#overall I think he would really grow to love the fun and cute aspects of fatherhood

[mothwingwritings]

WOW!!! I LOVED "The Innocent Act Of Dredging Up The Past", IT WAS VERY GOOD!

I wonder how Y/N reacted when she found out she was pregnant and how Fox allowed herself to keep the baby because he doesn't seem like someone who likes sharing attention.

Thank you so much darling!!! I am so glad you asked me this because I have been thinking about Ren as a father nonstop since that request. My brain has been full of many thoughts and opinions and I am happy to have an outlet for sharing lol. That being said, forgive my blathering. ^^;

(18+ and warnings for noncon, pregancy/baby birthing talk, incredibly unhealthy relationships, abuse, and being kidnapped/held against your will.)

Being impregnated by Ren would be absolutely dreadful for you, causing you to spiral into a pit of fear and despair the moment you miss a period or begin to feel queasy in the morning. With the signs starting to show, your brain comes to the instant conclusion that you are with child-his child, and it frightens you like nothing else before. At first you try and convince yourself nothing is wrong, that you are probably just late due to stress, and your upset stomach can be any number of things, it doesn’t necessarily mean you are pregnant. Any of your symptoms can be explained away by something else, so in an effort to try and maintain your sanity your brain churns out explanation after explanation, no matter how nonsensical they may be, in hopes of calming your rampant nerves by coming to some other resolution. A stream of constant lies and false reassurances play on repeat in your brain, forcing the thought that you may actually be a mother to the farthest reaches of your mind.

But the longer you wait and the more you dwell on it, the more you are faced with the inevitable. He never wears protection, you haven’t had access to birth control, and despite your warnings of it being a delicate time of month for you, his base instincts always won out in the end. There was nothing else this could be.

Faced with the reality of the situation, you were now tasked with the burden of sharing the news with Ren. You didn’t want to tell him, terrified of what his response would be, worried that he would somehow blame this all on you and hurt you because of it, quite possibly worse than he ever has before. But an even more horrifying concern than that is if the news actually pleases him. What if he wants to keep the baby? What if you were forced to carry this pregnancy to term while trapped in this grim environment, left to raise another human that shares half their dna with a man who has done nothing but cause you irrevocable damage?

No matter what the outcome, none of them are favorable.

But you didn’t have a choice, and you knew it was better to break it to Ren sooner rather than later, lest this whole nightmare become irreversible. In the event he saw things your way, you wanted this thing out of your body as soon as possible (though you loathed to consider what strings Ren would pull to achieve this, and what backwater procedure would be done to do so).

At first Ren brushes it off, not truly believing your concern. He’s had sex with you countless times without protection and just now you get pregnant? Seems suspicious, so he concludes you’re either overreacting or trying to get a rise out of him, potentially both, and that in and of itself riles him up. Are you telling him this as some kind of ploy? Are you using a false pregnancy as a means to get him to ease up on you a bit or as an attempt at escape? After all you had gone through together, after all the love he has lavished upon you by sharing his home, his life, his heart, with you… Would you really tell a lie like this?

He struggles with that possibility. Despite his inclination to feel otherwise, he has a hard time believing you would use a pregnancy scare for your own selfish benefit. You have always been a good girl, his good girl, and deep inside he knows this is not something that is within your nature to do, even if he does have some major doubts.

So, though he doesn’t truly believe your claims, he buys the pregnancy test more as a means to shut you up and prove a point than because he actually believes you. Needless to say, he ends up biting his tongue over that one.

When hit with the truth, his emotions are mixed. On one hand, he wants nothing to do with children or child rearing. He didn’t have to do much of a self-assessment to recognize he would be a shit father, and he never particularly wanted to be a father to begin with. His own upbringing wasn’t the best, he himself never really having a father figure that was worth a damn to guide him or show him any love or support. He had no parenting manual to go off of, and was sure that a culmination of having no positive family experience and maturing into the warped individual he had become led to no other conclusion than NOT being cut out for fatherhood in the slightest.

More than that however, the thought of sharing you, even with a life he helped create, really REALLY pissed him off. Thinking of all the nights you would be spending tending to the baby when you could instead be wrapped up in his arms, or all the attention and affection you will be giving some inept kid that could instead be going towards him, truly gets under his skin. He doesn’t WANT to share you. You’re HIS. And while a baby isn’t going to change that, he doesn’t want the needless competition to begin with.

But on the other hand, having a baby does have its appeal. It would be nice to bring a life into this world that loves him from the get-go, completely relying on him while being totally oblivious to all that has happened in the past. That sort of pure, blind love is hard to come by in this world, and the fact that he could obtain it so easily from a life he created with you, a human that has your blood running through its veins, is EXTREMELY appealing. And on top of that, you are sure to love the child whether its conception was wanted/planned or not. If you loved a child that was half his for the remainder of your life, would that not bind you to him for just as long? Though he didn’t doubt your loyalty (or his ability to keep you tied to him with no hope of escape), it would be a nice assurance to have in the rare event things did not end up going his way.

Once that thought enters his head, it’s over. No further thinking or future planning is required-he is going to be a father, and YOU are the beautiful mama! Congratulations! (Does he get off to you being pregnant? Did this pregnancy make Ren Hana realize he has a breeding kink??? Sources say yes and that’s your problem to deal with now. :))

♡

Holding his newborn for the first time, he has never been so nervous. Tears flood his eyes as he watches the small bundle squirming in his arms, his heart aching as they stare up at him with wide, pure, inquisitive eyes. He was no stranger to ending lives, but creating them? This was something entirely new, as exhilarating as it was scary. His smile grew as he stared at her small face, pleased that she looked so much like you. He could only hope that her personality would mirror yours as well.

♡

As time passes and the baby grows, you find out quick that Ren has a very ‘hands off’ way of parenting, which is to say he relies on you to do most of the work. And honestly, he feels that is fair. He’s the breadwinner who works hard to provide for you and the newborn, which leaves all other parental duties in your capable hands. You are left to be the child’s main caregiver, their guiding force to lead them through life, their teacher, confidante, and friend. It’s a daunting task, all residing solely on your shoulders.

Ren won’t readily admit it, but he much prefers it that way. All the abuse that he has suffered through from an early age, every heinous act of violence that has been carried out by his own hands (your wounds, included), all of it has turned him into something unrecognizable, something grotesque. Even if he wanted to have more of a presence in his child’s life, he knows he doesn’t deserve it. If he had too much sway in the kids development there’s a good chance they will grow up to be like him in some way or another, which would be a waste of all the love and hard work that you had put into raising them into being an upstanding person. Ren had made peace with who he had become, but that didn’t mean he wanted to keep a cycle that someone like Strade had begun going either.

So, the baby more or less becomes your soul responsibility, and god is that a burden for you. It’s bad enough that you have such little support from Ren to begin with, but the fact that this is YOUR first time being a parent as well makes it all so much worse. You have no idea what the hell you are doing, and with Ren making sure to keep you as isolated as possible you had no one else to turn to for help, either. It was just you and this brand new life with no one else to rely on, if you fucked up in even the smallest way it could be devastating to the baby. If your daughter got truly hurt, sick, or worse in your care, you didn’t know how you would live with the repercussions, let alone handle Ren’s reaction.

If your life with Ren hadn’t already made you a strung out, nervous, irritable wreck, being a mother certainly would. As she continues to grow, Ren refuses to discipline the child at all, not wanting in any way to appear like a ‘bad guy’ to your daughter. Given the circumstances, part of you is thankful for that (you honestly don’t know what you would do if he turned his ire towards her), but it also just makes things more difficult with you. You are already beyond stressed about trying to raise a child in this type of environment, having no united front and constantly butting heads makes raising her that much harder, especially when any kind of rule you attempt to establish can so easily be overridden by her father who has no remorse over the frustration this causes, nor care as to how his flippancy may affect your child’s development in the long run.

It’s also not lost on you that being the sole disciplinarian also paints you in a less than favorable manner in your child’s eyes, something you are sure Ren has thought about as well. Being the ‘strict’ parent means your child will be more likely to hide things from you, or seek out her father instead of you for support, approval, and advice. Given whom Ren was as a person, this thought didn’t sit particularly well with you.

All you can really hope and pray for is that somehow despite the lack of social interaction and outside influence she will grow up to be a decent human. Even maturing under the delusion that her father is a noble man, even if in some instances you have to make yourself the villain, as long as it helps her out in  the long run you’ll do everything you can to insure your daughter lives the best life she possibly can, whether her father helps you or not.

I think the REAL problems will begin when the child gets older. When she truly comes into herself and forms her own opinions, develops her own personality, and starts to forge her own way of life… It’s gonna be messy. :/ Your child’s autonomy is definitely going to be a point of contention for Ren in the future, and he won’t be so pleased if/when she catches on to his true nature and begins to rebel or straight up reject him. God forbid she tries and join forces with you or attempt to become your savior. It’s going to take a lot of cunning on her end to make it out unscathed.

Also, I kind of touched on it previously, but Ren would be incredibly horny the whole pregnancy. Not that he isn’t already incessantly slavering over you, something about seeing you round and full just makes him snap. Which is scary in its own right, Ren isn’t the most gentle of lovers to begin with and has a tendency to lose himself more often than naught, hurting you in the process. It’s a constant struggle to satiate him while protecting yourself and the unborn baby, best of luck to you! :D

(And he’ll definitely breastfeed from you. He’s gotta make sure you are producing enough for the baby, ya know? :))

[koreposion]

Thoughts on canon and fanon Blue?

Okay let me start off with this

AUUUYGHHHHHHRRRFHHHHHHHAHHHHHHHHHHH RAHHHHHHHHH

Now my actual thoughts are....I don't really care, they both have their strengths and weaknesses but both of them are used to tear the other down. Not only that but purity culture is pathetic so when "Blueberry" is made to be Aroace because "He's such a cute and sweet childlike bean!"

It's grosser than the fact that you think of him as "childlike" like adults don't love puzzles, colors, and keep stuffed animals. Not only are you making it out to seem like it's bad to enjoy "childish" things as an adult but that wanting joy means that you haven't grown up which is :[

I feel like Blueberry is a wonderful way to explore different aspects of adulthood and how it affects people differently. Childlike wonderment and joy shouldn't be limited to just your childhood, and some children are just forced to grow up fast but then that leaves them wanting the things they should have had during their childhood years. However this part of storytelling for Blueberry isn't EVER SEEN BECAUSE FOR SOME REASON PEOPLE ARE FIGHTING OVER ECHO CHAMBER THOUGHTS????

Not only that but the MOMENT someone EVER headcannons something and it becomes popular it becomes "fanon" which??? SO YOU WANT PEOPLE TO WRITE THE CHARACTERS BASED ON HEADCANNONS MADE FUCKIN FOREVER AGO???

Like okay, example the food thing where each Sans was given a favorite condiment, and the swap versions were different dishes. This was okay but like...what do you mean Blueberry's defining traits are that he loves tacos and wants what's best for everyone....like are you sure you don't want anything else? Please. Please oh my God please.

It's like when people make Papyrus' traits "love spaghetti and the guard" and NOTHING ELSE. Even though he loves collecting action figures, studying puzzles, making costumes, building, and he is a very caring person but is only ever used as a plot point in fics??? Like when something needs to go wrong he's there, or when something needs to go right he's there. It's not written in naturally and thus has also affected the way people write Blueberry.

When something needs to go right or wrong Blueberry is there but oh no! He's too sweet and kind to want anything EVER and only wants what's best for you but it's never in a cool manipulative way? Fics that make him a bit of an ass are a breath of fresh air.

I think people forget that he's Sans too a lot. And I think he should be more quick witted and smart mouthed. He should keep his love of puns and ketchup, he should also keep his smarts. Like puzzle wise he's actually really good and puts a lot of effort into it but he's not really good at the science aspect of smart. It's like people forget that you can still keep these traits and "swap" him.

I have SO MUCH MORE to say but the basic fundamentals are this.

People need to stop holding onto the past version of Blueberry but also not tear down the past version as much as they do. You can give him different traits and he'd still be "Sans", making him less of a "Papyrus" would be helpful. Have fun with new ideas and possibly explore the idea of having different types of childhood and how that affects a person as an adult. Liking childish things doesn't mean someone is an innocent person, but that they find comfort in those things and nothing more. Growing up happens, and it's apart of life and it's hard to come to terms with sometimes.

To have him stay a flat character with no possiblity of change is a waste of potential and people have the right to do more. Overall, do what you think is most fun when it comes to story telling but don't forget that he's a character who needs devolvement just like any other "Sans"

Man I had so much to say I'm sorry

[fanfic-inator795]

Ranking my favorite animated dad characters because I can’t sleep

I realized that a lot of my favorite animated characters are dads, so fuck it. Let’s rank them both on their dad-ness and on their character overall.

7. Ansel Beauregard (Arlo the Alligator Boy/I heart Arlo): okay so, as much as I’m kinda hyperfocusing on this guy rn, he kinda HAS to get the lowest rank ‘cause like… he literally abandoned his gator baby in the sewer. Honestly the fact that he’s able to be likable at all is a damn miracle, but the movie and show pull it off surprisingly well.

Basically from the moment he finally accepts Arlo into his life, he’s trying his best to make amends - though admittedly he still doesn’t always go about it the best way, lol. Growing up bullied then isolated and then becoming crazy rich at a young age has definitely made him more than a little oblivious, out of touch and self-centered (though these parts of his personality are still funny/endearing instead of being annoying imo) but he still genuinely cares (even when he was unwilling to face his truth, he still gave Arlo advice that he at least thought was in Arlo’s best interest based on what worked for him) and I really do love the interactions he has with Arlo. I also love the whole bird-man aspect of him both as a character design and fun quirk, and his VA work and singing is also phenomenal. (Seriously, I’ve been listening to “Better Life” multiple times per day, someone pls I need help asdfghjkl)

6. Dr. Heinz Doofenshmirtz (Phineas & Ferb): So, back when I was a kid, Doof was definitely my favorite character, and while I’ve kiiiiiinda grown out of him in some aspects (his over-exposure in things like MML didn’t exactly help), I can still enjoy him for being a really funny and really enjoyable character.

