#she doesn't give up or abandon things even if she should. even if it's killing her she'll hold on to it.

[martyrbat]

harley quinn (2000) #13

[ID: Harley Quinn staring pleadingly at Pamela Isley after asking her to run away from Gotham with her. Pam bluntly replies, “No. Can't.” Harley continues to look at her longingly as she slowly admits, “I thought we were friends, Ivy. I like you... Admire you, even. Always wanted to be strong and independent like you. But I guess you're so strong and independent... you don't need friends.” She leaves as Pam still doesn't turn around to face her, her face hidden in shadow. END ID]

[hamsternella]

maybe headcanons of Bill Cipher being obsessed with us for being Ford's wife, but at first he feels jealous and gradually that changes as he finds we have equal things (e.g. we are blind, and that makes Bill start to want to get more intimate with us as he has with Ford because he finds that we have also been despised/put aside because of that difference), and maybe he wants to make a deal with us but we refuse out of loyalty to Ford and that makes Bill jealous- but now of Ford, not of us lmao sorry if that is confusing or too specific.

Are you going to write any Gravity Falls fanfic on the side? I've seen your poll and I'm very excited

HELLO, and no problem. Here it is, I hope you like it.

As for the fanfic, I do plan to write one. Actually, it's in drafts; I just need to correct what I have written. I don't know if I should make it long or cut it and put it in chapters.

Bill Cipher being obsessed with you [headcanon]

cw: fem!reader, non-con touching, possessed body, jealousy, maybe a bit of ooc(?

The reason Bill begins to feel his plan is threatened is because of you. As much as Ford has him on a pedestal, you are still the main reason for his early accomplishments. The special person who has been with him since his college discovery years.

You're not like McGucket; your judgment carries paramount weight in Ford's most decisive decisions. You're not a mentally dazzling woman, not like him, but your claws keep you firmly entrenched behind Sixer's back. Bill repudiates that—it makes no sense at all!

As if that weren't enough, the affair culminates with you being blind. Can there be anything much more repugnant than a romance fueled by misfortune? Ford is drawn to your sincere heart, and you support him unconditionally because beyond your husband's obsession, your love for him seems to break down the most terrifying walls. And how can you be afraid of something you can no longer see?

Bill feels he has the enemy breathing behind his back. For the first time he thinks he can't solve everything with a kick to the rock in the middle of the road.

The closest thing to a tantrum you get from him —unknowingly— are regular nightmares, a weak body and constant paranoia about unfamiliar sounds and sensations. Your home is suddenly a new world; frightening and strange. Because of this you become clumsy and unpredictable, and even your husband doesn't understand what it is that has you so off track.

Bill can't use his influence on your reality at all, but through Ford and other extensions, as well as fine print manipulations, he manages to reach you without arousing suspicion.

''I've told you many times, Bill,'' sighed Ford with his back turned, both hands placed on his journal. ''I don't think I can go through with this completely until I manage to find a way to help my wife.''

''Isn't this a sign that it's time to get her out of your way?''

"Excuse me?’’ The man turned his attention to the demon; his eyes laden with bitterness and desolation. ''What do you mean by that? I can't abandon my wife, Cipher—she would never do something like that to me.''

''Well,'' Bill chuckled, ''it's not like she's really done anything for you all this time. This project is our thing, Fordsy, and it shouldn't be interrupted by a little stumble that doesn't even belong to us. Or are you going to give up everything you've sacrificed for this?''

''You have understood me like no other, Bill; I admit that there is no person or creature existing on this planet who can do all that you have done for me,'' admitted Ford solemnly. ''But she's my wife—she's been around even before you, when I was nobody. When I had nothing. And even when I came to Gravity Falls and left everything behind she was always there. Bill, I... I can't, I'm sorry.''

Bill held back another complaint, beginning to notice that things were not working out the way he had wanted. Your clumsiness didn't kill Ford's patience or control, but what little sanity —if any— there was in him. It was humiliating; Bill Cipher losing to a human being, a random woman—blind, to make it worse.

The demon was beginning to withdraw in on himself, frustration rising to anger, when Ford's voice from the entrance to the room drew his gaze back. There was a different gleam in his companion's, and Cipher understood with annoyance where the conversation would end up now.

Your husband introduces you to the possible solution to all your problems: Mr. Cipher, a doctor and close friend of Stanford. A mysterious man with a booming voice that makes your hair stand on end, but at the end of the day a man of studies and degrees. Of course you were going to trust your husband's recommendation.

''What a coincidence that you happened to be passing by, sir! Thank you for offering to help me. That's very kind of you.''

Bill starts pretending to be your personal doctor in search of a miracle solution to your problems. It's not hard to avoid contact with you to hide the truth; Ford tries hard to keep the situation straight.

If the demon hated you before, now you better start praying.

Cipher understands that he needs to play along with Ford if he wants the project to stay on track, even if that means starting to help you heal while containing his desire to get rid of you.

Maybe if he possessed Stanford and took advantage of you during your naps.

Maybe.

But he knows better than that—Ford isn't stupid. Not stupid enough, at least.

It was humiliating to have to take care of what he himself had caused, but it's not as if Bill could afford any other way to get back on the project. Ford was all he had. Where was he going to get someone else capable enough? This had been fate; interrupted at the last minute by the appearance of a bad third. This was all your fault. Blind little rat—woman busybody with a sweet smile and giggly voice. Cipher understood why Sixer was where he was with you, on the one hand. On the other it was all the same: a whim that cost dearly. Who needed someone like you? What was the benefit? Sex, maybe? But Bill Cipher was a thousand times better than something so banal! Please…

Bill rolled his eye, snapping his fingers to undo the nightmare you were in. As soon as your dream was undone you let out an exclamation of surprise, jumping on the bed. You brought a hand to your face, feeling the sweat, and almost immediately moved your body to where he lay. Cipher held back surprise, finding himself genuinely intrigued.

''Doctor,'' you whispered hoarsely, ''good afternoon. I... Forgive me, I think I fell asleep—it was sudden, I don't know what came over me...''

''Did you know it was me here with you?''

The smile you gave him threw him off. A ''Well, yes, isn't it very obvious?'' kind of grimace.

''Does your husband know that you have these nightmares during our therapies?''

'Therapies' sounded fancy, but it was shorthand for the tortures Bill forced you to go through; a theater of supposed recovery to cover up his need to hurt you.

“He doesn't know, doctor. I haven't told him, if I'm honest,'' you replied. ''Please don't tell him anything.''

''It would be unethical!''

‘’Pretending to be a doctor is also unethical, sir,’’ you laughed. ''I am blind, not stupid.’’

Killing you was going to be the only solution to all of this—although from that day on nothing else ever happened.

Bill has to accept that you have a lot of tricks up your sleeve. You're not just any woman anymore; being Ford's wife had to have been warning enough for him.

You continue to not remind him of his charade and allow him to continue 'treating' you, while your husband resumes the plans for the portal.

Surprisingly, Bill seems to have found interest in something much more striking.

You.

The nightmares subside, your mood and judgment improve, and Cipher finds a strange pleasure in this new side of you: much more alert, more talkative and wittier. You have your charm.

But it's your husband who pulls the reins. Bill gets it right away.

Evenings with you aren't exactly revelatory like they are with Ford, who always has enough data and information to surprise everyone with. With you it's different; it's something much more intimate and almost forgotten by Bill. He knows so much that it would be impossible to be taken by surprise—but you manage to do it.

He is overcome with a nostalgic and unpleasant feeling, but which ironically keeps him alive as he decides to lie to Ford.

Bill doesn't want to let you go. It's strange. Maybe he got used to another glaring presence besides Sixer? Torturing you a little more in silence to keep you under his care should not be a stupid thing to do at all.

Cipher encounters another particular feeling: curiosity. He needs to know why you know what you know; and what it is, above all else, that keeps you here.

What keeps you with so much power over him, Bill Cipher.

''Are you saying that I have tricks up my sleeve? I don't get it, doctor...''

''Oh! Oh, please,'' Bill interrupted, thunderous laughter bouncing across the room. ''You know I'm no doctor; the title is ridiculous.''

''Should I call you 'Mr. Cipher' instead?''

Bill held back a sigh, rubbing his eye for a moment before orbiting around you. If you had noticed, you didn't say or do anything. Your eyes, white as opaque pearls, remained fixed on a corner of the room.

''Since when did you know I wasn't a doctor? No, better yet, since when did you know I wasn't human?''

''Well, it's not quite like that either,'' you replied under a soft laugh. ''You just revealed to me that you are not human. As for the doctor thing... Well, don't take this the wrong way, but I don't think that dream therapies and transverse snoring with citrus scent induction while dipping my feet in spoiled milk is something a professional would recommend.''

Bill pretended not to be offended.

''Besides that,'' you continued, ''I know my husband very well. I know that he hides dangerous things down there, where I cannot reach by myself, just as I know everything that has been happening is not the product of chance.''

''Did you know all this time that your nightmares and fears have been my doing?''

‘’No, not really. You just confessed it to me.''

‘’Oh, come on!’’ Bill shook his fists in the air, abruptly remembering that you couldn't see him. It was strange, you seemed to know the world you inhabited even though your eyes wouldn't let you. The thought made the demon orbit around you again, returning in front of you. Opaque pearls; gaze lost in the open. "I've had a majestic revelation at this very moment! Do you want to hear it, or will your big, bold woman brain let you know in advance what I have to say?”

"I have a slight feeling you don't like me.”

“Yes or no!”

“Of course, tell me.”

"I have to assume you weren't born blind; this must be the product of an accident," Cipher began to say. "That would explain why the hell you do everything you do, and why the fuck you know where I am.”

"That's right, Mr. Cipher," you nodded. "I've had an accident, though I suppose you know that because you've infiltrated me. Either that, or my husband told you.”

"So you did know that I'm a demon?”

“You just—”

“Oh, shut up! Don't fucking say it again.”

Your coexistence with Bill becomes pleasant, despite the early revelation of his nature and his having been the cause of your misfortunes.

Cipher comes to believe that he may have been wrong; maybe you were stupid after all.

But that would be crazy! Unlike with Ford, with you the feelings are extremely nostalgic and warm. There is no trace of some kind of farce or genuine morbid interest behind your words. You believe everything you say.

Bill, who despite not sleeping or dreaming, being haunted by the memory of screams and an old distorted and flat reality, finds in your company a comfort zone that makes him delirious.

Sadly, your heart and your judgment is still tied to Sixer—as if that brainiac cared at all!

Bill begins to drive Ford crazy; he feeds him extensive knowledge, possesses him more often to enjoy the benefits, and then alters his memories, making it difficult for him to know what is truth and what is a lie.

Where he can no longer meet your needs, Bill is always there to dazzle you.

You jumped in your seat, feeling your husband's warm hands wrap around your neck. Fingers, rough from machines and dust, caressed your skin awkwardly, drawing a chuckle from you. His breath came to you from above, as if he had just sighed in delight at your reaction. When you felt him rest his hands on your shoulders, you slowly brought one of yours to caress the back of his. You felt him tremble.

''I thought you were sleeping?'' you asked with genuine interest. ''Is everything all right? All these days you've been doing the same thing.''

''Do you mind, beautiful?''

You stifled a laugh.

''No, Ford, your company would never be a bother to me... Are you smelling my hair?''

‘’I just can’t get enough of you.’’

You felt him circle your body, delineating one of the chairs near you so he could relax his body in it. You didn't last long without his hands—as soon as he resumed his seat, you felt his fingers intertwining with yours. This time it was more consistent and comfortable; not like all those days where it seemed like your husband had forgotten how to use his own body.

''Oh, dear! Seeing you with these two orbs of nerves and membrane is amazing! You look even more dazzling.''

Although the comments without any context or sense were still there.

''I'm not that great,'' you said with a small laugh. A little shy. Ford didn't used to give you so many compliments. “How's your project going?’’

‘’That thing? Good, very good. Excellent, my dear! Maybe you could see for yourself—oh, well, you can't,'' he guffawed. ''Right. Whatever! Hey, uh, can I ask you a question?''

‘’Y-Yeah, sure, honey.’’ You cleared your throat. ‘’What’s the matter?’’

''Hypothetical scenario. You're married, but you're not quite fulfilled. Suppose someone comes along who is much better than your husband,'' he explained. ''He's smart, funny, multifunctional, powerful, extra-dimensional, or very soon will be, and also very stylish!'' Silence. Moments later an exclamation. ''Do you have a favorite color? His favorite color is yellow!''

‘’I… I mean, sorry, but I actually don’t understand at all where’s the question.’’

‘’Don’t be silly! Would you leave your husband for this entity—excuse me, for this person?''

‘’What?’’

‘’The heck.’’

Another booming laugh, and though you tried to accompany it with your own, the sound that came from you was choppy and awkward. This exchange was strange.

''I can't find a reason to leave my husband for this so-called mystery person,'' you replied. ''I am supposed to have married him for a reason which should be more than enough. Ford,'' you rushed on, ''is this regarding Mr. Cipher?''

''Why?'' he asked at once. ''Why do you think of him all of a sudden? Do you feel something forbidden about him in this marriage?''

