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ceruleanchillin · 5 months

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But is she really yours? (141 x Reader)

Note(s) -

It's long, so be warned.

The guys are doing a little of what we like to call Dirty Mackin, and yes, I think this is something they’d all do in their own way.

Still working on getting those accents to come through, while not stepping into cringe/wrong territory.

I apologize, this is a very messy format (borderline stream of consciousness), and I’m trying to figure out a cleaner way to do this. I hope it doesn’t hurt the reading experience.

And I am the only one who kinda wants to see the reverse scenario, where Reader tries to get the guys away from their trash gfs? 👀Thanks to @bunnyreaper for the idea, it wrote itself as I read that.

Simon:

Annoying. That was the first thing Simon thought of you. So of course you had to work at the only cafe near his flat that made tea the way he liked.

You were always on your phone, arguing with someone (he guessed a boyfriend), and he hated getting stuck at your register. The calls clearly distressed you, and he didn’t know why you kept taking them. Especially on the job.

You’d gotten his order wrong more times than he could count, and you were always having to turn around and ask him to repeat the things he wanted. It got to the point where he waited until the other barista’s line was open.

Unfortunately, other customers had done the same, and it was causing a backup.

Then there was the day. His day started as it always did on his off time. The three S’s, and then he was at the gym to get his time in when he knew it was mostly empty. Then finally, his black tea.

He sighed, mentally preparing himself for the wait before he entered. As expected, there was a line.

You were there, and you appeared to be deeply engaged in conversation with the only person at your counter.

He was surprised to see you had a customer. ‘Must not be a regular.’

As he got closer to the counter, he could overhear the whispered argument. The man wasn’t a customer at all, he presumed he was the boyfriend from the phone calls. Based on the things the two of you were saying, that made the most sense.

‘Great. Getting the live version today.’ Simon had to wonder how you kept this job. Were you the boss's daughter? Did you own a share? Could he steal enough of the signature black tea blend and go into hiding until he had to ship out again?

You looked exasperated, and your co-worker stepped over to your side, coming to your aid.

“Oh for fuck’s sake.” Simon groaned, realizing the wait would be longer.

He stepped outside for a cigarette, making the mental decision that if by the time he was done with it there was still a line, he would forgo his drink that day.

He chose the alley on the side of the shop, not liking the openness of the sidewalk, and staked out against the opposite building’s wall.

He was halfway past the tip of his cigarette when the side door he’d been eyeing warily opened, and out came you.

You looked frustrated, anxious, and maybe a little embarrassed. He didn’t think you noticed him, instead, walking over to the dumpster and kicking it, hard. It sent a loud, tinny groan echoing through the alley. He narrowed his eyes, feeling that itch of frustration under his skin.

You noticed him finally, and stopped angrily muttering to yourself. Instead, you started talking to him. It was mostly an uninterrupted stream of dialogue for two minutes straight (he timed it), before he could finally understand you.

“Mandatory break! That’s the second one this week, can you believe that?”

He started to say yes, and that he hoped the third one won you a prize: getting fired. He kept his mouth shut though.

“It’s not even me, it’s my boyfriend. He means well, but he just…I don’t know. I don’t know anymore.” You were searching for something in your apron, but he couldn’t tell what, out of the corner of his eye.

Simon flexed his fingers, eyes narrowing until the shop’s logo mural was a blur. You found it, and walked closer to him until he turned both eyes to you.

“Can I get a light?” You gestured with the unlit cigarette between your fingers to the one burning between his lips.

“Bloody. Fuckin’. Hell, Bird! S’not enough you keep half the fuckin’ place backed up on a good day, but then you prance your arse out here to annoy me some fuckin’ more? Fuck off.” He jabbed his pointer finger at the door you’d come out of.

The alley echoed his baritone, and somehow made his outburst sharper.

You stared at him like he’d taken his head off, instead of having bitten off yours. Eyes wide, bottom lip trembling, he thought you might cry, and he began to feel guilt grow in the pit of his stomach. He’d forgotten, in the midst of you stirring up similar agitation, that he wasn’t on base talking to some recruit dumped on him.

You did cry, but once you started talking, he suspected it was more due to anger. “Fuck you! You fuck off, I work here!”

He ignored the small voice telling him ‘stop’, and fired back. “Work?” He snorted. “Real fuckin’ rich that is. Don’t confuse work with your million mandatory breaks.”

You clenched your fists, eyes wild with adrenaline and voice shrill with anger. “Go to hell. You’re just some freak in an alley who can’t remember when Halloween is. You don’t know me.”

You angrily wiped at your tears to no avail, as more quickly took their place, and then you started sobbing.

Simon sighed, feeling like shit and wishing he’d held it together just a little more. “Alright. Alright. ‘Nuff of that now.”

“I’m not crying *hic* because of you…” you huffed, trying to get your voice under control. “Just go back to your cigarette. I hope you suck it up and *hic* choke!”

He chuckled, you were the first person in a while who’d lashed back out at his harsh disposition. At least to his face. “Was uglier than I should’ve been, but won’t pretend there wasn’t some truth to it.”

“You’re an asshole.”

“You’re a shit barista, wanna form a band?” His lips quirked into a smirk around his near-stub cigarette.

For a beat there was silence, until the two of you burst into laughter. Yours a raucous peal of giggles, and his, raspy chuckles.

“Well, you earned that light. Got more balls then a lot of soldiers I know.”

The two of you stayed in that alley for thirty minutes just riffing off different topics. It ended with Simon giving you the friendly (read: rough) advice to not let your boyfriend cost you your job.

That’s not how he saw his day going. Having the most interesting conversation he’d had in a while with the woman who annoyed the piss out of him for the better part of his leave.

You were no longer annoying, you’d been upgraded to interesting, and that was the second thing Simon thought about you.

After your talk in the alley, Simon was pleasantly surprised to find that you’d taken his advice and stepped your skills up. It turned out, you were distracted by your boyfriend, but Simon had come to see why. He was obsessed with knowing where you were, and if you were thinking of him, and wondering if he should drop by.

Simon felt more guilt for being so impatient, and he decided no matter what, he would pick your line. That was the only reason too. It certainly wasn’t because he couldn’t stop thinking about you after your last conversation.

Sometimes you would take your breaks with him now, exhibiting that same forward nature from the alley, but it no longer annoyed him. He’d tease you about whether or not that break was mandatory, but he looked forward to it all the same.

You talked about anything and everything, from where you were from, to Simon having to explain the delicate ins and outs of football to you. (He was pretty sure you were pushing him to have a heart attack by pretending you forgot a different detail every time you talked).

It was an unstated, but mutually understood, thing that your time together fulfilled something missing for both of you. For him it was cutting into his habit of cutting off socialization until he was back on base or a mission, and for you, it was a break from your relationship.

He liked to think that you looked forward to your talks as much as he did, if your expression every time you saw him was an indicator.

Unlike him, you were an open book, so you did most of the talking. Simon soaked up everything you told him, filing it away. You were funny, and fascinating.

On his end, he was careful about some of what he shared, and nervous about other things. He had more dark or restricted anecdotes than humourous or endearing ones, and he didn’t want to bring you down. After all, you had more than enough of that to deal with.

The boyfriend. He was a nightmare of obsession and insecurity. It was perhaps your fourth break-hangout that Simon saw it completely for himself. He’d all but dragged you out of your seat, which made Simon rise from his so quickly, it almost toppled over behind him. He wasn’t unaware of his size, nor was he afraid to use it on the shorter man, but you assured him it was fine until he sat down.

Your boyfriend was panicking, wondering why you were keeping someone like him company. He wanted to know what it meant for the two of you, and Simon hated seeing you in an endless loop of begging the pathetic prick to believe you loved him. All of your humor and your cute little habits disappeared as he forced you to become a helicopter girlfriend, concerned only with his fears.

Simon decided then he would sway you away from him. He didn’t deserve you, and Simon may not have known you long, but he couldn’t stand to see you withering under him and his emotional blackmail. No one ever accused Simon of being sane.

You would be his, and that was the third thing Simon thought about you.

If he said so himself, he was slick about it. He’d forgotten about the amount of energy it took to pursue a relationship with someone, and why he limited his romantic interactions to hookups with women he found interesting.

You weren’t just interesting, he was fully infatuated with you by the time he started to actively move towards getting you away from that neurotic dumpster. You were worth the effort.

It started with seeing you outside of the cafe in a way that seemed natural. He thought about it for a while, before he settled on inviting you to a football game. He couldn’t believe he’d worried that you’d say no, your ‘yes’ came out before he was even done asking.

You were impressed with his timing, confessing that the night before, your boyfriend had thoroughly embarrassed you at a party, and you needed a fun day.

Simon had smiled tightly all through your hurried explanation that everything was fine, and that he had apologized once you got home with him.

The day of the game, you were absolutely adorable when he picked you up. Giddily introducing him to your roommate. She eyed him with approval, and even congratulated you for trading up.

Before you could correct her, he slipped in his answer. “That remains to be seen. Depends on if she embarrasses me at the game.”

You snorted, launching into that now familiar peal of giggles. “I promise I won’t. Now, which of these soccer teams is yours again? The Manfordshire Mermaids?”

“You wanna ride there on the roof?”

The trip was a better investment than he thought. You were enthralled with what was going on, the hype of the crowd, the skill of the players, and just being there in person. However, you had to rely on him to translate this new world to you, and that left you literally clinging to him in interest. Simon was your whole world in that stadium, and he locked that feeling down tightly for motivation.

Step one had gone off without a hitch, and now it was on to step two.

Outings with you became a series. Simon encouraged as many as possible in order to trigger the response he wanted.

He knew it wouldn’t be long until your boyfriend started getting antsy, and insecure again. You were going out twice as much as you had before you started hanging out with Simon outside of the cafe.

To push the matter, Simon told you his work schedule was getting hectic. It was a half truth, the training period before the announcement of a deployment had commenced, and Simon planned on having a girlfriend to come home to this time. Namely you.

He used the excuse to create later meetups. Dinners, movies, wandering the street and stumbling into things to do. All the while getting you hooked on his touch. Simon wasn’t a touchy-feely person by nature, and this was something everyone who knew him picked up on quickly. You picked up on it too, but he wanted to touch you. He didn’t though, at least not often.

Starting off with little touches that could be confused as an accident, he increased the pressure but kept the frequency low so you became addicted to his rare touches. He wanted you to feel special that someone like him indulged you in that way, so that you’d seek out more, even though HE was the one who felt blessed every time he felt your skin on his.

When you were together, he made sure things were about you. He didn’t imagine your boyfriend left much room for that with his paranoia, but he wanted to show you what you were in for once you were together.

One night, Simon kept you out later than usual. He’d stayed away from you for two weeks, which wasn’t hard, work was starting to pick up. He could’ve carved out a day or two though, but he wanted to make you crave his time like he did yours.

It worked. He scheduled a late dinner at an upscale restaurant, letting you fill him in on all that he missed. Namely, you missed being with him. You weren’t the type to keep your feelings to yourself, and you’d inevitably vented to your boyfriend about missing your friend. He didn’t like that label at all, but he liked what would come from your actions.

Periodically throughout the dinner, your phone rang, increasing in frequency as the night wore on.

You had to excuse yourself multiple times, and Simon pretended to be annoyed. In reality, he anticipated that. Each time the phone rang, you cringed and looked at him apologetically.

On what had to be the tenth time, Simon said. “Go on then, run off to pamper the pathetic bastard. Powder his arse too this time.”

Your face screwed up in objection to his barbed words. “He’s just worried…”

He shrugged. “Don’t owe me an explanation lovie. S’just a mystery why you’re in such a rush to be a nursemaid.”

Rolling your eyes, you stood up from the table. “I’m in a rush to be a good girlfriend thank you. Stop being an ass, I’ll be back in a minute.”

“S’go,” he downed the last of his bourbon before he pulled his wallet from his pocket. “I’ll pay the tab and take you home.”

“What? We’re supposed to have dessert, and then maybe a movie.”

Simon watched your distressed body language and expression with mild amusement, and he was proud of being able to hide it, even though he’d forgone his mask that night. “You’ve gotta tuck in your kid. S’not on me you won’t date a man.”

