#literally the reason why i got into fights at school admittedly it only happened twice but i have the opposite of de-escalation skills | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

astaroth1357 · 4 years

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Ok but like, what if MC's fandom starts to make ships with MC and the guys. Just think about the ship wars, the fancams, the fanarts, the absolute CHAOS when the brothers find out. It would be even worse if they start shipping MC with the undatables, one day everything is normal and the next day there are ship wars fighting over MC x Barbatos vs MC x Solomon (who are both very smug about it)

The MC's Fanclub are… Shippers?!

Perhaps… The italics blurb has been fulfilling its greater purpose all along…? Perhaps in its state of existential angst, it has in fact developed a plot of its own… An arc of introspection and self-discovery in which its own longing for purpose has forged a meaningful identity… It now has… a story…

Lucifer

As if they couldn't get any MORE frustrating…

He's not an otaku. He's not a part of ship culture. He's not even sure why anyone would care about who dates who around this school, but apparently it's a big deal to some people...

He only became aware of their interest in him and the MC's relationship through some very… subtle clues…

Like the groups that would follow them around in the hallways with their phones out.

Or the multitude of fan rumors about their relationship that Satan spams him with from time to time just to irritate him.

"MC refused hug from Luci in halls today!! Are they bout breakup??? 🥺"

"Tots got pic of kiss today!! Relationship upgrade??"

"IS ARE MC+LUCIFER SECET LVRS?!? PLEASE RESPOND"

It only got worse after he found out the MC gets shipped out a loooooot….

If he had to pick his least favorite ship, it'd be MC x Mammon. He can kind of see it with any of his other brothers (admittedly, Levi is also a little mystifying) but the idea of them ending up with Mammon makes his skin crawl...

He once found a drawing of the MC and Mammon in an… explicit position in one of the classrooms and he was so disgusted that he wouldn’t even touch it. He just set fire to the paper outright. Disgusting...

Mammon

Shipping, eh…? More money making opportunities!

Has some passing idea of what shipping is from Levi and, from what he knows of it, shippers eat cutesy couples stuff right up!! If all he's got to do to make bank is to look all couple-y around the MC then sounds like a win-win to him!

He'll happily pose for a photo or two (paid in advance) of him throwing his arm around the MC or something. Want him to hold their hand? Sure thing!

But since this is still Mammon we're talking about, the second MC actually starts getting into any of it he'll still turn into a blushy, stuttery mess...

For WEEKS the headline picture on so many of their fans' blogs was an image of him turning beet red while the MC kissed him on the cheek. (A fan really got their money's worth there... 😏)

Though he doesn’t exactly like the MC getting shipped with other people, he'll still totally sell pictures of any of them together. He almost paid off an entire credit card with the money he got from the t-shirt sales of the MC and Satan!

If he had to point to one ship he doesn't like it's either MC x Asmo or MC x Levi. His opinion, but Asmo won't treat them right and they could do waaay better than a shut-in. Like him. Ship the MC with just the Great Mammon, got it?

Leviathan

… Lowkey super active in the MC shipping community but is a self-shipper to the extreme.

Like, he never uses his real name on anything (and would probably die from embarrassment if anyone ever found out) but a lot of their fans probably know a couple of his aliases.

He does everything from mod forums, runs a couple blogs, even anonymously posts his own work of him and MC that are totally not his secret fantasy dates or AU versions of themselves, shaddup.

It’s a lot easier for him to keep his involvement secret because he’s hardly at RAD, but the few times he does show up he tries to keep an eye out for anybody prowling for pictures so he can get in a good pose and save the image later.

Mind you, his version of a “good pose” rarely gets more spicy than linking pinkies, but even then he’s still lit up a Christmas Tree throughout.

Naturally, he’s also not a big fan of any ships that aren’t just him and MC and he can find a reason to be jealous at almost anything. But he keeps a special corner of hate for MC x Mammon and MC x Diavolo. Like, the first one doesn’t even need an explanation but MC x Diavolo?? Really??? Do those two even talk?? (please, please, please make sure they never actually talk because a guy like him versus literal royalty? He’d lose MC for sure….!! 😫)

Satan

He hates to actually agree with Lucifer on something, but their fans are starting to get out of hand...

Knows what shipping is in concept, he may have done it once or twice to characters in his books, but he was kind of surprised how it could evolve into such a… group activity?

He was pretty quick to pick up that the MC’s fans had a bit more interest in them together than they did when they both were apart…

I mean, those hideous shirts that Mammon was pedaling were kind of a dead giveaway…

Considering he finds their fanclub all rather annoying, even without their bizarre interest in his love life, when they started actively meddling with him and the MC he was ready to smash some heads.

No. He will not stop for pictures. No. What things they do together is none of your business. No. He has zero interest in seeing your explicit fanart and if you don’t start running that will be the last question you ever ask.

He DOES, however, appreciate the cringy “annoy Lucifer” ammo. They could keep that up for a lifetime... 😏

He doesn’t have a least favorite ship because he doesn’t care about any of this, leave him alone. (That’s a lie, it’s MC x Lucifer. He pokes fun at Lucifer, but he can’t stand it either. Big shock, I know 🙄).

Asmodeus

Oh he is shamelessly a part of the community, are you kidding??

He could practically call “Shipping the MC” one of his favorite pastimes. He’ll openly gossip with their fanclub about who they’ve been with, who they’re seeing, who’s got a chance, etc… He lives for this shit!

He’s the only person who knows that Levi is also in the community and what his aliases are (not because he told him, but because Levi’s not as subtle as he thinks he is… Who else would call themselves “SupremeRuri666” and speak mostly in outdated chat lingo?) but he doesn’t out him because he thinks his very obvious crush is kind of cute.

Plus, Levi needs the outlet waaaay more than him…

Doesn’t stop him from constantly trolling him and getting into arguments over who the MC would be better with though (the two are “virtual nemeses” as far as Levi is concerned).

Appreciates all forms of expression that comes out of the community (especially the saucy kind 😏) and will happily feed into his own shippers without a care in the world.

Truthfully, Asmo will say that there isn’t a ship he doesn’t like but if someone mentions one that he thinks is kind of “eh,” he’ll just add himself into the mix. “Oh, you like MC x Barbatos? Well how about Asmo x MC x Barbatos? That sounds loads more interesting doesn’t it??”

Beelzebub

Oh, Beel… Sweet, sweet Beel… Beel doesn’t even know what their club is doing…

Because Beel has a reputation of being pretty protective of MC - and against the fanclub in general - the club keeps a healthy distance… but that doesn’t mean they’re not going to sneak in some picture or make a SHITLOAD of fanwork about them.

Between classes and practice Beel is a busy guy, so sometimes he just doesn’t notice that there’s people hiding behind trees when he’s out with MC.

Honestly, his complete ignorance of it all makes it even cuter because when he acts sweet, it’s not just for the camera. That’s the real deal.

Mammon was the one who eventually let it slip that there was even shipping happening and Beel was… kind of creeped out because isn’t this stalking? But also kind of weirdly happy(?) that MC x Beel was so popular… Very conflicted boy here.

He never actually acknowledges the community, though, and just keeps on being Beel (which still gave the fans more than enough material so all’s well that ends well?)

Beel genuinely doesn’t have a least favorite ship (because he believes the best ship is whoever makes the MC happy) but his second favorite under himself is probably MC x Belphie. They look very cute together... 😊

Belphegor

Ride or die, Beel x MC x Belphie.

Just kidding (kind of), Belphie isn’t into the shipping but if asked he’d be pretty okay with that one.

His campaign against the MC’s fanclub and their attention stealing ways means that he found out about their shipping thing only slightly ahead of Beel when Mammon was trying to get pictures of them napping together…

Honestly, he couldn’t care less if a bunch of weirdos were weirdly invested in their relationship, but he’s not about to let Mammon just make a quick Grimm off of it. Belphie makes sure that he gives him NOTHING to work with.

Since Mammon is the main dealer, the shippers in both the MC fanclub and Belphie fanclub aren’t nearly as well fed and pretty desperate for anything... You best believe he plays that to his advantage (because it’s okay if he does. He’s not Mammon).

Really helps that MC x Belphie is legitimately a very cute looking couple, carried by Belphie’s cuteness alone if nothing else. Add an adorable MC and you reach levels so cute it could actually melt people into puddles of goo... They could be a registered weapon.

Least favorite MC ships are any that don’t involve him or Beel. Any others may as well just not exist, he won’t even acknowledge them. MC x Who? Yeah, that’s what he thought.

#i guess this is a series now #wasn't expecting that #obey me #obey me shall we date #shall-we-date-obey-me #obey me lucifer #obey me mammon #obey me leviathan #obey me satan #obey me asmodeus #obey me beelzebub #obey me belphegor #obey me headcanons #obey me scenarios #obey me suggestions

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headcans-oneshots-and-stuff · 4 years

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Stubborn

Warning: TW: Dark themes, Yandere, kidnapping, slight abuse (if you squint) Word count: 2,5k Summary: Bakugo had always thought he needed someone stubborn by his side, so why isn’t he happy when he finds just that in his new girlfriend? It doesn’t take long until he realizes that stubborn is never what he wanted. No. It’s obidient. And as destiny will have it, you, his best childhood friend, tend to be just that Pairing: Yandere!Bakugo x Batfam

A/N: So I have no reason to write this, but I had this small scene in my head and BAM! this existed. And why not share it, amiright? I’ll also post a request later today or tomorrow, but I just wanted to get this out there. Hope you enjoy

Bakugo had always thought he needed someone stubborn by his side. Someone who stood up for themselves and wouldn’t just take his shit as some other extras would. In his mind, it was a logical assumption. He was well aware that he was a (quite literal) hot-head. He tended to let his aggression get the best of him and, even though that calmed down the older he got, it was still an established fact in his life as a pro-hero. That was why he agreed to go out with her. She was, admittedly, attractive. She wouldn’t really be called pretty, but definitely hot. A slender body with curves in all the right places and long, flawless pink hair that ended just over her waist, lashes that when battered could get her just about everywhere and everything. It also very much helped that she was well aware of her good looks. She never wore anything borderline inappropriate or skimpy, but she took care of the fact that her clothes were bringing out her features and would give her other advantages, like the hells she wore that made her already rather tall form stand even taller at about 5’6 feet. Even though that still wasn’t exceptionally high, she still liked to tower over everyone she could tower over. She and Bakugo were both masters of intimidating, even if they used very different methods. Trat wasn’t the only thing that made them alike, she also had quite the temper, something that had to be reckoned with when meeting with her, but she wasn’t as much aggressive as she was stubborn and headstrong. She was just what Bakugo needed. So, when he had tried to save her from getting robbed while he was on patrol and she just scoffed and kicked the robber so hard in a place that the sun won’t shine at, calmly taking her purse back and acting as if nothing happened, he was somewhat impressed. And when she touched his arm and invited him inside he didn’t say no. After that she was a part of his life, quickly filling the empty spot of his girlfriend. And a month or two everything was nice, he enjoyed the romantic and sexual attention that she gave him and he found himself entranced by the way she would talk back to him when she didn’t like something. He even liked her enough to introduce her to the most important people that he had in his life. His best friends. After graduating and finally fulfilling his dream of being a pro-hero he had managed to keep in more-or-less close contact with his old classmates, but he and his squad were almost as close as ever, if not more. They met up about twice a month in the complete group and individual pairs whenever they felt like it, but it was safe to say that the group of friends had stayed the same way they always have been, just with the difference that they were now of legal age to drink. So - of course - the next time they met up, this time with the additional plus one on Bakugo’s side, they met at a bar that was conveniently placed between all of their homes. Because he was somewhat nervous, even though he wouldn’t admit it if you held a gun to his head, Bakugo decided to come ten minutes earlier than the time they had agreed to meet up and ordered drinks for him and his girlfriend. After that, the others slowly joined, first was Sero, then Kirishima, Ashido and Kaminari, but one person stayed missing from the group. Bakugo wanted to ask where you were staying and why you took so long, but when all the attention turned on him and his new relationship the question was lost in the void of his mind. Especially considering that only ten minutes after, the original excitement about meeting Bakugos girlfriend gone for the group, even though they were still milking her with questions, you came in with a small smile on your face like you weren’t even realizing you were late and joined them. Your hot-headed best friend asked you what had taken you so long after you had introduced yourself to the new person in the group and congratulated them on getting together, but you had just shrugged it off as no big deal. Bakugo forgot about it.

