#there’s no particular purpose for that btw i just wanted to make things hard for myself

[astermath]

“So? Whatever.”

pairing: dave lizewski x popular!fem!reader 

summary: The preppy girl that just about everyone admires has more in common with Dave than he expects. He doesn’t quite know how to handle this information, but it excites him nonetheless.

word count: 2K

♡ LANDING PAGE♡

notes: I haven’t written something like this in a good while, so please bear with me if I’m rusty or there are some mistakes here and there. Reader is referred to with she/her pronouns, I tried to be as non descriptive as possible about her appearance. I do love writing a bit of a mean reader like this, but don’t worry, she’ll warm up to him. This fic takes place in senior year for age purposes, I’m pretty much fully ignoring the timeline of the film. Comments and/or requests are super welcome btw!! Hope you enjoy!! <3

(ps this will get a part two don’t worry xx)

To Dave, girls like you were unreachable. You could hear about them, you could listen to them talk in the hallways, sneak a glance their way… But talk to them? Any single one of their group would consider that social suicide. The only reason any of them even looked in his direction was to ask him to do their homework. So why in god’s name were you at his locker? Why were you acknowledging his existence at all?

“What’s that?” You leaned against the locker next to his, pointing at the piece of a comic book panel he’d taped to the door. It pictured Spider-man putting on his mask for the first time, something Dave looked to when he needed some motivation for the day. 

He struggled to get basically any words out, still not fully registering that you’re within such close range. He could smell you… God that was really weird to think about, he felt like a creep already, but you just… Smelled really nice. Like vanilla, mixed with something sweet. He realized he hadn’t answered your question yet and was just staring in front of him like a weirdo. “O-Oh, yeah, that’s uh… That’s Spider-man. It’s this… This superhero I like.” He adjusted the strap of his backpack to keep his hands busy.

You smiled and rolled your eyes. “Duh, I know who Spider-man is, please.” You couldn’t help but think he was doing anything to avoid looking into your eyes, as if you’d turn him to stone if he dared to do so. Which, yes, was exactly how he felt.

“I wanted to know which comic that was from. The art style looks a lot different than the ones I’ve seen.” Now this part was pretty much making his teenage brain short circuit. He probably didn’t hear that right, there’s no way a popular girl like you read comics, right? This had to be some kind of elaborate joke, like you were trying to pull a prank on him by making him ramble about his favorite superheroes. However, he wasn’t close minded. Even if this was a prank, at least you were talking to him, right?

“Yeah, sorry, I uh… Forget he’s a pretty popular character sometimes. This one’s from a collector’s edition. One of the pages was kinda falling apart so I just… Taped my favorite panel to my locker.” Again, he tried to look anywhere else, but it felt rude not to be making eye contact with the person who’s trying to give you a chance at a conversation. His eyes met yours and he realised he hadn’t ever actually seen you up close like this. You were really pretty, he knew that, but he never noticed these particular things about you before. The way your hair framed your features so nicely, the little beauty mark that seemed to be somehow perfectly placed, or the way a dimple appeared on your right cheek when you smiled.

“Hopefully you didn’t pay too much for it, those things cost like, a fortune.” You followed, snapping him out of his haze as you twirled a piece of hair between your index and middle finger. Dave was much taller than you, so you had to look up to match his gaze, which was already hard since he kept avoiding your eyes. You never realized how much he’d matured since freshman year. He looked pretty cute… Really cute, actually. 

“S-So, uhm, I really don‘t wanna be rude, but…” He closed his locker before looking at you with a rather awkward expression. “Why are you here? Why are you… talking to me?” Honestly, not an unjustified question. Dave was often the subject of bullying, and the popular girls clique made no exception to that rule. He doesn’t remember you specifically doing anything, although... He has a vague memory of you being in the car with those jocks when they threw spoiled milk at him.

“What? A girl can’t talk to her fellow classmate? This is a free country, you know.” You pretended to be a little hurt by his assumption that you were probably just here to make fun of him. In all honesty he was still a little dumbfounded by this whole ordeal, and the fact that half the people that passed you were giving you two weird looks really wasn’t helping. “You know I sit behind you in English, right?” He responds by nodding. He is painfully aware of this fact, as your friends had expressed their empathy for you when your seat was assigned behind him, though you honestly didn’t mind. And also the fact that he got a fair share of gossip from you and your best friend always whispering to each other. “Well,” you flipped a bit of hair over your shoulder. “I saw you had a copy of Birth of Venom in your backpack, and I... Wanted to ask if I could borrow it...” You looked to the side, muttering the last part. As much as you tried not to care what people thought, you did have a bit of a reputation that you were stuck to. Liking comics wasn’t for you, you were a cheerleader, you went to parties, you liked shopping. Okay, you secretly liked comics.

Dave looked at you with a puzzled expression. “I-I’m sorry, can you repeat tha--”

“Can I borrow your stupid comic or what?” You interrupted him, clearly looking a bit embarrassed. 

“Oh!” His face was getting hot, this conversation was lasting way longer than he imagined it would. Usually he’d have his face shoved into his locker by now. “U-Uhm, sure! It’s a bit expensive, but... Well, just don’t damage it, please.” He took his backpack off his shoulder and was about to pull it out before you grabbed his arm. 

“Not here you dumbass! Just, like... Ugh, meet me at my car after school’s over, you can hand it to me then.” You were acting like this was some kind of illegal drug deal, but this truly was something important to you. Your dad had already made it very clear that he didn’t want his little girl becoming some kind of tomboy and have her mind run rampant with superhero stories. Especially with this Kickass guy running around...

The bell rang and you silently thanked it for doing so. “Look, I gotta go. White Corvette, by the vending machines.” You walked past him, and a waft of that lovely vanilla scent hit his nose. He damn near melted into the floor when your arm brushed against his. “Later, Lizewksi.”

You leaned against the hood of your car, scrolling on your phone as you waited for the brunette to show up. You couldn’t help but feel a little guilty that you were just meeting him in secret like this. It’s not like you were embarrassed to be seen with him, or that you didn’t like him, it’s just that liking comics and superheroes was just about the dorkiest thing anyone could be into. Especially with Kickass running around, and, well, kicking ass, people would probably be thinking you’d be into this whole vigilante business yourself. Sure, you thought it was cool that people were doing something about all the crime, but you’d rather die than mess up your hair beating some thug’s ass. 

You noticed someone approaching and noticed that Dave wasn’t alone. With a bit of a disgusted expression, you gestured to his two sidekicks. “I don’t remember inviting the entire geek entourage to come see me. This isn’t some kinda meet and greet, you know.” Todd and Marty seemed, just like Dave before, a little shocked that you were talking to them. 

“S-Sorry, they just uh...” Dave began.

“We didn’t believe him.” Todd followed.

“...believe what?” You questioned, crossing your arms.

“That a chick like you was into comics.” Marty said, before Todd smacked him on the back of the head. “Dude! Don’t say it like that!”

You got a bit flustered, and looked at Dave. “You told them!? What the fuck, Lizewski?”

“I-I’m sorry!” He held up his hands. “They were asking me what we were talking about, and... I panicked.” They were more so insinuating that he was flirting with her, and he didn’t want that rumor going around, in case your jock brother caught wind of that and beat his ass for flirting with his sister.

You sighed, looking down and pinching the bridge of your nose before waving your hand out in a dismissive manner. “It’s... whatever, just leave. Before I change my mind and throw a bitch fit.” His two friends gave him a suggestive look before heading out. “Those two better not snitch or I’ll cut off their shrimps.” He nodded, just a little intimidated by the threat.

He got out his backpack and handed you the comic. “I’m still surprised I uh... I never knew you were into this stuff.” His breath hitched in his throat when your finger brushed over his as you took it from him. You flipped through it, keeping your eyes on the pages.

“Yeah, well... There’s a lot you don’t know about me, as much as I’m sure you guys love to assume.” You realized you hadn’t even told him your name, so you looked up at him and held out your hand, introducing yourself. You know, out of courtesy. 

“I-I know your name, but uhm... I’m Dave.” Your hand felt so soft, your beautifully manicured fingers being a real juxtaposition to his. His hand was much bigger and rougher than yours. You wondered why his hand was so calloused anyways... He didn’t look like he did many sports.

“Wait... Your name isn’t Lizewski?” You chuckled. “Christ, my bad... I always thought that was just your first name.” Your feeling of guilt for the boy before you flared up a bit again. He was being really nice to you, offering you something personal of his that he probably spent a pretty penny on. And you didn’t even know his actual name before. No wonder some people thought you were a bit of a bitch, you thought to yourself. 

“Hey, uhm... I know you got a bunch of these, and my dad would kill me if he knew I was reading them. He hates vigilantes, and he thinks reading comics will get me into the whole thing. Stupid, I know, but... He takes it surprisingly seriously.” You put the comic away carefully. “So I have a proposition for you.”

His eyebrows rose a little. A proposition, alright. No big deal. Could be literally anything though. 

“Come to my house this Saturday, bring a bunch of these, and I’ll tell my dad you’re coming to tutor me for physics or something.” You tilted your head a little, your locks falling gently over your shoulders. “I’ll pay you. Money’s not a problem. It’ll be like I’m renting them from you.”

He thought for a second, but in all honesty... How was this not a total win/win situation? He got to be in a pretty girl’s room, read comics with her, talk about them and make money. What kind of idiot would say no to that? “Yeah! Sounds good to me, uh... What do you want me to...” His words trailed off as you pulled out a pen and reached for his hand, writing a string of numbers on the back of it. 

“I’ll text you the address, and which series I like. I’ll let you do the picking. Oh, and Dave?”

“Y-Yeah?” He felt like his heart was going to beat right out of his chest. This is the closest you’ve ever stood to him. 

Your grip on his hand tightens, and you look up at him with a death stare. “Not a word to anyone about this.” You followed with a cutesy smile. “Alrighty?” You let go of his hand and put your stuff away before pulling out your car keys. 

Dave stands frozen in place, a faint blush already spread across his cheeks. He swore you were going to be the death of him. He looked down for a second and realized that what you wrote down wasn’t just some random numbers. It was your phone number. It all just suddenly felt very real to him, he’d never gotten a girl’s number before. And you were just about the last person he’d expect it from too.

You got in your car and turned on your engine. “See ya on Saturday, Lizewski! Don’t be late or I’ll kill you!” You smile, before driving off at a totally normal and acceptable speed. 

He gave a nervous wave before he looked back down at his hand. There was a little heart scribbled behind the phone number. It probably meant nothing.

But boy did it make his heart flutter. 

[ariesluvz]

Pac: You in the future...

Disclaimer this is only for entertainment purposes! Only take what resonates and leave what doesn't <3

♡ 1 ♡ 2

♡ 3 ♡ 4

I will be doing this pac in sections cuz I want to :")

Sections

# your appearance

#your personal life

#your work life

# did you reach your goal?

♡ Group 1 ♡

# Your Appearance

You will have more shades of black, grey and blue colours in your regular style. Tired look. Baggy clothing will be your preference. Whenever you will be in stress and pressure it will show in your appearance. I think it's your college years. Someone will or some of you will pursue medical studies and that will cause you to always be in a more snuggly style and you would rather not care about it much heh. I see you are very beautiful thus many people will like and admire this cuddly look of yours ;)

# Your Personal Life

Messy ;-; very busy and you will have tight schedules. Okay some of you might be single, no like mostly might be. But I see that some of you will be in a very supportive relationship. You will have something as a stress reliever. I heavily am feeling most of you guys will pursue a higher level career (iykwim). Like that will take almost all your time and attention which will keep you extremely busy and focused on it. Your family life will be neutral or maybe also you will be a bit distant from your family due to your own life.

# Your Work Life

:") I feel you will be an intern in this particular time you are asking for. Constant trials and working very hard to achieve your goals. You will be admired by your seniors and co-workers alot. You will be happy in your field but it's just originally a hard field. You will lowkey live the "hospital playlist " kdrama life lol. That's the only thing coming to my mind rn. You will be a celebrity at your workplace meaning that you will literally shine in whatever you choose to do!

# did you reach your goal?

Almost bestie!!! Just there! I see you trying and trying to be the best! You WILL make it even if there will be hardships, life is all about trying to win <3 and that's what you chase, the thrill and excitement of winning your dream position is in trying rather than having it on your own and you know it!

♡ Group 2 ♡

# Your Appearance

Sexier lol. You will look more charming and intimidating. You will be more confident and more of a heartthrob. You might have a charming voice and romantic look. You will more dreamy. Loose shirts and tight jeans are a look <33. You will be more admired by people for your look. Hot and charming lol. Your visuals will certainly be hotter. You will have a glow up until the time you are thinking of.

# Your Personal Life

A high schooler or college student. Playboy/girl image. You will kinda be in alot of attention. This will cause you to waste your time on people if you get in touch with these popularity germs :"). You will face heartbreaks quiet alot. Confusing. You will have alot of fall outs unless you stay strong on your ground. People will kinda try to come close for your looks/fame/ anything flashy you have. You will still have a confident look on your face but inside you will question people alot. Your family life, i feel a subtle presence of your parents in your life especially if you still are a teen or still not by yourself. Not much,you will be mostly by yourself. Loving parents and family btw <3

# Your Work Life

You will do average. For most people, you will be a student. I see you doing well for yourself. Doing good but not best. You will most likely to be the attention of a lot of people which will distract you.

# did you reach your goals?

Well nope. It's a learning period :") especially i got a message that if you are too much into what others say and think and social media stuff, you will learn alot in this time.

♡ Group 3 ♡

# Your Appearance

Cuter ^-^ You might be smol and you will stay smol bestie. No use of worrying to get taller 😶. No I mean you can be tall and still look smol. Clean look. The guy/girl who is always minding their own business. Wearing clothes that wrap you up lol. You will look very warm and approachable.

# Your Personal Life

:) Idk I feel like starting your reading with emojis lol. You might be a mood in yourself. You will be living a simple, peaceful life. Will have a life the way you want. Nothing fancy. Minimalist is happiness for you. You will have a cute boyfriend/girlfriend. (YOU ARE SO CUTE BABYYYY. Lol) I also think, even you have this incredible partner or not ;-; you will have your guards up cuz of past relationships or just fears regarding to relationships you have seen in others life. Again, I don't see a prominent life with parents but you can have supportive siblings.

