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princeasimdiya12 · 23 days

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Bucchigiri Finale Thoughts

So I watched Episode 12 earlier today and had some time to think things over. And unfortunately, I realized that I didn't like this episode very much. Granted there are a good amount of moments that I did enjoy and contributed well to the main themes of the series. But there were too many moments that I felt undercut my enjoyment of the show. So fair warning, a lot of what I have to say is fairly critical and kinda negative. If you agree or disagree with anything I've said here, feel free to reblog this with your own comments. And if you're not into negativity, feel free to ignore this.

But I will start by mentioning the things I did like.

Just like everyone and their gyoza-making mothers, I loved the final fight scenes. The choreography was well executed and I thought the animation was top notch, both when it came to Senya vs Ichiya and Arajin vs Matakara. I really liked how in depth they went with the fighting sequences and the dark colors fit really well with the tone of the drama of the scene. The emotional range between the fighters felt incredible; the actors truly gave it their all when going about their fights.

And the part with Arajin mustering the power to save Matakara was beautifully done. I was in awe when Arajin brought up how Matakara became the very monster he tried desperately to destroy which really got a crack on his defenses. The sequence of Arajin reaching out to Matakara's inner child to help him out of his despair was gorgeous. Especially since Ara-chan used the Friendship Stone both to help the inner child and later when telling his old friend that he's not alone anymore. That was really great and genuine character growth, especially since Arajin accepted that he was in the wrong for leaving him all the time.

And as I mentioned in an earlier post, I did love the first scene with Arajin meeting Matakara for the first time. But as a twist, it was Arajin who was inspired by Matakara's dedication to being a Honki Person and volunteered himself to train alongside his new friend. That was a great twist and it adds new depths to how Arajin was actually inspiried by his old friend and not the other way around like we believed for so long.

So those were the parts that I genuinely enjoyed. Now for the parts I didn't really like..

On one hand, while it is nice that Zabu wasn't brutally beaten to subconsciousness, I do kiinda wish that he did have to be hospitalized. It just feels so off-putting how he's relatively okay despite being brutally mauled by Matakara only a few hours ago. Especially since Marito and Kenichirou wound up in the hospital after losing to Matakara. Plus I feel like it undercuts the drama and severity of the situation by having Zabu be fine enough to look for Matakara. It doesn't help that he and Komao don't really do much apart from running around trying to find their friend.

Also, I hope I'm not the only one but did anyone else feel uncomfortable with this scene?

I understand that Mahoro did it in a desperate bid to bring her brother back but the way she described Kenichirou here was just... gross.

Not insane, not weird, not quirky, not even ridiculous.

It was just gross for me to see her dehumanize one of the few dark skinned characters on the show. Even if he's not black/black coded, it still rubs me the wrong way that she would say those things so casually. Especially since Japan can be really casual when it comes to making racist/offensive remarks to brown skinned people in it's media. Plus there are tons of other ways she could have referred to him without calling him a gorilla. Like meathead, blockhead, oaf, ogre. Any other insult could have worked and been more acceptable than the ape insult. And it's unfortunately consistent since she did call him a gorilla during the Gang War Arc.

And then there's this part...

I don't know if it was Mahoro's doing or if that's what the original nurses did, but it was just uncalled for. Both for the unspoken racism and for how it doesn't even apply to Kenichirou's character. Out of the three banchos, he's always been the least violent and was always shown to be tranquil and easy to work with, unlike Marito and Akutaro who were more unhinged, wild and violent in comparison. There shouldn't be any reason for him to behave so violently that the staff would resort to shackling him like an animal. Especially given how defeated he looked when Matakara beat him in a fight.

Another reason why I dislike this scene is because the characters involved (Mahoro, Marito, Kenichirou) do nothing to contribute to the final duel between Arajin and Matakara. None of these characters actually show up until the end when Matakara apologizes to everyone. You could have made it so that during the apology scenes, the two gang leaders could have shown up while covered in bandages or crutches. There really isn't a need to show us Marito waking up since we could get that later on in the end with Matakara apologizing to Siguma Squad.

The same can be argued for Zabu, Komao, Outa, Jabashiri and Hagure. Even though they spend most of their time hunting down Matakara and Arajin, they don't exactly contribute to the final duel or offer any words to the main heroes. They just show up and the duo resolve their problem like nothing.

Regarding Ichiya's secret of him dying, while it's not the worst reason for him to be so insistent on fighting Senya, I do wish there was more build up or at least some hints to it. It just feels like a random reason for why Ichiya developed his grudge against Senya. It's not the worst reason and it does make sense for why he wanted to die like a Honki Person instead of to a random illness, it just leaves a bad taste to how it happened to him out of randomness.

And wow, Arajin is never going to overcome the internet hating him for being a perverted simp mc.

In a way, it makes some sense since Arajin's character arc was never about respecting women or learning that there's other ways to be a man apart from stealing a girl's virginity. That was never the focus as the story wanted him to confront his mistake of abandoning his old friend and not running away from his problems. That said, this still won't look good for him since fans are going to be turned off of Bucchigiri because of his perversions and how the show doesn't encourage him to change.

And as I've come to realize, the show itself doesn't seem to mind with the characters not growing out of their negative vices. A critique I have is that the show doesn't go out of it's way to challenge the beliefs of these characters or push them to grow into better people. Arajin is perfectly okay with being rude to everyone while pursuing a girl just so he can lose his virginity to her, Mahoro continues to lust over her older brother and has no interest in anything else, Marito is still a bloodthirsty bad boy who lives and breathes fighting, Kenichirou doesn't mind repeating high school as long as he gets to run Minato Kai, even Yayako prefers to act like a bubbly airhead rather then act like a responsible and respectful adult. And even with Matakara's corruption arc, he doesn't really recognize how harmful his idolization of Arajin was since the focus was more on his loneliness and trauma of being alone. Maybe because I'm spoiled by Mob Psycho 100, but it saddens me to see how these characters don't grow into better people or make an effort to change themselves. Especially since there can be potential for all of them.

And while I'm glad that Arajin and Matakara were able to become friends again, it feels like a letdown that there's no build up to it. It just rushes straight to them becoming friends again without acknowledging their negative attributes. Th same with puppy boy getting everyone to just accept him with no repercussions or consequences. It feels like letdown as there were no serious consequences for his actions. Like he could just go on a despair-induced rampage again and they'll just keep accepting him. On paper it's rather wholesome, but it does feel contrived if everything just works out without problems or how Matakara doesn't need to work hard to earn their forgiveness. That would have been for a greater character moment and to show Matakara taking responsibility for his actions. But we never see Matakara doing that and him being accepted by the gang feels rather hollow. It's technically nice that he has his friends back and that SS won't have his heart on a stick, but it feels hollow.

Speaking of taking non-responsibilities and being accepted by the gangs, Akutaro is now back with the NG Boys and they're accepting of him?

I really do wish we could have had a scene that explains how the heck he was able to win back his old gang despite them professing that they weren't going to let him beat them around like before. It just feels offputting that Akutaro is back in charge and has their respect with zero explanation or even any build up to it. He spent all his time trying out different jobs and activities but nothing to suggest that he wants to go back to his old club again.