Bakugo had always thought he needed someone stubborn by his side, but Bakugo soon realized that that assumption was wrong. All the things he thought would be great about someone as headstrong as he was turned out to be annoyances. The things that he liked about her in the first months soon turned into things he hated with a burning passion. Just once he wanted her to shut up and actually listen to him. It started with small things. Like when he told her that he didn’t want to go out after a particularly rough day at work and she just whined and complained until he had enough and went along, or that one time when the two of them had a normal conversation about a type of food and she completely refused to accept a fact that he told her (and even, later on, found references for) - it wasn’t even like it was something that was against her or her believes, just something she had assumed wrong and still refused to back down about. Just so that she could come out of the fight as the winning party. And it just continued and got more and more, every little thing became a full-blown fight and she seemingly made it her personal mission to disobey and work against him as much as she could. He quickly figured out that you can’t fight fire with fire, that having a stubborn person like himself constantly clash with someone so similar was bound to fail and he hadn’t thought his original belief through. He even talked about it with you and Kirishima, debatably the closest of friends he had, and while you were as shy and quiet as you had been ever since going to school with him and Midoriya, both you and Kirishima agreed that it would be the best for everyone involved if you’d just break things off with her. With that the decision was basically set in stone, the only thing left was actually acting on the words so Bakugo spent the whole way home thinking about how he’d say it, what he’d do. But his mind wasn’t completely on track. Because besides the possible breaking-offs that he went through he also found himself thinking about who would fit better to him and while walking home surrounded by the lights of the city it was like he had an Enlightenment. He never needed someone stubborn, no, he needed someone obedient. Someone who wouldn’t fight him on his every word and would let him protect and care for them. That thought was the beginning of the end. When he finally comes home he’s lucky that he hadn’t yet asked her or had been asked by her if they could move together, but that happiness was quickly ruined by the load of missed calls and messages that she had left him. Exhausted and longing for someone he wasn’t even sure existed he went to bed and decided he’d deal with his little problem the day after. When he left work the next day during his break to catch some air and meet up with you, who worked not too far away in you own little pro-hero themed bakery, the thoughts of the before standing evening were still heavy in his mind, especially his newfound clearance on just what qualities his partner actually had to have. The smell of baked bread and sweets, the smell that somehow had surrounded you ever since you had been a child who played with him and Midoryia on the playground, greeted him in a wave of warm air when she opened the door and the familiar ring of the small bell hanging over it filled his ears. A sense of content filled him that he only had with you. The same content was the reason that you were still friends in the first place. Back when it was still him, Izuku and you, he always felt a bit jealous about how much more you were like Izuku, even though you weren’t quite as curious or cheery as he was, you were still a happy, calm kid with a tendency to stay on the more quiet side. So naturally, people would assume that after Bakugo developed his quirk - and Izuku didn’t, starting a long cycle of bullying and maybe even abuse from the blond hot-head - you would’ve stayed with the little green bean, and so did Bakugo. But he didn’t want that. He liked the feeling he had when he hung out with you and he was different with you, less angry and more tolerable. So he became almost possessive and incredibly jealous when it concerned you. He made sure that you stayed his friend, but - to come to his defence a little bit - he still “let” you be friends with Izuku, just as long as he still got the majority of your attention and love. As you grew up he lost most of that behaviour and exchanged it for a normal level of friendly protectiveness, enough that he made sure that you were okay and texted you almost every day while he was at school, but not as much that you couldn’t have other friends or your own life. Bakugo was especially happy when he introduced you to his other friends the first time and, even though your and their personalities practically crashed against each other, you bonded incredibly fast and became a member of his little squad. Something about these memories made his mind a little bit fuzzy, but everything came to a sudden halt when he heard an all too familiar - at this point almost dreaded - laugh. He felt like he had whiplash at the speed at which his head snapped to the side and he caught sight of his hopefully soon ex-girlfriend standing at the counter in front of a very-clearly confused looking you. His wish to have his peace from her at least until the evening burst into a thousand little bubbles and he found himself confronted by the inevitable. Bakugo planned to take her out of the bakery as to not cause a scene and explain to her that it was over, but everything changed when he heard a comment she made directed towards you before she even knew he was there. It was said in a nice voice, but with a venomous undertone, a comment about how weird it was that a Pro-Hero like Bakugo, someone so great and influential, was spending any time with a push-over like you. Something inside him snapped and he had to admit that his now definitely ex-girlfriends shoulder most likely didn’t stay unharmed at how hard he tugged at it to turn her around, not to mention the added pops of explosions that he couldn’t - and just maybe didn’t want to - hold back. He ended things right there and then, leaving her running out of the bakery crying and you looking at him shocked. Bakugo almost expected you to have a go at him about how horrible he behaved and about how mean he was, but you said nothing. Well, not nothing, no, you did say something. You thanked him - in a rather timid voice - for defending you. It was at this moment Bakugo realized what had always been before him.

Bakugo had always thought he needed someone stubborn by his side, but he found himself proven wrong when he suddenly saw that the person he needed was you. His quiet, shy, obedient best friend. No, you were always more than that and he had just never realized it. You were his soulmate. Yes, why else did you fit together to perfection in his mind? Not to mention that you definitely needed him. Your quirk wasn’t anything that could be used in a fight - not that he wanted you anywhere near a fight anyways - and you tended to let people walk and talk over you (which admittedly is somewhat his fault too, since he tended to walk and talk over you quite a lot in your life) so you needed someone to protect and care for you, right? Someone like him. When he looked at you from then on he felt something he had never, ever, felt before. Desperation, almost a need, to have you with him, no, even more: To have you. At first, he realized that what he was thinking wasn’t completely right, that all these thoughts about scooping you up and bringing you away, somewhere no-one else could get to, weren’t normal. But even as he fell back into a similar behaviour pattern of possessiveness, jealousness and obsessiveness that he had already shown in his childhood you never complained, never drew back from him. So clearly, you must love him too right? You must want him to be with you, to take you away. After that it’s only a question of time until kidnapping you - or saving you as he sees it - becomes a completely rational thing for Bakugo to do. He’ll buy a house not too far away from the city so that he could still be at work on time, but in a neighbourhood where you weren’t in any danger and he made it completely escape-proof. He told himself that it was to keep any intruders out, but really even he knew that it was to keep you in. He couldn’t even bear the thought of not seeing you for a day at this point. He’ll take you when you least expect it and he’ll make sure that no-one ever finds out that he was the one who took you. He’ll even lead the investigations and join the search parties that he and his friends would surely organise, but nothing would ever come from it. At least not until you finally realized that he hadn’t lost his mind, that you were meant for him, and accepted your spot at his side. Then he’d miraculously find a long-forgotten hint that would lead him right to were you were being kept and he’d accept you into his house after your apartment and bakery have long been sold to someone else and it wouldn’t be too unbelievable that you just happened to fall in love with him then, right? Of course, he knew it would take a while until that could happen, he knew that it must be hard for you to come to terms with just how much the two of you loved each other and - even though he’d rather have you already back to your calm, happy, obedient self - he was willing to live through your little tantrums and moods until you finally settled down with him. It was bound to happen sooner or later…

Bakugo had never needed someone stubborn by his side, he now knows, he had needed you.

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adhd-wifi · 5 years

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Wei WuXian, Trauma, & ADHD (Part Two - Cynophobia Edition)

Hey I’m back with another meta post, link to the first one. Also, if you haven’t seen the first ADHD post, here it is. That one’s significantly more light-hearted. I’m gonna need to make a masterpost once I actually get all these metas posted lol.

Once again, I’ve not formally studied psychology and mental illness, so my research is my own and if anything I say is wrong please let me know thanks! Now, onto the analysis.

== Line Break ==

So previously, I talked about the basics of his upbringing and what caused his traumas, as well as why I think he has ADHD as well as PTSD, and how the ADHD affected his response to his trauma.

One thing I would like to talk about in particular (that I didn’t get to last time because it made the post twice as long) is WWX’s fear of dogs. Edit before I even posted this: This point ended up being the entire post lmao.

We know that it was a trauma response he developed after his time on the streets. In fact, it’s the ONLY explicit sign of trauma from that time of his life in canon. I mentioned in the original headcanon post that his default response to merely seeing a dog is to run away screaming his head off, and we only ever see him stop running when there’s nowhere left to go or when someone is there to hide behind. Other times we see him dealing with his fear, he’s either trapped with it (Jiang Cheng I love you but you’re also on my grudge list for that stunt) so he curls into a ball shivering the whole time, or he has a safety net present to protect him (Shoutout to Lan Zhan for appearing out of literally nowhere in CQL to save him, truly iconic). What this tells us is that the way WWX responds to a tangible threat is to seek safety, be it by fleeing and physically getting to safety, curling into a ball to protect himself, or have someone else present to protect him.

Before I dive further, I would like to point out that, while the franchise tends to portray his “over-the-top” reactions as comedic (especially in CQL and the audio drama), which NORMALLY would make me saltier than the Dead Sea, it should be noted that he developed this fear as a child, so his reaction being kinda childish isn’t really that weird, especially if I’m pulling ADHD into the mix. Therefore I’m holding back on the salt but it’s on thin ice.

(Also admittedly, it might be my ADHD-headcanon causing some level of bias here in my observations. In all honestly this could just be MXTX not understanding how phobias actually work and deciding to make a comedic gag out of a trauma-based fear, which is kinda...EH...if that’s actually the case. So as usual, take things with a grain of the salt I held back.)

