#it just made me angry at myself because so many of my flaws and quirks i really dislike about myself came to the surface

[klara-rosa]

anyway therapy was good today! I was very frustrated after last week's session. It was super uncomfortable and I wanted to cry afterwards (I have literally only cried twice during my entire therapy career). I actually told my current therapist that last week sucked and made me angry and we talked about it and she told me she really wants me to tell her this information in the future. And in general, today was a looot better and more positive and uplifting. We did an exercise in gratefulness and it really helped to kinda flip the coin and make you look at your life from a dofferent angle. I have sooo many negative self-beliefs and rituals I've accumulated over the years and sometimes I forget that a huuuge part of every one of my days is literally dependant on my own attitude and outlook on life in general. So I'll try and incorporate that exercise in my day to day life. Honestly, I left with such a lighter heart today than I did the last couple of weeks and that makes me happy 🥺

[nutty1005]

Uniquely Him – Xiao Zhan: The biggest monster to defeat is himself

Translator’s Note: This article comes from ELLE Magazine 2019 Jan Issue.

He learned drawing since elementary school, drawing planets and monsters were his obsession, firmly believing in the existence of aliens. As a lively, vivid and exemplary person, he radiates a sense of security from someone dependable, and yet he has a worldly wisdom of one who knows the ways of the world but prefers not to practice it. 

He learned drawing since young, drawing planets and monsters were his obsession. When he watched Martians in movies as a child, his wild imagination gave him a battle with monsters. At that time, he was a boy who was especially fascinated with space, and believed firmly that aliens existed. When he saw news on UFOs, he was excited, curious, but also afraid – would the aliens be friendly with us?

After he read “The Three-Body Problem”, this feeling grew stronger. While exclaiming the broadness of the author’s imagination and how grand the universe is, he researched on the theories and explanations in the novel, as well as on astronomy. Xiao Zhan also imagined how the subjects in “The Three-Body Problem” would look like, “looks like an engineer, perhaps he wears spectacles, he must have a highly progressed mind, great mechanical skills, but probably useless in everyday life, just like Sheldon in ‘The Big Bang Theory’.”

The cruel logic behind all the glitz

Seated in front of the window in the hotel room, his long narrow eyes, puffy and red, Xiao Zhan just finished a day’s filming, and was accepting our interview in a layer of thick winter coat. His attitude was polite, and all around him was the vividness of youth – this made a huge impression.

He had his own studio when he was in year 2 of university, and became a designer after graduating – exemplary student Xiao Zhan’s most glorious moment was being able to design logos in projects with his seniors while he was still an intern, and the client eventually chose his design. Life as a designer lasted until 2015 – his university teacher recommended him to participate in “X-Fire” (TN: A talent search variety show) and he debuted, and since then, his life went onto a different track, becoming one of the hottest idols currently.

Actually, the challenge of becoming an artist is not much different from fighting monsters – since you receive flowers and applause, you would also receive gossip and rumors. His life had been smooth sailing till this, and this confused him for a while, “When the competition ended, there was some dissenting voices, I didn’t quite understand then. Now I’m more at peace, because when you choose a career, you need to learn to accept it. People will like you, and there will be people who won’t.”

However, the cruel logic behind all the glitz was something he could not have imagined. “Audiences do not see what you’ve experienced along the way, they would only judge you based on the final results.” He was filming his first period movie, being outdoors in the mountains at -10°C+ was a daily norm, “We’re filming by the river, everyday we could see the ice slowly form up, today the river is totally frozen, we could walk on it. Basically after every scene I have to cover my face with a warm water bag, otherwise my face would be numb from the cold and become uncontrollable.” And because today there was a scene to scream and shout, Xiao Zhan’s voice was already hoarse.

Xiao Zhan could overcome all this suffering and exhaustion well, the biggest monster he wanted to fight were his self imposed restrictions. “Just now I was thinking while doing make-up, that actually celebrities are like a product, packaged by make-up and styles in order to polish this product. I will bring forth my best to my audiences, but yet I don’t want to over package myself, the real me needs to be in it. I wish that everyone, while accepting my glorious exterior as a celebrity, would also accept my flaws and quirks, since after all, I am a vivid person.”

This sincerity and clarity is where Xiao Zhan’s wisdom lies.

“There is no grandiose in my life”

2018 is the year of rapid growth for Xiao Zhan, he had main roles in various dramas, such as “The Wolf”, “Joy of Life”, “The Untamed”, etc – honing his acting and radiating his presence.

As the lead actor in “The Untamed”, Xiao Zhan’s load was heavy and his filming schedule was tight – filming under the ceaseless summer heat in Hengdian, his mind was always tense. The temperatures in the set was as high as 50°C, the make-up could not stay on, and he filmed most scenes barefaced. The most unforgettable scene was a crying scene – Wei Wuxian, portrayed by Xiao Zhan, had an explosive emotional scene after the massacre of the Jiang family. This scene started filming in the morning, he and Jiang Yanli started crying since 7 a.m. and after they were done, their eyes were as swollen as that of goldfishes. Before this, he was filming “The Wolf” – he systematically took performance classes and grew rapidly in during the filming. “Familiar set and environment, learning to adjust to the nerves and tension, especially since there were hundreds of people servicing you on set, you can do no mistakes.” Xiao Zhan radiates this sense of security from someone dependable. “The Wolf” was his first time as a main supporting role, and he was under tremendous pressure during that period, he often dreamed of acting on set. After every scene he would request for everyone to provide feedback, and then he would learn continuously, analyze and quickly adjust.

After that he had his first cat of his life, a munchkin named Jianguo (TN: Jianguo means nut). After the performance teacher learned about this, one of the homework he gave Xiao Zhan was for him to observe his cat. As a cat-lover, he reveled in the it, “I found out some things that I overlooked, like you will find out that when she’s angry, affectionate or hungry her expression and calls are different.” Xiao Zhan was exceptionally loving to his cat – the first thing he did when after a day’s work was to go home and play with his cat. His private life was quiet and simple, he just stays at home. “The feeling of staying at home is like falling into a cloud, you could roll around as you like, there is no pressure.”

“There is no grandiose in my life.” This was what he felt that gave people the sense of security. His parents, while supportive of his career, were also worried, hence Xiao Zhan often communicated with them, sharing his career successes, helping them be at ease.

In the whole conversation, Xiao Zhan had the purity and enthusiasm belonging uniquely to a youth, and there was this sense of extraordinary realness in him. “Whether or not I want to be an idol, I don’t actually have a choice, the label of an idol is already on me, just that I want to slowly shed off the label of an idol, and become an actor accepted by audiences, so that they can see more of my inner self.”

“I especially dislike public proclamations, you have to pace your life.”

ELLE: What type of boyfriend do you think you are? XZ: I am the boyfriend who is more considerate of the other person, if there were to be my other half in the future, when she’s busy, upset or happy, or wants me to do something, I’ll try to accompany her the way she likes it.

ELLE: Are you the gentle puppy type of boyfriend? XZ: There’s definitely a dominating side, but if you were to be dominating everyday, how do you live? When you have the other half, the most important things are responsibility and trust. (After having a cat, do you think you’re a good dad?) I feel yes, from taking care of my cat.

ELLE: What type of girls do you most want to date? XZ: In many interviews before I spoke about warm, gentle and family-loving girls, but I feel that it still comes down to chemistry, and this is something unpredictable.

ELLE: If you are currently dating a girl, how would you hope to spend Valentine’s Day? XZ: Stay at home, and cook together. There’s a phrase about when you love the right person, every day’s Valentine’s Day, why do you have to spend that day in the crowd with everyone. Being an artist is quite particular, and quite tiring, I have to go back to live my life. If everyday has to be vigorous and stirring, there’s no way to live. No one can act everyday, I especially dislike public proclamations, I feel that you have to pace your life.

ELLE: If we give you a holiday now, what would you do? XZ: Go home and rest, with my parents, and then play with my cat.

ELLE: Are you a typical Libra? XZ: I don’t think so, I don’t have difficulties in choosing, when I spot something I want to buy, I’ll just buy. But sometimes I’ll be stuck in things that I care about, for example the scene I did today, if I’m not satisfied with it, I will think about it from morning till night, and annoy the others around me with my nagging.

[sword-dad-fukuzawa]

my experience reading The Joy Luck Club

I have a lot of thoughts on The Joy Luck Club, most of them uncomplimentary. I had to read almost all of it in one day for school because I procrastinated. That is entirely my own fault, but a mistake nevertheless, because it was not a book I should have read in one sitting. It made me physically uncomfortable and almost ill on multiple occasions, so I had to put it down and take breaks every chapter. 

I am still not entirely sure why I had such a visceral, negative reaction to this book when everyone else seemed to have parts they liked. Though, I think I can attribute some of it to the fact that I have a very good relationship with my mother and my culture, and I am very passionate about representation in books.

Before reading, I knew Amy Tan as the Asian American author. She was the one everyone talked about, and JLC was the crowning jewel of her works. I went into this book cynically, however, because I had read Fish Cheeks and Two Kinds and been bitterly disappointed with what seemed like stereotypical caricatures of Asian characters. 

I have heard of the “piano-playing Asian” and the “prodigy Asian” all my life, and it gets tiring. Waverly fulfilled this stereotype of the genius Asian child to a T, complete with the accolades, the parental pressure, and eventual burnout. It is a story I have heard about since I was small, with some variation each telling, and it has never failed to make me angry—because Asians are already held up to an impossible model minority standard, and in reading this book, I saw it reflected over and over again.

It was brought up in the discussion that Amy Tan’s characters are not meant to be heroes. They are flawed and human and this is supposedly their selling point. But I have read books with characters who are flawed and human, and I have enjoyed them. 

The issue I have with Amy Tan’s characters, then, is not that they were morally ambiguous and imperfect. It was that I could not see myself in any of them. They are miserable people defined by their trauma. So instead, when I read it, JLC was a chronicle of eight unhappy women and their unfortunate lives, because the majority of what happened to them was not even a consequence of their own characters—that would have been compelling. JLC read like tragedy without a message, pain without a point.

And I also understand that JLC was written in 1989 and set in the fifties. It was a different time. I have issues with the cheap shot at gay people taken by Waverly, the racist remarks by her fiancee that go unaddressed, and the crossdressing scene. 

With the latter, it is because the revelation that the Moon Lady was supposedly a man all along is reminiscent of a rather transphobic trope: the one that metaphorically equates the discovery of someone's “real” gender with the loss of innocence or as a deception. 

I also dislike the way eating disorders were brushed aside and treated as, instead of a consequence of remarks made by her mother, as a quirk of character and a plot device. But I do understand it was a different time, though part of me protests loudly that it is not an excuse for poor writing.

I also find the Chinese mysticism trope to be old and tired. Amy Tan spends the whole book portraying Chinese culture as backward, primitive, and superstitious. A woman cuts flesh out of her arm to feed to her mother. Pithy sayings are recited every few dialogue lines. There is an undercurrent of prejudice to the way the mothers in JLC are portrayed. 

This is an old trope, and a poorly used one in a book supposedly held up as good representation. What few “positive” aspects are shown, there are glaring downsides. One of the mothers, for example, spends an entire chapter extolling the virtues of hiding one's emotions and repressing one’s true feelings in order to survive. I do not read about this woman’s pain and empathize with her. Instead, I pity her, because in my mind, she is not real.

I still believe Amy Tan’s overall message is that you cannot be both your culture and American, perhaps because she spent her whole life internalizing racism against her own people. I violently disagree with this, and I think it is a harmful message overall. 

Perhaps it is period-accurate. Perhaps it was a different time. Perhaps it was true for people other than Amy Tan. Regardless, the only feeling I got from JLC was that the author, speaking through the characters, greatly disliked her own culture. I did not enjoy reading it. I hear enough disparagement of Asian cultures from non-Asians and the internet, and it hurts to hear internalized hatred coming from one of our own.

Because Amy Tan’s writing reads as if she is disgusted with where she came from. Where are the lovely parts of Asian culture? Where is the enduring spirit that allows people to experience trauma and come out kind, rather than spiteful and broken like the characters in the book? Where are the tender moments of American and Asian culture in agreement? I did find any. Instead, the book reads like an indictment.  

Every character in this book has a fraught relationship with their mother. The mothers put down their children at every opportunity, and yet they always come out justified. Perhaps they were right about the state of a marriage, or they gave their daughter a jade pendant to make up, somehow, for the years of neglect and belittling. 

I understand that the message is that the mothers never meant to damage their children. I understand that the message is that mothers love their daughters and want the best for them, and the barrier is communication and culture. But the best of intentions cannot make up for the fact that every single one of the daughters went through pain and trauma at the hands of their parent, and that makes me incredibly angry and sad. 

I dislike how Amy Tan justifies their actions. I dislike how she attempts to humanize these mothers, who have their own share of suffering, but pass it down to their kids in the cycle of generation trauma. I dislike the message that laughing over Taiwan jokes, or a jade pendant given as a gift, can somehow make up for the utter failure of these mothers to connect with their children—because it is the parent’s job, the adult’s job, to be the mature one in a parent-child relationship. I have heard too many stories from friends of mine to ever believe that putting one’s child down can ever be justified.

My experience with reading JLC was, in a word, painful. I found it difficult to engage critically with a work that made me angry in a way no book has before. I may just be holding it to a higher standard because of how few Asian American books make it into high school curricula, because Moby Dick certainly had problematic themes, but I enjoyed reading it anyway. 

All I can really say is that I was disappointed with Amy Tan as a writer and JLC as a book; rather, with Amy Tan as a prominent Asian writer and JLC as Asian-American representation. Asian American culture is not about pain, or about trauma, or about repressing one’s problems—it is not about unbridgeable divides, failed attempts at communicating, or abuse. And yet, the main message I took away from JLC is that the book is about suffering, and a culture of suffering. It was difficult to read.

[zeppelin-and-unicorns]

A Donna Pinciotti character study (and how I write her on my stories)

I'm apologizing in advance, this is too big, I talk a lot.

Someone sent me an ask a week ago asking why I write Donna as a nice character, and that inspired me to make a specific post about my thoughts on the characters and how I choose to write them on my published stories, more specifically, in Rock You Like a Hurricane and When The Levee Breaks. So here we go.

I love all the main 6 characters, not equally, everyone has a favorite, but in the end, they all have a very special place in my heart.

Out of the six characters, Jackie and Eric are my favorites. I have trouble writing Eric, but I really love him, I don’t get why he gets so much hate, he’s such a good person. They are followed very closely by Hyde, I relate to Hyde a lot, and honestly I love writing him. I think Hyde and Jackie are deep characters, with lots and lots of layers, and I love exploring them.

They are all complex characters with distinct personalities, each one has their specific storyline, and they all have their little quirks. They are not perfect, they have defects and qualities just like any other human being.

This post is about Donna, but I plan on making separate posts for each character later. I just wanted to share some of my thoughts.

Let's start off, shall we?

Donna was my favorite character, until I started season 4. One of the things that bothered me the most on the show was how much Donna's character regressed after her first break up with Eric.

Donna is a very likeable character in the earlier seasons, she's independent, determined, passionate about the things she loves, cares deeply about her friends, among other things. What I particularly loved the most about Donna, was how progressive she was for a teenage girl living in the 70s.

She and Eric were a sweet couple, and their love was pure. Their break up at the end of season 3 was heartbreaking, but it was very in character for me. Donna always wanted to be a strong, independent woman, and Eric was trying to tie her down. And while I could understand Eric's reasons, Donna also had a pretty strong point. I do believe things could have been solved with proper communication, but they were teenagers and these things happen.

After their breakup, both Donna and Eric acted immature, but after Donna's mom left, she... well, she's changed. And not for better. There's this one episode from season 4 that really upsets me. Right after Midge left, Donna slept with Eric, and Eric was really happy afterwards, he thought they were back together, but Donna had absolutely no intention of getting back together with him, in fact, she said "she would've done it with anyone". She used Eric in that episode, she should’ve been clear to him about her intentions, I get that her mom left and that she was sad, but that was kind of cruel of her and I felt really bad for Eric.

That's one of Donna's flaws: whenever she's going through something, she becomes this selfish person, too wrapped up in herself to focus on anyone else's problems. She refuses help and she acts up, showing really self-destructive behaviors (like purposely failing school, smoking cigarettes, dating Casey Kelso, etc). Donna’s kind of a hypocrite, she doesn’t like when people tell her she’s wrong about something. She also doesn't care about anyone other than herself when she's angry or sad, a clear example of that was running away to California with her best friend's boyfriend, because she was feeling humiliated about being rejected by Eric. That was a pretty shitty thing to do, Jackie did not deserve that.

In fact, Jackie did not deserve many of the things Donna did to her, but to me, Donna’s worst offence was to side up with Kelso during all the times he was an asshole to Jackie (yes, that includes when Jackie started to date Hyde).