Not to mention that this is still bad news for Minato Kai since Akutaro still has his hatred for Kenichirou and still longs to destroy him. And given how he also hasn't grown out of his negative vices, it's more than likely he'll come up with a new plan to destroy them albeit a different approach. Though the other gangs will be aware of him trying to wreak havoc on them again, I sincerely doubt that that'll stop Akutaro from having his revenge. And with the NG Boys and Girls behind his back, he definitely has a shot at it.

Then there's the resolution with the Nyan Nyaight Love segment. While it was endearing with the Receptionist wanting to help out the Customer, I'm just trying to wrap around the logic behind the Receptionist accepting him again.

It doesn't make sense to me how he'd be accepting of the guy who abducted one of your prized cats, lose her, and then just welcome him back with another cat. It's setting up a cycle for the Customer to fall in love with a new cat only for him to become obsessed with her and then try to steal the cat out of "love". And while the show focuses on him learning to lose his shame of visiting NNL, it doesn't try to challenge his dependency on cats for company along with his hostile jealousy.

Is the Receptionist aware of this potential problem and how it can happen again to another cat? Is the manager of NNL willing to accept the Customer again along with the risk of jeopardizing his business? I can't imagine how difficult it must be to promote a cat only to lose it because of a depressed nutjob.

Also, to the anon who was grossed out by Arajin's mom, I'd like to give a complete apology to you for refuting your claims. Because this...

This was not necessary.

I mean, it is interesting to know that Marito shows attraction to girls/women which gives more depth to his character. And while it is weird for him to hit on an older women, it's still technically okay since it is normal for teens/youth to show attraction to adults that catch their interest.

But what isn't okay is Yayako's reaction to his attention.

Again, she is a grown woman getting over excited because a teenage boy is trying to hit on her. And she's okay with this? Like ma'am, not only is that concerning because of the blatant age differences but you're also a married woman (according to the additional info). How are you so lenient with being hit on by a guy who could pass for your son? Like really? I used to think of Yayako as a quirky, wholesome woman who needed to not let her son treat her like trash. But now I'm seriously questioning her values and how she treats everything in her life like a soap opera.

In regards to Mitsukuni being in a coma and waking up, it was... okay. Like I'm happy that Matakara will get his big brother back and they'll be able to move into an apartment like they wanted to. But I feel that the reveal of him being in a coma undercut alot of the emotional turmoil Matakara went through. I don't know, it just feels rather hollow knowing that Mitsukuni was always there and was going to make it out alive while his little brother was running around like a war machine. It's conflicting in all honesty.

But what isn't conflicting was how much I really didn't care much for Senya returning in the last shot. I wasn't moved by Senya showing up in the last scene or how Arajin secretly missed him. Maybe it's because of how Arajin constantly yelled at him or acted like he didn't care. And while he does care in his own way, I just felt disinterested in the reunion and I had no strong emotions of Senya returning. It doesn't help that the part with Senya and Ichiya "leaving" didn't really have alot of emotional depth to make the reunion more impactful. Senya not coming back would not have me upset.

And those would be my thoughts on the final episode. For those who stuck around to read all of this, I thank you for doing so. And to those that stuck around, I apologize for the excessive negativity. And like I mentioned above, you're more than welcome to reblog this with your thoughts and whether you agreed, disagreed or have something to say regarding my post.

Thank you all for taking the time to read this along with my other posts for this ridiculous show. Your feedback means alot to me and I hope you all have a wonderful weekend!

Nana na na, Nana na na, Nana na na na na...

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miraculousstories · 7 months

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List of my fav mlb fanfics no one asked for:

(this is a very long list btw, and all links are to ao3. I try to include as many warnings as possible, but I may forget some so please read the tags before reading the fic.)

Baby Boom by ShawnaCanon

It’s about an akuma that causes everyone in Paris to… do the deed… (not graphic) and every woman to get pregnant. It somehow evolves into a timetravel fic-

400,000 words- def recommend for readers who are okay with vague references to sex.

https://archiveofourown.org/works/23034028/chapters/55083382

Dearly Despised (I Love You) by snacc-noir

Lovely fic. A nice take on the adrienette enemies to lovers trope, and it adds in some fake dating. Cn and Lb start out as (more or less) lovers in the beginning, and it evolves from there. It’s not a finished fic, but still, if you’re willing to wait then read.

73,000 words so far (I’ll update as time goes on) and 33 chapters- totally clean fic, I recommend if you love enemies to lovers trope.

(Last update on the fic was 10/20/2023)

https://archiveofourown.org/works/28711611/chapters/70393941

Turn Loose the Mermaids by bookskitten

WONDERFUL. That is all I have to say about this. One of my personal favorites for sure- it’s a mermaid au where Marinette is a siren hellbent on dragging the captain of a ship (who just so happens to be Adrien- aka Captain Noir)down to the depths of the ocean… but you know it won’t end that simply.

64,000 words- WARNING- GRAPHIC DEPICTIONS OF SEX. I do not recommend for anyone not comfortable with that sort of thing. But if you are, go read! I promise it’ll be worth your time.

https://archiveofourown.org/works/8238214/chapters/18879793

Cut My Life into Pieces, This is My Last Resort by Silver_fox_fyre

This was… an interesting one to say the least. In this, Marinette is at the end of the rope- struggling with being both Marinette and Ladybug. So, of course the logical decision would be to fake her own death. Well, Marinette’s death, that is. Be warned, some of the excuses are kind of a long shot (for instance, she fakes her own death by using the mouse miraculous- only she doesn’t actually have the costume, she just looks normal.)

114,000 words- completely clean- characters do fall asleep on each other like…once, but nothing happens. Some passionate kisses, but that’s all. Lots of violence though, and blood and gore are a given. Character death is included as well. I recommend for braver readers.

https://archiveofourown.org/works/44353420/chapters/111546223

In Case You Don’t Know Me Tomorrow by thelibraryloser

This one is… an interesting one at best, a strange one at worst. The idea itself is that this is a universe where you can pay to have your memories erased. (No plot spoilers there) everyone is aged up in this, maybe around 20, 25. Non-magical universe as well.

56,000 words- a good fic, I’ll say, but it is a bit weird and I got bored of it at times. But stick around to the end and you’ll be rewarded, I promise. Clean as well, don’t worry.

https://archiveofourown.org/works/41522079/chapters/104136594

Miraculous Magic: First Year by spetember

*gasp* Is this- it is! The mlb/Harry Potter crossover you’ve all been waiting for!! Marinette and Adrien are 11 year olds who have just received their Hogwarts acceptance letters. They receive magical artifacts- and are told by Headmaster Fu that they must strive to defeat the Dark Lord Hawkmoth. They are 11, so while Mari does develop a crush for Adrien near the end of the fic, there isn’t much love. But honestly? I didn’t miss it. There’s so much action- I loved it. I’m thinking of writing spin-off fics about the other years, so if I do I’ll post the link in the reblogs.

