#in order to avoid the thing they’re actually upset about of course

[howlsofbloodhounds]

Ok based on your most recent post (I am obsessed I love it sm-). I honestly think that once Delta wakes up to see them with him again he'd probably freak out a little bit, and have no idea if this is reality or another nightmare. But once he is able to figure it out, they might be upset and ask Color and Epic questions about the subjects of their nightmares (ex; about the jar one, he might ask why they couldn't hear them and why didn't they bother to look in the jars) and might completely get confused with reality.

I also think that because they had dissociated for so long (probably spanning days or weeks before they came back to reality), he would have gone completely nonverbal and would have switched to sign language (the silence also most likely made them incredibly paranoid - too paranoid to break it by speaking. So, in order to keep the quiet, they silenced themselves and haven't spoken in a good long while), furthering their dissociation and PTSD spiral.

Now of course this would concern Epic and Color, and they'd likely have to explain that the nightmares weren't reality, but would also have to try to get him to explain what the hell had happened during the time they were both gone, and why he hadn't called them for help once they're able to talk in the morning.

(But since you mentioned how they'd probably help Delta fall asleep, I can't help but wonder how they'd react if Delta woke up from a bad nightmare about them, and how the talk in the morning would go?)

I love this addition, it makes complete sense. And now that we’re on the topic about this type of thing, I actually feel like it’d be easier for Color and Epic to understand these things more than it seems.

For Color, it’s due to his relationship with Killer. We all know Killer is a dissociative character who cannot often tell what is and is not real anymore, he spends most of his time dissociating—as opposed to Delta and Beta’s episodes of intense dissociative episodes due to events in their lives.

I’m sure that Color has had to help Killer differentiate between dream, memory, and reality many times before, even if it’s as something as simple as having to lightly touch Killer’s shoulder when walking past—otherwise Killer would probably just assume he’s dreaming or it isn’t real.

On the other hand, if I remember correctly, Epic has very vivid and distressing nightmares where he has to constantly fight against creatures/a creature every night due to his magical eye thing. And as a result he learns actual fighting experience from this, but he also often wakes up in pain and panicking. His nightmares are legitimately traumatizing for him.

So I’m assuming Epic would avoid sleep as much as possible, especially in a case such as this, where a beloved friend needs sleep and can’t afford being woken up by his nightmares.

So I’m assuming that once Delta first wakes up in the middle of the night, Epic would actually already be up. He probably was surprised and taken aback by Delta’s panicking, but is quick to try and calm the two of them down.

And when Delta starts using ASL, looking unnerved at any noise made, is when Epic realizes that it was worse than he and Color had thought. And maybe he considers waking Color up, because Color has always been better with words and calming people down between the three of them, but Delta frantically shakes his head ‘no.’

Epic doesn’t argue against this, although he knows Delta is likely doing this because he doesn’t want to worry Color and be perceived as ‘weak,’ doesn’t want to disturb Color’s rest. So instead Epic, Delta, and Beta wander off into the kitchen for some late night milk and cookies.

Epic asks if they’re ready to talk about it, to which they shake their head no. Epic again doesn’t argue, instead settles on to the couch with them to watch some random tv series. He pretends not to notice how Delta keeps staring at him instead of the show, squeezing Epic’s arm tightly.

By the time morning comes around and Color is waking up, Delta and Beta have still not spoken verbally and haven’t slept. Neither has Epic—which only inevitably concerns Color even more, which only increases when Delta suddenly starts rapidly singing at him once spotted.

Color asks him to slow down as he approaches, he didn’t catch that, Epic turning down the volume on the show and turning to face the others more directly. Once Color is seated, he asks Delta to repeat what he said, more slowly this time.

Why didn’t you two hear us? Why didn’t you open it? Why didn’t you look? Why did you leave? We were screaming.

And Epic and Color share a look, confused, before Color begins prompting them to explain with more questions. Look where? Open what? Leave where?

Gradually, they begin to piece together what happened—often Delta and Beta have to pause when they start dissociating again or get too choked up, Color asks Epic to get them a glass of water at some point, but stops when they start panicking again at the question (don’t leave)—and the whole time Delta’s hands are gripping on to his friends so tightly it almost hurts.

I can see them letting Delta and Beta cry it out and calm down enough before Color starts to explain, helps them piece together what was dream and what was memory, versus what actually happened.

I can see Epic trying to make them laugh using his usual humor and memes, because he can see that their paranoia about the silence is making them cautious to speak and furthering their dissociation. Which of course makes it harder for them to fully process what was happening and what is happening.

I think, once they realized what was happening, Delta and Beta might actually feel ashamed, guilty, and/or embarrassed about how they reacted to something that “didn’t even happen.” Delta probably feels guilty, assuming it means that some part of him thinks of Epic and Color as the type of people who’d do that to them.

To which they’d have to reassure him that, no, it was out of his control and doesn’t make him a bad friend or a bad person for having nightmares and feeling abandoned.

I can also see, if either Delta or Beta realizes what happened before the other did, they will attempt to help comfort and ground the other too; such as Beta petting the body’s hand, or hugging themselves due to not being able to physically hug each other. Talking out loud to soothe each other, reminding the other that not only does Epic and Color still love them, but they love each other, too.

[blackbloodteeth]

Okay so here's one of those types of murder mysteries where the characters get picked off one by one and you have to figure out who's responsible by the end. This takes place after the end of the manga (but not by too much) where the main gang is having some sort of dinner party inside the Gallows Manor (probably).

The start of the story is in the perspective of the killer (details are up to interpretation but it’s mostly just the main group getting back together here, so it's even more of a mystery why one of them is doing this), and it gives you some time to wonder who the perspective’s from while they're watching Soul specifically because his drink is actually poisoned.

They're being covert about it so they look away sometimes, but eventually he looks a little disturbed and excuses himself to the bathroom, the killer now smug and victorious that he's gonna be out of the way now.

And next the lights go out.

This is the part where things get a little hectic. I’m thinking there’s some screwy liminal space kinda nonsense happening which doesn’t help everyone splitting up, but each scene that follows is in the perspective of who’s getting targeted next.

Mind you however that these aren’t actually deaths; they’re ways of trapping each person in the form of an object. The specifics on the order are up to interpretation but it goes something like:

Death the Kid becomes a painting.

Black☆Star turns into a statue.

Liz ends up trapped in a snowglobe.

Patty finally gets to be with her stuffed animals.

Tsubaki is just a playhouse doll.

And Maka...

Okay scene switch, we now have the perspective of Soul who, as it turns out, has been hiding out in the bathroom this entire time. He never ate or drank anything as he was too anxious to, and he’s been in here managing another anxiety attack because he’s been starting to struggle with those as of late (also yeah, the lights never went off in here, that's related to the weirdness going on).

Eventually he leaves since he’s been in here long enough and he doesn’t want people to notice he’s been having issues lately, which quickly leads to him realizing something’s up when everyone’s gone and everything’s dark. Honestly probably reasonable to assume this is some kind of game he got left out of.

But wandering around with the flashlight from his phone, he finds the Death the Kid painting first, and thinks about how life-like it is while starting to get pretty creeped out by this point. He likely encounters a couple others (such as the statue of Black☆Star) before he soon manages to meet up with Maka.

He’s concerned – she’s also worried about all this – and while the conversation specifics are up in the air, Soul then offers an “Okay, I’ll switch in my scythe form just in case.” and gets slightly confused when Maka’s like nah, maybe we shouldn’t. He argues that it’ll help with her soul perception but she’s still hesitating for some reason, to which the gears are now turning in his head that something is definitely wrong here.

One thing of course leads to another, and the lights turn on as Maka is revealed to be the killer (suspenseful gasp), which turns out to actually be some demon or other that possessed her in advance to deal with her first before enacting this grand plan to take everyone’s power for itself. Soul was simply poisoned (though granted it was just something that causes total paralysis, and it would’ve come back for him later) because it possessing Maka meant Soul would’ve caused the most problems. In comedic irony, however, Soul ended up having unintentionally avoided all of this.

Soul is understandably upset and goes, “Fuck you, give my meister back!” The demon decides they’ll deal with him now by, “Oh yes,” turning him into a puppet before the room goes dark again – This time so dark that his flashlight barely cuts through it, even if it had still been on due to him having never shut it off in the confusion.

And the neat part that happens next while the demon disappears into the darkness is that Soul starts to feel strings trying to pull him up to the ceiling.

He jolts away and tries to locate the demon while fighting with the feeling continuing to happen repeatedly, until looking up he sees “Maka” all distorted from the ceiling, the strings being from their fingertips.

At this point it’s time to panic.

He does eventually get the train of thought with the strings that if he plays his piano while connected with them he could possibly reach Maka’s soul, but it would be such a “only one shot, you can’t miss” type of deal – Fuck it, it’s his meister. He’s going for it.

So he drops his phone, changes his arm into a piano keyboard, and lets the strings pick him up, waiting for the perfect timing to hit his only note while he feels himself slowly being turned to wood again (and trying not to have a panic attack, bless him).

The demon is pretty smug about him surrendering himself and giving up, which makes this plan all the more perfect as he strikes that key right as he’s fully becoming a puppet and letting him connect with Maka.

“Oh, hi.”

He’s got no time to explain though – Just grab my hand.

Their two souls perform their song together and use the demon’s strings to reach out to everyone else’s soul too, and it can’t separate them because in its hubris, Soul was too tangled up to get rid of much like a headphone cord, and so everyone is quickly freed by the power of music or whatever. The demon, however, becomes enraged, deciding to rip Soul away in all of the strings and possess him instead, so Maka gets her body back but has to watch as Soul’s soul is buried as the demon looks up at her with his face – “Sorry girlie, Soul isn’t here anymore!” – and proceeds to attack her with stringy spider scythe-legs that erupt from his back, ‘cause it’s time for the Plan B where it’ll just eat their souls normally instead.

The perspective then moves back to Soul’s soul where he’s struggling with being all tangled up in the strings, just sinking down deeper and deeper away into the darkness, and hanging there as he feels the demon wanting to fully consume him.

Going down so deep though he starts to hear a voice, a familiar one, laughing.

He looks... up? It’s the Little Oni, on the ceiling.

Soul doesn’t want to remember, but the more that little demon talks and the more he's reminded, the more lanterns get lit, until he gives in and now sees the entirety of the Black Room sitting above him – to which he drops out from the strings and right onto the floor, now wearing that old suit of his.

“Fuck.”

As far as he knows though this is just an unpleasant memory he’s been trying so hard to repress (hence part of why he’s been dealing with so much anxiety lately), but Oni says he can help his situation just like old times (“Once you’re so far down, there’s no going any lower, am I right?”), considering all the dark strings still looming in from the abyss above like the red curtains.

So dusting off that old piano – it’s still tuned – he regrettably decides there’s not really a lot else left for him to try, and sitting down he briefly notes the puppet strings leading right into the piano’s shadow.

And after a deep breath, he starts playing.

Back to the outside world, the rest of the gang reunited with Maka, everyone now wielding their respective weapons as they try to figure out how to get Soul back (the demon isn’t giving them any openings though, especially with them not wanting to really hurt Soul in the crossfire). The demon starts hearing music though, much to its confusion, which gives them just the opening they need for Black☆Star to hold back all of the legs with Tsubaki’s shadow ability and Maka to come in for a hug to reach Soul, letting Kid sever the demon out with his reaper claws in the process (something he’s using more often now that he’s grasping how to be a full-fledged Shinigami).

Which he then shoves into a jar that Black☆Star tosses to him because I find the idea of them getting back at it by trapping it in an object and watching an angry dark mass jitter around with smol rage hilarious.

Maka is just hugging Soul on the floor for a moment afterwards before it returns to his perspective, where all the strings are now gone and he shuts the piano immediately.

Looking up at the ceiling though, he has no idea how he’d get back out the same way he came in, to which Oni answers for him to “just use the door.”

Of course doing so would bring back the Black Room as it had been before, but given Soul has no real way to climb up he unfortunately has to, with him leaving a parting “Just keep the door locked.” after Oni says this will always be open to him.

Whoops, looks like he’s got Black Blood again, we’ll get ‘em next time.

Finally making it back outside though he gets to hug Maka too and everything apparently worked out in the end. He probably still has to deal with explaining the bathroom anxiety bit.

And so the story concludes for now – It’s a world where, after the ending of the series, there was one Black Blood cell still clinging to life, lying dormant inside the deepest, darkest corner of Soul’s heart. A cell that had no way to act on its own until being gifted this golden opportunity to see Soul come back, happily even.

But it’s also one where the friends he’s been growing up with are there to support him now more than ever, and, even in such strange turn of events, relearn some of their own abilities and remember the strength of the bonds still burning just as brightly as they were even if time still changes too.

Or something along those lines, anyway.

[pumpkinpot]

Black Butler Grinch!AU Pt.2

Synopsis: Something has it out for the Phantomhive household but will Sebastian make it in time to save everyone?

CW: Body gore, decapitation, stalking, pinchers, monster depictions, horror in general, Sebastian is an ass. 

Pt. 1  Pt. 3

.

The mailman bubs through sobs. “I know it sounds crazy but-”

Ciel scoffs behind you. “It must have been a bear coming out of hibernation or something.”

you check the wound on his side. Two thick puncture holes below his ribs. It wasn’t Sebastian's style. Whoever did this seemed less intent on killing and more on draining him.

The mailman shakes his head at Ciel. “But it said-”

“It spoke to you?” Sebastian interrupts, “well that does change things, what did it say?” 

“It said, “In blood dark will be plentiful.”” the man stuttered again. “what could that mean?” 

I lean back on my heels looking back at Sebastian. He turns to Ciel speaking in hushed tones. 

“There are creatures that feed off emotion that are quite abundant this time of year.” He says it loud enough for you to hear, but still you strain. “Both are usually well fed this time of year. Christmas is made up of two specifically, one feeds on joy the other depression. Joy is quite symbiotic for humans, but the other obviously wouldn’t be. When one thrives the other can’t eat. I think they're starving each other out.”

You keep the mailman's hand in yours as you turn to them. “So why not fight each other, what do we have to do with it?”

Sebastian skips the last half of your question continuing on the first. “Joy likely hasn’t noticed a discrepancy yet. England keeps plenty of events going in the build up to Christmas, the thing won’t realize until Christmas that something has happened."

“but it's a deficit year. There are plenty of people struggling.” Ciel counters.

“To put it simply, they are greedy. You can thank the ever consumerism of Christmas on joy and capitalism on the other. Of course some of their retaliations work in tandem with the others. They are the same being after all, but when humans do things to upset their balance, like giving treats to starving children for example, it can make a starving beast come out of hiding.”

The conversation falls into silent contemplation before Sebastian orders Finny, Mey Ren, Bald and even Tanka to go find dry clothes and prepare to go out again.

You follow them out of the room into the hallway. “Am I coming this time?” You ask. 

Ciel continues leaving you and Sebastian alone. 

He spares you a slight glance. “No.”

“Sebastian-”

He turns to you fully with a sigh. “I know you believe I am doing this because I believe you incapable, but I assure you that isn’t the case-” 

“No Sebastian, that wasn’t my assumption,” you meet his eyes. “I have had no problem siding with your decisions when they are explained and logical. This is neither. You have yet to give me any reason I shouldn’t be useful when we both know I am capable.” 

He did believe you would be useful, even kept kicking himself to not allow you to come, but he couldn’t. Simply you would distract him. It was of course his own greed to keep you safe that would distract him but it was easier to blame you. 

All day he’d been trying to come up with a viable reason for you to stay inside, without revealing too many of his personal feelings. When it was proving fruitless he opted to avoid you all together. 

He even played with the idea of telling you that you were incapable, but that would create a rift he didn’t have the time to render, besides it didn’t feel comfortable within himself to lie about something so blatantly untrue given his actual reasoning. 

“I knew someone was stalking the manor,” he confessed, “I haven’t been able to tell who until now. Someone ambushed all of England's Funtum toy factories leaving inventory in complete ruins. This was the last target on the list of places they have yet to hit. Baldroy, Finney, and Mey Ren were out looking for evidence. I didn’t involve you because I don’t prefer to put my things in needless danger.”

You were growing tired of hearing the term my thing. “So you allowed me to stay in the kitchen acting as if nothing was wrong while my friends put themselves at risk mere feet away because you wanted to preserve me for a fantasy you’ve created in your mind?”

 His jaw slacked slightly but he closed it with a drop of his shoulders. 

Did that hurt his feelings? 

Either way, he recovers quickly. “Yes. And I would and will do it again.” He takes a step forward, brushing a hand on your cheek. “it’s not for you to understand yet. Maybe if you behave I’ll explain later. But for now, I mean what I say. Stay inside.” 

You had enough bravery left in your chest for one more remark. “And if I don’t?”

His palm, still soft against your cheek, smooths back into your neck as he tugs you into an empty room. His nose teases yours and he leans in with a sly smile. “I am not known for gentle punishments.” 

With that, he steps away locking you in. You jiggle the knob angrily. “Sebastian no!” you bang on the door, but he’s gone. 

You don’t know how much time has passed but your fists have become sore and bruised, halfheartedly pounding the wood when you hear footsteps. “Hello,” you beg, “let me out!” 

To your surprise there's a jiggle of the handle, a click, and the door creaks open. You expect to find Mey Ren or maybe Finny but instead, it’s the mailman.

He favors his left side heavily and holds the rag you’d given over his puncture wounds on the right. “I heard you from the kitchen,” he huffs. His body shakes, pained and weak. “I waited until they left before coming.” 

You felt ashamed and angry that you needed an injured man to come save you. You huffed out a thanks looking down the hall. The air is still with the absence of echoing conversation or footsteps. Instead, it is the shaky haggard breath of your savior. 

“There are better pain medicines upstairs in the guest kitchen.” You suggest taking him under your arm. 

“I can’t make it up like I am now.” 

“I’ll get them.”

The house is completely empty. Not even Tanaka ghosts through the halls. You’d never been inside like this before. it took on a certain hum like you weren’t alone and it was the house itself keeping you company. 

You were debating with yourself whether it was worth going out into the snow now. If everyone had truly gone you would be wandering around by yourself looking for a creature you had no business fighting. For now, what you could do was help the mailman. 

Just as you’ve gotten the pain medicine in hand all the lights in the manor snuff at once throwing you at the mercy of a snowy gray sky. It illuminates just enough for you to see the rough shapes of the furniture in front of you. You listen for anything out of place but hear nothing but eerie stillness. 

Shuffling forward, gripping anything you can to find your way. It was too dark to even find a candle to light so you rely solely on muscle memory to get you back down to the servant's stairs. 

It’s darker in the lower level. All the windows had been bordered up to conserve heat. Still, your eyes had adjusted enough to see where you were going, but the moment you turned the corner you almost wished they hadn’t.

Down the hallway to the kitchens stands a mass large enough to be a bear. But where bears were plump all around it was skinny in the arms with a bulbous tummy and stood on its back legs. It has a smaller mass in its hand that stretches long and moves lifelessly.

Two glowing yellow eyes catch yours and don’t break. Your breath pulls in commas and you swear it can hear your heart beating. You stand there an eternity unwilling to move first. The mass in its hand whimpers in a tone sounding sickeningly similar to the mailman's and your attention breaks for only a second. When it rights the creature is halfway down the hall to you, dropping its first toy in a heap behind it.

You throw yourself through the doorway of your room just as it crashes by. One of its hands catches the door frame pulling itself into the entrance. It looms large and heavy above trapping you in a corner. 

“Don’t run little spirit,” its voice sounds like broken glass on concrete. “I’d rather get this done quickly.” 

A woosh of air and biting pain clamp down on your arm. Thick nails puncture your muscles dragging you forward. You attempt to jimmy free, sacrificing the integrity of your forearm. 

Thick red ribbons slice down your arms as you barrel around the creature taking a turn towards the stairs. Hot blood drips down your palms. It stalks behind you with an indignant growl. Where were you going to go? Running through the rest of the house was bound to catch Sebastian's attention who was looking for the creature outside, though if they weren’t close enough to notice the sudden absence of light they likely weren’t close enough to be of any help to you. You are paces from the stairs when you hear it behind you gaining speed. 

