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hellfirenacht · 7 months ago

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Saving Throws

Fic Summary: Hellfire is your favorite place to be, but why is it so hard to show up when the sun sets at 4 pm?

Tags: Eddie Munson x Reader, Seasonal Depression, Hurt/Comfort, suicidal ideation if you squint but Reader does NOT want to die and is not actively suicidal, drug use, smoking, no use of y/n, reader is not described, assumed fem!reader, happy ending, SFW

No Beta, we live and we laugh and we love.

Word Count: 4.8k

Master List

It wasn’t even 5 pm, and it was already dark outside. You hated it. Stuck all day in school, too cold to be outside during lunch, and by the time you made it home any daylight had already faded over the horizon. On the weekends you could at least enjoy sitting by the window, taking in as much daylight as you could, and when school let out during the week, there was at least that precious 2 hours before the darkness came.

Fridays were the hardest, even though they shouldn’t be. Fridays used to be the day you looked forward to most because that was Hellfire. It was the one day you were guaranteed to see Eddie and the rest of your friends. You hated that you were moved to a different lunch period.

It was grey and gloomy out, the leaves on the trees that had brought you joy just a few short weeks before were now empty and dead. It was cold. There was no sunlight this Friday.

You still sat outside, hoping that a shock of cold for a few minutes would snap you out of the fog that had been creeping in the back of your mind for the last few weeks. You knew it was coming, inevitable, but it never got easier. You wished there was something more you could do to slow it.

October was a pleasant distraction, and usually you could combat the worst of it until January. Holidays and Hellfire were the best things to hold onto until March.

Today wasn’t one of those days. You didn’t want to go to Hellfire, you didn’t think you’d be able to add any modifiers to your ability score. You didn’t think you could find your character voice or pick a fight with Gareth or team up with Jeff.

In your state, you felt like you might just let the party down. Let Eddie down.

That was the worst part. You could handle the rest of your friends being disappointed in you, but Eddie was different. If you missed Hellfire, there wasn’t any guarantee that you’d come back and have your character still be alive. Most days you loved that he was a bit ruthless and sadistic as a DM. Most days, you cackled as he threatened to off someone’s character for being late or dipping out early or missing Hellfire completely. Most days you loved him- his DM style, that is.

Most days.

Today wasn’t most days.

It was now two minutes to 3:00 pm. If you hurried now, you could make it without a lecture. If you were five minutes late, you could blame it on going to the bathroom and Eddie would give you a look but wouldn’t hound you too bad. Later than that...

You had never been later than that. You had only ever been late once, and Eddie had forgiven you by giving you disadvantage on a roll that caused your character damage but ultimately didn’t kill them.

It took you five minutes to force your body to move back inside, your whole body covered in goosebumps from the cold. You pulled your jacket back on as you trudged towards the storage room where Hellfire met every week. You walked down the stairs where Eddie was just now starting in on his opening monologue. Ever the professional, he shot you a look, but didn’t stop.

You hated that look, you hated the idea of letting Eddie down, ever.

The game passed by in a haze. Even Eddie’s antics and loud voice couldn’t fully keep your attention today. You felt like you spent most of the time telling yourself to focus rather than actually focusing. It was fine, Doug and Mike took charge of the dungeon and you were happy to let them have the spotlight. You hoped you looked more like you were focusing hard on the battles and strategies over spacing out.

The relief of the meeting being over was washed away by the dark parking lot, the sun long gone despite the early hours. Everyone else was chatting excitedly about the dungeon and you trailed behind, readying yourself to say goodbye before heading to your car.

Everyone was loitering around Eddie’s van while he pretended to be annoyed as he smoked a cigarette. You liked these moments, where everyone was together and you didn’t feel as though the pressure was weighing down on you. Outside of Hellfire, even if it was dark outside you were starting to feel a little lighter, the fog in your mind clearing just slightly.

You took a hit off of Eddie’s cigarette. You didn’t normally smoke but the burn in your lungs at least helped you focus. You didn’t even mind it when you were teased for coughing so much.

One by one everyone else was picked up or drifted to their own cars, leaving you and Eddie. You were about to say goodbye, when he spoke up.

“So, where were you?” Eddie asked, dropping the cigarette and crushing it out with his boot. In the silence of the night, you could hear the slight hiss of the embers dying under his old Reeboks.

“Huh?” you asked, head snapping up to meet his eyes. Eddie crossed his arms and leaned against the van.

“You were late today, and I was benevolent enough to let it slide.” he said. “So, where were you?”

You wanted to tell him that you were only a little late, but you didn’t have the energy to challenge him. Normally you enjoyed the occasional argument or play fight with Eddie but today you didn’t have the energy. That spark was as cold as the smushed cigarette.

“I was in the bathroom. Made the mistake of eating the surprise casserole during lunch.” you shrugged. You didn’t want to lie to him. You hated lying to him. But there was no good way to explain that the reason you were late was because you had to convince yourself to go. There was no way Eddie could understand, and you didn’t have the words to make him understand.

How the hell could you explain that the place you wanted to be most was also the place that something deep inside you couldn’t bare to face. You hadn’t done anything wrong. Your friends hadn’t done anything wrong. Eddie hadn’t done anything wrong. So why did everything have to feel so wrong?

Eddie seemed to accept your excuse for now. He clapped you on the back, which cleared the haze in your mind for just long enough to make your heart beat faster and for a moment you could think again.

“Don’t be late again.” he said sternly, an evil glint in his eyes that usually made you melt. “Or else.”

“I won’t.” you said, wishing you knew if you were lying or not.

You kept your promise through November. Sacrificing those few moments of Friday sunlight to go directly to the club room after the bell rang. You were still dragging your feet, convincing yourself that you wanted to be with your friends as your shoes squeaked on the linoleum tile.

That was the worst part, being at Hellfire did make you feel better once you were there. But getting there was harder than actually coming to school. You still weren’t fully alert during club, but at least you were there. As long as you were there then you wouldn’t be in trouble and your friends would still like you and Eddie would still want you around-

Why was he giving you that look? Eddie walked into the club and had a disapproving look on his face. Anxiety flooded your system, washing away the haze as alarm bells rang in your head. You were here, right? It was Hellfire and you were on time, early even! You were here before Eddie. You had your character sheet, you had your figurine, you weren’t sitting in his chair-

“Where’s your shirt?” Eddie asked, and you felt your face flush of all blood. Your shirt...?

To your horror, you looked down at your shirt. It was an old faded t-shirt with the logo long since gone. It was soft, and usually worn for bed-

You hadn’t fully gotten dressed this morning. You slept in this shirt and had just thrown on a hoodie over it, not even thinking about the fact that Hellfire was today. You were out of uniform.

Fuck.

When you forgot your homework during class, you didn’t care if teachers gave you that disapproving look. You could block out your peers jeering at you for what you wore, they didn’t matter.

None of them mattered, but Eddie did.

“....Fuck.” you said, mostly to yourself, staring at the offending and comfortable material.

You expected him to lecture you, like everyone else. You braced yourself for him to tell you to leave and come back when you knew how to dress yourself again. A small part of your brain almost hoped that he would.

Instead he just gave you that manic, evil grin that you usually loved. You knew what was going to happen for the rest of the day.

“I hope you’re feeling lucky today, because I’m not going easy on you.” Eddie said. “In fact, I think today I might play favorites.”

Being Eddie’s favorite in Hellfire could be a death sentence if you weren’t careful. Being his favorite meant that he was going to pay special attention to you. Eddie didn’t often play favorites, but the last time he did it ended in Doug starting a new character sheet while rolling his saving throws. He was saved by a lucky 13 roll.

“Fuuuuuuuuck.” you said, louder to show your disdain for this turn of events. Eddie only winked at you and started setting up the table and his area.

One by one, everyone showed up while you looked over your character sheet as if you were cramming for a test. Normally you loved any attention that Eddie gave you, but right now it felt like too much as you scrambled to try and remember what the hell was even going on in the campaign.

You pretended to have fun, swallowing down any panic you were feeling during the game. Even though all you wanted to do was go home and sleep and cry and disappear until Spring. How were you supposed to finish the campaign like this?

Eddie was picking on you the whole game, and you wanted to be mad at him. You wanted to tell him to fuck off and leave you alone and wasn’t it good enough that you were even there? But you couldn’t, you couldn’t bring yourself to do it because he wasn’t actually mad at you. You could see it in his eyes that there was nothing malicious behind that grin. This was a punishment, yes, but he wasn’t doing this to hurt you.

A few weeks ago you would have loved this, loved being picked on by him and having his attention and investment in your character. You would have been locked in, challenging him and pushing him as much as he was pushing you, cracking jokes and batting your eyelashes at him for fun.

You miss who you were a few weeks ago.

You had been fighting on equal footing, but now you felt backed into a corner. With a final push, and with an assist from Jeff, you managed to get your final attack in before the battle ended. You would be worse for wear next session, but alive.

By the time you all walked out of the school that evening, you felt extra drained. You had fun, you think. You should have had fun. Hellfire was always fun.

Something heavy fell on your shoulders and you made a noise and swatted in front of your face as Eddie snapped his fingers and smacked your face around a little. You felt the snout of that damned pig ring poke into your cheek.

“Hello? Anyone in there?” He asked, his arm swung around your shoulders as if it were the most casual thing in the world. The weight of his arm dragged you out of the clouds and back down to earth.

“No one’s home.” you deadpanned, but you couldn’t stop the corners of your mouth from pulling up slightly. This was Eddie now, not the Freak, not the Dungeon Master, not the guitar lead of Corroded Coffin. No pressure.

“Should I tape a note to your face if I want to leave a message?” he asked.

“No, I’ve seen your sticky notes, they don’t stick.”

“That’s what happens when you drop them in slush.” Eddie shrugged. “Now, what the hell is wrong with you?”

That was a loaded question. “Alphabetically or chronologically? Actually scratch that, we don’t have time to get into that.” You laughed, hoping he’d drop it.

You felt Eddie’s hand move around your back from one shoulder to the other. He moved in front of you to make you face him completely. His free hand rested on your other shoulder, his head tilted down slightly. His head always tilted down like that when he was being serious. Shit, he wasn’t going to drop it.

“Is something going on?” he asked. “You were at the table but...” Eddie seemed to struggle with how to phrase it. “You’re phoning it in.” he finally settled on.

You hated disappointing Eddie. He was one of your best friends, and you admired him so much. How were you supposed to answer him without feeling like a massive failure?

Eddie had seen right through you, had noticed that your head and heart wasn’t in the game. Despite his looks, Eddie was always so intuitive about how people were feeling. He noticed when things were off.

This isn’t how you wanted him to notice you. It was ironic really, ever since you joined Hellfire all you wanted was Eddie’s attention, to catch his eye. Now that you had it, you wish he’d look anywhere else. This wasn’t the you that you wanted him to see.

“Finals.” you said, giving the canned answer that you had given to the guidance counselor early in the week. “Classes are kicking my ass and I’ve just been a bit off.” The counselor had bought it, and if Eddie didn’t you could blame stomach issues or-

“You sure?” Eddie asked, frowning. He was still holding your shoulders. “It’s just- it’s been weeks, man. You’re barely there.”

“There’s nothing wrong.” you tried to assure him. It was true, and that was the worst part. There was no reason why you should feel this way. Things weren’t bad at home, things were fine at school. The worst thing that’s happened in the past few weeks was today's encounter with an owlbear. “I’m just really tired lately. Stress. Can’t sleep.”

Eddie looked at you hard for a few seconds before nodding, finding the answer satisfactory. He let go of your shoulders and you immediately missed the pressure. He opened the back of his van and dug through a small mountain of clutter and pulled out his lunchbox.

“No, Eddie, it’s fine. I don’t have any money right now.” you said as he pulled out a small baggie. He tossed it to you anyway.

“Pay me back later.” he said. “Ten.”

It was a discount, he must be actually worried about you. The fog in your mind told you to take the weed and go home. To smoke and sleep and lay around for the next few days and wallow in whatever feeling this was.

It took you longer than it should to force your lips to say “I suck at rolling.”

And that’s how the two of you ended up at the far end of Forrest Hills trailer park, away from a majority of the trailers and RVs as Eddie carefully rolled the joint. This wasn’t something that happened often, the two of you hanging out alone. The last time it happened was the start of the school year when Eddie had given you a ride home when your car had a flat. The two of you ended up spending an hour in your driveway just talking. That had cemented the crush you had been suppressing for the past eternity. You had thought that maybe he had felt that same spark you did that night, but the two of you hadn’t been alone like that since.

Eddie took the first hit and handed the joint over to you. You held it for a moment, unsure if weed was a good idea with your already cloudy mind but you took a deep hit anyway.

“Woah, easy.” Eddie said, taking the joint back as you coughed from the smoke. He smacked you on the back a few times before offering you a swig from a water bottle. You chugged the rest of it before your coughs subsided. “It’s just me. You don’t need to smoke like you have something to prove.”