''But of course not!''

''What do you mean ‘no’?!’’

His hands let go of yours. The chair in front of you seemed to be dragged, the wood against the floor squeaking with the sudden friction. The movement had taken you by surprise.

‘’Ford?’’

''Why are you so happy? Why, huh?'' he sighed, frustrated. ''Haven't I abandoned you every night in a freezing bed, while I prefer the company of machines? Cipher has been very kind to you and kept you company!''

''Ford, what are you—wait. Wait a moment... Bill, is this you?'' You covered your mouth, terrified at the discovery. Your companion didn't respond and you simply let out a shaky breath. ''Are you possessing my husband?’’

‘’Damn, that was fast.’’

‘’That’s awful!’’

"There was full consent!" added Bill with a chuckle. "This is a man-to-man thing, my pretty little fleshbag. Something between colleagues, plain and simple. You needn't fear—Bill Cipher is taking care of everything.”

"But it's horrendous anyway!" you exclaimed with your voice splitting. "It all makes sense now... The words, the touches, the way you acted—it was all a sham! You were using my husband!”

"Oh, please, little one. Wasn't it you who dreamed of being able to touch me?”

"You, not a substitute class using Stanford's body! Have you two been doing these kinds of exchanges all along?”

"It's just that there was a change of plans!”

“A change? What—”

“I mean, I tried to kill you; but it's not that easy now,” he laughed.

You tried to calm your breathing. Your heart was beating painfully against your chest, and your whole body was trembling. This wasn't right, obviously. It was like a vivid nightmare.

“Not that I want to do it, of course.”

“Why?” you asked after a long silence.

You felt the presence of your husband's body very close to you. A pair of hands rested on your cheeks, caressing them with his fingers very softly; the touches getting lost under the trembling of your figure when you heard again a sigh of delight. Something was up.

“You know,” he whispered, “I think we could make a deal. A little, pretty one, and just for you.”

“A deal? A deal with a demon, you mean. No, thank you.”

“Oh, come on! It will be fun!”

“And it makes no sense.”

Bill turned away from you, returning to his chair to take a seat across from your body.

"What exactly is it that Ford gives you that I can't manage to satisfy? Because very soon the little project will be complete, and I will have full disposal of many wonderful tricks to take care of you, my dear," he continued. "An eternity together! We'll be able to create and tell thousands of new stories; to travel across the world and let you experience hundreds of new sensations. We'll be unstoppable! Incomparable!”

"That's not the way things work, Bill…”

"Things work because of the strongest. I will soon be the only one with that title.”

"What will happen to Ford?" you asked haltingly. "What will you do to my husband?”

"He's my co-worker, dear.”

"You're hiding something from me.”

"So what if it is? He doesn't matter here! It's our time... You're mine.”

The way your husband's voice was beginning to distort sent a shiver through your body. You loved Ford—you missed him. The idea that you had been kissing the lips of a man possessed a couple of days ago was turning your stomach. Your silence seemed to feed something inside the demon; his voice thundered, totally changed, across the room.

"A few weeks ago you said you missed the stars," added Bill. "The last time you saw them was when you were a teenager. I miss the stars too—the ones I saw with a different eye. It's not the same anymore. Nothing is, since..." Silence. You didn't dare interrupt the creature who seemed to be drowning in bitter memory. It took him a while to pull himself together; a split laugh piercing your ears like an arrow. "Oh, the misery! I thought it repulsive the way you two looked so united over something so pathetic. Anyway, what does the past matter now, what does misery matter! There's no such thing being with Bill Cipher. You'll want for nothing.”

"I refuse, Bill.”

"And I refuse too," he laughed. "See? We can play the same game, silly. I don't recommend testing my patience, though.”

The touch of palms against the warm skin of your neck took you by surprise. The roughness of those fingers you loved so much were now forbidding you to breathe; the softness of moist lips pressing against yours, taking advantage of the way you parted yours to find a sliver of air. You soon struggled against your husband's body, desperate to deny the foreign tongue that flicked unseemly and inexperienced inside you. Bill was drowning in an unfamiliar feeling that felt too good. You were soft, fragile. Your flesh was tender and warm, quivering like an animal about to die—he was going to devour it to the bone. Was this what Ford had been doing with you? You liked it?

He could kill you. He could end your life when the portal was complete; he could take advantage of Ford, as he had been doing all this time, and keep the prize all to himself. Why was it so hard? What was it you had done to him? Was Ford a victim too? The thought burned like a fierce fury at the back of his mind—jealousy once again. The need to own even the crumbs. Ford wouldn't have the right to be your victim anymore. This feeling was too good for that brainiac to understand, surely he never did.

But Bill understood everything. He was incomparable. He could dominate your life and hold the reins as well as Ford had been doing. No. Cipher was going to do better! Did you miss your husband's domination? Bill would be your ruler; he would destroy obstacles and build better ones to keep you in check. Maybe a little training and you'd become a beautiful little bag of flesh and muscle—tight, warm and obedient. And who knows if you'd end up exceeding his expectations! Who knows if a little gift occupying your orbs would give you the chance to enjoy the same star-studded sky together.

"Don't think too much," whispered Bill pantingly. "There's plenty of other things to do than something as dull as that. Don't worry your pretty little head.”

You shook your head, surrendered to crying. Your husband's hands had left your neck, but now they wrapped around your wet cheeks, offering shy caresses.

"From now on you're going to use it when I say so. Everything will be that way, and you know why?”

A crooked laugh vibrated against his chest, reaching you through his hands.

"Because now you will be my new pet. A special one! The best of them all… You could say ‘muse’, even. Isn't that beautiful, dear?”

A cold kiss. The last one.

“Aren't you, above all, beautiful too?”

[linkspooky]

It's not just the fact that Hori decided to kill a lifelong victim of grooming.

My two favorite comic book storylines are New Teen Titans Judas Contract, and Uncanny X Men's Inferno. They both feature villains / victims (Madelyne Pryor and Terra) that die at the end of the story. Terra is specifically fifteen years old and a victim of sexual grooming.

However, both of these stories are clearly written as tragedies. It's clear from the start that these are tragic stories not only meant to get us to sympathize with the victim turned villain but also the failure to save a clear victim is meant to make the heroes look bad.

Let me just list off all the shit Scott Summers put Madelyne Pryor through.

Fell in love with her only because she looked like his ex girlfriend Jean. Even though Madelyne specifically stated before getting into the relationship she didn't want to be jeans replacement.

Married her, and refuses to take time off to the point where he misses the birth of his own son leaving Madelyne at home to deliver her baby on the floor.

When he finally retires and they move to Alaska together he gets a phone call that Jean is still alive and abandons his wife and daughter for weeks to go back to his high school girlfriend.

Madelyne is attacked by a group of supervillains while Scott is away and just barely manages to escape but loses her baby.

She joins up with the x men to look for scott only to find out in the time she's been gone Scott had already gotten back together with Jean.

She is tricked into making a deal with a demon who wants to overthrow ilyanas control of limbo (she thought it was just a dream and the contract to sell her soul didn't matter).

She used her newfound power in order to find her child Nathan only to find Mr sinister there who reveals that Madelyne was a clone of Jean Grey, her entire life was a lie, she was made to breed with cyclops and produce a baby for sinister.

At which point madelyne snaps and decides to burn everything to the ground and kill her own child.

It's clearly telegraphed as a tragedy. The reference to Medea is pretty obvious. Madelyne had no chance from the beginning, however even in this tragedy Scott specifically forbid any of the heroes from using lethal force on her. Jean and Maddie mindmeld at one point and Jean literally begs for Maddie not to die and that she should live on to raise her son. They even throw a funeral for Maddie afterwards because be no one else would ever mourn her.

Not only do the heroes look bad, especially Scott for not being able to save her, they do at least try to talk with her, use non lethal force, and beg her at one point to let them help her.

On the other hand not only did Deku never engage Shigaraki Tomura once, just the vision of a crying child in front of him. Deku doesn't look like a failure for failing in his goal to save him he's still the greatest hero, they don't hold a funeral for Shigaraki, Dekus last words are about how he doesn't forgive Shigaraki (and therefore he deserves to die i guess because deku is the punisher now). Deku doesn't even give Shigaraki the respect of calling him by his preferred name he just calls him Tenko who was the only person Deku cared about saving.

It's not just about a victim dying it's about how the story promised us over and over again the kids were going to save the villains in the final act, that this was going to be an optimistic story about the new generation being better than the old.

Only for Horikoshi to deliver something entirely different. If I'm watching punisher I know what I'm getting into. I'm here to watch Frank Castle shoot mobsters. If Batman picks up a Tommy Gun and starts shooting mobsters that's bad because Batman wouldn't do that shit.

There's writing a story that's tonally inconsistent, or changing your plans for how a character is going to end late in the game and then there's this.

Which is basically narrative gaslighting. Where one thing is clearly happening onscreen but the narrative needs you to believe those gaslights clearly are not dimming.

I know Deku made no effort to save Shigaraki when he explicitly said they OFA is a power for saving but not killing, but don't worry Deku became the greatest hero anyway, and this is still a happy optimistic ending!

Horikoshi isn't looking for treasure in the house. Those gaslights aren't dimming. You're clearly being hysterical, woman.

[beware-thecrow]

I fucking hate BNHA The last panel about "granma is here" in fact further proves my point on another post of how empty and nonsensical BNHA became in the last arc because AfO wanting Tomura from the very beginning made impossible for him to be saved anyway, which means all his beef with the heroes became unjustified and his speech about violence and heroes and villains held no importance in the end. Why?

Because you cannot have a character built over the premise that society was so corrupt and selfish that put a little boy in the bad bad villain's reach for 5 arcs, to then say "oh, wait. He was fucked anyway because the bad bad guy was behind everything all along"

A bad bad guy not even all might in his prime could defeat, so it doesn't matter if people would or wouldn't help others. "It's all bad bad guy's fault anyway and he's practically immortal." Perfect, now we know granma didn't stand a chance against AfO, he planned this.

The whole idea of a society that relies on heroes too much instead of everyone doing their part from kindness falls like a house of cards if you have an evil so corrupt that none of said kindness will mean a thing. The moment Horikoshi went from "Tomura was found by AfO" to "Tomura was planned by AfO" the core theme of his series crumbled down. The league as a device lost its meaning, the characters that composed it became unjustified because whatever motivation they had was in fact a manipulation from the greater evil. And this applies to everyone.

What's the point in Toga and Twice calling out the lack of help for people with mental illness and problematic quirks if the message still is "If you do bad things out of despair no one will help you and you'll get killed." And yes, Toga died loved, Toga wanted to be loved, but she didn't wanted to die?? She was literally an abandoned child who found a family and ended up dying giving blood to the same girl she stabbed. And yeah, it's kinda poetic she died giving blood instead of taking it, but what was the point if she doesn't get to know she's loved? Further more, are we really to believe Ochako loved Toga? A girl she literally didn't know. Sorry, but once I got lost in a mall and a police officer helped me find my mom, that doesn't mean the officer loved me. And yeah, Ochako tried her best to be a good hero, but it's not about what the characters do, it's what the story tells you it happens with what they do. The story just told you the ill and abandoned die in the end before anyone helps them. And they die hunted by the police. What's the point of Touya as a whole? oh, wait. I know, it must be very awful for Endeavor to be such a bad person, his child ended up incapacitated. Very hard on Endeavor. Fuck Dabi being turned into a piece of charcoal, IT'S HARD ON HIS DAD.

What's the point in Spinner pointing out discrimination and people following him if in the end we got that he should have stayed in his lane, in his room, friendless because he only went out to be seen by someone who accepted him, just to have that person tortured in front of him before he was killed. And for what? For a teen to tell him "Yo, bro. I punched your bestie to death, make a comic about it. Btw you'll be staying in jail forever. So so sorry for you guys." Proving once again, murder is okay if you are on the right side of the story. No matter how much compassion, Tomura showed Spinner, or how much he suffered through life. Heroes had the right to kill him, and there was nothing Spinner (who legit loved his friend) could do about it because AfO had taken over. Again, another good character turned pointless, with a pointless point of view, with a pointless conclusion because he can tell the story of Tomura Shigaraki all he wants FROM JAIL, but under the public eye Tomura will go down as an insane mass murderer either way since looking at him in any other light would inevitably make a target of Izuku for killing him and that won't happen. You cannot have "the best hero ever" and "he killed this dude that was kinda right" in the same sentence. It doesn't make sense. Not to mention his case against discrimination went nowhere since everyone who followed him became a villain and the only person who actually makes a point about discrimination ends up being Deku on another, totally different chapter that had nothing to do with Spinner. And...he's a hero so he can say whatever he wants, we go back to "questioning bad, unless a hero says it" and "people are really that horrible in BNHA universe".

