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#i was doomed!!!!! literally haunted

fagtainsparklez · 1 year

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What kinda classpects do u think the QSMP would have? If you don't wanna do everyone, then animations family or cubitos/brazillans plz

BEFORE I GET STARTED. i have to make a disclaimer that i am Not that involved in classpecting in general so i don't know like. all the theories about inversions and stuff. i am Just going off the surface-levels presented in the text (for the most part). also i don't give two fucks about the gendered classes if a guy wants to be a muse i say let him. anyways ^_^ this was fun to do

badboyhalo: mage of mind

philza: thief of time

maxo: witch of light

cellbit: page of doom

forever: heir of hope

jaiden: knight of breath

roier: maid of blood

additionally, i think tazercraft are both space players in some sort of paired class (pac as active and mike as passive) but finding a specific one is hard when so many of the pairs are just speculation so. they're in the air for now

#muse talk #anon #i just KNOW cellbit's a doom player okay. there is NO other possible aspect for him #like yeah you could argue rage. but he's SO haunted by the horrors. doom players are LITERALLY described as god's punching bags #look at him. his main skin is literally green. that's a doom player.#i also REALLY wanted to make someone a void player #bc void is. my favorite aspect #but these fucks care too much about uncovering the mystery to be void #if anything the fucking. census bureau is a void player. bitch loves its secrets #also foolish is a heart player #but idk what his class would be #heart players are. hard for me to work with.

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septembersghost · 2 years

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istg man every time you make another bates motel post i get dangerously closer to watching it 👀👀👀👀👀👀👀

*cackling in delight* my real reactions:

i've written like three novel-length responses to asks about this show recently lol, but i could easily write more. it's so weird and it probably shouldn't work. it's camp and melodrama, it's horror, it's romance! the main characters exist in a prestige psychological drama, and yet the entire hellmouth of a town around them is mired in some kind of nutty b-movie crime procedural much of the time. it is unmoored in time, because it's set in our modern age but filled with vintage touches in fashion, music (the music is so good!!!), and aesthetics. it is deeply, achingly about love as a force of destruction and calamity, all different forms of it, and also it's the only thing that matters, it kills us and it saves us. sometimes the house feels like it's a living entity and oppressively dragging people into its evil, its window eyes watching everything as it unfolds and consuming its inhabitants and visitors alike. you can never escape your fate, no matter how hard you fight, but that doesn't erase the courage of fighting altogether. you can and will withstand everything, and only the dearest person in the world can ever knock you down. it is incomprehensibly unhinged. it can be brutally realistic and yet it often uses dream imagery. it pays cinematic homage to hitchcock (more than just psycho) and also turns those conventions on their head. it needs a dozen different trigger warnings, but its study of the harm of abuse and the pervasive damage of misogyny and utter failings of systems meant to protect the vulnerable is necessary to tell it. it is so tragic it will dig a hole into your heart. i am convinced that taking it in this year mixed with the final season of bcs has altered my brain chemistry in some indefinable sense.

i probably can't say more about norma than what i said here, but...what a gift of a character. the performance vera gave is so tremendous and deranged and beautiful. it almost feels like she shouldn't exist, because storytelling doesn't often give that much breadth to women, where they're allowed to be messy and terrible and frantic and scarred and angry and controlling and prone to emotional outbursts, and also cunning and capable and brave and loving and warm. she is tremendous and she convinces everyone to adore her, including the viewer. you desperately wish she could be saved from every circumstance, even the ones she perpetuates herself, but she's doomed. she's the most vibrantly alive character, yet she's a ghost from her first line. i am so sad about her. she drives me insane and she makes me want to give her the biggest hug in the world. she should be allowed to commit any murder she wants. she should be given a home filled with light and laughter, but she gets a refrigerated basement in a broken display of reverence. i love her so much. women of all-time.

#i will literally never recover from norma bates kim wexler and vanessa ives #i will be feral for the rest of my life about her and i am haunted by the scene of norman walking through that house in the dark #aminta #i'm serious about the trigger warnings though i always want any of you to be careful with that and come to me directly if you need to #letterbox #bates motel #maybe fate wins here #we're all doomed in the end #norma bates

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absentlyabbie · 11 months

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i'll tell you what converted me to being all-in on keeping cats indoors only:

living for a year and a half in a rural area with a sudden feral cat colony explosion on the property.

i moved in with my folks for a bit and at that time, one (1) stray cat mama had taken up residence on the property, but was too feral to let my mother anywhere near her. but especially after she brought three kittens around, mom fed her and the kittens in hopes they'd grow trusting enough she could catch for spay and neuter at the minimum. momcat stayed mean and hella wary, but the kittens would hang around a little nearer and play with my mom via long stick, but still wouldn't come close enough to touch or catch.

unfortunately, two of the three kittens were girls and started having kittens of their own before further progress was made, shortly after i moved in. and that was pretty much instant doom.

there were so many kittens. SO MANY. multiple litters. every time we turned around, more kittens.

we fed them. we hunted for and located the kittens every time anywhere on the property and would move them to a repurposed doghouse anytime a mama cat had them somewhere else, so that they could grow up human-socialized and we could spay/neuter them when they were old enough. (also it was a handy tactic to push the issue of the mamas getting more used to/trusting of us themselves. only really worked with one of them, though.)

and we watched them die.

we watched litter after litter of kittens never make it to the age they could be spayed or neutered. the moms stayed, for the longest time, too skittish to more than briefly touch, much less catch and crate for a vet visit.

it sounds like a silly joke to say i have kitten-related ptsd, but i absolutely do.

too many goddamn times i'd walk out of the garage and find the carport and gravel drive strewn with tiny bodies. others simply went missing, never to be found.

one in particular, i wish i hadn't found, and the visual literally haunts me still, almost a decade later.

i saw so many kittens die of snake bite, spider bite, wild dogs, birds of prey, hit by cars, respiratory illness, covered in fleas and eyes crusted with infection.

and we loved them all. scrimped for antibiotics if the vet could be convinced to give it to us despite our being unable to bring them in. bought flea collars and ointments. we cared for them and fed them and petted them and played with them, brushed their fur and cleaned up their little faces, put ice in their water in hot summer, rigged a heating lamp in their house in the winter.

and they died. horribly. that property is pocked with unmarked graves of kittens and cats.

all the best intentions, not enough resources, and it didn't matter anyways because the population went from three to almost twenty (at times, over thirty) in the blink of an eye.

they died and died and died. our hearts broke over and over again. the stress and anxiety wore us down like sandpaper. i think, by the end of it all, we managed to find less than 10 of them all homes, including batman the disabled kitten i found a home across the country through tumblr.

it was carnage and tragedy, frankly. and we were helpless.

it only ended because they started dying faster than they could be born, and because we finally caught the two remaining mom cats in traps and got them spayed.

the points about outdoor cats being invasive predators devastating to local wildlife populations is true and valid and important.

but i know cat people, and cat people who don't know better than to let cats outdoors. what matters to you is the cat itself, generally. the cat being happy and taken care of.

keeping cats outdoors, letting them outdoors, is not taking care of the cats. it's not protecting them. it's not giving them any happiness or invigoration that couldn't be provided to them as indoor-only pets with just a little research and effort.

they die. they get ill. they get hurt. they're at risk of predators, and cars, and disease, and carelessly cruel children and deliberately cruel adults. they're at risk of disappearing on you because someone else saw a cat outdoors and intervened to give it a better, safer life not in conflict with the local environment.

and if that offends and angers you that someone would just take a cat they saw roaming outdoors, even collared, and that it sounds like i'm endorsing that, i am, but not if you intervene and be that person yourself for your own cat.

if what matters to you is doing right by your cat because it's family and a living creature whose happiness and health and safety is important to you,

keep them indoors. not part time. always. exclusively.

edit: since apparently i need to clarify this, i'm saying cats should live inside, that they should not live outdoors, even part time. visiting the outdoors supervised on a leash or in an enclosed catio is not the same as even part-time living outside, and i am certainly not advocating against it.

