#most of the ways he turns out to be 'progressive' are mainly just circumstance

[the-suns-beloved]

sometimes I have thoughts about niccolo....

[yumespooki]

☆Why Gregor is so important than you think and the series' relationship with tone

Im obsessed with an old man and I have all reasons to be also I have to sleep but I really need to make a colleague of gregor photos as the header image-

◇Part 1 - How The Tonal Shifts happen to be

Episodes 1 to 3 was all silly fun, though we have the idea that the series is gonna have a progression to having a consistent plot and story since Episode 2 setting up the episode formula of events/segments:

Skid and Pump doing mischief around town, there's separate segments of major characters that they come across t and the villain that sets up the plot - who are in concept supposed to be parodies of horror villain stereotypes.

And its all fitting in Pelo's style except its actually understandable and not have characters turn cartoonishly eldritch every 2 seconds.

Yknow we got SM 1 was an average pelo video then SM 2 is where we got the formula, everyone were just trope templates and the one that sets up the lore

SM3 is where things get normal but it's still silly, you can tell by the soundtrack, Moloch's theme is on dubstep it bangs BUT also introduces the Episode ending set up for its next villain.

Then SM4 happened. Oh Deadly Smiles my beloved, still my personal favorite

This where the good shit happens with different segments under 20+ minutes with finally having a grasp on how the episode formula works

Though this episode is kinda.. the chillest one among the episodes???

Everytime Skid and Pump goes around town with Spooky Swings playing, it's always fast paced and they immediatly go to the next in a few seconds but in Deadly Smiles, they take long stops before going to their next location. Most Characters also spend most of if not any of their screentime without Skid and Pump in it. [especially Kevin] it has its own unique tone and its cozy solely for it being winter themed.

Other than the more chill pacing, You got the rabid doll running place to place and getting thrown around to people to people to show what hes suppose to parody that when Dexter actually shows that he can be a threat is a really effective moment and really got me going "Oh shit OH SHIT"

But the scene that truly shaped Spooky Month the way it is now is the scene where he snaps at the kids, that moment is so important to the series because of the sudden change of tone to spooky/silly to scary. We couldn't see Dexter as a threat before this because the tone and plot prevents him to be one especially to poke out the trope of Doll killers but at this moment, the moment he expresses his situation and conditions, he went specific. and from there you don't see Dexter as a simple parody for the sake of being a parody anymore, Especially being a parody based on Chucky --who uses dolls on his advantage-- but For Dexter, below the surface is a man doomed from the circumstances that he desperately wanna get out of.

Episode 5 immediatly tells you its meant be atleast scary from the get-go since it was already established seconds into the episode, and only in the last minute with Lila it left us with an ominous note

Ok to be for real, I consider Episode 5 kinda standard compared to Ep 4 and 6 but will be more better than the early 3 eps and I appreciate as the middle ground between Deadly Smiles and Hollow Sorrows. And also more cop screentime my luvs

And mainly the reason why I said this because of Bob. The villains of Spooky Month is always tied with the tone because they are the guys that bring the tension. Bob's kinda monotonic because his behaviour pattern in this episode is repetitive: He slowly approaches people, give them meat fact, dosent or fails to kill them, gets slapped with slapstick. Even at the climax where he's actually at his most effective by being actually terrifying, he still gets disrupted for comedic purposes.

He has a balance of being actually terrifying and being a parody by his slow movement trying to set up tension.

Incomparison to Dexter, yea he gets thrown around but they get to take him seriously at the right moment and being thrown around to different people showing this disadvantage will show you the wide range of what the characters will do with the doll, Bob just scares them throughout the episode.

And I can't be mad about it because Bob purposefully is doing that to distract the cops from the cult case especially thinking he can't die.

But Bob is still effective as a villain. He manages to get you on edge and also opens questions to more lore stuff. And this episode is also the most creepiest because of Bob's behaviour along with that Lila encountering him along with finding out he's in her photo book probably shaped Lila to her behaviour in episode 6.

Still a good ep. Alot of insight of other characters' lives is my main highlight of this ep

Then Episode 6 has Father Gregor finally established as a proper character now that's where the interesting THING starts;

◇Chapter 2: Why is he weird in a weird show

When Father Gregor is on screen, do you feel.. put off especially when he's first introduced into the episode? Like when we were first introduced to doll Dexter with actual spinechilling ost and visuals we were already accustomed to this to be something expected through the Newgrounds endings with its ominous tone, expecting to transition it to the main story especially in with Tender Treats being almost that except more heightened.

But with Gregor, I don't have the exact words to explain the tonal dissonance he gives us. He has a very clear leimotif soundtrack throughout the episode everytime he's on screen even disrupting themes of other characters or locations [like the candy club like what the fuck gregor excuse yourself] that it even turns to a more epic variation of itself with Moloch's exorcism.

since this guy has seconds of screentime on his 1st debut,he's unpredictable especially when each episode has a formula of events with characters that we are familiar off. and we know that there is atleast something goofy going on with them - except for the cops but for them they act silently or accompany moments with the characters - But Gregor dosent accompany character moments he's the goddamn spotlight, the emphasis on his scenes are on HIM like out of nowhere we got this guy coming along. Its kinda of a new breathe of air to have him around because we never got anyone else to come along with the Spookeez all around town and setting up their dynamic with the kids.

Oh and finally we simply state the whole point of Gregor and why he's so out of place -- his seriousness. He was never associated with the series' shenanigans, and questions his surroundings. He dosent enable himself with the series' comedy and at somepoint that it tries to bring him along for a second with the spooky dance. Hes not only unfamiliar in story wise but by environment wise. there was a little analysis essay I made a while back with how Gregor as a person in the setting is off to the townsfolk as they are mostly unfamiliar with Religious figures as the church was newly built, and everybody else never acknowledges his presence as a priest — Kevin and Frank calls him an old guy/man Radford dosent take him seriously because he mostly seen priests through movies, Jack has to ask if Gregor is one and Skid and Pump dosent know how the term father works in the church that even tells something. Only a few characters recognizes his role as a priest being Michelle, John, and Evermore.

Now let's move onto Gregor not following the goddamn script of being part of a parody

Ep 6 has the basics of a parody of exorcism movies: demon - check, priest - check, the victim check that's your main elements, but they never utilises these as.. parodies, because when one of the core elements acts like a normal guy and has a standard behaviour of a priest in those kinds of movies that wasnt exagerrated for the parody and has never been that early into the series to being so associated with the silliness of it making fun of horror. We had time with Moloch since Episode 1, 2 and 3 We witness his time from being just a gimmick character to being one of the mysteries and coming back as a serious threat.. or is he? Because on the 2nd half of the episode, Moloch's running away from Gregor, and attempts to fight back by trying to possess anyone on his way but in the end Moloch is defeated and the kids seeing this breaks their relationship with Gregor. At this point he himself is also an antagonist.

With Gregor breaking the law of parodies, and also breaking the traditional set up of villains for this series, he also differs alot of the standard priest character that he's supposed to be because usually those characters cannot exist outside of being the guy battling the supernatural forces—they are not the main focus. With Gregor, he's more than just an exorcist as for the most part we see him as a normal priest first, exorcist second, he's so determined in his job that any threat given to him makes him more motivated and half of the episode he spends his time teaching the kids to behave.

◇<Gregor and Tension>◇

We already established Gregor as a villain so what else is weird about this bald fuck

From Episode 4 we now get ourselves a consistent line of villains with Dexter being a strong start with the earlier mentioned being the guy responsible for the main story's tonal whiplash

Dexter, Moloch and Bob are villains with their main thing and concept as something terrifying — Dexter's an insane doll, Bob's a cannibal butcher and Moloch's a child eating demon who gives terrible side effects at something he possessed dead or alive.

Horror villains always relied in creating tension to make anyone scared. Dexter creates tension with his uncanny presence as a doll, along with his fast movements contrasting this with Bob, being slow and uses psychological intimidation than being fast, and watches his victims reacting to the situation their put into. Then for Moloch, he is tied with Gregor because how he creates tension is in complimentary with him.

The scary thing about Moloch comes from the ARGs mostly since that's where they build him up as a serious thing to handle in the series after Episode 3, but unfortunately for him as his debut as a serious threat has to be shared with just a dude

OK Moloch's scenes relies on a psychological effect because of his ability to possess people which he possess characters we seen before and are individuals. If you think about Dexter, we saw him killed off for a fucking joke then proceeds to be a threat for a whole episode by the result of his decreasing sanity of being stuck inside a doll. then you realize he's also someone's son. Both got killed by Moloch and used their images as his best attempt to manipulate Gregor which only angers him and makes him more determined to finish him off. Even psychological moves dosent work on him. Now at that point, Moloch lost the hold of the tension's weight. Rather than heightening a terrifying scene like a typical spiritual fight scene, Gregor steals it and heightens it by what made him unnatural since the start – he's constant seriousness that defies the the overall tone that it becomes a keypoint from the episode onwards, making Moloch run away.

Their last confrontation has Gregor on the upper hand with a successful exorcism and a banger of an ost that I still think about to this day, and it was never something to replicate horror. They were no terrific aftermath or a good ending, only the tears of children that comes after it, a dislikeness to the religious figure, and an awareness to how the series' main thing of silliness and chaos was all from an unsupervised kid and a bit carefree mother.

◇Chapter 3: the old man has a hold on the narrative

At the start of Episode 6, We were dismissed with a moment with Skid and Lila, about her situation arranging the house and Skid's Dad with her distracting Skid to go play with Pump. We know somethings off but this was already delivered from the ending of Episode 5.

Gregor states himself at the start as a guide to the children to reflect and be better, but how he delivers this wasn't clear to Skid and Pump and goes around apologising with no single thought other than this being important to their parents. The episode's main point was because of Father Gregor assisting the kids.

then the second that they got the parent thing shoved to their faces is with the cops, also one of the more grounded characters in the series but again they enable the goofiness of the series especially with Jack and his lowkey high kill count- Now that's when the themes of family are very stressed with the whole thing now about to ingrain in Skid and Pump's head.

Now to the scene where Skid and Pump cries for Moloch and now hates Gregor. It's all on him – he leaves without the need of approval but get his message and judgements clear. As he leaves the main cast and onto the church, he's finally at his most vulnerable. the tension spotlight is not on him anymore and has no control of the atmosphere as the Cult comes into the scene.

But what he does have control of was the effect he gave on the kids as his message of apologising and reflecting was the episode's ending note. Not only that, We got the tonal shift to scary, serious to bawling our tears out?? It was implied throughout the episode that the themes of family, especially broken ones are strong and the last scene of Skid apologising and hugging his mom was the perfect completion to build all of that. Not only the tension between Moloch, and Gregor is there the other important thing was the emotional tension.

This signals that Gregor's presence was such an impact that it still lingers, like the piano at the last scene that he's always accompanied with in the soundtrack. in the end it shaped the kids that gives a significant emotional weight into the narrative from now on.

And what do we do now if Skid and Pump finally reflected?? Will things change? Will they not go out and do havoc anymore? Will things lose the general comedic feel to something more serious? We don't know

But it's all really thanks to Father Gregor Raguel.

Conclusion:

Tldr: Gregor is so odd to the show because of how serious he is that it extends to him breaking in series and horror traditions to the fucking narrative of making the series have some emotional weight

[spinningbuster98]

I must confess that, for the longest time, I did not have the best of times with Sotn.

You see for as much as people often say that this game is piss easy I used to actually have quite a bit of trouble back during my first few playthroughs. The Colosseum, Olrox, the Inverted Castle, the Clock Tower, I used to get my ass kicked quite a bit, which caused me to grow resentful towards the game.

As the years went by I gradually realised that it was mostly my fault. There was a time when RPGs were the bane of my existence, I could not get into their mechanics and Sotn's rpg mechanics were no different, moreso due to the fact that this is not a turn based rpgs but something more akin to an action rpg. I used to do some absolutely baffling mistakes. I kept forgetting what items I had in my inventory, like if I had specific armors or weapons that would be better for certain circumstances (like lightning armor to defend against the lightning attacks of Galamoth for example), I kept forgetting to use spells strategically, instead I kept trying to attack enemies with my regular weapons and sub weapons which made the Inverted Castle harder than necessary. This stuff frustrated me and when I get frustrated I play even worse

One example is my first experience against Beelzebub: I could not defeat this rotting bastard because I could not figure out how to reliably hit his head without getting pelted by his flies. I died a lot and ragequit

...then I realised I could dodge his flies by using the mist form, which I had but didn't think to use during combat encounters. And that there are a bunch of platforms in the room leading right beside Beelzebub's head. And that I could use spells like Soul Steal and Tetra Spirits to deal with him easily. Oh and that there's an Axe Subweapon right outside his room, ideal for hitting targets too high up to reach.

I, as a player, have always been shit with multiple choices. I'm the kind of player that, once he finds a solution to a problem, will keep using that solution without searching any better alternatives, and if I can't find a solution then I will keep hitting my head against that brick wall until it breaks. Sotn being a game that gives you a million different ways to approach things sort of...disoriented me you could say

But this is the reason why I've come to technically disagree with the idea that Sotn is an easy game. The game actually has several moments that can and will easily kill first time players. I'd say that Sotn is more easy to break than just plain easy

This game gives you so, SO many ways to break its difficulty in two if you have even a little sense of exploration (which is needed anyway to even progress through this game)

And I'm torn

On the one hand I technically prefer how future games will gradually attempt to better balance the difficulty, and I don't think I'd want another game that handles it like Sotn does

On the other hand however I love it when games reward my efforts by giving me overpowered tools. One of my favorite things in Classic Sonic games is abusing Super Sonic, which I love to do mainly because it's my reward for completing the games' Special Stages. You get to break the game because you were good enough to complete an extra challenge

Sotn is similar in this regard, since you usually have to either find its most game breaking tools...or they're just straight up secrets

You have to find the Holy Rod on your own if you want to break the first half of the game, you have to find Alucard's equipment in the Inverted Castle to get through that place more easily, you either have to find out on your own or look up on the Internet that you can use late game spells early on

And while most people claim that this game's difficulty is due to the developers being inexperienced with this new style...I think this was at least partly done on purpose

Do you think that putting stuff like the Crissaegrim or the Alucard Shield was an accident? Or stuff like this?

Remember: Sotn was purposefully made easier than the Classics to be more accessible, so I genuinely believe that most of this balancing was by design, in fact I think that Sotn is quite literally not properly designed to be chellenging.

Even if you go out of your way to not equip anything on Alucard to make him as weak as possible you'll find that the game just becomes frustrating, at least to me, as the enemy placement is often far too cluttered for you not to wear armor to mitigate most of the damage and bosses especially either barely try to attack you seriously (Cerberus) or their attacks barely follow any pattern and barely feel like you can reliably dodge their attacks without specific tactics. It just doesn't feel anywhere close to as deliberatly designed as the Classics in this regard, everything feels designed knowing that you're going to steamroll over everything using OP equipment

Sotn, to me, is the equivalent of a power fantasy: it's not about having a challenge, it's about doing short work of the opposition in spectacularily overpowered and flashy ways, because you're playing as the son of the Dark Lord himself and he does not fuck around (and of course Richter himself has his peculiarities though I'll probably mention him next time)

I'm personally a bit torn over how this impacts exploration: ideally you'd want to explore in a game to get more powerful in order to more easily handle challenges. But since Sotn gives you such over powered tools you can basically ignore most weapons and armors. Even stuff like Life and Heart ups can be mostly ignored, which makes exploration, partly useless

But at the same time, as I mentioned, it's through exploration that you gain some of these tools in the first place and I believe that, at its best, Sotn's exploration can actually be even better than Super Metroid's!

In that game, other than the plethora of item expansions and the mostly progression required upgrades the only truly unique stuff you can find completely on your own were beam upgrades

Here not only is it completely up to you to find the most broken weapons, stuff like the various extra powers for Alucard's transformations and the gravity boots feel more rewarding to find as they influence his movement in big ways and are generally more exciting that just having a different beam weapon

[yoddhasblog]

This might just be the best thing I've read in a while. The Poppy War trilogy is a grimdark fantasy trilogy. It draws parallels with Chinese history, mainly the Sino-Japanese war and the politics with Western powers. The plot throughout the books remained strong with the characters developing in somehow both ways, upwards and downwards, in my opinion. It doesn't shy away from showing the brutalities and heartlessness of wars. Not just on the battlefield but on civilian grounds too. The characters, oh the characters, were some of the most well-developed characters I've read in a while.

This post will be mostly about the characters because they're the main part of books that I focus on. That's not me saying anything bad about the writing because it's R.F.Kuang, the woman is brilliant. The constant presence throughout the three books was of, obviously, our main character,

Fang Runin

“I will die with flames in my hand and fury in my heart."

Fang Runin, nicknamed and mostly called Rin, starts off in the first book as a sixteen-year old girl desperate to escape the looming threat of an arranged marriage with a man about three times her age. She prepares for and aces an entrance exam to an elite military academy. Upon reaching there, realises that just getting into the academy won't do. She needs to survive and thrive in a place where everyone seems to have it out for her based on the colour of her skin. The elite students look down on her for being from the south of their nation. It's basically colorism and racism. But Rin isn't going to let that go. She studies hard, beats up an elite student, burns off her uterus, and awakens the power of gods in her. She turns out to be one of the only two survivors of a dead nation. She calls a god that grants her the power of fire with an addicting hunger to destroy. She gets thrown in a battle before even finishing her academy years. Calls the power of her god and single handedly wins the battle.

But that wasn't going to be the end for her, was it? She fights enough battles that they become a habit for her. She refuses to bow to her opponents, no matter the cost at stake. She becomes a legend that leaves a legacy of destruction in its wake.

Rin is quick to anger, initially prone to trust the wrong people, later becomes too paranoid to trust anyone, goes from a girl scared of the power coursing through her, fearing that she'd lose her mind, but couldn't deny the rush of power and became addicted to it, she is resilient and determined, whether it be about being good at studies or at winning battles. She is willing to sacrifice almost anything in order to achieve her goals. She turns out to be a little naive and a lot like a lost child looking for gaurdians to trust and follow. Those people always let her down. By the end of the last book, Rin, who was pretty much resigned to the fact that she would slowly lose her mind to the hunger of her god, does actually end up becoming what she didn't desire in the beginning. She progressively falls into a pattern of destruction and wars that she couldn't let go off. Her dependence on the power rush and her paranoia develops to such an extent that she realises that she couldn't live like that but also couldn't let go of it. All things said, one of the most well-written female characters in the books published in recent years. I like her because she is traditionally unlikeable and monstrous. She's one of those characters that makes you sad that if she was in different more peaceful circumstances then she could've had a better life.

