#he’s also genuinely afraid of what will happen if he’s ever in charge of anything

[kaiser1ns]

𝘃𝗮𝗿𝗶𝗼𝘂𝘀 𝗰𝗵𝗮𝗿𝗮𝗰𝘁𝗲𝗿𝘀 𝘅 𝗳𝗲𝗺!𝗿𝗲𝗮𝗱𝗲𝗿

╹synopsis :: it doesn't take much to say or show you love someone even with the simplest of actions.

╹contents :: can be read as fem/gn reader; characters from blue lock, jjk and honkai star rail, FLUFF, ooc maybe?

╹notes :: as i was walking to go home at like 10pm i thought of this, hope you enjoy! added hsr specially for @okkalo ♡

ITOSHI SAE immediately takes you out to visit the sea when he gets some days off. The sounds of the waves, the relaxing atmosphere and you in his arms calm him down causing him to flashback to his childhood memories of when he was just a small and carefree child wanting nothing more but to play football with his little brother and personal cheerleader.

Not only he is known as the strongest but GOJO SATORU is also known for having a very strong sweet tooth. So what does he do to reduce the sugar? He shares it with you because there is nothing better than sharing his favourite thing with his lover, so let's say he gets a double dose of chocolate and candy from just seeing you and that's enough.

AVENTURINE is not afraid to take the risk and his constant smile makes it difficult for people to guess his true intentions. Not with you though, he lets his guard down, your voice soothing him to help him relax and as he gets lost in your touch. He is not Aventurine of the IPC or the Ten Stonehearts, he is just Kakavasha the little boy who once dreamed of love and now he won the biggest treasure in his life — you.

ITOSHI RIN knows how much you don't like scary movies, and that's why when you come over for the weekends you watch movies or series of your choice, be it Barbie or The Lion King. He will swallow his ego and stop watching the weekly uploads of his favourite scary games just so you can't fall asleep on purpose because of the horror films.

GETO SUGURU can't stop talking about how beautiful, amazing, and kind you are. Mimiko and Nanako are tired because they are the only ones who get to hear all his murmuring when you are away even for only 5 minutes. But they know how much he loves you and how you breathe life into him, and he wishes that someday they will become like you — strong and good-hearted.

ARGENTI thanks and prays to Idrila every moment of his life for obtaining the biggest blessing to ever exist and that is meeting you. The Knight of Beauty makes sure to give you one red rose every day to express his profound love and admiration, it's a small gesture that symbolizes his devotion to the relationship. He should protect his lover and like flowers, the tender petals are directed to you, with the thorns to the cosmic and its danger protecting you

It may seem that he is spoiled, but in fact, NAGI SEISHIRO is not, well not that much. Sometimes he takes charge of the household chores, giving you, a well-deserved break. He washed the dishes, cooked you a meal (instant noodles), and even tried to fold the laundry. And you, pleasantly surprised, sank into the couch, embracing the rare luxury of relaxation as familiar songs from your shared playlist were playing on the TV. Even if it doesn't happen often you are forever grateful for your lazy boyfriend to do something like that.

ITADORI YUJI shows genuine interest and actively listens to you talking about your current obsession be it a series, celebrity, book, food, or anything. He loves your voice, seeing your beautiful smile, and how your eyes seem to sparkle as you talk, he is so lovestruck that he sometimes just stares at you with the most soft and genuine look. Just don't be surprised when you find some merchandise on your desk with a little love note, okay?

Engaging in meaningful conversations and connecting on a deeper level with DR. RATIO seems like every other normal day for him. He approaches every interaction with a thirst for knowledge. And you take him by surprise every time and he doesn't know what to do, the great genius suddenly stops functioning. The way you hold his hand, kiss his cheek, make him stutter — he goes crazy and questions himself about how there is no logical explanation for this, but there is, it is called love.

SHIDOU RYUSEI doesn't like to share his material possessions with anyone, he worked so hard to get the last volumes of Chainsaw Man as they are now put on the shelf in his bedroom. And imagine his reaction when he sees you reading volume 10 which has Makina on the cover, cuddled nicely with his blanket on the bed. How dare you read it without him? And so he jumps onto the mattress, squishing you because that's your punishment for not telling him. You apologized to him of course but for him to fully forgive you, next time you will be on anicon cosplaying Makima and Denji.

FUSHIGURO MEGUMI remembers the small details about you and your preferences. If you don't like a certain ingredient in the food, he will order the dish without it. You like to sleep on this side of the bed, no problem he will sleep on the other side as you both cuddle and drift to Dreamland. He will immediately notice the change in your mood and even if he is not so good with words, he will always be there for you offering his warm embrace.

As a Galaxy Ranger BOOTHILL tends to travel around the cosmos a lot and sadly he can't spend time with you. But when he's with you, one of the things you do is his hair and to put cute stickers on his metal hands or guns. The scary cyborg cowboy is now a pretty princess with pigtails, heart stickers and with a very happy lover. He watches you having fun with his makeover — and will do everything possible to spend more time with you.

©2024 kaiser1ns do not copy, repost or modify my work.

[hannieehaee]

Can you please make a seventeen reaction if a saesang hurt their s/o? lysm btw💙

a sasaeng hurting their s/o

content: mentions of an ambiguous attack on the reader (u can assume it was something like pulling at reader's arm/hair or a simple slap/punch), anger from the members, angst, fluff (kinda??), etc.

wc: 829

a/n: ily <33 i was kinda conflicted on this bc im not sure whether theyd react in an idol fashion in which they just kind of let their managers handle it or if theyd handle it themselves so i went for a mixture

masterlist

seungcheol -

he's super protective over his members, which also translates over to all his loved ones. i think he would get immediately exasperated and get all up on whoever dared hurt you, fan or not. if things got physical, he'd get physical too. however, he'd try to keep things civilized.

jeonghan -

he'd let his managers handle the sasaeng, knowing that despite how much he'd like to protect you on his own, head on, he had a lot of limitations as an idol. he'd feel extremely guilty about it and would beat himself up over it for a while. would do everything he could to make you feel protected and taken care of (even more than he already did) from then on.

joshua -

he'd be unfiltered in his arguing and his anger towards the aggressor. he wouldnt get aggressive or anything, but the venom in his eyes would be enough for a person to drop dead. would go as far as try to get the authorities involved right in that moment, promising that he'd be pressing charges on your behalf. when it came to you, he'd need you to calm him down lol.

jun -

he's so used to being mobbed and to people injuring themselves due to this that he wouldn't even be surprised at this happening. this wouldnt mean that he wouldn't be insanely angry though lmao. he'd curse them out in chinese and start a whole scene if necessary. this person was not going to leave this situation unscathed.

soonyoung -

his emotions usually take over him very easily and i believe in such an instance anger would show clearly in his demeanor. he'd protectively hold you behind him as he cursed and antagonized the sasaeng while his managers attempted to alleviate the situation. there would be anger in his eyes that you'd never seen before, but it'd turn into worry and regret as soon as he met your eyes.

wonwoo -

usually when he's being crowded or fans are too close, his body language seems closed off and unwelcoming to all the unwarranted attention, but in this instance i think his fight or flight mode would activate, making him physically place himself between you and the aggressor. rare instance in which anyone would see wonwoo genuinely angry.

jihoon -

he'd be too shocked to react, only realizing what had happened after the fact. kinda out of character, but i think he'd have to be held back from taking matters into his own hands. would be furious at the blatant disrespect to both you and him. how could a fan ever lay hand on you? he'd remain disappointed in his fandom for a while, keeping himself (and you) away from the limelight for a short period of time.

seokmin -

for once in his life, the only emotion taking over him was pure unfiltered anger. BUT he would 100% prioritize checking in on you and keeping his hands and eyes on you to make sure you were okay. would let his managers take care of the situation and simply stare down the perpetrator with venom in his eyes. would be extremely apologetic to you afterwards and express guilt over and over.

mingyu -

he's shown many times before he's not afraid to tell fans to mind their boundaries before, so i think that in a serious situation in which you were being put in danger, he'd become extremely serious to a scary extent. he would not get physical or anything like that, but he'd use his words and stance to intimidate the crazed fan.

minghao -

extremely serious and put off. the moment someone laid hands on you, his body would take control of itself and put himself between you and any danger. he'd yell and curse at whoever dared cross such a boundary and disrespect both you and him in such a way. he'd hold certain disdain for fans crossing boundaries from then on.

seungkwan -

he's too polite and media trained to actually participate in the altercation, but anyone could see the genuine anger trying to filter out of him as he and his body guards tried to deal with the situation. his first priority would be you and making sure you weren't too hurt.

vernon -

he wouldve been too shocked in the moment to do anything, but as soon as the short-lived attack ended and his managers were already apprehending the perpetrator, he'd scoff and curse at whoever hurt you. there would be this unknown craze in his eyes indicating uncharacteristic anger that could only ever be provoked by such a situation.

chan -

insanely angry and frustrated at the situation. in an ideal world, he'd take care of this situation on his own, proving to you that he'd never let anyone hurt you. however, he knew that the appropriate thing to do would be to let his managers apprehend the aggressor while he checked in on you and made sure you were okay and as far away from the situation as possible.

[zvtara-was-never-canon]

you once said that the ZK do not allow the canonical Zuko to show real, sometimes ugly signs of trauma. can you write more about this? because that's what I always felt when I came across their terrible takes, but I couldn't express it.

Gladly! But first, I need to mention the sign of trauma that Zuko usually lacks - and that, for some reason, the fandom insists defines his character:

Fear

Don't get wrong, I'm not saying Zuko never experienced fear. We all saw that poor boy on his knees, crying, begging his father not to hurt him.

But in "Zuko Alone" we also see 10-year-old Zuko get bitter that only his younger sister was expected to show off her firebending skills, and deciding that he would go against his father and demonstrate his own skills to the Fire Lord - that despite the fact that he knew Azula was better at it than he was. Even when it goes wrong, he is upset, but doesn't look afraid of the consequences.

That same episode shows Azula mocking him for playing with knives despite not even being good at it, and even though the fandom insists she was his worst fear ever since he was a child, Zuko responds with a "Put an apple on your head and we'll see how good I am." That little guy has exactly zero chill.

Let's not forget why he was banished either: Despite being considered too young to be in that war meeting, Zuko demanded to be there, eventually got his way, and despite having been told not to say anything, the second he hears a general suggest using their own men as "fresh meat" to lure the enemy, Zuko speaks out against it. And at the start of the Agni Kai, he looked 100% ready to fight a grown ass man with battle experience - until he saw it was his father/Fire Lord.

Let's not forget his Agni Kai with Zhao, which was his idea and that he actually won - and before that, he openly calls Ozai a fool, to which Zhao points out that banishment clearly not teach Zuko to watch his mouth. Or the time he openly challenged Azula in Ba Sing Se and they only didn't fight then and there because Azula knew she'd have the advantage by using the Dai Li. Hell, at the start of that very season, after she tried to lure him to a trap, Zuko's first reaction is to charge at her, fire-daggers in hand. That boy is the definition of "Fuck around and find out."

He has also done things like choosing to save his uncle from earthbenders instead of chasing Aang, crossing a blockade and going into actual Fire Nation territory even though he legally is no longer allowed to do that, and helped rescue Aang from Zhao as the Blue Spirit. It shows us that Zuko doesn't have an issue with temporarely deviating from his mission because of something HE deems important even though his father doesn't, openly disregarding Ozai's orders, and even basically saying "My father will have the Avatar as a prisoner only if I'm the one to capture him"

And, of course, on the day of the eclipse, Zuko grabs his swords and directly threatens Ozai, telling that bastard to sit the fuck down, shut up, and listen to his list of reasons why he sucks as a parent, ruler and person.

Zuko is brave. Unbelievably so. He is fierce, proud, and impulsive to the point of getting himself in situations that he should have known would not go his way (like fighting a waterbender in the snow, in the full moon) because he is very much a "act first, think later" kind of guy. So the fandom's insistence that he is constantly paralyzed by fear is a gross over-simplification of how his trauma affects him.

We only see him genuinely afraid of Ozai twice. During the Agni Kai itself, and then again when he WANTS to speak out against his father's plan to burn the Earth Kingdom to the ground, but can't bring himself to because he remembers what happened last time he spoke out against that kind of horrible thing during a war meeting, at that very room. It took something THAT triggering to make him cower before a challenge.

However, fear wasn't the only reason why didn't speak out during that moment, and that takes us to the first "ugly" sign of trauma that the fandom as a whole likes to pretend Zuko wasn't repeatedly shown to experience:

"My father is right about me, actually"

Zuko doesn't think Ozai was wrong to disfigure and banish him. How could he? Nobody in that entire room stood up to at least try to support him, not even his uncle - who also once said "Why would your father have banished you if he didn't care about you?" because, surprise surprise, nobody in that family knows how to help someone through trauma because they're all dealing with their own shit. Even his crew, who WAS sympathetic to him after finding out how he got that scar, were still 100% willing to not only support Ozai, but risk their lives for him.

Zuko isn't just trying to heal from abuse, he is trying to heal from victim-blaming, and to go against YEARS of indoctrination that say the Fire Lord can do no wrong. That's part of why it was so difficult for Iroh and others to help him: Zuko didn't believe that he needed or deserved help.

And that is also one of his three major unhealthy coping mechanisms. Claiming that HE needs to prove himself to Ozai, that HE needs to make up for HIS mistakes, not the other way around.

It might seem strange that this could be a way to cope, but look at it this way: If it WAS his fault instead of Ozai's, then that means his dad is not an unfair, abusive piece of shit that is unbelievably cruel and impossible to please. Zuko just needs to accomplish this mission of capturing the Avatar and everything will be fine, they'll be a normal family again, and he won't have to be afraid of someone he thought he could trust.

It was like Iroh said: Things are never going to be the same ever agin, but the Avatar gives Zuko HOPE. And that hope that his abuser will one day have a change of heart and be a loving father to him again is both what allows Zuko not to give into despair - and what keeps him trapped in that awful situation.

Misplaced Anger

Another "unpleasant" sign of trauma that Zuko has is how he clearly has an anger problem. Sure, he's a moody teenager with a short fuse, but we see over and over again that he tends to blow things way out of proportion, and that when faced a fact or opinion he doesn't like, he is quick to lash out at someone with VERY cruel words (see him calling Iroh a lazy, shallow, jealous old man in "Avatar State", or calling him crazy and saying if he wasn't in prison, he'd be sleeping in a gutter in "The Headband").

Through the entire show, many people faced Zuko's wrath - Iroh, Aang and friends, his crew, Azula, innocent people of the Earth Kingdom, Mai, Ty Lee, that one rando that talked to Mai, and even Zuko himself.

The one person that usually escapes said wrath is, ironically, Ozai. In "Zuko Alone" he refuses to believe his father would ever be capable of harming him, in "Avatar State" he snaps at Iroh for doubting that Ozai really changed his mind about the whole banishment thing.

He is mad at Aang for being too difficult to capture, and at Zhao for stealing his one chance to come home. He never stops to question if it's fair that his father had him chase someone that was presumed dead, aka an impossible task, as the condition to bring him home. He also never addresses how he feels about the reason WHY said banishment happened until the Day Of Black Sun.

He is mad at Azula for lying to him and trying to take him home as a prisoner. He never gets mad at his father for not only wanting to lock him away forever because ZHAO screwed up at the North Pole, nor how messed up it was that he put Azula in charge of said mission.

For fuck's sake, in the day of the eclipse, we find out that Zuko legit believed his mother was DEAD - and the entire circumstance was shady as hell and put Ozai in a very bad light. Yet Zuko still wanted his love, still wanted to be a "worthy" son.

He HAS to direct his anger at other people, otherwise he'll realize that no, his father, the adult that was meant to care for him, is a complete monster.

Everytime Zuko lashes out at other people before confronting Ozai, he's basically acting like someone who is drowning and, in a panic, is trying to pull the nearest person under so he can try to breathe. It is one of the most accurate and honest representations of trauma and abuse, and it makes me SO mad when people erase it in their fics because "poor, innocent, helpless turtleduck that can do no wrong" makes Zuko look like less of a dick - and also completely strips him of his agency.

And that isn't even the thing that fans ignore the most. That "honor" goes to the simple fact that Zuko, as expected of a child raised to believe the Fire Lord can do no wrong, decided that Azula had the right idea and that the best way to avoid being a victim again was...

