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nanowrimo · 3 years

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5 Tips for Finishing Your Novel

April’s session of Camp NaNoWriMo is drawing to a close, and you might find yourself nearing the end of your novel. If you need some tips on writing and polishing the ending of your story, author Derek Murphy is here to share a few! Plus, you can check out the rest of our novel-finishing resources on our #NaNoFinMo page.

You won NaNoWriMo and have a 50k collection of scenes and sentences, but how do you clean it up and get it done? How do you make sure it’s finished, satisfying and enjoyable? Here are 5 powerful strategies for finishing your novel and some helpful writing tips that will push you past the finish line.

1. Give it a satisfying resolution.

In order to have a powerful story, your book should probably focus on a main character’s change or transformation. There’s an inner war, a.k.a. the character’s emotional healing, and an outer war: the conflict that forced the reckoning. If it’s a purely symbolic internal realization, you can mirror that with actual conflict in the real scene: the breaking of a dish, a fit of rage, a sudden ray of sunlight (or a storm… this should not be pleasant; It’s a breaking point and spiritual death/rebirth).

You can clarify the moment of change by setting up an illustrative contrast, a before and after, that shows how those internal changes have resulted in real-world consequences or benefits. Each character’s unique challenge will match their personal weakness or fear. The price for victory is the one thing they have so far refused to do, or something they cannot give up or bear to lose.

Make sure your protagonist has gone through a transformative struggle to arrive at deep insights, knowledge or awareness. Find a way to deepen the incidental scenes so that they become instrumental to a deeper purpose, leading towards an identity-shifting event.

The plot is what happens, and it’s important. But you can make it more dramatic and meaningful by making sure you demonstrate how hard it was and what it cost. It matters, it is remarkable, because it forced your protagonist to change.

Your conclusion might include:

Physical tension as allies perform a tug-of-war battle against resistance, that shows how difficult this struggle is, and how much force is required.

The consideration phase, as characters are tempted last minute or the price for victory is revealed: the sweet memories that give them awareness that this fight is worth the cost or risk (you need to show them making the choice, knowing what they will lose).

The final flashback, as the full backstory is revealed so we can see exactly why this conflict is so difficult or meaningful for the main character.

2. Add (unresolved) conflict.

Your story is made up of the events and scenes, where something happens. Each new event will push the characters further into the plot. Slow scenes where nothing is really happening can be red flags, so the first thing to focus on is increasing conflict, drama, suspense and intrigue. This is what creates urgency. The full reveal, demonstrating why THIS challenge is so difficult and powerful, should happen just before the final battle or resolution.

You want to make sure every scene, especially in your conclusion, has enough conflict. I recommend these three:

Outer Conflict (threats): Challenges or obstacles that prevent the character from achieving goals.

Inner Conflict (doubts): Moral struggles, decisions, guilt or shame, anger.

Friendly Fire (betrayal): Strong disagreements between allies or supporting characters.

You want to extend and deepen the potential conflict, without resolving it too easily. The biggest destroyer of conflict is conversation: when your characters just sit around and talk to each other. Most conflict involves a lack of information, and a desire for clarity. A lot of conflict is perceived or imagined.

The most important information needs to come last, and come at a great price. The information that has an emotional impact, and influences their actions and decisions, should be big reveals at dramatic peaks. A surprise or twist should be treated as an event: each scene is leading towards a change or new piece of information that provokes the protagonist to respond.

3. Fill plot holes with character motivation.

After you’ve made sure that “what actually happens” is intriguing (opening questions and raising tensions without resolving them) you can focus on making sure the plot holes are filled, and characters are properly motivated – these two things are usually adjacent.

You can find and fill plot holes by asking:

Why are the characters doing this?

Why does any of it matter?

Basically, readers need to respect the main characters enough to care what happens to them, so their choices and actions need to make sense within the given information. If there’s a simpler, easier solution, readers will get stuck up on “why didn’t they just…”? To fix plot holes and gaps in logic or continuity, or make the story go where you need it to, you can add urgency, fix the mood of the scene (bigger stakes require bigger justifications), show characters in a weakened mental state, or raise concerns but have them dismissed, with an excuse or justification.

You need rational characters to make plausible choices that lead to dire consequences. You need show why they don’t do something easier, or nothing at all, or why they face clear challenges, despite potential obstacles.

They’ll also require a deeper motivation, for why they’re willing to put themselves in identity-destroying conflict, rather than just giving up or running away. Why do they stay in THIS fight, when they’ve run from similar ones? If they weren’t ready at the beginning, why are the ready now – what changed in them, as a result of your story’s journey?

Your protagonist needs to have a strong, consistent internal compass, and it needs to be revealed through incidents that establish their character. This is who they are. Without this reliable core identity, we won’t be able to tell a story that forces them to change.

4. Let readers picture your story with detailed description.

In the final stages of revision, you can begin improving the description with specific details.

It’s smart to start – or end – a chapter with a vivid, immediate scene. You want to leave readers with an image they can see in their minds, hopefully connected to the feeling you aim to evoke. You can close a chapter with a reference back to a motif or image, with a deeper or more reflective context; applying meaning to the metaphor. This will help readers feel engaged, be moved, and leave a lasting impact.

Vivid scenes are mostly a matter of detailed description, so add the specifics about the story environment. Be precise, not vague. Instead of “she put a plate of tea and snacks on the table” you can write “she gently placed an antique porcelain teapot on the table. I could smell it was Earl Grey from the scent of bergamot. The half-sleeve of Oreos and can of onion-flavored Pringles seemed incongruous with the fancy dishes, but I knew she was making an effort to welcome me.”

Focus on the sensations and feelings; but also zero-in on any potential sources of conflict or internal emotions or states of mind. In my example above, the host might be nervous or ashamed of her spread; or perhaps she has a degenerative brain disease and doesn’t notice the incongruity. Tensions are unspoken, potential sources of negative feelings. They hover in the background of your description.

Readers will remember the pictures you put in their heads, not the words on the page.

Description should serve and be bound to the story, not distract from it.

It should be squeezed into and around the scene action, when the protagonist is using or exploring.

Show what’s different, not what’s the same.

Leave space for readers to fill in the gaps, but get them started in the right direction so they aren’t surprised later.

Sidenote: be careful about your metaphors, analogies and similes. Each one will put a picture into readers’ minds, and it can quickly get overcrowded with imagery. You’re asking them to ignore your real scene and think of something else. Use them to confirm and amplify the scene you have, and limit distractions.

5. Prepare to publish.

Typos are bad, but perfectionism will ruin you. This section is about editing and proofreading, but I don’t have time for all that, and you don’t either. The real problem with a story is rarely the number of typos. A very clean book isn’t better if people stop reading.

You can solve a lot of common writing problems, with my big list of 25 common writing mistakes, and self-edit your manuscript to make it as good as possible. After that, a copyeditor or proofreader isn’t always the best investment (and it can also be the biggest publishing cost).

Instead, use an editing software (I like Grammarly) to root out obvious mistakes, but don’t dwell on the small stuff like perfecting every word or rearranging the commas. Spending a very long time wrestling a poorly-written manuscript in shape is less effective than getting something (actually) done to the point where you’re comfortable sharing it.

This may be difficult at first, but you can’t learn and improve without genuine reader feedback (from people who aren’t your mom or best friend; nor the short-sighted opinions of a self-proclaimed literature enthusiast). You need to find readers who enjoy your particular genre, and the sooner you find them, the more valuable feedback you can get.

Shorten the feedback loop: Get over the fear and focus on learning by getting feedback early and often. However, this doesn’t just mean joining a writer’s club: writers are brutal and might focus on trivial things. The safest bet is to make it public, on Wattpad at least. Or get a cheap cover and throw it up on Kindle, Draft2Digital or even your own blog.

Making it public is scary and vulnerable, but it’s better than letting the fear of messing up keep you from the brutal, necessary experience of allowing readers to tell you what they liked and disliked about your writing. Will some people be critical? Yes! But guess what, you’ll get negative reviews even if you’re a brilliant, famous writer. Those are inevitable. And the first negative reviews may teach you more about writing than 10 years attempting to self-edit, afraid of putting your book out into the world.

PS. You can use resources, like my 24-chapter plot outline, as a way to spot story gaps in your manuscript and improve the structure (especially if your book suffers from a “soggy middle.)

Derek Murphy has a PhD in Literature, writes urban fantasy and is the founder of the alliance of young adult authors. More recently, he’s started sharing writing tips on http://www.writethemagic.com

Top photo by Adegbenro Emmanuel Dipo on Unsplash.

#nanowrimo #camp nanowrimo #nanofinmo #writing advice #writing tips #finishing a novel #by nano guest #derek murphy

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mxgilray · 3 years

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Loki Season 1 Thoughts

Overall, I really liked this series. It has some issues without question, but I sincerely don't think it's the dumpster fire so many viewers on this site treat it as. Did it go how I expected? Not at all? Did I enjoy the heck out of it and look forward to it every Wednesday? Hell yeah!

Loki's Good Guy Personality

A big complaint many have had with it is how much Loki's demeanor has changed and how his emotional growth feels rushed or his personality is ooc. Truth is, he saw his entire future, saw what his angry, power hungry, I-work-alone persona would get him in the end, and it snapped him back to reality. He has always been shown to be quite emotional and craving attention and lacking in self assurance, it's just in the past movies he's masked it with violence and fake narcissism, and he's always been a secondary character so his perspective is rarely shown. But if you really pay attention it's obvious he isn't truly villainous; we all know that, it's largely why he has such a huge fan base.

Right after meeting Mobius, Loki got an infodump of his future, saw his parents both die, found out that free will means jack shit, and learned he's absolutely powerless in this realm. On top of that, this is 2012 Loki, fresh off of being under Thanos' control, suddenly being shown that the guy who controlled him is going to end up killing him. Frankly,, I think it all broke Loki. He was too shook up by it all and by the sheer helplessness he found himself in at the TVA that he let all his barriers down momentarily. Just long enough for him to open up to Mobius about his motivation and his lack of self confidence. And you know what I bet? Loki felt relieved after talking to Mobius. A weight was lifted, because he bore his heart to someone and wasn't rejected or laughed at or treated like a psycho. And after letting his walls down fully, Loki didn't feel the need to put all of them back up. He stayed guarded around other people, but he didn't need to pretend around Mobius. Mobius has seen under the mask, so Loki doesn't feel pressure to perform as an all knowing, all powerful God around Mobius. That freedom is life changing.

People who gravitate towards broken, pseudo-villain characters do so because we relate to their internal conflict, their mental illness, their need to fake it around everyone close to them. Their turmoil and depression and self destructive behavior are familiar and we see ourselves reflected in their actions. Now, when a person really truly let's their guard down, drops all their layers of facade, and embraces themself, they tend to change demeanor and even personality pretty drastically. It's jarring in real life, so of course when it happens to a fictional character who you usually relate to it is going to be jarring, maybe even more so because it feels like a change you yourself would never go through. I know this sounds bad and people might get at me for it, but...

I believe the issue here is that a large part of Loki's fan base doesn't want him to get better. They don't want him to move past his mental illness, to learn how to cope with anger and disappointment in healthier ways, to be happy. They like his damaged persona, they like the internal conflict. Maybe it's because they're still at that low place themself and feel like a relatable character is getting taken away from them, maybe it's because they don't understand how much being at peace with yourself can alter a person and to them it feels like he's been changed too much. To those of us mostly on the up and up from battling depression and mental illness, it's comforting to see Loki getting a chance to be genuinely happy and accepting of himself.

Sylki and Lokius

First things first, I'm not anti anything. Ship what you want, idc. Personally, I do not see the Sylki dynamic as romantic, but I get why people read it that way. I thought the series did a good job of showing unrequited love, namely Loki falling for Sylvie and Sylvie feeling zero romance towards him. This was aware of his attraction and in the end used it as a distraction so she could get the upper hand. The show played up the potential romance because we are viewing things from Loki's perspective and he's become smitten as a kitten. I do think in the long run they'll have a more sibling-like dynamic, one Loki realizes that you can feel extreme love and care for a person without it being romantic. I enjoyed how the show explored their relationship, though I do wish they hadn't had every character under the sun mention their moment on Lamentis-1 like it was some big deal to bond with someone you're about to die with.

I'm bitter towards the development of Lokius. It had a strong start in the beginning, and in ep 5 had some potential reignited, but then they had Mobius not know who Loki is at the end. I'm still hoping they're playing the long game with this ship and that it'll come to fruition partway through season 2. The chemistry is there, and Mobius knows Loki very intimately and isn't put off by his past. Loki also feels much more at ease around Mobius than he does around Sylvie. It's the comfort of a deep loving bond with Mobius verses the nervousness of a new crush that he feels for Sylvie.

I don't think Loki is quite aware of his feelings for Mobius, simply because it's based in friendship and mutual respect and isn't a hot and heavy lust. Plus, as soon as he was away from Mobius he was thrown into a near death experience with Sylvie and developed a surface crush during their heart to heart. Since Loki's still figuring out what genuine feelings are beyond anger and sadness, he sees the simplistic crush he has on Sylvie as love and the intimate bond he's been forming with Mobius as friendship. He doesn't understand his own feelings yet, but I think he'll figure it out next season. I mean, he was probably already rethinking his feelings for her after she kissed and betrayed him, mentally kicking himself for expecting her to not pull a Loki betrayal like he would've in the past.

The Time Variance Authority

I really like the concept of the TVA, the structure of it, the methods they use, the deeply fucked way they recruit employees, the cult like motto, shady Miss Minutes who is definitely playing her own long game, and the blind acceptance TVA agents have of the Time Keepers' will. It's all very well done... until your dig into the core, aka He Who Remains. They built up the idea that the Time Keepers created the TVA to prevent a multiverse war and that they created agents to enforce their will. Then the creating agents turned out to be fake, the Time Keepers were fake, I expected the reason for the TVA's existence to be fake to. It felt too simple to have it genuinely exist just to keep the multiverse in check. Why the anonymity, unless it's to keep from having agents target and prune versions of himself which.. songs like a decent solution. HWR made it sound as though the multiverse war was just a bunch of versions of himself screwing shit up, so why isn't the TVA's focus on eradicating every other variant of this guy? Sounds a lot easier and nicer than fucking with the free will of every other living being. So either Marvel made a bad call when choosing what HWR's motive was for creating the TVA, or he was lying about it all to cover up something sinister.

Overall Storyline

I'm fairly happy with the plot as a whole. There were some pacing issues and I think a few missed chances for deeper conversations between various characters. While I enjoyed the Loki variants, I honestly would've been happier seeing Tom playing most the variants (except Kid Loki and Classic Loki since they are clearly different age ranges). If there is supposed to be one sacred timeline, it seems off to me that Lokis would be allowed to vary so extremely without it causing a nexus event(an alligator, whose nexus wasn't that he's an animal who obviously can't do any magic much less command Thanos' army, but that he ate someone's cat) and not just in appearance but in life path (ie boastful Loki collected all the infinity stones but it wasn't till he had 6 that he caused a nexus event even though him gaining control of the Soul, Power, and Time stones should've each caused nexus events since on the sacred timeline he never interacts with those 3 and taking any one of them would've fucked up a lot of other timeline parts)

I love the display of Lokis raw power, and 2012 Loki coming to the realization that he's way more powerful than he ever thought. And it wasn't just Classic Loki who spent thousands of years alone honing his skills, 2012 Loki reversed time on a goddamn falling building! I also liked the small magic, the fireworks, the tablecloth blanket, Loki yanking Sylvie away from HWR with just magic.

As someone who is both bisexual and genderfluid, I would've really loved more concrete representation. The comment about there never being another female Loki hit me in the gut; it undermined the Easter egg "Sex: Fluid" on Loki's TVA file. With how big a deal Sylvie being female was made out to be throughout the season, I expected her gender to play a key role in taking down the head of the TVA, like it was foretold that only a female Loki could end it all or some shit.

I don't mind the idea of Loki finding love in a straight passing relationship. I don't even mind the selfcest all that much. It just feels so obvious to me that Sylvie is written as not having any romantic inclination towards Loki, while Mobius is clearly written as falling in love with someone he shouldn't and trying to maintain an heir of professionalism to keep from wrecking his bond with Loki. I really really hope they come through on season 2 and give Lokius the canon relationship and proper representation they deserve.

Mmkay I thinks that's all the thoughts I've got right now. If you've been feeling cheated or clowned by how things went this season, maybe my perspective of things can help ease your pain.

#loki spoilers #loki series #loki #mobius m mobius #sylvie laufeydottir #lokius #sylki #tva loki #time variance authority #marvel #mcu

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bumblingbeasblackhole · 4 years

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Why Momo Yaoyorozu would have been a more effective hero as a plus size woman.

Hello all, it’s time for a BNHA rant. A rant in my opinion that is long over due, and that my friends is on one of my favorite characters in the franchise. Momo Yaoyorozu AKA Creati.

Buckle up lads were in for a hefty analysis. (Note the read more) I promise it’s worth the read.

Now, we all know Class 1-A’s vice class rep and resident braniac Momo.

Just in case you’re new here or need a refresher, Momo’s Quirk is called Creation. The basic breakdown of her quirk is that her body uses the Lipids (fats) in her body to create any inorganic material of her choosing.

Now, there’s two key things to remember about her quirk.

First, her quirk requires her to use her physical body reserves in order to function

Second, she has to know how to make those matierals. From bottom to top. That means she has to not only have a design of what she wants in her head but the exact molecular compounds to create those objects as well.

Momo to her credit does this well. She’s been flushed out slightly enough to see various instances where she’s had to improve either on her knowledge of materials and compounds or her speed to achieve the full creation of an item. It’s something we see from her constantly in both the Manga and the Anime.

For example, the first time we are (formally) introduced to Momo’s quirk she creates a few items

A staff for herself, a sword for Jirou, a net to contain the thugs, a thick insulated blanket large enough to cover both her and Jirou, and finally the remembrance of her hero suit.

These items all together begin to wear Momo out as she’s left panting and even tells Jirou that she has a hard time creating such taxing objects on her body. This is stated to the audience the first time we see her in action. It takes her time, concentration, and most importantly her body’s lipid reserves.

This is the first time we see Momo wear herself rather thin. While this in itself is impressive and a great introduction into the character and her abilities and strategic wit in a battle, the rather more harmful implications are yet to be seen. This incident, while foreshadowing her later issues, does not compare to other instances later on the series.

There are three key issues with Momo as she is currently.

Her body/character design inherently limit her abilities as a hero.

The push for her to be a sexy hero/character is ultimately determinetal to her effectiveness as both a character and a hero.

Her intellect is not reflected by the way she operates as a hero. Instead, it is often negated for the sake of her design.

These points seem vague or over harped but I’ll go into detail about them. (Hang in there, this is well thought out and developed, I promise)

But before I get into the key issues and solutions, there’s a lot that’s absolutely fantastic about Momo.

Momo is a great character because she is more than the typical snobby rich girl trope. In fact, she’s not at all snobby. She is the most helpful, kind, and oblivious rich character I’ve ever seen. It’s part of her personality sure, but it’s not the only factor. It’s more or less just a gag for laughs between the other characters.

She is also relatable in the way she has self worth issues, different from Midoriya’s self worth issues. She was never (that were aware of) beaten down or belittled. Her issues sprouted from the way she was confident in her abilities, intellect, and quirk only to be thrown in the deepend UA.

Which idk about y’all, but honestly that shit hits home. If you were ever the smart-kid-who-learned-quickly-and-skated-through-school-only-to-be-out-of-your-depth-with-new-self-worth-issues-when-that-is-no-longer-the-case (or anything similar) than you catch my drift. So score for relatability.

Alas, onwards.

Let’s tackle the first problem.

The way she treats her body now is detrimental to her quirk usage long term.

I’ll explain,

Momo’s quirk functions relatively similar to another hero we are later introduced too, Fatgum.

Now I know what you’re already thinking,

“Bea! She’s supposed to be sexy! She’s supposed to be feminine! Her quirk burns it all so she can look like that! Fatgum has to only store it all!”

On some levels you’re right.

On most though, incredibly wrong.

Momo’s figure is one of the main (and slightly controversial) aspects of her character. I mean, look at her design versus Fatgum’s

See the key differences? I sure do.

Fatgum’s quirk is called Fat Absorbtion. Basically it grants Fatgum the ability to adhere any objects to his body and make them sink into his body fat upon contact with it. And/Or he can build and channel all of the fat in his body into one overpowered and energized punch or attack. (As seen in the overhaul arc) which leaves his body, you guessed it, deprecated and thin. Much like Momo’s, they both use their body’s fat as a tool whether through expelling it or storing it for later use.

I point this out because we see time and time again throughout the series where Momo pushed herself to the limit where she has to expel extraordinary amounts of her body to get the job done. But in reality she only makes a few larger objects. This compared to Fatgum who uses his fat reserves strategically and only in the toughest of battles does he push his body’s reserves to zero. Whereas Momo does this constantly. This is because of her inefficient way of treating her quirk and ultimately, her design.

Let’s discuss some prime examples:

In the training camp arc, Momo makes roughly 15-30 masks for all of Class B students, and half of Class A. Which in itself is a tall order. When we see her again, she’s bloodied, exhausted, barely conscious, worn, and welded to Awase half alive. She even struggles as she makes the tiny tracker she places on the back of the Nomu. After this, in the hospital (pre Kamino rescue) she was unconscious for a day and half due to quirk overuse and dehydration.

Third, in the first movie, My Hero Academia: Two Heroes, we once again see Momo’s fatal flaw as she and a group of Class 1-A students race through the security tower on I-island. She uses her quirk to make cannons of course, a Momo signature, to fend off the security bots fairly early on in the battle. As she continues to make ammo and other items needed to win the battle Momo teeters on the brink of passing out from, you guessed it, dehydration and starvation. Jirou ends up catching Momo as she’s nearly passes out from the lack of fat/substance in her body after making the cannon and ammo.