Chen Kitay

"Power dictates acceptability."

The above photo taken from pinterest explains my feelings completely when it comes to Kitay. The strategic genius with a photogenic memory, Rin's conscience with a strong moral compass, she proposes the plans and he follows her and even when at some point everyone around Rin betrayed her or let her down, he stuck by her. I, just like Rin, would protect Kitay with my life. Rin's character may have gone through a corruption arc but Kitay's character remained steadily stable. He was Rin's voice of reason. A genius meant to be a scholar, who excelled at statesmanship and administration. If you doubt how much I love him, please look at the above given photo.

Yin Nehza

"She’s the only divine thing he’s ever believed in. The only creature in this vast, cruel land who could kill him. And sometimes, in his loveliest dreams, he imagines she does."

Nezha, you little bitch(kind of lovingly). Starting off as a racist bully who got beat within an inch of his life by Rin, Nezha grew on me. If Rin, Kitay and Nezha were on the same side of the war, they would've been unstoppable. Their parallels with the trifecta could've been seen from a mile ago. Nezha and Rin loved each other like Daji and Riga but it was doomed from the start. The Drowning Faith and the snippets from the other books that were from Nezha's pov were great to read. It really puts Nezha's behaviour in perspective. The son that was usually treated with indifference by his father, his mother's intolerance to even look at him for a year after his brother's demise, losing a cherished baby sibling, older siblings hateful treatment, all that but still feeling duty bound to fulfil their ambition. Compelled to support and fight for their cause despite witnessing the destruction brought by it. Even with their nation falling around them, keeping a hope for its better future. Though, regardless of foreign relations and diplomacy and stuff, I really wanted him to punch some imperialists and as Rin said, to have some pride. He loved Rin but also recognized that she is too far gone in bloodshed. I hated how their story ended but it was objectively the best way to complete it.

Spring Venka

"Sring Venka was a prim, spoiled Sinegardian princess turned lethal soldier turned brittle survivor; of course she’d walk into a war zone with red paint on her lips simply because she felt like it."

Venka, my goddess, my main girl, the love of my life. After starting the first book I didn't think I would like her at all. But her character has now latched onto me in a way I think is unhealthy. She is a warrior. She is a survivor. She alongside Rin castrated two men left them to die with their penises in their mouths for attempting to SA a girl. She is an absolute icon. Her snapping at people, giving blunt replies, re-training her archery, staying allied with Rin and Kitay until the end, even though her allegiance at the very end is a matter of question but still, I'm not stopping thinking about her for a long time.

So, that was all. This trilogy was R.F.Kuang's debut books and she fucking nailed it. I had previously read her Babel: An Arcane History, so I had already known I would absolutely love this one too. She has a way to balance the emotional side of the story very efficiently to the dark one. She is extremely talented when writing books with heavy themes like oppression, slavery, racism, colonization, etc as seen in multiple of her books. I'd always look forward to her books.

[pennzance]

Ghostbusters: Port Huron (Episode 14)

Episode 14: Mass Grave

September 12th, 1998

Field Operation report by Jeremy

Merriam Webster defines the word ‘Gestalt’ as a configuration, pattern, or organized field having specific properties that cannot be derived from the summation of its component parts, a unified whole. It’s a big word in psychology, but it turns out that when it comes to Ghostbusting it is an even bigger word.

Let’s back up and get some context. While Amber was blowing up portions of the 5th floor yesterday, Bryan and I landed the plum gig of the 2nd and 3rd floors of the main complex. This turned out to be mainly administrative and shockingly haunt free. So, we had more time to root through old records, break open filing cabinets, and try and understand what, on paper at least, was going on at Eloise.

In all of that, Bryan found something he’s calling the Ledger, but honestly, it’s a list, and not a good one. This big book is full of names, dates, conditions, courses of treatment, and cause of death. Each one numbered and the numbers went into the thousands. Most of the names are patients, but we were able to determine that a few of them were staff. Orderlies, nurses, even some of the doctors.

Common themes started to appear as well: Orderlies were as like to have ‘patient altercation’ listed on their cause of death as anything else, but there were several later entries that just listed ‘voluntary separation’ there, confusingly. Often, the nurses were listed for ‘insubordination’ which carries a host of connotations I am simply not equipped to be angry enough about right now. The weird ones were the doctors, though. Every one of them had ‘creative differences’ listed as cause of death. Differences with who?

But the numbers stuck in my head. On the first day we were here, I tripped on a rock in an open field on the west side of the Eloise compound, little more than an open field I assumed hadn’t been developed. Before we left yesterday, I went back out there and took another look. The stone was one of several out there. Some covered in dirt and grass and time, but evenly spaced. And numbered.

That field was a graveyard. And the Ledger would tell us who was buried there.

So today, we (that is, my team from Port Huron) went to the field again while the Detroit and Flint branches finished up in the main complex and some of the other areas that still had some PKE activity. Compared to the last few days, this was a calming, almost boring exercise in checking names off the list as we confirmed the numbers matched to entries in the Ledger. Bryan was adamant we turn the records over to the Michigan Historical Society so that the atrocities of Eloise wouldn’t be forgotten, and I think Mr. Kaye would have agreed with him.

But the trouble for us started when the General pulled up to check on our progress, still towing the mobile containment grid. I hadn’t been able to take the time to really look at the unit before now, but there was an air of static around it that made me uneasy. Almost like it was close to bursting, it was so full.

Something else sensed that, too. No sooner had the General gotten his boots on the ground than the wind kicked up. Eric had told me about his experience with the Drifter’s ghost on the first day, so I powered up my Proton Pack on instinct.

Any good Ghostbuster will tell you that graveyards always have some level of PKE activity. It isn’t even necessarily because there are a lot of dead buried there, it’s more the way humanity looks at graveyards in general. People invest in these places with a sort of background level of psychic dread, and that can be the perfect invitation for things not of our world to wait patiently at the door, waiting for some catalyzing force to fling it open. Like the arrival of what, in many circumstances, would be considered a PKE bomb just waiting to go off.

The ground heaved, knocking everyone on their asses. I watched in horror as the trailer carrying the mobile grid tipped and toppled over onto its side. Nothing else mattered to me at that point, I ran for the grid to try and keep it from failing and unleashing psychic hell all at once.

The sound of proton streams and shouting made me look back, just once. The ground was spewing out remains in various states of decay. A gestalt entity composed of corpses. Not humanoid, just a swirling mass of bone and putrid tissue, screaming with thousands of mouths and trying to grab anything and everything with double that in hands. It was lurching toward me, or rather toward the grid, intent on ripping it open, no doubt.

The others started blasting it, sending burning pieces flying in every direction and drawing its attention. I got to the grid and started trying to figure out how to stand it back up. The metal was unpleasantly hot to the touch and the control panel was flashing warning lights. I needed to check the grid for breaches, and for that I needed to stand it back up but damn it if wasn’t heavy as hell.

I wasn’t alone, though. The General suddenly right there. He must have realized what I had, that a containment grid rupture here and now would result in a cross-rip of probably apocalyptic proportions. He was shouting something and pointing, and while I couldn’t hear him clearly with the explosions and all the adrenaline in my system, I got the gist. We each took an end and heaved, lifting with our legs and getting the trailer back upright.

There weren’t any lights pouring out of the grid, no major cracks or breaches I could see immediately, so that was a relief. I took a moment to add my firepower to the team and try to drive the gestalt entity back and away from the grid. It wasn’t very effective, really, but it was worth a shot.

The General came up again, holding a bag in his hand. “Keep an eye on the grid and make sure this thing doesn’t get close to it,” he said before charging into the fray. He didn’t have a Proton Pack, and I thought for a minute he was just going to punch the thing before I realized what he was pulling out of the bag. Actual grenades.

The gestalt entity was a physical one, probably one I’d classify as a golem given its use of nearby materials to construct its physical form, but a particularly unfocused one. Concussive and explosive forces were absolutely going to be an effective way of dealing with it, provided nobody was caught in the blast. I stayed near the grid, glancing at the controls occasionally at the worrying orange warning light, and occasionally lashing out with my Proton Pack if the gestalt golem got close. I heard Amber swear very loudly when the first grenade went off, sending a huge chunk of the monster scattering like shrapnel in every direction. She was going to have some choice words for the General when this was all over, I was sure.

Golems are interesting in that they still have a PKE presence we usually need to trap to keep it from reconstructing itself a ‘core’, if you will. When the General ran out of grenades and announced that loudly to the rest of us, Eric went in with the Proton Gauntlet and literally ripped something out of the pile in what may be the most badass thing I will ever see him do.

The bones and scraps of people long dead started to fall away, and Bryan ran up with a trap that Eric slam dunked the Golem’s core into.

The General applauded us, but when he went to put the trap into the grid, I stopped him. The mobile grid hadn’t been built to contain EVERY entity at Eloise, and it was dangerously close to capacity. Trying to load any more entities into it was going to be a very risky proposition, and I couldn’t fully diagnose any other problems that might have resulted from the jarring impact it had taken earlier.

The General told us we did a good job and then told us to go home. He loaded up the trap with the Golem into his truck and drove off, VERY carefully. We returned to the Best western, since we still had a night fully paid for. Turns out it did have a hot tub, and Eric had a very valid point.

End of Report.

[rayofsunas]

s/o goes on a mission with them.

A/n: so, as you may or may not have seen by my recent “updates” I’m obsessed with genshin, and I’m pretty sure for one day I played for a solid 5 hours- my eyes hurt pls. but I did miss writing, I’ve just been unmotivated and busy with college stuff (mainly stressing, I haven’t even started my essay yet shh). n e ways, here’s an update, I hope this quenches your thirst 🙊

Summary: s/o goes on a mission with them. 

Parings: Kaeya/Reader, Diluc/Reader, Xiao/Reader, Scaramouche/Reader (all with a fem reader)

Warnings: crack, swearing, worrying Teyvat bois

Word count: 1.7k

Kaeya

when you’re assigned to be on a mission just the two of you, you assume he’s happy, and don’t get me wrong, he totally is!

usually you’re never on missions together, deciding it was better that way because you both get distracted (you realized after marrying, space was always nice too, space was healthy)

though the decision mainly came about because you two good around a lot... and other things 😏

no but deep down he’s worried when you go on this mission together, it’s been a while since the two of you have, a little too long, and the nerves came back

he’s always worried whenever you go on missions, and sure he’ll always be there to protect you when he’s with you (not that you need it) but anything can happen

sure taking out a bunch of Hilichurls was deemed easy, especially together, but he still worried

he never said a word about it though, he’d always keep a watchful eye on you (he does have a reputation to keep after all)

“Ya know, you did well today.” You said plopping down beside your husband, using your pyro ability to light the twigs and leaves in front of you.

“Of course I did,” he boasted, eye lighting up in the dark of the night. “What kind of Knight would I be if I hadn’t, babe.”

You groaned in annoyance, this was the ever so haughty husband you knew.

“Please, I could’ve easily wiped your ass if it weren’t for the fact that we haven’t been paired together in a while; I forgot about your skill.” You teased. The cryo user glared at you.

“Skill? Surely, I have more than one.” He snipped teasingly. Your head shook, feigning innocence. “Are you sure?” A hum sounded in your throat. “I couldn’t tell... Maybe if you hadn’t been staring holes into me every time I used my sword, I could see your progression.”

Kaeya visibly tensed, but he tried to make it go unnoticed, you saw his shoulders raise slightly. 

“Hmm?” You laughed wholeheartedly. 

“Don’t ‘hmm’ me, mister.”

Despite having been caught, a grin spread across his face, he was enjoying your teasing tonight it seemed.

“There’s a reason we don’t go on missions together, but, I did have fun with you today, despite the worrying part.”

Diluc

um, the ever so stoic and emotionless fire boy is WORRIED AF

and he accidentally lets it show

he’s totally fine if you’re only going against a few low-rank Hilichurls and Slime, but against any of the Hypostasis’s, he’s worried for your wellbeing (after a few days of trying to beat one of the Hypostasis’s I finally did, APPLAUD ME PLS, I was crying)

the very first mission you went on together, the job was done quickly and without much trouble, but before and after, he would not stop asking you if you would like to be escorted back to the Knights headquarters

he said it was his duty to protect any and every Mondstadt Citizen

you knew he was also just particularly worried about you

despite being worried, he is happy you’re here, though wishes it were under different circumstances other than battle 

he rarely sees you, so it’s a nice change to be placed on a mission together instead of alone, you missed each others company

BUT HE’S STILL WORRIED

“I’m a Knight of Favonius, I don’t particularly need to be escorted back, I appreciate your concern though.” Poor Diluc, the face he made looked like pure defeat, you used the Knight of Favonius card on him. And yes, you were capable, but he did know a certain Knights of Favonius Captain who he loathed a little too much,

“That’s why I’m worried.”

You scoffed at his jab, though it didn’t necessarily hurt too much.  

“Please, I can handle myself. We’re not all like Captain Kaeya, but even then give him some credit!”

“I know you’re more than capable but-”

”No buts! Let me do what I know how, please. Or else I could slip up, and then actually put myself in danger.”

“Okay...” You nodded, sending a soft thanks to your lover's way, but he just stared at you before muttering, “But let me escort you back to Mondstadt.”

👁 👄 👁

“I’m sorry, did you hear a word I just said?”

“I see your skills darling, but-” He paused, noticing how your arms folded across your chest. You were annoyed. “I’d much prefer if you took care of the greatest battle of all; Kaeya.”

“Kaeya does not need my assistance.”

“He’s probably in a ditch somewhere, and it would be much appreciated by Jean if we did not leave him to rot there,” Diluc explained. 

You had seen Kaeya earlier, and yes although he usually frequented the bars and whatnot, he was surprisingly sober. He hadn’t promised he would stay that way, but it would take hours for said man to get completely drunk to the point where he was immobile. You had only left Mondstadt four hours ago. 

“Amber can find him. She did last time,” He watched in disbelief as you sauntered off towards the hill in front of you, dead set on continuing your mission. “Come on I see an Electro Hypostasis ahead.”

“Also, you could’ve just said you were worried about me, instead of trying to send me back home! Kaeya is fine, worrywart.”

Xiao

it’s not that he’s worried about you and it’s not that he shouldn’t be worried either 

he can be both given the right moment

the only reason he doesn’t want you going with him is because he claims he focuses better on missions alone

you could understand where he was coming from, but you would’ve liked to have gone with him when he first left

you mentioned going on a mission with him in Liyue the night before he locked you in your Liyue Harbor Guesthouse room 

you were still asleep when he’d snuck out and had found a note in the sheets where he’d previously been sleeping hours ago

it read, went on a quick mission, be back soon. - Xiao

...one of the cleaning ladies had come to your rescue after seeing various lounge chairs from the hallway stacked and pushed against the door (she was supposed to clean the room that morning after having seen Xiao leaving, figuring it was empty to begin cleaning)

she was shocked to see you hurriedly throwing your shoes on and grabbing your spear, confused obviously

she’d asked if you were being held against your will or if you were in danger, but you’d dashed off before you could give her an answer

eventually after asking a few Liyue Harbor Merchants, you were able to get a rough estimate as to where your boyfriend went

when you finally caught up to him, out of breath, he was somewhat shocked to see you

“Hey!” You called after the ancient man, watching with glee as he turned around with wide eyes. “Locking me in the room seriously?”

“I didn’t think you’d catch up. I left hours ago.”

“I thought so too. But one of the Merchants gave me a shortcut to your destination.”

“Interesting.” He said, hand going to his chin in thought. 

“That’s it? That’s all you have to say?!” 

“Interesting.” You mocked 

He stared blankly, without a doubt the gears working in his brain, spinning and ticking at an unbelievable rate. 

“No, one more thing... How did you get out of the room? I barricaded it.” 

👁 👄 👁

Scaramouche

you better be someone who can handle yourself, and you probably are, or else he would not be able to stand being with you romantically AT ALL

he’s had you practice with him, just to show him what you’re capable of, before he ever allowed you to travel with him

after deeming you a worthy opponent, he decided you would fair well with him

he would’ve never allowed you to come if he knew you’d be a burden, slow him, or get hurt

after you proved yourself, he does not doubt you so he’s not going to be worried at all

he’s only worried if you start slowing him down, then he’ll think you’re incompetent to be traveling together

if you slow him down, you’re being sent home, no questions asked

though because he does love you, you receive a bit of a less severe punishment for doing something wrong on a mission

he may ask you once or twice to keep up with him, or take your enemies out without less hesitation, but that’s if he feels particularly generous, most of the times he’s harsh and will not tolerate your mistakes, no chances given

fortunately for you, he felt extremely generous today

It was truly evident that you were slowly pissing off the sixth Harbinger and he was losing his patience with you. Yet you continued flirting with him to get a rise out of said man (yeah, same); he often reacted, and you enjoyed it when he did. You liked seeing him react and appear differently than always being so uptight and mean.

It was a common belief that he often traveled with a young woman, who had Pyro for a vision, and she was strong but often loved to distract and tease her fellow Harbinger. You were not so surprisingly, that young woman.

“Keep up, I won’t ask you again.” 

Today, you were on a mission together which wasn’t rare, but your other mission was to piss him off as much as you could. So, you purposely walked behind him, very slow. Pretending to take in the chilly scenery of Snezhnaya, although you had seen it thousands of times, acting as if it was something new. 

“You said that the last two times.” You said, cheerfully laughing to yourself when you heard him growl lowly. He didn’t pay any mind to your retort but began showing more signs that he was aggravated.

He hissed, “There’s not much to admire, you can barely see.” Yes, he was right, he’d caught onto your antics very fast, but that didn’t matter.

“As I said, if you keep slowing me down, I’ll continue without you.” Your eyes rolled. Would he?

“Leaving a member of the Harbinger behind wouldn’t be very honorary, but if I must, I will.”

A pout took shape on your lips. “Please, you wouldn’t leave your lovely girlfriend out here to freeze would you?”

“You have pyro abilities, you would fair just fine.”

“Hmm... I suppose so, but I’d get lonely.” 

“Then be quiet and walk faster.”

1.13.21, rayofsunas

[oeldeservesthenorris]

Bowen Byram and Erik Johnson are a perfect pair — for the Avalanche and each other

“It’s just been fun,” Johnson said. “We like to joke around, goof around and joke around off the ice and give each other a hard time.......It’s been a good marriage, a good partnership for us.”

