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#it makes most sense anyway this way because of the total lack of guilt or strong response the villagers have
dadmareau · 6 months
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Hey, sorry if someone already ask this but, I am curious about what happen to child nightmare or passive. Since dadmare seem to be teleported to the past... Then does that mean passive just mysteriously dissapear and gone forever or he just also got transported to the future with grown up dream? (`・ω・´)
Ohoh, I didn't answer this, did I? I think I tried to keep it vague, but because the decision was changed (talked extensively with my beta and then missed him really badly,) I should let you guys know he will show up later. It would be cute if he went to the future (I already thought of an AU for it haha) but that is not what I intend on happening.
In summary: He is still in the same world as Dadmare and Sunbeam and will be later referred to as Moonbeam. He will be found. Development is to follow. (chime noise) Thanks for your patience. Don't want to reveal spoilers.
The only question left for you guys is: How / why did he disappear?
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m3r1m4r5u333 · 14 days
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I'm getting a bit tired of the fandom's overwhelming consensus that Eddie is surely gay even thought there are plenty reasons why his relationships with women would not have worked out.
Personally bisexuality makes more sense to me, and I feel like that's what the show is trying to show, too. And since the show already had "closeted gay man in a "straight" marriage, I think it would make more sense to go for Bi Eddie.
Because Eddie is different from Buck even if he's also bi. Religion. His family's expectations. Marriage. Parenthood. And I also think - earlier realization of sexuality even though he remains closeted. Fun fact: that's what bisexuals do! Even in supportive environments, we stay in the closet the most and the longest.
I'd really like for Eddie to be bi.
Eddie's the type of bi in disguise that the world is full of and nobody notices because the marriage with a woman would be a true one.
This matters because it seems like there's this odd idea that these bisexuals are doing fine in the closet. Why talk about them?
The reality is actually that according to just about every study, bisexuals are distinctly not fine.
The biphobia and erasure comes from all directions. People expect and understand the concept of heterosexuality and homosexuality well enough. Bisexuals...?
It's called the Double Closet. Expectation to either be straight, or gay, and if you're anything else you're just confused.
Also, bisexuals may not just have shitty parents. They also end up falling in love and marrying people who are biphobic. Fun times.
Anyway, I'm listing my reasons why Eddie being into women and men would make the most sense to me:
He agreed with Shannon that sex was never the issue for them.
His marriage to Shannon failing? He was young, the pregnancy was unplanned, he was pushed to marry a high-school sweetheart at young age and then facing the stress of trying to figure out how to raise a special needs child with her.
He went to a war, and returned traumatized. Trauma tends to make everything even harder.
Their mutual lack of trust and communication.
Meddling parents.
Perhaps... Being a closeted bisexual dating a woman who does not know.
Because that's one way to keep a partner at a distance - by hiding a part of yourself.
Losing a loved one, being afraid to love again.
Being pushed to date too soon after grief and trauma.
Falling for a male friend who he thinks is straight.
Being pushed to date someone else.
Oh and the panic attacks - Learning that his friends have died,
being shot by a sniper and thinking Buck was hurt,
ending up in a rapidly developing relationship with someone who is falling in love with him...
When he just likes her... but feels pressured to keep the relationship going anyway.
Because his son loves that person, and Eddie is programmed to go for marriage in every relationship he ends up in. Catholic guilt... They love marriage.
Family expecting him to be straight. Family pushing him to date despite him saying he isn't ready.
Being totally new in the dating world. No wonder he talks about performance anxiety and feeling like he needs to perform - his heart isn't in it.
Also he's probably never even been on dates. How to act on dates? He's not a teenager anymore, it's embarrassing and awkward to fumble and not know the dating culture.
Also when we first meet Eddie he's only been with one woman. Women aren't carbon copies. Sex can be intimate and awkward with someone new. Of course he'd be nervous.
Then finding out that his girlfriend was almost a nun... and being closeted bisexual!
And so on. Nothing actually says the man MUST be gay, and I feel weirded out by the insistence that he surely is gay.
I feel like... Maybe the show expected this, that people would dismiss his interest towards women, and wanted to make the queer community check their prejudice?
Because that episode which focuses on Eddie's fight club and has that super queer coded ice skating scene??
It's Hansel pushing Gretel away... How gay! Expect then we find out that Hansel was only scared that she would miss out an huge opportunity by staying with her. A role in the big leagues.
And that joke about Bobby being a hockey player and a figure skater??? And saying
"Who says you can't do both?" while a piece composed by Paganini - also famous for mastering both guitar and violin, plays.
The shot shows Buck AND Eddie, and Hen with Chimney looking and pointing at them in amazement.
Saying "We'll google for photos later!"
Maybe the implication of
"Who says you can't do both" being referred to isn't just
"Who says you can't do both women and men?"
.... but ALSO "Who says you can't write both of these characters to be bi?".
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cheeriecherrymain · 1 year
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What about Viktor with a reader who seems like a total airhead/bimbo but is actually incredibly intelligent and witty?
Please pardon any mistakes, I'm typing this on my phone lol
-So you guys probably meet in one of your classes, when you're both still pretty young.
-He's initially drawn to you because of your...interesting...questions during class discussions.
-He admittedly jumps to conclusions.
-Your questions aren't necessarily stupid, but they lack common sense. Anyone in the course should have been able to answer your problems without issue, yet there you were. Asking anyways.
-He assumes you're not paying attention during the lessons...but then how do you do so well on exams? Were you cheating off someone? Paying someone to write your essays for you?
-It boggles his mind, how you could barely know what you're talking about in class, but then turn around and have the second highest marks in the class.
-It all comes to a head when the midterm results are posted outside the classroom. Viktor expects his name to be in the top spot, as it usually is, but when he looks...
- "There must be a mistake," he mutters, growing agitated. No one pays him any mind though, checking their own marks and wandering off to find their seats.
-Instead of following suit, he walks up to the Professor's desk.
- "I think there is an error in the grades that have been assigned," he says quietly, trying not to make a scene.
- "No worries, my dear boy. I assure you that I have triple checked my work - something you might want to try, in the future."
-A couple people snicker to themselves, and Viktor's impatience rises.
- "How could there possibly not be a mistake?" he hisses. "According to the marks posted, Y/N had the highest grade - that's just not possible!"
-Out of the corner of his eye, he notices you perk up at the mention of your name. Now, with you listening in, his confidence in the matter plummets.
-The professor asks him why it wouldn't be possible for you to have a good grade.
-"Because she's an idiot!" he says, much louder than intended - loud enough for most of the class to hear, yourself included.
-He doesn't miss the way that your shoulders fall slightly, nor the way your demeanor grows somber and your gaze casts downward.
-He's immediately hit with a wave of guilt, which only worsens when the professor send him to his seat and he gets a better look at you as he passes.
-You're silent in class for the following week. You don't ask your usual absurd questions, and you don't participate in group discussions - you don't say anything, actually.
-Even when you're paired up for your final projects, and find yourselves in a group, you're eerily quiet.
-It's awkward, in his opinion, but he's not going to try andbforce you to say anything. Instead he draws up a plan for what you should create, explaining it to you in extreme detail as he goes.
-You continue in silence as the semester progresses, watching Viktor work diligently while he goes over ever aspect of his creation.
-He had delegated the task of writing down test results to you, so you'd still be able to get marks for participating. Test results which had been repeating, as of late.
-"I just do not understand where I'm going wrong," he sighs one afternoon. "The barrel is straight, the nose is aerodynamic, the power source is adequate! I only have four days to figure out what's going on - we'll get a failing grade, otherwise."
-At first, you say nothing, keeping your gaze firmly locked on the paper attached to your clipboard.
-But then, all at once, fury curls into your features, and you scowl at him.
"There's too much pressure being released from the fuel tank," you say, finally. "Which you would have known, if you weren't so obsessed with making the damn thing look nice."
-"It's efficient," he tries to say, but you cut him off.
-"It's stupid to work on the aesthetics before the function! The wiring is also faulty, and it's either going to cause a fire, or screw up your design when we have our presentation."
-The two of you stare at each other for several moments, the air between you tense enough to feel.
-"How can you be so certain?" he grumbles.
-"Because despite your opinion of me, I'm far from stupid, Viktor. I've earned my grades, even if you think I didn't. God forbid someone be better than you at something."
-"You are not better than me," he argues. "You, and people like you, look down on me - you always have! You're pretentious and opinionated-"
-"The only one who is pretentious and opinionated is you!" you hiss back, poking him hard on the chest. "I looked up to you! And I can't believe I wasted so much time thinking so highly of you. You're an ass!"
-The two of you fall into silence for a couple of beats, before you continue, "and for the record, I ask stupid questions because the girl who sits beside me is mute - she writes them down, and I read them. And she's pretty damn smart, too "
-After that, you're quick to pack up your things and leave, whisking past Viktor in a flurry of frustration and hurt.
-His guilt returns to him. Had he really been so presumptuous? True, in the past, you'd never done anything to hurt him - never spoken out against him, or made any accusations.
-But unlike his earlier guilt, the feeling doesn't dissipate this time. He was wrong about you, and he knows it. He just needs to find a way to make it up to you.
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echobutgirlypop · 6 months
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The Marvels SPOILERS
The Marvels Review:
Can I just say… Kamala totally had a celebrity crush on captain marvel. Like not even speculating. It’s just absolutely obviously canon.
Anyways the movie was really good and just all around enjoyable. It was pretty funny but also very emotional, I liked the story arcs they chose, the characterization totally works with what we already have etc etc.
I cried. A lot. Carol has ptsd and she’s lonely and depressed and she misses her best friend (or lover if you think of it that way), overall just a lot of GUILT. Her motivation to work so hard saving the universe must have partially been that guilt for a long time. For example she felt so bad that she abandoned Monica that she refused to let her do what she needed to do for the universe.
I think it’s cool that you can think of the story a lot of ways and you can relate to it and everything kinda is up to interpretation.
Kamala progressed SOOOO much as she turned from fangirl mini hero to a powerful knowledgeable and mature team member and superhero.
Another thing— THE LOOK OF THE MOVIE!!! I thought the special effects, costumes, set, poster of the movie, EVERYTHING looked amazing and worked and I loved it.
I am disappointed that they gave one of our most queercoded characters a fucking HUSBAND. But it’s fine because it seemed really platonic and chill which was sweet. :) and at least we got that extremely wlw scene with Valkyrie.
One thing that didn’t make much sense to me was that CAPTAIN MARVEL couldn’t fly a little faster to save monica at the end. Like she’s definitely powerful enough to cover that distance in that time. My theory is that she’s emotional and she can’t lose another person and she thinks Monica still hates her. Imagine someone crying while running. They’re kind of a mess, they’re not performing their best. That’s Carol in this situation.
Last thing: some of the choices were a little predictable, like I knew they were gonna use the flerkens to transport them and I knew the villain lady would betray them etc etc. also some of the plot stuff was a little random. But whatever that makes it interesting. Great movie, got screwed over by lack of advertising during strikes.
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americanrecord · 5 months
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u totally should nott have told me u like answering these kinds of questions lol bc u set me offff 😭 i just have so many!! like this rewrite is genuinely the thing i’m most looking forward to and i’m not kidding))) since we’ve already talked abt the boys..fuck the boys…the girls are where it’s at!! inez and val’s relationship, is it gonna be any different? how are the altered personalities going to mesh/interact? so fun! love, always
omg girl, that's what i used to all day, everyday, on my old blog until like the beginning of this past summer! i love talking about the writing, characters, etc <3 and it always tickles me to know that people care enough to ask. i do feel like i know enough about my universe at this time to answer most things too, whereas a lot used to be shrouded in mystery back on the other side of things.
but, anyway, fuck the boys fr. this is true, i only care about the girls. as for inez and val's relationship, it's not too different. i would say they actually retain some of the most similarities. the plot rises and falls the same way for them in book 1 as it did with the og. but their dynamic is a bit different. firstly, not that it impacted too much, but i did drop valerie's old crush on inez, solely because i didn't really want to have two pairs of best friends with romantic (requited or not) history. it would feel repetitive and not as special, and dean and lex's past relationship definitely impacted an overall plot to a greater degree. so that "having a crush on inez" void in val's past was just filled by an ex-gf who's mentioned from time to time and may or may not make an appearance later on.
other than that, let's see...
well, firstly, inez does gain what i believe was my biggest grievance with maintaining the character of jill: a backbone. she retain's jill's know-it-all sense, but it's infused with a certain confidence (stubbornness) that jill lacked. she doesn't keel over when told, and while still a kind-fronting person, she does have that mean streak that is backed up by her ability to hold her own. it just makes her more of a difficult presence when valerie and lex get going, because she not only objects, but really means it (there is also a bit better of context surrounding her feelings on lex) and pretty much does everything in her power—too much—to try and interfere with their relationship in the name of "knowing what's best for valerie." and we all know how valerie feels about people who think and act like they can make decisions for herself better than she can.
valerie, on the other hand, has softened a considerable amount. i really liked where she ended up toward the end of the original work, where she was very sensitive and introspective, so i sort've worked my way back and implemented this from the beginning. i thought it was much more realistic a characterization for somebody with her type of trauma, and it's also in line with her [currently undiagnosed] OCD, which in general has her pretty tense and vigilant at almost all times. her obsessions and compulsions mostly start out revolving around the fear of contamination, and that combined with her deadly catholic guilt just keeps her very particular and maybe not the easiest to get along with unless you're willing to put the effort it. not many people are. inez is one of those people, however, so she's quite protective over her and is very in tune to all of her various needs, maybe to the point where she's not ready to accommodate the idea that somebody else is also down to be the same. valerie also suffers from chronic loneliness due to her night shift and initial isolation from the music sphere, which inez does not (she's friends with everyone in the band and even other bands sans lex at the story's start), so that also contributes to their eventual explosion. valerie is lonely and finds lex/wants connections beyond the one she has with her best friend, and inez is super protective over her and doesn't realize that she has what valerie wants (romantic/sexual/platonic connections galore). i think it makes sense that valerie ditches the moment she senses that rapunzel/mother gothel thing she felt with her mother with inez.
THAT being said, they're still besties despite their clashing work schedules, and they do recover by the end of the story. details to be seen in the story itself... <3 i mostly think these character differences make so much sense and still thankfully create a similar dynamic. valerie spent her whole childhood being repressed so that she's sort of internalized that docility and struggles to like, break from it? which is what makes lex so exciting, and then inez—who, while free of a traumatizing childhood, did grow up with four other siblings and was frequently talked over/reduced to the "baby sister" so that she wants to make sure her voice is always heard and essentially does just that. whether or not she's right isn't always what's important (sometimes she is), it's just that she can be a bit stifling with valerie's freedom in book 1, which is a lesson she has to learn. (where valerie then has to learn that sometimes people looking out for you has a purpose and they're not just doing it to do it.)
see, the best thing about rewriting is having the whole story in ur head already so that you're not just sorta winging it as you go and hoping the pieces connect. now, i can actually defend the plot and the characterizations, and they feel so much more cohesive! i love them, and i love their new versions more than i do their ogs <3 they feel even realer.
so, thanks for asking! and please know that i will accept every question always. i clearly love talking, and i love distractions from my boring ass internship even more. also -- if beta-reading the rewrite is something you're interested in, let me know! it would probably be the quickest way to see it because who knows what the battle of publication will look like! just message me or something if so <3 i think i have room for one more!
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captnjacksparrow · 2 years
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Should I feel ashamed for liking dom/sub type of fanfics related to sns? (sasunaru shipper btw)
Ofc I’m able to separate that kind of stuff when it comes to understanding how their canon relationship works, and I don’t try to force my preferences on anyone. When I’m trying to understand their characters, ofc I don’t bring bottom or top into it. I honestly get a lot of hate for my preference and I’m constantly accused of not understanding sasukes character or their relationship dynamic because I ship Sasunaru. I hate it a lot, im able to differentiate how their relationship actually works and how it is in the ff I typically enjoy.
I just hope im not a cruel person for liking that kind of stuff with characters who likely don’t even follow the bottom/top dynamic. Your thoughts?
Okay...
Before I write anything related to this ask, I suggest you to read these short posts from one of our renowned SNS blogger Fourangers.
This and This and This
The reason I attached these posts is because I want you to know why people feel certain way about SasuNaru (including me). Not bashing you or your Choice, Anon. Even Fourangers also wasn’t bashing. What she said makes total sense. 
Like, it depends on Doujinkas and Fanfic writers INSTEAD of the seme/uke thingie. It’s unreasonable to pin an entire sub-fandom as a negative (a sub fandom of the very ship I ship) just because of the Top/Bottom discourse. And that’s exactly how I feel too. Because few days ago, I was on Cloud Nine to have found an 100% canon compliant SN doujinshi which even led me to make a dedicated post about it because most of them I’ve came across were a terrible Porno mess. My gripe about SN is.. “I wish it were more characterization first and sexual preference last... Rather than conforming the character under a stereotypical seme/uke and make it unpalatable”
So, Keeping this as a Preface.....
Should I feel ashamed for liking dom/sub type of fanfics related to sns?
No. Definitely not. 
I said, I usually don’t read these genre because ‘Romance/Smut’ is not my thing. But if smut appeals to you, then Please Go ahead... and have fun.
Well, Why should you feel ashamed anyway? 
Because Did the other side AKA NS virtue signaled you that they are the better species filled with only pureness, canon-ness without any smut or dom/sub contents??? If that’s the case....  
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Please ignore those Incels AKA morons who is guilt tripping or making you feel ashamed about your preference. They are no better than those Homophobic assholes who shames other people for their sexual orientation.. And FYI, Dom/Sub thing exists in that side too... 
So, Screw those accusations and read whatever you want... After all you are very aware of what you like, what you don’t, what is canon and what is not... Especially you are not insisting your Head canons onto others.... I guess, this Self-Realization is what I feel is very important for anyone who wish to participate in the fandom. Most people don’t even have this basic thing.
Let me say this once more. Until and Unless the Author confirms something directly or implied indirectly.... Nothing is Canon. Hence, Insisting xxx character is a Top/Bottom is still only an Headcanon and not the one true fact... 
I honestly get a lot of hate for my preference and I’m constantly accused of not understanding Sasukes character or their relationship dynamic because I ship Sasunaru.
My Question.... 
Do they understand Sasuke’s character, first of all???? Not that I am claiming myself to be that All-Knowing... If anything, I am still learning new things about these wonderful characters everyday. But what gives them the moral superiority that they understand everything about Sasuke while pointing fingers at others being lacking??? 
Let me say this....