58,000 words- wonderful. Simply wonderful. Mild violence, but no worse than the actual Harry Potter. Nothing related to love, as I mentioned. They are 11 after all. If you are in both the hp and mlb fandoms, I def recommend.

https://archiveofourown.org/works/11558436/chapters/25960689

Longest Night by P_Artsypants

Whump fic. Must I go on? Jokes aside, this fic is amazing. Marinette and Adrien are captured by some psychopath, and are tortured. I mean really tortured. Like I had to walk away at times it was so much- and this is coming from the person who regularly reads violence and smut. But if you can make it through, it’s a wonderful story. I don’t wanna spoil anything… but they do make it out alive. Well… kinda. I’ll let you read to find out.

210,000 words- Okay, I know I like to joke around a lot, but this time I’m serious. This is a very graphic fic which includes torture, and I mean real torture- not just the stuff you see on TV, but the stuff you see in R- rated horror movies. The fic actually references that the plot is similar to a horror film that actually got banned from almost every country in the world because it was so horrible. (The fic isn’t as bad as the film, but it is kinda horrifying.) Just for reference, here’s some torture tactics they use: Forced piercings, locked in a closet for a month, food loafs (a bunch of leftover food that’s baked with poison that makes you hallucinate) and.. well, there’s blood. I’ll just say that much. PLEASE use caution when reading, I will not say that again. For extremely brave readers only. Oh, and a side not- not completely clean. There is a sex scene at the end, which is skippable but if you are comfortable I would read it.

https://archiveofourown.org/works/19855210/chapters/47019550

The Strings of Fate by sailortwilightt

OKAY BACK TO THE NICE FICS. This is actually a two-parter, and it’s nail-biting good. It’s a soulmate AU, naturally, where an invisible red string takes you to your soulmate. Please note that this is an older fic written before the more recent seasons, so Emilie, for example, is not dead. This also evolves into an alternate dimension AU, and it has a great plot.

120,000 words- counting both fics. As warnings go, there isn’t much to warn. It’s clean as far as smut goes, and, while there is definitely some graphic violence scenes, nothing too bad. I recommend for the reader who isn’t too bothered by the canon-fanon differences.

https://archiveofourown.org/series/919836

Miraculous Moves Underground by LadyDi1980

Okay, so I’m sure you’ve seen the post about this fic floating around. It’s a dancing au, which features the clashing worlds of ballet and hip-hop. Non-magical, but I didn’t miss it. Wonderful au, really, and I def recommend.

104,000 words- clean fic. No violence (except for a few slaps initiated and recieved by none other than Gabriel Agreste) and no smut. There are some songs and images that don’t work attached to the fox. So be prepared for some disappointment in that department. Also, the music is mostly BTS.

https://archiveofourown.org/works/7203476/chapters/16346582

Blanks by DipStick45

For those of you who stayed around until the end, you’re amazing. This is my favorite fox by far, and it’s absolutely incredible. It’s a zombie apocalypse au, but it’s much more sophisticated than the usual zombies one. The actual word zombie isn’t used once in the fic. Oh and by the way, this fic made me cry. I have never cried from any book, tv show, or other fic in my life, but I cried in this one. Why? You’ll just have to find out!! Oh and also, this is only 2 chapters. Apparently they were doing a one-chapter challenge, but ao3 has a word limit for chapters. READ. I WILL PERSONALLY FORCE YOU.

103,000 words- okay so despite what I said- here are the warnings: major character death. I won’t say more for now. Violence. As expected, only times 10. Someone gets beheaded, another gets themselves split in half. The actual zombie bite’s effects are also quite graphic. There IS one smut scene, but it’s not detailed. And Adrien was high anyways. Oh yeah, alcohol use, and… I mean… they do describe the human body in some detail, but it’s not that bad. Chloe is insane, by the way, so there’s that. I think that’s it. If you’re okay with that, then read. I beg of you.

https://archiveofourown.org/works/43755576/chapters/110030079

And that’s it! I hope you enjoyed this very long list of fics! Lemme know what you think of them!

#miraculous ladybug #ml ladybug #adrien agreste #miraculous #miraculous marinette #chat noir #marinette dupain cheng #miraculous fanfic #miraculous au #fanfic #ao3 fanfic #fanfiction #ao3 #ao3fic #fanfic suggestions #you wont regret it #read the warnings #i beg of you #I don’t want anything to happen to you guys because you ignored my warnings

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comradekatara · 1 year

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responding to @levitatingbiscuits reply here because this post is already way too fucking long and I am not subjecting your dashboards to all that, but I do think this conversation is interesting enough to continue it (albeit under the cut):

I agree that roach work’s comment was annoying, and if you were responding to that, I get why you said what you said. this person regularly adds replies to my posts that are completely unrelated to the original point I was making, effectively derailing my argument and getting a bunch of reblogs from their followers who don’t have the common sense to ignore their pointless (and in this case, editorializing) additions. but everyone reblogging my post with your addition attacked me in the notes, as if I had said/implied all that you were arguing against, when I quite literally did not. and they said some quite nasty things, as if I couldn’t see their comments! I don’t go seeking out ppl saying shit about me ever, but if you do it in my house, we’re gonna have a problem.

as for your points...

I 100% agree that defending katara against people who unfairly vilified her, especially during the [vomits] atla renaissance (netflix you will rue the day...) is justified! I quite literally said aloud just last night, “anyone who hates katara can die,” and I fully fucking meant it. I don’t know why you seem to think we don’t agree here. maybe because I don’t think the solution to combatting idiotic, racist & misogynistic fans is by extolling katara to the point where you can’t appreciate her for her flaws. her flaws make her who she is as much as her virtues, and I would never negate the depth of her character just because I love her. I don’t “stan” katara, I appreciate her as a character who inspired me as a child for her strength and growth and brilliance, who is stunningly well-written and compelling.

meanwhile, the older I get, the more I’ve come to appreciate sokka. yes, I too was obsessed with katara the moment she came onscreen, especially when she showed the full depth of her anger over sokka’s misogynistic comment. I’d literally never even seen misogyny addressed before, let alone been given permission to be angry with it. katara knows her worth, and that makes her so fucking important!!! and yes, I know what it’s like to raise misogynistic brothers; it’s a thankless job!

katara was immediately inspiring to me, but appreciating sokka and the full depth of his character has been something earned with time. i think it's incredibly easy to misread him, dismiss his underlying motivations, and just generally discard him for the sake of the more exciting and shiny characters (in my case katara, azula, toph, iroh. truly appreciating aang has also been something i needed to grow older to do, but i think the more my maternal instincts develop, the more i want to pinch his baby cheeks and wrap him up in a big hug and kiss his forehead and put him in my pocket... i digress). i have come to forgive sokka for his sexism, and even excuse it. does that mean i think katara isn't in the right to challenge patriarchal ideas? of course she fucking is! just because sokka was deeply misguided in his gender essentialist views for logical reasons (before meeting suki, that is) it's not like katara should excuse him for it. katara has every right to get mad, every time she gets mad, and i love that her anger is treated as a virtue, because it is! her anger is righteous and sympathetic and revolutionary. she is so fucking important.

by "delicate touch" i didn't mean "sokka isn't acting like an airport dad" because i would never deny his grumpiness. sokka can be a massive cunt most of the time, and i love that about him. he is a miserable, neurotic, curmudgeonly little freak, and frankly, that rules. i think we need more teenage jewish grandpa representation always.

