#which is actually a bit insulting to kids as metaphors go | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

your-regular-toast-enjoyer · 1 year

Text

Headcanons: Cute things that Damian does for his beloved.

Damian Wayne x reader or Damian Wayne/reader

Word count: 1094 words

TW: GN reader, Damian might be a TW himself, but this is entirely fluff with a hint of slight angst in certain parts... but nothing TW-worthy...

Damian is an artist. I’m pretty sure everyone already knows that… He likes to draw pictures of you. Especially close-ups of your face. He’ll trace down the lines of your cheeks, and the curves of your lips, and pay especially great attention to making your eyes shine like a thousand stars. If you have long hair, he’ll be ecstatic to trace every line and wave of your strands. Even if you don’t usually put your hair up in elaborate styles, he’ll draw them for you just so that you can see how it’d look on you. Damian will never get tired of just staring at your face. You’re the most beautiful and wonderful creature to have ever grazed his sight.

You might actually no longer need a mirror, if you both have more than thirty minutes before you need to go, Damian will make you a quick sketch of how you look today. From then on you can decide if those trousers really looked that good on you.

Damian is as blunt as can be. That doesn’t change no matter who he’s with. If you have dark under-eye bags, he’ll mention it, as well as call you an idiot and threaten you with “repercussion” if you don’t take better care of his beloved, (you)… He’s not kidding… If you have a tendency to sleep late, he’ll fold you tightly in multiple blankets, (like a burrito), at what he considers a proper bedtime for you. He’ll wrap you so tightly, in fact, that you won’t be able to get free, which is exactly what his plan was. Damian will then proceed to cuddle with you until you fall asleep. If you’re super claustrophobic, he might just settle for the cuddling. However, since he has nightly duties to tend to, your “bedtime” will probably be set at seven or eight in the evening, which is pretty dang early…so perhaps you should just take better care of yourself to escape his caring yet intense intervention.

Damian will confront anyone who annoys you…especially if it’s one of his brothers or his father/mother, (Alfred is unlikely to be a bothering presence). Damian firmly believes that he’s the only one allowed to be blunt and rude towards you. If anyone dares to encroach on these rights, though, he will go wild… Let’s say one of your friends jokingly says something like, “Look what the cat dragged in” or any other playful jab at your personality, quirks or appearance…You know normal comments between friends… Damian will be hissing like a cat, claws out and ready to tear them a new one…metaphorically, he’s not one of those people who actually hiss at others… at least not anymore… But! He will verbally attack them if they dare insult you… heck! If anyone insults you, (playfully or not), Damian is on the ready, arms up and ready to fight… Bruce has told him to please stop beating up random classmates just because they said they didn’t like a certain hobby or interest you’re really into… Damian doesn’t care.

Damian sulks… a lot. He’s always acted so much like an adult, even as a kid, so it’s kind of surprising how childish he can be as an adult. If you pay too much attention to one of his brothers, he’ll push them to the ground and drag you off, waiting for you to apologise. If you haven’t texted him back in a few hours, he’ll get concerned and put on his Robin suit before going to wherever he thinks you’ll be, (which is usually correct), just to make sure that you’re okay. When he finds that you’re fine, (which you usually are), he'll throw a mild fit and demand that you'll get a clearer ringtone. (If your phone was simply on "Do Not Disturb", he might just grab the thing out of your hands and turn the setting off himself. Glaring at you while doing so). If he finds you in your home, he’ll throw his mask at your head, before forcing you to sit or lay on your bed so that he can sulkily hug you close to his chest... A bit like a teddy bear.

Actually, most of Damian’s sulking stems from his fear of anything happening to you or that you’ll leave him. He’s experienced a lot of betrayal and death of those closest to him, so, he’s afraid that something of that sort will happen to you. At his core, Damian just wants you to be safe and happy in your relationship with him.

If you’re a fellow hero or sidekick… Oh no… Oh please no… Poor Damian will have a near heart attack every. Single. Day. He’ll beg you to quit, but if you, (understandably), refuse… well, Damian might resign his role as Robin to either work under whichever superhero who’s your mentor or simply become his own independent superhero... who'll just so happen to work alongside you. Yeah, he cares more about you than he does about protecting his title as Robin… the title he has felt destined to possess ever since his birth. If that’s not dedication, I don’t know what is…

Damian will definitely get a new pet and name it after you… It’ll probably be your favourite pet type as well… unless it’s something outrageous, then he might just get a rabbit and name it y/n. Then again… He does have a cow and a turkey, so his perception of outrageous is more than a little skewed… But yeah, that’s probably the biggest honour that can be bestowed upon someone in the mind of Damian… I mean Alfred the cat is a good example of that…

So, in essence, Damian is your grumpy little man… well, not necessarily super “little”, but he gives off short and moody energy, no matter his canon full-grown height…

He loves you… even if he hates saying the word “love”... It feels disingenuous to him and much too insignificant compared to his feelings for you. He’d give away everything he loves and cares about, just to please you… But he’ll never let up on his passion for you. Damian is a ride-or-die type of person, he either adores you more than life itself or he’d kill you with a flick of his katana… No in-between.

Anything you want will be yours, just say the word. However, if you’re the type who isn’t super materialistic, he might momentarily be confused. He’s used to people always wanting something which he can give within the hour. But your anti-materialism might actually attract him more since it gives him the opportunity to prove his worthiness and deep adoration in a myriad of other ways… Like reading your favourite book for you at night? Or make you breakfast on the weekends? Or massage your scalp and shoulders while you’re working on something else? He’ll do anything you desire, just say the word… or don’t, he’ll do it anyways.

#damian wayne x reader #damian wayne x y/n #damian wayne #damian wayne x you #batboys x reader #dc x reader

853 notes · View notes

calamity-unlocked · 1 year

Text

Hey @sashimi-buttons a very late, very happy birthday!! 💕 As you probably expected I wrote you some nark, because I'm me and you're you, hehe. Love you!

Hey Lark.

Both of us are at the HQ right now. You’re sitting in front of me, reading a book Grant recommended to you, something about lost cats and runaway kids. Every ten minutes, you look up at me and give me another reason why you think it’s absolute trash. But you’re still reading it, so I guess it can’t be all that bad.

Me? I’m on my phone, typing this stupid letter in my Notes app because Terry said putting my thoughts into words could help me make sense of them. He’s beginning to sound like his mom, if you ask me.

I gave it the good old college try though, and so far it’s been kinda nice. Wrote some stuff to my mom, to Jodie, to Glenn. I’m never going to send those letters to any of them of course. Whatever bullshit I’m putting down right now isn’t meant for your eyes either, so uh, if you are reading this, please stop and let me live with whatever remnants of my dignity you deign to leave me.

Right. Thoughts. Feelings.

I blanked for a full three minutes, and during that time you put the book down and told me the metaphors used are so ridiculous you wouldn’t be surprised if Douglas Adams had risen from the grave to literally ghostwrite it. (Which I think you meant as an insult? Even though you used to love Hitchhiker’s.) Then you immediately turned the next page.

I need to stop staring at you and finish this letter.

Lark, I feel alive when I’m with you. When we’re going 80 in a 65 on your bike and I hold on to your hips and the white lines on the road are a continuous blur, that’s when the world makes the most sense to me. You make my heart beat so fast I can’t even hear myself breathing. You do that, not the speed with which our joyride takes us from nowhere to nowhere, not the rush of adrenaline that unrestrained freedom brings. You.

I guess that’s love? I think that’s love.

I don’t know. I’ve never had a relationship that worked out. There are parts of me I can’t give away, doors I can’t open.

The only thing I know for certain is that I wish I’d never have to let you go. I would drive through a thousand nowheres, would keep singing along to every terrible song on the radio, would do just about anything if it meant being able to keep you next to me.

There are days when I think I’d follow you to the end of the world, but then I realize we might actually have to go there one day. I’m not proud to admit, that’s when fear creeps in a little bit. Y’know how it is. ‘I got soul but I’m not a soldier’.

(that’s the Killers)

(you probably already knew that)

Growing up I had so many asthma attacks it was a wonder they even let me join Westrock FC. You remember when I gave you that straw, back when we were kids and everyone still used plastic straws? I told you to try to breathe through it for five minutes. You didn’t have the patience for that, but you made it to fifty seconds and got the gist of what it felt like to have your own airways betray you.

Though I have memories of smoking, this body has never tasted a cigarette or joint. I’m too scared it will cause me to start wheezing again, spots dancing at the edge of my vision, chest burning like it’s got its own hell inside it.

And yet I crave them. It’s still a test of willpower, sometimes. I know how good they could make me feel. I know that it’s so damningly easy, to just light a spark and press my lips to the tip and let myself enjoy the sensation. I could probably close my eyes and pretend that just because this was the natural conclusion of my desires, giving in wouldn’t mean I'm weak.

But let’s face it. It’ll only be bad for me in the long run.

Hah. And you think your book has bad metaphors.

Loving you feels like choking. God, how I love you.

And I think it’s okay that you’ll never know. Ignorance is bliss, and all that. You seem– not happy, but at least content right now, and I’d never want to ruin that.

I think there are two things a person needs if they want to love and be loved. They have to know who they are, and they have to accept who they are.

I don’t got that first part down, and you aren’t exactly a master at that second part. So I’ll keep abstaining.

My chest won’t stop burning, but that’s okay.

It has to be okay.

~Nick

#hope you like it luv <3 #dndads #dungeons and daddies #nark #nark nation #nick close #lark oak #calamity's writing #the book lark is reading is kafka on the shore btw #and lark is just being a dick its an amazing book

86 notes · View notes

astronnova · 1 year

Note

Okay but I wouldn't purely blame LMK for the flanderization of Tripitaka. All the flanderized depictions in fan works I've seen are from people who actually read the book and made fan art of the original source. And both versions of Trip develop into better people, anyways. Also, it's a little hurtful to say that most people don't analyze what they read, no? Granted, it's a kids show so much of the fanbase are minors, but like...kids will be kids.

my bad that it came across as hurtful! thats not my intention, i meant it as more of an objective viewpoint on something that's become widespread online and irl then just an insult to people.

unfortunately, a lot of people within the uhhh lets say 15-early 20s range dont... dive as deep into literature as they should. you ever heard of that one meme about "the door is blue because the author liked the color blue" ?

this is just one of many, and you couldnt go anywhere online without seeing somebody make this kind of joke. schools dont even really teach deep analysis of literature recently (i should know, ive been in multiple english lit classes and most of them don't dive as deep as you could and should. the only one that does that is with my most recent professor), and this stuff happens in highschool. yknow, during students most formative years of learnin stuff.

kids shouldnt just get a free pass on choosing to ignore the main point of a piece of literature because "kids will be kids". literature is the backbone of critical thinking, most people develop that skill through reading, and stories have a greater purpose, especially classical ones, than just "heres a show that provides constant stimulation with no reason".

i probably sound a little crazy or something, and im not articulating this as well as i could due to me taking *checks notes* two melatonin like 30 minutes ago BUT anyway tldr for that section is that a lot of people just dont dive deep into literature and its true meaning. a lot of folks like only looking at the surface level bits because its so much easier and simplier than writing an 1000 word essay about the importance of a certain theme within a piece of classical literature or something

steering this back to monkie kid,

the thing i explained above i think is one of the sources as to tripitaka, and sun wukong's, flanderization within the monkie kid fandom. instead of looking at the characters with the original intent of the religious text, its looked at as more of a "well he did X so he's a bad person". its too literal for a religious allegory. trying to apply strict "real world black & white morals" onto characters like this just wont work and will end with every character from the original jttw with the label of "bad person".

i could go onto a whole rant about how the recent decline of deep analysis of literature is the reason so many people seem to prefer "childrens cartoons" (because of the easier to understand morality/lessons) over, say, classical work or hell even some modern classics. this isnt an insult towards ppl that like "kids cartoons" btw, like look at my whole blog its just about cartoons LOL . i think theres more than just that one reason as to why people, at least online, gravitate towards childrens cartoons (likely because theyre more fantastical rather than trying to cater towards "adult gritty realism" and are animated, which is hard to find nowadays with all this "live action remake" junk), but i do think its one reason.

again, my bad if i sound like an ass or something or if i dont make sense, its like 12 am and i shouldve been asleep like an hour ago but im easily distracted LOLOL . but yeah, i think the source of the flanderization is just people misunderstanding the point of the original text and trying to apply modern storytelling conventions to something thats meant to be a big ass metaphor for enlightenment

#critical . txt #🐒 critical watches the kid monkie show

28 notes · View notes

stillness-in-green · 2 years

Text

Chapter 361, Abnormal Happenings

Did this chapter feel extremely short, or is it just me?

On Tenko:

Honestly, the stuff I have the strongest reaction to is the sort of things I see other fans saying about Tenko, and I’ve resolved to try to get away somewhat from responding-to-responses in these posts. So trying to look at only what’s going on in the story itself, my problems with Tenko are much as they have been. He feels like a weird idealized vision that’s easy to look at and want to save when the truth of Shigaraki and his grudges are much more challenging and difficult to address.

I feel like Tenko could work better as a sort of metaphorical “pole” within Tomura, a representation of, if you will, his nature contrasting AFO’s nurture. However, this would work better if the AFO inside him were also a metaphor, rather than a literal invading consciousness. As it stands, Tenko and AFO don’t represent equal forces in Tomura—not in the sense of being equal in power, which I wouldn’t expect them to be, but rather, they literally aren’t the same type of entity, so they don’t feel like appropriate foils.

I have read at least one rather fun fic where Tenko is a quirk vestige—a quirk neither the Shimuras, AFO, nor Tomura himself ever realized he had. And that would certainly be a twist, though it would raise the pressing question of where the vestige for Decay is.(1)

Though, one thing that would be an entirely delightful twist—and credit entirely goes to @codenamesazanka for this—is if Inner Tenko is the “lump of lead” Shigaraki talks to Ujiko about, the source of Shigaraki’s never-ending rage. His anger predated AFO, after all; it was forged in his childhood home and on that long walk where no one helped him. That holds, I think, even if AFO gave him Decay.(2) You could even draw the parallel that AFO gave Tenko his family hands to preserve the negative feelings from that day, and here we find Tenko, still covered in those grasping, clutching hands even after Tomura cast off all but one of them months ago. And he certainly had quite the angry reaction to Mirio's statement about him lacking friends!

A huge chunk of the (English-speaking) villain fanbase would riot, but I would like it.

(Speaking of the friends bit, it has been pointed out by a chat buddy that while Mirio and Inner Tenko use tomodachi there, the word the League use for one another is that good old shounen standby, nakama. So perhaps it makes sense that what falls out of the messy amalgamation that is Tomura right now is an appeal to the tomodachi he once had, rather than the nakama of today. I have been mildly placated by this.)