I found 2 English translated... 1 Chinese.... 1 Russian translated dj (which has 8 chapters)... All from SasuNaru artists... And I must say, they got Sasuke’s characterization much better than... atleast 20% better than how I found him in NS djs... All the while keeping Naruto’s characterization damn fucking well... And also None of those djs had sexual elements in it....
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This is Naruto from a SN dj named Melting Snow. *** I don’t know why it was tagged under NS *** 
Here, Naruto was drawn with his confident charisma who gives off this hopeful aura... Just like how he was drawn in Kishimoto’s works.
My observation is that.... If SN gets it right... then their contents are much more enjoyable and will have higher degree of canon-ness than their NS counterpart. But sadly, it’s a rare thing though.
I just hope im not a cruel person for liking that kind of stuff with characters who likely don’t even follow the bottom/top dynamic.
Most of the best Yaoi novels I’ve read has 98% Story and 2% Sex. Even the sex part comes towards the very end of the story and Not gonna lie, it was very very BDSM-esque. Does it means, those Authors are cruel??? Or does it means, the millions of readers are also cruel??? Such a guilt tripping, moral policing incels.
If that’s the case... I am very Cruel Person too... And I am happy being that way.
Anyways, If someone accuses you that You are Cruel just because you are reading those stuffs just know that they are some self-projecting Clowns who are very similar to SS peeps. 
The following pic is from a Popular SS fic comment section.
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LOL... SS peeps are also so much into Bottom Sasuke... Now NS can’t accuse others that SN behave like SS, can they???? Because they also behave just like SS....
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innerchorus · 2 years
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Arslan Senki Chapter 106
(Oops, still intending to do a little review of 105 at some point, but for now here’s a few thoughts on the new chapter!)
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Kishward, the most stressed man in Peshawar.
I do feel a bit sorry for him, but this panel is so amusing to me (especially after noticing Kubard, Isfan and Tus overlooking this scene). Kubard gets away with doing so little, it’s funny. Or perhaps it’s quite astute of Andragoras to leave him be for now, with the knowledge that when it comes time to do battle, he’ll prove his worth as a Marzban.
Hm, Arakawa really looked at that scene where Tahamenay materalises out of nowhere and said ‘nope, that just doesn’t make sense’ and chose to integrate a way for her to have been informed that Kishward had found Vahriz’s secret letter to Bahman. 👍 
Love the little detail of Bahman’s family seal holding the letter closed
And also how conflicted Kishward is about what to do with it! Honestly, it’s probably better for him that he didn’t read it...
I can see why this chapter is called ‘The Curse of the Royal Line.’ We get some more of Andragoras vagueing about the dark history of the Parsian royal family, and Kishward ruminating about whether the royal line is cursed, and if so, whether Arslan might be immune to the curse since he lacks royal blood. That’s... something. Especially because we then get a tantalising scene featuring someone sweeping up the charred remnants of the letter and finding a readable fragment that says ‘Hilmes’... So Vahriz had something to tell Bahman about Hilmes, too.
...okay, exactly WHAT did Vahriz write about Hilmes in his letter? I don’t think Bahman knew that Hilmes was alive until he was confronted by him, because he seemed so shocked in that moment. If Vahriz wasn’t writing to inform him that Hilmes was alive, he must have told Bahman the same thing that Andragoras told Sam in Chapter 56...
As for HOW Vahriz came to know about Arslan’s parentage and that secret about Hilmes, I have a theory — Andragoras told him. I don’t think there’s much chance for Vahriz to have found out any other way, when so few living people are aware of the truth. In this case, neither Vahriz nor Bahman would have known that Hilmes survived the fire, since Andragoras didn’t know either. This is also how Andragoras knows about the contents of the letter even without reading it — he was the source of the information, and it wouldn’t take much to guess that Vahriz had decided to share the burden of this knowledge with an old friend.
(Really curious about WHY Andragoras loves to drop these cryptic hints or shocking reveals about the royal family. Okay, the answer is almost certainly ‘for plot reasons’ but I do find it interesting that he wants to make it known that there’s some sort of dark history of treachery and bloodshed going back a long way... but it doesn’t feel like he’s trying to lay the blame fully on Gotarzes, either. I don’t necessarily think Andragoras feels any guilt or remorse for any of his own actions, but he also never tries to portray himself as innocent or separate from these events — because he doesn’t see himself that way. He’s a part of that dark history, and he knows it and accepts it.)
Most of the rest of the chapter is The Frustrated Struggles of Guiscard, who gives so few shits about what Hilmes was up to in the mountains that he cuts poor old Olaberria off when he’s trying to tell him what happened. Olaberria lacks the cultural context to know why that tomb robbing incident was of such significance, and Guiscard literally just wants Hilmes dead now, lol.
The little glimpse of Bodin was unexpected. I don’t know what’s going on here (I thought Bodin just stayed in Maryam in the novels?) but it’s totally in character for him to mistake snaky whispers for the voice of Yaldabaoth. So I’m curious to see how that plays out.
Anyway I’m pretty excited that Arslan’s army is finally departing from Gilan!
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cinnamonest · 3 years
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Xiao - Yandere Profile
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Y’all big horny for yaksha boi too??? Excellent.
Remember how I said Kaeya and Diluc were like a game on hard mode? Xiao is Dark Souls on the 6th stacked difficulty of New Game Plus.
I really like Xiao on an analytical level because he's an excellent candidate for the debate some have as to the nature of selfless vs selfish love... He's a good one to analyze for that debate bc holy fuck does this man have some of the most selfish, inconsiderate love out there. He's brutal as fuck. I feel like his would be such an interesting balance of wanting returned affection and being really obsessive, yet being so uncompromising and not really at all hesitant to wreck your shit. This is the longest one I've made, too, I had a lot of thoughts lmao.
Fun fact, when I first heard his name was Xiao I assumed it would be the hanzi for "dawn" since I've seen that used in Chinese given names sometimes... Nope, I'd never seen the hanzi for his name before so I looked it up and it's like an impish demon creature lol
I had a dilemma between to go for tsunyandere or kuuyandere, but I was in a dark content mood so I kinda went kuuyandere route.
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tws: mentions of mutilation (on reader), mentions of violence and torture (on rivals), kidnapping, Xiao is very lacking in empathy and borders on sociopathic behavior (which can be triggering to some people), mentions of misogyny bc I'm just gross like that, generally dark and awful
tws (below cut): noncon, more mentions of mutilation goddammit Xiao, forced submission, also generally dark and awful
This is probably the darkest one I've written, so, that's a fair warning.
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What are they generally like? Lucid, aware? Obsessive? How do they behave?
Aware, over time, and very irritated by it, really. He's above... Feeling things. He changes with time. He starts off a bit irritated, flustered even, which is something he's never really experienced before. Honestly exemplifies the "boys are mean to you because they like you" trope, he will go out of his way to be harsher and colder towards you because how dare you make him... Feel things. He'll be exceptionally harsh in how he speaks to you, even more than others. But... once he realizes it drives you away, he'll realize that he actually wants you around him.
But that's the thing - Xiao doesn't normally go out of his way to do anything to anyone, really. He's cold and a bit aggressive because he's bothered by or just doesn't really enjoy people, but if they leave him alone, he leaves them alone. You're different - he feels a weird, uncomfortable feeling in your presence, but he still wants your presence anyway. It's a lot of new sensations for him, and it's overwhelming. So many new feelings.
One, he doesn't understand why his stomach flutters when you smile at him, why chills run down his spine when you accidentally brush your hand across his. Well, he understands what it usually means for humans - but he's not human, surely, there's no way he could possibly experience that same "love" humans do, right?
Love is horrible after all - he's seen how humans obsess over it, how much tragedy it can bring to their lives, and, in particular, how much of a fool of themselves humans often make when "in love", especially the men.
He thinks he's above the human feelings, so he'll deny it to himself at first. It will likely be some kind of breaking point for him, particularly one in which you're in danger. Normally, he couldn't care less about people in danger - if someone isn't strong enough to protect themselves, they die, that's just how the world works. But he sees you shoved down, another human looming over you with murderous intent in their eyes, he sees the fear on your face and the tears streaming down and something in him snaps and bursts and gives way to the intense emotions he's tried to shove down. He'll go wild, and make quick work of the offender. And you'll thank him for saving you of course, even if the display was a bit horrifying to see.
It's not only that intense nervousness in the others presence, but an enjoyment of their presence. It's so contradictory and he hates it - he feels so nervous, so jittery around you, yet at the same time, something about your presence, your smiles, your voice is addictive to him and he needs more of it. He enjoys spending time with you - a new sensation.
Over time, as he becomes aware of how he feels, he becomes less flustered, more stone-faced and matter of fact about it. He accepts that he feels a sense of affection, now his concern is how to handle it. He just has no idea how to begin going about it. Does he just try to suppress it? Act on it? He acknowledges the possibility of rejection, what then? Of course, rejection wouldn't make him stop wanting you with him, it wouldn't even really deter him, but it would make things more difficult than if you accepted it. He spends a while contemplating, just trying to make sense of it all.
He ends up laying awake at night with you in his mind - it's pathetic, it irritates him. No human is important enough to occupy his mind. And yet, even if he tries, he can't stop. And, as much as it disgusts him, he finds himself feeling very physical sensations when thinking about you. That's the most irritating part, to him. He's always viewed humans' drive to copulate as disgusting, and really a pathetic weakness - again, he's seen the absolutely foolish things human men do and the extensive lengths they go to for just a spare crumb of sex. So the first few times he ends up getting a physical reaction to those late night thoughts, he'll try to ignore the throbbing and just go about his night, but eventually it starts to get painful. That's the point at which he decides he can't just sit around and do nothing.
How likely are they to kidnap their darling? How quickly will they do so?
Unavoidable. But not the absolute fastest. He's far too confused by his feelings at first, and doesn't understand why he has the urge to do so. He'll experiment, spending time around you, trying to figure himself out. His prideful tsundere nature comes out then -- it's not like he enjoys your presence, no. He feels something very strange about you, and one of the possibilities in his mind is that perhaps he's being drawn to you because his subconscious perceives you as an enemy, perhaps. Something in him knows that you're up to no good, so he has to follow you, maybe. Those reasons are far more likely than actually enjoying being around you, he thinks.
As he comes to understand it better and is forced to acknowledge that he feels an affection for you, he begins to feel a darker urge. One of the things that forces him to recognize said affection is how much it irritates him to see you talk to others. He rationalizes this, as it is perfectly normal for humans to feel jealousy, isn't it? ... But are humans this upset when they see their beloved talk to their own family? Is it normal? Is it a thing with just the males, and that's why he feels that way? Surely the humans don't get this upset, or else they wouldn't let their beloveds have friends and speak to others, right? He doesn't really feel guilt for the urges, but he does feel bothered by the notion of having some abnormal desire, wonder if there's something wrong with him.
Well, he starts thinking back to history, and all the things he's witnessed, and that gives him... an idea. Teyvat has been around a long time. There have been several cultures and societies that did keep lovers... restrained. Confined to a house... forbidden from speaking to others... and that idea sounds nice, he thinks. Back in those days, no one would bat an eye at his desire to keep you away from the world, right? So really, it's not abnormal or weird at all. Things just change with time, but there's nothing abnormal about him, it's perfectly normal to want to prevent you from ever speaking to anyone else ever again. Sure, those cultures never went that far, but... it's the same idea, right?
So, he decides, there's nothing wrong with him, and in that case, he doesn't have any guilt or concern for your desires to hold him back. He's another one to take a fairly barbaric route -- he'll be one to show up while you sleep, clamp a hand over your mouth, gag you and tie you up, before leaving right out your window. He'll find an isolated, quiet, well-hidden place to reside, one with an enclosed, windowless room to keep you confined.
He doesn't like it, but he's not completely lacking in understanding human psychology. He wouldn't like to be in your shoes, wouldn't like if someone did to him what he's going to do to you, so he understands why you'll be upset, he prepares for it, even. He's not a delusional. So, from the beginning, he's already planning out how to make you compliant and love him. He settles on a simple tactic: utilize what he knows to force your human nature to love him.
How difficult is it to escape from them? How do they keep you restrained? How do they deal with attempted escape? 
Once you do get kidnapped, it's pretty tight security. Kind of like Albedo, he'll take you far away from society. Again, he's not super concerned with your desire on the matter, since this is about keeping you with him, it's about his imperatives. He doesn't really want to harm you, though, so there is a slight consideration. He's stuck on a balance of wanting to keep you agreeable and obedient, but keeping you confined is most important, so he'll try to keep it a bit comfortable. He'll get you a nice bed, very soft things. He's so nice, he'll even get you leather cuffs instead of metal ones. But you will be getting restrained, and no amount of begging will get him to take them off. He'll also give you nothing to do, and probably nothing to wear. Clothes are a waste and totally unnecessary when no one but him sees you. And the boredom will make you compliant. You'll be so unbearably bored that talking to him will be like a privilege. You'll start to look forward to it. You'll bond with him. He'll be your only source of mental stimulation. He's smart enough to figure that out when he's in the planning stages of your confinement, and already has this planned out.
Because he... struggles to feel high amounts of empathy when it's about what he wants, it's doubtful he'll ever really lighten up without incentive. Sure, he could lighten up on your restraints, but why should he? Sure, it would alleviate your suffering, but it would present the slightest chance of an escape. Your comfort isn't worth the insecurity and worry he'd have throughout the day. Why would he be so foolish as to feel that it was?
Escape attempts are an ultimate transgression to Xiao. He understands your stubbornness and anger to the extent that they don't hurt him too much, but an escape attempt is one of the few things you can do that make him feel genuine hurt. You won't get away for long, he will hunt you down in no time and he will ensure you're discouraged from ever attempting that again. He's not very hesitant to be brutal. Really, he doesn't want to hurt you just for the sake of it, but he knows how powerful fear and pain are. He'll make sure you are strongly dissuaded from another attempt. If you're, miraculously, brave enough to try again, he'll have to take a step further and make sure you can't.
How easy are they to trick, deceive, or manipulate?
Don't. He's not stupid, he tells you, the moment you try anything. And you really, really, really should be trying to avoid making him mad. Honestly, if you're at this point, you'd have to be either incredibly unafraid of pain, or just crazy to try and do anything that could result in his anger. He'll shut it down almost immediately, and tell you exactly that.
How lenient are they? What privileges can you have, and what will you be denied?
He knows you need food and all that, so he'll generally get you whatever you want to make for yourself. He's got a limited list of things he's willing to eat so you'll quickly find yourself asking for the privilege of getting different foods please I'm begging you for something other than almond tofu, and he'll get you whatever you ask for, at least in that regard. He's not going to starve you or anything. But you'll find it's probably one of the only things you get much of a choice on.
If you want any relief from the harsh restraint and boredom, you have one option: succumb.
No amount of disobedience or disagreeableness will have him letting up on you. You might think you can hold out and be stubborn long enough to get him to cave, but you'd be wrong. You will crack before he does, and he knows it. He'll simply punish your disobedience, and wait out a bit more. And wait, and wait, and wait, because you won't last long. It's inevitable that you will succumb to him, start to crave him, start to be sweet and affectionate, and bond with him. At that point, maybe he'll let you walk around - hey, getting your muscles back to normal from the atrophy can be a bonding activity. And he might give you some approved tasks or books or the like. But at the first sign of a regression, the first sign of disobedience, the first sign of rejection from you, that will be gone, and you'll have to earn it back, starting back at square one.
What kind of rules do they have? What kind of punishment would they use?
Don't run away. Obey everything he says.
He doesn't make a rule against fighting him, really, and he doesn't need to. You'll be far too terrified of him to try, and even if you did, it would be like swatting a fly, he could disarm and incapacitate you in seconds.
And now, we get into one of the darker yanderes. Once again, Xiao doesn't really get emotions too well, and doesn’t understand his own all that much. His brain thinks in actions and results. If you're trying to run away, he'll simply have to make it so that you can't... ever again. He is one of the most likely yanderes to be open to truly, permanently incapacitating you to a severe degree to keep you with him. He understands why you're upset, but surely you knew the consequences, right? You tried to run away, it only makes sense that he would do something like this, you should understand that, even if you don't like it. You're foolish to try and talk him out of it, what, do you think he's going to be persuaded by you crying? If you were that opposed to it, you shouldn't have tried to run. Really, he doesn't understand why you humans do things as if there's no consequences.
Xiao... doesn't feel guilt. When it's something unintentional, something he didn't mean to do, he can, but when it's about what he wants? There's none, really. He usually goes on what works best for him, and for the most part, that's keeping you happy. But when your happiness goes against keeping you with him, his imperative takes priority. You'll get over it eventually, and he'll help you. He can carry you wherever you need to go, you don't need to walk.
How do they deal with rivals, or perceived rivals? Will they get rid of them? Will they kill them themselves, or find another way?
Eek.
Yeah it won't be pretty. He gets mad about rivals, and he perceives everyone as one. He's another one that doesn't really distinguish between romantic rivals and rivals for attention - your family and friends are just as much of a problem as any love interests, because you smile at them, you pay attention to them, you like them, and just that knowledge makes an unbearable rage boil inside him.
He's desensitized to violence, and doesn't really understand how it affects normal people - he won't think of how it might affect you to see it, so slaughtering people in front of you comes naturally to him. He's actually one of the ones who might get angry enough to make it slow, making sure they know what they did wrong, even if that consisted of simply being a stranger who smiled at you. If you react negatively, he won't really understand. He has some, but doesn't possess a lot of empathy. He'll chalk it up to you being a hysterical, emotional human with your incapacitating aversion to violence. He's glad he doesn't have such a strong aversion. Would make his job rather difficult.
How easy is it to make them mad? What does their anger look like?
He's pretty easily set off. He gets frustrated because he thinks you're being unnecessarily difficult, and frankly he's very used to getting his way with things immediately. In his life, most of the things he wants are either given to him very easily, or are easily obtainable with a simple exertion of violence. Usually he can just, well, kill and slaughter and maim his way to any result he desires. This is one of the first issues he's dealt with that violence won't solve. Well... maybe not the extent he's used to. But nonetheless, perhaps a bit of controlled violence can solve his problems, at least to an extent.
His anger is, as you can imagine, terrifying. Sure, he'll reassure you that he won't kill you, but you can't get out of your head the images of the things you've seen him do by that point, the people you've undoubtedly seen die and suffer at his hands. He snarls and speaks in a deep, booming voice when he's at his angriest, and it's enough to make you panic. If he's angry enough, he knows he can't be around you, because he fears hurting you further than he means to, so he'll likely leave. If it's enough that he feels he can control it, though, it's not pretty. He's one to hold something in his hands and squeeze it to alleviate anger so hard it breaks. Just hope that doesn't happen to be your hand, arm, shoulder, or any other part of your person.
