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thewriteadviceforwriters · 2 months

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25 Prose Tips For Writers 🖋️✨ Part 1

Hey there!📚✨

As writers, we all know that feeling when we read a sentence so beautifully crafted that it takes our breath away. We pause, reread it, and marvel at how the author managed to string those words together in such a captivating way. Well, today I'm going to unpack a few secrets to creating that same magic in your own writing. These same tips I use in my writing.

But before I begin, please remember that writing is an art form, and like any art, it's subjective. What sounds beautiful to one person might not resonate with another. The tips I'm about to share are meant to be tools in your writer's toolkit, not rigid rules. Feel free to experiment, play around, and find what works best for your unique voice and style.

Power of Rhythm 🎵

One of the most overlooked aspects of beautiful prose is rhythm. Just like music, writing has a flow and cadence that can make it pleasing to the ear (or mind's ear, in this case). Here are some ways to incorporate rhythm into your writing:

a) Vary your sentence length: Mix short, punchy sentences with longer, flowing ones. This creates a natural ebb and flow that keeps your reader engaged.

Example: "The sun set. Darkness crept in, wrapping the world in its velvet embrace. Stars winked to life, one by one, until the sky was a glittering tapestry of light."

b) Use repetition strategically: Repeating words or phrases can create a hypnotic effect and emphasize important points.

Example: "She walked through the forest, through the shadows, through the whispers of ancient trees. Through it all, she walked with purpose."

c) Pay attention to the stressed syllables: In English, we naturally stress certain syllables in words. Try to end important sentences with stressed syllables for a stronger impact.

Example: "Her heart raced as she approached the door." (Stronger ending) vs. "She approached the door as her heart raced." (Weaker ending)

Paint with Words 🎨

Beautiful prose often creates vivid imagery in the reader's mind. Here are some techniques to help you paint with words:

a) Use specific, concrete details: Instead of general descriptions, zoom in on particular details that bring a scene to life.

Example: Instead of: "The room was messy." Try: "Crumpled papers overflowed from the waste bin, books lay spine-up on every surface, and a half-eaten sandwich peeked out from under a stack of wrinkled clothes."

b) Appeal to all five senses: Don't just describe what things look like. Include smells, sounds, textures, and tastes to create a fully immersive experience.

Example: "The market bustled with life. Colorful fruits glistened in the morning sun, their sweet aroma mingling with the earthy scent of fresh herbs. Vendors called out their wares in sing-song voices, while customers haggled in animated tones. Sarah's fingers brushed against the rough burlap sacks of grain as she passed, and she could almost taste the tang of ripe oranges on her tongue."

c) Use unexpected comparisons: Fresh similes and metaphors can breathe new life into descriptions.

Example: Instead of: "The old man was very thin." Try: "The old man was a whisper of his former self, as if life had slowly erased him, leaving behind only the faintest outline."

Choose Your Words Wisely 📚

Every word in your prose should earn its place. Here are some tips for selecting the right words:

a) Embrace strong verbs: Replace weak verb + adverb combinations with single, powerful verbs.

Example: Instead of: "She walked quickly to the store." Try: "She hurried to the store." or "She dashed to the store."

b) Be specific: Use precise nouns instead of general ones.

Example: Instead of: "She picked up the flower." Try: "She plucked the daisy."

c) Avoid clichés: Clichés can make your writing feel stale. Try to find fresh ways to express common ideas.

Example: Instead of: "It was raining cats and dogs." Try: "The rain fell in sheets, transforming the streets into rushing rivers."

Play with Sound 🎶

The sound of words can contribute greatly to the beauty of your prose. Here are some techniques to make your writing more musical:

a) Alliteration: Repeating initial consonant sounds can create a pleasing effect.

Example: "She sells seashells by the seashore."

b) Assonance: Repeating vowel sounds can add a subtle musicality to your prose.

Example: "The light of the bright sky might ignite a fight."

c) Onomatopoeia: Using words that sound like what they describe can make your writing more immersive.

Example: "The bees buzzed and hummed as they flitted from flower to flower."

Art of Sentence Structure 🏗️

How you structure your sentences can greatly affect the flow and impact of your prose. Here are some tips:

a) Use parallel structure: When listing items or actions, keep the grammatical structure consistent.

Example: "She came, she saw, she conquered."

b) Try periodic sentences: Build suspense by putting the main clause at the end of the sentence.

Example: "Through storm and strife, across oceans and continents, despite all odds and obstacles, they persevered."

c) Experiment with sentence fragments: While not grammatically correct, sentence fragments can be powerful when used intentionally for emphasis or style.

Example: "She stood at the edge of the cliff. Heart racing. Palms sweating. Ready to jump."

Power of White Space ⬜

Sometimes, what you don't say is just as important as what you do. Use paragraph breaks and short sentences to create pauses and emphasize important moments.

Example: "He opened the letter with trembling hands.

Inside, a single word.

'Yes.'"

Read Your Work Aloud 🗣️

One of the best ways to polish your prose is to read it aloud. This helps you catch awkward phrasing, repetitive words, and rhythm issues that you might miss when reading silently.

Edit Ruthlessly ✂️

Beautiful prose often comes from rigorous editing. Don't be afraid to cut words, sentences, or even entire paragraphs if they don't serve the overall beauty and effectiveness of your writing.

Study the Masters 📖

Please! Read widely and pay attention to how your favorite authors craft their prose. Analyze sentences you find particularly beautiful and try to understand what makes them work.

Practice, Practice, Practice 💪

Like any skill, writing beautiful prose takes practice. Set aside time to experiment with different techniques and styles. Try writing exercises focused on specific aspects of prose, like describing a scene using only sound words, or rewriting a simple sentence in ten different ways.

Remember, that developing your prose style is a journey, not a destination. It's okay if your first draft isn't perfect – that's what editing is for! The most important thing is to keep writing, keep experimenting, and keep finding joy in the process.

Here are a few more unique tips to help you on your prose-perfecting journey:

Create a Word Bank 🏦

Keep a notebook or digital file where you collect beautiful words, phrases, or sentences you come across in your reading. This can be a great resource when you're looking for inspiration or the perfect word to complete a sentence.

Use the "Rule of Three" 3️⃣

There's something inherently satisfying about groups of three. Use this to your advantage in your writing, whether it's in listing items, repeating phrases, or structuring your paragraphs.

Example: "The old house groaned, creaked, and whispered its secrets to the night."

Power of Silence 🤫

Sometimes, the most powerful prose comes from what's left unsaid. Use implication and subtext to add depth to your writing.

Example: Instead of: "She was heartbroken when he left." Try: "She stared at his empty chair across the breakfast table, the untouched coffee growing cold."

Play with Perspective 👁️

Experiment with different points of view to find the most impactful way to tell your story. Sometimes, an unexpected perspective can make your prose truly memorable.

Example: Instead of describing a bustling city from a human perspective, try describing it from the point of view of a bird soaring overhead, or a coin passed from hand to hand.

Use Punctuation Creatively 🖋️

While it's important to use punctuation correctly, don't be afraid to bend the rules a little for stylistic effect. Em dashes, ellipses, and even unconventional use of periods can add rhythm and emphasis to your prose.

Example: "She hesitated—heart pounding, palms sweating—then knocked on the door."

Create Contrast 🌓

Juxtapose different elements in your writing to create interest and emphasis. This can be in terms of tone, pacing, or even the literal elements you're describing.

Example: "The delicate butterfly alighted on the rusted barrel of the abandoned tank."

Use Synesthesia 🌈

Synesthesia is a condition where one sensory experience triggers another. While not everyone experiences this, using synesthetic descriptions in your writing can create vivid and unique imagery.

Example: "The violin's melody tasted like honey on her tongue."

Experiment with Sentence Diagrams 📊

Remember those sentence diagrams from school? Try diagramming some of your favorite sentences from literature. This can give you insight into how complex sentences are structured and help you craft your own.

Create a Sensory Tour 🚶‍♀️

When describing a setting, try taking your reader on a sensory tour. Move from one sense to another, creating a full, immersive experience.

Example: "The old bookstore welcomed her with the musty scent of aging paper. Dust motes danced in the shafts of sunlight piercing the high windows. Her fingers trailed over the cracked leather spines as she moved deeper into the stacks, the floorboards creaking a greeting beneath her feet. In the distance, she could hear the soft ticking of an ancient clock and taste the faint bitterness of old coffee in the air."

Use Active Voice (Most of the Time) 🏃‍♂️

While passive voice has its place, active voice generally creates more dynamic and engaging prose. Compare these two sentences:

Passive: "The ball was thrown by the boy." Active: "The boy threw the ball."

Magic of Ordinary Moments ✨

Sometimes, the most beautiful prose comes from describing everyday occurrences in a new light. Challenge yourself to find beauty and meaning in the mundane.

Example: "The kettle's whistle pierced the quiet morning, a clarion call heralding the day's first cup of possibility."

Play with Time ⏳

Experiment with how you present the passage of time in your prose. You can stretch a moment out over several paragraphs or compress years into a single sentence.

Example: "In that heartbeat between his question and her answer, universes were born and died, civilizations rose and fell, and their entire future hung in the balance."

Use Anaphora for Emphasis 🔁

Anaphora is the repetition of a word or phrase at the beginning of successive clauses or sentences. It can create a powerful rhythm and emphasize key points.

Example: "She was the sunrise after the longest night. She was the first bloom of spring after a harsh winter. She was the cool breeze on a sweltering summer day. She was hope personified, walking among us."

Create Word Pictures 🖼️

Try to create images that linger in the reader's mind long after they've finished reading. These don't have to be elaborate – sometimes a simple, unexpected combination of words can be incredibly powerful.

Example: "Her laughter was a flock of birds taking flight."

Use Rhetorical Devices 🎭

Familiarize yourself with rhetorical devices like chiasmus, antithesis, and oxymoron. These can add depth and interest to your prose.

Example of chiasmus: "Ask not what your country can do for you – ask what you can do for your country." - John F. Kennedy

Even the most accomplished authors continue to hone their craft with each new piece they write. Don't be discouraged if your first attempts don't sound exactly like you imagined – keep practicing, keep experimenting, and most importantly, keep writing.

Your unique voice and perspective are what will ultimately make your prose beautiful. These techniques are simply tools to help you express that voice more effectively. Use them, adapt them, or discard them as you see fit. The most important thing is to write in a way that feels authentic to you and brings you joy.

Happy writing, everyone! 🖋️💖📚 - Rin T

Hey fellow writers! I'm super excited to share that I've just launched a Tumblr community. I'm inviting all of you to join my community. All you have to do is fill out this Google form, and I'll personally send you an invitation to join the Write Right Society on Tumblr! Can't wait to see your posts!

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maniculum · 1 year

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Medieval Scorpions Effortpost

So yesterday I reblogged this post featuring an 11th-century depiction of the Apocalypse Locusts from Revelations, noting the following incongruity as another medieval scorpion issue:

The artist, as you can see, has interpreted "tails like scorpions" as meaning "glue cheerful-looking snakes to their butts".

Anyway, it occurred to me that the medieval scorpion thing might not be as widely known as I think it is, and that Tumblr would probably enjoy knowing about it if it isn't known already. So, finding myself unable to focus on the research I'm supposed to be doing, I decided to write about this instead. I'll just go ahead and put a cut here.

As we can see in the image above, at least one artist out there thought a "scorpion" was a type of snake. Which makes it difficult to draw "tails like scorpions", because a snake's tail is not that distinctive or menacing (maybe rattlesnakes, but they don't have those outside the Americas). So they interpreted "tails like scorpions" as "the tail looks like a whole snake complete with head".

Let me tell you. This is not a problem unique to this illustration.

See, people throughout medieval Europe were aware of scorpions. As just alluded to, they are mentioned in the Bible, and if the people producing manuscripts in medieval Europe knew one thing, it was Stuff In Bible. They're also in the Zodiac, which medieval Europe had inherited through classical sources. However, let's take a look at this map:

That's Wikipedia's map of the native range of the Scorpiones order, i.e., all scorpion species. You may notice something -- the range just stops at a certain northern latitude. Pretty much all of northern Europe is scorpion-free. If you lived in the north half of Europe, odds were good you had never seen a scorpion in your life. But if you were literate or educated at all, or you knew they were a thing, because you'd almost certainly run across them being mentioned in texts from farther south. And those texts wouldn't bother to explain what a scorpion was, of course -- everyone knows scorpions, right? When was the last time you stopped to explain What Is Spiders?

So medieval writers and artists in northern Europe were kind of stuck. There was all this scorpion imagery and metaphor in the texts they liked to work from, but they didn't really know what a scorpion was. Writers could kind of work around it (there's a lot of "oh, it's a venomous creature, moving on"), but sometimes they felt the need to break it down better. For this, of course, they'd have to refer to a bestiary -- but due to Bestiary Telephone and the persistent need of bestiary authors to turn animals into allegories, one of the only visual details you got on scorpions was that they... had a beautiful face, which they used to distract people in order to sting them.

And look. I'm not here to yuck anyone's yum, but I would say that a scorpion's face has significant aesthetic appeal only for a fairly small segment of the population. I'm sure you could get an entomologist to rhapsodize about it a bit, but your average person on the street will not be entranced by the face of a scorpion. So this did not help the medieval Europeans in figuring out how to depict scorpions. There was also some semantic confusion -- see, in some languages (such as Old and Middle English), "worm" could be a general term for very small animals of any kind. But it also could mean "serpent".* So there were some, like our artist at the top of the post, who were pretty sure a scorpion was a snake. This was probably helped along by the fact that "venomous" was one of the only things everyone knew about them, and hey, snakes are venomous. Also, Pliny the Elder had floated the idea that there were scorpions in Africa that could fly, and at least one author (13th-century monk Bartholomaeus Anglicus) therefore suggested that they had feathers. I don't see that last one coming up much, I just share it because it's funny to me.

*English eventually resolved this by borrowing the Latin vermin for very small animals, using the specialized spelling wyrm for big impressive mythical-type serpents, and sticking with the more specific snake for normal serpents.

Some authors, like the anonymous author of the Ancrene Wisse, therefore suggested that a scorpion was a snake with a woman's face and a stinging tail. (Everyone seemed to be on the same page with regards to the fact that the sting was in the tail, which is in fact probably the most recognizable aspect of scorpions, so good job there.) However, while authors could avoid this problem, visual artists could not. And if you were illustrating a bestiary or a calendar, including a scorpion was not optional. So they had to take a shot at what this thing looked like.

And so, after this way-too-long explanation, the thing you're probably here for: inaccurate medieval drawings of scorpions. (There are of course accurate medieval drawings of scorpions, from artists who lived in the southern part of Europe and/or visited places where scorpions lived; I'm just not showing you those.) And if you find yourself wondering, "how sure are you that that's meant to be a scorpion?" -- all of these are either from bestiaries or from calendars that include zodiac illustrations.

11th-century England, MS Arundel 60. (Be honest, without the rest of this post, if I had asked you to guess what animal this was supposed to be, would you have ever guessed “scorpion”?)

12th-century Germany, "Psalter of Henry the Lion". (Looks a bit undercooked. Kind of fetal.)

12th-century France, Peter Lombard's Sententiae. (Very colorful, itsy bitsy claws, what is happening with that tail?)

12th-century England, "The Shaftesbury Psalter". (So a scorpion is some sort of wyvern with a face like a duck, correct?)

13th-century France, Thomas de Cantimpré's Liber de natura rerum. (I’d give them credit for the silhouette not being that far off, but there’s a certain bestiary style where all the animals kind of look like that. Also note how few of these have claws.)

13th-century England, "The Bodley Bestiary". (Mischievous flying squirrel impales local man’s hand, local man fails to notice.)

13th-century England, Harley MS 3244. (A scorpion is definitely either a mouse or a fish. Either way it has six legs.)

13th-century England, Harley MS 3244. (Wait, no, it’s a baby theropod, and it has two legs. (Yes, this is the same manuscript, that’s not an error, this artist did four scorpions and no two are the same.))

13th-century England, Harley MS 3244. (Actually it’s a lizard with tiny ears and it has four legs.)

13th-century England, Harley MS 3244. (Now that we’re at the big fancy illustration, I think I’ve got it — it’s like that last one, but two legs, longer ears, and a less goofy face. Also I’ve decided it’s not pink anymore, I think that was the main problem.)

13th-century England, MS Kk.4.25. (A scorpion is a flat crocodile with a bear’s head.)

13th-century England, "The Huth Psalter". (Wyvern but baby! Does not seem to be enjoying biting its own tail.)

13th-century England, MS Royal 1 D X. (This triangular-headed gentlecreature gets the award for “closest guess at correct limb configuration”. If two of those were claws, I might actually believe this artist had seen a scorpion before, or at least a picture of one.)

13th-century England, "The Westminster Psalter". (A scorpion is the offspring of a wyvern and a fawn.)

13th-century England, "The Rutland Psalter". (Too many legs! Pull back! Pull back!)

13th or 14th-century France, Bestiaire d'amour rimé. (This is very similar to the fawn-wyvern, but putting it in an actual Scene makes it even more obvious that you’re just guessing.)

14th-century Netherlands, Jacob van Maerlant's Der Naturen Bloeme. (More top-down six-legged guys that look too furry to be arthropods.)

14th-century Germany, MS Additional 22413. (That is clearly a turtle.)

14th-century France, Matfres Eymengau de Beziers's Breviari d'amor. (Who came up with that head shape and what was their deal?)

15th-century England, "Bestiary of Ann Walsh". (Screw it, a scorpion is a big lizard that glares at you for trying to make me draw things I don’t know about.)

I've spent way too much time on this now. End of post, thank you to anyone who got all the way down here.

#medieval #medieval creatures #medieval art #scorpions #medieval scorpions #manuscript #medieval manuscripts #illuminated manuscript

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sailortongue · 3 months

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Lima Bean

pairing: kenji sato x reader

summary: kenji makes his intentions clear and a certain reporter is a little too committed to his job

an: ik the title is kinda dumb but bear with me i have an idea (title is still subject to change if the idea falls through). also tags are being kind of silly and I don't know how to get them to act right so if you asked to be tagged but didn't get notified I swear I tried 😭

wc: 2k

navi | prev | series mlist

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“I’m pregnant.”

Those two words changed Kenji’s entire demeanor in seconds. His face dropped and his jaw hung open in complete disbelief. “. . . Are you sure?” He asked.

“Positive test, missed period, morning sickness,” you listed off. “I’m going to make an OBGYN appointment anyway just to be 100% sure, but so far yeah I’m pretty sure.”