As a self-proclaimed feminist, Donna should’ve been more empathetic towards Jackie. She should’ve told Jackie about Kelso and Laurie, she should have discouraged Jackie to get back together with Kelso on season 3 (everyone knew how toxic they were, even Hyde tried to stop them from getting together again in his own way - by breaking that egg - but Donna actually encouraged Kelso and seemed rather amused with the situation), she shouldn’t have shown her boobs to her best friend’s boyfriend on episode 4x20, she shouldn’t have ran away with her best friend’s boyfriend without even thinking about Jackie’s feelings, she should’ve supported Hyde and Jackie’s relationship from the beginning, she should’ve called Kelso out on his hypocrisy towards Jackie and Hyde on season 5, she should’ve been there for Jackie - without judging her - when her mother came back. She should have been a better friend to Jackie in general, Jackie was bitchy and kind of annoying, but she was a good person, and she was always there for Donna when she needed it.

Jackie was supposed to be the bitchy one with a huge ego, but Donna slowly took her crown. To me, in later seasons, Donna was worse than Jackie from season one - season one Jackie was a bitch, but she was also innocent, and she didn't know better, Donna did, and she loved calling Jackie out on her behavior. I'll elaborate more on that when I write Jackie’s essay. 

And (I’m afraid people are going to judge me for this one) Donna should’ve been a better girlfriend to Eric. People always say that Donna was too good for Eric, and well... I disagree.

In the first three seasons, Donna and Eric’s relationship was healthy, they were cute together, and you could see how much they loved each other. But they got back together in California and didn't even talk about why they broke up in the first place. They just ignored it and pretended it never happened. Like, wtf? And then out of nowhere Eric proposes and she says yes? She hadn't accepted his promise ring less than a year before, and now she accepted an engagement ring? I’m sorry, but that was very OOC to me. The reason why they broke up was that she didn’t want to make such a big promise because they were sill young, and then they just get engaged when they’re still in high school? That’s bad writing to me.

Their relationship in season 5 was okay, their engagement didn’t make any sense, but overall, they treated each other well and were in love.

Then Red had his heart attack and Donna decided to postpone college so she could be with Eric. Another thing that didn’t make sense to me. Donna basically threw away her whole future in order to be with Eric in season 6 and 7, and they broke up in season 3 because she didn't want that for herself. It’s just… well, shitty writing.

After she stayed for Eric, their relationship changed, at least from what I could tell. And then all the episodes had the same storyline for Eric and Donna: Eric does something stupid, Donna overreacts, Eric spends the day kissing her ass to make up for it, in the end she forgives him and it’s always the same thing “Donna, I’m a dumbass, you’re too good for me, I’m sorry” and bla bla bla. It’s a freaking cycle, and it only gets worse after Eric leaves her at the altar.

Eric was a good person and a good boyfriend, he had his flaws, but overall, he was a decent guy, he shouldn’t feel inferior to Donna. She mocked him for liking the things he did (Star Wars, Styx, roller disco), and often acted like she was too good for him, a good girlfriend is supposed to support her boyfriend in whatever makes him happy, not force him to quit something because she thought it was too girly.

(For example, when Hyde was going to work at the muffler shop with Red, Jackie didn’t like that idea, but she supported him anyways, she said “If it makes you happy then, I’m happy”. Donna wasn’t very supportive of Eric’s choices, the roller disco thing is a great example, I mean, yeah, it was girly, but he liked it, so she should’ve supported him).

In my opinion, Donna and Eric’s relationship on seasons 6 and 7 wasn’t a healthy one.

I’m not even going to mention Donna’s actions on season 8. To me, they were unforgivable, that’s why I totally understand why people write her like a bitch on post season 8 stories. But hey, everyone was acting OOC in season 8, that’s why I tend to ignore its existence most of the time.

In Donna’s defense though... That was mainly bad writing. I believe that the real Donna would’ve been more empathetic towards Jackie, she would’ve called Kelso on his crap, and she would’ve actually talked to Eric about their problems. She also would have gone to college, she and Eric could make distance work.

Up until season 4 we could see that the writers were actually developing a storyline for Donna. She was bitchy in season 4, but her parents had just got divorced, she and Eric had broken up, her mom left... Her life changed a lot, it’s understandable why she acted out, the writers knew what they were doing then, at least in the character development part, but then season 5 started and Donna was a whole different person.

I don’t know if I’m making any sense in this essay, I have trouble expressing myself sometimes because english is not my first language, but basically, to me, the writers stopped caring about Donna’s character development by season 5 and I’ll always be bitter about that. 

A clear example of character development is Jackie, Kelso and Hyde. They grew and matured over the seasons, Donna didn’t, not really, if compared to them. It's incredibly sad to see most of the characters growing and genuinely being better people, while Donna was just… being there.

Donna had her good moments, as I’ve mentioned before, Donna has qualities, plenty of them by the way. She’s passionate about the things she loves, she wants the best for her friends, she’s determined, she has a kind heart.

One of my favorite scenes from the show is when Jackie asked Donna to help her not to fall into Kelso’s “charm” again, when he was trying to grow a beard. Donna was an amazing friend in that episode, it really made me smile. Donna had some really good moments with Jackie. I wish she valued them more, but I blame that on the writers and their need to put women against each other for “comedy”.

The Donna I write on my stories is based on the Donna from the earlier seasons, it’s a Donna who still has her flaws, but she pushes her pride aside when she recognizes she's wrong and apologizes, she doesn't see Jackie as her competition, she sees her as a friend who she loves very much, and wants the best for her.

When The Levee Breaks Donna is the real Donna, at least how I think the real Donna actually is. After Eric sent her that letter, she recognized that she gave up too much for him during their relationship, and that she wasn't being herself by doing so, so she decided to no longer wait for him and be her own woman, that's why she moved to Chicago. No one is worth giving up her dreams for, not even the love of her life. 

She loves Jackie and wants the best for her, that's why she encourages Jackie to move to Chicago with her, and she also wants to make up for the times she wasn't the friend she deserved. Donna recognized how wrong she was by siding with Kelso, and admitted that she took Jackie's friendship for granted. 

This Donna lost all the respect she had for Hyde when he came back from Vegas, to her, that wasn't the same Hyde she grew up with (she wasn't wrong), and she wasn't going to stay quiet and let him destroy himself (and Jackie). She stepped up, and tried to shove some sense into Hyde's head before leaving with Jackie, but Hyde can really be an ass when he wants to, so she gave up and punched him, that was the last time she saw him until he got his head out of his ass and went to visit them at Chicago after New Years.

Donna was heartbroken, but she refused to dwell on it and tried her best to move on with her life. She's at the top of her class at college, she's trying to be there for Jackie (who wasn't doing so good when they first moved in) and she tried to date someone else. 

Turns out that you can't really date someone if you're still in love with your ex, so that didn't work out very well for her, but it helped her realize that what she felt for Eric was real, and that it wasn't going away anytime soon.

In Chicago, Donna and Jackie formed a strong bond, they were friends before, but Chicago kind of made them sisters. During those 6 months they've spent living together, Donna developed very strong protective instincts towards Jackie, especially after Jackie opened up about her childhood with her mother. She saw Jackie struggling every day, she saw how often Jackie cried over the things that happened in Point Place, and she started to understand her friend better.

Donna's protective instincts kicked in when Hyde and Eric showed up in Chicago, but they softened after she talked to Hyde and realized that he was being genuine. She was still pissed at him, but she could see that he was suffering a lot, so in the end, she just wanted to see Jackie and Hyde being happy again.

Her feelings with Eric were conflicting, she loved him very much, and she was aware of that, she got tired of denying to herself, but that didn't erase the hurt of their past. After a long talk, she and Eric agree to start things again, but she makes it very clear that she's not giving up her future for him anymore.

One of my favorite Donna quotes on my story is:

"Eric, I don't need you in my life. But I want you in my life, I really, really do."

So basically, that's how I write Donna in WTLB, she still has her flaws, but she's overall a good person and a good friend.

Rock You Like a Hurricane Donna is not so different from WTLB Donna, she's still protective of Jackie, but not for the reasons WTLB Donna is.

Donna and Jackie grew up together in RYLH, no Eric, no Hyde, no Kelso, just the two of them, and I believe that had a significant impact on both of their personalities.

Donna and Jackie first met in school, and became best friends after Donna beat up a kid who was trying to bully Jackie. Donna and Jackie both had no friends - Jackie was new in school, and Donna was new in town - so they started to play together and basically became glued by the hip.

The fact that she didn't grow up as "one of the boys'' changed Donna's personality a bit. Not too much, we still love a lumberjacky Donna thank you very much, but her behavior around Eric and the rest of the boys is sheepish if compared to her behavior around the entire gang on the show.

That changes after a while, she starts to get comfortable around everyone after a few months.

Growing up with Jackie had an impact on her, not a bad one. Donna's way less judgemental, and she's not a hypocrite, at least not like she was portrayed on the show. Jackie calls Donna out on her bullshit, and Donna does the same for her, they make each other better and they would kill for each other.

Donna's also not afraid of showing her girly side every once in a while, and she and Jackie support each other on their interests. As shown in some chapters, Donna sometimes even watches Jackie's cheerleading practices, and she's always there to support her in the games.

Jackie encourages Donna to write on a daily basis. She always loved reading Donna's short stories, she claims that if Donna ever writes a book, she has to write a character based on her, preferably, a princess.

They have a healthy friendship in both of my stories, it's how it should've been on the show.

That’s all, I guess. If you actually read this, please feel free to give me your opinion about Donna too, I would love to hear it!

I’m posting Jackie’s character study sometime soon. Thanks for reading my ramblings.

[animechick2015]

My Hero Academia- My Unwanted, Long Ass Ramble That Absolutely No One Asked For......

So being at home 🏡 due to mostly COVID-19 and a crumbling economy, I decided to rewatch all of my favorite animes, from Bungou Stray Dogs, Inuyasha, Demon Slayer, Fairy Tail and finally My Hero Academia. Once again I was entranced by the bright colors, spectacular animation and lovable characters that Kōhei Horikoshi-Sensei created. But coming to the end of the recent Season 4 a revelation came to me: I just don’t like Deku as the main character 😱.

I know. I know. I must be certifiably insane not to love such a cinnamon roll, with his cute freckles, messy green hair and 1,000,000 megawatt smile. But it’s true. I have no interest with him as the main character. After this new discovery I decided to think why I didn’t like him and the reason was simple: he’s predictable or rather his story is.

From the on set we were told that he’s going to be the greatest hero ever. Every arc that he’s been in he comes out on top with a new increase usage of his power. After finishing Eri’s arc I was just like ‘huh, is it going to be more seasons of this?’ Now for those of you thinking well you just watched the anime, you should read the manga.....I read it religiously every week. It doesn’t matter where I am or what I’m doing you can bet I’ll drop everything I’m doing just to read and re-read that chapter; find myself on tumblr and read all the fan theories and musings about said chapter. So i know what’s going on in the manga and once again I just like meh he’s going to be on top anyways why should I bother getting invested 🤷🏽‍♀️

Dammit Deku don’t look at me like that 🥺.

I still love him and I am proud of how far he’s come but I just can’t find it in myself to get hyped up for him.

So who do I get hyped up for? Well I’m glad you asked ( I know you didn’t but here it is anyway hehe)

Bakugo Katsuki

The gremlin of Class 1-A. King Explosion Murder. Future Number 1 Hero (I wish). Before anyone can finish asking who my favorite character is in MHA I’ll blurt this angry boi’s name. There’s just something about that drew me in from the very first episode/chapter. Yes he was a JERK, bully and ok he was an absolute asshole to Deku but there was something that kept me thinking I want to see more of this asshole. In the beginning, I thought he was going to be another Sasuke type character: join an evil group at the first chance, battle the main character throughout and eventually find his way back to being good and I was like meh. But then the Sports Festival arc happened and I was oh, this boy’s got potential so I took off my Naruto googles and started to really looking at him. If I’m honest, the first time I saw him as a hero was during his fight with Uraraka. I got so hyped during that match that I was standing and cheering, tears in my eyes for the both of them! When the spectators started to complain about Bakugou being too rough with Uraraka I was about to throw hands with fictional characters. Then when Aizawa gave his speech about Bakugo giving his all and respecting Uraraka and I was sold.

Since then I’ve been an avid supporter of his. During the Kamino arc I was worried but also impressed that he was able to go up again members of the League of Villains and was smart enough to realize that he was holding All Might back from going all out again AFO. His fight with Deku was emotional and I was a sobbing mess. Him going through the Hero License arc with all that guilt showed me his determination to being a hero. Even though he wants to portray that he doesn’t care about anyone but himself, he shows time and time again that he cares about Kirishima, Kaminari and Sero. He’s observant with Todoroki and Endevour during the Support Courses. He pushes Deku. He has so many layers as a character that I want to know more about him. Do I think that maybe he should’ve been the main character, yes I do. But I’m ok with him being a support character as well. I can’t wait to learn more about him and to see him be the amazing hero I know he’ll be.

Uraraka Ochako

Ok this girl right here 👆that’s my sunshine girl and no one is allowed to mess with her. Got it?? Seriously, I love this girl. She radiates warmth, hugs and pure unadulterated happiness. Just something about her face just makes me happy and I just wanna squish her round cheeks. Ok ok I’ll stop.

But seriously she is such an underrated character. I know for a fact she gets a lot of unnecessary hate because one: for being Deku’s love interest (I’m not really invested in their relationship tbh but if it happens I’ll be cool with it) and two: her reason for being a hero is to make money. Funnily enough the reason why she’s most hated by fans is the reason why I love her so much. She’s a young girl from a poor family who just wants to make her parents happy and I relate to that so much it made me want to cry when I first learned of her reasoning. Out of all the characters in the MHA world I connected with her the most. In addition, what I admired about her is that yes, she does have feelings for Deku but she’s able to put them aside and follow her goals. Like damn it who wouldn’t admire that? Who can’t relate to pushing their feelings aside to accomplish their goals? I seriously love this girl. Also, I love that she doesn’t limit hereself. When she started U.A. she wanted to be a support hero because of her quirk but after her fight with Bakugo she saw the potential to be more and she took it, trained and made herself better. She really is an inspiration. I hope we get to see more of her in action and maybe even lead a fight instead of being support. I can’t wait to see her grow and blossom into a badass ass woman who kick your ass while looking like an angel sent from above.

Shigaraki Tomura

Finally, this crusty boi gets me so hyped whenever he’s on screen or in a manga chapter that it’s probably unhealthy. From the very first time I saw him at that bar with those creepy ass hands covering his body I was intrigued to say the least. Every time I see him, I’m silently (not really) begging Horikoshi-Sensei to give me more of him. There was just something about him that screams more.

Fast forward to the Villain arc (one of my favorites tbh) and we learn more about his history and what he had to endure and dammit I just wanted to hug him. It’s so easy to hate the bad guys for hurting people but do we stop to think about who hurt them? And my boy was hurt a lot.....from his family (the ones who were supposed to protect him), the heroes (whose literal JOB IS TO PROTECT PEOPLE!), AFO (don’t get me started on that creepy bastard). And then suddenly I was supporting the villain. A part of me wants Shigaraki to succeed because if he does the hero society will admit their many flaws and idk maybe get rid of the hero vs villain Society that caused problems for generations 🤷🏽‍♀️ just a thought. Honestly if Shigaraki was the main character of this story I think it would’ve been much more interesting. I would definitely like to see more of him and I really want him to shake the hero society to the core.

So there it is.... my unwanted, unnecessary (if we’re being honest here) ramble about MHA. What started as a post about not liking Deku as the MC turned into......this. I’m sorry 😭. But once again I’m not hating on Deku. I love my little broccoli boi and I’ll be supporting him until the time he does indeed become Number One (maybe I’ll get myself a pair of red sneakers to match Deku’s before that happens), but there’s so many more characters that hold my interest other than him. I wish I could’ve listed them all but frankly I’m tired and hungry and I need to take a shot of something after this week’s chapter because Oh My God!!

Anyways, if anyone made it this far down my post, thank you for reading, please don’t be mean and have a great week!

[tae-cup]

.hamartia. ‘Part V,

Pairing: Yoongi x Reader (f) x Taehyung (?)

Genre: Mafia!Au, Fluff, Angst (Mostly angst oopsies) I DO NOT CONDONE BEHAVIOR DISPLAYED IN THIS, PLEASE IT’S FICTION AND DON’T DO STUPID THINGS THANK YOU

Plot: Y/N is a skilled, well, torturer, though you don’t like to call yourself that; it makes what you do too real. When mafia boss Yoongi wants information or wants a hostage to suffer, you step in. However, one fateful day you are thrown Taehyung, another person who does your line of work. You need answers, he is determined not to give them to you. That’s when you try...a different approach, and Yoongi is not pleased.

Rating: TV-MA

WARNINGS: YO IF YOU’RE NOT COOL WITH SUBTLE BI AGENDAS THEN I’M SORRY THIS IS NOT THE PLACE FOR YOU, Blood, torture, mafia things (ya know?), drugs alcohol, sadistic tendencies, a fundamentally flawed main character (I’m sorry i’m just writing myself pretty much), assault, harassment, stalking (not bad), romance (somehow), Maybe stockholm syndrome???