You winced at the call out. You absolutely did take that hit to try and impress Eddie and he saw right through you. Of course he did.

“Sorry.” you coraked out.

Eddie just shrugged and took another hit, leaning back against the driver side seat. The mixtape he put in was louder than you would have liked, but it kept you alert. You felt at ease for the first time in a while, excited even, and that made you feel guilty. You didn’t want your brain to be dependent solely on Eddie to function. That wasn’t fair to him.

You considered asking him to take you home when he started talking again. He turned up the music just slightly, his voice a little louder as he launched into a ramble about the guitar solo.

“Are metal songs usually this long?” you asked, leaning against the passenger side door to face him more.

“If they’re any good, yes.” Eddie laughed, shredding on his precious imaginary air guitar.

“It’s nice of Metallica to slow down in the middle of a song. Gives the pit a break, you know? Like, ‘Hey good work everyone! Grab some water and meet back in the pit in three minutes for the big finale!’” You laughed, taking a smaller hit from the joint.

“If you leave the pit, it doesn’t count. I don’t care how much they slow down.” Eddie said firmly.

“You have too many rules.” you shook your head. “Not everyone has the never ending stamina that you have.”

“That’s why we need to work on yours.” Eddie stretched out dramatically and dropped his feet in your lap, the heels of his Reeboks digging not unpleasantly into your thighs. “You’re damn near falling asleep on me at Hellfire, how am I gonna get you in the pit at our first big gig?”

Your stomach turned with guilt but you pushed through it. “Just toss me in from the stage and if I thrash enough I’m sure it’ll count.”

“Come on, you know it won’t count unless you start the pit willingly. If I can’t make you feel like you want to fight with our songs then I’ve failed.” Eddie pouted.

“You make me want to fight without your singing.” you teased, untying his shoe laces.

“Then why didn’t you?”

You froze, holding the broken aglet between your fingers. “Dunno what you mean.” you lied.

“These past few weeks you’ve been hanging back during battles and have barely talked during the campaign.” Eddie said. “Do you...”

“Do I what?” You asked, rolling the aglet.

“Do you enjoy Hellfire anymore?” he asked, his voice quiet and unsure. You felt your heart break at the question, you hated that your damn brain made him feel like this. You were fine suffering in silence, but the last thing you wanted was to drag Eddie down with you.

“No- I mean- yes.” you stuttered out. “I do like Hellfire. I promise.” It sounded childish, and you couldn’t force your voice to sound as sincere as you wanted it. Eddie would see through the bullshit in a heartbeat. “I.. I don’t know what’s wrong.” You conceded finally.

Eddie nudged you with his foot. “Talk to me. Normally you won’t stop talking during the campaign. Don’t clam up on me now.”

“It just... I get like this every year around this time. The sun disappears right after class and suddenly I feel like a damn zombie. I can’t think, or do anything. I feel like I’m fighting fog. You can’t punch fog.”

Eddie crossed his arms and nodded sagely. “That’s how fog works.”

“Thank you, Captain Obvious.” you couldn’t help but laugh a little. “You’re oh so helpful.”

“Normally the way to get rid of fog is an assload of light. That’s your problem, huh? No light means more fog.”

“That seems to be the case.” you agreed and turned down another hit of weed. It wasn’t helping right now anyway.

“Should I shine one of the spotlights on you next time?” He suggested.

“You already did that this afternoon.” you deadpanned.

“Nah, I just made you participate. I’ll rig one of the drama spotlights to shine directly on you-”

“Giving me disadvantage on every roll because I’ll be blind.” you countered.

“You will be, but I might have mercy on your character. No, but I was thinking more of a Care Bear stare. Blast you with light to make you give a shit again.” He crushed out the joint.

“A Care Bear stare? Who even are you right now?” you stretched your own legs out to rest on his lap, your legs tangled together now. “You can’t even name three Care Bears!”

“I can so! There’s Grumpy Bear and uh... Happy Bear and Brave Heart.” Eddie said smugly.

“Wh- That last one isn’t even a bear, it’s a lion!”

Eddie threw his arms up dramatically. “Does it matter?”

“Yes! You’re a fake Care Bears fan. How are you supposed to blast me with a Care Bear stare if you can’t even name the characters? I’m embarrassed to even be here right now, Eddie.” you sighed, disappointed in him. “Poser.”

“Poser?!” Eddie looked offended. “I can handle being called a freak, or a satanist, but poser? That’s a low blow. I’m wounded.”

“Crit hit on psychic damage.” You cackled.

“You sound better.” Eddie said as your laughter subsided.

“I.. feel better. Thank you.” despite the weed and the only light in the van coming from the overhead light, you did feel better. There was still a bit of fog, but the exhaustion wasn’t as bad as it had been over the last few days.

“Are you gonna be okay for the rest of the campaign?” Eddie asked. “I’d hate to lose a party member to a monster we couldn’t see”

“You aren’t gonna lose me.” you promised. “I’ll be there and I’ll try and be perkier.”

“I don’t care about perky, I just want you to have fun.” Eddie said firmly. “If you aren’t having fun then that means I’m not doing a good job as a dungeon master. Come one, tell me what I gotta do to make it fun for you again.”

“Kill off Blorbo.” you said.

“Anything but that, he’s an essential NPC.” Eddie smirked.

“He’s really not.”

“Blorbo bring joy and wonder everywhere he goes-”

“Can he go to Hell? I think they need more joy and wonder there.” That damned goblin had started as a joke and quickly turned into the most obnoxious character that would show up to cause problems when things were going too well.

“I’ll tone him down.” Eddie promised. “The voice is straining anyway.”

You took a deep breath and fiddled with his aglet again. “I just.. Don’t want to let you down when I can’t give my all.” You admitted, laying out your vulnerability. “I don’t care if anyone else is disappointed in me, but you and the rest of the party are different. I want to be there for you all. I want to fight the fog and show up and be a part of this adventure. I... I don’t want you to- if you give me the same look that the rest of the school gives us then that’s it. I won’t be able to face you, Eddie.”

Eddie was silent for a while as you stared at his shoes. “Look, I know I can be harsh when it comes to Hellfire.” he admitted. “I can be an asshole because it means so much to me. I know that. If my threats are making it harder for you to show up then I’m sorry. I don’t want to be so much of a dick that you run away because I’m threatening to kill off characters because of my precious dungeon master ego.”

You felt your chest tighten and you swallowed a lump in your throat.

“I want you at Hellfire.” Eddie continued. “I love playing with you. When you and Jeff team up, I know I’m in trouble. The two of you come up with plans that, frankly, no sane dungeon master would let you roll for. But I do, because you make it fun.”

“And because you’re insane.” you laugh as you blink back a tear.

Eddie grabbed your ankle and gave it a squeeze. “I’ll be nice to you at Hellfire. I’ll be patient. I just want you to show up and enjoy the game. Just don’t tell the others I’m giving you special treatment.”

“Not being a dick is giving me special treatment?” You gave him a small smile, a real one. “I’m honored.”

“Yeah, well, if word gets out they'll start demanding that I be nice to them too, and I can’t have that. Not during the game anyway.”

You felt lighter than you had in weeks. You really did feel better. It wasn’t going to be a permanent feeling, you knew that there were going to be more foggy days. Feelings like this don’t really go away until Spring, but you would prevail. You wouldn’t let Eddie down, or the rest of your party. You wouldn’t let yourself down and fall victim to an endly haze.

“Can... we hang out like this more?” you asked. “Outside of school, I mean.”

Because this is what you needed. It wasn’t gonna be easy, but having this time with a friend is what would get you to the end of winter. Eddie, Jeff, Doug, even Gareth and the freshmen. You had put so much pressure on Hellfire that you had forgotten that your party members were also your friends and allies.

This didn’t have to be a solo quest.

“Yes!” Eddie said, so quickly and forcefully it actually made you jump. “Yeah, absolutely, You should really come to the Hideout more and watch us play and after we could go get uh... questionable snacks from the gas station. Or I could sneak behind the bar and get us some beers.”

With how enthusiastic he was, you wondered if he had also felt that spark that night at the beginning of the school year.

It was almost 2 am when Eddie dropped you off at your place, stepping out of the car to give you a real goodbye. The rest of the night had been a whirlwind of a million topics at once, music, life, plans to hang out in the future. You felt happy. Really, genuinely happy.

You hugged Eddie, which he seemed surprised at but he hugged you back tightly. You were squished against him, enjoying the texture of his leather jacket under your fingers. It was cold out, and you could see your breath now, but you felt a warmth in you.

You didn’t need Eddie to be the light that kept you going, but he could help your own light stay lit. Him and the rest of your friends. Though you knew that a part of you would always burn more brightly for him, specifically.

Eddie pulled back and dramatically bowed to you, taking your hand and kissing the back of it. It was so over the top and so Eddie.

“Come by Gareth’s place on Sunday. We’re having rehearsals while the neighborhood is at church.” He instructed.

“I thought Corroded Coffin had closed rehearsals?” you asked, raising an eyebrow. They were always serious about their band, they didn’t let people come and distract them.

“Think of it as a special open casket.” Eddie said. “You don’t have to talk, we can focus on our music, and you get to spend time with us during the day.”

It was the most thoughtful thing anyone had ever offered you. You nodded, knowing that it might be hard to get your ass out of bed but you would. For him.

And for you.

With a final hug, Eddie saw you inside before peeling out of your driveway. You made your way to your room and looked at the photo on your nightstand of you with the Hellfire club. What you were feeling might be a solo quest, but you weren’t alone.

For the first time in weeks, you were able to fall asleep without the weight of the fog.

A/N: This fic was originally hurt/no comfort out of my own seasonal depression and insecurities. But what stopped it from being that was that none of you deserve to feel abandoned or like you're fighting alone. None of of who love Eddie so much deserve to be kicked out of Hellfire without a fighting chance.

Get yourself some vitamin D gummies and a SAD lamp. We're gonna get through this, guys.

Also I really need a regular Tag List so comment if you wanna be added.

#nacht fic #eddie munson x reader #eddie munson x you #eddie munson x y/n

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khaire-traveler · 1 year ago

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⚔️ Subtle Ares Worship 💥

Learning about self-defense (includes carrying a self-protection weapon)

Listening to or writing slam poetry

Wearing jewelry that reminds you of him

Making a list of your personal strengths and things you're proud of

Writing letters (that you will never send) to people who've hurt you and burning them

Exercising, if possible; get some movement throughout the day

Dancing, especially to music that brings out your passion, anger, or rebellious side

Supporting local activists or online activism for causes you believe in; support human rights or humanitarian organizations

Expressing yourself the way you want to physically (this can include little things, such as wearing a certain bracelet or putting on a scent)

Allowing yourself to express your anger and upset; sit with and feel your feelings

Keeping a picture of him in your wallet

Playing combat-based video games

Watching combat-based shows

Having a candle that reminds you of him (no altar required)

Wear jewelry that reminds you of him

Having rose, horse, spear, soldier, or boar imagery around )

Have a stuffed animal horse, boar, vulture, or dog

Place motivational/affirmational notes somewhere you'll see them

Wearing bold colors, such as red or maroon (these colors are UPG; what do you associate with Ares? Wear those!)

Learning how to box or wrestle (a punching bag tends to be helpful)

Engaging with your personal passions

If you have dogs, playing with them

Volunteer at a homeless or animal shelter

Support local veterans; donate to veteran-supporting organizations

Be considerate towards veterans nearby (don't light fireworks in neighborhoods, don't fire weapons in neighborhoods, don't bring up their time fighting without them prompting it, etc.)

Stand up for yourself and others

Assert your boundaries; learn what your boundaries are

Be forgiving to an extent; do not let others continue to wrong you over and over again; learn to let them go and cut them off if possible

Learn about healthy conflict resolution skills; implement them into your life

Own a spear or a sword, and learn how to use it correctly because why the fuck not

Take a walk/hike outside, preferably during the day

Play a sport

Share your passions with others c:

Carry a protective charm with you

Prioritize your own well-being; take care of yourself first, then others when you're able

May add more later! This is just a basic list of some discreet ways to worship Ares. Hope y'all enjoy, and take care! ❤️

Link to Subtle Worship Master list

#ares deity #ares worship #helpol #hellenic polytheism #hellenic pagan #deity worship #paganblr #pagan tips

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kenzdolls · 1 month ago

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Ok, i read ur rules! And say in ur master list that you do mha? If you still do mha, (idk if this is ok to ask) but can you do some fluff + angst with bakugo x fem! Reader, where she has a black magic quirk, and from a very early age she’s heard voices in her head. And they stop for a bit but she heard them agian and freaks out! So bakugo notices shes veeery quiet and asks her whats wrong and she spills the truth about her quirk and how if she over uses it she hears voices telling her to do bad things(NOTHING SERIOUS)

Bakugo and reader have a sorta friendship but with something going on between them? (Mutual pinning)

I HOPE THIS IS OK!!! I read ur rules and i hope this isnt violating them 🙏😭

don’t worry it isn’t lmao! but I’d love to do this so tysm for sending this in! so without further ado. . . enjoy ദ്ദി(•̀ ᗜ <) !!

