#wow this ended up long

[puppetmaster13u]

Prompt 198

Now Bruce was not expecting to reincarnate upon his death. At least he thinks he died, he’s pretty sure he did. There wasn’t any other reason for him to be a well, literal baby. Around two he thinks, which fits well with the fact that it’s around that time that babies start forming memory recall, if he, well, remembered correctly. 

But while he knew about reincarnation thanks to Shayera and Carter, he’d never exactly given it much thought towards himself. Because seriously, what were the chances of such a thing as him being given another chance? 

So he was quite surprised at his situation, experimentally opening and closing pudgy hands that looked well, just a tiny bit off. He’d never been that pale before, he thinks, even back when he never went outside like, ever. 

He turned his gaze towards the mobile above him with a sort of idle curiosity- a mixture of bats (ha) and other trinkets he wasn’t familiar with. It also caused him to get his first good look at his parent, asleep on a rocking chair right next to the crib. 

Huh. They had the same pale skin he did, albeit in the light it looked like it was slightly tinted blue, and while their hair was white they didn’t exactly look old. They looked surprisingly well rested for raising a toddler too, unless they had a nanny or something similar… He rolled over, managing to very shakily push himself to his feet with the help of the crib. 

Why was standing so hard as a toddler? And why did he have his memories of everything except how he had died anyway? 

His head whipped up from where they were staring at his feet when he heard a snort, finding his parent awake and standing. Somehow silently enough that he hadn’t noticed- or he was that easily distracted by the unfamiliar giddiness bursting in his chest. 

“Morning little bat,” his parent easily picked him up and held him while he inwardly sighed at the nickname. Of course his bat motif would follow him into this life. A low rumbling almost caused him to jump, his body relaxing before he could fully register the sound. The… purring? 

Oh. 

He wasn’t human this time around. 

[surreal-duck]

master artist and his number one fan

guy who is being so normal about the new additions to their profiles. i think abt midoris initial infatuation with his art slowly developing into appreciating yuzuru himself as a person and idol to the point he worries about how he sees him (ex: a bit of home party and in workplace survival rules) sometimes thats a lie i think about it a lot. and yuzuru learning to enjoy art just for the sake of drawing!! seeing the lets try diy story where he doesnt even refute drawing on midoris desk and was only worried that his doodles might cover up the mascot design compared to how discouraged he usually would be in earlier ! stories. everything to me i adore their dynamic if that wasnt obvious by *gestures to basically everything*

and happy pride month 🏳‍🌈

[swiftiepanini]

the crows' favorite book genres

kaz: mystery. horror just kind of bores him but mysteries are fun to solve and he gets super frustrated when the ending is predictable

inej: historical fiction or romance. historical fiction helps her understand what people had to go through from the pov of an ordinary person and she loves romances that are angsty and emotional. girl likes her books to be moving

matthias: usually nonfiction shit because he was raised to believe fiction is useless but bc of nina he's getting more into it. reads mostly realistic fiction

nina: 💖romance💖 all day all night. she'll read cute romances, trashy romances, emotional romances, whatever. matthias makes fun of her for it and she'll rant to him about her books

wylan: obviously doesn't read so he listens to audiobooks. his favorite genre is fantasy because ✨escapism✨ but he also likes dystopian books because they're cool and horrifying to think about

jesper: doesn't read that much but if wylan says a book is really good he'll try to read it. he and wylan will get into arguments because he'll watch the movie and say it's better but wylan argues that it is NOTHING compared to the books so the rest of the crows watch as they have potentially relationship-ending drama over harry potter book vs. movie

[front-facing-pokemon]

[sytoran]

Bro hear me out, Milfy Nun Wanda tempting Masc Priest R😩

Like R is a complete devote father (R isn’t a man obviously but I don’t know a masc term for it💀) of the church and they are actually very innocent when it comes to interacting with women especially the nuns/sisters of the church so they try their best to interact with them without looking like a complete idiot (even though the women can detect R’s shyness and inexperience from a mile away)

R gets VERY often flirted by the women attending the masses and also the nuns (They fawn over R’s forearms and muscular build in their Black religious suit) and Wanda DOES NOT like that one bit and she knows R is a complete Virgin so she takes matters into her own hands to claim R as her’s alone. She hates how often R’s bulge makes it appearance as they speak with any women especially a Nun who R is speaking with that day who has her cleavage at full view to tease R and hopefully make them break into sinning. That night Wanda makes some shitty excuse to get R to see her like practicing a prayer or whatever. (Little does poor innocent R know she’s wearing the sluttiest fishnets/stockings and lingerie know to man).

(mind you, Wanda learns that night how much of a puppy R is for an older woman like her and learns about their mommy kink. She even calls them Daddy to match the dynamic)

There’s many ways to portray how R gets seduced by Wanda but this is my personal storyline that my sinful lil brain created😭

[I don’t ask for much but please take my imagination into consideration and make it a masterpiece of a fic like you always do, you can modify it if you got better ideas or plots. Ur the Writer here.😔🙏]

this is the ask the new fic will be based on! it slightly differs from the stated plot, but that's just my play on it. big thanks to this anon for this idea! it's titled "guilty as sin?", from the ttpd track. looking forward to publishing it within the next few days!