The reason why I personally see his response to his fear as possibly influenced by his ADHD early in his life is simple: It’s an extremely active response, and as we know, WWX is a very active person by nature, both physically and mentally. Yes, he most likely had to run away and beg for help as a child during his encounters with the dogs and that might have just been ingrained into him, but real people, including children, who have suffered similar trauma don’t often react like that. Yes, phobia responses almost always boil down to “fight or flight”, but even in “flight” response, you’ll find that WWX’s reaction is actually fairly uncommon. It does exist, but uncommon. When it does happen, it’s usually if the object of fear in question is already coming towards them, OR, when an element of surprise is involved.

I’d like to give a personal example, please bear with me. I have a really bad phobia of a specific species of gecko. Google “southeast asian house lizard” in the image search and you’ll find it. My fear is bad enough that even doing that to check if the images were accurate made me shiver. Anyways, these geckos are tragically very common in Singapore and I have to deal with them. A lot. There’s one living in my bathroom. His name is Bob and he terrorizes me every night. Help me. But. It’s FINE. I’m used to them being there. So USUALLY, I’m able to deal with them. But the moment I get startled by one, especially if one FALLS FROM ABOVE near me (the reason I’m scared of them in the first place), any practiced tolerance is flung out the window and I tend to have a VERY Wei WuXian reaction myself. That’s how my entire class in secondary school found out I was scared of lizards and because I’m not a shameless ass like Wei Ying I have not lived that embarrassment down to this day. For those who don’t know, I’m ADHD myself, which is why I find it a relevant comparison.

Back to the meta. With what we’ve seen with Fairy, WWX tends to run even before being chased, in fact his running and screaming is what causes Fairy to give chase at all. In these scenes, we see that he didn’t expect Fairy, so there’s the element of surprise present, however minor. It gives him no time to mentally prepare for it, and since we know WWX reacts to anger explosively, something that was mentioned in the previous post which I believe is a symptom of his ADHD, it’s not a stretch to believe that he responds to fear in a similar way. That this particular fear causes him to be much more irrational than usual, and his “usual” is being an infuriatingly calm and sassy genius in the face of death itself.

As I mentioned in the previous post, ADHD fucks up your emotional control (please save us) and it is much easier to be irrational and react explosively, even without pent up emotions (pent up emotions are pretty much a given when you have ADHD tho ngl), especially when something as serious as phobias are involved. Also, as WWX went through his trauma with dogs specifically in his developmental years, having what’s basically an emotional amplifier built into his brain must’ve contributed to his fear ending up this bad.

In conclusion, while it’s not entirely clear-cut or even necessarily as probable as the stuff I’ve discussed in the previous post, I do think the way Wei WuXian reacts to his fear of dogs may have some influences from typical ADHD symptoms and responses. Also, again, I might have some observational bias because I just really like the idea of ADHD, and also I just...really...really don’t like the idea of a fear borne from such trauma to just be...a gag. :V

Okay anyways, I think that’s pretty much all I have to say for now...wow this got long for a single point. Hope y’all made it here. ^^;

#wei wuxian #mdzs #mo dao zu shi #wei ying #the grandmaster of demonic cultivation #the untamed #chen qing ling #cql #mdzs headcanons #my hcs #adhd wei ying #my posts #my ramblings #my metas #mental health metas

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marveloussupernerd · 4 years

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Hi! Could i please have a DR matchup? I’m a bi 18 year old girl. I’m 5’9 and i have curly brown hair and hazel eyes. I have a very soft, cozy style and i basically wear sweaters 24/7. I’m a scorpio and INTP. I’m antisocial due to anxiety, so i’m closed off to most people. I have a sarcastic and dirty sense of humor, and i’m childish. I like playfully teasing people. I’m a gryffindor, and quite stubborn. I’m easily jealous in a relationship. I’m also not very good at initiating affection. I’m really into fitness and health, and i exercise every day. Some of my other hobbies include baking, shopping, and singing. I love video games like animal crossing, but i’m also a huge horror fan. Thanks in advance!! 💕

Yes ofc!!! Sorry for the wait!

I ship you with Hajime Hinata!

I hc Hajime owns about 1000 sweaters as well

So when y’all start dating your number of sweaters doubles

In fact at this point you leave sweaters at each other’s places so much you have no idea whose is whose

You wanna stay in? Fine by him

He doesn’t mind going out to events and to hang out with friends, but he equally doesn’t mind staying in with you

Although he does try to slowly introduce you to his friends

Chiaki first duh

You two get along pretty well and it makes him happy to see you being a bit more outgoing

When you make a dirty joke?

Lots of blushing

He becomes so flustered

Hiding his face behind his fingers so you couldn’t see how red he was

That only encourages you to do it more to see how flustered you can make him

Hajime isn’t sarcastic

But he’s caught onto your sarcasm pretty well

In fact the more you hang out the more you notice he uses sarcasm for stupid things (never towards you though)

You may have rubbed off on him just a lil

Not to say he likes being teased

But you saw how flustered he gets!

He’s a good sport

Does not get offended when you tease him

Lowkey the other Hopes Peak kids tease him to so he’s used to it

Mans doesn’t even know what an octagon is can you blame them

Gives into you easily

Especially with how stubborn you are, he doesn’t put up a fight

Will literally do anything to make you happy so you don’t have much reason to be stubborn

Whenever he upsets you he apologizes immediately... I’m talking seconds later

Even if you’re pouting, not wanting to forgive him immediately, he’s making you tea, making cookies, bringing you a blanket so that you’re not cold while you pout

Makes it hard to be mad at him... ever

Okay admittedly you’re jealous bc why does Nagito flirt with him so much?

Eventually you realize he’s just flirty like he’s well aware of your relationship and respects it he just... can’t help himself

But that doesn’t stop you from grabbing his hand or kissing his cheek when Nagito’s around, just to remind him again who Hajime is with

Makes Hajime flustered

He reassures you that you have literally nothing to worry about which like you can tell is true

When you’re around a group of people, he really is only looking at you. To the point where he bumps into people because he isn’t focused on his surroundings

He tries to work out with you! Puts in a good effort

Can he keep up? Not always. He hasn’t been working out for nearly as long as you have

He likes when you do stationary workouts bc when you’re out running or something he can’t keep up and it shows

But hypothetically if he needed to he could like about how many sit-ups he did

He never does though

“Alright. I’ve done fifty so far. How many have you got down?”

“Uh... thirty? Keep going, I’ll catch up eventually”

“Sure thing Hajime”

You guys bake together and it’s SO CUTE

he likes making the cutout sugar cookies and decorating them with frosting

Works really hard to make a detailed gingerbread couple for the two of you while you work on the house

Well... he tried

It looks nothing like you

The smeared red smile makes it look like your gingerbread people just murdered someone

He’s a blushing mess, apologizing that he spent how long doing it and it’s still not perfect

He can bake well but the decorating thing? Not really. He likes doing it though, finds it therapeutic

Hajime is for sure the person who gets wiped out after like an hour and a half of shopping

You have to get him a pretzel halfway through to keep him going

He doesn’t like shopping but he likes holding your bags

And when he sees you glance at something you like, your eyes lighting up but quickly dimming when he realized it’s too expensive, he takes note

Buys it for you in secret so he can give it to you for the next holiday

He can kinda sing

Like it’s okay? He was in a choir at school when he was like 10

He’s super embarrassed about his singing voice, but when you see him flush you sing even louder, straining your voice, trying to make him more comfortable

His singing doesn’t have to be perfect!!

He likes humming to the songs on the radio when he drives

Very sweet idk

You, him, and Chiaki play animal crossing together

Chiaki has like almost every piece of furniture somehow

She sends you the ironwood kitchenette like two weeks into playing

How did she get it that fast!?

Hajime’s house is NICE

He puts a lot of care into making a really pretty bedroom, living room, kitchen, bathroom, and even has an arcade area

His favorite villagers are the lazy ones lmao

He has like 4 frog villagers why

His native fruit is oranges

You didn’t expect this from him, but he LOVES horror

He’s seen (and owns) all the classics, and likes to have movie marathons of them during October

Only watches them when it’s dark outside, you have to have the right vibes

If it’s storming? Even better. He gets really into it

Takes you to the theater every time a new horror movie comes out so you can see the premiere

Admittedly he jumped once or twice during The Nun which was super shocking to you

First of all the concept of going to a theater atm is very strange for me and second of all I don’t watch horror but I jumped during the nun trailer so if it wasn’t good I’m sorry for even mentioning it hahaha

He holds your hand when he watches a horror movie for the first time

I don’t know... what if something extra scary happens? He doesn’t want you to know he’s scared by grabbing your hand at that moment, so he figured if he’s holding it the first time you won’t be able to tell

You can tell when he’s got his phone flashlight on as you walk back to your car after the movie

But he’s really cute about it!

In general he just loves the things you love, and you make him so flustered because he likes you so so much sushsjsjsjsj

Why did I become such a Hajime stan while writing this

#danganronpa #matchup

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makeste · 6 years

Text

BnHA Chapter 151: The Reason Heroes Wear Capes

Previously on BnHA: Mirio caught up with Overhaul and his final group of henchmen. Overhaul was all, “oh it’s that guy who couldn’t save Eri last time!” and Mirio was all, “that’s why I’m here this time.” Overhaul’s henchmen Sakaki and Nemoto appeared and tried to take out Mirio by giving him vertigo and hitting him with some fresh truth bombs, but Mirio shrugged them both off and kicked their asses. Then he ran over to Overhaul and roundhouse kicked the guy carrying Eri in the face while phasing his foot right through Eri, and Eri went flying out of the guy’s hands and into Mirio’s arms. Overhaul was all, “WHAT THE FUCK,” and Mirio was all, “I know I’m weak!” and the audience was all, “UH, YEAH, NOOOOOOOT REALLY THOUGH.” Anyway, so he caught Eri and was all, “everything’s fine now,” and I can’t fucking believe he’s going to die after all that. Or something else horrible is going to happen to him. I can’t fucking believe it, Mirio. Because right now it sure does look like he’s got this.

Today on BnHA: Overhaul activates his disassembly quirk and shreds the floor into bits and then reassembles it as a bunch of spikes. Mirio is able to phase through them while hoisting Eri out of harm’s way, but he’s super pissed at Overhaul for putting her at risk. Overhaul is unconcerned and says he can just put Eri back together again if she does get hurt, and that he’s done it many times before. Obviously this is the worst thing anyone’s ever said ever, and Mirio is enraged, but between dodging the spikes and dodging the bullets Overhaul’s last henchman Chrono is firing at him, it’s hard for him to fight back. So he wraps up Eri in his cape in order to confuse the bad guys, and then warps over to Chrono and knocks him out. He then punches Overhaul square in the jaw, which has been coming a long time and is super satisfying. As Mirio continues to whale on him, Overhaul has a flashback to when he tried to get his boss to follow his jerk plan and his boss was all, “no thanks that’s fucked up.” Meanwhile Nemoto wakes up in the adjacent hallway, crawls on over, picks up the case of Quirk-be-Gone bullets that Overhaul throws to him, and takes aim.