𝐖𝐇𝐈𝐒𝐏𝐄𝐑𝐒 𝐈𝐍 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐃𝐀𝐑𝐊

𖤐 synopsis: your quirk makes you different from others..you hear voices that give you malicious thoughts. but, your “friend” bakugou katsuki helps you silence them and explore both of your unspoken feelings for each other.

𖤐 trigger warnings: references to intrusive thoughts, mild psychological distress.

𖤐 pairing: bakugou katsuki x fem!reader

𖤐 side note: - - > 2nd part of this story

the voices had been quiet for months. you'd almost forgotten what it was like to have that constant background noise—the whispers that came with your quirk. black magic, they called it. the ability to manipulate shadows and dark energy, bending them to your will. it was powerful, useful even, especially during hero training at u.a.

but the cost was something no one else could see.

use us… we can make you stronger…

the first whisper came during lunch period. you froze mid-bite, your chopsticks hovering over your bento box as the familiar, slithering voice wrapped around your mind.

let us in… just a little more power…

"shut up," you muttered under your breath, closing your eyes tightly.

"the hell did you just say to me?"

your eyes snapped open to find bakugou katsuki standing over your lunch table, his crimson eyes narrowed with suspicion. of course, he'd choose now to approach. the two of you had this… thing. not quite friends, definitely not enemies. training partners who somehow always ended up paired together. late night study sessions that lasted longer than necessary. hands that lingered a second too long when passing notes.

"not you," you said quickly, heat rising to your cheeks. "sorry, i was just—"

he'll think you're crazy if you tell him. everyone always does.

"just what?" bakugou dropped into the seat across from you, his lunch tray clattering against the table. "you've been acting weird all morning. more than usual."

you managed a weak smile. "didn't know you paid such close attention, explosion boy."

he scoffed, but you didn't miss the slight pink tinge on his ears. "hard not to notice when you're spacing out during combat training. you nearly got yourself blasted."

you had almost forgotten about that. earlier in the day, during all might's class, you'd hesitated just a moment too long when the voices first started whispering again. bakugou had pulled his punch at the last second, his explosion detonating harmlessly to your left instead of directly in your face.

he's waiting for an answer. lie. lie.

"i'm fine," you said automatically, the rehearsed response you'd been giving teachers and classmates for years whenever the voices got bad.

bakugou’s eyes narrowed further. "bullshit."

the cafeteria around you buzzed with activity, your classmates laughing and chatting, oblivious to your internal struggle. kirishima and the others had left bakugou alone for once, perhaps sensing he had other plans for lunch period.

he'll leave you too when he knows the truth.

"i said i'm fine," you insisted, pushing your food away. your appetite had vanished the moment the voices returned.

bakugou leaned forward, his voice dropping to a growl that somehow managed to be both threatening and concerned at the same time. "you think i don't notice when something's off with you? we've been training together for months. i know when you're lying."

you stared at him, taken aback by his perceptiveness. it was easy to dismiss bakugo as just an aggressive hothead, but you'd learned there was so much more beneath that explosive exterior. he noticed things. he paid attention.

tell him… see how quickly he runs…

the voice was getting louder, more insistent. you pressed your palms against your eyes, trying to block it out.

"hey." bakugou’s voice softened marginally—as much as bakugou katsuki could soften anything. "let's get out of here."

before you could protest, he had grabbed both your bags and was heading for the exit, clearly expecting you to follow. and despite everything, you did.

he led you to the rooftop, a quiet spot where few students ventured during lunch. the spring air was cool against your skin, helping to clear your head slightly.

"talk," he demanded, dropping his bag and leaning against the railing.

you hesitated, wrapping your arms around yourself. "it's my quirk."

"what about it?"

don't tell him don't tell him don't—

"the voices are back," you blurted out, the words tumbling from your lips before you could stop them. "when i use too much of my quirk, they… they start talking to me."

bakugou’s expression didn't change, but he watched you intently, waiting for you to continue.

"they've been quiet for a while," you explained, pacing now. "i thought maybe i'd gotten better at controlling it. but this morning, during training when i used that shadow field technique… they came back."

he thinks you're weak. broken. useless.

you shuddered, and bakugou took a step closer.

"what do they say?" he asked, his voice uncharacteristically careful.

you laughed bitterly. "oh, you know. the usual. use more power. do bad things. helpful stuff like that."

bakugou’s face darkened. "have you told anyone? recovery girl? aizawa?"

you shook your head. "my parents know. it's been happening since i was little. the doctors said it's a… side effect. the darkness my quirk controls, it's like it has a consciousness of its own. the more i tap into it, the more it tries to influence me."

he'll report you. they'll expel you. you'll never be a hero now.

"they're talking right now, aren't they?" bakugo asked suddenly.

you froze, surprised again by his insight. "how did you know?"

"your eyes do this thing," he said, gesturing vaguely toward your face. "they get all unfocused, like you're listening to something far away."

you'd never realized you had a tell. the fact that bakugo had noticed made something warm flutter in your chest, momentarily drowning out the malicious whispers.

"yeah," you admitted. "they're telling me you'll think i'm crazy. that i should have kept my mouth shut."

bakugou snorted. "if i thought you were crazy, i wouldn't waste my time training with you."

he's lying to make you feel better. he pities you.

"they're saying you're lying," you said softly.

without warning, bakugou closed the distance between you, his hands gripping your shoulders. the touch was firm but not painful—grounding.

"look at me," he demanded.

you raised your eyes to meet his fierce crimson gaze.

"do i ever say shit i don't mean? do i ever fucking lie to make people feel better?"

you couldn't help but smile slightly. "no. that's… actually one of the things i like about you."

something flashed across his face—surprise, maybe even pleasure—before he schooled his expression back to determination.

"then believe me when i say this. i don't give a damn about the voices. we all have shit to deal with. my quirk could blow my arms off if i'm not careful. half-and-half has his daddy issues. deku has… well, everything about him. your thing is voices. so what?"

he doesn't understand. no one can understand.

"it's not that simple," you argued. "they get worse when i use more power. and sometimes…" you hesitated, never having admitted this part to anyone before. "sometimes i want to listen."

instead of recoiling in horror as you expected, bakugou’s grip on your shoulders tightened reassuringly.

"of course you do," he said gruffly. "power is tempting. i know that better than anyone. remember the sports festival?"

you did. his rage, his refusal to accept a victory he didn't earn. the way he'd been chained to the podium, wild-eyed and furious.

"but you didn't give in," you pointed out.

"neither will you," he said with absolute certainty. "you're too stubborn."

despite everything, you laughed. "was that a compliment, bakugou?"

he released your shoulders, a hint of that familiar scowl returning. "don't get used to it."

he'll never understand you like we do.

the whisper was softer now, less convincing. you took a deep breath, focusing on bakugo's presence—solid and real in front of you.

"they're quieter when you're around," you admitted. "i don't know why."

a flash of something like pride crossed his face. "good. then i'll just have to stick around more."

your heart skipped a beat. "what are you saying?"

bakugou crossed his arms, looking somewhat uncomfortable with the turn in conversation. "i'm saying next time they start talking, come find me. i'll make enough noise to drown them out."

the offer was so perfectly, uniquely bakugo that it made you smile despite everything. this gruff, explosive boy who showed his care through actions rather than words.

"are you sure?" you asked. "it could happen anytime. middle of the night. during class."

he shrugged. "so? not like i sleep much anyway."

he'll get tired of you. they all do.

"the voices say you'll get tired of helping me," you said quietly.

bakugou stepped forward again, and this time when his hand reached for you, it was to brush a strand of hair from your face with surprising gentleness.

"let me make something clear," he said, voice low and intense. "i don't do shit i don't want to do. and i don't walk away from challenges."

"is that what i am? a challenge?" you weren't sure if you should be offended or flattered.

the corner of his mouth quirked up in that half-smile that always made your heart race. "you're a pain in my ass. but…" he hesitated, clearly wrestling with what to say next. "you're my pain in the ass."

coming from bakugou, it was practically a declaration of love.

he'll never—

the voice was cut off as bakugou’s hand cupped your cheek, his calloused palm warm against your skin. for once, his perpetual scowl was gone, replaced by something softer, more vulnerable.

"tell the voices to shut the hell up," he murmured, "because i'm about to kiss you."

your breath caught in your throat. "bakugou…"

"katsuki," he corrected. "if we're doing this, you use my name."

"katsuki," you whispered, testing the feel of it on your tongue.

and then his lips were on yours, firm and warm and insistent. the voices that had plagued you all morning fell completely silent, drowned out by the thundering of your heart and the sensation of bakugou—no, katsuki—pulling you closer.

when you finally broke apart, the silence in your mind was blissful. whether it would last, you couldn't know. the voices would return eventually. but for now, with bakugou’s arms around you and his forehead pressed against yours, they couldn't reach you.

"they're gone," you breathed in wonder.

he smirked, that cocky confidence returning. "told you i could drown them out."

the bell rang in the distance, signaling the end of lunch period.

"we should get back," you said reluctantly.

bakugou didn't loosen his hold. "skip with me."

your eyes widened. "skip class? you never skip class."

"first time for everything," he shrugged. "besides, we need to figure out how to deal with those voices. might take all afternoon."

"and how exactly are we going to do that?" you asked, unable to keep the smile from your face.

his answering grin was both wicked and tender. "i have some ideas. but first—" he leaned in again, his lips brushing yours softly, "let's make sure they stay quiet a little longer."

as you melted into his kiss, you couldn't hear a single whisper—just the beating of two hearts and the promise that whatever darkness came, you wouldn't face it alone.

taglist: [open]

mutuals: @https-bakugo @haikyuubby @va-3 @lotusstarr @tulippanes @gh0st-g1rll @luvseraphh

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sorenphelps · 5 months ago

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Are they together? Not really. Maybe. It's classified.

A little treat for everyone who actually follows me for wolfstar content! i brainstormed a bit with @goldenlionprince yesterday and with @diamondmeadow & @lovelymasks a little ago, which helped me to finally place Remus in The Bodyguard AU! This scene can be a little after @neverenoughmarauders' ficlet, where Sirius asks Remus for intel about Rosier Jr. offscreen. The warehouse fire refers to the aftermatch of the kidnapping scenario, and a little easter egg is Lockhart as the news reporter! ��

A little backstory under the cut!

He is an old soldier buddy of Sirius, they went to the same military school and joined the army together after they graduated. While Sirius is talented in almost every aspect of military duty, especially combat, Remus's true talent is military intelligence. He is still an intelligence officer working for Defence Intelligence as an analyst, and Sirius sometimes asks him to check or give him certain intel. Remus also knows about the details of the illegal covert operation Sirius was part of and how he got his reputation as The Grim. He helped making the fake new identity of Stubby Boardman when Sirius decided to leave the forces. They were together for a while, broke up eventually (Remus married Sirius' cousin), but they remained friends. They have a tradition to meet once every month to spend the day together doing things they added to a bucket list during their active military time or just hang out, brunch and go to a museum (their favourite is the Natural History Museum🦕). As they keep total radio silence during these, it is often assumed that they are having an affair. They never explicitly deny this, because they are both little shits who enjoy confusing people for fun. Remus referred the bodyguard job to Sirius, when he encountered the intel about James (and his work) being threatened.

#sirius black #remus lupin #wolfstar #well sort of #fanart #art by lau #comic #the bodyguard au #lau draws with a tablet

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kyoshitargaryen · 5 months ago

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the lullaby method

note: this method was not made by me. I was unable to find the original post or author of this method, but if you know please let me know and I will update my post!

I've been using this method for just two days and I've already had incredible success. I've been working on not trying to shift or manifest -- read that post here -- and this method has made it SO easy for me to do so. It works so well that not even my OCD can combat it!

Step One

Decide what you want to manifest or where you want to shift. If I'm completely honest, I spend some time manifesting specific things for my CR before focusing on shifting to my DR -- this might be counterintuitive for some, but I think it knocks two birds with one stone; I can shift to my DR, and when I shift back, my manifestations will be waiting for me.

Step Two

Begin affirming based on;

isn't it wonderful that...

isn't it incredible that...

aren't I lucky to be/have...

wow, this is so...

how did this...

Your affirmations can be anything -- observational based on whatever environment you're in, just basic facts about yourself and your DR as a whole, even questioning HOW things work in your DR.

Step Three

Continue affirming. Don't try to shift, and don't focus on the act of shifting. Instead, actually feel amazement and gratitude behind those statements. Let yourself completely forget that you weren't already in your DR when you began this process. I want you to completely become aware of your DR by just believing you are there. I really suggest reading this post I made for a deeper explanation on how to and why you should do this.