[werewolfsmile]

re: "All I’m saying is the fact that someone isn’t talking to me about Eliot Spencer every second of every day is very unfair and borderline illegal." & tags - if you want to, can you elaborate on your werewolf!eliot ideas?? i’d like to hear about it!! if not all good tho :)

Oh boy oh boy oh boy! Yes I would love to elaborate! (buckle up because i have Thoughts)

(wow this really got away from me so uhhh .... warning for 2k of ranting about Eliot as a werewolf?? list of headcanons under the cut)

From the moment I first met Eliot Spencer, I knew he was werewolf-coded. Aside from his insanely fantastic fighting abilities and the absurd amount of punishment he can take, there are many other factors that contribute to his werewolf status.

Eliot needs a pack Our boy is out here working on his own for years and look at all the good it did him! None! He carries severe trauma from his family life because he blames himself for how it all went down and doesn't think he'll be welcomed back. Plus something probably happened during his military days or early PMC days to put him off working with others. Could have been the pain of losing people all the time, could have been something more. Either way, Eliot working on his own is a defence mechanism - but a self-destructive one.

Wolves thrive in packs - like duh, they're pack animals. As my username suggests, I'm into werewolves and, by extension, wolves. I've done research for my own werewolf novels in the past, so I know that in an average wolf pack, each pack member will have physical contact with the other pack members on the regular. Like, several times an hour! (gosh if I can find the research paper this info came from I'll link it but honestly it's been years) That's a serious level of physical contact required to keep the emotional bonds of the pack healthy!

Flick back to Eliot. He loves to fight, he loves the violence and the pain, yes. He hates the killing and the blood on his hands. He actually tries to leave the assassin world behind after he meets Toby (which is before he meets Moreau, as per early dialogue in The French Connection Job). He bonds quickly with Toby. Show Eliot a little love and care and he's yours for life! He moves onto retrieval work, then somehow ends up working for Moreau.

Now, when we see Eliot and Moreau in The Big Bang Job, Moreau says, "You work alone." Which means that Eliot had that reputation when he came to Moreau. He probably only took contracts to start off with. But he accepted job after job from Moreau and was so good that he was highly respect and it's inferred he ended up as Moreau's top bodyguard/assassin. Why the hell would Eliot end up that close to a man who brings out all the worst in him? Because Eliot's a werewolf and no matter how toxic, Moreau fulfills the need for a pack bond that he's been missing all this time.

Fast forward to Eliot meeting the rest of the Leverage team. One job only - my ass. He saves Hardison's life after Hardison brought a gun to their little meeting - and we all know how Eliot feels about guns.

Wolves are designed to live and operate in packs. Eliot says it's one job only but is bonding with them all from the get-go. Werewolf trait confirmed.

Eliot needs physical touch Now, I know what you're thinking. Eliot canonically avoids physical contact with the team. He refuses hugs, especially from Hardison, growls at Parker poking his bruises (don't get me started on the growls), and shoves people (ahem Parker) out of his personal space. So why would he do all this if he needs physical touch??

Because he's one gigantic ball of angst and self-loathing and guilt.

Eliot doesn't think he deserves forgiveness or love or family, etc. That is a whole other rant, but he denies himself the physical contact he needs with others as a way of punishing himself.

However, as the series progresses, we see him become more comfortable with physical contact! He hugs Hardison several times, he doesn't move away from Parker, etc. Why? Because he's bonded with this team (ahem pack) and there's only so much he can suppress his instincts. The more time he spends with them, the more naturally the contact flows.

Eliot needs to protect others Whenever we get a scene of the team walking as a group, where is Eliot positioned 90% of the time?? That's right, at the back of the group. He lets the others walk in pairs and falls back to bring up the rear. He's keeping them all in his line of sight and constantly scanning for threats ahead, along with protecting the team from any rear attacks. It makes sense for him to do this given his military background, but it also makes sense for a werewolf to do this.

He's the only werewolf in the team. His instincts revolve around keeping the pack safe and protected, so he does that in the best way he knows how.

Not to mention how feral gets over kids!!

Wolf life is all about the pack and the family structure. Pups are integral to the pack's survival and future. Eliot doesn't have kids of his own. But that doesn't stop his instincts from blaring every time he interacts with a kid, be it on the con or off. He takes time out every time to help that kid in an attempt to calm the raging storm of instincts inside his body.

Eliot needs to feed others It's another werewolf instinct that rears its head when they're in the safety of their headquarters (ahem den). Protecting the team/pack from physical threats is just one aspect of taking care of them. Feeding them is the other major one.

None of these idiots can cook to save their lives - except Nate, but he's also drowning his liver 90% of the time, so Eliot has to compensate for that, too. The team can't operate at full capacity if they're not consuming good nutrition. So Eliot makes sure to feed them.

His humanity recognises that these are independent people - coworkers - and he can't control every meal of every day. But he can cook for them, once a week or once a job, which is just enough to satisfy his instincts that he's doing his part to care for them. Plus they love his cooking, and the praise he gets from it is an unexpected but pleasant bonus.

Eliot and team sports/kitchens This ties in with my first point about Eliot needing a pack, but all the times we see Eliot go super hard and get absorbed in the role he's playing are when he's on a team sport or he's in the kitchen. Both of these fulfill super important instincts for him - being in a team/pack and providing food for others.

Think about The Tap-Out Job. Eliot's playing a fighter but he's not pretending to be on a team. He doesn't get over-invested in the role. But what about when he's a baseball player? A hockey player? He falls into those roles hard because he's working with another team again, and this little werewolf is built for that environment. Same in The French Connection: the kitchen becomes his den, the students are his pack mates, and he goes hard at investing in them and protecting them. Never mind the personal aspect of Toby.