# Your Work Life

This group is also for students. You will do very good academically. You might have a passion for history or science in specific, you will be doing alot these stuffs like projects. Everything seems peaceful ✌ on the surface unless you have anxiety ;-;

# did you reach your goals?

Your goal is to live a peaceful life cuz you have seen storms right? Yep so you are living your life pretty well. But your anxiety still kicks in :(

♡ Group 4 ♡

# Your Appearance

Finally the fancy group ~ more stylish and feminine you guys are! I'm talking about look. Elegant and cute. You guys have a very good taste in fashion. Air smells like you from 10 feets away even before you walk in lol. You will do amazing make up and look the best even at 5 am in the morning ;-;

# Your Personal Life

Very energetic ;-; you try to be the expensive gworl but do you know that you are actually a cutie. You took love yourself a bit too seriously lol but that's a mood! You are very fun and enjoyable person. You live for yourself. You like stress to be away from you lol. You can travel alone and have loads of fun and make new friends.

# Your Work Life

You might do a moderate 9 to 5 job but you enjoy it! You love your job cuz it allows you to enjoy your free time and does not take all the time and space that is necessary for yourself. It will also allow you to make money ;-;

# did you reach your goals?

I'd say you are living your life to the fullest and are exploring new things everyday, meeting new people and giving the care you need to yourself. (See yourself if that's your goal)

[bughugz]

the bun is rambling again weeee read this or don't lol

/////if you have a masochist sub this is your reminder that a play session thats whole purpose is to find where that line between pain and pleasure is and where you find the perfect mix between the two is very hot and very helpful especially if you have a partner that struggles with body awareness the way i and many other neurodivergent people do just start slow and ask your partner what sensations feel good what kind of pain do they like cmon demonstrate hit me and bite me and pull my hair ask me if that was too hard ask if i liked the weight behind it or what about that particular sensation i liked or didn't like ask me if i liked where you did it i'll be able to tell you much easier this way as i am very driven by my senses and it's an opportunity for you to learn your subs if you have a sub that wants to hit and bite back or you want that that is hot i love doing that i love having someone do that to me ! ask each other about these things play that out learn what gets you that perfect fucking reaction out of your partner learn what drives them crazy and help them figure it out if they don't know this helps and talk emotional masochism and degradation things as well if you haven't already ! learn where your own lines might be if you had anxiety or discomfort inflicting a certain type or level of pain on your partner communicate that say actually i don't think that was for me now not because you can't do these things during scenes like please do all of this and more during a scene but because this is going to help you improve your ability to build a good scene and be an opportunity to explore each other like almost every time i get a new partner i ask that we spend time exploring each other learning what's good and what isn't in low stakes situations because i will be able to gain confidence communicating and i know i get overwhelmed sometimes when we really get into shit and i'm not unlikely to go non verbal when fully engrossed in my headspace anyways this also deserves aftercare if that isn't clear btw especially when you're inflicting pain and leaving behind wounds bruises and sore achey spots you now get to patch each other up and talk about it and offer reassurances please don't skip this it's especially important when you're laying groundwork and building trust with your sexual partners you need to make sure your physical and emotional needs are being met during aftercare as much as possible

[twinklecupcake]

Hi twinklecupcake, just want to write this to say thank you for putting out fanfics for Dragonfruit. I have read To the West of the Moon, to the East the Sun like three times already and I love every bits about it. That and the fanfic Morning Light, which is absolutely adorable btw, fantastic work so far! These last few weeks has been hard on me mentally and reading them gave me joy and inspiration i need to get through. So thank you for doing what you’re doing 💚💚💚 I do have a couple of questions regarding both of those Dragonfruit fanfics. First of, in the WotM, EotS where n when do you think the event takes place? Is it in older era of China, or some other countries? Like what’s the overall world settings here? (I’m asking this and for your permission to use your story as concept to practice my skill with, if you would allow me to /:3) Second, in Morning light, is the baby gonna be a boy or a girl? I’m biased towards them having a girl because i made an OC who is their oldest daughter, whom i named Min XD. Just curious is all, my imagination runs wild whenever i read a sth good. Again, thank you for your great work and keep at it!!!

Thank you so much for your kind words! It means a lot to me when people enjoy my writing, it really does, and I'm glad I was able to make your days a bit better.

To answer your questions:

In the WotM, EotS where in when do you think the event takes place? Is it in older era of China, or some other countries? Like what’s the overall world settings here?

Overall, it's an older (but fairy tale) version of China. I did have to double-check some research details, such as when exactly bound books as we know them were made, and the structure of palaces. But it's past!China. The sea and the mountains in the second act though are so isolated that I didn't base that area off anything in particular. (And the original fairy tale the AU is based off of was from Norway, with the heroine's instructions to go 'east of the sun and west of the moon' usually being interpreted as a general 'impossible place where it's long and difficult to go.' She may very well be in a fairy land at that point. In the fairy tale her travels to get there took her clear out of the country, but for time purposes I didn't make Mei go that far.)

And of course you can use my fic as a concept!

In Morning light, is the baby gonna be a boy or a girl?

I'm keeping that a secret until the birth chapter. ;) But I've already decided on that, the baby's name, and some cute things for afterwards + drew up a toddler design somewhere. Min looks adorable, btw! Love how you can see traits of both parents in her design.

Once again, thank you for your message!

[idyllic-affections]

HI just popping in bc of that recent post

i think it'd be really cool to see reader putting him into place but just add so much fucking angst in that too KHFKDJD, again, 2 traumatized people who meet in unfortunate times and instead of helping each other even tho both parties are aware of how fucked the other is they just... Somewhat destroy each other more?

because, as you've said, reader is so used with worse, but that doesn't mean it doesn't annoy them right? maybe reader snapped at scara because they were at the limit of their patience? I'm sure they'd feel empathy towards him, after all, poor guy is going through all of this and he's just part of dottore's bigger scheme, but the moment scara acts out, hurts them, they saw red and it just happened..

they didn't intend to do it, neither did scaramouche. they both did something that just, triggered their body's instinct because they both went through hell... I like the idea reader would be looking at their hands when scara visibly winces in pain or even sheds some tears but they clench their jaw and proceed with what they're doing. They've done worse, and they'll continue doing it because it's their just.

For scara and reader, it's just another normal day in the lab.

Sorry I just had a brain rot for that I'm so in love exploring unwell characters

HI MOOT HELLO you're so right btw i also love exploring unwell characters... the basis of every long fic i write is literally exploring Mental Illness HELSPDJSKG

scara and [name] could be so good for one another. they could be so helpful. ideally, they'd be something of a catalyst for recovery to one another... but neither of them are at that stage yet. neither of them are ready for recovery, because as you've said, this is normal for them, so they just make one another worse. constantly.

(i think dottore does this on purpose btw. it's something of a social experiment. he could do the maintenance, but... why would he, when there is the potential for a very fascinating encounter?)

[name] is very kind. it's an important theme in this fic. they're extremely empathetic, often regarded as some kind of saint among sinners by the unfortunate victims of dottore's endless curiosity. even though they have done very very awful things to keep themselves alive (which will also be explored in the fic teehee), they're regarded as just... very kind. very gentle. everything they do is always gentle.

and the day in particular in which [name] has to attend to scara's needs, they also happened to meet collei for the first time. the scared, crying, eleazar-ridden child that collei was.

they also, prior to that, were involved in a... very bloody experiment earlier in the day.

so, yeah. they've just about had it by the time they have to see scara.

they're so used to being passive all the time. they have to be. they're relatively strong, but... they can't defend themselves against any of the harbingers (or maybe they can, and they've just fallen victim to learned helplessness. who knows? 🫶), but being injured just triggers such a strong sense of fight or flight within them, because they're used to it being the segments that act out against them. they aren't used to scara acting out. they aren't used to sandrone's robots acting out (which they also help out with, just much more rarely).

put in that situation, they just can't help it when they tell him to stop acting like a fucking brat. they can't help it when they--very cruelly and insensitively--tell him that if he wants to be dottore's science project again, that's fine by them! why should they care what happens to him?!

...

the rest of his maintenance is carried out in heavy silence, of course. at least he stopped acting out. whoops. they could have been nicer, but they were just spread so thinly that day in particular.

they don't say anything when he whimpers after they prod a tender spot a little too hard.

he's used to it. he's used to it. he's used to it.

they just dissociate to get it over with faster. they don't like to think about being responsible for his tears. they don't like to think about how they're surely no better than their boss.

they don't really like thinking about those things in these situations, so they dissociate to fix it.

[i-love-sweet-william]

almost didn't get a post out in time for my own birthday but I managed to cram together some Words

anyway, clone #2, Will the Watchful, is one of the El clones. and she gets a little doll that looks like s1 El, and Joyce makes a plushy out of old swimsuits that can safely go in and out of the water.

this one in particular gets hella into fairytales and happy endings and princes and princesses and all that shit. and she wants to be Ari"El" and find a prince worth sacrificing a tail for (it'll be Max but she doesn't have to give up her tail)

at the start the clones all use "he/him" pronouns just because their mom does, but they don't really Identify with anything in particular until getting more involved in human communities and starting to understand the purpose of those pronouns

even while reading stories or watching movies and noticing that certain words carry implied pronouns, the roles and the pronouns didn't automatically go together in their minds. their mom was their mom before he was he/him. and Max was she/her before she was a prince. also all frogs are he/him until proven otherwise because they're cursed princes first and foremost

Will the Watchful/Wandering eventually choose she/her, and Wordsmith chooses he/him. but the other Wills just kinda didn't think about it too hard and use he/him simply because they're used to it by now

El can technically swim just fine, if a bit slower than average. the water keeps her suspended so she only has to move her tail, but on land she's too heavy for her legs. she likes getting carried high by everyone, but Mike in particular because he's the tallest (all the clones like to be high up)

she'll first encounter Max when going to various places that are wheelchair accessible. by that age (big enough to use a human wheelchair) she's grown her hair out long and, if ever asked, she'll change her Name Story to Rapunz"El" to be less suspicious.

she wants to keep everyone within eyesight when possible, and she's a lot more concerned with being "left behind" than the other clones. only the two oldest clones have significant memories of the lab and she's the second, and being frequently split up made her want to keep everyone close. the most comfortable place is when everyone sleeps under their mom and are within range of her electroreceptors, she can close her eyes and still count them all and know everyone's together.

btw she and the other El clone (Jane) both have Byers Bangs™ but El keeps her hair in a long braid most of the time, while Jane frequently changes the style and cuts it short and grows it long and tries on wigs and various things.

[fearfylsymmetry]

tagged by soph @nizynskis for my top 9 movies (im making it 10 btw because it looks better on a grid and also i love things too much ) anyways tysm soph always a pleasure i love doing these

so yes i think Beautiful Sunday is just the most amazing thing ever i spent monthsss looking for it and trying to find a decent download and goddd im forever happy i did. its the perfect movie about nothing in particular, it just captures that specific air of laziness that comes on Sundays where you're just content doing nothing. it means so much to me

i put Rebels of the Neon God up here over Vive L'Amour which i prefer , mostly because it was my introduction to Tsai Ming Liang. i found the movie slow at first but then Vive L'Amour cemented Tsai as one of my favorites. Besides, this movie is the start pf Hsiao Kang's entire legacy so really, you can't have Vive L'Amour without this. his films are slow of purpose and the rhythm of everything is initially hard to adjust to, but when you give it time, you'll find the most thoughtful and beautifully shot meditations on loneliness in modern living. in Tsai's movies, Taiwan looms over the characters. its a cage of skyscrapers you cant free yourself from with drugs or alcohol. the city eats everyone whole.

Parasite is just ahhh its why i love movies so much it really is. it made me a cinephile. it made me want to make movies and ive seen it the most out of any of these. i even saw it with my english teacher at the cinema. this movie is a defining part of my life it really is

A Brighter Summer's Day is just splendid. the purpose of art is never to be relatable but i couldn't help draw parallels to every part of my life. the constraints of Taiwan's development reminded me of my own state's troubled history. classrooms of boys hiding behind their shallow ideas of masculinity. Xiao Sir's lonely childhood spent lazing away in brief lapses of summer. i cant help but feel it so closely, youth taken away by a struggle for identity and stability both in the nation of Taiwan and in Xiao Sir's own life

and to Chungking Express i send all my love, my introduction into the dreamy haze of Wong Kar Wai. it remains my favorite in his filmography. fun thing was i got to watch it with Chick too. chick if ur reading this hiiii

Buddha Mountain is frenetic it is relentless, shifting from tragedy to joyous energy in a single cut. and Fan Bing Bing is gorgeous in it so that helps...like i can't go into detail here but i haven't known peace after that bloody kiss scene like i get lightheaded thinking about it . okay wait ill behave.

Mary is Happy, Mary Is Happy is a delight all the way through even in its rather sad final act. the listless joy of friendship , it offered me a a delightful glimpse into it

the rest of these films i can only encapsulate in moments, not because i like them less, but because these moments are just that mesmerizing.

Paris ,Texas has the Super 8 scene. it honestly stuck with me more than the scene in the booth.

The Lovers on the Bridge has THE scene on the bridge , ive showed it to u soph, oh god that scene is bottled joy i get goosebumps just thinking about it

(let me just sneak in the entire Silencio sequence in Mulholland Drivee. i just love it okay???)

and Long Days Journey into Night has the 53 MINUTE LONG TAKE OH MY GOD I LOVE THIS MOVIE SO MUCH WHEN YOU SEE IT UNFOLD aghhh. ... its a dream it really is,, a dream caught on film

okay im done sorry. tagging ummm anyone that wants to join let me not burden you. just say your thing and tell everyone i sent you.

(this is very long because i love saying things and i want to let out all this useless info to the general public. long live cinema and i know shes not on the list which is criminal but Viva Varda)

[cishetamine]

gremlins (1984) letterboxd review (crossposted)

This is a terrible movie. Why?

Well, someone in it says “mangy curr” unironically, which admittedly is kind of camp. But check out the rest of the dialogue:

re: ppl being depressed on christmas: “While everyone else is opening up their presents, some people are opening up their wrists”

the part where the science teacher is explaining pupation to the kid like “it might look dormant, but inside it’s going through changes” and the kid is like “Like my mother,” as in MENOPAUSE

basically whoever they hired as the script doctor for this deserves a Razzy.

astonishing that this movie contains a white woman who wants to do unspeakable things to this kid’s dog !!! like holy shit i believe the rumors now .. no like actually did they realize what they were writing………

although it’s maybe bad that she doesn’t respect The Spirit Of Christmas(jewish-coded ?) & lives alone weigh a bunch of cats(lesbian-coded; possibly acephobic ?)