So they see you as above them, beneath them, or equal to them?
He doesn't... really care? I'm tempted to say far below, but really, the whole concept of relative value of humans and status and the like holds no meaning to him. He thinks it's foolish and pointless to even ponder such things.
As for his superiority in certain things, it's different. He's smarter than you. He's stronger than you. He's faster, he's more perceptive, he's more capable, he's wiser, he's more skilled. These things are just facts, they are the undeniable reality, he thinks. However, he doesn't really assign these things as having any ties to the relative value of an individual, and in his mind, humans don't really, either. Didn't they prioritize the lives of children? Children are far lesser in every way, but humans treat them as most important, even if they rightfully see them as inferior in every way. So it's the same with him, he thinks. In every field, you're inferior, but that doesn't really matter, worth and relative position are worthless human ideas.
As for treatment, however, he treats you as lower, which is all that really matters. He wants obedience and submission, and he'll get it, no matter what extent he has to go to.
How determined are they for you to love them? How hard will they try to make it happen? Or are they content just having you?
He's in the middle - one of the ones that would LIKE for you to love them, but in the end, even if they feel like you never will, they still want you anyway. He'll never stop trying, though.
He's got a lot of pride and wouldn't resort to groveling and desperately trying the way some would. Like a few others, he kinda automatically feels like he deserves the things he wants, including your love. But his unfamiliarity with human emotions leads him to be a little confused and unable to read you. He knows humans play "hard to get," and may assume that's what you're doing. And he recognizes that by kidnapping you, he is removing you from your friends and family, so he concludes that you're only mean to him because you're mad. And anger settles down with time, right? He also knows that, even if humans don't like someone, if they're forced to spend time around them, they'll form a bond. So what he concludes is that simply time is needed. Time to let anger simmer down, time to forget about those others, time to inevitably come to depend on him.
With his experimentation, what he discovers is that even if you aren't affectionate, he is still happier with your presence than without. So he'll keep you no matter what, he decides. You'll come around eventually. And gradually, even if it's ever so slow, you will. You will, no matter how hard you may fight it, the effects of such isolation are ultimately inevitable.
Some yanderes might be upset by the notion that they have to mentally deteriorate their darling to obtain love - they want you to love them "organically" and feel like love born from mindbreak and isolation isn't "real." You might think he'd be like that, due to his tendency to be prideful, but he's actually not. Xiao doesn't understand emotions well enough to distinguish little differences like that. Sure he had to use a strategy, but it's still love, isn't it? It's the same thing, so why should how it came about matter? It took a little bit of extra work, is all. And although he won't say so, he thinks you're worth it.
Bonus: Is there anything that makes them unique, in comparison to other yanderes?
Is somewhat reluctant to confess to you and may try to come up with some other reason as to why he did it, but it's kinda obvious when he's so concerned about you, so blushy and flustered in the beginning and the way he runs his hands through your hair when he thinks you're asleep. But yeah, initially he might try to think up some way to explain why your kidnapping is for some other weird complex reason he made up, and not just because he really REALLY wants you all to himself.
He's also very matter-of-fact about things. He says things with a straight face, no matter how horrifying, sweet, or inappropriate they may be. Doesn't matter if he's finally confessing his love, talking about how he wants to keep you locked away forever, or threatening to break your legs, it'll all generally be carried with the same facial expression and tone of voice. The only difference is the eye contact and slight blush if it's one of the former.
You may be able to catch moments of vulnerability, especially late-stage, months into your new life. If you've been highly affectionate, and he trusts you, he might seek some reassurance every now and then, in a soft, quiet voice, for a few precious moments of gentleness that don't come very often.
As aforementioned, Xiao has little to no sense of empathy nor guilt when it comes to obtaining the things he desires. What he does feel is wanting you to be happy... because it makes him feel good inside. In a way, you could say his love is incredibly selfish, because it's entirely about his happiness when it comes down to it. Normally, seeing you happy makes him happy, so your imperatives line up. And he's willing to maybe change some things to make you happier -- ok, fine, sure, he won't torture them to death, he'll just kill them. But he has limits to how much he'll compromise for you. Ultimately, when your imperatives don't align with his, he won't even consider yours for a mere moment. His brain just can't really consider anything but acting for his own desires. When he gets mad at people for hurting you, it's because it's an insult to him. It's part of why he's one that will settle for having you - ultimately, what he wants matters more than your happiness... but that's because he wants you, and loves you so, so much, you know? Don't think it's not love, though. It's incredibly selfish, self-serving, and inconsiderate, but it's hard to say it's not love.
Somewhat relating to the above, he realizes pretty quickly you're likely afraid of him, especially after what you've undoubtedly witnessed by that point. He doesn't want that, really. He wants a healthy level of fear, just enough to avoid running away, but he doesn't like seeing you cry and tremble because you're so afraid of his brutality. He doesn't help, though, because he thinks you fear death, and death alone, and in his lack of understanding, he will go through a very specific list of exactly what he will do, which frankly would only serve to make things worse.
"It's alright... I won't kill you, you know. You're foolish if you don't understand the difference... They only died because they wanted to take you away from me. You're the reason they died, so, I wouldn't kill you... I've already decided what to do at certain points. If you try to run away once or twice, I'll just break your legs, and if you try a third time, I can just take your legs off. That should prevent any further attempts, so I have no reason to kill you. So you shouldn't be so upset... don't look so afraid all the time. What? No, I don't mean your whole legs... just at the feet. Why are you still crying? I can just take off one if it's that upsetting... It's only if you run away."
You should probably know that he doesn't make empty promises, either.
General perverseness: how sexual of a person are they? What’s their drive like? How touchy do they get? Do they have any reservations about sexuality?
Boy has no idea what to do. He's only ever jerked off and always feels disgusted when he does, he only has anatomical knowledge of female bodies from medical diagrams he's seen once or twice.  Not that he'll tell you that. But you'll know, I mean, once he forces your legs open he's just staring in both awe and confusion, probably just sits there for a moment slightly flustered because?? Where's he supposed to put it in?? How does he do this? He'll figure it out, but it might take a few rough thrusts of him just rutting against you.
Drive goes from non existent to highish, he's got what you call a reactive sexuality. Really, he used to just jerk off only to relieve the buildup, because he found it gross whenever it would happen in his sleep. Reactive sexualities are when a person doesn't have a super high drive on their own, but will react to stimuli from persons or sights around them, and will get significantly higher when around someone they love. Before, he never had anything to react to, so he rarely got horny, but now? He has you. And you... Trigger some reactions.
And that being said, he's so unfamiliar with horniness and sex that it's constantly an exploration process for him too. He'll spend some time just... learning. Touching here and there, figuring out what makes your breath hitch and toes curl. It's a fascinating thing to him, really.
He doesn't talk about it much, nor during, he just kind of... acts. You don't get much of a verbal warning, he'll just kind of pick you up and move you around to however he wants.
Pretty decently sized, but isn't aware of it. He hasn't had the opportunity to be around too many other people to know. If you try to tell him it's too big for you, he'll just be incredibly confused, isn't your body literally made to be able to do this? He's actually not going to get particularly smug or anything, he just sees it as an irritation that you're so reluctant and try to fight because of it, but he does like watching you convulse and squirm once he's already in you.
He's actually not that much of a sadist, so much as he likes power. Pain is par for the course, it's a part of every aspect of life and he's essentially desensitized to it. But power and control, now that does something for him.
How forceful are they? Do they care about your willingness?
Not particularly concerned with it. Once again, he's decided to utilize what he knows to maximize your acceptance and love. He knows that orgasms release a bunch of feel-good chemicals, that they cause bonding, that they make you more complacent, and, for the sake of submission, that it'll humiliate you and make you unable to really defy him, as he can hold it over your head, and with time you'll accept him. Over time, he knows, you'll come to crave any physical touch you can get. And while he's more than willing to hold you and sleep curled up with you, he'd be lying if he said this wasn't his favorite and preferred form of physical affection.
Besides, he's been fighting off the urges for forever at this point, he's not going to wait around. Pretty much will be ready to do it as soon as you wake up, and you'll probably already be bound up and lacking any clothes by the time you do. He's not very hesitant. It's yet another case of wanting what he wants and getting what he wants. He's one that will bound you up pretty heavily, hands tied above your head, legs pulled back and tied to the headboard, so it's not like you can do much against it anyway. He understands your hesitancy, be it out of anger or fear, but he's also hard and fast enough that you can't really form a lot of words, so it's not too discouraging.
What sort of kinks or fetishes do they have, or would they fill?
He's not really familiar with any at first, and he has to experiment around. You would think normally an inexperienced boy would want the female to take the lead, but noooo, he's way too proud for that.
Oral fixation
The most shameful one to him. It's disgusting, he thinks, it's unnatural, it goes against the very purpose of sex to procreate, but he knows it exists, he's heard of how it goes and God when you talk and smile he desperately wants to see your mouth wrapped around his dick. When you're laying under him he just has an uncontrollable urge to just buy his face between your legs and lick at everything he can, and eventually he'll cave to both of those urges. The latter will be very unprompted and unanticipated, probably you're not even getting it on at the moment - something like you're sleeping, you're just laying there, your legs open a bit and he just rips off whatever you have on and stuffs his head between your legs - he's not skilled by any means, but works with such an intensity and speed that you'll cum on his face anyway.
If he's mad, he can get rough with the former. Hearing you gag and choke, watching the tears run down your face helps satisfy his anger quite a bit. Unfortunately for you, he can last quite a while, and will grab your hair and force your face down, or really, he's one to lay you on the edge of a bed on your back and really fuck your throat out. And he won't let you spit it out either -- he'll hold your mouth shut with his hands and force you to swallow every little bit.
Finger-fucking
He was once told the trick of putting your fingers inside and curling them, and that's an easy instruction to follow. He'll try it out, and once he watches how it makes you gasp and whimper, he'll get addicted to it, moving his fingers harsh and fast. He likes it because he's not too distracted by his own physical sensations, other than the throbbing hard-on, and can really take in your faces, noises, and really watch you come undone. As an added bonus, he's definitely not going to just leave it at that, no, and he discovers very quickly you're particularly sensitive immediately after one orgasm, reacting with extra loud squeals and harsh clenching when he presses against your extremely sensitive insides. And he likes that quite a bit.
D/S dynamic / bondage
It helps him restore his damaged pride from his embarrassment over the fact that he even has sexual urges in the first place. He deserves to be worshipped, he deserves to have you on your knees in front of him. In particular, he loves to give you commands, see you follow through with them. It's empowering. It's reassuring. Probably the type to want to be called master. He feels its appropriate. And he'd definitely be one to make it an all-the-time, 24/7 sort of dynamic too. He can be gentle about it, too, and will reward you for being well-behaved. The dynamic, the rewards, the praise, all makes you all the more slowly, but surely, succumbing to him, giving in, and finally accepting him.
Tying you up prevents you from moving around too much, and that's the initial reason for it, but he realizes very very quickly that something about seeing you that way is very, very pleasing to him. It gives him a sense of power and control in addition to what he already has established. It also helps alleviate a bit of his nervousness surrounding the whole thing. When you're all tied up, probably blindfolded too, he can just run his hands up and down, stare at your body, figure out what's where and see everything without you squirming around.
Masturbation instruction/voyeurism
Something about just watching you touch yourself drives him up the wall with horniness. It also helps give him an idea of what the fuck he’s supposed to do (again, not that he’ll tell you that). But more importantly, it’s yet another control thing. He won’t just let you go at it, no, he’ll be very specific with his instructions, and expects you to follow them perfectly. He’ll make you edge yourself and even overstimulate yourself, demanding you keep going even after you cum, and even if you can’t, he’ll just swat your hand aside and do it himself.
How do they feel about pregnancy or babies? Do they want them?
He's... Not sure if it's even possible? If so, the whole idea makes him feel a bit odd. Small little beings, ones that look like him, ones that share his blood? The whole concept is so strange. He'd probably want to find out if such a thing is even possible, considering your differences, but he would likely be somewhat opposed to it, as it feels weird to him. He would become more accustomed to the idea with time, though. And one thing he neglects to remember, even if he knows, is that you have to pull out to avoid that, and he definitely doesn't.
What kind of (nsfw) punishments would they use?
Overstimulation is a go-to, as is forced orgasms. Tying back to his finger-fucking tendencies, he learns how sensitive orgasms make you, and how torturous it can be. Even if he can't keep going, after he fucks you a few times, he can still go with his mouth, fingers, over and over and over again, until you're sobbing and begging from the overstimulation. He thinks there's something weirdly beautiful about how something can bring you so much pleasure and pain, be so good yet so unbearable. Seeing you cry while you convulse, hiss from the pain when you're so sensitive that even the lightest touches are painful. Just watching it gives him an electrifying feeling. As a bonus, it will just make you more bonded, the overload of the positive chemicals in your body will bind you to the very person inflicting such a torture on your body. How ironic.
He'd be one for impact pain too, potentially with his hands, but he's one that's more likely to invest in something like a riding crop, or just a belt. He likes the fear of it, too, seeing how you wince and whimper just by hearing it crack before he even does anything to you.
What body parts of their darling do they like the most?
Hips and thighs. He likes grabbing, pulling you back onto him. Running his hands over them. He likes that when he's rough enough, his hands leave bruises on them. It's really pretty to him, and just an ever so blatant reminder of your place... to him, and, he knows, to you.
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sweettsubaki · 2 years
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How the Buckley Parents and Doug's abuse impacted Maddie and her relationship with Buck
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So about a year ago I wrote this post and 515 having Buck acknowledge out loud Maddie's the one who raised him made me think I might actually write the thing. It's a bit messy and honestly there are some things I'd have loved to get deeper into but it was already a bit long.
Anyway, Enjoy:
The impact of Daniel's illness and their parent's reaction to it on Maddie's life was mostly three folds.
Being put on the backburner. That's kind of understandable considering Daniel had Leukemia but they went too far and it impacted her greatly.
Lack of support through grief (Lack of support through Child Bereavement is a specific topic that doesn't have that many studies sadly enough) along with some sweet sweet guilt tripping
Parentification
Aka we got ourselves some pretty nice Emotional Neglect and severe Emotional Manipulation to look through.
So the first one is sorta normal but the parents went too far. When a child is ill it's incredibly important to try and establish a routine while sticking to as many old routines as possible in order to give all the children (sick or not) some stability and quality times. Here, while we don't know the details, we know that they were focused on Daniel's health and Margaret's pregnancy was probably closely monitored to make sure she could give birth to the savior baby. We don't know how far they went in pushing Maddie to the background but it's not a big stretch to think they were at least fairly callous with her. Cases like this force the kid to start being more independent before being ready. Maddy was around 9 or 10 when Daniel died and while kids become more and more independent every week, at that age it still mostly concerns doing a task rather than making the decision off which task needs to be done (like, they can buy bread and count the money, but if left to their own devices, they're more likely to just impulse-buy something they want like cake or toys).
While we know the Buckley parents still did the day to day chores after Daniel died, it's not hard to imagine that some of it fell behind and Maddie helped for the small stuff. Stuff which, considering her age, she should have been close enough to start doing on her own sure but it was still too early for her to develop the decision making and understanding of consequences that go with knowing why a task has to be done. It also clearly impacted her life by creating a need to help others and be useful.
Note that when I talk about Maddie becoming more independent I am talking about really small tasks, most of which are more linked to emotional needs than physical ones like homework, bed time, ect...
Edit: @insert-reference-here reminded me of a part I totally forgot to mention. It's how in Buck Begins, Teen Maddie explained to Buck that their parents yelling was just how they showed affection. Which would make sense for Maddie as they spent more than a year with an ill child. A situation that can easily fray your nerves from worrying too much and the way they cared for both Maddie and Daniel probably shifted during that time. So Maddie believing this was the new normal is extremely probable.
When it comes to the second point, I'd like to remind you all as a comparison that Maddie was Denny's and Christopher's age in s5 when that happened. She was right at the age where she would understands the permanence of death but did not yet know how to deal with it and especially not with words. At this age, kids generally still express themselves through physical behaviors and/or start to imitate the adults around them. If she had to start being a bit more independen, chances are she started imitating her parents automatically since she had already started doing that in order to help their family. And then...
As we know the Buckley parents disappeared in their grief and made Maddie promise to never talk about Daniel again. Which means that she didn't just imitate her parents but was told specifically to not deal with her grief because it was difficult for them, she was told her feelings did not matter and did not get the physical reassurance children at this age often need. As I said above, children don't often express grief verbally so much as they do physically. Because of that cuddles, touch and quality time are often the best way to reassure and help them before helping them verbalize how they feel.
In terms of development the result of this behavior is pretty straightforward (and we can even add that in our long list of parallel between Maddie and Eddie if we want to): Maddie prioritized other's well being over hers and her sense of self became linked to how useful she could be.
Which brings us to the third point. This point is obviously linked to Buck who did not even have a baby box. Aka since he was born his parents never even tried to care for him aside from basic physical needs. It could have gone a different way: them caring but it stopping after Daniel's death, in which case they might have blamed him, they might not have but there would have been a change in how they treated him. That's not the case here because there was not even a baby box. They had no emotional attachment to Buck. Daniel died when Buck was around 1 yo and usually it's considered that babies start to really get a sense of permanence and understanding of an environment around 6-8 months old. I'm not gonna go in detail over Buck's own grief but I'll say two things.
- First is that 1yrs old can feel if someone's missing and become more fussy than usual and in turn need even more cuddles than normal which means that it could have played in how the Buckley parents might have considered Buck to be more needy than most which might have also played in their hiding away from him.
- Second it's that, as said in 515, Buck kept feeling something was wrong and it's mostly because children notice when others aren't ok because they do have empathy, but it might also in part be because of the early trauma of the Buckley parents not being attentive to his emotional needs as a baby (btw who else had been waiting for the Buckley sibling to say out loud what we've been shown which is that Maddie raised Buck and did a terrific job considering the circumstances aka that she was between 10 and 13 when she started raising him because I turned to complete mush when it happened). It's something that was luckily foiled big time thanks to Maddie (there are studies showing that having a stable figure meeting your emotional needs can prevent some of the worse side effects of neglect).
Buck had a pretty furnished room in Buck Begins so I don't doubt that he got all the toys and food he needed but as far as love is concerned I don't doubt it wasn't all there. That's where Maddie comes in.