Same for episodes like The Fairy Godparents Job when we get a scene of Eliot teaching a bunch of girls self-defence. Team setting + protecting kids = happy werewolf instincts.

So, werewolf headcanons? I have a lot of different origin theories but the main one I like for Eliot is:

he became a werewolf either for a covert military op, or was bitten by Moreau (choose your own angst flavour)

if it was for the military, they were trying to engineer supersoldiers and he was deemed a failure; he has werewolf instincts all the time but only has enhanced strength, healing, etc on full moons

if it was bitten by Moreau, there's a psychic-style bond linking them, which is why he was so loyal to Moreau for so long, and also why he is so reluctant to go after Moreau

(wow this is too different theories already and i said this was my 'main one' whoops)

Eliot can only shift easily on the full moon; shifting outside of a full moon can only be caused by extreme stress and is ridiculously painful

he suffers an insanely high prey drive all the time and is so strict about his control because he doesn't actually wanna rip out the throat of Random Guard #3

he used to chain himself up for full moons so he didn't hurt anyone, but since the team found out about him, Hardison and Parker have taken it upon themselves to 'puppy-sit' him every full moon

this involves no chains but an obscene amount of dog chew toys. Eliot is never impressed. He also never chases or chews the toys. The video evidence Hardison has was obviously doctored.

Hardison and Parker found out the truth when a con went sideways and Eliot was trapped in a room with them during the full moon

he was terrified he was going to kill them - or worse, bite them - but his instincts recognised them as pack so instead he just tried to wrestle with them all night

Hardison had a major freak out when he discovered Eliot was a werewolf - it's one thing to be obsessed with sci-fi/fantasy, it's another thing entirely to see your best friend transform before your eyes

Parker was not even remotely phased, being all like, "pfft of course werewolves are real, I thought you knew that Hardison, you talk about your elves and orcs all the time!"

"Woman that is completely different and you know it!"

"What else do you think is fake? The tooth fairy?? Ha!"

Eliot is Done With Their Shenanigans

Parker only ever refers to Eliot as Sparky when he's in his wolf form

Sophie didn't actually know about werewolves before the reveal but she pretends that she did

Nate knew about werewolves before Eliot, he just chooses to pretend that they're Not A Thing

werewolves generally don't make good hitters, because the constant exposure to violence ramps up their hunting instincts aka they find it hard not to kill

of course, this doesn't matter if you're someone like Moreau who specifically wants killing machines and thus turns his top hitters into werewolves, to ensure loyalty and enhance his strength

the only other werewolf hitter not under Moreau's control that Eliot knows is Quinn, who most certainly did not pull his werewolf strength punches when they tousled in The First David Job

Quinn doesn't have a pack (werewolf or otherwise) and genuinely doesn't seem phased by this, which pisses off Eliot to no end

however, after they work together in The Last Dam Job, Quinn deems himself Eliot's Best Werewolf Bud and keeps popping up randomly to hang out on full moons, etc

Parker and Hardison are a bit weirded out (and a little jealous) of Quinn's attention initially, but soon get over that when they discover that two werewolves on a full moon absolutely play for hours like 6 month old puppies - especially with the tug rope

Eliot is Extremely Susceptible to belly rubs even in his human form, which is half the reason he pushes people out of his personal space a lot - his reputation would never survive anyone finding out

of course the entire team figures it out and take to ambushing him with belly rubs whenever he's being stubborn or annoying

belly rubs are also the only way he will relax enough when he's injured so they can treat his wounds

despite the incessant dog jokes, the ever-growing pile of dog toys, and the bowls labelled with "Sparky" and cartoon bone symbols ... Eliot absolutely adores the pack he's found himself in and wouldn't change them for the world

One of these days I will sit down and write a thousand fics for werewolf!Eliot! Till then, I'll just keep churning out the headcanons ;)

[possamble]

do you have any particular thoughts regarding marcille being a half-elf? its interesting to me considering the fact that she seems self-conscious about being a half-elf, but denies it when its brought up

i remember marcille looking visibly uncomfortable over laios simply asking her how old she is, which i think the only reason she might feel nervous about this is because it might reveal her as a half-elf to him.

she's never corrected anybody whose called her an elf either.

never mind the circumstances of the reveal, in which thistle goes on about how half-elves are inferior and accusing her of wanting to become full blooded elf, she seemed particularly upset like he struck a nerve-

i wish the half-elf thing was built upon more. also, underrated marcille line:

okay so i revisited this sequence just to make sure I could back myself up and it's just... man. there's a lot going on.

the first reaction we get from Marcille is this huge panel that takes up half of the page

she is viscerally affected. flushing to the tips of her ears with the intensity of it. and we see it again, a few pages later

so it might seem like she's embarrassed about it and lying to herself, but... I really think it's just that Thistle is accidentally hitting sore spots. If you really look at what he says to get these reactions

"you'll live out your entire life [...] and die that way too"

"a hundred years from now, nobody will be there"

Hear me out. I think, if he stuck to harping on about her inferiority without bringing up how terrifyingly long-lived she is, she wouldn't have been as bothered. But right now, Thistle is accidentally hitting all the marks on Marcille's deepest fears-- and this is after the Winged Lion promised her that her dreams could come true in an extremely vulnerable moment, so it also hits her slightly guilty conscience as well.