^ literally sokka

i think by delicate touch (again, i wrote this post like 3 years ago, i don't even remember writing it) i just meant that as much as he does kvetch, he also knows how to engage them in a way that gets them to do what he wants. when he makes them go to the library, he frames it in their terms, as if he's taking a vacation (frankly, taking a vacation to a library is something i've actually done, and it was awesome, but we all know how their library excursion turned out, so, yknow). or just how the only time he ever actually even reveals like a fraction of his insecurities is in "sokka's master," because as much as he complains, he never actually wants to burden them with his internal problems (which is not why aang bottles up his shit, and i think we all know that). as much as he complains, he also tries as hard as possible to preserve their innocence whenever he can, especially when it comes to aang. he could've been way less indulgent of aang's antics, but he isn't, because he knows how important it is for aang to be a kid despite the enormous loss he's suffered. anyway, since i know how hard it is to wrangle twelve year olds and try to convince them to do something when they'd rather do something else, sokka is fucking jesus on the cross for that, and you can't change my mind.

and by "de facto chief" i don't mean that sokka was the one taking care of the whole tribe. obviously kanna and the other adults were the ones in charge of making sure the community functioned smoothly, because again, sokka was like thirteen, and thirteen years olds are fucking useless. what i meant was that sokka took what hakoda said to heart, and thus considered himself the first and last line of defense should the fire nation ever return. it's not remotely a reach to think sokka was prepared to die for katara, because a) his mother literally did and b) his father all but told him to? maybe he was just trying to placate his kid, because i really doubt hakoda would actually be in favor of letting his son get himself killed, but it's clear that sokka took that to heart in the way in which he prioritizes katara over everything else. also, it's clear that hakoda does respect sokka a lot. he calls him a "great warrior" and a "genius," and it's not in vain, sokka is those things! hakoda sees his son better than he sees himself.

and i would never claim that katara talks about her issues for attention or sympathy from others. that's absurd. anyone who does so is plain wrong. but empathizing with others isn't emotional labor, it's healing for her, it's cathartic. when she talks to haru, jet, zuko, hama, aang, etc. about her trauma, she's doing so from a place of healthy emotion and vulnerability wherein she is exchanging empathy between them, receiving comfort and comforting in return. sokka doesn't know how to do that, which is a shortcoming to be sure, but the fact that katara is so open about her trauma does signify that she never felt a need to bottle it up the way sokka clearly does. (i would argue sokka's arc in the entire "swamp" episode is about the spirits all but taunting him for being so repressed about his trauma, but that's for another post.)

sokka wanted a bag to carry supplies in, not because it was fashionable. he enjoys that the bag matches the belt he got from the earth rumble tournament (he had no intention of purchasing such a belt), but katara is the one who shows an interest in fashion. and to be clear, i'm not saying that sokka would immediately know how and what to forage in unfamiliar terrain; foraging is fucking hard, and that's when you already have any kind of guide. katara is definitely the one buying the groceries, i won't argue that. whenever sokka is in the vicinity of a grocer while wearing blue, they tend to dismiss him with outright hostility, while being much more sympathetic to katara. it's a running joke that throughout the earth kingdom adults are far kinder to katara than to sokka. but this isn't actually an issue when they're hiding out in the fire nation and both disguised in red, curious! i wonder why adults fed imperialist rhetoric their whole life might internalize the idea that a young water tribe girl is harmless whereas a water tribe boy is a threat to be treated with hostility... but yknow, it could also just be vibes. katara does generally have a more pleasant attitude. it could just be that. who can say!

as for "jet," as i've already stated, i don't think the gaang has a leader. but katara does grow to trust sokka's instincts more and more over the course of the show. and sokka only tells katara not to trust jet once he has evidence! he tells her that he beat up a harmless old man, and katara still takes jet's side, even though he's obviously lying. as for aang, i really don't think sokka's instincts not to trust a person who for all intents and purposes should not currently exist and suddenly waltzes into their life while ignoring their current reality are that contrived. katara thinks she's in a story that she is the narrator and hero of (which, metatextually speaking, is true), but sokka thinks he's in a war and is thus suspicious of magical little manic pixie dream boys. and not for nothing, aang does set off the fire nation flare that alerts zuko to the location of their village, so sokka's instincts were actually correct here, even if aang is of course an angel.

and katara calms aang down from the avatar state, what, twice? and once she's literally just talking to him from behind a rock. her act in "the desert" is 100% a testament to her bravery and the unique bond she shares with aang, i'm not denying that whatsoever. sokka simultaneously shields toph in this moment, which granted is far less dangerous than what katara does with aang, but is also a subtle moment that demonstrates the nature of his bond with her (i don't really have a point here, i just love aang & katara and sokka & toph's relationships). i don't remember katara comforting aang for burning her, i just remember her reasonably telling him that he can't let his guilt get in the way of learning firebending, and showing him that she's healed to calm him down. and the comics are stupid, so i'm not even gonna address this point. anyway. sokka does come to trust her to fight her own battles as the show goes on and she gets demonstrably stronger, but he still worries about her whenever she's in trouble, and would do anything to protect her. he's still her big brother.

katara's idealism is inspiring & beautiful & heroic. but yes, it is also naive. that's not even a bad thing! katara fighting to preserve her childhood wonder and innocence in the face of incalculable loss is deeply moving to me. aang and katara show sokka and toph how to become more awe-inspired and vulnerable over the course of the show. sokka never would've suggested a beach party in "sozin's comet" if not for aang and katara's influence. that's growth. but that doesn't mean that katara was right to trust zuko in the crystal catacombs, or that she was right to trust jet, or aunt wu, or hama. i understand why she trusts these people (especially jet and especially hama), and it's hardly a bad thing to see the potential good in everyone, but zuko's betrayal hits her so hard because she had mistakenly put so much faith in him right before he turned around and helped azula kill aang. of course she sees potential in both aang and zuko, though. she's the heart of the show, and they're both mirrors to her character in significant ways. sokka is not a part of this central thematic triad, and he doesn't care that he's in a story, he just wants to make sure that his friends and family don't get murdered. they have different narrative priorities, but katara's are admittedly much prettier.

also, of course sokka wouldn't say he sees himself as a sacrificial lamb. even if he realized this about himself (which i also don't think he does), he wouldn't say it. saying it would negate the entire point. but i do think it's justified by the text. katara clearly carries the guilt of knowing kya died for her, and it's what inspires her to try and be her own mother for herself and her family, and to be the best waterbender in the world. sokka doesn't have that guilt. while katara feels it her duty to remember, to carry on her mother's legacy so that her sacrifice was not in vain, sokka feels it his duty to repress, to tamp down any shred of humanity that is not relevant to the war and to making sure his sister isn't killed for who she is. i don't think it's a reach for him to want to emulate his parents in this regard, since he clearly idealizes them and their bravery in defending their home, their culture, and their family.