Tomura's case it's even more fucked because even when he said he didn't want a future, every single wish he had fell flat. His hatred for not being saved as a child proved to be out of anyone's control, his desire to destroy society didn't land because nothing really changed. There are still schools for child soldiers, and people are still not questioning the violence heroes use to keep the status quo, and certainly no one is wondering how is that a couple of heroes were able to kill a couple of villains (because so far Hawks still has a job). His friends ended up dead or locked away, and the child in him that begged to be saved ended up...being not. In the end, we got a suffering festival for Tomura, from his granma being pushed to drop her kid, his dad being tricked, his parents getting killed in front of him, Mon-chan and Hana's memory squeezed dry and young Tenko asking for help while Tomura was assaulted by his creepy guardian for 200 chapters straight just to tell us that Deku at sixteen was a great hero for putting a twenty one-year-old dissociated guy out of his misery like a euthanized dog. And for what? To finish a guy who was infatuated with his dead brother AND THAT COULD HAVE BEEN EXECUTED IN JAIL LIKE...300 CHAPTERS AGO, since the manga already made the point that villains can be executed with little repercussion, and it can be justified if said villain it's a threat. Then...why was AfO alive to begin with? Oh, I guess this is something we can trust to a 16 year old instead of... the government or whatever. And yeah, these are tragic figures, they certainly are, but you can hardly claim that they achieved anything in the end because the first premise of the league, why it was formed and why they joined was

To live as we want/are. And now they are dead, or locked away, or bedridden crispy for something that was planted by someone else from the very beginning. And what they believed didn't change anything in the end because it's not like the public saw them do something meaningful but, again, they are being told what to believe, by whom? BY THE HEROES. Are we really arguing that Iguchi's comic will change society? ARE WE FOR REAL????? Have you ever read the story of Jesus Christ? he died for our sins by Marvel. And on top of that as the last nail in the coffin to prove that NOTHING changed, Hawks really said rebranding + target audience =📈🤙🏼 StOnKS✨ I wish I was joking.

[hunnylagoon]

Right Where You Left Me

Pt 4: The Sweetest Thing to Ever Scare You (Finale)

Ellie Williams x reader

I remember when I first saw you. I remember looking into your warm almond eyes and feeling butterflies in my stomach. But soon, when I looked into your eyes, I no longer felt the same warmth that I once knew. It felt as though you had killed all of the butterflies inside my stomach but yet, I still loved you.

Premise: You and Ellie are childhood best friends until you drift apart. Funny thing about soulmates is they tend to find their way back to each other. You and Ellie try to end the tireless war between you.

Warnings: Angst / drinking / violence / not really religious mentions in this one

Part one here!

Part two here!

Part three over here!

Guys I thought I posted this two days ago but I actually just saved it to drafts. Sorry for being an idiot lmao

I think that I have unlearned how to love.

That’s not even a word but there is no other way to tell you that I have turned myself cold.

Without partying to distract me and religion to fill in gaps of emptiness, I isolate myself and begin to write once again. I'm almost certain that my body has been telling me to write, that I need to pour myself into art as opposed to a girl I was friends with a million years ago.

I figure that I need to create rather than destroy but it might take me a while to do so.

The morning after I abandoned my faith on the church floor, I had woken up and expected Ellie to be gone, however, she was wide awake and playing subway surfers on her phone. Her hair is messy and her eyes are half-lidded. 

She turns to look at me when she feels the shuffling of the bedsheets; despite her doing nothing more than smile at me it is like an understanding passed between us, war is over.

Almost.

It's like I've forgotten how to be soft, I can't manage to get the words out that I need to, and the thought of it alone makes me cringe. "Breakfast?" I ask, unsure of what else to say.

Ellie passes on it and I awkwardly excuse myself, saying that I got called in to take a brunch shift at work. Of course, this is not true. What I do is get into my car and drive and drive until I get mad at myself for burning gas. 

The war between Ellie and I had ended but it didn't register in my head, I almost fell in love with it. Without the constant arguing and passive aggressiveness, there was nothing to put a wall between us and I wasn't ready to be vulnerable again. 

So I begin to feed Ellie the ugliest parts of me; I show her everything I'm sure she will hate but she doesn't, she's patient and shows me the kindness I have been looking everywhere for. Still, I am cold to her, I don't know what else to do. 

I try to push her away all over again but this time, she doesn't let me. Ellie comes into my room when I'm studying to sit on my bed so that she can be in proximity to me. Sometimes she'll ask me if I want to go for a walk or a late-night gas station run, all of the things we used to do.

When I'm angry at her, she lets it happen, she won't escalate the fight all she does is apologize and does what she can to fix it. Everything feels like it's in order again, Joel even starts to send me little text messages to check in on me and sends me Facebook memes that make him think of me.

As of now, we are setting up for Dina's twenty-first birthday. The living room, typically a space for casual gatherings and movie nights, had undergone a transformation. Vibrant streamers adorned the walls, and an array of balloons in assorted hues scattered themselves along the floor "Are balloons too childish?" Abby asks as she walks out of her bedroom.

"They better not be after I just spent half an hour doing all of these," Cat answers, giving her a scornful glare.

"They look great, Cat," I smile and give her a thumbs-up from where I am in the kitchen dumping bags of chips into bowls. "Should I make a veggie platter?"

Cat furrows her eyebrows "If you can finish it by yourself, sure."

"Cat, we aren't children, adults eat vegetables," Abby takes a seat on the couch behind Cat, investigating the hard work she's put into making the living room look nice for just one night "Isn't it weird that Dina is organizing her own surprise party?"

I shrug, placing a wooden cutting board down on the kitchen counter "I don't blame her, I don't think we've always been one hundred percent reliable, me specifically."

"But it's not a surprise if she knows about it."

"So?" Cat asks.

"So why are we calling it a surprise party if it isn't a surprise?"

"Why not?"

"Well, why can't we just call it a party?"

"I don't think it matters," I cut in, I begin to peel carrots and slice them up into quarters. Ellie comes out of her bedroom, she took a nap after completing her physics presentation, her hair in a messy bun, and she's in her typical pyjama uniform of sweats and a hoodie. "Hey, Ellie," I smile at her.

She rubs some sleep away from her green eyes "Hey," Ellie walks over to the kitchen island where I slice and chop vegetables and sits right in front of me. Even half asleep she looks like a statue of marble carved by a skilled hand.

Abby raises an eyebrow, asking 'When did you guys become friends?' without saying it and then it hits me like the plane in Lost. Ellie still hasn't told anyone about our history, our sixteen years of friendship is invisible to the eyes of those who think they know us well.

I'm broken from my thoughts when Abby speaks up "When are you picking up the cake?"

My heart drops "I'm not?"

Cat and Abby cast one another side glances while Ellie snatches a cucumber off my cutting board "Dina was handing out duties and you said you would take care of the cake."

I freeze, unsure of what to say "Nuh-uh." I shake my head like a child denying blame for breaking her mother's favourite dish.

"Yuh-huh," Cat shoots back. "How could you forget that?"

My mind fumbles for an excuse and somehow I land on "I forgot because I went temporarily insane from Lyme disease," What am I saying? "I got Lyme disease because I go camping in secret," I don't camp "And I never told you guys that I go camping because I'm deeply ashamed of it."

Now everyone looks perpetually confused, Ellie included "What are you talking about?" Abby asks, her eyebrows furrowed.

"Okay-well," I place my knife flat on the counter by the wooden cutting board, ignoring the odd spiel I just went on "I'm going to drive to-

"You dropped your car off for a suspension repair yesterday," Abby reminds me.

"Ellie is going to drive me to get a cake," I correct myself "I will be back to finish making my veggie plate." I quickly rinse my hands before grabbing Ellie's keys from the little jewelry dish on the island and yank the sleeve of her hoodie to pull her along.

Ellie doesn't say anything, she slips into some Crocs and we walk outside to her car. "Where are we headed?"

"Uh, hang on," In Ellie's passenger seat, I go on Google Maps to look up the closest bakeries that are still open at this hour, there are two, one a couple of streets away and the other one is across town and closing in twenty minutes. "Infectious Confections," I wrinkle my nose "That's a weird fucking name."

While Ellie tries to make conversation in the car I only speak when giving her directions to the bakery. She knows something is up and I can tell by the way she keeps glancing at me. I just can't manage to get it out of my head that she's still keeping me a secret. 

She pulls up to the bakery and I get out before she even turns her car off, she pulls the keys out of the ignition and trails behind me through the doors.

The bakery itself was rustic and clean, there were two display cases and tills one of the displays held danishes, croissants, cookies, scones and whatever those little swirly flakey things are called. The other display had a big chalk menu above it that read 'Cakery' Though what was in the display case was very sparse.  

"Hi," I walk up to the till, putting on the friendly smile and customer service voice that I usually only use at work. "This is pretty short notice but I was wondering if you had any cakes left or if I could get one made for today?"

The guy behind the counter is a scrawny teenager who looks like he has had a long enough day of dealing with annoying customers "We close in half an hour, there's not enough time to bake and decorate a cake." He explains it like he's said this to a million people, he's bored of the same phrases that his manager has scripted out for him.

"Any shot that someone didn't pick up their cake?" I ask, fingers crossed in the hope that he says yes.

"Let me talk to my manager," His voice drags on, and he turns around and disappears through a commercial kitchen door. I wait patiently, hands balled together in front of me as I rock back and forth on my heels. A minute or two later he comes back holding a bright blue cake with pink detailing of bows and mustaches, there's text on it that reads 'It's a...' gender reveal cake. "This is all we have left, they cancelled last minute.

I look back at Ellie to get her opinion, her eyebrows are furrowed slightly "Maybe we good just get some of those cupcakes and smush them together and smear the icing so it looks like a cake."

I wave her off "I'll buy it," I say this only because it is 5:41 and with each passing minute I am growing desperate, also I don't want Jesse to be disappointed that I fumbled the cake and ruined his girlfriend's birthday.

Angsty teenager puts the bright blue monstrosity into a cake box and charges me an absurd total for it, I bitterly tap my card on the machine. 

As I walk back out to Ellie's car I take a brief moment to look at the sky, it's the same hue as cotton candy and looks as if it had been projected from a watercolour painting, even after I get back into the car and Ellie begins to blast her old dad rock songs, I can't tear my eyes away from it.

After five minutes of silence from my end, Ellie finally asks the question that's been burning into the forefront of her brain "Why are you being weird?"

"Why haven't you told anyone that we met before we moved in together?"

Her dark eyebrows furrow "You haven't told anyone either-

"Yes, I have."

"Who?"

"Yara, Stacy, Kayla, Mitch, Nigel, Carmen, literally everyone from my work," I admit "I just haven't told people who know you personally so it can't make its way back to you because you clearly don't want people to know."

She falls silent, searching her mind for the right words. She clutches the steering wheel tight and looks dead ahead at the car's bumper-to-bumper ahead of us. "I just know how to slip it into conversation."

"I don't think it's that hard, you can just say that we were friends, you don't need to give an intricate play-by-play of everything that happened."

"Why is it important that people know if we're cool again?"

I turn my head to slowly look at her "You are the one who always said 'If we don't have honesty, we have nothing at all'," I point out.

Silence strings between us again, I almost want to throw up.

'We're cool again' Nope, not anymore, we are so very far from cool. Instead of Ellie casting me little glances as she had on the ride there, she ignores my presence almost completely while I glare daggers at her. Was she embarrassed by me? When we went to lunch together why did she lie to Dina about where she was? When she slept in my bed why did Cat ask me if I knew why Ellie came home at eight AM with nothing, not even a key? Did she crawl through my bedroom window to walk around to the front door and pretend she was just getting home?

AND WHY DIDN'T I CALL HER OUT?

She was keeping me a secret and that realization hurt worse than any injury I had ever suffered. She hasn't even told her dead who practically raised me that we lived together. 

God, we weren't even anything and she was keeping me under wraps like I was some disgraceful secret that she would get shamed for holding. The very second she approached our house, I got out of her car, she hadn't even stopped it completely but cake in hand, I hopped out of her car door and didn't look back.

I think I've had my fair share of partying.

After that month-long bender I had where I went to clubs every night and replaced food with vodka, I never wanted to even look at another solo cup full of liquor. Instead of drinking, smoking, or doing karaoke, I hide from Ellie.

I hide from her in conversations and sometimes sneak into my bedroom just to get a bit of breathing room from all of the strangers in my house. Wherever Ellie was, I was not. If she was outside, I was inside, if she was in the living room, I was in the kitchen enjoying my veggie platter. 

Have you ever been the only sober person around in a group of people? If the answer is no, have you ever babysat a houseful of toddlers? Because it's just about the same thing.

When I'm not hiding from the girl who wriggled her way back into my good graces just to trip herself off the podium, I'm cleaning up, protecting our furniture, holding back hair as girls I've never met sob into the toilet, and stopping the drunk from doing stupid things. 

"Hey, buddy," I take my can of hairspray that this frat-adjacent man is holding behind an ignited lighter "I don't think you would look good as a burn victim," His friends moan in disappointment as I do so, they were very excited to see a makeshift flamethrower; I wasn't in the mood to have my house burn down, or have a guy with peach fuzz waste my thirty dollar hair spray. 

Thirty dollars?

Note to self for later: Make smarter spending choices (And smarter relationship choices!).