Can he sometimes be annoying, slightly obnoxious and take up too much screentime in the latter seasons? Sure, totally. But like- I’m never gonna NOT love the ‘evil villain who has a huge soft spot for their child’ trope, it’s a classic for a reason. Doof is a dork and can be overbearing, but he’s also really sweet and will do anything for his daughter, including get himself stung by dozens of bees. It also can’t be denied just how many of his lines and moments can still get laughs out of me even after all these years. We Stan a petty ADHD-king and (not-so-)evil scientist dad.

5. Hamato Yoshi/Lou Jitsu/Splinter (ROTTMNT): oh hey, another dad with trauma - only instead of being bullied and forced to hide himself or having a nonsensical tragic backstory, he had to deal with generational trauma, being forced into fighting/killing for sport, and finally getting mutated which led to years of on/off depression. …yeahhhhh.

This is another character I really admire for just how well they’re written, even if he wasn’t always the best dad (though for the record, he wasn’t nearly as neglectful as some fans want to claim…) I think most Rise fans would agree that Splinter absolutely has the best arc in the series, going from a strictly comedy relief couch potato to a loving father/tragic figure who manages to rise above everything for the sake of his kids. He’s willing to let the world burn for the sake of his sons and I respect the hell out of him for it regardless of whether or not it’s the ‘moral’ choice. But he’s also still really funny and really cool when he wants to be, and for as much as I’ve drifted away from Rise, Splinter and his story is still one of the few aspects I adore and appreciate about this show.

4. Pete McGee (The Ghost and Molly McGee): Pete is just a super endearing character to me even if he arguably has the least going on of all the TGAMM characters. He’s a very typical goofy sitcom dad both in terms of design (which, ngl… Pete is kinda really cute? Am I the only one who sees it?) and attitude, usually only being used for comedy while Sharon is the one who gets to be the slightly more serious one and have the heart-to-hearts with/give advice to Molly.

But that’s fine because even if he’s not the deepest dad on this list, he’s still incredibly endearing imo. He’s a 100% Wife Guy, he struggles to stand up for himself but still always tries to stand up for his family, he inspired Molly to be heavily interested in community service, and he’s a dancer! Which is just a really fun quirk, hence why I really love both the Ice Princess episode and the Dance Dad episode (asdfghjkl I remember when Tess and I were watching the latter, she was cringing at all the TikTok dances while I was sitting next to her enjoying the song and just being like yeahhhhh get it Pete! Lol). While I do wish we could have gotten a bit of deeper character stuff with Pete, he’s still pretty solid and very enjoyable to watch.

3. Bob Belcher (Bob’s Burgers): we love our autistic Burger King babeyyyyy! Seriously though, while I’ve grown to love all the Belchers, there’s definitely a reason why I gravitated towards Bob first. He’s a mess of a guy who’s just trying his best to deal with all the chaos that life and his family throw at him, and we love him for it.

I love that even while being the most grounded character in the show, he’s not afraid of being a little unhinged and just fucking going off on someone or something. He’s also often the one who’s always trying to help others, even when it’s usually by accident given how much of an introvert he is. He loves his wife, his kids and his burgers with all his heart, and even when he’s at his worst (which is a rarity), you still are rooting for the best for him and want everything to work out. His heart-to-hearts with his kids (and with other characters) really are some of my favorite moments from the show. Furthermore, much like literally all the other characters on this list, his VA’s delivery just adds SO much to his character as well. I really do just love H. Jon Benjamin, he’s so hilarious and needs to voice more characters.

2. Rodolfo Rivera/White Pantera (El Tigre): Ah yes, my first favorite animated dad character, even before Doof. As such, I’m always gonna have a soft spot for this guy. Like I’ve said before, I love how he’s able to be both a goofy and super soft-hearted character but can also be a total badass at times, sometimes without even trying.

He just wants to protect his city and help his son grow up right, and I love him for it! He’s easily one of the funniest characters in the show, but I appreciate that he’s allowed to still be cool and still have a win occasionally. He also manages to be stern without ever becoming unlikable or unreasonable, given that he’ll still always be there for his son and father even when they’re doing things he doesn’t approve of, and I think it’s that overall balance that really endeared me to him, plus his great design+voice (if I had a nickel for every time I gravitated to an Eric Bauza-voiced dad, I’d have two-). His little catchphrase quirks like “okay be good!” and saying Manny’s full name live in my head rent-free, ngl.

1. Bill Green (Big City Greens) let me make this clear… I! LOVE! BILL! GREEN! He’s just… SO great. He’s wholesome, he’s funny and goofy, he’s sweet, he’s a loving father, he’s stern but still reasonable, he’s a hard worker, he’s super relatable, he’s a secret badass, he’s a huge dork, he sings about his truck and is super attached to his wood carvings - he really is just everything and I mean that in the best possible way.

While Cricket and Tilly are obviously the stars of the show, I really do love how much energy the show puts into making Bill this incredibly well-rounded and likable character who you just can’t help but sympathize with and root for when it comes to his farm stuff. I can’t say that he’s perfect, he’s definitely made a couple pretty poor decisions here and there, but overall I think he’s everything I want out of a great animated dad character (probably because he honestly reminds me a lot of my own dad - or at least, the positive parts of my dad). He’s not the only thing I love about BCG, far from it, but he’s definitely one of my biggest favorite things about it.

BONUS HONORABLE MENTION DADS:

- Vasquez (BCG): bodyguards/surrogate dads absolutely count. So happy that Vasquez has become much more prominent and fleshed-out as the show’s gone on, he’s just so great. Thank you Danny Trejo for voicing him, can’t wait for that s4 ep where Vasquez apparently goes to therapy

- Lego Batman (Lego Batman Movie): ah yes, the kick-starter to the Batman/Bat-fam phase I had in college. Fits right alongside characters like Ansel and Splinter for being obviously flawed dads (bro literally called his new son ‘expendable’ wtf Bruce) who still care a lot/grow to become better people over time through the influence of their kid. Will Arnett is still absolutely hilarious as this character, I love how he immediately goes into dad-mode when Robin gets slammed into the windshield, and that bit at the end where he finally tells Robin the truth about his ‘dads’ still gets me a bit teary-eyed

- Wild Knuckles (The Rise of Gru): technically a grand-dad but whatever. Like I said, I love my villains with a soft-side for their kid, and it makes me sad that the Rise of Gru fandom essentially ignored this guy in favor of hot young Dr. Nefario. Like- I don’t care if the arc between him and baby Gru was somewhat rushed, dude literally got himself burned alive by a huge dragon for his surrogate grandkid, he deserves better

If you’ve made it this far, let me know if you like any of these dad characters + what your favorites are ^v^

[yomiurinikei]

Okay I needed to add one more thing too.

Tsuhara and Tsuhigo both are rad as hell but..

What about

What about

Haruhara.

I love how Haruhiko wanted to dropkick Monokuma so bad

easy option theyre all dating <3 love wins

i see ur other ask + am planning on maybe doing some rambling/analysis on it, so this will be more lighthearted! i think that like.... while overall theres a lot of queer coding in dra, which leads to a lot of interesting ways of interpreting relationships (every character is like. either queer coded, or has interesting interactions with a more queer-coded character).

soooo. i think they should all just date <3. they all have two hands!!! im generally a bit more tsurugi focused with my thoughts because theres just so much material when it comes to how he is when it comes to romance. but i think haru and kinji could be vv fun together- OH.

so building off my "cupio haru could be a fun hc" post (id link it but thats... all it rlly says), and combining that with my kinji hcs, specifically the idea that kinji isn't really in touch with what he wants and doesn't realize the need he has that's going unmet. i think haru who wants love and a relationship and is just so into the whole idea of it, who also is very... dedication/obligation driven (this is part of a larger analysis but tldr haru is very interesting when u look at how he views his relationships with people and how labeling people as friends vs not friends impacts how he treats them), but doesn't feel attraction to any particular person, would be very fun with kinji whos just entirely tapped out of his emotions, who has these wants, these feelings, that he has zero conscious awareness of.

i think the getting together stage with them would be vv cute cuz u have haru who's very conscious of the whole thing, how they're growing closer together, and shit, hey, could this maybe become a relationship? and then u have kinji whos just been put on a rollercoaster blindfolded and has no clue whats happening or whats about to hit him.

i have this issue where i share thoughts that have a bunch of context behind them but don't give the context and then i come across like i have no grasp on these characters. but. tldr haru comes across in the game as being driven by what he feels he /should/ do for people and is very conscious of how his relations impact things. and kinji is just. "is this friendship?" after saying the most romantic coded things to yuki in his ftes. so i think they'd be fun together!!!

also i love haruhiko so bad <3. he's such a funny little dude i feel he v often gets reduced to either his romance with satsuki or his "bro!" energy and its such a shame because i love both those aspects of him, but when he's written comprehensively, without focusing on just one of those parts of his personality, it's so great, he's actually a fairly cohesive character as far as linujs writing goes. so i get a little picky because no one gets him perfect which is evil because he actually does have consistent writing.

he should have gotten to dropkick a monokuma

[adamwarlock]

Do you think the 2021 GotG game adapted Adam well? I'm mainly familiar with him from the DnA GotG comics + his random appearances post that and various bits and pieces of older comics from the 70s-90s, and I personally found his portrayal in the game entertaining + interesting with a unique take on the Magus aspect being something that's feeding off of other people's grief, but I'm curious as to what someone more familiar with the character thinks about it all.

Yeah I liked it!!! I didn't really know what to expect from Eidos-Montreal but I was really pleasantly surprised by how good the GOTG game is overall. First time I played it me and my roommate were in genuine hysterics every time Adam opened his stupid mouth, I think it not being bad overloaded my brain or something I like truly couldn't handle it.

Compared to the comics Adam is definitely a biiiiit more exaggerated for comedic effect (like with the constant alliteration/Magus' rhyming) but I think it works, it's fun and rings true to how dramatic and over the top he often is + I LOVE that they leaned into him being this extremely socially inept asshole who wants to do good but just goes about it in the worst ways possible. They really captured his holier-than-thou attitude and general air of self-importance, like Adam instantly asserting his authority over the guardians and butting heads with Peter while everyone constantly makes fun of him because he's such a (sexy) jackass I just 😭 god it's so funny I'm shocked he didn't snap and try to kill everybody sooner.

I also enjoyed their take on the Magus and how they handled the Universal Church of Truth as a whole... It's definitely different but Adam becoming somekinda shapeshifting god parasite isn't TOO big of a leap to make, really, and Raker's alright.

I think the Magus latching onto people's grief to indoctrinate them is a smart way to tie the story/characters together and it provides a nice simple throughline between the Magus and Warlock too, with Adam's desire to help others twisting into this false promise of a universal paradise without suffering. The game doesn't really dip into it but since this Magus was in part created by Adam separating himself from the Soul Gem I feel like "The Promise" serves as an interesting parallel to Soul World; Adam has always felt most comfortable in this idealized haven where he's the de facto leader and there's no conflict or struggle for understanding because everyone is spiritually connected to each other(/him).

The Promise is also a lot like the Goddess' scheme from Infinity Crusade where we see her utilize grief similarly to game!Magus when recruiting people into her death cult, it's a very natural extention of Adam's unsavory manipulation tactics and other hang-ups from the comics.

Having the Magus manifest as this living hunger that grows from Adam's darkest thoughts and impulses is very cool actually BUT. If I gotta nitpick then while I don't mind making Magus more literally nonhuman I do wish we got to see a bit more of him/it as an extention of Adam himself. Most of that internal conflict happens pre-game and gets relegated to exposition and flavor text which is FINE since the game isn't really about Him but you know. He is always the main character in my heart and I would like to see the full corruption arc please. Generally this is maybe more of a preference thing but Magus as Adam from the future >>> Magus as an evil aspect of Adam, while I like both the difference is significant lol.

Alsooooo it's really cute how Adam gets (begrudgingly) accepted by the guardians and learns a little more about the power of love & friendship by the end AND I just wanna know more about all the unanswered questions regarding Adam's pre-game hijinks/death and Thanos' mysterious disappearance... we need a sequel SO bad. 😔

Okay wait, last minute addition but shoutout to the scene where Lady Hellbender hits on Adam and he just clams up like UHHH....... because out of all the characteristics to carry over from the comics I truly wasn't expecting "fear of women" to make the cut.

[1d1195]

Omg finally had time to read the newest toothpaste update and bestie…omg?! That was so GOOD!!! I know you typically don’t write smut(which is FINE!!!) this build up was just so😵‍💫 THE THUMB SUCKING I WOULD SIMPLY DIE!! She’s so brave bc omg could cry just thinking about it lol and she’s so bold omg I love that for her😭 and he’s so in love like this man is so down bad, I love it!! That “cavity filling” line… SAM WHAT POSSESSED YOU TO TYPE THAT HAHAH I LOVE IT !!!! It was so nice to read about these two again, loved it as always!!

I think it was also for the best lol I would have been WAY more unhinged than I already was lol and it seems so much like you to be worried about them and honestly I get it!

Bestie anything you come up with I know it will just be great!! And the way Market Basket has now been added to my list of stores I will simply not enter bc that sounds so bad😭 I love a good deal but my mental state probs candle handle that HAHA

Oh the writting aspect seems like it would have been horrible like the process of it lol I feel like you would have absolutely slayed cognitive psychology classes!! There’s so much stuff about the brain and like behavioral stuff too!

IM FINALLY FREE!!! Took both my final exams on the same day so my brain is a little fried but still very happy to be over with everything:)! YOURE incredibly sweet Sam😭❤️ I miss you too obviously when I’ve been away! I always love chatting with you no matter what! But same goes for you too, your overall stability and health is a priority! No matter how long it will always be so important to put yourself first!

I’m also so surprised how inspired you have been for Honey bc the amount of writting you’ve done in such a short time is so crazy in the best way!! I get being a bit critical on what you work on BUT I’m sure the last few parts are just as amazing!

THAT MEN QUOTE OMG THATS SO REAL!!!! HAHHA LOVE IT! I like the idea of annotating bc I think it’s cute too! I typically end up writing it out or taking a pic of a quote I like but that’s pretty much it! I also donate my books once I feel like I’ve outgrown them a bit so I try not to do too much damage lol but omg that sounds so fun with your friend!!

