#if a male character said that it would be recognized for the red flag that it is

[alovelyburn]

I was introduced to Berserk by a guy/(boy) I was involved with last year. He - attempting to grow his manga collection last summer - regretfully, turned out to be complete scum. How telling that he ended up becoming bored with the story after the Golden Age. After reading Berserk myself…what a red flag lol. ANYWAY - at least for me, a straight woman - Guts is the quintessential, most perfect and exemplary man written for the “female gaze”. His general disposition, unwavering love for Casca, fiercely masculine nature (both protective and healthy) and tenacity are exquisitely woven together. This behavior extends beyond Cacsa too - in due respect to Farese, Schierke, Flora, Danaan…even just in modeling proper masculinity to Isidro.

I officially committed to Berserk in June. (Context: The beginning of 2022 was the first time I began seriously exploring anime in general, and since have started reading manga.) But I ,as a woman who has always loved any escapist story with depth, have never come across a character like Guts - aside from one other male character. Prior to discovery of Berserk, Jamie Fraser from Outlander was the exemplar of perfection in this category. However, upon diving into this manga - albeit a series whose readership is mostly comprised of by men - Guts is superior above all men I have come across in literature.

Additionally, I will add that the men in this fandom (with exception to the bad apple I mentioned) who vocally idolize Guts, as well as ALSO consider Berserk a love story - give me hope that good men do exist. Thank you, Kentaro Miura.

I posted this on Reddit and got backlash, I did not write this to say he is the most perfect character….I am saying he is perfectly written FOR THE FEMALE GAZE. Please look up the ‘female gaze’ because there have been a few useless comments by people who missed the point of what I said. Even more confusing are the comments by some people who completely missed the point of the entire story Miura wrote too???????

Feminists love to bring up how he choked Casca. Respectfully, here are my thoughts.

First, he literally choked her during Golden Age. Casca’s resolution and grace towards that assault is universally praised and yet people talk about her acceptance of him/his trauma as if it would be an isolated incident???????

Second, the beast of darkness emerging in that moment in the later arc is to serve for Guts to realize, and be horrified/fearful of the evil within him. Casca is the most precious thing to him - so for him to assault her in that moment is (in my view) a device to establish how serious the darkness in him is.

There are two reasons I hate when this is brought up to me. As a woman, if I raise concern about it regardless of context and ignore the numerous merits Guts has - it’d be written off that I don’t understand his depth of character. On the opposite side - if I don’t bring it up, or even better, others think they need to remind me….then I’m something of an SA apologist if I lack concern. It that suggests that women can’t and/or choose not to recognize complex male characters. Something of a catch 22

Genuinely, I wasn't sure whether to answer this. I don't really understand what it is about me or any G/G type person that inspires Gutsca fans/Casca fans to write us these long lectures about opinions you must know we're not going to agree with, and I'm not sure I want to encourage that. And also because any argument that Guts sexually assaulting Casca just proves how important she is to him makes me want to die, and I do find the refernece to "feminists" to be a little strange.

That said, I guess I do want to address this attempt to counter the idea that Guts trying to kill and rape Casca is perhaps bad for their relationship.

First of all, there is a difference between the strangling in the meadow scene during the Golden Age and the one where he's trying to kill her after having a chat with the Beast over the campfire. Specifically, the Golden Age incident was a ptsd/trauma flashback that involved him lashing out at a hallucination that brought out his rape trauma, whereas the second incident is him literally trying to kill her because he's frustrated that she holds him back from chasing Griffith.

This is literally what is happening. It's enabled by the possession, yes, but Guts himself acknowledges that the feelings/impulses come from within himself. They are motivated by his exhaustion, his frustration, the fact that while he cares about her, he also resents her because he'd rather go chase Griffith around like he had been doing before Conviction.

This is not a PTSD flashback that she gets caught in, it's him venting his anger at her. That doesn't mean he doesn't care about her or that he actually wants her dead, but it is an impulse that exists inside him, and he's struggling to contain it under the circumstances.

Second, the sexual assault is again literally and explicitly him reenacting the Eclipse rape in an attempt to get closer to/more enmeshed with Griffith like the words are right there on the page, that's what he's doing.

Which brings me to the two-pointed root of this disagreement:

Casca isn't the most precious thing to him, Griffith is. I'm sorry, this comes up a lot. The Beast of Darkness tells him that he's carrying her around just so he won't heal and be forced to move on from Griffith. It also lumps her in with the rest of his current companions as fragile flames that he uses to sustain himself until he can chase Griffith, "the true light that burns (him)." The Beast is, let's remember, just Guts' subconscious/dark side. It's not some outside entity trying to lead him astray, it's the dark feelings he tries not to acknowledge. It also comes up in interviews, e.g. Miura stating directly that Griffith is the one that gives Guts his motivation to live. When she runs off alone, Guts' first instinct isn't even to go look for her - he only decides to do that after sitting in the dark moping about the Hawks, and he directly refers to her as abandoning the Band of the Hawk itself. In fact, every time he commits to staying with her and protecting her, it's directly in the wake of him being reminded/reminding himself that when he abandoned Griffith and the Hawks it resulted in him losing everything he cared about without even realizing it. And even then, the entire time he kept promising himself that he wouldn't abandon her, he also kept vacillating - should he find her a safe place and leave her there and go back to what he was doing, or should he try to make himself stay? When Griffith takes off with her, he literally doesn't think about her even once. And to be clear, I do think if Miura hadn't passed away he would have shown more concern about her. But that doesn't change the fact that when Miura relayed what was most important about this situation to Mori (who said he wouldn't make up or flesh out anything but would just put down what Miura told him), apparently what he said was something to the effect of "Griffith kidnaps Casca, Guts has a meltdown about being unable to hit Griffith." All the people saying he's melting down because he couldn't save Casca are living on Cope, I'm sorry there's no other way to put it. He's melting down because after all his years of growing stronger and obsessing over getting to Griffith when he finally got there he was completely powerless to do what he intended to do, which was fight Griffith on something like equal footing. While yes, this ended up resulting in his being unable to save Casca, it's just extremely evident from reading the book that what he's most bothered by is his inability to land a single hit on the man who he has, in a lot of ways, lived solely to try and catch up to ever since Promrose. Thus the callback to the first duel, when Griffith overwhelmed him, and he became "Griffith's." Which brings me to

Casca's importance to Guts is very complicated, and I'm not here to say he doesn't care about her or love her as a person or that he didn't have legitimate romantic feelings for her, or that he isn't motivated in large part by his self-imposed duty to protect her. But I *am* here to say a lot of what motivates him is that Casca is his path to redemption. Casca may be the woman he had intended to be with, but what she is more than anything else, is the embodiment of the Band of the Hawk - he literally refers to abandoning her in the cave as abandoning the Band of the Hawk itself, and the idea that she has come to represent the lost army is emphasized during the Eclipse itself when Judeau and Pippin declare that if she, their current leader, survives it means the Hawks are still alive in some form. With Guts, his decision to dedicate himself to protecting her is a direct result of his bad choices in the past: he abandoned Griffith, and it resulted in Griffith being imprisoned and broken, plus the Hawks being killed... and ultimately led to the Eclipse. He abandoned Casca and Rickert and Casca ended up running around loose without any protection (that he knew of). Hell even Godot died while Guts was off doing something else, and he didn't even bother to say goodbye. Guts' tendency to chase a goal at the expense of the people he cares about and how it results in him losing them before he understands what he's doing is a repeated theme in his character, and it ultimately resolves (for the most part) on the Hill of Swords when Griffith abandons him. This puts him on the receiving end of his own callousness for the first time - he realizes he hates it, and decides he has to change his approach. His decision to protect her, to dedicate himself to protecting her, is not a grand romantic gesture, though there is romance in it. It's his attempt to stop making the same mistake and make up for what he's done in the only way he can: by not letting it happen again.

[xenascribbles]

Writerly Questionnaire

thanks for the tag @willtheweaver :) i dont do tag games a whole lot bc… well idk. they scare me? but this one got my attention. mostly because it doesn’t involve sharing any of my actual writing.

About me:

When did you first start writing?

around 2013-14 i think. it was my freshman year of high school. i was recently introduced to one direction, and well…. the rest is history (i wrote bad harry styles fanfic which eventually evolved into fully original work)

Are the general themes you read different from the ones you write?

i would say no. i mostly like to read fantasy, and that’s mostly what i write, i think.

Is there an author/fellow writer you want to emulate, or one to whom you want to be compared?

in short, no. i have learned the hard way that comparing myself to others is the devil.

Can you tell me a little about your writing space(s)? (room, coffee shop, desk, etc)

i’m generally in an old, peeling, faux-leather recliner, laptop in my lap, some mindless show on in the background, and then whatever i need right around me.

What’s your most effective way to muster up some muse?

ehhhhh idk honestly. just thinking about my story will stir up some motivation and inspiration if im not there yet. i just kind of sit with my doc open in front of me until something starts happening

Did the place(s) you grew up in influence the people and places you write about?

in any way that you environment influences you, i suppose. not directly. certainly not on purpose. i don’t pull inspiration from it at least.

Are there any recurring themes in your writing, and if so, do they surprise you at all?

there are probably some i don’t recognize as repeat offenders, but i think all of my stories have the main character incapacitated with pain while their love interest has to take care of them. i eat it up every time.

grief is often a key factor in my stories, but let’s not look to far into that.

My Characters:

Would you please tell me about your favorite character? (Current wip, past wip, never used)

right now, it’s scarlett :) she’s a bitey woman who likes to kill and torture, but she gets carried away too easily, so her girlfriend evie tries to show her how to control herself and how to appreciate death and killing as an art form

Which of your characters would you be friends with in real life?

theoretically, all of them. they’re all amazing and i love them.

realistically, none of them. they’re messy and i’m a recluse that doesn’t like a lot of upset in my life

Which of your characters would you dislike most in real life?

anzurin. he’s one of those “sexy in fiction, a walking red flag in real life” kind of characters

Tell me about the process of coming up with one, all, or any of your characters.

truly, i don’t have much of a process. i generally get a quick idea or flash of inspiration for, say, a single scene, and then i build their character as i write it.

Do you notice any themes/traits about your characters?

the male love interests i write always worship the ground the main character walks on. women are almost always the focus. i love women

How do you picture them?” (as real people you imagined/as models/actors that exist in real life/as imaginary artwork, as artwork you made or commissioned, anime style, etc)

mmm i think i have that thing where you can’t picture stuff in your head. like i can come up with the features i want them to have, but i can’t see them. i can’t “picture” them.

i generally use whatever medium i can find - inspiration from real people, artwork i find, i have commissioned things before, picrews.

My writing:

What’s your reason for writing?

i don’t know, really. maybe i don’t have a reason. it just feels natural. as natural as breathing. like it’s exactly what i’m supposed to do with my life.

is there a specific comment or type of comment you find particularly motivating coming from your readers?

my “readers” consist of one singular friend lol but she has said that im really good at building characters and making them feel real.

How do you want to be thought of by those that read your work? (for example, as a literary genius, or as a writer who “gets” the human condition as a talented worldbuilder, or a role model, etc)

i don’t want to be thought of. i would just be happy if my work was enjoyed. alas, i barely share it because, again, i don’t want to be thought of.

What do you feel is your greatest strength as a writer?

my character building

What have you frequently been told your greatest writing strength is by others?

my character building :)

How do you feel about your writing? (answer in whatever way you interpret that question)

it varies. sometimes i feel like it’s not just good, it’s good enough (that’s a reference to ‘north of the border’ adam the sculptor). sometimes i feel like it’s great. sometimes i feel like i’ve lost it and will never write anything good again.

If you were the last person on earth, and knew that your writing would never be read, would you still write?

absolutely. as i said in another answer, writing is like breathing. i hardly share it as it is, so that’s not an issue at all.

When you write, are you influenced by what others might enjoy reading, or do you write purely what you enjoy? if it’s a mix of the two, which holds the most influence?