I felt a tap on my shoulder only to turn around and see Dina, she wasn't drunk, just tipsy "Smile!" She holds up a camera to her eye and clicks the shudder button before I even have a chance to react the flash goes off. A large Polaroid begins to print out, Dina snatches it and shakes it until you can see my silhouette, my eyes are wide, my hair flying behind me from the quick turn of my head and I'm holding a can of hairspray angled to look like I'm going to spray the camera with it "Cute!" She smiles, tucking it into her pocket for later "Wait, I want a group picture of the roommates."

Dina takes my hand and pulls me to one of the couches where Ellie and Abby sit with some guy, she shoes him to get up and drags Cat over to replace him, she stands me in between Ellie and Abby and lightly pushes me down to sit wedged between the two.

"Jesse, please do not do me dirty with this picture," She hands the pink Polaroid camera to her boyfriend and quickly ushers herself to the far left of the couch where she bends over to kiss Cat on the cheek for the picture. Ellie and I are stiff and awkward when the flash goes off. 

After the picture is taken, Ellue turns to face me just the slightest "Hey, I think we should talk-

"I think it's time for cake!" I push myself off the couch and usher myself to the kitchen. 

I pull the cake out of the fridge, looking at what I had done to salvage it; Below the part that said 'It's a...' I wrote '21 year old!' in chocolate pre-made Betty Crocker icing that I had in the fridge for months, it didn't look the best, but it could've been worse.

Dina, of course, cackles when she sees it. To her, it is the funniest thing she's seen all night. I stick the candles in and light it with the light I confiscated from peach fuzz frat boy and push the cake towards Dina after tucking the light back into my pocket, she is illuminated in the glow of iPhone flash all filming her.

"Make a wish!"

Age Sixteen- Grade 11

I think back to how embarrassing it felt to be thoughtful.

How fragile I felt when I would share my feelings and how frail I seem when I do it now. Ellie was always tougher than I was, in rugby, in fights, just in general. That's why I figured she would be taking it better than me when I cut contact, once again I have been proven wrong.

"Conner, can we please just leave?" I pleaded with my then-boyfriend. The night had started fine but after a couple of drinks Ellie and I were becoming increasingly hostile to one another, it wasn't my intention to speak to her but the universe forced my hand when we were shoved into a circle of our friends and made to converse around the bonfire at the beach.

The salty breeze carried the sounds of laughter and the gentle crashing of waves, the scent of roasted marshmallows wafted through the air.

 "What, you need your boyfriend's permission or something?" Ellie held a can of berry blast Smirnoff, staring into my soul from the other side of the fire, the sparks glitter through the night like fireflies. Her words don't feel too bad but they don't feel too good either.

I cast her a glare before I looked back to my boyfriend "Please?" 

He is getting perpetually annoyed with me he shrugs away from my grasp, "Fuck off, we just got here," He mutters, Conner must think I couldn't hear it. He had already downed three Bud lights and a couple of shots of cheap vodka, now he is nursing another beer in hand. 

"Excuse me?" I say, narrowing my eyes. Everyone around the fire pauses their conversation to tune into mine. "Come on," I stand up and try to pull him along so we can have a conversation away from the prying eyes of our friends.

I can't pull the mass of the 6'2 quarterback along with me but he obliges and follows me where I yank him. As I drag him along the rest of the group giggle and makes jokes along the lines of 'Trouble in paradise' but Ellie is the only one who doesn't jump back into mindless conversation, her unnerving eyes are still on me while I chew my boyfriend out by the shoreline. 

"Why do I have to leave just because you're feeling a little bummed out?" 

I'm almost floored at out someone can lack so much empathy "Because you're my boyfriend?" I can feel myself tensing up.

"Why does that mean you can't get up and leave on your own?" He defends "You begged me to come here and now I just wanna down a couple of beers and hang out with my friends."

"You've already drank like twenty!" I retort.

"It's a fucking party!" Conner says, raising his voice "It's a party and it's summer and you're seriously trying to tell me not to have fun?"

"Fuck!" I shout in frustration "Why don't you ever call me? Why can't you ever let me in?" The argument is quickly escalating "Why didn't you tell me that you kissed Tamar and why haven't you told me that you love me?"

"Because I don't."

My words fail me. I knew he didn't, I knew that he hardly even liked me. My dad had thought so highly of him, she said he was the type of guy to rescue a baby from a burning building but as I look at him now, I figure that he eats babies.

I almost open my mouth to say something different, almost, but I don't. The rest of my life might have turned out differently if I didn't, I might've been able to salvage the rotting corpse of my relationship with Ellie but I didn't. "Fine," I say, voice calm and quiet "Let's stay."

Before that night I had never really gotten drunk but the second I got back to the bonfire, I was digging through the cooler and shotgunning canned Smirnoff. "Woah," Riley laughs "Someone's finally being a bad influence."

I got myself so shit-faced that when everyone else got up to dance to the music blaring through the Bluetooth speaker, I sat by myself at the shoreline, looking bitterly out towards to ocean while the tides crash at my feet and get sucked back into the ocean. For a moment I think about jumping in and letting my lax body get washed away and sink beneath the surface until I wash up as a water-bloated corpse that some nine-year-old will find when they're beach combing.

My mouth tastes like peroxide and blood, my lungs burn with a red-hot pain. The wind is becoming increasingly harsh and I ignore the hair that is tangled into my golden hoop earrings.

"Wow, you look awful," I don't need to turn around to know who it is.

"Can you just fuck off?" I say "I don't give a shit about you, just leave me alone."

She always had to antagonize me, Ellie went out of her way to stray from the group and bother me. It had something to do with the alcohol in her system. Despite her alleged hatred for me, she takes a seat next to me regardless.

"Fuck, you're so sensitive," She scoffs "I don't know why you're dating him, I'm not even sure why you'd want to fuck him unless you're too lazy to jerk off-

My hands think before my head and I deck Ellie right in the side of her face, getting a solid hit to her cheekbone. My hand flies over my mouth "I'm sorry, I-

Ellie doesn't waste any time in lunging back at me, she pushes me down by my shoulders until my back is in the shallow of the water that moments ago just splashed at my feet and takes a swing. The impact of her punch almost knocks me sober.

I take a sharp inhale, grabbing her elbows and pulling her down to where she was the one on her back and I was the one straddling her. I land one last blow to her nose, I hear a crunch and the panic immediately sends me scrambling to my feet. My eyes go wide at the blood dripping down, her face I turn to run but Ellie is faster, she grabs me by my hair and yanks me down further into the water with her. 

"Fucking cunt!" I cry, though my scream is drowned out by the overwhelmingly loud tides crashing on the shore "Get the fuck off me!" 

Ellie is better at fighting than I am, I had never been on this side of her before, usually, I had been the one to drag her away from fights but now I am the one who is going to stumble home numb from the devastating pain.

Frankly, I'm fucking scared.

She continues to drag me by my hair until I'm knee-deep in the water with her, she almost throws her entire weight into me, dunking me beneath the surface where her bony hands snake around my neck. My eyes have gone blurry with the salt water, they sting and burn. I can't see anything, all I can do is uselessly thrash beneath her. My hands push against her face, trying to pry her off my body. 

Eventually, I manage to claw her face with my fingernails, I dig deep enough that it breaks skin and she recoils just enough for me to knee her in the stomach and let me get out from under her. Just as I try to slip away she reaches for my hair again, but instead of tugging on my hair, she rips out my gold hoop earring. I screech out in agony, hand reaching for where the metal sliced through the lobe of my ear, I shudder in pain; my cries are now jagged and harsh.

This is the exact moment Ellie begins to regret what she's done. "Fuck, I'm so sorry, I didn't mean to." Her tone softens and she tries to approach me but I back away from her like a frightened dog.

"Get away from me!" Despite the pain surging in my body, I find the strength in me to hit her again, she staggers back tripping into the water. I hit her so hard that I feel a crack in my knuckle and I yelp out in the immediate shock of pain. 

I wasn't sure when the others had noticed this was happening probably because my vision had gone blurry from salt water and adrenaline but before Ellie could hit me again, she was being restrained by Riley and Kennedy while some guy who I had probably had two conversations with dragged my back to shore.

I keel over on my hands and knees and begin to start retching onto the sand. Laila rubs a gentle hand on my back, my hair sticking wet on my forehead. A seagull, disturbed by the commotion, took flight, its wings cutting through the charged air. 

Next to the pile of vomit I just heaved, blood drips down from my ear, pooling and then soaking into the sand. My neck swells from what is still the raw sensation of Ellie closing her hands around it. 

I look up at Ellie, there is blood that has dripped its way into her mouth, clinging to her white teeth. She has what almost looks like a cat scratch running down her cheek, blood begins to prick and spill from the lacerations.

She stares back at me and we don't say a word but we understand each other clearly, I never want to see you again.

"Let's go," Ellie grabs my arm as Dina begins to slice the cake "We're gonna fix this right now."

"Ellie, there are so many people here," I say in a hushed tone so people can't hear me.

"I don't mean here," She looks at me, face expressionless "Just get in my car."

"Excuse me?" I say, tone accusing "Did you just order me to get in your car?"

"Fuck," She sighs, dropping my wrist to rub her hands down her face "Please can you get in my car so we can work this through."

"There's nothing to work through," I retort "You're embarrassed by me or you still secretly hate me and that's fine, I meant what I said on winter break about the lease, the second it's up, I'm getting the fuck out of here."

"What? No, don't- just," She takes a breath, reevaluating what to say "I have a point to make but I can't make it unless you get in my car."

We stare at each other for a moment, I narrow my eyes and she is still unmoving. Every scenario runs through my head of what could be waiting for me in that car.

"Fine."

I sit silently in her passenger seat, my knees are pulled into my chest and I rest my chin on them. Ellie doesn't say anything either as she drives. I watch each traffic light pass me, every street name to try and make sense of where we are going.

I almost feel like I'm going to suffocate beneath the silence of everything going left unsaid.

When I spot the boardwalk up ahead, I know exactly where she's taking me "Ellie, why are we at the beach?" I give her a side glance "Do I need to take out my earrings?"

Heat rises to her cheeks when I say this, "Not yet," She jokes, getting out of her car and grabbing a tote bag from the back seat, and I follow in tow.

We walk past the boardwalk and onto the sandy beach, I'm already not feeling whatever she's doing; there is sand filling up my Converse and a slight wind chill, I'm really wishing I had a hoodie right now. "Can you tell me what we're doing yet?" I'm hugging myself in an attempt to stay warm "If we're still walking on the beach why couldn't we have just walked on the boardwalk instead? It literally has walk in the name." I'm already going off on one of my tangents.

She still walking ahead of me but she briefly turns around to face me "Can you just stop asking questions for a minute?"

"Okay, whatever," I mutter, trailing behind her still. I can hardly see in the night, the only light to guide us is the moon and the warm ceiling lamps from restaurants along the boardwalk. I can vaguely see Ellie's silhouette, she's outlined by the gentle glow radiating off the moon, I try my best not to stumble over things poking out of the sand that have been lost to sight by darkness. 

"Okay," Ellie stops, "Here we are."

"Where are we?" I ask "I can't see shit, I don't know where here is."

Ellie digs around in her pocket for her phone and turns on a flashlight and it reveals a small iron firepit that was cemented into a slab of concrete in the sand. She hands me her phone so I can keep the flash on her and she can see what she's doing. 

She pulls out some pages ripped out from her notebook "Can you hand me your lighter?"

My eyebrows furrowed, and I felt around in my pocket wondering if I even had one. I did, it had slipped my mind that I still had the bic lighter that I confiscated from Peach Fuzz. I hand the lighter to her and watch as she tucks the pages beneath logs that were in the firepit before we arrive, they are somewhat charred but still viable.

She flicks the lighter to ignite it and the paper catches immediately. The initial flicker grew into a tentative blaze, licking at the edges of the kindling. The crackling sound echoed through the night. 

Once she is sure the fire can survive without her feeding it, she steps away. "Alright, let's have it out."

"Like sex?" I scrunch up my nose.

"Oh my god, no, like let's talk this through." She pinches her nose bridge, taking a breath in before exhaling and putting her hand back down "We're gonna recreate the night of the bonfire how it should've been," Ellie reached back into her bag and pulled out two white claws "I snagged these from Dina's party, sorry this was kind of last minute."

I can't help the smile that grows on my face, I take one of the white claws and crack it open "I don't know how authentic this is gonna be if there isn't any canned Smirnoff."

I think back to exactly how that night played out and I take a seat on the sand, facing the crashing dark ocean. I sip my white claw, as expected Ellie takes a seat next to me, just what happened on the actual night.

"Wow," She says "You look really pretty and I'm an idiot for ever saying you looked awful," Ellie looks gorgeous illuminated by the orange light of the fire, and the breeze causes her flyaway hairs to drift in the wind. "I'm an asshole for pretending that I didn't know you, I was scared I would get hurt again and take it to heart like I did last time. I promise the second we get home that I'll come clean."

I don't know if I can deal with this sugary philosophy. She's being so sweet that it's rotting my teeth.

