#again I’m not angry at the devs because it’s not their fault | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

philaet0s · 15 days

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I just need to be annoying about this stupid fic, so here are extracts from my fem Snobaz project, one extract per chapter I have so far

1975 - 5 Years Old

Baz didn’t think that she would like being adventurers, because when she plays with her cousin, Dev, she prefers to be pirates, but adventurers isn’t so bad. Simone tells her stories as they walk, describing their adventures, and she can almost forget that they are just in the sad, old corridors of mama’s school. She had never noticed that the chipped pain on the door of one of the classrooms looked like a keyhole before Simone pointed it out, and yet, she thought she knew everything about the school after accompanying mama here so often.

Being a character in the story Simone was telling was so entertaining that Baz didn’t remember mama’s request to stay near her classroom, not until she hear mama’s voice calling her name in that way that always means trouble. “Theodora! I’ve been looking everywhere for you! And you…” Mama looks at Simone. “… your father must be wondering where you are too! You girls shouldn’t wander off like this.”

Baz drops Simone’s hand to clasp her own hands behind her back. “Sorry, Mama.”

“It’s my fault!” Simone says, stepping forward. “I wanted to play adventurers, I asked her to come with me.”

The look on her mother’s face softens, which makes Baz sigh in relief. She doesn’t like when Mama is angry with her. And she wants her football back tonight.

Mama holds her hand out for Baz. “It’s okay this time, but don’t do it again. This school is too big for you to walk around on your own. Simone… your name is Simone, right?” The girl nods. Mama offers her her other hand. “Come with me, I’ll walk you back to your father’s classroom so that he doesn’t get worried.”

1976 - 6 Years Old

"How did you get those? Did you climb the tree in your garden again? You’re going to break a bone someday.”

That’s what mama always says when Baz climbs one of the trees in their garden.

Simon hurries to pull her pajama top down. Baz doesn’t understand why; she’s seen the bruises already.

“Yes, I fell,” Simone says, as she takes the trousers matching her top from her bag. She’d better finish changing in the bathroom.

She couldn’t believe she had been this careless. She remembered the look of suspicious on Mrs Brown’s face when her class went to the swimming pool for physical education. The meeting with daddy and how angry he was after it. The notes he wrote Mrs Brown so that Simon wouldn’t have to go back to the swimming pool. She was very angry with him about that, she loved swimming, she wanted to do it with the other children.

What if Baz talks to her parents, and they talk to daddy, and then Simon isn’t allowed to come back for a sleepover, just like she wasn’t allowed to go back to the swimming pool?

Stupid, stupid, stupid.

1980 - 10 Years Old

Simone

Baz throws her school bag on her bed and then flops down on the carpet. She extends her leg in front of herself and rubs her thigh. When she notices me looking, she moves her hands down her entire leg to hold her foot, like we sometimes have to do when we stretch before P.E.

I glances at the crutches in a corner of her room. They have been here for months, untouched. There’s probably cobwebs on them.

I sit next to her.

“Does your leg still hurt?”

“The doctor said it was always going to hurt,” she answers, dismissively. Her voice is colder than usual. Baz generally likes it when I worry about her, but not when it has anything to do with the accident.

“How can it always hurt?”

She shrugs. “I don’t know. It’s fucked.”

I let out a small sound of surprise. I’ve never heard her say a bad word before.

She rolls her eyes at me. “Come on, Snow, don’t be like that. I can say fuck.”

I blush. “Your dad wouldn’t be happy if he heard you.”

She immediately straightens her back, letting go of her foot. “My dad can get fucked.”

“Baz!”

“I mean it. Besides, it’s not like he cares what I say. I’m not even sure he remembers how my voice sounds like.”

1981/82 - Year 7 - (11-12 Years Old)

Baz

David steps aside to let me in. “You’re a bit young to be alone at night,” he says, disapprovingly. Then, he raises his voice. “Simone! Come down here!”

…

Simone

Can’t he leave me alone?

I push my notebook off my lap and hop off my bed. This better be quick. I have this stupid English homework to finish for tomorrow.

I freeze on my way down the stairs. What is Baz doing here? I run the rest of the way.

“Baz? Why are you here, did something happen?”

“Her father left her on her own at home,” dad explains, while laying one of his hands on Baz’s shoulder. Don’t touch her! “She was afraid to stay alone.”

“You should have called before you came. We could have picked you up. Look at you, you’re drenched.” I say, rushing towards her.

I’m not even sure why. I don’t have dry clothes to give her, not even a towel.

I just want to be close to her.

1982/83 - Year 8 (12-13 Years Old)

Simone

“I can do makeup too, it’s not that hard.” Baz has finished her braid. Now, she’s undoing it, with just as much focus.

“You can?” Something sparkles in Niall’s eyes. “I’ve never seen you wear makeup!”

“’Cause my dad doesn’t want me to wear it for school. He doesn’t want me to wear it outside our house, actually, but if you come to my place someday I could show you.”

“I’d love that.”

“Yeah, Baz looks really pretty with makeup,” I say. I’m not sure why my voice sounds so aggressive. Or why I felt the need to say that. I just did. I had to let Niall know I had seen it.

1983/84 - Year 9 (13-14 years old)

Baz

“Right? Sometimes I wish they wouldn’t make us play with the boys. They’re all brutes.”

“Except Niall.”

“Except Niall. Niall wouldn’t hurt a butterfly if his life depended on it.”

It’s why I like him. I try to stay away from the other boys, but Niall’s different. I would never have dated any of those idiots who make dirty jokes and think they’re above everyone else.

(Not that they would have wanted to date me. They don’t even want to talk to me.) (I’m not complaining.) (I only wish that they wouldn’t want to talk to Simone either. I want to get violent every time one of them approaches her. They’re jerks. They don’t deserve her.)

“He’s such a sweetheart. Tell me, has he been sitting next to you since I’m not at school?”

“No, you know him, he wouldn’t do that to Penny.”

“That’s true, but I thought he might have sat with you anyway. I mean, you’re his girlfriend.”

His girlfriend. It’s so strange when people say it. I know I am, but it’s different to hear it. I don’t really think about the words girlfriend and boyfriend when I think about me and Niall. He’s ‘Niall’ in my mind, not ‘my boyfriend’.

#wip #fanfiction #co/ws/awtwb #snowbaz

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raxistaicho · 1 year

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Fantasy Invader blaming Edelgard for literally everything

Ordinarily I try to work from old to new when it comes to Fantasy Invader because he likes to build on and constantly repeat older claims he’s made, so it’s convenient to be able to just pull back up my old posts to demonstrate he’s wrong. This new claim of his, however, was so juicy I couldn’t resist hitting it immediately. Let’s go!

First, for context:

He’s referring to a post by renisfan where they claimed that Edelgard’s line,

In the original Japanese allegedly meant something to the effect of, “I don’t care about that.”

I’ve used both DeepL and Google Translate and neither came up with anything close to that, (DeepL was closer and said, “that’s none of my business”), but I’ve learned a long time ago not to take an Edelgard detractor at their word without fact-checking them, and in this instance I can’t. So, moving on.

...Yes, you’re reading that right, folks. Fantasy Invader is comparing Edelgard concluding a partly-unwilling alliance of convenience with the perpetrators of the Tragedy of Duscur - whom she intends to punish for their misdeeds - with her actually orchestrating the Tragedy of Duscur.

I’m at a loss for words, most Edelgard detractors these days have realized that directly accusing Edelgard of responsibility for the Tragedy of Duscur is a lost cause and not something you’re meant to agree with Dimitri about (given he’s fully in Boar Mode when he accuses her of it), so they usually stick to just insisting she’s culpable by her association with the Agarthans, but Fantasy Invader is nothing if not behind the times on everything he says.

She doesn’t dehumanize her victims, you clown, she remains acutely aware of what she’s causing throughout the game:

She is.

Wow, what a notion, it takes someone from a position of power to overthrow those in power! Especially when they have an army at their command and super-genetics that allow them to command super human abilities and magic weapons.

We saw what happened in chapter 3 when what was mostly a civilian militia tried to rebel against the Knights of Seiros: they got destroyed, completely and mercilessly.

Also this reads like, “yet you participate in society, curious!”

(Snort) Fantasy Invader has no right to call anyone delusional.

Also, if Fantasy Invader was right and Edelgard didn’t really care about her victims, then Dimitri should get furious at her supposedly being dismissive of them. Or he should at least get angry. But he doesn’t, because the devs don’t want us to think she’s blinded herself to what she’s done.

Heh, should we start mentioning all the times Jeralt says Rhea’s pretty sus, tho?

And, again, she really did have nothing to do with Duscur. How could she? She was a powerless 14 year old at the time, fresh off from being mutilated by Thales. She lived across the continent from Duscur and had no authority in the Empire.

Also, isn’t it fascinating how Fantasy Invader focuses solely on the regicide part of the Tragedy but not the part where a genocide was done? It’s the same with all Edelgard’s detractors: they treat the genocide that followed as... basically a natural and unavoidable result of Lambert being killed. Like how a storm causes a mudslide: there’s nobody at fault for the mudslide, it just happened.

But no, the genocide didn’t just happen, it happened because the Faerghans got into a revenge frenzy, ignored the prince, the sole survivor of the Tragedy, when he said the people of Duscur weren’t to blame, and went to go kill the people of Duscur because Faerghans are just like that and will fuck your shit up if you ever inconvenience them at any point in history. They’re like those revenge monkeys from, So I’m a Spider, So What? where if you ever hurt one of their species they will come after you to kill you, regardless of how many lives they lose in the process.

This point gets ignored because addressing it means addressing the horrendous aspects of Faerghus’s knightly culture, but because Azure Moon is all about preserving Faerghus as a nation-state and not about criticizing Faerghus’s many failures (because why are you fighting for Faerghus if we’re acknowledging Faerghus is kinda fucked up?), it can’t do that, so they can’t do that.

Nope. Given how vague the line is, and how furious she was when she saw Remire, it’s very much premature to conclude she was fully aware of all the travesties the Agarthans would commit.

Yeeeeah, Edelgard detractors tend to be furious about Treehouse... portraying Rhea as a woman struggling with trauma that’s caused her to have a hair-trigger temper which she masks with an air of serenity.

How dare they portray Rhea... in character. And not as a sweet mommy who did nothing wrong. You know if you guys want Lumera you can go play Engage. Err, well, not really since Lumera’s barely in Engage, but eh.

Also they didn’t dress up “genocidal fascism” because there was none of that to dress up. Not even in the Japanese version.

#Fire Emblem Three Houses #Edelgard von Hresvelg #edelgard discourse #edelgard positive #fantasy invader

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faehelmet · 2 years

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i CANNOTTTTT stand on/ion/thief im sorry i dont understand what people see in the character. like i mean i DO (i have a fair share of favs who are assholes!) and i dont blame onion fans i just... find it VERY hard to understand how somebody can like this guy. (going under a read more bc i dont want ppl’s dash to be clogged with my bullshit LOL)

like okay i played x/yx’s route first and like, him making a couple shitty comments towards x/yx was like... okay you’re a hardass, but you’re funny, so i GUESS i’ll let it go. and then i played n/ight/owl’s route.

and it’s like...i cannot be nice about this guy are you KIDDING me? him treating owl like an idiot even though we are WELL aware owl is actually...yknow...trying his best, and trying to cope with a lot of issues alongside the pressure of exams is one thing, PLUS owl being seen as nd BY THE DEV... the comments left a bad taste in my mouth already. and then onion goes and calls owl a freak for... having a mental breakdown. that did it for me. like YES owl said a lot of hurtful things, and onion has a right to be angry i’m not gonna fault him for that. but “FREAK”? there is zero attempt to see things from owl’s side (despite them being friends...?) and even when q/uest says that onion wasn’t exactly helpful in that situation onion just goes “whatever” and like...

that WHOLE scene makes me mad i’m sorry. it’s not that it’s not handled well, it is! it’s just that onion’s like... everything. him airing out owl’s dirty laundry to the whole server (granted, for all we know the server could be aware already, but regardless it was shitty to just bring that up in a general chat while already going after him), and making those unnecessary comments towards him even after he goes through a mental break i just.. i cannot stand this guy.

we get like... a slight apology from him in the good end of owl’s route. (can’t say anything about the bad ending because i cannot bring myself to play through it sorry lol) aside from that? i’m not seeing much hard evidence that he feels remorse for half the shit he says or the way he is. he’s just an asshole and he seems content being that way. and, yknow, i dont see onion as some...really malicious character; there’s a lot to be said about how him and owl have similar struggles and how this likely contributed to onion’s pisspoor reaction to owl...showing symptoms of mental issues lmao. (saw a REALLY good post abt it actually)

but, regardless, it’s soso hard for me to sympathize with someone who just refuses to understand why mental breakdowns happen, how neurodivergency can affect your focus, just... a lot of brain-related shit seems to fly over his head. and it’s FINE to not know, but there was no excuse for some of the shit he said in the game especially towards owl. there’s ignorance, and then there’s just being an asshole. and for me, onion crossed that line verrrry early into owl’s route.

uhm idk how to end this. i hope to god this doesn’t show up in the bp tags i don’t want my negativity showing up there LOL again i don’t want to shame anyone i’m just very very angry at a fictional character and had to express it. goodnight

#txt #so uh. (tbh image)#im really into a certain vn. and i have a lot of thoughts abt it #i want to talk abt it a lot more bc i have so many thoughts abt the character's and morals and shit #(thankfully they wont turn out like rants like this post lol)#but uhh yeah

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bloody-bee-tea · 3 years

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15, 17 and 10 for the Surprise emotion prompts !

10) "Christ! What happened to your eye?"

Jiang Cheng is looking forward to seeing Nie Mingjue this evening. They haven’t seen each other in a few days, and Jiang Cheng is man enough to admit that he misses him.

His good mood holds until his phone lights up with Nie Mingjue’s picture on it, twenty minutes before he is supposed to come over.