#long post #cats #indoor cats #outdoor cats #keep your cats inside

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flanaganfilm · 8 months

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Hi, I'm a big fan of your work. Sorry if this is a dumb question, why kill the kitties? I notice it a lot in horror in general, and it completely takes me out of the story and just makes me feel bad for the cat. I feel like I'm missing something.

Not a dumb question at all - and I knew I'd be getting some of this the moment we decided to include Poe's The Black Cat in TFOTHOU. The comments sections of the world are full of accusations that I hate cats and/or hands, and - well - neither is true. I've admittedly gotten a little flippant with my humor in the past when people have brought this up. My knee-jerk reaction is always to say something along the lines of "well, Websters defines 'horror' as..." But honestly, as far as I'm concerned, it's just not a thing.

A brief history of cats in my work:

HUSH - Maddie's beloved cat, "Bitch," escapes the danger of a home invader completely unharmed and is alive and well at the end of the movie. The last shot of the movie is Maddie lovingly petting the cat on the porch.

THE HAUNTING OF HILL HOUSE - Yes, a malnourished stray kitten dies within Hill House, only to be horrifically reanimated. This was done to show the horrors of Hill House, serve as a warning to the family, and foreshadow the deaths of several human beings (who would meet more horrible fates) later. Hill House is an evil place, and it killed and collected all sorts of living things... there are dead humans aplenty, and also phantom dogs, which Stephen and the kids hear several times and see in episode six. I'd argue that Hill House is an equal-opportunity horror show.

DOCTOR SLEEP - Azzie the cat is a great friend to Dan Torrance. Azzie also has a "shine" of her own, and can sense when patients at the hospice are going to die, and goes into their rooms to comfort them. Azzie is never once in any danger throughout the film and, we presume, lives a long and happy life.

MIDNIGHT MASS - All of the residents of Crockett Island, which include 157 people, a huge population of stray cats, and at least one particularly sweet dog, do not fare so well in this show. But nothing against the cats - everybody dies. The arrival of a certain evil creature marks doom for literally every living thing on the island (except for two people). And yep, it started with the cats, because they were plentiful and would not alert anyone to its presence. We see its lair full of dead rats, birds, and raccoons as well, all eaten while the creature was in hiding.

THE FALL OF THE HOUSE OF USHER - we adapted The Black Cat, written by Edgar Allan Poe. If you're familiar with the Poe story, you know that it involves the horrible death of a cat, which then seems to get revenge from beyond the grave. This is Edgar Allan Poe's story - we did not write it. HOWEVER, we decided to make a huge change to Poe's story. At the end of our retelling, we reveal that Pluto the cat is alive and well (and still wearing the Gucci collar), and that the supposed violence against the cat existed entirely in the person's mind. Pluto 2 - the terrifying, supernatural replacement that stalked Leo - is not real either. It is just Verna, taking another form (hence the injury to VERNA'S eye). So in this show, not a single animal is harmed AT ALL. We did that on purpose. We decided to change Poe's classic story so that the cat lived. We went out of our way to do that. I truly don't have anything against cats. I do tell horror stories... but that's about it! I hope it doesn't make it more difficult to enjoy the story, and thank you for watching.

#the haunting of hill house #midnight mass #doctor sleep #the fall of the house of usher #cats

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justrustandstardust · 3 months

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i’ve touched on it briefly, but i’d like to delve further into kenjaku’s purpose as a literary device because it’s genuinely really fucking interesting. what gege did with kenjaku was actually genius, because kenjaku is a physical manifestation of gojo's love for geto in the form of geto himself.

the love between gojo and geto is both explicitly and implicitly demonstrated throughout the series. we see it in open declarations (he was my best friend, the only one i had) and in subtler ways (how they never fight each other directly, how geto is careful not to kill gojo’s students in combat). these, however, are from gojo and geto’s perspectives. we only see what they want us to see; much of the beauty of their relationship is in how so much of it is meant for the two of them alone.

as an outsider, kenjaku overrides them and drags their intimacy into the limelight, providing unobjectionable evidence of the love between them. he supersedes their carefully curated impressions to point at the undeniable truth in the most violent, grotesque way imaginable, making their love clear for all to see through hijacking geto’s body— which he could only do because gojo loved him.

not only does kenjaku’s plan require geto’s body to work (because gojo couldn’t throw him away) kenjaku literally only exists in geto’s body for the same reason (because gojo couldn’t throw him away). gojo’s sentiment and his weakness come back to haunt him; shibuya happens because kenjaku knew the only surefire way to disarm gojo was through the body of geto himself.

from a literary perspective, gojo’s love for geto is not implicit— it literally arises from the dead to serve as walking, talking proof that gojo loved geto too much to let him go. kenjaku functions to mechanize gojo’s love through the body of the person he loved so dearly and in doing so creates a living representation of the explicit, blatant and undeniable love between them. it’s not subtext; it’s just text.

as a literary device, kenjaku exists as material evidence that they loved each other. it’s not speculative, it’s not conjecture, it’s not reaching— it is right there. we’re not meant to trust gojo’s word; he is not a reliable narrator of his own nature. gojo never had to say he loved geto because kenjaku says it for him. it’s analogous to vehemently denying your guilt in court only for someone to turn up with the body and your handprint around its neck.

and kenjaku delivers a guilty verdict, sentencing gojo to the prison realm and dooming everyone else because being the strongest wasn’t enough to save gojo from love himself.

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ironunderstands · 1 month

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Yapping about why I love Aventio and what I feel makes it a great ship

(If you hate it I urge you to read this, because you don’t have to agree with me, but I want you to get where Aventio shippers are coming from at least)

I’ve just really wanted to talk about why I love Aventio because the people do not get it like I do and GODDD ITS SO GOOD WHEN DONE CORRECTLY UGHHHHH

Also this is gonna be VERY stream of consciousness I do not have a plan besides dragging you through my brain so enjoy the ride.

I guess the best place to start is the fact that Aventurine and Ratio are my two favorite characters in the game. Like even if they have no interactions with each other ever and might as well be from different pieces of media I would ship them, because I like seeing characters I like interact and the fun police cannot catch me. That’s a really shallow personal reason though and I feel like the rest I have will be able to be appreciated by others.

GOD THE DYNAMIC IS SO GOOD RAAAAAA

Two emotional constipated dumbasses circling around each other like black holes trying desperately to deny and run from their feelings when they have both fallen hard. The lack of acknowledgement of feelings on both ends is TRAGIC and it makes me want to rip my eyes out in a good way, let’s start with Ratio.

Unfortunately my glorious king Ratio has been mischaracterized to hell and back but we will get to that (and the Incorrect Reasons Why People Hate Aventio) later. Instead I will go over his actual character; a deeply insecure, intelligent man who desperately wants the rest of the galaxy to come to the realizations he has long since stumbled upon, but has been so isolated from his peers from such a young age that he’s doomed to fail in literally every social interaction he has and be misunderstood by both the audience in universe and irl (the autistic coding isn’t helping him either).

Ratio is tragically misunderstood again, both in universe and by the audience, which is why it means so much that Aventurine Gets Him. Aventurine pushes his buttons, tears down that literal cold marble facade masking the deeply silly and caring man beneath (this man bathes with rubber duckies in the privacy of his own home 😭), and that scares the shit out of Ratio. People aren’t meant to see through him, Ratio acts rude not just because he believes it’s the best way to help people, and because he believes he himself is mundane and the conclusions they come to should be their own, not his.

No, it’s also because on some level Ratio is afraid to be vulnerable around people. As much as he pretends like it doesn’t affect him, Nous’s rejection has hurt and haunted Ratio for his entire life. And I do mean his entire life, even in high school he had already set up a strict routine for himself, something commented on by his teacher, Ratio has quite literally always been striving for some sort of perfection and the fact that he cannot achieve it kills him.

Moreover, the guy just grew up way too fast, he didn’t have time to develop social skills. We see it in that afformentioned relationship with his teacher, in which they recommend Ratio (who is again in high school) to be moved up to college level stuff and transferred due to his success. He has quite literally never been able to just relax in a environment of his peers, Ratio for some reason we don’t yet know has always been dedicated to constant improvement and that leaves no room for dealing with failure.

