#if this interpretation is correct it might be a confirmation of my headcanon that the eyepatch is the only source of comfort for EM

[glitteringcrab]

Evil Morty mannerisms (part 3)

WAIT.

Is this Evil Morty instinctively reaching for his eyepatch before recalling it's not there and camouflaging his action by scratching his head????

[mdzs-fanon-exposed]

Introductory post: Please read! :)

hi everyone! welcome to my very own MDZS-specific iteration of the unparalleled @svsss-fanon-exposed and @tgcf-fanon-exposed. this blog is designed to find the differences between canon and fanon in the Mo Dao Zu Shi/Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation fandom.

this blog is ENGLISH NOVEL CANON ONLY. although i may occasionally cite the drama or the donghua as the potential source for any misconceptions, the canons of these adaptations differ too much from the novel canon for my purposes (plus i haven't finished either one. whoops).

how this whole thing works:

send me an ask! is this thing you thought was canon actually fanon? is that fanon idea supported in the books? where? why? how?

i'll answer the ask with a rating, using SVFE's helpful rating system (explained below), and then go into detail. generally a post will include textual evidence supporting my rating, and possibly an analysis of what this means/where an idea came from.

i'll do my best not to introduce my own personal opinions or biases into the posts. if you have any textual evidence that you think disproves or otherwise contradicts one of my posts, i'm always happy to be corrected! HOWEVER. please do not argue with me or anyone else unnecessarily; this blog is not supposed to be a site for or source of discourse. i will block anyone who is repeatedly coming at me with bad faith. i'm doing this project for fun, and i want to keep it that way for everyone :)

posts will probably be sporadic so i don't burn myself out and lose interest. however, i want to try and answer as many questions as i can! submissions will open and close based on demand so i can stay on top of things.

some important things to keep in mind:

i'm not here to dunk on anyone's headcanons, and i am fully supportive of everyone's creative choices in the fandom!! (in fact i have many headcanons myself.) DO NOT harass anyone for their interpretations of the series. my purpose here is just to clarify whether certain ideas are textually supported, NOT to give an opinion on them.

i'm doing this blog for fun, so i'll be treating it as a casual project. i will only be using the official english translation of the novels, with the supplementary exception of the exiled rebels fanlation. i don't speak any chinese, so i will not be using the untranslated raws or any non-english fandom sources in my posts. although i'll be doing research as needed, i also will not be evaluating any headcanons purely based on chinese cultural norms, due to my unfamiliarity with them. if you are more familiar with any of these sources and have more information to add to a post, please let me know!

another thing to keep in mind: the official translation of the novels is not considered fully accurate to the original chinese. i am not immune to making mistakes, either. please take my posts with a grain of salt.

BECAUSE this is a casual project from someone whose only credentials are being completely obsessed with mo dao zu shi and knowing how to write an essay, anyone is welcome to make a blog that does this but. better. let me know if you start one and i'll point people your way lol.

finally: i will NOT be entertaining any character bashing in or on my blog. again, this is not a personal opinion-based blog, i'm looking at textual support, so honestly i don't think this disclaimer is necessary. but. just in case.

💥💥the rating system:💥💥

CANON: what it says on the tin! this fact is supported by the text. if you're trying to be as canon-compliant as possible, this rating is for you.

RUMOR: this fact is an in-text rumor. although this idea is mentioned in the novel, it's still not explicitly confirmed as canon. the characters themselves don't know if it's true or not!

FANON – SUPPORTED: not directly stated in canon, but it's a very likely interpretation, taking into account factors like cultural norms and occam's razor! this rating might be retroactively added to a post previously rated FANON – NEUTRAL, based on crowdsourced information about the raws or chinese culture.

FANON – NEUTRAL: it's not canon, but it's not NOT canon. the text neither confirms nor denies this interpretation, so it's up to you whether you want to consider it true to canon or not. the world is your oyster.

FANON – UNSUPPORTED: not directly stated in canon, but it's a very unlikely interpretation, taking into account factors like cultural norms and occam's razor. this rating might be retroactively added to a post previously rated FANON – NEUTRAL, based on crowdsourced information about the raws or chinese culture.

FANON – CONFLICTING: this idea directly contradicts something stated in the text. if you want to stay as canon-compliant as possible, this rating is not for you.

[the-travelling-witch]

HOLLY HATES GRANDPAS (zhongli) CONFIRMED/j

I actually really like the thought of Xiao and his relationship being a bit darker I mean didn’t Xiao kill thousands of “people” and creatures for him? I’m not educated on his lore but I know Xiao was some type of warrior to Morax when he was a god? Archon?

Holly I would love to hear your thoughts on it

okay where do i start with this… no seriously where do i start

You said you don’t know much about Xiao, so let’s start there (coming from someone who might know a little too much about him jshsh).

Basically, yes, you are correct that Xiao was fighting for Morax alongside the other Yaksha and Adepti during the Archon War after Morax saved him from his enslavement to an ancient god and gave him the name “Xiao”. Because of his gratitude to Morax, Xiao took on the duty to protect Liyue, something he still does to this day.

Now, what I think is important to mention here is that Xiao is still referred to as a “young adeptus” even in present times, so during the Archon War approximately 2700 years ago, he was much younger still, meaning he was enslaved from a very very young age. (My personal headcanon is that he had golden wings originally and that they have been cut off/ clipped/ ripped out by the ancient god when he was first enslaved.)

But Xiao was not alone in protecting Liyue. He had four fellow guardian yaksha, who were all very dear to him, but who tragically passed after succumbing to what is known as “karmic debt”. Karmic debt is the residual wrath of slain gods, whose hatred and power remain after being defeated due to them being immortal. It causes a physical and mental toll on those who are subjected to it, especially continuously over long periods of time, like the yaksha.

(There were more than these five yaksha, of course, like Pervases, but I’m talking mostly about the five guardian yaksha.)

In the perilous trail quest line we learn more in depth about what happened to the four other yaksha; Indarias succumbed to madness and fear, Bonanus and Menogias killed each other in battle and Bosacius fought in the Chasm during the cataclysm after even forgetting his own name.

Xiao wasn’t unaffected either. Had he not heard Venti play the flute, he would have lost himself to his karmic debt too, which is not unsurprising considering he has been fighting the remnants of gods from the Archon War all this time.

(I feel we are now leaving hoyo’s plane of storytelling and entering my plane of angst, so everything from here on out is interpreted through the messenger that is me… but you guys love my angst right)

And Zhongli isn’t the harmless, senile grandpa who forgets his wallet all the time (which he totally does on purpose) as he makes himself out to be. When Xiao first met him he was the Warrior God, Morax.

Surely, during a war, for someone like him, the first thought on his mind wasn’t how the people around him felt but how he could best utilise the weapons at his disposal to ensure victory.

And Xiao happened to be one of those weapons.

If you look at what Xiao did during and after his enslavement, it’s not much different, is it? He still, as you said, slaughtered and slayed countlessly, just under a different leader.

And sure, the difference here is that Xiao accepted it willingly this time around, yet, as I explained earlier, I think that he was still very much within his formative years (decades? centuries?) back then, where he, for one, learnt that apparently killing is what he was good for. But also, of course, he would perceive Morax as this “good” person who freed him and who he wants to support; and at first glance, there’s nothing wrong with that.

We also see, however, that Xiao holds Zhongli in a higher regard than pretty much anyone else. Even nowadays he still refers to him as Rex Lapis and dares anyone to speak ill about him (or Morax for that matter) though Zhongli has retired both of those names already. Yet Xiao of all people clings to it.

Also what kind of (good) father would let his son literally work away to the brink of insanity?

Yes, I’m aware that Zhongli inquires about how Xiao is doing and that he has medicine made for him (which he doesn’t deliver himself), which is fine and all but also… too little too late huh? It also means that Zhongli is aware of the state Xiao is in and he never bothers to walk his old ass over to Wangshuu Inn and tell the guy to stop? We went over how loyal Xiao is to Zhongli; you’d think he’d listen if he earnestly told him to rest, the old geezer is the reason Xiao does all this protecting in the first place.

And don’t think I forgot about the chasm quest, oh no. I know Zhongli saved Xiao just in the nick of time and we all cried at the cutscene, and I cried so much but also… why does this retired grandpa have to show up so late? He couldn’t have stopped looking at silk flowers two minutes earlier, before Xiao took on the physical and mental toll of sacrificing himself? Sure… if you say so…

(Though probably not his intention, you could read it as another sign of “You are still here because of me” or Xiao could be encouraged in feeling like he once again owes his life to Morax.)

But, what is even more heartbreaking, is how Xiao had been ready to make the ultimate sacrifice this entire time (shown by how he asked Yanfei about what a will is and if anyone could make one). Where do you think that mindset came from?

(Okay, Holly, calm down. Don’t throw hands with the geo grandpa… leave some for Neuvillette.)

And I’m not saying that Zhongli would still make the same decisions today that he made back then or that he is proud of what he has done. Actually, I think he’d feel quite guilty now that peaceful times have been established and he is in the position to take a step back and reevaluate, which is probably where his attempts at healing come from. I’m not saying he is a fundamentally bad person.

(Zhongli: “We did not measure right and wrong during the days of the Archon War in the same manner as we do today.”)

I’m saying that the circumstances of their first meeting lastingly formed the base and nature of their relationship.

I don’t think Zhongli has bad intentions, yet he also doesn’t address their past dynamic either and after what we established, we can assume Xiao wouldn’t either, which is probably why Zhongli reckons it is okay to let the topic rest.

(comment by @watatsumiis: “i feel like xiao literally isnt equipped to bring up these sorts of conversations. he just thinks how hes living is totally normal. like if you were to really twist it, YEAH their relationship could be like a father and son dynamic but in the way that like.. zhongli is a more mature and well rounded person than xiao is and because of his emotional experience he should be the one taking the lead and helping to guide xiao in these situations, even if that means starting the hard conversations.” Thank you for putting into words what my 1am brain couldn’t <3)

When he tells Xiao to go and make and meet friends he probably has very good intentions and there is care there. But we also know making connections is something Xiao is very afraid of, no matter how much he craves having a connection to someone, because he is scared to taint them with his karmic debt.

I also want to reiterate that the god who helped Xiao most with fighting against his karmic debt was Venti, who Zhongli labels as a useless drunk… just saying.

You could say that Zhongli tries to move their relationship from master and weapon to something more familial but his attempts are a little clumsy, probably because their history just runs very deep and old roles are hard to let go of.

To me, Xiao is a character with childlike curiosity but also the resoluteness and stoicism of someone who was forced to grow up too fast. And in a happier ending, someone close and dear to him (me, it’s me) can help him reevaluate his purpose and bring more nuance into a pretty black and white view on things.

However, @/watataumiis and I have been moving into a completely different direction ofc and I won’t spoil what it is here but I’ve been thinking about it a lot since then (and naturally I immediately started self shipping shenanigans bc I can’t not insert myself when Xiao is involved :])

And with that I conclude my crazed ramblings <3

(Again, not saying Zhongli is a bad person or anything, and this also not necessarily the basis on which I write him in x reader fics; you know me, I just like exploring avenues like this. Also I feel like I’m forgetting half of what I wanted to say, but that’s kinda typical; just know that I feel like there are more angsty thoughts under the smooth surface of my late night brain.

And while it’s not my cup of tea, I’m not trying to put down anyone who does see them as a functional father/son dynamic; there is nothing wrong with wanting that fluffy found family comfort ^^)

[inkdemonapologist]

*slides with a rare pair*

I think the fandom is generally not as big in rarepairs but I ended up shipping Joey with Nathan even after TIOL, I honestly believed they could have a good chemistry together. Either as a fluffy ship for joey to have a good pull on him from acting impulsively (since nathan is confirmed good) or as a legit evil business partners thing. The way Nathan was characterized in TIOL gives the impression he didn't know everything about joey but still was somehow very fond of him.

((randomly throwing that out there just because I think about it so much))

Sorry if its random ^^"

Golly gosh hang on OP I just need a minute to contemplate the idea of Joey x Nathan as a rarepair. LIKE… a majority of people I know in fandom agree that they had SOMETHING going on, so it feels like it shouldn’t be one, aND YET… I HAVE NEVER SEEN CONTENT FOR IT….. apparently i need to draw Nathan smooching Joey to fill this void……

Anyway, I DEFINITELY AGREE that the idea that Nathan had Feelings for Joey is really not hard to make a case for. You just point to that one TIOL footnote where Joey is like “Nathan likes creative people, he secretly wishes he were like us” and Nathan’s like “no I don’t, I just Like Joey So Much that I enjoy his creativity, isn’t it just like him to miss the compliment” and then congratulations you’ve made an utterly convincing case even BEFORE you get to the part where Nathan suddenly starts up an entire animation studio to keep his old friend’s dream alive, or that Nathan was someone who was close enough to Joey to “get the call” upon Joey’s death, or any number of examples of Nathan’s tremendously fond teasing in the other footnotes of TIOL. The little teasey note when Joey says "I always make fun of you!" and describes Nathan's face as "looks annoyed but isn't really" and Nate's like "yeah that's accurate". Nathan’s love for Joey is blatant and obvious, enough so that I was quietly shipping them even when I was part of the chunk of fandom that expected Nathan to be sinister; it’s just up to interpretation whether it was romantic, and whether it was requited.