Then we see the same issue in the second movie My Hero Academia: Heroes Rising. Where Momo is used both to create extra supplies on the island. She passes out after that alone and only wakes up later as the class is regrouping after four villains attack simultaneously. Even after rest and food, we see her later again to make two massive cannons as the first line of defense against the incoming villains. From the start of the second battle Momo is worn out and clearly lacking in lipids to participate fully in a fight. Here, she even keels over and says that she’s at her limit and looks like she’s on the brink of death via dehydration and starvation. Which she very much is.

We also so see this in Provisonal Licensing Exam arc when Momo, Tsu, Jirou, and Shoji are trapped together by a group from another school. Here this is important because the leader of that group has super intelligence granted to her by her quirk (and tea lol) has come up with a “fool proof” plan to beat the group. The bottom line of that plan is simple. Wear. Momo. Out. Which half way works too, until Momo figures out what the other group is trying to do and thinks her way out of that situation. Although, she does use up a decent amount of her body’s reserves before she figures out their plan.

^^^ this scene brings up an extremely concerning point. If a villain knows what her quirk is, and has i don’t know, seen her, then they’re going to do the exact same thing Saiko (the girl in the photo above from the licensing exam arc) attempted to do. Exhaust Momo’s resources.

Now, this has been brought up once in the actual show. During the training camp arc, we see each students training method (designed by Aizawa) in order to overwork and strengthen their quirks. For Momo, that looked like binge eating and creating simultaneously.

This also shows us that Aizawa is at least somewhat paying attention to the drawbacks of her quirk. He may not have been there for some of the more concerning times she’s over worked herself, but it’s not a hard thing to work out just by how she looks and how her quirk functions. He also sees how her speed with her quirk hindered her like in her battle against Tokoyami. However, this is the only time we see this. Plus, this is not nearly enough of solution to the problem. Which in all honesty is simple.

For all intensive purposes, Momo should be a Plus Sized woman.

Not just for diversity or validity of readers. Although it would have been a score for the plus size community since it’s always lacking here for us bad bitches but because it would have been more natural to her character. If she had a bulkier physique or even just a chubbier build she would be way more effective in a battle or even just as a hero.

Her quirk burns the fat in her body instantly while in use. Which means she needs to have a healthy reserve of it at all times, especially since I’m willing to bet her metabolism is crazy fast. Relying on the normal/average caloric intake is irrational for her quirks functionality. Her diet should look more like Fatgum’s where we see him constantly eating in order to fuel his quirk. At the very least, Momo needs to always have foods dense in fats on hand in case she’s in a dire situation where she’s running low on reserves. She would be much more effective that way. I cannot tell you the amount of times I’ve watched a scene where she’s wearing herself out and been exasperated by the fact that she didn’t have even a simple granola bar on her for emergencies.

Hear me out,

Plus size people are extremely capable of doing extraordinary things. As well as also being fit while still having a larger/healthier frame. It’s not all that uncommon. In fact, it’s something that fictional storytelling (an ex machina if you will) isn’t needed in order to cover the realistic applications. There are plenty of people in the word who are of a larger build and are also active, fit, and in overall good health standing.

In real life, Ashley Graham is an excellent example. For those who aren’t privy to this goddess, she’s a plus size model, mother, and fitness enthusiast.

Here’s just a taste of this wonderful goddesses workouts can look like:

(Credit Instagram : @ashleygharam)

Which brings me to my next point

The need for Momo to be sexy is detrimental to her effectiveness as both a hero and as a character.

I know, I know, half of Momo’s whole thing is being sexy, rich, and oblivious. I’m well aware.

But here’s a fun tidbit. Plus size women can be sexy too! Shocker I know! Sarcasm aside, having Momo be a plus size woman wouldn’t hinder her sex appeal if done correctly. In fact, I think it would only make her more appealing, marketable, and effective narratively.

Not that she really needs to be sexy at all, but we will swing back to that.

Remember Ashley Graham? The model I mentioned like a paragraph ago? Well, she’s an example that plus size women can be just as sexy/attractive as anyone else. Which only proves that Momo could still have been an attractive character even as a plus size woman. In fact, it would have been uplifting to see a plus size character who’s whole gag isn’t revolved around them losing weight to fit a societal goal, but instead a character who is plus sized, healthy, and proud. Who utilizes her body in a positive manner. I mean imagine the marketablility to younger audiences! If you still don’t believe me that a plus size woman can still be attractive and show skin like Momo would ultimately have to do in order to use her quirk, check out Ashley motherfuckin Graham doing just that

No matter how they would have gone on to design her as a plus size character, she could have still been stunning. Even if they kept her in the same costume design! Which is garbage but that’s a tangent for another time

But beyond equality and all that good stuff:

Momo being a plus size woman would mean she would have more ability for long term endurance in a battle. As it stands now, Momo taps out of a battle fairly fast. She’s tends to make one larger item and then she’s tapped. Which is highly inefficient in a battle. If anything it seems to be on par with how Midoriya’s quirk affected him in the beginning of the series. He had to sacrifice a part of his body in order to land an effective attack. Sound familiar? Well yeah. Because Momo does the same thing with Creation and she’s had it for years.

Each time Momo over uses her quirk, she’s left on the brink of passing out, if she hadn’t already, leaving her vulnerable and useless in the field alone. Each time she’s pushed herself past her limit she’s had her classmates to catch her when she falls. That’s not practical. Aizawa said it himself in the quirk apprehension test way back in chapter 6 of the manga.

So why is Momo considered differently? Why doesn’t Aizawa say something? Simple. He’s typically not around for these occurrences.

Momo doesn’t have to over use her quirk in simulations. She only does that when there’s real stakes and people on the line. The issue with that is that once she leaves UA, the stakes will always be real, all the time. Isn’t now the best time to nip this issue in the bud? I think so. But also I understand how Aizawa either hasn’t fully caught on, or hasn’t dealt with it. I mean, between villain attacks and our main character constantly almost killing himself recklessly in battle, he’s got a lot on his plate.

The other issue with her “sexy” design is that it negates from her overall character. In all official art we see for BNHA we see Momo typically left out, or hypersexualized. This detracts from her substance of being intelligent and creative. She’s often the butt of the joke when it comes to Mineta’s perverted jokes/schemes as well. Between the cheerleader outfits incident and the locker room scene Momo is constantly written off. Whereas Midnight, a pro hero and teacher at UA, who is known for her sexiness and uses it as her brand, uses her sexuality effectively without diminishing her actual worth as a hero or teacher. But then again Midnight is an adult, who is branded as the 18+ hero. Momo is a student and minor. But y’all still aren’t ready for that conversation yet.

Which brings me to the final point of this long winded rant. (Thanks if you’ve stuck around this long! We’re almost done! Follow me if you don’t already. I write stuff, paint stuff, and theorize/analyze stuff for bnha)

The way Momo is now, Discounts/Negates her supposed intellect

As I’ve mentioned already in this rant, how Momo operates now isn’t working out so well on her favor.

But that doesn’t really make sense considering she’s so fucking intelligent. I mean she’s literally top of the class academically. There is no reason for her to be so brilliant and also so bullheaded in her own quirk use. She shows us time and time again that she has brain power. Her quirk requires she be extremely intelligent in order to comprehend and apply molecular compounds in order to even sort of correctly use her quirk.

So it makes no sense that such simple solutions evade her constantly. Like I find it extremely hard to believe that Momo has never thought, “hmm I’m on the brink of death, maybe I should have eaten more” or “the last few battles left me weak, maybe I should find a solution or ask a teacher,” or even “man, my endurance isn’t all that great. I should work on that,” like anything along those lines would lead her intelligent brain to the conclusion that since whatever caloric intake she’s doing now is far to easy to burn through and perhaps the simple solution is to gain more fatty mass.

It honestly discounts Momo as a character if she’s constantly breaking down when such a simple solution is available to her. Plus on a more lighthearted note, it would be kind of great for Momo to be old money rich and plus sized. I mean it would be kind of ironically hilarious in my opinion.

Okay Bea, so what’s the point?

The point my friends is that female characters can be so much more. Especially Momo. There is always an opportunity for characters like Momo and Ochako (who’ll I’ll be breaking down next/soon) to have more substanse and impact to them than just being the second line of defense sexy characters.

Even in the actual universe that is BNHA, Momo as a hero student has far more potential than she is currently operating at.

Now, don’t get me wrong I understand that Horikoshi has a plateful of characters to deal with and Momo is probably on the bottom of the list, but it doesn’t mean we can’t imagine more for her. Because honestly it doesn’t even really matter if she changes for the better or not in canon, it’s the idea that there’s a character out there who all people can relate to whether it be average watchers/readers, plus size hopefuls, people with insecurities, readers/viewers who just like her quirk/design, or someone like me who saw a character and gravitated to the mostly relatable way she was written.

I love Momo as a character truly, she’s one of my favorites and I heavily associate with her. (Shocker I know, I mean she’s literally my icon that I painted myself) I am in no way tearing the character, franchise, or Horikoshi down. I am just observing what could have been (or could be but probably not) and pointing it out. So that maybe, just maybe, in the future there will be more characters who others can relate too. Other characters who are used at their full inspirational potential. But also, to point out some things that not only round out perspective on a character, but maybe even highlight how worth it it can be to look deeper into a characters through analysis. Hopefully I’ve done at least one of those things through this long post.

_____

Finally, thank you if you read this far into my gigantic breakdown.

Follow me if you don’t already and want too. If you do already follow me, please reblog so that others can read it if they want too.

I plan on doing more character breakdowns for BNHA, I’ve got a few already in the drafts and a cc if you have suggestions or questions. I also write fics for BNHA, so check out my AO3 link on my blog page for that. Also, you can bet your ass I’ll be writing a plus size Momo fic sometime soon. I’m really inspired on the topic (if you couldn’t tell already).

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shoezuki · 3 years

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Tommy's prison/revival arc isnt well written actually

Anyways ive been wanting to talk on it a while for a bit here but havent had the Time or like. The thought to. But im gonna go off now.

First off im gonna say im ASSUMING this stream and plot of tommy being in the prison with dream is written entirely by tommy and dream. Wilbur May be involved in the latest stream but im not sure.

Bringing tommy back to life after only three days of him being dead did practically nothing to progress plot, the characters, or audience's understanding. In fact i feel that it damaged Other characters' potential and plot and already established plotlines.

The 'development' aspect

A really, really easy way to see if anything has changed or developed through an arc or plotline is to straightup just compare the 'beginning' to the 'end' in terms of the barebones situation. So;

Beginning: tommy is trapped in an isolated prison cell with dream, his own abuser who has hurt him in the past, for an unknown amount of time. He's terrified of dream and being stuck there with him.

End: tommy is trapped in an isolated prison cell with dream after being killed then revived by him, his own abuser whos hurt him in the past, for an unknown amount of time. Hes terrified of dream and being stuck there with him.

Okay. This is simplified obvious. But the point stands. ALTHOUGH the troupe of 'going back to the beginning' is common in the heroes journey its. It doesnt work here. Has tommy learned anything? Has he changed as a character? Is the severity of their situation any different? Have we, as the audience, learned anything new?

Im going to expand on that last point because i think it has the strongest potential argument. Technically for progression in literature and development of plot/characters, things can Change without them being Aware as characters. It can change just by the audience's perception changing or being challenge.

Slight example: i've been reading a webcomic called Your Throne. Its a fantasy/political drama about a noble lady who entered a competition with another noble lady to become the empress. The main lady lost despite her being a better fit, and the comic starts with the main lady trying to assassinate the empress. Its assumed and stated by the main lady that she 'ruined her life' and so thats all the readers know. However, later in the novel we see flashbacks to the competition itself and find that the two ladies were extremely close friends, neither wanting anything bad for the other, but it was the emperor himself who manipulated both of them for his own agenda. Those flashbacks gave us an entirely different idea of who the real antagonist is and completely changed the two main ladies' relationship. THAT is how the audience's understanding of the plot and novel can be used to change the entire story. We dont get such here though

Some things that were brought to light during tommy being dead/revived:

Dream is capable of reviving people infinitely

This was already implicated and assumed. The book dream has being a means of reviving people has been around Technically since schlatt's death. This just 'confirmed' what was known

Time works differently/feels longer in the afterlife

This doesnt really impact much beyond emotions and implications. If we had more insight into what the 'afterlife' is like beyond nothingness perhaps so. But really it just makes it so wilbur being dead for what feels like 9 years and tommy having been dead for 2 months appeal to emotions.

Wilbur is evil

This one fuckin sucks i cant lie HSKSHSISSGEGDV. Like i was gon go on bout it and i will but it jus sucks. We have nothing to go on besides tommy's word, no examlles of what Horrible things wilbur said could make tommy assume this, etcetc. Ill most likely make a seperate post on how this feels like we're just going to get 'wilbur is a horrible villain' type with him. But still. I feel wilbur Not Being Good isnt a new development.

Dream is going to revive wilbur

This doesnt feel new either, part because phil had wanted to revive wilbur before (ill get to that more later) and that tommy had kept dream alive/initially imprisoned him with the idea of him reviving wilbur.

Dream believes wilbur will break him out of prison

Okau this makes no sense to me actually. I cwnt understand How exactly wilbur would be able to do this? Or why dream believes he even Could? Mans been dead for like 9 years and all we Know of the afterlife is that its black... nothingness. How would 9 years of that make wilbur capable of busting the prison open?

So. Yeah. All in all this plotline hasnt done anything new, developed things, or altered people's perceptions. We just ended up back at square one. Back to tommy being traumatized, dream being 'evil' and horrible and doing villain monologues, and them being stuck together.

Other characters and plotlines

Im pretty damn sure tommy's revival fucked up a LOT of other characters' plotlines and potential development. Honestly i feel this has a lot to do with the writers not communicating with other ccs well enough. But Ill talk about specific characters from least to most fucked over in my opinion:

Sam

He's the best off. He hqd been there during tommy's death, had been close to tommy, had majorly blamed himself and his own mistakes for tommy's death. His grief and self hatred was actually really heartbreaking and well done. The attached character of Sam Nook being unaware of tommy's death and simply waiting for tommy to return was a really good parallel to sam's own grief and anger. like it really snapped sam the guy who cares for tommy and wants to do Right by him back together with him as the Warden of the prison. Mixed personal life with 'just business'.

I feel it wouldve been nice to have him like. Have more time to grieve properly and come to terms eith tommy's death and his own involvement/influence over the events. Him finding tommy alive again Could be a means of him like. Facing his own grief head on if done well.

Ranboo

Mostly in the context of him and sam's argument do i feel it got screwed over. The weight of them yelling at each other and trying to find who to blame and the implications that Maybe ranboo was the one who caused the security breach that closed down the prison on tommy just.... doesnt hit so hard anymore. Because how can there be blame and arguments and a 'who done it' mystery when tommy popped up all fine again?

Puffy

I dony know much of her involvement or how she found out tommy died (besides metagaming shhhhh) but i saw her monologuing of how they 'failed' tommy and like. Her whole 'he was so young we the Adults failed him' spiel is like........... inconsequential? Now??? Like no dont worry he died but hes alright now.

Philza

BET YOU DIDNY EXPECT TO SEE THIS FUCKER!!!!!! But actually though i want to talk bout how this ties into phil. A LOT. for Zalbr ❤. But also because i see ppl tying phil to tommy's death n like nah shutup u doin it wrong. Ill go off more in a Wilbur Post. But essentially: i dont like that dream is now going to revive wilbur. I feel they arent going to tie philza into this Despite phil having originally been trying to revive his son and studying on it and Attempting and Failing. But now suddenly dream can just. Say some magic words and Poof wilbur lives? So we're just going to Kill philza's revival attempts plotline and leave that hanging? This made his efforts seem pointless and Wack like oh why didnt you just Say The Magic Words phil????

Niki

I feel really bad for niki. She hasnt been able to do a lore stream during tommy's 'death' (she tweeted she wanted to but her computer wasnt working) and considering her entire character.... that shit is important. We seen it with Jack Manifold how tommy's death impacted Him considering he literally wanted tommy dead. And since niki is in a similar boat to jack of trying to kill tommy and it being her Only goal...... thats extremely important.

BUT. i feel there wasnt any communication. Did she or anyone even know tommy would be revived? Did no one consider they could At Least let her do a single stream on it? Like jack manifold????

We couldve gotten a Really good niki lore stream. I genuinely was so excited for it and i dont regularly watch her. But we seen it with jack manifold which is why i dont feel he got screwed because mans genuinely did So Good he could pop off with anything n i think it works in His favour. But now........ for niki. Canonically she never even knew tommy was Dead. So its like nothing even happened for her. Is she just supposed to continue on trying to kill tommy with no progression?

What i think would work

This is more me being like 'hey @ the dsmp writers let me in' type speculation sbosegussgs. But i was thinkin on a Really easy way to 'fix' this without rewriting lore and the streams.

Dream should kill tommy again now that he's been revived and Leave Him Dead.

More development for the characters who are affected by his death Especially niki. More time for grief and self reflection and development

A chance for the audience to figure out what the 'afterlife' really is.

Dream is supposed to be smart and a master manipulator or something right? Why doesnt he use being able to revive tommy as a bargaining chip with sam for his own freedom?

The audience would now Know dream's intentions with tommy better, that this death isnt 'final', but we could still see other characters' grief and reactions and coping without it feeling cheap. Ive seen some 'but people dont know tommy is alive so hes still dead in their mind' but that sucks imo.

We'd know more on dream's ability to revive people and that he can just Do It on a whim (which i think sucks but hey im trying) but no one else would know this canonically

Okay. Im done. If you read this. Thankyou. I love you. Hmu.

#mcyt #dream smp #dream smp critical #tommyinnit #dream #im puttin this in main tags took me too fuckin long to write for me Not to #death mention #ask to tag

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jaimehwatson · 3 years

Text

I made another Snowpiercer playlist!

After posting my Wilford/Audrey playlist a while ago, I added some songs that didn’t quite make the cut to a different playlist, intending to put together another similar one. But rather than focusing on just one ship this time, I also ended up getting really interested in theorizing about what Wilford’s relationship with Melanie might have been like before the Freeze, and exploring the idea that maybe there was something going on there and some kind of love triangle with Audrey.

So here’s my new playlist, full of absolute jams that could apply to any combination of relationships involving Wilford, Audrey, and Melanie, and/or just general Snowpiercer vibes! Read on for more detail about the songs I selected, and as before, content warning for references to canon abuse & self-harm/suicide.

1. “The Tradition” by Halsey

Oh, the loneliеst girl in town Was bought for plenty a price Well, they dress her up in golden crowns His smile hides a lie

She smiles back, but it's a fact That her fear will eat her alive Well, she got the life that she wanted But now all she does is cry

Thanks @onetrainsnowpiercer for getting me into this excellent album! I thought it would be fitting to kick off the playlist with one that could suit the earlier days of Wilford’s relationship with Audrey, like my previous playlist was more focused on.

2. “cardigan” by Taylor Swift

'Cause I knew you Steppin' on the last train Marked me like a bloodstain, I

I knew you Tried to change the ending Peter losing Wendy, I

I knew you Leavin' like a father Running like water, I And when you are young, they assume you know nothing

Did you think I would make a Snowpiercer playlist without Taylor Swift on it? Not a chance. I picture this one being more from Melanie’s perspective, reflecting on possibly having had some kind of ill-fated romance with Wilford when she was young and naive.

3. “No Children” by The Mountain Goats

I hope I cut myself shaving tomorrow I hope it bleeds all day long Our friends say it's darkest before the sun rises We're pretty sure they're all wrong

I hope it stays dark forever I hope the worst isn't over And I hope you blink before I do And I hope I never get sober

The only reason this perennial favourite of mine wasn’t on the first playlist was that I had too many Mountain Goats songs already and wanted to keep things balanced. But this one got all the ones that didn’t make it to the first playlist plus some more I thought about later, so I’m kind of giving up on that balance by now. They just have a lot of great songs about terrible relationships, and I love them all so much.

4. “Gold Guns Girls” by Metric

I remember when we were gambling to win Everybody else said, "Better luck next time." I don't wanna bend like the bad girls bend I just wanna be your friend Is it ever gonna be enough?

This is another one that I can picture being about young Melanie, gradually growing more aware of everything that’s terribly wrong with Wilford and his approach to life, and of how little he cares to try to fix it.

5. “You’ve Haunted Me All My Life” by Death Cab for Cutie

And there's a flaw in my heart's design For I keep trying to make you mine

You've haunted me all my life You've haunted me all my life You are the mistress I can't make a wife And you've haunted me all my life

And this one I can see being Wilford thinking about either one of the women, and his unhealthy attachment to them and inability to keep them around for very long—maybe once he’s finally reunited with them both on some level in season 2, but still can’t fully persuade them both over to his side.

6. “Old College Try” by The Mountain Goats

From the cities to the swamplands From the highways to the hills Our love has never had a leg to stand on From the aspirins to the cross-tops to the Elavils

But I will walk down to the end with you If you will come all the way down with me

Another Mountain Goats classic. If you divorce it from its context of being from a concept album about a horrible marriage, I actually think this song is kind of sweet in the way it describes a couple still committing to try to make things work despite a whole host of problems. But never mind that now, because I’m putting it back in the new context of a whole collection of horrible romantic relationships!

7. “Risk” by Metric

So you're beaten up but you bounce back It’s all part of the pull And the story runs like a soundtrack We repeat 'til we're full Started slow, started late Started strong, then we lost faith Started slow, started to lose control The more we accelerate, the more we accelerate

Half of arranging any playlist I make is just trying to split up the Mountain Goats and Metric songs so that they aren’t always clumped together. Anyway, this one seems especially fitting to me in its imagery of a speeding vehicle of some kind (it’s a train, I’m always picturing a train) alongside its description of a relationship going badly.

8. “Big God” by Florence + The Machine

You know I still like you the most The best of the best and the worst of the worst Well, you can never know The places that I go I still like you the most You'll always be my favourite ghost

I think this one could be any one of the three of them contemplating their complex feelings about the past at some point around season 2.