(As always, all comments not marked with an ETA are my unspoiled reactions from my first readthrough of this chapter. I’ve read up through chapter 183 now, so any ETAs will reflect that.)

I don’t like this side text

it’s so confident. why you gotta jinx us like that manga

you guys Overhaul is staring at Mirio and Mirio is shaking a bit

I hope that’s a rage/adrenaline tremble. I don’t think it is. but I don’t like him being nervous. but he’s all alone with the Big Bad and now he has this little girl to protect and he already fucked up once and she’s counting on him and he can’t let her down and omggggg. TENSION

Overhaul is beckoning Eri back and threatening to kill Mirio. “how many times must I tell you before you understand?”

hey what the fuck

kay. maybe it is a rage tremble. bc I’m starting to feel the same way just a little. I really need this asshole to never talk to this little girl ever again. Mirio, get her out of there!!

Eri’s panicking but Mirio’s telling her not to listen to him

Overhaul’s continuing to push all of my rage buttons and gggerhfrrrffghk

my god he’s the worst. almost makes Endeavor look like father of the year in comparison

he says Eri is cursed and her actions are destined to kill people. actually he specifically says “every single one of your actions is destined to kill people.” because what better way to keep an innocent child in line than to manipulate her with guilt and fear sdflkhs wow this man is evil

--!!!!!!

OH MY GOD FINALLY

AHHHHHHHH

I LIKE THAT THE TITLE HAS EXCLAMATION POINTS ON IT THIS TIME BECAUSE THEY SEEM APPROPRIATE. MIRIO, RUN

holy SHITTTTT

I HAVE VASTLY UNDERESTIMATED THE DESTRUCTIVE POWER OF OVERHAUL’S QUIRK. HOLY FUCKING SHIT

okay, so quick tactical rundown: the main problem here is that Mirio can’t use his ability to its full extent while also carrying Eri. what he should do is put her down for a sec and use his “warp” ability to fuck up Overhaul’s shit real quick. he was insanely fast while he was tearing class 1-A apart, and I feel like he could do it before Overhaul would be able to do any serious harm to Eri

because the thing is, Overhaul can’t kill Eri because she’s his cash cow. but I absolutely believe him capable of hurting her. which is why speed is of the essence

however I don’t think he’s going to be willing to risk it, which is why I think he miiiiiight be screwed

oh hey, Overhaul is casually confirming that yes, he’s totally willing to fuck Eri up if need be

jesus fucking christ. pretty sure you could show this page to fucking All for One and he’d be like, “holy shit that dude’s evil”

like, while Shigaraki Tomura was chilling on a couch on the beach, this guy was torturing a six-year-old and coldly reminding her that if she ever tried to ask someone for help, they would die and it would be her fault

just... I don’t even have words. I feel like Overhaul traveled to BnHA from some seinen manga and doesn’t realize we have certain rules here about what lines it’s okay and not okay to cross

anyway, here’s Mirio’s response to that

like, I obviously feel the same way, and it’s obviously more horrific for him to hear because he’s living it and doesn’t have the luxury of reminding himself it’s fiction. so I don’t blame him

but also I really need him to just keep his cool now omg, because she’s counting on you dude! fff and also I’m counting on you to not die because I love you. and also I really need Eri to not be traumatized anymore because holy shit please protect this sweet angel

anyway, so Overhaul’s continuing to do his Fullmetal Alchemist bullshit, and asking Mirio what he’s going to do if Eri gets hurt. because presumably they, unlike him, are not capable of putting her back together

clearly the only solution is to not let her get hurt!

“you can’t phase your way out of here while holding onto her” fuck me he’s figured it out

we need Aizawa stat. but who knows how long it’ll be before he catches up omg. they were in that maze for five hundred years

aaaaaand Overhaul’s sealed the path with his quirk

okay I feel like now is a good time to call bullshit on Overhaul’s reassembly power. this is too damn much. why is he allowed to reassemble matter in different fucking forms than the original. what the hell is the limit on his power then. you’re telling me Twice has a limit of two copies and Toga has to drink liters of blood in order to get any prolonged use out of her quirk, and here comes fucking Overhaul who can disassemble one thing and reassemble something completely different as long as it’s made from the same material. and he can even do ranged attacks, and he can manipulate this giant fucking room the size of a school gymnasium, and he doesn’t even seem to be tired?? jesus christ

then again, Todoroki Shouto can create a mountain of ice out of literally nothing in like .02 seconds. so maybe I’m really just mad because he’s so damn evil and I need someone to punch him in the face already

anyway, meanwhile this remaining henchman is aiming a gun at Mirio. because apparently he’s still conscious. so now it’s two against one, and they both have ranged attacks, and Mirio’s gonna have to dodge them both while not being able to fully phase his arms or hands

SON OF A BITCH

STOP GIVING HIM POINTERS

now Mirio’s turning around and hiding behind his cape which seems like a really bad idea??

okay first off, that closeup of the gun firing reminded me that guns are always censored in anime, and now I’m wondering how kooky this arc is going to look when it gets animated, because it’s pretty gun-heavy. hmm. gotta go back and see if we’ve had any other scenes with handguns already prior to this arc

(ETA: nothing comes to memory, but I admittedly haven’t gone back to check the anime yet with this in mind)

and second, Mirio’s cape isn’t bulletproof, and all this does is make it so that he can’t see where the bullets are coming from. and if he phases, he risks letting Eri get hit

so like I have no idea what he gains from a move like this. any thoughts??

but anyway he got lucky at least

OH!!!

nice!!!!!!

shit, this is why he’s the hero and I’m the person reading this and running my big mouth. it never occurred to me he could use that to hide Eri so that he could spring this move

and at first I was like WHY DIDN’T HE HIT OVERHAUL, but then I thought maybe that’s not such a good idea to get that close to a guy who can splatter you with a touch

so now I’m thinking he should grab this guy’s discarded gun and fucking shoot Overhaul instead. but I somehow can’t picture him doing that. even though it would be perfect and the safest way to dispatch him and nonlethal while still being poetic justice

but now I see the gun has been knocked away

so on top of being insanely overpowered, Overhaul is also great at thinking on his feet

OH SHIT, AGAIN

HIS TRADEMARK ATTACK FROM BEHIND MOVE! DEKU SAW THROUGH IT, BUT OVERHAUL WASN’T FAST ENOUGH OH SNAP

I CAN’T FUCKING BELIEVE MIRIO PHASED THROUGH HIS HAND AND STILL HIT HIS FACE. I KNOW HE DID THE SAME THING WITH ERI IN THE PREVIOUS CHAPTER, BUT THE TIMING IS STILL UNBELIEVABLE AND IT’S LITERALLY LIFE OR DEATH IF HE DOESN’T GET IT RIGHT

LOOK AT THIS!!!!

I’M READING THIS ON DEC 20TH, SO CHRISTMAS IS STILL FIVE DAYS AWAY, BUT SUFFICE TO SAY THIS IS JUST WHAT I WANTED

I always think of the cape montage from The Incredibles, which is a whole lot of reasons to not wear capes. and meanwhile Mirio gives just this one very specific reason to wear them which I have to assume doesn’t come up very often

but I gotta say, he sells it

the henchman guy is running to pick up his discarded gun. hey Mirio, you wanna warp over here and punch him again

that works too

shit the gun is in pieces now. well at least it can’t be used against him

meanwhile Overhaul is back on his bullshit, but Mirio’s warping again

fuck yessssssss

I KNOW WE JUST SAW THIS, BUT MY GOD, IT’S STILL JUST AS SATISFYING THE SECOND TIME. HELL, MAYBE EVEN BETTER, BECAUSE THIS TIME I KNOW IT’S NOT JUST A ONE-OFF

naturally the other shoe is still waiting to drop though. what’s it gonna be. does Overhaul have a gun of his own? he seems the type who’d do that. or will he catch Mirio off guard somehow?

fuck, I’m getting nervous now. things are going too well

Mirio he’s a germaphobe so you should just sneeze on him. see what happens

Eri’s watching in awe as Mirio screams that Overhaul won’t ever lay a finger on her again

“you lose, Chisaki!!”

what in the hell is this

no amount of sympathetic flashbacks can make me feel sorry for you, dude. I feel fucking confident saying that. I’d wager real life money that I don’t have

present day!Overhaul is telling Mirio not to call him by that name and saying he threw it away

and now we’re flashing back again, but Overhaul is already a young man now

he wasn’t a babyhaul for very long huh

he’s talking to the old boss and they seem to be discussing how the family is getting weaker

Overhaul is requesting the boss to reconsider “the plan I talked to you about before”

but boss isn’t having it

tell that to those assholes who fought Tamaki for like three whole chapters

holy shit the plot is twisting all of a sudden! we’re back in the present!

Nemoto (the truth serum Reborn guy from the previous chapter) is crawling toward Overhaul slowly

I’m sorry, the main takeaway I got from that is that Mirio’s been at it for ten minutes already, and where are Aizawa, Nighteye, and Deku, again??

and Nemoto is having a flashback explaining why he became Overhaul’s right hand man

apparently because other people kept lying to him, and he wanted a friend he could trust. because nothing sums up Overhaul’s general vibe better than “trustworthy friend”

so now he’s all “I must walk with him!!!”, and I want you all to know that I’m thumping my head on the back of my desk chair and rolling my eyes very exasperatedly. for fuck’s sake where did Overhaul fucking find all of these assholes

and I know I said I wanted Nemoto to stick around, but that was for shipping purposes!!! not Mirio-killing purposes! what the fuck!

what the fuck guys!

you’re telling me Mirio did ALL OF THAT SHIT and yet he couldn’t stop Overhaul from throwing a case of bullets at Nemo?

and Nemo had time to load his fucking gun and everything, and Mirio was what?? just standing there??!