That's all you have to do! You'll be shocked at how quickly you'll feel close to your DR if not actively being in it. For me, it felt like I had shifted in no time at all, when I previously had to spend literal HOURS trying. You're basically self-soothing your way into your DR. I even plan to use it to help mitigate anxiety attacks.

Below, I'm going to list some examples of affirmations based off of my DRs, as well as what I experienced today using this method. If you're leaving me here, that's totally fine! I hope this made sense!

yoshi!!

My DR Affirmations

isn't it wonderful that Percy lets me sit in the passenger seat of the car because I get carsick?

isn't it incredible that I'm a dragon dreamer?

isn't it incredible that Helaena and I are so close despite Alicent holding poor feelings towards my family during my childhood?

aren't I so lucky to have the best dragon in the family?

isn't being in an empty compartment on the Hogwarts Express so lovely?

isn't the compartment I'm in so cozy?

aren't I so lucky to be Poseidon's daughter?

isn't it incredible that I'm attending Hogwarts as an American?

how did I get so lucky to have my own dorm room rather than sharing?

isn't the view from the window of the Hogwarts Express so beautiful?

isn't it so nice to be in Scotland?

aren't I so lucky to have such wonderful crewmates?

Depending on where I'm shifting to, I also affirm based off of my location and the specific circumstances I'm in, as seen with my affirmations about the view on the Hogwarts Express and being in an empty compartment.

The lovely @shaysplanet made a great post about affirmations being a form of visualization, which you can read here. Putting situational observations into this affirmation format is something I definitely recommend, especially for those with aphantasia like myself because it is SUCH an easy way to visualize with this method without putting pressure on yourself.

wow, this apple is SO red!

my perfume smells SO lovely

this bed is really comfy

aren't I so lucky to live in the house of my dreams?

christ, Percy needs a shower

My Experience

I said earlier that I was shocked at how quickly I connected to my DR -- today in particular was my Harry Potter DR.

I actually shifted. It felt like it took no time at all. It wasn't a perfect shift, I didn't shift to my scripted wake up scene, but it was a moment I had scripted to happen later on in my DR.

I shifted mid-conversation with Hermione where I was explaining to her my ideas on reform and rights for house elves!

It was actually really lovely. I have aphantasia, so to be able to physically see was a big deal for me. I'm DEFINITELY using this method more from now on.

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wanderingskemetic · 5 months ago

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🌩️Subtle Sutekh Worship🏜️

Greatly inspired by @khaire-traveler's wonderful subtle worship series, which can be found here.

Learn self-defence, weapons included or not

Allow yourself to express your anger and frustration; sit with and feel your feelings

Collect rain water (you're welcome to use it for watering plants or the like)

Learn about and uphold Ma'at

Make a playlist or listen to songs that remind you of him or you think he'd like

Make a collage/moodboard/pinterest board/similar collection of photos and images you associate with him, especially if some of the images are your own

Wear a piece of jewelry or other clothing item that reminds you of him

Light a candle or incense that reminds you of him (safely)

Carry a picture of him in your wallet, pocket, phone case, etc. or as a phone or computer wallpaper

Have desert, hippo, pig, donkey, crocodile, or sha animal imagery

Destroy depictions of A/p/e/p this can be as simple as drawing it on a piece of paper and tearing it up

Making a list of your personal strengths and things you're proud of

Practice standing up for yourself; speak your mind and assert your personal boundaries

Exercise a little, even if it's just stretching

Playing combat-based video games

Do something hard or challenging, especially if you've been putting it off, or it needs to get done

Fall asleep/meditate to the sound of rain/thunderstorms

Take a walk outside with a cloudy sky or during a rainstorm (safely)

Get involved with your government (vote, go to local meetings, protest, write/call a leader, etc.)

Take charge/leadership roles in parts of your life

Supporting local activists or online activism for causes you believe in; support human rights or humanitarian organizations

Collecting different souvenirs or other objects from different places

Practice speaking up when you disagree with someone

Become comfortable with change; take new risks, try new things, accept difficult changes

Stand up for yourself and people you care about

Try something you've been putting off; take a risk; if you're scared, do it scared

Find ways to express yourself, even if it's small

Practice embracing the chaos of life

Learn about healthy conflict resolution skills; try to implement these in your next conflict

Learn about desert habitats (especially the Sahara) and donate to organizations that help them

Donate to organizations that help immigrants

Learn a new language, particularly those of countries near yours

Work on becoming more comfortable with the idea of conflict; it is only natural that we sometimes disagree with people

Educate yourself on your rights (legally); keep up to date on new bills and laws

I may add more to this list in the future. Suggestions are always appreciated.

Link to the Kemetic Subtle Worship Masterpost

#kemetic polytheism #kemetic #kemetic paganism #kemeticism #kemetism #kemetic fandom #subtle deity worship #Sutekh #Set #polytheism #pagan tips #deity worship #paganblr

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morhido · 2 years ago

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I've been lost in the owl house sauce for about three years and as a result i've mentally compiled a list of the characters' speech patterns and body language. Then i realised i should probably do something with that information and decided to jot it all down :>>

This is just gonna be the hexsquad for now since my lists for other characters are fairly sparse but additions/requests are welcome! Mayhaps i'll add to it in the future sjdkshskj

(The 'other' category is for general quirks, or things that just didn't fit the other categories)

LUZ:

• Happy/excited: stamps feet with high knees, squeaks/makes high pitched sounds, makes fists and brings them to her chest/face

• Sad: will initially deny if she's upset, whether she fesses up is up to circumstance. Lowers her head, can become unresponsive, becomes tired, voice will generally remain quiet and flat even if something cheers her up, empathetic crier

• Stressed/overwhelmed: repeats phrases over ("no no no, you're belos, you're just belos!"), falls to her knees or puts on hood when overwhelmed, acts overly casual to compensate for her panicking ("yikes, my dude"), protective of others when in physical danger (usually holds amity's head). More comedically, can often make unnecessary/dramatic gestures (e.g. spinning, cartwheeling, flopping to the floor) when stressed

• Angry: gets louder, sometimes unwilling to hear the other person out, becomes very physical, loses volume control (often to her own detriment), sticks her elbows out to look more intimidating. More comedically, will sometimes make animal noises/gestures (e.g. hissing and clawing)

• Other: often prematurely assumes that people will react poorly to her ("she's gonna embarrass herself, i can't watch!" / "if amity sees this, she'll think i'm such a loser!" / "what if the palisman doesn't like me?"), can accidentally be inconsiderate of other people in favour of her impulse, resorts to violence quickly and generally doesn't try to make peace with adults, very easily becomes rambly with strong emotion and can repeat words and phrases, can become loud and panicky during combat if her goal is self-preservation but becomes much more focused if fighting with/protecting other people

WILLOW:

• Happy/excited: becomes very active and touchy, very straightforward, taps toes, will be oblivious if others are intimidated by her, voice pitches up when excited

• Sad: draws herself in, becomes quiet, looks down/closes her eyes, isolates herself, can become less responsive, talks to herself

• Stressed/overwhelmed: loses control of magic, covers hair, voice pitches up when extremely nervous, very rarely acts on impulse even when scared, high-pitched squeaks/screams when startled

• Angry: vines grow from the ground beneath her, shows vocal disdain for whatever is upsetting her, can become very sardonic ("you want me to give up? You want me to admit how stressed i am?"), can go from high and stern when upset ("you just met them, give them a chance!") to low and loud when fully angry ("what advice could you POSSIBLY give me??")

• Other: denial is default coping mechanism, very often does the gag of pretending to be intimidating and then doing something sweet/cute, will be oblivious to the other person's fear when this happens, love language is physical touch, makes her feelings known unless she's specifically not trying to upset people, can speak pretty formally ("enchanting!", "how dare you?"), talks to herself in second person when hyping herself up, takes offensive role in combat

AMITY:

• Happy/excited: voice can get louder, smiles with teeth when extremely excited, becomes more impulsive with what she says and does

• Sad: raises voice when trying to make a point, voice cracks, becomes quieter with remorse, remains very quiet and calm when comforting/confiding in someone else

• Stressed/overwhelmed: s1 amity would get extremely defensive if any vulnerability was exposed ("help? All you're doing is prying into your friends' lives!"), rambles when flustered, holds hem of skirt when she's nervous/doesn't know what to do, also generally moves hands a lot when nervous, attempts to leave situations that are upsetting her, high-pitched screams when startled (does this less throughout the series as she becomes more on-guard and impulsive)

• Angry: often gets louder and more animated (e.g. her trying to break out of the dome in clouds on the horizon), face turns red, pushes away the source of her anger, doesn't usually stay angry for long, moves her body forward (e.g. pointing, gesturing, or actually stepping forwards), will often stick her arms straight at her sides

• Other: generally uncomfortable leaving her comfort zone but extremely confident in fields that she already excels in, extremely accepting of change in other people, arguably the second most impulsive of the hexsquad (especially regarding luz's safety) and uses fire to solve a lot of her problems, will take control of a situation when she knows she's in the right ("you're gonna listen to me for once"), usually very perceptive to others' emotions

GUS:

• Happy/excited: draws fists up to face, big gestures (especially with hands/arms)

• Sad: self-blames/depricates ("yeah. It's all my fault"), curls up with his arms and head on his knees, usually very vocal about being upset with something, "you've done it again, augustus" (in the context of being tricked by someone), can remain in this state for a long time, draws in on himself but doesn't push other people away

• Stressed/overwhelmed: loses control of magic (finds it difficult to discern reality from illusions), often hides behind willow when scared, laughs/smiles nervously when anxious or flustered, can get tunnel vision on the thing that's upsetting him

• Angry: stays level-headed and doesn't often raise his voice, speech becomes more emphatic, can become snarkier ("hey belos, remember me?"), remains distant from the subject of his anger, usually stays in a stance

• Other: very eager to prove himself whenever he has the opportunity (love language is acts of service), most willing to resort to violence ("nobody's dying" "not with that attitude", usually in a joking manner), most annoyed by his friends' shenanigans but always willing to tag along, makes big gestures (especially when emphasising something), sometimes repeats phrases when feeling strong emotions ("gus? Nickname? HUMAN nickname?? GUS???" / "wait × 6, is this really what you wanna be doing with your life?")

HUNTER:

• Happy/excited: extremely animated with his hands, voice gets louder, becomes very confident. Is very playful and arrogant when in golden guard mode and will usually try to show off or start relying on empty threats

• Sad: voice goes quiet and airy, voice cracks, can become raspier

• Stressed/overwhelmed: doesn't like to be touched when upset, is overwhelmed by affection and will often start crying, goes silent and dissociates when processing upsetting information, voice cracks, becomes extremely snappy and irritable from long-term stress, freezes under pressure, draws in on himself when panicking, goes silent when flustered

• Angry: becomes grumpy when things don't go his way, is extremely animated and expressive when actually angry, can become sardonic, raises voice, makes small movements (e.g. shaking leg or pacing small area). As golden guard, would try to physically intimidate the other person (e.g. looming over or walking towards them)

• Other: doesn't tend to self-blame and will either pass the fault onto someone else ("you got us trapped in the emperor's mind!"), or acknowledge when someone else was in the wrong ("you were tricked. That's what belos does, he tricks people"). Almost never initiates combat and plays a more defensive role, extremely theatrical/expressive and talkative (will have to actively restrain himself to not talk about something), squeaks a lot

#i had one of these posts for an old fandom i was in and it was uber helpful for writing their dialogue #so hopefully this can help someone else :>>#toh #the owl house #toh luz #luz noceda #toh willow #willow park #toh amity #amity blight #toh gus #gus porter #toh hunter #hunter noceda #hunter deamonne #gekkering

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xxlemon-chanxx · 1 year ago

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Important. PLEASE READ!!

For those of you who may not know, which I suspect is probably most of you, I had an interaction with a pro/comship blog (@toh-proship-positivity) about three weeks ago that ended in them accusing a fellow artist, a-magpie-in-gravesfield, of extremely heinous things. I originally was not going to respond to them simply because I didn't want to be bothered with such drama during the holidays. Still, these claims irritated me because, even just from my conversations with this blog and witnessing their behavior firsthand, I knew their claims were likely untrue or, at the very least, exaggerations. I am happy to announce that my intuition was correct and that the claims made about Magpie WERE NOT TRUE.

Several people approached me regarding this, and I also sought a few individuals out myself to look for answers. They provided ample proof, including screenshots, receipts, and conversations between the accuser and the accused, that prove without a shadow of a doubt in my mind that Magpie is innocent of all claims levied against him.

I, along with the help of a few others, gathered as much information as I could find, organized it, and created a master list of evidence to combat every accusation. I am going to share the folder that holds the drama overview as well as every document that was used as an external link. Here are the links to the folder and overview, respectively.

This folder with all related documents will also be downloadable as a zip file on Dropbox to anyone who wishes to have a copy for themself. DM me asking for the download link, and I will provide it to you.