You pouted and sat back down. “If I put my phone away, you put your wallet away. You promised me dessert.”

He smirked, refusing to hide it now. This was the first time, since he’d met you, that you’d ignored your boyfriend, and it said a lot.

You did it once, so Simon was able to turn it into a habit. Your boyfriend looked increasingly unhinged as Simon made sure you starved him of your attention.

The ugly voicemails and text messages began soon after. He didn’t like that at all, and he had to remind himself the time to deal with your boyfriend would come, but he did appreciate that you were becoming less tolerant of him.

Every time you returned to Simon after having to soothe your boyfriend’s ego, and stop his tantrums, Simon made your life easier. He worshiped you in subtle ways, reminding you of what a man was, compared to a child.

There was guilt on your part, but it felt so good to be taken care of for once. To not have to worry about Simon bursting into a fit of insecurity that made you completely responsible for his feelings, and left little to no room for anything else.

When he touched you, it lit your nerve endings on fire. You knew that the touches were bordering on inappropriate, since you were still taken, but you also knew that your brain went numb with good vibrations with even just a brush of his fingertips.

Simon still kept it light, almost questionable as to whether it even happened, and you finally began to seek it out. Wearing backless tops so that his fingertips would brush your bare skin, sitting next to him in diner booths so a thick thigh was always brushing your own, going for things in high places so he’d steady you by your waist.

He never seemed to miss a beat on when and where to touch you, but it wasn’t enough.

The breaking point came when he invited you to a dinner Price was holding as a goodbye to civilian life until next leave. The verbal invitation was the most valuable thing to you in a while. Not only because you were increasingly becoming addicted to him, but because for someone like Simon to invite you into that part of his life, it meant that he was in deep with you too.

All of Simon’s friends were funny, inviting, and very taken by you. They were so polite to you, complimenting you, and telling you as much as they could about their work, trying to impress you.

You were having fun trying to keep up, but you got the impression that Simon inviting a woman he was seeing to meet them was a new thing, and they didn’t know the protocol.

You were surprised to find he went by Ghost in his field, and they were unused to hearing Simon. You shared how the two of you met, and how polite he wasn’t in your first conversation, and they weren’t surprised.

You were enjoying your time with them, the conversation never stopped, and you would venture to say Simon looked fond at times. Though, as each man became more flirtatious, his expression would change. It became an unspoken game between you and his team to try and make him speak up about it. He didn’t take the bait.

Then came the topic of your boyfriend.

“Come now love, you’re a smart girl. Why do you wanna waste your time with that bellend?” - Price

“I don’t ken what the situation here is, but if Ghost and the other one don’t appreciate you, I promise I will.” Soap

“I had a girl once, who used to follow me in her friend’s car, sit outside my apartment, and call me from different phones to test me. You’re fit as hell love, dump him.” - Gaz

It was a little embarrassing, and you were slightly annoyed that Simon had told them, but your mind kept shortening it to ‘he talked about me to his team.’

During dinner, you excused yourself to the bathroom. While you were washing your hands, Simon slipped into the room, making you jump.

Your eyes met in the mirror, where Simon just glared.

“Have fun with the boys, bird?”

“Have fun broadcasting my business?” You raised an eyebrow, but your tone held no anger to it.

Simon chuckled, locking the door. “S’not my business is it?”

You swallowed hard, shaking your head slowly.

He trapped you between the sink and himself, hands locking onto the counter on either side of you.

“Let’s fix that.” His lips pressed to the pulse point on the side of your neck, speaking his command against it. “Get rid of him lovie, and come home where you belong.”

You tried to do just that, but for the first time that you could recall, your boyfriend wasn’t taking your calls.

Simon watched you while he packed, tucked beneath his sheets where you belonged, bare. It’d been a week since you took that next step in his captain’s guest bathroom, and you’d been trying to inform your ex he was now in fact, your ex.

You gingerly rolled over to face him, mindful of all the reminders that he loved you he left your body. “Si, he’s still not picking up. I don’t want to do it over the phone, but…”

“Don’t get worked up. Maybe he got the message already...”

Kyle:

He’d re-visited Chicago on his downtime, and met you in a club. Unknown to him at the time, your boyfriend had stood you up for the third time that month, and you decided not to waste the night. It’d made you so free and enthralling to watch, he couldn’t look away.

Gaz spent the entire night with you, glad he’d ignored the jet lag, even when you took him to all the best after-hours spots.

The only problem was your boyfriend, Keith, who Gaz personally believed formed in the bottom of a toilet, and sought life elsewhere. His team thought he was delusional, and/or giving you too much thought.

“You hitting the States again then? Don’t get in the kind of trouble that you can’t get out of because you’re jealous.” - Price

“Garrick! Get your fuckin’ head off your cock, and on the exercise, before I shove my boot down your throat!” - Ghost (after he fumbled a training exercise twice)

Except for Soap, Soap backed his delusions %1,000. “She let you charge your phone when hers needed it more? That’s wedding bells lad, and I wanna be best man.”

Then there was the relentless teasing every time he spent his leave with you, but Gaz didn’t care. He couldn’t bother being embarrassed when you were waiting for him. Your grin was for him, your excited laughter was for him, and your hug was for him. The one he always held longer than friends do, his heart racing when you relaxed in his hold. Smirking when he felt your nose brush over chest quickly. You were sheepish when he grinned down at you, realizing what you were doing.

You’d gotten him cologne on his first (date) daytime hangout with you. You’d been strolling through the mall, Gaz trying to make you forget about the ugly scene he’d walked into between you and your boyfriend when he arrived at your place.

You’d been so sad, and it didn’t suit you at all. He just wanted to take you out of that environment, and let your real-self blossom again.

His hand brushed with yours, pinkies locking and unlocking so he could feel his stomach dip again and again.

He was able to slowly bring you back, into a little world of inside jokes and friendly culture clashes. Gaz fully had you back by the time he stopped in front of an expensive looking fragrance shop and said:

“You know what? I need a new aftershave, but I’m clueless about shopping for that stuff.”

“Uh, aftershave?” you’d looked puzzled, peering into the store window. “Do they even sell that here?”

He let out a confused laugh, pointing at the bottles on the glass shelf. “We’re looking at it, so I’d guess yes.”

“You mean cologne?” you gave him your first real smile since you’d gotten there, and Gaz forgave yet another correction in favor of it.

“Get in here, and help me find an aftershave.”

He proposed that you guys find the perfect scent for the other and buy it as a gift. The two of you spent the better part of thirty minutes teasing and sniffing each other. Every time Gaz lifted a part of your arm or wrist to his nose, he let his lips brush across your skin accidentally.

“Kyyylee..” you whined every time, making him stir in the right places at the wrong time.

Eventually you both settled on something for the other, but Kyle slyly placed himself in the position of paying for both. The thought of you paying never having been a real thing in his mind.

“You’ll get it next time, love.”

He treasured that scent, you’d specifically picked it out for him, and he’d savored the look you gave him when you’d finally found it. Now he was in front of you again.

“Yeah, it’s the one you bought me. Did me a good turn with that. I get compliments like they get paid to give ‘em.”

“Who’s complimenting you?” you asked, your wince revealing it’d probably come out sharper than you meant for it to.

Gaz didn’t mind, he liked you as jealous as he was.

He chuckled, reaching out to squeeze your hand. “Just..other girls with good taste.”

Your pout and sharp head turn went right on display in the mental gallery he had of you. He couldn’t resist teasing you again.

“Are you wearing the one I picked.” he leaned down hovering just over your neck where he knew you could feel the soft puffs of breath on your neck. He heard your breath hitch when he hummed, confirming that you were.

“I am, and don’t worry about who’s complimenting it, since you have sooo many of your own.”

Gaz laughed as you yanked him after you with a huff. If he was delusional, you weren’t helping.

This visit was going how he imagined it, and he intended to end it exactly that way too. Finally getting that bastard out of a picture he should’ve never been a part of.

When clubbing, Kyle kept you close. You both loved to dance, and every song that came on seemed out to prove that your bodies were built to fit together like a puzzle.

He took an interest in your life, wanting to see what you got up to when he wasn’t there. You’d resisted, thinking it’d bore him. It did not.

He enjoyed meeting your co-workers, and eating at the cafe you loved a block from your job. You even took him to spend an afternoon with your family. Every time he scored a point with them, you gave him this dreamy expression he was determined to see for the rest of his life.

When he suggested making plans with your friends, so they didn’t feel like you were ignoring them while he was there, you were thrilled at how considerate he was, and he got the pleasure of overhearing you hype him up to your friends while you invited them out to do something.

It was you blocking your girlfriends every time one of them tried to push the flirtation with him too far, that let him know it was time.

He decided he would make his move when the two of you were having a movie night at your place. It wasn’t ideal, because that piece of shit was lingering around the place. Kyle hated that you lived together, but wouldn’t let that interfere. He had work to do.

“Kyyyleee.” you giggled, dragging his name out the way he loved when he ran a finger down your cheek to your neck, complimenting your skin.

“Just admiring your skin routine. You’ve gotta share.”

Or, when he shivered, and you instinctively extended your blanket to him. He took it without question, trying not to think about all of the things you could do under a shared blanket. Although, your boyfriend walking in and out of the room, pretending he had things to get out of the kitchen, made the thought more enticing.

You’d invited him to watch in earnest, and he’d just cut you down in a way that made Kyle quickly remind him he was in your apartment, because he’d lost his job, and had nowhere else to go. That you’d sweetly taken him in, and that he should remember that.

He enjoyed kicking him down while raising you up.

Your boyfriend finally just sat at the kitchen table in the dark, fuming. The living room was visible to him from there, but Kyle was glad to have him as an audience to him reminding you of your worth.

You two exchanged snacks and commentary, easily ignoring the unwanted third party.

“No offense love, but beer here is straight piss.”

You laughed, stealing one of the cookies left on his plate. “Beer tastes like that in general.”

“How would you know? You’ve never been anywhere.” your boyfriend snapped at you nastily, from where he’d been glaring at the two of you for an hour. “And why don't you go back to jolly old England if you hate it so much?”

Gaz lazily rolled his head in his direction, body language shouting how much he didn’t respect him. “Mate, you’re being a right prick right now. It’s not like you bought the beer, or anything else you’ve been shoving in that hole.”

Your boyfriend leapt to his feet, fast enough to knock over the chair. “Come over here and repeat that teacup.”

“Blud, that’s not what you want.”

“Kyle don’t, he’s just drunk and embarrassed. Ignore him when he’s like this.” you quickly passed a hand over the back of his, but he just gave you a soft smile instead.

“That’s his problem, he embarrassed himself. Why don’t you go in the back and find something to do.” He was so effortlessly dismissive, that your boyfriend mistook this for being unprepared to fight.

Kyle’s one rule for his plan was that he wouldn’t physically handle your boyfriend unless he got physical with you. He’d planned to show you how you should be loved, and let a smart girl like you do the rest. That went out the window.

He kept it clean, the other man was stocky, but didn’t stand a chance against his training. If you hadn’t been there, he might’ve taken it further, grinding his hatred of him into harsher blows. Instead, he gave him quick, almost surgically effective, blows to put him down. He was too intoxicated and unskilled to retaliate.

“See, he just needed a nap.” Gaz tried to lighten the mood.

“I’m so embarrassed,” you whispered. “I don’t know why he’s always like this now. He didn’t use to be. I just want this to stop.”

Kyle shushed you, crossing the room to pull you into his arms. “You don’t have to be embarrassed. You’ve been dealing with this for too long.”

“I’m so tired.” you admitted, clutching his soft shirt, and inhaling his scent (your scent, that you gave him) that made your eyes roll back in your head. He was so solid, warm, and a darker word popped into your mind, ‘mine.’

“You’ve been so good to everyone, too good. Let me take care of you.” he whispered, hands roaming from your lower back to cup your ass.

He heard the hybrid of a whimper-moan, and it had him at attention before you were done.

“I’d be just like him…” you trailed off weakly.

“That’s not possible.” He lowered his lips to yours, giving you the first kiss from him that couldn’t possibly be mistaken as platonic. You kissed back without any hesitation, not even willing to pull away when he started to lead you to the back. To your room.