I do truly believe that Marcille isn't bothered about being a half-elf the way that people assume she'd be bothered by it. To her, the biggest problem with being a half-elf is that it's isolating.

On one hand, it's not hard to imagine why she'd distance herself from elves in the west. A lot of them can clock her as a half-elf on sight, unlike other races, and therefore she's always branded with this weird stigma of being Othered -- I would even say that she considers herself lucky for being born outside of elven culture instead of having to grow up in it. I mean, just... look at the way elves talk about her.

Skipping past the uncomfortable implication of what 'not tolerating the existence' of half-elves would actually entail, this is incredibly fucking annoying. You can see why she wouldn't want to be around elves much. You see a lot of Marcille reacting badly here, but honestly, almost all of it can be attributed to her freaking out that her bluff completely failed. She's honestly more paying attention to Izutsumi's footsteps and trying to coordinate an opportunity to escape.

And in the end, you see her built-up frustration at being asked if she wants to be a full-blooded elf like 2-3 times in a row.

Yeah, yeah, "the lady doth protest too much," and all. But we know Marcille. We know that she's a lot more embarrassed and horrendously unconvincing when she's being prodded about something she's actually self-conscious about.

Moving onto the flipside of things, it might seem weird that she "pretends" to be a full elf around other races, but it's not really that strange if you think about it. Again, people are weird about her being infertile or whatever, and a lots of them don't even know much about what sets half-elves apart from everyone else. I mean, look at how uncomfortable Laios is just asking her about it

and look at how exasperated and resigned she looks

And like... she's right. Where would that come up in normal conversation? Why would she go out of her way to tell them? She's functionally a normal elf to other races anyway -- got the ears, the abnormally long "childhood", and the huge mana capacity. Unless it's directly relevant or important for people to know, I don't think it's all that strange or indicative of insecurity that she prefers not to bother with it.

(This combined with her sense of being an "outsider" to elf culture also explains why she thinks elf superiority is embarrassing. She sees the way elves treat short-lived races from the "outsider" perspective nonetheless, and thinks it's obnoxious; especially more so because she usually has to play the elf around short-lived races and deal with the reputation of arrogance that elves have built up.)

The sad thing is, this all means that... she doesn't actually fit in anywhere. She doesn't like going out West much because of how elves treat her. But she's also an outsider in the continents she was born in, treated like this exotic long-lived alien choosing to live among short-lived races for some reason. She is always an outsider, the Other, no matter where she goes. Add in the fact that she'll live longer than literally anyone she knows, and it's honestly kind of heartbreaking.

And I think that's the crux of it. Marcille really doesn't act like she's at all self-conscious about being a half-elf because of any feelings of inferiority or being half-made or whatever. She considers herself a perfectly legitimate being and might even, in some ways, consider herself superior to normal elves because she's not blind with elf supremacy or whatever. (And whatever "elven biases" she displays, all of them are born more out of the fact that she's kind of bad at conceptualizing how other races age and mature compared to herself, not that she actually considers herself better or more mature simply for being an elf.)

I think that whatever self-consciousness Marcille has about being a half-elf is, instead, related to terror and loneliness. The reminder that it ensures she'll never truly belong anywhere for the rest of her very long life. The reminder that, in truth, even she's not actually sure how old she is by other races' standards (hence the discomfort when asked how old she is). She doesn't want to not be a half elf, or be a full elf or full tall-man-- in her ideal world, she's still a half-elf. She just gets to live out her life at the same pace with the people she loves and doesn't have to say goodbye again and again and again until she dies.

and one last very important panel, right after Mithrun tells her that all her desires would be devoured

In her ideal world, she's still a half-elf and reality magically starts marching at her pace. But failing that, the second best thing is that she's still a half-elf-- but one who is able to accept reality and let go of her fear.

(But the rest of the story pans out the way it does because, to Marcille, taking reality apart and reshaping it was less scary than simply and fully reconciling with it.)

[sluckythewizard]

[PUT INTO PLACE, TIED DOWN AND ARRANGED, AND IS NEVER THE SAME, AGAIN.]<-listen to my favorite songs. VAMPIRES ARE WONDERFUL ARENT THEY. THE FLESH IS SO MUCH MORE DURABLE. SO MUCH STRETCHIER THAN HUMANS. THE STRESS DOESNT KILL A VAMPIRE THE SAME WAY IT DOES A HUMAN. YOU CAN TAKE THEM APART THREAD BY THREAD AND LEAVE THEM WIDE AWAKE WITHOUT WORRY OF THE BRAINMATTER SPOILING UNDER VINEGARY AGONY.

[zhouyes]

i’ll be your executioner.

the glory, 더 글로리.

[parasolcopyability]

thinking about ais rn....i wonder if they'll play with the idea of you somehow getting rid of ocudeus. but because ais has had them in his head for so long hes just. not the same person he was beforehand.

[icantmoveitmoveitanymore]

Trans femme(??) terukane..?????

Teru gives non binary vibes though like i can see it can you see it

[heyitspersephone]

Thinking about stranger things again now that the strikes are over and how, narratively, it would be way, WAY cooler to have Mike get Vecna’d instead of Will in s5

It’s just something about the way Mike’s trauma is never addressed or handled in any way?? Like, he hugs his mom twice and then when he was depressed in season 2 and 4 nobody did anything (his parents scolded him for his behavior in s2 ig but that’s not support). His best friend went missing leaving from his house, he watched his body get pulled from the quarry, watched El (in his eyes) kill herself stopping the demogorgon, watched Will be possessed, saw Bob die, was in Star Court when everything went down, saw Billy die, had his best friend move away, was SHOT AT (and really too few people talk about the shooting in Cali bc omg??), buried a body, and watched the apocalypse start. And that’s just off the top of my head.