This is not meant to be an attack on the person who levied the claims against Magpie, and this is NOT a call to harassment. This needs to be put out into the open so that this drama inside the Wittebane community can cease.

Here is a direct message from Magpie regarding the situation:

"I just wanted to clarify that I had no hand in making the document itself. I was approached by multiple people asking for my side of the evidence / answering questions about the timeline of things / etc. I myself never look at Horse's posts because I don't want to give any of my time to things like this (and tbh I thought they would have stopped by now). Please don't message me about this. This has been going on for over a year now, and I don't want to focus on negativity. I have already provided a lot of information to the people who made this doc. I also DO NOT condone any kind of harassment towards anyone, including anyone mentioned in this document. I did not ask for this document to be made (actually, for a long time I actively discouraged people from doing it because I thought it wasn't necessary), but because multiple slanderous accusations that included my name were recently brought up to me by people I had never interacted with before as well as friends, and Horse does not seem to have stopped, I figured I would provide my side of things to people who asked as to give answers to anyone who might have heard of this situation. This document was in no way meant to encourage bullying of any kind. Please stay safe everyone!"

#toh #toh fandom critical #toh fandom #wittebane community #the owl house drama

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arsene-inc · 3 months ago

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Sometimes things happens at just the right time with each other. The recent discussion with @anim-ttrpgs and @the-ampersand about the gm controlling the outcomes of every encounter, the performance and overuling dice in favor of a prewritten story mixed with my reading of the game Eldritch Escape : Tokyo and it's combat.

The PC will die. The PC can win. Coexistance of the two.

Let's talk about it

Eldritch Escape Tokyo ( which I will shorten into EET) is Bloodborne in an contemporary urban setting. A really simplified explanation. 7 years ago, the sun disappeared. Eternal night. No one cares. Gigantic eldritch beasts called the Eldritch roam the streets and eat people. No ones care. But you do. And you shall fight, with only what's available to you. And you will die.

Then the Bellwether shall revive you, turning back time to the beginning of the fight, raising your ascension level by one, making you stronger.

Let's talk about this big boss fight against an Eldritch These are the only ways to lose your character in this game : Ascension reach 7 or goes down to 0, Insight (your other stat) being at 0 or 7 at the end of the scenario OR giving up. Just giving up. Tired of this endless fight.

The "battle map" is a circle of 6 cells, with the Eldritch in the middle. Another game like Wilderfeast where distance and positionning is center around the monster. 1 is in front, 4 is the rear, 2-3 on the right, 5-6 on the left.

In a fight, a character dies when their shields (equal to Ascension for PC) reach 0. The Hit damage, for either the PC or the Eldritch is 2 on a critical. So yes, the PC will die rather easily at the start.

But here is the thing...

The GM does not control the Eldritch. They play the Bellwether, the advisor.

The Eldritch fight according to Trigger actions that activates anytime the condition is met. It can be the PC is in cell 1, 2, 6. The PC attacked from cell X and did not do a critical hit. The Eldritch rolls and the Gm describes, read what happens. And tell the PC which trigger was specifically activated . Back to the first example, telling the PC that the trigger was "The PC was in cell 1". No they don"t add the 21 and the 6. Then during the Eldritch turn, their combat is ruled by doctrines. Who also have conditions. The first on the list where the conditions are met is done. The PC is warned of the condition. The Eldritch turns end. No input from the GM on Monster behavior. With each loop, the PC learns. They're encouraged to take notes. And when theyu learn enough ? then glorious victory is at end. Because they know the path to victory.

So here it is. A scripted combat not by the GM but by the game itself, like an enemy ai in a video games. Where the outcome where the PC dies will happen. Where victory is achievable. it helps that they are other character loss option than death. The Ascension 7 character loss ( which I will not spoil) means the fight is on a timer. When you start at 1, you only have 6 rounds to learn. So victory is not a certainty.

#ttrpg #tabletop rpg #indie ttrpg #ttrpg design #ttrpg community #eldritch escape tokyo

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lavend-ler · 2 years ago

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tips on how to write cane user Neuvillette from a crutch user

Neuvillette uses a cane - and that's amazing! but increasingly I got worried that the portrayal of him being a cane user could be based on harmful stereotypes. hence I wanted to make a list on tips I can give as an irl crutch user

DISCLAIMER - this is in no way exhaustive list and I am no end all be all authority on this. I'm just a disabled person in fandom who is tired of ableism. of course this list can be used for other disabled characters but I esp wanna focus on Neuvillette (cause I love him)

Neuvillette is an occasional cane user (just like me) and that's totally fine. he doesn't have to use it all the time to be "disabled enough". he probably uses it during the days he feels worse

he holds cane in his right hand - that means it's his left leg which needs support (again, just like mine!)

a lot of disabled ppl are prone to the changes in the weather. I think it'd be interesting to keep in mind esp in Neuvillette's case

as long as we don't have the canon confirmation on what is Neuvillette's disability, all hcs are fair game. personally bc I relate to him I hc him with my own disability - arthritis

don't be afraid to portray him using his cane in combat. mobility aids are often used by disabled ppl not only as a support in walking but also in every day things. for example, he could be pushing buttons with it or helping himself while walking the stairs

bend the ableist stereotypes - make him use his cane and be badass with it. esp since he proudly uses it during his burst

canes make ppl more visible. don't fall into ableism and make characters only care abt Neuvillette when they notice him using the cane. if u choose to do so, make Neuvillette remark back, noticing how ppl treat him differently and unfairly

do not make jokes abt his cane. I have already seen ppl make jokes that he's an old man who needs to use the cane. it's disrespectful and unnecessary. don't bring up him being a cane user only when u talk how he's old

canes are very personal. even if others offer help or to hold it, Neuvillette would be against it

on that note DO NOT MAKE OTHERS CHARACTERS TAKE HIS CANE esp if u want to treat this as silly fun or even worse, romantic. Neuvillette's cane is his business and any character taking his cane from him would be extremally disrespectful

Neuvillette might have to take breaks between longer strolls to sit down and regenerate. again, sth that happens to me a lot

tho every character in Genshin has to be quite active, remember to portray Neuvillette to be relaxing too! he can be badass, active and strong and that won't make him any less when he's relaxing. I absolutely suggest u portray how he relaxes after the day and how he takes care of himself. maybe a calming tea or some ice packs - those are definitely great options for chief justice to relax and ease his aches after an eventful day

HERE is another post that focuses on more on experiences of mobility aid users. I find it very relatable and useful, it's a fantastic further read

hope these will be helpful for u! ablebodies please don't derail. other mobility aid users, feel free to add more things to the list <3

#genshin impact #neuvillette #disability stuff #mobility aid #cane user #crutch user #writing tips #disability tips #disability #ed.txt

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stillness-in-green · 1 year ago

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Counting Cliffhangers: The Heroes Are Not the Underdogs in BNHA's War Arcs

(Being a project to tally up which side, if either, of Team Hero or Team Villain is "on top" at the end of each chapter in the war arcs, in consideration of the impact of the overall totals. This is one of those mega-long list posts; do not click the Expand/Read More unless you're prepared for a lot of reading and/or scrolling.)

One of the things that bothered me throughout both of the war arcs was the persistent sense that, for all that the manga was trying very hard to convince me that the Heroes were up against the wall and really having to give it everything they had, I never really felt that level of danger. Of course, one always expects a degree of that—it’s not as though any sensible reader would really think this manga could end with the Villains winning!—but the problem went beyond that. Expecting that the protagonist will win out in the end is the standard, after all, but good stories still find ways to keep readers engaged and believing in the stakes.

So why didn’t I? I certainly believed in the stakes for the Villains—Twice’s death happens very early in the first war, and it sets the stakes quite clearly! Was it just the difference between my own engagement with the Villains compared to the Heroes? That didn’t seem quite right—even if I cared about one side for more than the other, it shouldn’t have been the case that that affection alone was skewing my suspension of disbelief about the dangers faced by the Heroes. The threat posed to Midnight certainly seemed real enough, as was also the case for the Heroes left trampled in Gigantomachia’s wake, like Gang Orca and Fatgum. As I’ve had to tell the occasional asker here before, just because I don’t particularly care about a character doesn’t mean I become incapable of evaluating their story beats!

What was the problem, then? Why did the dangers to the Villains seem so desperately real, while the dangers to the Heroes, for the most part, just had me rolling my eyes and waiting for the next asspull that would save them?

I think there are two primary factors. The first and biggest factor is simply baked into the worldbuilding and the decisions made in the writing: the sides are poorly matched. I’m not going to go into all of that here, but as a thought exercise, go through the arcs of the story that contain active conflict and consider which side has the advantage in each of the following categories: individual combatant quality (stuff like raw power, endurance, and training/experience to improve upon their inherent capabilities), equipment quality, information about the opponent, ability to set the terms of engagement, and raw numbers of warm bodies to throw at a fight.

By my measure, much of the early confrontations in BNHA work because these advantages are divided evenly between the Heroes and Villains. Likewise, My Villain Academia is so gripping because the Meta Liberation Army has virtually every advantage over the League, making the League really and truly feel like the underdogs in the fight. Conversely, the Heroes are the ones with virtually every advantage in the war arcs,[1] meaning they cannot convincingly be the underdogs the story so desperately wants us to believe they are.

1: I swear I’m not going to go into all of it, at least not in this post, but to be very brief, I think the only advantages the Villains could even kind of claim during the war arcs are numbers and combatant quality. The numbers advantage is mostly illusory; the PLF are leveled in the cursory mass arrest of the first war and, despite repeated insistence otherwise, the only place where the Villains’ numbers are a true threat in the second war is at the hospital attack, where said numbers consist chiefly of untrained and easily swayed civilians in a battle it’s desperately unclear why the Heroes allowed to take place at all. The quality advantage, meanwhile, is heavily concentrated in only a handful of hard-hitting, A-to-S-rank threats on the Villains’ side, while the Heroes maintain clear quality supremacy in rank-and-file or side character battles.

The other factor, and the one this post concerns, is the structure of the chapters themselves, to wit, the way that they end. In a serialized story being published and read week to week, each installment’s ending is a crucial factor in the story’s overall tone. What happens on the last page is a major factor in the impact each chapter makes, the feeling the reader is left with while they wait for the next part. If the intent, therefore, is for the Heroes to feel threatened, pushed to the very edge of their endurance, then a very basic thing needs to be observed: don’t end every fucking chapter with the Heroes having the fucking advantage.

I’m so serious here, guys. It’s not that the Villains never have the advantage, never get twists or reveals or reinforcements that turn the tide of the battle in their favor. It’s that, by and large, those advantages come in the middle of chapters, while the Heroes’ twists and reveals and reinforcements get the benefit of being at the end of chapters, so the dominant feeling—the side that’s left wildly cheering for their “team” at the end of the week—is usually the Heroes. While it’s possible that the impression left is different when reading the story in volume form,[2] when reading week to week, that imbalance critically damages the story’s ability to portray the desperation and strain of the Heroes’ struggle.

2: Having not read the arcs in this fashion, I couldn't say. Obviously I don't know how a volume-only reader would experience this aspect of the story, but even reading (or rereading) a bunch of chapters all in one go online suffers from some impaired momentum between chapters by having to specifically navigate to the next chapter webpage and wait for it to load rather than just being able to turn pages freely.

That, in any case, was my thesis when I first started this count, listing which side has the upper hand at the end of each chapter of the two war arcs, as well as the total overall. With the second war arc finally having ended, I figured I’d go ahead and post my results.

Hit the jump!

For each arc, I started counting at the chapter where active conflict breaks out, including as a dramatic end cliffhanger. Thus, for the first war, I didn’t start in Chapter 258, where the groups are still gathering, but rather in Chapter 259, when the forward momentum begins and the first Villain (Ujiko) is confronted. Likewise, the second war count begins with Chapter 343, when the armies confront each other. The counts end with the last chapter containing active Hero/Villain conflict rather than narrated montage. Thus, the first war ends in 295, when AFO and the League flee the field, not in 296 with the looming threat of the long-awaited jailbreak. The second war ends with Deku’s weather-clearing fist in 423.

My basic categories are Hero Advantage, Villain Advantage, and Neither. Fake-outs are categorized as they are perceived in the moment of reading them, not as they read in retrospect. Further, I do not categorize based on the overall tenor of the chapter, but only the impact of the final page. This is by nature somewhat subjective, but I’ve done my best to call them as I think they’re meant to be read.

What is the feeling the reader takes with them into the next chapter? Excitement for the heroes? Dismay and fear? A simmering tension? Which side, if either, got the HELL YEAH HELL YEAH fist-pump? If there's a relative clear answer, I'll call it for one side of the other; chapters that end with no particular new reveals, arrivals, power-ups, or other such shifts in the tides with be called as neither.