i think i mostly just write whatever i want. i fear that lately? i’ve been more conscious of what others might think/enjoy, but im trying to stop doing that. i write for me. i write because i enjoy it, and if i start trying to cater to others, i will no longer enjoy it.

~~~~~

some of those were difficult to answer but this was a good time :)

i don’t know many of you have already done this, so if i tag anyone that has already done it, sorry :/ you don’t have to do it again

but i will tag a few no pressure tags: @autism-purgatory @finickyfelix @frostedlemonwriter @bluberimufim

[sokkastyles]

Mai: The truth is, I guess I don’t know you. All I get is a letter? You could have at least looked me in the eye when you ripped out my heart.

I’ve seen some people say that Zuko was in the wrong here because what he does by breaking up with Mai via letter is the equivalent of breaking up via text message. The show tells us that Zuko broke up with her via letter because he didn’t want to get her involved for her own safety. However, there's another layer to it.

This is the equivalent of breaking up with your girlfriend via text message if you and your girlfriend were part of a violent terrorist organization and your entire relationship was founded on being part of that organization, and your girlfriend was best friends with your sister who is second in command of that organization. Oh, and the reason you broke up was because you realized that you did not believe in the ideals of the organization anymore, and literally had to defend yourself from being killed in order to leave. Zuko's not just protecting Mai here, but himself. His whole relationship to her is part of a life where he was abused and leaving the relationship is something he needs to do to realize his own agency. That's not Mai's fault, but it is what it is.

Not only is talking to Mai about this putting her in danger, but Zuko has every reason to believe, given all of his previous interactions with her, that she would not have responded well if he had had a conversation with her about it, that she would see his defection as traitorous and that his life might be in danger, considering how she reacts in this scene and won’t listen when Zuko tries to explain his motives. Zuko has changed his views of the fire nation, but Mai hasn’t, and their conflicting values are shown throughout the time they spend together. And Mai might be getting fed up with Azula and definitely a victim of that relationship, but as of “Nightmares and Daydreams,” which was the last time Mai and Zuko spoke, Mai was still a close confidant of Azula, as evidenced by her casually mentioning a war meeting that Azula brought up that Zuko did not even know about. Zuko has every reason to believe that when push came to shove, Mai would choose Azula, her childhood friend, over a boyfriend whose ideals she does not share, nor does she understand. Which might not have been true, but Zuko spent most of the relationship with her unsure of what she wanted from him and whether she actually cared about him, and given his history of abuse, and hers, I can definitely see why he would think that.

To be fair, I think part of the reason that Mai is so blindsided by it is because Zuko doesn’t try to talk to her about it, because as I said before, Zuko throughout his relationship with Mai was trying to be what he thought he should be. It’s hard to blame him for that, though, considering that Zuko’s whole fire nation identity is tied to being conditioned by abuse to believe that who he really was wasn’t good enough. Because of this, he tends to not handle personal confrontations very well and has a fear of rejection. It took incredible bravery to stand up to his father, but in some ways I think it was easier because he was no longer looking for affirmation from his father. A confrontation with Mai would have been harder in this respect because he still cares about her. When she reads his words from the letter aloud to him, he’s literally hiding his face from her and curling in on himself. I understand why Mai wishes that her boyfriend had “looked her in the eye” when he broke up with her but I also understand why he couldn’t, and forcing the confrontation in this way is not going to help the situation.

He’s also sitting in an interrogation chair for added symbolism.

Which brings me to the fact that when this confrontation happens, Zuko has been arrested and imprisoned by Mai’s uncle, who expressed to Zuko his desire to punish him for breaking up with his niece. Then Zuko is dragged into an interrogation room while screaming “I didn’t do anything!” with no idea why he’s being brought there (other than the warden threatening him for breaking up with his niece.)

Mai says she knew that Zuko was there because her uncle is the warden, and given that in “The Boiling Rock, Part 1″ the warden recognized and spoke to Zuko personally after he was caught, we can infer that Mai’s uncle took the information of Zuko’s whereabouts either straight to his niece, and then Mai told Azula, or he told Ozai/Azula and Mai agreed to go along for the ride to pay a visit to her ex boyfriend. So that she could save him from imprisonment, torture, and/or death? No, so that she could yell at him. Which actually confirms that Zuko was right not to tell her when he was going to leave the fire nation.

I said before that I do not mind at all that Mai was sent to track down Zuko before book three. Childhood friends/crushes/acquaintances to enemies to lovers makes for some very interesting story conflict. (And we were robbed of getting to see Mai and Zuko actually fight each other somewhere during book two, which would have been a cool fight, as well as possibly fleshing out their relationship by including some dialogue about how these two characters feel about seeing each other again for the first time after three years.) But what matters is how people treat each other within the bounds of a relationship, so Mai going along with Azula to capture her ex who will either be a) dragged back, and this time with no chance of going back as an ally but as a prisoner, or b) killed, because she’s pissed at him for breaking up with her is not very compelling if the writers want us to believe in this relationship. It's hard to blame her for her and Zuko's bad relationship because Zuko entered into the relationship based on the lies he was telling himself about who he should be, but that also doesn't mean that the relationship should continue or that it would make sense that it would. And even in this scene the show is using her in the ways they use Azula and Ozai, as someone Zuko has to leave behind in order to become the person he is supposed to become.

He has to physically lock her in the cell to get away from her. Which as I also said before, is one of the few times he is active about the relationship. And when he does, he looks her in the eye.

...And walks away.

It’s not necessarily that I think Mai is a bad person, it’s that even in this episode, which is supposedly her redemption, she’s presented as an obstacle to Zuko’s growth as a character, which does a disservice to her character as well especially when we are supposed to believe they should end up together. The show never really seems sure about what they want her to be.

She also seems to think that she gets to define the terms of the relationship, but that he doesn’t have any say at all. Remember that in “The Beach,” she broke up with him. He was being a jerk but he also told her that he felt she didn’t care about anything (which really meant that he felt she didn’t care about him), and that wasn’t addressed at all. She decides by the end of the same episode that they’re dating again without either of them resolving their issues with each other.

When Mai betrays Azula to save Zuko, I initially thought that the reason she did it was because she realized that she loved him and was willing to save his life even if it meant sacrificing her relationship with him. That caring about him didn’t necessarily mean she was entitled to a relationship with him. “I’m saving the jerk who dumped me.” This fits nicely with the themes of the fire nation plotline, Zuko realizing his own agency to become a better version of himself (instead of becoming a worse version of himself to please his father or a pretty girl), and the theme that you can’t control other people, that love is better than selfishness, that permeates Azula’s story and also extends to Mai and Zuko, who both try to control each other at various points.

Then she came back in the finale and announced to him that they were back in a relationship and he was not allowed to break up with her ever again, so there goes that, I guess!

[korra-northeast-germany]

Tw: implied scuicide attempt

Mammon's reincarnation

"Huh this is purgatory?", the demon would walk through the black abyss, memeoriess being played like silly tiktok compilations over and over again. They said purgatory would be torture no where to run or hide, no past to devildom or the celestial realm. "Watching my memories like a characters out of context video.." a pause as he stared at one particular screen, it was not a memory least one he hadn't remembered. "What's.. this?"

A tanned hand would touch the unknown video only to be sucked into the human realm. He finds himself in a building he never stepped foot in, a bird cage followed by the flag of a country he's never heard of. Uniforms, bookcases of diaries. Where was this place? Where was he?

mammon sees a mirror, forcing himself to look at it, he sees someone he's unable to recognize at all. No longer was he a tanned demon, an avatar of greed. Instead he was an albino red eyed male, one that dawned a large sense of familiarity. "Why the hell..." he can't help but be freaked out. "No no no where am I?! who Is this?! I didnt posess a human did I?! What's going on?!" He runs down the stairs finding a tall German male with blue eyes focesed on something, he coudknt make out. Shit. He just possessed someone's sibling. "Hey hey can you tell me what's happening? Do you know where I am?" He questions gripping the males hand. Instead the man fsce drenched in tears would return the grip altho more..gentle. "Prussia.." the stranger speaks, "please please don't ever try thst again..don't ever ty to end your life like hsta again.. please.. you're all that I care about I need you"

Why does he feel like this happened before?

Why does it feel so fucking real

His brothers never cried over him

They never cried when he almost died

They never cried when he ran away

Heck he didn't even think they cried when he DID die

But here Mammon was with a strsnger crying over someone named 'Prussia' yet it felt like the person was talking about him.

Wait-

He was reincarnated wasn't He?

That would explain everything. He died ridiculed and hated by his brothers and was given a family, a brother who actually loved him to the point of crying over him.

That's right.

This person was his brother, his NEW brother.

Prussia would sadly rub the person's back while holding this close, a sense of softness he rarely shown in devildom near the end of his life.

"I won't leave you brother, I promise"

A/n: okay see this was a draft for s few months now and I felt bad for not posting new angst content so have this mini crossover thingy lol

[bangtanloverboys]

song of the broken hearted // pjm

summary - after finding your boyfriend of two years in bed with another woman, you find yourself wandering the beach at the edge of town. little do you know, there's something in the water, waiting for you. wanting you to join them. 

pairing - siren!jimin x female!reader

genre - angst, suspense, mystery, thriller; siren au

word count - 4.2k

warnings - recent break up, mentioned cheating, namjoon is an asshole, mentions/talk of suicide, MAJOR CHARACTER DEATH, drowning, sad ending, murder i guess?

author’s note - this is slightly inspired by the webtoon siren’s lament but not really; enjoy!

Love sucked. Honestly, you don’t know why you kept on trying to date with your history of bad relationships. Sure maybe some weren’t all that bad; right person, wrong time. But for the majority of them looking back, there was a sea of red flags all over. You don’t know how you could’ve missed them. Then again, you couldn’t help but feel you willingingly looked over them. Ignoring them because deep down you didn’t want to be alone. 

Whatever the reason might’ve been, you somehow always ended up getting your heart broken. 

The last relationship however stung a lot more than your others. Maybe because your exes were upfront with why they wanted to end things with you, which was the usual “not feeling the spark anymore” bullshit. Namjoon, your recent ex, had decided that you were never worth it apparently, seeing as how he admitted to cheating on you and for the entirety of your two year relationship! Worst part was, he didn't even plan on telling you! You’d only found out by accident, having decided to come over to surprise him at his place when you saw him in bed with a girl you’d recognized from his work. Namjoon didn’t even try to defend himself, only rolling his eyes at you while you shouted at him.

Furious and your heart in shatters, you stormed out of his house and just kept walking. You don’t know how long you walked, but it was until you hit the sand of a nearby beach. It was the middle of fall, so besides a few stragglers, it was nearly abandoned. 

With the sun setting below the horizon, you shucked off your shoes and kept walking. The sounds of the waves crashing against the shore filled your mind as the salty sea air grounded you. Once you reached where the water hit against the sand, you sat yourself down, watching the tide rise up ever so slowly. 

All alone, the realization of what had happened was settling in. Tears began to burn as you blinked them back. You didn’t want to cry. You shouldn’t waste tears on a man who clearly never cared about you. But your heart was weak and your mind wasn’t strong enough to keep it together. Wrapping your arms around your legs, you tucked yourself into your knees, as you quietly sobbed. 

You don’t know how long you sat there crying, trying your hardest not to attract any attention to yourself. When you looked up again, it was significantly darker, and a cool breeze brushed over your tear streaked face. Glancing up, you could see the stars just beginning to appear up in the vast darkness of the night sky. 

In your mind’s eye, you could still see Namjoon, laying there in his bed unresponsive as you screamed at him, calling him all sorts of nasty names. He’d only shrugged when you asked him why, but his words stung more than any other break up speech you’ve ever heard, and his was only a sentence, “You’re not worth the full commitment.” The statement rang in your ears as you stared over the roaring black sea. Maybe he was right. Maybe you weren’t worth the commitment. 

A sob unconsciously ripped from your lips as you hugged yourself tighter. The thought was daunting, but was it true? You were rarely the person who broke up with someone, only having ended relationships back in high school. But was the “not feeling the same spark” just a different way to word that you weren’t worth committing to?

Your mind spiraled with those dark thoughts, not knowing what else to think, when a beautiful voice was heard singing over the thundering waves. Perking up, you looked around, trying to find the singer, but spotted no one. The beach had been completely abandoned. You listened intently to the song, trying to place where it was coming from, but the more you listened, the more you felt at ease. All the muscles in your body relaxed as the singer continued on. A sigh fell from your lips as you rose from your spot on the sand. You had to find the owner of this voice, needed it more than anything. 

As you listened on, there was a tingling feeling inside you, telling you the singing was coming from the ocean. Taking a step further, the voice got a little louder. With each step you took, your mind got fuzzier and fuzzier, nothing else mattered but the voice you heard. The cold water didn’t even phase you as it rolled over your feet, in fact the cold felt comforting as it hit against your legs. The further you waded into the water, the louder the voice got, but you saw no one around that could be the source of the singing.

You were nearly waist deep in the water, ready to dive in and swim toward the voice when another deep shout was heard from behind you “Hey!” drowning out the song and pulling back towards reality. “What are you doing out there? Beach is closed!” The voice continued to shout.

Suddenly the freezing water no longer felt as comfortable as it was moments ago. Glancing back over your shoulder, you saw what you presumed to be a lifeguard. You raised your arm, signaling to him you heard and began walking back towards the shore.

Upon reaching the beach, you were approached by the brown haired man, wearing the signature red lifeguard jacket. You must’ve looked like a mess as a look of shock went over his face. “You alright, miss?”

“I’m fine,” you responded, shivering in your soaking wet clothes.

Biting his lip, he shed his jacket and put it over your shoulders, a poor attempt at warming you up. “Are you sure you’re alright? Is there anyone you’d like me to call?”

“I said I’m fine,” you insisted, hugging the red material closer to your body. 

He eyed you suspiciously before nodding. “Alright. But I’m going to have to escort you off the beach.”

“Yeah, yeah. Okay,” you sighed, irritation lacing your voice. He turned before started back inland, leaving you alone for a brief moment. You stared back over the rolling black ocean, hoping to hear the voice again, yet all you heard was the crash of the waves.

Two days had passed since you were at the beach and no matter how much you tried, you couldn’t remember the song you heard. Late at night, you’ll stare up at your ceiling and walk yourself through that night over and over again, trying your damnedest to recall the voice, yet you came up with nothing. You couldn’t name a tune, a note, nor even if the singer was male or female. You were beginning to feel like you had simply gone crazy for a few moments, hallucinating the voice. But with the way you remembered feeling when you heard that song, how all your troubles seemingly were whisked away and how free you felt; there’s no way you couldn’t have imagined it. 

There was one thing you knew though: you had to hear it again.

Which was how you found yourself staring back at the ocean, the sun hanging low in the sky. You were on a more secluded area of the beach, a small cove surrounded by cliffs; a slight precaution to ensure you wouldn’t be interrupted again. You watched as the waves rose and crashed against the sand, waiting. You weren’t even sure how, when, or even if the voice would sing again. But you sat there patiently. 

As the sun fell behind the horizon and the sky grew darker, you slowly began to lose hope. Maybe you were imagining it. Maybe you were so dehydrated from crying for so long and desperate for anything to make you feel any other emotion, you made up the voice to distract you from your broken heart. 

With a sigh, you stood up from your spot on the sand. After dusting the sand off, you began to gather your things in preparation for the small trek back inland. As you straightened up again, you heard it.

The song.

Dropping all your stuff to the ground, you turned to face the raging sea. The singing was emitting from the waters, barely audible over the crashing of the waves. You felt the familiar tingling spread throughout your body as you stepped towards the water again. Like last time, the singing got louder and louder the further you went out. You could tell the water was freezing, yet you didn’t feel it. It felt like you were being wrapped up in a blanket, all soft and safe. 

Unable to walk any further, you started swimming. Dunking your head beneath the surface, the singing was clearer and louder underwater. Your mind was cloudy, wanting to do deeper, to follow the voice. Back up for air, you took a big gulp of air before diving back down into the darkness. The salt water burned your eyes as you looked around, trying to find the source of the song, but it was coming from everywhere. It was all around you.

Your arms grew tired as you pushed deeper and your lungs were burning for air as you swam further down. Every single fiber of your body wanted you to return to above the surface, wanting to breathe. Yet your mind, all cloudy and full of cotton, wanted you to push on. Keep swimming down. Find the voice. 

Farther down, you saw a strange outline in the darkness. It was too big to be a fish, yet it was moving around so fluidly that it had to be some sort of aquatic creature. You weren’t sure if it was your state of mind, or the fact you were slowly losing air, but you knew that whatever that creature was, it was the source of the song. 

You swam even harder now, wanting to get closer to it to see it. But dark spots started creeping through your already blurry vision. The pain your body was in sent a small shock through you, clearing your mind just enough to realize that you needed air. As you pushed yourself back up towards the surface, you heard a faint “Stay with me” echo around in your head. 

You gasped once you broke the surface, air filling your weakened lungs. Your limbs felt like they were made of lead, like you were going to sink back down. Yet your body floated, being pushed around by the waves back towards the shore. Despite just hearing the song, you were unable to recall it yet again. Like your mind had erased the singing from your memory. However, you could still recall the voice, speaking out for you, wanting you to stay. You must be some sort of delirious, as you wanted to follow the request, even still debating on going back down. 

Your weak body washed up against the sand. You were so tired. You didn’t think you’d be able to stand up, let alone walk all the way back home. Crawling away from the water, sand clung to your soaking body. You couldn’t even be bothered by it, you were just too exhausted. Your arms gave out once you reached your things, the sand was warm in contrast to your cold body. With a shiver, you curled up on your side and let your eyes fall shut. You’ll sleep for a few minutes, letting your body regain its lost energy. 

You were back underwater, your vision a lot clearer than before. The shadowy figure still below you, appearing so close yet so far. However, as you swam deeper, you swore the creature was coming towards you. Reaching out for it, a slimy slick hand grabbed yours. Just barely you were able to make out the features of the creature. You weren’t quite sure what you were expecting as it faced you, but you were surprised nonetheless. A male human-like face looked back at you, his skin a ghastly grey color. His eyes were almost completely black, looking up at you like you hung the moon and the stars in the sky. Dark locks swirled around him, framing his face delicately.  

He was the most beautiful man you’ve ever laid eyes on. 

Plump lips melted into a smile as he hand moved to cup your cheek, his clammy fingers brushing against your cheeks. As you leaned into his touch, the song filled your mind. Your head felt all cottony and soft as the singing echoed amongst the water surrounding you. You reached out with your own hand, but as your fingers grazed against his skin, his loving gaze turned sour. His lips parted, and he hissed as he lunged forward.

You awoke with a start, gasping loudly. Above you, the morning sun was shining brightly behind heavy clouds. It was just a dream. Your heart was still beating wildly in your chest as you sat up, the ocean raging even louder than last night. With a stretch, you got yourself back to your feet. Your clothes had dried overnight, yet they were stiff and coated with sand, not making them any less uncomfortable. Thankfully, it appeared that no one attempted to steal your things while you slept as your belongings were still on the sand next to you. Gathering up your stuff, you began the walk back towards your home. 