I’m sorry, Mirio. you are so deserving of being the next Symbol of Peace. but it’s not you and it won’t be you, and the reason is that you’re not the main character, and so you don’t have the power of always somehow winning the day no matter what, and shit like this happens to you that you don’t fucking deserve. it’s not you, sweetie. it’s the plot

oh man

BONUS:

FA’s doing another omake corner with pages from the character book! 8DDDD just what I needed after this stress

lookit this. lookit

so peaceful. even though Deku’s stressing me out just a tiny bit because who the fuck reads standing up. sit down and relax

then there is a page of Horikoshi being excited over his book, and then a page of the characters as cute little stickers with catchphrases

and I need someone to explain Todoroki’s catchphrase to me. because what

isn’t this the name of Mr. Burns’s teddy bear

like, the others make sense! Deku’s is all “smash!!” and Katsuki’s is “boom!!” and Ochako’s is “float” with a little heart. so now tell me. wtf is bobo. that’s the word my Puerto Rican mom and grandma used for “pacifier” when my siblings and I were little. it’s weirding me the fuck out

(ETA:

yes google. that’s exactly what I meant. todoroki bring your own beer.)

on an unrelated note, I was wavering on whether to post Aizawa but I think I have to

just because. he has no arms and it’s the cutest thing I’ve ever seen

and now we’re moving on to Kirishima and Mina’s profiles, but I’m thinking I’m gonna just do a separate post on the kids’ profiles at some point, so I’ll skip this for now. anyways that was fun

ACTUAL BONUS:

so now here’s the omake from the actual volume!

my takeaway from that paragraph about Sakaki is that Horikoshi is probably always drunk while writing this series and that sure explains a lot

someone needs to smack the Nemoto inside of Horikoshi’s head. fuck the stupid masks. these guys would have been at least 10x more interesting without them (not an exaggeration; the bar was so low that even something as small as that would have improved them drastically)

actually, now I kind of wish he’d gotten to fight Nighteye. salaryman vs salaryman. maybe get Iida in on this too somehow. battle royale

#bnha #boku no hero academia #toogata mirio #overhaul (bnha)#eri (bnha)#bnha spoilers #mha spoilers #makeste reads bnha #so it turns out there's a restaurant called todoroki in evanston il #amazing #wonder if their business has improved since this series got popular #I'll tell you what #I know what I'm doing if I'm ever in evanston #meanwhile the bobo thing remains a mystery #but even if we didn't get any answers #I think we got something even better

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blindestspot · 6 years

Text

No Bastard Ever Won a War by Dying for His Country

Over the past year I've gotten a lot of asks about Jon and what I think is going on with him. During that time I've also managed to calm down about the inconsistent number of redshirts during the Wight Hunt. Yes, I remember that this was a thing that happened, along with a bunch of other dei ex machina, like Cersei's brilliant strategies for everything, Jon's repeated, increasingly dumb survivals and the whole Winterfell plot.

But calming down about them meant that I could think about Game of Thrones again in a manner that kind of naively assumes that the work is coherent . That 2+2=4, not 5, or orange, or a tiger. And this is what I think is going on with Jon and why it is so crucial to the whole work.

George R.R. Martin once said that A Song of Ice and Fire is supposed to have a bittersweet ending. Now that phrase covers a lot of ground. A bittersweet ending might be just ASOIAF's Scouring of the Shire (which at this stage is assured) and a few good guys passing into the Great Beyond (also nearly certain) – which would be a copy of Lord of the Rings.

A bittersweet ending might also be Davos, Brienne and Sam emerging alone from the rubble like the unhappy winners of a Battle Royale. A few good guys surviving would technically make the ending not a complete downer and thus "bittersweet".

However, a more nuanced look at a bittersweet ending should look beyond mere survival and destruction but at an ending that irrevocably changes the characters and how and what we think of them.

An issue that strikes readers as unrealistic about Lord of the Rings is that a lot of its human and hobbit-y heroes move on from the events of the story into psychologically very ordinary, uncomplicated lives that they would have lead even without the events of the story. Sam, Merry, Pippin's (and to a lesser degree Faramir, Aragorn and Eowyn's) easy passing into normalcy feels vaguely hollow.

If GRRM really plans to have a realistic take on Lord of the Rings and its "bittersweet" ending (and with his complaints about Aragorn's tax policy it appears that this is a crucial element of ASOIAF), then obviously he is going to continue what he has been doing all along and create an interplay between narrative events and characterization. Take Arya, for example. In the early parts of AGoT she would have not wanted to become a Faceless Man – for obvious reasons. But Arya from a few books later, after events have matured and traumatized her, wants to become one. And that choice will again impact her characterization and that will in turn impact future events.  It is logical that this interplay will continue right up until the end. So speculation has to take into account that these characters are dynamic and can be pushed by events into new directions. And not just "can" – but will be.

The question is not who will be alive to experience the Scoured Shire but who they will be at this point. And that change shouldn't just be cosmetic or physical, it needs to be psychological, visible, noticeable and profound. We shouldn't get an Aragorn who just walks into a kingship after a two battles, marries the cute elf girl and then doesn't have a tax plan.

And obviously, I am not talking about Gilly. I am very much talking about ASOIAF's Aragorn. I am talking about Jon.

...

Now here is a hypothetical scenario for Season 8: Jon with the help of Dany and her dragons (and, to paraphrase Roger Ebert, the usual stock characters who fight every fictional war for us, even those in space), fight the White Walkers, win, then fight Cersei, then win (the order of this is might be reversed) and then Jon's revealed to be true heir and has to rebuild Westeros.

How does any of this really change and mature Jon as a character? How does being right about everything (the White Walkers being the real threat), then leading a righteous force to victory over evil make him a realistic take on Aragorn?

It doesn't. 

What Jon needs after five books and seven season of making serviceable to great, sensible, ethical, right strategic choices (with admittedly a number of great tactical errors in between) is being wrong. And not just being wrong about failing to communicate to his sworn brothers what his strategy is, not just wrong about going on that Wight Hunt, not just wrong to send Sam away, not just lightly ethically challenged for exchanging a pair of babies against one mother's will or misleading his love interest on his commitment to her political cause... but wrong in a truly profound way that the audience cannot blame on stupidity or short-sightedness.

I admit that calling it "wrong" or even "profoundly wrong" is a bit of misnomer. What I am trying to get at is the character going into a direction where the audience cannot and should not easily follow. Those actions would be too alien as might be their rationalizations. These actions should strike the audience as questionable, reprehensible, immoral, unethical, or dishonorable.

A perhaps too perfect example of such an action is Cersei firing up the Sept. It's mass murder and it's intended by her to be mass murder. If anyone in the audience found it not reprehensible and immoral, I would have some questions for these people.

But Cersei firing up the Sept was a success. Her survival was at stake - and she survived. Before her kingdom was full of powerful enemies and afterwards it wasn't. And she even snatched the Iron Throne afterwards despite having no royal Targaryen or Baratheon ancestry.

In realpolitik terms, Cersei made the "right" choice. All other choices would have lead to her death. The first rule of anything is that you cannot do anything if you're dead.

And frankly, that's a lesson Jon desperately needs to learn. His twice-tried strategy of rushing alone against an army of his enemies is idiotic. It might be honorable for a war leader to be the first person on the battlefield but it's not a winning war strategy.

It's not a nice thing to say, but it's necessary for a war time general or commander to be willing to have other people die for him and his goal. And not just for him but in front of him, literally shielding him. An army commander who isn't willing to ensure his own survival, is gambling with such terrible odds that he has already lost the war.

Cersei's strategy of killing her enemies instead of allowing herself to be killed is profoundly wrong, immoral and yet Jon needs understand that when mankind's survival are at stake an immoral action like that might be a necessary choice.

His attempt to drown in an ice lake alone is a sign that at this point he hasn't understood the necessity of being alive to lead a war at all. As George S. Patton put it: "no poor bastard ever won a war by dying for his country. He won it by making the other poor dumb son-of-a-bitching bastard die for his country."

Out of all our main protagonists, Jon has never been willing to play as dirty as it should be necessary for an apocalyptic fight such as his. Unlike Sansa's willingness to go along with Littlefinger's nefarious plans for her cousin in the Vale, Arya's willingness to kill potentially innocent people for the Faceless Men, Tyrion raping a prostitute and killing Shae, the torture of innocents during Dany’s Slavers’s Bay arc, Bran warging Hodor... Jon has nothing in his arc that is as dark, dishonorable or questionable as these things. Jon appears to be a character class apart, like the hero of a more classic fantasy epic.

Is this because Jon's so special that his arc is a whole different genre or is this because he hasn't leveled up in realpolitik yet?

Or is there perhaps even a third option to deal with his relative over-the-top good guy characterization?

***

You know, when it comes to stories about morality like Game of Thrones a crucial factor for their success is not just the quality of the good guys but also the quality of the villains.

And what makes a compelling villain?

IMO, they hit more than one of these characteristics:

1. They are well-rounded, fully realized characters, drawn with the same care as the heroes.

2. They are able to win against the good guys. They are not a cardboard that will be blown over once the heroes wave a magic stick or sword around.

3. Their evil deeds get an emotional reaction out of the audience. (Most audiences tend to have a vague discomfort with CGI mass carnage while reacting to a well-executed scene of high school bullying with actual empathy or even horror.)

4. Their motivations are understandable, perhaps even sympathetic. At best they are a well-intentioned extremist, utilitarianism gone wrong, rather than setting stuff on fire because their mom was mean to them once.

Now looking at this list, it becomes obvious that GOT has a problem with its current crop of villains. Any of the three that are left (Cersei, the Night King, Euron) could be the Final Boss – to use a video game term. But none of them are very compelling villains. Two of them are inhuman monsters. To call their characterization shallow would be an insult to puddles.

And Cersei, the only one with a decent characterization (and some past Mean Girls bullying sins of her own) suffers from being incredibly stupid in the books, having a prophecy running against her and stealing Aegon from Essos' story in the show. In other words, Cersei's chances of success and survival and actually making it this far in the books are as good as that of a snowflake on a hot summer's day. One suspects that she is a show-only final-ish villain, so if one looks for GRRM’s final-ish villains, they would not find Cersei.

Talking about chances of success – the Night King isn’t winning this either. Because then ASOIAF would reveal itself to be a nihilistic mess in which all the human storylines were nothing but shaggydog stories. So the Night King is bound to melt in the summer sun along with Cersei. There is little question about it. And is Euron "was he even mentioned in the first book?" Greyjoy really going to win the Iron Throne in the end? Is anyone taking this possibility seriously?

And what are their motivations? Ambition, being evil and being anti-human. None of them are particularly sympathetic.

In one word, GOT's current crop of villains is not particularly exciting – especially if you compare them with some of the villains that came before them. And if one of these three is the Final Boss, he or she is gonna be lame.

But a lame Final Boss is actually a great tradition in the genre. In Lord of the Rings Sauron appears to be literally two-dimensional and about as interesting as a character. (Gollum gets to be the well-written villain and he is doing very little damage to the world at large.) Voldemort in Harry Potter is completely outshone as the most despised, scary villain of the series by the one-book-wonder Dolores Umbridge who excels at committing low-key evil deeds that make every reader/viewer wince in sympathy. The Emperor in the original Star Wars trilogy is... there and then dead and has fewer fans than a one-line bounty hunter. And the same fans that endlessly shout "Han shot first", don't even appear to care that he got a complete face replacement in the Special Editions. And if there is one consistent complaint about the Marvel Cinematic Universe, it's that its villains tend to be boring and forgettable. Yet they're lame and forgettable to the tune of billions of box office dollars.

So a lame Final Boss for the heroes to fight... that is indeed a thing. And that might be just the thing GOT/ASOIAF is doing. This is what we have to seriously consider. We are likely to get a MCU villain... you know on the level of Ronan the Destroyer or Malekith, the Dark Elf. And you probably need to google in which movies those two turned up.

