#most of the gang really

[thehealingsystem]

if you ever wonder why I don't interact with the traumagenic community as a traumagenic system this is why

[flowercrowngods]

It's unreal. The light is streaming in through the windows, the curtains still drawn to block out the midday heat, tinging their living room in golden hues that match so well with the light grey fabric of their new sofa.

Eddie should probably snap out of it and head over to the windows, open the curtains and let the light in, and with it the warmth and fresh air of a surprisingly wonderful day.

It's March, he hears the echoes of Steve's giddy voice a week or two ago. Everything's better in March.

Eddie didn't agree then, and he's not sure he agrees now, but he must admit there is something magical about this moment.

Still he remains rooted to the spot, leather jacket heavy on his shoulders, his hands hidden in the sleeves of it, just in case this really is a dream. Just in case someone will come in and snap him out of it, take away their couch and leave an eviction notice.

It's dumb. But Eddie doesn't deal well with things that are unreal. Things that he knows aren't meant for him. Things that he knows he only gets in this one play-through of his life, while millions of other Eddie Munsons are out there in parallel universes who never get to even lay eyes upon a couch this nice. Let alone buy it. From their own real adult money.

It's a corner sofa, the fabric light grey, and he remembers it being harder than it looks. Solid. Just perfect for both their fucked up backs, scar tissue pulling if they sit wrong for too long, phantom pain and muscle aches coming in hot when all they want is to just relax and enjoy a lazy evening.

Eddie bites his lip, trailing his eyes along the pristine fabric, the pillows lining the back of it, the flawless stitches keeping everything in shape.

They have a couch now. A sofa.

It's so fucking unreal.

He drops to the floor right then and there, sitting with his back against the wall, and never once taking his eyes off their sofa. It feels important to look at it for a while. It feels important to wait for Steve. It feels... It feels like maybe he'll ruin everything if he goes and sits on it now.

And it feels really fucking big.

At some point he hears the front door opening, their lock going so smoothly now that Steve fixed it with some graphite, and the sound makes Eddie smile. That's another thing that's unreal. The key barely making any noise, the lock not rattling, the door not creaking and cracking. Eddie pulls a strand of hair between his lips, the smile feeling too silly for this room, for this home, for everything he gets to have now.

For all the tiny things that matter now. All the tiny things he gets to have, turning the key's smooth slide into an allegory of everything he ever wanted but never dared to hope for.

The slide of curtains, the click-click-click of the window handle being turned to let the air in. The breeze of fresh spring air dancing around his nose.

It's all a little much. It's so fucking addicting.

And then Steve. Socked feet coming to a stop beside him, a hand landing in his hair, a voice that's so endlessly warm and fond and maybe a little worried sounding from above him, "Hi, angel."

"Hi," Eddie says, tearing his eyes away from their couch to meet Steve's. The sunlight from the windows hugs him, making him glow. Eddie smiles. He smiles and smiles and never wants to stop.

Steve hums as he leans down to press a kiss to his forehead, and Eddie weaves his arm through Steve's legs, holding onto his knee.

Everything feels a little less silly now. Like every time Steve doesn't question his little moments of sitting on the floor and just staring at things.

"We have a couch now," Eddie says, because it feels important to point out. Because Steve isn't looking at it.

"We do," he hums. "I got the call earlier. Thanks for helping with that, baby."

Eddie nods again, leaning his cheek against Steve's knee and trailing the couch again with his eyes. It looks brighter now that the curtains don't turn the room into something out of a sepia-type movie anymore.

Steve's hands comb through his hair, massaging his scalp a little with his nails. It's nice. It's warm. It's pretty.

And it's so unreal.

"I'm twenty-four," Eddie says then, and some part of him wants to carve that into the fabric. He won't. But maybe he should carve it somewhere else. "And I own a couch. It's a little crazy."

Steve comes to sit down beside him, their shoulders pressed together and he links their hands, resting them in his lap after a brushes a kiss to Eddie's knuckles.

"Why's it crazy, angel?"

He shrugs, resting his head on Steve's shoulders and curling into his warmth some more.

"Most of my life I never thought either of those would happen, y'know."

Another hum, followed by another kiss to the crown of his head. Another smile.

"But you did it," Steve whispers. "You made it. And we've got a couch now."

"We've got a couch now."

Saying it out loud doesn't make it feel any realer. It only makes his heart race and his eyes prick.