That all said, I do wonder what’s up with this particular flashback here?

I had assumed that this moment was ShigAFO leaning down and using some kind of quirk to detect things underground. He even gives that word of warning to Dabi, who charges ahead regardless. But that doesn’t seem to be even slightly relevant to Vestige!AFO thinking about his and Shigaraki’s mind-meld, so....?

On the 3As:

Mirio continues to be a good kid. His stammered apology is good stuff, and I love him thinking that he felt Shigaraki hesitate—making villains hesitate is, in fact, a great reason for heroes to try talking to them!

More significantly, I appreciate Nejire getting some actual development. She went felt wildly underutilized in the Hassaikai arc, and her her big thing being winning a beauty pageant while Tamaki and Mirio were out there having big dramatic flashback-filled battles against villains was just insulting. So I like her flashbacks here, and I particularly appreciate that it circles back to her weird nosy questions. Frankly, given the sorts of questions she asked Class 1-A when she was first introduced—asking Shouji about his mask, Shouto about his scar, Mina about her horns—it’s no surprise she makes bad first impressions!

…It is a bit of a shame to just cram Yuyu into the background of that panel with Suneater and then exclude her entirely from people Nejire reflects on learning about at UA, though. I suppose the generous read is that she’d been friends with Yuyu prior to UA, so she didn’t need the confines of UA to learn about her. Still.

I also don’t love the ongoing adventures of giving the gals in this comic supporting roles to the dudes,(3) even though Nejire herself has the quirk that, on the surface, should have the most raw oomph of any of the Big Three. Eh. It’s a toss-up, but I do like the development, anyway.

Do your best, Suneater! Though I expect about the best you can hope for is a result akin to burning AFO alive and then watching in horror as he evolves into his next form. At least it’s one more form down before the final one?(4)

We'll see how that works out for you or doesn't next time.

--FOOTNOTES--

1: One of my assumptions about the difference between an original quirk and one of Ujiko’s lab-created replicas is that only the original has a vestige. So I suppose Decay could be a created quirk AFO was just carrying long enough to pass it off to Tenko at the door.

2: It had better hold, anyway. Making AFO the author of Tenko’s grudge against society would be this manga’s ultimate high crime against its own themes, the single thing it could do that would most succinctly scoop out all of its own meaning and impact.

3: See also: Tsuyu's job in the teamwork play at USJ being to get Deku and Mineta off the ship while the boys combine forces to actually deal with the villains; Kendo dispersing Mustard's gas for Tetsutetsu to get the finishing blow in; Momo providing the tracker that got the boys to Kamino but having no role in Deku’s plan to rescue Bakugou; Ryukyu and the girls staying outside at the Hassaikai compound to buy the all-male everyone-else team time to continue on inside to where all the character development is happening; La Brava powering up Gentle; probably a bunch of school stuff I don’t remember; Mina fumbling her dose of sedative just in time to give Kirishima an extra shot at it after he blows his own; and so on. Even when this goes the other way—e.g. Kamui Woods trying to get Midnight up close to Gigantomachia; Lady Nagant using Overhaul to distract Deku—it seems like it fails a lot more often than the other way around.

4: Or, you know—spoilers for 361—it could have no effect at all. I choose to chalk this up to the ongoing messaging about the futility of taking out Shigaraki with violent force and not the manga being deeply muddled in how much it actually values teamwork. More on that next time, maybe.

#bnha #chapter thoughts #bnha 361 #shigaraki tomura #hado nejire #quirk metaphysics #lump of lead theory #my writing #got some asks I've been meaning to get to which I will try to get up before the weekend's out!

22 notes · View notes

telomeke-bbs · 2 years

Note

@nervousprincessprince said: I have one question and one suggestion for you. Question- what did pat say about pran in ep 11, when he asked why did pat like him? English translation, I am not sure conveyed the meaning clearly, as prans answer about pat was vlear and I also felt yhe same way. Anyone can fall on love with pat, as his character is really good. But for Pran I don’t know, it is hard to fall in love with a person like pran, who is really difficult to understand.

Hi @nervousprincessprince! Hope you don’t mind – I’ve shifted your question into a Tumblr Ask (under the “Ask Me Anything”) so that my reply can be in the form of a post (with no limit on word count – I hope 😉).

I’m not a native speaker of Thai and don’t have any proficiency in the language at all (I rely a lot on various online translators), but will do my best to answer based on what I’ve found out.

After checking other language subtitles, I’m not sure it’s a translation issue at play here. I think what we’re witnessing is Pat and Pran’s replies actually being consistent with their characters at that point in time.

When Pat asks “Why do you like me?” at Ep.11 [3I4] 11.19, we see that Pran listens to his head (as always) when coming up with an answer. His response is logical and considered – he loves Pat because Pat is kind-hearted and wants to do good always, despite his unrefined exterior. Pat’s inner self is basically made of good stuff, even if the outside suggests otherwise, and Pran loves him all the more for it.

You’re absolutely right in pointing out that Pat’s response to the same question from Pran (“Why do you like me?” at Ep.11 [3I4] 11.48) is quite a bit more muddled. His answer follows the same structure as Pran’s – it starts with what looks like an insult (that Pran, with his fastidious habits and perfectionist’s need to do everything “right”, is a lot to live with sometimes) but Pat then flips it on its head, just like Pran flipped his “gangster” comment around. However, instead of a more rational, head-driven follow-up, we see Pat listening to his heart as he continues with the answer. He talks about his experience of being in love with Pran – having Pran in his life may have brought about some bad times (given the opposition from all sides to their forbidden relationship) but being together has also brought them a wealth of good times, and he values their mutual support and protection (“We’ve looked out for each other”) as well as their concern for each other. They have each other foremost in their minds (suggested by the words คิดถึง, pronounced “khidthung”, which usually mean “to miss someone”, not just “to think about someone”; the Turkish subtitles for this bit translate to “Sometimes we thought of each other more than ourselves”, which I think captures the intent and intensity better). And Pat then summarizes this by saying that their lives now are so much happier (Ep.11 [3I4] 12.27).

Pat as usual is going with the emotional flow; he does not appear to have thought very clearly about why he loves Pran, he just knows that he does, and his life is all the richer for it. So instead of listing the qualities inherent in Pran that won his heart, he talks more about the changes that he has experienced (overwhelmingly for the better) now that Pran’s love is in his life, and now that they are a couple.

It’s not a direct answer, but Pran (shifu of symbols, metaphors and coded language) is able to read between the lines and seems more than satisfied with Pat’s response (going “What a crown-worthy answer” at Ep.11 [3I4] 12.34). 💖😊

But I hold that Ep.11 is also about Pat’s growth (explained more in this analysis here), and we see him change from an impulsive kid who simply reacts in the moment to whatever life throws at him, to a sensible adult capable of wiser reflection to guide his actions. So when Pat does mature (mentally and emotionally) by the end of Ep.11, I think he gives his answer to Pran’s question a bit of a do-over.

At Ep.11 [4/4] 4.06, right after Pat gives voice to his new-found maturity and agrees with Pran’s tacit desire to return home, he re-phrases his earlier response – it is less a sequel and more a remake the second time around. Where he once said “We’ve looked out for each other” (Ep.11 [3I4] 12.14), “We’ve been concerned about each other” (Ep.11 [3I4] 12.16) and “…we’ve been happier, a lot” (Ep.11 [3I4] 12.27), he now says “You never leave me” (Ep.11 [4/4] 4.06) and “You fight alongside me. That makes me feel very happy” (Ep.11 [4/4] 4.11). And right up top he also goes “Thank you… for trying to make a silly guy like me happy” (Ep.11 [4/4] 2.53).

Instead of including himself in the mix and using his own view of things as starting point and reference, Pat shows that he is finally able to take himself out of the equation and shine the spotlight solely on Pran, when he directly answers the question “Why do you like me?” by actually listing Pran’s qualities that he is thankful for, and de-emphasizing the “we” of his earlier response in favor of “you” when addressing Pran. Just as he set aside his own childish desire to abandon their lives back home and took into account Pran’s feelings regarding their future together, Pat is now able to frame the “why” of his love for Pran in wholly unselfish terms, focusing the attention on companion-warrior Pran, his sacrifices for him (being willing to leave his family for Pat’s sake) and the steadfast loyalty of his love.

I hope this answers your question – sorry it turned out to be so long! But I never would have noticed this aspect of Pat’s growth had you not asked, so thanks very much. 😊 Isn’t Bad Buddy just amazing though? When you think it’s given up all its secrets, other details and nuances come to light. Heartfelt props to the screenwriters Bee Pongsate Lucksameepong, Pratchaya Thavornthummarut and Best Kittisak Kongka, as well as to Director Backaof here... 👍

PS Thanks also for your kind suggestion @nervousprincessprince! I’m not including it in this Tumblr Ask but will definitely give it some consideration… 😉💖

#bad buddy analysis #patpran #telomeke

20 notes · View notes

homo-erotic-nerd · 1 year

Text

Attack on Titan SFW Romantic HQs

Armin Arlert

Attack on Titan isn’t the first series which comes to mind when I think of ‘Wholesome’. However, I shall take it upon myself to relay some general romantic head-canons involving some of AOT’s characters! This effeminate-looking blonde is obviously among the kinder members of the AOT cast. (Let us ignore the fact that he destroyed an entire port, killing an inconceivable number of innocents, children included.) …Anyways! If we put all that aside and fixate on his usually soft and innocent nature, there’s actually quite a lot of potential regarding fluffy head-canons for our lovely and cute island devil!!

For one, I believe that Armin would never ask go out of his way to approach and ask out someone which he has a crush on. He’s simply be too anxious to ever consider doing such a thing, even if Mikasa or Eren attempted to push him into doing it. Often times, the token of his affection would observe and notice how the cute boy blushes when they’re around, yet says nothing. He probably often engages in that glance and look away thing. (Look at your crush, they look at you, you swiftly turn away!)

In general, Armin strikes me as the blushy type, as he’d grow flustered and embarrassed quite easily. He often gets lost within his own head. That big brain of his likely fixated on the hundreds of things that could go wrong if he were to confess to someone he’s into. Mister Arlert would think things such as ‘What if he/she says no?? That’d likely make things awkward from now on…’ Sometimes when he blushes, Armin. shuts his eyes, squeezing them as tightly as possible. Along with the blushing and closed eyes, he occasionally allows an adorable, embarrassed whine to escape himself.

I imagine that handholding is among the things which flusters Armin. His palms would likely become all sweaty. This only serves to further up his anxiousness. Armin enjoys his head being patted, and cheek kisses. Receiving pre-time skip, giving during post. He certainly gained some confidence after the time-skip, but most of the aforementioned behaviors probably wouldn’t change! He’s still an innocent shy boy at heart.

Connie Springer

Connie is.. canonically a bit stranger and more outgoing than Armin. In fact, I’d like to think that Connie is the type to specifically show off when his crush is around. The literal opposite of Arlert!

Picture a cute girl/guy (AKA you, the reader??) walking into the scout regiment’s mess hall. Jean and Connie both begin eyeing this individual. ‘She/he’s pretty cute..’ Jean remarks. Following this, Connie would be quick to make the first move, bragging about how many Titans he’s killed, or something else a tad bit unusual.

Connie has no qualms with throwing others under the metaphorical bus in order to get the upper hand and appear cool around his crush. He’d belittle all of his friends and laugh extremely loudly at his own jokes/insults. Anything to make everyone else comparatively look bad.

The short-haired scout has his sense of masculinity, and probably stands in front of his partner and holds a protective arm in front of them whenever there is perceived danger near.

Connie’s favorite form of affection is classic kiss on the lips. He’s seldom able to sit still long enough for hand-holding. The kid is too wild! Being the.. Sorta comic relief..? Of the main cast, it only makes sense for him to have such a goofy and frantic demeanor! Much like Sasha. RIP…

Jean Kirstein

Oh I’m so excited to write for the horse-face. There so much untapped potential with this man.

First off!! We saw him acting out around Mikasa, so it can be concluded that he’s a heavily flirtatious guy. Similarly to what I see in Connie, I believe that Jean is the type to go out of his way to perform in front of his desired lover. He would find just about anything to gloat over. After the timeskip, his flirting is likely less braggadocio and more sexual.

Jean is extremely protective over his partners. He’d carry them if their feet hurt, threaten anyone who insults his lover, and of course, hold open doors. He walks with one of his strong arms wrapped around his partner. That’s his favorite form of affection.

He most definitely brags about his partner to others. Some people don’t believe that he/she exists, which frustrates Jean and results in the young man threatening to murder a fellow scout.

Zoro ??

Looks like Zoro got lost again. So lost that he made it into an Attack on Titan post! Oh well, cannot be helped.

People express love in all sorts of different ways. Zoro isn’t the directly affectionate type and struggles with romantics. More specifically, his face often turns red in response to hand holding, flirting, or pretty much any way one could come on to him.

He’d go head over heels for a partner who’d train with him. He’d get a kick out of easily defeating his lover in sword fights, just as Kuina once did to him. Of course, the swords would actually be made out of bamboo. Roronoa would not battle someone he loves using his actual deadly weapons.

He grows a lot more affectionate while drunk… And fortunately, Roronoa is drunk much of the time. While intoxicated, the moss head who’ll hug onto his partner, aggressively ruffle their hair, or even lay his head on their lap.

0 notes

lonespektr · 2 years

Text

Oct 8th Day 22 Await Further instructions

Just racism right now 🤨🤨🤨🤨 which is as I have said the most horrific of all

Oh okay that was just to establish why he ain't been home

Be the change white boy

Drop that family

They did try to leave Hella early

They clearly got drugged and now some alien done metaled up the exits

The neighbors will hear.....

That you need help?

peak wasp

He just insulted everybody and himself

Reality show - correct answer

Celebrity show - airhead

The authorities -

She's observant though - clocks

Promote ORDER

Terrorism

They sit sis next to king racist?

Duty, this father is a Lil too archypical

Lol first lie

Also they are clearly observing

You know

Canned food?

Another... There's two health care workers bleach body scrub isn't..

They don't have a fucking tub?

Downstairs for what?