Maddie is full of love and took a few of the chores off her parents' back. When it comes to Buck it was probably mostly playing with him and cuddling which may not seem like much but for a baby is pretty essential. We know she didn't take an active role replacing her parents (at least not one she understood) until he was ~5 and she was 13-14. Which means suppressing her own emotional needs in order to support and cherish her baby brother when her parents refused to do it. In Buck Begins, she clocked in almost immediately why he got hurt often. That he did it on purpose. While she obviously worried about him she let him get away with it because he got some love out of it, love that he more than deserved. But it means that it was one more drop in the ocean of her trauma. And she did that for as long as she could (until Buck was a bit older than the age she was when she really started taking care of him).
However it did prevent her from developing a sense of self outside of carer (again, Eddie comparison) while burying everything for as long as possible in order to take care of others (let's face it, between that and Buck constantly hurting himself, we all know how she got into nursing). The only reason why she still had some sense of self not linked only to caring about others is that she was 9 when her parents changed so she had already started developing a personality and Buck gave her an incredible amount of love even if he could not exactly take care of her. This love means he was always there to support her when he could and they had a lot of quality time together where she most likely found things to love by herself (she was not that much older than Buck that she could be touched by some hobbies even if we don't really know about that part of their lives).
Margaret and Philip Buckley's abuse of Maddie forced her to become a parent at 10. It brought her closer to her brother whom she loved and took care of even if it stunted the development of her sense of self.
And this brings us to Doug.
Maddie hadn't been emotionally taken care of since she was ~9 when she met that man. Now one of the basic technique of abuse is to turn the victim dependent on the abuser. That was easy for Doug because simply being attentive to Maddie was something she was not used to. And she missed the red flags (which Buck, who had been emotionally taken care of and hadn't been abandoned by Maddie yet at that point could see through immediately).
Because "he cares about me". Maddie actually found someone she thought she could rely on for her own needs which is why she did not notice how he was isolating her in order to have power over her.
Ideally it should have meant that she could develop that sense of self outside of caring except Doug made it so it was simply displaced. He made her take care of him instead of Buck. Because he did not help her with Buck. He called her constantly so her attention would be divided between them instead of being focused on Buck, until it became natural for her to think he would call her, to think about him above anything else. And he banked on her needing to get away from her parents to move to Boston and get her away from the one person who would still be able to influence Maddie. Get her used to not being around her Evan so much.
To the point that when they came back from Boston, she barely even got in touch with Buck and he had to get into an accident in order to talk to her (which is probably what convinced her the most that he should get away from their parents and what convinced her at first to go with him because getting hurt for attention was something he did with their parents, not with her and ofc she missed him and loved him). We don't know if the jeep was the first time he beat her. I don't think it was though it might have been the first time it was that bad simply because if Buck wasn't there I doubt she was in the head space to not do everything to take care of Doug as she was raised to do.
But by this point she was already under his influence. She said that for a long time she refused to see the truth because she didn't want to think of herself as "some battered woman" but at the same time she was (almost) ready to leave with Buck at that point and the only reason she didn't was to protect her baby brother from Doug. Then with Buck being away she didn't really have anything else to break Doug's influence and it came back stronger than before because her fear and feelings of humiliation at the idea of being a victim and trying to appease him after what happened kept him in power.
Margaret and Philip Buckley's Neglect prevented Maddie from being able to protect against emotional abuse (which then turned also physical). It also threw her into the arms of said abuser because he filled in the emotional needs her parents left open and he used that opportunity to manipulate her into leaving her brother behind for what she thought was his own good (granted with what Doug did to Chim and Maddie in S2, I'd say she wasn't that far off)
Both the Buckley parents were neglectful and emotionalaly abusive and guilt-tripping toward her. The Buckley parents doing so resulted in Maddie forging an incredible bond with her brother which Doug then tried to destroy as a way to finish Maddie's transformation into his woman.
Luckily he underestimated the strength of their bond because Buck never truly gave up on Maddie. He sent her postcards every time he changed places and, seemingly, for big holidays (or at least ones she loved since he sent her one on Christmas and we know he remembered her as someone who loved Christmas). He clearly called her, or tried to (he says she stopped 3 years before 201) and knew not to send the postcards where Doug was. It's his postcard that convinced her to leave Doug because, just like with the jeep, and just as Doug most likely suspected, at that point Buck is the only person who could get Maddie to act on wanting to leave.
And going to him at a point when he was mature enough for her to depend on him allowed her to start developing her sense of self outside of being useful. Not a lot, but enough that she could start a friendship and later on a relationship with Chimney. Chimney who also had a huge impact because he didn't let their relationship become one sided and offered as much as she did without condition. Chimney is who she thought Doug was back when she barely remembered what being taken care of was like. Both Buck and Chimney's unconditional love helped her relearn what both her parents and Doug prevented.
It was still there of course. Mostly latent and her Post Partum depression made everything go up to the surface and allowed her to finally start dealing with it but the point is that thanks to Buck she found herself in a place where was allowed to explode in order to better herself.
It became a mess and I ended up bringing Madney into this despite the fact that it was supposed to be about how her relationship with Buck was impacted by the abuse she recieved from both her parents and Doug but I couldn't help it. I hope this makes sense :D
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probably-haven · 3 years
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after binge reading i have come to a new revelation: I’m not a fan of most Xiaoven fanfics
Don’t get me wrong, I love the ship and its one of my favorite to think about.... but most of the fanfiction for the ship just- doesn’t sit right with me for a number of reasons. 
Disclaimer: these are personal opinions from my own taste and are in no way an attack against any authors out there, because frankly fanfic authors are great and not like i could do better lol. As these are personal opinions, I acknowledge here and now that a number of people disagree and that they are under no obligation to change their opinions in any way as it is not and never will be my intention to tell others what they should be thinking That said- read at your own risk if you want- meh, anyway-
time to share some opinions that have been on my mind lately
The biggest reason.... is how they handle Xiao. And I don’t even mean mischaracterization because Xiao is such a complex and yet simultaneously simple character that as long as you’re somewhere in the range of “Xiao vibes” it’s really hard to write him out of character because of his complexities. What I mean is something that i actually completely agree with as being accurate to his character. In nearly every single fanfic I’ve seen, there is some element of idolization that Xiao has for Venti, or for the sake of reference, Barbatos. He tends to think himself beneath Barbatos and/or indebted to him, whether that be because he’s an archon, because he saved him, or simply because of Xiao’s tendency to dehumanize(yes i see the irony in that word usage) himself.  This by itself isn’t an issue but its often how this trait of his is treated.
Imma just list a few ways I’ve seen this be handled within Xiaoven fics. - It isn’t handled, it’s just there and accepted as a part of who he is in the story - It isn’t handled but his trait is treated as source of humor within the story - Venti(and others) roll with it (finding humor in it, just cant change it, encouraging it, making jokes about it, etc.) - Venti takes advantage of it(whether accidentally or purposely) - it’s actually addressed(by Venti or someone else or the narration- can go a number of ways, but just- even a brief reference to the fact that its not a good mindset fits in here) - savior!Venti(Where venti disagrees with it but the way it’s written gives off “god among mortals” vibes- like he’s just being humble and truly is above him in reality) - its the focus of the story  - not directly addressed but shown to be destructive.  - they chose not to not include this in the story’s characterization of Xiao(just saying that this is valid ahead of time) Theres others but i have a lot already.  Note that I tend to read more ‘serious-toned’(idk if that makes sense) fics so that may skew my perception
Now there’s a few that i have issues with on their own- both instances of it not being handled, Venti(and others) rolling with it, Venti takes advantage of it(purposely(and without good intent)), and savior!Venti. Xiao not only has this trait, but he is unfamiliar with what is normal in relationships or emotions as a result of isolation and inexperience. He is also either not aware of or not concerned with what is considered strictly “healthy.” Combining these makes for a rather dangerous combination and just accepting it as “oh he’s just like that, it’s who he is” or making it out to be something funny- It’s not wrong or bad by any means necessarily, and I could still possibly enjoy it to an extent depending on a series of different factors, but its- not as often.  Even in the case where I do enjoy reading it however, I would still feel uncomfortable sharing it with or recommending it to others because in the first instance it feels like normalizing a destructive and dangerous mindset, and in the second case it does the same while simultaneously making a joke of it. It’s the same deal with Venti or other characters rolling with it, but that’s probably gonna be mentioned later too. Not to say that this is a “wrong” way to handle it, that it makes the fic bad, or that authors even are normalizing anything by doing so, just that in my specific instance- not a fan. 
I’ll get to the others when i talk more about Venti, but for now: It’s the focus of the story. I think I saw like... 2? where the story was like- focused on this and why its a problem which- power to them, address those real world problems like a boss- but also i wouldn’t actively seek it out or anything- like, good job, but doing so just leaves it open neutrally for other factors to decide how good a story i think it is. 
not directly addressed but shown to be destructive. You’d think i wouldn’t like this- but frankly in fanfiction not everyone wants to address every character flaw verbally because it can through off story, narration, dialogue, and general flow to do so. This can be with an event, an action, a dialogue, a mere comment, making it actually fit into the it’s actually addressed category except that its- subtle enough to make its own category. plus i live for show not tell- in everything- its a thing. im- very much a fan of when the fics do this but the subtlety is easy to miss and its not common so- 
It’s actually adressed- doesnt have to be a lot- just mention anywhere or imply anywhere that maybe idolizing someone as a god and savior and being in a relationship with them while having little knowledge of standards, emotions, relationships, or healthy behaviors in general- maybe isnt the smartest idea in the word. (”Call me Venti, not Barbatos” by itself is not enough to fit in this category tho as a note)
-
Now lets talk about Venti...
uh.... those who have followed me for awhile will probably already know this but... I have a lot of opinions on Venti and a pretty- “niche(?)” perception of his characterization that isn’t shared by a lot of others- so I don’t actually read as much Venti fanfic in general as you might expect because I often end up disagreeing with how writers portray him, which again, in no way is their characterization wrong, but- “their perceived truth” conflicts with “my perceived truth” and by extent so does the characterization, though neither is any more correct than the other from an objective point of view, if that makes sense... but anyways now that that’s said, moving on before this becomes a philosophy lecture, as fun as that would be for me.  I’ll try to keep my “perceived truth” out of this for the first bit. 
Venti’s response to this: 
He rolls with it: this depends on the mood of the fanfiction. If they dont put a lot of stress on that trait of Xiao’s it totally fine but if the trait seems to be a major part of Xiao’s character, it seems like normalization once more. (more on this later)
he takes advantage of it purposely: if its an AU or something and Venti’s like a villain(i saw a few) then- villain venti isnt my cup of tea but i have no qualms. If they don’t portray Venti in a negative light while having him take advantage however that’s a bit uncomfortable to read for me because it feels like normalizing taking advantage of that mindset as well as the mindset itself. However, i did see a number of instances of Venti using it as leverage for like- self care- which i definitely have no qualms. Xiao: [insert probably destructive idolizing statement about being indebt] Venti: How bout you pay me back by actually sleeping for once smh or other variations are okay and depending on the vibe are actually a really fun dynamic as long as it doesnt turn into romanticizing or normalizing it, y’know?
Venti accidentally taking advantage of it.... I love angst- and in most of these theres a sense of guilt when he realizes- and i just think thats a lovely way of addressing the dangers of such a mindset for both sides. As long as it doesn’t keep repeating to the point of romanticization its totally cool to read in my eyes(not irl ofc). If Venti never realizes he accidentally took or is taking advantage it feels a bit like normalization, and if he does but just- doesn’t care thats- a rip.
savior!Venti...... i- i hate. the story giving off vibes that Xiao’s mindset is technically correct while Venti oh so humbly tells him to treat him as an equal like the wonderful and charitable person he is.... i just- no. of course thats over dramatizing it- I think the main thing that gives it this vibe is when Venti doesn’t seem either concerned, surprised, uncomfortable, or otherwise have a negative feeling towards Xiao’s mindset. Just- it makes the whole thing weird in my eyes when Venti doesnt really seem to have his own reason to oppose the mindset idk- 
-
fact time!
Venti is the god of freedom. His backstory is freeing Mondstadt from a god’s tyrannical reign. His origin is a windsprite, just another breeze bringing changes for the better. His form is a nameless boy who played an instrument and then died, thus failing at his only dream and only ever accomplishing anything because of the help of others. He slept for a thousand years after the archon war to avoid putting Mond under the rule of yet another tyrannical god. He only even became a god because Andrius chose to let him. He wouldn’t have even had that chance if the nameless bard had survived, he’d remain just another wind while his friend ascended to godhood. Venti sacrifices his own power for his people’s freedom. 
now that I’ve laid out a number of canon facts, time for opinions:
Venti has little to no desire to be seen as a god. He thrives in, comes from, and emphasizes a lack of superiority in quite nearly everything. The first Ragnvindir, who canonically turned his back on Venti after Decarabian’s fall, likely did so because one- he anticipated power would corrupt and Venti would soon become just another tyrannical god, two- he suspected Venti used the nameless bard in an attempt to rise to godhood, or three- idk insert other possibilities to acknowledge again that i could totally be wrong.
Look me in the eyes and tell me Venti wouldnt trade godhood for his friend in an instant. His godhood was only granted to him because his friend died and could easily serve to constantly remind him of what could have been and what he lost. Venti takes no enjoyment from being seen as superior and in my opinion, I feel that it could actually make him largely uncomfortable when his divinity and abilities as an archon get involved-
also self promotion for my favorite posts- check out #archon war era venti if thats interesting to you
so anyway Venti rolling with it or making jokes about it just doesn’t sit right with me.- 
-
Okay! enough talking about that mindset!
idk- i have... a few/lot of other gripes and stuff or just things that kinda throw off the vibe for me but that’s the main one plus my general personal pickiness when it come to Venti fanfics- but this has gotten long enough already- 
idk i just felt like rambling about it and i haven’t done a long post in a while so-
again, I love the ship and its actually one of my favorites- just the fanfic isnt my thing..... that doesn’t mean i don’t still love it and come up with a whole ton of brainrot and ideas on it tho lmao
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datawyrms · 3 years
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Responsibility
For Phic Fight 2021, The Lord of Chaos’s prompt c:
Spectra fed off of misery; nocturne fed off of dreams.  The elusive town cryptid that only shows up when people need saving gains a following and Danny finds that he gets a boost from the people who have faith in him, he starts to become aware of them, especially when they needed him.
The rest of the town seeing him as benevolent was a positive thing. The uncomfortable stabs that his ‘parents were right’ about ghosts lessened as fewer and fewer treated him as a monster just as troublesome as Technus. He didn’t need to tense when the news was on, to hear his attempts to help called a ‘savage attack’, or that stupid nickname. He’d slept a bit easier, knowing that people did understand he only meant to help lately. Sure, Mom and Dad might still insist he was an evil ghost, but it was so much easier to ignore that when he didn’t feel he was only one step away from proving them right to everyone else. Clumsy and reckless he could take. Just as long as he wasn’t some ‘evil soul sucking abomination.’
Having Jazz a bit more in the loop had actually started to pay off. She wasn’t as good at catching a ghost as Sam or Tucker, sure, but she wasn’t hindering him anymore either. Honestly, if all three of them worked together, his powers weren’t really needed unless something huge found its way to town. Which his friends had insisted he take advantage of at least once a week, to let them handle the usual patrols and alerts while he tried to catch up on work and sleep. Mostly sleep, to be honest. Focusing on work was almost impossible when his ghost sense went off, even if he knew they didn’t need help. He wanted to go, he had to go; but they were very good at yelling at him for not ‘trusting them’ to handle things. He really did need the break. That’s why he was feeling a little less haggard, a bit more alert. At least, that’s what made the most sense.
Then the ‘lurching’ started. He couldn’t think of a better name then that. It wasn’t like his ghost sense, that sort of just crawled out of him and didn’t give him much to go on beyond ‘there’s definitely a ghost around’. That could go off and leave him rolling his eyes at the box ghost, or fighting for his life against Plasmius with the exact same feeling. The lurching was...different. Like his ghost sense forgot where his windpipe was and decided to escape in a random direction. Inssenantly. It didn’t hurt, but it was annoying, worse than the pang that would pass when he ignored whatever got his ghost sense acting up. It just kept pulling in a direction, but refusing to get out from under his skin. Sometimes it would keep going for an entire class, which just made whatever the lurch’s chosen direction noticeably cold. He was pretty sure he was immune to frostbite nowadays, but that didn’t make explaining things easier if someone spotted his hand looking almost blue from lack of blood flow.
Maybe his core was on the fritz again. Who knew what sort of weird things could happen to a human who spent half his time dead?
Tucker suggested that he was just getting ghost puberty to go with the ‘joys’ of human puberty. Which sure, was funny and they could shove each other around and forget about it for a time. It didn’t feel like the right answer. None of his other powers acted up, honestly he was feeling better after fights then he usually did lately. Less drained, anyway. It wasn’t stopping either.
It just got worse. More intense. More frequent. Instead of vanishing the area the lurch decided to pull in seemed to grow the longer he tried to dismiss it. Noticeably. To the point even Dash asked if he should avoid punching him because ‘that shit looks contagious’. (He privately hoped it was. Dash totally deserved weird pulling that made you frost over.)
He had to ignore it, he couldn’t just drop everything every single time the lurch decided to show up. He’d look completely off his rocker, running in some random direction because ‘my shoulder feels cold to the north-west’. If it was close enough to be a real danger, his ghost sense would just go off!
So Saturday was going to be a ‘lurch hunt’. No more ignoring it, no school or mandatory activities that should keep him from following the strange cold that felt desperate to go after something. Yet even deciding that made his insides squirm. He had to follow it, he should be- but that was dumb. He missed enough class as it was.
So why was it so hard to focus on anything else when it started going? Like nothing else mattered? It wasn’t like he was drifting off or sleepy either.
Jazz said he was ‘fixated’ on something.
But how do you fixate on some weird feeling under your skin? He didn’t even know what it was! Just that Sam and Tucker kept needing to flick things at him to get him to pay attention to reality. One of his best rested weeks in ages, and he was worse off then he’d been focus wise in years. Stupid ghost powers. Saturday took far too long to come. Even when one of the lurches stopped pulling he couldn’t relax. Instead of relief he just felt. Hollow. He’d woken up in a panic, half expecting to be chained down in one of Vlad’s sick laboratories, but he wasn’t cut open. He wasn’t even injured. Safe, in bed- and feeling like the cold ran off with his ribcage.
Something was wrong with him. That had to be it. Once they found the cause, he’d solve it and it would stop. It had to.
Following it shouldn’t make him feel as relieved as it did. Taking his ghost form and flying after some...feeling that wanted to drag him somewhere was more like when Freakshow’s Staff dominated his mind than anything positive. A compulsion he couldn’t help giving in to.
At least his ghost sense went off once he’d followed it long enough, finding one of Vlad’s mutant ghost animals chasing someone through the streets.