Word Count: 3.3k words (Chonkers!)

A/N: shit’s about to go d o w n. I’m gonna be honest here...I forgot if I’ve mentioned Yoongi’s hair before-but I’m making it black and I’m sorry for continuity errors that may be caused by this...I’m just a dumbass who forgets shit. 

Other:

Masterlist

Prologue | Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Next 

perfidy/ˈpəːfɪdi/

~ noun: perfidy;

 plural noun: perfidies the state of being deceitful and untrustworthy.

-

-

“You know, it’s pretty selfish to think you could keep me all to yourself. I have a job.” Yoongi sat unbothered in the bedroom as you packed your things. 

The word selfish hit a different spot in your already wounded soul. After your fight, you decided to pack up and move to a room down the hall. You never officially broke it off, but it was clear you didn’t want to be around each other. Neither of you could bring yourself to say the dreadful words. You spun around, t-shirt in hand as you shoved it into your suitcase. 

“F-Fuck you.” You stuttered, anger unmanageable. That’s how you’d been for a while now, it was probably why Yoongi was getting tired of you. You’d been angry, irritable, depressed, and your emotions were out of wack. What you needed was counseling, which you would never ask for, nor would anyone care enough to force you. It was a weakness. Yoongi had similar issues to you; you didn’t understand how he kept such a calm facade. 

“If you’ve come here to berate me for the last few moments I’ll dare to be in the same fucking room as you, then fucking leave.” You cussed at him. He just looked amused. 

“You know me too well.”

“I wish I didn’t.” 

Selfish. Selfish. Selfish. Choosing your life over innocent ones was a job you tended to every single day. Every day it was your life over theirs, your blood over theirs. Hawyeong was the first of many. Her obsidian eyes haunted you at night. You were hurting Yoongi by putting your need for him above the gang. So you decided, if you were going to be selfish...I’m going all in. You flipped him off as you stormed out of the room. His eyes never strayed from your back, even once the door was closed. 

“Fuck.” He whispered to himself and ran a hand down his face. “Why did I do that?” He spoke to the open air. 

-

-

Taehyung had a very different look in his eyes when you walked in for your daily chat. Finally, we’re getting somewhere. You thought. 

“Good afternoon.” He said stiffly. Your head whipped around to face him from where you were grabbing a spare chair in the hallway. 

“W-What did you say?” You sputtered, utterly gobsmacked. He never spoke to you, much less speak first. 

“Good afternoon, is that not what you people say around here? Do you prefer screams and crying?” He didn’t look fazed as he carefully chose his words. 

“You just...” You trailed off a little. 

“You do that a lot, you know?” He sat on the edge of his bed, as always, while you sat facing him. 

“Hm?” You urged him to continue speaking. 

“You trail off like this...” He mimicked you. “It’s annoying. So many times I wish I could have asked you to continue.” 

“Why now are you telling me this?” 

His eyes glanced to the security cameras where Jimin was watching in the surveillance room. Jimin was frozen, confusion and intrigue palpable around him. Taehyung check his nails before continuing, completely ignoring your question. 

“I’ll tell you this- I do the same job you do, but I do it better.” He grinned cockily. “It’s going to take a lot more than taking away gray and waking up earlier to faze me.” 

He drifted off, eyes becoming cloudy. “But...I have enjoyed your company these days, despite our rough start and pretty one sided conversations. I almost forget how selfish you are.” He chose that word very obviously, as if showing his cards. 

You reeled back, chair falling to the ground. How did he know to use that word? You had your suspicions, but this was too clear. He chuckled darkly, though it didn’t give him a great deal of pleasure to deliver blows to your traumatizing past. He wasn’t even supposed to be talking to you. 

“How did you know?” You gaped. 

Taehyung didn’t respond. He couldn’t get you off his mind lately. Maybe it was because you and Jimin were the only people he ever interacted with; and Jimin wasn’t a smooth talker. Jimin stuttered when talking to him and showed him his intentions too easily. Taehyung enjoyed speaking with you, he could never read you. 

“Y/N.” He stood and slowly made his way over to you until he was towering above you, your back pinned against the wall. He leaned down, whispering so the audio wouldn’t pick him up. “The audio has been tapped.” He whispered hurriedly. “Listen, you need to leave before 3 A.M. come find me and I’ll help get you out of here. I don’t want to see you in pain. It’s best if you leave.” 

Your skin buzzed as you felt his breath graze your neck. You could barely register his words. When you did, you looked up into his handsome face and narrowed your eyes. 

“What game are you playing here, Taehyung.” You whispered back. 

“One where you are just another pawn. One where you never met me.” He leaned to be at eye level. “Because I mean the truth when I say I don’t wish to see you in harm’s way, just as you don’t wish that for me.” 

“You misunderstand me. I’m perfectly happy seeing you rot.” You hissed. 

“I know you don’t, kitten. Why else would you be bothered waking up so early to watch me, even when you full well know you’ve designed this room to be inescapable; both in life and death.” 

“I...” You glanced away. “If you don’t step back, I’ll scream and Jimin will come running.” 

“You think I’m worried? He has a nasty punch, but he’d never pull a gun on me.” 

Taehyung had a point. You knew Jimin wouldn’t be able to disable Taehyung, but that didn’t stop you. Your voice was high pitched and shrill. The dark haired male jumped back, eyebrows furrowing. 

“You are impossible. I’m trying to help you.” He practically yelled. 

“Why would I trust you?” 

“Trust me? Isn’t that what you’ve worked so hard to do these past few weeks? Well congratu-fucking-lations because you’ve done it.” Taehyung stared at you incredulously as if you had just spit on his face. You didn’t respond, heart beating wildly. He was so close. You could take a few steps meet lip to lip. You slightly shook your head. Stop thinking about making out with your hostage. His eyebrows quirked upward, as if reading your mind. 

The door banged open. 

“Ah, Jimin good thing you’re-” You stopped mid-sentence. “Oh.” 

Yoongi, in all his might, stood in the doorway, huffing. His chest rose and fell quickly. “Do you understand how many flights of stairs I had to run just because I heard you scream?” He said calmly, taking a moment to breathe. 

“It was only one flight you lazy ass.” You retorted, rolling your eyes at his theatrics. Taehyung didn’t seem surprised by this little squabble. 

“One flight too many.” 

“How do you think I feel having to do that every time  you decide to call me into that damn office of yours.” Your lips pressed into a thin line. 

“Can we talk about this elsewhere?” Yoongi let his gaze slide to Taehyung. “You didn’t touch her, right?” He hissed. 

Your ears perked up at the jealousy evident in his voice. 

“Of course not, pretty boy.” Taehyung stayed still, having not expected Yoongi to appear. Jimin, he could handle, but Yoongi? That man was dangerous and he knew it. 

“Why does it matter if he touched me?” You said, provoking Yoongi. 

“I told you not to get close to him.” 

“This was the most we’ve spoken in ages, Yoongi.” You snapped. “You don’t control me anymore and I’m not your property anymore either.” 

I wish you were. Yoongi thought to himself. He didn’t meet your eyes and instead looked to Taehyung. 

“Don’t come near her again you son of a b-” 

You quickly ushered him out of the room, using all your force to shove him through the door. Taehyung let out a chuckle as you locked the door behind you. You turned to Yoongi, a sour expression on your face. 

“I was finally getting somewhere. I only screamed to catch him off guard.” 

“I saw the footage. He had no right to be that close to you.” 

Yoongi cornered you between the wall and his body. His hands planted on either side of your body on the wall. He leaned in. God, how many times does this need to happen in one day? You mused to yourself, but you could feel the blood rushing to your head. 

“Would you rather it Taehyung in my position now?” His voice wreaked of possessiveness and jealousy. 

“Of course not, but why would I want you in it either?” You ducked under his arms, trying to ease tension. 

“You never broke up with me.” He called as you hurried towards your door across the way. 

“I think three months of silence is good enough.” You slipped inside and slammed the door shut. 

-

-

You were awake at 3 A.M. of course you were. Taehyung had been waking you up around then anyway. 

There was something different this morning. The sun hadn’t risen, but you decided to wander around the halls of the mansion. You had a bad feeling, which explained why you were dressed in all black. Still, the feeling wasn’t enough to make you grab that knife in your top drawer. You glanced at the door across from yours. Then you took a right to head to the surveillance room. You felt someone watching you, but you continued on anyway. It was probably a trainee or guard wandering around. The mansion had 24/7 surveillance and guards that rotated hourly. You assumed it was a changing of the guard. Then there was a strangled sound from the floor below as you walked past the stairs. You were instantly alert. 

Your hand reached for a knife that you didn’t have. Shit. You quietly walked backwards, not letting your eyes leave the stairs. It felt like the calm before the storm. You prayed your heart would stop pounding, but you were getting more anxious by the second. There were heavy footfalls followed by quieter ones. You held your breath, carefully keeping your eyes trained on the stair entrance. You glanced behind you. A few more feet and you’d be at your door. 

There was a thundering sound upstairs. Yoongi’s voice could be heard. You wanted to shout at them to stay quiet, but you heard his footsteps fade behind you upstairs. You only caught a few words from their scuffle. The words bounced around your brain. What do you mean Mark is dead? 

You almost screamed when a gun went off. Immediately, it was like the mansion was alive. There were hurried footsteps upstairs and then footsteps rushing around the stairs. Still, no one came to your floor. It felt like you were in the eye of a hurricane. That was until a hand clamped itself over your mouth. You wanted to scream, but then you heard the low timber of a familiar voice. It was a voice you shouldn’t trust, but you did relax ever so slightly. 

“Y/N, we need to leave.” His voice made you shiver. 

“Is this your gang? Are they here?” You murmured as he removed his hand. He seemed confident you wouldn’t scream. You were almost tempted to just to spite him, but you decided this was not the right time to be difficult. 

“Of course it’s my gang. They’re here to collect me and take you out, obviously.” He looked to the stairwell. “We have to get going, they’re getting closer.” 

You nodded, letting him take your hand. 

“Where are we going?” 

“Away.” He said mysteriously. 

“Very specific.” You huffed. 

“You can stop this act, you know?” The man didn’t turn to you, he just kept running ahead, turning every corner like he knew this place. 

“Act?” You stomped your heels into the ground, effectively halting him. He sighed as if he wished he had said nothing. 

“This tough girl act. All I saw was a scared girl who hurts others to avoid her own hurt.” He crossed his arms, looking at you quizzically. Before you could respond, he turned back around and gently grabbed your hand. “I know because I’m the same way.” 

You gaped, letting him drag you along. 

The plan seemed to be going great as the shouts got louder and the gunshots continued firing. Then it was quiet. Way too quiet. It was as if they had reached a stalemate. Your mouth felt dry. Or one side was wiped out. Taehyung looked to you. 

“I’m sorry about this, but you trusted the wrong person.” He shrugged, though it hurt him to see the shock cross your face. There were footsteps and then you almost heard the crack of your skull as the butt of a gun knocked you to the ground unconscious. It’s so much easier to break trust. 

-

-

You trailed Yoongi has he descended down the stairs. 

“Are you really going to make me some sort of maid?” You scoffed, eyeing the maids closet that you seemed to be headed towards. 

“I’ve got you something even better.” He grinned that gummy smile, but the smile didn’t reach his eyes. He opened the dusty library door that now had held files upon files stacked in every corner. God, he’s going to make me a librarian, isn’t he? You averted your eyes from the files. He seemed to read your expression. 

“I’m not going to make you file things, if that’s what you’re worried about.” 

“Then what are we doing here, babe.” You frowned. 

“We’re here for this.” His hands ran over the creases of a bookshelf and slowly slid it open. It revealed a small passage way. It smelled of blood. 

“What is this place?” Your voice was small and you looked at Yoongi with a scared look.

“It’s where we hold the hostages.” A voice answered. Your eyes jerked up, taking in the silver haired man. He had blood on his hands, which he carefully wiped on a rag before extending a hand. “You must be Y/N. I’m Jimin and I work for you now.”

Your mouth hung open as you shook his hand. “Yoongi, what the hell is this.” 

The black haired man behind you shrugged. “You wanted a job and this was the only opening.” 

You entered the passageway tentatively. Upon seeing the first hostage, bloodied and bruised, you wanted to gag. You weren’t weak, but you weren’t violent, every knew this. You could yell and throw words around all you wanted, but you would never raise your hand against someone. 

Jimin carefully picked up a knife. He held it out to you. You hesitated, hands shaking. 

“Yoongi! I can’t do this! I can’t do this to innocent people!” You had to keep your voice from shrieking. His eyes darkened. He didn’t like seeing you this way, but you had begged him for a job and he felt obliged to give you one. He would prefer you know how to use weapons, even against innocents, rather than a helpless maid. That was his twisted logic. 

“They are far from innocent.” He said dryly, giving you a small push towards Jimin. 

“Anything but this.” You pleaded. 

“I may be your lover, darling, but I’m also the boss around here and I’m still your boss. And as your boss I order you to do this job.” His voice was stony, cold, and calculated. “Who knows, maybe you’ll come to enjoy it?” 

You looked to Jimin, pain in your eyes. He looked away. You could tell he didn’t want to be here either. 

“You wanted a job. Now do it.” Yoongi whispered threateningly. 

You shakily took the knife and walked towards the hostage. 

-

-

You opened your eyes, head pounding. You immediately noted your bound hands and legs. You were tied to a chair. Classic. Was this what your hostages felt when they woke up? The room was a concrete box, but you didn’t feel unsettled. You spent most of your time in these concrete boxes. It wasn’t something that bothered you. Maybe that was why Taehyung never seemed bothered by staying in the dark or being tied to a chair. Taehyung, that bastard. The rage and betrayal you felt was much like when you had your fight with Yoongi three months ago. It wasn’t a good feeling to be completely out of control of your emotions. 

Before you even opened your eyes, you knew he was there. That man with the dark hair and even darker eyes. The one that betrayed you so easily. 

“Y/N. I know you’re awake.” You heard him crouch in front of you. “I’m not going to hurt you, but I will let you know that it’s sort of my job.” 

You slowly opened your eyes to see him staring at you. You couldn’t believe the nerve of this guy; to have an even slightly concerned look on his face. 

“Yoongi will rip you to shreds.” You spat, the words tumbling out of your mouth before you could think. Shut up. Yoongi isn’t yours anymore. He may look like he cares, but he doesn’t. Don’t make empty threats. He must have seen the immediate regret that flashed across your face because he stood. 

“I’m sure he will.” He nodded, almost like he was trying to humor you. Then his expression turned dark. “I won’t hurt you, I have no reason to. But he does.” and he stepped to the side to reveal a man. 

“Fuck.” You murmured. Mr. Joh stood tall, a scar running down his face. He had those obsidian eyes, just like Hawyeong. 

“You murdered my sister a while ago, do you remember her?” Mr. Joh carefully slid a chair in front of you and sat on it. Taehyung looked away, a muscle in his jaw ticking. You kept your eyes locked on him, not Mr. Joh. It was almost as if Taehyung was a slice of home, a reminder of when you were back at the mansion. Oh how the tables have turned. 

“Who? I’ve killed many.” You tried to bite back, but your words lacked the punch needed to effectively get your point across. You were tired and sore. How long had you been sitting in that chair? 

“What do you mean who.” Mr. Joh spat. “You don’t even have enough pride to remember your victims, do you?”

“I remember you...” You stared straight at Taehyung, and he watched you carefully. “And I certainly remember you.” You spoke to him. Mr. Joh followed your eyes. You knew you were giving away too much, letting him into your mind far too easily. Even a low level torturer would be able to decipher the thoughts in your mind. Please, Taehyung, let me out. Don’t you like me? The second those words crossed your mind, you froze. Don’t you like me? 

Your heart was beating fast. Then Mr. Joh snapped, signalling Taehyung to leave the room. Your eyes pleaded with him. Please don’t go. You then realized you had no right to beg for life. After all...Death longed for you more than Yoongi or anyone else. You had stolen so many lives, why couldn’t you accept your own demise? Your eyes looked down to the floor, ashamed. The monster inside was locked in the basement and the angelic little girl from before had control. No wonder you felt so broken at the moment. Taehyung seemed hesitant to leave, but he left nonetheless. 

“Now, where were we?” Mr. Joh smiled, flicking a knife into his hands. 

-

-

as;fks;gkhslkdhf Okay okay okay- I like this direction. Let me know your thoughts. 

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[halfincubus]

got tagged by @riosgoodgirll for this game like [checks notes] almost two weeks ago, sorry it’s super late but it got long because I ramble about ladies I like

rules: list 10 different female faves from 10 different fandoms, then tag 10 people 

under cut, because it really did get long

1.       Farscape – Aeryn Sun Where do I start with her? She is everything. She’s one of the earliest examples that I can remember seeing on tv of a strong female character that has trouble connecting to her emotions, while the male counterpart of her pairing is the one who wanted to talk about his feelings. She’s also a tough soldier for a dodgy race of militant space-humans (but not really humans) whose sole purpose in life is to fight and die, and through her relationship with her fellow shipmates, learns that there’s more to life than following orders and killing people. I just love her more than words can say. She definitely broke the mould.

