#less than a year to establish themselves.....maybe probably yeah but still

[hqmillioncorn]

We are the strongest! Share your ideas, O greatest ally!

originally written june 2021, starring @windupnamazu’s Yeyema Yema :)

its well known around ul’dah to be wary at night, especially with the newly dubbed Specter of Ul’dah wandering around.  whatever it is,   it really likes sweets and bread

As the streets of Ul’dah grinded to a halt with the setting sun, (or at the very least what could be considered a grinding halt) two small figures peeked out of their cleverly picked hiding space. 

Alongside them, a third followed not too far behind.

When Babycorn was sure they weren’t being watched she stepped out onto the street to look around. “Okay Cherry! Tonight let’s get a buncha candies!” Babycorn picked up her brother and placed him on her head for their usual game plan. 

Cherrypit cheered in response, knowing that they were just a few hours away from lots of snacks and goodies.

The pair didn’t even make it one step in when they were stopped by a familiar voice.

“Stop right there!”

Babycorn froze in place and quickly covered up her mouth to hold in a shriek. Fearing the worst she huddled on the ground, shaking in place. “We’re not doing anything! Don’t hurt us!” she cried out. 

It was a blatant lie but maybe whoever this was would believe them. Meanwhile, Cherrypit turned to the voice’s owner, with full intent to scare them away.

Instead, Cherrypit smiled when he saw who it was that had snuck up behind them. “Yeye! Yeye!” he said, bouncing up and down. Cherrypit’s yelling and the constant bouncing on her head quickly let Babycorn know who exactly it was that spotted them.

Babycorn stood back up and turned around to see another Lalafell standing behind her. Her name was Yeyema Yema and she was one of Babycorn’s best friends.

At first, Babycorn didn’t even consider her a friend. This all stemmed from the fact that Babycorn had no idea what a friend even was. After it the concept of friendship was explained to her, all Babycorn thought about was how she was going to make all the friends in the world. A concept much easier said than done. 

But after rumors spread of what the Starsinger siblings really were, Yeyema and few others were really the only people that even dared to be around them.

Henceforth, was Yeyema dubbed as Babycorn’s one and only best friend.

But even so, that didn’t explain what she was doing here.

Yeyema crossed her arms and looked straight at Babycorn, and then at Cherrypit. “Where are the two of you going?” she asked.

“Uuuuuh…” was the only answer Babycorn could give. She wasn’t exactly the type that could come up with lies on the fly and she wasn’t in the position to go and tell Yeyema the truth of their bi-nightly operations. 

“Walk!” answered Cherrypit. After all, there was nothing suspicious about two young children walking around Ul’dah in the middle of the night.

“Babycorn. I know you and Cherrypit are the Specter of Ul’dah.”

Babycorn almost jumped back in surprise. Yeyema wasn’t one to mince words it seemed. “W-Who told you that?! How did you know?!” Babycorn was not smart enough to deny an accusation, especially one that was correct. “Me and Cherrypit don’t tell anyone! Yeyema did you see us?” And when had she seen them?!

Yeyema shook her head and smiled, “I saw how you weren’t scared when people talked about it! But I know you’re scared of ghosts because of that one time we all told scary stories together!” It was a few months ago but there indeed had been a time when Babycorn hung out with other children alongside Yeyema. One fateful night they were all gathered to tell their spooookiest stories.

That night ended with Babycorn bursting into tears after someone told a story about the ghost of a vengeful mother haunting her children.

“Um...I’m not scared of ghosts...Anymore...Mhhmm!” Babycorn lied through her teeth.

“Babycorn look behind you a ghost!!” Yeyema yelled, waving around her finger in all sorts of different directions.

“AAHH!!” Babycorn ducked down and protected her head from nothing in particular. 

Cherrypit giggled. 

After a few seconds of not being attacked by a vicious specter, Babycorn looked up at Yeyema and frowned. “Mmm...Okay me and Cherrypit are the Ul’dah Specter…” Babycorn reluctantly admitted, “But you can’t tell anyone! Okay?! You’re not gonna tell anyone...right Yeyema…?” For as much as Babycorn playfully teased her brother over being a crybaby she had a bad tendency to also start crying at the drop of a hat. 

Now was no different, as she could feel her eyes quickly starting to tear up.

Yeyema quickly noticed this and spoke up. “No! I wasn’t going to tell anyone! I promise!” Yeyema ran up to Babycorn and pet her head. Which was easy for her, since Babycorn was one of the few people shorter than her. “It’s gonna be our secret! Me, you and Cherrypit!” Yeyema moved her hand to pet Cherrypit’s head too, which he happily returned back. 

“Sek-ret!” he yelled out.

Babycorn let out a sniffle, “R-Really…?” In response, Yeyema smiled and nodded.

“Oh…” Babycorn looked down and held her hands together, “Then why did you follow us out here? You coulda’ just asked.”

“I want in.”

“...Huh?”

Yeyema lightly bonked Babycorn on the head. Which, weirdly enough, produced a hollow sound. “I said I want to come too! I can help scare people too and we can share what we get!” Yeyema excitedly looked at Babycorn, her eyes shining with determination even in the dark of the night.

“I...um...But I don’t wanna scare you…” it was bad enough that almost everyone they knew before had stopped talking and helping them, but Babycorn would rather not have the off chance they scared away one of their only remaining friends. 

Even if it was Yeyema’s own decision to come with them.

Yeyema let out a huff, “I’m not so easily scared you know! I’ve seen a lot of scary things!”

“You...have?” Babycorn asked, almost too scared to ask more.

“Mhmm! I’ll tell you about the-”

Babycorn yelled and jumped back one again. “NOOO! You don’t have to! You can come!” she put her hands up in front of Yeyema, as if that would somehow stop the girl from speaking anymore. After a few more seconds of panic Babycorn remembered the most important detail, “Ah-! Are you okay with Yeyema coming, Cherry?” she tilted her head up to look at her brother, but ended up looking at the sky above her instead.

Cherrypit grabbed onto his sister’s head and thought while trying not to fall off. “Yeye! Yeye!” he said while nodding, though only Yeyema could see him do the latter.

“Then I guess you can come!” Babycorn smiled at Yeyema. Truthfully it would be nice to have someone else around.

“Yay! We’re going to be the scariest specters around!” Yeyema cheered. Babycorn cheered alongside her, clearly forgetting that the three of them were supposed to be sneaking around. “Yeah! Oh-! We can take turns having Cherry on our heads! He gets a little heavy sometimes…” 

This part of the plan earned Babycorn a light slap to her eye by Cherrypit.

Yeyema nodded, “Okay! I can carry you too! So we can be taller!”

“Huh?! You can’t do th-?!” before Babycorn could even finish her sentence she was up in the air riding on Yeyema’s shoulder’s. A feat that I don’t know if she would be capable of doing at the time but Babycorn has to go somewhere.

“Auwauwauwaaaaaaaa! Yeyemaaaaaaaa!! Please don’t drop me!!” Babycorn held her hands out in the air trying in vain to gain some balance.

Yeyema burst out laughing, “I’m not gonna-! Let’s go!!!” And with that the three of them ran off into a dark alleyway, ready to scare the next unsuspecting victims of the Specters of Ul’dah.

[elletromil]

The Way of the House Husband

For @honey-bee-britt

Some crack we talked about years ago set in the Come Back (Home)

The Way of the House Husband

Harry would like it noted that, for once, he didn’t start it.

He had been doing his best to completely ignore the men that had been following after him for the better part of the day.

He even sent a text to Merlin about them, trusting that Kingsman would deal with whatever that was about in the next few days. It’s not anyone’s fault that the henchmen had proven themselves to be complete amateurs by deciding to act a mere hours after starting to stalk him.

Of course, Harry knows that he looks rather unassuming now, out of his suit, with his beard and his eye-patch. But had their roles been reversed, he would have waited at least a few days to properly establish his mark’s routine before attempting anything.

And if he walked into a deserted alley that isn’t part of his usual itinerary, it is simply because the men following him had already been closing in on him and he hadn’t want to accidentally involve any innocent bystanders in whatever was going to happen.

He had not been goading them into action. Not at all.

One of the men suddenly grabs him by the elbow to stop him and Harry sighs inwardly as he dubs that man ‘Amateur #1’. If he had had an ounce of intelligence, he would have waited for the rest of his group to properly block all of his target possible escape route before making his move. The alley Harry lured them into isn’t quite so narrow that at least one of them couldn’t have made it in front of him

But no, the five of them are all still behind him. A good push on Amateur #1 and a short run towards the nearest busy street would be all Harry needs to escape them.

If he had felt like he was in any actual danger at all.

So instead, he turns around to face the men, easily slipping out of the grip on his arm in a way that feels entirely coincidental, offering his most polite smile. “May I help you gentlemen?”

It’s Amateur #2 who answers, which might mean he’s a a leader of some sort for this group of thugs, but since he seems as much of an idiot as the others, Harry doesn’t bother relabelling him as such in his mind.

“You’d better follow us quietly gramps.”

A couple of them smile in a manner that is probably meant to be menacing, but Harry has seen fiercer expression from Daisy the last time they played pirates. He does take offence at the ‘gramps’ however.

He knows his hair is more grey than brown now, but surely he doesn’t look that old, does he?

He’ll have to ask Merlin next time he sees him. Or maybe Roxy. Eggsy, no matter how much he loves him, cannot be trusted on this.

“And why should I?”

He’s still going for hapless innocence, but judging from the worried look Amateur #5 throws over his shoulder, the mask is probably starting to slip. Or maybe that man has better survival instincts than the others and can subconsciously feel that they ’re the ones currently facing a predator.

“Let’s just say it would be better for your health. It’s your boy toy we want.”

He can feel his eye twitch lightly at what the man just insinuated about Eggsy. It wouldn’t be the first time people make an assumption about them after seeing them together, but that doesn’t mean Harry’s blood will ever stop boiling over such comments.

“Yeah gramps,” Amateur #3 continues, without noticing how Harry’s smile has hardened into something that is definitely less polite, “just don’t make a fuss. We don’t want to hurt you.”

“Oh well, that’s a relief. Unfortunately for you, I have no such reluctance.”

His smile is all teeth now and before any of the men can process what he just said, he swings the grocery bag in his left hand at Amateur #1’s face.

~

The fight is over quickly, leaving five unconscious men laying on the ground and Harry barely out of breath.

Either he’s kept in a better shape than he expected since retiring or whoever hired those men truly scrape them from the bottom of the barrel.

What a waste of his time.

He sends a new text to update Merlin on the situation and ignores his friend’s attempt at calling him. He’s already too late to start on the lasagna he had planned for dinner tonight and if wants a chance to finish plan B before Eggsy’s return, he can’t allow himself any further delays.

***

Whatever Harry is cooking tonight, it smells delicious, not that there’s any surprised there.

Eggsy deftly avoids stepping on the dogs trying to jump on his legs as he beelines to where Harry is standing at the oven in his apron, pressing his face between his shoulders and wrapping his arms around his waist. Harry, as always perfectly aware of his surroundings, relaxes into the embrace for a moment before his attention is taken back to the pans in front of him.

After the day he’s had, Eggsy doesn’t mind and just lets himself follow whatever movement Harry is making, basking in the silent domesticity of it all.

When he finally steps back after a quick kiss under Harry’s jaw, he notices the bags full of grocery sitting on the counter.

“Busy day on your end too luv?” He asks as he starts putting away the items.

“Hmm. No, not really. About the same as usual, I’d say. Tell me about yours instead.”

Eggsy knows a deflection when he hears one and usually he wouldn’t insist. Whatever it is Harry doesn’t want to say, either he’ll resolve it on his own or he’ll come to Eggsy when he’s ready to talk about it.

But then he gets to the cans and, considering how Harry has been doing most of the shopping since his return to London because he has much higher standards over quality than Eggsy does, seeing the state they’re in is kind of worrying.

“Harry? Why are these cans so dented?”

Most people wouldn’t notice the way Harry grows slightly tense at the question, but Eggsy isn’t a Kingsman spy for nothing.

“Let’s just say I had a little incident today.”

Unimpressed, Eggsy raises an eyebrow in Harry’s direction, even if the other man is still keeping his back to him. Given the fact it’s a habit he’s picked up from Merlin whenever the handler is reacting to Harry’s bullshit, there is no way Harry doesn’t know what expression he’s making right now.

“Does that ‘little incident’ have anything to do with Merlin asking me to tell you to stop ignoring his calls and also that you owe him a whole batch of baklava?”

He hadn’t worried when Merlin contacted him via his glasses when he was making his way home, mostly because the handler had only sounded exasperated, but maybe he should have. With their decades of spy work, even taking Harry’s few years of retirement into consideration, sometimes the two men have a rather skewed judgment.

“Probably.”

Harry has the decency to turn away from the stove at that point and offer him a sheepish smile.

They look at each other for a moment, until Eggsy decides that if Harry isn’t telling, then he doesn’t really need to know. If Merlin hasn’t gone into the details with him earlier, the issue has probably been dealt with already. And as long as Harry isn’t hurt, which he doesn’t seem to be, Eggsy is finding it hard to muster the energy to care.

Until he gets to the last bag, that is.

“The fuck you did to those carrots Harry?”

[pippuns]

hello pip seeing you are deeply into tai sui can i ask for your help in understanding cultivation? ive read a couple of different novels and webtoons talking about it but i feel like im missing something. is it that physical and mental diligence give you spirit superpowers?

yeah of course!! or at least what I understand about it since my knowledge comes from 2.5 cultivation novels and maybe too many fanfics, so if anyone wants to correct me, feel free to LOL

cultivation as a genre is a little like wizards/magic or fantasy as a genre, in that while there are certain genre staples, the rules can vary widely depending on how the author builds their world. 

usually, cultivation is advanced through meditation and training of one’s qi (the life force that exists in everything. sort of like chakra from naruto) with the goal of creating or building up one’s core/strengthening their spirit, which allows them to do funky fruity magic bullshit and life much longer than mortal people and/or become immortal. 

although the “end goal” of cultivation can change depending on the setting, generally people cultivate until they die or until they ascend into divinity. it’s often split up into early, middle, late, and peak stages, with each stage allowing the user to become more powerful spiritually and physically. some settings make the distinction between physical cultivators (people whose cultivation primarily focuses on building up the body), and spiritual cultivation (the inverse of that).

since you brought up tai sui specifically, I’ll briefly explain their cultivation system under the cut

1. the “i’m just a little guy” stage

the goal of this stage is more or less just to open your spiritual eyes which you need to cultivate. if you’re lucky enough to cultivate in an immortal sect, that just means you go to a highly spiritual place to refine your spiritual sense by meditation and studying a bunch. if you’re not lucky enough for that, just hope that you have access to enough spiritual stones to absorb their energy so that you don’t die horribly when you open your spiritual eyes LOL

2. open-eyed stage/half-immortals

these fellas can take spiritual energy into their bodies to use, but they haven’t established their foundation and found a Way of the Heart to follow to advance their cultivation. they’re still mortal, but they get to live for a couple hundred years, and if they want to continue cultivating past this point, then they spend that time searching for their Way and refining their spiritual bones

3. established foundation

once you found a Way to follow and base your cultivation on, you construct your immortal spirit and establish your foundation. now you’re actually immortal!! barring an unfortunate murder. and you’re really powerful compared to the two scrubs that came before.

4. ascended spirit

these guys have completely cast off their physical bodies and don’t really need to eat or anything like that. they’re almost the most powerful folks in the setting, but this will not stop them from getting relentlessly bullied by everyone else (qiu sha), even (and especially) if they’re peak masters

5. shed skin

these guys are like. whole natural disasters on themselves. super guys. basically gods. they are very big and very old and probably need to be bullied more.

[quokki]

i'm an army (lowkey tho because they scare me) and tbh i'm glad bts is enlisting. i have some serious issues with the mandatory service thing as a whole, but maybe it will convince those... less favourable members of the fandom to find something else to be toxic about! also idols who come back from the military are always 10x hotter than when they went in.. so i'm looking forward to that! a lot of army are acting like we'll die without them, but the content has been pretty sparse these past few years and we're still doing okay! it's all very dramatic and terrible! off to listen to maxident on repeat now cuz i'm in love with it, sorry about this mess that army are causing.

bruh armys have been a problem for a very long time, even i stopped calling myself one years before i actually dropped bts

honestly im surprised the enlistment actually happened cuz at this point i was sure the situation had been twisted enough to succesfully get them out of it. i'm glad they're going cuz i never liked the special treatment that a lot of people thought bts was entitled to.

man i feel like the levels of parasocial relationship that have been established with armys is almost unheard of.... their ways of thinking and the ammount of crazy delusional shit they say is just on a different level... like you can't make that shit up if you tried and I also just don't understand the level of commitment that they have with that type of mindset and behaviour like.... it's just a boy band

and yeah i mean bigshit already said they prepared a lot of content (and merch probably) in advance and i dont doubt that for a second and honestly dont you think its time for these guys to get a fucking break from the spotlight? i think it could be beneficial for them as people tbh

and yeah hopefully with them gone for a while maybe these fans will give themselves a chance to break out of this broken lifestyle and actually find things to live for that don't revolve around 7 grown man who will never even know them you know?