“Mingjue,” Jiang Cheng greets him, but he’s already expecting the worst. Why would Nie Mingjue call him at this time if they are supposed to see each other soon? Surely he’s going to cancel.

“Wanyin,” Nie Mingjue gives back and his voice is just as warm and comforting as always, but Jiang Cheng can’t help but to be on edge already.

“What’s up?” he wants to know, his hand tightening around his phone.

“Listen, Wanyin, I don’t think I’ll come over today,” Nie Mingjue says, very predictably and Jiang Cheng’s stomach plummets.

“Oh,” he breathes out. “Why is that?”

He knows it’s stupid to ask, because Nie Mingjue can very well decide not to tell him anything, but he still has to try. He still wants to understand why Nie Mingjue doesn’t want to see him anymore.

“I—” Nie Mingjue hesitates and Jiang Cheng closes his eyes in anticipation of what Nie Mingjue will say next. It’s very likely it will break Jiang Cheng’s heart after all. “I don’t want you to be upset,” Nie Mingjue finally says and Jiang Cheng’s eyes snap open.

“What?” he asks, because that makes no sense at all. “What the hell, Mingjue. Guess what, I amalready upset anyway,” he snaps out, since he can’t help it and there’s a long silence on the other side.

“You are?” Nie Mingjue carefully asks and Jiang Cheng clicks his tongue.

“Of course I am, Mingjue! I didn’t see you in almost a week and now you call me to cancel without a real reason? I’m more than upset. So either you come up with a better excuse or you’ll show up here!”

“I’ll see you in a few days, alright? Just—not now,” Nie Mingjue tries and Jiang Cheng’s eyes sting with tears.

“Or never, right?” he chokes out, because it’s clear to him what Nie Mingjue is doing.

He’s trying to ease himself out of this relationship, and no matter how badly it hurts, Jiang Cheng won’t let him. Either he mans up and breaks up with Jiang Cheng outright, or he doesn’t get to do it at all.

“What? No! Wanyin, I’ll come over in a few days, I promise, it’s just—it’s not good right now.”

“I don’t believe you,” Jiang Cheng whispers, even though Nie Mingjue is one of the most trustworthy people he knows. If he says he’ll come over he will do it, Jiang Cheng knows it, but there’s still that niggling doubt that this will be the one time Nie Mingjue lies to him.

And like always, Jiang Cheng gives in to the doubt.

“You know, maybe it’s better you don’t come here again,” Jiang Cheng forces himself to say it and he knows it’s mean what he’s doing, but he just wants Nie Mingjue to tell him what’s really going on.

“I’m not leaving you,” Nie Mingjue says immediately, because clearly he knows Jiang Cheng way too well already. “Listen, if I do come over, you’re going to be upset—even more than you already are, probably—and I don’t want that. That’s all, okay? It’ll take a few days, but then I can see you again and it will be fine.”

“What are you hiding?” Jiang Cheng demands to know, but of course Nie Mingjue doesn’t answer him.

“I’m going to call you every day, alright?”

“No! You can tell me if something happened!” Jiang Cheng tries and there’s a low sigh on the other line.

“You’re going to be so upset over this,” Nie Mingjue mumbles and Jiang Cheng is pretty sure he wasn’t meant to hear that, but he did.

“I am already pretty upset, so what difference does it make?” he tries again, hoping that Nie Mingjue will just give in.

“Fine,” Nie Mingjue says after a lengthy pause but he doesn’t sound too happy about it. “I just—I love you, okay? I’ll be over in ten.”

“I love you, too,” Jiang Cheng gives back without hesitation, even though he is so very confused.

The ten minutes until Nie Mingjue arrive feel like hours with how nervous Jiang Cheng is and when Nie Mingjue finally knocks on his door, he’s not even relieved, because a ball of dread has formed in his gut.

Jiang Cheng spent the last ten minutes imagining every godawful scenario he could think of and so when he reaches out for the door handle now, his hand shakes but he pulls it open anyway.

He manages to take one good look at Nie Mingjue before he blurts out “Christ! What happened to your eye?”

Nie Mingjue gives him a sheepish smile as he pushes Jiang Cheng out of the way to come inside.

“Let’s not talk in the hallway, okay?” Nie Mingjue says as he closes the door behind him. “Hi,” he then greets Jiang Cheng and he leans in for a kiss, which Jiang Cheng is unable to refuse.

“Hi,” he mumbles when they part and his heart beats a little bit faster when Nie Mingjue smiles at him.

“It’s good to see you,” Nie Mingjue says as he cups Jiang Cheng’s cheek in his hand and while Jiang Cheng would love to do nothing more than snuggle into him, he forces himself to frown at Nie Mingjue.

“What the hell happened?” Jiang Cheng demands to know and he pushes Nie Mingjue further inside the apartment. “Did you even properly cool it?” he wants to know, but he doesn’t wait for an answer, instead marching off immediately to get Nie Mingjue a cool pack while he parks him on the couch.

“Do we really have to?” Nie Mingjue asks with a grimace when Jiang Cheng comes back and slaps it onto his eye.

“Talk about it or cool it? Because the answer to both is yes,” Jiang Cheng bites out and waits just long enough for Nie Mingjue to secure the pack himself so that Jiang Cheng has his hands free to cross them in front of his chest.

“Can’t we just accept that it happened and move on?” Nie Mingjue tries, a hopeful look on his face, but Jiang Cheng shakes his head.

“Did you get into a fight?” he wants to know, even as he frowns, because he doesn’t know Nie Mingjue to pick fights at random.

“No?” Nie Mingjue says, but he sounds like he doesn’t even believe himself and Jiang Cheng rolls his eyes at him.

“Tell me what happened,” Jiang Cheng demands, sitting down on the table in front of Nie Mingjue and Nie Mingjue sighs.

“It’s not that important.”

“You’re hurt,” Jiang Cheng says with vehemence. “That’s pretty damn important to me.”

“You’re important to me, too,” Nie Mingjue gives back with a small smile and suddenly Jiang Cheng knows what happened.

“You got a black eye because of me,” he whispers in horror. “You got into a fight because of me!”

“No! I mean—that’s not—Wanyin, it’s not your fault!”

“But it is true, right?” Jiang Cheng asks and Nie Mingjue was right.

He is so very upset over this.

“I didn’t pick a fight,” Nie Mingjue tries to explain. “I didn’t even hit anyone.”

“You mean you just took a beating and didn’t fight back?”

“Beating is quite a strong word. It was one good punch and nothing more.”

“That’s bad enough,” Jiang Cheng grumbles, but he moves onto the couch next to Nie Mingjue. “Now tell me why.”

“No. Like I said I don’t want you to be upset,” Nie Mingjue says and reaches over with his free hand to take Jiang Cheng’s in his.

“You mean, your black eye is not the thing I’m going to be upset about? Because let me tell you, I’m already pretty upset about that.”

“And I’m not going to make it worse,” Nie Mingjue says decisively and Jiang Cheng stills.

If he is this adamant that Jiang Cheng will be even more upset if he tells him how he got the shiner, then Nie Mingjue can only have gotten into a fight with one person.

“You got into a fight with Wei Wuxian,” Jiang Cheng whispers and Nie Mingjue’s hand jerks in his.

“I didn’t get into a fight with him, okay? Fuck, come here,” Nie Mingjue says, clearly seeing how little Jiang Cheng believes him and he pulls him right into his side, his arm safe and secure around Jiang Cheng.

“What happened then?” Jiang Cheng wants to know, and he can feel how all the tension goes out of Nie Mingjue.

“I ran into him today, him and Wangji and Xichen,” Nie Mingjue starts. “Well, running into them is generous. I happened to walk past them and I overheard Wei Wuxian talking.”

Jiang Cheng huffs out a little laugh because no matter how upset he already is, that must be the understatement of the year. Wei Wuxian is hard to ignore even when he does nothing. If he was talking, he probably wanted to be heard by those around him; especially those that weren’t even listening in the first place.

“What did he say?” Jiang Cheng asks and he tries to not let it show how desperate he is about news of his brother but of course Nie Mingjue knows him better than that.

“I’m not sure about the context,” Nie Mingjue admits, “but he was saying rather loudly how you’re probably happy to have him out of your hair, because like this you get to keep dogs at home again,” Nie Mingjue tells him and Jiang Cheng was not prepared for how much that hurts.

“Oh, I see,” Jiang Cheng mutters. “So this is what he really thinks of me.”

Jiang Cheng never really told Nie Mingjue what happened in that fight with Wei Wuxian and his parents but at least Nie Mingjue knows him well enough to know that Jiang Cheng was never on his parents’ side in this.

“Does he even know you’re no longer living with them? That you left your home right that evening as well?” Nie Mingjue asks, jolting Jiang Cheng out of his thoughts, and he shakes his head.

“I didn’t—Wei Wuxian blocked me and I haven’t talked to him since,” Jiang Cheng admits, because he can take a hint.

Clearly Wei Wuxian wants nothing to do with their family anymore and that includes Jiang Cheng, even though the same doesn’t go for Jiang Yanli.

“Maybe a-jie told him but—I didn’t,” he whispers and Nie Mingjue presses a kiss to his head.

“I’m sorry,” Nie Mingjue says but Jiang Cheng shakes his head.

“You still didn’t tell me how you got that black eye,” Jiang Cheng says, because it’s easier than to imagine what else Wei Wuxian must think of him.

“I—his words made me so angry because I’ve seen how devastated you are over his leaving and so I walked over and I just—I grabbed his shirt and I shook him a few times, asking him what the hell he thinks he’s doing,” Nie Mingjue says and Jiang Cheng frowns.

“So you didn’t hit him?”

“Of course I didn’t,” Nie Mingjue gives back.

“But then what—oh,” Jiang Cheng breathes out, because of course. “Lan Wangji.”

“Wangji,” Nie Mingjue agrees with a nod. “Still as overprotective as ever. He just rushed right in, hitting me square in the face. Xichen had to hold him back afterwards, even when Wei Wuxian said it was fine.”

“He shouldn’t have hit you,” Jiang Cheng still says but Nie Mingjue shrugs.

“I would have hit him if he dared to say anything else about you, so I guess fair’s fair.”

“Don’t say that! You shouldn’t get into fights over me anyway,” Jiang Cheng hotly tells him but Nie Mingjue doesn’t seem to take his words to heart.

“Agree to disagree,” Nie Mingjue easily says and Jiang Cheng slings his arm around his middle to hug him.

“What happened then?” he whispers, even though he’s not sure he wants to know anymore.

“Xichen told me that if I sympathise with you, then I should probably stay away from them for now. Sympathise. As if you’re a fucking criminal or murderer or something. It really makes you wonder what Wei Wuxian told them,” Nie Mingjue huffs out, clearly upset about this himself and Jiang Cheng closes his eyes.

So not only did Nie Mingjue get into a fight because of him, he also lost one of his best friends because of that.

“I’m so sorry,” Jiang Cheng whispers.

“About what? They don’t know the whole story. They don’t even know we’re together, do they?”

“I wanted to tell him that evening,” Jiang Cheng replies.

He didn’t get to that part of course, what with the fight with his parents and all, but he did have every intention of doing so.

“Wei Wuxian probably didn’t tell them anything,” Jiang Cheng gets out, because he knows his brother well enough. “They most likely drew their own conclusions when he would refuse to talk about it. It probably didn’t help that I didn’t come for him,” Jiang Cheng weakly finishes, because he still feels bad about that.

He should have stood up for Wei Wuxian immediately and not after he left. He wonders how badly he hurt his brother with that, but it’s not like he can clear it up now. Wei Wuxian doesn’t want to see him and Jiang Cheng failed him so monumentally on that evening that he’s going to respect that wish, no matter how much it hurts him.

Jiang Cheng tries very hard not to think about how Wei Wuxian had lashed into him as well during that fight, how he had talked to Jiang Cheng as if everything was his fault too because it doesn’t matter how much Wei Wuxian had hurt Jiang Cheng.

He still should have gone after him.

“You didn’t fail him,” Nie Mingjue says, either reading Jiang Cheng’s mind or knowing him too well. “And you tried to reach out afterwards. It’s neither of your fault how that evening went.”

“Mingjue,” Jiang Cheng says as he pushes away from him, because he already failed Wei Wuxian. He can’t fail Nie Mingjue as well and keeping him from his best friend clearly counts as such.

“No,” Nie Mingjue says before Jiang Cheng can even get a word out. “Whatever it is you want to say: no.”

“Maybe you shouldn’t be with me,” Jiang Cheng says, not minding what Nie Mingjue said. “It’s just—you shouldn’t do this. Lan Xichen is your best friend and you should be able to talk to him. The Lan’s are like family to you and Huaisang and it’s not fair—” Jiang Cheng trails off.

“Maybe I shouldn’tbe with you,” Nie Mingjue agrees and Jiang Cheng hates how his heart stops in his chest even though it is exactly what he himself just said. “But I want to be. Huaisang is a grown adult, he can make up his own mind, and Xichen loves Wangji too much to employ any critical thinking here for now, just like Wangji loves Wei Wuxian too much. They’ll figure out that something is strange sooner or later and then they’ll realise that you’re not the bad guy or whatever they made you out to be, I promise you that.”

“But maybe I am,” Jiang Cheng whispers, because that fear has always been with him, ever since the words left Wei Wuxian’s mouth and the door closed behind his brother. “Maybe they are exactly right about me.”

“Are you saying Wangji and Xichen know you better than I do? That you told them more than you told me, no matter how little it is?”

“Of course not,” Jiang Cheng immediately says and Nie Mingjue kisses his forehead.

“Then they are not right about you, it’s as easy as that,” he then says and there is so much conviction in his voice that it brings tears to Jiang Cheng’s eyes.

“I love you,” Jiang Cheng whispers as he buries his face in Nie Mingjue’s chest.

“I love you, too,” he gives back without hesitation and brings both his arms up around Jiang Cheng.