"I love you," he says, finally looking away from pretty grey fabric to meet prettier hazel eyes. "I love you so much."

Steve leans in, kissing the tip of his nose. "I love you. Thank you for buying a couch with me."

And it occurs to Eddie then that Steve understands him. Sitting there on the floor with him, hearing his words and listening to those unsaid, understanding Eddie on such a fundamental level that it should be scary. And it is, sometimes.

But he's not scared now. Because they have a couch. And they have pretty curtains that keep the light outside and still turn the room into something magical. And they have a lock that only needed a bit of graphite to let the keys glide smoothly.

And they have each other.

They stay on the floor until Steve's stomach growls, and they eat dinner with their backs against the couch and Eddie's feet in Steve's lap. They hold each other close after dinner, just breathing each other in as the breeze blows around them.

In the end, Eddie is the first to sit on the couch, with Steve standing between his legs and giving him a scalp massage in silence. In the end, Eddie buries his face in Steve's stomach to hide the tears, and Steve lets him.

Because this is real. And he gets to have this. They both do.

🤍 permanent tag list gang: @skiddit @inklessletter @aringofsalt @hellion-child @stobin-cryptid@hotluncheddie @gutterflower77@auroraplume@steddieonbigboy @n0-1-important@stevesjockstrap @brainvines @puppy-steve @izzy2210 @itsall-taken @mangoinacan13 @madigoround@pukner@i-amthepizzaman @swimmingbirdrunningrock @hammity-hammer @stevesbipanic@bitchysunflower @estrellami-1 @finntheehumaneater @goodolefashionedloverboi @awkwardgravity1 (lmk if you want on or off, for this story or permanently)

[jamandjazz]

Headcanon that Johnny does NOT bruise easily, and everyone knows, which makes it all the sadder that’s he’s always covered in them.

[waitineedaname]

I realized I made some notes on how different characters fight in mob psycho, and I never posted them. here you guys go, for any reference needs

Mob: mostly simple attacks, not very showy, just waves his hand and uses telekinesis/exorcizes something, doesn’t move around much. As ???%, much more destructive, psychic force seems to just emanate off of him and destroy everything

Teru: VERY mobile, throws himself around with telekinesis, puts his whole body into the attacks and tends to use moves from normal fights (punches, slaps, kicks, etc). Utilizes a variety of psychic techniques with flexibility, very creative. Piss stance, necktie sword. Much more flashy than Mob

Ritsu: uses powers to throw people/things around. While Mob and Teru attack with just psychic blasts, Ritsu tends to use his powers to grab other things as an attack (grabbing the delinquents and throwing them against each other, throwing the Claw guards against the wall, picking up cars to sandwich Shimazaki between them). Uses his environment creatively (fire extinguisher smoke screen against Shimazaki). More flashy than Mob, but not as mobile as Teru. Hand gestures for Drama

Shou: sneaky + speed + bomb!! Tries to be as evasive as possible using invisibility/speed (probably telekinetically enhanced?) to hit from behind, using either telekinetic force (his stomp in his introduction, the shockwave hit on ???%) or his charge bomb attack. Potentially uses speed/evasive moves as defense instead of the barriers we see most everyone else use

Serizawa: likes to channel his powers into an object (umbrella, business cards). Uses that object as a shield, sword, or something to blast psychic powers out of. Not very mobile in season two, moves around much more in the yokai fight. Not particularly flashy, but looks cool regardless

Reigen: deception/surprise!!! Either tricks people into thinking he’s going to do something else and then attacking, or just outright taking them by surprise and attacking before they know what’s going on. Usually doesn’t have a follow-up move, just does the one attack and hopes for the best. Prefers to bluff his way through a situation

[charmac]

No right or wrong, doesn't even call for a discussion, I just want to know what you, the general fandom, post-16, currently believe to be Dennis' sexuality (purely sexual)

"Purposefully unlabeled" meaning Dennis understands his sexual attraction to men yet he's actively choosing to not label/disclose it to the Gang (or audience) for his own sake

Any other explanation explanation for Dennis' sexuality being unlabeled (i.e. doesn't understand bisexuality, hasn't thought about it, genuinely just doesn't fit any label/doesn't want to label himself, etc.) would fall under "Unlabeled - Infinitely nuanced"

[autumnslance]

Normally I'd agree many Final Fantasy games have rather young protagonists. It's because they're usually single-player JRPGs made with the assumption of younger players, and like most Young Adult media, create characters that cater to that, even if it ends up with teens running the world and fighting in wars. And for many players, the first time playing these games is in childhood/adolescence/very young adulthood. So it's YA anime.