If you found yourself trapped in the stairwell with it, there would be no escape, a split decision, and you turned left, throwing yourself into the dumbwaiter. 

Your body contorts awkwardly into the hole and slams the door closed. There are a few loud bangs on the metal door, denting it slightly before nails rock the door you're holding closed open a few inches. You try once more to close it with all your weight then switch your strength to the chain pulling the platform you sit on up out of reach. 

It pokes its head under the door watching you climb. Its cackles echo up the metal shaft and it disappears. You pull as hard and fast as you can with your veins punctured as they are. The upper kitchen comes into view accompanied by a series of clamors up the main staircase.

You throw yourself out of the hole in the wall and beneath the first surface, you can fit under holding your breath. The world is silent for a moment and you think to come out to grab a weapons, but the thud of nails brings the idea to a halt. You look beneath the table for feet, but none show. Despite this, the distinct steps of travel doesn’t stop. 

It’s in here with you, you know it and it's close. You hold your breath hoping to hear the taps again. There it is-

 Tap, tap- Above you. 

Stifling your sobs with a fist you peek up at the horrifying mass crawling on the ceiling. Its fingers splay out tickling the wall as it looks around the room like he hasnt spotted you yet. The kitchen holds barely any more light than the bottom floors, but moonlight pools through the windows. When the creature passes through it you can see the undeniable green tint of matted fur. 

 “I can smell you,” it growls, dropping its body heavily atop the cart you’re under. 

Reclusing into yourself, you pull your arms, still oozing blood as close to your body as it will go. If you didn’t stop the bleeding soon you were sure to lose more than just a fight. 

Its sheer size was enough to determine fighting as a viable option for survival. Though it had proved sentient, maybe you could bargain.

You lick your lips preparing to speak, but as the syllable slicks your tongue, something slinks around your ankle dragging you from your hiding spot.

You grab onto the cart as it swings around on its wheeled legs. The creature holds you above itself beaming with slated pupils in golden eyes. “Found you.”

A scream attempts to rip itself from your lungs but no sound escapes. Instead, the last hope of your original plan pleads into the freezing air. “What do you want?”

A growl hums from the beast. "the dark," it says.

You attempt to swipe at the thing catching its mouth with your bad arm. A new sort of excitement burns behind its grip. It catches your limb with its free hand dropping your leg all together.

Holding your arm to its lips you feel a dry sandpaper-like tongue slip over your skin. Torn bits of flesh rip from your body. You attempt to push against it, to run away but it holds your elbow firmly in place.

What feels like teeth sink into your body, but when you take a moment to look its jaw it completely slacks, extracting two thick appendages from its mouth tearing into your tendons. Your muscles spasm.

Despite the physical pain nothing compares to the utter despair fuzzing around your vision. Any memory, hope or contentment you'd felt in your life depleted as if nothing had ever been there leaving behind nothing but gloom.

Your focus wanes in and out of consciousness. You reach for anything to cling to. Any hope or- Your free hand grazes the handle of a cast iron pan you pull at it with everything inside of you. it nearly falls heavy out of your grip, but you swing it up enough to catch its pincers with the hull breaking one of them off.

The creature lets you go grasping its jaw. You crawl out of the kitchen onto the overlook of the main staircase. Through bellows and growls, you look around for anything to defend yourself with. You giggle the rungs of the stairs railing but they all fix tightly. Nothing but glass vases and garland are close enough for you to reach. You peek over the railing to the bottom foyer. 

The stairs were too far away for you to crawl to time so you tug at the garland. Resigned to the idea you might not make it out of this you pull the vines around yourself and turn to the creature stalking towards you. 

Its growls are pained and furious. 

You hear Sebastian call to you from somewhere in the lower levels, but he isn't close enough.

The second your attention divides the creature lunges. You catch its neck in the garland throwing yourself over the railing. The tile below comes at you quickly and you close your eyes preparing for impact, but it doesn’t come immediately. Your body jolts with a loud gargled snap suspending you in the air a second longer, before you continue your descent to the floor. 

You hit the cold ground in a series of two thuds. Air vomits itself from your lungs leaving you gasping and as you bring in your first intake hot liquid pours down your scalp. 

It floods your ears, stings your eyes, and puddles in your lap. You attempt to scramble away but are met with the still-glowing eyes of your assailant. Its severed head leans in a blackened puddle spreading down the foyer. 

You think you hear your name, but can’t be sure until someone pinches your shoulder swiveling you around into candlelight. You blink away the burn it brings Sebastian's eyes meeting yours. 

He inspects you frantically. “Are you hurt?” 

You have no words to give him, so you lift your arm feeling the things eyes on you from behind. 

When Sebastian pulls your arm into the light, you see the cuts are much deeper than you’d initially. Where it had fed on you gashes in a different direction than the others. Likely from where you’d hit it. As the thought finishes in your mind you feel the last of your adenine leave your body. Everything becomes heavy. 

Sebastian keeps you upright, his grip struggling to keep gentle against your sensitive skin. “It fed on you?” his voice lowered to ice and velvet. The question wasn’t really for you and you’re thankful. Honestly you didn’t know how to answer.

His eyes glow like the creatures but full of blood rather than fire. “Where is it?”

With the last of your resolve, you scoop the severed head behind you into your lap. The puddle sloshes against your leg waving out and beyond. 

Sebastian doesn’t shy away from the thing, but shock still shows through in his features.

“You would have thought it had the decency to stay in a single part of the house,” Ciel scoffs behind Sebastian. 

“That’s my fault,” you slur instinctively. 

You can’t see the boy, but you hear an indignant hum then the tap of his cane as he turns away. “Sebastian, get this cleaned up. Then tea.” 

Sebastian, who was always at the ready to obey, doesn’t move. His hand cradles your fist that grips a tuft of the severed head. “I’ll take it from here.” 

You had a witty comeback somewhere in your subconscious but you couldn’t bring yourself to say it. Instead, you pry your fingers open and he takes the head looking to the floor above. 

He keeps what he sees to himself, tossing the head aside. “Let’s get you in the bath.”

. 

CW for part three: Smut. Porn with a plot. MDNI. Trauma shock. blood.

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Hey if you like this content here is my Master List 

[nickgerlich]

Eat Your Veggies

There’s an old Three Stooges skit in which Curly sings, “She was bred in ol' Kentucky, but she's just a crumb up here. Knock-kneed and double-jointed, with a cauliflower ear.” Well, there’s a fast food chain that also has a cauliflower ear these days, and they are getting an earful for it.

With all the build-up for the Big Game and the ad blitz that was to unfold, it seems odd that anyone would make a new product announcement. How easy would it be for that announcement to be buried under all the other hype? But this one managed to cut through the din and got everyone’s attention. It’s just that they probably did not anticipate the negativity from both sides of the aisle.



So ICYMI, last week Chick-Fil-A announced they were joining the plant-based brigade with a new sandwich, this one a battered and cooked slab of cauliflower. The company said it was responding to suggestions from many customers who wanted a plant-based option. After all, scores of fast food and fast-casual outlets have added such options in the last few years, but Chick-fil-A’s is unique in that, instead of a Beyond Burger or Impossible Chicken, it’s an actual vegetable.

Once again, the peanut gallery of social media users proved that you’re damned if you do, and damned if you don’t. Those on the right responded with the usual emojis—laughing face and mad face—as well as allegations that CFA had “gone woke” just like their other favorite dining destination—Cracker Barrel—did last year when they announced they were adding Impossible Sausage.

And then those on the far left blew up because there are apparently many who still boycott CFA over the company’s staunch anti-LGBTQ sentiments, as well as financial support of counter movements. Looks like these people won’t be ordering a cauliflower sandwich there any time soon.

Of course, you could argue that Chick-fil-A kind of brought some of this on themselves by virtue of being so vocally opposed to the LGBTQ community. It’s always dangerous mixing religion and politics with your business. They make bad condiments.

But as for the others upset that the company may be drifting into dangerous territory, let’s just say that you can hardly sneeze to the left without raising eyebrows. Non-meat eaters are automatically dismissed as evil liberals, even if they had been doing this years before that “w” word was misappropriated. Honestly, I don’t understand why people would get so upset—and spend so much energy expressing their discontent—over what other people choose to eat or not eat. People are literally arguing about a vegetable.

One thing is certain, though. This sandwich was not designed for the vegans and vegetarians among us. Aside from the kale salad already on the menu, these people probably weren’t going to CFA anyway, and likely will still avoid it. The new sandwich, you see, is battered in a milk and egg concoction. And then there’s that buttery bun. If this is your jam, then you should like the cauliflower sandwich, because it will clock in with a lot fewer milligrams of cholesterol than a standard chicken sandwich (70mg).

No, what Chick-fil-A is doing is expanding its product line for the flexitarians, those who still eat meat, but also graze on other occasions. This is smart business, because 47% of Americans report themselves as being flexitarian. In contrast, only five-percent at most are vegetarian or vegan. While it is possible to profit while serving only a small fraction of a population, it is much easier to do so if you’re aiming at the middle ground.



Boycotters gonna boycott, so leave them be. As long as the Cathey Family is in charge of Chick-fil-A, I doubt their stance will change when it comes to religious values. But as for those who overlook that matter, please stop criticizing them for a menu item addition. They’re simply giving people more choice. It’s not a liberal conspiracy.

I can only hope that CFA is also smart enough to steer clear of all the social media controversy. While it is inevitable these days that heads will explode about virtually anything, just hold your ground and don’t dignify the complainers by listening to every single thing they say.



Because you may very well get stuck with that cauliflower ear.

Dr “Nyuk Nyuk Nyuk“ Gerlich

Audio Blog

[fangurk]

Puppy Love (The Cullen Family x Child! Werewolf! Reader)

Key:

Y/n - Your Name

Y/h/c - Your Hair Color

Y/e/c - Your Eye Color

Y/f/c - Your Favorite Color

Y/f/f - Your Favorite Flavor

Prompt (given to me by @inrice): but could you do something along the lines of the cullens (mainly alice) takes upon the job of raising a werewolf!reader? who's a child of course.

Summary: Alice Cullen stumbles upon a very strange, very lonely child while out on a hunt and, in true Cullen fashion, decides to take them home. Nobody knows how to take care of a werewolf or a child, but when they put in a collective effort (and bring in the help of Bella) things start getting easier...

Warning: Is this kidnapping? It might be kidnapping, fluff, slightly angsty at some parts, AU because Caius is cruel, and potentially odd genderless terms of endearment.

A/n: family fic makes the brain go brrr. so like i didn't really know how to handle the whole werewolf thing because the twilight lore is so... bare... and i wanted to write more on the family parts so it's not like a real focus but it is mentioned quite a bit. I hope that's okay! /gen

Word Count: 1.2k+

Alice wasn’t able to foresee you.

She simply stumbled across you one day on a hunt, your tiny body curled up at the base of a tree. You smelled so much of dog she almost mistook you for one, and then you looked up at her with big y/e/c eyes and she knew.

Carlisle wasn’t very happy when she brought you home.

“The Volturi will have a field day with this.” He says as he repacks his doctor bag. “The child is dangerous to have around.”

“But they're all alone, Carlisle. You said it yourself, they looked like they were out there for days— and I waited there with them until nightfall, no one came…”

Her shoulders fall and she looks at the door separating them from the rest of the family.

“Oh please just let them stay, we’ll all take care of them— if anything we’re better suited for it than anyone!”

Carlisle opens his mouth to protest but is interrupted by Esme opening the door, you asleep in her arms. All of his hesitance melts away at the sight, and at the sound of your small snores.

He sighs. “Fine, the child can stay— but we have to be careful.”

Alice nearly erupts with her joy, and Carlisle tries to hide a smile.

──────────────────

They give you a nice bedroom.

Rosalie, Alice, and Esme take an entire day to shop, nearly clearing out three children’s stores in the process. They build you furniture and they paint the walls a pretty shade of y/f/c; you now own more toys and clothes than a kid can possibly comprehend.

You spend the day with Emmett, the only Cullen boy who’s comfortable getting close to you, and he introduces you to the wide range of children’s cartoons. Your browsing ended with Crashbox, something that had the big man far more into it than you, but it was fun nonetheless.

“Want to see your room, Y/n?” Rosalie hums, poking her head around the corner and flashing you a dazzling smile.

The ladies let you wander around the new space, excitement brightening your features.

Emmett is still enraptured by the TV long after you’re put to bed.

──────────────────

Most days are good days.

Even if two of the family members seem a little afraid of you, you’re happy. You’re fed and clothed and loved.

But then there are bad days.

You wouldn’t eat. Nothing Esme made you was satisfactory and you were too upset and overwhelmed to let anyone know what you wanted; everyone tries to comfort you, even Jasper with his powers, but none of it really seems to work.

And then Edward comes home.

He left at some point during the crying and everyone figured that he was just bailing ship like he usually does when it comes to you. But, in reality, he somehow managed to get a cohesive reading of your mind and immediately went to someone who could help him.

“I brought Bella.” He says, gesturing awkwardly at his equally awkward girlfriend when five sets of frustrated eyes land on him.

“And I brought chicken nuggets…” The brunette human raises the bag up with a smile.

Everyone watches in confusion as you perk up a bit.

“Uh, here.” Bella crosses the room and places the bag down in front of you.

You open the bag and immediately start eating, sniffling but no longer upset. Every Cullen is reeling in shock.

“Well. What do you have to say to Bella?” Alice clears her throat, giving you an encouraging smile.

“Thank you, Bella.” You mumble, mouth full of food.

“Oh- it was actually Edward’s idea.”

You turn and thank him, beaming, and he gives you a crooked smile in return.

Afterward, Edward doesn’t really avoid you anymore.

──────────────────

‘Children of the Moon’ don’t pass their lycanthropy onto their offspring.

Alice doesn’t like to think about it, but sometimes the implication that someone bit and infected you consumes her mind and it makes her want to cry.

──────────────────

On the days they go to school, you do too.

They figure it’s good for you to spend time with other kids your age, and it seems to be. You always come home with crazy stories of playtime adventures and smelling of paint and crayons; the teachers love you, or more so the bright little woman who picks you up from school.

“Draw your family.” The teacher encourages one day.

You draw the Cullens.

When you proudly hand it to Alice when she picks you up from school, she lifts you up in a hug. Jasper frames your little drawing and puts it up next to all of their graduation caps.

──────────────────

The full moon is pretty horrific.

In order to keep everyone safe from your tiny claws, they keep you in the basement. For hours before the transformation, you just lie down there and wail-- you’re only little, it’s only fair.

Alice sits outside and talks to you the whole time, her voice wavering and her hands shaking.

She doesn’t move after the wails turn into howls, even if it would be safer to do so.

──────────────────

“Does Jasper hate me?”

You’re wrapped up in bandages, sitting on the picnic blanket with your adoptive mother and eating a sandwich too big for you as her husband pretends to do something down by the water. Alice is completely blindsided. They’ve sort of explained what they are to you, and you’ve kind of filled in blank spaces to the best of your ability, but she’s still unsure how to explain Jasper’s hesitance.

She doesn’t wind up having to.

“No,” He says, sitting down next to you and wrapping an arm around your shoulders, “I don’t. I’m actually quite fond of you darlin’.”

That alone seems to satisfy you and, over time, he loosens up a bit.

Jasper seems happier than he has in a while, listening to you talk about things little kids talk about, and Alice watches fondly with a smile.

──────────────────

One of them reads a story and tucks you into bed every night.

Most times it’s Alice, sometimes Jasper joins in.

Tonight is one of those nights. You’re clean and showered, dressed in a cute little pajama set, and nestled under the covers; she’s lying down next to you, Goodnight Moon open in her hands, and he’s in a chair next to the bed.

“... goodnight noises everywhere.” She finishes, smiling at your drooping eyes and lulling head.

Carefully, she unwinds herself from you and, with the help of her husband tucks the blanket under your sides. You tug your favorite stuffed animal close to your chest, y/e/c eyes closed, and a smile on your little face.

“Goodnight, y/n.” “Night, kid.” They each say, Alice bending down to kiss your head and Jasper opting to stand there and smile.

“G’night mom and dad.”

Jasper’s eyes nearly bulge out of his head and he turns to face his wife quickly.

Alice Cullen, the girl who forgot half of her life, never felt more whole than she did standing in your room, holding her mate’s hand, and turning off the light as the hushed sound of a cricket’s song filled the big house...

tag list:

@batmanunicorns523

[erodasfishtacos]

HSLOT HOUSTON

Okay, I’m actually so happy with this one. Come talk about it with me in my inbox! 😌

warning: smut

please like, comment, share, rec!

🤠🤠🤠🤠🤠🤠🤠🤠🤠🤠🤠

It was a bit of a shock, well a lot of a shock when YN is scrolling through her instagram time and it becomes flooded with a gif of her husband passionately kissing a gorgeous blonde.

The trailer for Don’t Worry Darling had dropped out of nowhere and now there was a nasty feeling on jealously, insecurity, and possessiveness in the pit of her stomach.

She knew it was irrational, they were married for fucks sake, but those emotions weren’t always rational.

YN watched it, over and over, until she tossed her phone onto the side table hard enough that it slides off and falls harshly on the ground.

Harry and crew were downstairs, it didn’t look like the Houston show was going to happen because of the storm.

She felts ridiculous and immature for the tears welling up in her eyes. It’s not like she was upset or mad at him.

She was proud of him for his acting abilities and all of his hard work - that’s why she was mad at herself right now.

YN knows Harry is expecting her downstairs to help figure out details, what to do for the fans, etc.. because she was a major part of the production crew.

But she nearly felt like she was going to throw up.

Could you blame her?

Who on earth would want to see their significant other making out passionately for the world to swoon over?

YN scrubs the tears from her cheeks, hadn’t even realized they were falling.

She does the worst thing ever, pulls it back up and starts ready comments, especially from their friends - it almost felt like betrayal. Jeff, Glenne, Lambert, Gemma.

A message appears at the top of the screen.

Bunny 🐰: come on darling, need you down here. meeting is about to start 😗

Her fingers hesitate.

yn: be down in five

Bunny 🐰: is everything okay? where’s my kiss? 😗😗😗😗😗😗😗😗😗😗

She sighs, she feels bad because it’s not his fault.

He had been offered the role, came home and instantly told his wife that if she wasn’t comfortable with him having romantic scenes - he’d turn it down.

YN wasn’t like that.

When she was being logically she would never want to stand in the way of Harry persuing his dreams.

It was acting and she had even been on set a few times when there were heated scenes but it just felt different - uncomfortable.

YN throws one of the bunny merch hoodies, a pair of cropped leggings, and black nikes before heading down from their suite to the conference room.

Harry had purposefully kept the seat open for her, right next to him, and she slips into quietly as they continue to talk.

There were a lot of higher ups in the room, from the venue, the touring company, his team - deciding on what they should do about the weather warning.

He instantly tugs her as close of possible to him with a long arm wrapped around her shoulder and a subtle kiss to the side of her head.

They’re talking about the people standing outside in the rain for GA, they all get quiet, and Harry nudges his wife, “Darling, they’re talking t’you.”

“Oh, I’m sorry. Can you repeat the question?” YN asks, eyes a bit wide in embarrassment at all the stares on her face.

A venue manager speaks up, “How do you think the fans will react and how can we ensure them of another show here. We do not want to lose the business of this concert.”

“Obviously upset. People have flown in for the concert - so maybe if you reach out to some of those fans and reimbursement their flights, they’d be more likely to come back and that would look good on you guys,” YN offers, tense and trying to ignore Harry’s concerned expression - he could always tell.

“Jamie, get on that,” The man orders with an executive nod that he liked the idea and Harry squeezes her shoulder lovingly.

The meeting goes on, she would normally wait for Harry to wade through all the people wanting to speak to him but she zips through the maze of bodies and back down the corridor to the elevator.

She about there when she hears someone running to catch up with her, knows exactly who it is when he pulls her back into his strong chest.

“Wha’s wrong?” Her husband murmurs in her ear, lips brushing softly and his arms keeping her as close as possible.

“It’s nothing, I just need some time alone,” YN sighs, stepping out of his warm embrace and turning to face him.

“Did I do somethin’? Baby, c’mon,” He coaxes, frowning as he studies her face, “Talk t’me, please.”