[seesgood]

can we very gently talk about call out posts / culture really quick?  not in a judgmental way, but in like a: i just want to pose a thought and explain why i’m never going to buy into it and why i wish it would become less of a trend instead of more of one? and i’ll add the  disclaimer  here: i totally get not wanting certain people around you for various reasons, that is all your prerogative. that’s your comfort level. but in emphasizing “your blog should be a safe space” we’re kind’ve losing sight of the fact that the rpc should also be a safe space, and as much as your comfort and safety matter, so do other people’s. and not just the person who hurt you, but the third parties and other mutuals and 99.9% of people who are not at all involved in any way in whatever happened. so, anyway here goes, read it or don’t, we all have different opinions or reasons, i just want to be heard:

people are allowed to change.  think back to who you were last year. two years ago. think about the stuff you said when you were seventeen, or twenty-one, or hell whatever age you were. current-you would probably cringe at the kind of stuff past-you had to say. because you grew. you learned. you had life experiences. in hindsight you have the freedom to be like “oof yeah that was not the best version of myself right there damn i don’t want to be like that again.” the growing trend of ‘here’s a 10+ page google doc complete with out of context screenshots that sometimes date back to like 2017 or earlier’ makes this kind of change impossible. because right there, you’ve just frozen a person in time, probably not at their best, removed any and all amounts of context, and put it on the internet and let other people judge it for themselves. 

so that leads into another point that i want to just kinda present to the community at large: the act of documenting behaviors and storing them for months / years at a time, in itself creates a super unsafe environment, not just for you, your friends, the people who have hurt you --- but also for anyone else that isn’t at all involved in whatever happened. like, for example, i like to think that i’m a pretty nice person. i actively try to be a nice person. am i sometimes not having the best day? have people definitely caught me in bad moments? oh hell yeah. but am i, as someone who tries really hard to be nice and welcoming, constantly thinking through every message i send to someone knowing that a) i could have a reputation that makes them read into context that isn’t there and that could contribute to them misinterpreting words i meant in a different way, b) very aware that every post i make, ask i send, message i send can at any moment be screenshotted and posted and taken out of context and either serve as someone’s only opinion of me or pile on to someone’s existing opinion of me? yeah. so in my experience, and based on people i’ve talked to, we now have this thing where you can be surface-friends wtih a lot of people, but if you want to survive in the tumblr rpc you should really only have 2-3 people that you really trust that you can actually talk about shit with. 

and lately i’ve been seeing a resurgence of posts on my dash about like “bring back xyz in the rpc” or “the reason the rpc is like this is because of xyz” and i both agree and disagree with a lot of this, but primarily i think the reason the rpc is Off lately is because everyone and their cousin has a DNI, which is --- again --- your decision and i understand and respect that, but while you know the context of every name on that DNI, other people don’t. and to be honest: other people don’t really care and honestly maybe they shouldn’t care. --- and don’t get me wrong, your friends should care if someone has hurt you. that’s important. but joe billy bob who just wants to write their character with yours is going to read through your rules, they’re going to see “do not interact with me if you follow with or interact with these people you’ve never heard of and if you want me to tell you why just message me” (which no one is ever going to do, i’m sorry to say). and say, joe billy bob also followed that other person because they were like ‘omg this blog looks cool’ --- now joe billy bob, who just wants to write cool plots, is suddenly the middle-man in some type of drama that they do not understand, and maybe they’re able to remove themselves from the situation, but even then it’s still in the back of your mind. 

this is getting long. it’ll be longer, but let’s take a brief break for me to remind you that in some cases, it’s definitely good to give your mutuals and friends a heads up when someone has done something really, really bad. like, remember x amount of years ago when some dude was like ‘i’m gonna make up a new person and say they died by suicide as a social experiment’ or ‘hey this person actively tries to force very triggering plots about abuse / rape / incest onto people and has been doing so for years and does not seem to change their ways no matter how many people try to educate them’ that’s shit people should probably know about. and it’s also okay ( in my opinion ) for your friends to be able to message you like ‘hey i saw you’re writing with x and i just wanted to let you know i had this experience with them’ if that’s something they feel comfortable doing. and if they are comfortable with you still having the autonomy to make your own decision regarding the person. 

i’ll be honest, for a second: i’ve been part of friendships and groups that have turned really toxic for one reason or another. a handful of times. there are probably people out there that are like “yeah this chick is really fake and manipulative and etc, i was friends with her back in 2019″ which, okay. yeah. i’ve definitely done shit and said shit that was not the most representative of who i want to be and who i want to become, and you probably have to. because we are human beings and we are a product of our social groups and the community around us. and you shouldn’t be chained to a version of you that isn’t you anymore. people change. they grow. you don’t have to like them, but you should respect that sometimes people don’t mesh, and that doesn’t mean any of them are bad people, it just means the experience was bad. 

a few additional notes i would like to make but i’ve already gone on way too long:

90% of the callout posts that i’ve seen and the DNI’s that i’ve seen can, in my opinion, be classified as a friend group thing. you were friends with x, x did something, now y and z aren’t friends with x anymore. pain is a very, very real thing and people hurting you should never be minimized, but at some point i just want you to remember that not every friendship is going to end happily, but both you and the other party should be allowed to move on and grow better, healthier friendships after. rehashing Friend Group Gone Wrong instances removes that ability for not only person x, but also person y and z.

you putting out a callout says just as much ( maybe more ) about you than it does about the other person. which sucks. because i’d like to think we all have great intentions, and i’m not saying that you should swallow your pain, but it might not be the kind of thing that impacts the community at large, and maybe you should try to find a better way of working through it with a trusted friend(s)

i’m going to be very real and very blunt on this one: literally no one cares. i say that with love. i’m good friends with people who have each other on their DNI’s. establish a baseline of respect and ‘i’m not going to say anything to them about you and vice versa because there’s no need for me to do so’ and move on. but seriously. no one cares. most outside people read callout posts because they like being in the know about the drama, not because they actually care. 

person a and person b who are mentioned in the DNI / callout aren’t the only ones who are going to be affected. your friends, your mutuals, your writing partners are now all put in a weird spot where you have to pick sides on an issue you know nothing about and shouldn’t have to know anything about. you’re asking people to choose sides on an issue they cannot fully understand, and that’s not fair to them or to you. and it drives great people away. and then we all lose out on having more awesome people in the rpc.

you’re entitled to your safe space, but this is a public platform and you are also responsible for maintaining your safe space. you shouldn’t put it entirely on other people to do that for you. you can block, blacklist, make up funny names for, or spitefully erase from your many anything and anyone that you wish. but you shouldn’t make your friends do it for you.

there’s always an inherent power imbalance when any kind of drama occurs between those who have more followers / friends / connections and those who do not. and the smaller blog is always going to suffer a little bit more because they don’t have people blindly coming to their defense. 

bad moments, bad experiences, bad decisions DO NOT equal bad people. 

allow people to make up their own mind about something or someone

anywho, if you read through this whole thing i think i owe you financial compensation. but also thank you for reading / listening / considering. even if you rolled your eyes through the whole thing like “stfu lia” that’s fine. i’m just presenting an alternative thought. i’d like to once again state: i’m not judging you if you’ve made a callout/DNI or if you’re on a callout/DNI. like i literally don’t care. and frankly, in my opinion, i shouldn’t have to. because i, and you, and your friends, and your mutuals, and your non-mutuals should be allowed the space to make up their own opinion and mind on something or someone without being told that there will be consequences if they don’t agree with you. set boundaries. communicate in healthy ways. you don’t have to forgive the people who have hurt or wronged you, but you also don’t get to decide that their actions make up 100% of who they are as a person, or decide that that is the only side of that person people should get to see. 

[lotus-duckies]

Personal opinion but I don't think Soma would be completely happy with the legacy he left at Totsuki (Long post)

The "legacy" is described generally as "look! a little diner boy did well in a cooking competition! He changed so much because he's from a diner and now Totsuki is more welcoming of students from common eateries!"

Throughout the course of the series, it was established that there are two major things Soma cares about:

Skill, specifically skill that was earned through experience and hardwork. This extends to showcasing one's skills to the fullest, being recognized by these skills, working for any kind of benefit such as one's livelihood or getting through competitions on one's own strength

Exploring the wasteland that was cooking. See everything that the culinary world has to offer and try it for himself.

It was also established that he doesn't care much for lots of attention and reporters. He gets camera shy, doesn't like getting stuck in big crowds of people or being fussed over, doesn't seem to like it when people touch him without his consent which is most of the time, and openly rejected the idea of giving interviews.

What he does enjoy is when people validate him when he cooks. He likes being told that what he made was good (or horrible, depending on what he did) and actively sought the approval of people such as Erina, his parents, etc.

Soma wanted to be the best chef, that was always his goal, but he didn't even accomplish it.

Prior to the BLUE competition, he said that if he didn't win first place at BLUE, he wouldn't take over Yukihira because he wasn't good enough to do so, and that's exactly what happened.

Everyone was just like "Oh but you got second place! That's still good!"

But loses aren't something Soma takes lightly nor does he shake them off easily. He counts every loss he had with his dad and was visibly upset for days after his loss with Tsukasa, even injuring his hand after his loss with Shino because of how emotionally distraught he was.

It's clear that Soma suffers from rejection sensitivity and an almost compulsive mindset that tells him "If you get rejected you have to do this or else [this] will happen and that's bad"

And no one took him seriously because when he left without saying anything, everyone was shocked, even moreso when he didn't come back for a long time.

No one understood how much the loss effected him. Yukihira was all Soma wanted to do but because he lost, he couldn't take over and it also meant he was always going to be worse than someone else.

This is very close to the treatment of Joichiro and Isshiki.

"Joichiro's such a talented chef, he's a monster! He can keep making recipes until forever because he's a demon and we're lowly worms!"

Joichiro was a human being, probably with ADHD, suffering from a depression because of the expectations placed on him that left him crippled for probably years, unable to cook.

"Isshiki is so naturally gifted at everything, he's not taking this seriously. It's just a game to him, he could easily shoot for 1`st seet if he wanted to."

Isshiki is a human being with an unbelievably strict family who would have stopped cooking entirely if it weren't for Nene.

Soma was given this kind of crap too, if not worse. The entire student body actively hated him and thought he was a monster just because he was imaginative and innovative with his cooking, forgetting that he had struggles like everyone else. Even his own friends scold him for his peculiar, neurodivergant behavior.

Even worse, Soma never confides in others.

In the series, he's never seen wholey and truly confiding in another person, honestly telling them his problems. The closest he comes to this is with Megumi on the balcony, but he brushes off what he says to ask about her curry.

Soma definitely left Totsuki with some kind of Sad Feeling in him.

And I can't help but think,

"How would Soma feel if people glamorized the event that he saw as a crippling loss, talking about how amazing it was that a Diner Boy did so well, making changes that directly influenced students from humble establishments, giving him all this attention that he definitely never asked for because of something that probably hurt him."

I've said this before but Soma is an amazing example of inspiration porn. Someone being seen as amazing and a hero and all that crap specifically because they did something and they're also considered less than rest of society. Ex. literally any disabled person doing things for themselves as if that's groundbreaking news.

Yes, Soma took pride in coming from a little restaurant but that wasn't exactly what made him an amazing chef. Coming from a restaraunt doesn't make you any more creative or skilled.

I mean, a solid chunk of their generation also came from humble beginnings but they weren't given the same kind of attention. Megumi said most of the changes came from Erina in the director's chair, but Soma is still credited with bringing all these changes.

Not because he was a good or the best chef but primarily because he was from a dinky little diner. Soma wasn't recognized for the things he wanted and worked for the most, he was recognized for something he didn't even have control over.

So in combination of emphasizing on an event that was very upsetting, his legacy focused on his "humble beginning" and not his skill or even his desire to explore cooking. Yeah, maybe Soma would take some pride in knowing future generations would get less poor treatment because they came from a restaraunt but I really don't think he would be completely happy with this.

[lilblog-asatreat]

15 and Barry!

15. paying attention when they are talking about their passions

Still taking prompts from this prompt list!

Barry is a man with a lot of patience. He has to be, especially now that he's on a seemingly impossible mission to save all of existence with studying the Light of Creation being one of the only ways to figure out a way to stop the Hunger once and for all. A job that is also nearly impossible for the simple fact that, more often than not, even when they do happen to find the Light early on in a cycle, it's usually with people who won't give them access to it until they've proven themselves worthy by the end of the year. A few weeks, at best, every two to three cycles is not enough time to get any meaningful information from it.

This is why Merle being taught the ability of Parlay was such an exciting breakthrough. Getting a direct line to the Hunger has got to be the biggest and best accomplishment they've ever had. His frusteration with not getting the Light in Tesseralia until the end of the cycle had evaporated completely with this news... until Merle came back the next cycle with no information whatsoever.

It was only the first meeting though. It established that communication was possible, that there was someone who Merle could communicate with which is big in and of itself, and Merle was eager enough to jump right back in after telling everyone what happened.

It sucked that Merle died again after less than fifteen minutes, but he did come back with news that he got something from John even if it was obvious and really broad with a dash of confusion on the part of everyone on the Starblaster. What does growing larger than the limitations placed on living things even mean? How do you overtake the creator of limitations?

Barry isn't too thrilled the Hunger is getting information on them too, but that is how conversations work. He has to be patient.

He reminds himself of this as he listens to the end of Merle's third report: in exchange of giving them in detail specs of the ship, they got... John's previous occupation and the fact that the Hunger contains multitudes, much of which he and his family have already seen as he added more planes to his mass.

"Hey- hey, Merle? Just as like a tactician I guess am I- am I the tactical officer?" Magnus asks.

"Yeah, you're proficient in that," Merle agrees.

"Yeah yeah yeah, maybe stop giving him so much tactical information about, you know, our ship and how we escape him every time? Just aaaaa suggestion?" Magnus says, crossing his arms. "We're learning a lot about him esoterically, but not like... weaknesses, strengths, fighting... uhhh"

"Okay, I'll just say, 'how do I kill you, John'. I'll just ask that next time, smartass." Merle says heatedly with his hands on his hips.

"That's what he's asking you!" Magnus exclaims exasperatedly.

"No he's not! He's-"

"His first question was how do you come back to life! That's how do I kill you for good, Merle!"

"I don't know!"

"Okay, guys? We can't fight over this, alright?" Davenport says as he pinches the bridge of his nose. "Merle, Magnus has a point. Next time he asks you something like that, can you please be a little more vague in your answer? It's fine if you have to give him an answer to get him to continue talking to you, but we can't afford to have you tell him everything about us."

Merle slumps his shoulders. "Yes, Captain."

Lucretia closes the notebook she was writing in and tucks it underneath her arm. "Are you ready to go back, Merle? We could use any more information you can get out of him."

Merle shakes his head. "I'm uh, I'm actually going to take a break this cycle. Dying sucks, and I haven't tended to my plants in three years. They're probably all dead by now, but I can replace them with whatever plants this next planet has to offer, I guess."

"That's fair," Lup says. "Not gonna lie, it's been weird not seeing you at the dining table for three years in a row. I'm kind of glad you're sticking around this time."

Merle smiles, and opens his mouth to say something, but Taako cuts him off.

"Yeah, you know you don't have to go talk to him at the beginning of the cycle, right? Especially if you dying is going to uh... become a thing? Like, you can just wait until we're all about to leave anyway, my dude."

"I don't know, I kind of like getting it out of the way," Merle says with a shrug. "But I would rather spend time with you all, so we'll see."

Everyone disperses after that. Barry watches Merle walk down the stairs to head back to his quarters before he remembers that he needed to talk to him about something really important now that he's going to be back with them for the year. He runs to the top of the stairs and calls out, "Merle, wait! I need to tell you something!"

Merle pops his head back around the stairwell to look up at him. "Is it about John?"

Barry shakes his head. "It's about... well... it's about your plants." He starts feeling jittery as he walks down the steps. Is Merle going to be mad he went into his room everyday for the past three years?

"Okay? What about them, Bar?"

He stops in front of Merle and starts to fidget with his hands. It's been over thirty-three years since he's met him. He knows he's probably not going to mind, but he's still getting needlessly stressed about this.

Maybe he needs to increase his dose of anxiety meds.

"Um... so since I knew you weren't going to be back to take care of them for a while, I kind of... um... I started taking care of them for you? I'm sorry if it wasn't cool of me to go in your room. I promise I didn't touch or move anything except the plants, but I remembered the routines you were telling me about that you have on how you take care of them, and I thought I'd give it a shot? I managed not to kill any of them which I'm sure you'd be glad to hear, but the marigolds from cycle 25 came close. Also, last cycle I found a seller who had bags of plant food that was similar to the stuff you brought from home, and the few plants you still have from home loved it! I have some extra bags of it in my room for you, so it should last a while. Oh, and I know you said you've always wanted to get a philodendron pink princess, and I found one back in cycle 31, so I got that for you, and- hey, are you okay?" Barry looks at Merle with concern as his eyes start to tear up.

"Yeah, I'm good, I just... I didn't think anyone actually listened to me when I talked about my plants. Thank you."

Barry kneels down to let Merle in for a hug. "Of course I listened. I know it's important to you, and after looking after them for the past few years, I kind of get it. I'm still not the biggest fan of dirt, but it was really cool to watch them grow and know I was helping to make that happen."

Merle laughs and pulls away from the hug. "It's really cool, isn't it? It's really something special. I know not everyone can be a fan of dirt though, so thank you. Really. That really means a lot that you did this for me."

Barry smiles and stands up, feeling the anxiety leave him completely. "Of course. Now go get some rest. You've earned it."

Merle smiles and nods. "You too, Bluejeans. See ya at around dinner time?"

"You bet!"