Admittedly I do chafe a bit at the binary morality of “confirmed good” – most of what we can surmise from BatDR is that Nathan was Genuine. He genuinely worked hard, he genuinely loved his son, and he genuinely believed in Joey. He’s also, like, a mega rich guy who is obliviously putting a lot of that money to work in covering up his famous friend’s abuse and exploitation and Actual Murder of employees, so. No matter how well-intentioned he might be, if you're as rich and famous as Nathan Arch you don't get to just Not Realise Employees Can Be Exploited without being a little bit complicit for not looking harder. I don’t think it has to be an either/or of Good vs Evil – Nathan just strikes me as a well-intentioned and genuine guy who also has some serious blindspots, who maybe would just keep making excuses for his good friend as he learned more and more of the truth. And its INTERESTING when you consider him re-publishing TIOL in hopes of showing what he believed Joey was really like -- the charming man he liked so much. How did Nathan read TIOL and come to that conclusion? Joey's insecurity bleeds off every page, and Nathan admits in the footnotes that Joey makes things up, doesn't like to be corrected, might be lying in some of his stories, and has a habit of talking his way into what he wants even when he shouldn't. Either Nathan was SO smitten that he was completely blind to Joey's.... joeyness, or these were qualities that endeared Joey to him. He liked Joey being a bit of a scamp!

I’ve said before that my most deeply held unprovable BatDR headcanon is that Nathan was having an affair with Joey, and Wilson found out about it but Tessa never did, but I think that’s mostly fun for the characterisation it gives Wilson. When it comes to Nathan and Joey themselves, I absolutely headcanon Nathan’s affection as romantic, but I think I was more intrigued by their relationship back when it seemed like Nathan was going to be sinister! Like, if Nathan really had screwed Joey over in order to gain control of the Ink Machine like in some of those early theories, it would be delightful if all his footnotes were actually still true. If it's not just a performative “OH YES MY POOR DEAR DEAD FRIEND JOEY cool grab his stuff” motivation, but that the fondness is real, it just didn’t stop him – "you understand, old friend, business is business!" Obviously the story didn't turn out that way, but I think the possibility really grabbed me, haha.

It is kinda funny, though, that the way Nathan’s characterisation has turned out, you wonder what made Joey interested in him. Was it just the positive attention? Was it just his money? Nathan seems like such an easy mark (see: his reaction to the Lottie letters), and Joey isn’t very complimentary to him in TIOL, but he’s also reasonably fond, and brings Nathan up a few times as someone he counted on for advice that he actually took. Joey felt Nathan didn’t really understand him, but he seemed to value his friendship. This largely guileless, earnest guy who’s characterised as hard working……… who else do we know….. who might fit that description…………………… Joey Drew Stop Getting Involved With Married Men Challenge,

[frecklystars]

As Barbie's girlfriend, can you settle the discourse on whether she's bisexual or aromantic or lesbian? I've seen so many takes.

"As Barbie's girlfriend" oh baby that means EVERYTHING TO ME. I am so honored, I'M Barbie's girlfriend?? 😳💘💘💘 the absolute love of my life... she's Barbie she's EVERYTHING and she's also My Girlfriend. So sorry to Ken Carson, but I am WINNING here.

Is there really discourse?? 😭 There shouldn't be! She's Barbie and it's just a movie. I am not the Official Person to ask for any "hey I think THIS is canon" but here's my personal headcanon just for fun:

My answer changes depending on the day and how I'm feeling. As someone who is a sapphic bisexual (possibly a lesbian if I really take the time to think about it but HAHA I won't spiral over THAT today, don't need an existential crisis right now, NO TIME FOR THAT), I might also be on the aromantic spectrum (or I might not be. it could just be the 'tism.), but I know for a fact I am asexual. SO, as a... my god what would you call me, an aroace WLW? I see Barbie as any of these things.

She -- and every single doll in BarbieLand -- is canonically asexual (expressed by Margot Robbie in multiple interviews). Now, she says it's "because they don't have reproductive organs", and we know this changes for Barbie at the end of the film. So, is she magically no longer asexual because of that logic? Who knows. You can be asexual but that's quite a spectrum. I am asexual but sex neutral, meaning I have zero sexual attraction but I am willing to sleep with my romantic partner if they desire it, and if I'm in the right headspace to do the work (since it's literally just All Work for me and not Feeling), and hey, maybe Barbie is asexual but sex neutral. Or sex repulsed. Or sex positive. Who knows!! When it comes to fiction, I feel 100% safe and comfortable exploring sexual feelings for my F/Os @beach-him-off-until-he-kens with art, fics, daydreaming, etc. Asexuality is a spectrum. Maybe Barbie is demisexual! Maybe she's ace! Or maybe when she's human, she isn't anymore. Who knows!!!

I can see Barbie as a lesbian because she had a male-identifying (I'm sorry if that's the incorrect phrase; feel free to correct me on that) doll quite literally CREATED to BE her love interest, that she had zero interest for (in the 2023 movie ofc, other iterations however are entirely a different story) but she was soooo loving with her girls, her Barbies. She could just be best friends with Barbies without any romantic attraction whatsoever, of course, but I remember a Margot/Ryan interview where Margot said "if Barbie were on a dating app, she'd have to be VERY CLEAR that her partner NEEDS to be okay with the fact that she needs her girls!! She loves her girls and NEEDS her girls nights" and yeah you could interpret that as "she's just best friends with girls" but as a queer person, I read it as queer. The lesbian-colored shirt Gloria was wearing, too... oh, honey, that cannot be a coincidence, there's no way they didn't know those were the lesbian pride colors. This movie was made with a few openly queer people (i.e. Ncuti Gatwa, Scott Evans, Hari Nef), for queer people, and possibly even by a few queer people. I would not rule out the possibility of Barbie being a lesbian.

I remember another Margot/Ryan interview where someone asked "people believe Barbie and Ken are queer, do you think that's true, can you confirm that" and of course they cannot just outright be Renee Rapp and say "YEAH MY CHARACTER IS 100% A LESBIAN" because these people have had media training SLDFJSDLFSDF. But I remember Margot and Greta have both said that BarbieLand is inclusive for queer people and they want EVERYONE to feel welcome there, that any dolls being queer there wouldn't be seen as "abnormal" like it is in our world, because BarbieLand is just... dolls. They don't face homophobia or transphobia or racism the way that we do in the real world, they don't even have a concept of that, they are quite literally not built for it. Somebody else can absolutely phrase this so much better than I can, but I hope what I'm saying makes even just a little bit of sense.

So anyway to answer your question, I personally see Barbie as a lesbian asexual, possibly somewhere on the aro spectrum, like a demiromantic ace lesbian, but I am open to her being literally anything at all. My answer changes every so often! Some days, I see her as a biromantic asexual, because who says she'd only be attracted to women just because she wasn't attracted to Ken? She could be attracted to any gender, and Ken just might not be her cup of tea, y'know? Some days I see her as aromantic asexual. Some days I just say she's WLW/queer and it doesn't have to be deeper than that. After all, she's Barbie, she's Everything, and Barbie Can Be Anything™.

[electric-friend]

Hello everyone! I was doing my morning scroll through my dash and a post showed up talking about how it was kinda funny that people headcanon Stede as a little chubby when Rhys Darby is purportedly quite slender.

I have zero issues with this whatsoever, OP and their friends weren’t doing anything wrong and certainly weren’t trying to invalidate anyone’s headcanons, but I did find it oddly upsetting.

Obviously, I think we can all agree that it doesn’t matter what Rhys Darby’s body looks like and it doesn’t matter how you headcanon Stede, lean or soft or jacked or whatever the fuck you wanna do! So please, as I make this post, nobody think that I’m intending to call anyone out or say that there’s a right answer about Rhys Darby and Stede’s body. Because I’m not, and there isn’t.

But the thing about actors is that they’re human, and their bodies change.

So while Rhys Darby can look like this:

He can also look like this:

And of course, though our beloved Stede is entirely up to interpretation, as much as he’s always clothed, there’s certainly nothing to suggest he isn’t soft under there!

This is no great moral conquest for me, I don’t think it matters one way or the other how you headcanon your Stede Bonnet Belly, it was just a minor personal irk is all. Why so eager to allow one’s confirmation bias to choose Rhys at his most lean to represent what his characters might look like under their clothes?

I prefer my Stede squishy, and it’s fine if we don’t agree, but no opinion is any less valid, any less correct or real, because of an image of a body that is changing all the time.

[utilitycaster]

I find it interesting that people see Ashton and Laudna and are like "They must be in pain all the time and are suffering" because Ashton and Laudna have the physical scars of their suffering. They are sympathetic to them. But they do not afford the same sympathy to Imogen, who is also suffering. It's not visible with her, so therefore, even though she has to actively repress other peoples thoughts and doesn't really get much sleep, she be fine Fine and therefore is OK. When she is very much Not Fine and Not Ok, just practiced at having to deal with it every damn day (at least, that's how I have interpreted Laura's RP. Please correct me if I am wrong).

I think you are correct about Laura's RP - it's quite obvious that Imogen struggles a lot with her powers. While I haven't seen it as much lately, there was also a lot of focus early on about Ashton, with a lot of headcanons regarding disability that I haven't seen as much lately - possibly because there's been nothing confirmed in canon - and it's true that the character design probably contributed to that.

Here's the thing though: early on? People loved focusing on poor Imogen and her headaches and how tiring it is for her to be around people and oh won't Laudna kiss it better...until Imogen got mad at Laudna. (And, to a lesser extent, when Imogen got mad at FCG, because that set off an alarm that Imogen was going to be played as a person with feelings and thoughts who might deviate from the set plan they had in their head for her).

I think a lot of people have decided who their favorite character is, and they pick that for all kinds of reasons. The problem is many of those people then say "my favorite character is correct, all the time, and here's the character who should be their romantic partner, and whether or not I have any scrap of sympathy for other characters is entirely conditional on whether they are worshiping the ground on which my favorite character walks and only serving my favorite character's story." Design doesn't enter into it. Backstory gets thrown out the window. In the end, that is their only motivator.

I realize how incredibly cynical this sounds but I have, on some level, done the math. I've spent all day saying "ok, so you're saying a warlock who has undergone severe trauma may have made made a pact under circumstances in which they could not freely give consent, and they have complicated feelings about this, and you are citing that as your reasoning for why they are the most sympathetic person here. Cool. So where's your meta about how hard things were for Fjord?" And notably, no one has taken me up on it, because they don't have it, because the facts don't matter. And it's not limited to that; I've been using Fjord as an example both because he often got a very raw deal from the fandom and because of the very obvious warlock parallels, but like, people were mad that time was spent on Keyleth's Aramente (because they didn't like Keyleth), or that the Mighty Nein didn't drop everything to take Caleb to Duasad Keef (a person only revealed at the time in the Explorer's Guide to Wildemount).

If it the reason were that Imogen doesn't have physical markers of her pain (which...in and of itself is not a great way to be given the sheer number of not-readily-apparent mental and chronic illnesses that do not have clear visible indicators), then you'd think the response to Imogen, you know, literally waking up gasping and crying from nightmares would serve the same purpose as a physical scar, and that would be taken into account. But it's not. Because it's not about who's experienced pain or trauma, visible or no. It's barely connected to what's happening onscreen after the first few episodes when they imprint on this character like a baby chick who sends dumb anon messages. It's "she is disagreeing with Laudna and pulling focus from Laudna and therefore she is bad."

Here is the thing in the end: the post I made that kicked this all off ended with a follows: "these [Imogen and Laudna] are two fully realized people with feelings and priorities of their own." And people found that inherently invalidating, because they are threatened by the idea that Imogen is a fully realized character with feelings and priorities of her own, because then she can be a fully realized character with priorities separate from Laudna's. She can be a character with feelings that are not positive towards Laudna. She can be a character who gets angry at Laudna. And they hate that, and it's that simple.

