here." You explain the best you can but it's just so difficult when your heads all fuzzy and until five minutes ago you were convinced you were dead. "I thought I was gonna die 'Tasha."

"You shouldn't put yourself at risk like that baby." She says while brushing stray hairs away from your face and back behind your ears. "Things could have been a lot worse.." her voice trails off all usual roughness gone as she appears as if she may break down crying at any second. "I could have lost you."

That's all it takes for you to start crying as hot tears stream your face making it hard to see anything. Seeing your deteriorating emotional state Natasha makes the descion to crawl into the bed next to you. "Oh hush now, it's alright. I was just worried about you lyubov." she coos while leaning over to kiss your dampened cheek.

"I know I know.. I'm just really sorry... I dont ever want to lose you Natasha." Your tears keep falling despite her soft, reassuring words.

"Y/n, I don't want to lose you either. Which is why I think it could be time we retired before either of us do. Of course it's up to you though, I won't pressure you."

It takes you a minute to process her words but when you do your glad for them. You'd been considering at least cutting down your workload recently but hadn't considered Natasha would be open to retirement at such a young age. You can feel your face break out into a small smile as she suggests it herself. Her own face is one of nervous apprehension as she chews on her lip.

"Yes. Please I want nothing more than to retire and with you." You reach in to kiss her face eagerly. Your lips smothering hers in an almost desperate fashion as if you were worried it could be your last.

"If this is what retirement is like I cant wait." She whispers as she pulls away from your lips, nipping them gently first. She cups your face in her hands before leaning back in.

[bluegiragi]

diplomacy.

early access + nsfw on patreon

[cringefail-clown]

ROBRO: give 'em hell

practice panel from todays doodle sesh! a scene ive had in mind for quite a while from turnabout, which happens right after dave enters the medium. hal stays behind to take care of condy... it doesnt end well

[acaciapines]

Please tell us abt the parallels :o

YEAH OKAY SO!!!!

in this au (and as i write ralsei in my canon always lol) the biggest thing that puts pressure on ralsei's life is the prophecy--it says a human, a monster, and a prince from the dark, and because it is a prophecy, and it is fate, is HAS to be true, and ralsei, as a darkner, a group of people who literally exist below the lightners, is charged with bringing this prophecy into fruition. she has spent her entire life ALONE, with nothing but this prophecy for comfort, saying that one day, ONE DAY, she'll get through this and she'll have friends. but yknow, that weighs on a person! its heavy and terrible and she has contorted herself to fit what fate tells her she must be.

and then for noelle, the big thing putting pressure on her? her dead siblings (dess and kris. kris isnt technically her sibling but yknow for ease of language thats what i use. also we know they arent dead but noelle and the rest dont). with their deaths means noelle is now the baby of the family, a family that is shaped by this great gaping grief noelle cannot comprehend, because when dess and kris died she was young enough she barely remembers them beyond like, maybe half-formed memories but she isnt sure if those are real or just what people have told her. shes expected to be grieving her dead siblings but really she just sort of. hates them a little bit. for going off and dying and now her mom and toriel are super overprotective of her, and she knows its her fault asriel never left to go to college and hasnt even left hometown, and its just. its rough.

so both noelle and ralsei have these Huge things that have defined their lives that neither of them want, but. too bad! WHICH LEADS TO EVEN MORE PARALLELS. slash foils lol.

because when it comes to the prophecy? noelle isnt supposed to be in it!!! while this au is sort of a roleswap in that noelle takes kris's place its not a roleswap in Any Other Way, which means, yeah, the prophecy is still supposed to be a human. and noelle, uh, isnt that! but she goes around and helps close dark worlds and is part of the delta warriors anyways, which is, for ralsei, this like, really scary point.

cause ralsei? adores noelle!! thats her best friend!!! ralsei doesnt know if she has a crush on noelle or wants to be noelle! noelle just does what she WANTS. she bucks against the pressures her family puts on her. she dives into the dark despite the fact that this world was never made for her. shes TRANS. shes a GIRL, and she can just DO THAT, and ralsei looks at her, and just. wants. in every sense of the word.

because noelle has all these things put on her like ralsei does--but noelle gets to slip out of them. noelle gets to be a person.

and ralsei, non-person, darkner: she doesnt.

she never will.