9. “I Still Do” by The Cranberries

I don't want to leave you Even though I have to I don't want to love you Oh, I still do

There aren’t as many specifics that match the characters going on in the lyrics here, since it’s more of just a general break-up song, but I also really like the creepy way it sounds.

10. “Fault Lines” by The Mountain Goats

But none of the money we spend Seems to do us much good in the end I got a cracked engine block, both of us do

Yeah, the house and the jewels, the Italian racecar They don't make us feel better about who we are I got termites in the framework, so do you

This one feels really fitting for pre-Freeze Wilford, especially the engine imagery!

11. “I Don’t Care” by Fall Out Boy

Say my name and his in the same breath I dare you to say they taste the same Let the leaves fall off in the summer And let December glow in flames

Erase myself and let go Start it over again in Mexico These friends, they don't love you They just love the hotel suites

Another song that is simply a) an absolute jam, and b) generally fitting for my favourite obscenely rich asshole and his terrible relationships

12. “You asked for this” by Halsey

I want my cake on a silver platter I want a fistful in my hands I want a beautiful boy's despondent laughter I wanna ruin all my plans I want a fist around my throat I wanna cry so hard, I choke I want everything I asked for

This one I can picture as Audrey—or maybe Melanie too, but especially Audrey—beginning to regret getting involved with Wilford, but only once she’s in way too deep for leaving to be a safe or easy decision.

13. “my tears ricochet” by Taylor Swift

And if I'm dead to you, why are you at the wake? Cursing my name, wishing I stayed Look at how my tears ricochet

Much like several other Taylor Swift songs, I just know in my heart that it’s the type of music Wilford listens to in secret, while possibly drunk and definitely singing along very dramatically. This one he dedicates to Melanie once they’ve met up again in season 2.

14. “Speed the Collapse” by Metric

All the way from where we came Built a mansion in a day Distant lightning, thunder claps Watched our neighbor's house collapse Looked the other way

This one has a lot of good apocalyptic imagery that I can imagine scoring Wilford’s life in the last few years before the Freeze, as he makes his plans to save himself and let so many others die.

15. “Ox Baker Triumphant” by The Mountain Goats

I will thank my ride and crawl my way back inside To the guts of the building where my enemies Hide in the dark like roaches And I will signal the camera crew and everyone will do What he's been trained how to do Sweat dripping from my face as my moment approaches

Click your heels, count to three I bet you never expected me A little worse for wear Practically walking on air

I love this song a lot, and listening to it lately makes me imagine Wilford plotting his revenge while on his way to catch up with Snowpiercer before the end of season 1.

16. “Firewood” by Regina Spektor

The piano is not firewood yet But the cold does get cold So it soon might be that I'll take it apart, call up my friends And we'll warm up our hands by the fire

Don't look so shocked Don't judge so harsh You don't know You’re only spying Everyone knows it's going to hurt But at least we'll get hurt trying

This has to be one of my favourite songs of all time. It’s very beautiful, and I love the piano in it. I’ve always personally interpreted it to be at least partially about someone surviving a suicide attempt, and the overall imagery about burning a piano for warmth—and this bit about not judging someone for doing that—reads to me as more of a general statement about the difficult choices people struggling with mental illness and other similar issues have to make to survive. I listened to it recently and I could picture Audrey singing it in the nightcar. I think it suits her well.

17. “Cry for Judas” by The Mountain Goats

But I am just a broken machine And I do things that I don't really mean Long, black night Morning frost I'm still here But all is lost

I think the imagery of this song suits the show a lot in general, but I can also particularly imagine it being Wilford in a rare moment of self-awareness about how much damage he’s caused to the world and the people around him.

18. “Rock ‘n’ Roll Suicide” by David Bowie

Time takes a cigarette, puts it in your mouth You pull on your finger, then another finger, then your cigarette The wall-to-wall is calling, it lingers, then you forget Oh oh, oh, oh, you're a rock 'n' roll suicide

I love Wilford a lot. I don’t want anything bad to happen to him ever. I hope he kills more people, and I hope he gets his train back, and I hope he wins. But if he does eventually die in the show, I hope he’s found in the bathtub with there being some ambiguity about whether he really killed himself or whether one of his victims turned the tables on him, and I hope the climax of this song swells as the camera pans over his dead body. That’s the only Wilford death I will accept, thanks for coming to my TED talk.

19. “Source Decay” by The Mountain Goats

I park in an alley And I read through the postcards you continue to send Where as indirectly as you can, you ask what I remember I like these torture devices from my old best friend Well, I'll tell you what I know, like I swore I always would I don't think it's gonna do you any good I remember the train headed south out of Bangkok Down toward the water

Okay, I promise this is the last Mountain Goats song on the playlist. It’s just—it’s perfect. It has a train in it. And on the podcast “I Only Listen To The Mountain Goats,” John Darnielle commented that there’s barely anywhere you can go south of Bangkok before you hit the water, it’s a train going nowhere, it’s so good. It’s also one of the songs I’ve previously ripped a line off for my fanfiction titles!

20. “Sellers of Flowers” by Regina Spektor

The sellers of flowers Buy up old roses They pull off dead petals Like old heads of lettuce And sell ’em as new ones For cheaper and fairer But they die by the morning So who is the winner? Not the roses Not the buyers Not the sellers Maybe winter

And Regina Spektor closes out the playlist again! This song is another one I picked more on imagery and vibes than anything else. But since it’s about a young child in a world that seems to be moving inexorably toward an all-consuming winter, if it suits any of the characters, maybe it’s an appearance of Alex here at the end!

Thanks for reading, and I hope you enjoy the playlist!

#snowpiercer #wilford #music #snowpiercer tv

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consumedkings-archive · 4 years

Text

ancient names, pt. xvii

A John Seed/Original Female Character Fanfic

Ancient Names, pt xvii: what the wolves taught me

Masterlink Post

Word Count: ~6.9k

Rating: Explicit.

Warnings: mentions of gore and blood, like a LOT of mentions of blood, mentions of self-harm, shower sex without Reasonable Protection, also like kind of dubious if you squint because John is tripping, bad decisions are made as well as some questionable dirty talk (John really likes that she beat a man to death). Elliot kind of has like one (1) tiny power trip. Idk man just like proceed with caution??

Notes: A little bit of an interlude chapter, this one! Last chap was a bit intense, so this one's more of a transition--not a lot happens in terms of plot movement, so everyone can go ahead and catch your breath. ♡ As always, a big and huge thank you to everyone who reads and comments, has come and said hi to me on my tumblr. This fandom has been so incredibly lovely and welcoming and just understanding of my general chaos and my inability to bend to canon at all. I'm just so grateful to each and every one of you! Thank you thank you thank you!

Big thank you to @shallow-gravy for lending me their eyeballs and for making me this GORGEOUS moodboard for Elliot. When I say that I like died inside when I saw it, it's because my life became complete and I was ready to ascend. Thank you so much!!

And of course my angel @starcrier, my lover my life my shawty my wife, who proofreads all my garbage even though she doesn’t even go here but she goes here for me! ILY ♡

As always, I hope you enjoy and thank you again! ♡

John felt pretty good, all things considered.

Yeah, he was probably going to feel like shit when came off of his high; yeah, kissing Elliot did smear blood all over his mouth, but when he spotted the two of them in the reflection of the truck’s dark windows, Elliot’s face and hair splattered in crimson and the very obvious incrimination on his mouth, he thought, well, don’t we make quite a pair?

Everything blurred and pulsed pleasantly around him now as he sat in the passenger seat of the truck. The crash of the drug wasn’t really much of a crash at all—idly, John wondered how it was they got the downturn to be so easy, so slow, so mild. Each time he took in a breath it felt like the car expanded with him. There wasn’t anything the world, in that moment, that wasn’t for him, not a single thing that didn’t sway and pulse and beat in time with the rhythm of his own heart.

Except for Elliot. When he looked at her, red sparked off of her in violent waves to their own metronome, mimicking the dashes of crimson on her face and in her hair; the bruises welled red and blue along the pillar of her throat, her jaw, one on the corner of her mouth. She looked wild; her eyes moved with a sharp clarity that had him wondering how long that Wrath had really been sitting inside of her.

Not a good girl, he thought, watching Elliot drag her thumb from one end of her mouth to the other, wiping the blood their liplock had smeared around. He could still taste it in his mouth. Not anymore.

You couldn’t be good and bash a man’s skull in, could you? And it was bashed in—John had gotten one single good, long look at Kian’s face, and there was nothing of it left except bloody mush and two battered eyeballs barely stuffed into his skull. Gruesome. Well past the point of killing him.

“They attacked the compound,” Jacob was saying from the driver’s seat, pulling out onto the highway with a not-so-kind lurch as they hit pavement. “About an hour after you took off. I bet they were waiting. Fucking cockroaches.”

John glanced into the rearview mirror. He meant to look and see if he could catch any movement in the trees—anything that wasn’t Eden’s Gate—but he just looked at Elliot. Sharp-eyed, bloodied, fingers knotted into Boomer’s fur as the dog lay with his head in her lap. It wouldn’t have done any good, looking back there; everything was moving. Everything was breathing.

“Drugged me,” he offered helpfully, his tongue feeling a little too big for his mouth. Jacob looked at him through the sides of his eyes and hit the cruise button. “Got a radio back, too. I tried calling you guys, but—”

“But not Elliot,” Jacob said, less a question and more a confirmation of what he believed to be true. John shrugged idly.

His eldest brother glanced back at Elliot then, but she was silent for two heartbeats longer than what it should have taken for her to answer before she replied, “Wouldn’t have been fun for him if I was.”

“Yeah, well,” the redhead muttered. “You sure made...” His voice trailed off, and his eyes fixed on the road again. “... Work of him, didn’t you, deputy?”

Elliot sighed. That Jacob said you made work instead of you made quick work made John painfully, delightfully aware of how many times and how much effort it must have taken for Elliot to cave Kian’s face in, and that knowledge writhed pleasant and desirous in his stomach.

But Jacob didn’t sound pleased. John supposed that he wouldn’t be, all things considered. Kian was dead, sure, but the rest of the Family had almost certainly scattered like rats to whatever corner of Hope County they could reach. They would be a problem. By now, they were all supposed to be hunkering down in the bunker to outlast the End Days, and instead, they were contesting with an entirely different pest.

Maybe Elliot was right; maybe without Ase and Kian, they would just leave. Go and kill some other tiny town of people. Get their skin melted off by the nuclear war.

In fact, if John really thought about it—and it did take work—he didn’t think that the Family was much of a problem at all anymore. The only thing that remained questionable, and up in the air, was Elliot herself.

My wife, he thought, his brain ticking and idling like an engine cooling down, wading through the neck-high water of his thoughts. Each leap from one thread to the next felt sugary-slow. Little killer, aren’t you?

He didn’t think that she would be content with hunkering down in a bunker. That would take some time to warm up to, probably—and, John reasoned, he would have to first broach the subject of their legal binding. But that was another problem, for another time, and right now all John wanted to think about was getting home and enjoying his high while he had it.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

When Elliot was very young, she remembered coming across a snake coiled on the hot pavement of the path up to their front door. It had been after school; her mother had had the windows of the kitchen open, playing an old song, something about a dream, and she could hear it from all the way down at the road. The snake was basking—drinking in the sunlight, mottled in shades of brown and copper, flecks of white highlighting the prettiest parts of it. The snake had been a dream to a girl who ran wild and barefoot through every inch of the Hope County wilderness she could reach; the speckled pattern begging for a touch, it’s elegant coil beckoning for attention.

The window to the kitchen had been open, and the second her mother had seen her staring at the snake, she’d come sprinting out the front door. Her mother had never liked any kind of animal that didn’t have four legs and wouldn’t fall under the “fluffy retriever” category, so at first, she had thought it was just her mother’s aversion to the scaly members of the animal kingdom; but after her mother’s insistent shrieking that she give the rattler a wide berth on the way up to the front steps, she’d thought maybe it was actual danger worrying her mother.

Of course, Scarlet had called the sheriff’s office and immediately demanded someone come and get rid of the snake (even though you weren’t supposed to call the sheriff’s office for that kind of thing, there was animal control) while she made herself a vodka soda.

“He’s pretty, mama,” Elliot had said, staring out the window at the snake. “Did you see his spots?”

“Pretty.” Scarlet had never sounded more displeased. She squeezed her lime into her drink, muttering furiously. “All those spots mean that ugly thing would kill you with one bite, bunny. Do you hear me? Venomous. Stay away from it.”

Now, sitting in the back seat of an Eden’s Gate truck, her face mottled with a dead man’s arterial spray, she felt like that prairie rattler, her spots belying a poison and vicious bite.

Pretty, she thought tiredly, combing her fingers through Boomer’s fur. Pretty venomous.

Her gaze drifted absently, away from the landscape blurring past them as Jacob cruised back to the compound and instead onto the occupants of the car. John was leaned back in his seat, eyes fluttering shut occasionally like he couldn’t keep them open very well, and Jacob had a tight grip on the steering wheel. A pack of cigarettes sat in one of the cupholders in the center console, and she reached for them on autopilot.

Jacob’s gaze flickered down to her hand snaking between them. For a second, he looked like he’d been about to grab her hand, like maybe he thought she was trying something—but his fingers stayed on the steering wheel, and he said, “Probably a lighter in the console.”

Elliot snagged the cigarettes and then fished around in the console until she found the lighter. The cotton fabric of Ase’s high-necked dress felt sticky on her skin, like she was in the middle of a summer storm; chill seeped down into her bones, and her skin bloomed feverish, and she thought this is when the crash happens, but it didn’t hit. She lit a cigarette and rolled the window down before she took a drag and felt the tiredness pull at the corners of her vision.

The song from her memory played on a gentle loop in her head. Leisurely, lulling. So dream, when the day is new; dream, and they might come true. Her mother had listened to that song so many times, growing up. She wondered, briefly, if her mother was alright. If she’d gotten out. If she’d gone with the resistance and fled, or if she was still here somewhere, or if she was dead.

“Anyone get hurt?” she asked after a minute. “At the compound?”

“A few,” Jacob replied. His eyes narrowed. “None dead, though.”

Elliot exhaled smoke out the window. She thought she would have felt dirty, now, sticky with Kian’s breath and his fingers and his mouth against her skin—but she didn’t, not right away. She just felt—

“Sure that’s disappointing for you,” Jacob continued.

—tired.

“Eat shit, Jacob,” she muttered. “I just solved your biggest problem.”

“No, you didn’t,” he snapped back. “Not by a long fucking mile, deputy.”

The redhead eyed her through the mirror, but she didn’t say anything to that—and for the rest of the ride back to the compound, it was blissful, empty silence.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

John thought he must have certainly fallen asleep in the car, because one second he was blinking through Jacob talking about how the compound had been attacked, and the next they were parking.

The compound looked a little worse for wear, but it was quiet; if not for the bullet holes in the walls of buildings, and the occasional blood spray dried nearly black with time, he wouldn’t have known anything was amiss at all. He would have thought it was a regular evening—but was far from it.

At the very least, John felt a little clearer now. His high was slowly cruising down, and he’d probably feel all of his bruises once he sobered up, but for now he buzzed.

Jacob climbed out of the driver’s seat beside him, and his body operated on autopilot to do the same. He saw Boomer drop from the truck and stick his nose to the ground instantly, eyes wary and waiting to see if any danger still lurked. When Elliot’s feet touched the ground, the Heeler did a single loop around her legs and then nosed her hand.

“John,” his brother said, his voice clipped. “Chapel.”

“Right,” John replied. He glanced over his shoulder and then looked at Elliot; she took in a little breath and waved her hand.

“Gonna shower,” she told him. “I’m good.”

John reached for her, fingers itching; Elliot caught his wrist before his hand could land on her shoulder, or her face, but she used it to pull him closer, and then she kissed him—leaned up and pressed her mouth, tasting like wild copper and a little like ash, against his. John’s brain fizzed white static and he sighed against her kiss, and he was reminded of how electric she had felt back there in the forest with the buzz of her kill still sitting under her skin.

“John,” Jacob insisted, louder this time, “now.”

“Okay,” John said, but he said it into the kiss, sliding his hand from Elliot’s grasp. “Okay, I’m—”

And like that she had pulled away from him; she whistled for Boomer and set off across the yard for the bunkhouse, and he turned and forced his legs to move towards the chapel. I’m good, she’d said. What did she mean? What did “good” constitute?

His brain felt too muggy for him to contemplate whether or not he was spiraling on a thought because it had some other meaning or because he was high, so he just pushed aside as he walked into the chapel, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. Joseph was there, sitting beside Faith; their heads bowed in silence, only disturbed when the sound of his and Jacob’s footsteps echoed in the quiet.

“You’re safe,” Joseph said, sounding relieved. As John came closer, his older brother lifted an arm; beckoning him, and he went instantly. Joseph’s hand cradled the back of his head and pressed their foreheads together in an embrace that was far softer than anything that had occurred between them as of late. It felt like John’s entire body sighed in relief. “We were so worried, John.”

“And high as shit,” Jacob replied as they neared. “Tripping fuckin' balls, aren’t you, Johnny?”

“It’s fine,” John insisted, though he could hear the words slur a little even as he tried very hard to punctuate them on their way out of his mouth. “Not so bad.”

“You look awful,” Faith murmured. “What happened?”

“Um,” he said.

“Kian’s dead,” Jacob explained helpfully.

Joseph blinked. His expression was guarded, but hopeful. “Good news, then.”

“Deputy Honeysett bashed his skull in with a shotgun.”

Faith said, “Oh.”

A moment of silence stretched between them. Jacob paced to the front of the chapel; Joseph absently scratched at his cheek, his hand having withdrawn from John as he took in this news from his brothers. John tried not to shift too much, but the silence was killing him—he didn’t know how Joseph was going to feel about that. If he would still want Elliot with them.

“Was she?” Joseph asked after a minute. “Drugged?”

“No,” John said. “Not—I mean, she said she wasn't.”

“So she did it on her own,” he continued, “without being influenced by anything that could arguably… Cause a hallucination which would make her do that.”

“I—” John’s brain struggled to keep up with Joseph’s train of thought. “I—guess—”

“This is good news, then.” Joseph’s voice bloomed with warmth. “Don’t you see? There is no person more in need of us,” he continued, “than someone who has nowhere left to go.”

“And where would she go,” Jacob muttered, “that wouldn’t commit her to a psychiatric ward.”

Joseph nodded. His hand returned to the back of John’s neck and gripped there, firm and steadfast.

“You’ve done so well, John,” he said, “but our time is running out. You know that, don’t you? We are borrowing it now, from God himself, and I don’t intend to go into the next phase of our lives with a debt to pay.”

John blinked through the fog in his brain and swallowed thickly. He thought he knew what it was that Joseph was telling him—but before he could think too hard on it, Jacob interjected, “John hasn’t told the deputy about their blissful union.”

“What?” Faith asked, head snapping to look at him.

“Well,” John began.

“Actually,” Jacob continued, “he lied about it.”

“Well,” John tried again, irritably, “it had already been done, and she didn’t remember it thanks to Faith’s handiwork, and at the moment in time I thought—maybe—it would be worse off to tell her rather than…”

He fumbled for the words he wanted to say; the truth was that there were no good excuses. He just didn’t trust Elliot not to go absolutely feral when she found out, because she certainly didn’t remember it which meant she certainly was going to have feelings about it. And that was a problem.

But a problem for another time. Right?

“You’re gonna stick us in a bunker with her,” Jacob snapped, “and let her lose her shit on us while we’re trapped.”

“I won’t,” John insisted.

Joseph exhaled softly. “John—”

“I’ll—I’ve got it under control!” he exclaimed, looking at Joseph. “I know Elliot better than any of you, and I’ll find the right way to tell her, and it’ll be fine. I know.”

His older brother watched him with a pensive gaze. For a moment, John thought he saw regret flash across Joseph’s face—maybe for praising him too fast, maybe for entrusting this to him at all in the first place. But if he let someone down, that wasn’t his fault, right? This shit was so far beyond the plan of attack—so far beyond what they had anticipated, that there was a margin for error.

No, John thought, no, there isn’t. I know better. I’m better. I know.

“Borrowed time, John,” Joseph cautioned at last. “We’ve got to get rid of these locusts, and then we will be retreating for the End. You understand?”

John steadied the breath that tried to slip out of him. I don’t want to go into the next phase of our lives with a debt to pay.

“Yes, Joseph,” he replied. “I understand.”

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

The stinging shower water ran pink to the drain. Elliot dunked her head under the water and passed her hands over her face; she stood there for a moment letting the water pool in the cups of her hands until her lungs ached and she had to let it go, spilling over her neck and shoulders. The dark dress, wretched thing, had been discarded and tossed into the trash; she thought if she had to look at herself in it for one more second she was going to come fucking undone, and that just wouldn't do.

The door clicked open; a brief moment of hesitation sounded before she heard footsteps coming inside. “El?”

She turned in the shower, wiping water from her eyes before tugging the curtain back. John regarded her with eyes only half-intoxicated, more clarity about them now than there had been in the truck.

Elliot watched him for a moment as she considered. The chill hadn't left her bones, even in the scalding hot water.

“Are you getting in?” she asked, watching his gaze flicker absently before landing back on her.

“Are you inviting me?”

Elliot pulled back from the curtain and ducked back under the water. “I’ve never known you to need an invite.”

“Fair enough, I won't disappoint.”

There was the gentle rustle of fabric, the push of the curtain, and then she wasn’t alone in the shower anymore; but it was fine, because she didn’t want to be alone anymore, because it felt like her entire body was vibrating and she couldn’t get it to stop. Unlike John, who she guessed was cruising down the same gentle crash that she had felt when the Family had drugged her with their weird shit, there was nothing inhibiting her body now. Only the quick, sharp, violent buzzing of blood on her mind, under her fingernails, between her teeth.

It felt good, too. An adrenaline high; the fall, right before impact.

