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#HOW DID SHE TRANSFORM WITHOUT SM SEEING HER
margareth-lv · 5 months
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🤕 No pain, no gain 🤕
There's an old saying that goes something like:
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You know, the idea that everything ultimately has a cost and nothing in life is truly free.
In this context, the comment @auburncurlslass under my Saturday note gave me food for thought:
Another thought…..how did the B list actress score a seat next to the lead A list actor?? Does Bradley really know Caitriona? If so, how or what is the connection?🧐🧐🧐🧐
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Perhaps my reasoning is too simple, too simplistic. Perhaps the flow of my associations is also too simplistic, perhaps by simplifying I am making a mistake in my reasoning. I take this into account. Especially since I'm making my argument based on a few photos published on Instagram, not based on hard data. But what do we see from a few photos on Instagram?
(By the way, let's not forget that Sam flew to the USA at the time, so there's no doubt that Sam and Caitriona lead completely separate lives and have nothing in common. After all, nobody remembers that they both dropped off the radar in previous weeks. Sure, they weren't in the SM, but they couldn't have been together in real life at the time, as they lead completely separate lives, as they have repeatedly emphasised).
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Well, the course of events, reconstructed from several photos published on Instagram, is that on Wednesday 29 November 2023, Caitriona was standing (with a strange expression on her face) next to a half-dead and unwashed PA (a man who has always and for years had no career and no social media presence). She allowed her (and her PA's) photograph to be taken and published by GettyImages.
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They appeared together at the special screening after party for 'Leave The World Behind'.
By the way, isn't the title significant?
This is proof #1.
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Two days later, on Friday 2 December 2023, a completely transformed Cait, with a beaming smile on her relaxed face, poses for a photo with the actress who plays one of the main roles in the film 'Maestro', Carey Mulligan.
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We later learn that Cait was invited to an 'intimate lunch' organised by agency Finch+Partners to celebrate #MaestroFilm, directed and starring Bradley Cooper.
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[Side note: ‚Maestro’ centers on the relationship between American composer Leonard Bernstein and his wife Felicia Montealegre. The film stars Carey Mulligan as Montealegre alongside Cooper as Bernstein. The film was scheduled for a limited theatrical release on November 22, 2023, before streaming on Netflix on December 20. It received positive reviews from critics. Source: Wikipedia]
During the lunch, Caitriona sits at the table next to Cooper, in front of Carey Mulligan (can you think of a better place to sit at the table?) and laughs at the jokes Charles Finch tells. How did she get there?
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This is evidence #2.
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Of course, there's no sign of the PA at lunch, it's a meeting in a small circle of trusted people. Caitríona doesn't flinch nervously, but laughs out loud.
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*** *** ***
I search Google for a while. The agency Finch+Partners has Lionsgate as a client.
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As well as Chanel and DeBeers, among many others.
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The connection between Finch+Partners, Cait and Lionsgate is obvious.
Could it be that Wednesday's PA photo was the price she paid for the opportunity to have lunch with Bradley Cooper?
No pain, no gain. And there's no such thing as a free lunch.
The Finch+Partners connection to Cait, Chanel and DeBeers is more fun.
It leads straight to Eleanor May Tomlinson, 31, an English actress.
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After all, both Cait and Eleanor are kissing the same guy. This is bound to lead to some amusing associations.
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... like the same jumpsuit from Finch+Partners client, Chanel.
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And two years earlier, a shared presence at DeBeers Jewellers London Flagship Store opening event (24 November 2021):
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Without a doubt, this is a small world.
💰💰💰
And you see: obedience pays.
If you know your place in the ranks, listen to your bosses and stick to the script of your life written by psychopaths, you can expect to reap the rewards.
Lunching with Bradley Cooper.
Wearing the beautiful clothes of Chanel.
[December 4, 2023]
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sophierequests · 1 year
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my darling sophieee! i have a request! what about kaz x heartrender!reader where kaz has fallen head over heels for her and she knows this cause of the way his breath hitches or his heart speeds up.. and she waits patiently for him to finally confess
someone could lose a heart tonight
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Navigation┃Main Masterlist┃Requests
Pairing: Kaz Brekker x f!Reader
A/N: I'm so sorry, this is a bit more Hurt/Comfort than I had intended to dlksaghakg. But I actually really like how this turned out?? Thank you sm for this request, Kaz x Heartrender/Healer!Reader is one of my (many) weak spots <333 I hope you like this!
Summary: Kaz develops a crush on a Heartender!Reader, and thinks he's being good at hiding his feelings. Turns out, he really isn't.
Genre: Hurt/Comfort, Angst, Fluff (just in a very Kaz way)
Word Count: 4.5K
Warnings: Mention of violence, almost dying, falling, one sexual innuendo, me using the word fuck once and emotionally constipated idiots
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The casual silence of his office had been welcome at first, maybe even comforting. However, the longer it unfolded, only disturbed by the sharp scratching of pen on paper, you couldn't help but notice the tense atmosphere settling between you. You watched the way his jaw clenched and unclenched whenever you audibly shifted in the seat across from him, or how the grip on his pen seemed to tighten after his eyes quickly drifted away after you caught him staring.
This behaviour made you curious. His motions were uneasy - nervous. And Kaz Brekker was never nervous. And if he ever was, he wouldn't be inclined to display it this openly.
In all honesty, it started worrying you. You hated to admit it, but you cared about him a bit more than you probably should, and seeing him act this out of character was quite troubling. So, even though you had promised yourself to never do it without anyone's explicit consent, you decided to listen to his heart.
You heard a heartbeat - quick and erratic as if the person to whom it belongs had just been caught up in a vicious chase.
"Brekker?" Eyes the same shade as the tea in front of him met yours and you listened intently. The heartbeat stumbled breaking its previous pattern for a brief moment before returning to a more stable rhythm. "Are you alright?"
A faint flicker of surprise flashed over his features as he raised his eyebrows, watching you with a glint of suspicion. His hand had lowered the pen, not holding onto it as firmly as it did a few minutes earlier. Now, the only indication of his prior irritation was the treacherous beating of his heart.
"Yes." He replied firmly, straightening out his back in an attempt to regain his composure. "Or are you aware of something I am not?"
"You just appear a bit uncomfortable, that's all." A pause. He didn't answer, his expecting expression wordlessly beckoning you to elaborate further on why you felt the need to bring it up. "If my presence makes you uncomfortable, I can-"
"It's fine." You could hear his heartbeat quicken again as he spoke. Was he hiding something from you? Why did such a simple interaction cause his body to react so uncontrollably? "I'm just…tired. Your company isn't a bother." You had to stifle the quizzical look that had managed to unravel on your face. This almost sounded like a compliment, coming from Kaz that is. "I suppose I have grown to appreciate it." The realisation hit you like a brick. It felt almost futile to check on his heart again. It didn’t tell you anything you weren’t already aware of. His heart seemed to have transformed into a mallet by now, swinging against his ribcage with ferocious force.
Your brain told you to be rational. That didn’t have to mean anything. Maybe he was genuinely just overworked? But you recognised this pattern. You saw it whenever Matthias looked at Nina - uneven breaths and nervous smiles. You saw it whenever Wylan looked at Jesper - a fast and frustratingly loud thudding against his delicate ribcage. And now you saw it whenever Kaz looked at you.
Kaz Brekker had feelings for you. There was no point in trying to deny it.
“Then I’ll stay.” You answered, not intending to pry any further than you already had. For now, you knew enough. And even though the thought of him returning your feelings made you giddy as much as it made you anxious, you chose to not act on your newly gained understanding. He needed to figure things out on his own first.
Keeping this secret was terribly exhausting, but somehow, you never let anything slip when you were around Kaz. You didn’t even want to imagine what his reaction would be like if he knew that you were aware of him liking you.
What you weren’t necessarily all that proud of was the habit of using your Small Science on him. You would never manipulate his heartbeat, but simply listening to the way it could change in a matter of seconds just by noticing your presence - or assumed lack thereof - assured you that you weren’t hopelessly waiting for a miracle to happen.
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The day at the Crow Club had been slow, the majority of patrons being outside, trying to savour the last few sunny days Ketterdam had to offer before allowing the frigid hands of autumn to overtake it. The few customers that did come in to gamble away their money were busying themselves with the available games or the steady-flowing drinks.
“Y/N!” A loud and whiny groan forced you to look away from the card table you had been observing for the last twenty minutes, having suspected that at least one of them was cheating. Jesper trudged over to your spot at the bar, giving you a cranky frown as he threw himself on the stool to your right. You had to conceal a chuckle when you took in this utterly exaggerated gesture.
“Jes.” You mimicked his frown, giving him a gentle smile laced with a hint of fake sympathy. “What are you doing here? Shouldn’t you be guarding the door?”
“Guarding it from what? There is literally nothing going on outside and I am sure I’ll die of boredom if I stay there any longer! I mean, look around!” He gestured around the room wildly, causing a few people to give him disturbed glances. “Everyone’s out and about. No one cares about being in here.”
“You should probably still go back outside. If Kaz catches you-” He cut you off, putting his pointer finger in front of your lips and shushing you like one would a toddler during a tantrum.
“Don’t say his name. That works like a curse. You say his name three times and suddenly the devil’s incarnate materializes behind you.” He grumbled, recalling the handful of times he hadn’t been alert enough to see Kaz watching him while he was doing basically anything but his job. Let’s just say that these encounters rarely ever went smoothly - at least for Jesper. “But you probably wouldn't be opposed to that, so I shouldn’t put any ideas into your head. The fact that you genuinely have a crush on that man still scares me.”
“Jesper!” You exclaimed, feeling your cheeks turn bright pink. The fact that you had feelings for Kaz wasn’t really what you would call confidential, to anyone other than Kaz that is, but it made you feel quite uneasy whenever one of the other Crows - namely Jesper or Nina - would bend over backwards to bring it up. “First of all, I wouldn’t like it if Kaz would just ‘materialize behind me’. Inej doing this scares the shit out of me often enough. And second of all,” The volume of your voice dropped down to a low whisper, hindering the other guests from listening in on your conversation. “My crush on Kaz is not half as bad as your crush on Wylan.”
“Well, at least I’m not spending every day miserably pining over Wylan.”
“Anymore.” You corrected, leading him to gape at you like a fish on land, an offended pout on his lips.
“Low blow…” He halted, giggling at the implications of this unintended innuendo.
“The only low blow you’re going to receive is the blow from Kaz’s cane displacing your kneecaps after he finds out that you’re not doing your job. It’s time to go back, Jes.”
“But it’s so boring.” The sharpshooter griped, leaning closer to you to rest his forehead on your shoulder, emphasising his agony.
This obviously didn’t work. Whether that was because of your unwavering perseverance or rather because of the sharp snapping of a cane on the hard wooden floor.
“Jesper.” Kaz’s voice bellowed only a few metres away from you. His gaze was fixed on Jesper who was hurriedly pushing himself away from you and almost knocking himself off the stool, not really too keen on playing with his life today. Unconsciously, your focus moved from Kaz’s murderous expression to the accelerated beating of his heart. Normally, you would have just assumed that it was frustration that riled him up this much. However, you knew better. He was jealous. “Quit flirting with your colleagues and start doing what you’re getting paid for.” Definitely.
“I was not-” A sharp glance from his boss managed to shut him up before he slipped off his seat with an embarrassed smile. “Say his name three times…” He muttered, just loud enough for you to hear.
“I said it four times, Fahey. Get fucked.” You whispered back with a smug grin which he didn’t feel like returning.
In the blink of an eye, he disappeared, leaving you alone with your drink and a strongly disgruntled Kaz Brekker. You had half-heartedly expected him to go back to his office and whatever heist plan he was working on. Instead, he moved to stand closer to you, tilting his head in the other direction as if he was trying to make sure that Jesper was actually gone.
“He wasn’t flirting with me. Just so you know.” He turned to look at you, the thudding in his chest becoming painfully loud as a mixture of emotions you couldn't quite pinpoint flashed over his face.
“I don’t care what he was doing. I care that he’s not doing his job properly.” A lie. You didn’t even have to use your Grisha abilities to recognize that. His sudden change in demeanour was proof enough.
“Care for me to join you while you work on the new heist plan?” You asked sheepishly, already knowing what he would answer.
“If you insist.” He replied, his heart almost skipping a beat when you gave him a warm smile in return and began following him up to his office.
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“This is a terrible idea.” You hissed, futilely attempting to keep your balance whilst climbing over the wet glass rooftop with Kaz more or less steadily following you.
Underneath you laid the top floor of the university archive that was supposed to contain information to make each one of you roughly five million kruge richer. It should have been an easy in-and-out situation since the security on campus was close to non-existent. But, of course, things didn’t go as planned. Apparently, you hadn’t been as attentive as you thought, causing the Stadwatch to spot you before you managed to get into the main tract of the opulent building.
Quickly Kaz had ordered you to separate into three groups, Nina and Matthias rushing out through the grand west entrance, Inej, Wylan and Jesper exiting through one of the windows, and you and Kaz sneaking out through one of the back doors. That was what he had planned at least. The two of you sped towards the exit, doing your best to not let the men following you have any chance of reaching you. When you reached the heavy metallic door, you were faced with another huge problem. It was locked. A lock that would’ve taken Kaz at least five minutes to pick. You didn’t have five minutes. And since the Stadwatch catching you was still in the realm of possibilities, you had to react fast.
Without discussing it first, you took off to run towards the rooftop. The latch leading outside could be locked, meaning it was the best chance to get out of this mess unscathed. However, the terrace merely consisted of a small platform, barely giving you any exit points to get off the roof without breaking your neck. The majority of the rooftop was made out of glass, providing a great source of natural for the archival staff light during the day, but being your absolute worst-case scenario during the night. You didn't have any other choice but to climb across it to get to the lower levels.
It had already been enough of a struggle for Kaz to get on top of the glass, but on top of that, it had rained the day prior, not allowing him nearly as much friction as he had hoped for - or needed. The slight slope of the roof forced both of you to inch forward excruciatingly slow if you hadn’t planned on sliding off of it. His leg was aching because of the amount of pressure he put on it, making it difficult for him to keep up with your more agile movements. It was a gamble, but you had to take it.
The sound of gunshots echoing beneath you almost made you lose balance. Your attention immediately snapped to the hall situated under the glass. Inej, Jesper and Wylan were wrangling with three men, all of them armed. Shots were fired and punches were thrown, and neither you nor Kaz could do anything to help them. Jesper tried everything in his power to fend them off with his own revolvers, but the fight just seemed to get more and more unhinged by the second.
Another blast of shots rang in your ears, followed by the sharp sound of breaking glass. Glass, which was only a few metres away from where you were currently fearing for your life They were aiming for the roof. Your eyes met Kaz’s in an instant, a foreign sense of terror written all over his face. For the first time in what felt like an eternity, Kaz Brekker had no other plan.
“Get back.” He stated firmly, looking back at the ledge from which you had started. You knew that you couldn’t go on any further, the tautness of the windows wouldn’t hold your weight after being damaged. However, no amount of reason fought off the freezing fear that rooted you in place.
“I can’t.” You choked out, feeling paralysed by what might expect you if you moved.
“You have to.” It wasn’t a command or an order. He wasn’t angry at you. It was a plea. The Bastard of the Barrel was begging. Begging you to move.
None of his words could have prevented what was about to happen.
Bullets broke through the glass, just barely missing your head as the already shattered glass beneath you began to crack. Before you could even begin to comprehend what was going on, the window gave in completely, the shards of glass taking you with them without giving you a second to move.
Kaz could only watch as your body crashed on top of a desk, the usually quite sturdy wood breaking on impact. Bits and fragments of the ceiling continued to come down, crumbling down on your now lifeless form. For a moment, he felt like something rooted him in place. He just couldn’t begin to force his eyes off of the mess he had created. There was no chance you could have survived that, he thought. The realisation of you being gone sickened him as much as it fuelled him to move. He couldn’t let you have died for nothing.
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Jesper had never seen his friend this despondent. Kaz’s face was devoid of any emotion - no anger, no vengeance, no sadness - just nothing. Even though Nina insisted that he was close to having a heart attack, he looked as if he was utterly indifferent to everything around him.
You survived the fall. Barely, but you were breathing. Just not conscious. Nina had managed to fix you up as best as she could, cleaning out the cuts, healing the bruises and mending all the other ailments one might face from a fall as painful as yours. However, a Heartrender could solely do enough to keep you alive and make sure that your organs wouldn’t fail. Everyone was aware of the fact that the rest was completely up to you. And after a whole week of being unresponsive, none of them was all that hopeful.
“She’s weak,” Nina muttered, anxiously fidgeting in the chair next to your bed. The remaining four Crows had joined her, hoping - praying - for better news. Only Kaz refused to see you. He didn’t elaborate on why, and he didn’t need to. The visceral reaction he had when the Heartrender told him that she didn’t know whether you would make it was enough to answer that question. He couldn’t even let her finish before turning around and leaving for his office, where he stayed for the majority of the day from then on.
“She’s going to make it. She always does.” Jesper attempted to ease the tension, though the tone of his voice made it clear that he didn’t believe that himself.
“Kaz should know,” Inej said all of a sudden, causing all the attention to go towards her. His name hadn’t been verbalized since he retreated to his office, a mutual understanding that it was best not to talk about him right now. “If she dies while he’s still cooped up in his office…” She trailed off, not wanting to imagine that possible outcome.
“Trust me, I tried talking to him.” Nina sighed, letting her eyes fly over your dull features once more. “He won’t listen. I don’t think he realizes how unlikely it is that she survives this. He won’t even allow me to slow his heartbeat down.”
“I believe he knows what will happen. And that’s exactly why he doesn’t want to see her.” Matthias objected, a solemn look on his face as he put a comforting hand on his girlfriend’s shoulder.
“I’ll go and talk to him.” Inej decided, not waiting for anyone to object before slipping out of the room and up the stairs. She didn’t bother knocking, knowing that the man on the other side of the door was not going to answer anyway.
“I didn’t give you permission to come in, Wraith.” Kaz didn’t even glance up at her when she pushed open the door to enter his office. He looked exhausted, his hair ruffled and alabaster skin even paler than usual.
“Ignoring the inevitable won’t bring you any peace, Kaz.” Dismissing his reprimand, she began speaking, her voice as calm as it could be.
“Another proverb for me to follow?” He answered, a certain hint of venom lacing his voice. She knew that it was an act.
“No. Some advice from a friend.” Inej watched as his eyes shot up from the papers in front of him. She knew that it was foolish to confront him in the current state he was in. For anyone else that would have been an offence akin to a death sentence. But she couldn’t watch him suffer like this. “She probably won’t make it. You know that. You won’t achieve anything by refusing to see her.”
“I won’t achieve anything by seeing her either, will I? If her death is inevitable it shouldn’t matter whether I’m there to see it or not.” He didn’t actually believe that. In fact, he had attempted to go to your room countless times before. But whenever he got close enough to turn the handle, the waves started thrashing at his ankles again. It was an unwelcome feeling. The same feeling one felt whilst walking up the stairs, thinking that there’s another step after already reaching the top - a heavy and gutting feeling. So he never went through with actually pressing down the handle.
“If you’re doing all of this to save face you should drop it. We all know that she means something to you, and there’s no point in trying to deny it. Acting indifferent to the whole situation will cause you more harm than good, trust me.”
There was no snarky comment he could give her, no way of renouncing her accusations. She was right. He hadn’t been able to shake off the nauseous feeling for the entirety of the week. A feeling that caused his heart to run a marathon every time he thought about what happened, and what would happen if he didn’t push away the guilt that seeped through him. Nina had attempted to calm his heart down more than once, but she was quickly shut down every single time. He didn’t want the relief. It wouldn’t make you wake up again. It wouldn’t do anything to help you. And he didn’t deserve it. He deserved to feel the consequences of his actions. He deserved to know how much you actually meant to him. He deserved to be smothered by the grave he dug for himself.
“What will a visit be of use then? She won’t notice me being there, so I can just as well spend my time doing something useful.” The girl opposite him sighed, a disappointed expression on her face as she eyed him up and down.
“If that’s what you really want, Kaz.” Without wasting another word on him, she left, leaving him alone with his thoughts again.
No. It wasn’t what he really wanted.
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Every bone in your body screamed at you to just go back to sleep again, at least until your limbs stopped hurting this much. But the light of the morning sun had forced your eyes to open, allowing you to slowly take in your surrounding. You were in your room. Even with the sparse furnishing, it was visibly yours. That calmed you a bit. You were safe, not lying in your makeshift grave in some dusty archive.
The loud beating of a heart diverted your attention from staring at the ceiling. It was irregular and way too fast for it to beat this unevenly. Someone else was in your room.
You turned your head a little, just enough to see the man sitting next to you. Though his heart told you otherwise, Kaz looked rather peaceful. His head was slumped over the backrest of the chair he was sleeping in, and his mouth stood slightly agape, letting out strained breaths. He seemed to not have slept in an eternity, so you didn’t think about waking him up. His mere presence was enough for now.
However, when you attempted to sit up, the wooden frame of the bed creaking as you moved, he began to stir. There was a brief pause in his movements after his eyes opened. The cogs in his brain started turning as he took in the scene in front of him. You were smiling, looking very much not dead. He could feel his heart drop to his stomach as the realization began to set in. And you could feel it too.
The thing that happened next was unexpected. The thudding inside his chest got louder as an ungloved hand reached out to touch yours. You almost wanted to pull away, to tell him that he was insane for acting this thoughtlessly, but you knew that this would probably be even worse than just letting him.
As his skin met yours, he shuddered slightly, resisting the urge to flinch away. But your hand was warm and soft, nothing at all like the skin of a bloating corpse. You were alive. He repeated that sentence like a mantra. You didn’t die during the last heist and you weren’t Jordie. You were here with him.
After he managed to convince his mind, that you were fine, he carefully retreated his hand, without removing it from the bed entirely. With a shuddering breath, his eyes met yours. He could only imagine what you were probably thinking of him right now. If his feelings hadn’t already been obvious enough prior to this, they must have been clear as day now.
“You look as terrible as I feel.” Your voice sounded hoarse, still a bit weakened by not being used for an entire week, but it still sounded heavenly to him. You were alive, and that was all that mattered.
“You broke through a glass ceiling and had a quite severe fall. I suppose feeling terrible is one of the lesser evils.” He closed his eyes for a split second, his fingers twitching as he contemplated his next words.
“Are you alright, Kaz?” The question felt like a déjà vu and he couldn’t help but chuckle at the thought.
“I don’t think that’s a question that should be directed at me. You were the one to almost die.”