As soon as they make amends they introduced another variable

Just random insane back of needles unsealed no fake govt tag

Lol they decided to at least sterilize them

The guy literally looked like he did it IV and the other guy did IM

They didn't even ask about pregnant under 5 years over idk 75 years allergies

This is just the will people submit to unknown authority sociological experiment

I hoped they were smart enough to pretend to take it

That's the first time the TV acknowledged it can see what's going on instead of just a best guess

Acceptable loss

Now there is a default hierarchy struggle

Because there has to be "a person" "in charge"

They literally attacking each other

Mom is DOING THE WHITE WOMAN WASP WORK

Ignore

Downplay

Placate

Calm

Diffuse

Distract

Avoid fighting at all costs

Omg it's not amazing IT'S CREEPY

I never forget

She's really insecure about her intelligence. I never understand why people like that don't just like.. learn more?

I SEE YOU

One drink

I'm going to work on the study

(this is my dad when his kids are hurt he can't deal and he leaves the room)

So they have accepted they can hear them but Not That's its clearly NOT the government or they just don't care anymore because they have already submitted to that authority

How she get sepsis that fucking quick?

peak WASP go clean the house

Well dad might actually be making himself useful... Maybe

Holes in the house

The issue is that these characters are just a bit overplayed

Things can spiral without them being crazy

Is he planning to kill the kid?

Let's try logic. You bloodied his nose and taped his mouth those are the ONLY TWO breathing orafices if memory serves

Extract information from sleeper agent

Box cutting your kid

Now an eyeball

Whoop Katy Kate n bb

Not looking at the information is peak 2019 political climate idiocracy disinformation era

The facts are there and I will shut my eyes and slap them out of your hand

WHOOOO mama lost it the wasp crumbles on the death of one child

Here come the gas

Whoa shit it's like uh napalm burns on contact then explodes

His whole family just died (mom)

Sneks

So camera metal walls

Burning gas

Earthquake

Now religious angle

Curious they went with the your TV is the cause of disinformation not the internet

That angles it at main stream media plus the older white generations on racism

That's squarely fox news is making your old white family members crazy or what's UK? Murdoch owned sky? fox

And you too unless

Kill crazed older generation before they kill you

The young brown intelligent will kill the old whites

The TV will literally kill you?

So many possible metaphors to one scene

Technomancy

Lol but clamation

OK now it's

Your old white man is literally a puppet of your tv

Now the join me

Young white man join the hate like your father and be an abuser

Or fuck a hot smart brown chick and don't be a racist loser

Plug into the TV and do what it says until you die

Raise your baby on hate

Nicely done

And the pan out for the global invasion

Nice work slow clap

#spooky 22 watch #await further instructions

1 note · View note

moogey-likes-things · 2 years

Text

FNAF SB HC 32: The Gang Comforts Their Friend

Warnings: None, fluff

Situation: The gang sees a friend in need, having had a bad day. Here's how they shall comfort you!

REBLOGS APPRECIATED

ASKS WELCOME FOR ALL OR INDIVIDUAL CHARACTERS

Seeking an RP partner, if you're interested, lmk!

Freddy – His first go to move is a hug. He'll hold onto you and ask what it is that's on your mind and how he can help. He will offer to get your mind off of things by sharing some activity with you. You can pick anything you like! If you aren't up for doing something he will be happy to make you comfortable at his side and let you hold onto him for as long as you may need. He will offer you praise and comforting words until he sees you are okay again.

Chica – She knows there's no better cure for a sour mood than to work it all out. Literally. She'll have you moving, and get you to talk as you do. While you're running around, doing stretches, or working out in place she'll ask you what is wrong and use the time that you've got your blood pumping to get solutions worked out as well. When you've had enough she'll find you the best comfort food she can and make sure you get plenty of water. You can't feel better if your body can't keep up, and she's got your back!

Roxy – She's never really sure how to comfort someone, but for you she will try her best. She'll listen to you vent about whatever it is that's bugging you. She'll make comments about who or whatever it was, insulting them or it to the high heavens for being so dumb! When the situation calls for it. She'll allow you hugs and offer to “let” you do her hair. She'll offer you a race, which she may “lose” or “barely win”, to get you feeling better and more confident. In the end, she'll just try to be there for you, doing what she can.

Monty – He doesn't handle bad day well himself, so he won't want to see you upset or hurting. Maybe you aren't into property destruction, so he will try to help you find other means of venting. If it's a game of golf or something, he's there. If you maybe just need to punch something, he knows which stuffed animals are the toughest. If you just want to sit quietly he'll let you sit close, maybe hold him, maybe even play with that big tail of his. He'll gladly play a bit for you, too, if you want. He actually knows some gentle melodies.

Bonnie – He's all ears to yours problems. Yes, he will make that joke. He'll make a thousand jokes if he can get even one tiny smile out of you. He'll listen to you about whatever, even if you don't think it's a big deal. He'll validate your feelings and try to help you see safe and healthy ways to deal with them. Is you're up for it he'll let you have a little sparring match with him. If you would prefer to snuggle or play a game he'll happily oblige you there, too. His focus is all on you until you are better.

Foxy – Now, this guy is great for advice. He's a problem solver. His advice may come in the form of heavy metaphors and comparisons to situations from his favorite stories or characters, but he manages to get the point across in an easy to understand way, nonetheless. He is willing to play with you, sing for you, and let you snuggle up to him, even his floofy tail, until you are ready to face the world again. You are safe with good ol' Captain Foxy, your troubles shall walk the plank! (I'm sorry, lol)

Sun – He is used to calming and soothing little kids, so he can pick a sad face from a mile away. Of course his first thought is distraction. He will try to get you to draw, write, play, color or paint, craft, whatever he would normally do for a munchkin. He will understand if that isn't what you need. He's glad to listen to you, even if he doesn't really know what to say. He's good for a hug, or a hundred hugs if that's what you want. He'll be the sunshine you're missing and do whatever he can to make you happy.

Moon – He can see you're upset without a second glance, just like Sun. His approach will be much more like a therapist's. He'll make you a comfy corner somewhere to lie down in, where you feel safe and just far enough from it all that you can break away. He'll sit with you and let you talk to him, doing his best to help you work through the things on your mind. He'll hold your hand and pet your head, just wanting you to relax and breathe at ease. He'll watch over you for a nap and when you wake he's happy to do whatever you like for fun.

DJ – The big fella is a great listener. He will choose soothing music, whatever that may mean for you specifically. He'll pick you up and carry you into one of the big tunnels where you can't be bothered by the world or anyone in it. You'll get to sit in his hands as you tell him what's wrong, or you can just sit there in silence if you want. He will try to encourage you to dance, or sing to get you emotions out in a safe way. He can't do all that much, but he will do all he is capable of, for you.

99 notes · View notes

j4gm · 3 years

Text

TOGETHER AGAIN SPOILERS

A thread of lore, Easter eggs, episode connections, and background details from Adventure Time: Distant Lands: Together Again! Let me know if I missed anything! This is adapted from my original Twitter thread.

Keep reading ⬇️⬇️⬇️

1. I was expecting them to perhaps do a classic style title sequence for this episode, but I wasn't expecting them to straight up use the original title sequence. The only difference is this final screen saying "Distant Lands".

2. The background of the title cards is also the hill from the title sequence.

3. The ice cream having "50 flavours" and having an image of an enlightened soul is an obvious reference to the 50th Dead World as we see it later in the episode.

4. Continuing with the metaphor, the dirt in the ice cream could be a parallel to the fact that Jake's Nirvana actually wasn't perfect, because his inaction was allowing for injustice to perpetuate.

5. This whole scene feels immediately slightly off. Finn has his Scarlet sword and is out on a classic Ice King adventure, but he speaks in his grown voice and all the slang feels much more forced than it did in the real season one. Turns out this was deliberate.

6. The snow golem speaks with a baby voice like it did in the pilot episode, even though in canon it has a deeper voice. This further hints that something is not quite right.

7. The first major break in continuity is these snow golems resembling Uncle Gumbald and Peace Master, who Finn didn't meet until later in his life.

8. LSP sitting on Finn's head like this is reminiscent of Pen Ward's piece for the 2018 Ble crew zine.

9. Finn being given the choice of helping somebody but ending up helping everybody reminds me of "Memories of Boom Boom Mountain". It's the kind of resolution that wouldn't happen so much in the late seasons of the show, which helps make this scene feel even further out of place.

10. Jake is half frozen by Ice King in pretty much the exact same way as he was in "Prisoners of Love", and even has a very similar line.

11. The Snail is seen here. The crew have said that the Snail has been deliberately left out of previous Distant Lands specials, so its placement here is another very deliberate hint that this whole sequence is "trying too hard" to be like the early seasons.

12. The book "Mind Games" appears a couple of times, as seen in several previous episodes of Adventure Time. The first is as Finn is approaching the library in his dream. It also appears as one of the items in Finn's backpack later.

13. Jake is hurt when Finn fist bumps him with his metal arm, revealing that this scene is not real. This is also a callback to the title sequences of "Islands" and "Elements".

14. A whole bunch of familiar skeletons are seen in the bird's nest: Dirt Beer Guy, Abracadaniel, Me-Mow, Lemongrab, Mr. Pig, and the Snail again. This doesn't necessarily mean that all these characters are dead, since this scene is just a hallucination.

15. Old Man Finn! He's still got the chest tattoo of Jake, and this time we know that Jake is dead, so the theory that Jake died before "Obsidian" seems pretty likely. He looks similar to his old man design from "Puhoy", with the same facial hair.

16. There are several cameos of familiar characters who apparently died at the same time as Finn. The first is this duck, who previously appeared in "Ocarina".

17. The second is Donny, from the episode... uh, "Donny".

18. This goblin guy is an unnamed background character from “The Silent King”.

19. This old lady first appeared in "The Enchiridion", way back in season one. Old ladies are a species in the Land of Ooo, so I guess she wasn't actually very old back then, given she just about outlived Finn.

20. This is the cobbler who first appears in "His Hero". Amazing that he lived so long given all the trouble he got into in that episode.

21. Land of the Dead! This place was first seen in season two's "Death in Bloom", and now we are finally learning its actual purpose. It's a sort of gateway and hub to all of the other dead worlds.

22. There are some more minor cameos at the gates: a house person from "Donny", a soft person from "Gut Grinder", and a wood person from "When Wedding Bells Thaw". And, of course, the gate guardian himself from “Death in Bloom”.

23. Finn completely ignores the gate guardian in the same way he did in Death in Bloom. This also has the convenient effect of not having to reveal how Finn died, leaving it up to the audience's imagination.

24. Mr. Fox! We already knew he would die at some point because BMO had his skull in the finale.

25. Finn has his design from the first Distant Lands poster in this scene. Turns out it's young Finn in old Finn's clothes. But they gave him a shirt in the poster so you wouldn't be able to see the tattoo.

26. The clapping that Finn does while he's looking for Jake is a callback to "James Baxter the Horse", when Jake tells Finn to listen for that same rhythm if they are killed and need to find each other in the afterlife.

27. Mr. Fox talks about a "past life quotient", suggesting that there might be some kind of limit to how many times somebody can reincarnate. Finn's reincarnations are also seen in this scene; a callback to "The Vault", and confirmation that reincarnations share the same soul.

28. Boobafina, the goose who Mr. Fox was in love with in his debut episode “Storytelling”, apparently reincarnated into a tugboat. We've already seen that objects can have souls in the episode "Ghost Fly".

29. Finn is initially assigned to the 37th Dead World, which is the same one that Jake went to when he died in "Sons of Mars". We can only guess at what the other numbers on the ticket mean ;)

30. Tiffany! Despite several lucky escapes throughout his life, Tiffany has finally died. I like the use of this imagery to express Finn's conflicted feelings about him.

31. The 50th Dead World has long been established as the "highest" dead world, and the one synonymous with Heaven within Adventure Time's universe. It was first mentioned in "Ghost Princess" back in season three.

32. It's unclear what happens to souls which are destroyed within the dead worlds. It is a similar question to asking what happened to the ghosts that were killed in "Ghost Fly".

33. Death doesn't speak at all in Together Again because his voice actor, Miguel Ferrer, passed away in 2017 long before production began.

34. Finn phases through New Death when he tries to attack him, just like what happened way back in "Death in Bloom".

35. The 30th Dead World contains Tree Trunks as well as many of her love interests; Mr. Pig, her alien husband from "High Strangeness", Danny and Randy who first appeared in "Apple Wedding", and several more who we don't recognise, including at least one who presents as a woman.

36. Literally yelled when these two showed up. Joshua calls Finn a crybaby, which is a callback to "Dad's Dungeon".

37. The wall of weapons in Joshua and Margaret's house includes the iconic Demon Blood Sword, which was broken in "Play Date", as well as Margaret's auto-loading crossbow from "Joshua & Margaret Investigations".

38. Jermaine is sidelined a few times through the episode, in reference to his attitude in "Jermaine" where he feels that Finn and Jake were always their parents' favourites. I would have hoped things would be a bit better by now.

39. Fern gets name dropped while Finn and Jake are reuniting. A shame he doesn't actually show up in the episode.

40. In this scene, Finn says "What time is it?" This is a very subtle reference to the 2010 cartoon "Adventure Time".

41. In a couple of shots during this fight scene it looks like Jake might have a tattoo. It seems like it only becomes visible when he stretches out his arm.

42. New Death's amulet in this scene resembles parts of the Lich's cape, foreshadowing his influence on New Death.

43. There are several more cameos in the 50th Dead World: Booshy from "High Strangeness", one of the Marshmallow Kids from "Scamps", and Ghost Princess and Clarence, who were seen ascending to the 50th Dead World in "Ghost Princess".

44. Finn didn't interact with Booshy in "High Strangeness", but it seems they must have met at some point before they both died because Finn knows his name.

45. It seems like people in the 1st Dead World are slowly melted away until they become part of the landscape. Nasty.

46. Lots more cameos in this scene: a gnome from "Power Animal", a gnome from "The Enchiridion", a Bath Boy from "The Vault", Blagertha from "Love Games", Maja the Sky Witch, a troll from "Dungeon", Chocoberry, Choose Goose, Wyatt, a spiky person from "Gut Grinder", and possibly more.

47. Tiffany's insults are consistently nonsensical and amazing, as they were in the original series.

48. The Candy Kingdom looks extremely different. Peppermint Butler is wearing the crown so he might be in charge now, which is supported by the kingdom's very magical-looking augmentations. It’s not clear whether Finn and Jake were expecting to find Princess Bubblegum or Peppermint Butler, since both have the initials “PB” and both could be going by the title of “Princess”. Perhaps Peps and Bubblegum share the princess duties now that PB is living with Marceline more of the time.

49. Peppermint Butler has a "Boss" mug, although it's not the same colour as the one from "Obsidian".

50. Jake's ghost has the same design as he did when BMO killed him in "Ghost Fly". I also absolutely love Finn's ghost. This scene establishes that ghosts are just visitors to the mortal plane from the dead worlds.