[molly-yasha]

how i feel about gale of waterdeep after the mystra's request demand scene with elminster is the same as how emliy feels about gilear

[vampiremansionpoolboy-moved]

going insane over the fact that happiness and care and concern and love is underneath every interaction between newt and hermann in pacific rim

[scramble-crossing]

i deffo agree with your entire analysis (including the questionable canon of the anime canon) and yeah for sure the original game supports this imo. for one thing i don't think that hanekoma would have supported sho even as a back-up plan if he thought that sho would've destroyed shibuya or fundamentally ruined what HANEKOMA liked about it. hanekoma considered a shibuya under sho to be better than a shibuya erased by joshua, so whatever shibuya sho would've made couldn't have been a dumpsterfire or whatever. like not saying that sho would've kept things squeaky clean or something but hanekoma considered it 'good enough to support'. hanekoma isn't exactly the best but i think that he wouldn't have picked sho if he didn't think that sho had some attachment to shibuya.

in NEO we literally see him come back to his shibuya on W3D7 to fight soul pulvis even though he could've just fucked off. yeah we have the scene of neku "convincing" him, but the dude already came back to shibuya and decided to stay to fight for his city. he also literally warned rindo about soul pulvis and about the presence of angels (the japanese version with him talking about "hyper-real" numbers is even more obvious) back on W3D4 even before neku showed up!

the wicked twisters and all of shibuya would've lost without him and his contribution to operation: awakening. period. (along with everyone else)

he learned his lesson about teamwork! when he goes to another day, he makes a fuss about "you're joining MY team" but he actively walked up to the guy signing up team members and went "hey i need a team lol" like a student asking their teacher for help getting a partner for the group project. he's gone from "not a social animal" per megumi to "zetta dig[ing]" konishi's "style" to teaming up with the WTs to protect them to understanding the value of working together in an equation for the sake of his goals

also it's worth noting that the line about only doing it for his sake is slightly different in jp. neku says that they have to get to shiba as soon as they can and says "渋谷を守るため もし力を 貸してくれるなら――" (if you can lend us your strength to protect shibuya). sho interrupts him and says, "フン、俺は 俺の目的のために 動くだけだ" (hmph, i only work for my own goals/i do want what i want) basically, telling neku to stop telling him what to do. neku says, "それでいいよ おまえも渋谷を 狙ってただろ" (that's fine, since you're aiming for shibuya too, aren't you?) and then "その渋谷の崩壊は 許せないよな" (shibuya's erase would be unforgivable, right?/you can't allow shibuya to collapse, can you?). so like yeah it's similar to what the english script did but it has a very different implication. here neku isn't convincing him to help but rather being like, "yeah, you'll only do what you want to do, and i know that you're going to do things that help shibuya because you're aiming for it as well." like i said, we literally see sho ALREADY have been offering rindo helpful advice before neku even showed up.

he gives the WTs tons of advice in the first week that have nothing to do with his interest in soul pulvis but rather to expand their powers. in field walk rpg he has a ton of random character dialogue about how he loves random shit in shibuya like the holographic hachiko statue (tokyu plaza) because he thinks that dogs are stylin' or how he thinks that rhythms that shake the heart (specific to him being interested in picking up music records from tower records) are as beautiful as a flawless equation or whatever. why would he want to destroy all of that? he wouldn't

he doesn't even care if other people cart away his artworks! he didn't seethe about that in the og, just made more and then walked away

i agree with him being obsessed with beauty and art and probably shibuya's. i mean the guy wanders around the phone booth of love at molco and shit trying to pick up cool pieces for his next artwork (and leaving something precious of his own in its wake, suggesting that he isn't interested in stealing shit, he just has a unique value system of exchanging items and art and stuff), makes people play Tin Pin Slammer and doesn't even participate himself but just hangs out in the crowd watching and seethes when joshua cheats him out of an interesting match, and possibly even stuck negative noise on ken doi to catch their attention about ramen given that the negative noise in W1 was all mission-related that a reaper must've put on someone (and with their relationship in another day). he's not a "good person" but people treating him like he's evil or sadistic or whatever just pisses me off. he's an arrogant asshole who, as far as we can read from the text, genuinely wants to see a shibuya full of cool art projects and sick murals like the udagawa one he likes and cool people like the WTs with their interesting UG powers and stuff.

ok thanks for listening to my essay. 3.1415926

Hey there.....it's been a couple months and I live in shame

Thank you so so much for this I absolutely LOVE your thoughts! I wanna try to respond them in as organized a way I can so I'm gonna address each point individually and in chronological order.