Finally, for ease of tracking and reading, my tallies and accompanying brief explanations are separated by volume. I'll provide totals for each category at the end of each volume, and full totals, as well as a total count for which category the volumes end in, at the end of the arcs. Final counts and commentary will close the post.

Let's get started.

FIRST WAR ARC

Volume 27: 259: Hero Advantage. Endeavor and company confront (apparently) Ujiko, catching him completely flat-footed.

260: Hero. Mirko crashes into Ujiko’s lab, to his horror, and kills John-chan in doing so.

261: Neither. Mirko and the High Ends square up for their Round 2.

262: Hero. The Villa gets cracked open like an egg, catching its inhabitants entirely off-guard.

263: Hero. If they were on more level footing, I’d call this Neither, but given the positions Hawks and Twice end the chapter in, and the clear difference in emotional preparedness, this one goes to the Heroes.

264: Neither. The Hawks/Twice fight continues inconclusively; Dabi is revealed to be on his way, but has not yet arrived on-scene to affect any changes.

265: Villain. Dabi makes a strong and, for Hawks, unexpected entrance, pinning Hawks beneath his boot.

266: Neither. Twice dies, which is a huge hit to the Villains, but the narrative sympathy is so clearly with Twice and Toga that it’s impossible to describe the chapter as ending on a fist-pumping note for anyone.

267: Hero. Doubly so, as Endeavor and Tokoyami both show up to intervene in fights that were about to go to the villains, but we'll be fair and only count it as one anyway.

Heroes 5 | Villains 1 | Neither 3 | Total 9

Volume 28: 268: Neither. Basement action. The tube gets cracked; Aizawa and Mic are told not to let Shigaraki wake up. Nothing conclusive.

269: Hero Advantage. Literally ends with Ujiko wailing that the Lord of Evil’s dream is over.

270: Villain. It ends with Deku getting a warning about Shigaraki, which makes it a bit borderline, but Shigaraki being awake at all has to count for the Villains.

271: Villain. Gigantomachia stands up.

272: Neither. The kids start rallying against the Decay wave. Deku gets a new move that doesn’t seem like it should have any effect but is played as being effective. Shigaraki’s Decay wave is being monstrously effective, even apocalyptic, but the tone of the last page is ambiguous.

273: Neither. Shigaraki faces off with Endeavor. Both are known factors on this field of battle.

274: Neither. Deku is on the move in hopes of leading Shigaraki to a more deserted area.

275: Hero. Aizawa arrives at the Shigaraki fight, locking down his quirk use.

276: Hero. Deku and Bakugou arrive in time to save Aizawa from what likely would have been the same kind of blow that will later cost him his eye.

Heroes 3 | Villains 2 | Neither 4 | Total 9

Volume 29: 277: Neither. Mount Lady attempts to stop Gigantomachia. Results inconclusive; both known factors.

278: Neither. Leans a bit Hero side because it’s Momo dramatically getting her head on straight, but it’s really just more preparations for a face-off.

279: Hero Advantage. The League is getting swarmed and Mina is on the brink of delivering what’s framed as a knock-out blow to Machia.

280: Neither. Shigaraki laboriously gathers himself, preparing to monologue.

281: Villain. Shigaraki readies a quirk-destroying bullet with Aizawa’s name on it.

282: Villain. Gigantomachia, who is very much not knocked out, looms over an unsuspecting city.

283: Hero. Deku negates the (immediate) danger of Decay by activating Float.

284: Hero. Deku lands a full-power blow on Shigaraki, who’s been largely unable to fend him off in the air.

285: Villain. It pains me to grant this because I knew good and well Bakugou would be completely fine. But he is a major combatant and face for the Hero side and this is clearly intended to look like it will take him out, at least for the fight.

Heroes 3 | Villains 3 | Neither 3 | Total 9

Volume 30: 286: Hero Advantage. The action moves to the vestige realm. Very borderline, but Nana’s words are definitive: “Let us handle this.” The implication is very much that there’s no need to fear because the vestiges have got this.

287: Neither. Chapter ends with Toga reflecting on heroes and the weight they give to the lives of Villains. Could represent a major turning point for Toga, but it’s still soft-pedaled by making that turning point dependent on a Hero’s yet-unspoken words.

288: Neither. Chapter ends mid-dialogue in the Toga/Ochaco fight.

289: Villain. Machia and his passengers arrive.

290: Villain. A little borderline because the actual very last panel is the plane containing Best Jeanist, but the audience doesn’t know that yet, and the bulk of the final page is dedicated the devastation of the Touya Reveal, so I have to give this one to them.

291: Hero. Best Jeanist arrives.

292: Hero. Mirio arrives with his quirk restored.

293: Hero. Machia goes down because the sedative finally kicks in.

294: Villain. Mr. Compress backstory reveal and big escape moment.

295: Neither. The battle ends save for the wrap-up. The villains are neither victorious nor defeated.

Heroes 4 | Villains 3 | Neither 3 | Total 10

SECOND WAR ARC

Volume 35: 343: Hero Advantage. The Heroes counter AFO’s army by “unexpectedly” whipping out their own via Warp Gate.

344: Hero. The Heroes take the offensive and split up the villains’ army.

345: Villain. Toga lassos Deku through a gate, separating him from the field he’s supposed to be on.

346: Villain. The beginning of Fingervetr.

347: Neither. Borderline because it’s a big dramatic page of Toga, but it’s more conversational then confrontational to me, and isn’t revealing anything particularly new.

348: Neither. Deku flees the island, leaving Toga to Ochaco.

349: Neither. Dabi gears up to provide the answers Shouto has specifically asked for.

350: Neither. Dabi’s coming on strong, but Shouto remains undaunted. I’d give it to the Villains if the last page were Dabi liquidating the All Might statue, though.

Heroes 2 | Villains 2 | Neither 4 | Total 8

Volume 36: 351: Hero Advantage. Shouto unleashes Phosphor.

352: Hero. Shouto appears to beat Dabi.

353: Neither. AFO is talking a lot, but not about anything groundbreaking.

354: Neither. AFO and Jirou exchange smacktalk.

355: Hero. Hawks and Jirou combine efforts to break AFO’s mask.

356: Neither. Endeavor has a big moment, but AFO gets his hands up in time to block and is still shown intact at the end of the chapter. Borderline, but I’d say not quite definitive enough to qualify it for the hero side.

357: Villain. AFO regenerates. A little borderline because it actually ends with Deku, and the approach of what I guessed at the time were the American jets, but I think it’s a similar enough scenario as the end of Chapter 270 to call it for the Villains as well.

358: Neither. No impact from the Hero attack leaves it a little unclear how much effect it will have, and a new attack is not a big enough game changer for me to really count it even unproven. It’d be easy to call it for the Heroes, though.

359: Hero. Return of the Big Three.

360: Hero. Bakugou’s in rough shape, but there’s a hint that he’s noticed something important, which could foreshadow a change in the tides of the battle.

361: Hero. Suneater’s Chimera Cannon, which certainly looks incredibly hype and impressive in the moment.

362: Villain. Bakugou’s “death.”

Heroes 6 | Villains 2 | Neither 4 | Total 12

Volume 37: 363: Villain Advantage. AFO finishes regenerating; full face reveal.

364: Hero. The impossibly moronic Edgeshot-as-Bakugou’s-heart business. Not conclusive, but it steals one of the Villains’ victories out from under from them.

365: Villain. A shift in Inner Tenko’s emotional state heralds Shigaraki’s next form.

366: Hero. Deku arrives at the Sky Coffin.

367: Neither. Deku attempts conversation to ask about Shigaraki’s status.

368: Hero. Deku lands a full-power hit on ShigAFO while Yoichi talks to his big brother about letting this being the day that their battle ends.

369: Villain. A scene change to Spinner that’s timed in such a way that it could really only foreshadow Spinner’s victory.

370: Neither. It’s very close to a Hero call, but mostly what Shouji’s doing is shaking off mundane attackers and making a dramatic proclamation. Not quite enough direct impact for an end-of-chapter Hero Advantage.

371: Neither. Even closer than the last one, but neither blow the kids are gearing up for actually connect on-page. I wouldn’t fault anyone who called it for the Heroes, though.

372: Neither. An extremely effective cliffhanger, for once, as Spinner and Mic call out to Kurogiri simultaneously.

373: Villain. Kurogiri gets up, calling himself the protector of Shigaraki Tomura.

374: Villain. Toga deploys Sad Man’s Death Parade; Hawks proves he hasn’t learned jack shit from the last time he faced this question.

Heroes 3 | Villains 5 | Neither 4 | Total 12

Volume 38: 375: Hero Advantage. Toga’s narrative-destined rival manages to follow her off the island and to the Villa ruins. Close to a Neither call.

376: Neither. Setting up a Dabi/Endeavor clash with Endeavor not caught on the back foot.

377: Hero. Return of La Brava.

378: Hero. Return of Lady Nagant.

379: Neither. Sets up a reengaged clash between Shigaraki and Deku.

380: Hero. Arrival of Shiketsu.

381: Hero. Tokoyami lands a blow that AFO is explicitly afraid to get hit with.

382: Hero. Shinsou and Kirishima arrive with a brainwashed Gigantomachia.

383: Neither. Reiterates that AFO is in trouble, but it’s not new information, and the choppers coming in at the very end are an unpredictable element.

384: Hero. The choppers are full of Hero-supporting journalists here to tell the world how incredibly hard-working and earnest and admirable Heroes are. Gag.

385: Neither. AFO’s belated but impressive show of force gets dampened somewhat by the Heroes refusing to give in, and even getting one of their number back. It’s back and forth, but Stain really tips it for good over to a neutral chapter ending. While he’s obviously not aligned with the Villains, he’s far too murderous to chalk him up as a Hero yet, either, especially on-scene watching two kids he tried to kill last time he saw them.

386: Hero. All Might gets a cool robot suit and the last-page chapter title drop references his iconic catchphrase.

Heroes 8 | Villains 0 | Neither 4 | Total 12

Volume 39: 387: Hero Advantage. Rei is, of course, a civilian, not a hero, but she’s clearly aligned on the Team Good Guy, so I have to give it to them. It’s not a hill I’d die on, however, particularly with the very last panel being the flashback to Touya emphasizing Rei’s culpability.

388: Neither. What a nice vision of hell as everyone burns to death, including Dabi. If I gave it to anyone, I’d lean Villain, because it’s certainly more in line with what Dabi wants—what he’s always wanted. But in terms of impact on the reader, it certainly isn’t going to get anyone whooping and cheering for the Villains.

389: Neither. It’s a good last few pages of Shouto and Iida, but the reader already knows they’re on their way, so it’s not a pleasant surprise to see them enroute. The fact that they are still enroute rather than dramatically arriving to save the day keeps this from being a full Hero moment ending.

390: Neither. Teasing more of the fight between Toga and Uraraka, but no sudden turns, new elements, or grand statements on either side.

391: Neither. Ongoing fight; while Ochaco gets the stirring line, the actual last page is Toga lashing out.

392: Villain. While I’m loathe to give it to them on the basis of an injury I was not for one second actually worried about, the chapter does end with Toga putting a knife into Uraraka’s gut and a flashback to Twice asking Toga about a Villain name. A clear Villain-upper-hand ending.

393: Hero. Ochaco comes through with flying colors, getting a quirk awakening and making Toga an offer she’s dreamed of her whole life.

394: BOTH. For literally the first time in this whole count, I can’t count this against either side. If pressed, I’d call it a Hero win, but it’s a win because it validates both sides.

395: Neither. Sorry, gang. I’m utterly incapable of calling this one in an unbiased way. It’s an all-too-real death scare for Toga and, regardless of how happy she is in the moment, I can’t call her potential death a victory. But since Ochaco obviously feels the same, it’s not a Hero win, either.

396: Hero. And get ready, ‘cause there're about to be a whole lot of them. Good god, but I hate this All Mech sequence.

397: Neither. Ongoing battle, no major tides turning in the final page.

398: Neither. As above.

Heroes 3 | Villains 1 | Neither 7 | Both 1 | Total 12

Volume 40: 399: Hero Advantage. The big turn-around with Aoyama, with All Might dropping the Aoyama-themed laser of AFO.

400: Hero. Stain’s return. Stain’s a Villain himself, but far too aligned with Hero orthodoxy for me to count him returning to help All Might as anything but a Hero-side victory.

401: Neither. All Might’s still kicking, AFO is within range of Shigaraki, but nothing decisive deployed on the final page.

402: Neither. To all appearances, All Might continues to shovel more battle damage onto AFO. There’s a death threat in the explosion, one I don’t think I took very seriously at the time, though plenty of others did. Left to my own devices, I’d call it for Team Hero, but I’ll err on the side of restraint and call it a hero equivalent of Toga’s death threat.

403: Hero. Unequivocal Hero victory—Bakugou’s back up.

404: Hero. Saving All Might with the literal power of prayer.