"Ellie," I say gathering my thoughts, it was so hard being honest with my feelings, it felt like I would get hospitalized if I showed any emotion. "I was so in love with you in high school that it killed me, and I was terrified that my parents would throw me out well, they did- but that's why I pushed you away and there isn't a day that goes by where I don't regret it." 

The surprise on her face morphs into a soft smile "What about now?" she asks "Do you still love me?"

I shrug, it's honest "I dunno, but I think there's room to try."

She looks from me to the ocean and the way the moonlight glitters off the surface "What happened next?" Ellie toys with the tab of her drink "Did you hit me?"

"Yeah," I say softly, following her gaze out to the waters "But if we're doing the night how it should've been, I'd rather just kiss you."

Ellie turns her head back to look at me. She shoves her white claw into the sand then takes my face into one of her hands and kisses me like it's her job, so tender and carefully like she's afraid I will break beneath pressure.

How weak have I become? My heart is so full of her that I can hardly call it my own.

A/N: Be grateful for this ending because I was very tempted to give you guys an unhappy one. Sorry that I forgot to post this lol, I’m sad this series is over but excited to show you all my next one which may be the angst-iest yet 👀

Thanks for reading!

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[vashtijoy]

This one is extremely strange, so strange that I think I must have got it wrong somehow? Here's a line from Akechi's Black Mask navigation. Yeah, you know which one this is going to be:

Here's the English audio:

Is it me, or is something a little... off, here? Look at the portrait. Doesn't he look a little... calm? Downbeat, even?

Here's another use of the same portrait. This is not a laughing statement:

Akechi has a laughing navigator portrait, of course:

it's okay goro we know you're very normal

So we've got a mismatch between the portrait and the English line. Let's have a listen to the Japanese audio:

They're a bit... different? He's not laughing, he's not gloating. Just "Huh, I guess that was a thing that happened..."

So what's going on here?

translation time

Akechi 敵1体逃走！仲間に見捨てられたようだね。 teki ittai tousou! nakama ni misuterareta you da ne This one just got betrayed by its teammate! Ha, imagine how that feels! [lit. One enemy fled! Looks like this one was abandoned by its friend, huh?] One more enemy out of the way! So this last one got dumped by its friend, huh?

Let's talk about 見捨てる misuteru—"to abandon". misuteru pops up regularly in the P5R script. It comes up when someone's being ditched, bailed on, forsaken by God—generally left behind: if your friends run out on you, you are being misuterued.

Are there any contexts where misuteru can mean betray? Sure. If you leave a friend held hostage to die, the shadow will accuse you of misuteruing them. nakama o misuteru is used consistently here, similarly to Akechi's line above—"you betrayed your friend by leaving them to die".

Here's Kawakami, at the end of her confidant, resolving to never abandon any of her students again:

Kawakami でも、これからは君のことも守るよ。教師として、絶対、見捨てたりしないから。 demo, kore kara wa kimi no koto mo mamoru yo. kyoushi toshite, zettai, misutetari shinai kara. But from now on, I'm going to protect you too. As your teacher, I will never betray you.

What does Kawakami do? She tries to help her student Takase, but in the end abandons him; she believes she betrayed him to his death. But she betrayed him by giving up on him; by abandoning him. She misuterued him.

Here's Futaba, during her apology to Joker for dumping him at the start of Maruki's reality:

Futaba てかむしろ怒るだろ!{F1 82}のこと見捨てたんだぞ!? te ka mushiro okoru daro! <given name> no koto misuteta n da zo!? Why wouldn't you be!? I betrayed you! Don't you get that!?

Under Maruki's influence, Futaba loses herself in her happy family life, and leaves Joker to handle things essentially alone. Futaba betrays Joker by abandoning him; she misuterus him.

how does akechi use misuteru?

Besides the usage above, Akechi has two other uses of misuteru in P5. One is in his deleted Mementos mission from the third semester:

Akechi 君たちのことだしこういう人間は見捨てておけないだろう? kimi-tachi no koto da shi kou iu ningen wa misutete okenai darou? Well, considering what you and your group do, I imagine you could hardly abandon him to his fate...

This doesn't mean "betray". There's no relationship between Joker and the mission target—there's no betrayal. There's just an abandoning—a refusal to help.

Akechi やっぱり馬鹿は⋯お前らだ。見捨てて行けば、よかったのに⋯ yappari baka wa... omaera da. misutete ikeba, yokatta no ni... The real fools... are you guys. You should have just abandoned me here a long time ago... [lit. the real fools... are you guys. if only you'd [just] abandoned me here...]

Now this line is a doozy. Look at that use of misuteru here; in vanilla, it was his only use of this word. Akechi has just got done explaining that being unwanted and cast aside is the thing he fears most of all. He has shaped his life around it. He's done murder for it. Everything he's become, he became, at base, because he was abandoned—because he was misuterued.

It's here, at the very end, that he turns his back on that. This unwanted child who has killed to be wanted—he looks at Joker and the Phantom Thieves on the other side of the engine room shutters, people who've proved that they value him and want him around, for himself. And he says to them—no; you're idiots; why didn't you abandon me, like everyone else has? He says to them, I won't let you die here, and I care about that more than I care about being abandoned.

Everything about Akechi is resolving at this moment. He transcends his obsession, fear and trauma. And that word misuteru is doing a ton of heavy lifting—because if Akechi can't have what he wants, then he'll reject it. He makes a free choice, for once in his life.

This moment influences him for the whole of the third semester. And when we hear him say misuteru later on, we should remember this. When black mask navigator Akechi notes the Shadow being abandoned to its fate, he isn't laughing about it; he's thinking about it. In his head, he isn't the betrayer, thinking of Joker in the interrogation room; he is the betrayed, being left behind by everyone he ever hoped would care about him. He's being left behind behind that engine room door.

This line as localised, taken in isolation, can transform your reading of Akechi's character and motives—which is why it's so important to look at the whole of canon, and not single cherrypicked lines. Step forward, "I hate you"

unhinged ranting

Lemme be clear here: this line has always pissed me off for its inconsistency. Akechi reacts against the engine room ending in the third semester, sure. Almost the first thing he does is to rub that deal they made in Joker's face. He's desperate not to be viewed as that pitiful object on the floor. He's desperate to keep up walls between himself and the others—for whatever reason.

But after 1/2, he doesn't really gloat about what he's done. He doesn't argue with Futaba's threat to him on 1/11—"if you ever betray us again, we'll make sure you regret it."; he just agrees to her terms, which he knows are well deserved. He's not walking around like "lol, I got you arrested and tried to murder y'all and there was that whole thing"; even unhinged combat Akechi doesn't do that. Except for this one line. When he suddenly reveals that, deep down, he thinks the whole thing was hilarious.

Except he didn't do that at all. If he did, I think he'd find the others tolerated him a lot less. And he's already walking a knife edge with many of them.

What was the translator's brief here? Honestly, I have no idea. Did they even have access to the original audio? Did they have time to play it? Did Atlus give them a brief to make this guy just as crazy insane as possible?—because we know they told Akechi's JP VA, Soichiro Hoshi, to underplay it.

Either way, I don't think the line as localised (and as delivered, excellently, by Robbie Daymond) corresponds to the Japanese audio. traduttore, traditore—translators are traitors. Even me

revision history

Click here for the latest version.

v1.1 (2024/6/18)—it's 1/11, not 1/13!

v1.0 (2024/6/18)—first posted.

[memysoulandi]

Jason Grace, so much potential...

Actually this goes for the entire lost trio. The AMOUNT of TRAUMA these three had and the potential for character development they had too is UNREAL, yet nothing was done. Let us begin my personal beliefs

Leo:

-Delve into his trauma of his remaining family deciding he was the devil at age EIGHT and refusing to take him in-abandonment issues

-Have his constant feelings of invalid-ness and being the unneeded member of the seven be corrected by giving him CLOSE FRIENDS HE PIPER AND JASON NEED TO BE CLOSER AT THE VERY LEAST and conversations when he realizes he is wanted and needed

-Don't have Calypso storyline in there-he didn't need a girlfriend to solve his problems, if you have it, have it as good friends-another member of his support group

-Make him gay and have valgrace or slowburn/implied valgrace(the two of them pining then like kinda tragic as Leo dies)

Piper:

-Have her lesbian storyline occur in HoO where she's a main character-it's an important storyline for her character that deserves a spotlight and time that ToA couldn't give it

-No Jiper! This relationship was toxic and founded on fake memories-if you're going to do it, do it as a part of her LGBTQIA+ journey and Jason's as well

-Don't have her demonize femininity! She can wear dresses! She can wear makeup! She can present more feminine and still be the same character and her hatred of any and all things feminine is not good representation! Make her a feminist, please! Or at least make her less against femininity as a whole.

-No kaleidoscope eyes! Give her brown eyes and also have her rediscovering her culture storyline as a part of HoO too!

Jason:

-Make him a better fighter than Percy. He has been at Camp Jupiter since the age of three and spent a year with wolves before then. He has spent his entire life in a military setting training, he should be a better swordfighter than Percy 'I show up to summer camp at age 12 to 16 and only really use my sword then' Jackson.

-Give him more powers. Or Percy less. Children of the big three should be equal in potential power, not Percy being OP and the others having lightning or shadows powers some of the time. Percy needs less power and Jason, Thalia, Hazel, and Nico need more. Jason should have more power than Percy as he has had longer to train it.

-Give him a personality. His storyline in HoO should be a journey of self-discovery. He has always been another member of an army, with constant pressure on him to be the best at everything and a strong confident leader who doesn't make mistakes as a son of Jupiter. His entire life has been dictated by those around him. For the first time, he is free of that and he needs to be discovering things like how he likes to dress, his style, his sexuality, his likes and dislikes, and his personality. In my opinion he should be kinda shy with a feral edge, side effect of the wolves, who is always trying to people please. When he stops doing this, he becomes significantly happier and a greater use to the team. Plus valgrace;D.

-Also, make him despise Percy at the beginning. He worked his entire life to be an afterthought that nobody looked for when he went missing for months, while Percy was looked for by everyone after only a few days. Percy achieved everything he wanted in a matter of weeks in New Rome and he was happy and had friends and a life. Percy has everything Jason doesn't. They need to have a moment where they are locked together and Percy goes "why do you hate me" and Jason breaks down because "You have everything I want and you don't even have to try!". This would create a better relationship for them and be the turning point for Jason as Percy hears what he has to say and validates him. Also Jason personality.

-Don't kill him off and continue his self-discovery journey in ToA.

-Make him and Thalia have a closer relationship that in the months between TLH and TSoN, it is implied that they spend time together. He should feel safe with her and they needed more interactions as they are SIBLINGs, god damit.

-Make him and Reyna just friends-she wanted to look for him but couldn't 'cause Octavian(the bitch) and someone needed to be Praetor in his absence.

-Also give him history with Octavian-ex-friends or something give me drama.

[galedekarios]

gale & his mother, morena dekarios

i thought it'd be nice to have a place to compile everything i could find about gale's mother, morena dekarios.

the first time you as the player get a vague mention about gale's parents is after saving mirkon, when gale brings up a story about his parents denying him a kitten when he was still a child:

Gale: One time my parents denied me akitten, so I summoned myself a tressym.

if you play a gale origin playthrough, you get a mention of her much earlier from tara, after she joins the camp.

this is a camp dialogue with its variants from act i:

Tara the Tressym: Well, if it isn't my favourite fellow himself. Player: How are things back in Waterdeep? Tara the Tressym: More or less the same - though news of some mad faction calling themselves 'Absolutists' is starting to trickle in. Tara the Tressym: I told your mother not to worry. That if they were anything to worry about, Baldur's Gate would handle things quick-sharp. Keep them from spreading their tendrils north. She still wants to know when she'll see you again, sir. I avoid giving any answers. But she misses you. Player: I miss her too. Tara the Tressym: I'll tell her. With my Cat Flap of Displacement, I can afford the occasional visit. I'd bring you along, if I could. Perhaps some day. - Player: I can't risk putting her in danger. Tara the Tressym: I know that, but she doesn't. She'd keel over if she knew just how you'd tried to manipulate the Weave. Or maybe she'd just say something like, 'My Gale always was one to make the impossible possible.' Oh, but she adores you. - Player: No more guilt trips, Tara. Please. Tara the Tressym: But then whatever will we talk about? Anyhow - I'm keeping my senses pricked for any sign of another item that might be of use to you. Hopefully something will turn up soon.

it's clear from the dialogue that gale's mother worries about him and loves him - adores him, really.

it also becomes clear that she doesn't know what happened to gale and that he nor tara has not told her.

another mention from act i, again from tara:

Tara the Tressym: Please tell me you've at least made inroads when it comes to finding someone to settle down with. Myself and Mrs Dekarios are starting to think you intend to die alone. Player: You've been visiting my mother? Tara the Tressym: Naturally. After you abandoned her, there was only me left to keep her company. She's very good company, though. Ah, the stories we've traded over toast and tea. You're a highly entertaining source of speculation. But speculation only goes so far! Tell me, Mr Dekarios - how have you been?

tara and morena are implied to have tea together regularly enough to trade stories about gale. tara is implied to be a sort of messenger between the two of them, likely after gale's isolation and subsequent abduction by the nautiloid, keeping morena informed, yet without revealing gale's secret and shame.