(And yes I’m aware that the other characters (especially Will) are traumatized too but I will get to my point in a second just hold on)

The plot is geared towards this idea that Will and Henry have to have some big face off (and they should, in my opinion, but I don’t think it should be in a possession, or at least not the the Vecna kind of possession, yk?) but that makes it all the better, writing wise, to have mike be the one in danger. Will was helpless and hiding in s1, I think Will should get his big strong moments in s5 where he gets to be the hero of the story.

It would just be a lot more fun to work with Mike being Vecna’d than Will, because what are we going to bring up with Will’s visions? His dad? His sexuality? The events of s1 from his perspective? It would be cool to see, for sure, but we already know most of that. Mike, on the other hand, has a number of untapped things, like jumping off the quarry, why he’s so hesitant to tell El he loves her, how someone who was smart and kind enough to take El in in s1 and come up with the spy and sauna plans in s2 and s3 could turn into the oblivious asshole that he was in s3 and s4 (he needs therapy, ik, I still love his character but I want to explore the reasons he went from his s2 characterization to his s3 one)

It would be a very interesting parallel, I think, to explore Mike’s thought processes in this way, especially with all of Mike’s repression business (bc whether you ship byler or milkvan he is repressing his feelings HARD. Like, beyond his inability to say I love you there’s the fact that he doesn’t bring up the apparent many times he called pre-s4 during the Rink O Mania fight?? That literally would’ve absolved him of guilt in that argument since he WAS reaching out to Will the whole time? Hellooooo????).

Anyways, this all brings me to my main point: Vecna targets isolation as much as he targets trauma and guilt. The whole party was traumatized by the events in s1, s2, and s3, but Max was the one targeted. Plus, Henry went for Fred, Chrissy, and Patrick (I think his name was Patrick) instead of going for the perceivably easy targets that the mcs would make (ik narratively that would’ve made it more boring but shhh), so why Max and those three specifically? They were isolated. Lucas and Erica have each other, Dustin goes to Steve and Robin, Will and El have each other and Jonathan and Joyce, Nancy probably goes to Jonathan, and who does Mike go to?

No one. And don’t say Nancy because if those two have heart to hearts then I’m the next coming of Christ. Max separated herself from the Party in the aftermath of her grief and guilt over Billy, and it feels quite obvious that Mike was doing the same (like I said, he has repression issues). So Mike is traumatized, alone, and guilty (be it Will getting taken from Mike’s house, losing El in front of him multiple times, the many deaths he has witnessed, or the internalized homophobia angle), which makes him more of a target than Will, in my opinion (or at least an easier one, especially given his tendency to put himself on the line during fights (quarry, most of s2, s3 mindflayer fight), which would set him up on the suicidal ideation path)

Furthermore, as I’ve seen a few other people point out (and I can’t find the posts but one of them had eight screenshots of the various moments), Mike is always the one getting in the way, so it would be a strategic move for Henry to target him to get him out of the picture. Mike was the one that found El and got her involved in saving Will s1, he was the one who came up with the spy plan and called out the ambush in s2, he was the one to monologue Will out of his possession s2, he was the one with the sauna plan for Billy in s3, he was the one trying to help El get the strength to fight s4 (even if the monologue sucked ass it’s the intention that counts). As much as people like to hate on Mike, he is in the leader position most of the time when the party is grouped up (barring his mental health struggles slowing that down beginning of s3 and throughout s4, but he’s still capable of it). He’s the idea man, and he’s the one whose character’s foundations were built on the desire to keep his friends safe, so it would be a very fun plot line to watch him be the one targeted in s5. Like Will said, as lovestruck and cheesy as he was, Mike is the heart of the party when he’s on his A-game, so Henry should 100% be trying to keep him in the issues he’s been struggling with.

Obviously, Will and El are the Targets with a capital T for Henry since they’re the ones that got away or whatever, but I think Mike is a weakness of Will’s (and El’s tbh but also I think they need to have separate character arcs and I don’t exactly ship milkvan) that should be exploited.

TL;DR: Mike should get Vecna’d instead of Will in s5 because it would make sense in lore and be a very cool way to resolve his character arc

[spinjitsuburst]

ramble about ur favs i wanna hear abt ur thoughts -zaptrap

HAN’S INFODUMPING ABOUT JAY... START!!!!

so like sgdkdhdkdhd I say Jay and Lloyd are my “favorites” but honestly it’s so hard to pick favorites out of this skittles squad like I love EVERY character for a variety of different reasons. I was going to also infodump about Lloyd but then I started talking about Prime Empire and then this post got. Long. So. it's just Jay I may infodump about Lloyd another day especially since I'm very Conduit Brained Rn but yea yea!

this is long so i'm putting most of it under the cut so y'all don't kill me for making a huge long post

I considered putting Zane and Sora on here as well since I’d also consider them my “favs” but like this is already gonna be. A lot of. Infodumping (also i typed THIS part before I even started and decided not to yell about Lloyd because this already got long enough). Maybe I’ll make a separate post for those two hmm hmm much to consider but for now MY (technically) FAVORITE NINJAGO CHARACTER: JAY WALKER

