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sarucane · 5 months

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Why did Ed throw away his leathers?

Who's up for a scene-by-scene analysis of Ed's character development in S2E6? Cause I feel the need to rant, so come along for the ride

In season 2 episode 5, Ed is complaining to Stede about having to wear something other than his leathers. Then in ep6, he's (without explanation) back in the leathers--and brooding over the kraken. By the beginning of ep7, he's actually tossing his leathers into the sea.

It's a pretty abrupt transition, and the shift in focus from Ed's relationship with Stede to Ed's relationship with himself is kind of jarring. So I'm gonna go rant about how Ed shifts in each scene of ep 6, building up to his attempt here to break completely with his past self.

At the beginning of the episode, Ed's sitting and brooding. Fang had to strongarm him into sitting with himself in the last ep, but now Ed's doing it voluntarily.

And what he's thinking about is his kraken-self. He flashes back looking at all the things he did, the things he completely failed to take real responsibility for at the beginning of ep5. He says he can feel a storm coming, but what the viewers just saw points to a storm inside himself.

In the first season, Ed told Stede that he wasn't a good person because he'd killed his dad and he'd planned to killed Stede. That he hadn't killed anyone since he killed his dad. But that "no kill" rule was always semantics and misdirection. A cognitive dissonance that allowed Ed to live with himself--without having to change his behavior. And to live in the violent pirate world.

But Ed couldn't keep from being the kraken by not killing someone with his own hands. And he's finally realizing that, finally dealing with the full weight of what he's done, and starting to reckon with what that means.

So he apologizes to Izzy. He does so after Izzy's initiated conversation and offered him a drink, and he does so in a way that Izzy can accept (like when the crew ran off after leaving the unicorn leg). And Ed doesn't give any context or justification to that apology, just takes responsibility. It's an important step, and shows how far he's come since the non-apology speech last episode.

Then Stede shows him a closet that's far less fun than the auxiliary wardrobe: a place where he's stuffed all Ed's loot from his kraken phase. Stede presents this as half-gift, half-convenience (hell, squint a bit and it can read as early step in Stede and Ed moving in together, like Ed having a drawer).

Stede clearly didn't expect Ed to be depressed about this "Guilt Room" (and notice that Ed and Stede aren't positioned face-to-face in most of the scenes in this episode, a staging choice that points to how they're not both close but not quite getting each other's headspaces). But Ed looks at the room and just sees a reminder of how terrible shitty a person he became.

So Stede suggests something constructive. These scenes are difficult, because Stede is trying, he's offering solid ideas to Ed. But Ed's depression doesn't lift while they're in that room. The loot isn't the poison, it's just a reminder of the poison that's already inside Ed.

Ed's better when they leave and there's other things he can focus on. Going on shore and giving slashing lessons to two random Waititi kids noticeably cheers him up--he even flirts with Stede a bit. But that leads him to straight lying and saying "we aren't pirates, we run an inn." It's his first attempt in the episode to just reject the poison completely, isolate the kraken from himself.

Ed's also clearly feeling better during the Calypso's birthday party. He embraces the community there, joining in on the drinking and "sacred traditions," and poking Stede to do the same. When he withdraws to the side of the ship, Stede pulls him back in to the group.

Then Ned Lowe attacks, and he does so because Ed's a better pirate than him. Because of Ed's guilt, because of how he got that room full of treasure.

Both the big party and Lowe's attack happen because of Ed's actions at the beginning of the season. The party is an attempt to turn poison into positivity. But then it's destroyed by pure poison, wiping out all the positivity and more.

Ed doesn't reckon with this until later. While Lowe's onscreen, he's not focusing on himself or his guilt at all. He deliberately refuses to be impressed by anything Lowe does, only taking Lowe seriously when he hurts Stede--and even then, only for a minute.

Ed refuses to kill Lowe because "I don't respect you enough to kill you. You're not worth the poison."

It's consistent with all Ed's actions in this episode. He's not going to take Lowe seriously. He's not willing to give Lowe that power. And it also reaches back to how he was thinking about violence at the beginning of the episode: acts rebound on the one who does them. One pirate killing another is a cycle, and Ed doesn't want to be a part of it anymore because it makes him someone who destroys everything around him. And that's not who Ed wants to be anymore.

Lowe spots Ed's insecurity immediately, demanding to know "what happened to you," questioning his identity and worth. Ed still doesn't seem able to bring himself to care--but the crew does, and so does Stede.

And that's when Ed finally engages with what's been happening. Because he sees Stede making a decision that's going to poison him--driven partly by insecurity around why Ed fell for him in the first place. And after all, Lowe is only there because of Ed. The poison originated with him.

Ed understands why Stede kills Lowe, he understands why the crew cheers it on. But it's one more effect of his kraken phase come back around.

Ed doesn't think about this immediately afterwards. He focuses on Stede, on supporting the guy he loves in a psychologically difficult moment. He responds to Stede's need and sets aside all his fears of the risk in this relationship, all his struggles with his self-identity, just for a while, to focus on what's right in front of him.

But when he wakes up, those problems are still there. And Ed tries to resolve them by cutting himself off from the poison. By throwing the leathers away, symbolically throwing away the kraken self that brought all this on them.

Ed does all this slowly and deliberately. But it's as much a panic move as the twine was, as much a doomed (though useful!) experiment as putting on a robe and singing in s1 was, and as extreme and ultimately useless as painting a beard on his face in to be the kraken was. You can't carve yourself up. And deep down Ed knows this.

Ed is so inward focused in this episode--that, or he's completely focused on what's happening around him--that he's not realizing how people are helping him. That Izzy, Stede, and the crew are opening doors for him to walk through, to reckon with and accept his past self. That (unlike Ned Lowe) his past bad actions and failures don't define him, any more than they do Izzy or Stede. He doesn't have to go to these extremes. He can just be Ed.

#it's very important everyone understand that those children are Taika's daughters #our flag means death #ofmd #ofmd s2 #ofmd s2 spoilers #ofmd spoilers #ofmd meta #ed teach #stede bonnet #blackbonnet #edward teach #blackbeard #gentlebeard

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soft-serve-soymilk · 7 months

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Eugene: Harbourtown's Hollow Protector (A Meta Analysis)

The night is dim, awaft with the scent of sea-salt spray and crushed autumn leaves. A nearby cafe jingles with the sound of clinking cups, and it's heady aroma envelops the people with laughter and dance, untouched by the vastness of the sky and the sea. All but for one. His name is Eugene. He wears a neon pink jacket. He has a strange fondness for the word momentous. He's the sole "Protector of Harbourtown~!" But a hero complex-- and the insecurity beneath it-- doesn't spring from nowhere.

Not dissimilar to the melancholy ambience of New Wirral, the concept of emptiness and uselessness plagues Eugene throughout his adventures, and this comes to light in the archangel fight with Mammon.

Eugene reacts-- for an otherwise bombastic, enthusiastic guy-- quite poorly. He initially pushes back and gets defensive-- 'You don't know a SINGLE thing about me', but one can't keep up the charade of denial forever, and he begins to break down. Somewhere in his heart, he seems to read these words as true. Eugene comes from a post-capitalistic society, or at least the start of one. There, life was 'slowly' changing in emphasis from being 'rich and famous' to being generous to one's community. But even though Eugene states that it was a sudden shift in society's ways, such change never is so instantaneous. With billions of people on the earth, with a spectrum of political opinions, the hard-coding of capitalism is something that is difficult to undo. The ideal of getting a good job has been going on for decades, for instance. So to a bunch of children caught in the midst of it all, in the beginning of new change, indoctrinated into a capitalistic world that was bursting at the seams... it's daunting. Engulfing. And that's clearly what's happened in Eugene's case. He states that he was 'never very good at' the new way of life. This, combined with his reaction to Mammon which he holds to some truth-- 'I want order because you do. I crave structure because you do' shows that this new way of doing things has left Eugene feeling rather... useless. Especially since, truth be told, he doesn't see much in himself in the first place. Within the Gramophone Cafe, there's a bit of optional dialogue between him and Kayleigh. Kayleigh inquires that, with Eugene's desire to benefit Harbourtown, why doesn't he go join the rangers himself? To which he goes:

Besides the point that he is clearly putting up a front, when Kayleigh teases that he wouldn't be up to complete their challenge, we get this instead:

But! As Kayleigh tells the player after they acquire their ranger challenge, it's specific to the person applying. Kayleigh went around doing errands because that's in her nature. The player undertakes a combat challenge because that's in their forte, or at least the game assumes so. It's a bit suspicious, then, that Eugene reacts in this way. But after all, capitalism does take time away from personal development, it's no wonder that this boy doesn't understand what value he brings to the table innately, by breathing, by being alive and a good spirit, and trying and failing and trying some more. He needs to be told, multiple times, assuaged of it really, that 'You don't need to be a hero to have value'. That he doesn't need to go around heralding some grand cause to be something in the world. That niggling insecurity of his is further implied in the Aldgrave Tomb Station, with the gravestone text. The archangel for this one, Lamento Mori, as the pun also implies, is as much about death as it is the fear of being unable to live a meaningful and fulfilling life before it. The text changes for each of the party members to reflect their internal struggles, whether it is Kayleigh's people-pleasing, Felix's embarrassment over his past art, or in Eugene's case: 'All talk and no action'. And it is because of that Eugene is wrapped up in an unfulfilling hero complex. A hero is a strict role. They're defenders of justice. Chivalrous. Selfless. Brave. A far-cry from the open-endness, and thus emptiness, that Eugene sought to bury within him as he fought the landkeepers. It's a comfortable act to play, and that feeling of stopping the bad guys does well to console the ego and mind in the moment. And you know Eugene is really trying to play into it, because when he's caught in the heat of the moment, he reacts with embarrassment, as if he knows it's childish:

Which brings us to his series of relationship heart events. Because though insecurity is like a gaping hole in the heart, and Eugene has so far been trying to cover it up with the cling-film bravado of heroism, the cover can always be removed. It can be filled with something much more nourishing, like soil, which is precisely what happens. Eugene finds a new comfort in starting a community garden. And though it might initially read that he's still trapped in that cycle of constantly needing to help others, the truth is, he's beginning to liberate himself from the idea that he is useless. He takes pride in his little garden, and shows genuine confidence in it and it's potential, rather than snapping up under pressure like with Mammon, being tentative as if with the ranger challenge, or fawning over in embarrassment when the player first encounters him.

And the day is bright, and the scent of flowers and mulch lingers in the air. A nearby cafe jingles with the sound of clinking cups, and it's heady aroma envelops the people with laughter and dance, untouched by the vastness of the sky and the sea. And this time, everyone is there.

Thanks for reading my meta take on best boi!!! I highly recommend this other speculative opinion and it's addition by my friend @hungrydolphin91 and @millipedish, which I think is absolutely wonderful and very supplementary to mine :). I just didn't want to regurgitate the same stuff because. y'know. academic honesty and plagiarism ^^;

#cassette beasts #eugene cassette beasts #eugene #As a side preamble I really do like how his questline takes the longest #it's a neat example of gameplay-story integration. he's putting up the heroism front so of course you can't get close to him #until it's removed. and that false barrier just happens to be the landkeepers. idk man I know a lot of people find it annoying #but i just think it solidifies what he's got going for him :>

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lunar-wandering · 2 years

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Regarding the fantasy break au, how do they know what the stories want them to do in order to move forward? Does the story itself give clues or are these stories both monkeys are familiar with? Is it possible that they get transported into a story only one of them is familiar with and they have to explain it to the other?

for the most part they’re both familiar enough with the stories to get through them, and if they’re not, then yes, the story itself will give hints.

they also have the option of asking the others, I don’t know if I said this clearly but they can communicate with MK and the others in the outside world through mirrors, so they can just ask them to research the story if they really need too.

There are, of course, ones where only one of them is familiar with it. For example, Wukong mainly knows the Disney versions of western fairytales, while Macaque has actually read some of the originals.

...Which is why it’s a problem when they end up in The Little Mermaid.

Macaque is the mermaid, which, of course, means he can’t talk and tell Wukong how the story goes.

So. Wukong fully believes that to get out of the story he has to kiss Macaque.

He likes. Takes a bit to work himself up to it, and then just goes for it and kisses him in the hopes that getting flung out of the story will make Macaque immediately forget about it.

...And then they both just sit there in stunned silence until Wukong starts panicking as he realizes the story didn’t kick them out. Macaque flails trying to somehow communicate how the original story goes but is very much failing to do so due to a mixture of being flustered and just being entirely unable to speak.

Eventually he thinks clearly enough to find some paper and a pencil to tell him that in the original story the Little Mermaid turns to seafoam instead of killing the prince because he love was unrequited, and Wukong just. Reads the paper, hums, then goes “Well obviously that doesn’t have to happen for the story to let us out, right? ....Right?”

Wukong tries to come up with other ways to get them to breakout of the story, and eventually tires himself out to the point of falling asleep.

It’s the sound of a window opening and tiny pearls clinking onto the floor that wakes him up.

He runs after Macaque, and jumps and tackles him to hold him close, Macaque’s tears turning into pearls and scattering onto the beach-

But he’s too late, Macaque touches the water and turns to seafoam within Wukong’s arms.

They story kicks them back out into the ballroom.

They’re both pretty shaken by the experience (this is the first one where one of them has had to die for them to be let out), and just. Forget about keeping up the facade of being rivals/enemies and just cling to each other, deciding to not do the next story for a bit as they try to collect themselves on the ballroom floor.

Eventually though Macaque remembers Wukong kissed him and they both start having a crisis though. (”WHY DID YOU KISS ME?” “I THOUGHT IT WOULD GET US OUT OF THE STORY!” “SO THEN YOU DON’T LOVE ME?” “I MEAN I DO BUT- HOLY SHIT YOU DID NOT HEAR ME SAY THAT-”)

They end up getting startled when MK contacts them through Macaque’s mirror compass, and very much avoid the questions about why they both look like they’ve Been Through It and are Avoiding Each Other’s Eyes.

#Monkie Kid #Fantasy Break AU #shadowpeach

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sealofreconciliation · 7 months

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In defense of Takumi's confession to Corrin

So. Chapter 28 of Fire Emblem Fates Conquest. More specifically, the scene at the start where Takumi talks to Corrin and says that he forgives them for what they did and still wants to befriend them.

To say that that section of the cutscene is infamous among the community would be a massive understatement, with the reasons why generally falling into the camp of “this is character assassination for Takumi, he never felt anything but extreme anger towards Corrin through the entirety of Conquest's story, why would he be willing to forgive them after they invaded Hoshido? This was clearly done just so the writers could absolve Corrin.”

Those arguments, however, come from a fundamental misunderstanding of what Takumi's going through mentally over the course of Conquest, what actually caused him to forgive Corrin, the most likely purpose for the scene's inclusion, and bad localization, and i intend to prove why with this post.

Let's take a look back at Takumi's appearances throughout Conquest:

If he's attacked by Corrin during Chapter 6, he reaffirms that he never trusted them, along with claiming that he isn't surprised or hurt by their betrayal at all, and that he'll enjoy killing them.

In Chapter 10, he shows up to lead an invasion on Nohrian land, gets defeated by Corrin and, after angering himself by blaming the destruction of Hoshido on them again and remembering Mikoto's death, gets a massive headache and a sudden boost in arrogance before running away.

During Chapter 13, he ambushes Corrin's group when they arrive at Cheve, screams at them to just shut up and die when they tell him they weren't there to get into a fight, orders his soldiers to attack, and admits near the end that his main reason for doing this is because he hopes that killing Nohrian soldiers will make his headache go away; he goes off on a rant about killing them after being beaten and runs away (2: Electric Boogaloo), causing Azura to point out that he's acting extremely out-of-character, much moreso than would be expected just because Corrin defected to Nohr, and wonders whether that's even the real Takumi anymore.