“Your heart. It’s beating really fast. I could slow it down for you if you want me to.” You knew that there was a different reason for his heart to react like this. But you needed to hear him say it.
His expression contorted into one of surprise. Of course he was aware of your Small Science, it was one of the main reasons for him to recruit you after all. For some odd reason, he had just never considered you using it on him without his knowledge. It wasn’t that he felt betrayed, but learning that you were able to listen in on his heartbeat the entire time also meant that you probably noticed the way it sped up whenever you were around.
“When we arrived at the Slat and Nina came to tend to your wounds, she told me that she wasn’t sure whether you were going to make it. I didn’t want to come and see you because I was afraid.” He flexed the hand that still rested on his knee as he spoke, visibly uncomfortable with talking about his feelings. “I was afraid of facing the fact that you might actually be dead. I was afraid of losing you. And now, even though I know that you’re not dead, I’m still afraid of losing you.”
“Kaz, you won’t lose me. I’ll do anything in my power to prevent that.” You bit back the urge to lay your hand on his to comfort him, but judging by his current state that would have been more than counterproductive.
“I believe that is not something you have any distinct control over.”
“Come on, I may be clumsy but I’m sure-”
“That’s not what I meant. Not entirely, at least.” He sighed, avoiding making eye contact as he mentally fumbled with his words. You wanted to ask him what he meant by that, but something told you that it was best to give him a bit more time. “I have not only grown to appreciate your presence. In some way, you have become essential to me. I fear that you may mean more to me than I care to admit.”
The silence following his words was heavy and laced with more emotion than either of you could process. You didn’t know what you had expected him to say, you didn’t even know if you had expected anything more than a longing glance and an unspoken promise. But somehow, this still caught you off guard.
“You love me.” You intended to make it sound like a question, however, once the sentence left your mouth, it came out rather matter-of-factly. “Why would that mean losing me?”
“I’m not the easiest person to love. Losing you in some way is inevitable.”
“Barely anything is easy. Not here. However, loving you isn’t a chore. And it’s not something arduous either. I’d be willing to try. But only if that is what you’d also choose to do.” You saw his eyebrows switch slightly, almost as if your statement was something utterly outlandish and unexpected. Maybe that was the case for him.
“I… I’m choosing this.” He took in a sharp breath before giving you a barely noticeable nod. “I choose you.” And so did his heart.
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Taglist:
Grishaverse fics in general: @yesshewrites1 @dal-light
Kaz Brekker: @ell0ra-br3kk3r @juneberrie @writingmysanity @b3kk3r-by-br3kk3r @brekkers-desigirl @fall-writes
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panlight · 1 year
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If the series ended at eclipse, do you think you would want Bella to be a vampire? (assuming no creepy baby, no 'wow im great at this', none of the breaking dawn nonsense)
It would have been pretty easy to do. She could have been fatally injured when Victoria and Riley showed up. Maybe one of them got to her; maybe she actually went forward with hurting herself to distract them like the third wife did, whatever. So she needs to be turned RIGHT THEN to save her.
Given how SM wrote Beau's ending in Life and Death, I think SM would STILL go the "wow she's so amazing at this" route because at the end of the day this is more a romance with superpowers than an actual vampire story, so the vampiric consequences aren't that important other than to make Edward dreamily brooding and tragic.
If Eclipse were the series ending then they have to turn her after the newborn fight; they can inform Jane and the rest of the Volturi that the transformation is underway. The wolfpack would have been around at the time and I guess SM would just have Sam look the other way or even give permission to "save" her life since even in BD he's kind of whatever about Bella becoming a vampire and it's only Jacob who cares about it.
I might end the book/series with her waking up as a newborn and then leave the reader to imagine her life as a vampire/with the Cullens or whatever. Or there might be an epilogue years later where she comes back to check on Charlie (without being seen by him) and maybe even Jacob and it makes her a little melancholy and Edward's like "I'm so SORRY!!!!!!!" and Bella's like, no I'd rather be with you as a vampire than without you as a human or whatever THE END.
I LIKE bittersweet. I like a little sadness sprinkled in. Seeing Jacob and Charlie moving on, aging, etc, while Bella is stuck and her reflecting on it but still generally being happy-ish as a vampire would be more satisfying to me than whatever the hell Breaking Dawn was.
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melis-writes · 6 months
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Honestly….Apollonia>>>>Kay! I agree with you, but I feel that he would only become the way he became if it was Apollonia in the car bombing. I think if it was Calo or whatever he would be like ooh noo back to the USA and then forget about it and live his life with Apollonia. I think Kay would see them together, ask Tom and Tom would tell her. She would definitely become bitter. Apollonia would give Michael beautiful kids and the ending scene of GF3 would be Michael playing with his grandkids 🥺 We would get a lot more (maybe steamy 🤭) scenes of Michael and Apollonia, maybe even a vow renewal scene in GF3! I love them sm I think his life would have been so much better with Apollonia
Well I'm gonna be honest with you anon, I hate Apollonia lmao. 💀 And I will respectfully disagree with you.
But without being as biased as possible and coming from reading the book, I believe what Mario Puzo was trying to get across with Michael's character arc and transformation is that Apollonia didn't "change" Michael nor did her death. Sicily didn't change Michael either. Michael had always been the black sheep of the family--the outcast. He was left alone/bugged less by everyone and teased discreetly for a reason. Just like how Fredo and Sonny inherited strong, separate traits from Vito like Fredo's kindness/sweetness and Sonny's brutality, Michael inherited the coldness. Michael was always like that to begin with, it's just that he didn't have the environment or opportunity to show his true colors from the start.
Now you came back from a war and your father almost lost his life because he didn't want to get involved with drugs? Some lowlife is about to start another family war because of this and wants you out of the way? Your brother is the successor, but he's a hot head and only wants carnage to end this? We can't blame Michael for coming out in full force and showing us who he is. If we want to pick who "changed" Michael, then it would only be appropriate to say Vito. In the book, Puzo states Kay is the only person (not even Vito!) who can change Michael and make him act unlike himself, but in the film this is essentially accredited to Vito.
Michael did what he did in the first film before Vito's death for his father and the family. He took the reigns, he had what it takes. Michael was always a cold hearted, calculating bastard. That's why I always recommend/hype up the book because it states in the beginning what kind of a person he is. Getting revenge on Fabrizzio was for himself and his family's honor, not Apollonia. I feel it's way too often forgotten how selfish and cruel Michael is; this is the same person who married a woman for sex and (as stated in the book) kept Apollonia as a sex slave inside for a few weeks.
I don't see Kay as the type to become bitter. I know her heart would break and her rosy worldview she had by Michael's side with his reassurances of no criminality and a promised future to her would devastate her. Michael is no show off, in the US or outside of it. I highly doubt Kay would ever run into Michael and Apollonia together unless she walked straight into their home. Even with Kay, Michael was not the husband who takes his wife out for outings and dinner; just as he barely saw his family and wife in the film afterwards, the same would happen to Apollonia. I just think Apollonia would not express her loneliness and sadness as much as Kay did/does.
I don't at all think Michael remaining married to Apollonia would result in happiness. Michael would ruin her life like he ruined the lives of his kids and the rest of his family, just the way The Godfather Part II played out--with or without Kay. He was far too hell bent on revenge and his enemies (even as Tom stated he was wanting to do too much) to care about anyone except himself. I don't believe Apollonia would ever seek to divorce Michael no matter what due to culture/traditions back then but I think she would end up dying because of the danger surrounding Michael and only he would be to blame.
There is simply no happy ending for Michael or anyone in his family because of Michael's own actions alone. He doesn't even deserve it, if you ask me. He's a horrible person, and that's why at the end of TGF3 he didn't get his happy ending.
But in terms of love, as Mario himself described it, Michael loved two people; his father and Kay. This is what love looks like for Michael. ❤️
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guardianbee · 10 months
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I'm finally sitting my ass down and watching Marvel's Spider-Man (and by watching I mean skimming for any scenes with Harry, Anya, Miles, and MJ in them) and I commend the MSM staff for trying new things out with the lore but I'm sorry the majority of the creative decisions in the third season alone just absolutely suck.
Examples:
Curt Connors is a lapdog to Norman Osborn. That goes against the very foundation of his character, especially as one of the more sympathetic and moral villains in SM's rogue gallery (I personally blame ASM1 for this). They reveal it was all for a promised cure to Connors' Lizard transformation, but the episodes leading up to that just make him out to be cartoonishly evil without any sort of moral backbone. It's fine to interpret characters in a different way for a different media/story, but aside from the Lizard persona, there's really nothing about THIS Curt Connors that makes him a well-written or even half-baked reimagining of his character. Plus his design is ugly and is such a downgrade from his USM design lmao.
Jefferson Davis is a lapdog to Norman Osborn AND had one of the worst villainous motivations ever concocted: "Oh no! my son and my neighborhood was put in danger by this superhero! so I'm going to go to this madman that caused FAR more irreparable damage to NYC and could further endanger my son and genetically alter my DNA, kidnap innocent people, and help kill my son's friends so that I may kill this one superhero." STUPID. Did they really think they were doing something here? Where is Rio to slap some sense into this man? Oh, they never introduced her? She's presumably dead?? Miles is a main character in this show and Jefferson was only in one episode before becoming Swarm? Wow, what a fantastic build-up for a character dynamic no one gives a shit about in this show!! Plus his design is ugly (the Swarm design is fine though).
I will say though I think it's borderline funny (and can now even be considered a #canon Miles Morales SM event) that when Miles reveals himself to any of his villainous relatives/friends, the first thing they do is gasp and go "Miles?!?"
This is an S1 thing but they made it my problem again in S3 so: making Jackal Gwen's uncle. I'm sorry, but that's fucking weird given his comic history with her (TLDR he's a scientist who was fucking obsessed with her and wanted to kill Spider-Man because he blamed him for her death). Why did every main character in this show NEED to have a villainous relative (luckily Anya's was a fake because that shit made no sense in canon)? None of that drama with Gwen and the Jackal and Miles and his father was compelling!! Villainous family drama is Harry Osborn's thing you just can't take it away from him!! Or at least introduce villain relatives that make SENSE - could have had Aaron Davis be Swarm instead and build his relationship with Miles from previous seasons, could have made Mark Raxton Gwen's stepbrother instead of Liz's and watched him become Molten Man. See how easy it is to create new interpretations without going against the very core of their characters?
Also did they just straight up never introduce George Stacy in this show? Again Gwen is a main fucking character how do you not introduce and have AT LEAST a few scenes between her and one of her most important and foundational relationship dynamics? Trash, man!
I didn't care for Otto in this show but his replacement, Grady, is such a downgrade. Were they contractually obligated to give Scott Menville another character to voice in S3? Because that's the only reason I can think of for this dude to be here and be one of the most annoying characters on this annoying show.
If this show just had shading it would look five times better but Disney is so cheap when it comes to its animated Marvel properties now. USM had over 100 episodes and they were ALL shaded and looked like a goddamn masterpiece compared to any episode from MSM. MSM S3 only had 12 episodes so you would THINK they could have preserved some of their budget for shading but nope! there is precisely one scene that is shaded in this entire season and it's a scene that involves Grady lmao.
Peter reveals to everyone (including VILLAINS) and their mother that he's Spider-Man. The school board meeting reveal was particularly egregious because Connors just egged him on and he just did it to save Max's job??? When a core part of Peter's dilemma throughout any piece of media is revealing himself to the ones he cares about, how they will react, and what the consequences of such an act will be for them and his superhero life? And he does that all to save a guy's job - not his life, but his JOB??? Get outta here lmao.
MJ being introduced in S3 is fine and Peter instantly falling for her is fine given that he has been instantly enamored with her in almost every other iteration of their relationship but I will say it IS a bit weird given this Peter Parker has not shown any previous interest in girls whatsoever (including Gwen!). MJ's also in just a handful of scenes with Peter and I would have really liked for her to be a stronger supporting character for the third season with a believable romance (because Peter all but confesses he wants to be with her for the rest of their lives in the series finale which is very cute but also feels random when she's been a total of four episodes and has a screentime of MAYBE fifteen minutes in the entire show).
Harry is in like two episodes in S3 and I feel like that was very much a #choice from the writers. If Norman isn't involved, why would Harry be? And that's just a disservice to Harry's character - he's more than his relationship with his father and I thought the MSM writers understood that - the USM writers did!
Tony Stark bankrolling Peter and his friends to create a tech startup is so antithetical to SM as a whole but it is so fucking funny and I know it's because of MCU Spider-Man and I hate it here. MCU Spider-Man has caused irreparable damage to my psyche and the SM mythos at large and I'm so glad that shit has been retconned into oblivion (thank you OMD you were good for precisely one thing).
ANYWAY, these are all my thoughts and I'm right when I say USM might have had a quirkier, 4th wall-breaking Peter Parker and made him a lapdog for SHEILD with stupid fucking tech like the spider-cycle but at least their main villains were well-developed, the Osborns were the best part of that show, almost all the main characters had satisfying conclusions, AND Peter didn't reveal his identity willy-nilly and was a contentious plot point throughout.
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cesairebug · 3 years
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idk about y’all but i personally am not handling the sentibubbler trailer well 😁👍
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ameliora-j · 3 years
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twin flame iii // gw x reader
words: 2.2k
warnings: angst, breakup, mention of bruising, crying, angelina slander kinda (it’s just for the story i love her sm!), yn is sorta a pick me if you squint sry, cringey mediocre writing at very best
an: i used song lyrics for some of the argument and the ending :) i hope you like it besties!
part one | part two | part four
you george! i want you!
the words had been running through his mind since the night you left. he had been going over the days leading up to your explosion in his mind for weeks. your words were in his mind day and night. your pained expression, your anger, your hurt. you consumed him. more than you usually did.
george weasley knew he fucked up. he knew without anyone telling him. but they did anyway. every waking second they did. first it was fred, calling him a jerk. then ron, who called him a “bloody idiot.” then ginny, who told him it was his own fault. and then his mum. of course his mum, who said in exact words: “george fabian weasley, this is nobody’s fault but your own. quit moping around and do something to fix it! i didn’t raise you to treat women this way!”
his last straw, however, was his older brother percy. percy of all people. who looked at him with a disappointed shake of his head. receiving a disappointed head shake from percy was nothing out of the ordinary, especially for george. it was his words that stung. percy spoke ten simple words to him that truly set george off. percy spoke “you lost the best thing that’s ever happened to you.” at his sentence, george lost it.
“i know that percy! you don’t think i fucking know that i lost the best thing that ever happened to me! and fred i know i’m a jerk and ron i know i’m an idiot and ginny i know it’s my fault and mum i’m sorry okay! i know you didn’t raise me like this i don’t know what’s wrong with me but i don’t think she’s coming back!” he fell back onto the couch as he tugged frustratedly at his roots.
“george… do you love her?” molly asked him.
“yes mum,” a whimper escaped the fiery-haired boy’s throat. “i love her more than i’ve ever loved anyone before. she’s my world,” he revealed.
“then go, george. go get her,” his dad said. “for your sake and her’s,” he told him.
“and our’s!” fred called distantly from the kitchen.
“shove off fred!” george called back before apparating to your front door. he knocked three times and waited for someone to answer it. when you opened the door, he was shocked at your state.
makeup streaked down your cheeks with your shoulder bruised and your arm in a splint. your eyes were red and puffy, but they were furthermore accompanied by dark bags as if you hadn’t slept in weeks. the truth is; you hadn’t. “hi george,” you mumbled half heartedly.
“hi butterfl-“ you cut him off.
“yn. my name is yn,” you spoke sternly.
“i’ve called you butterfly since you were three…” he murmured.
“not anymore. hurts too bad to hear it. did you need something?” you quickly changed the subject.
“i want to talk to you,” he said. you nodded and walked in, telling him to follow you. george said hello to your brother and then followed you into the lounge where you two sat on the loveseat and you turned to face him.
you sat in a long silence as your eyes traced each other’s features. you memorized him. every line, every freckle, every bump, bruise, and blemish. the silence was deafening. untill he finally broke it. “what happened to your arm?” he murmured softly.
“it splinched when i apparated home. then i apparated again and made it worse,” you bit your lip softly.
“always so reckless,” he tutted softly, causing you to shrug.
“what’d you wanna talk about? know you didn’t come to talk about my arm…” you attempted to get to the point of his visit.
“right,” he murmured softly. “yn i…” he took a deep breath. “the day that i let you walk out of my life is the day that i made the worst mistake in the history of mistakes. i’ve done some stupid things in my life, but letting you walk away has by far been the stupidest. i’m so so sorry that i hurt you the way i did, i cannot express to you how sorry i am, i truly cannot. i love you, yn. with all of me i do, you have to believe me when i say that.”
“i do believe you george. i just don’t believe that you love me the way that i love you. and carrying around that pain is killing me. i mean absolutely destroying me. you live in my mind rent free. you’ve infested it,” you told him. “you with your stupid pretty smile and your god awful jokes and your ridiculous pranks that you somehow always rope me into and your perfect hair and your pretty eyes and just. you. george. stupid you. oblivious you. godric george,” you roughly shoved his chest. “i’ve loved you for years and you’ve always looked past me!” tears rimmed your bottom lash line and your voice cracked as you lashed out on him.
“for years george, i mean years! i’ve watched you fall in love with countless girls just to have your heart broken by them. i stuck by you through everything. even when you stopped being being my friend because it made angelina uncomfortable i waited for you george! and you just pushed me to the side. i did everything for you. i executed pranks for you. i planned pranks for you. i took the fall for you. i got detention for you! i did it all for you. i mean the countless amount of things i did just to be able to call you mine and i just… you didn’t care! you’ve never cared! you’ll never love me the way that i love you and that hurts. so. fucking. bad.” you wiped your eyes.
“it kills me george. it eats at me, every single day it does. i stood by your side and i took the blame with you even when i had nothing to do with the stupid shit you pulled at hogwarts because yeah i was going down, but hey, at least i was doing it with you, right? we made so much trouble and-and we used to laugh. and be happy. we were genuinely happy and i don’t know where we went wrong but we did, but i still say that i hate you with a smile on my face! i don’t get it george why don’t you love me!” a whimper tore itself from the depths of your chest as you let out a silent sob.
“now look what we’ve became…” he murmured, tears falling from your eyes.
“all the things i did just to call you mine… and… and all the things you said but… somehow, i still hope i was your favorite crime. cause merlin knows you were mine.” you sniffled as you wiped your eyes.
“you were mine. you’ll always be my favorite crime.” he leaned over and kissed your head as another silent sob racked your body. “now it’s bittersweet to think about the damage that we did,” he smiled over at you sadly. “i love you butterfly. just as much as you love me, if not more,” he whispered as he stood from his place.
you rolled your eyes water-logged eyes, but still managed to smile. “i wish you thought about that before,” you whispered.
“i do too… i guess i’ll have to just call you the one that got away then?” he asked.
“in another life georgie… i’d be your girl. and we’d keep every promise that we made,” you told him.
“and i wouldn’t have to say you were the one that got away,” you nodded as he kissed your head again. “i love you, butterfly. i always have.”
“i love you too, georgie. i always will,” you sniffled as you watched him walk out the door. you didn’t want this. you wanted to stop him. everything in your body screamed at you to stop him. but your brain wouldn’t work. your heart said no. you were scared of being hurt again.
you wanted to do something. yell at him. tell him to come back. to hug you. to never leave you. to never let you go. but your heart wouldn’t let you. you were frozen in time.
~~
it’ll all get better in time.
you’d heard the saying time and time again. especially after your parents passed away. it was people’s favorite line to use when they saw you. the truth is… you didn’t stop hurting. the pain didn’t go away. you just got used to it. but the pain you were feeling now… you didn’t know if it would ever go away. at least it didn’t feel like it.
two months. it had been two months since george walked out of your house that night. it was nobody’s fault but your own, and somehow you couldn’t help wishing he would’ve stayed.
you saw him everywhere. in the stars in the night sky. in the sunrise and the sunset. in coffee shops and store windows. even in your dreams when you slept. so logically, you decided to stop. if you didn’t sleep you couldn’t dream. and if you didn’t dream, you couldn’t see him.
you dutifully ignored the pain in your chest like an annoying bug on a picnic. you pretended that you were fine, but the reality was; you weren’t. but you played it off. and you were able to keep up your facade. untill one day… that one fateful day tucked in the corner at ninety three diagon alley. your brother asked you to pick up ten second pimple vanisher because he had a date tonight and just received a pimple the size of jupiter on his nose, causing him to look like “the muggle myth rudolph the red-nosed reindeer” as he put it.
you walked into the shop and kept your head down as you searched the aisles. it wasn’t where it usually was. you knew this shop like the back of your hand, of course you had… you’d worked there for nearly three years. you furrowed your brows as you looked around. the shop had completely transformed. nothing was in the place it usually was. that’s when your eyes landed there. on her. right at the front, behind the till at the register you worked, in the uniform you wore was angelina johnson.
you sighed deeply as you extended your neck around the corner to where the office was. you smiled triumphantly as you saw fred sitting at his desk and began your trek. you gently knocked twice on the opened door and fred called, “come in,” distractedly.
you walked in and sat on the desk, right in front of him, forcing him to look up at you. “yn!” fred exclaimed.
“hi freddie!” you smiled as a giggle escaped your lips and you returned the death-grip hug he had enveloped you in.
“what brings you by? not that i don’t love seeing your pretty face, of course,” he shot you a playfully flirtatious wink.
“ybn needs ten second pimple vanisher because he has a date tonight and he woke up with a pimple the size of jupiter on his nose,” fred laughed loudly at your remark. “i tried to look for it, but the stores completely turned around,” you pouted slightly.
“oh yeah, we changed some things up because we needed room for our new products. they’re still in the making, but george disappeared,” he hummed.
“george what?” you asked.
“you didn’t know…?” he asked you.
“no. i… i had no idea,” you stuttered.
“yeah. after the night he went to talk to you, he left a note on our kitchen counter and all his things were packed and he just… left. we haven’t seen or heard from him since. ‘s just been angie and i running the shop now. couldn’t do it alone,” fred explained as he picked up the box. “here you are l-“ before he could finish, you were halfway out the door. “YN WAIT!” he called. “YOU FORGOT YOUR PRODUCT!”