Copying His Abuser

Zuko has REPEATEDLY let his "inner Ozai" out through the show.

He is all manipulative by not letting the pirates know he was chasing the Avatar who was worth A LOT more than the scrowl they'd get as a reward for helping him, and by using Katara's necklace as a way to try and get her to say where Aang was.

He repeatedly steals stuff from innocent people (including some who helped him, like Song) because, in his own words "These people should just be giving stuff to us" - aka he's very much an entitled prince.

He betrays his uncle by joining Azula in Ba Sing Se, leading to Iroh being thrown in prison. He also doesn't give a shit when Katara says "I thought you had changed!" and he sends a freaking assassin after the Gaang. Even him refusing to tell Azula that there was a chance Aang could still be alive works both as a "Zuko doesn't trust Azula to not use that against him, and for good reason" and "Zuko did not even stop to think that, since Azula was the one who killed Aang, him coming back also puts HER in danger, because he's too focused on his own problems to notice anybody else's."

More importantly, he rejected a chance of a ceasefire with the Gaang three times (The Blue Spirit, The Chase, Crossroads of Destiny), much like Ozai refused his shot at ending the war in the finale before his battle with Aang, and not only did he challenge Zhao to an Agni Kai and seriously consider burning him, he also threatened one of his crewmen by saying he'd "teach him respect" - which we found out later that episode was what Ozai right before disfiguring poor Zuko.

For fuck's sake, Ozai was literally designed to look like an older Zuko. One without a scar, one that was never banished, one that never had to see first-hand all the death and suffering war brings and reflect on the role he plays in it.

Finally, we have the war meetings in "Nightmares And Daydreams", in which Zuko doesn't speak out against his father's completely inhumane plans to deal with the Earth Kingdom. When talking about it with Mai, he says "I was the perfect prince, the son my father wanted. But I wasn't me."

That is the turning point for Zuko for a reason. It's him finally being forced to acknowledge that, to become Ozai's ideal son, to earn his (conditional) love, to not be his victim he has to be just as bad as he is, just as cruel, just as unfair - and we see in Azula's breakdown how Zuko likely would have ended up if he accepted that path.

But he didn't, and that was not easy because even though it was the morally correct choice, it'd require him to sacrifice everything - his title as a prince, his right to be in the Fire Nation, his relationship with Mai, his (extremelly complicated, sometimes good, often awful) bond with Azula, the "easy" way to get literally anything he wanted at everyone else's expense, and, of course, accept that his father was never going to love him, was never going to change, and was never going to feel sorry for abusing him.

Erasing such a central conflict of his character for the sake of denying he ever did anything wrong is, ironically, removing one of Zuko's most noble character traits: his inability to just live with himself after doing something horrible. There's a reason he is in deep conflict even after getting everything he wanted after the fall of Ba Sing Se - he knows he doesn't deserve it after what he's done.

If you ignore his mistakes and the horrible consequences it had for other people, you also ignore Zuko's growth. This puts him more in the position of a good guy being held hostage by the evil villain, not of a troubled child that redeems himself as he matures.

No flaws, no mistakes, no growth, no arc.

Trauma Doesn't Just Go Away

This one is, by far, the bad trope regarding Zuko's trauma that Zutarians are the most guilt of: assuming that if he just gets enough comforting hugs (mainly from Katara), all of his inner turmoil will suddenly be healed. No more sadness, no more fear, no more of the ugly traits they never acknowledge in the first place. Just a happy, fully recovered Zuko.

But that's just not how these things work. Having the support of a loved one helps victims feel better, but it won't magically make everything okay. Trauma is a really difficult thing to handle. There's good days, bad days, relapses, bad habits that are difficult to move past from. And not only are there cases in which people take YEARS to recover, there are also cases in which they never fully heal, and instead just learn to live with that burden that is still very much present.

I understand the desire to show in fics and headcanons that Zuko will eventually be fully healed and happy, but the way Zutarians make Katara act as not just his girlfriend, but as basically his therapist that needs to find miracle solutions for every single one of his problems, comfort him whenever any minor inconvenience happens until he's gotten enough hugs to be magically okay doesn't just reveal how hypocritical they are, since they insist Kataang is about Katara being Aang's girlfriend/mom/baby-sitter, but also that they legit do not understand a damn thing about trauma and how it works.

Which takes me to:

How Mai Actually Did Right By Zuko

Poor, poor Mai. She gets blamed for "bring out the worst in Zuko", for not being "supportive", for being too cold and unemotional, for not "seeing the real him" - yet she's one of the characters that CONSISTENLY help put Zuko back on his track.

She offers him emotional support and lots of signs of affection over and over again - telling him not worry when they're arriving at the Fire Nation, pointing out she doesn't hate him when she says she's beautiful when she hates the world, explicitly saying she cares about him in The Beach, being incredibly sweet and loving to him during all of Nightmares and Daydreams, and then again in the finale by helping him get dressed up and acting all cute as they get back together.

But she also holds him accountable when he screws up. She doesn't let him use his difficult life as an excuse to be a jerk and calls him out when he's being unreasonable, or when she feels mistreated/like he's making a mistake (see The Beach and Boiling Rock Part 2).

But since the fandom loves to completely erase Zuko's mistakes AND to not let go of a stupid ship war, this completely changes the context, making Mai out to be this awful, bitchy girlfriend, when in reality, she did a great job handling Zuko - sometimes even better than the fan favorite and mentor figure Zuko had through most of his arc.

Uncle Iroh Fucked Up

Before all of you try to kill me, let me make one thing clear here: I love Uncle Iroh. He is one of the most awesome characters in the show, and I fully believe he was trying his best to help Zuko.

But he is still a human being that makes mistakes, and he was raised in the same dysfunctional family Zuko was, meaning he often had NO IDEA how to handle his deeply traumatized teenage nephew/son.

Him spending all of book 1 trying to help Zuko capture Aang so he could go back to living with the guy that disfigured him is already bad enough, but we also have the episode "Avatar State" in which Iroh asks "Why would your father banish you if he didn't care about you?"

Obviously he only did these things because he didn't want Zuko give into despair and depression - but he is still, at best, ignoring the issue, and at worst actively making excuses for Ozai's abuse of his own son. This backfires on him spectacularly, as Zuko sides with Azula over him both in the first and last episode of the season specifically because he believes that appeasing Ozai is the right thing to do, as he was only banished "for his own good."

But THE biggest mistake Iroh made when it came to helping Zuko was his refusal to accept that no, Zuko was never going to be happy by living a quiet, simple life in Ba Sing Se - even after Zuko explicitly said as much to his face.

Obviously, to some extent, Iroh HAS to make Zuko accept that he won't ever be able to come back home after Ozai literally ordered Azula to capture him, but he could have tried to find some kind of middle ground with Zuko, since being a waiter clearly wasn't making him happy.

"Oh, but what about how Zuko started acting after his metamorphosis? He was so happy about working on the tea-shop with his uncle, and that was supposed to reveal his true self!"

Yes, it was supposed to do that. But we saw how Zuko acted after actually dealing with his trauma and redeeming himself. He was obviously in a much healthier place, both mentally and spiritually, but he was still moody, still sarcastic, still as proud as ever, and even Iroh recognized that he was meant to be Fire Lord.

Zuko's arc has a lot to do with identity, with how he sees himself. At that point, the only thing he still had in life was his uncle - so he was acting like him, because there seemed to be no other role model, no other path. Seeing that weird, cheery, relaxed, always-seeing-the-good-side-of-things version of Zuko was honestly unnerving.

And Iroh thought that Zuko basically giving himself the Lake Laogai treatment was okay because he following in his footsteps, doing what helped IROH heal and change - he didn't realize it was never gonna be able to do the same for Zuko.

The very second Azula shows up, even when she's being hostile, Zuko drops the facade, because she's a reminder of both his old life and what he thought his future would be. And when she offers him "redemption" Iroh tried to advice Zuko against joining her by saying "The redemption she offers is not for you" (as in not for someone who is doing better and doesn't need to return to the Fire Nation) and "It's time for you to choose. It's time for you to choose good." How is it a choice if Iroh is explicitly saying which option Zuko cannot pick, essentially making the decision for him?

Iroh didn't just get the way to help Zuko wrong - he didn't realize his nephew didn't believe he needed help. They were not on the same page at all, and that contribuited to Zuko betraying him.

Though, thankfully, it ended up being for the best, as Zuko found his own way to redemption by himself.

Conclusion

This fandom as a whole tends to not understand Zuko at all and just eat up a bunch of fanon while pretending to be so intellectual, which I very much resent it for.

[oh-shtars]

You said you loved to get asks about your AU

Weeeeell I wanted to know, what are your plans for Amaya? What’s her deal? Her backstory? Her personality? Tell us about the queen 👀

I’ll be honest here Anny, I have NOT done her redesign yet and she’s a character I’m so frustrated with right now because I keep getting stuck on creating her- jdksjdjsks

But I have worked out her backstory! It’s just her role in the actual RFTS!storyline that’s bothering me 😭😭

Character Plans:

See, just as I’ve made Magnifico a parallel of Star, I’ve made Amaya a parallel to Asha. Whereas RFTS!Asha keeps her dreams and desires to herself because she’s insecure and afraid to take charge, Amaya is also just as highly ambitious but headstrong and ruthless.

I have Asha to represent how “To achieve great things and for people to believe in your lead, you need to be the person to believe in your capabilities first. To be brave enough to take a leap of faith.” Amaya is the opposite. She has her dreams and desires, but she’s willing to do whatever it takes to get her way. Even if she needs to crack a few eggs to get it. I wanted her to represent how “Pursuing your dreams is great, but at the expense of other people and dragging them down to get there, is a very shtty thing to do.”

Amaya has a passion for discovering and desires to learn everything there is to the world of magic around her. I did say she was just an eviler version of Zarina, didn’t I?

The thing is though, she is willing to sacrifice certain animals and “poor unfortunate souls” as fuel for her experiments. So umm, yeah. I wonder what happens to the people kept in the castle’s dungeon-

She believes the reason that most of the magic in the world is unknown and undiscovered is because people are holding themselves back because of “sympathy and feelings.” Amaya didn’t like that one bit, so her main hobby and goal is to keep digging out for more. Always hungry for more.

Bonus Facts:

- Unlike Magnifico, whose trauma has prevented him from effectively learning magic, Amaya is actually competent with magic usage without the use of any certain artefact. No staff or anything.

- She’s skilled at disguises and making up fake stories or lies on the spot that are easy to believe. (As a reference to previous Disney villains who used this tactic)

- Similar to Asha who has a sketchbook around with her, Amaya keeps a notebook that she keeps her notes in. (I guess this can be the substitute for the ‘forbidden book’ in the canon movie. lol)

- Amaya has a pet sphinx cat whom I decided to call ‘Espino’. It means ‘thorn’ in Spanish.

- While everyone else is just a tool for her to use, she does feel genuine love and concern for her husband when he does spiral into a PTSD episode. She’s had no one else in her life for a while now and Mag was the only one who ever understood her, so she’s willing to aid him whenever she can.

- She likes horse-back riding in the woods and does so often to relax or collect ingredients for her experiments

- She hates the idea of anyone or anything holding her back from what she believes is her true potential.

- Amaya holds the calculative and strategic skills in her ‘brains and the brawn’ duo with Mag. Mag is more on delivery and force if necessary. She’s calmer and aids Mag whenever he’s stressed or having temper issues.

- She’s also quite a fan of novels and poetry and likes the sound of poetic and fitting endings. It’s the reason why she’s being so nice towards Asha because she sees her as a fun toy to play around with. Especially when it comes to considering the king and queen’s strong opinion about Tomás.

(Tomás used to be hers and Mag’s assistant before he was tragically killed died after strongly holding beliefs that oppose their rule. It’s quite an entertaining irony if they were to have Tomás’ own daughter follow in his footsteps. One that he obviously would’ve hated to see if he was still alive.

Magnifico disliked the idea of having an inquisitive annoying girl around his work. Like I said in my previous drawing, he finds Asha ‘unbearable.’ But oh well, anything for the wifey. Happy wife. Happy life.)

Backstory:

Amaya grew up a little typical girl in Rosas with big dreams of mastering and getting to know everything regarding alchemy and magic. It’s a whole world that’s surrounded by it and who knows how much is left undiscovered?

The unfortunate thing is that her family was against this passion of hers since, well, not everyone thinks magic is a necessary skill worth your time when you can do it by yourself the traditional way. While her parents didn’t mind how King Oliver and previous other rulers have always provided an easier living for their people with magic, they want to keep the family tradition of achieving things by themselves magic-free. It’s how their ancestors established their livelihood as farmers after all.

Rosas had the best reputation of being the most inclusive and welcoming kingdom, so people holding these magic-free beliefs still have their boundaries respected and allowed to refuse magical help if they wish.

But Amaya? Amaya didn’t want to follow her parents’ footsteps. She wants to pursue her own dream.

…..

Mag and Amaya’s love story is basically Royalty x Commoner.

They met when Mag was 15 and she was 14 and were best friends ever since. Back then in the past, when there wasn’t as much worries and things were a little more simpler. But Amaya’s parents progressively start discouraging her to interact with Mag as they believe his role as prince and the future sorcerer king of Rosas is influencing their daughter to take up magic too.

Until one day, Magnifico never heard from her again. And then years later as young adults, they found each other again in the woods, where Amaya had fled away from her home to secretly study magic on her own there. They bonded over feeling so pressured to give up on their initial desires just because their parents and life decided to be unjust and cruel to them.

“Like, don’t you ever just wish you could hold the world and shake it soo hard because you’re so mad? OMGG BESTIE, SAAME.”

👆That was the look Amaya gave him when Magnifico asked if she ever felt “helpless and trapped,” like he did. It was at that moment that Magnifico fell down a flight of stairs and head over heels for this woman.

Sooo, childhood friends, to losing each other for a bit, to finding each other again, and then to romance.

(Wait- wdym they’re like Simba and Nala too? Pfft-)

The thing is though, Amaya is a wanted outlaw. (Or criminal? Idk the right word. Do they mean the same thing?).

Her identity is not exactly known. The guards are aware that there’s someone stealing ingredients and breaking Rosas’ rules and safety regulations about studying magic. The kingdom bans the production or study of any magic that could actively harm or terribly curse animals and humans. Remember when I said Amaya couldn’t give a single flying sht about that? She just managed to keep her real name clean because of her skills in disguises.

Amaya’s state and Magnifico potentially withholding information lead to another father-and-son argument with King Oliver again.

But just to sum it up before this gets too long, Magnifico ended up taking his role as the next king with Amaya by his side. Upon obtaining his magic staff and finding the ability to collect wishes, he banned the usage of magic with the exception of him and his wife ofc. Under the excuse it’s for Rosas’ greater good and safety. In the castle, Amaya is finally given the freedom to explore the unknown. Something about “I’ll give the whole kingdom to you if you asked for it” and “I promise we’ll both get that world we both deserved.”

Which would be a sweet kind of thing if it were another couple in another innocent context…. :)

Idk, Anny. Might change things up a bit but let me know what you think. Thanks so much for the asks btw!! 💖

[armpirate]

UNDER HIS SKIN || JJK || Ch. 35

Pairings: tattoist!jk x fem!reader

Genre: smut, angst, friends to lovers, tattoo au, virgin reader.

Summary: They say there are two versions for every story, and it's important to hear both of them. Everybody is hearing your side of the story, but it's just fair to get to know his.

After breaking up with his girlfriend, the only thing he wanted was to have fun with no attachment. You wanted to get rid of your virginity, and he wanted to tick you off his list. What he didn't expect was getting so emotionally attached to you that he would regret the deal.

Previous || Next

MASTERLIST

Aprox. time of reading: 13 minutes

Chapter warnings: smut, oral sex (male receiving), non-protected sex, dirty talk

Ever since I came back to our table, I haven't been able to think about anything else that isn't that picture. Not because of the content itself, because I know Y/n would never do something behind my back, and I really doubt she'd choose Jin if she ever did, basically because of all the consequences that would come right after. It activated something that I thought I overcame when we both decided to be exclusive. The possibility of Y/n finding someone better has always been in the back of my head, because I genuinely think she could do way better than me.

A few times she interrupts my inner monologue, she tries to cheer up the mood by making some jokes or being touchy, but it only makes me disconnect from my thoughts the short seconds it lasts. 