no, i don't think sokka acts like a mom or a dad or even a wacky uncle (a grandpa, maybe). my point was to illustrate how neither of them are parents. they may try to emulate their parents in many regards, but they are still both very much kids, who happen have both seen far too much for their years. and katara mourns kya differently (more, as she claims, which i believe to be true) because her death was deeply personal to katara, in a way that it just wasn't for sokka. like i said, sokka represses his trauma. he claims that he thinks about yue all the time, and yet he barely ever talks about her. a defining moment in his life, which is hakoda leaving him behind, is only revealed to us in a flashback that occurs while he's sitting quietly by the fire watching over katara and aang as they sleep. katara's way of mourning kya was to try to become her in her guilt over her sacrifice. do you really think sokka doesn't understand the implications of this?

sure, he dismisses the domestic labor she does, which sucks of him for sure, though i'd argue it's just as much his cerebral stem bro attitude that prioritizes ideas and theory over those little manual tasks as it is straight up sexism. but yeah, it sucks. i know very few men who appreciate the work that goes into those "feminine chores," and it's absolutely because what is categorized as feminine is devalued by society. but yes, i think if the binary established is between "mom" and "servant", sokka sees katara as someone who is simply better at feminine labor, and that's not great of him, but katara does enjoy being feminine, so i understand why he'd make that assumption, seeing as the only thing she doesn't seem to enjoy is doing his laundry for him, which, yknow, checks out. do your own laundry, sokka.

again, katara has a more personal connection to the events surrounding kya's death. it's why her saying "you didn't love her the way i did" is both deeply hurtful, and something she clearly believes to be true. what she really means is, "you didn't grieve her the way i did," and it's because sokka doesn't feel like his very existence was responsible for her death. "the southern raiders" is a deeply personal episode for katara, and zuko is the one who understands her trauma, more intimately than sokka can, because kya did not sacrifice herself for him, but ursa did with zuko.

and yes, katara's seemingly throwaway line about how she's lost her childhood innocence hits really hard. it's why she's so immediately drawn to aang. because she wants to have fun again, but no one is there to encourage her, certainly not her depressed as fuck brother who only cares about being a better warrior. aang and katara inspire each other to preserve their innocence and they get to be kids together, which is what makes their friendship such a beautiful thing.

katara has a lot of skills and roles sokka doesn't. he can't midwife, he can't heal (obviously), he can't shop for groceries in the earth kingdom without being abused by vendors. he could probably cook and sew if he set his mind to it (we never actually see katara clean, but we do see sokka clean appa) but katara seems pretty confident in those areas, so why step on her toes. but sokka also has a lot of skills and roles katara does not. he reads maps, makes schedules, strategizes in battles, helps invent new technology, is able to fight without bending, is able to sense red flags that katara refuses to see, etc etc. they balance each other out, both emotionally and practically. considering that they basically raised each other, and didn't have parents to do things for them, it makes sense that they each have their own skillset, and function as a codependent team.

"the desert" puts her in a new situation to show that she's the group's heart. not just the group's heart, but the show's heart. she is the narrative center. that's what i mean by "the desert" being a trial for katara. it's not that no one else will step up, it's that they can't. aang is in the first stages of experiencing an immense grief, toph is feeling guilty and scared and lost, and sokka's attempt to quench their thirst put him out of commission for the rest of the day (though granted, he was trying to be helpful). katara is always there. she will never give up on people who need her. that's a core tenet of her character, and it is what makes her not only so kind and giving, but also a revolutionary leader. it's why i think she should go on to be chief, because while sokka wants to be like hakoda, he's not actually a warrior at heart, but katara is an inspiration to many, and her connection with people and the way she sees the best in them is what makes her the pride and joy of her people, just as much as her waterbending skill.

toph and katara are both in the wrong in the chase. katara comes from a communal society where everyone pitches in, so she sees toph as a spoiled brat for not helping her. toph came from a family that acted as if she was useless and helpless, so she thinks by letting every member of the group carry their own weight, she is affording them the basic respect her parents did not afford to her. it's a classic miscommunication, which escalates because katara and toph are both very loud, assertive middle schoolers who don't enjoy compromising their beliefs. they eventually do, which we see illustrated in the spa episode. but katara clearly wants to go to the spa and enjoys every second of it, she's just taking toph with her because she thinks toph needs a shower. for the most part, they both have a good time, katara because she enjoys feminine activities and relaxing, toph because she likes mud and spending time with her friends, and both of them because they got to do violence to some mean girls.

aang also gets mad at toph because he's prone to take katara's side in arguments, and also she insults appa, which is the final straw for him, even though toph is fully right about appa's shedding being how azula tracks them. toph leaves because she thought she was joining people who would make her feel respected, but they don't. katara literally mocks toph for being blind. i also got bullied for being disabled when i was their age, and i don't blame toph for not taking that shit. it's downright cruel. iroh helps her adjust her perspective, but ultimately sokka is the one who makes her feel most welcomed and seen, and while she loves katara and aang, it's clear that sokka is her best friend. he's also the only one who doesn't interfere in their fight in "the chase" (because he knows there's no winning against two extremely stubborn, sleep-deprived powerhouses).

katara didn't sacrifice her childhood for the sake of her family, her childhood was robbed from her. there's a crucial difference. she doesn't sacrifice her own emotional needs to comfort others, she engages in fruitful dialogues. the only person she actually sacrifices anything for is aang, you're right, and i do think that's extremely important as an aspect of her character. she believes in the power of the avatar, and she loves aang deeply. it's why if aang is the soul of the show, she is the heart.

zuko isn't a dad to aang, that's just a ridiculous thing to say, sorry. i don't think sokka is a dad to aang either, if anything they're brothers. zuko acts as a brother to aang and katara too. he's their older, grumpy, kind of an airhead, kind of a jerk brother. sort of like sokka 2: electric boogaloo, except unlike sokka, he's a wide-eyed idealist just like they are! idk where i was going with this. my point is i love this trio. lol

you're right to criticize what roach works said, but you were wrong not to specify the target of your criticism. just because someone adds a dumbass comment on my post doesn't mean i endorse it. and just because i make a post appreciating sokka doesn't mean i don't love katara. i mean, i think it should be pretty obvious that i love her a lot. it seems like we grew up in fairly similar circumstances, and while i know what it's like to grow up with a cerebral math bro misogynist brother who gets far more credit for doing far less work and is utterly fucking useless at taking care of himself, that doesn't mean i resent sokka, a fictional character, for whatever commonalities they may share.

katara and sokka are both flawed, multi-dimensional, well-written fictional characters, and i've given a lot of thought to their motivations, nuances, and the unspoken symbolic undertones of their dynamic and its relation to the themes of the narrative. we don't have to agree on what every unspoken detail signifies, but i don't appreciate being misinterpreted, and i especially don't appreciate the implication that i don't love katara, because i absolutely fucking do, with my whole heart, and anyone can see that. she means a lot to me!!! her virtues, her strengths, her flaws, and her failures. she doesn't have to be perfect to be amazing. in fact, if she were perfect, i doubt she'd be amazing at all.