Hate him as he did, Gaz noted somewhere in his mind how dark the scenario was. The location, and situation, in which he was about to fulfill the second-to-last step of his plan was kind of fucked.

He cupped your jaw in both hands,“Babe…we can go back to my room at the hotel.”

He didn’t want to. He wanted to erase any trace of him here, starting in your room. He wanted you everywhere he could have you in the apartment, and he wanted him to come to just enough to hear it.

“Makes no sense. Too far. Here.” you murmured, pupils blown wide.

Gaz didn’t need to be told twice. You were barely able to string a sentence together, and it was top three one of the hottest things he’d ever heard.

“Yes ma'am.”

Kyle didn’t doubt you’d complete the final step in the morning, and officially dump the forgotten man on the floor.

Johnny:

You and Johnny met through social media. He thought you were gorgeous and, being John “Soap” MacTavish, couldn’t leave your profile without letting you know. Though he threw in some playful critique.

You responded with a thanks, and a challenge for him to do the picture better. It resulted in a months-long photo battle that quickly became a real friendship.

Late phone calls, video calls, and constant strings of texting built a whole world between the two of you.

You were the highlight of his day sometimes, especially when he’d been gone awhile. You helped him reconnect with the world after shutting it out to defend it.

The only problem was your boyfriend. Johnny prided himself on being able to get along with all kinds of people. It was just in his nature. Hate was so rarely felt by him, that he always had trouble identifying it when he felt it.

He felt hate for your boyfriend, and it didn’t take him long to figure that out. He thought he didn’t deserve you. He was always talking to you reckless, like he didn’t have the most beautiful woman in the world in his life. Johnny wouldn’t talk to you like that, he wouldn’t have time to even consider it for all the worshiping of you he’d be doing.

He’d cheated, only to make you feel like that was on you, and you took him back.

When Johnny heard your pained sobs for the first time, he’d been halfway through texting Simon to ask for help with a dark favor before he was able to talk himself down.

It was then Johnny realized how much you’d come to mean to him, and that only made him hate your boyfriend more.

Your conversations ranged from anything to everything, but they always ended with you venting, and Johnny comforting. He didn’t mind it, in fact, most times he initiated it.

He realized, he must mean a good deal to you too, because you got all your comfort from him. Johnny’s thoughts mattered to you, and you sought his advice all the time. He hated what for, but he loved that you did.

“He didn’t even like the dress Johnny. I told him you thought of it, and he accused me of wanting to wear it for you.” your screen shook violently as you stomped into your bedroom, sending said garment sailing through the air.

“M’sorry to hear that. I meant what I said when you showed it to me in the shop. Any guy that doesn’t lose it to you in that dress deserves to be committed.”

You sniffed, choking out a humorless chuckle. “I’m glad you liked it at least.”

“Oh, you don’t ken how much sweetheart. In fact, put it on for me again.”

Six months into the friendship, he convinced you to come visit him in Scotland. You’d been having more trouble with your boyfriend than usual, living with him didn’t exactly give you a lot of places to take a breather.

Once Johnny confirmed he hadn’t hurt you physically, he’d switched to coaxing you into coming to see him for a couple of weeks.

“C’mon bonnie, I’ve been stateside more times than I can count. You haven’t been here once.” He watched you do your bedtime routine, as the sun came up in the windows behind him.

He loved how despite being countries away, the moment felt as intimate as if you were with him. In his home, getting ready to come to bed with him. Except if you were, he’d tell you not to bother brushing your hair. You’d just have to do it again later.

You laughed as you ran a comb through your hair. “It’s not like you came here for me Johnny. We didn’t even know each other the last time you were here.”

“So…you’ll return the favor later. Be my pretty tour guide.”

You wound up in Scotland barely a week later. A suitcase full of clothes haphazardly thrown into it.

“I don’t even know what I packed, it's a mess!”

Cue Johnny, who can’t quit hugging you, and they feel less and less platonic. “Don’t worry ‘bout it bon. I’ll find somewhere for it all to go.”

Somewhere turns out to be designated drawers and shelves, that he’d cleared in advance, for your clothes and bath products. Johnny putting them away himself like the simp for you he is. All the while distracting you from stating how you wouldn’t be there long, and you don’t need all that space.

“We’ll see.”

Johnny had been coaxing less and less innocent behaviors out of you all week, and just worshiping you when he wasn’t. You were a worked up hybrid of desperation, and restored self-confidence. It was addictive, and you started to lean into Johnny’s touches and kisses. You pretended you didn’t hear his murmured dirty statements so he’d have to try again and again.

It came to a head when you finally accepted a video call from your pathetic boyfriend.

You were in Johnny’s living room, wearing his favorite football jersey, with him behind you, absolutely refusing to make himself scarce. You didn’t want to take the call anyway, but Johnny convinced you it’d be good for closure.

Your boyfriend started going off, yelling about how you didn’t respect him or your relationship, and demanding that ‘you bring your ass home’.

“The thing of it is lad, there’s not really anything about this relationship to respect.” Johnny slipped around to your side, tilting your head up to press his lips to yours.

You hummed in surprise, but all of his gentle touches and sweet kisses over the week had you pliant. You immediately responded, squeezing his arm when he slipped his tongue into your mouth as a tease.

He pulled away, looking way too smug, and looking all the more impossibly-handsome for it. “Say bye to your ex-boyfriend then bon. The rest of this isn’t for him.”

You gurgled something like goodbye as you slammed the lid on your laptop, attention still fully on Johnny.

John Price:

Price thought your fiance should crawl in a fire and stay there. Yeah. He wasn’t ashamed.

The man was garbage, and hardly worth you giving him a glance, let alone this much sacrifice. You’d moved countries for him, happy to make your home with him because of his job. He treated it as though that should’ve been a given.

That’s how Price had gotten to know you. You lived in the apartment across the hall from him, and the first moment you smiled at him, John was a goner.

You introduced yourself with a smile, your pretty little hand extended out towards him. He’d stood there, wishing he hadn’t worn his ratty sweatshirt with his old football team logo in fading letters. You looked gorgeous, hair framing your face, slightly out of breath from lugging in your things.

He’d stumbled in his mind until he finally remembered proper social protocol. “Price…Captain John.” He cleared his throat. “Captain John Price.”

Your mouth formed an ‘o’, you were visibly intrigued.“Captain? You’re in the military.”

“Yes.”

“Well…thank you for your service.”

Normally, John didn’t react to that line as expected. He’d heard it enough times to wish he had a pound for every time, but that was about it. He didn’t do his job for thanks, and sometimes felt they shouldn’t be for him anyways.

Coming from you however, it was different. He had the reaction he knew most people wanted. He knew from the heat in his cheeks and the tips of his ears, they were red.

Your fiancé, who’d appeared in the doorway behind you, stole his chance to answer.

“Yeah, thanks or whatever. (Y/N), come in here and figure out where you want your hair crap to go. I’m just going to toss it anywhere in a moment.”

“Oh, you could’ve just put it under the sink.”

“You should be getting ready anyways, we have a dinner engagement.” He adjusted his shirt cuffs, eyeing John like he was picturing ways he could kill him.

John wanted to see him try just one.

“Bye John,” you gave a wave, a soft smile on your lips. “I’ll see you.”

You disappeared inside, leaving the two men in a stare down. There was a silent conversation at play, what your fiancé wanted to say was stated without a word. How much John cared about that was conveyed in the same manner.

Your fiancé broke first, slamming the door behind him.

“We’ll see if I’ll stay away.” He muttered, going into his own place.

Over that first month, you two got to know each other well. Your fiance was often at work, and you turned to John with your questions as you tried to settle into your new home. You had no one else there, and even though John had planned to decompress in complete isolation, he couldn’t do that to you. Didn’t have a part of his being that wanted to.

However, as John got to know you, he got to know your fiance too. Enough to know if he was ever going to murder someone outside of work, it’d be him.

It started with small things like what takeout you should go for, or which grocery store did he use? It seemed your fiance was useless.

One day, you needed help putting together your beauty table. You’d come to John, clearly embarrassed, and something told him you’d debated on asking him for a while. Your fiance refused, because you hadn’t paid attention when you were checking out, and didn’t select the construction help option.

“You’ve gotta be fuckin’ kidding me love. You mean to tell me that he never made a mistake?” John was already coming out of his apartment, ready to help.

“It’s stupid, but I don’t feel like arguing with him over it. We’re in an ok place right now.” you laughed awkwardly, leading him inside.

“Ok probably isn’t a place you want to be when you’re headed for the church.” it came out of his mouth before he could think about how it wasn’t his place.

He was so used to being blunt, and dealing out cold, hard facts or opinions. It always took him a minute to readjust to what was appropriate, but by then he was back on duty.

You looked stunned, clearly not expecting that from him. Your arms crossed defensively, giving him a side glance while you mulled over responding.

He meant what he said, but he never would’ve delivered it to you that way, or at all, if he had thought two seconds more.

“‘M sorry. It’s really not my place is it?” he gestured to the back of the apartment. “Where do you need me?”

There were many more opportunities to spend time with you, and with them, opportunities to point out the toxicity he was seeing. It wasn’t in John’s nature to ignore obvious problems, he got paid to do the opposite. He had to resign himself every time so he didn’t upset you.

With every time he gave you directions, or answered a local cultural difference that confused you, you two lingered in each other’s presence a little longer. He wasn’t going to spoil that.

Your requests started to leave the territory of furniture building and directions, and started to cross more into trying a new recipe, and how you could do better at fitting into your new home. Your conversations started to get deeper, more information about each other being shared.

There were times where you dropped off food, having made too much, or your fiance didn’t want what you cooked. John loved your cooking as it was, he normally lived off whatever he could grab and nuke, but he threw in extra enthusiasm for spite and your pretty smile.

Sometimes John found reasons to come over to your place.

“Share a cake love? Don’t get excited, I picked it up at the shops.” “Just bringing back your bowl.” “I can take a look at that window if maintenance is still laying about.”

And without fail, you made him stay every time. You got lonely, and you still knew very few people in the area outside of him. Your fiance didn’t seem to care, he felt he’d set you up with plenty of friends in his circle. John called them posh knobheads, and you couldn’t agree more. You had nothing in common with them, and you always wound up back with John to vent.

He found it easier to talk to you than he had anybody else, and from the never ending conversation between you two, he guessed you felt the same. The topic of the nature of your relationship was verboten, but that was fine by him. By that point, he was more interested in making you forget you even had a fiance. He really hadn’t even made an effort to do it, it just tilted that way, and he leaned into it.

You weren’t exactly stopping his flirtatious comments, in fact, you seemed to light up in ways he hadn’t seen until then.

Then came the outings. As your fiance got more negligent, you got bolder. It started with you taking a chance to invite John to a movie when you two bumped into each other in the mailroom. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d gone to the cinema, and he couldn’t say what was playing if someone held a gun to his head, but ‘don’t see why not’ fell out of his mouth with no resistance.

Then it was shopping together, or you dragging him to a museum and him bullshitting his art knowledge to make you laugh. He didn’t normally spend his time off being this active socially. He decompressed, and prepared for the next assignment. Maybe he’d meet a woman at a pub and bang out some release before getting back into formation.

He’d wondered if he would regret doing things differently on his next deployment, but that stopped the first time someone mistook the two of you for a couple. That alone would’ve been enough for him to keep his delusions (that he definitely did not have) going, but it was the fact that you didn’t correct them. It happened again, and if he thought he imagined things, he hadn’t. You never corrected the person, just gave a coy smile and accepted the compliment.

Well if you didn’t, he certainly wasn’t going to.

The final time that John could say he only found you attractive, instead of wanting you completely, you’d come to him to ask him if he could drive you to a little farmer’s market outside of the city. Things hadn’t been going well with you and your fiance.

You didn’t have to tell John, he could attest to that himself. He’d heard your arguments in his place, and between the noise level, and trying to make sure it didn't go to a place where you weren’t safe, he wasn’t getting much sleep.