Final Fantasy XIV does not fall into that same mold, despite the "Teen" rating for legal and distribution purposes.

The majority of the FF14 cast, including the bulk of the main characters, are between 20 and 40 years old (the Scion Archons, Ishgard Elf Husbands). Many other characters are between 40 and 80 (Ishgard's Counts are all late middle aged to elder dads/grandpas, Gaius is mid 50s, Jehantel and Ran'jit are elderly, all still active). The younger characters (especially with any authority or special position) like the Leveilleur twins, are actually outliers. And the youth of the characters between 16 and 20 years old tends to be plot relevant, where that inexperience and naivety causes problems and drives story (Nanamo's arc at the end of ARR into HW, Alphinaud and the Crystal Braves, Ryne's determination of self in ShB, etc).

Characters have a variety of appearances; some characters in the same age ranges look very different. Varis is only 4 years older than X'rhun but Varis's model shows the stress and disagreeableness of his life a lot more than the RDM trainer's. Cid's in his mid-30s but with the beard looks older--and without it he has a baby face (hair color doesn't matter, cuz they do keep the anime trope of "everyone's got white or silver hair"). Lalafell are designed to be anime-cute halflings so it's hard to tell their adult ages even if they've got facial hair like grandfatherly Papashan. The pad'jal of course look like kids, but the youngest main pad'jal is A-Ruhn in his late teens; all the others are adults stuck in adolescent bodies. E-Sumi is a few hundred years old. Kan-E uses various methods to look older so other leaders and people from outside Gridania will take her seriously as an adult. The padjal introduced in the StB WHM quests is a child, and that's the plot; she's not in charge of anything, or has any particularly advanced-for-her-age skills. She's just a kid having a really rough time.

This inability to determine age by looking and assuming isn't just due to limits of the game engine and character creation options; it reflects real life. I met my work team for the first time in person recently; one person looked older than I know them to be, thanks to months of stress and health issues. While all of them were shocked to remember I'm in my 40s as according to them, I "look much younger". Most people are actually pretty bad at guesstimating ages based on appearance, due to the variety of folks' lives.

Speaking of kid characters, many of the children we interact with, like the Doman Adventurers, are between 12 and 14 and act much younger. Khloe has this going on too, with her age "corrected" to 13 (when previously listed as 10), but she acts way younger to me. Most of the actual child characters are treated like children, and it's not until they get to 14-16 (Honoroit, Leveva) that we start to see them treated like maturing adolescents and having some rsponsibilities, but still young and prone to the kind of choices one expects of less experienced and more emotional youth.

As a MMO, FF14's primary audience is actually adults; teens do play the game, but also age up with it if they keep playing. If a 15 year old began playing with ARR's release, they're in their mid-20s now. Having a primarily adult cast, and treating child characters like children, and adolescents like young people figuring out how young adulthood works, makes sense for this game.

FF14's time bubble is also part of the issue; a developer tool to keep it so they don't have to worry too much about character ages, new models so often, or how long things take in game. Timelines are then intentionally left malleable for the players' benefits, to create our own stories and determine how long things take for our WoLs and their tales. Some folks have their stories pass in real time, some compress it to a year per expac, some expand it out even longer. So the ages the characters have listed in the lorebooks and rarely in game (which is then reflected in online resources), is a starting baseline. Personal headcanons as always should be applied (including changing around some character ages to fit one's own story if necessary).

Also, FF16, made by the same team, has a brief prologue/tutorial section where the main trio is between 10 and 15, guided/trained by adult characters, experience the inciting incident trauma--and then we spend the majority of the game with the main cast in their 20s and 30s. The game also has a mature rating, featuring some sexual situations, lots of violence, and stronger language than other FF games. It's made for adults, and its cast reflects that.

So it is a matter of audience expectations; for a MMO, you're going to have an older and aging player base, and the varied ages of the cast reflect that, as do their varied appearances and experiences as adults. The young characters are treated closer to how their youth should be; still with respect for those in positions like Nanamo, but also prone to errors due to inexperience that drive story. In other FF titles, which were made to be more YA-focused, a teen and young 20s cast were treated much differently. But even in the single-player FF titles, if they are made with adult players in mind, their cast and stories likewise reflect that.