 2.       True Blood – Jessica God, she’s so sweet. I love her character growth. She goes from this god-fearing teen girl, to spoilt, angry goth baby vamp, to total sweetheart with a serious vicious streak when it comes to protecting those she loves. Also she’s more beautiful than I have words for and I am so gay. Like, I could look at her for hours, wow what a face.

 3.       Buffy the vampire slayer – Buffy The OG strong female lead, the first of many in my life. Also one half of my first foray into enemies to lovers shipping – you never forget your first, as they say! I love her cheery wisecracks as she kicks vampire ass, the way she mimes staking, and her bouncy shampoo-commercial-hair

 4.       Harry Potter – Hermione I saw so much of myself in her when I was a young, frizzy-haired bookworm that I immediately identified with her, hard, and she’s left a permanent mark on my heart. I only liked her more as the series went on and more of her ‘flaws’ were layered onto her character, which really brought her to life in my mind. I say ‘flaws’ because I fucking love how vindictive she is and how much of a flaw is being intelligent enough to find dirt on people that you can blackmail them with, really? Especially if they’re sucky people. When she doesn’t like someone she absolutely destroys them, mad respect.

 5.       Penny Dreadful – Vanessa Ives I have a type, and she is it. Dark, brooding and with otherworldly good looks (I still remember Eva Green as the witch Serafina Pekkala the best) I still can’t recall her character without getting a pang in my chest. The show’s ending DID HER SO DIRTY but we won’t get into that, I’m just gonna talk about why she’s my fave, I promise. She is so mentally strong and yet simultaneously so fragile at the same time, I want to take care of her so bad. The Devil with a capital D has been trying to possess her all her life, and she is in constant mental battle against him, and she just never stopped trying (until the stupid finale but we aren’t talking about that!) and she’s so strong, I adore her. When she does a tarot card spread you can’t look away, her gaze is so piercing and haunting.

 6.       LOTR – Éowyn This is another one that got a strong hold of me in my formative years and shook me to my core. From the moment I read the ICONIC ‘what do you fear my lady?’ speech I was a fan for life. I strongly identified with her attitude to life (I, too, fear growing old and useless) and her totally boss moment against the Witch-King (more like BITCH king) made her my hero. Whenever I rewatch LOTR I have a stupid sappy expression on my face when she’s on screen.

 7.       The Walking Dead – Michonne Back when I watched this show, and when she graced our screens for the first time I was shaking with excitement. She had such an iconic look – the dreads, the bandana, the katana slung over her back. Her strong & silent archetype was something I was very into, and enjoyed watching. She just oozes cool. The only one on the show with the skills to use something other than a gun on a daily basis, so her kills were not only skillful but super stylish too! Oh and I really liked the vibe she had with Andrea – they should totally have been gfs but network tv are cowards

 8.       Killing Eve – Villanelle the inherent eroticism of a woman who is trying to kill you. I find assassins sexy, always have, don’t judge me. I really enjoy the fine line Jodie Comer straddles playing her as a sociopath with feelings that can get hurt. Also the chemissssstry with Eve is *chefs kiss*

 9.       Lirael – Lirael She spends her entire life up until early young adulthood feeling out of place and wondering why she doesn’t belong, and I just want to hug her. She is so lonely that she teaches herself a spell to MAKE HER OWN DOG (which is 100% relatable tbh) and then she and the dog strike out on their own adventure, which is super cute and heart warming to me. She’s so shy and withdrawn at first but then she really grows into herself with time, and teaches herself to be more confident in her own abilities, despite the fact that these don’t necessarily match up with the powers she has dreamed of her whole life.

 10.   GLOW – the whole cast Ok so it’s cheating a bit but how can you choose one favourite woman from that whole cast? Everyone is amazing and has their own strengths and character flaws, their own little quirks… it’s such good writing, real shame the show was cancelled (another ‘rona casualty)

and I’ll tag anyone who sees this and wants to do this because I can’t think of 10 whole people lol

[camillemontespan]

a burden shared [AU. drake walker]

Is this an AU? I guess it is, since it’s not exactly part of the main Drake x Camille universe.  This is quite short. 

Warnings: NSFWish. 

@moonlightgem7​ @emichelle​ @ibldw-main​ @jovialyouthmusic​ @dcbbw​ @loveellamae​ @walkerswhiskeygirl​ @saivilo​ @gardeningourmet​ @burnsoslow​ @rainbowsinthestorm​ @mskaneko​ @katedrakeohd​ @pug-bitch​ @fromthedeskofpaisleybleakmore​ @marshmallowsaremyfavorite​ @pedudley​

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The amber liquid seared his throat, making him cough, but he didn’t care. He swallowed it down, feeling it warm his body and he reached out to pour himself another measure. He was planning to continue this routine for the next couple of hours until he blacked out. 

Drake kept his dead eyed gaze fixed on the view of Cordonia and for the first time in his life, he realised he despised his country. Yes, it was beautiful with the azure ocean, warm climate and golden palaces but it now felt cruel and hard after what had happened. He wished he was somewhere else, somewhere where he wasn’t at court, somewhere where he could just live a normal life and be with her. 

Because after she had lit up his life and made him see everything in glowing technicolour, now she was gone and had turned the light off on her way out. 

There was a knock on his door. Dragging himself up to his feet, he padded across the room to tell his visitor to fuck off and leave him alone, please and thank you. 

‘Hey Drake.’

He blinked in surprise. ‘Uhh.. what are you doing here?’

‘I just wanted some company. To talk.’ Her eyes flicked to the whiskey glass in his hand. ‘Got anymore of that?’

Drake frowned. ‘You don’t like whiskey.’

‘First time for everything.’

Drake stepped back and let her into the room. He watched as she ran her hands through her hair and looked around at her surroundings, as if trying to work out what she was doing here and why. She never visited him. They weren’t close.

He located another glass and passed it to her, their fingers brushing. Picking up the bottle, he poured her a double measure and watched as she sipped the drink, wincing as it slid down her throat. She finished the glass and held it out for a top up.

Now, Drake watched her drink this glass without flinching. Instead, her amber eyes, the colour of whiskey, focused on his above the rim of her glass. It was a steady stare, a confident one. She was looking at him with bold intention. 

‘I want to get black out drunk,’ she told him. ‘I want to forget about everything. Can you help me forget?’

Drake nodded silently. He reached out to pour her another glass but her hand reached out to take the bottle from him. 

‘I can do it myself,’ she whispered. 

Drake smirked. ‘Whatever you want, Hana. Whatever you want.’

*****************************************************

They settled down on the chairs on Drake’s balcony with the bottle of whiskey on the table between them. 

‘I miss her,’ Hana murmured. ‘She was my friend.’

‘I know,’ Drake said. ‘I know you were close.’

Hana quirked an eyebrow at him. ‘You were close with her too.’

Drake reddened. He held his glass to his lips and tossed back the whiskey, trying to forget moments of the closeness he and Camille had shared.  Moments in between. The wine cellar in Lythikos. Their secret meetings on the train as it travelled between Italy and France. The pool table.  Applewood. 

‘You love her,’ Hana whispered. ‘I can see it.’

‘Heh,’ Drake scoffed. ‘Doesn’t matter now, does it? Camille’s gone. They chucked her out of the country.’

‘Bastards,’ Hana hissed, making Drake blink in surprise. Hana never swore or got angry. In fact, Hana never got drunk. This version of Hana was very different to the demure and innocent Hana Lee he had been used to. 

‘She made me realise that I like women,’ Hana suddenly said. 

Drake choked on his drink. This was definitely a different version of Hana Lee. ‘You like women?’ he asked her, trying to keep his voice steady. 

‘I do,’ she replied. ‘I always knew I did but when I met her, I looked deep within myself and I felt brave enough to claim it. I’m gay, Drake. It shouldn’t even be a big deal - I mean it’s not - but it is to me. For so long, I kept to myself, too afraid to be bold or brave. But Camille made me feel brave, you know? She made me feel like I could be anything.’

Drake bit his lip. ‘Do you love her?’

Hana considered his question. ‘In a way, yes,’ she said. ‘But I think I love the idea of her. As in, she was the one who made me see that I wasn’t helping myself by staying in the dark, rejecting who I am. We always talked about feelings, she loved talking about feelings.. We spoke about dark times and our hopes and dreams. The more I opened up, the more I could see that I was denying my true self.’ 

Drake nodded, fully understanding. He had had those talks with Camille too; secret talks in the dark at 3am, where nobody was awake except for them. They had spoken about her parents, his father, his hatred of court life. She broke down his walls that were built like a fortress around him; unfortunately, now she was gone, the walls were being built up again, brick by brick. 

‘She saw the best of me,’ Drake said, the whiskey making his voice slur. ‘She refused to view me as everyone else does. She saw past my exterior and saw my true self. The one I keep hidden.’

Hana stretched her legs out to place her feet on the balcony wall. Drake swallowed; Camille used do that too. She would spend time with him on this balcony, lounging with her legs resting up on the balcony. The sun would shine down on her caramel skin, making her glow, and she would hold a glass of wine in her hand and laugh that throaty laugh Drake loved so much, 

‘What is your true self, Drake Walker?’ Hana asked, her voice soft. 

Drake focused on drinking his whiskey.

‘You won’t even tell me,’ Hana said, her voice melancholy. ‘You will only open up for her.’

‘It’s different,’ Drake replied. ‘I can’t.. I can’t let anyone else in. Not now. Not after Camille.’

Hana’s eyes fixed on his, fire burning amongst the amber. ‘I just told you a big secret,’ she told him. ‘Why can’t you be brave too, Drake?’

Drake let out a sigh, knowing she was right. ‘Fine. You want to know the real Drake Walker?’

Hana nodded. Drake stood up and leaned against the balcony wall, looking out over Cordonia. The bright lights of the capital shone like stars. 

‘I love her,’ he began. ‘That is all you need to know. She is part of me; no, she is all of me. She saw past the sarcastic and moody guy in denim and saw the kid underneath. The kid who lost his dad at fourteen and who was abandoned by his mom. She understood me and she didn’t try to change me. She accepted all my flaws and she still loved me, regardless. So, when you look at me and wonder who I really am, think about her. I’m nothing without her. She is everything.’

He could feel a lump in his throat growing and hot tears burn his eyes. Drake rested his hands on the balcony wall and looked down at the marble, closing his eyes, trying to will the tears away because he never cried. Never. 

Drake jumped when he felt Hana place her hand between his shoulder blades. ‘It’s okay,’ she murmured. ‘You’re not alone.’

Drake swallowed down the lump and turned to look at her. ‘I’m not right now, am I?’ he mumbled, his voice shaking. Hana shook her head and gave him a sad smile. 

‘No.’ 

Her fingers brushed his cheek. Drake reached to catch her wrist, his fingers gripping her tight, as if he needed some form of human contact to keep him from retreating back into himself where nobody would find him again. 

Her amber eyes met his hazel ones. 

Their lips crashed together in a desperate, heated embrace. His fingers caught in her long dark hair as he pulled her in closer to him. Hana let out a low moan, prompting Drake to feel himself harden. 

They had never viewed each other this way. For one thing, Hana liked women. But right now, in this moment of loneliness, they needed to share the burden. They needed to feel something other than the ache in their chests. 

Drake picked her up and Hana responded by wrapping her legs around his waist. He carried her back inside, tripping over the rug and banging into the chest of drawers. Drake threw her down on his bed, making her gasp. 

He was detached from himself. This was another Drake, one who didn’t have feelings for another woman. This Drake was acting on pure animal instinct. He needed to feel skin against skin; he needed to feel warmth; he needed to feel like he wasn’t alone. 

Hana pulled down her dress. Her breasts were perched high from her balconette bra; Drake wanted to touch them. He watched as she unclipped her bra, freeing herself, before she looked up at him with bambi eyes.

Drake let out a growl. He advanced on her, his lips catching hers as his hands ran up her body to cup her breasts. ‘Fuck, Hana..’ he groaned in her ear. He could feel her heavy breath in his ear, ragged breaths that sounded like she was drowning in him.

She reached out to unbuckle his belt and pulled down his jeans. Drake freed himself and pulled his boxers down; she broke away to look down at what she was dealing with. 

‘Oh my god..’

Drake smirked. ‘Have you been with a man before?’

‘Yeah,’ she whispered. ‘But not one like you.’

His fingers pulled down her thong and she let out a hiss as she wriggled free. Drake swallowed now, reminded of Camille. So many times she had been bare to him and he had thought her to be the most gorgeous woman he had ever been with. 

She still was.

‘I.. I can’t..’ he whispered. ‘I’m sorry, Hana.’

Hana watched as his tears finally fell. Quickly, she got on her knees and rushed to wrap her arms around him, giving him comfort. 

‘It’s okay,’ she murmured. ‘Let it out.’

‘I failed her,’ he croaked. ‘I should’ve persuaded Constantine to let her stay but I didn’t. Now she’s gone and I don’t know what to do-’

‘Shhh..’ Hana calmed him. ‘Breathe.’  She tightened her arms around him, holding him close.

They stayed like this for what felt like hours; maybe it was. But as Hana stroked his hair, she knew she was witnessing the real Drake Walker and all she wanted to do was take the weight of the world off his shoulders. 

[writtenbyhappynerds]

Fanfiction 102: Unit 1, Villains

        Welcome back to class! The topic of villains came up while writing Fanfiction 101. The Editor and I consider villains important. They are the most important characters in a narrative because it is their actions and their choices that shape the plot, the desires of the main character, and their actions. Usually, in fanfiction, you already have a villain. If you write Harry Potter fanfic, your villains are Voldemort, Umbridge, Snape, Lucius, etc. If you write Supernatural fanfic, your villains are Crowley, Lucifer, Chuck, etc. We can acknowledge that for most fanfic writers the most you’ll have to do is accurately capture the voice of a villain so you can replicate them for your story in a way the audience will believe. This is done by studying the character and taking care to not reduce the villain to a one-note trait of their personality. However, we see lots of fanfic writers add in their own villains; these are usually secondary or minor characters. Sometimes they are backstory villains only, or sometimes they’re just bullies meant to be an added antagonist. These villains, because they are all your own, need to be the most important characters in your stories, and that’s why we’re here to talk today.

          Villains are the most difficult to figure out. When you write a villain, you are writing a character and explaining to yourself, and therefore the audience, not only why this person is a bad guy, but why they’re doing bad things. I do not like villains who are Bad Guy McBadGuys that exist solely to make the OC’s life miserable. That isn’t a villain. That’s an asshole. These characters are the most common villains we see, and I myself am guilty of writing them in the past because we don’t want to give the bad guys thought. Usually, the writer wants to focus on the protagonist, but the side characters and opposing characters need way more thought than the OC. The OC’s motivations are easy to figure out. Their job is to complete the quest, save the day, and oppose the villain. Their entire goal as a character can be written around a villain, and when that happens you better be damn sure you know why the villain is doing what they’re doing. One-note villains are common in both Harry Potter and the Avengers. Usually, this is because the villain is either a Death Eater or HYDRA, and they can be bad for the sake of being bad because we know both groups are bad guys. I want you to remove yourselves from that approach. I would highly encourage you to read the comic series published a few years back called Captain America: Hail HYDRA. If you know Avengers you probably know this comic, because it’s the one where the writers tried to say that Captain America, God’s Righteous Man, has been a secret HYDRA agent this whole time. It was a whole Twitter moment, it was the #saynotoHYDRACap thing. That comic. In that comic, along with Captain America pledging his support to HYDRA, is an account from a character named Robbie Dean Tomlin. We as the audience follow Robbie’s story and see how a young kid can get wrapped up in an organization like HYDRA and get beaten and broken down to the point that he’s willing to become a suicide bomber for them. What Hail HYDRA can teach us is how to make a villain relatable, and how a normal character can get wrapped up in a group that we as an audience can look at and immediately know is bad. We see them as evil, but we never question why or how a character gets involved in that. If you are going to write a villain that can compel an audience, you need to start asking those questions. Why is this character where they are? Are they angry? Are they scared of someone else? Does this character think they’re doing the right thing? If so, why are they/do they use violence to accomplish their goals? Why is that necessary? When you look at Robbie Dean Tomlin’s story you can answer all those questions. You get him not as a villain, but as a character, and that’s where it starts.