“SORRY FRED! YBN WILL BE OKAY I HAVE TO GO!” you called as you ran out the door as fast as your feet would carry you. if you knew george weasley… and you did… there was only one place he could be. and you prayed to any and every god that would listen that he was there. you prayed like your life depended on it that he was okay. you needed to fix this. to fix him. to make it alright.
in this moment you knew that he needed you. he needed you like peanut butter needs jelly. the way left needs right. like the sun needs the moon. he needed you like you needed him. you ran and ran and ran for miles untill you got to a secluded area. then you took a breath. and you apparated.
it was exactly the way you left it. a dingy old wooden box house sitting at the highest branch of a sycamore tree. you groaned softly as you began to climb the many branches. “george i swear to godric you better be in here,” you grumbled to yourself as you climbed.
it felt like hours—truly it was ten grueling minutes at most—untill you got to the door of the house. you whispered the password and it creaked open. “georgie,” you breathed when you saw him.
there he was. laying on the floor of the treehouse wrapped in blankets and a sleeping bag with a small pillow under his head. the apple to your pie. the straw to your berry. the smoke to your high. the one you knew you’d marry.
the one that got away. your twin flame.
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gale-gentlepenguin · 3 years
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ML Fic: Soulmate Survey Part 38
Sorry for the delay. Real life gets out of hand. But here it is! The antepenultimate chapter.
Shout out to @asongeverlasting for beta reading for me and making sure I actually got this out.
Check her writing out on AO3 as Ramblingwren
(Master post)
(Read the fic in a more condensed on Ao3)
(The latest chapter will be up on there once this reaches over 500 notes on tumblr)
Hope you all enjoy
_____________________________________________________________
“I shouldn’t have let her go out there.”
Fu watched the school nurse, Angela, fret as she paced back and forth.
“I understand your concern, but I believe that it will all be alright. Ladybug and Chat Noir haven’t failed in handling an akuma yet,” he explained. “The girl will be okay.”
The nurse stopped pacing.
“I appreciate your optimism but… I am really not used to this,” She said as she gestured to the air.
Fu blinked at the statement.
“Oh?”
“This! This whole thing! Super villains that appear whenever someone gets sad, teenagers with superpowers! This is all new to me! I just moved to Paris a month ago from the countryside. All I wanted was to further my education and get work in the medical field. It… It boggles my mind that everyone in this city is so okay with all of this! Even my new boyfriend Curtis is able to shrug off an akuma attack like a sudden drizzle. This isn’t normal!”
The guardian could tell the young woman was distressed, and he couldn’t blame her. In a way, he envied her. This was all foreign for her, but to him, this was his entire life.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to blow up like that. I've had a lot to deal with, and this whole situation is just so…”
Fu moved to her and helped her sit down.
“It’s alright, this is by no means a good situation. Your concerns are very understandable. I can tell that deep down that your frustration and fear come from compassion and empathy. You will make a wonderful doctor one day.”
She took a deep breath.
“Thank you. You have no idea how much I really needed to hear that today.”
“How about I teach you a medication technique that will help you calm down?”
“Meditation? I'm not really one for that kind of stuff.”
“If one wants to be a doctor, being able to calm down and handle an emergency situation is a must.”
The school nurse agreed that he had a good point, and that this may help get her mind off of things.
“Okay, I guess I'll give it a shot.”
Fu smiled.
“Good. Let us start simple. Close your eyes and put your hands together.”
Angela felt the action was a bit odd but complied.
“Now, take a deep breath. Count to 5 in your head and then breathe out.”
She took her breath and followed the order.
“Whenever you feel a thought come to your head, simply picture yourself putting it out of your mind and into a bucket.”
She tried her best to comply.
As she did this, Fu moved behind her and quickly pinched a nerve on her neck, causing the young woman to seize up for a moment before losing consciousness.
“That will help her relax.”
He carefully moved her to the cot and laid a sheet over her like a blanket.
Once it was clear that she was asleep, a turtle kwami flew out of hiding.
“So, what do we do now, Master?”
Fu took a moment to consider.
His plan was already in motion. Ladybug and Chat Noir had plenty of allies to help fight the akuma. All that needed to be done was to sit down and wait.
But as he thought about it more, he couldn’t help but think that he should go in personally. It was what he'd initially planned to do with akuma, after all. Listening to this young woman’s fears made him really see how his inaction has led to such fear and uncertainty.
For once, it was time for him to go on the offensive.
“Now we head out and find this akuma.”
“Master, you already sent out three miraculous. Let the other heroes handle this,” Wayzz insisted.
“The people of Paris should not have to become used to this. I have been far too lax with this situation. Right now, Ladybug and Chat Noir are facing their most dangerous akuma yet. For decades I have always remained passive in order to avoid making another mistake, but I have already made so many with my inaction. It's time I stop letting my actions be dictated by fear.”
“But Master, you can’t transform! Your body is too old to handle it!”
“Fear not, Wayzz. I have been exercising and restoring my vitality with the techniques of the guardians. By my estimation, I should be able to maintain the transformation without too much issue for 10 minutes,” Fu assured.
“That is not a lot of time, Master!” Wayzz pointed out.
“True, but it is better than nothing. We will head out and wait for the moment we need it. Be ready, Wayzz.”
The old guardian started heading to the door.
“But Master, what if you get captured? What if the akuma does succeed and you are unable to step in?”
Fu paused at the door.
“I know you are concerned for me. I appreciate your care. But I need to go out there. I have lived a long life, Wayzz, far longer than most humans. One day I may not be here to be the guardian.”
Wayzz felt a pang of sorrow hearing his Master talk about how he would no longer be around.
“But that’s okay. I know that when that time comes… I have two young heroes that will be ready to stand up and fight. The best thing an old man like me can do is pave the road for them.” The guardian said with certainty. He went to open the door.
“Fu…”
The old man stopped. Turning around, he saw the turtle kwami he had known for most of his life smile at him.
“I know you think of yourself as a failure of a guardian… but Su Han and the others were wrong. You are a great one. You are the most caring guardian that has ever held the title. And I will be by your side to the end.”
The old man felt his eyes well up at the sweet comment.
“Then let’s go, Partner.”
___________________________________________________________________________
The dragon heroine grabbed the confused snake hero and moved him to the closest room before closing the door.
“Okay we should be safe here,” she said as she looked over to her comrade. It was clear that Viperion was still very confused. It did not help that both his and her miraculous were beeping. They didn't have much time.
“Thanks… ummm,” Viperion started as he tried to rack his brain for a name. Part of him felt like he should know her. But his mind is blank.
“Ryuuko. You can call me Ryuuko. And you are Viperion.”
“Okay… weird name for me, but I guess it works.”
Ryuuko realized that the bubble Viperion had been put in wasn’t just to keep him frozen in place. One of the side effects must have been leaving him without any memory of who he was. Had her partner been aware of that risk when he took the bubble for her? She couldn’t know for sure. But right now, she needed to focus on the task at hand. Shehad to take charge since her partner was out of sorts.
“Okay, 'll try to explain this as quickly as possible.”
“Your real name is Luka. But when you are in your hero form, you go by Viperion.”
“Hero form...”
He looked down.
“Well, that does explain the costumes. I thought it was some sort of weird costume party.”
Ryuuko decided to ignore that.
“Okay, so I'm a hero. And you're one too?”
“Yes. We are both heroes picked by Ladybug to help her fight villains. Right now, we're fighting a bunch of them, and you got your memory wiped by one of their attacks. That’s why you are confused. Any questions?”
The boy took a moment to look himself over and then look at her. This was a lot of information to take in. Ryuuko was half expecting him to call her crazy. Which, given how bizarre the circumstances were, she wouldn’t blame him.
“Okay, I think if it was anyone else telling me this, I would have called it a load of bull. But… I don’t know why but I feel like I can trust you. You sound sincere,” Viperion responded.
“Okay great, now let's…”
“I still have a few questions.”
Ryuuko sighs.
“Look, we really don’t have much time. We need to hurry and get out there to help…”
And just before she finished the statement, both of their transformations wore off. Revealing their civilian forms.
“Oh no.” Kagami muttered in horror.
“What happened? Where am I… What am I?” The snake kwami questioned as he looked at himself.
“It appears that Sass was also impacted by the amnesia.” The dragon kwami that popped out of her necklace commented.
Luka stared wide eyed at the creature.
“Are you a snake?”
“A snake? I suppose?”
“A snake with limbs? That is very rock and roll.”
The two fistbumped. Thankfully they seemed to get along.
Longg looked at them.
“This is quite a predicament.”
“We need to hurry back in. Longg! Bring the….”
“Hold on a moment. Both Sass and I will not be able to do that yet.”
Kagami stopped.
“How come?”
“We need to refuel. The energy of transforming AND using our unique powers drains a lot out of us. We need some food to continue.”
“Food… Okay.”
The snake Kwami grabbed his stomach.
“I find myself rather famished,” he commented.
Luka looked at him.
“Let me see if I can help you out.”
The teen took off the backpack he was wearing to go through it. Thankfully there was a bag lunch in there. For some reason he felt that was important. But decided that if it could help the little guy out, he was sure it wouldn’t be a big deal.
He opened the bag lunch and pulled out a bag of apple slices. Opening it to grab a piece.
“I know snakes usually are carnivores, but how about some fruit?”
“Ooo! It smells divine!”
Luka handed the floating kwami a piece of the apple.
He takes a bite.
“Oh! It's delicious! Juicy and sweet!”
The snake quickly devours the apple piece.
As that happens, Kagami looked through her bag.
“I don’t have fruit but I do have some onigiri. It was my afternoon snack… but since this is a dire situation.”
“Rice? Yes please!” Longg exclaimed as he dive bombed right into the delicious rice ball.
“It’s Umeboshi, it’s not to everyone’s taste but It is one of my favorites.”
“It’s the most delicious thing I have ever eaten. The sour plum really brings a new dimension of flavor.”
Kagami smiled a bit at her kwami companion, happy that she could help.
The two Kwami finished their food and were ready for action.
“Okay, Sass. You need to help Luka transform.”
“Sass? Is that my name?” the snake inquired.
“So, he helps me transform into Viperman?”
“Viperion, and yes,” Kagami responded.
“All you need to do is say. Sass, Scales Slither. And to activate your special power just pull your bracelet back and say second chance. Then pull it back when you want to use it. But be sure not to use it right away,” Longg instructed.
“Okay seems easy enough. Are you okay with this?” Luka asked as he turned his attention to his snake pal.
“The floating horn snake seems fine with it so I say let’s give it a try”
Longg decided for the sake of his friendship with Sass to ignore the comment.
“Alright! Let's do this!” Kagami exclaimed as she prepared to transform.
“One last question.”
Kagami was starting to get antsy. She wanted to be back out there fighting. But she held back her annoyance, considering how he sacrificed his memories for her.
“Make it quick, we need to hurry.”
Luka scratches the back of his head.
“Are we a couple?”
If Kagami was drinking water she would have done a massive spit take. Her cheeks turned red.
“What?!”
“You know… together? You seem to know a lot about me, and I just feel this connection... like I can trust you even though I don’t remember anything. I don’t know how or why, but I feel like you matter to me.”
Kagami’s eyes went wide at the comment. It felt surprisingly bold of the musician to say. She had to admit that the statement made her heart skip a beat.
“No, we had just recently become friends.” Kagami responded.
“Oh…” Luka was saddened by the response.
“But, I have thought about the possibility it could be more than that one day," Kagami continued. "But that is something to discuss when you have your memory back. Maybe.”
The fencer felt her mind scream at her.
‘WHY DID YOU SAY THAT! Well, at least he won't remember.’
Luka smiled at that.
“Well, that must mean I must be a good guy, if I could have such a great friend like you.”
The teen prepared himself.
“Alright then! Sass! Scales Slither.”
The musician shifted into his hero form.
“Let’s go save the day.”
Kagami looked at her hero partner and smiled.
“Longg, Bring the storm.
______________________________________________________________________
“Well, that might be a problem.”
Chat Noir and Ladybug looked to see a stone giant guarding the front door of the classroom. The two had hidden just out of the goliath’s view.
“Any ideas on how to take down Mount Akuma?” Chat Noir questioned.
Ladybug looked at the giant from their hiding spot and began formulating a plan.
“Stoneheart grows bigger when he gets mad. These akuma aren’t really able to express their emotions. That means we don’t need to worry about him getting bigger. We just need to find a way to incapacitate him.”
“We could ask Mayura,” Chat Noir pointed out.
“We could ask… wait WHA…”
Chat Noir covered his partner’s mouth and ducked down.
“Shhhh! She’s right there,” Chat Noir hushed.
Ladybug removed the cat’s hand from her mouth and looked from the spot to see that her partner was right. Mayura was in the building!
“She actually showed up?” Oh, this is a lot more serious than we thought. Hawkmoth is really playing it serious with this one.”
“To the butterfly man’s credit, he really has been throwing out some tough ones.”
“I will not give our worst villain credit for anything except this headache,” Ladybug retorted with annoyance.
“So, what do we do? Mayura is in the building and she is talking with the giant.”
Ladybug felt like the situation couldn’t get worse.
“Not so fast, Feather Freak!”
Ladybug recognized that voice.
“Chloé?”
Chat Noir and Ladybug glanced to see a familiar blonde strutting down the hallway. But their expressions of shock shifted to bewilderment when they noticed what she was wearing.
“So are you and that purple fashion blunder here? Or is it just you? I am guessing it's just you. Your boss doesn’t really like to show his face unless he thinks he is sure to win. No wonder Ladybug always kicks his…” The bee themed heroine confidently quipped.
“Queen Bee. Now that is a surprise. I thought Ladybug was done giving you a miraculous.” The peacock villainess commented. She had no interest in dealing with the bee heroine at this time.
“Well, you would be surprised by a lot of things. So how about we settle this. My fist really misses your face.”
Mayura rolled her eyes.
“Fortunately for you, I don’t have the time to deal with you. Stoneheart, I am sure Masquerade would love for you to take care of this pesky bee.”
“Oh don’t think you can walk away! You and that purple cockroach are the same. Both cowards that can’t even face children.” She jeered as she walked forward.
The stone giant moved forward, allowing Mayura to walk to the door and enter.
“Too scared to face me! Typical. I'll beat your pet rock as a warm up and then your butt will meet my foot!” Queen Bee exclaimed with confidence. “Because I am a real heroine!”
Queen Bee got into a stance and prepared to trade blows with the colossus of rock.
Chat Noir looked to Ladybug.
“Did you give her a miraculous?” He whispered in surprise.
“I don’t have any additional miraculous. I thought she had been captured with the rest of the class.”
“Wait… if it wasn’t you… you don’t think…”
“Either Master Fu is in the building and saw how dire the situation was or Chloé snuck away and had a Queen Bee costume stowed away in her locker.”
The two look at each other and immediately come to the same conclusion.
“We need to save her before she gets crushed!”
______________________________________________________________________
Mayura walked into the classroom.
She managed to keep a straight face, but internally she had a lot going through her mind.
What was once a standard classroom now looked like an elaborate throne room. The amazing curtains, the high ceilings. The steps leading up to an elaborate throne. The portraits of Masquerade really brought together the utter decadence and vanity of the akuma persona. It reminds Mayura of Gabriel’s obsession with Emilie in the worst way possible.
Despite finding the décor off-putting, she had to admit it was impressive how Masquerade had been able to change the room into something completely unrecognizable. A testament to her vanity.
She took a moment to see what akuma servants she still had in the room. The Gamer, Reflekta with around 12 copies, Princess Fragrance, Robostus, Zombizou and Horificator. While the white masks obscured their expressions, it was clear that all of them were watching her. It greatly unnerved her.
She kept these thoughts to herself as the masked akuma that was running the school took notice of her.
“Mayura. I've been expecting you.”
Mayura looked up to see Masquerade sitting on the throne.
“Please, come in.”
She approached confidently. Though in the back of her mind something seemed off.
Masquerade stood up from the throne and walked down the steps, a smile of certainty on her face.
“Masquerade. Your Sentimonster gave me the basics of your plan. Securing the school as your base of operations was a good first step. Your plan of creating a video to lower the spirits of those in Paris was also a nice touch,” Mayura praised.
“But of course! My plan is flawless,” Masquerade boasted. “Not even Ladybug and Chat Noir will be able to stop me.”
“Getting ahead of yourself aren’t you?” Mayura cut her ego trip.
Masquerade’s mood soured as her smile faltered.
“What do you mean by that?”
“You have yet to face the two heroes. Not to mention there's a pesky bee flying around.”
“A bee?” Masquerade was very confused by the comment.
“Yes, Chloé Bourgeois, or Queen Bee, to be precise. Seems that Ladybug and Chat Noir went and got back up."
“It doesn’t matter if they have one additional hero or three. This plan won't fail.”
‘Something isn’t right here. I need to leave now!’ Mayura’s mind screamed.
She wasn’t sure why, but something felt incredibly off.
“Speaking of heroes, your plan never really specified how you will deal with them. Care to elaborate?”
Masquerade’s smile grew more sinister.
“I am glad you asked. After Simularé relayed to me that you were here. I finally figured out the perfect way of dealing with those arrogant heroes,” the masked woman stated with certainty, moving forward.
She now stood only a few feet from the peacock villainess.
“Wait a moment, something is wrong here,” Mayura commented as she tried to focus. She couldn’t ignore the warnings in her head.
“What do you mean?” The mask akuma looked with confusion at the blue villainess.
Mayura looked around. Frantically trying to find something but it was fruitless. This distress caused Masquerade to smile.
“I can't sense it,” Mayura spoke with slight worry.
“Sense what?” Masquerade inquired further.
“Where is your amok? It should be on your person but I can't sense it.”
“Is that a problem?”
“Yes. If you don’t have the amok in your possession then that sentimonster will go out of control!” Mayura explained.
“Can’t you just rip the amok out?”
“If it's nearby and I sense it, yes. But I can’t do that if it’s out of my range.”
“So you’re saying you have no power over me right now.” A devilish grin appeared on Masquerade’s face.
“No, I am saying I don’t have any power over the senti…”
Mayura felt a chill as she realized that the masquerade in front of her was not an akumatized Lila.
“Horrificator, block the door,” the Faux Masquerade commanded.
The pink and purple monster quickly moved to block the door with her large form.
The controlled akuma started circling around her as Simularé undid the illusion and morphed into its true specter form, Simularé.
“You ungrateful little monster. You think your master will be okay with you attacking one of the ones that gave her power?”
“My master doesn’t care about you or Hawkmoth. You are a means to an end. And she gave me special permission to take your miraculous from you.”
“Well if your master isn’t here, then no one is jamming the signal. I can contact Hawkmoth and put this little coup to an end.”
Simularé shifted into Lady Wifi.
“I have access to every power my master does. You are trapped with no options.” The sentimonster mocked.
Mayura looked around as she was circled by the controlled akuma. She needed to get out of there.
She felt a pain rush to her head.
‘F*** not now’ She mentally cursed.
The odds were indeed not in her favor.
______________________________________________________________________________
Stoneheart began charging at the bee themed heroine, and just as Queen Bee was about to move, a yo-yo wrapped around her waist and pulled her away from the monster.
The stone giant had expected his charge to make contact but forced himself to stop when he noticed the bee was gone.
“Sorry tiny, but I’m your playmate now,” called a cat-themed hero.
The mindless akuma didn’t visibly react to the change in foe and simply charged at the cat hero.
Queen Bee found herself near Ladybug.
“Chloé! What are you doing?!”
“Uh… Saving the day? I got the jewelry box that you sent out because you needed my help.”
“Jewelry box… wait a minute that means. You are wearing a miraculous.”
“Yep! Don’t worry LB, I will show you that I am worthy of being Queen Bee. And not to boast, but I totally saved someone. But right now, we gotta go beat that ugly pile of rubble.”
Ladybug looked at Chloé for a moment. With the situation as hectic as it was, Queen Bee has shown some competence when there is real danger. Ladybug knew that right now, all hands that could help would be appreciated, and Queen Bee’s appearance could mean that Fu may be closer than she expected. So maybe there were more reinforcements. So if this was the case. She would trust Fu’s judgement.
“Alright, just be ready to return the bee after all of this is over.”
“Right, right, but just know I will probably change your mind about that after this is over!” the bee exclaimed confidently as she jumped back into the fray.
Ladybug shook her head. Whether she was Queen Bee or Chloé, she was still a handful.
“Are you finished gossiping? Because I could REALLY use a hand!” Chat Noir shouted as he held his staff up to hold back the rock monster’s boulder of a fist.
Queen Bee and Ladybug jumped into view and noticed the situation.
“Don’t worry you stray cat, The Queen Bee will put that rock in his place. Ve…”
Ladybug covered Queen Bee’s mouth before she could.
“Hold it. We might need your power for later.”
“I think it would be useful now!” Chat Noir shouted as he struggled to hold the weight of the giant’s rocky hand.
“Okay if my powers are a no no right now, what is the plan?”
Ladybug looked around. She found her attention drawn to a fire extinguisher, Queen Bee, a rubber band, and a discarded backpack.
“Okay, I have a plan.”
______________________________________________________________________
Gabriel had made a decision.
He hurried out of the lair in his civilian form. He was going to head to the school. Now he would just need to get his chauffeur and go…
Gabriel’s eyes went wide as he saw his son’s bodyguard and chauffeur fall to the floor at the steps of the main entrance, a white mask adorning his face that he was desperately trying to get off.
“What is the meaning of this?” Gabriel asked aloud in shock and anger.
He looked to see the mask akuma he created standing at the door.
“Well, if it isn’t Gabriel Agreste. Fashion mogul, and master manipulator.”
Gabriel’s visible anger faded as he stared at the akuma.
“Lila, is that you?”
“Oh quite astute! An amazing deduction. Was it that observational skill that made you the fashion success you are now?” the akumatized Lila inquired. “Though I go by Masquerade now.”
Gabriel knew very well the girl’s powers. He was the one that gave it to her. She was trying to antagonize him, get him angry. But that would not work.
“Well Masquerade, what brings you to my home at this time?” Gabriel asked calmly. Doing his best to keep his tone and mannerisms calm.
“Oh, I was just in the neighborhood, finding more people to join my little army and I notice my charm glowing as I was getting near.”
Gabriel’s eyes went wide as he realized something. The charm bracelet was configured to locate anyone that has ever been akumatized. That included him. His ploy to ward suspicion off of himself was now biting him in the butt. And of course, Lila was likely holding a grudge with how he pushed her with his words about his son and his classmate.
“My bodyguard was akumatized. What of it?”
The silent action figure enthusiast stopped resisting and his body began growing. Gabriel noticed the man was transforming into the gorilla akuma. Gorizilla! And he rushed up the steps as the akuma moved and pounded his chest.
“Gorizilla, go gather up anyone who has been akumatized that you know of. I will handle Mr. Agreste myself.”