[h0estar]

martha, dearie, you are so strong. i love you so so so much ಥ⁠╭⁠╮⁠ಥ

[raayllum]

6x02 / 2x05 / 6x03 / 3x05

[triglycercule]

dust with a fucked up savior complex save me dust with a fucked up savior complex SAVE ME!!!! he's literally sooo savior complex coded. he killed his underground to "save" everyone and stop the human from killing them. he thinks that it's better that he does the murdering instead of the human because he has better intentions. he's sad at the beginning (rightfully so) but savior complex dust really gets so much cooler when you add in the fact that dust eventually started to LIKE killing his underground 😭😭 like just..... imagine a manic dust who's gone mad going around claiming he's helping everyone with what he's doing when he's really,,,, not. soo cool.,,, (like dude how are you SAVING people if they don't exist after you've killed the person who was killing them. there is nobody to be safe but yourself anymore) (can you tell this was inspired by the one comic of dust killing his papyrus and saying "it was better if i did it" or something)

but also also on the other hand,,,,, revenge fueled dust??? he's gotten SO bitter from the repeated resets and genos that he's genuinely bitter enough to risk it all to stop the human. he doesn't have pure intentions in this one. dust doesn't claim he's saving anybody with what he's doing murdering them all. he KNOWS it's bad and wrong and hypocritical but he does it anyways because he wants to not only stop the human but to make them suffer. he purposely wants them to keep coming back after killing them just so he can kill them over and over and over and have them experience a fragment of the suffering he did with having all of his friends and family killed. but i think a revenge fueled dust (in contrast to savior complex dust) would be a lot cooler if he still felt shitty for killing everyone. it's painful to do but hate is stronger than love and dust's hate for the human is MUCH stronger than his love for the underground atp

[alish-artie]

I finished the main game of Super Mario RPG !

I don’t know why I got so confused at Geno shooting stars : I literally saw him do that all the time in one of the triple moves-

Also I love Smithy's true form, he looks like a toaster !

(Also also having Boomer "die" and the group literally dance happily afterwards made me burst out laughing-)

[mango-mya]

I said I was gonna sleep but I lied. Anyways!!

HAZEL OFFICIAL REDESIGN RAAHH

She's the Captain of the Royal Guard of her home planet, which is still currently unnamed.... The Queen's wellbeing is her number one priority, and she takes her job very seriously. On top of being a Captain, she also takes a liking to the Bounty Hunting business, and is the reason Elora left her home planet (and has a golden tooth.)

[seefasters]

also one fun thing that the book does is that it initially presents aziraphale and crowley as these supposed enemies turned casual allies, like they weren't really feeling the whole enemies gig (mostly because they're very lazy) and much preferred going to restaurants together from time to time. and you accept that as the extent of their relationship more or less until aziraphale gets agnes' book of prophecies and it's noted that crowley suddenly feels very lonely when he's left by the angel. and you're like okay so there is something there. and then it turns out crowley is not only willing to go into a burning bookshop for aziraphale, he's distraught by his loss. and then it hits you that oh, the demon cares for the angel very very deeply actually. it changes how you view all of their previous and future interactions

the tv show, of course, is unable to do that because of tennant and sheen's a/c mooning over each other since day one so it would be kinda hard to sell them as just coworkers, but it also chooses to expand on their personal history and give them additional conflict re: their respective sides

both are great approaches, i'm just really fond of how the book takes you for a ride a little bit

[buccellato]

Fucks me up to think about how Legato's legacy in-universe after his death in Trimax (and presumably Tristamp) is probably gonna be how much he sucked and nothing else....

Like, nobody will like Knives but Vash will be long-lived enough to be able to eventually talk about his good qualities from when he was a child and his quasi-redemption in his last days. But who remembers Legato? Livio and Vash are the only living people with any extended memory of him and neither of them would have anything nice to say (and rightfully so). Neither of them probably knew he was a slave, either—as far as Vash can tell this dude showed up one day and hated his guts, for all he knows he's just another survivor from July! Outside of Knives, Elendira, Legato, and maybe Conrad, I don't think any other character knows his actual life story.

And to add on to that, there's no way of looking up that past either—he had no name or personhood before he was effectively rescued, so who could investigators or reporters or archivists track down for information? The human being that was Legato only existed for as long as he knew Knives, before that he was something to be kept and abused as an object. There's presumably no surviving family they can reliably contact, nobody to really say "yes I knew him, here's what his life was like, here's how we can prevent something like this from happening again".