          Another great example of villains as characters and not as bad guys is found in Avatar: The Last Airbender. Specifically the episode ‘The Boiling Rock’ where Sokka and Zuko break into the Fire Nation’s highest security prison and pretend to be guards. Their goal is to break Sokka’s dad and girlfriend Suki out of prison. The important note is that during the episode Sokka is able to chat with the Fire Nation guards. These people are his adversaries in this episode. They could imprison or kill him if he is discovered, but the guards aren’t set on that. They aren’t hell-bent on torturing the prisoners either. They’re just people. Not only that they’re nice people. The guards are nice to each other. They’re nice to Sokka, and they give not only their characters but the Fire Nation more dimension. Not every Death Eater under Voldemort is going to share his exact viewpoints or his bloodthirst. They are not all hell-bent on, ‘I must capture and kill Harry Potter,’ or, ‘I must spit in the face of muggles and mudbloods because they have to know their place.’ The same is true for HYDRA, or the Empire if you’re writing for Star Wars or the Fire Nation. You have to start writing your characters as people and give them the backstory and reasoning that would make them evil.

          Me personally, when I am writing a story the villain is the first character I write. I want to know them and know why they’re about to be mean to my OC. We’ll use two different villains I’ve written as examples: Anna and Sion. We will also use a common villain from fanfiction, Dolores Umbridge, for comparison.

          Treat your villains like protagonists. In a sense, they are the protagonists of their own stories, they just happen to be the antagonists of your OC’s. Know about their hobbies. Whether they have a family. If they don’t, what happened to that family? This information doesn’t need to be used necessarily, but it helps you as a writer know your antagonist as a person. For Anna, I know that she loves the outdoors. She likes rock-climbing and kayaking and she enjoys time outside. I know she has a son that she loves dearly, and she has a specific brand of French candy that she keeps well-stocked for herself. Sion, I know she has been married twice and has kids from both marriages. I know she likes fantasy novels because the idea of mythical beasts sounds cool to her. Dolores Umbridge, we know as readers loves the color pink. She likes frilly and lacy things. She loves cats. She’s the epitome of the old white ladies who shop at Dillards. It’s okay for you to give your villains something that isn’t stereotypically villainous. When we get into good examples of villains we’ll explain more why quirks and characterization is so important.

          Once you’ve created a character with a personality, start to flesh out where they work. What they do. This will give you a better idea of how they will interact with the OC. This too can be against the grain of stereotypical villains, which the Editor and I usually see as men in dark rooms brooding over something we the audience don’t know and beating the OC because it’s fun. Again, that isn’t a villain, that’s just an asshole. I also as a reader don’t know who that villain is as a person. I just know that I’m supposed to really really hate him or her because they’re mean to the OC. So, give them a personality, and tell me about their life. Are they the CEO of a massive corporation? Are they politicians? A teacher? A spy? Give me something I can take in and help me as the reader understand who this person is. We know Dolores is senior undersecretary to the Minister. She is a woman in a high place who loves her job. Anna, for example, we’ll say is a former spy. She was a spy when she was younger and has moved up in her organization to the point where she oversees other agents and acts as their support. Sion on the contrary is the head of the department of Chemistry wherever she works. She oversees students and has her own research lab. All characters have opportunities to interact with people, and therefore the OC. Your villain shouldn’t be a hermit. That’s less realistic, because then, how can we expect them to go antagonize the OC if they never leave the house?

          So, we now have a character with a personality, and we have a character with a career that fits their story. A good way that I’ve found to turn a character who would otherwise be good evil, is to pile on those flaws and have them act on their weaknesses more so than their strengths. We give our protagonists strengths and weaknesses but seldom do they lean on their weaknesses and put faith in insecurities. Let your villains down that kool-aid. It’ll make the drop into madness smoother. For Sion, we’ll have a character who is insecure. She is insecure about her usefulness, she’s worried her department will be absorbed into another, she’s insecure about her age and about some freak from nowhere with none of her training or experience being able to take away and undercut her value in the society she lives in. She has many children to provide for, and has a lot to lose should she lose her job (psst, this is where the OC comes in). Anna as a character grew a bit differently. Her insecurities came from her backstory, where she fell in love with another spy, had a long happy life with that spy until the same life that brought them together and made the world a game killed him. Her weaknesses come in that she feels abused by the system, and that she will not let others be abused by the same system. She feels more gallant than a character like Sion, and that she is saving characters who wouldn’t listen to her otherwise. Who doesn’t understand that the world is filled with bad people and no one else is willing to take out bad people? (psst, this is the easy driving force for the protagonists to oppose). Dolores’s insecurities come from ignorance. She follows the Minister on blind faith and doesn’t want to be proven wrong. If he fails she sees herself as failing too. In addition, she has internalized intolerance that has built up over time because of the oppression of half-breeds and muggle-borns. She helps write laws that oppress muggle-borns. She makes them submit for questioning. Dolores is happy where she is because her prejudice is a blanket of security for her. She loves her job, and she wants to stay where she is. So when Dumbledore or Harry try to uproot her, she is antagonistic.

          The impact of Sion, Dolores, and Anna, is that you end up with characters who do bad things but don’t see themselves as bad people. Anna believes she is doing the work that no one else is willing to do. That she is going after bad guys. Sion believes she is keeping her department alive. That she is looking out for the good of her people. Dolores is serving her ministry. None of these characters are truly evil, but when you present a young upstart who comes out of a factory that gets the spotlight and attention, or a group of ragtag kids who are trying to save as many people as they can regardless of experience because, “you can’t change where you come from,” or a wizard trying to shake down the years of intolerance at the central government, you get antagonism that is natural and makes sense. You get conflict that makes sense not only for the protagonists, but it makes sense for the antagonists to oppose them. That should be your goal when writing a villain. It should make sense for the villain to oppose the protagonist and vice versa, and it shouldn’t be because the villain is evil and that’s it.

          Now, to drive these points home further we’re going to break down great villains from the media and discuss why they are successful in the context that we’ve given you. We hope that by explaining these villains in the terms that we’ve just described, the importance of creating villains as characters first will make more sense.

          Let’s talk about Azula. She was the first to come up when the Editor and I discussed villains. We as an audience know Azula’s backstory. We know she was “born lucky,” and was beloved and revered by her father and grandfather. We know she had a bad relationship with her mother. We know she had friends. These are all aspects of personality that make Azula someone we can understand. Azula is serving her father and the Fire Nation. It just so happens that that nation is under more evil leadership. When we see the downfall of Azula, we see how the writers used her own insecurities to become her undoing. We see her instead as a deeply paranoid person, who is afraid of being betrayed by people she is supposed to trust. You see her crack under her own pressures. The brilliance of Azula is that we as an audience can relate to her in her downfall, and we see who she is beyond being a bad guy. She’s not like General Zhao, whose motivations and desires were more straightforward. She has complicated goals and wishes and desires that allow us to understand who she is as a person.

          Lucifer from Supernatural is another great example of a compelling villain. You see it in his development. He is meant to be the ultimate evil because he is after Sam and wants the end of the world. What the writers on Supernatural did is really explore the why of Lucifer’s actions. You see it in how his brothers talk to him. You see how Lucifer was, “the only one who could see what was going on.” That he couldn’t handle the new baby (mankind) coming home and lashed out. That he was kicked out of heaven by trying to prove that humans weren’t perfect. You see in the actor himself, that Lucifer is given a reason to be angry and a methodology behind his anger. This makes him more compelling as a villain. He isn’t evil just to be evil and he isn’t opposing humanity just to do it, he has a reason behind what he does. It makes us understand him as a character because his anger is relatable.

          Loki is often a villain or a love-interest in fanfiction. Sometimes when we’re feeling spicy, he’s a villain turned into a love interest because oh my god growth. Loki is given familial relationships and friendships that help us understand who he is as a character. On top of that, he’s given justifiable anger similar to that of Lucifer’s, which makes him act bad but believe he is in the right. Often when we read Loki fanfiction we see the tortured soul Loki who needs someone who can “understand” and “see him” in ways that his brother of 100-odd years somehow inexplicably cannot. This does not just apply to Loki (see Draco Malfoy, Lucifer, and sometimes Paul Lahote but he isn’t a villain). If you are going to give Loki a family that doesn’t know or understand him, you need to give Loki character traits that said the family wouldn’t know about. Hobbies he likes, activities he enjoys. Often Loki is reduced to reading, but in-depth analysis can allude to his reading being a means of escaping a bad situation. Does he write too? Tell me more. Loki is often reduced to either the tortured soul or the lunatic and he is neither. He is a boy first and foremost, who has been lied to his whole life, who was taken in as a political prop and was shoved aside and made to feel unwanted because he was not the blood son. That kind of stuff stays with a person. It messes you up and puts a lot of negative ideas in your head. From here is the source of Loki’s anger, but don’t say that his family doesn’t know him. They do, what they don’t do is accept or nurture him. The exception to this is Frigga. Loki’s motivations as a villain come from his backstory and the relationship he has with both his father and brother. Where fanfic writers often stumble is this dynamic, which is not one of unfamiliarity but one that lacks acceptance. Loki was ostracized for being different, but that isn’t to say Thor and the Warriors Three didn’t know he was different.

          Let’s talk about the Death Eaters. The Death Eaters are a great example of how systemic intolerance shapes a generation. They serve Voldemort out of both fear and loyalty because his power is something that is ingrained in their minds as something that is right. His ideas are perpetuated by Salazar Slytherin and enforced by pureblood families. The Death Eaters are examples of those who grew up in intolerance. They don’t necessarily follow Voldemort because they agree with him, but because their families do, their colleagues and friends do. They are so deep in this life they don’t know how to get out. Look at the obvious discomfort of the Malfoys in books 6 and 7. They clearly don’t want to be there. Death Eaters are way more complex than people give them credit for. If you’re writing Death Eater characters, lean into the Draco Malfoys and the Regulus Blacks of the world. Study how people in cults act and reflect on their time after leaving the cult. These resources will help you write characters that are more compelling than just, ‘Mudbloods suckkkk lmao.’

          Because he is so popular as a villain, we’re going to talk about Lucius Malfoy in addition to Death Eaters. Lucius Malfoy’s representation in fanfiction is horribly executed 9 times out of 10. This is because he follows the same fate of many characters that we discussed in Fanfiction 101. Lucius Malfoy is reduced to one-note beats and the most blatant parts of his personality. Because he is a villain, that beat is “I hate mudbloods and love Voldemort.” He’s like one of those MLM moms who are like, “love my God and my Essential Oils.” Lucius Malfoy should not be reduced to MLM moms with Live Laugh Love and internalized misogyny. He is way smarter than that. You don’t become one of Voldemort’s most devoted followers and come back from that without having your wits about you. Lucius is way smarter than what fanfiction writers commonly give him credit for. He’s intelligent. He’s driven. He was a Head Boy in his time at Hogwarts, and he knew how to try and sink his enemies without implicating himself. If you write Lucius Malfoy you need to dip into the cat-and-mouse games that are Lucius's personality. He’s not aggressively evil. He’s quiet. He slips in after the fighting is done and takes what he wants. The best example of this is during Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. Everyone knew that it was Malfoy who slipped Tom Riddle’s diary in Ginny’s cauldron. However, there was no proof. Lucius Malfoy is a careful man, and in fanfiction that needs to be reflected.

          Villains are the most important character in your narrative. You need to view them as people. As characters first and as bad guys second. Your OC’s story can be centered around the villain, who should be complex, thought-out, and should have methods behind their madness. The audience needs to understand who your villain is by reading about them, just as much as your OC or side characters.

          Next week we’re discussing superpowers. We’ll break down how to make a cool set of superpowers, the common mistakes in superpowers, and give good and cringe examples.

Xoxo, Gossip Girl.

[drink-n-watch]

  Halloween is just around the corner and although this episode of My Hero Academia may have seemed fairly cheerful on the surface, there is a darkness brewing that is slowly starting to weigh everything down…

I just hopped right into it there. Whew, must be getting excited. Sorry about that. I had another good but unreasonable busy week. How is it going on your end Crow?

  “Unreasonably busy” is a really good way to put it. Glad we got through it! But I think you hit the nail on the head when you mentioned a brewing darkness. That last shot… But, we don’t want to get too far ahead! Oh, I’m bold, and yeah, we’ll have spolilers.

So this week, Deku had to secure his working studies program at the Nighteye agency and as we already know, he did not make the greatest first impression. 

Turns out Nighteye is a devoted All-Might fanboy just like Deku though, so they bonded over their shared love of the old no. 1 hero and Deku got a second chance to prove himself in the form of a simple task. All he needed to do was to somehow get Nighteye’s seal from him and his spot would be secure. It’s a pretty meaningless contest all things considered. What do you think Crow?

Let’s talk about how it played out first, but I’ll say this: I was seriously annoyed with Nighteye through this whole sequence. Especially with how it ended! For someone who has such a high opinion of All Might, Nighteye had no qualms about substituting his judgements for the previous number 1 hero. Plus, as we saw with how he treated Bubble Girl, the whole idea of respect just doesn’t seem to occur to Nighteye…

Things went as you would expect. Deku failed, but in the most extra and dedicated way possible and got the internship anyways. Nighteye even admitted that he was always going to give it to him as he had decided as soon as he learned about it (told ya!). That wasn’t the important part. 

The important part or should I say partS were that 1, Nighteye was fully aware that Deku had inherited All For One and no one was surprised by the revelation and 2 Nighteye honestly believes that Mirio is the better candidate.

Interesting dynamic creating a worthy and capable rival in Mirio changes a lot of things. Up until now, Deku had the likes of Todoroki or Baku to contend with, except Todoroki is suffering from PTSD and has to sort himself out before thinking of becoming no 1 hero, while Baku is 50% villain if not more. Mirio is very similar to Deku in many respects. Optimistic, respectful and open, it’s very difficult to root for one above the other which creates a very interesting conflict!

Yes, it does! If it were almost any other student, I don’t think Izuku would be as rattled. All of them are competent, and some of them have potential for greatness, but in terms of being number 1, with the exception of Todoroki, I’m not seeing it.

But Mirio is practically All Might Junior! He’s so obviously heroic and so amazingly powerful that Izuku has to wonder if he measures up

I have to admit, all through the test, I hoped that Deku would be smart enough to add randomization as a test — throwing the papers and books that would move without his decision was a perfect way to test the extent of Nighteye’s powers. I was disappointed that Deku couldn’t manage to get the stamp himself. 

And I think he was disappointed, too. That’s got to eat at his confidence.

After Deku’s personal trial is over, we go back to the school to find out that he’s really the only student to have had any luck so far. Unlike the previous internship, the work studies program puts students directly in the line of danger, and as such, most professional heroes are not willing to take the risk and do not have the insurance for it. 

Nevertheless, it seems no. 3 hero Hawks has put in a request to work with Tokayami (birds of a feather!) while the renowned 3rd years are taking an interest in talking with Kirishima, Tsuyu and Uraraka. I wonder what that’s about!

They seemed afraid to hope — and with Aizawa’s deadpan delivery, it could be anything. I like how this show takes things like liability insurance seriously. It’s a small thing; and maybe I shouldn’t get so excited about it. But it’s the kind of thing that makes the world feel real.

In the closing scene, we find out that it all comes together, in that not only will Deku have to keep an eye on Overhault, but he actually meets him and (ED unicorn girl) Eri in person during the after-credits tag. Exciting things are certainly coming up!

In my notes, I said that scene “felt like doom.” The anguish on Eri’s face as she looked back at Overhaul, the calm glowering power coming from Overhaul himself, and Deku’s usual open expression just seemed to set the stage. I have no idea what’s coming; I’ve not read the manga. But that scene felt momentous. 

Next episode is promising!

As I was listening to Aizawa explain the background considerations of hero internship, it struck me yet again how much I like the core premise. Although My Hero Academia doesn’t beat us over the head with it, but it is stated right from season 1 (and whispered throughout) that in a world of heroes for hire and morals for money, virtue becomes irrelevant. The strength of your character is secondary to the marketability of your skill.

This isn’t a very hopeful message, and you may think I’m way off the mark as the universe of My Hero Academia has always been presented to us through Deku’s rose coloured glasses. But there have been a lot of hints to that effect. I mean the entire character of Endeavour is pretty much a personification of this. And I like this theme. I don’t think it will be pleasant to see Deku run up against these bitter realities, but it’s something I have never seen properly explored in a tale for all audiences and I hope I do get to see it in My Hero Academia.

You have this amazing habit of zeroing in on the heart of the matter. I was thinking about that as I watched Nighteye once again disrespect a character (seriously, I’m really angry with him for how he treated Bubble Girl). It’s the classic “might makes right,” but far from being a cliche, the writers are dramatizing its effects through this whole world. It’s the theme that made Stain such a viscerally powerful villain. I couldn’t bring myself to say he was wrong. His reaction to the problem of heroes not being heroic was extreme, but he was right. 

And so are you.

The reason I still have any respect for heroes is because of individual heroes, like Deku, All Might, Aizawa, and even Mirio. There are others, of course, but even among our cast, as you mentioned, Baku is half villain himself! 

I, too, really hope we see this idea develop during this season. 

Another element I’m basing this impression on is the subtle running theme of “faking it”. It doesn’t matter how weak, scared or defeated you feel, a hero must appear strong and in control. That’s All Might’s entire schtick. Be a “symbol”, inspire the masses! It’s really endearing but it does work both ways.

