#i love making my favs suffer by never healing from their trauma

[lovesickeros]

☆ we dance to the pull of our frayed strings upon our graves

{☆} characters la signora {☆} notes yandere, drabble, gender neutral reader {☆} warnings yandere, unhealthy relationship, isolation {☆} word count 0.5k

You were going to be a knight. Ever since you were a child, you had swore you'd become a legend amongst men, sword in hand as you defended the land that provided for you. That day you'd promised your family you'd return safely, make them proud to call you their child. What a fool you were - young and naive.

You never did make it back home. You wonder if you would find a grave there with your name on it - but who would want to remember the naive child who swore to come back a knight, only to never return at all?

Hands tug at tangled strands, a brush pulling at your hair painfully a she hums. You try to bite down the urge to flinch, but it only takes one failure for her to pause, the sudden silence like a heavy weight upon your shoulders. Fear swells in your chest, suffocating you as you tremble, growing lightheaded and dizzy the longer the silence stretches on.

You do not realize you are crying, tears rolling down your cheeks as you stare at yourself numbly in the mirror, until warm hands wipe them away. Her voice is nothing but soothing and warm, but to you it is like a blade against your throat.

"Oh, darling..did I hurt you?"

She coos at you like a cornered, frightened animal, cupping your cheek as she steps around to your side, the soft click of the brush against the table making you flinch. She tilts your head to the side, kissing your cheeks and forehead, ignoring the way you tremble beneath her, unable to look into her eyes. She is so soft, so gentle with you, that you almost forget.

But you can't. It haunts you, even now - watching your fellow knights in training drowning in flame, the smell of burning flesh filling your lungs, and the sound of their screams intermingled with her voice ringing in your ears. You can never forget the way she looked at you - lips pulled back into a smile as she stepped over burning corpses to cup your face between bloody, searing palms.

You could not forget the name of another on her tongue as she called to you.

"There we are. No need to cry any longer, my heart."

You sink into her touch, too weak to find the will to resist her - her hands are like brands upon your skin, but you still lean into her, eyes closed as she kisses your brow. You do not know anything else but the searing heat of her palms and the softness in her voice reserved for someone you are not.

How naive you had been, when you had once thought that maybe, maybe, once you became a knight you'd be honored with a gift from the Gods - a vision that burned against your hip, lighting the way forward as you protected the nation you had once adored.

Now you cannot help but think it only served to reveal to you the rats hiding in the darkest corners of Mondstadt, sealing your fate amongst the bitter cold of Snezhnaya.

What a cruel joke, the God's have played on you.

You hum along to a song you do not know, sheltered in a cage of fire - a songbird who sings, despite the smoke that fills its lungs.

Till death do us part.

[fantasydaydreamers]

SEASON 6 MHA COMMENTS BC I HAVE SOME THINGS TO SAYYYY

(SPOILERS UNDER THE CUT SO IF YOU HAVEN'T SEEN ALL OF SEASON 6 YET DNI!!!!)

I WILL PROB DELETE THIS LATER (IDK) BUT IM IN SHAMBLES RN ESPECIALLY AT EPISODES 23 AND 24 !#+'+#{HFJWHXJ

good LORD where do i start?!?!?!

i guess ill just post screenshots of my fav things i saw and go from there????

HELLO????? LMAFAOOOO getting this out of the way first because it caught me off guard and i died lmfaooo

OKAY NEXT IMPORTANT THING>>> DABI'S REVEAL?!?!?!? HEY....SEEING IT ANIMATED WAS D I F F E R E N T. ALSO....HE REALLY DID TALK HIS SHIT??????? like endeavor is an ass and was a shitty father but holy hell touya said fuck all and ruined the todoroki reputation

AND BROADCASTING IT???? hey!!!! he had a story to tell and mf TOLD IT. that shit was WILD

(probably one of my fav screenshots ever bc his expression and the art.....he looks INSANE. i love him)

"you reap what you sow" is such a HARD line. and very true.

touya is THAT bitch. sorry not sorry he talked his shit and said what he had to say...FOR YEARS.

an icon.

OKAY MOVING ON....

I just wanna say that the civilians....villains.... and the corrupt side of being a hero was really winning me over for about half the season. they would say some shit and id be like "....they have a point...." and i think it was inevitable for citizens to start rioting and going rogue. but damn dude....the heroes retiring....THE ONES WHO DIED??? mIDNIGHT?????? MY GIRL!!!! NOO!!!!

hey????? what the fuck is going on????

i do want to make another comment that mirko is also that bitch. her fight scene was badass and she has such unwavering strength to her i was on the edge of my seat tbfh.

OKAY i skipped over this completely (sorry my brain is in shambles) BUT HAWKS?????? HIS HISTORY AND FIGHT WITH DABI??? HIM KILLING TWICE?!?!?!? WHOOOOAAAAAA

hey i love hawks tho, if anything this made me love him more bc of his past and how strong he is??? i wanna kiss him.

FAST FORWARDING TO DEKU'S DRAMATIC ASS LEAVING UA.

i mean....sure i understand his reasoning....but can he practice what he preaches???? he talks all the time about how "we're all going to be heroes...we're all in this together" but leaves every single classmate a personalized note (while explaining how he has one for all) and takes off???? so dramatic for no reason i was like PLS BE SERIOUS!!!!

but i loved the symbolism in his hero costume...the more intense he got and focused on his 1-way thinking, the more he started to look like a villain. THAT was crazy.

NOW. WHEN BAKUGOU FOUND HIM???????

HE REALLY CALLED DEKU OUT TBFH

they both love all might and all might saves people with a smile right?????? DAAAMMMNNNN BAKUGOU REALLY CLOCKED HIM!!!!!!! I SCREAMED WHEN I READ THIS???

my man my man my man-

if anyone here is new to my blog, hello. i love bakugou katsuki. he is my favorite ever and i have deep emotional ties to him since i watched mha when it was first released in 2016. i love him so much and will never be able to stress that enough.

NOW.

WHEN THEY FINALLY CAUGHT DEKU AND BAKUGOU HAD HIS MONOLUGE CONFESSING EVERYTHING TO DEKU AND HOW HE STILL DOESNT FEEL STRONG ENOUGH AND SEES HIMSELF AS WEAK?????? AND APOLOGIZED?!?@E>?4/r HEY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

IM!!!!! NOT!!!!!!! OKAY!!!!!!!!!!!

that was a lot to process and im still not comprehending how he sees himself like that (oh yeah....he has TRAUMA that i feel like UA hasnt taken seriously) class 1a crying too while listening????? literally im jumping off a roof

bc ochacos speech was moving too and the fact that news spread about deku being targeted is crazy and citizens really dont like him....but accepting him back in made my heart warm.

.....BATH TIME!!!!!

kaminari is so right. (hot showers are healing) finally something warm hearted after 24 epsiodes of death and pain and suffering??????

A BATH?>$:R>

ALSO HEY WHEN BAKUGOU STARTED TALKING AGAIN ABOUT RIVALS LMFAOOOOOOOOOOO

KAMINARI AND KIRISHIMA WERE LIKE "....bro...." LMFAOOO I LOVE THEIR FRIENDSHIP YALL!!!!!!!!!!!!!

finally to wrap this up i would just like to say that stain is such an interesting character. like....his ideology is different and just so fascinating? i need to watch a character review or something on him bc hes honestly one of the top "villains" in mha aside from shigaraki and dabi (imo)

stain is also for the girls.

the tartarus breakout and the one villain was screaming "GIRLS GIRLS GIRLS GIRLS-" and stain killed his ass, no hesitation. (id hate to imagine wtf that villain did with girls before to get locked up in tartarus...)

bc stain didnt even kill the guard while retrieving the info chips?? he killed a fellow villain and thats fascinating to me.

okay that concludes this rant. im not okay. season 6 was hell. HIGH SCHOOLERS ARE SAVING JAPAN. 'surpassing all might' should not be a conversation anymore (we're WAYYYY past that)

[kuromori4]

A friend showed me this and it made me want to do it!

Opening line patterns 📝

List the first line of your last 10 posted fics and see if there's a pattern.

Now I actually only have 9 works posted, so as a bonus the 10th fic is a sneak peak at my current WIP. (Almost finished, coming soon!) In no particular order:

Friends who kiss-

Shadybug and Claw Noir were perched on a rooftop, silently basking in the light of the moon, neither one really willing to start up any lame small-talk.

This fic is about the Re-verse kids trying to figure things out after they decide to be good guys. But being nice is harder than they think.

No More Friends who kiss-

It had been over two months since Shadybug and Claw Noir had become traitors to the Supreme and joined the resistance.

This is the sequel to Friends who Kiss, In which the Re-verse kids are still having a hard time navigating their lives and relationship dynamic, And Adrien, (for once) has a lot to say.

Ashes to Ashes-

Marinette Dupain-Cheng fussed over her hair in her bedroom vanity.

My current longest epic fic, (19 Chapters) This one is a bit of a gut-punch. Not for the feint of heart! But if you like Trauma, emotional damage and suffering... This may be for you. An emotional rollercoaster told as an unraveling mystery, in which Adrien accidentally uncovers something he was never meant to, and things do not go well for him.

The First of Many Nights-

Muffled giggles could be heard some distance from the shore, a sound that scattered faintly across sand and silt until it died against the dull roar of crashing waters.

A mature content/NSFW fic. My first published fic of this kind and reads more sensual and romantic than smutty. (Though it is absolutely adult content.) Post-reveal Adrien and Marinette Enjoying a beautiful night on the beach.

Two steps forward-

Adrien lay on his back in bed, staring at the popcorn ceiling of their bedroom. 

I wrote this as a fan-sequel to Buggachat's Two Steps Back (one step forward)  (And silly me being totally new to the online/fic/fandom, Had no idea who they were when I naively wrote a sequel to their story. It just resonated with me, and I had to write what I thought might happen next.)

Mixed Signals-

Silence had settled in the room as they lay in their bed, both wide awake but each unwilling to admit to it; the soft breaths they took the only real sound loud enough to hear.

Our fav duo go to bed angry after an argument. But it's very hard to stay mad at someone who's so good at making you feel good. (It's not exactly Adult content, but it is suggestive and contains very mild things.) I wrote this on Christmas when I was supposed to be doing Family Holiday things, haha. Oops.

Taken-

Having freshly defeated the Akuma of the day and righting the world once again with the healing magic of the Miraculous Ladybugs, it wasn’t long at all before Ladybug and Cat Noir found themselves inundated with fans who began to crowd around excitedly.

Ladybug gets a little possessive and protective of her Chaton. I loved writing this angry/sassy Ladybug, it was so much fun!

A Bad Touch? -

Chat Noir sat on a peaceful rooftop, his back resting, not wholly uncomfortably, against a brick chimney. 

Shenanigans. Pure Shenanigans. Ladybug and Chat Noir find themselves in an awkward predicament. So what to do? Make it more awkward, of course! Probably the most fun I've had writing a silly little oneshot haha.

In Hot Pursuit-

Ladybug cautiously kept her distance as she followed Adrien Agreste.

This was actually the first oneshot I ever wrote in the MLB Fandom. (Please be kind! Haha) This was written purely for being silly; don't take it too seriously! LB's stalking tendencies have come round to bite her.

*Bonus!* Sympathy Pain- (Coming soon!)

“LADYBUG!” Chat Noir roared, his baton twirling away overhead.