As you made your way back to the more populated side of the beach, you saw the brown haired lifeguard from the other night making his way toward the cove. When he saw you walking away from that section of the beach, he stopped in his tracks. He had a puzzled look on his face before slowly turning to approach you.

“Hi, I’m sorry to bother you but. . . did you sleep on the beach last night?” He eyed you up and down, taking in your sand covered body.

“Yes. . .” You responded cautiously, hoping you weren’t going to get in too much trouble. 

“Okay, because someone reported a body to be over in that area and uh, no offense-”

“I look like a dead body?” You raised a brow at him.

“Yeah, I’m sorry.” He chuckled nervously. “But this beach is common for suicides, so I wanted to make sure-”

“Wait what?” 

“Uh, police like to keep in on the low but several people have washed up on this beach after drowning. They’re all ruled as suicide because there’s no signs of any struggle. But if you ask me,” he leaned forward, lowering his already deep voice to a whisper, “someone or something is luring them out there.”

You furrowed your brows as you remembered the singing and how it drew you out to follow it. “What do you mean?”

“Well, I’ve looked into it a bit. These so-called ‘suicides’ have happened several times over the past 50 years or so, all on this beach. And they never have any history of mental health issues, or depression,” the lifeguard explained as the two of you started walking away from the water and towards the tower.

“Why are they getting labeled suicides then?”

“Because days before they’re found, they all had a really bad break up.” Your eyes widened at him as he continued to talk. “So the police think they just couldn’t take it, thus suicide.”

“Did they. . . say anything before they died? Leave any notes?” You questioned further.

“I mean, most of them died the night of the break up. But there’s one that did leave something, I wouldn’t classify it as a note though.”

“Why?” You asked.

“Because it didn’t say anything about the break up or wanting to end their lives, it was just ramblings about some song.” He shrugged as you reached the tower. “Pretty sure you could find it somewhere on the internet, there’s a small conspiracy surrounding it all. But everyone agrees with the police.”

“Right, thank you.” You nodded, feeling a bit sick to your stomach.

“Y-you wouldn’t happen to know something, do you?” His voice was laced with concern. 

He reached out to you, but you pulled away from his grasp. “I-I need to go.” With not a second to lose, you turned on your feet as you made a beeline towards the end of the beach, the lifeguard calling after you, but unable to follow.

You felt like your whole world was spinning as you entered your home. You could barely think straight with the knowledge you were given. The mere thought of how close you came to being one of those mysterious suicides was nauseating. You wouldn’t have thought anything of it until the lifeguard mentioned the note about the song. . . Then you remembered how your lungs ached and burned from last night, it was impossible to deny that you had barely slipped away from whatever was calling out from the ocean below. 

Stripping yourself of your sandy clothing, you made your way towards your bathroom. You needed a shower. No longer able to think or be in the clothes you nearly drowned in. Hot water ran down your back as you leaned against the wall, trying to wrap your head around it all. There was one thing you knew for certain, and that was you could not return to the beach. 

As the water rushed down your body, you were able to get some semblance of peace. You gave a sigh of relief as you felt your body relax against the warm water. Shutting your eyes, you leaned your head back underneath the stream of water.

Then you heard it again.

The singing.

Eyes snapping open, you turned to look up at the showerhead, the water still gushing out as the song echoed against the tiled walls. Was it coming from the pipes? As you peered up into the silver nozzle, the warm water suddenly turned ice cold. With a yelp, you shut off the water. Unlike before, the song still played on in your mind. You could still hear it perfectly. 

Not even bothering to grab a towel, you scrambled over to your phone and connected it to your speakers, blasting the loudest rock song you could think of. The shelf your speaker was resting on shook with the base, unable to take the booming music. Yet the eurythmic tune still rang in your ears. To your horror, the blaring music melted into the strange melody , getting louder and louder until it felt like your ears were bleeding. 

Tearing at your hair, you let out an ungodly scream. You fell to your knees, curling up on the floor, stuffing your fingers in your ears to try and block out the song. The song still played on in your mind to no avail. As tears welled up in your eyes, threatening to spill, it all stopped. The only sound you were able to hear was the muffled noise of the sock music you’d turned on against your covered ears. 

Unplugging your ears, you could hear a faint knocking on your front door. With shaking limbs, you pushed yourself up right. Grabbing your phone, you turned off the music, the knocking still persisting at the door. You scrambled back to your bathroom, quickly wrapping yourself up in a towel before making your way over to answer the front door. 

Peering through the peephole, you spotted your neighbor standing before the door. Pulling the door open a crack, you gave her a smile. “Hi Mrs. Kim.”

“Is everything alright? Someone said they heard a scream,” she asked, sounding genuinely concerned for you.

“Oh uh, that was me,” you confessed, “m-my boyfriend and I were having sex. And he, uh, got a bit carried away.” You internally cringed at the lie, but you knew you couldn’t exactly reveal you were hearing a mysterious song that was driving slowly beginning to drive you insane.

She furrowed your brows at your answer. No doubt assuming you were in danger, she lowered her voice. “Honey, do you need me to call someone?” 

“No! I’m fine. We’re good. I’m so sorry for scaring you, that’s why the music was so loud.” You chuckled nervously as you began to shut the door, but she placed her hand on the door, ceasing any movement.

“Are you sure?”

“Yes, Mrs. Kim. Again, sorry for the disturbance.” Then you slammed the door shut, not giving her any other chance to question you further. You held your breath until you heard the clicking of her shoes as she walked down the pavement, away from you. Once she was gone, you slid down the door. Hitting the ground, you let go of your towel, letting yourself sit naked on the ground as you let your body calm down from all that had happened. 

You weren’t sure exactly what to do, or how you were supposed to move on from this because clearly avoiding the beach won’t be enough. For a split second, you considered moving further inland; get away from large bodies of water, or maybe water all together, but the idea was ridiculous. You couldn’t avoid water for the rest of your life; you had to hydrate, bathe yourself, hell what would happen if you started crying or sweating? It was an impossible thought to simply avoid water as a whole, but moving further inland wasn’t a bad start. 

Getting to your feet, you started packing a bag. You couldn’t care exactly what clothes you were going to wear or for weather you should prepare for, just stuffing the bag of your belongings until you deemed yourself done. Bag packed, you dressed yourself in some of the clothes still remaining in your dresser. After you put your shoes on, you made your way out of your apartment. 

Immediately, you were greeted with rain pouring down. With a sigh, you walked out from beneath the overhang, ready to walk to the nearest train station. Soon as you stepped out into the rainfall, the singing again filled your mind. You froze as the overwhelming urge to return to the beach slowly grew in the back of your mind. Yet your body refused to follow through, like it knew what was going to happen if you went to that beach. Your grip tightened on your bag as you resisted the pull of the song, but it grew too much. Dropping your bag, you began walking back towards the beach.

Each step you took, the louder the hypnotic melody grew. By the time you’d reached the sand, you were all but consumed by it. The beach was empty as you crossed it, no sign of any other human being. Sand clung to your soaking wet clothes, as if it was the world’s last ditch attempt to tether you to the earth, but the sand simply washed away as you stepped into the water. 

The intoxicating song reverberated around in your head, drowning out the smatter of the rain as you walked further out into the water. No longer able to keep walking, you took a deep breath and dove beneath the waves. You kicked and kicked down until you spotted a familiar outline.

It was the creature!

Unable to contain yourself, you pushed your limbs faster in an attempt to propel yourself deeper. As you swam further down, you noticed the shadow was getting larger; it was swimming towards you, just like in your dream! Reaching out, you felt the familiar thick slime of the hand as it wrapped around your wrist, pulling you in towards its embrace. Despite the darkness surrounding the both of you and the blurriness of your vision, you knew deep in you that this was the same man from your dream. The source of the song. 

His other slick hand came up to cup your cheek, and again, the same voice from the other night echoed in your mind. “Stay with me.”

You opened your mouth to respond, ‘yes’ but immediately water flooded in. Before you even began choking on the salty seawater, the man covered his mouth with yours. You stilled for a moment, a split second of clarity hitting you before you felt his lips begin to move against yours. Your eyes fluttered shut as you returned the kiss, ignoring the burning in your lungs as air slowly slipped away. Completely and utterly drunk on his song and his lips. 

He didn’t pull away from you as the man leaned back, pulling you down deeper into the ocean. You never felt the kick of his legs as you were taken further into the fathomless darkness. 

Pressure began to accumulate on your temples before slowly spreading over your head. The pain grew too much and you pushed yourself away from his kiss, bubbles escaping past your lips. Opening your eyes, you could no longer see anything, the darkness having completely surrounded you. Yet you knew he was still there, holding onto you as you felt his grip on your tighten as he pulled you deeper. 

Wanting to fight back, you raised a fist, but your body was weak. You were running out of air and the pressure was becoming too much. You felt your entire body go slack in his hold. It was hard to tell in the endless blackness, but dark spots began to dance around your vision. You weren’t sure if you’d even closed your eyes or not. How long had it been? Were you out of oxygen yet? You slumped against the hold of the mysterious creature. You could feel its chest vibrating; humming the song to lull you into sleep as your body was pulled into the abysmal darkness.

[arctimon]

The Beta Team That Never Was - Fanfiction Corner (BH6 Edition)

So all of this Peni Parker comic talk actually got me thinking about the process of her being included in my fanfiction.

I wish I could tell you it was a long and arduous process, but...

OK, maybe some of it was hard.  But when you have a virtually endless supply of Marvel characters that you can use for possible teammates for Big Hero 6, you have to go with your gut.

We all know that the team will be Robbie, Aspen, Peni, Doreen (eventually), and Kate.  But there were six other candidates that could have been in the mix as well.

And five of them have their emblems here:

These were made before I actually knew how to make hero emblems properly.

Some of them you might recognize.  Some you may not.  But we’re going to go through them all, from left to right.

And to start...it’s really hard to draw tiny hearts.

1.) Riri Williams/Ironheart - Ironically enough, it was around the time that Hiro started chasing Sirque around the town in “Portal Enemy” that I started brainstorming her.  A teenage genius, stuck as to what to make, sees “Captain Cutie” and the chase on the news and gets brainstorming.

Thus, the Power Armor is born.

And she gets so excited that she bolts off to San Fransokyo to show her idol what she’s created.

And then, as per the Big Hero 6 Fanfiction Clause states...shenanigans ensue.

It was an interesting possibility, but the thought of Ironheart was really late into me doing the backstories of the people that I had chosen, so she was pushed aside.  I don’t personally see me revisiting her in the future, but who knows?

2.) Nadia Van Dyne/The Wasp - Back when Karmi had first been pulled out of SFIT, there was a young woman who wanted to recruit her into a special organization.  It was one that brought together the greatest female minds in their fields, and Karmi was on said recruitment list.

The organization?

Genius In action Research Labs, or G.I.R.L. for short.  And it was led by the Wasp’s daughter, Nadia Pym (later changed to Nadia Van Dyne).

Plot-wise, this was probably the person that I got the farthest with, since the story would’ve been more of a focus on Karmi than anyone else.  Also, the idea of writing someone with Bipolar Disorder (which Nadia was confirmed to have in her latest solo run) was intriguing if nothing else.

Unfortunately, it sort of dried up from there.  A lack of a central conflict, uncertainty as to how many of the other girls (Taina, Priya, Shay, and Ying) to have, and how to handle her actual powers stopped it cold.

But seriously, how do you write in the ability to shrink to microscopic size?  That’s not really a thing, even in a world as futuristic as San Fransokyo.

3.) America Chavez/Ms. America - The mere idea of a Superman-esque Latina teenager was enticing, especially because America, in her relatively short comic history, was with the Ultimates and the West Coast Avengers (meaning there was a possible Kate/Hawkeye angle).  Making start-shaped portals was the Silent Sparrow angle, and the all-around badass, headstrong attitude would be the counter to Honey Lemon’s more nurturing personality.

But being from an alternate universe (which has very recently been retconned in the comics in part because she will be appearing in the MCU and Doctor Strange 2), no real villain to play off of, and becoming possibly way too overpowered for the BH6 universe, she was scrapped.

It’s quite a shame.  I really like her in the comics that she’s in.  Perhaps there will be an opportunity for her somewhere down the line...

4.) Alison Blaire/Dazzler - A pop star with light-based powers?

Or better yet, a struggling artist with acoustikinesis?

Her power to convert sound into light was what originally drew me to her.  Something that could be made into a technological ability, unique enough to put a (pardon the pun) spotlight on it.

An actual blonde instead of whatever HL’s hair color is.

Heck, she even has a half-sister named Lois that could have been the antagonist (death tough, destruction waves, and the like).

But she quickly got lost in the fold.  Better ideas (like Kate and Doreen) got more of my brainstorming, and she was eventually given up on.

But funnily enough...

It’s almost like she’s already in the show.

(See, for the people who may be new, one of the many Marvel theories that I’ve touched upon is that High Voltage is actually this universe’s version of Dazzler.  Juniper is Alison and Barb is...well...Barbara London, Alison’s mom).

Hey, @baymaksu​ totally agrees with me kinda sort of.

5.) Cindy Moon/Silk - I knew right from the get-go that I wanted a Spider-person on the beta team.  I also knew that I didn’t want Peter.

No offense to Peter Parker.  He’s fine.  But there’s a billion other Spiders out there, and I wanted someone out of the normal vein of Peter, as well as even Miles and Gwen.

And in came Cindy.

Locked away in The Bunker because of her spider powers manifesting, she was eventually released by Peter and thus began her entrance into the main Marvel world.

Her “unique ability” is her improved Spider-Sense, which Peter has said is even better than his own.  That, plus her other powers, brought her the closest out of anyone to being a member of the Big Hero 6 Beta Team.

As we all know, however, Peni ended up getting the spot over Cindy (for the family angle with Hiro and the giant robot that she pilots).  On the other hand, Cindy would later make her debut in the stinger of the last chapter of Along Came The S.P.I.D.E.R., along with Miles, Anya, and Joey.

Unlike Riri, Nadia, America, and Alison, Cindy and the rest of Peni’s little Spider Society are going to be showing up in future stories.  And if I can get everything in order, they will be starring in their own story set in the Big Hero 6 universe.

Finally, I have no emblem for them, but the honorable mention goes to...

6.) Lunella Lafayette/Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur - Yes, there was a point in time where I was seriously considering putting a nine-year-old super genius and a giant red T-rex into my stories.

Ignoring the giant...”red flag” here, the reason why Luna never made it is the same reason why I haven’t put Rishi in anything yet.  It’s because I don’t really know what to do with supergeniuses that young.  Hiro is at least a teenager and thus has teenager-y problems to fall back on (like puberty and Karmi and all that jazz), but a nine-year-old?  That’s a little too extreme for me.

When I was nine, I was busy playing with sticks in my backyard with my brother, not solving unsolvable puzzles from Bruce Banner.

...All that, and the giant dinosaur.

But hey, at least Disney is jumping on the MG/DD train.  That’s good to see.

Crossover potential, perhaps?

P.S. - As I was finishing putting this post together, it occurred to me that I may get this possible question in the comments, so I’m going to head it off at the pass.

“You know that all of your possible superheroes are girls, right?”

First of all...sexist.

Second of all...true.

That was about 90% on accident.  The actual team (Robbie, Aspen, Peni, Doreen, and Kate) has only one guy on it (two if you count Eli, three if you count Tippy-Toe).

I don’t really have a good explanation for that.  I like all superheroes, but I think that the girl and woman superheroes need some spotlight, you know?  I could have pulled people like Namor or Miles or the male Hawkeye into the mix, but to be honest, I find the characters I chose more interesting than a lot of the guy characters I was contemplating.

Of course, nothing is stopping any of you from using those characters in your stories.  Be my guest, not that you really need my permission or anything.

But you can’t take Aspen.  Aspen is mine. (Spoiler: Aspen is not mine.)

[phoenixtakaramono]

So I'm here to say that I really love your Bingyuan fic! The research you do for it and share with us is just amazing! I also have a q regarding LBG. From SV we know that he felt admiration for his Shizun so do you think that if SJ wasn't cruel to him LBG's admiration would've grown into love and attraction like it did in LBH's case for SY? Which then also raises a question: would LBH/LBG fall in love with any Shizun who was kind to him? Or was he just drawn to SJ's type of personality. WDYT?

Hi there, Anon! I’m glad you’re liking the Untold Tale! Thanks for reading! I think it lowkey helps when the story I’m writing (in general) is from a culture I’m familiar with and that I know some of its language nuances (just general Mainland dialect; I’m unfamiliar with Shanghainese, the Beijing dialect, etc etc). So fortunately for me, as someone who is Chinese but was born in the Western side of the world speaking Mandarin to family and friends, emulating the Chinese aesthetic and atmosphere in TUT comes a little bit easier to me than someone who did not grow up with this culture. I bet if I had been raised in China, I would be able to write something even more multilayered and deep but, alas, the youthful rebellious me of the past hadn’t taken my pinyin and Chinese character writing lessons seriously so I can only communicate verbally and understand audibly 😫. It’s very special for us writers in fandoms to be able to write a story of a culture that we actually know and can identify with. But high key it’s been immensely fun injecting some references of things I’ve come to notice from watching period C-dramas and the C-novels I’ve read, and I’ve come to learn interesting things about Chinese history and mythology even I didn’t know! So the story really writes itself.

Shen Jiu (OG!Shen Qingqiu)

To answer your question 🤔, to be honest this is why the SVSSS fandom is great—because there’s so many interpretations of the original source material. That’s why we have our headcanons and fanfictions to explore these many different possibilities. So for me personally, I can see it happening both ways: *1) LBG does develop a crush/falls in love with SJ, or 2) no matter how SJ treats him LBG regards him respectfully or coldly. I think Possibility 1 is more likely, since SY transmigrated into SQQ and we saw what happened with “Bunhe.”

Now, mind, for Possibility 1 to be more likely to happen, the SJ in PIDW will have to undergo a massive personality change/ a change of heart/ develop a good conscience and will need to clean up his image aka clear up the massive misunderstandings from PIDW canon (like him being mistaken as a pervert for Ning Yingying, visiting whorehouses, killing LQG, etc). It’ll be difficult though considering who Airplane has changed SJ into for his stallion harem novel (reading through SVSSS, my impression of PIDW besides it being the harem stallion novel is that it sounds similar to a “dog blood plot,” where audiences tune in to see how the villains are brought to justice). I literally have a line from TUT in a future chapter where SY says this about SJ since I will resurrect SJ and bring him into the story for closure:

People like Shen Qingqiu naturally had a set of deeply-rooted values. If one wanted to change them, it’d be easier to just have them reincarnate. (—TUT, ch???)

At his core, he’s a flawed man (which makes sense with the underlying cycle of abuse theory, considering his upbringing and backstory). He’s jealous and petty and prickly. His image is that of a proud and cold immortal. In Chinese terms, he’s the type of character archtype who I can see being àojiāo (definitely not canon characterization; this is just a stray thought that amuses me) in a romantic relationship.

LBH will have to recognize that^, or be in a position where he finds SJ’s caustic side endearing instead. He will also have to be extremely patient with him (although, since the joke in SVSSS is that LBH is an incurable M, it shouldn’t be that hard).

A fun thing about OG!SQQ is that he’s the cannon fodder scumbag villain of PIDW. He’s the reason LBG blackened from a white lotus. And, as you know, villains aka antagonists aka bad boys resonate strongly with people for a reason. That’s why we see a lot of Enemies to Lovers tropes, etc. It squicks me to use this phrase but “the allure of dating a ‘bad boy’ is strong.” SJ is that type of bad boy we could identify as a “fixer-upper project” (ugh, that phrase)—even with the red flags and warning signs—especially for those said to have a troubled past with rejecting neglectful parental figures/ family members/ friends and have have not outgrown their wish to convert that sort of person into a loving, accepting person. When we want something we can’t or shouldn’t have, our desire for it grows exponentially. In fanfiction this is a concept writers and readers can explore safely in a world of the imaginary.

From a Meta Perspective