I want to know what age demographic this is targeted at. Which i guess i could find out by looking up the film rating—ah, PG-13, but like, ppl apparently criticized it at the time for being too graphic for the kids at whom its sense of humor appears aimed. so i guess it makes sense that i was also confused!

Also wait this is making me wonder. Did kids used to just go to the movie theaters by themselves when they were younger than 13?? Bc i thought the purpose of 'PG-13' was "u gotta be older than 13 to see it without an adult".

But what kids were even seeing movies without adults before they could drive in most of the US in the 1980s?? idk i wasn't alive then but i assume most ppl had to drive to the movies——ok maybe SOME ppl lived in walkable cities……i guess the stranger things kids could've biked, but then again they aren't real, so.

anyway, right, gremlins. The sequence where the Designated Hottie describes how her dad died is hilarious bc it's trying to be sad but the way he dies is——ok no u have to like pull up a clip on youtube bc it's definitely not worth seeing this whole movie over. Like i would bet $5 that it's on the tvtropes page for Narm.

Note btw that the great thing about making bets about whether something is on tvtropes is that i literally can't lose bc if it's not there already then i could jus make an account & add it there. Although in a way, me making a tvtropes account would be a much larger loss for my sense of self-respect

Also i'm still mad that i got tricked into watching a christmas movie bc normally i would not be into that!! except i didn't know it was a christmas movie!!! damnit!!

Found myself thinking, like, "You know, in a cronenberg film, the gremlins would escape & eventually spread to blanket the whole country & then the world! Like in scanners or the brood or videodrome—or, indeed, in plenty of other horror movies—especially those that anticipate a sequel! Like that one version of little shop of horrors before they changed the ending, or uh, presumably various zombie movies, i think. How does invasion of the body snatchers end again? Or uhh, the original The Blob?"

& i think that kinda describes my relationship to cronenberg as a director, i think?? like, i don't his movies are necessarily Super Great or My Favorites or whatnot—but they definitely have affected me enough that i keep thinking about him & about them & about his particular authorial sensibility, even if i disagree with decisions he's made!

which i think basically encapsulates my relationship w/ any Art that's influenced me significantly. Like there's not much stuff that i'm like "WOW i LOVE this this is PERFECT IN EVERY WAY"—it's more about "omg even where this book/painting/musical/opera may be flawed, can we please talk abt whether you think those are actual flaws or not, & u think they actually add to the story. Please please pretty please"

Also—the colors/lighting in this made me yearn sooooo hard for the days when EVERYTHING was shot on film. fuuuuuck. Like, this has a bunch of dark scenes that are lit almost more like a b&w chiaroscuro noir film rather than a color movie—so u get these spots of rly rich orange & teal & purple & blue & it WORKS?!?!?

which feels kind of insane to me honestly. like, Family Movies don't have beautiful lighting deign anymore (although cartoons have taken up some of the slack here—e.g., that Hilda show had a rly excellent color scheme in its backgrounds!)

anyway i'm just getting all weepily nostalgic for analog film, don't mind me!! getting half-strangled by a stray reel All those indoor shots where they're not afraid to let some light from outdoors filter in through the windows——i am dragged off the stage That soft focus on subjects, as opposed to that hypershallow depth of field that's gotten oh-so-popular these da——muffled sounds of struggle

[small gremlin pops back up onstage speaking in my voice] Also almost forgot to say: Good puppets! Very expressive, as others have mentioned! We need to bring back puppets tbh. Also ventriloquism(not that cringe racist guy from the bush admin tho.) I'm talking REAL ventri—

[roof caves in right on top of GREMLIN PUPPET, which miraculously manages to sidestep all the falling debris, but then one more tiny circular chunk falls out of the ceiling & GREMLIN immediately gets melted by the sudden sunlight like a cute vampire]

[thetantiger]

I'm gonna copy-paste a giant analysis of Frost's character and her relationships throughout her life that I put in my discord server with my friends because I like it lol

Btw the song this analysis is about/referring to is All You Wanna Do from the SIX musical by Aimie Atkinson

Copy-pasted analysis under the cut

Okay so I actually wanted to talk about this song a bit because I think it is a remarkably fitting Frost song and here's why. I'm going to be explaining this by talking about individual sects of lyrics

Okay so the song is six minutes long and very lyric heavy so I'm just going to be referring to different parts of the song as Guys 1, 2, 3 and 4, 'cause the song goes through 4 different guys and how shitty each relationship was one after the other, and who these guys are when it comes to Frost in particular

GUY 1: It's complicated. So there's a portion of Frost's backstory that I only came up with recently and haven't been able to really weave into any plans, but it's like a vent piece for how my own mom is. Frost's parents are actually alive, and she was told they were dead when she was raised in Acherus in order to make her feel hopeless about any sort of life outside of service to Arthas. Frost's dad left a long time ago but her mother sexualized her as a teenager ("And ever since I was a child, I'd make the boys go wild") and encouraged her to pursue men inappropriately older than her as a form of fake empowerment ("He was 23, and I was 13 going on 30"). Frost was groomed to be hypersexual by her mom, in summary. And that leads us to..

GUY 2: Tucker, of course Frost (or Fauna at the time) didn't just waltz into Goldshire out of nowhere. Frost's mom (who I'm thinking to name Doelina) pressured her to pursue sex work and that led Frost straight to Tucker, because if you're being pressured into that shit (and groomed to pursue it from a young age) you don't exactly get the opportunity to double-check if where you're going is safe. Anyway, about Tucker: "Serious, stern and slow / Gets what he wants, and he won't take no" I think that's a perfect descriptor of when Tucker is actually in his element. When he's not he's shown as floundering and foolish and unserious because I try to capture that he's not some over the top, big brain megavillain, deep down (like other people like him) he's actually just a fucking idiot and a control freak. When he is in his element though (being, controlling the people around and under him) he has an iron grip on things "Spilled ink all over the parchment, my wrist was so tired / Still I came back the next day as he required" Tucker sucks at reciprocation, but he's great at manipulation! "And I know this is it / He just cares so much, this one's legit / We have a real connection / I'm sure this time is different" ...OOF.

GUY 3: Arthas (hear me out) NOT IN A SEXUAL SENSE, obviously. Frost didn't fuck Arthas motherfucking Menethil. As a matter of fact this section and the last section, at least in my own head for the purpose of how this connects to Frost, pivots from sex pretty hard and more focuses on a general sense of being used; which, if you're a Death Knight under Arthas Menethil, is a pretty unshakeable feeling! "Tall, large, Henry the Eighth / Supreme Head of the Church of England / Globally revered" "Gave me duties in court and he swears it's true / That without me, he doesn't know what he'd do" ("ah yes i love my death knights. yeah you're my favorite little pogchamp soldiers. send you to die wdym what are you talking about hahahaha") "This is the place for me / I'm finally where I'm meant to be" Frost was manipulated into believing death and pestilence and mass murder and all that was her only purpose, as most Death Knights were. Frost also has been suffering from amnesia as a result of brainrot and doesn't remember her past before Goldshire except in vague, foggy slices, but she still carries the subconscious effect of trauma and felt a general out of place feeling except in Acherus for the longest time. "With Henry, it isn't easy / His temper's short, and his mates are sleazy / Except for this one courtier"

GUY 4: Maxwell! "He's a really nice guy, just so sincere" Again, pivoting from the sex aspect of the song pretty hard, because that wasn't the problem in Frost and Max's relationship (I mean, you could make the argument that Frost values sex in a relationship greatly while Max gestures vaguely doesn't, but you'd be overestimating how much of a breaking point this was in comparison to other issues). I'd also like to explicitly state that I don't label Max and Frost's relationship as abuse in any form, or in any direction, but it was certainly toxic on both of their ends. "So sweet, makes sure that I'm okay / And we hang out loads when the King's away / This guy finally" If you were there to see the early days of Frostwell this stings. Frost and Max actually did have good chemistry, and did connect well and had a lot of fun together, and were as close and as much of a team as any of the modern ships currently are. It lured Frost into a.. sense of security. "And there's nothing more to it" And then that's the exact problem. There was nothing more to it. It was "let's hang out for 5 minutes and then I end up half-dead at your doorstep 6 weeks later." This is exactly WHEN it happens for Frost. When she loses faith. She expected this grand, cosmic epiphany.. and never got it. Eventually Frostwell just.. fell out. Flaked off into pieces one by one over a timeline of little things. And GOD that's tragic, but they simply grew to be separate people. "I thought this time was different / Why did I think he'd be different? / But it's never, ever different" Ow. "When will enough be enough?" ("When will enough [time away from me] be enough?) "Don't care if you don't please me"

And then the song ends, but Frost's romance arcs doesn't so let me talk about Fracques a bit. Frost set herself up for disappointment again in EVERY aspect. Frost realized she had feelings for Jacques when.. well, when they had sex, and she cheated on Maxwell. It felt like a break free moment of some sort of dullness that's hung over Frost her whole life, but in retrospect Frost realizes this was just built-up spite towards Maxwell for them growing apart, which she's worked on since then. She recognizes that she wasn't just magically blessed with amnesia and forgot she was engaged to Max at the time, but that she was perfectly aware of what she was doing and went with it anyway. And she did it because it felt like a punch back to a life that'd beaten her this whole time, but again, Frost realizes that landed right on Maxwell who, even if they'd grown distant and had arguments and this and that, was not at fault for like 85% of that pent up frustration and didn't deserve to be that target. BUT BACK TO JACQUES Again Frost put herself into what could've easily been an extremely dangerous situation. Imagine if Jacques had like,, any other characteristics. Take Tucker's personality and put it into Jacques's body for like a second. This could've easily been AWFUL for Frost because she convinced herself Jacques was some sort of magical key to freedom. If Jacques was manipulative, or abusive, or what have you, isolating Frost could've been ridiculously easy. She relied on him for her own self worth and sexual gratification. But then that didn't happen. Frost's repeated toxic relationships kind of built up this giant expectation of who would finally be "THE ONE." Movie-star romantic scenes of proposing in front of fireworks surrounded by roses with an orchestra in the back and all that jazz. Again, she expected some cosmic (gettit) epiphany. And then that didn't happen either. Jacques was.. sweet. And.. normal. And.. remarkably easy to talk to.

It wasn't some giant moment that solved everything, but rather a consistent, warm feeling over a longer timeline. And she felt.. happy about that? That threw her for a LOOP for a while. Frost's life has been so dramatic that she expected something to "fix" her, or for something that finally went right for her to be equally dramatic and then it wasn't. And she LIKED THAT. HUH??? She straight up didn't understand but over time she came to appreciate uneventfulness. A breath after a life of holding it. And then she struggled with feeling like she didn't deserve to have that breath. After all, she's been told all her life she was a bad person. First just general slutshaming, then abuse from Tucker specifically, and then her warcrimes as a Death Knight under Arthas, and then cheating on Max (which actually weighs on her the most, fun fact [sub-explanation is she still HELLA cares about Max and considers him a close-friend and personally believes she is responsible for some trust issues he has which may or may not be true but ANYWAY THIS IS ABOUT FRACQUES]). She's not "fit" to be somebody's other half. She's not "fit" to be married, to be someone's wife. And then Jacques wifed her up anyway. So now Frost is just kind of in this.. limbo at the moment, slowly accepting that.. maybe she's not as terrible as she thinks she is.

Anyway mega analysis of Frost over

[joonkorre]

what canst thou give?

@drarrymicrofic prompt: caught

yall cant expect me to watch the witch (2015) and not go insane trying to fit a quote into my work. also, this is the first time i ever write something veering into the 15+ category. so. go easy on me lmao

AO3

“Wouldst thou like to live deliciously?”

Draco’s breath catches in his throat.

“But only if you want to, of course. No pressure at all.”

It’s sweet, that tone, as sweet and numbing as the saliva dripping down his nape. If Draco is someone else, an unfortunate bastard even more miserable than he is, he might have believed it.

“I don’t know,” he replies, the unnatural chill on the back of his bare neck too visceral a feeling. Too real. “I think having to choose between that and rotting in a back alley is at least a little bit pressuring.”

“Not too much, though?”

“Oh, no, never.”

“Good,” Edmund whispers. At this point, Draco wouldn’t be surprised if that’s not even his real name, “good.”

Draco stays quiet. With smooth jazz crooning through the walls of bars and eateries to complete the easygoing ambiance of a mid-autumn night in Muggle London, it seems to be the least likely time of the year to find oneself bargaining for their life. But here he is.

“Now,” Draco’s pulse jackrabbits so quickly he can hear it. A delighted chuckle leaks into the night. “Your answer, please.”

When he doesn’t give one, the canines on his exposed shoulder threaten to break the skin. Unexpectedly, they lift off.

“You might want to think it through a little faster, doll,” the large hand pinning Draco’s wrists against the brick wall clenches around them, then drifts down his chest. Lays flat on his quivering stomach, a persistent pressure against Draco’s thrifted bomber jacket. “We have an audience.”

Draco sucks in the stale air with a hiss. He’s pulled his date this far into the alley because he didn’t want curious onlookers as they snog. Bad fucking idea that was. Still, the thought of strangers witnessing this horrid moment fills him with dread. They can’t do anything to help anyway, only to humiliate him even more.

“What—”

“Don’t look,” Edmund nips his ear lobe, “unless you want further mortification. You mortals are ashamed of the strangest things, I can smell it on you.”

Heat rushes through his body. Draco blinks, dizzy with… with something. He doesn’t know whether he wants to rebel, turn his head, and meet the stranger’s gaze head-on, or just rest his forehead against the grimy bricks and find reluctant comfort in Edmund’s instructions.

“What do you,” Draco murmurs, sour notes of alcohol floating back into his nose, “what do you propose I do then? Just stand here and wait for them to get lost?”

“You can make it easy for yourself and say no,” Edmund says.

Those canines are back on the base of his neck. The arm that isn’t wrapped around his middle slithers across his chest, calloused palm an anchor on his shoulder blade. Draco wonders if this looks intimate, possessive—protective, even—to their observer, when he simply feels choked. A mouse gripped within the gentle loops of a snake’s body.

“You’d look like you’re swooning in my arms while I drink from your,” the tip of Edmund’s nose travels up the length of Draco’s neck, ending at where his baby hairs are matted with cold sweat, “gorgeous, delicious essence. And it’d only take a blink of an eye. Our little voyeur would never know.”