Takumi guards the Great Wall of Susanoo during Chapter 23. His battle dialogue with Corrin has him claim that he has become obsessed with the idea of killing them, to the point of no longer caring about anything in life other than taking revenge on them; this is, however, almost immediately proven false when finding out that Sakura was taken prisoner causes him to break down crying and let it slip that he was devastated by Corrin going back to Nohr and wishes they'd stayed in Hoshido, also proving that he was lying every time he claimed that their betrayal didn't bother him. His sorrow reaches enough of a boiling point for whatever was messing with his mind to be able to take full control, enveloping him in a purple aura and convincing him that he could still escape and save Hoshido if he threw himself off the wall, something that obviously doesn't work and gets him killed.

At the end of Chapter 27, Takumi shows up again, though clearly no longer as himself; he makes his entrance by trying and failing to snipe Corrin, ignores their plea for him to stop since the war is already over, is barely capable of saying anything more than “i'll kill you” over and over again, along with repeating his previous blaming of Corrin for Hoshido's destruction back in Chapter 5, and states that he doesn't need to be able to think for himself to take revenge. Azura explains that he's being possessed in the same way Garon was, starting at least from the moment he threw himself off the wall of Susanoo, that he can't possibly recover from this anymore, and that his anger and resentment have completely overtaken his mind, presumbaly due to the influence of whatever's controlling him; Corrin, blaming themselves for Takumi's current state and wracked with guilt because of it, ignores Azura's warnings and tries to get him to let go of those feelings by allowing themselves to be used as a punching bag and refusing to dodge his next shot, though still with no intention of dying and failing to keep the promise they made to Ryoma. They underestimate how much stronger the possession made him, however, and the attack shatters the Yato and nearly kills them, with their last words before passing out being to deliriously ask Takumi to hit them more if it'll make him feel better, still believing they can take his attacks.

At the start of Chapter 28, Mikoto and Ryoma's spirits show to Corrin (while they're all in what seems to be the Nohrshido version of the afterlife) that killing them did nothing to stop the possessed Takumi, with Ryoma claiming that his anger has overtaken him so much that he won't stop until he has killed every Nohrian soldier; before Corrin goes back to the world of the living to finish him off and save their friends, Ryoma reintroduces them to the real Takumi, who's also in spirit form. Takumi confirms that the version of him they've been fighting is nothing more than a corpse controlled by someone else and fueled by resentment, with his heart and soul having left that body ever since Susanoo; he also confirms that he can't personally interfere in the outside world while stuck in the afterlife, asking Corrin to destroy his body with the Yato when they go back and giving them the Fujin Yumi so they can repair the broken sword, a request Corrin promises to fulfill. Takumi thanks them, wonders how he would have felt if the two of them had been able to fight together in another life, and admits to having only been pretending to dislike them (and, as BR confirms, Azura) during Chapter 5 and actually wanting to befriend Corrin back in that chapter, apologizing for being too insecure to be honest with them. Corrin also apologizes for all the pain they caused him, but Takumi says that it's all right, since seeing them sacrifice themselves in an attempt to accept and heal his corpse's hatred, along with the heart-to-heart they just had, was enough to convince him of their good nature and cause him to forgive them for the pain they caused him; his last words to them consist of him being excited at the prospect of spending time together with them, as a true family, when they meet again in the afterlife.

Now that we're all caught up, i will respond to one of two major points against the scene:

Doesn't Takumi say that he always wanted to get closer to Corrin up until his last moments in life? Wouldn't that mean that it wasn't him witnessing and being moved by their actions after his death that caused him to change his opinion of them, but instead him secretly never taking any issue with them even while they were invading his homeland and he had no way of knowing why?

Well, yes… in the localized version of Conquest's story; here's a side-by-side comparison of the specific section of the Chapter 28 convo where Takumi claims that he wanted to be good siblings with Corrin, with the major difference between the two highlighted (sources for this are the fates chapter scripts on the fire emblem wiki for EN and fateswartable for JP, though i will be using the en script unless otherwise specified since the prose there is significantly better than the fateswartable translation and the examples i use are actually pretty faithful to the original script, with 28 and a bit of 27 being the only major fumbles):

Takumi: I always wished we could have been close, as you are with your Nohrian siblings. Right up until my last moments, I wanted so badly to call you my brother/sister. To look up to you and love you…and never allow anything to come between us. I wish I had told you that before I died. While there was still a chance… i was just so stubborn, so hurt. I couldn’t admit those feelings even to myself. For that, I am truly sorry. I’m so sorry for letting you slip away, dear brother/sister.

Takumi (JP): Kamui. The truth is, i really… i wanted to get along as siblings. I wanted to call you brother/sister. I should have said so properly when i was still me… but because of my stubbornness, i was determined not to show my true feelings… i'm sorry.

Now, is it still possible to argue that, even in JP, Takumi could be counting “still himself” as “from when he met Corrin to just before he was forced to jump off Susanoo”, with him referring to his possessed corpse as the sole instance of him not acting like himself, which would make the wording change a distinction without a difference? Yes, but said scenario is extremely unlikely and inconsistent with what the rest of the story shows and tells us; there's a consistent pattern throughout the game of Anankos needing to:

1. Get his hands on someone's corpse so he can reanimate them as either mindless mute zombies (Scarlet) or a version of themselves that has all their negative emotions in life massively exaggerated (Mikoto's sorrow at spending 15 years apart from Corrin getting turned into her trying to trick and kill them just so they can spend the rest of eternity serving Anankos together and getting all the bonding time in the world, Sumeragi's bloodlust during battle getting turned into battling and killing being his only motivation in life and something he's thoroughly obssessed with, etc…)

2. Capture them in Valla so he can brainwash them personally (Rev!Gunter and BR!Takumi)

3. Have someone who already visited Valla at least once to be feeling heavy amounts of negative emotions, at which point he can start to slowly amplify those feelings and get more control over their actions, until said feelings reach a boiling point and he gains enough control to force his victims to commit suicide and proceed with option 1 (Garon and CQ!Takumi)

And before someone brings it up, yes, it's never explicitly stated anywhere that the host needs to have both visited Valla and be feeling heavily under-the-weather for a long time for Anankos to even be able to begin messing with their head, but those are the only provable commonalities shared between all of his possessed victims in Fates (that weren't already captured or killed), commonalities that also provide a strong explanation for why he hasn't possessed more people, so i find them fair inferrences to make for the story.

Takumi first shows signs of possession at the end of Chapter 10 when he starts getting depressed and angry due to the double-whammy of both remembering Mikoto's death and getting beaten by the sibling who he feels betrayed him, which causes him to get his first headache and to, immediately after said headache, gain an unhealty amount of copium and arrogance:

Takumi: That's right! If you hadn't come back into our lives, Hoshido would still be at peace. Mother... all those innocent townspeople... they would still be alive. They wouldn't have... ARGH! NOOO!

Corrin: Takumi! What's wrong?!

Takumi: M-my head... the pain is... ARGHHH!

Corrin: Takumi!

Takumi: DON'T YOU TOUCH ME! K-keep your filthy Nohrian hands off of me!

Corrin: Takumi... please, let me help!

Takumi: Don't think this means you've won. This is only the beginning! Ryoma has already found the Rainbow Sage and received his power. You're no match for him now, even with the whole vile Nohrian army behind you! And I'm getting stronger, too! Soon I'll be unstoppable. One day you'll beg me for death, and I will happily grant you. Until then, I leave you with your guilt.

He starts acting even more aggresively and unreasonably by the start of Chapter 13, causing Azura to point out that it's extremely out-of-character for him to be so kill-happy, suspecting he'd been possessed or replaced, along with Takumi confirming that the headache from before has become a common occurence that he hopes will go away after killing Nohrian soldiers:

Azura: ...That is not the Takumi I once knew. He's changed. Takumi never accepted me as his sister like the others, but he was always kind. He's not the type to raise his voice or threaten to hurt anyone. I can't explain it, but it's like he's a different person... He's so crazed and focused on Nohr's destruction... I can't help but wonder if that's really Takumi.

Takumi: I'll... kill you all... Y-yes... If I kill the Nohrians... surely the pain... the pain in my head will go away...

With all of that, it's safe to claim that he fell into Valla and got out sometime before chapter 10, with the end of said chapter being the first time he felt negative enough for Anankos to start work on possessing him (based off the facts that he's acting perfectly normally prior to getting the headache, the agression he gets from it is consistent, obvious and not something he'd be able to hide, as shown by the rest of his appearances afterwards, and, if we're willing to resort to meta evidence, the theme that plays for fighting Vallite bosses also plays when fighting him in Chapters 13 and 23, but not 10, heavily implying he's either completely or mostly unnafected by Anankos up until the very end of that chapter), work that gets sped up significantly every time Corrin beats Takumi and the latter feels a sense of humiliation and frustration; the last time Takumi would have felt like himself would have been, at the latest, right before he gets his first headache at the end of chapter 10, with all of his appearances afterwards being him acting like an obsessive violent psycho due to being slowly made to hyperfocus on his negative emotions, and not something he'd be proud of or consider his true feelings.

So, no, the infamous line was never originally meant to imply that Takumi never felt any sort of anger or resentment towards Corrin through all of Conquest, only that his already-existing grudge and anger got blown massively out-of-proportion by Anankos from the end of Chapter 10 onwards, that he regrets being a dickhead towards Corrin unprovoked back in Chapter 5, and wishes he had told them that he actually wanted to befriend them during that same chapter; Takumi only forgives Corrin after he stops being possessed, is rid of all the extra anger and resentment Anankos gave him, very likely has his own heart-to-heart with Mikoto and Ryoma offscreen, both of which would encourage him to not be so harsh on Corrin (with Ryoma specifically arguing that they were still a good person and intended on fixing things after the war was over, given how he knows they disobeyed orders to spare Hinoka and saw the Yato evolve in front of him, which is a sign that it's wielder is still destined to save the world), and sees them practically commit suicide in a fruitless attempt to help him after being filled with guilt for what they think they did to him:

Corrin (JP): I'm sorry too… your resentment is my fault. I also wanted you to call me brother/sister. Once this war was over, i thought it was possible to have a good sibling relationship with you. But even so… this happened. I am truly sorry.

Takumi: No, it's already okay. You accepted my hatred and came here. That was enough. Thank you, brother/sister…

Given all the information i have laid out, i do not believe that it is a valid criticism against the scene to argue that Takumi is out-of-character for forgiving Corrin, at least in JP; the argument *is* stronger in EN, if only because it's wildly contradictory for Takumi to state that he always deeply wanted to befriend Corrin, even during his dying moments, while also having his possession start due to his feelings of resentment and anger towards them that he had long before he fell into Valla and were only amplified, not created, by Anankos. If you want to criticize that version of the sentence because it damages Takumi's character by implying that he never took any major issues with what Corrin was doing throughout CQ (including beating the shit out of him thrice over and helping in the invasion of his homeland for what he assumed were evil reasons) and scapegoating Anankos as being solely responsible for all his misgivings, or even just because it removes a lot of the emotional weight the scene had since that changes it into “i never felt any significant ill will towards my older sibling at any point in my life regardless of what they were doing to hurt me, and any time i did it was all because of my being possessed” feel free to do so; you'll get no complaints from me, though i would appreciate it if more people started spreading the info around that Takumi saying he never felt negatively towards Corrin while he was alive was the result of a mistranslation.

Now, for the second main criticism of the scene:

This was only put in the game so the writers could absolve Corrin by ass-pulling it so that even the character who disliked them at the start actually secretly wanted to be friends with them all along and forgave them for conquering his home

My main issue with this criticism is that it's baseless, bad-faith, and borne out of a lack of knowledge of Takumi's character and Corrin's motivations all in one; going from most to least important of those points:

It was inconsistent/an asspull for him to have secretly liked Corrin in Chapter 5

Even ignoring his supports and focusing only on the main stories, Takumi is consistently characterized as taking a liking to people very easily and quickly, but pretending to dislike them/not care about them because he's an insecure young man with an inferiority complex who feels like he's less useful than his siblings, causing him to to larp as a cold, calculating and unfeeling person who has no need for friends so he can make people think he's more self-assured and confident than he actually is; this is demonstrated when he gets flustered from Azura complimenting him in Chapter 10 of Birthright, despite acting like he disliked and distrusted her not 5 chapters prior, and when Izana, a stranger he barely knows, asking him to join Corrin's group as his dying wish in Chapter 10 of Revelation moves him enough to join up with them out of respect.

While i can concede that there's little set-up for this aspect of his character in Conquest itself outside of the scene it's introduced in, that's mostly just because the guy also has next to no screentime in that route where he isn't either fighting in a battle or having his negative emotions amplified, so of course it'd take the one and only instance in the whole story where him and Corrin aren't fighting and are willing to have a healthy talk with each other for that to be revealed; this isn't like the warp book in Chapter 18 of BR, which is an actual asspull because it has no set-up or foreshadowing to speak of anywhere else in the game and is brought up out-of-nowhere in order to solve a massive dillema in the story (that being whether Corrin's willing to backtrack to the Rainbow Sage for more power but exponentially increase the danger and risk they'd go through in the process), but a consistent part of Takumi's characterization that's both pivotal to his character arc in Birthright and made clear in every route where he doesn't spend 90% of his screentime as an enemy who wants nothing more than to kill Corrin and refuses to entertain a friendly convo with them until after he dies and gets to chill in the afterlife for a while. I can see a decent argument being made for it being inconsistent in the EN version of Conquest, if only because it's very hard to buy that Takumi would have continued feeling mostly positive feelings towards Corrin even in the middle of the war, but anyone who tries to say that it's still a character assassination for Takumi to say in JP that he wanted to befriend Corrin back in Chapter 5, when they did nothing to him and he was just acting tough and uncaring to try and intidimate them, genuinely doesn't know the first thing about him as a character.

It's inconsistent for Takumi to forgive Corrin for conquering Hoshido

What i find interesting about this argument is that people who use it have this weird belief that Takumi (and, very often, the rest of the Hoshidan siblings) would always lay a significant amount of blame on Hoshido being conquered on Corrin no matter what the circumstances, if not that Corrin is genuinely mostly to blame for Hoshido getting invaded; most of those complaints come back to people believing that it doesn't make sense for Corrin to choose to help in the invasion of Hoshido in the first place because they supposedly had more peaceful and reasonable options that'd have accomplished the same thing with less bloodshed, meaning that their participation in it was a huge mistake, they were both stupid for accepting it and morally in the wrong for doing so, and the Hoshidan characters should think the same.

The debunks for those arguments are extensive enough to warrant their own post, let alone a quarter of an otherwise-unrelated one, which is exactly what happened; someone on reddit made an excellent analysis recently compiling said debunks, along with in-depth explanations for why it makes perfect sense for Corrin to go along with the invasion character and logic-wise, but even skipping over most of the explanations of both that post and my Conquest Part 3 response where i went into some detail on why the Hoshidan sibs don't blame Corrin for their participation in the invasion (except for Takumi because i managed to miss his last two lines of dialogue where he explicitly forgives Corrin in both versions of the script, and even if i hadn't, i didn't understand his reasoning for forgiving Corrin until recently and would have probably just made a stupid defense for the scene anyway because i was much worse at this schtick back then, but it doesn't matter that much when this entire post has just been a poorly-disguised CQ!Takumi character analysis) on the grounds of it derailing an already-long analysis and going with the basic fact that i hope no one will try and dispute of “Corrin didn't start the invasion, they only helped one side win it more easily”, i have a question for the people who think it's bad writing for Takumi to ever forgive Corrin for helping conquer Hoshido, no matter the context: why would he (and the other Hoshido sibs for that matter) blame Corrin for the invasion instead of directing the vast majority of that resentment towards Garon, especially after he's had time to think about what happened clearly and is fully aware of the context and reasoning behind their participation?