From “the Athletic”

DENVER — In the days after Colorado clinched a spot in the Western Conference final, Erik Johnson took moments to look back, to soak in an accomplishment without losing sight of the bigger goal ahead. Considering where he was at this time last year, he thought, it’s been as drastic a turnaround as he could have hoped.

“I had doubts about whether I would play again,” said the veteran, who missed all but four games in the 2020-21 season, primarily because of a concussion. “To be able to be in the Western finals and have a big impact is a pretty good feeling.”

Now 34 and in his 12th season with the Avalanche, Johnson is the longest-tenured Denver athlete on any of the city’s four major sports teams, edging out Rockies outfielder Charlie Blackmon, who also played his first Colorado games in 2011.

His defensive partner is on the other end of the spectrum. Bowen Byram is 20 and the youngest player to have appeared in an Avalanche game this season. But the rookie also knows what it means to endure tough circumstances, to wonder if his health would ever fully recover. These playoffs have said a lot about both defensemen, for reasons similar and different. They are two key cogs for an Avalanche team hoping to win the Stanley Cup, and each is playing their best hockey of the season at the most important time.

The elbow came flying, and just like that, all the progress vanished.

Byram was battling for a puck along the boards in November. As he did, Vancouver captain Bo Horvat’s right elbow clipped him in the head, sending the 20-year-old to the dressing room.

He played only seven of Colorado’s next 57 games.

“Lots of challenges for Bo over the last couple years with his health, mainly, and getting his play to a level where he can be a difference-maker in the NHL,” said coach Jared Bednar earlier these playoffs, emphasizing how proud he is of his young defenseman’s perseverance.

Concussion recovery doesn’t always move in a straight line. Byram knew that from his first NHL season, which saw him suffer two concussions that were likely made worse because of a bout with COVID-19. He battled their lingering effects and vertigo well into the offseason and didn’t feel like himself while with his skating group in Vancouver. “The way I describe it is I didn’t feel like myself,” he said earlier this year. “I couldn’t do things I could usually do.”

But he turned a corner late in the summer and looked like a Calder Trophy contender early in the season, tallying three goals and eight points in the first 11 games of the season. Then came the Horvat elbow.

Though the Avalanche initially cleared him to play two weeks after, lingering issues likely stemming from his concussions prevented him from consistently returning to the lineup. He ultimately went on personal leave in January and was out for nearly three months.

“It wasn’t easy, but I had a great support staff with my family,” Byram said Sunday. “Obviously the organization did a great job helping me get the help I needed. It’s in the rearview mirror.”

Unlike Byram, Johnson didn’t have any regular-season setbacks with his concussion recovery. He played in 77 games, tied for the second-highest total in his career. But getting to that point was harrowing, just like it was for his young teammate. In his fourth game of the 2020-21 season, Johnson took a hit from Minnesota’s Jordan Greenway as he approached the center red line. The hit itself wasn’t the problem, Johnson says, but as he fell backward, he wasn’t able to break his fall with his left arm. His face smacked against the hard ice.

The play changed the course of Johnson’s season. Instead of playing a key defensive role on a Presidents’ Trophy-winning club, he went through a doubt-filled recovery process.

“I was just disappointed that it wasn’t getting better,” he said. “I just wanted to feel normal, firstly.”

Eventually he felt well enough to rejoin the team, receiving a hug from captain Gabriel Landeskog when he skated at an optional practice ahead of the team’s 2021 series with Vegas. But Johnson, the No. 1 pick by St. Louis in the 2006 draft, still hadn’t participated in a full practice by the time the Golden Knights eliminated Colorado. Between the injury and missing the team’s opening 2019-20 games with COVID-19, he had sat out almost the entire year.

“It was a little adversity, but I think you’ve just got to keep things in perspective,” he said early this season. “A lot of people were going through some very serious illness with COVID. I got over it quickly. I got an injury playing professional hockey, a sport I love to play, I’m lucky to play.”

In the offseason, Johnson waived his no-movement clause ahead of the expansion draft, trusting Seattle wouldn’t take him given his age, injury situation and sizable $6 million cap hit. It was a team-first gesture and allowed Colorado to protect Cale Makar, Devon Toews and Girard from the Kraken. As expected, Seattle didn’t take Johnson, instead picking Joonas Donskoi, and the Colorado defenseman finally felt fully healthy in July. He attacked training with a main goal in mind.

“As a player, you always have that void if you never win the Stanley Cup,” Johnson said. “That’s what kept pulling me back to try and get healthy last summer.”

Heading into the season, Johnson remembers receiving a call from general manager Joe Sakic.

“We need you this year,” he remembers Sakic saying. “We’re excited to have you back.”

Johnson has seen low points in Colorado, starting with his arrival in 2011, when the Avalanche acquired him from St. Louis. Johnson came to the team while it was in the midst of a 10-game losing streak, and right after they finally got a win, they suffered another 10-game skid. The Avalanche finished with the second-worst record in the NHL that year, and Johnson didn’t play in the playoffs until 2014. He then was on the team when it finished with only 48 points in 2016-17.

So Johnson doesn’t take Colorado’s playoff success this season lightly. He knows the heartache that came before it.

“To see the full turnaround and some other downs and some other ups on the way here has been a lot of fun,” he said.

Colorado was already a playoff team when Byram arrived. The Avalanche selected him at No. 4 in 2019 with a pick acquired in the Matt Duchene deal, and after a year of seasoning in the Western Hockey League, he traveled to the Edmonton bubble for the 2020 playoffs. He didn’t make an appearance that postseason, but early the next season got in his first NHL game.

So while Byram has been through plenty of personal trials, he doesn’t share Johnson’s experience of being with the organization through some of its darkest seasons. But he’s been sure to learn from Johnson’s experience.

“He’s played forever,” Byram said with a laugh. “I just try to be a sponge.”

Both put together solid (though, in Byram’s case, injury-riddled) regular seasons, but they have reached a different level in the postseason. The Avalanche have accounted for 61.73 percent of the expected goal share while Byram has been on the ice during five-on-five play this postseason, according to Natural Stat Trick, and 58.80 percent with Johnson on the ice. Both have played in every game, and they have seized more responsibility with second-pairing blueliner Samuel Girard going down with a broken sternum.

Byram dazzled with more offensive opportunities against St. Louis, tallying five assists in Colorado’s three full games without Girard and averaging more than 18 minutes of ice time. Johnson, meanwhile, came up with a big goal in Game 4 and an assist on Darren Helm’s last-second winner in Game 6. Bednar said he might be playing as well as he has since he took over as coach in 2016.

“He’s been healthy all year, he’s contributing out there, he’s playing great hockey for us,” Sakic said. “To see where he’s come and to see how he’s been all year and the excitement in him, he’s like a kid out there. I’m really happy for him.”

And he and Byram — the actual kid out there — have emerged as a perfect postseason pairing. Bednar said he initially put them together when Byram returned from injury in April because he thought a veteran would help his younger teammate re-acclimate, and they have worked well together.

“Erik is a pretty vocal guy on the ice,” Bednar said. “He’s pretty tuned-in with what’s going on, so having a guy back there who is kind of relaxed and is able to talk is important. … With the elevation of Erik’s game in the playoffs and the elevation of Bo’s game in the playoffs. They’ve turned into a real strong pair.”

Johnson and Byram have played 103 five-on-five minutes together these playoffs, according to Evolving-Hockey, and have the second-highest expected goals percentage (63.48 percent) of any defensive pairing in the playoffs that has played more than 100 minutes together. Both were on the ice for more than twice as many Avalanche scoring chances generated than allowed at five-on-five, according to Natural Stat Trick.

“You never know how many chances you’re going to get (to win the Stanley Cup),” Johnson said. “I just tried to take it to a new level and do anything I can to help this team do that. I’m going to continue to do that until we reach our goal.”

And he’s found a defensive partner in Byram that helps bring out his best. And that works both ways.

“It’s just been fun,” Johnson said. “We like to joke around, goof around and joke around off the ice and give each other a hard time. But on the ice we’ve found a good chemistry, and we’re playing well together. It’s been a good marriage, a good partnership for us.”

[wintermelonbear]

Artistry

Pairing: Damian Al-Ghul Wayne/Marinette Dupain-Cheng

Trope/s: Childhood Friends, No Powers AU

Summary: A story in which two seemingly dissimilar eight-year-olds build bonds through their love for martial arts. Written for the MGI Trope Tussle 2021.

Words: 4808

Damian and Marinette first met when they were 8 at his mother’s Wushu studio. At first glance they were an unlikely duo, before meeting in martial arts class their social circles ran entirely parallel with one another with Damian attending a private school that was a feeder for Gotham academy and Marinette attending a public elementary local to her, but they truly brought out the best in each other.

Damian had grown up inside his mother’s studio, working day in and day out from the tender age of 3 to improve his weaponry and martial arts skill. His mother and father, divorced but trying their best to co-parent for his sake, each preached to him about the importance of self-discipline and concentration. When his mother and her father, Ras himself a master martial artist, had competed in Wushu they were national champions. As a third-generation practitioner of Wushu, Damian had a lot riding on his shoulders.

Marinette’s mother had practiced Wushu as a child in China. When she first arrived in France she found herself disappointed that there were no local Chinese martial arts centers, let alone Wushu training centers. Sabine always thought it would be a passion she could pass down to her future child, but there was only so much she could teach on her own. However, as fate would have it, after a falling out with Tom’s father Roland the Dupain-Chengs found themselves in a city not too far from Gotham, New Jersey. Sabine was pleasantly surprised to find that the martial arts scene was much more alive there than it had been in Paris. However, between the bakery and her young daughter Sabine had little time to spend practicing martial arts. It wasn’t until Marinette’s kindergarten teacher suggested that Marinette be enrolled in a sport to better her hand-eye coordination that Sabine finally put her daughter into formal martial arts courses.

At first, everything was fine until it became apparent that Marinette was progressing much faster than her peers, despite her typical clumsiness she was surprisingly adept at martial arts. Sabine wasn’t entirely surprised as while Wushu was difficult to teach within the confined space they had at home, she still took the time to practice Tai Chi with her daughter on the weekends, providing Marinette with martial arts fundamentals and self-discipline. With Marinette’s slight inclination for martial arts paired with her hard work she was outperforming her classmates and even some of the older kids at the studio she went to. Eventually, Marinette found herself ostracized by her peers, but her teachers at the studio refused to advance her because they had an in-house rule where children could not be advanced more than two years past their age group. Tom and Sabine knew that pulling Marinette out of the sport entirely was off the table, the pure joy that spread across her face every time she mastered a new trick was proof enough that she was in love with the sport. So they set off to find a new studio to train at, where Marinette’s needs as a budding martial artist would be met. After looking around for a while, they decided to give Talia’s Wushu academy a try despite it being a little over a 30-minute drive from their house.

In regards to the first year of their friendship, Marinette would describe it as very professional, and almost nothing more. It took a while for Damian to become more cordial with her. When asked, Marinette would say “Damian didn’t like me, but he tolerated me enough as a partner because there was only so much practice he could have done alone.”

At first, Damian did not like Marinette at all, in fact, maybe he even hated her. When he first met her, Damian thought she was like every other “talented” kid that came into his mother’s studio, only to realize talent alone would get you nowhere in the sport of Wushu. On her first day, she immediately took up the spot next to him at the front and center of the class and offered him a warm smile, “Hello my name is Marinette, I’m new here.” Damian returned her greeting with a harsh tut of his tongue and the turn of his head, he was there to train, not to make friends. Marinette’s expression was aghast, but she quickly recovered and mumbled a soft “okay not talkative then…this is going great….” Damian suppressed an eye roll, simply because he knew his mother would not tolerate that in her classroom.

Against every one of Damian’s expectations, Marinette proved herself to be a hard-working individual. Eventually, after seeing her work on her technique and tricks after class during open gym hours, seeing that she wasn’t relying purely on natural ability and truly was putting in the effort to become a better martial artist, he began to tolerate her. The first time he returned her daily “Hello” with the nod of his head Marinette’s facial expression went from neutral to shocked to absolutely beaming. Damian simply raised his eyebrow and continued with his pre-class warmup.

Over time Marinette had grown a deep respect for Damian; she wished he was a bit friendlier, but despite their rough start Marinette realized early on that, while gruff and unfriendly, Damian was kind in his own way. He always pointed out when someone’s technique was wrong so that they wouldn’t hurt themselves, he always helped bandage someone up when they were hurt, and he always stayed after class to help his mom clean up. Most people would think he did it out of obligation or his mother’s demands, but Marinette loves people watching, and even after just a few months Marinette has observed that Talia would rather Damian use the time to better himself and will insist that she, or one of their workers, handle the menial tasks.

It was not until Damian saw Marinette work through her struggles that he gained respect for her. While Wushu is a largely performative sport where everyone’s moves are choreographed, Talia wanted to ensure everyone was also learning basic self-defense resulting in regularly held sparring sessions at the end of class. Marinette was a great performer, she was highly expressive and could easily recall choreography, but she had minimal exposure to actual sparring and her reflexes were not as sharp and trained like the others. She managed to win against her opponents in the first few classes by utilizing her creativity, but eventually, her lack of experience caught up with her and in her third month at the studio, she began her losing streak. Looking at her lose to her opponents time and time again he couldn’t help but wonder to himself, “will you still be here tomorrow?” Growing up in the studio, Damian knew that most of the people who were considered to be “gifted” had a tendency to drop out the moment things no longer came naturally to them, they grew frustrated with themselves and then with the sport. At this point, he figured he was just waiting for the other shoe to drop. Instead, the stage was set for her to become the most prevalent figure in his life.

Despite being in the same classes for over 3 months Damian and Marinette had never sparred. It was actually quite odd that they hadn’t yet sparred, the pairings for the most part were random. Talia reasoned that with the right circumstances even someone who seems weak could win; it was important to never underestimate an opponent and lower your guard. After bowing to one another their eyes met. If you asked them as adults they would unabashedly say that they love the other’s eyes, it was like staring at the calm before a storm. Their eyes were clear, fierce, and piercing. Despite being clearly disadvantaged Marinette showed no fear. She met his first few strikes blow for blow and even managed to evade a few of his strikes with a few unique tumbling passes – something Damian noted that she excelled in. He could tell she has been studying him, observing his strike patterns from his previous matches. Rather than reacting to his strikes, she was anticipating them – a smart move considering her reflexes were lacking. Unfortunately for Marinette, this meant that one unanticipated fake was all it took to defeat her.

That night during open gym hours Marinette approached Damian on her own for the first time. “There is only so much I can practice on my own, please train with me.”

“Why would I do that?” Damian held his face firm, his mouth in a thin line and his eyebrow slightly quirked.

Marinette’s eyes steeled over with conviction. “Did you know that every time you get up from xie bu you duck your chin down in your struggle to regain balance? It’s obvious you’re trying to shift your center of gravity. Instead, try leaning on your front leg from the beginning. The first few times you try this method, you should put a ball between your chin and neck to keep your head held up until you get used to it.”

“How did you–?”

“Notice? I love observing others, I can help you. There’s only so much we can practice on our own. I need help with my reflexes and you need someone who can review your performances. We can’t do this alone. You don’t have to like me, you just have to work with me. What do you say? Deal?”

“Tch. Deal.”

At first, their conversations mainly consisted of Marinette’s one-sided chatter during their warm-up, breaks, and cool-down stretches. It took a while for Marinette to get Damian to open up, but once she found the right topics she found that he was strongly opinionated about almost everything and shared quite a few hobbies with her. While Wushu was the common interest that brought them together, they were much more alike than they thought. They both enjoyed art, video games, and superhero shows to name a few common interests. Damian would say he would want to be a hero without any powers, someone who relies on their own skill to punish evil-doers. Marinette on the other hand would love to be a magical girl who could save others without causing too much damage. After hotly debating the topic of normal heroes and powered heroes, Damian and Marinette came to an agreement that both sides had their own set of struggles and perks.

Damian and Marinette found themselves spending more time with each other both inside and outside of the studio. After arguing over which type of paint was superior, Marinette was team watercolor because of its varied use, relative cheapness to oil paints, and blendability where Damian was a more traditional artist who believed that the blending capabilities of oil paint were just as good, if not better, and their longevity was worth the cost, the two decided to settle it with a paint off. Art sessions quickly became a biweekly tradition between the two, whenever the Gotham botanical garden would have a new exhibit Marinette would insist they go to sketch the flora. Damian quickly found that Marinette was almost as passionate about plants as he was about animals, with the way she flitted about the garden he couldn’t help but wonder if she had been something like a ladybug in her past life. There were also plenty of weekends spent sketching Damian’s pets, though Marinette would note that no drawings could capture what good boys Titus, Alfred the Cat, Jerry the Turkey, and Bat Cow were.

Together they found new ways to integrate Wushu into their hobbies, Marinette had plenty of friends at school who loved art and plenty of friends who did Wushu at the same center, but Damian was the only one she shared nearly all her passions with.

With their art, they began making flyers and posters for the studio, and banners to cheer on their classmates at competitions – Damian would argue he only did this because it would increase morale, which in turn would produce better results for the studio. Marinette struggled with the posters at first as a lot of proposed designs incorporated traditional Chinese characters, she couldn’t even write in Pinyin! Tom and Sabine had prioritized teaching Marinette about her French roots, in the event that one day they decided to move back to France, and neglected teaching her much about Chinese heritage. Marinette still learned basic conversational phrases: yes, no, please, thank you, and familial titles, but she was nowhere near conversational or fluent. After realizing Marinette did not know how to speak Mandarin Damian made it his personal goal to make her at least conversational before they would begin to travel internationally for competitions. Many of the major Wushu competitions took place in China and if Marinette was going to be his partner in the couples division he was going to make sure she was able to converse with any interviewers they may meet, and that if she were to end up lost – he swears Marinette was born without a sense of direction – that she could find her way back to him or their hotel. He hoped that while working on the banners he could work in a few lessons on traditional Chinese characters and simplified Chinese characters so that Marinette could at least read signs. Apart from art, reenacting scenes from video game cutscenes and superhero movies became one of their favorite activities, it became a way to train while still having plenty of fun. Sometimes after mastering a new move-in Ultimate Mecha Strike, they would break out the crash mats to test if the moves in the game were actually physically possible.