the devnotes also state that tara loves morena - high praise since other devnotes states that tara hates everyone except gale - and that she talks of her in an affectionate tone.

this is a dialogue in act ii after mystra has tasked gale to use the orb the moment he finds the heart of the absolute:

Tara the Tressym: Promise me, Gale. Promise me you'll find another way. Promise me you'll return home, when this is all over. Player: I can't make that promise, Tara. Tara the Tressym: You're going to kill me. And your mother. And then there'll be no one to mourn you when you've wasted yourself for no good reason at all.

i find it very interesting here in terms of other relationships that tara explicitly says that there will be no one to mourn gale except morena and her should he heed mystra's instructions and sacrifice himself. it speaks of the bond between tara, morena and gale - but also even more of gale's isolation and loneliness. we know from tara that she considers herself to be gale's only old friend and gale echoes as much. we also know that gale describes the dekarios family as the dekarios clan, that is "scattered" far and wide.

at the same time, the loud silence about gale's father becomes really apparent again. a while ago, i speculated about gale's father and i truly do still think that he abandoned morena and gale.

another snippet from an act ii convo, before gale reveals the details of elminster's letter to tara (or chosing to keep it to himself):

Tara the Tressym: I'm not one to pry. I'd rather make up all the juicy details myself over tea with your mother.

which again ties in with a similar line from act i, further cementing the fact that this is a regular thing between tara and morena.

still in act ii, tara says this if gale asks her if she'll still love him if he is a mindflayer:

Player: Will you love me when I'm a mind flayer? Tara the Tressym: Depends. Are mind flayers warm-blooded? If so, my prize napping spot on your lap won't be compromised. In which case, I suppose we could find an accord. And, of course, your mother would still think you a prince, no matter how many tentacles you had. And with a nautiloid, you may even manage to visit her more often.

again, gale's mother truly adores him. tara is utterly convinced she'd love him even if he'd turn into a mind flayer. at the same time, the dialogue again hammers home the fact that gale's been keeping his distance from his mother after he has acquired the orb.

the following lines are a compilation of some of tara's lines from act iii, all once again stating that she is a messenger between gale and morena, keeping morena informed about gale's well-being, while also looking after morena in gale's absence from waterdeep:

Tara the Tressym: You're almost at the end of this, Gale. You're nearly there. And not a moment too soon. Myself, I must away to Waterdeep. Your mother will be worried silly not to have heard from either of us - and now I can bring her the good news. When this is all over I'll be waiting for you, with a crackling fire and good book at the ready. Good luck, darling. - Tara the Tressym: I'm well past due to return to Waterdeep. I'm going to tell your mother that you'll be home soon. Don't make a liar of me, darling. - Tara the Tressym: I'll have to make up some good news for your dear mother, then. I'm going home, Gale. To look after Mrs Dekarios, and to remind you that there are people waiting for you in Waterdeep.

going back to companion gale, the next mention of gale's mother after saving mirkon, is from gale in an ambient with karlach:

Gale: I don't suppose you've any clue where we are in relation to Waterdeep? Karlach: From this distance between Elturel and Baldur's Gate, I'd say... a long way away.devnote Gale: Ah. That will make getting word to my mother rather tricky. No matter - what she doesn't know can't hurt her. Not at this distance, anyway.

it echoes the lines of dialogue that origin gale has, believing he endangers his mother with his condition and thus keeping his distance.

gale mentions his mother in an act iii dialogue after meeting tara on the rooftop of the open hand temple:

Gale: My tower in Waterdeep boasts an excellent kitchen and a wine cellar to rival Ondal himself. Not to mention a larder stocked with my homemade hundur sauce. Player: Hundur sauce? Gale: A Waterdhavian delicacy, spiced to leave exactly the right amount of heat lingering on the tongue, and served with that most sharp-toothed of aquarian residents, the quipper fish. I make it to my mother's recipe. It packs quite a wallop. As does she.

we know that gale's the designated camp cook from a conversation with wyll, and i think the conversation makes it fair to assume that gale's mother taught him how to cook.

still, maybe it's because i'm not a native english speaker and i might be missing some cultural context here, but the line "it packs quite a wallop. as does she." stuck out to me:

wallop. to hit something / someone hard.

this could mean that gale's seen her hit someone and packing quite a punch behind it. with what's been described of morena so far, i doubt it's because gale's ever been on the receiving end of that.

or perhaps it's less literal and more in relation to her seemingly larger than life personality that gale also hints at later, describing his mother as "intimitable" and "sometimes unavoidable". this description is from the following conversation that is currently sadly still bugged:

Player: So your last name is Dekarios? Gale: It is. Courtesy of my mother, the inimitable, dare I say it sometimes unavoidable, Morena Dekarios. It's been so long since I've used it. 'Gale Dekarios' cut a poor figure next to the wizard prowess of 'Gale of Waterdeep'. Player: Gale Dekarios... I think I like him more. Gale: You like to many things about me I'd have sooner discarded... Your generosity is quite wonderful. Gale Dekarios likes you too. Very, very much. Though let's keep his exitence between ourselves for now. - Player: Doesn't your matter mind? Gale: Oh, she's happy if I'm happy. Morena couldn't care one jot what I call myself. Tara's the real stickler for using it. Has done since I summoned her. I'd prefer you not follow her exmaple, if that's all the same to you. 'Gale' is more than sufficient. - Player: You're right. Just 'Gale is better. Gale: I agree. And on the plus side, if I get myself into any truly cataclystic straits during the remainder of our journey, my family name will go untarnished.

i love this banter so much and it makes me very sad that larian still hasn't fixed the issue of it not triggering. there's so much lore to explore here:

from gale dropping 'dekarios' in favour of 'of waterdeep', at first, to appear perhaps more grandiose, more suited to the ambitions he held when he was younger, to morena, apparently, not minding it, yet tara clinging to 'dekarios' (perhaps to keep gale's feet on solid ground as much as she could), to finally finding out that the reason that the gale we meet now is not using 'dekarios' still is because he doesn't wish to tarnish his family name should he indeed fall victim to the orb.

the last mention gale makes of his mother is during his act iii post final battle dialogue, in which he proposes to the player:

Gale: That being said, I wondered if you might consider accompanying me back to Waterdeep as a new member of the Dekarios clan? Player: Are you asking me to marry you? Gale: I suppose I am. Tara would be delighted. Not to mention my mother. But I'd be just as happy without such ceremony, so long as we're together.

this again mirrors what tara has been saying in her dialogue with an origin gale in act i: that morena and her were hoping he would find someone to find happiness with.

i think overall, even with only the very few bits and pieces we learn of morena, it's easy to tell that she truly loves and adores and cares her son, and that that love and care is clearly echoed back from gale to morena.

still, or perhaps more likely because of that love, gale keeps his secrets and his distance to morena because of the orb and the shame he feels he brought to his family.

it's all too easy to imagine that he wishes her to be proud of him and that he feels he has disappointed her and given her little reason to be proud of him in the same vein that he feels he has done with tara:

Gale: She'd [Tara] be most impressed by our efforts saving these tieflings. Proud, even. And I've given her little to be proud of recently.

anyhow, i hope i caught all mentions and that this was helpful to someone. 🖤

[lurkingshan]

Japanese QL Corner

We are up to seven live airing QLs from Japan! Five of these are on Gaga and two are being generously provided via fansubs.

A brief interlude for me to climb on my soapbox: if you are a fan of Japanese queer media who is not based in Japan, you really should be supporting GagaOOLala. They are the sole international distributor of most of these shows and the only reason international fans can watch them as they release. They’re a queer-owned Taiwanese company specifically focused on providing international access to global queer media, and their monthly subscription is much cheaper than other streaming services. They’re not perfect but they are quite responsive to feedback about their catalogue and approach; please consider subscribing if you love these shows!

I’m really loving most of these shows and I highly recommend jumping in to the weekly watch!

Takara's Treasure

I fall more in love with these two every week. We finally got some answers on Takara's backstory, and as expected, it is the mother who abandoned him that has been harassing him. Taishin blazed in to give that lady a piece of his mind before even realizing who she was, and it only made Takara love him more. The revelation that Takara is holding back with Taishin because he doesn't want to be covetous like his mother sent me into a bit of a tailspin. I loved Taishin getting his moment to reciprocate Takara's care, as well as Takara's amusement that Taishin still hasn't pieced together what they are to each other. I'm excited for it to finally click for him soon.

Sugar Dog Life

I'll be honest, this first episode did not hit right for me. I always struggle with copaganda heavy romances, especially when the show is intentionally framing cops as benevolent and explicitly linking that to the romantic arc. But I liked the cooking parts of it a lot! We'll see how it proceeds. This one is being fan subbed, so if anyone is having trouble finding it feel free to hit me up in DMs and I'll point you.

Cosmetic Playlover

This one is coming in hot with two episodes a week, because Japan is trying to kill me. I like the concept and vibe but the execution is a bit all over the place; it feels like they want this to be a dark story but aren’t willing to fully commit to that, so dark things happen but then get treated too lightly. The pacing also feels a little wacky and we’re rushing through plot and relationship development in a way that leaves it all feeling a bit ungrounded. Sahashi went from harassing and threatening to out Natsume to kissing and claiming to be serious about him in the space of 15 minutes, and then suddenly in the next ep there’s a new villain and suspense plot. This one is just not clicking; I’m tilting my head with a furrowed brow.

I Hear the Sunspot

Sigh. I really didn’t need another arc about a third party interloper coming between the boys, but here we are. Maya is a throwback to the bad old femme fatale archetype steeped in misogyny and I don’t love it. She’s arrogant, manipulative, and mean for no good reason, and she doesn’t feel like she fits in this story about decent people trying their best. There was a way to do this plot with a more sympathetic portrayal of her, but unfortunately they didn't take that route. I’m disappointed that she’s with us for multiple episodes, and it’s hard to believe this rude little girl can really come between them. I said last week that it felt like they regressed Kohei and Taichi’s relationship in the time skip and I’m feeling that even more now. Aside from this mess, I really liked all of Taichi’s scenes with his friends this week as he continues trying to work out his feelings for Kohei. I hope we get back to Taichi and Kohei spending time together again soon; that’s the real heart of this show and I already miss it.

Ayaka is in Love with Hiroko

Sigh. Last week I was mad at the characters around Hiroko, but this week I am forced to be mad at the show for how it's dealing with this entire plot involving Hiroko's decisions about her privacy at work, Risa's inappropriate interference, and Ayaka's bizarre conclusion that she should announce her love for Hiroko to the whole office. This whole love triangle and forced outing plot was ill-considered and it's dragging the show down; we should not have had Risa being so wrong and manipulative or ventured into queer workplace politics at all if the show wasn't prepared to take it seriously. On the plus side, we finally got the backstory for Hiroko, and it was surprising in a good way. I hope this show can get back to the zany comedy it was doing so well before it got bogged down in all this mess.

Mr. Mitsuya's Planned Feeding

Episode 3 just went up on @isaksbestpillow's blog, and it's a fantastic one. I was howling watching Mitsuya wailing on his ex and poor Ishida trying to process this new rival on the scene. Shige continues to be the MVP and I loved the way he encouraged Ishida with a mix of sage advice and sexy sass (also loved that Mitsyua immediately knew that gossip ratted him out). And I screamed again when Ishida got worked up and confessed; I didn't expect that to happen so fast and it was excellent! This show feels so mature in the best way; I really feel like I'm watching adults who have lived.

Tagging @bengiyo to add the anime update!

[reareaotaku]

Yandere! Billy Loomis AKA Scream Headcanons

Tw: Slight NSFW, Death, Murder

Before Becoming Scream

He makes you watch horror movies [Even if you don't like them]

He likes to haunt you and torture you, but never anything extreme, just playful

Grabs a handful of you when ever he gets the chance

Leans his head on your shoulder and kisses your cheek

He gets aggravated if you reject him

He charms you into a relationship and you don't even realize it

Calls you Mommy during sex, even though he's the dominant one. Chokes you a little, but gets so loving after where you forget about it until next time

He gets jealous pretty easily

And he doesn't take it well

Always has an arm around you, usually your shoulder or your waist

He likes to pull you close into him

Leaves hickeys all over your neck, dark and big

Wants to do you on any surface he can get you on

He's addicted to you; Like an addict with drugs, an alcoholic with beer, etc

After Becoming Scream

He becomes incredibly violent and goes after people try and hit on you

It gives him a rush and turns him on. He always wants to fuck you after

His one rule for Stu is he can't touch you. You're his

If you try leaving him, he'll threaten you

"You want to break up?"

"Yes?"

The next thing you know you have a knife to your throat and he's threatening to cut you

"Say that again. Come on-"

"You wouldn't-"

"Oh, but I would. See, if I can't have you, why should anyone else?"

"You're sick!"

"And yet you had sex with me."