The giant akuma nodded at its master and headed off, leaving the agreste mansion with a giant hole that was once the front of the mansion.
“Handle me? And what do you plan to do?”
Masquerade’s necklace began to glow.
“Oh! Well that is very interesting,” Masquerade mused aloud as she learned from the glowing charm.
“What do you mean, interesting?” Gabriel asked. He knew that the charm had the bonus effect of pointing out the emotional weak points of those that had been akumatized. But he had PRETENDED to be angry and wasn’t actually emotional when the akuma took over. Did the charm still impact him the same way it did everyone else?
Masquerade started walking up the steps.
“You blame yourself for your wife’s passing.”
The statement was a blade pointed right at his throat. But Gabriel refused to react. He would not let himself be taken advantage of by his own akuma. He has been on the receiving end one too many times and he would be damned if he let that psychopath have control of him.
Masquerade saw that Gabriel was not reacting to the statement.
“I have never seen a man more miserable and pathetic,” Masquerade said. Her words sounded genuine and cutting.
Gabriel tried to turn around and walk away. But Masquerade jumped high with her superhuman agility and landed right in front of him, continuing her tearing down of his emotional state.
“All of this wealth and yet you are obsessed with what you don’t have. You are so blinded by the grief of losing your wife that everything else in your life may as well not exist. You locked yourself away, desperately trying to find something, anything that would bring her back. But now you are finding that color is starting to return in your life. You feel guilt over hiding the truth from your son, you loathe the attraction that you have been developing for another woman. You hate that you can’t dedicate every second to your lost wife and any speck of joy you feel without her here feels like treason since she is not here with you. You are a man so blind with his obsession that you fail to see the world doesn’t revolve around you. It's disgusting.”
“You know nothing of my life,” Gabriel dismissed.
But Masquerade knew he would say that. She only smiled. The truth was right in front of her. And she was ready to bring it home.
“You are actually terrified of facing her again.”
That shook Gabriel.
“What?”
“You are afraid of seeing her again. Whether it’s a year or 10 years, you feel that even if you could bring her back, she would be here and realize how much of a shell you had become without her. You are afraid that your obsession with her will be the very thing that drives her away once you see her again.”
“That isn’t true.”
“Then why haven’t you brought her back yet? Don’t you love her?”
Gabriel felt like his heart was being repeatedly punched.
“How dare you question my love for my wife!”
“Then why isn’t she here? If you loved her she wouldn’t have been taken from you and Adrien. But you were far too pathetic to do it. You failed her, and you are still failing her. You will never be with her again, and deep down. You know it to be true,” Masquerade answered coldly.
Those words were enough to get him down. That is what finally did him in.
Gabriel fell to his knees.
“No…”
Gabriel had broken. Masquerade knew she had him.
He was emotionally devastated, to the point where couldn’t even react to the mask coming his way.
____________________________________________________________
Well now things are now hitting their highest points of drama!
Will Ladybug and other heroes be able to stand up to Masquerade?
Will Mayura fall to Simularé's double cross?
Will I EVER update in time?
Tell me your thoughts on the chapter. Your support keeps it alive
339 notes · View notes
miraculouscontent · 3 years
Text
Didn’t Need Burrow (August 7th-September 13th)
Anonymous asked:
Didn’t Need Burrow: Ladybug and Chat Noir will be asked to participate in judging a competition that Marinette and Adrien are both a part of. Ladybug will want to vote for herself as Marinette, but Tikki will tell her(once detransformed and while she is snacking) that she can’t because then people will know that Marinette is Ladybug. Chat Noir, meanwhile, will freely vote for Adrien with no repercussions or drawbacks, and Adrien will end up winning the competition. Marinette will admit that she was “so silly” to even think of voting for herself, especially since “Adrien needs the award more so that I do” despite being rich, white, male, and “perfect”(oh, I’m sorry, “purrfect”!), since all of Marinette’s legitimate problems of anxiety, dyspraxia, and the like get thrown out the window because the writers’ perfect sunshine boy incel stand-in has a “saaad home life!”, and Marinette needs to give him pity and put his feelings above his rather than wish for her own success. Cuz Girl Power.
tbh, given the leaks script, I’d reverse that and saying that Adrien voted for LadyNoir as Couple of the Year.
Anonymous asked:
Didn’t Need Burrow: Marinette and Adrien will reveal their identities, and Marinette actually WILL be disappointed that the boy who goofed off in fights and didn’t take no for an answer is none other than her perfect modeling celebrity crush. However, rather than this being a point towards Adrien needing to learn how to improve himself and accept Marinette’s feelings, this scene is used to make HER look bad(because of course it is) and she is blamed for expecting Adrien to be perfect(despite being encouraged and told to see him as such), and told that she should be happy that Chat was hitting on her even when she didn’t like it or it got in the way of battle plans, likely by Alya, because it was her true love under the mask all along. Eventually she “learns her lesson”(ick) and comes to accept Adrichat for who he is, warts and all. Bonus if she has a flashback to when Chat said “if you saw me without my mask you wouldn’t be able to resist me” as she realizes that he was right.
Didn’t Need Burrow? More like “Didn’t Need to Think About This”
i hate it
Anonymous asked:
Don't Need a Burrow: Luka will be Chat Blanc "2.0"
But Luka doesn’t have Chat-level favoritism going so Bunnyx won’t be there to defend him from consequences.
Anonymous asked:
We will have Ladybug!Alya in Marinette's akumatization episode. Obviously everyone would think that she is "better" than "old" Ladybug. (Bonus points if Ladybug!Alya don't "alienate" Chat Noir, mostly by catering to his whims)
Oh, of course! No one will miss the “old” Ladybug.
Anonymous asked:
Don't Need a Burrow: Bob Roth is akumatized into Rip Off, a supervillain with power to copy anything he sees (including powers of heroes)
Okay but that’s genius.
(I know we already had it in “Miraculer” but I like this more.)
Anonymous asked:
DNB: Now that Luka knows their identities, he will push the Love Square in a romantic manner. Stans would be totally fine with this because it doesn't interfere with their endgame :)
Well, obviously!
I’m just waiting for them to basically say that the secret identities don’t matter and, because they like one side, also means they like the other side.
Because forget nuance, am I right?
Anonymous asked:
Don't Need a Burrow: In the end, (after Adrienette gets together) Narrator reveals himself (herself?) as Alya with words "that's how I helped my bestie [Marinette] get a relationship with love of her life [Adrien]" or something similar.
wait, Alya, are you filming a Ladybug biography
why did you include all the humilation
why
That explains her making herself look good though.
Anonymous asked:
Don't Need a Burrow: Luka will finally reveal that he knows Heroes' secret identities... to Alya, who obviously decide to hide from Marinette that Luka knows her identity (Bonus Points if reason provided by Alya why she is doing this is utterly ridiculous)
AAAAAAAAAAAA
I guess Luka would have to realize that Alya knows. Bonus if he tells her Chat’s identity too so love square shipping can commence.
Anonymous asked:
Don't Need a Burrow: "Knitting Fairy" will be name of Marinette's akumatized form.
Can you say “reused design”? I certainly can, we’re used to it.
Anonymous asked:
Didn’t Need Burrow:
Luka keeping his knowledge about the identities (esp. Ladybug’s) will somehow blow up in a way for the writers to paint him in a bad light, probably ending with Marinette not trusting him. (As well as no hint of irony that Adrien did the same thing for completely selfish reasons in Chat Blanc).
MiraculousMX: Platonic soulmates!
us: Source??
Anonymous asked:
DNB: If LS gets reversed, Adrien complains about Marinette having other friends. Not just being friends with Luka or any other guys, but friends PERIOD, showing the same jealousy/desire for his 'love interest' to be isolated as Chat Noir. These MASSIVE RED FLAGS are treated as Just More Innocent Sadrien Things, because he's sOoOoOo Sad and SoOoOoO Lonely~
Oh god, now I had an awful thought that this is where Adrien getting jealous of Luka, and Luka feels bad/”knows what’s best” so he either ditches Marinette/finds an excuse to leave or makes sure that Adrien gets his time with her.
Because it’s the love square so it’s “important” that Marinette spend time with Adrien.
Anonymous asked:
Dnb: assuming the Senti-Adrien theory is true, in the season finale, Viperion joins the fight, stops SM from using the ladybug an cat miraculi by going back in time only to use them by himself, wishing for Adrien to be a real boy (and love Marinette). Of course Luka needs to give something in exchange, worst case scenario, his life.
That got really dark.
Though tbh with how much they push Luka and Marinette around, one of them will probably have to give up something huge for Adrien (they both already sacrificed their relationship, so--).
Anonymous asked:
Don't Need a Burrow: If Chat Noir joins Shadow Moth then he is treated by both Gabriel and Heroes as his greatest asset, even through he is still complete joke that is defeated by rest of Heroes faster than Mr Pigeon in "Timetagger". (Bonus points if Heroes defeat him by "Backhand Offhand", Offscreen or he is defeated by "Friendly Fire" from Akuma of the Week due to his own stupidity)
tbh I could probably do more sad math with “how often Chat Noir/Cataclysm is useless,” bonus if it’s put up against characters/Ladybug stroking his ego.
Anonymous asked:
DNB: Adrien's fears concerning Ladybug are made more explicit through a nightmare/vision (possibly akuma-induced) of Ladybug calling him unreliable/saying she doesn't need him anymore because she has partners she can actually COUNT on. Naturally, this is treated as Pure Sadrien Hours rather than a fair critique. Bonus if he ditches/forces her to beg for his assistance AGAIN to soothe his poor bruised baby ego.
*“Malediktator” flashbacks, but Adrien instead of Chloe*
Anonymous asked:
Didn't Need Burrow: Adrien/Chat Noir skips out on a fight/akuma attack for some spiteful, selfish reason or another. Ladybug handles it without him, either completely through her own skill or with help from Rena/other heroes. Adrien then angsts about 'not being needed', with Marinette's 'Mistake of the Day' being that she didn't cater to his pity party due to being too busy DOING HER DAMNED JOB.
me seeing that one leaked script where they talk about how Chat/Cataclysm would make things easier: *sigh*
Anonymous asked:
Didn't Need Burrow: Plagg will encourage Adrien to act even more selfishly, skipping more battles and being even brattier. This is so his stans can blame Plagg for being 'a bad influence' on their perfect angel, even when it's clear the two of them are on the same wavelength. Oooh, he's twisting his rubber arm; how AWFUL--! Adrien would NEVER do all these Awful Things he's already done if he didn't have Plagg~! What a bad kitty~!
“rubber arm” jdfkgjndfjgfg
tbh Plagg already is super laidback and doesn’t really like transforming/complains about going into battle, so this isn’t much of a stretch.
Anonymous asked:
DNB: "Gabriel Agreste" or other episodes will reveal that Gabriel flew many, if not ALL of the same Red Flags his son displays on a regular basis. The narrative treats this as though this makes Gabriel more 'sweet, sad and sympathetic' rather than illustrating that both of them are dangerously entitled and generally awful.
This sounded really intriguing as a sort of “apple doesn’t fall far from the tree” thing until that last sentence kicked in.
That’s damn accurate to what they’d do too, ugh.
Anonymous asked:
DNB: Plagg is the one that discovers that Gabriel is Hawk/Shadowmoth, but is forcibly sworn to silence by Adrien. Bonus if Adrien somehow gives this command without learning what Plagg is trying to tell him -- i.e. he get irritated and orders Plagg to shut up in a way that bars him from EVER saying what he was attempting to say -- so that Adrien's stans can claim it was all a big misunderstanding and blame Plagg entirely for it. Or Marinette. Somehow.
Oh oh oh!
Alternatively, Adrien silences Plagg without realizing that he has that kind of power (like saying, “you can’t tell anyone!” and we see the magic hit Plagg’s mouth), so the fandom can say, “HE DOESN’T KNOOOW THAT HE DID IT.”
Anonymous asked:
dntb: Luka is gonna be villianised in some way for not telling Marinette he knows the identities of both of them
Meanwhile, Alya, slipping the bouncer her free pass.
Anonymous asked:
Don't Need a Burrow: After one of the kwamis ​​makes one snickering comment too many, Marinette snaps and tells them all to shut up (with obvious outcome). Narrative obviously equals it to scene between Gabriel and Noroo from "Sandboy" (Bonus Points if Narrative deems Marinette worse than Gabriel, because "Gabriel forbid Noroo from talking as joke")
oh my goooooood
Marinette: *snaps because she’s stressed out*
the fandom: SHE SO MEAN!!! ;o;
Anonymous asked:
Don't Need a Burrow: Adrien's reveal as Sentimonster just for additional souce of "sad points" for him
this DNB: i am inevitable
mystic-lionroar asked:
Didn't Need Burrow: The writers' Status-Quo allergy kicks in when someone very pointedly implies Chloe, Lila and/or Gabriel work for Hawk Moth with how many Akumas they tend to cause... only to get reminded point blank that "Hawk Moth is the sole one responsible for this mess, no one else". Cue two episodes later, both the characters and the writers' memories of this scene are erased. What erased it? ╰( ・ ᗜ ・ )╯Why, Marinette can be held responsible for this one, of course! (Me: (ノಠ益ಠ)ノ彡┻━┻)
╰(‵□′)╯
OH MY GOOOOD
“Crocoduel” also basically already blamed Marinette for two akumatizations so at this point we’re just waiting.
Anonymous asked:
DNB: To further cement the whole 'destined to be' shlock, after the shock of the eventual reveal wears off, we get a call back to how frequently Chat Noir told Ladybug that they were meant for each other and that she 'was the only one who didn't see it'. Marinette agrees that she was silly and foolish for not recognizing it sooner, parroting Adrien's bullshit in order to further cement the notion that she's HAPPILY accepting her 'fate' to be nothing more than his personal prize.
You can’t see it but I have my head in my hands in grief.
Anonymous asked:
DNB: Adrien's gross sense of entitlement towards Ladybug will become even more explicit, with him angrily ranting about how he DESERVES to 'get the girl'. No matter how awful and nasty he gets, the narrative continues to treat him as though he's 100% right to be pissed off at her for DARING to have agency or thinking she has a say in things. As clearly, the biggest mistake Marinette has ever made is thinking she gets to have Opinions or make her own decisions. G-girl power...?
Marinette needing to be constantly told what’s best for her by other people and it’s okay because she needs to accept+follow all opinions.
end me
Anonymous asked:
DNB: The double standard between Adrien and other characters will be more noticeable. Adrien will still be put on a pedestal.
Because no one will notice Adrien if they didn’t put him on a metaphorical and physical pedastal.
Anonymous asked:
Don't Need a Burrow: Foxy Cat and CaraBug
omg Fox Adrien.is one of the worst hero choices I’ve ever heard fjdgjfjdglfkdg
I could at least see why Marinette thought that Adrien fit the snake since the narrative gushes for him so hard.
Anonymous asked:
Didn’t Need Burrow: As a result of being written by a straight white male writing team, the show starts to use Marinette’s girliness against her. From her love of pink being mocked to the kwamis admitting(in the spirit of another DNB) that they don’t respect Marinette because she’s “too girly”, to her fashion designing being treated as a cutesy but ultimately fickle pastime(in the spirit that all teenage girls’ interests are treated), the show absolutely throws Girl Power out the window in favor of giving Marinette absolute hell for daring to present herself in a traditionally feminine way, treating her femininity as the butt of a joke that no one is laughing at. Bonus points of someone says(or even outright tells her to her face) that she’s “such a girl”, as if that’s supposed to be an insult. Alternatively, this happens to Rose instead of Marinette, as she’s just as girly if not more so than her, or it happens to both of them(regardless of whether or not it’s at the same time).
WOOOOW
I mean, honestly, yeah.
Anonymous asked:
Didn’t Need Burrow: Things other characters did that were bad will be retconned into things that Marinette did instead, or will otherwise be retconned into being her fault, no matter how improbable or contradictory. Meanwhile, bad things characters did to Marinette or good things characters did FOR Marinette will be retconned into nonexistence.
I MEAN THEY BLAMED MARINETTE FOR “SILENCER” SO--
MATTER OF TIME.
Anonymous asked:
Don't Need a Burrow: Simultaneous Akumatization of Manon, Chris, Ella and Etta, obviously when they are babysat by Marinette, because otherwise ML Writers wouldn't be able to paint it as Marinette's fault
oh god
please no
I mean, not even just to blame Marinette for it, but I can’t even stand these kids when they’re on their own, MUCH LESS TOGETHER.
Anonymous asked:
Don't Need a Burrow: If Adrien gets akumatized, then it would be just Chat Blanc with shoulder pads and crown
Is this a reference to my Miracle Queen post?
Because yes.
Anonymous asked:
Didn't need burrow: In Hack-San Chat Noir will pull a Sentibubler and refuse to listen to Alya with the Ladybug Miraculous as he doesn't have a brain unless he can progress the not so progressive four-sided Hellfire, which is actually still the best-case-scenario. I mean he could just not come at all, since he's only there to flirt with and seduce Ladybug with unfunny jokes.
Anonymous asked:
DNB: Adrien causes problems because of Alyabug.
ugggggh
Anonymous asked:
DNB: Alya will immediately have access to things like the creation of charms despite how long it took for Marinette to be able to do that.
Wait--
If she doesn’t, did they literally just give Alya the ladybug miraculous because they knew that Markov wouldn’t have a way of hiding the amulet on him and they didn’t feel like putting it on his model???
Anonymous asked:
Didn’t Need Burrow: Alya’s Ladybug name is “Coccinelle” aka “Ladybug” in French. Or something equally lazy such as The Red Spotted One or the Scarlett Beetle. Even if it sounds cool at first glance, it will ultimately boil down to a plain and obvious name, because apparently EVERY superhero’s name has to so blatantly relate to the animal their Miraculous is based off of. For some reason. Somehow. -_-
fhkgjfdkgdfg okay but “The Red Spotted One” made me laugh.
Anonymous asked:
Hack-San DNB’s:
• Chat Noir will be upset that Ladybug trusted her miraculous to someone else.
• There will be a comment on how Alya was a just as good, if not better Ladybug than Marinette.
• Alya’s performance as LB will be used as another instance to show Marinette made the ‘right choice’ telling her her identity.
• Using the Horse to teleport back instead giving the earrings to Alya will not be mentioned as an option.
• Scene of Adrichat being sad about ‘feeling replaced’.
Especially on that “comment that Alya is just as good, if not better,” one, it probably won’t even be used as a reassurance for Marinette like, “oh, that’s good to know that I’m not the only one who can be Ladybug,” it’ll just be praise for Alya.
Anonymous asked:
Hack-San DNB: Chat Noir gets angry with LB for not telling him she was leaving & she has to apologize for it.
(Despite making sure there was a backup Ladybug to protect Paris, unlike Chat in the NY special who left the city completely unprotected).
Convenient.
Anonymous asked:
Don't Need a Burrow: "Dearest Family" (episode where both of Marinette's parents are akumatized) will be about Marinette learning "true value" of Chat Noir
Either that or incorporating Adrien into the family.
Anonymous asked:
Don't Need a Burrow: Psycomedian will be blatant Joker rip-off
You can just say “all akuma in the season will either be rip-offs of themselves or past akuma,” it’s okay. :P
Anonymous asked:
Another DNB for Hack-San, since we see Jagged Stone in the trailer, so if they show it..:
The “most precious possession” of Jagged’s will be Fang and not, y’know, either of his children.
I missed that trailer.
Honestly there could be some funny moments with the concept, but if Jagged is the only joke made about it then yes, I will be very bitter.
Alternatively, Jagged picks his guitar instead.
Anonymous asked:
DNB: In the Alyabug episode, Alya will either be Practically Perfect In Every Way™, or will royally screw up in a way that will somehow lead to Marinette. Either way, Cat Noir will flirt with the new Ladybug, or pull a Sentibubbler. Or both. There may or may not be a comment about how Alyabug's costume is so much better than Marinette's despite being a fashion designer.
dkfgkjdfgjf I adore how this whole thing is just, “there’s so many ways it could go wrong!”
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epicspheal · 3 years
Text
I’m going to be 1000% honest here and say neither Lillie or Leon’s episode (I know shocker, me not being excited about Leon appearing) really did anything for me. Pokemon Twilight Wings, PokeToons and Pokemon Generations are doing what Pokemon Evolutions did 100 times better. Like for me, both episodes have the issue of really just covering things we see in game but not in a transformative manner. The Darkest Day for Leon’s episode and Lunala vs Necrozma are all scenes we’ve seen in game some how and also the main anime. I’ll give Leon’s episode credit in that it highlighted his trauma and the weight of being the Galarian champion in ways the games neglected to do so, via sparse hints through optional text. Leon desperately needs more blatant characterization that shows his complexities rather than using the whole “I’m an unbeatable champion who is a Charizard fan and pants with directions” we got for the majority of the game with the real things that make him the great character he is get shoved off to the side. But even then it still didn’t really wow me like how his Twilight Wings episode did. 
And Lillie’s didn’t really offer anything new we haven’t seen if we played SM or USUM. I think it would’ve been nice to see Lillie in the Rainbow Rocket castle fighting alongside Selene or even teaming up with her at the battle tree with Red or Blue (with flashbacks to her journey to save Nebby) to show how far’s she gone. Or if we wanted to, use SM Lillie (the better plot her IMO) and have her recollect all of those things while she’s in Kanto starting her own journey.  Like at least with Generations if there was something that copied the games a lot of the time there was still an extra element. Like seeing Gabby and Ty, the reporters and how they were getting information and it just so happened to show us the Rayquaza and Deoxys fight from ORAS. Like yeah we’ve seen the fight in game but the addition of Gabby and Ty added an extra dimension. We got to see two not that well known NPCs working, but also adding some worldbuilding to how journalism works in the Pokemon World. Not to mention how the scientist at the end was like “the world is not ready” again hinting at potential coverups on some legendary and mythical Pokemon.  And as much as everyone knows how much I adore Leon, considering his brother hasn’t even gotten a chance to really show his story, I think I would’ve like to have seen Hop more. Or Bede or Marnie both of whom had storylines that were neglected. And again with Lillie this is even worse since she gets so much screentime already in games when there were other characters who should get fleshed out. Like an evolutions episode focused on Hau or Guzma would’ve been so much better since they got shafted hard despite being important characters and their presence giving a lot of context to Alolan culture as a whole. Like Blue’s episode in Generations, and Nessa and Oleana’s episodes in Twilight Wings were leagues better in my opinion as we got to get focus on characters who didn’t get much in their respective games. 