Why would Takumi, after dying and being rid of his excess anger and resentment; very likely being told by Ryoma that Corrin hadn't joined the invasion in order to conquer Hoshido but to free the country after it inevitably lost the war against the overwhelmingly-superior Nohrian army, even going as far as to risk their own life by sparing Hoshidan soldiers (including Hinoka and Sakura) if and when they could, with Ryoma himself only dying because Garon gave them a direct order to kill him; seeing Corrin offer themselves up as a punching bag for possessed!Takumi to beat the shit out of due to how stricken by grief they were over the thought that they caused him to end up in that state, nearly getting themselves killed in the process; AND having a chat with Corrin where the two of them finally confess their true thoughts and apologize for the pain they caused each other; hold any significant resentment against Corrin? Why would he, after thinking things through calmly and objectively (which he would have had plenty of time to do in the afterlife), blame someone for their part in an invasion he knows they only joined because they had no choice on the matter and were actively trying to minimize the damage that would happen during the conquest to the best of their capabilities, especially when he knows that, had Corrin not joined, hundreds more would have died, including his sisters, while Hoshido lost the war anyway because they're hopelessly out-matched regardless of Corrin being a commander for a small portion of Nohr's army or not, especially when the one actually responsible for starting and carrying through that mess is a much easier and more logical target for his frustrations, and especially when the person forced to participate in the takeover is someone he cared dearly for, had a falling out with, then went right back to holding deep affections for once he found out he was wrong in his judgement of them?

Sorry that this derailed into a bit of a defense for CQ!Corrin, but it'd be near-impossible to respond to that criticism properly without bringing that topic up. TL;DR it's completely in-character and logical for Takumi (and the Hoshidan sibs) to forgive Corrin, mostly because he's aware they had no real agency or choice in joining given their circumstances, made a significant and good difference in a war Hoshido couldn't possibly win by saving a bunch of people in the process, Garon is right there and is much more at fault for Nohr winning the war than Corrin ever was, and he still has an emotional connection and bias towards them.

The scene was only put into the game to absolve Corrin

Or it could have been put into the game to keep to the throughline of Birthright and Conquest's stories paralleling each other at multiple points (two of the royal siblings die near the end; the Yato gets halfway-done evolving after Corrin deepens their bonds with two of the allied legendary-weapon-wielding royal siblings; Takumi falls into Valla and gets brainwashed by Anankos; and most importantly for this argument, Corrin takes a hit strong enough to destroy the Yato and nearly kill them in the final chapter, ends up in the afterlife, has a heart-to-heart with the Nohrian/Hoshidan siblings that died during the route and, with help from them, restores and improves the Yato so that they can go back to the world of the living and save their friends); or to give CQ!Takumi a proper resolution to his character conflict by having him finally get over his insecurities and need to appear strong at all times and ask Corrin for help with a problem he can't solve on his own, telling them what his true feelings were and how he wishes he had confessed when the two of them were still alive and on the same side, and have his sadness due to Corrin's betrayal mended after he sees them sacrifice themselves to try and save him, apologize for the pain they caused him, and admit to hoping that the two of them could have mended their relationship after the war was over; or to reaffirm Corrin's will to see their choice through to the end by having the talk cause them to admit that Takumi died because of them and the path they chose, but that they'll redeem themselves for that and their other sins by fulfilling their promise to him and getting rid of whatever's possessing his corpse, along with working to bring peace to the world (in JP; they put the blame for his death entirely on Anankos in EN, which is a really weird choice to me but whatever):

Corrin: The true owner of the Fuujin bow… is dead because of us! That is the price I paid for choosing this path, but I will redeem myself! By defeating you, I’ll fulfill my promise to that precious person! Takumi… I’m late, but this time i'm sure… I can save you and the whole world!

Now, i'm not trying to argue that it's impossible for the devs to have put that scene in solely for pandering, but given how all the arguments i laid out have significantly stronger and more supporting evidence for them and can be interpreted solely by analyzing the text instead of baselessly assuming author intent, i am arguing that it's an incredibly weak and unlikely point that relies on interpreting the convo with heavy dosages of bad-faith while also ignoring other, significantly more logical, well-supported and consistent explanations for it's purpose in the story; it's never going to be something i'll be able to completely disprove, mostly because that's the most subjective criticism of the scene i've seen so far and the writers haven't dedicated a section of an interview to explaining their intentions when writing that scene, but i hope i was able to at least convince those who do believe that to look at that moment in a different light.

In summary: that scene isn't good; it's great, and an example of very strong writing in Conquest's main story, due to giving some much-needed depth and resolution to one of the main antagonists of the route while also giving the main protagonist closure, making them accept the consequences of their actions, and bolstering their will to keep fighting until they've reached their goal and atoned for their sins. It's rep gets dragged down by a mistranslated line and the fandom's usual misunderstandings of CQ's story and characters, but on it's own, it's a damn fine scene that heavily improves both Takumi and Corrin's characters.

#fire emblem fates #fire emblem #story analysis #corrin fire emblem #takumi fire emblem #character analysis #fire emblem conquest

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writerdownacross · 1 year

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Okay, putting on my black, non shipper hat for a second and holding it tight. WHY are Buck and Eddie’s romantic relationships written LIKE THAT (long post incoming)

Why does it seem like the writers just can’t write Buck or Eddie a decent relationship with anyone but themselves? The only *real* development they have as people is when they are either in conflict with each other or dealing with something in their personal lives while the other is there for them as a rock.

Because the 911 writers KNOW how to write good relationship arcs. We love Bathena and Henren and Madney for a reason. And the individuals in those relationships also dea with hard times like we’re shone - they’re not perfect at all. So you can’t say that it’s a matter of them being more mature or more grounded than Buck or Eddie

But for SOME reason, they (seem to) fail each and every time they put either character with someone that’s not each other.

TV procedurals do not leave relationships like this generally- at least in my experience. If either Buck or Eddie were going to have a relationship with someone romantically that either wasn’t the right time or needed time apart to develop, they would’ve introduced those characters seasons ago. They would have had us seeing them pop in and out, be mentioned by other members of the team, be rescued from

We can’t even say they’re writing these characters single or straight. Both Buck and Eddie WANT love. They’ve made this explicitly clear over and over again.

But they introduce love interests who have little to no chemistry with these men. Like Lucy is the only one I could see Buck being with chemistry wise, but he clearly thinks of their kids as a mistake. And she’s basically fem!Buck.

So if they are keeping Buck and Eddie as best friends that happen to be overly involved in each other’s lives and biggest emotional moments and periods of breaking to grow, and no one else, not even other members of their very close knit community is privy to those moments, what’s the plan here?

Will they retcon all of Buck’s personal growth by making him sift through person after person trying to find THE ONE? Will Eddie just finally be okay with the ready made family in Marisol or whoever because that’s how they want to write his growth from therapy?

What happens when they introduce someone to Eddie’s life and they set them up to build that amount of trust that Buck has with him and Chris? Does Buck get thrown to the wayside? Because I don’t know any partner that would be cool with a best friend being able to adopt someone they’ve come to see as a child. Eddie would DEFINITELY have to change his will which would just be…horrible really.

Idk this is just stream of consciousness thinking for me but if not Buddie endgame, then what??? What’s been the point of all these seasons?

#I’m not closing on Buddie for sure #but you have to wonder #if it’s not buddie #what’s the plan here?#are Buck and Eddie just going to keep repeating the same arcs?#idk I’m just confused #the other characters have had such great relationship arcs that I DON’T GET what they’re thinking with Buddie #buddie 911 #911 on fox #911 on abc #evan buckley #Eddie Diaz

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commaclear · 1 year

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warning: isnabity

Oh Q oh poor poor poor q 😭 what's that 1 quote "always the bridesmaid but never the bride?" well FUCK that q's always on the sidelines always being supportive but never the one having his moment to live life and be cared for and he IMMEDIATELY went to caring so much abt Wil like any of his family members or patients once he learned of Wil's "upbringing in a cult".

maybe he's more like a ghost than a ghosthunter bc I feel like he'd be the type of kid who would never make any scene or ask for anything in his youth bc he felt like his parents were burdened enough looking after his mother to the point that he wouldn't ask to go out to any festivals or anything that could complicate his parents' lives and would just stay in his room trying to do good with his studies and find a different kind of positivity in his life thru books and the internet in his own little world, while he just hoped his mom and other family members were doing alright.

look at how quick he was to say he understands if Wilbur doesn't want to be around him anymore!! he thinks he's a burden! He's ready to disappear from Wilbur's life if that's what Wilbur wants or even if Wilbur doesn't want that he's probably got the conviction to do it anyway if Tammy says it's what Wil needs.

I think, ultimately, q feels powerless. he felt powerless to do anything for his mom, he works in the hospice for people who are beyond saving but still need comfort, he runs a ghost hunting youtube channel where he probably never got an even slightly convincing ghost event before Wil came along, but he's still such a kind and generous person who probably did all he could to support his mom, is clearly VERY passionate about his hospice job, and who always jumps at every single opportunity he gets to get even a SLIVER of proof that Ghosts exist and that he could communicate with them to the point that he almost got himself killed in like chapter 2. He donates to homeless ppl on the streets that he can't help get a job and a roof to live under but can hopefully help eat one meal.

he was terrified that Wilbur regretted trying to hook up with him but decided to go to his apartment anyways to see if he was okay, nevermind if he's absolutely humiliated and gets his heart broken by being kicked out of the apartment and yelled at in the hallway by Wilbur when he says never wants to see him again. he never had a chance to have selfish want growing up and now he's fallen for a Demon that he'll have to break his own heart to protect because he'd still never consciously try to harm him even if that's what Wil wants and even if a demon more than anyone else would understand and not hold it against him to be selfish bc ultimately he feels powerless but instead of giving in to his hereditary depression he feels like he needs to continue fighting this battle he can't win, pushing the Boulder up the hill, and trying to be as worthwhile and impactful of a person as he can for the sake of his friends, his family, and the world by putting others first and making it his midsion to help others until his body finally fails him.

WAAAAAAAGHHHHHHHHHHHH

- cooler wuacjity apologist anon

Well damn, looks like qaa has some sharp competition bc this is a top-tier analysis

And accurate, I might add. Yes, it's been like 15 chapters, but I've finally gotten to reveal why this Quackity is so wonderfully tragic

I love him

#anons my beloved #the cooler qaa #and they were ghosthunters

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cherryasagiri · 2 years

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Apology Flowers?

pairing: Jason x oc

summary: How does a sorry Jason apologize to his wife for the breakfast fiasco? Be an asshole, that's how.

previous 🌸 next

🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸

Jason watched his family in secret, seeing his beautiful wife and daughter play with her Bratz doll collection, sneaking glances at Nafula’s face to make sure she didn't know he was close and was plotting something. Due to his absentmindedness, Jason failed to realize that the woman was staring daggers at him when she got a chance to distract herself from the play date she had with their daughter. The male on watch tensed up slightly before proceeding towards the mansion's foyer.

“Geez, I need to be more careful, or she is going to kill me with that stare of hers.” he breathed out, letting out a heavy sigh before straightening himself up and walking out the door to start his mission.

The towering male took his time on his walking journey, permitting his surroundings to captivate him while he assessed what he could do. It was the middle of spring in Gotham, even though the dreariness of the city reflected a somber atmosphere rather than the charm and comfort spring often brought. He watched as the poor flower buds flurried softly throughout the neighborhood, delightful smells invading his senses but he didn't mind. The day was beautiful, but the way his face was unknowingly contorted made the community around him think he felt otherwise. Right now, he was thinking about what to buy for his wife to tell her that he was sorry about what happened the morning before when he didn’t feed his child like she asked him to, as she was clearly still agitated about the whole situation from the way she was looking at him before he left. A small sigh escaped his lips before his eyes laid upon an upcoming flower shop. The devious male smirked, coming up with a loving yet terrible idea. “Oh, she is going to hate me for this” he snickered, making a break for the shop in question. Once he entered the almost deserted shop, he sped over to the counter as he fished out his wallet and slammed his credit card on the surface, his face full of mischief and determination. The florist slightly flinched at Jason’s sudden actions and mustered a wary smile as she was a bit worried about what he was about to ask her.

“We-welcome to Gotham City Arrangements! How may I help you?”

“Hey, how do I passive-aggressively say fuck you but also I love you and you’re scary but I like it in a flower?”

The florist gave Jason a questionable look, searching his face to see when the punchline was coming in but was awestruck with how only seriousness painted his features.

“Well, I think I have a few options but… I don’t think that they would make a beautiful arrangement…” she chuckled nervously, the sincere expression on Jason’s face turning into a sly smile.

“Oh that's perfect!” He exclaimed, the florist lightly sighing at his admission. She wasn’t sure why he was trying to make the receiving person upset but, if he was paying for it, it wasn’t her problem.

"Well, I guess I can make something for you.” She responded, waving him off as she headed towards the garden in the back to look for some flowers to put together. Jason looked around the store, admiring some of the work that’s put into caring for such delicate items. He knew he didn’t have the patients to do what they do. He chuckled to himself while going through his phone.

After around 10 minutes, the florist comes out with a sizable bouquet of flowers; it definitely was an ugly arrangement.

Splendid.

“Hey, thank you for the wait sir. So I chose these flowers for you! Do you know what each one is and their meanings?” She asked curiously.

“Nope, lay it on me.”

She lightly giggled then placed the bouquet in his hands so she could point them out clearly. “So, the red ones are self-explanatory, they’re red carnations. They mean ‘my heart aches for you’, a beautiful way of telling someone you love them dearly. The wild roses represent pleasure and pain, for the ups and downs in a relationship or something more intimate. The blue ones are the cornflower meaning to ‘be gentle with me' for when you feel like they’re bullying you in your case. And last but not least, the aconite flower. As you requested, it basically means that you hate them. Is this what you are looking for sir?” She asked, Jason, trying to absorb all the meanings for each flower and how to point them out to his wife if she asks.

He nodded his head, the mischievous smile never leaving his face. “They’re perfect thank you… how much will it cost me?”

“Ummm… sooo you total will beeee…” the florist calculated the total cost of the flower arrangement and smiled when she was finished. “It’ll be 48 dollars even!” She said, Jason, swiping his card and leaving a sizable tip for all of her hard work.

“Thank you, I’ll see you again when my wife gets mad at me so probably soon.” He chuckled, the florist slightly giggling right after.

Jason heads into the mansion, seeing Damian and Dick in the living room watching tv together as he passes them. “Hey Jason,” both males said in unison, not breaking their concentration from the martial arts competition they were preoccupied with. “Yo,” he replied, heading upstairs to their shared room. Jason held the bouquet a little tight behind his back, his breath shaky as his nerves were getting the better of him.

He wasn’t nervous about her forgiving him or not though.

He took a deep breath before opening the door to see his wife laying in bed, tv at a low whisper, and her attention on her phone.

“Hey sweetheart? I know you’re mad at me, beautiful, but I wanted to apologize.” He started, his body still facing her as he closed the door and gently locked it so she wouldn’t hear the click.

“Jason what the hell did you do?” She questioned, knowing her husband, he’s probably going to give her something she hates and expects her to fall in love with him all over again.

The male in question smirked, making the woman in front of him roll her eyes. He removed the arrangement from behind him and presented them in front of her face. Nafula looked at the flowers with wide eyes, genuinely surprised by the touching gesture.

“O-oh Jason… they’re so ugly but I love them!” She exclaimed, taking the flowers from his hands and bringing them closer to her so she could smell them. The different aromas flooded her sense of smell. Jason started to explain what each flower represented, and the affectionate smile that was plastered on her face slowly started to diminish with each explanation. Once he was done, the male in front of her had the goofiest grin etched on his face and that annoyed her.

“Jason… what the fuck was this supposed to mean?”

“That sometimes I hate you because you’re mean to me, but I wanted to also let you know that I truly love you and that even though I’m annoying, I’m still your husband so you have to put up with me.”

“…”

“So-“

A loud groan could be heard throughout the hallway, and Duke happened to be walking by to get to his room when he heard it. He only sighed and shook his head, already knowing what was going on. “Oh, Jason… that idiot.”

“Ughhhh what the fuck Naf— actually… I knew this was coming.” He choked out, his body hunched over with his arms wrapped around his torso. She got him good he thought as tears started to prick his waterline. As he was slowly recovering from the onslaught of pain he received, Nafula leaned down slightly, pushing the hair that was covering his forehead out of the way before placing a chaste kiss on her favorite spot.