This is my next longfic/Epic, (Currently 22 Chapters and going!) And I am SO HYPED for it! It's a mature content fic, filled with Relationship drama, angst, emotional damage, pain and trauma; While simultaneously being full of hot and steamy tension.

Ladybug and Chat Noir find themselves sharing more than they bargained for after an Akuma battle goes awry. And the results could be dangerous.

OK now let’s talk ✨ statistics ✨

1 of these fics start with dialogue

4 or 5 begin in medias res (it really depends on your definition of the term)

POVs: 2 for Shadybug&Claw Noir, 2 for Marinette, 3 for Adrien and 3 for stories that contain both Mari and Adrien POVs

2 are sequel fics

2 are mature/adult content fics and 3 have somewhat (mildly) suggestive themes.

Thanks to @beatrice1979a for showing me this post and @fandomofone You should do this too!

[the-nysh]

I've had a realization that two things amaze me about Garou's character in manga. 1) how he gradually transformed from a char one wouldn't give a f about (if we forget about wc, only manga - to me, his char was really unappealing in the beginning, like sir u just spend ur time beating up heroes?? okok) into someone that many! readers really care about. How to explain it.. He was almost a nobody, a mere hooligan who didn't evoke any sympathy (at least in me))), but with every chap he became more versatile and boom! in ch81 I read comments like "I like him", "i don't want heroes to hurt him", "want him to survive" etc. And further.. I got a feeling that he's the main char of his story that we witness (he is). Such a twist to me - from nobody to protagonist (kinda).

And boy.. if only you knew who many people (in our universe so to say) care about you, support, admire you (idk if it makes sense lol) (but we know he wouldn't believe it anyway)

And 2) how much pain is actually stored inside him! I know that some people view him as dumb but man he's only 18, he seems to grow up without any emotional support, he had to figure out stuff on his own, no guidance, no idea how to deal with all the turmoil within, how to fit in, his mind is messed up by all this loneliness and.. He's literally a child who doesn't understand why he's in pain. He's come so far, gained so much strength and cockiness ahah but inside him there's only pain and confusion.

I continue to see a bunch of people who only want the manga to follow the wc, to see the evil and terror performed by this char,fight fight fight! but ohh he's much more than what people want to see in him

Sorry for my rant😳 I just needed to put together all these thoughts of mine and share them with someone, or - 🤯

Oho~ :'3c Well thank you for sharing your story! (If you're interested in mine, in how my perceptions of him changed over time, plus some bonus fav moments, then there you go~) Looks like your emotional turning point for him was around the the shed scene too (as it was for many manga readers including yours truly who began watching him with more invested interest), with the A/B hero gauntlet and his greatest test of character at that point - risking his life to both survive and admirably protect Tareo against such impossible odds, where his brand of 'justice' miraculously pulls through...(on towards ever more impressive, escalating heights~)

Looking back, he did say in his introduction how he was here to 'change the story' (and wow how meta that sentiment became!!) 8'D

And oooh how much he's needed that proper guidance, yes. (Bang unfortunately couldn't provide him with what he needed most then.) And an emotional support network he's always lacked (aaa how he's been lone and self-sufficient for so long...and yet, deep down he's still wanted to feel valued/loved/understood/SEEN by others in some way, when he'd always felt rejected or denied of that, cause even when he was a 'good' boy at his best and most authentic, his methods never worked without others still punishing him for it...) To help him process, heal, and constructively navigate all his turbulent emotional pain and internalized trauma/anger/confusion... Instead of focusing all his efforts (and channeling/compensating all his feelings) into gaining strength and the 'monster' persona as quite the elaborate defense mechanisms. :') (Which can also be read as a rebellious message/cry for help & proper attention he just hasn't comprehended yet...)

Til the poor guy's endured almost a lifetime of extreme pain/suffering within a single week of pushing himself to the brink. Hooboy;;; so many of his fans just want him to properly rest. ;o; (And at his young age, he still has much time to learn and figure things out.) That he deserves so much better than to be continually subjected/locked into such a cruel cycle of injustice (esp the ones beyond his control or even his own doing)....that seeing him somehow 'break free' or rise above that, upon his own honest (and true) self-realization and power one day, will feel so liberating and satisfying. :') I truly hope and wish for him the best on his struggling emotional journey to finally discover and accept himself. <3

[kimodraw]

can you pleaseee tell us more about the jess was actually ruby headcanon?

I'm definitly not the first person to come up with it! I can't find the post where i first saw that headcannon though sorry.

So i always loved the reveal that Brady was possesed by a demon, and was the one who introduced Sam to Jess then killed her, right? Real traumatic, takes a relationship Sam trusted and crushes it, a cool tv moment. Basically the Jess as Ruby headcanon takes that whole thing and pushes it to its paroxism: Jess was possesed the whole time too. This means Ruby was a girlboss gaslighter who faked a relationship with sam two whole times! And he doesn't exactly get why he trusts her that easily, when he really shouldn't in s4, it's almost like he knows her already... She'd reveal it in her final s5 monologue (i drew a thing abt it a while ago (cw blood and nudity:under the cut) while gloating, and Sam's crushed right? It also plays into the idea of the forces of hell and heaven manipulating their lives from the start, which i think is one of the best theme in supernatural (destiny vs the rejection of it, free will and all that) I think sam's reaction to ruby's betrayal was a bit anticlimactic too? I'd have liked it if he liked her more, (maybe if even she liked him a little? idk but i would have loved them to have more depth (but hey, this is supernatural lol)), and thought about or mentionned her at all in s5 lmao. This is also why i'm still sad she never came back, my girl should have gotten to gloat more. It's really a fucked up headcannon because it means most of sam's relationship have an aspect of deceipt about them (counting dean for the gadreel thing, and cas for these tags:

hence the comic i did. Sorry for all the rambling, i have. a lot of sam thoughts, hope this was clear enough! Basically:

also!! a lot of my thinking on this emerged from my new favorite fanfic author: a_good_soldier on ao3! They deal with sam’s trauma in a completely gut wrenching way im in love with their writing

[mythicamagic]

Hey there~ I was just wondering, how are you feeling about Castlevania's ending? :)

Hii, ghostflora!

Well, it's a mixed bag. SPOILERS BELOW:

I think I'm torn because while I am happy many characters got their happy endings- I'm disappointed because it clashes with the pre-established tone and feels like there are absolutely no consequences for the main characters.

Season 3 and Season 4 may as well be different series for the amount of stuff they dropped or shoved under the rug; 

Lenore being confident and secure in her established role as a diplomat who can also kick ass? Now she's a fretting wilting flower who confides in Hector all her worries and insecurities. Despite him being ya know...her pet in Season 3.

Camilla being a confident, ruthless, intelligent woman? Now she's gone mad with power! Muhohaha! Makes it easyyy

Striga and Morana being die-hard loyal to their sisters? Pssshh they can leave them without a backwards glance in season 4. 

St Germain? Ehhh let's drop all intrigue and just say he's a simp who 'did it all for love' plus he's mad now too. Makes it easyyy

However I think the worst examples of arcs or themes being dropped are Hector and Alucard. Hector is now in love with Lenore despite every abusive thing that's happened to him. This wouldn't be a problem if it was shown as an abusive attachment- something he's done time and time again, trusting the wrong people- but nope, the cycle continues and we're expected to feel something when Lenore dies. Oh such sweet sorrow. 

Alucard though...oh my sweet boy. My sweet sweet boy. The writers have friggin tortured this poor man with trauma after trauma...only for none of it to matter pretty much by the end of episode 1 season 4. He's a 'little' cautious of people but give him a hot second and he's blurting everything to Greta and him impaling people who betrayed him on spikes is treated lightly. Again, he's like Hector in that he hasn't learned. He's trusting so quickly and easily by blurting his secrets because he’s so friggin lonely and desperate for connection. And I get that, I really, really do. But Season 3 may as well never have happened. There is no way he'd open up so quickly again after what he's been through, I'm sorry, it's shitty, rushed writing that undermines what happened to him. Alucard in season 4 is written as someone who is grieving, not traumatised. 

 If you want an example of a character whose trauma is handled well - look at Guts from Berserk. Even in the anime, which doesn't go into Gut's past (enduring rape) you can tell this guy has been hurt, badly. He won't allow touch, and he distances himself from everyone in the group. 

When he does finally warm up to Casca and sleeps with her in the manga - he's triggered, and it's an extremely harrowing scene. I'm not saying Alucard's trauma needs to be deeply covered but fuck give us something. Otherwise it completely undermines what he went through.

A few - UWU I'm too shy to play with the children moments is so friggin tame. There's a reason the majority of fanfic writers apparently wrote Alucard as distrusting of humans and fearful of getting close to them- Because they get that Trauma. Has. Consequences. But yeah, aside from that I am very happy Alucard is surrounded by people at the end, since he's an extremely lonely character. It's a lovely thing that he gains a village and exactly what he needs. I just wish it had been handled better. 

Greta needed a flashback scene too, I wasn't particularly invested in her but that would've helped. The true MVP of Castlevania is Isaac though. Best arc and best culmination of his journey. His story flows well and I loved watching him.

I haven't been all too interested in Trevor and Sypha since season 2 but eh they were fine. The 'bickering' couple isn't my fav trope and Trevor seems two seconds away from referring to her as 'the old ball and chain.' 

And as much as I love my OTP for the show, my sun and stars, light of my life, monster boyfriend x human loving ass- I do think Dracula and Lisa should have died. And stayed dead. Like show Alucard seeing them in the netherworld being at peace. They could carve out a place for themselves in hell, Dracula has enough loyal followers there to do so. They could be content while also showing there are consequences. 

Because that's what this show used to be. It didn't shy away from showing the masses die and suffer. The main characters were no different. But now in season 4 they're suddenly exempt. I wouldn't mind the happy ending at all if it didn't clash so hard with the pre-established tone of other seasons where the past is framed as something golden and gentle...

...but the present is awful and people must face harsh realities in order to carry on living.

Again, if you want more examples of grimdark shows staying faithful to their tone, look at Berserk or Devilman Crybaby. If you want Castlevania's tone to change, then more emphasis on HEALING is needed. And that could be done by confronting trauma and moving on. I like Isaacs journey because it SHOWED that change.

I mean friggin Princess Tutu felt like it had more consequences for characters actions than this show. I personally think an ending similar to Madoka Magica (first series, I haven't seen any others) where everything is 'fixed' but there's still loss would be a more fitting end for what was built up in Castlevania. But yeah...I liked Death's character, Isaac's arc, Alucard’s ending and that the lesbians survived and kicked ass. Striga's scene with that armour was oof. That was cool. I LOVED seeing Dracula x Lisa again too (that scene of them being combined had me screaming at the tv going - No, no, NOOOO!) 

Everything else is like a big mess of feels. I want to like it, but I can't turn my brain off and ignore the writing flaws. So...ultimately I don't think I'll rewatch it again despite really liking the promise shown in the first few seasons. It's by no means a complete train wreck, but it is disappointing to me.

[aqvarius]

Top 5 fav hlitf cgs?

thanks for this ask!! ahh it was so hard to narrow it down to 5 but i will try my best (with some bonuses bc... how could i not). i’m not going to include vip room CGs here even tho there are a couple of them that i adore too. also i can’t believe i’m not including the soma coming out of the shower CG that i love enough to have made my icon for a very long time now... but that just goes to show how much i love these ones. 