Getting to see how Blue went through the elite four while also giving us some hints to his feelings about being Oak’s grandson and getting a chance to know that getting 8 badges is a monumental task that very few in Kanto could do, showing that Blue was just as much of a child prodigy as Red? Amazing. It gives justice to a character whose development was pretty much solely offscreen especially compared to later rivals.
Seeing the struggles hinted at with Nessa managing her gym and her status as a model in real time while also giving us hints to the league ranking matches with the brief shots of her match versus Milo, her relationship with Sonia, as well some more insight into how Rose can come off in unsettling ways while trying his hardest to do good by Galar? Perfection. It gives us a chance to see an amazing character with only a minor role in game and it’s something I wish we could’ve seen for all of the Galar gym leaders. Seeing Oleana’s background before being Rose’s assistant, showing how much of a great help she is to Rose, showing how much she has to put up with a daily basis, while also giving us glimpses to more hinted events (like Melony and Gordie fight and again showing different dimensions to Rose once again further developing his character in a way the games neglected? Outstanding. Again things that could’ve been added to the game to make the whole Macro Cosmos plot a lot better. But at least we’re seeing it.  Obviously as these are shorts there is only so much storytelling that can be done. But I think I’m going to be looking forward to the episodes like Leaf/Green’s, Zinnia’s or Barry’s more as we’ll be getting a chance to see characters whose inner workings are more neglected by the narrative and could use the extra spotlight. Or just do a Poketoons and show us the Pokemon world in a light for people who are just average citizens. There is just so much worldbuilding that could be covered in shorts and just choosing to animate things we’ve seen if we have played the games without any extra worldbuilding, even if the animation is done superbly. 
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lazywonderlvnd · 3 years
Note
*hesitantly steps in the box* Umm.. soo.. I was listening to Cruel Summer by Taylor Swift again and that song (is awesome btw if you haven't listened to it already) just gives me such MAJOR drarry vibes .. like -
" And I screamed, 'for whatever it's worth I love you, ain't that the worst thing you ever heard?' He looks up grinning like a devil. "
Like if that's not drarry I'd chomp my pillows. So .. *twiddling thumbs* could you pls write something with that line as a prompt?? Pretty please 🥺🥺🥺❤️❤️❤️ maybe use the song as inspiration.. idk? Whatever you like. ALSO, don't forget I STILL LOVE YOU that ain't changing yet and you haven't seen the last of me! Imma tail after you for eternity and you better take that as the threat it is! *throws love at you* BYE!! ❤️❤️ *vaults outside the box*
my sweetest most loved angel!! thank u so much for this prompt based on a BOP i was obsessed w when the album first came out. it got sm longer than it was meant to be, so it can be found on ao3 as well!! i hope u like it ilysm ❤️❤️❤️❤️
warnings for minor drug use (weed) and implied suicide of a minor character (lucius, extremely vague reference but pls be aware!)
rating: e word count: ~5k
When Pansy asked him how it started, Draco discovered that he didn’t know what to tell her.
Technically, though, it had started at Ernie Macmillan’s party in the beginning of summer, with the cloying scent of Freesias and Freedom Roses (“Imported from the States,” Ernie told Draco pompously, when he asked) and all those string-lights dangling from the cedar pergola, perennial balls of fire inside their clear bubbles like tiny trapped suns. Cheap beer in plastic cups, Marlboro cigarettes, and some stupid Muggle game ... darts.
Technically.  
* * * 
“Get off me, Potter,” Draco says in a failed whisper. He’s laughing and drunk and fuzzy warm under a sprawling summer’s night sky that looks like black paint. Potter tastes like Guinness every time he kisses him, and his hands are surprisingly soft. In direct opposition to his own command he pulls Potter in by the face and glues their mouths back together ravenously. The alcohol makes him sloppy (he likes it, though — the sloppiness of it) and Potter’s skin is warm where Draco slides his hand under an ugly Muggle band T-shirt to touch. 
Around the corner, he can hear music coming from the patio where nearly every single one of their former classmates are gathered, drinking and laughing and getting along famously with a much-needed buffer of five years between them and their Hogwarts days.
Much-needed for himself and Potter as well. Apparently.
He sees him sometimes, at get-togethers like this or around the Ministry, once or twice at a dinner party thrown by a mutual friend. They’re always cordial. He hasn’t insulted Potter to his face in five years.
Except for tonight, when he couldn’t help himself loudly drawing attention to the similarities between Potter’s hair and one of the shrubs in the garden. But they’re kissing now round the side of the house and because of that he’s quite glad for his slip. And it’s their five-year reunion, so. What would it be without some bickering between the two of them?
Potter presses him into the bricks and snogs him breathless, only he keeps grinning and laughing and ruining everything just when Draco starts losing himself in it.
“Quit laughing,” he scolds him. “You’re the worst, Potter. No etiquette at all.”
“That’s rude,” Potter says. His breath wafts across Draco’s mouth. His eyes are excessively green behind their round frames, which have not changed since their school days. The scar is mostly hidden beneath his wild fringe, save for the very bottom where it slashes neatly through a dark eyebrow and touches his eyelid. “I can’t help it, I’m pissed good and proper.”
His hand moves to Draco’s hip and even through the thickness of the alcohol coating his brain like a muffler he feels that touch clear and ripe as daybreak.
“So  that’s  why you’ve decided to snog me rather than …” He waves a hand vaguely, in lieu of the proper witticism with which he might normally have trounced Potter. “You know. Beat me to a pulp.”
“I only did that one time,” Potter says, grinning. Grinning and moving his thumb in circles on Draco’s hip. “And it was because you were being a twat. And I didn’t beat you to a pulp. You’re so dramatic.”
“Semantics,” Draco says. “I had a bloody nose.”
“And you deserved it.”
“Now who’s being rude?”
Potter kisses him again.
Guinness and Freesias.
* * * 
“Macmillan’s party,” he told Pansy. “He kissed me.”
“So that’s where you disappeared to.” She looked smug. Her inch-long nails were sharpened to a point and painted a glossy black, and she drummed them against her cheek, the way a cat flicks its tail. “I’m surprised you kept it from me this whole time.”
“Well,” said Draco, lowering his gaze to his glass of wine and watching it flirt dangerously with the lip as he swirled it. His cheeks felt warm, but he wasn’t embarrassed. “We snuck around.”
Right, maybe a little embarrassed. Mostly conflicted.
“Oh?” For a single syllable the laughter underneath was remarkably transparent.
He looked up, eyebrows lifted. “Yes,” he said a little defensively. “For obvious reasons. At first it was just sex. A lot of it, so he usually came here. Apparently Granger and the Weasel are notorious for popping round his place unexpectedly.”
* * *
He feels opened up all over again every time Potter fucks into him, unhurried and so careful. His hand is hot on Draco’s thigh, both of them sticky with sweat and come. This has to be their third round at least, and Draco’s sluggish brain insists it might actually be four.
An open window lets in the late afternoon air, humid and drowsy and perfumed heavily with flowers (a la Macmillan, Draco planted Freesias and Freedom Roses outside his bedroom window and helped them along to full bloom with some careful magic). Potter’s hair is damp with sweat — from exertion and the relentless heat of July — and Draco slides his fingers into it, tangles them and pulls the way he’s learned Potter likes. If he’s honest, he’s harboured a very secret and  very  desperate yearning to touch Potter’s hair since he was quite young. He doesn’t know why.
Well, maybe he knows why.
Potter makes a quiet, whimpered noise that curls Draco’s toes. He speeds up his hips, closing in on his orgasm and putting his face in Draco’s neck even though it’s too fucking hot for it.
“Fuck,” Draco whines. He tries to lift his leg higher, wrap it around Potter’s waist to get that perfect angle, but they’re too slick with sweat and he lets out a frustrated noise when it falls back to the bed. “Potter,” he says helplessly, arching into each thrust and shaking with the effort. This third (fourth?) orgasm is building too slowly, sitting there hard and stubborn and heavy in his gut and refusing to be coaxed to completion. He’s dripping with the effort, muscles quivering. “Please — I need —”
But he seems to have figured it out for himself. He scoots forward, lifting Draco’s arse higher off the bed and bending him nearly in half. The angle helps him go deeper and he’s suddenly nudging Draco’s oversensitive prostate every time he fucks back in.
“Right there,” Draco gasps, tensing as this new angle lights a fire under his elusive orgasm. His cock is leaking but he doesn’t have the strength or energy to get a hand around it. Potter’s grunting with the effort of fucking him, sweat dripping down his temples and making his neck and torso gleam. “Right there, god, right there, please, I’m so close —”
Potter braces himself and redoubles his efforts, and it’s like he’s reached inside Draco and sunk his claws into that building storm in his belly because suddenly it’s ripped right out of him in a colossal wave of euphoria that approaches too much, cock spurting untouched between them  .  Potter keeps moving inside him while he rides it out, and at some point he feels the warm, wet explosion of Potter emptying in him, mumbling incoherent things that include Draco’s name.
They come down together too. Draco is clutching Potter’s arms and trying to catch his breath and Potter is trembling and clutching him back like an anchor in a veritable ocean of sensation. 
It’s like this every time. 
When Potter drops down onto the bed beside him Draco rolls over and kisses him, long and deep and satisfying, and Potter reciprocates with the kind of intensity that is completely unique to him as a person.
“That one was particularly good,” says Potter, and Draco laughs.
When he feels like moving, he knows that Potter will get up and go to Draco’s kitchen and make tea for both of them, and he won’t need to ask what Draco likes, because he remembered after the first time. They’ll drink it naked in bed as the sun sets on another endless summer day and transforms before their eyes into a humid and pungent summer night, in the midst of which they will fuck at least three more times, and Potter will keep smelling like sweat and bergamot and boy, and Draco will keep feeling starved for him.
And they won’t talk about it.
* * *
“And?” Pansy said.
“And what?”
“You said ‘at first,’” she pointed out, and arched a groomed eyebrow. “When did it turn into more than just sex?”
Draco tamped down on a smile, because that would have been more emotion than he cared to show at the moment. To Pansy or to himself.
He swirled his wine again and took a long sip, stalling. He wanted — needed, really — to talk this out with her, but he was becoming aware of an uncomfortable heaviness in his chest which was suggesting to him that he didn’t want to share everything. Not because he was embarrassed, but, well … it was private. It was between him and Harry.
“There was this one night he came over later than he was supposed to because of work,” Draco said. The memory stirred some emotion. He hadn’t thought of it in a while. “He had this bloody huge takeout bag of Thai food.”
 * * *
He sets it down on Draco’s desk, takes out a container, and after toeing off his shoes drops sideways onto Draco’s bed with it and uses chopsticks to shovel in a mouthful of noodles. Draco watches this in awe.
“Want some?” Harry asks once he’s swallowed (small blessings). There’s grease around his mouth. “There’s a million other things in the bag but you have to get it yourself. I’m dead tired.”
Draco thinks of asking what the hell is going on, because they’re supposed to be fucking by now, but something stops him. Harry really does look exhausted but quite content eating his Thai food on Draco’s bed, and he doesn’t have the heart to berate him for it or remind him that they’re fuck buddies, not friends, and that if he’d wanted to eat and lounge about perhaps he should’ve stayed at home.
And the food really does smell good.
He gets up and fishes another container out of the bag that turns out to be some sort of heavenly-smelling marinated beef, which he brings back to the bed. Harry’s rolled onto his back and has the container of noodles balanced on his stomach.
“They thought they found a Horcrux on a raid,” he says. His voice is perfectly casual, but Draco thinks he can see something troubled in his eyes. He has one foot crossed over the other and  it’s bouncing anxiously; he doesn’t think Harry’s aware of doing it. “Wasn’t. Obviously.” 
“But they needed your expert advice to be sure.”
“Yeah.” Harry looks at him, then his food. “Is that the beef?”
“Yes it is.”
“Good?”
“Haven’t tried it yet.”
He opens the container and chooses a piece, but instead of lifting it to his mouth he follows some crazy impulse and hovers it over Harry’s instead.
“Open, Scarhead,” he says. Harry blinks but does it, and Draco drops it in. He smiles, then chews.
“Brilliant.”
* * *
“We ate it instead of fucking. It was the first time I realised something had shifted.”
“And you let it shift?”
The question gave him pause. He didn’t answer right away, mulling it over. It made it sound as if he’d had a choice, and that wasn’t quite right.
“It already had,” he said finally. “It wasn’t a matter of letting it; by the time I noticed, it had already happened. Otherwise he wouldn’t have come over with the food.”
“But you did let it continue,” said Pansy. She wasn’t antagonising him, nor accusing him of anything. She looked amused, but not in a way that was at his expense. Pansy was both a twat and a fiercely good friend, the combination of which meant she would do nothing more or less than hold up a mirror and force you to look at yourself, gruesome as the experience inevitably wound up being. “Even after you realised he had feelings for you.”
Draco swallowed. He’d not heard it said aloud before now.
“Yes,” he said. “It felt good. Knowing he fancied me.”
* * *
Harry’s shameless in his staring.
He stands in the doorway of the ensuite bathroom and watches Draco like he’s been invited to do so. Draco pretends not to notice, stretched out in a tub full of bubbles facing the opposite way. There’s incense burning, and candles. Harry is completely silent, but Draco could feel those eyes on him from across a crowded hall.
They fucked a few hours ago and fell asleep afterwards. Draco pretended not to think about it, but had actually made the conscious decision to let Harry continue sleeping when he woke up and decided he wanted a bath.
When he can’t take it anymore he opens his eyes and tilts his head back and a little to the side, just enough that he gets Potter in his peripherals.
“Well?” he says. 
“Well what?”
“Join me, won’t you?”
Harry snorts. Then there’s a quiver of magic in the air, and a small, utilitarian chair appears out of thin air beside the tub. Harry sits down in it. He’s holding the joint they’d only gotten halfway through earlier. 
He’s in his jeans and nothing else, all limbs and sparse chest hair, and when he crosses a leg over the other one, elbow resting on his knee as he hits the joint, Draco feels a bone-deep attraction to him that’s beyond physical.
“May I?” Draco asks. Harry hands it over and Draco inhales deeply before returning it. The humidity of the room mixes with the smoke and the smell of marijuana, pungent and cloying like the flowers. 
After a length of silence, Draco says, “Will you read me something?”
“Will I what?”
He takes his wand from the floor and Summons a book from the shelf in his room — one of his poetry collections comes sweeping in through the cracked door and into Harry’s lap. Harry sticks the joint between his lips and starts rifling through it with his glasses all fogged up. 
When he starts reading Byron (“I had a dream, which was not all a dream”) Draco smiles and sinks deeper into the hot water and bubbles, letting Harry’s voice lull him into a pleasant stupor. 
 * * *
“So you led him on,” said Pansy. “Because you liked his attention.”
He stared at her, then let his gaze drop to his wine again. Had he?
“It sounds bad when you say it like that.”
“Well,” she said, smiling wryly, “I’m only saying it as you’ve told it to me. Maybe if it sounds bad, it is bad. Some things are that simple, darling. Unless there’s more to it.”
“Like what?” he said, not looking at her. There was a touch of pouty defiance in his voice he knew Pansy would detect instantly. He heard her sigh.
“What exactly happened yesterday, Draco? You didn’t give me any context.”
“What context do you need?” he muttered. “He told me he loved me.”
* * *
They’ve finished an entire bottle of wine between them. He’s not drunk, but he’s pleasantly buzzed. Harry’s sprawled on his back, T-shirt rucked up just below his navel so Draco can see the dark trail of hair leading below his jeans. There’s something implicitly erotic about the movement of his chest when he breathes, his hands folded behind his head, one leg stretched the length of the bed and the other bent at the knee.
He opens his eyes suddenly and grins when he sees Draco looking at him. 
“That wine just made me tired,” he says.
“So go to sleep,” says Draco. He takes a last swig, emptying it, and sets the bottle aside on his night table. He stretches his arms over his head and arches his back, yawning widely, thinking perhaps he’ll give into the tempting allure of sleep as well when Harry says, “I told Hermione about us.”
So he’s not sleeping, then. His stomach clenches hard and a completely irrational sense of panic rises in his throat.
“Us?” he says slowly, sitting up straighter. “What ‘us’?”
Harry looks at him upside-down, then rolls over and rises to his knees. He stares at Draco blankly.
“‘What us?’” he repeats.
“Yes,” says Draco. “What ‘us’?”
“Us,” Harry says. His voice is lower than usual. The word is starting to sound weird and lose meaning. “You and me, Draco.”
“‘You and me?’ Harry, there’s no you and me. We’re just fucking. What do you … what do you mean, you told Granger? Told her what?”
Harry looks … well, he looks fucking crushed. And angry. Draco forces himself not to look away.
“I told her I’d been seeing you,” he says quietly. There’s something … not threatening, but close to it, in his voice.
“Sure,” says Draco. “I see you three times a week, sometimes four. I s’pose if you feel the need to fill Granger in on everything you do with every second of your day —”
“Shut up, Draco,” Harry says. “You know what I meant.”
Draco glares at him. He gets off the bed, slightly lightheaded from the wine, horrified by the emotions welling up inside him right behind the panic, and he points at his bedroom door.
“Get out,” he says. 
“Are you serious?”
“Go!” he says loudly, voice rising. “If you’re gonna start turning this into something it definitely is not then get out of my flat, Potter.” As usual the window is open, but it’s the third of September and getting chilly finally and Draco’s Freesias and Freedom Roses started wilting last week. There’s a chilly breeze coming into that room that is utterly barren of the sweet smells of summer he associates with Harry these days. “It’s time we ended this anyway,” he says. “Summer’s over.”
“So?” From his position kneeling on Draco’s bed Harry shouldn’t feel imposing at all, but he does. There’s no sparkle of humour in his eyes, none of the softness Draco’s gotten used to seeing there. He looks like someone who’s realised they’ve been betrayed.
Worse than that. Someone who’s been betrayed and realises they should have seen it coming.
“What the fuck does summer have to do with anything?”
“Ever heard of a summer fling, Potter? We’re not ‘seeing each other’.”
Harry finally gets off the bed. Draco’s stomach clenches again, more painfully this time. He doesn’t feel bad, he tells himself — this is Harry’s fault. His fault for making a big deal out of something easy and fun and, most of all, temporary. For ruining this with feelings. 
 “That’s not what this was,” Harry says. It’s not an argumentative tone; rather, he sounds disappointed. Devastated, and disappointed. And that look of betrayal, like he’s surprised but not …  that  surprised.
That hurts. 
“This was as real as it gets, Draco,” he says matter-of-factly. “You and I don’t have the capability of doing anything as shallow as a fling.”
“Well, Potter,” says Draco, straining to maintain his level voice, “congratulations, because that is the most disgusting, romanticised, Gryffindorian piece of shit I’ve ever heard.”
“Yeah?” He grabs up his wand from the bedside table and stuffs it into his jeans pocket. “Well here’s another: I love you. You complete fucking prick.”
Draco stares after him as he leaves the room, cowed for the moment. He hears Harry take the Floo powder off his mantle, hears the fire start, and then the sound of Potter disappearing. 
And he feels hollow suddenly.
* * *
“And he said it completely out of the blue?” 
Draco set his wine aside. He was suddenly feeling too sick to put anything else in his body.
“Sort of,” he said quietly, avoiding her eyes. “He was trying to make something out of nothing. He was just making a point, trying to guilt me, I don’t even think he meant it.”
Pansy said nothing for so long that Draco finally looked up. She had an eyebrow raised.
“Do you really believe that?” she said.
Draco didn’t answer right away. He glanced at the bottle of wine on the table and thought about the way it always tasted a little sweeter on Harry’s lips.
“I don’t know,” he said. “No. But it doesn’t change anything. It was a summer thing, not a … a relationship, for crying out loud. Like I’d date Potter.”
“Why not?”
Draco scoffed. “Why not? Pansy, please. He’s a …”
“A …?”
“He’s an idiot! He’s Potter!  He’s …” He couldn’t think of the right word, something bad enough to express the audacity, the gall , for Potter to think even for a second  that they could …
“Draco Malfoy,” said Pansy. She was smirking. “You love him too.”
Had he felt sick before?  Now he was going to be sick.
“I never would’ve imagined it,” she went on, seeming to take pleasure from his outrage and humiliation. The bint. “Look at you, you’re blushing! Oh my god,” she laughed. And then she stopped laughing, and instead the weight of her own words appeared to descend on her. “Oh my god. You do, don’t you? You are arse over tits for Harry Potter —”
He was up and out of his chair before she’d finished the last word, absurdly,  embarrassingly on the verge of tears all of a sudden. 
“Draco —”
“I’m glad this can serve as your entertainment for the week, Pansy,” he said. A tear rolled down his cheek — could he be any more histrionic? — and he brushed it away furiously. 
“Draco, no —”
“Call Blaise, tell him!” he shouted. “You two can have a good laugh over it —”
“Draco  —”
“Poor Draco’s  fucked himself over again, what a stupid wanker!” 
Pansy got up. He slapped her hand away when she reached for him, but she only came at him again and grabbed it this time when he swatted at her, enfolding it in both of hers. He closed his eyes and hiccoughed and two more tears came.
“Darling, will you please listen to me?” she said softly. It sounded eerily like his mother, which only made him feel young and childish. He tugged his arm away and she let him go, but he didn’t move any farther away. “I am  not  laughing at you,” she told him. “Blaise might, but that’s because Blaise has a black hole for a heart, Draco, the only emotion he’s ever felt is disdain.” Against his will, Draco chuckled wetly. Pansy smiled and took his hand again, tentatively. He allowed it. “ I think it’s lovely that you have feelings for him. I don’t understand what’s got you so upset, I mean … I know it’s Potter, but we’re not teenagers anymore, right? Who cares?”
Draco exhaled a long sigh.
“He let my father go to Azkaban,” he said softly, looking into her eyes. He saw comprehension dawning. “How can I be with someone who could’ve saved my father’s life and chose not to, Pansy?”
“No one could have saved your father, Draco,” said Pansy gravely. His throat was tight, swollen. He hated that he was hanging on her words, looking for truth in them,  wanting to hear something that would make this okay. “He would have done the same thing if they’d let him go back to the manor. It’s not your fault or your mum’s or Potter’s.”
“But —”
“But what?” she cut him off sharply. “Draco, please don’t let your father keep controlling your life from the grave! My god, you deserve happiness, don’t you see that? Even if it’s Potter! In fact, I … I think that could be really good.”
“What, being with Potter?”
“Yes, being with Potter,” she said. “Darling, I say this because I love you: you need to grow a pair of bollocks and start taking control of your own life. I’m not finished!” she added when he opened his mouth to retort. “I understand that it feels like a betrayal of your father, I do, and I’m not saying you can’t have your cherished memories of him, but Draco … you cannot live your life in his shadow, doing things because it’s what he’d want or wouldn’t want. I think that choosing to explore these feelings you have for Potter is the bravest and healthiest thing you could possibly do for yourself.”