Hope you had a good week my love! And wishing such a peaceful and relaxing weekend! Love you lots!!!-💜

Yay! I think the whole reason I had this idea is because I finally have a dentist that doesn't make me want to cry anymore. I was so traumatized growing up HATING the dentist. Now I find it lowkey relaxing just laying there lol I am trying to think of more sexy punny innuendos for the dentist (there's something about being drilled on the tip of my tongue) but yes, he's mostly just obsessed with her 😍 as he should be. she's so cute 🤭

FREEDOM! YAY! I'm glad you're done! So exciting!!! 💕

I think I wrote like 15k words in the first day of starting it. Sometimes when I have (what I think is) a good idea, I try and write as MUCH as I can as quickly as possible so I don't forget anything I want to include. So I was bouncing back and forth between the beginning/middle/end putting pieces down that I don't even know if I'll use but I gotta include in case I need it. I'm currently REALLY attached to Honey still though (probs because I wrote it so quickly) so I'm lowkey struggling to write something else because I don't want to let them go 😭 It's like when I read a book that just hits and I'm like "I cannot leave them. They're my friends." It feels rude to move on.

I've been trying to donate more of my books! I'm out of room on my shelves! I usually leave them in the staff lounge. But I can't exactly bring my smut books into a school so I have to be strategic about which ones I bring in 😂 If I think I'm going to reread the book, or even just look at it, I always keep it. So there are MANY like that so I am struggling to clear space on my shelf. Plus I just keep buying more anyway 😂

Solid week overall and I'm hoping to be productive this weekend, but we will see. I want to put up fall decorations even though it's still like 80 degrees out. I know you don't like the cold much but I'm DYING for 50-60 fall breezes 😭

Love you!

xoxo

Hope you had a good week my love! And wishing such a peaceful and relaxing weekend! Love you lots!!!-💜

[legitelizabethwwefan]

Hello! If it’s not too much to ask can I please have hcs on valorant agents with s/o who does acrobats or gymnast tricks on the field while fighting? (Neon, Fade, Jett, Chamber and Yoru would be great if you can’t do all of the agents ^^)

Thanks for the request! This one really made me think- and I like a challenge. I used a general reader since that wasn’t specified in the request. I hope you and everyone else enjoyed this!

If you want to request anything, you can do so here.

Word count: 960

No warnings.

Acrobatic Agent - Chamber, Fade, Jett, Neon, Yoru x General Reader

Chamber:

He isn’t flexible at all, so he’s truly in awe of your acrobatic ability.

The first time Chamber watched you displayed your ability during a mission, he was genuinely in shock at how you could pull off such moves effortlessly.

His mind may or may not go somewhere dirty...

He tries to keep up with you in battle, but his efforts are in vain.

You think it’s cute that he tried anyways, and you tell him so.

Chamber makes it clear that he’ll try hard to try and keep up with you anyways.

This banter helped deepen your bond, which eventually leads to a relationship.

Chamber loves piling on the compliments about every aspect of you (physically and otherwise)- and your acrobatic ability is no exception.

He would stare at you whenever you do even the simplest of acrobatics.

His mind can’t comprehend how your body is able to do such things.

If you two are on a mission together, he has to force himself to look away from you anytime to do any acrobatics on the battlefield. Otherwise, he’ll get too distracted from the task at hand.

After a mission, Chamber will compliment your acrobatics the most, but won’t neglect to compliment you on how well you did overall.

Fade:

Fade also isn’t flexible whatsoever, so your acrobatic ability leaves her in awe too.

When she sees you in action for the first time, she stares aimlessly and nearly pays for it with her life.

Fortunately, you were able to use your acrobatic ability to get her to safety.

After that mission, Fade apologizes for her stupid blunder and explains why it happened.

From then on, she wants to train with you just so she has an excuse to see you in action more.

You’re happy to do so despite your reservations of Fade.

These training sessions allow you two to grow closer and eventually develop feelings for one another.

Fade won’t question how you’re able to do such acrobatics, but she’ll secretly wonder in between sneaking glances of you in action.

She’ll compliment your acrobatic abilities from time to time, but not as much as Chamber.

Still, she’s truly in awe of you and respects you as an agent and as a person.

Jett:

The first time Jett sees your acrobatic abilities on display, her jaw drops in the middle of a mission.

Her mind races about how cool it is and how badly she wishes she can do the same.

After that mission ends, she’ll dash over to you and ask multiple questions about how you were able to pull off your acrobatic abilities.

You happily answer each question, blushing at Jett’s enthusiasm in your abilities.

She insists on training with you because you and your abilities are so damn cool.

Eventually, Jett realizes that she wants to spend as much time with you as possible- and it’s not because of your acrobatic abilities.

You have feelings for her too, so it all works out in the end there.

Every time you two are on a mission together, Jett is constantly sneaking glances at you in action.

You both will also try to one-up each other a lot during missions too.

She may express interest in learning how to do some of the things you do, and you’re all too happy to teach her.

You two like to compete over who’s more acrobatic, but it’s clear that you’re the winner each time.

Jett may get a little jealous over your abilities. That being said, she respects you on and off the battlefield nonetheless.

You’re both quite competitive, but it’s all in good fun and makes your relationship special and interesting.

Neon:

Neon is kind of acrobatic, but nowhere near as much as you- and it makes her kind of jealous.

She doesn’t hate you for your acrobatic abilities, but she low-key wishes she could do similar things on the battlefield.

When she sees your abilities in action for the very first time, she’s awe struck- but also has a lot of questions.

Neon will ask you about your acrobatic abilities, which you answer happily.

You’ll ask her questions about her Radiant powers in return.

You two banter a lot about your respective abilities, which gives you the opportunity to grow closer and eventually develop feelings for one another.

Whenever you two go on a mission together, you and Neon constantly try to one-up each other with your abilities alone. But you both take enough care to not risk your lives in the process.

You and Neon sneak glances at one another during a mission to see your respective abilities in action.

Your relationship is built on a friendly rivalry, as well as a ton of mutual respect.

Yoru:

Yoru isn’t flexible, so your acrobatic abilities truly impress him.

But he refuses to tell you at first due to his ego.

After witnessing your acrobatic abilities a few times in battle, however, he’ll finally tell you that he’s impressed by you.

He won’t ask a ton of questions about your abilities because he would rather watch you in action.

Eventually, Yoru becomes so impressed that he’ll ask to train with you.

You two train a lot together, which helps develop your friendship into something more over time.

You and Yoru have a small rivalry, though not as much as with Jett or Neon.

Yoru will sneak glances at your acrobatic abilities when you two are on missions from time to time.

If you catch him doing this, his face will get red and he’ll look away in a hurry.

However, you never point it out to him because you don’t want to embarrass him further.

Yoru comes to respect you both personally and professionally- and vice versa.

[yanderelucy2]

This is my first time posting on Tumblr so... help. Anyways this is Ikepri kids and how I think their kid/s would act. Note: I suck at English and languages in general. (Only Rhodolite princes btw!)

Chevalier Michel:

Either has one kid or seven. I only say seven because I think it would be cool if each kid represented one of the seven deadly sins. (I'm an obey me fan ok?!)

The first kid would be a badass daughter, no debate there. She would be just like her dad with the whole beast thing except she'll be a little more human with MC. I always think of her as Charlotte Roselei from Black Clover, so yes there will be a man that will make me more human than a beast.

I can do the seven deadly sin kid thing on another post or something.

Leon Dompteur

I headcanon maybe two kids but with a pretty big age gap. I think it would be a son and then maybe like 10 years later or something they have a daughter, only because I think it would be super cute of a dynamic where the older brother keeps his sister safe and takes her to have a bunch of fun.

The son would be a semi-troublemaker because Jin and Clavis encouraged the bad behavior. He will grow out of it and end up training under Licht to then rule Leon's army. He would look like MC but with Leon's color palette.

The daughter will look almost identical to Leon. She has MC's personality though and they often read together, when she's older though she likes to read stories at an orphanage. She seems like a popular well like a princess in Rhodolite, she will also praise her brother any chance she gets.

Jin Grandet

Probably have like four kids. Three girls and then the last is a boy. The girls though give very big sister energy and are very protective over their little brother.

The first two would be besties because they would have maybe a year or months apart of an age gap, then the third sister would be born three years later. The youngest little son would be born two years after.

All the girls grow up with a pretty big bust because of Jin's genetics. The second would look like MC while the rest of the kids look more like Jin. The boy grows up to be a lot more respectful to women than his dad was, mainly because his sisters beat the respect into him.

(This one was so difficult!)

Licht Klein

Probably one son at first, plan for one until three years later because he seems a little lonely. The second would be a boy although Licht was hoping for a girl.

The son would be very energetic and happy a lot, has his dad's sweet tooth though. Really likes to bake with Yves, but doesn't like how Yves shows affection so will always be sassy back. Looks like MC, but with Licht's color palette.

The other son would look like MC in every aspect, but the eye color. This kid is a little quieter, but the second you talk about swords or military things he will be so content and talk with you a lot, he has Licht's singing skills. Sadly he has bits of Nokto's personality with women when he's older. Overall he and his brother will just hang out in town and spar for practice sometimes... this normally is done without Licht knowing.

Nokto Klein

A pair of twins. It's a pair of boy twins, they're fraternal though so one looks like MC, and the other looks like Nokto.

Nokto told them not to tell others they're twins. Nokto was also really scared about the whole twins' thing after what happened when he was younger, but it ended up fine because MC was the most gentle mother ever.

The older twin is a little arrogant child because he has his dad's looks and when he's older he's a bit more shy and timid because he was rejected by his crush when he like like 14. He has Licht's sweet tooth though, so they often eat MC and Yves' sweets.

The younger twin is a very kind child that loves animals, especially rabbits because they remind him of his mom. He grows up to be a favorite of the town folk and he's known for being gentle. His enemies think he's aggressive though and he and his brother get really aggressive when in battle. They have the best coordination though and will always make sure the other is safe.

Luke Randolph

One girl, that's it. Luke is a wonderful dad, but he got kind of overprotective and aggressive with the first kid, Luke was too worried for her.

She would look like MC in many aspects but would have Luke's ferocity in her eyes which would fear some people, this made her tend to avoid eye contact. She was still a very gentle girl, but also very beautiful and Luke wouldn't stop worrying about other men doing something to her, so anytime she would go out he would accompany her. She once told him off and he realized "Maybe I am doing a bit much."

Overall a wonderful beautiful girl, but her Dad has some issues to fix... when she was young they would play a lot though, and got along he just needed to loosen up.

Clavis Lelouch

Three kids, two boys, and one girl. The girl is the middle child, but do not be fooled she is just like her dad and her brothers want a break. They all have a 2 year age gap.

The oldest looks like MC and acts like MC, the only thing is he hates his dad's pranks and will often hide with Chev in his private library to read in peace. He would get along with Chev, but he would get jealous of Chevie's abilities and at times would avoid him.

The middle girl is in absolute chaos. She loves pranking people with her dad, she loves to see a reaction from people. She used to prank her brothers a lot but realized that they distanced themself from her and excluded her a bit so she stopped. She likes attention like her dad, I mean she looks exactly like him except for her smile that shines just like her mom's smile.

The youngest son looks like his dad, he enjoys the attention from girls, but he would never tell. He likes to seem like his older brother, all cool and mysterious disappearing at night and everything. It wasn't his thing though he would fall asleep after reading a book. He tried pranking but didn't like how people reacted toward him. He then just drowned himself in training and realized that a lot of ladies like a strong man.

Yves Kloss

He wanted a boy at first but ended up having a girl. Didn't complain though he's appreciative.

She is a very pretty woman, but as a girl, she was very sad because kids would make fun of her weight from all the sweets she ate. Luckily her dad would comfort her, and teach her everything he knew. She grew up, not skinny like everyone else but that's what everyone loved about her. How fresh and healthy she looked. She was a very kind gentle soul, but if you were to disrespect anyone in her family she will turn into the sassiest woman in town. She looked like both MC and Yves combined into one beautiful goddess.

[river-bottom-nightmare]

Nightwing 79 Review

i said i would and i will. i did like this issue! not as striking and attention grabbing as 78, but i think this issue was meant to be a foundation one, laying out the groundwork for the future. overall, pretty good. also there wasn't enough bitewing. as promised, overly extensive metaphors and me reading too much into things under the cut

i know i've talked about this cover before, but this particular thing is oddly important to me, so i'll talk about it again

this is me, once again screaming about how artists put nightwing in traditionally feminine poses and how every time i see it i just get whiplash. i mean, true, the main reason why is because nightwing is a so often sexualized character, and putting him in these poses just increases the objectification, which is a goal that dc producers have. but there are very few popular male characters that do this. the only one i can think of off the top of my head is deadpool, but that was so obviously a critique and a way to make fun of the media industry. when they draw dick like this, they’re being serious. they’re putting him in appealing poses meant to show him off, and that’s something that’s traditionally only been done to women.

it's a very direct and very loud breaking of traditional gender roles in media, especially for a character as high-profile and historic as dick grayson. colour also plays a factor in this. the entire background is pink. i was absolutely shocked when i first saw it, when the teaser came out, because i cannot think of any comic book covers of male comic heroes this high-profile where pink is even just prevalent in the cover, let alone the majority of the cover. the pink does look beautiful: it offsets and highlights the black and blue of dick's suit gorgeously, but does it with more finesse than orange or red. but the fact that the stylistic choice was made to accent and draw this cover with aesthetic and beauty in mind, completely ignoring traditional hard-set gender rules in art, was a conscious choice and one i wholeheartedly support.

just another example of the sexualization i was talking about. i remember seeing harley quinn in this exact pose in suicide squad.

so far, taylor's been pretty dead-set on bringing alfred to the forefront of importance in this series. he wants people to know how much he loves alfred's character, and how much the butler meant to dick growing up. he was dick's father too. but what i adore is how taylor managed to stress alfred's importance in a way that didn't insult or belittle bruce.

this is one of the best bruce and dick interactions i've seen, and it's done in one simple interaction. in this, bruce is tough and harsh. he knocked dick down hard, but then he reached a hand down and helped pull dick back up. let me analyze their dialogue for a minute

on your feet: this is bruce telling dick to get up. he's trained dick, he knows what the younger boy is capable of, he knows his limits, and he knows what dick can do. this is bruce telling dick i know you're strong enough to get up, so get up and prove me right

are you just going to knock me down again?: surface-level, it looks like dick's complaining. he doesn't like bruce's rough training, and he's tired of bruce knocking him down. but look at his face in this. he's smiling up at bruce, knowledgeable and a little hopeful. he knows that bruce is doing this to help dick better himself, he's completely on board with the rough training, because they both know the rewards are incredible. also, he's teasing. he's bantering with bruce. there's an ease in that joking statement, one that belies affection and intimacy. they've only known each other for a little bit, but they're already slipping into a close familial relationship.