5. are you bullying my aide?

okay so i’m cheating right off the bat and decided to group these two in one category bc they’re like conceptually the same CG lmao. i made a post before about loving instructors getting furious at people trying to hurt you in the sunset. and the fact that two of my absolute fave LIs of all time get these gorgeous fury CGs makes me infinitely happy alskdfls. the sad thing is that there’s an error in soma’s route so the CG doesn’t actually appear in-game...  anyway you know i love seeing cool love interests get mad so these two CGs are a perfect depiction of that.

4. i’ll take compensation

who doesn’t love this scene and CG!! and the in-game version as well where his eyes are open bc he was surprised. i love it so much. that entire ending was so good, with the mc being the Best Senpai Ever? and she tries to blow his socks off with a kiss but then he just grabs her butt and goes in deeper? we stan a tie-grabbing mc. i only wish there was a CG for that elevator kiss too in the sequel(?). 

3. it reminded me of ugly cat

honestly i love all of goto’s s3 CGs bc they are all just so pretty and i love the one as well where tsugaru is joking about him and usa being a couple and goto gets pissed. but this one is just so... pure and soft???? it’s so rare to see goto all relaxed and smiley and i just love it soooo much. also does anyone else find that his smile in this CG is so similar to chiba’s smiling sprite? ughhh this is so freaking cute i physically can’t look at it for too long otherwise i get overwhelmed with feelings. oh and also that cat is so weird looking lmao

2. please... let me be with you

one of my favourite moments of all time. look how stunned kaga looks (but also... how pretty is he here... and how pretty is she.... season 3 CGs are so top quality). the fact that she’s hopped up on painkillers but they’re just fading off so she’s already starting to feel pain again and kaga is already kind of angsting over everything that happened on the case and then tsugaru is taking her home while kaga can’t even speak to her bc of office rules. and she just runs back to the office by herself even tho she’s already starting to feel the pain in her gunshot wound and just bursts into the office and yanks his cigarette out of his mouth and kisses him? and says even if you don’t want me, i want to be with you. honestly this whole moment is like freaking kdrama level dramatic and romantic and i love it so much. it’s like... the perfect moment combined with the prettiest CG. kaga’s pov of this scene makes it EVEN BETTER because he’s literally smitten with her, like he wants her so badly and then she just magically appears in front of him and kisses the life out of him, just as he was thinking about how much he needs her. right at the moment when he’s feeling the most empty, the most hollow, like his entire career in public safety amounted to nothing, she comes back to him. and then there’s that line of his, where he talks about love so fierce that he can’t breathe around it filling his chest and honestly it gets me every single time (also bc i can relate to that feeling lmao) but basically kaga/mc is my favourite couple and this moment and CG are just like... exactly what i love the most about them as a pair. ALSO i love her hair and that gold pin hahaha i want it. 

1.5 did i or did i not say you were forbidden from acting rashly?

how could i not include this one as a bonus? i’ve been in love with this CG from the very first time i laid eyes on it back in 2018. no context (at the time i think soma’s graduation hadn’t even come out in l365 so we hadn’t even seen his short hair sprite in the intl app), no idea what was even happening in this scene, and yet i was immediately struck by the dangerous look in his eye and that little smile, and also just like... getting to see him in a tshirt and hoodie is so rare? i’m p certain that outfit is just recycled ayumu sprite’s casual clothes. anyway, knowing the context behind this CG makes it 10000x better for me. i wrote this in my unpublished review of soma’s battlefield route but i genuinely believe we’re seeing this CG from his mc’s eyes and that’s what tokito really looked like in that moment - with soma’s face, his hair, his expressions, his hands, his voice. our poor, sweet mc had been suffering for so long to the point where even toru and ayumu noticed that she hadn’t smiled in forever and were trying to cheer her up (and momose too later!!). for me, this CG represents the absolutely heartbreaking sense of delusion that soma’s mc feels in this route, and the way that she keeps trying so hard to project soma onto tokito because of her grief. i genuinely felt like in that moment, she physically saw soma coming to her rescue, like her desires manifest into a delusion. also, this CG comes at an absolutely amazing time bc we had been deprived of seeing soma for like 60% of the route and then we get this CG and suddenly everything is better for a short moment, and then everything goes back to normal and you really get a sense of how upsetting life has been for his mc.

1. come now, love. tell me what you desire

i love this CG. i love it so so so so so much. firstly, i love the look of it. both soma and his mc just look so attractive?? soma’s muscles?? in his shoulders and back especially?! his mc has commented on his shoulderblades and back muscles before which have been honed through kendo practice so i’m very happy to get to see them. the actual text says that the mc is naked but here she’s still wearing a sundress, but she just looks so pretty and like she’s feeling unbelievably good? anyway i scream bc even soma’s hands look good and they still kept that one piece of hair that he has that sticks up lmao what’s gravity anyway? anyway, beyond the sensuality of the image (and also his tongue... and his sweat...), there’s just so much meaning behind it? like yes, it’s very hot and sensual and the dialogue that goes with this scene is unbelievably sexy, but this scene is just super meaningful bc it’s part of their recovery as a couple. they’re on this secret holiday in okinawa and they’re reconnecting after their trauma and idk it’s just so intimate. we really get to see the mc from soma’s eyes and we get to see how he is the only one who can see her weakness behind that strong face of hers, but also how he sees her strength in recovery? the way he describes that scene where she’s in this gorgeous white swimsuit with a sheer coverup and then picks a brown swim float so she can sit atop it on the waves and say “don’t i look like a doughnut?” despite having a literal near-death experience in the sea not too long before honestly had me falling head over heels in love with her, and it really made me understand exactly what he loves about her, and how much he just adores her. anyway this is me gushing over that special story, but what i mean is that the ending of his battlefield in combination with this special story sets up the beginning of soma and his mc’s healing as a couple, and it culminates in this scene. soma is kind of similar to kaga in the sense that they both actually demonstrate their feelings the most honestly through physical means, and here you can just see how palpable the desperation is. they desire each other so intensely and intimately and having this moment for the two of them to share is so significant for their recovery. you can just see how much soma needs to show her that he’s here, he’s really, physically here with her, and he’ll never leave her alone ever again, and he’s so sorry for all the pain she’s had to go through. you can see the way he’s telling her that with his body and with the way he talks to her and is just so himself in bed. there are really parallels between their first night together and this scene (mostly like... him asking her to tell him what she wants lol) and it just makes me so EMOTIONAL. 

YOU THOUGHT THIS WAS THE END? 

no, that was just my top five solo (or li/mc) CGs. i also need to give my top five fave group/multiple character CGs lmao.

in no particular order:

what can i say? it’s just so beautiful, and every single expression and pose is just so suited for each character i’m in love. 

frankly no real reason for this one aside from the fact that we get to see goto and subaru in yukata and subaru always looks soooo freaking good in hlitf CGs and also goto’s hand is on subaru’s chest and you know we ship gobaru in this house

the third anniversary substory CGs are just amazing (you’ll see the full one in a bit and it’s WILD) but honestly i just need everyone to see this one bc it’s just gorgeous. look at ishigami and kaga and look at how inhuman they look, all sweaty and tired from being in panda mascot costumes. kaga with his sleeves rolled up literally has me salivating. look at PRETTY their faces and muscles are... anyway, this CG has me as thirsty as ishigami guzzling that bottle of water.......... 

i said it was in no particular order but i just need to say that this one is my actual favourite bc it has EVERYONE. and look at how gorgeous they all look.... every single one of them with their hair pushed back ;alskdjfalsk WHO??? WHO LET THIS HAPPEN? NAMBA’S GLOVE? KAGA AND GOTO’S MATCHING SCOWLS? THE ANGLE OF SOMA’S HEAD? TSUGARU’S TONGUE? and also the way his legs are positioned?!?!?! also i love swishy hair ayumu and hide with his leg crossed the other way from kaga and also i’ve never seen toru look this attractive it’s very unfair. 

the sheer amount of chaotic energy in this one is just wonderful and i love all the details. you all know namba is DAY DRUNK. goto and toru in that signature headlock position, ayumu being a lil shit and putting wasabi in all the cupcakes and ISHIGAMI AND KAGA FALLING FOR IT AND SUFFERING??? LOOK AT THEIR SUFFERING FACES JUST LOOK. and you just KNOW that soma is going to suffer the same fate oh sweet mercy this is like “famous last pictures” level of good. also they’re all wearing new clothes which i love sooooo much. i wanna see ayumu in that orange sweater more often and also army green shirt kaga with the sleeves rolled up to his forearms with that look on his face. have i ever been more in love? no. 

finally, here’s my ultimate favourite favourite group image of all time! not a CG but it’s the header that i use on the mobile version of my blog:

they’re all looking so happily/fondly over at YOU (hlitf mc who fell asleep) and wondering what you’re dreaming about/saying that you’re dreaming about them. and they all just love and adore you so much. the amount of affection in this one image is unreal and also momose is in it ialskfjsd i just.............. am the SOFTEST for this one. 

anyway sorry that (1) it took so long for me to answer this, bc i had to spend ages thinking about it alongside being busy with life stuff and (2) that i went on for so long and did not pick 5 CGs but rather... 12....... but these are my faves!! thank you so much for the ask! 

[wh-wh-whu]

CW: mentions of depression, bullying and ableism in real life, mentions of whump fiction containing dehumanization and slavery

Inspired by this post by @/whumpy-bunny (not tagging bc Idk if they would be interested in this) about the link between their trauma and the type of whump they like and dislike, I decided to explore this sort of thing for myself

I don’t have a trauma, as far as I know, but I do have depression, and I know that my liking of whumping is at least partly a coping mechanism, that thinking or reading about characters being hurt makes me feel less bad about things that hurt me

My depression comes a lot from the bullying I suffered as a kid, from both classmates and teachers, that made me believe awful things about myself and the world. I didn’t know at the times of the events, but I am autistic and many situations from back then that made me feel bad but weren’t exactly bullying turned out to be ableism.

I think I like super evil whumpers with no need for extra personality because that’s the way I think of my bullies: just shadows whose names and faces I may not even remember, but that hurt me a lot. I don’t want to think of them as people with their own lives, I did so when they were still in my life but now they’re just memories that I hate and that I want to hate

More than that, I do relate with pet/slave/dehumanized whumpees in a kinda weird way, because of course I was never in their shoes irl. But being autistic means that I think and do things differently from “everyone else” (allistics) but I have to live by “everyone else”’s rules, even when they don’t make sense to me, or when they hurt me. I didn’t choose to be like this, I can’t stop being like this. Ableists like the people who bullied me made me believe that I am not good enough to be like them. Some minor things in pet/slave/dehumanized whump feel familiar to this experience (even if on completely different levels) and I relate to this characters and I want to see them struggling but earning a happy ending. I love the caretakers telling them in many ways that they are human like everyone else, that they deserve better, they deserve to heal and be happy.