He stared at her for a long moment, eyes wet though the tears had stopped falling. 
“What if it doesn’t last?” he said finally. “What if next week he realises it was a huge mistake?”
“First of all, I doubt that,” said Pansy with a roll of her eyes that was clearly meant to be teasing. “You said you’ve been seeing him all summer, that’s plenty of time to have gotten sick of you. And, even if that did happen, I still think it would be entirely worth that week of being disgustingly in love.”
“Do you?” he drawled.
“Yes! I do!” She picked up his discarded wine glass from before and held it up. “Does the effect of alcohol last forever?”
“No …”
“Of course not! And we don’t expect it to. We expect to have fun while we’re drunk and it’ll last as long as it lasts.”
“Dating someone isn’t like being drunk, Pansy,” Draco said sourly.
“Oh, that’s not the point ,” she huffed. “We don’t do things because we know they’ll last forever, we do them because we want to. In the moment.”
“Sounds irresponsible.”
“Well, of course it is,” she scoffed. “Love is completely irresponsible, that’s the fun of it, Draco. Now take this,” she shoved the glass of wine into his hand, almost spilling it. “Drink up, and then get your arse over to his flat and fix this.”
* * *
Granger opened the door. Draco sighed.
“Hello, Granger,” he said lamely. Her raised eyebrows said she was surprised and thoroughly unimpressed by his appearance.
“Malfoy,” she said.
“Is Potter in?”
“I guess that depends.”
“On?”
She looked at him, dark brown eyes impenetrable. Then she closed the front door behind her.
“What do you want?” she asked.
“To talk to him,” he said tightly. As if this whole thing wasn’t bad enough, now he had to pass a test to get past Granger the bridge troll. “I thought he told you —”
“He did,” she said flatly. “And about yesterday.”
“Well I’m here to apologise,” said Draco. Granger’s eyebrows lifted again. Still unimpressed. “And to tell him …” He sighed again and broke eye contact, willing himself not to give up, not to take this as a sign he should just go home and ream into Pansy for giving him such bad advice.
“Malfoy.” He looked up. Her voice was softer now, and her eyes seemed a little less hard. “What are you doing? You really hurt him, you know.”
“I know,” he said stiffly. “I said I’m here to apologise.”
“Well he doesn’t need an apology,” she said. “If you’re only going to let him down again —”
“I’m not.” He rubbed his forehead and looked at her again, exasperated, defeated. “I’ve … had some sense talked into me.”
She looked like it was the last thing she’d been expecting. 
“Have you?”
“Yes,” he said. “So would you please get him for me before I lose my nerve?”
It was the right thing to say. Her expression melted into something much softer and he fancied he even saw the beginnings of a smile.
“Can I ask who affected this change of heart?”
“Pansy,” he said. And, when Granger seemed taken aback, “She’s very wise when she feels like it.”
“I see. Well …” She still looked a bit conflicted, eyeing him and then putting her hand on the doorknob. “All right. I’ll tell him you’re here, anyway, but he was really hurt, Malfoy. I don’t know if he’ll want to hear it.”
“I’ll take my chances,” he said.
Granger eyed him another moment and then went back inside, shutting the door behind her. Draco only had to wait a minute before it was opening again, and this time Harry came out. The sight of him made Draco’s heart feel tender and sore.
“Hi,” he said.
“Hi, Potter.”
He waited to see if Harry would say anything else but he didn’t. He only stared at Draco expectantly, arms folded, in all ways closed off.
“I came to apologise,” said Draco.
“Well you can keep it,” said Harry. “I don’t need an apology because you told me the truth.”
“It wasn’t the truth, Potter,” Draco said quietly. “Opposite, really.”
Harry was silent. Then, “You made me feel like shit, Draco.”
“I know. I’m sorry. You freaked me out, springing it on me like that.”
A beat, then two, and then suddenly Harry was dropping his arms and sighing and he looked at Draco with so much vulnerability he nearly had to turn away from it.
“I didn’t mean to tell you …” He licked his lips, scratched his arm. It reminded Draco that beneath everything, Harry was still the same awkward dorky leader-of-the-losers he’d always been, just with a bit more confidence now and the title of Official Saviour of the Wizarding World. “I wouldn’t have said that if … I was just angry.”
He didn’t need to ask what Harry was referring to.
“I know.”
“Not that I didn’t … I mean, I … I do —”
“Please don’t say it again,” Draco said. Harry laughed.
“Right. I just meant … I really do have feelings for you, Draco. Like … mad, crazy feelings, y’know? I don’t want it to be a fling.”
“It wasn’t a fling,” he said. He moved a little closer and Harry watched him carefully, eyes flickering once down to Draco’s mouth. “I didn’t even sleep with anyone else the whole time.”
“Well that’s good to know,” said Harry sardonically. But he was smiling, so Draco found himself smiling tentatively as well.
“I wanna be with you, Potter. Properly. I thought …” But he shakes his head, deciding that now isn’t the time to explain about his father. “I thought it was a stupid idea. Now I realise that it probably is, but that I don’t really care much. I’ve decided to ignore my better judgment this one time.”
“That’s quite Gryffindor of you,” Harry commented drily.
“Yes, well.”
“So I go against your better judgment, then?”
“Potter,” Draco sighed. “Please, I don’t mean it like —”
“I’m taking the piss, Draco,” Harry cut him off. He reached for Draco’s waist and pulled him close, and before Draco could get his breath back from a short, surprised intake of breath Harry’s mouth was on his, warm and familiar and soothing. He brought his hands to Harry’s face and kissed back without bothering to hide his overwhelming relief.
Harry chased his mouth when he pulled away and Draco breathed out a laugh, holding him at bay with a hand on his chest. 
“We have plenty of time,” he said. “D’you wanna come over later tonight, after your friends leave?”
“What? No, come in.” He took Draco’s hand and gestured with his head towards the door. “Please. It’s just Ron and Hermione. They know everything.”
“Really?” Draco drawled. “And you think Weasley won’t try to kill me?”
“I promise not to let him,” Harry grinned. “Please, Draco. You said you wanted to do this properly, right?”
He thought of what Pansy said about being irresponsible, and decided it was worth a try at least.
“Okay,” he said. Harry beamed and tugged him inside.
Towards his ultimate downfall or towards the beginning of the rest of his life, he didn’t know. That, as Pansy would have said, was the fun of it.
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erbezdiez · 3 years
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On your Seiya and Usagi post, you had a tag about an AU and YES I WANT TO HEAR please(:
YESSS *RUBS MY GAY LITTLE HANDS*
Click the read more because this post turned out longer than I expected but SEIUSA AU HERE WE GO
Okay, so this is basically just “The Sailor Starlights come to earth at the beginning of the series instead of in S4″ AU. In that specific scene/whatever, Fighter hears Sailor Moon screaming during her first fight and goes there to save her on pure instinct, not because she’s looking for the Silver Crystal or anything.
Honesty in my head I wouldn’t necessarily get rid of Mamoru or anything and the whole thing would kind of follow the same basic beats as the canon Sailor Moon story.
After the first fight, Fighter would get curious about Sailor Moon, and with time she’d end up aiding her too from time to time in her battles. Maybe she can even meet Tuxedo like that, when they both go to save SM at the first time or something safsadgs. Usagi would develop her crush on Tuxedo Mask while at the same time being curious about Fighter as well. Also during all this time Fighter is flirting with Sailor Moon because she’s a big lesbian and I love her, which would leave her feeling ~~confused~~.
Meanwhile, the Three Lights could serve as the standard “popular idol” like Minako does in PSSM, though I do like the idea of their popularity growing through the series exponentially.
Sometime after the senshi go meet Queen Serenity, Fighter would be aiding Sailor Moon and the others in a fight, but then get hurt herself. Then Maker and Healer can make their appearances, introducing the full group. They wouldn’t appear much more, but they would make it very clear that they’re not after the Silver Crystal so the senshi can have the whole “they’re not our allies, but they’re not our enemies either?” thing.
After the finale of S1, I like the idea of the Starlights noticing the senshi have forgotten about their identities and Figher being sad, but deciding that it’s better this way.
They could have a bigger part during the Makai Tree arc because that arc is great and I don’t care if it’s filler, where maybe they can sense something similar to Kakyuu’s light in the Makai Tree or something. Seiya and Usagi could meet while Mamoru is away as their civilian selves, and of course, Seiya falls for Usagi right away without knowing she’s Sailor Moon. Usagi however rejects him, because she’s still hoping Mamoru will return to her. When he does get his memories back and all that, Seiya stays friends with Usagi without telling her about his feelings.
And then during the Black Moon arc. Seiya could become a sort of emotional support for Usagi; she’s not sure why she likes talking to him so much, but it’s like he gets him in a way no one else does, not even her best friends. They grow especially close then Mamoru and Chibiusa go through the whole Black Lady thing. By this point, the Starlights are still focused on searching Kakyuu and only get involved in the other’s fight when they happen to be there or it’s something very serious, but they’ve become a sort of “sometime-allies we can rely on when something goes wrong”.
But then, of course, the Death Buster arc happens, and Uranus and Neptune are immediately wary of the Starlights since they’re from outside the solar system. They could go from suspecting them of working with the Death Busters, to attacking them on-sight. At the same time, Haruka meets Seiya while he’s hanging out with Usagi, and distrusts him right away. Partly because she feels “he’s just dangerous” and partly because let’s be honest she’s a bit mad that Seiya gets better reactions from Usagi than she does. Through this whole arc, Mamoru and Usagi begin to drift apart as she starts relying more on Seiya than on him, but she always denies the possibility of having romantic feelings for him, especially because she knows that Chibiusa existing at all depends on her staying with Mamoru. This however does nothing but strain their relationship even further.
Before the end of the arc, the Starlights would explain to all the senshi that they’re looking for Kakyuu, so Uranus and Neptune can stop trying to kill them for one second.
The Dead Moon arc is all about ChibiUsa and Usagi, and by this point, it’s undeniable that Usagi likes him too. Chibiusa could actually talk to Helios about this in her dreams, and how she’s actually scared Usagi will choose Seiya over Mamoru and either create a paradox or straight up kill her.
I would use Nehelenia’s motivation in this point as a way of separating the current Usagi (and by extension, Mamoru and everyone else) to their Silver Millenium selves. In Death Busters Uranus and Neptune are affected by their destiny in a positive way (they’re soulmates who can finally reunite, much like Serenity and Endymion) but in a negative way, when they think there’s no way to stop Saturn from destroying the planet. Now, when Usagi senses how much Nehelenia hated Serenity and her mother, she would feel sorry for her. Usagi had nothing to do with Nehelenia’s punishment and feels like Queen Serenity did a bad thing she can’t excuse. By creating this crack in the perfect image of the Silver Millenium, Usagi would begin to question if just because Serenity loved Endymion that means she should love Mamoru unconditionally.
And then of course, the Stars arc!! By this point, Usagi and Seiya are very close and both have feelings for the other, the Sol senshi trust the Starlights in varying degrees, and Usagi isn’t sure if she truly loves Mamoru and wants to fulfil her destiny. By the time Mamoru goes to America, he tells her they should “take a break” while they’re away so they can sort their feelings out.
I would also have Mamoru actually get to America instead of being kidnapped by Galaxia. Enjoy your education, boy!
Usagi tells Seiya rather quickly about this development, and they get even closer than before. Chibiusa hasn’t returned to the future yet, either because she senses it’s unstable or because she’s too worried about Mamoru and Usagi to leave them. She can tell Usagi that she knows how she feels about Seiya and that she’s broken up with Mamoru, and that she’s afraid of what that means for herself. For a while, Usagi starts avoiding Seiya because every time she thinks of him, she imagines Chibiusa disappearing and she can’t bear to choose between the two of them.
Then one day, Seiya gets targeted by one of Sailor Galaxia’s lackeys, and Usagi has no choice but to transform in front of him, revealing her secret identity. Seiya is surprised, but before he can say anything, Usagi runs away.
Seiya isn’t sure what to do, and she can’t even tell Taiki and Yaten about it because it would betray Usagi’s trust. One day, Seiya finds Usagi crying under the rain (or maybe the moonlight?) as she feels the weight of the whole world is in her shoulders. Seiya reaches out to Usagi, but she pushes him away when she thinks about hurting ChibiUsa. Seiya takes her hand anyways and holds it to his chest, telling her to look after her own happiness instead of the happiness of others for the first time. Usagi cries, and Seiya wipes her tears off. She then says “you were crying that time too at the jewel shop”, and Usagi isn’t sure what he means. Seiya transforms in front of her, showing her her true self.
This only makes Usagi confused for a second before she realizes that of course, it makes so much sense now. In a moment where she allows herself to think of her own happiness, she kisses Seiya.
She then rushes back home, suddenly afraid that she’s made Chibiusa disappear, but to her surprise she’s still there, alive and well. Chibiusa is suspicious of Usagi’s actions, but she leaves her be.
Shortly after this, before Seiya and Usagi have the chance to properly explore their relationship, the rest of the inner senshi have to transform in front of the Starlights (and vice-versa). By this point their relationship is much less tense than in the canon (both groups think of the other as allies, and now they’re united under the same enemy), and while Haruka still doesn’t like Seiya too much, she accepts her when Usagi defends her.
Eventually, the final battle comes, and in this version, I’d actually like Galaxia to be the villain not because Chaos corrupted her and she doesn’t have a Starseed, but because she became bitter and angry by the mere act of having to fight Chaos over and over again.
Turns out Sailor Galaxia isn’t just the most powerful Sailor Senshi of the universe; she’s the most powerful Sailor Senshi of all universes. Each time Chaos is born, she travels to that universe to destroy it. She’s been doing it since the dawn of time and is now so tired of her destiny that she just joins Chaos willingly.
So during the final battle (which honestly I’d leave almost the same because that battle is amazing), Usagi makes Galaxia see that she doesn’t need to keep on fighting just because someone decided it was her destiny. The existence of the Silver Crystal, the Golden Cyrstal and Kakyuu prove that Chaos can be fought against by other people, and that she’s already done more than enough. By realizing this, Galaxia lets go of Chaos, and by joining forces with Sailor Moon (and maybe with all senshi there present, even if it’s in spirit form), they manage to destroy Chaos.
I didn’t mention her anywhere else but ChibiChibi is here! And in this version, she actually is Sailor Cosmos, who’s awakened after Chaos disappears. She tells Usagi and Galaxia that Cosmos and Chaos will always be in battle, but that as long as people don’t let it consume her, peace will reign through all universes.
So the peace is restored, and the Starlights have to go back to Kakyuu. All senshi share a farewell in the school building, where Seiya struggles to let of Usagi and she has to try her best not to beg her to stay. Mamoru (who was captured during the final battle but is OK now) notices how Usagi hasn’t looked at him the way she looks at Seiya in years, and catches up very quickly. Seiya says that going back to restore her planet with Kakyuu is her duty, to which Usagi can’t say anything, because she feels she too has a duty to fulfil on earth.
But as they’re flying off into space, Yaten Taiki and Kakyuu tell Seiya that she’s already done more than enough. Seiya looks at them for a moment, when Usagi breaks down and cries, begging her to stay. Seiya leaves the space teleportation whatever the Starlights were using and jumps towards Usagi, who only barely manages to catch her. Everyone laughs and they kiss.
Later, they discuss whether or not this changes their destiny, since Chibiusa has never seen Seiya in the future. Setsuna could then explain that they may as well have created a new universe where nothing is set in stone, and that their future is now in their hands.
----
...And that’s that!! SORRY THAT WAS SO LONG asfshkgjhdfgksd. I know this fandom is very small so if anyone wants to idk expand on this idea or change anything or use it for something please go ahead!!! More seiusa content is always welcome. I hope you enjoyed this really long read!
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mylittlegemlins · 3 years
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Hello tumblr, during my childhood I was really obsessed with smurfs and since I found out that they released a reboot, which unfortunately I haven´t yet been able to see, I think I had some inspiration and ended up writing this.
I don't usually post this kind of blog about series unless I'm too immersed in it because I feel like it's too childish but to hell, blogging about-analyzing series for kids is my entertainment method and if I can't post about my likes on Tumblr I don't know why have an account.
So I present:
How to catch the Smurfs
This is the definitive tutorial on everything Gargamel ever did to catch the little blue critters.
It is based mainly on the animated series from the 80s and the 3 films that were produced between 2011-2017, I watched several episodes again to write this, but I still hope I don't forget some important information.
Following these steps:
1. Why catch the Smurfs?
During the comics, the series and the recent movies there were many reasons why Gargamel and other humans wanted to capture the Smurfs that change over time, among its main uses we have:
- They are ingredients for exotic dishes.
-Turn them into gold
- Ingredient for the Philosopher's Stone
- Use its essence to obtain magic
- Their tears serve as an ingredient for spells
-Their skin serves as a treatment to cure diseases
2. Points to consider:
This is a set of rules that fall between the lines when using a Smurf for any of the recipes mentioned above.
2.1 How many are needed:
In some episodes Gargamel was about to cook a single Smurf, so 1 is enough to eat them.
To turn them into gold you need at least half a kilo, about 6 smurfs.
2.2. They don't need to be alive
I didn't remenber any place where it said that Smurfs must be alive to use them in recipes.
2.3. Smurfette doesn't always count
She has to be a real smurf or else it won't work, during her first appearance before the papa smurf spell and the episode "smurfette unmade" where she reverts to her original form she is not a real smurf, so it wouldn't work unless that is in its blonde form.
2.4. Fake Smurfs:
The reason Gargamel can't just create another Smurf and use it in his recipes is because his creations are blue clay with a conscience, to turn them into real Smurfs you need the “true blue”spell
2.5. Artificial Smurfs:
Smurfette, Sassete, Kactus, Vicky and any other Smurf they come up with in the future, count as real Smurfs only after their transformation.
To clarify the points, these are the steps:
3.Locate them
The Smurfs are in a village protected by a magical force that makes it invisible or unreachable, it is only possible to find the village if a Smurf guides you to it, even after finding the exact location it will have disappeared if you try to return, so the best It is marks the surroundings of the village and look for them in the places that the Smurfs frequent.
It is possible to capture them when they leave the village, force them to guide you, enter the village using teleportation spells or hoaxes.
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4.Traps
Catching smurfs is relatively easy, you can chase them with butterfly nets, catch them with your bare hands, using a cat or any other hunting animal, now that I think about it a hound would be very useful to track their scent.
Using some classic traps to hunt animals also works with Smurfs, traps with cages or hidden holes in the ground, or camouflage in a bush until a Smurf is close enough to catch it, you can't use traps like an obvious cage with food in it, they are too smart to fall for that.
It is more effective if they are placed in strategic places such as a field of smurfberries which is outside the village.
Small female creatures are also used as decoys, such as female smurfs, little mermaids and lymph to make a smurf fall in love and thus leave the village to a point where they can be captured.
5.Which Smurfs to capture
Personally I think there are Smurfs that are easier to catch, although Gargamel could not have a list of all with so many times that they have passed by his house, he should already recognize one or another Smurf and I remember that there is a episode where he knows some of his names.
The main cast, Smurfette, Hefty, Brainy, Clumsy, Greedy, Grouchy, Jokey and Handy as far as i can remember, they´re the ones that have been captured the most times and also the ones that have escaped the most, since they're easy to capture, it would be convenient to take advantage of this, but since they know how to get out, they should change the cages with them, put the cages in another place, move the objects that previously used to get out, and above all not to fall the same tricks again.
Papa smurf has been captured many times, he is the one who most leaves the village and if in one of his trips they capture him, maybe the others would not notice his absence, it is something difficult because he already knows how to escape and he can use spells against you, but if you manage to kill him the others would be lost without their leader, and with the disaster they would be easier to capture.
Lazy smurf takes naps during his work outside the village so it's a good chance to catch him, hopefully he might still be asleep while preparing the recipe and he won't try to escape.
According to his debut episode sickly smurf was never able to escape from Gargamel and Azrael; it is so easy that he catches him with his bare hands in 20 seconds.
Baby Smurf is more vulnerable for obvious reasons, the negative side is that there is always a Smurf looking after him, but if they manage to separate the baby it would be easy to cook , considering the life expectancy of the Smurfs is more than 500 years, it may remain a baby for the next 10 years so there is time to execute your plan.
Nat, Snapy, Sassete and Slouchy, the 4 children Smurfs that appear in season 5 are in almost the same circumstances as Baby Smurf.
In Wild Smurf's first appearance he kicked Gargamel in the face and easily made Azrael afraid of him so it might not be a good idea to mess with him.
I guess Smurfs like scaredy would never leave the village unless they forced it so the only times he gets caught is when they capture all 100 together.
6.Don't let them escape
In many occasions the Smurfs escape when they have already been captured by Gargamel, either from his hands, cages and in their closest attempts they escape from the pot.
These are the points to keep in mind:
6.1 Capture only one
If you capture a single Smurf than two or more as it will take a while for them to realize that one is missing and they will not come to their rescue, the more they are, the more likely they will find a plan to escape, so keep them in mind. separate cages.
6.2 The others will come
Once Gargamel has one or more Smurfs, it is 100% certain that the others will come to rescue him at his house, so it would be convenient to go to another place away from the forest where he can cook the Smurfs without others being able to find them. Gargamel has a basement with a secret door, he was able to hide there and pretend he didn't have them until the rescuers leave.
6.3 catch rescuers
Knowing that more Smurfs could come, you could use it to your advantage by placing traps on the doors and windows, or on the contrary, closing everything so that it is impossible to enter without having a key.
6.4 They will leave him for dead
In the episode "the tear of a Smurf ", it seems that if they don't find a missing Smurf it only takes a week for them to surrender and prepare for his funeral. You can hide the smurfs with their mouths tied up in a drawer and pretend you don't know what they are talking about until they give up, then it will be time to execute the recipes. If Gargamel had enough brain cells to keep the secret, he could eat the Smurfs and the rest would think they were eaten by birds or something and would not take revenge.
6.5. Do not look any further
If you already have 99 it is enough, even if you have only one, it is not worth risking it to find one more, it is a trap.
6.6. Don't open jokey surprises.
The characters always forget that gift.
6.7. Don't listen to them
On several occasions they try to make conversation to buy time, they trick him into thinking that he will bring more Smurfs or that he cannot eat him, everything is a trap.