“I’m just - I’m being dumb,” She chuckles with no humor in her tone, tears welling again and she is quick to cover her face in her sleeve because fans are being to notice them.

“Okay, okay. Let’s get y’upstairs,” Harry replies, guiding her towards the elevator and throwing his arm around her to block her - it would look playful in the fan photos.

The crowd gets irritated when Harry refuses to stop and sign things, take pictures but his bodyguards quickly block them from getting to close.

Once in the elevator, alone, Harry cups her face gently, “Baby, y’gotta tell me what’s going on, m’confused.”

“The trailer, it came out and -“

Harry is perplexed for a moment, “Is that why everyone’s blowing up m’phone?”

Then he’s pulling it out, swiping a few times, and the short ten-second trailer is playing across his screen and he knows instantly.

“Sweetheart,” He sighs, tucking it back into his pocket, “M’sorry-“

“No, no. Don’t apologize,” YN interrupts him, eyes frantic as she speaks, “I’m not - It’s not your fault. I just wasn’t expecting it and it threw me off. I am so proud of you -“

“But y’a bit jealous, huh?” Harry smirks, rubbing his thumb against her bottom lip lightly, tugging to tease a bit.

“You’re my husband. Of course, I don’t want to see you do that with anyone else,” YN replies, watching as her husbands eyes meld into something fiery and golden.

“Can I tell you a secret?” He asks, voice deepening into what YN likes to call his sex voice and it really does work - makes her stomach flip.

“Harry, you don’t have to try to make me feel better. I’m re-“

Harry hits the red stop button on elevator, pausing the movement - it was a single elevator to the penthouse so it wasn’t effecting the rest of the hotel guests.

“Let me tell you a secret. The day we had to film tha’ scene, when I had to kiss someone who wasn’t you over and over again. When I had to act like I would fuck someone other than you,” Harry’s teeth are grazing her jugular dangerously, his breathe minty and cool, “You remember that one night on the balcony?”

“Mm,” YN agrees shakily, she remembers that night a few months ago well.

-

Harry had come home from set with a mission.

He hadn’t disclosed what happened that day and YN had completely forgotten to ask later on.

When he stormed through their master bedroom and swung open the balcony doors, his eyes fall hungrily on his wife who’s reading a book on their balcony. ***

Her skin was glowing on the dim fairy lights and reflection of the moon, it was late- nearly midnight when he’d finally gotten home.

She was lounging on the sofa, sprawled in a silk pajama set that was simple but so sexy in the way her natural breasts lay without a bra - nipples poking at the fabric.

It had only taken him a moment, he’d been hard the whole ride home thinking about his wife, and when he saw that, he was striding over and murmuring, “You know your safe words, right baby?”

-

It was him eating her out hungrily, ridding her of her clothes and him still fully dressed as he nipped and sucked at her clit.

-

Then he had bent her over the balcony railing, overlooking the Hollywood hills where surely their neighbors could have seen if they squinted.

His fingers were digging harshly into her backside, thrusting and having her tits sway with the force as he praised her on how well she took it.

-

And it ended with back on the couch, her legs soaked from her multiple releases, skin smattered in bruises and love bites, and Harry kissing her roughly as he pinched her clit and released inside her.

-

“The reason I wrecked y’tha’ night was because doing all that shit on set made me want to come straight home to m’wife,” Harry whispers like there’s other people in the elevator with them.

“Harry,” She mutters shyly, avoiding eye contact and looking down to the marble floor.

“No, look at me, baby. All I could think about were how much better your mouth feels, how no one can ever compare to how fuckin’ sexy y’are,” He rumbles, his hand is slipping underneath her hoodie and palming at her belly.

“Love you,” YN replies, reaching up to press their lips together and whine when his tongue automatically finds it way into her mouth.

“Been with you since I was fifteen. Y’know tha’? There’s a reason for that, s’because nobody gets to me like you do. You always make me crave more. The reason I put that rock on y’finger and y’name on m’bank account.”

“Bunny, please.”

Harry smirks against her lips, “Please what?”

“Fuck me, c’mon,” She begs desperately, his hand teasing at the waistband of her leggings but not giving her anything.

“Gotta give it t’you when you ask, s’my husbandly duty,” Harry kisses her again, hands moving to tug them down.

“Yes, be a good husband,” She scolds, getting on her tiptoes out of instinct as he slips two fingers up into her.

“M’tryin’,” He gruffs, hissing at how wet she is for him as he curls his fingers towards the front her wall to hit her spot, “Only one f’me. Never want anyone else, been an love-struck idiot for you since I was fifteen.”

-

After they finish, Harry presses the button to restart the elevator and they’re both panting, with a light sheen on sweat.

When they step into the foyer of the penthouse, Harry cups her face and makes sure he has her full attention.

“I love you. If this movie or me acting with other people romantically is too much for you. Please tel me, m’job is never more important than m’marriage,” He says seriously, face still splotchy from coming in the sticky, hot elevator.

She shakes her head, “It doesn’t make me uncomfortable - well, not when I’m thinking logically. I’m proud of you, I can’t wait to see the movie.”

“I love y’so much, sunflower. Y’my soulmate, the reason I have the courage and confidence is because of you.”

[worldformula]

I am asking about the aitsf au 👀

And I am answering! I’m gonna go down a bullet list of things I don’t think I’ve mentioned about our AU! Specifically about the siblings because my inbox is mostly about Ryuki + Saito lol so this will be a long one! Thank you for letting me go on and on about this AU seriously I enjoy it very much.

AITSF / AINI SPOILERS.

Warnings for violence, child abuse, and some seriously bad family dysfunction.

Saito has a scar around his neck, which he covers with a black choker (this is me trying to justify why he appears to be wearing two turtlenecks) (I know it’s because his model is weird but who cares). He got this from a childhood accident where Uru got angry and pushed him as they were swinging with ropes and he nearly got strangled to death. The scar is from the rope burns as he struggled. Uru wasn’t actually ever afraid of him until that day because Saito beat him up so badly for it that they had to get separated by the guards. This was also before Iris.

Following that, there is an ending where Uru finally gets to kill him (of course, it’s strangulation. Finish what you started, Uru.) but it’s also a bad one. Pretty much any ending where Saito gets killed is a bad one. But also you can imagine how insane A-Set stan Twitter is going to look following the news release that Iris’ brother killed her other brother (who killed her mother).

There was a period of 6 months where Uru and Saito just did not see each other, following Manaka’s murder. While So tried to figure out what to do about Saito, he just locked him in his room (though obviously he was let out for like, assessments and basic care) and had guards make sure no one went near (but mostly to make sure Saito didn’t get out). Uru did not know about this at all and was told he was sent away for health reasons.

Between the untreated physiological brain disorder making him upset and the distress of being stuck in The Room for so long, he developed a fear of being trapped / unable to escape. Once he was let out he moved rooms entirely and avoids The Room, which is left intact with proof of his tantrums / meltdowns (broken CRT tv, messed up walls and floors, etc).

Iris and Uru have no idea why he’s antsy about it and it bothers him immensely that they don’t have the same fear of being trapped as he does, even when he used to lock them in closets whenever he got angry with them.

This is also why he chooses to put So’s body in something as small and morbid as The Vase (it’s the vengeance babey). I have this headcanon outside of the AU but it fit really well into here, so this is the room where Hitomi shoots and kills Saito in her final girl bad ending. We love karmic retribution.

If the siblings just unionized against So, they could easily kick his ass and live like normal people. But they aren’t ever going to do that because Saito is so poisoned by the belief that he’s better than the others because he’s the true born son and they’re all inferior to him (which is undermined by the fact that So is more restrictive of him than the others + Saito himself knows he’s on thin ice constantly and is insecure about it).

So doesn’t really like any of his kids because he’s the root of all evil but if he had to pick a favorite it is actually Iris. Because Saito has a body count and Uru is deeply insecure to the point of being pathetic but at least Iris is a nice young woman who is doing literally everything she can to stay out of it. Tbh she’s slightly spared from the mind games by the sheer age gap between her and her brothers.

Despite literally all of this dysfunction, for the most part they all get along tentatively. Saito’s made himself the top of the pecking order, Uru follows Saito’s lead (but is extremely unhappy about it which is why he ends up violently repressed, susceptible to cult indoctrination, and trigger happy), and Iris respects them both from a sad distance.

The problem is that they occasionally have pretty good moments together so no matter how bad it gets, those few moments make them forget about it. Saito in particular occasionally does stand up for them against So. He was the one who convinced So to let Iris be an idol, for which she’s grateful. But he stands up to So on their behalf as a sort of power move, because neither of them have ever really stood up to their father the way Saito is able to (further establishing to them that he’s the favorite of them all).

On a lighter note, Uru in this AU is actually naturally a brunet and bleaches his hair blond. On a darker note, the combination of coloring his hair like Saito and the fact that he dresses like him (turtleneck + blazer) surely doesn’t mean anything about his self image relating to his older brother now does it.

That was 11 bullet points which I think is enough from me. Thank you!

[milktea067]

hi! could i request dj music man x reader who has bad anxiety and uses music to cope? best wishes to your family member too! take some time for yourself if you need it :]

Of course! I’ve never done music man before, in my stories I’ll have it so he’s able to speak, if you would like it another way just ask!

DJ Music man x reader with anxiety! Gender neutral!

(I have been diagnosed with an anxiety disorder, so yes I do indeed know what I’m talking about…mostly bc I also use music to cope.)

Also I’m sorry but you didn’t specifically ask for platonic or romantic, so I’m gonna write it so it can be seen ether way!

Warnings:bad anxiety, possible anxiety attack, small mentions of shaking, heart pounding, intrusive thoughts, mentions of rocking back and forth and/or pacing to help calm reader down, mentions of small injury, mentions of anxiety induced stomach ache, anxiety induced dry heaving or trigger of the gag reflex ( retching ) (tell me if I missed anything!)

Not proofread very well 💀☝🏻

———————————————————————

Today was just a bad day. You woke up angry, irritated, and you didn’t know why.

No one had wronged you, no one had made you upset, you just felt irritated and jittery. The lights were bothering you, the people talking bothered you, everything just aggravated you.

You had to work anyway, though.

You had suffered through this long miserable day, and it was just about to end as the pizzaplex was due to close in about an hour.

You were doing good! All things considered. That was until you heard some people at a nearby table laughing loudly, then the intrusive thoughts started.

“They’re laughing at you.”

No they’re not.

“You look absolutely awful today. They’re making fun of you.”

No they’re not.

“You’re gonna be sick.”

No. I’m not.

“You’re gonna be stuck hiding in the bathroom until your shift is over.”

No. Im. Not.

You didn’t even notice that you were clutching the mop so tightly until it snapped in half right in your hands.

“Ah!” You hissed, looking down at your hands as they stung and slightly bled, two small pieces of wood from the mop stuck in your skin. Well this was just great, now those people were looking at you for REAL this time.

You felt your heart begin to pound, forehead begin to feel damp as you felt an episode of cold sweats coming on. Your palms, despite being hurt, we’re beginning to sweat also due to the overwhelming fear and embarrassment boiling over in your stomach.

Speaking of your stomach, you groaned internally as you felt the familiar dull ache. Every time you left the house you worried about this, you would worry so much about worrying yourself to the point of being sick, that you actually made yourself sick.

Quickly walking away from the crowd you took the pieces of the broken mop with you to the trash can, throwing them away before you attempted to carefully pick the pieces of wood out of your skin.

Sucking in breaths every time you gently grasped at the small splinter, you gently rocked back and forth on the tips of your toes in an attempt to calm yourself. A whole lot of pain and a couple minutes later you finally got the last piece out and tossed it in the trash can, hands shaking as well as everywhere else.

Now that people were leaving, there were a lot more eyes on you. Most of them were concerned looks as they saw your hand bleed, but your head made it seem as if everyone in the building was there to judge and laugh at you. It all felt as though those concerned stares were actually amused gazes.

Bile crept up your throat, making you feel suddenly queasy. Doing your best to swallow and keep yourself from throwing up your lunch, you stood at the trash can and pretended to be picking out more splinters in order to avoid having to look at anyone passing by. Eyes on your palm.

As soon as everyone was gone, you rushed into the bathroom and stood over the sink. Staring yourself in the face, you first noticed how your eyes filled with tears and your mouth flooded with extra saliva, leaving you only moments to realize what was happening until you suddenly began retching and dry heaving over the sink.

Why did you have to be like this? Why couldn’t you just have a normal day like everyone else. No one else you knew happen to be deathly afraid of eye contact, no one else you knew happen to get sick every time they left the house.

No one else you knew got so worked up over something so “small” they ended up dry heaving over the sink at their job.

No one except you did those things. Or at least that’s how it felt.

Luckily, you didn’t end up getting actually sick, but your stomach did feel a bit queasy for a couple minutes after your little sick spell. Once you were sure you weren’t gonna puke, you slowly made your way out of the bathroom and into the now quiet world outside.

Eventually you made it to the west stage part of the arcade, eyes still full of tears, part from your body’s natural reaction to getting sick, but mostly because of how you felt. Horrible.

Luckily, you had a friend nearby, and he never failed to make you happy. Not even on days like this.

Most of the children thought he was scary, and stayed away from him. Lucky for you, that meant there was less cleaning to do over here. Of course there still was things that needed to be done in his area, and that’s how you met him.

At first you were scared of him, but quickly you two began to bond over your shared love of music. Small chats turned to conversations, and conversations ended up turning into an amazing relationship. No one else had ever made you feel as safe as he does.

The neon lights shined, quiet music being heard in the background as you approached his stage. It almost looked empty to people who didn’t come here often, but you knew better.

Slowly walking into the large tunnel, you made your way up to the giant robot and sat down next to his head as he rested it on the stage floor. Laying your head on his arm, you closed your eyes and gently gripped it, rubbing your tear-stained cheek against the cold metal of his long forearm.

Waking up from his small nap, he slowly turned towards the strange warmth and weight, finding you sitting there clutching him while you quietly cried and shook.

This scene broke the DJ’s heart, he couldn’t let you be sad by yourself.

“Y/n…? What happened…?” He said, careful not to be loud due to how close you were, and your fragile state. Slowly turning to look at him you sniffled, frantically wiping your face as you stood up.

“I-I don’t know, I just…I-I just…” you said, pacing lightly as you attempted to finish your sentence. Unfortunately before you could do so you burst into more tears.

“Y/n….” He whispered, carefully cupping your body in his palms and bringing you off the floor and up to his face. This was how he usually hugged you due to your small size compared to his.

You immediately hugged onto his pale cheek, attempting to hide your face in it while he used one hand to carefully rub your back and comfort you.

“I-I broke the mop! A-and everyone was laughing and talking about me! Everyone laughs at me!” You rambled, beginning to work yourself up and jump to an irrational thought process.

“Whoa whoa, calm down, everything’s okay. They’re gone now, no one is going to laugh at you, deep breaths.” He said, pulling you back just enough to see your face as you nodded and wiped your tears, inhaling and exhaling the way he had taught you to.

“See..? Everything’s okay…” he whispered as he slowly lowered his hand to the ground and let you sit on the floor. Continuing to inhale through your nose, and exhale through your mouth, you felt yourself begin to calm down.

“I-I’m sorry…I’m sorry..” you whispered, feeling as though you were bothering him as you hid your face in your knees. “Don’t be sorry…it’s not your fault, and it’s not like I dislike you when this happens…” he said, bending down to your level before gently lifting your chin with his pointer finger.

“Everyone has hard days, even I know that.” He spoke, making you pause as you looked into his eyes and wiped your nose. “But no one else gets so upset over something so small…” you said, sighing softly as a few stray tears fell down your cheeks.

“Y/n, there’s something I’ve learned over time…even though I’m a robot, I understand that sometimes what’s small to some people, are large to others…both of them have the right to feel what they feel about it, that’s just how some people are made…”

Taking his words into consideration, you slowly thought them over in your head. He was right, what’s small to some people, feel like mountains to you some days. It wasn’t like you chose to be upset, it just happened and it was no ones fault.

You slowly nodded, wiping the last of your tears away as you leaned into his touch. “Now, I’m gonna play some music to help you feel better, you just tell me if you need anything…” he said, slowly gathering you up in his hand again and holding you in his lap as he played some songs from your own special playlist.

“Thank you…” you whispered, laying down and rubbing your cheek against the fabric of his gloved hand.

He smiled, looking down at you with a caring, loving gaze as he thought about just how lucky he was to have met you.

“Always…”



Taglist!: @starryshipz @femalemarvelself @caigas-bullshit





[wandaromanova]

Can u do a fic where fem!reader and Nat are broken up and they’re pretty hostile with each other but when one of them gets hurt on a mission they realize they’re still in love and get back together thank u if u write this :)))))))

I Love You

Pairing: Natasha Romanoff x Fem!Reader

Warnings: cussing, violence, that’s it i believe

A/N: hi! i hit 300 followers! i posted my very first story 3 weeks ago and only had like 10 followers then. i can’t even begin to express how grateful i am that i’ve been able to bring people joy (or pain lol) with my stories. thank you. not proofread. <3

Summary: Ex-lovers Natasha and Y/N dance around their feelings for each other. They decide that hostility was the best course of action.

Word Count: 2.5K

(gif is not mine)

You and Natasha dated for a year and a half before you guys decided to call it quits. It was a mutual agreement, but there was still some sort of bad blood between the both of you that was painfully obvious. The tension could be cut with a knife.

You guys were going great at first. You both understood each other on a level that no one else could. You would do typical couple things in order to compensate for the lack of stability and domesticity you’ve both had in your lives. Movie nights, designated date nights, cuddle sessions in the late hours of the night, and literally every other cliche there was in the book.

However, you and Natasha were both raised in similar environments. From young ages, you guys were trained to conceal your true emotions and that love was for children. So, communicating with one another was something that the both of you didn’t know how to do.

You didn’t try to communicate and neither did she; and there lied the problem. Natasha would absolutely freak on you if you so much as looked at another person. You would get upset if Natasha went on a mission without informing you first. There were so many pointless arguments that occurred between you and Natasha. Arguments that could’ve been avoided or solved if you guys were able to just talk to each other.

You would say that you guys did talk… just in a higher volume than normal conversation. The yelling between you both could be heard throughout the compound. Most times, you would get so fed up and tired from the arguing, that you didn’t even know why you guys were fighting anymore. It wasn’t healthy and you knew it.

You and Natasha never once told each other the big three words. That was a line neither of you dared to cross. Like the Red Room and The Academy taught you both, love was a weakness and was nothing more than a concept believed by children. You’d like to think that actions spoke louder than words, though.

You could feel the love between you both in the way you would hold onto one another after a mission had gone wrong. You could feel it in the way Natasha worried and panicked when you’d come back from a mission with so much as a scratch above your eyebrow. However, you still could not bring yourself to tell her how you felt. Not that it would matter now, considering you guys had broken up.

It’s been five months since the breakup, and at first your plan of action was to be civil with your ex-girlfriend, but she had other plans. Natasha would bark out snarky remarks whenever you would speak up during team meetings. She began to give you cold glares whenever you walked into a room. God forbid you would even breathe in her direction, she would storm out of a room at the speed of light if you did so.

So, you began to act the same way she was. Okay, yes, it was extremely childish thinking. You should be mature, regardless of how Natasha was treating you, but you couldn’t be civil anymore. So you would treat her just as harshly as she did you. You’d send her sharper glares than she would give you. You’d never listen to anything she had to add during mission meetings, being sure to make it obvious you weren’t paying attention. And you would always counter her hostile comments that were directed towards you.

The team was currently sat in a meeting. You and Natasha were meant to be sent on a mission together, to which you both immediately objected.

“Steve, do I really have to go with that over there? I’d rather go myself and risk dying than go with her.” Natasha pointed in your direction and you were immediately offended by her statement.

“No, I would rather go and die than have to hear one more word out of your god damn mouth. You’re such a bitch.” You spoke as you stood up from your seat, Natasha following suit. Natasha walked across the room and stopped in front of you. She harshly shoved a finger against your chest.

“What the fuck did you just call me? You better take it back before I make sure you never talk again.” Natasha glared at you intensely as she stared into your eyes. You returned her stare with a bored expression on your face.

“I said you’re a bitch. What are you going to do about it, Widow?” You asked her challengingly. Natasha moved to pounce on you, but Bucky, who was sitting next to your spot, sprung in and intervened.