Even the hobbies Damian didn’t share with Marinette he was willing to partake in, and the fact that he was trying meant the world to Marinette. Damian was rarely physically affectionate in the first few years of their friendship, and it was even rarer for him to vocalize his emotions, and so Marinette quickly learned that Damian had a tendency to express himself through his actions. A lot of people failed to see how warm and loving Damian truly was, but Marinette saw it in how he interacted with everyone. For example, when Damian’s eldest brother opened up an acrobatics and gymnastics center Damian immediately volunteered to design and paint a mural on the outside that would more easily catch attention, Marinette watched him alter the design day and night and sort through hundreds of color palettes to ensure the pairing was just right. She saw his kindness through his interactions with his family and hers, the painting of her mom and dad baking, a gift from Damian for their 20th anniversary, hung up in the living room was more physical proof of it. When Marinette began sewing he proudly wore her designs and when she began to take commissions, he always kept her business card on his body in the event someone asked about his apparel.

One of Marinette’s fondest memories with Damian was when they decided to host a bake sale to offset the cost of international travel for the competition team. It was near the Mid-Autumn festival so Marinette and her parents decided to make mooncakes. Damian had some experience in the kitchen helping his mother make baozi and baklava, but he definitely wasn’t as experienced as Marinette who grew up in a bakery, yet he still came over to help them with the first few test batches and to help design packaging. Watching him carefully weigh out the ingredients her parents listed and chat about his favorite flavors with her parents in French filled her with so much warmth. The kitchen was filled with banter as a discourse between traditional baked mooncakes and skin mooncakes arose. Marinette and Sabine preferred snow skin mooncakes, the chewiness pairs well with pastes like red bean and taro, where Damian and Tom were strongly on the side of the more traditionally baked mooncake, arguing that the crumble of the pastry paired with fillings like salted egg and lotus paste was clearly superior. Marinette was unsurprised that Damian was strongly advocating for traditional flavors, but her father? The same man who made mustard macarons? It wasn’t until Marinette suggested thousand-layer mooncakes were simply croissants with a pasty filling that everyone else was willing to set aside their different preferences to unite against her. While the thousand layer mooncakes and traditional mooncakes baked, and the snow skin mooncakes steamed Marinette and Damian got to work on the packaging. In order to reduce cost, they had ordered plain packaging and planned to carve potato stamps with Mid-Autumn festival motifs: the moon, rabbits, flowers, fans, and lanterns. Despite having seen how proficient Damian was with a blade in training, Marinette was pleasantly surprised, if not downright awed, by Damian’s precision with a knife. By the time Marinette had finished carving out one flower Damian had finished three lantern carvings. After finishing stamping the final package Marinette daringly pressed the still paint-laden potato stamp onto Damian’s cheek which quickly devolved into a paint fight. The picture of Damian and Marinette covered head to two in paint was proudly pinned at the top of her corkboard, Marinette would never forget the sound of the kitchen filled with laughter that day.

Damian’s parents were extremely supportive of this arrangement. Talia thought it was a great opportunity, open gym hours were busy and she couldn’t give all her attention to Damian, having a training partner could really help him grow. If they got along well they could even enter paired events together! Bruce was enthralled that his son found someone to spend time with other than his friend Clark’s son, Jon. Jon and Damian were great friends, but Jon lived in Metropolis and so the boys rarely saw each other outside of business galas and Skype calls. It was nice knowing his son had someone he could spend time with in person, Bruce was concerned that Damian’s interpersonal growth would be stunted by his lack of interaction with his classmates at school. To see his son being a kid, laughing freely, filled him with great joy, he knew that being the son of a billionaire and a top-notch martial artist had put a lot of pressure on Damian’s shoulders, but he never knew what he could do to help his son. Seeing the walls in Damian’s room at the manor fill up with pictures of him and Marinette smiling, Damian smiling, made Bruce figure that everything was going to be okay.

Sabine and Tom grew to love Damian like their own son with the more time he spent at each other’s houses. At first, they were a bit skeptical, they didn’t quite understand what their daughter saw in the boy, but they trusted her judgment and boy are they glad they did. Damian was like a missing piece of their family, despite his hard exterior, the boy was extremely loyal and caring, they could always count on him to have Marinette’s back. Sabine especially had a soft spot for him after watching him correct Marinette’s brush strokes on the banners, teaching her the differences between what she wrote and what he was writing. The two watched their daughter give herself wholly to this boy, and in return, he gave himself back to her and that was all they could’ve ever wanted for Marinette, to love and be loved.

As they grew older they shared more than just common interests: their dreams, their fears, and the pressure they faced from their families. Marinette knew what she wanted for herself – something Damian was envious of. When they were 11 to offset the competition costs, Marinette’s mother began designing and sewing their competition outfits. Once Marinette saw what her mother was doing she wanted to help, and she ended up falling in love with fashion design. From the age of 13 and onward Marinette designed all of her own stage wear, as well as Damian’s. Sabine would joke that with such a talented daughter it’s a shame they didn’t stay in Paris. Damian wouldn’t admit it – Marinette would – but the thought of possibly never meeting Marinette made him feel uncomfortably empty; he wonders how he bore with that feeling before becoming close with Marinette. Damian wasn’t sure what he wanted for himself, he would love to take over his mother’s Wushu studio, maybe even expand it, but he was always raised with the expectation that one day he would inherit his father’s corporation. Despite loving both options, loving both his parents, there was also a part of him that wanted something that was completely Damian, he had already spent so much of his life living in the shadow of his parents. It wasn’t until high school that Damian opened up to Marinette about this, as the time to make decisions grew closer Damian naturally grew more anxious about his future. Marinette rarely gets the chance to comfort Damian, oftentimes he bottles his emotions up until they’re ready to burst, and even then Marinette has to slowly coax him into talking about them, even if it is with his brothers and not her, she just wants him to feel safe with his own emotions. The first time Damian opened up to her about the pressure he felt as his parent’s only biological son she immediately swept him into her arms, stroking his hair she began to tell him about how loved he was. She told him “Damian I love you, your family loves you, my family loves you. I just want you to know how loved you are. I speak not only for myself, but for everyone who loves you when I say this, do what makes you happy. Your parents will be happy as long as you are, they trust that they raised you to make good decisions for yourself. Even if you don’t know what it is that makes you happy yet, don’t be afraid to explore your options; I’ll be right here by your side and I’m going to support you no matter what. You’ve told me before that even if you inherit the studio Maya would co-own it with you, or even if you inherit your father’s business you would be working alongside your brothers. You are not alone, the world is not riding on solely your shoulders.” Damian was completely silent, if not for the wetness on her shoulder and his grip tightening around her, Marinette would figure he was unphased. Marinette has known that she loves this boy, far past the platonic love she just expressed, but for Damian, it was at this moment that he realized that not only was he loved, but he was in love with Marinette.

“WELCOME TO THE WORLD WUSHU CHAMPIONSHIPS 2019 LIVE FROM GOTHAM, NEW JERSEY” roared overhead on the speakers.

Damian and Marinette were standing in a hall away from the main room where other contestants were preparing themselves both appearance-wise and physically. Marinette herself was fixing the crown braid in her hair. The women’s event would take place in the morning to late afternoon, where the men’s event in the evening giving Damian ample time before he needs to warm up to support Marinette. He gave Marinette’s ensemble a once over and with his cheeks tinged red he muttered “I like your costume, you look really cute”, quickly averting his gaze.

Marinette immediately flushed, almost as red as the silken top that adorned her torso, and brought the hands that were adjusting her braids down to her hips and leaned forward, exclaiming in a hushed shout as to not disturb the other competitors warming up, “Damian Al-Ghul Wayne, are you making fun of me? I just want to make sure that any pictures taken do not make me look like a hot mess. Could you imagine what could happen if Audrey Bourgeois sees pictures of me completely frumpled looking and cancels my apprenticeship?? Oh my God and then Parson’s will find out and rescind me and then I won’t be able to visit you at NYU!” Marinette’s hands now rested on her cheeks smearing away her perfectly placed blush. How Marinette managed to go from disgruntled to spiraling in less than a minute is still a mystery that still eludes Damian after years of friendship, but it was his duty to calm her down. He understands her nerves, they had spent the last few years dominating the juniors division and as they entered the senior division there was a lot of pressure for them to win there too. Unfortunately, for every person who wanted them to win, another five were praying for them to slip up, but now is not the time to be overcome by nerves, her turn would come soon and she cannot afford to be overwhelmed by nerves.

Damian fully grasped her wrists pulling her hands away from her face, “Marinette, genuinely you look stunning”. After that comment, Damian noted to himself that it seems like there was no more need for the blush she applied anyways. With the soft tut of his tongue, he smoothed out the harsh lines of her smeared blush using the pad of his thumb. He whispered, just loud enough for her to hear, “Don’t worry too much about your hair and makeup, the most important thing is your form”. Marinette leaned into his touch and gave a small nod, calming down from her spiraling thoughts, he always knew how to ground her.

“Contestant number 54 you’re up next!”

“That’s you; you might want to fix up your makeup real quick, but everything is going to be fine.” He handed her a bag with her cosmetics and a wipe and quickly clapped his hands around her shoulders to guide her to the main stage so she could focus on herself.

Fixing her makeup Marinette shot him a cheeky grin, “wish me luck?”

“You don’t need luck. Marinette you have the skill, you know that.”

“Next up is Marinette Dupain-Cheng from New Jersey, USA! She is definitely a fan favorite to win today on the Women’s Taolu floor. She is internationally known for competing not only in the women’s division but also in the couples’ scene. She’s been training for the individual event from the age of six and for the partner event from the age of nine with her studio mate Damian Al-Ghul Wayne, who is predicted to win the Men’s Taolu event. While we do not have a couples’ Wushu competition here, since turning 18 they have been dominating the senior international couples’ Wushu scene and have gone undefeated.”

Taking off her team jacket, with a quick nod to her parents, Talia, and of course, Damian Marinette strode to the center stage. Damian would never grow sick of watching her transform on stage, it was strikingly similar to the magical girl shows she had been obsessed with as a child. The moment Marinette stepped onto the mat her whole demeanor changed. Her back straightened up, her head would be held high, and most of all, the look in her eyes was filled with inextinguishable fire.

By the end of the event after getting changed Marinette and Damian were making their way to his car. Once Damian turned 16 and got his license, it became a tradition for them to go out for a celebratory meal together without their parents. “Marinette!” Damian heard a voice call out, Agreste he noted in his head. Marinette had met Agreste and Tsurugi while vacationing in Paris. While they weren’t the worst, in fact, Tsurugi was typically pleasant company, Damian was in no mood to socialize after the several rounds of interviews he had to endure after winning first place in Men’s Taolu. Many of the interviewers failed to understand that while yes, he had more opportunities to train as he is a third-generation Wushu champion, it was his hard work that got him to where he was, not his genetics.

Seeing Damian continue on to his car, not wanting to keep him waiting, Marinette quickly bid them farewell with a promise to see them tomorrow. “Hey wait for me!” Marinette called out, running after Damian. Despite his pride usually preventing him from heeding to his peers’ commands, Damian stopped in his tracks, his breath shallow and wondering why Marinette’s voice still makes his heartthrob despite having heard it call out to him for over 10 years. Feeling her hands latch around his arm gave him a sense of comfort. Her grip was strong and steady, yet still gentle. He couldn’t help but envision his hand in hers instead of his arm. The bouquet and hand-painted card in his car were waiting to see if she felt the same.

[unofficialadamtaurus]

It’s posting more about my chaotic OC time:

Nicole’s constant use of his semblance has actually vastly improved his aura reserves and control over time. Turns out chasing the #aesthetic can be good for you

…except when he forgot his semblance was active while walking around Vacuo for hours on a mission during his last year at Beacon and proceeded to give himself both aura and heat exhaustion like a moron. He only did it once but his team will never let him hear the end of it.

His primary method of battling Grimm and even other people is by setting everything (including himself) on fire with the Dust he carries around, and then using Chisel to finish his opponent(s) off. He’s unfazed by the heat; they’re not. Barring exceptional circumstances (like someone hitting him with a flamethrower or an unexpected fuel source), the fire will burn out before his semblance does.

Before his first spar at Beacon, he intentionally covered himself in flammable powder and, when the match was in progress, pretended that his opponent set him on fire. Once alight, he screamed in pain and rolled on the ground, which did nothing to stop the powder from burning. Even Glynda bought his act until she remembered his semblance, at which point she was very unamused. He managed to talk himself out of suspension with Oz. Why did he do any of it? Because he wanted to know what would happen ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Oz was the first person he met in his life who Nicole couldn’t get a good read on. Nicole found him both very interesting and extremely disconcerting.

He once pretended to cough up blood by biting his own tongue just to freak out a rude customer.

On the rare occasion he’s upset, he’ll usually hole up in his forge. Otherwise he’ll cause more and bigger trouble without regard for the lines he normally wouldn’t cross.

He mainly uses his goggles for welding, but he’ll occasionally use them in combat if the fire gets too bright.

He makes all of his jewelry himself

He’s ambidextrous, though he favors his right hand.

He’s excellent at mimicking other people’s handwriting after only seeing it once. This has landed him in a lot of trouble, most of it intentional. No one has yet figured out that a couple of the permits for his shop never actually crossed the desks of the people who supposedly signed them. He could’ve gotten the permits legally, but he got impatient.

He’s only patient when it’s conducive to messing with someone or forging. Otherwise he’s really not.

He’s not an arsonist but he doesn’t dissuade people from thinking he is.

The only surefire ways to make him genuinely angry are to either attack his forge or his family.

[vowled]

Kill Your Darlings: An Analysis of its Twists and Themes

A few days ago, I watched Kill Your Darlings, and needless to say, I became completely mesmerized by it. Naturally credible characters with well-crafted backstories portraying a true story of Love, Obsession and Murder, it's everything a person could ask for in a movie. The colour palette of the movie radiates comfort and the sound track takes you back in time when these two bright young men were falling in love. Right from the start it was apparent that there were many themes in the undercurrent of the movie, and these were such that required some amount of thoughtful contemplation. And I was incredibly sorry to not find any post or review which critically discussed the themes of the movie and did it justice- so after doing some reading and digging up as much as I could, here I am making an attempt to analyze the twists and themes of the story.

The Crucial Plot-twist

The Night In Question- why the movie's recounting of the events is fictitious:

When faced with the prospect of writing the deposition for Lucian, Allen tried his best to gather information about the events that led to David's murder. However, it proved to be a difficult feat as Lucien himself would not speak much about it clearly. So he pieced together what he could from the bits of information he got. However, we see Lucian vehemently opposing the deposition written by Allen and claiming it to be false. After some thought, I find that I believe Lucian's claims. Most of the following arguments are rooted in the fact that Lucien's relationship with David was an abusive one, where David basically groomed Lucian and was a sexual predator. I suggest reading my post here to gain more insight about how the abuse affected him.

"You weren't there, you don't know what happened." These words right here- they're the words of a victim. Being subjected to a form of sexual abuse myself, I found these words hitting me like a brick ton. These are words coming from a pained soul that refuses to recount traumatic incidents. He's practically saying that the abuse was so bad he had to kill his abuser to be free from it.

Even after Allen saw first-hand what a total creep David could be, even after knowing the man had stalked Lucian across multiple cities, he had to ask Lucian why the latter killed David when he "could have run". This tells me he couldn't exactly relate to Lucian's situation and wasn't very keen on believing him. Although he displayed a moment of intimate affection, there's still a lingering feeling of yeah but he broke my heart inside him. After learning how Lucian drowned David, he even begins questioning if he should help him at all. At this point, Allen doesn't trust Lucian enough to actually care how accurate the story is. So he wrote what he could, what he felt right. But even he couldn't condemn his friend/first love to such a fate as prison, so eventually he submitted it as his final paper. In all honesty, I thought that turning it in was a brilliant move, and one which also further proved that the "once you loved him too" version was mostly fanciful fiction.

Throughout the movie, sequences have been played in reverse frames (and I found this so pleasing) and from the nitrogen-inhaling scene, we know that these sequences designated memories playing out in Allen's head or his subconscious creating dreamscapes. And here's the catch- the entire scene of Lucian taking a walk with David and eventually killing him began with frames played in reverse order. This gives the absolute proof that the movie's depiction of the events were fictitious.

Allen's P.O.V. of the events mainly relied on the argument that at some point, Lucian genuinely loved and needed David. This couldn't be further away from the truth. When you're 14 and and being groomed and coaxed by an older guy, a lot many things could feel like love because you haven't experienced them before; but in reality, it's never love, it just is another form of violence.

Themes running through the movie

"There can be no Creation before Imitation"

We see Professor Steves saying this at the beginning of the movie, hinting that it would be a theme in the story. This statement is reflected throughout Allen's progression and development as a poet:

In the beginning, we see him being hugely influenced by his father's works and possibly trying to imitate him through poetic devices such as consonance.

Next, we see him imitating Professor Stevens' style of writing in his poem "the rose that scents the evening air, grows from by beloved's hair" which Lucian outright criticizes.

It is only with the poem Allen recites to Lucian on the boat that he starts developing some sort of originality. That poem in particular is directly drawn from his personal experiences and delivers splendidly.

This development continues as he proceeds to write "The Night In Question" wherein he brilliantly describes his opinion of how things went down. It was this streak that would eventually propel him to write his most celebrated poem, "Howl".

The Circle of Life and How Allen Breaks it

We see Lucian telling Allen how "Life is only interesting if it is wide" and about Yeats' "Circle of Life". As displayed by the linked document, turns out the circle of life is quite complex a thing, and the movie displays a lay-man's version of it. As Lucian tells about it to Allen, unbeknownst to them both, Allen also enters the circle and changes the turn of events:

It is obvious that at the party at David's, Allen was a misfit. David even goes so far as to literally call him out and point how unremarkable he was, but says how given the correct circumstances, even Allen could change things. And what's extraordinary is exactly this happens next: the liquor runs out in David's party and Allen suggests they should change the venue of the party- hence hijacking David's party!

We see Allen's life widen as he becomes closer to Lucian and starts doing things he'd never done before. At the same time, he also plays an important role in changing Lucian's life as well. It's Allen who suggests at first that Lucian should break up with David and stop taking his help. Later in the movie, after learning about David's obsessive behaviour, it's again Allen that said "we should get rid of him". Again, here we see some foreshadowing. Allen could have worded it in any probable way, and yet he suggested getting rid of David which subtly implied killing him. I do believe that this happened to become a subliminal suggestion to Lucian and furthered his murderous intent.

Hence, although Lucian radically changes Allen's life, the latter does so too in unlikely and unexpected ways.

Sacrifices (and Rituals?)