—Is something wrong? —she asks, wrapping her arm around mine and squeezing it.

—I'm just a bit tired —I lie, after hearing her ask the same question a few more times. 

—Do you want to leave and get some rest? —she suggests, resting her chin on my shoulder—. I've already finished mine. And I'm sure it won't be a good idea for me to get another one.

When I feel the weight of her head on my shoulder, I can't help but turn to her. Her big eyes are looking at me with a shining light I'm not able to describe, but it for sure works on making me feel more relaxed. 

I nod at her question, making her move away from me so she can stand up and follow right after her.

—Tae isn't here today? —she frowns, trying to find him among the customers.

Honestly, I'm glad Tae and her get on well. At first, I was afraid he'd be too harsh on her after everything that happened with Areum and Leslie. But Y/n's personality captivated Tae instantly, and even made him protective of her sometimes.

—No, he didn't feel well. So Brooke is in charge of the place.

—I hope he feels better soon —she mutters as we head outside—. Tell him that if he needs something...

—I will —I cut her up.

The fact that Brooke, someone Tae also trusts, twisted things just to damage Y/n annoys me, but I know it'd make Tae freak out even more if he ever knew. 

While I drive her home, I feel her hands playfully rubbing my side and tummy, before she's resting her cheek back on my shoulder. Seeing no reaction from me, she just stops trying until we reach her place. 

—You aren't sleeping here? —she looks at me confused, when the engine of the motorbike is still on when she hops off.

—I'd rather go to my place tonight.

—Cut the shit, Jungkook —she crosses her arm over her chest—. What's wrong?

—I told you I'm tired.

—And I'm not buying it —she tilts her head—. You were fine tonight, and out of nowhere you started acting like...

—Like what?

—Like an ass —she rushes to answer—. If you were tired, you could've told me. And we would've gone straight to my house or your place.

—If my attitude bothered you so much, you could've called Jin so he could keep you better company.

Those words leave my lips before I'm able to realize it. Something so insignificant as that picture, got me overreacting and losing control of my own tongue.

Y/n just looks away, pressing her lips together before her eyes are back on me. Sweetness is long gone, and now she's the one who's annoyed here. 

—Why are you bringing up Jin?

—You tell me —I turn off the engine to hear her better—. Why did I have to learn from someone else that you and Jin went out for drinks, and were all over each other?

—All over each other? You have to be kidding me.

She just scoffs, her eyes going blank as she throws her head back and looks at me again with both hands hanging on her hips. 

—He's my fucking boss. He invited me for drinks, because he couldn't do it on my first day —she tries to explain—. He knows we're seeing each other. For fucks sake, the day after, you came to pick me up and he saw us being all over each other.

—And that's why you didn't tell me? —I insist— You told me you'd get home late, and that's why I didn't go to pick you up.

—I didn't tell you because I didn't think it was important —she squints her eyes at me—. I went for a drink with my boss. He himself made things clear when I asked him, so I don't know where this is coming from.

She doesn't say much more, she just waits for me to answer back. But I really don't know what I should answer back right now. And it seems like my silence annoys her even more. 

—It's unbelievable you're the one trying to be offended over me hiding things though —she continues—. Maybe you're being an asshole because Jimin can't tell you what to do right now. Right? —she crosses her arms over her chest— Maybe he'd tell you to man up and bring some sense to that tiny brain of yours.

The fact that she knows about that little thing, and what a dickhead I was because I talked about something that involved her with someone else, and took their advice instead of just accepting what she wanted, makes me aware that she has pretty more reasons to be annoyed at me than I do. 

—I've dealt with your big walls constantly, with your stupid ideas, and even how you don't even want to consider us as a couple. And you really think I'd run after someone else after how much it took us to get here? —her voice trembles as she speaks—. You could've talked to me about it, because I know you would've gone home without saying a single thing about it if I hadn't insisted. You should discuss everything with me.

Everything that was crossing my mind, everything that could've made me distrust her in the slightest, completely disappears when her voice cracks towards the end of the sentence. I allowed my insecurities to get the best of me, and blind me into thinking she'd ever be able to hurt me while being aware of the pain she could put me through.

—I'm sorry —I say, getting her to look at me—. When Brooke told me and showed me the pic, I don't know...

—I don't know either —she crosses her arms over her chest—. It wouldn't cross my mind to do something like that to you.

—I'm sorry —I apologize again, hopping off the motorbike to feel somewhat closer to her.

—If you are sorry, then I really hope you park that damned motorbike and bring your ass up to my place —trying her best to hide her smile, she tilts her head.

—That's it?

—What? —she steps back— Were you expecting me to throw a tantrum and go two weeks without talking to you? —her eyebrow raises with that last comment— I could do that, but I don't want to. I just need you to understand that I'm only into you. And next time something like this happens, you talk to me first —she starts walking, but she suddenly stops again—. I'm not bringing up the whole deal issue because we made up a few days ago, but I hope something like that doesn't ever happen again —she warns me, lifting her index in my direction. 

Trying not to show off my smile, so she doesn't regret her words, I press my lips together and nod. 

Honestly, it feels weird that we both made it out so quickly and so easily. Not like we've gone too long without talking with each other, and the few times were because of a serious issue -at least more than this-, but I still can't believe everything's been solved so fast.

As I sit on the couch, I see her moving uneasy in front of me, puckering her lips, until she finally speaks again. 

—I really can't believe you still think I could look at anyone else the way I look at you —she straddles me, and the way she feels against me will make me go insane—. Maybe I should use actions, because words don't stay long enough up here —she rubs my temple with her index as she says it. 

—How will you do that?

Her fingertip runs over my skin, digging behind my ear into my hair, as she bends over me to link our lips together. One hand holding my head and playing with my hair, while the other travels down my neck and chest. Her touch makes me feel so needy, I see no point in holding back before I sink my tongue in her mouth.  

Not ready for her to move yet, I keep her tight against me, enjoying the taste of our saliva mixing together while our tongues just twirl against one another. And it only gets messier when I feel her pressing her core against me. I unzip her jeans, making them baggy enough around her waist so I can sneak my hands through them, cupping her ass tight. 

She bites my lip before she breaks the kiss, pulling it in between her teeth with her eyes fixed on mine. She seems so dangerous while she does it. But I don't care, I want -and need- more. I move my hands back to her back, holding her tight. Although she's still able to move, I made sure of that after I saw her intentions taking over her eyes.

She kneels slowly in between my legs, moving her hands over my thighs until she almost reaches the noticeable bulge under my pants, and that's screaming for attention at this point. I let out a heavy breath, a feeling all my muscles tense under her touch the closer she gets to my crotch. She unzips my pants. And while I keep my hands in the air -trying to allow her to have as much control as she wants over me-, she finally takes them off, along with my boxers. 

My hard cock jumps free as soon as she slides the fabric down, and I'm sure I won't last too much if she keeps looking at it as if it was something she had been waiting for forever.

She licks my shaft, from the base to the tip, and I'm only able to sigh when the warmth of her tongue traces one of my marked veins until she reaches my most sensitive part. Her fingers wrap around it, letting her tongue tease me. She moves it in circles around the tip,cleaning the precum that keeps leaking. 

Not enough with the feeling, I move her hair away, wanting to get the perfect image of how she looks while she drives me crazy. 

—Suck it, baby —I ask, rubbing her cheek with my thumb. 

As she bends over again, my hand goes back to the back of her head, taking all the locks I can away from her face. 

She wraps her lips around my tip, covering her teeth with them -feeling my heart pounding with pride when I remember I was the one who taught her that-, before she starts going down on me. She bumps her head up and down slowly, having me lifting my hips in the air so her mouth could never leave me. 

—Keep your eyes on me, babe —I command, trying to get her eyes back on me as I notice her closing them.

But maybe it’s the biggest mistake I could've made. 

She looks up to me, big eyes digging for any hint of pleasure on my face, while her lips are wrapped around me tight. Not only is it the way she looks, but how she makes my cock vibrate when she whimpers on it. And I can tell by the way her body tenses, she wants attention just as much as I did. 

—So fucking good —I praise her again—. Sucking it like I taught you, like a good girl.

And that praise must've awakened something in her, because she pumps my cock with her fist, making sure her movements were in sync with the ones in her hand. I can feel my cock twitching with every move she makes, and I'm reaching that point where I'm not able to control my body as I'm too hooked on the shivering.

—I'm gonna cum, baby. Stop —I warn her.

I made her move back. And, after only giving her a few seconds to recover, I cup her face in my hands. 

—Come here.

While we kiss, I do my best at taking her clothes off. First moving her pants away and sliding them down her legs along with her panties. And like I'm attracted to it, my palm covers her slit, fingers digging to know how wet and ready she is for me, at least until she's back at straddling me. 

I'm so desperate for her, that I don't even care about the ripping sound her blouse makes as I tear it apart. I see her lifting her hips, and I help her by holding myself up, aiming to her entrance. A united, and harmonious gasp, leaves our lips as she sinks me deeper in her slowly. Her walls wrap around me tight, taking me in so easily, yet molding around me so well, that I doubt I'll make it for too long. 

She jumps slowly at first, helping us both get used to each other, lifting and lowering her hips, taking me back in when I thought she'd be letting me go completely. Her hips increase the speed slowly, making the clapping sounds of our bodies louder with every jump. 

—You're the only one I want to fuck like this —she moans, one hand on my shoulder and the other on the backrest of her couch—. Do you understand it like this?

—Fuck, yes —my voice cracks in the middle of the sentence—. You're only mine.

—Uh-huh.

I pull her in for a kiss, as I lower my body on the couch, dragging her along with me. Taking control away from her, I hold her hips up and start drilling into her in a speed that soon has her moaning louder, while her pussy clenches around me tight. I lower the cups of her bra, sucking and biting her hard nipple as I fuck her like I've never done before. Fucking her like I'm sorry for being such a dumbass today. 

—I'm close —she holds onto my wrist as she says that

—Cum with me —I move even faster.

Her pussy clenches around me again, before her body collapses over mine with a loud moan that has my ears whistling for a while. Although all of it only makes tingles run over me, from the tip of my toes to the top of my head, before I cum in her. 

—We didn't use protection —she panics, suddenly looking at me.

—It's alright —I move under her, trying to get back to the initial position—. I'm clean. And we can buy the morning after pill tomorrow.

I kiss her again, slow and sweet, enjoying every bit of her right now. 

✸ ✸ ✸

A placid smile adorns her face while she closes her eyes, trying to recover from her high, when I fall next to her on the bed, still not able to believe that all of this is real. Turning to me, she starts moving some stamped locks from my forehead, although I use that soft gesture to pull her from her wrist and make her wrap her arm around me so I can feel her closer. 

While I look her in the eyes, and how they look at me as if I were the only person in the world for her, I instantly remember how I made her feel bad just a few hours ago. 

—I'm sorry about tonight —I apologize again—. You didn't deserve to be treated that way in the pub.

—Kook, we already talked it out.

—We didn't. I apologized and you let it go —I stop her, before she tries to move on from it again—. I should've thought better of you, but I was so blinded by the idea of you being into someone else... I'm just scared of losing you, losing this, being played with again. I know you wouldn't do that, but I can't help but be prepared for it.

As I speak, and I let all my insecurities drop with each one of my words, I feel the knot in my throat tightening. Not even her fingers playing with my hair can make me feel better right now. 

—I'm not going anywhere, Kook —she assures me—. Not now, not tomorrow. So get that idea clear in your head.

It's all about the honesty in her words, and how she makes sure I understand each one of them while looking deep into my eyes. I want to speak, tell her everything that's going on in my head when it comes to her, but I know I won't be able to say a word without accidentally sobbing. When I cover my face, as soon as I feel my lips trembling, she simply pulls me in for a hug.

—I thought you wanted me to say cute things to you —she teases me. 

I giggle on her chest, hiding my face from her, before I move back again, just to look at her. It's right then, when she weeps some of my tears away and rubs my cheeks ever so gently, that I know what all those mixed thoughts mean, and how I could express them perfectly in just one sentence. 

—I think I'm in love with you, cocktease.

When she stops, and looks at me intensely, I know she's not ready to say those words back yet. But I didn't say it because I wanted to hear the words back, I just said them because I wanted to let her know everything she causes in me. 

[bluejaybytes]

calliope - open-mindedness and learning ?

HAI :]

OPEN-MINDEDNESS– How do they deal with disagreement? How do they balance different perspectives?

Cal isn't at all a pushover, but he also tends to just... avoid... conflict. He really prefers to keep to himself at all times, so whenever disagreement arises between him and someone else, he just kinda... walks away. Most of the time this works out, OCCASIONALLY it doesn't, and if he's in a situation where he KNOWS he's in the right, he's not afraid to take charge. Luckily BECAUSE he doesn't really spend time with people, conflict and difference opinion can mostly just be solved with "okay then." and walking away, and then he and Juno fight like... never, because Juno's incredibly agreeable

LEARNING– What are they interesting in learning about, if anything? What hobbies and skills do they have? Do they know how to make themselves happy?

He's INCREDIBLY knowledgable on outdated classes and lines of mining robots! He was raised in a settlement that was directly involved in the production of the lantern robots, and after the destruction of said settlement (His fault, whoops), part of how he copes with that is learning as MUCH as he can about those lines of robots, more than he did just through the osmosis of being a kid and watching his family and friends working on them. This did eventually spiral out into a genuine passion and not just his attempts to stop what happened in his hometown from ever happening again, so it's not JUST the lantern robots he's educated on. A lot of the scrap metal traders he frequents either love or are greatly annoyed by him, as he'll point out when a specific piece of machinery they're trying to sell is worth a lot more than they realized... or is basically useless and not going to sell for what they thought it would.

[terabyteturtle]

Fighter #01 - Mario

- Mario's actually a great cook! He and Luigi make Italian food every Monday, using tons of delicious recipes they've learned over the years. The bros even have a secret four-cheese pizza recipe that's been passed down within their family. Sometimes, Peach and Daisy help them in the kitchen and taste-test everything to make sure it's perfect.

- Don't tell anyone, but Mario secretly uses fireballs to heat up the pans when no one is looking. He knows it's not the safest thing to do, but hey, it gets the job done quicker.

- He and FLUDD are often in charge of watering the gardens. Sometimes, Mario will hide behind a bush and spray Bowser just because he feels like it. This usually prompts the Koopalings to get revenge by stealing FLUDD and turning it against him.

- Tending to the gardens means spending a lot of time outside, which means Mario has a lot of time to think, which unfortunately also means he's come up with a lot of stupid ideas.

- One of these ideas involved him trying to reach the top of the mansion using FLUDD's Rocket Nozzle. And if that wasn't bad enough, he's tried doing it numerous times. Needless to say, it never ends well. Mario would probably be dead by now if not for FLUDD's quick reflexes.

- He keeps his cape tucked beneath his overalls just in case the younger fighters spontaneously want to play Superheroes. If a game begins, Mario will bust out his cape in the most dramatic way possible.

- He has two piggy banks that he keeps out in the open. Bowser may tease him for it, but how else is he supposed to store all those coins?

- Let's be honest, he probably has more hidden somewhere.

- Wario is super jealous of how much money he has.

- Ever since he visited Bowser's oriental palace, Mario has been really intrigued by Japanese culture. He and Ryu talk a lot about Japan's history and customs together. Mario wants to speak to Kazuya about it too, but is afraid he'll get thrown off a cliff.

- He's very grateful that Kazuya didn't try to kill him at any point in the past and he doesn't want that to change.

- The plumber is reluctant to pay his taxes. He has no idea where his hard-earned coins are going and it worries him.

- Cappy and FLUDD were a little tense around each other at first, but over time, they became best buds.

- If someone asks him "What's up?", he'll respond with "The sky, of-a course!" every single time without fail.

- Every Valentine's Day, Mario gives Peach a bouquet of carnations with an adorable note.

- He used to like brussel sprouts when he was younger, but grew to despise them as time went on. He'll tell the kids to eat them even though he won't eat them himself. (Lucas thinks he's a major hypocrite because of this.)

- Mario played a major role in constructing Smash Mansion.

- He still says "It's-a me, Mario!" despite the fact that everyone knows his name.

- Joker taught him how to do slight of hand and now he can't stop.

- This dude has already planned out his whole wedding. He doesn't know whether or not it'll actually happen, but the plans are tucked safely in his desk drawer if the time ever comes.