Although, if we look at it meta-ly, the cold and proud and/or knowledgeable Shizun (teacher/ master) character who comes to know love and “is redeemed” by whomever is the love interest (typically a cute and quirky girl who may or may not have started off as naive to the innerworkings of the Cultivation World and therefore needs an established and mature mentor to guide them) is a very well-known archetype for a reason in Chinese fan culture.

Seeing a terrible person change their ways and try to become a better person because of the influence of the one they love is also a popular depiction for a reason.

It’s almost like gap moe. The crueler and aloof one starts out as (arrogance is a staple), the more impactful the shift is when we see such characters soften their edges.

The draw of the sacred master/disciple relationship is that it’s taboo, so I think it’s fair to say that such a relationship in fiction is a popular trope precisely because of this aspect. From a writer’s perspective, the main appeal is to show that there is someone out there who can cause this respectful figure to lose control (undergo emotional change) and go to great lengths to protect his/her precious person. That precious person also has to fall into the “not like other girls” trope (so they can show the ML a different world he would not have seen the beauty of before). On the other side, we look forward to the point of the story where the love interest has their “Oh” moment and realizes their admiration has somehow shifted into love and attraction over the course of events.

Other Romantic Possibilities

It’s very likely. I personally like the fanon headcanon where anyone with Heavenly Demon blood running through their veins feels a compulsion to “obsessively fixate on one person” (TLJ —> SXY, LBH —> SQQ). Personally I don’t recall if this was canon or fanon, but someone had written something about LBH imprinting on one person in his lifetime on the account of his demon nature. And I like that theory (I think it’s likely more fanon than anything but it’s an intriguing idea full of possibilities!).

For him to fixate romantically on one person, I personally don’t think the prerequisite is just by being kind to LBH (but it probably adds to the person’s appeal). There’s probably other factors that go into this to capture the male protagonist’s eye, such as him finding someone attractive (or passes his own personal standards) and/or having good chemistry with that person. So I could see him being into other Shizuns and whomever else. Personally I also think there is appeal in the unobtainable. It’s one thing to have someone’s affection (see LBG and his harem of 600 wives who definitely aren’t shy about giving him affection), but it’s another to know you’ve earned the affections of someone you really like and respect (especially if it’s someone thought to be unobtainable).

As long as the writer can provide a plausible justification for me to suspend disbelief and they set up events to justify it, I can swallow just about any ship possibility. It doesn’t necessarily have to be SJ’s type of personality. (For example, I read a very good fanfiction before where the writer paired Luo Binghe with Ming Fan. Ming Fan, people!!! And they actually pulled it off! What a madlad! Mind, it’s Shen Yuan who had transmigrated into MF in that premise, but the writer set up events that showed how these two characters came to bond and develop a deep friendship which inevitably had LBH developing a crush on his shixiong. I use this as an example because this is the type of unexpected (crack)ship, but because the writer did their work trying to make it seem plausible, we can only admire their hard work and effort at pulling it off.)

As the saying goes, there are plenty of fishes in the sea! As the protagonist, LBH/LBG can have many OTP possibilities with just about anyone as long as the writer can make it plausible. It’s all about the character development and the story/ central themes they wish to tell with the ship!

(Note, these really aren’t hot takes, lol. I’m just having fun answering to this casually from the perspective of a writer. Thank you for your Ask, anon!)

[blushing-titan]

Just switch Erens and Mikasas gender and see how people would suddenly call Mikasa creepy and abusive. But she gets a free pass because she's "A sTrOnG wOmAn" and being a creepy stalker ist apparently sexy if a women does it.

Oh the bias.

I've seen quite a few people use this argument, but hear me out (...and I fully realize that my statement may be controversial): I believe that male Mikasa would have a huge fanbase, too - mostly fangirls. Considering how often yandere/obsessive tendencies appear in fanfiction, I think such character would still be very popular. Who knows, maybe even more if the genders were reversed.

If you think about the characters fans usually "stan", you'll see that there's a lot of pretty edgy (or even straight up problematic) ones. Of course, it's just fiction, so in most cases it's not that serious, but still - I think male Mikasa would be pretty darn popular anyway, though for different reasons and among a different crowd.

One of my biggest issues with a lot of Mikasa's fans is how they hope for her to stay forever In LoVe with Eren and choose to remain blind for how unhealthy/sick this whole ordeal is. If you enjoy it simply as a fiction trope and recognize its obvious flaws/red flags, whatever I guess - as I said before, it's just fiction. But the moment you try to make it seem oH sO rOmAnTiC aNd WoNdErFuL, sHe WaS tRuLy iN lOvEeE aNd So WaS eReN!!...then it becomes very unsettling and makes me feel really uncomfortable (...just like this entire ship in general, lol).

Thank you for your input! ✨

[johannas-motivational-insults]

“Friendship” in the Horde

Season 4 raised some interesting questions about how people who grew up in the Horde define friendship. Kyle claimed that his squadmates were his friends, despite how we've seen them bully him, and Scorpia admitted she didn’t even know how to be a good friend. We also saw further developments in Catra and Lonnie’s dynamic that have some interesting implications about their bond, both past and present. However, while these themes became more explicit this season, they are hardly new. The Horde worldbuilding is really quite brilliant, as the writers have been laying the foundation for these revelations by showcasing certain patterns since season one.

This got a little lengthy on me, but there was a lot to consider. The lack of healthy emotional expression and relationship modelling is one obvious problem in the Horde, but the hostile environment has also led to some very specific power dynamics and social structures. These structures, while potentially helpful in hostile environments, are maladaptive in terms of fostering healthy relationships. Ultimately, every character who grew up in the Horde is emotionally crippled. (I’m not even going into Adora, an excellent example, because her repression and communication problems are well-documented and I wanted to focus on characters still in this environment.)

Scorpia

Let’s start with Scorpia. Her revelation that she doesn’t understand what friendship is was a big moment for her, but for those of us who have been watching closely, it’s no big surprise. Scorpia was so desperate for a meaningful connection that she latched onto the first person who showed any signs of considering her a friend, ignoring all the red flags indicating that the relationship was not healthy. Actually, she didn’t ignore them so much as not recognize them, because she didn’t even know what a healthy relationship looks like. To her, the fact that Catra invited her to her room and chose her to accompany her on a mission was enough for her to dub them the Superpal Duo.

Of course, we all know how that went for her. She continued to support Catra unconditionally despite the latter’s tendency to use Scorpia as her emotional punching bag. They did settle into a somewhat more reciprocal and caring relationship after Scorpia saved Catra against her orders during 2x05, proving that Catra was more important to her than the mission (even if that wasn’t what Catra thought she wanted). It’s sad when you think about it, because that was probably the first time Catra ever experienced her wellbeing being prioritized above all else.

Unfortunately, the revelation that Shadow Weaver had gone running back to Adora after betraying her triggered a trauma response and made her clam up again, lashing out at Scorpia and shutting her out even though she had done nothing to betray her trust. It took Catra blatantly attacking and insulting Scorpia when she failed to bring back Entrapta’s recordings (and some well timed reality checks from Emily) for Scorpia to realize that Catra was being a bad friend and she couldn’t win her over by being a good friend.

And actually, Scorpia’s confession in 4x10 that she “thought” she was being a good friend to Catra implies that she had since realized that she wasn’t actually being a good friend to Catra either. She knows the scorpions were a loyal people and she ascribes to that ideal, and she has so much love to give and always tries so hard to be positive, but not setting boundaries with people or demanding a measure of basic respect does nothing for them or you. Also, you can’t ignore the fact that Scorpia forced her affections on Catra, inserting herself into Catra’s life in a way that made her uncomfortable, and continued to ignore Catra’s attempts at setting boundaries with her (which is also very disrespectful). While Catra was certainly the aggressor, she was not the only one who failed in this partnership.

Let’s go back for a moment to Scorpia’s earliest indication that Catra might want to be her friend, when she confides in her and enlists her help coming up with and then executing a plan. Being chosen as Catra’s wingman seems to be important here, and perhaps she was wilfully ignoring how she was the only person who could make Catra’s plan work, but being confided in and trusted was huge to her. And since Horde soldiers are so used to being used, they don’t see it as a red flag. Catra actually flat out said Scorpia was the only person she could trust. How could a lonely gay not interpret that as a sign of being special to someone?

The squad

The importance of trust also becomes evident when considering the interactions among the main squad. Loyalty seems to be paramount in the Horde, not just the scorpion kingdom. Adora defecting to the Rebellion and leaving her squad behind was seen as a huge betrayal, and not just by Catra. Did anyone else want to cry when Lonnie struck back at Adora with “we were your friends” in 1x09? Lonnie was deeply hurt by Adora’s abandonment, feeding into her disillusionment with the Horde. Similarly, when Double Trouble revealed they had double-crossed Catra, her devastated reaction was not that her plans were ruined, but that they had betrayed her. That no doubt was also related to her previous betrayals, but also serves to highlight the importance of loyalty in their subculture.

While all the Horde characters were interesting to watch this season when it came to the themes of friendship, the arc was most pronounced in Lonnie. As I’ve mentioned previously, Scorpia had a short arc over one episode where her rosy worldview was destroyed, causing her to leave (much like Adora), while Lonnie was already a cynic who was aware of the Horde’s imperfections and had to go through more extreme hardships to detach from this unhappy but familiar environment (much like Catra, we hope).

Though she and the boys didn’t leave the Horde until the finale, her disillusionment was already evident in her first episode this season. After Catra berated them for something that wasn’t their fault and demanded they risk their lives to fix it (big Hordak energy), she had her first big revelation: “Catra doesn’t care about us, Adora left us. Everything they taught us in the Horde about loyalty is meaningless. It’s everyone for themselves.” In the next episode, she was frustrated by Scorpia’s naïve enthusiasm and trust in Catra, but it took a big blow up between her and Catra for her to finally decide she was done with her, done with the Horde in general.

Kyle represents a sort of middle ground between Lonnie and Scorpia in terms of outlook. He was not treated well in the Horde, but still believed in the ideals of loyalty and squad unity. He wanted to believe Catra had sent them out on a mission into the Whispering Woods because she trusted them and wanted it to be a team-building exercise. His take on it was: “She may be mean, but we’ve always had each other’s backs. Ever since we were kids.” He saw the squad as his family, including Catra (and previously Adora). It took Catra baring her claws and threatening to attack Lonnie outside of a battle sim for him to lose faith in her.

Bullying, the pecking order, and squad unity

As is clear by this point, the Horde defections this season were driven by Catra mistreating the others, but we can’t lose sight of how mistreatment is a fact of daily life in the Horde. And as I mentioned above with Lonnie, it’s those who were most aware of and desensitized to the mistreatment who had the hardest time naming it and leaving the toxic environment. Call it Stockholm Syndrome, call it the sunk cost fallacy, but either way once you’ve submitted to a system that dehumanizes you, it’s hard to admit that that system is wrong and leave it for a better life. Scorpia and Adora grew up somewhat privileged in the Horde in that they were destined for greatness, so they were never abused overtly and they had a level of protection from power-hungry cadets looking to claw their way to the top of the heap. They were already at the top and couldn’t be taken down, so they didn’t have to bully or be bullied.

The importance of pecking order is much more evident when considering people like Kyle, Catra, and Lonnie. Within their squad, Kyle is obviously the omega of the gang (get your heads out of the gutter, that is not what I mean), the one who gets blamed for everything that goes wrong and is constantly getting picked on. Lonnie shits on him, Catra shits on him, and even Rogelio gives him shit and goes along with the blame game. Despite all this, Kyle considers them his friends, his family.

This starts to make sense when you consider it in terms of intra vs. extra squad relations. Maybe the squad didn’t show Kyle any respect or treat him with kindness, but they did protect him in battle sims (sometimes lol) and rescue him from the spore storm. You also kind of get the impression that although they bullied him and asserted their dominance on the regs, they would protect him if other people tried to hurt him. You might say he’s the pet of the gang – he has no power within the structure and it may not be pleasant, but the structure still offers advantages. Having allies was still good for him even if he was at the bottom of the pecking order within the alliance.

Through a sociology lens, you might say the squad (and the Horde in general, given it’s a military society) follows the stereotypical male model of friend groups with clear pecking orders that everyone buys into (with exceptions for blatant power struggles), as opposed to the stereotypical female model that appears less hostile and more cooperative outwardly but involves a lot of underhanded infighting. (Obviously those are broad generalizations and it can be argued how much of it is nature vs. nurture, but they are observable patterns that boys and girls are socialized into in many human societies.) This ties in interestingly to @jaelav3​‘s observations about masculinity equating to strength and femininity equating to power in the Horde (a meta she really needs to write, because it’s brilliant). The hostility of the Horde forces soldiers into these rigid pecking orders in order to find protection in a dangerous place. When everyone knows and accepts their role, it is easier for the squad to function in a unified manner and protect each other, even if it’s at the cost of their mental and emotional health.

Now, when not everybody buys into the pecking order or it’s ambiguous, and/or if there’s a sudden power vacuum, that’s when things get interesting…

Catra and Lonnie, the perfect case study

Catra also suffered a lot of bullying and abuse in the Horde, but in a very different way than Kyle. She was in a unique and kind of contradictory position where she was somewhat protected by her close friendship with Adora, but she was also Shadow Weaver’s favourite chew toy and everyone knew it, which made her a target as well. If Shadow Weaver abused her, she wasn’t going to care if the other cadets abused her as well. Catra’s defensive body language and general distrustfulness and hostility gives the impression that she was bullied behind Adora’s back and Shadow Weaver turned a blind eye, perhaps even encouraged it.

This was all illustrated in 1x03, when Catra and Lonnie butted heads and Catra was forced to back down when two other cadets backed up Lonnie, then Lonnie told her to watch it because Adora wasn’t around to protect her anymore. That one line alone told so much of their story. This was also one of the few times we saw cadets using people from other squads to affect their own squad’s dynamics, as – like I said – that seems to be kept mostly in-house. It may have had something to do with Lonnie’s overall standing among the cadets or how Kyle and Rogelio rank lower in their little hierarchy and seem uninterested in getting involved with the power politics, but I digress.

The argument itself was meaningless, really - the whole thing was a pissing contest, an attempt to assert dominance within their squad’s sudden power vacuum. Lonnie fancied herself the new leader of the squad, and she ended up getting her wish in a backwards way when Catra was promoted out of the squad and given official power over her. Catra, of course, took every opportunity to rub this in Lonnie’s face, perpetuating the cycle of abuse she’d fallen victim to.

The reason they had a power struggle in the first place wasn’t just because Adora left, it was because their pecking order was previously unclear. Catra wasn’t very cooperative and tended to go rogue, so she didn’t slot nicely into the power structure. She was also perceived as lazy, as she had adopted an air of nonchalance once she realized she’d never get the recognition or praise so easily heaped on Adora. (Why try when failing hurts so much?) That being said, she was Adora’s best friend and basically her sidekick, so in a way that made her second-in-command of the squad.

On the other hand, Lonnie was devoted to the squad and was always around to provide tangible support, so she was also kind of Adora’s second-in-command. Combined with her harder work ethic, this also gave her a very legitimate claim to the throne. She was obviously pissed when her teammate she saw as a lazy asshat got promoted, but to her credit she lived up to her own personal ethics, buying in and not pushing back against Catra’s authority until late in season 4.

Despite the power struggle, however, Catra and Lonnie do seem to have a bond. Even if they don’t like each other, they have a certain level of trust in each other. When the princesses invaded the Fright Zone in 3x04 and shit started to go sideways, the first person Catra was looking for to try to get support and/or answers was Lonnie. Then in 4x10 when she was starting to lose her mind amid a lack of sleep and Scorpia’s defection, she pulled Lonnie aside and demanded to know what was going on among the soldiers, what they thought of her.

This was an incredibly interesting scene with some deep implications. Because while it was on one hand an expression of trust in Lonnie, it was also an acknowledgement that Lonnie was one of her bullies and held clout among the people who have demeaned and abused her in the past. It also showed that Catra still has social anxiety and her sense of social power (as opposed to power in terms of rank) is very fragile, which is extremely characteristic of a bullying victim. Also, the fact that Catra said, “Just leave. Like everybody else.” implied that Lonnie leaving would hurt her emotionally, which is rather illuminating.

As for Lonnie, her loyalty meant she bought into the system and expected to Catra to do her job running the place, taking care of the Horde. And Catra certainly succeeded early on, taking territory and increasing productivity. In return, Lonnie was a loyal and obedient soldier, even if she never hesitated to give Catra a bit of attitude. But she became frustrated in season 4 when Catra went on her sunk cost fallacy spiral and ended up making things worse for everyone else as well as herself. This failure was a huge betrayal to Lonnie, and it’s important to note that she wouldn’t feel betrayed or disappointed if she had expected nothing of Catra in the first place. It’s one thing to be kind of a dick about your superior rank, another entirely to endanger your squad/friends (or anyone you are responsible for, really) and run them into the ground as a remedy for your own anxiety.

The breaking point of course was the scene in the locker room in 4x12, when a lonely Catra tried to be “friends” with the squad again and was briefly successful in mending fences a little until she snapped at Kyle and then at Lonnie, calling them pathetic. This prompted Lonnie to shove her, which in turn made Catra bare her claws and rush Lonnie. There was really no coming back from that, even though Kyle intervened before anyone got hurt.

As an aside, Kyle stepping up in this scene was amazing - this season in general was everything I wanted for him. And it’s important that it was him who intervened, because he was really the only one who could ask Catra, “We used to be your friends, why are you treating us like this?” It makes perfect sense for Catra to push back at Lonnie given their history, but Kyle doesn’t have a history of bullying Catra (quite the opposite). And wow, it had an impact on Catra. You could just see the confusion and regret on her face before she brings back the façade of anger and kicks them out.

When the squad left the Horde, Lonnie said that they were done protecting Catra. This assertion is interesting, given their checkered past – since when was anyone protecting Catra? Lonnie bullied her, and none of them protected Catra from Shadow Weaver, not even Adora (though bless her heart, she tried). But this does make some sense when you consider how much of the idea of friendship is based on loyalty, and how important that adherence to the structure is for protection. In Lonnie’s mind, even if Catra was now their commander, they were still a unit in a way. And she saw standing by and obeying Catra to be a form of protection, helping her stay respected and carry out her plans. Lonnie is a good support person, and by removing her support, she was in a way removing her protection as well.

(After the series is over I might just go all out and do a huge-ass meta about Catra and Lonnie through the seasons. I am absolutely fascinated by this relationship, if you can’t tell.)

Allyship

Overall, you can’t help but get the impression that the Horde’s version of friendship is more akin to allyship. It’s protection, unity, loyalty. However, that doesn’t mean they don’t get emotionally attached, it’s more that how you feel about someone is less important than what that relationship can do for you. That’s why Scorpia doesn’t even understand what friendship is. That’s why Catra tolerates “friends” who annoy her, because they’re useful to her (not that she doesn’t get attached in time, but that’s not why she tolerates them in the first place).

Catra’s one of the few people in the Horde who has experienced real friendship, as her bond with Adora was much more emotional than practical (even if it was both). And that explains why she eventually lashed out at Scorpia and said they were not friends when clearly they were by the Horde’s definition. Her and Adora really had taken the friends thing to a different level, and she was missing that dearly.