“Merlin, can’t I have a single good date?” Draco grits out. “Just fucking say blood.”

“Oh, but you’re no fun,” Edmund says. “Being poetic has its merits, I think. Makes life interesting.”

“Life will be even more interesting when I get to live it, actually.”

The hand on his shoulder takes its time trailing to his face, and when it does, it tilts his jaw to the side. Draco’s eyes automatically slide shut.

“Oh, you will. Once you get used to the ‘undead’ part of it, life will be a joy to live.”

His hands shift against the grimy bricks, one seeking familiarity and warmth as it grips his other wrist, grounding him.

“You must’ve realized by now how anxious I am to have you by me, by us. If I’m not, I’d just pick you up from a club, drink from you, leave you behind that dumpster over there, and you’d wake up feeling hungover with no memory of me,” Edmund goes on, his face close. If Draco tries, he reckons he can swallow down the intoxicating spice of cologne wafting against his cheek. “But I’m not doing that, now, am I?”

Perhaps it’s not even cologne, perhaps it’s all Edmund.

“You see, the blood of mortals is our life force, yes, but few of them ever smell and taste like anything more than diluted shite. Blood like yours, though, that’s rare. Power like yours. That raw, untapped, repressed power hiding under masks and marks. Given enough time, enough resources, it can be brought forth, and you can prosper.

“It’d be a shame if all of what you are made of withers into nothing, don’t you think?”

Draco thinks and thinks. It’s all one can do when they’re held so firmly, quite literally stuck between a rock and a hard place. A bead of sweat trickles down his temple. Edmund kisses it away with false reverence, dotting another kiss behind Draco’s ear. Draco would have jolted if he has any energy left in him.

He realizes it now. Ever since the day Edmund’s gaze lingered a second too long, it was over. There is no one left to remember him, and if he ‘makes it easy’ for himself and says no, nothing will change. Sooner or later, he’d die without a purpose, alone.

What if he eliminates dying from the equation altogether?

He realizes it now. There has never been any choice.

Only one foggy, crooked path forward.

“Yes.”

Draco’s eyes open with a heavy drag, allowing in but a sliver of light. In the misty blurriness, he sees a smirk. One stark-white canine pulls the bottom lip inward, pierces through papyrus skin.

Draco’s vision darkens as red lips touch his. His nose clogs up for a brief moment, overwhelmed by the onslaught of scents and tastes. With every languid swipe of a clever tongue, copper as bitter as Charon’s obol forces its way into his mouth. A sharp needle of pain pricks his bottom lip. Draco flinches, tries to take a step back but the hand on his jaw keeps him close. One long finger sneaks into his mouth, prying it apart.

Swallowing the harsh tang of iron down, a rich, foreign sweetness floods his senses. It’s the nectar of late-June peaches and lingonberry syrup swirled in chamomile, coating his palate with a luscious glaze. A low moan escapes as his muscles relax. If it’s not for the steady hand on his stomach, Draco’s knees would have hit the dirty ground already.

“There we go,” Edmund whispers. His hands guide Draco to lean against him, back to chest, sending intermittent shivers to rack through Draco’s body. It’s cold, so cold, but he can’t pull away, just lets Edmund takes whatever he wants to take. “Good boy.”

“Don’t call me that,” Draco gathers enough of his declining wit to argue. “Sounds like you’re calling a dog.”

“Ah, you’re cute. The Sisters will adore you.”

“Sisters...” Draco says, the furrow of his brow easily smoothened by another leisurely kiss.

“Sisters,” Edmund says. The hand on Draco’s jaw edges to his neck, thick fingers adding a slight squeeze to the vulnerable valley on either side of his Adam’s apple. Draco sighs into Edmund’s mouth. “Surely you don’t think there’s only one of us out there?”

Not very certain of what to say, Draco purses his lips instead. Edmund lets out an amused hum and indulges him, sucking on his bottom lip. It’s good, so good, until it becomes sickening, like raiding the entirety of Fortescue’s stockroom. Being a creature of the night is rapidly losing its novelty.

“Okay, enough, enough, thanks,” he says, tapping the muscular arm around him and turning away. Edmund only continues his little ministration below Draco’s jaw.

He doesn’t know how long his eyes have been closed, so he opens them once more. It’s like… it’s like he’s been floating on thick water and is only recently dragged into shore. Rubbing the creak out of his neck, Draco squints.

Past Edmund’s sturdy form and angular lines, out in the main street, the thin crowd of pedestrians pass by in chattering groups and pairs. Opposite to the alley, however, one lone figure stands just out of reach of the street lamp. The yellowish light merely suggests their existence as they lean against the restaurant Draco and Edmund exited from earlier. The bright tell-tale red of a cigarette butt is visible but other than that, no detail to be discerned. Looks like someone who’s just minding their own business.

“You must think yourself funny,” Draco says, arching his neck to accommodate the kisses peppering his skin, “using my own shame against me. I doubt people even remember there’s an alleyway here.”

“Don’t forget that when a being has lived for as long as I have, has accumulated this much power, nine times out of ten, he knows what he’s saying. I’m powerful enough to catch the scent of every mortal walking by, even know if they’re actually mortals or not. Our little voyeur? He’s still here. He’s watching. He’s waiting for you, doll.”

Edmund pauses, then:

“And whether he’s a mortal? That remains to be seen.”

Draco pushes away as far as Edmund’s firm grasp allows, which is only a few centimeters away. Whatever his blood did with Draco’s own, it snaps him awake with startling clarity just as swiftly as when it’s reduced him to a little more than a rag doll. Everything is so sharp it’s almost disgusting, like his eyeballs are gouged out, scrubbed clean, then shoved back in again. Draco locks his legs, willing himself not to stumble.

“That makes no goddamn sense,” he says.

“You don’t feel them now, but wait until they set in,” Edmund tries to tug him back, shrugging when he doesn’t obey. “Your abilities. We’ll go back to the House of Collective tonight and when you wake up tomorrow, you’ll know what I’m talking about.”

“I,” Draco says. “Please say that again. With actual information.”

“So demanding,” Edmund leans back and looks at Draco like he’s seeing him for the first time, a hint of humor in his serene demeanor. “The House of Collective is where the majority of us in Britain frequent and reside. The newly Turned are brought there to be with their brethren. Trying to deal with these new abilities alone is what makes them go Rogue and lands them on the front page. Think Jeannette McDermott, the poor woman.”

Jeannette McDermott drained and devoured 6 people in a single weekend. The Aurors got to her first before the news outlets. Being a shut-in and hating being perceived in general—Merlin knows how she got bitten in the first place—the only pictures ever taken of her as an adult was of her mangled body, torn by her own claws and twisted into stillness. It was a once-in-a-century scandal that paralyzed Wizarding Europe for 2 months straight.

Draco frowns. “I’ve always wondered. How did she—why wasn’t she brought back to the House, then?”

“That’s what irresponsible Turning looks like. If we want to Turn someone, it must be carefully considered and planned, for there must always be more prey than predators. Such is the law of nature,” Edmund says it like it’s a walk in the park rather than changing people’s entire lives. “Deacon Frangos was careless—amateur little weakling—and wanted something more thrilling than, say, going to clubs for gullible drunks.

“During the official trial at the House, he confessed that he spent days working through her wards and broke in. Never expected that McDermott was a fighter. She couldn’t get to her wand, but she did have a knife. She stabbed him 3 times as he was drinking from her. Their blood mixed, and Frangos ran off to lick his wounds before we found him. That was Friday.”

“Merlin and Morgana,” Draco breathes, “that quick?”

Edmund only looks at him, silent as he waits for Draco to weigh his decisions. Or lack thereof.

“What about, what about my apartment? My things?”

“You’ll only be at the House of Collective until we get you accustomed to your new life, then you can return home. Or,” Edmund tilts his head to the side, “you can stay. It’s akin to a commune, there’s space for all. It’s in the middle of the woods, too, hidden behind extensive wards and Charms, very private. Don’t you love your privacy?”

“What, do you live there?”

“Yes! Just so you know, I built my own dwelling. It’s stunning, if I do say so myself. Marble floors, 5 balconies. Just added a new pool last month. Plenty of space to… christen, unlike your studio apartment.”

Edmund lets a casual grin grace his face, all jokes. Draco curls his lips. It’s a mystery for the ages as to how he’s ever found this man charismatic.

“I’d rather the, um, the studio apartment. It does have its charms. Checkered bathroom tiles, and, hmm, a working oven. I might paint the fireplace next week, who knows?”

“Big plans, big plans,” Edmund nods solemnly. “However, you will need to pay a visit at least twice a month for resources and news within the community. There are tons; we even have a matchmaking service so you wouldn’t have to explain yourself to some bumbling mortal and worry about lifespans. Isn’t that so very neat? But, you already have me.”

Edmund shoots him a wink. If he’s not, well, Edmund, Draco might think it’s attractive.

“I think,” he starts. His neck is aching something fierce the longer he looks back, so he turns to face Edmund directly, “we need to have a talk about ending this entanglement.”

“My,” Edmund adjusts without trouble, interlacing his hands behind Draco’s waist, just above his bum. “Must you hurt me so? After all we’ve been through in the past three dates, you want to cast me aside?”

“Those three dates were nothing more than bouts of insanity. My apologies, I was in a moment of weakness and was somehow fooled by your… Merlin, I don’t even know. Basically, you were a passing fancy that I will rue ever having for the rest of my life.”

Edmund sighs and lowers his head until it’s nestled where Draco’s neck joins his shoulders.

“My 161st love has broken my heart. Oh, how can I recover from this pain?”

He lifts his head up, meeting Draco’s unimpressed gaze with a smirk. “Perhaps one last kiss will be the balm I need. Come on, just one more for closure.”

Draco gnaws his bottom lip and wets the still-throbbing cut on it. Then, he rolls his eyes, sliding them shut. No big deal.

“You’re so generous, Draco,” purrs a deep voice right at the corner of his mouth. Draco parts his lips, breathing in the hushed words. “Can’t say I won’t miss this. Your blood truly is a delicacy.”

“Hurry the fuck up.”

Sweet, sweet wine.

Draco sags against Edmund’s strong chest, head lolled to the side, panting. They have stopped before it got too much this time, yet Draco still teeters over the edge of insanity with every suckle of lips, every caress of tongue. Edmund has been gentle, large hands cupping Draco’s face like he’s a priceless treasure made of opals and emeralds, combing through the slightly wavy hair Draco has grown out. He has fixed Draco’s shirt as he plucked off every scrap of sense remaining in Draco’s head, has stroked the purple marks in bloom, and covered them with the bomber jacket.

As Draco clutched those broad shoulders and wrinkled the expensive fabric adorning them, he had half a mind to demand Edmund to be rougher, to stop trying to savor it. Stop making it something to go breathless over.

Toying with the shiny button on Edmund’s wool suit, he reminds himself that it was smart to end whatever they had between them. Otherwise, he can see himself becoming addicted, and such a problem has no place in his life.

“It’s getting late,” he says. The street outside is still bustling with people, bursting with sound. The person leaning against the wall opposite is lighting up a new cigarette.

“Oh, doll,” Edmund hugs him tight. “Darling. You’re right, it’s getting late. ”

They stand there for a few moments more nonetheless, clutching each other. Then Draco sees it. Sees him.

As if on cue, the person straightens from their position against the wall. They step forward, one foot after the other, slack and loose, into the buzzing light. Draco can’t observe intricate details from this far away—has to wait until tomorrow, apparently—but he still has eyes.

A pair of snickering women stroll by, and the street seems empty for a split second. It’s enough for Draco to see large, black boots (Dragonhide, the part of his brain that never forgets Mother’s fashion books notes) and dark, well-fitted pants stretching over thick thighs. Sleeves rolled to the elbow, exposing dark arms with a myriad of pink-white scars. White button-up, wrinkled and stained, tied by leather harnesses crisscrossing at the chest, like the wearer has forgone changing after work and instead hurried off to deal with an urgent task. An unusual outfit for urban London, but somehow, it works.

Left hand tucked in a pants pocket, the other tapping the fine ash from a cig into a puddle on the concrete. It lifts to hover in front of full, waiting lips. One sleepy bloke trudges by, a heavy bag slung over his shoulder. A hazy billow of smoke spills forth lazily as the bloke walks out of view, opaque clouds masking an expressionless face before disintegrating into the night.

“Doll.”

Draco glances back at Edmund, who is staring at his lips. His hands run tiny circles over the small of Draco’s back.

“We decided on one kiss.”

“I know,” Edmund’s thumb swipes over the cut, as soft as a brush dipping into paint. “There’s still blood.”

“Obviously,” Draco says with a slight snort, “you bit it. Like a brute.”

Edmund’s reply comes in the form of his thumb pressing against the cut as if wanting to both stopper the blood and squeeze it out. Draco assists by opening his mouth, slipping the finger into moist warmth. And for some godforsaken reason, his eyes travel back to the street beyond.

This time, both hands are in the pants pockets. The cigarette has stopped its light bouncing, now lying still between pillowy lips. Like before, the voyeur is a statue amidst a sea of movement.

Draco swirls his tongue against the pad of the thumb, tasting himself and gulping it down. It’s bitter and sour without Edmund’s blood to sweeten it up, but he keeps licking until all he can feel is the saltiness of skin, the clenched fistful of his jacket against his hip, and—

And green.

“It’s getting late,” Edmund whispers against his forehead, his lips a touch away from kissing his fringe.

Letting the finger fall from his mouth, Draco whispers back.

“Okay.”

The voyeur never stops looking. Draco knows because neither does he.

“We’re never doing this again.”

Draco’s eyes glide back to Edmund. “I never thought you’d be the one to say that.”

“Me, too. But I’m serious,” the man says, but doesn’t clean his finger. “From now on, we keep our hands to ourselves.”

“And mouths.”

“Yes, those especially.”

Draco huffs out a laugh, “Okay. Very well. I’m glad we’ve reached an agreement.”

Edmund shakes his head, then blinks. He looks up at Draco, mischief in his eyes.

“Alright, Draco, you’ve done enough for the night.”

“Pardon?” Draco says, sliding his arm into the crook of Edmund’s. “You Side-Along us.”

“Of course, and I meant. Merlin, you’ve done quite enough. Oh, goodness, that’s pungent.”