Normal. A bit of one sided banter to get it’s attention, a few punches and ectoblasts and it was shoved away in the thermos. No more pulling, and one less ghost terrorizing town. That didn’t make sense. Unless it really was just his ghost sense increasing in range while becoming infinitely more irritating?
That’s what it felt like, at first. He’d follow, ghost sense, find the problem. Except there was something odd. Every ghost he found like this wasn’t just wandering about, or making a mess. They were all actively chasing, stalking or attempting to scare someone. Okay, so it homed in on more ‘violent’ ghosts then? That seemed possible.
Until one of the lurches kept pulling, but there was no ghost sense. The one that kept pulling him towards a man with his back against the wall, fumbling with a wallet. The man who wasn’t being threatened by Skulker, or a vulture, or any of this typical fare. Just another human with a gun, and the will to use it.
This so wasn’t his thing. He fought ghosts, they were half his fault to begin with. So why was his ghost sense leading him to this? Well. It hadn’t. Lurching confirmed for not ghost sense?
Jazz would totally chew him out for tackling someone with a gun. He just had to forget to go intangible at a bad time, and he’d be all ghost. Or worse, go intangible and someone else got a body full of lead. He couldn’t just...ignore it now that he’d seen it though. The chill that hummed below his skin wouldn’t let him.
So the guy was a bit startled about getting pulled through a wall and dropped off the other side. Probably lost some change. He’d expected a bit of fear, at least. Like come on, some ghost just grabs you while a gun’s in your face? That’s still scary.
Yet he didn’t seem bothered. Just thankful. Called him a ‘hero’. For being in the right place at the right time. By just happening to be there because...because he knew? Something in him knew. That was wrong, he shouldn’t just know when people were in danger like that. He vanished without a word, not wanting to stick around and hear more. It was coincidence. Hopefully the guy wasn’t too offended that he just bolted, but he couldn’t stay there. He didn’t like how the complement felt good in a way he couldn’t describe. That the cold in his chest thrummed with a pleasure that made the rest of him feel ill. He wasn’t a hero, he was just some kid. A kid who still wanted to have a life that wasn’t all this, eventually.
He can’t ignore at dinner that he picks at his meal, not from exhaustion but because he’s not hungry. He’s still energized, he’s still full- and no amount of gagging over the sink makes his stomach empty. ‘Ghosts helping humans only do so for their own ends’. He’d ignored and denied that, he hadn’t been getting anything out of being the local ghost punching bag- so why was he now? Did he steal something? Feed on that person he saved?
He hated that his face didn’t even have the sense to look pale at the idea. He looked healthy. Probably better than he usually did. Even the circles under his eyes weren’t as noticeable. Were Mom and Dad right? Was he just...more of a ghost now?
Sam and Tucker don’t buy his ‘couldn’t figure it out’ explanation. Mostly because he refuses to try it again with them along to help figure it out. Even as he grows cold and more lurching keeps gnawing at his attention. He’s human too, he doesn’t need...whatever this is.
Sam kindly tells him he’s being a gigantic idiot.
He’s too distracted by the chill to notice. Tucker explains that after he’s blinking confused at the corn chips bouncing off his forehead. They laugh it off. He’s pretty sure they’re just being nice. They know something’s wrong, but he can’t bring himself to tell them yet. They wait. For now.
He ignores the feeling. He tries to ignore the guilt, that he knows someone out there is in danger. That someone out there needs his help. That all he needs to do is walk out of class and he can go do some actual good. He can’t go chasing after everyone in town. Things happen! He’s just one person! The sooner the lurching in him figures that out, the better. It still ruins his focus, makes him grit his teeth and fidget in place. He wants to go, he doesn’t want to go, he doesn’t even know what he wants. For it to stop. That would work. The tugging stops halfway into his next class, the frost in his blood lifts. It leaves him empty. Starving.
Everything tastes bland. Breakfast, lunch, dinner. Even his favourites barely seem worth the effort of snagging off a table. He’ll eat, he can’t have Mom and Dad looking at him like Sam and Tucker are now, but it just feels heavy in his stomach. A brick he’s decided to try digesting for fun. He’s hungry, ravenously so, but doesn’t want anything.
He knows exactly what he wants and hates himself for it. Stupid ghost half. He doesn’t need that, he doesn’t want to be some...leech. Seeking out trouble just to benefit from it. It’s wrong, he hates it, and if he could grab his core and slam it on the table for a few hours he would. Just until it remembered that they helped when they could. When it was close by, when it was a ghost problem. Not every bit of danger in town!
Misplaced aggression goes to the nearby ghosts. Which it often had,  really. It’s normal. He’s just making sure people don’t get hurt, ignoring the humming of MINE coiled in his ectoplasm. The other ghosts feel it. They hear it when he hunts them down and wants to keep swinging even when they put claws or hands up in surrender. He doesn’t trust himself to banter with them right now. He doesn’t want to hear the words his ghost side wants to say. He shoves them back into the Ghost Zone, and the smarter ones stay away. A stronger ghost is already feeding here. There’s nothing for them to take.
He’s running on autopilot. Days are meaningless. He can’t focus in class, his notes are nonexistent and his patience is beyond frayed. He can’t sleep, the cold is too much, the emptiness hurts and fewer ghosts show up. He can’t even blow off steam by kicking the Box Ghost through a wall. He won’t follow it, and he’s fairly sure it’s going to kill him. That or his parents will. Even they have to notice how he barely eats and won’t focus on anything short of a horn section in his face.
Sam and Tucker sit him down. Force the issue. They know he’s a mess. They don’t have answers. How could they? His choices are to starve this ghost instinct out, or to just give into it and completely ruin his human life. He’ll be fine. It’ll stop eventually if he keeps ignoring it. Then he’ll be able to focus again. It’s all he can cling to.
He’s stubbornly ignoring the prickling awareness of other thoughts. Ones not from his brain. Ones that get louder when the lurch grips him, that practically overwhelm his own as fear and panic grows. Maybe he’s just gone a little off the deep end. He doesn’t hear voices. He refuses.
Jazz has her concerns. That he can’t ignore it. She knows more about Mom and Dad’s research, more about classifications of ghosts. She tries to be gentle, nudging him to be aware that stronger ghosts were more...like a concept then an individual.
He doesn’t want to be some sort of ghost concept of problem solving. She’s worried he won’t have that choice. Some part of him already knows she’s right.
He seeks out Valerie. For help. She’s confused, baffled and suspicious. After all this time he spent convincing her he’s not evil, he’s begging her to call him that. To convince other people he is. To make them fear him and his help. He doesn’t want to be a hero like she is. He just wants to be himself, doesn’t want to hear the people begging for help when he’s trying to sleep.
She doesn’t understand, but understands one thing. He’ll feed on those who rely on them. She has to stop that, doesn’t she?
They fight, and often. He does poorly, lets her save people while his misfires cause damage and chaos. It makes him want to scream each time. Some of the thoughts and voices dim. Not enough. Too many are understanding, too many can see the regret and pain that wrack him with each failure. He’s always hungry. He wants to try again, but everything in him rebels against it. The ghost hunter avoids him. It’s ‘not a fair fight’. He’s ‘not himself’. His green eyes are more dead then they ever have been. He can’t maintain his legs.
As a human, all he wants to do is sleep.
Mom and Dad notice. He collapses and his eyes flare green when they try to help him. Just automatically sensing them as danger, against him, not someone that calls for him. They think he’s possessed, and he wishes they were right.
He half considers not telling them the truth. Let them think of a way to let his ghost half quiet down, to stop hungering for validation he doesn’t want.
Jazz tells them before they can do much of anything. Pinches his ear for being stupid- that getting experimented on won’t help him.
Their hugs make him feel bad. This should be a good moment, a time where he feels safe and accepted. But his mind is not his own, not with the others whispering in his skull. Their warmth and love feels like a drop in the empty barrel of his hunger.
They want him to be healthy. They want him to be happy. He can’t be happy if he needs to abandon his life to be healthy. He tries to explain it, the emptiness, the voices (Jazz cuffs him again for hiding this, which seems fair.) and they promise to try and figure out why, maybe find a way to limit it or separate himself from whatever connection his ghost half seems to have made with the town. Until then- they encourage him. To go ‘help’ people. To feed the clawing cold taking over his existence. He’s not sure if they really mean it. It doesn’t stop him from listening.
It’s hard to feel guilty when it feels so good. To have the fear quiet and be replaced with thanks. Someone’s out of danger and happy, and he feels less hollow for a time. Mom and Dad switch him to home school. They say it’s a better fit, to be able to stop and start based on when he’s not being dragged away by his own instinctive need to protect people.
It feels like giving up. Admitting he’s too much of a freak to live like everyone else. Dad tries to compare it to his special classes when he was young. Different to fit his learning style, not failing. The pulls and voices aren’t nearly as distracting when he’s full. Food actually tastes like more than sand again. Sam and Tucker don’t need to try as hard to smile now that he isn’t looking like death warmed over. He doesn’t like not getting to see them as often. He can’t deny he feels better this way, and can actually pay attention now. Even if most of the time he just wants to nap when the hunger stops. Go ‘back into hiding’ as the town thinks he does.
It’s getting better. Slowly. Not in a way he wanted it to. Better nonetheless.
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miraculouscontent · 3 years
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Always.
“Truth” is just... I mean, I want to say “garbage” but that doesn’t even do how bad it is justice? Like, okay, I take four major issues with it (my followers be like: just four? :P):
First is the writing in general and the continuity of it all. This episode looks like it’s been through multiple drafts and the final product is an amalgamation of a bunch of them with no coherency between any of them. I already could kind of guess it from the Adrimi kiss that the finale removed, but it’s obvious that there were going to be Adrimi/Lukanette arcs in Season 4 but then stuff happened (i.e: the staff being cowards) and they got cut. It’s totally possible that the plot with Jagged Stone being the father and Marinette having to keep secrets from Luka were still the same episode even in the original draft, but I imagine it at least wasn’t episode one.
There are other, more subtle hints as well, like the episode giving no time to Luka learning that Jagged is his father (making the fandom wonder if Luka remembered when he was Truth) and Ladybug being shocked when she realizes that the akuma is Luka as if she didn’t already see him be akumatized. Juleka also gets weirdly sidelined in the episode despite being Luka’s twin (Astruc has stated that both Luka and Juleka are older and Juleka got held back, which is why she’s in Marinette’s grade but Luka isn’t), so she’s Jagged’s offspring as well. One might presume that Juleka just never cared at all but that doesn’t mean she shouldn’t be allowed to interact directly with the guy or have any involvement at all. All it would’ve taken is for Luka to mention that Juleka never cared about who their father was but he did, thereby implying that Juleka’s reaction to Jagged would probably be more like, “oh okay.”
You know, if they didn’t reduce her to incoherent mumbling.
Second is the timing of this episode. We had the New York special with Paris being destroyed, but it’s clearly fine here (so I guess it isn’t canon now; thank God honestly), and while it’s technically possible that enough time has passed (supported by the vague implication that Marinette having to miss out on dates with Luka has gone on for a while, given Tom and Sabine’s lack of reaction to them dating), it’s not supported by Marinette examining the Miracle Box as if she’s only just gotten it.
There’s also Shadow Moth, where we’re shown an extended version of the scene from the end of “Miracle Queen” where Gabriel repairs the peacock miraculous, giving the episode a “Volpina”->”The Collector” vibe but then why are the events lining up the way they do???
The narrative also does a really bad job at showing us why Marinette is so strapped for time. She has guardian duties now but you’d think it’d balance out with her not having to go to Fu anymore for guardian training (you know, that thing we never saw but was said to be happening or at least that it was Fu’s intent to have it happen). You could argue that maybe Shadow Moth is more active, but then Chat Noir should be affected by this too; Ladybug states outright that she’s been busy and Chat Noir responds with something akin to, “oh I know, because you’re guardian,” which implies that it’s her guardian duties keeping her busy and Shadow Moth is just interrupting her dates specifically.
But we don’t even see what responsibilities she has added on as guardian. I knew the writers would make it so her being guardian was a hassle, but it’s the first episode of the series and we’ve gotten next to no answers for what being guardian actually adds.
It’s almost like this was a rushed first episode to break up the only thing that unambiguously made Marinette happy for the sake of bringing the love square back and needlessly making her suffer because the writers think it’s hilarious.
Speaking of which, the third thing thing is the comedy because--just--I hate the comedy in this show.
Like, just to start, there’s the kwami, who clearly begin with their mob mentality from the later episode of “Furious Fu” and all proceed to act like children. No, I didn’t expect them to all be wise (I mean, Xuppu exists and is very much not that, having been implied to be a fit for Kim who is known for being a total himbo), but I don’t expect them to all scatter like they do. Kaalki in particular, who was shown to be more poised and refined, blatantly reveals herself to a bunch of civilians just for the sake of Marinette freaking out and needing to make up an excuse.
Same with Alya and her friends. Marinette is panicking because of the kwami and Alya “deduces” (while shading Marinette so blatantly that it’s insulting) that Adrien must be there in her house which--maybe don’t SAY THAT OUT LOUD in case Adrien is literally in her room???). Then Marinette gets a call from Luka, shouts his name, and the girls do a complete 180 in support of Lukentte. It’s not like I’m not for them supporting whatever Marinette wants to do, but the shift is so sudden (and contradicts “Frozer”) that it gave me whiplash and the entire scene ends up being pointless since the girls still go with the “Marinette is in love with Adrien” thing when Truth asks them what Marinette’s secret is. Like, we could’ve gotten small, stupid secrets that everyone thought only they knew about Marinette, but instead it’s just the same thing over and over again (which makes no sense since, by the time Alya blabs the secret - which Alya has already told Nino before anyway - it’s no longer a secret therefore making the answer invalid).
Heck, the whole “secret” thing could’ve even been the people Truth shoots finding ways of answering his questions in a way that is technically telling the truth but also not really, such as if Anarka had answered the, “Who’s my father?” question with, “someone you know/someone famous,” so as to avoid saying that it’s Jagged Stone. It’s just boring seeing characters answer with whatever the asker wants to hear instead of being able to find a way around it.
And then there’s Chat Noir, who’s just--ugh.
Like--okay, I’m going to be extremely petty for a moment and just go off because I hate Chat Noir’s role in this entire episode. The Season 3 finale went out of its way to have Chat Noir be all like, “I have a girlfriend,” when it was a lie, and then Season 4 just parkours around Ladybug telling him that she’s dating (Ladybug clearly took no issue with Chat Noir telling her he’s dating so it’s not like she’s worried about issues there; she’s gotten on his case before in episodes like “Startrain” so there are exceptions) because they want to keep having him flirt and not be sAd because this is Marinette’s episode of suffering and Chat Noir actually having to face the reality that Ladybug is dating (not just in love with someone else) would’ve actually been interesting. Chat Noir gets tons of unnecessary screentime in the episode - mostly for the show to shove in LadyNoir shipping fuel - and then actively avoids telling him the obvious thing because he would’ve actually been forced to grow/develop/stop flirting.
It would’ve been so cute and sweet to see him awkwardly trying to flirt without overstepping boundaries (so more like banter than flirt) or - you know - actually try to support Ladybug and want her to be able to finish her dates by him offering to keep akuma/sentimonsters busy, but no, he’s just left in the dark.
The finale had Chat Noir supporting her (terribly but I digress) and then doesn’t do anything with it at the start of Season 4, meaning his support of her was completely meaningless and just there.
His first appearance is him pranking Ladybug when she’s already overstressed and busy, which comes off as super poor taste and I’m both glad he got splatted into that window for it but also upset because it’s screentime completely gone to waste, and of course it’s just a lead up to him guilting her by being like, “nooo the only thing that hurts me is when you leave me alone during patrol!”
I know he’s teasing (...probably) but it leaves a bad taste in my mouth because we know (well, I knew because I know how this show works) that Luka and Marinette were going to break up because of Marinette’s hectic schedule, so it just comes off as insensitive to joke about it, especially when Ladybug’s busy guardian status just serves as a reminder that Fu is gone.
Even when he’s protecting Ladybug from Truth’s questions by cutting in and asking a question of his own, of course he asks about himself to forcibly fish compliments out of Ladybug because she can’t lie to him, and of course they have Ladybug compliment his humor most of all as if that trait hasn’t nearly gotten them in danger multiple times and she’s been repeatedly annoyed when he decides to joke during the worst possible times. It’s as if the writers wanted to pat themselves on the back for their own comedy, so they had Ladybug be a mouthpiece to stroke Chat Noir’s ego.
He claims he won’t force a truth out of her and then literally forces her to say what her favorite things about him are. I acknowledge that this can be seen as me nitpicking but we went from the finale where Chat Noir actually stepped up and took charge (because Ladybug was stressed but I guess him doing anything useful is just whenever it serves the plot) to this where he’s back to flirting constantly and jamming in as much LadyNoir shipping fuel as physically possible. It’s not that he’s useless but he’s annoying and takes up space in an episode that’s supposed to be about Luka and Marinette.
And that leads us into the fourth thing, which is the break-up and just the treatment of Luka and Marinette in general. I could go on and on about how the Season 3 finale built up their relationship just to tear it down in the first episode of Season 4, but that’s not the main issue here.
Luka brought Marinette comfort. He made her happy. He never judged her. He was happy to just date her regardless of any conflicted feelings she might have because hey, who is he to complain if she wants to give him a try and who knows what’ll happen?
And the season couldn’t even give one moment of them being unambiguously happy without ruining or interrupting it. I was ready for the break-up and I was even ready for it to be the first episode but I wasn’t ready for it to be so bad.
Marinette’s Adrien pictures appear out of nowhere (again, makes no sense for the timeline) when they’ve been gone for basically all of Season 3 and even “The Puppeteer 2″ specifically which makes a direct reference to “Troublemaker,” the episode that purposefully overdid it with her pictures (”Truth” has more hanging up and clearly used “Troublemaker” as a reference, by the way). They’re just there for force the love square and Adrien into the episode as much as possible to remind the audience that Adrien breathes. There is literally no purpose to any mention of Adrien and bringing him up isn’t even relevant to Marinette and Luka’s break-up.
It’s just upsetting to know that the umbrella scene from “Origins” (which is already flawed in and of itself) kickstarts this whole thing. Adrien did basically nothing there except for clear up a misunderstanding and give Marinette an umbrella when his ride was a few meters away and Marinette’s house was just across the street, but that actives Marinette’s absolutely crippling crush on him that lasts for 3-4 seasons. Marinette is in this eternal struggle of not being allowed to grow and change because the writers think her stammering/crushing on Adrien is funny while actively punishing her for having this crush in the first place (again, like in the scene with Alya, which insults Marinette for her crush when she wasn’t even panicking over her crush).
