leon has steady nerves. he works well under pressure. runs toward fires instead of away, which is maybe why it’s so easy to take care of you: if a meltdown were a girl, it’d be you. shaky all the time, miserable, slow to tears but quick to bitting at your fingertips or digging fingernails into your palm. leon was once attacked with an ax, a pitchfork, and a chainsaw in quick succession—your silver-lined eyes don’t perturb him.
he probably reacts wrongly to you for a long time before he learns what you need. tells you not to cry, don’t get upset, rubs your arm some until the tears are gone and lends you whatever distraction you’d like to borrow, then wonders why you take time to get better afterwards. telling you not to cry isn’t as affective as a quiet, hey, i don’t like seeing you in tears, do i? rubbing your arm is half a cure, squeezing you tight to his chest is what really works. and it’s more for him than you when he rubs his nose into your temple and smells your skin in these moments. shaky girl, tender girl, always in need of a soft touch.
he gets older and you get steadier, but the soft touch remains. it’s a little unlike him, he finds that he talks to you with gentleness pre-written into his tone. baby, sweet girl, don’t make yourself sick. you look at him through tears and apologise for all the fuss, and leon nudges your face with the backs of his fingers, stroking a slow path down your cheek. you’re lovely when you cry, but better when your lips flick into a soft smile and your eyes flutter closed. he draws a curve along to your chin.
What if it was Ford who began with enmeshment? What if he was stuck to the hip to Stanley as a kid, said things like "I wouldnt have done it without you" and accidentally put in the idea and responsibility into lil Stan's head that he needed to be there for Ford? What then?
Can you imagine? The thing you grew up to believe, the thing that both of you grew up to believe, was suddenly broken? Ford feels free... Stan does not.
Stan feels like he is failing Ford everytime he is upset or hurt, everytime he can't solve a problem for his brother and now his whole world view his being turned upside down and flipped about. How can he even function?
They’ve got ways to tell which leading frog they generally follow. Flowers are Attila’s group, more relaxed clothing are Genghis, and generally “looks sweet, could actually kill you” is Razz’ group.
Napoleon is too young for his own group... for now.
I'm being so fr right now: If you have not read the one within the villainess, you should.
You can literally read it all for free on mangadex if you don't have the funds to buy a real volume. It's so incredibly good-- an amazing twist on the villainess genre set in an incredible and fascinating fantasy setting filled with so many lovable characters. Our main character is sooo fun to watch and so deeply fucked in the head but also seemingly healthy about it...? Which is just. So interesting to watch. I love my girlboss !!!
The art is spectacular and ranges from pannels like this
To this
Literally within the first 2 chapters btw. And yes, the art only gets better and more striking from here. And this is our main character, to be clear <3
(and one of my favorite main characters to watch in action in manga/anime in general, girl is always up to something and we just get to watch the shenanigans)
Anyways if that isn't enough to convince you, you should definitely consider reading specifically for Thorne and Remilia's dynamic. Their interactions are consistently either the funniest thing ever to watch, or very genuine and interesting-- and we get to see them at least every few chapters, so their ongoing friendship is just. Amazing and constantly there, somewhere in the background.
Thorne specifically is so funny tbh, he is THE reaction guy in the corner going "what the fuck is happening" and he is everything to me. I am obsessed w this guy and you should be too !! Read this manga for him if nothing else, trust me, he's worth it
The manga is set to get an anime in 2027, so you should for sure consider picking up the manga (again, you can read it for free on mangadex if you cant buy a copy !!!)
It's only 28 chapters, every single chapter being genuinely so fun, top to bottom, so you can for sure read it in a single afternoon. Which you should definitely consider doing because it's great <3
I wanted to write this a little while back but just got the urge now - Robin!Eve and therapy boyfriend Mark, up on a rooftop xD
When Mark finds Eve up on the roof, he knows it’s a bad moment just from how she’s sat.
She’s hunched forward, face pressed to her knees and arms wrapped over her head. He can see one of her hands gripping at the hoodie sleeve - his softest Seance Dog one that’s really more hers than his by now - and her foot is tapping against the roof. One two three four, the same frantic beat and pause in between he’s felt tapped to his skin hundreds of times.
She isn’t wearing her headphones or goggles, so he ducks back inside to grab them from the desk. A blanket too, just in case she doesn’t want him touching her without another layer in between, and…what else…The gloves? He stuffs those in his pocket, and zips back outside.