Edmund pats Draco’s hand on his forearm and leans toward his ear.

“Say goodbye to him.”

Draco’s fingers tighten around Edmund’s arm in warning. He doesn’t say ‘goodbye,’ but he does look to the street light opposite the alleyway. Before the Apparition wrenches all the thoughts out of his head, Draco vows not to think about the expression on that face.

[espship18]

Monsta X comforting you after a bad day at work | Retail Edition

So, tomorrow is black friday- aka the most horrible time of the year. So this post is to all my kings and queens who work retail(and those who have gone through the torment)  Please be kind to service workers- don’t be an ass, we handle your money, lol. Enjoy~

Shownu: Well it finally happened- a Karen called corporate on you. Now, no worries, luckily you have a manager that is supportive so you didn’t get in trouble! But that of course doesn’t make you any less furious. You’d alert Shownu by slamming the door shut- he’d come right to you and hold you. You’d be ranting too fast for him to say anything, and he’s okay with that! He’d take you to your shared bed and let you get all your anger out- you normally don’t snap like this. When you’re calm, he’ll cuddle you til you fall asleep for a nap~

Minhyuk: You have a lot of tolerance for your management but one particular day you’d get pushed over the edge. Your display projects got rejected, customers trampled on top of you, AND your time off request was rejected for being “short-staffed”. You lost your shit and went home early. It’d be a nice surprise for Minhyuk, until you started crying out of frustration. Hyuk would sit you on the couch, wipe your tears away, and give you positive affirmations. Bonus points if he asks to see your display ideas too!

Wonho: Never in your life did you think you would have to clean up fecal matter as an adult- but here you are. And you don’t get paid enough to do it either. Now here you are a couple hours later, still sick to your stomach hovered over the toilet. You came home in silence but Wonho left you be, only coming to give you a cold towel, and a little snack to get your sugar back up. He’d also clean the whole apartment for you! Living with a boy can be pretty gross, so the last thing he’d want you to have to go through is washing dirty undies, no thanks~

Kihyun: Being a retail employee is hard- but being a manager can be a lot harder. Today was absolutely horrible because FOUR of your employees called off. When Kihyun read the frantic “i have no staff” text you sent him, he knew exactly what to do. He came to your work place with your favorite drink non-alcoholic bc you’ll get fired and lunch from your favorite place in the food court. He’d eat lunch with you of course, he wouldn’t just leave you to eat on your own! Then when you get home, there’d be a bath drawn just for you to relax in~

Hyungwon: Screaming children, rude customers, and long lines- saying you’d be overstimulated is an understatement. When you called Hyungwon while on your break, hiding in the bathroom in silence as long as you could so he could help you calm down. Coming home after that long day, your shared apartment was turned into a healing space: warm lights, calming scented candles, and all of your favorite blankets and pillows that smell like Hyungwon. He’d give you some space to relax and breathe, and he’d follow up with cuddles.

Jooheon: When Jooheon came home and you jumped when he opened his arms to greet you, he knew something was wrong. After apologizing for scaring you, you explained you had a psycho customer who nearly got physical with you over a sale. Jooheon obviously became furious- since people nowadays are THAT crazy. What made it worse is that your employer wouldn’t let you take the next day off to recover. Obviously that pissed Jooheon off- so with a few phone calls, Jooheon managed to get you the day off as you rightfully deserve it!

I.M/Changkyun: You came home extremely heated- you finally snapped at your toxic co-worker. You were fed U P. This particular co-worker would always try to mess with you and purposely poke fun at you to get a reaction, which you had a tolerance for until their ignorant babbling made you snap. You didn’t get in trouble, thank goodness, and you have Changkyun’s support 110%. He would be SO proud of you for standing up for yourself btw! It takes courage to do that, sooo as a reward, he would take you out for dinner and a mini-shopping spree!

idk about you but i found comfort in this since i too have been through all this, lol, lemme know if you’d want more groups with this concept! my ask box is always open

-STA

[hotcat37]

Julian x Cyrus hcs cuz I love me some enemies to lovers (BTW if anyone is curious abt my hcs for any TPB characters/pairings be sure to shoot me a message! I just rlly like talking abt this show lol)

-Cyrus deffo falls in love first, from the moment Julian dared him to pull the trigger he kind of decided he has to have him lol

-lots of mixed signals, Cyrus won't explicitly state his interest in Julian but will occasionally be outright flirty with him

-it's pretty obvious anyways because Cyrus always very specifically wants to go bother Julian in particular

-Julian at some point realizes Cyrus is into him and tries to use that to his advantage when making deals but then, much to his dissmay, he'll grow weirdly fond of his nemesis as well

-once they're in an established relationship they'll have a hard time changing up how they interact with each other but they know that in order to have a functioning relationship they need to do some things different

-they still threaten to kill each other on the daily but it's less likely to legitimately happen haha

-I think they'd keep their relationship secret for a long time and still pretend to despise each other until the day Ricky and Bubbles accidentally catch them doing things enemies probably don't do with each other

-they know exactly how to get on each other's nerves and what'll hurt the other the most

-but they also have a strange sort of respect for each other. Even if they're squabbling or Cyrus purposely takes Julian's glass away, he always returns it to him unharmed. Julian in return knows Cyrus is insecure about his eyes and doesn't try to take his sunglasses without asking first

-Cyrus breaks all his previously established rules when it comes to Julian. If he holds a gun to his head or chest the safety is conveniently always on

-Julian unconsciously starts picking up some of Cyrus' phrases "fuck off Ricky, we've got work to do!"

-Julian subtly gives Cyrus some boyfriend benefits by giving him slightly better weed for slightly less cash much to Ricky's anger

-Cyrus is a jealous bitch and will start waving his gun around if he catches sight of someone having it out for his man

-"I fucking hate you, Cyrus"/affectionate

[dyketubbo]

im rewatching doomsday (comps of all povs of course) and. yeah i just.. feel bad for the lmanburgians. i dont know how i could just. say these people deserved it, when they all sound, panicked and desperate and so so fucking sad. long long ramble under the cut as i recount the events and pick out a bunch of little things

even the day before then is painful. ranboos panic room. ranboo and tubbos talk (tubbo admitting that hes wrong, saying he believes that history is repeating itself and trusting ranboo because he believes in his loyalty), fundy showing the ring toss. tubbos surprise at being told to kill dream before stating that quackity would be in control if he didnt (god, did he plan to fail?). tommy being so so excited. everyone playing ring toss and cheering on jack. tommy still believing in tubbo. tubbo panicking. ranboo and tommy and techno talking, ranboo giving them info. dream placing walls and quackity instructing tubbo on where to kill dream. dream lying about the community house. the entire community house debacle. just, everything.

and then doomsday itself. having to frantically get there because it started early, tubbo only having diamond armor to protect him, fundy standing still after he sabotaged them. tubbo and ranboos genuine despair about the apiary.

tubbo eventually going nonverbal and actively putting himself in danger, not even moving away from techno at first and getting in the way of the firework launcher. tubbo trying to save tommy from the fireworks, ponks broken "dont come over here!" after she was trying to save his cat, tommys face falling and desperate attempts at convincing techno, ranboo going "its all gone", niki spiralling and silently burning down the tree, quackitys pure anger. all the death messages.

jack going "what is there left to protect", tommy brokenly trying to accept that its gone as tubbo and quackity blankly do accept it. jack going "i lost everything again". tommy desperately trying to understand dream, on the verge of tears as he asks why dream didnt just hurt him. his low health and food as hes unable to do anything anymore, his quiet gasp as he spots ghostbur, tubbos tiny shake of his head when dream says dream and tommys story wont be over.

tubbo and quackity breaking the repeaters. ghostburs "i didnt even know we were fighting". ghostbur finding out phil let friend die, hes pained "phil? but i- i gave, i gave phil to look after. and dream found me friend, and technoblade said we were friends", tommys pained talk about technoblade. "we were never his friend. to him, all of this was just an act of politics, an act of clout and a-a social ladder, and you won't remember. tubbo you will, and to you big q, this was a friendship. but to technoblade, this was a ladder. and techno climbed to the tippity talk. do you wanna know the only way you can go? on the ladder? -- and once you reach the top of the ladder tubbo, you can only go down."

quackity asking to sing the anthem again, him strumming as ghostbur sings (and tubbo and tommy joining in). ghostbur forgetting the second verse because it blew up. quackity remembering it, them stumbling through it. tommys "tubbo? im so so sorry", tubbos quiet "its okay." the four all singing together. tubbo looking at the lava with an ender pearl in his hand, tommy correcting quackity and going "our l'manburg". ghostburs speech about friend, about people not taking him seriously just because he has memory loss.

meanwhile.. phil and techno were laughing. cracking jokes. phil mocks them as he spawns withers on the apiary, going "ohhh noo not the bees!". techno shouts at tommy and shoots at him and tubbo. he kills jack and doesnt even notice that it was one of his lives lost. jacks death itself proves that it doesnt take any particular intent, doesnt have to mean anything to the killer. techno and phil were willing to kill people. it would be foolish of them to act as if there were no risks in the terms of canon lives, especially with phil. phil doesnt take ghostbur seriously, treats his despair as an opportunity to drill in a lesson. the most either of them lost was some of the dogs and used up potions, fireworks, and wither skulls

and then theres dream. dream whose been harming the l'manburgians since the beginning, who had taken tubbo hostage, offered eret a chance to betray them all, who had been the man in tommys walls and offering money to tubbo and jack to try and get them to destroy things, who tried to get tommy to kill tubbos villagers. dream, who took tommys discs over and over, who killed tommy twice in one day, who stopped caring about his friends that loved him and were so so loyal. dream, who helped schlatt and pushed wilbur deeper into his spiral, who even then tried to manipulate tommy.

dream, who helped destroy l'manburg the first and second time, who took advantage of tubbo so he could have a premeditated kidnapping of tommy. dream, who abused tommy, physically, psychologically, emotionally. dream, who degraded tubbo and had taken ranboos memory book (which btw, since ranboos memory loss counts as a mental disability with the memory book as his aid, thats dream taking the thing that aids ranboo in dealing with his disability).

dream, who had been the reason l'manburg was created. dream, who got to destroy l'manburg three times. dream won. and techno and phil dont regret it, dont care.

maybe l'manburg was never meant to be. and sure, it started with stealing and an attempt to monopolize on potions but. that wasnt even l'manburg then, was it? it was just wilbur and tommy having fun. l'manburg came after. after the police hurt them. l'manburg started as a silly little revolution, led by a naïve man who thought he could win wars by saying no. it was a place for a family, a place for them to escape from dream. it was a place to try and escape the harm of those outside the walls. it was meant to be safe, even if those against them made it hard to be. it was made from love. it was meant to be happy. it was a symphony, however unfinished.

so. i don't know. i just feel, bad. they never really won, did they? tragedy after tragedy, death after death, destruction after destruction, betrayal after betrayal, hurt after hurt. and now what's left of them, really? out of the founders, erets doing the best and even shes doing awful, forever trying to make up for what he did. tubbos paranoia led him to developing nukes in a desperate attempt to stay safe, because he was taught to stay quiet and keep his emotions to himself, because his death was "justified", because nukes and walls and weapons are the only way he can feel safe anymore.

tommy went through months of abuse, lost all of his lives and suffered upon coming back, suicidal but unable to bring himself to do it because limbo is worse, feeling lost and like he has no family anymore other than wilbur, who he knows is hurting him but cant bring himself to leave, who loved lmanburg so so dearly and only wanted a home, still doesnt have one (tommy from everywhere, tommy from nowhere at all). niki who loved lmanburg and wilbur so much that it hollowed her out and made her bitter and shes so used to being spoken over that all she can think to do is raise her voice and get pissed, who cant see wilbur as a good person anymore because shes hurt and hasnt truly recovered and she doesnt know how to cope without being angry.

jack manifold feels forgotten, hes lost all his lives and crawled out of hell and no one truly noticed, he doesnt even believe that niki really cares, hes desperate and has made his purpose to be spiteful and angry because he cant deal with the emptiness that comes when he realizes theres no point. fundys desperate to have friends, family, a partner, anyone thatll love him, anyone thatll keep him safe, slowly killing himself with cigarettes and disowned because of giving too little too late, because he was too little too late.

and wilburs lost himself. spiraling, paranoid. a young, naïve man who wanted to fight swords with words, who wanted to impress his father, who wanted a nation of his own to feel safe, who was so effected by erets betrayal that he cant trust anyone but himself, whose possessive nature eats him from the inside out, desperate for control and unable to let go of the only person he knows loves him unconditionally

all because outside forces kept pushing, kept destroying, kept ruining them and hurting them and traumatizing them and taking away their homes and pets and loved ones. and i just. cant feel happy for the ones that hurt them, i cant feel victorius, triumphant, any of that. i just feel bad that the l'manburgians never got to be a family. i know they arent the best people but shit, i love them anyways, love them because theyre flawed and because theyre *people*, people who tried so so hard and got pushed so so much and. fuck, i cant be happy that the people who loved nature and play fought and laughed by campfires and read poetry and re-enacted theatre and loved each other and wanted to *live* (even if they were willing to die, if it meant giving everyone else a chance).. lost. they lost.

canonical years of work down the drain in one day. records of history gone, now only remembered in full by a traumatized teenager who was taught not to talk about his negative emotions, and even he misremembers some parts. they didnt even lose fairly. they had no chance. they couldnt have prepared for withers, for tnt rain, for the hounds. they were poor, weaker than their opponents, sabotaged by one of their own. thats.. tragic.

doomsday was a tragedy. i cant agree that it was deserved. i cant agree that they had it coming, that they deserved to lose homes and pets and limbs and lives and land because they werent the greatest people around.

a small country of less than 10 people (at both creation and destruction) now a giant crater in the ground, remnants of a parisitic egg taking over the land. and it wasnt even lost fairly. three people were stronger than an entire nation, even with all of its allies. two anarchists working with an abusive tyrant. so, no. doomsday wasnt deserved. people dont deserve tragedy. there were better ways, i truly cant be happy that the way chosen was violence. i cant.

l'manburg's citizens deserved better. they really did. the ends dont justify the means. and god, am i fucking tired of "justice". if justice means choosing violence over love and respect and caring about those less strong than you, i dont wanna hear about it. fuck that man, id rather love and be loved than constantly give a shit about making up for hurting others by getting hurt, thats stupid and cruel and i cant see it as okay on a moral level. not when the people that got hurt deserved to be loved and cared about and protected and *talked to* instead of constantly shot down.

of course for the narrative i can enjoy violence and characters getting hurt and i do like how "real" it all is, the despair and dissonance in tone and how terrifyingly messy it all is. out of story perspective- honestly rather cool even if it makes me feel bad. in story perspective- holy fucking shit no that wasnt deserved and god i hope everyone hurt will be able to heal and learn to love and be loved again because thats such a terrifying thing to go through. from a detached pov i can appreciate the insight into everyone involved and i like the plotlines that came from it, but from a compassionate pov i just wish the l'manburgians were allowed to be happy and treated as equals so they didnt have to go through all of this

[makeste]

BnHA Chapter 303: And What, Pray Tell, Is a “One For All”

Previously on BnHA: The Todorokis (really just Enji) looked at their children and went “how can we screw up all four of them in uniquely different ways” and proceeded to do just that. Touya was all “just because practicing how to set myself on fire better hasn’t worked to win my dad’s affections YET doesn’t mean it will NEVER work”, because child logic. Turns out setting oneself on fire real hard isn’t so effective at winning affections, but is actually incredibly effective when it comes to burning oneself to death, so there’s that. Back in the present day, the Todorokis basked in their various misplaced (again, except for Enji) feelings of guilt, and were all “anyway but get over yourself already Enji, you still have to do something to stop this kid”, and Shouto was all “I’ll help too”, and Enji was all “(╥_╥)”, and Hawks and Jeanist were all “[surreptitiously listening in from outside the door]”, and that’s basically where we left off.