On some level, he knows this too, that he can never be perfect. Ratio is part of the Mundanites in the Intelligenica Guild for a reason, he doesn’t just see himself as mediocre because he believes everyone is and that’s ok, but also because he looks down on himself for being too mediocre for the Genius Society, being too mediocre for Nous’s acknowledgement, being too mediocre for anything.

Which is tragic because Ratio is very accomplished and he is very smart, and his character stories aren’t even told from his pov, but rather in the style of documentaries and letters (his professor) and other works on his well acclaimed life. We don’t ever get to see how Ratio really sees himself, just the tiny cracks in his marble facade that let the real man behind the character shine through.

Because that’s what he’s playing 90% of the time, a character. Whether it be at the Herta Space Station in which his real goal was to uproot the researchers blind worship of the Genius Society, or in Penacony in which he plays up the arrogant, narcissistic scholar both people in universe and irl make him out to be, both to serve a goal bigger than himself.

Sincere moments from Ratio are RARE but god are they beautiful, his conversation from Screwllum in 1.6 and his note to Aventurine in 2.1 will forever haunt me in the best way possible. If you want to understand Ratio as a character, yes read his character stories, but just watch that damn scene with Screwllum it is phenomenal. He cares so much and is so, so bad at expressing it, he drives me nuts, Veritas Ratio the man you are.

And the thing is, it seems like he’s always been playing a character and doesn’t know where the real him ends anymore so he just sticks to the way people perceive him a lot of the time. Like as a kid he was constantly striving to be the best so he missed a lot of necessary developmental shit, and as an adult he’s a celebrity so it’s hard for him to attach himself to others anyways because society and his students will hound him for it.

And then you throw Aventurine into the mix, and oh boy does shit get interesting.

Veritas Ratio, perfect “unfeeling” Veritas Ratio and the one person who gets him well enough to push all his buttons and expose the vulnerable underbelly he thought he hid so well. On a fundamental level, Ratio understands this, which is why he doesn’t bother with the alabaster head, as pretending the real him is just as unfeeling and uncaring is easier.

So he brushes off Aventurine’s jests as if they are an insult to his very existence, he can’t look in Aventurine’s eyes when he “betrays” him because his poker face would break, he leaves as soon as he’s done talking because lingering would allow the weight of their conversations to sink in. Part of it is because for pretty much all of Penacony, up until the note Ratio gives him, Ratio is acting, trying to play up the role of the arrogant, unfeeling scholar to make Sunday buy the betrayal plan, because to Sunday this behavior is signs of a bad relationship between the two (honestly the fact that the audience also interpreted it this way makes me mad like did yall seriously not pay attention, but also happy because if even the players were fooled that means Sunday buying it is believable).

However, even if it feeds into his insecurities, Aventurine knows that false facade and loves tearing it down. It’s very telling that the second time we see Ratio really freak out (the first being at Herta Space Station) is at the suggestion that he came to narrate Aventurine’s demo not because of knowledge or respect for the show or whatever, but because he genuinely likes the guy. What makes it even better is that Aventurine is the one who suggested it, and already figured out the excuses Ratio was going to use to deny it. Ratio can fool everyone else in the galaxy, but he cannot fool Aventurine, and on a fundamental level that is what makes their dynamic work, because Ratio knows Aventurine in the exact same way.

Aventurine can shove away people who care about him, out of distrust and fear that they will leave him like his family did. He can believe he’s unloveable and a person so detestable that even the actions he performs in order to stay alive condemn him to hate himself as much as the rest of the galaxy hates him. But, Ratio doesn’t see him that way.

Aventurine doubts his intelligence, if he has really earned anything he’s done and in his voiceline about Ratio, doubting if Ratio even sees him as smart or worthy. However, Ratios voiceline about Aventurine is about how he believes Aventurine is smart and worthy, and that his doubt will be his downfall if he doesn’t come to the realization that he isn’t worthless.

Ratio knows Aventurine’s one weakness, the one thing that could stop him; himself. That’s why he gives him the note urging him to stay alive and keep on living because ultimately Aventurine will only ever fail if he gives up. And The Note Is Enough, Aventurine walks into the event horizon of a black hole, confident he can return alive on the other side because someone cares about him, BECAUSE RATIO CARES ABOUT HIM, and wants him to live on even if Aventurine doesn’t feel that way towards himself.

In the metaphorical and literal manifestation of the meaningless of the universe, in the face of overwhelming nihility, Aventurine survives because someone loves him, and with that love he’s strong enough to brave even that.

Even if they can’t admit it out loud, these two deeply, deeply care for one another and trust each other perhaps more than anyone else in the narrative. The betrayal plan would have never worked if there was not mutual trust, Ratio wouldn’t have gone to Penacony in the first place if he didn’t trust Aventurine, and Aventurine wouldn’t have asked him to come if he did not trust him. We don’t just see this trust between Aventurine and Ratio either, and Jade and Topaz both trust him with their cornerstones, but ultimately it’s Ratio who’s physically with him the whole time, risking his life alongside him for the sake of their plan.

As much as people like to ignore it, lying to the Family members, to Sunday, is extremely dangerous and puts Ratio’s life in danger as much as it does Aventurine’s. Ratio is not an irrational person, he wouldn’t have done that if he didn’t have faith Aventurine would succeed, he would not have done if he didn’t think he would return. They have absolutely faith in one another and it’s beautiful.

Aventurine’s first constellation is named “Prisoner’s Dilemma” for a reason. A social experiment in which two prisoners are captured and separated, if they sell the other one out and remain silent, they go free but the other remains in jail for 20 years. If they both sell each other out, they get a sentence of 5 years.

But if they both remain silent, trust the other, they even if they physically can’t communicate and don’t know what the other says, they get the best possible outcome, only one year in jail each. It requires a sacrifice on both ends, they both still have to go to jail, but only for a year, and only if they trust each other completely, as if the other sells them out they will be in jail for 20.

The prisoners dilemma relies completely on trust, and it’s the exact situation Aventurine and Ratio face in the Penacony quests. Aventurines doubts if Ratio’s betrayal was real or not, even if he set it up himself, and Ratio worries about Aventurines survival, if continuing this plan will end well. “You can’t expect a featherless bird to take flight” isn’t just Ratio chastising Sunday, he’s genuinely worried that this plan will put Aventurine at too much of a disadvantage to continue on.

But they both trust each other, and if just like in the Dilemma neither come out completely unscathed (although it’s much worse on Aventurine’s end), they ultimately achieve their goal.

God is it sweet and corny in the best way possible

I want to kill this fandoms perception of stoic, emotionless Ratio because once people realize he’s actually the corniest mf ever is the day I sleep easy. He makes statues of himself doing Jojo poses, he plays chess versus himself, he named himself Veritas (truth), he loves rubber duckies, he literally sits in a bathtub couch, and Aventurine breaths and he gets flustered.

Ratio so deeply silly, chronically corny, it’s a crime he needs to be locked up someone stop him.

And Aven brings that out of him. His teasing reveals the goofball trying so desperately to disguise himself as a serious scholar. Ratio is very smart of course, but that only makes his silliness better, as you watch this absolute genius of a man behave like a tsundere schoolgirl.

It’s not like Aventurine is some paragon of seriousness either, he’s the one teasing Ratio, fucking around even in a serious mission. Yeah it’s partly because he wants Sunday to think he’s incompetent, but it’s also because Aventurine genuinely is having fun, enjoying himself before the serious part of the plan kicks in, and the meantime he does that by messing with Ratio.

Their dynamic of Aventurine messing with Ratio, and Ratio trying desperately to pretend like it doesn’t affect him is as hilarious and heartwarming as it is tragic, and that dichotomy is why I love them so much. It’s fun and it hurts so so much because their interactions being this flavor of silly leaves almost no room for the sincerity they both desperately need from one another.

AND GOD I NEED IT TO HAPPEN. RATIO MENTAL BREAKDOWN SCENE PLEAASEEE LET HIS WALLS CRUMBLE PLEEEEAASEE PLEASE PELADE PLEASEEEE EPLES DOLS AAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

They’ve gotten closer and closer and closer and soon something’s gonna snap because they are so close yet so distant and if something doesn’t change the tension is just gonna boil over AND I NEED IT TO HAPPEN. I need more Ratio scenes I need more interactions with him I need him with his guard down I need him to profess out loud that he cares about Aventurine I need him to break please he needs it, it would be so good for him. It doesn’t even have to be from Aventurine, just Ratio snapping and revealing the fucking mess he is under his facade and not being rejected by the people he cares about for it is enough.