Jiang Cheng wants to scold him, because that eye of his still needs cooling, but he can’t bring himself to say it for the moment.

That fight with his parents and with Wei Wuxian has been eating away at him ever since it happened and to know that Nie Mingjue is so very firmly on his side and there for him doesn’t quite make it better, but it helps nonetheless.

And for the moment that’s all Jiang Cheng can ask for.

Link to my ko-fi on the sidebar!

#bt writes #mingcheng #the untamed #mdzs #jiang cheng #nie mingjue #modern au #established relationship #hurt/comfort #fights #insecure jc #best boyfriend nmj #cuddling and snuggling

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nerd-takes-pony-town · 3 years

Text

So... Dergun Town's gone, at last - Temp. Tester Rant.

To be frankly honest, I was waiting for it to end. I stopped playing after the weird ass Pet update and sudden, unnannounced Hair Change due to “legal reasons” because the game was just getting utterly confusing, a mess of minigames with clunky customization options and systems, and whatnot. Plus, my time as a tester was when I hit the breaks on the game and realized "man... they really are dicks".

I never ranted about it because I knew if I did, they'd definitely come for me and ban me from the game or from the server because "I shittalked about the game" or “I’m unveiling the tester server”, but now that it's over - it's time for a rant.

So, think it was around May 2020 that I decided to go for Tester to better prepare myself for the future updates, the chat itself was basically... like the lobby, just mainly memes and the Dev fanatics, who will defend them 24/7, chatting with the Devs.

One of the first few things that was asked for is the Timezones so that we could test the server together - the Timezones thing is literally thrown out the window after the very first test. From there on, what they would do is ping the Testers to announce an update - at the time, we had no changelog, no proper bug report channel, it was all crowded in one place, and because they disregarded the Timezones, imagine if you will the chat being both filled with players spamming the chat with all the new shit like some happy toddlers, and another half are people who are reporting to be in class, asleep, dinnering, ect.

A chaotic mess that makes it near impossible to actually report something. Eventually, they added a bug report but once again, no proper check list - if any, the changelog and the checklist only appeared around the Argoras or Minigame Update (June-July). And, as always, the checklist was never updated, so you'd be testing something that's already been checked and other listed things wouldn't be checked at all. Organization, which is something a Tester needs, was never a fucking thing in that horrid mess. They would occasionally do polls, one of which was if the Update should release now, nearly everyone said No - they released it anyway. :^)

Then, there would be some bugs where they’d blame us for it - the /hitme was a command that was restrictedly used in the test server because the Devs somehow don’t know how to add a small quantity of resources to all of us, so he instead made a command that gives, what? Over a million of each of the resources? We ALL made sure that wasn’t toggled on the “beta” server, and yet, somehow, it got released with the commad functioning, and instead of admitting their fault, they blamed the Testers for practically saying folks not to use it - one of the testers was literally STRIPPED OFF of their Gil and other resources, and mind you, they didn’t even used the command at all, all they did was accidentally say the command.

The Moderators would also be rather cruel, everyone likes memes, that's granted, but it shouldn't mean you can willingly change our nicknames like that. Imagine switching over to the chat only to find out your name, along with all the other testers, has been changed to "Todd Howard"; you rename it, and a couple of days later, they change it yet again without your permission or consent. This isn't fun, this is just annoying. I had to walk around with "Stop changin my name" on my nickname because of them.

And like how it has been told, these Devs cannot take criticism at all. The Argoras Update will haunt me down as the Update where I was literally fighting against other testers and the Devs over something that needed to be changed. In the Test Server, the Skill Points had a Clover table, meaning you used clovers for Skill Points, the thing is in Pony Town, the rewards are remain unlocked even if you go down the unlocking mark - Dergun Town does not. So players who are unaware of this would've wasted 1k Clovers and then realize that their prizes have been taken away because they're no longer above the unlocking mark. So as a Tester, it should be my duty to warn the Devs about it and come with suggestions.

I told them without mentioning Pony Town at all (because they have a stupid policy of “if it’s close to PT, we can’t do it”) about how the Clover option will result in players losing their reward if they go below 1k and 500 Clovers respectively, which is the equivalent to hundreds of players putting all those days collecting Clovers to waste. They would ABSOLUTELY rant about it in Bugs or Help Desk. I suggested them to either:

Make the rewards unlocked still even if you left the mark.

Remove the Clover option

Add a warning when about to select Clover

Those are the ones on top of my head, what did they do?

Tom just kept ignoring what I said on the first suggestion and exclusively focusing on the second one, as if it was the only option available. Meanwhile, Q was guilt tripping me into bidding to their commands, "37,500 gil per skill if you the 50 points pure,," it's horrible, sure, but do you really want to deal with a hoard of players coming to the server to scream about how the Skill Point system stole their Clover rewards? And having to deal with a patch or two to make them happy, or worse, having to ban more players because they’re angry WITH REASON that their prizes were taken away because you idiots refuse to add something that allows the players to keep their rewards while below the mark?

You know they would do that, everyone knows they would do that. And worse is with exception of one or two Testers, the other users, specifically folks like J*y and D**r, just kept defending the Devs even though I was literally helping them prevent a future problem that everyone knew it would fucking happen. What's the point of testing a game if the Developers will fucking refuse to take your advices?

They did removed the Clovers from the options, but kept the Dandelions and the Bones, which, you guested it, STILL DIDN'T HAD THE PRIZE LOCKING! And the best part - NO WARNING REGARDING THE LOST OF THE PRIZES WAS ADDED EITHER! So players who had the Dandelion Rune and the ability to get the special items from the Bone would end up in losing them without them knowing - though it’s not as bad as the Clovers, a resource that restrictedly spawns in areas with Clovers as opposed to be map-wide and the last prize needs 1k of those, and the recent-ish Spring Update changed the green to a shade that blends with them.

I singlehandedly helped them avoid a hoard of angry players, and not a singular thank you was given.

The Quest Cap is also a thing, if the mobile users are in such a disadvantage with the Clovers being gone, then why are you adding the Cap anyway? Everyone knows that if a game is relying on the player to grind, it should not cap the Quests to a fucking T - only 20 Quests per hour?! And the NPC's Gil is both dependant on Bootleg Flight Rising Dominance... and dependant on a Clan that YOU CAN'T ACTUALLY CHANGE even if you request for such?! It's like if in Flight Rising, because Fiona has Light eyes, Light Flight would gain extra bonus treasure from here as if Dominance wasn't enough. "It's to balance the Economy", how is that going to balance, it just restricting the mobile users even further, as if the shitty battle controls on mobile that makes it impossible to battle wasn't enough.

The game was also just turning into a weird, funky, Flight Rising bootleg - fitting how the game that Q also worked on was a bootleg hybrid between Dragon Cave and Flight Rising - the release of pets with these genes and barely any use but to literally do the exact shit you do in FR. In FR, you exalt Dragons to gain a upper hand at Dominance, in DT, a rather recent-ish? Update allowed you to sell the Magikins (the gened pets, the other pets are literally useless) for Clan Tokens, giving you a boost to gain Dominance. It’s exactly like FR, I’m surprised no one ever bothered to contact the FR folks about this ripoff. The pets did had a use and it was to gain more gil but a nerf was done because, once again, they released an update were we made SURE that wasn’t happening, but somehow, it happened - the Pet-Gill Machine Glitch that allowed you to gain infinite Gil.

My pets got bugged because of it - the level got reset (it’d only reward 1-2 gil) but the price of the upgrade did not (750 gil) - I asked if that was a nerf or a bug, and as expected, they said it was nerf when it was clear as days it was a bug given how people had pets that requried 700+ gil and rewarded 30+ gil.

The game’s just a mess of minigames and FR Ripoff, I could go on and on with just how bad the game is, but the Devs are even worse.

It's really bad when they're once straight up muted someone for speaking their fucking opinion.

(You may need to zoom)

(From PMs)

This user would constantly bring the flaws in their shit without insulting, they'd argue with reason, give suggestions, everything, in hopes of improving the game. and they instead just argued back, if not, criticized them for even bringing an opinion and tried to justify themselves as to why they didn't need to change - and the users would absolutely defend the Devs like literal ass kissers, to the point of being happy they got muted.

As the user rightfully said in PMs:

I wanted to make contributions that could help improve it, but it seems like the staff just want people to do as they say without question instead of looking for ways to improve. And they desperately need to understand that the game is not just about what they want, what kinds of designs they think players should make. It should be encouraging players to try new designs and be creative, but all the devs want to do is shut that down.

I just wish they didn't have absolute power over the server. If they were accountable to their community in some way, it'd be possible to convince them to make changes when it's really necessary. Not all the time, just when their stubbornness is getting in the way of something that absolutely everybody except them wants.

The fun in these games has always been in the community. If you stifle that, you stifle the game. And unfortunately, I now can't say any of this. Making demon combat even harder for those without skill points was wholly unnecessary, too. I don't know what their obsession is with making the game so heavy on grinding.

Back when I first arrived, Dergun Town was mostly just Pony Town with more customization options, plus a few special prizes you could earn by gathering items. Nowadays it seems like the devs are more interested in forcing players to grind for literally everything than they are in adding new stuff everyone can enjoy and use.

But worse than that is how they always respond to criticism. The mini-events were the biggest example of that. Players didn't like being forced to spend all day on Dergun Town just for any chance to win an award in mini-events. It was damaging people's ability to have a life outside the game, and a lot of users complained. How did they respond? They basically threatened to remove the mini-events altogether and make all the items from them unobtainable, rather than improving on anything. This is how the staff responds to all complaints and suggestions. It's either the exact thing they want or nothing, and if they make a mistake big enough that everyone complains, rather than admitting fault, they basically punish the community for being unhappy. Their entire mentality is "play by my rules or I'm taking my toys and going home".

Reminder that when the garden update broke and erased a ton of players' houses and items, they blamed the players and said they had to do all the work to get everything that was lost back themselves.

I swear, all of this "you complained now you get nothing" and "we work hard, so be thankful to us even for terrible content" we hear in the user suggestions channel is just conditioning their player base to accept being taken for granted and mistreated. They're basically trying to induce Stockholm Syndrome.

Someone who’s also on Tumblr got banned for saying that the new design of the hairs made their characters look ugly - it was a change that was NEVER ANNOUNCED, specially considering it’s a change regarding “legal issues”, the playerbase should’ve been warned about this before they updated it. But instead, they got pissy that some people have complained about the drastically changed hairs and once again, shit down on them for complaining.

Dergun Town is an excellent example of how some people are not and never were meant to run a game - the guilt tripping, the “accept this or get lost” attitude, the behavior they had and occasionally have regarding Pony Town (search “Let’s Talk About Dergun Town” and you’ll get the document), to the point of banning the actual word “to avoid drama” aka keep folks from talking about their real fucking nature.

I am honestly happy that Dergun Town got shut down while Pony Town keeps improving and growing, karma was indeed well served.

#dergun town #pony town #pony.town #ive been keeping this for so long and i needed to let it out #dergun was bad but yall havent seen the how bad it is #or how bad it can get

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audreycritter · 4 years

Note

drunk (maybe crash) dev and baby pats

for ashley, in honor of the hours we’ve spent developing YET ANOTHER AU where Bruce gets the batkids little. have a sandbox dev, ashley. <3 ***

Kiran Devabhaktuni was 26 years old, a medical student at Gotham U, still a little drunk, and very, very, extremely dead. He was sitting on the grass-- perfectly trim, perfectly green-- staring at his car smashed into shrubbery and a low wall, the passenger side tyre flat and bumper smashed in. They were as ruined as his future.

He could see it now, drenched with petrol and on fire. He’d be suspended, his student visa would be revoked, he’d go back to England and have to live with…

Kiran swallowed, hard, to keep the bile down. He’d already thrown up once, in the car, on the passenger seat, before he’d scrambled out the driver’s window and landed on the gravel beside the road. The bonnet had been smoking, black plumes hissing out, and he’d stumbled back while two little boys emerged atop the shubbery screeching in delight like some strange, incoherent avenging angels.

It had taken his still-not-sober brain a bit too long to process that they weren’t bizarre, floating bush creatures, but were standing on the stone wall the bush had swallowed some years ago, watching the car with boyish, pyromanic glee.

A harsh bark of an order behind them made Kiran flinch, and both of them jump backward. Kiran tried standing and only succeeded in falling a few feet further away, into the grass, where he still sat. The gate several meters down the road swung open, and a man strode out with a child on his hip, and two more boys jumping along at his heels like eager puppies.

“Are you alright?” he called, sounding more concerned than angry. Kiran blinked and stared at the car, and then at the man. He looked familiar.

“You’re bleeding,” one boy announced, leaning close to his face. Kiran startled and winced, cradling his arm automatically when pain shot up into his shoulder.

“I’m...drunk,” he said, honestly, because his life was already over and he’d learned early on it was best to get the worst part over soonest. His da’s lecturing was still ringing in his head from the phone call earlier; the alcohol hadn’t drowned it out, after all. He’d ruined his life and his brain hadn’t even gotten properly numb yet.

“Dick, come here,” the man said, gesturing for the taller of the two boys to back away from the car. The smoke died with a final fizzle and the boy looked plainly disappointed. He didn’t go back to the man, but instead yelled, “I’ll get Alfred!” and climbed over the wall rather than go back to the gate.

The boy closer to Kiran prodded experimentally at Kiran’s forehead and Kiran shifted away.

“The car might blow up,” he said. “Tell me where it hurts. I’m five.”

“Are not!” a yell came from over the wall. “You’re four and you know it!”

“Almost!” the boy leaned his head back to howl into the air. He looked back at the man. “I don’t think he talks, Daddy.”

“Jason, give him some space. He’s probably in shock. Did you hit your head?”

“I was going to be a sodding neurosurgeon,” Kiran said faintly, as things began to truly sink in. “I...smashed up your gate.” He put his forehead on his arm, propped on his knee, to let a wave of dizziness-- concussion and failure alike-- wash over him.