Since the beginning of the movie, we know that the characters are all extraordinary men and that they are capable of something revolutionary. But it was apparent that all of them would need a catalyst to set things in motion- a sacrifice of some sort which would help them break their moulds and free their inner poet. Allen's love for Lucian and his wish to impress him did make him work toward become better at writing. It was the fear of completely losing Lucian to Jack that made Allen put all his effort into writing, and made him come up with his best work yet - here, the fear acted as the catalyst.

However, the most significant thing in connection to this happened in this scene where Lucian cuts both of their palms and holds them up together - this can be considered a Blood Ritual.

"A blood ritual is any ritual that involves the intentional release of blood. Blood rituals often involve a symbolic death and rebirth, as literal bodily birth involves bleeding. Basic to both animal and human sacrifice is the recognition of blood as the sacred life force in man and beast. The participants may regard the release of blood as producing energy useful as a sexual, healing, or mental stimulus. In other cases, blood is a primary component as the sacrifice, or material component for a spell."

The fact that this event took place inside Allen's head during a trippy session outlines how Allen had subconsciously taken a blood oath with Lucian to further The New Vision. This process of developing their revolutionary ideas would successfully progress for the rest of the movie; however, before its completion, the oath demanded a sacrifice- and the murder of David became this blood sacrifice.

"With Death comes Rebirth"

In the first half of the movie we see the initiation of this theme; after they've agreed upon to bring up something revolutionary, Allen talks about how rebirth comes only after death, and in their naivety, they play out a pseudo-suicide scene to imitate death. Little did they know greater sacrifices would have to be made. Eventually as events play out, we come to realise that it is David's death that became the cause and medium for their rebirth- both academic and intra-personal. Jack and Bill co-wrote the book "And the Hippos Were Boiled in Their Tanks" about the murder of David Kammerer, and eventually rose to fame, while Allen became popular with "Howl and Other Poems", none of which could have been initiated/inspired without David's death. As for their personal growth, none of them were the same as they were before the affair. I like to think all of them changed for the better. Lucian must have finally felt a sense of relief after getting rid of his abuser, while Allen finally took-off his rose-coloured glasses, saw Lucian under a more critical light, and developed a sense of self-esteem.

A Study in Violence (I was unsure whether to include this point in this analysis or not due to the violent nature of it. But I figure this analysis would remain incomplete should I leave it out. So here it goes..) The sequence from 1:10:00 to 1:12:00 was an in-depth survey of Violence and how it can occur in different forms. In particular, it focused on how any form of penetration is intimately violating.

We see a lonely Allen being so lost that he's about to have sex with a complete stranger. This itself is very unlike him, who in the beginning of the movie was shying away from Lucian kissing an unknown girl. A few sequences later we see how he wasn't very comfortable with this idea (he wanted to turn off the lights but the other guy turned them on) and yet he was made to shift into a position he did not prefer and hence was made to have rough sex.

We see Bill looking very solemn and injecting drugs into his hands.

We see the violent altercation between Lucian and David. We see David forcing himself on Lucian and eventually being stabbed by him.

We see Jack recieving the news of the death of his friend.

In this way, we see every member of the group being exposed to some form of violence, be it sex, drugs, physical altercations or death.

First Love and its aftermath First love is also an important theme of the movie as it shows how one's first love has the capacity to radically change a person from within:

Allen's first love changed him from the shy, people-pleasing always-upright persona to the bold, radical, critical and unafraid person he became at the end of the movie.

Allen's discovery of his own style of writing can also be majorly attributed to Lucian's criticism of his rhyme-schemes.

All in all, it was his love for Lucian that drove him to become a more out-going person and ignited the mischief in his spirit, while the heartbreak of realising Lucian didn't feel the same for him also lent him invaluable insight and allowed him to develop confidence and a sense of self-esteem, which would play a significant role in him eventually becoming his own person.

While Allen's first love furnished him with the overall better things in life, the same could not be said for Lucian, sadly. Lucian's first love reminded us how oppressive love can become if the other person isn't suited-well for us; it showed us how sometimes love and obsession are separated by a thin line, and how dangerous it becomes when the line is crossed.

Lucian's story also showed us how sometimes a relationship can be more abuse than love, and when that happened, how easy it became to confuse violence with love.

The most significant message that the theme of first-love portrays is that there will always be consequences.

With this, I bring my arguments and analyses to a close. I hope a future (or even past) lover of the movie happens to stumble upon this someday and learn something fascinating about the movie (or reignite their love for it). Thank you for reading this far!

[P.S. an uplifting fact: in real life, Lucian, Allen, Jack and Bill each got the type of life they wished for, and remained friends for the rest of their lives :) ]

[thisaccisdead]

montreal - roman hurt/comfort

pairing: this was written to all be platonic prinxiety, but can definitely be interpreted romantically !

warnings: unconventional self harm, non-graphic descriptions of wounds/injury

summary: a post-POF roman hurt/comfort fic in january 2021? yes <3

word count: 3.2k

notes: large portions of this were salvaged from one (1) night last summer at 4am when i was having a . time. the rest has been mainly recently written before i go to bed, with some extra bits added during my history classes B)) also shout out to [REDACTED]. u may not read this but if u do, i hope u know who u are & ilu

Virgil had been trying to calm himself down for the better part of an hour, as soon as they got back from the wedding fiasco; and he was doing a relatively okay job. Considering the circumstances, at least. Or so he thought, when he registered a spike in Thomas’s anxiety. This only served to make Virgil more anxious, because he had thought he had been doing well—until, he realized it wasn’t anxiety, not exactly, not fully—and it wasn’t coming from him.

Once he'd figured that out, it wasn't hard to trace the feeling to the imagination. He paused at the door. If this was where the strongest negative emotions were coming from, he already knew which side this was about. And could he really be surprised? Roman had wanted that callback for so long. Even at the court case, even when Roman gave Thomas his sentence, Virgil knew it killed him. And Virgil didn't do anything. Because he was so fucking scared of Thomas being bad, or of Janus winning, or something, and now whatever was going on was his fault, and--

And now was not the time for these thoughts. He breathed in. He opened the door.

Immediately, he was coughing out soot, heat burned his cheeks, his eyes blurred with protective tears forming against the smoke. It was hard to see, let alone process, what was happening. Then, he caught sight of the Dragon Witch. And he caught sight of—

“Roman!” Virgil choked on the yell, coughing again.

Obviously Roman couldn’t hear him from the distance, especially considering the brutal roar of the creature. Adrenaline kicked in, and as Virgil began to sprint towards the prince, he took in the entirety of the scene with alarm. Roman was...fighting, sure, except that Virgil had seen him fight before, and this... wasn’t right. Roman bested manticore-chimeras like it was a breeze, he HAD bested the Dragon Witch herself in every form she took, “just for training.” He always moved like he was in a ballet, not a battle, like it was more for show than challenge, and now...

Virgil watched Roman fall to a hard swish of the creature’s tail, and stay there. He almost expected the Dragon Witch to take mercy, or at least, to accept an early victory. But he watched her rear back, raise a taloned hand, the magma-red in her throat glowing brighter and brighter—just as Virgil got close enough to let fight win over flight.

Virgil crashed into Roman; they rolled just far enough that the swipe of claws only ripped the edge of Virgil’s jacket.

Immediate danger out of the way, Virgil clenched his eyes tight, trying to do it how Logan taught him. He found something that didn’t make sense--the grass. The grass was dry, therefore it should have been burning, but it wasn’t. He took that foothold to dispel all the fantastical elements of the scene, Dragon Witch and all her carnage blinking from existence. The new calm of the scene was jarring.

That just left a great big field, Virgil, and one absolute dumbass.

"What the fuck, Princey?!"

Virgil’s voice was distorted with stress, and Roman stared up at him wide-eyed, unsure—even terrified in a way that hurt. Virgil quickly pushed himself up so he wasn't pinning the other. Roman tried to copy this movement, only to groan, start coughing, and fall back again.

“Shit, I—“ Virgil looked at his hands and found red on them, looked at Roman and saw the color painting his chest. “I thought I dispelled all the imaginary stuff, why—?“

“Left brain sides can only dispel so much of what right brain sides feel,” Roman said, voice rough and thin and upsettingly casual, “Since they feel so real to me, you can’t get rid of them.”

“They feel…? Christ, ok, you need a medical kit, uhm—“ Virgil closed his eyes again; he was notoriously shitty at summoning things, and he had to concentrate for this—

“That’s ok; I’ve got it,” Roman said, letting out a quiet hiss as he propped himself up on one arm, and summoned the medical kit with the other, “You can go now.”

Virgil gaped at him in disbelief. When Roman attempted to stand up, and Virgil could no longer deny he wasn’t joking, he exclaimed, “Like Hell am I going, idiot!”

Roman just stared at him, and Virgil cursed under his breath. “Ok ok, let’s just... we should do this in the bathroom, uhm—“

Virgil awkwardly clambered over to Roman again, taking his hand, so he could blink them over together. He knew it would probably be more comfortable for Roman to sink in and out, but considering Virgil wasn’t practiced at that, he wasn’t going to risk screwing it up.

They apparated into the bathtub, and Virgil scrambled up, taking the med kit from Roman's hands.

Ok, ok, now Virgil just had to remember that one time Logan lectured them all on “Side Safety.” He took a shaky breath and washed his hands quickly, before turning back to Roman. He allowed himself to fully assess the prince this time and… Jesus. He was slumped against the back of the tub, having given up his attempts at composure while he thought Virgil wasn’t looking. His litany of scrapes, cuts, bruising, his shallow breathing, and--most of all--the wet, red patch slowly growing on his shirt, sparked renewed panic in Virgil.

“Ok, fuck, ok--let’s do this,” Virgil said, mostly to himself, as he knelt down by Roman to undo his already tattered shirt and take a wet towel to his chest. He had to suck in a breath at the sight of the jagged wound, a nauseous feeling catching up to him.

“You’ve already done a lot, you know,” Roman insisted. “You can--”

“If you tell me to go, Princey, I swear I’ll make these wounds worse myself,” he said, not meaning it in the slightest, which he would assume Roman knew--but the way Roman flinched and shut his mouth told a different story. “Shit, I didn’t mean that. Of course I didn’t mean that!”

Roman glanced away, and Virgil reached to cup his cheek, an instinct he didn’t know he had. Luckily, he caught himself in time to retract his hand. They both avoided eye contact for a second; Virgil cleared his throat; and he reached for the bottle of hydrogen peroxide before pausing. He vaguely recalled Logan mentioning how strong alcohols would only cause more harm, and they should just stick to mild soap instead. He gave the cut a longer look-over—it was certainly not a pretty sight, but probably not as bad as it looked. It was large, but not too deep. Plus, as sides, it would heal itself without needing anything like stitches or professional medical work. The past scars littering Roman’s body were proof of that. Actually--had he always had this many scars? Virgil squinted. How often did he do this?

Virgil finished cleansing and bandaging the wound to the best of his ability, with little talk beyond the occasional, soft “sorry” at Roman’s winces. When he had finished, he gave Roman his hoodie (an action the Prince was too tired to take much notice of), since summoning a new shirt seemed like a waste of whatever energy he had left.

“Ok, Princey, all done. Uhm, are you—how, how are you?” Virgil mentally kicked himself.

A small, bitter smile tugged at Roman’s lips for just a moment. He opened his mouth and then closed it, and finally shrugged. “Thank you for your help.”

It hurt, Virgil realized. Roman’s quiet voice, where near-shouting was his usual speech. His unkempt hair sticking to his forehead, where it was usually styled to be very lightly and intentionally ruffled. The bags beneath his eyes where there was usually concealer. All of it hurt.

Virgil sucked in a breath. “Look, I’m sorry if I’m being annoying, but I hope you know there’s absolutely no way I’m leaving yet.”

“Virgil,” Roman almost said it as a whine, which was closer to his usual style, so Virgil considered it progress.

“Roman,” Virgil deadpanned back.

Roman huffed. “Maybe I need space to really explore my feelings, and you’re actually being a terrible friend right now,” he argued.

“Uh-huh, well being a terrible friend is always my favorite, so,” Virgil leaned down, fumbling slightly as he picked Roman up bridal style, “We’re gonna get you to bed, and you can explore your feelings by sleeping.”

“Great, now you’re damsel-in-distressing me,” Roman said sarcastically, but he leaned his head into Virgil’s chest as he did so, which kind of ruined his point.

“Yeah, yeah. Act more like Megara next time, and maybe it’ll be different.”

•••

Roman groaned upon waking up. His whole body ached, but mainly it was focused around a sharper pain in his chest. He let his eyes flutter open, only to find Virgil staring at him from his desk.

“Ah,” Roman uttered, a jumble of memories from the past few hours returning. They felt foggy and mildly icky, but mainly the pain in them was the numb kind of pain, the tired kind. Really, it was indistinguishable from the dull ache of his bruises and cuts.

“Yeah,” Virgil said, as though he understood, even though he couldn’t possibly. “Uh, wanna talk about it?”

It was clear Virgil felt awkward asking the question. It was unclear whether that was due to his tendency to be embarrassed by everything he said, or—far more likely—that he wanted to stop babying a stupid prince, and just go about his business.

Roman sat up, suppressing a wince as best he could. “Do you want to hear about it?”

“Of course I do.” Virgil said it without an ounce of hesitation. Roman’s breath caught.

“Oh.” Roman shifted slightly over, and Virgil took a seat by him on the bed. “Okay. Uhm. I don’t know, I just—I messed up.” What else was new?

“...What did you mess up?” Virgil asked, with an inkling of suspicion, like he knew what this was about. But it wasn’t that; it wasn’t the callback—that was over and done and dead. Roman had created so many fantasies, so many crazy scenarios where they could somehow still make it in that stupid movie, and it had always filled him with hope or crushing pain or something, but as of this afternoon? He didn’t even care. It didn’t matter.

So, Roman ignored the question, and instead commented, “Janus got accepted.”

“What the fuck.”

Roman observed Virgil’s stricken expression like an unsettling kind of mirror of himself when—

My name is Janus.

“Yeah,” Roman sighed, “I didn’t take it so well either.”

Virgil looked at him for a long moment, seeming to go through several series of emotions, before he was able to ask, “...What happened?”

Roman inhaled sharply. “I was wrong about being wrong about the wedding. Patton was also wrong; Janus was right, and then Patton was right because he wasn’t a total asshole to Janus, and I’m evil; Thomas hates me; whatever, you get it.”

He thought he would break down, saying it, but he felt oddly… fine. He sat, staring at the same spot as he was before, absentmindedly annoyed at the way his bandages itched. The normalcy of the situation almost made it worse. This sucked. This wasn’t even bad.This was the worst he had ever felt.

“Oook,” Virgil said, clearly not knowing where to start, “I—you—what do you mean: Thomas hates you?”

“Thought that one was self-explanatory.”

“He can’t hate you,” Virgil said with a laughable amount of conviction. “You’re still his… y’know.. goals. Desires. Hopes. Whatever. Just because this one didn’t go… perfectly, doesn’t mean you won’t keep—“ he struggled to find the phrasing for a moment— “...fighting, uh, valiantly for Thomas’s dreams!” he attempted at the encouragement with a weak smile.

Roman just shook his head. “No. I don’t know what he wants.”

Virgil’s smile dropped into confusion. “But… you are his wants.”

“That’s kind of the problem.”

Virgil seemed at a loss, and Roman felt like an asshole. Here he was trying to help him, and Roman couldn’t even be bothered to put on a smile to dismiss him from the duty.

“Please go,” Roman attempted weakly when he couldn’t find a more convincing argument in himself. He was meant to be an actor, but he knew he couldn’t hide the fact that he wanted him to stay, of course he did, so badly. He hoped Virgil would just quit with the chivalry and go despite that.

Virgil sighed deeply and pinched the bridge of his nose. “Shit, I'm going about this all wrong.”

Roman knew it probably wasn’t really him Virgil was mad at, but it was hard not to shrink away anyway.

“Look, Roman—“ Virgil turned to him, looked at him seriously, took his hands in his— “To be honest? I don’t care what happened. I don’t care who was right or wrong—I mean, we all know I’ve been in the wrong more than my fair share. It doesn’t change how I feel about you.”

Roman didn’t miss the ambiguity of the end statement. “But… look, you don’t get it. When you mess up, you’re still you. You’re still...,” Roman gestured vaguely, which upset his bandages, and when he looked down at himself, he took note of the black/purple hoodie he was wearing. He melted slightly. This was exactly the point he was trying to make, “You’re still... y’know. Important.”

“Wh—? Of course you’re important, Ro. You’re creativity—“

“Thomas has two of those.”

Virgil looked at him like he was stupid. “Right, as if you’re anything like Remus.”

Roman’s lip quivered at that, and he had to look away, which was so stupid. And suddenly he felt all of the embarrassment at once—of this situation, of everything that had happened before, of the way he was about to cry, in front of Virgil, after he said that, which must look so—

“Roman?”

A hand was on his cheek, softly turning his face towards Virgil’s, though Roman still refused to meet his eyes.

Virgil cursed to himself under his breath. “Shit, this is exactly what I was trying not to say.” He sighed, and Roman hesitantly looked up at him. “Look. Even if you weren’t creativity, if you weren’t hopes or dreams or any of it—if you were a completely pointless side, which you aren’t, but if you were—I wouldn’t care. What I care about is that you’re... Roman. That you bother me until I sing Disney with you, that when you put your heart into something, you do it to a stupid amount, that you make Thomas take trashy buzzfeed soulmate quizzes when he’s stressed, and that you fucking try so hard for everything, even when I’m being a little bitch about it,” he paused. With the hand on Roman’s cheek, he traced the line of a scar down his jaw. It was one of the ones Roman usually made sure to put an illusion over, he noted offhandedly. “I care, because you’re my best friend.”

“Don’t say that,” Roman choked out. He couldn’t handle it if it was a lie, and part of him couldn’t manage hearing it as anything but exactly that. “Just—just—“

“Oh, Princey..”

Virgil held him as he broke. Roman didn’t know how long they sat like that as he let everything wash over him for a final time, let it all truly sink in at long last. He took heaving, messy sobs, no doubt ruining Virgil’s shirt in the process—he was quiet, though. He shook silently, save a couple choked breaths, in the other’s arms--that was a habit he had taught himself long ago.

When Roman had tired himself out, when all that was left was the pain in chest, (which was also suddenly duller—he was healing fast, even for a side—) he pulled back from the embrace. Virgil didn’t move by much, kept them so their fingers were laced together, as they sat staring at each other.

“Uhm. Thanks,” Roman gave a shaky smile, “You really—uh... I... I said some stupid stuff, huh?”