Today on BnHA: Hawks and Jeanist are all “mind if we join you on this family journey?” and proceed to stroll in uninvited with their puns and their perceptive insights. Hawks is all “so to sum everything up, we’re fucked, but at least you have us here to help you out! by the way, no clue why I’m the first person to ask this in three hundred chapters, but wtf is One For All.” We then cut to Deku, who’s still all “[(－－)]z”, and All Might, who is all “I’m just going to ignore the extremely loud racket going on right outside this room.” Which, btw, is happening on account of Bakugou, who is all “(╬◣Д◢)” as Satou, Tsuyu, and Mineta cart him away. Anyway so that’s a lot of antics, and also it looks like Hawks has gotten tired of the Todorokis refusing to put the pieces together on their own about OFA and so he is fast-tracking that shit. And meanwhile Deku is chatting it up with the Vestiges exactly like we all thought. And now we have to wait another whole week for updates on all of this. This really is not fair.

omfg lol

“our bad, we were kind of accidentally listening in on purpose.” like I said last week guys, no fuss. it’s a tradition

OMG

I am absolutely fucking floored. Hawks literally said that so casually that it’s impossible for me to rewrite it so as to be even more casual. that’s literally what I would write in the “today on bnha” section. in fact I probably will write that

(ETA: just for laughs I tried it and it really worked.)

a couple more things to point out about this panel: 

“TOP 3” omg yes. more like “top only” at this point, honestly. interested to see how that goes

Hawks’s phone is freaking the fuck out about something, calm down there

I know this is a standard Jeanist hair-fixing gesture that he does all the time, but I can’t help but form hypotheses about this being a stress reaction because Hawks’s hair is making him internally freak out. Hawks, if this man tries to get you alone with him and some hairspray and a comb, please for the love of god do not listen to him. get out of there and call the authorities

omg Shouto’s face

okay confession, I wasn’t really sold on the whole “Shouto has a schoolboy crush on Hawks” thing until exactly now, when I became 100% sold on it. that is adorable

and heck with it, gotta show Enji and Rei’s reactions here as well because lol

“omg my son who’s not my son, and he just overheard everything about me being a terrible shitty father and person overall, oh and plus my actual-son set him on fire and called him out on a national broadcast. I’m just gonna stare at him baffledly.” versus Rei, who is all “hmm, who are these people”

so Hawks is all “I got released from the hospital after one day for some reason so I made Jeanist drive me around places while we talked about life” but uh, heyyyyy, what’s Rei doing

okay, uh

SO FUCKING FORMAL OMFG. “SORRY MY KID TRIED TO BURN YOU TO DEATH, APPARENTLY HE DOES THAT” REI NO IT’S NOT YOUR FAULT

HAWKS IS ALL “I’M JUST GONNA LAUGH SINCE THAT’S MY DEFAULT RESPONSE TO BEING PROFOUNDLY UNCOMFORTABLE”

let me tell you a secret Hawks, it’s my default response too. ahahahahahahaha oh thank god Jeanist is helping her up -- AND MAKING A JEANS PUN, OF COURSE. IT’S BEEN ALMOST THIRTY SECONDS. MY MAN WAS DYING

“WTF IS ILLEGAL DENIM” he’s talking ‘bout them counterfeit jeans, Rei. Antoine Bugleboy knows

THANK YOU JEANIST!! OUT HERE ASKING THE RELEVANT QUESTIONS

damn straight. we’re not gonna sit around waiting another 300 chapters for this information on this man’s watch

now Hawks is telling Endeavor he used to watch videos of him all the time, and calling him his “childhood obsession” I can’t

OH MY SWEET STARS AND MOONS

1000% CANON. “SO CLOSE...” ARE YOU SERIOUS. YOU REALLY PUT THAT THOUGHT BUBBLE THERE AND EVERYTHING. “GOOD MORNING EVERYONE, SO JUST IN CASE YOU WEREN’T ALREADY AWARE, TODOROKI SHOUTO IS NOT ACTUALLY STRAIGHT.” HORIKOSHI KOUHEI I AM LITERALLY DUMBFOUNDED. THIS IS AMAZING

and meanwhile that look on Hawks’s face while he casually-but-not-really-casually-at-all asks this question. that phone app better be using his actual voice. I’m not sure I could take this scene in the anime at this point if it was like Alexa talking or something

that look in his eyes is basically saying that so far, based on the information he has absorbed up until this point, Hawks is prepared to view his former childhood obsession as a flawed but changed man. however I get the distinct feeling that depending on Endeavor’s answer now, he would be willing to drastically shift some of his opinions on him

(ETA: this is maybe my favorite panel in the entire chapter. the fact that his question isn’t addressed to anyone in particular, but his eyes are zeroing on on Endeavor. and the way his leaning-on-Shouto pose manages to be simultaneously nonchalant and yet ever-so-slightly protective. there’s so much going on in this one question and gesture and I’m mildly obsessed with it.)

however, Rei is all “that was me” and ONCE AGAIN WITH THE FACES IN THIS CHAPTER holy shit

Hawks definitely did not see that one coming sob. it’s so fun watching him frantically recalculate his ideas about this family every two seconds

DAMN IT HORIKOSHI I UNDERSTOOD THE PARALLELS ALREADY, YOU REALLY DIDN’T HAVE TO DO THIS

yes, Hawks, you get it. it’s not exactly the same, but it’s close enough. though unlike your shitty parents, Rei and Enji are at least trying

OKAY I SERIOUSLY CANNOT WITH ALL OF THIS

fljkdlaskfjlwkjl okay we’re doing the bullet-points breakdown here

first of all, the fact that poor little Shouto’s heart is still thumping away at this proximity and all he can think is “CLOSE” all intelligently as he stares at him with that face omg

and meanwhile Horikoshi has these STRATEGIC BANDAGES WRAPPED AROUND HIS CHEEKS TO HIDE ALL OF HIS SHOUJO BLUSHING omfg. SENPAI NOTICED YOU SWEETIE!!!

HAWKS YOU HAVE ABSOLUTELY ZERO OBLIGATION TO WASTE ANOTHER SECOND OF YOUR LIFE WORRYING ABOUT THESE TWO ASSHOLES WHO NEVER SPARED YOU THE SLIGHTEST BIT OF REGARD OR CONCERN IN THEIR ENTIRE LIVES. THE NICEST THING YOUR MOM EVER DID FOR YOU WAS BUY YOU A $2 ENDEAVOR PLUSH FROM THE DISCOUNT BIN TO KEEP YOU QUIET, AND YOU WERE SO AWED BY THAT ONE ACT OF SORTA KINDA APPROXIMATE KINDNESS THAT YOU SHAPED YOUR ENTIRE WORLDVIEW AROUND IT. PLEASE LET ME PICK YOU UP IN A BIG HUG FOR JUST A SEC, YOU DESERVE THE WORLD AND YOU WERE ONE THOUSAND PERCENT JUSTIFIED IN LEAVING THEM IN THE DUST THE SECOND THAT YOU COULD

but all that said, he immediately recognizes that Shouto would also have had cause to do the same in his situation, and yet hasn’t. and so he has that much more admiration for him all of a sudden, which is just super sweet, and fully appropriate. Shouto does deserve props. I’m choosing to take this as an “it takes a lot of strength to be able to forgive, and people who choose to do that even though they’re not obligated to are really amazing" type of thing, as opposed to “people who don’t forgive other people who severely wronged them are bad.” and if I’m wrong and Hawks’s line here is meant to be seen as actual failing on his part, well then fuck that, but we’ll move on

SO NOW, DOWN TO BUSINESS!

I am so, so curious as to what kind of strategy Hawks has for this (if he even has any), so I’ll just be quiet now and read

so Hawks is summing up basically what we already knew -- that Tomura and his inner circle (curious that there’s no mention of AFO, because if Hawks doesn’t know about him, that implies almost no one does) are still on the lam with a few PLF stragglers and some High Ends; that a bunch of prisons have been “liberated” (I assume this means all of the inmates escaped, so if that’s the case then where’s Kurogiri??); that the HPSC is fucked; and that heroes are resigning all over the place, and so civilians are taking matters into their own hands

OH DAMN!?

does this mean we’ll actually see some international heroes?? I will LOSE MY DAMN SHIT omg

(ETA: apparently people who paid more attention to the first BnHA movie than I did recognized the silhouettes as belonging to some background characters from Two Heroes. so maybe they were just cameos and they’re not actually new characters who are soon to join us lol. oh well.)

anyway so Hawks agrees with the other Todorokis that Endeavor has no choice but to fight

awww

DON’T WORRY ENJI THEY’VE GOT YOUR BACK. WITH YOUR FLAMES, AND JEANIST’S PUNS, AND HAWKS’S BOYISHLY GOOD LOOKS, THE THREE OF YOU CAN DO ANYTHING YOU SET YOUR MINDS TO

so Enji is very pertinently asking why they’re standing by him in spite of the... [gestures vaguely to everything]

oh my lordy lord

Shouto you had better do something to combat this soon, or this man will sneak past you on my favorite character ranking after all. his face. his cheeky lil finger gun. the fact that he sums it up so fucking simply. “if someone is trying to do the right thing, I want to support them.” exactly. exactly

(ETA: and one last thing I love but forgot to mention, which is the fact that Hawks calls it a team-up despite the fact that he is clearly in charge.)

meanwhile Jeanist is all “as for me, at this point I just straight up don’t give a fuck”

I can’t handle how fucking cool this chapter is you guys

so Hawks is all “you good?” at Enji. and Enji...

if anyone needs me, I will be building myself a discourse-proof fort made entirely out of problematic characters. I don’t even care. I will go on living my life very happily in here

lol at Natsu being all “BUT DON’T THINK THIS MAKES US FRIENDS”

I’m living for this weird and no-doubt entirely unintended implication that Natsu and them all are gonna join in the fight with the rest of them. I mean, they do presumably all have very powerful ice quirks. and Natsu has medical training on top of that, and Fuyu is skilled at getting eight-year-olds to behave which could be a useful talent for dealing with Tomura hahaha I kid, but I’M JUST SAYING. who needs hero licenses anyway

OH SHIT FINALLY SOME DISCUSSION OF AN ACTUAL STRATEGY. even if it’s just a PR strategy

WHAKLHL

and now for some reason we’re flashing back to Natsu and Fuyu’s attempts to navigate through the media crowd outside the hospital

well I guess this is why I’m not the mangaka. if I were writing this I would have done something trite and predictable like using that “One for All” line as an excuse to cut to Deku!! as opposed to this entirely unrelated scene!!

seriously though why do we need to see this lol

no one in this crowd has ever heard of Alexander Dumas huh. or even the popular 2007 Disney Channel original movie, High School Musical 2

so now there’s an entire page of Hawks saying they need to know what One for All is, and Endeavor having one of those patented Todoroki WHOOSH realizations lmao look at this

just wait until this man figures out that one of the scrappy new interns he took on three months ago was actually the main character all along

SKDFIOHWIERLKSJGLWLK!!

NOW IS PROBABLY A GOOD TIME TO ASK MYSELF WHY I CHOSE THIS CHARACTER WHO KEEPS DISAPPEARING FOR SIX OR TWELVE OR FORTY CHAPTERS AT A TIME TO BE MY FUCKING FAVORITE. WELCOME BACK SON PLEASE DON’T SCREAM YOURSELF TO DEATH YOU STILL HAVE A HOLE IN YOUR TORSO

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

(ETA: can we just take a moment to appreciate how Bakugou even got so close to Deku’s room in the first place though. in this giant hospital with no idea of where to even go. does he have Deku Radar or something.)

YOU SIX ARE OFFICIALLY ON MY HIT LIST!! SPARE ME YOUR GOOD INTENTIONS!! MY BAKUDEKU REUNION KEEPS GETTING POSTPONED WEEK AFTER WEEK!! YOU’RE SUPPOSED TO BE HEROES WHERE IS YOUR CONCEPT OF MERCY

(ETA: btw just to be clear, I’m not actually angry lol; it makes total sense that they don’t want this rampaging feral toddler who was still in his own coma all of fifteen minutes ago to come and start screaming at the other coma child until he tears all his stitches out. if there’s anything we Bakugou fans should be familiar with by now, it’s being patient.)

also, Tsuyu wrapping her tongue around Bakugou’s still-healing torso wound absolutely can’t be hygienic at all. also wait is that Inko??

(ETA: pretty sure it is her. she got all of one line smdh.)

Iida is all “thank god Great Explosion Murder God Dynamight pulled through, I thought for sure he was a goner back there”

for the record this is actually really sweet to see how relieved he is. he’s one of the few people who saw the original injury close up, back when he was still at the battlefield and unconscious, so I imagine it really did freak him out quite a bit

JIROUUUUUU

“sometimes I just like to stand here and tug on my imaginary suspenders, what of it”

how come you guys get to loiter around Deku’s room but Kacchan doesn’t. god fucking dammit. AND WHAT DOES THIS EVEN MEAN

I BET KACCHAN COULD WAKE HIM UP FROM HIS COMA WITH THE POWER OF RIVAL INTENSITY!! BUT NOOOOOOOO, [is dragged away back to my fort]

OH MY GOD!?!