“Thank you, Jason, I love and forgive you.”

“Heh, so… sex tonight?”

“Don’t push your luck, asshole.”

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talenlee · 9 months

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Design: Shaky Hands

This is going to be one of those ‘write up a game idea’ posts I do – if that’s not your jam, that’s okay! It’s just going to be me taking notes on an idea, and trying to explain it to a general audience. In this case, I’m not approaching a game aesthetic or art resources, but instead I’m approaching a purely mechanical idea to see what fictions can connect to it and what material components I’d need.

Alright, first up, do you know the game Mountains of Madness? I didn’t, it was a Lovecraft game that was genuinely outside of my familiarity, that’s a surprise to me. I’m used to seeing it everywhere, so seeing something genuinely new – and about a specific text! – was pretty interesting.

Let's Play MOUNTAINS OF MADNESS! | Overboard, Episode 1

Watch this video on YouTube

I got this idea watching Polygon’s board game club, Overboard, playing Mountains of Madness. In this game, players have hands of cards that they aren’t allowed to talk about and they’re trying to play cards from their hand to hit a target range. In the course of this game you acquire madness traits that mean you can’t communicate about what’s in your hand in particular ways, information being polluted by these rules about how to handle the mechanics of this communication. Again, though: You can’t communicate clearly about things in your hand.

This is a gameplay boundary that I don’t dislike in the way this game uses it, but it’s a design type I always see as something I wish I could route around. The idea that a player can – entirely unintentionally – break game rules and disrupt the game state – by just letting information slip is frustrating. Another similar problem is that players can route around communication hindrance, and it comes up to players to decide how they handle the distinction between saying things and communicating them in another way.

Basically, if I can, I want to make sure that players can’t accidentally cheat, and then find that out after it’s too late to address that or change it. That can create a specific kind of bad feeling. How could I design a game loop that:

Avoids a ‘players can’t communicate about this‘ rule

Presents a tool for players to push their luck in an unreliable way

Still allows the ‘target ranges’ design collaboratively

Avoids it being alpha-gameable – ‘why don’t you just play your N and Y into this?’

I then present the play loop:

Players are cooperating to try and hit target ranges on a series of challenge cards. So a card may flip up that needs 16-19 points of Scrungly type, then all the players need to play that many points into the pool; you want to hit it but not go over.

Each player can look at the cards in their hand, which have a variety of suits and values; some of those cards are Scrungly, some aren’t.

You decide how many you want to put into the common pool to oppose The Bad Thing. You put that many at random from your hand, and then you get to look at your hand, and swap one card from your hand into that pile. So if you contrbute only one card, you can guarantee what that card is. But if it’s two or three cards – which you may need to do for large target numbers – you can’t -guarantee- what you’ll give, but you can steer it a little.

If you go over the target range you fail, if you go under the target range, you fail.

That’s the rudimentary loop, but that loop is explicitly open to ensure that there can be a lot of related or complicating player experiences depending on flavour. Flavour can invite a lot of different other mechanical dimensions, too! Foooor example:

It could be a game about too many cooks where you’re all contributing food to a pot and if you overdo an ingredient it can spoil the whole experience. Food needing to be cooked in the right time frame means that you have a reason to rush through that experience. This could be very gentle, and it could invite a really varied kind of food stuff cards. This feels like it’s either a game about cooking as a job (which adds its own pressures) or it’s cooking as a communal activity and therefore more friendly, more collaborative. This would want to make the puzzle hard because there’s no tension from the players’ individual reasons.

It could be about making unstable magical potions or magitech nuclear scientists where the design relies on a flavour of something uncertain and dangerous, a brewing and bubbling problem that could explode if you fuck it up. But this may want to give credit to the person who ‘did the most’ so you’re rewarded for ditching cards out of your hand in high volume, which means that safe choices to succeed on the puzzle are counterincentive to unsafe choices that let you, the individual win. This is a meaner version of the game and should also include cards that let players interact with one another. This probably wants some randomness but it might just be an entirely doable deck of cards game.

Some fairly standard abstracted fictions for this kind of design are explorers and adventurers – going to a location and encountering a challenge of a difficulty range you’ve got to work through. This gets you a bunch of typical assets, it should be fine. It lets you add things like being injured, magical effects on particular problems, it’s a perfectly solid way to use this mechanic. Not bad, but basic. See also cyberpunk hackers and the like – basically, ‘the group are collaborating against challenges’ is already a pretty useful game form. This would want some kind of a map or grid to work through.

But hey, hey, what about limiting how many players can contribute to a thing at once? What if it’s something where two or three players at a time get to work together (like, Cosmic Encounter rules). What if it’s wrestlers? Then you have the mechanical need for cooperation, since wrestlers are working together, you have different styles for shows, you can even have the game generate random cards of players who need to work together, and you can add things like injury cards, things that get jammed into your deck. Player powers for individual special moves, too! This could also be a good version of the game where you’re advancing popularity, where players are cooperating to get points but competing on who has the most points. That probably wants some kind of a board to track points, some ways to track individual player points – and maybe even tokens for alliances and allegiances. Moonrakers springs to mind for an example.

Next step for me is to go look up resources for aesthetics I can attach to stuff!

Check it out on PRESS.exe to see it with images and links!

#Games #Making

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dream-mind-warper · 1 year

Text

Setting in the year 1995 in a rural town near Birch Lake, a facility has been trying to locate what is said to be jumping into people's dreams and being able to communicate with them, but no matter how hard they try, it seems the workers are never able to catch them as whatever or whoever is doing this seems to get out of their grasp. They try and try to find it, and yet nothing... "sir! We tried everything, but what if this entity doesn't want us to find them? "If it keeps escaping us, then clearly it does not want us to know whom or what it is," a young worker spoke up regarding the situation going on and made a point on this. Plus, they are not the only ones who were after this case; the government had been trying to solve this case for months, and regarding their findings, it seems neither party is successful.

After many fails, it was best to take a break from this and come back to the project another time. Somewhere else in the town, a storyteller named Sarafei was struggling to publish a new story for the community library. A lot of the books she's written have been very popular with kids and adults. She wants to write something that's never been written about-in this case, a new genre. The idea seemed engrossing, but hopefully she can find the inspiration. "Hmmm.. I could try and write about a princess who saves her kingdom... no, maybe a pirate story?" Ugh! "Why is this so hard.." She planted her face into the table, annoyed due to being stumped; this was certainly the hardest part of being a storyteller. The young girl saw it was time to head to work, so she grabbed her belongings and took her car.

The area she resides in is a rural town where everyone knows each other, and it is one of the safest towns yet! As Sarafei drove through the town, she decided to pick up some lunch from a sandwich shop nearby and picked up an avocado with chicken sandwich. The worker knew her, and the two would engage in small talk. "Hey Sarafei, how's your story going?" The owner had been running the shop with his family since 1985. "Hehe, I won't lie, it has been quite the challenge to write, but I'm certain that I'll find the idea to create one." Although it's been difficult since I've been stumped like hell,... The owner told her not to stress so much about it and inspiration will come on its own. Sarafei nodded, paying for the sandwich before making her way to the car and to the library, which wasn't very big but had a fair amount of books you could read plus the newspapers too.

"Fuck... It looks like I'll need to come empty-handed. "Hopefully they don't mind if I could get an extension, right?" Sarafei just sighed heavily before making her way up the stairs and opening the door to the front desk, where she greeted the receptionist before making her way to the lockers to put her bags away. As she was doing that, one of the other workers arrived, and if her memory is correct, their name was Kija. They had dark hair and wore the same uniform, but it was the male version with pants.

"Hey Kija!" The young man got startled when Sarafei yelled his name so suddenly, "Hi Sara!" Anyway, how are you? I heard you were writing a story. "How's that going for you?" He was really nice and a good friend to her as they had known each other for a while and could talk about anything. "Oh! Well, I'm not going to lie, I have not been able to find the inspiration to make the story, and now I need to show up empty handed. Head down in shame, she closed her locker.

"Do you think there's actually a high chance I'lll make a new story? One that's never veen written before and also one which people will love!" Kija looked at Sarafeis expression since she was having doubts on if the story writing is for her.. "Well.." He exclaims "When I was trying to figure out what plants to give at the community.. I thought to myself what ones do i like or what ones did I not plant yet, sometimes trying something old can turn to something new so don't think too much about it" Sarafei smiled nodding and went to work by putting away books and reorganising the shelves by placing the books back to where they belong in the correct section. As she was doing this her boss came to talk about the her story and why its late, "You yet to hand your work in again I'm starting to think you are incapable of doing something this simple" They were dissapointed with Sarafei and decided to give her 5 weeks and if she doesn't have it by then she'll be let go.

It's not like this has happened before; her brains have just been stumped on writing; however, there was one place they could go to, which was around the corner of some shelves, a window seat, where she could listen to her walkman and allow her mind to rest. Unknowingly, that little rest became a full-on nap, and Sarafei found herself deep in sleep, entering a dream... Though she was not aware of it, when she woke up, she was in the library, but there was something off about it. All the books seemed to be blank, and it looked to be around 7:30 p.m. Could she have slept in? That can't be possible, and someone would have come to wake her up. It was starting to get very weird here. Sarafei got up and went to grab her things from inside her locker, which didn't seem any different. It looked normal, and her stuff was still inside. "This feels very unsettling for sure; I better head home.."

Everything outside was different as no one was outside except for some birds and the stars; everyone else was absent too. "An unfamiliar voice could be heard from the corner of the library. It was not like a person's voice thought... In the corner of the house, it looked like an eyeball with two angel wings wearing a pink and white like attire. "Hey wait!" Sarafei went after them, but the stranger ran to a door that was just there before going in.

"What the?! "Ok this must be a dream, because there's no way in hell I didn't see that happen." Sarafei freaked out when the door appeared, but something was telling her that she had to go inside and follow the angelic eyeball-headed human to whatever was on the other side. One hand on the knob, she opened it to see an open field with blue skies and green hills; it was a very beautiful sight indeed. The eye having noticed, she followed and ran into the house! Why was that human following her!? Unfortunately, she didn't know why they were, but it can't hurt to ask, right?

"Exuse me! but you have been following me, and I want to know why." The eyeball looked at Sarafei very cautiously and slightly annoyed too due to her being here, "This world might seem beautiful but it is not, and your being here will only put you in danger." Sarafei was taken aback when the eyeball spoke. They explain how they woke up in the library but didn't know she would end up here: "Sorry, I didn't mean to enter your... dream world? "I also apologise if I scared you." The angel eye looked at her; this human didn't seem like a threat, and by the looks of it, they seemed to have no malicious intentions either. Perhaps they're safe?

"Hmm.. well, I can help you wake up and go back home, seeing as you got trapped in my world, which means it's going to take you time to get back and out of here." "The only problem is that the keys that unlock the doors out of each area have been misplaced. Well, that was a problem then. Maybe if Sarafei helped look for the keys, then maybe she could get home! The angelic eye thought for a moment and then agreed to go with them to help since they knew the house and could help navigate the way out. "I don't really like helping people, but you're an exception." She snapped her fingers, making 3 little eyes fly near Sarafei, and explain they'll be able to see anything hidden. Sarafei thanked them for helping her out. "Excuse me but.. would it be ok to ask you your name?" She didn't want to seem rude for not asking in the first place, so for good manners, it was best to ask them. "Well, if you must know, my name is Celina, and my job is to help people like yourself get home from here." She explains that there are bad people who are looking for her, and it can be difficult to know whom to trust regarding the safety of this place.

As the two walked inside, Sarafei noticed the interior was similar to her grandmother's place, with the flower couch and plain carpet. It was as if they had entered a house, and Celina said that to get out of this house and into the next area, they needed to find a key in the shape of a flower. It shouldn't be too difficult to find, at least that's what they think, and Celina hasn't had anyone here for a while, so she should know where the keys are! "So do you have visitors come here by accident?" Sarafei was checking a cabinet with some porcelain dolls and those pretend eggs you usually see. "Hmm.. by people who get stuck here and have no fucking clue on how to get back?" Then yes, I do get visitors!" She seemed not to be very interested in this conversation prior to the fact that Celina was speaking a little brashly and showing they did not want to talk.

There were some old toys found in a box but no key, and Sarafei needed to get back home or else she would be fired for sleeping in the library. All of a sudden, she finds on a cabbage patch doll's hair what seems to be a silver key similar to the one Celina was describing! "Hey, is this the key you're describing?! I'm just taking a wild guess here.." Sarafei took the key off the doll to bring it over to them, checking if it was the right key, but to their dismay, it wasn't it. It looks like they need to keep searching; where would it have been placed last time?

The two searched for 50 minutes and have not found the key, Sarafei was starting to grow increasingly fatigued and her eyes were starting to close as the two looked for the key for 50 minutes without success. Her mind and body were now in a different state, where everything felt light and her body was being swept up with the stars. She felt her body go light as they dove into a deep sleep. When Sarafei woke up, she assumed she would be back at home, but Celia had moved her to the next area of the room instead! Sarafei swiftly rose to her feet after feeling her face flush with embarrassment to discover that this chamber was similar to the old play grounds from her youth. "Hello, Celia? Is this in there for a reason?"

Sarafei is given a straightforward explanation by Celia that this house captures the memories of the most beloved early 2000s trends and childhood favourites. Sarafei suddenly felt as though someone was shaking her as the vision of the house and Celina faded. The key should ideally be in this room, allowing the two of them to unlock the next room and leave. When Celina calls out, her voice faints just enough for her to find herself in her own bed with the morning sky greeting her and the time on her phone showing 7:48am. Gosh, how did she get here at all? Sarafei's friend Kija unexpectedly entered the room with a glass of orange juice and inquired as to how she was doing. "You weren't returning calls, so I drove to the library where I found you passed out and brought you back. Are you okay?" He gave her the juice before sitting down next to them, and Sarafei drank it while debating whether or not to tell Kija about her dream and whether he would pay attention to her.

So, so you see, huh? Celina is outside her home, but why? Where is Kija? She's awake and in her.

Hey! She's not even here-why?

[THAT IS THE END OF PART 1 OF CHAPTER 1! Hello im happy to announce that DreamScape is available to read on tumblr! Tw there will be disturbing art of it too but i hope you enjoy. Ps im not a expert writer]

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makeste · 3 years

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im honestly scared for whats going to happen next. while i have no doubt that bakugou is the one who knows deku best, this is the first time hes reached out to him for dekus benefit. he understands him but most likely doesnt really know how to communicate with him. what they desperately need is an adult to help talk deku down instead of fighting him, but since most of the adults have proven themselves useless in this, I'm worried whats going to happen.

I meant to reply to this ask sooner, but it didn't really come together that way, so my apologies. the manga itself will probably provide a better answer than this within the next 24 hours, assuming the leaks come out as scheduled.

but in the meantime, I do want to say that I don't think there's any cause for worry here. the Kacchan of the past may have had difficulties communicating with Deku, because he never really understood the why of why Deku was doing things (so even though he's always been fairly good at predicting Deku's actions -- "don't come, Deku" -- he never really understood what was driving him to take those actions). but the Kacchan of the present definitely knows what he's doing imo.

there are two important things to keep in mind here. the first is that we know from past arcs that Katsuki is capable of remarkable insight when it comes to finding the right approach to reach out to someone.

what's notable about this scene from the Remedial arc is the way that he anticipates which approaches are not going to work. he's not the one to come up with the final plan, but he is the one to say to the others, "look, if we don't do this right, the kids are going to react like this, instead of like this." definitely something which I'd say is applicable to the current situation as well.

and the other thing to keep in mind is that if this chapter established anything, it's that Kacchan knows Deku better than anyone else.

he knew exactly how Deku was going to react. honestly we might as well have called this chapter "the nice and accurate prophecies of Kacchan." either that or, "I'm fine," after what is apparently Deku's favorite new mantra.

but anyway, so we've established that Kacchan canonically approaches situations like this with great care and anticipation for how the would-be-rescuee will react, and we've also established that Kacchan can predict Deku's reactions in particular with incredible accuracy. so given that, I think it's reasonable to assume that Kacchan has a plan here, and that there's a reason behind his specific choice of words.