First of all, I 100% agree with what you've said about Hanekoma. If he wasn't able to directly remove Joshua from power even when he threatened Shibuya's very existence, and instead had to approach him in an extremely tedious and roundabout manner by guiding Neku when he could and using Sho as a sort of half-proxy, there's no way he would've shoved a dangerous or otherwise incompetent person into the Composer's seat and forced himself to repeat this whole process weeks later once Sho had a grip on Shibuya. Like you said, "hanekoma considered a shibuya under sho to be better than a shibuya erased by joshua," and that means something coming from a person who belongs to a class of beings who willingly "purify" cities that do not live up to their standards. It's not impossible to think that if Hanekoma thought Sho unfit and saw no other alternative, he would've come to see Shibuya as a lost cause and let it fall, preferring a dignified end over allowing it to rot and fester as a shell of its former self. Granted, he doesn't exactly sing Sho's praises. He certainly seems to view him as being convenient over an actual good candidate for the position. However, regardless of the fact that Hanekoma's criteria seems to be "the biggest, most unlikable freak in the UG," I think my previous point still stands. Would Sho have been a good Composer? Impossible to know for sure, but if nothing else we can extrapolate from what we understand of Hanekoma's values that he would've at the very least safeguarded Shibuya against erasure and kept it intact enough to still be worthy of existence in the eyes of some very, very picky Angels. And this is saying something when Joshua refers to Shibuya as being a massive influence on the world around it, so much so that he fears it corrupting other sectors of the UG. To put it simply, maybe Sho just passed the bar when it came to Hanekoma's standards, but that bar was set extremely high. Also! Just in case anyone mentions it, while Hanekoma saying that he relied on Sho's attachment to Shibuya is exclusive to the anime, technically speaking it's canonical that NEO is a sequel to the anime rather than the game. It's still very much relevant to Sho's character in NEO, if not his character in the original game...

Which leads right into your next points! Just for a moment, I want to jump to what you said about the japanese version of the game because I find it extremely interesting. That's SUCH a different implication from what we get in the english version!! Whereas we're given more of a sense that Neku is corralling Sho into working with him and the rest of the Wicked Twisters on the basis that he can't be Composer without a city to rule, basically using his preexisting goal to try to get him to adopt a new one, that of saving Shibuya, here he's saying that he knows that Sho already has a goal of saving Shibuya. It's less "Look here asshole, you have to save Shibuya because you can't be Composer without it," and more "You and I both know that you want to save Shibuya, so stop being so stubborn and help us out already!" Yes it's subtle, but personally I think it lines up better with the version of Sho that's put forward by the anime's ending, and, perhaps more importantly, lends better to interpretations of Sho's motivations In english, it reads closer to "Sho wants to be the Composer -> therefore he must save Shibuya. In japanese, it can more easily be read as "Sho wants to save Shibuya -> Ergo, he clearly cares about Shibuya -> Sho wants to be the Composer because he cares about Shibuya. Again, it's minor stuff, but the japanese version, I feel, more obviously connects his motives with his actions, presenting him helping to save Shibuya as a natural result of his affection for the city instead of it being an obstacle in his way or a diversion from his ambitions. It's really a shame that this nuance is lost in the english version. Sho is already kind of a mess in the fact that it can be difficult to discern what the writers are trying to do with him. He's built up as a persistent and deadly threat all throughout twewy only to be unceremoniously killed off in a scene that feels more like a bit than an actual serious story beat. Neo's promotional material paraded him as a core character in the protagonist's group, and yet he ends up being booted out 1/3 of the way into the story and made unplayable until post-game. He is one of the most integral characters to the plot, and yet what, in the end, does he have to show for it? Nothing! He leaves the secret ending having returned to the exact same position he was in at the start of the first game, at the exact same level of power, still gunning to take on the Composer. It feels like he's being used as sequel-bait in a series where it took 14 years to make another game, not to mention the fact that the last time something interesting was implied to be happening to him, A.K.A A New Day where he was positioned to become Neku's partner, that plot thread was dropped hard and absolutely nothing came of it. I'm not saying he's been completely abandoned by the narrative. He's definitely shown to have improved as a person since the events of the first game, and I love that! I love his cryptic mentor/moderately shit big brother arc and the fact that Neku, Mr. Twewy himself, is willing to put his faith in him. But to me at least it feels like he's being underutilized, especially in comparison to characters like Beat, who I love, but who certainly didn't need as much as he got in neo given that he had a totally satisfactory arc by the end of the first twewy. Sho is perfect for a redemption arc that's reminiscent of Neku's while still being unique and complex, one that would fit seamlessly with twewy's themes of growth and the necessity of human connection. If we ever get another twewy game and this is exactly what happens I will kiss neo on the lips for being the PERFECT in-between phase and kick-off for this arc, but I mean...it's twewy. Waiting for another game to complete his storyline is like pushing Sho off a cliff with nothing to catch him but a prayer and the world's shittiest little kiddy pool. Also the hose that's trying to fill it with water is clogged by a giant knot in the shape of mickey mouse ears.