51. Life has only appeared in animated shorts before now. Namely, "The Gift That Reaps Giving" which establishes her relationship with Death, and "Frog Seasons: Winter". This episode gives her a concrete place within Adventure Time's pantheon: she is in charge of reincarnation.

52. A translation of Life’s angry French dialogue by Shado: “After all I did for that boy. After all I did for him. No, it's not possible. It's not possible no, that... that makes me so mad but it's not possible.”

53. We finally have in-universe confirmation that Shoko's tiger is a previous life of Jake. This was previously confirmed by one of the writers, but wasn't canon until now.

54. I feel like Finn pulled off Shoko's look even better than Shoko did. I wonder whether Finn has gained the memories of his past lives now that he’s dead.

55. No Easter egg here, just want to appreciate this image.

56. There is an elemental symbol on the wall here, as seen in "Jelly Beans Have Power".

57. Tiffany's dramatic internal monologue is a recurring gag, as is his habit of nearly dying from falling into holes.

58. The Jake suit makes a cameo in the fight against New Death. It was last seen in the episode "Reboot”.

59. Finn's backpack contains a few familiar items: the t-shirt with the pocket from "It Came from the Nightosphere", Finn's underwear from "Little Dude" and other episodes, and a copy of Mind Games as I've already mentioned.

60. The Lich's Hand is present in the background of Death's... death scene. This is probably the unseen "friend" who New Death keeps talking about.

61. The Lich's menacing monologues often begin with a single command. Previously they have included "Fall" and "Stop". This time, the command is "Burn".

62. Jake uses the word "boingloings", which is a callback all the way to "Hitman" in the third season.

63. Jake's blue shape-shifter form from "Abstract" appears very briefly during his fight with Finn.

64. Finn's lumpy space person form also makes an appearance. This design was last seen all the way back in the second episode of the entire show, "Trouble in Lumpy Space".

65. Jake steps on the Lich's hand in a very similar way to how he stepped on Ash in "Memory of a Memory", which is itself a Monty Python reference.

66. The credits include a dedication to a few AT cast and crew who have passed away. Polly Lou Livingston was the voice of Tree Trunks. Miguel Ferrer was the voice of Death. Michel Lyman and Maureen Mlynarczyk were both sheet timers on the original series. Rest in peace.

67. The message that Finn and Jake write out on the ouija board is "BUTT", which Peppermint Butler takes as a distress signal. This message is also used as a distress signal by the Hot Dog Knights in "The Limit".

68. Peppermint Butler's reversed dialogue from the scene where he makes contact with Finn and Jake is "Kee-Oth Rama Pancake", the spell from “Dad's Dungeon” for banishing demons.

69. That appears to be President Porpoise with all of Tree Trunks’ other lovers.

70. In this scene, Life is humming part of "Lonely Bones", the song which Death tried to record for her in her debut short "The Gift That Reaps Giving". It's hard to notice because it's so brief.

71. Finn and Jake's cover is blown while in the Land of the Dead because Jake loudly farts, which also happened in "Death in Bloom".

72. The place where Mr. Fox explains the perception mechanics of the afterlife is the exact same location as the River of Forgetfulness from "Death in Bloom", which, as it turns out, was imaginary.

These are sort of out of order at the end because I was adding stuff to the Twitter thread as it got discovered. That’s all for now!

#adventure time #together again #finn the human #jake the dog #lorepost

472 notes · View notes

zenmastercharles · 3 years

Text

To Fight A Class

Marinette had been different ever since Lila Rossi came back from her trip to Achu. Her falsified trip to Achu. Lila lied about almost everything, and Marinette’s class ate it up like chocolate. Marinette tried to call Lila out on her lies, however, Lila used every word Marinette spoke and turned it against the bluenette. And her class believed her! Even to the point where they stopped being her friends.

Lila made up tales about how Marinette would confront her in the bathroom and threaten her, send her mean texts (which she backed up with fake text screenshots), and she even lied about Marinette physically attacking her when she was alone. However, Lila decided to kick Marinette when she was already down.

Lila created a fake text number and texted another fake number posing as Marinette and her cousin. Lila, using Marinette’s identity, ranted about how stupid her class was, how she was playing them from the start, going into extensive detail about how their dreams would never become true and how dumb they all were. After Lila showed the class this fake conversation, they decided to confront her. They berated her when she got to the classroom.

Marinette denied everything, and this made the entire class angry. It made Alix so mad she actually hit Marinette, resulting in a suspension for both girls. Marinette was sad about losing all of her friends. And was almost akumatized 6 times in a single month, only being saved because of Tikki and Plagg fighting off the akumas. Marinette was now a social pariah. Her former friends started to bully her, trip her up, pour liquids on her sketchbook, and even berated her from time to time.

They truly believed that Marinette was a bully, and that hurt her. It hurt her so bad. Adrien still told her to take the moral high ground, that Lila’s lies weren’t hurting anybody, and let Lila realize that her lies are bad on her own. Adrien didn’t realize that Marinette’s lies were hurting her. One time, Marinette yelled at Lila about her lies, and a yelling battle broke out between Marinette and most of her class, Adrien standing by.

Afterwards, Adrien came up to her and actually berated her and said he was disappointed in her. Marinette berated him back, said something along the lines of ‘I can’t believe I used to like you’, and told him to talk to her when he’s found a way to remove to stupid stick from his ass. Adrien still didn’t realize that he had no right to be disappointed in her, and still tried to talk to her. He eventually gave up, and said to Plagg, word for word, that Marinette was now ‘unsaveable’. It was that moment when Plagg started to change his opinion on his holder.

Things weren’t getting better in her superhero form either. Chat Noir had become even more flirting. To the point where Ladybug occasionally berated him for being so flirty and not concentrating on the battle. One time, when Ladybug berated him in the middle of a fight, Chat decided to be petty. Chat left the fight, leaving Ladybug to fight all by herself. Plagg pleaded with Adrien to go back into the fight, but Adrien thought it would be okay, right?

Wrong, the villain almost killed Marinette’s parents. After that, Ladybug and Chat Noir’s relationship became distant. Chat Noir continued to be flirty, but Ladybug acted like he didn’t exist. One day, during a fight, Chat Noir turned up the flirt and wasn’t even helping Ladybug. After the akuma was defeated, Ladybug berated him and told him to stop acting like this. This was all recorded. The media exploded in outrage and conflict. On one side, people were acting lenient and defending Chat, and the other side was full-on roasting him. This saddened Adrien, who acted like he was the victim here. It was at that moment where Plagg decided that Adrien Agreste was no longer worthy to be his holder. Marinette had been at an all time low in both of her lives.

And guess what? BUSTIER STILL EXPECTED HER TO BE AN EXAMPLE. Whenever there was an altercation, Ms. Bustier spat out some random bullshit about being a good example for the students, and being a good class representative. Marinette was still obligated to plan fundraisers, school trips, and events. She couldn’t take it anymore, and considered taking her own life. Instead, she quit being class representative and moved to Ms. Mendeliev’s class. Ms. Bustier tried to convince her to stay, but the class was adamant that they didn’t need a bully like her as their class representative. That was indeed false.

Max was the smartest kid in the class, just barely getting above Marinette, so they elected him to class president. They planned a bake sale fundraiser, and thought of everything, except the fact that Marinette always baked 70% of all the baked goods. They were convinced that they didn’t need her, so they just bought a bunch of baked goods. Some of them tried to buy from Marinette’s bakery, and were promptly told to leave.

So, their fundraiser started, and was garbage. Most of the customers at the bake sale didn’t like what the class had brought and thought they were wildly overpriced for being store bought. Lila lied and said hers was homemade. In the end, they raised just 50 dollars. The class was kind of low about this, but were still convinced that Marinette was a bully that was unwanted and unneeded. Speaking of the blue-haired designer.

When she switched to Ms. Mendeliev’s class, the class was worried. They knew Lila lied and had turned the entire class into sheep, and thought Marinette was some sort of spy. But when they learned the full story, they comforted her. However, there were 5 students in the class who were absolutely furious about how Marinette’s old class had betrayed her. Aurore Beauréal, Roman Reyes, Mireille Caquet, Marc Anciel, and Jeanne Lémery.

These 5 students walked up to the Akuma Class during lunchtime and absolutely laid into them about how they’ve treated Marinette. Of course, they defend themselves and Lila busts out the crocodile tears. This ends in a physical dispute between Jeanne and Alix, which ended with another suspension. Marinette’s new friends started to mold her into the helpful, confident, and kind girl she was before Lila told all those fibs about her.

She brought pastries in for everyone, even Ms. Mendeliev, and Ms. Mendeliev soon grew to be her favorite teacher. Her new best friends were still furious and wanted to take the Akuma Class down. HARD. Marinette denied this action because she didn’t want to be involved with them again, but when she saw Mylene make a friendship charm for Lila, she quickly agreed and revealed that she had a trump card named Chloé Bourgeois.

Over the time where Lila was taking over the class, Chloe knew she was lying. She even called her out on it once. That was obviously a mistake. Lila spread even more lies about Chloe being mean to her. She said that Chloe paid people to wreck her windows and even wrecked her windows as “proof”. This caused the class to exile Chloe as well, which Chloe didn’t care about.

But what Chloe did care about was that Lila took Sabrina away from her. The class knew that Chloe was a bully, so it wasn’t hard for them to believe that Chloe did it. Sabrina started slightly threatening her by saying things like ‘People don’t want bullies as friends’ and ‘You can’t use your money to threaten people’. When the class confronted her about being mean to Lila, she didn’t want to take it anymore and went to leave.

She noticed Sabrina didn’t come with her. She called to Sabrina, who simply said ‘I don’t want to be friends with a bully.’ This broke Chloe’s heart and caused her to be akumatized into the Princess Dignity, who tried her best to get to Lila and force her to reveal her lies. Ladybug considered letting her hit Lila with her Blasts of Truth, but eventually overcame it and defeated Princess Dignity. Marinette heard about it and went to go look for Chloe.

She found her crying in an alleyway, where she thought no one would see her. Marinette consoled the blond, who tried to deny any feelings at first, but she eventually caved. She told Marinette about everything, and even admitted she had started liking Sabrina as more than a friend. Marinette and Chloe actually bonded over this, eventually losing hope that their crushes will ever come out of the darkness. (Marinette’s being Adrien, Chloe’s being Sabrina.)

After Marinette introduced Chloe to her new friends and told her about their plan, the blond was all in. Chloe put on an act and apologized to the class. They accepted the apology, Lila actually hugged Chloe, and Ms. Bustier was so proud that she gave Chloe a present. The group had a plan, a rather unnecessarily complicated one, but a plan it was.

They basically turned their fingers into metaphorical shovels and digged up dirt on everyone in that class, including the teacher. What they got was a gold mine of dirt.

They created a 40 minute video demonstrating all of Lila’s lies being disproved, and for the other half was recordings about the Akuma Class talking bad about each other and even some secrets that they had mentioned to themselves thinking they were alone. Her friends were ready to post it everywhere, but Marinette wanted to give them one last chance.

Her birthday was coming up and she was planning a party. She was going to invite her class. If they said yes, she would go small. If they said no, she would go BIG. When Roman passed out the invitation slips, the entire Akuma Class walked up to her table, insulted her, ripped all of their invitation slips and half, and threw them on Marinette’s table.

Marinette shed a single tear, before releasing a convoluting smirk. Any smirk Chloe gave would pale in comparison to the smugness in Marinette’s smirk. A smirk that made Lila Rossi a bit scared. Marinette replied with a simple, “Alright. Your loss.” They could hear the uncaringness in her voice. They expected begging, crying, and apologies. Not uncaringness.

Two months later, the Akuma Class walked into school, confused. Everyone was talking about a party hosted by Marinette. They were suspicious and checked Marinette’s social media accounts and saw that 67 pictures were taken and posted by Marinette on the night of her birthday. She had met so many celebrities. Mostly because Jagged Stone was her step-uncle, but she had some connections of her own.

She had designed dresses for Taylor Swift, Gigi Hadid, Billie Eilish (i probably spelled that wrong), and many other artists and models under the identity of MDC. No one knew that it was her, except for her new friends of course, who she told a bit after they became friends. Marientte decided to reveal herself, and people were shocked that it was just a 14 year old girl.

Especially the Avengers, who she had handsewn suits and dresses for once. This was Marinette’s plan, to make her friends regret not showing up and meeting celebrities. However, thanks to a light good luck charm placed on Marinette by Tikki, her plan took an unexpected turn for the better.

Each of the class’s Idols showed up, Lois Lane (Alya’s Idol), Marshmallow (Nino’s Idol), Tony Hawk (Alix’s Idol), Daisy Ridley (Adrien’s Idol), and so many more. Nathaniel was especially hurt when his favorite idol showed up in the picture reel. When Marinette returned, the class berated her once more about how she should have invited them and how some of them could have met their idols and gotten sponsorships.

She then reminds them that she did invite them. They remembered what they did and looked a bit less confident. They still tried to retort and say that she should have told them that she was inviting their idols. She says that she didn’t, that Jagged invited them, they were still mad, but not as mad as they would be at the end of the day. Just as school was about to end, a video was sent to everyone’s phones in Francois Dupont, even some outside of school.

The first 20 minutes were discrediting every lie Lila told. Lila tried to refute it when she saw it, but there was no way to discredit cold hard evidence. The next 20 minutes were revealing secrets, insults, and lies that the class had kept from each other way before Lila even showed her face. Nino stealing from his competition, Alix cheating in multiple races, Kim insulting a lot of his classmates and cheating, Max not even being the one who built Markov, Mylene shown not to be happy in her relationship with Ivan and even ranting about the poor brute, Alya being racist to a dude who had happened to see Ladybug detransform and wouldn’t tell her anything, and so much more. The only ones who had no dirt to dig up were Ivan, Juleka, and Rose, who were relieved.

However, then something unexpected popped up on everyone’s phone screens. A little 6 minute video revealing Adrien to be Chat Noir, posted by Jeanne with the permission from Marinette. It also showed how hostile and petty Chat Noir had been to Ladybug all because she wouldn’t date him. This made people hate Adrien and Gabriel even berated his son for ruining his reputation.

Adrien was about to go take it out on Marinette, but didn’t expect to be swarmed by a bunch of Kwamis. They stole his ring off of him and flew off, with Plagg stating that Adrien was no longer fit to be Chat Noir before following the rest of the Kwamis. This made Adrien extremely sad, but instead of Hawkmoth akumatized him first, he turned Adrien to the side of evil. Hawkmoth revealed himself as Gabriel and managed to convince Adrien to become evil. He gave him the fixed Peacock Miraculous and Adrien became a recurring villain to Ladybug. However, Ladybug had a new team.