"wow, real inspiring! all hail the mighty inheritor of One for All! but tell us this... are you smiling now?"

"do your worst, you All Might wannabe!!"

and this is the part where I was originally planning on writing out a much longer post, but for various reasons it never really came together. so I'll just try to summarize everything with bullet points instead.

the theme here is "OFA is a cursed power." this is something that has been steadily building up and intensifying for a while now. the past OFA users all died young. AFO drives them all into isolation and misery. the Vestiges think of OFA as a power that "is tasked with destroying AFO." Deku is now the last and only one left who can wield that power. it is a massive burden, and Deku believes that he has to carry that burden alone.

Katsuki knows exactly what is running through Deku's head right now, and has been anticipating this for a while. he read All Might's notebook. he knows what happened to all of the other OFA users. and he knows Deku well enough to understand that he fits right in with that legacy. back during the chapter 284 flashback he was clearly worrying about this exact type of scenario.

fast-forward to chapters 318 and 319. he finally tracks down Deku, and finds him looking like a trash bag that got forced through a paper shredder, surrounded by an angry mob of brainwashed civilians and NOT EVEN FIGHTING BACK AT ALL, go fucking figure. so he basically confirms with a single glance that his fears were well-founded, and that in his absence Deku has made significant progress down the path of being a complete dumbass.

Ochako then tries to reach out to Deku through words, just like Endeavor and All Might did before her, but he predictably responds with the exact same phrase Katsuki knew that he would use -- "I'm fine."

at this point Katsuki has heard all he needed to hear. he knows Deku is not going to listen. he knows that Deku believes that he can't listen, because in Deku's mind he has a responsibility to handle this all on his own, and he's afraid of putting anyone else in danger. Deku is fully embracing the "I must walk this path alone" legacy of OFA, just like All Might before him. and so Katsuki knows two things:

in order to have any hope of reaching Deku, he has to get him to understand that the legacy he's embracing is deeply flawed, and that the path he's on right now is one which ends in death and defeat, just like it did the first seven times.

and second, Deku is going to fight them, because Deku is stubborn like that. and Deku thinks that he's doing this for them. and so in order to reach him, they will have to fight back. that's a done deal.

hence the jeer about OFA, along with the pointed remark about him not smiling. and then two seconds later Deku does of course reveal his intentions to fight, just like Katsuki knew he would. and so Katsuki accepts the challenge, and also throws in a bonus jab about how Deku is perfectly emulating All Might now, just as he always wanted -- except that what he's actually emulating are all of All Might's worst aspects. his insistence on carrying his burdens alone; his reluctance to accept anyone else's help; and of course, his determination to carry on to the bitter end until his body literally breaks down.

and that is not the fate that Katsuki wants for Deku. he needs Deku to see that this is the wrong path. he needs to find a way to break past his stubbornness, just like Deku did for him, and for Todoroki, and for so many others. and so he goes on the attack. because, in the same way that Deku is willing to fight them in order to save them, Katsuki is willing to do and say and fight anything and anyone in order to save Deku -- and that includes Deku himself.

so yeah. he knows what he's doing. and I am absolutely positive that everything he's doing and saying here does serve a purpose. he will find a way to reach him. literally all of his character development has been building to this moment. Deku saved him all those times so that now, when it matters the most, he can save him in return, and he's not going to fail him now.

#bnha 319 #bakugou katsuki #midoriya izuku #bakudeku #bnha meta #bakugou meta #deku meta #bnha #boku no hero academia #bnha spoilers #mha spoilers #bnha manga spoilers #makeste reads bnha #asks #anon asks #long post

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ilikekidsshows · 3 years

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Hi! I loved the Adrinette analysis you made...do you think you could make a similar one for Ladybug and Chat Noir over seasons 1 to 3?

I knew I was leaving myself open for this ask, and I kinda dreaded it, because 80% of Ladynoir screen time is dedicated to defeating an Akuma, meaning the characters have something else to focus on rather than progressing their relationship, and most the relationship stuff is just Marinette being really stubborn and refusing to properly look at her partner. In other words, there's significantly more screen time, but also proportionally less stuff going on in Ladynoir than in Adrinette because the characters are superheroes on the job and one party is actively resisting any development happening. It's also a very different kind of arc and relationship to Adrinette where the goal is just the two of them getting closer and more comfortable with each other. Ladynoir has that as well as all the trust issues and superhero team dynamics. Basically, this post is definitive proof that Miraculous has had plot development before season four, and it has had a lot of it. I got almost dizzy with it while compiling this.

Once again, I’m trying to go in a somewhat chronological order to properly track the relationship.

In 'Origins', we only get one-sided Ladynoir stuff. Marinette is new on the job and completely focused on solving the Akuma problem and nothing else. Meanwhile, Adrien actually takes note of his partner. He sees her flounder but ultimately put together a clever plan. He sees her lose faith but ultimately pick herself up and deliver a really badass speech at Hawk Moth. It's really no wonder he fell in love. The number one thing he learned about Ladybug is that she can fail and the second thing was that she could pick herself up again and grab the win anyway. I've brought up earlier in the Top Adrinette Scene discussion that Adrien is very scared of failing, because his father does not forgive failure, so Ladybug being someone who can turn a failure into a win understandably makes his heart go pitter-patter.

Meanwhile, Marinette barely noticed her partner. As I said, she was fully focused on solving the problem, but she was also getting distracted by her own insecurities. Marinette's first experience with Cat Noir was that he was kinda smooth and seemed to be much more confident than Marinette. Her second experience was that he tended to leap before he looked, but was perfectly willing to listen to her say-so. We have a very brief attempt at flirtation from Cat Noir, that Ladybug barely seems to even notice.

In 'Bubbler', Cat Noir actually gets to flirt with his Lady. He's clearly intent on getting her to notice what he's getting at, but Ladybug seems mostly exasperated with him. At this point their partnership is new and Marinette is most likely thinking back to their first case, when Cat Noir was so patient and supportive and not this...much. She still doesn't tell him to quit it, though, meaning she’s trying to accept him being a lot.

'Stormy Weather' has Cat Noir continuing in his attempts to get Ladybug to notice him and this time she responds playfully when they're not right in the middle of a tense situation. She's getting used to this being Cat's way of interacting with her and keeping the mood light.

'Lady Wifi' has the pair discussing the secrecy between them, with Adrien actively making the decision that honoring Ladybug's wishes concerning keeping their secret identities is more important than knowing the identity of the girl he's in love with, that doing so is the proper way to love her. 'Lady Wifi' is also the first time Marinette panics at the idea of something romantic being suggested about her and Cat Noir, when Alya says Adrien might be Cat Noir, that Cat Noir might be the boy she's repeatedly told Alya she's in love with.

'Copycat' shows us for a fact that Ladybug has no idea that Cat Noir's flirtations with her are genuine, and Cat Noir is growing tired of his feelings going entirely unnoticed.

Because of his growing frustration over not being able to communicate his feelings to Ladybug in a manner that she'd take seriously, Adrien goes the extra mile to write her a love poem in 'Dark Cupid'. When he receives a response that appeared with no sender, just a ladybug, he entertains the thought that Ladybug answered his poem and does in fact return his feelings (not realizing that Ladybug would need to know his identity to deliver such a note to him specifically, but Adrien does generally worry less about secret identities than Marinette). 'Dark Cupid' is also the first occasion of Marinette's by-now patented plan "Pretend to be in Love with Cat Noir" to solve problems, except that she was absolutely certain that a True Love's Kiss could occur between them, so there isn't even much room for pretending, but Marinette's denial is so powerful, she'll try.

In 'The Mime' we see Cat Noir actually testing Ladybug's receptiveness to a date, by suggesting that they could have gone to the play together if they didn't have to detransform. Ladybug replies that she has other plans before zipping away, and Cat Noir merely smiles after her. His feelings are growing, and he might still be remembering the love note he got. In fact, this is probably why he says "We are meant to be," in 'Gamer'.

In 'Animan' Ladybug actually does some of her own flirting with Cat Noir by giving him chin scritches. We also see a very straightforward gesture of affection from Cat Noir to Ladybug, when he hugs her in relief after the battle. Ladybug smiles softly at him, seeing that her partner cares about her well-being, while Cat Noir jumps back, embarrassed over his own reaction, or perhaps even afraid of censure. Adrien isn't the type of person to suddenly grab people in a hug, most likely because such "overly emotional" displays are discouraged in the Agreste household. This is the first occasion of Adrien projecting his father's supposed reaction to a thing he does on Ladybug, so he runs away from her.

In 'Simon Says', Cat Noir clings to Ladybug when faced with Gabriel looking at him weirdly (he's trying to figure out if he's Adrien, but Adrien himself never realizes his father was suspicious of his identity). At this point, Ladybug has started to become something of a security symbol to Adrien specifically against his father.

'Reflekta' is the episode where Cat Noir reminds Ladybug that he doesn't just deliver quips and he is actually a hero in his own right, even with diminished capabilities, in response to Marinette almost leaving him behind because he couldn't use his Cat Noir powers, because he'd "just slow (her) down", and then it turns out she couldn't have won without him. However, with the scene of Cat Noir taking the hit, Ladybug also starts on the process of realizing exactly how important her partner is to her success. Noticeably, it's while they're plotting together that Ladybug responds to his flirtation by flirting back, even if not very well (protip, Marinette, demeaning someone isn't funny to anyone but the person doing the demeaning, the other person is not suddenly lacking a sense of humor). Cat Noir is also a bit softer with his overtures in this episode, his cheeky flirtation gaining a bit more intimacy.

In 'Antibug', we can see the lessons Ladybug learned in 'Reflekta' sticking, with Ladybug listening to and valuing Cat Noir's input, unlike how the last time he tried to give her advice in a Chloé situation in 'Evillustrator', when she acknowledged he was right but couldn't bring herself to follow his advice. She also flirts with Cat Noir of her own volition, when she rings his bell. Cat Noir also keeps showing genuine warmth towards Ladybug instead of being just cheeky, when Ladybug compliments him. They affirm their bond after taking down Antibug.

The events of 'Reflekta' and 'Antibug' together influence what happens in 'Volpina', where Marinette is very suspicious of a new superhero showing up, without ever suspecting she could have been an Akuma in disguise. Cat Noir is her partner, and Cat Noir is her only partner. She’s not only learned his value, but has grown possessive over him. There's no need for any outsider. This jealousy over Cat Noir is actually something Marinette doesn't get over during the first three seasons the way she learns to deal with her jealousy over Adrien.

By the time 'The Collector' happens, Adrien has developed enough trust in his partner to ultimately believe her over her suspicions about Gabriel being Hawk Moth. This episode also has the first time Marinette voices concern over Cat Noir's emotional well-being instead of merely physical, who, of course, can't tell her what's wrong because it would break the secret identity clause.

'Prime Queen' has some very nice mutual Ladynoir flirting at the start of the interview. However, they're both mortified when Nadja comes out with the pictures. Cat Noir is confused, because he had no idea that their relationship could even give that impression, he must have been feeling like he hasn't been making much progress in getting closer to Ladybug. Meanwhile, Marinette goes defensive for the first time since 'Lady Wifi' only, this time, even more so. She even runs out on Cat Noir when he, very understandably, wants an explanation why he head to learn from a reporter that she'd planted one on him instead of from her. The episode confirms that Marinette will refuse to, in any way, discuss anything romance-related in relation to Cat Noir, even when there's an innocent explanation, like breaking an Akuma's spell. She's so defensive it's suspicious.

We also have another occasion of Marinette "pretending" to be in love with Cat Noir to solve a problem. While Cat Noir purrs either over the confession, having her close, or both. Marinette also jumped at the chance to "pretend" to confess her love so eagerly, that it left Prime Queen unimpressed. Still, Marinette refused to commit to the "ruse" enough to kiss Cat Noir while he's actually conscious and aware of it, because then she'd have to deal with the aftermath of kissing him.

'Dark Owl' has the first true test of faith between Ladybug and Cat Noir, when both of them have to trust the other not to look while they have to recharge. Although, considering 'The Collector', this is actually the first test only for Ladybug. At the end of the episode, Adrien also genuinely asks Ladybug out on a date for the very first time when they unexpectedly have free time from Owl-sitting, but Marinette preferred to skip off to spend time with Alya since she hadn’t gotten to see her while being so busy with The Owl's antics for so long.

'Glaciator' has Cat Noir planning an actual outing for Ladybug. The thing is, before 'Glaciator', Marinette's response to Cat Noir asking her out has always been that she has other plans, no can do. However, in 'Glaciator', she specifically says: "We'll see," and then she ends up ghosting him because she forgot to even send him a message that she didn't feel like going anywhere. At the same time, Gabriel purposefully stands him up for dinner, causing Adrien to project onto the Ladybug situation so hard that he doesn't think Ladybug even sees him as a real friend. Considering Adrien was under the same impression about Marinette in 'Puppeteer 2', it is typical for Marinette to send these kinds of mixed signals (which is fitting, considering how clear communication seems to be the biggest bullet point in her character development agenda).

On the upside, Cat Noir's compromised emotional state led to him being more frank about his feelings to first Marinette and later to Ladybug, finally making Marinette understand that Cat Noir is actually in love with her and how sensitive her partner can really be and that she can hurt his feelings. Notably, in this episode, Marinette particularly enjoys employing her "Pretend to be in love with Cat Noir" gambit, this time even going as far as kissing him, after finding out he's actually in love with her. Indeed, at the end of the episode, her rejection to Cat Noir is entirely focused on her having feelings for someone else (as well). She never once said she doesn't love him, and, in fact, never claims so in the English dub.

In 'Sapotis' we also see a brief glimpse of Marinette's jealousy over Cat Noir when he welcomes Alya onto the team so warmly but, because Rena Rouge was a teammate Marinette herself chose and trusts, she doesn't feel threatened enough to express it more than by merely keeping an eye on their interaction. 'Sapotis' also starts the arc of Cat Noir starting to lose faith in Ladybug having his best interest in mind when Rena Rouge appears out of nowhere and he's expected to just accept that no-questions-asked.

'Gorizilla' notably has Marinette repeatedly voicing her belief that Cat Noir will show up, something Adrien appreciates a great deal, going as far as blushing over something so simple. He's astounded by the fact that his Lady has faith in him, but it seems he still believes it despite the notion being strange to him.

'Frightningale' really drives home the arc going on in this season. 'Riposte' was the first time we saw Ladybug and Cat Noir seamlessly working together to neutralize an Akuma, but in this episode, they move in perfect synch while fighting Frightningale while handcuffed together. Cat Noir and Ladybug's teamwork has reached phenomenal levels.

I've repeatedly said that 'Syren' is less about Cat Noir and Ladybug's relationship and more about Fu's relationships with his two chosen. Still, this is the episode where Marinette gets put on the spot and comes through for her partner and Cat Noir learns that Ladybug keeping secrets from him wasn't of her own volition, but because of Fu, restoring his faith in her completely.

It's most likely because of the trust Ladybug showed towards him in 'Gorizilla' and their perfectly synchronized teamwork in 'Frightningale' that Cat Noir tries to confess to Ladybug again in 'Frozer'. These two episodes could give Cat Noir hope that he might be winning Ladybug over, especially since, as I said before, Ladybug has not said she doesn't have feelings for him. But she, of course, rejects him, although it's notably with more wistfulness than the last time, especially when she comments how she doesn't think it's possible for the "other boy" to not be a concern. 'Frozer' takes place during the arc in season two that covers Marinette's growing frustration at her inability to progress with Adrien the way she wants to and the discontent shows in her interaction with Cat Noir as well.

The change in how Marinette regards Cat Noir's input in fights between season one and two is especially noticeable in 'Style Queen' and 'Maledictator'. Both times Cat Noir is absent in a fight and this influences how Marinette approaches fighting the Akumas. In 'Style Queen' Marinette tries to play it sneaky but also needs to be saved by Plagg's intervention in his holder's absence. In 'Maledictator', Marinette's plan involved siccing the brainwashed Cat Noir on the Akuma's goons. Cat Noir has become necessary to Marinette, which is why he's able to galvanize her during 'Heroes' Day' by reminding her that the two of them against the world is what's always worked.