#analysis #katara #sokka #katara&sokka #aang&katara #katara&zuko #might turn a lot of these points into longer analyses eventually #since this is really scattered considering it's just a response to a response to a response of some annoying mf #who loves leaving annoying ass comments on my posts #pour one out......#(to be clear im talking abt the roach guy. not the biscuit guy)#literally read this reply at 7 am and then spent the next 4.5 hours responding to it????? procrastination is a hell of a drug.......#also being-right-itis. which i do need to be cured of. but not today!!!!!!#anyway im putting this under the cut so hopefully no one sees this and takes it as incentive to harass this person???? which shouldnt need #to be said but i do have way too many followers on here statistically speaking some of u MUST be freaks #sigh.#anyway i hate how widespread the term headcanon is even when what ppl really mean in that context is 'interpretation'#headcanon =/= interpretation #and anyway it seems like we mostly agree #so i think this convo should end here on a cordial note in which we agree on most things and agree to disagree on notes of interpretation #because otherwise we're just going in circles #and there's really no point to that

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theneighborhoodwatch · 1 year

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Sorry for mentally ill thoughts this evening but I've always wondered how this is going to end. To me, welcome home has been a story about changing. And because of a certain music artist's album and WHs popularity being around the same time, I can't let go of my interpretation of what change will look like at the end of this project. (1/?)

(2/?) I've always found what characters a fandom gets attached to QUICKLY to be a marker of what a story is going to do with these characters and what metatexually that is gonna mean for the story...

Let's start with the big one: Wally himself. THIS GUY HAS SO many interpretations! He is simultaneously the most dangerous and fascinating character out of all of them. To analyze him (and some of the neighbors I'll talk about) I used tarot cards, btw I'm @pretty-in-possible but this is my reblog alt

Wally was Judgement which is intresting because its definition includes

When The judgement is in the upright position, it represents the realization of one's calling, realistic thinking and gaining a deep understanding of life through self-examination.

(3/?) When reversed, it can represent refusal of self-examination and growth, self-doubt, regret, and blame. In my eyes, change and (what I think will happen to the puppets) transformation is only possible with that kind of thought. Which, coupled with your own analysis of wally and home spells as disaster. Whats particularly affecting MY brainworms is Barnaby. His card is the Magician: The Magician is an artisan and the ideas person. It is a very action oriented card. It represents learning and using knowledge in creative and unorthodox ways, and seizing the day by displaying resourcefulness. Barnaby is definitely an open-minded person just with his behavior shown through just visuals.

(4/?) I am also invested in his pipe which I know just has bubbles in it, but it adds to this stoner read to his character that *I* see??? There is just something about him that tells me he will have the easiest time with this Existential crisis as to him (based of the tarot reading) this knowledge is incredibly freeing, cuz it would just mean there is More in the World to Discover. In my experience reading past life regression therapy testimonies, I've heard of how some people encounter this place in the afterlife people under hypnosis describe as a soul cleansing, a place where gem-colored rays of light shine through every inch of your soul, cleansing your spirit of the trauma it had experienced during your last lifetime. And I feel like Barnaby will experience those same feelings (NOT THE SAME PROCESS). (I might ramble more about this later, in ask box or in dms if thats okkkk)

my sincerest apologies for sitting so long on this one, i wanted to make sure i had time to really, like. sit down and Process it. and then shortly after i started writing this response i got food poisoning so. lol.

because of of how in-depth this ask gets, i wouldn't feel right neglecting any part of it, so i'm just gonna write down my thoughts bullet by bullet as i go through this. under the cut for convenience:

how welcome home is going to end .... obviously, i cannot offer anything conclusive right now (if i can offer anything at all) given how early we are, but i have always had the vague impression that whatever the ending of this story is, we as the audience may never be able to see all of it. it feels like so much has been given to us already. i assume we will be given much more, regardless of how willing to give or receive anyone involved is. we owe it to our neighbors to let them decide which parts to give and which to keep, at the end of the day. i think that's the best way i can phrase it. but as always, only time will tell.

agree about Change likely being a big part of welcome home, whichever form it takes.

I WOULD VERY MUCH LIKE TO KNOW THE NAME OF THIS ARTIST. i am Dreadfully unfamiliar with a lot of 70s musicians outside of the biggest names - my first thought was either connie converse or daniel johnston, but iirc most of converse's music was recorded in the 50s-60s and johnston only started recording music in the late 70s. i don't know if bruce haack was ever super popular back when he was actually making music.

the idea of which characters fandom gets attached to being indicative of what canon does with them...? i'm not so sure about this one, honestly. fandom can get attached to a stale piece of toast that shows up for a single scene if so desired (which, for the record, isn't a bad thing.) of course, i say that based off of my own experiences, but fan reception has never really been a Factor in speculation for me either way.

calling wally dangerous doesn't feel inaccurate, but i think it's more like. i do not think he is inherently dangerous but he absolutely has the Capacity to do dangerous things. i think it is interesting that despite this (or perhaps because of it?) he appears to be more vulnerable with us than he Ever was with the other neighbors? but a.) that may not be saying much and b.) it is Also largely rooted in speculation + the fact that home and the audience are currently the Only two entities wally has been seen interacting with directly, as opposed to his interactions/relationships with other neighbors that have so far only been briefly described by the WHRP or showcased in brief snippets of concept art.

grinning so so so wide at the judgement/inverted judgement descriptions. i wish i had more to say but i'm having a hard time coming up with something that isn't just pointing to the inverted judgement description and going "yeah that's almost Exactly what i'm getting from wally so far."

again, agree about the possibility of Change playing some kind of role here, eventually - more specifically the fear of change even when it may prove to be beneficial, whether that be on wally's part or the neighbors' or the WHRP's or the staff's or the audience's or even the very setting of home itself. i imagine some grotesque hodgepodge of all of the above. something something points to that post i reblogged about sitcoms as horror.

context for the aforementioned wally and home analysis for anyone reading: 1, 2, 3

BARNABY, HUH... for the record my personal hc regarding his pipe is that whatever's in it changes depending on what would be the funniest answer at any given moment. if tobacco is funnier, then it's tobacco. if bubbles are funnier, then it's bubbles. looney tunes logic.

on a more serious note: i'm a little worried i won't have much to say about barnaby that i haven't said already! i think it may be too early to discern the Specifics of his personality from website art/descriptions alone but i do get the distinct impression that he's meant to be a lot more down to earth than wally, which of course is an interesting contrast to the nature of wally's whole [gestures vaguely] Everything. from this, i think it is Reasonable to assume that he's also a lot better at rolling with the punches as well, although i never did consider the possibility that learning about The Bullshit would be liberating for him, in a sense - i don't know about it being a cleansing experience, unless you count the recontextualization of things that didn't previously make sense as a sort of cleansing in itself, in which case it could absolutely be that. something about the parallels to cosmic horror... the relationship between the Fear of change and the Catharsis of change...

oh, but wouldn't this also put him at odds with wally, who seems to be on the Exact Opposite End Of The Spectrum, even when they understand each other like no other? Much To Think About... very exciting potential for Conflict there.

i'm cool with whichever method works best for you if you wanna talk more in the future! my dms are open too lol.