It will be interesting to watch the interactions between the Horde characters when they are thrown back together in new circumstances, out of the Horde’s rigid power structure. Honestly, the redefining of these alliances and friendships is one of the things I am most looking forward to in the final season.

[bestworstcase]

farran re-reads lost lagoon: chapter 1

- there is a vibe here that i really don’t know how to explain. it might just be a juv fic thing where nuance gets flattened on the assumption that younger readers won’t or can’t understand such subtleties but i am immediately remembering that something about the way rapunzel is portrayed in the novels gets my hackles up. tts was evidently limited in how it could flesh out rapunzel’s character, and some of her flaws are glossed over accordingly - but in tts, rapunzel does have flaws, and toxic positivity is one that is repeatedly, if lightly, examined. in lost lagoon it feels like this trait has been dressed up in a party hat and presented to me as her best trait with a rah rah girl power cake to go with it, and it irks me. we’ll see how this holds out through the rest of the story, because in all fairness i have never met a juvfic first chapter whose character establishment i liked. lmao

- to give an example - in tangled and tts, pascal functions as rapunzel’s voice of reason. he encourages her to get out of the tower, and likewise encourages her to be cautious of eugene and check for ‘red flags’ (such as pointy teeth). in tts he regularly displays emotional awareness and sensitivity well beyond what rapunzel can grasp, and makes his doubts known when he feels rapunzel is behaving poorly. here… he’s afraid of heights, for some reason, so rapunzel can look carefree, spirited, and brave while teasing him for having this fear. she even lampshades the fact that it makes no sense for pascal, who grew up in a seventy-foot-high tower, to be afraid of being in a tree perhaps five or six feet off the ground. 

then this is underscored by means of guards rushing up with a ladder to ‘help’ rapunzel down from the tree, followed by her laughing them off and jumping to land ‘as always, on my strong bare feet.’ while it makes sense for rapunzel to think and feel this way, it has a distinctly different energy from rapunzel cracking under pressure in before ever after. in bea i feel like i’m supposed to sympathize with rapunzel’s distress whilst also recognizing the importance of the shoes she has been asked to fill, and of making her ready to fill them; that is… not the impression being crafted here.

- lost lagoon is one hundred percent structured as a coming out romantic novel wherein rapunzel identifies and comes to terms with her identity as a gay woman by cheating on her perfectly nice but unexciting male love interest with another woman, and this is endlessly hilarious to me regardless of anything else. i mean:

Not to mention true love with Eugene—sweet, funny Eugene! […] And yet something wasn’t right. Something was missing.

leila howland said “get fucked, fitzherbert”

- the treatment of friedborg here is a small step up from tts, where ‘haha weird and ugly’ is literally the punchline of every scene she’s in, but nevertheless it is distinctly uncomfortable to have a mute character portrayed as communicating in grunts and pointing. surely corona has some sort of sign language? surely someone could get this poor woman a slate and a piece of chalk, or if fine motor control is an issue that makes writing or signing prohibitively difficult then at the very least a booklet of cards with common words and phrases she could use to convey her meaning? but…no. instead she becomes a device to illustrate how opaque and confusing rapunzel finds palace etiquette to be.

- rapunzel thinking “manners are overrated” is extremely funny. i am not sure it’s supposed to be funny, but it is.

- lost lagoon eugene is suffering the great indignity of being made to learn something. this is one of the first signs that the book is fanfiction, which now that i think of it is also sort of hilarious.

- also: “I’ll join a dishwashing club or participate in a meatloaf-eating competition if that’s what it takes to make your dad accept me.” eugene what

- re: romance novel: “I watched Eugene walk back toward the castle. Why couldn’t I be as happy as he was? I wondered. We had everything anyone could ever want. Was there something wrong with me? It was almost like I didn’t even know I was lonely when I was in the tower, but everything had changed now. I could feel the places inside me that had been empty for so many years and I wanted to fill them all up.”

- amusing as this is i also can’t help but feel… a little irked, that tts rapunzel’s zeal for the outside world and her discovery of it has been transmuted into mere loneliness. rapunzel is a lonely person, absolutely, but i think far more pressing than that loneliness is her longing for newness after a life spent in the tower. moreover, in tts we see that it takes six months for rapunzel to start really chafing within the confines of her new life—in beginnings, which is the canon lost lagoon equivalent, she is still overwhelmed with wonder and delight in all the new things, cassandra included. i suppose what i’m getting at here is i don’t quite buy that the shine wore off this fast. it’s been less than a week.

(i promised myself i would keep bitter snow talk to a minimum for this but i do feel the need to say - benighted happens in a far more compressed amount of time than canon, and there rapunzel does indeed begin to feel overwhelmed and anxious within a single week. but her response to that anxiety is to think “well, i overestimated how easy this would be just a little!” and it isn’t until several more weeks have passed that she begins to feel dissatisfied and unhappy and uncomfortable as a consequence. whereas here, the vibe i am getting is more “manners are dumb, shoes suck, the guards suck, i’m miserable and i don’t know why” which just… it doesn’t feel like rapunzel.)

- rapunzel asks her security detail to give her some space, and when they refuse, she takes note of their sweaty brows, thinks to herself that they must be roasting under their armor—and uses this observation to deftly manipulate them into leaving her alone by suggesting they go dip their feet in a fountain to cool off. “It would make me really happy to see you happy.” 

i would argue that this sort of conscious manipulation is not at all out of character for rapunzel - she learned it from gothel and certainly there are examples of manipulative behavior from her in tts as well - but for it to happen so clearly in the very first chapter of the story casts everything else that happens in a sort of interesting light. for rapunzel to do this suggests a basic grasp of, at least, how people can be made to do things by appealing to their physical needs or comfort—yet she will also struggle to grasp social nuances and as in canon much of her conflict with cass is grounded in rapunzel’s dismissal of or blindness to what cassandra wants or needs from her. manipulativeness and social ignorance is an interesting combination of traits for her to have and it is nice to see the manipulativeness borne out so overtly in the text. again, we’ll have to see how this holds up later in the story because i do not remember it very well.

re: romance novel: the dissatisfaction and loneliness established in chapter one and explicitly not filled by the male love interest are, of course, answered by a fascinating glimpse of the one (1) gnc woman in all of corona. whom rapunzel only glimpses because she is climbing a tree to paint the view out of hopes that it will “fix” how out-of-place she feels. ms. howland you are not subtle, and also, how did she slip this past the disney censors?

[some-cookie-crumbz]

Okay so the Bakujirou fic made me want to read more of ur writing(uwu💖💖💖💖)so can you please write a fluffy tdmm fic of them playing Animal Crossing:New Horizons together featuring trans girl Momo(which is my favorite bnha trans hc tbh)?Pls include all your headcanons i want this to be as self-indulgent for you as possible

We are getting up to some hopefully good nonsense up in here~! Let’s see if I can’t cook up something tasty for ya! Also this was one of those prompts that really got away from me and kinda... rambled away from the main point of the request and dissolved into a bit of a character study with added notes of fun shipping goodness so please forgive the length! And obviously if this is unsatisfactory please feel free to scream at me for my sins.

Trigger Warning: Transphobia, Mentions/ References to Body Dysphoria

She wasn’t Nashi. 

Momo had to remind her of that fact every now and again, when the doubts about her appearance started to leak in. Did she present well enough? Did her hobbies speak loudly enough of the truth of her femininity or did people think she was faking? If she decided to go with a bob cut like Ochako’s, or a cute pixie like Mina's, would it make her features stand out wrong? Would she be fine wearing shorts, or would it be safer to pick a skirt or dress? It wasn't as often as it used to be that the anxiety about her appearance reared up - especially since she had been eagerly accepted by her peers when she confessed that she'd been deemed male at birth - but there were still moments where it did.

Like that evening, in specific.

While Father and Mother still worked in Pro Heroics, their roles had shifted quite drastically over the years. Momo herself had only been eight years old when Father was gravely injured in a Villain fight, taking a serious blow to protect a fleeing civilian. There had been countless surgeries and treatments to follow, leaving Father unable to move as well as he used to. He retired as an active on-duty Pro and became more involved with the agency behind the scenes. He worked more with the finances, employee relations and things of that ilk while Mother took over control as the public face. For a while, things were fine like that. It was a nice balance between them and, even though it was clear Father missed interacting with the public, he settled into his position quite well.

But as Momo's second year at UA started its second half, Father's health started deteriorating quickly. His immune system had been compromised as a result of all his past procedures and the side effects of that started to hit fast and hard. Momo herself had missed three days of classes to rush to see him when his cold escalated enough to warrant a hospital stay. While there, Mother and Father had discussed an upcoming business mixer. It would allow for them to connect with various other agencies to locate team-up partners as well as connecting to a few new support development teams. Mother had seemed rather concerned by the idea of going alone given that Father had always been the social core of their team.

And so, despite her discomfort, Momo had volunteered to go along. Mother had seemed surprised but agreed to take up her offer.

The day had been very strange leading up to the event itself. After getting out of her classes that Saturday, Mother picked her up to get put together. The full works were done for her; hair, make-up, manicure and pedicure, all coordinated to match with the long, sapphire blue evening gown Mother had picked out for her. Mother was an odd mix of overly involved and incredibly distant, taking care to ask if the length of her heels were comfortable for her or if the red of her lipstick was too dark for her liking. Once getting a response, though, she’d be heading off to tend to something for her own attire for the night without a second glance.

A part of her said she should have expected as much. It was a hard thing to define, her relationship with her mother. Ever since she came out and asserted who she really was - claimed Momo as her true name - Mother had never misgendered or dead named her. Even in the beginning, when the change in name and pronouns were still new, she’d gone out of her way to speak more carefully, to address her daughter the correct way. Momo took that as a sign that she was accepted, yes, but… Mother had always been incredibly distant. She seemed to only take an interest in Momo when it involved her Quirk training and her accomplishments therein. She often wondered if the problem was more that Mother had never wanted children in the first place and only agreed to having one to placate Father, or to carry on the family name.

It was rather disheartening to think about. 

The moment they entered the extravagant ballroom for the mixer, another Pro that Momo couldn’t place was flagging Mother down excitedly. “Yaoyorozu-San, such a delight!” he greeted happily, offering her his hand. His gaze flickered over to Momo, smile remaining in place though his eyes gleamed in confusion. “Ah, and who is this? A niece or cousin of yours or your husband’s?”

“No,” Mother said, quirking an eyebrow as if the answer should be obvious, “this is my daughter, Momo.”

Momo made sure to flash a demure smile as she bowed. “It’s a pleasure to meet you,”

“A daughter? I heard your only child was a son,” Momo could feel herself tense as she righted her posture. Of course, she thought, it would already be starting so quickly into her evening.

“A mistake, I assure you. This is my daughter and I expect you to respect her as such,” There was an odd undercurrent to Mother’s tone that caused Momo to glance at her sideways. She looked thoroughly unamused, judging by the scowl and slight glare she had fixated on him, and her shoulders were squared as a show of confidence. She supposed that Mother got tired of hearing this same statement time and again.

He blinked slowly, nose wrinkling briefly, before nodding curtly. “Of course. My apologies,” he shifted his gaze away from her to Mother quickly, clearly uncomfortable. “Anyway, Yaoyorozu-San, I had been hoping to have a word with you! I have a case on my hands that seems well suited to your skills.”

Mother perked up a bit at that. “Hmm. For now I’ll just take a general overview. I assume you do not have any official documents regarding it on your person currently, yes?”

Momo let out a small breath at the attention being directed away from her. “I’ll be going to get a refreshment, Mother,” she announced, though she doubted that she was heard. She made a beeline for the aforementioned table. It was often at these kinds of get-togethers that there were two separate refreshment areas; one for the younger crowd and another for the adults. She grabbed the ladle in the punch bowl and started to pour some into a decorative plastic cup for herself. There were orange and lemon slivers floating on the surface of the liquid so she prepared herself for the tart bite of citrus on her tongue, a small smile on her lips.

For a second she thought of Shoto, most likely settled in the dorms with his Nintendo Switch, most likely catching bugs or fishing on his new Animal Crossing game. The system and game - according to him - were a bribe from Hawks to keep some secret from Endeavor. Shoto had held up that part of the bargain but, he confessed, had snitched to Natsuo. It had been the most entertaining family meal they’d had in a while after that, he assured, and she giggled to herself as she sipped her drink. He may not seem like it, but Shoto had a mischievous streak in him.

“No way! Is that you, Nashi?” She jumped and whipped around, noticing a group of three boys around her age approaching. She recognized one of them from her first grade school, before she’d started her transition, but it took a moment to place a name to the face.

She plastered on a smile as she turned to face them fully. “It’s Momo, actually. It’s good to see you again, though, Hiroki-Kun,”

Hiroki blinked and tilted his head, confused for a moment, before his eyes widened in epiphany. “Oh, okay, my bad! Momo it is!” he agreed with a grin before indicating the other two with him. “Well, let me introduce you! This guy to my left is Yori, and the one to my right is Manzo! Guys, this is Momo, the one I was telling you about!” His tone dipped slightly as he introduced the second boy with him, as if saying his name had left a bitter taste in his mouth, but quickly perked back up after.

Yori offered a shy smile, staying close to Hiroki, but still offering her his hand. “It’s very nice to meet you, Momo-San. Hiroki-Kun says a lot of great things about you,” he said quietly.

"Does he?" she asked in slight surprise.

Hiroki grinned at her, folding his hands behind his head. "Of course! You were, like, the coolest kid on the playground! Cool Quirk, super nice, really smart… Who wouldn't admire that?"

She looked away bashfully and giggled. "You're too kind, Hiroki-Kun," she mused, turning her attention to Manzo. She held out her hand to shake his hand next. "You're Manzo-Kun, right?"

“And you’re Nashi, yeah?” he quipped, stuffing his hands in the pockets of his slacks.

She flinched and shook her head, still trying to be civil. “No, I’m not. As I just told Hiroki-Kun, my name is Momo,”

“Your name now is Momo, but your real name is Nashi,” he retorted.

Her hand dropped to her side, clenching into a fist at her side as she tried to keep her cool. “Momo is my real name!”

“No,” Manzo laughed, taking a step towards her that caused her to take a step back, “Momo is the name you use to play dress up.”

Hiroki stepped forward, shoving an arm against Manzo’s chest and nudging him back that step. “Dude, don’t be a disrespectful ass!”

“She hasn’t said or done anything to offend you. And even if she did, that doesn’t give you the right to act like this,” Yori chimed in as well, a disappointed frown on his face.

Manzo glared before shoving Hiroki’s arm aside and advancing on Yori, who recoiled at his approach. “Oh, what? You think just because you have your stupid little buddy here you’re hot shit?” he barked, moving to shove him.

In a flash, Momo rushed forward and grabbed his arm. “Leave him alone!” she snapped.

Manzo whipped around to face her and wretched his arm free, a nasty grin on his face. “Oh, what, you wanna fight about it? Fine! Let’s fight like men! Since that’s what you really are, Nashi-Kun!” he goaded.

“I’m not a boy and my name isn’t Nashi!” she shouted back, grip on his arm tightening slightly as angry tears started to pool in her eyes. “My name is Yaoyorozu Momo and I’m a girl!”

There was a beat of silence following her words, making her glance up as she realized that all conversation had died around them. Her stomach churned at the realization of the spectacle they’d become. She wasn’t supposed to behave like this! She was supposed to come and be the perfectly sociable young lady her parents had raised her to be. She wasn’t supposed to be getting dragged into situations like this.

“What is the meaning of all of this?” Mother’s curt tone cut in, snapping her from her thoughts. She had to steel herself to look up only to see that furious orange eyes were not fixated on Momo herself, rather, Manzo.

“Yes, son, explain,” another voice chimed in from behind Mother. The man she’d been chatting with when Momo first wandered away approached, looking directly at Manzo with a clearly forced smile on his face.

Manzo opened up his mouth to speak when Hiroki interrupted with “Manzo was being a dick to Momo! He wouldn’t respect her identity or name!”

“I was just stating the truth!” Manzo sneered angrily, finally wrenching his arm free from her grasp.

“Son, you-!”

“Momo, we are leaving. Now,” Mother said, tone clipped and flat.

Manzo’s father looked at her in panic. “Um, uh, Yaoyorozu-San, how about we select a time to discuss that case I mentioned in a more professional setting? One where the adults can talk without the children around?”

Mother glared at him, the look so harsh he shrunk back, before moving to wrap an arm over Momo’s shoulders to lead her out. She said nothing as she allowed Mother to lead her out and to the car, the air between them tense and awkward, barely catching Hiroki trying to call an apology after her and Manzo’s father berating him.

The silence in the back of the limo once they were settled inside was staggering, making Momo wish she could stick her head out the window to scream instead of keeping her gaze fixed on her toes. It was even worse than the air between them on the walk over with the added lack of escape route. She felt like such a failure as she struggled to take in breaths to keep herself composed. She was a top student in the top class at the top Pro Heroics school, for crying out loud! She should be able to handle herself against a bigoted moron! He shouldn't be more terrifying than the ruthless villains she'd faced!

“Momo,” Mother said, her tone so shockingly soft that her head jerked up. Her gaze was fixated on her, as unreadable as ever.

Momo swallowed thickly as she forced herself to square her shoulders. She should apologize for her behavior. She’d caused a scene and surely Mother had been embarrassed by that. “I’m sorry, Mother,” she said, trying to keep her voice steady.

“You don’t have anything to apologize for,” she said, blinking in surprise at her words. There was another pregnant pause as Momo let her gaze wander away again, fixated on a small fuzz ball in the limo carpeting by the heel of her left shoe. “Is that normal? What that little brat was saying and doing. Is that what normally happens to you at these kinds of things?”

She squeezed her eyes shut and nodded timidly, wringing her hands in her lap. “I’m sorry, for blowing up like that. I can normally keep myself more composed than that during im-!”

“Do not apologize to me, Momo; you were not in the wrong,” she insisted, her voice catching in a mix of irritation and… concern? Mother opened her mouth three times before shutting it again and sighing, her shoulders slumping. “So this has happened and you never told us.”

Feeling a lump sprout and block her throat, Momo could only nod in response.

Mother lifted her head to meet Momo’s eye, her expression filled with sadness and regret. “You don’t feel comfortable coming to me with these concerns, do you?”

“It’s not just… I… So many more important things are going on right now. I don’t want to put more on your plate,” she said softly.

“Nothing is more important than you, Momo,” she argued with a shake of her head. She looked away for a moment before taking a breath and reaching out, setting one of her hands on top of Momo’s. “I haven’t always been the best with affection when it comes to you, or, well, really anyone aside from your Father. I suppose that I had always assumed that it was fine to leave those things to him, that one of us would focus on the emotional side of things and the other the more practical. Father was the fun parent you could play games and sing songs with, while I was the parent who made sure you kept your Quirk in check and your grades up. I thought… I thought that would be a good balance, that it would give you everything you needed. I’ve come to understand how wrong that belief was.”

“M-Mother?”

She placed her other hand above her heart, giving Momo’s a small squeeze as she held her gaze. “I’m going to work at being better for you, at giving you what you need from me. I need you to understand that my failings as a mother... None of that was ever your fault. I’m sorry that my actions made it seem like my love is something you have to work to earn. I love you, Momo, and I’m sorry I’ve presented that fact as being conditional and not eternal,”

She could feel more tears starting to pool in her eyes before she surged forward to embrace Mother. She was tense for a second before she embraced her back, one hand gently combing through her hair soothingly. The rest of the ride back to campus was spent like that, with her face burrowed into Mother’s arms as she cried and settled. It was strange, how nice it felt. It wasn’t like the bear hugs Father used to give her, where her small frame would be completely enveloped and held snug. No, this was something a bit more careful and delicate, something nostalgic and delicate but just as important.