I honestly doubt it will happen in the story though, as much as I want it to. Although Aventurine’s character demo somewhat changed my mind against this, I feel like hoyo is like “ok they get the vibe between these two we can move on” and the shippers are left to extrapolate how this relationship would go beyond what it is now. As much as I want a breakdown scene for Ratio in general, it probably wouldn’t happen in a while but devs if you are reading this PLEASEEEE.

The only time Ratio ever gets slightly out of his element is with Aventurine but I need it to go further because god it would be interesting.

Well I’ve deemed that enough yapping about why I love Aventio (for now 😈) so let’s talk about why people hate the ship and why most of the reasons behind it a fucking stupid. (Massive disclaimer of course you can dislike it it’s just a lot of the “oh it’s a horrible ship and anyone who likes it sucks” shit isn’t grounded in reality in the slightest and I’m tired of the slander)

“Ratio was racist to Aventurine”

Now this is a spicy one because if this post was made in 2.0 I would 100% agree with you (during that time I shipped a non canon version of them in which that did not happen because how dare u do my boy like that hoyo). However 2.1 changed a lot and I mean a lot, and basically reframed the 2.0 quests for everyone.

Essentially, Ratio and Aventurine were both acting in that argument scene, making the things Ratio said to Aventurine not how he really sees him, and actively something Aventurine wanted him to say, so you cannot blame him for what he said. I’m not even joking or exaggerating, retrospectively it quite literally does not make sense if you view it in any other way, and honestly even with just the knowledge of 2.0 the scene doesn’t make sense if played straight, so let’s get to why.

a) Ratio and Racism do not mix fundamentally. Ratio is a person who believes that everyone deserves and education regardless of background, that it is a scholars duty to help others achieve that, and no matter who you are, you are capable of intelligence, learning and becoming the best version of yourself, and that those qualities are just limited to geniuses.

THIS AND RACISM DO NOT MIX. “Oh yeah education and improvement is possible for everyone except this specific group of people for some fucking reason!!” Like not only would this scene being serious contradict Ratios entire character, the man who believes people should not be judged for their educational background judging Aventurine for his educational background (that’s actually what the Sigonian upbringing line meant, it was mistranslated in the EN version)??!?!! Make it make sense.

Moreover, half this perception also come from the fact that hoyo made the incredible writing decision of naming Aventurines planet after a slur for Romani people, so unfortunately literally anytime its name, Sigonia, is brought up you’re essentially saying a slur. It’s much worse in the CN version, in EN it’s not obvious at all, because our version of the slur (it starts with a g and ends with a y that’s all the hints you’re getting), doesn’t look like the version of the slur that the name for Sigonia was derived from, which is partly the source of this misconception as I’m pretty certain most people assumed Ratio (and by extension Sparkle) said a slur elsewhere in the conversation when in reality them referring to Avens ethnicity/background/planet IS the slur.

Anyways terrible writing decisions aside, Ratio supposedly being racist doesn’t just contradict his core motivation, it contradicts his job. He’s a scholar, for fucks sake, and racism is inherently illogical. Mmm yes I’m gonna base my identity around finding truth for myself and I will believe government and social propaganda about specific groups of people! Very logical, very scholarly, we all clapped.

So yeah, doesn’t make sense on a character level, to the point that in 2.0 I concluded that they must be using Ratio as a plot device in that scene to deliver some of Aven’s backstory to the audience due to how OOC it was for him 😭. However I wasn’t necessarily wrong, Ratio was delivering some of Aventurines backstory to AN audience (not just us), and he was behaving OOC in the 2.0 scene, but it was on purpose.

b) The betrayal plan

Aventurine forms a plan in which him and Ratio pretend to betray one another in order to sneak the Aventurine cornerstone into the dreamscape by replacing it with the Topaz stone (red herring + black hole scene dialogue implies she and Jade are there for other reasons) and the Jade stone (perfect dupe).

Now this betrayal hinges on Sunday, their main antagonist buying it, actually believing that Ratio would betray Aventurine on a mission as important as Penacony, and it requires Sunday also buying that he is winning the whole time, that the loss of the cornerstones was somehow a fumble on Aventurine’s end rather than something he planned all along.

So, they stage the 2.0 conversation. Ratio yells at Aventurine for losing the cornerstones, something which was part of their plan the whole time. He then insults Aventurine’s background allowing Aventurine to reveal key details of his past that Sunday would not have learned otherwise, which he uses in the trial against Aventurine. Seriously, Aventurine only found out he was the last Avgin when he became a Stoneheart, do y’all think Sunday summoned that info with his mind or something during the trial (like do you guys genuinely think Sunday read his wiki or something)

Moreover, Ratio not only insults him, but portrays Aventurine as useless, disposable to the IPC because he is apparently already sentenced to death. Why does he do this? Well, so Sunday feels confident enough to do the same to Aventurine. Seriously, sentencing an IPC member, especially a high ranking one to death is a risky move, even for someone as convicted as Sunday, he would need the confidence to do so and learning Aven might already die would give him that ability.

Because well, it doesn’t matter that much if he’s already going to get disposed of in the near future. I also think the IPC plans to use Aventurine’s “death” as leverage against the family because they were pleased to hear of his death sentence according to Dr. Ratio, meaning a) he likely did not have one from them at the time, although in the past he was sentenced to death and b) even if Aventurine succeeded in getting the cornerstone his seeming loss in the rest of the conversation wasn’t actually a loss at all, getting sentenced to death/“dying” at the very least was part of the plan all along as the IPC could still use it as leverage if things went south.

Continually, Ratio treating Aventurine in the exact same sh1tty way the rest of the galaxy does perfectly slots him into the arrogant, uncaring scholar role, which Sunday knows are some of the most easily manipulated people in the galaxy, considering he tries to bribe Ratio with knowledge about Stellarons it seems he bought this idea hook line and sinker. Sunday isn’t even subtle about it either “I heard you and your companion haven’t been getting along lately” where did he hear that from? Ratio didn’t tell him, and even though we know Sunday was 100% watching the two of them on their little adventure pre-meeting him (the bird and hound statues) that scene hasn’t happened yet so where did he get that from?

Some other interesting proof for it is that the Final Victor lightcone likely depicts Aventurine trying to convince Ratio of this plan of his, the events of which must occur pre-Penacony for several reasons, the least of which being that we just never see it happen on Penacony which if you think it did we would see it. Moreover lightcones are canonically condensed memories and the Final Victor lightcone released in 2.0, meaning it’s the memory of something that happened before then.

All signs point to the 2.0 scene, the one people use to paint Aventio as toxic being staged. And I have so much more evidence for this, (Ratio would never agree to go without a plan, Aven clearly formed his pre-Penaocny, so much of the plan like Ratio opening the cornerstone box, which he can’t do up until the betrayal as it’s in Sundays possession, rely on him arriving knowing how to do so, the time discrepancies, the complete 180 in personality Ratio would have to do to go from distrusting Aventurine to putting his whole faith in him, etc), but I will reupload one of my old slideshows to elaborate more on it. Basically the one thing that people use to say it’s toxic is not true and is in fact a greater show of the trust between those two.

“The shippers are all weird and racist”

Now this one actually has some truth to it because yes there are some incredibly fucking weird Aventio shippers and I do not blame yall for disliking them.