405: Hero. If I wanted to be snide, I’d point out that Final Boss is definitionally a Villain role, so Bakugou enthusiastically claiming it for himself implicates Heroes as having been the Villains all along, while the Villains are the clear heroic underdogs struggling against a corrupt, violent system. But that’s just my bitterness making me perverse; this is a clear Hero victory.

406: Neither. Exchanging of smack talk, Bakugou gets a good but not definitive hit in.

407: Neither. AFO’s flashback ends with one of the most crushing emotional defeats of his life, but you can hardly call AFO slice-and-dicing Yoichi a Hero win, either.

408: Neither. AFO’s going all-out, but Bakugou remains undaunted.

409: Hero. AFO’s effective defeat at Bakugou’s hands. Yoichi’s regretful glance is not enough to shift the needle.

410: Villain. Shigaraki does what the narrative has long been warning that he can and steals a portion of One For All, grabbing Danger Sense for himself and stealing Shinomori from the OFA collective.

Heroes 6 | Villains 1 | Neither 5 | Total 12

Volume 41: 411: Neither. Deku’s readying an offensive that gives Shigaraki lots of Danger Sense tinglies, but nothing definitive.

412: Neither. The temptation is strong to call this for the Hero side, as it’s the moment Kudou formulates the plan that will soon be leading to Shigaraki’s ultimate defeat, but the caveat that the plan requires losing One For All kiboshes that feeling very triumphant.

413: Hero. There’s some nominal sadness for Deku gearing up to lose OFA, but the tone here is much more about how great and awesome Deku is for being willing to do it, on top of how incredibly fucking rad the art plainly wants us to think that he looks.

414: Hero. I’d normally call it Neither for lacking new elements or definitive actions, but I have to acknowledge the sheer disparity between, on the one hand, the vestiges telling Deku that it’s working and to keep going as Deku gears up to unleash another punch while, on the other hand, all Shigaraki can manage is huddling in on himself and choking out a few pained grunts.

415: Neither. Borderline in that Eri is a clear Hero-side ally with an absolutely game-changing power, but the truth is that she’s at U.A. with no immediately clear way to make it to the battle even if anyone were to let her go, so it’s not too different from any other chapter that ended with a major player en route but not yet arriving.

416: Hero. Deku finally breaks into Shigaraki’s inner mind, over Shigaraki’s protestations.

417: Neither. Deku and Nana make a major breakthrough, but Shigaraki’s backstory yet has terrible bombs to drop. I can’t call it a Villain advantage, though, because it’s still stuff Shigaraki very much does not want Deku meddling with.

418: Villain. AFO returns yet again, spoiling Deku’s hard-won moment of equilibrium and understanding with Shigaraki.

419: Hero. We can’t even get a week to savor/freak out over Deku losing his arms because the actual last beat of the chapter is Aizawa bringing in a pair of classmates via Kurogiri’s warp gate, suggesting (albeit inaccurately) that Kurogiri has settled as a Hero ally.

420: Hero. More of the above and Deku gets his arms back after a world-shakingly relevant and momentous chapter and a half.

421: Hero. All around Hero support, now including from civilians too.

422: Hero. More of the above and now Deku’s punching Shigaraki at the end of it under a chapter title of Midoriya Izuku Rising.

423: Hero. Deku’s triumphantly raised fist clears storm clouds, changes the weather, and kills the man he was trying to save. This is framed as a victory anyway.

Heroes 8 | Villains 1 | Neither 4 | Total 13

TOTAL CHAPTER COUNT FOR BOTH WAR ARCS: 118 CHAPTERS Final Page Hero Advantage: 51 Final Page Villain Advantage: 21 Final Page Neither: 45 Final Page Both: 1

Total Volume Count: 11 Volumes Last Page Hero Advantage: 4 Last Page Villain Advantage: 4 Last Page Neither: 3

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Now, you could (and I might) write a whole different post about the unbalanced strategic advantages that I discussed at the beginning of the post, but I think this breakdown also serves to illustrate the scope of the problem with raw numbers (percentages rounded off a bit such that they total to neat 100s).

In the first war, 40.5% of the chapters end with the Heroes on the upswing, 35% have no clear advantage, and only 24.5% end with the Villains waxing triumphant. Despite Hawks reflecting at the end of My Villain Academia about how the Paranormal Liberation Front was a power on par with, or possibly even greater than, that of Hero Society, the numbers don't really back that up. Instead, Heroes have the advantage over half again as often as Villains do, and even the uncertain chapters are still more numerous.

The second war is worse—much worse. Hero Advantage chapters account for nearly half of the arc at 44.5%, while chapters where Neither side clears account for the bulk of the remaining chapters at 39.5%. Only 15% of the chapters, well under a quarter, are Villain Advantage. For an endgame that wants to be about "saving Villains," only one single chapter (1%) ends with something you could credibly call both sides winning.

Now, of course, the second war is the climax of the whole series, so of you might say that of course the Heroes are going to ultimately do better. They have to win in the end, after all, so of course the arc will eventually feature mostly Hero victories.

I would counter that, while that is true, the story repeatedly tries to convince us that the Heroes are really struggling, that they've lost so many people, that they're at this huge disadvantage that neccessitates the extreme measures they use. And the numbers simply don't back that up, even less than they did in the first war!

If you look at the totals for each volume, Heroes have a wild advantage in two of the first four volumes (the arc is seven volumes in total), numbers the Villains never come close to meeting. There's one volume (the third, Volume 37) where they have the majority of the chapter-ending advantages, and even there, it's a narrow margin. Volume 38 is then a blow-out with not a single Villain Advantage chapter cliffhanger in the whole book, and in the final three volumes of the arc, the Villains get exactly one Advantage chapter per volume.

Not very convincing numbers, if the aim is to convince the reader of how much Plus Extra effort the Heroes are going to have to exert, if you ask me!

Between them, Hero Advantage and Neither chapters make up a shocking 81% of the two war arcs, with merely 18%, less than fifth, of the chapters ending on Villain Advantage beats that could serve to freshly drum up, "Our heroes are really in trouble now!" anxiety.

Looking back to what I said about the Heroes having the bulk of the strategic advantages for both arcs, that surely can't be all that surprising. You can't expect a set-up that slanted to leave much room at all for Villains to get time to shine; they simply don't have the room in the story for that when, for everything they try, the Heroes already have some countermeasure.

As a final comparison, remember I praised MVA back at the start for being gripping in large part because the "Heroes" of that arc, the League of Villains, were at such a disadvantage?

I briefly ran the numbers there, and I'd say, of nineteen chapters that contain active confrontation of some sort between the League and an antagonistic force (Gigantomachia, Ujiko, and the MLA), the League have the chapter-ending advantage beat in four of those chapters: Toga's victory in 226, Twice overcoming his mental block and starting to replicate himself in 229, and the two chapters covering Shigaraki's ultimate victory over Re-Destro, 238 and 239. That's a grand total of 20% "Hero" Advantage chapters for them, and half of those are the arc climax chapters.

The "Villains" for the arc likewise have the ending advantage in 20% of the arc, four chapters: Machia having comprehensively whipped the League at the end of 419, RD making the League an offer they can't refuse in 223, Skeptic pushing all of Twice's buttons in 228, and RD plucking off Shigaraki's fingers in 233.

The remaining eleven chapters—60%—go to the Neither category. Compare that back to the percentages for the war arcs, and you can see that, while the Villain Advantage percentage is similar (~5% higher in the first war and likewise lower in the second), the Hero Advantage is twice the percentage (40+%) in both arcs, while the Neither chapters are accordingly lower (the war arcs are 35% and ~40% Neither respectively).

In other words, the Heroes in the war arcs just straight-up have more chapter-ending awesome moments and reveals, and spend less time facing chapter-ending uncertainty, compared to not just the Villains they're fighting in those arcs, but also compared to what those same Villains got when they were being Heroes for an arc.

And to think, Horikoshi wants me to think his Heroes are being challenged. Pull the other one, Sensei; it's got bells on.

(I welcome anyone else to run similar numbers with e.g. the trainng camp attack or the Hassaikai base raid. For myself, I'm too sleepy to figure out a better ending for this post, so I'm just turning out the lights and hitting the sack. Sorry if there's any formatting wigginess or the closing analysis is lacking; I will clean it up later if need be.)

#bnha #number crunching #bnha meta #here be percentiles #war arc woes

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dcdreamblog · 6 months ago

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The All-Star Squadron included heroes who came from a wide array of professions, social/economic classes, regional cultures (which was a much bigger deal back then) and ethnic backgrounds. And while most of them were cishet white men, some of them weren't. Likewise, many of them held religious/philosophical beliefs other than "mainline" Protestantism. Now, they were all heroes, dedicated to the common goal of fighting for justice, and etc. so I have absolutely no doubt that all of them were able to get over any prejudices they may have had and do the job, but we are talking about people who were mostly white cishet American men who were born in the first half of the 20th Century; I cannot imagine that none of them had prejudices, and that these prejudices caused friction. Can we talk about that?

You're right and I wish I had better answers to give you. But a few factors keep me from offering up a lot of clear or worthwhile examples.

The Squadron's members were really opaque, and their actual thoughts came AFTER the war through Tarantula's book "Altered Egos". He's one of the few heroes where we have a distinct and purposefully kept war journal of his thoughts and the thoughts of some of his comrades during and after the war. Most of the other heroes were really concerned with their secret identities and didn't write these things down for posterity, especially not their own bigotries and stumbling blocks.

The War gave everybody an incentive to face front and close ranks. Public schisms in the Squadron's membership basically didn't happen and arguments that occurred behind closed doors stayed there.

The Squadron was, for its age, a deeply, RADICALLY liberal organization.

(A propaganda poster of Will Everett Sr, The Amazing Man, punching Hitler in the face. Circa 1943)

It accepted a black man into its ranks without a single public disagreement. From its FOUNDATION a large chunk of its membership were women. The Squadron even intervened in the Detroit Race Riots in 1943 where Amazing Man publically eviscerated an android supervillain calling himself "The Real American".

I could sit here until the sun came up rattling off all the times that Squadron teams or its individual members smashed pockets of the Klan or the American Nazi Party, or the German American Bund and then dragged their ass in front of the papers to call bigotry and intolerance UnAmerican and damaging to the war effort. The Young All Stars publically celebrated a Japanese American member during the era of internment.

Any bigotry in the organization was imposed upon it from the outside. The biggest example I can think of is that Wonder Woman spent the war years officially listed as the JSA's "secretary" because the Society's membership was more heavily scrutinized and it wasn't possible for her to take what was technically a military position in what was technically a combat role.

What stumbling we do have evidence for is very, VERY slight. The Sandman voices some homophobic opinions during a case that lead up to his confrontation with the Phantom of the Fair. But by the end of that case file we read about Dodds going through an active epiphany about homosexuality because of that case.

The widest spread "bigotry" that seemed to be present in the Squadron was patriarchal language directed at its female members who were always in a position to safely and openly give as good as they got. We have a collection here at the Perisphere that is JUST photos of Liberty Belle elbowing Johnny Quick in the ribs!

It sounds absurd. It sounds too good to be true. It SOUNDS like a lot of things. But there it is, in black and white.

If you want me to undercut your heroes from the past, I would for the sake of intellectual honesty. But I can't.

The JSA are the superhero community's North Star.

Not just because they were the first. But because they have always been like that.

The only time I have ever even heard a RUMOR of UNCLE SAM cursing is a couple years ago when the modern Ray came out as gay and people started talking bad about him online.

The modern Shining Knight started identifying as Bigender and Sir Justin has gotten into fist fights over it.

Please just. For your own sake. Believe in them, they are maybe the only figures I can't bring myself to mistrust these days.

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yuri-is-online · 11 months ago

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@karmablacks I'm technically studying law so I got too defense brained thinking about this :/ right anyway. When accusing someone of murder you must consider, did they have the means? The motive? The opportunity? Of the five persons of interest MC finds listed, I think all of them made that short list because they have the means to have committed a murder. That leaves motive and opportunity, which leads me to be comfortable excluding Alan, wanting more information on Jiro, Towa, and Ed, and ambivalent about Rui.

Excluding Alan

Alan specifically says he thinks that he killed Dante during the Clash, unless Dante was the victim of the One Eyed Sleeping Beauty Murder (which I will henceforth be abbreviating as OES murder because fuck typing all that) then I see no reason he would not have said as much during Episodes 2 and 5. If he started the Clash then I think that would factor into his guilt and weigh on him immensely, it would be something he thinks about regularly. Dante does not only have one eye, he's got four and we know from Haku that multiple people went past the point of no return during the Clash. We are looking at a murder that specifically started a war, not one that resulted from it.

Profile Jiro

We know the least about him out of everyone on the list, but there is just enough to understand why he's there. He was in a coma for a very long time and still hasn't healed, if he is on the suspect list presumably he was not in a coma during the murder but might have entered it after. His combat skills are good enough to protect Yuri who has none, he has multiple wounds on his body that aren't closing, and he outright refuses to spar with Luca on the basis of it being a "bad idea." I am very comfortable with him having the means to commit a murder, the question is whether or not he would have seen it as a murder. One of his first voicelines is about "giving them death because that is what they wanted." If he did kill our victim, there is a chance it was a mercy kill that other parties disagreed on, hence the Clash.