“Let her go Barnes. I’d love to kick her ass.” You smirked as your words only enraged Natasha more. She struggled against Bucky’s grip, trying to free herself so she could pound your face into the floor, but she couldn’t break free.

“Okay! Enough. Natasha, you’re off the mission. Y/N, you’re with me. We leave in 10.” Steve spoke with conviction in his voice, fed up with the pair of you. Natasha stopped resisting Bucky’s hold as he slowly let her go. You looked at her with one harsh glare before you took the mission file that was on the table and walked out of the room. As you left, everyone in the room stared at Natasha. She huffed and stormed out of the room as well.

•❅────────✧❅✦❅✧─────────❅•

You and Steve were currently staked out in a van. You guys were spying on one of the leaders of Hydra and an infamous weapons dealer. The man was currently having a lunch with the dealer. You had been sitting there together for about an hour. You were bored out of your mind and pissed that you couldn’t get Natasha out of your mind. You wanted to punch yourself in the face for thinking about how hot she looked when she pissed. The way her eyes would widen, showing off more of her green irises as her eyebrows furrowed together in anger. The way her chest rose and fell as she took deep breaths. God, she had such nice boobs.

Your thoughts were interrupted by the sound of Fury’s voice coming in through comms. “Okay, we evacuated civilians off of the sidewalk in front of the restaurant. Remember, wait until they’re in front of the alley before you attack. They may have weapons.” Fury informed you both and you looked onto the monitor to confirm the empty street. Sure enough, there wasn’t a civilian in sight; good.

Steve replied with a quick “okay” before movement from the door of the restaurant caught your attention. “Steve, there they are. Move out, now.” You spoke as you loaded your gun and attached it to your hip. You and Steve jumped out of the van. Steve threw his shield and hit both of the men with it. His shield came back to him as if ricocheted off of the men.

Your gun was pointed at the both of them as you guys approached them. “Meeting in broad daylight? Doesn’t seem like a smart move for two supposedly genius people.” You spoke as Steve searched the two men for any weapons. They didn’t have any. That should’ve been a red flag, but you weren’t in the right state of mind right now.

Suddenly, another van pulled up in front of the alleyway, right behind the vehicle you both had just exited. Hydra Agents with semi-automatic guns filed out of the van. Fuck. You guys were set up. Steve shared a look with you before he threw his shield toward the men and knocked the guns out of a few of the agent’s hands.

You began to fire towards the men with your own gun. You shot them in the shoulders, sending them flying to the ground in pain. You and Steve made quick work of the men and soon enough, there were unconscious men littered across the floor.

You and Steve turned back to the two men you had previously captured as they laid on the floor in shock. They really thought their little stunt would work? Pathetic. Unfortunately, one of the Hydra agents was still conscious. You and Steve failed to notice the movement behind your backs. The man pointed a nearby gun at you and fired 5 shots at you. He missed three of them, but managed to land two into your abdomen.

You fell to the ground as Steve whipped around and actually knocked the man unconscious this time. “Fury, we need backup! L/N is down!” He spoke frantically into comms as he applied pressure to your wounds. Your eyes were open in shock as you tried to process what just happened. You were shot. It really did hurt like a bitch. What are those black spots? God, I want Natasha right now. Wait, what? No, it’s just the blood loss talking.

You fell unconscious as soon as the backup S.H.I.E.L.D agents appeared on the scene. You were rushed back to the Avengers Compound in one of S.H.I.E.L.D’s vehicles, Steve following you after ensuring the two men were detained. As soon as the car made it to the compound, your unconscious body was placed onto a gurney and you were being rushed to the medical wing.

As your body was being rolled through the halls of the compound, you were pushed by the doctors past Natasha. She did a double take and quickly turned around to confirm what she had just saw. Her heart sunk to her stomach at the sight of your limp, blood-covered body. She ran after you without a second thought, fear and dread taking over.

Natasha tried to enter the medical wing where they had just taken you, but she was stopped by a strong hand abruptly placing itself onto her shoulder. “Nat, we need to let them take care of her. We’d only be disturbing them and we need their focus to 100% be on Y/N.” Steve said in an attempt to convince the redhead to stop her plan of barging into the room like a madwoman. Natasha took one last glance at the door before she heavily sighed and walked to the wall across the door. She slid her back slowly against the wall and placed her head in her hands.

“What happened, Rogers?” Natasha asked, afraid of hearing the answer. Steve went over the events of the mission, and all Natasha could think was that she should’ve been there with you. She would’ve jumped in front of that bullet to save you in a heartbeat because she loved you. Wait. She loved you? Holy fuck! She loved you!

Natasha’s heart rate increased rapidly at her self revelation. She has loved you this entire time. God, she was so fucking blind. How could she not see what was right in front of her? She was madly in love with you. She let the things the Red Room drilled into her affect your relationship. Now, she wasn’t sure if she’d have the opportunity to make it up to you. That thought scared Natasha more than any mission ever could.

•❅────────✧❅✦❅✧─────────❅•

1 hour later

An hour later, and the entire team was sprawled across the hallway of the medical wing. Wanda sat beside Natasha on the floor, comfortingly holding her hand. The rest of the team just stood, anxiously and impatiently waiting to hear about your status.

At the sound of the medical bay door opening, Natasha shot up from her spot on the floor and looked towards Helen Cho. “What’s her status? Is she okay? Did she make it?” Natasha immediately fired off questions at the Doctor. The team stood firmly behind Natasha as they looked at Dr. Cho, their eyes asking her the same questions Natasha did.

“She coded on the table a few times. The bullets hit some major arteries, but we managed to stop the bleeding. If she had arrived even a minute later than she did, she wouldn’t have made it.” The relief of the good news radiated off of earth’s mightiest heroes. Natasha almost let tears escape her eyes, but quickly blinked them back.

“Can I see her?” Natasha asked desperately. “Yes you can, but shes still asleep. The anesthesia was very strong so she’ll be out for a few more hours.” Helen spoke as she opened the door for Natasha. She entered and let out a sigh of relief as she caught sight of your chest rising and falling steadily. Natasha grabbed a nearby chair and placed it right beside your bed. She lightly stroked your hair before she gripped your hand.

•❅────────✧❅✦❅✧─────────❅•

3 hours later

You groaned as you slowly open your eyes and were met with an obnoxiously bright light hovering over you. You heard some shuffling before the light was shut off. You turned your head towards the other person in the room and you rolled your eyes at who it was.

“If you’re here to be an asshole, please leave. I’m not in the mood for it.” You spoke as you watched Natasha sit back down in the chair next to your bed.

“I’m not here for that. I wanted to apologize, Y/N. You were right, I was a bitch. You didn’t deserve the way I treated you, but I was just afraid.” Natasha began to speak as she seemingly appeared nervous. You’ve never seen her nervous before, you’re pretty sure no one ever has.

“I was so terrified because I love you. Everyone I love ends up leaving me, and I couldn’t watch you leave me. So, I thought it was best if I beat you to the punch.” Natasha looked down to her lap and played with her fingers absentmindedly. Your eyes widened as far as they could go at Natasha’s words. She loved you. She actually, verbally said it. That’s a huge fucking deal.

“I know my logic may not make the best sense, but what does make sense is the fact that I love you. I always have and I was just too stupid to tell you. I’m sorry, I love you so much.” Natasha spoke as she tore her gaze from her hands and up to your eyes.

You reached your hand out for hers and she shakily took your hand in hers. You almost let out a gasp at the contact, you missed her touch so much. “I won’t ever leave you, Natasha because I love you too. I’m sorry too. I was just as afraid as you were. We were both stupid.” You let out a little laugh at your last words. Natasha let out a chuckle as a tear fell from her eyes. Oh god, you’ve never seen her cry either.

“You scared me. I thought you weren’t going to make it. When I saw your body being wheeled down here…. all the blood… I-“ Natasha words were cut off as you smashed your lips against hers. You winced as the pain from your gunshot wounds radiated across your body, but you couldn’t care less about that right now. The only thing that mattered in this moment was that the woman you loved, loved you too. You’d never be afraid to express your love for her ever again.

───────── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ──────────

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[ray-ray-writings]

Hybrid!Reader Galore-SBI (and one Awesamdude)

So I am combining four different requests with this one post because I have recently discovered that I am allowed to do that hahaha. So instead of five separate posts, it’s one big post!! I hope you enjoy!!! (There is a bonus idea at the bottom, it is not SBI, rather a Sam idea and it is so amazing and is not mine, the idea comes from our very own Sunflower anon who has my whole heart.)

Elytran 

Well first things first, you guessed it. You have wings. You have beautiful wings that allow you to fly for miles and miles without getting tired. They are big and cover most of your back. When they’re not in use, they’re tucked in tightly to your back for save keeping. 

You and Philza are obviously very close. You and he can relate on so many levels. You spend a lot of time bonding over your wings. You know you can always go to him when you have questions about your wings and he is always willing to give you his knowledge, tips, and tricks on how to properly take care of your wings and stuff like that. I like to imagine that the two of you definitely help each other preen your wings. He more so you though. Like if it has been too long in his opinion he will force you to sit down on a chair so that you’re straddling it and your stomach is pressed against the back of the chair and he very carefully pulls the loose feathers and gets all of the grass and leaves and stuff out of your wings. Every so often you will return the favor, but because he’s been around so long he is practically perfect at doing his own wings himself and so he usually just focuses on you because you’re his kid and he wants to make sure that you’re taken care of. He gets a lot of the preening done when you two are sitting on the couch together and you’re snuggled up to his chest and his hand is just softly trailing up and down your wings. Smoothing out your feathers and carefully pulling out the ones that need to come out. It feels very nice and is very comforting. 

I also feel though that your brothers would also do this to you sometimes. Just when you’re having a conversation with one of them they will grab your shoulders and turn you around and you would be forced to talk to them as they pick at your wings. Sometimes Tommy is too rough and so he can only do it when he’s absolutely calm. I 100% believe that before his death, Wilbur was the best brother to go to for help with your wings when Phil wasn’t around. He has the hands of musician, steady and gentle hands but still calloused and rough from years of plucking at a guitar. So he would be really good at being careful but also would be very good at picking out the things that needed to go while also being good at, i guess, petting your wings. I feel like Techno would be okay at it, not as good as Phil and Wilbur though. I feel like Tommy could be too rough sometimes. I feel like there are two different Techno’s you could get. A soft and gentle Techno who is very careful when messing with your wings or a rough and quick Techno that just really wants to be done with whatever you’ve asked him to do. So you would have to catch Techno on a good day in order for him to be able to properly help you. 

Like Philza and Techno do, You and Philza go on adventures together all the time, only there is a slight difference obviously. You two go on flights. You two fly for hours at a time sometimes, not always have a particular destination in mind. You two just like to fly together. It’s such a freeing feeling. You two just fly together, feel the wind in your hair and your wings. The time is usually spent just chatting about anything and everything. It’s nice. You just get to spend a lot of time with your dad and you get to feel free and get to get away from all of the drama of the smp. I like to imagine that sometimes you two fly for so long that you get too tired to keep flying, but you have to get home. So Phil will pick you up, you wrap your arms around his neck and your legs around his waist, and he will fly the two of you home. He’s been alive for hundred of years and has had years of flying practice and so he almost never gets tired from flying and so he has absolutely no problem carrying you home if you’re too tired. Once you get a bit older and stuff, I also like to think that you’re able to do the same for your brothers, obviously not as long as Philza can, but you can pick them up and take them on a little flight around the server. Tommy would love it the most. He would cling to you, terrified you would drop him, but he would love being so high up, seeing everything and feeling free. He would love that he actually got to feel like a kid again. Wilbur and Techno would like it a lot less than Tommy. They would take you up on the offer every once in a while, but I don’t think they would like it that much. Like Techno would like to feel the wind through his hair and to feel free and not have to worry about anything, but I feel like he would just be hella scared that you’re going to drop him. He’s a big man and he trusts you a lot, but that doesn’t mean you’re strong enough to hold him. Don’t tell anyone, but I kind of headcanon that Wilbur is scared of heights. I don’t know why, I just kind of get that vibe from him. So like on the very very very rare occasion where you take him for a fly, he spends the whole time clinging to you for dear life with his face buried in your neck and his eyes clenched tightly closed. You can’t help but laugh at him though. You asked him about it once, why he accepts your offer if he’s so terrified, his answer warmed your heart. “I just like spending time with you. Anyway that I can.” (Complete side note, Ghostbur on the other hand would love love love love to go on flights with you. Like would beg you almost every day to go on one.)

Ghast hybrid

Listen, I am not saying this to exclude anyone okay? Please don’t take it as that, but you would be pale. You would be so pale. It’s the ghast in you and so you would be so pale. Like I feel you would almost have to wear a hat or put on sunscreen every time you left the house in the overworld because you would so easily be burned. That being said, you definitely would thrive in the nether. Like the heat and the brightness of the lava wouldn’t bother you at all as you travel through your home biome. You would also be able to fly. You would move so smoothly through the sky. You wouldn’t have wings or anything like that, you would just be able to fly. But like it would be so funny to scare the hell out of Tommy. Like you two are arguing or something or he’s just being annoying and so you just start fucking levatating as you stare him down. He would 100% shriek and run away from you causing you to laugh. 

You always accompany any of the boys when they go into the nether for anything because no hostile mobs will attack if you’re nearby. Ghasts won’t shoot at you, hoglins won’t charge, blaze won’t fireball… you get it. Like the nether is your home and you are one of them, and they know that. You also are super good at navigating the nether. Think Human GPS but like half ghast GPS instead haha. You have absolutely saved the boys’ asses on more than one occasion. Like one time Techno wasn’t paying attention and he was just kind of walking around in the nether freely without thinking about it. He was going on and on about how it was nice to have you here but he probably could have handled it himself. He was right in the middle of telling you about how he probably could navigate the nether better than you when he literally walked straight off a cliff that hung right over a giant lava lake. You didn’t have time to laugh at his obliviousness. You knew that he couldn’t swim in lava, he may be a piglin hybrid that can survive the heat, but he absolutely could not swim in lava. So you very quickly ran right off of the edge of the cliff, flew down to him and just before he could sink into the lava, you grabbed him and flew him back up to the edge of the cliff. Once he was secure with solid ground under his feet, Techno would pull you into a giant hug. “Thank you,” he murmurs in your hair. You can’t help but giggle as you hug him back. “Of course. What was I going to do? Let you die? Besides, now we have prove of who’s the better nether navigator.” And Techno goes to argue but you just stare at him with a raised eyebrow and so his mouth snaps shut. You both knew you won that. 

So Ghast tears right? So when you get upset to the point of crying, you do your best to keep in the tears because when you cry, they literally leave tear stains. Like your cheeks are stained and scarred for the next few hours because of the tears. It burns and is a painful thing, so you try to avoid it as much as possible. Another thing that happens when you’re upset is you begin to breathe fire and shoot fireballs out of your mouth. You accidentally discovered this once when Techno wouldn’t give you back your axe and you accidentally fireballed him into a wall, exploding parts of the wall as well. So when you get angry/upset, you clamp your mouth closed and don’t speak. That is the telltale sign that you’re angry, when you go silent. Tommy loves to push you at this point. Saying anything he can to get you to… well explode. It’s only worked once. Let’s just say that Tommy’s clothes and hair got a bit singed and he didn’t mess with you while you were upset for a few months afterwards. 

Something useful about your tears is they can make regeneration potions. Obviously they aren’t full effect because you are only half ghast, but they still work. So even if you are crying and you are upset, you’re always sure to physically bottle up some of your tears when you do cry so that someone, mostly you or Techno, could make regeneration potions with them. 

Raccoon hybrid

TRASH PANDAS!!!! Okay, right, sorry. 

So we will begin with looks. You have little raccoons on top of your head, dark circles around your eyes, and a fuzzy black and white ringed tail. You have to take very good care of your ears and of your tail, making sure that it doesn’t get matted and stuff. I also feel you’re rather short. And sometimes you feel out of place among the absolute giants that are your brothers. 

I feel like you would get along the best with Tommy. THIS IS NOT AN INSULT AT ALL but like for some reason I get a raccoon type vibe from Tommy. So I feel like you two would just vibe very well together. You’re mostly nocturnal due to your raccoon hybrid and Tommy is a 16 year old hyper boy who doesn’t like authority that much. So like he very often can be found in your room late at night. The two of you laughing and just hanging out together. If you get him on a good night, he will carefully pet your tail or brush it while you talk. You two have bonded a lot and shared a lot of sweet moments through your nocturnal nights together. 

That being said, it does not stop Tommy from making fun of you. Raccoons are thought to be colorblind and Tommy knows this applies to you and does not stop making fun of you for it. “Hey Y/N! What color is this flower?” “Fuck off.” Because Tommy makes fun of you, you like to prank him a lot. Raccoons are actually very clever and this absolutely applies to you. You can move very quietly if you want so you manage to always prank Tommy really well…. That being said, you also find yourself very often ruining your own pranks because of how loud you can be. Have you ever heard a raccoon rummaging through your garbage at night? It feels like the loudest thing in the world lol. So sometimes you are accidentally careless and are very loud. 

Raccoons can fall from pretty high heights without getting hurt, so you would be able to do the same. It would have been a total accident of how you found out though. You would have been helping Tommy build a random cobblestone tower when he accidentally pushed you off the tower. You didn’t have a water bucket and there was no water below you, so you literally prepared yourself for the loss of your first canon life. Your body finally hit the ground and you were left a little breathless from the force of the hit, but nothing hurt. You checked your wrist and found you had only lost one heart. Even though you were completely fine, Philza still gave Tommy hell for pushing you off the tower and grounded him for a few weeks. Even though you know you’d be fine from a big fall, you are still very careful when you’re high up. Like I said, you know you’ll be fine, but you don’t want to push the boundaries. 

I feel like you have definitely been caught rummaging through the trash before. You were probably just bored and looking for something to do, or just something to play with and so on instinct, you reached into the trash and began searching through it. Philza would be the one to catch you. He wouldn’t even react too. He would simply let out a sigh, walk over to you, grab your arms and pull them out of the trash and walk you over to the sink before making you wash your hands. While you were doing that, he would take out the trash, making a mental note to get a more efficient/better way of getting rid of your trash. 

Cow Hybrid 

Yes yes yes yes. Okay okay. I love cows. Okay.

Starting out as always, appearance. So I think that you would have a few brown and white spots littering your skin. You’re entirely covered in them, but there are some on your arms, torso, and legs. You also have little horns that poke out of your hair. They’re a bit sensitive and your hair gets caught on them a lot, but they’re hella cute. You’re ears are where a human’s ears are, but they’re a bit bigger and a little more pink and flimsy than normal human ears. You also have a thin tail that pokes out behind you. You use it to swat things, mostly Tommy, away from you. When someone gets hit by your tail, it stings quite a bit. Your skin is rather tough, not like super tough, but like it has a rather leathery feel. So not only does it hurt when you hit people, but it can also be a bit harder for you to get hurt/cut and stuff. Which is rather nice. 

Something just random but hella cute that I like to think happens is that if you’re out walking, with or without your family, baby cows will begin to follow you. If they get far enough away from their parents and you happen to be nearby, they 100% will begin to follow you. It warms your heart a little bit, but it also worries you because you don’t want to upset their parents, but the adult cows just think it’s really funny. Like, it is so obvious that you’re not a full cow and that you’re barely an adult yourself, but the baby cows will still follow you and it is just so funny. 

I feel like when you get very frustrated, you begin to moo or let out huffs and puffs. The boys find it very funny, but also not to bring it up to you. One time Wilbur made the mistake of laughing out loud when you mooed…. You charged him and tackled him and broke the table. So now the boys have just learned to try and comfort you and then laugh in private. 