[My OC Violet was originally a self insert that I created back when I finally got out of the environment where I suffered so much. Her story was just supposed to be my life story with some sci fi on the side, but that was the year that I first started writing my whump story (Jay and Ni and Jane) and, though I didn’t know these terms back then, I basically realized I had the power to put stuff that gave me whumperflies in everything I wrote. So Violet became who she is today: a non human whumpee, who is treated like an object by the lab who owns her. It is a story in which she has doubts if the people who are important for her care about her, in which she has no control of her body that is mutilated again and again, in which she is threatened by the Doctor telling her no one would ever be on her side, if they knew what she was. That it’s only logical that everyone would want her to be hurt too. This is not my life, thank goodness, but it is story about how ableism makes me feel, and it’s full of my fav whump tropes. ]

As for whump I don’t like... hmm, not exactly that, but I prefer whumpee x caretaker and happy endings in these pet/slave/dehumanization stories because the moments of comfort are comforting for me too. A hopeful ending makes me feel hopeful too. And I need those good feelings. I avoid stories that won’t give me them. I also dislike caretaker turned whumper, I see the appeal of the idea and I have posts about it in my blog, but I wouldn’t read a story containing it. They make me feel kinda betrayed, even if this character is just meant as a whumper while another real caretaker will show up. Same about bad (as in negligent) caretaker.

[falconstarfall]

1) I don’t think SnSns love Sansa at all. Defending her doesn’t take much in this fandom, antis are so outrageous in their lies that you don’t have to like Sansa to refute them. The metas they write, the understanding they show for Sansa’s arc/character isn’t for her sake, those are things anyone without an inherent bias can recognize in the text. Sansa slander is so normalized that when someone goes against that hate we get confused & think they are like us, Sansa fans. But the character they

2) actually like is their pedo fave. They like Sansa bc they want Sansa for him. This is true for all 3 pedoshippers. Snsns actually easily recognize the problem w Snrion. They point out Tyrion being her molester & Sansa being his child bride, call out his fans for shipping them. They recognize Sansa’s minimizing his actions & remembering him fondly-someone who occasionally protected her is the result of her psychological suffering. They also understand that since he is a Lannister & a villain

3) it will never happen. Same with LF, they call out the shippers, point out that he’s grooming her, they're disgusted by shippers claiming Sansa wants LF, that she isn’t repulsed by his attentions. She’s so traumatized that she had to separate her abuser LF from her protector Petyr in her mind to deal with that. Just like w Tyrion they know LF is a villain & he could never be a suitor for Sansa. But they’re incapable of applying the same understanding of the text to Sandor. He also verbally,

4) emotionally, physically & sexually abused her. Not only is he another villain, he’s also way below her station, something GRRM would never ignore. (And actually commented on, saying, Sansa is of the highest nobility & could never marry a peasant.) That’s why btw you never see a Snsn celebrating show QiTN ending, all the ones I’ve seen vehemently deny QiTN (or even LoW) being her possible book ending. They all know what Sansa having a political power position at the end means for their ship.

5) They may not be like the usual Sansa antis, but the idea of Sansa being not much of an important character is also ingrained in them. You never see same fans talk about Jorah/Dny the way they talk about Snsn, even tho it’s a similar dynamic. No one argues Dny should get over Jorah’s harassment, settle down w him & heal his manpain. Bc Dny is a queen & Jorah is too low for her, but since they think Sansa isn’t important (in-universe & within fandom) Sansa w Sandor makes perfect sense to them.

Thank you anon. I think you’ve managed to clear up the last of my confusion on this subject. What you said definitely makes sense.

We’ve gotten so used to seing people hate Sansa, that the minute we see someone writing positive takes on her without following them with a “but...”, we believe they care about Sansa.

As you say, anyone who looks at the text without being biased against her should be able to understand her to the level they do, and to see through the BS from antis. But then they also have their own bias that bloks them from recognizing her trauma, and makes them interpret it as sexual desire and romance.

“They may not be like the usual Sansa antis, but the idea of Sansa being not much of an important character is also ingrained in them.”

Maybe this is why the Sansans seem to be tolerated more in the rest of fandom. Because they accept the “truth” the antis are peddling; that Sansa isn’t an important main character, and that she won’t end up in a position of power. The Sansan shippers have to want her arc to end in obscurity, because otherwise the Hound would never be a viable option for Sansa, even if she’d want him. But that way, their take on her isn’t threatening to the antis and their ship(s), or the things they want for their own favs. They can even get behind Sansan because it does the job of punishing Sansa by humbling her and taking away all the things she’s dreamed about.

[ziracona]

hi can we pls have some uhhhh 🅱️uentin Smith headcanons, and some killers hcs if you want! I also lowkey hc Jake and Claudette to both be some degree of autistic, I imprint like a baby bird on my fav characters so I hc both Jake AND Quentin to be trans, and Quentin and Meg are ADHD infodump pals. Literally sitting around the cabin taking turns talking about something they love while the other is sitting there... no thoughts... head empty... they r supporting each other

Nice! And Claudette is canonically autistic according to her archives description as far as I can tell, and I’m so glad! You should check out @askthedreamwalker if you’re interested in Quentin art bc their Quentin is trans and they have really nice art! Also u right as hell about Quentin and Meg. He gets v excited and Meg and he can special-interest back and forth for hours One person is pitcher, pouring information into empty pitcher2, then the other takes a turn and pours back into first pitcher. Info dump support friends. Heaven.

And hells yeah, I love son boy! Idk if you mean ILM headcanons or general, so I’m just gonna go with gen. 

Quentin’s got a big sense of justice. Not okay with people getting away with terrible shit, which makes the realms extra unbearable (somewhere in the distance Yui and Tapp are like ‘cheers mate’). Holds people very accountable. Boy is very fair and got upstanding character. Expects people to operate with like bare minimum decency and ain’t about to let that shit go if someone wants to be a bastard. Last person ever to let a killer get a pass for going around murdering people in-realm and would hold them extremely accountable and be v willing to kill one in a fight and view them with disgust and righteous anger, but also be one of the first people willing to forgive a killer if they genuinely reformed, or got thrown to the survivor side by the Entity and actually chose to shape up and proved they meant it. He has a huge sense of justice and righteous anger, but also believes in forgiveness and second chances. (Within reason. If any of the particularly bastard killers like GF or Nightmare or Clown showed up with a completely ooc change of heart they will never have anyway, Quentin would be like “…listen. …There are some things only God can forgive…U gotta take this one to him…and away from me. Forever…”. Boy got those high-quality standards 👌

Used to be kinda high-strung, but then his life was a living hell for so long that he ran out of energy entirely and now he has no choice but to be mostly chill. If he gets a burst of energy, the old excitement power switch flips back on and he is both way more talkative and active, and happier. Unfortunately he is usually so worn out he’s about to drop.

Got a bit of a martyr complex. The fact that literally locking himself in hell with his worst nightmare worked does not help. Feels massive guilt over the fact that the Nightmare is in the realm bc of him, but is still kind of glad bc it means he’s not out there murdering his family. Hates that he feels that way because he thinks it’s kind of wrong. Views being stuck in the realm as sort of penance for having brought Krueger unintentionally. Afraid to tell other people it’s his fault because he’s scared they would never talk to him again, and the idea of losing his friends and complete isolation here is unbearable. Feels guilt over that choice, because he feels like he’s in a way lying to them, and that if they would hate him if they knew the truth, they have a right to. Boy loves his friends hard, but does not trust them to forgive him, or to trust in him, so he’s not always completely honest about not just that but anything he’s struggling with. Very sad dumbass. Suffers alone because he’s afraid to ask for help, and/or does not think he deserves it.

Really loves the other survivors and would do anything he could to protect them. Dies in the majority of his trials because he battles endlessly trying to keep the others from being the ones who die. In a way, he’s trying to make things up to them, but he would absolutely do the same just because he loves them, and did for a long time before he ever figured out Krueger and him being taken was his fault (not that I personally think that’s a fair way for the boy to view it). Optimistic externally, struggling internally. Absolutely refuses, ever, to give up, but is always right on the threshold of having a breakdown. Pushes the others to find a way to escape and tries to give them hope. Takes a lot of shit. Will not fight back much if teased just be like -__- and moves on. Doesn’t let people boss him around though, and will always do what he thinks personally is the right thing. Extremely forgiving. (Except to himself.)  Snark boy if opportunity presents itself. Can I offer you a shot of adrenaline in this trying time boy? the rest of the time.

Gives people the benefit of the doubt. Not a hoe. Would commit to a s/o very dedicatedly. Also not the kind of asshole who would cut down on time w friends when in a relationship. Boy’s love is not a zero sum game. Would die or kill for Laurie. Loves Claudette and learning botany tips from her. Thinks she is pretty and admires her kindness and skill and refusal to let the world change who she is, and wishes he was more like her. Has not told her that. Is a lot more like her in that regard than he thinks he is. Pretty damn good in a fight bc he always gets back up. Determinator. Still in love with Nancy and loyal af. Misses her a lot. Does not open up about himself as much as people think he does. Misses his dad and Nancy and his dead friends a lot, especially Jesse. Doesn’t actually talk about his problems much. Just suffers in silence because he doesn’t think he can ask for help.

Takes his faith seriously. Prays a lot, and struggles with feeling completely abandoned by God, but won’t give up on that either. Tries hard to believe he cares and things will change. Dedicated to trying to make sure that regardless of what his friends believe in, they are okay. Very sad and alone but tries to not think about that. Tries to help friends stay hopeful. Is both baby and badass sass boy in one package. Fight hard, love hard, someday will get to sleep for a whole year. 

If you are nice to him once, will assume that means you are friends now. Genuinely cares deeply for every single survivor at the campfire. Wants to protect people. Constantly suffering bc that’s impossible here. Really just wants everyone to be okay someday, including himself, and simultaneously kind of feels like he no longer deserves to be okay in the end at all. Tries not to think about that. Massive guilt issues. Bottles it up. Loyal as hell. Would die for his friends so much it actively worries them and they’re like “Quentin…please. Quentin-stop—stop. You’ll die again. I swear to god Quentin! I can die this time! Quentin!!! Come back here right now!” But he never comes back. Big sibling energy. Regularly people be like “Damn u could make a pretty fine lil brother out of this” and then they do. He loves so hard. Please be nice to him. He’s always trying so hard and never thinks it’s enough. He works so hard.

Triggers include being grabbed by his hair and jerked around, losing his necklace, the cave, and the Nightmare within 15 feet of someone he loves, so homeboy has just, a lot of bad days. Is playing a fun game called ‘I will absorb trauma forever and not get help for it and then one day it will kill me’. Needs to learn to depend on his friends.

Good sense of humor, enjoys reading and music. Will talk way too much about things he likes and not notice he’s done it and then feel bad. Dumbass sweetheart, will think he’s doing a great job flirting and be proud of himself when he did not, in fact, do a suave job, but it’s cute. Tries hard. All the time. At everything. God he tries.

I would do killer hcs too but this already so long and I cut like half of what I initially wrote rip. I have too many thoughts. Head full. : ( Here’s just a few little ones:

Myers does not like working for the Entity. It tried to pull a fast one and be like, “Yes tis I, another voice in your head,” and Michael was like “Bitch it’s my head. I don’t know you!” and that did not work. While Michael very much would love to kill Laurie and get inner peace, working for the entity provides 0% daily Michael needs, and he hates it. Sometimes he just does what the fuck he wants and gets in trouble (homeslice is the only killer who can kill survivors with no mori and no perk for it. Michael cannot be controlled). Does not like being here at all. He doesn’t cause the Entity a lot of trouble like Krueger does, so it doesn’t consider him a problem killer, but they do not have a ‘Ah yes my favorite killer’ kind of thing going. Michael hates the spider-monster. He is so tired of everything at this point. Boy is suffering. Would fight the Entity if he knew how. Has been hurt by it before, and does not like that, because it takes longer to heal than he is used to.