- He wants to travel to other fighters' universes because he's genuinely interested in their hometowns and cultures. Not to mention the food; Mario is always down to try new food.

- He'll happily give the other fighters mustache grooming tips despite the fact that almost none of them have mustaches.

- He's the first one called whenever there's a plumbing issue. He's happy to help, but wonders why they can't just get Luigi to do it half the time.

- Mario often listens to music while he works, but sometimes gets a little too distracted by it and ends up having a full karaoke session. Some fighters find this amusing, others think it's super annoying.

- His favorite song is "Lasagna" by Weird Al Yankovic.

- He's amazing at every sport aside from football and anything horse related. He's not that into football (he much prefers soccer) and he has a lot of trouble riding horses. Young Link once tried to teach him how to ride Epona, but that ended up being a disaster.

- Mario rarely ever gets sick. Lucas thinks this is interesting considering he doesn't eat his brussel sprouts.

- He has a strong dislike for anything named Spike. The name alone just brings back bad memories for him.

- He's an undefeated Whack-A-Mole champion.

- Mario still has the W and L emblems from an adventure long past. Sometimes, he'll wear them both just to mess with his brother. Luigi strongly disapproves of this.

- Mario's quite the handyman and is often asked to assist with repairing more than just pipes.

- He and Bowser frequently compete for Peach's affection.

- Spoiler alert - both of them always lose.

- Wario, King Dedede, and King K. Rool are betting to see which one will steal her heart first (Wario bets on Mario and Dedede bets on Bowser).

- King K. Rool is betting on nobody and, so far, it seems like he's winning.

- Mario is always in a cheerful mood, even after he loses a match.

- He and Sonic set up obstacle courses outside sometimes. Usually, their competitive edges get the best of them and they compete to see who can clear the course first.

- These competitions often come with dire penalties for losing.

- One time, they agreed that the loser will have to be the winner's personal butler for the day. Mario lost.

- I'm sure most of you figured this already, but Mario has a pretty high pain tolerance. Once, Bowser kicked him down two flights of stairs and he just got up like nothing happened.

- Mario will never wear his hat on the mansion roof. There was a party on the roof once, and he was standing outside on the balcony when, suddenly, a strong gust of wind knocked his hat off. The poor guy nearly fell over the railing trying to retrieve it. Ever since that incident, Mario refrains from bringing his precious cap up there.

- He and Corrin are in charge of pool maintenance during the summer.

- Mario and Luigi tag team it whenever there are wrestling matches in the Boxing Ring (why wrestling matches are occurring in a boxing ring, nobody knows).

- He loves Princess Peach wholeheartedly and admires her for her bravery during countless negative situations; he's so innocent and pure when it comes to her.

- FLUDD has tons of different nozzles, though only a select few (Default Nozzle, Hover Nozzle, Rocket Nozzle, and Turbo Nozzle) actually have a practical use.

- Sometimes, Yoshi teases him by taking stuff he says too literally. For example, if someone tells him something unbelievable:

"Really? You're-a just pulling my-a leg."

*Yoshi suddenly appears*

"Ow, Yoshi! Stop-a pulling my-a leg!"

- His favorite song from the Smash soundtrack is "Jump Up, Super Star!" Not only does it give him tons of motivation, but it's always nice to hear the voice of an old friend.

Note: Wow, I didn't expect this to come out as long as it did, but I hope you enjoy it regardless! Next up is everyone's favorite Kremling-bashing, tie-wearing, banana-loving gorilla!

[edutainer2022]

Many thanks to @janetm74 for shifting me in a headspace, where Kayo decided to talk to me - I understood what was missing to wrap up a WIP. It's a ruminative little piece. It's Skayo... but not yet. And to absolutely nobody's surprise, it's an unapologetic love-letter to Scott Tracy. Kayo POV.

...blue, like she'd never known*

And just like that, she was in love with Scott Tracy. Which was a ridiculous place to be, really. Firstly, she'd have to get in line behind two thirds of the population of planet Earth, give or take, and roughly half of the rest - scattered across the solar system. Scott would have that effect on people - part natural charisma, passed down through genes, part radiant charm, unique to him, but mostly dimples, of course. Scott Tracy was, on average, the best thing to ever happen to anyone in a lifetime, whether sweeping down from the sky to lend a helping hand, lifting one's spirits with genuine, well aimed words, or just training  the brilliant blue gaze with kind attention. His father had never walked into a room he hadn't commanded, but Scott was yet to leave a room he hadn't inspired. They all loved him, of course, like a flower loved the light. Soaked in his warmth and passion, they flourished.

That is not to say she didn't know he was, also, a massive idiot. It was her job to know his demons by name, to know his pain, the shadows that haunted his despair, the exact shades of guilt that colored his self-destruction. The family consensus was it was Virgil's job to shoo those away. She'd be happy to chip in, prepared to throw hands with anything that could ever lung after his soul, but the shadows haunting her own were arguably deeper, hungrier. And you can't fight darkness with darkness. At the end of the day, it didn't matter. When the clouds lifted - he was the Sun.

Therein lied her other problem. The sun doesn't love you back. The sun doesn't even notice you exist, most of the time. Oh, he loved them, all right, with fond amusement and sacrificial devotion. He was in equal parts admiring them all -  quaint and precious to his gaze - on the seventh day of creation, and determined to climb the nearest available crucifix. She'd rather he noticed her lipstick. Not that she wore lipstick. Not since that one mission at a charity gala - too much evidence to clean up, she honestly didn't know how Penny did it. But he didn't notice. It stung more than she cared to admit. He would die for her in a heartbeat, but wouldn't really SEE her.

He drove her mad, of course. Up the wall belligerent. With his misplaced protectiveness, freakish need to control the risks they took, the obsessive desire to take risks himself and the penance of responsibility he piled on his shoulders. She ranted and raved, and sneaked from beneath the shield he tried to impose. It was her job to keep them safe so that they could save the world. In that order. It was nary possible to guard him and to prevent a threat, being smothered in return. She'd never forgive herself if she failed. But he didn't see a fierce protector - he saw a little girl, best friends with his baby brother, a ward in his charge - one of his father's many legacies. Frustration drove her to want to scream sometimes. Sometimes she did. Their shouting matches ended up in long stretches of exasperated silence. Sometimes she took it out on him in the gym through the training sessions. No, she was not above petty revenge. After all, it was her job to make sure he could protect himself, if he wouldn't trust her to do so.

She wasn't intimidated, of course, neither by his imposing hight nor the flaring temper. But she was afraid. Her fears varied from something they shared with all of his brothers - that one of these days, in his drive and dedication, and disregard, he would fly too fast, too far... and the sky would be drained of the color blue forever, leaving them all in the wake of cold shadows. Some fears were hers, and hers alone - that one day those blue eyes would behold someone he would SEE. Someone, who wasn't her. She decided a while ago that would be her cue to leave. She loved him enough to power through flings and dates, and an occasional girlfriend she knew meant little. It was her job to know. It was her job to know when it would mean something, too. She loved him enough to let him go.

But the one fear kept her up and chased her dreams. That one day he would look at her and see HIM. The most vile and hateful excuse of a human being. Her uncle. She couldn't bear imagine the shade of revulsion and betrayal in his eyes. The ashes. The Sun could burn, but the Sun extinguished meant damnation. No more than she could bear the pain she saw etched in his features every moment of every day. Every time the spectre of her uncle loomed over, haunting his grief, stirring deeper turmoil. She loved him enough to keep him in the dark.

------

* Loving Him Is Red is such a Scayo song, I can't even!

[tfw-no-tennis]

one piece liveblog chapters 813-814

ayyy

813

liiiiisten this is some of my favorite shit. like, the trope where a big reveal happens in front of other characters and they react to it and stuff? delicious.

'you think I know or care about your family issues?' hvbajhdfbajskdfhb bege

sanji being so blindsided is hhhhh delicious

BROOO the flashback to jaya (!) with sanji mentioning he's from north blue and brook pointing out he'd had to have traveled over to red line to end up in east blue....hello!!!! insane forshadowing my god

tbh I don't think oda had this planned from the beginning, or even from when he put that in jaya - it was such a small moment that it could've easily remained as is and it wouldn't have been a plot hole or anything

buuut I think oda did a great job leaving a lot of avenues open to do exactly this - expand on an existing character in a major way without it feeling cheap or sudden

like, I absolutely believe that sanji had a second secret tragic backstory that he never mentioned before. that makes complete sense in the context of the story!

yeeeeah pretty obvious (at least to the reader?) that sanji has been chosen for an arranged political marriage to unite the vinsmokes and big mom - though it also has the effect of linking the strawhats to big mom thru sanji as well. uh oh!

I'm soooo glad that the whole arranged marriage thing was played straight and there was no question of sanji potentially leaving the crew for a marriage bc he loves women sm or whatever. I was afraid it was gonna get treated as a joke/gag but thank godddd that wasn't the case and the arc was too serious for that 🙏🏼

like even here, there's no moment of sanji being like 'ohhh a woman oooh' he str8 up says 'I'm not marrying someone I've never met'

and like. ugh I wish sanji's character was less 'creepy and weird abt women' and more 'romantic about love.' that would be sooo interesting here, bc I DO think sanji is a romantic at heart and that's part of why he would never accept an arranged marriage, but also still wants to try to make it work/holds out hope that they could be compatible, etc

sanji saying luffy's gonna be pirate king 🙏🏼😭😭

lmfao sanji saying whatever take caesar we're leaving. yea ditch that chucklefuck

honestly love bege he's great here as a villain and I love his gangster theme and I really like his character arc during wci

vito is one of at least 2 Tongue Guys in this arc lmao

mannnn what did he say to sanji??????

honestly the emperors are hype as FUCK especially at this point in the story where we haven't directly dealt with them much...

sanji leaving the note and saying he never meant to hide anything from them....hhhhhh and its TRUE he seems like he genuinely never thought he'd have to deal with the vinsmokes ever again, let alone be used as a pawn in a political marriage by them

and pulling the classic move where he's like 'I have to resolve this by myself' oh babey buckle up time for a rescue arc fuck yes

the way he just yeets them out of bege lmao

no rights for caesar lmao good

MANNNNN SANJI BEING SO COOL...I love when sanji is written well wwwww

him threatening caesar, who they need alive, and deducing that the reason his bounty poster says 'alive only' is bc of this wedding thing, so they can't really harm him...yummmm

sanji quickly doing the math and realizing that giving himself up here is the only way to strike a bargain and make sure his crew is safe 😭 dude aughghhhh

and surely he feels extra responsible bc he's in charge of their little group while the rest of the crew is in dressrosa

they call bege godfather, love it

nekomamushi is sooo fucking cool I love his fangs

dangggg bege just lying and saying one of jack's men killed/injured pekoms

AUGHHH i looove the panel of sanji smiling and telling the crew he'll be back ;_; mannnn

fr looks like he's about to die horribly and knows it tho damn.

and of course he says 'this is my problem' bc he doesn't want to burden the crew, or put them in danger, so he sees it as something he has to resolve on his own

yeah okay like that worked out so well for nami and robin lol c'mon sanji of course luffy isn't gonna let that happen

and his note oughghhghh. so badass and casual and also just 👀👀

SO HYPE. MY GOD

814

KUREHA AND DALTON WWWWW DRUM ISLAND AWWWH

brook should 100% sing random exposition and filler stuff more often plsss

ok so pekoms didn't die. I figured lol

nekomamushi running after the catnip hvbhajksdfbjksfdn

LMFAOOOO brook making stuff up for his song abt nekomamushi....valid

bro I love luffy so much he's like oh cool sanjis gonna get married but he said he's coming back, I wonder if he'll bring his wife, that's chill

hhhhhhhhhh everyone can see that sanji is throwing himself on the sword to keep the straw hats out of it, and him claiming he'll return is hopeful at best - but of course luffy wouldn't see that bc to him there's no question that sanji wouldn't be part of the crew

awwwh chopper crying :(

zoro acting all blunt and uncaring...ohhhh I have so many thoughts about this

I do think zoro really DOES think sanji can handle himself and doesn’t necessarily need their help - tho that doesn’t turn out to be the case

I love too that zoro immediately backs up his attitude with facts - they just put themselves right in kaido's line of fire, and they can't just ignore one of the emperors...they're at the point in their journey where shit is heating up

zoro: we don't have time for a crewmate rescue arc we're too far along in the story for that

and like it's kinda true, I feel like rescue arcs tend to take place closer to the beginning of a story as an easy way to flesh out characters and interactions, so one taking place past chapter 800 (!!!) and with one of the well-established main characters is kinda wild

like, wci ran the risk of feeling/being kinda redundant character-development-wise (obviously it was always gonna have important plot stuff w/big mom) but instead. it slaps

oh yea zoro mentioned kin'emon. where the fuck did he and the other guy go lol

to be fair. luffy did already pick a fight w/big mom lmao sanji didn't start that beef

also again I love how opposite zoro and sanji are as characters - zoro doesn't have a complicated past w/his family, and if he were in sanji's place he'd probably just be like 'nah.' and deal w/the consequences directly

but of course sanji loves self-sacrifice so here we are

luffy being like. well. lets ask sanji! I LOVE HIM SM....

luffy really said okay kaido can wait lets go tangle w/another emperor first. he's so iconic

luffy suggesting they'll be quiet....................have to laugh vhbjakusdfslfd

mannnn the scenery and environments in one piece slap

PEDRO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

lmao remember when everyone thought chopper was gonna get a mink gf during zou...listen this is one piece we're talking abt. no romance allowed (mostly)

IS NEKOMAMUSHI EATING LASAGNA. HBVHJKSDBFJKSJBF

EPIC GARFIELD REFERENCE

chopper being the stern doctor...love it. it truly is tough when patients ignore your instructions. but also chopper lives in the one piece world so everything is kinda crazy anyways

nekomamushi is soooo funny vhbahkdsjfxhbksfdbh him being serious then instantly chasing a ball and injuring himself. helpp lmfao

'I'm only in bed because I decided to be' that is Exactly something a cat would say lmao

ooooh pekoms isn't dead

VINSMOKE LORE DROP TIIIIME

oh jk cliffhanger tiiiime!

pekoms saying that the vinsmokes are famous assassins and active in the underworld really DOES make it seem like they're a mafia family like people theorized

love the contrast of pekoms saying the vinsmokes are assassins over a panel of sanji smiling. excellent

zoro and perona in the SBS doodle wwwwww love them. mihawks weird goth kids

OH MAN these chapters are great. I love the buildup to whole cake - the tension is excellent, and it's really hard to tell at this point where the story will go.

we still haven't learned a lot about the vinsmokes yet and thinking abt it now, sanji's reaction doesn't even tell us that much about them - he's prone to self-sacrifice so he probably would've gone no matter what

I mean its obvious there's a reason sanji has never mentioned his biological family before so clearly it isn't a huge leap that they're evil, especially as we slowly learn more abt them

anyways this is dope but I gotta go to bed...more to come!