Listen I have seen many photos and videos of cows being petted and owners sitting in fields and the cow comes over and just lays on them and cuddles them and so like I feel that a lot of the times when you would find someone sitting on the couch or something, just chilling, you would try and cuddle up to them. Tommy and Techno wouldn’t like it as much, they would give you like a pat on the back before shoving you off. Philza would chuckle but allow you to rest there. Wilbur would absolutely let you cuddle up to him and oftentimes would wrap his arms around you and hold you to him. I also feel like he would be the only one to do it back to you. If you were just seated somewhere lounging around, Wilbur would absolutely flop down on top of you, crushing you a little bit, yes, but it is still nice… not having to be the one to initiate the contact. So you would just giggle and wrap your arms around him and nuzzle your face either in his curly hair or in his chest, it depends on how he flops down on top of you. Wilbur would also absolutely pet and stroke your horns and would just let you relax completely against him. 

A lot of the time you can be found with a piece of hay hanging out of your mouth. I feel like you would just enjoy the taste but also just the feel of the plant on your tongue as you chew would be so comforting. Philza at first would try to take the thin straw out of your mouth but after you almost cried about it, he decided to just left it alone and let you do whatever you want. Tommy still tries to steal it from your mouth, but you’ve gotten good at chomping down on it and not letting it go. Techno gives you a little bit of a weird look but goes on about it. (It’s because he absolutely has tried it without you knowing and he hated it so much and he has no idea how the hell you keep doing it.) Wilbur I feel would be the one to help you keep your supply of it and would always get you a new one if you needed it. I feel like you would offer him one and he will sometimes accept it, but he doesn’t like it but he doesn’t want you to feel that your habits are weird so he partakes to make you feel better. Also for eating, you would love everything wheat based and would have a field day with things like that. You absolutely cannot and will not eat beef and you will not be around if anyone around you is eating it. It makes you sick to your stomach. So you don’t eat a lot of meat and you’re mostly vegetarian. Philza is more than willing to adjust his recipes to accommodate you and make sure that you’re okay at meal times. 

Minecraft cows avoid going into water at about all costs, so I feel like you would do the same. You would avoid everything from stepping in puddles to swimming across the river to even having a beach day at the ocean. I think you would be fine, it’s just the floating in water and having your feet not be completely on solid ground that you hate. Your family sometimes makes fun of you for it because they have to build a bridge of some kind or craft a boat for the smallest thing of water, but in reality they want you to be comfortable and so they do everything to make it so you could have your way when it comes to the water like that. When Wilbur becomes Ghostbur, Ghostbur likes to hang out with you a lot because you’re good company but also because he knows you don’t go anywhere near water, and he’s allergic to water so it works out very well for you. 

Cat hybrid w Creeper hybrid Sam

So 🌻 had this fucking amazing idea okay. Like all credit for this idea goes to her, I am but a simple writer that wrote it out a little bit more, but this was completely her idea and she has my whole heart because she has a big brain. It is praise 🌻 hours friends!

So you are the newest addition to the SMP, a cute little cat hybrid. You have cute, fluffy ears that sit on the top of your head and you have a matching fluffy tail that pokes out behind you. Everyone that has met you agrees that you’re very cute and very sweet to everyone. Everyone loves to be around you and loves to spend time with you….. Well almost everyone. 

As we have learned in previous hybrid headcanons, Sam is terrified of cats. It’s the creeper in him and he feels so bad that he avoids you so admently, but he cannot help the trepidation that swells in his veins when he’s near you. He has tried to approach you several times, tried to properly introduce himself, but he just couldn’t get close enough to you to do it. Sam had definitely asked others about you though and had fallen in love with you through the other’s descriptions and through watching you from afar, trying his best not to be seen. You weren’t dumb though, you knew he was there watching you. And when he took his eyes off of you, you let your stare turn to him as well. You let yourself stare at the man that refused to approach you. You, like him, asked around about him and you learned about him through others. You learned about how passionate he was about his work, how kind he was, how he had practically adopted a few of the minors on the server, how he was such a nice guy. It made your heart ache. If he was such a nice guy, why would he only watch you from a far then? Why wouldn’t he approach you? He must hate you… Yeah that had to be it, he heard about you, watched you for a bit, and decided that he didn’t like you… It made you hella sad, but it’s just something you would have to deal with and live with…. Oh well…. Better get building your house. 

Sam decided that he would try to make a move on you. He wanted to get to know you better through your own words and stuff, not just what others had to think about you. So he decided he would try to approach you while you were working on your house. Sam didn’t want to come empty handed, he figured he had already made a bad enough impression on you by not approaching you sooner, so he picks some flowers, roses and sunflowers because I’m a self indulgent bitch, and he took a few deep breaths before making his way to the plot of land that you have claimed as your own. He finds you working on the front wall of your house and he finds it very easy to approach you when you’re not paying attention to him. He is getting rather close to you, the closest he’s ever been to you and he’s really proud of himself. You must have sensed him, or heard his footsteps or something though, because your head snaps to look over your shoulder and your gaze locks with his and every single bit of confidence that Sam had worked up leaves his body. The fear of being around a cat fills him and he can’t help but let the flowers fall from his fingers and he sprints away. “Hey! Wait!” You call after him, rushing forward a bit, trying to stop him. But he’s gone so fast that you can only get to where he dropped the flowers before he’s out of sight. You can’t help but let out a sigh as you turn around. He must really hate you huh? Your eyes catch the flowers on the ground and you bend down to pick them up. Are these for you? They must be if he brought them here… Even if he did drop them on the ground to run away from you. Either way, you brought the pretty flowers to your nose and took a deep breath through your nose, inhaling the sweet scent. You can’t help the smile that curls on your face as you make your way “inside” of you under construction. You very quickly find a vase and get some water and set the flowers on a makeshift table in your house before going back to building the walls, every time your gaze catching the flowers, a grin growing on your face. 

Sam berates himself when he gets back home for how stupid it was for him to just leave like that. So he tells himself he is going to go back tomorrow and at least introduce himself to you. He will speak at least three words to you. The next day comes and he does as he’s promised. He gathers all of his confidence again before making his way back to your land. He freezes just outside the property line and sees that you have constructed your walls and you are now working on your roof. Your back is to him once again and so he lets out a deep breath before deciding to make the first move. “Hi there!” He shouts from his spot, about 25 blocks away from you. Your attention moves from what you were doing to the man that called out to you. You were very surprised to find Sam standing there. “Hi! Can I help you with something?” You call back. Sam takes a deep breath, happiness filling him at the fact you were actually having a conversation and he wasn’t running. “I uh, I just wanted to introduce myself to you. I’m Sam, it’s very nice to meet you.” You give the man a warm smile, “I’m Y/N. It’s very nice to finally meet you Sam… I must admit, I thought that maybe you hated me because you seemed to avoid me like the plague,” you tease, moving a few materials around before sitting down to face him. A blush that you can’t see spreads across his face as he scratches the back of his neck as he subconsciously takes a few steps forward. “Yeah, sorry about that. I don’t hate you… It’s just that you’re a cat hybrid and my creeper side doesn’t like that very much. I’m sorry I made it seem like I hated you.” It all made so much sense to you now and you couldn’t help but feel bad for feeling that he hated you. “Oh!” You let out, laughing at yourself causing Sam to smile, he liked your laugh. “That’s right… I forgot that. Well, I’m sorry I scare you” you claim with a giggle. Sam gives you a slight smile as he takes another few steps forward, “It’s alright, not your fault. Just both of our natures,” Sam claims eliciting a hum out of you as you nod your head. 

The two of you take the next few minutes to get to know each other just a bit better. Even though you scare him still a little bit, Sam can’t help but inch his way toward you. You notice this but don’t say anything about it, you only smile. 

Sam is telling you about his latest redstone project when it happens. You momentarily forget your on your roof and so you move to lean in closer to hear him better and it happens. You slip. You feel yourself falling from your roof. It’s pretty high up, easily at least 15 blocks high. You’re pretty relaxed about it, but Sam is panicking. He makes the split decision and he rushes forward and catches you in his arms. Half of his mind is screaming for him to run away from you by the other half is screaming for him to stay and make sure you're okay. You are very surprised to land in his arms but it is a very welcome surprise. You two lock eyes and you give him a big smile. “Hey” you greet casually. Sam gives a big gulp before giving you a nervous smile back, “Hey.” You have a very quick mental debate with yourself before saying screw it to yourself, “Guess you could say I fell for you huh?” The joke causes a bit of tension to leave Sam and he lets out a little giggle and shakes his head. “Guess you could say I caught feelings then huh?” he retorts with a cheesy grin. You blush a little bit before leaning up and kissing his cheek making him blush too. “Do you want to go on a date with me?” Sam blurts out. You’re a bit surprised at the question but you very quickly nod, “I would love to Sam. Are you sure you’ll be okay though?” You ask him. He gives you a reassuring smile and nod. “Yeah, I’ll be fine. Now that I know what it’s like to hold you I’m not sure I ever want to let you go.” The heat returns to your cheeks, but like a million times hotter now. You left speechless for a few moments causing Sam to chuckle and set you down, but his hands don’t leave your waist and yours don’t leave his shoulders. You two simply beam at each other for a while before Sam looks over to your house, “Do you want some help?” he offers. You give a series of quick nods, “Yeah that would be wonderful… Thank you.”

(So I was going to make it a little funny because cats don’t take fall damage and so like hybrid cat reader wouldn’t either but then I began writing the little scene at the end and I liked that a lot and I couldn’t find anywhere to squeeze it in without ruining the mood. So just please think about how Sam got over his fear of cats because he thought you were in danger of getting hurt, but you weren’t because fall damage doesn’t affect you, and so he caught you even though it terrified him… That’s all. Hope you enjoyed)

[theoriginalcarnivorousmuffin]

"Tom Riddle effectively destroys the country from the inside out, which I believe was his true goal the entire time" (c) wait a second, so you think that he wasn't going to really take over or anything, just destroy the fuck out of w britain?

I have avoided this ask long enough.

I’ll start by saying that asking me about Tom Riddle is like staring down into a bottomless rabbit hole. We could travel down that path, but it is a dark and perilous journey, and by the end of it I will come out looking like the Mad Hatter.

It also requires a few prerequisites that you’re just going to accept as true (or else got off the crazy train here).

We know very little about Tom Riddle or Voldemort

What we do know of Tom Riddle comes to us from suspect sources

I’m just going to go out there and start with the basis that Tom is not crazy

Elaborating a little on number 1. We never actually see much of Tom Riddle or Voldemort directly. He’s a bit like Thanos in the MCU, or Palpatine in the first two movies of the Original Trilogy, he’s this looming threat that we pass by and glimpse every once in a while but never really get quality time with.

Generally, Voldemort makes an appearance in a moment of crisis.

He and Harry fight over the philosopher’s stone for Tom’s very survival. He and Harry fight over the diary for Tom’s very survival. He resurrects himself with Harry as a witness. We get those very strange dreams from Voldemort’s perspective (half of which we later learn are fabricated).

None of these really lend to our, or Harry’s for that matter, understanding of Tom Riddle. There’s too much going on, it usually happens far too fast, and there’s usually something Tom Riddle desperately wants or needs that eclipses all other concerns or else he has an audience.

This is part of the reason we get those Halfblood Prince pensieve lessons: Harry knows nothing of Tom Riddle and doesn’t understand him at all.

Which leads us, of course, to number 2, most of what we know about Tom Riddle comes from Dumbledore. I’ve talked about this before, so I won’t spend much time on it, but Dumbledore has a very clear agenda in relaying these memories to Harry. Dumbledore already has strong suspicions of what objects are horcruxes and where they’re located, he already has Snape as a very reliable agent to continue work when he’s gone, his job here is to convince Harry there is no path but suicide. And that involves portraying Tom Riddle as the most evil man who ever eviled, was born eviler than the antichrist, and will die eviler than the antichrist. 

Now, does this make Tom necessarily good or bad? No.

However, it does mean when Dumbledore tells us things like, “See, Harry, an impoverished child was upset when I lit all his belongings on fire! What a monster!” (especially given that, in a similar situation, Harry thought it was hilarious when Hagrid gave Dudley a permanent physical deformity and Harry was told he was an angel child) we should take it with a very large grain of salt.

Right, so, with all that backdrop what I’m getting at is that a) we can’t take Dumbledore at his word b) even if we could he could be wrong c) Harry doesn’t have the introspection to be able to figure himself when a or b is happening. I won’t elaborate on this last much, suffice to say that Harry’s world is very black and white, divided into the camps of those who personally like him and those who don’t.

So, why do I think Tom’s goal was not to rule the wizarding world but instead to destroy it?

A few things.

First, there are so many easier ways he could have ended up ruling the wizarding world. More, even when he effectively does rule the wizarding world in book seven, he takes very strange actions so that he’s never directly in power.

Second, I never really bought Tom’s racism. It’s too convenient and too contradictory with his backstory.

The second first, because we’re going out of order today. I’ve gone over this before, but I don’t believe Tom had minions early and I think he was effectively treated as a muggleborn (see here and here) until he took on the Voldemort persona many decades later. I’m hard pressed to believe someone as intelligent, angry, and proud as Tom Riddle would willingly believe and accept he was inferior to the likes of Abraxas Malfoy. More, even if he wished he was a halfblood, I think the evidence of him being muggleborn would be stacked too high against him to deny even to himself (and when he finds out it’s not true, he has maybe a month or so before he realized that he’s the bastard son of a squib). 

And it’s just so convenient. All the people with the power, with the money, who are itching for a cause against a threat that doesn’t really exist believe in blood purity. Ergo, Voldemort shows up suddenly espousing over the top blood purity rhetoric (rhetoric that directly clashes with his “there is only power” philosophy at that). 

In other words, I think Tom Riddle gave himself a line that he knew would get him places very quickly.

And now for the first. For a guy who has had the entire country in the palm of his hands twice, one time taking it over in a bloodless coup, he’s really big on causing collateral damage and really small on actually doing the ruling thing.

The first wizarding war, Tom Riddle as Voldemort has the backing of the heirs of the most prestigious and wealthy noble houses save a select few. These are people with seats in the Wizengamot, which has a frightening control over the government itself (including the minister of magic). I imagine, in 1980 had Tom Riddle wanted to be elected as Minister of Magic, he would have been elected as Minister of Magic. If he wanted a friendly face in office then he probably could have made that happen to.

More than even this though, by this point, Tom had already won. By having control over the majority of the Wizengamot he owns the government. He’s done, it’s over, it’s finished, and many of the characters admit as much which is why Harry Potter was such a miracle. So why all the seemingly random, exceptionally pointless, terrorism? 

One answer is that Voldemort is crazy bananas. And sure, I guess we can go with that, except for someone insane he’s oddly effective and very consistent. 

I believe Tom was systematically destroying the very foundations of the country through its core aristocratic families. Within a few short years Tom decimates the Black family, it goes from having five heirs to none, and while some of this isn’t Tom’s fault he does take care of quite a few of them. He brands Lucius for life, while Lucius rises high in politics he never escapes the stigma of being a known Death Eater and in the end cannot escape the consequences for his actions. The Malfoy family is very nearly destroyed by the end of the series, had Draco died in the Fiendfyre. The LeStrange family, presumably decimated as well.

More, this is mostly me headcanoning, but I imagine Tom fuels an extremism that the Wizarding World had never contemplated. I imagine, previously, anti-muggleborn sentiment was probably fairly rampant among purebloods. Oh, some were very pro-muggleborn I’m sure, but I think most were fairly “eh” on the people and felt they were a drain on society (such as requiring constant funding for the obliviation department).

However, when Diagon Alley starts getting blown up every other week, when muggleborns start being tortured and murdered, when purebloods who aren’t anti-muggleborn enough are being tortured and murdered, this starts wigging people out in a way they’ve never wigged out before.

By the time we get to Harry Potter’s canon, it is now only a minority that are anti-muggleborn, and they’re perceived as raving lunatics. Nobody wants to be grouped with these people. Which, just goes to show, how much Voldemort rattles the wizarding world in a very small amount of time.

Then there’s Deathly Hallows, rather than become minister himself Voldemort installs a puppet minister. He shows no signs of wishing to change this and instead does things like destroy the sorting hat (which again shakes the very foundations of the wizarding world as whta will we do if we don’t know who’s a Gryffindor anymore?!)

So, where is this ramble going?

Given the results we see, that more than any others it seems to be the purebloods and often Tom’s own followers that suffer colossal losses, I think Tom’s actions are, in part, a means of vengeance against the entire damn wizarding world (but especially the purebloods).

He makes fools of these people, brands them as his slaves, and has them participate in the most over the top ridiculous rituals (the cloaks, the masks, the entire theatrics of it feels like Tom got drunk one night and planned this whole thing out). He destroys them entirely, and better, enables them to completely destroy themselves and the country they believe they’re trying to save.

Basically, I think by the time the series begins Tom is fueled by a nihilist rage that knows no bounds. But dammit all, the wizarding world is going to burn.

[watchyourbluesturngolden]

First of all, love your writing, perfect for some binge reading!

I was wondering if you could do a little fic about Harry noticing all the little anxiety tics that you have (bouncing a knee, picking at fingers, etc) and maybe one time where he like helps you stop doing them and calms you down or something? I would love anything you do with this request so go off I guess! 💕

well first of all i love YOU😚😚😚 thank you so much! hope you like it :)

restless legs

warnings: anxiety, mild panic

word count: 1.6k

Harry was very perceptive. He noticed little things about you that others didn't, like when he surprised you with a gift you had only glanced at in a store window when walking past. You had no idea how he managed to be so observant, but you definitely appreciated it. It was nice when he understood you were ready to go home before you even said anything, or how he could always tell when you had a bad day and needed comfort.

He could also tell when you were anxious, especially because you had a few tells he had noticed. Like now, when you were sitting across the table from him at his favorite restaurant. It was one of the first times the two of you had gone out in public together, since he wasn't big on the idea of everyone knowing he was dating someone and you weren't big on the idea of thousands of people knowing who you were. But tonight, Harry had asked if you would come out with him. It was your 6 month anniversary, and he said he would feel bad if he didn't do something special for you. So you agreed, not realizing how stressful it would actually be. Which led to tonight, when your leg was bouncing a hundred miles a minute and you had picked off nearly all your nail polish. You felt terrible for not being able to focus on Harry, but it was hard to pay attention to him when you could feel people looking at you. Harry knew how anxious public situations like this could make you, so he did everything he could to make it easier. He had requested to be seated in the back corner of the restaurant, and he had you sit with your back facing the room so you wouldn't have to see anyone else. He booked the reservation for a Tuesday night to avoid the weekend busyness, and he even arranged for the two of you to come in the back door so the paparazzi wouldn't spot you coming in. Despite all this, you were a nervous wreck, and he could tell.

"Are you okay, love? If it's too much we can go home," he offered, a concerned look on his face.

"No, I'm fine," you shook your head. You had made up your mind that you were not going to bail again. You had already done that in the middle of three other dates, and you felt terrible every time. He always reassured you that it was fine, but you were worried he would start to get annoyed. "I'm just... I'm hungry." Hopefully he would believe that your fidgeting was because of impatience, not anxiety.

"You don't have to lie," his face softened. "Are you sure? I promise I won't be upset if you want to go home."

By now you had picked all your nail polish off and moved on to pulling at your cuticles. Harry saw this and reached across the table to still your hands, smiling gently. "What do you think?"

"I want to stay," you said decisively. "I don't want to bail again."

"Don't just do it for me," he said, not letting go of your hands. "If you need-"

"I'm fine," you cut him off. "Thank you, but I'm okay."

"Okay," he smiled again, looking down at the menu. "So what sounds good?"

"Uh... i have no idea," you said, looking down at your own menu. "I'm just gonna order whatever you do."

"Sounds good," he laughed. "I was thinking the chicken cordon bleu crepes, they're excellent here," he said thoughtfully, scanning the paper in front of him.

"I have no idea what that is," you replied. "But I trust your taste, so I'll go with it."

Just then, the waiter came over to take your orders. Harry ordered for you, since he knew that was another thing that made you anxious. You squeezed his hand gently and thanked the waiter when he took your menus.

Once the waiter was gone, you looked up at Harry with a small smile. "Thank you for that, I know it's kind of silly that it stresses me out that much just to order food."

"It's not silly," he frowned. "If it's a big deal for you, it's a big deal for me. I want to do everything I can to make you comfortable." He trailed off at the end of his sentence, his eyes focusing on a point somewhere behind you.

You furrowed your brow in confusion. "What's-"

"Looks like they found us," he sighed. Your eyes went wide and you turned quickly to see what he was talking about. There was a huge group of people crowded outside the front door and windows, yelling and pushing each other and trying to take pictures through the glass. You turned back around quickly, heart rate spiking as you processed what you had seen.