[getosboobies]

reasons i think matchablossom is or has been canon!

once again, i have become overly obsessive and have throughly analysed each and every kaoru & kojiro scene that we currently have. i indulged and created my own list of “ are they besties or are they banging or both “ but i have decided to share it all with you :))

( keep in mind, i’m a reacher and these are just my interpretations. i will go to any extent to prove myself correct - no matter how unlikely )

so first of all, we have the fact cherry is the only one we have yet to see at joe’s restaurant after hours. this immediately shows that they are extremely comfortable with each other and spend a lot of time together even when they’re not skating. it also potentially suggests cherry is waiting for joe to go home, maybe a habit they’ve developed over time. before these scenes, the producers always show an image of the restaurants front door which states closed. by showing this frame, it obviously gives the impression it’s important for us to know that it is closed and therefore showings us that joe and cherry’s relationship is more than just some rivalry banta and that they have an established friendship built on trust and time. the creators could have just not shown that it was closed and had us assume that’s they were just good friends who spent time together but they went a whole step further and showed us these two men’s personal lives are somewhat intertwined with one another, showing us that they don’t have large boundaries for each other which would be considered strange in contrast to the “ arguing “ we had previously seen between them. if this isn’t enough for you, in these scenes we also see joes uniform unbuttoned so i take this as even more evidence of how comfortable they are around each other. also ! restaurants tend to close quite late ( avg. 8pm-12pm ) and on all the shots of the closed door, it has been dark outside. why wouldn’t cherry be home at this time settling down or something??? or maybe cherry has a lot of love for joe if he’s willing to wait that long for him to finish work... just sayin’. more on this, i analysed the restaurants design and noticed that the plug in the wall is really low down to the ground. maybe this is just one of joes odd design techniques or maybe it was specifically placed for cherry to charge carla, the concept of which, makes me very happy

keeping on the point of joe’s restaurant, whenever we have seen cherry inside he always sits right in front of the kitchen, this is pretty normal unless you think about 1) how much time he spends there 2) how busy restaurants get 3) he came there while he was with a colleague. we’ve already seen that cherry doesn’t mind coming after hours so why did he come during the day if he knew joe would be busy? this is similar to the fact he came in with his colleague in episode 2 - he obviously wasn’t expecting to be able to talk with joe while he was out for a work meal, so why on earth would he sit right in front of where joe would be, which is situated in a considerably inconvenient table for work meal? what i’ve interpreted from this is that cherry’s must enjoy being in joes presence. cherry canonically having anxiety would explain why he likes being close to someone who he knows well, and that cares for him. being able to see and hear joe so close is perhaps very relaxing for cherry.

now when i watched sk8 for the first time, i gather the impression that joe was a forgive and forget kinda guy when it came to someone who did him wrong. when we’re introduced to adam it’s evident there is some hostility within joe but this does not nearly compare to the anger cherry showed. when suggesting a beef their intentions seem to be completely different. cherry outrightly admitting to his grudge and anger for adam whereas joe seems to just want to prove a point to adam by winning against him ( i mean look at the image above, their facial expressions show it all ). but i noticed that as cherry would speak about adam, joe’s intentions slowly shifted and became far more serious and full of anger. “ there’s someone i’d like to punch “ is a sentence said by joe in episode 8. this is quite different to what we had seen in earlier episodes of him just wanting to make a point. i think this shift was predominantly when joe found cherry at the ocean view. joe knew how cherry was feeling towards adam BEFORE this scene because he knew where to find him, but the realisation that cherry was standing there, alone, and reliving some of his saddest memories probably hit joe that cherry couldn’t do this alone. therefore stepped up his game and met cherry’s loathing so they could do it together. as far as things go, this is one of the most important things they have done for each other because it shows clearly how devoted they are to each other.

this is one of the most confusing lines in this show thus far. i’m sure it’ll make sense in the oncoming episodes but i have come to two conclusions. so either adam has created this false reality of what happened and has told himself his evil ways stemmed from joe and cherry or, the more likely in my opinion, adam always felt like he was in need of a partner, a rival but also someone to love. this is displayed in the show in his predatory ways, aka, he wants his own ‘eve’. now there’s no ruling whatsoever that a skater needs any sort of dedicated rival, or skate partner, so i believe adam probably got this want from his peers, for example, joe and cherry. adam seems to believe you need to love your ‘eve’ and it gives me the idea that maybe he saw joe and cherry -in love- and decided that was what he wanted, but then as we know he went about it in an extremely toxic way. the “was it so“ was really hard to interpret, he’s clearly quite smug by the way he shrugs and smiles and shows that he’s very confident about what he’s saying but the question is short and leaves a lot unknown, which suggests why cherry and joe don’t respond. either they are as confused as i am, or they have a slight idea what adam could be suggesting and they feel guilty. we all know cherry and joe aren’t bad hearted people but as adam is insinuating ‘no, you guys parted ways from me first’ it could suggest that joe and cherry had perhaps become closer in high school and had developed a stronger bond than they had with adam and this left adam feeling lost and alone. this is more of a canon compliant headcanon that would make sense rather than a fact but it’s certainly something to think about.

one of the most obvious factors in their relationship is how they always know what the other is thinking or planning. we’ve seen in recent episodes that when cherry was racing, joe knew exactly what his motive was even without discussing it, thats enough information to show how well they truly know each other and how connected they really are. it’s also shown with cherry. when joe is racing, and is going extremely fast towards the corner, we see a frame of miya and shadow being worried for him, but then it shifts to cherry watching and there’s not a spec of worry on his face because he KNOWS what joe is planning and knows he will be fine. they know each other’s techniques better than anyone and it shows they don’t doubt each other’s choices one bit.

we learn right from the beginning that cherry and joe like to argue and fight, at first we think this is because they dislike each other but we learn that they are best friends. so when watching back you notice that none of the insults are ever actually insulting. let’s think about it, the most common insults they use are gorilla, dimwit and four-eyes. now to me, none of these actually seem insulting whatsoever and even if they do like to argue a lot it’s obvious they never ever mean any harm to one another.

from analysing the scenes one of the things i’ve noticed the most is how cherry and joe turn up and leave together. when the cops came during the langa x adam skate they both started to run off together leaving everyone else behind. as we know, they spend a lot of their personal lives together but leaving and turning up together every single time we’ve see them there seems like they’re a bit more attached than i originally thought. there’s a chance they meet before hand but why always that late at night? why aren’t they ever at home alone? unless...they live together. i mean it’s a perfectly valid suspicion right now as we’ve never seen either of their homes and we’ve never seen either of them turn up anywhere alone but either way it confirms they spend an awful lot of time together in general life. going back to my original point of them not only turning up and leaving together but they also never leave each other’s sides. there’s a heap of frames that you can see them standing together watching a beef or even just them talking. they’re literally attached at the hip and nothing makes me happier.

the creators of the show have made countless points to show that joe and cherry have a lot of history. from the school references to the fact they have TRAVELLED THE WORLD TOGETHER. they could have just shown one or two so we know that as a general fact they’ve known each other a long time but they bring it up an awful lot for it to be just a general fact. this being shown so much let’s us know that this is important information and that they’ve obviously wanting to lay down a foundation to bring something crucial up. so far they have mentioned their social studies trip, a school excursion, joes love for haunted houses, holiday to La and the Paris bar they went to. now you might be thinking, oh they were in the same school they probably just went on a trip together nothing confirms they were close, well i am here to prove that statement false. joe said he found cherry’s wallet, this not only shows that joe was close to cherry when he lost it but also that he knew where to find it, showing how well he knew cherry. another point is that legal age to drink in Paris is 18 so unless they had fake ID it’s safe to say this is a trip they’ve done since becoming adults and leaving school. it’s also canon that have gone together, so the fact they’ve been travelling as adults together is quite interesting. same with the restaurant in LA, sounds kinda like a date.

over the course of the episodes we’ve seen so far there has been a few comments they have made to each other that suggest a little bit of jealousy. for cherry, these comments are made in episode 6 in the hot spring. cherry brings up joes love for haunted houses and then joe agrees and says it’s because “chicks get scared and grab onto me” * with a smirk *. now what’s interesting about this is cherry’s response. “you really are a scumbag” this insult feels a lot more insulting than usual and the response itself surprised me. at this moment cherry looks away from joe which is an action people tend to do when they’re hurt or pissed off. either works in this scenario but neither make much sense as we know cherry’s already aware of joes status with girls. so why was he mad? well this was obviously a fond memory of cherry’s and joe replying with a statement about girls probably made him a bit angry because that was supposed to be their memory. but joes smirk with the comment makes me rethink, did he state that on purpose to make cherry jealous? obviously we can’t be sure but the entire encounter left me a bit confused. now onto joes jealousy, in episode 2 dub joe says “dude, you’re talking to a machine?” now in context this seems like joe is partially bewildered by the fact cherry is casually talking to his AI skateboard but he also seems slightly jealous that cherry is talking to carla instead of talking to him. this is one of the only scenes where joes facial expressions actually seem insulted rather than just having a bit of fun. he follows this up with “figured you’d give your board a girls name seeing as you can’t get a real one!” why can’t he get a real one? we hear tonnes of girls screaming compliments at cherry when he turns up so he definitely could get a girlfriend if he wanted, and joe no doubt knows this too, so why would he use it as an insult? i’m not sure what to make of this but it’s got to be a factor somewhere.

more on the haunted mansion chit chat, the line about chicks grabbing onto joe is quite funny when you look at the entire scene, because as soon as they get jumped they grabbed onto each other in fear. seems a little ironic if i do say so myself.

they both seem very secluded about their personal lives. cherry more specifically does not like the use of his skate name in his personal life or vice versa. joe is the only one we have seen to be aware or use cherry’s real name. the way joe slips up and calls cherry ‘kaoru’ at “S” shows how close they are and how much time they spend together to be able to accidentally mix up the two parts of their lives. this is just an extra point on how conjoined their lives must really be. in the photo above we see how cherry easily calms joe down when he starts to get annoyed. joe is the only one who knows fully about cherry’s life as emotions and cherry is the same for joe.

now one of the most heart wrenching matcha blossom scenes is when joe finds cherry at the ocean view. i have a lot to say about this so let’s start at the beginning. first of all, joe noticed cherry was missing. it’s not like cherry was there for a massive amount of time, so joe noticing that cherry was gone for even as much as an hour or two really says a lot about the placement they have in each other’s lives. there was really no reason for joe to worry about where cherry was considering they’re grown adults but he continued to go out and find him anyways. this is also set in the late afternoon judging by the sky, whereas the previous scene had been set at night at “s”, so this is suggesting the ocean view scene is on a completely different normal day for them (another factor showing how much time they spend together). next, the fact joe knew exactly where to find cherry. this truly shows how much they know and how connected they are to each other but also how well they understand the others coping mechanisms. cherry was dwelling on memories from 7 years ago and yet joe still knew exactly what he was doing and what he was thinking about. plus cherry didn’t even seem surprised when joe turns up. but one thing i noticed is that in this scene is the way they (in this case, didn’t) hold eye contact. while cherry is faced away, joe is staring at him but as soon as cherry meets joes eyes, joe turns away. either joe didn’t want to be caught staring or joe realised something crucial in that moment. i’ll let your mind decide what that is.

obviously, miyas comment about joe and cherry being his parents is a light hearted joke just to ruin joes chances of flirting with girls but it also implies that the group can tell that joe and cherry are respectively closer than anyone originally thought and they perhaps have caught on that the tension between them is a little bit too gay to be just a bit of banta. obviously in this scene we then see joe looking at cherry’s legs while a blush clearly intensifies on his face. yeah no, this is self explanatory.

one of the things i like about joe and cherry’s relationship is the fact that within that joe also has a somewhat dynamic with carla. although carla is non-living, there has been several interactions between them. for example the beginning of episode 6 on the boat joe recognises carlas voice immediately. i mean straight off i think it’s suspicious as hell that they all happened to be going there at the same time but the fact joe realised cherry must be there because of the sound of an AI skateboard? that’s impressive. also, at the beginning of the series carla is aware of who joe is when calling joe an imbecile, this shows that cherry has obviously had this modified to specifically refer to joe as joe rather than just refer to him as a general person.

there was a popular tiktok i saw the other day (if anyone has the username of the person please tell me so i can credit them!!) and it showed the two images above. in these photos it shows joes skateboard and his odd looking wheels. the creator of this video further analysed that these reflect the general outlook of a cherry blossom flower. though the actual wheels in real life don’t look as similar to a flower as they do in the show. but now if this is what they’re meant to look like, this is a really sentimental fact and shows how highly joe thinks of cherry in his skating career. but what about his personal life? well that’s where my analysing comes in. i noticed in the dessert joe makes in episode 5 he had a range of fruits displayed on the top as well as a single flower. this flower looks identical to a cherry blossom. once again the reflection of cherry within joes life makes an appearance. we’ve seen that flowers actually mean something in this show (toxic example but adam’s red roses for langa) so it would make sense for this to actually mean something about their relationship. i studied a range of Japanese desserts and, although every chef works differently, most of the dishes tend to only have a display of fruits and no flowers. so i have come to the conclusion that this dish certainly had some symbolism to cherry in joes life, some way or another.

so overall, their dynamic already shows that they have a very thin and mistakable line between very close best friends and potential lovers. although some of this was based off personal interpretation the majority is cinematic displays and general facts. so take this and use it however you like. let me know your opinions and other factors you have! for all i know i could be completely disproven with the next few episodes but surely if this many people see a bit more than just a friendship there’s got to be a reason for it.

if we can have one lgbt+ character... why not two more?