But I've gotten sidetracked. Mostly because it's been so long that I totally forget the post that spurred this ask in the first place. I might be stupid. But honestly I think you've already put it perfectly. I'm especially grateful for the info on the field walk rpg because it's something I know very little about. I'm glad Sho got to have a fun day out with his child soldiers/teenage besties :] Overall, it's absolutely true that Sho is a very morally complex character. I tend to dislike labels like "good person" vs "bad person" because it leaves little room for nuance, something that this series is chock-block full of. The idea that Sho is an utterly selfish and sadistic individual who can never truly change irks me because it's so antithetical to the messages of this series, "Anyone can change for the better," and, "By letting others in, approaching their different worldviews and values with genuine, good faith, and by extending compassion towards each other, we make the world a better place for both ourselves and the people around us." Sho is doing this. It may be with baby steps, but it's clear from his interactions with the Wicked Twisters, as well as his enthusiasm for art that is not his own whereas before he expressed disdain for any artistic vision that wasn't his, that he is making an effort to be better and allowing these experiences to change his worldview. If he is never extended the same narrative reward that other characters are shown for this exact same kind of growth, if he is instead trapped in this cycle of scratching and clawing and desperately yearning for some sense of divinity only to crash fantastically, met with violence and isolation and the loss of the few, good things he's managed to scrape out of life...well that'd be pretty miserable, I think.

[minglana]

i say this every. single. fucking. exam season. but i genuinely dont know how much longer i can keep this up bc.... my brain Refuses To Study like its just. incapable of it. im incapable of sitting down and thinking "i need to study bc i have an exam in [x] days and i need to pass it" and then actually following through with it. i just think and think and think about how i need to study. and somehow my brain THINKS that that's enough to show up to the exam and like.... pass it? when its clearly not!!!!! not even going to the library helps me anymore i dont even do anything there either. so i just wonder if theres something wrong with my brain or if its just that ive trained myself since the pandemic to be lazy as fuck and ignore all of my responsibilities???

[floorpancakes]

[stupid-dyke]

stayed up til 3 when I have an 8am again. I do this because I hate myself so sos sososososososososo much. It's really funny because I don;t fall asleep in class thanks to my meds but I've noticed every time I go to class after 4 hrs sleep people act weird around me which is how I know im acting really weird. And I am so extremely angry at myself. I spent 4 hours. well 8 hours. Well all day. Pretending I'm going to do homework and distracting myself with various other things on my laptop or crying on the phone to my parents. Got zerooooo work done at all i stayed up most of the nihght for literally no gain whatsoever this is pure self harm. Which I do becauase again I hate myself. Because I didn't do my work. Which i won't do tomorrow either because i'll be so tired I wont be able to string a sentence together even though I'm supposed to give a presentation haha. My favorite activity is staring at the clock on my laptop getting later and later and later. new high score etc. Who's a hypersomniac now. Imagine how much easier this semester would have been if I'd gone to bed before 2am ever. I'm so fucking angry at myself I'm not sure I'll be able to sleep now even. If I fail my classes again my parents are gonna make me live at home forever and say im too crazy to live on my own. I know I was supposed to get a therapist but I hate them all so, so, so much. I think people get that job bc they feel powerful telling some pathetic person what to do knowing I literally cannot do it and will come back week after week admittingn failure and paying

I know I was supposed to take the new experimental FDA approved drug for IH but the list of side effects is fucking terrifying and I live and sleep alone so i really don't want to take a super powerful sedative that can make you stop breathing. So I'm gonna keep taking stimualnts and lying to myself that today is the last day I stay up extremely late for no reason.

[catkin-morgs-kookaburralover]

how to not be overstimulated

[skitskatdacat63]

Not be screaming Insanely to you about strollonso again but I have thots. Thinkings. And yeah.