John’s hands slid along her hips. The calloused pads of his fingers—fingers meant to hurt, to twist and coerce—skimmed the scars along her abdomen, sloping across her hip bones; she didn’t have to glance down to see that’s what he was doing. You’ll tell me, he’d said that morning. Eventually.

“I did them,” she said around the dull roaring in her ears. The words tasted strange on her tongue. A verbal admittance was very different from scribbling it into a journal. But the catharsis had begun; with Kian’s collapsed skull imprinted into her mind forever, it felt as though a tension had released in her, pulled taut and sharp and finally ripped free.

“Did what?” he asked, nosing past wet hair to glide his mouth along the pillar of her throat.

“The scars,” Elliot murmured. “I did them.” To feel real, she wanted to say, I did them so I could know that I was still real, but the words wouldn’t come. Maybe they didn’t need to.

John’s thumb swept along the one that stretched over her hip bone. He hummed, low and hungry, into her skin. He might have been coming down from his high, but it didn’t seem to be pushing him into sleep; he was enjoying it, the gentle careening to sobriety.

And maybe tomorrow she would regret telling him. Maybe tomorrow she would feel dirty for the way that she killed Kian, instead of intoxicated with her own magic. Maybe, maybe, maybe—but that was a thing to think about when the time came, and just like she had done everything else about herself that she hadn't liked, she would strangle it and move on.

John turned her around so that he could pull her against him. He said, “I thought so,” like he had recognized it in her, and she thought about that dream. Just like me, holding her blood-covered hands in his. You’re just like me.

Lifting her arms, Elliot carded her fingers through his hair and then gripped, pulling him in to press her mouth against his. She kissed him the way that she wanted to; no time for shyness now, she thought, no room for hesitation. John had watched her cave a man’s face in, and he was still here and hungry, so she kissed him hard—dug her teeth into his lip and revelled in the way that he moaned and leaned into her.

He’d kissed her frantically, too, back in the clearing and with Kian’s body just a foot away from them. Kissed her with blood in her mouth, greedy and insatiable, and frenzied, like he’d wanted her right then and there and wasn’t willing to let her go until he absolutely had to.

The raised skin of his Sloth scar dragged under her fingers. She dug her nails into the soft expanse of his shoulder, and he made a low, delicious noise against her mouth. I could give him more, she thought, dizzied at the idea of it, at this sudden humming, heady power she felt had become hers. This something that had become unlocked inside of her. I could give him more, and he’d thank me for it.

“Elliot,” John began, hands gripping her hips as he nudged her back against the shower wall. But he didn’t follow it up with anything; he just kept her there, skin on skin, heat bleeding out from every inch of him. His hand drifted up above her head, fumbling at the window, trying to push it open. “Fuck, it’s so fucking—hot in here—”

I want to be yours. I want a home with you.

Briefly, she wondered if that dream had been as wishful as she’d thought. John had been exactly what she wanted him to be—just the color, just the shape, everything in him built to lure her and keep her there like the most perfect predator. It was easy to forget that she had never known that she wanted a man whose hair was dark and his eyes a little cruel until she had looked at John Seed. But now it was impossible to ignore; she pressed to him, craved him, this delicious anchor of hers.

He could be cruel, if he wanted—he’d considered drowning her to death. He’d been greedy to mark her skin forever with her sin. He’d littered his body with markings and scars, testaments to his devotion, just like he had done every other conversion.

Yes, she thought absently, against the stifling heat of the stinging shower and John’s own radiating warmth, feverish from the hallucinogen seeping out of him. He is cruel. But maybe I—

And then he murmured, against her ear, “Want you,” hazy and buzzing and warm. His fingers slid down between them, gliding along the curve of where she most wanted his attention, and she felt her breath hitch in her throat. He buried his face into her neck and sighed, pressing into her and eliciting in her a spark that traveled straight down her spine; and then, almost as though he wasn’t thinking too hard about it: “Would’ve—back in the forest—”

He cut himself off and his movements stilled, just for a second. Elliot tilted her head to look at him through her eyelashes and canted her hips to gain some friction against the heel of his palm; she wasn't bothering anymore to stifle the stuttered, half-breath-half-whimper that came out of her as slick pleasure pooled in her stomach, the feeling of his fingers dragging a delicious, heady burn through her.

Elliot heard him swallow back a sound over the white noise of the shower. It was a wicked kind of thing, this watching John as she leaned down into him; watching the muscle in his jaw tense and flex just before he beckoned his fingers against her and bit out a swear between his teeth when her body tensed and arched prettily into his touch. Needy and wanting; just the way that he liked, she was sure.

“Would’ve what?” she prompted breathlessly. John’s lashes, long and darker still from the shower spray, flickered. He seemed to be weighing it in his head, the pros and cons of what he had been going to say, but Elliot was no longer in a place of wanting to wobble. No floating, no drifting between ethereal and corporeal—she didn’t want to have to wonder, to have to piece together what it was he was thinking with the crumbling threads she could scoop up.

He didn't answer her; instead, he dragged his mouth along the slope of her neck, teeth digging against her pulse point. Elliot moaned, choking the noise halfway out of her spitefully, because she wanted him to earn it, and he did it again—harder this time, less like he was testing and more like he knew that she wanted it. The sting rippled heady anticipation straight to her brain, sparking through that hazy fog in her mind.

She sighed, "John," just as he dragged his fingers out slowly, torturously slowly, not enough to give her even half the friction she wanted and not so little that it didn’t make her suffer in the best sort of way. As soon as they didn’t return, but rather traveled the expanse of her abdomen, a quiet complaint slipped out of her; John kissed her, his tongue gliding against hers, his teeth nipping and biting as he dragged her leg up around his hip.

Everything felt like it was happening between breaths, between heartbeats, her pulse moving so sluggishly it was lava spreading through her body. Stifling, so hot, too hot, too much, but John’s mouth over hers pushed and pulled the breath out of her, guided the currents of her like the moon. Elliot tried again, giving the words more punch on their way out, “You would’ve what?”

She thought that she knew what he was going to say, and she wanted to hear him say it, that he would’ve—

“Fucked you,” John managed out hoarsely, just as he rocked into her. “God, I—”

Yes, she thought; the word left her mouth in something close to an exhale, and she didn’t know if she was responding to what he’d said or to the way it felt like he’d set a wildfire going racing along her skeleton the second they connected. He managed out a half-moaned swear and shifted into a slower, more leisurely paced as he sighed, “I would’ve, El— fuck , you’re so tight— ”

Pleasure wrenched in her stomach and writhed, hot and wicked. John’s pace was halting; he was trying not to go too fast or too hard even though he wanted to, but then he said things like how he wanted to fuck her while she was covered in blood and—

And she felt seen, and wanted, and she thought this must have been how they did it: took all of the grit and gore of someone and worshipped it, like something holy.

Biggest fucking Peggy-killer this side of Hope County, he’d spat at her that day they’d found Waylon’s body. But now? Now, it was all, so tight, El, want you, would’ve fucked you right there.

His hands grazed the bruises on her body before stopping at her hips again. He pulled back to get a good look at her, and then reached up, cradling her jaw with his left hand and dragging the pad of his thumb across her lip. A thrill crawled up her spine, hot and searing and latching onto her; she thought, this magic is mine now, too, and she parted her lips obediently to drag him into her mouth just so she could watch John just about come unglued.

And never before had she felt like this, wicked with John’s eyes blown wide and dark with want as his gaze fixed on her mouth and moaned, “God, Elliot—”

She wanted to forget about Kian’s hands on her body, his mouth on her skin, his words ringing in her head. So she did; she indulged in the feeling of John’s breath trembling as her tongue flickered against the pad of his thumb and the way he hissed as his pace changed.

“Should have,” Elliot managed out when his thumb slipped from her mouth so that he could press his hand against the wall by her head. She said it between dizzying, radiating pleasure dragging through her body, devouring her, dragging her further and further toward the edge. “Should have—fucked me then, John, I—”

“F-Fuck.” The swear left his mouth wrecked, his movements stuttering. “Fuck, that’s so— filthy.”

He stopped tempering himself. If he was doing it because he was worried about whatever injuries she’d sustained, she was glad that he’d stopped—each haphazard, frenzied connection of their bodies sent her rapidly hurtling towards her finish, his fingers digging and dragging against the parts of her that craved him the most. It wasn’t fair, really, that John could rumble a few dirty things about wanting to fuck her in the woods and get her so close: but he did, and she was, and that was the end of it.

She breathed out, “Close, John—I’m—”

“Liked that, did you?” He sounded awfully pleased with himself, even as each of his breaths were punctuated with a desirous sound. “Liked me telling you how badly I wanted to push that dress up and fuck you right there? You get s-so —fucking tight when I say that—c’mon, El, let me hear those pretty noises—”

“Yes,” Elliot moaned, hazy with want, desperate and still trying to swallow some of it back, so close so close so close. “Yes, yes, I— John—”

John said something into her mouth; she couldn’t have said what it was, because all of the blood went rushing through her head the second her climax hit. There was a strange, suspended moment of nothing before it ripped straight through her, every neuron firing off rapidly as she buried her face into John’s neck and dug her nails in hard while the wave washed over her, wicked-hot and nearly too much.

Nearly, but not quite. John’s teeth on her lip dragged her back, and he moaned, “Holy shit, fuck yes —fuck, El, I’m gonna—let me—”

He couldn’t quite get out what he was trying to say, but Elliot thought she knew; it wasn’t hard to guess, anyway, considering the way he was gripping her like he’d fucking disappear if he didn’t. And she felt a little wild, a little wicked, only a vicious desire left before she hit empty, so she managed out, “Beg.”

John pulled back a little and let his gaze rake over her. His movements slowed, just enough that she could tell that he was pacing himself, holding back the same way he had that first time when she’d dragged him through his own climax. Though his eyes were blown nearly black, the clarity about them made her want to squirm—that she knew he wasn’t quite so high as he was before, that he was going to remember this.

“Wh—” The brunette swallowed thickly; his hands skimmed absently across her skin, like he didn’t need to really think about it to do it anymore, but that they did it of their own volition. “What?”

With that same kind of recklessness, Elliot knotted her fingers in his hair and said, “ Beg to finish inside me.”

A short, breathless laugh barked out of him. He said, “Fuck you. I’m not—I don’t—”

Elliot squirmed, pulling on his hair until his lashes fluttered and he was leaning back into her on instinct. “You do now,” she replied silkily against his mouth. And then, in an attempt at graciousness: “Didn’t you want me to be loud, John? To hear me?”

He groaned. “Y—Yes—”

“So beg me,” she bit out, canting her hips against him and feeling his breath stutter and hitch, “and I’ll be as loud—”

“Fuck—”

“—as you want—”

“— yes —”

“—tell you how much I want it—”

“ Please,” John moaned as he slotted his hips against hers, unable to hold still any longer. He made a low, wrecked sound, and by the time the adrenaline rush from hearing John Seed say please to her had hit her brain he was foregoing all pretense. “Please, El, let me finish inside you, I’ll—fuck—make you feel so good, baby, make you mine—”

Elliot kissed him, hard and punishing, and moaned “Yes—yes, John, so good ,” against his mouth until he was driving into her like a man incensed, frenzied, each desperate dig of his fingers against the bruises in her skin delivering a different kind of delicious pain; and when he came, panting, yes, fuck yes, don’t stop, El, please, fuck, she held onto him tighter.

Anything to feel whole. Anything to feel safe. Anything to forget, even for a moment.

“Don’t move,” John managed out unsteadily. “Don’t—Jesus, fuck, it’s so fucking hot in here.”

“Don’t know where I’d go,” she replied in a murmur. Her brain felt foggy now, delicious sliding down from her high, remembering the surge of delight she’d felt when John had said please, El. The water had since gone lukewarm, and she wasn’t sure she even got all of the blood out of her hair, but it didn’t matter; pleasant after-currents rippled through her, and all she could think about was how little of her brain was being spent on churning around the Family.

John’s mouth traced a bruise on her neck—either from him, or Kian; she didn’t know—and his breath slid across her skin.

“Viper,” he murmured huskily, admiringly. “Aren’t you?”

“You said it yourself,” she replied tiredly, eyes fluttering as the desperate need for sleep finally registered in her brain; no more adrenaline to keep pushing it away. “More devil than woman.”

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

It was the second time waking up next to John, and the second time of having to try and brace herself for some kind of impact after.

That is to say, Elliot thought that maybe fucking John Seed felt a little bit like throwing herself off of a cliff, and so every time it happened—she thought, as though it had been more than twice—it was the same sensation of falling. The feeling prevailed over any other logic in her brain: upon waking, she thought very little of the sensation of his arm draped over her waist or his face buried into her hair and only of the sheer blast of panic that raced through her.

I smell, I feel, I hear, she thought, closing her eyes tight, but when she did, she saw Kian—blood streaming down his face, gripping her jaw, will you feel guilty about this too? And the panic shifted into dread, knotting tight and hard in her stomach.

She forced her eyes open. Sheer exhaustion had pushed her through a dreamless night, but that didn’t mean that her nightmares were confined to sleeping hours only.

When Elliot shifted, John stirred; his fingers skimmed up the back of her shirt, palm flattening at the spot between her shoulder blades, and she winced. Everything hurt. Everything ached. She wondered what was worse; nightmares, or this?

Definitely the nightmares, she thought, each breath a labor of her bruised and battered body. Right? Has to be the nightmares.

“Stop moving,” John muttered against her head.

“I don’t know why you don’t get the concept of a twin bed,” she snapped. “Fuck, my body hurts—”

“Well.” He was clearly trying not to sound smug, and failing; she could feel his grin into her hair. “I do recall you spurring me on—”

Oh, she thought, reminded of their shared shower. That.

A problem.

“Not from that, fuckhead.” She squirmed back from him, back pressing against the wall. “Feels like someone tried to curb stomp my ribs eighty times.”

“Probably did,” he replied. John tilted his head, wincing a little, and then nudged the blankets back from her body. His gaze was admiring. “Christ, you bruise easy, huh?”

“A fucking van t-boned us in a truck that spit out pitiful, half-functioning airbags, ” she bit out, “and then I got tossed around like a ragdoll, so—yeah, I guess if you consider battery and assault “easy”, then—”

John’s hands came up to her face and he kissed her. It lacked the same kind of urgency that it’d had last night; this was John taking his time, savoring her, parting his lips against hers and sighing into the kiss as he carded his fingers through her hair. The gesture itself was so unexpected that Elliot could do nothing but reciprocate, and the breath hitched in her throat as he tugged her back against him—part in pain and part because of the way he did it, like he just couldn’t get enough of her.

“So ungrateful,” he said against her mouth, “after I gave you what you wanted so badly last night.”

“I’m not the one who begged,” Elliot replied sharply, “am I?”

John’s hand skimmed the slope of her hip, and he made a low noise, thumb digging past the top of her underwear to press lightly into a bruise that she thought his fingers had left. She sucked in a sharp breath as a familiar heat sprinted down her spine and squirmed.

“Worth it,” he replied after a moment, teeth catching her lip, “to have you say how much you wanted me in you.”

He flashed that half-cocked, shit-eating grin that she could feel against her mouth, and she swatted his hand away from her hip. There was, perhaps, a part of her that regretted goading him like that—that regretted spurring him on—but there was no point in lingering on it now. As much as John might want to. As much as, when he looked at her with those too-blue eyes, she might want to.

Elliot opened her mouth to say something, but before she could, there was a soft, quick knock at the door. Boomer, curled up on one of her sweaters by the door, immediately pricked his ears and barked at the intrusion.

“Elliot?” It was Faith’s voice. She felt her stomach somersault, plunged into—well, it wasn’t quite shame, but maybe a little bit of embarrassment, in the way that it was to have the little sister of the man you were currently entangled with knock on your door while you were still in bed.

“I’m—” Elliot sat up, slapping a hand over John’s mouth when she saw him start to say something. “I’m getting dressed, what is it?”

“Joseph wants to talk to you,” Faith called back, pausing. And then, perhaps with a bit more slyness than Elliot liked: “And John.”

Fuck fuck fuck. The last thing she wanted was for Joseph to know . There was probably a ninety-eight percent chance that Joseph was going to be flashing that psychotic smile the second she walked in, knowing that she and John were—

“W—I’m coming,” she said, as John gripped her forearm and pressed his mouth to the pulse point on her wrist, letting his teeth drag there. She yanked her arm out of his grip and hissed, “Stop , you fucker, or I’ll pick my teeth with your fucking bones.”

“Okay,” came Faith’s light-hearted reply. “See you soon!”

As soon as she heard the footsteps receding, she turned to John. “What the fuck does your brother want with me, John?”

John shrugged. “Contrary to what you may believe about me, I am not entirely all-knowing.”

“As usual, you are stunningly unhelpful,” she muttered crossly, sliding out of the bed and over to her bag of clothes. Now, she really felt it—each impact had been dulled by the adrenaline at the time, but as she shimmied into her jeans, every inch of her body screamed in pain and her vision fuzzed around the edges.

John had gotten out of bed as well, but he departed to the bathroom and returned with a bottle of aspirin, which he shook two pills out of and held in his palm for her.

“You might consider something with a higher neck,” he suggested lightly.

Elliot snatched the aspirin out of his hand and swallowed them dry. “My teeth,” she said, jabbing a finger into his chest, “your bones.”

“Just trying to be helpful.”

“Suggestion box is closed,” Elliot snapped. “Now—”

Her eyes flickered over him. It was very easy to disassociate John’s personality from his physical body, but harder when he was half-stripped-down in front of her, scars and tattoos on display and reminding her how intimately familiar she was becoming with them.

“Now put your clothes on,” she finally said, somehow managing to keep her voice mostly steady. “I want to get this done as fast as possible.”

The brunette flashed her a cheeky smile and gave her a two-finger salute that rang sardonic at best.

“Anything you want, baby.”

#john seed x deputy #john seed x ofc #ch: elliot honeysett #otp: death keep off; i am your enemy #fic: ancient names #my writing #far cry 5 #fc5 fic #i'm not tryna be out here like have sex after you kill a man but if the mood fits u know #per usual john's hardware is on the fool setting only

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incarnateirony · 4 years

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DM Questions, Round 3.

So yet another list of questions I’ve received in DM that, though anonymously (until the person decides to say it was them), I’m posting for the class because these questions may be bumping around other people’s heads and these answers may help other people too, as the other answer lists seem to be doing. And also to further encourage IT IS OKAY TO DM ME AND ASK THINGS, it doesn’t make anyone stupid or anything, it’s a VERY DIFFERENT THOUGHT PROCESS to try to digest.

Who or what is Death? I kind of had the idea of everything having an opposing/flip side so God/Amara, Adam/Eve, Heaven/Hell, Purgatory/The Empty and had put The Shadow/Death together and it just led to who or what is Death? Life/Death. You’ll notice something though: beyond maybe Adam and Eve, these aren’t necessarily true dualities. God is Light (or stolen Light), Amara is the Absence of Light, because Darkness isn’t a thing, it’s a nonthing. Heaven is supposedly union with God (be that Chuck or understanding man as the true god), hell is the absence of God. Life is the time we know in our bodies on earth, Death is the absence of that. These are non-things humans take as dualities: but again, Absence. Just like the soul as the true good: “What Jack did isn’t evil, it was the absence of good.” We do not take “Has a Soul” and “Soulless” as true dualities.

If you read the corpus hermeticum, you can actually read about the art of man becoming Deathless--and will recognize some of the base dialogue/concept of Jack talking to the subconscious serpent in the garden (eg, who art thou), but the simple point is, it takes thinking outside of the box of life (and life, in SPN, is literally illustrated as Chuck’s playground) to understand the limitlessness of Death. Life is just a small box in which we adventure, but everything beyond that is technically in “Death.” Death is an infinite vessel, because Death is all the things Life is not in its limited definitions.

For example, technically the Shadow exists within Death, despite being in the Empty. Why? Because it is not in Life. It births the soul into the idea of Life, but itself exists outside of Life. Ergo, the shadow exists in death, an infinite vessel. This can be hard to wrap around when there’s avatars, but I mean, like Amara: Amara is The Darkness. Ok. It’s nighttime. The sun has gone down so it isn’t putting out light (beyond what the moon reflects (teehee [x] )or unnatural lights provide.) In your home, turn off all your lights. Is the darkness something that exists, or is it something that just doesn’t exist (light) in that space?

These are the kind of embodied elements they are having run around on our screen right now. Death is everything Chuck’s world is not. Which is also why it tries to be what escorts you into the mental realms once your time in Chuck’s world passes. Once the reaper comes and your clock stops ticking in Chuck’s Swiss Watch. It is your Absence in the sandbox of Life, and something Life Itself was built on top of. To put it simply, Death is the shadow of the world if you will.

With regards to those different places: Heaven = humans with pure souls after death Hell = humans with twisted souls after death Purgatory = monsters (soulless or not?) after death The Empty = Angels/\demons +no souls)after death? That's the long and short of it, yes. Though I think ultimately the point will be disbanding most of these in the end.