Season three as a whole revolves around Adrien losing faith that Ladybug could ever return his feelings the way he wishes and Marinette getting several warning signs about how she could lose Cat Noir. I might even go as far as saying that this season has negative Ladynoir development (in that their relationship grows more frayed and brittle instead of stronger).

A big reason for this new development direction is 'Reflekdoll', which, according to the production codes, happens early in the season. In this episode, Ladybug and Cat Noir learn the worst possible (false) lessons about themselves and each other and they carry those lessons for the rest of the season. In my 'Reflekdoll' conflict analysis, I wrote that Ladybug basically "learns" that Cat Noir is fae-like in that he isn't bothered by mortal things like stress or heartbreak. Cat Noir, meanwhile, "learns" that, while it doesn't matter if Ladybug makes a mistake because she can always fix it, him making a mistake makes him fundamentally less worthy as a hero and a person, so he could never be as valuable as Ladybug even as a person and not only strategically.

'Weredad', meanwhile, is the quintessential evidence episode for Marinette being both possessive and in denial about Cat Noir. She's literally pretending to be in love with him to him, while totally denying to herself that she feels anything for him, all the while she's feeling jealous over him seemingly moving on from her to be in love with her. The reason it's so important that no one but Marinette herself and Tikki know what went down in this episode is that Marinette's denial would never last if someone actually questioned this whole mess.

This is also an episode where we can clearly see the aftermath of what 'Reflekdoll' did to Cat Noir. He's once again projecting his situation with his father onto someone else (this time Tom), but he's also blatantly refusing to fight Tom at full strength, because he feels that it's his fault he got Akumatized, allowing himself to get hurt severely because he feels he's not that important, that he might even deserve it.

'Oblivio' has Ladybug once again do the whole: "How dare you say I'm in love with Cat Noir I am quitting this conversation right now!" routine. Cat Noir also got actual confirmation that something about him made his Lady want to kiss him when their memories had been wiped.

'Desperada' has the semi-infamous scene of Ladybug saying she doesn't need Cat Noir and, while she learns the valuable lesson that yes she flipping does, this is also the episode where Adrien repeatedly fails to use the Snake Miraculous correctly, having to give it up to someone else, feeling like an undeserving failure *turns to look at 'Weredad' and then at ‘Reflekdoll*.

'Kwamibuster' is an episode where everyone keeps telling Ladybug not to trust Cat Noir and she believes it to the degree that she sees him as a bigger threat than a Kwami-targeting Akuma. In other words, Cat Noir being treated like a part-time hero again in season four is because of 'Kwamibuster'.

'Gamer 2.0' is actually an important episode for the Ladynoir dynamic. This is the episode where Marinette takes on way too much responsibility (voluntarily) and is really stressed about it, while Cat Noir dismantles that stress with his good humor and positive outlook. This episode enforces the lesson that was stated outright in 'Reflekdoll': "Everyone has their role", and Cat Noir's role is to be the jokester who makes Ladybug feel better. Also, Cat Noir doesn’t even hesitate to make a sacrifice play for his Lady, because he’s less important.

'Timetagger' foreshadows that Marinette's words of affirmation are losing their effect. She repeatedly says things like "I trust Cat Noir", "You're irreplaceable", "You know you're the best", but she doesn't know how to express her regard to Cat Noir in actions. And it's important to note that Adrien was raised among liars and manipulators. Even if he doesn't doubt Ladybug's intentions, he might doubt the depth and truth of her feelings for him. Because Ladybug is so nice, she might lie about valuing him to make him feel better. Words aren't enough when words are the only thing between you and your insecurities. This is also an episode that feeds into Cat Noir's worthlessness arc, with Bunnyx repeatedly insisting that Ladybug in the future is just awesome, while Cat Noir broke her Miraculous. Even Ladybug shoots him down at the end of the episode when he tries to ask for extra affirmation, claiming he "already knows he's great".

In 'Puppeteer 2', Cat Noir's hope from 'Oblivio' that Ladybug might be starting to be won over by him comes back to bite him when the wax Ladybug gets close to him by pretending to be coming onto him. He only realized she was a fake because she smelled wrong, something that comes back to haunt him in 'Ladybug', when he's faced with a perfect copy, whose only difference to the original is that she's apparently in love with him. The villains clearly know he’s so in love with Ladybug it sometimes blinds him.

With the villains using this clear weakness as an in, it's no wonder that Cat Noir finally makes the decision to move on from Ladybug in 'Heart Hunter'. He tries one more time to test her interest to see if she'd be jealous of him dating and, when she's merely overjoyed, he decides to finally move on to Kagami. However, when faced with the actual reality of Cat Noir giving his attention to someone else instead of her (instead of in addition to her), Ladybug actually finds herself hurt and questions the lack of "My Lady" in Cat Noir addressing her, but she instantly denies it when Cat Noir notices. Denial denial denial...

Aaaaaand that's a wrap! Putting this together made me realize just how interconnected the show really is but no one notices because there aren’t any secret identities being revealed, people getting together or lore being revealed. Even something that seems like a breather episode like 'Gamer 2.0' has a larger role in the arc of developing the relationship between our main heroes.

#miraculous tales of ladybug and chat noir #miraculous ladybug #ladynoir #lovesquare #marinette dupain cheng #adrien agreste #ml meta #long post #REALLY long

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arc-misadventures · 2 years

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Unconventional War Strategies

Ironwood: I don’t see how this is going to stop… all of this?! I mean, even if this does work, by some sort of miracle! The Grimm are still out there, killing us!

Jaune: Aye, true. Counter point, we would be cutting the head of the viper!

Ironwood: Meaning?

Jaune: Meaning: Instead of dealing with a viper making coordinated surgical strikes at what remains of your casterated pair of testicles. We’d be dealing with the remnants of a rotting corpse thrashing about randomly, trapped within the throes of death!

Ironwood: First off, rude. Secondly, how can you be so sure that this will work?

Jaune: Because the other plan is basically: Keep putting bandaids on a leaking dam, and pray that it doesn’t break!

Ironwood: Can’t we just build a better damn!

Jaune: And how many new dams will we need after that?!

Ironwood: Err… well maybe we could drain the lake?

Jaune: Its a ocean not a lake, and you can’t drain a fucking ocean?!

Ironwood: But, what if we…?!

Jaune: Counter point to your next stupid idea! This is my idea and order you to shut up!

Ironwood: You can’t order me around!

Jaune: Shut up and get lost before I give you an enema with my sword!

Ironwood: How rude!