Ladybug decided to give Miraculouses to the friends she knew would always be on her side. She gave Roman the Cat Miraculous, Aurore the Rooster Miraculous, Mirelle the Mouse Miraculous, Kagami the Dragon Miraculous, Luka the Snake Miraculous, and Jeanne the Ox Miraculous. She even gave Chloe the Horse Miraculous so that she wouldn’t have to worry about the secret identity thing again. After a few months of Adrien terrorizing the city as Feather Rouge, they finally defeated him, they threw his ass in jail along with his father and his assistant.

Her class, after seeing the video, started fighting amongst themselves, eventually escalating to an every man for himself brawl in the classroom. Every student in the class was suspended, but with the video, they had enough expenses expelled. They all decided to blame Lila AND Marinette for this. They went to confront Marinette, even though they all hated each other. Only to meet a badass, angry, pizza stick weilding Chinese mother who told them to fuck off (she didn’t say “fuck off” literally, but they could tell that they should by her tone of voice).

They eventually got to Marinette, and tried to berate her again. However, her real friends were there to defend her and scare her former friends off. Marinette thanked them and was grateful to have real friends.

(This is the first fic I’ve ever written. I wrote it in like an hour. I was rushing. I’m sorry if it’s bad.)

#ml salt fic #ml salt #miraculous ladybug #miraculoustalesofladybugandcatnoir #sparing nobody #EVERYONE GETS DESTROYED #lila salt #ml class #i wanted to include more #but I got lazy #i need to work on that

472 notes · View notes

sophiapathic · 3 years

Text

Sk8: The Infinity - A Take on Love

Because my six unfinished assignments can wait until I throw this into the void, scream for five hours and after my voice gets hoarse, I resort to watching the beach episode on loop until next Saturday.

This was entirely sparked by the recap episode, which really pressed the reak havoc and theorize button in my brain. I am truly losing my grip on reality. Help. I apologize in advance, creatures of Tumblr.

Me right now:

Anyways...

I saw people mention here and there screaming that “we need canon relationships and they will get trust issues if a romance isn’t confirmed by the end of the series”. I think that mindset is harmful to have in this case. You can’t really avoid being disappointed if you get into the series expecting it to deliver on your wishes of gay romances. So, this might be controversial, but stay with me please. The anime and manga are both confirmed to be based primarily about the characters themselves and of course the sport -skating. I was hoping to take a closer look at what the series intends to do with certain dynamics and relationships according to yours truly. I also want explain my reasoning behind it not being queerbaiting, though it being inherently queer-coded, through the current lense of the canon.

Sk8: The Infinity is unquestionably a love story.

We need to state the genres this series is in, because some of us tend to forget. It is in fact not a shounen-ai, not a yaoi, not a romance, not even a josei. Say it with me it is a series in: COMEDY and SPORTS.

(Source is the official US Sk8 website.) The spotlight is udoubtedly on skating and what it means. Another important highlight of the show is how the definition of the sport relates to the characters, and how vastly different they are from what we expect. For example, when we see Shadow first, we pigeonhole him into this vulgar indecent rock and roll persona, only to find out later that he is actually a stweetheart at a flower shop. Joe is another very good case study. When we first see him we think of him as a womanizer muscle-head, later we find out he has a heart of gold and is very emotionally intelligent. We’re also quick to judge Miya as the cold, unfeeling prodigy then we discover how lonely and normal he is on the inside. And so on and so on.

The show continues to defy our expectations of what each character should be like. In a way it is about breaking the conventional stereotypical roles we subconsciously assign to certain looks. We see that even in anime, multifaceted characters can exist without distrupting or damaging the delicate dynamics of a traditional sports anime. We successfully established the second focal point of the series as disproving stereotypes and presenting strong, diverse and unexpected personalities.

How about the defition of skating? What does it mean in the context of Sk8: The Infinity then? Where does a love story come into the picture? Skating is repeatedly described as a ritual of love within the anime, an idea that our villian, Ad*m, is obessed with. In a sense skating is a language of love canonically.

Then skating itself is love. Throughout the series we see varied styles of skating therefore different ways of expressing love, affection. We get to experience several metaphorical ways of “being in love” through characters skating with each other. Each dynamic shows us a type of love. Healthy, disfunctional, outright abusive.

The way Reiki teaches Langa to skate can be interpreted as a direct metaphor for someone learning to love again after losing a person close to them. Langa’s father has died and Reiki literally brings him out of his shell again. It can also be interpreted as a queer kid’s experience of a world of romance that feels similar to his previous one, that being snowboarding, yet it still being new and different. Skateboarding. When due to Reiki Langa’s potential is discovered and his hunger for more and more develops, especially next to Ad*m, Reiki’s main frustration stems from them not being well-matched or on equal footing anymore. He feels like he cannot give Langa what he needs anymore. Which would obviously go againts the literal description of a healthy romance. Two people with mutual respect who both bring equal assets to the table. He feels like he needs to catch-up to be with Langa again. The only thing he doesn’t consider is Langa’s deep appreciation of him and the fact that literally he was the one who helped Langa experince the feeling of love again.

Kojiro and Kaoru’s relationships, to me, is very much representative of two people wanting to be in each other’s presence, but due to their different language of love, miscommunicating horribly. Them bantering and insulting each other is the only way they know what to do with the other. The only way they can ensure the other’s attention and eyes are on them. This has worked so far. They are literal opposites, but both have a very clear definition of their form of love. To Joe skating, or love itself, is about the feeling and going with the flow. Being spontaneous. Whereas for Cherry, every move needs to be calculated and executed perfectly in order to be “efficient”. Their frustration comes from both wanting different things from the other, but not communicating their need properly. Despite this, they stick together due to a magnetic pull they obviously feel towards the other. The attraction is there, the trust is there, they are even well-matched in skill as we see them neck-to-neck constantly. They could give each other what the other wants. Only if they could express themselves well... This is why Joe pushes Reiki towards reconciling with Langa. he wants them to not fall into the same trap of not stating their needs and thoughts properly.

Now Ad*m and Langa are obviously problematic and I don’t really want to have to explain, honestly guys. I really don’t (since I have trauma regarding this subject), but I need to go into this a little bit. This is a textbook toxic predatory relationship. Where the older, twisted, damaged person, has an obsession with a young, outstading child. He wants to lead him into “Paradise” and show his “Eve” what love is really about. (Ain’t that disgusting you guys...) His form of love is inflicting pain, so I really can’t imagine a scenario where he and his “Eve” live happily ever after and everything is fine and dandy. He needs someone who he can torture. He literally is looking for someone who can handle his way of expressing affection, his “love hug”, who has the same type of crazy eyes for adrenaline and danger. His Eve. In his distorted mind, this all makes sense and Langa is that someone he was looking for thoughout the years. The problem is, he disregards Langa’s side where the relationship becomes problematic.

Cherry and Ad*m during their younger years seems to be a very innocent infatuation on Kaoru’s end. It is a one-sided relationship where someone is in love with the idea of a person long gone. They were discovering the world of skating, or the world of love together with Ad*m taking the lead. Cherry immediately became infatuated with him, wanted to learn his love language, wanted to be at the same level he was. It probably started very innocent. At first, Ad*m being gentle, because that’s how Tadashi was with him too, then after whatever happened between those two, Ad*m, disappointed in the way of love, or skating, Tadashi showed him, returned to what his aunts taught him. Maybe after injuring Kaoru with the “love hug”, therefore eliminating him from being his potential partner, started looking for his “Eve”, gradually became more agressive in love as in skating. Kaoru was distraught and wanted the Ad*m he originally learned love from back. Holding out some hope even years after. Trained to get used to his “love hug”, to literally condition himself to be able to get close to him. Ad*m, however showed Cherry brutally that he truly cannot handle his way of love.

Ad*m and Tadashi. *sighs* As of this post, I don’t really have enough information to give you a good overview of what I see this relationship representing. As far as I can tell Ad*m was abused horribly and to ease the pain and make him forget, Tadashi showed his another way of expressing affection. Skating or love. Basically a first love gone horrible bad, scarring an already abused child and turning them into a monster. Tadashi himself reinstates this during one of the episodes. It was his fault that Ad*m turned out the way he did. Their love slowly became strongly abusive throughout the years. Tadashi is stuck in it because he feels like he deserves it. This is a metaphor for dangers of an emotionally and physically abusive relationship, where one person feels responsible and the other is using power. Tadashi’s guilt keeps him next to his master and he even endures abuse, now he is trying to break out and show Ad*m he messed up and I think this could potentially be a good representation of how difficult that process truly is.

As far as Reiki’s, Miya’s, Shadow’s skating goes. Their main arc relating to love is first and foremost learning to accept themselves and aprecciating their uniqe way and style of skating. Only after can they become people who can truly be accomplished in love/skating (in Miya’s case I’m obviously talking about platonic feelings). Each of them had a preconception of their persona in love/skating, which gets questioned heavily throughout the series. Miya gets defeated, Shadow’s soft side gets discovered, Reiki... well. I get sad. :c Even though he taught someone to love again, to appreciate life again, he ended up discovering how dissatisfied he truly is with himself... These three all need to learn to love every aspect of themselves to reach fulfillment and to really experience healthy human relationships.

Sk8: The Infinity is unquestionably a love story, without explicitly being a romance, meaning that it is a tale about love, both romantic, platonic and everything inbetween through a queer-coded lens, showing both dysfunctional, abusive and healthy relationships, ways to express emotions and even delves into self-love and the idea of nature versus nurture in the villian’s case.

That is why I, personally don’t scream for a canon couple. To me, the show gets its main point about affection and love across, without making any of these relationships explicitly stated. Not to mention that it does justice to both of its assigned genres. Comedy and Sports as well. Yeah sure, I wouldn’t complain, but I think these dynamics are more than satisfying to watch, and much deeper than bishounens wanting to bang each other, which is, in my opinion, inherently sexualized. If they want, yeah they can confirm, make it canon without forcing it to be a center storyline. Hell, I would even be happy about it. I would clap with all of us. BUT, as the series currently is, I really see it taking the other route because of the above. This way audiences who want a yaoi or ikemen going at it, won’t be disappointed with the series when they find doesn’t revolve around that, straight viewers will just find it flamboyant, and people who look for subtext and want to read between the lines will certainly do that with the amount of crumbs and hints the writers gave us.

We don’t need outright, written in black and white gay representation in Sk8 to experience very real types of love. The queer theme is secondary to me, just like queerness is, in most people’s lives. Yeah sure, it is a big thing, but not the only attribute a person has. My life doesn’t revolve around my queerness. I rarely talk about it. If I was a main character this would be a side-arc. Just like Sk8 doesn’t revolve around the characters coming out. It’s just them living their lives and possibly being queer while doing so. If you look at it this way, it is almost normalizing attraction between same-sex people by just showing it as regular love. If you can, why not interpret it this way, so it can be a liberating experience instead of a disappointing one.

Please don’t attack me! I am fragile and this is only my opinion. c: *crawls back into her hole*

#sk8 cherry blossom #sk8 joe #sk8 the infinity #sk8 theory #sk8 langa #reiki kyan #langa hasegawa #kaoru sakurayashiki #kojiro nanjo #ad*m #tadashi #matcha blossom #renga #ranga #langa x reki #cherry blossom x joe #essay

619 notes · View notes

iheartbookbran · 3 years

Text

Ok so actually my biggest problem with the whole “Daenerys will burn KL” theory—not even the Mad Queen Dany theory, which is of course very sexist for obvious reasons, but just like, the idea that Dany will ~accidentally~ ignite the wildfire in the city, burning it all to the ground. That, at first, doesn’t sound that bad, but the longer I think about it the more I hate it because tbh it doesn’t do anything for her character? And also… that fate for her is just down right cruel.

Like, the most frequent argument I see on why this would be at all satisfactory for Dany’s arc is basically that it would be a sort of lesson for her about the dangers of unchecked power and the real threat the Dragons can pose on humans and that she shouldn’t use them to fight against other people. And that’s all well and good, excellent message… except that’s not something Dany’s ever really needed to learn? Not anymore that her fellow rulers, which I will touch on more detail later, but in general Dany has seen what the abuse of power can do. Starting with her conflicting feelings regarding Viserys and how she recognizes that even though he was her brother and she loved him, he also abused his power over her as her older brother, her only family and her king; she feels guilt about the atrocities Drogo committed to the lhazarene and tries to help them; she feels so much guilt about not handling things correctly in Astapor that she decides to throw away all her plans to go to Westeros and instead stays in Meereen.

And about not knowing the true danger that her dragons can pose? I mean, this is the same girl that literally agonizes across several of her ADWD chapters because Drogon killed a child, and then takes the extreme measure of caging Rhaegal and Viserion to prevent that from ever happening again. I think she’s at least a little bit aware that the dragons can be dangerous, thank you very much.

Ok so this got long...

Anyways, the only time Dany legit uses Drogon to harm someone and not just as bluff was at the house of the Undying, where she was being attacked, and in Astapor… and like, lmao, that asshole Kraznys mo Nakloz and the rest of his slaver buddies deserved it. Don’t at me. Also, Dany’s hardly the only one with a big magical and deadly beast at her disposal, why didn’t Robb had to go through some horrifying traumatic incident to learn he shouldn’t use Grey Wind in battle to tear his enemies’ throats. Bran will be learning about the dangers of abusing power, but that’s linked to his magic powers and an actual reprehensible thing he’s doing, not the use of his glorified prehistoric dog to kill, which he’s done, just like Robb. By all means let the narrative hold Dany accountable for her mistakes… but her actual mistakes and not shit she has no control over, because she doesn’t have much control over Drogon or the other dragons even though she’s trying to, and that’s very obvious in her last ADWD chapter where she’s delirious and Drogon could kill her at any moment, and she knows that.

The other big argument people make for Dany burning KL (even if it’s by accident!) is that it will teach her about the price of war, that someone as young as her shouldn’t be leading armies and conquering kingdoms, and that fighting for the Iron Throne is not a worthy cause, and I feel like that misses the actual point of her story by a mile. First of all because a) Dany is hardly the only teenage ruler in the story and b) this is a fantasy medieval story, a lot of the characters shouldn’t be doing the things they do, aaaand yet. Also speaking of other teenage rulers with far more power that they should have—Robb and Jon, being the biggest examples.

Granted, Robb and Jon aren’t exactly successful during their time as rulers, they’re literally betrayed and killed by their own men (even if Jon will technically come back for round 2 of bullshit he’s too tired for). But the moral of their stories is not that they lost because theirs was an unworthy cause and they were stupid kids wholly unprepared for their roles. And I actually partially agree! They are just kids, including Dany, and they shouldn’t be responsible for looking after so many others and going to battle, but their cause is still just and worthy, even with all the mistakes they make along the way. Robb didn’t loose because he was wrong in demanding justice for his family or trying to protect the riverlands from the Lannisters and their minions, he lost because Tywin Lannister was a giant coward who couldn’t take him out in a fair fight.