Your plan was to cook your fiance a favorite meal from his childhood, using nothing but farm fresh ingredients. You figured that all you needed to get things on track was a quiet night in, focused on reminding each other why you were engaged. John nearly bit through his tongue to keep himself from bringing up the fact that it seemed the workload on maintaining the relationship fell solely on your shoulders.

Instead, he shoved his bucket hat on his head, and lied about needing to head out that way anyways.

The car ride started out quiet on his part, with you filling in the conversation. Price may have flexed his fingertips in jealousy more times than he could count, but you were so goddamn beautiful when you were excited. It almost hurt to look at you head on, so he gave you side glances to show he was listening.

At the market, your excitement didn’t die down. In fact, it turned into infectious playfulness. You two teased each other, engaged in playful scams to get more samples, and dared each other to come up with crazier and crazier stories about yourselves for the owner of each stall you visited.

Price would die twice before he admitted that he imagined you were on a date a couple times during the day. You never brought your fiance up, and he had to remind you to check your grocery list more than once.

It was late afternoon when you returned to the car, laden with goodies and constructing inside jokes. John was enjoying his time with you so much, he almost forgot he had to tell you he was shipping out the following week. He didn’t know if you’d care so much as to need an announcement in advance, but he felt he should.

He was worried about you, and he would think of you wherever he was bound to wind up, hoping you’d come to your senses and leave the garbage behind. Of course, he’d miss you…and he certainly wasn’t under any delusion that when you’d taken out the trash, maybe you’d consider him.

“Why’re you so quiet?” you’d squeezed his bicep to get his attention, and he instinctively pushed his arm into your hands, encouraging the touch.

It was quiet for a moment, before you slowly uncurled your fingertips, and placed your hands in your lap. His face flooded with embarrassed warmth.

Had he gone too far by leaning into the physical?

Price white-knuckle-gripped the steering wheel, swallowing down what he thought was a rejection he had no right to be hurt about, and cleared his throat. “Right. I’m heading out next week, and it won’t be short. Just thought you should know.”

Whatever reaction he expected from you, it wasn’t the one you gave.

“What?” You placed a hand on your chest, and then rolled your eyes. “Well that’s great.”

John gave you a bewildered expression, and it must've shown, because you quickly straightened up and faced forward.

“I don’t know about great, but it is my job. The one I was quite clear about when we first met.”

“Pull over.” you said so quickly, he wasn’t even sure you’d heard his response.

“What? Why? Are you feeling il-”

“No..just..please.” you gestured to the side of the road.

He obliged, brows drawn tight and carrying all of his questions. “Your boy is going to be home soon, and we still have a bit of a drive ahead of us. What-”

“I wanted to come here because of you.” you breathed out, still facing forward, your posture almost impossibly rigid.

“Me? You’re not making much sense (Y/N).”

You huffed, and when you turned to him, your expression took his breath away. In that moment he could read every thought you were thinking, and it would’ve bowled him over if he wasn’t sitting.

He felt electricity beneath his skin, the feeling he got any time he was about to do something drastic and dangerous.

It was the little hidden thing in your eyes that he couldn’t place that gave him pause.

“I came here, because I wanted to get away with you for today. I needed to.” you turned your whole body to him. “I don’t give a fuck about fresh ingredients for him, he probably won’t eat it anyways.”

You huffed, rolling your eyes. “We agreed to start over. And I’m going to try, I really am, but…I still can’t stop feeling need.”

In the looming silence, all John could do was scratch his beard, and try not to look as stupid as he was sure he did. He knew what you were saying, what you were toeing at, but surely you were just venting. You couldn’t-

“S’not right love.” Now it was his turn to look ahead. “Not for him, fuck him. For you. You’re upset and you’re scared, and you're raw.”

“And I need this.” you breathed. “If you’re trying to protect me, stop. If you don’t want me in that way..ok, I’m a big gi-”

“Oooh,” his voice came from deep in his chest, baritone thrumming through the car. “That’s not it. I promise you, that’s.not.it.”

Your fingertips gently pulled his face in your direction. “You’re leaving me…and when you get back things are going to have to be different.”

There it was. John swallowed, hard.

“I’m being selfish, but..I thought I’d have a little more time with you before..” Your eyes watered. “It’d be one thing if you really were just my friend, but that’s not right is it?”

John wiped at your eyes with his thumb before cupping his cheek in his hand. “No, it’s not.”

“Just one time.”

It was a struggle to say no to you, and that didn’t stop now. He pulled your mouth to his, hands gripping your shoulders in a subconscious effort to prove this was happening. You were in front of him, kissing him back as hard as he was kissing you.

He unbuckled you, and pulled you into his lap, sliding the seat back.

“I’m gonna miss you.” you were crying now, and neither one of you did anything about the tears.

His hands cupped the back of your head, fingers gently threading through your hair. “Oh, sweet girl. Why didn’t you meet me sooner?”

What transpired after was the most bittersweet moment he could recall. He had heartbreaks and troubled relationships before, but he’d never had to have a breakup with a woman he wasn’t sure he’d been seeing in the first place, but knew that he loved.

He took you twice in his car, before finally, the two of you could no longer ignore the setting sun and had to return home.

John remembered why he preferred to take a girl somewhere quickly, and then spend the rest of his leave in solitude, occasionally seeing a trusted friend. It wasn’t as fulfilling as what he had with you, but it didn’t hurt this deeply either.

He sat in his apartment for hours after he watched you disappear into your own. He didn’t even bother turning on a light when it got too dark, he just sat there, continuing to contemplate how things had gotten to be such a mess. How could he continue to pride himself on being the logical leader he thought he was, when he’d made such a mess of himself so quickly?

How was he supposed to forget you? How was he supposed to forget that he loved you, and that you loved him with another man’s ring on your finger?

The thought of seeing you, carrying your fiance’s child, and looking miserable during what should’ve been one of the happiest times of your life made Price leap from the couch. That familiar electricity raising every hair on his person to a point.

He didn’t know what he was doing, or what he was going to say, but he was moving like he’d planned it for months.

When he stepped into the hall, he paused.

You were sitting on the plush hall couch, eyes puffy, with a death grip on a pyrex dish. Your hair was perfectly styled, and you were wearing a low-cut silken dress that made him want to fall to his knees now that he knew what lay beneath. Your eyes widened at the sight of him, trying to curb your sniffles.

“I was right, he wouldn’t eat it. He got mad and left.”

“You should’ve made him wear it instead.” John’s fist clenched at his side, itching to do what he wanted from the moment he first saw him get short with you.

You shook your head, rising to your feet. “I don’t blame him this time. I didn’t make it for him, anymore than I shopped for it with him in mind, and I told him so.”

You held up the dish, and John saw it was his favorite. His idea of a perfect Sunday roast in one pot. Your meaning was clear.

“I just kept thinking, it shouldn’t be this hard. I mean, it shouldn’t be, right?” you stepped forward.

“No, it shouldn’t be.” He also took a step forward.

“It’s not that way with you.” Another step.

“I would hope not.” he also took another step

You stopped when all that separated the two of you was the dish.

“So this belongs to me then?” he was staring at the dish, but his hands gently grasped your wrists.

You, however, were looking directly at him when you breathed out. “Yes.”

#141 x reader #cod #call of duty #cod x reader #call of duty x reader #simon ghost riley x reader #kyle gaz garrick x reader #john soap mactavish x reader #john price x reader #kyle gaz garrick #john price #reader insert #simon ghost riley #john soap mactavish #Soap #soap x reader #tf 141 x reader #fem reader

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galedekarios · 7 months

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gale & physical ailments caused by the orb

i've talked before about how the game portrays gale's struggle with the orb, how he himself often tries to play off his condition with humour, minimisation or redirection, and how there's an obvious disparity between the seriousness of his condition and how the game handles it as the player progresses the plot.

in that previous post, i've only briefly touched on how the orb manifests itself physically, however, and i wanted to take the time to do a closer more in-depth look. for that i've compiled a few things that i thought were interesting.

to start off, this is the description the player gets for gale's condition:

it's also made obvious when gale is afflicted by his animation. as his "spirit is being drained", gale is slumped over, clearly affected:

if left untreated, gale will have the following prompts to remind the player:

all these prompts have the same devnote:

node context: slightly pained/struggling with a constant ache (the orb is negatively affecting him, causing him pain. prompt is to remind the player that gale is unwell.

the same is mirrored with origin gale:

the devnote states:

internodecontext: gale gets worse for the first time. he has consumed no magic items, and is presumably only learning about his affliction. note context: urgent/in great discomfort. he's weaking because he's gone too long without taking his 'medicine' (consuming a magical item to keep himself alive)

when gale first reveals his need for magical artefacts, the player can ask him what would happen if he doesn't/isn't able to consume a magical artefact. he lists the following symptoms:

player: what happen if you don't consume these artefacts? gale: i'll spare you the finer details, but it begins with a biological deterioration. muscle spasms, disorientation, a slight ringing in the ears. and if left for too long... catastrophe.

this is also echoed in a different dialogue and one of the only dialogues where gale admits to being in some level of pain:

gale: you'll have to speak slowly. i'm finding it quite difficult to concentrate with my condition gnawing at my insides like a teething displacer kitten.

when he consumes an artefact, the discomfort is shown on his face:

i've included this idle animation from my previous post as well (gif made by @bladeofavernus):

@camilleonne has pointed out in their post that the place where the orb entered gale's body has scarred:

summary:

symptoms of the orb are

-general biological deterioration -muscle spasms -ringing in the ears -disorientation -concentration issues -varying levels of physical discomfort / pain

#gale dekarios #gale of waterdeep #baldur's gate 3 #bg3 #bg3 spoilers #baldur's gate 3 spoilers #bg3 meta #ch: gale dekarios #vg: baldur's gate 3 #series: baldur's gate #meta: mybg3

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haruhar-u · 6 months

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“A rose upon you”

Rook x g/n reader, fluff

A/N: damn this is finished earlier than I thought it’s be finished. I did struggle to write his dialogue so I apologize if it’s ooc

edited but not beta read

The first day, it was a red rose that smells vaguely of apples. Then it was a box of your favourite chocolates. The rose had a velvety garnet bow with gold trim around the edges. In gold embroidery was the initial "R.H." Seriously, who is this admirer of yours? You sat on the couch in Ramshackle’s lounge, holding the two items in your hands. Oh, Ace was there too. Your flaming tuna cat and Deuce were out buying snacks at Sam’s.

"Oooh,” Ace cooed at you in a teasing manner, almost like when in elementary school a boy and a girl get called to the board together, or even in the same group, for that matter.

“Shut up.” You elbowed Ace in the ribcage, not hard enough to hurt him, but hard enough for him to get the message at least. You looked closely at the ribbon around the rose, softly tracing your finger over the embroidered initials. Ugh. Everything this person did made your heart race. You weren’t even sure you could think straight.

“Yo, look.” Ace pointed out the embroidered initials. "Obviously, that could be Rook Hunt…..he’s the only one crazy enough to do this anyway.”

Rook Hunt….? The vice of Pomefiore. You will admit the two of you have gotten oddly close as of recently. He’d always try to help you with your work and would suggest you two go to the oddest places together. Such as the woods. At 3am. Why????

“I’m gonna go on a….walk?” You tell Ace and get off the couch and put on your fuzzy jacket and boots. You all but gently open the door. The icy winter air blasts on your face as you step out, snow crunching under your boot.

You don’t have to trek out much further until you hear someone call out “mon trickster” from the bushes. At this point, you’re not going to question why he was in your bushes in the first place.

“Were you the one behind... well, all this?" You ask bluntly, approaching him with the rose in hand. He steps out to hold the rose in his hand, gazing at the ribbon.

“Of course it was me. I thought you needn’t have to put much thought into it!!” He says all dramatically. “-Name- do you accept my confession of love??”

Your name instead of a nickname in French?! Does that mean he’s more serious than you originally thought? You take a moment to think about it. After all that happened in Styx, the Pomefiore vice was with you every step of the way. He always made sure to check on you to make sure you’re okay, both physically and mentally. Sometimes it’d be by tapping on your window at 3 a.m., but that was his way of showing affection. “I do.” You say when you finally come to an agreement with yourself.