What he really wants to do is immediately hug her, but he doesn’t know if that’ll help this time.
It does sometimes. It can be frustrating trying to guess, getting it wrong and feeling awful about it. But it’d be worse to give up or not try at all, and she’s told him that he helps. So Mark will keep doing it instead of leaving her alone, like he used to worry would be the better option.
“Hey,” he says softly, sitting down next to her, but not touching yet. She doesn’t flinch at the sound of his voice, and her foot stops tapping, which is a good sign. “I’ve got your headphones. Do you want them on?”
He waits, gnawing on the inside of his cheek and being careful not to fidget.
She says when she gets overwhelmed, and her senses go haywire - worse than usual - she’s extremely aware of any movement near her. Like, even with how she’s hiding her face now, she’ll be able to feel all his atoms and stuff shifting about, so. The least he can do is sit still.
Finally, her fingers loosen the grip on the sleeve, and her index finger taps twice.
“Okay, that’s a no to headphones,” he says lightly, keeping his voice down but now he knows she’s good with him speaking - wants to hear him talk, even - he feels a lot more confident. “What about your goggles?”
It’s dark out, the sky too cloudy for many stars to make it through. Yesterday they spent ages messing with the clouds. Mark can’t, like, manipulate the water molecules and create whatever shapes he feels like, but he can fly around until some weird and cool clouds form, which is almost as good.
(It’s nowhere near as good, but Eve clapped for his efforts. He accused her of being sarcastic, but she- set him straight on that. Thoroughly.
Mid-air makeouts are super convincing, and they’ve done it enough times that he doesn’t really think much about catching himself early when they drop anymore. Eve’s right; it’s a thrill to be dumb and reckless with it, playing chicken on who’ll actually grab them out of the fall in time.)
It’s maybe a minute or so before Eve’s arms pull back from over her head. Mark takes his cue, loosening the strap of the goggles so they go easily on, and when she lifts her face up from her knees, he guides the lenses over her eyes.
It’s actually more of a visor, the material looking metallic even though it’s made of this soft, flexible stuff Eve invented because she’s a genius. They don’t block her powers like he used to think; this one just adds some ‘white noise’ over how she sees atoms and everything, so it doesn’t bother her as much. Uh, ‘dulls the temptation’, she said.
Maybe he should be more freaked out that Eve could take him apart down to his, like, electrons. But she told him about all this back when they first started dating - claimed he deserves a fair warning, like he wasn’t so gone on her it isn’t even funny (except to their asshole friends) - so it’s just their normal, really?
And, y’know. Kiiiind of sexy.
Especially when he knows he’s her favourite structure. She explained that part when they were friends - said he’s interesting, special, and no wonder he got a crush so fast (he was already crushing by then). He’d just noticed her staring sometimes, and it was probably weird to be more flattered once he knew the real reason why, instead of less.
Today’s obviously a day she needs to not see anything, even him. So he quickly but carefully tightens the strap up to hold the visor in place. He wants to move her hair out from under the sides, but he isn’t sure yet how okay she’ll be with touch. Yeah, she let him put the goggles on, but there’s stages and backtracking and, it isn’t the same every time. He won’t rush her.
But he can’t deny feeling really fucking happy when she scoots closer to him on the roof, and grasps onto the front of his shirt.
It’s a definite go ahead to wrap his arms around her and Mark doesn’t waste time. He pulls her onto his lap too, because she’s said before that when she does want contact with him, it helps not touching other things - like the roof. Holding her this way means it’s just him, and when she presses her cheek to his chest - over his heart - it lets him know this is the right move.
It means he can fix her hair too, at least on one side. It’s a little greasy, probably made worse by Atom Eve being so busy today. She likely won’t want a shower on a night like this, but there should be a new bottle of the dry shampoo in the bathroom if she’s feeling gross from it. At least, he’s pretty sure he grabbed some when they went grocery shopping last week.
He talks quietly about that - and whatever else comes to mind, from the Seance Dog figurine he really needs her to talk him out of buying since it’s definitely overpriced, to their plans to meet with the Guardians tomorrow for team training - until she’s ready to go inside. If it takes all night, it wouldn’t be the first time and…
He said he’d do anything for her. He meant it, and this? As much as it sucks that she has to go through feeling so awful, Mark’s really glad he can be the one who helps her.