[biblicallyaccuratepigeons]

so

i deliberately looked for and screenshot a few anti-ford comments on that poll

because i hate myself ig

anyways i'm gonna be ventin so dldr ig (i voted stan btw)

here we go

hey fuck you? fuck you personally? we don't know that. we can't know that. and hey? it also wouldn't've taken him thirty years, just for the record.

dude what. the fuck. is your problem. you fucking symptom.

rude?? he's literally not a smartass. 20 years of being intellectually ahead of stan; ten years after that of being around college students and professors in his multiple advanced-as-fuck fucking phd programs; thirty years of a personally driven revenge quest to destroy his ex-boyfriend who would otherwise destroy everything he cared about and laugh about it; coming home to find that his life had been taken over so thoroughly that he thought it was another parallel universe; seeing his greatest fear realized; trying to stop it anyway; failing horrendously because he got startled; being tortured with enough electricity to kill a person and that's just what was PG enough to show - and all he did that could otherwise be interpreted as smartassy was to calmly correct his brother-who-had-ruined-his-chances-to-go-to-a-good-university-then-denied-his-one-imperative-request-and-pushed-him-into-the-portal-just-to-open-it-back-up-despite-the-danger's grammar. For fuck's sake, let him be a fucking human you bitch

it's not a complex dude. he is literally both more intelligent and more educated in more fields than about 99% of people, especially of his generation. sorry

As if Stan didn't do the exact same thing on the roadtrip? He would've ended up food if the kids weren't there - hell, he even went back to Darlene after she had already attempted to eat him using the exact same flattery. Did Ford ever go back to Bill? No.

ford... was also doing the most for his family? like it was pretty clear that he was trying to save the world from bill; even before that, he was doing everything so he wouldn't let his dad down and also be disowned

hey can someone tell me what "everything" is because what the actual fuck

i feel like. those two things are incompatible? but either way, in the wake of my bruised ego, this genuinely confounds me bc. like the only thing i can think of that would make someone say that is his pre-portal relationship with bill, as portrayed by bill. and. idk. that story was more sad to me than anything because i've been there. the only thing he did wrong was trust too much.

ok the funnier bit i totally agree with but WHAT THE FUCK WHY DOES EVERYONE THINK FORD'S MORE SELFISH AND HATES THE KIDS LIKE ACTUALLY LIKE THE FIRST THING HE EVER SAID ABOUT MABEL WAS THAT HE LIKED HOW WEIRD SHE WAS AND HE SPENT 30 YEARS TRYING TO KILL THE UNKILLABLE THING THAT HAD DESTROYED AND WOULD DESTROY MULTIPLE DIMENSIONS GET THE FUCK OVER YOURSELVES

wh-what the fuck did he do. what the fuck did he do.

ok now this is just a case of envy. you gonna go home to your negative gpa? gonna cry because you can't find anything special about yourself? we have no idea what ford went through while he was on the other side of that damn portal, but we do know that stan never had to be afraid of sleeping because of what he, himself, would do while he wasn't looking. he never had to worry about who was in charge of his own mind. he never had to be afraid of children on the street, or his own brother. fuck you personally and get a fucking hobby.

he was 17/18 with an abusive father and scared?? also. ford was also going through it in the events leading up to the portal. like i know he was financially comfortable and shit but he was very much not okay

i'm not gonna say he was right not to forgive nor thank stan because he absolutely wasn't, but for the record: ford did also go insane. like that was a very significant thing that happened. also: see the smartass rant. and let him be human please i am begging you.

okay one fuck you because he wasn't "playing" anything. he was trying to get shit done and enjoy life at the same time and that's not a moral failing. two you're being unfair, he didn't "start punching" stan, he punched him once and then when stan tried to punch back he stopped him. he also had thirty years of nonstop action and fear and revenge quest on his mind, with literally no time to work through his hurt because he was too busy surviving, and then stan started the portal right as he'd almost succeeded in his thirty-year revenge quest. he should've forgiven him sooner, but it's not like it doesn't make sense, even from a moral standpoint.

i'm sensing envy and ableism here. sorry you have different strengths than ford; hope you recover soon.

he's like not though? at all?

and this last one made me smile so i wanted to put it at the end for a light ending

And we were all like, "We know, but heyy!"

[talenlee]

USP-08: August's Custom Cards

New Post has been published on PRESS.exe: USP-08: August's Custom Cards

The Masqued shed their old identities to become anyone; known mostly for masks they wear that distinguish them from normal partygoers on the Palace Boats. The Faceless have masks of wood, bone, and dirt, or create faces that look like animals just because they know it is hard, otherwise, to tell where to look when you talk to them. Some take on forms designed to express an identity that demonstrates their skill, their aesthetic sense. But then there are those, in these same magics, who have their identities shriven from them – people who need magical aid to restore themselves to being a person again, people who somehow are there, but not, manifested to the world but done so without an identity. It is a strange thing to have every name, and stranger still to have none.

Warning: Wizards employees, this post contains unsolicited designs of custom magic cards.

The theme of August was tricks. Tricks is a pretty broad group of things you can represent in the game, of course; a bunch of the cards were tricky by involving manifests (which let you do tricky things). Some were tricky because they invoked specific classic magic tricks. Some are tricky because they have changeling and enable a whole lot of different ideas in a little way. And some are tricks because the spell is something other than what it looks like.

Looking at these cards I’ve made I find myself kind of struggling to express how proud I am of what they represent in my head, but also, so afraid that there’s no clear vision for you, an outsider, of how well they work. Does this convey the right flavour? Am I overdoing this? Is it obvious what this is based on name and mechanics? Ah well, we’ll see.

In this flavour space, I think of the manifests as either proto-faceless, things that have not yet worked out how to have a identity, or failed Masqued, things that gave up their identity but weren’t strong enough to handle what happened. Again, like Changeling, this is two different ways of examining the same mechanic.

Quynn is the entrenched leader of the Masqued and possibly their first leader. A dedicated faceless manipulator, Quynn has spent so long orchestrating plans across identities amongst all the different factions of the Palace boats that Quynn has long since lost track of who is or isn’t on whose side, and that anything that renders these factions at peace with one another is not to be trusted.

Markhor is a sphinx living on the ice palace. They are an absolute pain in the ass; thery genuinely think the best way to convey information is to make it hard to understand because then you value it more when you solved it. Markhor is sure they are the smartest person in the room. They are possibly right. It doesn’t matter, they are just also very annoying.

Khenbish is a Temur planeswalker, who is stuck in the swirld of Ullaine’s reckless love. They believe in mysteries for their own sake, and exchange names for ideas. They are largely not that interested in what’s going on in this world, but it just so happens their home world’s morph magic and these wandering manifests are similar enough.

Aysun is a vampire lord meant to patrol the territory of the Outlands docks, there to keep the Barrens Scourged. She doesn’t want to, and thinks that’s stupid, and she’s not sure why. It’s probably because the assassination attempt she survived was done with a chunk of the Horned King’s horn, and now she has an ever-growing connection to the violent, primal part of nature that wants to feed. She’s disdainful of the Palace boats, and she has no idea how her loyalties will fall in the coming days.

Zyru is the prince of the Faceless. He’s not in charge of them – he’s just one of them so possessed of style and flair (and with such a pattern of behaviour) that Faceless happily regard him as their prince. Zyru is known for appearing in places, usually feasts and parties, and then rumbling someone who thought they could handle what the faerie-boy was about to deal out. Zyru’s technically got a side in this war, but most of all, he’s here to have fun.

Nil is the third of the Ravenous Hounds. The Hounds are meant to represent forces of nature trying to make death mean something – consuming the dead and cleaning up the work of planeswalkers. While Ole Doorscar attacks your life, and Psoglav feasts on bodies, it’s Nil who eats the soul, ripping away what you thought made you who you are.

And then finally, there’s Visha. Visha is a strange construct that lives at the Palace of the Dead. Periodically, Visha emerges, issues a proclamation and returns inside. Nobody understands what Visha is doing this for or why, but it’s now much more worrying when Visha appears and doesn’t go back inside, instead throwing some enormous porcelain hands.

I feel like I might spend more time than usual on single, specific card narratives this time, just because so many of these cards stand out in my mind. I can see how in the end of the design, a bunch of these cards’ relationship to tricks may be a bit obscure – like a Killer Approach is a fairly generic term for initiating a good magic trick. Still, there are some I think of as real treats!

Demask deserves special mention, as it is pushing the absolute limits of card space, in my mind. It was a sorcery originally, but the wording got larger and larger, until I opted for an aura (which also gives some counterplay). I had to get the wording base off a card called Dream Leash from Ravnica, which has a really odd wording because of templating changes since its original appearance.

Inviting Guest may hold a record for the most space on a card saved by avoiding reminder text. If it was a real card, it would also be the only card (that I could find) that has the word manifest on it without the reminder text for manifests (which makes sense; manifests are a complicated mechanic). In my mind, I think of the changeling as ‘Shion’ because the art reminds me of a friend’s OC (though the character is obviously a lot more flamboyant and rambunctuous than her.

There are two cards here that are secretly alchemy cards in disguise, or at least, that’s how they started. The Tide-Weaver multiplist is one, but the much cheekier one (in my opinion) is the Masque of Naught, which is meant to fulfill the role of the Juggernaut Peddler. It took a lot of wording iterations to pull that one down, including a bunch of very short names to try and save space.

The Usurper’s Palace (USP) is a collection of Custom Magic cards made with the general structure of a commander draft set. The cards are posted, one per day with different themes every month, to the Custom Magic subreddit, on my Mastodon and Cohost. Follow along for more!

Check it out on PRESS.exe to see it with images and links!

#2023CustomMagicCards #CustomMagicCards #UsurperSPalace

[greysfall]

My 4444-word review of NEO TWEWY (with personal illustration + heavy spoilers)

My overall critical score for the game is 7.5/10, while my personal enjoyment score is 8.5/10. This review is posted as I have 80% completed the game, got the secret ending and achieved the Angel psychic rank. I’ll first start with the main pros and cons as follows.

PROS:

-        Enjoyable as a whole, still upholding the first game’s spirit in world building and sharing the same backbone - which was mostly revealed in the Secret Reports, it’s impossible to grasp the story without reading them.

-        The new cast and new game is charming in their own way

-        The old cast’s return is one of the biggest highlights for sure, it was fun and impactful. Everyone stays true to themselves and also had their own stories wrapped up nicely.

-        Boss designs are cool, new pins are fun to use and collect

-        The connection between the old and new cast is well written and executed, including but are not limited to the tension between the old and new protagonist, the weird but fun interaction between the 2 Composers, the new friendships revealed and formed

-        Sho being in the main cast is something so uniquely TWEWY and uniquely Sho

-        Still good music

-        Still many fun side quests, some of them really uphold the same quirky spirit of the old game and some are surprisingly touching

-        Many new nice stores and yummy looking foods to explore

-        The map is really easy to memorize for me, it’s fun to travel around the “current” Shibuya to see all the differences compared to the past

-        The social network is crazy and interesting to read through

-        Has an anti-frustration system to help 100% complete the game more easily and earn money faster, so post-game is relatively managable.

-        Overall, I really feel the efforts the team poured into making this as their passion project, not just during the development process but for all the last 14 years. They showed the vision of what they wanted to make, at the same time giving something to both the old as well as new fans.

CONS:

-        The biggest problem with the game is scenario writing. The story is so heavily back-loaded. The director himself thought it would be better to balance out the tension flow by adding more at the beginning but gave in to the scenario writer in the end, probably due to time pressure. This results in an underwhelming execution of characterization and lots of wasted potentials for the first half of the game.  

-        I struggle to view it as a stand-alone game, since the backstory and the old cast both play such an important role in the core of the game. If someone plays this game without having played the OG, they can only enjoy it on surface value at best.

-        The new cast is nice but most of them aren’t quite as intriguing as the old cast, maybe it’s cuz they’re all too nice deep down that they lack a little bit of an edge, of that batshit craziness that everyone in the OG used to have? I think some characters (Fret, Nagi) ended up weaker in terms of characterization because the writer is too afraid of making them unlikeable – which kind of backlashed cuz they only became likable in the most expectable way to cater for a specific group of fans. I would have wished for the other team leaders to be more crazy too, had they not suffered 30+ loops of the Game…

-        The CAMERAWORK IS HELL.

-        Gameplay does get tedious at certain points with all the time travels.

-        Shiba is so badly written as a villain, some Shinjuku characters should be given more screentime cutting into Shiba’s– like Hishima or Kaie or even, Hazuki (though his limited presence also solidified his importance).

-        Some of the main character designs, for example Beat’s hairstyle and his food reactions are hilariously bad. What’s the point of covering up most of his unique facial features?

-        Some of the minor/side characters’ design are too cool for them to have such a small role (eg: Ayano, Eiru). Ryoji did get much screentime but is nowhere as fun as Makoto was.

-        Overall the scope of this game is made a little too big for the team to handle as perfectly as the last game that was very compact, it felt somewhat rushed in development too so the missing pieces are clearly there in the final picture

The entry fee versus paying for it all in the end

An important difference between the Neo game and the original Shibuya game was that the Shibuya rule asked for an entry fee that is the Player’s most important asset, stated as a chance the Composer gives them to reexamine themselves. Meanwhile, the Shinjuku rule neither encourages nor allows personal growth and ultimately aims to erase as many Players as possible. It’s a pity we were never introduced to the full Shinjuku rulebook, as it seems like the system there focuses more on building up power and a grand government to compare with the individuality-driven system of Shibuya.

When you have to compare the new game and the original game (OG), this is an important factor to consider. Also, the OG has a serious storyline running through and through, locked with a different partner/GM creating unique atmosphere for each week and you don’t get to see your old partners again until the end. NEO’s team system does not allow such deep insight and communication between the Players. All of your teammates are always there throughout, the dynamic does change with each new addition but it is not as prominent as a partner change.

Another important factor is how the OG was built from scratch for a new platform as “something no one has ever seen before”, while Neo recycled a lot of old unused ideas from the previous development (check out this interview for more details). The development team for NEO lacks 2 key members and had a change of writer so the final product is not as strongly bound together as the last game.

The new cast is definitely inspired by today’s teenagers (from the view of creators), compared to the old cast they’re more sociable and always seem to take whatever works for them despite feeling unstable inside. They are all innocent and genuinely nice kids, avoiding to hurt each other to a degree that they end up keeping some sort of distance. They’re also unable to communicate at deeper levels, always stagnant at this half-baked stage of equilibrium without any motivation to get to the core of things. That is the cost of entering the game without an entry fee, without even dying or having a reason to be there/to fight seriously. These kids were stolen from the RG into a Game that was decidedly the worst environment for them to change or develop, just wandering around cluelessly to find a way “out” until tragedies started to unfold one by one and they ended up being charged the total sum of the price for their actions – ultimately losing everything in the end.

That is, I believe, a story arc which can resonate more to the youth of today rather than of my generation. If the message of the old game was to “listen”, enjoy life to the fullest and accept to trust others, the message of the new game is to “speak up” from the inside, trying to understand yourself and take actions instead of just going with the flow and finally, to take responsibility for such actions.

If Neku was handpicked by the Composer for being the special one with an all-dense soul to ensure victory of the game then Rindo was just a normal kid chosen out of random by Kubo to be his back-up plan, who just happened to have a high enough imagination to awaken the incredible power from his pin. Rindo was then officially chosen by the Composer as Josh picked up and handed the pin to him again, this time not as Josh’s personal Proxy – but as the Proxy to represent the normal people of Shibuya and via whom he could gamble if humans can fight for their own fate.

The underworld heroine and the hero with little of his own

Shoka is for me a refreshing and layered heroine. She’s the kind of character that took at least 3 trials of creators to form as a complete individual – that included Nomura who gave her the base design and Reaper background, Gen who gave a more cunning touch and the writers who made her English dialogues more punchy. Dishonesty equals “tsundere” is such a cliché, so the English writers tried really hard to avoid that trope in my opinion, while still letting her good intention come through.

She serves as the character who is informed of everything the players should have known, and there was almost nothing she could do about it. Almost. Until she met Rindo.

They were drawn to each other by sharing a state of “not having anything of their own”. They both started out with not being able to truly know themselves, Shoka even hated her RG life but also managed to mature from that stage before Rindo. She must have vibed with Shiki’s love and passion in the Gatto Nero threads, initiating her connection with Shibuya and understanding herself more. With Shoka as Swallow, they were able to open up to each other and offer mental support… but was still not getting to the centre of their problems because for all this time, Shoka could not tell Rindo the most important things about herself.

How did Shoka feel when she met Rindo at the UG? She probably didn’t want to hope that he would live the day until she witnessed the Twisters’ potentials. From the very beginning, they were both incredibly conscious of each other and also constantly frustrated that the person they happened to “notice” was such a condescending bitch/a clueless loser. The Shinjuku Reapers are overall quite drunk in power and uncompassionate to Players, Shoka included. She is also a master of dissociation, which results in her constant boredom, tone swings, haughtiness and subconsciously distancing herself from the friend – the boy she cares about – from false hope, as she judged from facts that it was a hopeless situation where nothing could ever be. Maybe she is naturally a bit of a chameleon just like her name suggests (Shoka 紫陽花 = hydrangea, the color-changing flower), so putting on an act and always dissociating herself from what’s important was easy, while hiding her contradiction was impossible. It was the ex-Reaper Beat who broke it out to her, that she should decide whether she really cared and wanted to do something for a change. He knew how it felt like to cross that line, and knew she wanted to too.  

Shoka is endeared by many of the Shinjuku Reapers and has shown independent acts of kindness (the Shinjuku ghost), proving that her kind and truthful side is as real as her harsh and dishonest side – which makes her a nice mirror to the previous heroine Shiki, who also embraced a dichotomy of self-complex and self-love within her character. In the end, she was the first of the new cast to ultimately accept all that is important to her and independently made the decision to help save Shibuya despite all costs.