“We’ll call an ambulance. How much were you drinking? Can I look at your eyes?”

“Vodka. Not a full bottle,” Kiran said, automatically. A screaming lecture on telling the truth was mixing with a rotation lecture on accurate charting in the ER in his head, making him feel like his brain was full of tangled and knotted strings. “Please don’t call an ambulance. I’ll walk.”

“You’ll walk,” the man echoed. “Hm. Let me see your eyes.”

Kiran tried to open them, and winced and squinted. The sun was brighter than he remembered it being a moment ago, but they adjusted slowly.

“You broke my wall,” the man said, when Kiran was looking at him, and the man was studying Kiran’s eyes. He’d always thought it was funny, how you could study someone’s eyes and still not be looking at them, the way they might be looking at you. It made him feel now a bit like an insect, squirming under a magnifying glass and tweezers. The man’s voice had gotten a little harder, and then it went to positive ice. “You could have hit one of my children.”

“I know,” Kiran tried to choke out. His throat was closing up. “I’m sorry. I’m really...I’m...I’m really bloody sorry.”

He had to wrench his chin down, because his eyes were filling with tears that weren’t from the too-familiar pain in his head, and he thought he’d crossed enough lines today without adding crying in front of a stranger to the list.

“Do you drink and drive often?” the man asked, and Kiran could feel him moving back, see his feet moving around the car as he studied it.

“No,” Kiran managed. “Just the once, so far. Started off with a sodding bang, innit?”

There was a dry, humorless chuckle in response; a quiet aside to one of the boys.

Kiran wanted to cry. He wanted to lie down in the grass and weep until his throat stopped hurting, until the sky was dark. The worst part was that out of all the things he struggled to understand how his father expected him to control, this one was solidly and clearly his fault. If only he hadn’t answered the phone today, if only he hadn’t decided to go for a drive, if only he hadn’t pried the top off a bottle of vodka and told himself ‘just one sip, then I’ll go home and finish it.’

His chest was a blackhole, sucking in his future and the what-ifs and the narrow misses until it was a weight so heavy he nearly couldn’t breathe. His breath hitched and he felt the oddest sensation on his cheek.

Then again. It was a little pat, over and over. A tiny, chubby hand.

He drew in a slow breath and looked up. Serious baby eyes looked at him, wide with concern, as the toddling baby patted his cheek in an attempt at consoling.

“Tim,” the man said, “don’t bother him. He’s not feeling very well.”

The man sounded kind, and Kiran suddenly understood why. It was because the baby was there. He was just saving his real anger for when the kids were inside, and the police showed up, and Kiran didn’t think his roommate would appreciate a bail call so that was out.

“Nuh,” the baby Tim said, shaking his head. He kept patting, little soft pats like Kiran was a frightened animal that needed soothing. Kiran was frozen.

“Thanks, mate,” Kiran managed to say.

The baby Tim sat in the grass and moved his hand to Kiran’s knee, watching his face carefully as he patted. “Better?” he asked, after another minute.

“Yeah,” Kiran said quietly. It was not entirely a lie.

The baby didn’t move from his spot, watching, and if Kiran had been any less miserable he might have found it creepy. Instead, it was just bizarrely reassuring.

“If you think you can get up, we might as well go inside and sort this out,” the man said. “I’m Bruce Wayne.”

Bruce Wayne.

Kiran had smashed up a car on Bruce Wayne’s lawn.

He was going to sodding pass out.

Somehow, he managed to stand, while the inside of his skull screamed from terror and pain.

“Kiran Devabhaktuni,” he heard himself say. “I really am sorry. I don’t have to come in.”

He made the mistake of moving his arm, and he was drenched in white hot pain that muted even the ache in his head. His head that was still positively swimming from vodka, and when had he eaten last? How long ago had he answered the phone?

The man’s arm was around him and he was crying, sod it all, he was crying and he had the distant, detached thought that maybe it was possible to have two worst days in the same lifetime. Later, would he look back at the day where he flushed his entire future down the drain and remember with a flush of shame that he’d also cried on Bruce Wayne? Or would that just fade into the general miasma of misery, then?

“I think my arm is broken,” he mumbled, while swaying.

“I think so, too. You went as gray as a ghost,” Bruce Wayne said. “Jay-lad, go tell Alfred to get a splint. I think he’s coming out with Dick now.”

Half an hour later, Kiran was sitting at a kitchen table with his arm splinted and iced. He had water, and a cup of black coffee he was forcing himself to drink despite hating the taste. Bruce and a man dressed as household staff had a quiet conversation that sounded very little like the sort of discussion oen had with staff. The baby, Tim, was kneeling on a chair near Kiran’s and every so often would pat his uninjured arm. He kept staring at Kiran’s face with a searching, anxious little look, until Kiran finally said, “Look, mate, I’ll be alright,” just to see if it would make the baby feel any better. Tim seemed satisfied by this, and the pinched worry faded but the occasional pats didn’t stop.

Kiran waited, his own tension still high and nauseating.

Did it take the police so long to make it out here from Gotham?

“Well,” Bruce Wayne said, coming back to the table a moment later. One of the boys-- Dick?-- was climbing on him like he was a jungle gym, and he stoically ignored it, and let it happen. Kiran found it downright bewildering. “Alfred is going to take you to the hospital to have that arm set, and your head looked at. We’ll have someone tow the car. We think, considering the circumstances, that it would be too much of a mess to report this or file charges. If Alfred stays with you until they admit you or discharge you, will you think about going to AA? He can get you a number.”

Kiran blinked at him. And blinked again. He didn’t…”I don’t understand,” he said bluntly.

“It’s a second chance, Mr. Devabhaktuni.”

“I don’t…”

Get second chances, he wanted to say.

He swallowed.

“I’ll take the number,” he said quietly, instead. He wanted to duck his head but he made himself look Bruce Wayne in the face when he said, “Thank you,” in the loudest whisper he could manage. “It’s just...it’s Kiran. Just Kiran.”

“What happened today?” Bruce Wayne asked, pulling out a chair.

“I got a phone call,” Kiran said, feeling he owed him that much at least. “I don’t get along with my da.”

“Hm,” Bruce Wayne said. “Maybe don’t answer the phone, next time.”

The boy who had been climbing settled on Bruce Wayne’s lap, kissed his cheek, and jumped off. “I’m sorry your car didn’t explode,” he said earnestly. “But it’s probably good that it didn’t.”

“Mine,” Tim said, patting Kiran’s arm again.

“No,” Bruce Wayne said, reaching across the table and moving Tim’s hand. The baby gave him a look of profound irritation and gently, intentionally, moved his hand back. “You don’t claim people,” Bruce Wayne said, despite this small rebellion.

“After nap?”

“No, not even after a nap. We’re not bargaining, Tim.”

“Oh. Please?”

Kiran was quiet through this, watching with a desperately silent and aching hunger he didn’t quite understand, until suddenly he did. This wasn’t how families sounded, not to him. A wave of irrational hatred sparked hot, followed almost immediately by an sour self-loathing. The little hand patted his shoulder again.

“No,” Bruce Wayne said. “Not even for please.”

“Mine friend,” Tim said, emphasizing.

“That’s alright,” Bruce conceded. “If Kiran doesn’t mind.”

“Not at all, mate,” Kiran said, feeling choked and a little lightheaded at the whiplash of the day. “That’s bloody fine with me.”

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iaintyourbro · 4 years

Note

What’s your take on Cloud’s depression during AC? People on twitter are suddenly talking about this, again. This matter was brought up by those antis saying that we Clotis should accept the fact that Tifa wasn’t the one who “healed” Cloud and that she was also being mean and not considerate whatsoever. The funny thing is that, they also accused us of denying his depression and not understanding it. TF. Let’s be real, Tifa played a major part, in fact she gave him morale thx to her “scolding” lol

Hey anon..

Yeah, Twitter has me depressed today. I think it started last night. I was enjoying it for a bit, but the last week or two have been so bad over there with bullshit that I’m about to just take a break from the entire fandom.

My Take on AC Cloud:

I watched AC when it first came out, and I barely remember it. I remember I didn’t like what they did. Why was Cloud so depressed and brooding? Oh Aerith is in this? Interesting. I felt like it was disjointed and removed a lot of the great progress Cloud made in OG. They kept this depressed, brooding guy in KH as well... It just didn’t seem right to me. I was young, too.

At this point we also didn’t have On the Way to a Smile, Crisis Core, or anything else, really.. None of the Ultimanias were in English at this point. I also was not interested enough in going online. It was a weird time when I was playing other things and was meh on FF7 for a while. I was always a FF8 fangirl, so was jealous of FF7 at times hahaha. It got so much more attention and love.

It took me a long time to watch it again. I remember my husband watching it before Remake came out and I felt mad or sad. It was like an emotion from memory, and I didn’t know why. I can’t describe it. I saw it on the TV and was like why is this on here...

After playing Remake, I bit the bullet and ordered AC Complete, which had things tweaked and added. I also am now in my 30′s and have a lot more life experience.

Antis like to say Cloud is depressed solely because Aerith is dead and he wants to be with her. This may be one of the reasons I didn’t like AC, because when I did happen to come across some FF7 thing online, I’d see this shit and be like whatever, that makes no sense.

I enjoyed ACC. My heart was actually pounding and I was nervous/intrigued by what was going on even though I knew the story. I haven’t read all of CoT yet, but I’ve seen the excerpts online, so I know the general gist of things.

Based strictly on ACC:

Cloud is really upset that Denzel is sick. He’s obsessively looking up medical stuff to figure out how to cure it - this is shown with everything all over his desk. He’s closed in on himself to do this. I did the same shit when my dad had cancer. I did it for three fucking years while he was alive - from the time he got diagnosed to the day he was dying. Every damn day I looked up articles, research, and theories. It’s not healthy. It’s depressing and I closed myself off from the world half the time and didn’t realize it. Thank God my husband is a patient saint.

Cloud does care a lot about Tifa. His reaction alone at seeing her knocked out in the church is heart wrenching. When they’re brought back to Seventh Heaven, Cloud pops right up when he sees Tifa there. He then stays with her until she wakes up. This is a pretty good amount of time. The sun is up when he’s looking over her, and when she wakes up, it’s dark outside. He could have slipped out again without her noticing if he really wanted to. I’m sure he may have contemplated it.

She calls his ass out on how he’s acting. She knows he’s sick at this point. This was huge for Tifa who’s not confrontational. He clearly doesn’t want to completely disconnect, or he would have gotten rid of his cell phone voluntarily. He doesn’t. They actually show him checking his messages.

Ultimately Cloud leaves because he ends up with Geostigma. That’s the last straw. He can’t face the fact that he’s going to die and what it’ll do to his family, so he leaves. Listen, I think the only reason my dad didn’t try to leave when he was diagnosed was because he had nowhere to go and by time he started verbalizing wanting to leave, he was physically unable to. Yes, I remember him being angry because he was hospitalized again and he told my mom he was going to get an apartment by himself so she didn’t know when he was getting bad. It’s very hurtful to even think it, and even worse when you know they don’t actually mean it... They do it because they don’t want to see their family hurt.

The setup he has at the church as his “living” area is super depressing. It looks like something a homeless person sets up. He legit was going to wait to die. He had a lot of knowledge about this, so he figured there was nothing he could do.

Marlene calls Cloud out on his bullshit too. Cloud admits to her he doesn’t think he can take care of anybody. Marlene Barrret quotes him and it’s cute. I think Cloud appreciated it and I think it made him think.

In ACC, Cloud has a short conversation with Aerith. Aerith seems almost annoyed with him like “wtf is your deal, dude” kind of attitude. Zack shows up when he’s bloody and half dead fighting Sephiroth to encourage him. There are scenes with him talking at Zack’s grave and saying he couldn’t keep his promise to him. He flat out tells Aerith he wants to be forgiven. He doesn’t say I miss you, I want to be with you, none of that happens. In fact, it’s mainly her telling him HE needs to start doing some forgiving - ultimately to himself.

When Cloud is in limbo - between living and dying - Cloud says “Mom.” Very romantic, I know. Then Zack and Aerith have a conversation very similar to a couple that’s going to adopt a child and they tell Cloud he’s too big for them. This is the “I see the light” and the person on the other side is like “nah bro go back, not your time yet.”

He wakes up, Tifa and crew is there, he smiles at Tifa... and it’s a happy ending. He sees both Zack AND Aerith at the end, and they walk off in to the light together all cute and shit.

Adding in Things from the Novels/Interviews/Thoughts:

The devs have said Cloud was happy with his family and that scared him. The happier he got, the more scared he got. We know he cherishes everything. He especially cherishes the family he has.

Cloud’s depression spiral started from the high anxiety of having a happy life and Elmyra asking him to deliver flowers to Aerith’s grave. Now, I have my feelings about this, but when I look at it logically, I don’t think Elmyra ultimately does this out of spite. I actually don’t think Elmyra thinks Cloud and Aerith were a thing - so it wasn’t that either. I think she knew Cloud was friends with her and maybe he’d want to deliver some flowers - to give him some business.

This flower delivery reminds Cloud of what he thinks is his failure to protect somebody else. At this point he has his memories of what happened to Nibelheim, his mother, Tifa, and Zack. The Sector 7 plate drop and Aerith are the most recent “failures”. So this brings up Aerith.

Then Denzel comes along and he’s an orphan because his parents were... yeah... killed during the Sector 7 plate collapse. Double ouch. But Cloud and Tifa are going to take care of him.

Tifa herself has a lot of guilt because of the same reasons, she just deals with it very differently. Tifa tells Cloud to bring Denzel right home. She can make amends by adopting him in to her family and caring for him. Cloud thinks Aerith brought Denzel to him (Tifa corrects him). This is a Cloud thing, it’s not romantic. Cloud doesn’t know the guilt Tifa feels. He legit thinks all of this is his fault. Tifa’s guilt stems from the fact that Shinra drops the plate because Avalanche was in Sector 7 - she was in Avalanche. She feels guilty about Aerith because she thinks its her fault Aerith followed them to Don Corneo’s mansion. The thing is, Aerith doesn’t blame EITHER of them - I just wish they’d cover a Tifa/Aerith conversation about this as well...