So like I love how everyone expected them to not get well w each other yk like people THOUGHT they would be on each others throats, and nando would commit warcrimes against lance etc etc(Especially after last years Austin incident yeahh....)WHILE they were actually ALREADY on good terms in 2021(the recent gifs that showed lance being like a teenager w crush ykyky)(plus I do remember photos of them interacting just casually) and before that yk when nando congratulated lance on his first podium in baku(which I'll never get out of my head gladly)

And like NOW they are also so well w each other ESPECIALLY now that they are teammates. And its NICE and they are COMFY plus WHAT HAPPENED IM BAHRAIN OFC. And now wih nando casually making lance photos..they are so comfortable. Like aughh.

Thats all I guess please add anything you have in mind aswell 😭😭

Well I think it's funny because, as you mentioned, one of the only pre-2023 moments of strollonso I remember distinctly is when they had the collision during the US gp 😭 and I feel like everyone saw that and were like "oh god Nando is gonna kill him when they're teammates", and then a similar situation kinda happened again at the very first gp when Lance hit the back of Nando but when Nando found out, he's just like "okay :)"

I wonder though sometimes what they'd be like if the AMR23 was like the prev one. Because I do think Nando does actually like Lance, but also I don't think you can deny that Nando's podiums are indeed a buffer. Kinda like him being like "anything you can do to me is literally nothing because I have a great car and I'm doing better than I have in years", like bro is on top of the world after so long, and it feels like he's gotten a second wind where nothing can really touch him or bother him.

I hate how everyone uses that "Lance is the owner's son, so of course Fernando will treat him nicely" argument. Like yeah that's a factor, but I feel like I see it more as Nando appreciating Lance bcs he factors into why Nando has a good car and a good team in the first place. I think tho my fav strollonso plot line is Nando being like "ugh ill put up w him I guess", but then he ends up having such a good car and finds out in the process that Lance is more than he ever considered(like in this fic ) And also the narrative of Nando being a very different, supportive teammate as compared to most other Lance has had. I like that they probably came into being teammates with certain assumptions, but now look at how comfy they are with each other!! Enough to tease each other is such public ways, like Lance saying certain things in interviews and Nando with his socmed. It's very fun!

BUT YEAH OH MY GOD THAT CLIP OF THEM WITH LANCE BEING SO TOUCHY AND SHOVEY WITH HIM!!!! people need to look back at older clips like that and the others you mentioned before they make assumptions about why they are the way they are >:(

[larnax]

ok i have. i have more disgaea thoughts. my girl fuka what did they do to you

ok so the thing abt d4 is that overall its story is quite fun, it's peak disgaea because it is wacky in a way where its absurdly exaggerated literal events are used to represent emotional conflicts ie a character's dad shutting himself away in his lab for her entire childhood who reveals it was to fulfill her dream of taking over the world by developing machines that she can command to take over the world as an allegory for a dad doing his best to provide for his kids at the expense of being there for his kids so they grow up without feeling like he loves them, and it legitimately is the only story i think really intertwines serious and batshit to make "WE HAVE TO POWER THE MECH WITH LOVE SO IT CAN STOP THE MOON FROM CRASHING TO EARTH, QUICK, PRAY TO YOUR PARTNER BECAUSE WHILE YOU HAVE NO FAITH IN GOD YOU HAVE FAITH IN HIM!" instead of in d1 having the story be wacky with occasional stops to tell a standard story with normal emotional stakes and etna is there to tell jokes, or from d5 onwards basically just being standard fantasy stories with normal emotional stakes but theres wacky backgrounds.

the actual main story of d4 is all bangers, there are a lot of great heels to keep the story interesting and although they all come around to val in the end they don't all become his bff which avoids the d7 problem of "you made a new guy up just so we would have anyone to fight and nobody we do recruit puts up an interesting struggle and therefore none of us have an interesting reason we're still here beyond inertia". i do wish artina got to do more stuff i think she's way too fun a character who is way too important in the story to be relegated to third wheel as often as she is, but to fix that i would just give her most of axel's stuff. she becomes president and then is absent for the moon episode on intel that she'll meet "someone she doesn't wanna see" and then when she radios in for the roll call you have a little joke about flonne being that person.

usually i really like flonne being a straightforward heel in her adult appearances. shes the whitest woman in existence and shes very nasty when she thinks she's doing the right thing, which is always. i support women's wrongs and her stealing billions from the netherworld(which celestia already exploits in a lot of ways/sometimes just decides to destroy) to fuck around with by forcing an underling who actively does not want to do it to shake down random civilians and public infrastructure, all to fund her stupid ass mech shaped like her who's powered by prayer? thats horrible! shes so nasty! it's really funny and them being forced to deal with That being their only way to keep fenrich from having the most important thing in his life(after val) fucking exploded leads to one of the reasons they should have won that fucking noncanon gayest ships tournament FUCK those community bitches.