[minsarasarahair]

I have a headcanon about WHY Jiang Cheng lead the Siege and why he’s so into hunting demonic cultivators. You can consider it as my own theory or just my thoughts. We all know that what happened to burial siege against WWX and JC hunting demonic cultivators are very vague in the novel. Most of it are just rumors and told in third person perspective so we can only assume and have different interpretations about it. Yes, the author will give you hints and context about what she want to say to her readers but it can always be interpreted in many ways whether she like it or not. There are no one correct answer, especially if we’re dealing with something artistic like a novel. 

Toxic Wangxian fans and antis might believe the reason why JC did those things is simply JC hated WWX and want him to suffer. It’s simple and obvious but that contradicts some of his actions. Best example of that is when JC returned WWX’s flute in the end of the novel. WWX’s flute is like a trophy for his achievements and yet this person that they claimed hate WWX returned the flute as if he never acknowledge the siege as his achievement. Because of that, I will never be convinced that JC only hated WWX. His feelings is more complicated than that. 

My headcanon will be centered in this line by JC after WWX no longer control his demonic cultivation.

My conclusion for why he did those things is actually quite simple. I think for JC, it don’t matter if he caught a good or bad demonic cultivators. What matters to him is these demonic cultivators can lose control of their power. Even if it’s just 1% that they might lose their control. As long as they are demonic cultivators or suspicious, he need to catch them. Of course, JC is not doing these to protect people. He’s doing these as his responsibility. Maybe he want to be a responsible sect leader since what happened to WWX is his responsibility or maybe he just see it as his job and nothing else. I perceived JC as someone who has a high sense of responsibility after all. His job is basically like a police man. Sometimes you arrest the right people and sometimes you got the wrong one. Take note that JL only confirmed that JC never let them go when he caught one but never confirmed that JC torture them or didn’t specifically say what he do with them. We can also assume he just want to monitor them just to make sure the suspicious demonic cultivators are not a threat. If he really torture them why the other sect didn’t do anything about it? I don’t even think Yunmeng Jiang Sect is the strongest sect. He’s also pretty much open about it and never hide that he arrest people. 

But why he need to do it in harsh way? Let’s all remember how LWJ try to convince WWX to come to Gusu with him. Did it work? No, right? That’s why after LWJ found WWX as MXY, he claimed that WWX will come with him in Gusu without asking WWX if he ever want to or not because he knows WWX will run away. That’s exactly what JC is doing, he need to use force. People probably saw him being harsh without seeing the whole picture. That’s why arresting became torture for others. 

As for the siege, it’s not about JC killing WWX but more like JC trying to defeat a demonic cultivator who lose control. Maybe there’s also political pressure that happened consider he’s an inexperienced young sect leader during that time. We can’t really say much but only assume. This is the only conclusion that actually make sense for me. When he hit WWX as MXY with Zidian, there’s a possibility that he assume it’s WWX’s bad spirit and want to get rid of it because as we all know WWX’s death is not normal. It’s similar to Nie Mingjue’s. If they didn’t handle the bad spirit, it might become a threat so him trying to catch WWX is more like him wanting to monitor WWX.

Later on, we witnessed JC returning WWX’s flute which is considered as WWX’s weapon because he use it to control corpses. He’s basically giving the demonic cultivator a weapon to make troubles. I think at this point, WWX passed JC’s evaluation and JC noticed that LWJ is always there by WWX’s side. He probably thought if WWX lose control again, he has LWJ or he thinks WWX is doing fine now mentally so he probably thinks it’s ok to return the flute to its owner. Of course, I feel like there’s regret because of how their relationship fell apart and his bad judgement that push him to lead the siege.

PS I wish Mo Dao Zu Shi adaptations explore his character more. Like why he did what he did? That’s probably why lots of people praise Word of Honor drama despite the imperfections. Because in that drama, they explore deeply Gao Chong and Scorpion King’s character. They are supporting morally grey characters but WOH show how much important they are for the story. 

[yostresswritinggirl]

hello, i love your writin'!! seriously, it's so cool to read and im just ajdhsish and this is the first thing- second thing, would you be comfortable with writin' albedo x gn reader (headcanons are cool yknow!) who dislikes goin' outside alone? like, they worry that somethin' bad will happen to them or are a bit scared of doin' things that might go wrong around people, so they prefer goin' outside with someone? (they also want to get rid of their fears but have no ideas how) i will understand if you don't want to so dw!! 👉👈

First thing, thank you so much for requesting! This took a while, I'm so sorryy! This was supposed to come out yesterday but I got sick and barely had the brainpower to even stand :(( feels better now tho so yey? And yess ahhh thank you for your kind words, you guys have been wonderful too, give yourself some credit too!

This is the last Albedo request in the inbox and woohoo, we ended this streak in one of the hard prompts I've come by so far ahaha

I'm not sure if I interpreted anon right but this shall be a fic as originally requested? I'm apologizing in advance because I don't think I've captured this scenario well enough hehe,,, but I hope you still enjoy this!

Keep Me Intertwined

Albedo with a gn!reader that's scared of going out alone (Mild Social Phobia?)

Albedo is a genuis, everybody knows that, even beyond the walls of Mondstadt. Praised and sought out by scholars to ask for his wisdom and a majority of the time they receive their desired enlightenment.

Indeed, the Kreideprinz is a genuis even if he says otherwise, but he's a genuis in the art of Kemia. And only that. Truth be told there are a lot of things he lacks when it comes to knowledge, as his focus is only in the science he wants to explore. Beyond that, he comes close to a child's understanding of the world.

When he bumped into you when he was strolling through the stalls during a market fair of travelling merchants, he'd thought it would be something he can shrug off easily, but as he moves his head to look at the perpetrator he'd hear a squeak of a "sorry" and a running figure. What?

Albedo silently pats himself down as he continues to watch as the silhouette disappears farther, with a calculating gaze to memorize all their features for... future references.

After he made sure it wasn't a thief that bumped to him to pickpocket, he immediately moves on without another thought.

"Ah, you're the one from the marketplace yesterday." In all honesty, your second meeting was quicker to come than he expected, and at the most curious location of all places. In the Knights of Favonius HQ. How had he not heard or seen of you before?

Your shoulders tense at the sound before you even closed the door of which you came from. This was a room he's never seen anyone use, he realized. Was this where you've been residing all this time? What an oversight on his part but it seems that you two share the common practice of barely leaving your quarters.

When you turned around, behind those surprised eyes lies a gentleness of relief he has not seen a mixture of in the ones he'd observed before. "O-Oh, Chief Alchemist! I'm really sorry about that, I was- I'm really sorry!" He hums in contemplation before shaking his head, assuring you it was a matter that caused no harm.

There was more to it, but his thoughts are distracted with his current task at hand, and with a short goodbye he made his way out down the hall where the stairs resides.

His heavy boots clap on the carpeted floor...

Paired with shuffling light ones to try and match his stride.

Huh? "Are you perhaps going outside?" He confirms with a soft yes as he continues his walk. What are you implying? "Is it okay if I join your company? I uhm also need to get some stuff from outside." He just nods, not one for small talk or questioning. It's nothing much to think about really—

Your loose and subtle grip around the chains hanging by his coat seem to ground him from his musings as you two traverse through Mondstadt in a normal gait. He tries not to think about it too much, but the way you look around with unease when you near other people or your desperate strides to stay a respectable distance to him were things he observed during the walk. Albedo was no man of science focusing on human personality and it bothers him.

It was like a game of cat and mouse between you two running errands, he'll detour to the side and you'll follow him, and if you need to drop by to a building then he'll have to follow you.

And he doesn't know why. Is it because of his mannerism towards taking care of Klee? Or his feeling of responsibility for bringing you along?

During this whole ordeal the Chief Alchemist has brought himself a bright idea (it is not) and went into his scientific mode. He watches you talk to one of the citizens about a commission you had finished yesterday and after confirming your undivided attention, he quietly slips away from the area to visit the Alchemy stall where Timaeus would surely be working on.

It took about an hour before he was allowed to use the table, because Timaeus took so long working on his forgery. Goodness that man needs to work on his studies more.

Ah, speaking of— Albedo realized he'd just up and left you for an hour. Without a second thought he retraced his steps to where he had last seen you. Surely you would have gone off to do your own thing, probably finished up your errands by now and had gone back to the Knights headquarters.

An unmoving force made him tumble forward as his coat seemed to have been caught. If you were there, it would be a sight to see, a rare moment of the Kreideprinz so uncomposed and shocked as he catches himself with a sputter. What the hell? His head snaps to look over his shoulder at such incredible speed, you'd thought it really would have snapped—

The clutch on his chain accessory tightens. With your head down low he couldn't see what expression you were, but your tense shoulders shake with a tremor similar to that of an on-going earthquake. His guilt was more obvious as your knuckles turn white from the deadly grip.

"Albedo-!" You exclaimed in what seems to be a cross between a whine and a whimper. "You disappeared, I couldn't- I couldn't leave..."

He hides a sigh as you refuse to look up to show your face. And in a comforting manner he has 'mastered' with a certain someone, he gently pries off your tight grip (with some urging pats to get you to loosen) before interlocking your fingers with his gloved ones. And he smiles as genuinely as he can, "I'm sorry, I won't do it again. Are you done here? It's almost night, we should get moving."

Your nod of agreement was a breath of fresh air to him.

▰���▰▱▰▱▰▱▰▱▰▱▰▱

Days after that were pretty much as uneventful as uneventful it could be for Albedo's lifestyle.

Holed up in his laboratory for days without rest like the madman he is. Master's alembic and grounds of scarlet quartz able to keep his mind occupied to not wonder. Hyperfocused, no one has seen him out, only Sucrose dropping by with an 'assistant pass' despite the experiment on-going sign hanging by his doorknob.

When he finally stepped out to the hallway, three days already passed. The door behind him clicks as it locks, a sound that echoed with the door four rooms apart to his.

Kaeya looks up from your doorknob when he noticed the approaching silhouette. "Oh, Chief Alchemist? Finally came out of your cave." He quipped as he leans his shoulder against your room's door, visible eyebrow raising slightly after noticing the fleeting gaze Albedo passed at the door.

"Cavalry Captain, good evening. What were you doing there?" Straight to the point.

The taller man's eyebrow rose higher before he composed his amusement. "I didn't expect you to be into rumors, Albedo." The Alchemist's brows furrows in response. "No harm done, worry not. I just accompanied them on their trip outside before retreating for the night."

Humming to himself, Albedo's eyes wonder back to your doorknob before it was protectively shielded by the man's... white fur cloak?

"I also heard you left them alone when you two were out. I didn't expect you to be such a cruel man, amping up their fear after the progress they've made." Fear? Progress? More questions swirled within the genius' mind the more he talked with this.

Kaeya had noticed his faraway look and pieced together the context. Finally, he offered to explain the background of the issue and Albedo was ecstatic to listen in, a first with the blunette.

"Do you understand it now?"

"Mhm."

"Then I'll leave them to your care, I'm sure your genius mind can come up with something."

"Huh?"

And thus you find yourself standing at the bottom steps of the Ordo Favonius HQ the next morning, hand in hand with the Chief Alchemist you've last seen four days ago. Doesn't he have better things to do? No, he reasoned the solution he worked on will take two days to formulate the desired sediment, and so he has that timeframe free for the taking.

You would have been confused and wary he'd abandon you again—

Were you not forced to listen to the two dummies talk about YOU right outside your ROOM.

"You uhm, you don't have to hold my hand during this whole trip, Master Albedo."

"Albedo." He corrected. "And this is necessary, much more convenient and predictable than pulling on my chains really." A touch of a blush framed your cheeks with embarrassment.

"I have nothing in my itinerary today, so feel free to tug me along. It is, after all, the most I can do for what happened."

Despite the rough texture from the long use, the leathered hand in yours brought about more comfort than you would have thought.

Bonus:

The solar isotoma sparkled in pure golden beauty in front of you, but it didn't prevent the anxiety bubbling inside as you watch Albedo hop over the ledge with the help of his geo construct. "What- what are you doing?"

"Experiment. I'll be up in the roof looking over you so you'll know I'm still here, if it makes a difference if your company is far from arms length or not." He replied as he casually hopped over to the roof of a housing unit.

"Albedooo!"