That would be a terrible let down.

Or maybe it's not actually that terrible of a thing? Because if our final boss and villain is not Cersei, the Night King, or Euron, it's a good guy gone bad. Someone who is currently fighting on the side of the living before becoming someone who needs to be fought.

It's possible that this is in the cards. After "Ozymandias", the penultimate episode of Breaking Bad, aired, GRRM wrote on his blog that "Walter White is a bigger monster than anyone in Westeros, I need to do something about that."

The thing is that White appeared to start out as a sympathetic if flawed hero you were rooting for even as he was making meth. What made White monstrous is not doing depraved psycho shit beyond comprehension (like nailing a living, pregnant woman to a ship like Euron Greyjoy) but that he appears to evolve into this monster before the audience's eyes.

Breaking Bad tricks the audience into liking a character for much longer than he ever deserved and that becomes crystal clear in that penultimate episode. If GRRM wants a monster like White he can't use his old, repetitive trick of making a one-dimensional psychopath do depraved stuff. He has to logically progress a character we root for into a monster.

(Of course, GRRM might also not be able to pull it off, however much he wants to. It could be that he has not prepared the ground to make a main character go Walter White and thus it will always fall short of Breaking Bad's accomplishment. Sure, Greyworm or Dolorous Edd could become evil and monstrous but even GRRM should know that's not quite the same as making your main protagonist evil.

I might also be wrong on GRRM understanding what makes Walter White feel so monstrous. The first big sign that White took the road down to hell is not an act of murder or sadism but simply not helping someone who is choking to death. His monstrosity is based in a three-dimensional characterization, not in particularly outrageous acts of evil. He is monstrous because he used to be likable. If GRRM doesn't see that, he might actually think that one-dimensional psychopath Euron nailing his pregnant girlfriend to a ship is nailing the same kind of monstrosity.

He also could be talking about a plot point we now know about but that he has not published yet – like Stannis burning Shireen. So one should be careful looking for ASOIAF's Walter White.)

Interestingly enough, the trick Breaking Bad is pulling is quite old. White isn't making meth by chance, it was the worst thing his creator could think of besides him becoming an arms dealer. The twist of Breaking Bad's "Ozymandias" is actually not that White becomes bad but that he has always been bad. You'll find a similar character in Humbert Humbert in Nabokov's Lolita where his monstrosity is barely a plot twist and even Milton's Paradise Lost where it's none at all. (The trope of the protagonist being a piece of shit throughout the whole story usually goes down as "villain protagonist" and the list of stories containing one is pretty expansive.) But the plot twist of a surprise villain protagonist is such an old one that Aesop already codified it in his fable "The Farmer and the Viper" around 600 B.C. (Farmer helps harmless looking viper, then viper bites him because it's a viper. And has been a viper all along. Duh.)

Now if Dany, for example, turned into a villain then she would fall squarely into villain protagonist territory. But the fun thing is that doesn't mean that she is already one. The viper is not a villain until Aesop has it biting the farmer. If Dany decides to slaughter her future subjects by the thousands just so she can have the Iron Throne (and this is portrayed as despicable) then this will be in line with the Dany from the first season/AGoT who wanted the Dothraki to wage their type of warfare (pillaging, raping, enslaving, killing) onto thousands of her future subjects, so she could have the Iron Throne. But that doesn't mean that Dany will cross this particular moral event horizon.

Whether Dany will turn out to be a villain protagonist is not a question of foreshadowing. It's a question whether the authorial intent will will it into existence. The viper is a poisonous snake but if the author hasn't it biting the farmer, that poison doesn't matter at all.

Now Dany is a well-rounded character (same as Cersei) and might be difficult to defeat but her most likely, hypothetical, evil deed (mass carnage via dragon) is not particularly compelling and neither is ambition as her motivation. Villainous Dany is about as compelling as Cersei. Keeping Cersei for so long when there is Villainous Dany in the wings strikes me as a weak narrative choice: “Meet your new villain, same as the old villain...” The difference would be the element of surprise but that's a paltry surprise, especially since Villainous Dany was supposed to be The Big Plot Twist.

Honestly, Dany as the mass-carnage causing, ambitious type of villain is a low-hanging fruit. Call me edgy, but it's just nowhere near "Ozymandias". It's Boromir getting seduced by the Ring.

And there are not a lot of precedents for that storyline in ASOIAF. You know the story of a good guy gone beyond redemption evil. There is Theon, whose ambition, jealousy and insecurity drove him into sacking Winterfell and killing two children – but even he turned out to be not to be beyond redemption. There is Catelyn, but she goes crazy and becomes a zombie, so it's hard to compare.

But there is, of course, the most compelling, interesting and meaningful character arc of a good guy gone bad: Stannis Baratheon. But he isn’t a good precedent for a mass-carnage causing, ambitious type of villain.

***

You see, Stannis starts out as not exactly the most sympathetic character: he burns people and places of worship, he is a religious nut, he has his brother killed. But after getting defeating at the Battle of Blackwater, his arc does a 180. He gets the call from the North to save the realm, and out of all of the five Kings involved in the war of the same name, he is the only one he realizes that in order to "win the realm, you have to save the realm."

That isn't a coincidence. Stannis is also the only king who fights for a higher purpose. Joffrey, Balon, Robb, and Renly just fight for power (be it the power over all of Westeros or the power that lies in independence). Stannis is fighting not just for power but also for his religion, for his one true god; he is fighting a crusade. That out of all the kings, the king who believes that his religion will save Westeros ends up wanting to save it from a supernatural threat is not a coincidence. One thing clearly causes the other.

And once he makes this choice, Stannis, the Mannis (as he was lovingly called by his fans once upon a time) always fights the bad guys, he fights for the living. Of course, he doesn't stop being a religious nut, he doesn't stop burning people, he is inflexible in his beliefs, he still thinks he is the chosen one, he is Azor Ahai, he is the One True King, he belongs on the Iron Throne. But he is also the man who executes soldiers of his army who rape. He has good sides. But what weighs so heavily in his favor is that out of all the people in power in Westeros, he is fighting the bad guys.

And that matters – until it doesn't when Stannis strikes out to fight the Boltons. The Boltons are special because they are despicable without exceptions. Even the Freys have Robb's squire in their midst to have that one decent family member/bannerman that all of Westeros' notable houses appear to have. All but the Boltons anyway. There is not a good or decent living Bolton. They are the literal worst Westeros has to offer.

And yet, Stannis manages to cross a moral event horizon that makes everyone forget that he is doing it to fight the Worst. And that moral event horizon is not the sacking of a city, the killing of hundred of thousands. He is not extinguishing a house or a people. He manages it, doing something every single GOT character could do right now (save for little Sam.) He kills a single person.

And he doesn't come back from that. Like a proper Ozymandias, his hubris, his pretension to predestined, prophecied greatness is followed by his inevitable decline. Killing Shireen has Stannis losing his real world fans and his in-story followers, his wife, his fight, his priestess, his army, his purpose and consequently his life. He proves very quickly that not all ends justify all means. He is the living embodiment of the Friedrich Nietzsche quotation that "those who fight monsters should take care that in the process they do not become monsters themselves."

Stannis' final turn into villainy is actually paralleled by something another character does in ASOIAF. Except he is not a character we meet; he is a story-within-a-story; a legend, a prophecy or both. He is who Stannis thought he was: he is Azor Ahai.

And Azor Ahai absolutely does what Stannis did to turn into a villain, a monster: he murders... sacrifices an innocent to forge Lightbringer to end the Long Night. The way the story gets told makes that murder necessary, but Azor Ahai as the hero and winner of the Long Night gets to tell that story, gets to tell history his way. It's a legend and of course Azor Ahai is its hero. But remember the first person who claimed that "only death can pay for life" was a liar who wanted to make sure that "The Stallion Who Mounts the World" died in the womb. (The second was Melisandre who tends to be wrong on a lot of things and whose track record on human sacrifice is abysmal.)

So there is absolutely a chance that Nissa Nissa's death was as necessary as Shireen's. We won't get the opportunity to fact-check the legend, the ancient history. But if it's a prophecy we might see its reality.

Of course, if GOT really goes the way of making a good guy go bad, then they can do this the middling way, the mediocre way. Theon's Sack of Winterfell Redux or Catelyn's descent into madness and murder. Or by making Dany a villain protagonist who is basically just another Cersei with dragons. And despite not quite measuring up to Stannis' dark turn – ambition, grief, fear, insecurity, jealousy, vanity, or disappointment leading to mass carnage delivered onto a hundred-thousand computer-generated extras is still more interesting than the Night King Sauron with his ice dragon.

But the reality is that we don't care about the 100,000 inhabitants of King's Landing. We will cry over a single Hot Pie before ever giving a fuck about a massive number of fictional people without any characteristics. Mass carnage is easy to oppose morally because it's something we oppose in real life but emotionally there is no difference between 10 fictional people or a billion fictional people – if they are simply there to be nameless, featureless cannon fodder. The ability to cause mass carnage doesn't make you the most emotionally effective villain by default. Quite the opposite.

If Bran were to warg a dragon and set King's Landing on fire, we would get that this whole Three-Eyed Raven thing didn't work out well for his ethics and be, like, "okay". If Bran set fire to Arya, he would immediately become the most hated character ever on GOT. (And that isn't an exaggeration for effect). And any good intentions regarding defeating evil would matter as much as the fight against the Boltons did once Shireen started screaming.

I would like to add that Stannis died pretty much immediately after killing Shireen, blown over like a cardboard once Brienne showed up. But who would defeat or want to defeat a Stannis, an Azor Ahai who succeeded at ending the Long Night?

The ultimate story subversion when it comes to the classic "good vs. evil" plot is that the bad guy wins.

And wouldn't that be something if it was surprise villain protagonist? We get someone winning that we would have been okay with winning until they turned into GOT's least liked character? Wouldn't that be bittersweet? Getting who you were okay with, perhaps even wanted on the Iron Throne, who might even know which is the right tax plan and what to do with baby orcs... except they suck now?

Now who could that true Azor Ahai possibly be?

Is there someone who has been fighting monsters longer than anyone else has? Who has been so corrupted by that fight that he has tried and sacrificed already everything he could and had to defeat them? A man on quasi-religious crusade? A man who has the sort of righteous hubris and single-minded focus on the White Walkers that makes him often deaf to good advice? Who who has already laid down his life for a chance... and even a "no-chance-at-all-now-let-me-drown-in-an-ice-lake" at defeating the Night King? Is this possibly the same guy who we think is going to be crucial to the defeat of the White Walkers? The one who has the perfect bloodline to claim the Iron Throne in the end? The one who is shown to Melisandre when she looks for her prophecied chosen one in the fire? The one who appears to be the straight hero of the story, the Luke Skywalker, the only major character where pulling a Stannis would actually shock us? The one who has never been "profoundly wrong"?