HOWEVER, most Aventio shippers are normal and hate that shit just as much as you guys do. Like do you realize most shippers also really like these characters and have something insane called morals so they don’t automatically excuse racist fujoshi goobers just because they are making content for their favorite ship. Trust me someone doing that pisses me (and most other Aventio shippers) off significantly more than people who hate the ship. Also free Ratio from this shit man poor guy is getting mischaracterized as a slaveowner by his fans and haters 😭

And like guys, have you ever been in a fandom before, like ever? Weirdos are always gonna be weird and it’s not Aventio’s fault they are this months victims. For a fun little example of how gross other fanbases can be, one of the most popular Overwatch ships on ao3 is Genji Shimada X Hanzo Shimada WHO ARE BLOOD RELATED BROTHERS. THERES LIKE 300+ FICS OF IT, SHIMADACEST IS LITERALLY A TAG ON THERE. I WAS IN THE TRENCHES SEARCHING FOR GENJI HANZO ANGST FICS (Hanzo killed Genji it’s complicated doomed siblings will always get me) AND HAVING TO COMB THROUGH THOSE ABOMINATIONS IN THE PROCESS.

Like please I’m relatively new to fandom culture but yall cannot be acting like this is weird for fans to do, it’s weirdo behavior but it is not unique to the HSR fandom or even Aventio. And even if understandably this makes you not like the ship, don’t paint the people who enjoy it as being the people who do this kinda sh1t. It’s not our fault peak gets tainted by miserable creatures ok, let normal ppl have their harmless fun and stop lumping people together into a monolith.

?????

Well that’s it that’s all the “valid” reasons people have for hating Aventio, at least the ones I can remember. Everything else is just personal opinion and not at all an objective reason.

“They’re so sibling coded!”

Anyways again obviously you can still dislike it not everything is for everyone, I really just wanted to make this post to demonstrate why I and many others like it, and why the reasons people use to say it’s problematic are incorrect. Feel free to call it mid, block it whatever I don’t care, just don’t harass shippers for having some harmless fun, because the characters aren’t real but the people who like them are and in doing so you are really just being a jerk for no reason. If you somehow hate Aventio and read this the whole way through I congratulate you on your ability to actually listen to other people, and regardless of whether you changed your mind or not I respect you for doing so anyways. Thanks for reading and I would love to hear your thoughts.

#Hsr #honkai star rail #dr ratio #aventurine #aventio #raturine #ratiorine #golden ratio #tags for reach bc I need ppl to read this sorry #Also apologies to the Genji/Hanzo shippers for catching strays yall tend to mind your business and tag ur shit #So I can’t blame you that much for it even if I find it gross bc if I don’t wanna see it it’s very easy to not see it #I just wanted to give an example of how the hsr fandom is not unique in its weirdness #Ppl are horrible at tagging shit in this fandom #The next time I read an Aventio fic w surprise dubcon I’m gonna die #Anyways I hope you enjoyed reading bc this was sm fun to write #Aventio is peak we all cheered #aventurine hsr #dr ratio hsr

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sprout-fics · 10 months

Text

(Gif originally by @shadow0-1)

Today. Yesterday. Tomorrow. Again.

(Soap x GN! Reader)

Rating: Mature Wordcount: 5400 Tags: Doomed Narrative, Time Loop AU, Heavy Angst, Blood and Injury, Self-Sacrifice, Whump, Hurt Very Little Comfort, Happy Ending, (I PROMISE THERE'S A HAPPY ENDING!!) Warnings: Major character death. That's...literally the plot A/N: Hi here's the doomed timelines AU nobody asked for

Call of Duty Masterlist

Summary:

The 23rd time you meet Soap, you don’t bother to smile. You know how this ends.

“Nice to meet you, Soap.” You say for the 23rd time, words that have passed your lips in more lifetimes that you wish you didn’t remember. “I look forward to working with you.”

And I don’t look forward to watching you die.

The first time you meet Soap, it’s how you expect.

It’s a warm spring day, the kind where you need to shed layers in the brightness of afternoon, only to don them again come sunset. He stands just beyond the shade of the barracks, awash in sunlight that seems to catch the blue of his eyes. You blink as you take him in, and it’s the only barest indication you give at the instant impression that he’s handsome.

“Sergeant John MacTavish, at your service.” He tells you with a grin, leaning forward to extend his hand to you. You reach for it automatically, remember yourself and offer a pleasant smile in return, along with your name.

“Looking forward to working with you, John.” You reply, and John- Johnny, as you’d come to call him in the tender moments between you, chuckles.

“Call me ‘Soap’.” He tells you easily, and you smile a bit wryly, tilting your head at him.

“The hell kind of name is ‘Soap’?”

- - - - -

It’s easy to work with Soap. He has a cheery, bright demeanor to him that is immediately endearing. He’s friendly, outgoing. His smile is contagious, and the bark of his laughter becomes familiar to you. You listen and guffaw at his jokes over the comms, try vainly to hide your smile when he says them before you.

It only makes his eyes twinkle to see you try and conceal your amusement, and that becomes familiar too- the sparkle of his irises with endless mirth.

He catches you during your duties, sidles up beside you during weapons training, becomes the first to suggest himself as your partner during drills. The company he offers is warm, welcome, lifting the dusky heaviness of your heart into something more tender, fragile. You hold it for him, feel his grin bleed into yours, lay awake at night and sometimes think about the shake of his shoulders when you get him to laugh.

You feel endlessly special when he devotes his time to you, feel as if Soap treats you like you’re the only person in the world. Even in the presence of others he finds ways to indulge himself in you. A nudge of his boot against yours under the table of the briefing room, tossing you an extra round of ammo as you gear up for a mission, finding an excuse to sit next to you on the chopper ride home. Soap feels like a breath of fresh air, the first taste of a cool breeze during summer, a respite from the weight of the world.

Like two stars in orbit, you circle each other, drawing closer into the gravity of each other’s gazes. You try at first to resist, to hold yourself away from the feelings of the other sergeant, knowing at any moment that he could be taken from you. It’s written in the wheels of fate, your destinies as soldiers. If you’re lucky, if you stay alert, if you train hard enough, if chance smiles upon you, maybe you’ll both live to a day where the sound of rockets and bullet-fire doesn’t haunt your waking dreams.

Yet you can’t resist him. When you fall asleep against his shoulder after a days long mission with hardly any sleep, when he playfully grapples with you over the last slice of pizza during movie night, when he gives you that smile during a rare night off-base at the pub- how can you resist?

Gravity pulses between you when you at last fall into him, feel his breath against your lips as your fingers comb through his mohawk. He breathes the blessing of your name against the corner of your mouth in a panting gasp, flexes his fingers across the small of your back when he drags you even closer. The taste of him is honey and ale, a sweetness with a beloved bitter aftertaste, one you drink down greedily in the form of his moans against your flesh.

When you lay in bed together after, sweaty limbs tangled together, you watch the tender, soulful smile form across the handsome planes of his face, and you know.

He’s yours.

There’s kisses stolen in the hangar before take off, moments hidden in the shadows of safehouses. He cups your face and lifts it to him in the aftermath of battle, smears ash against your cheek with his gloved thumb. You try to carve each moment into your heart, never fail to try and memorize the glint of his eyes, the soft slope of his smile. You know the shape of him in the darkness of his bedroom, know the sound of his voice even blinded by the brightness of his mere presence.

Johnny is the sun- emanating a gentle, beckoning warmth from afar. Yet when you get closer you see the glory of his inferno, see the flashing burn of his eyes in the midst of battle. The solar flare of his battle cry seems to carry you like soar of Helios's chariot upwards into the heavens of his devotion. When you touch him, you’re seared, branded by his fingers as they trace sentimental sketches across the dip of your waist. You want to bask in him, feel the ember of his stare as he gazes at you silently across the table of the restaurant he takes you to for your official first date.

“What?” You ask him, averting your eyes a little bashfully, catching his shrug in your periphery.

“Just lookin’.” He replies with a grin, his cheek smushed as he balances on his hand. “Just seeing how pretty you are.”

You kiss him for that, and when he laughs you kiss him again.

You kiss him a thousand times, each as sweet and passionate as the last, know the curve of his smile on your lips. You kiss him before your next mission, when he holds you against the wall of the armory and tells you how he can’t wait until you both get back.

He doesn’t. He doesn’t come back.

He’s looking at you in the chopper when you hear the sound of the RPG. The explosion has him backlit for all of a moment before the world is spinning, the roar of the dying engine in your ears and Price’s holler to “BAIL BAIL BAIL-!!”