It doesn’t matter how cruel, greedy or ruthless you are, as long as you LOOK the part, as long as you can give a heartwarming interview, then you two can be a symbol of justice. We heard Nighteye say it again. You can”t let them know you’re worried. Authenticity is a weakness, and weakness is bad….

I actually hurt my neck I was nodding so hard in agreement. Based on the previous, it looks like my idea won’t pan out, but do you think that All Might might have chosen Izuku as the next One for All precisely because he’s different? Precisely because his goodness comes first, literally before his heroism, and everything in him flows from that?

In other words, is All Might trying to change what it means to be a hero? Even if I’m wrong, I love how they’re playing with this idea.

That would be sweet. Mind you I have a feeling All Might isn’t all that great at planning ahead. He never really had to after all. With that quirk, he could power through any situation, and later on, Nighteye would have been there to advise him and he sees the future! We’ve seen All Might get himself in sticky situations a lot because he didn’t consider his health or took things for granted. He’s a bit prone to acting first. I think that may be a factor in why he chose Deku. The boy seemed like a hero in the moment.

After these three episodes I have come to realize something, I much prefer to binge My Hero Academia. Don’t get me wrong, I’m enjoying watching along, a lot in fact. But the momentum of the story just doesn’t suit bite-size in my opinion. I would have watched these last three episodes and probably a few more in a single setting easily, and that would have made a cohesive opening arc. As it is, I’m sort of waiting for the story to get started almost a month in.

I can’t find any flaws in your logic! But as I think back across these three episodes, that last shot of Overhaul, Eri, and Deku keeps coming back to me. If we consider the first three episodes as the tag, maybe things are about to kick into high gear. And I can’t wait!

  My Hero Academia s4 ep66 – Looming Darkness Halloween is just around the corner and although this episode of My Hero Academia may have seemed fairly cheerful on the surface, there is a darkness brewing that is slowly starting to weigh everything down…

[fsouth-park-is-imaginative]

The angels are watching

Yandere Kenny chapter 1.

The cafeteria was loud. The people around us didn’t see her. They didn’t care, they went on with their day, their simple routine, their lives unchanged. It was as if my mother had died and I was faced with the realization that the world around me did not stop.

The world around us will stop for nothing as simple as death or murder or love. The world will not end with something as simple as the whims of one person. One person, that holds myself in their hands. The people surrounding us did not see the angel at the far table, face buried between the pages of a book.

Her eyes dance lovingly run over the pages of whatever she decided to read today. It was different each day, she read quickly and got over the stories. I don’t know if they held meaning to her, as they hold meaning to others. I don’t know if these books are ones she’ll remember forever or toss aside in favor of a new story. It’s her one night stand with a book, fingers caressing the pages as she turns the paper, face gazing intensely, extreme focus on something other than her. Her face is obscured between the pages of books like I want my face buried between her thighs. I want to be her one night stand, I want to wake up and have coffee with her while she learns me as keenly as if I had words printed on my skin of every thought I have ever had. Maybe I’ll tell her that I’ve put more thought into her than I have any book that has ever been published. Maybe she’ll run her hands over me as if I’m made of paper and cannot harm her. Maybe she’ll let me fuck her and marry her. And we can live happy ever after with our half intelligent children amid the woods in solitude.

It took her all of five seconds to put her book down when I sat across from her.

“So, I guess it’s not a page turner?” I asked sheepishly, head tilting briefly towards the book on the table. Her paper coffee cup seemed so cute next to it, like something out of a cheesy instagram post. I hated it.

“What makes you say that?” She quirks and eyebrow. Her whole face seemed larger than life, larger than me, larger than anything I could possibly understand.

“You aren’t reading it now.”

“No, but that’s not indicative of the actual novel. If anything, it means I find it odd that a complete stranger is intruding on my reading time.” She said it fast. Damn, see? Smart. I laugh, trying to put her at ease.

“Yeah, that makes sense. I just want you to know that I think you are absolutely stunning.” I say to her. She does a double take

“What?” Both eyebrows raised, she looks reminiscent of a headshot, the way models do.

“Yeah. Too bad I can hardly see you with that book in front of your face all the time.” I joke.

“What, this?” She picks up her book to show me the cover. It sounds like a porn genre.

“Yeah. What’s that, Lo-lee-tah?” I ask, sounding out the foreign word. She looks down and pushes a lock of hair behind her ear.

“Yes, um. It’s a classic.” She says finally. I can barely hear her, with her voice aimed down at the floor like that.

“A classic? What’s so classic about it?”

“Well, classics are books that are popular with many people and have stayed in popularity for many years.” She answers. How unsatisfying. It must be porn, she keeps dodging the question.

“I know what classics are. What’s Lolita about?” I try to be civil.

“It’s a love story.” She says simply.

“Ah. I wouldn’t have pegged you for a hopeless romantic,” I smile “Hey, this is a coffee shop meet cute isn’t it?” I’m flirting. She blushes slightly. Not many people blush when I flirt with them.

“Hopefully, uh, you don’t have me pegged for anything yet. You don’t know anything about me.” She’s not wrong. I don’t know anything about her. But I know that she reads and she likes coffee. I see her every other day, she picks up books like a player picks up girls. She wears modest black clothes, either because of self esteem issues or maybe because she’s part of a subculture. She reeks of danger with her five-foot-tall-in-socks frame and scowly eyes. Her deep set eyes are rimmed with lack of sleep that she wears like a Tammy Faye does eyeliner. It’s nice, and I like the way they discriminate.

“Hello?” She asks. I snap out of my obsessive reverie.

“Oh, hey, yeah sorry. Kinda wandered away there for a moment. Anyway, uh, so Lolita, huh? That’s the one about the English teacher, right?” She blinked.

“Yes. It’s truly beautiful, it just… it’s so, so disturbing. Its gimmick is that the reader is supposed to sympathise with the main character, whos a pedophile. But it’s a horror novel, you know? But regardless of original intent, it seems so creepy to me!” She stopped. “Sorry, uh, I probably sound really stupid to you.”

“No, no. Not at all. Tell me more, why is it so creepy to you? You say its the gimmick, shouldn’t this make you less creeped out?”

“Well… yeah, I guess so. But it’s more than that its… I can’t help but feel like the people that are supposed to enjoy the novel are part of the problem. I don’t know if it’s okay to enjoy something that’s awful just because it isn’t reality. I don’t know if it’s okay to idolize awful characters just because you’re aware that they’re flawed. After a while, their flaws become easier to apologize for, the forbidden fruit becomes less forbidden in your mind because only you have been forcing yourself away from it.” She isn’t looking at me now. I want her to look at me.

“But, maybe it’s just a story.” I reply.

“Yeah, but… it can’t be just a story. It’s got to mean something bigger to you, otherwise they aren’t stories. They’re words on a page. Writing has to speak to a deeper part of the soul…”

“I think… that either you’re a hidden pedophile, or that rant wasn’t about the book.” I say with a smile I hope is reassuring. “But yeah, I get the idea about stories.” Did I just make it awkward?

“Yeah, well um, whoops.” She says softly. “I’ve been angry lately, at certain things.”

“I can tell.” I try to match her soft tone. She looks up and I trap her in my gaze, sleep smudged eyes meeting intense dark blue. Her pupils dance around as much as they can without tugging her head along with it.

“I can leave, if you want. I was just about to go anyway.” Wrong. Her book isn’t even half finished yet.

“No, no. How can you leave without giving me your name?” I ask, tilting my head to mimic her confusion.

“It’s, uh… Alice.” She says. Oh, Alice. She who fell down a rabbit hole and hit her head on all the turns. I hold out my hand.

“Kenny. Kenny McCormick.” She takes my calloused hand with hers of flesh and soft bone. Her skin is peeling a bit near the crook of the thumb. I don’t care about it. She laughs a bit.

“That’s a douche name.” She shakes my hand with a firm grip. I use my other hand to run my fingers through my hair, a move that makes all girls hot for me. I know because that’s what makes me hot for the rest of the guys.

“Yeah, I know.” I let out a dramatic sigh, using my other, now free hand to mime a fist shake of despair. I shake the despair fist and grin. “It’s like my cousin, her name is Violet Divine. Total stripper name if I’ve ever heard one.” White trash begets douches and strippers.

“No, violet Divine? That’s pretty. I wish my name was pretty like that.” Alice says. I shake my head.

“Nah, your name is so pretty it shows on your face every time you say it. Your sheer beauty could not be contained in one form, so it leaked out into your name!” I joke with her. Her breast swells. “Alice.” I say, leaning back. I maintain eye contact, so she knows I meant it.

“I… I’m sorry fro calling your name a douche name. Because either you’re very good at smoothtalking people, or you’re a nice person. Maybe both though, you aren’t about to talk about your love for dead philosophers now, are you?”

“No, I’m not a soft boy. I’m too tough for that! Why, just the other day I listened to an Alice In Chains song.” She giggles.

“No, I guess not. Philosophy’s kind of my thing, anyway. If you were super into it, we might have problems along the road here.”

“Oh?” I joke, “Are you insinuating you want me on the road?” She looks away slightly.

“Maybe… unless you don’t want to of course. But it’s not often a cute boy knows about the book I’m reading. I’d like to make the best of it.” She says. I grin ear to ear. A real grin, not the lecherous kind I save for porno mags and back alley ladies of the night dressed in fishnet stockings and despair.

“I’ll give you my number, may I?” I gestures to her napkin. She hands me the one on the bottom, the one without coffee stains and lip prints on it. I take out my coat pen and write my cell phone number on it. I hand it back to her and she smiles again, reading it over in her mind. She mouths the numbers as she reads, it’s cute.

“Okay, well, thanks. I’d really appreciate it if you wouldn’t turn out to be a serial killer or something.” She’s joking, but I don’t care. She has my number, and I’ve done enough today to get her in my grasp.

“Nope. I mean, I’ve got a ton of blood in my house, but that’s just my roommate the serial killer. That won’t be a problem will it? I’ll let her know you’re off limits.” I hope that’s smooth, because to me that was pretty smooth. If it weren’t totally creepy, I’d be winking right now.

“Yeah.” She smiles. I’ve made her smile enough to sleep happy tonight.

“Yeah.” I smile. And with that, I get up to leave, pushing in my chair and giving her a salute sign with my hands.

She looks a bit sad as I walk away.

[imitationpersonne]

Lotus: Talk about a struggle you overcame (or are currently overcoming). How did it affect you?

Cute Flower-themed Asks

He exhales after a moment and speaks in a voice both resigned and rueful.

“Yeah… I guess I could talk about that. Nobody’s really listening right now anyway, and I can only imagine my therapist would think this is good for me. Trying to put this sort of thing in words to somebody who isn’t her… It’s funny; no matter how many times I’ve had to talk about it in therapy by now, it’s still hard to get it all out. I say ‘it’ like it’s just one thing, but of course, if it were just a single issue, things wouldn’t be nearly so complicated.

“We’ve rifled through so many nuances at this point, I can hardly imagine where to start now. Perhaps it’s best I answer the question that’s always the first on others’ minds. I was the only one to disappear completely this past summer break, to not show up to a single extra-curricular training session that–let’s be honest–was basically mandatory if any of us expected to be able to keep up for the rest of third year. And I showed up an entire week late to the beginning of the next trimester at that. So where did I go?

“There were plenty of theories regarding what I could have possibly been up to, some especially unsavory ones considering I had recently made…many more enemies, some of them my old friends and classmates. …Unfortunately, some of those rumors just happened to hold the truth. Kendou was the only one who actually knew anything, though. But she’s a good friend; she only ever told anybody exactly what I asked her to. I went to France. It was…a family matter.

“If it could be considered a ‘family matter’ that the only reason my parents sent me so far away was because they wanted to be absolutely certain no one who knew us would discover our shame. My shame…I guess… You see, I’d gotten into a bad spot at school. I’d become so bitter… Nobody was living up to my expectations, yet I myself never seemed to get the admiration I deserved. I got so angry thinking everyone was gradually turning on me–losing interest or judging me unfairly or stabbing me in the back in favor of others–I went too far. My drive to ‘give them all what they deserved’ had begun to put not only my enemies but my old comrades in danger. I admit now I let them down–even though I swear I was the one who felt let down by all of them.

“I was assigned school-sponsored counseling sessions, but really, what was there to help me with if the problem was with everybody else? …It didn’t work out very well, so…in the end, school administration gave me an ultimatum. Take a break to spend the upcoming summer away in intensive ‘behavioral therapy’ or face suspension and possible expulsion from UA. So I went. (No, not that easily, but that doesn’t matter.) It wasn’t any real sort of choice, you know? So yeah, ha ha ha, Monoma really is crazy; he got pulled out of school and ‘locked up’ and everything! You see? How could I possibly tell anybody about this? Sometimes I can still only barely swallow it myself.

“Kendou only knew because I told her before I left, because…if the worst were to happen–if, for whatever reason, I were to never come back to UA–I needed somebody to understand what happened. Maybe it was silly, but…it’s terrifying to imagine being forgotten by absolutely everybody–for all the people who once knew me to just move on without me.

“So, I was banished to France. My mother’s an immigrant, and we’ve paid multiple visits and vacations to the country, so I suppose that was the first option to come to mind when my mother decided to expel me from my home country to distance my problems from her reputation. At least she had the benevolence not to spare expense for her dear wayward son.

“I hear it’s well-known for its ‘quality facilities and reliable treatment’. I promise I’ve only experienced the one, so my frame of reference for luxury mental health centers is limited. The way one of the other patients in my group described it, it was a ‘convenient place for rich parents to stick their kids when they were tired of dealing with them after fucking them up.’ Hah… She was a piece of work, honestly. But by the end, I don’t know if I could call her wrong…

“It’s not like there were actual crazy people. At least, they weren’t very crazy. Sure, there was a…frankly gorgeous boy–who saw things his quirk couldn’t account for and had stalked and threatened a few innocent people because he ‘knew’ they were criminals. (Hah, an aspiring hero, actually…) There was a girl who made a habit of hurting herself, who tried to get under everybody’s skin in the worst possible ways and ended up making all the people who passed through hate her, even though, I’m pretty sure she just secretly wanted to keep all of them there, with her. And there were plenty of others; every single one of them was different.

“But there was nobody wrapped up in straight jackets or tied to beds, no gowns or hospital-like sterility… It’s not at all like what you see in the movies, and I can’t say I was disappointed in the least with that discovery. That’s probably a different kind of place. Here though, it was mostly just…an assorted variety of unhappy ‘young adults’ without much hope or other place to go.

“That wasn’t me, though. I had plans; I was poised on the edge of fulfilling my dreams. I wasn’t some broken, lost reject reaching their dead end, and I had no intention of sticking around for long. I didn’t belong there, and I was determined to prove that. I knew I would be able to show them all this was clearly a misunderstanding, a mistake, and that I was fine.

“I admit I myself made some mistakes. I may or may not have broken a few (silly) rules more than once… I was angry and frustrated and bored and–… Well, I think Felix could probably be a whole story of his own. But looking back on it, I guess I can’t blame them for being unconvinced. It’s strange; it seems almost anything you thought was normal can look like mental illness when you’re already a patient. It was–… Sometimes I still can’t tell what’s okay and what isn’t.

“…In any case, after three weeks of things mostly being everybody else’s problem, they decided to keep me longer than the agreed-upon four. Which, finally, explains my absence for the first week of school. I was not pleased to hear this decision. I was so beyond displeased–didn’t even know that was on the table–that they could trap me there until they got what they wanted? And what was that exactly? Was I supposed to cry, admit to feeling hopeless, give them a sob story about my parents or confess to some flaw they could fix in me? It felt like I was being punished.

“I didn’t know what to do, but I had no choice but to try. I didn’t have time for anything else; UA would surely wait no longer. And do you know how hard it is to trust the people keeping you back from your life? These were the people who expected me to open up to them, the ones with the power to hold hostage everything I held dear. And what if I conceded the problems they were looking for? Wouldn’t that just prove I needed to stay longer? Being forced to expose yourself to the people looking to convict you… It’s such a trapped feeling, it could break a man.

“So I broke. …I don’t know… I said things, and the more I said, the more there was to look into. Eventually I said…a lot. Enough, I guess, to be shown a mirror, a framed reflection of myself and my life and the things that went on within it. And it was awful. The perspective was so off from what I was familiar with, it was almost unrecognizable. The things I was convinced–I knew must be normal, stupid unpleasant things that nobody talks about but everybody goes through and just has to get over– They’re not; they’re really bad–and I hated it. I still hate it so much–things I could have just ignored or forgotten about, now I can’t. Sometimes I just can’t stop thinking about it. And the realization, that I really am one of the broken people that belong here–facing the fact that I’m ruined, and I don’t feel like a whole person… The fact that there is no cure for all the things wrong with me; there’s no medication I can just take and make it all better, unlike some people; it’s just me; I’m stuck with all of this…

“… Sorry… I don’t think I’ve gotten through this still. If there was some happy ending I was supposed to receive by the end of my stay, I think I missed it. And I think it’s because, in the end, the administrators must have actually had ‘mercy’. It turns out they actually did care about me missing school and losing my opportunities…so it came down to a choice between my full recovery or my future. I must have made just enough ‘progress’ to be set free.