I am not saying, we are getting "Aegon, the Worst of His Name". I am saying that if I wanted to create a villain who subverts all expectations while fulfilling them, a villain who is truly compelling and whose turn emotionally wrecks the audience, I would not make it happen by having Daenerys or Bran roast King's Landing. I simply would choose a more likable and successful version of Stannis and have him doing something terrible, wrongfully believing it's the right thing to do.

Now theoretically this could be anyone but little Sam. And regardless of that character's identity, they would be a great, compelling villain. Practically though, the best candidate for going off that particular deep end is not some random second tier character. And it's not Daenerys "What Even Are White Walkers?" or Bran "I'm a robotic, omniscient plot device now the Three-Eyed Raven now" Stark either.

It's Jon.

***

There is an issue with this though. Stannis murdering a family member/sacrificing a child for their royal blood to win a battle was simply a continuation of Stannis' previous actions. Stannis had no issue with his wife's uncle being burned as a sacrifice to R'hllor, had his brother murdered to win a battle, and attempted to have his underage nephew (Edric Storm in the books, Gendry in the show) sacrificed for his royal blood.

Killing Shireen is Stannis taking this to its logical extreme. Everything he does is simply something he has done before. Except this time the audience isn't given an out: Shireen doesn't escape like Edric/Gendry, we care for her (unlike Alester Florent) and she isn't Stannis' opponent in battle (Renly).

What Stannis is doing, is not surprising or entirely unprecedented. It is ultimately just a darker twist on something he has done before. Which is weird because you would think that something that crosses a moral event horizon would be a real departure from his previous actions. But it's not and that is really crucial if we want to discuss Stannis 2.0.

If a good character goes bad then having them simply do something they've done before – except this time it's just too much – makes sense. Just like the road to hell is paved with good intentions, escalating villainy should be a slippery slope of ever indefensible bad deeds.

And this is why it makes no sense to look at Jon and wonder who he is going to burn at the stake for R'hllor – because he won't. What he would do to incur the audience's disdain needs to be something he has kind of done before. And that he has done on the show before, because it stands to reason that the show would want to keep its foreshadowing. (Hence Gendry's slightly pointless kidnapping by Melisandre in the show.)

So the the baby swap is out since it didn't happen on the show. Breaking a vow is a bit too generic and on its lonesome will not evoke any emotional reaction. And making high-handed, impulsive decisions that end up with terrible consequences has been already done with Jon making a series of high-handed, badly thought through decisions that netted the Night King a dragon and destroyed the Wall and yet netted Jon no audience disdain at all. So probably not that one either.

That leaves his relationship with Ygritte. In the books, we only see this relationship from Jon's point of view with all his justifications and inner struggles and his self-knowledge that while he lies about his allegiance to the Wildlings' cause, his feelings for Ygritte are real.

Now if one imagines that relationship from Ygritte's point of view (as she is in the books), Jon would come out of that as a supreme douchebag. He lead her on, lied to her, pretended to have feelings for her, then left her, publicly humiliated her and finally participated in a battle with her on the other side. Jon doesn't kill her but he is willing to do so by fighting her.

Now a real neutral point of view that doesn't vilify Ygritte to prop up Jon as a cool dude (as the show has done with her allying herself with cannibals and the village massacre), would be more of a wash, ethically speaking. Jon lies to Ygritte but his life is at stake and it wasn't even his own idea in the first place. There are consent issues with their relationship and Ygritte is as willing to kill Jon when she participates in that battle as it's the case the other way around.

But then Stannis wasn't that unjustified to go after Renly who was willing to fight and kill him in battle after all. Killing Renly nearly rates as self-defense. And Edric Storm got away. The question is not how horrible Jon's actions towards Ygritte were. But rather what the escalation of that sort of overall action would be like.

Now due to time constraints the only relationship where Jon could pull an escalated "Ygritte" is his relationship with Daenerys. And here I am kind of puzzled by the discourse around the idea. Because as passionately as people argue about it, they actually agree quite fundamentally: that Jon is doing it/not doing because he is the quintessential good guy.

That he either betrays his lover or the plutocratic will of his nation is disregarded as some sort of higher purpose collateral that doesn't at all reflect on his moral character.

But isn't Occam's Razor to the question of how a "good guy" manages to betray either lover or nation simply to question the "good guy" part?

But let's step back a bit. The theory that Jon is playing Dany proposes that Jon initiates this emotional manipulation because she wonders aloud about two things (while he wants her commitment on the fight against the White Walkers): 1. Her ability to achieve her overall strategic goal of winning the Iron Throne 2. What happens to her rear if she pulls all of her forces north.

Now, Jon never actually answers any of these questions (or any questions on how to get the Northern Lords to remain loyal to him and Dany) and that is a bit problematic. Because the second question of what happens in a war if you leave one side open to your enemies is an enormously important one.

What Jon appears to do, is rely on a truism about the North: that it cannot be conquered in Winter (and Winter is here.)

*beleaguered sigh*

This truism exists in our world about two countries. One is considered unconquerable in Winter, the other unconquerable in general. And while these truisms have held true for few centuries now, the reality is that attempts to conquer them have devastated both countries on more than one occasion to the sound of millions of dead inhabitants and bombing it to the bottom of the HDI.

If Jon relies on Winter to protect him and his allies from Cersei, he is an idiot. If Cersei attacks the unprotected North from the South, his ability to fight the White Walkers will be profoundly diminished even if Cersei fails at conquering the North itself. Dany is right to ask this question and he is wrong to ignore it.

And if that theory pans out and Jon took these strategic, legitimate concerns as a sign that he needs to loverboy it up instead of thinking how to protect the North from the South, then that's next level mansplaining.

But forget that point for a bit and go back to the situation in which Jon supposedly initiates it. He is recovering after the Wight Hunt and Dany swears to avenge her dragon while musing on her overall strategy of winning Westeros. And while Jon isn't in good shape, he is not in mortal danger. Not in general, not specifically by Dany. She is letting her hair down and she's pledging her support to his cause.

Jon's life is not the least on the line and the question whether Dany would or would not have pulled out of the war against the White Walkers if Jon hadn't started flirting with her in that moment is an unanswerable hypothetical. No matter how you slice or dice it, it's not certain at all (not to the audience, not to Jon) that she would have pulled out.

So Jon had three choices in this moment: not initiate a romantic relationship with Dany, initiate a romantic relationship out of genuine feeling, initiate a romantic relationship to manipulate her.

None of these choices would spell certain doom. It's not at all like the relationship with Ygritte, where not going along with it would have blown his cover and cost his life. It's also distinct from that situation insofar as he didn't choose to go undercover with the Wildlings in the first place but was commanded into the situation by his superior officer.

If Jon initiated the relationship to manipulate Dany, he chose to do this voluntarily without true necessity. It's, in fact, as necessary as Littlefinger manipulating Lysa into intrigue, murder and ill-fated marriage was. Of course, without that manipulation Littlefinger would have never advanced at court and become Master of the Coin, Lord of Harrenhall and Sweetrobin's guardian. But none of these things were necessary to grant his survival at any time.

The key difference between Jon and Littlefinger is that Jon allies himself with Dany to ensure mankind's survival instead of personal gain. But on the balance, another difference between Littlefinger and Jon's situation is that the romantic relationship wasn't necessary to ensure Dany's support. In fact, even the idea that Dany's concerns are sign of her wavering in her commitment is a minority if not fringe opinion among GOT's audience.

And that makes the idea of Jon manipulating Dany very unpalatable. The lack of necessity makes him a Littlefinger, rather than a Robb or a Ned or even the Jon who lied to Ygritte. And audiences prefer to see their heroes as honorable fools rather than manipulative, emotionally abusive jerks.

Because there is the heart of the problem. If Jon is truly manipulating Dany, he is an emotionally abusive jerk. He is profoundly wrong. He is the guy that your BFF has warned you about. "He is just using you for [something.]"

And that hits home in a way shadowbabies and Frey Pies and Qyburn doesn't. We don't know any necromancers who vivisect people. But we know the kind of jerk that Jon would be. It's not theoretical, it's something we know and because of that will not appreciate.

***

But while this absolutely checks off “make the evil deed painful to the audience” point in the “compelling villain” check list, it’s still nowhere near as ethically questionable as Stannis burning Shireen.

But Jon's Ygritte storyline doesn't end with him duping, betraying and leaving her. It ends with her getting killed. And not just killed, but killed in battle against Jon and his brothers. While Jon is not directly responsible for her death – he neither instigated nor executed the killing – he was willing to risk that his actions would kill her in that battle. The goal of a battle is to win and to use the Patton quote from above "make the other bastard die for his country." Of course, Jon acted in self-defense, Ygritte was fighting that battle against him and the NW voluntarily, fully willing, ready and able to kill him.

But then, to go back to Stannis, Stannis was also just acting in self-defense when he send the shadowbaby assassin to kill Renly. Renly had the superior force and showed himself fully willing, ready and able to kill Stannis in battle. The question whether Stannis' assassination of Renly is justified is a digression too far because that is not the point. The point is that Jon and Stannis got some person killed who was really close to them (brother, lover) and that was kind of, maybe, perhaps justified self-defense. You can argue for it in both cases.

However, as I mentioned before, Stannis' ultimate escalation of Renly's murder is killing Shireen. There is no maybe, perhaps, kind of, about the lack of justification for it. Stannis did not act in self-defense, Stannis was not provoked. The true necessity was also absent... although the proof for that is just hindsight. The sacrifice was supposed to save Stannis and his army. It did not. Thus it was never necessary. The whole thing is just wholly indefensible.

Now would an escalation of Jon's Ygritte storyline limit itself to the affair and betrayal or would it go all the way down to that self-defensive arrow that Jon wasn't directly responsible for? Except for a Stannis-like escalation that arrow could not be self-defensive, it would have to be undeserved, unjustified, unnecessary and Jon's responsibility.

The audience doesn't even have to like Dany at that point. That would be just crossing all moral event horizons, turning Jon into a villain and serving a "King Arthur Aragorn Jon Snow is the final villain" plot twist that makes R+L=J look like child's play in comparison. It would be truly an epic twist, ending up in the plot twist pantheon next to "Bruce is a ghost" and "Soylent Green".

However, I don't think this is gonna happen. A villain protagonist on that level would have been foreshadowed much, much more, both in the books and the show. "The villain wins" is also really nihilistic and ends up on a quite bitter note with very little sweetness. Davos, Brienne and Sam emerging alone from the rubble would be a more positive and happier ending. It's also the sort of plot twist you think of five books and seven TV seasons later (too late), not when you conceive the story.

So what will happen to Jon instead if he doesn't become a villain?

There are really only two options: his characterization remains in a class of its own and he remains the only truly good guy protagonist or he takes a level in realpolitik and starts to play as dirty as necessary in whatever way. Not quite Jon, the villain but Jon the ethically challenged, Jon the Utilitarian.