Mother offered to walk her in, carefully dabbing the smeared mascara and smudged eyeshadow aside with a handkerchief, but Momo insisted she’d be fine alone. After stepping out of the vehicle and into the brisk evening air, she took a breath to help settle her nerves and maybe alleviate the twinge of a small headache she could feel brewing. It rattled inside her, still a little shaken up, but she squared her shoulders and made the trek inside. Mother didn’t leave until she was inside, she noted, and made a mental note to talk to her later more about everything that had happened that night. The incident with Manzo had been one thing, but there was the separate can of worms it had opened that she wanted to take care of, too.

She made sure to be quiet as she made her way to the elevator, the sounds of some of their peers milling about in the living room easy to hear. She was pretty sure they were gearing up for their Saturday evening game fest. Surely there’d be a barrage of broken controllers a la Bakugo if it was one of their Super Smash nights, she thought with a small huff, before turning to hit the elevator button. “Momo?” A familiar voice chimed beside her, causing her to jump.

She turned and blinked to be greeted by Todoroki Shoto, staring at her with his usual unreadable face, and let out a small squeak of shock. “Ah, Shoto,” she sighed as her shoulders sagged slightly. “Perhaps Ochako-Chan’s suggestion of putting a bell on you wouldn't be such a bad suggestion. You startled me.”

He hummed in acknowledgement, tilting his head as if sizing her up, and blinked slowly. “I got my Snooty and Cranky villagers earlier,” he said.

She gasped before pouting at him. “You said you’d wait for me to do any more island hopping, Shoto!” she huffed.

“I needed to load up so I could give Ojiro some oranges, and then I got kinda wrapped up doing stuff,” he admitted. He stole a glance at their classmates as Sato and Tooru made their way from the kitchen area with a few bowls and snacks. “Are you going to join everyone else for JackBox tonight?”

She shook her head. “No. Tonight has been a bit more… eventful than I would have liked,” she said, making sure to keep her composure. She didn’t want to worry him over it all. “I just want to go finish washing off the make up, put on some comfortable clothes and relax.”

“I’ll get snacks, then,”

“Huh? Snacks?”

“I still have two plots left for my island and a lot of Nook miles tickets. You get changed and I’ll meet you in your room in a few minutes so we can do them together,” And with that, he moved towards the kitchen.

She blinked and watched him before letting out a small laugh and shaking her head, hitting the elevator button. Shoto was an odd one to be sure, especially since he’d started working towards coming out of his shell more. A part of her was grateful but another part found his stubborn streak to be a bit exasperating. Then again, he only seemed to push when he knew something was wrong, so maybe it was more just trying to offer comfort? Despite his usual aloof demeanor, he was surprisingly astute at reading a room. As to whether or not he could understand how to react to what he was able to deduce was another matter entirely, though.

She set that aside while she got washed up and changed. Her mind shifted gears as she stared at her reflection, thinking about what Mother had said. She felt a tightness in her chest as her mind whirled again. There was some comfort in Mother acknowledging that there was room for growth, sure, but… The catalyst that remained unsaid left her sick. Even if Mother hadn’t said it, she knew this was a reaction to the looming shadow of Father’s death. She had to swallow a growing lump in her throat and shake her head, put those thoughts to bed until a more appropriate time.

She didn’t want to ruin the rest of she or Shoto’s evenings.

She opted for some old sweats and a tank top, taking a moment to comb her hair out from the complex updo it had been styled into, opting to leave it loose afterwards to help abate the small headache she had brewing. Though, if she was honest, sitting and playing games with her boyfriend seemed like a nice way to wind down. She had been having a blast watching Shoto become completely enamored with his little island and all the cute animal villagers with him.

She’d had her own file a good time longer than him and was mostly done with all the villager-hunting and replacing she’d wanted to do but found watching him work through his first experience with it endearing. He’d never even played an Animal Crossing game before so everything was completely new to him. Once she was settled, she took her unit off the dock and propped open the door. Not too long after she’d taken the time to give daily gifts to Phoebe, Ozzie, Chai and Shep, Shoto appeared in the doorway. He had four lychee ramunes, a bowl of popcorn, a bag of konpeito, a variety bag of hi-chews and a package of black licorice tucked away in his arms, his Switch case strap around his wrist. “Ah, here, let me help you,” she urged, setting her Switch down and getting up to help him. “Also, you can dock your Switch on mine. That way we can see your island visits on the big screen together.”

“Thanks. I grabbed a few different things but I can go downstairs and get more later,” he offered as she took the drinks and popcorn. He set the other snacks down on her dresser before heading over to her bed to rearrange the pillows to form the usual cocoon they made for play sessions together. She took his Switch and docked it for him, then grabbed his joycons and put them in the controller holder. Once that was all set up, Shoto settled into the large pillowy ring with his legs spread so that she could settle between them, resting her back against his chest, him using her pillows to prop him up and her relying on him.

She used her remote to flick on the television, then grabbed her console from the other end of the bed and reached for the bowl of popcorn, popping a few pieces into her mouth. “So you did some island hopping while I was gone? Find anyone you liked?” she asked as they watched his game load up.

“I encountered Diana on one of them. She talked to me like she didn’t know me, which was weird,” he said.

“Well, of course she did! That Diana is different from the Diana on my island,” she giggled. She then perked up and glanced up at him. “Oh, and I still need to come get some oranges from you. They’re the only fruit I’m missing on my island.”

“I still can’t believe that out of the fourteen people that have this game, I’m the only one who ended up with oranges as their island fruit. Or that one of you didn’t at least get it as your exotic option,” he commented as his character stepped out of his house. “Oh, and how soon before I can move my villagers' houses?” 

“You’ve already gotten your first three furnished homes, so I think you should have access to it. It’s just a matter of having the bells to spend on moving someone,” she explained as she glanced down at her own screen. Shep came rushing from the left to talk to her excitedly. “Who were you thinking about moving?”

“Roald. I want to move him to the other side of the island from me,”

“Aw, why? He’s so cute!”

“I think he’s plotting to kill me,” he said, completely serious as he stopped in front of the penguin in question's house. When he’d first made his file, Shari and Roald were his beginning villagers and he’d decided to place their tents close to his own for the sake of ease.

She snorted and looked up at him. “He’s just a penguin, Shoto,”

“Just look at his eyes, Momo… He’s a villainous mastermind,” To illustrate his point, he ran his character in a circle around the little avatar, before turning and darting to the left. “That’s why I need more villagers like Ruby and Kyle, who have my back no matter what. I need a whole squad for the day he finally snaps.”

“You don’t think Gayle and Punchy would have your back?”

“Gayle would probably be on my side. She and Roald had a fight the other day so there’s bad blood there. But I don’t want Punchy putting his life on the line. He is a precious boy who must be protected,” he said, glancing down at her with a stern gaze.

She couldn’t help but snort at the expression. Specifically in that it was being enacted regarding pixelated animals on a Nintendo game. “And did you find anyone worthy of enlisting for this most noble of causes?” she teased.

He hummed, reaching with one hand to grab a bit of popcorn himself as he came to a stop between a labelled plot at the edge of the beach. He clicked on the sign, pulling up a card that read “This spot reserved for Static’s new home.”

“Oh, you got Static? He’s a great choice for your Cranky!”

“I like that he is a very tiny squirrel with a very deep voice,” he said.

“Much like how you like that Punchy is a cat and is Lazy?”

“You get me,” he said before running upwards. He crossed a bridge to another area to show another plot with a sign that read “This spot reserved for Willow’s new home.”

Momo giggled. “Willow’s a good choice, too. I almost expected that you’d try to get another cat villager for your Snooty villager, but sheep villagers are always a good one, too,” she said excitedly. She plopped a few more pieces of popcorn into her mouth as she walked into Bruce’s house on her own game. “So you officially have every personality type on your island! Do you have any idea as to what kind of personality types you’d like to have duplicates of?”

“Hmm… Not too sure. You have two Jocks and two Normals, right?” As he asked that, he ran back to his Resources Center to get the first of his last two house kits.

“Yeah. I have Bam and Tybalt, and Bertha and Savannah,” she hummed. She watched as he placed the new house right behind his own, as if it would be watching the back of his own. She rolled her eyes and shook her head at the sheer ridiculousness of him.

He hummed thoughtfully before he made his way into the airport. “I guess I’ll just go for characters I like. Personality doesn’t really matter to me since I already have one of every type.”

“That’s a good approach, I think,” she hummed, tossing a bit more popcorn into her mouth. “How many Nook Tickets do you have?” 

“13,” he said while speeding through the dialogue to board the plane. “I farmed Nook miles after I found Static and Willow so I could go get more villagers once you got back.”

She tilted her head up and pressed a small kiss to his chin. “So sweet,” she hummed before looking down at her own game as she started looking for her daily fossils. She’d already completed the fossil exhibits in her game, but like the extra scratch she got from selling the duplicates.

For a moment things were quiet as Shoto used his ladder to climb up the three tiers of the small island to the top, where his potential new villager was waiting. To then immediately start climbing back down at the sheep sitting in front of the campfire. “Nope. Nope. N. O. P. E,” he mumbled as he did.

“Aw, you don’t want Pietro? He’s considered rare!”

“And he can stay rare and away from my island,”

The next three islands were deemed ones Shoto wasn’t interested in - Eugene, Jeremiah and Limberg - not that she could blame him with Limberg. “He’s not particularly good,” she mumbled.

“You know, I don’t think I’ve seen a single mouse villager that I like the design of,” he commented as he wandered off the desk and onto his fifth island.

“Bree and Dora are pretty cute but most of them are really lackluster,” she agreed, saving her own file and setting her Switch in her lap as he approached the campfire.

Shoto blinked in slight surprise. “A snow leopard?”

“Actually, Bianca’s classified as a tiger, despite her markings,” she said. She watched as he immediately invited her to his island. “Just so you know, she’s a Peppy type, I think.”

“She looks like Fuyumi-Nee,” he said. Ah, of course that would be enough to get him on board with adding Bianca to his roster.

She set her Switch aside and carefully maneuvered off of her bed. “I’m going to open one of the ramune. Do you want me to open one for you, too?”

She made quick work of opening the drinks and offering him his once he finished placing his last plot back on his own island. She took a quick sip from hers before opening the package of black licorice and eating a piece as she watched him. “Mind if I ask you something unrelated, Shoto?”

He glanced up at her, mismatched eyes sparking with something she couldn’t quite place, before he set his drink on the bedside table and patted the space she’d left. “Sure,” he said, his avatar boarding the plane to do his next round of island hops.

She was quick to settle back in with him, turning her body this time to snuggle into his chest. She felt him shift to wrap his arms around her, controller lax in his hand. “We’ve discussed it before but… What do you think it takes to forgive someone?”

He let out a thoughtful noise. “Well, I think forgiveness is different from person to person. Everyone has a threshold for what they feel is forgivable, so I think that needs to be considered,” He set the controller off to the side to card one hand through her hair while the other stroked up along her spine, the movements slow and soothing. “Speaking from my own situation… I chose forgiveness because I could see a genuine change and a refusal to shy away from the wrongs that had been done. I’m still keeping a distance, and I’m ready to burn that bridge in a heartbeat if I see a relapse, but… I can see authentic change. And that’s enough for me to offer my tentative, conditional forgiveness.” 

She nodded at his words, closing her eyes and burrowing into him further. She had always wanted to have a better relationship with Mother, if she was honest. So… This could be a good chance for that, right? They could work on mending things between them and find some common ground. The thought of having a better relationship with her left a warmth in her chest, one that made her smile. Could they have proper Mother-Daughter days? Maybe she could learn more about the older woman’s hobbies and interests outside of Pro Heroics work? That could be nice. “Thank you, Shoto,” she mumbled.

“Any time, Momo,” he said, tipping his head to press a peck to the top of her head. He perked up again and glanced at the screen. “Not to derail but… I think it’s another cat?”

“Oh yeah? What color?” she mumbled.

He shifted his hands to pick his controller back up, keeping his arms looped around her though. “Grey. Oh, their eyes are different colors,”

“Oh, that’s-!” Momo’s eyes snapped open and she sat up, looking wildly over her shoulder at the screen. “Shoto, that’s Raymond! You got Raymond!”

[yuriikims]

* ◟⋄ ♡ ― park jimin, 22, cis male, he/him ╱  did you see that ? it was that SECOND YEAR, YURI KIM in the library !  you know that their parents are a HIGH RANKING GOVERNMENT OFFICIAL and an INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS CEO right, that’s kind cool.   i don’t know about you but whenever i see them i think of the posture of a prince but the mouth of a harlot, an implacable calculating stare, & a fastidiously maintained outward appearance, not a hair nor lace out of place and the fact that people describe them as AMBITIOUS & FRIGID just make me want to get to know them more ! 

hi all! i’m cece and i’m here to bring you my two trouble(d) children yuri and maverick. as i was clearing old posts on this blog i found that some were four years old so if that doesn’t tell you how long its been since i’ve properly roleplayed i don’t know what else would. i’ve only recently started joining groups again and just am here to vibe and have a good time plotting / writing with you all! learn more about my little ice prince below. he’s heavily inspired by a problematic book character i love so i hope you love him too!

PLOTS CAN BE FOUND HERE

tw illness, death, plane crash, inferred trauma

BACKSTORY

there’s no denying the global impact of the kim family and the money such a union brought in. renowned in south korea, the kim name carries with it the kind of weight one might associate with royalty, overshadowed only by the memory of tragedy.

planned and particular in everything that they do, the kim parents planned to have a single son. he would go into either the father’s place of politics or the mother’s lucrative business ventures. he would be given the illusion of choice though his skillset would ultimately determine their outcome. 

yuri was not this planned child. 

his elder brother yubin had been the intended ‘heir’; himself a (mostly unhappy) accident

it wasn’t so much a lack of love but, rather, a lack of attention. love yuri got in abundance but not from expected sources. his parents doted upon yubin; yubin doted upon yuri. 

the public also loved the pretty second son. fair skinned and sweet faced, he completed the picture of the perfect family presented to the whole of korea -- hiding a fragmented reality just under the surface.

as only a small child (in age and physically) he was taught his appearance means everything -- be that reputation-wise or in a more literal sense. since he was not the expected inheritor, he need only learn for the sake of learning. 

then desperate for his parents’ attention and approval, yuri worked twice as hard to keep up with his brother. he studied topics well above his age and learned quickly. naturally intelligent, he absorbed new information with fervor but, careful not to outshine the favored son, he kept himself humble and only shared achievements when directly addressed.

the first blow to the kim came when both boys were still pre-pubescent. their mother became sick. terribly so. to the point where she could no longer serve as acting CEO and handed the business off. it was said to be a temporary power shift -- into the trusted hands of her brother until her son came of age -- and yuri blindly believed this would be the case. 

as her condition deteriorated and their father split all his time between hospital trips with her and governmental obligation, the two boys were left on their own more often than not. their uncle became overly involved in their lives in the absence of parental guidance but yuri quickly came to learn it wasn’t a good thing. 

conniving but secretive, even a small yuri could recognize red flags in his uncle but with so much else to worry about and in no position of power to stop the inevitable, yuri tried his best to focus on what was important: his family, his studies, his future.

the latter would come to fruition far sooner than yuri would have expected. his father wanted to bring yubin to visit the hospital in switzerland where their mother was residing. he was to learn the family business secrets and begin preparing to take over as soon as he came of age. the two left on a plane, leaving yuri behind with their uncle, but they would never return. 

loss is hard enough to process but even harder when, overnight, yuri suddenly bore the entire weight of his family name. his uncle ran for government, stealing his father’s place almost immediately and yuri resented him for it. as if he needed more reason to hate the man. 

while he was far off taking the position himself, he could focus his efforts on taking back the family business. his mother was still alive, after all, and so he steeled himself against the ache of mourning, the crushing feeling of loss, and the overwhelming presence of his uncle in his life and focused on learning everything he could from her. 

PRESENT

from the tender age of 13, yuri had closed off. any cherubic sweetness of his youth was stolen from him and he became cold, calculating, though stayed just shy of the cruelness of his uncle. he kept to himself and the more enigmatic he became, the more the general public took an interest.

he worked harder than ever, earning top marks with his private tutors and gleaning every last drop of business sense he could from his ailing mother. there was no time for the frivolities of teenhood but as he matured, kmedia took notice.

he was beautiful -- a face made for acting and a body built for dance. even his voice was honeyed, soft and sweet despite the fact that seldom few heard it for longer than strictly necessary.

by 18 he was one of korea’s most eligible bachelors (the family inheritance didn’t hurt), though because of his standoffish demeanor and seeming disinterest in dating, he was dubbed an ‘ice prince’ of sorts. and by 20 he was shipped off to belvedere.

it couldn’t really be avoided. he needed a degree and as much as he’d like to stay as guard dog for his uncle -- to make sure he doesn’t make any moves to fully usurp what is rightfully his -- formalities were important. 

PERSONALITY

pristine is probably the best word to describe a first impression of yuri. immaculately dressed, incredibly precise with his words and carrying himself with a formality that doesn’t quite suit the modern world, he’s a prince of his own making.

in his second year, yuri’s not here to make friends but has amassed a handful who respect him and his hardened exterior. or maybe they’re just hoping to see the icy demeanor thaw and be one of the few allowed in closer than arm’s length.

incredibly bright and hardworking combined, yuri’s absolutely the test you’ll want to lean over and cheat off of -- not that he’d let you. he’s been getting top marks since his arrival, undeterred by the party-inclined lifestyle of the rich.

some may find his formality and closed off nature to be pretentious, arrogant, maybe even hostile but he allows people their dislike of him. the only way in which he’ll rise to a challenge is verbally, his wit allowing a tongue lashing of which no one wishes to be on the receiving end.

OTHER FUN FACTS

has a knack for languages and learns them just for fun. his most recent acquisition is norwegian

also, perhaps, why his vocabulary is littered with a slew of ... creative and downright vulgar suggestions and insults. he’ll deliver lines that’d make the devil blush but with the face of an angel, seemingly unaffected by their lewdness

along that vein, he’s still rumored to be a virgin since to the outside eye, he’s never once engaged with anything romantic or otherwise (though not for lack of propositions)

has your typical ‘rich boy’ skills but excels in fencing in particular. his trainer once remarked that they better never give him a real sword or they’ll have created a monster

his mother is still alive and acts as his one major soft spot. his voice turns fond when speaking of her and his carefully crafted impassive expression breaks, only slightly. he’ll facetime / skype her whenever possible and despite a fear of planes, visits as often as he can

i’ll probably add to this as i play him more but for now i have no way of ending this so /end (connections page coming soon maybe but any basic ideas are a great place to start!)

[karama9]

Foreshadowing...?

Of the bad kind. This is about JK Rowling and her transphobia, so trigger warning here. I’ll tag too.

To be clear, yes, I’m calling her transphobic. I know she disagrees, I think mostly because she believes she doesn’t actively want to harm anyone, but she is delusional in thinking she’s not in fact harming transgender people by denying their identity and excluding trans women from women places. Her words and actions have been harmful and it is due to her inability to accept and recognize that transgender women are women and transgender men are men. Anyway, I’m not here to even debate that. As far as I’m concerned, it’s obvious and goes without saying.

I wanted to point out another red flag. I’m sure it’s been mentioned somewhere before because I can’t imagine being the only one who picked up on it, but I haven’t seen it discussed much when I last looked a few weeks back. I didn’t look very hard, so I might have missed it, but this post is just to boost awareness of a disturbing parallel.

As you may know, Rowling writes a series of detective novels under the pen name Robert Galbraith. We could talk all day about using a male name, after using a neutralized name for the Potter series, and how her willingness to deceive people about her own gender may bleed into her opinions on transgender people, but I’ll leave that to others.