“Magnifique!” He grabs your hand abruptly, causing your heart to skip a beat. “I have so much for you to witness.” He pulls you off into the nearby forest, presumably to read you some poetry. The snow-capped trees looked a lot more inviting with him by your side. Forever and always.

Taglist : @xen-blank @krenenbaker @edith-is-apparently-a-cat @whspermy-name @the-banana-0verlord

#rook hunt #rook x reader #rook hunt x reader #rook hunt x yuu #rook hunt x mc #rook twst #twst x reader #twst fanfic #twst wonderland #disney twst #twisted wonderland #disney twisted wonderland #pomefiore #pomefiore x reader #Brief appearance of ace trappola

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yuurei20 · 7 months

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Hi! I've seen some posts going around about Epel's accent and Vil correcting him. From what I gathered Epel has a pretty farmland accent that can be basically indecipherable so Vil being hard on him for it is both 'this is kind of casual' and 'i have no idea what you're saying' but could still be kind of elitist/classist. But I see some people saying Vil is just correcting Epel because he's swearing a lot?

Thank you so much for this question! Reading through just the EN adaptation of Book 5, I think I can understand why people might be annoyed by Vil’s wording: in English, he says outright that Epel should “speak properly,” as if his natural dialect is somehow improper and objectively “wrong.”

But his original line is closer to, “Speak more politely”! (The translations in these images are just more literal rewordings of the original dialogue, not meant to be corrections or improvements over EN’s localization)

I think the game was aware of the risk it was taking by having Vil give such an order, which is why it has Epel immediately jump to that assumption himself, so that Vil can explain it is not Epel’s hometown pride he has an issue with, but rather the outdated mindset that comes with it.

While softened on EN, Epel is quite misogynistic in the original game. He also repeats the same insult three times, possibly as an example of his limited vocabulary, which is another of Vil’s projects.

While Epel does say that Vil has told him not to use the accent specifically, Vil explains that he just wants him to consider the time, place and occasion for it.

Question: But then why does Vil order him to drop the accent entirely if the only problem is that he’s speaking rudely? Surely he can just speak politely while keeping his accent?

Answer: There is another layer to this that is more difficult to explain in English, but I shall try!

The Japanese language has multiple verb forms that change depending upon who you’re talking to at the time. “Meshiagaru,” “taberu” and “kuu” are three different ways to say “eat,” for example, depending on how polite you want to be.

In the beach scene (and anywhere we get his Harveston dialect), Epel immediately shifts into casual/impolite verb forms.

I searched for the most formal interaction involving characters speaking in the Harveston dialect that I could find (where the mayor is apologizing to Marja), and even there, the character was using casual/informal verb forms.

So that is what Vil is actually getting at: he wants Epel to use polite speech around his senpai and teachers, but Epel’s original dialect might just not adhere to that system.

The Harveston dialect clearly has its own ways to denote politeness, which must make sense when you’re there, but outside of Harveston what is a harmless and natural way of speaking becomes offensive from the perspective of everyone else (when Marja adapts her speaking patterns so that the visiting NRC students can understand her, she uses polite forms).

Not able to have a student from his dorm obliviously insulting everyone around him through his verb forms, Vil bans Epel’s accent entirely, presumably so that Epel can grow more accustomed to interacting with people from other countries and then learn to judge for himself the times, places and occasions outside of Harveston where that degree of informality is appropriate :>

(Omake: I conferred with an American friend who told me it sounds like this is the opposite of how things are in the US, where sometimes it is assumed that people from more rural communities use more polite speech (using "sir" and ma'am") than people in cities, so they visit cities and are surprised by forms are expression that are considered rude where they come from. This is the same, but backwards! Epel is going from a laidback rural village to a more populated location where polite speech is expected of everyone, and is experiencing culture shock as a result.)

#anon #twisted wonderland #Epel Felmier #Vil Schoenheit

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whumpay · 2 months

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babe wake up new whumpay prompts dropped. like last year, im posting early for more time to prepare

Welcome to Whumpay 2024! Up above you will see the basic prompt list and down below the cut you will see it written out in a list, as well as three mini challenges (and by extension, the extreme edition)

Rules are the same as usual

You only have to use one (Or two, if you’re doing the extreme edition.) prompt a day! But you’re welcome to use multiple if you want to, and it still counts for both.

I know the description of the blog says it’s a writing event, but if you want to draw or make other kinds of content, that’s cool too.

Have fun, tag content warnings (such as noncon, graphic violence, etc) and try not to be crushed by the mortifying ordeal of posting your writing.

This is a pretty chill event so you can start posting whenever but I’ll be reblogging posts made to the #Whumpay2024 tag throughout May. For real this time.

These all also apply to these three special mini challenges, consisting of a 7 day, a 10 day, and a 14 day prompt list.

EXTREME EDITION: This year's extreme edition doesn't have its own prompt list, but instead, youll be taking all three mini challenges in order along with the main prompt list. Some of these fit pretty well, others less so.

1 - Mad Science:

Day 1: Strapped To An Operating Table

Day 2: Paralytic Drug

Day 3: Made A Lab Rat

Day 4: Vivisection

Day 5: Truth Potion/Serum/Spell

Day 6: Russian Roulette

1 - Attacks, Mental & Physical:

Day 7: Heart Attack

Day 8: Asthma Attack

Day 9: Animal Attack

Day 10: Panic Attack

3 - Ineffective Medical Care:

Day 11: Medical Torture

Day 12: Withholding Medical Treatment

Day 13: Medication Tampering

Day 14: Injury Brushed Off

Day 15: No Anesthetic

4: Mindfuck

Day 16: Presumed Dead

Day 17: Memory Loss

Day 18: Stockholm Syndrome

Day 19: Phantom Pains

Day 20: Love Potion/Spell

Day 21: Role Reversal

5. Nature's Revenge

Day 22: Slowly Running Out Of Air

Day 23: Natural Disaster

Day 24: Struck By Lightning

Day 25: Snowed In

Day 26: Heatstroke

6. Traps & Trauma

Day 27: Caught In A Net

Day 28: Traumatic Touch Aversion

Day 29: Used As Bait

Day 30: Flashbacks

Day 31: Choose Who Lives

Mini challenge #1: Torture

#1: Tortured For Information

#2: Whipping

#3: Branding

#4: Begging To Be Killed

#5: Recorded/Broadcast Torture

#6: False Execution

#7: Shock Collar

Mini Challenge #2: Dialogue

#8: “Why are you doing this?”

#9: “Don’t look.”

#10: “You look awful.”

#11: “Who did this to you?”

#12: “No one is coming for you.”

#13: “No one cares about me.”

#14: “Don’t lie to me.”

#15: “Stay with me, please.”

#16: ”You’re scaring me!”

#17: “You’re a monster.”

Mini Challenge #3: Aftermath

#18: Fighting Against Caretaker

#19: Seeking Revenge

#20: Taking The Blame

#21: Barely Conscious

#22: Disassociation

#23: Carried To Safety

#24: Scars

#25: Unhealthy Codependency

#26: Infected Wound

#27: Survivor’s Guilt

#28: Touch Starvation

#29: Abandonment Issues

#30: Cradled In Someone’s Arms

#31: Adrenaline Crash

Alt Prompts:

Death Game

Came Back Wrong

Attack The Injury

Healing Malfunction

Left For Dead

Mistaken Identity

Dazed

Trapped Under Rubble

Drowning

Disowned By Family

Hostage Situation

Have fun everybody!

#whump #whump event #whump writing #writing #whumpay #writers #writing event #whump prompt #whumpay2024 #prompt list #whump prompt list

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jahiera · 8 months

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How To Know If Your Evil Vampire Boygirlfriend Really Likes You (a meta on Astarion's manipulations of Tav deeper into the romance.)

Okay, this was supposed to be a response to this ask right here, and it got so long I decided to just put it in its own thing for slightly easier reading. Thank you again to the asker for giving me an excuse to go off the rails talking about THE BOY. This also got long enough that it needs. Subheadings. And it is [checks notes] 3.6k words long. If you're interested in skipping the act 2 Scene Breakdown and going straight for the character analysis of Act 3 specifically, you can jump to the uhhh 3. Yeah He's Manipulative (Trauma Edition) subheading.

Prefacing that this is just my personal interpretation of Astarion here, the game leaves several moments ambiguous on purpose & I'd be super intrigued to hear what anyone else thinks is going on in this rancid little lad's head. This became more of a process of breaking down what I think he's doing in each scene than anything else, so I hope it's interesting to... you? reader? Since it's a bit long-winded and a lot of speculation and interpretation on my part for his wild ass behavior.

(Also, I haven't played far enough with an ascended Astarion to properly break down the differences between both--he'll have his own playthrough for sure but since I haven't gone far enough in that path, all of this is with no-ritual Astarion in mind) (I also don't have screenshots for everything but hopefully that's alright. just trust me bro.)

Fair warning, I didn't proof-read this & I moved paragraphs around so if it sounds incoherent that's a feature not a bug. Now. Let's get into the EVIDENCE.

1. but did he mean the kisses????

So, before the hug scene, the game leaves us a bit of room to interpret the progression of the relationship. I kind of wish we had one extra scene to sort of solidify his growing feelings in the in-between period of his "I'm just sleeping with you to secure my safety here," era (pre-confession as we'll call it) and his "oh shit I actually kind of care about you," era (post-confession, pre-ritual), but I understand why it wasn't included. Game mechanics & cost aside, the space between these two periods is left entirely up to player interpretation, & has lots of room for HC up to each individual player & Tav.

To address the easiest examples the asker gave, the repeatable kiss dialogues are all ones I'm going to mark under "sincere." Mostly because those are all post-confession, and after Astarion has acknowledged to himself (& the player) that he doesn't want to do anything sexual, but presumably kissing is fine (given that he's enthusiastic about the kisses & will shut down sex/intimacy acts otherwise.)

There's not really a logic to him being slinky here, and I didn't interpret any of his post-kiss repeated dialogues as insincere, much more so playful or coy or cheeky. The voice acting is subtle here, but I found it to be much more playful than his annoying little, for lack of a better word, purring "hello, beautiful" etc etc in act 1 / early act 2. Also, all these dialogues stay the same after the ritual happens, and your romance has been solidified in the grave scene, where he wholly says:

"I feel safe with you. Seen. And whatever the future holds for me, I don't want to lose that."

^ Not a lie. So I think we can mark off those particular dialogue as sincere.

In act 2, there aren't really a lot of places for Astarion to actually get into his manipulative tendencies. He overtly needs your aid with Yurgir (Repeat after me: thank you for helping me. It was very kind.) so he doesn't really manipulate you at... all...? in my opinion? Act 2 shows you his most sincere moment yet in the confession/hug scene. He is not lying. He is more honest in those moments than he has been in the entire game, and it shows in his wording, his body language. He's uncertain of himself, maybe. He doesn't know what to make of the situation yet. He says as much to Tav when you ask him "What are we?" and he says:

"I don't know. But isn't it nice? Not to know. You're not a victim. Not a target. Not just one night it's better to forget. But then... whatever in the world could you be?"

He has no reason to say that without sincerity. He could say you're his specialest babygirl if he wanted to keep up the lie. And other than helping him with Raphael, there's really not a moment where Astarion has an opportunity to manipulate you....

EXCEPT.

EXCEPT. For this moment in particular. which is one of my FAVORITE Astarion ones because it is gloriously bitchy.

2. what if we took over a cult, babe.

Context first: I played a paladin of devotion, rough around the edges but fairly good-aligned Tav. She was a bit of a jerk but she saved people for free, and I adhered to her dialogue roleplay hard, choosing the "destroy the Absolute" dialogues at every turn. I don't have a save for this scene sadly otherwise I'd replay it and compare/contrast answers like a pepe silvia meme, so I'm only able to break this scene down from that particular lens.

Secondary context: This scene is important because it highlights Astarion's manipulative routine while still with a Tav he's very fond of (exceptional approval in this scene) and the way he lays it out is necessary to understand the moments later where he tries to manipulate Tav again, since it has components of the same themes, ideas, and tendencies that go on.

So, Astarion will hit you with this hot take early-ish on.