She was jealous at Rindo’s interaction with Tsugumi and Kanon but remained silent cuz she wasn’t at a place to have any say about it. She also didn’t reveal about Swallow because that would only add an awkward irrelevance to their current situation, as she was too ready to face erasure at the end of the Game. She only wished to “play a game” with him, be it FanGo or the Reapers’ Game. The tension that the team could only feel at the end, she’s felt it the entire time. The song “DIVIDE” is applicable to not just one bond in the game, but it always makes me think of theirs. There is always a “divide” between her and Rindo throughout the course of their journey, as the living and the dead, as a Player and Reaper, as someone who has a place to return to and someone who doesn’t, someone who knows little but wields too much power and someone who knows a lot despite not being able to do much.

“If only I had the chance to connect with you on the other side

But time goes on, and without us realizing it

The battle is getting heated

Time goes on, and without us realiazing it

Divided again”

To be honest, maybe I didn’t grow any affection for the new main cast from Rindo’s perspective but from Shoka’s. Since I started to sympathize with Shoka, I started to see the boy in a more “real” way. The real Rindo, behind his peaceful façade with others, would lash out on Shoka for her unfairly harsh attitude while none of the others cared. He could also subtly feel that mantle of unspoken secrets from her, her own contradictions, the unresolved chemistry between themselves – and not knowing what to do with it rather than to feel angry with all the unfairness he could not process. (As a Libra too, he’s triggered the most by unfairness!)

It is actually a positive development as he’s at least “reacting” to something strongly now rather than to keep evading his problems. During my replay, I clearly saw the difficult situation Shoka was in, her remaining harshness after the Motoi incident was due to her internal struggle with a mission to save her own life, versus a chance to really be with the team. Her decision was to do both at the risk of losing favour from both sides. Rindo started to accept her layer by layer, as the person who resonated the most to her contradicting nature from the start and knew that via learning her resolve, he has learnt his too.

Later into the game, she even got too much of his attention. Maybe even without knowing she’s Swallow, he’s familiar with her thinking direction and Swallow had always been closer to him than any other friend. It was only after she had to betray her important ones twice that she could start being truly honest. The scene when she died a 2nd time left a strong impression in me, the little reveal let Rindo know that he is also losing Swallow as he’s losing Shoka – and that only death could drive the last secret out of her. Her final “Later, loser” echoed through Rindo as it was the final truth, with only him remaining to hear it: they had actually, already lost everything.

Rindo was the boy who never dared to face all that matters to him until he lost it all, fighting an unfair battle in the faith that they would somehow still win. Shoka was the girl who always knew what was dear to her, but never dared to think she could be together with them ever after and still threw her all into a battle she knew was losing. I think they stir each other on naturally to fill out their gaps, similar to what the Shibuya game partner systerm would have aimed for. The end reward was a little divine intervention to help close up the divide between them once and for all.  

During the game there was not enough space to process anything personal so at the ending when they officially became “friends”, it was an important affirmation of their bond. Some people complained it was friendzoning but it’s not, they just have arrived at the perfect place to start something more. “From now on, we will truly be together” – I read it as that kind of message.  

The heroine from a lost battle, with her story taken away

After reading the secret reports and playing the game to be surprised of how small a role Tsugumi had in the main game despite being the “Hype-chan” thought to be a major character of the next TWEWY installment, many fans would feel sad at a missed opportunity to see the Shinjuku arc in full depiction.

It was shown clearly that, a Shinjuku arc was very carefully planned out and is a vital part of the whole story, yet it could not be made due to various circumstances behind the development scene. I would assume, that the team were not able to make a TWEWY game that ended on a despairing note, but it already happened in their mind, thus becoming a mental burden that forced them to break away from it and started the game anew with NEO. A significant part of NEO became the healing arc for the Shinjuku characters, especially for Tsugumi though I really wished more emphasis should have been placed on her rather than Shiba. We didn’t even get to see her brother – Shinjuku’s Conductor who had a vital role and instead was given the clueless Shiba, who had absolutely no idea what’s going on all the way until the last day in NEO. It’s as if Tsugumi has had her story stolen away from her, because her own battle ended with a saddening loss.

I think every time the game creators look at Tsugumi, they would feel that sadness too. Maybe to them, she is a bigger character than what is seen by the fans, as despite their failed effort to depict her story, she’s lived in their mind for all these years through periods of destruction, healing and rebuild.  Though it is a pity we could not get to experience the full scope of the Shinjuku story, the creators was clear about the place they wished for it to arrive at.    

Individuality, connection and the social network

The team system adapted from Shinjuku rulebook does not allow much room for personal development, as the team dynamic is closer to a work relationship forced to bear results, than a spiritual bond to max out all corners of understanding as found in the partnership system. The old Shibuya system allowed only 1 winner and 1 week limit per game, while the new rule declares for a 1 winning team and only the team at last place will be erased – the other teams will enter another loop. Furthermore, whichever team to challenge the unwinnable Ruinbringers will face the risk of ending up dead last followed by erasure. As a result, the longest-standing teams are most likely not the strongest ever recorded, but the ones who have figured out a strategy to simply survive until something changes, enjoying their newly found social constructs while they are at it. Basically, it is a system to hypnotise players into the illusion that they are still “living”.

Therefore, we as players would not get to the core of each Player individually as fast and directly as we did in the last game. The Twisters were able to stand out not because they’re powerful, they only started to have a real chance after growing enough to each form a meaningful and personal connection to another teammate. It did not come as a team, nor did it intiate from the existing friendship between Rindo and Fret. In fact, I did not find much solidity or anything truly note-worthy about the main team and new characters within themselves until they started clashing with other team members, Reapers and new recruits from week 2 onwards. Rindo found his personal development with Shoka (via a clash with Motoi and pretty much a mini dating sim between them), then via the confrontation of his role with Neku; Fret found his with Kanon then Nagi, the team learned about the real Neku via Beat, Neku entered the UG via Coco’s wish to save Tsugumi… it was not the team but their personal links that empowered them to fight and solve each of their problems.

The other team leaders may have failed because they did not form such personal links, after 30+ hopeless loops Fuya’s team all fell apart to pursue their own interest even at the cost of erasure, Motoi quit his KOL façade to work like a dog for the Reapers (probably to save just his own ass not his team), while Kanon dropped her tricks to find changes via honest cooperation in acceptance of a fair loss. The despairing note in that is huge without making much of a scene because their failure didn’t happen at their best effort to “win”, but in their last attempt to find a way “out”. Even Shiba got his way “out” in the end thanked to his personal friendship with Hishima and Tsugumi.

Something has shifted in the mindset of the game creators in the last 14 years, as both games are about “connection vs individuality” but the last game focuses more on connection between just individuals and this one on the overall network that is formed out of those individual connections.

The introduction of Beat into the main cast was truly the bridge between old and new, they helped each other out in several turns before officially recruiting him. Beat is a character whom a lot of fans including myself have felt somewhat concerned about after Neku disappeared from the RG, so when the new kids welcomed Beat with warm and organic interaction and Beat seemed happy, I started to feel like I wanted to help them out too! I think the overall team chemistry is enjoyable enough for new players, but I could warm up to the new kids more from the pov of a returning character – whom I’m glad to be Beat, as the older brother figure who is genuinely kind, fun, serious and upbeat at the same time; who is needed and needs the kids in return.

The social network is a fun and refreshing feature. You can read all of the crazy tidbits about Shibuya and the links each character have formed with the town people, it’s also fun to visualize how the characters act off screen. Characters’ profiles provide extra insight into their background too, like how it reveals Tsugumi has been friend with Coco during her time in the RG. During the game when not all characters have showed up, you can sometimes guess which empty spot will belong to whom. For example there is a 1 character linking to Neky that is not linked to anyone else, so I could guess that was Joshua, and that another character linking only to Joshua was probably Hazuki, hinting that the 2 Composers are related before either of them even showed up.

Hazuki only showed up for 5 minutes, but his presence is so vital and true to the game that I think he is the most memorable out of the new cast. The two Composers have such an intriguing bond, with their yin/yang or phoenix/dragon themes, opposite color design, the sempai/kouhai tone and the way they keep some sort of distance/work relationship as if it’s mandatory between Higher beings, yet at the same time they can talk so casually because they are truly equal – and different from one another. I have written a separate meta on them here.

Some people pointed out, that all Shinjuku characters’ names and themes are based off Hanafuda cards and the Phoenix in Hanafuda belongs to the Paulownia suit – which is Joshua’s name flower. This is so interesting because it feels like the creators somehow saw it as a sign to interweave the Shibuya and Shinjuku storylines together. Though it doesn’t come out much on the surface, it’s fascinating nonetheless considering both Josh and Haz had at some point interfered with the other town’s affairs.

“Shibuya tour with Haz” was such a special scene, as it happened between 2 characters who do not/no longer have a reason to care about Shibuya, on the subject of what is worth saving about Shibuya. Hazuki carried out the purification of Shinjuku and stepped in to restore Shibuya just as part of his job and unlike Hanekoma or Joshua who both possess profound understanding of humanity, he really didn’t know humans at all. Rindo’s irrational wish invoked in him a sense of curiosity, to try gambling on something irrationally and learning a bit of what his senior have experienced. With all the pieces put together, it provides an overview on Higher beings as a whole, and that Joshua and Hanekoma are really the odd ones out with Hazuki being somewhere in between them and the rest.        

The old friends

It’s easy to have returning characters overshadow the new cast as they have already matured out of their personal story arc and stayed in our hearts for all this time. In the end, I have managed to enjoy both the old and new cast separately and altogether, and they will both find their own place in our memory of this game for the long term.

Sho is truly as crazy as ever, the game wouldn’t be the same if Sho is any less of what he is. Sometimes it doesn’t feel like Neky or Beat is younger than Nagi at all, with moments when it seems like Neky has aged 14 years instead of 3 years. His friendship with Coco surprised me pleasantly, and their interaction together with Beat was fun to watch. Rhyme’s found a new dream and her friendship with Kaie is precious too, especially considering that she can still talk to him online after the game ended. Josh and Neku’s interaction suggested that they have resolved the past and are on equal terms now, they even parted ways in good spirit and I don’t feel any worry about them like I did before.

Neku and Shiki’s reunion scene was beautiful, theirs is such a special bond that it has grown and supported them even without being able to see each other. I am so happy to see them all again and that they stay true to who they are, albeit looking more grown up, cooler and happier than ever before.  

Overall, NEO can’t become a classic on par with the OG, but is definitely a good sequel and a good game in its own rights. I’m happy with whether or not there will be a 3rd game to complete the 3 monkeys theme, but if there will be – I hope the creators can really find the time to learn from the last 2 games and start over with a fresh mindset and strong core.  

[mirkwoodshewolf]

Give her the life I never had; Harry Potter x child reader

*Author’s note*

So this came from my Wattpad requests and this is my first Harry potter (character not fandom) fic that I have written so I hope I didn’t mess this up for any hardcore Potterheads out there.  So this takes place during the Battle at Hogwarts so expect some death and violence involved, other than that not really much anything really. I know it’s been awhile since my last update but I hope to pick up the pace and post up some more stuff and then HOPEFULLY open up requests here since I know you all have been waiting patiently for that.

Taglist:

@plethora-of-things​

@waddles03​

@jd-johndeacon-or-jackdaniels​

@ixchel-9275​

@psychosupernatural​

@queen-paladin​

_____________________________________________________________

It was finally over. All of it.  Voldemort was now dead, the Death eaters defeated, and now the Elder wand was destroyed and lost to the sea.  I looked towards the ruins of Hogwarts knowing that the stone and walls can be rebuilt, some of our friends would be able to heal their physical wounds, however some mental wounds won’t.

The Weasleys they’ll always have to live with Fred’s death for the rest of their life and grieve over the fact he’ll never come back, especially George.  I had seen just how close their brotherly bond was, even when they had nothing they had each other, now George was gonna have to make do on his own, if he could.

And Hermione, while she doesn’t want us to know I had a feeling at what she had done to protect her muggle parents, thankfully with her and Ron seeming to repair their growing relationship, I know the Weasley’s will welcomingly be the family she needs now more than ever.

As I walked along the school grounds that’s when I came across (Y/n) getting looked over by one of the healers.  When she looked towards me, she gently smiled and I smiled softly back at her thinking back on how I found her in all this chaos.

The battle was pure hell.  Spells and curses being blasted, bodies dropping like flies, and rubble from the school walls crumbling down as repercussions from the spells firing out.

I had pushed back a Death Eater with an Stupefy spell which sent him flying all the way across the Great Hall.  Another death eater soon came right at me but I quickly disposed of his wand first before giving him the paralyzing spell.

That’s when I heard it.  The sound of a young girl crying.  I quickly ran around the corridor and saw just down the stairs where I once found the Mirror of Erised, a young girl around maybe her 1-2nd year hovering over an older girl who looked almost like her but had longer hair.  The young girl with shorter hair was weeping hysterically as she kept crying.

“Liz? Lizzie. Get up sis. Oh please get up.” From the pale skin and the soulless eyes that Lizzie had, I knew immediately she had been hit with the Killing curse. Cautiously I walked over to her and said.

“Are you alright?” the young girl looked up at me and she sniffled.

“Yes. But my sister she—she won’t wake up yet her eyes are open.” Knowing how I hadn’t learned of the 3 unforgiving curses until my 4th year at Hogwarts, she must’ve not known what exactly happened to her sister.

“What’s your name?”

“(Y/n). (Y/n) (l/n).”

“Well (Y/n), I…….I’m afraid to tell you this but……..your sister’s—she’s dead.”

“What? No but….if she were dead her eyes would be shut, the spell that hit her just made her collapse. Like the paralysis spell.”

“But it wasn’t a blue light that hit her, was it?” she looked back down at her sister and touched her cheek.  “I’m afraid it was the most dangerous of all unforgiving curses. The Killing Curse.” She sniffled and hugged her sister’s corpse and choked out.

“But—she was…..she’s all I have left!” I looked around and two more Death eaters spotted us.

“Get behind me.” I urged (Y/n).  Without question she got behind me and I held out my wand and as they charged toward us I called out, “Stupefy!” which sent one Death eater flying backwards but then I felt a shock to my hand which sent my wand flying towards the second Death eater’s hand.  She sneered at me but then a voice exclaimed.

“Petrificus Totalus!” the female Death eater soon went stiff and fell to the ground.  I turned and saw that it was (Y/n) who had casted the curse.  I ran over and took my wand back from the witch and told her.

“Come on. We can’t stay here.” She took one last look at her sister.  I knew she was hesitant to leave her but if she remained here, she’d be a sitting duck.  “Your sister would want you safe (Y/n).” she turned to me and nodded before taking my hand and we raced out of the hallway.

Together the two of us worked together to fend off the oncoming Death Eaters, but one Death eater used an Inferno spell which burnt (Y/n)’s arm pretty bad.  I shielded her from the next oncoming Inferno attack but the heat of the flames was almost too strong for me to hold back.  That’s when a wave of water came and extinguished the flames and the Death Eater was flown backwards till his back hit a column and he collapsed dead.

We turned and there stood Professor McGonagall.

“Professor.”

“Harry, Ms. (L/n) are you both alright?”

“I am, (Y/n) however got burnt on her arm.” She walked up to us and she examined (Y/n)’s arm. She let out a painful hiss and the Professor said.

“I’ll take care of her from here Potter.”

“Thank you Professor.” Just as I was about to leave, I felt a hand grab the sleeve of my shirt and I saw that it was (Y/n).

“Thank you, Harry Potter.” I smiled down at her and nodded to her.  She released my sleeve and I ran off to finally end this once and for all.

I walked over to her just as the healer cleared her off and moved onto the next student that needed medical treatment.  I sat down beside her and asked her.

“How are you doing (Y/n)?”

“Shaky but—alive.” She softly scoffed.  “But at what cost? My sister’s dead. She was the only family I had left. Now the ministry will probably put me in the Magic for Orphans facility, and with me almost being a teenager, no one will want me.”

I was probably the only one who knew what she must be going through.  Even though we were orphaned in different circumstances, we still lost our loved ones to Voldemort.  Now I must be crazy because I had no clear idea of what to do next but what I did know was that I couldn’t leave (Y/n) alone anymore.