The parallel that bothered me when I read it and that keeps coming back to my mind now is a part of the plot of I believe the third Cormoran Strike novel. In the book, Strike and his assistant come across people with body integrity identity disorder (also referred to in text as transable I think) and need to get information and help from them for their case. 

Strike despises them. Their existence makes him very angry. He’s amputated himself, the result of a war injury IIRC, and people who, in his mind, are faking it (they’re not, it’s far more complex than that), enrage him.

The gut reaction is I think understandable in the narrative, so it’s up to the author to do something with it. For one thing, she chose to include this plot element, and it’s not something that can be brushed off as just plot convenient. It received a fair bit of emphasis in the story.

The disturbing part? Nobody really corrects him, and neither do circumstances. His assistant is way more chill but although they discuss it, she just shrugs off his opinion, agrees to disagree. He’s the one who has lost a limb, she figures his opinion is more valid than hers maybe? I honestly can’t remember the details but basically, the ‘confrontation’ was basically her asking him why he was so angry, him angrily telling her and her accepting it. As the reader, if you go in neutral on the issue, what you’re seeing is the disabled hero rightfully angry at the “fakers” (again, they’re not actually faking) and his non disabled assistant not realizing at first why. The narration even takes pain to point out that one of the characters is using up a handicap spot because she’s using a wheelchair.

I can’t speak to the needs of people with this disorder. I cannot speak to whether or not treatments are reasonable, effective, painful, or helpful. I have no idea but I do know researching it on the internet would not be reliable since I don’t know enough to evaluate the sources I’d find. I tried, and the one thing that seemed to be fairly safe to conclude was that it’s quite rare.

So why do I find this plot line disturbing? I cannot unsee the parallel with transgender people. Especially the very noticeable, well emphasized idea that one of the transabled person was using up a handicap spot and shouldn’t have been, and that the hero felt they were basically faking, and the heroine, although she didn’t share his anger, pretty much didn’t dispute this. You’re left with the impression that the overly kind girl is just willing to let them fake if it makes them happy. She’s also in an abusive relationship, making it distressingly easy to see her attitude towards the characters with  body integrity identity disorder as just in character for her, as if they were abusing her kindness too.

To my mind, the whole thing was a stand in for transgender people and how Rowling feels about them. Like Robin, she wants to be accommodating because she strives to be kind, but she firmly believes she’s allowing them to play pretend and like Strike, she will not give ground on this - as far as she’s concerned, they’re playing pretend and they should absolutely not be treated like actual men and women.   

And as I said above, I have no idea how to feel about transabled people. I haven’t seen enough (this was my first and so far only exposure beyond some googling) to know what their needs are. Strike absolutely seems intolerant, and it made me very uncomfortable because the characters were clearly being earnest and not malicious. 

But seeing it as a parallel and stand in for transgender people, it really hammers in the things Rowling has said and it is SUPER disturbing.

[justthehiddleswrites]

The Reluctants | Chapter 10 | The Reluctant Detective

Pairing: Adam (OLLA) x OFC (Charlie Bock)

Summary:  Charlie can’t believe her luck when she lands an apartment all to herself in Quincy, Massachusetts in a decaying triple decker. But life gets more complicated when someone moves into the basement. Specifically her landlord, Adam, who also happens to be a vampire. As life collapses around Charlie, these two forge an uneasy and unlikely relationship. But is their relationship as doomed as the building they live in?

Chapter:   Adam finds out the truth of Charlie’s whereabouts as well as Jason’s nature and is pissed.

Warnings: Violence, Smut, Frottage, Dry Humping, Teasing, Coming In Pants, Oral Sex, Vaginal Sex. Couch Sex. Kidnapping. Stalking. Non-Graphic Violence, Character Death

-

Adam groaned and stretched in bed early that evening. Charlie’s side was cold, and the sheets tucked up. His brow furrowed until he spied the note on his nightstand.

“Ridiculous.” he clicked his tongue at Charlie, slipping out without waking him. He remained in bed, hoping she would soon return and slip under the sheets to curl next to him before heading to the living room.

But Charlie didn’t show when she usually did. Or two hours later. At first Adam figured she was caught up at the record store, but at three hours Adam worried enough to call Simmons’ personal cell phone. No easy feat as Adam needed to dig out his landline from under a table and crumpled pieces of paper and dust.

“Hello?” Simmons answered with his distinct, gravelly voice.

“It’s Mr. Streiff.”

“Oh, already calling with an offer to buy the Gibson? Charlie is a better salesperson than she lets on.”

Adam’s brows knitted. “What Gibson? I’m calling to check on Charlie, who is working late with you.” His tone firm, bordering on accusatory.

“She left hours ago. With a 1905 Gibson she insisted to take to show you.” Simmons responded worried, although Adam couldn’t tell if it was over the guitar or Charlie. His fist balled tightly at his side.

“What?! Where did she you go?” Adam paced the floor as silence hung in the air while Simmons contemplated his response.

“I didn’t see.” Simmons snapped his fingers. “Wait! I wondered if her cousin came and got her.”

“What cousin?”

Adam shoved on his boots while pulling on a shirt. Charlie said nothing about a cousin. And given what she said about her parents, he doubted the existence of any cousin.

“The one who came by the other day asking for her schedule.”

“And you gave it to him?!” Adam’s voice rising to a yell.

“He said the family came to surprise her. It sounded nice.”

Adam rolled his eyes and cursed. “Fuck! What did he say? Did he give a name?”

“He said his name was Jason. And—” Simmons’s next words met with a dial tone when Adam hung up.

He threw the phone against the wall, smashing it to bits.

“Fuck!” He kicked at the pieces of plastic on the floor before slumping onto the couch. He couldn’t decide whether to kill Simmons first or go out hunting for Charlie.

-

Charlie rolled her neck, popping the bones.

“Ah…” she sighed while taking a quick inventory of her body.

Her head still pounded and tender to the touch on the back, where she touched what seemed to be a goose egg. Her arms and hands were free, and she was wearing everything from when she left the record shop, save her overcoat. As Charlie sat up from the bed or couch or whatever she sat on, a chain clinked. Charlie glanced down to see her leg shackled to what Charlie now determined to be a couch. A shitty futon to exact.

Loud voices filtered from next door and Charlie moved to the edge of the couch, as far as the chain would let her.

“This was not part of the plan, Jason. Idiot!” A female yelled.

Something clattered to the floor on the other side of the door.

“Why are you the one calling the shots!?

Charlie recognized Jason’s sniveling tone.

“I’m the one taking all the risks! You wanted Adam, she will get us him!”

“That doesn’t mean kidnap her! Do you realize how pissed he will be?!”

“What do you suggest? Let her go? Absolutely not! She’s mine.”

“I don’t know what I wanted, but this is not it.” The floor shook as Ava stomped and pouted. “I’m hungry.”

“There’s some blood in the fridge.”

The door creaked open and Charlie scrambled away. Ava popped into the room.

“Oh, you.” her voice dripped with disdain. “You’re awake.”

“How in the hell did you and Jason…” Charlie’s voice wavered, still coming to grips with her situation.

Ava smiled, her fangs peeking out from behind her lips. “Your little stalker boyfriend?”

“Not my boyfriend.”

“No, but he is your stalker.” Ava smirked. “I met him outside when Adam threw me out. So rude.” Her bottom lip popped out into a pout.

“He will be so pissed when he gets here.”

“I realize that!” Ava stomped her foot and then stormed away as Jason came in.

He sat down right next to Charlie. His cast rough against her skin. Jason lifted his good hand to run the back of his finger along Charlie’s cheek. She jerked back at the intrusion.

“Get used to me, sweetheart.” Jason’s face twisted into a sick smile.

-

Adam spent the better part of an hour grilling Simmons on every nuance of his conversation with Jason and the events of that night. Frustrated and angry, he slammed his hand repeatedly against the steering wheel of his Jaguar. It hurt like hell.

As soon as he got back home, he went to Charlie’s apartment and ransacked her living room and bedroom. Clothes and paper flew in the air without regard until he located Charlie’s neglected planner. With a deft finger, he flipped the pages until he found what he wanted. He ripped the page out and then shoved clothes and debris from his fit to find the phone.

“Charlie?” Elise answered in a groggy voice.

“Who the fuck is Jason?”

“Who the hell is this?” Elise’s voice turned shrill.

“It’s Adam, I’m her…” He hesitated. How much did Charlie tell her friends? He quickly replaced the thought with panic and fear as to what may happen to Charlie. “… boyfriend.”

Elise sat up in bed. “Oh, pleasure. Did Jason show up? I told Charlie to be careful.”

Adam would have to wait until Charlie came home safe and sound to discuss hiding important information from each other.

“Tell me everything about him.”

-

Twenty minutes later, Adam hung with Elise with enough information about Jason to recognize breaking his arm last month was a gift. He should have broken his neck. Nothing that would pop up on a standard background check, but red flags nevertheless. He sounded like a serial killer in the making. Adam ripped the phone out of the wall and walked downstairs to fish out his own address book. He prayed the number still work as he punched in the number.

“Hello?” the male voice answered.

“Frank, I need a favor.”

“Adam. You know that’s not my name, right?”

“I’m not calling you Francois Eugène Vidocq.”

The man chuckled. “It is a mouthful. It’s been at half a century since we talked. How’s Eve?”

“Dead.” Adam winced.

“I’m sorr—”

Adam cut him off. “I don’t need your apologies. Do you still have access to the Registry of Motor Vehicles?”

“Massachusetts? Well, yeah, if you call hacking into their database access.”

“I need you to get my an address for a Jason Fuller and a Nicole McDonald?”

“Got anything else? Dates of birth?”

“No.”

Frank sighed on the other end of the line. “Give me a bit, I will call you back.” The line clicked dead.

Adam paced the floor. His hand ran through his wild hair. He hated this. He hated his mind racing to all the possibilities of the horrible things happening to Charlie. A thought entered his mind. He walked into the spare bedroom, digging through a box. And then another, and a third.

“She’s fucking right, Eve. I should let her clean and organize down here.” He rummaged through yet another box before pulling out a tattered shoebox. “Apologies, baby, for what I may have to do. But I love her.”

An hour later, the phone rang.

“Took you long enough.” Adam snapped back. He threw a black leather jacket on top of his usual rock n roll attire, combat boots and everything.

“You didn’t say anything about a rush.”

“The urgency was implied, Frank. Did you get the addresses or not?”

“I got what you want.” Frank rattled off two addresses, Jason’s in Cambridge and Nicole’s in Revere. “You never told me why you are looking for this guy.”

“He took something very dear to me.”

“A guitar?”

“A girl.”

-

Charlie soon discovered Jason and Ava didn’t have a fucking clue what they were doing. Two things became clear to Charlie: Jason wanted to keep Charlie for himself, and Ava was always hungry. She had no idea how long she had been here or if Adam realized she’d gone missing. If she wasn’t so terrified, Charlie would have been laughing at this Keystone Cops kidnapping of hers.

Ava and Jason bickered in the corner.

“Hmmm.” Charlie cleared her throat. Two heads snapped over to glare at her. “I’m wondering,” She crossed her legs at the ankles, chain clinking along the floor. “which of you is going to let Adam know you have me?”

Ava’s face pinched up. “I beg your pardon?”

Charlie’s lips twitched into a smile. “Well the whole point of this is to get Adam’s attention, am I correct? It’s hard to do that if he DOESN’T HAVE A FUCKING CLUE, I’M HERE!” she screamed.

Jason stomped over to Charlie and hit her with his open hand. The left side of her face exploded in pain.

“DON’T FUCKING TELL ME WHAT TO DO!” Jason screamed back. His nostrils flared and spittle flew out of his mouth. Charlie cried out of exhaustion and pain more than anything. Jason’s expression softened. He sat next to her.

“Sweetheart.” He cooed, reaching up to soothe the already bruising mark on Charlie’s cheek. “You know better than to get me upset. I lose control when I get upset. You might end up hurt.”

Charlie gulped. “Sorry.”

Jason stood up and kissed the top of her head. “Now let’s go get some ice from that bruise.” He walked off to the kitchen.

Ava’s gaze darted between the kitchen and Charlie. “Fine, I’ll make the phone call.”

Adam never got that message because he was long gone.

-

Jason’s Cambridge apartment was empty, but that didn’t stop Adam from ransacking the place. In particular, he shredded to bits a few photos of Charlie pinned onto a corkboard.

“Fuck!” he cursed as he caught the time after kicking in Jason’s TV. There wasn’t enough nighttime left to make it to Revere. “Hang on just one more day, my love.”

-

Charlie iced her cheek with the frozen bag of peas Jason tossed to her. Her stomach gurgled.

“Could I get something to eat?” Charlie’s voice soft and wavering.

“I’m hungry too.” Ava whined.

Jason rolled his eyes. “Women.” He grabbed his keys. “Feed on her if you’re hungry.”

“Do I look like I have a death wish? I want to talk to Adam, not be killed by him. Bring something to eat.”

“Fine!” Jason slammed the door.

He returned several hours later, a greasy bag of fast food tucked under his cast and a drunk girl holding his other hand.

Charlie’s nose scrunched at the aroma of burger and fries. Jason pushed the girl towards Ava.

“Eat up, both of you.” he sneered.

“I’m trying to watch my cholesterol.” Charlie piped up.

“Did you ask her if she is clean?” Ava complained.

“If you don’t like what I brought you, then you can STARVE!!” He slammed to the door to the other room.

Ava shrugged her shoulders and dragged the girl into the kitchen. Charlie snacked on the fries while ignoring the greasy cheeseburger. Tears rolled down her face.

“I miss you, Adam. Please find me.” she whispered as she pulled the thin afghan over her body and laid down on the sofa, which she just noticed smelled of beer.

[wynx-hates-pedos]

More like Racist Rape Culture Dating Simulator

I...I decided to look up more about the The Super Patriotic Dating Sim game and I am floored. I’m going numb from this level of BS. Do you know how much of an uproar there would be if a male game dev made a game like this? I am absolutely NOT pro MRA but I can feel a strong double standard going on here. If Karlee Esmailli was a man she would not be getting excused nearly as much. This is why so many black feminists speak out against female racists.

This is why in general we need to take it seriously when females make art like this. I’m going to highlight the parts of the article that are the most blatantly pro radfem arguments. I personally find that the scariest part of this article is how...it seems to be casually using radfem rhetoric. “ Karlee Esmailli here, the founder of Immigrant Father Studios. I'm an Iranian-American person, and I wrote a video game to express all my complex feelings towards America, the middle east, and my clitoris. “ And my clitoris. Please say sike. “ I'm proud to present The Super Patriotic Dating Simulator. “ You’re proud to present this. Red flags are popping up everywhere. “ Besides the whole “super spy” thing, you’re just a normal American girl… who’s really horny. Give these fuckers an American ass-kicking, and maybe learn a bit about your body on the way. Just remember the #1 rule of the CIA: always ask for consent. “ Aww lookit the quirky normal Ameican girl who wants to fetishize rape! Isn’t she so relatable ladies!? “Helpful reminders for white people that I*** is not representative of Islam or all middle eastern people“ Cool but you’re still fetishizing the inevitable sexual abuse of these Islamic characters. Your words are meaningless. “ Primarily, our budget is going towards our beautiful art. Our team of artists made all the art on this page, and they're excited to make even more good art. “ -loves America even though it’s being terrorized by Trump as we speak. Ok then. “ Dating SIMs, as a genre, have strong roots in the expression of sexuality. Female characters in many dating SIMs are built as sexual objects for heterosexual male players. I wanted to contribute a grounded, accurate, female perspective to this genre typically dominated by the male gaze. “ So..you’re trying to fix that..by making a female rapist character. Do you ever think before you write things? “ Elodie, the main character, wonders: Why am I not orgasming from just penetration? How do I orgasm? Am I gay or straight? Does my virginity matter? Why didn't anyone tell me about this? “ Please keep LGBT themes out of this mess. As a lesbian I don’t want these. “ To contrast against this grounded discussion of female sexuality, I wanted to subvert the sexual oppression that characterizes so much of I***'s politics. In reality, I***'s oppression of women exists within a patriarchal framework, which subjugates women's bodies, pleasure, and power to men. I found power and strength in an objectified caricature of members of I***. “ And yet...here you are...making a game where the goal is to give the role of the patriarchal leader to a woman. Alright then. “ The tactics of I*** are intended to terrorize. Subversion and comedy are particularly effective against this kind of politics. I want to rob I*** of the terror they work so hard to instill, through this reversal of the sexual narrative. “ This part especially disturbs me. You can’t...stop male rapists by becoming a female rapist. You just can’t. Fuck you. You just admitted that you would try to turn rape into an empowering thing and that’s horrifying. Go to jail. “ While the game directly addresses I***'s gender politics, it is equally informed by my identity as a middle eastern person in modern-day America. The Super Patriotic Dating Simulator is specifically about I*** because of American perception of the middle east. To many white Americans, I*** is just a group of brown boogeymen in the desert. I*** is universally disavowed by Muslims - they are not a representative depiction of Islam. “ Performative attempts at activism here are performative.

“The Super Patriotic Dating Simulator is a satire about this American perception. It's a satire of the dehumanizing, inaccurate, atrocious politics of American perception of middle eastern people. It's a desperate plea that we recognize how harmful that perception is. “ Can it really be called a satire when you agree with this game’s notions that raping the rapist is a valid lesson to teach to sexual abuse victims? Can it really? “Ultimately, my growth and understanding of my sexuality have been informed by my connection to middle eastern culture, American culture, and the conflicts I've experienced living between these two perspectives. “ Radfeminism.exe. Enough said. Anyways to make a long rant short this game is the epitome of radfeminism. It’s saying “Let’s abuse the abusers cuz that will totally abolish ableism!” No. It never will. Listen, I know this may be a hard pill for every radfem on the internet to swallow but...you're still perpetuating rape culture by saying that reverse sexual abuse is good for rape victims. Sorry not sorry but if you think raping the rapists back is valid you're still a rapist. Please get actual therapy instead of fetishizing your rape trauma and telling every single rape victim that a valid form of recovery is becoming a rapist. All the while also fetishizing wannabe slaveowners. Anyone who follows me that thinks this game is ok to support can hit the block and unfollow buttons. All of you. I hope this game never gets made and if it does that it fails pathetically. Also please put Karlee in jail  I also like how she’s censoring the name Isis but is openly admitting to being a female incel and saying how this game is about validating that. Amazing lack of priorities over here.

[bolbianddolanhouse]

BNHA AU [self insert]

Nani the heck is this? read here!

Chapter 4: Fuck my Drag right?

The events of the sports festival unfolded and everyone is being recognized for their feats. Iida has put his feelings for Ita on the back burner as his brother was disabled by the Hero Killer. The internships happened and everyone is coming back from them. 

-Monday, in homeroom with Mimi and Jin-

“Y'all heard about what happened?”

“YEAH! bitch I’m scared”

“Me too, what’s going to happen next?”

“I’m just glad nobody died and that the students are ok”

“you say that because Glasses was one of the students”

“NO ITS BECAUSE I’M THEIR CLASSMATE! I would feel the same if it was you two”

“Aww Ita!” said Mimi and Jin, coming in for the group hug.

The mood changed when Diya sensei came in. He seemed unusually peppy from his usual neutral or gritty moods. 

“Good morning class, lets settle down for some big announcements” he said with a smile that we didn’t trust. “As you all may have heard about the attack and the students involved, due to those incidents, our department has moved some lessons around to have our students more prepared to be ready to defend the others and each other.”

He takes out the syllabus,”if you can take out your syllabus so you can mark the changes” we comply.

“Ok so instead of just working on our semester final project until the marked due date, we also have to do our week long incognito lesson with practice starting Wednesday. In weaponry we’re going over defense and escape for next week. Our licensing exam is still in 2 weeks and the semester final project has been extended to 1st day of 2nd semester.”

I finish the changes and think, wow even we’re affected by all this.

Jin raises his hand

“Yes Matsui?”

“Are also having extra training sessions in prep for the licensing?”

“yes we are! thank you for reminding me” Diya sensei said “For the next 2 weeks, we will be training for most of homeroom and all of weaponry. For the ones that go to other classes, will still go to them and follow their schedule. If you have a free period, you can work on your projects then if you need school resources.”

Jin then looks at us and I knew he was going to claim us 1st before anyone else does. Bold of him to think I’d go with anyone else.

“Now that we have that done, on to the other news!” he said with another smile that made us feel uneasy, “our jumpsuits and gear came in! I’ll give them out in weaponry to see if they need to be re-adjusted. Secondly, we need to discuss the incognito lesson.”

I sit there thinking that it was going to be something like how to not look obviously like a spy/agent. Nope.

“For incognito week, you have to take up a persona and run with it for a full week. You have until Wednesday to come up with your persona along with clothing, makeup and voice pattern” Diya sensei said as straight faced as possible “Rules to adhere to: MUST be opposite sex, 3 different outfits, cause some chaos and keep your stories straight.”