I didn't get to capture all the aspects of the request that I wanted to focus on ahhhhh, I got so conscious of the length I had to stop it! Still ack I hope I captured his personality and context well— and I'm sorry if I amped up the fear more than you gave, I'm not really sure how bad it was supposed to be skskskks

But hey, this being the last Albedo req in my inbox, I am now free from this man *happy sigh* //:Albedo smut leading the leaderboard for the followers event looms over from behind:// *sweats*

[shoichee]

ALSO CAN I ASK FOR SOME RANDOM GOM HCS U HAVE? like just random ones u have or if u want like some toxic hcs abt them :D

I’m assuming that I can include their negative traits of their personalities as well 👀 Also including Momoi in this… lots of analyzing for this hc, so I used my brain here pls appreciate AGAIN these are all headcanons/interpretations of possible toxic hcs about them and only a few are canon

[Headcanons]

Kuroko Tetsuya

Kuroko is the hardest person to find a “negative/toxic” trait in, and it doesn’t seem like he has any

kind, understanding, hardworking, and compassionate; he’s everything a good-natured protagonist is

but he’s only like this to people/hobbies he cares about/close with; anything else he’s quite apathetic and also very passive/neutral about

the biggest hint to this is when Akashi criticizes Kuroko for cherry-picking who the GoMs should “go all out against” and who to casually toy with

and Akashi is absolutely correct

most of the series is portrayed through Kuroko’s perspective, and Akashi is the first direct outside perspective who comments on his actions/attitude

it’s obviously not that Kuroko didn’t “notice”... he clearly sees and knows what these GoMs are doing; after all, he had a conversation with Aomine about how observant he is to everything around him

of course, if you were close to him, all your opinions and issues matter to him

it’s the fact that what’s not really important to him is suddenly now important just because someone he knows is involved

just an example: if someone was advocating climate change, he has no opinion on it until someone he knows cares about the issue

in other words, he has a subtle hypocritical view on things, especially when he interacts with others

another clear negative trait could be that he’s too idealistic or perhaps naive, seeing things in a clear black-or-white picture and not necessarily a gray area

WE know, as an audience, that the GoMs honestly needed therapy and a proper adult to guide their out-of-control talents

but Kuroko, in his eyes, had viewed them as “bad” and “evil” in their ways of basketball until they changed after their respective matches

he’s probably someone who doesn’t yield to other opinions once he forms his own, and this may make him unable to consider things in other people’s perspectives

which is again, ironic: someone who doesn’t have generally a strong stance but once they do, it’s very unyielding, which further proves Akashi’s comment about Kuroko’s tendency to nitpick which to care about

a final hc about a potential flaw he might have here in a different ask!

Kise Ryota

y’all… it’s as canon as day that he has a mean side

straight from the author himself, it’s confirmed that Kise is only kind to those who he respects, and to the rest, he’s cold-hearted

in the manga, it’s very clear that he’s super judgmental on every first impression on people he meets, boxing them into categories based on the way they look, act, and speak

only when they surpass his preset expectations (low or high depends on his preliminary judgments of them) is when he opens his mind to the rest of their personality

this is a very close-minded way of thinking, and I hope I don’t need to explain why LOL

this can be interpreted as him being two-faced by the majority of the people in his school

his way of speaking can definitely be very cruel and crass, and to sensitive people, his words can easily shatter hearts

Kise’s negative/toxic traits are pretty straightforward here, so let’s move on

Midorima Shintarou

his harsh words can be considered a “negative” part of his personality, but I think it’s a lot more than just that

it’s confirmed in the series that he’s a bystander and almost always minds his own business

on one hand, one can say he’s self-driven and that he constantly strives for self-improvement

on the other, it can be interpreted as him being very dangerously ambitious and selfish, in which most actions he takes are for the sole reason of self-improvement and not for altruistic reasons

for example, when he helped Kuroko and Kagami in the training camp, it was under the reasoning that them becoming stronger would be a good challenge for himself to test and learn

that’s not to say that he can’t have friends, but most friendships he’s built are with capable people who can potentially provide him with some new beneficial skill/goal to strive towards

after all, he’s only learned to trust Takao as a friend only after seeing him as someone capable

because he’s so focused on himself, he’s extremely likely to turn a blind eye to injustice, most also likely to use Oha Asa to justify their “misfortunes” as he continues on his day

he’s not cold-hearted, but altruism comes by Midorima a lot rarer than the average person

now, we know that his Oha Asa aspect is used to balance his serious side as the “comedic side” of him, but if we really think about it, his obsessions with the horoscopes could be a huge obstacle in the future, where he may refuse to listen/depend on others in favor of his own intuition and the stars; after all, no one knows everything, and depending on the stars as one’s next source of advice and guidance isn’t a sound decision to commit themselves to

he seems like the person who overthinks and jumps to conclusions when it comes to social situations, but instead of confronting the person, he turns to fate and fortune if Takao isn’t near to help

Aomine Daiki

I wouldn’t be surprised if Aomine had a skewed sense of beauty standards from all those magazines he consumed and from being around Momoi for the majority of his life

of course anyone can distinguish pieces of media from reality, but during the most impressionable years of life, without experiencing other types of people and physiques, he would have limited knowledge on what “beauty” is and whatnot

this probably would be more of a problem in his adolescence than adult

a very given negative trait is his short temper plus his tendency to turn to physical violence when someone nags him to a certain point, seen with how he’s treated Wakamatsu in the beginning (though this seems to almost disappear by the end of the series)

what I’ve noticed in every scene he’s in, is that everything seems to revolve around him and his hobbies of basketball and Japanese idols

what I mean is that everytime we see Aomine, it’s always Momoi approaching to Aomine or just him always being the center of attention; never once has he approached Momoi for anything and it’s always been the other way around

in other words, people have to cater to him in order to get along with him/be in good graces (additional example: Imayoshi letting him do as he pleases to get him to be cooperative and participate in the games)

we’ve actually never seen Momoi’s hobbies outside of being a manager for her basketball teams and just anything basketball-related

he can be quite apathetic, choosing to only pay attention and try in things he’s interested in… which is basketball and those magazines

he seems to mature in the Last Game though, so I’m not quite sure to what extent these headcanons would apply to older Aomine (these also don’t really apply to Puremine)

Momoi Satsuki

the author probably also included this type of anime trope as comedy, but belittling another female for her body is definitely a no-go in reality; I feel like this is something most people gloss over really lightly

her body comments on Riko are actually what made me skeptical of her character at first before the show really shows her entire personality

that being said, it seems that she always takes the opportunity to look down on other girls (especially to those she is a stranger to) as a sort of “competition” when there’s boys around

definitely at certain moments, she screams a “pick-me girl” type of person (real phenomenon, you can search this up!)

while Kuroko doesn’t seem to actively mind this, I think she also has no good sense of boundaries and what’s considered appropriate touch and consent; people can chalk this up to “oh it’s just infatuation,” but this definitely isn’t okay if we really think about this

her life also seems to revolve around either Aomine or Kuroko, and based from that, I’d feel like she’d have a difficult time forming her own identity/life separate from her “manager life,” especially once she graduates from Touou

can definitely be interpreted as too clingy at certain moments, while others may think it’s her way of showing that she cares

Murasakibara Atsushi

most people would chalk up Murasakibara as “lazy,” and on the surface level, it does appear to look that way…

I think his true negative trait is that he has a lack of intrinsic motivations to drive him to do things

it’s different from being lazy; someone can be lazy while still having a goal, and certainly someone can be lazy while they’re motivated by thoughts of “I want to learn more,” “I want to get stronger,” etc. (you guys, it’s me right now in college)

and he doesn’t have that

part of this was contributed to the fact that he’s already so gifted with genetics and thus, there’s never been a goal for him to have to work towards to when he’s already at the top

he doesn’t actively seek out, and while that may be a characteristic of sloth, it’s not exactly right either

he willingly does things if people around him give him the motivations/reasons to do so; a person of sloth wouldn’t do anything even with all the motivations and goals handed right to their face

snacks/food are examples of extrinsic motivations that fuel him to carry on daily life

Himuro is always the main motivator for Murasakibara to come out and watch matches, and he also does whatever Akashi orders in both Teiko and present days // a person who can give the giant the motivation to do tasks would get along with him the most

searching out for a challenge against his basketball skills is something that’s never crossed his mind

why? he grew to be like the way he is because of the lack of results from his “search” of a challenge throughout his games

again, it’s only when Murasakibara gets handed a silver-platter of a challenge, Jason Silver, that actively gets him pumped up and raring to go

as such, Murasakibara is equivalent to a rusty machine, extremely difficult to start up and find compatibility with, but very powerful and efficient once he finds that spark

Murasakibara finding any partner or friend in the future would be extremely difficult because he ticks a different tune from the rest

Akashi Seijuro

his entire Bokushi side was a giant-ass red flag for very obvious reasons LOL anyways, moving on…

it’s difficult to pinpoint a negative characteristic for Oreshi because he’s the pinnacle of a gentleman character… but that technically is also his negative trait

for him to maintain that perfect image for himself and others, he has always carried himself in such a way that doesn’t allow for errors or expressions of “weakness”

thus, bottling up his frustrations and emotions to the point of no return is something very familiar to Akashi, and I’d feel like Bokushi is the result of his overflowing emotions left unchecked in the first place

I also predict that if Akashi continues to carry himself without letting himself wind down and feel emotions on the spot rather than locking it up inside him, a day will come when he splits into two halves again with a “new” Bokushi to deal with his current life (and let the current Oreshi take a backseat in his psyche to take a break from the turmoil)

also will tend to overwork himself to manage people’s expectations as well as his own, and he’s not one to depend on people not because he sees them as inferior or incapable, but because he’s doing this out of habit from being in positions of authority and responsibility for much of his life

and so, he may tend to hide important things or just not speak about his problems in general to those close to him because he feels like he can do it all himself and spare everyone the work and stress associated with them (a leader mentality)

throughout the majority of his life being calm and calculated, his emotions would definitely escape from him in forms of uncontrollable lashes of anger… before he would realize what he’s done… that is, assuming that another Bokushi hasn’t form within his subconscious yet

[protectchara201x]

(ignoring all the other juicy Deltarune 2 stuff to shove Chara Talks into it lololol)

I haven’t been super active on this blog because frankly I have like, three? looong analysis/theorycrafting posts I’ve been putting off working on and it fills me with shame to log in and see them waiting in my drafts.

But.

With the release of Deltarune Chapter 2, I wanted to talk kinda in general about how I thought it could impact the fandom’s perception of Everybody’s Favorite Demon Baby, and also point out something in specific about the Weird Route that might connect back to Undertale.

Putting it under the cut to avoid spoilers and long-winded ramblings for the unwilling. Includes spoilers for the Weird Route.

(NOTE: may update later if I notice more things for to put in section II. I’d like to make a full list of parallels if I can tidy them up.)

I. Pre- vs Post-Release Thoughts (you can skip down to II if you don’t care, it is genuinely Long and Pointless)

Okay, so first off. I got SO worried like, the day before the new chapter dropped? It hit me that whatever new stuff we got out of this, people would connect back to Undertale, and. Honestly, I really do hate connecting everything back to Chara, because I do think of Kris as their own character and I really like them and don’t want to ignore everything they got going on. But, I am first and foremost a shameless Chara stan and they’re very important to me, so I kinda... did spend a few minutes reeling from all the new DR stuff as its own stuff, and then immediately started thinking about how this would reflect back on Chara in Undertale lol.

But that’s ok for me to do here because this is my All Chara, Only Chara, All The Time blog, so I am gonna only really talk about Deltarune here to talk about them lol.

So yeah, I started getting anxious beforehand worrying about how everyone would take any and all implications and apply it to mean “aha, Chara IS evil!” The fakeout with the pie reveal in the anniversary stream was a big relief, but I still got worried leading up to the release about what could be in it.

Because part of why I’ve always thought that “Chara was genuinely evil from the start” and even “ok maybe not TOTALLY evil, but Chara was still a kinda bad person” were unlikely was, even if you throw out all the other popular Chara-sympathetic theories. To me, both these takes just seemed too below TF’s talent and the way he wrote all his other characters with depth and love; a Chara like the one these theories propose just doesn’t belong in a world created by TF, and the way the Dreemurrs talk about them overall, the way TF made a point of having Chara say they were guided and repeatedly, correctly blame you the player for the destruction in Kill-All, I was sure that he never intended them to ever be as bad as the fandom sometimes tried to make them out to be.

... Like, mostly sure. Like, 80% sure? Because he never ever talks about them, so it’s impossible say for sure, and it is still theoretically possible that “Chara was and is bad” was the cold-ass take he’d intended all along. So yeah, leading up to the release, I started getting antsy that whatever new lore came out of it, either he’d directly confirm “Chara was a villain?” “*cocks gun* Always has been” or there’d be something that’d at least heavily implicate them, or could be twisted to implicate them, as a negative force. More ammo to be used against them in the Chara Debate Circles would be a drag, and outright confirmation of them as a villain would honestly break my heart and I’d be forced to disown Toby Fox, My Beloved Cool Dad.

And, right now? Tell the truth, I’m SO relieved and I am SO happy. And not just because of how much depth and characterization it seems Kris is getting! (imo, because rn I just headcanon them as an unhappy teen desperately trying to keep their new friends going on adventures with them and trying to fight back against the player’s control)

I love how this chapter seems to be TF doing course-correcting based on fandom interpretations. Because Kris just isn’t evil, even if they are a knife teen, even if they are the Knight, they’re just NOT evil and that’s canon, baybeeee; it’s made clear in this chapter and the previous one that they love their family even outside of the player’s control, they care about their new friends even outside of the player’s control, they’re established as a weird creepy kid but no one sees them as scary or evil, they’re just Kris, and even in the Weird Route, TF made a point of hammering in the differences between Kris and the player in the Weird Route: Susie and Ralsei notice how distressed Kris seemed after you have Noelle ice Berdly, Noelle heard a voice that she said wasn’t Kris telling her to kill, and the FUCKING Spamton fight: “Kris called for help... but nobody came” again and again, and then “You whispered Noelle’s name”... you, not Kris.