Virgil hesitated before he spoke, as if he knew he shouldn’t ask this right now, but needed to anyway. “...Roman, why’d you go to the Imagination?”

Roman felt ice stab at his chest upon the question. He didn’t want to do this. They had already talked about so much that he shouldn’t have gotten into; this was meant to be the part where they either parted or watched a stupid movie. And this, out of everything, was the conversation he most needed to avoid.

“Uh—I mean, to let off steam?” Roman gave a laugh as best he could. “Obviously, it didn’t go to plan—“

“Didn’t it?”

Roman’s face fell immediately. He struggled to come up with an answer, and even if he had had one, he didn’t think the sound would come out. This was enough of an answer in itself

“Shit,” Virgil breathed. Roman couldn’t help but be mildly annoyed by his surprise—clearly he had already known, he didn’t have to make it a big deal now.

“I… Princey—Roman…” Virgil looked him up and down, and Roman wanted to curl up and hide. “...how many times?”

“Not many,” Roman mumbled. Virgil must have known he was pushing the subject too far, because he just frowned and said,

“OK. I mean...it’s not OK, obviously, but you already know that, I just—“ he sighed. “Just… can you talk to me? Instead? Please? When you feel like… that.”

“Yeah, that sounds good,” Roman responded hastily, wanting an out from this topic.

Virgil gave him a look. “I’m serious. I mean—look, you don’t even have to talk about it if you don’t want. Just, come to me first, yeah?”

Roman’s face burned; he was embarrassed; he wanted to shrug this whole thing off, or roll his eyes, or maybe scream in annoyance. But the rational part of him knew Virgil was right. “OK,” he agreed softly, “...Thanks. For everything.”

Virgil looked surprised, and then flustered, and then waved off the earnest reply. “I mean, it wasn’t--I didn’t--it’s not like I did anything really--”

“You did.”

Virgil’s face softened. “Yeah, well... you’d’ve done the same for me. You... have done the same for me.”

Roman smiled gently at him. “By the way, Virge--” He hesitated. He was about to sound like a real dumbass if Virgil had only been saying this stuff for comfort’s sake. But making a fool of himself was becoming a theme for him anyway, so he continued, “You’re my best friend too.”

I love you.

In the same beats Roman thought it, Virgil squeezed his hand lightly 3 times. A breath passed between them. An understanding. That Roman couldn’t say it out loud, and Virgil wouldn’t.

Instead, Virgil fell back across the bed, bringing Roman with him in the motion. Roman let out a startled gasp and elbowed him lightly. “Hey! I’m injured, that could have been a fatal impact for me!” he whined.

Virgil snorted. “Yeah, yeah, OK. So, do you wanna watch a stupid movie, or what?”

[piteouspeculiarity]

Defining Home: Extended Author's Note

Warning: This might contain spoilers for the series

(For clarity, when I say 'Tommy' etc in this post, I'm talking about the characters from my fics, not the content creators themselves.)

So it's done, huh? This note will include the sappy shit, the fun facts, then some of the more serious stuff, because I just didn't want to add an essay to the end of that chapter.

First of all, thank you all for the support along the way. Defining Home is easily my most popular series of fics I’ve ever written and I’ve been writing fanfic for years now. The comments and the kudos and the bookmarks were so very validating when I was new to the fandom, and still are. Hell, people have gifted me fics and written related fics to Defining Home, which blows my tiny mind. I haven’t gotten the chance to read a lot of them yet (procrastination I know thy name), but when I do, I’ll be leaving my best comments in thanks <3

I'll be honest, when I posted the first chapter of Enough, I never expected it to turn into what it did.

That first chapter was written in my phone notes at 3am, hours before an exam. I hadn't interacted with the fandom at all at that point, didn't even have a Tumblr for it, but boy oh boy did I get a warm welcome.

The point is, that first chapter was a very spur in the moment thing, mainly consisting of one scene I couldn't get out of my head (Tommy on a train to Wilbur's). I've gotten a few people telling me since then that they wished that they could write as well as I can, which is a huge compliment, but every person can write a fic like Enough. There are things that we all struggle with when it comes to writing: dialogue, prose, starting scenes - I have my own things I struggle with, things you might have noticed, things you might have not. You don't have to be a perfect writer to tell a story, especially in fandoms, where betas are easy to come across.

Write your story, even if its just for yourself. Posting that chapter gave me the chance to make new friends and I'll never stop being grateful for that.

One of those friends is Kat, who I've mentioned a couple times in the author's notes, but who honestly, I owe a lot to. Kat has encouraged me and been one of the main motivators to write this fic when I felt like it would never be finished, or that I'd never live up to other people's expectations. Sometimes, that meant motivating in some weird ass ways, but hey, it worked.

People who know me in discord servers might know that I'm a simp for Kat and it's damn true. Kat, I love you, you've improved my life more than you know in the last couple months and you deserve so, so much happiness.

In fear of love reciprocation from Kat, we'll move swiftly on to the more fun side of things.

Anyone feel like fun facts? You might already know some of these because I tend to overshare in author's notes, but I'm pretty sure some of them are new to all of you.

Barney the dog? Named after my own late labrador, who I love very much and loved to jump in lakes and need rescuing, time and time again.

I had no plans in moving Tommy in with Techno, hell, I had no plans in Techno moving to England at all. It was as much of a surprise to me as it was to everyone else when he told Tommy the news, but I latched onto the idea and ran with it. I think it worked out okay, in the end.

Techno has a draw in his bedroom full of parenting books, most of which were stolen from Phil.

After Tommy asked for help about what to do with Dream, Wilbur sent Dream a dm telling him he better not fuck anything up and if he did, Wilbur would not hesitate to humiliate him in front of millions of people. It was unnecessary, of course, but Dream was definitely a bit more cautious about what he said when he listened to Tommy’s explanation.

Some of my favourite things about writing Defining Home:

The Tesco v Asda discourse. Look, some of you just need to accept that Asda is the superior shop and get off your Tesco stanning bullshit. /j

The offers I would get for new chapters, some honourable mentions being newborns, siblings, diamonds and kidneys.

Now, I know that as much as I tried to, I won't have managed to include everything that everyone wanted from Defining Home, whether that's certain confrontations or scenes, I am sorry if I haven't included.

I don't imagine myself writing any more in the series, not because I think there isn't more I could write about, but because as a whole it feels complete to me, and any added oneshots I write would disturb that.

Right now Defining Home feels well rounded in a way that I'm proud of. The minute I realised that Enough was going to turn into a series I planned out how I wanted it to work. Maybe its just the maths part of my brain, but I like how there's three fics, with three chapters in each and how Tommy heals as you progress throughout the series.

My aim for the series was for the tone to get lighter as you went through, because yes, things kept happening (confrontation with dad, beach incident etc) but the point was that Tommy dealt with those things in different ways that he would have earlier on in the series. I have lots of thoughts and lots of emotions about how he felt safe enough with his family to experience nightmares and such. I made an effort in The Truth Behind Family to include more fluff, especially in the last two chapters, because I think it’s important to show that yeah, his parents’ abuse effected him, but it didn’t dictate how he lived his life. 

Like yes, I could write about their first Christmas together, for example, and add it onto the series, but I don’t think that I’d be able to do the rest of the series justice in that. Defining Home is largely about what the title implies, Tommy discovering what words like ‘home’ and ‘family’ mean beyond what he’s been told he’s stuck with and I believe that by the end of the series, he’s been successful in that. 

I'm so proud of the characters I wrote, Tommy in particular, for how far they've come in Defining Home, but I think that in a way, it’s time for me to let them go.

That’s not to say I’m done with writing for sbi! Hell no! 

I have a couple long fics in the works and a one shot I’m working on. The main fic I’m excited to focus on now Defining Home is finished is heavy heart, heavy head, heavy hero which, to put it simply, is an sbi royalty au, where unfortunate circumstances mean Tommy is forced to become King. It’s going to be a little more plot focused than Defining Home was and I am so very pumped to give it my full attention instead of leaving that lonely one chapter on AO3 like I have been doing.

I was 🤏close to making a Discord server, but ultimately decided I’m much more suited to causing chaos on other people’s servers than running my own. I think at this point the karma would be too great to even consider making my own server, so if you’d like to talk to me on Discord, keep an eye for me on other people’s servers - I mainly lurk, but I’m pretty active on one or two :D

On a more serious note, Defining Home deals with some heavy topics and I’ve had comments tell me that they relate to Tommy’s situation and wish that they had their own found family to run to. 

This Tumblr post has a list of phone numbers and places you can contact if you need help or want someone to talk to. Saying that, I recognise that a list as long as that can be daunting, so feel free to shoot me a message and I can either help you find the right one for you, or keep you company for a bit if you need it. 

Not all of us are lucky enough to have our own found family, but that doesn’t mean that you won’t forever, or that you’re alone. My dms and ask box are always open if you want someone to talk to.

Keep yourselves safe <3

- Lee 

[vodkassassin]

You've been bullying SQH too much, he needs a break! Maybe some cuddles? A vacation? An emotional support animal? All of the above?

Two of the above, as a treat. Other options to be considered at a later date, perhaps... ;3 @dancibayo

Warnings for injury and near drowning >.>

—

There is a reason that, way in the beginning of all this peak lord business — before then, in fact, when they were all still just head disciples, brand new to the job and still figuring things out— there is a reason that Shang Qinghua signed the paperwork making Mu Qingfang his mission partner. And only Mu Qingfang.

It wasn’t because Mu Qingfang was the only one out of all of his martial family that Shang Qinghua liked, or could actually deal with… though it was kind of for that reason, but not entirely! The main reason, here, is that Shang Qinghua was not at the time entirely sure how to work with his martial siblings, and when he had tried, it… didn’t really work out.

There are a lot of examples in which missions with a martial sibling other than Mu Qingfang have not worked out, but the paragon amongst them all was that first mission with his fellow head disciple, Liu Qingge. Whenever Shang Qinghua thinks about why Mu Qingfang is his preferred mission partner, that one clusterfuck with Liu-shidi always comes to the forefront of his mind no matter how he wishes he could just forget about it.

A lot of the reason that mission had been such a total failure, in hindsight, really doesn’t have anything to do with Shang Qinghua at all, and a lot to do with the fact that Liu Qingge had, at the time, held such a low opinion of Shang Qinghua that it made working with the man an absolute trial.

In Liu Qingge’s defense, he’s much better nowadays. Like, a lot better. He barely glares at him anymore, even! Well, Liu-shidi glares at everyone, that’s sort of his default expression, but the glare is much less scary when pointed in Shang Qinghua’s direction than it had been even just a year ago! Progress!

Shang Qinghua ducks under the heavy swipe of one colossal, furry paw, complete with wickedly sharp claws that peak out just above the oversized toe-beans, and resists the urge to wail. He yanks out his sword and hops onto it like it’s a snowboard, and directs it into the air with a monumental push of his qi. The claws miss the edge of his robes by mere inches, and Shang Qinghua starts to daydream, a little bit, about what kind of headstone he wants for his memorial.

There’s another big reason, which he’s being reminded of right now, why Shang Qinghua would actually rather be partnered on a mission with anyone other than Liu Qingge.

The man loves monster fighting.

Now, listen. Listen! Shang Qinghua, he is a big fan of the monsters of this world. Mainly because he created most of them himself. They are just as much his beautiful (and sometimes incredibly less-so) babies as the characters he’d spent hours crafting with his words. Seeing them in full-form, brought to very real life in this world that is fashioned after his story is so fucking cool, but also! Actually mainly! Very, very fucking terrifying. Because those things, most of them, can, will, and have certainly tried, many a time in the past, to kill him.

And Liu Qingge’s absolute, favorite pastime is hunting these creatures down and facing off against them, for fun.

So like, sue Shang Qinghua if he can’t really see the appeal.

He’d rather be stuck in his office surrounded by stacks of unfinished paperwork with a deadline, than be dragged out by his martial brother to face another monster. At least then, he would be safe, and not have to deal with nearly being shredded by giant titan tiger claws, thanks!

Unfortunately for Shang Qinghua, ever since Liu Qingge had decided, for some reason that he still couldn’t figure out, that they are friends, he’s been coming to An Ding to regularly kidnap Shang Qinghua and force him out on what the man probably thinks is fun, bonding time between martial brothers or something.

It’s not. It’s not fun. It’s certainly bonding time, perhaps, if only because of the many times Liu Qingge has been forced to come over and save Shang Qinghua’s skin. Then again, Shang Qinghua has also been forced to save Liu Qingge’s skin, through vastly different means than Liu Qingge has saved his, so maybe it is some type of bonding? Experiencing life-threatening situations together is a sure-fire way to form close ties with someone. Like, that’s a legitimate trope. Shang Qinghua has used that one in his own stories many a time before.

So, Liu Qingge might be onto something here. But Shang Qinghua wishes he’d choose some other way to level up their apparent friendship than monster hunting. Can’t they just stay home and have tea? Play some go? Not potentially die?!

“Qinghua!” Liu Qingge calls. He sounds a little exasperated. He’s exasperated, huh? Shang Qinghua is exasperated with this entire trip! “Pay attention!”

Shang Qinghua ducks again, aiming his sword down sharply as his shidi’s sword shrieks by overhead in the spot he’d just been, to parry the monster’s attack with a serious OP swing of the same blade.

It’s really unfair, sometimes, watching how easily powerful his martial family can be. And then there’s Shang Qinghua, who… isn't, really? Just, nowhere near as powerful as the likes of Liu Qingge, or Yue Qingyuan.

Then again, maybe that’s trying to compare 5G internet to dial up? They’re simply in entirely different leagues.

Shang Qinghua’s eyes water as he rockets toward the ground, to where there huddles a cluster of disciples that stare with wide-eyes and awed faces as Liu-shidi does his thing. Their expressions are practically meme-worthy. God, he misses the internet so, so much. He might cry.

Wait, no, he can’t cry right now, the Bai Zhan disciples are right there, and they will make fun of him for it. Absolutely no respect with these kids. Liu-shidi, please teach your peak disciples some manners!

“Shang-shibo,” one of them complains, sword unsheathed entirely and obviously rearing for some action. “Does Shizun — does he want —?”

Shang Qinghua holds up a hand. The disciple falls silent, and the entire group of them watch him like over-eager hawks waiting for their prey to make a mistake. He takes a moment to catch his breath.

“No,” he eventually says, sending a brief glance over his shoulder to where the Bai Zhan peak lord is going head to head with a flying tiger the size of a dragon. “Shizhi, does your Shizun look like he wants help? Does your Shizun ever want help?”

One of the other disciples, a girl this time, bearing biceps that might be bigger than melons, grumbles. “He doesn’t. But why can’t we fight, too? It’s not fair, Shibo!”

“What wouldn’t be fair, is having both your arms ripped off before you can even graduate Jiedan.” Shang Qinghua refutes, and begins to herd the lot of them back toward the tree line so that they are at least out of sight. “This beast is a third-rank Flying Thunder Deity, it is so far out of your league in terms of strength that I’m currently questioning whether we should have brought you all with us on this mission in the first place.”

The disciples look disgruntled.

“But, Shibo—!”

“Nope!” Shang Qinghua holds up a finger and gives them all a stern look. Liu Qingge may not give a fuck whether his disciples remain unscathed or not — honestly, the man likely assumed them to all have fled like smart disciples of their level would, but he obviously greatly underestimated their enthusiasm for a good fight. Which is just incredibly fucking ironic of him. Anyway, no disciple of Cang Qiong sect is going to be in harm's way, if Shang Qinghua has any say about it. “I don’t want to hear it. All of you stay here, if I see a single limb out of these trees, I’ll assign the lot of you as aids to my paper-pushers for three months.”

At their adequately horrified looks, Shang Qinghua decides that his job here is as done as it can be, and so he turns around to peer back out at the currently thunderous (as the name of the beast might suggest) battle currently being waged. If any of the disciples decide to actually take their chances — both at potentially becoming paste on the ground and being stuck helping his disciples with copying out fresh requisition forms, then that’s not exactly his problem, is it? Shang Qinghua tried his best!

He rises up on his sword to where his shidi is fighting the Flying Thunder Deity several hundred feet up in the sky.

Aerial combat has never been Shang Qinghua’s strong suit, and quite honestly it’s neither the strong suit of any other cultivator, strong in battle as Liu-shidi or not. There’s just something about attempting to juggle needing to balance on your soul sword to stay in the air and also needing that same weapon to fight with, that is just altogether difficult.

It’s fifteen minutes of ducking and weaving and praying that he can move just fast as to be an irritating enough pest to the Deity that it turns it’s attention onto Shang Qinghua and consequently gives Liu Qingge the opening he needs, when Shang Qinghua’s hopes come true a little too well.

The thunderous (ha-ha) expression that graces Liu Qingge’s face when the Flying Thunder Deity snaps it’s huge, hulk of heard forward and encloses him in its massive jaws would have been gratifying in literally any other circumstance. Shidi! You do care! Or are you pissed at Shang Qinghua, for being so slow and requiring rescuing yet again? He’s sorry, Liu-shidi, he really is! Next time he would move faster! Or better yet, not come at all! Just as he’d originally begged you, shidi!

Shang Qinghua wishes that people would listen to him more. It would make his life so much less stressful than it is.

“Qinghua!” Liu Qingge shouts, with a tone to it that makes Shang Qinghua’s heart stutter oddly. Or maybe that’s because he’s, you know, currently trapped in the mouth of a vicious monster that probably won’t hesitate to swallow him whole? But, could it be, that Liu-shidi really does care?

Such ponderous thoughts will have to be shelved for now, to be ruminated upon later when he’s safe. For now, Shang Qinghua curls up into a ball, shaking like a leaf, his elbow bouncing off a curving incisor that’s nearly the length of his entire body, and he can’t help but let out a terrified cry.

This is it, isn’t it? Nearly a century of surviving against all odds, making it through perilous situation with no hope after perilous situation, avoiding death flag after death flag, to be eaten by this hungry, flying tiger the size of a small mountain.

Truly, he’s so blessed to be going out with such a bang.

System! Shang Qinghua wails miserably inside his head, a series of loud whimpers bursting from his mouth without his permission. Be useful for once and lend me a scenario pusher!

The cheerful ding that rings throughout his mind is incredibly ignorant of the current circumstances. [Request acknowledged! Please contact customer support to undergo an eligibility survey.]

There is no such thing as customer support, Shang Qinghua knows. He’s neither a customer, nor is he sure that the System actually has any higher power that it answers to. It clearly loves fucking with him, though, and he clenches his jaw and screams through his teeth in frustration as the sharp point of one of those too-close teeth digs viciously into his side.