Cloud and Tifa do have fights in the novels from what I understand, but it’s because he’s acting weird. He feels bad hiding the fact that he’s been going to the church a lot, and I think that does turn in to a whole LTD debate. So you can take this as Tifa is jealous that he’s going to the church all the time or she’s upset that he is hiding from her.

In the novels, Tifa has a breakdown when they go see the church after they defeat Sephiroth. This is where you get to see how badly Aerith’s death impacted her. So my thought is... Cloud thinks bringing her to the church hurts her because of her feelings, not because she’s jealous. I think Cloud is oblivious to the jealousy thing, honestly. Don’t think it’s a thought in his mind.

I honestly don’t know the real reason why he goes to the church to hide. I think this is another point of fight with both sides. My personal take is there was nowhere else he could go and be alone. Most of the stuff had been destroyed. It was still close by, so he could still do his work and keep an eye on things/be nearby.

There is a quote that is taken to be literal, but I think it’s just a way to say it wouldn’t have mattered who Cloud was “with.” Yes, Tifa and Cloud have issues, and I believe the quote goes “Perhaps it would have gone better with Aerith, but I think her responsibility is too great. Maybe the children will help them with their issues.” This isn’t exact, but it’s the jist of what they said. The children do help them - that’s the point of the scenes with Marlene, to slap him silly with reality.

“Oh but he sees Aerith when the building is falling.” Yes, you know why? Because he thinks that’s going to happen to Tifa. This is a “NO I’M NOT LETTING THIS HAPPEN.” moment. On top of it, I don’t think anybody would be right again if they saw this happen. If my neighbor was impaled by a large sword in their back, I’d be messed up from it. I don’t really know my neighbors. He’s not replaying this death scene in his head cuz he misses Aerith, he’s playing it in his head because it’s traumatic and he doesn't want to see this happen to Tifa. Especially Tifa.

It’s been put in Ultimanias time and time again that Cloud’s feelings are for Tifa. I went through my Ultimania - which only covers OG - and it doesn’t say anything about Cloud’s side of the CA argument. It does say how he feels about Tifa in the Lifestream, though.

The “He wants to die for her, see, that’s why he’s going to the church and waiting.” No, he doesn’t want to die or else he wouldn’t be so depressed. Just thinking this is fucked up on so many levels. If he really wanted to die and be with her, he’d be happy he got an incurable illness, I’d think... Cloud leaves Tifa and them because he doesn’t want to hurt him with him dying and not being able to stop it.

The other thing that would be... weird... Zack is in the Lifestream with Aerith. They walk off together for a reason. I don’t think she’s going to just drop Zack for Cloud since the whole reason she was initially interested in Cloud was because of the similarities to Zack. He had the same sword, the same clothes, and in OG had some of the same mannerisms. I noticed the dropped the squatting in Remake - the random squatting.

The ending of ACC implies that now that Geostigma is cured and Sephiroth is (hopefully) gone for good, Cloud can be happy. I’m not saying that his smile fixes everything. I’m sure that him and Tifa had to work on things, but you can see in DoC that things seem to be much better - he’s more upbeat and happy. He’s more dorky, like he should be.

Sorry this is long. I have a lot of feelings about all this stuff today. I’ve been seeing the fights over on Twitter about it and.. yeah. Cloud is depressed because of the fact he’s dying, his kid is dying, and he can’t seem to do anything right in his mind.

Thanks for the ask.

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galactichen · 4 years

Text

exo masterlist

all full length scenarios + drabbles can be found here for exo. please do not plagiarize any of my works!

note: former members (luhan, kris, tao) can be found in a separate masterlist featuring solo artists. also added in a cut b/c this is really long LMAO

♡ - tina’s faves

[ updated as of 5/17/2020 ]

E X O S C E N A R I O S

all that matters || angst

home ♡ || china line ft. parents; angst

qui gagné? || casino au ft. xiuchenkai; general, slightly suggestive

O P T I O N A L B I A S

melodic memories || non-idol au; angst

sentimental || non-idol au; angst

X I U M I N Scenarios

reminiscence || mama au; angst

seraphic ♡ || blind!xiumin x reader; fluff

snowflake || fluff!

Drabbles

“science motherfucker”

“i am not cute goddamn it I am intimidating”

“i absolutely despise the heat”

“let’s try that again. maybe without sneezing this time.”

“oh, there’s that creep. quick, hold my hand and he might not come here.”

truth [ werewolf!xiumin ]

“i thought you trusted me...” [ mafia au?? rivals?? idk ]

S U H O Scenarios

childhood ♡ || merman!suho x reader; romance, angst

dream girl || highschool au; fluff, slight crack?

perfection || university au; angst, general

Series

soulmate au :: [1] [2] Everything is black and white until you meet your soulmate.

Drabbles

forehead kiss + “i missed you” kiss

“call me when you get home”

“i don’t care” [ policeman!suho ]

“you don’t know how it’s like to love someone who sees you as a friend...”

“goddamn it, why are you so sweet”

“sweetie, I appreciate the thought, but I meant a 50c package of reeses, I didn’t need the whole candy aisle”

“why are you in a tree”

“what are you talking about? i am very mature” + “it-it’s nothing, but my favourite character just died...”

L A Y Scenarios

cold hands || fluff!!

for you || fluuuff

Drabbles

awkward kiss

jealous kiss

“can I have this dance?”

“you are so important to me”

late night drives

“you smell nice. did you know that?”

“you smell nice. did you know that?” (this one’s different lol)

never again [ vampire!lay ]

to rest in peace [ ghost!lay ]

“no, I didn’t fall in love with you just to lose you” + “you don’t know how it’s like to love someone who sees you as a friend...”

B A E K H Y U N

Blurbs

[ why i chose you ]

Scenarios

fragments || non idol au; angst

friends || fluff, slight angst

mistakes || highschool au; general

i’m here || college au; angst

Series

soulmate au :: [1] [2] [3] [4] ONGOING A mark appears where your soulmate touches you.

Drabbles

“do you need water? a snack? maybe a hot bath?”

“your brother just left with a 24-pack of bud ready to party, and we’re sitting in front of the TV with Netflix and fancy cheese”

“you look...”

poolside fun! [ lifeguard!baekhyun ]

“i’ll beat you at this game one day”

“you smell nice. did you know that?”

“stop leaving sticky notes everywhere”

“don’t be stupid, i’m not leaving you”

“i’m not what you think i am” [ werewolf!baekhyun ]

C H E N

Blurbs

[ the choice of a spirit ]

Scenarios

affection || non-idol au; fluffery fluff

better late than never ♡ || normal verse!au; angst, bit of fluff

cheerleader || highschool au; fluff

hold me tight, don’t let me go || biker au; romance

light bulbs || neighbour au; fluff, slight crack

nevermore || non-idol au; angst

voicemail ♡ ♡ || highschool au; a n g s t

Series

soulmate au :: [1] [2] [3] Where people age until age 18, and then stop aging until they meet their soulmate so they can age together.

Drabbles

kiss in the rain

kiss on the forehead

“i almost lost you” kiss

“wow”

“go back to sleep”

“what? are you jealous or something?”

“i don’t know whether to kiss you or punch you”

“i’m very busy right now and you’re distracting me”

“i am not cute goddammit I am intimidating”

sneaking out

late night walks on the beach

“who said you could take a cold shower, especially without me?”

picnics in the car!

“...why are you in a tree”

“shut up i’m tanning”

“your hands are warm”

“...is that... is that my shirt”

be sorry for your sins [ mama au ]

“babe... we have a whole hour by ourselves...”

“wait a minute, are you being nice to me? but it isn’t my birthday”

“you may be the love of my life, but there is no way in hell am I wearing that”

“this is all your fault, genius”

false guesses [ mafia au ] ♡

“no trust me, I am the dev- shut up, I am not adorable”

C H A N Y E O L Scenarios

adorable || college au; fluff

cute^2 || non-idol au; fluff

it’s okay || angst

they don’t know || highschool au; angst, fluff

what is love || non-idol au; angst

Drabbles

angry kiss

“sorry I made you wait”

“here, take my jacket”

“you don’t know how it’s like to love someone who sees you as a friend...” + “do you know how hard i’m trying not to kiss you right now?”

“i just got out from babysitting and I am having my tubes tied immediately”

“see, this is why we’re together. no one else could handle our terrible puns”

“do we need lessons on how ziploc bags work?”

sneaking out + concert night

summer shopping spree

“no stop being cute right now i’m trying to be productive”

“one more pun and you’re sleeping on the couch tonight”

“this isn’t exactly the best place for a makeout session, but i’m open to anything”

“could you stop being so damn stubborn and let me help you?” + “I swear; if you die, i’ll kill you” [ mafia au ]

“what are you talking about? i am very mature”

“you may be the love of my life, but there is no way in hell am I wearing that”

“you and I came wearing matching/couple costumes and now everyone thinks we’re dating?? but shit, you’re cute, can I have your number?”

K Y U N G S O O Scenarios

best friend || highschool au; angst

home || pure f l u f f

proper farewell ♡ || fluff, angst

sweet kisses || fluff

unfair || highschool au; romance, fluff

Series

soulmate au :: [1] [2] [3] You don’t remember anything from your past life, but your soulmate does.

Drabbles

kiss on the forehead

“you can never have too many fans”

“why the fuck is it so hot outside” + “who said you could have a cold shower, especially without me?”

ice cream dates + late night drives

“...why are you in a tree” [ dad!ksoo uwu ]

ice cream dates

“don’t be stupid, i’m not leaving you”

masquerade party

“run away. now” [ vampire!ksoo ]

K A I

Blurbs

[ a bliss with every breath. ]

Scenarios

oh, right || fluffery fluff f l u f f

serenade no.1 ♡ || kingdom au; fluff

sleepy ♡ || f l u f f

sweatshirt || college au; fluff, slight slight angst

thank you || fluff, romance

you did it || non-idol au; fluff, angst angst

Drabbles

jealous kiss

“sorry i’m late”

“can you hold me?”

“everything hurts and i’m dying, but i’m not pregnant this month so that’s nice”

“who said you could take a cold shower, especially without me?”

“...is that... is that my shirt”

not like him [ vampire!kai]

“no, I didn’t fall in love with you just to lose you”

S E H U N

Blurbs / Timestamps

[ 9:54 pm ]

Scenarios

confession overdue ♡ || non-idol au; fluff, angst

night out (on memory lane) || highschool au; romance

polaroid || college au; romance, angst

spontaneous || highschool au; romance

why || non-idol au; a n g s t

Drabbles

kiss on the neck

“wait a minute, are you drunk?”

“science motherfucker”

“remind me why i’m dating you again. please”

“you may want to hide the alcohol because I may die from how much and how badly I want to drink right now”

“i am not cute goddammit I am intimidating”

“see, this is why we’re together. no one else could handle our terrible puns”

“shut up i’m tanning”

“...i’ll sleep on the couch with you”

“i love you more than you love me”

“my horoscope says no”

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rosearcanum · 3 years

Text

My long, in depth meta/headcanon about Viola and her relationship with Raphael

I am basing this meta on what is in the artbook, what we see in sc5 gameplay, some newer information brought to light in sc6, and some of my own personal speculation. Now keep in mind if the game comes up with a way to tie up their relationship with a neat little bow that I find to be compelling I am more than welcome to be proven wrong but TL;DR: I find the possibility that Viola will ever want to go back to Raphael to range from anywhere between very unlikely to quite literally impossible.

Analysis beneath the cut

First let’s go over what we know from the artbook and from info collected in SC6.

Basically, Viola wakes up with no memories of who she is or where she came from. For a little while she traveled alone, telling fortunes to people in order to make money and that was largely how she got by, however she would very often find herself pissing someone off because they don’t like the fortune she gives them and so for that reason, for her own safety, she’s forced to live nomadically. She can’t stay in town for very long.

She meets Zwei, who has more or less sworn himself to protect her because in his eyes they are the same and people like them have to stick together so they travel together more, all the while evading Graf Dumas’s assassination attempts against them. Eventually they are taken in by Schwarzwind while outrunning these same assassins and they are given a more stable place to stay that will keep them out of harms way in exchange for becoming Schwarzwind mercenaries. This all happens in the 10+ years leading up to 1607, which is when Soul Calibur 5 takes place. Zwei kills Dumas but then Zwei himself is killed by Pyrrha. Dumas is dead and we figure out that Dumas is actually Raphael. Raphael wakes up with no memory of who he is, all he knows is the name “Amy” and he knows that he has to find her.

In the artbook, Viola is described as someone who is incapable of understanding the emotions of others, which the sole except to that being Zwei. She also makes it a point to stay as far away from people she knows will bring her trouble as she can.

In Soul Calibur 6 we learn that Azwel is the one behind Amy losing her memories and by extension her transformation into Viola. We also learn that Azwel is the one who brought Soul Edge’s existence to Raphael’s attention thus beginning this downward spiral into insanity.

Now let’s talk about SC5 gameplay.

Viola is barely in the storymode in Soul Calibur 5 and nothing that is said in the storymode in regards to her has anything to do with her relationship with Raphael. Raphael (AS Raphael) isn’t in the storymode at all but we do see him as Dumas. That is not important as Dumas in the storymode never has any interaction with Viola. However there are some things that the gameplay can tell us about their relationship based on how Viola and Raphael react to each other when made to battle. The first thing I would like to direct your attention to is the fact that while Raphael has a very distinct reaction to meeting Viola that only she can get out of him (when beginning the battle he says: “You vex me, woman! Who are you?”), Viola’s line when about to battle him is a generic line that most anyone can get out of her (”In the moon, I see everything.”) You will also notice that Raphael has way more special dialogue lines with Viola than she does with him. His quote when he gets a “time out” against him, his quote when he does certain moves against her, and his victory quote against her. The only quote that Viola has that is specific to Raphael and no one else is her victory quote (”The moon will swallow the sun, and it shall never rise again.”)