I know TF has never commented much on fans’ perceptions of Frisk and Chara, or who exactly is pulling strings in different routes. But after all this, and especially after seeing all the little winks and nods to fandom jokes in this chapter (what comes to mind: pulling everyone’s leg by seeming to have Kris attack Toriel with a knife only to reveal that pie theory was right, Susie not liking Ralsei’s real face as much as his shadowed one, Ralsei with a gun getting referenced with the ad, Kris getting a joke fixation with knives after the fans made Chara and Kris have knife obsessions as a joke), and seeing what looks like him try to correct some things (what stuck out to me was doubling down on showing that Kris is loved and valued in their family: lots of fans came away from Chapter 1 thinking that Kris was not valued as much as Asriel, but here we see that Toriel is supportive of Kris’ friendship with Susie, and it’s stated that Asriel is the one who used the crappy controller, not Kris) -

I think while he hasn’t commented directly, while he admitted to being overwhelmed by Undertale’s success, while he tends to be pretty tight-lipped about the lore (whether that’s because it’ll be addressed by future chapters or because he prefers to let fans sleuth it out), this chapter convinced me that Toby does keep tabs on fan reactions in Deltarune, so he probably does with Undertale too and would know about all The Discourse surrounding Little Mx Pink Cheeks (and in turn, popular theories like Narrator Chara... Toby if you integrate Narrator Chara into Deltarune being a borderline creepypasta and have the narrator start talking directly to the characters or to the player or the characters start talking to the narrator I will lose my damn B E A N S).

(Kris and Chara not being demonized and the narrator interacting directly with the characters were the only two things on my wishlist going in, I was fine with literally anything else happening lmao)

I even kinda think he’s going out of his way to separate Kris and the player because we didn’t get it before with Undertale, we still insisted that Frisk or Chara was the one doing it, and he’s even using Kris to show that even if this kid can be scary, maybe even mean, and maybe they’re even the Knight (with their reasons unknown), they’re still not a bad kid, they’re still funny and likable, and they still genuinely love their family and friends - which falls in line with Undertale’s cast of complex but likable people who can be antagonists and make mistakes but still aren’t truly bad people, and imo is a direct response to some people fixating on the idea that Chara was always evil because they seem scary/complicated.

... Which is a long way to say that I came out of Deltarune with my confidence fully restored about TF’s intentions with Chara and Kris. Even if he never comments on Chara directly, now I really don’t think TF thinks they’re evil or ever intended for them to be. Deltarune convinced me more than ever that Chara is meant to be complex, yes, and able to be influenced to do horrible things, but they were never intended to be as malicious or shallow as some fans insist.

TLDR:

Toby Fox read your mean fanfiction where Chara is a bad abusive serial killer no one likes, and he made Deltarune in revenge.

... Hm? Ah, you’d like me to get to the point! Right this way!

II. Undertale, Deltarune, and The Point

While no doubt some will still take the voice Noelle hears to be Chara influencing her to turn her into a murderer (I haven’t gone looking for it yet, but I’m sure it’s already a thing because I know this fandom), since it’s made too clear by the game that they can’t blame Kris for this one, I think at this point that’s just being too stubborn to consider other ideas.

If you believe in the totally made up idea used in so many fanfics that Chara is an evil spirit trying to whisper in Frisk’s ear to kill everyone, literally (for some reason) the embodiment of raising stats, and gets more control over people who have increased LV to take over their body... sure. Could be them, they did talk about moving on to the next world and all. I mean, that wouldn’t really make sense because it’s literally never implied in the actual game that Chara encourages you to kill outside of the Kill-All Run or even wants you to, certainly not as the narrator and we get no hint of them doing this as an unseen, unheard third-party either.

Not to mention they’re NOT literally possessing you because of increased LV; they don’t control you even with high LV in any Undertale route other than arguably the Kill-All, and if you fail the Kill-All and it turns into a high-body count Neutral, Chara suddenly stops using first-person narration and showing up in mirrors entirely even though they were showing themself before, the LV remains the same or even can get raised as high as LV 19, nor do they suddenly take over in any other Neutral runs. We can speculate on why (personally, I’d place this either on Chara’s mindset, such as them sinking into shock from the trauma or becoming more assertive as the player feeds their megalomania, or as a sign of Frisk’s withdrawal, leaving Chara alone in the body to take the reins and act out the player’s orders), but canonically, no, Chara does not take over due to high stats.

In fact, there’s even more evidence against this. First-person narration also exists for fleeing your battles in Undertale, even on Pacifist runs with base stats, 0 EXP, and an LV of 1. Since Chara is established to use first-person narration to refer to themself, is the only one who canonically does so, and is confirmed to be present even in all runs through their name and memories always showing up, it seems pretty likely that Chara can take control to flee battle. That means an increase in stats is not a sign of their presence or control, in Undertale or Deltarune.

The most damning blow to the idea that Chara is the voice corrupting Noelle are the lines in the fight with Spamton I mentioned. Kris called for help, but nobody came. You whispered Noelle’s name. Well hold on. If that’s Chara, shouldn’t it be “I whispered Noelle’s name”? As soon as you’ve officially started the Kill-All in Undertale, Chara starts up their “It’s me, Chara” schtick right away, right there in Toriel’s home in the first area, and if they weren’t the narrator before, they’re beginning to speak through the narration now. If the voice was Chara, surely Toby Fox knows it’d be a way bigger “oh shit” moment if the creepy scary hidden route once again switched into first-person, scaring us the same way he did before when we first saw “It’s me, Chara” and knew something was wrong; unfairly or not, their reputation as a villain is still well established and hinting to Chara’s presence with a simple “I” would drive the menace even further, if he intended for them to simply be a demon that possesses player characters when you grind enough. But it’s still just you. The player.

The Weird Route does even more to help Chara’s case than that. Not only is it made pretty clear that Kris and the player are separate, and the player is the one responsible for corrupting Noelle and making her kill... consider how similar Noelle and Chara are, in the Weird Route and the Kill-All Route.

This “voice” that “guides” them in growing strong, compelling them to kill everyone in order to fight for them, eventually driving them to murder people they know. Chara calls themself “the demon that comes when people call its name”, and you whisper Noelle’s name to have her appear to kill Spamton. Noelle’s conflicting emotions towards Kris and the voice as she is manipulated, as she becomes more violent and sadistic, as she goes into shock; does that not sound like Chara, who flipflops between holding you dear as their partner and wanting to move on to the next world together, to be together forever, and them being disgusted by your refusal to accept consequences and the perverse enjoyment you get in killing everyone again and again? Chara, who clings to their quirky narration for much of the Kill-All, but keeps slipping up, who becomes terrifyingly cold, aggressive, power-hungry, and even sadistic, yet still calls Undyne “the heroine”, still seems to still care about their locket, still has moments where they seem to falter?

Noelle does put up significantly more resistance to the voice’s commands than Chara does, and at least much more visibly shows distress and trauma. I don’t think this is a black mark on Chara’s chara-cter either, or an indication of them being more violent or cruel.

For one, while Noelle is still herself with her own soul, it is heavily implied by Chara, Flowey, and Undertale’s lore that Chara was reincarnated without their own soul, at best perhaps attached to Frisk’s (or yours): as I speculate in one of my currently unfinished theories, while monster souls are made up of love, compassion, and hope and thus Asriel was reincarnated without these qualities, it could well be that human souls are correspondingly made up of their own multiple traits, namely determination, patience, bravery, integrity, perseverance, kindness, and justice; if true, a soulless Chara would be lacking these qualities, which would make them less equipped to resist the player’s commands or to feel as torn up about it.

Also, the player has a hold on them both as “party members” to the player’s vessels, but it is also possible that the player naming Chara and having them directly attached to Frisk also gives them a stronger connection to Chara they can abuse, similar to how Kris and Frisk (as the player’s direct vessels) have much less autonomy than Kris’ party members.

(Fun observation: We know that when the thing controlling Kris forced Noelle into becoming a killer and using her to kill Berdly, Kris was horrified and shaken-up according to Susie and Ralsei. How do you think Frisk felt watching Chara be used to slaughter the Underground and then erasing the world when they’re totally corrupted?)

And lastly... look, Noelle and Chara are both minors, but Chara is significantly younger - a small child compared to Noelle’s teen. I know it’s fiction and strong wills and determination and anime is real and all, but a traumatized young child who died two violent and awful deaths back-to-back, may have literally experienced being a corpse in their own coffin/grave for who knows how long, and then came back ”confused” only to immediately start hearing a voice relentlessly commanding them to kill everyone?? I can absolutely see a traumatized kid shutting down and just going with it out of fear at first, before the LV sets in.

TLDR:

What you do to Noelle in the Weird Route is the same fucking thing you do to Chara in the Kill-All Route.

[masterhandss]

Hello! Uhm… there’s something I’ve been wondering about for a long time now regarding Nicol. And I figured I may as well ask now, since S2 has started airing.

I’ve seen his wiki page. And it says and I quote: It was later revealed that his emotionless face and quiet nature is a result of extreme trauma. From a young age, people of all genders and ages would tend to do absurd things, as well as assaulting him.

I’ve been so fixated on this probably since S1 had finished, yet I haven’t really had the time to read all the light novels to know where this specifically comes from or even be sure if it’s actually true. The only thing I managed to find was a scene (I think in one of the later volumes) about Katarina pointing out this creepy guy that took Nicol’s used utensils and stared at him a lot, but she didn’t do anything about it because Sophia saw nothing wrong with that guy’s behavior and told her it was okay.

I’m not sure if the wiki was referring to that scene, or something else. And since I know that you read the light novels, I was hoping if maybe you could check that info and confirm/deny it for me. If it is true… then it really puts a whole different perspective on Nicol. People in the series have been shown to faint if Nicol smiles, but it was also mentioned how he was one of the only second year students in the student council because people would fight over him.

And to think their behavior possibly had escalated to the point of traumatizing him as a child makes me very heartbroken to think about. Especially when the wiki also mentioned how he feels very uncomfortable when he’s the center of attention… makes me wonder if the anime will even touch upon any of that.

Hello! I'm sorry if answering this one took such a long time. This one definitely caught my interest so I wanted to take my time in writing a response for this.

// trigger warning: brief mentions of assault (nothing too graphic I swear)

I'm an editor for the wiki, so I admit that I have seen that description on Nicol's page too. I don't know who wrote it (and I never bothered to edit or adjust the wording), but that doesn't really matter since it's not exactly something I can deny.

Before that I just want to make it clear first that the "assault" mentioned in the wiki is probably not sexual or physical assault, it's likely referring to a simple assault, aka any unwanted advances that is done without consent. Whether or not any advances on Nicol while he was growing up were leaning towards sexual assault or physical assault (unwanted physical contact from men and women, sexual invitations, groping etc.) has not been mentioned by the books. It used to be a very popular headcanon for the more darker and realistic depictions of the hamefura or fortune lover world to give Nicol that kind of backstory, which is why I still feel like clarifying just in case anyone might get the wrong idea.

Hamefura is a very light-hearted series so I doubt it would put Nicol is such a tough dark position. While it's played for laughs, thankfully Nicol's beauty makes him so dazzling that people can't get close to him rather than being so handsome that people would try to initiate physical contact at every opportunity lmao.

Rather than the wiki pertaining to a specific scenes, I think it might be written in hindsight instead. It could very much be referring to the guy from Volume 6 who keeps staring at Nicol and stealing his uetnsils, but I feel like it could also be referring to the possibility/likeliness of such events and advances happening regularly. Like we don't really need to be told that men and woman throw themselves at Nicol for us to know about it. I mean if its frequent enough for Nicol to be unbothered by it, then it must happen a lot (as gross as that is). Regardless, those advances can still be classified as assault (since Nicol is not a fan of it at all) and the only reason he doesn't do anything about it is because it happens so often that it might be not worth the trouble anymore. At least we do know from the StoryMe hamefura game that Nicol will act in the face of an unfavorable position if he can, so hopefully he isn't just sitting around like an animal in the zoo if he were to receive unwanted advances.

I wouldn't deny that all of these interactions hadn't traumatized Nicol though. They never really mention in the books word-for-word why Nicol is so emotionally stunted/incapable and silent, they only really mention that he doesn't talk because he doesn't want to receive any unwarranted pity. In the first hamefura anthology (whose canonicity is up for debate), they do say there that the reason why Nicol doesn't talk a lot is because people would twist his words in order to turn it around and make him sound more tragic and pitiable than he actually is. I'm no expert on what is or what isn't considered as trauma, but that sounds like a source of trauma to me. The idea of Nicol being so fed up of people misinterpreting his words and expressions in order to fit what they want to hear must have been so hard on him, to the point where he decided to just not speak at all. It can be easily link to his emotionless-ness too, since any positive reaction like a smile could be twisted to mean other things.