“Ah,” was all he could say in response, his mind both blank and racing at the same time. Had he really not used protection? Was he that drunk? He tried to think back to that night, but all he could seem to remember was a flash of you under him and his lips on your neck. His face immediately flushed scarlet.

“Are you angry?” You asked, noticing the rapid shift in his complexion.

He rushed to deny your assumption. “No! No, nothing like that. I'm just . . . not sure what to make of this.”

“I know how you feel,” you said wryly. “Just thought you should know, I guess.” You shrugged your shoulders, feeling almost hollow inside with the knowledge that your life was about to undergo a drastic change.

“I appreciate it, thank you. If you don’t mind, uh,” he hesitated, searching for the right words. “I'd like to be present. To be a father.” He thought back to when he took care of Emi and how much he came to love her. He was confident in his ability to take care of his own biological child, even if these weren’t the circumstances in which he imagined he’d have one.

You looked at him as if you were meeting him for the very first time, entirely taken aback by his willingness to step up. Truthfully you'd expected him to deny any responsibility, but there he was, asking to raise the baby alongside you—to step up to the metaphorical plate and be a dad. “Really? And you’re not going to leave at the first inconvenience?”

“No. You have my word on that.” His expression was one of utmost sincerity. “I want to be a dad. Granted, this isn’t how I expected it,” he laughed awkwardly, “but it’s how it happened, and I won't run away from it.”

You gave him a soft smile. “I'll be honest, I didn't expect you to be so noble.”

“Thought I’d tell you to get rid of it or just throw a check at you to never contact me again? I understand the concern, but I want to be there every step of the way.”

“Then, would you like to come with me for my appointment? I haven’t scheduled it yet but . . .” you trailed off, realizing you were asking a very busy man to take time out of his day to accompany you to a doctor's appointment. “Unless of course you’re busy or don’t want to,” you added quickly.

He laughed at how flustered you’d gotten. “I'll be there. No matter the weather, practice, or a game, I will be there. That’s my kid you’ve got in there after all,” he said with a broad grin on his face as he pointed to your abdomen. “And that takes priority over everything else.”

“Wow. You’re smitten with something that’s probably the size of a lima bean right now,” you teased.

“Woah now, that’s our lima bean and I’m going to be the best dad a bean could wish for,” he asserted, imagining teaching his future son or daughter to play baseball with him or helping with homework, even what it would be like to do his daughter’s hair, or perhaps teaching his son how to tie a tie.

He was snapped from his thoughts when you slid your phone towards him from across the table, the screen displaying a new contact. “If we're going to be coparenting we should have each other's numbers.”

He picked up the device to input his number and then checked his own phone. He showed you the screen, a message from your own number displayed there.

It was only when he handed your phone back to you that you noticed how late it had already become. “Oh wow, I didn’t realize the time. I didn't mean to keep you so late,” you apologized.

“No no, it’s fine. I'm glad you, or, Ami, I guess, insisted we have this conversation in person. Think if I had been told over text I’d still be sitting on the couch reading it over and over again,” he laughed.

“That was how I felt looking at the test. It didn’t feel real.” You had a smile that mirrored his own, and you couldn’t believe how fortunate you were that Kenji wasn’t the douche you expected he’d be when he found out. Quite the opposite, to your pleasant surprise.

“Do you need a ride back home?” He asked earnestly, not quite ready to say bye. After all, you hadn’t allowed him the chance the last time you had met.

You shook your head as you stood from the table. “No, I drove here, but thanks anyway. I guess I'll keep in touch?”

He hummed in affirmation, standing from his chair, his impressive height towering over you. He gestured for you to walk first, following close behind you, his hand lightly pressed to your lower back as he walked with you to your car. While the two of you were wishing each other good night, another patron of the cafe was typing furiously into his phone, notifying his boss that he had just overheard the sport's world's juiciest scandal in months.

-❀-

The first thing you did the following day was schedule an appointment with an obstetrician. There had been a recent cancellation so you were able to get a slot in just a few days. You sent Kenji a text to notify him when and where, a small part of you looking forward to seeing him again. He responded quickly, saying he would definitely be there.

When the day came, he called you to ask if you wanted to go together, rather than take two cars. You agreed and told him your address, choosing to wait for him inside due to the biting cold of December. When you heard a car pull up, you exited your home, and it took all of your willpower not to gawk at his car, which was probably worth more than your entire house. You saw the driver's door begin to open, and he stepped out, breathtakingly handsome as usual. He pushed his sunglasses on top of his head and waved, greeting you with a jovial “Morning!”

“Good morning, Kenji,” you returned, a smile gracing your features.

As you approached the car, he slid back into the driver's seat and looked over at you, taking in the sight of the mother of his future child. He'd lain awake all night, playing with the idea over and over in his mind. He was really going to be a dad. How different could it be to raise a human baby if he’d already done so with a 20-foot-tall kaiju baby?

You noticed his gaze in your peripheral vision, but as you turned to look at him he snapped his attention forward and made himself busy with inputting the name of the doctor’s office you’d given him into the GPS.

The ride was filled with pleasant small talk, asking each other how you had been since last time, basically avoiding the elephant in the room and talking about everything except the new life between you. After parking, he made sure to open the door to the office for you and entered after you, a rush of cold air enveloping you as you approached the front desk. You confirmed your appointment with the receptionist, and she directed the two of you to sit in the waiting room and told you your name would be called when the doctor was ready.

As you were waiting, you noticed Kenji’s leg bouncing up and down rapidly, showing his nerves despite it not even being his appointment. You took the opportunity that had presented itself and placed your hand atop his knee. He looked over at you, his brown eyes wide and his lips pressed into a thin line. “You can wait in the car if you’d prefer—“

“No!” He all but shouted, refusing to let you believe for even one second that he would run out. “I said I would be here for you and I will,” he said adamantly, placing his hand over yours where it was still on his knee and squeezing tightly, a physical reassurance that we was staying put.

“y/n l/n.” You heard your name called. You and Kenji stood together, his hand not releasing yours. Instead, he rubbed calming circles on the skin as you were escorted into the patient rooms, though you weren’t entirely sure if it was meant to ease his nerves or yours. Either way, it was a sweet gesture.

-❀-

The gel was cold as it was spread across your exposed skin, sending shivers up your spine. A grainy black and white image showed up on the screen, and the doctor pointed to a small grey object depicted on it, surrounded by a sea of black. “This,” she started, “is the fetus.” You looked at the screen in awe before glancing over at Kenji. He was seated in a chair against the wall, his elbows braced on his knees as he leaned forward, his attention rapt on the screen and his lips open in a small “o” shape.

The doctor chuckled at your amazed reactions. “Excited to be parents?” She asked.

You don’t think Kenji even heard her, so you answered. “To be totally honest, this was unexpected, but I think we can make it work. Kenji here made it very clear that he wants to be a dad.”

“That's wonderful to hear. Well, looking at the scan I'd say you’re about 7 weeks along and you can expect to welcome the baby around August 11.

Kenji was practically bubbling as you each took your seats in the car, and he kept stealing glances at your tummy even if you weren’t showing any visible change yet.

-❀-

These past few days of tailing the nation's sweetheart baseball player were so worth it, thought the man sitting in his car while browsing through the photos of Kenji Sato and a woman he’d never been seen with before entering and leaving an OBGYN facility together. Interesting. Very interesting. With those photos there was no denying that Kenji Sato, baseball heartthrob, was a soon-to-be father.

-❀-

Kenji put the car in park in your driveway. You made to get out of the car until he exclaimed “Wait!” You re-situated yourself on the seat, angling yourself towards him. He seemed almost at war with himself, like he wasn’t sure if he wanted to actually say what had prompted him to stop you from leaving. “Would you, uh,” he faltered, chuckling awkwardly. “Would you like to go on a date with me?” He gave you a hopeful look.

Heat flushed across your face and ears, and you beamed at him. “Doing things way out of order aren’t we?” You joked.

He laughed mirthfully as well. “Way out of order,” he agreed. “So, was that a yes? To go out?”

“Yes, that was a yes,” you giggled, finding his eagerness endearingly sweet.

He nodded his head. “Ok. Ok, great. Are you free this Saturday? I'll pick you up?”

“I’ll see you then,” you agreed cheerfully, and, deciding to take another risk since you were doing things all out of order anyway, you leaned over and placed a quick peck against his cheek before hopping out of the car and waving goodbye. He continued to wait in the car until he saw you safely enter your home, his heart threatening to beat out of his chest and his face crimson red, one hand placed lightly against where your lips had touched his skin.

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taglist: @mochminnie @lovingyeet @sassy-cat-in-town @hanachiiii @aise-30 @reivelmin @fcheung750 @breaddippedinorangejuice @lunaryasha @imsimping4life @boomboom-tanjiro2019 @f1uveryysblog @random-3455 @b3e-sat0 @retaaaa56 @casualburning

#ken sato x reader #kenji sato x reader #ken sato #kenji sato #ultraman rising #ultraman rising x reader

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prokopetz · 10 months

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I've remarked in the past that first-wave literary cyberpunk's skepticism of body modification is typically rooted in concerns about capitalist intrusion upon bodily autonomy and ownership of human bodies, with the "prosthetics eat your soul" stuff developing later in order to allow authors to continue to write about angsty cyborgs without any political subtext which might be uncomfortable for mainstream audiences.

(Which is not to say that "prosthetics eat your soul" is, itself, apolitical, of course – it merely exchanges a potentially uncomfortable political subtext for one which able-bodied audiences found more palatable!)

While this is true as far as it goes, I think it's also important to recognise that, while first-wave literary cyberpunk did have all that bodily autonomy stuff, it was almost invariably being written by able-bodied authors who treated it as a metaphor for the artist's loss of intellectual freedom under the corporate state, rather than as a topic worth exploring in its own right. Like, give credit where credit is due, but don't give those guys too much credit; they largely weren't taking disability rights issues seriously, either.

I'm saying this because I've noticed an increasing tendency in certain circles to characterise modern self-styled "cripplepunk" incarnations of the cyberpunk genre as in some sense reactionary – i.e., like they're merely rolling back the clock to before cyberpunk sold out. The fact of the matter is that the golden age of disability-aware cyberpunk literature never existed, and folks who are taking a hard look at that aren't trying to "turn back the clock": they're giving the literal text of this shit the attention it deserves for possibly the first time.

#media #literature #cyberpunk #tropes #disability #ableism #politics #capitalism #swearing

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linkspooky · 3 months

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JASON TODD VS. DABI: WHY NOT ME?

"You haven't been here long but you've seen him, right? The batman. The batman. He lives in darkness, to find the helpless and bring them into the light. So I have to wonder...why couldn't he do it for me?" The Boy Wonder: Issue #2

This is the story of the boy who didn't get saved. The story of a boy who really ought to have been saved. Of course, every victim deserves to be saved, but this boy was the son of a superhero. Can a hero who saves everyone, but fails to save his own son really be called a hero? As for the son, how does it feel to watch his father save complete strangers but let him fall to the wayside?

Jason Todd and Dabi are two characters with similar backstories and motives (so similar it's possible Dabi is outright based on Jason Todd) which are worthy of comparison. These are two tragic arcs which explore the conflict between a hero's responsibility to act as a father, and their responsibility to save people. As I said they are tragic because in both cases the hero fails, as a father, and a hero. However, I'm comparing the two because Jason Todd's story is a well written tragedy, and Toya's story is not.

If you were to write a story of my life, it would surely be a tragedy.

Aristotle's Poetics is the first attempt to define what Tragedy is, not as a story where sad things happen but a specific story structure. He outlines not only what makes tragedy, tragedy, but also what makes a good tragedy.

The Plot, then, is the first principle, and, as it were, the soul of a tragedy: Character holds the second place. A similar fact is seen in painting. The most beautiful colours, laid on confusedly, will not give as much pleasure as the chalk outline of a portrait. Thus Tragedy is the imitation of an action, and of the agents mainly with a view to the action.

I use this quote because the painting metaphor is a great way of explaining what I'm getting at, you can have a painting with the most wonderful colors, you can have a story with really good ideas like the Todoroki family plotline but if you don't use those colors correctly all you're going to end up with is a bad painting.

In poetics Aristotle clearly defines a tight well-structured plot as the first priority for effective tragedy, character as second.

Again, a beautiful object, whether it be a living organism or any whole composed of parts, must not only have an orderly arrangement of parts, but must also be of a certain magnitude; for beauty depends on magnitude and order. Hence a very small animal organism cannot be beautiful; for the view of it is confused, the object being seen in an almost imperceptible moment of time. Nor, again, can one of vast size be beautiful; for as the eye cannot take it all in at once, the unity and sense of the whole is lost for the spectator; as for instance if there were one a thousand miles long

To make sure you understand, it's vital in tragedy for all the pieces to fit together. Tragedy is a specific story format. Good tragedy uses the parts of a story well, but bad tragedy is sloppy and poorly put together. In tragedy, the whole has to be greater than the sum of its parts. The Todoroki Family are all good characters out of context, but the story could have enhanced their characters but detracted from them due to how poorly it is told. The fact that a lot of MHA fans are in love with the Todoroki family out of the context of the story, but also have constant complaints for how Horikoshi handles their plotlines is, in my opinion, very telling.

What Aristotle goes on to posit is the best tragedies do not come about by accident, but rather by the direct actions of the characters.

But again, Tragedy is an imitation not only of a complete action, but of events inspiring fear or pity. Such an effect is best produced when the events come on us by surprise; and the effect is heightened when, at the same time, they follow as cause and effect. The tragic wonder will thee be greater than if they happened of themselves or by accident; for even coincidences are most striking when they have an air of design.

Therefore Tragedies require consequentialism, like Newton's Third Law, every action will have an equal and opposite reaction. To simplify a good tragedy arises from the consequences of the character's actions (or inaction). The most basic form is that the hero of the story will have a tragic flaw that they fail to improve upon in time and then leads to their destruction. In essence, tragedy is where the hero fails. Not only does the hero fail, but the hero loses, and that irreversible loss is what defines tragedy. Medea slays her own children, Oedipus rips his own eyes off and deserts his kingdom, Creon Antigone is buried alive and Creon's son, her fiancee, commits suicide.

These events share two things in common, they are irreversible (hence why they feel like good endings), and two they evoke catharsis. Aristotle defines the goal of tragedy to evoke terror and pity. We feel alongside these heroes, Medea was abandoned by the husband Jason who she left her home and slaughtered her own brother for, Oedipus did all of his crimes unwittingly and is a victim of fate, Antigone was doing the right thing by burying her brother so his soul could pass on to the afterlife.

There's all different sorts of tragedies, Hamliet explores more here. I'd say UTRH and Hellish Todoroki Family are tragedies centered around grief.

Tragedy works on extreme emotions, and extreme hard-hitting consequences to the hero's failures. The worst thing a tragedy can be is boring.

The Tragic Hero

Now that I'm done lecturing you let's actually talk about both My Hero Academia and Batman like I promised. Both of these stories don't actually feature the central victim as their protagonist, and that is a feature not a flaw.

Rather, the story we are being told is that of a tragic hero, failing to save a tragic victim because of their own personal flaws.

These flaws are called (hamartia) or "error in judgement". A hero, being called a hero of a story is often unaware of his flaws which is central to what makes them unable to fix those flaws in time. That flaw can later lead to a moral failing, such as Othello's jealousy, initially jealousy is an understandable emotion, but then it leads to him trusting Iago over his own wife and killing his wife in a rage.

Most importantly, the hero’s suffering and its far-reaching reverberations are far out of proportion to his flaw.

Let's begin with talking of the heroes and their flaws, Batman and Endeavor. My main reason for comparing these two is in these specific stories they have the same flaw, inability to move past their personal guilt towards their son, and the same conflict the duty of a father versus the duty of a hero.

However, Batman functions as a tragic hero, and Enji does not. The summary of their conflict is right here in these two panels.

A parent is required to place their children above everything else, because they are the ones responsible for bringing that child into the world. Bruce Wayne made the decision to adopt Jason. Enji made the decision to have children, however with Enji you have the added insidious motivation of he only wanted to make designer babies and just didn't care for the ones who didn't turn out right.

Bruce attempts to do both, to act as a father for Jason and also a crime fighter as batman but he can't do both. This comes to a head in Death of the Family when Jason is having serious trouble because of his lack of a strong parental figure, and Bruce knowing that Jason is in trouble chooses still to go off and fight crime instead of staying with him. The choice to place crimefighting over the child they chose to take responsibility for has the unintended consequence of getting that child killed.

Whereas Enji makes the same choice over and over again, ignoring Toya's clear troubles at the fact his father no longer spends time with him and choosing to run away to the world of heroes because he doesn't want to face the fact that his actions are severely hurting his son. Bruce's motivations are more sympathetic admittedly he wasn't actively practicing eugenics, but the choice is the same and the consequences are the same.

Both Bruce and Enji are forced to bear witness to the deaths of their children when they are not there, specifically because they made a choice to be a hero instead of staying by their child's side. A situation directly caused by their choice to be a hero over a father, and a situation that would have been avoided if they had stayed with their child in their time of need. Jason runs off when Batman tells him to stay and gets kidnapped by the Joker, if Enji had been on Sekoto peak that day Toya would never have accidentally lost control of his fire.

This is just the backstory however, the main event that kickstart this plot is the unexpected return from the dead of both Jason and Dabi. Each story follows the same plot beats. A new villain appears to challenge Endeavor / Batman. The villain reveals themselves as their dead son. Both Endeavor / Batman are given a chance to try reaching out to their sons, but they choose not to.

Then even though they are given a second chance with a miracle of a dead son coming back to them, they choose the exact same thing they chose before, being a hero and because of that the tragedy repeats itself. For both of them they are unable to save their son again, and the son goes through a second death. History repeats itself, the lesson isn't learned.

Their fatal flaw is their guilt. This is a story about grief and mourning after all, a son who is died, buried, but never grieved properly, never mourned, an open wound on the father suddenly coming back. The inability of each to process their grief blinds them from seeing the fact the son has come back, and they have a second chance.

Toya has internalized he is a failure, because Enji literally called him that. Jason believes that Batman thinks he is a failure. In both cases the father is the one who failed, Bruce at least acknowledges this but cannot communicate it in any way shape or form.

This guilt and responsibility both Enji and Bruce feel causes them to self-sabotage. They no longer have the confidence they are in the right (they no longer feel like heroes because they have failed to be heroes to their own son).