So if Cas has a soul why did he go to the Empty? But Jack when he died first time round didn't? Even though the Shadow thought he should have, and then when soulless Jack died he did go there? Same reason the Empty came for Jack to begin with, it considered that made of grace its' own. Even if he had a soul. Now keep in mind I also delineate the hard divide of soul and grace. They are... very different and yet not. I speak of energy in transfer often, be it AC/DC conversion or-- well, I talk of Sun (Soul) and Moon (Mind/Grace) a lot. The moon reflects the light of the sun, the sun is the true light but the moon is a necessary part to maintain life on earth. Now at some point we may propose that there was a conversion (eg, Sacrifice, "When you die and your soul comes to heaven"), but in the back and forth that is Castiel, he's been riding a very fine line about what is what. The Mind, or in our case Grace, is still born FROM light of the souls in creation that it reflects, but at some point Castiel did end up in a very unique condition. Consider it a form of proto-soul, a shadow--*drumroll* that has not had a chance to take its complete journey yet, one that while Metatron spoke he would have, could not yet dream or experience the same way, and still ends up under the weight of the Mind or Grace that was his original form. This is a different construct than, say, being an actual Nephilim as a mixture of the two or embodiment of the Occultum. I will play a game though. If Castiel, hmmmm. I don't know. I'll play fun. Let's sayyyy the Empty comes for Cas in 15.18 like we're all talking about. And thennnnn somewhere amidst Dean taking a hit for Cas (as it looks like will happen) Castiel GATHERS THOSE LAST SPARKS OF GRACE and LOBS IT ALL INTO THE SHADOW to protect Dean, right? That grace is still really only valid within the universe, but with the Shadow entering the universe and soaking it, if the Shadow is the progenator of the human soul, what do you think happens at this point? After all, the soul dreams the world, and births the mind and the body (of self and the universe both), right? So Cas just threw his entire mind, in this TOTALLY PRESUMPTUOUS AND MADE UP idea, into the proto-soul-- what do we imagine happens at this point? And because I'm TOTES MCGOATS being TOTALLY HYPOTHETICAL here, I'm just pitching that as a far more... hm, violently visual version of a more subdermal kind of transit going back and forth over the course of our show here. The Mind never truly ceases to exist, even if the power it manifests is only as valuable as the world it is thought of in. On the other hand, the soul is beyond that even still, and can go in and out past these walls, maintaining its form. But a Lesser Mind does not itself have place within the group mind made by Higher Being like souls, ergo, yeeted out into the empty where it floats like a lost part. Does that clarify the idea at all?

Did Cas have a soul before Dean? No. Even in season 6 he confirmed he had no soul. The quote about him receiving a soul happens at the end of season 8, in episode Sacrifice.

If so is this the crack is his chassis which has ultimately caused him to be reset time and again? Unclear what causes that. Maybe Naomi was just being a bitch, IDK.

If he didn't, and it is the Profound Bond that has caused his soul what is the crack in his chassis? Because it seems clear he has never been like other Angels. The Profound Bond at least deeply antagonized any rebelliousness he may have had. It's something Ishim talked about--why they're supposed to stay away from humans. Not because angels are a danger to them, but because humans are a danger to angels, and if you check out the Soul Meta I recently reblogged I have some verrrry long hypothesis about this. (x)

Did Chuck give the orders to reset him, and did Angels other than Naomi know this was happening? Chuck was absent from the world for thousands of years, and I highly doubt the same guy that forgets Cas is around on the daily left a specific aeon-long order list to do X things to Y random angel. We all love Cas on a story front but in the cosmic scale he's just one of a bazillion rando footsoldiers from the heavenly perspective. Naomi seemed more than well aware though since she was partaking in it. Angels were just doing their best to follow daddy's draft notes before he "went out for a pack of smokes and never came back." (season 11)

I can't remember which post I was reading earlier today, but you will know because it was recent, or at least reblogged by you recently: So Cas as the Empress - who feeds young from her own heart - Jack has been eating Grigori hearts - will Cas' be the last one for Jack to be able to "kill" God - which ultimately sends Cas to the Empty - Cas returning in the finale is them defeating the Empty/Death (God is already defeated) and Cas relinquishing his Grace so he is left with just a Soul and can then reside in Heaven after his death? That last chunk was just word vomit after reading the Empress feeds young from her own heart and my brain just wouldn't shut up. Basically, yes, but I bet you dollars to donuts they are gonna make us shit bricks about it between here and there. Be it say, my totally presumed idea above, or even somewhere during the reclamation attempt in the Empty seeming to disappear--IE, the way the fandom lost their SHIT about Rowena following a similar goddess path before HELLO BOYS!! MY SOUL WENT TO HELL BIG SURPRISE!!! -- everyone just spent a few episodes going bananas along the way and then, PLOT TWIST!!!

#supernatural #spn #meta #my meta #pagan life #souls #death #amaah #grace #chuck #angels #heaven #hell #purgatory #the empty #absence

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lorei-writes · 3 years

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Match-Up #13

Hello, Nemo @readerinsertfanfiction ! Is this going to be a lucky 13 ~~? We shall find out. Oh. Also, I must add, I stopped reading the entire forms before starting to write.

Oh, does it mean she’s a ray of sunshine? Hmm... I don’t know much about Keiji, but I hope she had a happier life!

Sparkle points (+1)

Oh. This reads a little like an upgraded Hideyoshi. I could see him appreciate all of the listed qualities - I’m also pretty positive he’d try his best to match them. He’s orderly, dependable, cares a lot about others, was diagnosed with being unable to lie (by Mitsuhide, yet no less), devotes himself to his goals completely... If anything, he doesn’t seem to be a character who’d try to exploit any of the listed qualities. Perhaps he’d get a cold shower upon seeing somebody somewhat similar to himself? Hmm... Well, it could backfire. But, let’s give him the benefit of a doubt!

Hideyoshi (+5)

As for other warlords, being disciplined seems to be more so appreciated by those who could pose as strict teachers or who are rather bordering pessimism when it comes to their outlook on life - perhaps I could sum them up as those aware of how ruthless the world can be?

Ieyasu (+1) Mitsuhide (+1)

Next, to “devoted”... It seems to be something speaking to more goal-oriented characters, those who believe one need a strong conviction to keep on living.They appear to view it as not only a necessity, but perhaps also something admirable.

Masamune (+1) Nobunaga (+1) Mitsuhide (+1) Yukimura (+1) Mitsunari (+1)

Dependable... I believe that in various combinations, it could be understood and appreciated differently. Dependable + devoted would make for an astonishing work partner - or perhaps a person very capable at reaching their own goals. Dependable + caring? A great source of support, somebody with a huge heart and maybe willing to help those they care for with burdens of human life. As such, let’s distribute points for both categories!

Mitsuhide (+2) Masamune (+2) Nobunaga (+2) Kennyo (+2) Kenshin (+1) Shingen (+1)

Lastly, let’s consider the sincerity. As (almost) per tradition, I believe that warlords who do lie plenty themselves (both as their job or to be able to keep on going) would find themselves drawn to that particular quality.

Masamune (+1) Shingen (+1) Mitsuhide (+1) Kennyo (+1)

Ahh, here it is, the mighty spirit of self-sacrifice! Well then. As much as I’d like to believe that seeing your lover sacrifice themselves for you may bring some sort of reflection upon you, I also must say it’s not the bet I’m willing to take. It could end up being potentially lethal, not just wrong.

I thrown in characters with self-destructive tendencies here as well.

Sparkle points (-1) Masamune (-1) Hideyoshi (-1) Mitsuhide (-1) Kenshin (-1) Kennyo (-1) Shingen (-1)

Pacifistic? Oh my, my. I think almost all of them would agree it’s an easy way to get yourself killed. However, I have a feeling that it may remind some of their past and that they could perhaps find it rather appealing.

MC (+1) Kennyo (+1)

As for being obstinate, non-deviant and unconfrontational, I think those should be discussed in one point. At first I thought that perhaps she could offer a certain sort of grounding to people who are equally as stubborn. However, when seeing those three together, I came to believe it could lead to escalation of conflicts and general dissatisfaction. I think it perhaps could go better if a person was able to eventually reach the conclusion on their own or if their misdoings weren’t so much a result of an innate stubbornness, but something they were healing from - then maybe the blow could be a little lighter. I think suitors efficient at communication would work best as well - and perhaps those who eventually grow to be more so?

Shingen (+1) Kennyo (+1) Masamune (-1) Kenshin (-1) Nobunaga (-1) Mitsuhide (-1) Hideyoshi (-1)

1st Summary:

Kennyo (+4) Hideyoshi (+3) Mitsuhide (+3) Shingen (+2) Masamune (+2) Nobunaga (+2) Ieyasu & Yukimura & Mitsunari & MC (+1) Kenshin (-1)

Sparkle points: 0

Points distributed for likes:

Ieyasu (+2) <- archery, treating people Masamune (+2) <- calligraphy, would make her food Shingen (+1) <- star gazing Mitsuhide (+1) <- she could eat his food. He wouldn’t appreciate it either way *gasps* Kennyo (+1) <- caring for others

Nobunaga (-3) <- socio-political games, self-absorbed people. I presume that him being... well, Nobunaga, in a role of nobody else but Nobunaga himself, could potentially lead her to being forced into a role she wouldn’t necessarily want again - so, point one. Masamune (-2) <- again, he’s a ruler, there’s not guarantee she wouldn’t find herself in a middle of a game. I believe that his personal views on being a heir could be potentially off-putting (with how he forced himself to change and hurt himself numerous times to live up to expectations of others, etc). Perhaps even distressing. Mitsuhide (-2) <- socio-political games, utilitarianism Hideyoshi (-1) <- utilitarianism

Now, it’s my guess, but it seems she could perhaps enjoy a life further away from politics and not being tightly bound by traditions... I think that could be partially accomplished with one of the suitors. Perhaps.

Kennyo (+1)

2nd Summary:

Kennyo (+5) Shingen (+3) Ieyasu (+3) Hideyoshi & Mitsuhide & Masamune (+2) Yukimura & Mitsunari & MC (+1) Nobunaga & Kenshin (-1)

Only characters with positive values by their names will be considered in the final stages of the match-up.

Masamune (+2) <- family Ieyasu (+3) <- family, although it seems to be less so apparent

Hideyoshi (-1) <- he may try to force her to conform to something, believing it’s for her own good.

Oooh, that’s so sweet! Ahh! I’m sorry, I was hit with sudden wave of wholesomeness. I think all of the remaining suitors would praise her for her skills and encourage her to help people to the best of her ability. I think a certain someone may even ask her to teach him. Ahh, how do I even distribute points here, I’m overwhelmed with nice, warm feelings.

Kennyo (+2) <- quality time and physical touch...Hmm.. Oh well, it shows that I haven’t finished his route yet, but I think he could appreciate at least one of those. I think he’d be enamoured with her career choice and if there was anything medicine-related she could teach him, he’d gladly learn. Shingen (+2) <- as above ^ Mitsuhide (+1) <- he’d almost definitely consider this career choice admirable - and would be angered at her family on her behalf

Sparkle points: *counting*

Hideyoshi (+1) You fought bravely, young man, now rest. And perhaps sleep.

Final Ranking

Kennyo (+7) Shingen (+5) Mitsuhide (+3)

Kennyo

Confessed first: Kennyo, although it was very indirect and followed by an - measly - attempt to push her away.

Makes tea in the morning: Kennyo

Hogs blankets at night: Shinju

Is the little spoon: Shinju. It’s the only way he can get any warmth at night.

Possible points for conflict: At times the deamons of his past seem to resurface, either reminding him of how lost he was or prompting him to relapse into his hateful state. It may not necessarily lead to conflicts (although it could). Kennyo may require a little support during those low periods.

Free time ideas: Walks in the woods, drinking tea outside and watching the night sky.

Favourite date spot: The little clearing behind your house, in the woods.

A secret you share: Kennyo grieves the death of each hurt animal he took care of and couldn’t save. At times it brings him close to tears - he does realise it’s silly, but he’d rather not make it too widely known.

His favourite thing about her: How compassionate and devoted Shinju can be. He admires her desire to help others and wishes he has met her earlier, before comitting to his revenge.

His message to her: “Shinju? Shinju? Have you woken up just yet? No? Please, do soon, the cat you’ve brought in started eating again.” (...) *later, watching her work from afar “Your heart is the warmest I have ever met.”

Sparkle points: Ꝏ

#match-up #ikesen match-up #ikemen sengoku match-up #ikesen #ikemen sengoku

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socontagiousimagines · 5 years

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sweetener - Draco x Reader

BET YOU DIDN’T EXPECT THIS. @celestialceci @drawlfoy

loosely based on sweetener by Ariana Grande

Warnings : None I don’t think?

Requested : Nope hahahaha

Draco Malfoy had a problem. He’d been struggling with a bit of insomnia since the school year had ended and summer had begun. He found himself watching the clock as one turned to two and two turned to five and before he knew it, he had to pull himself out of bed to begin another day. It didn’t bother him at first; however, as the weeks passed, he noticed the circles under his eyes growing darker and his will to actually get dressed and do something with his life grew smaller.

That was, until one day, he’d been informed by his parents that his long time best friend and her family were coming over for dinner. Although they lived a few houses down from each other, the Y/L/N’s had been on holiday for the first few weeks of summer and Draco had missed Y/N terribly.

Perhaps, he thought, maybe that was why his insomnia had gotten so bad.

As the time grew closer to dinner, Draco became very self aware of what he now looked like. Extremely exhausted was the only way to describe it. Underneath his eyes were dark half circles, which made his eyes appear sunken in, and he could not for the life of him get his hair to not stick up in several places. If it weren’t for him breathing and moving, he might have looked dead. Growing frustrated as time passed, he decided to embrace his new look and headed downstairs in his nicest suit.

Draco watched from the middle of the stairs as Y/N’s family filed into the Manor. Y/N looked even more beautiful than she did the last time he saw her. She looked healthy. She looked rested - something Draco could not relate to these days. Holidays tended to do that to her, though. She’d go away to a new city or country for a few weeks and Draco’s breath was always taken away when she came back. He watched as she smiled and hugged his parents. Deciding that he’d spent enough time being creepy, he took the last few steps down into the living room.

Y/N turned to him and he watched as her painted red lips parted and her jaw dropped. Her eyes traveled from his hair to his wrinkled shirt beneath his jacket. He tilted his head to the side as he stared at her.

“Draco Malfoy, you look awful.” she muttered and her arms wrapped around his neck.

“Thanks, Y/N. It’s nice to see you too.” he said and returned the hug. He watched from over her shoulder as their parents headed to the dining room in hushed whispers.

“What’s been going on with you? Why do you look like death?”

“I haven’t been sleeping well - if at all.”

Draco watched Y/N as she opened her mouth to speak, but was interrupted by his mother calling them for dinner.

As soon as the two families had caught up and eaten dinner, Draco and Y/N managed to sneak away from the table and onto a balcony far from the dining room. The wind brought goosebumps to both of them. Y/N flashed a shy smile at Draco as she leaned on the railing in front of her. He leaned an elbow on the railing, but was still facing her. Pulling a bottle of alcohol out from behind a plant, he placed it in front of her. Flashing him another shy smile, she twisted the cap off and took a swig. Making a face, she shoved the bottle back towards Draco.

“You drink that?” she asked.

“It’s not about the taste, Y/N. It’s about how it makes you feel.” he replied, while rolling his eyes.

“Well, it makes me feel awful.” She gave him a pointed look as he took two long sips from the bottle. “Draco, what’s wrong with you?”

“That’s a loaded question.” he sighed and continued. “If you must know, like I said earlier, I haven’t been able to sleep. I just watch the clock tick from hour to hour and I get maybe a few minutes of sleep, but then I’m awake again. Before I know it, it’s just time to get up and face another day.”

“That’s it? Well, it’s doing great things for your hair. It’s sticking up everywhere... Cute, really.” she smirked and he laughed, playfully shoving her. She stumbled and dropped her jaw. Draco rolled his eyes again, grabbed her hand, and kissed the top of it.

“Sorry, fair lady. Please forgive me.”

“I don’t know, Draco Malfoy. You could have seriously hurt me.” she smiled as he smirked into the distance.

“You can shove me back if it makes you feel any better.” he offered and stood in front of her with his arms out to his sides - almost like wings.

“I’m not a bully like you, you know.”

“Fine, suit yourself.” Draco threw a smirk in her direction once more before leaning his arms on the railing of the balcony.

The two sixteen year olds sat in a comfortable silence for several minutes. Each snuck secret glances at the other when they thought they weren’t looking.

Y/N had always had a small crush on the platinum haired boy to her right. They’d been friends since before birth and experienced every awkward stage of growing up together. She’d never done anything about her crush, telling herself that there was no way a guy like Draco Malfoy would ever want her in a romantic way. He’d also had a thing with Pansy their fourth year and she’d never really gotten over that hurt. Though, she couldn’t really contain her happiness when Draco informed her a few weeks after the Yule Ball that Pansy just wasn’t the girl for him.

Draco couldn’t get over the fact that his best friend looked so beautiful. Not that Draco wasn’t aware of the fact before, but there was something that must have happened on her holiday that made her even more beautiful. Perhaps, it was just because he hadn’t seen her in awhile. She looked healthier - happier, maybe. There was color in her cheeks and her skin was a slightly darker color than when he’d seen her weeks ago.

“Y/N. Would you - would you stay the night? Like you used to when we were younger? I missed you terribly while you were on holiday.” he whispered, looking up at the stars.

“Of course, Draco. Let me ask my parents and I’ll come back, okay?” She hesitantly kissed his cheek and headed back down to where they were sat just over an hour ago.

Her parents had no problem with her staying there, of course - as long as she slept in a different room. With her promising that she would - and that she’d be back at their house some time tomorrow - she gave each of them a quick hug goodbye and raced back up the stairs.

The pair didn’t get much sleep that night. It wasn’t until Y/N saw the sun peaking over the horizon and she heard soft snores next to her, did she realize they’d talked the entire night. She sat up in excitement as she realized the snores were coming from Draco. Smiling to herself, she settled back down and cuddled into him. Her eyes drifted shut and she sighed in content that she’d finally gotten Draco to sleep.

Eight hours later, Draco awoke to an awfully bright room. His arm was asleep and he grumbled as he tried to pull it from the heavy source. Stopping abruptly, he realized that Y/N was the one who had caused his arm to fall asleep. A small smile graced his face as he lay back down. Draco also came to a realization that he had slept - and for more than an hour or two.

Not caring how long Y/N herself had been sleeping, Draco shook her shoulder. When she only groaned and rolled over, he knew drastic measures needed to be taken. Gently climbing on top of her, his hands went straight to her stomach.

“Get up, Y/N! I have news!” Draco said excitedly. As much as Y/N didn’t want to open her eyes, she had no choice but to as Draco tickled her endlessly. She laughed and attempted to shove him off of her.

“You’re so heavy. Get off of me! What have you been eating? Rocks?” Y/N managed to shove Draco to the floor.

“Ouch. I was just about to share my good news with you, but I guess you’ll never know.”

Y/N rolled her eyes.

“Oh no, what ever shall I do?” she sighed and crawled off the bed to meet Draco on the floor.

Draco sighed as well as he looked at his best friend. Despite the smudges of black makeup under her eyes, he thought she’d never looked more beautiful. Sunlight reflected off her hair. Her smile was big enough that his cheeks hurt.

“Was your good news that you slept?” Her leg lazily kicked at his.

“Yes, you git. Thanks for ruining my moment.” He gently kicked back.

“Do you want me to stay another night?”

“Yes.”

For the next month, the two took turns sleeping in each other’s rooms. Sometimes they’d fall asleep in a living room on a couch. Sometimes they��d fall asleep in a backyard under the stars. The location always changed, but there wasn’t a night that went by that they weren’t by each other’s side.

The cold fact of reality soon came crashing down when August turned to September. They knew sharing a bed at Hogwarts would result in serious trouble if they were ever caught. Draco had gotten used to waking up and seeing Y/N’s face.

The first night was the worst. Draco tossed and turned in the small bed. The space next to him seemed too cold. Watching the hours tick by, he began to feel the loneliest he had in awhile. There was something about a dark room at 2 am that had him feeling like he was the only one feeling like this.

On the other side of the common room, in the girls’ dormitories, Y/N was having a similar problem. She pulled the blankets up over her shoulders as she shivered. Draco has kept her warm all summer and she had forgotten what it was like to sleep alone.

The next morning, the two looked like zombies. Y/N had tried her best to look presentable, but there wasn’t enough makeup in the world to hide the dark circles that had formed under her eyes. She grumpily threw herself on the bench beside Draco at breakfast.

“You gave me your problem.” she hissed. Draco blinked once, then twice.

“What?” He raised an eyebrow at her.

“I didn’t sleep at all last night. Thanks a lot.”

“How is that my fault? I didn’t sleep at all last night either. Don’t blame me.”

Draco’s head rested in his hand. Y/N leaned into him and her eyes drifted shut. This had been the most at peace she’d been since she left Draco in the common room the previous night.

“We don’t have classes today… do you want to go take a nap?” he whispered in her ear.

“Yes.”

After their shared nap in the Slytherin common room, the two didn’t really move from their places on the couch. Draco’s arm was draped lazily over Y/N’s shoulders and she was leaning into him. Every once in awhile his hand would travel to her hair and play with it.

“Draco, it’s three in the morning. We should go to bed.” she sighed. Despite her comment, she sunk further into his warm body.

“I know, but it’s so lonely not waking up to your face in the morning. I like you, you know.” The reality of what Draco had let slip sunk in and his breath caught in his throat.

“I know.” she mumbled and sighed contently. He let out the breath he’d been holding.

“No, I mean I like you as in all I want to do is kiss you all day, everyday. Life deals me these cards and life just seems so salty. You’re the sweetener, Y/N. This summer was just an example. You always bring the bitter taste to a halt. I love you for that. My life would be sour without you. I just needed you to know.”

Draco didn’t get a response and his whole world came crashing down. He’d taken a leap and instead of flying, he fell. He was an idiot. The world fixed itself and was turned upright when he heard soft snores coming from the girl cuddled into his side. A small smile graced his face.

The best sleep Draco Malfoy got was when he was by Y/N’s side - it was also the safest he felt. She was home - no matter how salty life seemed to get.

#draco x reader #Draco Malfoy #draco malfoy imagines #draco lucius malfoy #draco malfoy x reader #draco malfoy imagine #draco malfoy fanfiction #Draco #draco imagines #draco imagine #harry potter imagines #malfoy #fluff #draco fluff #:)#hp #hp imagines

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ramblings-of-a-mad-cat · 4 years

Note

Back again with one of my classic asks. With spooky season nearly upon us, I’d love to know what you think the boggarts are for the HPHM crew. 👻

Oh snap, I’ve thought about this a lot and it’s another one of those magical signatures that flesh out a character that are always fun to think about. Let’s see what I can come up with! This is going to be very disorganized and I apologize for that.