Likewise, it isn’t wrong of Jon to try to incorporate refugees from beyond the Wall into Westeros. He’s not too stupid and honorable to do politics like his father (how I hate when people insult Jon and Ned like that), and while he did some very obvious mistakes that inevitably ended in a coup and in him dying, this is more connected to his inability to let go of his ties with his family (mainly Arya or who he believes to be her), and in isolating himself from his friends and the people he could actually trust.

I’ve always thought that Dany and Jon share a parallel narrative within the story, so while Jon is struggling with that Dany is faced with similar problems. She cages her dragons, that to her represent the only family she has left, and she tries to compromise with the slavers, marry a man she doesn’t love, pretend she’s ok with reopening the fighting pit. While she tries her best to rule wisely in Meereen, it all comes at the cost of betraying herself and her beliefs, so it’s no surprise when it all crashes around her and she’s betrayed and nearly killed. Ironically, it is Drogon who comes to rescue her.

If they are monsters, so am I.—Daenerys II, ADWD.

This is hands down one of my favorite Dany quotes from the whole series, and I hate that it’s been given such a negative connotation in the fandom, when for me it represents Dany’s humanity and compassion at the fullest.

GRRM has a knack for humanizing the ‘monsters’ of his story, for showing the good in the outcasts and the ugly and the scary. He embraces their ‘otherness’ and makes them the heroes of his stories; Arya, Bran, Brienne, Dany, Tyrion, Jon, Theon and many others are all compared to monsters or beasts at one point or another in the books.

Dany sees herself in her dragons, literal monsters in every sense of the word. Later on she faces Drogon inside the pit, and in that moment you could say that she accepts that ‘monstrous’ part of her, and in doing so she’s saved from her fate of dying at the hands of the men who would crucify innocent children and gleefully profit off of the suffering of their fellow human beings while watching them fight each other to the death for their own amusement. Now tell me who’s the real monster in this situation.

But shortly before that happens, Dany is able to see the humanity in Tyrion, an outcast who has been branded as monstrous and unlovable due to his disability all his life, a man who has come to believe in his abusers’ rhetoric about him so strongly that he’s started to act cruel and detached. She saves his life. She sees value in his life when few others would, because she cares.

I’ve always find it funny that the “dragons plant no trees” is—another—example fans use to argue in favor of Dany’s descent into Darkness™ because the actual scene goes like this:

You are a queen, her bear said. In Westeros.

"It is such a long way," she complained. "I was tired, Jorah. I was weary of war. I wanted to rest, to laugh, to plant trees and see them grow. I am only a young girl."

No. You are the blood of the dragon. The whispering was growing fainter, as if Ser Jorah were falling farther behind. Dragons plant no trees. Remember that. Remember who you are, what you were made to be. Remember your words.—Daenerys X, ADWD.

Now am I the only one who finds it at least a bit relevant that it’s freaking Jorah Mormont aka Jorah the Enslaver whom Dany’s subconscious, at her literal lowest moment, utilizes to represent this particular thought, which btw I’ve always interpreted as Dany’s own self-loathing manifesting in her, and this is something she’s actually always struggled with—the idea that she’s not enough and she’s failing. Because above all things, even Westeros or the Iron Throne, what Dany wants is peace, she wants to plant trees.

When Dany made her descent, Reznak and Skahaz dropped to their knees. "Your Worship shines so brightly, you will blind every man who dares to look upon you," said Reznak. […] This match will save our city, you will see."

"So we pray. I want to plant my olive trees and see them fruit." Does it matter that Hizdahr's kisses do not please me? Peace will please me. Am I a queen or just a woman?—Daenerys VII, ADWD.

But of course the world doesn’t work like that, and so long as there’s Jorahs and Tywins and Eurons out there, men who would take the freedom of humans and submit them to their will, Dany can’t have the luxury of peace, just like Jon can’t have the luxury of belonging and family so long as there’s people still beyond the Wall who need his protection.

And I think that’s fine. It’s fine that Dany failed, it will help her develop as a character and realize that there’s no room to compromise with slavers, the metaphorical monsters of the story who do far more harm than the other more literal ‘monsters’ of the story. So that when she has to face down Euron Greyjoy—who btw, there’s a high chance he will end up stealing one of Dany’s dragons via Victarion using Dragonbinder… y’know, as in enslaving one of her children and using said dragon to inflict god knows what horrors, yet not many people ever consider this for some reason?—she will know. When she has to face down the Others, the magical ice fairies with no regard for human life, she will know.

That’s why I believe that it would make absolutely no sense for Dany to have to go through such a tragic and traumatic experience like burning a whole city even by pure accident, over something that’s either never been a problem with her character or she’s well into her way of learning anyways, so it would just feel repetitive. As I have pointed out, she’s already reached one of the lowest moments of her arc. Not saying there will be no other blows for her, and probably the destruction of KL will be one of them, and knowing Dany she will feel responsibility over it no matter what, but that doesn’t mean she has to be the culprit, intentional or otherwise.

#yes i wrote this whole thing because i actually love the ‘if they are monsters so am i’ quote and i’m trying to push my agenda on others #jk i spend like half a minute in an anti dany blog and i was like. war #but i don’t regret it so #daenerys targaryen #stormborn #pro daenerys #asoiaf #asoiaf meta #a song of ice and fire #valyrianscrolls #meta #my meta

131 notes · View notes

river-bottom-nightmare · 3 years

Text

Nightwing 79 Review

i said i would and i will. i did like this issue! not as striking and attention grabbing as 78, but i think this issue was meant to be a foundation one, laying out the groundwork for the future. overall, pretty good. also there wasn't enough bitewing. as promised, overly extensive metaphors and me reading too much into things under the cut

i know i've talked about this cover before, but this particular thing is oddly important to me, so i'll talk about it again

this is me, once again screaming about how artists put nightwing in traditionally feminine poses and how every time i see it i just get whiplash. i mean, true, the main reason why is because nightwing is a so often sexualized character, and putting him in these poses just increases the objectification, which is a goal that dc producers have. but there are very few popular male characters that do this. the only one i can think of off the top of my head is deadpool, but that was so obviously a critique and a way to make fun of the media industry. when they draw dick like this, they’re being serious. they’re putting him in appealing poses meant to show him off, and that’s something that’s traditionally only been done to women.

it's a very direct and very loud breaking of traditional gender roles in media, especially for a character as high-profile and historic as dick grayson. colour also plays a factor in this. the entire background is pink. i was absolutely shocked when i first saw it, when the teaser came out, because i cannot think of any comic book covers of male comic heroes this high-profile where pink is even just prevalent in the cover, let alone the majority of the cover. the pink does look beautiful: it offsets and highlights the black and blue of dick's suit gorgeously, but does it with more finesse than orange or red. but the fact that the stylistic choice was made to accent and draw this cover with aesthetic and beauty in mind, completely ignoring traditional hard-set gender rules in art, was a conscious choice and one i wholeheartedly support.

just another example of the sexualization i was talking about. i remember seeing harley quinn in this exact pose in suicide squad.

so far, taylor's been pretty dead-set on bringing alfred to the forefront of importance in this series. he wants people to know how much he loves alfred's character, and how much the butler meant to dick growing up. he was dick's father too. but what i adore is how taylor managed to stress alfred's importance in a way that didn't insult or belittle bruce.

this is one of the best bruce and dick interactions i've seen, and it's done in one simple interaction. in this, bruce is tough and harsh. he knocked dick down hard, but then he reached a hand down and helped pull dick back up. let me analyze their dialogue for a minute

on your feet: this is bruce telling dick to get up. he's trained dick, he knows what the younger boy is capable of, he knows his limits, and he knows what dick can do. this is bruce telling dick i know you're strong enough to get up, so get up and prove me right

are you just going to knock me down again?: surface-level, it looks like dick's complaining. he doesn't like bruce's rough training, and he's tired of bruce knocking him down. but look at his face in this. he's smiling up at bruce, knowledgeable and a little hopeful. he knows that bruce is doing this to help dick better himself, he's completely on board with the rough training, because they both know the rewards are incredible. also, he's teasing. he's bantering with bruce. there's an ease in that joking statement, one that belies affection and intimacy. they've only known each other for a little bit, but they're already slipping into a close familial relationship.

it depends on how fast you learn: this is bruce bantering back. this is bruce not being a stoic, unfeeling asshole. instead, he's shown with the dry humor that a good batman writer knows is a staple of the character. he's teasing dick, telling him he'll basically whoop his ass if dick doesn't learn fast enough. it's incentive for dick to train harder, while also being lighthearted enough to tell dick that believes in dick and doesn't want him to push himself too hard.

gosh i love the titans. also it looks like wally's staring at dick's ass.

this was cute. a prod at dick's silly and playful sense of humor, while not dumbing him down for the sake of a laugh. instead, he's joking about food, which is stuff everyone jokes about. this is the kind of stuff that'll actually make me laugh, instead of just making me vaguely uncomfortable.

bludhaven's almost always portrayed as a cesspool of a city. and to be honest, it really is. but this panel gives the city a meaningful history, while also giving us a reason for why dick moved there.

it talks of a time when people still thought they could beat the monsters. that if they fought hard enough, they could win the fight. it was a tentative hope that you could always overcome hardship.

dick's little "i like that it's still standing" shows how he still believes that, despite what the rest of the world thinks. despite everything that he's been through, dick is still tentatively an optimist, and believes he can fight the monsters of the world and win. it's a beautiful testament to his character, and i'm like that they added his signature element of hope back in. it used to be what he symbolized as robin, and despite his growth and character arc from robin to nightwing, this is one aspect of robin that i'm glad nightwing still has.

remember when i said "things that make me vaguely uncomfortable??" yeahhhh,,,,,,,,,,,,,,

Shooketh Dick: A Sequel

(the expressions in this series are just,,,,on point)

this was an incredibly sweet and kindhearted thing for dick to do, but i found it kind of,,,,,,,,desperate? maybe that's just me, but let me explain.

dick's suddenly a billionaire, and he has entirely too much money that he knows what to do with. it's also alfred's money, what the man left to him, so dick forever links it with alfred. in addition to that, he's back and bludhaven and looking at it with "fresh" eyes. (at least, from a different point of view since he got shot in the head. then mind controlled.) he's desperate to do something with the money and he's desperate to help the people around him that so obviously needs up, so he comes up with an on-the-fly solution that's a little impractical and a little crazy, but it still helps and still does some good.

to me, dick seems a little lost. he hasn't completely found his balance yet, and he's trying to do things that will. he tries charity, because that's what bruce did and it's what he knows, even though he admitted that he always thought bruce could have done more as bruce wayne than batman.

they have a family group chat guys yall were right.

also, do i think that dick would ever actually get his wallet stolen?? no way in hell, he’d notice someone getting ready to pickpocket him a mile away. but i suppose it’s important to the Plot.

okay this is getting interesting. first blockbuster, now maroni (+ the weird heart stealer guy). i can officially say that i am intruiged

this particular artistic quirk is shown a lot in this issue, and from this art team in general, but i feel like this panel is one of the best examples of it. it was stunning enough to take up a full page, and it’s well deserved.

the way they show dick moving is absolutely brilliant. as a reader, i like seeing these smaller versions of dick getting clearer and in more detail as they come closer to the screen. not only do they show depth in the picture beyond what a simple 3 dimensional piece of art does, it also shows the passage of time.

in addition, it showcases dick’s skill. dick spots these mobsters running after a group of petty thieves. he then, and follow me here, leaps off the roof of one building feet first, springboards backwards off the side of the adjacent building with his feet, gracefully continues his backflip, rights himself, shoots a line with perfect timing: just in time to soften his landing but not slow him down, execute said landing on top of a moving bus, keep running on the moving bus without missing a beat, shoot his grapple, use the grapple to swing, use the swing to build up momentum, then use the momentum to deliver a powerful blow to the mobsters. and he did all that fast enough to catch up with the mobsters, even though he was a ROOFTOP OVER.

d a m n s o n

this panel, the very first in the issue, is also another example of that art style, but a little more distinctive. i love the way they showed dick’s different costumes through the ages, along with him simply growing up. it’s a little heartbreaking, but a lot uplifting to see how far he’s come. thank god he got rid of the red. now all we need is the fingerstripes, and we’ll be golden

discowing my beloved. also i can’t clearly see discowing’s hair but it definitely looks like it’s pulled back. it looks like he put it in a ponytail. guys. guys. dick had a ponytail omg.

he’s having a Hero Moment

are you talking about the city, dick, or are you talking about you? the kgbeast, the court, the joker. dick fell to each one of them, no matter how hard he fought. he won in the end, eventually and with his family’s help. but i think he’s feeling a little low, a little defeated right now. it’s almost like he needs a win, he needs to feel victorious, he needs to feel like he helped someone (hence the food and the hotel room), just because he needs to remember what it feels like.

these lines were supposed to resonate with you, and goddamn they did.

i looked at it from two ways. first, it’s the girl asking, begging nightwing not to hurt them. bludhaven doesn’t know dick the way gotham does, they’re still a little frightened of him. this child was brave enough to step in front of all of the other hurt and homeless kids and ask, to a strange man in a mask, if he was going to hurt them like the other men had. it’s heartbreaking, but commendable, and an echo of the city itself that dick’s decided to protect. they’re bloody and broken and terrified, but still gritty and brave enough to stare what they fear in the eye and ask it not to hurt them.

second, it’s dick seeing the question reflected in himself. recently, he got shot in the head and lost all his memories. while i think that the way ric reacted was a perfectly valid and human response to the situation, i think dick still regrets how callously and rudely he treated his family. then, he was manipulated by the court of owls, then he was brainwashed with a magic crystal by the joker. dick does have a guilt complex. it’s not a big as bruce’s, but it’s there. and right now, with this girl begging her not to hurt them, dick is probably thinking about all the times he hurt people, in control of his own actions or not, bc he “didn’t have a heart.”

little ambitious don’t you think, dick?

also just look at the sunset colours loOK at the they could not make this any more obvious oh my godddddddddddddddddddddddd

in conclusion, i need more of her

#dick grayson #nightwing #nightwing 79 #nightwing 79 spoilers #dc #dick grayson meta #nightwing meta #nightwing 79 meta #dc meta #river thinks too hard

125 notes · View notes

mrpenguinpants · 3 years

Text

Venti: Friendship HCs

YES! YES! YES! You’re absolutely beautiful anon, I love friendship HCs. I have yet to get a Venti rq at the time of writing this [I actually have another one that came in yesterday (?) but that one is a bit special].