Myers has a few times had his home area be close enough to the campfire that he could see it in the distance, and he watches them when that happens. For hours. He is lonely, but does not realize that, and probably never will. He does stand there and watch them, being sad and not realizing he’s sad at all. It’s the closest he ever gets to human interaction aside from killing people in trials.

The Entity hurts Max sometimes, not because he has done anything wrong, but because injuring him without providing even a way to prevent it keeps him peak feral and afraid, just like it wants. No time to recover or learn or grow. Just anger and pain and fear.

The Entity promises Rin a lot of things. Not because it has to, but because it enjoys the taste of her suffering. One of her addons is paper cranes, one of 1000 to make a wish, as the description says. I’ve always interpreted that to mean it likes to screw with her and offer her things like that she can do between trials, in the moments of lucidity she occasionally has when completely alone. ‘Make 1000, get your wish,’ but every time she hits 999, it blows the ones she’s made away, and she has to start over. Unclimbable hill. Just to watch her struggle. That kind of thing. Intentionally tends to send survivors her way it knows she would dislike killing the most, just to watch her have to do it against her will and bask in the horror of what she cannot make herself not do.

[benisasoftboi]

Unorganised thoughts on Silver Snow:

When I finished Golden Deer, I said that it had felt like a more traditional Fire Emblem story than Blue Lions. Silver Snow is that but even more so (though GD is still the most trad-FE cast, IMO)

Having already played those two routes, it felt very much like a whirlwind tour of them both, plus another battle thrown in at the end - a battle that probably should have been harder, but I (completely accidentally) built the bulkiest Byleth imaginable, especially resistance wise, plus high magic - and so, by pairing high defensive stats with Nosferatu, I tanked every attack that came my way 

Gaming, for me, is just doing whatever the hell I feel like, stumbling into good results, and then pretending that I did it on purpose

I spent the whole battle with the Dragon Tales theme song stuck in my head. Kind of killed the mood

I really enjoyed that after wrapping up both the Edelgard and TWSITD plots, they basically Persona 4 you by trying to convince you that the whole game’s done now and all that’s left is to chat with everyone - though unlike in P4, there’s very obviously something left to do because they give you a whole month of prep time, rather than just one day

I felt the same way about this on Golden Deer - none of the characters are appropriately shocked by Rhea’s highly questionable actions 

Also - she says she’s going to explain the whole truth! And she doesn’t! Only the Byleth creation stuff! The other revelations from Golden Deer are missing! Rhea! Why! Are! You! Like! This!

This is actually a problem I have with this game as a whole - they want to keep certain lore and secrets exclusive to certain routes, but it results in every story feeling in some way incomplete. Like, Fates gets a lot of crap, but at least you did get a full story from your half (third? never played Revelation) a game for the price of a whole one. Blue Lions gets the worst of it, I think 

Plus, when you know some of said secrets, it makes characters who refuse to share them in other routes seem weirdly (and sometimes, contrivedly) cagey about things they really do not need to be cagey about. See: Claude refusing to tell Dimitri and Byleth in Azure Moon that he wants to End Racism, and instead vagueing about ‘achieving his dream’. This is not Edelgard wanting to conquer Fodlan and dismantle the entire social structure, Claude, your ideals really are not so controversial that you need to be this coy. Dimitri and I are cool, we getcha 

My one sentence review of the whole game is basically: Great characters, great world building, great gameplay - but really, really frustrating plot structure

I’m also really upset that Seteth does not have a dragon form

Speaking of Seteth, I married him this time around. I mostly decided to do it for laughs, but while Byleth/Dedue is still my number one Byleth pairing, I came to really, genuinely like them together. Seteth is one of my favs, now more than ever

It helps that romancing Seteth feels a lot less... creepy than romancing most of the students. I like Linhardt, but romancing him felt very weird to me because I couldn’t get over Byleth having first known him as a 16 year old under their care. Dedue, for the record, doesn’t elicit this response  because he doesn’t really feel as much like a student to me? Role-wise he feels a lot closer to the knights, and it’s just that he's been enrolled as a student for convenience’s sake, which makes him and Byleth feel more equal than they do with most of the other kids. Helps that he’s also on the older end

Anyway, Seteth and Byleth would be the nerdiest couple ever, is the impression I got from their ending. The confession scene made me laugh in how ‘oh we’ve got a lot of work to do - btw wanna get married? - sweet, now let’s get back to work’ it was. Mark Whitten is a gem

It’s also the the first time I felt like the game was actually shipping me with a main lord (Seteth taking that role in the absence of the box lords on this route). Haven’t done Crimson Flower yet, so no opinion on the Edelgard/Byleth relationship yet, but regarding Claude and Dimitri my (pretty damn controversial, possibly a bad idea to put out there) opinions on them with Byleth are that

Claude and Byleth are platonic bros, regardless of Byleth’s gender. I just don’t get any feeling of romance from their relationship at all, and so pairing them off feels weird (to me, personally - I don’t hate the ship or anything, though)

Meanwhile Dimitri 100% had a crush on his teacher at school, but after more than five years of enduring trauma after trauma, and then half a year of beginning to heal (whilst fighting a war culminating in the execution of his step-sister), Dimitri is nowhere near ready for a romantic relationship. And when he is, I wouldn’t want him with any of the main cast, Dimitri x Village Girl OTP. I guess if it has to be anyone, I’d be okay with Mercedes, maybe Marianne - hell, maybe even Claude - but really, I just want him to get a fresh start. I think that’s the healthiest option for him, in the end

I do think it’s a pairing that could work in an AU where Dimitri doesn’t have any of the experiences he has in canon, though 

And again, this is just my personal reading

I’ll also admit that I may be influenced by the fact that his two most popular pairings are with Byleth and Dedue, who I greatly prefer with each other. Mostly because I love Dedue with all my soul and his ending with Byleth is by far his happiest, in my eyes at least. It’s the only one where he puts some distance between himself and Dimitri and evens out the power balance in their relationship, which makes me happy because oh boy, the Dimitri/Dedue relationship is super interesting and compelling, but also (again, by my reading) all kinds of unhealthy as it’s presented for most of the game - power balance issues like I say, the fact that they tend to indulge, even encourage, each other’s worst instincts and behaviours, mutual guilt complexes - like I say, it’s fascinating, but damn screwed up. IMO, they’re one of the best examples I’ve seen of how unhealthy relationships aren’t always the result of one bad person, and how two good people can end up being very bad for each other

Though it is, again, a pairing I can see working (and actually being incredibly cute) in an AU where they’ve lived less horrible lives

And it’s not like I don’t want them to be friends, I just want them to also develop healthier boundaries and equal levels of respect

oh my god none of this has anything to do with silver snow what am I doing

But hey, speaking of Dimitri - I flip flopped on whether I thought his death was handled better or worse here than Golden Deer. It was given, I felt, more appropriate gravitas, but again suffered from ‘Dimitri’s dead! No, Dimitri’s alive! Oh wait, now he’s dead again’ in like, three successive scenes. And then you see his... ghost? I guess?

Dimitri really seems to get the short end of the stick on routes outside his own. Claude’s non-Deer roles were, in both cases I’ve played, much stronger and more fitting, and Edelgard is Edelgard

Maybe he’ll be good in Crimson Flower. Please. I miss Dimitri mattering. He’s probably my favourite of the three

There’s a point - obviously I don’t fully know Edelgard yet, but from what I got from the White Clouds section, above anything else she strikes me as an incredibly realistic depiction of a slightly edgy, extremely idealistic, but also highly naive and short-sighted teenager

Her whole goal, it seems, is meritocracy. She hates the crest system and the nobility, and she wants to create a system of equal opportunity. I can get behind that, but I really hope she’s prepared to accept the fact that true equal opportunity is basically impossible without recreating The Giver, as inequality is always more complex than one single factor being to blame for everything. Has Edelgard considered other limitations that make true meritocracy difficult to achieve? Has she been working on, say, a comprehensive benefits system? Or is she more of a libertarian type, and so primarily all about negative freedom and removing direct oppression? I hope Crimson Flower goes into detail on this, I’d be genuinely interested to know

I also find it interesting that she gets very angry about the fact that people hurt her and her family as a means to their own ends, so she decides that her own ends are to eliminate the system that lead to that happening - and she doesn’t care who she has to hurt in the process

This isn’t a CinemaSins *ding* plot hole observation, I genuinely think it’s interesting, and not actually that unrealistic

I also suppose her goal is no less naive than End All Racism By Being Nice To People, but Claude isn’t killing and persecuting people in attempt to achieve that, so it invites less scrutiny

I do wonder if I would have felt more strongly positively about her if she’d been my first playthrough. I do believe she’s a person that sincerely means well, and she’s certainly sympathetic, but - hmm. I’ll make my mind up when I finish CF

Anyway, paired endings. A few that I got include Raphael and Bernadetta (by far my favourite Bernie ending so far, seriously, what is that Caspar ending), Shamir and Leonie, which was cute and goofy (as Leonie’s endings tend to be, I notice, I do like that girl), Felix and Dorothea (not my favourite for either, but cute), Sylvain and Mercedes (the same but even cuter), Cyril and Petra (which felt wrong, partly because I love Cysithea a hell of a lot, and also because despite knowing there’s only about a year between them, Petra looks so much older pre-time skip), Ferdie and Marianne (super wholesome and sweet), and Linhardt and Caspar (my boyyyyssss that I refuse to ever separate again)

Not sure what I’m going to aim for on CF aside from keeping those boys together and also Ferdie/Hubert, as I’ve Heard Things

Flayn and Manuela have an A support so I figured they had a paired ending and it turns out they do not, which means Manuela was alone forever and Flayn ran away because apparently she hated having Byleth for a step mother I guess, rude

My Byleth (Myleth?) was prepared to be the best step mother in the history of the world, so offended

I realised ‘Javelins of Light’ is one of my absolute favourite tracks in the whole game. Mostly because it sounds like something out of Danganronpa, which made me nostalgic

I also like ‘Guardian of Starlight’ for somehow managing to sound like a Danganronpa/PMD: Explorers crossover track

I love how out of nowhere the Immaculate One fight is. It really does just feel like they needed something to distinguish the route from Verdant Wind outside of Claude not being around, so they just had a map that was less cool in every way except for the dragon

Is there an explanation for why Nemesis doesn’t show up on this route?

Also - I didn’t mention this in Golden Deer thoughts but I also found that final battle way, way easier than it was probably meant to be because I’d made everyone into a flier and so the floor damage hazard was meaningless

Which I totally did on purpose and not so I could make a stupid joke post about my all-wyvern team 

Anyway, in conclusion, Silver Snow was a good route, I enjoyed it more than I thought I would (I’d kind of thought it was just going to be GD without Claude, which isn’t... totally wrong, but it’s got some other stuff going on too), I liked Seteth getting to have a bigger role, I thought it had the best final boss (if not the best final boss map), and I liked that I got some more Dragon Lore (never a bad thing)

please don’t yell at me for my controversial shipping opinions 

[sassyandclassy94]

My so-far list of SwanFire marriage hardships headcanons (Enchanted Forest style cuz that’s mah thing!):

1.) Inevitable consequences from conceiving a baby (Henry) out of wedlock. (Because there’s a reason God warns us to not have sex before/outside marriage, darn it!) 

2.) Emma wanting a 4th baby (okay I imagine them having 3 babies in the first 4 years of their marriage... its believable, okay? We girls are most fertile in our late teens and early 20′s. There was also no birth control in the Medieval era... and the tricks they did use were not effective. Plus, this is SwanFire we’re talking about - they’d be a ‘healthy’ couple so no griping! This would be totally realistic) but struggling for the longest time to get pregnant. 