You can also add the layer of complication that since both men chose to be heroes in the past, they do not know how to handle the situation as a father now that they're being challenged to step up as one. Unfortunately, they are not the fathers that stepped up.

The reason their grief becomes a flaw is because they put their grief over their victims. . Each man is aware too much of their own failure, and while they should feel guilty they make the classic mistake of placing their own guilt over the feelings of the victim. The guilt they feel for causing the death and the genuine grief of losing a son is given priority over Jason and Dabi who you know... actually died.

An overwhelming grief and guilt is understandable because grief is a messy and human emotion, losing a child is an unimaginable tragedy that should never be inflicted on anyone.

Yet at the same time both Dabi and Jason are grieving to. This paradox that Batman only thinks of his own grief at losing a son and never stops to think about how Jason must feel leads to one of the best lines in Under the Red Hood.

"The father had lost a son, and now the son had lost a father."

Batman's guilt is so strong over being the cause of Jason's suffering, that the suffering of the victim himself is ignored. To be fair to My Hero Academia, the Todorokis say a similar line to Enji.

However, this is where I begin to get into the difference between ideas and execution. Tragedies are stories of actions and logical consequences, every action has an equal and opposite reaction in Under the Red Hood. Batman is punished for the choices he makes, the choices he doesn't make, and the choices he fails to make in time.

The Todoroki plotline features almost none of its character making any choices of substance, and because of that the plotline says the right things over and over again, but it all comes off as tell don't show.

I'm going to quote @codenamesazanka's post right here a couple of times because they describe the complete failure of the Todoroki plotline to show us a reason why we should be feeling things for the characters artfully.

We've heard Enji say this before - I'm sorry, I intend to atone. It's indeed the right thing to say, it's exactly what he should be saying and acting. Natsuo is declaring no contact - That's fine, I'm sorry, I accept this as part of my atonement and will continue. Touya calls him a coward - That's fine, I'm sorry, I accept this as part of my atonement and will continue. The public hates him - That's fine, I'm sorry, I accept this as part of my atonement and will continue. But you can only hear this so many times before you want to snap and beat the character, the story, the writing over the head with Enji's wheelchair. Why is that? He's behaving exactly as he should, and yet...

The reason why it fails to evoke strong feelings is because of what we'd called "narrative dissonance." The actions of Bruce and Enji are the same, they both neglect to do anything, make any real attempts to reach out to their victims because they're paralyzed by guilt.

However, we are told that they have entirely different arcs. Bruce's arc is a tragic fall. He's failing as a hero. While we are being told that Enji is experiencing an arc of atonement. Enji is supposed to be improving himself, and Bruce is supposed to be experiencing negative character development but they both do the exact same thing in story. Bruce neglects Jason, we are told by the story, by the characters in the story that Bruce is failing Jason. Enji does nothing in time to actually atone for Toya or try to help him, yet, we are told again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again that Enji is atoning with nothing substantive to show us this is the case.

To show what I meant instead of telling this scene is in chapter 252.

This scene is the ending point in chapter in chapter #426.

It's just him repeating the exact same sentiment and yet in a more than 150+ chapter gap, Enji never made any action to show he was now placing his family first. Enji didn't say anything to Dabi when he revealed himself as Toya. Enji didn't look for Toya in the months before the final war arc. Enji literally appeared on live TV in a broadcast that Toya was watching and said the very selfish "Watch Me" atone for the crime of creating Toya instead of literally talking about Toya or too Toya. Well, that would have rocked the boat too much... THAT IS LITERALLY THE POINT. Enji had to somehow break from tradition or make some significant sacrifice onscreen to his social standing to show that he's willing to put his family first. Enji decides to go along with Hawks decision to not face Toya head on, making the decision to be the hero for the final time which directly causes Toya to get up after Shoto brings him down non-lethally and make one last attempt to suicide bomb for his father's inaction.

Bruce does nothing for a long time in Under the Red Hood. He ignores his initial instinct that Jason came back and instead makes a long investigation on whether or not someone can come back from the dead in order to distract himself. When Jason takes the mask off, Batman already knew but was pretending otherwise because he didn't want to face the reality.

Even when Jason takes his mask off, Bruce still takes on the "I need to investigate this" angle even though Jason calls him out that deep down he already knows it's the truth. This of course foreshadows Bruce's underlying flaw, he doesn't want to face Jason head on because he feels too much grief about what happened to Jason and his guilt is more important than Jason's own grief. Just as the father has lost the son, the son has lost the father.

What follows is several chapters of Batman fighting crime as usual and making no attempts to directly search for Jason. They cross paths a few times but when they do Bruce doesn't follow. In fact, Bruce only shows up when Jason sends Bruce a sample of the joker's hair and Bruce knows that the Joker has kidnapped him out of Arkham. Bruce almost lets Jason get killed by Black Mask because he doesn't know whether to stop Jason or save him yet again, and then they have their final showdown where Jason has kidnapped the joker to demand Bruce kill him, and Bruce finally attempts to talk him down.

Out of context it sounds like I'm describing the same plotline, to the point where if you haven't read either, it looks like I'm complaining baselessly. Why is one hero doing nothing until it's too late good, and the other bad? The difference is of course context, or rather framing. Bruce's actions are called out by the people around him (Dick, Jason, Alfred) as him handling the situation wrong. Whereas both Enji's internal monologue and other characters say that he is doing his best to atone for his actions and deserves a chance, but the events we are shown in story are the exact opposite.

Here's another example to SHOW my point. Here's Dabi with my special, hardcover edition of under the Red Hood.

I reread the entirety of the fourteen chapter plotline and the majority of internal narrations come from characters outside of Bruce observing his behavior and commenting on how differently he's acting. Jason's backstory for instance is told by Alfred, not Bruce. Dick Grayson the first Robin comments on Batman's odd behavior. The rest are the third person narrator. Bruce has four instances of internal monologues spanning a few pages each in a 378 page story. (Alfred has the most internal monologues and he's presented as a more trustworthy unbiased narrator than Bruce, to get us to question Bruce's actions).

"Information travels on many routes, sometimes it comes predictably like the tides. You just need to know where to stand and meet it. Other times it's elusive and you have to root through the garbage to find it. In the last few years I've come to rely on Barbara Gordon, Oracle, we all did. Utilizing every form of surveillance equipment she has been the eyes and ear [...] but those days are over. I can't rely on anyone anymore. [...] and tonight it's also about the company I keep. It's different with him [night wing] out here. I think about when he was younger, when I was younger, it was different, simpler and I miss it. I miss those days, for that it's hard to be around him.

This first internal monologue is a case of unreliable narrator, because as soon as finishing it Dick Grayson / Nightwing shows up, offers Batman his help and while Bruce at first refuses it the two of them are forced to work together to fight Amazo. What does this show us? Bruce is not alone, but Bruce actively acts like he's alone ignoring the feelings of the other people around him. It exhibits a flaw of Bruce and the bad headspace he is in mentally (if I remember correctly Stephanie Brown recently died in the comics while this storyline was being published. It establishes Bruce's improper coping mechanism with grief, and how he is going about it the incorrect way.

Bruce says I work alone, and then Bruce says it's easier working with Dick, I miss it, but I can't go back to those days. It's bruce's contradictory thinking patterns in the same chapter that stop him. it's bruce's fault he cannot connect to Dick, and he is actively mourning the past because his relationship with Dick has changed.

Now the final part of the monologue in that chapter.

He's quick. Not just fast, agile. He's not thinking about his next move, he's just making it. He's been trained well. And there's something about him. Something familiar. There was something interesting about before he cut the line, before it had been taught. That had to have been practiced. Either that or just plain dumb luck. No it's not luck.

This is the first hint that Bruce already suspects it's Jason from early on but is in denial about it. This unreliable narrator trope also gives an agency to Bruce's decision, he is actively choosing to ignore the possibility that it's Jason because it doesn't want it to be.

Whereas, a lot of Endeavor's plot takes away any agency from him. For example, he doesn't even know that Dabi is Toya, because if he had the sneaking suspicion and ignored it like Batman did that might have made him look bad. We can't have the main character in a tragedy looking bad now can we?

The second monologue is more denial.

That device is from Kord industries. I should know. Ordered it special from them. How can he have it? No more dead ends. No more questions. No more guessing. Tonight I find out what is passing for the truth.

Reading between the lines this is outright confirmation Batman already knows.

The third is a brief reflection in his feelings for Jason.

The armor has to be light enough to fit but strong enough to protect. But sometimes a great many times, it's not strong enough. It wans't strong enough for Barbara who has to fight from her chair. It wasn't strong enough for Stephanie, other dear soldier enough dear grave. And it wasn't enough for Jason. Willful Jason. Who ignored the danger. Who spat at risk. Who was never frightened enough. I've always wondered... always... was he scared at the end? Was he praying I'd come save him? And in those last moments when he knew that I wouldn't. Did he hate me for it?

This monologue directly shows without stating it outright, Bruce is prioritizing his feelings of grief and failure mixing them in with his genuine grief over the loss of a son. it's selfish of him, but grief is a selfish emotion.

Here's the thing Bruce is allowed to be selfish and to not have the correct reaction to his grief, because the whole story is centered on Bruce being unable to get his shit together in time, and this picture into his emotions is an explanation as to why. Bruce is afraid of being hated by Jason. Jason of course has every right to hate him for failing as a father, but still I think not wanting to be hated to a person you loved so much and feel genuinely sorry over what you let happen to them is an understandable reaction.

Meanwhile we have Enji saying repeatedly all the right things in his monologue, the selfless, I don't need to be forgiven, it's okay if they hate me, I just need to atone but he never actually does anything. There's no explanation for why he isn't doing anything either, so that narrative dissonance. We're shown why Bruce doesn't act in time, he's internally a mess to be frank. We are not shown why Enji doesn't act in time because his internal monologue tells us again and again he's committed to atoning and he understands what the right thing to do is.

As Codenamesanzanka says:

Enji is still saying all the right things, but the story isn't giving him the opportunity to actually do the right things. To have his new actions matter. I have no doubt about his sincerity in his mantra, but without the 'show', it's hollow. Similarly, "Let's talk" is actually kinda bullshit too, because it's so vague. This is less about Enji, and more about the writing, how it set up this scene. "Let's talk" or "I want to talk" or any of that variation is repeated 6 times, without anything more or specific added.

There's an excess of repetition of Enji saying he wants to atone, he's ready to atone, without any of that materializing in the story.

As @class1akids says in this reaction post:

It also feels also super-hollow to say he's sheltering the family from the fallout, after they've just talked about how Fuyumi lost her job (and got a new one through the connections she herself built). How is he going to do that?

The fourth because I don't want to write it down, it's just Batman monologueing on how his partnership with Jason is still good and explaining the technical details of his fight with count Vertigo. It's in chapter 10 if you must look it up.

So four monologues total. Two monologues establish indirectly that Batman knows that Red Hood is Jason and doesn't want to face him. The third monologue establishes why he doesn't want to face him, he's afraid of being hated. The monologue is in line with Bruce's actions in the story, Bruce investigates several ways of reviving from the dead instead of looking for Jason.

The character's reactions around Bruce are also talking about how he's not acting like himself. Especially Alfred's who speaks of Bruce's indecision, on whether to put a stop to or save Jason.

"It is curious. He is lost in thought. It is not like him to spend vast stretches of time immobile, where his mind is gripped in the solitary process of deduction. This is quite different. He is hesitating. At a loss for what to do. I believe it is about Jason. And whether or not to stop him or save him."

This is illustrated in two scenes later where Jason spends a long time simply watching when Jason is fighting enemies, first in a fight against Captain Nazi, and second Black Mask. Jason even gives a direct callout of that behavior.

Jason: What the hell took you so long? Couldn't decide if you wanted to let me live. Batman: Shut up and fight.

Observed by Alfred Bruce is completely stalling and can't choose, observed by Jason Bruce can't decide whether to let Jason live or not. Bruce hesitates twice. We know why. We see it in action. It's called out as flawed behavior.

Now let's cover all the tell that don't show that is Endeavor's many monologues.

Pro Hero Arc:

I have to safeguard the future for them. That's the job for whoever's on top. What about the lives I cut short? Just demanding forgiveness isn't enough, it's too late for that. At this point I need to atone there's no other route.

Hellish Todoroki Family 1:

I'm trying to make ammends going forward. It might be too late. but I fall asleep every night thinking about it. Lately it's been the same dream. The wife and the kids looking happy at the dinner table. But I'm never there with them. It might be too late but I fall asleep every night thinking about what I can do for my family. I wish you could be here too, Toya. It's always the same dream. My whole family's there but not me. If I really care how they feel [I'll remain here].

I'm not going to read 200 chapters so I'm just going to ballpark it based on memory. Here we go.

Dabi's Dance:

My eldest, Toya didn't harbor frost within him. He didn't have a way to overcome the inescapable downside of overheating but I nevertheless sought to raise the boy as a hero. [...] Because Toya had more potential than me I placed my ambitions on his shoulders. I thought it could be you. You could have been the one to reach my eternal goal. My frustration... My envy... The ugliness in my heart... you could have been the one to smash it all to dust.

Plot twist this is the only monologue I like. It's different from all the others, and it's the only one where Enji is being emotionally honest. He put the emotional burden of his own emotional insecurities on an eight year old child, and expected to live vicariously through him and when Toya failed to live up to those expectations he just abandoned him. It alligns what we have been shown so far, Enji is not acting like a reptentant man here who realizes the harm he's done to Toya and only thinks of Toya as an extension of himself and his own regrets.

The Fight Against AFO:

My mistakes took the form as Toya leading to many stolen futures. The past never dies. Rage, resentment and even penace wound together toward the future. And the future is a path for the young. A path with so many branching choices. That's why I must win this. [I'll keep paying my penance. I'll win today and keep my eyes on Toya.]

When Enji decides to double Suicide with Toya:

I take full responsibility. I swore to bear the burden and live my life atoning for it all. However, you've been watching me all this time. While I couldn't be there to watch you. You were someone I especially needed to do right by. No I can't let you meet your end alone, but I won't let anyone else get caught up in our tragedy.

Hellish Todoroki Family Final:

I came to talk about what's to come. I'm retiring as a hero. That was my initial plan even before the war started, but now I can't even walk on my own. The hero endeavor burned to death. Your flames were really stronger than mine. [...] You're right. You know everything about me, Toya. After all you were always watching me. And you wanted me to do the same for you, but I didn't. Not matter what anyone says your heat does come from my hellflame. From now on I'll come everyday, so let's talk. It's too late now, so let's talk. [...] You're free to hate me. Anything is fine really, so throw it all at me.

This one is spoken dialogue but it's still a four-page long monologue. Every one of Enji's monologues with one exceptionsays the same thing: I'm sorry, I'll spend the rest of my life atoning for my actions.

We're repeatedly told Enji is atoning but he acts like Batman. Then, his actions should be framed as Batman, not atoning but avoiding any responsibility.

As observed by Class1akids when we were discussing the update:

Everyone else faces an uphill struggle with their lives, but we should all feel sorry for Enji atoning and being in hell. I hate Hori's compulsion to over-write his abusers and over-explain their atonement. He does this with Bakugou too but with Enji it's more irritating. It was so much more enjoyable when he just wrote the thing but didn't point at them and say -> look, they are atoning. Aren't they soooo cool??

Enji's internal monologues and the other characters frame him as some sort of martyr, while on the other hand it's clear by both Batman's actions and Alfred's observations he's not acting like his usual self. In fact, this is an interpretation of Under the Red Hood that I love from the writers of the video game Arkham Knight that does a less tragic retelling of Under the Red Hood:

Batman doesn't fight victims. He saves them.

Therefore if Batman is fighting Jason, a victim, he's not acting like Batman. I'm also fine with Arkham Knight being an Under the Red Hood retelling because it's a different story. Comics do this all the time, different universe versions, popular storylines adapted into different mediums. It also works as a commentary on the original story, by showing what Batman could have done to lead to a more positive outcome it makes Batman's choices in Under the Red Hood worse and more tragic because he could have saved Jason, there was still a chance.

So here we have two flawed tragic heroes who are meant to be both pitied and condemned for their actions. One of them is all pity with no condemnation. The other is both pity and condemnation, Batman is grieving, but also he's failing his responsibility towards Jason. Therefore one protagonist works, the other fails utterly.

I'm not saying abusers don't deserve redemption. I'm not saying Enji should have died in order to atone. I'm not saying that the underlying problem with the arc is that they decided to make Enji sympathetic and a focus of the arc. The most important problem is the breaking of one of the fundamental rules of storytelling: Show, Don't Tell.

The Tragic Villain

Not only does The Hellish Todoroki Family plotline fail to make Enji a compelling protagonist, it also fails it's biggest victim. Now, these are both stories that end with the hero failing to save their victim. So if both of these stories have the same ending, why am I saying it failed Dabi, but not Jason?

Well, let me explain.

Dabi and Jason are both villains turned victims. The stories themselves are about this ambiguity. How much should the be held responsible for their own choices? If they are actively harming innocent people, then shouldn't they be stopped? Should they be automatically be forgiven just because of the pain and grief they've suffered, even if they've been causing it to others?

Both characters are also reflective of their fathers because they are too being selfish in their grief, they want their grief acknowledged and so are violently lashing out.

Jason and Dabi both make plays at being vigilantes at first, Dabi wants to inherit Stains will, and Jason Todd wants to be a better bat-man by taking control of the drug trade in Gotham and cutting crime down by executing gang heads. However, neither of them are being honest with this and it's shown through their actions, both of them abandon their original plans.

In the final showdown all Toya cares about is facing Enji on the battlefield, and when he's on the brink of death his mind erodes to the point where all he can do is scream for Enji's attention while his flames get hotter and hotter.

Let's take about Jason first and how his narrative treats him a whole lot better and more sympathetically, with more humanity than Batman. Jason is still held responsible for his choices, he is criticized by Bruce for murdering gang leaders and passing it off as justice. He's also blatantly shown to be a hypocrite. My favorite scene from Red Hood: Lost Days, the official UTRH prequel.

"I want to kill the joker in a cool way. Just sniping the Joker from a rooftop isn't dramatic enough for me."

This scene, and the final scene of UTRH underlines Jason isn't executing criminals because he believes it's the right thing to do, or because of his stated motivation that killing the joker would prevent more future victims.