it depends on how fast you learn: this is bruce bantering back. this is bruce not being a stoic, unfeeling asshole. instead, he's shown with the dry humor that a good batman writer knows is a staple of the character. he's teasing dick, telling him he'll basically whoop his ass if dick doesn't learn fast enough. it's incentive for dick to train harder, while also being lighthearted enough to tell dick that believes in dick and doesn't want him to push himself too hard.

gosh i love the titans. also it looks like wally's staring at dick's ass.

this was cute. a prod at dick's silly and playful sense of humor, while not dumbing him down for the sake of a laugh. instead, he's joking about food, which is stuff everyone jokes about. this is the kind of stuff that'll actually make me laugh, instead of just making me vaguely uncomfortable.

bludhaven's almost always portrayed as a cesspool of a city. and to be honest, it really is. but this panel gives the city a meaningful history, while also giving us a reason for why dick moved there.

it talks of a time when people still thought they could beat the monsters. that if they fought hard enough, they could win the fight. it was a tentative hope that you could always overcome hardship.

dick's little "i like that it's still standing" shows how he still believes that, despite what the rest of the world thinks. despite everything that he's been through, dick is still tentatively an optimist, and believes he can fight the monsters of the world and win. it's a beautiful testament to his character, and i'm like that they added his signature element of hope back in. it used to be what he symbolized as robin, and despite his growth and character arc from robin to nightwing, this is one aspect of robin that i'm glad nightwing still has.

remember when i said "things that make me vaguely uncomfortable??" yeahhhh,,,,,,,,,,,,,,

Shooketh Dick: A Sequel

(the expressions in this series are just,,,,on point)

this was an incredibly sweet and kindhearted thing for dick to do, but i found it kind of,,,,,,,,desperate? maybe that's just me, but let me explain.

dick's suddenly a billionaire, and he has entirely too much money that he knows what to do with. it's also alfred's money, what the man left to him, so dick forever links it with alfred. in addition to that, he's back and bludhaven and looking at it with "fresh" eyes. (at least, from a different point of view since he got shot in the head. then mind controlled.) he's desperate to do something with the money and he's desperate to help the people around him that so obviously needs up, so he comes up with an on-the-fly solution that's a little impractical and a little crazy, but it still helps and still does some good.

to me, dick seems a little lost. he hasn't completely found his balance yet, and he's trying to do things that will. he tries charity, because that's what bruce did and it's what he knows, even though he admitted that he always thought bruce could have done more as bruce wayne than batman.

they have a family group chat guys yall were right.

also, do i think that dick would ever actually get his wallet stolen?? no way in hell, he’d notice someone getting ready to pickpocket him a mile away. but i suppose it’s important to the Plot. 

okay this is getting interesting. first blockbuster, now maroni (+ the weird heart stealer guy). i can officially say that i am intruiged

this particular artistic quirk is shown a lot in this issue, and from this art team in general, but i feel like this panel is one of the best examples of it. it was stunning enough to take up a full page, and it’s well deserved.

the way they show dick moving is absolutely brilliant. as a reader, i like seeing these smaller versions of dick getting clearer and in more detail as they come closer to the screen. not only do they show depth in the picture beyond what a simple 3 dimensional piece of art does, it also shows the passage of time.

in addition, it showcases dick’s skill. dick spots these mobsters running after a group of petty thieves. he then, and follow me here, leaps off the roof of one building feet first, springboards backwards off the side of the adjacent building with his feet, gracefully continues his backflip, rights himself, shoots a line with perfect timing: just in time to soften his landing but not slow him down, execute said landing on top of a moving bus, keep running on the moving bus without missing a beat, shoot his grapple, use the grapple to swing, use the swing to build up momentum, then use the momentum to deliver a powerful blow to the mobsters. and he did all that fast enough to catch up with the mobsters, even though he was a ROOFTOP OVER. 

d a m n  s o n

this panel, the very first in the issue, is also another example of that art style, but a little more distinctive. i love the way they showed dick’s different costumes through the ages, along with him simply growing up. it’s a little heartbreaking, but a lot uplifting to see how far he’s come. thank god he got rid of the red. now all we need is the fingerstripes, and we’ll be golden

discowing my beloved. also i can’t clearly see discowing’s hair but it definitely looks like it’s pulled back. it looks like he put it in a ponytail. guys. guys. dick had a ponytail omg. 

he’s having a Hero Moment

are you talking about the city, dick, or are you talking about you? the kgbeast, the court, the joker. dick fell to each one of them, no matter how hard he fought. he won in the end, eventually and with his family’s help. but i think he’s feeling a little low, a little defeated right now. it’s almost like he needs a win, he needs to feel victorious, he needs to feel like he helped someone (hence the food and the hotel room), just because he needs to remember what it feels like.

these lines were supposed to resonate with you, and goddamn they did.

i looked at it from two ways. first, it’s the girl asking, begging nightwing not to hurt them. bludhaven doesn’t know dick the way gotham does, they’re still a little frightened of him. this child was brave enough to step in front of all of the other hurt and homeless kids and ask, to a strange man in a mask, if he was going to hurt them like the other men had. it’s heartbreaking, but commendable, and an echo of the city itself that dick’s decided to protect. they’re bloody and broken and terrified, but still gritty and brave enough to stare what they fear in the eye and ask it not to hurt them.

second, it’s dick seeing the question reflected in himself. recently, he got shot in the head and lost all his memories. while i think that the way ric reacted was a perfectly valid and human response to the situation, i think dick still regrets how callously and rudely he treated his family. then, he was manipulated by the court of owls, then he was brainwashed with a magic crystal by the joker. dick does have a guilt complex. it’s not a big as bruce’s, but it’s there. and right now, with this girl begging her not to hurt them, dick is probably thinking about all the times he hurt people, in control of his own actions or not, bc he “didn’t have a heart.” 

little ambitious don’t you think, dick?

also just look at the sunset colours loOK at the they could not make this any more obvious oh my godddddddddddddddddddddddd

in conclusion, i need more of her

[citrina-posts]

Avatar: Cultural Appreciation or Appropriation?

I love Avatar: the Last Airbender. Obviously I do, because I run a fan blog on it. But make no mistake: it is a show built upon cultural appropriation. And you know what? For the longest time, as an Asian-American kid, I never saw it that way.

There are plenty of reasons why I never realized this as a kid, but I’ve narrowed it down to a few reasons. One is that I was desperate to watch a show with characters that looked like me in it that wasn’t anime (nothing wrong with anime, it’s just not my thing). Another is that I am East Asian (I have Taiwanese and Korean ancestry) and in general, despite being the outward “bad guys”, the East Asian cultural aspects of Avatar are respected far more than South Asian, Middle Eastern, and other influences. A third is that it’s easy to dismiss the negative parts of a show you really like, so I kind of ignored the issue for a while. I’m going to explain my own perspective on these reasons, and why I think we need to have a nuanced discussion about it. This is pretty long, so if you want to keep reading, it’s under the cut.

Obviously, the leadership behind ATLA was mostly white. We all know the co-creators Bryan Konietzko and Michael Dante DiMartino (colloquially known as Bryke) are white. So were most of the other episodic directors and writers, like Aaron Ehasz, Lauren Montgomery, and Joaquim Dos Santos. This does not mean they were unable to treat Asian cultures with respect, and I honestly do believe that they tried their best! But it does mean they have certain blinders, certain perceptions of what is interesting and enjoyable to watch. Avatar was applauded in its time for being based mostly on Asian and Native American cultures, but one has to wonder: how much of that choice was based on actual respect for these people, and how much was based on what they considered to be “interesting”, “quirky”, or “exotic”?

The aesthetic of the show, with its bending styles based on various martial arts forms, written language all in Chinese text, and characters all decked out in the latest Han dynasty fashions, is obviously directly derivative of Asian cultures. Fine. That’s great! They hired real martial artists to copy the bending styles accurately, had an actual Chinese calligrapher do all the lettering, and clearly did their research on what clothing, hair, and makeup looked like. The animation studios were in South Korea, so Korean animators were the ones who did the work. Overall, this is looking more like appreciation for a beautiful culture, and that’s exactly what we want in a rapidly diversifying world of media.

But there’s always going to be some cherry-picking, because it’s inevitable. What’s easy to animate, what appeals to modern American audiences, and what is practical for the world all come to mind as reasons. It’s just that… they kinda lump cultures together weirdly. Song from Book 2 (that girl whose ostrich-horse Zuko steals) wears a hanbok, a traditionally Korean outfit. It’s immediately recognizable as a hanbok, and these dresses are exclusive to Korea. Are we meant to assume that this little corner of the mostly Chinese Earth Kingdom is Korea? Because otherwise, it’s just treated as another little corner of the Earth Kingdom. Korea isn’t part of China. It’s its own country with its own culture, history, and language. Other aspects of Korean culture are ignored, possibly because there wasn’t time for it, but also probably because the creators thought the hanbok was cute and therefore they could just stick it in somewhere. But this is a pretty minor issue in the grand scheme of things (super minor, compared to some other things which I will discuss later on).

It’s not the lack of research that’s the issue. It’s not even the lack of consideration. But any Asian-American can tell you: it’s all too easy for the Asian kids to get lumped together, to become pan-Asian. To become the equivalent of the Earth Kingdom, a mass of Asians without specific borders or national identities. It’s just sort of uncomfortable for someone with that experience to watch a show that does that and then gets praised for being so sensitive about it. I don’t want you to think I’m from China or Vietnam or Japan; not because there’s anything wrong with them, but because I’m not! How would a French person like to be called British? It would really piss them off. Yet this happens all the time to Asian-Americans and we are expected to go along with it. And… we kind of do, because we’ve been taught to.

1. Growing Up Asian-American

I grew up in the early to mid-2000s, the era of High School Musical and Hannah Montana and iCarly, the era of Spongebob and The Amazing World of Gumball and Fairly Odd Parents. So I didn’t really see a ton of Asian characters onscreen in popular shows (not anime) that I could talk about with my white friends at school. One exception I recall was London from Suite Life, who was hardly a role model and was mostly played up for laughs more than actual nuance. Shows for adults weren’t exactly up to par back then either, with characters like the painfully stereotypical Raj from Big Bang Theory being one of the era that comes to mind.

So I was so grateful, so happy, to see characters that looked like me in Avatar when I first watched it. Look! I could dress up as Azula for Halloween and not Mulan for the third time! Nice! I didn’t question it. These were Asian characters who actually looked Asian and did cool stuff like shoot fireballs and throw knives and were allowed to have depth and character development. This was the first reason why I never questioned this cultural appropriation. I was simply happy to get any representation at all. This is not the same for others, though.

2. My Own Biases

Obviously, one can only truly speak for what they experience in their own life. I am East Asian and that is arguably the only culture that is treated with great depth in Avatar.

I don’t speak for South Asians, but I’ve certainly seen many people criticize Guru Pathik, the only character who is explicitly South Asian (and rightly so. He’s a stereotype played up for laughs and the whole thing with chakras is in my opinion one of the biggest plotholes in the show). They’ve also discussed how Avatar: The Last Airbender lifts heavily from Hinduism (with chakras, the word Avatar itself, and the Eye of Shiva used by Combustion Man to blow things up). Others have expressed how they feel the sandbenders, who are portrayed as immoral thieves who deviously kidnap Appa for money, are a direct insult to Middle Eastern and North African cultures. People have noted that it makes no sense that a culture based on Inuit and other Native groups like the Water Tribe would become industrialized as they did in the North & South comics, since these are people that historically (and in modern day!) opposed extreme industrialization. The Air Nomads, based on the Tibetan people, are weirdly homogeneous in their Buddhist-inspired orange robes and hyperspiritual lifestyle. So too have Southeast Asians commented on the Foggy Swamp characters, whose lifestyles are made fun of as being dirty and somehow inferior. The list goes on.

These things, unlike the elaborate and highly researched elements of East Asian culture, were not treated with respect and are therefore cultural appropriation. As a kid, I had the privilege of not noticing these things. Now I do.

White privilege is real, but every person has privileges of some kind, and in this case, I was in the wrong for not realizing that. Yes, I was a kid; but it took a long time for me to see that not everyone’s culture was respected the way mine was. They weren’t considered *aesthetic* enough, and therefore weren’t worth researching and accurately portraying to the creators. It’s easy for a lot of East Asians to argue, “No! I’ve experienced racism! I’m not privileged!” News flash: I’ve experienced racism too. But I’ve also experienced privilege. If white people can take their privilege for granted, so too can other races. Shocking, I know. And I know now how my privilege blinded me to the fact that not everybody felt the same euphoria I did seeing characters that looked like them onscreen. Not if they were a narrow and offensive portrayal of their race. There are enough good-guy Asian characters that Fire Lord Ozai is allowed to be evil; but can you imagine if he was the only one?

3. What It Does Right

This is sounding really down on Avatar, which I don’t want to do. It’s a great show with a lot of fantastic themes that don’t show up a lot in kids’ media. It isn’t superficial or sugarcoating in its portrayal of the impacts of war, imperialism, colonialism, disability, and sexism, just to name a few. There are characters like Katara, a brown girl allowed to get angry but is not defined by it. There are characters like Aang, who is the complete opposite of toxic masculinity. There are characters like Toph, who is widely known as a great example of how to write a disabled character.

But all of these good things sort of masked the issues with the show. It’s easy to sweep an issue under the rug when there’s so many great things to stack on top and keep it down. Alternatively, one little problem in a show seems to make-or-break media for some people. Cancel culture is the most obvious example of this gone too far. Celebrity says one ignorant thing? Boom, cancelled. But… kind of not really, and also, they’re now terrified of saying anything at all because their apologies are mocked and their future decisions are scrutinized. It encourages a closed system of creators writing only what they know for fear of straying too far out of their lane. Avatar does do a lot of great things, and I think it would be silly and immature to say that its cultural appropriation invalidates all of these things. At the same time, this issue is an issue that should be addressed. Criticizing one part of the show doesn’t mean that the other parts of it aren’t good, or that you shouldn’t be a fan.