6.8. Just kill them
He never did that but it's a very obvious choice, I don't remember somewhere saying that smurfs have to be alive for recipes, Gargamel has repeatedly expressed his desire to destroy them. Wouldn't it be easier to kill them before throwing them into the pot? if you can't, they don't even have to be dead, just unconscious or asleep. Gargamel has drops of lava in his lab for some reason, how come he doesn't have substances to knock them unconscious? In case he have many captured you could use classic techniques such as placing the cage in a tub of water until they drown, even stepping on them would be enough since they are very small.
6.9. Papa Smurf's books
If Gargamel tries to kill them with an epidemic, papa will have the cure, if he casts a spell, papa has the antidote, since he has been in the village on several occasions, he should take the opportunity to steal or destroy their books, he could look for the true blue spell and perhaps find another useful spell.
7.Enjoy your smurf soup
If that's all i came up with, you can already eat or become a millionaire at the cost of a smurf's life, hopefully you'll have to face a horrible revenge from papa smurf, but i'm not responsible for that.
8.Other methods to get smurfs:
This is a set of theories for alternative ways to get smurfs without capturing one from the village.
8.1. create smurfs:
In the second live action movie gargamel gets the formula for the true blue spell, so from here technically he could create smurfs, then transform them into real smurfs and do whatever he wants with them, during the series he had to look for the formula instead to look for smurfs.
8.2. Clone Smurfs:
In the episode "the hundredth smurf" Vanity creates a clone of himself that eventually integrates into the village, it is a genetically exact clone so there is no doubt that it is a real smurf. He just needs to place a mirror in front of a smurf and get it struck by lightning, Gargamel could capture a smurf and make clones that will work, he wouldn't even have to keep the original and he would have an infinite smurf machine.
8.3. Kidnap Baby Smurfs:
During the blue moon it is possible that a zork came to the village bringing a baby smurf, it can take up to 200 years without bringing one but if you are alive when that happens, you can try to hunt the zork and capture the defenseless baby.
8.4. Repeat the fake smurf technique:
If it is possible to create fake Smurfs like Smurfette, it might work on a second try, Smurfs are not very cautious around strangers, once Smurfette arrives in the village no one wonders where she came from or why she was in the forest, but rather Immediately they offer him a house, Gargamel could create a smurf and this time instruct him to lead all the smurfs in the village into a trap and make sure he does not turn good, he can also turn himself into a life-size smurf costume, Nobody will notice that there is an extra Smurf and he can repeat the same trap,third time’s a charm
9.Conclusion:
Surely there are many other methods to catch Smurfs but I can't see the whole series again even if I wanted to, because it is a series for children Gargamel never learns from his mistakes I think that catching Smurfs is not that exaggeratedly difficult, especially for someone who has access to magic may be as difficult as capturing a talking rabbit, Gargamel is just stupid.
The end.
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sanchoyo · 3 years
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danny phantom season 2, episode 17-20 thoughts! finishing up season two! the finale is the THIRD 2-PARTER OF SEASON 2. that's so many! I wonder how many season 3 will have?
see prev episode thoughts in this tag <3
-UERGH WHY DOES VLAD HAVE AN AI WITH MADDIE'S FACE ON IT. SOOO CREEPY. AND MORE 'CREATIONS' waiiiit. vlad is Dr. Frankenstein! (despite his ghost design obviously referencing vampires) HE HAS 'CREATIONS' HE MAKES THEN WONT TAKE REAL RESPONSIBILITY FOR!!! this bitch.
-danny was late and his friends immediately start going off about how hes inconsiderate, and has been treating them like sidekicks??? he just overslept, my god. chill. even if he has, be nicer about talking about it with him?? he really can't help that he sometimes has to chase the ghosts, or has a secret identity to protect...
-'what kind of ghost haunts a miniature golf course' umm. me as a ghost. next question
-imagine going home and theres a tiny child on your bed claiming to be your cousin. with as many cousins I have, I would probably believe her. but the 'ran away from home' BIT....SHES 12?? SHES SO TINY. I hate that they have her belly out in her ghost form, but I like how her colors are asymmetrical. something about her design...maybe the proportions?? are weird to me...anyway danny was good to feed her, but he shouldve taken her to his parents FIRST. or, tbh, probably jazz. (JAZZ DIDNT EVEN GET TO MEET HER!!! NOOO. I mean she said she'll be BACK BUT STILL)
-ANYWAY. shes voiced by AnnaSophia Robb, the girl who was in because of winn dixie, played as violet from charlie and the chocolate factory, and was the girl from bridge to terrabithia. (the movie that made me cry hysterically when I was 12 and I never watched it again because it Broke Me!) thats super cool.
-vlad sucks: the episode, basically. what's new!! I love how he's like, I'm Not A Villain. *immediately cuts to him torturing danny to make him transform, to get mid-transformation DNA, to perfect a Clone.* *immediately shows that he doesnt give a shit about his new daughter Dani and just wants a ''more perfect clone'' and will put her in danger to get that. will let her DIE to get that*
-Dani is danny's clone and is a girl? transgenderism....one of them has to be trans. or they both are.
-dani just. leaving at the end. WHAT? SHES 12. DONT JUST. NO!!! SHE WAS PROBABLY JUST BORN, A MONTH AGO AT MOST, RIGHT?? SHE NEEDS...SOMEWHERE TO LIVE. MONEY? FOOD?? A FAMILY?? AN EDUCATION???! WHAT DO YOU MEAN SHE'S LEAVING!!! OKAY BYE I GUESS!!! D: concern!!!
-the next ep opens with skulker chasing a ghost down. ...does skulker count as a ghost hunter in the way valerie and danny do? I mean, sure, he hunts the good guys too, but he. he hunts ghosts...also, we haven't seen his Real Form since his debut episode! tiny...
-the guys in white are back! ngl, I assumed they were a gag for that one episode. you're telling me they might actually be a threat? ok.
-valerie in her lil nasty burger uniform looks so cute!! glad shes not in that mascot uniform this time. I guess she stopped hiding that she's working there now?
-gregor having white hair, dressed in black and white...and green eyes...sam has a Type, I guess.
-danny being unnecessarily hostile about gregor. danny!!! hes been nice so far. he looks a little...tall to be 14, but. danny doesnt know anything about him! (he does Suspect, but...you cant just spy on people and be rude to them from a hunch.) also, gregor kissed her, and when she freaked out, he was like 'oh no!! sorry, we can take it slow! I understand!' which was NICE. I hate jealousy plots still tho.
-altho. umm. tucker, being concerned about danny spying on them??? SAM AND YOU WERE SPYING ON DANNY AND VALERIE A FEW EPISODES AGO!!!!! im not saying its RIGHT, but dont be a hypocrite!!! AND THEN SAM BEING MAD ABOUT IT, TOO.
-DANNY IS A 7 ON THE SCALE OF ECTOPLASMIC POWER!!! out of 10? so I want to know where the other ghosts rank...I mean it's a list from the guys in white, so, it may not even be accurate, like, they havent seen ALL of his powers, have they?
-Lancer being like 'im not cooperating with the FEDS' until they said they could access his tax records. they already did that joke with jack, but like, its still funny. kings of tax evasion.
-tucker's aggressive third-wheeling. but gregor being super into it. gregor/tucker is the real ship here. then gregor kissing danny on both cheeks after hugging him. bi poly king gregor. (he does turn out to be a liar with a phoney accent. unsurprising, BUT THE CONCEPT OF HIM BEING GENUINE AND THEM ALL DATING IS FUN)
-THE...GUYS IN WHITE THINKING GREGOR IS DANNY PHANTOM. LMAOOO. GET HIS ASS. or,, Elliot. lmfao
-sam saying tucker is part of the package because theyre friends was super sweet <3 but also 'part of the package'...polyships are obviously the solution to these dumb jealousy/love triangle plots.
-danny crashed a whole plane. the collateral damage...
-is he....
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-you know....
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.... (ITS NOT GAY IF YOU'RE DOING IT TO PRETEND TO BE SOMEONE YOU'RE NOT, AND LIE TO A GIRL. RIGHT? he was getting a little too into pretending to enjoy tucker's company, and the above...c'mon, guy.)
-lmao, freakshow is in actual prison. I didn't expect a follow up, or for him to show back up! in the finale of this season, too!
-THE SICK TATTOO GHOST IS NAMED LYDIA!!! more Lore On her. freakshow seemed genuinely concerned about her. also, is she mute? I don't think she talked the first time we saw her, either. and we didn't know freakshow 'envied' ghosts, either, the first time, we just knew he was controlling them. interesting!
-...they literally stole the infinity gauntlet from marvel and called it the reality gauntlet. is that legal. what the fuck. even with the gems in the lil slots, having different powers...they had freakshow in jail, but didnt check his pockets??! hes just still in his lil outfit??? what kind of ...oh, its in amity park. yeah, all of the adults are idiots, okay, sure.
-'freakshow!' 'in the anemic flesh!' dude take some iron pills then. also, sure, the red eyes could be contacts for his aesthetic, but the whites of his eyes are yellow! does he have jaundice?! he severely needs more...like, every kind of vitamin. (this is what im worried about as freakshow attacks danny with giant robots)
-again, goth circus is a sick theme, and I love his goth train.
-oh FUCK every single person saw danny transform. on a stage. including his parents via TV. oh god. the guys in white and immediately like 'youre coming in for experiments!' SCARY. at least the crowd is willing to help him to escape...perks of now being a local celeb! even the kids at school are accepting :) this is what, the third time his family has found out? its always been an alt timeline tho. and danny fully intending to just rewrite things again instead of...I dunno, trying to roll with it this time? hes really worried his family won't accept him, huh...
-'maybe our son IS THE GHOST BOY, but its not as if our family's ghostly activities have EVER PUT YOUR FAMILIES IN DANGER' maddie. mmmmmmmmmmmm. okay.
-danny 100% prepared to run away from home because of this :( oh :( and saying his parents are 'looking for him, or a scalpel to dissect him with' ouch...
-THE GUYS IN WHITE TRYING TO ARREST A 14 YEAR OLD. fuck da feds.
-side note (another one about voice actors...) freakshow's voice actor, Jon Cryer, was lex luthor in pretty much every DC tv show, which is why I recognized his voice, because my dad loves those shows so I've seen a good bit of them without seeking them out...)
-the old man saying 'hey, i still had minutes left!' and danny saying 'you gotta watch those roaming charges!' about danny destroying the people in the diner's phones so no one could report seeing him...would kids today understand these things. can you even BUY minutes anymore...I remember my first phone being a flip phone, and the fact I always had minutes when my sister ran out super fast, because I didnt have friends calling or texting me like she did...:/
-the fentons being genuinely like 'why didnt danny trust us and tell us this, we love him :(' and JAZZ LAYING INTO THEM WITH THE 'DISSECTION/MOLECULE BY MOLECULE' LINES. LITERALLLLY. they need to apologize
-technically, lydias stronger than you! -jazz lesbianism moments! when did you even learn her name!!! but also get freakshows ass. lydia is also cooler looking. looove her design sm still.
-jazz psychoanalyzing freakshow... (also, her also having ghost envy? au where jazz is a ghost!! id like to see it)
-im glad the kids still got to go to their respective vacation things, even if they cant really stick around and enjoy them much...
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-furry: confirmed. (also tucker calling her hot. tucker is a furry confirmed)
-danny being mad someone at the comic con is selling comics of him without permission, lmfao. give him his royalties!
-freakshow > thanos because hes a drama clown and does use his gauntlet to be FLASHY AND DRAMATIC.
-jazz's 'USE PYSCOLOGY' to danny about freakshow LMAOO. AND THEN IT WORKING. but, oh, freakshow's ghost form sucks. I like him as a clown better tbh. good thing danny took away his ghost powers!
-his parents hugging him and saying theyre proud :"( and saying 'of course you lied to us, we never gave you a reason not to!' and saying they were in the wrong basically for always talking about hurting ghosts aaaa :""(
-then he WIPED THEIR MEMORIES AGAIN!!! FUCK. I can understand him wiping the goverments/student bodies' memories, but why his parents?? they were being accepting!! ARGHHH. season 3 couldve been them all trying to adjust to them knowing!
-I know, on a meta level the showrunners probably wanted to just reset things to the status quo of him having a secret identity. But. We've been doing that for (2) seasons, I'd love if season 3 could be like, his parents adjusting to this and trying way harder to learn more and accept it (and the shenanigans that could come from that) and for fun, if he didn't wipe the students memories, it could be him being popular for a while, then everyone slowly realizing, oh, he's still Danny. Like. he might have ghost powers but hes Just The Same Guy instead of putting him on a pedestal (and seeing them all try and help him hide it from the giw/people who don't know!!)
-fuck they didn't even explain WHY he wiped everyone except sam, tucker and jazz's memories. he just Did It right when his parents were saying they loved/accepted him!! and sam and tucker didnt question it at all!!! HELLO??? very annoyed about this turn of events.
-anyway. onto season 3! I know its shorter than the first two seasons, and is the last season... I might just do it in 2 bursts if I can... :3c depends on the episodes' content and how much I want to say about each!
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jadethest0ne · 3 years
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When the Moon meets the Morning, Chapter 6 - Not all Black and White
Summary:  Raphael is going on missions with Captain Jupiter as he always does when he meets an orange-wearing turtle yokai who feels oddly familiar.
Word Count: 3376
Ratings/Warnings: General Audiences; some minor harrowing moments, but mostly fluff, emotional overload, emotional manipulation, self-deprecation
Notes: This is my longest chapter yet! This one has some minor emotional manipulation at the beginning of this chapter along with some harrowing moments later on. On the plus side, we get some cameos from previous TMNT incarnations that I’m happy about bringing to the table. Big thanks to @undercoverwizardninjaturtle and @fraymotiif for helping me workshop this. And a big thanks to @5weekdays who helped me with the Captain Jupiter dialogue in this chapter!
Read on AO3 For the RotTMNT Fantasy AU
———-
The trio gets up early the next morning, reaching the outskirts of Bedu in relative silence. The whole time Mikey keeps looking over to Raph as if he wants to say something. Raph knows by now to just wait until Mikey speaks – if the young boxshell has something to say, he's bound to say it eventually. Finally he opens his mouth. “How... did you do that...?” he asks.
Well, that wasn't exactly what Raph was expecting. “Do what?” he asks genuinely confused.
“I mean, how did you...” Mikey twirls his hands around each other as if trying to find the right words, “...make everything stop..? The noise? The... the feelings?” He looks to Raph in almost desperate wonder.
“Oh, that...” Raph runs his mask tails through his fingers as he thinks. “I'm... actually not so sure... I've always been good with protective wards and shields n' stuff. I guess... I just figured out a new way to use them...?” He ends his sentence in a rising questioning tone.
Mikey looks at him almost expectantly. As if there's more to what Raph has to say.
There is more. “And, uh,” Raph begins. “You're gonna probably think this is a little weird, but, um, I think I did it in a dream once...?”
Mikey's eyes widen, before softening. A warm smile spreads across his face. “That doesn't sound weird to me at all.”
“Oh really?” Raph stops tugging at his mask tails. “Um... I could maybe equip some of your gear, or even sheets of magic activation paper with some protective wards like that. Maybe they could help you out in your travels, even if I'm not around.”
Mikey's smile widens further and he bounces in his saddle. “Really!? You could do that?!”
“Of course! I'd have to grab some of the extra paper and ink from my room when we get back, but I could definitely do that for ya!”
“Well, it's good timing then, because we're just about there!” Red Fox chimes in.
The town of Bedu looked pretty much the same as when they had left. After all, it had barely been a couple weeks. The main difference now was that a thin layer of frost was covering the ground, signalling that winter was close at hand, even below the tall mountain peaks.
“I have to go sign in with the Mountain Guide Guild to notify them that I've returned, and I need Mikey to come with me,” Red Fox says. “Raph, could you drop our gear off at the base?”
“Sure! I'll take Infinity and Buddy to the stables, too,” Raph says.
“Alrighty then!” Mikey bounces off of Infinity's back and hands her reins over to Raph, then bounces over to Red Fox.
“When you're done, come meet us by the healing house. I want to check if our gecko friend has recovered. After that we can all get some brunch – my treat!”
“Red Fox, you are the best!” Mikey cheers.
Raph smiles as he watches the two of them head farther into town. It's good to see Mikey's usual energy returned. But then he frowns a bit, realizing that he'd probably have to say goodbye to the guy soon with their trek now over. His mind is stuck in that sad thought as he heads back to Captain Jupiter's base, sets up Buddy and Infinity in the stables with some food and treats, and unpacks their gear. He mulls over all the things he's learned about Mikey and how close the two of them had grown in such a short time. He's gonna miss him a whole lot.
Raph’s thoughts are interrupted by a booming voice.
"Great gorgons, my boy, where have you been all this time!?"
Raph's head snaps up to see Captain Jupiter in the door frame with his hands on his hips. Raph can't tell if it's his normal heroic pose or if he's angry for some reason. But either way Raph is cautious in his response. "I, uh, was on a mountain guiding mission with Red Fox."
"Well I needed you here! There's been a great monster attacking the town while you've been gone and we've had trouble tracking it down and stopping it! I could've used your natural instincts!”
“I'm sorry.” Raph shrinks a bit, now feeling really bad that he had been away. It had been selfish of him to leave like that when he was needed here. And at a time when the Captain wanted to use his skills for once! It was rare that Raph’s “instincts” were looked at positively.
“Where is Red Fox?" Captain Jupiter asks looking in various directions as if expecting his sidekick to appear at the mention of her name.
"She went to the healing house to check on one of the fire victims.” Raph tugs at his mask tails, his eyes darting around not sure where to look.
"Good to know she's back here, too. I'm going to patrol the edge of the town. You head to the healing hut to tell Red Fox of the situation. And if you see any large scaly monsters, you take it down!"
At the command, Raph immediately comes to attention and salutes. "Yessir, Captain Jupiter!"
“Remember what I always say? 'Act like a monster, become a monster.' Nobody likes a monster. That’s why we do what we do. You don’t want to be on the wrong side of justice, do you?” He gives Raph a pointed look.
Raph tells himself that the Captain is always saying these things to pump him up and get him ready for a challenge or to hunt a bounty. But he hates that it feels like these words are meant specifically for him, as a warning to what Raph could do and has done. Either way, Raph knows that he’s always going to fight for good in the end. So Raph nods with determination, and in affirmation of the Captain’s words.
“Good,” Captain Jupiter says with a toothy grin. “So if you see any beasts rampaging around, make sure your justice is swift!”
Raph sucks in a breath, but stands up straight, hardens his features, and repeats, “Yessir.”
“Good lad.” The Captain nods with a pleased grin, and rushes off.
---
Raph quickly makes his way down to the village square and over to the healing house, bursting through the door with a lot more speed and panic than intended when he gets there. Everyone inside gives him an inquisitive look and Raph tries to calm himself down and casually walks towards where he sees Red Fox and Mikey standing by a bed. In the bed is the gecko from before, now wide awake and bright eyed. Without the soot or bandages covering him, Raph can see that he’s a dull yellow color with dark speckles covering his features. He looks very relaxed next to the other two.
Mikey lights up at seeing the large snapping turtle enter the room. "Raph! You're just in time to meet my new friend!" Mikey gestures at the bed.
The gecko looks up with an easy smile. "Hey there," he says in a raspy voice. "The name's Mondo! You must be Raph?"
Raph smiles and gives a small wave at the yokai. "Yup that's me. You doing okay?"
Mondo nods and Red Fox explains, "He's mostly recovered from the fire, he just has a sore throat that may last for another week or so. The smoke did a number on his lungs. Right now we're just trying to figure out where his family is."
Mikey makes a small pained sound causing Raph to look at him. The younger turtle is rubbing his head as if it hurts.
"Hey, are you okay?" Raph asks, concern tingeing his tone.
Mikey lets out a small grunt and says, "There's a lot of negative emotions in the area."
"Like what?"
"Unease... Fear..." Mikey flinches as if something struck him. "Oof, a lot of fear actually, but this seems like..."
Raph doesn't get to hear what that seems like, because there's a sudden shriek from outside. Oh, right - the reason why Raph came here. He grabs the attention of the red panda yokai. "Red Fox, the Captain told me that there's been a monster attacking the town."
"That must be it. Let's go!"
The two rush outside and sure enough a large creature is running through the streets causing many people to flee from it. It looks to be a giant alligator of some sort with hard scales and giant jaws snapping every which way. Raph summons his red limb projections and charges the beast while Red Fox leaps in the air. She lands on the beast's head and transforms her tail so it is long enough to wrap around its snout, locking its snapping jaws shut. Raph rams his whole body into the alligator in an attempt to knock it down. But even with his magic enhanced limbs the monster stands its ground and pushes back.
There is a struggle; Raph puts more magic power into the red limbs and lets out a yell, growing a second pair of red glowing arms in addition to the two surrounding his actual arms. He tries to grapple the sides of the beast with the extra pair of magical limbs. However, the alligator seems to recognize the losing battle, so instead it rocks back a bit then sweeps out its large muscular tail. The lack of resistance from the gator combined with the tail flicking at Raph’s legs causes the snapper to lose balance and he falls over, landing on his snout.
As Raph lifts himself up with a pained grunt, he sees the gator whip its head around, causing Red Fox to be flung into the wall of the healing house. His eyes widen in worry and he shouts her name. But his attention is then caught by the form of Mikey stepping outside the door with a look of horror on his face as he comes upon the scene. Behind Mikey he can see Mondo. For a second Raph wonders what he is doing out of bed, but he has much bigger things to worry about at the moment.
The large monster seems to have noticed the two smaller yokai as well, and it charges in their direction. Mondo looks like he's trying to say something, but the only thing that comes out of his mouth is a squeak. Mikey just stares up at the monster charging at them with a strange expression on his face. Raph doesn't have the time to ponder whatever feelings the empath is picking up from the scene around him and launches himself at the beast. He grabs hold of the monster's tail and digs his heels into the ground bracing himself. The gator is stopped mere feet from the two younger reptile yokai and turns around angrily to look at Raph. It launches itself at him with giant jaws opened lined with sharp, jagged teeth.
Red Fox is down, Mikey and Mondo and other civilians are around, and it's up to Raph to stop him. The Captain said to take the monster down. Raph pushes down the fear fluttering in his chest, and the twisted feeling he gets at the Captain’s implication of what he must do. He ignores the similarities between an alligator snapping turtle and an actual alligator, and allows the Captain's words to echo in his mind. “Act like a monster, become a monster.” Well, this is one monster that Raph is not going to let hurt his friends. He summons from deep down as much of his power as he can muster. His sclera turns black and his iris and pupil form into that of a blood moon. He gathers as much of his energy as he can around his fist. If he can just get one good powerful punch in as the monster leaps at him, he can end this.