3.) Emma gets kidnapped by a pirate (we won’t say who...EHEM...) and is repeatedly assaulted while held hostage on the ship. Keep in mind that the trauma from and recovery of being sexually assaulted drives a wedge between any and every relationship. So this would affect her entire family, not just her marriage.

4.) Just prior to her kidnapping, Emma happily learned she was pregnant, only to sadly miscarry her baby soon after her rescue due to the trauma she suffered at the hands of her captor.

5.) She eventually gets pregnant again, only to sadly miscarry again at 14 weeks. The miscarriage (second one at that) itself, combined with the sight of her child (a girl) sends her into a deep and very dark depression; pushing away Baelfire every time he tries to be there for her and help her. Her pushing him away and cold responses to him causes him to revert to his quiet and introverted self from his teen years pre-Emma.

6.) Eventually overcomes her depression and gets pregnant again but because of her two previous miscarriages she constantly worries about this one has freaks out every time she doesn’t feel her baby move/kick, causing her to have emotional setbacks. Its a rough pregnancy, she carries full term, but, at the time of delivery nearly dies in childbirth. She doesn’t (I only hurt my fav characters but NEVER kill them), but she’s down for the count for a while which causes Baelfire to lose hope. 

7.) Finding out she has magic. The very idea would scare the living daylights out of her. Knowing also about her husband’s hatred (and fear) toward magic would undoubtedly cause her to also fear for their marriage. He begins to avoid her and snap at her because of it, greatly adding to Emma’s current fears. (Eventually they work through it though)

8.) Baelfire eventually becomes captain of the Royal Misthaven Army and although Emma wants to support him like a good wife, she also deals with the constant fear of the possibility of her becoming a widow during every mission he’s sent on. She also knows that her husband has a bad habit of making bad decisions when under pressure and would always be hoping and praying that he’d make the right one when the time comes. 

And that is all I can think of as of now. Some of these (the healing from miscarriage and assault topics) I literally googled and used some testimonies and stories shared by real women as inspiration. And for the kidnapping idea was born out of watching crime shows so... yeah... Anyway, jut thought I’d share those ideas with my SwanFire-loving followers! Feel free to add ideas of your own! 

[the-dancing-fairy]

So in honor of the Fruits Basket reboot who would you say are your fave Furuba characters and ships (canon) and why? Least fave Furuba characters and canon ships and why?

Hi hi ＼(＾▽＾*) Thank you so much for asking! and ho boy, here we go... Many spoilers abound, y'all have been warned. Also, these are in no particular order. 

faves:

Kyo/Tohru: I don’t know how you can’t love these two. The growth they bring out in one another is immense, and seeing both of them go through so much pain throughout the course of the series but find comfort and healing in each other is so impactful. I could talk about their dynamic and love for each other for days. 

Momiji: Momiji has a kind of selflessness we don’t really see in any of the other characters of the story. Lot’s of others are motivated by making the lives of their loved ones better, but Momiji I think is willing to give up the most and sacrifice his own happiness the most. He’s also more motivated by familial love, which is a nice contrast to the other characters. Additionally, despite his childish appearance, he offers some of the best wisdom the series has to offer. He’s a very emotionally intelligent and grounded character, and I love that about him.  

Kyo: This poor boy has been through so much and I just want to protect him. When I reread the manga recently I was struck by all the cute details we get about child Kyo, (he doesn’t like having similar names to people, he often stands and watch’s Shishou from afar when he has a difficult question to ask) and all those little quirks make him feel like such a real child, which makes the neglect he faces really hit home. Takaya-san did a masterful job with his arch in connecting his trauma from his parents to his experience as the cat to his guilt/anguish over Kyoko. Watching him heal from all that is one of the most fulfilling parts of the series for me every time.  

Yuki/Machi: these two are so good together. I love their teasing and how they silently act to ease each other’s anxieties as they come to understand each other more. Machi’s ability to see Yuki’s imperfections and loneliness hits something deep in my heart. They make me happy. 

MACHI KURAGI: Listen. Machi has OCD. She has an obsessive and compulsive need to destroy anything too neat or perfect, because the standard of perfection she was held to as a child is oppressive and she can’t stand seeing physical manifestations of it in the world around her. As someone who deals with similar issues, her story always hits home for me.

Haru/Rin: I would die for these two. I would do it. For all I love the rest of the couples here, I think I have to say Haru and Rin are my favorite. These two are both rather hard on the outside, but so soft for each other and I’m weak for that dynamic. I also think they subvert gender expectations in a way I find really compelling. Normally when we see the “I’m distancing myself from you for your own protection because you’re just so good” type behavior, its from a man. Seeing Rin’s desperation to protect Haru inverts that, which I appreciate. But it’s also accomplished without emasculating Haru in anyway, which I also appreciate. I’m not going to put them on this list individually since it’s already really long, but they’re both definitely among my favorite characters in the series. 

Kisa: I’m soft for Kisa because she reminds me of me as a kid. Also she’s literally the cutest. I will never get over her following around Tohru while she does chores. 

un-favs: 

So generally speaking I don’t particularly mind most of the characters and ships in the series. I think part of this is because even characters I don’t like are well developed and important enough to the story that I want them to be there even if I’m not crazy about them... but there are still those I’m not crazy about. 

Ren: Ren is super important to the story because she’s one of the main drivers of Akito’s initial turn towards cruelty and manipulation. She’s vital to the story, but she feels pretty shallow, with her biggest trait being obsessive delusion. She feels hollow, and in a story so full of rich and complex characters, that’s a bit of a let down.

Katsuya(/Kyoko): I think Katsuya suffers as a character because we only see him in Kyo’s flashbacks of Kyoko’s stories. Those 2 degrees of removal make him feel very... removed (lol). He comes across as rather selfish, and kind of reminds me a lot of Shigure, but whereas we get to see Shigure’s motivations, we don’t really get Katsuya’s. He feels much more flat than most of the other character’s in the story as a result. His interest in Kyoko when she was so young is also super creepy to me. It feels like he mostly helped her to help himself. Because he’s so icky and flat, he feels replaceable in a way no other character in the story does. Like, it could have been someone else who spurred Kyoko’s growth and became her partner, and he didn’t have to be so much older and icky.  

Uo/Kureno: I actually like most of their dynamic, but the age gap is still *cringe*. I also feel like the two of them individually have a lot of development, but we don’t really get much development for them as a couple. Like Uo and Tohru are a big part of Kureno’s ark in terms of him finally realizing he can and in fact should do things for himself rather than just living for Akito, but this is more played out in his interactions with Tohru than with Uo. They really only interact 4 or 5 times before Uo decides to basically run away with him, which just kind of left me like ??? I love them both a lot, and it does ~mostly~ makes sense for them to be together, I just wish their partnership got more development. Also, that age gap cringe is real. 

So there we go! I hope you were able to slog through that anonnie, I know it got really long , but Fruba has the most feels （；￣д￣）I hope you enjoy my thoughts none-the-less! 

[dillydedalus]

what i read in july

THAT’S MORE LIKE IT aka i’m finally out of the (relative) reading slump for good & my bro james joyce was there

men explain things to me, rebecca solnit the original mansplaining essay is great, and still scarily relevant; the others in this collection (most on feminist issues) are also quite good; some aspects are a bit dated & problematic so be aware of that. 2.5/5

erschlagt die armen!, shumona sinha (tr. from french, not available in english) short but very impactful novella about a young french woman, originally from india, who works as an interpreter in the asylum system and becomes more & more broken by this system of inhumane bureaucracy and suffering, until she snaps and hits a migrant over the head with a wine bottle. full of alienation and misery and beautiful but disturbing language - the title translates to ‘beat the poor to death’ so like. yeah. 3.5/5

fire & blood: a history of the targaryen family I, george r r martin look, it’s a 700-page-long fake history book about a fictional ruling dynasty in a fictional world, and i’m just That Obsessed & Desperate about asoiaf (and i don’t even care about the targs That Much). anyway, now i know more about the targs than any ruling family from, you know, real history, which is like, whatever. this is pretty enjoyable if you are That Obsessed, although i will say that some bits are much better than others (there are some dry dull years even in everyone’s fav overly dramatic dragon-riding incest-loving family) and the misogyny really is. a lot. too much. way too much. BUT i did really like Good Best Queen Alysanne (her husband king joe harris is alright too i guess) and i found my new westerosi otp, cregan stark/aly blackwood, who both have Big Dick Energy off the fucking charts. 3.5/5 (+0.5 points for cregan and aly’s combined BDE)

the old drift, namwali serpell hugely ambitious sprawling postcolonial nation-building novel about zambia, told thru three generations of three families, as well as a chorus of mosquitoes (consistently the best & smartest parts). there is A LOT going on, in terms of characters, of plot points, of references to history (the zambian space programme) and literature (finally my knowledge of heart of darkness paid off) and thematically, and honestly it was a bit too much, a bit too tangled & fragmented & drifty, and in the end i probably admire this book more than i liked it, but serpell’s writing is incredibly smart and funny and full of electrical sparks 3.5/5

a severed head, iris murdoch the original love dodecahedron (not that i counted). iris murdoch is fucking WILD and i love her for it. this is a strange darkly funny little farce about some rich well-educated londoners and their bizarre & rather convoluted love lives. not as grandiosely wild as the sea the sea, but fun nevertheless. 3/5

midnight in chernobyl, adam higginbotham jumping on the hype bandwagon caused by the hbo series (very weird to call the current fascination with chernobyl a hype bandwagon but you know). interesting & well-written & accessible (tho the science is still totally beyond me) & gets you to care about the people involved. lots of human failure, lots of human greatness, set against the background of the almost eldritch threat of radioactivity (look up the elephant foot & see if you don’t get chills), and acute radiation syndrome which is THE MOST TERRIFYING THING ON EARTH . 3.5/5

normal people, sally rooney honestly this is incredibly engrossing & absorbing once you get used to how rooney completely ignores ‘show don’t tell’ (it works!), i pretty much read the whole thing in one slow workday (boss makes a dollar, i make a dime so i read books on my phone on company time, also i genuinely had nothing to do). i also think rooney is really good at precisely capturing the ~millenial experience in a way that feels very true, especially the transition from school to uni. BUT i really disliked the ending, the book never engages with the political themes it introduces (esp. class and gender) as deeply as it could and the bdsm stuff never really gets TIED UP LOL. so overall idk: 3.5/5

störfall: nachrichten eines tages, christa wolf quiet reflective undramatic little book narrated by a woman waiting to hear about the outcome of her brother’s brain surgery on the day of the catastrophe at chernobyl - throughout the day she puts down her thoughts about her brother and the events unfolding at chernobyl, as well as the double uncertainty she is trying to cope with. really interesting to read such an immediate reaction to chernobyl (the book came out less than a year after chernobyl). 2.5/5

the man in the high castle, philip k dick it was fine? quick & entertaining alternative history where the axis powers win the war, some interesting bits of worldbuilding (like the draining of the mediterranean which was apparently a real idea in the early 20th century?) but overall it’s just felt a bit disjointed & unsatisfying to me. 2.5/5

fugitive pieces, anne michaels very poetic & thoughtful novel about the holocaust, grief, remembrance & the difference between history and memory, intergenerational trauma, love, geology and the weather. i’m not sure how much this comes together as a novel, but it is absolutely beautifully written (the author is a poet as well) and very affective. 3.5/5

american innovations, rivka galchen short collection of bizarre & often funny short stories about neurotic women whose furniture flies away, or who grow an extra breast, or who are maybe too occupied with financial details. very vague & very precise at once, which seems to be the thing with these sort of collections. 3/5

fool’s assassin (fitz & the fool #1), robin hobb YAASS i’m back in the realm of the elderlings!!! i thought this was one of the weaker installments in the series - i still enjoyed it a lot, and Feelings were had, but it just doesn’t quite fit together pacing-wise & some of the characterisation struck me as off (can i get some nuance for shun & lant please?) and tbh fitz is at peak Selfcentred Dumbass Levels & it drove me up the fucking wall. molly, nettle & bee deserve better. still, completely HYPE for the rest of the trilogy. 3.5/5