[5lazarus]

The Domestics

Alistair runs into an older elven woman on the battlements, watching the children play in the Skyhold courtyard below. They get to talking: isn't it nice that the mages get to keep their children now? Then, in the course of the conversation, Alistair figures it out. Alistair says, “I always wondered. What my life would’ve been like, if she could’ve kept me. I always kinda knew she didn’t have a choice. King’s bastards are the king’s, not whoever carried them. If she were a servant and if I’d end up in the kitchens or, better yet, the dairy. I really like cheese. But if she were a mage, I guess we never had any of that. Unless she ran away.” Read on Archive of Our Own here.

It’s snowing at Skyhold, which delays Alistair’s plans by a day. Anora cuts him loose, locking herself in the ambassador’s heated room with her furs, and he wishes he could change into less fine clothes and join the children in their snowball fight, or wander into the kitchens and see if he can sweet-talk the cook into giving him something hot and sweet to drink. He’s king, so he could ask for all the chocolate in Seheron, and doubtless the Inquisition would try to give it to him.

He walks the battlements so less people will see him and watches the battle in the courtyard below. The Inquisitor’s children seem to have made common cause with the servants’ kids against the visiting nobility; honestly it’s just a relief to see that it isn’t human against elf. Alistair, a tad self-conscious, touches his right ear. An older elf is watching them, smiling. Alistair wonders if she’s the mother of one of them below.

“Which one’s yours?” Alistair asks.

The woman says, “I’m only watching them for the Inquisitor. I’m their guard.” She’s got short black hair, threaded with silver, but her eyes are lively enough. She’s wearing green robes with a bit of Dalish-looking embroidery at the ends of her sleeves. She’s got an Orlesian accent, too. He didn’t know the Inquisition was working with elves from Orlais, didn’t Anora tell him to keep an eye out for Ambassador Briala’s livery?

“Oh.” He shouldn’t feel awkward, but he blushes anyway. He stares at the woman’s feet, toes poking out of those foot wraps, and wonders how on earth she’s not freezing. Alistair’s got a coat of heavy wool, trimmed in fur.

The woman notices he’s staring and says, matter-of-fact, “My circulatory system is different than yours. We conserve heat more efficiently than your people. Besides, I’m a mage. It’s easy to keep warm.”

That has him a bit miffed. Of course he knows elves are biologically different than humans; they can still breed, though. He’s evidence of that. He doesn’t feel the cold as intensely as the others at court, and he knows why. The servants at the palace can tell, even if he passes, for the most part. Eamon and Tegan talk all the time about how much he looks like his father, how much he looks like Cailan, but he’s seen enough portraits of them both to know how he differs.

Alistair says, again, “Oh. Cool. I’m half, you know.” It’s not that he’s discouraged from talking about it, but it’s never been something to advertise. Those with eyes to see it don’t need to be told, but right Alistair feels like he needs to justify himself, with the way she’s looking at him. Skyhold has had him wrong-footed; Leliana has been distant and he is finding it harder and harder to slip away from the King. Anora tells him that’s part of adulthood. He’s not so sure.

The woman says, “I know.”

Alistair folds his arms. “Really? Because I didn’t. What’s your name, by the way?”

The elf smiles sadly. “Fiona. I used to travel with the Grey Wardens, when I was young.”

Alistair says, “Really? The Grey Wardens don’t really let people leave. Unless, you know, you point out that yet another civil war is going to break out if they don’t let you put your ass back on the throne. What was your excuse?”

Fiona says, “I had a baby. It’s hard to keep a nursery going in the Deep Roads. The darkspawn get jealous.”

“Oh. Can’t be having that, they’re crabby enough as it is. Though I heard of a Warden who brought his cat into the Deep Roads too, scratched out the eyes of a hurlock apparently. You’re lucky, most of us can’t have kids. I can’t. Probably.” He thinks about his own natural daughter with Tabris and blushes at the lie, rubbing at the back of his head. It’s for her own good and the good of the realm he hasn’t brought her to court. It’s not an excuse, it’s a reason, and Morrigan has the spare heir anyway, if Anora can’t figure something out.

Fiona says, “I suppose it’s luck. The Circle took him away from me, and gave him back to his father.” She sounds wistful. “But under the Inquisition, the mages keep their children. It’s a different world now. There’s no going back.”

He thinks to himself, I’m not so sure—the disastrous plans for the Hinterlands, the riots in Denerim, the failure of the embassy in the Brecilian forest. He thought after the Blight, with this new alliance between elves, dwarves, and men, there would be no going back. Anora tells him it’s a struggle for the future and that reform doesn’t come in a day, perhaps not even their lifetime: sometimes they need to settle for establishing the groundwork for the next person to rule, like Maric did for them. But of course, Anora’s never had her cousin kidnapped and brutalized, or her father sold into slavery. That sort of perspective changes things.

Alistair says, “Really?” He scratches his head. “I look at things in Ferelden and wonder how things can stay so stagnant, and then you look at Orlais and how they’re eating themselves alive. And Orzammar, of course, which is basically a living fossil. People don’t like change. They’d prefer for things to stay the same, or even go back to how they were a generation ago.” He is surprised at the bitterness in his voice.

Fiona cocks her head and looks at him curiously. She says, “You’re too young to be talking like that. You must understand it comes in seasons—we flourish in spring and reap our harvest in summer, and then prepare for and suffer through the conservative reaction in winter. Sometimes it’s a harsh winter, and many do not survive. But then there is always the spring. You lived in Ferelden, you should know—from the Night Elves who freed your people from the Orlesian occupation to Clan Alerion securing the boundaries of the Hinterlands now, things have changed. You just need to…riot every so often, to make sure no one gets complacent.” She grins.

It’s nice to talk politics with someone who doesn’t know who he is, who thinks he’s just another wealthy Ferelden currying favor with the Inquisition, not a king staring down the religious cult that just carved itself a city-state at the border of his realm. Below the children are yelling. A couple of them are using magic to freeze the snowballs, and they’re having a fierce debate, interspersed with throwing said ice balls, on whether that’s fair.

Alistair says, “Then I hope you’re right. I hope the mages and the Inquisition’s made enough of a, er, spring, to shake things up. It’s good for these kids to stay with their families, I hated what the Circle did. I didn’t know my mother, growing up. Would’ve avoided a lot of angst if I’d gotten to meet her.” He thinks about Morrigan and her awful mom, and then Goldanna flashes through his mind. Ashamed, he pushes the thought away. “Or maybe it would’ve made it worse! Hard to say, I certainly don’t know!” He smiles at the woman brightly.

Fiona says, “It might have made it worse, since she was an elf. Your life would’ve looked very different, even in Ferelden.”

His heart stops. Surely she doesn’t know who he is. That could be awkward, considering what he’s been saying. Anora will be furious that he’s gone off and talked politics with another random person again. He can’t help it, he gets bored easily, and the courtiers and advisors only tell him what they think he should want to hear.

“How do you know I’m Ferelden?” Alistair asks suspiciously.

“You’re wearing the badge on your fur coat. And, of course, your accent. Unless I am mistaken?”

“No, no,” Alistair says. “But yeah. Sorry. I don’t know much about her. Don’t know if she’s still alive. Just that she was an elf. Always assumed she was a serving woman or something, if my father was anything like C-Caleb.”

Fiona says, “Sometimes it’s better not to think about it, how we came into the world. I never met my parents either.” She leans against the balustrade and shakes her head at the kids fighting in the courtyard below. They’ve devolved into outright brawling, but that weird Warden the Inquisitor keeps around her has waded into the fray, bellowing orders. “It’s good to see them playing again. They never had enough time to play.”

“When were you a Warden?” Alistair asks. “You know, my dad travelled with the Wardens too. But they didn’t make him join up—guess that’s why I’m here, ha-ha.” He wants to ask her if she ever met him, because they might have overlapped. It’s hard to tell with elves sometimes though, they age more slowly, but she looks like she’s in her late forties, a bit careworn. Then he decides he really doesn’t want the conversation to get weird, because he is a king and his father was a king, and it’s rare that someone speaks to him normally now—treats him like the lovable idiot he knows he is, not the history-breaking king.

Fiona says, “Oh, give or take thirty years or so. I try not to count the years, at my age. My people live a long time if left unmolested, but I have a knack for running into trouble.”

Alistair laughs. “Oh, me too! I don’t even mean to do it, I’ve just never learned to keep my mouth shut.” To Teagan and Anora’s chagrin, he thinks ruefully. “I was given to the Templars as a boy, before I managed to get the Wardens to take me, and Maker! The Mother despaired of me. Called me most the accidental heretic she’d ever known. Really the Wardens taking me saved my life, Maker knows what they would’ve done to me if I kept poking at them like I was.”

Fiona pauses, trying to suppress a laugh, and then says, “At least you’ve never started a war.”

Alistair laughs heartily at that. Then he realizes what she’s said. “Wait, what? You started a war?”

Fiona says, “You…you didn’t know?”

Alistair says, “Is there something I should know?”

Fiona steps away, smoothing her expression away. “Many things.” Anxiously she peers down into the courtyard, smoothing her sleeves over her hands. The two factions of Skyhold children have joined forces and are attacking Blackwall with snow, but another one of the Inquisitor’s companions has joined the fray—a cackling elvhen girl, and then Alistair sees that from the balcony of the inn there’s a mustachioed mage swatting snowballs away from his friend.

Alistair says, “You never asked me my name.”

Fiona glances at him and then turns away. “I didn’t need to. You look very much like your father. Though I suppose you must know that.”

Alistair opens his mouth and then closes it. He says, voice hoarse, “Did you ever—“ He stumbles over his words, and clears his throat. “Did you ever find out what happened to your baby? When the Circle took him away.”

Fiona hesitates. The silence between them is filled with the children laughing below, the mage grandiosely chanting what are clearly made-up words, and the old Warden dramatically pretending to be overwhelmed by the volley of snow. The elven girl is swearing revenge, right now. It looks the children are trying to steal the “body” and make a pyre out of snow.

Alistair says, “I always wondered. What my life would’ve been like, if she could’ve kept me. I always kinda knew she didn’t have a choice. King’s bastards are the king’s, not whoever carried them. If she were a servant and if I’d end up in the kitchens or, better yet, the dairy. I really like cheese. But if she were a mage, I guess we never had any of that. Unless she ran away.”

Fiona covers her face with her hands.

Alistair continues, “Then, yeah, being apostates suck. Believe me. I met a girl who lived in a swamp. But I think we could’ve made it work. Like since I pass, and I’m not magic—at least I don’t think so, but I think I’d know by now? I’m like, thirty-five. Or something. I could’ve gone to the villages and traded for food. And I would’ve known more about who I am. Than just Maric’s bastard. Who’s just a story, anyway. That’s how kings like that end up. Just stories.”

His mother is weeping now.

He says, “I have no idea how you started that war you said you did. But I think I know what I’m supposed to know.” He takes a step closer, and she doesn’t move. He says, helplessly now, “I think I have your eyes.”

Fiona leans against the balustrade, back to the courtyard below. She’s not crying now, but she’s not making any sound. Alistair is afraid to go closer. Her hands press into her face like a mask, restraining a scream. He thinks if he touches her, all that tension will explode. He gets overwhelmed like that too. Can you inherit that sort of thing? He has to wonder, does the way one expresses pain get passed down in the blood?

He waits for her to speak. A door behind them creaks open, footsteps scuffle to a stop, then retreat. The door shuts. The mage has come down into the courtyard now and is chanting what appears to be Nevarran over the pile of snow that is Blackwall’s pyre. The elven girl is leading the children in mourning—but then the mage flourishes, and the snow glows purple, then scarlet, then green as he sparks. Blackwall throws the snow off and roars. The children cheer.

Fiona breathes heavily, drawing herself out of wherever she retreated. She swipes at her face with her sleeves. She says, “Forgive me. It was better that you didn’t know. You couldn’t have become—you deserved—Maric needed—what are you going to do, I told the Divine to go fuck herself, you can’t have a mother who told the Divine—“

Alistair says, impressed, “You told the Divine to go fuck herself? I am your son, I knew it had to come from somewhere! This is your fault!” He gestures at himself, and Fiona manages a laugh.

“An exaggeration,” she says. “I merely said the Divine should fuck herself, right before we voted to dissolve the Circles and separate from the Chantry. I’d hoped to tell her that at the Conclave, which is why they sent Orsino rather than myself.” Her mouth twists into a rueful smile. “Perhaps the only time running off my mouth and losing my temper has saved my life.”

Alistair says, “Well, the Divine was kind of an ass. Somebody had to say it.” He laughs. “Oh, this is wonderful. My mother, the rebel mage.” He’s genuinely delighted, this is much cooler than anything he came up with as a boy. “This is so cool. Anora’s going to be so annoyed when I tell her. Not like she can complain, her dad betrayed the realm and got all the Wardens killed, so really on the scale of shitty in-laws, I win.” He pauses: he isn’t sure he conveyed what he wanted to by that. Fiona is just staring at him. “But seriously, I don’t know who you are. Besides, obviously, my mother.”

Fiona says, disbelief in her voice, “I’m the Grand Enchanter."

Alistair says, “Oh Maker, I should’ve recognized the belt, shouldn’t I?”

[may-day-voice]

Prom Night Lights - The Beginning

Katsuki Bakugou Timeline | 172732014

please do not repost, but you have permission to reblog :)

• Watch/ Listen on YouTube: https://youtu.be/8SB9fJZ5a7s

• Read on Wattpad: https://www.wattpad.com/1112396862-katsuki-bakugou-pro-hero-au-172732014-prom-night

It was supposed to be a simple day. A simple, normal day filled with anticipation and excitement. The day when you stepped into the real world outside from the safety net. But you never prepared for what was to come, for the hurt that would inflict, for the dark to overshadow.

You weren’t prepared for your heart to break.

You grabbed hold of hands that grasped onto your fingers, hanging upside down in the air while maneuvering yourself a safe distance from the crash site. Out on patrol with fellow interns turned into a rescue mission when a massive traffic incident occurred in one of the most populous intersections in Musatafu. Cars and trucks were mangled or destroyed, billowing smoke into the air while emergency personnel made headway in tending to the wounded.

Meanwhile you floated towards the borders of the intersection, carefully dropping a casualty towards medics on the scene. Your hands were covered in blood and soot, having to pull those who were trapped within the metallic wreckage.

“That’s number three,” you called, still dangling aimlessly in the air.

“Impulse! We need help here!” Called a fellow intern from amongst the crash site.

With a click of your ankles, you landed onto the ground to push yourself back into the air, soaring towards your teammate above the fire and smoke. His large hands lifted part of a car, revealing a young woman in the crash, her eyes searching above while she breathed erratically.

“Don’t know how long I can hold this up,” warned your teammate, his usual stoic gaze now concentrating on keeping the mangled car lifted for access to the woman below.

“Here, grab my hand,” you ordered, floating slowly into the maw of the wreckage while reaching for the woman inside. The look in her eyes caught yours, finding the fear written all over them, terrified.

A slip of your teammate’s feet caused the car to creak, almost snapping onto you from above, your hands immediately pushing against the heavy wreck in reaction. Your eyes searched in his, concerned about the situation only to notice he found his footing again.

“I’m okay,” he reassured, holding the car back once more. “Go.”

You drew back to the woman, spotting her body recoil back inside in fear. With a deep breath, you slowly floated back in, hanging upside down with your hands outstretched towards her. “Come on, let’s get you out of here,” you coaxed, your open palm inviting her in.

Slowly, her shaking hand reached out, grabbing hold of yours. With both your hands securing her grip, you slowly floated out from the hole, taking the woman with you, her weight pulling at your arms before you spotted her feet clearing the maw.

“Let go now,” you called, watching your teammate finally relieve himself from the strain and the piece of metal crash into the wreckage that trapped a casualty.

Two hours. It took two hours to help clear casualties from the crash site. The aftermath left you and your teammates to be checked out by medics before being discharged from the incident, followed by your supervisor Kido back to the agency for a debriefing on today’s activities.

It felt like a quiet day, which was good for the most part. You scratched two hours of the day, plus another hour for debriefing and cleaning up. It allowed less strain on your body, and more focus on other events you had penciled in ever since-

“Man, you? A plus one? Lucky,” spat a classmate of yours inside the locker rooms. “I would kill to get past those gates.”

“You really don’t mean that,” you replied in jest.

“Oh no, I do. Truly, happily.”

“Have you figured out what you’re dressing in?” Spoke another, the same one who helped you on the rescue. “You should talk with him about that.”

“Coordination is key,” chirped the other.

“Guys, it’s a first time thing, okay?” You reassured. “They’re in the middle of graduating right now for all we know.”

“But to be invited to a prom of all things in UA? Whoever is the event coordinator is a genius.”

The vibrations of your phone caught your ear, spotting a text message appearing on your screen. A sneak peek of the message was the usual - an ETA for tonight. That was all. You noticed the messages were getting shorter and sharper with your beau. It has been over the past year. Still, being the final year in UA was probably a stressful time for students from across the board. You had felt the pressure yourself at your schooling.

“You think if I could catch Todoroki’s eye maybe-“

“Stopping you there,” interrupted one of your classmates, his drowsy aloof eye staring at the other. “He’s probably taken.”

“You don’t know that!”

“He talks about someone from his school very frequently. I think he’s taken.”

Another buzz from your phone caught your ear, checking the screen to spot a message from someone unexpected. Eijirou Kirishima’s name was emblazoned in the text box with a video attached. Watching your classmates bicker between themselves gave you the perfect opportunity for you to view this message without their attention, opening it to reveal the stage of the graduation. Perhaps this was very recent, considering the time of day it was before a familiar blond student walked up to the podium. You couldn’t hold back your smile, watching Katsuki Bakugou be congratulated on his graduation day, and turn irately towards the camera following Kirishima’s loud and rambunctious celebratory yell from the crowd.