HOWEVER. the fuka dlc is so bad. or let me rephrase: the fuka dlc is transcendantly good until the ending at which point it becomes the worst thing that happens in disgaea 4.

bc ok ok ok. so fuka is dead. that's her story, after a childhood of being neglected by her always busy dad she breaks into his lab and finds his evil scientist lair full of mutant constructs, one of whom kills her. she doesn't accept that she's dead because she's only 14 and her life hasn't even started yet and on top of that she's been sent to hell despite being a normal ass 14 year old whos biggest crime is being a teenager. so she deals with it by denying it and deluding herself into believing that this is all a dream and someday she'll wake up in a happy life she's just starting and she won't have to confront the terrible fate she met with. so the solution is obvious, right?

after the main story resolves and fuka has a group of friends and caretakers who love her and she's patched things up with her dad, fuka needs to accept that she's dead. disgaea uses a reincarnation system as a core part of the series mythology and gameplay. reincarnation is good and necessary. fuka, eventually, needs to let go, and stop haunting the world she did get cheated out of a life in.

so in the dlc, her friends and family help her. val puts her through the toughest puzzle course he can because he's her teacher and he wants her to prove that she's strong and resourceful and capable, and she does! she passes all his tests and he gives her his formal blessing. then her secondary father figure, her bio dad, finally delivers on his promise to help her take over the world, they like. rent out a city and give her a bunch of crazy machines to go wild on with the power she's worked so hard for and the allies she's found so much support in, including her little sister who she only recently got to meet and connect with during the main story and her surrogate reluctant little brother, The Grim Reaper, who is the one guiding her through the mechanics of reincarnation in the first place as a sign of his own personal growth that he's now mature enough to handle this difficult case.

and it works! fuka accepts it! she accepts, sadly, that she's dead, and she should move on. she'll lose this life, which is sad! they're all sad about it! but it's okay. and then-- it's an ending, right?

it's going to be an ending, you think. disgaea has a bunch of specific endings. there's one for completing a single optional stage in d1. it would make perfect sense narratively and gameplay wise to have an ending with fuka reincarnating, then just. introduce a bill to resummon fuka from an alternate dimension or time travel shenanigans or literally whatever other funny joake you can think of this is a comedy series and doing it this way doesn't undercut the emotional part While Its Happening. because if that happened itd be Bad.

enter flonne. because it is not an ending. flonne barrels through the fourth wall at the last second and, dead vfucking serious, CONDEMNS FUKA TO ETERNAL HELL WITH NO CHANCE OF REINCARNATION because she "tried to take over the world" by fighting in a stage consisting of like three blocks her dad set up for her where no civilians were even present. also bc shes the ruler of heaven this is the character who condemned her to hell originally when she was FOURTEEN because when she was six she wanted to take over the world.

which is a baller heel move and i would be so so so so into it IF she was a boss fight. if they had to defeat her before she was forced to reluctantly give fuka her very well-deserved reincarnation. but, uh, nope, last minute twist, Moving On Is Bad Actually and fuka is still condemned to eternal hell. fuck you. sure its technically a sentence that lets her spend time with her besties forever but like. at what cost. flonne only works as a heel if the other characters clash with her instead of valvatorez and emizel of all fucking people being like Woof so glad we don't have to say goodbye, i guess our entire characters and the things we find important and the reasons we were doing this do not matter and all that shit about caring about fuka and wanting her to find peace was Bullshit. have fun being 14 for the rest of your life, Dumbass!

← literally what its like to be 14 years old

[beelspillowpet]

with the way yall react and reply to my diet rants im worried about your relationship status and your inability to set up boundaries for yourself because wow.

its either polycule (sick emoji) or unable to make a choice without legitimately crashing and burning (vomit emoji)

[grimmshood]

it's not even in english either so it's not like i'm learning anything being here lmaoooooo