THE SPARKPLUG WHO INVADED MY BRAIN LIKE A PARASITE

so hey his name is a pun this makes me laugh ridiculously hard every time I remember he is named. After a misdemeanor HSKSHDKFH

Jay is such an interesting case of a character for me because I started out the show not liking him. Which is. Stares at my entire account I think my feelings have changed somewhat

Jay starts out as an asshole I don’t think anyone can disagree with me there (although honestly they’re all assholes in early ninjago they bullied a ten year old and left him dangling several feet off the ground) but over the course of the show you can see him start developing into a much more interesting character. He goes from being so insecure he's faking everything about himself to someone who knows who he is and is so genuine about it

now yea we could argue about whether his character was too uwu-ified post-season 10 but this is the FUN HAN POST SO WE'RE NOT GONNA TALK ABOUT THAT the point is you can SEE the growth that Jay has gone through and I am going to show you that growth through what I call

✨ The Skybound to Prime Empire Effect ✨

I AM SO PASSIONATE ABOUT THE IDEA THAT PRIME EMPIRE WAS WRITTEN TO BE A DIRECT PARALLEL OF SKYBOUND AND WAS CENTERED ON SHOWING HOW THE NINJA ESPECIALLY JAY HAVE GROWN THROUGHOUT THE SEASON

when season 12 rolls around we are at the point in Jay's development where he is CONFIDENT in who he is. He's a fun-loving jokester with the power of lightning and the drive to help people whenever he can. He uses jokes and humor to help alleviate tension and get people through whatever's happening. And when on his own what does he do?

BECOME AN ENTERTAINER BABEY

i like to think jay's club in prime empire was a safe haven for anyone stuck in the game who figured out hey. we Can't Leave and felt freaked about it. Also Jay would generally try and spread the word that hey something ISN'T RIGHT HERE which would lead people to want to stay with him

(totally plugging my friend's fic but this kind of thing is explored in would you like to enter prime empire by @finn-m-corvex y'all should check it out cool cool)

also the prime empire shorts which i watched all of in the midst of typing this video cuz i love them go watch them please please please jay was publically fighting the red visors which I imagine may have raised some red flags for some players

THIS SOMEHOW TURNED INTO PRIME EMPIRE INFODUMPING LMAO ANYWAYS Jay's confident! He becomes an entertainer because it's who he knows he is! And it's something that will get people hyped and having fun, which is very in-character for Jay to do! He uses those kinds of things to mask the Bad Things going on and get people remembering what's good

I've talked about this sort of thing before but that's Jay's whole philosophy as early as season 9! Which is a DIRECT contrast to how he views it in season 6, as Nadakhan puts it scarily accurately

"You make jokes to mask the fact that you're afraid"

(i was gonna grab a screenshot for that like i did with the hunted scene but netflix has bloCKED THE ABILITY TO TAKE SCREENSHOTS THE WAY I USED TO and i don't have them already and i'm too lazy to grab them from elsewhere so alas trust me he says it)

making jokes to hide your fear and using humor to remind yourself of what's good and coping with the bad are two VERY different outlooks on it

so I think this outlook is what drives him to make this glamrock persona in the first place - this is a bad situation, one he's in with other civilians, and what better way to keep him and themself safe until the others get there than throwing a big performance at a safe place!

also it's just so gender okay I want to look like Superstar Rockin' Jay so badly

it's also interesting to see his outlook on his parents change over time! In season six he finds out Ed and Edna aren't his birth parents and feels upset about it, not understanding why his birth parents would've abandoned him. In season twelve, that outlook changing is EXACTLY why Jay's able to get through to Unagami

"I was abandoned by my parents, too!... I never understood why, and I never had the chance to even ask. But I always hoped there was a good reason. What if there's a reason?"

(again curse you netflix i wanted SCREENSHOTS whatever whatever)

It's this scene that gets Unagami to calm down long enough for Milton Dyer to get there, and presumably is what stops him from just. Flattening him and Jay like a pancake.

to piggyback off of this i absolutely adore how Unagami and Jay consider each other adopted brothers in that one book I still haven't read and I hope he's in Dragons Rising at some point Unagami is my favorite "villain" (no longer a villain) in the whole show he deserves more screentime

like this is where i found out about this and it's plagued my mind ever since. i need to read. this book just for them

SO YEA OKAY Prime Empire is "Who is Jay as a Person Post-Skybound" to me also it opens up so many fascinating things about Jay. I rest my case

so backpedaling a little bit. JAY CARES SO MUCH ABOUT HIS PARENTS GUYS IT'S SO SOFT AND I'M sobs

like yea the first episode with Ed and Edna in it has Jay avoiding them like the plague but this gets explained very easily when you remember he was bullied for his home life before he became a ninja. It makes a lot more sense why he wouldn't want them around his new friends, assuming they'd react the same way. Also how was he supposed to know literally all the rest of the groups parents were either dead, presumed dead, or had a toxic relationship with their kid lmao

(Cole calling his mom kills me. Cole's mom is dead. I know they probably just didn't think that far ahead when writing the dialogue but it's so funny mans pretended to call his dead mom to get on Jay for not appreciating his parents iconic behavior)

anyways literally every episode Ed and Edna are central to (except like the one in skybound) Jay stops at nothing to protect his parents and it means the absolute world to me he's so much like them!! They raised an inventive little nerd and he will stop at nothing to make sure they're safe and it's. It's SO IMPORTANT TO ME OKAY