I don’t have time for that! Fuck! System, please! I don’t want to die! Be nice to me for once in your miserable existence! I deserve it, dammit!

There’s a brief pause, and during it Shang Qinghua thinks he can hear his shidi yelling amongst the sounds of battle.

[... Host’s complaint has been posted and reviewed.] Oh, wow. That’s a first! [Due to Hosts exemplary services rendered, compensation has been rewarded. Would host like to exchange for a scenario pusher?]

Just save me already! Shang Qinghua demands, curling into an even tighter ball. The tooth digs into his flesh painfully, and he bites back a sob.

[Compensation loading…]

The tiger is growling, now. Shang Qinghua can feel the coalescing vibrations of the sound as it emanates from behind him, from deep within the beats chest, rippling sound waves that travel up it’s throat and make him tremble from the force of them alone. His skull is split by a resounding headache, and his vision doubles. It’s like being trapped inside a subwoofer box, and it hurts.

Shang Qinghua is struck rather suddenly by a massive fit of vertigo, as the tiger seems to shake its head in response to whatever attack Liu Qingge is throwing at it. Being inside its mouth, the motion sends the An Ding peak lord sprawling, and he nearly impales himself on one of it’s incisors. Thankfully, being covered in its saliva, though disgusting, seems to be a silver lining of some sort, because he’s by now slippery enough with it that the tooth only deals him a glancing blow. Despite not being as fatal as it could have been otherwise, it still hurts enough, sharply enough, that Shang Qinghua can’t hold back the cry of pain and surprise that escapes him.

The deep vibrations of the growl come to an abrupt halt. Shang Qinghua only has time to hear Liu Qingge make a distant sound of confusion and anger, before he’s unceremoniously spat out into the open air.

It’s a relief! Truly, it is, to be freed of the tight, damp space that was a beast’s hungry maw at long last. However, there’s still a problem! A big one!

Shang Qinghua doesn’t have his sword, and they’re all still hanging out several hundred feet up in the air! By the laws of physics, he has only a brief millisecond to feel any sort of relief before he goes plummeting to his death. He brings up his arms to shield his face from the turbulent air, robes flapping in its vicious currents.

“Qinghua!”

He peeks open eyes that he doesn’t recall closing to find his amazing, beautiful, talented shidi diving down beside him, sword under his feet and hand held outstretched toward him. Shang Qinghua doesn’t have enough air in his life to breath out a sigh of relief as he reaches out for him, ready to cry, because within the very next second he’s ripped away from the help by a big, furry blur that knocks him out of the sky entirely.

He continues to fall for a few long, terrifying seconds, and then he’s fighting to breathe not because the air is moving past him too fast to catch, but because he’s been submerged in water.

He panics, kicking his legs uselessly against the heavy weight of the tide that wraps around him and shoves him roughly to and fro. He’s not entirely certain which way is up and which way is down. His lungs are tight and painful with their pleas for air, and Shang Qinghua can see spots begin to dance before his vision.

Something grabs onto the very back of his robes, then, and he’s dragged out of the water and lands heavily on a patch of what he’s able to eventually identify as grass, once his mind has enough ragged gasps of sweet, sweet oxygen to get itself into working order again.

He rolls himself over and onto his knees, fisting his hands in the grass as he spits out mouthful after mouthful of water. His eyes sting with tears, but thankfully he’s so soaked he doesn’t think they will be all that apparent to anyone who thinks to look at him now. He brings up a hand, to press the back of his fist into his mouth and smother the sob that wants to burst free. He doesn’t really succeed.

There’s an odd sound from nearby, almost like an engine of some sort, which is incredibly confusing because Shang Qinghua hasn’t heard anything of the like since his last life, where the world was much more industrially advanced. There’s a brief moment of confusion, where his mind races in trying to correlate the sound with something that makes more sense, before something big and warm presses against his side and nuzzles heavily into his neck.

Shang Qinghua blinks, dumbly, vision still swimming in such a way that it makes his aching, pounding head revolt in nausea, but after a moment he’s able to turn his head to the side and get a mouthful of fur instead of a visual.

He splutters, reeling back, which of course gives the Flying Thunder Deity, which is no longer flying nor deity-sized, to press forward even more. It knocks the befuddled Shang Qinghua into the grass and clambers over him, purring loudly and aggressively all the while as it nuzzles him and butts it’s head into his again and again.

“Um,” someone says, and Shang Qinghua blearily looks up from the now normal-sized tiger to find a group of disciples staring down at him, looking just as confused as he feels. “Shang-shibo?”

He blinks, head canting toward the side as the Flying Thunder Deity shoves at it with it’s leathery nose. It’s purring so loudly he can feel it in his jaw. “Yes?”

“Would you, uh…” The disciple speaking gestures at him and the tiger. “Would you like help?”

“Hm,” Shang Qinghua considers the offer, laid flat out on the ground as he is while being aggressively cuddled by a suddenly, oddly, terrifyingly over-affectionate tiger that had literally, just a few moments ago, tried to eat him. “.... Hmm.”

“Mwrrrr,” the tiger echoes, long whiskers tickling Shang Qinghua’s face.

“...Shang-shibo?”

“Qinghua!” Ah, look who finally decides to join them!

Liu Qingge barrels to a landing in the grass right beside him and barely has time to yank his sword up from under himself when the newly enamoured tiger jumps to its feet, bristling and hissing like a house cat facing an annoying, yapping dog that’s intruded into their home.

Liu Qingge is very visibly confused at the newest course of events, but there’s still a level of rage that thrums underneath it, and he readies his sword against the Thunder Deity, muscles twitching in anticipation that far exceeds his usual excitement for a fight. For some reason, that Shang Qinghua is currently too dazed to even guess at, it has become personal.

The tiger’s tail flicks, it’s sharp teeth bared as a growl erupts from its throat, and Shang Qinghua apparently had lost all common sense during his fall into the lake, because he props himself up on one elbow and reaches out his hand to curls it into the damp, wet fur around the tiger’s neck.

Immediately, the beast stops growling. It even turns its back to Liu Qingge! In order to plop down into Shang Qinghua’s lap and nuzzle it’s face into his neck, purring once again at full blast. The Bai Zhan disciples that are gathered a few hundred feet away make a series of quietly alarmed sounds. What the fuck! Liu Qingge looks just as confused.

“Qinghua?”

“I don’t know, shidi,” Shang Qinghua says, shrugging. It sends a ripple of pain that spikes in his lower abdomen and winds up his side, and he winces. “Ow.”

“You’re injured,” now Liu Qingge is frowning at him, but he doesn’t move to come any closer. His hand is whit knuckling the hilt of his sword, and he glances between Shang Qinghua and the tiger in open puzzlement.

“Yeah, kinda got impaled on its teeth,” Shang Qinghua replies, and makes a face. “When they were, uh, you know, bigger. Before...”

“It shrunk.” Liu Qingge states, scowling.

As if on cue, there’s a bright flash of light that momentarily blinds him, and the weight in Shang Qinghua’s lap shifts. Once his vision clears, he glances down to find a small, fuzzy little tiger cub gazing up at him with big, round, glistening eyes.

Shang Qinghua stares at it. The cub purrs, much softer than it had in its adolescent form, and gently butts it’s head against his chest, mewling quietly.

Shang Qinghua tears up. He can’t help it. He struggles to sit up, gathering the cub into his arms as he goes, and holds it against his chest. It’s fuzzy little ears perk up, tickling against his collar bone, and Shang Qinghua swallows.

Liu Qingge stares, as well, about as absolutely befuddled as the rest of them. After a moment, though, his face clears of its confusion, as if he’s decided to simply discard it, and he gives a shrug, hefting his sword arm up a bit and taking a step forward.

Shang Qinghua startles, scooting back a bit even though it pulls at his injury. “Shidi?!”

“It will be easier to kill, like this.” Liu Qingge says, nonchalant.

Shang Qinghua clutched the tiny, purring little tiger to his chest, aghast. “Shidi, no! It’s a baby!”

“It’s not,” Liu Qingge frowns at him. He points at the cub, who continues in its mission to aggressively cuddle the An Ding lord. “It’s a fully grown adult Flying Thunder Deity. It can just change its size.”

Shang Qinghua pauses. He pulls the still-purring cub away from his chest and holds it up to his eye-level.

“You tried to eat me,” he accuses.

The tiger cub blinks once, slowly, and lets out a tiny mewl in response.

“....” Shang Qinghua wraps his arms around the tiny thing and cuddles it to his chest. “I forgive you!”

“Shang Qinghua,” Liu Qingge exclaims, exasperated. Which! Not fair! Shang Qinghua wouldn’t even be here if it weren’t for him! So really, this is all Liu-shidi’s fault to begin with!

He tells him as such, and Liu Qingge scowls grumpily one response.

Shang Qinghua stands to his feet. And immediately tilts to the side. Liu Qingge steps forward, sword sheathed, to catch him around the waist, and the tiger gives a startled meow as it’s suddenly squished between the two of them.

Both men stare down at it. It blinks up at them for a moment, before turning to nuzzle it’s face into the dampened collar of Shang Qinghua’s robes, closing its eyes as if it's decided to take a nap then and there.

“You can’t tell me you’re going to kill it,” Shang Qinghua says. His words are beginning to slur together. “It’s too cute, Qingge!”

Liu Qingge tenses slightly at his given name, as he always seems to do when Shang Qinghua uses it. If he didn’t want him saying it, he shouldn’t have given him permission in the first place! After a moment, the man relaxes, and something about his face is… not as fierce, somehow.

Shang Qinghua doesn’t know what that means.

“You’re soaked,” Liu Qingge says. “... And injured.”

“Impaled,” Shang Qinghua reminds him, blinking his eyes slowly. They feel a little heavy. Maybe the tiger had the right idea of a nap. “Almost drowned.”

Liu Qingge frowns at the reminder. He stoops down after a moment and scoops up Shang Qinghua’s legs. Normally, he would protest being bridal carried like some maiden, but right now he’s way too tired. He rests his head against Liu Qingge’s shoulder, the tiger purring sleepily on his stomach, and closes his eyes.

There’s a quiet cough. “Shizun.” One of the disciples speaks. They sound embarrassed, for some reason?

“We’re heading back to the sect.” Liu Qingge announces.

“The, ah… the tiger?”

There’s a long moment of thoughtful silence. Then, “It’s your Shibo’s.”

“Ah…. okay….”

Shang Qinghua turns his face into his shidi’s collar and falls into a doze.

[immaturityofthomasastruc]

(Accidental 150 Follower Special) IOTA's Top 10 Worst Episodes of Miraculous Ladybug (Part 1)

If you saw one of my earlier posts, an anon asked what my favorite and least favorite episodes of Miraculous Ladybug were. So, I decided to make a little list explaining the best and worst this show has to offer.

A few quick ground rules here. I'm not going to list any episodes I had previously talked about in some of my other posts. This includes “Kung Food”, “Animaestro”, “Syren”, “Reflekdoll”, “Chameleon”, and most of the episodes relating to Chloe's “damnation arc” that Astruc planned since he first created the character (“Despair Bear”, “Queen Wasp”, “Malediktator” and “Battle of the Miraculous”). Also, I'm not counting the specials, mainly because aren't listed as episodes, and because I don't want to talk about them.

Other than that, anything goes, so let's get things started with the worst list.

These are the Top 10 Worst Episodes of Miraculous Ladybug (in my personal opinion because your opinion is also valid)

#10: Stormy Weather 2

“Stormy Weather” was the very first episode of the show, and it really made a good impression on new viewers. So naturally, when it was announced that Stormy Weather would return, fans were excited. Then when the episode aired, Hawkmoth gave her even more powers, including the power to create a volcano big enough to potentially knock the planet out of orbit when it erupts. So Ladybug and Cat Noir have no choice but to stop the villain once again.

What does this plot lead to?

Yep, this episode is nothing more than a clip show. I understand that clip shows and bottle episodes are a necessary evil, but why would you set up something this awesome with a fan-favorite Akuma like Stormy Weather, and then not even bother to show it?

This episode is yet another attempt at showing that the show totally has character development. The whole reason Aurore is Akumatized into Stormy Weather again is because Chloe says that people can't change because Astruc (who was one of the four people writing this episode) is determined to make you hate this teenage girl more than the main villain of the show.

So of course, everyone spends most of the episode talking about how much they've changed, which is represented through clips of past episodes that do a horrible job at actually conveying any development.

According to Marinette, Adrien has “become a friend she can talk to about anything, except when it comes to her feelings for him”. Ah yes, you can tell they're friends by the fact that they barely hang out together, much less share a conversation because the writers are going to drag out the whole “Marinette stammering in front of Adrien” until they get tired of it. So basically, never.

All Alya and Nino talk about is how Ladybug helped them become a couple, and become superheroes, even though neither of those are actually related to character development. Though that is a fitting metaphor for the way both of their personalities have basically devolved to “the couple”.

Chloe talks about how nicer she's gotten, while footage of her doing awful things is played. I wonder who wrote that part in...

Even Ladybug and Cat Noir talk about how much they've grown and how stronger they've gotten, as opposed to focusing on STOPPING ANOTHER ICE AGE FROM HAPPENING. How can Hawkmoth even think this will get him the Miraculous? Yeah, sure I guess he can get them from the frozen corpses of our heroes, but what then? He still doomed humanity, and I don't think he can reverse the damage like Ladybug.

Towards the end, the clip show becomes slightly interesting, as Adrien mentions an unsigned card he got for Valentine's Day in “Dark Cupid”, and how similar the handwriting looks to Marinette's.

Does this lead to Adrien figuring out Marinette has feelings for him? Is the sky bright red? Both of these questions have the same answer.

Yeah, out of nowhere, Adrien just mentions Luka, who wasn't mentioned at all in this episode, and immediately thinks Marinette is in love with him. And that's how the episode ends.

I put this at the bottom of the list because I don't think it's completely fair to judge clip shows, but even some clip shows at least try to put in some effort and justify the clips, like what The Legend of Korra and some seasons of Power Rangers did. And the fact that the whole point of the episode is a poor excuse to claim that there's character development in the show only makes it even more infuriating.

Oh my God, this is only Number 10...

#9: Oblivio

While I already talked about “Cat Blanc”, this episode shares a similar theme as that episode: Giving viewers what they've wanted for three seasons, Marinette and Adrien finally learning each other's identity and starting a romantic relationship... only for the reset button to be once again slammed, making the entire episode pointless.

The only difference is that unlike in “Cat Blanc”, where there was an actual love confession that made sense, here, Marinette and Adrien find out the other's identity when they get their memories wiped by the Akuma of the week, Oblivio.

From then on, it's just fanservice. Instead of actually developing the relationship between Marinette and Adrien, the writers just decide to cram an entire episode worth of Adrienette content into a single episode just to tide fans over. Marinette and Adrien seriously fall in love despite only knowing each other for like, an hour at most. And the fact that the writers undo all the romantic progress of the episode makes it come across as pointless.

But the ending is what really cements this episode's spot on the list. As soon as Oblivio is defeated, Alya takes a picture of Ladybug and Cat Noir kissing without their consent and then rubs it in Ladybug's face.

Even though Ladybug doesn't know the circumstances (she has no memory of the events of the episode), this was still an invasion of her privacy, and she looks horrified by the picture that Alya is obviously going to post on her blog.

And of course, Cat Noir is more than happy to see it, ignoring how Ladybug feels and claims that they'd make a great couple. Because everyone knows good couples are formed by someone gaslighting the other into going out with them.

But wait, it gets better! In the next scene, we learn that Alya and Nino were akumatized into Oblivio... because they were caught in an embarrassing situation by their peers.

Alya: Remember when we visited Montparnasse Tower? Well, we went and hid to play Super Penguino, but Ms. Bustier caught us, and...

Nino: And you guys made fun of us for playing that game, saying it wasn't our age and all.

Alya: We were totally embarrassed at getting caught.

This was my thought process when I first heard Alya and Nino's explanation.

How can Alya claim to take a compromising picture of Ladybug, ignore how she feels, and not realize the similarity from when she and Nino were akumatized? This is what completely killed Alya for me in canon. This was the point where I couldn't care less if Marinette was friends with her or not. Sure, there are still fanfics, but those actually portray her with some kind of conscious. So to summarize, Fanon Alya is awesome, but I hope Canon Alya's 4G plan runs out.

This episode is just forgettable, but the ending made things worse. Apart from, I guess the action scenes and some funny jokes, this episode has no redeeming qualities. Like, literally the best thing to come from this episode was @miraculouscontent​‘s LadyBugOut AU, as it actually addressed the hypocrisy of Alya's character, among other problematic aspects of the show.

#8: Oni-Chan

Just a heads up, most of the episodes on this list are from Season 3. Just want to give you an idea of what to expect.

This episode is about Lila tricking Adrien into helping with her homework, when she is only doing it to get closer to Adrien. Marinette tries to spy on the two and stop Lila from hurting Adrien... even though she knows Adrien is aware that Lila is a liar, and is visibly uncomfortable around her.

And because the episode spends so much time on Marinette following Adrien and Lila, the buildup to Kagami getting akumatized is incredibly rushed. Seriously, she gets a single line of dialogue before she gets akumatized, and the motive is ridiculous too. Lila sends a picture of her forcing a kiss on Adrien, and Kagami immediately bursts into tears at the sight of it.

But wait, it gets better! When Kagami is akumatized into Oni-Chan (the writers know that's a term used for males in Japan, right?), she turns into a psycho hellbent on killing Lila because “Adrien doesn't deserve her”. Most of her dialogue is her saying how much she loves Adrien, making her come across as, for lack of a better word, a yandere.

This episode just destroys Kagami's character, making her as unlikable as Katie Killjoy in the process. If it wasn't for “Ikari Gozen” actually treating her like a human being (obviously Astruc's planned character development from the beginning), I'd completely hate her.

It also shows how much of an evil genius Lila is, as she has the brilliant idea to convince Oni-Chan to kill the only person capable of saving her from the Akuma's wrath. And this somehow gives Hawkmoth the idea to forge an alliance with Lila. It's also another reason why I believe in Darwinism.

This episode is low on the list because it does have a few redeeming qualities, like Lila facing consequences for lying, however brief they may be, and it has a great character moment with Adrien realizing on his own how terrible Lila really is, a far cry from what he was like in “Chameleon”.

Other than that, it's pretty bad, and still deserves a spot on this list.

#7: Antibug

HA! I said MOST of the episodes involving Chloe's “Damnation Arc” wouldn't be on this list, but not ALL OF THEM, so this one counts! Take that, convoluted rules I made up for some reason!