Instead his every action is to set up a scenario where he makes a selfish demand of Bruce. He wants Bruce to prove to him that he would choose him over being a hero, by setting up his final scenario. Him, the Joker, and Batman. Jason will shoot the Joker. Bruce has a gun. He can either choose to let Jason kill the Joker, or kill Jason to stop him, either way it makes it clear what Bruce's priorities are.

The underlying reason for this is similiar to Bruce. Just like Bruce, Jason is deeply afraid that Batman doesn't love him. That he thinks of him as a failure. (This is Toya's main reason too).

He also interprets Bruce's failure to avenge him to mean that Bruce didn't even care enough to mourn him. If Bruce loved him enough, he'd choose him over the joker, but he's so afraid that Bruce doesn't love him enough that he's going to force Bruce to choose.

Along the way he's also going to behead several crimelords in order to put an exclamation point on that point.

The way Jason completely unravels in the confrontation shows this insecurity, he begins with monologueing about how batman should totally kill people, until his fear that he wasn't important enough, and his grief at losing his father is revealed.

Batman: I know I failed you, but I tried to save you. I'm trying to save you now. Jason: Is that what what you think this is about? Your letting me die. I don't know what clouds your judgement worse, your guilt or your antiquated sense of morality. Bruce, I forgive you for not saving me. Jason: But why on god's green earth is he still alive? Ignoring what he's done in the past. Blindly, stupidly disregarding the whole graveyards he's filled with people. The friend's he's killed. I thought killing me - that I'd be the last person you ever let him hurt. Jason: If it had been you that he beat to a bloody mess. If it had been you he left in agony. If he had taken you from this world. I would have done nothing but search the planet for this pathetic pile of evil, this death worshipping garbage, and sent him off to hell.

Direct statement, it's irresponsible of Bruce to let Joker live after killing Jason and should have put him down to prevent future victims. Reading between the lines, Batman not taking revenge for Jason is a sign that he didn't love him enough, Jason loves Batman more because he would have taken revenge.

As the confrontation continues and Jason's mental spiral worsens, to the point where he can't keep up his pretense of self-righteousness.

Jason: I'm not talking about killing cobblepot, or scarecrow, or riddled, or dent. Jason: I'm talking about him. Just him. And doing it because...he took me away from you.

The father had lost the son, and now the son had lost the father.

Jason's revenge is just a cover, for his grief at losing Bruce. I think this also shows a really positive aspect of Jason's character to humanize him instead of condemning him for his actions to ignore or even justify the suffering he endured: Jason really loves Bruce.

I mean how meaningful is the statement: "Bruce, I forgive you for not saving me."

Bruce has been afraid to hear the whole time that Jason hates him, that he won't forgive him, but Jason loves him deeply. In fact his love is almost equal to his rage because Jason is a deeply emotional person, and these little details make him human and not just like a plot obstacle that Bruce has to face. A metaphor for his past failures.

Dabi is drawn as a crying boy who wants comfort, Jason is shown to be a crying boy who wants comfort through both dialogue and action without us directly needing to be told. It's a heartbreaking line and doing it because he took me away from you and it lands perfectly because the narrative wants us to just look at Jason's grief. It doesn't add an asterisk* even though he was in pain, he's done unforgivable things that can't be justified to undercut Jason's suffering.

In fact that might be another underlying problem with The Hellish Todoroki Family, the narrative tries too hard to make you feel a certain way instead of just presenting things as they are to make you come to your own conclusion. UTRH doesn't support Jason's revenge based serial killing of villains. It doesn't say he's justified to cut off the heads of mobsters. However, it doesn't excessively state "Well, I'm really sorry what happened to you but what you've done can't be forgiven" so we don't have to challenge ourselves to feel too much empathy for Jason's suffering.

Meanwhile even when Toya tries to express his rightful anger and grief, we're always met with someone shutting him down and saying well yeah, but you're wrong, involving innocent people is unforgivable.

As said by @stillness-in-green in the replies to this post:

I think so much harm (in-universe, but the state of the Twitter fandom makes me think the messages are pretty toxic irl, too) comes out of portraying the Heroes as needing to weigh in on the *morality* of the Villains' actions before they gauge "saving" them, when that is not a thing that glorified cops have any business thinking they have the right to do. Demanding repentance before the rehab is so bizarre.

You can say someone's actions are wrong without using it as a factor to consider whether or not their suffering as a human being should be acknowledged, and like I said there's multiple instances of people just yelling at Toya how immoral he is instead of addressing the elephant in the room.

You're wrong, you're wrong, you're wrong, you're wrong.

(Okay, I understand that some people have interpreted this as a show of Honnae and Tatamae, the Todoroki's who are a very repressed household are finally talking about their feelings even if those feelings are selfish and ugly).

(I'm not criticizing Shoto for saying that the people he killed were his own choice necessarily, Shoto is a character who's actions need to be read more deeply than his words he was dedicated to bringing Dabi down without him burning himself any further start to finished. My criticism lies in the fact that Hori uses Shoto as a mouth piece because he thinks we need to be reminded that murder is bad).

However, even acknowledging that time and place man, time and place. They couldn't have done that in the aftermath, when Toya isn't burning to death?

Hey buddy, you're being selfish.

Toya: AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH I'M MELTING, I'M MELTING.

This is I feel the underlying problem with the way the arc is written, not because the Todorokis are a very traditional Japanese family and there are cultural reasons they express their emotions differently, I'll give a caveat to that it's a nuance I might not understand.

However, I am arguing the actual problem is tell don't show. Horikoshi thinks that we as an audience need to be told multiple times that murder is bad, and we cannot be trusted to interpret that on our own.

Under the Red Hood shows both sides of Batman and Jason's debate, and let's us just come to the conclusion that Jason is in the wrong because revenge isn't justice. Horikoshi reaches no shit sherlock levels of telling us that we're not supposed to approve of Dabi's murders.

it's also a matter of giving Dabi narrative space to express his feelings, like every time Dabi tries to talk he is continually shut down (Shoto does engage Dabi talk to him and listen to why he didn't come back though I'll give him that) and it seems to be to push forward this weird idea that you shouldn't sympathize with the pain Dabi has endured or the ways he's dehumanized unless he does something to prove he deserves to be treated like a human being first.

Jason gets to monologue and make an entire argument, and his argument also shows the depths of his love for Bruce and what a deeply feeling person he is, and how those feelings being hurt and twisted could logically lead to his lashing out.

Compare this to Dabi who doesn't get a final monologue, but is instead reduced to a completely mindless state where he just cries out for his dad's attention. He doesn't get to make his argument.

Jason and Dabi both choose to blow themselves up, but Jason gets enough character agency to show this is a deliberate choice he's making even if it's the wrong one. He retains his character agency and ability to make decisions until the end of the narrative.

Jason's also you know physically crying. The end result of the narrative is about wrong choices that both Bruce and Jason make together, and then suffer the consequences together. Bruce watches the same failure play out again and he isn't able to save Jason, Jason doesn't get what he wants, he doesn't get revenge and he doesn't get to reunite with his father. It's tragic for both of them, and brought about by decisions both of them made.

Whereas yes Dabi makes a lot of bad decisions leading up to the last war arc, but in the end his final fate is up to a choice Enji made to not face Toya in the final battle.

However, while the final consequence of the battle is brought about more by Enji's decisions than Toya's, it's Toya who endures all the suffering and punishment. It's Toya who is in an iron coffin, and doomed to slowly and agonizingly die with all of his skin burnt off unable to move. Toya doesn't even get agency after the arc is over. Enji still has a wheelchair, Enji can still move around, Enji's still fucking rich, he's not in prison for his actions, he as Rei wheeling him around.

Toya's agency and choices are all taken from him, presumably to serve the plot purpose of making Enji save him to finish off his arc, and then ENJI DOESN'T EVEN SAVE HIM.

Also I think it's important to mention, Bruce's tragic ending is brought about by him attempting to save both, trying to save the joker and Jason with the same action. Whereas Enji's tragic ending is brought about by Enji NOT LIFTING A FUCKING FINGER TO HELP. Yet, it's Dabi who has the lion's share of suffering, and is sentenced to this horrific state of being skinless in an iron coffin and only being able to be awake a few minutes a day with no choice but to waste away.

Bruce is also immediately called out for his actions, by the Joker of all people, you handled this all wrong, it's your fault. Bruce is right to not kill the joker, killing the Joker would not have solved any of Jason's problems, but the fact that he put off facing Jason for so long, and his inability to communicate that he loves Jason is what leads to Jason thinking that the only way to prove Bruce loves him is to force him to choose. It's because Bruce has utterly failed to show him in any other way that he is loved.

Joker: Oh my god, I love it! You manage to find a way to win, and everyone still loses. I'm going to be the one who gets what he wants tonight, badda bing, badda boom."

I'd also like to add that a lot of agency in Enji's actions are taken away too, to make him look more blameless. It's not Enji's fault that he didn't say anything to Dabi during Dabi's dance, he passed out because he had a punctured lung. It's not Enji's fault that he spent a month protecting Deku instead of searching for Toya, he had to protect innocent people. It's not Enji's fault that he didn't go immediately to face Toya in the final war arc Hawks told him not to.

It's not Enji's fault that he made Shoto and Toya fight like Pokemon instead of cleaning up his own mess, and also he feels really sorry for it and as soon as he's done punching the bad guy he'll look after Toya he promises.

Enji does get called out for this behavior but it falls flat because it only comes from the villain AFO, and Toya himself. As I stated above too, the ending is more influenced by Enji's actions not Toya's (because Toya's agency is stripped away until he's mindless) but Toya is the one who has to die while Enji gets to live and atone.

That is the real sticking point for The Hellish Todoroki Family, the way it ends.

Themes Are For Eight Graders

The underlying problem with the whole arc and why The Hellish Todoroki Family fails as a tragedy, is because it wasn't written to be a tragedy.

The above quote is from an interview with the writers of the widely hated Game of Thrones Season 8, which took a sudden tragic turn for Dany's character, gave her an incredibly dehumanizing ending of being put down like a rabid dog by her own lover, an ending that was neither foreshadowed nor did it match with anything written before.

In this meta here by @hamliet it goes far more into depth that Game of Thrones isn't a tragedy, but a piece of Romantic fiction (not a love story, Romanticism is a genre of big emotions, the beauty of life, larger than life ideas hence why it fits well with fantasy genre, it can be sad but it doesn't follow tragic structure).

Dany is a romantic heroine, a deconstruction of the idea of the classic warrior princess trope, and you know a colonizer, but she's not meant to be written as an inherently bad person. There are people who say that Dany was going to die in the original books. I'm one of those people. Me. However, context and framing matters, Dany for all her colonizing ways does genuinely want to do the right thing, so it's likely she'd die a heroic death as a reflection of her selfless intentions (and intentions do matter for fictional characters) whereas in the show she's put down as a villain.

Now watch me I'm going to coin a term for future literary critics to use: Narrative Gaslighting.

Narrative gaslighting is different then Show Don't Tell, where an author has just failed to properly show what they're trying to tell you in the story. Narrative Gaslighting is when a narrative deliberately tries to mislead you, straight up lies to you, or just insists things that did not happen totally happened guys. Much like real gaslighting, Narrative Gaslighting makes you feel stupid for interpreting things a certain way and insists you were wrong all along.

Narrative gaslighting is when Tyrian gives a speech that everyone should have suspected Dany when she burned slavers alive that she was secretly evil and would one day turn on them.

Like, no.

Dany is flawed because she is a foreigner, interfering with the politics of a different country that she does not understand in order to gain enough resources and men to return to her home country and invade that country to exercise her right as a Targeryn to uphold the divine right of kings.

Game of Thrones doesn't mention any of that shit that's in alignment with the previous actions in the story, it's just insisting the very ableist notion that Dany was insane all along and her violence towards other people is the result of her mental illness.

(Also before anyone says, so if she's a colonizer than how can she have good intentions, everyone is Bad in Game of Thrones, they're all waging war to vie for a throne, monarchy is bad guys. IDK how to tell you that Game of Thrones has gray on gray on gray on gray morality).

(Also this aside ties into the hangup of MHA and most popular fandom culture on Twitter, that Dany's moral failings somehow disqualify her from her humanity. In spite of the fact that on top of all of that she's a rape victim, and like, Dany's only on that continent in the first place because she was sold as a bride.)

But here's the same weird subtext that Horikoshi's writing of Dabi. The fact that Dabi was continually victimized and denied human dignity does not need to be addressed, because he did the bad things and didn't atone properly enough for it first.

In essence this random post on the gunnerkrigg court forums I found on the same day the chapter came out, displaying apollo's gift of prophecy.

"When someone is persecuted, it's important to inform everyone about their flaws. That way you don't have to feel anything about all the times that they were denied human dignity."

So, Dany is not written as a tragic hero but a romantic one, we as an audience are both meant to acknowledge her flaws and sympathize with her, not demonize her in an ableist way for being insane, and even if Dany is meant to die the tragic way she dies does not match up with all of the narrative foreshadowing that was built before that.

Like, for instance a lot of POC after the show ended kept telling everyone that Dany's actions in a foreign country were seriously problematic, and not only did the audience not listen but the showwiters didn't acknowledge it with the same subtlety as the books. So those people especially were able to pick up Dany's character flaws, and when the show finally acknowledged them it's not even in the way that critiques of the show were pointing out Dany's flaws it was just "she was insane all along." Not like taking time to go "no matter what the intention, interfering with the politics of a foreign country is wrong."

The problem with the Todoroki arc is essentially the same, down to the ableism (because outsiders continually call Dabi either a maniac or insane Demon without even giving credence to his grievances about hero society he's just reduced to an insane fringe element of society, and Dabi himself is reduced to a completely mindless, childish, insane screaming state where he can't make active decisions).

The Todoroki Arc is not set up to us as a tragic one. The ending is pretty clearly telegraphed to the whole audience. People are not wrong for thinking that Toya's ending would be either rehabilitation like Rei with the eventual hope of being welcomed home, or some kind of house arrest where he still gets to be with his family.

Everyone happy at the Dinner table and Enji not sitting with them.

"I wish you could be here, Toya."

"We all have to go stop, Toya."

"In that case, I'll make him sit down for a bowl with me."

Even Shoto's efforts to take down Toya non-lethally are rendered completely pointless, because Toya gets back up again and then burns himself alive (completely by his own choice so no one has to feel bad that they failed).

The story sets up the expectation that Toya is going to be brought home and sit down for a meal with his family. Then it makes you feel stupid for going in an entirely different direction. It was always going to end this way didn't you know The Todorokis are a tragedy?

Well, I just spent a very long section of this thesis statement illustrating that if it's supposed to be a tragedy, then it's still not written well.

It's a written as a romantic story of a family healing, and the villain getting saved, only for the villain not to be saved and the story to just keep on going like not getting saved isn't a huge failure. This is something that should permanently destroy the main characters, that they got the chance to repeat Sekoto peak and be there this time and they all utterly failed. I feel bad for Shoto most of all because he did everything right, and he still loses his brother, but does the story show that?

The problem is the story is blatantly lying to you about the fact that Toya was somehow saved, even though he LITERALLY LOOKS LIKE HELLRAISER. To quote Codenamesanzanka again:

But I feel the story couldn't give us that because it will remind the reader and everyone just how much Touya will be missing. In-story, talking any more will overburden Touya's heart - and how apt is that metaphor? So let's talk about how we'll talk, but that's all that's allowed here for this scene. Else we'll see how unfair it is that Touya has to be confined to this room, he isn't with his family and they have to come to this prison just to tell him about their day, and soon he will be gone. Details make it real, and it would've exposed the lie that Touya was saved in an actual way. The story knows it too - "this extra time Shouto gave us." This is all 'extra', and not the core. [...] If the story was sincere that this is a case of "it's simply too late" - as it should be!!! imo, to really drive in the clear point that they failed, they did not get the save they wanted, because that's the truth - the tone of the chapter isn't tragic enough for that. The tone is going for 'Making Peace With This'. We've skipped the stages of grief and all we have is acceptance. The characters have accepted this, and so must the readers as well.

Therefore it's narrative gaslighting, the story is making us doubt our perceptions and trying instead to manipulate us to feel a certain way. We don't have to question the unfairness of Toya's fate, because look at all the people he's hurt, and look how Enji is atoning and taking responsibility.

The story builds up the idea that Enji will choose Toya. That he will choose being a father over being a hero. Enji doesn't do that, and it's Toya who suffers the horrific, painful consequences while Enji gets off mostly scott free. Mind you it's also ableist to suggest that being in a wheelchair is some sort of life-ending consequence like he's fine. The story even goes out of its way to say how avoidable this ending could have been if Enji or Rei or someone lifted a single finger to give Toya the acknowledgement he wanted, and then gives it a "Too little, Too Late" conclusion but doesn't acknowledge that this is where it's ending and instead tells us that Enji has successfully atoned.

"Everyone's watching me. So this is what it's like. If it was such a simple thing, then why not sooner?"

If it was going to turn out this way Toya should have just died here, not because death would somehow be a mercy compared to life in prison, but because the Todoroki Family doesn't deserve to get to pat themselves on the back. If they let Sekoto Peak happen a second time, then they should have to deal with the consequences of that.

It would be consistent is my point. This is written as a "Too Little, Too Late" kind of ending, but we don't get the emotional response from the Todorokis that they've let Toya die a second time.

On the other hand, UTRH has the exact same tragic ending but it doesn't make me angry because it's honest about it. The Todorokis let Sekoto peak happen a second time. Batman let Death in the Family happen a second time, but look at how even the narration and comic panels of the story acknowledge it.

"Fate is a funny thing. It swells up like a raging current and we are forced to travel. It provides us no exit. No deviation. It drops us in a bottomless ocean and compels us. We either swim, or drown, and sometimes as we struggle against the tide, a great truth arises."

One ends with Enji meaninglessly stating that he'll spend the rest of his life atoning for Toya and watching over him (which I guess will be like two months tops) for the fifth time. The other ends with Batman being lectured by the Joker of all people of how he chose wrong and being forced to watch once again as a warehouse blows up, and he's completely helpless to save Jason.

UTRH ends with the message that Batman sucks, Enji's atonement arc ends with Natsuo calling him cool for atoning and UTRH makes me like Batman way more as a character. Whereas at this point I feel nothing from the Todoroki Family, except for a disgust for the way that Toya not only has to die, but has to die a slow, gruesome death while the rest of his family walks away with the small comfort of "oh at least we'll get to say what we need to say before Toya passes."