"You know. I feel a connection between us. Like we're two souls walking the same path (...)" Astarion establishes emotional connection, and a foundation of similarity/commonality/shareed interest. This is pretty standard fare for him. He does the same thing a lot early in act one, where he's almost CONSTANTLY asking you to "trust him," (when you really should not.)

"You might be a little naive in the ways of the world, but I see promise in you. Ambition." - He kind of snidely reveals what he actually thinks--you're a bit naive, you "have a big heart,"--he's hoping that his emotional cloying and little comment and connection with Tav will be enough to sway them over to what he wants to do, and they'll give him what he wants because We're So Similar, See?

"So I was thinking, what would be the right thing do when we get to Moonrise Towers?" - He wields his language carefully. The right thing to do. That's a language he thinks Tav speaks. An interest in doing the Right Thing; so, he adjusts accordingly. He wants to do the right thing too, you see, and the right thing conveniently lines up with what he actually wants, which is real power. Astarion confesses he's not a details guy, yada yada, then--

"If we can take that control from them, imagine the power we'd wield." <- He lets slip what he's actually interested in. Astarion generally can't keep a charade up for too long. His real thoughts always come through, and he reveals his hand in conversations often, but usually in offhanded ways and, well--he's never made a secret really of where his actual interests lie. His attempts at currying your favor and persuading you (and you can really feel the persuasion here) are prettyyyyy overt, but still, he's trying anyways.

"I'm just saying there's an opportunity here. If we can control the tadpoles, we can keep ourselves safe and liberate the world from this evil." <- He brings the conversation back around to what's more neutral than Absolute Power -- keeping ourselves safe. He uses the We and Us language a lot when he wants to convince other people of anything, really. "We're all such good, trusting friends!" he'll say, lying through his FUCKING teeth. His manipulations here are like.... pretty clear, but he still gets an A for effort for trying to align himself with Tav & Tav's perceived goals & see if he can wriggle in his own in the process, put "become god-cult-leader" up as a Reasonable and Rational thing to Want to achieve.

The actual question here: does he care about Tav at this point? Up for interpretation, but I'm going to say yes with... the caveat that I don't think he's fully acknowledged it to himself, and I don't think it's love here. It is high approval though. I do think he cares about Tav, I do think he's including Tav in longer-term goals, he's depending on Tav at this point as an ally he can count on, and he's starting to get chipped away at.

I don't even really think it's a lie that he on some level would like to see Tav safe, and takes their wellbeing into account. He's been with them long enough to worry over their safety to some extent, and to at least partially lump it in with his own (in my opinion). Is that love? I don't think so. "We can finally be safe," is a reoccurring theme in the other scene I'm going to break down in just a second. And it's interesting for a lot of reasons.

And furthermore: you can care about someone and still be manipulative toward them. That's a core thing going on here, I think, with Astarion.

3. Yeah He's Manipulative (Trauma Edition).

"Is Astarion Manipulating Me In Act 3? " YES. A little bit. And here's why it's INTERESTING.

So, the confession scene in act two has already happened. Astarion has confessed some of his big mushy feelings to you. He likes you. You've slammed the "can I kiss you?" dialogue 100 times already because you're really super normal about the vampire twink. He doesn't know what to make of his caring about Tav yet. See: his "what are we??" dialogue.

MOVING ON. Astarion is also, a manipulative little shit, and he will NOT change his ways just because he likes you a lot and giggles when you give him a little kissy kiss.

Astarion is deeply, deeply traumatized, and his trauma has in his own words makes him act out the same cycles of behavior that he did prior to escaping Cazador. In its most obvious format, one of those behaviors was seducing Tav because that was the kind of behavior he knew, and it was the only thing he could think of to secure his own safety. By act 2, he's somewhat aware of the cycle, but--

Traumatic behaviors, like anything relating to surviving abuse & getting out of it, come and go in waves. You'll likely not find a survivor of abuse who doesn't revert back to coping mechanisms at times, especially in moments or episodes of heightened stress, or being put back into the old environment again. ->

Astarion going back to Baldur's Gate--and specifically with killing cazador in mind--is him going back to that same place where traumatic events occurred... almost constantly. Thus, he goes back to his old behaviors. Not to the exact same level, but it is there.

Safety. THIS is a word that comes back a lot with Astarion, it is one of his most reoccurring (if not the most) themes. He wants to feel safe. He associates power with safety, because the safest person in the world--as in, literally safe, not "safe for other people"--in his mind, is Cazador, who is powerful enough to repel any threats to himself & what he owns, has, possesses, and keeps.

Astarion is still, at his core, no matter what, self-serving. He will do what's best for himself first and foremost in almost every circumstance you put him in. Or at least, he will want to--if Tav or someone else stands in his way, and he sticks it out, it'll be begrudgingly. That's a fundamental aspect of his character & to try and do away with it makes no sense.

And in case it got lost, I'll reiterate that I do think Astarion's actual feelings for Tav at this stage are entirely genuine, & deeply felt. It shows, and it's obvious. He's just got several layers of behavior going on in the process.

"But I thought astarion liked me??? why would he consciously choose to manipulate me??" The thing is, once again, you can like someone and still try to manipulate them, pull on their heartstrings, or quite frankly guilt trip them into helping you kill like, a lot of fucking people so you can become godlord supreme emperor of mortals and vampire kind.

Let's get into the second scene I want to break down. Keeping all of what we've established above about how Astarion goes about establishing connection & togetherness & the idea of shared safety to sway Tav over to his side.

So let's set up one thing for sure. It's pretty obvious, everyone gets this scene, but let's set it up anyways.

"What's a handful of the wretch's servants? IF they're anything like me when I was enslaved, they'll all be begging for death anyways." <- apathy toward others, generally motivated by self-interest, lack of empathy for others' plights, a callousness that is fairly unrepetant. He's fairly sure this is what he wants, and--

"After two hundred years of pure shit, I think I deserve something better." Again, Astarion tells us exactly what he's thinking. And what he believes. And he's not wrong! He does deserve something better than what he had before. Or, at least, he doesn't deserve the level of cruelty he endured at Cazador's hands. However.

And then he follows it up with, "I know you do [care]. It matters to me too. I want to be able to protect you too." <- finally, we come back around to the reoccurring theme he'll use to sway Tav over to his side. He sees the soft point of Tav in the conversation--they care about him--and he needles that in; they care about him, he cares about them, they should help him complete the ritual for it, it's what's best for everyone. Except for the 7000 spawn, but. You know.

NEXT IMPORTANT SCENE. let's take a look at the scene that follows after you confront his fellow vampire spawn in the tavern.

I'm keeping the full screencap so I can keep his shifty little look in here. It's not the best format, I wish I'd kept videos, the body language & voice acting adds a lot to this moment, but. Neil you're so good at balancing Astarion's careful shiftiness, his gleeful/vindictive revelry at being so close to his end goal & confronting his siblings without flinching, his coy little pleading, and his near desperate watchfulness. He needs Tav. He cares about Tav, yes, but he needs Tav to help him.

Astarion is, again, fairly callous about the deaths of his brethren. You have to remind him time & again to maybe empathize with their suffering & similarity to him. But each time he reverts back to, "their lives" serving a greater purpose.

Astarion then follows that up with "But we're a team. If I become all powerful, then we become all-powerful." <- I think he genuinely does think of himself & Tav as a team, and as a good one at that. More than anything, Tav is the first person Astarion, in his own words, feels he truly cares for. They've killed a few gods chosens together, Tav has given him respect, patience, care. He feels fairly assured of their presence & kindness at this point. And assurance tends to breed............. let's call it, taking for granted?

I believe he's trying to again emotionally bid for their help & loyalty as much as gauge if they're still with him, as he does by going -> "We are a team after all. You're still with me?" Once again, the easiest way to secure aid is through emotional connections; someone's attraction to you, or better yet, their care for your well-being, are easy strings to pull on to try and entice someone to do what you want them to do. It's not necessarily maliciously intended, but it is a kind of manipulation.

"But Astarion just genuinely wants to know you're on his side!" Yes. And he also really wants you to help him with the ritual. ANY arguments against the idea that he's benignly trying to manipulate Tav's feelings, I'm just gonna put up this screencap right here, one of the last times he bids for Tav's affection & loyalty in this, in this particular conversation:

Look at his stupid pouty face and his "You want what's best for me, surely?" and oh god the voice acting. We're smacked right in the face with Act 1 Astarion's slinky, whiny little "truuuuust me it'll just be a taste I promise <3333" voice. That PURE "I'm trying so hard to connive my way into your good will because I REALLY want this." voice.

His strength is your strength. And he will pleading face emoji his way through getting you over to his side if he needs to. It's honestly so funny, how the writing plays out, because SEVERAL times you can choose to fully fall for it, "yes of course I want whats best for you / want you to be safe / feel good" and every time, he's like "I know I know <333 and I want YOU to feel safe too <3333" and I don't even think that's a lie! I don't think it's a LIE, I just think it's the same pattern of manipulative behavior he's exhibited time and again even when he cares for you.

Astarion is still Astarion. He is very willing to kill, lie, and cheat his way through just about anything to protect himself, & all of that makes PERFECT sense for him. And if you're not on board with his plans, of course he will use every tool at his disposal to get you on board. It is, after all, what's best for both you and him. His power is your power.

4. "I'm doing this for you too." He said, lying. Or genuinely believing that but lying to himself too and executing it in the weirdest way imaginable.

So, this is probably my favorite interaction in the entire Astarion romance. Love the grave scene. Love the horny evil vampire turning. But this moment in particular is fucking brilliant, because it illustrates the dilemma here perfectly.

Astarion outright tells us exactly why he is the way he is, and why he cares for Tav while being able to be so cruel and callous about others. "No one ever looked out for me [...] you're the only one." Tav is exceptional--as in, THE EXCEPTION to the rule--because they cared for him in a way no one else ever has. He has ZERO reason to even bother lifting a finger for anyone else besides himself, because in his mind, none of them ever bothered to help him, why should he bother with them. But TAV. Tav he can make promises too.

On some level, I do kind of believe him when he says things like "I'm doing this for you too." -- As in, I believe that he believes that he's taken Tav into account here as well. I do think he genuinely thinks they'll be an even more magnificent duo of glorious bastards together once he's God Vampire Emperor Of Eternity. And on some level, he's probably right. They do take over the world together in some endings, so. Good for them.

However, do I think he's primarily motivated by anything but himself? No. Tav also benefitting from his mega vampire powers is just a bonus in a laundry list of reasons why Astarion wants to ascend at this point in the game. Why Astarion is willing to pull out every guilt-trippy, pleading face to get Tav to help him, if they show even a hint of reluctance. More than anything: Astarion is a survivor, and a survivor of severe abuse that pretty quickly explain why he is the way he is. Does that excuse what he does in the aftermath of that abuse, when it comes to harming other people? Not really. But it explains it pretty clearly.

Because Astarion is back where he came from, he's immediately thrust back into the cycles of behavior that both traumatized him & were what he had to do. The pattern of behavior, coping mechanisms, rooted in traumatic cycles, that he has done time and time and time again that has successfully gotten him, not what he wants, but what he needs to survive. Does his manipulation of Tav here mean he doesn't care? Not at all. It's just that he needs this work. He needs his allies to help him make it work, and he's willing to pull out every stop to see Cazador dead and himself with enough power to never feel so helpless or vulnerable again.

Astarion can love you & still be himself. He will never stop being a bit bitchy, a bit conniving, extremely focused on self-preservation at all costs. He might not seek out active maliciousness, but even in act 3 after the ritual, he still approves of generally being a sneaky bastard, taking short cuts, taking easy ways out. And none of this is necessarily... a problem? It isn't ""moral"", sure, but it's not really a problem. In some endings, he can pursue ""better"" paths, but his general deceivery and typical behavior aren't going away. Feature, not a bug. How each Tav feels about his ... fairly obvious deep romance manipulations is up to each player though, and that is what's interesting for each playthrough.