It’s the same with Luka, and I can’t believe that it took me until this episode to realize that he and Marinette are both treated the same way: tormented by episodes for having a crush on someone. Episodes will go out of their way to forcibly insert Adrien into the plot to both humiliate Marinette and make Luka feel awkward when the episode isn’t supposed to be about Adrien at all. “Truth” is just “Desperada 2.0″ except Adrien is barely on screen at all and they still felt the need to name drop him constantly. The writers are so sensitive to the idea of people jumping onto another ship or forgetting that Adrien exists that they’ll find any possible way to include him.
“Silencer” knew better. “Silencer” knew that Marinette’s life didn’t have to revolve around the mere mention of Adrien’s name and that she had other interests/desires/traits outside of him. Adrien isn’t brought up once and it was great because the show didn’t feel the need (for once) to throw Adrien into an episode that he had nothing to do with.
Even if I was a love square shipper, I would feel insulted by “Truth” because one half of my ship kept getting name dropped and used as a tool to humiliate the other half, which makes it all the more eyeroll-worthy when the love square stans of the fandom praise this episode for breaking Lukanette up when--oh, wait, they didn’t even break up “because Adrien.”
And that ends up being the real thing here. The writers had to invent a reason for Marinette and Luka to break up. We already know that Jagged Stone being Luka’s dad is a retcon (not technically in the show’s canon but in information we heard about outside of it), so they shoved in Luka having issues about not knowing his father specifically so that he would be pushed over the edge when Marinette couldn’t tell him about her being Ladybug.
When Luka and Marinette were just together and hanging out, Adrien wasn’t mentioned once. Say whatever about the Adrien pictures being on the wall and Marinette’s stammering (she always says stupid stuff when she panics - especially stuff she doesn’t mean - so I’m not upset with her so much as the writing for having her mess up in that specific way), but the only time Marinette talks about Adrien at all in the episode is when someone else brings him up.
She goes on a date with Luka to the cinema and they were having a great time without Adrien involved at all. I know I already stressed this point in a previous post, but one of the reasons that I find Lukanette to be so amazing is because the show actually focuses on Marinette’s interests and doesn’t force her to be the writer’s mouthpiece for gushing about their sunshine boy a punching bag for comedy. In every Lukanette scene that doesn’t bring up Adrien/before Adrien shows up, Marinette is either praised, able to be happy, or is showing one of her interests that isn’t aDrIeN, and whereas Adrien being on-screen around Marinette usually just means that she’s gushing about/stammering around him with no development, Lukanette features us actually learning more about Luka or other characters.
“Captain Hardrock” - lets her bond with Luka over a shared interest in Jagged Stone, and Luka is established as a sort of empath who uses music as a way to speak for himself
“Frozer” - gets to practice ice skating with Luka, who is actually good at ice skating and also can tie laces despite not tying his own because he’s a rebel
“Desperada” - gets to try out guitar with Luka and we learn that Luka has been playing guitar for as long as he can remember
“Silencer” - showcases Marinette’s interest in fashion and properly introduces Kitty Section; has a plot featuring all of them together doing something not even remotely love-related and we get actual confirmation of Luka’s crush on Marinette, along with Marinette’s reaction (blushy+happy; just saying, idk how anyone could watch “Silencer” and not think that Marinette was crushing on Luka)
“Heart Hunter” - Marinette gets a song written for/about her and Luka is established to have a job
“Truth” - brings up Lukanette’s shared interest in Jagged Stone, features Marinette’s interest in fashion when she gives him a gift she made + had Jagged Stone sign, and shows her raising her voice but not being judged by Luka for it, who’s happy with her just the way he is
When the show focuses on Lukanette, it’s all about lifting Marinette up, praising her, and making her feel good. When Adrien is involved or it’s hyper-fixating on Marinette’s crush on him, it’s about bringing her down and making her feel bad for a crush they keep forcing her to hold onto and humiliating her for.
Point being, the writers had to force their way into getting Lukanette broken up because of their precious love square and the fact that Marinette and Luka being happy is the opposite of what they want.
It’s embarrassing to watch a team full of old white guys (I’m convinced at this point that they just hang their female writer on a coat hanger so they can point to her whenever someone says that their staff is too male-dominated) treat their female biracial lead with such disrespect, and I can only presume that the mistreatment of Luka is because he’s supportive of her and they don’t like that, meaning that the way she’s treated ends up rubbing off on him.
It doesn’t come off as a fun or interesting plot; it comes off as cruel. When Adrien is sad, he usually gets people rushing to comfort him (”Party Crasher,” “Gamer”), but “Truth” has Marinette in tears over the fact that she can’t have a boyfriend due to being Ladybug and the writing has the gall to crack jokes about Kaalki not knowing what tears are, and then Marinette has to ask for the kwami to hug her for comfort.
When Luka gets akumatized into Truth, the episode doesn’t even hesitate at bashing away at him, from everyone saying that Marinette’s secret is that she “loves Adrien” (which, as Truth points out, isn’t a secret, and they could’ve had this somehow lead up to a twist ending where Marinette actually isn’t into Adrien anymore and the Adrien pictures were genuinely for reference, but she stammered about it because it was embarrassing that her boyfriend got sent it with no context) to one of Luka’s favorite songs actually being about how Jagged abandoned him to go on tour. Luka has to deal with Marinette ditching him constantly (not that I blame her) and not knowing who his father is despite wanting to know, and the episode treats him like trash for... what? Having a crush on a girl who’s secretly Ladybug? Because that’s all it seems to come down to in the end.
I also have serious gripes with the fact that Marinette has this huge schedule established in “Gamer 2.0″ and they don’t even try to explain why she can’t use it to keep track of her obligations. The episode has her say (in a roundabout way but still) that she’s forgetting stuff constantly because of all of her emergencies (the emergencies of which are not stated and I hate the subtle implication that forgetting something means you don’t care about it when that’s clearly not how things work and also not what Marinette comes off as because - again - they establish that she’s overworked) but fails to properly explain it. The episode hammers away at Marinette having all these issues and even has Tikki chide Marinette by asking her about leaving Luka alone while apparently neglecting the fact that Marinette HAS to go be Ladybug right now and what else is there to even do??
Both Luka and Marinette are punished for just having a crush and wanting to be together and I hate that the episode forces a break-up instead of coming up with a solution to the problem. Instead of “Marinette isn’t ready for a romantic relationship,” it feels more like she’s just not allowed to be happy.
Long-distance relationships are a thing. Relationships where people don’t get to go on dates frequently are a thing. Instead of forcing a break-up, the episode could’ve had a lesson/development where Marinette is told that she’s allowed to pursue a relationship and just needs to plan accordingly. but they just didn’t want to.
For example: instead of planning dates, Marinette could wait until an akuma/sentimonster is defeated to call Luka and ask him out, because Hawk Moth usually doesn’t strike immediately after one is dealt with. I’m positive that Luka would happily take impromptu/sudden dates over planned-but-inconsclusive ones. Heck, they don’t even have to date specifically and can just stick to phone calls (kwami can’t be picked up on technology) or hanging out in Marinette’s room/on Marinette’s balcony while they do their thing.
Relationships are a commitment, but that doesn’t mean they have to be a burden, and the episode absolutely drags Marinette over it. The whole thing with the kwami being released and stressing her out when they’re not supposed to be able to just come out normally is explained away by, “oh, the new box must be like you, Marinette; full of surprises!” when the reality is just that the show wants to take away everything that’s sacred to Marinette. The Season 3 finale had Fu’s letter telling Marinette that “life doesn’t always give you what you want, but the real gift is life itself,” then proceeds to turn Marinette’s life into a living hell.
Her room? She has to say good-bye to her privacy because now the kwami are always going to be around. The first thing one of them (Trixx) did was start reading her diary, showing that they have absolutely no shame or regard for Marinette’s feelings.
Her schedule? Conveniently pops away into the realm of non-existence so she can look bad for ditching Chat Noir on patrol and neglecting dates with Luka due to her responsibilities/stress.
Her boyfriend, the one person in the entire show who loved her, respected her agency, never judged her, actually apologized when he made her sad, and who she was genuinely in love with rather than just having the equivalent of a celebrity crush for? She had to break up with him because plot and needing to force her to go back to fawning over the guy who has only made her life worse by her crushing on him.
When I say the universe hates Marinette, this is what I mean. It created random akuma to attack Paris all for the sake of forcing Marinette away from Luka, and apparently didn’t realize what they were doing in the scene where Marinette hurries back to the Liberty when Kitty Section and Adrien are playing together when Adrien is Chat Noir so he should’ve been late too.
(Oh, and Marinette completely ignores Adrien in favor of waving at Luka and even tells Luka outright that Adrien isn’t even a factor in their relationship issues, further proving the “multiple drafts smashed together” and “the Adrien name drops are pointless” points.)
The whole thing in “Backwarder” where it was basically outright stated that Marianne could’ve been Fu’s confidant had Marianne not been outed by Ladybug’s mistake? Completely forgotten and left to the wayside. Marinette could’ve told Luka that she was watching the Miracle Box in Ladybug’s place (for any number of reasons, really: either Ladybug thinks it’s too dangerous to keep with her, or if the public doesn’t know that Ladybug is guardian, then Marinette can just say that she’s guardian) and that she has to run off to keep guard of the Miracle Box when an akuma/sentimonster happens in case Ladybug needs a miraculous.
Boom, done, episode solved. Luka gets to help Marinette with the kwami, Marinette is less stressed because someone knows half of her secret, and Luka and Marinette continue to date but are able to plan around akuma attacks.
But no. That whole thing in “Backwarder” where guardians (or at least Fu) can have a confidant was just there so Marinette could feel guilty about screwing it all up, because she’s not able to take advantage of that perk herself.
How convenient.
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Slow Burn - Prologue
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Part I | masterlist
A/N: This is a “must read” precursor to the whole series. Please read it to know what the origin story is. 
Pairing: Y/N x Obi Wan Kenobi
Words: 2048
Warnings: None. Brief mentions of violence. Low self esteem.
I am always one to experience emotions at a heightened frequency. Dangerous for a Jedi in training I know, but the council never took it as a sign of caution, just a minor set back. Happiness is bright, and beaming, even painful. My cheeks hurt for days after, smile lines sculpting my skin too early in life. Anger is powerful, my skin becoming vicious, and hot. Ripping through me like a silver bullet, and tearing my already unrelenting gut apart. I am loud, I am violent, and most of all, passionate. I would later become grateful of this curse, turning it into a blessing. Sadness is so deep. Tears crash like an ocean, and my heart would ache in my chest. The physical symptoms of my despair become overwhelming, and make me sick.
A fresh eighteen myself, my graduation is only a year or so away. Compared to other padawans, ones that don’t deal with the same struggles as myself, have already been graced with knighthood. They make their masters proud, and have already completed more missions at sixteen than I think I ever will in my entire career. 
I had the choice to become independent, to take my morals by the throat, and shove them deep down inside me, never to be seen again- but it really just isn’t that easy. See, I’m taking this time for meditation, or even a “behavioral therapy” of sorts. I have meetings with other council members, more powerful, and more prominent than my own master, who is often off tending to matters elsewhere. A mighty general he is, but they see me as someone who would cause more of a distraction, so I stay here at the temple left to my own devices. Sometimes I think it may be because I’m a woman, and other times I just take a good look in the mirror and recall the outburst that has stained my face only minutes before. 
Today was like any other; wake up, meditate, exercise, study, combat training, study, try and find time to eat something, and study. I walked down the main hallway with Master Yoda. He spoke to me about how he once struggled with his emotions as well, but with enough meditation, learned how to keep them at bay. Looking down at him and his vacant expression, I was surprised he had ever even felt an emotion a day in his life. That was until seconds later…
Stopping in my tracks, my hand flew over my heart. I recalled feeling out of breath, like my heart had physically stopped beating in my chest, or at least was trying to catch up with the rest of my body. I was shaky, yet somehow managed to take a knee. Something was off, that feeling in my chest grew and grew until I was faced with the blackest black I had ever felt. The darkest emotion to ever run through my body, as cold as ice, and heart stopping. It was deep, I felt it within the darkest abyss in my soul. It wrapped around my insides and nestled itself a home deep within the most shielded corners of my subconscious. That’s when Master Yoda felt it too. His hand flying over his heart, and steadying himself on my own shoulder. His face morphed into a snarl, gasping at the sudden pain that now infected his unwavering calm aura. 
...
After a painstakingly slow recovery, I sat on the edge of my bed. My quarters were neat and tidy. My bed, usually made up in the morning, because I have always been one for a routine. My walls weren’t bare, in fact they were almost completely covered in photographs I have taken from my travels as a Padawan. I'd go to the library, and butcher borrowed books, clipping photos of different words, and alien fauna. But today, those bright colors capable of producing fantasies for hours and hours, seemed black and white. 
I had been staring at the floor for sometime, desperate in trying to heal the ache in my chest. It felt as if I had a cold, like the burn after a deep cough. I felt so tight, so tense, an actual living embodiment of rigor mortis. Yet, at the same time, I hardly felt all there. It was as if my existence was floating all around me, and my shell was sitting vacant on an uncomfortable mattress. The knock on my door was enough for me to engulf myself again. 
“Y/N, are you decent?” The voice asks. 
“Yes,” I reply, rolling my shoulders back. 
“The council has requested an audience. Please report downstairs within the next few minutes.”
I nod my head, as if whoever was behind the door could see me. 
“An audience,”  I think. “Let’s add another year to that training plan, shall we?”
...
Walking downstairs to the council room, I can’t help but feel that all eyes are on me. They cut through me like a hot knife, slicing me thin. I feel so vulnerable. Like everyone around me can feel what I feel, and if I’m being honest, they probably do. A good Jedi who is in tune with the force, and especially in tune with others, can sense an intense emotion from a mile away. I’m sure at this moment I pretty much equate to an open book. No reason to try and hide it, force knows I struggle with concealing even an inkling of agitation. 
Seeing the council room in sight, I take a deep breath. This is it. I’m done for. This reaction was way too over the top. I’ve scared people, I’ve scared Master Yoda. Might as well just turn in my saber now and call it a day.
I walk into the door. Only a few masters sit scattered around. Master Yoda of course perched dead center, Master Windu waiting patiently to his right. But my master was nowhere in sight. You’d think if they were going to terminate me, that maybe my own mentor would be among them? Shaking his head, sending me glares that one could only compare to fucking daggers. He was tough on me for sure, maybe he was too ashamed of what I’d done to even bear to see me in this moment. 
“Coming here so quickly you did,” Starts Master Yoda. “Grateful we all are.”
I smile and bow my head. 
“Y/N,” Master Windu starts. “We’re here to discuss the events that happened earlier.” 
Oh god here it comes. This is it. I’m totally done for. I can’t even keep myself calm now. My face, getting hotter and more red by the second, is going to be the biggest tell. At least let me go out with some dignity. 
“Your reaction, what you felt at least, was not just brought on out of the blue. Master Yoda had the same experience, as did all of us on the council, and most Jedi and padawans in the temple.”
“I don’t understand.” I say. 
“At around 1 Coruscant time, an enemy bomb was detonated on Nal Hutta.”
Then it hit me. My heart sinking, I began to shake my head. 
“Unfortunately, Unit 505, and Master Cato were all killed on impact.”
My ears ring. Slowly, I move over to a chair, bracing myself. 
“That’s,” I start, trying to find the words to say. “He would’ve felt it, all of them would, I don’t understand.”
“We have a feeling it was planted by a Sith. That’s the only way it would’ve clouded any judgement.”
I slump into it, my vision going black, my head spinning. 
Master Cato has been with me since I was a very little girl. Although rough, tough, and brutally honest, he has done nothing but be a father to me time and time again. Everything I do is a reflection of him. He had been so busy at war, fighting day in and day out, I caught myself missing the commands, and demands I once so passionately despised. I took our whole relationship for granted, and now, is this the price I have to pay? The last time we spoke he told me how disappointed he was in my outburst in my Alien Fauna lab. I was being stubborn, I was bratty, and rolled my eyes. We had argued that entire call. He didn’t even attempt to say goodbye. Now, for an eternity, I will have to face the catastrophic guilt of my actions. Live with the fact that I never, ever told him how much I appreciated him. And even, how much I loved him so. The closest thing to family in my life, gone, in the snap of a finger. 
Both Master Yoda and Master Windu continued to talk but it all felt like empty words. I couldn’t hear them anyway. 
“Although this situation isn't ideal, we and the rest of the council applaud you for being able to feel something most of us haven’t been able to experience yet.” Claimed Master Windu.
I don’t listen. I stand up again. 
“What am I going to do? I don’t feel comfortable with being knighted yet. I had- we were working on so many things I-,” I stumbled on my words. 
“You’ll get placed with a new master.”
“There are no new masters. And even if I had been trained a certain way, I don’t know how to learn otherwise.” 
There is silence. 
“The force works in mysterious ways. Meant to happen, I feel.” 
I scoff. “Meant to happen,” what an evil thing to say.
I begin to walk off, stopping of course, only to get in the last word. 
“Not only have you told me that my master has been killed, but you lack any empathy. There is no emotion in your eyes. Nothing.”
“We mourn your master y/n, just as much as you do. You know what we stand for. You know our view on attachments.”
“He's like-,” I choke. “He was like my father.”
I can’t even begin to explain the pain I feel. Disgust in myself, I should’ve been better. I could’ve been better. The last few years of our relationship I’ve just been behaving poorly and rebelling, and then getting angry at him when he made me face the consequences. Like I wasn’t aware of the job I was made to do. I should’ve been nicer, I could’ve been nicer. It’s all going in a circle, all the things I should’ve done just morphed into things I couldn’t do. Maybe I was too emotional. Maybe my tears that fell leading up to this moment was all part of the plan, the final kicker to show that I wasn’t apathetic enough for this job. My empathy, my burning passion will always be my biggest flaw. This hole that gapes inside of me will never be filled, and now it grows bigger. It’s like a disease. Am I enough? Will I ever be enough?
“Put you with Master Kenobi, we will.” States Master Yoda. 
Master Windu is quick in turning his head. He glares at him. 
“Master Yoda, General Kenobi has just finished his training with Anakin. It is far too early to give him a new Padawan, if at all.”
Yoda nods, almost giggling. 
“Yet so freshly knighted, a Padawan Anakin already has. Obi Wan will have no problem with taking on a student. Graduates soon, she will.”
“But General Kenobi and I have two completely different methods of combat, let alone ideals.” I scoff. 
“All Jedi have the same ideals.” Adds Windu. 