I raise my hand.

“Yes Palma?”

“So this is just like Ru Paul’s Drag Race but we gotta lip sync for our grade?”

“Actually yea, exactly like that. So bring your best drag everyone! If you don’t have a certain part of an outfit or uniform, ask your classmates if you can borrow their’s for the week”

I suddenly love my class so much. We get to creating our personas and in weaponry we get our costumes. Mine thankfully fit and the gear was so cool that I could hardly keep my eyes off them. We get ear pieces and voice changers that fit right on the molars. I changed mine to make my voice a believable mezzo-tenor male voice. I then remembered I still have to go to my hero class and asked if I need to give them a fair warning before I show up in full boy drag. Diya sensei basically said that he’ll tell Aizawa but I don’t have to tell the class if I don’t want to. The cause some chaos rule is a free get out of jail card for us for that week, we can do anything but physical damage to property.

-Wednesday in Homeroom-

“AHHHH! I’m so excited!” I said to Jin “I can’t wait to show y’all my drag! I got a wig and everything!”

“I got fake hair buns and brought a dress for my extras, I already have some fem features” said Jin “did you bring the makeup?”

“yee yee, can’t wait to make you look sparkly and cute!”

Mimi walks in with their stuff.

“Sorry I’m lowkey late, the upperclassman that I asked to borrow their uniform pants was running late” said Mimi out of breath.

We started class and turned in our persona sheet to sensei and then we got into full drag. Jin was one of the cutest girls, persona name: Deez Natsu. Mimi was an ok looking dude, persona name: Suka Raboski. I looked more like an edgy boy, persona name: Takeshi Tboone.

“wow takeshi, thats a choice���

“Oof Suka I can see your lace”

“Y’aint at my level dawgs!” 

We go through the rest of weaponry and walk out looking like completely different people. I get my things and sensei wishes me luck on fooling them.

-in the hero course classroom, before I arrive-

“Iida-kun, how is your brother doing?” asked Midoriya

“He’s doing better but it looks like he can’t walk”

“oh my, sorry if I brought up a sensitive topic”

“no it’s alright, you deserve to know”

Denki butt in “so Iida, are you going to ask Palma-san to a date today? Or am I going to steal your girl”

“Oh please, if you asked her out again, she’d give you another atomic wedgie but off the flag pole!” chortled Uraraka.

“tch just tell her already four eyes!” said Bakugo “I’m getting sick of hearing about her”

“I don’t think I can! I have too much on my mind already and I can’t manage a relationship on top of it all” said Iida.

“Bold of you to assume she’ll say yes” said Kirishima under his breath.

“Kirishima thats rude!” Mina said in defense.

I then walk in, with my bag slung over my shoulder, fuck boy posture and sunnies on. I had my stories in check, I copied some 2nd year’s elasticity quirk (my brother’s quirk that I can maintain for 5 hours with mastery) right before I went to class. So if anybody is gonna try me, I got me.

“Um excuse me, but who are you?” asked Shoji as I sat down.

“yea and that seat is already taken by Palma-san!” said Momo, ready to fight.

“tuh! That’s no way to treat a transfer, didn’t she tell you?” I said in my best tough guy tone.

“Palma-san didn’t say anything! where is she?! I swear if you hurt her!” said Iida in a demanding tone.

“She’s, not at school at the moment, so you’ll be dealing with me, Takeshi Tboone, American bastard.” I said as slick as I could. It was a true feat not laughing after saying bastard as your title.

“I don’t know why but he’s kinda cute” Hagakure whispered to Asui.

Aizawa sensei walked in and saw my grin and gave me the ‘i know’ look.

“forgot that was today, huh, well be kind to our transfer Tboone.” said Aizawa, also trying not to laugh.

“sensei, where’s Palma-san then?” said Jiro

“Palma-san is at the East-side hero school, on temporary transfer” Aizawa said while looking at the persona sheet I gave them the day before, “If Palma-san likes the other school better, she’ll stay there. And we’ll have Tboone-san for the rest of the remaining years until graduation.”

“why would she want to transfer? This is the top school!” exclaimed Iida.

“I see what she means by aggressive classmates, but I’m tougher!” I said “she doesn’t feel safe here dawg, she feels like everyone is after her and doesn’t like her so you better pray that she’ll crawl back here.” 

Iida started to think that he should’ve never done what he’s done to Ita and convinced himself that it’s his fault that he drove her to transfer. Class goes on and the girls are all over Takeshi, which is bad because I didn’t plan on being an ACTUAL fuck boi. I pack up my things, which are just Jin’s things and Jin has mine, and I hear the delicate tip taps of a ‘girl’ running.

“Takeshi! Here you are my sweet~” said Jin, really playing the part of Deez.

“oh sup bitch come here and give me a little sugar.” I say as I stretch my arm out to grab them by the waist and pulled them into a fake kiss.

“I love it when you kiss me in front of other girls” he said as he gives side eye to the girls of 1-A, “you hear that! HE’S MINE!” as he jumps onto me.

Everyone was in shock, not only was he new but has a girlfriend?! Who the hell was that girl anyways?! Iida gets jealous that it could’ve been him and Ita if he spoke up sooner.

“Hey Tboone-san” said Kirishima with a warm smile.

“oh sup red-san”

“hahaha! The names Kirishima” he said “glad to have you in the class! that other girl was suspicious”

“oh word dawg? bitches be crazy!”

“Yea but you seem like the super manly type! wanna sit with us at lunch?” he said pointing at Bakugo, Sero, Mina and Denki.

“sounds tight! but I did promise my girl that I’d eat with her”

“I made fried rice!” Jin said, almost breaking character because he was really proud of his fried rice.

“Oh alright, maybe tomorrow then!”

“sounds litty, Later Red-san, Pink-san, Mad-san, Pika-san and Office Supply-san” I said while being dragged away by Jin.

“dude what the fuck, this is fucking crazy!” said Jin

“I know! where the hell is Mimi?!”

“That’s where we’re going, she’s swarmed by girls!”

We get to the patio and there they were, surrounded by girls. Mimi looked like they were gonna pass out because of all the pretty ones. I stretch my arms out and picked up Mimi from the circle and ran like hell to the intelligence wing. Jin deployed a portal before the crowd got to us and we portal in a pile inside of the commons room. We laugh a bit about our little tussle then I get a text, it’s Iida,

[Hi Palma-san I didn’t see you today in class and I have to say is that, I’m sorry, really sorry that you don’t feel safe or wanted at this school]

“oof guys look” I say as I show them the text.

“yikes what are you going to tell him?” Mimi said as I get another text, also from Iida,

[I feel responsible for you wanting to transfer. I shouldn’t have forced you to do anything. What can I do fix this? A lot of us prefer you over the transfer.]

“double yikes! a double text!” Jin said with a mouthful of fried rice, then I get another text

[ I know you won’t see these texts until later, but I miss you. Please respond when you can]

Jin and Mimi are looking at me, waiting to see what kind of melodrama I am going to start.

[Iida, I know you feel bad but the truth is, I feel unliked in the hero department. Everyone is pressuring me to be a hero or leave. Can’t I just learn about your culture without being part of it? I miss you too, you’re my only true friend in that class]

“wow Ita, this week is going to be spicy” said Jin.

He was right, everyone liked Takeshi a little more than Ita and hurt a little but the week was almost over. Sunday afternoon and I was getting my outfits ready for the next 3 days and I get a text, it’s Iida,

[Hi Palma-san, sorry if this is so sudden but are you available to spend some time with me? I’m in the area]

Oh jeez what do I say to that?

[Oh sure, where do you want to meet?]

[I can meet you in front of your complex] 

[oh sure! just let me get dressed, let me know when you get here]

I quickly changed into a sun dress, did a low bun and some quick makeup to hide the fact that I partied last night with my class and woke up at 1pm.

[I am here in the front]

[ok, I’ll be right there!]

I teleport to the front and Iida looks at me like I was the most stunning thing on the street.

“Palma-san you look so pretty!” he said as he gave me a tight hug “I’ve missed you dear classmate.” 

“oh! its only been four days.”

“doesn’t matter! point is that I want to spend time with you” Iida said as he released me from his embrace “shall we get going? I saw this cozy cafe that I wanted to check out.”

“Oh I frequent that place! I love it and I think you’d like it too”

As we walk to the place, theres heavy foot traffic. Iida doesn’t have a problem walking through but I was being pushed and falling behind. I reached out to grab his shirt to not lose him in the crowd.

“hm? Oh Palma-san! I’m sorry I didn’t know you were falling behind.”

“Oh I’m alright, I didn’t want to lose you in the crowd.”

“well then, here, take my hand” he said carefully holding mine “so we don’t lose each other”

I didn’t notice but Iida was blushing hard and I was just excited to order some berry tart and a latte. We get to the place and sat at a table where I could face the window and see the people passing by. We talked about Tboone-san and he really didn’t like the guy and I just sat there trying not to laugh. Iida changes the subject,

“So Palma-san, I’ve been thinking” he said as confidently as possible “that we should be honest with each other, now that we’re close”

“um ok, what do you want to know about me?”

“What name do you prefer to be called? What’s your favorite flower? Who do you like at school?-” he kept listing questions but my gaze was over at the window. I saw the boy with the lemon colored hair with his friends pass by and the boy so happened to make eye contact with me and didn’t break it until I was out of sight.

“Ita”

“hm? what was that?” Iida asked confused

“I like to be called Ita, Itati is my full first name but it doesn’t have the ring that Ita has”

“Ita...a cute name for a cute girl” he said and I choked on my latte.

“oh jeez I’m sorry hehe, I’m just not used to compliments like that, they make me uneasy”

“Why?”

“In America, when somebody compliments you like that and the person isn’t close to you, its like a form of bullying” I say as I stare at my latte “so when I got here and I got these compliments, I feared for my life for like two weeks.”

“I had no idea! I’m sorry that I made you feel that” Iida said while chopping his hands “I’ll be more careful”

“oh its alright, I’ll adjust!”

We walk around the area a bit more then he walks me to my complex. He grips my hand a bit tighter as we approach the front.

“hey Ita”

“yeah?”

“Have you decided if you want to transfer to that school?”

“I haven’t actually” I say trying to maintain my stories, “I have until the end of classes Tuesday to say yes or no.”

“Oh I see, it’s just that, I-I” Iida struggled to find his words “I promise to be nicer to you if you come back”

“what-”

“I mean it, I made you cry when we met. What kind of friend am I if I’m the cause of your tears and insecurity?! I’ll be nice, just come back”

I start to tear up, he really thinks its his fault. I let the tears fall, fuck this is dumb. He sees me cry and he panics and stops to wipe my tears. He cradles my face in his hands, if he didn’t make it clear that he wanted to be friends, I would’ve kissed him. 

“Please don’t be sad, I promise to be sweet and kind to you from now on! I want you to feel protected and a cherished part of the school, if everyone is against you, I will be the one to be by your side. Okay?”

I cry even more, I think about how the hell am I going to break it to him that Tboone is just me in full boy drag and I’m not going anywhere. We say goodbye and I teleport in my room. Oof can’t wait for this whole thing to blow over.

-Tuesday, after school in the patio-

I was on my way to usual spot where I’ve been hiding to teleport near my house this week when I see some boys pestering somebody thats leaning against the tree. I get closer and see that it’s Kirishima and Bakugo. uh oh, time to initiate solo operation SAVE THE GAYS.

“yo yo yo! what’s the haps fellas?”

“we found these faggots being gay” said the taller boy of the bunch.

“yeah! we were about to teach them a lesson!” said the gremlin looking one.

“Oh yea? Fellas, allow me to take of this, eye sore.” I say as I put my bag down and stand in front of Kirishima and Bakugo with the other boys on either side of me.

“Tboone-san what the hell? I thought we were cool!” said Kirishima

I give a smirk as I stretch my arms out to the bullies. I give them the ass-whoopin of their life as Kirishima and Bakugo stand and stare how hard I was going. When they had enough, I grabbed them by the collar and said

“If I see any y’all pestering the gays being gays, I won’t hesitate to beat your homophobic asses and chop your dicks off and make you eat them, DO I MAKE MYSELF CLEAR?!”

“YES YEA PLEASE NO MORE!”

“good, I’m giving you to the count of 5 to get out of my sight before I give you another serving” I say clenching my fist as I let go of them. They scatter and run like hell before I could start counting.

“Tboone-san, that was so courageous of you.” said a still shocked Bakugo.

“That was the manliest thing I’ve ever seen! Tboone-san, how can we ever repay you?” said Kirishima.

“oh its cool dawg, I was just being a bro” I said as I was picking up my bag “see you later! your secret is safe with me.”

I walk away to my hidden spot and think, wow what a way to be remembered.

-Wednesday, in the hero course classroom-

“Hey Iida, do you think Palma-san is happy?” asked Tokoyami to a very deflated Iida as he stares at the emtpy desk. 

“I don’t know, I poured my sincerity out to her and she sounded unsure.”

“Are you going to be alright Iida-kun?” Uraraka asked worriedly “you don’t look too well.”

“I’ll manage, don’t worry about me”

Class starts and I don’t show up to class because I needed some extra training for my licensing exam. Everybody else thinks it’s because I stayed at the other school and Tboone didn’t like the school. Aizawa knew the truth but didn’t say anything. Class ends and Iida walks to the patio to sit under a tree and ponder his text to Ita.

[Hi Ita, hope your having a good day at school. I need to tell you something important, I don’t care if you don’t feel the same way back. I like you, more than a friend, I’m sorry I didn’t say it earlier. It kills me that you’re not here, I spent most of class staring at your desk hoping you’d teleport in any moment. I was too coward to admit it but it’s obvious now, I have fallen for you. You’re as rare as a desert flower, as sweet as honey, as strong as a crashing wave, as beautiful as ]

he stops typing and deletes his text. He didn’t see the point of pestering her if she already made her choice. Meanwhile Ita is on campus but preparing for her licensing in 2 days. The rest of the school day passes and Iida walks to the parking lot, and to his surprise, he sees a very weary Ita walking to their car.

“ITA! ITA!”

I turn around “who the hell tryna get they ass run over?” I mutter.

I see Iida running toward me, giving me no time to escape, I brace myself for impact. To my surprise he stops before crashing into me and gives me a tight hug.

“Where have you been?! I thought you decided to stay at the other school and I got sad.”

“Oh no! I was doing extra training for my licensing exam, its in 2 days”

“Oh my apologies, is that why you look a bit roughed up?” he said releasing me from the hug.

“yea hehe I was struggling in detonate and defuse” I said as I showed him my bandaged hands “no copy quirking for me for a while.”

He gently took my hands in his, tracing the insides of them with his thumbs.

“In two days you say? Can I have the class see you off?”

“um sure if its ok with sensei, I don’t want to take away class time from yall”

The two days pass and as we were having our luggage check. The Hero 1-A class came out to see me off.

“Do your best Palma-san! We believe in you!” said a bunch of them.

“why is your class so small?” said Kirishima.

“Intelligence course class are the smallest because of the popularity of the course” said Jin “all of us wanted to be in the program and got admitted in without having to do the entrance exam.”

“Yep, even your dear sensei considered joining” said Aizawa “but I really wanted to stick it to the man with my abilities.”

“OOOH! I love your class pet!” Mina said fawning over Zippy the lizard “I wish we had one!”

“Please Mina, with our class, that poor creature won’t survive a day!” said Midoriya.

Our bus arrived and I turn to say bye and I get a tight hug from Iida.

“Be safe Ita, do your best! I’ll miss you”

“I’m only going to be gone for a day and a half!” 

Everyone in the class was motioning Iida to kiss Ita. The kiss didn’t happen but I said my good byes and boarded the bus. The licensing happened at the USJ were we did target shooting, detonate and defuse, rescue the hero, save the citizens, and would you rather life or death edition (like would you rather but with people and guns). The class passes the exam, including Zippy, it was the 1st time in years the whole class passes according to Diya sensei. There was much to celebrate once we got back but on the way to the school, the bus breaks down. Instead of waiting for the repairs, since we were a mile away from school, we pushed the bus all the way to school. We used our quirks and strength to push the bus and everyone on that road stopped to admire our teamwork. When we got to school, we made so much noise hollering that we passed and pushed a whole bus to school, it drew alot of attention to us and anyone within earshot came out to see.

“ok ok everyone lets settle down” said a very tired Diya sensei “Miss Palma, if you teleport in, you can still make it to your hero class.”

“Oh ok are you sure yall don’t need help bringing in stuff?”

“No we have things handled, go! you have 5 mins before it starts”

“got it! Thank you!” 

-Meanwhile in the Hero 1-A classroom-

“I think Palma-san is back” said Denki walking back in the classroom “a group of students are hollering in the front of the school”

“Wonder what happened?” said Todoroki

“Her entire class passed” said Aizawa as he walked in “including the lizard.”

“That damn reptilian passed?” Bakugo said astounded “tch this licensing exam will be a piece of cake if a lizard can pass it!”

Mina raised her hand.

“We aren’t getting a class pet and train it to be a hero for the last time Mina!” said Aizawa at his wits end with the requests for a class pet. “Just because their sensei let them, doesn’t mean I will. Besides, those kids are on another level of smart, that lizard knows how to drive a small vehicle.”

As everything is happening in the classroom, I am too weak to teleport in the room so I teleport in front of the Hero wing and start booking it. As I run, I start to mentally prepare for all the questions and what stories to tell. I get distracted and I run into somebody and I fall back. Fuck I think, this is so embarrassing.

“sorry! I was in a rush! are you-” I start rush apologizing then I saw their face, it was the lemon haired boy. They we’re standing there, looking at me.

“I should be the one apologizing! You’re the one on the floor” he said extending his hand out to help me up “say, aren’t you that American student? From intelligence?”

“Um yes, how did you know?”

“I’ve heard about you and caught some glimpses of you in passing” he said “I am impressed by your accomplishments, I’d love to see you in action”

“oh uh thank you, sorry to cut this short but I have to get to class” I say as I start running again.

“Bye! I hope to talk to you again!” waved the lemon haired boy.

I start to think, he’s cute, I wouldn’t mind talking to him again but who is he? I get to the door and I walk in out of breath.

“Hi, I’m alive” I say as I do a weak spin into a dab.

“Nice track suit Palma-san” said Momo “was it custom made?”

I look at my track suit, it’s a black and orange with my last name on the butt. “oh it is custom but my sister sent this to me to pester me about my big ass” I say as I show everyone the PALMA on the butt in big lettering.

We start class and they announce their licensing exam is also coming up along with their final exams and training at an undisclosed forest campground. Lucky for me, they don’t apply to me but I still train with them when it’s class-time. I notice that Iida wasn’t talking to me or looking at me like he usually does. I wonder what happened while I was gone. Class ends and I pack my bag and think about that boy in the hallway again, can’t believe I didn’t catch his name.

“Hey Ita” said Iida softly 

“Hi, are you doing alright? You look a bit distracted.”

“I’m fine! um do you want to have lunch with me in the patio? I packed food”

“oh sure let me tell Mimi and Jin” I say as I stick my finger in my ear.

“this is Palma, contacting Oleshin and Matsui, over”

“Oleshin on the line/ Matsui on the line, over”

“Requesting a 508, repeat a 508, over”

“Permission granted/permission seconded, over”

“Thank you, have a good lunch, over”

“Wow you got ear pieces?” said Iida in awe

“Yea, we got them for in field practice but will special permission, the school lets the whole program use them to communicate with each other.”

We walk to the patio and sit under a tree. Iida takes out a fairly big tupperware container and hands it to me.

“Here, I made you a fresh treat, because you deserve it”

“oh thank you, you didn’t have to make me anything!” I said shyly

“I insist! You deserve some rest and treats for all your hard work these last few weeks” He said putting the container on my lap “I also have some fresh flowers, dark chocolates and lemon water. All just for you”

He arranges everything around me to set up a peaceful atmosphere. I open the container and I see perfectly cut cucumber, orange and mango with some lime wedges and salt shaker.

“Oh my god! It’s like I’m back home!” I say exclaimed as my mouth watered “you did your research, didn’t you Iida-san?”

“And what if I did? I just wanted to do something nice for you” he said as he closed his bag “you bring me peace during these scary times.”

“oh I see” I say as I start eating some mango “well, I’m glad that I am”

“hm? why?”

“Because, you could be out there, getting hurt again and blinded with rage and revenge. But you’re here, with me, healing yourself from the toxicity of it all.”

“I didn’t think of it that way, I just feel calmer and happier if you’re around me” 

“I feel like I exist to be that peaceful and calm for the people around me” I said reminiscing the calmer times “back home, I brought order and peace in my household. With my friends, I give love and acceptance. And honestly, I haven’t felt like that since I got here but you helped me remind myself of the one thing that defines me. Thank you Iida-san.”

“Call me Tenya”

“Ok then, Tenya, thank you for making me feel cherished and myself again”

In the distance, the Baku-squad are spying through a 2nd floor window.

“I wonder what they’re saying?” said Sero.

“Who cares?! Four eyes is finally saying his stupid feelings to Palma-san” growled Bakugo.

“They’ve been spending alot of time together lately” pondered Kirishima “Maybe I was wrong about her, she might be just a foreigner that barely made it here.”

“huh? Palma-san was still on your suspicion list?” asked Mina “she’s really nice and cool, would a spy be that willing to be friends with us?”

“I still think I can woo her to a date” muttered Denki as he leaned against the wall. 

The day ends and I get home in a happier state of mind. But the difficulty and heart twisting events are fast approaching, and I have to rise to the occasion to get through them. Not just for me, but for the ones that need me.

-End Chapter 4-

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