#ask #its ya gay boi luigi #welcome home #wh speculation

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monty-glasses-roxy · 8 months

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(sorry in advance, this might get long) Not to play devil’s advocate or anything, but Roxy DOES display a LOT of narcissism symptoms, just not where the ‘say anything you don’t like is narcissism or gaslighting’ kiddie fans like to say. The Gregory stuff is pretty much irrelevant for a lot of already mentioned reasons, but people discount the possibility of NPD going “no no no poor sweet little bean just has bad self esteem!” and

OKAY.

So I have TWO responses to this! Bare with me here. The second one goes more into the traits you're talking about, so stick with me.

For the first one, I'm going to focus on your first ask, where you say that Roxy does show traits of covert narcissism. If this is in response to the post I reblogged about how some fans continue to call her a narcissistic bully (obviously using the term narcissistic wrong as is typical), then you have missed the point entirely. I apologise if I come across as aggressive here, my intention is to be as clear as physically possible.

What we were not complaining about her being labelled as a horrible person. We are not complaining about her potentially being a narcissist in the way you've described. We are not complaining about people criticising her. We are not complaining about people just not liking her.

The whole point of the post, was that we were annoyed by the hypocrisy. The point was about the double standards in a large chunk of fandom spaces.

You're right! Narcissism is used as a catch-all for someone people (not just 'kiddie fans') don't like and want to hate on, when that's not what narcissism is! But that's not the point we were making. Let me give you some examples of what we meant.

Whether you believe it or not, it's widely theorised that Monty killed Bonnie. It's a common interpretation that he killed Bonnie to take his place in the band, and to get the spotlight all to himself, with his sights now being set on Freddy himself. These fans often say that he did this regardless of the virus effecting everyone, and got more aggressive under its influence.

Now, these same fans, see Roxy. She tells Gregory that he has no friends. She calls him nothing, a loser and that she's better than him. She talks to herself in the mirror to boost her ego, and compliments herself fairly regularly throughout Security Breach while she is under the influence of the virus that changes their behaviour.

Many of these fans, adore Monty. They love him despite what he's done. They find him interesting, with more character depth than meets the eye, and ship him with the rest of the male cast liberally. He's UwU'd and a himbo and they love him as their poor little meow meow.

However, this is not the case with Roxy.

To many of these fans, she is awful. She's irredeemable and deserves everything she got. She's the worst character in the game. She only likes Cassie because Cassie is a big fan of hers and idolises her. She's nothing but an arrogant, self-centred, bitch, with the word narcissistic used incorrectly to encapsulate all of this.

Do you see the difference?

This was the point of the post. And please don't come at me saying not all Monty fans are like that, I know that already. To say that to me would also be missing the point.

The point is that, if you swapped the two over, and Monty did exactly what Roxy did in the game, while Roxy did exactly what Monty did... The results wouldn't change. Monty would still be their complicated, deep and meaningful character to thirst over and adore, and Roxy would still be the worst person you've ever met because how dare she kill Bonnie? That's irredeemably awful!

This is what we were complaining about. It doesn't matter what words are used, it's the fact that they're used by some fans to villainise her, and not anyone else. We were complaining about how Roxy can't be mean without being hated, virus or no virus, there is no excuse for being mean, unless you're a hot guy everyone likes and it adds to your hot guy character. It's not just Monty either, he was just the best example I could think of off hand. If Moon, Freddy, Sunny, DJ, Bonnie or even Foxy said the exact same things as Roxy, and acted in the exact same way, they would also be loved and adored for it, while Roxy is hated.

I'm going to say this one more time for those still missing the point, I am not saying everyone does this. I know not everyone does this. What I'm saying applies only to those that do this. This is just a common way to interpret these characters in a handful of corners of this fandom, and it's part of a wider problem you see in a lot of other fandoms as well. We are annoyed by the hypocrisy of how some characters are betrayed compared to others. The wording used is a separate issue, to the intention behind them.

I am not aiming to call anyone out with this. I am not aiming to start drama either. That is not the intention of any of this. We are talking about what we've observed and how we feel about it. This is not intended as an attack on anyone, or saying you shouldn't like your favourites or any other bad faith read you can make of this. We were complaing about what we've seen and how we feel about it. That is all.

And this is the last time I am clarifying that discussion. I apologise if this all comes across as rude or aggressive, I'm just trying to make myself as clear as physically possible. This being the second time I've clarified it, feels enough to me. I'm open to discuss some of this, but honestly, this isn't what I want to continue spending my night on, so if anyone wants to talk about this stuff, the responses may be slow. Got other, more fun stuff to talk about, ya know?

NOW the SECOND response is more relevant to the rest of what you said.

You're absolutely right! You could attribute her traits to the covert narcissism that you've described! I've never said she can't be and I love the fact that you've drawn these connections with some level of understanding of it! I've only seen one other person describe Roxy as a narcissist that didn't use it as a way of saying she's awful and I love that! You might be the same person as that other anon, I can't really tell, but just know that I appreciate you telling me about your interpretation with actual information on narcissism!! I may not see her as such (for reasons to follow), but it's really interesting when people portray her differently to me, and can actually back up assigning her a label like that!!

I'll say my interpretation of her is different to what you've described, and I can elaborate on how I read and portray her any time you like but this post is already long so I'll save it for another time. We're different people, so of course we have different interpretations, that's what makes talking about a character interesting! This isn't the only reason I wouldn't describe Roxy as NPD though.

I will not say that she has NPD, and I will not argue the idea of her having it with someone that can tell me about it like you have. This is because I don't know enough about NPD to draw a conclusion like that. I don't have anywhere near enough information on actual narcissism to draw any kind of connections to anything. My understanding pretty much starts and ends with 'low empathy', and how people are constantly misusing the term by applying it to everyone they don't like, or people that are just kinda mean. As such, I'm just not in a position to use the term to describe a character at all.

I can research it of course, but until then, rest assured, I will not be describing anyone as such, fictional or otherwise. I have no plans to research it for the time being in case you were wondering on that one, so this isn't likely to change any time soon. I'm just not educated enough on the topic to confidently write Roxy as a narcissist. If people read my version of her as such, then that's great! But I will not go into a discussion on Roxy's character and refer to her as anything specific unless I know what I'm talking about. Based on what you've said, my version of her woudn't line up with NPD that much anyway, so it's likely not going to be a conversation I'll need to be having very often after this.

By all means, if you know what you're talking about or are willing to research and learn about it? Don't let me or anyone else stop you from reading Roxy as a covert narcissist! If that's something you wish to explore in her character then you do it buddy!! I'd love to hear about it!