There are five more essays to write in here. There's the Astarion after the ritual, who agrees that fine, killing 7000 people is wrong. And there's the Astarion after the ascension, who is now fully entrenched in the idea that Power Is Everything, and all that means for him afterward, and his visceral, intense, obsessive controlling dynamic with Tav where they descend into Chaotic Vampire Evil Marriage. And there's Astarion and Tav together finally, honestly, openly, with the heart-wrenching intimacy of the grave scene. And this is almost 4000 words so I'm shutting the fuck up here.

So. I will end this by saying I'm peeling him like an onion rn I'm obsessed with him. He's gods horrible princess and he's never going to die.

#astarion #bg3 #bg3 meta #the fact that I'm sitting here like 'okay but I'm not even taking into account...'#Astarion.. you vainglorious hilarious evil twink. Why are you so complicated. I'm obsessed with you.#if this flops we don't talk about it okay....#also I'm not sure but if you need a tone disclaimer my jokes/insults/teasing is all complimentary. unfortunately #I love him deeply. and want to put him in a bag of rice and shake him really hard.#bg3 spoilers

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machiroads · 2 months

Text

Don't look, i'm about to overthink this panel

Long post under the cut.

Notwithstanding that I can't figure out what's going on with Aizawa's legs here because he's twisted around or something—it's a good panel. Look at them, they're adorable. 11/10 no notes.

Actually that's not true I have so many notes.

Will someone also please get this man a blanket for god's sake

I'm going to unpack the implications here from two perspectives: Aizawa telling Eri he got hit by a truck, and Eri trying (and failing) to save Aizawa.

Tis But A Flesh Wound

Aizawa tells Eri he got hit by a truck, and a common interpretation I've seen of this is that nobody told her what happened to him. I don't necessarily think this is true, because:

A) She rewound Mirio the day before the raid

B) She was watching the fight on TV with All Might.

Canonically, she is at least tangentially aware of what happened. Aizawa also knows that she's at least somewhat aware of what happened, vis-a-vis excerpt A.

I've also seen the interpretation that Aizawa is trying to obfuscate the truth about his injuries from her (presumably because the quirk-deleting bullets were created from her blood), but again, she was watching the fight on TV.

The most rational (hah) explanation is that he's just back on his bullshit, lying to children for his own amusement.

which is. hysterical.

Anyways, onto item 2!

The Deus Ex Machina

As we saw above, Eri rewound Mirio the day before the raid. I am not a scholar of the BNHA timeline, but I did do some research while I was writing Nine Lives. My understanding is as follows:

The Shie Hassaikai raid is sometime in September

The Jaku raid is at the end of March

Mirio corroborates these two points when he arrives at Jaku, noting that he's been out of the game for about 6 months

Post-Jaku is where the timeline gets weird.

Tartarus is breached the night of the raid on Jaku and Gunga

Midoriya is brought back to UA about a month after that

The Star & Stripe fight happens the day after that

The day after that, All Might reveals they have at least a week to prepare for the final battle. Aoyama is revealed to be the traitor on the same day.

In summary, the final battle happens somewhere in the ballpark of a month and a half to two months after Jaku / Gunga.

With the timeline sort of squared away, let's move on to the interpretation I've seen some readers make, which is that Eri didn't have enough energy to rewind Aizawa. The translation of Ectoplasm's dialogue has varied between the original leaks, the fan scanlation, and the official release, leading to some ambiguity of interpretation here, but there are a few different reasons that this doesn't make any sense:

Based on the timeline outlined above, where Eri successfully sends Mirio back 6 months on the day before the raid, it doesn't really make sense that 0 to 2 months later, she couldn't hypothetically rewind Aizawa by 0 to 2 months after he loses his leg and eye. Eri's power is wishy washy at best, but this seems like it's entirely within the realm of plausibility if Aizawa wanted to be rewound.

From a storytelling standpoint, what's the point of rewinding Aizawa to de-nerf him for the final battle if him and Monoma are ultimately removed from the fight via Sad Man's Parade anyway?

My interpretation is that this doesn't actually have anything to do with Eri trying and failing to rewind Aizawa, but rather she's trying to go rescue Midoriya and help him the same way that she did during the Shie Hassaikai raid.

The inference Ectoplasm is making is that it's too late for that, because she's at home watching the fight on TV rather than already being on the battlefield. This was also the case at Jaku, where she was canonically watching the fight on TV with All Might. She must have seen Aizawa go down and wanted to go save him, but it was already too late for her to try to help.

There's an entire separate essay worth of discussion on why Aizawa continues to live with one leg and one eye (both from a canon and a meta perspective), but I won't get into that here.

In conclusion:

This panel is fucking adorable

Aizawa continues to lie to children for fun and profit

Eri is baby and is physically perfectly capable of controlling her power at this juncture, she's just geographically removed from the action because she's like seven years old

Thanks for coming to my TED Talk

#BNHA #Aizawa Shouta #Eri #MHA Spoilers

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stemmmm · 4 months

Text

Close to a year and four rewrites later, I present to you...

Stem's Thoughts on the Game Design of Harvest Moon on SNES

I’m not going to lie, if you don’t like farming sims, you won’t like this one. At their core, every farming sim (at least in the rpg genre) is nearly identical, and that’s because of this game. In a way, I might dare to say that Harvest Moon for the SNES is the perfect farming sim because it has every one of the usual elements in their most simplified form and it just works straight from the get-go. It works so well in fact, that after this game came out in 1996, four more entries to the series were released before the year 2000.

If you are someone who does like farming sims, I can’t recommend this game enough. It’s simple and to the point, with a fast pace and enough random events and points of intrigue that the game kept me relatively engaged for my whole playthrough.

Also, by nature of this being the first game and therefore hard to cover concisely and by nature of taking so long to write this... it's long as hell! Enjoy! :) <3

I can’t say my appreciation of this game doesn’t come with a few caveats. I’ve intermittently played HM games all my life, starting with the GameBoy port (GB1) all the way to Pioneers of Olive Town, so while I don’t know exactly how the series has evolved, I’ve seen it at some of its earliest and at its latest. My vague childhood memories of GB1 (a game I didn’t own and didn’t play much of) were that it was pretty sparse and bland, so knowing that this original game was allegedly the same thing but with a little more content, I was expecting the bare minimum. I was prepared to never even be able to leave my farm, but the first thing the game did was shuttle me off to the nearby town and blocked the exit until I talked to everyone there.

(Maps of the town, mountain, and farm via The Spriters Resource)

You learn everything you need to know about the game right here at the beginning; Firstly, that this town is small as all hell and has hardly anyone in it aside from the five girls you can marry and their immediate family members. The next thing you’ll learn is that there’s a fence on your farm, and you need to be taking care of that. Of the few repetitive lines of dialogue any given person in town has to share with you on any given day, a fair amount are devoted to reminding you to fix your fence, to make sure it’s in good repair. There was just a big storm so watch out! Remember to check it every day! Are you chopping enough wood? Because you’ll need it for that fence!

I’m being dramatic of course, you aren’t reminded about it that much, though the thin variation of dialogue means it comes up a lot. The emphasis on your fence does exist, and it isn’t for nothing: while it doesn’t matter as much if all you do is grow crops– if you keep animals, the game tells you that the ideal thing to do for yours and the animal’s happiness is to put the animals outside to graze. Animal feed bought from the livestock shop will keep them fed, but it's nothing compared to fresh grass grown on your farm. You can’t even buy animals without a certain amount of grass planted! And sure, you can cut the grass to store for later, but it’s at its best straight out of the ground. However, the way the game is programmed, the animals only eat when the day rolls over, so putting animals outside for the day and taking them in at night isn’t an option, and on top of that, there’s things that come out at night that can hurt your animals. This is where your fence comes in.

The Utility of Fences

At the entrance to your farm is a cluster of buildings: your house, a small lumber shed, a barn, coop, and silo, a tool shed, and an old, dried up well. Just barely surrounding all of these is a little wooden fence that looks more like a row of upright logs than anything else. Despite this farm having presumably been abandoned, the fence is in perfect repair. You’ll quickly discover that the fence as it is won’t work out; there’s hardly space to plant anything within it, and with the well dried up, you’re forced to hop it to get to a water source to fill up your watering can. It’s pretty clear that you’ll need to expand your fence, and it’s easy to do with all of the tree stumps littering the massive field that it’s blocking off.

On top of needing to expand the range of your fence, the individual planks eventually will rot away and leave useless stumps. They show up more frequently after rain or a large storm. The posts don’t rot away completely so they have to be manually removed, but replacing them is as simple as smashing the old post with a hammer or ax and popping a new post in its place. It becomes a very natural part of your daily routine to run a lap around the farm’s perimeter before you go to bed to make sure everything looks safe and secure. It’s a good way to ensure your animals are put away and debris is cleared out, too! It slotted very nicely into my daily schedule until a certain point.

With how much time you have to spend hopping over the logs to get to the rest of the area too large to fence in, you might be tempted to leave one out of place for easier traversal. When night comes, it’s clear why that would be a mistake. Sometimes when you go to bed, you’ll hear your dog barking. It’s a small detail, one that took me a long time to notice because I didn’t always play with the sound on. There are wild dogs that prowl around the wilderness surrounding your farm, and only at night do they dare to come close. Your dog, if left outside, isn't able to do anything other than warn you of their presence if they show up. There’s nothing to notice during the daytime if it happens, unless you happened to leave one of your animals outside. There was one night that I left my chickens outside, having thought my fence was in perfect order and repair. I went to bed and heard the dog barking, followed by a horrible crunch. When I went out in the morning, I saw where my chicken had been before, it had been replaced by a pile of feathers. On the north side of my farm was a rotted fence post I’d failed to fix.

The Reality of Fences

After losing my chicken, a cluster of pixels on my screen it may have been, I didn’t feel comfortable leaving my animals outside. I didn’t want to take a risk again, the sound and sight of feathers was upsetting enough. On a more logical note, the chickens didn’t even lay eggs if left outside so there was no value in it. Cows were a pain to put back inside the barn too, because of some silliness with the game’s collision. As much of a disappointment as it was to not have my animals roam around, it was just easier. At the time, I was focusing on upgrading my house anyways, so I didn’t have time to take care of my animals outside where time would pass when I could use that time gathering wood, and everything I had was being saved up for the house so I didn’t have any extra materials to repair my fence with. My fence was all rotting away. Because it was inconvenient for getting to my crops, I started smashing all the old posts as they went, too. That’s when I noticed something: the wild dog wasn’t coming anymore.

I didn’t pay much attention to it until I was looking up a completely different mechanic and discovered a forum explaining how the fences were broken. Rotted posts attracted the wild dog, they said. It didn’t matter if you had gaps in your fence, or even a fence at all–in fact no fence was the best kind to have because the mere existence of posts that could rot was a liability.

I was hesitant at first to test this concept, after all there wasn’t much I could gain from it. My chickens wouldn’t lay outside, and my cows would be too challenging to get back in if the forecast called for rain. The thing that got me to finally try it was when I was trying to hatch more chickens. My coop felt like a nightmare to navigate due to its current population. I wanted less animals inside that I had to feed, so I threw a couple chicks outside–they weren’t laying yet anyways. Lo and behold, the dog didn’t come. More days passed and more animals were left outside, and it never came. My fence had rotted until there was nothing left at all. No dogs could ever come to my farm again. And I realized that the game’s own insistence on its mechanics was all a lie.

How You’re Told To Play - How The Game Lies

Of course, my animals didn’t stay outside. For a minute it was fun having a crowd of cows milling about while I tended to my crops, but letting them wander free and uninhibited made it impossible to find and milk all of them without any trouble, and there were the rainy days to watch out for. After the novelty wore off, they went back inside and stayed there. The thing is, that didn’t make a single bit of difference in how much they liked me compared to how they were living in the barn. On top of that, they didn’t seem to care whether I was feeding them grass or store-bought food either, though I mostly stuck to the grasses since they were cheaper and easier to get. Nothing about how I was told to care for animals really mattered past feeding them every day, petting it and maybe brushing it, if it was a cow.