ALSO this is an excuse to clip my favorite piece of dialogue possibly in the entire show. Except Netflix won't let me now. So you just get the text dialogue

Jay's just fallen from the sky with a messed up eye and is incredibly distraught that all his friends are captured. And his dad just. The woRLD IS FALLING APART AND HE'S EATIN' SOUP-

Ed i love you

anyways

anways anyways this just turned into me rambling about prime empire and then Ed and Edna and a lot of disjointed other stuff but thank you for this opportunity i was going to also ramble about lloyd but i put this post in a word count and

yea i think that's enough for a tumblr post anyways! If anyone wants any like. More logically thought out and direct thoughts about characters feel free to send me asks this was fun thank u @zaptrap for this opportunity to scream about jay

[betasuppe]

Weird that I woke up thinking about Obake & Kei, but I'm not mad about it at all.

Thinking now about a separate end to CTC where before shit goes down, Bake encouraged Kei to go visit her twin sister to get away for a bit & get her out of his hair so that he could get down to business & attempt to destroy San Fransokyo.

So, it goes down like it does in cannon & shit is bad & Obake is presumed dead. Kei returns home to find her villainous life in ruins & broken-hearted that Obake clearly had no interest in involving her in his bigger plans.

Skip to a year later...

Obake survived. He himself didn't understand how he did because he clearly remembered his bunker-base crushing down around him and being gripped by the tight claws of darkness & drowning, and yet... he woke up along the shore, coughing roughly as some strangers pulled him from the wreckage.

He'd lost everything. He had some funds still left to his accounts, but had thoroughly liquidated his every other resource, since he had fully planned on San Fransokyo being no more. No home, no base, no car, NOTHING. Hell, he couldn't even track down Trina or NBB let alone he didn't want to in shame of the disappointment he'd be in his incredible failure of his master plan.

So anyways, all this time later, Obake, as Bob Aken again, is just getting by. Suffering from depleted funds, being deeply depressed, with no plans & no hope, he accidentally passes by Kei in the street & he freezes, though Kei jogs along behind an energetic dark-coated shiba inu on a leash... & she doesn't seem to even realize he existed.

Obake can't help himself but shout her name when the recognition sets in & when she comes to an immediate stop & gapes at him, Obake smiles, feeling things will finally be ok. In his fucked up mind, Kei was his back-up plan to his master plan, after all. This was all meant to be -!

So when she reigns in her doggo, who's growling the whole while, & she stands before her old flame, he smiles, preparing to be pulled into her arms & hugged with all the loving intensity that she always had for him, but instead he's knocked sensless as she socks him hard in the gut with a rough uppercut that pushes the air out of his lungs & nearly makes him lose his footing & crumple down onto his knees.

He likely remained standing out of pure ego, if nothing else.

A few people on the crowded street stop & stare as Kei huffs & puffs but says nothing more, waiting for Obake to apologize or beg for forgiveness or ANYTHING.

When he finally whispers out, "It's good to see you," Kei is at the point of tears, but she manages to fight through her fury & recognize they're not alone. She immediately reacts, grabbing onto the sleeve of his sweatshirt & dragging him off, telling him to shut up & not speak a single fucking word until they were in private... with her dog walking protectively between her owner & the stranger as if WAITING for Obake to do something so the pup could mess him up.

When they're back in her apartment - & Obake notes that it's not her old place just a few blocks away from Good Luck Alley, anymore... it's in the safe, nice part of town with furniture that's surprisingly high quality and just generally much better than what rundown conditions Kei had always called home, & he has to admit he's very impressed -, Kei unleashes her dog & Obake half expects the thing to leap at him. Instead, the pup curls up on a nearby dog bed in the corner & glares daggers his way the whole while.

They talk, with Kei angrily shouting how she had assumed him dead this whole time & how DARE he not let her know he survived - did he even have any idea how much this hurt her to learn about through a news channel, of all the damn things, & the pain she went through realizing she lost him while she was away & unable to help at all. She's pissed & hurt & demands to know why he never told her about this whole "master plan" of his and why she was excluded from it even taking place.

She needs to know if he intentionally wanted her out of the picture? She laughs. His not calling or texting her even a simple "Hey, lol, not dead :P" would've been better than NOTHING after all.

He's silent through it all, nodding & not at all displacing her blame. Obake shoulders it & winces at specific points she makes before going quiet, herself.

Before he can talk about his screw ups, he instead tries his hardest to break his own mold. He asks Kei how she's been doing, since it looks like she's been extremely well. Her new apartment, her new furniture, & just the energy about her - has life been better without him in it?

Kei sighs & tells him that she had to put a stop to her villainy without him & put her entire heart into her music. She'd been doing small tours, selling a huge amount of merch & had become something of a thing in the electronic music scene, especially with her escapades in badassery still following her around town. She's been suffering through it, but she loves it & she's managed switching her whole life around. She's been working on studying her leeches again & using them for helpful research rather than mind control &... it's been weird & different, but she's doing OK, especially with Chocolate Chip Cookie, her newly adopted puppy.

So now, she asks, what is he even doing here?

He struggles to find the words, but puts it very bluntly that he has very little left to his name. After being released from the hospital due to his injuries after the event in question, he roamed around. He'd stay at awful motels with cheap rates so he had a roof over his head. He just shuffled from one place to another, without a purpose or a drive. Just... existing.