This quote here is important because it is another one of her cryptic omens, and there is no canon interpretation of it. However, I believe that the “moon” that she is speaking of here is referring to herself. And the “sun”, is referring to Amy. This would make sense because if she is speaking to Raphael specifically, it would make sense for the sun to mean Amy since, in a sense, Amy was like the sun in his life. The day he left Rouen with her could symbolize the day that she unwittingly brought him out of darkness. So then what does this quote mean overall? I believe that it means that where Amy once stood, now stands Viola. And that Viola is here to stay, Amy is never coming back.

We can also look at Raphael’s quotes though to paint a bigger picture of their dynamic. Raphael’s victory quote against her is “Stop looking into my soul, damn you!” And if we look at some of the unused lines listed on the various character wiki pages (specifically if we look at Viola’s, Hilde’s, and Zwei’s), we can see remnants of what I’m assuming were supposed to be a story about Viola approaching Dumas in secret, though this story never came to fruition because of the lack of time the game devs had to put SC5 out. But what this all points to is that Viola may be curious about it all. She may be curious about Raphael or about Dumas, if something happens that tips her off about his identity and his relationship to her. However it is important to note that that curiosity does not mean that Viola will want to go back to him once she finds out.

As I mentioned earlier, Viola canonically has an aversion to anyone who she can see as giving her potential problems. Viola also was never stated as being in search of her family, she merely just wants her memories back. Furthermore, after all this time, she is situated with Schwarzwind now, who more or less have become found family for her. Zwei is canonically the most important person in the world to her. And through unused lines with Hilde and through the only special dialogue we see Siegfried have (he says “you did it!! good job!!” if he loses against her via time out) we can see that she has somehow already opened up to the rest of Schwarzwind as well. She would already be content surrounded by a big group of people she trusts who offer her protection she wasn’t able to get anywhere else. This greatly contrasts Raphael’s storyline in Soul Calibur 5, where his only purpose is to find Amy again. It can be argued that he needs her, but it is clear that she doesn’t need him.

I would also like to reiterate that Raphael was Dumas, and Dumas had sent assassins after Viola and Zwei countless times. Not only that but Raphael’s actions and decisions far before he became malfested were what led up to Amy losing her memories and becoming Viola. Viola had lived her life up until this point, she’s essentially become a completely different person for better or for worse. Being as reserved, unforgiving, and untrusting as she is, I see no other route for her, if she finds out who Raphael is to her, than for her to be angry with him and to never want anything to do with him again. Most of what had happened to Amy is his fault, and then once Viola comes to fruition, there were many many times where she almost died by his hand.

Viola has been brought trauma after trauma because of Raphael. Realistically, that is hard for someone to bounce back from, knowing her father was the reason her life was ruined and then finding out it was her father who wanted her dead for so long. Especially when you are someone like Viola, who almost always sees situations from her own perspective as opposed to the perspective of others, I believe it is a hurdle too massive for her to get over.

And so what I personally believe will happen is that Viola will find a reason to seek Raphael out, she will want to know the truth, and then she will put Raphael behind her and move on. She is not Amy anymore, nor will she ever be Amy again. She will live out the rest of her days staying in contact with Schwarzwind and traveling with Zwei but she will not want anything to do with Raphael after she finds out the truth.

#⊀ ☾ ♥ Headcanon ☽ ⊁#im right argue with your mother #idk how azwel fits in yet but im guessing viola will confront him at some point #but even then i just cannot see her ever wanting to be around raphael anymore #lmao hows this for writing metas about a character who canonically has 3 lines #and this isnt even scratching the surface

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holysmotez · 4 years

Text

Jealous Tifa in AC

Please pardon my delay on this, RL work tied me up this afternoon a bit, but it did give me time to think on this question @magicalchemist asked me:

"Why do you think the devs decided to point out so specifically in an Ultimania about Advent Children Tifa's jealousy of Aerith and have Cloud hiding that he went to the church from her. To push the LTD? Or to highlight communication issues? I would love your take on that"

My short answer is that I think it’s some of column A, and some of column B. My full reply is under the cut due to length (I’m sorry) and for spoilers

The following is the section I believe you are referencing from the 10th Anniversary Ultimania (credit: https://thelifestream.net/lifestream-projects/translations/66/the-compilation-of-final-fantasy-vii-ultimania-translations/):

A close friend as well as rival? The complicated emotions she feels towards Aerith.

「Both of them share feelings for Cloud 」 — Tifa was close to Aerith, who can also be called a love rival. With that point in mind, they were also good friends. Nevertheless, it is not hard to imagine that she carries complex feelings as a woman toward Aerith, who had built up a special bond with Cloud that was different from Tifa’s.

Tifa’s complicated feelings continue even in AC, two years after Aerith had departed the world. This was due to the fact that Cloud, succumbing to the notion that Aerith’s death was his fault and condemning himself, construed that Denzel was “the child which Aerith brought here” and took care of him. In addition, Cloud had also gone away to the church that Aerith had been in. The thing which she is unable to hide in her irritation towards Cloud is the fact that he isn’t merely dragging the past around, but because that reason might perhaps be related to Aerith.

[FFVII] Seeing Cloud and Aerith developing their world together before her eyes, she inadvertently lets slip her peevish feelings. [AC] Upon knowing that Cloud had been residing in Aerith’s church after leaving the place they had been living in together, her expression becomes complex.

From a marketing perspective, I do tend to think bringing up Tifa's jealousy is partly to ladle on some soap opera-inspired drama. I think SE is well aware that the perception of there being a LTD, regardless of the reality, is one of FF7′s biggest hooks.

However, I also don't think the jealousy angle is totally without basis, either, but I also tend to think that Cloud was actually the one more worried about her feelings of jealousy than Tifa herself was. He was the one who acted like going to the church and finding Denzel was on the level of having an affair:

From Case of Tifa:

"Well..." Cloud looked like a kid that about to be scolded as usual. "Tell me. I'll decide whether I'm angry or not after I listen." Cloud nodded and continued. "Denzel had collapsed in front of the church where Aerith used to be. That's why I thought Aerith lead him to "my place"". Saying all that in one breathe, Cloud looked away. "You went to the church." "I wasn't planning to hide there." "You were hiding." "I'm sorry." "I didn't say you couldn't go. But next time, I'll go together with you."

Meanwhile, I get the impression at this point that Tifa’s just trying to understand what the hell is going on. She wants him to feel comfortable being vulnerable with her, and where her anger comes out when he doesn’t seem to get that, culminating when she tells him earlier in the text, “Then drink in your room.” I think she sincerely regrets doing that, and knows it’s not the right approach, and so her response to him above isn’t that of a jealous, forgotten wife who just found a different shade of lipstick on his shirt. It’s a partner who wants to understand so that she can help.

But when you're scared for your partner and your relationship, rational thinking tends to go out the window. The situation feels out of control, so you slip out of control. You might question everything and blow stuff out of proportion that would otherwise be ridiculous to you in normal circumstances-- and I think in Tifa’s case, it's reasonable that some of her irrational thinking could also include dredged up memories of jealousy concerning Aerith. After all, that also aligns with her biggest fear: losing Cloud. It’s also understandable that she might feel jealous of the fact that the succor Cloud is looking for is something he thinks she can't help him with, but Aerith can. But the problem is Tifa doesn’t know whether anything she is feeling is ridiculous or what’s on Cloud’s mind at all because Cloud’s not communicating well enough. And at the end of CoT, Cloud’s just plain ol’ gone after she thought she made a breakthrough with him.

So then Tifa, when she finally has an opportunity in AC, lets him have it. Whether her emotions are fueled partially by jealousy is debatable, but it’s definitely fueled by her very human feelings of hurt and insecurity. Which, I might add, is not an ideal communication pattern...ideally, you shouldn't let your grievances build until you blow up, and neither should you avoid your partner until they feel they have no other recourse.

BUT! The good news, though, is that AC is meant to show Cloud & Tifa both demonstrating change as they come to understand and trust each other much better. The experience reaffirms for both of them that they do cherish what they have together, and I think it nurtured a stronger faith in each other. Yes, even Tifa changes, because despite her saying that Cloud needs to accept help and let others in, SHE is the one to identify that Kadaj is Cloud’s fight alone and holds back the cavalry. She demonstrates an understanding that his decision to go without her isn’t him saying “I don’t care” or “Aerith is bae”, but rather it was a way of saying, really badly, “this is my fight.”

And at the end of the day, it works out because they do know they are each other's biggest supporters. When both partners are committed - as I think Cloud & Tifa are - when the hurts heal, they tend to heal back stronger.

Lastly, before I exhaust you all completely, I think this caption to this pic from the quoted Ultimania should not go unmentioned:

Tifa, smiling towards Aerith’s presence. Cherishing Aerith is Tifa’s honest feeling.

Let's repeat that again. Cherishing Aerith is Tifa’s honest feeling...not jealousy. So yeah. Despite the jealousy blurb, the Ultimania is also rather quick to set us straight on that.

Edit: my dumbass forgot to credit the Case of Tifa text, it’s from Final Fantasy Kingdom

#cloti #advent children #advent children spoilers #ff7 spoilers #tifa #jealous tifa #meta #there could be stuff I'm forgetting but this is my general take #long post #thanks for the question!#this was probably way more than you wanted but #fart noises at myself #case of tifa really should be required reading before AC

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alukardtheabysswalker · 3 years

Text

I just finished Mass Effect 2 and I have nothing better to do so I'm gonna rank all companions by sexiness. It’s important to note that I am both a Dom and a Top so keep this in mind while reading:

1. Tali:

Listen we all know how hot Tali is but I have a special place for her in my heart. I love sweet and talkative characters and not only does she look amazing in her suit, the love and tenderness with which she talks about intimacy is so compelling that I would marry her on the spot. Simply the best.

2. Garrus:

I don’t think I have to tell you how sexy Garrus is. Every time I talk to him I have to re-do the dialogue because my mind turns off and all I can think of is:”Kiss Kiss Kiss”. He’s the hottest sniper and his scars only make him sexier. The only reason he’s not sharing Top 1 with Tali is because he is a bit of a cop and can get out of control but other than that? Sexiest guy in all of Mass Effect.

3. Legion:

Yeah I’m a robot fucker, what of it? I mean look at them. Cool ass warrior, great scars, deep and interesting analysis of organic society. I don’t know what to tell you it’s just, their voice, the possibilities of a special kind of relationship, info dumping mutually every day. They’re not Top 1 or 2 only because Garrus and Tali are VERY special to me but that’s not Legion’s fault <3

4. Thane:

His voice is SO soothing. He is so careful and kind, I can tell aftercare with him would be the sweetest thing. You don’t need me to tell you, you’ve played the game, you’ve dreamt of having a date with him at sunset. He’s the dreamiest daddy.

5. Kasumi:

She is a thief who steals from the richest and loves gossip. Not only is she cool af her skills make her so hot AND you get to kill a rich asshole in her mission. I could spend the night spilling the Tea with her after stealing some arsehole’s probably stolen art collection.

6. Grunt:

So we’re approaching a point in this ranking where you will see characters that have a LOT of sex appeal they just don’t appeal to me specifically. Grunt for instance is the kind of guy I would love to Duo-Dom someone else with. His voice is just *cheff kiss* and he’s always ready to body slam a motherfucker. 10/10 he’s just not for me but damn is he hot.

7. Samara:

You’re probably really angry with me right now for having Samara so low on the list and honestly I can’t blame you. She is a Mommy, hell,, her first scene has her stepping on another asari with high heels on. Again, I just don’t want to be Dominated but that doesn’t mean I can’t see how much sexyness exudes from here so more power to you. (no but for real she is SO hot).

8. Jack:

She is SO cool and I can tell some of you would love for her to snap you in half, not my thing but I get it. She’s a bit murder happy but hey noboy is perfect. If only the devs would have allowed me to be her friend instead of either partner OR coworker.

9. Jacob:

Our man Jacbob is amazing, great voice, really cool, don’t need me to tell you how hot he is, he ut’s his old man in place when it’s time . Unfortunately he is kind of boring. There are way cooler companions in the game and after you’re done with his mission there’s not much else to his character.

10. Miranda:

Talk about a wasted character. You had the chance to make a very interesting character arc with her backstory but nope, she’s just another racist human who won’t hear anything bad said against her precious Cerberus. She’s not at the bottom of the list only because her relationship with her sister is really sweet.

11. Mordin:

I love Mordin, I wouldn’t fuck Mordin but I do love him and love to hear him sing. That’s it.

12. Zaeed:

I wish I could push a button and eject him from my ship, fucking asshole.

And that’s it, thank you for coming to my TedTalk.

#cw sex mention #sex ment #tw sex mention #mass effect #mass effect 2

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gncrezan · 4 years

Note

What choice did you do at the end of ILITW and what was your reasons for your choice?