“He is a Jedi guardian, I am a Jedi sentinel-“
“Train with General Kenobi you will. Not long ago he also lost his master too soon.”
Master Yoda nods to me. He stands up and walks over to the large windows behind him. Looking out over Coruscant, he takes a deep sigh of relief. 
“Master Windu,” says Yoda. “Get in contact with the 212th battalion.” 
I watch on as my fate now rests in a stranger's hands.
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missnight0wl · 3 years
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Personally I hate how dumb they make our characters (the MC) look it’s actually rather offensive considering this 11-18 YEAR OLD HAS GONE THROUGH MORE TRAUMA IN 7 YEARS THEN ANY NORMAL KID SHOULD! Not to mention we seem to have a terrible mother, an inactive or dead father, and our brother who IS SUPPOSED TO BE THE MOST IMPORTANT PERSON IN THEIR LIFE abandons us again continuously, …oh and let’s not forget we saw our best friend be murdered in front of us by a spell that was originally meant for another one of our longtime friends!
My point being you’d think after all that they could give us some credit in the brains department! (This is why I ignore JamCity’s dialogue choices half the time)
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I’m not sure if you sent both asks or it’s just a crazy coincidence that I got them in such a short time, but I’m joining them anyway as they’re pretty much about the same thing.
When it comes to MC, they’re… a weird protagonist. Or maybe I should rather say "inconsistent".
As for whether or not I like them – well, I do like past MC. In earlier years, they were simply better written, more lively, and they had more personality. Because yes, MC always had personality. We could shape it a little, but overall, MC was their own character. And truth be told, there wasn’t much to not like about them, in my opinion. I mean, they were a good kid, a bit of an outsider, rejected by their peers because of their brother, but still very determined to save the said brother and to defend underdogs.
They were a little dorky at times (our interactions with Sickleworth are still one of my favourite moments of the game). They were also pretty witty and even cheeky at times. For example, in their first year, when they tricked Filch that they heard Peeves planning to mess with his office, so MC and their company could sneak into the Corridor with the Icy Room? It was probably smarter than a lot of MC’s actions in Y6 and Y7. Their thought process was just more complex in general, and they questioned more things – and other characters were included in this, too. A good example of this is the Letter From No One situation from Y3 (I talked about it HERE).
Of course, it doesn’t mean that they were infallible. For example, when MC talked to Rowan after being attacked by the Red Cloak for the first time, they suggested that it was Rakepick – which doesn’t really make much sense when you think about it. In Y4Ch2, Rakepick told us that we have to continue our search for the Cursed Vaults, but in Y4Ch3, the Red Cloak told us to stay away from both Rakepick AND the Cursed Vaults. So, hon, how it could even work together? But you see, this is the kind of lack of logic I can accept. First of all, MC was only 14 at the time. Secondly, Rakepick just arrived, she was acting very suspicious, therefore it’s totally possible that she made MC a bit paranoid, and so the kid forgot about logic for a moment.
But now, let’s compare it to the situation from Y6 when MC was investigating the possibility of Snape being the mole. And I’m sorry, but THIS is something I can’t accept. First of all, MC was over two years older than in the previous example, so they also should be smarter. Secondly, we knew Snape for much longer and there were a lot of things proving that he can’t be the mole. Like, he was always suspicious of Rakepick, he even gave us the Garrotting Gas to use it against her! How could he work for R?! We’ve spent a big part of a chapter on that, and we didn’t even question any of these inconsistencies.
Truth be told, I can’t say I hate MC, but this stupidity makes it very hard for me to simply care about them as a character at this point. Ironically, they became more of a blank canvas than they were at the beginning. It’s just like… the things happen to them, and that’s it. I don’t know, I feel like MC became more of an empty shell and a plot device, in a way. They don’t think, they barely react. They don’t really influence their environment.
I believe that partially it’s because the writers have a hard time working beyond the original plans they have, but also because they think that MC should be stupid. And to a degree, I wouldn’t mind it, because MC not remembering everything etc. is an opportunity to refresh the plot. The problem is that Jam City made MC too stupid, and they extremely simplified the whole mechanism. As a result, instead of focusing on different and more important things, we have Y6 where MC figures out every single chapter that the Sunken Vault might be underwater.
Another problem I see with MC is their lack of reactions I mentioned already. Sure, we all respond to trauma differently, but I do think that MC should’ve had a breakdown moment at the end of Y5. I talked more about it HERE.
But the saddest thing about it is that even with MC remaining so "reactionless", it still could've been a very interesting part of the story. See, this is what Snape told us after our Occlumency lesson in Y5Ch18:
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It was never elaborated on, yet, I can’t help but wonder if it wasn’t intentional. That originally, there was a reason why MC is so good at controlling their emotions – despite all the trauma they went through, despite feeling guilty about the events happening at Hogwarts. MC’s reactions to traumatic events are always very timid, and they rarely show us that part of them proving that they’re indeed filled with guilt. Sadly though, it’s just another thing that was neglected by the writers, and so it simply makes MC… kind of hollow. It’s harder to sympathise with them because of that, at least for me personally.
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hellsbellschime · 3 years
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Could you make a meta about jonerys storyline in s7?
LOL okay so fun story! I thought this would be a fun idea for a video and figured I’d do a scene by scene analysis except by the time I was done with 7x03 I already had FIFTEEN MINUTES of material, so I stopped there. It was interesting so I might dive more into it at another point, but I do feel like at the very least the subtext and narrative material from 7x03 is the most rich anyway.
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Most fans of Game of Thrones were looking forward to the shows main leads, Jon Snow and Daenerys Targaryen, meeting each other for years. But unfortunately once "ice and fire" finally came face to face, their chemistry and relationship was tragically lacking. However, given that the show was trying to sell an epic love story between them in half a dozen episodes, what was it about Jon and Dany that went so wrong? And in retrospect, did it even go wrong at all? One of the most interesting bricks in the foundation of Jon and Daenerys's relationship actually gets set in stone before Jon and Dany even meet, and it's set in stone by Tyrion. There is an significant miscommunication caused by him in the second episode of the season, because Daenerys commands him to invite Jon to Dragonstone specifically to bend the knee, but the message he actually sends to Jon doesn't include that vital tidbit. But the question is, why is that?
It's possible to chalk it up to just an error in writing or editing, however it's something that would have to be overlooked by everyone, and given the way the season progresses it seems unlikely that that's the case. It could have easily been edited out of the episode itself, so the fact that it wasn't means that it had to have been left in for a reason. And the fact that this miscommunication is never clarified or brought up by Tyrion afterwards seemingly indicates that it's an intentional moment too. But what matters more about this intentional confusion is not the confusion itself, but what it's supposed to tell the audience. 
This disconnect between perspectives and understanding between Jon and Dany seems to repeat itself from the literal moment that they're introduced to each other as well. Obviously Missandei listing off all of Dany's many titles while Jon Snow is introduced with such little fanfare is a moment that plays very well comedically, but despite the fact that up until this point Jon and Dany have been portrayed as two of the most heroic characters in the series, the audience is immediately meant to see them as total opposites of each other. Obviously the disparity between them will become clearer later, but given the way they've both been presented as individuals thus far, it's quite odd that the literal second they meet they're portrayed in direct contrast to one another.
Jon and Daenerys's interactions are really weird right off the bat. Not only is Jon completely thrown for a loop when he arrives on Dragonstone and is immediately commanded to bend the knee and taken prisoner, but Daenerys is her worst, least appealing self as soon as she meets him. It's not entirely out of her wheel house to play hardball with another person in power that she's just met, but from what Tyrion has said about Jon she has no reason to negotiate so aggressively with him, and yet she does anyway. 
What really sticks out in this initial conversation more than anything though, is that immediately after Daenerys meets Jon, she does quite a few things that are going to be incredibly unappealing to Jon as a character. Firstly, she disregards Robb's quest for independence, something he literally died in service of, in order to defer to the supposed last King in the North, Torrhen Stark. That might make sense from Dany's perspective given that she has very little love lost for Viserys, but to Jon, overlooking his deceased brother who was legitimately chosen to be King in the North is not something that is going to win any points with him. 
Then Dany points out that Torrhen Stark swore fealty to House Targaryen in perpetuity in exchange for his life and the life of the Northmen. Now, given what Dany has done up until this point, no one would have expected her to kill all of the Northmen if Jon hadn't bent the knee, but Jon doesn't have the benefit of narrative omniscience, so this statement after his frosty welcome to Dragonstone seems like a pretty clear threat that if Jon doesn't submit to her, he and the Northmen will die. 
She also makes it clear that she sees Torrhen's vow (if a vow can even be considered legitimate when it's given under threat of death) as still valid despite the fact that this is centuries old history that she nor Jon had any choice in. When he refuses, she levies the accusation that he is somehow breaking faith with House Targaryen, despite the fact that according to feudal law, the Mad King very clearly broke faith with House Stark by nearly executing all of the men in the family. 
This is the first moment where Jon actually pushes back against Dany's claims and points out that it was clearly House Targaryen that broke faith, and Daenerys admits some guilt on her father's behalf but asks that he forgive this crime and not judge a daughter by the sins of her father. That would be a halfway decent concession for her to make, were it not for the fact that it's buffered by two implications that Jon is responsible for an oath that his ancestor swore as well as responsible for the fact that his father was best friends with someone who attempted to kill her. 
Her next attempt at winning Jon's allegiance is even stranger. She claims that House Targaryen and House Stark were allies for centuries, when the obvious reality is that they were unwillingly subjugated by House Targaryen and the Iron Throne for the entire time. She also calls them centuries of peace and prosperity, which they very clearly and objectively were not. Westeros has never been particularly peaceful, but it's also never been as chaotic as it was during the reign of the Targaryens. She also somewhat hilariously presents him with the offer of Warden of the North, as if that were a prize to be won for him and not an obvious downgrade in terms of his status among his people and in Westeros in general. 
Jon refuses in a pretty fair retort, explaining that he isn't beholden to his ancestors vows and Daenerys isn't guilty of her father's crimes. It's interesting though, because Daenerys is frustrated by this. It's somewhat understandable that she'd be frustrated by the fact that Jon isn't bending the knee, but it's also intersting that she is frustrated by something that is an objectively fair propisition that puts both she and Jon on equal footing with one another. Throughout their conversation it's been clear that she does not see things that way, she expects Jon to bend the knee because someone who isn't him made a vow, but she doesn't expect to be held guilty for her father's crimes because it wasn't her doing. 
When Jon says that he needs Dany's help and she needs his, her response here is very telling as well. Clearly she's flexing because she wants to be perceived as intimidating by everyone she meets, but what's curious is that she automatically disbelieves that she could need Jon's help when he hasn't even explained what she needs his help for. It's extremely telling because she is already in a mental position where she believes that nothing and no one could possibly pose any kind of threat to her. 
Jon's engagement with the conversation takes an interesting turn here, because even after everything that has been said and done so far, he tells Daenerys that she is at least better than Cersei because she hasn't attacked King's Landing yet. While that is technically true and feels slightly more on par with the heroic Dany that everyone has seen so far, what the audience does already know is that she hasn't just decided not to attack King's Landing, she's been convinced not to attack King's Landing. Thus far, this is the only positive thing that Jon has said about her, and the viewers already know that it's false. 
Jon, ever the wordsmith, tries to immediately apprise Daenerys of the gravity of the situation in the worst way possible by likening the game of thrones to children playing a game screaming that the rules aren't fair. But again, it's interesting that, even though Tyrion corrects her afterwards, Daenerys is offended that Jon is calling HER a child. And it seems that honestly, Dany has no interest in what Jon is saying to her so long as it's not about her and her right to rule Westeros. 
What's also really bizarre here about Daenerys and Tyrion's behavior is that when he starts explaining what's going on with the army of the dead, they are both apathetic and disbelieving, despite the fact that Melisandre told them to summon Jon Snow because something big was coming and Jon knew more about it than almost anyone. It's possible that they were suspicious that it was some kind of trap or ruse, but it's strange that they both act so clueless and uncaring when they've both already been told that Jon was going to show up and tell them some wild shit. 
The dialog exchange gets really bizarre at this point, because instead of actually responding to anything that Jon said, Dany goes off on a tangent that essentially sums up to the idea that she believes in nothing but herself and it's her destiny to rule Westeros. It seems so off topic that it's hard to even understand what the writers were trying to convey here, but the only thing that I can possibly comprehend is that they're essentially trying to make it clear that after everything Jon has said and done, Daenerys is still thinking of nothing more than her destined birthright. 
And once again, we're all meant to see a contrast here because Davos intercedes and counters with the idea that if it's Dany's destiny to be queen, then all of Jon's accomplishments were his destiny too. This is interesting for two reasons though. The first is obvious, that Jon isn't the type to talk himself up or behave in a remotely entitled way, and that he doesn't command respect but earns it.
However, this points out something else interesting that is easy to overlook throughout this exchange. Daenerys is extremely forthcoming about herself, her accomplishments, and what she believes is her right, but Jon hasn't offered up any information about himself willingly. It's an understandable strategic tactic, there is no reason to offer up information to a potential enemy, but the fact is that this conversation clearly has confirmed in his mind that Daenerys is still a very possible enemy. 
And unfortunately for both of them, as Jon and Dany's first ever conversation concludes, Daenerys actually confirms that Jon is her enemy, claims that he is in open rebellion against her, and takes him prisoner while refusing to admit that she's actually taking him prisoner. 
Jon's conversation with Tyrion later is even more interesting. Because Jon directly calls out the fact that he's a prisoner, and Tyrion tries to claim the exact same thing that Dany did, that he's not a prisoner based on the incredibly frail technicality that Dany did not directly tell him that he was a prisoner. But even more importantly, this is an obvious instance where Tyrion could have told Jon that his message to him was intentionally misleading and Daenerys's aggression towards him may have been partially his fault, but he doesn't, nor does he explain this at any point later. 
Another interesting element to their conversation is that Tyrion tells Jon that he actually does believe him about the army of the dead. It's interesting because, if that were the case, why did he so clearly tag-team Jon in his first meeting with Daenerys? Perhaps it took him a moment of thought to actually understand what Jon was saying and come around to believing him, but it's interesting that the writers had a character who was familiar with Daenerys and Jon who could easily have mediated between them and didn't have him mediate. 
Tyrion also makes mention of the fact that children are not their fathers, luckily for all of us. While this is just a one off line and potentially means nothing, it's also a potentially very telling one because, honestly, Jon and Tyrion are very much like their fathers. Jon has idolized Ned for his entire life and desperately wants to be his father, and despite all of his attempts to distance himself from Tywin, Tyrion is clearly the Lannister child who is the most similar to his own father. So the subtext there about none of them being their fathers when even at this point two out of three of them are incredibly similar to their fathers specifically, seems like it could be very obvious foreshadowing.
But probably the most intriguing and noticeably strange aspect of Jon's conversation with Tyrion is that Tyrion explains to him that asking for Daenerys's help against an enemy she doesn't even believe is real is not a reasonable thing to ask. However, literally everything that Tyrion and Daenerys have asked of Jon so far has been wildly unreasonable to ask. Daenerys has asked a complete stranger to bend the knee to someone he's never met or even seen before, and she has essentially taken him hostage when he refused instead of just trying to convince him to do so. Jon even offers her an incredibly easy way in, he asks for her help, and if she provides it it's obvious that he and the rest of the Northmen would be much more open to the idea of her as their queen, but rather than even hearing Jon out she takes a seemingly desperate person as her prisoner with the clear intent of holding him there until he bends the knee. 
When Tyrion convinces Daenerys to give Jon the dragonglass he requires, Daenerys makes her first attempt to actually relate to Jon on a personal level. It's once again interesting that Daenerys brings up the loss of her two brothers and relates it to Jon's loss of his brothers, because Jon offers literally nothing in return. 
But what seems to be more relevant is Dany's position that everyone enjoys what they're good at and Jon saying that he doesn't. Once again, because the audience has the luxury of seeing Jon's entire journey thus far, it's easy to see why he feels this way. However, this seems to be another opportunity to point out the way in which Jon and Dany contrast each other, not to point out the ways in which they're similar to one another. 
It's interesting that Melisandre claims that she has brought ice and fire together at the beginning of the episode. Aside from being a nice nod to the original text, it also positions Jon and Daenerys as opposing forces instead of united ones. And these constant contrasts that are being brought up from the instant that they meet seem extremely relevant to their relationship to one another, but the fact that Dany enjoys what she's good at while Jon doesn't seems to be the most vital bit of information that the show conveys about Jon and Dany right off the bat. Because there really are so many parallels between what they're good at. Much of Jon and Dany's journeys thus far have been about fighting from the bottom to get to the top, winning people over, and trying to kill their enemies before their enemies can kill them. However, many of the things that Jon seems to dislike about leadership the most seem to be things that Daenerys actually does genuinely enjoy. 
It's safe to say that their very first meeting wasn't all that many fans were hoping for, however it seems like in the brutally short timeline of the final two seasons of Game of Thrones, the writers felt that the most important thing to establish between Jon and Daenerys right off the bat was not some sort of chemistry or romantic interest, but was the idea that these two people are diametrically opposed to one another in every way that matters. Despite the fact that their character arcs have had so many parallels thus far, the first episode where Jon and Daenerys actually meet seems to be designed to establish that everything about their personalities, dispositions, and overall ideals are on opposite ends of the spectrum, which was truly just the first gigantic step in establishing a romantic relationship that seems muddled, disjointed, and generally hard to follow and comprehend.