“Coming back has been hard in ways I didn’t know it could be. I actually am on medication now; though I’m pretty sure I didn’t have depression before… And I think the dose must still need adjusting.I’ve apologized to the people who deserved it, and of course, I’m still seeing a therapist… But I’m just so exhausted. Even after making up the week’s worth of missed work, it feels like I’m barely treading water, in school and…in general.

“I have some of my friends back, but I’m sure I’m not the same person to them. Somehow that’s not even a good thing. I just can’t seem to turn it all back on; it just feels so fake and falls apart. I can’t help but keep wondering if none of this should have happened in the first place. If I could just go back, forget I’ve ever learned anything, and just return to thinking the way I used to. I was okay–more okay than this, wasn’t I? Am I really looking forward to anything better? I didn’t have to know. –I know… I know living like that was toxic in so many other ways, that it wasn’t real, and I was hurting myself and other people. But my parents seem to be doing just fine operating the way they do, don’t they? If I could have made it work for me… –And what is real anyway? I don’t even know what makes sense anymore.

“This was the worst time something like this could have happened (though I can’t imagine what it would have been like saying what I did before I was eighteen; that could have been disastrous). Now, arguably the most important year, when I’m so close to graduation and supposed to be focusing on final internships and impressing prospective agencies the most… There’s just no time for any of this, and I can’t…

“I’m worried I left too early.I never want to go back there, but at the same time, I’m terrified I might need to… But at this point, it would ruin everything; I simply can’t. So I’m just doing my best; all I can do is my best and hope that it gets better.

“…Thanks for listening.”

[kusunogatari]

[ Something New || Chapter Two ] [ @abyssaldespair ] [ Uchiha Obito, Suigin Ryū, Suigin Reiji ] [ Verse: White Hands of Healing ] [ Previous || Next ]

...he’s been dreading this. And yet...he knows it’s something that has to be done.

There’s no revealing his intentions, insisting instead he’s going on a short walk. Won’t be gone long. Ryū gives a curious tilt of her head, reclined with Reiji in her arms, but doesn’t protest.

“Be safe.”

The well-wish earns a quirk of his lips, heading out and shutting the door with a small sigh. It’s not often he heads out on his own unless for his village-assigned tasks. There’s still something a bit...unnerving about being here. About being stared at. Whispered behind.

He does his best to ignore it.

Instead, Obito turns from the little house and makes his way to the proper village quarter. It’s one he hasn’t dared visit since his return to Konoha. Mostly because he doesn’t have much reason to.

But partly because he knows it’s largely as full as it is because of him.

...but that’s why he has to go.

A lot of things have been brewing inside him since the trip to the hospital only a few days ago. Since then, mother and baby have been healthy, if not a bit weary. And Obito has had a lot of thinking to do. A lot of reflecting. Even now, the inkling he felt when first handed his son bothers him. That memory…

...and the true realization of what he did.

Which is why, as he passes under the archway leading to the village cemetery, he knows what he has to do.

Their graves are above the typical - which makes sense. A Hokage and his wife aren’t exactly your regular, run-of-the-mill citizens. Even clan heads’ graves can pale in comparison. But even then, there’s a humble simplicity in Minato and Kushina’s gravemarkers.

...Obito has to wonder who made the orders, given neither of them had any family left to speak for them that could.

For a long moment, he just...stands before them, reading the inscriptions over and over, looking at the date, realizing how many years it’s been. How many years...since he took their lives away. Left their newborn son an orphan.

...and now...he has a son of his own. Alongside the pride, the joy, the disbelief...is a sinking and undeniable grief, guilt...and shame. He tries to imagine being in Minato’s shoes, now. Knowing what he knows. Feeling what he feels. How he, too, would fight tooth and nail, give his life, if it meant keeping Reiji safe.

Ryū, he knows, would do the same.

He tries to imagine the fear, the fury, the fight for a life he treasures beyond his own. Not only that, but his wife’s. Minato faced a monumental threat that night: one against not only his family, but his village.

...and it was all his doing.

Jaw clenching, Obito’s fists curl at his sides - not in external anger, but internal. What a fool he’d been...so embroiled in hate, in loss, in rage...he’d taken everything from a man who’d done his best to give him everything. Minato had his flaws - maybe he could have done something more to save him, save them - but in the end, he did everything he could for his team. For his village. For his family.

And it was his actions that cost him everything. Facing him in the fourth war - seeing that understanding light cerulean eyes as he teleported to his prior student, putting the pieces together - it had stung.

But now...now he truly understands that weight. Of what he stole. What he robbed from not only Minato, but Kushina...Naruto...he tore a family apart because of his own feelings of betrayal and hurt and anger. Now that he has one of his own...understanding what he did is unavoidable.

“...I can’t even apologize,” he then rasps, finally speaking, voice shaking. “There’s no apology in this world or the next that would begin to scratch the surface. But...I understand now. I’ve come to understand so much. Not just about you, and what I did to you. Both of you. But everyone, I…” He punctuates with a deflating sigh. “...I can’t excuse my choices. I did what I did. It was born of manipulation, but eventually...I embraced it all the same. I was cruel and angry for the sake of being cruel and angry. I wanted the world to feel what I’d felt. To lose what I’d lost. But now...I am the one coming to realize what I took. That fear is now my fear.

“...I have a son. I never expected to. I thought I would live the rest of my days alone, in my purgatory, while the rest of you dreamed. It was to be my penance. But I...was distracted. Led astray. And the only reason I’m here, now...is because of her. The only reason I had to keep going was her. And now...I have another. They are...my only reasons. My world. My…” He can’t seem to find a word strong enough.

“...I’m sorry. It’s not enough, it will never be enough, but...I want you to know how much I regret now what I did. I can’t change it. But I...I know now. I know that feeling. If someone...if they…” His sentence breaks apart, fractured by emotion. “...I would do just as you did. No hesitation. To me, nothing is more important. My life, it’s...it’s nothing without them. Had I never found her...I’d be content to disappear. There was nothing else once it was all over. I made it through that war because...I made her a promise. To see her again. And if it couldn’t be in the world of dreams...it was up to me. So I fought. And I prevailed. And now, I have this...tiny little world that’s my own. If I lost it...I would cease to exist. So I know why you laid down your life. I would do the same, now. I just...regret that I forced that choice on you.

“...maybe it’s not enough, but...I’m going to try to do better. To use what time I have left to...make amends. I know I can’t ever repay all my debts. Not in a thousand lifetimes. But...in this one I have...I want to try to make things right. I want to love my wife. I want to raise my son. And little by little, work off a shred of the debts I owe. I’ll always have this guilt. I suppose that’s part of my sentence. To live the rest of my days with that weight. That knowing. But in the end...my biggest regrets come from you. You, and my team...and my family. The only people who cared. Who I...gave up on. Because I felt you’d given up on me. I…”

Obito sighs. He’s carried on for far too long as it is, but...well, this has built up for more than half his life. And his new perspective means introspection. He’s never had much chance to voice any of this aloud...nor any reason to.

“...I’ll keep trying. It’s all I can do. But...I felt I should finally speak to you. Admit that I was wrong. Try to...somehow make this right, as best I can. I had to tell you that...I understand. I know, now. And I’ll try to use that knowing to...be better. If I can.”

...with that, Obito finds himself just about out of words. And somehow, he feels...exhausted. And yet, perhaps...just a little lighter.

“...I’ll bring him here. Someday. Tell him the truth. Hope he’ll forgive me. He...deserves to know who his father was...and who he is. When he’s old enough...I’ll let him make that decision for himself. Maybe...if she could still find good in me...he will too.” A long moment of silence passes, staring at their names.

“...until then...I guess I’ll say my goodbyes.” Feeling awkward, he nonetheless bows deeply over the stones, a kind of restless uncertainty in his chest as he walks away. It plagues him all the way home, still quiet as he steps inside.

And then, from another room, he hears a melodic, “Okaeri!”

Something in him stills at the word. Helps to ground him. Though still somber, he smiles softly to himself, removing his shoes and stepping in.

“...tadaima.”

     A wee sequel! Technically this was Meg's idea, but I liked it so much I had to write it myself...whoops. Hopefully I pulled it off okay. I tend to make characters talk a lil too much, but...then again, Obito's got a LOT on his mind, and...I feel like he'd feel able to open up to Minato, like he used to as a genin.      idk if there'll be more to this, but since THIS idea tied into the first part, I thought I'd just make it a second chapter here. Buuut yeah! Hopefully it's passable, aha - I still get nervous writing Obito for some reason, especially when it's mostly JUST him, and his thoughts.      *skips away* Thanks for reading!

[olivia-lovecraft]

Mushy Munday...apparently >.>

A little bit ago, I was given the privilege to gush about some really great people, muns and muses alike, who sent me prompts. While I was doing that, though, I realized that I still had so much love left to give! The following are creators and characters who didn’t send me a prompt, but I am going to gush about them anyway.

@maluraunderchild

I. Love. You. …and all your nerds.

Seriously, Quin was my first character crush when I made Olivia’s Tumblr. I felt foolish about it, at first, because I was so new, but I stalked his stories and aesthetic before we even interacted. I love his style aesthetic, his vigilante approach, and his face claim.

Since then, I have loved every character you have introduced to me. I love hearing about them, interacting with them, and just appreciating the thought and creativity you put into them.

On top of your wonderful writing, you have been such a fantastic and understanding friend. Seriously, you have been a sanity saver in the past and I am eternally grateful for that.

@sir-camelot

You. You, I love. I love you so freaking much!

Although we don’t rp together anymore, I still love hearing about your characters and their adventures. You are so stinkin’ creative with your concepts but still keep them relatable. Painfully so, at times. I love the way you write humor and angst and the way you keep it all balanced.

You are also an incredible artist. I have the Searsha piece you gave me for my wedding hanging over my computer desk and I seriously look at it every day and feel as privileged as the day you gave it to me. Watching you progress over the years, Cam, has been one of my favorite things. You work so hard and overcome every discouragement.

I just love you, man. Seriously. You are my best friend and that is never going to change.

@beautiful-beacon

I have loved so many of your characters! I love Keynelis for being a sassy grump-goat at times, but also super sweet. Clarissa has had some really great moments and Elathrea genuinely adores her. Quinaeris is Olivia’s BFF, and it stands out as a favorite ship.

But more than that, you, the writer, are a beautiful human bean. You are a perfectly seasoned balance of sass and sweetness. Typing that, I realize it sounds like a BBQ sauce, but, lady, you seriously have a positive effect on my life and I love you.

@swiftsun-bal

I am so glad to have the chance to write with your characters. I love how you are not afraid to put their flaws at center stage and work through the consequences of their actions. It makes their development and victories so dear to me. I am looking forward to so much from all your characters!

More importantly, though, I am really grateful to know you. You have a fantastic sense of humor and write beautifully. You are genuine and supportive, and everyone can benefit from having a friend like you. I am so glad you reached out to me and got this great ball of rps and feels rolling.

@storykeeper-wra

This character concept and aesthetic has me completely hooked. She is clad in mystery by more than the masks she wears. Every time her book is mentioned, I feel that growing curiosity about just what else is drawn to those pages. It feels very much like the obsessive curiosity that could have killed the cat. No offense Stray!

I equally loved other characters I have known to be yours. All of them have a great grim vibe to them without coming off as needlessly edgy. They have drives and quirks and relatable flaws or fears. They also have very distinct voices. You do such a fantastic job of writing within the genres you depict, and I love seeing them on my dash.

@adilynia

Addie started off as #paladinaestheticgoals for my little angry aspirant. Every time I saw something on my dash that made me think of Kat, chances were that it was shared by you. She is an 11/10 woman in armor, and you write her so well. Both in the Trinity and on her own, your stories and responses are filled with tangible emotion. You balance humor and serious topics so well and it inspires me every time. I also enjoy playing witness to your banter and participation in the shenanigans on Discord.

There are so many others I could gush about, but I really must tear myself away from the computer for a bit and get some chores done. I love you all, though. Keep creating. Please.

[musicprincess655]

Youichi ripped another page from his sketchbook and threw it to the ground at his feet. The crumpled pieces of paper had gathered around him, and if Youichi wasn’t feeling so stubborn and contrary, he’d consider now a good time to stop.

Drawing was frustrating at normal speed. It shouldn’t have made a difference. After all, he could perceive things at super speeds as if they were happening in regular time, but somehow it changed everything. Youichi sometimes drew at normal speeds, just to change things up, but being forced to do so felt stifling.

Usually, drawing was an escape. It was something that was just his, and if what he wanted to escape from something to do with the team, what better place to go than somewhere they couldn’t really follow?

“Did that sketchbook do something to offend you?” Youichi turned to see Barry drop onto the porch beside him. “Need me to fight it off for you?”

“I should probably give it a rest, huh?” Youichi asked, mouth quirking up in a self-deprecating grin.

After two months in America, his English had already started to smooth out. Barry couldn’t speak Japanese all that well, and his aunt Arisa had insisted Youichi practice English if he was spending time in America.

“It’s an interesting coping mechanism, but not a bad one,” Barry said. “At least you’re only raining down destruction and mayhem on paper. I’ve seen worse methods.”

“I’ll run out of sketchbook at this rate,” Youichi said.

“So we’ll get you another one,” Barry said simply. “It’s a solvable problem.”

Unlike my speed, Youichi couldn’t help but think. Barry seemed to notice his shift in mood, and reached down to pick up one of the crumpled sketchbook pages at his feet.

“So what did this one do to offend you so badly it had to be purged?” Barry asked, holding up the sketch of the house across the street that Youichi had been attempting. “I think it looks pretty good.”

“The perspective is all wrong,” Youichi said, pointing out all the flaws he could see. “And I didn’t get the roof right at all, it slants different. And over here…”

“I can’t see any of that,” Barry admitted sheepishly.

“You don’t know much about drawing.” Youichi said it without accusation, even though it was true. Barry was a scientist, and it was how he’d come by his speed. Youichi had just been the product of an accident and a particularly fortunate lightning strike.

Or particularly unlucky, in light of recent events.

“This has always been just your thing, huh?” Barry sighed. “I understand the world through science, and your aunt has her words, and you have this.”

“Don’t have it so much right now,” Youichi said. He was pretty sure they weren’t just talking about art anymore.

“Maybe you’re just focusing in on the finer details too much,” Barry said. “If you step back, maybe it’s not so bad.”

Youichi stared hard at the drawing, glare deepening.

“I don’t think I can keep doing metaphors in English,” he said finally. Barry laughed.

“That’s fair,” he said. “Have you talked to your team at all since you left?”

Youichi looked down at his hands. It was a fair question, but not one he wanted to answer.

“Thought not,” Barry said, not unkindly. “They’re worried about you, you know. They keep calling me to ask how you’re doing. Ryou especially.”

Youichi tried to laugh at how hard Barry hit the R in Ryou’s name instead of feeling the separation between them more keenly.

Because he missed his team in a way that hurt to his core. He missed Miyuki’s shitty personality, and Sawamura’s bright, obnoxious laughter, and Jun’s shouts, and Tetsu’s terrible jokes.

And more than anything, he missed Ryou. They’d been best friends since they were young kids, practically inseparable since the day they’d met. Ever since they’d formed their own team with just the six of them, they’d been even closer.

It had been easy, falling for Ryou. From the first day, he’d captured Youichi’s attention, and as Youichi had slowly learned to translate the jabs and insults and appreciate the genuine words when they came, as they grew up together...he couldn’t imagine a world where he didn’t fall hopelessly in love with Kominato Ryousuke.

And his feelings were returned. That was something Youichi was sure of. It wasn’t just the one kiss they’d shared, either, it was everything put together. It was the shared looks, the easy partnership, the quiet moments where both of them were content to just be. Youichi missed those most of all.

It had been easy to just let things develop at their own pace. After all, they should have had their entire lifetimes together. What was a few years while they figured everything out? It couldn’t feel like a waste of time, not when they were together. They’d been friends first, and they would always be best friends first, no matter what else happened.

And then the time Youichi had left had changed from decades to potentially months. Oh, he could still live a long life, but it would mean giving up what he loved doing the most. Every day, he got to wake up and do the best job in the world. Being a hero was cool, and it was all he’d ever wanted to do, and he was expected to drop all that because his body was starting to reject the lightning that flowed through it?

Surviving wasn’t living, and Youichi couldn’t be content just surviving.

“They’ll be okay without me,” Youichi finally said. “They’re all strong.”

“I’m sure they’ll survive just fine without you,” Barry said. “But it’s obvious none of them want to.”

“No place on a hero team for a speedster who can’t run, right?” Youichi asked. He could feel Barry’s eyes boring into the side of his head.