Jaune: Ughh… I thought he would never leave…

~~~

Jaune: Thank you, Lady and Gentlemen for coming here today! I look forward to whatever progress we can make here today, and out future, Couples Therapy Sessions! Now then, shall we begin our first session?

Salem: This is ridiculous! I fail to see how this will solve anything…

Oscar: Me neither…

Jaune: Now, now, there’s no need to be so hostile. Besides this whole problem started due to a lack of communication and understanding. Here, we are trying to mend… well, rebuild those bridges that once connected you, and fix this problem for the greater good for yourselves, and the world as a whole!

Salem: I fail to see how this could have that great of an impact…

Jaune: The world has been stuck in a shadow war for centuries because of one martial dispute…

Salem: Point taken…

Jaune: Now, then, Oscar, can you ask Ozpin to cone out. Having you as an intermediary rather degrading to any future progress we hope to obtain.

Oscar: Oh, okay…

Jaune: Good!

Oscar: …

Jaune: Ozpin? Ozma…? You with us?

Oscar: He doesn’t want to…

Jaune: He what?

Oscar: He doesn’t want to talk…

Jaune: He’s refusing to talk in a possible world changing therapy session…

Oscar: Yes…

Salem: Typical! Here we are going to talk about our problems and he running off and hiding like a coward! I told you this was pointless!

Jaune: Now now. No need to get upset. I expected this would happen; So I came up with the perfect opening discussion to help us open up to all of this!

Salem: Oh and whats that? Everything is my fault because I asked for my love back?

Jaune: No, everything is the Gods, and Ozma’s fault, because the, Relic of Knowledge, said so!

Oscar: Eh?

Salem: Eh?

Jaune: I’ve consulted with the Relic of Knowledge, and she told me an unbiased, third party objective opinion on the whole matter, which clearly shows, that this was mostly Ozpin’s fault, and the Gods fault.

Oscar: Eh…?!

Salem: Eh…?!

Jaune: Now then, we shall start with the landmine that derail this train and plunged the whole world into a toxic clusterfuck of a rancid fruit smoothie?!!

Salem: That being…?

Jaune: Ozma gets sick, and fucking dies?!!

#rwby #jaune arc #james ironwood #oscar pine #rwby ozpin

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tootiredmotel · 3 years

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a different lover is not a sin

or: 5 times Dean didn't go to Pride + 1 time he did

Happy @starrynightdeancas gift exchange posting day!!! This one's for the wonderful and talented @andzia267 !!! Sending you all the hugs and good vibes, and I hope you enjoy it! And thank you Sophie for hosting all this, you're a rock star! <3

Read on ao3 or below / 5.5k words

CW: homophobia, queer used as a slur, john winchester being an asshole

1 - 1994

Dean was fifteen years old when he found out that being gay was something people could be proud of. It was early in the morning, they'd left their motel about 20 minutes before, and Sammy had fallen asleep in the backseat. The sun was just starting to completely show over the horizon, and they were driving through– or rather, struggling to get out of– Phoenix on their way to a possible poltergeist in Tucson. Every street they tried to take was blocked for the big event, and dozens of people already lined the sidewalks with colorful outfits and signs.

"Fuckin' queers," John grumbled in the seat next to him. "Never should'a thrown that damn brick."

Big banners overhead displayed "Stonewall 25: A Global Celebration of Pride". Dean made a mental note to hit up a library once they got to Tucson to look that up, "Stonewall". In the meantime, he was mesmerized staring out the window. Guys held hands, women kissed, everyone was practically vibrating with excitement. A black man in heels and a wig caught his gaze through the window and waved. Dean started to wave back, but his hand was harshly swatted back down.

"Do not," John said. "Don’t talk to them, don’t even look at ‘em. These people are sick in the head."

Dean focused his gaze on his lap until they were out of the city, and his mind wandered back to the gas station they stopped at the day before. He thought of the guy at the cash register that called him "cutie" and winked at him as he bought a candy bar for Sammy and beers for Dad with his fake ID. By Dad’s logic– which Dean trusted, of course–, that cashier, that queer, must've been sick in the head.

Then Dean remembered how his heart sped up, how his ears got hot, and how for a second he let himself think the cashier was kinda cute too. He realized he must also be sick in the head, and the thought was making him feel actually, physically sick. He felt like throwing up. Dad could never know.

Dean was fifteen years old when he learned that being gay actually wasn't something to be proud of.

---

2 - 2000

Dean was 21 years old when he learned the word “bisexual”. Dad had caught word of a ghoul case in lower Manhattan and sent Dean to take care of it. It was starting to get too hot and the streets were too crowded, but Dean was mostly glad to get a break from the constant fighting between Dad and Sammy.

Except it was June, and every time he turned a corner, there they were. The Pride parade flyers.

The second he spotted a rainbow he averted his gaze. He turned another corner and spotted another one. He avoided reading them at all costs. He heard Dad’s voice. Sick. Sick in the head.

For years now Dean had pretended he wasn’t sick. He pretended to not stare at Patrick Swayze too much whenever Dirty Dancing played on TV. He pretended like he didn't imagine what it would be like to kiss a guy, what stubble would feel like against his lips if he ever did.

He liked women. He could stick to women. He could live his whole life like that. And that meant he wasn’t totally sick, right? He wasn’t gay -gay if he liked girls.

But then what the hell was he? Would he even belong at one of these Pride things if he wanted to? He was probably a freak of nature. Even sicker than the rest of the bunch.

Curiosity got the best of him. He spared a glance at one of the flyers as he waited to cross the street.

Gays, lesbians, bisexuals, transexuals, ALL WELCOME

“Are you gonna go?” A voice next to him asked. ”It’s next weekend.” He was blond, pale, and a bit shorter than Dean.

“What? No! I don't swing that way,” Dean said, a bit too quickly and with too much bite.

The guy looked him up and down with a frown. “Geez, alright. Just askin’.”

He started to walk away, and Dean spoke up before he could stop himself.

“Hey man, wait.”

The guy stopped walking.

“Sorry, can I ask you something? Assuming you... know about this stuff?”

He seemed exasperated, but he turned anyway, willing to hear Dean out. Dean licked his lips, rubbed at the back of his neck, swallowed nervously. He couldn’t believe he was doing this, asking a stranger on the street about something so personal. At least the chances of meeting this person ever again were close to none.

“What’s bisexual?”

The guy’s features softened a bit. He seemed to understand something about Dean that so far Dean refused to acknowledge.

“It means you’re into more than one gender. And yes, you can do that,” the guy said. He flashed Dean a tight smile and then disappeared into the crowd.

Dean felt his hands go numb and balled them into fists, shoving them in his pockets. He took a deep breath through his nose. The guy said you. You are. You can.

The guy didn’t know what he was talking about. He knew nothing about Dean. He was wrong.

Or maybe he was right.

But he couldn’t be.

Dean couldn’t be… that.

Dean was 21 years old when he decided he wasn’t bisexual. He wasn’t anything. He was also 21 when he solved a case in record time (two days), just so he could book it out of New York before the next weekend arrived.

---

3 - 2004

By the time he was 25 years old, Dean knew he was bi. He hated it, he never spoke about it, and he ignored it as much as he could, but he was aware of it. And he knew he was bi because, at 25 years old, he’d already gone through two serious breakups, and they both equally sucked.

The first was Lee. He hunted with Dean and John for about a year, the second half of which Dean and Lee spent sneaking around and hooking up behind John’s back. It was fun, and hot, and exciting, and some of the best hookups he’d had up until that point in his life were with Lee.

But the thing is that it wasn’t just hooking up. They were close, and Dean liked him. A lot. They kissed for the first time after a particularly scary werewolf hunt in which Dean almost died, but John was more preoccupied with the mostly-unharmed victim than his own son. Dean and Lee rode in the backseat, bruised, bloody, and quiet. When John went to walk the victim up to her apartment, Lee reached over and placed a hand on Dean’s back, asking him if he was okay. Dean fell into Lee’s arms, and they kissed as they pulled away from the embrace, soft and comforting. It was Dean’s first kiss with a guy.

Lee was a lot of firsts for Dean over the next few months. But then John almost caught them once, drunk and making out in the Impala.

And then that case in Arizona went wrong, and Lee just couldn’t take it anymore. He packed up, swore off hunting, hugged Dean goodbye, and left him in the dust.

Dean needed to clear his head after that. He could barely look his dad in the eye after that close call, couldn't let him see the sorrow he was feeling. With every interaction, he imagined how John would yell at him, probably try to beat it out of him, if he noticed all he was feeling over Lee. Or worse, John could ignore him, practically disown him like he did Sam.

So he also packed up and left. Went hunting on his own for a while.

It was on one of those hunts that he met Cassie, and she was yet another handful of firsts for Dean over the course of a few months. She was amazing, and he fell hard and fast, but of course that went up in flames too.

Then again, he should've known better than to be honest. Honesty only ever got him in trouble.

He’d just left her back in Ohio and was working at a bar in Indianapolis for a few weeks to make some cash. He’d eventually meet back up with Dad. He just couldn’t right now. Not with Sam gone to college. Not after getting his heart broken twice over within a year.

He was hyper-aware of the end of June approaching. He knew it was coming, Indy had a pretty big celebration, and he made sure to be working all day that day so he wouldn't have to face it.

That was pointless, though. Toward the end of the day, a big group of about ten or twelve people who were clearly coming from the parade stumbled into the bar. One of them was apparently the owner’s little sister and they went there every year after the celebrations. They were loud, and obnoxious, and looked incredibly happy. Their happiness was contagious, and Dean loved serving them. He chatted them up, got to know them a bit, and heard all about the parade, all while staring down anyone at the bar who dared look their way with even the slightest stink eye.

But watching them that happy and comfortable, seeing not one, but two pairs of guys sloppily leaning against each other and sharing the occasional kiss while none of their friends seemed to bat an eye… something in Dean ached. Deeply.

Dean was 25 years old when he realized that a small part of him kind of, sort of, wanted to be part of this community. He couldn’t though. Not if he wanted to be on good terms with Dad. Not if he aimed to be the man Dad wanted him to be.

He left Indianapolis the next day.

---

4 - 2008

Dean was 29 years old and on his own personal highway to hell when he learned his brother went to a Pride parade before he ever did. They were driving through San José, the streets were lined with ads for Silicon Valley Pride, and Sam just casually decided to mention how fun it was the last time he went.

Thankfully they were at a red light, or else Dean probably would’ve slammed the breaks. He twisted to look at Sam head-on, his arm on the back of the seat.

“You what ?” he gawked.

Sam shrugged innocently. “What?”

“You went to one of these Pride things?”

“Yeah, dude.”

Dean’s brain was just trying and failing to load. “Why?” he finally asked.

“Jessica was in the GSA and some friends invited us. It was awesome.”

“She was in the what?”

“The G. S. A.,” Sam answered slowly. “Gay-Straight Alliance.”

“Oh.” Whatever that is, Dean thought. He kept eyeing the flyers. It was tomorrow.

“Green.”

“What?”

“Light’s green. Green means go.”

Dean rolled his eyes. "Shut up."

He kept driving and turned up the radio. Somebody To Love was playing, and as much as he liked Queen, he had to change the station. He tried to picture his little brother (his straight little brother) wearing rainbow face paint and having the time of his life at this thing. How come Sammy got to go when Dean could barely entertain the idea? Dean was the not-straight one. It wasn’t fair.

He channeled his jealousy into gripping the steering wheel.

“You okay, Dean?”

“Yeah.” No. “Yeah, m’fine.”

Dean was 29 years old when he died and went to hell without ever having gone to a Pride parade, knowing that his idiot ( straight! ) little brother already had.

---

5 - 2014

Dean was alive again and 35 years old (75, if you count hell) when he was formally invited to a Pride parade for the first time. It was a couple of days after that whole mess with Cas in Lucifer’s crypt, and he called Charlie. He just wanted to hear her voice, needed to know he was still on good terms with at least one of his best friends.

“So anyway,” Charlie said after a while of recounting what she’d been up to. "How single are you right now? My answer is: miserably."

Dean chuckled. Then he thought of Cas, and the smile disappeared. "Yeah, you and me both, sister."

“Would you mind coming with me to this thing next month? Going alone kinda sucks.”

Dean put the phone on speaker and placed it on the library table as he sat down with a beer. “What’s the thing?”

“Pride.”

Dean was glad no one was around to see him almost choke on his drink.

“You good?”

“Yeah, what was that?”

“Pride parade. Don’t have anyone to go with this year.”

“Why uh… Why? Why me?”

She knows.

“I dunno.”

She knows she knows she knows.

“You’re my friend, Dean. Thought maybe you might be interested. But never mind, I guess.”

And while all the alarms in Dean's head were blaring danger danger danger abort, he also hated to hear Charlie so disappointed.

“Hey, no, listen, Charlie, I… I would. Really. You know I support you, wholeheartedly." And that's obviously the only reason I would want to go. "But with Sam doing these trials, and Cas on the run with the angel tablet–”

“It’s okay Dean, I get it. Talk to you soon?”

“Yeah.”

And she hung up.

Dean knew, at this point, that there was nothing wrong with being queer. It wasn’t anything to be ashamed of, and it sure as hell didn’t mean you were wrong in the head or whatever.

But years of pretending to be a false version of yourself in an effort to please a man who was impossible to please wasn’t exactly an easy habit to break. As much as he wished it didn't, as much as he wished he could just exist, the thought of anyone finding out still made him sick to the stomach.

John’s voice still echoed in his ears. His words still drove Dean’s sense of self-worth and so many of his decisions. He tried to never stare at a good-looking guy for too long. He tried to not get too into it with Benny. He tried to keep his feelings for Cas at bay, tried to keep him at arm's length, tried to keep the fact that he was in love (deeply, stupidly in love) as close to his chest as he could.

Even that night at the crypt choking out the words to get through to Cas, he couldn’t bring himself to say what he meant. I love you, he’d wanted to say, because it was the truth. What came out, however, was I need you. And he did, he needed Cas more than air, but it wasn't quite everything.

It still got his heart split in two.

Was he so far gone over Cas that he couldn’t hide it? Had he been trying so hard and failing just as miserably this whole time? Was his attraction to dudes that obvious? Or did Charlie just have a sixth sense for this kinda thing?

It was probably the last one. He hoped it was.

Cas knew, for sure. Angels knew everything right? They could read minds, feel longing, or whatever. And if none of that ever tipped him off, well, Dean put it all on the line back in that crypt. He told Cas how he felt, told him he needed him, tried putting himself out there, and it got him left. Again. With Dean, it was always leave-or-get-left when it came to love. He was tired of it.

Dean was 35 years old, desperately in love with his best friend, and truly heartbroken for the third time in his life, when his other best friend– an out and proud lesbian– gave him a chance to go to Pride, to break through his shell, to finally embrace himself as he was; but because he was practically living in the closet, he couldn’t seem to find the handle after so many years of purposefully ignoring its existence, and he missed his chance. Besides, what was the point of going to a celebration of love without the love of his life by his side?

---

+1 - 2021

Dean is now 42 years old and the happiest he’s ever been. The love of his life? Cas? Turns out he’s felt the same way all along. They're kind of together now, and slowly but surely they’re working through a decade’s worth of shit.

They’ve been raising a kid together too, along with Sam and Eileen, and that kid is also God. After saving the world and whatnot, Jack decided to bring back some of their friends and family that died over the years: Mary, Kevin, Charlie. Yes, there are two Charlies now, but it’s not as confusing as you’d expect. (One is from another dimension, and the other one is Dean’s little sister. Simple.) Mary’s off hunting most of the time and Kevin’s applying to college.

They’ve got extended family now too, Jody and the girls. OG Charlie is staying with them for now, while she finds her footing. Most of that household is queer. Most of Dean's household is queer as well, actually. Turns out both Jack and Eileen are non-binary, Cas is gay in the broader sense of the word, and Dean…

Dean is bi. And everyone knows now.

Apparently, a lot of people had known for a long time. Sam has known since the siren back in ‘09 (even though Dean stands by the fact that it wasn’t like that, Sammy ), and everyone has slowly picked up on his and Cas’s thing over the years, so there’s that.

He still feels a bit weird about it. About calling Cas his boyfriend, about having the freedom to hold his hand in public, about the fact that they now have goddamn pride flags hung around the bunker. He feels even weirder about the fact that John’s voice in his head is now drowned out by the sounds of his home life, more lively and supportive than he ever expected to have.

He wasn’t expecting any of this, he didn’t think everything would change so fast. But when you spend the better part of your life pushing down such a huge part of you and then finally give yourself an out, a chance to show the people who love you who you really are, everything just... follows.

Love follows. Acceptance follows. Family follows. And he wasn’t really expecting any of it.

He certainly doesn’t expect it when Cas walks into the library after his weekly Thursday evening call with Claire and announces, matter-of-factly and with air quotes, “We’re going to "Pride" this weekend.”

Dean’s stomach drops. It’s the Sioux Falls Pride Parade and Festival, it’s in two days, and they’re leaving tomorrow to spend the night at Jody’s so they can all be there bright and early Saturday morning. Everyone immediately starts bustling about, packing and planning outfits and gathering flags to bring with them.

Dean just goes to his room– his and Cas’s now– to pack a small duffle.

Well, he means to. Instead, he takes out the duffle from the closet, puts it on the bed, and sits next to it for a while. An hour goes by. He thinks back to all those times he had brushes with one of these things and was just never in the right mindset. He’s not even sure he’s in the right mindset now, but he’s going. It’s happening.

“Jack’s all ready to go,” Cas says when he walks in. “We spent about half an hour putting together an outfit for Saturday. He wanted it to be as colorful as possible.”

Dean smiles, but it’s not all there. He looks at the empty duffle next to him.

“Yeah, I might need some help with that myself.”

Cas is in sweats and a hoodie. Yes it’s June, yes it’s hot, but he’s a quasi-angel, and the way he experiences the world Dean will never be able to wrap his head around. He walks over and stands in front of Dean, running a hand through his hair and down the side of his face until he’s cupping Dean’s jaw. Dean takes Cas’s hand and leaves a few kisses on the inside of his wrist, closing his eyes as he does.

Cas regards the empty bag and hums quietly, as if in thought, before walking over to their closet. Dean chases his hand, holding onto it until he’s completely out of reach. Cas starts searching, and Dean’s stomach knots more and more with each clang of the hangers. Cas finally pulls out a flannel from its hanger– purple with hints of blue and pink– and tosses it over. Dean can’t believe he didn’t think of it first.

They continue to pack in comfortable silence before changing and getting into bed. Dean doesn’t flop onto his stomach or cuddle into Cas’s side as he usually does; instead, he lies on his back and stares at the ceiling in a daze.

“Dean?” Cas’s voice snaps him out of it.

Dean turns his head and asks, automatically, “You okay?”

It’s a habit by now, asking each other that question. It’s part of the working-through-a-decade’s-worth-of-shit thing they’re doing. Turns out they share a whole lot of trauma. They share worries and insecurities. They share nightmares sometimes, mostly about the Empty.

“I’m okay,” Cas says, putting his hand on top of Dean’s heart for him to hold, and Dean can breathe a little easier.

“You nervous about this thing?” Dean asks, interlocking their fingers.

“The parade? No, not really.”

And then, because he's been working on communicating how he's feeling out loud or whatever, Dean looks back up at the ceiling and says, "I am. Kinda."

He feels Cas shifting and propping himself up on his elbow, and then he's in Dean's line of sight. Dean's gaze is drawn to him, like all of him has been since the moment they met, and Dean can't believe he just has this now. He has a boyfriend, and it's Cas, and he's looking down at Dean with stars in his eyes and a comforting smile that actually works because it's Cas.

And then Cas is leaning down and softly pressing their lips together, and that's also something Dean can’t believe he gets to do: kiss Cas good morning and good night and at any moment in between, kiss him I'm sorry, kiss him we're going to be okay, kiss him I love you.

"I love you too, Dean," Cas says once they've pulled away, and Dean didn't even realize he'd said it out loud, but it doesn't matter. "And you don't need to be nervous. I'll be there with you."

The thought should be a thousand times more nerve-wracking, not just going to Pride but going to Pride with Cas on his arm. It's not nerve-wracking at all, and he soon drifts off to sleep.

Friday goes by faster than it should. The six-hour drive to Sioux Falls, although packed in a car with five people, goes by in a blink. They stop for provisions before getting to Jody's, filling up on backpacks' worth of snacks.

They get to the house and are met with endless hugs and excitement to match. Patience, Alex, and Jody are already working on dinner for the bunch, while Charlie, Donna, and Kaia are running around prepping for the next day and dragging along a hesitant but nevertheless happy Claire. Dinner is chaotic and loud and there are way too many people at the table, and Dean has to step outside after a while.