Also did you catch the bloody gloves he's holding in the teaser? I did, it made me wonder if we will learn more about the murder in the next Episode.

Profile Towa

He would have been a first year during the Clash, meaning that while he might not be new to life he was new to Darkwick and we have all seen how he acts towards new people he doesn't like. Haru felt the need to tell him not to use lightning underwater, he's not exactly the most familiar with how to treat things gently and with care. Sure, Towa is currently interested in romance and love, but Ed accuses him of not always being that way and refusing to see anything weaker than him as having value. We don't know why that changed, and until we do he remains someone who wouldn't necessarily need a specific motive for murder and has the powers to kill someone. The main problem with Towa is that if he was the person who murdered the victim, his method would be very easy to identify. He controls the weather and likes poisonous flowers, we need to know how the victim died before we can determine how strong or weak of a suspect Towa is.

Profile Ed

This bitch has been technically undead for 400 + slutty slutty years, and the one time he stopped watching tiddy streamers to help Rui with a mission he leveled an entire building. Chances are pretty good he's killed someone before and wouldn't have a problem doing it again. This is where we look at motive and opportunity, Ed is really only ever active at night and claims he cannot go out into the sun. Was our victim murdered during the day? Then that makes it less likely to be Ed. There is technically a difference between just killing someone and murdering them, murder implies a degree of intent. You wanted that person to be dead, who would Ed have enough of a vendetta against to actually want dead? And was our victim someone who would fit that description?

Ambivalence about Rui

Rui kills people by touching them and draining their life force. Based off of what we see he does to Ed and the butterfly on the homescreen, it looks like this causes them to disintegrate. While I have no doubt that Rui has killed people on accident before, is this case really one where that's what could have happened? From what we have seen of him I don't think he is someone who would have the motive to murder someone. Means and opportunity sure, not motive. But again, as with Towa, how can he be under the same level of suspicion as the others if his would be method of murder is so specific? I could see him as the murderer if it was an accident, and it's one of the reasons he feels the need to repent. Which rounds out my thoughts and brings me to:

What I Want to Know

I want the name, year, and age of the victim, when they died (estimated), and the suspected cause of death. Also why is this murder called what it is, why did it cause the Clash, and most importantly:

What could have possibly happened to that body that your suspect list has such a wide variety of possible murder methods, or are Darkwick investigators just that dumb and afraid of ghouls that they immediately accused who they think are the five most dangerous (in no particular order) without taking any of that into account? And is that murder what Taiga, Tohma, and Alan all are talking about when they say there is a spy intent on making the ghouls look bad?

#tokyo debunker #tdb #tdb spoilers #tokyo debunker spoilers

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omorimodreverie · 5 months ago

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Reverie Devlog - 2025 January

Intro

New Year has just passed and now we are in 2025, which also means a new Dev log!

This log is a relatively shorter one in terms of progress made, as the majority of work happened in November, as December was busy for almost everyone. Instead, part of the focus in this devlog will concern management during times of low activity.

Progress

Main writing properly reviewed

Aside from major cutscenes and dialogue-heavy writing, work was also finalized on any transition scenes that will lead to the next chapter.

Gameplay progress testing started

A lot of things are still missing, but the chapter is playable for the main progression.

Testing was done to ensure that the chapter can be accessed through previous chapter (Ch. 3) save files.

Miscellaneous RPGMV work

Various minor bug fixes, as well as cutscene tweaks.

While no major implementation was done, it still added up to quite a lot of work.

Enemy AI brainstormed and drafted

These are just drafts for now, however, and proper testing with stats will take place later on

What’s Next

As of now, a decent chunk of people in the team are still on a well-deserved break - January will likely not see any major spike in activity. At this point, identifying specific tasks needed to be completed is sometimes tricky, even when a lot of things are obviously missing.

The probable first thing on our task list is simply playing through what we have so far, and looking for anything missing: ranging from technical bugs, to gameplay aspects (communicating where to go next or balancing in battles).

For those interested, at the moment the majority of RPGMV related tasks are hooked on the Github Project of the REVERIE project repository. Even though I was out for over a month, I did manage to list a bunch of tasks requiring completion while playing through in advance. It is likely that something similar will be done for this month as well.

As for a specific list of those tasks (that I can publicly talk about):

Extra optional areas - these are after the main chapter bosses and optional challenges. They tend to be large and have more winding paths, but are only 1-3 maps.

Extra optional fights, similar to above, but specific battles. Chapter 4 will come with a dedicated optional area, unlike the chapters that came before.

Creating and implementing the ending cutscene, though this is pretty much the final thing on the to-do list.

Playtesting and balancing various combat side gameplay.

Making skill animations, if time and resources permit

Final Notes

Overall, the past 2 months have been more lackluster in terms of progress, but that is usual and to be expected during Winter break / New Year (as most people get busy). I myself have been almost completely offline for over a month, so even I need to catch up on the work done so far: that's the reason why this dev log is a bit delayed.

Anyways, as a thanks for reading this far, here's a teaser for a battle theme for The Dungeon area and a preview of a battle gimmick there!

(It might seem a bit strange to separate battle themes for a minor areas; it's a remnant from trying to manage music in advance way back since Chapter 2)

youtube

#omori #omori mod #mod #omorimodreverie #reverie #omori reverie #devlog #Youtube

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greasedglizzy · 5 months ago

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Bridgerton Rant

Old topic, but the online discourse between Eloise and Penelope's relationship will never fail to irritate me for a number of reasons, but mainly because of the popular opinion that "Eloise was always jealous of penelope's success etc" or "Eloise was a bad friend and never cared about pen's wants."

I disagree with this take specifically because of this Singular scene. The Garden Scene in Season 2.

The previous scene of them before this was Eloise defending Penelope against Cressida's insult. Then afterwards, they leave the ballroom together to which they end up in the garden. Away from all eyes and ears. The conversation they have here is one of the most vulnerable and raw things I've ever seen, which to me makes their relationship feel all the more truer.

But it also reveals the limiters within their dynamic that I think alot of people miss.

Eloise dismisses Cressida Cowper's insult towards Penelope, while also discussing her distaste for the event entirely.

"It is all of them. Staring at me like I'm some fine China teapot. How do you do it on your own, Pen?"

At the end of her sentence here, she blindly includes Penelope, completely unaware of Pen's position being indirectly rejected by the Ton because of her features and family.

Pen reminds her of the "Wallflower" persona, to which Eloise cannot see. But Penelope, instead of complaining about the insult, reclaims and embodies it within her next dialogue.

"It's not so bad, you know. The Wallflower thing."

She starts listing off the benefits of her position rather than discussing her discomfort in the weight of rejection.

It feels bittersweet seeing her empathize with her involuntary non conformaty, even though we as viewers sees how hard it weighs on the character. But that's not the entire point of this dialogue. What really sells it to me is while she's listing off what the wall allows her to see, Eloise looks to her with a attentive expression before saying:

"You've been keeping it from me."

IMMEDIATELY, Pen displays shock. Misinterpreting this as Eloise figuring out she is Whistledown.

(Its revealed at the end of s1 that she's whistledown at this time so we automatically know this is her thought process.)

But to our surprise, Eloise is talking about something else. Which is Penelope's love for the regency scene of ballrooms, suitors, romance, etc.

But the real hit of this scene is what Eloise offers in this next round of dialogue. She's says:

"You do not have to pretend any longer, Pen.

You like all of this."

This line delivery is one of the most raw and expressive portrayals in media I've ever seen, Claudia Jessie you will always be famous.

To me, What hits so hard about this line is the implications behind what Eloise is offering and providing to Pen. A safe space.

There is also alot of online discourse about Eloise's character not being a "girl's girl" and shunning other women for their tastes in the regency standards and traditions for women at the time, but to me, what Eloise says in this scene somewhat combats that take. (A little bit)

Instead of berating Penelope for her interest in these events (that Eloise is always badmouthing and displaying her clear disinterest towards), She tells penelope she does not have to hide any longer from her.

In a way, this kinda feels like a hidden stone of Eloise's character that is not appreciated enough within the takes on her character. Her vulnerability and the Empathy that she has for those closest to her. You see her demonstrate this ability to provide a safe space when she's with Benedict on the swings, away from all eyes and ears.

In response to her "not being a girls girl", I don't think she has an active distaste for women in general. Her problems are with the standards and expectations implaced upon women and how society reduces women during that age to the skills they gain to attract a man, their submission to men, and their expected ability to reproduce

"Like Chattels and Breeding Stock" - Kate Sharma.

But there are times when Eloise's distaste for these standards end up reflecting onto the women around her but I really don't think that is her intention. In fact, she doesn't just refer to herself whenever she boasts about feminist ideals. She speaks of liberation for women in general.

She defends women when she has to dance with that guy Violet sets her up with at that ball.

"Maybe try not to insult her entire sex in the process."

And she is genuinely excited when visiting the Radical Rally for the first time and seeing a woman leading its debate. Though, I see this fails to translate in her scenes with societal women. Another fault of her character is her inability to remain in touch with the world around her.

(But that's why her ending line in s3 makes me believe her development in that aspect is arriving soon. "I cannot change the world without seeing more of it.")

But anyways!

Referring Back to her and Pen's dynamic and Eloise's realization of Pen's interest in the ton. I'm aware that this can also be easily tossed out the window because "Well that's the bare minimum! She should've noticed sooner!"

True, but then her character would have no faults. Scenes like this show she is capable of nuance and growth, as well as comfort and understanding. It makes her character humane.

But these scenes aren't nearly as recognized as her louder scenes, which only occur when she is put in a space where she is actively vulnerable to being judged or perceived. And how does she want to be perceived in this world?

A person existing outside the standard. A independent woman capable of holding her own in a society that prevent the culmination of the ideals she clings to.

Anyways, returning back to the main point of this rant.

Penelope is relieved for a moment after Eloise reveals the context behind that statement. And for a moment, you believe the scene will carry on with Pen admitting her deep passion for these traditions and continuing a healthy conversation of back and forth internal sharing between friends!

But Penelope does not do this.

Not entirely anyway. Instead, she sort of brushes off Eloise's offer.

"Well, It can be amusing."

Is all she says in response to Eloise's words before immediately changing the subject to Eloise's fading interest in lady whistledown.

To me, this immediate switch came off as a shock to me. Upon rewatching, I realized that this moment was different. It wasn't just her erasing suspicion of her connection to being whistledown. This was Penelope putting a wall up, portraying a gap within their relationship.

Because as Eloise is loudmouthed, opinionated, and talkative within their dynamic, Penelope is the opposite. Closed off, minimally responsive, and withdrawn.

This dynamic was never going to hold because there was a deep imbalance between the knowledge being shared within their bond.

THIS is why their argument at the end of s2 had nothing to do with Jealousy. It was a wake up call to Eloise that there was a whole withdrawn bank of knowledge about the person who she considered her closest friend, and her not knowing enough about her friend is what essentially led to their downfall.

Not because she never tried to know pen, but because she thought she did know pen. Everything she knew about Pen was what Penelope ALLOWED her to know and have access to.

She thought they had mutual trust built up over years of friendship. Trust so strong, that Penelope was the ONLY person she told about Theo.

Not even Benedict knew about Theo. AND THATS HER BROTHER.

There mightve been maybe some Jealousy later on, I don't really see that, but if it were to be, it was not in that room or that moment. That argument was all about heartbreak. Not just between her and Theo, but her and Penelope.

NOW, when I say this, I am not saying Penelope is some evil mastermind with a pension for deceit. Her decision to not tell Eloise about certain aspects of her life doesn't make her a bad person, but it does make you question the stability of her friendship.

But, She has a plethora of reasons as to why she has to keep herself withdrawn. Not only that, but the household she grew up in I'd argue is a direct causation of her tendency to withdraw information in all her relationships. That and because the independence of her having her own hobby, source of income, and uninflueced persona provides her with a level of agency that society could never provide for her.

But mainpoint I'm trying to say here, is that

1. Eloise is capable of displaying care for her friend's interests and can work to understand the value of those interests even if they do not align with her own, as portrayed in the garden.

And 2. Eloise is not jealous of pen's success and that their argument was a stepping stone to her development as a character and how the demonstration of heartbreak amongst her connections builds that development.

I really wanna decode more of the Garden scene, because it's way more emotional passed these few lines of dialogue, especially Eloise's admittance of her fears and internal Insecurity towards being a disappointment and Penelope's admittance towards liking the buzz of gossip and the opportunities the wall allows her.

But I'm really tired so tomorrow.

#eloise #eloise bridgerton #penelope featherington #bridgerton #bridgerton season 2 #analysis #character analysis

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