If Avatar’s cultural appropriation does make you uncomfortable enough to stop watching, go for it. Stop watching. No single show appeals to every single person. At the same time, if you’re a massive fan, take a sec (honestly, if you’ve made it this far, you’ve taken many secs) to check your own privilege, and think about how the blurred line between cultural appreciation (of East Asia) and appropriation (basically everybody else) formed. Is it because we as viewers were also captivated by the aesthetic and overall story, and so forgive the more problematic aspects? Is it because we’ve been conditioned so fully into never expecting rep that when we get it, we cling to it?

I’m no media critic or expert on race, cultural appropriation, or anything of the sort. I’m just an Asian-American teenager who hopes that her own opinion can be put out there into the world, and maybe resonate with someone else. I hope that it’s given you new insight into why Avatar: The Last Airbender is a show with both cultural appropriation and appreciation, and why these things coexist. Thank you for reading!

[generous1ty]

Hello! I was wonder if it is possible you could do headcannons with Nekomaru, Imposter and Teruteru on how they would confess/ tell reader they have a crush on them? Gender neutral pronouns please! Take your time and have an amazing day/ evening!

hihi! :)

i haven’t written for these guys before, but it feels very refreshing to write for them! the hcs might be a little off, but i had a lot of fun!

thank you for the reassurance, i hope you have an awesome day/evening as well!

lots of love! <3

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Nekomaru, Imposter and Teruteru confessing to their S/O HCs

genre: fluff warnings: gn!reader, pining, kissing... after, it’s just fluff! :)

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Nekomaru Nidai

since Nekomaru’s schedule was just filled with sports n teams, he has no experience whatsoever in the romance aspect of his life. the closest thing he has to base off his feelings for you is when someone from one of his volleyball teams tried to ask him for relationship advice.

surprisingly the guy and his love interest got together

so, by himself, he would be great at hiding his feelings for you. only because he doesn’t know he likes you more than a friend.

he loves being around you, craves your attention, and overall is really soft around you. he felt this because you two were close friends, a team manager/team relationship, and friends usually feel like this around each other.

he’s not too dense, so when his heart starts to speed up, or when he does “it” to you and suddenly feels self-conscious about where he’s touching, he realizes something is... wrong.

so, he asks his other ultimates about it. without you in the room-- and Akane is obviously the first person he asks. she does the usual Akane move,

“maybe you’re just hungry! you know your brain can’t work properly without food, so why don’t you just ask them to go out to eat with you?”

well, she did have a point-- you and Nekomaru did stretch your schedules to train a little longer. so, once you head back into the room, he invites you out to eat for dinner. :)

he’s very hyperfocused on everything-- where to eat, what to eat, where to sit, how he spoke-- this went on for a while... sometimes he’d stutter, other times he’d go silent, thinking about what he wanted to say before saying it.

it wasn’t like him at all-- getting anxious or nervous. he hadn’t felt like this since way back when! but his feelings were all over the place. he just couldn’t put his finger on it.

Nagito is in pain watching Nekomaru’s blind pining for you, so he just straight up tells the buff man--

“if you have a crush on (Y/n), just tell them. they obviously like you back,”

and then, suddenly, something awakens within Nekomaru.

it’s like he was suppressing his feelings, even though it wasn’t necessarily on purpose. he immediately goes to find you, because all this pining has practically made him go crazy.

once he does find you, he grabs your wrist and gives you the face he makes when he’s really stressed or really needs to uh... go to the bathroom.

“I... well, you see...”

there’s this awkward silence because he can’t quite get it out of him, so instead he just kisses you. :D

and you kiss back

and then you’re dating, yay!!

everyone is super happy because watching Nekomaru pine for you yet not knowing how to put it in words was physically painful

Ultimate Imposter

their identity has always been a problem they couldn’t seem to tackle by theirself. although it was never something they thought they’d need to get to, with you, it dawned on them that they can’t just mimic someone while they want to date you.

it’s hard for them to find theirself. they want to find how and what they are, who they are, and what they are before they even get to asking you to go out with them.

and you help out! you try to help them figure out what they like and dislike, what they enjoy doing, what they’re good at, what they want to be, etc. without them using their ultimate talent.

it really helped them, and honestly-- just made them fall in love with you more.

they’re really attached to you because of your kindness and how you helped them with something they couldn’t find by theirself. it’s something they’ll never forget.

they’re really timid about their feelings towards you-- but gets flustered super easily. it doesn’t take much before their face turns red because of a subtle brush of the hands or even a friendly/comforting rub on the back. it makes them super happy that you’re there with them, reassuring them that they are what they need to be, and that they are enough.

it takes time for them to build up the courage to make subtle moves towards you; hinting that they like you, and actions that are a bit more intimate than just friends; intertwining your hands...gently and lovingly caressing your head...kissing your cheek...

all of it with consent, of course!

you get the gist before they actually confess, but you wait to hear it from them directly before you jump to any conclusions.

despite saying that you’ll wait, you probably confess first. unable to stand the tension between the both of you any longer, you tell them how much you like being around them, and how much their company makes your heart flutter.

they might get a little emotional, embracing you with a hug.

they’re so happy they fell in love with you. you, the amazing person that accepted and helped them find who they were.

Teruteru

honestly, you probably wouldn’t catch on to Teruteru having feelings for you. he makes dirty jokes all the time, so it’s hard to differentiate his flirting with you and his messing around.

however, once he figures out he likes you, his messing around with the others dies down. like, a lot.

this is practically the only way you can catch on that he has feelings for you.

all his teasing and messing around is targeted at you, as well as his suggestive remarks. no flirting with anyone else, no words from others turned into something dirty--

instead, once you say anything that could be seen as “dirty”, he teases you for it. an ounce of innocence in your words? he turns it against you, taking something you said and interpreting it into something else.

it flusters you, and fills him with satisfaction. he enjoys your flustered face, and he finds it cute that he can get you surprised.

his feelings grow deeper the more you decide to spend time with him, and as you spend time with him, his teasing becomes more softer.

at times, he’s just really soft. he mumbles things under his breath with a small smile, his face a little flushed as he mutters to himself(about you).

he’s very secretive about his feelings to you-- as soon as you pry, he immediately switches to another subject. things like, “do you have anyone you like?” or “what do you think of (Person)?” are questions he avoids.

avoids telling you his feelings about you in general. he eases the tension sometimes, sure-- but he also makes some people uncomfortable. what if he makes you uncomfortable with just his feelings? he’d hate to lose the friendship with you-- where you’re comfortable and nice to him. he feels as if he belongs with you, because he feels like he’s at home when he’s with you.

when he decides to just go for it(with the support of the class!), his accent accidentally comes out as he stutters. he becomes even more embarrassed because of that and backs out--

but, you just give him a little peck on the cheek before he goes.

he’s very relieved that you feel the same, and super happy you don’t think of him differently now that you both know.

it might be a little while before you actually start dating, because he’s nervous to be bound by the title “relationship” and is scared to cross any lines. but you reassure him he’ll do fine! :)

[feralphoenix]

NO ONE IS HAPPY WITH THIS: Leitmotif & Sound Palette In “Sealed Vessel”

whats UP hk fandom i am back with—“more picante takes?” WOW YES HOW DID YOU KNOW!!!

CONTENT WARNING FOR TONIGHTS PROGRAM: today we are discussing the hollow knight boss fight, and all that entails for all the characters involved. relatedly this post does not have anything nice to say about the pale king, so if you’re very protective of his character, you may want to skip it.

FURTHERMORE, i would like to iterate that this essay is working from a place of compassion for ghost, hollow, radiance, AND hornet, because every single one of them is miserable at this point in the game and doesn’t want the events of this boss fight to be happening at all. this post is not an appropriate place to dunk on ANY of them. if you want to do that, please do it elsewhere.

thanks for your understanding.

ALSO, AS USUAL: if youre from a christian cultural upbringing (whether currently practicing, agnostic/secular, or atheist now), understand that some of what i’m discussing here may challenge you. if thinking thru the implications of radiance and the moth tribe’s backstory is distressing for you, PLEASE only approach this essay when youre in a safe mindset & open to listening, and ask the help of a therapist or anti-racism teacher/mentor to help you process your thoughts & feelings. just like keep in mind that youre listening to an ethnoreligiously marginalized person and please be respectful here or wherever else youre discussing this dang essay, ty

NO ONE IS HAPPY WITH THIS: Leitmotif & Sound Palette In “Sealed Vessel”

A while back @grimmradiance​ made a lovely essay about comparing and contrasting Hollow’s moveset in their Hollow Knight and Pure Vessel boss fights and using what can be gleaned from the differences to speculate about their psychology. (This essay is currently their pinned, but I’ll attach a link in a reblog.) It is extremely good, and it made me want to look at the Hollow Knight boss fight my own self through one of my own areas of expertise, meaning music!

As we are all well aware, Christopher Larkin's soundtrack to Hollow Knight rules ass. There are two specific ways in which it rules ass that are relevant to this essay: Leitmotif, and sound palette.

Quick rundown for folks who aren’t familiar with these terms: A leitmotif is a melody associated with a character or event or mood that's incorporated into songs in different ways based on what's happening in the story. Undertale is an example of a game with an incredibly strong use of leitmotif that’s really only possible because Toby Fox is both the composer and the game creator, so he can synchronize the subtleties of the writing with music and scene scripting too.

The phrase “sound palette” can have a lot of meanings, but in this case I’m using it to refer to specific instruments or groups of instruments that are associated with certain characters. If you’ve watched Steven Universe and seen interviews/production commentary by its composer team Aivi & Surasshu, you’ll hear them talking about part of their approach to scoring episodes being how each main character is represented by certain instruments: Steven with the triangle wave, Pearl with jazz piano, and so on.

Hollow Knight is a small team project rather than a one-person show, so Christopher Larkin can’t go quite AS over-the-top with leitmotif integration as Toby Fox can on simple virtue of Team Cherry having to communicate what they want to him. But Larkin is Hollow Knight's sound designer as well as its composer, so he folds leitmotif and character sound palette together with striking use of stems to create a very immersive and cinematic musical experience that enhances HK’s story and gameplay.

This brings us back to the track Sealed Vessel, which has EXTREMELY tight and cinematic sound design and uses leitmotif and sound palette to not just sock players in the feelings during a charged and dramatic boss fight, but also tell us a lot about what Hollow and Radiance are experiencing emotionally, especially with the gameplay in mind.

So, let’s play the soundtrack version of Sealed Vessel (and some other stuff) and talk about what’s going on in the game during it!

You may want to get out your copy of the OST or visit Christopher Larkin’s Bandcamp page so that you can listen along.

LEITMOTIF & SOUND PALETTE

Before we actually get into analyzing Sealed Vessel, let’s talk about the involved characters’ leitmotifs/sound palettes so we know what we’re listening for.

Both of these things are easiest to identify when characters have a distinct theme song. Ghost does not. However, the main theme of Hollow Knight (see: the title track, Hollow Knight) is used as a leitmotif for the vessels as a whole. Most pieces involved with a vessel character include this leitmotif somewhere. For instance, you can find this leitmotif and variations on it in Broken Vessel’s boss theme. The Vessel leitmotif is led by a cello solo here, so we can identify that the cello is the central part of Broken Vessel’s personal sound palette.

When the Vessel theme is associated with Ghost in specific, it tends to be performed by viola and/or piano, as it is on the title track and in other places like the opening cinematic.

Moving on to Hollow, their specific sound palette is established not in Sealed Vessel but in Pure Vessel, their pantheon boss theme. (Sealed Vessel was composed first, since the Godmaster DLC didn’t drop until over a year after HK’s initial release, meaning Pure Vessel was reverse-engineered/extrapolated from relevant parts of Sealed Vessel. But we’ll get into that later!)

The major instrumental fixtures in Pure Vessel are choir and tubular bells (i.e., those dramatic vertical fellas that sound like church bells or a carillon), with some soft background instrumentation: bass drum, woodwinds (appropriately led by flute in the main melody’s “falling motion” - flute is the centerpiece of TPK’s sound palette), strings, and high/mid brass. Hollow’s overall sound palette has a very Christian choir-esque sound (in the Pure Vessel theme this is very idealized and saintly: soft and slow and tragic) and the beginning of their leitmotif has a very distinctive climbing melody that mirrors their ascent from the Abyss. The Unbearable Vesselness Of Being leitmotif is absent from the Pure Vessel track.

Meanwhile, Radiance’s boss theme is a very fun expression of her character upon which Larkin evidently went ham. Her sound palette is expressed through full orchestra (plus choir and pipe organ) that has a special emphasis on the bass part of the brass section, which does not see much use in the HK soundtrack. Her leitmotif has also got cute and distinctive touches: It’s full of triplets to match her tiara-looking antennae, and also has a repeated “fluttery” pattern of background sixteenth notes as countermelody, often spiraling downwards.

The majority of the piece is loud and bombastic and in a minor key to play up the “resplendent and terrible” wrathful aspect of herself Radi is pushing during this section of gameplay, a very quintessentially moth intimidation tactic: Try to look as scary as possible to keep your enemies from messing with you, since you’re not built for fighting. These blasts of intensity from the brass section match Radiance’s strategy of Overwhelm You With Bullet Hell Spam To Make Up For Lack Of Battle Experience/Poor Aim. But in between said intensity spikes you can hear traces of softer instrumentation and major key, little glimpses of a gentle warmth we can otherwise only infer from her backstory and the implications of Moth Tribe lore.

0:00 - 0:41 - OPENING AMBIANCE

The Sealed Vessel track begins with the ambiance of the Black Egg Temple’s interior: The faint tones of the glowing seals we hear when we pass by them, the only light in a pitch-black world besides the floor lighting up under Ghost’s feet.

Then a slow string tremolo fades in, slowly growing louder. In the track new notes join the tremolo progressively, while in-game a violin joins the anticipatory chord every time you snap one of Hollow’s chains. Which, may I say: A+++++++ sound design!!!!!! Rules ass!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The tremolo reaches a peak in dynamics - all three characters present are extremely tense - and then cuts off to allow for Hollow’s boss battle opening, i.e. Radiance screaming. Team Cherry kindly demarcates each phase of the battle with a Radi yell.