Especially with the fact that Toya's greatest fear was that when he died, he died meaninglessly because his family never grieved him and all moved on with their life. I guess we don't have to analyze how gross the underlying message that criminals don't deserve to be sympathized with because themes are for eighth graders.

EPILOGUE

The post is finished but apparently everyone expects me to cover every single possible angle even in posts this long.

You didn't address the cultural aspect. Under the Red Hood is a western story, and Todoroki Family is based on eastern concepts.

The post isn't about that. The post is long enough I can't cover every single topic. Here's someone who covered that topic thoroughly. This one discusses more about the nuances of collectivism.

Also, since the Todoroki Family obviously copied Under the Red Hood's homework, it warrants a comparison. Especially since it seems to critically misunderstand what made the original work.

Which is a valid form of Literary Criticism, as Ursula K Le Guinn once said:

It doesn’t occur to the novice that a genre is a genre because it has a field and focus of its own; its appropriate and particular tools, rules, and techniques for handling the material; its traditions; and its experienced, appreciative readers—that it is, in fact, a literature. Ignoring all this, our novice is just about to reinvent the wheel, the space ship, the space alien, and the mad scientist, with cries of innocent wonder. The cries will not be echoed by the readers. Readers familiar with that genre have met the space ship, the alien, and the mad scientist before. They know more about them than the writer does.

The Todorkis aren't all to blame for Toya. Natsu, Fuyumi and Shoto are innocent:

You're right. It's just easier to refer them as the Todorokis then specifying "Enji and Rei" each time.

You didn't mention Shoto once in this post:

I have no cricism for Shoto's role in all this. In fact I think he's the best written part. I praise it here.

Shoto is a good boy, and he deserved to spend more time with his brother. The fact he won't be able to sit down and have dinner of him, is the greatest tragedy of them all.

#mha meta #mha spoilers #mha 426 #mha 426 spoilers #shoto todoroki #dabi #toya todoroki #enji todoroki #under the red hood #jason todd #bruce wayne #batman #mha critical #todoroki family

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pomefioredove · 3 months

Note

Hiii!! I was wondering if you could “I can’t stop thinking about you” with Jade? If ur prompt things are still open of course! If not that’s totally okay too!!

o7 anon

summary: "I can’t stop thinking about you" type of post: short fic characters: jade additional info: romantic, reader is gender neutral, reader is not specified to be yuu, not proofread and maybe a little ooc a part of this event

"And don't forget to lock the doors when you leave,"

Azul sighs, hovering in the doorway of the Mostro Lounge with his hands on his hips.

"Luckily, nothing was stolen last time I let Floyd take the closing shift, but luck is fickle,"

He pauses, turning to you. "I'm sure you, at least, will be able to handle something so simple."

You salute the tired-looking merman before the soft swoosh of the kitchen door interrupts the conversation.

"My, you have such little faith in me, Azul. I'm wounded," a smoother, much less tense, presence follows it.

You'd always wondered how Jade is able to sound imposing without ever actually raising his voice.

Azul huffs. "I clearly was not addressing you. Good evening to the both of you... Don't stay up too late,"

And with that, he's gone.

As soon as the door is closed and Azul's inky silhouette has vanished, you turn to look at the gentleman behind you.

"I didn't even know you were here,"

"I'm not supposed to be," Jade smiles, offering little explanation.

By now, you're sure he does that on purpose.

You don't feel like being baited into a conversation, but when your only other option is silence with Jade...

"So?"

"I was taking stock," he says. "Both metaphorically and literally. We're short on limes."

His strangeness radiates off of him like a mist. You narrow your eyes at him; he's hiding something, you're sure. But what are you supposed to do- interrogate him?

"I'll leave a note," you mutter, turning your attention back to sweeping.

This is your very first closing shift at the lounge; no customers, no Azul, no sounds except for your own breathing.

And Jade's.

He smiles again. "Shall I help? You'll be done faster with another set of hands,"

He could just leave. He's not even on the clock... if this is him looping you into some ploy to get overtime, you swear...

"If you would like,"

"Excellent,"

Jade disappears into the kitchen, taking that strange air of tension with him, and returns with a rag and cleaning solution.

He's completely silent, perusing the lounge as if it were an art museum, admiring the specks and stains on each table before wiping them down.

"You seem nervous," he says merrily, not even looking at you. "Are you afraid of the dark?"

"No," a half-truth. "I'm just tired." a lie.

"I've read that many human children develop a fear of the dark. What's more, is that it's not considered irrational. How fascinating,"

You focus on the bristles of the broom in front of you. The Mostro Lounge does get rather dark at night... all of Octavinelle does.

"It's not irrational," you mutter.

"Perhaps for you. But in the sea, a child being afraid of the dark would be as silly to us as a child being afraid of sunlight would be to you,"

You pause to look out one of the windows in the lounge, the thick pane of glass separating you from the inky depths. It's almost pitch black at this hour.

Ugh. You're letting him get in your head.

You hum. "Is that why you're here, then? Protecting me from the dark?"

Jade smiles, watching you out of the corner of his eyes. "No. I was only making conversation. You seemed uncomfortable with my presence,"

"I just was expecting to be alone,"

"So was I,"

You pause, turning to him with a questioning glance.

As vague an answer as ever, you think, though there's a certain gleam in his eye that's daring you to find out for yourself.

He meets your gaze. "You interest me,"

Jade says it plainly, his tone soft, as if he thinks he might scare you away with any sudden movements.

"I can't stop thinking about you," he hums. "And I hope you understand my meaning... I do not seek to make you uncomfortable."

You set the broom against the wall. "You're not,"

He mimics you, setting the rag and bottle aside. If you didn't know any better, you could've sworn you caught a look of relief on him.

"Good. I have no malicious intentions... This time,"

You take that as a joke. It's not very funny.

Jade chuckles. "Ah, don't roll your eyes at me. I'm only lightening the mood... I would like to get to know you better, after all," he pauses. "As a confidante."

There's something oddly genuine about this.

He's as calm as ever, but you can tell there's a current of vulnerability hiding beneath the surface.

You can't help a smile at the thought.

"Not an informant, then?"

He smiles back. "Not with you, no,"

#twisted wonderland x reader #twst x reader #jade leech x reader

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tswwwit · 12 days

Text

Cipher's Personal Portable Portal

'How they meet' won the poll!

So just to make things fully contextualized, as far as they're gonna be - here's the full first chunk of this stupidly long fic I'm writing.

I hope you enjoy!

Standing in the wreckage of the burnt-out building, Dipper wishes he didn’t know who did it.

Anyone else would have left some trace sign. A scrape of blood, a hint of burnt hair. A friggin’ decent eyewitness report, even.

But here, like last time, and the time before that, and the time before that - there's absolutely zero traces. No video footage, nobody around at the time of the crime. Not even footprints.

Dipper kicks one of the remaining supports, sending a puff of charcoal up from the impact.

If he knew the bastard’s name, he’d curse it all to hell.

With a sigh of exhaustion, Dipper sits on a chunk of scorched foundation. He pulls his shoe off to tip the ashes out of it; there’s enough that the resulting cloud leaves him coughing.

Around him, the scoured west wing of the museum is silent, still, and empty. A grey-black skeleton of its former self, filled with dust and charcoal.

This arson is yet another one in a very, very long line of crimes. They’re not just ‘unrelated incidents’, or ‘bizarre coincidences’. Dipper��s not ‘being paranoid’ or ‘coming up with some pretty weird conspiracy theories’.

There’s only one person who could manage this. The same guy who turned a bank upside down - literally - and the same one who impaled a mob boss on an oversized silly straw and gave tails to half of a household last week.

It’s all connected.

Each crime is marked with the same style, mostly by how remarkably weird they are. Along with a thread of magic, distinct in its composition. One so distinctive that it's almost a flavor. Though admittedly, without certain magical analysis, it’s pretty hard to detect.

And if other freelance magicians would take the time and look at Dipper’s notes, maybe one of them would help find this asshole.

Dipper stalks through the burned building, fists balled in his pockets. He stumbles over a fallen support column, and nearly trips before he makes a hopping retreat back.

Though the culprit has been at his game - whatever ‘game’ that is - for a good half a year now, this is the most destructive ‘incident’ so far. Nobody was hurt, since it happened in the middle of the night. The one relief from a terrible crime, that only objects were obliterated in the process -

But the ashes speak for themselves.

Here, there’s nothing left.

He breathes in slowly. Then regrets the attempt at calming himself as he coughs again.

Whatever the culprit’s initial motive was, it hasn’t lasted. He’s grown not only in ambition, but also in his abilities. Things are escalating at a rate Dipper doesn’t like to think about.

Someone has to get to the bottom of this. Before it’s too late. Dipper’s got his number, metaphorically speaking, so. Well, might as well be him.

And when he proves that all of this chaos was created by the same person -

Well. A little boost to his meager reputation couldn’t hurt. Maybe a few medals and accolades. There isn’t a trophy for best monster hunter, but he can imagine standing on a podium and -

Dipper waves that thought off, swearing under his breath. Stupid. He has better things to focus on.

He’s the only freelancer on the case. Definitely the only one taking this seriously, the only one who thinks it’s the same person to begin with - and even he’s starting to have some doubts about ever finding the bastard.

Six months of tracking this guy down, and what does he have to show for it? A ramshackle compilation of incidents, a vague feeling of magic, and a description that could fit any bottle-blond actor with bad fashion sense. Scraps. He might as well pin them up and connect them with red string for all the good it does him.

Another kick sends Dipper hopping back, clutching his foot with a swear. He winces at the hole in the tip, he nearly punctured his foot on a nail.

Just his luck. Wrong place, wrong time, always just barely avoiding disaster. Dipper shows up whenever there’s an event, he’s got the means to follow the guy - but he’s always just a little too late.

Even worse, lately the guy’s been picking places… not at random, exactly. More like he causes trouble wherever it’d be the most annoying to follow.

The culprit must know someone is on his trail. But he’s not making it impossible to keep up, or even majorly difficult for a determined pursuer. Just really, really irritating, like making moves at three in the morning, or pausing just long enough for someone to catch up, then heading right back where he came from. At one point Dipper had to trudge through a literal swamp, only to find that bastard had sauntered in by baking himself a neat little trail right through the damn thing. There wasn’t even footprints to follow.

It’s a repeated point in Dipper’s notes. Whoever this is, they’re a total, absolute dick.

With a sigh, Dipper runs his fingers through the ash on the museum’s floor. Not a single thing is left beyond the shattered glass of some display cases, and the charred remains of the building. Even the enchanted metal tools have been melted into slag.

The day before yesterday, he could tell something was up. Building energy, something that felt like it was made by the culprit. Something with the twinge of a powerful curse, coiled and being wound up like a spring.

Dipper spent that evening convincing - okay, maybe also bribing, thank you Stan for the idea - the museum to let him borrow materials. The day after that, he spent all night, morning, and most of the afternoon running around slapping up anti-curse emblems. The entire south of the city warded, in a fine careful net of spellcraft. The work was exhausting. Both in running around, and in the amount of magic he’d needed to use.

But it was worth it. That evening, in the quiet and very uncursed city, all the emblems activated. Dipper would have sworn he sensed someone in the distance, cursing his own name. That night he went to bed with a smug sense of satisfaction, floating on a cloud of triumph.

Which is probably why the bastard burned down the museum next.

With another sigh, Dipper tucks his notebook back into his knapsack. He’s gleaned all he’s going to for today; in the fading evening light, searching more is pointless.

So much for all the magical artifacts. Most of those had come in really useful in messing with the guy.

…How the hell did the culprit know where they came from, though? He’d need a near encyclopedic knowledge of artifacts to know which ones Dipper used, then track them back to their origin.

Or maybe he just searched on the internet. It’s hard to tell.

Dipper just wishes there were more clues. But just like every other incident, the guy up and freakin’ vanished.

No human can disappear like that without some very irresponsible use of power. That hope is one Dipper’s hanging his hat on. After six months? He has to be reaching his limits. He’ll burn himself out before he can manage too many more incidents. Maybe Dipper will find him by stumbling on his withered, dissolving corpse.

Whoever this is is pretty strong, but no power is infinite. He can’t hide forever.

It can’t be too much longer. Won’t be. Dipper has a plan, he’s gotten really close, and - He’s good at his job, damn it. He knows he is.

Taking a deep, slow breath, Dipper lets it out. Patience is the name of the game here. He’s just gotta keep moving.

One day, he’s going to catch up with that bastard. He’ll see the guy in the flesh. Then he’ll grab that stupid dick before he can escape, again, and wipe that presumably smug look off his probably ugly face.

Turning around one last time, Dipper surveys the destruction, stuffs his hands in his pockets - and pauses.

A speck of light glints in the pile of ash. The last bit of evening sun, shining off a metallic surface.

Alert with surprise, Dipper scrambles over to the pile. Kneeling down, he brushes the dust carefully aside, careful not to disturb anything fragile that might shatter if handled wrong.

One thing did survive. Thank fuck, it’s not an absolute total loss. Just, uh… Ninety-nine percent of it.

He scuffles through the still-warm ashes, cupping his palms underneath the lump and lifting it from its bed. The motion sends white puff rising up as ash slips away from the artifact.

A small black, squarish thing rests on the pile, a bit larger than both his palms put together. The material is faintly warm from residual heat, insulated by the ash it laid in - and there’s not a mark on it. Not even a scratch.

Dipper turns the artifact over in his hands with a frown. The shining black surface reveals no obvious buttons or secrets. Just a kind of phone-ish shape, though more square and squat. If he didn’t know any better, he’d say a guest dropped it on the rush to escape.

The fact that it’s still intact though. Nearly glowing with magic, a tremulous feeling under his palms - this is not dropped by some clumsy tourist. Not even Ford could put this together.

Wiping at the object with his sleeve, Dipper manages to clean off most of the smooth surface. On one of the sides, dust clings to the thinnest of engravings. The very faint outline of an equilateral triangle. No runes or other magical scribing, just… a shape.

Dipper thinks back but - no, he doesn’t remember seeing this in the collection. A quick check online reveals…

Basically nothing. There are - were - a bunch of stone and metal slabs in the archives, all described so poorly as to be useless. Some are even bunched up in groups. ‘Magical slab 1-24’ and ‘Metal artifact 1-78’, no description involved.

Not surprising. Probably dug up in some mass excavation site, transported here, then never really looked at again. The bulk nature of the shipment means it was overlooked, its magical properties never discovered.

After today, he’s just glad that even one item escaped this onslaught.

The other artifacts must not have had much to them. But some magical property in this artifact’s making must have saved it from the blaze. Fireproofing, perhaps? Against weird fire? That’s unusual. Maybe even unique.

As the only survivor, it really needs investigating.

Dipper glances over his shoulder, then around. With everyone evacuated, it’s quiet in the rubble. Nobody here would notice if, say… a clue wandered off.

The artifact slips easily into his pocket. The shape conveniently looks just like a phone, even if the shape’s a bit off. Not something that would attract any attention.

Whistling nonchalantly, ducking out of the way of local law enforcement and any onlookers - Dipper makes his escape.

Another day of pursuit. Another scene of disaster, the culprit there and gone in the blink of an eye.

He’ll be up to something new, next. Never the same thing twice, never in the same place.

Dipper will follow in his evil tracks, of course. But for tonight - his fate is another crappy hotel room.

He ditches his backpack by the door, slumping against the wall and its chipped paint. He could start going through his notes, and the pictures of the arson. Put in more work, find further connections -

But it’s been a long day, and he’s tired. He might be magical, but he’s only got so much to work with. A reasonable night’s sleep, if he can manage, will make the task loom less horribly over his tired brain.

With a sigh, he drops back on the mattress. There’s some bounce to it, springs squeaking like they’re full of mice. Hell, maybe they are. The type of room he can afford isn’t exactly decadent.

That, though, should be temporary. Dipper’s career is only just starting; freelancers in the ‘solving magical problems’ scene don’t get great rates. Especially as a beginner. Definitely without a partner; it makes him look super young. Like he’s just starting out, fresh-faced and not having any inroads.

Because this field is really stupid, and doesn’t pay attention to results. Dipper’s been fine on his own for years, and he’s done really cool things without that ‘networking’ crap.

All by himself. Totally cool with that, because Dipper’s a cool guy, sometimes. If Mabel hypes him up enough on one of their phone calls, he almost believes it too.

Though it would be nice to have some backup, it’s hard to find someone who really gets the job. Or does it in the way that Dipper goes about it. The number of people who are willing to take long treks in hyper-magical territory to search for an obscure clue, or set up really complicated traps for dangerous monsters, or talk over high-level magical theory while sitting in the rain all night just to get one body-snatcher are…

Well, besides Ford, who recently retired, there aren’t any. Only Dipper himself.

One day, things are going to change for him. All his effort will pay off. If he keeps solving mysteries, and fighting monsters, he’ll forge a reputation as someone who always gets the job done. No matter how hard it is, he can handle it. The work is picking up, too. The last six months have shown the biggest series of magical incidents in decades.

And he’s gonna be the one to get to the bottom of it.

Dipper Pines, the guy who proved it’s all connected. He’ll have it laid out in facts and math, all the evidence. They’re all gonna see that he was totally right.

Once he finally gets this guy, everything’s going to start looking up.

The sheets rustle as Dipper settles back, holding the artifact up over himself. He stares into the black surface, and a slightly distorted reflection narrows its eyes back at him.

A good mystery always intrigues him. This one should take his mind off the other, irritating one for a while.

The only remaining object from the fire is clean and smooth. A mysterious creation, of unknown purpose. Clearly riddled with magic, too; Dipper feels it running just under the surface like a rapid current. It gives the artifact a weight that has nothing to do with mass.

Power.

Did the criminal see this artifact, still intact after all the other magical objects were gone? Did he try to destroy it too, and fail? Or simply not notice he’d missed one out of thousands?

Whatever it is, it’s got a lot more going on than meets the eye.

Dipper casts a quick identifier, which comes back with nothing. He’s not surprised. That’s the first thing anyone would try. If it was that simple, he’d already have the full description off the site.

With a shrug, he traces another set of runes, his own version, adding a little more oomph behind it -

And the magic leaps back instantly, with the bizarre sensation of a bouncy ball hitting concrete.

“Huh,” Dipper says, thoughtfully. He sits up, hunching over the slab in his hands. “Now that’s new.”

A more subtle approach, then. Tracing the lines of energy with the barest brush of magic upon magic reveals something deeply complex. Thin layers twist together deep under the surface, building an entire circulatory system. Dipper has to put it down for a moment, suddenly worried that it is organic.