“Did your beau send something juicy?” Chirped your classmate, turning to find a coy smile on her face.

“What? No!” You deflected, placing your phone away. “I gotta make tracks anyway.”

“You better take photos or it didn’t happen!”

You waved both of your teammates goodbye, hoisting your backpack onto your shoulders to add more weight to your less than convenient gravity. Stepping out of the agency, you tapped your toes before making your way towards the tall white gates of UA. Despite the lack of information you gave to your teammates back at the agency, you had already picked out your formal wear. You had planned to make a day of UA’s graduation for their students, knowing your own from your establishment was happening first thing tomorrow morning. The more time you could spend with the city’s foremost Pro-Hero candidates equaled sacrificing one night of preparation for your graduation, at least you convinced yourself as such.

Everything had been planned ahead of time, thanks to your beau’s meticulous need for timing. However, you had other plans ahead of his own, ones you had announced to him during his plans which, to your dismay and unsurprising predictability, did not please him. Reassurance wasn’t his strong point, and you’ve learnt it wasn’t yours as well. At least when trying to ease his passive aggressive tantrums.

Another buzz of your phone caught your attention again from those thoughts, picking it up to find a text message from Izuku Midoriya of all people.

Can’t wait to see you again! You’re on the way?

Actually, I’ll be another 20 minutes. How was the ceremony?

It was great! Everyone’s excited here at the dorms. I’ll be setting up Gym Gamma for tonight, so meet me there?

And Kaachan can’t wait either.

You chuckled at the words, wondering how Bakugou must be feeling after today. It made you wonder about the months leading up to today. In fact, it seemed a bit odd, watching him at the agency being almost cold and aloof, answering you in short and distancing himself half of the time. Again, UA was a prestigious academy. You thought the same way that the stress must be getting to the students.

Further fact, that short text felt like-

Yeah, I’ll meet you at Gym Gamma. Let Bakugou know I can’t wait either.

Lately it had been this way, communicating with other students rather than Bakugou himself these past months leading to the end of the school year. You’ve heard from Midoriya, Kirishima, even Denki Kaminari spoke to you a few texts here and there. Bakugou however had gone dark some of the time. You recalled a few times in your second year having constant late night calls with him, some of those nights being a saving grace when the both of you were too busy to just stop for a coffee or a shake. But nowadays, he had been-

Hey! You coming over soon? Kaminari is practically begging for a player two on his team.

I’ll be there. Just stopping by somewhere first. Maybe another 25?

You better hurry up. Bakugou’s practically wiping the floor with him in this game.

Well, another thing to slot in, but nothing that detracted from your original plans. With a smile, you continued on your walk to UA, hands on your straps while you felt the strain on your shoulders once more.

——

Soon, the familiar white gates appeared. As per usual, you stood by the entrance, waiting for some time before being verified to enter the grounds. It took a while for this process. At first, you were accompanied by your beau when he came along to invite you, or when he had to make it for Management classes. However, over the years, it became an infrequent visit with the Hero students. Lately though, it was between how quickly the guards could phone a friend. Even more so, it was less your beau, and more so one of the Hero students, whether it was Midoriya, Kirishima, or even Shouto Todoroki of all of them. It used to be Bakugou, but even he had been slow to answer.

After being granted entry, you immediately made your way to Gym Gamma, watching the large group of students prepare for the night. You had not seen so many fairy lights in your life while they were being strung up high across the pathways and into the auditorium. It was a mess, but it was organized chaos while you traversed between wandering students and piles of decorative materials for the festivities to follow.

“Midoriya!” You called from across the auditorium, spotting the green-haired boy ahead. His eyes turned towards you with a smile, lightly jogging his way through the auditorium.

“Hey, how are things?” He asked with a hug, his large arms engulfing you.

“Pretty good, we were in the middle of a rescue mission in the city,” you replied with a smile. “But that’s all the excitement today.”

“You’re not excited about tonight?”

“I mean, yeah, of course I am! Congratulations! Think I can collect my clothes?”

“Oh, right, I don’t have them on me because of everything happening right now, but they’re at Heights Alliance.”

“Then, why did you ask me to come here first?”

“I wanted to say hi.”

You chuckled at his reply, happy to see Midoriya well. There had been some controversy with all that happened throughout the years, things that you felt were considered taboo, however, stories came with time. You noticed the extra scars across his body, also recalling the scars Bakugou had received during Musatafu’s darker times. The worry that drowned you was immense, only subsiding after months of silence, and that one phone call from Todoroki surprisingly.

With a goodbye, you left Midoriya to his devices in the auditorium, leaving him behind for Heights Alliance. Eventually both shoulders felt sore from the weights in your backpack, deciding to only hang the bag from one shoulder and feeling your toes scraping the ground. According to the predetermined ETA, you had a few hours to spare. Still, it felt like you had very little time left until you stood before Class 3-A’s dorms. Midoriya had explained he left your formal wear with Bakugou, who by his description of the event, reluctantly agreed. With a heavy sigh, you made your way up the stairs, only to bump into somebody walking out from the dorms.

“Oh sorry!” You blurted.

“No, you’re good!” Quickly piped the student before they walked away from the stairs, lightly jogging towards the large pathway towards the school. You watched them take flight, trailing with a dress suit on their shoulders only to shrug it off and continue into the dorms, knocking on the door.

Luckily, that student left it ajar.

“Hello?” You called inside, spotting very familiar faces by the lounges in the foyer.

“Yes! My player two!” Yelled Kaminari, quickly running up to you and pulling you inside. “Kaachan keeps whipping my ass!”

“That’s because you suck, Dunce face!” Growled Bakugou, his red eyes flashing towards the door before they laid on you.

“You made it just in time. Kaminari was getting desperate,” voiced Kirishima with a toothy grin.

You nervously giggled while being dragged inside, noticing how careful Kaminari was to keep your feet on the ground. It had been a couple of years now, but ever since that scare, you figured Kaminari had learnt his lesson. Otherwise, by the way Bakugou was, it came as no surprise that Kaminari was just being more careful around him. You smiled at the irate blond before Kaminari handed you a controller, soon convincing Kirishima to join in a game of teams. It was a whirlwind of a greeting, suddenly being sucked into a game of wits and fun with the Hero students. It was the release you needed filled with laughter, for at least a good hour losing to Kirishima and Bakugou.

After admitting defeat and a quick conversation with the students, Bakugou led you to his dorm, taking the elevator up to the fourth floor. The ride was silent, leaving you to wonder what was going on through his head, stopping yourself a few times to speak until the doors opened on his floor. From the corner of your eye, you noticed a familiar dual-haired student speaking with another by the stairs with quiet voices before being led to Bakugou’s door, watching Bakugou unlock it-

“Congratulations,” you finally spoke, catching his ear. “I got to witness your graduation, kinda.”

“What do you mean?” He asked gruffly while allowing you in.

“Kirishima sent me a video.”

“That Shitty Hair sent it to you?”

“I thought you knew.”

“I’m gonna kill him.”

“Please don’t.”

A grunt escaped Bakugou’s lips before he made his way to his closet, pulling out your outfit already packed in a large box. You smiled up at him, taking the box from him and placing it on his bed.

“Thanks Bakugou, I really appreciate it,” you warmly said while you opened the lid.

“What are you doing?” he asked with genuine confusion.

“Getting dressed.”

“Here?”

“Well, Midoriya offered to help but since he’s been put on the event committee I have to do it in your room.”

“So the nerd was going to dress you?”

“Do you want to help me?”

The look on Bakugou’s face was one of confusion, anger, and frustration - a fairly normal reaction for the most part. However, unbeknownst to you, he felt a flush of heat wash through his cheeks. This was never discussed between Midoriya and himself when he agreed to hold onto your outfit for tonight. In fact, the getting dressed part was never mentioned. His thoughts held his focus until he glanced your way, already stripping off your shirt.

“Wait a goddamn minute, Lightweight!” He yelled, stopping you from stripping any further. “At least, let me turn my back on you.”

You soon found Bakugou’s back indeed turned to you, looking out his window instead. You couldn’t help a small giggle before you walked up to him, grabbing hold of his wrist. “I just need your hand on my shoulder,” you reassured, placing his hand across the crook of your neck. “Just ground me. I won’t take long.”

Bakugou grumbled under his breath, but still kept his eyes outside of his room. Every movement you made caused his fingers to slip on your skin, feeling the tension in your muscles. He figured you had that backpack on for some time to keep you from flying away, but he also felt something else other than that. The short amount of time you spent with everyone downstairs gave him an odd feeling. Even the elevator ride up to his room was tense. Bakugou knew he hadn’t been keeping contact whether at the agency or on call, but today he saw something that you wanted to say.

It bothered him.

“Okay, you can let go now,” you said, allowing Bakugou to release his fingers and turn around to see you now fully dressed in your attire. What surprised him the most was that you were on the ground without any apparatus to hold you.

“Bracelets,” you explained, showing off metallic braces on your wrists. “And anklets. It took a while for support to come up with something practical for social outings.”

“Um… you look… good,” he complimented, taking you by surprise.

“Thanks, I’m glad you think so. Anything that’s good for Lord Explosion Murder-“

“Shut it with that name! It’s Great Explosion Murder God Dynamight!”

You giggled again, finding the joy of pushing his buttons sometimes before you noticed the time - close to the ETA.

“I’ll see you tonight, God Dynamight?” You asked with a smile. All you received was a scoff, enough of a response from Bakugou before leaving his dorm room and heading for the elevators. On the way, you walked past Todoroki, greeting with a quick hello before disappearing into the elevators, eager for the night to start.

Bakugou couldn’t stop this feeling that had him aloof and frustrated. He had tried to tell himself otherwise, focusing on his studies and his credentials to become a certified Pro-Hero. But with every phone call, every text, every passing moment he saw you, something stirred. It felt good, but it was wrong. You were with someone else - that Management student - that he knew did not treat you with the respect you deserved. The number of late night phone calls were proof of that, and yet, you still stayed with the man.

He couldn’t fathom your choice. And he hated it.

“Are you busy?” Asked Todoroki by his open door.

“Does it look like I’m busy?” Spat Bakugou.

“No.”

“What is it, Icy-Hot?”

“Are you going to do something about it?”

Bakugou eyed the dual-haired man, filled with anger from his thoughts, but silent without a scoff or a grumble. “What’s it to you?” he questioned with a sneer.

“We all know he’s bad news,” continued Todoroki. “Nepotism at its best.”

“Look who’s talking Half-and-Half, son of the Number One.”

“The point is that he’s rotten, never worked a day in his life, and was given a silver spoon. All signs of an arrogant, spoiled, hand-fed individual. And he doesn’t deserve them.”

Bakugou turned his glare onto Todoroki, noticing the seriousness in his eyes before he walked away from the door, leaving Bakugou with his last words. The blond stood in his room, contemplating on Todoroki’s words and the number of conversations to and fro about this feeling. He knew that the Management student was a bad egg, someone undeserving, yet he knew he couldn’t actively try to convince you. Even though he had time and time again called your beau a moron, it wasn’t enough.

For once, he hated not being direct over these years.

He grumbled while he rummaged through his closet, pulling out the outfit Kirishima had picked out for him for tonight. Perhaps seeing you later would ease the tension headache that persisted.

——

Night fell across the sky with the dying light of oranges turning into purples and the stars twinkling in the clear. The number of students that made their way to Gym Gamma came in waves, including the Hero students who came as a group. Despite his friends trying to persuade him to join, Bakugou advised he needed some time to get ready, earning a teasing jeer from Kaminari. Bakugou cared less about what words were shared, preferring to keep himself hidden after a majority of students had made their way to the prom planned for their graduation.

He was left to his thoughts, hoping that you had already made your way to Gym Gamma with your date for the night. He didn’t want to see that picture of you in his arms, knowing you chose him. That frustration brewed, coming to terms with his want of asking you to the event for months, and not going through with it.

After some time to his thoughts, Bakugou made his way, walking alone on the grounds of Heights Alliance. The quiet was deafening despite the loud music catching his ear ahead in the auditorium. He felt trapped in this emotional limbo, desperately needing to do something to satiate his need to see you. Pulling out his phone, he located your number, immediately texting without any hesitation.

I’m expecting a dance.

He smirked, feeling some sense of pride in himself, and hopefully reprieve from his own emotions until the sound of a phone caught his ear, one that immediately received a text. Bakugou stopped, turning towards the entrance of the school lecture halls, past the shoe lockers that lined the room. The closer he made his way, the louder the sobs, finding your cries echoing in the empty halls.

“Lightweight?” He called, catching your attention before you quickly tried to wipe away the tears that stained your cheeks.

From around the corner of the stairwell, you found him climbing towards you, his red eyes glaring at the sight of you sitting on the stairs, leaning underneath the railings.

“What did he do?” He quickly snapped.

“Nothing,” you spoke through your tears, attempting to calm yourself down. “He did nothing.”

“Like hell he didn’t!”

“No, Bakugou, just-“

“I’m gonna kill him.”

You saw a rage unlike anything you had seen in the blond. Despite your emotional state, you had gotten used to Bakugou’s anger, even understood it. But this was almost unspoken of, seering through his very core. Bakugou lost control. His own emotions spilled upon seeing you torn and worn, used and spat out as opposed to how happy you looked hours ago. Whatever frustrations he held, they were unleashed with a furious rage.

“He broke up with me,” you admitted, gaining Bakugou’s attention from the whirlwind of emotions he felt. “He didn’t want me to drag him through the mess that I am. I didn’t save enough. I wasn’t fast enough. I couldn’t-“

You held your head in your hands, trying to keep the tears at bay until you felt large hands grab hold of yours, pulling them away to reveal yourself to Bakugou, his eyes glaring into your red sore ones.

“What the hell are you talking about?” Asked Bakugou, his voice painted with a calm tone despite his gruff voice.

“… am I a Hero?” You asked, sniffling while your eyes looked away from his. “Am I good enough?”

Bakugou was surprised and yet confused by the question. He was still trying to understand his own feelings, this abrupt need to protect you everywhere you went despite your own independent and wayward nature.

“Five. I only saved five in two hours,” you continued. “And there were more bodies-“

You stopped your breath, holding your tears back from the thought, before the realization dawned on Bakugou. He had kept up with the news recently, a way to pass the time while waiting in his room earlier that night. An incident occurred in Musatafu involving multiple cars in a massive crash, and he recalled the body count.

He held onto your hands tightly, now realizing your hesitation to speak or start conversations. It would’ve been at the forefront of your mind, only masked by the smile you had all day for UA’s graduating classes. The next thought to follow left a bitter taste, wondering what that Management student must have said to you to think this way. With what Todoroki and he had discussed earlier that day, Bakugou could only fathom the disgusting nature of your interaction with someone who looked down at failures.

Tears continued to well up in your eyes. They wouldn’t stop. You couldn’t until you felt a large pair of arms hug you close, pushing you against the stairs but closer to his chest, engulfed in his embrace.

“You’re more than good enough,” whispered Bakugou in your ear, comforting your head against his shoulder. “You don’t need my approval or anyone else’s for that matter. You make that choice for yourself. You’re smart, you have common sense, half the time, and… you’re one of the few people I can talk to.”

He pulled you away, his eyes now glued back on yours while you stared into his, swallowing the words you just heard moments ago.

“He doesn’t deserve you,” he slowly started. “You deserve better than that trash. You know I already call him a moron, because he is one. You-“

“You ground me,” you interrupted.

“What?”

“You’ve always grounded me Bakugou. You’ve kept me close. You’ve always looked out for me. Why?”

Bakugou choked, wondering what to say, almost feeling like he was cornered, surrounded by the emotions that had been drowning him for months. Was it right? Was this the moment?

“I’m sorry I asked,” you quickly quipped, trying to stand before you felt yourself pull back into Bakugou, his lips crashing into yours. It was a light kiss, despite the rush into it, almost hesitant on its touch before you eased into his rhythm. He was warm, tender, and it lit a spark that you wished would never stop while you held onto his neck. He pulled away slowly, caressing your cheek and embracing your breath on his, feeling every part of you while you sat by the stairs.

“You’re worthy to be a Hero,” whispered Bakugou. “And I’m proud to have you stand with me out there.”

“I’m worthy to be next to God Dynamight?” You asked with laughter breaking through your tears.

“Yeah, yeah, go ahead and laugh.”

Whatever sadness that broke your heart was mended in that moment, by none other than Bakugou of all people. Still, for all those moments the both of you shared, you felt a bond with him, one that incited jealousy from a growing toxic partnership. He was an explosive light that brightened the dark. He was the warmth that healed the pain.

“Still, the God Dynamight will always keep me grounded,” you continued with a smile. “Starting from zero.”

“Just call me Katsuki, dumbass,” he inferred with a growl, causing another giggle to erupt from you. “How about you come to my graduation prom with me, Twinkle Toes?”

Today was meant to be a simple day, but it wasn’t simple at all. It was more than that.

It was the start of something wonderful.

[shimmershae]

So.  I have some more thoughts.  Shocking?  Yeah, I know, lol.

Let’s see if I can figure out how to purge what’s inside of my overactive brain and have it make some semblance of sense, shall we?  

Hmm.  

Where to start, where to start?  