Some of the characters are confirmed, we know for a fact that Tulip and Penny’s Boggarts are Merula and a Werewolf respectively. We also learn some of the other characters’ fears, although it’s not confirmed if they would be their Boggarts. Bill fears losing his family, meaning his Boggart would very likely be the same as Molly’s. Though it might be an easy way out, I think that Charlie would have the same values and probably have the same Boggart. Rowan feared failing their exams, which means that maybe it would be similar to Hermione’s and just be their Head of House condemning their failure. Or perhaps someone closer to them. Just imagine Rowan seeing their brother, or MC looking at them in disappointment?

Barnaby is said to fear clowns, and that’s genuinely hilarious. However, I have to wonder if they would really be his Boggart form. Though he pushes it down all the time, Year 5 makes it very clear that he lives in an abusive household. I’ve seen a lot of head-canons that Lucius would be Draco’s Boggart, but I’ve never agreed with them because however terrible Lucius was at parenting, he was never abusive - at least not to Draco. Barnaby, on the other hand? I wouldn’t be surprised if his Boggart is his father. Alternatively, I find myself remembering how he gravitated toward Merula and Ismelda, despite how they would hurt him. MC helped him see that he was being used. Maybe Barnaby fears being hurt by people close to him? Maybe the Boggart would be something more like a shadowy, scary figure - beckoning to him. The dissonance when one isn’t sure about the difference between abuse and love.

Then there’s Tonks. She’s said to fear losing her abilities. This is one of the only times she ever talks about her shape-shifting powers in a serious moment that isn’t played for laughs. She fears losing her powers? Why would that be? I think I know. I think I know why she constantly makes animals noses, and has her hair pink or purple or whatever color. I think I know why she prefers her surname. And sure, part of it would be that “Nymphadora” sucks as a name, but it’s not like “Tonks” is that much more “normal.” No...I think Tonks wants to distance herself from her mother’s side of the family. I think she’s low-key ashamed to be related to people like Bellatrix. I bet she’s the spitting image of Andromeda, who as we know, is the spitting image of Bellatrix. Maybe that’s why Tonks never shows her real face. Why she embraces the muggle side of her family more. Why she would fear the loss of abilities that let her present herself as she wants to be. As to what her Boggart would physically look like? Maybe Bellatrix herself.

We don’t have any canon information about any other characters, but let’s talk about Ben. I can’t say for certain what his Boggart would be, but I know where his fear lies. Ben is keeping some kind of secret. He’s definitely on our side, but he’s not telling the whole truth. Maybe he’s trying to protect MC, I don’t know. But I bet he fears, or at least feared, what MC’s reaction would be to learning this secret and learning that Ben lied. Imagine his Boggart being MC hating him and turning their back on him for it. Of course, after Chapter 18, I think it would turn into Rowan’s corpse. I doubt I need to explain why.

Let’s get a bit obscure for a second. This one is more of a head-canon than anything else because there really isn’t any evidence for it beyond how I interpret the character. But when it comes to Badeea, I think she fears the loss of her senses, and her awareness. To put it simply, she fears losing her mind. Being unable to appreciate the world for all of the beauty and wonder it has, all of the new secrets she can learn. I think she’d be afraid of going blind, because that would painting a lot more difficult. I can envision her Boggart taking the form of Badeea herself, visibly unhinged. Blind and stumbling around, muttering to herself.

I’m not sure what Liz would have as a Boggart, but I have to assume it would reflect on what she finds important. The things that are important to us are ultimately going to shape our greatest fears. Liz is an activist, we know this. I think she fears the evil that humanity is capable of, especially to the innocent. She fears the trauma that cannot be spoken, because the victims lack the language to ask why this is being done to them. Children and creatures, primarily. I could see Liz’s Boggart taking a couple of different forms. Maybe a wounded animal in a cage. Sometimes it’s difficult to figure out what a Boggart would do for the more abstract fears...

Merula is one of the characters that I know exactly what her Boggart would be. At first it was Jacob’s Sibling. She feared them, felt intimidated by them. We know this - that was the real reason she locked them in a room with Devil’s Snare. She’s also envious of them - I wouldn’t be surprised if they played some role in her Erised vision as well. But post-Portrait Vault? Come on, we all know who her Boggart is. That seems almost like a given. You may be surprised that I’m not listing her mother, but Pre-Portrait Vault and post, I just don’t believe it would be. I’m not saying Mrs. Snyde is a good person or a good mother, but Merula seems to genuinely love and miss her.

Chiara is different from Remus in that he hated himself for what he was. I don’t think that Chiara does. I think she has self-respect, but just because that’s true, it doesn’t mean the rest of the world respects her or would look at her with anything but fear and hatred if she shared her entire self. We see this with her trauma over what happened with Selina, and I think we have our answer right there. Young Selina, screaming and terrified when she saw Chiara’s transformation. We never got official confirmation that this was her Boggart, but it’s exactly the kind of thing that would be. It represents all of her insecurities. And sure, MC witnessing her transformation may have helped with that, but I don’t think for one second that it all went away.

Talbott is another character who all but tells us what his Boggart would be. It’s said that many people who grew up during the First Wizarding War had Voldemort as their Boggart, and I wouldn’t be surprised if Talbott did. (Would make far more sense than MC having Voldemort as a Boggart, that’s for damn sure.) Or if not Voldemort himself, a Death Eater. Could also be his parents’ corpses. Hell, he said that they only found his parents because of the Animagus Registry. Suppose they were killed in animal form. Suppose his Boggart is a swan, lying slain and bloody. There are multiple forms it could take, but it’s crystal clear what Talbott fears the most. He fears the people who murdered his parents, and he fears that he’ll suffer the same fate and that they will have died for nothing.

Okay, I knew you were waiting for this one. Skye Parkin. Another character who’s anxieties are worn on her sleeves, pretty much blatantly. I’m not sure what form the Boggart would take. But it seems clear to me that she’s insecure about her own talent as a Quidditch player, not to mention her lack of social skills. She’s under tremendous pressure and she would have anxiety about not living up to that pressure. Would her Boggart take the shape of Ethan? Maybe. But similar to Merula, I’m not sure because at least on a conscious level, Skye doesn’t seem to realize that she fears him. The Boggart could just as easily take the shape of Rath. Either way, it would have quite a bit of fear to go on.

Let’s talk about Jae. I’m not sure how canon this is but I’ve heard that the reason he’s dealing in Dark Artifacts is for the sake of his mother, and I really like that idea. It implies that there’s a lot more going on with him and with his family. I can only assume there’s no Dad in the picture. I can only assume that perhaps they aren’t doing that well financially. He can bond with Charlie over that. In any event, I think Jae’s biggest fear is his operations shutting down, that he might get caught or busted. Because he probably depends on this business to help his mother. Not sure what form that Boggart would take, perhaps Ministry wizards showing up to arrest him? Perhaps something to do with his mother?

Ismelda. Oh Ismelda. Again, we all know what the source of her fear and her pain is. We all know her baggage. Then again, I think her reaction to her family has manifested more into hate, than actual fear. On the other hand, she seemed pretty scared when she thought Merula was going to ditch her for MC. I have to assume that, at one point, she desperately wanted her parents’ attention and feared that they would never love her, before she settled into bitter acceptance of that. I think Ismelda’s fear would look similar to Badeea’s, in that it would take the shape of Ismelda herself in the state that she fears - her being all alone with no one caring about her. Or maybe it would take the form of her sister, throwing this in her face.

Orion seems to value one thing more than anything or anyone else, and that is his family. He lost one family before, and now he has a new one in the form of his Quidditch team. I think he has an interesting perspective about them, and however odd his choices may be I think he’s fully invested in helping them and seeing them grow into the best people and players they can be. I wonder if the reason he’s hesitated to get too involved in the whole fiasco with Skye, is because he fears conflict? If so, I can relate to that. Or maybe he sees something that we don’t. Either way, I don’t think he’ll ever kick Skye off the team because she’s part of that family. His Boggart is probably something to do with his family, and serious harm coming to them. I’ve always speculated that his family died of natural causes. Maybe he fears his new family will dissipate in similar ways? The old fear of losing touch with people after everyone leaves school? Again, this is getting primarily into head-canons and I know I’ve rambled on, but I wonder if his Boggart wouldn’t be the members of his team, reuniting with him and barely remembering or caring about him...

I haven’t covered everyone, but with characters like say, Murphy and Diego and Andre, I have genuinely no idea what their Boggart would be. These are the characters that I’ve had ideas about for a while and I’m so glad I was able to share them, so thank you for that!

#HPHM Headcanons #HPHM Analysis #Harry Potter: Hogwarts Mystery

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bleepbloo · 4 years

Text

Season Episodes of Second Citadel (Part 2)

Continuation of Part 1 [here]

Recommend reading that first otherwise this will not make ANY SENSE.

Same warnings of Part 1 still apply, as do the conditions and such. Extremely speculative, and published (1/1/2020)

Note: Purely personal feelings- this second half of the season is going to be SUPER ROUGH.