What was I talking about again? Oh right, “Antibug”. Oh crap, “Antibug”...

This is one of of several episodes in Miraculous Ladybug that really should have been a two-parter. It tries to be daring and includes two Akumas in one episode, but both of them are poorly executed.

An invisibly entity starts harassing Chloe, so Ladybug and Cat Noir start an investigation. It turns out to be Chloe's lackey Sabrina, who was akumatized after a falling out between the two. Well, I say “falling out” lightly, because what actually happened was that Chloe and Sabrina were cosplaying as Ladybug and Cat Noir, Chloe pretended to be the real deal while crashing an interview with Jagged Stone before Sabrina accidentally blew her cover, causing Chloe to be humiliated on TV and end her “friendship” with Sabrina.

Ladybug learns this from Chloe's butler, while Chloe never mentions the incident. So when Ladybug and Cat Noir engage the Akuma, Ladybug ignores Chloe's advice on where the corrupted object, naturally not trusting her judgment. And this is portrayed as a bad thing.

This episode is the start of a long-running trend in Miraculous Ladybug: Marinette needing to learn a lesson, while Adrien/Cat Noir is the one to help teach that lesson.

Chloe did nothing to help, only made things worse, and lied about why Sabrina got akumatized. It's kind of obvious why Ladybug wouldn't trust her word. The whole point of The Boy Who Cried Wolf wasn't to trust the liar after all.

But if that was all the episode did, it wouldn't be on the list, because now, the narrative wants to make the audience feel bad for Chloe before she gets akumatized into Antibug... who is just a lazy palette swap because new character models are expensive.

This part of the episode isn't nearly as bad as the first half, but like “Oni-Chan”, Chloe's akumatization is incredibly rushed, and we don't really get a chance to sympathize with her before she goes full Antibug.

Even Antibug herself isn't that interesting of a villain. The whole idea of an evil doppelganger is that they're a perfect match for the hero, but we only see Ladybug and Antibug fight for a few seconds, while Cat Noir does most of the fighting with her while Marinette's Kwami recharges. I like that Ladybug and Cat Noir show their teamwork to defeat Antibug, but I feel it would have been more interesting to see Ladybug and Antibug duke it out before Cat Noir helps turn the tide.

Again, this episode really needed to be a two-parter to better expand on the story presented here, because it had a really interesting premise. I'd personally read the version of “Antibug” in @justanotherpersonsuniverse​‘s “The Adventures of Panthera Noire” (an AU fanfic where shy girl Juleka gets the Cat Miraculous instead of Adrien). Not only does it have two separate chapters for Vanisher and Antibug, it also does a good job of setting Chloe on an actual redemption arc, unlike Astruc's “damnation arc”.

#6: The Puppeteer 2

As much as I've ragged on Adrien/Cat Noir in some of my other posts (and will continue to do so in this list), that doesn't mean I think Marinette has problems too, and this episode is a prime example.

Marinette and Adrien go to a wax statue museum with their friends (and Manon), but because of a poor choice of words by Nino, Adrien thinks that Marinette hates him. So he does something that everyone loves, practical jokes.

Adrien seriously thinks that pranking Marinette will improve her opinion of him. Even the prank is ridiculous, pretending to be a wax statue to make her laugh. And it leads to... Oh God... This is easily the contender for one of the worst moments in the entire show. Marinette goes up to the statue and... gets close to it. Yes, we, the audience know that this isn't a statue, but putting that aside, just look at what Marinette does to the “statue” (AUTHOR’S NOTE: I made a gif from the episode, but it wouldn’t go through, so I recommend you check out the episode and watch the statue scene for yourself if you don’t value your sanity). Even Adrien, as dense as he can be, is a little unsettled by what Marinette does.

If the scene was about Marinette talking about her feelings for Adrien, I'd be more lenient on it, but this? This is just uncomfortable to watch.

Even the dialogue makes Marinette sound incredibly creepy.

Marinette: Wow... it looks so... real. The wax is nearly as hot as skin. It even smells exactly like him...! Oh, beautiful statue of Adrien, your wax is so soft! Your yak hair is silky. Your eyes are so green. Oh, shall I be a statue, too! Everything would be so much easier. Why haven't we been molded together in the plaster of destiny? Marble to marble, wax lips against wax lips, entwined for eternity...

I think Gilbert Gottfried said it best.

This scene alone put this episode on the list, and the Akuma doesn't make it better. I really liked “The Puppeteer”, and I thought her ability to control past Akuma victims was incredibly fun to watch. And when she returns to take control of the wax statues of past Akumas they... don't use their powers (with the exception), and serve as cannon fodder for Ladybug and Cat Noir to plow through, making the return of the villain very underwhelming.

Even the end where Adrien tells Marinette that he is in love with someone and only sees her as a friend. This should devastate Marinette, but in the next scene, thanks to some fortune cookie nonsense from Tikki, she's still unsure about her relationship with Adrien, and that's how the episode ends. Seriously. Because just need to keep the status quo consistent, right? It's not like Marinette doubting her crush on Adrien and worrying that she's just wasted her time would have been interesting to see, right? Play that happy ending theme already!

Of all the episodes on this list, this is the one I was dreading talking about the most because of some of the moments here. And yet, there are still episodes that are worse than this one...

Here’s Part 2

[mc-critical]

Do you think MC hurrem, before the bayezid and selim conflict of course, ever considered that the traditional fratricide could possibly happen amongst her sons? Mustafa hypothetically killing her sons if he became sultan is constantly used as a reason for why she had to get rid of him but how could multiple princes having the same mother resolve any potential conflict for the throne? Sorry idk if what i said makes sense

Don't worry at all, I understood you perfectly! ^^

No, I don't think MC Hürrem considered that possibility as strongly before the inevitable occured.

First off, her adaption to the harem was a slow and gradual process and she certainly didn't become aware of all the rules, all the sudden. (as when she was surprised that Mustafa was getting his own harem before the sanjack) She knew enough to set a goal in her mind from the first episode, but didn't get to see the full picture until she went through fulfilling that goal step by step and saw an obstacle that would be impossible to ignore. She was so focused on the path to survive, she brushed off the cost of said path in the first place.

It's true that in the beginning, there wasn't a reason for her to consider possible ongoing rivalry or fratricide between her sons. Nigar told her that she would rule the world if she gives the Sultan a child and when she becomes aware of the competition in the harem, what would make her prevail over them all, guided by her desire to make SS only hers and maintain power, for she would stop undergoing the same trauma and disrespect all over again? More children! We could argue that, throughout season 1, she views having more children as a privilege - not only does it secure more her position as a favorite, but it makes her gain advantage and power over her rival in this game. Notice how she boasts about the possibility alone in front of Mahidevran in both E06 and E11! ("It will be a boy. Then it will be a boy again. Then it will be a boy again and again..."; "I will give birth to many princes, but you won't even give birth to a girl.") These lines could be an attempt of assertion and a mask of vulnerability and insecurity, in a way, but this is far from the only thing going on. Not just the children, but the princes specifically are capilatized on, because bearing one is considered an honor in this harem and for every pregnancy, Hürrem expresses an almost firm confidence that it will be, without a doubt, a prince. The whole system in the show, sadly enough, encourages that whoever has more sons is more powerful and will get everyone else out of their way eventually, without shining a light on the more grim implications and what the mothers will possibly have to go through with their many sons, to the point it simply leaves them to find this out by themselves. It puts the princes in idealized superiority that is one of the first things Hürrem gets used to and that's why she was initially taken aback when Mihrimah was born instead of another prince she wanted so much. By that point, she had no time to consider eventual conflicts or fratricide because of her (initial) upper hand.

The higher stakes were kept under wraps in the series itself, too, because of its Cerebus Syndrome nature that lets you endear with the characters at first in lighter, more mainly interpersonal situations and then move to the wider scale of the historical themes, having them grow as people and political players and realize the bigger context along with the evolution of the narrative. That is coupled with the children's ages, for the small age, to me, was presented as a symbol of innocence. There's this prevailing trend in Hürrem's character during season 2 where she kept saying that Mustafa is too little for doing certain stuff (like going to a campaign, to a province, etc.) and that, I think, is telling enough of the amount of awareness she had for an eventual conflict between her sons. That was a general theme of the show, too, because both Mahidevran and Hürrem held no ill will against the other's children when they were small, as seen by them taking care of them during the janissary rebellion and Mahidevran saving Mehmet in E16. The children themselves weren't a priority of eradication for them back then and when they were little, they were something worth protecting as a mother's value, not tools to be moulded for the future battle for the throne. When their mothers find a common ground in this aspect, would a conflict between children of one and the same mother be possible? Only when they grow up, awareness comes to the surface, bacause by the time they're still small, they're harmless and innocent. (handicapped by SS's words to Mustafa in E46: "As you grow up, the innocence between us disappears, my Mustafa.") Even Hürrem set herself against Mustafa only by E38 and she didn't want his death until then. Knowing this, could she predict that something could go wrong between her own sons, no less? Doesn't she have other stuff to do until she reaches that point? Isn't she too busy in forging her own survival path and not think as much about her children before they grow up?

Then again, Hürrem has shown to be capable of anything to always remain in SS's good graces both because she is devoted to him and for her own goals. The princes play a part in this, because they have to gain the padişah's support first and foremost and that simply cannot be done through quarrels. Hürrem may have grown wise to this, with the many cases of her ordering the children to go away once a conflict of any kind ensues and especially, always telling them throughout season 3 not to fight with each other, not even because of her, and stressing that family is the most important thing. She may have wanted their childhoods to be as peaceful as possible, rendering them (except Mihrimah) oblivious to what she's gone through, which gave them a sense of naivety in the process. And while that naivety turned out to be a double-edged sword (as we saw with Mehmet fully believing Illyas and Cihangir believing in SS's promise that he won't sacrifice Mustafa), it could've been a way for Hürrem to make sure that her children in general would always seek a consensus and look good in front of the sultan. That didn't end up being the case. Despite of these possible measures of hers, I doubt she got fully aware of the possibility, precisely because of her set goals. Even though the dismissal of Selim and Bayezid's conflict became a main arc of Hürrem's in S04, there were also hints of this in S02, shown by E53: "Such a sun will rise that that sun will only rise for me and my children." Her fixation on Mustafa as the single pivotal moment of her life fight is a huge character flaw of hers almost right from the moment she began to see him as a threat and even from her first attempt, as we see by the quote above, she thinks that by eliminating him, it would be all over, assuringly discarding everything else afterwards. And Selim and Bayezid were already arguing by that episode and it only escalated further since then, because of her ignorance as a part of the whole issue.

It's even questionable whether she has ever thought that, maybe there is more work to be done after Mustafa, because Hürrem's fixation became more predominant as the series progressed, in conjunction with the evergrowing Selim and Bayezid conflict. It was already so prevalent by S04 that Hürrem went as far as to blame Mustafa for the first big scandal between them in E112 and Mihrimah had to remind her of their rivalry-slowly-turning-to-enmity's very existence in the first half of the season that is there in spite of who Hürrem thinks is the bigger problem. She didn't give it the significant attention it deserved when they were little and I, for one, believe that she had to investigate more when Selim set Bayezid's arrow up for failure around E91/92 and not scold only Bayezid, for it only heightened his resentment for Selim. She didn't think of it as something that big to deal with, it was probably a problem they would fix by themselves for good measure, because they're still children after all, aren't they? But a resentment of a child could only continue to live on, especially in such a time period, so if Hürrem, knowing how paranoid she could be and how much she tried to evade everything that could oppose her success, predicted the future mass of the conflict, wouldn't she do something more, wouldn't she nullify it? It's a given that she can't be next to them in every single minute of the day, but the possible outcome itself just screams for tiiiny bit more involvement on her part. The earlier you interfere, the earlier would stop the obstacle in its entirety. Hürrem is smart enough to know this, so the logical thing is that she didn't fully take all that into account. She couldn't, and possibly didn't, want to predict this as a mother.

The very realization of the actual massive power of Selim and Bayezid's enmity and her newfound inability to interfere almost at all to it came as such a surprise for her. She not only completely miscalculated, but it broke her heart into pieces. She didn't see coming any conflict of the like, because if she did, even before the whole fiasco happened, early into S01-2, she would never let it reach such extremes. And the realization hit her in such an unexpected way that she wanted to escape the shock that she had to choose and try to solve things as she has always had, doing things that should've been done such a long time ago. Would she be so helpless when she finally came to terms with the following fratricide, if she saw it coming before the conflict even started?

In summary: Hürrem didn't think of something like this at all early on and when it happened, she did see the roots, but could never, not even in her dreams, imagine the devastating results.

Though yeah, could a conflict between sons of the same mother fully be resolved in circumstances like these? I very much doubt it. Even if the mother removed the tension between them, there are other factors we shouldn't forget (I refer to SS's reign in particular): they are sons of the same mother, but they're still candidates for the throne, hence they're rivals and both the people and the padişah will have to pick a favourite. No matter how impartial a sultan seems to be, he does end up picking sides eventually - whether it's about the province one is sent in, when they're sent in it, how often does he visit them, what in them does he approve or disprove of or how competent they are in his eyes. It's inevitable for them to live in absolute peace in an environment that would sooner or later cause them to fight until one's absolute and total failure.

[confused-stars]

actually do you think kurogiri's bar has a "It's been [ ] days since Tomura decayed something on accident" sign? this would be a nice fic prompt actually. probably worth a coffee or two. ;) ;)

the blatant bribery of this... and the fact that it’s working... (also this is just way cute and i just got home from being around my nephew so i’m very in the mood for baby Tomura shenanigans)

It comes from one of the parenting books Kurogiri was forced to pick up. He never criticizes All for One out loud, but dumping a child on him and making said child’s wellbeing his sole responsibility when Kurogiri barely knows how to take care of himself and his own needs was... not a choice expected from a man who claims to be the greatest villain mastermind in history.

Tomura’s quirk is an additional problem. He’s not allowed to wear gloves that would keep him from touching things with all five fingers, because All for One says he shouldn’t have to ‘shackle’ his quirk. Kurogiri doesn’t agree, but keeps silent as always. Accidents happen a lot. Tomura gets upset in the beginning, and Kurogiri distracts him with sugary snacks and video games - a stroke of luck, discovering video games as a sure way to capture Tomura’s attention and make him forget about the world for a while. They’re useful in keeping him busy when Kurogiri has to run other errands, and he barely ever has to pause to scratch at his neck and face when he’s playing.

Then, eventually, as he grows older and less terrified and more demanding, he stops getting upset. He knows Kurogiri will just replace what he destroys and clean up the dust every time with no fail. Game controllers, books, playing cards, chess pieces, glasses, utensils, plates, shoes, clothes in general - once, he decays his toothbrush fully on purpose because he hates brushing his teeth before bed.

So Kurogiri comes up with a strategy. 

Tomura blinks up at the board hanging up on the wall beside the bar, right next to the screen All for One uses to speak to them. “What’s this?” Kurogiri doesn’t bother answering that question. Tomura can read. He’s made sure the writing is very easily legible. ‘It has been [ ] days since Tomura decayed something on accident’ is what it says. The blank in the middle leaves more than enough room for what Kurogiri has planned. He reaches into his pocket and calmly places a single, sparkly star sticker into the empty field. “This stands for one day,” he explains. He’s fully aware that not that much of Tomura’s destruction is accidental anymore, otherwise this strategy probably wouldn’t work and only stress him out more, but if a reward system can be used to counter his growing carelessness, then that will only benefit him in the future.

Tomura cocks his head. Attentive. Kurogiri feels something like smug satisfaction, though muted as most of his emotions are. It’s easiest to get through to Tomura with praise. Kurogiri refuses to be just the mindless servant who cleans up after him and feeds him. No, he’ll have a part in raising the boy, too.

“What happens when I break something again?” he asks.

Kurogiri shrugs. “The sticker goes away. And you have to start over.”

Tomura rounds on him, glaring. It would be intimidating if he wasn’t so small. “That’s not fair!”

“If you can make it to ten stars,” Kurogiri continues, undeterred, “There is going to be a surprise for you.”

That makes Tomura reconsider. Children really are all the same, even if they are in unique situations. “... what kind of surprise?”

Kurogiri puts a juice box on the counter. “A good one. Something fun. Perhaps a new game you’ve been wanting. Or a night without a bedtime. Or a trip to someplace fun.” He has a list of ideas already, and Tomura’s eyes light up a little.

He still says: “I could make you do all that anyway.”

Kurogiri turns away, acting nonchalant. “You could, but then it wouldn’t be a surprise anymore, would it?”

Tomura is silent for a long moment. “... fine.”

He makes it fourteen days on the first try.

___

The board comes out again under the worst circumstances, Tomura thinks. Because he’s twenty years old and doesn’t need stickers anymore, thank you very much. Not that he doesn’t still decay things when he doesn’t mean to, sometimes. Mainly in the mornings or too late at night, or when he’s aggravated.

He still balks at the sight of it hanging in its old spot on the wall where it was taken down from when he was twelve or so.

Kurogiri raises his hands in an attempt to signal his innocence, though he seems far too amused.

“Look what we found, Tomura!” Toga grins and bounces on her heels, pointing at the board. “It’s so cute, with the stickers and all! Sparkly!”

“Yeah, it’s adorable,” Dabi drawls, for once present in the back of the bar, a shit-eating grin on his face.

Tomura wants to hide. Or kill all of them. “... why do we even still have that thing?”

Kurogiri makes a noncommittal noise, and Tomura scoffs.

“We’re making more of them!” Toga says, gesturing over to where Twice is sitting on the floor, working on a cardboard sign that says ‘It has been [ ] days since Dabi set someone on fire.’ Next to that one ‘It has been [ ] days since Spinner talked about Stain.’ and ‘It has been [ ] days since Mr. Compress called himself ‘old’.’

Tomura glances at Dabi. He’s entirely sure that particular sign will end up burned to ash within a night.

It doesn’t.

But it also never ends up collecting more than two stickers at most, and when he peels them off, Dabi always flicks them at Tomura over the bar.

It’s long after the bar is lost, and the signs with them that they all manage to reach ten days in their individual categories, and that’s only because Dabi’s been sick for a while and hasn’t left the quarry safehouse for two weeks.

So they get pizza, and they eat it in Dabi’s room, and he pretends to be grumpy about it, and Tomura pretends to be grumpy about having to spend time with them, but when they end up passing out all around the room and Tomura is still awake, he leans his back against the bed and thinks about Kurogiri. He’ll tell him about their progress when they see each other again.