"I didn't know"

"Oh come on," He sticks the knife in deeper and bends his head down a little, to look at you from below, "You always know"

"You're a sick man, Billy. You need help"

"I won't need help if you just shut up and forget about this whole thing"

You're a little more angsty around him after his knife incident

Whenever anyone asks you about it, Billy will speak for you

"Oh, you know. She's freaked about the whole killer on the loose. Don't worry babe, you've got me"

You can never leave him so don't even try

"You're the killer?"

"And your one stupid, stupid bitch," Billy tilts his head, fiddling with the blood on his shirt, "But God do I love stupid bitches"

You can tell the cops, but you have no proof and Billy has alibis. They'll see you as a jealous ex

Makes you watch as he kills your father. All you can do is scream and beg for mercy

"Aren't you enjoying the show, Y/n?"

"Please Billy! Pleeasee," You beg, tears streaming down your face. You can barely move with the restraints and drugs in your system

Billy will look you in the eyes, before gutting your father like a fish

You can try and run, but you can never escape Billy. He will always find you. He can't have you leave him. No one will ever leave him again. Not another woman will abandon him...

[honey-minded-hivemind]

For the Hulk vs. Wolverine/Wolverine and the X-Men platonic yandere au, imagine a Reader who was either being spied on by Weapon X, or who somehow just kept following them from time to time, maybe foiling their plans (and trying to keep the poor traumatized *ssholes alive)... H*ck, maybe Reader was someone who was a potential candidate for the program...

Reader just ends up stuck with them somehow, keeps stopping them from dying or being killed off, and is at first hated or seen as weak... Except Reader still does them solids and favors without asking for anything in return or expecting anything, which leads to the growth of some... softer... feelings of the mutants for once. Because that little idiot who keeps being nice, even if they're hurt for it, is THEIR sweet little idiot or friend or pup or whatever. So they obviously should be allowed to stay...

It comes to a head when Reader actually tries to leave, be it move on to other things or somehwefe new, or abandon the group if they were part of the program, leading to mixed emotions and reactions...

🧡🦡Logan would want Reader to leave, h*ck, he's probably setting something up so they can leave amd slip away without anyone catching them. If he can, he'd leave with them... This helps activate his dad instincts, and whether he remembers this or not, he does remember Reader's scent, and that he sees them as someone to protect...

🦁🦷Sabretooth hates the idea of Reader leaving, having a soft spot for them and Logan, but would rather have them with him, make them stronger, get them to stay and not even think of leaving the program him! Would hunt them down and try try force them to stay, would even make them forget certai things if he could.

🎭💙Mystique, if she was still there at that point in time, would realize she wants Reader someone safe, where they can have a life, be innocent or at least free, and tries to help them, even if it's only in small ways. Would toss someone off a cliff for getting in Reader's way of escaping (so, the majority of everyone-)

❤🐼Deadpool would find the idea funny. Leave them? After everything? Quite the kidder, eh, kiddo? Well... that joke wasn't very funny, was it? He's against it, but treats it like a game. He won't stop Reader from trying... but he will chase them and give them a hard time, eventually dragging them back, because, look, hey, they're his buddy~! And buddies don't leave buddies behind! Reader put so much effort into them already, so why give in now?

⚡💛Maverick, if he is there at that point in time, wants what he thinks is best for Reader (his small memories/dad instincts popping up). He thinks they're safe wherever he is, so if he's with Weapon X, then Reader will join them, no matter how much of a tantrum them throw. He understands it's not... soft, being what they are or doing what they do, but he can keep them safe. The rest of the mutants? The people they all hint for a living? They can't. So it's best Reader gives in and joins them and makes it easier on themself, or they'll have to use discipline, and no one wants that...

🔪🗡Lady Deathstrike is probably fond of Reader, especially if they were kind to her or said she was beautiful or right about something. She doesn't care much if they stay or if they go, but she wants to know where they are, who they're with, and wants updates on everything they do. She's controlling, wanting a perfect version of them...

🩸🐙Omega Red would probably not care much either way. If he's soft for Reader, they were likely treating him like a person, someone who bleeds and can hurt and who needs care. Would agree Reader should stay with them, but wouldn't want to break them too much... If he thought they'd be killed, I will say he would let them go. Whatever chance guarantees their survival is what he chooses in the end...

🦡💛 If Laura/X-23 is around (depends on when this takes place), she'd be younger, so she views Reader as the closest she has to a sibling or friend. Wants them, because they're comforting and nice and sneak her treats, but doesn't understand yet that if they stayed or joined them, they'd be broken the way she and the others are... If Reader did leave, they left Laura a few gifts, mainly anything Reader had that Laura liked, so she'd have some form of comfort after Reader was gone...

No matter what, they're all somehow attached, whether they like it or not, and Reader attempting to leave them would likely crack the fragile peace they made... And if Reader did manage to escape... they're going to have to watch their back for a very long time...

(Imagine this if you want for X-Men Evolution! I'm just trying out this other X-Mem series and seeing if I like it! Enjoy this honey fresh from the comb!💛🧡🐝🍯🧪)

[aphroditelovesu]

Can you do a yandere! Annabeth x reader?

''You are mine and I am yours. No one can change this fact, I suggest you just accept the truth.'' — Annabeth Chase.

❝ 🦉 — lady l: I absolutely love Annabeth. As I would also be a daughter of Athena, if I were from the PJO universe, I understand my girl perfectly, so I'm more than happy to write to her! I hope you like it and forgive me for any mistakes! 🧡🧡

❝tw: obsessive and possessive behavior, jealousy, mention of murder, manipulation, gaslighting, unhealthy relationships.

❝🦉pairing: yandere!annabeth chase x gender neutral!reader.

Annabeth Chase had always been incredibly intelligent, proud and insightful, perhaps because she was the daughter of Athena or because she was always like that. Since she was a child, she was always sure of what she wanted and when she wanted something she didn't have the habit of giving up. She was never the giving up type and that only surfaced within her when she met you.

She is naturally a strategist and everything she does is carefully planned, calculated and executed. She never acts out of emotion but out of reason. Annabeth considers those who act without thinking to be fools and she will never be like that. Not even with her obsession.

Annabeth knows that her behavior around you, the thoughts she has for you are considered ''morally wrong'', but she doesn't care about that. She's a demigoddess, she has other issues to deal with than caring about morals and whether what she does or thinks is wrong.

She is extremely controlling and wants everything to be done her way, which suggests that she is arrogant. In a way, that's true, but Annabeth cares about you more than anyone else and she doesn't want you to get burned, so you should do things her way, the right way.

Annabeth is quite possessive, she hates it when you're around other people. You belong to her. From the moment you capture her attention, you become hers and she will not tolerate you betraying her in any way.

She hates it when people get close to you and she will use her intelligence to her advantage to keep people away from you. Whether manipulating you or them, she will not allow you to be stolen from her. Annabeth prefers not to get her hands dirty, so she will get rid of troubles in a way where she doesn't have to kill. At least not directly.

Annabeth admires you, she adores you to a certain extent, but she wants you to adore her more, to venerate her. She is a very proud daughter of Athena, she feels great pride and admiration for her mother and hopes, no, she wants you to worship her as much as she worships the gods.

She worships all gods, even those she has animosity towards their children, Annabeth respects them greatly and expects you to do the same. If you don't pay attention to the gods, she will have to correct you to fix this.

Annabeth is very affectionate, even more than she likes to admit. She wants physical contact for as long as possible, hugs, cuddles and kisses are precious to her and they are all yours. She loves it when you let her read to you, tell you about the gods and their stories. These are her favorite moments together, not only can she boast of her knowledge but also spend time with you.

She is very manipulative and will use this to her advantage, to keep you away from everyone she considers a threat to your relationship. At first, it was just campers that she didn't see any reason for you to get close to, but it quickly escalated to the point where she didn't even want your family around you. Annabeth is smart enough to know that you won't abandon your family that easily, but she will find a way. She always finds a way.

Annabeth will punish you for anything wrong you do, in this case, what she considers wrong. She wants to control you completely, to make you so dependent on her that you will need her for anything you are going to do. She's not the type to speak more than once and when she gives you an order, she expects you to obey without question.

All she wants is you, to be with you. And she knows she will have you. Annabeth just wants a peaceful life with you, without having to worry about others. You've been through so much, shouldn't you be able to be happy? Annabeth will ensure that nothing and no one, not even the gods, get in your way. She is ready to fight anyone for you.

[codenamesazanka]

Story has this tendency to add more suffering after the initial horror backstory, as a way to delve deeper into Hero Society/the world:

Shigaraki didn't just have a deadly quirk and was never saved by Heroes - his dad abused him and his family enabled this and then he killed his entire family and was ignored by dozens of bystanders before being picked up by a Villain who gives him his family's severed hands to fuck with him. Then it turns out even his birth was plotted by AFO.

Twice wasn't just a criminal who suffered a traumatic break. He was an orphaned 16-year-old who was kicked out onto the streets and turned to using his quirk for comfort, before falling into crime.

Spinner wasn't just called some names and got bullied and became a hikikomori. He got sprayed with pesticides for daring to walk outside, and admits that he was ready to completely give up.

Toga didn't just had to go to quirk counseling and repress herself. Her parents emotionally abused her and quirk counseling truly was to stuff her into a neat, 'normal' box and even when she was unconsciously biting her wrist hard enough to bleed in her sleep, no one did anything.

Touya wasn't just neglected by his dad and went villains for revenge. He was cornered to the point of a mental breakdown, before being alone when he nearly burned to death, was in a coma for three years, escaped from a shady AFO-ran orphanages, came home to see Enji still beating up Shouto, then became a street kid for the next 8 years.

AFO and OFA wasn't just two siblings with quirks living through a time of chaos where people quirks were considered subhuman. They were born to a homeless woman who died, and so they becoming orphaned trash river rat babies who lived on the streets their whole lives.

Scissors-kun wasn't just tied up and locked away in his own home by his parents. His family and multiple relatives were all involved in the abuse and cover-up, in which he was locked in a basement for years and they even sew his mouth shut (implied because he cried too much), before being purposefully abandoned when the town was evacuated due to it turning into a war zone.

From his latest interview, Horikoshi apparently writes things because he wants his story to be interesting and evoke strong emotions in readers. Fair enough. I think he chooses these absolutely awful backstories as a way to make his villains understandable and sympathetic - so we can clearly understand their anger and pain and know why they would seek out destruction even if those crimes are inexcusable. Also fair. Or maybe it's just the logic of the darker the backstory, the more heartwarming the lukewarm save will feel - if they've suffered so much, they should be grateful they're even getting a bit of relief.

But the thing is. Because these horrors are so atrocious and clearly the results of how corrupted and dysfunctional and cruel Hero/quirk society is, I really have no choice but to loathe Hero society and basically all who upkeep it, and wish for its complete upheaval.

Scissors-kun revealed to be the victim of one of those years-long confinement cases, undergoing years of neglect and social isolation, and then even mutilation, all because his family can't accept his quirk, and no Hero even knowing of his existence to save him from his own family - him being saved by Old Lady holding his hand doesn't bring me joy. I don't see change. I see an injustice that occurred long before the League ever started their terrorism and continued even after they were defeated, and only recently alleviated partly because the League lashed out and forced some reckoning, and even this help Scissors-kun received is the lowest of bars.

It makes me want the society that allowed something like this to happen to him to be utterly destroyed.

[sapphic-agent]

I REALLY hate the common theme in BNHA of pinning the blame on something or someone for an abuser turning out the way they did.

Bakugou? Oh he got a big head from everyone praising him or just Bakugou being Bakugou.

Endeavor? Oh he watched his father die saving someone.

Kotaro? Oh it was all Nana's fault for abandoning him as a child and should've kept him even though it would've put a target on him for AFO to get to!

I especially hate the last one because it was literally villainizing and pinning blame on Nana all for wanting to protect her child. Sure it sucks that they went through that, but that doesn't mean they should physically take it out on those they're supposed to love and justify it.

Bro the Endeavor thing pisses me off so bad you don't understand😭 Like so many other aspects of the Todoroki story (excluding Shoto's flashback) it feels like it's only there to make Endeavor more sympathetic.

But the worst part is, this doesn't even have to be a bad thing. Bojack Horseman had a horrible childhood (mentally/verbally abusive and negligent parents, generational trauma, substance misuse in his genetics and throughout childhood, toxicity of Hollywood, etc.) but the show goes out of its way to make sure you know that it doesn't excuse his actions. It makes sure you know that he is 100% at fault for not seeking help as an adult.

But for Endeavor, it was just something thrown together last minute to justify him literally participating in human trafficking. Like, WHAT??

(Would also like to point out that his father being killed by a villain does fuck all for his personality. Endeavor has never been about righteous justice like All Might. He's always been about being the best, like Bakugou. How in the fuck does that correlate to his father being killed? You can tell Horikoshi threw that together last minute because it's so generic and dumb)

And don't even get me started on Kotaro. It 100% feels like Horikoshi continuously bashes Nana for giving him up, to the point where she's barely a character outside of that. There's a lot of characters who deserved better, but Nana will always be so high on my list because of this

[dfwbwfbbwfbwf]

I think I figured out part of why I don't like the Doriath characters.