"this seems to be an entirely normal and above-board situation that we have just stumbled onto”

I see Jeanist comes from the Iida Tenya school of respectfully using people’s full names

Jeanist becoming one of the main characters is the best thing to ever happen to this series

EXCUSE YOU, IIDA

BUT I’M SURE HE’D MAKE AN EXCEPTION FOR KACCHAN THOUGH!! [elbowing my way back out of the fort] HAWKS, PLEASE --

DON’T GO ALL OMINIOUSLY PUTTING THE PIECES TOGETHER ALL ON YOUR OWN GODDAMMIT

“there’s absolutely no way this angry wriggling shoulder burrito kid here could answer literally all of my questions, so I’ll just ignore him”

OH MY GOD WE’RE FINALLY CUTTING BACK TO HIM BUT THE CHAPTER IS ENDING

[jumps up, throws a folding chair at Iida and the rest of the gang, and then runs]

oh my god. actually this chapter was awesome. but I’m so fucking mad at this cliffhanger though lol

at least we got a couple of answers! and some hints and teases! poor Deku looks so worn out even though he’s asleep dlwkjl my little green baby. and is it just me or is his quirk activated?? All Might’s all “I can feel it” as if it isn’t obvious just looking at him, why are you trying to be all mysterious dude

anyway! so at least we finally have confirmation and a date for those vestige antics at long last. looking forward to meeting Mister The Fourth next week so we can finally ask him “hey dude, what the fuck”

[vizowrites]

“We” vs “Me”| or “Why BlitzStrike Works So Well For Me But Stolitz [as of episode 6].....Doesn’t”

Alright my Loves, so I said that I was going to talk in further detail about my feelings regarding Stolas and the multi-layered portrayal of his relationship with Blitz in the new episode, and today’s the day where that happens!!  First of all, though, before I really get into my feelings about things, I want to just make it ABUNDANTLY clear that I’m not trying to sway anyone from one side to the other, or trying to shame anyone for shipping two fictional characters.  I’m fully in the boat that you are completely entitled to ship whoever you want, but I also think it’s wise to at least be able to recognize the faults and flaws in a pairing--and especially to be able to recognize them in the context of an IRL relationship.  In this analysis in particular, I’m specifically focusing on these two relationships within the realm of the Helluva Boss universe [......Hell] and within the specific context of their characters as they’ve been portrayed in the show thus far.  And, my biggest disclaimer of all: I’m doing this for no other reason than I felt like putting my jumbled thoughts together into a cohesive post so that they don’t have to stay bouncing and buzzing around in my head.  Please keep that in mind that this is just pure personal opinion and interpretation before anyone comes at me with torches and pitchforks.  <3 <3 

SO WITH THAT LONG ASS DISCLAIMER OUT OF THE WAY 

Let’s finally get to the good stuff.  And the not so good stuff.  :D

So I don’t think it’s a surprise to anyone who follows me here that I’m a huge BlitzStrike fan.  What I think fewer people know is that when I first entered the fandom a few months ago, I actually was on board the Stolitz train like so many others that I’ve met here in the fandom.  Naturally Stolitz was the first major pairing I was introduced to, and I did find both the characters of Blitz and Stolas incredibly interesting and compelling in their own rights AND saw the potential in how they could really come to grow into one hell of a relationshp over time.  I was honestly really excited to see it happen, too.  

And then I watched Episode 5 [still my favorite episode, btw] for the first time and had this sudden question hit me like a truck that even now is still relentlessly burning in the back of my mind because I still haven’t found a legitimate answer for it: Why in the FUCK wasn’t Blitz falling head-over-heels in attraction to Striker throughout this fucking episode??

And I don’t mean that in a “They’re so hot and I ship them now why didn’t they get together?? DX DX” kind of way--I mean that in the genuinely perplexed “I don’t understand based on what has been presented to me thus far about Blitz as a character and the storyline overall why he’s reacting so nonchalantly to this whole thing”.  To Note: This is me wondering this from the context of what’s in the show itself, not from any extra fan materials like the Instas or Twitter or just straight up knowing that the most likely answer is that there are people on the creative team that ship Stolitz really hard and realistically wouldn’t have probably written Blitz as being attracted to Striker because that would just be--to quote Jack Sparrow--blowing holes in their own ship.  No, this is me disregarding ALL of that and trying to rationalize this with myself from the perspective of a fan whose entire knowledge of the show and its characters comes exclusively from what’s in the episodes themselves.  .....And that’s where I just can’t find my answer, except for the Stolitz positive “He’s not attracted to Striker because he’s in love with Stolas” answer.  Which really doesn’t even feel like a satisfying answer, because the entire vibe I’ve gotten from Stolitz in the show has just felt.....strangely.....off.  Like, the framework is there and the elements are there, but I’d felt as though they had so far to go still that it would be entire SEASONS before they got there.    

And THEN the new episode [Episode 6] came out and I’d heard a handful of fans going crazy because the show was finally addressing Stolitz in full, and I thought to myself, “Well, maybe if the show really is going to go with saying that the reason Blitz wasn’t interested in Striker is because he’s in love with Stolas.....sure.  I’m curious to see how they finally establish it in an episode, especially since there’s only two more episodes left in the entire first season.”  And then I watched the episode.  And then it hit me why Stolitz just does not do a damn thing for me but BlitzStrike does despite the fact that we’ve had 4/6 episodes [5/7 if you count the Pilot] of Stolitz but only 1/6 [1/7] of potential--not even canonical--BlitzStrike:

When Striker talks about Blitz, or interacts with Blitz, he always talks about them as a “we”.  As a team.  A partnership.  OR he just straight up puts the entire focus on Blitz and his accomplishments and keeps himself out of it entirely.

When Stolas talks about Blitz, he always talks about them within the context of “me”--of himself--of what Blitz does or should do for him.  Even here in episode 6, in the most “selfless” instance we’ve seen yet, where he does ask about Blitz’s safety first BEFORE going right back into how Blitz’s actions affect him and what Blitz should be doing in response for him.  Stolas’s focus is always automatically set to himself--and even when it comes to the people he supposedly loves the most.  

To explain what I mean here, let me give some examples directly from the show itself, starting with the Stolas side of things: 

Episode 1

Blitz, in the middle of trying to hide so much that he actually clamps both of his hands over his mouth just to muffle the sound of his own breathing, knowing damn well that this psychotic bitch who already shot him once won’t hesitate to do it again if she finds him.....gets a call from Stolas.  Stolas, who we clearly see from his leisurely hang out time in his bubble bath, is literally watching this happen and is fully aware that calling Blitz right then was potentially putting him in danger. But what does he say when he gets Blitz on the phone?  He offers--not help--but Blitz the use of his book in exchange for monthly sex.  Stolas literally uses Blitz’s peril as leverage here--consciously or not, though given the fact that he knows the situation at hand, I’d find it very hard to argue that he didn’t do this on purpose--just to get him to agree to be his bootycall until further notice.  

Stolas not only doesn’t lift a finger to help Blitz once in all of this--even at the moment where he and Millie are about to be shot in the face--but instead continues to stay on the phone talking about all of the things he wants for their upcoming future rendezvous.  He already got exactly what he wanted out of this and he still just continues to go for more for himself.

Episode 2

.....There are honestly so many fucked up things that happen here as far as Stolas and his relationship with Blitz goes but honestly the thing I want to draw the MOST attention to is actually Stolas’s storyline with his daughter, Octavia.  I know it’s a little left field, but bear with me--this is actually something I want to use as comparison for Stolas’s relationship to Blitz as we go along:

When Stolas first decides that he’s going to take his daughter to Loo Loo Land, he does so while completey setting aside the fact that she doesn’t want to go.  He just offers her assurances that it’s going to be so much fun because he remembers that she loved it so much when she was a little girl--effectively putting his memory above her wishes even as she’s sitting right there and telling him that she doesn’t enjoy the idea of going now.  

Stolas doesn’t actually notice just how uncomfortable he’s making Octavia throuhought their entire trip by spending his time sexually harassing paying more attention to Blitz than he is trying to cheer her up.  This tells me that Stolas--though I do believe he genuinely wanted to do something to make her happy--still wasn’t able to completely overcome his own self-centered tendencies at first even when it’s for her.  And this is the person that Stolas loves more than anyone or anything else in the entire world. It still wasn’t enough.

It’s only when Octavia runs off and completely breaks down that Stolas finally gets the much needed slap-to-the-face of reality to understand just what he’s putting his daughter through--and, for the first time in the entire show, he actually puts someone else’s needs and well being above himself.  It’s the one solid honest display of love that we see from Stolas in the entire show--and it’s how we as the audience come to learn that that’s how Stolas shows that he loves someone: When he puts their needs above his own with no strings attached or expectations of something in return.  A true selfless act just because he loves them.  **Keep in mind the parallel of Stolas carrying Octavia out of Loo Loo Land at the end, and how it compares to Stolas carrying Blitz out of D.H.O.R.K.S headquarters.

Episode 5

The. Fucking. Cigarette.  I had no idea that something so small and quick would be able to infuriate me as much as it did, but the fact that Blitz used the post sex cigarette to free Stolas from his wrist bondage but then Stolas turned around and put the cigarette out on Blitz’s horn which is literally a part of Blitz’s body just.....honestly it sums up exactly what I’m trying to get across in this entire huge ass post: Stolas only ever thinks of himself first and anything pertaining to anyone else just doesn’t cross his mind at all unless you blatantly put it there in front of his face.  And the fact that he’s still at this point with Blitz all the way here in Episode 5 is not.....promising for their relationship.

The fact that Stolas literally cannot stop himself from calling Blitz “Blitzy” or talking to him in such a condescending way no matter how frustrated Blitz gets and how many times he asks him to stop.  I just--how is that supposed to be interpreted as someone talking to a person that they love?  There’s no respect or dignity given to Blitz at all on Stolas’s part, and the fact that it seems to be presented as a “Oh teehee it’s just their cute couple thing” is just.....I really, really don’t like that.  It also doesn’t match with the Stolas in the very next episode which I quite frankly think is because the creators have been listening to the feedback from fans and were like “We need to SHOW THEM that Stolas actually does speak to Blitz respectfully!!” but that’s just my personal opinion there and, also, it still didn’t happen.  

Episode 6 

Keeping in mind that THIS is finally the episode where we see Stolas actually save Blitz from danger and demonstrate even the slightest inclination towards his well-being.....I think that honestly makes the next few things here even more fucked up

First and foremost: “WE”.  The second after Stolas asks if Blitz is alright and gets the assurance that he is, he roughly grabs his cheek and points out that “If you get in trouble, I get in trouble!  WE don’t want that”.  The fact that this is the first time that Stolas ever talks about Blitz in the context of “we”--when really what he’s really saying is that him [Stolas] getting in trouble is going to be a bad thing for all of them--is just.....so, so disappointing.  At least with this I could hope that perhaps the idea here is that Stolas is genuinely afraid that if he gets in trouble, he won’t be able to protect Blitz from the undoubtedly much worse trouble that he would be in as an imp, but still.  The fact that Stolas immediately reverts back to his self-centered perspective so quickly after supposedly being so worried about Blitz’s wellbeing, really makes it seem as though it’s just his own ass that he’s trying to protect.  And that.....isn’t  exactly what I’d been expecting from “the episode that confirms Stolitz is canon” feedback I’d been hearing.

"Am I going to get ANY thank you for the rescue Bltizy?”  This for me was kind of what actually lead to me having this whole epiphany over Stolas’s selfish perspective in the first place.  I realized that even here--even when he’s just been the most “romantic” towards Blitz that he’s ever been in any previous episodes up until now [and yes this shift in his character was incredibly jarring for me because of that]--Stolas still goes right back to thinking about what he’s going to get out of this now that he knows Blitz is safe.  Let’s take this back to that thing I was saying about Episode 2 and comparing how Stolas rescued Octavia and how he rescues Blitz.  Obviously they’re going to be different because it’s Stolas’s daughter vs his hook up BUT just think about where the focus is for Stolas in both of these scenes.  With Octavia, Stolas is entirely focused on making things up to her--taking her to do something she wants to do--even if it’s something that he himself doesn’t fully understand or isn’t fully into.  That doesn’t matter though, because the entire point is that he’s doing something just for her.  It doesn’t have to be about him.  But now go back to the scene where Stolas is carrying Blitz out of the room.  What does he do?  Ask what Blitz is going to do for him.  That just takes the idea that this scene was a confirmation of their love and throws it right out the window.  Stolas--as we’ve been shown before--would never ask for something in return from someone that he actually loves.  

Now let’s take a look at the one and only episode we have of Striker and Blitz interacting together, with an honorary shout out at hallucination!Striker’s appearance in Episode 6: 

Episode 5: 

Striker knows Blitz’s name.....and he uses it.  He’s literally the ONLY other character that we’ve seen so far refer to Blitz as “Blitz” instead of “Blitzo” or “Blitzy” by someone who wasn’t a member of I.M.P..  Aka someone who wasn’t a member of Blitz’s family.  He shows Blitz respect at that basest level, and only builds on that from there going forward.

Striker first recognizes Blitz for being “the bold imp that started his own killin’ biz”.  Not his hotness, not his skills in the Harvest Moon games because at that point he hasn’t seen them yet.....but for his accomplishment in starting up his own successful business down in Hell.  He treats it as an accomplishment.  With the kind of respect that comes with acknowledging another person for their accomplishments.  Right there, within two seconds of meeting him, Striker demonstrates more respect for Blitz than Stolas has yet to do in the entire show.