Okay.  So I think it’s safe to say that the flashbacks pretty quickly establish that Daryl has essentially been set adrift.  He’s been cast back, in some ways by his own choosing, into a solitary searching life that speaks to his past.  He has no anchor anymore, no touching stone--whether that be Rick, who’s presumed dead, or Carol, who’s chosen by default to leave him behind and try to make a new family in Ezekiel and Henry.  

That’s important.  Because until this season?  Until he really matured and assumed, grudgingly or otherwise, the mantle of leadership of the communities?  

Daryl was a follower.  He took his cues from other stronger personalities.  Other people more quick to voice and own their opinions, right or wrong.  Like Rick.  And Merle before him.  

That’s not to say Daryl hasn’t had anything of value to say or add to the communities or to his relationships.  He has and he did.  Remember back at the Prison how Carol told him he was going to have to live with the love?  Daryl was just beginning to find his voice, so to speak.  He was emerging, even if they were only baby steps at first, from other seemingly more formidable shadows, and learning even then how to be more of a leader that people looked up to even if he was still content to be a follower.  

Being a follower was what he was comfortable with and I’m making some assumptions here, but I’d wager that in his abusive past with his old man, in that household first with Merle then on his own, being a follower and sticking to the safety of the periphery is probably what kept him alive.  Being a follower minimized conflict then, I’m sure.  Being a follower when he met up with and eventually connected with Rick and the rest of Team Family was probably the safest way for him to make emotional connections.  

I’m rambling.  I know it and I’m sorry.  It’s what I do.  Ramble, lol.  

Here.  I’m going to place the rest of this underneath a cut because I got more winding words than I have wind and most of ya’ll have patience.  

With Rick gone, with Carol off trying her damndest to live a fairy tale, Daryl floundered.  For all intents and purposes, he was left without any direction, nobody to take his cues from emotionally or otherwise.  

I mean, he literally made ever-widening circles searching for Rick, didn’t he?  Circles have no end point.  They have no real destination.  Not really.  Daryl essentially lived in a spin cycle of pain and regret and inability to really and truly connect with anybody during those years spent searching for Rick--especially since the person he arguably felt closest to and most comfortable with, Carol, basically decided those past connections Daryl was so desperate to find again were too painful for her and attempted to move on.  

He wasn’t emotionally equipped to or stable enough (perhaps still internally dealing with his anger and angst over his torture and imprisonment by Negan at that point in time) to put in the hard work to reestablish those fraying bonds on his own and the man basically lost the plot.  His world narrowed down to this latest search.  This search for a body.  For closure.  For a new purpose perhaps?  

And you know, the man had to be tired.  In some way or another?  He’s probably been searching his entire life.  It’s kind of what followers do.  They look for meaning outside themselves because they don’t feel like they’re enough.  

So then Dog, in the form of this happy, accepting, affectionate puppy appears out of nowhere.  He’s a welcome distraction and knowing Daryl’s propensity to try to reunite the lost with those they love, he started a new little search.  

That led him to Leah. 

Leah, who was alone.  Like him.  Leah, who knew how to survive.  Like him.  Leah, who was stuck in a place of grief.  Like him.  

Leah, who--and I don’t really feel like I’m going out on too far or precarious limb here considering how many parallels they literally slapped us in the face with during this episode--reminded him of someone he felt he couldn’t have, not even her friendship anymore because by her choosing to ‘be there’ for Ezekiel and Henry and the Kingdom she was always leaving Daryl behind and that’s a pattern we’ve all long suspected has really caused hurt for Daryl even if he’s long ‘accepted’ and dealt with it with stoicism.  

Boy, they really blew the lid off that issue didn’t they?  Oh, it was done rather quietly and in a surprisingly controlled manner, but the hurt it caused?  The tears and emotion it elicited was brought about with an almost surgical precision that stunned Carol, but I digress.  

My point is?  Daryl?  Innate follower that he is?  Daryl had grown accustomed to the human connection he found with Team Family.  He was never 100% comfortable with it but he missed it.  He craved it.  And Rick?  Well, deep down Daryl knew the likelihood of finding his ‘brother’ was minimal.  And with Carol pulling away and putting more and more distance between them--how deep and wide was that river, ya’ll, before the episode was done? when it started off looking like a small trickle of a stream?  how wide was that chasm these two idiots in painfully unspoken love allowed to be formed between them?--essentially the two closest people to him were lost to him, leaving him lost.  

So he stumbles upon this woman who is very reminiscent of people that he’s known.  He’s figured out, even though he keeps trying to buck the trend, that you really can’t make it alone in the world anymore.  And when she shows him some small measure of trust by letting him go?  That part of him that didn’t want to be alone kept drifting back into her sphere.  

Now I’m not going to go so far as saying Daryl fell in love with this Leah.  Because, shipping biases aside?  I really don’t feel like he did.  

Daryl found solace with Leah.  

Companionship.  

Remember another time when Daryl was lost?  When he felt he had failed another member of his family? Lost what he thought was the last of his family?  How alone he was at a crossroads when Joe’s group of Claimers came along?  

I’m not equating Leah with the Claimers in any other way except saying Daryl was in a similar headspace when he met her, okay?  Before anybody goes off on me.  I’m just saying that Leah?  She represented what Daryl felt was his one chance NOT TO BE ALONE.  

Daryl’s emotionally stunted, ya’ll. He’s made great strides, but trauma always seems to regress him.  Thankfully, it seems to regress him less and less as he really and truly matures, but it still has a habit of reverting him back to the Daryl we first met.  The Daryl we can easily see growing up in Merle’s shadow. 

When he threw that damn fish at her door, I literally laughed for ten straight minutes because that was funny as hell.  But honestly?  The more I thought about it, the more it dwelled in my mind?  The sadder it actually made me because here’s a grown man essentially trying to connect with another human being on an adolescent level.  

So much of what we were shown in this episode really just reinforced what I’d already suspected to be true--Daryl Dixon just doesn’t ‘get’ the basics of interpersonal relationships.  At least those that could be perceived as romantic.  For all that Carol mused it was like he had become a man back in Atlanta, during Consumed and their search for Beth?  That man is still very much trying to fumble his way out of the starting gate so far as pursuing a woman in any form or fashion.

This is just my opinion and we all know what they say about those, lol, but Daryl has longed for an even deeper connection with Carol since the Prison.  Maybe even before that. I think at the Farm his eyes were opened to her and he started trying to be a better person to match what he perceived as her goodness.  Before he even knew she wanted one, he was trying to be a man of honor.  Then stuff and thangs happened and shit, like Daryl once told Abe, just never settled.  Carol drifted out of Daryl’s reach because he wasn’t equipped with the emotional tools to really go after what he wanted--her in a deeper, different capacity than he’d ever wanted or asked for before--and shit, ya’ll.  If loneliness is a choice then Daryl Dixon was sick and damn tired of it.  

Do I think there’s even really a choice between Leah and Carol in Daryl’s mind though?  A true choice were he to absolutely, 100% realize and know that Carol’s heart was earmarked for him from the very beginning and that she’s suffering from the same delusions that she’s not good enough or deserving of him?  

Absolutely not.  

Leah knew that even if Daryl never divulged any specifics about Carol.  She knew the answer to her ultimatum before she even made it.  

And that ultimatum, ya’ll. 

Maybe it’s weird, but it put me in mind of when Merle pressed Daryl to make a choice between him and Team Family.  

Merle was blood family but like Carol and others said, he wasn’t good for Daryl.  

Leah might have offered Daryl some solace from his loneliness but ultimately staying isolated with her and not reconnecting with those he identifies as family is just as damaging as Daryl choosing to follow in Merle’s wake again.  Similarly to that situation, Daryl was clearly torn as soon as the words were out of her mouth.  

Between loyalty to family and unspoken love.  

In case there’s any confusion here, the unspoken love I’m talking about is his love for Carol.  He felt something for her back at that Prison.  Fight me.  He knew she’d be hurt by him going back with Merle, but obligation and family loyalty led him to make the decision all the same.  

Still. He knew she’d understand.  And she did, even if his choice hurt her.  

My thought is that this time?  At least initially?  Daryl didn’t completely separate his loyalty to family (searching for Rick) and his unspoken love (for Carol) when he made his decision.  They’re hopelessly entwined because Carol is a little bit of everything to Daryl--friend, family, the woman he loves and has been halfway in love with for so many years.  Initially, he chose the hope that both would come back to him if he just kept searching.  Because searching’s what he does.  From Sophia to Connie, he’s always searched in the hope of bringing the lost back to those that love them.  He’s always searched because nobody searched for him.  

Daryl is the ultimate lost boy who grew to be a man and still feels like he hasn’t been found.  

But how can he be found if the one person he wants to find him keeps running away?  

Daryl didn’t choose Leah.  

Not from his heart.  

Daryl turned back to Leah because he felt Carol slipping away to where he couldn’t follow her.  

If it can even be argued that Daryl chose Leah, it was by default.  Of course, he feels guilty.  Daryl wouldn’t be Daryl without guilt.  He wouldn’t be Carol’s man of honor.  

And he is Carol’s man.  

She may not be in the place to see it--YET--but she’s getting there.  She’s fighting hard against her natural inclination to run.  She’s trying.  She knows what she wants, even if she doesn’t believe she has the hope of getting it.  

Daryl knows what he wants, too.  He knows, once and for all, where he belongs.  He’s stopped searching.  He knows she’s right there.  There’s no more circles.  There’s just a final destination if he can convince the love of his fucking life to stop running from what they both want.  

He may have left that note for Leah, but you can’t convince this viewer that he didn’t write those words for Carol.  

And that’s all I got to say about that.  

For now anyway.  

Omigosh, lovelies.  

So sorry for the emotional word vomit but thank you so much for indulging me even if I did lose my original point somewhere up there, lol.    

[pride-moth]

If you were church, I'd get on my knees [Stolitz Week Day 4 - Wedding]

Ao3 Link

Event Info Link

The paparazzi are everywhere. They sit in the trees, in the windows of neighboring buildings, in the cars on the adjacent streets, some have even made their way onto the premises. They’ve been taking pictures of everything all morning. Of the seating area, the flower arrangements, the early guests, even the waiters. They’re prepared to fill the tabloids with the most scandalous wedding in hell. A Prince and an imp. The highest and the lowest. It’s gossip pages simply filling themselves.

They’re prepared for everything. Except for the ceremony not happening in the elaborately-staged venue. They will sit there for hours until dawn comes and there’s still nobody there, except the guests and waiters who have been roaming the place since the morning. “We’ve been duped,” someone will say eventually but nobody will have any idea what to do next.

Sometime in the afternoon, the real wedding congregation is happening in the I.M.P headquarters, with only a handful of people and a private wedding photographer. Everything is decorated in the crispiest shade of white they could find. It’s smaller and simpler than the fake venue they’ve coordinated, but it’s still stunning and gorgeous and perfect, and Stolas is slowly losing his mind in his little pre-room where Millie and Octavia are doing their best to keep him together. He picks at his white suit, wrings his hands and runs to the mirror every single minute to check himself.

“You need to calm down,” Via says, slightly exasperated considering Stolas hasn’t exactly been calm in hours, “Everything’s going to be fine.”

“What if it isn’t? What if the paparazzi come here? What if they find out? What if Blitz decides he doesn’t want to marry me after all?”

“Blitz is…” Millie says while fine-tuning her own hair, “Not gonna lie, I didn’t think he’d ever marry. Didn’t seem like the type. But he’s decided to marry you and that’s something, right. Plus, you’ve gotten married before, you know how it works.”

“That was so long ago, I scarcely remember.”

“The point is there’s no reason to be nervous, everything is going to run smoothly.” Millie gives him a hearty pat on the back.

“Weren’t you nervous when you and Moxxie married?”

“Oh, I wasn’t, Moxxie almost lost it, though. But do you know what I told him?”

“What?”

“That marriage isn’t that big a deal. We love each other before the big party and we’ll love each other after the big party, just with more tax benefits.”

“That’s not very romantic…” Via remarks from across the room.

“It’s true, though, isn’t it?” Millie shrugs. “You’re just having a big party to celebrate how much you love each other. And to get tax benefits.”

“Maybe.”

“So, don’t worry about it! Also, there’s no paparazzi, they’re still swarming the fake venue, Moxxie has CCTV on them.”

“Thank you, for organizing this whole thing, I just… Didn’t want to do this with the press present. It’s… I don’t know, it feels less special when everyone gets to watch, you know?”

“No problem, and now get out there and marry my boss!”

Stolas takes a deep breath and his daughter by his hand and walks out of the room.

He walks in with Blitz already waiting in bated breath, wearing a matching white suit that makes him look just obscenely handsome and when their eyes finally meet, it’s as though all worries fall off him in an instant. It’s going to be fine, Stolas thinks, maybe all of it is going to be fine. Forever.

“You look great,” he says shyly and takes both of Blitz’ hands.

“You are absolutely smoking hot,” Blitz responds. Stolas chuckles.

Next to them, Loona, their impromptu officiator, clears her throat to get their attention. “So, uhm, again, can someone explain to me why we’re doing this all proper and pseudo-Christian??”

“Because I like to spite the establishment which I’m marrying into. Also, Christian weddings have a very good aesthetic, we’ve been over this, now ask us for our vows, Loonie,” Blitz replies sharply.

“Okay, sure, uhm, vows please?”

Stolas breathes in deeply. “Blitz, when you came into my life, I never could have imagined standing here with you now. You were loud, abrasive, vulgar and… Well, you still are all of these things, but now I love you for it. Now I want to listen to talk about nothing and rant about your least favorite fruit all day. I want to hear your voice from morning to evening and I won’t tire of it. When I met you… I thought you would be nothing but a tiny speck on my night sky. Seen once, but quickly forgotten. But now I know you’re the brightest star of them all, always leading my way. I love you and I wish to always find my way to you.”

There is some sniffling in the room, though someone is probably also throwing up.

“Wow, okay. Dad, would you like to go next?” Loona says, then, her voice shaking just the tiniest bit.

Blitz looks around and takes a deep breath. “I’ve never been lucky with relationships before, they were… Yeah, they were all pretty terrible. And I didn’t even plan on having one with you for a long time, frankly. But… You know, sometimes you don’t really have a choice. You don’t want to fall in love with the weird bird prince. You just want to get his book and you have sex with him to do, but… It becomes more than that and that’s why we’re here now. Because I love you, even though it took me a long time to accept that. And I can’t wait to be married to you and rail you in the Hellton Hotel honeymoon suite.”

There’s an uncomfortable silence for a moment. A silent, disturbed “What?” comes from Octavia.

“What?! Do you think I’m not gonna fuck my husband harder than ever before in our wedding night? Fucking prudes.”

Loona clears her throat again. “So, uhm, right. Stolas, do you wish to take Blitz over here as your husband?”

“Yes, of course I do!”

“Great. Dad. Blitz. whatever. Do you wish to take Stolas here as your husband?”

“Hell yeah, let’s go!”

“Good, then blah blah something something by the power of whatever is going on here, I pronounce you two married. But please wait until after the party with whatever you two want to do to each other…”

“And…?” Blitz says.

“Oh, right, yeah. You may now kiss. As if you need my permission for that. ...Wait, we didn’t even do the thing with the rings yet!”

But they’re already kissing. And so they share this, their first kiss as husbands, it feels exactly the same as always in the best way possible. They’ve kissed before, hundreds upon thousands of times, and this time is no different, it’s an intuitive motion, a well-practiced one, carried out with pure trust and comfort.

And yet, it absolutely is different because that kiss now carries a promise. A promise for many, many years of more kisses, years of just them, together.

The party goes into the dead of night, people dancing and drinking all in celebration of their love, it’s an almost surreal concept. Octavia gets drunk for the first time and that’s a whole piece of work, but Loona is there for her, them being sisters now and all.

But in the Hellton Hotel honeymoon suite they’ve booked for the night, nothing much actually happens because they’re drunk and tired and exhausted, so all they do is cuddle up against each other in the gratuitous pink bed and fall asleep soundly, secure in the knowledge that there’s more than enough time for everything else during the rest of their lives.

The next day, the tabloids will be filled with only one picture, the one their own wedding photographer made, the one they actually want the world to see on their own terms. It shows them, in their matching white suits, Stolas with one hand on Blitz’ hips and a content smile on his face while Blitz has his tongue out and gives the camera the middle finger.

[the-edge-of-great]

can you do 14 with alex finding out that gay marriage is legal maybe learning about other wholesome lgbt+ progress since '95

(there’s a weird glitch or something on my feed where the ask isn’t showing, so just in case, this is for @lemonwilford)

so after finishing this, I have four tabs open for formal dresses, wedding venues, and lesbian wedding aesthetics on Pinterest AND I have an article from 1993 about gay rights (started as a reference but then it got interesting so really, it’s my fourth article)

in other words I kinda get obsessed and distracted with researching and referencing for anything that I write, so, TL;DR enjoy :)

also juke is totally established in this cause I said so

14. “That’s legal now?”

-------

“Ready?”

“Ready!” the guys call back to Julie. They’re in the studio, patiently waiting for the surprise she wanted to show them. She was eager about something when she came home from school and told them she couldn’t practice on Saturday. They might’ve been bummed had she not been bouncing with excitement. Alex had smiled fondly at her; excited Julie was his favorite Julie.

She promised to show them what was happening Saturday before leaving, and now they’re eager themselves.