JAMES JOYCE JULY

note: i decided not to read dubliners bc it’s my least fav of joyce’s major works & too bleak & repetitive for my mood right now AND while i planned not to reread finnegans wake bc……. it’s finnegans wake…. i kinda do want to read it now (but i also. really don’t.) so idk yet.

a portrait of the artist as a young man, james joyce y’all. i read this book at least once a year between the ages of 15 and 19, it’s beyond formative, it is burnt into my brain, and reading it now several years later it is still everything, soaring and searing (that searing clarity of truth, thanks burgess) and poetic and dirty, and stephen is baby, and a pretentious self-important little prick and i love him & i am him (or was him as only a pretentious self-important teenage girl reading joyce can be him - because this truly is a book that should be read in your late teens when you feel everything as intensely and world-endingly and severely as my boy stephen does and every new experience feels like the world changing). anyway i love this book & i love stephen dedalus, bird-like, hawk-like, knife-blade, aloof, alienated, severe and stern, a poet-priest-prophet if he could ever get over himself, baby baby baby. 5/5

exiles, james joyce well. there’s a reason joyce is known as a novelist. this is….. a failed experiment, maybe. a fairly boring play about an adulterous love-square and uh… love beyond morality and possession maybe??? about how much it would suck for joyce to return to ireland??? and tbh it’s not terribly interesting. 2/5

travesties, tom stoppard a wild funny irreverent & smart antic comedy inspired by the fact that during ww1, james joyce, lenin, and dadaist tristan tzara were all in neutral zurich, more or less simultaneously; they probably never met, but in this play they do, as dadaist poetry, socialist art critique, and a james joyce high on his own genius & in desperate need of some cash while writing ulysses, AND the importance of being earnest (joyce is putting on a production of it) all collide in the memories of henry carr, who played algernon & later sued joyce over money (tru facts). not my fav stoppard (that’s arcadia) but it’s funny & fizzy & smart & combines many many things that i love. 4/5 

ulysses, james joyce look i’m not really going to tell y’all anything new about ulysses, but it really has everything, it’s warm & human(e) & cerebral & difficult & funny & sad & healing & i always get a lot out of it even tho there’s bits (a lot of them) i’ll never wrap my head around. ultimate affirmation of humanity or whatever. also stephen dedalus is baby. 5/5

dedalus, chris mccabe the fact that this book (sequel to ulysses about what stephen dedalus might have done the next day) exists and was published ON MY BIRTHDAY is proof that the universe loves me. 

anyway this is very very good, very very clever, extremely good at stephen (less good at bloom but his parts are still good), engages w/ ulysses, portrait & hamlet (& others) very cleverly & does some cool meta and experimental shit. y’all it has stephen talking to a contemporary therapist about how he’s stuck in joyce’s text which is all about joyce & very little about whoever stephen is when he’s not joyce’s alter ego/affectionate but slightly amused look at younger self and ithaca is an interview w/ the author about how his relationship to his dad influenced his response to ulysses and I’M INTO IT. the oxen of the sun chapter replaces the whole ‘gestation of english prose’ w/ just slightly rewriting the first pages of about 10 novels published between ulysses and now & it does lolita w/ “bloom, thorn of stephen’s sleep, light in his eyes. his sire, his son’ and i lit. screamed. anyway i don’t want to give this 5 stars (yet) bc i think some of the experimental stuff ended up a bit gimmicky & didn’t add that much to the text but fuck. that’s my boy & i want to reread it right now. 4.5/5 ALSO it’s a crime no literary weirdo woman has written ‘a portrait of the artist’s sister’ about delia ‘dilly’ dedalus, shadow of stephen’s mind, quick far & daring, teaching herself french from a 3rd hand primer while her father drinks the nonexistent family fortune away and her older brother is getting drunk on a beach & starting fights w/ soldiers bc he’s a smartarse

[icharchivist]

perso-rant underneath and at first i intended it to be more light hearted but welp cant dive into myself without digging the bad stuff so just ignore this as rambling.

(idk if the cut works on mobile so as usual blacklist #ichapersonal to skip it , its quite long)

its night and im noisy and all but yknow part of the reason m/lb is such a healing show for me and i rewatch it every couple of days?

i cry everytime M.arinette's family is on screen pretty badly bc i get so envious all the time. i hate my shitty family (and often can relate to A.drien's ressentment) so just seeing such a /healthy/ family being often shown litterally brings me to tears. im like C.hat in the animan episode when he stares at the family picture with a sweet smile (another detail that stupidly make me cry who allowed th i s)

like. i dont relate to A.drien's relation to his family but some of the emotional effects is often a moment of "welp. mood." and being kinda sad /for him/ even if i can feel it for myself too. but then with M.arinette's family everytime they get to be on screen i realize how happy this sort of dynamic makes me and it makes me /so envious/.

like my mom is an artist and an excellent cook but she always barred those interests from me bc it was /hers/ and it was for /her ego/ and this attitude just killed every curiosity i had and remplaced it with a complete unability to care.

i used to bake as a kid but my mom was always shutting down everything i was doing, and if i was asking for help or recieps she would just tell le "it's a secret just watch " and never letting me know tf she was doing so i stopped lmao. everytime ive tried meals since it was only for myself and with a hard mocking from family and mom saying she had a better recieps and i should just let her do so i dont even try it often. (moreeven now that the kitchen is opened to the living room and they're super judgemental when im in it)

i was messing with drawings and paints in her workshop when i was a kid but she would always point out flaws and take my tools to correct it without telling nor showing me how and it killed it, it took me until my 14yo to start doing mindless doodles and then my breakdown when i was about 20 to seriously try back to draw and do art and try different tools (until my right hand made it impossible for me to hold a tool and the failure still feels yknow)

i wanted to sew things and make clothes (at the time for my dolls) but my mom was never letting me touch the tools (that we HAD since not only she made clothes but her mom actually had a fabrique shop. like. right next door. i think it became part of my mom's trauma hating her mom and refusing us to connect with her, more so with what happened when i was 7 and we lost contact with them but still, the damn irony. and i cant remember if my grandma ever let me close her sewing material but i was a damn kid after all) so this is another thing i didnt pursue

i wanted to pick up music (piano mostly) bc my uncle is a musician but my parents never wanted to invest in that because they already gave a piano to my sister (that i wasnt allowed to use) so ye that was dropped lmao

and i started to write when i was about 11 and it was that /one thing/ i didnt need help for from anyone, completely self taught, with my own ways and tools, and my parents were always dismissive of it, never listening to me, always telling me it wasnt important, that i should focus on something else, and after other circumstances that added to that i dropped writting around my 17/18yo and it had been painful to even try to write again since.(i came back to writing around my 20yo a bit before my breakdown but after it happened it started to die out and i felt exhausted and stopped after a few months and since then i've never been able to pick up writing again ay.)

(and im not touching the obsessive elements bc like- the fact she does it for her crush makes it different, but the sort of things she does? taking pictures and putting them everywhere in her room when she hyperfixates, making overcomplicated schedules and such? i litteraly do that with fiction. i made a freaking timeline for this show. i am currently working on organizing codex from d.a and an approval guide for christ sake. and im not talking about my multiple fandom shrines in my room and the fact i legit have one for m/lb made from pictures found on merchs.

or also the fact i have a lot of passions i'd love to share and seeing M. play video games with her dad for exemple makes me so bitter when all i get is backhanded insults from my parents when i bring it up.)

So sometimes i see M. and part of me is just in awe, loving everything about her. the other part of me tho... i feel... a bit robbed? like she's such a creative kid, she's incredible and she inspires me everyday, and i cant help but think how i would have adored her when i was a kid. (im not even kidding, as a kid i requested my mom a costume of black cat for h.alloween and a l.adybug costume for the carnaval. i have pictures of that at my dad's place sadly it kills me. also my room when i was a kid used to be covered with l.adybug stickers like. HELL my mom doesnt care about my interests but last year she bought me a M/LB winter callendar (bc its been years i was mentioning i wanted one, a selfish whim but oh well) and i had a huge double take bc i was certain she didnt remember me talking about this show- and she did not. when i asked her why, she legit told me "because she reminded me of you as a kid with your pigtails your obsession for l.adybugs". like!! i cant even stress how kid!me would have adored this show and especially LB./M.) (the pigtails too this time i have proofs around there i used to carry them all the time until i was bullied for it at school. (bullying at school instead of good friends also adds to the difference in question tbh lmao))

there is something so... weird into seeing the parts of yourself that you cut yourself from in a character, and see that the main difference is because of how the family (and bullies) treated those elements so drastically differently.

my family was always neglectful but differently than A.. the things i relate to with him is how he specifically still holds on hope that his father will do better at least just for one day and his reaction when he's left down saying he's just used to it. and like normal, not every kind of abuse are the same and all but i still relate enough to feel sad.

but M. is always a whiplash of feelings like i could have been this sort of girl in a better environment.

at 13/14yo she was already making stuff up, baking, designing clothes, doing art, she was doing so many things, even forgetting the superhero part. she was being happy being a creator at her pace and with encouragement. at 13/14yo i was starting to show concerning signs of d.epression because i was trying to handle my parents's divorces and the multiple trials that followed that /i/ had to handle by finding middle grounds, allowing some of my father's blackmail to avoid worse, and by litterally having to collect infos from mails everytime to prove against some of his arguments to the judges. and my sister refusing to talk to us for a year, which caused us basically to feel very bad thinking of the eldest sister who ran away from home, and having to handle my father's harrasment and emotional abuse of constantly belittling me (fuck this was the age he legit told me i would probably end up a p.rostitute so ye!!! fuck that!!!) andd the fact my mom was also falling apart from all of it on me and i was always supposed to cheer her up while i was having a hard time in a new school and new environment away from the very few friends i had and again feeling abandonned by my sister which freaking sucks after already had suffered that from our eldest one.

but M. makes me cry every. goddam. rewatch. its like maybe the ultimate wish fufilling story of just how i would have loved my family to be. of how i think i could have turned up.

and that realization hits so badly everytime.

there's a thing with my hyperfixations where i'll always find a way to tie it back to my traumas. i dont know if im pulling straws, or if the things are there. for having watched m.lb when it came out unfazed and only got hit with that realization upon rewatching- i feel it was more me realizing "there is something there that is touching me more than before" and having an introspection to get it.