You reach for the rope, glance behind you to see Soap not out of his seat- a breed of panic in his eyes unlike that you’ve ever seen from him. The jammed clasp of his strap is caught in his hands as he tugs at it desperately, and you meet his gaze for all of a moment, seeing the imminent knowledge of what comes next in his beautiful blue eyes.

You fall, without him, are caught by the canopy of trees where the snap of branches under you muffles the distant sound of the helicopter exploding as it lands.

You ignore Price’s orders, run desperately for the wreckage, only to be greeted by an inferno that stretches towards the sky.

Johnny is on fire, and this time when you reach for the burn of him the flames are real. They scorch your flesh and you shout his name even as you try to reach him, already knowing it’s too late. When Ghost and the others haul you back you fall to your knees, grip the scorched earth beneath your fingers and scream.

And then you wake up.

Warm springtime.

“Sergeant John MacTavish, at your service.” He tells you with a grin, leaning forward to extend his hand to you.

You blink, heart still hammering in your chest, feeling the warmth of flames chase you even as songbirds sing in the trees. Yet Johnny is alive before you, whole, smiling, looking so much like the man he was when you met him for the very first time.

“Was it a nightmare?” You ask him breathlessly, and Johnny- Soap- merely arches a bewildered eyebrow at you.

“What?”

Nightmares, you come to learn, are so much more kind.

It happens all as it did before. The jokes over comms, the glancing gazes over drills, the bump of elbows in the mess hall. It’s familiar, sweet, amorous…

And you know something is terribly, terribly wrong.

Back to the start, somehow. You don’t know how, you don’t know why- but there’s no denying what has happened. Johnny died. You went back, and now you have a chance to save him.

It’s months before the helicopter crash. You replay the scene over and over again in your mind, and you keep arriving back to the look in Johnny’s eyes as realization washed across them. Everyone who dies a sudden death is confused, scared, not ready, and the knowledge and horror you saw in his stare haunts your waking dreams.

Yet Johnny falls in love with you just as he did before, and you fall into him so readily, desperate to accept his warmth in the wake of his death. Orpheus embracing Eurydice, you try to trace him into your skin, imbue the memory of him into the marrow of your bones and pray that you can reverse his fate. The gears of destiny tick in the back of your mind even as he stares at you over the restaurant table on the evening before your departure.

“Just lookin’.” He tells you when you return his stare, mistaking your concern for confusion. “Just seeing how pretty you are.”

When you kiss him, you try to swallow the sob in your throat.

When you get on the helicopter, you point out his jammed strap with shaking fingers, and he blinks in astonishment.

“Hell’s bells.” He huffs, fiddling with it before it comes loose, and it stays that way for the remainder of your journey. “That coulda been terrible, ey bonnie?”

He makes it out this time, and when he rises from the forest floor he rushes to you, cups your face in his hands and stares down with eyes glinting in concern.

“Sweetheart.” He breathes, chest heaving with exhilaration. “Are you hur-”

He jerks back at the sound of a gunshot, and you drop automatically, crawl to him just in time to catch his hand as he reaches for you. The bullet wound at his collarbone gushes red, red, red, and your hands are coated in it as you plead, tell him he’s going to be okay-

The light fades from his eyes, still staring up at you, the last thing he sees.

You still feel his heartbeat on your hands when you wake up.

“Sergeant John MacTavish, at your service.” He tells you with a grin, leaning forward to extend his hand to you. You tremble, take it and see him blink in surprise when he feels the uncontrollable shake of your palm against his.

The second time, you think it’s a fluke, a horrible prank.

He steps on a landmine, scattered to the four winds.

The third time, you’re petrified.

A man hidden in the darkness, he lunges for you. Johnny pushes him aside. The blade wedges between his ribs.

The fourth time, you beg destiny for answers.

You make it to the compound, the fence lights him up like a firework.

The fifth time, you try to tell him, only to find your throat clogged, unable to speak. You try to tell him a hundred more times in the months that follow, and each time the words are stolen from your breath, as if fate forbids you to inform him of his doomed destiny.

“...Nothing.” You tell him when he asks after you’ve tried to speak over the restaurant table, your food barely touched.

Johnny shrugs. “Doesna matter, too busy looking at how pretty you are.”

You cry silently that night in his bed, while he dozes gently next to you, unaware of what awaits him.

You can’t tell him. You don’t know how to save him. You still love him.

He’ll forget he knows you, forget he loves you by the time he wakes up

You’ve found eight ways for Soap to die, and have taken years to defy all of them. You have to write them down everytime you wake up unless you somehow forget. The notebook is filled with scribbled reminders, ever present in your pocket even as he steals the last slice of pizza out from under you.

He doesn’t have enough ammo. Remind him to take extra clips

He put his knife on the wrong strap that he usually does, fix it for him.

He steps on the landmine fourteen steps after the creek. Stop him.

You can’t stop trying. Not when it’s him.

Yet each time you find a way to outsmart the latest execution of him, fate finds one more thing to steal him out from under you. Unstoppable, imminent, condemned to wake up and see his smiling face mere moments after his heartbeat slows to nothingness.

“I love you.” You whisper as you cradle his head in your lap, knowing he already can’t hear you, glassy eyes staring up at the sky. “I’ll see you soon.”

You burst into tears by the 19th time, buckling in on yourself much to the shock of the men around you, relaying startled looks of confusion between them. You excuse yourself, find a dark corner to fold into and sob, knowing this time you’ll fail too.

It’s Soap who finds you, sits beside you, says barely a word when you cry into his shoulder even though he doesn’t know you. Not yet.

Falling in love with him each time is painful. Your heart beats for him and him alone, but you know it’s only a matter of time before you lose him again. You’ll go right back to the start, to him having just met you, not yet falling into gravity with you, even as you hear the tick of gears turning ever closer to the moment you’ll watch him die.

“Don’t you know me?” You want to ask him, want to bunch his shirt between your fists and let tears stream down your face. “Don’t you know you loved me?”

His smile doesn’t waver. He jokes and laughs and playfully teases you and it hurts. It’s a balm that burns, heals your heart and yet doesn’t erase the scar. He’s your only comfort, the only thing you have as you feel your soul chipped a little further each time he leaves you. You can’t tell him why you cry into his arms, can’t confess to him that you’ve seen him die more ways than you care to remember, that you’ve tried to save him in dozens of lifetimes and he doesn’t even know.

He holds you even though he doesn’t understand, hushes sweet endearments into your hair and comforts you, not knowing how this will end.

“I love you.” He tells you softly as you hiccup against his chest, not knowing what else to say. “Ever since the moment I first saw you, I’ve loved you.”

Your tears drip into the fancy china at the restaurant he takes you to and Johnny looks afraid.

The 23rd time you meet Soap, you don’t bother to smile. You know how this ends.

“Nice to meet you, Soap.” You say for the 23rd time, words that have passed your lips in more lifetimes that you wish you didn’t remember. “I look forward to working with you.”

And I don’t look forward to watching you die.

He looks at you, blinks. His brow furrows.

“How’d you know my name?”

This time, you forget to warn him about the rigged doorway, and he vanishes in a flash and puff of smoke.

“Don’t cry.” He wheezes when you bend over him, words pouring from your lips in a ceaseless mantra. I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry. “I always hated watching ye cry.”

You wake up. Everything happens as it did before. You meet him, you listen to the sound of his laugh, you finish one of his jokes over the comms and he groans.

“Don’t tell me ye know that one too!” He grouses, and when you smile your chest aches with the force of thirty lifetimes.

You place a palm against his back, unable to help yourself as you enter the compound, wanting to feel the frame of his body just one more time before destiny finds a new way to kill him. He looks at you over his shoulder, smiles even as uncertainty colors the blueness of his gaze.

“Yer like my guardian angel.” He tells you, still smiling even after all this time. “Dannea what I’d do w’out ye.”

A grenade at the staircase. He pushes you out of the way. He doesn’t duck out of the way in time.

You close your eyes when you wake up. You can’t bear to look at him, knowing you’ll just lose him again.

You try to keep him from loving you, thinking perhaps that is the crime to warrant this eternal punishment. You can’t stop loving him, but maybe, maybe you can stop him from loving you. Maybe if you never have him to begin with, maybe you can save him.