His entire existence will be reduced down to "a human weapon that was freakishly loyal to public enemy #1" without any reflection on the mechanisms that made him the way he was because there's just no actual knowledge of his life.

[bisaster-energy]

big believer in keiko and kuwabara being besties like. you're my best friend's best friend and instead of it being awkward they realize "hey i really like hanging out with you!" this is ofc extremely detrimental to yusuke who now has two people on his ass

they share textbooks keiko quizzes kuwabara til he drops and she asks for fitness advice. why do i think this? I simply think it'd be funny asf if Keiko randomly got abs of steel. yusuke walks in on them doing sit ups while testing each other on vocab and almost breaks into tears.

"Keiko stop turning kuwabara into a fucking nerd he's wasting all his time studying instead of goofing off" "yusuke shut up and feel my abs" "holy shit these guys are like rock hard" "right??"

Kuwabara gets glasses and yusuke genuinely thinks it's a bit at first but kuwa is like "man seriously I realized part of the reason school was hard was cos I couldn't make out the words in my books half the time I need these things fr" classic yyh collapse in shock moment

Keiko and Kuwa are there for each other when yusuke goes off doing god knows what in Makai. They know he'll be back but it can be shitty not knowing what he's doing when he'll be back. Kuwabara reassures her that Yusuke does give a shit even when he leaves and Keiko reminds Kuwabara of why he doesn't need to drop everything and join him. He'll be back he'll be back he'll be back.

Kuwabara can only make simple meals Shizuru forced him to learn and Keiko doesn't really cook even tho her parents own a restaurant so when yusuke is in the human world there's cheers and applause "finally I get to eat 🙏🏼" "aren't you guys graduating college soon how are you surviving when I'm not here" "get back in the kitchen boy" "yeah I need another bowl 😌" "im poisoning ur food"

because girls and guys apparently can't just hang out school mates are sure Keiko is dating kuwabara but some think she's with yusuke and others think the two are fighting over her and she just looks at them like they're stupid if anyone ever asks directly

as for Kuwabara nobody knows whether he has a gf or a bf cos sometimes a polite brunette with a sweet smile visits him on campus and they talk at a picnic table (she's seen hitting him sometimes tho) but other times a guy with slicked back hair and devil may care attitude like. swaggers up to kuwa when he's with some classmates and drops a homemade lunch in his lap "you forgot this dumbass" "ahh thanks yusuke you're a life saver 🥺" "just eat your food" inside is the cutest box lunch and yusuke's glare keeps the people kuwa was with from cracking jokes. kuwabara acts like this is very normal

anyway i just think it'd be cool if they hung out and yusuke was equal parts delighted and grumpy about it

[nekomiras]

going home is the most troublesome part of a boys night out

[mobgoblin]

As someone who has steadily kept up on almost all Watcher shows and side projects, this backlash really does come down to how out of touch the guys have become, even before making Friday’s announcement.

Ryan and Shane (certainly the biggest draw to the channel) got their start with lower-brow, boyish humor and riffing off each other. Can’t forget the capitalism-critical and “power to the underdog” attitude that resonated with so many fans early on either. Now though, if you watch/listen to Pod Watcher, it’s hard to overlook just how unrelatable they’ve become in recent years. Which is whatever—it’s not like we only consume media in order to intimately relate to hosts/characters—but it does mean they’ve lost something integral from the charm that netted them their initial success.

To add. If you watched their latest season of Too Many Spirits, they weren’t even funny, just trashed and off-putting, lol. Frat-style drinking by a backyard pool and Ryan overhand throwing bones at a neighbor’s dog for barking.

Maybe not as bad for Shane, but the egos have really grown uncomfortably outsized. And at some point I got tired of watching videos based around lavish over-indulgence. Even if Steven’s videos cost less to produce than Ghost Files (I assume), they clearly rub viewers the wrong way on principle alone.

All in all, and not to minimize their hard work in getting out the content that they do, I think the Watcher guys should’ve been much more careful in considering this move and its rollout.

For years, I’ve maintained a Patreon subscription to a separate and unrelated funny-guy trio (for the same monthly price Watcher Streaming is now asking). However. The group I subscribe to is more than situationally-funny-sometimes, and always come across as grounded, emotionally intelligent, and likable people. Which makes me want to see them succeed and help how I can (though I would still be able to access 95% of their content even without subscribing).

So yeah, idk. Steven Lim driving a Tesla and wanting a second one or whatever is kind of just the tip of the iceberg.