I think part of it is because of how much Jirt emphasizes how great they are and why we should like them, but rarely actually SHOWS it. I decided to do a thing on the main few Doriath characters who are the center of much controversy. I listed out various things. If I thought the thing is a positive, I gave it a positive mark. If I thought the thing is a negative, I gave it a negative mark. I also kind of put my opinion of the character at the top, so it's a bit of a spoiler.

Thingollo - very dislike

Only Incarnate to marry an angel. Good for him, I guess, but the Ainur aren't always quality judges of character. +0

Focused on his kingdom's security. +1

Tried to help Denethor out. +1

He welcomed the Laiquendi, but not the Noldor. I get keeping Doriath safe is a priority, but there's no indication that he invited any of the Noldor princes to Doriath until he learned the Arafinwions were his kin. Wasn't Finwë his supposed to be a very good friend? This was before he learned about Alqualondë, mind you. -1

Graciously granted the Noldor lands he didn't actually have any say over anymore, as he had stopped trying to protect them due to an inability TO protect them. +0

Acted like he had authority over the Noldor (Quenya ban) when there was no lord-vassal relationship between them. At least, he wasn't keeping his end of the bargain. -1

Demanding a Silmaril, a SILMARIL, which his "friend" Finwë had DIED for, was incredibly insensitive. He could have asked for something else to get Beren to run away or die, but, no. -1

Tried to use other people to kill a man. -1

Refused to give the Silmaril back to the Fëanárions, whose grandfather, his "friend", died for it. -1

Didn't listen to his wife. -.5

Refused to take part of an alliance that, ultimately, resulted in this destruction of Doriath. He had understandable reasons, though. -.25

Adopted a cursed child. He's also part of the reason that child is cursed, but he's not directly responsible either. +1

Let refugees in, even Noldor. Granted, all the Noldor came from Nargothrond, his nephew's kingdom. Still, better than nothing. +1

Didn't listen to his wife again. -.5

Ultimately destroyed his kingdom through his actions, but not directly. -.25

Total: -2.5

---

Melian - Like

Not as much of a Mary Sue as Lúthien. Melian is more like Cassandra. +1

Has a brain cell. +1

The worst thing she did, abandon Doriath, could be because she actually died. -.5

Total: 1.5

---

Lúthien - Dislike

Exhibits many Mary Sue traits - impossibly beautiful, smart, clever, the best at dancing and singing, and all of her plans work, and she even manages to get the dog who stood by Celegorm through worse things to defect to her. While these aren't necessarily bad when done right, she doesn't really have a personality other than "FREEDOM!" (yes, you must imagine William Wallace) and "I really love this scruffy hobo dude". More than anything, she's BORING. -1

Disappeared to the farthest place away from Morgoth to chill with her family. Screw the rest of Beleriand. Sure I riled up Morgoth, but I don't have to deal with the consequences. -1

Total: -2

---

Dior Eluchíl -

Killed some guys when it wasn't self-defense. The Dwarves were fleeing, and Beren and Dior chased them. That is, technically, murder, even if the Dwarves started it. -1

Sacrificed his kingdom for a rock. -2

Total: -2

---

Eluréd and Elurín - like and pity

Died. +0

Are cute babies. +1

Total: 1

---

Elwing - dislike, but also pity

Traumatized. +1

Sacrificed her kingdom for a rock. -1

Left her children at the mercy of people she believed killed her brothers, knowing that if the Fëanárions didn't get them, Morgoth would. -1

Gave the rock to her husband. +.25

Is a bird. +0

Total: -.75

[mageofseven]

How about a reader that was pregnant when they were chosen as an exchange student ? Like the baby's father is not in the picture and reader *isn't* involved with boys romantically and when the boys discover readers pregnant after lesson 16 they're just "oh Shi-"

This is an old ask from before my long ass hiatus, but I'm honestly still really interested in this.

Okay so here's some set up info for how Imma do this:

MC knew she was pregnant, but was so overwhelmed about it that she welcomed the fact that she was magically kidnapped into going to demon school and that she had something to distract herself from the literal growing problem in her uterus.

The baby was also transfered to the new body after what Belphie did to her.

Like it was requested, MC is not currently dating any of the Boys.

They found out because they had her get checked by a doctor despite Barbatos making sure she was okay with his time power; this was mostly done out of over-protectiveness and no one actually thought anything would come of it.

I don't do reader posts so obviously this will be MC.

Now that that's out of the way, let's give this a go!

•▪︎▪︎◇°●♡●°◇▪︎▪︎•

Lucifer:

Is visibly shocked by this and has MC explain herself.

When he hears how her boyfriend knocked her up and abandoned her not long before she was brought to the Devildom, the pride demon makes a mental note to ask her for the man's name at another time so he can handle that little pest.

Feels terrible guilty about what she went through and even worse that she went through it while pregnant.

I see Lucifer as this heavily anxious man with a soft spot for kids and that includes babies that are works-in-progress (WIP).

Hovers around her constantly after that, making sure she taking every vitamin and supplement she and her child needs.

Just becomes super protective of her while also trying to pretend he's not.

Eventually takes her off of cooking duty so she'll have one less thing to worry about.

Despite not being the father or having such a relationship with her, he takes full responsibility for all aspects of this from teleporting her here while pregnant to Belphie offing both her and her child in her last body.

Doesn't go as far as to call himself this child's father, but anyone who saw this man hovering over her would definitely think he was.

Like always, Lucifer just wants to take care of his family and now sees MC and her child as such.

Mammon:

Literally freaks out while trying to pretend he isn't.

To him, her being pregnant just made this whole situation 1000000x worse.

Feels bad that he didn't know about her kid.

Like, he's the brother whose been by her side the most and he never even noticed anything was off with her.

He's not the most observant man so I'm not surprised.

He's her First! She should have just told him, or so he tells her.

Keeps an extra close eye on her to keep this crazy freaking human from doing anything bad for herself or her kid

And let's face it, she literally got herself killed not long ago so anything can happen.

The further her pregnancy gets, the more this man tries to keep his brothers away from her.

He just extra possessive as time goes on.

I mean yeah, this kid ain't his but he wishes it was so freaking much but he's still gonna look after the two of them.

Honestly, this man wouldn't be able to handle a single other bad thing happening to his Human.

Leviathan:

Ohmanohmanohman--

Is really freaking out and doesn't even try to hide it.

I mean this is serious!

Not only did MC die but so did her WIP kid????

I mean yeah, they are both back but this all still sucks.

You know the phrase 'kicking a person while they're down'? Well this is like using a freaking flamethrower while the human was already down!

Honestly becomes super awkward with his Henry after learning about her pregnancy

But slowly gets used to it as he discovers that MC just wants him to treat her as he always has.

Yeah! He can do that!...kinda.

He feels bad that he can't help her through most of it.

This man knows absolutely nothing about pregnancy and feels like he is mediocre at comforting people at best.

Still, if she ever needs someone to distract her with anime so she doesn't have to think of the little WIP in her uterus then Levi is her man.

Satan:

Honestly...this man is less than thrilled.

MC is the first person he's ever truly gotten close to and that includes his 'brothers'

So to hear that the person he cares about most is pregnant...

Well on the plus side, he knows there's a human man in the other realm for him to torture so that makes him feel better.

Doesn't like kids, but is at MC's side as much as possible.

One of the brothers willing to hold her hair back during bouts of morning sickness.

Not one to hover, but does get a little protective when Belphie is in the same room as her.

Knows the Avatar of Sloth won't hurt her anymore but...well, he still can't get the image of MC's dead body out of his head

And angy boy is still angy at him for it.

Other than that, he reads a shit ton of pregnancy books to learn what MC's body is going through and different methods to comfort her through it.

Asmodeus:

Honestly, this usually chatty brother was speechless when it was announced.

When he saw all eyes fall on the human and make her overwhelmed, he ran to his friend and hugged her tightly.

Was the one to hype up the other guys and get everyone to say they'll take care of her and that they have her back

Because honestly, this woman and her child literally died for his family; you can bet your ass he's going to make sure each and every one of his brothers does their part in taking care of the pregnant human.

Doesn't immediately think about killing the runaway baby daddy, but if it becomes a family field trip to hunt the bastard and kill him, Asmo is so down for it.

Mostly focuses on what he can do for MC in the moment though.

Another brother to comfort her during morning sickness.

It's gross af but he uses it to remind his brothers that hey! I'm getting close to a vomiting woman each morning so y'all better be as dedicated to the cause as I am.

Beelzebub:

This man literally did nothing wrong, but acts as if it's all his fault.

So much happened in his family right under his nose and things led to such extremes that his twin literally killed this woman and her child.

More or less feels like he needs to step up and pay atonement for what his twin did

And is probably the brother who takes care of her the most.

This situation has shown how much he actually wants to be a parent one day

And literally asks MC later in her pregnancy if he can be her baby's daddy

He doesn't care about genetics at all, just wants MC to let him help her raise the child and make him a daddy 🥺

Literally the sweetest man to ever exist.

MC would be a fool not to accept.

Belphegor:

Probably the guiltiest of all of the men.

I mean, he did it. He killed MC and relished in it.

Granted, he didn't know she was carrying a little hitchhiker, but still.

Belphie lost himself in his pain to such a strong degree that...he wonders that even if he did know...would he have been able to stop himself from doing what he did

And honestly, the fact that he doesn't know scares the hell out of him.

Avoids MC for the first couple months of her pregnancy because honestly, he feels too guilty to even look at her

And... honestly, he doesn't know if he even trusts himself around her.

Thanks to Beel's encouragement, the sloth demon slowly finds himself interacting with the pregnant human

And eventually decides that the best way to atone for what he did (if it's even possible) is to take care of her and the kid the best he can.

He doesn't like kids and just sees pregnancy as unnecessary torture for people with uteruses

But honestly, none of that matters anymore.

He may not have been the one to knock the woman up, but he did fuck up the worst out of everyone in this situation.

Will feel better whenever the family hunting party starts and he can give that pathetic man a taste of what he deserves.

Looks like it's Human Season for this hunting demon.

Diavolo:

Also a man with an overwhelming sense of guilt.

Other than the actual process of making the baby, everything that happened was either because of something he directly or indirectly did to start up the exchange program.

Also regrets not having regular check ups on his exchange students because surely they all would have discovered this sooner and prevented anything from happening to the pregnant woman.

Has regular doctor visits scheduled for MC to make sure she and her baby stay healthy and pays for all of it, including any medications she may need during this progress.

Pregnancy can be really fucking expensive, but the prince makes sure she never has to worry about that side of things.

Just focus on staying healthy and letting your baby grow, MC; he and the other men will handle everything else.

Barbatos:

Knew before everyone else did.

I mean, this man literally had to make sure the baby transfered over too.

This man is seriously a hero that doesn't get the credit he deserves nor does he seek such.

MC and her baby are safe now and that's all that matters to the butler.

Honestly frets over the woman on the inside, but shows no sign of it externally.

Is the man that takes her to all her doctors appointments and was there when she discovered the gender of her baby.

Congratulated her as she sobbed happy tears and was honestly grateful that he could share such a moment with her.

Honestly becomed really attached to MC during her pregnancy and looks forward to watching her child grow up.

Solomon:

Honestly, his intuition had been tingling for a while on this subject.

He suspected this pregnancy, but figured it was none of his business and didn't want to pry into the fellow human's personal life.

If he would have known such an event would happen with Belphie though, he would have stepped in and got answers.

He didn't though. The sorcerer had no clue how events were going to unfold.

Hindsight is telling him that he should have pryed more, but his manners told him it was right to respect the woman's privacy.

Doesn't do too much in regards to taking care of his friend since the demons seem to have it all covered and even seem to somewhat resent the sorcerer when he tries.

Believe it's better not to step on any toes, so to speak.

Is still a good friend to MC though and always offers an ear if they need to vent about the process with someone.

Simeon:

This all happened before the pregnancy had progressed enough for him to sense the baby.

He did however sense...something within the human since he met her, but didn't understand what.

Hindsight is really hurting this poor angel's heart 😔

Become the woman's biggest support in an emotional sense.

Pregnancy is hard and hormones flare and everything can seem so stressful, especially to a scared single mom.

This man is often the one comforting her when she breaks down into tears, even when it's over small stuff like someone ate the last cookie or she lost her pen.

He makes sure MC knows how strong she is and that she will make it through this this difficult time.

Luke:

Demons!!! Back away from the pregnant woman or this chihuahua will bite.

Okay, not really, but the brothers make this joke a lot.

Luke is very protective of MC in this situation.

Since he is just a child, he wasn't told what happened between her and Belphie in complete detail.

Really just thinks the stupid demon hurt her feelings and the angelic boy will not allow it to happen again!

Grows increasingly curious as MC's belly grows; angels don't have kids in this way so this boy has a lot of questions about what's happening to her body.

The fact that there's an actual baby just chilling and growing in her belly boggles this boy's mind.

Is honestly excited for MC's baby and feels like he about to be come a big brother!

This boy is determined to do his part and take care of her just like the adults do.

Mostly just keeps her company and bakes for her when her cravings give her a sweet tooth.

Little Lukey keeps her spirits up and MC loves him for it.