“What if—” I started off by saying.  “What if you…had someone to look after you?”

“But, but Harry I—I have no other living relatives. It’s always just been me and my sister since our parents died three years ago at the Quidditch world cup.”

“I know, but what if there was someone who wanted to help you out. Give you a home so that you wouldn’t have to suffer any potential abuse or neglect.”

“And just who would that person be?” I sighed softly before telling her.

“You’re looking at him.” Her eyes softly widened before she let out a soft gasp.

“But-but why? I mean no offense Harry but…..why would you want to help me out?”

“Let’s just say, from one orphan to another I know how lonely it can be. I had no clue about the magic world till I was just your age, and though I may not know how the Ministry of Magic deals with orphaned wizards, I do know a thing or two about living in terrible conditions. I lived practically my whole childhood in a tiny hall closet in my aunt and uncle’s place. And I wouldn’t want you to potentially go through that type of abuse in a stranger’s home.”

(Y/n) was silent for a moment, taking in what I just said.  Weighing out her options before thinking about what answer she would give me.

“If not I’ll understand, I’ll check in whenever I can. But just know you won’t go through the rest of your life alone.” She looked up at me.  Her eyes that were once filled with tears, but now filled with courage and strength as she said.

“If it won’t be too much trouble with you, I’ll go with you.” I softly smiled at her and told her taking notice of her robes.

“Spoken like a true Gryffindor.”

After that, the Weasley family, Hermione, myself and (Y/n) returned to the Weasley’s old home the Burrow and decided to rebuild it, a symbol as a fresh start to all our lives after this whole war.

We also had a memorial service for both Fred and (Y/n)’s older sister, each of us speaking for both Fred and (Y/n)’s sister before finally burying them and summoning a beautiful garden around them of their favorite flowers and plants.

As the sun was starting to set I saw (Y/n) still standing over her sister’s grave.  I walked out to her and said.

“Mrs. Weasley’s prepared supper for all of us. She says you best come in before it’s all gone.” (Y/n) remained silent.  I softly sighed and without another word I just stood there beside her.  She may not want to talk, but she should at least know that someone was there when she was ready.

“I—never thought I’d have to face this world without her. Even through our fights, especially after mom and dad died, she was always there for me. She especially liked to tease me about my crush on Joey Matarazzo, saying we’d get married one day and have kids of our own. Now she won’t ever see me grow up, or achieve any dreams I’ll have for the future.”

“Let me tell you something my Godfather once told me. He told me that the ones that love us never really leave us. And we can always find them, in here.” I pointed to her heart.

She looked up at me and finally for the first time I saw a true, genuine smile.  She came closer to me and wrapped an arm around my waist and rested her head against my ribs.  I wrapped an arm around her and we stood there for a few more minutes before walking back inside the Burrow to join the Weasley’s for dinner.

*FF 19 years later.*

It was like any other year, but this time it was my second son’s first time doing this.  I could already see from the look on his face that he looked anxious about his first year going as we came up to platform 9¾.

“Together.” I assured him as we took hold of his cart and we both ran straight through the brick wall and found ourselves right by the Hogwarts Express.  As we walked closer to the train, we soon found Ron and Hermione with their kids, I spotted Draco and his wife and son bidding their goodbyes.  He and I looked at each other, neither of us speaking a word but he gave me a point nod, and I nodded back to him.

“I was beginning to think I’d have to write my own brothers up for detention already.” A female voice soon spoke up and coming right towards us was (Y/n), all grown up and in her Professor robes.

Since the battle she continued on her Hogwarts education and excelled in both Magical creature knowledge and potions making.  By the time she was in her 4th year at Hogwarts, Ginny and I had agreed to legally adopt her as our own child and she was beyond thrilled at the news.  After graduating, she worked with me at the Ministry of Magic to focus on potion brewery before enrolling to be the next Potions Professor and this would be her second year teaching that class.

I’m told she’s kind but firm when it comes to students goofing off in that class, but she is always there to make sure no student messes up a potion and causes injuries either to themselves or others.

“Not in the slight.” I assured her.

“Good. I would hate to have to write them up to Headmaster McGonagall.” She told me.  She looked down at her brothers and asked them, “So boys, you ready?”

“Oh yeah!” exclaimed James while Albus was more reserved and didn’t really say anything. Instead he walked away and sat down with his arms hugging his legs close to him.  (Y/n) and I looked at each other and I told her to get James onto the train as well as herself while I talked to James.  She nodded and guided James as well as his things over to the train while I walked over to Albus and knelt down beside him.

“Dad,” he spoke. “What if I am put in Slytherin?”

“Albus Severus Potter. You were named after two Headmasters of Hogwarts. And one of them was a Slytherin. And he was the bravest man I had ever known. But if it means to you, you can choose Gryffindor. The sorting hat does take that into consideration.”

“Really?” I nodded. “But how would you feel? If I was sorted into Slytherin?”

“Then Slytherin will have gained the best wizard they could ask for.” He smiled and embraced me and I hugged him back.  “Now come on, off you go.” We then walked towards the train and Albus got himself situated inside with his brother and Ron and Hermione’s kids, and riding alongside them to keep an eye on them to Hogwarts was (Y/n).

As I stood by my friends and we watched the train leave the station, waving goodbye to our kids I couldn’t help but feel like we had done it.  The war ended almost 2 decades ago and now our children can learn magic in a better world, a world without Death Eaters, a world without darkness and death, a world without a Dark Lord.

A peaceful time in our world.

[corvuserpens]

Wow ok so episode 04.

I’m actually gonna put this under a cut bc I feel it’s gonna get LONG long.

So this was a symbolically and emotionally charged episode, like literal chills, it was so well written. Also, can I add real quick that this show is a visual masterpiece?? Don’t think I’ve mentioned it before, but it is, I would LOVE to take a tour through Lucifer’s palace, but anyway.

In a sentence I’ll say, this is how you do subversion expectation right. It’s a masterclass on it, actually. I’m gonna start with John’s segment and then get into Morpheus’ to keep things simple, but both did a hell of job (aye? Get it?? Because we travel to hell in this episode, ahaaa) at making me expect a certain outcome and giving me something completely different.

In John’s part, it’s like: to me, John feels like a loose canon. You know the one, the kind that is only a hair trigger away from exploding and causing mayhem. We know he’s the villain, it’s been established ever since he was first introduced. At this point, we know that Dream’s tools tend to do a number on mortals, as we’ve seen with Rachel, Constantine’s ex, in episode 03. John is filled with resentment over his past, his mother and father, his own current circumstances, etc. The ruby likely exacerbated all of it, so we know from the beginning this man has commited serious crimes. We know what he is and what he’s capable of (and just as a side note, I’m loving David Thewlis’ performance, he does extremely well at the whole “wacky but eerily calm” type of villain), but it never quite hit me just how fucking scary he is until he admits what he did to Rosemary, and it’s because I felt sickenly worried for her. We know she is a good person. We know she is kind, a genuinely good soul, she shows it as soon as she comes on the screen and you realize, after getting over your own inherent distrust in people (if you’re like me anyway), that all she wants to do in this world is leave it in a better state than she found it. 

I mean, she nearly runs over a strange man in pijamas and slippers and what’s her first instinct? To yell? To tell him off with some cliche like “get off the road, you psycho!” and drive off angrily? No. Her first instinct is to stop, get out of the car and help him up, ask him if he’s okay. She doesn’t know who he is, but she offers him a ride just because she can see John is a lost person who needs help. She doesn’t know he is a murderer until he’s in her car and it’s too late to turn back. Right off the bat, just knowing Rosemary is actually good and selfless, I instantly felt fear for her, and the second John confesses to murder, I felt my guts crawling, my blood go cold, I was so afraid for her safety. In just a few words, John goes from being a lose cannon to a loaded gun, ready to fire whenever. That’s fucking terrifying. The tension never eases up from there, it just builds up and up and up. Masterful.

Then Rosemary decides to do what any normal person with a murderer in the back seat of their car does: she tries to get help. And it doesn’t go well, of course it doesn’t. I was literally praying “please just take him where he wants to go and drive off, call the cops then, PLEASE don’t pull over to that gas station”, but she does because she doesn’t know what we know, that the Amulet of Protection will kill any person who tries to harm him. Her objective, the only sane objective, is to call the cops. I felt so helpless watching the events unfold. 

I’m gonna be real honest with you: I fully expected Rosemary to die at the end. I see this worrying trend of black or non-white characters dying which I’m not about at all, I know it’s a trope that happens far too frequently in shows and that shit needs to die in a ditch. I don’t claim to be the most woke person in the world or anything but I do try to pay attention and be better at spotting it, that’s all. Maybe I’m wrong in this instance, the truth is I am not black and so I can’t speak for black people. This is just my impression in this show. Back to the plot. 

Now imagine my surprise and relief when John does not kill Rosemary in the end, and even gives her the Amulet to protect her. Sure, now he has the ruby and he doesn’t need it anymore, but the fact that he also recognized what a truly pure soul this one woman is despite her human flaws, that selfishness that he has learned exists in the hearts of all the people he meets, and decided “this person deserves to live so I’ll let her have the Amulet to continue to stay alive” left me completely baffled. THAT is how you subvert expectations, and not just that, THAT is how you write a relatable, likable villain because I don’t hate John. I’m really scared of him, but I don’t hate him. He’s a great villain because I can see where he’s coming from and I understand his motivations, or some of them at least. See, Morpheus’ tools feel like a metaphor for drugs to me, and many of us know how those destroy people. I have a person in my family like that (they’re recovering now, but it’s hard). The way the sand used up Rachel and the ruby clearly twisted John’s already convoluted mind, that terrible need and the things it makes you do to keep you in the high, such as killing people to keep the ruby... I just now realized why there’s a substance abuse warning for this show, LOL. Yeah, long short, I get why he’s doing what he’s doing even if I don’t condone it. I like him as a villain and I love that Rosemary and her pupper Susie got to live to see another day.

Now for Morpheus’ segment. Look. We’ve seen shows take the main characters to hell countless times, for the quest, for the macguffin, for whatever. It’s such an overused plot point it’s gotten as stale and bland as a salt cracker left on the counter for a year. So when I say this show picked up this stale cracker, put it back in the over and miraculously turned into a freshly baked chocolate chipped cookie, you better believe I mean it. I’ve already mentioned this show is a visual spectacle, but this version of hell really feels like a desolate place completely devoid of hope -- hold on, we’ll get to that. The charred bones of thoroughly spent souls littering the ground, the falling ash, the cold Matthew mentions upon arrival, the damned being forced to carry their own fire into hell, the burnt corpses lining the walls still writhing about in perpetual suffering, the people stuck inside trees as they grow around them... God DAMN. I’ve never seen a depiction of hell as a realm of pain quite like this. It feels surreal, yet at the same time it’s exactly what I would imagine what a true hell would be like. Just... OOF.

ANYWAY. As Morpheus and Matthew are being led by that big demon at the gate, y’know the “there’s one at the door” dude, I expect some shenanigans to happen on the way or else we’d cut right to the palace to save time, right? They’re purposefully led through a path through literal towerfuls of cells and we find this woman Nada, who recognizes Morpheus and calls him by a different name??? And the whole Morpheus phasing into a different physical manifestation as he talks to her was so interesting, but the most important bit was discovering that the only way Nada is getting out of hell is when he forgives her, to which he responds that although he still loves her, he hasn’t forgiven her yet. And that’s where the really important bit comes: “I will not give up hope.” And like, we see it hurts him to see Nada imrpisoned in hell, and we see in the demon’s smirk that he detoured them through there on purpose at his master’s orders so he would see her, he revels in seeing Dream Boi suffer. Let’s put a pin on that and come back later, though. 

We learn not long after who Nada is and that Morpheus was in love with her but she defied him, as one does, so he threw her in hell??? Harsh (apparently he didn’t go that easy on Alex either, someone reblogged my original post and mentioned that in the comics we see what Alex actually dreams and it’s gruesome, so scratch that pfft). I hope we get more on that little story down the line. And at last we meet Lucifer Morning Star, and props to Gwendoline Christie because she makes a PHENOMENAL Lucifer, holy shit! We discover that getting his helm back won’t be so easy as that -- it never is -- and he has to fight for it. Unfortunately, after watching so many dark fantasy shows and reading books of the same genre, I’ve learned to look for clues as to what will happen, so I kinda predicted that that other demon who traded Morpheus’ helm, Choronzon I think his name was bc I honestly forgot the gate demon’s name, would choose Lucifer as his champion. Seeing Morpheus’ tranquility morph into dread, oh man I was like “yep, ya fucked up Dream Boi, I told you to pick her first but you never listen to me”. In this case my expectations were not subverted, but I’m the kind of person who enjoys seeing her predictions come to pass, it feels very satisfying to me so it’s okay because the episode makes up for it in spades.

Because here is where the expectation subversion comes in so... well, unexpected, and very cleanly too if that makes sense. See, from my very amateurish writer and in no way professional reviewer point of view, the show writers played the viewer’s expectations like a beautiful fiddle. They made us think there would be a physical confrontation; I mean, Lucifer and Morpheus even change into different outfits and everything and I was like “well, here comes a big ass battle with really expensive green screen CGI but ultimately so overdone so I just hope it’s quick so we go back to the story”, and what the writers did was take my expectations and basically throw them out the window into a fiery pit. Because it wasn’t a physical confrontation at all. It was a verbal one.

I was honest to the Gods out of my mind with it. They don’t dramatically choose weapons. They don’t make a show of preliminary moves. They basically just stand there and... hurt each other with words. Words cut deeper than a sword, isn’t that how it goes? They have to outsmart the other. What kills a wolf? A hunter with a bow on a horse. What kills a hunter? A venomous snake. What kills a snake? A bird of prey, and so on so forth, and it could have gotten boring very easily, but then Lucifer goes like “I’m a fucking flesh eating bacterium” and Morpheus goes “I’m a whole ass planet” and Lucifer goes “I’m a god damn dying star” and it was AWESOME. A battle of wits AND imagination. It was different, it was refreshing, it was so much more exciting than if it were a physical combat, and again, the visuals, the cinematography, so artistic!! I was glued to the screen, lapping up every line. Verbal combat with witty logic will always remain supreme in my heart. And they actually get hurt, it pains me (and delights me bc I’m a fucking sadist who loves to see her favorite characters suffer) to see Morpheus get consumed by flesh eating bacteria and burned by a supernova, every jab from Lucifer makes him grow weaker and weaker, he’s brought low and I’m like “say you’re a void, you emo twink dream child, you can’t beat a void!” But he doesn’t. She does. The darkness at the end of everything. It looks like it’s over, Morpheus is gonna be imprisioned and used up as a slave AGAIN, but that’s not all because Matthew the raven, the REAL MVP comes in and gives the pep talk of the millenium. The whole speech about Morpheus surviving antilife because “dreams don’t fucking die” and he believes that Dream of the Endless would never leave his raven in hell with Lucifer was inspired. 

Morpheus stands up, beaten but not broken. I... Am... Hope.

Chills. I gasped for real, it was a religious experience, I’m not joking. Because he’s right. Hope dies last. Hope keeps us going. Hope is the brightest light, bright enough to beat back any darkness, any evil. Remember uncle Iroh’s advice? “In your darkest times, hope is something you give yourself.” Remember Nada in her cell? “I will not give up hope.” Hope is what kills the antilife. And just like that, in a quiet, perfect climax, it’s over. Morpheus wins. He gets back his helm, but not before one final exchange of words with Lucifer, who vows to destroy him one day and asks him what power dreams can have in hell, and my immediate thought was “all the power, actually”. Because dreams are what drives us, dreams are what make us human. Not our intelligence, or tool making, or ability to form spoken speech, or art or science. It’s dreams, the ones we make up with open eyes, what we see in our minds when we think of the future, and what are dreams if not a manifestation of hope? 