Julie throws open both studio doors with a type of dramatic flare that Alex can respect. She saunters in wearing a gorgeous golden dress with lace shoulders, a sweetheart neckline, and a hem stops just above her knee, matching heels clicking across the floor. Her hair bounces against her shoulders: big and curly and gorgeous, like always. She’s wearing red lipstick, and her eyeliner is sharp and precise; Alex thinks it’s called a cat eye. There’s so much lingo he still needs to catch up on.

He meets her halfway with a grin and offers his hand. “You look beautiful,” he says, spinning her in a circle. She twists on the toe of her heel, and her dress flares. There are sparkles in the intricate design across her chest that glisten under the studio lights. Alex catches her around the waist when she stumbles to a stop.

“Yeah,” Reggie agrees. “You look amazing.”

Alex joins Reggie as Luke approaches. They share a knowing smile.

“Where are you going looking so good?” he asks, arms wrapping around her waist and pulling her close.

Julie beams at him. “A wedding for one of my friends from music class. Her moms are getting married.”

Alex blinks. “Moms?”

Luke frowns. “You mean… two women?”

Like a switch, Julie’s bright demeanor falters. She pushes against Luke’s arms, frowning as she breaks away from him. “Yeah,” she answers, eyeing each of them carefully. “Are you guys… okay with that?”

Alex makes a noise—somewhere between a scoff and a snicker. Okay with that? Of course he is. But confused? Yes. Very.

Reggie nods, chewing on his lip. He’s trying not to smile—Alex can see the corners of his mouth twitching. “Yeah,” he says. “Of course we are, we just—”

“That’s legal now?” Alex blurts.

A second passes, but Julie’s eyes widen with realization. “Ninety-five,” she mutters to herself, nodding slowly. “Right.” Louder, she explains, “Yeah, gay marriage was legalized, like, five years ago. Actually, a lot’s changed since the 90s.”

Luke snickers. “No kidding.”

“Oh my gosh, wait until you see Pride in June! LA has the best celebrations.” She shifts her weight, smiling sheepishly. “Not that I have experienced any outside of here to compare, but, you know what I mean. It’s so much fun! Flynn and I went with Sarah and her moms last year—Sarah’s moms are the ones getting married today.”

Julie is looking at him more than she usually looks at Luke—and she catches herself every time, quickly averting her eyes back to him and Reggie—which is really saying something. She can’t possibly know though, right? He certainly didn’t tell her. He knows neither Luke nor Reggie told her. Is it really so obvious, or could she perhaps… actually be a witch? Was Reggie on to something?

Alex rolls his eyes; he must be having an off day or something to really consider Julie being a witch and Reggie to be right.

“… Or not,” Julie says, rocking on her heels and twisting the ring on her finger. She’s looking at him again, much less sure of herself than before. Reggie and Luke are staring too; Luke elbows him in the side and glares.

“What?” Alex whines, pushing him away. “What are you—Oh! Oh, I wasn’t—I didn’t—” He shakes his head at Julie. “I wasn’t rolling my eyes at you! I just… had a dumb idea… Anyway, I’m sorry, what did you say?”

“She said we could go with her,” Reggie explains. “To the wedding, if we want to.” He raises his eyebrows knowingly. How come everyone is so knowing toward him all of a sudden?

“You should,” Julie persists. “Sarah showed us pictures of the venue today at school. It looks gorgeous in the daylight—I can’t wait to see it tonight.”

Luke grins. “Of course we’ll go.” He chuckles at the guys. “I mean, what else do we have to do?”

So, that’s how they end up in the outdoors of Orange County. The guys ride in the back of Ray’s car—apparently, ghosts can ride in cars. Flynn doesn’t carpool with Julie; when the girls reunite, she explains how her mom decided last minute that Flynn’s hair would look better in a bun rather than her regular braids.

They pose for pictures from Ray and the wedding photographer. Then Sarah, Alex thinks—a teenage girl with fair skin and copper red hair in a neat plait against her shoulder—rushes over with the biggest grin on her face. The girls gush over their outfits, the night, the decorations, etc etc. They’re cute; Alex shares a fond smile with Luke and Reggie.

“This place is pretty,” Reggie admits, turning in a slow circle to take in the scenery. They’re in a forest, surrounded by towering pine trees, and there are lights everywhere. Streams of globe bulbs are strung up from tree to tree, creating an arch in the center where a long, white rug leads to a stage filled with golden flowers. The sun was already setting when they left Julie’s house, so by now, the reception is a warm glow in an otherwise dark forest.

“Alex,” Luke mutters, as if anyone could actually hear them, and nudges his elbow into Alex’s side, “look around dude. Most of these couples aren’t straight.”

He noticed when they first arrived that men mostly stayed with men and women mostly stayed with women, but now that Luke has pointed it out, Alex is noticing that the guests are actually couples. A couple to their left is discussing the food. One man feeds the other a bite of a sandwich and gloats when his partner admits it’s actually not bad. To their right, two women are posing in front of the wedding photographer. One is kissing the other’s cheek.

“I think this is the most…” Alex pauses, trying to both find the right word and take it all in because, really, this is a lot. It’s a good amount of a lot, of course, but… These people are openly showing off their partners. They’re happy. They’re proud of themselves. And the straight people aren’t saying anything rude? No one is cursing at them? Claiming they’ve damned themselves?

“Alex?” Reggie asks softly.

“I know a lot is different from, you know,” Alex begins, “but I think this is the biggest change I’ve seen. I mean—” He gestures wildly at the scene before them. “This is legal! This is legal. It’s accepted. They’re just—Everyone is just—themselves! They’re themselves, and it’s okay.”

“I was gonna ask how you feel about it, but—” Luke shares a laugh with Reggie— “I think I have my answer.”

“I feel…” Alex rocks on his heels, considering his answer. He chews on his lip. “You guys will probably think it’s dumb, but—”

“You know we won’t think it’s dumb,” Reggie argues immediately. Alex glances at him. He’s giving Alex this look with a raised eyebrow, like he can’t believe he would even think that. Which is valid, you know, because they’ve never been anything less than supportive of Alex. Of course they haven’t; he really lucked out in the friend department.

“I feel safe here.” He shoves his hands in his jacket pockets. “Like when I could finally leave my house to go to practice, and I knew none of you guys would judge me if I told you about a guy that I thought was cute.” He finds Julie in the crowd, chatting with the lesbian couple he saw earlier, posing for pictures—selfies—with them and laughing when the woman’s partner hid bunny ears behind her head. 

Alex rubs the back of his neck. “I just… don’t think I could’ve imagined feeling safe around people who aren’t my friends.” He finally turns to Luke and Reggie, who are watching him with wide grins. Alex huffs a laugh. “Stop looking at me like that.”

Reggie chuckles. He slings an arm around Alex’s shoulders. “We’re just happy for you, man.”

“Yeah,” Luke agrees. He hums. “Can’t wait to see what the whole thing with June is about.”

“Yeah!” Reggie exclaims. “D’ya think it’s a few days? A week?”

“We can ask Julie later,” Alex suggests.

Reggie snickers. “If she doesn’t stay with Flynn.”

Luke hums. “Yeah, I’m gonna… go convince her to stay home tonight.” He pauses to squeeze Alex’s shoulder before leaving them for the dance floor.

Alex suddenly steps away from Reggie. “I, uh… I’ll be right back.”

“Where are you going?”

“I just—I want to find Willie. I want to talk to him about something.”

“You’re really going to leave me third wheeling with jukebox over there?”

Alex snorts. “Jukebox? Have they approved of that name?”

“… They don’t know about it.” Reggie pauses, then adds, “And you’re not going to tell them.”

“I promise.”

Reggie chuckles. “You better. Now go, find your boy.”

He’s at the museum, the first place Alex looks. He’s just leaving actually—as soon as Alex arrives at the building, Willie is phasing through the door, about to skate down the street.

“Willie!” Alex calls. 

Willie steps off his board. He turns to him, and instantly, a smile spreads across his face. “Hey, Alex. What’s up?”

“So,” Alex says, stopping in front of him, grinning, “tell me about Pride.”

Willie’s eyes shine at the request, just as beautiful as the lights from the wedding. 

“I’d love to.”

[cblgblog]

So my issues with Irondad are well documented at this point, starting from their very first scenes. Specifically the utter tone deafness of Peter’s recruitment, by both Tony and the writers. Tony starts the movie being blamed for the death of a 20-year-old kid who was in the wrong place, wrong time in Sokovia. That accidental death that can be put down to negligence on his part, is pivotal to what happens next. So pivotal he uses it in his pitch for why the other Avengers need to sign the Accords.

Tony, midway through the movie, deliberately brings a 15-year-old child into this conflict. A child he blackmails into going with him, because if you don’t, I will tell your aunt.

Charles Spencer was an innocent civilian, wrong place, wrong time in Sokovia. He died. That tears Tony up, as it rightfully should. And yet, in the midst of his crusade about following laws and accountability, he lies to May Parker about taking her 15-year-old nephew out of the country and into a warzone. Ignoring some well-established laws about child soldiers.

Tony blackmailing a child who’s had his powers for 6 months into participating in this conflict makes no sense. Ever. It especially makes no sense in the context of Charles Spencer and his mother. Yet neither Tony nor the writers seem to comprehend this. Which is why Irondad has been bullshit from the start. Blackmail and kidnapping are not sweet, father-son moments, even if you ignore the fact, as the MCU wants to, that Peter had a father already, in Ben Parker. He has a loving adult parental figure in May Parker. Both of whom cared about him before he had spider powers that might be helpful to them.

All of this, I’ve said before, so have others. And then I realized that I actually hate Irondad more than I thought. That Feige and co. mishandled it even more than I thought, and why? Because of this.

We know the story. Peter was, supposedly, this kid Tony saved at the Stark Expo in Iron Man 2. Started out as a fan theory, and then was confirmed that yes, this is true, this is exactly what we intended.

Now, we know Civil War had different writers/directors than Homecoming or FFH did. We also know that, for all the lip service of, ‘It’s all connected,’ we know that the creatives in these different franchises do not always talk to each other, and that they often blatantly contradict each other.

Taking all that into account, acknowledging that…the dumbasses at Marvel did not think up the idea of Peter being the Iron Man 2 kid. They heard the theory, thought it was cool, then took credit for having meant that the entire time, yes, that was totally us.

We know this because it is never mentioned in canon. All those Tony and Peter interactions, all those times of yes, Mr. Stark, I just want to be like you, Mr. Stark, and Peter never mentions that? When Tony takes he suit from him in Homecoming and Peter says that he just wants another chance, wants to be like Tony, would he not mention that hey, you saved my life, Mr. Stark. You saved my life and I just wanted to be like you, and now I can be, now I can save lives like you, just please give me another chance.

If the Iron Man 2 theory were true, would he not say that? In FFH, when he’s all guilt-ridden, I didn’t save him, would he not mention that hey, he saved my life before I was Spider-man, before I was special, before I was anyone?

Now I know what you’re thinking. The Iron Man 2 thing isn’t that big a deal. It’s not a crucial thing. And you know what, you’re right. It isn’t, it’s just always annoyed me, in an eyeroll way, that the same people who couldn’t count properly between 2012 and 2017 (8 years later flashing in giant letters across our screens means that Homecoming was meant to take place in 2020), that these same people who let something so blatantly timeline breaking get through then took credit for a kind of cool, kind of clever fan theory. It’s annoying.

I’ve now realized, however, that it is far more than annoying to me. Because TPTB at Marvel did not think of that idea for themselves, but if they had, and if they’d run with that idea? If they had, it would’ve made Peter’s recruitment in Civil War so much more fucked up than it already is, but so much more interesting. So, so, so much more interesting.

I’ve talked about why Spidey’s own movies (as much as you can call them that given the level of Tony infiltration) prove that the theory isn’t true. Now let’s go to Civil War. Different writers, yes, but let’s talk anyway about why we can tell from CW that Peter was not that kid.

He gets home. May is like, look who it is, Tony Stark. Not, look who it is, the hero who literally saved your life. When Tony locks himself in Peter’s room with him (still fucking gross, Jesus Christ), Peter is just, nope, I got no idea what you’re talking about. That’s—no, I’m not a superhero, no. He’s defensive. He’s apprehensive. He’s trying to figure out what fresh hell this is. He’s trying to hide stuff from Tony. If this is the guy who saved him at the Stark Expo, why this reaction? Why not, oh my god, you saved my life, I thought I’d never see you again, not, not up close I mean. When Tony asks him to do a thing, why is it not, well yeah, duh , you saved my life, where do we start? Or even, okay, I don’t really wanna do this, but, you saved my life, I owe you?

So, nobody wrote a fucking word of any of Peter and Tony’s interactions under the theory that he was the Stark Expo kid.

But what if they had?

Tony shows up at May’s place. He does not know who Peter is, in relation to their “meeting” before. He’s expecting to have to do some level of smooth talk to get in here but, nope. May’s just, oh my god, you saved my boy’s life, come in, come in!

We don’t know for sure that Peter was orphaned by the time of the Expo, but if we base it on comics and prior films, he likely was. Most versions seem to have him fall under Ben and May’s care between 2 and 6.  O1’ birthday means he would’ve been around 9 at the Expo. So, more than likely, Ben or May or both were the ones there with him. They may credit Tony with saving their lives as well.

So, Tony starts the movie being called out by a grieving mother. Going down this route, we’re at the midpoint…and here’s a different mother telling him how great he is. How he saved the most important thing in her life. How if Ben were here (May’s wearing her wedding ring around her neck btw, you can see it in the scene), Ben would say the same thing. Shake his hand. Hug him.

Now, Tony’s got a sharp ass mind, when it’s not clouded with booze or drugs or the like. Since he wasn’t wasted at the Expo, there’s a good chance that, given some details, he remembers saving this kid. He remembers how small this little boy actually was. He remembers how light this kid was when he grabbed him. It was a few seconds in a long ass night, that he hasn’t thought about in years, but to May Parker, it’s everything.

So maybe at this point Tony’s rethinking this. He’s remembering that little boy, realizing how young he still is. He pulled that boy from danger. And now here’s this woman who invited him into her house, told him how her husband just passed recently, things have been hard, especially for Peter but God, he’ll love to see you. Maybe Tony’s rethinking this, coming up with a way out, when Peter shows up. And then, aw hell. The kid’s just a mess of excitement and shock, possibly tears…okay now it’s just gotten harder to make an exit.

Let’s pause here to say that May Parker is not fucking dumb (“Cut the bullshit. I know you left detention. I know you left the hotel room in Washington. I know you sneak out of this house every night.”).

May is not dumb. Letting the 50-year-old dude go into her nephew’s room with him, alone? Arguably dumb, even if it is Iron Man. Letting him grab the kid for some Stark…thing, and take him wherever Tony said he was taking him on 12 seconds notice? Even more arguably dumb.  CW as it’s written dumbs down May’s character for the sake of an already questionable plot point. Especially since she literally says she’s not a fan of Tony in Homecoming. Yes, her comment there comes after the “internship,” her noting Peter’s distraction and stress because of it. But still, it’s fucking weird that she’d let this man take her kid out of the country, alone, in CW. It makes her dumb for the sake of plot.

But if Stark saved Peter’s life not so long ago? It at least makes a bit more sense. He’s a hero. Peter literally wouldn’t be here without him. Why would Tony hurt him now?

So, back to the scene. Peter’s probably less paranoid about showing his stuff to Tony. Probably not spilling everything himself, but when Tony notices things, Peter’s probably less panicked over it, more willing to confirm. Yes, he’s got these powers, okay? And he hasn’t had them for long, but he’s trying to do good, like Tony. He’s trying to do the right thing, like Tony.

Now, this kid has such literal hero worship going, and he’s so damn inexperienced, he admits that. And Tony’s still got Charles Spencer’s mom in his head. He’s dead, Stark. And I blame you.

Can Tony really take this kid—actual minor kid younger than Charles was—take him and put him on the field against the goddamn Avengers? That woman out there with the dead husband and the ring around her neck, what’s he going to say if Peter gets hurt, or worse? Sure the kid obviously has skills but, can he risk another grieving mom?

So, maybe Tony’s rethinking this. Maybe he can still get out of this, improvise a Plan B. But then there’s a text from Nat or Ross. Where are you? We’ve only got a few hours, what’s the play?

Special circumstances, nobody in that group is really gonna fight to kill…it’s special circumstances, and he can keep the kid mostly sidelined.

This time, he doesn’t have to blackmail Peter. He doesn’t have to threaten to expose his secret. Peter’s willing, either because he genuinely wants to, or he feels he owes Tony a debt. So there goes the dick factor of Tony literally blackmailing a child. And the lack of questions Peter seems to ask about what he’s fighting for, the acceptance of vague answers, that’d also make more sense in this context.

In this version, Tony is both more and less of a dick. He’s doing less active threatening and manipulation…but he’s also being doubly manipulative. His genuinely good deed gives him an easy in with the Parkers. He’s playing on the credibility of an earlier, at least somewhat better version of himself. One who saved Peter Parker and hadn’t yet ended Charles Spencer.

Look, I won’t lie, I legit don’t know what I’m saying anymore, except that Marvel sucks for taking credit for a thing that they definitely do not have credit for. Which isn’t particularly new for them, and wouldn’t particularly matter if the thing they took credit for (and didn’t do anything with) could’ve offered some interesting story possibilities.

[novelconcepts]

Jamie & Dani short prompt- Online Dating au meeting online and being from bad past relationship. Thank u

This is probably a bad idea. It is, isn’t it? Almost certainly.

Why is she here?

Dani Clayton has been playing this particular set of thoughts--bad idea, terrible idea, why would you do this?--on repeat for three days. Ever since setting up that dating profile. Ever since realizing there isn’t much use in setting up a dating profile if you’re not going to use it. 