He sits on the back porch steps. Claire joins him. She's holding a beer, he's not. He hasn't been drinking for a few months now. They don't talk, but she leans her head on his shoulder and they stay there a while, looking at the stars.

When they go back inside, Claire sits back down in her spot at Cas's left, across the table from Dean, and leans on his shoulder for a while too. It's her way of saying she cares, of saying I missed you without really saying it. Jack sits at Cas's right, talking excitedly with Patience about some tv show or other, and the image fills Dean with such fondness that he reaches over with his foot, presses it to Cas's ankle, and keeps it there for the rest of the night.

Dean, Cas, Jack, Sam, and Eileen spend the night spread out around in the living area while the girls sleep in their respective rooms, and Dean is only slightly less nervous as he falls asleep holding Cas’s hand.

---

The nerves all come flooding back as he’s parking the Impala the next morning.

They’re not able to get even remotely close to Phillips Avenue since the streets are so full. They park the three cars that all twelve of them came in as close as they can and then have to walk for another twenty minutes. From blocks and blocks away, people walk and holler and greet them excitedly, many of them trying to circle this swarm of flanneled individuals that are taking up a whole sidewalk. Granted, Dean and Claire are the only ones in their usual kind of outfit. The rest of the bunch is wearing as many colors as they could compile from their closets, half of them are wearing face paint, and the other half are carrying an assortment of pride flags.

They fit right in.

The walk toward the main avenue of the parade is kind of a blur for Dean. He knows he waved at a few people, some friends of Alex from high school joined the group at some point, and Jack already grabbed a snack from his backpack.

The actual parade is also kind of hazy. Getting out of the house that morning had been probably even more chaotic than the night before, so they’re a bit late and the parade has already been going for a good half hour. On top of that, they accidentally merge into it not quite at the starting point but a bit further down the road, in between a decked-out pickup truck and a group of people with dogs. Music is blaring, the dogs are all barking, a big float rides a few yards in front of them, and hundreds stand on the sidewalks recording on their phones and cheering them along.

Dean’s not sure they’re even supposed to be in the actual parade. Maybe they’re supposed to be on the sidewalks? Is this right? What is happening, what is he even doing here?

He doesn’t notice how heavy he’s breathing until Cas is squeezing his hand and beckoning him to meet his eyes. He does, and the blue in them, as imposing as the Atlantic, drowns out everything else around them. “You’re okay, my love,” Cas says. It’s a fact. As long as Dean is with him, he’s okay.

On his other side, Dean feels someone link their arm around his. It’s Charlie, and she’s beaming at them, her cheeks almost as red as her hair. It brings Dean back to reality, grounds him, but he’s okay now. He’s not alone, and he’s meant to be here.

He’s proud to be here.

The parade leads up to a sloping park, and at the lowest point of it, there’s a stage where Dean assumes someone will MC for the afternoon, or maybe perform. It’s grandiose in its simplicity, kind of like a Greek theater, with everyone settling down on the grass around it, expectantly.

“We’ll be right back,” Dean hears Sam say, and he turns to find they’re all set to spend the afternoon, towels laid and backpacks off (save for his). “Jack wants to go meet the drag queens,” Sam says with just a bit too much glee before he and Jack take off.

“It’s not just Jack,” Eileen smiles and follows.

Cas is already sitting, eating one of the PB&Js he packed as lunches for everyone. Jody and Donna are settling down as well and Charlie’s taking a dozen pictures, but the rest of the girls are all standing. “We’re gonna go check out the vendors,” Claire announces, and they start to take off as well.

“Be careful, please!” Dean calls after them, but they pay him no mind. He turns to Charlie. “Hey, your majesty, keep an eye on them will you?”

She smiles, bows gracefully, and heads in the same direction.

Jody stands and grabs Dean by the arm, beckoning him to talk in private for a second.

“What’s up?”

If Dean knows Jody at all, and he does, they’re on the brink of a mom talk.

“Look around, Dean.”

“What for?”

“Just look,” she says, rolling her eyes. “Please?”

So, at her request, Dean starts taking in the environment. Now that everyone is gathered, he can actually see all the people that came out (heh) for the event. There are church groups, pet shelters, skateboarders, and rollerskaters. Drag queens are already taking pictures by the stage, and at least two people are wearing unicorn heads. A few vendors’ tents and food trucks surround the park, and rainbows completely dominate the scenery. There are elders, and kids, and all kinds of families and couples, and everyone looks… happy. Free.

And Dean is here with them. He is one of them.

There’s no danger, no monsters of any kind. No one to judge him, hurt him, call him sick in the head.

He finds Claire’s blonde head amongst the sea of shoppers at the edge of the park. She’s holding hands with Kaia and has one of the biggest smiles Dean has ever seen on her face. There’s no shame in it, and she’s not in any danger either. Things are different now, and she has the freedom to be herself that he never had at her age.

He has it now too. He can be himself.

Dean doesn’t realize he’s about to cry until Jody pulls him down into a hug.

“Dean, I am so proud of you.”

And then he cries.

---

They spend the afternoon laying on the grass, eating, drinking, and enjoying the festivities. The girls come back from the vendors’ tents after a full hour, and most of the bags on their arms are Charlie’s. She gets Cas a mug that says bee yourself in rainbow colors with an image of a cartoon bee, and she gets Dean a button pin that says AC/DC in pink and blue. There’s a meaning behind that apparently, and Dean decides he’ll look it up later.

Jack memorizes all the drag queen’s names. Donna takes a million pictures. They trade numbers with a few people.

There’s a big fireworks show just after sundown. It starts to get windy and a bit chilly, so Dean grabs the nearest pride flag and wraps it around himself. Cas, the perpetual freak who just doesn’t feel temperature apparently, is wearing a t-shirt and shorts and smiling at him unabashedly.

“What?”

“That’s the bisexual flag.”

So it is. “Shut up,” Dean says, but he’s smiling too. “You want in on this?”

He doesn’t wait for Cas to respond before he wraps it around his shoulders as well. The fireworks continue.

“You know,” Cas says after a beat. “As beautiful as they are, pyrotechnics are extremely damaging to the environment.”

Dean can’t help but laugh because of course, Cas would say something like that in a moment like this. He laughs and laughs and regrets being the only one to have heard that; then again, he’s the only one who could’ve found that funny.

He laughs a bit more, wipes a tear, and sees that Cas is still just solemnly watching the show.

“Cas?”

“Yes, Dean?” He replies and then turns his head.

Dean wants to kiss him. He wants to kiss him so bad. Then he remembers where he is, physically and in his life right now, realizes whom he’s surrounded by at this very second, and decides that he can.

So he does. It’s not unlike the way he kissed Cas when they rescued him from the Empty. Granted, there’s less sweat, blood, adrenaline. But just like that day, they’re both on the ground, and the gesture catches Cas by surprise. Just like that day, Dean pulls Cas in gently by the back of his neck and there’s no hesitance or fear. Just like that day, he just does it, presses their lips firmly together, and relishes in the taste of Castiel, in the feeling of the person he loves most in this world kissing him back.

The one big difference is this: that day marked the beginning of the rest of his life. Today? Today is just Dean’s first Pride.

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circus4apsycho8 · 3 years

Text

more than a hug. | the batter x reader

Fandom: OFF

Pairing: The Batter x Reader

Warnings: jealousy, cussing

It was no surprise to you that the Elsen were very cuddly creatures. Not only that, but they were very squishy, too. You absolutely loved hugging the cute little guys! Who wouldn’t? They were warm, soft, and sweet.

The first time you had hugged an Elsen was after Dedan had finished yelling at the one. You and your beloved Batter had stepped out of the barn before you found yourself rushing over to the pitiful thing. How could you not? The poor guy looked like he was about to cry.

You were quick to scoop him into your arms. “Hush now. He’s just a mean old man. You did nothing wrong.”

He accepted your hug and buried his face into the crook of your neck. You hear him sniffle a little bit. “Th-thank you…hhh…you’re too kind.”

“You’re welcome,” you mumbled, hugging him a little tighter. You heard your Puppet awkwardly shuffle around, causing a deep chuckle to emanate from your chest. A few seconds later, you set him down onto the ground. The little Elsen had a slight blush on his cheeks.

“Miss, th-thank you and your…uh…friend here for purifying the barns. Even if it didn’t get noticed by the Inspector, we appreciate it…” he teeters off when he notices Batter glaring at him. You smack the Batter’s shoulder and smile down at the Elsen.

“You’re very welcome! Take care of yourself, alright? I think it’s about time we got a move on.” Batter remains silent as you bid the Elsen goodbye.

“I will! Good luck with…whatever you’re doing!” the Elsen wishes before the Batter grabs your hand and drags you behind him.

“Thank you!” you yell, waving at him before turning back to your Puppet.

“Dude, chill. You can let me go now,” you comment. He reluctantly releases his grip on you.

“What was that about?” he demands, looking anywhere but at you.

“He was about to cry, Batter! He was scared! I couldn’t just leave him like that!” you retort, rolling your eyes.

“He would have gotten over it.”

You sigh. “Sometimes a little kindness goes a long way, Batter.”

…

The second time you were cuddly with an Elsen is when you and Batter got stuck in the shopping mall maze. Batter was getting extremely frustrated and you just wanted to get the hell out of that blue hellhole.

So, when you and Batter found a lone Elsen who had claimed to be lost, you declared it was time to take a break.

“I’m lost,” the Elsen said, “I could make a fire with the boxes...to ward off the ghosts...but...that would be too dangerous.”

You immediately began to answer, but Batter pulled you back outside for a moment.

“Don’t answer him.”

You roll your eyes, growing annoyed. He couldn’t just boss you around like that. “He’s lost, Batter. We need to help him get out of here!”

“He can find his way out by himself.”

“Batter. He’s scared. Can’t we bring him with us? It’s only temporary. I can do all the talking, too!” you push, trying to decipher how he’s feeling. Batter frowns at your words, and not for the first time, you wish you could see his eyes. “He might attract a Spectre.”

And it was then and there you knew there was something else wrong. Throughout all of your travels, Batter had strived to attract Spectres so he could Purify them. Hell, he’d even shouted out to them in the smoke mines! So why was he so worried about attracting them now? Especially since they were much weaker here, too?

“Since when are you worried about attracting Spectres?” you grill, folding your arms and narrowing your eyes.

He doesn’t answer for a moment, clearly caught off guard. Shaking your head, you look back up at him. “Look, what’s up with you, man? This isn’t like you.”

“I don’t want him to come with us,” he answers. You don’t buy it, but at the same time you know he’s not going to crack just yet.

With a sigh, you say: “I don’t think that’s all, but I know you won’t tell me. Can’t he just come with us? Who knows, he might be of help!”

He remains silent for a few more moments, then: “Fine.”

You grin before darting back into the room. The Elsen looks up at you hopefully.

“Come on, we can help you get out,” you coo, smiling.

“Wh-what about the ghosts?” he asks.

“We can protect you from them. Trust me,” you answer before offering your hand to him. He takes it gratefully before you pull him up.

“Thank you very much, ma’am,” he replies. You hear the Batter scoff quietly from behind you.

“You’re welcome,” you respond.

“Let’s go,” comes Batter’s voice as he nearly stomps out of the room. You roll your ryes. So much for taking a break.

“Ignore him. He’s always grumpy,” you inform, taking his small hand and pulling him behind you.

…

During your trek through the exasperating maze, you noticed Batter was considerably quieter and tenser. Eventually, you had decided that he would tell you about whatever was bothering whenever it suited him. He seemed to be angry too, if the way he was taking out whatever monstrosity showed itself. It was almost like he didn’t want to listen to you but did anyway. His stubbornness grew to the point where you just allowed him to do whatever he wanted with the battles, so you could comfort the Elsen.

And when, finally, you five reached the Judge, the Elsen quickly thanked you and scampered off while Batter spoke to the Judge. You waved at the unfortunate Elsen before turning back to the conversation at hand.

“Is not this publicity so effective and efficient whilst defying the basics of consumer marketing?” the Judge says once he sees you. The two of them are facing some kind of advertisement painted on the wall.

“For silkier hair: the meat fountains of Alma,” Batter reads, clearly unamused.

“Oh, you can read? Anyway, I am glad to have found you. Maybe you can help me unravel the mystery that fate has placed before me,” the Judge comments. He glances up at you and smiles before trotting over to you. You sit down cross-legged against the wall before he crawls onto your lap. Smiling, you pet his soft fur.

“It turns out that my brother has been living in this area for many years. He has a special affinity for colors of the cool kind. Unfortunately, I have so far failed to cross his path. I have tried to betake myself to the roof of the library, where he resides. However, I found the door closed. Even the long hours of intensive, repeated meowing and compulsive scratching did not do a thing.”

“Aw, I’m sorry Judge. Is there anything we can do to help?” you question, scratching him behind his ear. He mewls in response, flipping over onto his back in a silent request for tummy rubs.

“My request is as follows: if at the bend of a corridor you happen to see Valerie, give him my greetings.”

You nod. “Will do.”

“Okay,” The Batter agrees. “Puppeteer, I’m going to go speak to Zacharie for a moment. Do you mind waiting here while I do so?”

You’re mildly surprised, but you agree anyway. “Uh, no, go ahead.”

“Thank you.” He saunters away, trusty bat in hand with Alpha and Omega following him.

You blink. “That was weird.”

“Eccentric of the Batter indeed,” agrees The Judge, “what do you think is amiss?”

“He’s been acting very…out of character lately,” you muse, “I’m not entirely sure what’s going on.” Is he mad at you? Should you be doing something differently? If so, then why isn’t he just talking to you about it? “I wonder if he’s mad at me.”

“I highly doubt that. Your beloved Puppet could never be angry with you for long,” The Judge responds.

You shake your head, causing the Judge to glance up at you. “I don’t know, Judge. If I did something wrong, he just…he needs to speak up. I guess I should ask him about that, huh?”

The Judge nods. “If you truly believe so, then communication is the sole solution.”

“Alright, then,” you sigh, sifting your fingers through his soft fur.

A few minutes later, Batter reappears in the room, the Add Ons at his side. It was then you realized he didn’t buy anything because you were the one holding the credits.

“You good?” you question as the Judge reluctantly slides off of your lap.

“Yes. We should go,” he answers, although you catch a glimpse of his cheeks, which are…wait, is he blushing? You wonder what the odd merchant had said this time around.

Before you left, however, you approached the masked merchant standing idly behind the counter.

“Ah, buenos dias, dearest Puppeteer. How could I be of assistance?”

“Could I see what you have on you?” you ask. He chuckles.

“Of course, belle femme,” he replies, showing you his wares. You’d grown used to the odd nicknames he gave you.

You ended buying a few Fortune Tickets and some meat, placing all purchased items in your inventory before bidding Zacharie goodbye. Before you can move away, however, the merchant catches your hand in his. You freeze, watching as he lifts his mask ever-so-slightly before he brings the back of your hand to his lips.

“It’s always a pleasure to serve this little ragtag team of yours. Sois prudente, jolie fille.” Releasing your hand, he chuckles at your shocked expression, smirking as he glances at your stunned Puppet.

“Th-thank you,” you stutter before Batter places his hand behind your back and pushes you out of the door.

Once you’re outside, you blink a few times before you’re able to speak again. “Dude. What. The. Fuck?”

Batter shakes his head, probably both at your choice of language and recent events. “Language. I don’t know why he’s…” he sighs.

“He’s so weird. Wait…aren’t you fluent in French? What did he say?” you question.

Batter huffs. “The first nickname was ‘beautiful woman’. The second one was ‘Be safe, pretty girl’.”

Your cheeks grow even redder upon hearing the translation. “W-what? Really?”

He nods, remaining silent as the two of you continue to the park.

“Puppeteer…” he starts, voice soft.

“Yeah?” you ask, looking up at him. He avoids your gaze blatantly.

“I…” he trails off before continuing, “I think we should rest in Zone 0 before going to the park.”

You nod, the exhaustion of getting through the maze catching up with you. “Agreed.”

…

Once you two have reached the abandoned Zone, Batter hurriedly guides you past Zacharie, despite his greeting, and ushers to the upper levels.

“Which floor would you like to stay on?” he questions.

“Here’s fine,” you respond, sliding onto the floor. He hesitates before sitting next to you and dropping his bat onto the floor. You lean your head on his shoulder, causing him to tense up a bit before relaxing.

You hear him sigh again. “I’ve upset you, haven’t I?” His voice sounds uncharacteristically sullen for a man as stoic as he usually is.

“Kind of. I just wish you would talk to me. What’s going on with you, Batter? You’ve been acting weird lately.”

He heaves yet another sigh as you straighten your neck and shift. Batter looks up at you while you move. You end up straddling him with your hands on his shoulders. He stiffens at your gentle touches. From this angle, you can finally see his eyes.

You can’t tell exactly what color his eyes are, so you reach up before grasping the brim of his hat. He catches your wrist gently before you can pull it off all the way.

“Do you mind?” you whisper. “I really want to see your eyes.”

His grip on your wrist loosens before he removes it completely. “Go ahead.”

You smile at him in a silent thank-you before you remove it.

His eyes are a pretty shade of amber. They hold a kind of exhaustion that could only be obtained by fighting for something one couldn’t accomplish.

“Your eyes are beautiful,” you comment, smiling, “why didn’t you want me to see them?”

He bites his lip for a moment before looking away. “I am not entirely sure. I guess I just…don’t want you to see my…my real ones.”

“Your real ones?” you question, tilting your head slightly.

“Yes,” he confirms, placing a hand on your cheek. “I don’t want to scare you.”

“You won’t, Batter. Will you show me, please?” you ask, enjoying the feeling of his hands.

“Very well,” he says, “will you close your eyes for a moment?”

You obey quietly, pressing a hand against his. His hands are much bigger than yours as well as drier and calloused from using his bat so much.

“You may open your eyes now.”

Upon opening them, you find that his amber orbs have been replaced with four eyes. The irises are a deep shade of burgundy while the rest of the eye is a pretty crimson color.

“Whoa,” you breathe, removing your hand in order to trace the skin around his eyes. Even though it’s definitely unnatural for a human, he still looks handsome. “Those are even cooler!”

“You think so?” he questions, still unsure.

“Yes. I mean…I’ve never met anyone with red eyes before. I…I think they look even better than your other ones,” you confess, smiling shyly at him.

He studies your face for a moment before a teensy little smile lights up his face. “Thank you, Puppeteer. Thank you.”

You chuckle. “That’s what you get for having a pretty face. Now,” you lean back a little. “What’s been going on with you?”

His little blush is back, which almost makes you giggle. “Well…it has to do with what I talked to Zacharie about earlier.”

“Oh?”

“Yes. I…whenever I saw you hugging the Elsen or just…being affectionate with someone else, it made me angry. I wasn’t sure what exactly why I was; after all, you were just trying to be comforting. I knew Zacharie would have an answer, and he did. He informed me that…I should tell you. I wasn’t sure how. Eventually, he told me that…I was…jealous.”

You chuckle. “If you wanted a hug you should’ve just asked,” you respond, wrapping your arms around his neck and pulling yourself to him. Burying your face into the crook of his neck, you smile as you feel him return it with a relieved smile. He loosely wraps his strong arms around your waist, pulling you closer to him.

You note that he smells like…bubblegum? Not just any bubblegum, but the kind that’s sort of stringy? Like the baseball gum. You chuckle, inhaling his scent.

Suddenly, he slides his hands up to your neck and he gently pushes you back a little bit, rubbing the tips of his thumbs over your jawline. You move your hands to his chest, right over his heart. It steadily beat beneath your fingertips. After that, your gaze sinks down to see his lips: they’re dry and chapped, but still so, so kissable.

The Batter releases a grunt before he pulls you forward, and your lips collide. He’s gentle and slow at first, testing the waters. When the two of you break apart for a moment, you go in for another one again; this time around, it gets a little more heated.

His hands slide back down to your waist, where he pulls your torso to his. You find your hands tangled in his ivory white hair. You feel him running his hands along your curves, to the small of your back, then retreating to your waist again.

You’re pulled back by the need for air. As you gaze into his red eyes, you recollect just why you love this man. He had protected you, tried to help you when no one else would. Even when he did get a little snappy, it was because he wasn’t exactly sure what to make of both the situation and his own feelings. It was there when you were looking at him, you realized he felt the same way.

He breathes your name, brushing a hand against your cheek again. You can tell he’s at a lost for words.

“I had a feeling you wanted more than a hug.”

#off #the batter x reader #off by mortis ghost #zacharie off #oneshot #reader insert

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