When a cautious prod doesn’t get a response, he relaxes. Not fleshy, just complicated. Which also proves he was right earlier - the artifact’s just as powerful as he’d thought. The spellcraft is unlike anything he’s ever seen.

Dipper rubs his hands together, starting to smile.

Even if he doesn’t find the guy he’s after, figuring this out could be a heck of a win.

Several attempts later, he’s beginning to get why this bastard brick got tossed in with all the other junk.

Nothing here is working. It simply deflects. Standard spells poing off of it like rubber, while giving his magical senses an odd, back-of-the brain afterimage of a circle with a slash through it; a firm ‘nah’.

Dipper nearly chucks the thing across the room in frustration, before shutting his eyes and taking several, calming breaths.

Okay, weird thing, weird enchantment. The ordinary stuff won’t work. The magical logic is… twisted in a way that leaves it incompatible with most everything. He’ll have to find a different approach.

“What are you?” Dipper says, low and frustrated. He gives the artifact a shake, as if he can knock the secrets out like a rock from a shoe. “What secrets are you hiding in there?”

No response, not that he expected one. With a wry smile, he taps the sleek surface with a finger, twice. “C’mon, man. Talk to me.”

Huge yellow letters flash onto the black surface.

HEY

Dipper throws the artifact, a bit awkwardly since he’s lying on his back. It sails in the air in a high thin arc, landing with a thump between his legs. He scoots rapidly backward, sheets pulling up behind him.

The artifact lies where it landed, an unmoving brick. There’s magic in the air now, but no sense of any spell building, ready to unleash power to blow his face off. The latent spellcraft of the artifact has just been activated.

More text displays on the surface, bare except for the glowing letters.

To the jerk that’s swiped my private stuff: You got some nerve! I expect this back by interdimensional mail in a week, or trust me - there will be consequences.

Dipper waits a full minute before he lets go of the headboard. Tentatively, he kneels near the…

Is this a phone?

Clearly it’s a communication device of some sort, with the freaking text messages. A phone is the obvious equivalent, only - he thought it looked far older than that, something way before mobile phones. Possible ancient. Is that a coincidence, maybe, or is it secretly modern?

Dipper taps the ‘screen’, just below the glowing words. To his surprise, there’s actually a keyboard, what the hell. This thing keeps getting weirder.

Since it hasn’t already thrown a horrible curse at him, or burst into flames - it’s reasonably safe to assume that it’s simply ‘on’. Not ‘explosive’.

With hands that are definitely not shaking, he picks it up, and types,

Who is this?

His own text pops up in blue. A strange contrast to the yellow, but he’s guessing it’s for convenience - there’s no bubbles to tell who’s said what otherwise.

A few seconds of nervous waiting later, there’s a response.

Oh hey, you answered! Well, human - You’re talking to the one and only Bill Cipher, Dream Demon, all-powerful master of the Mindscape! I’d say it’s nice to meet ya but you’re not supposed to have a direct line to me!

Dipper raises an eyebrow.

Now that’s one hell of an introduction. It might even have been interesting, if it didn’t smell of complete bullshit.

Complicated spellwork, sure. Incomprehensible architecture? Maybe. Dipper can admit it; he’s never seen anything with a web of spells on it this complex, in such small of a package.

But the idea that Dipper just stumbled onto a demonic artifact of all things. One that wasn’t instantly detected, recorded, then ritually destroyed is…

Someone’s fucking with him.

Dipper rolls his eyes as he types back,

Really? Demon? You can’t expect me to believe that.

What, you calling me a liar? ‘Cause I am, but not about this! I got better things to mislead mortals about. This is my property, not something for your grubby mortal mitts.

Dipper snorts. Guess this person’s sticking with the bit. Obviously whoever created this would want it back - but too bad. Whether they’re delusional, stupid, or just a flat-out liar, they’re really good at enchanting. It’d be a waste not to study their work.

He lies back on the bed as he replies.

Sure, have fun roleplaying, or whatever, it doesn’t make a difference. Finders keepers, losers weepers.

ARE YOU CALLING ME A LOSER. MORTAL.

Hmm, I’m detecting a certain amount of ‘crying about it’, so. Yeah. Suck it, loser.

Smirking, Dipper settles back - then his half-smile drops, as he holds the ‘phone’ a little further away from himself.

Though the blue fire building up in the screen looks like a bad sticker effect, the artifact’s also getting a alarmingly warm. It vibrates in his hands - then suddenly stops, cooling down.

Ha! Alright, alright, I admit - you got some balls.

Maybe you’ll change your tune once you REALLY know what you’re dealing with! Might wanna check the connection, if you’re even capable of it! Mortal magic doesn’t reach across dimensions!

With a grimace, Dipper taps his fingers on the phone. It’s slightly cooler now, but still worryingly reactive to… whatever happened on the other end.

Damn. Whoever this is, they’re not only really really good at enchanting, they’re also pretty confident that tracking them down won’t spoil their game. The confidence exuding from this ‘Bill’s’ words feels genuine.

Honestly, though, the suggestion is a good one. Dipper should have tried to trace the call the second he knew someone else was on the line.

Maybe ‘Bill’ thinks he won’t manage to find him. Joke’s on him, though; Dipper’s amazing at finding stuff. He’s the best tracker of magical anything in years. Maybe decades. With a solid, stable connection right in front of him? Hell, he could do this one in his sleep.

Time to call the bluff.

He casts the tracing spell, though it takes longer than usual. A few gestures and muttered ritual aren’t gonna cut it; he has to improvise around the strange construction of the enchantment. Even trailing along the magic seems harder than usual, like it resists mixing with his own, and it takes him a few attempts to match the signal.

Once he finds the right way to tune it… the lead snaps along the already-existing connection, and zips away to find its source.

The line extends out from the shabby hotel room, a plucked string in Dipper’s senses. It twists around the phone, rising slowly. Invisibly passing through the walls and the -

Ceiling? Dipper looks up on instinct, even though nothing is visible.

From there it swirls around in the air like a silly straw on steroids, and then - out, very far, in a way that isn’t up or down or left or right, just

Away.

Dipper has to cut off the tracing spell before vertigo has him reeling. The swirling sense of standing on top of a skyscraper is followed by a flip in his stomach. That he’s using a device he barely understands that reaches out into something even more incomprehensible.

He drops the phone-artifact, trying to clear his head by shaking it rapidly.

That’s not nearby. Not on this planet. Possibly, genuinely, not even in this dimension.

Shit. Bill wasn’t bluffing.

Dipper wipes sweating palms on the sheets. To pick up the phone again takes an effort, willing himself to grasp it in unsteady hands.

A demon.

All the monsters he’s fought, curses he’s broken, years of work tucked into his belt, and he’s never seen one of those.

Demons are dangerous, evil, and very, very powerful. Consorting with them is by all accounts a terrible idea. He should never have picked this up. He should hang up, and throw the damn artifact out the window, hoping that nobody else makes as dumb a mistake as he just did.

On the screen, there’s a long long scroll of yellow letters, filling the entire surface. ‘HA HA HA HA’ over and over and over again.

Before he can think better of it, Dipper starts a response. He’s halfway through a sentence - what the fuck, that’s not funny- before he pauses.

Terrible evil monster. Stupid powerful. Probably Bill sensed the tracing of the connection, like he did with Dipper’s other testing. Bill wanted the result startle him. Because he thinks it’s funny.

Dipper grits his teeth, and glares at the screen.

Actually, screw this guy. Dipper’s keeping the stupid phone. If for no other reason than spite. This ‘Bill’ guy seems pretty full of himself, like he’s totally above some human. He’s in for a bad time, then, because Dipper’s not going to let one little surprise scare him off.

Besides. The average guy would get into horrible, even deadly trouble, whereas Dipper… sort of knows what he’s doing. No, he is good at his job. Finding secrets, solving mysteries, thwarting evil jerks who think they’re oh-so-hilarious, the whole shebang. He does it all.

Taking another breath, hissing through clenched teeth - Dipper lets it out. Losing his temper isn’t going to help deal with an extradimensional being. He has to be careful.

He thinks for a long moment before he responds.

Okay. Let’s say I believe you. Maybe. Then you should know I didn’t steal your… whatever this is. I found it lying around, and I just. Got kind of curious.

HA HA HA! Of course you were! Careful with that impulse, kid, it kills more than just cats!

A jerk who definitely thinks he’s hilarious. Dipper rolls his eyes, then, rather pettily, decides to ignore that statement.

More pressing questions take the lead. Like what the fuck he’s holding right now, and if there are any other nasty tricks in store. A little bit of him, bubbling under the surface, wonders what being a demon is like. What they get up to, common habits. Ways they could be tracked down and, y’know, defeated, maybe.

Theoretically, he’s got a line to a bunch of innocent, totally not-thwarting-related information that could be super useful to someone trying to, maybe, be a super cool monster-fighter.

Dipper backspaces a bunch over some poorly thought out questions. First things first. Like what the hell he’s holding right now.

So. What is this?

Good question! The gadget you’re poking at with your sweaty meat-paws is paired to the one I have here at my place. A little one-on-one communication assistant, if you will. Once you started groping around with your magic, it wasn’t hard to tell someone had picked it up!

Dipper raises an eyebrow. Though he already has an idea… a little confirmation never hurts.

Like, you got a notification? Or literally felt?

The latter! Kinda like smell, but by touching things with your eyeballs. And with all your prodding around you might as well have been stinking up the place! Your spells aren’t real subtle!

Hey, they’re subtle! Having weird extra senses is just cheating.

Sucks to be human, then! In that you suck at everything! What’s a LOSER like you gonna do about it?

Dipper nearly throws the stupid artifact again - but he holds back, gripping it tight. Instead he sits up, leaning down and hauling his backpack up from the side of the bed.

Maybe Bill thinks he can’t do anything. That he’s some ignorant nobody, who doesn’t have any real skills or talent or doesn’t have any friends - but he’s got that wrong. Dipper’s not a loser. Bill’s not getting away with that bullshit.

One quick unzip and a bit of rifling around later, he finds what he was looking for. Carefully, Dipper bounces the heft of a flashlight battery in his hand. Shutting his eyes, he focuses on crafting a quick working.

Magic is all about energy, and its direction. Focusing power, conveying it from one place to another. Pushing anything across dimensions would take impossible amounts of energy, stuff Dipper doesn’t have. If it weren’t for a very convenient connection, already in his hand.

Dipper has nothing on hand to actually exorcise the guy - he’s not sure that’s even possible when Bill’s where he should be - but retribution is in order.

More text lines appear on the artifact. He ignores them. Changing this up to work with the demon device is a challenge, but after figuring out how to alter the tracking spell changing this one up isn’t hard. He adjusts the flow of magic this way, into the tangle of not-veins in the device that way, finishes the chant-

Then touches his tongue to the battery.

The jolt passes through him painlessly, following the spell. It zips along his nerves, down into his hand and from there - into the artifact itself.

Where it should, theoretically end up right at that bastard.

Dipper tosses the battery back into his backpack. Picking up the ‘phone’, hunching over to stare at the screen.

That worked. He felt the energy move… unless he got the math wrong. Or a detail of his spell. Or maybe demons are immune to electricity, and he just did something totally pointless.

God. It might even prove Bill right, and wouldn’t that be the worst -

The next line of text comes in.

What the hell? A joy buzzer? That’s some real petty prank stuff! You seriously pulled that bullshit? And across dimensions?

A tense pause. Dipper taps the phone, checking for it heating up again - but another line pops up after a few seconds.

Y’know what, kid? I think I might actually like you! You’re FEISTY.

Dipper nearly does a double-take.

But no, that - what? Aren’t demons supposed to be vengeful? He was half-sure he’d have to chuck the phone out the window before it exploded in his hands.

In fact, you’re in luck! ‘Cause I’m pretty bored, and I can totally show you how to improve that jinx of yours! If you can keep up with a little theory, that is.

Because that’s not suspicious or anything. Conversation with a demon can only lead to ruin and disaster. He should absolutely, definitely stop this right in its tracks.

Still, Dipper shrugs, and types,

Try me.

#billdip #I should probably make a tag for this 'series'#Let's say the tag will be #Portal AU #I say series but my plan is to complete it then post it in One Big Post on AO3 eventually #I just wanted you all to know I really am working on stuff and I hope you enjoy these two idiots #This is ~5k of the now 21k document I have going #Truly I am caught in a trap of my own making #Suffering is writing and writing is suffering #I also realized while putting this on Tumblr that I can totally change text colors!#I might apply that formatting trick later if I can find a shade of yellow that isn't totally obnoxious to actually read #Little nervous about this since it's not Familiar AU but they needed not to know each other for the Premise to work #I'm excited to get to later stuff because I can make SO many dumb jokes

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aroaceleovaldez · 3 months

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The himbo, malewife, goofball -fication of percy jackson is such a crime by both the fans and riordan. It has made Mr not like percabeth as a couple because in all posts and in later books annabeth is such a girlboss, while Percy's dumb and can't fight his way out of a paperbag without her. All the posts are about how annabeth will be an architect and percy would love to be a trophy husband.

Even the humor in the books went from Percy's sharp wit and snark to 'my pancakes can't drown because I'm a son of poseidon.'

And now this recommendation letter bullshit.

Honestly now I'd wish percy just separated from annabeth (but they remain best friends.) He stays home with his family, becomes a camp counselor, helps young demigods, holds God's accountable and eventually becomes a social activist. (I also dislike him doing something marine biology related. It's clear he hates academics but he always wants to help people. Him helping demigods and mortals is such a wholesome profession for him.)

I fully agree with the first half of this, though I slightly disagree with part of the latter.

The later-series and fanon mischaracterization of Percy is at least a solid 50% ableism minimum, full stop. He's being warped into a very stereotyped ADHD character and the exact reason why he's being characterized as "dumb" is because of ableism. Percy is a very intelligent character! That's exactly why he's so in sync with Annabeth and they're such a strong duo! It's just generally Annabeth is more book/academically smart.

I disagree with where you say he hates academics - because that's one of the common misconceptions about his character. Percy doesn't hate learning or academic subjects! He's not even bad at them! We know explicitly that when he is in an accommodating environment he is interested in learning and gets significantly better grades! Percy only dislikes school because it is generally an environment that systematically he struggles with. It's literally just he has a learning disability (two, actually)! That's it! When his learning disability is accommodated for he does well! It's almost like that's what accommodations are all about! We know this from the first series! It's discussed pretty in-depth! Percy isn't a dumb character and he doesn't hate learning, he's just been let down by school systems so much that he's inherently distrustful of them. If they actually accommodate him though then he does just fine!

And that's exactly what CHB was all about and why New Rome University was supposed to be such a big thing for him! CHB is a learning environment geared for demigods. NRU is a demigod college. Both inherently imply an environment meant to cater to and accommodate students with ADHD and dyslexia! They are both systematically structured to be able to accommodate him! Heck, CHB and CJ even both address in the wider themes of the series a metaphor about how ADHD and dyslexia are commonly seen as childhood disabilities, and how it can be more difficult to find accommodations into adulthood because of that attitude but those disabilities don't just go away - that's why CHB is a summer camp but they talk about how demigods outside of CHB don't often fare well. The metaphor there is those who are not getting help or accommodations are struggling. Because that's how that works! This is a fully intentional metaphor from the first series! CHB is never framed as being perfect for demigods, because one of the entire central conflicts of the series is Percy and Luke going back and forth about this flawed system meant to help and support them but still letting people fall through the cracks. The "claim your kids by 13" thing is a metaphor about how acknowledging a child's disabilities (and possibly getting a diagnosis) earlier/as early as possible means they will have more time to learn and build up resources and support for themselves to be able to use later in life. One of CHB's major flaws is that it can accommodate demigods to a certain point, but it can only do so much before those demigods have to leave (the metaphor being accommodating school systems when those disabled students do not have any other forms of accommodations in their lives.)

And that's why Camp Jupiter was framed as being so revolutionary for Percy because it had an environment acknowledging that this is not just a childhood disability, adults with ADHD/dyslexia exist too and still need and deserve accommodations, AND is a place where those accommodations are available. That's why Camp Jupiter and NRU are treated as such special and important things to Percy, because it's essentially Percy being shown this type of thing can and does exist and it is available to him. It is an option he never thought was possible. Percy never thought he'd be able to go to college because he would not be able to go through school without accommodations, but NRU proves otherwise.

The part that's absolutely stupid is Rick then proceeded to retcon NRU so that apparently it's not a full college and Percy still has to take classes at normal mortal college which DEFEATS THE ENTIRE PURPOSE OF NRU EXISTING. Rick has fully retconned that demigods struggle past the ages of 16-18 when they're on their own (see above elaborated metaphors) and in doing so we have fully killed all symbolism in literally all of that. It's so stupid. And by having the plot of the CoTG trilogy entirely be that Percy is not actually allowed access to NRU in the first place because he is a son of Poseidon and has to do extra to even be accepted is stupid!

All that to say, I agree the marine biology feels like a huge cop-out and a disservice to his character by reducing him to just a son of Poseidon. The literal only reason why it's the default option people take for him is because oh, fish thing, fish guy. But I feel like everyone ignores the really obvious answer for what Percy would want to do which is - writing. Both his parents are writers/authors and he clearly admires that about them. Percy likes telling stories! He canonically is already a published author in-universe! That's what the books ARE in-universe! The first series fully exists in their universe and Percy is the author! This is explicit canonical information! Percy canonically has help physically writing it down (accommodations) but he is still the credited author! Percy is a writer! Already! Canonically! Why are we making him a marine biologist he already has a profession that ties into his character significantly more. Like you said, Percy likes helping people. That's what the books in-universe are supposed to be for! It's point blank at the beginning of the series! Book one! The thing everybody quotes all the time! The books exist because it is Percy trying to give advice to other demigods who don't know what's going on yet! It's Percy's writing down his experiences to help new demigods understand and contextualize their experiences so they can understand themselves better and figure out what's going on - WHICH IN ITSELF IS ALSO A METAPHOR ABOUT ADHD/DYSLEXIA! Because the core of the series has and always will be built around ADHD/dyslexia! Percy as a protagonist EXPLICITLY was created so that ADHD/dyslexic kids could see themselves as a hero!

Sorry that all was a very tangential rant but my point being: Absolutely. Percy in newer stuff in the franchise and in fanon is horrifically mischaracterized in ways that are functionally either fully ableist (shoutout TSATS for just outright claiming Percy is intentionally lazy and skips school out of disinterest, which is like the number one ableist attitude towards kids with learning disabilities) or a complete erasure of Percy's disabilities. Also I think he should be a writing major not a marine biologist.