Oh, it’s all fun and games, building the thing. Find a photo that accentuates all the best parts of your face--Dani, after an hour of careful consideration, wound up going with one that accentuated her hair, more than anything, but she suspects the same idea counts. Then, the profile. What do you like? Teaching, long walks, new experiences, bad coffee. What don’t you like? 

Men, she’d thought, and snorted aloud into her wine before settling on: Deep water, accordion music, expectations, being called Danielle. 

A little more flourish, tipsy keystrokes, a casually-framed short-version of her life. Perfect. And then...well, then you hit the publish button, don’t you? You decide, for better or worse, to jump off this diving board and see just how far you can stand to swim before the energy gives out on you.

The faces appearing before her hadn’t been bad, certainly. Pretty, most of them. Interesting, a few. Still, she hadn’t swiped right on any--once or twice, because she’d forgotten which way meant yes please, but mostly because no one seemed quite...right. Which, she’d thought, was silly. The whole point of an app like this is to cast as many nets as possible and see what comes up. The whole point is to have fun. 

But every time she’d hovered over a promising image, a woman who likes dogs, or plays the violin, or goes rock-climbing in her spare time, she’d thought of him. Eddie. Who had taken one yes to a single date, and tried to make a whole life with her out of it. 

Eddie, who had taken her two decades to pull away from. 

What if the women here were the same? Not Eddie, exactly, but--presumptive. What if they believed a swipe-right was as good as a marriage proposal? What if she got bound up in conversation, and then a date, and then a relationship with someone else who just didn’t fit right?

Left. Left. Left. 

And then: the mistake.

She hadn’t meant to swipe right. Exactly. She hadn’t planned, maybe is the better way of putting it, on swiping right. She’d only wanted to look at the woman’s profile a little longer. Only wanted to inspect the facets this woman had put out on display with almost resigned simplicity. 

Some people, Dani had by now realized, wrote poetry and paragraphs to describe themselves. 

Jamie Taylor had bullet points.

“Gardener. English. Likes: Plants. Stories. Tea. Dislikes: Bullshit.”

The end. That had been quite literally the sum of it. Gardener. English. No bullshit.

But the picture, somehow, Dani hadn’t been able to look away from. Not because of carefully-arranged lighting, not because of a curated model-clean image--but because the woman appeared to have posted the photo almost under duress. It came in profile, as though someone else had done the job, her head turned toward the camera as if interrupted. Her hands were buried in a flower pot. Her clothes were simple--a tank top, a silver chain resting against the jut of collarbones, a pair of worn-looking jeans with holes in the knees. Her eyes--some fascinating color Dani couldn’t quite place--looked somewhere between amused and irritated. 

She looked real. 

Stupid, Dani thinks now--because that was probably the idea, wasn’t it? This woman, Jamie, had planned to look exactly this way. Real. Vexed at the idea of putting herself out there. Reluctantly available. 

It was a ploy, certainly--but one that seems to be working, because not only did Dani accidentally-not-accidentally swipe right, she found herself texting the woman. For hours. She’d expected much less, had figured this Jamie person would be as brief in text as she had been in bio, but...

Jamie had talked to her. Willingly. Teasingly, with more humor than truth, maybe, but with no sign at all that she was sick of Dani’s questions, bad jokes, nervous assessment that I really don’t do this, I honestly don’t get it. 

I don’t, either, Jamie had replied, and that had felt like enough of a reason to keep testing the waters. Enough of a reason to keep the conversation going back and forth, back and forth, until nearly two in the morning.

Shit, she’d said. I need to be at work in four hours. 

Shame, Jamie had replied, her tone already searingly familiar over text. Own your own business, make your own hours. Far wiser approach. 

I’ll make a note of it for when I found an elementary school, Dani had replied, laughing. She hadn’t said she’d already been in bed for an hour, the phone resting on the pillow beside her head so she wouldn’t miss the buzz of a new message. It had seemed perfectly reasonable at the time, with wine-warmed blood and the happy haze of good conversation. Jamie made her laugh. Jamie put her at ease. Jamie might not have been real, but she felt real, and that was good. 

Better than anything she’d felt in years, if she was honest with herself. 

Still, when the next day had come and gone with no message, she’d thought, Fair enough. Jamie had been good virtual company for one night. It was more than she’d expected to get out of this app.

Far more than she’d expected, particularly when Thursday night rolled around and her phone buzzed.

Teacher, yeah? No school on Saturday?

Correct, Dani had replied, as amused by the out-of-left-field text as she was irritated with how her stomach had flipped over upon receiving it. You have figured out the complexity of the American school system. 

I am a genius, Jamie sent back, followed quickly by: Drinks tomorrow night? 

Drinks. A thing that people do. A thing that adult people do for date reasons. 

She isn’t real, she’d thought, even as her thumb was punching back: How’s 8? Miller’s?

A mistake. Definitely a mistake. Because the app had been a lark, and the conversation had been too easy, and the fact that she can’t quite pick out the colors in Jamie’s eyes from a single photo is making her crazier than she’d like to admit. 

A mistake, saying yes. A mistake, suggesting the local pub-like establishment around the corner, whose beer-and-burger specials had kept her fed on too many evenings spent working late. A mistake, because once this goes south--as it’s absolutely bound to, as everything Eddie-shaped always has--she’s going to lose her favorite hangout in the deal, too.

And yet: here she is. Standing at the door, wondering if the outfit chosen for the evening festivities--tight jeans, pink blouse, hoop earrings--is too much or not nearly enough. 

What am I doing here?

Maybe, she thinks with mingled alarm and hope, she won’t even have showed up. Maybe it’s all part of the ruse: look approachable, look human and normal, look a little too beautiful in the most grounded way possible--then, cheerfully, invite a woman to drinks and just don’t show. A fun story for whoever comes next. Can you believe she thought I’d want to meet her after one night of texting?

“Dani?” 

English, Dani thinks with a sudden rush of heat. Right. Somehow, she hadn’t quite been prepared for the accent, which--coming out of this woman, draped with languid ease at a table--is truly a little more than Dani thinks she can handle just now. The accent, combined with the mess of curls dragged back from her face, and a dress sense that manages to be both casual and deeply attractive at the same time, is...

“Jamie,” she says, her voice a little lower, a little more hoarse, than is truly necessary. The woman pushes up from her seat, a small-framed figure in a black button-down, suspenders, ripped jeans. She’s pressing a hand toward Dani, offering a firm shake as though they are business partners, not an off-the-cuff bad idea of a date. “You look--”

“Never been here before,” Jamie says, almost apologetically. She gestures for Dani to sit before dropping back down in a sprawl that implies exactly the opposite of what her mouth is insisting. “Wasn’t sure about the, ah, dress code.”

“You--you did fine,” Dani tells her, wishing suddenly she’d gone for a dress. Or a  different human body altogether. She feels too tightly-strung, too anxious for the easy smile on Jamie’s lips. “Um. You’re very. In person.”

“Very,” Jamie repeats, a hint of uncertainty in her voice. “Is very American for wish I’d gone left, after all?”

“No. No. Absolutely not. That.” Bit too forceful, she suspects, judging by the smile spreading into a grin. “No, it’s just--your picture didn’t--tell me you’d be so...”

“Clean?” Jamie suggests innocently. She raises her hands, wiggling her fingers in a small wave. “Scrub up fine, when I need to. Seemed to call for it.”

“And you...sure did answer,” Dani says stupidly. “The. Call, I mean. I’m sorry, I really don’t do this often.”

Something seems to soften in Jamie, her smile less teasing as she leans across the table. “Hey, no worries here. Same person you were talking to the other night.”

Dani nods, embarrassed, and flags down a server. Drinks ordered, she draws in a deep breath.

“I mean, I haven’t done this in years. Or. Ever, I guess.”

“A first date?” Jamie asks. When Dani doesn’t answer, she adds in a knowing tone, “A date with a woman?”

“Both,” Dani says honestly. “My last relationship was--well, I mean, we were engaged--”

Jamie whistles under her breath, reaching up to scratch her head. “Blimey. What happened?”

“He’s...him.” It’s too much to go into on a first date, too much to explain, even though talking to Jamie over text had been so dangerously easy. “My best friend growing up, but that was...growing up.”

Jamie nods thoughtfully, tilting her chin in thanks when the server deposits two full pint glasses and a basket of fries on the table. “Rough time, sounds like. I can relate. My last relationship also did not go well.”

“Was he also a man who thought you’d be all too happy to quit your job and take care of a bunch of babies?” Dani asks, perhaps a little too bitterly for the occasion. Jamie flashes another grin, sipping her drink.

“She was a woman who thought I’d be all too happy to take the fall when she got busted for possession.”

Dani gapes. “Oh. Oh--I didn’t know--I’m so--”

Jamie shrugs. “She wasn’t wrong. I was nineteen, and deeply stupid. Live and learn, as the poets say.”

“Which poets?” Dani asks, smiling a little. Jamie’s brow furrows.

“John...Lennon, possibly? Hard to say. Anyway, relationships are a chore and a half, but the greatest people in the world tell me thirty is too old to play musical bedframes, so. Here we are.”

No bullshit, thinks Dani approvingly. For what little she’d put into her profile, Jamie evidently hadn’t been lying about that.

“You haven’t been in a relationship since you were nineteen?”

“In my mind, I was still in the relationship at twenty-four, when they let me out. She didn’t agree. Found out she’d been married two years, by then.” Something darkens in Jamie’s eyes for a moment. She sighs. “Like I said. Not my finest. But I am, as they say, a shining beacon of reform these days.”

“Now, when you say they,” Dani teases, grinning. Jamie nods decisively. 

“John Lennon. Definitively.”

There it is, thinks Dani, watching Jamie pop a fry into her mouth. There, the easy roll of conversation from the other night. As though they’ve known each other forever. As though two people who have thus far failed irrevocably at relationships make a perfect match.

Easy, she thinks. Don’t go wild, now. 

“So,” she says, when the comfortable silence between them has grown a bit too comfortable for the setting, “who are the greatest people in the world? The ones who tell you thirty is too old for...did you say musical bedframes?”

Jamie laughs. The ring of it curls gently around Dani’s head like a soft hand, a sound she’ll find herself replaying later with a skipping heart. 

“Not many willing to put up with a grump of my caliber, but Hannah and Owen fight the good fight. So long as I at least pretend to try.”

“Let me guess. They set up the account for you?”

Jamie makes a sort of gesture in the air with the hand not holding her glass. “Threatened to bury me in puns and children, respectively, if I kept putting it off. Owen’s still grumpy about the photo choice.”

“I liked it,” Dani says without thinking. Jamie raises an eyebrow.

“Well, you did swipe as much. Mind if I ask why?”

Walked into this one. Still, she doesn’t mind as much as she probably should, not with the genuine curiosity in Jamie’s eyes. “You looked--don’t laugh.”

“No promises,” Jamie says, but with the gentle tone of one who knows exactly how much to tease before it’ll hurt. The idea warms Dani in a way she’s not quite ready to look at yet.

“You looked real,” Dani says. “Like you weren’t going to play games, or waste anyone’s time. Like you just wanted to be happy in peace.”

“That is,” Jamie says, holding out a fry for Dani to take, “sort of the idea, yeah.”

There’s an almost puzzled cast to her smile, like she didn’t entirely expect this answer, and is pleased by it at the same time. That same sense from the photo sweeps over Dani now--that this woman is authentic, even if she’s not always shiny, that she’s kind even if not entirely clean. That she doesn’t have any interest in muddled expectation or living a comfortable lie.

“And me?” Dani asks. She doesn’t entirely mean to--but she’s sure, in asking, that Jamie will answer. Jamie is unlike anyone else she’s ever met, the first person she’s ever known to meet each question head-on. 

“Honestly?”

Dani nods. Jamie seems to consider it, turning it over in her head as she twists a fry between her fingers like a cigarette. 

“All of it.”

“That’s,” Dani begins to laugh, “that’s not--”

“No,” Jamie says, and she isn’t smiling, exactly. Her eyes have a sort of shine Dani likes very much, but there is no hint of teasing in them now. “Really. All of it. You’re...very pretty, and that’s--but the way you described yourself. Like you didn’t care to be anyone in particular. You like new experiences, and bad coffee. You hate being called Danielle. I...I wanted to know why.”

“It’s not my name,” Dani says simply. Jamie gives a brief laugh, her hand moving across the table to lightly brush Dani’s fingertips. 

“I wanted to know why all of it. Why do you like bad coffee--”

“It’s the only kind I know how to make,” Dani says automatically. “Just sort of leaned into it.”

“--and teaching--”

“I want to make a difference,” Dani says. 

“--and where you most like to go on those long walks--”

“Anywhere I can breathe,” Dani says. Her fingers are hesitant, tracing the tips of Jamie’s. There’s something electric about this, about barely touching, about barely knowing someone and still wanting to give them neatly-packaged secrets shaped like the mundane. 

Jamie is smiling. “See, that. I like that. All of it.”

It’s nothing, Dani thinks reflexively. A collection of details. A sparse approximation of a life. Eddie knows all of this, and then some, and never matched up to knowing her.

But this woman, leaning across the table with one hand outstretched, looks so different. Watches her with steady interest. Is listening to every word Dani says, though the bar is growing crowded around them, and soon, conversation will become a task instead of a gift.

“Would you,” Dani says, feeling certain that some mistakes are not as bad as they seem, “like to take one of those walks?”

“Tonight?” 

“Yeah. Tonight.” Emboldened by the smile, by the curl falling into Jamie’s eyes, by the knowledge that she still can’t quite make out what color those eyes are, Dani takes her hand. It’s so easy, she thinks she could do it even without looking. “Right now.”

No bullshit, she thinks. No expectations. Just Jamie looking at her like she can’t quite believe what she’s seeing. Dani can’t blame her. This isn’t at all what she’d thought she was getting, walking in tonight. 

But there’s something about it--something about the feeling that she’s been here before, or should be here forever, or will always find her way back to a woman who looks at her just like this--that almost makes her feel brave. Almost makes her feel wonderful. She rises from the table, laying cash beneath her half-empty glass, and feels a pleasant jolt in her chest when Jamie follows without another word.

If this a mistake, she thinks as they step out into the brisk evening air, it’s one she’s hungry to make. 

[the-lightning-strikes-again]

Yeah the Loki finale was meh/disappointing it doesn’t even feel like a Loki show anymore. I swear you could swap him with another character and the story would barely change.

Hi, anon! I'll put thoughts under a cut since idk who all has seen the Loki show yet.

Tbh, Loki is my favorite character from the MCU. I have waited for YEARS for this character to have an actual spotlight...

And I really wanted to like this show, I really did. Like, I legit wanted to just turn off my brain and enjoy everything?

But yeah, your message resonates with me. There were things I liked about the show, but once I got over the cool CGI and angst and female gaze, it just...feels like Loki got sidelined in his own story? The focus hadn't been about him specifically since episode 1. It instead shifted to Sylvie, who is different enough from Loki that she might as well have been Hawkeye still on his Endgame rampage for justice. And it was Sylvie's problems and Sylvie's motivations that drove the story. Which, you know, were interesting in their own way but not what I was expecting from a Loki show. A lot of scenes were just Sylvie running around and Loki somewhat helplessly following along in a daze that this is what his life has become. He was just ultimately a very passive character in someone else's story...because as the finale clearly showed, his core issues that needed to be worked out weren't in alignment with her own.

So it's sad to me that the show opened up by saying that Loki's destiny was always to function as a dead-end catalyst for other people's character development/journeys. And in the end, that's...exactly what Loki became for all the other characters in this show. ;A; And I'm not sure what they have going on for s2, but I fear he'll just play second-fiddle to Dr. Strange at this point.

I have other issues with the show as well....

___

I felt like they also massively declawed him? Ignoring the comics entirely (where he's even more badass) and looking just at the movies: He survived a Hulk smack-down, could toss humans like they were nothing, could travel between worlds through a variety of means, could already see into people's minds/memories and cast illusions and even change his form, and yet somehow all of this got retconned to make him a less powerful sorcerer compared to his Variants.

I remember this guy being actually dangerous and physically capable, which is why they locked him up. Loki used to have Avenger-level capabilities and strength. But now, he can't hardly fight off a human, and his defense skills are relegated to basic hand-to-hand combat and a dagger. The show even makes fun of his abilities and calls him a pussycat and turns him into a tie-wearing analyst...But I suppose that's in line with the general downgrade of his abilities in recent MCU movies...

___

And if being a sidekick in his own show and having his abilities retconned wasn't enough, I feel like the show failed to convince me that it really understood and is working to grow Loki's character.

The underlying issue that the show calls out as Loki's ultimate weakness is that he's "afraid of being alone," and that this feeds a narcissism complex. But this doesn't really make sense to me? Because he didn't grow up alone or unwanted. He had a mother (Frigga) who loved him deeply and taught him magic. He clearly made it into adulthood believing that Odin was his father, who certainly wasn't absent. He was always on adventures with his brother. He had clearly tried to build a reputation for himself that was differentiated from his brother's (the Silvertongue). This goes against how narcissists don't really have a personality of their own because they just absorb other people's mannerisms to fit in...So like, idk about parsing out the details of narcissism as a clinical diagnosis because I'm not a psychologist, but something feels a little odd here to me? Like, it's more than just...fear of being alone that drives Loki to be destructive? The loneliness is only a symptom??