(Happy new year)

~~~

5 - The Hanged Man, Death, Temperance

The Hanged Man: A statement

Positive: Martyrdom, release, sacrifice

Negative: Needless sacrifice, fear of sacrifice, stalling

Death: Death

Positive: End of cycle, beginnings, Change, Metamorphosis

Negative: Fear of Change, holding on, Stagnation, Decay

Temperance: Pacing

Positive: Middle Path, Patience, finding meaning

Negative: Extremes, Excess, Lack of Balance

Welp.

I’ve said this before, in Part 1, but the Death card is in extreme reference to Olala, and well.

This is going to be an Olala and The Kite focus/centric episode.

This is going to be the episode that we find out what the Kite is going to use her for- or otherwise deliver her to whoever has use for her- and finish whatever is going on with Olala in regards to the death card.

Someone is going to die this episode, I can say that much with confidence and dread.

However, that isn’t to say they’ll stay dead.

6 - The Devil, The Tower, the Star

The Devil: The Darker Inside

Positive: Addiction, Materialism, Playfulness

Negative: Freedom, Release, Restoring Control

The Tower: The Inevitable

Positive: Sudden Upheaval, broken pride, disaster

Negative: disaster avoided, delayed disaster, fear of suffering

The Star: The Important Things

Positive: Hope, Faith, Rejuvenation

Negative: Discouragement, insecurity, Faithlessness

Everyone.

This episode’s going to be a ****ing doozy.

Out of all the Arcana, the Tower- across ALL decks - is THE most significant card. It is saying that- no matter what you do, no matter how you prepare, no matter anything else - it is the will of the arcana that what comes will come.

Yeah, it’s worse/more symbolically important than death.

So it’s at this point that our protagonists will face an upheaval not known before in Second Citadel history.

All the personal drama will probably come up at this point - Literally everything - and will hit a breaking point, because, well, the inevitable is coming. This is literally the worst possible time for drama to happen, so of course, in an attempt to retain some form of control, they’re going to take the most likely person to blame and put everything on them, regardless of whether or not they’re at fault.

This is the episode where people have to figure out their shit, and figure out what’s important to them, and I think that it may end up resulting in Sir Caroline considering quitting her Captainship/knighthood. She loves Quanyii, who’s a witch, and like. If something happens to make her realize, no, she actually loves her wife more than her job, I have no doubts in my mind Caroline will leave.

So yeah, this episode will be intense, grab tissues and hydrate.

7 - The Moon, The Sun, Judgement

The Moon: The Unconscious Mind

Positive: Unconscious, illusions, intuition

Negative: Confusion, fear, Misinterpretation

The Sun: The Conscious Mind

Positive: Joy, Celebration, Success, Positiveness

Negative: Sadness, depression, negativity

Judgement: The Choice

Positive: Reflection, Reckoning, Awakening

Negative: Lack of self awareness, doubt, self-loathing

Basically, what happened last episode, happened.

Especially considering the significance of the Sun and Moon in Second Citadel Meta - what with the Moon being more a symbol of things hiding in the dark and still being able to exist, but also a denial of what you really want, but the Sun being known in your entirety, without hiding (which can be pretty terrifying) and should you be unable to handle what you want, can kill you. (Remember the Moonlit hermit? Remember Ernmark making references to how Arum parallels the Moonlit hermit?)

It will be at this point that people will be forced to chose what path to take, what they need to do to be happy

I think here, Marc is going to have to make a decision whether he actually wants to be a knight. I mean, look at what’s going on with Olala; he’s trying to protect her, when his knighthood dictates he should kill her for being...not human.

I mean, it’s the same decision Damien, Angelo, and Caroline have to make for themselves as well, whether they want to continue to be knights, and I bet it will happen this episode.

So like. We’ll see.

8 - The World; Notably the only exception to the Trio Clusters

World: The End

Positive: Completion, Harmony, Fulfillment

Negative: Incompletion, No Closure

Now, this is the end- at least, it should be.

I have no doubt that there’ll be a fourth season of the second citadel, you can quote me on this- there’s too much world for it to go ignored or to end this quickly.

No, see, I think one of two things is going to happen:

Either 1) the East comes into prominence somehow- because of timing or what have you, and there’s going to be conflict about a new society that more or less sprung out of the ground

or 2) The Saints will come back to the world, to try and reunite with their missing sibling.

Either way, it should be interesting, and exciting!

Other things to note for the season:

I think Dampierre will get revealed to be something more than a horse this season, since Marc’s already made a reference in Episode 1 about how Dampierre’s losing their hair and that’s usually a sign of sickness in horses.

I think the Kite will be someone significant to Sir Absolom, and will not excuse but explain some of Absolom’s behavior towards magic and monsters (and Marc).

Finally, this season will be the determining factor as to which brother the Penumbra will set Angelo up with. Because I’ve seen people in the discord and tumblr shipping Angelo/Marc as a romantic pairing, and Angelo/Talfyrn as a queerplatonic pairing, so I’m sure if nothing else, this will be the season which tells us which pairing the penumbra will try and set up. (I’m rooting for Angelo/Talfyrn, personally, but I know it’ll be cute either way, because Angelo is cute.)

Anyway, we’ll see come this year what happens! Take care y’all!

#second citadel #bleepbloo theories #second citadel meta #second citadel spoilers

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makeste · 5 years

Text

BnHA Chapter 198: A Pair of Chuunis

Previously on BnHA: Shinsou, Tsuyu, Kaminari, Kirishima, and Kouda (henceforth known as Team A) faced off against Shiozaki, Tsuburaba, Shishida, and Rin (Team B). Kiri, Kouda, and Tsubu were captured, making it 3 VS 3. Tsuyu covered Shinsou and Kami with her disgusting frog mucus in order to mask their scent so class B wouldn’t be able to track their movements. They then purposely allowed Kaminari to get captured as a distraction to let Shinsou get close enough to Shiozaki to ensnare here with his quirk. Realizing what had happened, Shishida stopped talking so as not to fall under Shinsou’s control himself. However this also left him unable to communicate with his remaining teammate, and Rin was shortly thereafter taken out by Tsuyu. Shishida was knocked out shortly after that, and so Team A ended up winning the match, giving class 1-A the lead as we enter the second round.

Today on BnHA: Aizawa and Vlad provide their respective students with constructive criticism following the match. Meanwhile the remaining 8 teams begin to plan out their strategies, including Monoma who is excited to have the chance to work together with Shinsou, particularly after witnessing the first match. It turns out he’s not the only one interested in what Shinsou can do, as Aizawa and Vlad reveal to All Might and Midnight that today’s exercise is doubling as Shinsou’s exam determining whether or not he should be admitted into the hero course. The second round of battles begins, with Team MomoYamaTokoKure facing off against Team KendouKuroMangaToadette. Kendou is excited to be battling Momo, as she considers the two of them to be rivals, and feels that up until now Momo has been outshining her. Meanwhile Kuroiro from class B bonds with Tokoyami over their mutual goth aesthetic before the two teams split off to get things started. Toko sends out Dark Shadow to do recon, only to have Kuroiro -- whose quirk allows him to move freely within the color black -- hitch a ride back to Team A’s location. The two prepare to clash, and Toko gets ready to show off a new technique he’s apparently learned from Hawks.

(As always, all comments not marked with an ETA are my mostly-unspoiled reactions from my first readthrough of this chapter. I’m caught up with the manga now at chapter 222, so any ETAs will reflect that.)

my man Aizawa out here making sure I continue to stan him

this is school after all!

and oh my god this title

you know it’s the Momo chapter when...

goddammit Kirishima’s self-esteem issues are acting up again

does anyone know if that “staring at yourself in the mirror and psyching yourself up by reminding yourself that you’re cool and awesome” thing actually works? maybe he should try that. he’s so good at complimenting other people but he’s so damn hard on himself. why are all shounen characters like this

Kouda says he needs to get better at issuing detailed orders to insects

good god Kouda, if you improve on your quirk you’re going to be fucking terrifying aren’t you

and I know I just said all shounen characters are too hard on themselves, but then along comes Kaminari to prove me wrong!

you were great, buddy. 10/10 I stan one adaptable and clever electric boy. I would pit you and Mina up against Rat Principal all over again because I bet you two would crush it now

(ETA: not to mention that as Jirou will shortly point out, he’s skirting on the edge of falling into his usual derp mode here -- but he’s managing to retain his senses for the most part, which is extremely impressive given how much electricity he put out in that fight, first against Shishida and then later against Shiozaki. Kaminari!! you’ve become stronger!)

Tsuyu says she wanted to win without any casualties and she regrets losing two of her teammates

Shinsou, who did amazing for his first time, says it was “incredibly frustrating” and that he wasn’t able to apply even ten percent of what he’s learned

kid, take that frustration and channel it into becoming even more determined to fulfill your dreams! that’s the upside of being a shounen character who’s too harsh on himself! you learn and you keep getting stronger, okay?

see, and Aizawa’s telling him the same thing

wow so he didn’t master it until he was out of school, then? or did he start on that before he entered U.A.?

say, aren’t we due some Aizawa flashbacks soon? this is the arc the manga was on when I first started reading, so it seems to be about that time I’d say

(ETA: so what is it exactly that made people have all these headcanons about him knowing the Iida family as a kid? I know he and Tensei are both in Vigilantes, so I’m guessing now it has something to do with that. lol and here I thought we were going to get a whole backstory. instead we’ve had all of one panel’s worth of flashbacks, and that was very recent and we apparently don’t know what the deal is with that yet except that he had some sort of cloudy friend that he doesn’t want to talk about. not that I’m not loving that, mind you; it’s just not what I was expecting. I really gotta start Vigilantes don’t I. maybe this weekend)

oh my god

I’m a simple girl, I see Jirou losing her damn shit over Kaminari and I hit like and subscribe for more great content

and yes, Aoyama, they do seem to be taking this much more seriously than the others. thinking about what would have happened in a real life situation. and I mean, that’s not a bad thing per se, but it’s just... they’re still kids. and already thinking about death and other worst-case scenarios because they’ve experienced it firsthand now. and man but that’s rough

now Aizawa is giving them his own pointers

he’s such a good teacher I love him so much

meanwhile Vlad is chewing out his own students

didn’t Horikoshi describe his teaching approach as being gentler than Aizawa’s? was that just because he doesn’t expel entire classes at the drop of a hat? sure not seeming real gentle right now lol

(ETA: strut strut)

excuse me Monoma who is the teacher here

but he says that despite the loss, he’s satisfied because they showed the rest of them “something marvelous”

(ETA: strut strut)

yeah, I’ve been wondering about that. he probably can’t wait to try that quirk out for himself

man if Monoma bonds with Shinsou and then Shinsou ends up joining 1-A I am going to laaaaaaugh

(ETA: lol except for the fact that I sorta kinda ship it now oh shit)

and they have an advantage over the class A Shinsou team since they actually have some time to prepare

wow they’re all strategizing now

friendly reminder that I love all of these kids and would die for them

and yes you, Todoroki. humility is all well and good but let’s not kid ourselves. you’re a powerhouse and you need to own it

I have no doubt that Team BakuJirouSeroSatou is going to crush this and I can’t waiiiit

(ETA: THEY SO CRUSHED IT)

and who fucking asked you, C-3PO. maybe they can’t have spare parts installed, but human bodies literally heal themselves given just a bit of time and rest. we don’t need to sit here and be dragged by someone who can’t even pass a damn turing test okay

All Might is reflecting on how much everyone has grown. he sure does that a lot

I guess. and also a way to finally introduce the other 20 U.A. first years after 200 fucking chapters lol

hey what

what is it. what’s with those faces. y’all wanna throw down or what?? bring it

oh they just want to know what they thought about Shinsou

All Might is so good I love you All Might

oh shit. so spoiler alert I guess he passes lol

is he aware that it’s a test? is this another one of your Logical Ruses you deceitful hobo

yessssssssss!

I honestly can’t fathom how a team with both Momo and Tokoyami could possibly lose. they’ve even got Aoyama “saving the day in the clutch” Yuuga and Hagakure “I’m the friggin’ traitor” Tooru for fuck’s sake

by the way, Hagakure’s right fist is facing out but isn’t that weird? wouldn’t it make more sense to have your fist facing toward you for this kind of “pumped and ready to go” gesture? idk why it bothers me. maybe because she’s literally only hands so you could at least get that one detail right lmao

and have I mentioned how much I love Momo’s cape. now if only they’d get her a fucking zipper good grief

that kid from class B who speaks in literal dialogue bubbles is freaking named Manga and I can’t you guys

I have no problem with calling Kuroiro by his name, but I’m pretty sure that legally I have to continue referring to Komori as Toadette. I don’t make the rules you guys

Kendou is asking Momo why she didn’t enter the beauty contest during the cultural festival

have I mentioned lately that Aizawa is the best dad? I have? well it never hurts to say it yet again. Momo had more important things to worry about than participating in the least rational annual event this school puts on

oh right, somehow I forgot that these two did their workplace experience together. actually can I just call it a fucking internship even if it wasn’t an internship internship? y’all still know what I mean anyway so come on

this is an odd thing to bring up now and I can’t help but think Kendou’s trying to get into Momo’s head somehow

(ETA: nope. just bein’ rivals)

oh, Hagakure’s bringing up that one guy at the festival who kept cheering for Momo. I had been wondering about that. so he was a fan of theirs from the commercial they did then? who the hell stans someone from just a single commercial

yes

ooh, hidden dark side from Kendou all of a sudden!

I mean, on the one hand I don’t like Kendou getting jealous because these badass ladies should be supporting one another, not harboring jealous thoughts and insecurities

but on the other hand she’s not wrong about Momo though trufax

okay good, this seems healthy enough

A WHOLESOME LADY RIVALRY, EH? BRING IT

oh my god

imagine going from drawing Shiozaki to drawing this guy. Horikoshi must be filled with relief right now

oh my god Kuroiro’s quirk is apparently amazing!?

holy shit?? WHIP OUT THAT DARK SHADOW AND TEST IT OUT! WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR

lmao

if these two don’t watch it they are gonna cut themselves to ribbons on ALL THAT EDGE

so then is Hagakure gonna clash with Toadette. or Manga

so now round two is officially starting, and Sero is asking his friendly neighborhood Tetsutetsu about Kendou, Tetsu’s crush

I ship these two kids so hard. he adores her

lol he says that if she wasn’t around the whole class would have been “indoctrinated” by Monoma

he says she’s the big sister of class B

yeah, so basically the Momo

and now Todoroki is thoughtfully chiming in

you know, operation? as in scheme? as in whatever plan Momo’s thought up using the intellect that’s put her on at the very top of what is probably the most brilliant class in U.A. history?

so now we’re cutting to Team B, and Kendou is saying that they should wait and see what Team A has in store first, since even though they know their basic quirks, they don’t know what improvements they’ve made and what special moves they’ve come up with

go fuck him up Kuroiro! I know I shouldn’t be rooting for you, but I’m so fucking curious to see if you can use Tokoyami’s quirk against him omg

meanwhile we’re cutting back to Team A, and Tokoyami is reporting to the others that Dark Shadow has located Team B

oh shit

TOKOYAMI THEY GOT YO BOY

Dark Shadow’s zooming toward them now and Tokoyami’s shouting at everyone to disperse

HE LOOKS SO SAD OH NO

KUROIRO YOU ASSHOLE WHY ARE YOU MY NEW CLASS B FAVE

Hagakure is all “Kuroiro popped out from inside Dark Shadow!” as though everyone else didn’t just watch that happen right along with her

Momo’s flinging some ninja nets at Kuro but he’s dodging!

I LOVE IT

HOLY SHIT TOKOYAMI IS RIPPED. WHEN DID THAT FUCKING HAPPEN. WHERE WERE THOSE ARM MUSCLES DURING THE POOL EPISODE, JESUS

(ETA: and I’ll have you know Horikoshi even specifically described his arms as “fairly thin” when he did his little bio in chapter 101! so this is a recent fucking development. bird boy been hittin the gym)

also he sure does have a lot of natural enemies doesn’t he. his quirk is so powerful but it has a lot of weaknesses

and lmaoooooo at “a pair of chuunis” holy fucking christ

how is this chapter over already?? oh well, we’re almost at 200, let’s keep going and check out Toko’s new technique

#bnha #boku no hero academia #yaoyorozu momo #kendou itsuka #tokoyami fumikage #kuroiro shihai #kaminari denki #shinsou hitoshi #monoma neito #aizawa shouta #bnha spoilers #mha spoilers #makeste reads bnha #you know I wasn't quite as aware of it during my first read #but on the reread it's inescapable how much this arc is a shipping goldmine #I count like six different ships in this one 13-page chapter alone #kamijirou #monoshin #momokendou #tokokuro #kendoutetsu #todomomo #and I'm probably missing some others #and damned if I don't ship *all* of it #the best part is horikoshi probably isn't aware of like 90% of it #you just keep doing what you do dude #your characters all have great chemistry with each other and I'm pretty sure momo and kendou passed the bechdel test in this chapter #so basically what I'm saying is good job #keep it up

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thunder-birb · 5 years

Text

The 5 times Tamaki accidentally confessed to Mirio and the one time he didn’t have to

Mini Series Part IV

Thud. Thud. Thud. The sound of knuckles knocking against the hardwood door beckons me to get up, but the weight of disappointment clinging to my heart keeps my feet rooted to the tiled floor and back against the ceiling mere centimeters away.

“No one is here” I reply, which people will probably take as a joke, because clearly someone has said something, but if you know me, then you know that I am hardly joking. No one is a reflection of how I am not anyone worthy. Just a nobody who can’t measure up to the standards of such a prestigious school and should have never gotten accepted in the first place. I am a waste of space. A nobody. No One.

“Well, I thought it would be in no one’s best interest to know that they seem to have forgotten about their prime member who is also feeling like utter shit and would actually like his best friend to talk to... At least for now, before he has to smile and pretend he’s okay to all of his family watching back home...” that carefully guarded voice finally breaks near the end and with a deep breath, I rise up and twist the door knob open.

Pulling the door behind me almost feels instinctual with him; like I’m always shedding another layer that I usually have mountains of when it comes to other people. Yet, with him I find myself bearing my soul, even at times when I feel like I am sinking, slipping away into a nobody. Maybe it’s because when I open the door, his eyes don’t smile at me like everyone’s does in that reflection of pity and concern. No. He never once considers me as someone weak, or beneath him in some level. He sees me as an equal, someone who despite their own demons can be a shoulder to cry on and can be strong enough for the both of us.

And surely enough when the door is wide enough for my head to peak out, his eyes are not on me. They are downcast on the floor, shoulders sagging heavy like the frown I know is on his face. He isn’t just here to check up on me, but also to confide in me. No one gives me that power to heal and people won’t believe how much I crave to be needed sometimes.

“Mirio--” I cry out, feeling the dry scratch of my vocal cords after I abandoned all forms of comfort in favor of sitting here in the pool of my own loneliness and regrets.

“Tamaki, how have I fallen so behind? I can’t believe that there’s such a wide gap between me and the rest of our class when in the beginning the possibilities were infinite...” Mirio clenches his fist, face finally rising above mine in utter dismay. There are wrinkles on his forehead, far more than I have ever seen before, his blue button eyes blurring from tears begging to be released and cheeks red from boiling over in frustration. He blinks hard, eyes finally letting the water escape and sighs deeply, further letting go of all the pent up emotions he’s been keeping to himself.

Once again, I am baffled by how comfortable Mirio is with me. How can he not spare himself? Even just a little bit, so I don’t see all the imperfections or the rawness of his core? My heart sinks deeper, burying itself beneath the ground with all his pain that I know so well and fear more than anything. Yet, here he is unashamed with being seen. Something I could never ever do and which is why I was in the class room by myself in the first place.

Feeling like I might also start losing myself in the dulling ache of dissatisfaction, I stop myself from overthinking and wrap my arm around him in an embrace that feels unbalanced with the way my arm can barely engulf him, meanwhile his arms are still at his sides. I slowly move my hand up and down his back, and Mirio relaxes into me with his head resting on my shoulder.

“I know... It’s like no matter how much you try to catch up, you just end up three steps back from where you started. Always running to an end you will never reach” my eyes start welling up again and I can’t just hear the sounds of the crowd filling my ears like in the arena, but I can also feel the cameras watching punctiliously and seeing every single bad move I make. I can hear their criticism, see the judgment in their eyes and it pulls me deeper into the side of my mind that only knows self-destruction.

“With the way I’m going, that’s a sure bet” Mirio falters and for once the sadness overpowers his sunny skies. It’s like a dark angry cloud has drove the sun to a corner and ubiquitously covered the blues above.

But I think people forget that it has to rain sometimes. No one can always have the rays of light in their smile and Mirio isn’t any different. So, I hold him even though my heart is aching just as much as his. I find that sometimes being strong for someone else can fill the emptiness and by the end of it, he’s actually the one holding me. It’s a weird dynamic between us, but I guess the road has always been so bumpy that we just know how to comfort one another or when one of us is reaching his limit.

🌦️🌦️🌦️

“Ugh. You two better not start again! Especially you Amajiki! Or I’m gonna wind slap you so hard, you’ll be smiling for the rest of your happy life!” Hadou warns wagging her accusatory pointer finger first at Mirio and then at me. “We have done enough damage for the rest of our lives! And I want nothing more but big fake smiles on your handsome faces, got it?” she glares at both of us hard, testing our mental stability. Then, at no sign of us breaking down any minute, she smiles and slips naturally in between.

She encircles her left arm around my right arm and her right around Mirio’s left, connecting us into a bond that started ever since our very first Sports Festival at UA.

We didn’t do so well then either and one sad retreat into the grassy fields outside became three frustrated individuals crying their disappointed hearts out. Of course I was the one sad male who started it all, ‘a natural trendsetter’ Mirio would joke, which actually got Hadou to laugh out loud and broke the triangle of sadness that reigned on us.

Mirio found me right after his group match elimination and we just laid on the greenery, while we watched the clouds drift by like in middle school. Hadou came along by accident and just like a gush of fresh air, she brought many revelations to light.

“Hey! hey! did you know that when the olympics were still a thing, students our age who also competed had to face the pressure of millions of people scrutinizing their every move??” she pats both of our arms to get our attention, not that her being with us was already news enough...well mostly to me.

“You don’t say?” Mirio commented used to amusing Hadou’s little bits of trivia she loved to throw in every chance she got.

“Oh sure! Many of them also couldn’t shake off the high standards expected of them and some even took years to finally cope with the pressure! But that didn’t mean adults didn’t slip up once in while or got stuck in a rut in their competitions, you know? So, really this--” she gestured vaguely at us being outside and the rest of the world focused at Sports Festival inside. “Is actually quite conventional” she supplied with a small smile.

“I mean we’re still human” she continued as she flipped her blue bangs away from her face, brought her hands together and hugged her legs in a tight squeeze. “And mistakes will always happen, but it’s how we learn to get around them that really tests our capabilities as future heroes” she sighed like she was physically shrugging off all her tribulations and then resolutely laid down between us with her arms stretched out.

Mirio and I looked at each other, mouth agape and for the first time of knowing Hadou did we finally saw through her. She wasn’t just a curious busybody that everyone pegged her for. She was insightful and curious because she loved to learn and understand the things around her. She was also the only one that intrigued Mirio enough to learn some of our lessons, which was no easy task since Mirio generally preferred to be out in the field.

I guess people just never gave her enough credit and for guys like me and Mirio, that was something we knew all too well. So, that was basically how the Nobody’s Only Club was born. We really started it to cheer ourselves up after a not so successful first try at the Sports Festival, but it became this support group that reminded us we weren’t alone. And with that we just inherently became good friends.

“C’mon you guys! Yuyu is probably on her way to the HW by now” Hadou drags us both and I almost trip over them not aware that we’ve been walking this whole time and now approaching the school’s gate.

“We’re going to HW?” I ask, confused and Hadou slaps Mirio’s arm twice.

“I told you he was zoning us out” Hadou shakes her head at me, while Mirio shrugs at her and mouths an “I tried” at me. I have a terrible habit of being in my own head a lot and sometimes it stems from me not wanting to be part of the conversations in the first place. Hadou thinks I should practice talking with them anyway, while Mirio fills in the silence and covers for me when he knows I’ve drifted.

“Sorry Hadou. I’m still working on it, but why are we going to HW? I thought--”

“Well after you told me Mirio has ‘the voice of an angel’ I figured we should go get some chicken and sing our hearts out at the new Karaoke place a few stores down!” she wraps her arms around us and jumps in excitement. Meanwhile, I choke on air and start coughing, refusing to look at either of them.

Hadou starts patting my back in concern and I steal a quick glance at Mirio, who of course catches me looking at him because I am choking to death. I fight the burning warmth rising on my cheeks and try not to think about the slight tint on his ears. He tilts his head like he doesn’t know what to say about the whole ‘angel’ thing and honestly I don’t either. I didn’t even say that exactly, but I just keep drawing out my cough even though it doesn’t even itch anymore, so I won’t have to say anything at all.

Sometimes you gotta choose your battles and this one just isn’t it.

🍗🍗🍗

Already, distracted by the scenery around us, Hadou talks a mile a minute about all the questions she has for the world. Mirio, being his amicable self either makes a goofy comment about it or actually has an answer to her endless ramble. Meanwhile, I watch the sky above me and pay attention to every single thing being said. I’m nodding when I’m suppose to and letting Hadou swing our connected arms back and forth as we continue our walk.

We fall into a comfortable pace and soon the surrounding trees and the occasional houses are replaced by the tall skyscrapers of all sorts as we move closer to the core of the city. I always liked that UA was up in the hills and away from the stresses of the town. It makes it easier to disconnect from the world sometimes and just focus on our daily hero lessons at hand.

“Hey we’re almost there!” Hadou points out, walking with an extra skip in her step.

“Oh yeahhh! I’m getting pretty hangry too” Mirio wiggles his brows and I chuckle because it reminds me of Johnny Bravo when he is about to do something stupid. Mirio beams at me, happy he made someone laugh and Hadou looks at us like we’re weird.

“It’s like you guys don’t even need words to communicate! How advance~” she comments with a smile that I don’t quite understand. I raise the collar of my uniform and burry my cheeks under them, looking straight ahead.

“Haha! You make us sound like an alien life source!” Mirio laughs, back to his old bubbly self. We keep walking getting closer to the shop until we make a familiar turn over to HW.

Upon spotting Yuyu scrolling through her phone by the entrance, Hadou breaks free from our arms and runs towards her friend. Yuyu clearly amused by her friend’s antics, turns to her side to hide her smirk and pretends she doesn’t hear Hadou approaching her.

Mirio and I trail behind Hadou and we watch as she jumps at Yuyu and screams happily. It definitely scares the people coming out, but Hadou is easily excitable, especially when Yuyu is involved. They hug and exchange greetings like they haven’t seen each other just yesterday. Then, Yuyu waves us down and motions for us to get in.

We find a cozy spot in the back of the store and wait for our order of their large hot wings and drumstick combo with 4 large sides. It’s a little crowded and my skin tingles with nerves, but Yuyu and Hadou keep the conversation going, while Mirio’s fingers drum an unfamiliar beat at the empty table in front of us.

The black plastic buzzer blinks red after 10 minutes and furiously shakes on the table. Mirio does his silly celebratory dance when he’s excited mostly about food and offers to carry our order over to us. Hadou, Yuyu and I stay seated and watch Mirio wait for his turn to get our meal.

“You guys think I should compete at the Beauty Contest again? I kinda don’t want a repeat of last year...” Hadou pouts, dejected eyes now concentrating on the table, which causes Yuyu to stop playing with her long blue hair.

“What do you mean should I? Of course you should Nejire! You’re perfect for the Beauty contest!” Yuyu squeezes Hadou’s shoulders, and Hadou shakes her shoulders to take Yuyu’s hands off.

“You’re only saying that because you’re my friend” she turns her head away from Yuyu and refuses to accept her encouragement.

“Hey! Because I’m your friend, my opinion should matter more! Besides I know you best and I’m sure you can win it this year!” she turns Hadou’s chair to face her and squeezes her cheeks, so she looks up. They stare at each other, both not backing down and I wonder for a moment if I could ever have such a stare down with anyone without feeling like I’m being cut open.

“Fine! That’s one vote” Hadou concedes, smile betraying her, but then she turns her head and looks at me. “What about you Amajiki, what do you think I should do it?” she asks and I feel an immense pressure coming from Yuyu and not just because she’s kindly placed her hand on my shoulder.

“Yeah Amajiki isn’t she perfect for it?” she nods at me, big eyes waiting for me to confirm.

“Well um--- I understand your hesitance Hadou because to Yuyu you can do no wrong, but I also agree that you should give it another try” I smile at her, nervous that the buzzing around the store suddenly dies out once I decide to open my mouth.

“See??? Even Amajiki says yes!” Yuyu jumps and gives me a hi-five I nearly miss. “And you got that right! Nejire is way too cute, so it’s hard to find any fault in her!” she pats Hadous head and Hadou in turn smiles even wider. She hugs me and I nearly jump off my seat from the suddenness, but just let her squeeze tighter anyway.