and i think the difference is that- before my breakdown the characters and stories i related to where the eternal optimistic-yet-damaged "never give up!" type of characters. When things started to go downhill to my breakdown and since then the fictions that talked to me the most were all dealing with guilt coming from toxic environment that werent your fault per se but you pierceved that way. my way to relate were to characters who felt deeply connected to their guilt (peak being c.loud of f.f7 that even topped it with the deadly skin disease making him lose will to live (because ye that happened. still hate to watch out for that so ye), and memories issues, you would have told me at 13yo when i first watched that movie that this would be what i would relate to him about 7 years later i would have laughed at your face.), which translated with pushing people away and self destructing habits.

and i know i watched m.lb the first time around that time, when i was 20/21. and that may be why i didnt feel that. that my concerns were too elsewhere to realize that. That i was too focalized on how i felt like i failed by suddenly breaking under the pressure, having all the things i've kept burried kicking me out at once, and that i couldnt afford to be a burden to anyone. and it translated with me loving characters like that because in most cases their friends ended up reminding them of what was important - and sometimes just getting frustrated about your fav being as dumb as it forces you to pull yourself back together lmao. not always working but it was there.

now im 23. i cut ties with my father for about 3/4 years now, with all the shitty things that ensued out of the last trial where he sued me and his still-happening harrasment (sometimes silly sometimes scary). My mom and step dad are suffocating me more and more everyday. my health had become so disastrous i cant even manage to go school or find a job. And more than ever im frustrated and angry.

and i think it may be a shown of recovery? perhaps linked to therapy? of while i still have guilt of falling apart- /they/ are the reason i fell apart. and I'm yet to have proper apologizes for it. i grew furious at my family. of how much i feel robbed.

lately im so angry at everything i lost, was taken of, stolen childhood all of that- because of my parents, mainly. (hell even the bullying at school - in primary school it apparently started bc of gossips about why my eldest sister ran away from home, and in middle school it was first bc my parents insisted on sending me to private school where i was an outcast. which then had me truly embrassing the outcast persona that had made it impossible for me to be at peace in the two others middle schools i went to. highschool saved my social life tbh).

i think it's therapy and recovery that is making me shift the blame and feel so angry at them. so bitter. and suddenly i see in an innocent kid show a "what could have been". same starting personality, different people to channel this.

and this is. frustrating.

but it makes me love it even more. idk if its driving anything else than ressentment but at least for the time of an episode I'm in a bubble of a.lternative universe where i can forget about my life and feel satisfied at once.

like finding a piece of myself that i deliberately broke and burried to never think about it again, and realize far later how it missed to the whole, and how damaged this piece is now, but still is.

and there is something incredibly healing about that. i would never have thought there would be this much healing out of this anger and yet satisfaction. what a strange feeling.

fiction is funny that way. the things people can get out of it to deal with their own psyche are so different one person to the next.

it's just so weird for me to go from "i relate to the horrors this character went through" to "and fuck those horrors. let me think about what could have been if this didnt happen."

even moreso knowing i had this piece of fiction before and didnt approach it that way. there's a time and a mindset for everything. apparently now was the best mindset for me huh

.......

so ye apparently i cant like something like a normal person and have to go on about how it connects to my deeply rooted traumas lmao.

anyway it's been eating me up for weeks now and it's 4:45am i have absolutly no impulse holding me back. if you sat through this piece of work im sorry. just needed it to get it out of my chest.

i'll go back to hugging my cheap-yet-lifesaving c.laire's l.adybug pillow now

good night o/

[marypoppinswasmyfatherbitches]

Oh my goodness, I didnt see the link to your fanfic account! I am dumb. So ignore my previous ask and instead answer this one for the meme. 13, 3, 14, 1 and 2 for Happiness goes on? (I shall leave reviews on your beautiful fanfic soon I promise, they are good.)

(Hiii, sooo…this whole reply is late because I actually typed up ALL OF THIS last night, and then accidentally “x”-ed out of my browser and lost it all, because I am very very stupid. And then was too tired to retype it up before going to sleep. I hope I remember roughly everything, and apologies for that mistake.)

Oh! Haha! Alright then! Thank you! Don’t feel dumb at all for not realizing which AO3 account is mine or for your previous ask(which for others who are curious, said: “1 - 5 for all your fics! Just talk about your favs!”). I was prepared to choose 3 fics (including “Happiness Goes On” since that’s definitely the one I’m most proud of, so I guess that’s closest to a “favorite” right?), and go through the first 5 questions for each, though I won’t lie and say it wouldn’t have taken some time to answer.

BUUUT…since you said to scrap that first ask, I’ll answer these individual ones for “Happiness Goes On.” And your compliment and promise for a future review means SO goddamn much, thank you sincerely.

(WARNING / REMINDER: This is about my fic that deals with the subject of child molestation, and I do reference that a little bit in this reply. Don’t read further if it makes you uncomfortable, which I entirely understand and respect.)

**********

13: What music did you listen to, if any, to get in the mood for writing this story? Or if you didn’t listen to anything, what do you think readers should listen to to accompany us while reading?

HA! Well, American Pie obviously, for a majority of it. While brainstorming / writing / editing the epilogue? A lotta Billy Joel. ;)

The idea to use American Pie bounced into my brain when it came on the radio at the thrift shop where I volunteer, one of the rare times my own music speaker battery died. Usually a disaster, because our store radio is pretty crappy, but the sound quality wasn’t too bad that day, and I rediscovered how much I love that song and ‘Why isn’t this on my ipod again?’. Listening to the lyrics, I realized how much some of them fit the Guardians in general, and this story specifically, which I have Gamora mentally note in the fic. I was sitting and casually chatting with the manager while also thinking, ‘Google what year this came out when you get home, but I’m sure it’s the 70′s. Peter would know it, and it could be the Zune. I think it could work.’ I’m proud that I was able to reference the song so many times without actually naming it by title, but I assume most readers knew what it was, it’s just that famous. (I also couldn’t resist the light-hearted joke, later when things calmed down, of Gamora saying “This…is the longest song…I have ever heard.” and Peter smiling without even looking at her and giving a cheeky “I know.”)

In terms of using Billy Joel for the epilogue, I’m just a Billy Joel fanatic. The use of him for this story began just from the We Didn’t Start the Fire joke toward Rocket at the bar (I thought it was clever, Peter!), and later on I saw how The Longest Time fit romantically for Starmora, and some of the lyrics matched the healing themes of the overall story, and I thought ‘Maybe they’ve been playing BIlly Joel since that night; maybe that can be the joke.’ Why shouldn’t his Greatest Hits albums (at least) be on the Zune? I struggled a lot over what song should be the final one Gamora comments on before they switch artists to appease the group. I never specify which romantic Billy Joel song Peter and Gamora slow danced to during their “date night” in that six-week summary, but I like to imagine it was Just the Way You Are. I considered Keeping the Faith or Vienna for the final one, but I thought they deserved something more fun and naughty to analyze this time, so Only the Good Die Young it is. :D

In conclusion, I listened to The Longest Time, and the entire An Innocent Man studio album, a lot (as if I needed an excuse).3: What’s your favorite line of narration?

The portion in italics is my favorite line, but I’m including the entire sentence for context purposes: “She would need to grow used to him viewing Yondu as a caring parent who was extraordinarily protective of his boy, and would have hunted down this pervert to whistle a glowing arrow through her skull.”14: Is there anything you wanted readers to learn from reading this fic?

Ohh geez, wow, that one is tough. I don’t know if it’s accurate to say this story was intended to educate, but just to explore the idea with fictional characters. I have no expertise on the subject, and would never claim such, or talk down to those who do. I didn’t intend to create a PSA. I suppose all of the “lessons” for Peter (if they can be called that) I hope all readers already know and agree on (basically a collection of “it wasn’t your fault” and “this doesn’t define you” and “trauma isn’t a competition, someone else suffering worse doesn’t invalidate your experience” and “you should feel comfortable talking about anything without judgement or shame” etc.).

Slightly lesser scale messages, there’s also reminders about the importance of communication, trusting each other, letting the other person speak in an argument, not letting one’s jealousy/instincts/bad mood interfere with fairness, not running away from a fight or staying angry, respecting boundaries and privacy, all that healthy relationship jazz that these two are still figuring out. 1: What inspired you to write the fic this way?

This post is already very long, and I could probably talk for hours about the decision-making process for many scenes (of my GotG fics, this took the longest to write and publish, over 2 months), so I’ll try to condense this to a few bullet points that probably don’t fit the “inspired” criteria.

- It was originally going to be in two parts, 4 scenes each, when I thought the epilogue would be much shorter. But as the lil’ wrap-up got longer (because we needed a fluffy conclusion, dammit!), I decided to make it a separate “chapter.”

- I think the concept probably started as one of those strange, angsty “what if?” scenarios I make up in my head at night that I still can’t believe I created into a full-fledged work. I liked the idea of Peter and Gamora having this conversation and her comforting him, but I knew if I was really going to throw it out there for other fans, it had be more balanced with happier moments, too. I just know I was always going to make the offender a woman - both because it would lead to the misunderstanding that she was a past consensual hook-up when Peter was an adult to spark some irritation and jealousy in Gamora, and because it’s realistically different from other sexual assault stories, since women can be pedophiles and child predators too, and they’re just as horrible. :(

- The fanfic idea of “Gamora accidentally starts a fire while trying to cook, and Peter falsely accuses and lashes out at Rocket” was in my head before, but there were two key differences. 1) It was the entire plot, not a light-hearted subplot in the shadows of something bigger, 2) Meredith’s letter was either fully or partially burnt as a result of the fire. By the end Gamora was going to confess it was her fault, that she was trying to surprise Peter by cooking spaghetti, and he would apologize both to her and to Rocket for losing his temper and getting so angry. I hated that idea later and found it too sad (he’s already lost the Walkman and second cassette tape, why would I want him to lose even more from his mother?), and in “Spark My Memory” (the Christmas fic I wrote for “12 Days of Starmora”) the Guardians put his mother’s letter in the photo album gift for Peter, completely safe and unharmed. I like to keep all my fanfics canon-compliant and non-contradictory from each other, so the letter is fine, no burning it.

Yet “Gamora started a fire cooking” still seemed fun to me, as I like the idea that she’s so badass and skilled and intelligent, but failed at something so domestic and simple. Kinda cute. I was so excited to insert it into this, because I think it worked on multiple levels. It’s a driving force for the plot (the reason the team go to the restaurant and they stumble upon that particular waitress), the reason Gamora was already in a bad mood during her fight with Peter, it could be used as a metaphor/comparison for Peter’s anxiety and Gamora’s guilt, it was something for the Guardians to put at a higher priority to tease and mock Gamora for while oblivious to the main story, something for Peter to just break down into giggles over once they changed the subject (because he earned a good laugh after that heartbreaking and vulnerable childhood trauma story), an excuse to give Rocket so many funny lines, an overall silly and sitcommy-style subplot to fall back on, and a sweet “victory!” for Gamora to have (sort of?) conquered by the epilogue. ^_^2: What scene did you first put down?

This is easy. I’ve written all but one (8 out of 9) of my fanfics in order, except for “Just Like Everybody Else.” So ya, I wrote the opening scene first, Baby Groot’s magic trick lesson and Peter’s oh-so-cruel “can only be seen once” deception. I needed to ease readers (and myself) into the angst and heavy shit to follow, and that cute idea had also been in the back of my mind for a while. ^_^

**********

PHEW, OKAY, ALL RE-TYPED! Thank you again SO MUCH for the lovely ask and wonderful questions, your actual interest and curiosity thrilled me! You see I wasn’t kidding about the incessant babbling. :P

Thank you also for the kudos you left on AO3, and take care!~