(and omg I live for your art)

firstly thank u :’) and secondly this ask got me emo bc a lot of the story for me personally is devon dealing with her trauma horribly. she was a pretty hurt, angry, and aggressive senior in high school . she and noah get along together because they shared the same fatalistic humor, taste (like with food, tv shows, books etc), and were determined to fix the redfield situation.. ofc noah had a different idea as to how BUT that doesn’t change the fact that theyre determined <3

this kiiinda gets long so it’s under the cut! otherwise, tldr: noah sees devon as a sister and wants to help jane, pulls the ‘i’m her brother’ card to one up her, and sacrifices himself so that devon can live! it’s a “i couldn’t save jane, but i can help you” situation :’)

noah and devon are extremely close and see each other as an insanely close friend. i think if they had longer after they reconnected, they really would have become ride or die best friends, a la tom and andy… so there’s a very long argument about who should die . which… it’s just SO like these idiots to argue about who gets to sacrifice themselves 💀💀

devon genuinely thinks its her “turn” to die and noah thinks similarly. devon considers noah a really good friend and even if she was hurt/angered by the betrayal, she’s a lot more distressed by the idea that jane had been alone and trapped as redfield for years … WHILE devon’s been going to homecoming, spending time with their friends, n trying to destroy what’s left of jane’s spirit without meaning to. dev figures the least she can do is protect noah and stop their mother from losing her only living child. ‘the whistle wasn’t magic but she promised to protect jane all those years ago and now she’s going to help her one last time’ kinda mentality !

meanwhile noah thinks this entire thing is his fault for being selfish and is angry bc devon’s been a good, a real friend that always wanted the best for jane! he has been delighted to see devon literally come alive in front of his eyes . with her acceptance to a music conservatory, getting the guy, and being actually happy again, noah’s thinking is that he’s messed it up and managed to get his only friend (after the betrayal he doubts the rest of them like him much ...) into mortal danger when her life is finally starting to go right. he doesn’t want devon to lose all that because he made a bad decision.

after they’re both exhausted after yelling for what feels like hours, he very quietly says, “devon, i want to see her. i wanna talk to her and i can’t let another sister die again on my watch. let me do this.”

n devon is kinda stunned realising noah like. oh shit we became siblings somewhere along the way huh? and she goes in for a hug and it’s bittersweet and they’re crying but also trying to drop wisecracks at the same time. she harbors A LOT of guilt over the decision regardless, but she is grateful for the chance that noah gave her :)

post-sacrifice devon mellows out more and is better at controlling her temper. by ilb, she’s adjusted well and getting better and it is not only bc she’s THRIVING and in a much better space mentally, but she’s genuinely helped by her visits to noah. devon very dearly wants to protect him, even if it means not telling the ilitw gang- she researches how to save him in her free time and how bring him back, if its at all possible !!

anyways anon im so sorry this got out of hand . i’ve been trying to answer this for like a week but i keep cutting the words down like. can you believe this is the abridged version?? i deleted whole paragraphs before posting bc i was literally writing an essay lMSLDFKSJDF but thank u for asking this !! love rambling about devon :’)

if you meant “why did you as a player choose the outcome?” and you didn’t mean my personal hcs for my mc i’m so sorry... but the answer is simple: i want devon evans-park to go to every single basketball andy plays at, and i was not about to let noah ruin that for her. even if i am a noah apologist ... andy stan first, human being second 😌😌

#i had to fight to cut this to be under 1k LMFAOOO im so sorry anon #if u ask me about devon i will like. DIE #devon evans park #it lives #answered #Anonymous

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make-it-mavis · 4 years

Text

Homesick (Entry #23)

01/09/88 5:17 AM

Hey.

Hey. Hi. Hello.

I know I’ve said this dozens of times already. But Devs, I don’t want to write this. It’s just a huge, chaotic web of bad, and I just get tangled up whenever I think about it. It just pulls me into a freakin’ mind spiral again. But there are a lot of things I should have told you. There are things that part of me wanted to tell you. I wanted to trust you with this. I wanted to tell you why I shut down and wouldn’t look at you. But I didn’t have time. Or, I guess I didn’t have the guts to do it while I still had time. I was afraid of what you’d say. Of what you’d do. But you can’t say or do anything anymore, so there’s not much at stake. I might as well tell you now.

I believed you were never really supposed to care about me.

I’ve always been pretty sure no one is. It’s just felt like part of my programming. And yeah, I know I adhere to my program the least of any sprite in this Dev-forsaken arcade, but this was different. I did not screw with this. I couldn’t risk getting it wrong. I’ve always had ample reason to believe that being the sort of Easter Egg that I am… more or less means I’m not made for love. Not the real kind, anyway, the kind that actually lasts. The Devs showed me that with their sweet little gamer angels. They love me when I’m new and novel, but the second they get bored, they drop me flat. Say you love me, use me, abuse me, and you’re gone. That’s the formula. It might seem harsh, and, I mean, it is harsh. I’ve been hurt too many times to count. But I adapted. It seemed pretty simple -- don’t give anyone the chance. Don’t get attached to anyone, and never believe anyone is attached to you. They might say they are, they might think they are, but they’re not. They’ll figure it out eventually. I learned this years ago, and I never forgot it.

I begged the question of myself, then, why did my stupid, masochistic, self-sabotaging ass deliberately ignore my own rules when I met you?

My code was constantly screaming that you would leave me if I didn’t leave you first. I could have done it. There were so many opportunities for me to walk away. Maybe we both would have been better off if I did. But I didn’t. I saw it happening, I saw us becoming friends, I felt us hit unsafe territory, and I chose to stay. If what we had was going to end, I decided that you would have to be the one to end it.

You didn’t. Years went by, and you still didn’t end it.

For a long time, it really seemed like you wouldn’t leave after all. It really seemed like everything was going to be okay.

But then you cared about me.

You just had to go and actually care about me.

Look… I know a lot of this is stupid. It’s about to get even stupider. Now that I’m out of the thick of it, I can recognize a lot of my fears at the time to be ridiculous and irrational. Sometimes, it feels like I’m coming to a point where none of me believes it anymore. I know what happened to you, now. I’m starting to understand why it happened, too. But there are nights where the quiet gets to me. These thoughts come creeping back into my head, and they nibble away at my brain.

Most of the time, the pain I would feel over being abandoned felt like a sort of punishment from the Devs. Like they could see me trying to feel loved, despite being shown time and time again that I’m to stay out of that business entirely, and decided to scold me for it. I know it’s stupid. The Devs can’t see us. They can’t do anything to us. They just left me to run free with this crappy programming, and if I trip over it and bash my face in, that’s on me. I should know how to live with it. I’d like to think that I usually do.

But with you, I just… didn’t know what to do. You were different from anyone else I’d ever had to keep at arm’s length. You’d been the exception to so many rules in my life already. I wanted you to be the exception to this one, too. You know, I just… I wanted to pull you in. So badly. So, being stupid, arrogant, and reckless, I threw caution to the wind and broke the one rule I never broke.

So imagine how it must have looked on my end when, just like that, just as I let you in, you burned up.

I’ve been making my own semblance of peace with that concept, little by little. But, that night at Tapper’s, the pain felt like the Devs’ most horrific sort of punishment of all. It felt like they saw that I had the gall not to leave you, and that you weren’t going to leave me like you were supposed to, because you actually cared about me. So they intervened and ended our friendship for us. It felt like they took you away to keep me in line. It felt like you were paying for my mistake.

Just imagine, for a minute, feeling like your best friend’s death was your fault.

Maybe that will help you understand why I did what I did.

As I stood there in the bathroom stall that night, this revelation tore into my brain like a pack of hungry dogs. The muffled sounds from the bar faded, and I heard -- clear enough to make me jump -- vicious barking.

This ghost audio cut in and out, and my brain thrummed with each hit, flashes of binary cutting through my vision. I clamped my hands hard over my ears, but I couldn’t shut it out. I just heard it all again. Loud and clear, I heard what that sicko screamed as she beat me.

“You knew this would happen! You could have stopped it! But you didn’t! You let this happen! Now he’s gone! For good! Forever! And that’s on you!

It’s on you!”

I couldn’t breathe. I’d started hyperventilating. My chest heaved wildly and my intentions for a scream came as airy whimpers. All the weight, everything I’d been carrying on my shoulders, bore down and brought me to the floor. Literally. The strength went out of me and I fell back against the stall door, slipping right down onto my ass. I stared at the tile between my feet and found it moving. My vision started to darken around the edges. I knew from unfortunate experience that I’d pass out if I didn’t do something.

So I grabbed my hat and breathed into it as deeply as I could. It just barely helped. Every time I’d start to regain control, my thoughts would spiral again and I’d be gasping. I was just gripped by this feeling of impending doom.

But then someone came in.

When I heard the door swing open, I froze. I almost stopped breathing entirely. I willed my heart to stop, too -- any sign of life that could indicate my presence. But none of that would have mattered. She could see me under the stalls.

Her footsteps stopped a little ways in, and it took a minute for her to say something. I don’t really remember what her voice sounded like, but I know she asked, “Are… you okay?”

I forced myself to take a few deep, steadying breaths, and leaned over to spit in the toilet. With all the strength I could summon, I got to my feet. “Had a bit too much,” I said in a regrettably shaky voice before I flushed away my fictional puke. “Go on and take your piss, I’m fine.”

She didn’t take much convincing. Once I heard her enter a stall, I left. I walked back into the bar room, drawing the gaze of the ever-present accusing eyes all around, without breaking stride. I didn’t care what they thought anymore. I wasn’t afraid. I thought I knew the truth, and it was scarier than all the arcade’s hatred put together.

Wreck-it was back in his stool by the time I got to our spot. I didn’t stay for chit-chat. I gave Tapper his drawing, accepted my pay, and told him I’d be back with another soon. With that, I said goodbye, and was on my way. Wreck-it fell in step behind me after a second, apparently under the impression that we were a unit that evening. I don’t remember if he said anything on the way back, but I certainly didn’t. Not until we were back on that pile of bricks.

I sat in my temporary nest, and he settled in by his stump. After a minute, he prodded awkwardly, “So… how did it feel to get out there again?”

I heard his words, but they meant nothing. They were just sounds demanding more sounds from me. So, automatically, I said, “Good. Thank you.”

He paused. “Wait, wait. Did you just thank me? You?”

I barely noticed the tears spilling down my face. I was frozen.

After receiving no sass, or any response at all, he muttered, “Well… You’re welcome. I’m glad it helped.”

He fell asleep shortly after.

I didn’t sleep at all.

I sat, quivering, for Devs know how long, hands clamped over my mouth, my whole body clenched so tight I could barely breathe, just desperately trying to keep quiet. My eyes wouldn’t close, they just stared blankly off into the dark and overflowed down onto my hands. There was a battle raging in my head, a last-ditch effort to remain in control. I was losing.

It was the first of many attempts to convince myself that you didn’t, in fact, give a crit about me.

I still do this. All the time. If I can believe you never cared, it’s easier. Then it’s your fault. Then I can be angry at you, and being angry is easy. You never cared about our friendship, because you never cared about a single thing but yourself. I was a toy to you, an object, a trophy. I was fun, I was pretty, I was something you had that no one else in the arcade could even lay a finger on, and you loved that. But it wasn’t me that mattered. It was your pleasure, your pride. You trashed me without hesitation. You’re the asshole. You left me behind. You did this to me. It’s your fault. All your fault.

It didn’t work then, and it certainly doesn’t work now, knowing what I do.

I was so, so wrong to want proof that our friendship mattered to you. I have more of it now than I can handle, and I can never let it go. It’s not in a letter or a memento, something I can destroy and forget -- it’s in all my Dev-forsaken memories. I can see it in all the things we did together, the things you’d say, the way you treated me different from everyone else, in things I don’t have the heart to mention.

I won’t say that those memories aren’t important to me. I won’t say that I really want to forget them. I will say that there are still nights where I think of each one, and I wonder if they were all nails in your proverbial coffin. At the time, I certainly believed they were.

Those memories assaulted my head as I sat there, woven into horrid echoes of barking and shouting and my own screaming.

I couldn’t stand it.

I just couldn’t stand this new reality I’d pieced together where it was my fault you were gone. I couldn’t stay in it a day longer. I needed to leave. I needed buffs -- not cutesy vanilla Boosts or Heals anymore, no. I didn’t need to blur reality, I needed to change it.

I needed Game Changers.

And, thanks to Tapper, I had the credits for it.

#fanfiction #fanfic #wreck it ralph #make it mavis #turbo #original character #homesick

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mollymauk-teafleak · 4 years

Text

don’t go where I can’t follow

I don’t know guys, I’m sad so I wrote some sad podcast twins

Please leave a comment on Ao3!

Trigger Warnings: Underage Drinking

----

Juno hated waking up more than any other part of his day. And, this morning, he hated it even more.

Dry mouth and cracking headache that had made its home, all nice and cozy like, right behind his eyes. The tacky, sour taste on his tongue that told him he’d thrown up last night and probably would again before the morning was through. A disconnected feeling in all his limbs, lying there in pieces, a dismantled puppet in too many parts. His head rocking like his bed was bobbing in the middle of the ocean.

And, already, before he’d even twisted his face into an expression of disgust, flashes of last night. A best bits clip show of all the ways he’d made a complete ass of himself in the previous twenty four hours, shoving him over the edge of these fresh ones with the heavy realisation that he’d probably fuck them up just as badly.

Juno finally got out his groan, turning his face to the pillow, taking a bleak assessment of all the smells on his breath. Gin. Beer. Vodka. What the fuck was that, was that vermooth? Where the hell had he gotten that from? Had he gone back in time to the 1920s? And overlaying it all the thicker smell of what it had all come back up. Hopefully not on someone else, hopefully not in the middle of his classmate’s living room. But Juno knew better than to hold out any hope.

He was grateful, for once, for the miserable drabness of his and Ben’s bedroom. No bright colours to make his eyes ache worse, no sunlight making it through the smog of Oldtown to sneak in through the broken blinds. Just the plain brown walls and the plain brown carpet, the dull stains on everything. He was glad Ben’s attempts to liven it up had died around the time they were six.

Ben. That thought snagged on something and he lifted his head to peer into the identical bed across from his own. He felt anxiety pinch for a second before he remembered it was Sunday and Sunday meant dance classes. Ben had three paper rounds to fund those classes and the bus to get him from Oldtown back up into Halcyon, he wasn’t going to miss them even if he was as wretchedly hungover as Juno. Which Juno doubted, Ben always had the good sense to drink water and all that crap before bed.

And, yeah, there it was. A glass left on Juno’s side table, gathering some dust now like anything left unattended in their house for more than five minutes. Ben’s way of tugging him towards some kind of functionality, even when he’d been too belligerently drunk to listen.

Juno sighed and drained the glass, of course it was exactly what he needed. He wiped off the thin trail that ran out the side of his mouth and sat up, the movement dragging a whine of pain through his teeth as his body protested. One glass of water wasn’t going to be enough to bring him back from the dead.