It gets worse. The most basic aspect of the game is the fact that time passes. The story takes place over 2 and a half years, running through each day until the end, and these days last from 6AM to 6PM according to the game’s own internal time setting. After 6PM, all of the shops aside from the bar will close and you lose the ability to sell anything as you’re told it would rot in the shipping bin overnight, so there’s nothing to do but sleep until the next day. Issue with this is that when the days stop at 6PM… they just stop. Time doesn’t flow anymore. The game doesn’t give you any kind of clock to know the exact time it is until after you’ve upgraded your house, so all you have to go by before that is the color of the environment and whether or not your character has played an animation to eat something (you’re automatically fed when you wake up, at noon, and at night). I discovered this because I was curious if I could actually see the wild dog by staying out, and left the game running for probably 20 minutes in real life only for nothing to happen. Because of the time freeze, the time after 6PM actually becomes really valuable for farm logistics. You can’t sell anything, no, but you can pull up all the weeds on the farm, water your crops, fix your fences, feed and care for animals if you hadn’t already, and harvest wood for fences and house upgrades which would have taken a lot of valuable time to get during shipping-hours. The only thing that gets in the way of doing all that is you running out of energy.

Your energy is what allows you to use your farming equipment like your ax or watering can. Running out of it doesn’t mean you fall unconscious or anything, but your character will play an animation of them stumbling over and will fail to use any tools. The most obvious fix to this is to simply go to bed, as sleeping gives you a full recharge. You can also, however, recharge it by going to the hot spring on the mountain, or by eating food bought at the restaurant in town or foraged for in the forest. You can’t tell easily how much is refilled, as there’s no visual indicator like a health bar, but you’re able to eat more than once, and jumping into the hot spring seems to count whether you did it or not more than how much time you spend in there, so you can hop in and out a couple of times and call it good.

Individually, time freezing at 6PM and energy being endlessly replenishable aren’t bad things. Even together, they’re not the worst. Having free time to focus on profitless chores is nice, and I think it’s important to be able to replenish your energy in case you have a limited amount of time to do things like for example, cut all of your grass before winter kills it. What makes an exploit out of these is the fact that the resources in the forest will never run out. Every time you re-enter the forest, all forage items and tree stumps are respawned. The infinite amount of forage makes for infinite energy refills, and could also make for an incredible money exploit if you didn’t have a very limited amount of time to ship things. You don’t have a limited amount of time to cut up tree stumps though. If you wanted to, you could run up to the forest after 6PM, chop every stump, then simply reload the area, and everything’s back. You can get all of the wood you would ever need to fully upgrade your house in one night. It’s a bit of a grind to do all at once, but it’s a grind you’d be doing over time anyways. It’s not the worst exploit in the world, since you still need money to pay for the house upgrade, but arguably because of how you have to focus your energy elsewhere for most of the game, the wood is the harder thing to get. Additionally, when the game has very little to do in both fall and winter due to the lack of crops, this exploit takes away just about any reason to play those two seasons other than to take care of animals. It’s an optional exploit of course–as all exploits are–but once you learn about it, it’s hard to resist the desire to get the grind out of the way all at once and mess up the pacing of the game.

The Charm of the Game

Learning that the fences were completely broken as a mechanic was a huge disappointment for me. From the moment I got a grasp on how the game was supposed to work, I wanted to eventually surround my whole field with fencing and keep my animals outside so I would have some life on my farm while I worked. I didn’t just want this, I was excited for it! This was something I’d never done in a farming sim that didn’t already manage putting animals in and out for you like Stardew Valley or newer Story of Seasons games do. My routine is always the same: I go into the barn and coop to tend to each of my animals, I take care of my crops outside, then run straight to town to talk to everyone, and go to bed. The change in routine that would come from taking care of the animals outside and patrolling the fence every night felt fresh to me. It made me feel that even though this was the first game of its kind, it was different and required new things of me. But in the end, I played it exactly the same.

Harvest Moon is still very different from all of the games that followed it, though. In many ways, it’s because it has less “stuff” in it– both in terms of items and things you have to do. But I wouldn’t say that it feels incomplete. Harvest Moon runs over the course of 2 and a half years before your work is evaluated. Until that happens, you have the ability to farm four different crops, you can raise both cows and chickens, you can upgrade your house to have more features, upgrade your working tools, build relationships with the townspeople to a small extent, go to town festivals that happen each year, and you can get married to one of the five girls living in town with whom you can have up to two children. Everything that you would come to expect as a fan of games like this is already here from the very first iteration. The most notable lack this game has, and one that seems to be completely unique to this game, is that there aren’t any crops in the fall or winter, which means that unless you have animals, there’s a whole half of the year that you don’t have anything to do. The game is clearly aware of this though, because in an average playthrough, this is where you’ll start to run into the story events.

There isn’t much of an overarching story in the game, past the general concept that you’ve run away from home to work on an abandoned farm. The conclusion rests on how good of a job you actually do. In between those two points are smaller events, usually tied to when you get tool upgrades or special ones for each of the romantic interests. The first event you’re likely to run into happens on the very last day of summer, where one of the woodsmen comes to your house in the morning to ask if you’re okay because he heard a huge crash at night and you should check your farm. What I found was that a tree in my field had fallen over, and its remaining stump had a big empty hole in it. When I inspected the stump, I was suddenly underground in a cave filled with loud and industrious music, and I was faced with two, little green people–Harvest Sprites, though I don’t know if they’re called that yet here. One asked me if my scythe worked well, and when I said yes, told me that they had made it and that I should check my shed tomorrow for a better one. Other tool upgrades are obtained in similar fashion; one comes from feeding a starving sprite a mushroom and another comes from another hole in the farm opening up to reveal another part of the cave system that has a couple of hints on how to unlock other things.

The events for romantic interests happen at less scripted times, as they’re tied to how strong your relationship is with each girl. Each girl only has one event, and it only triggers when your relationship is high enough that you would ask her to marry you. The events usually take up a whole day, and don’t necessarily add much to each character. Ellen’s revolves around how she’s no good at keeping pets– something established on your second day at the farm when you get your dog from her, Eve’s hammers in her fraught relationship with her grandpa, and Ann’s is about losing the chicken weathervane, or “weathercock” which sits on the roof of her workshop and goes missing every time there’s a storm. Conversely, Nina and Maria’s scenes bring up entirely new events that bring up a number of questions while providing no answers. Nina disappears while looking for a medicinal plant because her mother is apparently sick, and Maria vanishes for days until you find her hiding away with the woodsmen for some reason. All of these events, whether they share new information or not, manage to add some greatly appreciated depth to each character by giving them more room to speak and be sincere than their short and repetitive day-to-day dialogues do.

The dialogue in this game is simple, to the point, and sparse– probably because there was only so much memory that could be reserved for approximately 15 people who all have multiple lines of dialogue, and only so much money to pay someone to write more. There is simple dialogue that doesn’t tell you much more than “hello, how are you” would, more dialogue that I’d label as tutorial text, and a few lines that I truthfully couldn’t understand well because of the sub-par translation this game received for english. The dialogue that exists to inform the world really manages to create a unique vibe though. Nina’s dialogue, almost always about plants, goes into forays about how they’re creatures with wills to live, too. Ellen’s uncle who runs the ranch shop tells you that it’s much better to feed your animals fresh grass if you try to buy any from his store, and if you decline to purchase he laughs as if he’s won something. There’s even dialogue referencing the silent player! Multiple lines exist to comment on him not paying attention, and inspection prompts have people telling you not to touch something rather than being an item description. It was the last thing I expected, to get the same level of personality out of the main character as I did from each of the girls, albeit very subtly. He went from a kind of nothing, self-insert into being what I perceive to be a hyperactive boy, akin to a border collie who was let out into a field of sheep for the first time–the exact kind of person crazy enough to take on an abandoned farm and succeed.

It’s these short little character details that bring life into the game. Each day, you’ll really only see one line of dialogue from each character, be it new or old, with that dialogue usually only changing if there’s a change in season or festival coming up. The repetitive, pretty mindless routine of the game can turn into a sort of meditation if you let it, where you spend your time working thinking about the folks in town and what they had to say to you the previous day. The developers took this concept in stride and gave the side characters loads of dialogue about life, about God and religion, and about… very basic morals, but morals nonetheless. It’s a children’s game after all. When you take the thoughts, questions and prompts the characters give you back to the farm to do your long and tedious routine, you have to ask yourself– what are you working so hard for? For the feeling of accomplishment? Recognition from your peers? For the sake of some higher power, if you worship one? For me personally, it was to write this essay, but it was also for a good grade on the high score screen at the end, so to be honest a lot of this stuff was lost on me until just now when I was reviewing the game to get screenshots.

Setting The Standard - Why You Should Play HM SNES

You may read all of this and still think, well, it doesn’t sound like the game has much in it. And you would be right, it’s a very small game, but it’s also extremely quick. On average, my days only lasted about three minutes of real life time. Everything flew by, and I think I finished the game in 20 hours or less. I barely got a chance to notice that there wasn’t much going on because every second of my day was spent busy doing something, and when I wasn’t busy, the break was appreciated. I didn’t start to run out of things to do until I was finished with the second year, and when I looked up what I needed to do to get a decent ending, I was already most of the way there. It was easy to push through those last two seasons to get to the end, and it was so, so worth it.

As I mentioned earlier, the game ends with a high score screen, meaning it has to track all of your accomplishments. These include, but are not limited to: the number of things you ship, number of each crop you grow, number of animals you have and how much they like you, how upgraded your house is, who you married, how much all of the girls in town like you if you didn't get married, how many kids you have (which basically equates to how long you were married), your happiness score (increased by going to festivals and decreased by having animals die), and how many times you’ve pet your dog. In addition to these being tallied up and presented to you, you get special cutscenes not just for each one of these accomplishments, but additional ones for if you managed to do even better! I got a cutscene for having a cow, followed by one for having lots of cows, followed by yet another for having cows that loved me! Watching them play one after the other felt like taking a victory lap even without getting the best possible result. Seeing all of my numbers come up at the end made me want to try again to actually get those other cutscenes, not to get to see them, they’re so easy to find on Youtube, but because the game made it feel like an accomplishment! If I weren’t following this game up by immediately playing its GameBoy port, I absolutely would have started a new file right away. I’ve been playing the Harvest Moon series since I was a little kid and this was the first time I’d actually managed to beat one of these games. I struggle to think the finale of any game following this will feel as good as this one did.

I started writing this whole thing about the fences because it was an easy and silly entry point to get into my core issue with the game, and so I could have an opportunity to dig into game mechanics and the way the knowledge you have of them will completely alter your playstyle, because that’s all fun and interesting for me to talk about. Another reason why I focused on that was because it was near impossible for me to pick any kind of focus point when talking about this game. After all, I’m trying to study a whole series of games that spans multiple decades, and this is not only the first game in that series, but a game that created the whole genre of farming sims and defined that genre so thoroughly that you can see its DNA in every single game that followed.

I didn’t expect much to come out of my experience with this game. My expectations for it before I even picked it up were that it was going to be basically featureless, as informed by my experience with one of the first games I ever played as a child, Harvest Moon GB, which I will get into next. This game was not that at all. I think that everything it did manage to get working right came together just about perfectly. Harvest Moon is exactly what it wanted to be, and where it wasn’t, it lied about how it worked to try and make you play the correct way anyways. When I believed that lie, my time playing was even more enjoyable. Maybe if farming worked just a little bit more like how you’re told it’s supposed to, and if there was just a little bit more story, those would cover the things I felt wanting for the most. But maybe a little flexibility and ambiguity is a good thing. Maybe actually maintaining a fence is just too hard, and maybe if the girls were more fleshed out, I wouldn’t be able to enjoy filling in their gaps in my head.

There are many more things I could say and wanted to say about this game, but this has grown far too long already so I'm cutting myself off here. I'm sure my later entries aren't going to get near this length. If you managed to get to this point, thank you so much for reading!

#harvest moon #story of seasons #harvest moon snes #hm snes #game review #m.txt #hm posting #i think i hit the image cap also? it wouldn't let me put in more even though i dont think there are that many. maybe it was a different cap #im happy to answer questions about things i didnt cover here too lol and i have notes from my playthrough if anyone is interested in those #those notes are the only reason i was able to keep all of this straight given how long it took me to write #anyways finally hitting post after like 3 days because i keep forgetting until weird hours

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