Yet Johnny is drawn to you anyways, sucked in by the way your smile doesn’t reach your eyes, like a moth to an infant flame. He hovers at the fringes of your soul, tries desperately to find his way inside, and you can’t help but let him. He comforts you when you cry against the futility of it all, and there’s nothing you can say to him to explain. You wet his shirt with your tears, knowing it’ll be the one he dies in.

The next time, you force yourself to not speak to him, to try and avoid him at all costs, try everything to drive him away. If he never loved you to start, then maybe he’ll live. He seems pre-ordained to find a way to confess to you, ask why you hate him so, look at you through glistening eyes and ask “What did I do?”

You wonder if maybe that’s destiny too, if it’s truly Soap falling in love with you, or his strings being pulled by the same machinations that inscribe his death.

When he asks you again, tries to approach you with flowers and apologies, and offers to take you to dinner on the eve of his death, you wheel on him in desperate fury.

“You don’t actually love me!” You cry, face hot with tears. “Can’t you see that?! All this time it’s just- it’s just the story we’re in. Just because you’re supposed to love me doesn’t mean you do. It’s all just a fucking lie.”

Soap is stunned, too shocked to speak. In all the dozens of lives you’d lived, you’ve never ever yelled at him before.

Hurt flashes across his eyes. His eyes drop along with his hands, the bouquet limp in his grip. The bitterness of his smile as he refuses to look at you threatens to shatter your heart like glass.

“You hate me.” He murmurs, as if to himself. “I’m…I’m sorry. I didn’t mean tae…”

He falls silent, and eventually he walks away.

You don’t get on the chopper this time. You can’t stand to watch him die again.

You try to tell him again, ask him why. Why does he have to torture you like this? Why love you, why allow you to love him so deeply, only for him to leave at the end of this doomed story bound to repeat? Why would he love you?

He looks torn. He’s hurt. He wants to comfort you. He doesn’t know what to say

“Why wouldn’t I love you?” He asks in a whisper, devastated by your outburst.

You can’t speak. You’re forbidden to tell him. You want to. You can’t.

“Bonnie-” He tries, stepping forward, trying to embrace you as if that will somehow solve everything.

“No.” You manage, pressing backwards as he reaches for you, wrapping your arms around yourself protectively. Pain dances across his eyes. “Go away, Johnny.”

He leaves.

He dies anyway.

When you wake up, your body feels weighed down with the passage of a hundred lifetimes, and your legs fall out from under you without warning. Johnny hauls you into his arms, his blue stare flickering with concern.

You forgot how much you love being held by him.

This time, you don’t push him away. In fact, you never do again.

Yet things are different now. It’s subtle at first, things you take for granted. Something in this story has changed, and in turn it’s changed him. Johnny walks into rooms and seems to forget why he’s there. He asks what day it is and frowns in confusion when Ghost replies blandly for the second time that day.

“Didn’t you already tell us this?” He asks of Price during a meeting, and Gaz’s head snaps to him, to the smartness of his tone towards your captain.

“No.” Price responds gruffly, succinctly, and continues on. You watch Soap, see the way he doesn’t seem to understand. His fingers tap on the table, and it’s a small gesture meant to conceal the worry in his eyes- the knowledge that maybe, maybe he’s been here before.

“I saw you in a dream, once.” He tells you one night as you both clamber onto the roof of the barracks to stare at the stars. “Before I even met you.”

You stare at him, and he laughs a little nervously, rubbing at his nape. “A bit crazy, eh? Sounds like am’ off ma heid.”

You shake your head, slide your hand over his, feel your heart thump when he looks at you in surprise. “Tell me.” You whisper, and when he smiles you shudder, feel the weight of destiny press heavy on your shoulders.

“I saw you crying.” He murmurs, and his eyes are a little distant, like he’s looking back at a life that no longer exists. “I told you not to cry.”

“Don’t cry.” He wheezes when you bend over him, words pouring from your lips in a ceaseless mantra. I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry. “I always hated watching ye cry.”

This time, you nearly die beside him, and almost wish fate would take you too.

He has nightmares now. He thrashes in his bed, a cold sweat dampening his skin when he wakes. You ask him what it was, what vision plagues him, and he only shakes his head, eyes distant and terrified. He clings to you like he’s a little boy frightened by shadows, gazes at something you can’t see but know all the same. He doesn’t have the words, but he doesn’t need them.

You roll over one night, startled to find him wide awake, eyes unblinking as he stares at you. His voice sounds like an echo of himself, a dark magic winding through his words that sound like an all too familiar prophecy.

“I saw myself die.” He tells you, in a voice you’ve never heard- one you’ll never forget. “You were there- and then you weren’t.”

He finds bruises on himself the next morning, in the same places you watched him become riddled with bullet holes.

You’re running out of time. You don’t know when you’ll wake up and he won’t be there. You don’t know if this will be the last time you ever see him.

“Please.” You beg him, tugging on the straps of his vest as he steps towards the chopper. “Johnny please, don’t. Stay here. Don’t go.”

His eyes shine with worry at the sudden, fervent desperation in your words, and he opens his mouth to respond-

Only for his eyes to take on that foreign, distant stare once more.

“Why wouldn’t I?” He asks, and once more you’re forbidden to tell him.

Because you’ll die. Because I’ll be forced to watch. Because I have no way to stop it. Because I’ve seen it happen a hundred times and I can’t do it anymore.

Inevitably, you arrive here, and this singular moment in time, at the place where you’ve yet to find the part in which he survives.

It always ends like this.

You survive the crash, fend off the ensuing ambush, weave past the landmines and the soldiers patrolling the perimeter, disable the electric fence and disarm the rigged door. You make it inside, stop him before he triggers the tripwire, disarm the pressure plate, lob the grenade back up the stairs, open fire on the door to his left before he passes it. You anticipate the reinforcements at your back, fix the radio when you signal for ex-fil, remember to give him your extra ammo. You know when the roof collapses and drag him to safety, point out the missed charge in his demolitions package, take out the turret before he even spots it-

Then you arrive here.

“The detonator doesn’t work.” He tells you for the thirty sixth time, out of a hundred and forty eight lifetimes. You know what comes next. The chopper will get here, you will be overrun, and Johnny will kiss you one last time with an apology, push you into Gaz’s arms even as you scream. Then he’ll make his way to the control room without you all, will stay behind and make it his final, valiant act.

Then you’ll watch the facility explode with him still inside, hear the gears of fate click and send you hurtling back to the beginning.

If you stop him, you’ll all be shot down. You’ll be the only survivor of the crash, and will see the broken bodies of your teammates join him. Or someone else will take his place, and your rescue chopper will be shot down anyways.

There’s no escape. This is always the moment that you can’t save him from. Thirty six lifetimes and you know in just a few minutes you’ll wake up, will hear his voice begin it all again, over and over until one day you wake up and he isn’t there.

“Sergeant John MacTavish, at your service.” He tells you with a grin, leaning forward to extend his hand to you.

You had a dream last time. You were both sitting at the restaurant table, and you spoke before he could.

“Are you going to tell me how pretty I am?” You asked him, swallowing down grief, feeling it bloom like a macabre bouquet when the sound of his joyous laughter tickled your soul.

“Stole the words right from mah mouth.” He chuckled.

You blinked, and the seat across from you was suddenly empty.

You close your eyes, in this moment, try once more to find the part where you all make it out alive. You try to find the part where you don’t lose him. Where you’ll go back to that restaurant and it’ll be the last time.

You’ve had enough.

“I’m going to stay.” Soap declares, eyes grim with resolve.

He turns to you.

You close the distance, reach up and kiss him. You tangle your fingers in his mohawk like you did the very first time, listen to his shocked gasp as you try and drink in the taste of him just one more time. Just one more time.

Honey and ale. A bittersweet goodbye.

You snatch the detonator from his hands, raise your hands to his shoulders and push.

He topples backwards, nearly colliding with Price, and it gives you just enough time to bolt for the door leading towards the control room, locking it behind you.

Soap screams your name, hurls himself at the door, frantic desperation coloring his beautiful blue eyes. The color of a sky in summer time, of a fresh breeze that reminds you so much of him.