I wasn’t sure if you meant MC as in a reader or the actual MC [Aether and Lumine]. I still used “you” but if you meant Aether/Lumine just lmk.

Also, these few weeks might be a bit slower since I’ve got major assignment’s coming up.

---

Part 2: Venti and Diluc: Friendship HCs

---

Venti: Friendship HCs

If you want this bard to do anything, just run at him with some slime condensate on your hands and he’ll scream bloody murder.

He likes apples and lively places so whenever he has free time, which is almost all the time, he’s either dragging you to taverns or out to pick apples. If you mention that you needed to buy cheese he might look at you differently.

If you’re both under the Mondstadt tree and just hanging out he might sing you songs or new poems he’s heard. Some of them are old poems or one’s he’s created. Sometimes he’ll just play the lyre as you both listen to the wind rustle the tree’s leaves.

Venti has a rather mischievous attitude and is quite bold so if anyone is giving you a hard time he’ll slide in without fear and insult them. Is the type to stick his tongue out at the offender as he drags you somewhere else.

It sometimes freaks you out when Venti switches to his Wind Archon self and start’s spitting metaphor’s like he’s Shakespeare. But he’ll switch back into his Venti persona and it’s starting to feel like he’s doing it on purpose to make your head spin.

No matter what season or weather, Venti want’s to have fun. If it’s raining then it’s a competition to see who can make the biggest splash. If it’s snowing and too cold to go outside, Venti is going to element burst snow at your face. You should have dodged he says.

He will push you to make friends with Diluc just to feed his wine addiction, even though there’s no way Diluc would let you sample anything. He’ll push your towards Diluc in hopes you’ll distract him enough for Venti to sneak something out but so far it hasn’t worked.

If you ever need a boost to justtt grab that apple or even to reach a jar on the top shelf he’ll skyward sonnet you. Even as paper’s fly or you’ve hit your head he’ll just ehe his way out.

If Venti is taking a bit too many liberties, just threaten that you’ll get a pet cat. He’s allergic to them so he won’t be able to hang out with you but you’ll have a whiny bard yelling at you in public with no shame. It’s not like you would actually do that but it’s nice knowing he appreciates your company. Sadly cat’s seem to like him. You’ll have to pry him away from a tree and telling him that no, cat’s are not vile archon killing beasts.

If we were in modern times he would be the guy that pulls up to a ice-cream shop with kids in the back and order’s for himself only. Best way to avoid Venti stealing hands is to eat something with cheese.

It’s always hilarious when people think he’s underaged even though he’s older than Mondstadt itself. When he turns to you to prove that he is, in fact, of legal age to drink just turn away and pretend you don’t know who this green bard is. I don’t know him officer.

He’ll make a big deal of you being his disciple and writing songs about you but if you turn him down he’ll get immediately sadden, which is a kick in the heart, and you’ll take it back.

He wants to roam free and experience the world. Now that Dvalin has been saved and Mondstadt has returned to its peaceful life, he insist he must join you in your adventure. He say’s it’s for bard purposes but he might just be a bit lonely.

If you ever mention you would to see someplace in the sky or to be able to fly, Venti will actually treat it quite seriously. If you’d like a feather from an eagle he’ll immediately get one for you. It’s a bit of a somber time with him when he hands it to you but he quickly covers it up.

If you want to learn the lyre he’s actually a good teacher when he want’s to be. Do what you love while you still can. Make the world a place you want to live in.

Then he’ll ruin the mood by asking you to braid his hair.

“You know Venti, your hair is actually really nice,” you commented as you folded blue strands of his hair over each other to create his signature braids. You were both under the huge tree next to the Statue of the Seven. It was one of Venti’s favourite places and it was peaceful. Only occasionally a researcher might stop by but either then that, it was just animals.

“You think so?” Venti asked as he opened one eye to look up at you. He was lying on his back with his head resting on your knee, quietly strumming his lyre. You weren’t sure what tune he was playing but it sounded familiar.

“Yeah, how your hair turns to blue at the tips. It’s a really nice colour. Were you born with hair like this? Is this some special Archon power that gives you colour bending hair?” you chucked at your joke as you tied the end of the braid. There all done.

“We could dye your hair!” Venti exclaimed as he shot upward almost hitting your forehead if you didn’t dodge out of the way. Whenever you’re with Venti you always end up with friendly fire, maybe you’re developing a Venti reflex? Venti looked at you and you could almost see the excitement rushing to his brain

“Um, how?” you asked, you weren’t aware there were ways to dye your hair in Mondstadt. The most you could get was food, flowers, and materials. Maybe you could craft dye?

“Hmm...” Venti thought for a bit, the excitement that had been rushing to his brain started to simmer down. He shrugged in his happy-go-luck manner, “Well, we’ll figure it out! You know Liyue is a lot bigger than Mondstadt, maybe we can find something there?”

“Venti. I’m not letting you play mad scientist with my hair,” you deadpanned, the last time you let Venti “experiment” was with food and your stomach is still crying from that. This would either work or you’ll end up with all your hair burned off if his cooking skills were anything to go off by.

“Aww come on. Don’t you want to be colourful too? Oh, maybe we should make your hair a rainbow wouldn’t that be a sight, come on let’s take a trip to Liyue,” he laughed as he dusted himself off before offering a hand for you to take.

“Won’t you miss Mondstadt?” you took his hand as he pulled you up. He crossed his arms, giving an overexaggerated thinking face.

“Hmm maybe a little bit but I’ve been watching Mondstadt ever since I became an Archon. It doesn’t hurt to venture out and explore. Fly over new heights and see thing’s we’ve never seen before. At least while we still have the freedom to.” Venti smiled softly as his eye’s seemed to be staring at something far away, or maybe he was looking back?

"Venti...” you started, before quickly taking the end of that sentence back. Venti doesn’t really talk about the past and you didn’t want to ruin the earlier mood, “Alright. Let’s go. No time like the present.”

“Oh, we should take the scenic route. I’ve heard Liyue is especially pretty this time of year. You think Liyue has any good wine? Maybe I can finally stop getting mistaken as a child or-”

You sighed as he kept rambling as you dusted the grass from your clothes. As much as tried to keep a calm face you could feel excitement building in your chest. You grinned as you clenched your hands still and ran past him cutting off his sentence.

“Come on Venti! If you’re too slow I’ll leave you behind!”

“Wha- Hey! That’s not fair! Time out! Time out!”

#genshin impact #genshin impact x reader #genshin impact fluff #genshin impact headcanons #genshin impact imagines #genshin impact venti #genshin impact venti x reader #genshin impact venti headcanons #genshin impact venti imagines #venti #genshin impact diluc #venti x reader #genshin fanfic #genshin impact fanfiction #venti headcanons #venti imagines #venti x aether #venti x lumine

586 notes · View notes

maria-scribbles · 4 years

Text

we’re just like kevin bacon!

prompt: for @bricksatanakinswindow ‘s halloween writing challenge! this was initially inspired by "mortal enemies accidentally showing up in matching costumes every fucking year" but once i started writing it kind of snowballed from there and i ended up with this lmao

ship: jj maybank x fem!reader

word count: 4.6k+ (i think this is the shortest thing i’ve ever written lol)

warnings n stuff: childhood enemies to lovers, swearing, mention of underage drinking, halloween shenanigans, makin' out, smut (not too explicit but i still think it's spicy enough to need an 18+ warning), jj and the reader being cute lil nerds and quoting movies back and forth, the author blatantly using some of her personal favorite movies/shows as inspiration for costumes, the author also making her opinions on ghostbusters clear (instead of the human trash can peter venkman, stan the adorable dork known as ray stantz for clear skin)

a/n: this was hella fun to write and i already have so many more halloween fic ideas bouncing around in my head (it's spoopy season, y'all!). title of this fic comes from guardians of the galaxy 😊

Of three things in life you were certain.

One, you loved Halloween more than any other holiday of the year; after all, you and your twin brother Mason were born just after one AM on October 31st so you could say a penchant for all things spooky was in your blood.

Two, Sarah Cameron was your best friend. Being neighbors your whole lives, the two of you were thick as thieves and spent almost every day together, much to the annoyance of both your brother and hers; as much as you loved Mason, sometimes you wished Sarah was your twin instead of him and you knew without question the blonde girl would trade Rafe for you in a heartbeat (with little to no guilt, in fact.).

And three, you absolutely hated JJ Maybank. You'd been at the top of each other's shit lists ever since you were both six years old, when he made fun of you for the stutter you'd had back then and you dumped a full milkshake over his head as payback, and even as time passed and you grew out of your stutter, your disdain for the blond pogue only grew stronger. He was infuriating, plain and simple, and the mere mention of his name made steam come out of your ears.

The boy was just good at being annoying and seemed to love pushing everyone's buttons, yours especially, and always found ways to get under your skin without fail every single time your paths crossed (which was way too often for your liking, but running in the same friend group made it hard to avoid each other). It became an unspoken thing, the great Y/L/N-Maybank feud, with both of you trying your hardest to piss the other off until one of your mutual friends or your brother broke it up and pulled you to opposite corners of the metaphorical ring to take a breather before the next round.

You'd never admit it but deep down you kind of liked it. You liked being at the center of his attention (granted, it was antagonistic in nature but it was attention all the same), his bright blue eyes following your every move whenever you were within his sights and you liked that you were in his thoughts even when you weren't around, a fact proven to you by the tiny notebook Kiara carried around in her pocket recording how many times he mentioned your name. Knowing you lived rent free in his mind brought you an embarrassingly high level of satisfaction that you'd absolutely deny feeling if anyone ever asked, just as you'd deny the fact that he lived rent free in your mind, too.

...At least for most of the year. Everyone, including JJ, knew that to you Halloween was a damn-near sacred time. He knew never to mess with you during the weeks leading up to the holiday and definitely never on the day itself, lest he want yet another milkshake dumped over his blond head. He knew that, the whole damn island knew he did and yet...somehow, some way, he managed to get your blood boiling every. single. year. And you, like a masochistic idiot, let him.

It all started when you were twelve.

You, Mason, and your friends were finally old enough to go to the annual youth party held on the sprawling lawn of the Island Club, an event you'd been looking forward to attending every Halloween since you were eight. Of course, you were excited for the dancing and games and food but the thing you couldn't wait the most for was the costume contest, a chance to show off your skills and prove to everyone on the island that Y/N Y/L/N was the undisputed queen of Halloween.

So what if your hopes were a little too high (considering you were only twelve and going up against kids ranging from your age to fifteen), you were still gonna give it your all; you spent weeks perfecting not only your costume but your brother's as well with your mom, helping her cut fabric and sew zippers, styling wigs and painting props until everything was perfect.

"Oh my God, Y/N!" Sarah, dressed as Cinderella, yelled from the passenger seat of her dad's SUV when they swung by to pick you up. "You look amazing!"

"So do you!" You said, slipping into the back seat in between a miserable-looking Rafe as Sarah Sanderson ("I lost a bet," he explained with a scowl) and Mason, holding your mini R2-D2 on your lap. Was it kind of cheesy, dressing up as the most iconic twins in movie history? Probably, but you really didn't care because Leia Organa was a total boss bitch and Mason was practically over the moon that he got to be his ultimate silver screen hero and swing around his very own lightsaber as Luke Skywalker.

"The Force is strong with you two." Ward joked, earning an eye roll from both of his children as he drove to the Island Club to drop you off. Rafe immediately disappeared into the crowd to meet up with Topper and Kelce and the three of you went off to find your own friends, skirting around the edge of the party toward the snack tables, also known as the most likely place for them to be.

You spotted Kiara first, looking like an actual princess in her Tiana costume and waved, smiling when she waved back and beckoned you over as she said something to Pope, dressed as Albert Einstein, that made him start laughing hysterically.

"What's so funny?" You asked, reaching between them to grab two handfuls of pretzels and immediately dropping one into your brother's outstretched palm, careful to keep the sleeve of your white dress away from the bright orange-iced cupcakes on the table.

The two of them exchanged a look that instantly made you realize something was Up™ but before either of them could answer, Mason asked around a mouthful of pretzels, "Where're Tweedledee and Tweedledum?"

"J, why didn't we think of that?" John B's voice came from somewhere over your shoulder and when you turned to face him, you nearly dropped both the droid cradled in the crook of your elbow and the snacks in your hand. Not because of John B and his hilarious Chewbacca costume but because of the fact that JJ Maybank, the one person you hated the most on the whole entire island, was dressed as Han freakin' Solo.

"Yikes." Someone muttered behind you -it sounded like Sarah but you weren't really sure- and Mason nearly choked on his pretzels as he tried and failed miserably to keep himself from laughing.

"You've gotta be kidding me." You huffed, rolling your eyes as JJ crossed his arms and glared in your direction, blaster hanging from the holster on his hip.

"Listen, Princess, I'm not too happy about this, either."

"Oh, shut up, you nerfherder."

"Who you calling-" Mason and John B cut in and pulled you both in opposite directions before either of you could turn it into a shouting match, your brother physically grabbing you around the waist and carrying you off while the latter caught the back of JJ's vest and dragged him away. Despite their best efforts to keep you apart, you ran into each other more times than you could count and spent a minute or two squabbling like cats and dogs each time until one of them intervened once again. It was childish, it was immature, and it was fun, even though you'd never, ever admit it. Ever.

You didn't win the costume contest that year in the way you'd imagined at all. Still, first place in the group category was a win in your book and it felt good, even if one of the members of your unintentional Star Wars posse was someone who tested every bit of patience you had. The four of you split the cash prize and you went home 25 bucks richer, stashing it away for next year's costume and pushing the thought of accidentally matching with your mortal enemy from your mind.

You had no idea this thing was only just beginning.

The next year, you let Sarah and Kiara convince you to match with them and the three of you rolled up to the party as the Pink Ladies -you as Rizzo, Sarah as Sandy, Kiara as Frenchy- only to run right into the boys, your brother included, dressed as the T-Birds. John B, perfectly in character as Danny, immediately whisked Sarah off to dance while Pope, the most adorably awkward Doody you'd ever seen, went to grab some snacks with Kiara, leaving you stuck with the bane of your existence as, of course, fucking Kenickie (Mason, as Sonny, dipped sometime before then without you noticing). The two of you spent the whole evening glaring at each other and hurling insults back and forth at breakneck speed, more in character than either of you'd ever want to acknowledge and for the second year in a row, you won first place in the group costume category.