(By the way, I am not saying that he has to play dirty with specific characters to qualify, just that that he has to play dirty somehow. In fact, playing dirty with certain characters might evoke a negative, emotional audience reaction that is not in proportion to the ethics violation it presents and thus the whole Utilitarianism bit might accidentally devolve into perceived villainy.)

The really fascinating bit about this is that Jon's characterization will define ASOIAF quite significantly. Jon is so crucial to the story's most fundamental conflict, that even if you discard the idea that he is The Protagonist, you would still have to agree that he is one of the most important protagonists. His characterization will contribute and lead to the resolution of that conflict. If he resolves it by playing dirty, the moral of the story will quite different than it is if he resolves it by always taking the heroic, high road.

And it's not just the moral of the story. Once the story decides to land on "Jon, the moral" or "Jon, the Utilitarian", the question whether we are consuming "Lord of the Rings with boobs" or a true deconstruction of Lord of the Rings will answer itself. And that will reflect on more than just Jon's storyline. If Jon stays heroic, Night King Sauron, our final, two-dimensional villain and other neat and flat resolutions become much more likely.

As such I would argue that the Jon’s characterization will define how good ASOIAF's famed realism truly is, what ideals it propagates, and what kind of story ASOIAF is.

I honestly can't predict how this will play out. But I remember that Ned and the Red Wedding promised a deconstruction of the genre, an acknowledgement that taking the high road constantly can be a dead end in real life. Jon not needing to be smarter than them in the end would break that promise.

#A Song of Ice and Fire #Jon Snow #Aegon Targaryen #ASoIaF #meta #Game of Thrones

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rafyki · 6 years

Note

18 or 27 on the sarcasm prompts for IbiMiya if you’re still doing them?? (It’s so hard to find Ibitani fans in the fandom nowadays omg how ya doin)

I’m so sorry it took me so long!!! I’m a super slow writer orz

But, anyway, this got super long (it’s like almost 2k words wtf I so can’t write short stuff), and it’s pre-slash, but I hope you’ll like it!

27: “I am one of the few people in the world who can murder you and leave no forensic evidence behind.”

Ibitani was angry.Incredibly, absolutely, completely angry. So angry that he couldbarely think straight, so angry that if someone would have looked athim the wrong way he wasn’t sure if he would have been able to stophimself from punching them right in the face.

It had been a while sincehe had felt like that. Admittedly, in the past year it had happened rarely – sure, he had felt angry, but not so much that he couldn’tthink of anything else but that pressing feeling. No, since he hadjoined the bicycle club, he had felt calmer, more in control ofhimself and his anger, he hadn’t felt the sudden urge to just beatsomeone up to make himself feel better.

It hadn’t happened sincehe had joined the club – since he had met Miya.

But today, today Ibitaniwas feeling exactly like he had felt almost every single of his lifebefore that, like he had somehow regressed to how he was before theclub – before Miya.

He wasangry, he wanted to punch something, someone, and release like thatall the pent up anger and frustration that seemed to run through hisveins instead of blood.

Hehad seen Banba on the street, while going to school; he had seen himand ignored him, but the damn asshole had looked at him, his stupid, annoying, presumptuous eyes fixed on Ibitani, and had had the guts tosnicker. He had snickered,he had dared to deride Ibitani like that again, knowing full well,again, that Ibitani couldn’t respond in any way.

Ibitanihad wanted nothing more than to punch him, one, two, three times, hehad wanted to just punch away his damn smile. He wanted to punch himbecause he was a coward who had taken advantage of the fact that heand Miya couldn’t respond to his provocations and had used them aspunching bags; he wanted to beat him up until he couldn’t evenremember his own name.

But hecouldn’t, because it would mess everything up, because he probablywouldn’t be the only one who would get in trouble, because he couldend up bringing Miya into his mess, too.

So, hewas angry, and he was doing his best to try and keep it inside.

Mostof all, though, he was angry for the same fact that he was angry. Hehad thought he had moved past that, he had thought that somethingthat had happened more than a year before couldn’t affect him thatmuch – honestly, he had thought he was better than that.

Asfocused as he was on himself and his own thoughts, he didn’t hear hisname being called nor the footsteps following him, until Miya grabbedhis wrist to make him stop.

“Oi,dipshit, don’t you just ignore me!”

“Letme go, Miya, I’m not in the mood”, Ibitani all but growled back,freeing himself from the hold and starting walking again. Briefly, hethought he was thankful that there was no one else in the corridor.

Heonly stopped when he felt the pressure of a hand on his shoulderholding him back. “What the hell is your problem, Ibitani?”, Miyasaid, when Ibitani turned around, looking at him with his eyebrowsraised and annoyance – and maybe concern –in his eyes.

“Noneof your business, leave me alone”.

Ibitaniwanted to punch him, he wanted to punch him because it was Miya’sfault that he couldn’t just beat up Banba when he wanted, it was hisfault for making him care so much about the club, so much about him.

It wasMiya’s fault, and Ibitani wanted nothing more than to punch himsquare in the face.

But hedidn’t, not only because he couldn’t, but because Miya was stilllooking at him with concern, and Ibitani felt so exposed under thatgaze that he felt the sudden need to flee as far away as possible.

“Comeon, let’s go”, Miya said and, this time, when he started walking,it was Ibitani who followed him, without really thinking about what he was doing.

“Eh?Where? We have to go to class, Miya”.

Miyastopped, and looked back at him shrugging. “Let’s skip”, he said.

“Ah!?We can’t!”

“Oh,come one, it’s no big deal. And, besides”, he added, “you looklike you’re about to kill someone, Ibitani”.

Theystood there, staring at each other for a few moments. Ibitani feltcalled out – he hadn’t been trying to hide how he was feeling, butthe fact that Miya had understood so quickly and was doing this forhim made him at the same time annoyed and pleased. He got the feelingthat he couldn’t hide anything from Miya even if he tried to – notthat he really wanted to, he suddenly realized.

“Fine,let’s go”.

Theywent to the roof. Maybe it was the fresh air, or maybe it was justMiya’s somewhat calming presence, but Ibitani felt better. Stillangry, still wanting to release the anger by punching someone, butstill better.

Hemoved near the wall and set on the ground and, after a moment, Miyajoined him.

Ibitaniwasn’t sure why they were there. Sure, he had to admit that Miya wasprobably right and he had indeed been on the verge of doing somethingreally stupid like picking a fight with some random person, but hedidn’t understand why they were there, why Miya was willing to skipclass and risking to get in trouble with the club, all because of him.

“So,you’re gonna tell me what’s gotten into you today?”, Miya suddenlysaid, after some long minutes of silence, snatching Ibitani away fromhis thoughts.

Thetruth was that Ibitani didn’t want to talk about it – he feltstupid for having let something so stupid gotten to him that much, hefelt even more stupid because he could still feel the anger runningthrough him, because he knew that if he had had to possibility hewould have beaten up Banba right then and there without thinkingtwice about it.

Miyaknew him – hell, Miya probably knew him better than anyone else;and yet, Ibitani didn’t want to tell him, didn’t want to let him knowhow little he had changed over the past year. So he didn’t, he justkept staring right ahead of him, eyes fixed on the sky.

Heheard Miya sighing, frustrated.

“Ayear ago, you tried to throw me off this roof”.

And,really, of all the things he could have imagined Miya would say, thatdefinitely wasn’t one.

"Ah!?Are you trying to piss me off even more, Miya?”, Ibitani said,finally turning towards Miya and meeting his eyes.

Hedidn’t really need to be reminded of that, especially not in thatmoment.

“Maybe”,Miya smirked, and the sight of that smile made Ibitani’s heart flip,everything else forgotten for a moment. “What are you gonna do,throw me off the roof again?”

“Oh,fuck you, Miya”, Ibitani replied, lowering his eyes – in partbecause he felt ashamed, and in part simply because it was hard tomaintain eye contact when Miya was looking at him like that, all softand teasing. “You were annoying as hell, of course I tried to killyou”, he murmured, knowing full well that there wasn’t a realreason for what he had tried to do, and feeling incredibly stupid foreven trying to actually doing it. He suddenly realized that he hadnever apologized to Miya for it.

Butit didn’t seem that Miya really cared about that, because he justlaughed, his head thrown back, his arms around his stomach. “Whatkind of reasoning is that!?”, he said between laughter. “Whatwould you have done after that?”

“Idon’t know! Hide your corpse?”

“Ibitani,you’d be the worst murderer ever”.

“Oh,come on, as if you could do any better!”

Miyawas still laughing, and, with every second that passed, Ibitani wasfinding it harder and harder to keep basking in his self pity – itwas hard, not to join Miya and forget everything else when they werelike that, when he was looking at Ibitani like that, like nothingelse really mattered in the world.

“Sure,Iam one of the few people in the world who can murder you and leave noforensic evidence behind”,Miya said, trying – and epically failing in suppressing hislaughter and keeping a straight face. “I already have a plan”.

“Yeah?And what would that be?”, Ibitani asked, a smile raising to hislips.

“It’seasy, killin’ you in the middle of the ocean and throwin’ your bodyin the water so no one would ever find you”, Miya said, as it wasthe most obvious thing ever – as if that whole conversation madeany sense at all.

Now,Ibitani couldn’t really hold his laughter in anymore. It took him along minute to be able to finally calm down and catch his breath.When he did, and looked back at Miya, he found him already looking athim, smile still on his lips, eyes still shining with hilarity.Ibitani allowed himself to get lost in them for a couple of momentsbefore looking away, hiding the blush on his cheeks behind his hair.

Suddenly,he realized that all the anger he had felt only minutes before wascompletely gone, lost in the laughter and the somehow weird intimacyof the moment.

Healmost laughed again. It was amazing, how Miya could help him calmdown by talking about killing each other – it was absolutelyridiculous, but Ibitani wouldn’t have it any other way.

“Youknow, Ibitani”, Miya started saying, “it’s okay to be angrysometimes. Just come to me when it happens, okay?”.

Ibitanioften felt like Miya could read him with too much ease, like he wasan open book to him – and now, now was one of those times, whenIbitani felt like Miya could literally read his mind, understandinghim with nothing more than a glance. He was looking at Ibitani likehe knew exactly what had been the cause of his bad mood.

Dumbfounded,his heart beating way faster than normal, Ibitani couldn’t do muchmore than nodding.

“We’vecome a long way from then”.

“Uh?”

“Fromlast year”, Miya clarified. “We’ve come a long way”.

Andsuddenly, sitting on the roof where he had tried to kill the guy nowsitting close next to him, the guy who had, in such a short span oftime, become one of the most important people in his life –suddenly, Ibitani felt calmer than he had felt in a long while, andrealized that Miya was really right.

“Yeah,Miya, I guess you’re right”.

This was way longer than I intended, sorry, I got carried away lol I hope you liked it!!

#yowamushi pedal #yowapeda #ibimiya #my writing #thank you for asking!#this was hella funny to write #i think i'm gonna post it on ao3 too this is so long #i had missed writing ibi and miya :v #tendous-satoris #asks

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