“You know, kid, when you first got your speed, I had no clue how I was gonna handle it,” Barry admitted. “And I’m not ashamed to admit that I was terrified.”

“I never noticed,” Youichi said. He’d been too starstruck, in awe of the fact that his favorite uncle and personal hero was a real superhero, and that Youichi was all of a sudden just like him.

“Well, I did at least one thing right, then,” Barry said. “You were just so young, and so different from me. I could understand all this hero stuff with science, but even when you came to the lab with me, it was pretty obvious you were just humoring me.”

Youichi shrugged. He’d never been much of a science kid. Like Barry had said earlier, it wasn’t the way he understood the world.

“You took to this better than I ever expected, considering I had no clue how to teach you,” Barry continued. “I was still learning myself. I was barely an adult, and suddenly I had this sidekick who looked at me like I hung the moon?”

“American saying,” Youichi said out of habit.

“Oh, sorry. It means…” Barry trailed off as he tried to find the words.

“I kind of get it,” Youichi said, cutting off the explanation. “You’re still my hero. All I wanted when I was a kid was to run just like you. I still want to do that.”

Barry looked at him for so long that Youichi was sure that he’d said something wrong. But Barry’s face was gentle, not angry, so maybe it was okay.

“You know, kid, you’ve spent a long time trying to run just like me,” Barry said. “Maybe it’s about time you started running like you.”

He clapped Youichi on the shoulder, getting up and heading back into the house.

“I’ll let you get back to your angry sketchbook rampage,” Barry said.

Which left Youichi alone with that thought.

Maybe it’s about time you started running like you.

What did that mean, though? Youichi had always tried to follow the theory of running from Barry, and then from Bart too. Both of them were faster than him, because they understood the physics of speed, the mechanics of running. Their brains worked with numbers and scientific principles and Youichi had spent years trying to keep up.

But Youichi wasn’t a scientist. He wasn’t a numbers guy. He didn’t see the world through hard constants like that.

Youichi worked on instincts. He saw the world through feelings, through images, through emotions. He couldn’t always describe his world, so he had to feel it out. His gut had always been good, and he’d learned to trust it even in the face of conventional logic.

Maybe it’s about time you started running like you.

So if he was supposed to run like himself, did that mean to let go of the theory? The form he’d spent so many years forcing himself into? Was he supposed to just listen to his instincts? What were they even telling him?

Youichi stood, grabbing his comm. as he left the house. He’d come to love Central City over the years, but right now, as he tried to think, the bustle and noise was only distracting.

He’d gotten familiar with the bus system, and after an hour jumping from bus to bus, he was finally outside the city. There was nothing romantic about this country. There was just a cracked asphalt road, dead grass on the sides, and a fence quickly falling into disrepair.

It was perfect.

Youichi stood perfectly still, trying to listen. What were his instincts trying to tell him? What did his gut say was the right move?

Wind swirled around him, cooling the warm sunlight that fell across his cheeks as he closed his eyes and really tried to listen. The wind hummed in his ears, and if Youichi really listened, he could almost pretend he heard a voice in it.

Run, the voice seemed to say. Run like the wind, run faster, run like you have a force of nature inside your soul. Run to the ends of the earth just because you can, run just to feel the freedom in your heart.

Youichi couldn’t help the half-hearted chuckle that fell from his lips. He couldn’t tell if he’d just imagined the voice saying everything he wanted to hear. After all, he wanted to run again, and he’d always wanted to be fast. And it was impossible that there really was a voice on the wind. That was only his imagination.

Maybe it was instinct. Maybe it was wishful thinking.

Youichi opened his eyes anyway. He could see all the way to the horizon, and all he wanted to do now was see what was beyond it. And then see what was beyond that horizon, again and again and again. He loved his speed because he loved being a hero, but more than that, when he was running, when he was flying, that was when he felt truly free. There was joy to it, joy to the action itself, and that was what truly pained Youichi to lose.

It was a reckless idea. Stupid beyond belief, stupid in a way that Youichi had never been before. But he’d always been reckless. He took risks, just to see if they paid off, and even if it killed him, he’d wanted to stay in this game for just a little longer, for just one more glimpse at the summit.

Youichi set his feet for a sprint, and then he let go of all the tension in his shoulders, dropping them from the form he’d forced himself to adopt, letting his arms fall wherever they wanted, shaking out his legs until they felt just right instead of stiff.

“New message from Nightwing,” the comm. link said in his ear, and Youichi jumped. He’d almost forgotten that even if he was alone out here, he’d never really be alone in this world, not when he had his team.

Youichi tapped the comm. It wasn’t often that they left each other messages. If it was important enough to call each other on the comm., it was important enough to speak directly. But Youichi could understand the difficulty in speaking directly. He’d let go of his anger towards Ryou almost as soon as he’d left, but reaching out was something he was still trying to do.

“Hey,” Ryou’s voice said in his ear, and Youichi clenched his jaw against all the emotions inside him. But even with the lingering frustration, even with the pain...it was obvious which ones he felt the strongest. “I just wanted to say one last thing before we go out on this mission. I bet you’ve seen the Warworld thing on the news. We’re going to go take it down. I need to say this before we go, just in case. This isn’t a guilt trip, though. I’m definitely coming back. Just in case.”

Youichi snorted. That was all Ryou. Of course he’d deflect from what he really meant. Youichi chose to ignore the part where they were maybe going on a suicide mission in favor of listening to the rest of Ryou’s words.

“I’ve decided you’re right about one thing. I have really shitty timing.” Ryou laughed a little. “I had two months to tell you all of this, and I decided to wait until now. I guess I really am a coward. But I still need to say that I’m sorry, one more time, because I never said that. I never said it that way. I’m sorry for calling you replaceable, and for implying that you weren’t hero enough to defend yourself. I wanted to keep you safe at all costs, but that wasn’t right. The choice I tried to force you to accept was one that would hurt you, and I’m sorry I was selfish enough to ask you to accept it anyway.”

Ryou cleared his throat, and when he spoke again, his voice was steadier.

“So that’s it. I’m sorry for everything. And when we get back, if you’re willing to hear me out, I want to say it in person. Because you deserve that. You deserve so much more than I’ve given you. You’re a better man than I am, but I can promise I’ll try. For you, I’ll try. You’re worth that. So just wait for us to get back, and I’ll give you a real apology. And I’ll tell you everything else I was too scared to say before.”

The message ended, and Youichi tried to force the lump in his throat down. There had been so much raw emotion in Ryou’s voice, and it told so much more than his words. Ryou had bared his soul to Youichi, and even if his message was unspoken, Youichi had heard it loud and clear.

Youichi tuned into the comm. link that the team would be using on the mission to the Warworld. Even if he was stuck on Earth, he could still listen, supporting them in spirit.

“We’re losing in here!” Haruichi’s was the first voice Youichi heard. “We need backup!”

“There is no backup!” Nori said, his voice edging into desperation.

“I can’t get the power core shut down!” An screamed. “Arsenal’s down!”

“I could use backup in the crystal key chamber,” Ryou said, and Youichi shivered at the fear in his voice.

“There is no backup,” Nori said again. “All other squads are pinned down.”

Youichi stopped listening, staring up at the sky while the sounds of everyone he cared about slowly losing surrounded him.

Run with the wind. Run faster.

Was this it, then? Was he really better off staying here, staying safe, listening to the deaths of the people he loved.

But was the alternative better? Was throwing all his hopes onto a vague feeling, knowing it would probably kill him, but praying that it wouldn’t, the right way to go? If this was his last run, was it worth the price he would pay for one final look at the summit?

There was no question. Youichi turned and ran.

[gaynoctgar]

Thoughts about Prompto’s arc in “Brotherhood”

The real title, for now, is something like “Prompto being formerly fat was not even remotely necessary and was offensively handled” or “Haley rants about Brotherhood because it’s so fatphobic”

TW: eating disorders, fatphobia.  

It’s also incredibly long, but I really want to share my thoughts.

Update: 10-4-2018: inspired by comments and tags, I added more examples of dialogue that exemplifies the problem

Update: 22-4-2018: accounting for the new “official profiles”...it got worse, everyone.

Oh Prompto.  Prompto Argentum.  My beloved, sweet, beautiful bi boy who could have had a much more satisfying arc.  They really tried, didn’t they?  They tried to give you a touching backstory and instead exposed their fatphobia.  And as for the bi part, well, that’s another essay in and of itself....stay tuned everyone. 

Yes, this is one of those posts.  That’s why I put all of this under a “Keep reading.”  It’s just something that has been subtly bothering me for a long time and I thought I’d give this short essay format a try.  There will be a TL;DR at the end, I suppose, but please read through this if you are interested in this aspect that I feel is both underexplored and overexploited about my most favorite character in anything ever.

A bit about myself before we begin: I am rather chubby.  I’m 5’4” (162cm) and 220 lbs (100 kg), and I have struggled off and on with eating disorders since I was in high school.  I do realize this makes me “obese,” but this essay isn’t about that.  Rather, it is about how fatness and obesity is often portrayed in media as a character flaw, or something to overcome, and my own feelings about why this is harmful. To be clear, I want to make two major points with this: 1) Prompto being “formerly fat” is not something that was even remotely necessary for his character arc and its inclusion and resolution are nothing short of fatphobic and; 2) the fact that Prompto receives his character development via losing weight in Brotherhood is emblematic of every problem I have with how media chooses to include fat people.

These points are incredibly intertwined, so let’s start by exploring what was intended by the episode.  I want to be clear and demonstrate that I fully understand what the episode intended to show, and I will continue to acknowledge what the likely intent was.  This essay/rant is critiquing the execution.

If the point of Brotherhood was to suggest that Prompto had a lonely childhood until he met Noctis, that’s great!  I understand that that’s what Brotherhood was showing.  HOWEVER. I have been sickened, from the moment I saw his episode, with how his journey to lose weight was correlated with his journey to “be good enough” to be Noct’s friend.  Let me be clear.  I understand that we are supposed to interpret this as a character flaw on Prompto’s part, and we see in the gayest scene the rooftop motel scene that losing weight did not resolve Prompto’s self-confidence.  I know that.  What I am saying is that him losing weight was in no was necessary to include, at least not in the way that they did.  There are some ugly implicit implications here, not least of which is that eating nothing but salads is, I would argue, just as unhealthy as what he was doing before. The show treats it as a positive good that Prompto appears to be starving himself and thinking obsessively about losing weight, and that is what I am taking issue with.

I, personally, detest the “formerly fat” trope and all its incarnations.  Wouldn’t it simply have been enough to say that Prompto was painfully shy (he was) and very lonely (he was)?  Why do these feelings have to be justified via his body?  Was there no other way you could justify Prompto simply being too shy to talk to Noct? Noct’s the prince, Prompto is a commoner who feels that he’s nothing particularly special…would this not have been enough?  Doing it the way that they did implies that being fat is a moral and character flaw that needs to be corrected in order for you to be seen as a hero. That is what I am taking issue with.

And yes, I realize that the “weight loss journey” is jump-started by the fact that babby Noct says “heavy…” when trying to help Prompto to his feet.  Believe me, I understand first-hand how much that hurts. I faced many similar instances in my own life.  I can’t blame him for saying it, he’s a kid, but I do want to point out that Noct never apologizes for this.  You could say “he didn’t realize he was wrong” but maybe you could have had a scene where Noct wonders why the cute boy with the camera is avoiding him, and Ignis can say something like “well, did you do or say anything that might have upset him?” and Noct can actually apologize for hurting Prompto’s feelings.  This is not unreasonable to expect.  When I was a kid and people were avoiding me, my mom always asked me to think back on why that might be.  It’s part of growing up and learning that your words and actions have consequences.

TO BE FAIR: I do think the motel scene was an attempt to rectify all of this in the game.  While Prompto formerly being fat is not explicitly mentioned, he is mortified that Noct remembers him back in elementary school.  Now, I love Noct, but he’s stupid sometimes, and not very intuitive. This is, however, in his character, and I will allow it because the very next thing he says is “You should have said something sooner.”  This shows Prompto (and the audience) that Noct doesn’t give two shits about how Prompto looks, now or ever, and I am happy that this was included.  However, there is no given reason behind why Noct couldn’t simply talk to Prompto himself beforehand.  Like I said, Noct is an idiot, and also a lot more shy and awkward than he lets on. But this moment was sweet between them, even if you don’t ship promptis, and I do think it is fair to mention it.

However, coupling all of this with the fact that the “character sheets” show us that Prompto does, canonically, have a fear of gaining weight, as well as these little snippets of dialogue…

Prompto: Hey, let’s hit up the Crow’s Nest!

Ignis: If you wish to put on weight? Certainly.

Prompto: *sighs* Yeah, I know…

(I swear to god every time I get this dialogue I SCREAM at Ignis, how is this even remotely okay to say to your friend who you damn well know has problems with his weight and there’s no way you don’t know this--)

EDIT: The addition of this quote is based on the tags from @gentiuna, I knew I was forgetting something!

Noct: Why is your face so fat?

Prompto: I’m NOT fat!!

(I swear to Jesus you’re on thin fucking ice with me Noct, that’s not even remotely funny and you need a time out to think about what you’ve done--)

This one I have only gotten once in my ~400 hrs of play but I swear I didn’t make it up; if anyone finds the specific words, I will correct it:

Ignis: talks about food and how it’s “anything your heart wants” or something

Prompto: Yeah, it’s the wanting that’s the problem.

I think this was intended to be a nod to Brotherhood but (and @bernielu can back me up on this) I SCREAMED when I heard it. How is that REMOTELY okay?  Nobody even REACTS to this, or asks if Prompto is okay, or ask him why the FUCK he would say that.  

This is when it becomes pertinent, I think, to discuss my own experience with eating disorders.  I have wonderful friends and family, and I’m well on the road to recovery, but back when I was in high school, I just straight up wouldn’t bring food to lunch.  Retroactively, I realize they all brought extra, hoping I would get just hungry enough to pick at the scraps (I usually did), and that was their way of helping me and showing me that they cared.  It can be hard to want food sometimes.  As offensive as I find its inclusion, I do think that’s an accurate way of representing how it can feel: you know that food is good, and you know that you are hungry, but it’s wanting to eat it that’s a problem.  Here’s my issue: that should have raised everyone’s red flags, and the fact that nobody, NOT EVEN NOCT, WHO WE CAN EXPECT TO KNOW ABOUT THIS, says ANYTHING about this, and the game writes it off as another one of its Infamous Banters ™….it’s not looking great.  It’s not looking like representation, to me.  It’s looking like erasure and fatphobia.  

Babby Prompto is supposed to be viewed with pity but also, I think, with disdain: by the audience and by Prompto himself.  I’ve noticed in many fics that the fans like to almost romanticize this aspect of him, and explore that he has an eating disorder which is…I don’t’ like it because most of these fics come to the same conclusion: Prompto ends up skinny anyway and it’s just a quirk about him.  This is what I meant when I said that I feel this is overexploited, earlier in the essay, but also underdeveloped in the sense that they basically, in my opinion, show this as something that Prompto had to “get over” to be a real protagonist. They don’t go into how fucked up Prompto’s psyche must be from this.  It’s just kinda…ignored.  

UPDATE 22-4-2018: I’ve got to get this off my chest, the new “Official Works Profile” for Prompto made all of this worse.  It literally outright states that, after rescuing Pryna, Prompto “decided “to become the right sort of person for a Prince” and worked to change himself. It also refers to Prompto having a “pudgy youth” as if that were a bad thing.  It also says “Incidentally, Prompto’s photography hobby developed when he was dieting and took photos to record his weight loss progress.” Not gonna lie, this one made me physically ill.  There was literally no reason for that other than to imply that being fat is somehow immoral.  Why is Prompto’s “personal resolve” equated to losing weight? Why couldn’t it simply have been to be more outgoing? I’m fucking ANGRY, I’m done being polite about this.

My solution, then? Well, one of two things: 1) don’t make Prompto fat to justify his bad childhood if you know you’re just gonna make him thin and completely ignore that he was ever different, which is my preferred solution, or 2) have at least one character be bigger and that’s just how they are and it’s not made into a plot point or anything.  

A final note: I KNOW people can and do drop tremendous amounts of weight, and I want to be clear that I am not suggesting this is bad or that people shouldn’t do it.  A person’s weight and their relationship to it is their own business, and as long as people have a healthy relationship with their body, I’m not one to judge.  I know that we are supposed to see Prompto’s weight loss as heroic and a strong example of his dedication to Noctis.  And sure, we get that.  But maybe I have convinced you that the development we get comes at the cost of fatphobia, at least in terms of how it was portrayed here.

TL;DR: Prompto didn’t need to be fat to develop his character, and its inclusion and treatment in the narrative of Brotherhood suggest an uncomfortable degree of fatphobia.

If you stuck around for the whole thing, thank you so much for reading my thoughts.  It’s something that has been bubbling up in me for months, and now I am finally able to put it in words. <3