0:43 - 1:39 - PHASE 1: HOLLOW ON AUTOPILOT

Phase 1 opens immediately with Hollow’s leitmotif in bells, but with brass, piano, and percussion backing them up; grand and tragic. In the background the bass section of the orchestra's strings flutter in a repetitive pattern of 16th notes, i.e. Panicky Radi Noises. The violins harmonize with Hollow's leitmotif as it climbs, but then join the rest of the string section in fluttering 16th notes, transmuting what in Pure Vessel is the flute leading Hollow back down (8th notes) to a slightly louder “a” from the backseat.

In actual gameplay, the only attacks Hollow uses are their basic nail skills. Building on grimmradiance’s analysis of the window their attacks provide to their psychology, and pairing that with the Pure Vessel leitmotif booming over the metaphorical loudspeakers, we can tell that this is Hollow reacting automatically to a threat the way that their father trained them to. Their conscious mind might still be making dialup noises at Ghost’s sudden reappearance jumpscaring them with murky childhood guilt and trauma, but that’s only let muscle memory take over. Slash, parry, charge and thrust. Their time spent at bee bootcamp (which we can assume because Hornet was trained at the Hive and Hollow’s form while nail fighting is identical to hers on their shared moves) has served them well.

Radiance, meanwhile, has frozen completely for this combat phase, and contributes nothing here except the anxiety of the string section.

As the strings continue to go “a” the piano (Ghost) and woodwinds harmonize on something between Hollow’s personal leitmotif and the Vessel leitmotif in the backdrop.

However at around 1:29ish, the key changes, building into an overall color change for the Sealed Vessel piece.

1:39 - 2:15 - PHASE 2: SHE’S AS SCARED OF YOU AS YOU ARE OF HER

In actual gameplay, the part of Sealed Vessel used for phases 1 and 2 of the Hollow Knight fight is the Entirety of 0:43 - 2:15, possibly because there’s no easy transition spot like there is between phase 2 and phase 3. But the changes to Hollow’s moveset are clearly tied to this specific part of the piece.

Phase 2 is where Radiance pushes herself past her freeze response and starts trying to hit Ghost. Hollow gains two attacks here, which we can tell are Radi because they’re often accompanied by her crying (a softer and more abbreviated sound than her full scream): These two attacks are the Infection blob blast and the Light/Void pillar attack that hits for a full 2 masks damage (which appear to be Radi’s take on Hollow’s Pure Vessel-exclusive moves, their grabby tentacles & silver knife pillars respectively).

In the Sealed Vessel track, this part of the piece is almost entirely Radiance’s fluttering. The strings start by following the descending motion of Hollow’s leitmotif but in 16th notes, then ratchet up to start spiraling down again while straying further from Hollow’s leitmotif. This section ends in a back and forth between hard blasts in a one-two-(rest)-one-two-three pattern and gasps of fluttering between, with piano and low brass building behind it. Eventually the nervous fluttering of the strings becomes less frequent between the blasts: Radiance is inexperienced with fighting and very very afraid, but she’s also FUCKING PISSED and prepared to defend herself.

The OST version of the piece punctuates the break between the first half of the piece and the second with Radiance’s scream.

2:16 - 4:04 - PHASE 3: “I’M HELPING! :)” SAID HOLLOW; “HOLY SHIT PLEASE DON’T,” SAID LITERALLY EVERYONE

Phase 3 opens with Hollow stabbing themself repeatedly, a movement pattern they repeat throughout the phase. It is shocking the first time you see it, and never stops being horrible and sad no matter how many times you do this part of the fight.

Here, Hollow’s mind has finally come back online after their own freeze response, and they choose to destroy themself and bequeath the duty of sealing Radiance to Ghost. Even if they can’t be the one to make their father proud, they can still make sure their directive gets carried out.

Radiance knows exactly what they’re up to and why, and she reacts to this by completely losing her head and mashing buttons in a panic. This is something we see out of her at the ends of her boss fights too, where she’s feeling too threatened and afraid to do anything but spam optic blasts. In the Hollow Knight boss fight this manifests in two horrifying-looking but easy-to-avoid new attacks: The Infection blob sprinkler and the ragdoll.

Ghost does not react visibly because we're in gameplay, but their horror and grief at their sibling’s choice is echoed in the BGM. The Sealed Vessel piece goes soft and sad, with Ghost’s associated viola leading the bass strings in the Unbearable Vesselness of Being leitmotif. At 2:51 the violin comes in with Hollow’s leitmotif, and gradually the choir appears in the backdrop. The ensemble’s overall dynamics build in a slow crescendo, and at the very end of this segment the other instruments begin to join in.

This segment of the piece is also used in phase 4, which occurs if you don't have Hornet’s help or miss your cue to Dream Nail Hollow. Phase 3 ends when Hollow reaches 0 HP; in phase 4 they are for all purposes already dead. But Radiance manifests an extra 250 HP out of terrified, unadulterated FUCK YOU FUCK THIS!!! even though all she can do is get Hollow to fall on their face trying to slash and ragdoll them around. The BGM continues to play as Ghost absorbs Radiance from Hollow and Hollow’s body loses its shape and dissolves into liquid Void.

And there’s one other place in gameplay Sealed Vessel (Unbearable Vesselness of Being) is used: The Path of Pain, the completely evil kaizo-level obstacle course which presumably featured in Hollow’s childhood training, and behind which the Pale King has hidden his last and most terrible secret—that he had realized on some level that Hollow was a kid with feelings who loved him and wanted to make him proud, and condemned them to death despite it all by using them to imprison and torture Radiance as he’d always planned.

The OST version of Sealed Vessel includes the music for both normal ending cinematics, so we’ll be looking at them too.

4:05 - 4:35: ENDINGS 1/2: NO ONE IS HAPPY WITH THIS

In the BGM for The Hollow Knight and Sealed Siblings endings, the Vessel leitmotif is played by violin, viola, and choir while the cellos and contrabasses—and then the brass bass section too—play a slower version of Radiance’s downward spiral. But once Ghost is pierced by the Black Egg’s chains and Radiance’s struggle to free herself ends in failure, the soprano and bass sections harmonize. The animation zooms out of the temple and the seal reforms. They are stuck together now until the end of Ghost’s life. Hooray.

The OST version of the track immediately segues into the BGM for Dream No More.

4:36 - 5:45: ENDING 3: THANKS, I HATE IT

Here, Hornet’s associated instrument, the violin, plays one long sustained note with a few notes of Ghost’s piano alongside as she wakes up.

TPK’s goddamn flute comes in at 5:00 with his leitmotif overpowering the backdrop Vessel leitmotif on piano while Hornet surveys the carnage: The temple has been destroyed, Radiance is dead, and what’s left of Ghost’s corpse is smeared across the floor. The Void may have taken umbrage with his horseshit and unceremoniously vored him, but the motherfucker still got what he wanted in the end; the Pale King has ended the Infection by completing his genocide of the moths, using the children he abused and abandoned as his proxies, and wasting two of their lives. Can I get a hearty THIS SUCKS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! in the chat.

Given that Hornet herself is canonically unsure if bringing the fight to Radiance is really a just course of action, one can only imagine how she must feel when she sees the cost of that decision.

Our only real moment of catharsis is in this shit situation comes in at 5:13, where the flute gives way to a solo from Ghost’s associated viola, playing the Vessel leitmotif as the Siblings curl up and sink back into the mountain of their corpses. Goodnight, kiddos. You deserved better, and so did literally everyone involved in this whole stupid boss fight.

This is where the OST version of Sealed Vessel ends. Even without the gameplay and story context it slaps, but now that we’ve taken a look at how this 5:45 piece is wall to wall misery and fear on the part of literally every involved character, hopefully it will have even more impact!

[butchniqabi]

not to constantly bombard you with altered carbon asks but who are your fav and least fav characters and why? this show is so fun i love talking about it but youre the only person i know thats into it

omg okay okay, so for the worst characters im not going to put like. the bancrofts bc theyre intentionally written to be evil people etc etc but without further ado:

ALSO HI MAJOR SPOILERS FOR THE SHOW TEEHEE

faves:

-quell: she's played with such raw power and strength? rene really put EVERYTHING into that performance omg. plus she the way she can still radiate joy and inspire people...literally i would be a quellist

-takeshi: okay so. envoy-era takeshi is like "omg hes my boyfriend hes so devoted and caring and healing from trauma" and post-envoy tak is like "wow what a fucking mess! *puts him in a jar*" like as much as i hate to admit it....he really is an interesting mix of manipulative and sentimental? like he does these little things because he cant stop caring about people! "i dont have any friends" takeshi said, surrounded by friends.

-trepp: ever wanted representation for black, workaholic lesbians with failing marriages? look no further. i feel like she is in many ways a refreshing character because i dont think you see many women with roles like "furious avenger with questionable morals falling into a deep obsession". plus she knows when to do the right thing and loves her family so much ;-; also i LOVED when anthony mackie played her it was v cute.

least faves:

-dig 301: i just....felt she was unecessary to the story? and that her presence didnt add much to the overall story (especially since she never talked about elder tech or excavations). plus her actress just rubs me the wrong way i know its not her fault but 😭😭😭 also the weird romance between her and poe....naur thanks

-jaeger: i felt like aspects of his character were just...hmmm not as good? like i know we cant have the backstory of every single character, but the fact hes just. cool with being being put on ice whenever theres not an immediate war/crisis? bro how deep does your nationalistic brainwashing go...i did however like the relationship he had with takeshi prime in season 2 where hes like "haha okay THIS time my son wont betray me :)" and then he does afwbdbdn

rei: okay now this one is controversial for me....because i WANT to like rei but the show doesnt give us much room to get to really know her. even as they create this image of rei as a deified idol in takeshi's memories, they still dont really give us much insight to her personality, her goals, how she survived the yakuza, etc. i think it would have been much more impactful if we Did know her better, saw how she clung onto her idea/memories of takeshi to remain alive, saw how growing up around crime and desensitized to violence made her view people (especially women) as commodities, and saw how her image of her mother began to change, then perhaps her betrayal would have been WAY more impactful. if we had gotten those little hints here and there about the true extent to which shes changed and how her obsession with takeshi was the only constant in her life, how she needed it to keep going, then maybe. maybe. but we didnt. and she isnt. and so shes not my fave 😔

[hamliet]

The Girl Who Gets to Have It All: Buffy Summers

So with @linkspooky​‘s encouragement, I have binged Buffy the Vampire Slayer and relived my childhood culture. And, it's a 10/10 for me. Not that it doesn't have flaws, but it's genuinely one of the best stories I've seen, with consistent character arcs, powerful themes, and a beautiful message. It's also like... purportedly about vampires and demons and superpowered chosen ones, but it's actually all about humanity.

Buffy was able to be a teenage girl, allowed to like the things teen girls are scorned for (boys, shopping, etc), to be insecure about the thing teenage girls are insecure about (future careers, dating, school, parents), and to be a superhero with its good and its bad aspects. The story wasn’t afraid to call Buffy on her flaws (sometimes she got in a very ‘I am the righteous chosen one’ mode) and to respect and honor each of her desires (to be a good person, to be loved, and more). The story listened to what she wanted and respected her desires, giving her the challenges needed to overcome her flaws while also never teaching her a lesson about wanting bad boys or romance is silly or any manner of dark warnings stories like to throw at teenage girls. 

It respected teenage girls--nerdy girls like Willow, jocks like Buffy, lonely wallflowers with trauma like Dawn, and popular/snobby ones like Cordelia, girls gone wild like Faith. It never once reduced them to the stereotypes that were lurking right there: each character was fully rounded, human, flawed and yet with respected interests and goals. This is so rare for a story that I’m still in awe. 

The story as a whole follows Buffy from 15 to 21, of her as she grows from teenager to adult. She acts like a teenager and grows to act like a young adult, wrestling with loneliness and duty. The adults, like Giles, Joyce, and Jenny, are not perfect either, but neither are they “bad parents” or “bad mentors” necessarily. Joyce in particular says something terrible to Buffy, but she tries to do better, and it’s rare to see a parent in YA stories shown with such nuance. Basically, it wrote the long-lasting adult characters as human beings, too. 

Speaking of growing up, I appreciated how Buffy’s love interests mirrored this. Angel was someone Buffy loved and admired, wanted to be like, but who was always either extreme good or extreme bad, and combined with Buffy’s own tendencies towards black-white thinking, made for a beautiful relationship to help her grow, but didn’t necessarily form a foundation for a long-term partner. Spike, on the other hand... they both saw each other at their worst and were drawn to each other even then, and were inspired to become better because they couldn’t bear to be a person who treated the other person so wrongly. They pushed each other to become the best them they could be, and believed in each other. Also, Spuffy is an enemies to lovers ship for the ages. 

(Also, most of the other ships were well-done or at least can be understood. Riley was very obviously wrong for Buffy which paralleled Harmony and Spike in being 100% wrong for each other. Cordelia and Xander were a fun ship even if we all knew it would never last, and Willow and Oz were beautiful and cute. But Xander and Anya and Willow and Tara? OTPs. As were Giles and Jenny, the librarian and the computer teacher.) 

That said, it’s not a perfect series. No story is. All of the characters and ships had problematic aspects to them worthy of critique, and the writing is very 90s in a lot of ways. It’s a product of its time, and in many ways it’s good society has progressed beyond some of the tropes/metaphors used in the show. In other way, though, the show was ahead of its time, and in a good way it wasn’t bound by the fear of purity policing with its takes on redemption (many characters would never fly today). 

So, in order of seasons ranked from my very favorite to my “still enjoyed it very much” (no season was actually bad, imo), here’s my review. I’ll also review my top 10 villains in the show, because Buffy does villains very well in terms of the redeemable and irredeemable.  

Season 7:  Yep, the final season was my favorite. 

Overall Opinion: Buffy's finale is literally "f*ck them men, our power is ours" and while it seems cheesy it actually works (also, f*ck in both a literal and figurative sense). The series strongly hit all the themes: love as strength, and redemption. Buffy consistently shows love as her strength--*all* kinds of love. Friendship w Willow/Xander, familial with Joyce/Dawn, romantic with Spike/Angel. These types of love are also never pitted against each other as is so often the case in current-day media. It's beautiful. Also, Spike’s confrontation with Wood was so powerful in terms of exploring forgiveness, redemption, and reconciliation: where they overlap and where they don't, and what it means to move forward. 