At fourteen, you went as Princess Buttercup and JJ showed up as Westley, fake sword in hand as he followed you around all night like an annoying fly, sarcastically drawling "as you wish" every time you so much as glanced in his direction. Your brother, dressed as Inigo Montoya, nearly pissed himself laughing and you wanted to snatch both of their prop swords and shove them up their asses. You came in first again in the group costume contest and begrudgingly split the prize three ways.

At fifteen, you worked hard on a Dr. Ellie Sattler costume from Jurassic Park, he strolled in as a disheveled Dr. Alan Grant with mud splattered boots and tattered clothes, and you really regretted not taking the offer to be the Tai to Sarah's Cher and Kiara's Dionne. Once again, Mason laughed so hard his face turned red and you were tempted to grab the sword he was holding and beat him over the head with it, not just for laughing at you but also for the completely atrocious Jack Sparrow costume he wore. To your absolute horror, you and JJ won the contest in the duo category and you wanted to melt into the ground when they called you onto the makeshift stage to collect your reward.

When you were sixteen, you and your friends "graduated" to the party held for the older teens inside the club itself. With costume rules a little more lax than they were for the younger kids, you decided to go as (an only slightly sexy) Janine Melnitz, complete with a prop telephone you answered every so often with a loud "Ghostbusters, whaddya want?!" much to the embarrassment of Mason, who was once again dressed as Luke Skywalker, this time in the fatigues he wore while training on Dagobah in The Empire Strikes Back.

You strutted into the party in your heels and pencil skirt only to nearly fall flat on your face when you caught sight of JJ in a terrible black wig and glasses, proton pack strapped to his back and 'Spengler' printed on the front of his jumpsuit. Your brother winced when you all but screeched "Again?!" right into his ear and grabbed your elbow, dragging you over to an empty table and depositing you into an open chair.

"There's no way this is a coincidence anymore! He could've picked Venkman, with all the womanizing and lowkey being a creep and thinking he's God's gift to mankind? It would've been the perfect choice! He's not nearly adorable or dorky enough to be Stantz or sassy enough to be Winston-"

"Jesus, you have a lot of feelings about Ghostbusters," Mason muttered, rolling his eyes when you shot him a withering glare.

"Shut up! Listen to me, there's no way in hell Maybank randomly decided to be, out of alllll the 'Busters, Egon fuckin' Spengler, okay? He had to have somehow known I was coming as Janine and did it just to piss me off!"

Your brother heaved a deep, heavy sigh that made you want to smack him and fixed you with a deadpan stare. "Or, have you pulled your head out of your own ass long enough to think that maybe you're just becoming...predictable?"

You really did smack him then, hard on his exposed shoulder and he yelped, scowling as he rubbed at the red mark you left behind. "Ow! What the hell, bitch?!"

"Don't you dare call me predictable, you dickhead! I pride myself on my costumes being very unique and unexpected -you know, out of the box!"

"Hate to break it to you but they're not really out of the box if Maybank shows up in a matching one every single year." He said with an infuriating, shit-eating grin, patting your shoulder before straightening the plush Yoda strapped to his back. "I'm gonna go get some food, wanna come with?"

Still miffed at his comment, you shoved his arm away and glanced down at your lap, ignoring your brother's sassy "your loss" as he headed toward the snack tables. Not even a minute passed by before his empty seat was taken and you groaned when you looked up to see who it was, your eyes meeting a pair of bright blues behind tacky, oversized glasses.

"Hi, Janine."

"...Egon."

The two of you sat in silence after that, watching the dancing crowd under the flashing neon lights and sparkling disco ball until you saw him turn to face you out of the corner of your eye.

"Why Janine?"

"Huh?" You turned to face him, too, one eyebrow raised in a perfect arch as he gestured toward your costume.

"Why did you dress up as Janine, Y/L/N?"

"I've always liked her sassiness and 'I like to play racquetball.'" You offered a casual shrug of your shoulders and carefully stuck a finger under your wig to scratch an annoying itch above your ear. "Why'd you pick Egon, Maybank?"

"He's my favorite." He answered simply with his own shrug, shooting you a genuine, real smile that you, for who knows what reason, found yourself returning without a second thought. "Smart, hilarious -plus, 'I like to collect spores, mold, and fungus.'"

For the first time in your life, your eyes rolled out of amusement and not annoyance at something that JJ Maybank said and, to your complete surprise, it kind of felt...right. "Really? I'd have pegged you for a Venkman stan."

"Are you kidding? He's the worst!"

Never in your wildest dreams did you ever think you'd sit across from your hated enemy, not only having a civil -hell, downright enjoyable- conversation but actually smiling right along with him, laughing at his jokes and doing your best to ignore the sudden flutter in your stomach each time you caught sight of his slightly crooked teeth when he grinned. You didn't even notice when your brother returned with Kiara, dressed as Moana, at his side and two heaping plates of snacks in his hands until his chair scraped gratingly across the hardwood floor.

"Kie, are you seeing this? Pigs must be flying 'cause they're actually smiling at each other." Mason said, cackling as Kiara turned to squint out the window.

"Yeah, I think I see one or two soaring around out there." She giggled and sent a mischievous wink in your direction. With your face feeling like it was on fire, you flipped them both the bird and took off, disappearing into the crowd and leaving all your traitorous, confusing thoughts about JJ behind with the boy himself; it was Rafe's last party at the Club and he owed you a dance anyway, but even as your best friend's older brother, cute as hell in his Thor costume, playfully twirled you around the floor to the Ghostbusters theme song, you felt more than your partner's blue eyes on you.

To no one's surprise, you and JJ won the duo category for the second year in a row and when you joined him onstage to collect your prize and didn't feel like you'd rather die than be up there by his side, you suddenly realized you were only certain about two things in life instead of three.

At seventeen, you were confident you and JJ wouldn't be matching for once (after last year, though, you were kind of thinking it wouldn't be that bad of a thing). You'd gone cult classic for your costume, pulling inspiration from your mom's favorite move, 1999's The Mummy, and put together a screen-accurate Evelyn Carnahan in her iconic black dress, including a handmade Book of the Dead and matching key. You blackmailed Mason with pictures of him, drunk as a skunk and dressed in your Janine costume from the previous year, and got him to go as Jonathan, complete with a pith helmet and prop bottle of The Glenlivet.

But, as always, JJ managed to surprise you. You literally ran right into his chest and if it wasn't for his arms instantly wrapping tight around your waist, you would've bit it hard.

"Whoa, careful there," He said, one hand keeping you close while the other moved to help you hold the book in your arms. "'The Book of the Dead? Are you sure you wanna be messing around with this thing?'"

Of course he'd make the perfect Rick O'Connell, you thought as you playfully raised one eyebrow and curled your fingers around the strap of the gun holster draped over his shoulder. "'It's just a book. No harm ever came from reading a book.'"

Mason was a little too in character as well as he dramatically rolled his eyes and wandered off, muttering "puh-lease" under his breath and shooting Sarah a conspiratorial wink that you didn't see. The blonde girl glanced between the two of you -arms still around each other and identical smiles on your faces- and grinned. The party flew by in a blur of movie quotes, laughs, and more dances than you could count and by the time you made it home, 50 bucks in the pocket of your dress and another group costume win under your belt, you were almost positive you never actually hated JJ Maybank in the first place.

Now at eighteen, you pulled out all the stops for your last party at the Island Club. You'd spent the last few months slaving over your costume, sewing custom pieces, hand-crafting your prop, and spending way too much money on body makeup and a wig but when you saw the final product in the mirror, you knew it was all worth it. You were ready to slay the competition this year and take home first place for the final time.

Mason, indifferent as always about the contest but willing to do anything to keep those pictures from seeing the light of day, didn't protest one bit when you forced him into the matching costume you'd made for him -in typical Mason fashion, he liked that he didn't have to wear a shirt and could show off his muscles- and spent a few hours perfecting his makeup.

You felt on top of the world when you walked into the party that night as Gamora, a replica of her Godslayer sword in hand and skin painted a perfect shade of green, followed by your brother as Drax, already flexing for anyone and everyone looking his way. The rest of your friends came to win as well: John B and Sarah as Flynn Rider and Rapunzel, Kiara as Eleven, Pope as T'Challa, and, of course, JJ as Peter Quill, Baby Groot perched on his shoulder and twin blasters at his hips.

"Lookin' good, Gamora!" He called over the music, shimmying his way over to you with some dance moves that would impress Star-Lord himself.

"Flattery will get you nowhere, Quill." You replied in a sing-song voice, even as you took his outstretched hand and let him pull you into the crowd of bodies hopping up and down to some terrible EDM beat under the twirling disco ball.

"It got you out here with me, didn't it?"

You rolled your eyes and hooked the sword to your belt before stepping closer and draping your arms around his neck, twirling your painted fingers in his hair. "Just remember, 'I know who you are, Peter Quill. And I'm not some starry-eyed waif here to succumb to your pelvic sorcery.'"

You should've known you spoke too soon the second you saw the spark in JJ's eyes that all but screamed 'wanna bet?'

And that's how you found yourself in the middle of the single hottest make out session you'd ever had the pleasure of participating in an hour later: back pressed against the locked door of someone's deserted office, legs wrapped tight around his waist and his hands hooked under your ass, both your sword and his blasters abandoned on the floor at his feet, and he was either a sinfully good kisser or trying really, really hard to blow your mind.

"I'm not gonna end up green after this, am I?" He mumbled against your mouth before trailing his lips along your jaw and you breathed a laugh, tightening your grip on his hair.

"This is professional makeup, dumbass. It's gonna take more than some kissing to smudge it."

"I'm down for some smudging if you are."

You pulled him back for another kiss in response and gasped into his mouth when he walked across the room, one strong arm reaching out to sweep whatever was on the desk to the floor before setting you down on it.

"Confident, are we?"

JJ smirked at your breathless question and the way you hooked your ankles around the backs of his thighs to pull him closer. "So is that a yes to the smudging?"

"Just shut up and kiss me."

He did -very well, you might add- and you kissed him back, untangling your hands from his hair to slide them under his jacket instead; you helped him push it off his shoulders and it had barely hit the ground along with poor Baby Groot before your fingers were tugging his shirt from the waistband of his pants.

"Someone's impatient." He teased, leaning back just far enough to let you pull it over his head and toss it somewhere behind you.

"Someone doesn't know how to stop talking." You whispered your reply low in his ear and then trailed your lips down his neck, smiling in satisfaction at the tremble in his voice when you kissed the purple mark you'd left behind earlier.

"N-never was very good at that."

"'You should've learned.'"

"'I don't learn, it's one of my issues.'"

One of his hands gripped your wig, pulling your head back a little roughly -you'd have so been into that if it had been your real hair he pulled- and you winced at the way the bobby pins holding it it place tugged painfully at your roots. "Ow, not so hard!"

"Wait, what the fuck? I thought you were wearing a wig!"

"I am but it's still pinned to my actual hair!"

"Sorry, but how the hell was I supposed to know that?"

The sight of JJ's face slowly turning red made the butterflies in your stomach go haywire and so you just shook your head, mumbling "don't worry about it," before pressing your lips to his once again. He was gentler this time with the pulling and you dug your nails into his bare shoulders at the thrill of his mouth against the exposed column of your throat, leaning back further and further until you laid flat on the desk.

His fingers had just unbuttoned your pants when your phone started to ring from your pocket, blaring the Star Wars theme you had set as your twin's ringtone.

"Mason's timing is impeccable," JJ said sarcastically, chuckling as you clamped a palm over his mouth and answered the call.

"What the hell do you want?"

"Jesus, no need to be pissy!" Mason loudly replied over the applause crackling through the phone's speaker. "I just thought you'd like to know that we just won best group costume with Maybank. Again."

The blond winked at the mention of his last name and pulled your hand away from his mouth, pinning it to the desk beside you with one of his while the other started tugging your pants down over your hips.

"Oh, that's cool, Mase-" You inhaled sharply when his lips touched the edge of your underwear, so close to where you wanted him most but at the same time so far away, and your fingers held your phone in a white-knuckled grip. "But I-I'm kind of in the middle of doing someone -something!- right now."

"Smooth," JJ said, not even trying to be quiet as he released your pinned hand to finish pulling your boots off, along with your tight leather pants that he casually tossed aside. "And I knew you weren't green under these!"

Your laugh quickly turned into a gasp when his fingers hooked under your panties and pulled those off, too, and the touch of his tongue against the skin of your inner thigh sent white-hot lightning racing through your veins; the phone slipped from your grip, falling with a clunk onto the desk as your fingers tangled in his hair and he lifted one of your knees over his shoulder.

"Okay, I'm hanging up now! I already know you're getting laid but I don't need to hear it." Mason's loud grumble drifted up through the speaker and if you weren't so preoccupied with the boy between your thighs doing some downright wicked things to you with his mouth, you might've noticed that your brother didn't actually sound that grumpy before he ended the call and your phone's screen went dark, right as you lost control of your voice.

"Fuck me."

"Funny, I thought that's what I was doing?" You felt more than heard his response against you and a shiver ran down your spine when his bright blue eyes flicked up to met yours in the dim light of the office.

"You know what I meant, Maybank."

"Trust me, Y/L/N, I know. Question is: where do you want me?"

You tugged on his hair, grinning wolfishly at the way his eyes fluttered closed and a low moan rose from his throat. "Everywhere in this damn room, starting right here."

"I was hoping you’d say that.”

- Back at the party, Mason looked up and met Sarah's gaze, both of her eyebrows raised expectantly as she asked, "Well?"

He took his time slipping his phone back into his pocket before giving her a quick nod, grinning triumphantly when she immediately burst into gleeful giggles.

"Yes! I just knew they had a thing for each other! Mortal enemies, my ass."

"I think that was the very first time in my sister's life that she didn't give a shit about the contest." Mason said and reached over to snag a cookie from her plate, chuckling when she pushed his hand away from the chocolate chip ones and toward the peanut butter. "We couldn't have pulled this off without you. I mean, making sure they showed up in matching costumes every year? Genius, Sarah. Absolutely genius."

The blonde girl grabbed her own cookie with a wink. "Think they'll ever figure it out?"

Your brother just threw his head back and laughed. "I hope not! I wanna save that story for my best man speech at their wedding."

taglist: @sinkbeneathwaves @cordeliascrown @maysbanks @jjpogueprincess @jiaraendgame @alexa-playafricabytoto @sexualparkour @agirlwholovescoffee

#brickswritingchallenge #outer banks #jj maybank #obx fic #jj maybank x reader #jj maybank x you #jj maybank x y/n #outer banks imagine #obx imagine #obx x reader #jj maybank imagine #jj maybank fic #obx fanfic

405 notes · View notes