Realistically, having people constantly fight over you, whisper things about you behind your back, constantly ogle at you and be constantly flirted on regardless of gender sounds terrible. If that was me I'd be traumatized too. He definitely hates being in the center of attention for all the reasons previously discussed and other well-known variables; he's always in the eyes of every noble around him which makes him hate being in the spotlight (from his perspective, maybe he always feels like the spotlight is on him, like it'll just never leave. he'll always bothered by the eyes of other people even maybe when he's at home... eyes watching him with desires and expectations, haunting him even when he's alone...). It really makes you think about what kind of life Nicol had been living in without Katarina's positive influence. He would have to bear the burden alone, without being able to say a word about it because he needs to act tough for the sake of Sophia.

Like geez, Nicol is even aware that he has stalkers but isn't doing anything about because "they aren't harmful". He never even really clarified what he meant by that (at least I don't remember anyways, feel free to correct me), like is he already doing something to stop the stalker, is it happening so often that he doesn't care anymore or is he fine with it because the stalker hasn't done anything dangerous (yet)???

If you want an /objective/ answer to whether or not the wiki description was referring to the stalker man from Volume 6 or something else, that line on the wiki was added on April 27, 2020; while the JP release of Volume 6 was on March 20, 2018 vs the EN ebook release which was on June 28, 2020.

The editor is likely a JP reader, or it was just an interpretation based most-likely what-if scenarios/interpretations. That's a fun fact for ya :DD

—and since you mentioned that you haven't read all the volumes of the light novels yet, let me help you by listing chapters in the books with a Nicol POV (that I can remember, as of Volume 9)

Volume 1 Chapter 5 (Encountering Katarina) Volume 2 Chapter 4 (Remembering Katarina's Positive Influence) Volume 3 Chapter 2 (School Festival Various Vignettes - Nicol Ascart) Volume 4 Extra Chapter (The Troubles of Nicol Ascart) Volume 5 Chapter 4 (A Lady for Nicol) Volume 8 Chapter 2 (Nicol's "dream")

With this, hopefully it'll be easier for you to cross-reference if you want to look into Nicol's character on your own :DD

TLDR; the trauma and assault mentioned in the wiki is definitely real, although the extent and severity might depend on the reader('s imagination). There's no particular scene to point to as the source, explanation or example of Nicol being given uncomfortable treatment, but it's not hard to imagine given the kind of character Nicol is. He is a silent beauty who caries himself smartly and politely, which in the eyes of many carnivorous nobles is the perfect kind of prey. Whether or not he was assaulted in any way or if people's behavior towards him can be considered as assault depends on the reader, since we still have yet to get a deep dive on Nicol's life outside of his friend group.

If there's any confirmation or deconfirmation to anything I said that I have missed during my skimming on the light novels, feel free to tell me! If I got the definitions and examples of trauma and assault wrong, feel free to tell me and I'll edit this post as fast as I can!

I know this might not exactly be the response you were hoping for, but I hope it was good enough to read qwq. There's so much I could still say but I know I'll go too deep into interpretation (I kinda already did though...), which I want to avoid since the question is asking for in-canon proofs and instances.

Thank you for the ask!

[k-s-morgan]

Hi this is about Will’s characterization. I’m on tiktok and sometimes get videos about Hannibal and it annoys me how many younger fans have taken the “Will is autistic” headcanon and ran with it. It’s so weird because I feel like the line in S1 where Jack is hounding him about being a psychopath (forgive me for paraphrasing lol) and he says he’s more on the asperger’s spectrum he was trying to get Jack of his case. He just didn’t want Jack thinking he was a psychopath. And it’s extra annoying how these fans in the video will berate Bryan Fuller and Hugh Dancy for “denying it”. Sorry for the little rant I just didn’t know who else i could rant to

Hello! This show births different interpretations on different topics, but this one provokes some of the most toxic fights I’ve ever seen. After Netflix, we grew in numbers, but a part of fans on the platforms like Tiktok and Instagram (and Twitter) are extremely toxic, and many of them just wait for a chance to ‘cancel’ someone. They harass Bryan with accusations and hatred - I’ve seen it happen. But the thing is, this show is beautiful in its rejection of any real-world labels.

Will can be read as autistic. He might also be read as someone who deliberately plays on people’s assumptions. It’s up to the audience to decide because nothing is confirmed or refuted. Bryan and Hugh voiced their views because they kept being asked this question - personally, I agree with them, but their word is as good as that of other fans. If you disagree, that’s all right - what matters is what’s in the show itself. 

From my point of view: the show mocks assumptions of different kinds. For example, people like Jack assume Will is autistic only because he's a rude loner with a gift. They don't know him personally (Jack meets Will for the second time in E1), Will underwent FBI tests and he wasn't diagnosed as autistic, and people around him still make assumptions just based on the stereotypes they have of autistic people. The entire premise of the show is largely built on Will being a killer and trying to fight it, so it's no wonder he uses people's ignorance to stop them from thinking deeper and making correct conclusions. The show does the same thing with sexuality (people assume Will and Alana are straight) and psychopathy (many think Hannibal must be a psychopath because of the cruelty of his actions). 

These characters cannot be defined by any real-world labels - it's a big thing, not an after-thought, so I feel like this approach is fully justified in this particular case. The show urges its audience not to jump to conclusions about people and not to take someone's words as truth without testing it first. What they decide is up to them and their interpretation. 

[tundrainafrica]

hi, maybe you're tired about this kind of convie regarding hange's gender but i really need your opinion. is it that wrong if i consider hange as a she? istg i'm not anythingphobic, i'm just still stuck with female hange in anime. i stan aot since 2013 and felt just fine to open up about my preference in hange's gender but lately, considering hange as a she is like the most sinful thing in the whole planet and even being attacked and i don't know what to feel about it. 😩

Thank you for the ask anon! 

Lmao, I am tired of this discourse but I’ve kinda accepted that it’s never gonna end really so I’m still happy to give you my opinion about this again. 

I have written about it here.

Before I go into this long ramble again I’d like to clarify some terms which tend to pepper the discourse of gender, sexuality etc etc etc. 

Biological Sex: What genitalia where you born with? Either born male, female or with both genitalia. 

Gender: What do you identify as? CIS, Trans, Nonbinary etc.

Sexuality: Who are you attracted to? Homosexual, Heterosexual, Bisexual, Asexual, Pansexual etc. 

Gender roles: Where do you fall on the gradient? Feminine, Masculine etc. 

And the point of this is, the discourse on gender is soooo complicated. Like very complicated because Hange being interpreted as NB to some people only covers the question of gender. Like these do not cover every other facet of the gender sexuality discourse. 

Because everything up there is ‘mutually exclusive’ to a degree because everyone is so complex. Like you can take a random option in each of those, fit it together in our heads and you would still come up with a realistic person. Because that is how complex human beings are. I have friends who decided to get a boyfriend, realized they were trans, transitioned to male but had both boyfriends and girlfriends. I have a butch lesbian friend who dated a few guys then decided to date girls then decided to transition. You have me who literally tried everything on the sexuality spectrum, crushed on a few girls in high school, crushed on a few more girls in college, thought I was asexual for a while, fell in love with a guy and realized I love dick. 

You can actually have a biological male who identifies as nonbinary but is bisexual  but has feminine tendencies. 

And that’s why even I find it so confusing to address the issue of non binary Hange vs female Hange. Because they are not even in the same bracket. Like we can have a non binary female feminine bisexual Hange all at the same time if you think about it. 

If you have read all my fics and all of my meta about Hange, you would see that I refer to her as a ‘she,’ but at the same time, I do not portray Hange as overly feminine. I headcanon that Hange has tried dating women and I also head canon that Hange has female genitalia (yo, I write preggo Hange fics). She actually falls somewhere in the middle. And what makes the gender part so hard to consider is because usually whether someone decides to identify as CIS, NB or Trans is up to the person. 

And there are just so many other hcs I want to tackle as a fanfiction writer and as a Hange stan beyond her gender and that’s why I don’t really headcanon the whole discovery part because even as a kid, I have never been so particular about my gender. I know I’m a biologically a woman, I have feminine and masculine tendencies. I have loved both men and women. but gender just seemed like just a decision which I just didn’t want to think too hard about.

I mean where I live, my first language doesn’t have gender pronouns so I can avoid the whole discourse altogether by just using Tagalog. I’m the type of person who will just have this person think I’m a man all the way until they meet me because I just wanna get things done and I feel no need to correct people. My first crushes were all women, despite my being a woman and the first people I have ever loved were women and I didn’t want to decide whether I was bisexual, heterosexual, homosexual etc. yet because even teenage me just found it way too complex and too final and just went around saying I liked this girl or I liked this guy and generally because I’m that type of person, I don’t spend a lot of my time thinking about gender even in a fandom space unless somebody asks.   

And does it make me homophobic/LGBT-phobic etc etc for deciding to use ‘she’ and deciding to tackle questions about Hange beyond her gender? No. Like this conclusion is inherently flawed. I was hella gay for a huge point in my life. 99% of my crushes were women. Then there was this period where I didn’t enjoy romance The only guy irl I have ever crushed on is my current boyfriend. But even when I explored my own gender, sexuality, it was always an ‘in the back of my mind’ thing. I didn’t have huge personal metas about what exactly my gender was or where exactly I fall or what pronouns I prefer.

And nobody is obliged to look so deep into this discourse. The important thing is in real life, we respect people’s pronouns, we respect the names they want to go by and we respect people’s preferences (as long as they aren’t dangerously criminal.)

And the thing is, this isn’t even real life. This is a fandom space. And in a fandom space, everyone is literally interpreting characters however they want. We have people literally pairing off Levi with both men and women and technically we’re assuming Levi’s gender, sexuality etc. Sure it might diverge from canon but does that make our headcanon any less than the others? Like Levi’s sexuality has never been confirmed and technically we’re all just assuming what kind of person Levi would have wanted to fuck right? Like every yaoi pairing, every ship is just fans assuming someones gender, assuming someone’s sexuality. 

And sure people could argue, ‘Yams’ didn’t confirm her gender. But Yam’s didn’t confirm anyone’s sexuality either but here we are pairing Mikasa off with Annie then pairing Mikasa off with Eren. Like same energy with ships, are there ships which are inherently superior to others? And technically, I could headcanon Levi as a woman if I wanted to and no one could stop me. I mean sure let’s celebrate that some of our headcanon and preferences have been acknowledged but what battle are we trying to win here really. 

To answer your question, it is not wrong. Having any opinion and having whatever headcanon you have about any fandom in this space is not wrong.

Sure, Hange is a comfort character to many people for various reasons. Hange is a comfort character for me but Hange is not any single person’s comfort character. Hange is a gift to us by Yams to interpret and play with however we want. Hell, every other character we’ve ever grown to love was a gift to all of us by the author. And we can choose to hc them however we want. That is the magic of fandoms.

If I wanted to, I could make some eruri and ereri mpreg fics for the kicks, I could interpret Levi as every single gender, sexuality on the spectrum and it would be just as valid. I mean I won’t because I don’t jive with those headcanons or those types of ships but I would respect people who have those types of preferences.

This space is free for everyone. We can choose what we want to consume and we can choose how we want to interpret characters. 

The only responsibility we have as fans is to use the right warnings when we post shit and to respect everybody else’s preferences. 

What I would consider ‘sinful’ is just dropping some unnecessary hate into a place which is supposed to be our safe space or pushing an agenda or an opinion and being hateful about it in the process. Like sure, spread your agenda, spread your opinions and your headcanons but please be nice about it.

We’re all just sad people trying to survive in this crapsack world.

[baka-monarch]

What The Fuck!?

(A.N: before we start with the story I just wanna say that this is based off of this post by @lance-alt​ . Also, alot of creators on here got mentioned in the story, like actual mentions so if you got mentioned just know that I love what you create and wanted to include you because I love your interpretations of the sides, and you do not have to read this at all if you don’t want to and if you want me to take you out of the story please DM me and tell me so that I can)

TRIGGER WARNINGS: SLIGHT MENTION OF VORE FOR LIKE TWO SECONDS, MENTION OF USYEMPETHETIC SIDES, SHITTING N SOME HEADCANONS EVEN THOUGH I MYSELF LOVE THEM

The Sides are lost. They find themselves in a familiar and yet unknown place.

They will soon find someone dark. And someone far too shiny and bright… Too innocent.

The Sides meet…

their fanon-selves.

 ...

 It had started like any normal day. The sides existing as a part of Thomas, helping him with his daily dilemmas, the usual things. Until Thomas took a nap. Then the sides suddenly found themselves in a white void. It wasn’t a dream, they could confirm that much from the other dreams that Thomas had. Also from the confused looks on the twin’s faces who were in charge of dreams, like how Remus had caused Thomas’ nightmare that they had disgusted in Dealing With Intrusive Thoughts.

“Where are we?” Logan spoke up, voicing everyone’s concerns.

“Wherever it is, Thomas has never thought about it before.” Roman muttered as he glanced around.