He was still wearing his party clothes under the duvet, the sequinned drop sleeve shirt and billowy skirt, his only nice clothes now rumpled and sweat stained. He couldn’t see but he had no doubt his make up was a state too. He brought a hand up and confirmed there was mascara congealing in clumps on his eyelashes, glitter shedding from his eyelids and…

Why was their lipstick halfway to his cheekbones? Had he tossed and turned enough to ruin it that much? But there was none staining the pillow as there should be if some nightmare had been throwing him this way and that, sending him cowering against the bed enough to rub off his lipstick. Juno winced. The only explanation left was that he kissed someone last night, kissed them hard enough and sloppily enough that he made this ruin of his face. As if this morning couldn’t get any worse.

He didn’t really want to know, there was no one at his school he’d be willing to admit he’d made out with, but Juno couldn’t help but run through the candidates anyway. Carlos, maybe, he was cute enough but he’d hated Juno’s guts since he wrecked their science experiment back when they were partners in freshman year and he’d cost them a final. Appoline could be a possibility, she’d been staring at him all night but he’d thought she looked more likely to punch him in the nose than kiss him. Maybe Dev but they’d been even drunker than he was, they hadn’t looked fit to stand, let alone make out with someone. Oh god, please don’t let it have been Sasha…

Juno froze, stomach clenching sudden and hard and he’d been positive for a horrible second that he would vomit all over his bed. Memories crashed down on him like an ice cold wave. Throbbing lights, music that barely qualified for the title, stolen champagne drying stickily on his fingers. Something making sense in the way things only did when the world was coloured by liquor. And a very, very bad decision.

The muffled sound of the front door slamming into the wall of the hallway made Juno jump. Not because that was an uncommon sound, that was how ma always came in whether she’d had a good day or a bad one. Juno jumped because he knew that wouldn’t be ma, not with the way his luck was going.

Angry, heavy footsteps in the hall, ones their owner was deliberately making audible for effect. And then, the bedroom door flew open.

“Juno, you asshole!” Benzaiten screeched.

The worst thing about an angry Ben was the tears. They came tumbling down his cheeks in an endless tide, making his skin a blotchy and furious red. That was the worst part by far, knowing you were the cause of those tears.

“Ben, listen…” Juno croaked, cringing back against the headboard.

“There were loads of people you could have kissed at that party!’ Ben threw the door back into its frame, nearly cracking the wood, “Loads of people! And the one you picked was my fucking boyfriend?”

Juno wanted to curl up in a ball so tight he would just disappear. He hadn’t kissed Sasha or any of his classmates. He’d kissed Mick. Mick Mercury. The tall, perpetually grinning idiot they’d been friends with since they’d moved to Oldtown. And his brother’s boyfriend.

“Ben, I’m sorry,” Juno closed his eyes tight against the headache and the tears that were building up. He didn’t have a right to cry right now, he knew that, “Listen, it wasn’t Mick’s fault…”

“Yeah, I know that!” Ben raged. He was still in his dance gear, curls kept back by a headband.

He usually looked so calm after class, the happiest he’d be all week, like there had been something building up inside him he’d only managed to shake off during those two hours. He’d walk on the balls of his feet like he didn’t see their shitty house and their shitty town and their shitty life, like sun shone out of his skin.

And Juno had taken it away from him with one stupid, drunken decision.

“He called me and told me everything, he told me you came up to him when he’d been drinking and wouldn’t be able to tell us apart and you didn’t speak so he wouldn’t know and you kissed him,” it all came rushing out of Ben like a burst pipe, the tears still dripping from his chin onto Juno’s blanket, “And I believed him because he isn’t a fucking asshole, like you. I can’t believe you’d do that to me, Juno!”

“I didn’t think like that, I wasn’t trying to hurt you!” Juno’s heart wrenched, “I just…”

What had he been thinking? Why had he done it?

“I don’t want to hear it,” Ben snapped, hand reaching for the first thing he could grab. It ended up being a pillow, thankfully, because he pitched it right at his brother’s head. His headache didn’t take kindly to that, pain exploding at the base of his skull.

“I don’t want to hear excuses, I don’t want to hear apologies because guess what, it isn’t going to be enough this time!” Ben scowled, reaching again, “He’s my boyfriend, Juno, after everything I told you about how much he means to me? You’d go and try and take him?”

“I wasn’t!” Juno managed to lurch away from the book that came flying at him next, “I...I just…”

“Shut up!” Ben yelled, sitting down on his own bed, head in his hands, “Shut up and let me be pissed at you!”

Juno bit his lip, guilt hot and prickling under his skin. The only thing he’d ever been good at, the only thing he’d ever strived for, was to be as decent a big brother as he could be. It was written on every one of his cells, right down in his DNA. He was the eldest so he had to do everything he could to protect Ben, to put his happiness above his own. It was all he could do to keep going sometimes.

And he’d hurt him worse than anything ever had. Worse than Ma, worse than the bullies at school, worse than the bad luck that clung to them like oil that never washed off.

Juno knew he’d been told to shut up and that for once he should listen but he couldn’t help it, “Benzaiten, you should be angry at me, I’m never going to tell you you shouldn’t. I fucked up so badly.”

“Yeah,” Ben mumbled tearfully, shoulders shuddering, still not looking at him, “You did.”

“But I didn’t do it to hurt you. I’d never hurt you, Ben. I mean, I know I did and I know I’ve done it before and I said sorry and it meant less than dirt…” God, he was crying, sobs building up in his chest, making himself even angrier at himself.

He could feel Ben’s gaze on him, not angry but wounded. Wanting answers, in spite of what he’d said.

“I didn’t do it because I want to take away what you and Mick have,” Juno tried to say things he only knew were true but it was hard to pick them out of the roiling mess in his head, “He’s good for you, he knows I’d break his jaw if he wasn’t.”

“Then what were you trying to do?” Ben sniffed, rubbing at his eyes like he was six rather than sixteen.

Juno forced himself back into those memories, even as he wanted to recoil away from what he’d done. He remembered the flute of champagne he’d stolen from some senior girl who was busy sucking the face of the girl hosting the party. He remembered going out into the front yard, where Mick was sitting, watching the cars go by as he liked to do when he got tipsy and moony eyed. He’d turned when he’d heard heels on the wooden porch and his whole face had lit up with such pure and uncomplicated joy, the way he’d always looked at Benzaiten…

Juno took a deep, shuddering breath, “I...when he saw me and thought it was you, he looked at me so...well, like a guy in love. And it was so nice and soft and...and it hit me that no one is ever going to look at me the way he looks at you. No one is going to love me like that. And...and I just wanted to keep hold of it for a few moments because I’m stupid and selfish and awful. Okay?”

Ben didn’t say anything, looking at his brother through tear beaded eyelashes.

“We kissed but he realised it wasn’t you,” Juno continued thickly, “And as soon as he did, he pulled away and he was apologising and crying and he ran away. He really didn’t mean it, Ben. He really cares about you.”

“I know that,” Ben murmured, shoulders slumping as some of the tension left him, “And someone will care about you too, Juno. But it won’t happen until you stop thinking it won’t, y’know? You treat yourself like crap and it makes you do stuff like this...and yeah, then people are going to think you’re a dick if you act like one.”

Juno rubbed at his eyes, mascara coating the heel of his hand, “Maybe I am just a dick, has anyone ever considered that?”

“No because it isn’t true,” Ben aimed a kick at him that wasn’t really a kick at all, just a nudge with his foot, “You’re not a dick. Just apologise to Mick and maybe don’t drink too much and kiss other people’s boyfriends?”

Juno sighed, plucking at his blanket, “I mean, I’ll do my best. I sure as hell won’t kiss yours anymore.”

Ben rolled his eyes, red rimmed now but the tears had stopped. He threw another kick in his brother’s direction, one that meant a little more business, “Don’t do it to anyone! Maybe you’re done with parties for a little while.”

“Yeah,” Juno admitted, running a hand through his hair, “I feel like shit.”

“You look like it too.”

“Shut up…”

Ben managed a rough laugh, leaning back against the wall. Juno sank back onto his side, wincing again, wrapping his arms around his pillow and trying to find a position where his head wouldn’t throb so badly.

After a while, he mumbled, his voice barely more than a whisper, “Ben?”

“Yeah, Super Steel?”

“Just...promise that when we’re grown up and you and Mick are married and you’re off being the solar system’s most famous dancer somewhere on another planet...just promise you’ll still call me?”

He couldn’t see Ben’s smile but he heard it, “What makes you think I’m not gonna bring you with us? I’m not going anywhere without my brother.”

Juno smiled crookedly into his pillow, hoping he wouldn’t see the relief on his face.

“I’m gonna hold you to that, Benzaiten.”

#juno steel #benzaiten steel #twin feels #angst #set during their high school years #ben/mick #do they have a ship name?#tpp #the penumbra podcast #tpp juno #tpp ben #sorry #please reblog and comment!

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faustonastring · 4 years

Note

your take is bad. saying “i’m not saying you can’t feel x way about x thing” and then tagging multi-paragraph rants with insulting language in the LI hashtags is... telling people how to feel. if that isn’t your goal then why is it tagged? people are allowed to be upset, even if they used in-game currency. sorry, but the coins have monetary value whether you like it or not. people are pissed. the devs are not immune to criticism and neither are you

First I would just like to say this : I have a hard time articulating my thoughts into writing or words, so I can understand why you took it that way, but that’s not my intention. That doesn’t excuse what I said sure, but that’s not what I meant.

I didn’t mean to tell anyone how to feel, and I totally get why it came off that way, it’s hard for me to express what I’m thinking so this is gonna sound weird and all over the place so bare with me (not excusing what I said, simply explaining)

What I meant when I said that is: it’s simply just a game, and it’s not worth hurting people over no matter the circumstances. It’s one thing to criticize and it’s another thing to bash people because of simple change. My wording for that was not right, and I’m taking full responsibility for that, and I totally understand why you would be upset. I didn’t mean to tell any one how to feel, and I’m sorry if it came off that way that wasn’t my intention, and I hate to hide behind the excuse “I don’t know how to articulate myself” but I don’t, and I know it’s a shitty excuse, and I’m not trying to excuse my self, I’m trying to explain why it came off that way, I want to make that very clear.

When I said “It’s okay to be super pissed if you spent money on something and it’s now gone, but if you just used in-game currency, and not any of your real money, you can still be a little pissed, sure, but it’s not as big of a deal as actually spending your real hard earned cash on something.“ I didn’t mean you can’t be upset, I was giving my opinion on the matter and how I saw it, (which I shouldn’t have done looking back at it) not every one is going to agree with me. I do admit I worded that wrong, and I should of took more time to word that better, but that doesn’t change how I think. I then go on to explain throwing a fit about something so simple as a prologue change is childish, which it is. I wasn’t directing that at the person who sent in the og anon ask, I was directing it at people who bully and harass the devs for stupid shit.

The devs and I aren’t immune to criticism yes you’re right, but harassing and throwing a tantrum is not criticism. There is a difference.

“Criticism: the analysis and judgment of the merits and faults of a literary or artistic work.”

“Harassment: aggressive pressure or intimidation.”

It’s one thing to analyze the arcana and write about some things you didn’t like about a scene in a chapter that didn’t sit right with you, but it’s another thing to pressure the devs into changing the prologue back, or send them hurtful messages. They’re real people too.

And before you message me or send me another ask, I understand why you might try to say my response was “harassment” because it has an angry undertone to it, but I promise that’s not what I was trying to do, I was pissed. I do understand why it might come off that way, but i was just going on a angry rant, and if you want to talk about it, then pls message me.

And if something I wrote hurt you, please message me, so we can talk this over like mature adults. I’m not going to be mad, or expose you, or even dox you, (I wouldn’t want that to happen to me so why would I do it to you, ya’ know) and I quite frankly prefer if you did, so I can better explain my self, and we can try to find a common ground.

I do admit it was immature for me to say those things, and I should of thought it through more, and I’m sorry if I hurt or offended you, that was never my intention. I put some of my bad energy into that angry rant which I shouldn’t have done, and I truly am sorry. From now on I’m going to try my best to only write response to things like that when I’m in a good head space so I don’t hurt any more people. I know this doesn’t make up for any of the harm I might of caused you, but hopefully it precedes any future mishaps (and if there’s anything I can do to make it up to you please send me a message, I would love to make it up to you/help In what ever way I can)

And you’re right, the devs aren’t immune to criticism, but again there is a difference from criticism (which I rarely see) and harassment and people trying to rewrite their story and characters which I see far to often. And you’re right I’m also not immune to criticism. But that’s not going to stop me from voicing my opinion, and speaking up on some of the toxic traits of this fandom so people don’t have what could be their ‘safe space’ taken away from them. People aren’t going to agree with me, I understand. And people aren’t going to always agree with you either. This might be one of those things we don’t see eye to eye on and that’s okay. Like I said before, it’s okay to get mad but it’s another thing to blow things out of proportion, especially over a game. And maybe were just missing each other and if you want to respectfully talk this out I’m more than happy too, (it will probably help us better understand where we’re coming from)

And one last time, I never meant to say “ you can’t get mad over this thing >:(“ that was never my intent, but I sure as hell see how/why you think that. You have every right to be upset, you have every right to not like the devs. But don’t harass the devs because they changed something. It’s immature. The same type of immaturity I exhibited when I generalized and told people how to feel.

I hope this better explains everything, and again I’m sorry.i hate it when people tell me how to feel and I feel so god awful thinking I accidentally did one of my biggest pet peeves, even when I tried to avoid it. I really am sorry. If you want to talk to me about it, feel free to message me, or if you don’t feel comfortable doing that (I swear I’m not some big scary person) you can send in another ask, (its just a little harder to answer correctly because I don’t know exactly how you’re feeling, if that makes sense.)

#the arcana #the arcana game #personal

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