"It's okay, honey, they can't get in," he assured you. "They probably can't even see us."

You both knew that was a lie, but you appreciated his effort to comfort you.

It wasn't enough, though.

"No, they can see us, otherwise why would they be going crazy?" you asked, your breathing becoming unsteady. "This is not good- Harry they're going to take pictures of us and-"

"Hey, hey, it's okay," he said, thankfully staying calm even though you were on the verge of panicking. "Why don't I go talk to the manager, they'll get everything sorted out-"

"No! Don't leave me here," you said quickly, your hand tightening around his.

"Okay, I'm not going anywhere," he promised. "Let me just..." he waved his free hand at the waiter, gesturing him over. "Can i speak with someone about the situation outside?" He asked, politely but firmly.

"Yes, right away sir," the waiter nodded quickly.

"They'll take care of it," he soothed, stroking his thumb over the back of your hand. "You're alright, it's going to be fine."

The manager walked over to your table, looking frustrated and apologetic. "I am so sorry for the mess outside, our security is working on it, and we will alert the authorities if needed," he said, wringing his hands. "Your meal is on the house tonight, of course, and please let me know if you need anything else."

"Oh, that's not necessary-" Harry started, but the other man interrupted.

"No, no, it's on us. This should not have happened, someone must have tipped them off that you were here. Again, my sincerest apologies. Is there anything you need?"

"No, we're alright, thank you," Harry smiled politely.

The man nodded before leaving the two of you alone again.

The crowd outside had finally begun to disperse, but you weren't feeling any calmer. Your heart was still racing, and it was difficult to draw a full breath. On top of that, everyone else in the room was staring at you now. Before it had just been glances here and there, but now all eyes were on you and Harry.

"I'm not feeling well," you said shakily. Your leg was bouncing enough to shake the table and he could feel your hand trembling in his. "I need-"

Harry could tell that you were staring to panic, so he took action quickly. He stood up, moving his chair around the table and setting it next to yours. He sat down and put his arm around you, breathing deeply and evenly to calm you down.

"You're alright," he said quietly, leaning in to kiss your temple. "Just breathe with me."

You tried your best to follow his instructions, your shaky breaths slowly beginning to match his measured ones.

"That's it, my good girl," he whispered against your skin. He could still feel your leg jumping up and down, so he placed his other hand over it, stilling it with a gentle pressure. "You're doing good, baby, just focus on me. Nobody else matters, we're the only ones here right now."

You nodded lightly, leaning against him for support. "Right, they don't matter," you repeated. "It's just us."

"Just us," he smiled gently. "That's right."

-----

Harry stayed next to you for the whole dinner, never moving his hand from your leg. When it was time to go he put his jacket around your shoulders and his arm around your waist, leading you out of the restaurant and into the car.

"I'm sorry for freaking out in there, i just got kind of scared and-"

"Baby, you don't ever have to feel bad about that," he said, pulling you closer to him. "I'm sorry it even happened, it shouldn't have."

"It's okay, I know i have to get used to it, it's just hard," you said quietly.

"I know it is," he sighed. "I wish you didn't have to deal with it at all. I can't have the crazies scaring you away from me," he laughed, leaning down to kiss your cheek.

"They won't scare me away, i like you way too much for that."

"That's good, because I like you even more."

You smiled, leaning your head against his chest to listen to his heartbeat. "I love you," you said quietly.

"I love you too." He smoothed his hand over your hair and tightened his arm around you. He looked down, smiling when he noticed that for the first time in weeks, your legs were still.

[stellar-imagines]

HEADCANONS REQUEST: ❝autistic S/O.❞

[ Fandom: Boku no Hero Academia ] [ Characters: Bakugou Katsuki, Todoroki Shouto, Kirishima Eijirou ]

「Headcanons of Bakugou, Todoroki and Kirishima with an autistic S/O.」

BAKUGOU KATSUKI

♤ Bakugou will burn the whole world for you if he had to. Everyone thinks that this guy is just too loud, aggressive, and intense but he's the complete opposite with you. Of course, your first impression was that he was loud. Not to mentions, he kind of seemed like an asshole with all the name-calling and yelling he does every single time. Sometimes you think that he's just constantly angry no matter what. You avoided him as much as you could at first, not liking how loud he normally is. He's gotten into trouble for being too loud, scolded by his friends since it drew a negative reaction from you. And he actually tones down for your sake.

♤ As your boyfriend, he tries his hardest for you. He always plays it cool and confident to keep up his image but in reality, he's super worried about you. The first thing he does was to become a better person by learning about you and your autism. He doesn't want to corner you and ask you multiple questions, not wanting to make you feel uncomfortable. So he decides to do his research on autism. Some of his friends had caught him reading books about it and glancing at you occasionally. It ended up with him denying it but everyone was touched to know how much Bakugou cares about you.

♤ Stimming? Man, he's somehow happy to see you do it but he makes sure that you're not harming yourself. He loves it when you’re playing with his fingers but he's lowkey insecure of his hands because it can get sweaty at times. Bakugou may not be able to comfort you with words but his actions speak volumes. He gives the best hugs and lets you play with hands and hair whenever you feel a bit anxious. He helps you explore ways to stim and ended up buying a lot of things for you. But honestly, he likes it when you rely on him to calm your nerves instead of some inanimate object.

♤ This guy never shows interest when someone is talking to him unless it was something that concerned him but when it comes to you, he listens to everything. His friends always complained about how he only pays attention to you and no one else but really, it's a good thing that he only has eyes for you. You may talk constantly about specific things that interest you and be completely unaware that Bakugou might not have the same level of interest. But no, he lets you talk as long as you want, he finds it cute that you can talk so much despite having trouble with normal social interactions.

♤ Overprotective? He's definitely an overprotective boyfriend. He literally yells at others to keep it down when they're being a bit too loud. Bakugou always has this urge to protect you whenever you're outside together. There were very rare occasions where you go out on dates and he's always on alert. The moment he sees a huge crowd, he will steer you away from it and ensure that nothing gets in your way. He's really great at getting you out of situations that overwhelm you and he's surprisingly good at comforting you. All he wants is the best for you and to become the boyfriend you deserved.

TODOROKI SHOUTO

☆ A good boy who understands how you feel. Hate crowds and sudden loud noises that make you jump and cover your ears? Prefer being alone with very few people accompanying you? Having trouble communicating with people? Yep, Todoroki understands it all. This guy enjoys his time with you, he finds your presence comforting since you understood his feelings the best. You two will be sitting side by side just enjoying the silence and avoiding noisy situations. Todoroki is quiet by nature so you never have to worry about him raising his voice all of a sudden like the others.

☆ Super honest with his feelings and when it comes to initiating affection, he always asks for consent. Todoroki is usually blunt with his feelings and he's super patient with you. On the rare occasion you didn’t catch or understand what he was saying, he has no problem repeating and attempting to make things clearer for you. So you really never have to worry about Todoroki getting impatient with you. Really, this kid has the patience of God himself, it makes you wonder what you did in your past life to deserve him. That being said, Todoroki is still the better one at communicating compared to you so he's always the one taking orders during dates.

☆ Consent is super important to him, this guy is deprived of touch for so long. His mother was out of the picture for quite a long time and his father was not the type to dote on him so you get the point. He always asks for consent before touching you. His touch is always gentle and cautious as if one wrong move will trigger you. He just loves it when he holds your hand, you instantly intertwine your fingers with his. He finds it cute how you would swing your hands while you both walk together. He likes it when you get all nervous when he asked if he could kiss you.

☆ Oh my god, this boy will get so flustered if you stim by toying with his fingers. You're just too adorable for him when you happy stim, it tugs his heartstrings. He tries to learn more about autism together with you, thinking of it as a way to communicate with you and to get to know you even better. But of course, there were things that he couldn't learn from you, he decides to read more on the internet or even ask his friends. When you stress or panic stim, he stresses and panics too. He's just so afraid that you might end up hurting yourself and feels very upset that you are feeling this way. He gives you the warmest hug and tries to calm you down.

☆ When you're info-dumping ― Todoroki likes that call it likes that ― you always pull him down to sit next to you. Todoroki can actually sense when this is going to happen and often brings you to his or your room. The two of you will sit side by side as you go on and on about whatever. Todoroki might not really know what you were talking about at first but he's listening to everything. He might not catch most of what you were saying but just seeing you look so enthusiastic and smiley is enough to make him smile. Overall, your relationship with Shouto is made of understanding each other, patience and trust. You both are a match made in heaven.

KIRISHIMA EIJIROU

♡ Kirishima knows that he can be loud sometimes but he's nothing compared to Bakugou's volume of course. He's naturally friendly and cheerful so his voice can get a bit loud sometimes. Feels super guilty and apologetic when he notices that his loud voice made you uncomfortable. He will lower down his volume whenever he's with you, keeps his distance, and ensure that you don't feel pressured at all. Doesn't hesitate to tell people around to quiet down in your presence, he knows that his group of friends can get a bit noisy. He wants you to get along with his friends and as much as he loves his friends, he cares about your well-being. Plus, his friends are nice and they understood your situation.

♡ Always has his eyes on you, like all the time! Even Aizawa has ratted him out for staring at you too much in class. But this is because he worries about you. He will fight anyone who dares to disrespect or make fun of you in any way. He never forces you to go out on dates with him. This boy is content on staying indoors, enjoy a good movie and snacks with you. But when he goes out with you, he orders food for you and asks things on your behalf. Basically, he does all the talking for you especially knowing how nervous you get. It's as if he's your father or something. Kirishima is more of an overprotective dad than a boyfriend at this point.

♡ This guy is big on affection. Though he’s really touchy, he never really initiates anything first. He knows that you sometimes have trouble showing affection back and can get a little jumpy when he just hugs you out of the blue. Kirishima has his own way of telling that he has your consent, he's been with you for quite a long time so there were the signs. Things like when your pinky brushes against his, you want to hold his hand. When you scoot a bit closer while you're both sitting side by side, you want to cuddle. This boy never forces you out of your comfort zone because he prioritizes your well-being.

♡ He doesn't really get it when you're stimming at first, he had questioned your behavior once and you told him how you're doing this to calm your nerves. Kirishima eventually finds the little things you quite cute. He slowly learns what stims you like to do when you're uncomfortable and he will be there by your side doing it with you in hopes of making you feel better. He never cared what kind of things you like to do. You were always repetitive, you always suggested the same movie and anime to watch, he was fine with it. You wanna eat [Favorite Food] again? Go to that little cafe that serves [Favorite Drink] every weekend? He's all for it.

♡ You want to talk about potatoes for over an hour? Hope you don't mind him doing other stuff at the same time. He loves listening to you while he does something else. Most of the time, he would be working out or something while you ramble about something. Different from Bakugou and Todoroki, Kirishima is more of a reactive listener. He shows genuine interest in what you're talking about. He will try to get into all the things you like because he wants to be able to talk to you about it ― plus he can see you look so excited and all cute.

Total: 1739 words Published: 25.07.2021

Thank you for requesting! ｡٩(ˊᗜˋ)و*｡ We hope you liked it! ― author Lou

Thank you for requesting it! Hope you enjoyed this! ― author Natsuki

Requests are closed! Matchups are closed!

Please do not mind the grammar mistakes and typos.

[that-blue-vault-dweller]

Kinda hate myself for coming up with this one, but: A young teenage (Maybe 13 or 14 year old) SS who was raised in an abusive family and as a result, is very jumpy and easily scared, and can't stand up for herself very well.

Dang, y’all are gluttons for punishment with all this angst.... 😔 But I do like writing it 😂🤣

Thank you for the request! I hope you enjoy! 💙💛

Cait - Immediately feels deep sympathy for the kid, and she resolves to take her under her wing. If anyone dares mess with the girl, Cait can and will become volatilely and aggressively violent as she defends her little buddy. No one will ever put their hands on the girl again. Not on Cait's watch.

Piper - Feels her stomach flop as soon as she realizes that the kid instinctively flinches when Piper reaches up to try to touch her face or to put a hand on her shoulder. Piper quickly makes it her mission to introduce the kid to as many kind touches as Piper can spring on her. She also will jump all over someone else if they try to hurt the kid regardless if physical or emotional injury is intended.

Curie - Feels absolutely horrible for the girl, and she is offering her hugs as often as she can. She always wants to make the girl feel comfortable, happy, and safe as she can possibly be. If anyone tries to insult or hurt the girl, Curie does the best she can to defend her, explaining to the offender that they are being quite rude and awfully inappropriate. They usually end up laughing at Curie, so she just leads F!Sole away from the situation.

MacCready - Feels pretty sorry for the kid and tries to watch over her in as non-hovering of a manner as he can. If someone tries to mess with her, he is quickly there to back her up and he threatens them quickly. They usually do not take him seriously. That is, until he pulls out his gun and tells them that they better leave her alone or they'll figure out just how serious he is.

Deacon - Before he even knows her personally, he sees how jumpy she is, so he makes a mental note to keep an eye out for her. During his times undercover watching her, if someone messes with her, he will actually interfere, utilizing his undercover identity as a drifter or a scavver and staying in character the entire time he defends her. When she actually knows who he is, he keeps up this trend of protecting her except now he will do it regardless of whether he's undercover or not.

Codsworth - Feels frustrated and upset that he could never do anything about it. He was programmed to serve her parents first and foremost, and while he could offer her comfort after they hurt her, he could not stop them. He blames himself for her condition, but he tries to make it up to her by defending her to the best of his abilities and standing by her loyally always.

Hancock - Immediately feels terrible for the kid, and resolves to do everything in his power to make sure that she is completely untouchable. By the time he's through, absolutely no one in Goodneighbor lays a hand on her and most of them are either very respectful or completely avoid her. Out in the wasteland, if someone even tries to hurt her, he is already gutting them with a knife before guiding her away carefully.

Danse - Feels very sorry for her and decides that he will keep her as safe as he can. Of course, absolutely everyone around is extremely discouraged from hurting her physically or emotionally when she has a giant, power-armor-clad paladin behind her that looks like he could kill them with just a flex of his pinky toe. He keeps her very safe and he always offers a sympathetic ear if she needs to talk about things.

Preston - Cannot believe that someone from such a perfect world knows intimately about abuse. He feels terrible for her, and he does the best he can to make her feel as safe as possible. He often pats her on the shoulder when she does a good job with something, and he tries to praise her a lot for things so maybe she can build her confidence back up. He also will lead her away from a situation if someone is being confrontational.

Valentine - Feels as if he's been hit in the gut when he realizes it. He from then on keeps an even closer eye on her and he makes sure that no one messes with her. He also offers to talk to her about stuff, and offers advice whenever he can. He just tries to play the role of a wise grandfatherly figure for her.

X6-88 - Feels that the situation is terribly unfortunate. He does not act much different, but he does more proactively take part in defending her and keeping her safe. If anyone even says anything less than kind or respectful to her, he withdraws his gun and tells them to step away from the situation quickly.

Dogmeat - Smells the fear on her when she is near large people or when people seem angry or upset about anything. Therefore, he just stands closer to her, pressing his nose against her hand until she pets him. If anyone tries to get in her face, he is immediately growling and if anyone dares raise their hand as if they might hit her, he is jumping to attack. No one will hurt her ever on his watch.

Strong - Tells her that she needs to be stronger. He tells her that she has to be mean and loud to show other tiny humans that she is boss and the best fighter. He is somehow really encouraging in his strange way and if anyone tries to mess with her when he is around, he is all but ripping them apart as he starts attacking in a pure rage.

Maxson - Feels quite bad for the child and resolves to keep her doing things on the Prydwen in order to keep her away from anyone who might be toxic toward her. He starts out giving her relatively easy things to do so she can succeed and feel good about herself. If anyone criticizes her work while she is in earshot, he will make sure that there is adequate punishment.

Sturges - Feels terrible for the girl, and he does the best he can to watch over her. He gives her plenty of work to do with him, and they talk about all sorts of things while they're working on different projects. He just tries to make her feel comfortable around him. However, if anyone messes with her, he will stand up for her quite sufficiently, telling the people to back off. People usually do not question him since he has such muscles and he looks so threatening when he scowls. Even if he truly would not hurt a fly.

Glory - Feels awful for the kid, and asks Desdemona if she can mentor the girl. Desdemona agrees, and Glory immediately starts trying to show her how to stand up for herself. Of course, Glory stands up for her regardless of whether the kid is trying to stand up for herself or not. When Carrington starts talking down to her and treating her less than nicely, Glory is already in his space, practically snarling in his face as she tells him to leave the kid alone.

[phoenixyfriend]

For your suddenly omegaverse au what exactly happened? Like I think obiwan and Anakin hop over from cannon verse to omegaverse but I am unclear on if there already existed obiwan and Anakin in omegaverse. Did they die early or do they just not exist or are they just not force sensitive and therefore not a part of the order? Is there still a sith conspiracy around Anakin?

Context: Original Post, Surrogacy, Worldbuilding, Obi-Mom, Soap Operas

So, from the original post:

There is no preexisting Anakin in the Omegaverse

Obi-Wan and Anakin just straight up don’t exist until they drop headfirst into the council room, already covered in blood.

To clarify: There has never been an Anakin Skywalker in this AU. There has never been an Obi-Wan Kenobi.

They don't know this for sure when they land in the AU, though. All they know is that the Jedi have no record of either of them. They figure, well, maybe they just got lost in the shuffle. Anakin wasn't found until he was nine, after all, and that was only by great coincidence.

The rest of this post has almost no mention of the omegaverse elements, FYI.

Warning: References to the Tusken massacre, explicit sedation and isolation of a mentally unstable individual threatening violence.

I don’t want to make light of institutionalization and involuntary holds, but Anakin is a character with a history of violence talking about repeating such an act, and that’s... a bit of an extreme case.

------

It's not that hard to convince the Temple to let them run a mission that lets them stop by Tatooine or Stewjon. Anakin cares a lot more, so Tatooine it is! Obi-Wan can tell there's something sketchy going on with Anakin's particular anxiety about this, but he rolls with it. Anakin was very specific about the timing for some reasons, and at this point, it's easier to just let it all play through.

They go well after the whole “congrats, you’re omegas... somehow,” thing has happened, a month or so before Geonosis would have happened. Obi-Wan has managed to help the council sabotage and delay the Separatist side of the war enough that they’ve gained... maybe a few weeks, maybe a few months. Just a little more time to keep a few more people alive. Nobody’s reached out to Kamino yet, and Jango isn’t staging a failed assassination to draw someone in, either. They’ve bought enough time for Anakin to spend his vacation time checking in on his mom seeing if he exists here, and Obi-Wan can go with him.

They get to Tatooine. They wander about, and Anakin doesn't actually explain where they're going, but takes them straight to where the Lars farm is. Obi-Wan lets Anakin tell him that it was the Force that led him to the right area. Anakin can sense that his mom is in there, and Obi-Wan chalks up the relief from his former padawan to 'she's here and we don't have to look for her.'

Anakin is... panicking. Just a bit. What if he shows up and it turns out this reality's Anakin is off doing something completely unrelated and she realizes he's the wrong person? Or what if she doesn't recognize him and he calls her Mom anyway? What if he fucks up and says something stupid or just starts crying on her? She'll think he's insane.

Obi-Wan... takes over.

Anakin stays hidden, listening. Obi-Wan knocks on the door, and asks if there's a 'Shmi Skywalker' in residence. Someone in town mentioned her. He explains that he has a young friend of about twenty years--they're not sure, exactly, because the friend doesn't know his own birthday, but it's about there--who happens to be a Skywalker, and they're trying to see if they can reconnect him with a parent. They don't have much to go off of other than the surname... the Shmi that lives here wouldn't happen to have ever had any children about that age?

No. She hasn't had any children of her own blood, actually, her only child is her stepson, but she'd be happy to meet this other Skywalker, if he's in the area. It's always nice to find family, and connecting with those that were separated from you is a big deal on Tatooine. She's not going to look a gift bantha in the mouth.

(Cliegg, dear, put down the rifle.)

Obi-Wan promises to let his friend know, bids them goodbye, and goes to find Anakin.

Anakin is having a bit of a breakdown.