“Yeah, I know his brains can be scooped out at times, but not even he can have a mind this empty.” At Remus’ comment, most of the others cringed in varying degrees, with Logan being the only one unaffected, only rolling his eyes in annoyance.

“Although your metaphor usage could use some work, you are correct. This place is too empty to be a part of Thomas.” Logan conceded.

“If this isn’t Thomas...then where are we?” Virgil gleaned around wearily, trying to come up with his own explanation for this situation.

“It’s really blank here...maybe Thomas is in a coma?” Roman tried, to which Virgil’s eyes widened.

“Impossible, how would we be active if he is not?” Logan debated.

“I don’t know! Do you have any ideas, Sherlock Drones?” Roman rebutted, causing Logan to roll his eyes and fix his glasses.

“Unfortunately, no. There is not enough evidence...anywhere to make a proper inference on the situation.” Logan finished adjusting his glasses by the time he finished, gaining an annoyed huff from Roman.

“Heya, kiddos? Maybe we shouldn’t argue. We’re all confused right now, and getting upset isn’t going to get us anywhere.” Patton butted in to make sure things didn’t escalate.

“Thank you, Patton.” Logan gave a curt nod of agreement.

“Fiiiine!” Roman whined after a bit.

“It would be wise to explore, to see if we can find any clues as to where we are.”

“I’ll do it!” Remus jumped in. “Who knows, maybe we all died a gruesome death!” He cackled.

“No need.” Janus approached the group from behind, having already explored himself. “Look behind us.” When turning the sides were surprised to find the area behind them was not all whit. On it there were words like what one would find in a google doc currently describing their situation as they lived through it. 

“What the fuck?” Virgil muttered. He had a Tumb.lr so he knew what fanfiction was, and this looked like it. “This can’t be happening…” He groaned, knowing it was happening.

“Aw, they’re writing about us Virge! Like the people on that one app you use.” Patton cooed, only knowing of the fluff part of fanon.

“Pat, you don’t understand. This isn’t good.”

“Oh nonsense kiddo.” Patton dismissed. “Have you guys seen the art they draw of us? It’s so cute!” Virgil internally cringed knowing that not all of it was like that.

“Either way,”-Janus cut off their small conversation.-“We need to find a way out of here.” Janus focused slightly more on Virgil for his next comment. “Whether this is real or not.” Virgil shivered at the thought of them not being real, or even acting like they do in the things that people create. 

Everyone agreed, and soon they were on their way to explore this strange new environment.

 …

 Soon enough, however, the sides are lost. Which brings us back to where this story began. As they searched for their original location, or even the mysterious floating words, they come upon a familiar and yet unknown place. It looks strikingly like a Disney movie kingdom. With one half, filled with bright colors, lush fields, enchanting forests, and a large white castle with a red roof. The other half being dark and dangerous, the colors fading, plants rotting, instead of animals there only creatures of unknown origin, and in the middle, a black, crumbling, castle, with striking green roofing. It was almost as if...it were made for the twins.

In fact, as they got closer they could hear two far off shouts, with simultaneous silhouettes, motioning towards them, as if pointing them out to someone...or something, else.

“Uh...guys?” Virgil trailed off wondering if the others had noticed.

“On it.” Romas was quick to pull out his sword, Remus quickly following suit with his morning star.

It was unnecessary however, as once the silhouettes were in view, they looked exactly like the twins. 

“Wha…” Roman lowered his sword as he saw this. As they got closer more figures came into view. All of which looked like the sides to varying degrees. There were thousands. Some were small, some were even giants, and there were alot that weren’t even human.

“Oh! Hi there kiddos!” A Patton(?) came running past the twin’s doppelgangers. “You’re probably really confused right now, I know alot of us were when we appeared!” The sides just looked at the Patton look-alike  dumbfounded. The first to break out of it was Logan.

“I do not wish to appear rude, but, who are you and where are we?” Logan queried.

“Oh, I’m Patton by @baka-monarch !” Patton chirped. “And you’re in The Imagination!”

“The what now-?” “How did you-?” Both Roman and Virgil asked at the same time.

“Hm?” The other Patton tilted his head confused.

“One at a time now kiddos…” Their Patton silently reminded them. Roman nodded to Virgil to let him go first.

Virgil inhaled, taking his cue. “How did you say a mention? That only works when typed in social medias.” Virgil wondered confused.

“Oh! That’s just my fander creator kiddo!” This Patton didn’t miss a beat as he answered happily. Virgil stared at him blankly as he came to a horrifying conclusion.

“We’re in a f*****g fanfiction.” He jumped slightly at his bleep out. “What was that?”

“Oh, Jan Jan did that I wouldn’t have to hear any vulgar language.” All of them looked back at Janus who looked forward, uninterested, definitely trying not to hide his embarrassment at what this other him did, definitely not. 

“...Okay… My turn!” Roman exclaimed. “What is “the Imagination”?” He used air quotes.

“Yeah, I was wondering that too, Mr. The 6th Day clone.” Remus added.

“Oh! Don’t you know? It’s the place you and Roman can go to to summon anything.You can even change the entire world around you!” Patclone chirped.

“What.” They all said in unison with worry, apart from the twins who were excited.

“Yeah! Isn’t it cool!” Patclone said oblivious to the consequences of the twins having this power could cause. “Oh yeah, do you want me to introduce you to everyone?”

“Please, I am intrigued about how our counterparts might act.” Logan conceded.

“Okie dokie then! Follow me!”

 …

 It had been a few hours at this point and they still weren’t even an eighth of the way through yet. There were so many headcanons, variations, AUs, OCs, OOCs, designs, everything. It was almost too much to handle.

“-this is @tscampfireau ‘s sides from their au-” The Virgil hissed and bit towards them as they almost walked on their pentagram that they were making out of… was that blood? The Patton and Logan were helping them by t-posing as a barrier against the other sides. “-yeah they can be a...fun bunch to hang out with. Oh, and here’s @bleepblopbloop56 ‘s sides.”

“How, and why are they hotter than us..?” Roman mumbled to Virgil, only getting a weird look in response.

“Then there’s @mango-shpango ‘s and @rondoel ‘s ones, he’s got a lot-” Patclone shrugged it off, but King caught all of their eyes. He didn’t have to look like the one they knew for them to know who it was… “Oh, hey there @that-prey-lounge and @tiny-peter-rabbit ‘s sides!” He greeted them. As they turned a corner there was a group of sides that were made of metal like robots. “Oh, there’s @burnadolt ‘s fnaf au!” He waved. As they approached a tavern the last group greeted was, “Heya @nommy-thoughts ‘ sides, how are you adjusting?” there were several positive responses from many of them, and as the sides looked closer they could see that a few were smaller than a human hand not only that but nearby (possibly made by someone else), were the sides they’d seen from afar earlier that were giants.. They hadn't noticed them yet here because of how closely compact the buildings were and how their size made what was visible from their perspective look like buildings.

As they all entered the tavern, they saw that there was only one group of sides here. “Hiya guys! New sides I’d like you to meet @baka-monarch ‘s group.” There were several different hellos. “And my friends, I’d like you to meet… to meet..? I’m sorry but who’s your creator?” Virgil was the one to answer.

“@thatstha-MMPH!” Virgil was only part of the way through before the other’s Janus made him slap his hand over his mouth as the other sides in the room went pale. “What was that for?” Virgil asked, his voice muffled by his hand.

“You can’t say his name. Not here.” Patclone explained cryptid. They all fell into an awkward silence, until Roman changed the subject.

“Why are there...two of you?” Roman observed.

“Oh!” Patclone chirped. “I was created just for this au! Just so I could be your guide!” He paused for a moment thinking before continuing. “I guess I’m like the Monika of this world.” Again, everyone paled, some not understanding, others...understanding too well. “Welp, I guess you want to go explore now! Jan Jan, do you and Patty wanna go have fun while they look around?” Both mentioned sides blushed.

“I told you not to call me that…” Janus mumbled as he took Patclone’s hand and the other Patton stood up to quickly join them as they went off to a separate room.

 …

 Only an hour had passed and the sides had already split off into groups with their counterparts. The Roman’s comforting each other while being completely random, some of them being sad little puffballs that the strong egotistic Roman’s had decided to protect, while others were a mix or just completely unsympathetic and degrading anyone the came in contact with, especially the Virgils. Virgil had kind of separated himself from the other Virgils since 90% of them were cowering away from everything and just having constant anxiety attacks, while the few who were different either had power that they abused, or were fawning over the other sides. The Logans had formed an army of science lead by the Logan from @askdarksidelogan and the other dark sides from his au, this Logan was very robotic looking, cruel, and unfeeling...well, almost unfeeling as the Deceit from his au was his boyfriend and the Remus was really close friends with him. Janus was busy trying to coral in all his different counterparts as some of them made plans to kill everyone around them and end the government, while others were hiding due to PTSD about the angst they have been through. The Remuses just vibed in their corner, killing, being gross, and annoying the other aspects. Finally the Pattons. Patton had basically adopted the ones that were child-like and too innocent for their own good while avoiding the unsympathetics that were teaming up with other unsympathetics and the ones who were...horny… Actually everyone was avoiding the horny ones.

But that was just the simplified version of the chaos. Logans were capturing people to test, Deceits were arguing over their name even though one was already canon, Romans were either being complete idiots or crying silently to themselves, while they were targeted by the unsympathetics along with the Virgils, everyone too scared to even try to tussle with the army of Logans.

Virgil sat back on a hill and watched it all unfold. How had the community gotten this far without this much chaos? He had no idea. A few other counterparts were up there with him but he didn’t mind since they mostly seemed chill. A Virgil approached and sat down next to him exhausted, and judging by the paint he was covered in he had just come from the Romans’ corner.

“Romans a little too much?” Virgil tried making conversation.

“Yeah…” He breathed. “It was getting a little too rowdy and I wanted to get my Roman out of there so he wouldn’t get hurt.” With no Roman in sight, Virgil assumed that he had been unsuccessful.

“So, which Roman is yours?” Virgil wondered.

“Hm?” The counterpart tilted his head confused until it clicked. “Oh, no, he’s not down there right now.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out a tiny Roman. “See.”

“Oh…” Virgil was at a loss of words. What does a person say to that? After that they just sat there in silence as Virgil’s counterpart and the Roman snuggled slightly through a hand to body contact. 

“So…” Virgil decided to try again. “What’s it like, y’know, being shipped?” Virgil wondered, seeing how it seemed these two were in some kind of relationship. Virgil had always found it kind of weird, but, maybe there was more to it…

“I mean, it’s like any other relationship I guess… falling in love and deciding to be together.” The counterpart mumbled as the tiny Roman rubbed his hand to comfort him.

“But isn’t it weird how it isn’t real? How, you’re literally just playing out your creator’s fantasies because they enjoy the idea of you being together?” Virgil wondered.

The counterpart just shrugged. “I try not to think about it… but, it really isn’t that weird, even if we’re fictional characters we have memories, motives, morals, opinions, feelings. Those are real. Even if they aren’t created by us, they are real. Every thought, every motion, every breath. That is us. Just because it was written, drawn, or even just imagined, it happened and that makes it real. Makes this feeling real.” He explained as he rubbed the little head of his Roman.

“Huh I… I guess you’re right, I never thought of it that way.” Virgil shrugged.

“No one does. Why do you think people are told not to cry over fictional deaths when they actually had feelings for a character, platonic or not?” The counterpart said. “It’s just a story on the outside, something thought to not affect people even though when our memories are shared with them, it can change them.” Virgil looked at his counterpart, curiosity growing about how he had so much knowledge.

“Who’s your creator?” Virgil finally asked.

“Why do I have to have one?”

“Touche.” 

They went back to a comfortable silence. It was nice. Until this one Janus came.

“Hey, Virgil, does Roman mind if I had him for a bit?” They asked.

“I don’t mind at all!” The tiny side exclaimed as he got on Janus’ hand. They soon left, but when that Janus vired the Roman they weren’t far enough away from Virgil for him not to catch a glimpse. He shivered. 

“Is that normal?” He wondered.

“Depends on the part of the community, but pretty normal and usually safe, so don’t worry.” The counterpart comforted him. It barely helped but at last Virgil knew that that Roman was safe… probably.

“Can I try!” Remus came brelling up the his, straight (heh) to the counterpart.

“Only if you want to.” They replied.

“I do!” Remus wriggled with excitement.

“Alright, let's go find you one of the groups of sides either with the power to shrink you or are giants.” Virgil led Remus off the hill as Remus kept talking about everything that could go wrong but probably wouldn’t.

Weird. Was all Virgil could think as he watched them leave.

 …

 He saw a lot that day but never saw that Virgil again, as if he had vanished mysteriously. It didn’t matter to him right now though as he had been stuck with babysitting duty over all the little kid sides.

“F*** this.”

 …

 Virgil looked over the story he just read one more time. It was written by a small creator called @baka-monarch , who focussed more on reblogging than they did their own content.

“That was trash.”

…

…

…

“Reblog.”