There’s a nervous smile on his lips, one that doesn’t reach his eyes. He thinks it’s a prank, another joke between you two, and he says just as much, voice wavering when he asks you to unlock the door.

“I’m sorry, Johnny.” You whisper, tears warming your eyes. “I can’t lose you again.”

Confusion makes him pause, but it’s only for a moment.

“Open the door.” He demands then, jiggling the lock uselessly as his voice rises. “OPEN THE DAMN DOOR!!”

“I love you.” You whisper, raising your hand to the glass pane, your splayed palm against his closed fist and the world between them. “In this lifetime, and the one before. Ever since the day I met you, I’ve loved you, Johnny.”

He calls your name, voice cracking in desperation and he begs you to come back. You take a few more moments, and think to yourself how unkind it is that the last time you see him will be like this. Afraid, broken, desperate.

Terrified.

Just like how he was all that time ago, the first time you failed to save him.

Not this time.

“Don’t cry.” You tell him quietly. “I always hated watching you cry.”

You leave him even as he screams after you, running in the direction of the control room.

You don’t know this part. You’ve only ever watched Johnny or one of them vanish in this direction. You aren’t prepared for this the way you are with the rest of this story. You’re not ready for the hail of gunfire that greets you, the bullets ripping through flesh. Your blood drips red onto the floor, you run low on ammo, and yet somehow you press on.

Not this time. You think. Not ever again. You can’t take him from me any longer. I won’t allow it.

You’re limping, heavily wounded, riddled with bullet holes, chest seizing and smearing an abstract of crimson behind you as you finally make it to the control room. By the time you dispatch the remaining soldiers you’re on the floor, feeling the corners of your vision pulse red and black as the gears turn, as the clock ticks down.

The timer has just enough time to make it out once you start it. You know you won’t be able to.

So you watch the numbers click on the countdown, flop onto your back and cry.

You didn’t want this.

You wanted just a little more time. Maybe you should have let him go, let him finish this if only he can wake up and not know you. Maybe you should have let him die one more time, if only to get the chance to fall asleep in his arms months into the future and past, knowing he was going to die.

It’s too late now, and as the numbers click down, as your heartbeat thrums in your ears and your vision pulses red, you can only try to remember the feeling of his smile against your lips, the sound of his laughter, your name breathed into your skin as he wraps his arms around you, safe from destiny in his embrace.

“Ever since the moment I first saw you, I’ve loved you.”

You love him. You’ve always loved him. In this lifetime, in the hundred lifetimes before. In a thousand lifetimes to come you will still love him. Even if you go back, wake up again to that warm spring day, you know you will only love him once more.

You wish he was here, at the end, and wish that even if he was he’d find a way to live without you.

When you exhale, it’s the sound of his name, the memory of his eyes as they stare across you from the restaurant table, full of endless devotion.

The world goes dark.

And then you wake up.

It’s bright.

You don’t expect what comes next.

There’s no birdsong. No springtime warmth. Only the beep of a heart monitor, the feeling of cottony sheets tucked into a hospital bed, the fluorescent glow of overhead lights.

And the sound of a voice.

Johnny is holding your hand, head bowed, tears falling freely down his face.

“I did it.” He sobs, words choking his throat, shoulders trembling.

Whole. Alive. Just like you.

“I did it.” He cries again, looking up and finding your eyes with his that swim with emotion. When he speaks, it sounds like the weight of a hundred lifetimes presses down on him.

“This time. This time, I saved you.”

Taglist: @soapskneebrace @guyfieriii @writeforfandoms @alicesfracturedmirror

#john soap mactavish #johnny soap mactavish #john soap mctavish x reader #Soap x reader #soap mactavish x reader #my writing #my fic #to add to masterlist #Alex play Dumb Ways to Die

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partycatty · 3 months

Text

older!johnny cage > overheard

you're caught in the act of swooning over your boss

notes: i'm not even fuckin playing i just woke up from my nap in a cold sweat with this idea haunting my mind so here i am. i truly honestly genuinely cannot stop thinking about dilf johnny and his thick fucking arms and how much i want him to [REDACTED]

[ masterlist ]

• during your break from training, you managed to squeeze in a meal break with one of your closest friends. it was just the two of you, laughing and for once breaking the stoicism implanted into your demeanors from training ruthlessly.

• "jesus, commander cage really kicked our asses today," your friend whined, rolling her shoulder. "i get we're fighting against demons and elementals, but did we really need to run twenty miles?"

• "it wasn't all bad," you shrug, poking at your food. "we've done worse, i feel."

• "oh hush, you had the time of your life," your friend groaned, lightly pushing into your shoulder with a smirk. "you and johnny cage got to run beside each other in formation." your friend was sure to say his name in an announcer voice, wiggling her fingers as she pretended to read a large sign.

• you huff, planting a fist on the table as you try to conceal your embarrassment with faux anger. "oh my god shut up..."

• your mind wanders to earlier in the day. johnny decided to wear only a tank top instead of a long sleeve with a vest, giving you a delicious view of his arms as they pumped during the run. while you two didn't talk, he shared panting encouragements by your side, telling you you were doing so good and how much further you had left. it made running feel almost impossible as each word and grunt knocked the wind from you.

• "jesus, look at you," your friend laughs at your dreamy expression as you replay the memory. "you're down bad, girl, anyone and their mother could tell."

• "is it that obvious?" you murmur, burying your face with your hands. "i'm doomed."

• "nah, you might have a shot," she insists, pulling your hands from your face. "he might be into younger women, most celebrities are."

• "but he's not just a celebrity, he's our superior," you whine, rolling your head back. "i just watch his movies and pretend i'm the love interest."

• "oh, it's bad bad," she laughs, looking past you for a moment. her smile falters.

• "can you blame me? ugh," you rake a hand through your hair. "he's all muscle, he could just pick me up and snap me like a twig! normally i'd settle for height alone but holy fuck he's built like a brick fucking wall!"

• your friend falls silent.

• "and don't even get me started on his age," you point an accusatory finger. "he is 50 something and so fucking fine i can't even bring myself to focus on literally anything ever. i watched some of his old movies, and he literally aged like the finest fucking wine any vineyard has ever even dreamed of making! thank god his daughter is the commander because if he stood around and told me what to do i'd behave so much like a dog it would embarrass me. he is the god damn devil in disguise and i sure a shit don't have a single chance of him even looking in my direction with any more than a smile because at the end of the day i'm just a sad little recruit crushing on a guy who probably has a massive di—"

• "i'm fifty-nine," you hear a low, horrifyingly familiar voice in your ear. you can't even bring yourself to turn around, smile dropping and eyes widening. the only thing you can bring yourself to do is stare across the table at your friend, who's as equally still. maybe if you were still enough, he wouldn't see you. like a dinosaur.

• "lieutenant," you breathe out after a long silence, drunk on the smell of his cologne. "we were just... t-talking about you."

• "oh yeah?" his voice is rumbly, a teasing inflection making you want to burst out in tears. you had a faint suspicion he was behind you the entire time, something he confirmed before you could muster the strength to speak. "sounded more like it was just you."

• "well," you wonder if you can outrun him, stammering as you try to talk yourself out of this. "you know..."

• you finally get the courage to spin in your chair, turning around to face him. he's towering over your sitting form, a shit-eating smirk on his lips.

• "i'm sorry, sir, i'll... i'll do extra push-ups, i'll go overtime on training, scrub the toilets, anything to—"

• he holds a hand up, waving it away as he shakes his head slowly.

• "don't stress it," he stands up straight, crossing his arms. oh my god his arms. "but, uh... just a word, in my office, when you have the chance." you almost miss the wink he sends at you, but you caught it just as he spun on his heel and walked out, a cocky sway to his hips.

• you spin back around, slack jawed at your friend, who's red from holding in her scream of excitement.

• "he's totally gonna bang you on his desk," she finally spits out, covering her mouth immediately after. you just lower your head, hitting it against the table in defeat.

• who knows what he's gonna do to you in his office?

#mortal kombat #mortal kombat x reader #johnny cage #johnny cage x reader #mk11 #marley writes ☆

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