#pjo #percy jackson #riordanverse #rr crit #cotg #meta #analysis #chalice of the gods #adhd #dyslexia #disability #Anonymous #ask #long post //#i do agree with the ''Percy continues to hold the gods accountable'' thing because that too is a metaphor for adhd/dyslexia #more re: accommodating systems and making sure demigods (disabled kids) are getting the support they need #functionally it's equivalent to Percy doing that thing where you have to nag whoever's in charge of ADA stuff to actually do their job #it's the rant i always go on: you cannot remove the disability themes from PJO or else it is no longer PJO and you ruin everything #you cannot divorce Percy's character from being disabled/having ADHD and dyslexia/PTSD/etc #it is the core of his character and the entire plotline and arc he navigates in the first series #disability is the foundational core of the franchise and if you fuck that up you have literally lost the plot and need to revise #i actually really genuinely love the layers of disability themes and metaphors in the first series and thats why its my favorite #because every other subsequent main series loses that #the other series arent as much about disability - they have different focal themes - so they get a pass there #though they do way better to holding on to their focal themes more than like HoO or TOA does by LEAGUES #anyways i didnt proofread this cause its early so forgive any errors or nonsense i was just ramblin'

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annabelle--cane · 1 year

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I guess the thing that makes me not so fond of Jon's addiction allegory is that it's only coherent to a certain extent? Like I think people sometimes forget that he's actively violating these people

anon, through no fault of your own you have accidentally hit upon my sleeper agent trigger phrase. I have layers of answers to this.

so first off, yeah, it's not a 1:1 direct metaphor, it's a soupy dream logic fantasy plot device with flavors of a lot of different things. there's quite a lot of addiction in there, there's some abuse of power, there's some cyclical nature of trauma, there's a dash of disability, there's a few notes of gendered violence, there's a good bit of just. violence violence and being kind of a motherfucker because goddammit it feels good to be an active agent about something in your life, even if it's just choosing to be a worse version of yourself than you strictly need to be. a lot of tma's worldbuilding is very allegorical, but apart from aspects of individual statements nothing really matches up quite 1:1 with a real world counterpart, and if more things did then it probably wouldn't be a fantasy show anymore.

secondly. okay to contextualize this answer a little bit I have a kind of hypothetical video essay project about vampirism and addiction that I like to spend a few hours thinking about every so often but am almost certainly never going to make because the full research burden required is a lot higher than I actually have the time to properly do. but because of that I've spent a lot of time sorting through why framing vampires as addicts really works for me in a way that it doesn't seem to for everyone, and I think a lot of my thoughts on that also apply to jon. there's going to be a bit of a detour here before we get back to talking about tma, but we'll get there, I prommy.

I've seen a lot of people take issue with various paranormal addiction allegories because, a lot of the time, the act that is meant to metaphorically represent the act of use itself is something that is directly and inherently harmful to others, e.g. drinking human blood, handing over power to your hedonistic Evil alter ego, holding the cursed amulet and going crazy going stupid, slurping trauma out of the head of some guy you ran into on a boat to norway, etc., and yeah, I do get that. substance use is not inherently harmful like that to anyone except sometimes the user themself, and addicts are not inherently fucked up and destructive people; those are dangerous stereotypes that often lead to the demonizing of a whole group of sick people.

here's the thing for me, though: those are definitely truths I want explored and represented when it comes to portrayals of non-allegorical actual addicts, but fantasy fiction isn't for showing the world as it is, it's for showing a subjective fun house mirror version of reality where certain aspects are minimized and magnified depending on how it feels to live through it. and yes, absolutely in real life drug use is not an inherently evil act and it does not make you an inherently evil person, but... doesn't it kind of feel like that? sort of? absolutely no one is living their best life nor on their best behavior while experiencing any kind of major mental illness episode, and when it comes to addiction you've got a very clear tangible symbol of when The Episode is happening that it feels like you have much more control over than when it comes to other illnesses. it's also a thing where people are a lot more likely to be openly angry and distrustful of you if they find out it's happening. so you mix together the ideas of "I know I get worse as a result of doing this one specific thing" + "I act less like myself when I'm using, it rearranges my priorities and I care less about hurting people because that's what happens when you're experiencing The Horrors" + "society at large/people directly around me are pretty quick to say that doing this is evil," and you get the subjective emotional result of "I hurt people by using and it makes me monstrous." I tend to respond to those kinds of paranormal allegories like they're just cutting out the middle man of those subjective fears. "using makes me monstrous" -> "using is monstrous."

anyway. jon archivist.

don't get me wrong, I totally understand if this aspect of metaphor doesn't gel for some people and they only like taking it exactly as far as the text explicitly makes them, but I really get a lot out of reading jon's connection to the fears as addiction precisely because he does genuinely awful things to people as a result of it. he's a person in a very bad physical and mental place with little to no support who is constantly being told by both allies and enemies that he's already a monster just by being alive, and he copes with that by secretly falling further and further into an compulsive act of consumption that skews his priorities and makes him care less about hurting people because at least sometimes getting to be the cause of pain makes him feel a little bit less powerless when he has to be the subject of pain the rest of the time. then he's found out and is made to stop, and he has to grapple not just with the physical toll of withdrawal but with knowing there is a not insignificant part of him that will excuse any act of malice if he knows he'll feel better afterwards.

the end of tma is very explicit in the fact that the rules of its world are shaped by the subjective worst fears of those who live in it, it's "an exercise in unreliably reality" as jonny sims put it once, and I think that principle extends backwards in some ways to apply to the rest of the show. I don't think the fact that there are only entities of fear and not hope or love is meant to be a full commentary on the total nature of the real world, it's a reflection of what fear and suffering can make the world feel like. eric and melanie both go to really harsh extremes to extricate themselves from the fears and live peaceful lives, and in both cases something happens that foils their plans (getting murdered + the apocalypse, respectively), but I don't think the intended message is to say that is definitively how real life works, they are metaphors for the limits of individual agency in larger systems and represent two types of worst-case-scenarios. similarly, I don't think reading jon as an addict implies that addiction inherently involves violence or that the reactions of those around him were completely unjustified, it's just a subjective exploration of the kinds of fears that can come with addiction dialed up to 100.

#also to be clear after the first paragraph I'm using 'you' in a general sense not directly to You The Anon Who Sent This #I'm not trying to insinuate anything about whether You The Anon Who Sent This does or doesn't have any experience w substance use #tma #answered #anons

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eldritch-spouse · 3 months

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Kalymir and tactition reader? Sort of a brains and brawn situation?

[I enjoy this. "Big dumb villain and their smart assistant that's not paid enough"-core.]

He starts pacing around the table, always does, when something you say isn't to his liking.

" DON'T FUCK ME! "

Fortunately, you were hired to be the brains to his muscle, not to glaze his metaphorical balls.

" M'lord I'm fairly certain I couldn't even if I tired. " You eye him up and down, silently asking if he's done with his bitchfit. " Nonetheless, I believe this is no time to be aggressive. You'd do well to send scouts- "

" SCOUTS?! " He snarls at the top of his rather annoyingly large lungs. Some kind of battle axe flies over your head, decapitating baby hairs. You barely blink as it embeds itself into the wall behind you. " THIS IS BARELY A PROPER SETTLEMENT! I SHOULDN'T HAVE TO EVEN THINK ABOUT THIS PIECE OF SHIT RESISTANCE POCKET- "

The King stomps forward on mighty talons, nearly swiping your pondering orb away as he gestures toward it with a fury of such might that it makes the muscles in his arms swell.

" LOOK AT THESE INSECTS! "

" Precisely. "

The demonlord looks as if his honest desire is to cut your back open and slurp the spinal cord out. Yet, in the midst of the anger constantly frying his nerve endings, is a tungsten carbide core of minimal intelligence that reminds him eviscerating you is a most terrible idea.

" EXPLAIN THEN, YOU MOUTHY CUNT. "

" I've been trying to do so this entire time. "

" THE FUCKING NERVE Y- "

" This resistance pocket- " You start, snapping your fingers repeatedly as if trying to garner a large dog's attention. " Is mixed and dangerous, m'lord. "

Although Kalymir is visibly fuming, he does listen.

You scroll through the field of view offered by the hidden summoned aid currently hiding in tall trees. It provides a top-down map feed of the location Kalymir's latest headache has been operating from. Currently, at least. People buzz from one side to another, not many in numbers but extremely well-organized and efficient, almost as if controlled by something.

" Notice there are more than just wrathful demons in the midst, this group employs humans and monsters, especially the less social of the bunch. The kind of monster you'd find hiding in darkened places, isolated but by no means uneducated. To gain the alliance of these monsters, one would need a surprising sense of- "

" I'M FUCKING SNOOZING HERE... "

Sometimes, you're the one that wants to maul him.

There's a tired sigh.

" Harmonious diversity equals no-no. "

Pause.

" I'M NOT A BABY, YOU SURFACE WHORE. "

" Putting that aside, I'm sure you've noticed by now, that they brandish weapons of ancient times. The very things that allowed the initial group to leave the Rings unscathed despite being hunted, not just in Wrath but in the territory of all the Lords you've made agreements with. "

" CELESTIAL WEAPONRY. " The warlord sneers, thoughtful.

" Yes. "

Kalymir shakes his head.

" YOU CAN'T TELL ME THEY'RE ALLIED TO ANGELS! MOST ARE DEMONS, YOU CAN'T BRIBE ANGELS INTO HANDING THEIR TOOLS OVER- " He slams both fists onto the worn and dented table, making your chair jump. " THEY'RE HARDLY EVEN SEEN. AND LIKE FUCKING HELL THESE PARASITES CAN KILL ONE! "

A smug smile tugs your lips. " But, my King, they don't need to be allied to angels to have those. "

Kalymir makes a rare effort to calm down, sharpened claws tapping at the same table. You can hear a heavy-tipped tail swing, the woosh mildly distracting.

" SPEAK! "

" The archives. "

You can hear the gears melting in his cranium.

" THE ARCHIVES... " He stands, mighty body straight as he beings putting two and two together. " THE ARCHIVES! "

You nod, arms crossing.

Not just any archives, the Royal Archives of Wrath, containing a litany of detailed instructions in old Infernal about how to dispatch different types of celestials. The same archives that guarded weapons of Eden stolen from perished angels, weapons that destroyed the limbs of the brave demons who managed to retrieve them, whose core names and sigils have been carved into the cases holding these artifacts. Those are the only celestial weapons left behind, as far as anyone knows. The type of material prize a lord of Wrath would die protecting.

" NO! " He barks once he realizes the first possibility that statement implies.

" Yes, my King. "

" NO ONE COULD HAVE BROKEN IN, YOU SNOT-BRAINED ANKLE BITER! "

Hm, that one's new.

He's right, no one could have broken in, he knows you know this, and the fact that you always seem one little step ahead of him is both infuriating to the King but also exciting.

" Correct. "

" THEN- "

" Who has access to the Royal Archives of Wrath? "

" I DO! I'M THE KING- "

" And who had access? "

As soon as you ask that, he falls eerily silent, pacing again, this time to the opposite display of weapons, subconsciously studying them as he thinks.

" IMPOSSIBLE. "

You recline on the chair, eyes closing. " Is it? "

" I BUTCHERED HIM! I HUMILIATED HIM. HIS VERY SKULL SITS ABOVE MY THRONE OF VICTORIES! "

" His offspring, my King. His descendants. " As far as you know, they were only juveniles when Kalymir murdered their father.

" ONE DIED IN THE CRUCIBLE... "

" The other...? "

Kalymir doesn't answer, he doesn't know. And neither did you, not until very recently.

You don't need to spell the implications out this time, he gets there on his own two synapses.

" YOU CAN'T BE SERIOUS. " The demonlord bristles, not because he finds the suggestion ridiculous, but likely because it's going to make things a lot more interesting.

" But I am. He can't show his face, it'd be too risky, but some dissenting demons still recognize and have followed him to the surface. He then seeks the help of monsters living in the margins of societies or straight up outside of them, safer options to utilize holy weapons. And not just that, these monsters muddle our understanding of the resistance's origins and goals, adding humans to the mix just makes it all more confusing. Many of the non-demonic members are likely under contractual obligation to do this too, I'd reckon. "

The King is silent.

" Think about it. You lost track of them a long time ago. This prince-to-be witnessed the death of his father, his brother, his mother has likely died of old age. He has nothing. Nothing but a sweltering desire to dethrone you. This is his doing. "

A cruel glint settles in your eyes, belying that there is room for your frigid coldness in the boiling Ring.

" Unfortunately, he must have been too young to properly absorb his father's teachings, because this is amateurish at best. A little bit of care and thought is all you need to nip his budding plans, m'lord. "

The King smiles, drags a hand down his face, chest heaving faster as a very thunderous bark of raucous laughter shakes the entire fortress. The clapping of meaty red hands accentuates how wolfishly delighted he is.

" YOU GLORIOUS, ROTTEN WENCH! HOW COULD I NOT HAVE SEEN THIS?! "

Yes, really, how did he not see this a mile away? He should have figured it out before you, you actually had to do research concerning the past ruler of Wrath.

Kalymir damn near sprints towards you, reaching over the table to grab you up by the collar of your outfit.

" LEAD ME TO HIM, STRATEGIST. TELL ME HOW TO GET MY HANDS ON THE WORTHLES TWERP. I WILL WEAR HIS BROTHER'S SKIN. "

" Of course, my King. I will lead you to victory as always. "

" GOOD. GOOD LITTLE HUMAN. "

You're dropped back down unceremoniously, feeling a creak in your hip but remaining composed. Kalymir is clearly getting overly excited over the whole deal, you can tell he'll be obsessing over it from now on.

" WE WILL MAKE A NEW CHANDELIER OF HIS BONES. "

Satisfied, there's a pep to the demonlord's step as he makes to leave, opening the great doors to his hall.

" AND ONCE THIS IS OVER, YOU- "

" YOU WILL SIT BESIDE ME AS QUEEN. "

#Kalymir oc #I've always wanted to use pondering orb unironically

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dalliancekay · 8 months

Text

Crowley is not stupid, Aziraphale is not an idiot and other assorted thoughts

Or how nothing is black and white and my bullying home and religious trauma is a metaphor not a direct translation to what our immortals experience. And vice versa. -

I don't know what it's like to hang out on Earth since the beginning but I'm sure it is richer than we can imagine we could imagine.

Our two favourite, currently men shaped beings, are captured for our storytelling enjoyment when their time on the Green Planet is about to be cut off.

One has been thrown out from their family home ages ago, we are not sure for what misdemeanour exactly, and is now working for a dumpy place where they don't mind inflicting pain if you misbehave nor do they care whether a trial is fair. So, a mafia, basically. And our hero is tasked with collecting new additions to the unhappy family on top of that. He doesn't much care for it and seems to do the bare minimum only.

The other has been sent to the young planet to guard the indigenous humans and told something vague about an Ineffable Plan that will all work out when there's a War in a few thousand years, which 'our, the Good, side' will win and everyone will be happy. Just tell the humans to behave and if they don't kick up a fuss, we will welcome them Here.

And Here is a vast, empty place, well lit, with busy, lonely bees working and filing, and checking, making sure rules are in place and are followed as written and everything is ticking over; the higher ranks' punishments rare but swift. Everyone has learnt a lesson when half of them were unceremoniously fired when someone said some nasty things about the CEO. So things might not be perfect but at least if you stick to your tasks you will be left alone.

So, we meet demon Crowley, whose family threw him out as mentioned above and his job sucks and he hates it but it's not hard and his placement is rather a nice place so he does his best to not to lose the position. Sometimes he wonders what is the point of it all and that's when he runs into his adorable archenemy, the angel Aziraphale.

Aziraphale was sent to Earth and given a job, one that doesn't seem to quite work out (or does it?) as he follows his heart instead of the rules almost immediately but surprisingly is not punished for it by the CEO. So he spends his time helping the natives, following orders he receives as best as he can and when he runs into his archenemy the demon, he feels a certain strange tingle and flutter in his heart at the sight of the rulebreaker.

They have done a fair job of it for 6 millennia. They avoid getting fired and even manage to take on each other's tasks to lighten up the load and the (pointlessly) random business trips (does anyone Up or Down there ever heard of geography?)

When we meet our heroes in present day-ish, they've been told the End of the World sequence has been triggered and life as they know it is about to end.

How do they feel about this? Well. Our demon is appalled. He knew this was coming. But not really. It's just something to sort of work towards right? After all, the Earth has been developing rather nicely. The alcohol got better, the food for his Angel, the music got interesting, the clothes tighter... He's having a good time. Yes, he pushes his luck sometimes. Sleeps too long, gives in and saves someone instead of ruining them. He gets into all kinds of tangles to spend time with his crush. He is rash but he's not stupid. He knows what's at stake. But he's angry. And sometimes that's hard to contain. He does go too fast. But Aziraphale is always there to catch him. And if he can't, he waits and worries and is there when Crowley returns.

So about the angel? He knows he should dislike the demon. He knows he should follow his directives. He knows he should not meet or talk to Crowley. And what does he do? Gets himself arrested in his fanciest silks so they can have crepes when the world and humanity is bringing them down with their relentless hate towards each other. He puts on a magical performance when the demon fails to deliver some contraband liquor in the midst of the Blitz bombing.

And, now. Here's the funny bit. Angel has gotten himself a part time job in the past few centuries. He's had a few before, but not quite like this. He has a place he loves now. A safe, cluttered place where a demon is welcome. It's not much like his original home. You could say... it's rather quite the opposite of it. In any case, he never really got on with his managers but tbf he likes his job. It makes the humans happy and he loves the humans and loves making them happy.

He also does not want the world to end. But his fam has always told him that once this bit is over, an even better one will come along. What that bit is was never quite explained but then, asking questions was always frowned upon and rather vehemently so. He's noticed this from the get go... unlike a red headed angel he once knew...

What is my point?

That neither Crowley or Aziraphale are wrong. Or right. Doing the correct thing. Or not. Me. You. We come from broken families, we have been friends and lovers with bad people, we have escaped religions, cults, home countries. Lies. Rules. Hate. We have fought for our love to be recognised as love.

Crowley and Aziraphale live in a world where Heaven and Hell is real. Where Satan rules over a smelly place with mould on the walls and God is engrossed in her sci fi novels and seems to have forgotten about Her Earth project.