Raph lets out a yell as he's about to launch his attack, right as the alligator snarls and his leaping attack arcs downward, towards the turtle. Suddenly something wraps around the alligator’s jaws, causing them to snap shut and the alligator to unceremoniously fall to the ground in an ungraceful heap. The gator looks so shocked that it seems like for a moment its anger is dispelled. Raph, too, is so surprised that magic swirling around his arm dissipates.
"Wait!" A voice calls out to them. Raph and the gator follow the voice to see Mikey standing there holding onto a rope. The rope is attached to the gator’s mouth ending in what seems to be some sort of grappling hook, glowing with magical energy. Mikey walks over to the gator with raised hands and says calmly, "I'm not going to hurt you. Just hold on a sec."
The complete lack of fear or malice coming from Mikey must confuse the alligator since it makes no moves to attack him. "You're just scared, right? And sad...? Like you miss someone?" The gator looks at the turtle with mournful eyes. Mikey slowly moves his hands towards the gator. Raph is about to stop him when Mikey holds up at hand in his direction, making Raph clamp his mouth shut before he can say anything. Mikey gently pets the large reptile's snout before loosening the rope around its jaws and says, "I think maybe they miss you, too."
Mikey gestures at Mondo who is leaning against the healing house, tightly gripping the front of his shirt, staring at the scene with wide eyes. As soon as the gecko and the gator lock eyes, Mondo tearfully runs over to the large alligator and calls out, "Leatherhead!"
Mikey steps out of the way and positions himself next to Raph. Mondo throws himself onto the apparently named Leatherhead’s face resting his small head in between the larger yokai's eyes. Leatherhead closes his eyes and puts a gentle clawed hand over the gecko's back and pats him soothingly, letting out a rumbling trill.
Raph looks past the touching scene to see Red Fox pushing herself up and walking over to them. Raph rushes to her side. "Red Fox! Are you okay?"
Red Fox smirks and rubs her neck saying, "It'll take more than one raging beast flinging me into a wall to keep me down." She looks at the scene before them. "Though I guess he's not so much a raging beast anymore..."
Mikey giggles and explains, "I thought his aura and Mondo's seemed kind of similar, and you did say that Mondo was looking for his family. I thought maybe the big guy was looking for his family, too"
Mondo breaks his hug with Leatherhead, and speaks with him in hushed tones, likely due to the fact that his voice can't seem to go above a whisper at the moment. Even though Leatherhead seems to only respond in guttural growls and trills, Mondo doesn't seem to have any trouble communicating with him.
The two of them walk over to Raph, Red Fox, and Mikey. Mondo bows his head and rasps out, “I'm sorry for Leatherhead here. The big guy was just worried about me and didn't know where I was. Please don't be mad at him.” By the end of his short speech, Mondo's voice was losing power and the last part came out in a worried squeak.
A sense of injustice rings in Raph’s head. It is based on the constant lectures about right and wrong that the Captain taught him. And the fact that the Captain gave him a direct order to stop the monster that had been terrorizing the town. Raph looked in the eyes of said monster, and saw himself reflected back in its blank yellow eyes. Leatherhead is calm now and Mondo is just a kid. But Leatherhead attacked the town, apparently numerous times; scared a lot of people. Worried about his family or not, that was still a criminal act, and he acted like a monster. Captain Jupiter's words ring in his mind yet again. Despite the torment twisting in his gut, Captain Jupiter's justice should win out. Right?
Raph spoke sternly. "You could have caused a lot of people harm! And you broke the law! You need to learn--"
He stops when Mikey pats his arm and says, "I think they learned enough, Raph. This was just a misunderstanding and that's no one's fault. Yeah, and he might've done some not very good things, but Leatherhead here is not a bad guy! He was just looking for his family!" Mikey smiles happily at the two of them.
"But.. they..." Raph's resolve fades fast under the stare of Mikey's innocent eyes.
Red Fox steps next to Raph and puts a hand over his clenched fist. Raph looks over to her, and she looks wistfully at the pair. Something behind her eyes seems to tell Raph that maybe she's grappling with similar thoughts. Finally, she lets out a sigh and says, "Well, I did want to make sure you at least got to your family after all this, and it looks like that worked out. I think it might be best if you leave town quickly, though.”
Mondo grins and says, "No problem. We don't do too well with the cold. We were going to leave Bedu weeks back, but got separated in the fire. Sorry again for causing trouble.”
Leatherhead grumbles something and bows his head apologetically.
Mondo then hops up onto Leatherhead's back and the two quickly make their leave with Mikey waving happily after them.
Red Fox lets out a tired sigh and says, “I should check around to see if any real damage was done and to calm the townsfolk. You look like you could use a rest, Raph, why don't you hang back here?”
Raph nods. She is right, he is a bit tired, suddenly.
As Red Fox walks off, Raph backs up to the healing house, and slides down its wall to rest. He's looking down at his hands unsure of what to make of the situation. Should he have told Red Fox that the Captain wanted to stop the monster, maybe permanently? But it wasn't a monster, as it turned out. Yeah, it was just a misunderstanding... And looking around the square it seemed like he hadn't even damaged anything or hurt anyone. He was just scary... not evil. But what does that say for others with sharp teeth and claws... Claws that had, at one time... He scrunches his eyes shut, refusing to think about a pink scar on his friend’s face. He shakes his head to clear the images from his mind. As he opens his eyes, something orange enters his vision.
Raph looks up to see Mikey staring at him, almost looking as if he had been in as deep a thought as Raph had. "You did the right thing, you know, letting them go..." Mikey says, finally.
"I guess," says Raph. "Just one thing I don't get though... How did you know he wasn't a bad guy?"
"He seemed more scared than mean. Besides..." Mikey gives him a bright grin, one that looks like it trusts anything, especially what he says next: "Not everything is black and white like that."
Raph ponders this for a moment. For all of the things that Raph has learned about Mikey. All the confusing questions he still had. It's the meaning behind that statement, that Raph was sure he'd be confused about for a long time. It didn't ring true at all to what he'd been taught, and yet, the way Mikey had said it, it was as if it was the truest thing in the world.
Mikey sits next to Raph and pats him on the arm. “I guess today is another cool story that I'll get to tell – one with you and Red Fox again. You guys really are heroic!”
A smile tugs at the side of Raph's mouth and he rubs Mikey's head, “If anyone was the hero today, it was you, little man!”
Mikey laughs sheepishly. “Haha, aww, really?” he asks, but glows with the praise.
“Yeah, really.” Raph gives him a final head pat. “Better make sure to include that in your story.”
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Discography Discussion: We Hate All Kinds of Violence
If you’ve been following this blog for a while, you probably know quite a bit about H.O.T. I assume you have a favorite member. I bet you’ve heard tracks like “I-Yah” and “Hope”. But I haven’t really discussed the start of H.O.T in depth, nor the discography of their first album. After making you wait so long, let’s talk about how this influential group began.
Before H.O.T
In order to understand why H.O.T was created, we’ve got to understand Korean history.
(Note: As this blog is about one group and the point of this post is to talk about one album, I am leaving out a lot of notable events and people to give you a basic summary of what led to H.O.T.)
Up until 1988, South Korea had been constantly under oppressive political regimes. This oppression extended to music, which limited who could sing and what songs would be allowed to the masses. 1988 is a very important year in Korean history because that was when the country opened itself to the world and hosted the 1988 Seoul Olympics in Jamsil, Seoul. Through various political, economic, and technological changes, Korea was gradually transforming into what it is now. However, music was still largely either patriotic tunes or shallow love songs.
You know what came next. In the spring of 1992 Seo Taiji and Boys debuted. They had mass appeal among young people in Korea because they made music directed to people in Korea that was about their problems. Even though there was management involved with the group, it was entirely under the control of Seo Taiji - not some executive who dictated what the group could say and do. Also, they were not the first group in Korea to use rock music or rap, but the way Seo Taiji combined different genres and styles was very different - and very appealing. Bland dance and pop music produced by large broadcasting companies weren’t going to cut it anymore.
Generally speaking, whenever there is some kind of innovation, businesses and investors crop up looking to make a profit. The Korean music industry is no different. The rise of Seo Taiji and Boys created this essential question: Could a company recreate Seo Taiji and Boys?
The answer came in 1996.
H.O.T Pre-Debut
Before SM Entertainment, there was SM Studio. It was Lee Sooman’s first serious venture into starting a music company. In 1990, Hyun Jinyoung debuted as the first artist in the company and led to the start of several careers. Lee Sooman eventually signed on other artists, such as Yoo Youngjin in 1993.
However, Lee Sooman had seen the Japanese system of training idols and wanted to adapt that for Korea. Some things came out of this and became standardized in K-Pop (to some extent), such as idols of the same group living together and going through training for a period of time. This also changed how artists were managed and signed on. It went from being like MGM during Hollywood’s Golden Age to the “factory” idea we know now.
The first idols (and lab rats) for this were H.O.T. Kangta was the first to be recruited for his voice when Lee Sooman heard him sing at Lotte World. Heejun was asked to audition due to his ability to dance, sing, and write music. Woohyuk passed his audition as he was also a talented dancing. Jaewon’s recruitment isn’t well-known other than that he gained points for his visual appeal, however, sometimes people make claims that he was previously friends with Heejun and yet aren’t able to provide credible sources (at least that I’m aware of). Tony, however, auditioned with his friend Andy in LA and was voted in by the other four members. Lee Sooman has said that Tony didn’t have much going for him, but he recruited him because he thought the teenager would work hard. Together, these five were everything the public wanted.
Before H.O.T debuted, they were seen in public. Heejun and Kangta were dancers for Yoo Youngjin, and Jaewon and Woohyuk joined them later (I’m not sure if Tony did, however, considering how late he joined). The group even performed their debut song at a festival at Heejun’s high school. They were generating hype and ready to begin.
The We Hate All Kinds of Violence Album
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 H.O.T debuted on Sept. 7th, 1996. Their first album was called We Hate All Kinds of Violence. The cover art shows a person sitting on a step with their head in their arms in a way that usually denotes sadness or despair while wearing uniform with a hat that says “Workers”. The combination of group name, album title, and album artwork set the tone of the album at a glance as being geared towards teenagers. This was a smart move on SM’s part. Seo Taiji and Boys had disbanded earlier that year, so there was a void in the music industry that needed to be filled, and H.O.T seemed to fit the bill for a lot of young people in Korea.
Warrior’s Descendant
Their debut track was “Warrior’s Descendant”. Just hearing that title tends to interest people even before they hear the actual song. It gives off the impression that the song is about someone who has a fighting spirit like their ancestors, even if they themselves aren’t soldiers.
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Lyrics (DISCLAIMER FOR THIS SECTION: TW: BULLYING)
The lyrics themselves are about bullying. The opening words are, “Ah~ Why are you hitting me?” (Lyrics Source) From there the lyrics are presented as though by the victim themselves asking why they’re being beaten up. Parts of the song seem to indicate that this isn’t a one-off thing, it’s something that’s been going on for a long time:
You changed me without a guilt You hit me Once we were friends You ruined me
I was beaten like a stupid idiot I lost everything and was roaming around Now with sounds of punch, steal and breaths My heart was torn already because of my lost friends
However, this person seems to believe that someone will save them and that this won’t go on forever.
It's time to stop, The violence, hate, and all the mess, It's about time someone should stand for what is right, That is right
Now I want my future that I've been dreaming of I think of everything can be back as it was before I trusted you I trust you once more Save me Someone someone can
Unfortunately, the song ends with the realization that no one is going save them. That someone can save them, but no one does.
Someone someone can,someone someone can, That I know it, That I know it, That I know it, Can Can That I know it, Someone someone someone someone someone can, someone can, someone can, someone can can can can can, But I know it won't happen, Now I give up everything; I have because of you. They ruined me, They took it all even my last hope You became my enemy and now I give you up They ruined me, They took it all even my last hope. I look for the hope; It's nowhere Now I'm gonna punish myself.....
The worst part of this is that the victim seems to be blaming themselves. They seem to think that they were at fault so they are going to give up. The last line itself, “Now I’m gonna punish myself” is especially troubling.
While you might have been hoping there would be a happy ending, this song wasn’t meant to have one. For a debut song that was supposed to target teenagers, this was a perfect introduction. Bullying is common everywhere, but it’s especially bad in Korea. If you’ve been a fan of K-Pop or K-Dramas for a while, you’ve probably heard a lot about this.
I think the reason why the song ends on a hopeless tone is because the song verbalized what a lot of kids and teenagers in that position probably feel like. Considering how many people follow this blog, I assume that at least one person reading this has been (or is currently being) bullied, so these words probably resonate with you.
And that is the point of “Warrior’s Descendant”, as it targets two groups of people. The first group of people are the ones being bullied, as it tells their point of view. The second group are the bystanders, as it calls them out for not doing anything about it. It calls for these two groups of people to look at each other and see that this isn’t just something that happens, bullying is a choice. The point of the lyrics is to tell people who are bullied that what they’re going through isn’t right, and to tell people to stop being a bystander and do something. This song was a call to action.
Also, the beginning of this song tends to get used in variety shows. However, I don’t think I’ve ever seen it used to match up with the context of the lyrics. Next time you hear this song somewhere, you might want to take note of the feeling the song brings to the situation it’s used for.
(End of bullying discussion)
This was actually the first song Yoo Youngjin produced, and led to his long and successful career with composing and producing music at SM Entertainment.
The MV
The music video itself shows a story between cutting to H.O.T singing and dancing. The MV opens with a teenage boy looking up while bloody, then cuts to people walking away from him - great hook. It quickly cuts to the night before when the guy was walking with a girl while carrying his violin case. Three guys around his age come and beat him up, and then go after the girl. When the guy sees the girl being targeted, he gets up to fight them off of her and she tries to defend him as well. It ends with the teenager bloody in the daylight with his broken violin. Maybe it’s just me reading into things, but it looks like the guy got beat up in the alley and then possibly got dragged to a school due to the building in the background.
It also has a very 90s style to it. Their outfits were purchased by the members themselves - I don’t know if SM had a stylist who told them what to get or if they were just given free reign, but they did have to pay for them. In addition to the outfits, there were some hallmarks of the time period in the music video, such as graffiti, which was a very popular aesthetic in the 90s and can also be seen in Turbo’s “Black Cat” MV.
Also, even though I haven’t heard anyone else agree with me on this, I personally feel like “Warrior’s Descendant” sounds like “Come Back Home” by Seo Taiji and Boys due to the vocals, instrumental, and tone. Considering that H.O.T was largely created as a response to Seo Taiji and Boys, I think it’s quite possible that recalling the other group was intentional.
However, “Warrior’s Descendant” is simultaneously where Seo Taiji and Boys ends and H.O.T begins.
Candy
Does this song really need an introduction? Probably not, so I’m just going to jump into it. This is H.O.T’s most well-known song and is beloved by many people even years later. It was also their golden ticket and get-out-of-jail-free card throughout their time promoting together.
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MV
This music video is iconic for so many reasons.
First up, the location is perfect for such a bright song. It was filmed at Lotte World in Jamsil, Seoul.
Now, you might be thinking to yourself, “Jamsil? I’ve heard of that place before” and you would be correct! That’s where the 1988 Seoul Olympic Games took place, and it’s also a huge part of H.O.T’s history. They had their 918 concert there in 1999, their last concert there in 2001, and their reunion concerts have been there because of the 2001 concert as well.
As for Lotte World itself, it’s one of the major theme parks in South Korea. H.O.T filmed in front of the famous merry-go-round and various other sites around the park. Fun fact: this is also where the drama “Stairway to Heaven” was filmed at.
When I was in Korea, I visited Jamsil quite a few times and it was one of my favorite places. You have no idea how excited I was when I went to the Olympic Park and saw the stadium in person. I also got the chance to visit Lotte World and ride on the merry-go-round, as well as walk on the outdoor bridge they danced on. If you’re an H.O.T fan, I highly recommend going there.
Choreography
The dance for this song is very iconic because it’s bouncy and fun. When I say bouncy, I mean that literally considering as Heejun’s favorite dance move involves him bouncing on the ground.
Trademark Colors
If you’ve been a fan of K-Pop for a while, you probably know that a lot of groups have their own color. The first group that had an official fan color (to my knowledge) was Seo Taiji and Boys, and their color was yellow. However, colors became more of a big deal for K-Pop groups because of H.O.T.
H.O.T’s official color is white, which is why you tend to see them wear white suits and their light stick is white. However, they also have an official color for each member. Heejun is yellow, Woohyuk is blue, Tony is red, Kangta is green, and Jaewon is orange. If you see merch of the group, you’ll often see these colors being heavily associated with each member, and you’ll often see fans cheering with their individual color as well as white.
These colors helped the public to easily identify who was who when they were rookies.
They also had different accessories. Woohyuk had his floppy hat with eyeballs attached to it - that can be seen on that light stick he teased. Kangta had a bag. Tony had a hat. Jaewon had earmuffs - which was a win because it was getting to be cold when this track was released. Heejun, however, had a visor which he hated due to it not keeping him warm in the winter, nor cool in the summer. Their fluffy outfits also endeared them to the public because of how cute they were.
Lyrics
So now that we’ve talked about all the visuals, let’s talk about what “Candy” itself is about. First off, the lyrics to this song are so painfully 90s and cheesy. The story is this: a guy plans on going on break (or breaking up) with his girlfriend because he realizes he’s not the best boyfriend and their relationship isn’t doing great. He literally decides that suddenly when he wakes up in the morning - you can’t make this up.
To be honest with you I want to see you today to talk about us to tell you that I need some space Please understand me I’m telling you that it was a difficult decision Actually, I thought of it this morning
He admits that it’s something he needs to work on and says:
I will need to change myself Without your knowing it I’ve compared you to other girls
There’s a part of the lyrics that are very angsty and dramatic.
When I dream about us each time the dream would vanish and I am left by myself Crying so pathetic stuck in this position I decided I’m leaving you! I’m leaving you! Although I still love you I will leave I will forget and stop loving you As I look to the sky above me I told myself I must keep my heart cold towards you
However, he eventually realizes that even though their relationship needs work, he loves her and actually doesn’t want to be apart from her.
I love only you I said this to you All that I had prepared to say turned backwards I’ll always be by your side
It finishes up with Kangta saying this:
I’ll always be by your side You’ll never be alone again I’m here next to you
The conclusion the songs comes to is this: There can be problems with your relationship, but if you really love them and want to stay with them, you need to communicate and work on making your relationship better.
Also, don’t make huge decisions rashly - I think that should be the big takeaway from this.
Like “Warrior’s Descendant”, this song is also used on variety shows quite a bit. I’ve even heard it called, “The Perfect Song for Valentine’s Day”. Considering the context of this song is essentially about a breakup (until the end), I have my doubts when it’s used on broadcasts that are trying to hype up a love line.
(Lyrics Source)
The Candy Consequence
Earlier I mentioned that “Candy” was their golden ticket. Now that you understand the song itself, let’s talk about why it is that way.
“Warrior’s Descendant” was very serious and geared towards teenagers. “Candy”, however, took their popularity and gave H.O.T a family-friendly reputation. It was the perfect combination of cute guys, a sweet song, and iconic visuals that helped the general public to differentiate them from other groups at the time.
While Seo Taiji and Boys were massively popular with Korea’s youth, they were often thought of as being rebellious, especially since they famously criticized various aspects of Korea - such as the education system.
If you’ve read my other Discography Discussions, you’re well-aware of what H.O.T has done over the years. However, unlike Seo Taiji and Boys, they weren’t as censored or thought of as being nearly as problematic. Why? Look no further than “Candy”.
The popularity “Candy” has is two-sided. On one side, it’s annoying because people (especially newer or international fans) tend to associate them with it, instead of the rest of their discography. On the other side, because people associate them with it first, they tend to be more forgiving (and ignorant >.>) whenever H.O.T released tracks that were full of profanity or violence.
While “Candy” is quite different from most of their other popular tracks, it was the one that allowed H.O.T to rise to heights no one had been expecting.
Other Tracks of Interest
You’re Fast, I’m Slow - This tends to be one of those songs that H.O.T fans know because it gets used in compilations and as background music. The lyrics themselves are about a girl hitting on a guy and trying to make their relationship go at a faster pace than what he’s ready for. He’s asking her to slow down so that they can have a good relationship. They’re just friends, but the girl clearly wants to be more.
A day or two has passed and you've changed too much You kept catching me off guard with your "non-PG" questions You teased me, saying that I didn't have any courage and I was such a boring guy
And before y’all ask, yes, he’s into her. Warning: Explicit
But you don't know my heart I want all of you Don't rush it too much I want to show you my heart slowly
I want to have you, Something that I've deeply wanted If you give me another chance, I'll take you tonight
I'll make you feel real good Even make you groan & moan like I know you should
Remember how I said “Candy” allowed them to get away with more explicit stuff? “You’re Fast, I’m Slow” is Exhibit A. Yoo Youngjin is too obvious sometimes.
(Lyric Source)
Your Image in the Sunset - This is basically your standard breakup song. I’m just pointing it out because I love the instrumental and how this song sounds, tbh. It really gives off a 90s feeling.
Another Stressful Day - This song is about a guy who has a hangover and has to get to work. The kicker is that the members were too young to legally drink when this came out. Considering that the guy on the cover is wearing a work uniform, it is possible that true context of the image is that he is hungover, not upset due to some violent circumstance.
The Age of Individual Characteristic - This song has a great message about self love and not judging people by their appearances alone.
just because you think you're ugly, don’t just sit at home staring into a mirror, accept a new change - find a unique characteristic about yourself..
please, don’t let love follow changing fashion.. don’t let it change.. a male wearing tight short shorts with long hair and a female wearing torn long jeans with a 'sports cut' hair.. lets help each others individual characteristics prevail..
(Lyrics Source)
About Women - This is the final track on the album. It’s basically H.O.T saying that they don’t understand women, but they respect them. It starts out with talking about stereotypes men have for women, and then goes into arguing about it. However, these are the parting words H.O.T concludes the track and the album with:
Women sometimes make our lives hard and confusing, but we have to remember they're not toys, They're not toys but real deep beings... 
(Lyrics Source)
Conclusion
We Hate All Kinds of Violence was an excellent start for H.O.T’s career and a new era of Korean music. It was an album for teenagers by teenagers. Although a lot of their work has been forgotten over the years, it is certainly an important artifact that waits to be discovered by those it speaks to.
Where to listen to the album: iTunes Spotify
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