“But hey! You’re one to talk Amajiki! I believe I recall someone doing the exact same thing when anyone says anything bad about Togata! Like remember that time with Burokku-san?” Yuyu points out, voice louder than it should be in this other random silent moment in the store. I peer over at the cashier and of course that’s when Mirio is taking our order from the cashier’s hands.

“What no-- I-- I didn’t do that-” I stiffen under Hadou’s hold and panic because dammit Mirio is coming right this way and this really isn’t the time.

“OoOoOoh! I remember that! What was it you said again--? Hmmm~~ It was oh-so-very brave and chivalrous too!” Hadou does this elaborate thinking face that nags at my sanity and Yuyu annoyingly winks at me before immersing in her own thoughtful face. Kill me now.

I take a big sigh and stop my legs from shaking under the table. “Fine. I may have shared a worded altercation with that---guy, but that blockhead had it coming and you guys would have done the same” I reply quickly, schooling my features as best as I can, already knowing how they get when I act more flustered. Not this time you two! I won’t let you get to me!

“Oooooh, so you admit you think Togata can do no wrong in your eyes?” Yuyu smirks sealing in her trap and the little control I have over the situation disappears right before my eyes.

“No I--- I never said that!” I jump out my seat startled and can already feel the attention its drawing. I need to leave.

“Never said what?” surely enough that’s when Mirio gets to us with the food neatly packed in a plastic bag and a tray filled with our drinks in his hands. “And why is Tamaki all red?” he turns his head to look at me and I squeak turning away from him.

“I don’t know we were just talking about you and now he’s all flustered” Nejire supplies and I honestly don’t know if she’s still playing with me or just being her regular blunt self. Yuyu laughs all the same and I tighten my hands into fists wishing to disappear. Words of advise; don’t have friends.

“I’m gonna go throw up” I say, speed walking to the bathroom without awaiting their reply and indeed feeling queasy. He didn’t hear anything did he?

“You guys have to stop teasing him so much! ” is the last I hear from Mirio before I drown them out and open the door. I splash my face with water three times and avoid the mirror. I already know I probably look like a tomato. No need to feel worse about it.

I do my sister’s breathing exercises not really sure why I’m even freaking out. It’s nothing. Just mindless teasing. They do this all the time. To me. To Mirio. To other random victims in our class. It’s nothing to freak out about. No. Totally not.

After I feel like the color has drained from my face and I can go outside without turning as red as a well-cooked lobster, I step out of the bathroom and brave myself for more teasing. However, once I step outside the bathroom, Hadou and Yuyu are nowhere to be seen. Mirio though is sitting in our same spot, waving me over.

“Hey Tamaki, are you alright?” Mirio gets up when I finally reach him and I shove my hands into my pocket, so he doesn’t see me shaking a little.

“Yeah I’m great” I lie and I know he knows I’m lying because even to me I sounded unsure.

“They didn’t really tell me what happened, but you know they just like to tease you right?” Mirio opens the door for us even with the bag of food and tray with our sodas in his hands.

“I know… Unfortunately they think it’s fun, but don’t worry, I’m used to it” I reassure him and myself, taking the tray of drinks from his hands as we try to catch up with Hadou and Yuyu way ahead of us already. “It’s just this time--”

Mirio doesn’t say anything, but the way his eyes are following my every word I know he wants to know what was said earlier. I get choked up with the mere thought of almost telling him of all freaking people and try to think of something else to say.

“This time--uhm they were uh--” my mind is malfunctioning drawing that dreaded gray screen with the eerie noise as I’m trying to think of anything plausible to say. C’mon just make something up.

“Saying that---er---” we stop in front of the Karaoke place with Hadou and Yuyu already inside probably reserving our room. I look around trying to think of anything to say and that’s when my eyes fall at his face and then his hair, glistening under the orangey yellows of the setting sun. That’s it!

“Your hair!” I yell without thinking.

“My what??” he tilts his head in confusion and honestly Mirio, ditto because I, too have no idea where I am going with this. “You guys were talking about my hair?”

“Well just hair in general and uhhh--- you know like the length of it” I try to keep it vague until a reasonable idea pops up in my head, but Mirio saves me before I find something ridiculous to say.

“Were you guys talking about that time I had to grow out my hair for my hero costume again?” Mirio supplies accompanied by a very unimpressed head shake.

“Yeahh!!! Totally was. Sorry it just came up and--”

“You were defending my honor? It’s okay Tamaki. I know I looked silly with the long hair” he laughs, humming that rapunzel song everyone sang for the rest of week. You know the one about the lights and the haze--fog lifting? “But I really miss flipping it back and making everyone laugh! Those were my prime days” Mirio snickers tapping his foot to the beat of the Rapunzel song.

“That was pretty funny and I actually like your hair long” I comment, happy to just get the topic flowing into another direction.

“Magi?” Mirio looks up from the plastic bag of food he’s holding and his blue eyes brighten in surprise.

“Well not Rapunmirio long, but like---um--- you know when we were in middle school and you grew it out?” I elaborate, wanting to laugh at his bewildered expression, but also unsure why it’s making my insides squirm and feel too damn warm.

“Rapunmirio! Haha, that’s good! And no way!! I thought everyone said it looked weird” Mirio brushes me off, probably thinking I was being too nice again.

“I don’t think you could ever look weird” is suppose to be a nice compliment to prove to Mirio that I’m being serious. Instead, what comes out of me sounds loaded and like i’ve broken some barrier that no one should ever break between friends. Bros. So, naturally that’s when I decided it’s best for me to never speak ever again.

“Hey guys, they got us the room!” Nejire yells probably making her way down the steps and waving us over.

Still terrified to look up, I keep my head down and stare at Mirio’s white sneakers instead. His feet are brawny and long, mirroring his stocky built that seems to get more pronounced with each passing day. He’s no longer tapping them to any beat, but are still close enough that I think he isn’t too weirded out by me. I can’t really tell for sure without actually looking at his face, which I will never do unless I wanted to die right there.

“Oh c’mon! Stop being so platonically in gay for each other for one second and let’s get this Nobody’s tradition started!!” Yuyu is now yelling as well, making my heart skydive to the bottom of the ground and my stomach feel like it is being compressed into half of its size. Platonically in gay for each other. Oh god, I’m gonna be sick.

“Not to be party pooper or anything because you know I love a good laugh, but I don’t think it’s fair to tease Tamaki about these things” Mirio stuns us into silence and I fight the urge to look up at him.

“It’s definitely making him more distressed than usual and he’s probably questioning everything he’s ever done right now. Him and I are good friends” Mirio wraps his arm around me in a tight one-sided embrace to prove his point, which unfortunately makes me feel infinitely worse. “And it’s kind of weird that we can’t treat each other nicely the way two girls can” he continues and man, I really need to start breathing before I turn purple. And also, wow? Mirio, where did that even come from?

It’s Yuyu’s turn to feel sheepish and I can tell she’s ashamed because she hands Hadou her drink, quickly runs over to us and gives us a full on 90 degree bow. “Oh shit. I’m so sorry! I was always teasing you both, especially you, Tamaki because you get so flustered and it’s absolutely adorable, but I didn’t realize I was going too far... I’m really sorry guys. I know I can be a bit hard on the edges and relentless, but I never ever meant to make you feel weird-awful about it” she slowly straightens her body and meets our gazes. I can tell she feels really shitty about it because her eyes are getting watery, which in the year that I’ve known her has never happened before.

Not comfortable with most people crying in front of me, especially when it comes to girls because well-- I’ve only ever encountered it twice and both times I didn’t really have to do anything. My sister usually throws things or yells at me for looking at her when she’s doing it. Meanwhile Hadou usually cheers herself up before we even need to or Mirio says something witty and she laughs right away. Thus, I am not equip when dealing with women in tears even with both my sister and Hadou as practice or maybe that’s exactly the reason why. Nevertheless, the sight of Yuyu like this is beyond off-putting and I know I have to do something before I cause her anymore distress.

“Hey, don’t be so hard on yourself Yuyu-san. We know you meant no harm” I force myself to look at her without breaking eye contact for five seconds and place my hand on her shoulder.

“Exactly! I just wanted you to know in case you didn’t realize how it was affecting Tamaki. And we’re only human right? We make mistakes and sometimes even to our friends, but we know you and understand that you would never mean it in that way!” Mirio fits both of us soundly in his burly arms and squeezes us in a hug wayyyy too tight and warm. I stretch my arm out to save our drinks in the tray and feel the bag of food brush up against my back.

Yuyu nods her head and Hadou chooses that moment to truly break the rather abrupt turn of events by wind slapping all three of us. “Did I not say no more crying between us???” she shakes her head and Yuyu laughs in between sniffling.

“No. Well, not with me at least and I understand what you guys are saying. I’m just disappointed with myself and how I never considered how you guys felt about it” she says with a small smile. “But thank you Mirio for pointing it out and thank you both for dealing with me. I promise to stop making comments about your friendship! It’s healthy and actually pretty amazing. And yes Nejire, I’ll stop sniffling before you slap us again” she looks at us with a determined glint in her eyes and makes a show of wiping her tears away, so Hadou doesn’t get any ideas.

“Alright!! Let’s get this tradition going and start off the night with the real musical genius of UA, AMAJIKI TAMA--” Mirio announces with vigor and excitement like Present Mic does every Sports Festival, and I turn my head at him in horror. Oh No NO no. I am not singing. My eyes scream at him and he exaggerates the next syllable he’s about to say, while not breaking eye contact with me.

“KI’S BEST FRIEND MIRIOOOOO TOGATA!” he saves, flexing his arms and wiggling his eyebrows at me again. Hadou and Yuyu laugh like they knew he was going to do this all along and I feel extra silly for not seeing that coming.

“Mirio you can’t tell Yuyu to stop teasing me and then do the exact same thing right after” I point out and nudge him with my elbow.

He stops flexing his arms and wraps his left arm around my neck instead. “Roger that, best bro!” he brightens, smile so wide and sunny that my stomach lurches completely winded. Once again, I can’t talk for I fear something excruciatingly embarrassing will come out of my mouth, so I just let him drag me up the stairs and into our room feeling unsettled by how not irritated I actually am.

🎤🎤🎤

Before long, Hadou and Yuyu fuss around with the remote and the speaker settings while Mirio turns on all the disco and strobe lights available. I unpack the aluminum covering our chicken combo and set four plates out along with our chopsticks. I open the lid of our sides, one large white rice, one large fried rice, one large potato wedges and one large macaroni and cheese.

The smell does a glorious thing to all the movement around me, and when I blink my eyes open the three of them huddle along the small table in the room, salivating.

“I know I said I was gonna sing first, but mannnn that chicken smells too damn good to pass on” Mirio takes the seat next to me and takes his chopsticks in hand. Hadou already takes a bite of the potato wedges and Yuyu starts taking some of the fried rice into her plate.

We eat in continued silence, except for the default music that comes with the strobe lights. Yuyu goes out to the front to get us some drinks after we gulped ours down outside due to their ‘no outside drinks policy’ and Mirio takes another huge bite of his third drumstick. Hadou loves cheese and has been munching on the mac and cheese, while I’ve had a little bit of everything.

When Yuyu comes back the guy working at the front comes with her with a large pitcher of soda and plastic cups. Yuyu on the other hand, has four different sets of colored wigs in her hands, a tambourine and sunglasses. Mirio laughs at the sight of the comedian blue wig (completely bald in the middle, but with hair at the sides) and we play Janken (rock paper scissors) to see who will wear what.

We assign the overall winner with the green mohawk wig, then the second place with the neon pink troll wig, the third place with the red pigtails in floating in the air and the last place with the comedian blue wig.

The first round is me vs Yuyu and Hadou vs Mirio. We wipe our hands with the hand sanitizer I bring with me everywhere and then set out to start our mini tournament. I take a deep breath and Yuyu and I start as Mirio and Hadou do the same next to me. After three tries of choosing the same hand, I beat Yuyu’s rock with my paper. Hadou and Mirio play a little longer, but Hadou rises to the challenge and beats Mirio’s scissors with her rock.

Mirio and Yuyu’s shoulders droop down as they realize the mess they’ll have to wear and Hadou and I hi-five each other. The second round ends pretty quickly for both of our teams and I win in the first play beating Hadou’s paper with my scissors. Meanwhile Mirio stumbles in dead last as his scissors get blocked by Yuyu’s rock.

After we finish most of the chicken, we pack the trash into the plastic bag we had the food in, and left the large side of potato wedges and two bits of chicken wings on a spare plate. Hadou busies herself with putting on a bunch of songs and Yuyu sets out to place the comedian blue wig on Mirio. It’s a bit tight and Mirio tries to run away at first, but there’s really nowhere for him to go, especially with Hadou blocking the door, and me and Yuyu holding him down.

I don’t think I’ve ever laugh so much in my life, but Mirio’s half-assed get away and refusal to wear the wig makes it all the more hilarious. I manifest two long chicken wings to trap him because my own arms could never engulf him fully. Yuyu takes that chance to adjust the wig just right, so it hides most of his blonde hair. When she finishes despite Mirio trying to shake her off, we stare at him for 5 seconds before hitting the floor in shock and disbelief. He looks absolutely ridiculous in every possible way and my stomach hurts so bad from laughing at the sight of him.

He tries to flip the blue shoulder length hair getting stuck on his cheeks and Hadou drops the remote from shaking too hard. Mirio turns slightly pink with a particularly goofy smile and when Yuyu hands him a mirror to see what he looks like, he makes a horrified face at his own reflection. We start dying immediately and soon after he joins us on the floor laughing.

Getting Yuyu to put on the red pigtails was not a problem at all, in fact she does it all by herself meanwhile Mirio swings his blue hair back and forth and sings to Barbie girl with the appropriate Ken and Barbie voice. The sight is so funny, I take a video of the whole song despite the small amount of memory I have left on my phone. Then, Yuyu helps Hadou put her long hair in a bun and place the neon pink troll wig on her head. It’s pointless because there’s only so much hair the wig can hide and she ends up leaving her hair down and placing the wig on top.

It’s the most perplexing sight, but Hadou is in her element. She takes the second mic abandoned on the table and tries to belt the notes with Mirio. However, she’s basically screaming with her eyes closed that I can’t actually call it singing. Meanwhile, I just shake the tambourine around, happy to be here and not have to sing at all.

When Yuyu’s favorite song comes on, Mirio hands the mic over to her and her raspy voice gets even raspier when she sings. She gets most of the notes right, which makes Hadou’s screaming less apparent. Mirio takes this time to get the green mohawk wig and arranges it neatly on my head. He’s concentrating so hard with his tongue sticking out at the corner of his lip that I don’t think he’s realize how funny I look.

Hadou finally opening her eyes at the end of the song turns over at us and takes a couple of shots before bursting into a fit of giggles. Yuyu follows suit and Mirio finally looks at me properly and falls back from laughing. I feel the flush suffuse to my cheeks and neck, but for the first time I’m not really embarrassed. I guess this is how Mirio feels when he has successfully made everyone laugh because of some silly thing he did.

“Man we need photos of this! C’mon I’ll put my phone on timer!” Yuyu moves the table aside and stands in front of the couch. She raises her phone, trying to find the best angle that will fit all four of us, while Hadou and Mirio adjust themselves accordingly, so they can be seen and still have room for me to get into the frame.

“OOOh!! Okay this seems to be the best angle. Alright everyone do funny faces!” She calls out and presses the power button which starts the timer at 10 seconds. It blinks 9. 8. 7. I look at Hadou crossing her eyes and sticking out her tongue. Meanwhile, Mirio makes a fishy face with his hands covering his ears and his thumbs sticking out. I glance over at the camera and Yuyu has her mouth slightly ajar as she looks up and has the whites of her eyes peeking out.

3. 2. 1. Not really knowing what to do, I open my mouth wide and stick my head back just in time for the camera to make a loud clicking noise followed by the flash. Yuyu takes the camera down to change the settings of the camera and Hadou laughs at our faces.

“Okay I think we should do 5 seconds this time. Let’s do a rock band pose!” She yells and with that the chaos ensues. Hadou sits on her legs on the couch and does an air guitar pose. Mirio grabs the microphone and screams inaudibly like he’s hit the climactic part of the song. Yuyu uses her right hand to act like she’s smashing on piano keys and I make a run to the grab the chopsticks in the bag, but I don’t make it in time. So, what appears in the photo is a blurry patch of my hair making me seem like I’ve traveled through time. Everyone laughs at my fail and we try a second time with me in the photo this time and pretending to play the drums.

We do a couple more of poses in between actually singing and Mirio keeps us at the edge of our seats when he decides to belt into his favorite rock ballads. Hadou, Yuyu and I share impressed glances as he seriously tackles the intensity of this one particularly heart breaking song. He’s clutching his chest tightly, words hitting close to home and it makes me ache to do something about it. I take my eyes off him, needing a distraction and notice the stray tear Hadou wipes away from her eyes, despite her warning us to stop crying.

His eyes are closed for most of the song, having already memorized each and every word along with all the rifts the original artist makes, and by the time it’s over we clap and cheer so loud, Mirio reddens in the best way.

“HOLY FUCK TOGATA! WHEN THE HECK DID YOU LEARN TO SING LIKE THAT?” Yuyu shakes the tambourine at him and Hadou slaps his arm.

“Forrealll! Maybe you should be the one competing at the beauty contest! You’d definitely win with that kind of talent!” Hadou keeps slapping his arm in excitement and my stomach ties into infinite knots as he chuckles softly and scratches the back of his head, a little shy and embarrassed.

“Oh geez! You guys just want me to flip my hair again!” He jokes to lighten their zeal, but they’re shoving the microphone back into his hands and entering another song into the machine for him to sing.

“ENCORE ENCORE ENCORE!” Hadou and Yuyu harmonize for once and Mirio sits back down next to me, absolutely overwhelmed by their tenacity. But he gives them what they want and soon, we all sing to a bunch of our childhood pop tunes.

Even I find myself singing softly underneath Hadou’s yelling, Yuyu’s raspy rocker voice and Mirio’s spellbinding singing. I know they can hear me because they suddenly have stopped singing so loud, but the lack of comment gives me courage to continue on and share this moment with them.

🦋🦋🦋

We come home late that day because Mirio and I walk Hadou and Yuyu home, both to make sure they’re safe and also to prolong the inevitable family reunion. I know we’re all thinking it, but we pass the time with more teasing and pose reenactments from the earlier karaoke mess. It’s light and funny and by the time Mirio drops me off with another tight hug, I don’t feel as bad as I know I should.

When I open the front door to my house, my family tries their best to act normal. My mom even attempts at scolding me for coming home after curfew, but it sounds forced and like she thinks I’ll break any minute. My dad just silently prepares me some hot tea and my sister keeps her door open in case I want to come in to her room and not be alone.

It’s weird because I know I should feel sad and disappointed, but the me now isn’t really feeling sad at all. All I can think about is how fun it was to sing with the gang and how close we actually have gotten within a year. It’s like we’ve poured all our misery away and there’s nothing left, but all the good memories we made afterwards. But my house feels like it’s 7 hours behind, bringing me back to the time I was still hiding in the classroom and letting my mind get the better of me. Torn between letting it go or letting it sit on my mind, I take a nice long shower and not think about anything at all.

By the time I’m out of the shower, I see all the notifications Yuyu has sent to our group chat and wipe my hair dry before climbing into bed. I click on our chat and a bunch of our group selfies show up. I look at each one and laugh so hard I choke on my own saliva. There’s one with Yuyu, Hadou and Mirio posing like Charlie’s Angels that just melts the last bits of uncertainty in my mind.

Hadou and Mirio send their stolen moments as well and I do the same, checking off the four photos I manage to take. Then, I spot the video of Mirio flipping his hair back and forth to Barbie Girl and the encore love song he sings to appraise Hadou’s dying request. Just thinking about the way he fills each line with such agony and passion makes me feel funny again. But, before I think myself out of it, I press play anyway and fall asleep to the thought of how it would actually feel to be in love.

Part 1 2 3 of 5

I LIVEEE. lol. I know it’s been a hot minute, but I kinda fell into a funk and the first few drafts for this chapter felt too forced to continue. So, I took a break and started doodling around. And before I knew it, the itch to continue the story came and this long chappie was made. As always, I’d love to hear from you guys and hope you enjoy this next installment. Thank you very much and I hope you guys have a wonderful holiday season🎄

#miritama #mirio togata #tamaki amajiki #bnha #mha #mirio x tamaki #mirio #tamaki

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pussymagicuniverse · 5 years

Text

Catamenial Mania: Looking Towards the Prevalence of Period Porn

it’s easy to blame porn. it’s easy to give porn credit.

throughout history, the depictions of porn and our interactions with it have offered reflections and refractions of humanity’s most truthful and most unaware designs. manifestations of the most extreme and the most banal flights into fantasy prejudices and biases for all to hear and see and come to.

it’s a safe bet to say that periods predate porn.

the scarcity of period porn has not gone unnoticed and was the topic of a talk at the first world pornography conference in 1998. it had crossed my mind on a number of occasions why period porn had never popped up as often as i thought it would, considering that it had never popped up at all. once i debated with someone that such a thing as yeast infection porn couldn’t possibly exist, least of all because having sex with a yeast infection is a horribly uncomfortable experience. and despite it all it only took a single search on PornHub to find a video.

it’s understandable that some people prefer to keep porn as a fantasy. but how can fantasies incorporate every conceivable thing but still want to keep themselves untainted by a little blood. how could period blood not be a part of someone’s fantasy, anyone’s fantasy, especially when it’s a fact that most people with cunts get especially horny on their period.

while there are a number of factors that play into what kind of porn is made, how it is made, who it is made by, and where it is accessible, in the hierarchy of censorship it turns out that one of the main hindrances to period porn are the payment processors rather than the porn industry itself. billing companies and payment processing companies such as Visa, Mastercard, and PayPal for example, impose content restrictions and strict regulations around the words used and content provided and reserve the right to refuse to process payments for companies and websites if they allow content on their platform that violates these regulations, due to their designation of such websites as ‘high risk.’ i was exposed to this thanks to a terrific thread by writer Lux Alptraum.

“the cunt cannot help the blood it puts forth. it cannot help but flounder in life and death and creation. ambiguity and instability are implicit in its folds and people with cunts are all too aware.” (click to tweet)

looking at one example of a list of forbidden words, at first glance it doesn’t seem entirely outrageous. it’s understandable that one wouldn’t want to be promoting or legitimizing abusive, violent, or non-consensual content. it’s understandable that one wouldn’t want to be associated with snuff films. some words come in a variety so it’s clear that someone wants to cover all their bases. one can rationalize how blood might come to be on that list in regards to violence or abuse or death. however, with the inclusion of ‘menstrual, menstruate, menstruation’ it becomes clear that blood isn’t innocently forbidden.

to highlight multiple versions of menstruation (not to mention ‘period’ is also on that list, right in-between ‘pedophilia’ and ‘popper’) and put them on the same level as abuse or bigotry or slurs is a blatant demonization of people with cunts. to instate a policy that underlines natural and healthy bleeding as something that should be restricted or forbidden is nothing more than a dehumanization. to say that the blood that comes out of someone’s legs is so shameful is so dangerous that even the mere mention of the word to describe such an act is impermissible does nothing but reflect the face of patriarchy.

even unrelated connotations suffer under this. according to an interview in a Vice article that investigates this censorship a BDSM site remarks that they can no longer use red candles in their wax play because “wasteland's payment processors seem to think melted red wax is a dead ringer for blood.”

there are no good reasons to look down on menstruation. there is absolutely no excuse and there is absolutely no justification that is not based in misogyny. it is the only blood that belongs outside and yet in our daily content we find ourselves exposed to every kind but.

“anything that denies a person with a bleeding cunt is demonstrative of patriarchy.” (click to tweet)

this is how power dynamics manifest now in the neoliberal world we have generated; through the withholding of not just money and profit but the ability of exchange in itself. these payment processors and billing agents have nothing to do with the money that is being exchanged but through the mere threat of withholding the act of exchange content disappears from sight. not to say that it’s impossible to find but how many people look further than PornHub or XVideos or whatever one’s main site happens to be. this lack of visibility is entirely intentional not towards creating a fantasy but towards upholding a system of oppression and erasure. porn companies and independent porn producers can keep making all the self-conscious and feminist porn they want, but billing companies will ensure that their content never becomes mainstream.

even the act of trying to find information directly from Visa or Mastercard proves difficult. Google searches don’t seem to register the term menstruation and instead change it to ‘period’ in their algorithms. whether or not this is a prerogative of Google’s or an SEO pairing function from the billing companies is unclear.

the act of withholding payment processing when others don’t abide by your values is neither new nor limited to the world of porn. as of the writing of this post the United States is still considering imposing financial sanctions on Venezuela that may lead to Visa and Mastercard being unable to process payments in the country. another effort against Maduro and his supporters, the United States expresses its dissatisfaction at dissent not by withholding money but by withholding the ability to use money.

it’s easy to think that through the withholding of money or the ability to exchange money, values may be influenced. it’s easy to think that that’s the only way to influence people’s behavior. but besides the fact that it’s fairly agreed upon that economic sanctions don’t really work, it’s absurd to think that the act of exchanging money is being withheld in order to keep people from being exposed to the blood that comes from cunts.

“to instate a policy that underlines natural and healthy bleeding as something that should be restricted or forbidden is nothing more than a dehumanization.” (click to tweet)

around the world one of the common denominators of patriarchy is the damnation of menstruation. the effects of patriarchal thinking vary around the globe but the misogyny of stigmatizing what comes out of a person’s cunt seems to be a constant. whether through refusing to call it by its name offering odd euphemisms in its stead taxing products designed to aid the process making products hard to find making people with cunts seclude themselves following them to watch them change causing pain misattributing pain ignoring pain silencing them deeming them impure deciding everything touched is impure or some other sort of nonsense.

not everyone enjoys period sex. not everyone enjoys watching period porn. this isn’t about preferences or comfort levels. this is about the erasure and mistreatment of something that happens to people with cunts at least 450 times in their lives. what other constant is so widely ignored. what other biological constant is used as blackmail against profit.

anything that denies a person with a bleeding cunt is demonstrative of patriarchy.

this denial is not new but nor is it timeless. in both roman and etruscan mythologies there existed a goddess of the dead of spirits of chaos called mania (or manea). in Greek mythology, Mania is the goddess of insanity and madness. her name ties her to another roman goddess called Mana Genita, whose name Plurarch derives the latin verb manare, meaning to flow to shed to pour forth. in itself this bleeding is the standard for normativity. its madness is essential towards existence. it is only through our own interactions with it whether we decide to respect it or vilify it.

there is nothing wrong with chaos. there is nothing insane about insanity. it is all a part of being alive being human being whatever this concoction of cells happens to be. but the more we deny what is basic in us the harder it will be to figure out what is extraordinary.

the cunt cannot help the blood it puts forth. it cannot help but flounder in life and death and creation. ambiguity and instability are implicit in its folds and people with cunts are all too aware. to watch those around you participate in its erasure is infuriating. but people with cunts never forget.

further play:

Erotic Red

Why is ‘Period’-Porn So Rare? An Explanatory Mess

Vampire Porn Challenges Period Sex Stigma

How My Periods Made Me More Aware Of Patriarchy In The North East

Period poverty: Scotland poll shows women go to desperate lengths

Citing Gender Bias, State Lawmakers Move To Eliminate 'Tampon Tax'

Period-Shaming Isn’t Rooted In Indian Culture, But In Patriarchy

Do Vampires Menstruate? The Power Of Jenny Hval’s New Album Blood Bitch

How did menstruation become taboo?

Rubyfloetics: A Period Poem Mixtape

marina manoukian is a reader and writer and collage artist. she currently resides in berlin while she studies and works. she likes honey and she loves bees. you can find more of her words and images at marinamanoukian.com or twitter/instagram at @crimeiscommon.

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