The problem based off the early movies, providing that I'm not entirely an idiot in listening (which I suppose I could be), was that he was always in Thor's shadow and was never considered an equal, someone worthy of respect despite their differences. Even in the 2009 movie, his peers belittled his title as a Silvertongue and his love for magic. Discovering that he was actually an unwanted frost giant just twisted that knife in deeper and set him on a self-destruct path, once and for all. And it's really interesting to me that throughout this show, people are still constantly trying to establish themselves as alpha over Loki and make jabs about him as worthless and weak. And he's just desperate enough for validation to still try bonding with them the instant anyone tosses a bone of mild curiosity at him.

The fact that he's still positioned as less valuable and less respected than Sylvie, and that even Sylvie herself ultimately usurps equality in their relationship/partnership to enforce her will is just...depressing.

And for all this discussion about Loki changing/redeeming himself, at the end of the day, his perspective hasn't really changed? He still identifies himself as untrustworthy, even though he careens as a desperate lap dog for Mobius' approval and then Sylvie's once she gives him an ounce of attention. He has difficulty with accepting the value of a life, especially in regard to his own life. For example, he was still willing to consider upholding the death of future untold numbers via pruning despite being such a victim himself. And that's not a slam to his worry about a worse alternative, which is probably valid, but it's still weird that he does not believe he could contribute to a powerful resistance group capable of taking out multiple variations of one human man.

It's even weirder that he still seems to be caught in a tailspin regarding "necessary dictatorship," even though Loki is supposed to be a Silvertongue and could have won He Who Remains over as an ally against the other Variants of He Who Remains, thereby dismantling the TVA and freeing the multiverse. But unfortunately, he still can't see beyond two binary roads (mass chaos vs. subjugation). He has totally lost his confidence and identity as a Silvertongue. He can't see an alternative option despite supposedly being a Master Strategist, and that's echoed in how his initial thought to defeat Alioth was to kill it in a very Thor-ish, Asgardian way.

And because he has accepted the show's narrative that he is not capable or worthy of respect for his own unique talents, he openly just..accepts the concept that he's not meant to mean anything to anyone but himself ("I just want you to be okay") or do actually anything meaningful with his abilities. This probably underscores why he is so incapable of using his full powers for a Chaotic Good.

And for one final jab of hopelessness, the show immediately reverses the one (1) other mildly positive relationship he had just started to build via Mobius, solidifying that once again, Loki is not allowed to have friends. Loki is not allowed to have equals. Loki is not allowed to be respected. Which is probably why even when he's surrounded by other people, that's why he still feels alone.

I'm just sort of dead that for all the time the show spent on diagnosing Loki, it never got deep enough to ask why he feels alone.

Conclusion

So idk, the show just kinda depressed me tbh. I don't want to be this critical??? They have really great actors, interesting concepts, and clearly a strong CGI department. Again, not sure I could do better, so I recognize I'm playing armchair critic here. Maybe it'll get better in s2. I really want this show to prove me wrong and move Loki into a level of character development where he can like, actually have purpose in his own title show beyond serving as second-fiddle to other people in other people's self-discovery journeys.

Like please, just let him realize that he can have a positive, meaningful purpose. And that whatever his purpose is, that he is Enough just as he is, and that he can contribute meaningful things to others and be fully worthy of respect. And I think once that clicks with Loki, we'll see him really grow into something phenomenal. Something truly formidable, even if that character doesn't sit on a throne....

It's possible the show could go there? But I'm just a little leery that it's not really a show about Loki....

[1990jeevas]

Plesse tell me about queerness in the get down!!

okay okay queerness in the get down let's fuckn goooo

disclaimer: I havent watched this show in full for like 5 months at least, probably gonna get something wrong and/or forget some more important bits. also this wasnt proof read I just word vomited

tws: period typical homophobia, abuse mention, f slur use, bury your gays trope, overdose mention, mention of a creepy possible age gap (the age gap hasnt been confirmed so that's why its possible), cops

going from least to most prominent queer characters, let's start with mylene cruz!

so, from the beginning of this show she has an established romantic relationship with ezekiel (although the status of their actual relationship changes frequently throughout the show) and though this was a relationship she was hesitant to pursue, it is clear that she does have romantic feelings for him and if not for them both having growing careers in very different music genres (zeke specifically working in a genre that she repeatedly labels as bad because she thinks they're ruining records + that it isnt real music because they're using someone elses piece and rapping over it, that's not really important here tho lol) they probably wouldve had a much healthier, smooth sailing romance. that being said theres a few things that happen in the show that, while not explicitly clear, or even really good coding at that—to the point where you wont catch if you really arent looking for it (and trust me, I always look for coding, hers was just so little that it flew over my head until I saw someone else mention it)—are still cool to think about!

so, for starters, I wanna mention the toy box performance, which was performed by mylene and regina, who are best friends. that's all cool and shit, and you dont really think much about it...until you hear about the fact that the show runners purposely colored a lot of the scenes in that performance with the bi colors. like. the writers after the show ended basically said "oh yeah there was plans to make her coding more explicit, but our shit got cancelled soooo" and then dropped the fact that she was gonna be bi (or at least implies bi) in the series, which puts a new twist on a few things.

now, besides the bi coloring in the background of the toy box performance (which was mostly on scenes with her and regina, which involved a lot of uh,, lowkey lewd dancing. with each other. in very revealing outfits. wooooo), there's her music! I dont tend to read too much into this one bc, like I said before, her coding is fucking light and the writers themselves said they didnt really get to do much with it, but I think some stuff with her music is interesting. specifically how her, yolanda and regina's song set me free blew up because dizzee, resident (lowkey enby coded) bicon, got their song played in a queer club. also that the song was majorly important to dizzee and started playing literally right as he kissed a boy for the first time and realized "oh shit I like boys that's bonkers". also that the song can be taken in a gay way since literally the entire thing is about becoming your true self, fully and unapologetically, which is what both dizzee and mylene's entire character arcs are about. dizzee (and a lot of other queer people, apparently), heard this song about being set free and it resonated with them so much that they got that shit most of its popularity.

speaking of dizzee and mylene, they parallel each other a lot in the way that their arcs are about them realizing who they are, coming into themselves and no longer just letting people treat them like shit in a sense (dizzee starting to tell people essentially that they can call him weird all they want, they can make fun of how he acts, what he likes, how he dresses, etc. but he likes how he is and quite literally saying "it's okay to be an alien" as he has consistently compared himself to one throughout the show vs mylene learning that if she wants to be a disco singer she needs to put her foot down, not let anyone, not even the love of her life, not even her abusive father, stop her from achieving her dreams, etc. and continuing to pursue her career with or without their support). one more little parallel that I think is interesting is during I think s2 towards the end of the show is when dizzee and thor are shown together having fun with each other, painting all over the building and each other and are basically just being happy and in love together and then they have these clips of them being interspersed with clips of mylene at a party where she is starting to realize that if she wants to get anywhere she needs to be her own main priority and that she needs to put her career and her dream, which is what makes her the happiest, above all else if she wants to succeed. idk I just think how the show made these two into a weird parallel, accidental or not, is neat. maybe not an explicitly queer parallel, but I think at least how her music and whatnot helped dizzee, the main queer character in this show, blossom, is important.

moving on we got shaolin fantastic also known as "oh no your internalized homophobia is showing-"

so, heres a quick list of...interesting shao facts:

Consistently referred to as fag/faggot (shaolin fanfaggot is my personal favorite); he gets really defensive about this despite nobody actually thinking he's queer, it's just people being assholes to be assholes, and he is the only character consistently referred to using a slur, especially a homophobic one, especially for a "straight" character. dizzee, a canonically queer character, is called a fag less than shaolin is even though dizzee actively goes to gay clubs, has a not so secret dude he "hangs out with" and wont let anyone properly meet, paints his nails, wears less than straight clothes even by the 70s standards and is just all around the definition of fucking queer (and I mean like in the weird way, not the gay way). in fact theres only like once I can remember him being called a fag and it had nothing to do with him actually being gay it was literally just like thrown out there the same way you would call someone a bitch.

Has only shown sexual interest in women, yet refuses to have deeper relationships with women in general (possibly because of trauma but who knows) but takes his relationships with his "brothers", specifically zeke, very seriously

Tells zeke and zeke ONLY his real name when zeke was planning to stop being his friend bc shao more or less got boo boo, a like 14 year old black kid, arrested for selling hard drugs; he was clearly scared and trying to do anything to keep zeke around, literally chasing him down the street and hounding him until he got zeke to stop and argue with him

Kept threatening to beat up zeke in the end but couldn't actually bring himself to do so, instead saying that zeke is "fucking lucky" before walking away

Let's zeke get away with things that nobody else can, in general just has a weird soft spot for ezekiel that he shows with nobody else

when shao found dizzee with thor in a vaguely compromising situation (like they were just shirtless covered in paint sleeping next to each other but shao had also seen everything they painted on the walls ((which some of it was sus)), it was clear they had painted on each others bodies and dizzee had been routinely disappearing with this guy for weeks now yet not producing nearly as much art, at least, as far as we audience members know) he didnt judge him but instead, waited for him to get cleaned up and then told him something along the lines of "theres a reason why im so secretive blah blah blah [not everyone needs to know everything about me]", which, in context, kinda implies that he might be a lil. a lil homiesexual. jus a lil.

whenever even the possibility of zeke leaving him comes up he absolutely loses it. he has literally cost ezekiel life changing opportunities because he thought zeke would just up and leave him for them. this could be abandonment issues bc he's a severely traumatized character, and that probably does contribute to it, but it also is just not a reaction he has to any of their other friends just randomly dipping in and out of his life soooooo

generally speaking, this mfer has got either bisexual with a big hard on for zeke coding or homosexual with terrible internalized homophobia and still a hard on for zeke coding. either fucking way, that nigga gay. he gay as hell. gay as fuck man. there wasn't really much to analyze here tbh bc the coding is just so fucking obvious if you look for it or you are/have been a gay person who's dealt with at least a little bit of internalized homophobia.

also, just a sidenote, idk how fucking old shao, but I'm praying hes like at max 19 bc I'm pretty sure zeke is a minor in this show and shao definetly is not so the whole him being heavily implied to have a crush on ezekiel thing is kinda. oof. not oof if zeke is like 17 but any younger than that? OOF.

edit: apparently the characters are only supposed to be a year apart in age but i had no clue about that before writing this post and since shaos age was never actually stated in the show i naturally assumed he was an adult since his actor Looks Like An Adult. this is definetly on me to a certain extent, but i also never saw anything about this when trying to find our their ages so 🤷‍♀️ maybe i just didnt look deep enough, sorry!

now moving on to the main event...marcus dizzee kipling :]

so, first things first, let's talk enby coding bc him being bisexual was already confirmed!

um, to start off, I just wanna say I dont think this enby coding was intentional or even really coding, it's just moreso me being a dizzee kin on main and knowing as a transmasc enby he has very transmasc enby vibes. for example:

cool, gender neutral nickname that everyone calls him

paints nails various different colors

the whole wardrobe is just a transmasc enby heaven...fishnet shirts, jean overalls, jackets and cuffed pants galore, the big colorful pins, etc

gender neutral hairstyle (when I had my fro it was very sexy and made it easy to transition between hyper masc and vaguely fem, which is pog)

comparing himself to/representing himself consistently with an alien character (though this is meant to represent his sexuality, it could also double as a gender thing too, not neccesarily bc of the whole nonbinary alien trope but bc an enby who likes aliens might heavily identify or compare themselves to whatever their idea of an alien is, whether that just be a genderless entity or a motherfucker with fly style and no need to be perceived as anything other Wacky As Hell)

moving on from there, let's talk about how his queerness is presented to us and how, while it may be a really good piece of representation, especially coming from netflix, it still lacks in A Lot of places.

so, let's start with good things!

i personally really like the get down's queer rep with dizzee bc it's (for the most part) nonsexualized and very very soft, about dizzee figuring himself out and realizing there is a place where he fits in, and about two teenagers in the 70s falling in love over their shared passion for street art. it also features an interracial couple where both boys challenge stereotypes both about queer men and men of color, which is epic poggers and very sexy. this piece of rep specifically is very important to me bc I am a queer black person and even tho interracial relationships are mostly normalized now, I've still had people give me shit for primarily dating white people in a town that is...primarily white lol

mm anyways, I can also appreciate how in the get down, dizzee being represented by rumi the alien is not a thing specifically related to gender (as it often is) and instead is about his sexuality and just in general weirdness and how it has led to him being alienated amongst his peers, poc or otherwise. him seeing himself as an alien is not about just his queerness, which is important, it is about him being a queer black man who talks different, acts different, dresses different and is "soft"—he isnt a walking black male stereotype and he wouldnt have been seen as masculine back in the 70s by any stretch of the imagination. this can be relatable to a wide spectrum of queer poc, from queer black men currently who still have to deal with this shit or to people like myself who are afab neurodivergent mixed race enbies that have always been signaled out as weird and alienated for it. dizzee is god rep bc while he has a small part in this show, his parts are very impactful, hard hitting and show queer poc of all ages that they arent alone and that it's okay to "weird", you just need to embrace it because somebody will love you for you, as thor did for dizzee.

that being said theres um. some minor problemas here,,,

namely:

dizzee and thors first kiss

the lack of development this pairing got

the way dizzee was confirmed bisexual off screen, he never said the words himself, just showed interest in both genders

the way dizzee and thor were never even confirmed boyfriends or just fwb so most of the fandom just calls them boyfriends bc Why Not

dizzee was implied fucking DEAD??? AT THE END OF THE SERIES?????? AND THOR WAS IMPLIED ARRESTED?????????????

now, these might have been things that wouldve been fine had the show been given it's full run but it wasnt which is why we are now left with probelms.

so, from the top, let's go over these: dizzee and thor's first (and only "on screen") kiss was one that was shown in a montage of other queer people making over and doing other vaguely romantic/sexual things, one of those things being a whole ass naked titty being mouthed at, but the actual kiss...was just not shown? like they really did just say "yes they kissed <3 you know this from the context clues of it being in a montage with kissing, hickey giving and titty sucking <3 but no we will not show it <3" LIKE HELLO? I SAW A NAKED BOOBIE BUT NOT TWO MEN KISS??? HUH????????

also, dizzee and thor were both fucking high as hell during this bit like this isnt a terrible thing but it's also like sometimes you do shit when you're high that you wouldnt do sober and they just never kissed again on screen so like?? like idk that's not that bad but it does kinda irk me since they deadass got no other on screen intimacy after that unless you including painting on eacher other or sleeping next to each other on a shitty mattress but not touching at all during it bc they were both at opposite ends of the mattress like half way off it

so yeah, that was trash. then we got lack of development, which kinda goes with the "dizzee being a bisexual but he never says it in canon" thing cause like...okay dizzee was already sort of a side character from the get go like he wasnt the mc by any means, but he became way more of a background character as things continued until we basically only saw him for performances or when he was with thor, yet they got no fucking development as a pairing other than "dizzee realize he gay, he like thor, he and thor spend time together and ig probably do some gay stuff but we dont really know bc we only ever see them do graffiti together now" like?? tf am I supposed to do with that shit. answer. quickly. and then theres dizzee not being confirmed bisexual, which is just a running problem with shows literally doing everything to say a character is bi except for having the character just...say they're bi? which would be so easy? like a good way dizzee and thor couldve had some development is by thor teaching dizzee things about the queer community that he didnt even know existed, thor couldve helped him understand what being bi meant and helped him label himself and whatnot but instead we got an off screen confirmation that the writers had bisexual in mind when writing him. which is garbagé.

the whole thor and dizzee never having a confirmed relationship status is also a development problem cause like literally nobody knows if they were just friends who made out, maybe fucked, who knows, or if they were dating bc dizzee does give a love confession but a love confession doesn't mean there is a relationship, especially since thor didn't say he was in love either (as far as I remember, I could be wrong, plus whether or not that really happened or was apart of dizzee literally overdosing during a performance is unclear so 🤪)

and now for the biggest issue...bury your gays trope.

during the season 2 finale, dizzee and thor are chased by cops after they are found doing graffiti, one of the cops is able to catch thor while the other chases dizzee into a train tunnel and there is a train seen headed straight for him before the show cuts to black on a train horn. the show writers claim that if they had gotten another season, dizzee wouldve been alive but since they didnt and since that's essentially super fan trivia knowledge, most people dont fucking know that and instead had to watch a black queer teenager chose death over being fucking arrested by a white cop. on top of that, thor didnt see any of that shit because he was caught and the cop started hauling him off while dizzee was still being chased so thor literally has no clue where his friend/possible boyfriend fucking is or that he's likely dead in a goddamn tunnel all alone, unless you count the fucking pig that chased him in there who wouldve died too. this shows rep was so fucking good as far as most shows go on not having major fucking problems, on not being toxic and over sexualized, etc, etc. and then they just. killed a black queer teenager for no fucking reason. like it was literally the last episode ever, it would add nothing to the plot, it would just devastate fans and devastate it fucking did. I dont cry easy but seeing a character I identified with, who I had hyperfixated on, die because he'd rather that than be arrested is terrible. it fucking sucked.

so yeah. that's my all too extensive thoughts/analysis on the get down's queerness. theres definitely stuff I missed, or misinterpreted, or looked too much into, etc, etc., but this was a fun thing to spend time writing sooo yeah!! thanks for the ask anon, sorry this was just a big rambley info dump, but hopefully you get some enjoyment out of it since it took like 3 hours at least 😭😭 feel free to ask clarifying questions lol