You can't call Aziraphale stupid for believing in God. She exists. Whether She has a plan is open to debate, sure. She seems to have claimed so at some point, but then, we all change don't we. Maybe She changed Her mind and forgot to tell the upper management. Maybe She thought She didn't need to spell out all the details to them so they kill Job's kids. Maybe She was vague on purpose much in the style of King Henry II and Thomas Beckett.. Anyway. Back to Aziraphale, our angel on Earth. He is kind, has hope, wants to believe after thousands, millions of years. And this is not stupid. Aziraphale does and is brave, courageous things. And he's slowly learning to trust himself more too. To know the difference. It started with the sword and his overthinking on the giving away of it. He made a decision to protect Job's children. Risked Falling for it. Trusted the demon over his bosses. Not because Heaven is WRONG. Yes, they are. But the thing is they don't care. And Aziraphale does. He cares about humanity. And he cares about Crowley.

Nobody noticed (or did they) how our two field agents fell in love (neither did they tbf) and how fiercely they guard the little secret they share. The smiles and the glances, the small flowers of hope that things can change one day.

And they did change. Plan A, War and Destruction, did not work out. The youngster they sent from Below decided he likes the new place and refused to ruin it. They both learned things. They are still learning. The demon how to trust again. The angel how to question things.

So what's next? The place Above is going to send their trusted agent. He followed the rules last time seamlessly. It did not quite work out but no problem, they'll send Him out again. With a rather more final arrangement.

In the meantime, the disgraced and rather troubling Earth agents have been lying low. Unsure of their places and overall safety, they went on with their lives as best as they could until the angel happened to help his former boss run away with his paramour from the other side and is visited by the Big Boss.

Big Boss wastes no time and suggests to our angel he should come back Upstairs and take the place of his disgraced superior. To use his skills. To be better looked after I suppose. New opportunities. To be close to the big upcoming decisions or - under a close watchful eye.

Aziraphale, not surprisingly, refuses. He does not want to put any of his 'skills' to any good causes but his own. But then. THEN. He is not so subtly made aware that his dangerous liaisons with the other side have been noted and his help in the latest Complication might not go unpunished if he's not careful.

And this job offer suddenly seems FAR more sinister than it did 15 minutes ago. Especially when it is handed over with a coffee (that he does not much like) from a place called Give Me Coffee Or Give me Death.

Our angel goes home to cautiously tell his demon about the trouble they are in and his world comes crashing down around him.

This post turned out to be completely different to what I originally wanted to write. Is there a point? You decide.

Aziraphale's decision makes complete sense, he loves the Earth, his home and Crowley over and above everything else. And he WILL fight for their safety. AND the humans in the process if he can.

This is my very first Tumblr post. Way to go me etc. Please be kind.

#good omens #aziraphale #crowley #aziracrow #neil gaiman #season 2 #ineffable husbands #ineffable divorce #armageddon #shower thoughts #kaypost

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alphajocklover · 5 months

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Man I'm just some scrawny skater and always have been. I always make fun of meatheads at the gym for being obsessed with size and power, but recently I watched the Hulk movie and I think I get it... The idea of becoming unstoppable and reigning supreme.

My friends have been worried about me since I've stopped hanging out with me and started hitting the gym but I wish I could just Hulk out without the whole 'Hulk speak' part. Something about letting my inner beast take over like the other dudes in the gym is tempting. Could you help me out?

The thing everyone forgets about the hulk is that, after decades of being in the comics, Bruce Banner is far more complicated than the movies would suggest. Sure, it started out like all the movies do, with Banner being transformed into the Hulk by some terrible accident, switching between forms whenever angered, but over the years and the dozens upon dozens of different storylines the Hulk has become so much more complicated. Over the years Bruce Banner has gained more than just one alternate personality. There’s himself, of course, ther nerdy genius. Then there’s the classic hulk, dumb angry and strong. But there have been many others over the years. Joe Fixit, the gray hulk with the mind and personality of a Vegas mobster, Doc Green/professor Hulk, a version of the hulk with both the brains and the brawn, and Green Scar, a cunning warrior who ruled an entire planet (for a short time). These are only a few of his many different forms and personalities. So, if you wanna be like the Hulk… it’s going to be more than just the nerd and the hunk.

Let’s start with the basics. That is to say, let’s start with you. The Skater. Your original personality, the one who makes fun of meathead jocks and doesn’t give a fuck about being strong. Or at least didn’t until recently. But after watching that movie… something’s changed inside of you. It awakened parts of yourself you didn’t even know were there. And I’m not speaking metaphorically. It seems that certain triggers now cause you to change into other forms, other people. At first they presented themselves as the sudden urge to workout and desire to be a jock, but now they don’t need to be just urges. They’ve developed into full on identities. When you’re not in a different form you’ll revert to your original self, the skinny skater you used to be… but that won’t be very often. Your other selves are way too greedy to give the pathetic little skater his fair share.

Next is your hulk. But for you it’d be more accurate to call him the Hunk. Beefy, muscular, dumb and sexy as hell. He’s everything you used to hate and everything you now long to be. An alpha male, a jock, a himbo, a stud. Your inner beast. He's the one who goes to the gym with your new bros, flirts with anything that moves, and flexes almost constantly. He isn’t brought forth by anger like the real hulk is though. You turn into the Hunk when horny. Makes sense. Just like how the Hulk is always angry, the Hunk is always horny. A complete and utter fuckboy stud, and until you get control over his wild libido, you’ll be turning into him almost constantly.

After that is your Joe Fixit. Let’s call him Joe. If it ain’t broke don’t fix it. Just like in the original comics Joe isn’t summoned by an emotion, but by the night. He’s drawn out by the thrill of the nightlife, by clubs and secret backrooms and grinding against each other in the dark while the beat pumps through you like a drug. He spends the first half of the night as a bouncer, using his beef, strength and sometimes even his charm to keep certain people out. The second half he spends flirting with chicks, dancing at the club, partying, drinking, and on a good night fucking his latest babe in the clubs VIP room. The best part is that he never has to deal with a hangover, and whichever you who wakes up in the morning is always well rested.

Your next form is the one who has it all. Your Doc Green, the one with the brains and the brawn. He actually is a med student who is trying to become a doctor, so let’s call him Doc. Charming, manly, and muscular, but also sensitive, kind and intelligent. His trigger is less clear, but you know he comes out when you need him. Whether its for a shift at work, to charm a girl or guy you actually like enough to date and not just fuck, he’s there. What he’s really good at though is making money. For a med student he’s shockingly loaded, probably because he set up a very successful onlyfans account for each of you. You, the regular you, watch his videos sometime. You always turn into the Hunk before the video ends.

Finally is the warrior. The green scar. You just call him Jock. Because that’s what he is. He comes out fairly rarely, only when you’re feeling very competitive, usually during sports events and bodybuilding contests. He’s tough, rough, and never backs down. He’s surprisingly intelligent, but uses most of this intelligence on strategy and tactics. He’s the perfect team leader, and is incredibly dominant on and off the field.

Between the Hunk, Joe, Doc, and Jock, there isn’t much time for you anymore. But this is what you wanted, want you fucking love being each of them. You finally released your inner beast. All four of them.

**hey there! Hope you guys liked the story. I know most people go a different direction when it comes to ‘hulking out’ but I thought maybe something a little different like this would be more interesting. I hope whoever requested the story enjoys it, and that you don’t mind me showing off my inner comic book geek**

#muscle growth tf #jock tf #jock transformation #jockification #skater to jock #muscle tf #superhero tf

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covetyou · 1 month

Text

any other week

ao3 ⋆ main masterlist ⋆ series masterlist

pairing: Dieter Bravo & gn!reader rating: Teen (18+ only blog!) warnings: sickfic. no smut or nudity (shocking, I know). sickness (no vomitting) and associated gross feelings and metaphors. fluff. word count: 2.3k summary: You're sick. That much is obvious. Even if the fact is you can't be sick. Not now. Not this week. Not when the only one around to look after you is the very person who pays you to look after him - Mr. Dieter Bravo.

A/N: if you hadn't heard, I have (had? I still feel shit but I'm technically negative and going to see Taylor Swift tomorrow, wish me luck lol) covid, and it's kicked my ass, so I wrote the least appropriate man in the universe looking after someone. enjoy 💛

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"D-!"

You barely get out the first syllable of his name before you're hacking a cough, pressing your palms to your knees as you splutter, bent over in a silent prayer to whatever virus has your esophagus in a chokehold, willing it to please let go.

It's feeling benevolent today, you think, when the clenching grip around your throat gives way a moment later, letting you take in a few blissfully sharp, painful gasps of air again.

Not that the cough has really stopped. That's been a niggling tickle for days now, growing and growing into something bigger as your body has gradually lost the fight with whatever asshole thing has set up shop inside your sinuses. Still, it's eased off enough now for you to raise yourself on wobbly legs, chest heaving and your head too fuzzy to really take in the foyer of Dieter's home, or the man himself as he tentatively creeps down the stairs.

It was going to be a bitch of a week. The last week before Dieter head's off to shoot always was. Full of last minute meetings and prep, and Dieter being all too much of an asshole for you to want to deal with, and you being entirely too much of a cunt to him in return. The last thing you needed was to be sick.

Whatever plague had befallen you didn't seem to give a shit you were assistant to the Dieter Bravo, or that sorry, we're busy this week, can I pencil you in for September? You'd just have to deal, and suck it up, and hope to the end of the earth that you could stay far enough away from Dieter than you didn't get him sick too.

"You look like shit."

You almost jump out of your skin, a muffled voice echoing down at you from the top of the stairs as your eyes strain to focus and find the source of the voice. It sure sounds like Dieter, but you can't tell if it's the cotton wool stuffed inside your own head, or some weird voice he's putting on in preparation for his next role that's making him sound entirely off.

He's there, you're sure of it, your heart pounding in your chest as you wheeze and stare up at a Dieter shaped blur you're certain is wearing a balklava.

You cough again before you speak, your voice a weak rasp of what it usually is, razor blades slicing up your throat as you force the words out.

"Dee? I've got your mail, and those clothes from the designer, and -"

He's coming closer, taking the steps slowly, coming in to focus then wobbling back out of it as you blink rapidly at him and heave in another pained breath.

"You're sick."

Usually you'd argue with him. You take just about any opportunity to talk back to him, just like he does with you. It's how you work so well together. Even now, your head is indignantly saying no. You are not sick. You are perfectly fine and if he could just get off your ass, that'd be wonderful.

But, you are sick. That much is obvious. Even if the fact was, you couldn't be sick. Not now. Not this week.

"- your laundry -"

"You're sick."

Any argument is lost in your throat as another cough drags itself out of you, kicking and screaming, forcing you to hinge over again just to stop the force of it all from knocking you flat on your ass. Dieter is retreating up the stairs a little as you watch stars dance across your eyes with each forceful hack of air from your lungs, and even through the pain and lack of oxygen you can sense he feels uneasy about this, about you, and for the first time you think you may have made a mistake.

You shouldn't have come here.

You should have called, or sent a text, and worked from home where you could stay in bed, keeping your germs to yourself and away from him.

When your cough finally eases off again, your head pounding now and your throat burning more than it has in days, you lift yourself up, and admit defeat.

"Okay," you wheeze. "I'll go. I'm - fuck, sorry - I'll call you later. Let me know if you need anything."

Your head spins as you turn, and Dieter thunders down a few more steps before abruptly stopping as you hobble back to the door.

"No!" he shouts down the stairs the moment your hand touches the handle.

You look back at him confused, as he stands there, still keeping his distance, but reaching for you as if force of will alone could stop you in your tracks. And, in a way, it does. You turn to him, propping yourself up on the door, watching him as he tries not to recoil from you, especially now that he can see you up close.

You'd been pallid when you left the house. Now, you felt positively gray. Though you felt cold to the touch, your insides felt like you were roasting alive. No doubt, a few steps closer as he is, he can see the sweat beading on your forehead simply from the effort of keeping yourself standing there and not sliding down the door into a heap on the floor.

"You can't fuckin' drive in this state," he says, flapping his hands at you as his mind kicks into overdrive. "You're sick. You'll crash your fuckin' car. You need rest, and soup, and drugs - the good kind - and a doctor, I should call a doctor, you need to get better, you can't be sick, I can't - because I nee - lo- no!- care - " he stops himself, his mouth flapping as he stares and gesticulates in your general direction before letting his arms flop at his sides.

"I am not getting a new assistant," he settles with, hugging his arms tight around his body.

Before you can tell him he's stuck with you as his assistant whether he likes you or not, another cough beats its way out of your chest, and you slump against the door. Dieter is on you in a second, his balaklava'd face coming into view as he holds you gently by the shoulders as you splutter.

"You - you gotta get in bed. Now."

He's panicking, you know that much. He's never so much as seen you with a hangover, let alone seen you sick. So, you let him guide you upstairs, watching you with wild eyes through the balaklava as you wheeze at the stop of the staircase.

You let him pull you down the hallway, and push you into a spare room. You barely register his hands helping you peel away sweaty layer after sweaty layer of clothing until you're being guided into a soft bed, the sheets being pulled gently over you until you sink into the plush pillows and fall alseep before he's even left the room.

⋆⋆⋆⋆⋆⋆⋆⋆

When you wake, some minutes or some hours later, you're not sure, it's to shuffling in the corner of the room. The handle of the door clicks before it slowly swings inward - that horror movie creak only playing in your head though fitting perfectly with the scene you're watching in front of you. When the door is half open, a shaggy head pokes around the frame, before shuffling in on croc covered feet, cardigan wrapped tightly around itself and mask replacing the balaklava he'd so hastily thrown on earlier.

"Dee?" you croak from the bed, failing to sit up as the weight of the blankets holds you down.

"Stay back," comes his muffled voice from beneath the mask as he shuffles in further. He walks to a dresser kept by the wall. There's nothing in it. There's nothing in this entire room except for empty furniture and blank walls. The only time it sees any action is after some of Dieter's more frivoulous parties, when one too many people can't make it home and need a place to crash. In essence, it's the spare room to the spare rooms spare room - not the guest room, or his room, or the room he'd designated as yours some years ago, that's down the hall next to his own, but the last of three rooms that sit empty nearly year round.

Dieter tugs on the dresser, his crocs gripping to the floor as he yanks it away from the wall and pushes it with a squeak all the way across the floor toward the side of the bed you're trapped in.

"Stay there," is all he says before he leaves you again, the giant piece of furniture slotted right up against the bedside. You couldn't move even if you wanted to, and now he's all but blocked in your easiest way of escape. You weren't going anywhere.

A moment later he's shuffling back in, a tray in his hands and what you think is an umbrella under his arm. He's staring carefully down at the tray - balance and dexterity having never been his strong suit - before placing it gently onto the dresser.

"Tea," he grunts, pointing to the tray, "that lemon ginger shit. Some other stuff too."

It's at the end of the dresser, beyond your feet, and not really of any use to you right now, but the sentiment is nice, especially coming from Dieter.

"Thanks, Dee."

He grunts again, shrugging his cardigan covered shoulders before taking the umbrella from under his arm and gently pushing the tray along the top of the dresser until it's within arms reach of you. When he's done, he nods to himself before backing out of the room, and closing the door. You hear the faint sounds of jesus fucking christ being muttered from the other side of the door as he walks away, no doubt to have a shower and rid himself of as many of your germs as he can before he goes about practicing lines and keeping himself busy.

That lemon ginger shit is smelling divine as you lay there, slowly peeling your arms out from the sweaty confines of the sheets. The soothing heat of it is just what you need - if you hadn't forced the stuff on him so many times in the past, you'd be stunned that he even thought of it himself.

Sitting up, an ache in your hips like no other, you groan and reach for the tea, taking a small burning mouthful, and swallowing it down with a gasp before taking another, then another, then another. The burn soothes the raw feeling in your throat, and when you can finally swallow a little more freely, if only for a second, you take a chance to look at the tray Dieter left with you.

Some other stuff, is an understatement.

There's bottled water, snacks undoubtedly taken directly from the stash you keep in his kitchen, plus a few of his own that he knows you steal when he's not looking. Then, there's what can only be described as a miniature pharmacy. Tissues, nasal sprays, throat lozenges, tylenol, cough syrup, and little packets of Liquid IV lined up on the tray for you to take your pick of.

It's exactly the kind of thing you've done for him countless times before when he's been holed up in bed, too sick or too hungover to deal with the world. Now, here he was doing it for you just as dutifuly as you ever had for him. He'd even gone as far to get dressed and leave the house, driving to a pharmacy just for you. You knew for a fact he didn't keep half of this stuff in the house, and neither did you.

Before you know it, your throat is constricting and your lip is wobbling, but another burst of pain rips its way through your chest as you cough again, and again, and again. Your eyes water, the tears forgotten, until the cough subsides. You'll cry later, when your throat hurts a little less and you have the energy. For now, you throw back some tylenol, finish your tea, and flop back down into the sheets, ready for sleep to take you once more.

Over the course of a few days, though you barely see his face again, you know he's been in to check on you by what he's left for you on the tray. A hot bowl of soup and soft bread. More tea. A bowl of yogurt and fruit when sunlight creeps through the cracks in the blinds. A stack of books. His iPad, loaded up with movies and TV shows that you're not sure were always on here, or if he downloaded them just for you. Fresh towels so you can take the most exhausting shower of your life, only to come back out to find underwear and one of Dieter's old worn movie tees waiting for you. Then there's more tea. More food.

He cares for you from a distance, day in day out, until your cough turns to a splutter, and you can breath a little deeper. And so can he.

Around the third day, when you're no longer coughing and feeling far more like yourself, but still too exhausted to do much of anything, you finally see Dieter's face again. He silently herds you into the room he calls yours, shuttering the windows as you crawl under the sheets, and curls into bed behind you.

"You smell different when you're sick," he mumbles into your neck. "Fuckin' hate it."

"Sorry," you whisper back to him in the dark. "I showered, but I -"

"No. You smell different. Sick different. Not gross different. Didn't smell like you."

Smiling into the dark, you let him snuggle into you as you drift off into the most restful sleep either of you have had in days.

tagging my Dieter beloveds: @schnarfer @missredherring @whatsnewalycat @sp00kymulderr @ozarkthedog

@ghotifishreads @rebel-held @amanitacowboy @readingiskeepingmegoing

#dieter bravo #dieter bravo x you #dieter bravo x reader #dieter bravo x gn!reader #dieter bravo fanfiction #the bubble fanfiction #coveted fics

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