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birdkujapropaganda · 3 years
Text
my completely biased and official rating of every keyblade ever:
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Kingdom Key: absolute classic. excellent design for the like, mascot keyblade. very simple, vaguely key shaped. i hate the mouse head though it's so stupid and makes no sense. and i hate mickey. 9/10 minus a point for the weird mickey keychain
Oathkeeper: wonderful. amazing. never boring. excellent design love the heart and wings and all the significance. and that the keychain is kairi's charm? terrific. 10/10
Oblivion: brilliant. awesome. phenomenal. again excellent design the wings and chains and purple crystal are absolutely perfect. love the crown keychain. 10/10
Ultima Weapon 1: literally just a sword with some filigree on it. nice. too much yellow and i don't like the weird cyan gradient on the guard. 7/10
Kingdom Key D: d for disgusting. i don't have any other comments i just hate it. 2/10
Keyblade of Hearts: yeah that sure is an anti-keyblade. love the simplicity and the heart in the negative space of the teeth. and that it doesn't have a keychain, that fueled a lot of theories for 12yo me 8/10
Lady Luck: i think i don't like this one bc to get it u need to use a white trinity but you can't do that until near the end and i have way cooler blades to use. the design is pretty ok, don't really get the card keychain tho. 5/10
Olympia: oh the sight of this one makes me irritated because the kh1 strategy guide uses this in one of the pictures for the fight against possessed riku. it did not help me win. and i hate short keyblades. love the clouds and columns though 7/10
Jungle King: kinda ugly but i appreciate that it looks kinda handmade. also like the butterfly keychain bc it doesn't look like it fits but it Does. also the first good alternate blade u get in the game so. 8/10
Three Wishes: not bad but it doesn't stick out to me either. also doesn't scream agrabah to me but also it does? 6/10
Pumpkinhead: NICE. very long and very cool. the teeth looks like bat wings and a pumpkin so very epic. 9/10
Wishing Star: so pointless i already have pumpkinhead. also short. cute design though i like the gears. 5/10
Crab Claw: i never used this one because it stuck out so ugly in Halloween Town </3 i love blue and crabs though so 8/10
Fairy Harp: I HATE YOU DIE. short and stupid. does NOT remind me of neverland at all. 1/10
Divine Rose: pretty nice but short and lategame. always thought its existence was kinda weird?? like thanks belle but why. i have oblivion. 7/10
Spellbinder: for some reason i really don't like it. i like blue and the circles are neat. the handle looks really painful though. 4/10
Metal Chocobo: kinda ugly lol. love the holes and chocobo keychain. 8/10
Lionheart: oh i am so biased by recoded. absolutely excellent keyblade. design's kind of weird tho where are those lions going. 9/10
Diamond Dust: so i was really confused because i thought this was khux-only or maybe bbs keyblade but apparently it's kh1 final mix only. you know what i got as a reward for fighting the ice titan? sephiroth. you know what i got for fighting sephiroth? NOTHING. it was my favorite khux blade though so grrrr 7/10
One-Winged Angel: grr bark bark final mix again fuck you. kinda weird design though like what is the teeth? a meteor? should've been a wing. nice guard though there's not enough hand room. excellent keychain obviously. 8/10
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Ultima Weapon 2: very similar to the first but blue and symmetrical. very good learn from your mistakes. 9/10
Way to Dawn: YEAAAHHHHHHH BOY HERE IT IS PERFECT EXCELLENT GREAT DESIGN WONDERFUL LORE. HAS WINGS. THE EVOLUTION FROM SOUL EATER. THE LACK OF THORNS ON THE HEART. 10/10
Destiny's Embrace: very cute!! my favorite part is the name. i wish it wasn't so like. stereotypically girly though. like you look at the destiny trio's keyblades and can immediately pick out which one is The Girl's. 9/10
Star Seeker: i wanna hate it because it's mickey's/yen sid's but honestly it's so nice. the stars and moons and comets and gradients and colors... wonderful 9/10
Rumbling Rose: oof. weird and ugly and gross. keychain looks like a ladybug from far away. 3/10
Hero's Crest: bring the clouds back. i don't really get the design but i like columns. 5/10
Monochrome: super cute!! i don't like Timeless River but this fits it so well and has cute hit effect. 8/10
Mysterious Abyss: i always get this one way late in the game so it's always pretty pointless oops lol. also the design doesn't really say atlantica?? 3/10
Follow the Wind: another weird miss but i like this one more. nice wheel shaped guard, and that the keychain is a cursed coin. 6/10
Wishing Lamp: now THIS is the agrabah keyblade. very nice and elegant. looks like the palace! 7/10
Decisive Pumpkin: THIS ONE 😭😭 it's so ugly but it's so strong so i have to use it but it's so ugly. it does look like jack's idea of christmas so points i guess 😭 4/10
Circle of Life: also pretty ugly. and short. sorry simba. 3/10
Sweet Memories: shrek voice it doesn't even have attack. i don't like winnie the pooh so that's definitely influencing me. makes cute noises iirc and looks pretty cute. 4/10
Photon Debugger: this one should look pretty cool but my brain is saying it's bad. i think the giant red ball by the teeth are throwing me off. love the neon blue tho 5/10
Gull Wing: why the weird space in the name. anyway. i really want to love this keyblade bc i love X2 but it's really bad. i'm so sorry YRP kh did you so wrong. excellent keychain choice though. 2/10
Guardian's Soul: MUCH better thank you. auron my beloved <3 the lines are very appealing and i like how simple it appears. also looks like auron's swords. 8/10
Sleeping Lion: wayyy better than lionheart. looks kinda like a gunblade! again though what are those lions doing. 8/10
Fenrir: my car key got in a fight. 1/10
Bond of Flame: looks like a bad first draft of axel's keyblade. either the teeth or the guard should look like a chakram, pick one. love it though. 7/10
Two Become One: MY BELOVED <3 excellent design, so so so roxas i think he should use it. very excellent i love the little twist at the top. checkered handle is a little weird. 10/10
Fatal Crest: lol i was so mad when i first saw this because it looked like one of my oc's keyblades. i like it now though, it's a dragon!! pretty neat bro 8/10
Winner's Proof: oh this one is so cute. if it wasn't a reward it would be really weird and bad. surprisingly elegant! and there's even 13 mushrooms on it! 9/10
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(shoutout to portadorx on deviantart for the 358 keyblade refs)
Missing Ache: YOU. interesting design, though it says roxas more than ventus to me. great first alt keyblade. 7/10
Ominous Blight: very edgy names in this game <3 looks like guardian's soul, which is interesting. i don't like yellow but it works bc blight 6/10
Abaddon Plasma: what a cool fucking name. so many yellow keyblades. but very cool looking i love roxas' aesthetic 8/10
Pain of Solitude: this is just pink missing ache. 8/10
Sign of Innocence: SO COOL. idk what's going on in most of these blades but i love it. 9/10
Crown of Guilt: come on. it doesn't look like a crown. big disappointment. very cool though 6/10
Abyssal Tide: so cool!! i love blue and fighting in midair <3 the teeth kinda looks like waves 8/10
Leviathan: weirdly furry looking. very cool guard 6/10
True Light's Flight: looks like two become one if it was only one. the top kinda looks like the nobody sigil 9/10
Rejection of Fate: SPEAR. epic name too, but i think it should swap names with true light's flight. very cool but i don't remember seeing it in name. kinda awkward bc it looks like it should be a spear 7/10
Midnight Roar: sooo cool. the orange handle pops without looking wrong... nice. also the teeth kinda look like a bat. 9/10
Glimpse of Darkness: ugly. weirdly bulky and hollow. short. 3/10
Total Eclipse: weirdly bumpy sword. i like how the orange looks like it glows. 5/10
Silent Dirge: GoD but purple. 2/10
Lunar Eclipse: TE but purple. 4/10
Darker than Dark: Hello 😳TLF but purple 10/10
Astral Blast: Abyssal Tide but yellow. interesting choice, but kinda clashes with the blue accents 7/10
Maverick Flare: Ominous Blight but red... excellent. very nice. 8/10
Twilight Blaze: Abaddon Plasma but red... also excellent. very epic. 9/10
Omega Weapon: props for not looking like any of the ultima weapons. very interesting and spiky but i kinda don't like it. 6/10
Aubade: kinda weird. "draws forth its wielder's personality"... ok. looks light elemented. 7/10
Wooden Stick: lol 10/10
Umbrella: not what i would've chosen but lol 10/10
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Zero/One: WONDERFUL, EXCELLENT, AMAZING. i can't really explain why i love this one so much it's just very good. 10/10
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Earthshaker: very solid design. not much to say it's just nice. love the colored guard. 7/10
Ends of the Earth: love that it is so clearly an earthshake upgrade. makes u realize how incomplete the first one is. 9/10
Dreadgnaw: kinda silly looking lol those are teeth. love the red bit in the center. looks very similar to earthshaker in a good way. 8/10
Chaos Ripper: looks like EotE but in a bad way. i don't like the weird teeth. it's also almost impractically long but i'm here for that. ALSO THE EYE. NICE. 7/10
Rainfell: oooo i love this it's so simple but so nice. very elegant 9/10
Stormfall: less nice. looks like a rainfell upgrade though. also kinda looks like master's defender which makes sense but i don't like it. 6/10
Brightcrest: GORGEOUS. PERFECT AND WONDERFUL. SO PRETTY. i wish it was kairi's. kinda looks to ornamental for aqua? but good for her. 10/10
Wayward Wind: none of ventus' blades look very ventusy to me. this one looks like an extra training one they had sitting around. cool shape though 5/10
Frolic Flame: NICE. looks like lea's frisbees! i like fire and fire designs so but it's a little awkward looking 8/10
Lost Memory: ok so first off WINGS. EXCELLENT. love that the only color is the heart. very cool and epic but i don't understand why it doesn't have a reverse grip handle. or the pointy bit at the tip. but still 10/10
Void Gear: hiii vanitas :) so anyway in my totally unbiased opinion this is the best keyblade ever obviously. love the gears and red accents and it's just super cool. the eyes and chains... vanitas character development keyblade when <3 10/10
Void Gear (White?): still very cool, love the simple contrast going on. 10/10
No Name: i didn't know this one was also called no name which is kinda lame. but i love the keyblade it's very cool. super glowy and i love the time design. 9/10
Crown Unlimit: I almost really like this one. very neat design, love the crowns and twists and glow. 7/10
Master's Defender: literally so plain and boring. i don't care if that's the point give it some frills. nice design though :/ 7/10
Broken Xblade: love the broken bits and the weird rust color. wish one of the kingdom keys was more broken and i think the top bit should be broken too. 7/10
Wooden Keyblade: sobbing and crying and tears. this is literally so cute and good and i love that it looks like Ends of the earth. or the kingdom key i guess. 10/10
Treasure Trove: i never expect to like this one but it's actually pretty nice :) wish the gems looked like they were spilling from the top and not leaking from the bottom. 8/10
Stroke of Midnight: also surprisingly nice! the guard kinda looks like a pumpkin which is cute. just a very cute design. 8/10
Fairy Stars: rad as hell. absolutely love this design very appealing. like how point the stars are. 9/10
Victory Line: i hate this one. maybe bc i don't like the world. kinda ugly and the teeth look awkward. 3/10
Mark of a Hero: ok we brought the clouds back but the weirdly buff trophy arm fucks this up. the blade is also just kind of a column, nothing going on there. 4/10
Hyperdrive: super cute!! love how the blade looks like laser fire and engine streams. the teeth are weird again though, and the handle looks like a bee 8/10
Pixie Petal: SO much better than fairy harp. this one is very cute and these teeth actually fit with the rest of the design. kinda short though >:/ 7/10
Sweetstack: oh this is so cute. a bunch of ice cream scoops!! why are the teeth oranges and what are some of those flavors. why are cones on the guard soft serve. 8/10
Ultima Weapon bbs: NICE. A SWORD WITH SOME FILIGREE BUT ALL IN BLUE. LOVE the wayfinders on it, very good for them. wish it wasn't just blue since it seems so aqua-centric but it looks nice soo 10/10
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Skull Noise: LITERALLY SO PERFECT. THAT'S SO TWEWY. INCREDIBLE. the headphones and mr mew keychain... wonderful. only thing is that the name is kinda weird. like it makes sense but sounds weird. 10/10
Guardian Bell: i like it more than i think i would. elegant looking, and i love the gargoyles on it. hate the sentient gargoyles tho. 8/10
Dual Disk: VERY cool! looks like it has a reverse grip. the teeth are really cool and i love the bright blue. 9/10
Ferris Gear: eh. pretty cute but i think my pinocchio bias is acting up. the gears are nice, reminds me of wishing star. 5/10
Knockout Punch: SO COOL. really love the spikiness and colors and that the guard looks like the monkey. unfortunately for it, i don't like monkey. 8/10
All for One: the design's nice and it matches the world... but eh. 5/10
Counterpoint: so fun!! the violin guard is great, and the blade looks so cool. the teeth are a little awkward looking, it goes up too much. 9/10
Divewing: RAD!. just a sword with a heart on it and i love it. just so fucking cool. and the guard looks like a wing so 10/10
Sweet Dreams: so cute :) in love with the meow wow on top, but the teeth go up too much again. and i think there should be some komory wings on it. 7/10
Ultima Weapon DDD: NICE. almost identical to the kh1 blade, but blue and BETTER. the wings above the guard and the crown coming out of dream eater sigil... brilliant. 10/10
Unbound: not a hit 💔 just kinda weird and unfinished looking? and the lime green bit is off-putting. the hear at the top is nice. 2/10
End of Pain: ok mood shift hello. looks like it should be one of terra's evil blades. at first i was thrown off but looking closer it's so cool. the wings and eye at the top... the horns above the guard... the butterfly and gazing eye (buttereye) keychain... magnificent. the blade reminds me of x2 dark knight paine's sword. 10/10
Ocean Rage: looks pretty cool at first but the monstro mouth guard is literally horrifying i don't want to look at it anymore 1/10
YMX's keyblade: apparently has no name and is different than the one in bbs. nothing new really to say since it looks pretty similar but the goat head on top is super interesting. how much did No Name (luxu) influence young xehanort... 9/10
Mirage Split: absolutely perfect. i can't think of anything that isn't positive to say. the stained glass, the heart by the teeth, the thin lines, the gradient, wings, pointy, the keychain, literally all perfect. 10/10
Nightmare's End: also utterly perfect. i don't like yellow but it works here and looks great. the cyan gradient is startling but matches MS so i love it. all the colors in the stained glass are wonderful. 10/10
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Starlight+: a little guady. but i love how the stars look like comets. the twisted blade looks neat too, but what's the point of the pointy bit on top. 7/10
Treasure Trove+: love that it looks golden and gem encrusted. very rich looking, but the cart is still leaking gems. 8/10
Lady Luck+: NOW the card thing makes more sense, i love how its incorporated throughout the design. more more interesting than the original. 9/10
Three Wishes+: looks like fire?? which is way cooler but why??? i like it more but where's the agrabah. 8/10
Olympia+: CLOUDS. like that zeus is in the clouds, but they took my columns. and the cyan handles are really weird. 7/10
Divine Rose+: excellent. what it should've been all along. the iridescenty guard is suuuper pretty and all the leaves and vines are great. 10/10
Moogle o' Glory: a lot happening here but i love smacking shit with a moogle head. there's so much happening and i don't really get it. 7/10
Fairy Stars+: i didn't know it could get better, the teeth is super cool looking but i wish the twisty blade was more visible. 9/10
Sleeping Lion+: love that it turns that metallic light blue color, very pretty. and the handle looks more like the gunblade! very nice looking and i used it a lot but the top is very weird. 9/10
Counterpoint+: let's take all the fun and exciting bits from the original and crANK IT UP TO ELEVEN. wait. stop. go back it's too much. very pretty still i love colors. 8/10
Fenrir+: my car key recovered from that fight. looks wayyy cooler and looks like ff7. hate the cyan glow though it feels weird. 6/10
Darkgnaw+: took me forever to find an image bc i keep calling it dreadgnaw. much cooler than the original, it looks like it's gonna bite you. the purple is also very nice. 9/10
Missing Ache+: POINTY. super cool but how does ventus twirl it around without poking himself. the colors are fun and it looks rad. 10/10
Diamond Dust+: i used this one the most <3 very pretty i love shades of blue and purple :) looks kinda icy but the top is weirdly flat. 9/10
Bad Guy Breaker: there's so much happening calm down 😭kinda nice but there's a lot to look at. also this world irritated me. 4/10
Gula's Keyblade: #leopardus4ever. as you can see, this keyblade is perfection. fun and spiky and lightningy. i think the whole blade should be lightning tho. 10/10
Aced's Keyblade: do any of these have names. anyway what a dreadgnaw ripoff 🙄 it suits him but guess what. i don't like him. 5/10
Ira's Keyblade: i don't like ira either but his blade is fucking great. love the teeth so much, and the colors. very pretty and cool 8/10
Invi's Keyblade: absolutely gorgeous. i love the flowing lines and little vines. love the colors and also it's super long. 9/10
Ava's Keyblade: girl this hurts to look at on a white background. very pretty though, i love how wispy and cloud-like it is. looks delicate which is great considering she'll kick anyone's ass. 8/10
No Name: unfortunately, this is absolutely wicked. look at it. it's wonderful. the goat head looks so much cooler than the other animal heads somehow, and i love the hollow center of the blade. and the teeth look like a claw, a little. just so fucking cool but i hate everyone who uses this. 10/10
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Shooting Star: super pretty, i love how this one flows. i wish the blade went down to wrap around the guard though, instead of cutting off. 8/10
Hero's Origin: they took away my clouds again. i like that half of it is just. zeus. the lightning bolts are cool, but the handle and guard don't really match. 6/10
Favorite Deputy: you are not my favorite deputy fuck you. i don't like toy story but i do like cactuses. 3/10
Ever After: this one's nice :) the guard is super pretty, but i wish there was more going on with the blade. 7/10
Happy Gear: this one's kinda ugly but i like it soo. the energy canister guard is cute. 7/10
Crystal Snow: i hate it so much. it's boring and the keychain is olaf and i don't like frozen. 1/10
Hunny Spout: pretty cute :) the honey jars remind me of sweetstack. i like the wooden handle. 7/10
Wheel of Fate: cool as hell that's my boat. love that the blade looks like a mast that's so cool. wish it wasn't so gray though. 8/10
Nano Gear: ah, here's the color. i like everything except how the nanobots look at the top. it's just kinda gross. 7/10
Grand Chef: oh this is so cute. but why is remy the teeth. poor rat :( but it looks very nice i like how the Tower goes into the guard 8/10
Classic Tone: fuckyoufuckyoufuc. i hate this one. pretty ugly and i don't like it. 2/10
Starlight: SO GOOD. very simple but i like that. looks mysteriously similar to the kingdom key? i love it but it needs a little more going on. 9/10
Ultima Weapon 3: LOOK AT IT. ABSOLUTELY INCREDIBLE THEY CAN'T MAKE A BETTER ULTIMA WEAPON. the silver and red look so good and it's spiky and cool. and the red is glittery!!! why? i don't care it's phenomenal. the spiky heart teeth. that it looks like it's moving. i wish i could break my rating scale. 10/10
Braveheart: riku kingdomhearts stole my fucking car key. we've all heard the complaints i'm not repeating them 1/10
Star Cluster: it's really nice >:( mickey switch with riku pleaase. the star theme is really cute and the colors are nice but why does it look so similar to the kingdom key. 8/10
Flame Liberator: i don't like the name but ok i guess. the keyblade is so fucking cool though. it's what bond of flame wanted to be. i love fire and it looks like it moves so hell yeah. 9/10
Xblade: still can't decide if i like this or not. How do you hold it comfortably. Love the glistening spiky bits. 8/10
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