Unpopular Opinion: I have seen a lot didn’t like the inclusion of Potential Slayers, and while I agree they could have been better incorporated/characterized, it was a great way to show Buffy’s final stage of growing up to be ending her chosen one status and projecting/multiplying her powers over the world. 

Biggest Critique: Kennedy was female Riley--the anti-Tara to Riley’s anti-Angel (by ‘anti’ I mean opposite in every way). Kennedy was annoying and immature. Her role, like Riley’s, was less about exploring her as a character and more about her just being stamped as “love interest: lesbian.” 

Favorite Episodes: Beneath You, Lies My Parents Told Me, Touched, Chosen

Season 6: 

Overall Opinion: I said this on Twitter, but I felt like this was Buffy’s The Last Jedi or Empire Strikes Back moment. It is polarizing and dark, deconstructing the tropes it stands on--but by digging to the core of these tropes, it actually makes what’s good about them shine brighter. Everyone’s enemy was the worst versions of themselves. Giles left Buffy, Willow's struggle to relate to the world led to her trying to destroy it, Buffy hurt everyone through her anger, Xander abandoned Anya at the altar, Spike... yeah. It ages well as an integral part of the story, and the Trio were eerily prophetic. 

Unpopular Opinion: Dawn is a great character with a good arc. A traumatized teen acting out and struggling to come to terms with loss and identity? She wasn’t whiny; she was realistic. 

Biggest Critique: Willow’s addiction coding (I’ll discuss this below) and Seeing Red as an episode. I see the argument for both of its controversial scenes from a narrative perspective: Willow starts the season not grieving Buffy but instead being determined to fix it with magic and needs to learn to grieve, but. Still. Bury your gays is not a good look. For the Spike scene... he conflates sex/passion and violence (”love is blood, children” is something he said way back in season 3), but like Tara’s death, it had more to do with Spike (as Tara’s death did for Willow) than with Buffy’s arc, and as for the actual execution... they really botched that. Did it like... have to go on that long or go that far? No. Also, the framing was good, but inconsistent with the rest of the series (Xander to Buffy in the hyena episode, Faith to Xander and to Riley, etc.) 

Favorite Episodes: Once More With Feeling, Smashed, Grave

Season 3 (tied with Season 5):

Overall Opinion: The opening continuity of Buffy meeting Lily/Anne after saving her life in Season 2 was sweet. The Witchhunt episode had really powerful subtext: stories of deaths that aren’t even true are actually demons that possess the town and convince them to turn against their children in the name of protecting the children. It’s a good commentary on, oh, everything in society. Faith’s character arc was fantastic, and her chemistry with Buffy was off the charts (look, I may be Spuffy all the way, but Fuffy has rights). The finale was satisfying in so many ways, seeing the entire graduating class unite to destroy the Mayor and the school with it, symbolizing Buffy et al’s readiness to move on to college. Oz's relationship with Willow was very sweet and meaningful for a first romance for Willow. 

Unpopular Opinion: I actually don’t really have one. Maybe that the miracle in Amends was earned? I think you can make a decent case that Season 3 is the best written of the seasons, but can only truly be thematically appreciated to its full potential in the light of subsequent seasons (which finish Faith’s arc and deconstruct Buffy’s).  

Biggest Critique: It forgot Buffy killed the hyena guy in Season 1, making her continual insistence that she can’t kill people very ????? 

Favorite Episodes: Lovers Walk, Amends, Graduation Day Part 2 

Season 5, which ties with Season 3:

Overall Opinion: The entire season is about family and what it means, from Tara’s to Buffy’s to the Scoobies. I loved Glory aka Enoshima Junko as the Big Bad, I loved Dawn’s interesting meta commentary on retconning (like, the fact that she’s retconned in matters), and most of my ships are still alive. Joyce’s relationship with Spike is one of the most heartwarming aspects, and Spike’s arc’s desire is clearly highlighted: he wants to be seen as a person. The episodes after Joyce’s death are the most honest portrayals of grief I’ve ever seen, and absolutely brutal to watch. 

Unpopular Opinion: Buffy’s choice at the end seems a deliberate inversion of her choice at the end of Season 2 (sacrifice a loved one to save the world), but it actually isn’t: much like at the end of Season 2 where Buffy skips town because she’s devastated after killing Angel and doesn’t want to sort out being expelled, her mom knowing she’s the slayer, and her own trauma, Buffy’s sacrifice here was as much about her wanting the easy way out of relationships, family, college, etc. as it was about saving Dawn. Buffy’s death is coded as a suicide, which Season 6 emphasizes as well. 

Biggest Critique: Like Season 3, I don’t have a lot to critique here. I wish the suicidal coding had been a little more obvious in Season 5 itself, but also I’m not sure it could have been more obvious; it’s pretty apparent if you pay attention. Maybe also that Buffy and Riley’s relationship failing should have been more squarely blamed on Riley, you know, being insecure and cheating. 

Favorite Episodes: Family, Fool for Love, Intervention. 

Season 2:

Overall Opinion: Heartbreakingly tragic but exciting and revealing at the same time. It asked the viewer interesting questions about redemption and forgiveness and atonement through Angel being honest about his past, and then decided to show us his past now reenacted, challenging us. And still, we saw them save him in a parallel to saving Willow in Season 6 (but Season 2 was tragic because it wasn’t enough, while Season 6 was not). Jenny’s death was agonizing, and the scene were Angel watches Buffy, Willow, and Joyce get the news through the window was powerful. We didn’t have to hear them to get the grief. 

Unpopular Opinion: Jenny’s death isn’t a fridging; it works for her arc too when you consider her history. She worked to save the person whose life she was tasked to ruin, and it cost her her own--yet she still succeeded, because Jenny brought joy and wisdom to the show. Kendra’s death, on the other hand... was because they needed the stakes to be high--but we already knew that before she died. So, her death was useless. 

Biggest Critique: The subtext was Not It. It was essentially “do not have sex. Your older boyfriend will lose his soul, kill your friends, you’ll lose your family, your school, your home, and have to kill your true love or else hell will literally swallow earth.” 

Favorite Episodes: School Hard, Passion, Becoming Part 2.

Season 1:

Overall Opinion: I really liked it; it’s just lower on this list because the others are just better. It’s a great introduction to the series and to its characters, from Giles to Buffy to Willow to Jenny to Cordelia. It has great subtext a lot of the time (for example, Natalie French as She-Mantis is a literal predatory bug who engages in predatory behavior with students). Additionally, it subverts the typical YA trope of two guys and a girl, in which the girl is usually the least interesting character. Buffy and Willow were both fully fledged characters from the beginning with distinct strengths (even before Willow became a witch, as she wasn’t one in season 1 yet), while Xander was the more ordinary of the group. 

Unpopular Opinion/Biggest Critique: Xander’s arc showed its first flaws that unfortunately continued throughout the series: his writing was either very good or very indulgent in ways it never was for other characters.  (cough, the hyena episode, cough, in which he gets to skirt responsibility--and acknowledges that he is skirting it--for something the show will later hold others to account for). Xander’s just kind of inconsistent, which weakened his character over all. (Which is why both his love interests--Cordelia and then ultimately Anya--were good for him: they did not indulge him.) 

Favorite Episode: Witch, Nightmares. 

Season 4:

Overall Opinion: it’s still a good season. It’s a good portrayal of college and the growing pains of branching out, the strains of college growth on relationships (romantic and platonic). It shows us the first hints of Spuffy, giving us some serious Jungian symbolism between Spike and Buffy early on, and does well in establishing Xander/Anya and Willow/Tara as beautiful OTPs. Faith and Buffy’s foiling is fantastic. The Halloween episode was very fun as well. However, it suffers because its Big Bad, Adam, is not all that compelling thematically--yet, he could have been. See, the final battle pulls off the Power of Friendship in a really strong way but notably the season does not end there. Instead, it ends on dreams of each character’s worst fears, continuing what we saw in Nightmares in Season 1. Why? Because it shows us that the characters’ wars aren’t against monsters, but monsters of their own making: their flaws. Adam, as a literal Frankenstein, exemplifies this, but it wasn’t capitalized on as well as it could have been. 

Unpopular Opinion: Beer Bad isn’t a bad episode, at the very least because Buffy gets to punch Parker. It’s not one of the series’ best, obviously, but it does give Buffy an arc in that she gets her daydream of Parker begging her to come back, but she has overcome that desire and her desire for revenge. If we wanna talk about bad subtext in Season 4, Season 2′s Not It sex subtext continues in the Where the Wild Things Are episode in this season; it’s a powerful callout of abusive purity-culture churches, until the fact that the shame creates a literal curse undermines the progressive message it’s supposed to send. Also, the Thanksgiving episode (Pangs) is a nightmare of white guilt and Oh God Shut Up White People. 

Biggest Critique: Riley is awful. Like Kennedy, he had “love interest:normal” stamped on him and that was it. The thing is, he could have worked as an Angel foil, representative of the normal-life aspect of Buffy to Angel’s vampire/supernatural aspect, but the writers never explore this and seemed to even try to back away from that later on. They threw all the romantic cliches at the wall to see what sticks, from klutzy “I dropped my schoolbooks, that’s how we met” to cliché lines that had me rolling my eyes. Do you know how bad a romance has to be to make me dislike romantic tropes? 

Favorite Episodes: Fear Itself, Hush, Restless

Villain rankings: 

Dark Willow, the only villain to be truly sympathetic. While the addiction coding was insensitive and, while unsurprising for its time, aged extremely poorly. That said, Willow’s turn to the dark side after Tara’s death worked well for her character and the story: it was believable and paid off what had been building since Season 1's “Nightmares” episode (Willow’s inferiority complex). 

Glory managed to be genuinely terrifying, and humorous/enjoyable too. Her minions and their numerous nicknames for Glorificus were hilarious, as was her intense vanity. Her merging with Ben--a human being who genuinely wanted to be kind and good--added complexity and tragedy to her role. 

The First. A really good take on Satan. The seventh season as well as the First’s first appearance in season 3′s “Amends” had kind of blatant Christian symbolism, and so the First being essentially Satan works. Their disguising themselves as dead loved ones and the subtle manipulation they used to alienate people was really disturbing and well done. 

The Mayor, who was a terrible person but a truly good father. He provided an interesting contrast to the normal ‘bad dad’ bad guy character, in that he provided Faith exactly what the other characters refused to: he saw the best in her and offered her parental support, while the heroes didn’t and wound up pushing her away. 

The Trio, who were villains ahead of their time: whiny fanboy reddit dudebros, basically. The stakes seemed so much lower than fighting Glory, a literal god, the previous season. But that’s why they worked so well for Season 6′s human themes, and were especially disturbing because we all know people like them. I also appreciated the surprisingly sensitive takes on Jonathan and Andrew, who got to redeem themselves, but Warren did not, and I don’t think he should have either. 

Angelus + Drusilla. I’m ranking them below the Trio because Angelus was just sooooo different from Angel that it was difficult for me to feel the same way for him. He was still Angel, so it wasn’t possible to enjoy his villainy, but he also wasn’t nearly as sympathetic as Dark Willow, had no redeeming qualities like the Mayor, and wasn’t as disturbingly realistic as the Trio. However, the emotional stakes were excellently executed with him as the Big Bad, in that you were never quite sure how to feel and it just plain hurt. Also, Drusilla was a favorite recurring character. She was sympathetic and yet batsh*t enough to be enjoyable as a villain at the same time. 

The Master, who was just completely camp and really worked as an introductory villain. He was scary enough to believe he was a threat, and was funny enough to introduce the series’ humor as well. He was, like Glory, an enjoyable Big Bad. 

The Gentlemen, the one-off villains of Season 4′s Hush who were genuinely terrifying. It’s not as if they got a lot of explanation or any backstory, but they didn’t need it. 

Caleb, the misogynist priest. Fitting with the First’s Christian symbolism, Caleb serving as a spokesperson of all bad religious beliefs felt appropriate. He was also a good foil to Warren--being actually supernaturally powered instead of a wannabe--and to Tara’s family in being full-out evil. I despised him. 

Snyder. Okay Snyder is not a Big Bad like Adam is, but let’s face it: Adam is lame compared to the other villains. But Snyder as a principal? He was so irritating and yet really well used in the series to critique overly strict, hypocritical teachers. Like, we all know teachers like him. I loved to hate him, and his ending was so satisfying. 

[champion-prism]

Fluff Alphabet- Kirishima Eijiro

 Anon requested Kiri headcanons and I procrastinated so much, here’s a whole alphabet to make up for it :)

A ctivities - What do they like to do with their s/o? How do they spend their free time with them?

Being manly together is his favourite ting :)

Seriously though, he loves working out with his s/o. Whether you’re big on going to the gym or a total couch potato, he’s going to rope you into coming with him, even if you just want to sit around and stare at his muscles. He also loves soft dates, like the kind where you get ice cream and pick wild flowers and sit on park benches talking.

B eauty - What do they admire about their s/o? What do they think is beautiful about them?

Your skin- he just loves drawing shapes and patterns on you with his fingers, revelling in how you feel, occasionally peppering soft kisses on you.

C omfort - How would they help their s/o when they feel down/have a panic attack etc.?

Instinctively gets hard. Not in that way, his quirk activates when he sees you upset or crying or heaving. Eijiro is great at being a comforting presence. He might not always know what to say, but he has a determined, optimistic vibe about him and when he tells you he believes in you, you trust him to be truthful.

D reams - How do they picture their future with their s/o?

He pictures both of you learning and growing together, becoming strong and complementing each others’ strengths. He hasn’t really thought about getting married yet, but he’s taken it as a given that you two are in it for the long run. Stream “the long run” by eagles.

E qual - Are they the dominant one in the relationship, or rather passive?

Neither. Eijiro is respectful, respectful enough to be conscious of the fact that he doesn’t want to be domineering, at least. But he’s not one to be pushed over, either. Overall, he’s very respectful.

F ight - Would they be easy to forgive their s/o? How are they fighting?

This is tricky. He tends to bolt up a bit, retreat into himself and pretend he’s not hurt. He’d like to think he’s as emotionally impervious as he is physically, but it only leads to repression. He will forgive you easily on the spot, but he’ll carry the hurt and resentment until one day he spews it all out.