The Harvest Moon Festival Games.  Now this is something I find fascinating to think about from Striker’s perspective in particular.  We as the audience are shown pretty early on that Striker has a strong desire to be the one who comes out on top.  He likes the idea of being superior and he openly relishes in the praise and attention he gets for being better than everybody else.  ....Except Blitz.  When they tie in the games, Striker doesn’t seem bothered with sharing the spotlight with him at all.  If anything, he--again--respects just how skilled Blitz is in rightfully earning his place beside him on the stage.  That, to me, is HUGE.  I’m not going to go so far as to say that Striker necessarily sees them as equals because I think that might be going a bit too far for his ego but he does still fully acknowledge that Blitz is in the same general class as him: that is to say, better than most.  Worthy of the same kind of acknowledgement and praise that Striker gets.  I literally can’t get over just how big of a thing that is for what we’ve been shown of Striker’s character, and I think it’s unfortunately something that’s incredibly easy to miss or gloss over. :(

And now--for what I personally think is the most significant thing of all--we have: “We”.  How many times does Striker suggest during that final scene between them that he really wants Blitz to join forces with him as equals?  He never demands that Blitz join up with him, he doesn’t threaten him into joining up with him--Striker barely even hurts Blitz at all during their fight scene compared to how he tried to straight up murder Moxxie--and, most of all, Striker continues to acknowledge that Blitz deserves better than his current arrangement with Stolas.  And he’s right.  But instead of putting it as “I’M right and this is why you should do this”, he always puts his focus on Blitz himself, or the two of them together as a partnership:  “You are so above sucking on a a digusting rich pompous Goetia” | “We could be the most dangerous beings in Hell, Blitz” | “You could partner up with me and klll the unkillable--starting with the one that treats you like a plaything”.  It’s just--I honestly can’t believe it’s taken me this long to put together why Striker appeals so much more to me as a romantic interest for Blitz, but really breaking it down episode by episode and comparing the differences in wording between Striker and Stolas’s dialogue when it comes to Blitz is just.....holy shit. 

Honorary ShoutOut of Episode 6: 

The fact that the only thing hallucination Striker has to say to him is “But you don’t want to do things alone Blitzo!” is really, really interesting to me in the fact that he’s.....not......wrong??  Like, To be fair, Striker, RoboFizz, and Verosika all spill their harsh truths, but the thing is.....Striker’s is markedly different in that his wording really isn’t harsh or aggressive at all the way the other two are.  He’s just kinda stating a fact in an overexaggerated way because tripping balls hallucination sequence.  It’s very interesting to me that that’s the worst that Blitz can imagine him to say--as well as the fact that halluci!Striker calls him “Blitzo”, which is really weird considering that Striker’s never called him “Blitzo” once in the entire show.  Makes me kinda wonder where that came from tbh. 

Alright so, in conclusion of this very long and rambly styie post: I want to take things back to where I started by reiterating that this is not me trying to convince anyone that BlitzStrike is “right” and Stolitz is “wrong”, or that you should stop shipping what you’re shipping in the fandom.  This was just me honestly getting way more excited than I should’ve been over having my “Eureka!” moment for realizing why this new episode didn’t put me back on the Stolitz train like it did for so many other people--and why, in fact, it actually made me think even more favorably of the idea of Blitz and Striker being together.  

Thanks for sticking around with me for this very long read, I hope you found it interesting, and I really really hope that it didn’t piss anyone off or rub too many people the wrong way.  Like I said at the beginning, ship who you want to ship!!  That’s part of the fun of being in a fandom.  I’m just hoping that this might help make it easier to understand at least one perspective on why Stolitz is seen as being so problematic as a ship [as of where they are right now].  

Here’s to seeing where things go from here!! 

[bigskydreaming]

I will forever squint suspiciously at a fandom that overall makes a bigger deal out of Dick Grayson expressing he didn’t want to replace his father when he was still young and actively grieving than they do Tim Drake literally hiring an actor to be his fake uncle and saying no to Bruce’s first actual offer of adoption.

Like, if you can get on board with Timothy Drake-Wayne after that, because Tim changed his mind after he was further along in his grieving process, you can get on board with the idea that at some point after the age of ten or twelve Dick similarly changed his mind about thinking a second father would be an insult to his first father’s memory.

*Shrugs* I just don’t get how hard some people go to bat for the idea that Dick never wanted or needed someone he viewed as an actual parent at any point after he was eight. Because you can’t deny that whatever Dick has said about that in the comics, he’s NEVER made it nearly AS big a deal as most fans who cite it at all do. Like, when you run with the most extreme extrapolation of that but gloss right over Tim’s far more extensive efforts to keep Jack Drake the sole father figure in his memory at first, I feel like something else is going on there.

(And I’m not trying to turn this into a Tim vs Dick thing, btw, I’m honestly just using Tim’s story there as a benchmark for how a clearly parallel sentiment is overwhelmingly referenced in regards to just one character but not another. My issues with the way people engage with this particular idea in regards to Dick like, exists without Tim being in the equation at all. That was simply an example of the fact that there IS a discrepancy.)

But point being, as all roads in this particular direction of thought almost always seem to lead to Dick being slotted into some nebulous category separating him from the rest of his siblings, where he’s only partially Bruce’s kid but not FULLY, not like the others....I am the Wary. 

Because whatever the surface intentions behind that, it almost inevitably voids some of Bruce’s responsibility to him as a parent, while at the same time making it easier to heap parental or caregiver style responsibilities for the others on Dick. If Dick’s more like Bruce than he is like his siblings in the overall family dynamic, this not only lessens the need to show him on the receiving end of Bruce being a parental figure, it simultaneously heightens the urge to make him a parental figure to the others to pick up Bruce’s slack there, because they’re more partners than they are father and son, see. So why wouldn’t Dick pick up Bruce’s slack and help him out there, and why would he need Bruce to actually be fulfilling that very role with him instead?

All the things people are critical of Bruce for in his parenting with Dick aren’t quite as bad, right, when Dick’s not fully his son or doesn’t quite view Bruce as his father....its easier to reframe it as fights between colleagues. Or recast Dick’s estrangement from Bruce as not actually a failure on Bruce’s part to reach out and cement exactly what Dick meant to him every time Dick flat out says “I want to know what I mean to you, give a name to it, give me an explanation for why you made these choices that isn’t that you don’t want me because all I see when I look at those choices is you expressing you don’t want me.” 

Because if Dick doesn’t actually want that explanation ever, if Dick doesn’t actually want that rock-solid expression of Bruce putting a name to what he feels for Dick and what he views him as, then the arguments between Bruce and Dick in his late teenage years DO become two-sided. Its just them butting heads back then. Rather than what they actually WERE in the comics, which was Dick clearly expressing insecurities about his place in Bruce’s life and Bruce repeatedly letting him leave or outright telling him to leave without actually giving it to him.

(I’m not even talking about NTT #55 for once, I’m actually talking about when Dick went to Gotham after he found out about Jason being Robin now. And as the events of that issue get referenced a TON in fandom, its HIGHLY suspect that one specific part of that issue gets rewritten in particular: where its acted like it was Dick that stormed off in a huff there or Dick who didn’t want anything more than to confront Bruce about Robin. It really doesn’t get addressed enough IMO that yes, Bruce said outright that he did it because he missed Dick....and then two panels later, Bruce literally asks Dick to go now. Says I would like you to leave now. Bruce is the one who blew up and lost his temper, literally smashing something while Dick was just heated because he was understandably upset, while Bruce somehow made it like he was the one being hurt by Dick and asking for space from him. Yeah, he said I miss you, but he never DID anything with that and in fact just turned around two seconds later and drove Dick away again, like Holy Mixed Signals, Batman! Y’know? Like what exactly was Dick supposed to do with that? “Oh, so Bruce misses me, but also he didn’t want me there, like I was literally RIGHT THERE for the first time in seventeen months and he missed me so much that....he didn’t even ask me to stay for dinner? Or call or reach out to me afterwards? So....my conclusion is.....what, exactly?”)

Ultimately though, my big beef with the stuff about adoption or Dick not wanting to replace his father, its not even about those specifically. Its about that period when Bruce very visibly was NOT in Dick’s life....and that was BY BRUCE’S CHOICE. That is the thing that needs addressing in my book, and far too often goes unresolved. No matter what the particulars of Dick’s views or wants re: adoption, there is literally no confusion about the existence of comics where Dick is repeatedly the one to reach out to Bruce, at a point in his life where he no longer had any legal ties to Bruce whatsoever.....and clearly express in one way or another that he is there and willing to talk, that in fact he WANTS to talk about why Bruce doesn’t seem to want HIM, specifically. 

It was Dick who brought up the issue of Bruce adopting Jason but not him and asked WHY at that one issue with them at a party. It was Dick who returned to Gotham and asked Bruce WHY he made Jason Robin when he hadn’t wanted Dick to be Robin - (and for the record, NO version of events where Bruce is the one to make Jason Robin aligns with Dick voluntarily giving up Robin.....the one and only continuity in which Dick did that, HE made the choice to pass Robin on to Jason. Mixing and matching continuities specifically to make Dick unable to claim hurt or resentment for the identity he crafted for himself being given away to someone else without his approval because ‘he was the one who said he didn’t want it anymore’ is yet again, suspect, as it serves absolutely no purpose other than to lessen the hurt done to him and abdicate Bruce’s culpability in hurting him when he did that). 

It was Dick who returned to Gotham after Jason died with no intention but to express his condolences and share their grief, and it was Dick who returned to Gotham to check on Bruce after Tim said he was worried he was going to get himself killed, as well as again more longterm in order to help with Tim’s training.

And in each and EVERY one of those situations.....it was Bruce that ended those encounters, and ALWAYS without ever offering Dick any actual resolution or change in their dynamic. Despite Dick’s very presence in each of these being a very clear sign that Dick was unhappy with their estrangement and wanted a change to it or else he wouldn’t even be there, he would be off being comfortably estranged somewhere else and totally content with that.

THAT’S the bigger issue and always has been, I think. That no matter how else you parse it, Dick repeatedly looked for and asked for reassurances, some kind of actual TIES to Bruce, and that Bruce for whatever personal reasons of his own, repeatedly did not give....even when Dick walked him right up to the perfect opportunity to just fucking say “I would like you to come home more, I want you here, I want you as part of my family even though you’ve already aged out of our existing legal bond.”

Bruce still just WOULD NOT SAY IT. Dick was very clear about needing and wanting something from Bruce that Bruce DID NOT GIVE HIM. Bruce gave him basically nothing to work with in these encounters more often than not. 

(In the interest of not being disingenuous here, I do admit that at the party when Dick asked Bruce why he’d adopted Jason and not him, Bruce did give a fairly touching response about how by the time he thought Dick would be open to it, he thought that Dick was too old to actually want or need it anymore. BUT, problem is, even with that it does absolutely nothing to change or address how the very fact that Dick was expressing insecurity about this now meant that Dick WASN’T actually too old to want or need it. It was literally a smack in the face that Bruce’s conclusion was wrong and not actually about Dick’s wants. And Bruce knew this, even referenced it at later points when he threw it back in Dick’s face to accuse Dick of resenting Bruce adopting Jason and not him.....which is a clear indication that Bruce knew it was something Dick still wanted or else there would be no reason for resentment, and THAT is the issue there. That no matter what Bruce said at that party about his reasons for not adopting Dick sooner, that very conversation itself should have been reason enough for Bruce to rethink his stance then there....but he didn’t. Also he ended up adopting Dick like five years later soooooo.....if he could do it then when Dick was even older, that doesn’t work as a barrier for him not doing it then.)

And that’s the troubling part.....how many people try and make that period of their lives unclear with no other visible purpose than to make the fact that Bruce WOULD NOT OUTRIGHT CEMENT DICK AS FAMILY OR ASK HIM TO STAY, like.....less problematic.

And as I’ve said before and will no doubt say again.......that logic process bugs the hell out of me, because it ultimately tries to claim the responsibility for Dick’s unhappiness in this regard back then is at least as much his fault as Bruce’s. That it was some kind of fight between equals, or that it was something Dick initiated or that Bruce had no power to resolve on his own via just his own choices or gestures.

Because it wasn’t! That’s not remotely what all of that was! And like I’m also always saying, you don’t HAVE to stick with the canon by any means. You can literally rewrite things so Bruce adopts Dick before he’s eighteen and they never HAVE that period, you can rewrite things so that Bruce reaches out and ends that period early on by DOING THE WORK of being the parent in that situation, you can ‘fix that’ by any number of means......yet over and over we see that period of estrangement repeatedly upheld as a thing that exists in the history that fics and headcanons reference having happened......but with the only ACTUAL change from the comics being that its framed as though it was just growing pains or Dick being stubborn or a dozen other things that somehow keep coming back to Dick doing something wrong there instead of repeatedly standing in front of Bruce asking for him to clarify their relationship and Bruce changing the subject or asking him to leave.

Again. THAT’S the problem.

You want Good Parent Bruce Wayne? Then WRITE Good Parent Bruce Wayne. Don’t just write Stubborn Teenaged Asshole Dick Grayson who btw doesn’t even really want Bruce to be his parent so there’s absolutely nothing Bruce could have done to bridge that gap back then anyway. 

(As that’s an equally critical part of the equation here as well. See, since Dick DID clearly express a want for a clear connection to Bruce back then, acting like Dick never really wanted a second father is a super convenient way to write over the part where Dick spelled out for Bruce how to bridge the divide between them and make things good again.....by demonstrating an actual WANT to have Dick in his family!)

But writing Stubborn Teenage Asshole Dick Grayson Who Did This To Himself.....that is something entirely different from writing Good Parent Bruce Wayne. You haven’t actually done or said anything with BRUCE’S character by just making Dick the fall guy for every conflict between them as though they were just equals all along and there was never any kind of actual parent child relationship or even a DESIRE for there to be a parent child relationship. Where the responsibility for being the PARENT like, lands on the....y’know. Parent.

And for the record, I don’t think this issue is confined just to this period of the comics, I think rather that its kinda the point of origin of a very large recurring problem in Dick’s conflicts with other people.

Because like I said, it was abundantly clear that Dick was expressing a want to be acknowledged as family, or just flat out acknowledged by Bruce at all, during this time. And if people can somehow make THAT period into just his fault.....then of course it should be no surprise that they can make any conflict he’s part of into his fault. Its a freaking blueprint for doing just that! 

And that’s exactly why this pattern recurs so damn often with EXACTLY the same fanon beats......whatever role the other character plays even in initiating a conflict is shifted onto Dick and somehow made into his own proactive choice and not something he’s actually reacting to. Thus Dick does double duty as both the CAUSE of the conflict and the resulting EFFECT - aka how he reacted to that thing that originally, he did not actually cause or initiate. While meanwhile, the other character not only gets off scot free bearing no actual culpability....no, now since DICK is the one making all the actual choices in the conflict from start to finish, now the other character is actually his VICTIM in it as well.

And that’s just.....so....blegh.