It makes me chuckle because dreams are such a... I don’t want to say childish, but it’s something usually reserved for when we’re children, aren’t they? Oh what’s your dream? What do you want to do when you grow up? Who do you want to be in ten years? But then we grow up and become adults, and suddenly no one asks what your dream is anymore. It’s something we ask kids to get a feel for what they might choose as a career one day, nothing more. It’s kinda sad, actually. I’m 30 years old, I still have dreams. I’m not ashamed of it. They didn’t just disappear after I turned 18, they just changed into more realistic, attainable dreams. But no one has asked me what my dream in decades. People think it’s childish, you have bills to pay, you gotta go to work at your shitty day job, you gotta finish college bc you’re already 30, stop wasting your life dreaming. Grow up. It’s like after a certain age, you’ve reached your quota of happiness and from then on you gotta be miserable and resign to your boring adult life. We kill the child within us to become robots of capitalist society ruled by the big corporations. No dreams allowed. You gotta slave away to make the rich richer at the cost of your dreams, your loved ones’ well-being, the survival of less fortunately people in underdeveloped countries, the very planet you depend on--

Ok, sorry, sorry, that got really offhand. Apologies. Let’s rewind. What power do dreams have in hell, that’s right, and Morpheus’ response is so... Fuck, I did a snap-snap-snap, bitch get SERVED, oh my GODS it was so passive aggressive and EPIC! Always with that quietness of his, always polite, but BOY, he was NOT messing around, Dream Boi went straight to the jugular with that one. I don’t exactly remember it word by word, but I do remember it was something like “how could these souls be trapped in hell if they could not dream of heaven?” And I’m just, Sir you need to be stopped, that was fucking brutal! The look on Lucifer’s face as he swaggers out with his helmet, wow. 

Can we please have more protagonists who aren’t witty or charming/flirthy or cracking jokes every five minutes, can we PLEASE have more protagonists who are quiet and introspective, who are so unviolent and soft spoken, who love their friends so much that they will do anything for their happiness, that when they do decide to strike a blow, you can feel it in your gut and you literally get up from your seat and scream, clapping your hands like a deranged seal??? Give me more introverted protagonists, for the love of all things holy, because I already fucking ADORE Morpheus. I mean, right before the fight he takes Matthew aside and orders him to go back to the dreaming so he can tell Lucienne what happened to him should he not return so she wouldn’t sit alone fretting over what happened to him forever AGAIN, not to mention to save Matthew himself from being stuck in hell for eternity, like THIS GUY, can I get a hundred of him?? And Matthew downright REFUSING to leave him behind, he is Dream’s raven and that’s THAT okay, WE’re not leaving without the helm!! Did I already mention Matthew is the real MVP? Someone should do a video compilation of Matthew’s scenes with John Cena’s theme in the background, I would play it for ten hours straight.

 In another post I’ll also get into episode 03 because there was some interesting character development in there too with Constantine, but this post is already far too long, lmao.

This show man. This show. I don’t know what I expected but I can say with confidence it was not this. I’ve wanted to read the graphic novels since I was a tween and found out about them, but I never got the chance so when the Netflix show was announced I was really excited yet trying to be moderate. I’m well aware that Netflix productions these days are a shot in the dark, but this one is not disappointing. At least not so far. We’ll see what the next episodes bring.

Sory for the long rant, I just really needed to talk about this and I don’t know anyone I can scream to about how much I’m loving this without embarrassing myself, so I have to do it here. Thanks for reading if you did. Bye bye for now.

[ruby-whistler]

one of the saddest things about c!dream is that he never cut his attachments so that he couldn't be hurt. he cut his attachments so they couldn't be hurt.

as someone who analyses c!dream a lot, this seems pretty obvious, but the bastard is good at hiding things, so let me explain;

c!dream knew everyone hated him, he knew that very well. he made it very clear that he was afraid people would go after the those he cared about as a result. here's some quotes to back that up;

DREAM He’s not being neutral anymore and also he’s been getting attacked non-stop by Technoblade and others, who don’t want him to be king. [ . . . . . ] And George has been getting killed and attacked and his armor’s stolen from him.

. . . . . . .

DREAM And you’re always there to have my back and- I know that I pay you, but still… You know, it goes- you know, it’s a little beyond that I would think, and um… I don’t see-

PUNZ Yeah, we’ve definitely grown a strong alliance I would say. Strong friendship.

DREAM And… recently… everyone’s been turning against me. I don’t know who I have on the server other than you right now that’s… that’s on my side and that’s dangerous, because- I mean… If they got together and were organized, I’m not sure I would be able to- how many of you are on the entire server… [ . . . . . ] So, yeah, I guess I- I’m getting a tad worried um… I know… They went after Techno and I can assume that this means that they’re- they’d- You know… They’ll probably go after me. [ . . . . . ] You know… I did a lot of things and even though I’m being good now… I am nervous.

PUNZ Understandably.

DREAM And I think that… there’s a couple things that we should talk about, but- but one, I think that you should… not be on my side.

PUNZ Really…? *stops walking*

DREAM Well… *looks back at Punz* You should, but you should act like you’re not on my side. Because if you’re on my side then you’ll be in danger and probably before they take me out, they’ll try and take you out and then I won’t be there to help you and… That would not be good. But if you’re not helping me and you’re not on my side… Then they have no reason to go after you. Right?

[ credit: @dsmptranscripts on twitter ]

his quest of "cutting attachments" wasn't about helping himself or abandoning his friends for selfish reasons at all. it was him sacrificing the fact he could've kept them by his side - they could've helped him, they could've been there - so that they wouldn't be hurt, because there was a genuine danger in being aligned with him.

he didn’t ignore the effect his bad actions could have on the people he represented (unlike some people have /lh /j). this is not excusing what he actually did of course, but rather shedding light on the fact that he was threading lightly for his friends' sakes, even being willing to lose them to make sure that wouldn't happen.

he chose the dark path he thought would lead to a brighter future, and left his friends behind to pick them up once he got all of the obstacles out of the way himself.

but he never came back.

and this only half-applies to the dethronement; because c!dream wasn’t leaving c!george and c!sapnap, no, they did that.

c!george got assassinated by c!techno, then almost got himself into a conflict with l'manberg. he was heavily connected to c!dream.

if dream cut those ties - at least on the surface, by dethroning him - people wouldn't want to harass him as much, right? because in reality, they had nothing against george. they just hated dream, who was in charge of the faction. george being its figurehead was dangerous, especially since dream was, at that time, planning to destroy l'manberg for good.

c!dream's way of disconnecting himself from c!george was dethroning him. ridding him of a title tightly connected to him (let's not lie to ourselves here and pretend the monarchy ever had any real power to be taken away).

he couldn't truly leave them behind, but, well. in the end, they ended up doing that for him - and of course, he couldn't reach out, because what would happen to them if he let people know he cared?

because c!dream's "cutting of attachments" wasn't about caring, really, because he couldn't stop caring. he could only pretend, he could only try to convince people otherwise - he could only yell about not caring about anything when it was being threatened in front of his eyes. he couldn't stop caring, and so he didn't, and he lost everything instead.

fast-forwards to c!punz; the one person who he kept on his side, because he was rational, he was resilient, and he wasn't endangered for the bigger part of their alliance - but c!dream saw everything going downhill and expressed concern.

he was concerned about people hating him, not for him, but once again, for the safety of the people he cared about.

so, what did he do? once again, he suggested pretending to cut ties. they didn't work together anymore (at least on the surface; there will always be suspicions) and in the end, they cut ties for good, and c!dream was left alone;

not because he "pushed his friends away". not because he "was scared of being controlled" - but because he cared too much about them to let them care back.

people try to paint c!dream as this callous figure who only uses his friends and throws them away when he doesn't need them anymore, but in reality - he would rather hurt himself than be responsible for his friends', his family's pain.

he's lost everything but care - he did awful things and hurt people a lot, but he also loves his friends, and he cares more than he admits, and he shows it especially by how much he makes sure not to let them take the fall for his actions.

he's not a good person, and i'll never pretend that he is - but he genuinely cares, he's human and he's lost things that matter to him and he isn't selfish - all of this proves he's actually anything but.

[pa-panda-heroes]

heya! how about a scenario where shiggy accidentally hurts the reader with his quirk and like, freak tf out? angsts with lots and lots of fluff, please! ty! ♥︎

Okokok imma do my best for my first angst!! Also I added Dabi because I got a request for him a while back and I’ve wanted to write him for a bit, now <3 hope that’s okay!

I think this was a bit longer for a scenario but... I enjoyed writing it so :>

Warnings: language, mentions of violence(? Eh...)

Tomura/Dabi accidentally hurt reader with their quirks!

Tomura:

It happened accidentally. You knew that. Right? It wasn’t his fault, but his damn quirk’s fault, the one that he never asked for and the one that never allowed anyone to get close. Rather, he never let anyone get close because of it. He’ll admit he was always proud of its destructive capability as a villain, but now that it had hurt you, he wish he’d never boasted to a soul.

Twenty-three times. He had called you twenty-three times. And twenty-three times you didn’t answer. What was he to do, now? There was no stopping the decay borne from his fingertips once it had set in, and considering you wouldn’t answer your phone... it didn’t look good. Kurogiri had whisked you away before Tomura could even utter an apology, which looked to him as though Kurogiri did so in order for him not to witness your death. Kurogiri told him something about a doctor, but Tomura figured him a liar.

He couldn’t breathe. You shouldn’t have been hurt. Literally. Tomura hadn’t so much as touched you with a single finger; if anything, he was trying to protect you from the stranger grabbing you. It happened so fast, all he remembered was his quirk activating and the stranger vanishing before he heard your cry of pain and saw the skin of your arm drying out, much like he had done to that hero at U.S.J. He couldn’t tell, but it somewhat looked as though the decay was limited to just your bicep. That could’ve been hopeful thinking, of course, and he knew it.

So he sat there, all alone and hunched over on the couch in the bar, with misery and dread coursing his veins, accelerating his blood pressure to concerning levels. He had nothing to look at but his shaking palms and red shoes as he tried to even out his breathing - to no avail. Then, he felt the weight of someone sitting next to him, and instantly recognized how far the cushion next to him sunk in. And yet, he couldn’t look at you.

“Thanks for that back there,” you say quietly, afraid to startle him, but you recieve no response. “Y’know, I’m not sure what would’ve happened if my knight in shining armor hadn’t showed up!” You knew he felt guilty. Why wouldn’t he? But he shouldn’t. You wanted to convince him of that.

“Didn’t go far, huh,” you hear him mumble, nodding his head to your bandaged left arm next to him. There was no life to his voice and before you can say anything, he speaks again. “It won’t happen again. You’re not coming around anymore.”

“Hey, wait! That’s not your-“

“I’m the leader, and I say so! You can stay in the League, but you can’t... be close to me. You’ll get hurt.”

You stand up in defiance and put your hands on your hips in defense. “I’m not leaving you! First of all, I can take care of myself. Second, look at the League. We have a bloodthirsty serial killer and a cynical pyromaniac constantly lounging about, and you’re worried about some one-in-a-million freak accident happening again?” Patience was key with Tomura, and you knew that, but he could be stubborn and unreasonable, and when it came to you, stubbornly, unreasonably protective. “Besides, with the world as it is, I could get hurt doing something as mundane as taking out the trash, like I was when I was attacked!”

He finally looked at you, the look of a whipped pup on his face and while you knew he wasn’t doing it on purpose, you felt guilty for raising your voice at him. You sigh quietly and sit back down next to him, reaching for his hand and settling for his knee when he yanked it away. You snuck your arm around his shoulders and plopped your cheek on his shoulder, knowing all too well he would welcome it despite his standoffishness - and he did. Tomura didn’t pull away or push you off. But he hid his face. Your fingers on his left shoulder rubbed at it, his clavicle prominent enough you almost cringed at how thin he was. Your other hand on his leg idly toyed with the seam of his jeans, not having anything better to do.

“I’m sorry.” It was unclear as to whether he was apologizing for hurting you, or for demanding you keep your distance from him. Either way, it was undoubtedly genuine and soft.

You sat up straight and hugged your leader and lover from the side, gliding your fingers through his hair as you gently guided it to you. He hesitated slightly before burying his head into your chest and latching onto your ribcage for dear life, muttering the weakest “Don’t go, please,” anyone has ever heard. The desperation and vulnerability in his voice elicited your arms to wrap around him in a tight, warm embrace, your chin digging into his hair when you peck it, again and again and again. You stifled a giggle at how soft and ticklish his hair felt, electing to gently shush him.

“I just told you, didn’t I? I’m not going anywhere, even if you tell me to. I love you, silly.”

Dabi:

Dabi let out every curse known to mankind - and then some - as he rushed over to you, the bastard thugs the two of you had been after now burning alive and falling to the street. He would have sworn on his life you were not within range of his flames, and yet here you were, on the ground clutching your burnt leg and cringing away the searing tears of pain. Maybe you didn’t see him readying the attack and charged in? Maybe one of those thugs diverted his attack? He wasn’t sure.

“Y/n-“

What little color he had in his face drains completely, and his fingertips are already trembling.

“Dabi, I’m fine,” you tried to assure him. “It’s not that bad! I’ll just need a little first aid.” It hurt like hell, a white-hot, pulsating pain, you couldn’t lie. You just weren’t going to tell him that. It stretched from just below your knee to a hand’s length above your ankle and covered only the side of your leg, thankfully. The affected area was an awfully dark pink and honestly, it was hard to look at.

He practically scoffed at you. “Y/n, you’re fucking burnt. Don’t tell me that shit.” From the look on his face, it seemed bad.

That was the most cross he’d ever been with you, despite his brash and vulgar nature, and you couldn’t help but retreat a little as he knelt down to you and pulled his phone out of his pocket to make a call. “Y/n’s hurt, get us to the bar or something.” He grabbed your leg - surprisingly gently - and seemed to examine it. He paused as if to listen to the other end. “She’s burnt, does it matter? Just get us the hell out of here.” He must’ve called Kurogiri, as the next thing you know there’s a warp tunnel summoned next to you.

You tried standing on your own to leave, but the burn decided it didn’t want you to do so, and so you dropped back to the ground and bit your lip at the shockwaves of pain crawling up your leg. Dabi said nothing and helped you up himself, grabbing your arm and side to help you walk through the warp. Once through, he set you down on the couch, still eerily quiet, and left you there. The pain was so bad at this point, you began to think you’d faint, your head feeling fuzzy as tears run down your cheeks.

The stapeled villain returns with a bucket of ice water, towels, and what looks to be a first aid kit. But he stops for a second when he sees you hunched over with a death grip on your knee and the seat beneath you, and it takes all he has to hold it the fuck together. He’s unreasonably angry, and he’s not sure why. He wants to tell and scream, maybe at you, maybe not, he’s not sure. His quirk’s only quality was destructiveness. It was damaging not only to his enemies but also to his own body - and now, you.

He hurt you. Accident or not, he hurt you. The lump in his throat was suffocating.

Dabi knelt down and soaked a towel in the cold water before wringing it wordlessly, then gently tapping it to your leg and pulling back when you hiss. He seemed to notice it but didn’t outwardly acknowledge it and contintued to use the cold towel on your burn. As more time passed, the more convinced he became that it was a second-degree burn, meaning the second layer of your skin, the dermis, was badly burnt. He had no doubt it would scar, and at the thought the breath was pulled from his lungs. Dabi muttered a curse and suddenly rested his forehead against your knee, his right hand holding the cool towel to your leg.

“I’m sorry. It’s all my fault, fuck.” His voice was low, and if you looked hard enough, you could hear that it was forced out through a tense throat. He was nearly in tears, wasn’t he? He wasn’t an overly emotional person by any means, but the fact that his quirk hurt you, with its history, it hurt worse than if you would’ve left him for a hero. He hated himself. His quirk didn’t have a single redeeming quality, and he began to think the same of himself.

“Dabi, don’t, okay? I’ll be fine, really.” You can’t help how weak your voice sounds, being in so much pain, but you nonetheless plant a hand in his hair and rub his scalp.

Dabi lifts his head to look at you, and the look in his eyes isn’t something you’ve seen before. His free hand comes up to rest on your thigh, and you can feel it shaking. “It might scar, y/n. Don’t you get that?”

You huff. “So? If it does, I’d be pretty cool with that, all puns intended,” you try to giggle at your own pun and can practically feel him rolling his eyes, “Besides, I’d kinda match you, wouldn’t I? It’ll be like a couple’s tattoo sort of thing!”

He rests his chin atop your knee and a look that only be described as a pout crosses his features, but he says nothing and you can only smile. Dabi deadpans when you say nothing, forcing yourself to beam at him with bright eyes and a smile. “You’re a weird one, ya know that?” he muttered.

“You’re even weird for falling in love with me,” you teased after he began to work on your leg again.

“Pfft.”