As one does.

Anakin insists that they stick around for a bit, that they do what they can to protect the farm, because that's his mom, even if she's not really his mom, and Obi-Wan can tell there's a Lot Going On here. He assumes it's because Anakin's upset his mom doesn't know him, which is a little irrational on account of their two options being "Anakin doesn't exist (and so Shmi doesn't know him)" and "Anakin does exist (but Shmi doesn't know this Anakin, so she still doesn't know him)," but Anakin's not a very rational person.

Obi-Wan thinks tamping down the current crisis is probably a little more important than chastising Anakin's attachment issues, mostly because Anakin's hands are shaking, and he's looking a little wild-eyed, and like. Obi-Wan's not great at dealing with Anakin's many and varied emotions, but he's learned at some point when it's best to just... roll with it Until There's Less Risk of Stab or Sobbing Laughter.

He helps figure out some minor fuckery with the Force to hide the family in the homestead behind them from visitors, and to warn them to hide when someone comes by. It’s not a lot--mostly just meditating and asking the Force for a helping hand--but it’s nice.

Except, well, Anakin keeps fidgeting. He keeps panicking. He has them coming back almost daily for a week, always too scared to talk to his mom but insistent on protecting her, and always looking at the calendar. Obi-Wan wants to get back to the Temple, but whatever the actual hell is going on with Anakin is too big to just ignored.

A specific day comes and goes. Anakin is a mess of jitters and nerves, and finally Obi-Wan asks just the wrong (right?) question, and... they visit Shmi.

Anakin says they can talk later, he just wants to see his mom One Last Time.

(Obi-Wan is getting more and more worried, but he sits through the incredibly awkward meeting between Anakin and his alt-universe mom, watches as Anakin has no idea what to say and almost cries, and Shmi just kind of lets him do that and Beru--a sweet girl, Obi-Wan thinks, and very practical--tells him that this is all very normal for reunited slaves.)

(Obi-Wan wonders if maybe there’s some stuff Anakin never told him about how being a slave affected him.)

(Obi-Wan had thought they’d moved past most of this, but..)

The meeting ends. There’s hugging.

They get back to the ship, and Obi-Wan gets to watch Anakin fall apart. Obi-Wan gets to watch Anakin cry and scream into a pillow, hyperventilate and nearly punch a hole in the wall as he rages about how it was all for nothing! Obi-Wan gets to watch Anakin break into a million pieces in a way he’s never seen before.

Obi-Wan gets a confession.

Anakin tells him about the Tuskens.

It’s not an easy conversation. It’s not a short conversation, either. Anakin’s full of pain and misery and rising guilt, talks about how he’s been asking himself if it would be easier to keep his mother safe if he just killed them all now, except Obi-Wan would know, and be disappointed, and sure the Chancellor had said that they were little more than rabid animals, but Anakin doesn’t think he can kill the younglings again when his mom is still fine, and--

Obi-Wan sedates him.

He wants to say that he’s not proud of this, but... Anakin isn’t well. Anakin isn’t well in a way that is currently, specifically, revolving around doing extreme violence. Anakin is talking about going out and committing a slaughter as preventative maintenance.

Anakin stays sedated until they get back to the Temple, and he’s put in Force-suppressant cuffs--Obi-Wan quietly tells them to use something that can’t be sliced or taken apart by a droid specialist, and to avoid collars because Anakin was a slave for nearly a decade, and has a lot of traumatic associations--and in an isolated room.

It’s not a cell. Not technically.

He can’t just leave, though.

Obi-Wan hates himself for it, just a little. He doesn’t want to be doing this, not to his padawan, his brother, his son, but... a massacre. Even the younglings, he’d said.

(“He said he didn’t think he could do it again,” Obi-Wan mutters, half to himself and half to the mind healer that asks for his rundown of the situation. “I think he knows it was wrong, but...”)

(But he still did it, of course.)

It’s... better than Obi-Wan feared, but worse than he hoped.

Anakin is emotionally unstable. He has been, for a long time, but he’s usually functional. When the mind healer isn’t directly poking at his worst wounds, Anakin can more or less pass for... not okay, necessarily, but no worse than anyone else in the war had. He can say the right words. He can do a joint meditation. He can talk about philosophy the way a Knight that’s taken all the right classes does.

But part of Anakin still holds to the idea that the Tuskens deserved to die.

“This is my fault,” Obi-Wan whispers, more than once, resting his head in his hands, elbows on his knees. “I should have...”

“He was an adult,” says Mace, who isn’t Mace, not the one that Obi-Wan knows, but a newer friend, one that’s still figuring how to act around him. “Young, but still an adult. He made that choice.”

Obi-Wan doesn’t answer. Things aren’t that simple.

“The timing can’t have been a coincidence,” Obi-Wan mutters to himself, later on, but in the same spot, and the same position.

The Quinlan of this universe shrugs. He knows Obi-Wan better than most, right now. Psychometry’s helpful that way, and sharing Obi-Wan’s heat hadn’t hurt. “Seems likely. You said Sith were involved and setting traps, and a kid like yours, with that much power and trauma... ripe for the molding.”

Obi-Wan whines, and then catches the noise and stuffs it back down, locks it up tight with the other ‘instinct’ things he doesn’t like to think about having. The sound already has Quinlan shifting closer, and the smell is... intended to be comforting, he thinks. Reacting to his own distress, which he’s probably just pumping out right now, because he still doesn’t know how to--

“Can I help?” Quinlan asks, and Obi-Wan lets him.

Someone gets through to Anakin, maybe, or he just lets himself be ground down, or Obi-Wan’s entreaties that he can’t teach Ahsoka until he understands his crimes get through. He won’t be trusted around the clones until the Jedi can trust him to do the right thing, they inform him.

“I wouldn’t hurt the clones.”

“Nobody’s going to believe that until you understand your crimes and truly, actually feel remorse for them.”

There wasn’t a crime, technically. Not in this universe. That tribe is still alive, here, unknowing of the fate they escaped by dint of Anakin talking himself down from committing another slaughter.

(He tells the mind healer it’s because Obi-Wan was there.)

(He might have done it, he says, if he hadn’t thought Obi-Wan would be disappointed in him.)

(He says it like it’s a foregone conclusion, that Obi-Wan’s opinion is worth more than the horror of what he might become.)

“We’re going to keep an eye on anyone talking to Palpatine,” Shaak tells him one day, after Anakin’s been mental instability hold for two weeks. “We don’t know for sure how far the similarities extend from your universe to ours, but given everything else you’ve been right about...”

“That bad?” Obi-Wan asks.

Shaak grimaces, fangs glinting in the light. “I want to believe we’d have never allowed a child into such a position, but I can’t know what political leverage may have been used in your dimension... whatever reason was had to put Skywalker in those rooms, we know the consequences now--”

“What did he do to my padawan?” Obi-Wan demands, because Anakin won’t even tell him that. Anakin hasn’t mentioned Palpatine since they left Tatooine. Not to Obi-Wan.

“Nothing physical,” Shaak manages. “But the lies he told and the suggestions he planted... it’s good they haven’t met again yet in this life. We’ll all be keeping them far apart.”

He wants to take solace in that. “Why do you know before I do?”

“Skywalker values your opinion,” she says. “Only yours. He doesn’t want you more disappointed in him than you already are, so much of what is relayed to the council as a matter of security goes no further, but this was deemed necessary to share. He agreed to it, if you worried we’d broken his confidence.”

Anakin’s therapy would normally be entirely private.

Anakin’s therapy would normally not be in response to confessions of mass slaughter.

He hasn’t asked to be let out, which Obi-Wan hopes is a sign that he realizes at least subconsciously that he was in the wrong. The mind healer says he could have been released under watch by a Master probably a day or two after he arrived, but seems to be drawing some kind of comfort in knowing he couldn’t hurt someone even if he tried.

Obi-Wan is Anakin’s emergency contact. His next of kin. His healthcare proxy. Anakin has a right to privacy, minor as it is in such a situation, and everyone recognizes and treats him as an adult, but... Obi-Wan learns as much from the mind-healer as he would have back when Anakin was actually a child.

“He trusts you to make the right decisions,” the mind healer tells him, careful and unassuming. “He has... a lot of conflicting opinions about many things, including the order, the coming war, the nature of human reproductive dynamics, the Code... but he seems keen on the idea that you are his best reference on morality and ethics.”

Oh, good, more horrifying responsibility.

“He’s better,” the mind healer tells him. “I want to get him out of here before he starts going stir crazy while still relying on the perceived safety as a crutch for his mental health. And he--”

“He’ll be staying with me,” Obi-Wan says, heavy as anything. “I know.”

“Well... there’s a war coming,” the mind healer says. She offers a thin smile when he looks at her. “I don’t want him going out, but it makes him feel useful, gives him a direction for the aggression, and... the Council is adamant that we’ll need him as much as we need you.”

It’s true.

“Did he tell you why everyone called him the Hero With No Fear?”

“No.”

“Ask him.”

[shihalyfie]

About the Adventure: reboot, the likely reason why it exists, the question of target demographic, and whether I would recommend it or not

I think this reboot has been kind of a strange outlier in terms of Digimon anime in general, in terms of...well, just about everything. I also feel like everything surrounding it has kind of been giving us mixed signals as to what the intent and purpose behind the anime is -- well, besides “cashing in on the Adventure brand”, but looking at it more closely, that might be a bit of an oversimplification.

I’m writing this post because, having seen the entire series to the end for myself and thinking very hard about it and what it was trying to do, I decided to put down my thoughts. This is not meant to be a review of what I think was good and bad, but rather, something that I hope will be helpful to those who might be on the fence about whether they want to watch it or not, or those who don’t want to watch/finish it but are curious about what happened, or those who are curious as to why this reboot even exists in the first place, or even maybe just those who did watch it but are interested in others’ thoughts about it. I'm personally convinced that -- especially in an ever-changing franchise like Digimon -- how much you like a given work is dependent on what your personal tastes are to the very end, and thus it’s helpful to understand what kind of expectations you should go in with if you want to watch something.

With all of this said and done, if you want to go in and best enjoy this series, I think it is best to consider this anime as a distinct Digimon series of its own. The relationship to Adventure is only surface-level, and by that I mean it’s very obvious it’s doing things its own thing deliberately without worrying too much about what prior series did. Of course, I think everyone will have varying feelings about using the Adventure branding for something that really isn't Adventure at all, but we are really talking about an in-name-only affair, and something that’s unabashedly doing whatever it wants. So in other words, if you’re going in expecting Adventure, or anything that really resembles Adventure, you’re setting yourself up for disappointment. But if you’re able to approach it like yet another distinct Digimon series, and the other aspects of it fit your fancy, you’ll probably be able to enjoy it much better. And, conversely, I think it’s also important to remember that this series seems to have a writing philosophy with a fundamentally different goal from most Digimon series, and since it’s understandable for most long-time Digimon fans to have their tastes built on those prior series, it’s fine and completely understandable that this reboot may not be your cup of tea, for reasons that probably don’t actually have much to do with whether it’s an Adventure reboot or not.

There are no spoilers in the following post. (Although I use some emphatic language for the duration for it, these are mostly just my personal thoughts and how I see the series and the overall situation.)

On what exact relationship to Adventure this series has, and why it’s an “Adventure reboot”

If you ask why they did an Adventure reboot, the easiest answer to come up with is “Adventure milking, because it’s profitable”, but that’s kind of an oversimplification of what the issue is. This is especially when you take into account a key fact that official has been very well aware of since as early as 2006: most kids are too young to have seen Adventure, and therefore have no reason to care about it.

That’s the thing: Adventure milking only works so well on today’s children, and Toei and Bandai know this. This is also the reason that the franchise started going through a bit of a “split” starting in around 2012 (after Xros Wars finished airing), when the video game branch started making more active attempts to appeal to the adults’ fanbase with Re:Digitize and Adventure PSP. (Although they were technically still “kids’ games”, they were very obviously aimed at the adults’ audience as a primary “target”.) The generation that grew up with Adventure and other classic Digimon anime was getting older and older, and targeting that audience would require tailoring products more specifically to them -- ultimately culminating in 2015 and the solidification of “very obviously primarily for adults” media in the form of both games (Cyber Sleuth and Next Order) and anime (tri.). Note that Appmon ended up getting its own 3DS game, but since it was targeted at kids, it seems to have been developed by a completely different pipeline/branch from the aforementioned adults’ games, so even that had a split.

So if we want to talk about full-on nostalgia pandering, that’s already being done in the adults’ branch. In fact, Appmon development specifically said that they felt free to not really care about the adults’ audience because that was tri.’s job. Of course, the hardcore Digimon adults’ fanbase is still keeping an eye on the kids’ shows, and it’s good to not upset them -- and, besides, even if we’re all suffering under the hell of capitalism, people who work in kids’ shows still tend to be very passionate about the content and messages they’re showing the kids, so they still put an effort into making good content that adults can enjoy too. But, nevertheless, adults are still the “periphery demographic”, and a kids’ show is not a success if the kids (who have not seen and do not care about Adventure) are not watching it or buying the toys. Appmon ended up being extremely well-received by the adults’ fanbase, but that all meant nothing since the kids didn’t get into it.

Most kids are not super incredibly discerning about so-called writing quality (it’s not like they don’t at least unconsciously know when something is good, but they’re much less likely to be bothered by little things adults are often bothered by), so there’s a certain degree you have to get their attention if you want things to catch on with them. Critical reception does matter a lot more when we talk about the adults’ audience, but for the kids, the more important part is how much you’ve managed to engage them and how much fun they’re having (especially in regards to the toyline). Moreover, there’s the problem of “momentum”; Digimon’s sister shows of PreCure, Kamen Rider, and Super Sentai have sometimes had really poorly performing shows (critically or financially), but have managed to recover it in successive years to avoid getting cancelled. Digimon never managed to get to that point, with sales nearly dropping to half with Tamers and again with Frontier. So in essence, Savers, Xros Wars, and Appmon were all attempts at figuring out what was needed to just get that “kickstart” again -- but things just never lined up for it to work.

So if kids don’t really care about Adventure, why would they do Adventure nostalgia pandering? The answer is one that official has actually openly stated multiple times: they want to have parents watch it together with their children. Both Seki and Kinoshita said this in regards to watching the reaction to Kizuna, and it was also stated outright as a goal for the reboot, but, believe it or not, there’s reports of this having been stated back as early as Savers (followed by an admission that maybe 2006 was a little too early for people who grew up with Adventure to be old enough to have their own kids). So the little nostalgia references in Savers, Xros Wars, and Appmon aren't really meant to magically turn the series into Adventure as much as they’re supposed to be flags waved at the parents to get them to pay attention, so that they can introduce their kids to Digimon and watch it together with them, until the kids eventually take an interest on their own and they don’t need to rely on that kind of standby as much. (I say “as much” because of course PreCure, Rider, and Sentai all are still very indulgent in their anniversary references, but they’re not nearly as reliant on it to the point of life-and-death.)

This is also why Kizuna’s existence and release date two months prior to the reboot is a huge factor in this. The reason tri. wouldn’t have done it is that it never actually reached a properly “mainstream” audience. It’s a huge reason I keep emphasizing the fact that tri. and Kizuna are two separate things with completely different production and release formats, because tri. being a limited OVA screening released in six parts over three years means that, although it was a moderate financial success that did better than the franchise’s other niche products, in the end, it didn’t actually reach the “extremely casual” audience very well. We, as the “hardcore Internet fanbase”, all know people who watched all six parts, and the difference between tri. and Kizuna’s release formats doesn’t hit us as hard because of international distribution circumstances, but even on our end, if you talk to your casual friends who barely remember anything about Digimon except what they saw on TV twenty years ago, you will almost never find anyone who got past Part 1, maybe 2 at most. (That’s before we even get into the part where a good chunk of them got turned off at the character design stage for being too different.) Sticking with a full six-part series over three years is a commitment, and if you’re not someone with a certain level of loyalty to the franchise, you aren’t as likely to put aside the time for it!

Kizuna, on the other hand, was a full-on theatrical movie with full marketing campaign that was aimed at that extremely casual mainstream audience, including a lot of people who hadn’t even heard of tri. (due to it being too niche) or hadn’t bothered to commit to watching something so long, and thus managed to “hype up” a lot of adults and get them in a Digimon mood. (Critical reception issues aside, this is also presumably a huge reason Kizuna isn’t all that reliant on tri.’s plot; Adventure and 02 both averaged at around 11% of the country watching it when it first aired, but the number of people who even saw tri. much less know what happened in it is significantly lower, so while you can appeal to a lot of people if you’re just targeting the 11%, you'll lock them out if you’re overly reliant on stuff a lot of them will have never seen in the first place.) We’re talking the kind of super-casual who sees a poster for Kizuna, goes “oh I remember Digimon!”, casually buys a ticket for the movie, likes it because it has characters they remember and the story is feelsy, and then two months later an anime that looks like the Digimon they recognize is on Fuji TV, resulting in them convincing their kid to watch it together with them because they’re in a Digimon mood now, even though the actual contents of the anime are substantially different from the original.

So, looking back at the reboot:

There’s a huge, huge, huge implication that the choice to use Adventure branding was at least partially to get Fuji TV to let them have their old timeslot back. Neither Xros Wars nor Appmon were able to be on that old timeslot, presumably because Fuji TV had serious doubts about their profitability (perhaps after seeing Savers not do very well). This isn’t something that hits as hard for us outside Japan who don’t have to feel the impact of this anyway, but it’s kind of a problem if kids don’t even get the opportunity to watch the show in the first place. While there’s been a general trend of moving to video-on-demand to the point TV ratings don’t really have as much impact as they used to, I mean...it sure beats 6:30 in the morning, goodness. (Note that a big reason PreCure, Rider, and Sentai are able to enjoy the comfortable positions they’re in is that they have a very luxurious 8:30-10 AM Sunday block on TV Asahi dedicated to them.)

Since we’re talking about “the casual mainstream”, this means that this kind of ploy only works with something where a casual person passing by can see names and faces and take an interest. This is why it has to be Adventure, not 02 or Tamers or whatnot; 02 may have had roughly similar TV ratings to Adventure and fairly close sales figures back in 2000, but the actual pop culture notability disparity in this day and age is humongous (think about the difference in pop culture awareness between Butter-Fly and Target). 02, Tamers, and all can do enough to carry “adults’ fandom” products and merch sales at DigiFes, and the adults’ branch of the franchise in general, but appealing to the average adult buying toys for the kids is a huge difference, and a big reason that, even if they’re clearly starting to acknowledge more of the non-Adventure series these days, it’s still hard to believe they’re going to go as far as rebooting anything past Adventure -- or, more accurately, hard to believe they’ll be able to get the same impact using names and faces alone.

This advertising with the Adventure brand goes beyond just the anime -- we’re talking about the toyline that has the involved character faces plastered on them, plus all of the ventures surrounding them that Bandai pretty obviously carefully timed to coincide with this. One particularly big factor is the card game, which is doing really, really well right now, to the point it’s even started gaining an audience among people who weren’t originally Digimon fans. Part of it is because the game’s design is actually very good and newcomer-friendly, but also...nearly every set since the beginning came with reboot-themed Tamer Cards, which means that, yes, those cards with the Adventure names and faces were helping lure people into taking an interest in the game. Right now, the game is doing so well and has gained such a good reputation that it probably doesn’t need that crutch anymore to keep going as long as the game remains well-maintained, but I have no doubt the initial “Adventure” branding was what helped it take off, and its success is most likely a huge pillar sustaining the franchise at the current moment.

Speaking of merch and toys, if you look closely, you might notice that Bandai decided to go much, much more aggressively into the toy market with this venture than they ever did with Savers, Xros Wars, or Appmon (Appmon was probably the most aggressive attempt out of said three). They put out a lot more merch and did a lot more collaborative events to engage the parents and children, and, presumably, the reason they were able to do this was because they were able to push into those outlets with the confidence the Adventure brand would let them be accepted (much like with Fuji TV). Like with the card game, the important part was getting their “foot in the door” so that even if it stopped being Adventure after a fashion, they’d still have all of those merchandising outlets -- after all, one of the first hints we ever got of Ghost Game’s existence was a July product listing for its products replacing the reboot’s in a gachapon set, so we actually have evidence of certain product pipelines being opened by the reboot’s precedent. (The word 後番組 literally means “the TV program that comes after”, so it’s pretty obvious this was intended for Ghost Game; in other words, the reboot’s existence helped ensure there be a “reservation” for this kind of product to be made.)