Eventually after more silence, Obake quietly admits to himself & Kei both ehat he had tried to ignore the whole time... the reality of his situation was that Obake had hoped he would die in his own failed experiment. He'd fully planned for his own death & had wanted Kei happy & cut out of the picture for her own good, not like his safety net & back up plan like he dreamed it could be, just instead... keeping her out of the mess he'd created.

It makes Kei angrier at first but then the tears start bubbling up in her eyes. She hastily jumps off the couch & pulls him into a hug. Through sobs, she ensures he is aware that he's not at all forgiven, she's just glad he's back & alive.

He hugs her back, his actions disconnected from how he now felt, realizing from Kei's reaction just how badly he fucked up. It's eye opening & the first time he truly recognized he had done wrong.

Kei eventually breaks her hold on him & wipes her tears, asking where he's staying now. He admits it's a terrible dive in a rough neighborhood. She grabs her jacket and her keys, telling him that he'll be staying with her till he's back on his feet. She decides they're going to pick up his few belongings and move him in with her for the time being.

Obake starts telling her "thank you," but she cuts him off before he can finish, letting him know that he still has to make up to hell & back for ditching her in all this. Things aren't magically fixed & she still can't help but dispise him a bit at the moment... but she still cares about him and is going to set him right.

No big evil villain mastermind plans, just her friend / her ex - not even boyfriend lol - crashing on her couch until he can figure himself out.

She knows he needs actual medical attention for his brain trauma & a lot a lot a lot of therapy that she's inclined to sign him up, even if it's against his will, but... he even admits he's broken now. It's a rough step in the right direction, at least.

She hates herself for still adoring him but despite him being the way he is & all, she cares for him deeply & intends to see him out of this darkness, if she can help in doing so at all.

[books-are-my-life-stuff]

Finished series, Fall 2023: Akuma-kun (2023)

"What is happiness to all humans? Are they happy if there's ample food, clothing, and shelter? Do they want self-fulfillment? Recognition from others? The psychologist Maslow said--" "Hold on. Hey, Ichiro. What is happiness to you?" "To me?"

[kyouka-supremacy]

Very assorted - and probably disorganized - thoughts on Akutagawa's immediate reaction on the night Dazai left the pm, since it's taken a pretty delineate shape in my mind for some time now.

I didn't use to have many strong opinions on how Akutagawa acted when Dazai left (although “unknown” uses as a concept of its own. Akutagawa disappearing, and no one knows where he was or what he did– until he comes back, but as a different man). That is up until recently, when I found this fic that described Chuuya storming to Akutagawa's place and all but threatening him to come to work the day after, and for all the days to come– and thus, urged him not kill himself. And I didn't think much about it initially, yet the scene slowly, unconsciously got ingrained in the bsd canon I have in my mind. And although one could fairly think Chuuya was spiraling in his own depressive episode that night, I feel like it's feasible to believe he'd still look out for Akutagawa. Not because Chuuya cared about Akutagawa in particular (at that point of the story, I genuinely think he didn't experience any strong feeling of any kind for Akutagawa, much less had a general good impression of him), but simply because that's what Chuuya does: he looks out for his own. He's perceptive enough to grasp that Akutagawa was but a kid at serious risk in that moment, and he's compassionate enough to go out of his way to help him, even though they barely knew each other, even though Chuuya himself was hurting like crazy that night (and perhaps even because that's simply what he does to cope with great distress and impending grief: keeps himself busy, tries to think of others before himself).

And there was, indeed, a very real chance Akutagawa was going to kill himself that night. Maybe he wouldn't, for Gin; but I'm not even sure. Dazai was the man who told Akutagawa he would have found a reason to live in the mafia, and now he's gone, the man who himself had seemingly become his reason to live; what's left for him in life anymore, what's the point of going on?– is probably what he must have wondered.

In my mind, the Akutagawas only have had two houses since they joined the pm. The first one was a small but comfortable, nice apartment that was assigned to them by the pm right after they joined, their first proper house. The second, a bigger, more comfortable penthouse, they had to move in after Ryuunosuke completely destroyed their first one on the night Dazai left– caught up in that kind of uncontrollable rage that only comes from inhuman pain. That night, Ryuunosuke got home blind and out of reason. He asked Gin to go away, and when she refused to, he pushed her out of the house with his ability, despite having always refrained from touching her with it, despite having always paid careful attention to never use his ability near or on her. And as soon as she was out of range he started destroying everything with and without his ability, until he could see nothing but red, everywhere. And once he destroyed everything, once the only thing left to destroy was himself, he cowered in a dark angle and howled, covered in blood, unable to speak, hideous and inhuman, nothing but a rabid dog. And his scream echoed the one he released the night he met Dazai for the first time; and if that day he had experienced his first emotion, now he was feeling a second new, deeply painful one. Maybe that's when Chuuya had come in, and told him he was not allowed to kill himself; maybe Gin had called Hirotsu, and Hirotsu had called Chuuya, and Chuuya stormed in, and ordered him to come to work tomorrow. Because Chuuya is smart; because he knows that orders are something familiar for Akutagawa, something that can help ground him; because he knows Dazai is not worth killing oneself over. And Akutagawa didn't kill himself that night, and he kept hurting for a long time, but eh. Eventually, he'll be okay.