G ratitude - How grateful are they in general? Are they aware of what their s/o is doing for them?

Quite grateful, and he’s quick to always return the favour, either through getting you food or taking care of you.

H onesty - Do they have secrets they hide from their s/o? Or do they share everything?

He definitely hides his fears and worries.He doesn’t like being seen as having any sorts of weaknesses.

I nspiration - Did their s/o change them somehow, or the other way around? Like trying out new things or helped them overcome personal problems?

You help him become slightly more accepting of his own weaknesses- help him learn not to berate himself too much, help him learn that the conviction to become better is only hurt by self deprecation.

J ealousy - Do they get jealous easily? How do they deal with it?

He does get jealous easily. He’s a bit insecure, in some ways, and if he sees someone hitting on you it’s going to rub him in a way he doesn’t quite understand- a cold trickling in the back of his neck, his hands hardening as he tries to catch his breath and try to understand why he’s so upset. He feels guilty about it because he doesn’t want to show mistrust in you, so he bottles it up.

K iss - Are they a good kisser? What was the first kiss like?

He’s a very gentle kisser. He loves how soft your lips are, melts into your touch.  First kiss was awkward, a bit sloppy at first, but he got into the rhythm of it quick.

L ove Confession - How would they confess to their s/o?

He’d be a bit cliche about it, I feel. Ask you on a coffee date, bring you a flower. Walk you home, stand by your door and bite his lip and softly tell you how he’s falling for you, and he hopes you feel the same.

M arriage - Do they want to get married? How do they propose? What would the marriage be like?

Hasn’t thought about it yet, but when he does, he will want to marry you. He’ll do a dumbass thing and forget to hide the ring properly when he gets it, so you accidentally find a ring box with a handwritten note in his scratchy handwriting you always insist is cute. He’ll be taking a shower before bed while you stand dumbly in your shared bedroom, staring at the note that addresses you by name, telling you how much he loves you and why, and how happy he’d be if you agreed to marry him. He’ll come out of the shower wrapped in a fluffy towel, see the box and note in your hand, and hurriedly begin to explain himself and how he forgot to hide the ring until the proposal, before you shut him up with a “yes”.

N icknames - What do they call their s/o?

He calls you baby shark. Periadt.

O n Cloud Nine - What are they like when they are in love? Is it obvious for others? How do they express their feelings?

He’ll be a bit spacey, blush easily, but be eager to show off. It’s obvious to the people who are close to him that something is up.

P DA - Are they upfront about their relationship? Do they brag with their s/o in front of others? Or are they rather shy to kiss etc. when others are watching?

Quite upfront. He has nothing to hide- he’s so proud you’re his! Chaste kisses in public, hugging, hand holding, he’s good with it all. He’s not really fond of full making out in public, though he won’t hide any hickies or love bites you give him. It’ll also make him proud if you let your hickies and love bites be on display.

Q uirk - Some random ability they have that’s beneficial in a relationship.

Q u i r k? His quirk is hardening I’d think that’s quite beneficial in a relationship-

R omance - How romantic are they? What would they do to make their s/o happy? Cliché or rather creative?

Cliche but he’s very cute about it. He just wants to show you he loves you. Very romantic, the sort of dude who’ll bring you flowers weekly.

S upport - Are they helping their s/o achieve their goals? Do they believe in them?

You are just so manly and strong and he believes in you so frigging much. You can do a n y t h i n g. If it’s in his power to do anything to help you achieve your goals, he’ll do it. The more passionate you are about it, the more he gets into it too.

T hrill - Do they need to try out new things to spice out your relationship? Or do they prefer a certain routine?

He doesn’t say no if you want to do something new and fun, but he likes the security of routine. His work life is hectic and quite thrilling as it is.

U nderstanding - How good do they know their partner? Are they empathetic?

He makes it a point to carefully store all factual information about you that he happens upon. Emotional understanding takes time, but he’s certainly trying very hard to be as empathetic as he can.

V alue - How important is the relationship to them? What is it worth in comparison to other things in their life?

You as a person are very important to him, but the relationship takes a backseat to your ultimate wellbeing and his hero career. If he feels he’s genuinely not good for you, he’ll end things.

W ild Card - A random Fluff Headcanon.

Loves kisses on his eyelids and jaw. If you kiss him and tell him he feels soft he’ll lose it. He’s never been told that in his life.

X OXO - Are they very affectionate? Do they love to kiss and cuddle?

Loves to kiss and cuddle, yas! He loves to tickle, too, so watch out! He’s very open to physical affection, and always has an arm around you in public.

Y earning - How will they cope when they’re missing their partner?

Sends you selfies of himself pouting. Sometimes he’ll write your name on his bicep in marker and send you a video of him flexing it. You’re not sure what it means but it’s cute-

Z eal - Are they willing to go to great lengths for the relationship? If so, what kind of?

He’s a hero, so he’ll pretty much sacrifice his life for you. He’s willing to protect you no matter what, and he’s kind of a simp, so he will (within reason) work on any aspects of himself that may be detrimental to your relationship, once brought to your attention.

Requests are open! :D

[because-of-a-friend]

Dad!Seventeen

Thanks for the compliments anon! I hope this is what you wanted! I ended up just doing it in reaction style and ran with the dad/uncle idea to show how they’d interact with their kids and the other boys’ kids! Feel free to request more! (Sorry it took so long, I had a bunch of extra long shifts at work)

MASTERLIST

CHOI SEUNGCHEOL

LOVES HIS KIDS!!!!!

OMG!!!!

To Cheol, his kids are his whole world

Obsessed with just gathering them up in his arms and hugging them tight

Definitely a cool dad

His kids trust him and feel comfortable around him 

He literally can’t say no to them

The other boys’ kids realize this as well

So everyone goes to Uncle Coups to ask for stuff

“Seungcheol, why would you let my kid eat three ice cream cones?”

“I don’t know, Jihoon, she just looked at me with those big eyes and I couldn’t say no”

But honestly Coups would do anything to see his kids smile and just cares about them so so much

Just the weakest sweetest dad/uncle ever

YOON JEONGHAN

Jeonghan thought he was clever and cunning

His kids are 10x more so

Like Cheol’s kids, they get whatever they want

But it’s not bc Jeonghan just lets them have it

It’s bc they’re really good at arguing or sneaking their way into getting the things they want

He adores them for it tbh

Like so proud

“Jeonghan, your son managed to sneak my kids out of our house to have a sleepover at yours”

“Wow! He really did that???”

“Jeonghan!”

“Right, right, I’ll get onto him for that”

Is really excited when his kids and everyone else’s are teens and older bc he’s really good at giving advice and enjoys having genuine conversations with them

But honestly just adores his kids and is always so proud of them and fascinated by every little thing they accomplish

JOSHUA HONG

Joshua’s kids have perfectly packed lunch boxes and cute little matching outfits and the best manners of the kids in their classes

He treats his kids with respect and teaches them patiently and his love for them is immense and obvious

The kind of dad who is always looking over at his kids during parties and get-togethers to just watch them and smile at how they’re interacting with others

He always pins all of their best grades up on the fridge and makes them feel so special anytime they accomplish anything

Really just a cookie-cutter perfect dad 

The other boys are jealous lol

“Can your kids hang out with mine more? They need a better influence than Jeonghan’s son”

“Hey!”

“Hannie, please, we all know your kids get all of ours into trouble”

“...yeah”

But seriously, perfect dad with perfect family

MOON JUNHUI 

More of a friend than a dad tbh lol

His kids get to do whatever they want as long as Jun gets to come along

“So you were with all of our kids when they snuck out?”

“Yeah, that’s why it’s fine, I was there”

“Jun, I think you might be missing the bigger picture”

He’s the chillest dad

His kids and all of the other boys’ kids like to hang out with him bc they know that means a day of playing video games, eating snacks, and taking naps

His kids adore him for it tho and never feel scared to tell him anything

He makes sure they solve everything together so they never feel like they have to handle anything alone

KWON SOONYOUNG

Excited to pass his talents onto his kids

Like from the moment they start to walk he tries to teach them dance moves 

And his Significant Other is like “Soonyoung pls”

And he’s like “They have to learn to dance”

Devastated when one of his kids mentions they want to learn songwriting from Uncle Jihoon

“Soonyoung, you’re overreacting”

“No I’m not, if she’d rather write songs with Jihoon then she can be his daughter, she is no longer mine”

But seriously, he loves his kids 

And he’s going to support them whether they want to be dancers or singers or doctors or artists or anything

And he’s gonna do whatever he can to help them get there

But he likes to get them involved in his every day life to show them how important it is to have them around and how much he enjoys including them 

JEON WONWOO

Just imagining Wonwoo and all the little baby Wonwoos with their matching glasses

Also has incredibly polite kids

Like Wonwoo, some of his kids are more introverted so they’ll spend their time entertaining themselves

He does, however, get stuck with some extroverted kids

And he like...

Does not know how to handle their endless social energy

He’ll spend so much time trying to entertain them and spend time with them

But then sometimes he’ll just be like 

“Ok, we’re going to take a trip to Uncle Joshua’s house so you can all play with your cousins!!!”

But he seriously adores his kids

Like Jeonghan, he’s fascinated just watching them grow up and make their way through the developing phases of life 

He’s just so immensely proud of them always

LEE JIHOON

Everyday Woozi is like “who tf let me have kids”

He just gets so confused by them and the things they do

“What- what even went through your mind that you thought this was a good idea?”

But at the end of the day, no matter what they do

His overall reaction is just like 

“Cheers, I’ll drink to that bro”

Really just kind of goes with the flow

I can def see him going to the studio with little ones on his lap

They kind of just become little extensions of him that follow him everywhere and do whatever he does

They all wanna be just like him

And he doesn’t understand bc he’s not sure he’s even a good dad so he doesn’t get why these little beings think he’s the greatest person on earth

But he’s happy to have them around and feels so grateful for his kids

LEE SEOKMIN

Guess who is raising his kids to have the exact same cheesy sense of humor he has

It’s Seokmin!!!

As a result he thinks his kids are the funniest people on earth

They make him laugh all the time

His family are always the loudest people at any party

But it’s cause he lets his kids be kids and never gets upset at them for things kids do

Like talking really loud lol

As a result his kids feel free to explore any endeavors that they’re interested in

Seokmin’s schedule fills up pretty quickly bc of this

One kid has art class at one and another has volleyball at two and then another has science camp at three

But he just wants his kids to explore all of their interests and he’s happy to do whatever we can to help them do that

KIM MINGYU

Sweetest, cutest, most precious kids in the whole world

Just a bunch of cuddly kids that are EXACTLY like Mingyu

And Mingyu is just so excited??? To just see them???? Every single day???

Definitely the overly clingy dad that just wants to be around his kids 24/7

And the super embarrassing one too

Always peaks his head in when his kids have friends over 

“You guys want any snacks?”

“Oh my god dad, get out!”

But he’s also a super fun dad and his kids are really grateful to have him

And the other boys’ kids love to come over bc he makes the best snacks

(Don’t tell Jun or DK that, they’ll get jealous)

But just such a cute sweet family

XU MINGHAO

Also more like a friend than a dad

Like seriously

Unless you explicitly knew Minghao was his kids’ dad, you’d assume he was their older brother or cousin

They just kind of always chill

Like Hoshi, there are interests of his that he is so so so excited to teach to his children 

Especially art!!!

He can’t wait to see how his kids express themselves in a creative aspect

They’re all in an art class with DK’s kids 

Which leads DK and Minghao to spend more time together as they wait outside the class for their kids to be done

And then give each other looks as their kids show off their art work

But Minghao is super proud of them bc he can tell that that’s all they really want: to make him proud

Sometimes he feels more like a spectator in his kids life but he doesn’t really mind

Because they’ve always been independent and he lets them decide what they want and is happy to give advice when they come to him

But really just wants them to succeed in whatever they want to succeed in and trusts them with making their own decisions

BOO SEUNGKWAN

You know he has the cutest kids in the world

Seungkwan only realizes how sassy he is when his kids take after him and make sassy remarks to him 

And then he makes that offended face lol

Like Joshua, his kids have really cute matching outfits

But the cuteness factor is multiplied by like ten-thousand lol

Bc Seungkwan has a habit of singing all the time

His kids gain that habit too

And they get really into certain songs

Another dad that feels betrayed bc when his kids learn that Uncle Jihoon writes songs, all they wanna do is spend time with him

Jihoon doesn’t understand how he just has this growing posse of little children that just watch fascinated as he’s sitting in the studio working on new music

Along with, of course, Hoshi walking in to ask if anyone wants to watch him dance, and Seungkwan and Mingyu coming in to offer everyone snacks

But Seungkwan’s kids are kind of fascinated with everything and Seungkwan just has fun exploring the world with them

HANSOL VERNON CHWE

Vernon’s kids see a side to him that no one else gets to see

They unlock a really deeply emotional part of him and he adores his kids

He really really loves the quiet moments with his kids

When they’re falling asleep watching cartoons

When they’re super concentrated on drawing in a coloring book

When they’re happily stuffing their faces full of food

He just lives for the moments where he can watch them enjoying life or figuring things out for the first time or really just existing 

He gets really really nervous about being a father bc he doesn’t want to mess anything up

But he knows that as long as he keeps his mind open to learning and keeps his kids’ best interests as his first priority, they should all be ok

Occasionally gets overwhelmed with how much he loves them and will just grab them and kiss all over the top of their heads 

Just a cute dad who really really loves his kids

LEE CHAN

Since he’s been babied by the other boys for so long, he loves being able to baby his kids

They are SPOILED beyond belief omg

He’ll buy them anything or do anything with them or cook anything for them just to see them smile and show them the love he has for them

Convinces his kids to take little dancing lessons from Uncle Hoshi, since Hoshi is jealous that everyone’s kids want to learn about song writing from Uncle Jihoon

Aside from Coups, Dino is probably the most excited that him and all the boys are still good friends even well into their fatherhood days bc it means his kids grow up with extra Uncles and tons of cousins

It’s also a relief to know that his kids have so many other people besides him they can trust to ask for help or advice

To him it’s just like SVT kept growing bigger and bigger

 They’re all one giant family and he wants to keep it that way bc he wants his kids to feel safe and supported their whole lives