I think one important thing to keep in mind is that Toei and Bandai have as much of a stake in avoiding rehashing for their kids’ franchises as we do. Even if you look at this from a purely capitalistic perspective, because of how fast the “turnover” is for the kids’ audience, sustaining a franchise for a long time off rehashing the same thing over and over is hard, and even moreso when it involves a twenty-year-old anime that said kids don’t even know or remember. Ask around about popular long-running Japanese kids’ franchises and you’ll notice they practically rely on being able to comfortably change things up every so often, like PreCure/Rider/Sentai shuffling every year, or Yu-Gi-Oh! having a rotation of different series and concepts, or the struggles that franchises that don’t do this have to deal with. And, after all, for all people are cynical about Toei continuing to milk Adventure or any of the other older series at every opportunity, as far as the kids’ branch of the franchise goes, this is only capable of lasting to a certain extent; if they tried keeping this up too long, even the adults and kids would get bored, and there is some point it’ll be easier to try and make products directly targeted at the kids’ audience instead of having to rely on the parents to ease them into it.

So it’s completely understandable that the moment they secured a proper audience with the reboot and finished up their first series with this, they decided to take the risk with Ghost Game right after. And considering all that’s happened, this is still a risk -- they’re changing up a lot (even if not as much as Appmon), and there’s a chance that the audience they’ve gathered is going to shoot down again because they’ve changed so much and they no longer have the Adventure branding as a “crutch” to use -- but they’re taking it anyway instead of going for something at least slightly more conventional.

Which means that, yes, there’s a possibility this will all explode in their face, because the Adventure branding is that huge of a card they’re about to lose. But at the very, very least, Ghost Game is coming in with the “momentum” and advantage that Savers, Xros Wars, and Appmon all didn’t have: a brand currently in the stage of recovery, all of the merchandising and collaborative pipelines the reboot and Kizuna opened up, a fairly good timeslot, and a premise somewhat more conventional than Xros Wars and Appmon (I’m saying this as someone who likes both: their marketing definitely did not do them many favors). There are still a lot of risks it’s playing here, and it’s possible it won’t be the end of more Adventure or reboot brand usage to try to keep that momentum up even as we go into Ghost Game, but it’s the first time in a long while we’ve had something to stand on.

Okay, so that’s out of the way. But the end result is that we now have 67 episodes of an Adventure “reboot” that actually doesn’t even resemble Adventure that much at all, which seems to have achieved its goal of flagging down attention so it can finally going back to trying new things. This series exists, we can’t do anything about the fact it exists, the period where its own financial performance actually mattered is coming to an end anyway, and we, as a fanbase of adults hanging out on the Internet keeping up with the franchise as a whole, have to figure out how each of us feels about this. So what of it?

About the contents of the reboot itself

One thing I feel hasn’t been brought up as a potential topic very much (or, at least, not as much as I feel like it probably should be) is that the reboot seems to be actively aimed at a younger target audience than the original Adventure. It hasn’t been stated outright, but we actually have quite a bit of evidence pointing towards this.

Let’s take a moment and discuss what it even means to have a different target audience. When you’re a kid, even one or two years’ difference is a big deal, and while things vary from kid to kid, generally speaking, it helps to have an idea of what your “overall goal” is when targeting a certain age group, since at some point you have to approximate the interests of some thousands of children. Traditionally, Digimon has been aimed at preteens (10-11 year olds); of course, many will testify to having seen the series at a younger age than that, but the "main” intended target demographic was in this arena. (Also, keep in mind that this is an average; a show aimed at 10-11 year olds could be said to be more broadly aimed at 7-13 year olds, whereas one aimed at 7-8 year olds would be more broadly aimed at something like 5-10 year olds.) Let’s talk a bit about what distinguishes children’s shows (especially Japanese kids’ shows) between this “preteen demographic” and things aimed at a much younger audience (which I’ll call “young child demographic”, something like the 7-8 year old arena):

With children who are sufficiently young, it’s much, much more difficult to ensure that a child of that age will be able to consistently watch TV at the same hour every week instead of being subject to more variable schedules, often set by their parents, meaning that it becomes much more difficult to have a series that relies on you having seen almost every episode to know what’s going on. For somewhat older kids, they’re more likely to be able to pick and pursue their own preferences (the usual “got up early every week for this show”). This means that shows targeted at a young child demographic will be more likely to be episodic, or at least not have a complex dramatic narrative that requires following the full story, whereas shows targeted at a preteen audience are more willing to have a dramatic narrative with higher complexity. This does not mean by any shake of the imagination that a narrative is incapable of having any kind of depth or nuance -- the reboot’s timeslot predecessor GeGeGe no Kitaro got glowing reviews all over the board for being an episodic story with tons of depth -- nor that characters can’t slowly develop over the course of the show. But it does raise the bar significantly, especially because it prevents you from making episodes that require you to know what happened in previous ones.

The thing is, the original Adventure and the older Digimon series in general didn’t have to worry about this, and, beyond the fact that their narratives very obviously were not episodic, we actually have concrete evidence of the disparity: Digimon has often been said to be a franchise for “the kids who graduated from (outgrew) a certain other monster series”. Obviously, they’re referring to Pokémon -- which does have the much younger target demographic. That’s why its anime is significantly more episodic and less overall plot-oriented, and Digimon wasn’t entirely meant to be a direct competitor to it; rather, it was hoping to pick up the preteens who’d enjoyed Pokémon at a younger age but were now looking for something more catered to them. This is also why, when Yo-kai Watch came into the game in 2014, that was considered such a huge direct competitor to Pokémon, because it was aiming for that exact same demographic, complete with episodic anime. When Yo-kai Watch moved to its Shadowside branch in 2017, it was specifically because they had concerns about losing audience and wanted to appeal to the kids who had been watching the original series, but since they were preteens now, they adopted a more dramatic and emotionally complex narrative that would appeal to that audience instead. So you can actually see the shift in attempted target demographic in real time.

Adventure through Frontier were aimed at 10-11 year olds, and here’s the interesting part: those series had the protagonists hover around the age of said target audience. We actually have it on record that Frontier had a direct attempt to keep most of the kids as fifth-graders for the sake of appealing to the audience, and so that it would be relatable to them. You can also see this policy of “matching the target audience’s age” in other series at the time; Digimon’s sister series Ojamajo Doremi (also produced by Seki) centered around eight-year-olds. Nor was Seki the only one to do this; stepping outside Toei for a bit, Medabots/Medarot had its protagonist Ikki be ten years old, much like Digimon protagonists, and the narrative was similarly dramatic. The thing is, that’s not how it usually works, and that’s especially not really been how it’s worked for the majority of kids’ series since the mid-2000s. In general, and especially now, it’s usually common to have the protagonists of children’s media be slightly older than the target age group. This has a lot of reasons behind it -- partially because kids are looking to have slightly older characters as a model for what to follow in their immediate future, and partially because “the things you want to teach the kids” are often more realistically reflected if the kids on screen have the right level of independence and capacity for emotional contemplation. Case in point: while everyone agrees the Adventure through Frontier characters are quite relatable, it’s a common criticism that the level of emotional insight sometimes pushes the boundary of what’s actually believable for 10-11 year olds...

...which is presumably why, with the exception of this reboot, every Digimon TV series since, as of this writing, started shifting to middle school students. That doesn’t mean they’re aiming the series at middle school kids now, especially because real-life 13-15 year olds are usually at the stage where they pretend they’ve outgrown kids’ shows (after all, that’s why there’s a whole term for “middle school second year syndrome”), but more that the narrative that they want to tell is best reflected by kids of that age, especially when we’re talking characters meant to represent children from the real world and not near-immortal youkai like Kitaro. In fact, the Appmon staff outright said that Haru was placed in middle school because the story needed that level of independence and emotional sensitivity, which is interesting to consider in light of the fact that Appmon’s emotional drama is basically on par with that of Adventure through Frontier’s. So in other words, the kind of high-level drama endemic to Adventure through Frontier is would actually normally be more on par with what you’d expect for kids of Haru’s age.

But at this point, the franchise is at a point of desperation, and you can see that, as I said earlier, Appmon was blatantly trying to be one of those “have its cake and eat it too” series by having possibly one of the franchise’s most dramatic storylines while also having some of the most unsubtle catchphrases and bright colors it has to offer. Moreover, one thing you might notice if you look closely at Appmon: most of its episodes are self-contained. Only a very small handful of episodes are actively dependent on understanding what happened in prior episodes to understand the conflict going on in the current one -- it’s just very cleverly structured in a way you don’t really notice this as easily. So as you can see, the more desperate the franchise has gotten to get its kids’ audience back, the more it has to be able to grab the younger demographic and not lock them out as much as possible -- which means that it has to do things that the original series didn’t have to worry about at all.

Having seen the reboot myself, I can say that it checks off a lot of what you might expect if you tried to repurpose something based on Adventure (and only vaguely based on it, really) into a more episodic story that doesn’t require you to follow the whole thing, and that it has to break down its story into easy-to-follow bits. In fact, there were times where I actually felt like it gave me the vibes of an educational show that would usually be expected for this demographic, such as repeated use of slogans or fun catchphrases for young kids to join in on. That alone means that even if the “base premise” is similar to the original Adventure, this already necessitates a lot of things that have to be very different, because Adventure really cannot be called episodic no matter how you slice it.

Not only that, even though the target audience consideration has yet to be outright stated, we also have interviews on hand that made it very clear, from the very beginning, what their goals with the reboot were: they wanted the kids to be able to enjoy a story of otherworldly exploration during the pandemic, they wanted cool action sequences, and they wanted to get the adults curious about what might be different from the original. Note that last part: they actively wanted this series to be different from the original, because the differences would engage parents in spotting the differences, and the third episode practically even goes out of its way to lay that message down by taking the kids to a familiar summer camp, only to have it pass without incident and go “ha, you thought, but nope!” Moreover -- this is the key part -- “surprising” people who were coming from the original series was a deliberate goal they had from the very beginning. They’ve stated this outright -- they knew older fans were watching this! They were not remotely shy about stating that they wanted to surprise returning viewers with unexpected things! They even implied that they wanted it to be a fun experience for older watchers to see what was different and what wasn’t -- basically, it’s a new show for their kids who never saw the original Adventure, while the parents are entertained by a very different take on something that seems ostensibly familiar. 

On top of that, the head writer directly cited V-Tamer as an influence -- and if you know anything about V-Tamer, it’s really not that much of a character narrative compared to what we usually know of Digimon anime, and is mostly known for its battle tactics and action sequences (but in manga form). In other words, we have a Digimon anime series that, from day one, was deliberately made to have a writing philosophy and goal that was absolutely not intended to be like Adventure -- or any Digimon TV anime up to this point -- in any way. And that’s a huge shock for us as veterans, who have developed our tastes and expectations based on up to seven series of Digimon that were absolutely not like this at all. But for all it's worth, the circumstances surrounding its production and intent don't seem to quite line up with what the most common accusations against it are:

That it’s a rehash of Adventure: It really isn’t. It’s also blatantly apparent it has no intention of being so. The points that are in common: the character names and rough character designs, some very minimal profile details for said characters, Devimon having any particular foil position to Angemon, the use of Crests to represent personal growth, the premise of being in the Digital World and...that’s it! Once those points are aside, it’s really hard to say that the series resembles Adventure any more than Frontier or Xros Wars resembles Adventure (which are also “trapped in another world” narratives) -- actually, there are times the series resembles those two more than the original Adventure, which many have been quick to point out. The majority of things you can make any kind of comparison to basically drop off by the end of the first quarter or so, and trying to force a correlation is basically just that: you’d have to try forcing the comparison. The plot, writing style, and even the lineup of enemies shown just go in a completely different direction after that. So in the end, the base similarities can be said to be a marketing thing; if I want to criticize this series, I don’t think “lack of creativity” would actually be something I would criticize it for. (Of course, you’re still welcome to not be a huge fan of how they’re still guilty of using Adventure’s name value to market something that is not actually Adventure. We’re all gonna have mixed feelings on that one.)

That they don’t understand or remember Adventure’s appeal: Unlikely. All of the main staff has worked on character-based narratives before, which have been very well-praised while we’re at it. The producer, Sakurada Hiroyuki, was an assistant producer on the original series, and I would like to believe he probably remembers at least a thing or two about what they were doing with the original series...but, also, he’s the producer of Xros Wars, which definitely had its own individuality and style, and, moreover, was more of a character narrative that people generally tend to expect from Digimon anime. (Still a bit unconventional, and it has its own questions of personal taste, but a lot of people have also pointed out that this reboot has a lot in common with Xros Wars in terms of its writing tone and its emphasis on developing Digital World resident Digimon moreso than the human characters.) All signs point to the idea they could make a character narrative like Adventure if they really wanted to. It’s just, they don’t want to do that with this reboot, so they didn’t.

That they misinterpreted or misremembered the Adventure characters: There’s been accusations of said characters being written in a way that implies misinterpretation or lack of understanding of the original characters, but the thing is, while I definitely agree they have nowhere near the depth of the original ones, there are points that seem to be deliberate changes. (At some points, they’re actually opposites of the original, and certain things that operate as some very obscure references -- for instance, Sora complaining about having to sit in seiza -- seem to also be deliberate statements of going in a different direction.) The lack of human character depth or backstory doesn’t seem to be out of negligence, but rather that this story doesn’t want to be a character narrative to begin with -- after all, we’re used to seven series of Digimon that are, but there are many, many kids’ anime, or even stories in general, where the story is more about plot or action than it is completely unpacking all of its characters’ heads. In this case, this reboot does seem to have characters that are taking cues from or are “inspired by” the original, but, after all, it’s an alternate universe and has no obligation to adhere to the original characters’ backgrounds, so it stands to reason that it’d take liberties whenever it wanted. (Again, the head writer outright stated that he based the reboot’s Taichi more on V-Tamer Taichi than the original Adventure anime Taichi. He knows there’s a difference!) Even more intriguingly, the series actually avoids certain things that are common misconceptions or pigeonholes that would normally be done by the mainstream -- for instance, the Crest of Light (infamously one of the more abstract ones in the narrative) is fully consistent with Adventure’s definition of it as “the power of life”, and, if I dare say so myself, Koushirou’s characterization (emphasizing his relationship with “knowledge” and his natural shyness) arguably resembles the original far more than most common fan reductions of his character that overemphasize his computer skills over his personal aptitude. In other words, I think the staff does know what happened in the original Adventure -- they just actively don’t want to do what Adventure did, even if it’s ostensibly a reboot.

That it’s soulless or that there’s no passion in its creation: Well, this is subjective, and in the end I’m not a member of the staff to tell you anything for sure, but there are definitely a lot of things in this anime that don’t seem like they’d be the byproduct of uninspired creation or lack of passion. It’s just that those things are all not the kinds of things that we, as Digimon veterans, have come to develop a taste for and appreciate in Digimon anime. That is to say, there is an incredible amount of thought and detail put into representing Digimon null canon (i.e. representing special attacks and mechanics), the action sequences are shockingly well-animated in ways that put most prior Digimon anime to shame, and the series has practically been making an obvious attempt to show off as many Digimon (creatures) that haven’t traditionally gotten good franchise representation as they can. Or sometimes really obscure “meta fanservice” references that only make sense to the really, really, really, really hardcore longtime Digimon fan (for instance, having an episode centered around Takeru and Opossummon, because Takeru’s voice actress Han Megumi voiced Airu in Xros Wars). If you follow any of the animators on Twitter, they seem to be really actively proud of their work on it, and franchise creators Volcano Ota and Watanabe Kenji seem to be enjoying themselves every week...so basically, we definitely have creators passionate about having fun with this, it’s just that all of it is being channeled here, not the character writing.

So in the end, you can basically see that this series is basically the epitome of desperately pulling out all of the stops to make sure this series lands with the actual target demographic of children, dammit, and gets them into appreciating how cool these fighting monsters are and how cool it would be if they stuck with them even into a series that’s not Adventure. The Adventure branding and names to lure in the parents, the straightforward and easy-to-understand action-oriented narrative so that kids will think everything is awesome and that they’ll like it even when the story changes, and the merchandise and collab events booked everywhere so that they can all be reused for the next series too...because, remember, they failed with that during Savers, Xros Wars, and Appmon (I mean, goodness, you kind of have to admire their persistence, because a ton of other kids’ franchises failing this many times would have given up by now), so it’s a bit unsurprising that they went all the way to get the kids’ attention at the expense of a lot of things that would attract veterans, especially since the veterans already have a well-developed adults’ pipeline to cater to them. This does also mean that this series is more likely to come off as a 67-episode toy commercial than any previous Digimon series, but it’s not even really the toys as much as they’re trying to sell the entire franchise and the actual monsters in the hopes that they’ll stick with it even when the narrative changes.

Nevertheless, here we are. The series is over. Ghost Game -- which, as of this writing, is looking to be much more of a conventional Digimon narrative, complete with older cast, obviously more dramatic atmosphere, and pretty much everything surrounding its PR -- is on its way, presumably thanks to the success of this endeavor. It’s hard to gauge it; we have it on record that they also intend it to be episodic, but remember that this doesn’t necessarily prevent it from having an overall dramatic plot or nuanced drama (especially since the abovementioned Appmon and Kitaro were perfectly capable of pulling off this balance). Nevertheless, it seems to be a lot more of the conventional kind of Digimon narrative we usually expect, so, as for us, adult long-time fans of the Digimon franchise (many of whom don’t have kids anyway), what exactly should we make of this? Well, as far as “supporting the franchise” goes, you’ll get much more progress supporting Ghost Game than the reboot; I highly doubt view counts and merch sales relative to an already-finished series will do nearly as much for the franchise’s health as much as the currently airing series, and, besides, it’d probably do us all a favor to support the endeavor that’s actually new and fresh. So when it comes to a “past” series like this, it’s all just going to come down to a question of personal preference and taste: is this a series you, personally, want to watch, and would you find it entertaining?

For some of you, it’s possible that it just won’t be your cup of tea at all -- and since, like I said, the majority of us here have based our expectations and preferences on up to seven series of Digimon that were not like this, that’s also perfectly fine, and in that case I don’t actually recommend you watch this. Of course, I’ve never thought that it was ever fair to expect a Digimon fan to have seen all of the series released to date; the more series we get, the more inhumane of a demand that’ll become, and I think this franchise becoming successful enough to have so many series that most people won’t have seen it all is a good thing. (It’s actually kind of alarming that the percentage of people who have seen it all is so high, because it means the franchise has failed to get much of an audience beyond comparatively hardcore people who committed to it all the way.) But I think, especially in this case, with a series for which adult fans like us were probably lowest on the priority list due to the sheer amount of desperation going on here, it’s fine to skip it, and if you’re someone who lives by a need for character depth or emotionally riveting narrative, the fact this series is (very unabashedly and unashamedly) mostly comprised of episodic stories and action sequences means you won’t have missed much and probably won’t feel too left out of any conversations going forward. That’s before we even get into the part where it’s still completely understandable to potentially have mixed feelings or resentment about the overuse of the Adventure brand for something like this, especially if Adventure is a particularly important series to you.

But for some of you out there, it might still be something you can enjoy on its own merits. I’ve seen people who were disappointed by the limited degree of Digimon action sequences in the past or the fact that the series has gotten overly fixated on humans, and had an absolute ball with the reboot because it finally got to represent parts of the franchise they felt hadn’t been shown off as well. “Fun” is a perfectly valid reason to enjoy something. It’s also perfectly possible to be someone who can enjoy character narratives like the prior Digimon series but also enjoy something that’s more for being outlandish and fun and has cool Digital World concepts and visuals -- and, like I said, it does not let up on that latter aspect at all, so there’s actually potential for a huge feast in that regard. I think as long as you don’t expect it to be a character narrative like Adventure -- which will only set you up for disappointment, because it’s not (and made very clear since even the earliest episodes and interviews that it had no intention of being one) -- it’s very possible to enjoy it for what it is, and for what it does uniquely.