I just can't really have a strong opinion on something I'm not educated on. I take no issue in people calling her a narcissist in the context you have described. I don't get involved in the conversations surrounding the misuse of the word as a general descriptor of every negative trait ever, as I don't have the knowledge to properly engage in that kind of discussion. So if you did talk about this more with me, I'm afraid I couldn't really offer you much but my own interpretation in return. Would still love to hear about it though if this is something you're familiar with and are interested in though, that's the takeaway here. I may not have all the information, but I can still appreciate someone trying to properly portray it, right?

And those are my two responses!

Tl;dr:

Response 1: If this was your takeaway from the reblogged post about people hating Roxy, you've missed the point. We're annoyed by the double standards between how she's seen as awful, whereas others are praised for doing arguably much worse things than her.

Response 2: YEAH!!! YOU HEADCANON HER AS A COVERT NARCISSIST IF YOU WANT TO AND KNOW ENOUGH ABOUT IT TO DO SO COMFORTABLY!!! YOU DO YOU!!! ENJOY YOURSELF AND DON'T LET ANYONE ELSE STOP YOU!!! I can't really have a big long discussion about Roxy displaying those traits though, because I don't have the knowledge to do so. Can still enjoy people talking about it though.

#do I tag this as discourse?#someone let me know if I should cause I dunno #but yeah in terms of the first one... this is the last I'm clarifying this.#I am putting this down and stepping away #there's only so much I can explain it for people ya know? I'm walking away before it starts to drain on me #anyways more positively #if you see her as a covert narcissist and you actually know what it is then I support you one hundred percent!#the more you know about it the more I support you!#we don't need to agree she has it to enjoy the conversation on Roxy's character!#and I'm going to do some other stuff now #expect your regularly scheduled nonsense soon!#pop rox answers

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cellard0ors · 2 years

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So @starsarebleeding was kind enough to reblog my latest chapter of 'The Cards We Are Dealt' and mentioned in the tags not being entirely sold on the couple of Travis/Laura and I decided to write why I'm into it (besides the fact that some anti @ me, so I started out of spite 🤣)

I think the reason I dig it, is it's all based on choices.

Now, granted, the problem with watching gameplay vids on YouTube is, technically, there are about a thousand choices you can make within the game that will give you different dialogue, actions, consequences, etc and most of the vids I've seen have made choices I wouldn't have.

But the fact they are there can lead you down a lot of different paths narratively and Laura's story is very much wrapped up within Travis's and vice versa.

Yes, this is also true for Max, but while I liked Max okay, he came across to me as more of a window dressing character than anything.

He's the true damsel in distress who Laura has to protect and save - he adds to her character, but in doing so lacks depth.

Travis, on the other hand, has A LOT going on. He's trying to do his best, but is really awful at it. He's covering for his family's crimes and it's highly suggested it's not out of love, so much as duty, which, to me, is an interesting take on supporting your 'loved' ones.

Laura and Travis's interactions (again, depending on your choices) are unique, because Travis has no real reason to confide anything to Laura, yet he does the night she loses her eye and drinks next to her cell.

It's in no way healthy, but that's the scene that really sold me, because it showed how lonely Travis was and what a low point he reached and while Laura doesn't necessarily console him, she does listen and I don't think anyone has done that for him in a long time.

Granted, you can choose to have Laura be a real bitch here and that's just one of many things that might lead Travis to kill her later or trap her or whatever, but technically, if you simply go a pretty decent route, this man will back you up even if you murder his whole family, so?

I don't know, this isn't coming out as thoughtful as I would like (I'm at work writing this and am too impatient to wait and construct something better) but my main point is, with the way I played the game the first time and the choices I made, I could see why Travis and Laura are shippable.

As for the age thing - I mean, she's an adult and age gaps happen in real life all the time between two adults and they make it work. I don't judge them, so, not going to judge fictional characters.

In conclusion, I was just touched that my oldest online friend reblogged my fic 🤣😍🥰

#travis x laura #hackearney #cellar rants

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daybreakx · 2 years

Text

✑ pairing: bodyguard! hwiyoung x fem! reader.

✑ genre: enemies to lovers, angst, fluff, slow burn.

✑ warnings for this part: minor car accident, blood, mentions of murder, fighting, break ups, guns, politics(?). lmk if i missed any! hyphens (–) and asterisks (✳︎) are used to separate paragraphs since tumblr won’t let me add the proper space.

✑ word count: 5.6k (sorryyy I won’t make the next parts this long)

✑ a/n: i know this is a very long shot, but i hope you enjoy this fic as much as i am enjoying writing it. very special thanks to @itsjeonghananon who puts up with me, my rambles, and my google docs shenanigans and read this before anyone else!♡ also please spare a reblog for this poor content creator. thanks!

membership holders: @milkybonya @pinutbutterjelly @kristyxoxo @naminalati @lolalee24♡

ALL IT TOOK to get Hwiyoung in your life was a dent in your car. Well, to be fair it was a little bit more than a dent in your car, but at least it hadn’t been totaled.

And it hadn’t been your fault.

Some ass ran the red light, crashed into the passenger side of your beautiful BMW, dragging you to the other side of the street and then, had the audacity to run away. It sounds worse than it was, really. Of course your dad obsessed about it though, thinking someone had done it on purpose because you were his daughter.

Senator y/ln’s—and future Governor y/ln— daughter, had obviously become a target. Took long enough, a couple months of campaign and a few years being a Senator. It didn’t matter how many times you told him it had been an accident. It was raining and the stupid driver hadn’t seen the light changing to red, they’d gotten scared once they realized what type of car was now embedded in the opposite corner of the street and therefore, ran away so as to not to pay for the damage.

You didn’t need a bodyguard, or more like a babysitter. You were old enough to take care of yourself and it had been one accident.

But no, since a few days ago and probably until forever, you were stuck with Hwiyoung 24/7.

“Please do not take that with you,” you requested, trying to input as much authority as you could muster into your voice while giving a pointed look to Hwiyoung’s gun holster, under his suit jacket.

“I have to.” Hwiyoung replied, in that it’s-so-obvious tone he gave you almost every time he talked to you. Which wasn’t very often.

From the moment he met you, Hwiyoung seemed to have already made up his mind about you. So all he’d said was his name and how he would take ‘really good care’ of you, this being mostly directed at your dad, because he gave him the job and it was Hwiyoung’s duty to keep it now.

“No, you don’t,” you insisted, pointing to the gun directly with your right hand. The one that wasn’t wrapped up in a black brace, still from the car thing. “Leave it.”

“No.” Hwiyoung’s upper lip twitched slightly in annoyance. You two held this discussion every single day before you left the house. “Are you ready to go–” he seemed to dig the word out of the depths of his throat before letting it out. “Miss?”

Hwiyoung had taken the job because he needed it, not because he wanted it. He needed to get out of Chanhee’s apartment, to stop sleeping on his couch and taking on the underground fighting challenges anyone threw his way just to be able to ‘help a little’ with the rent.

He’d hit rock bottom six months before. Lost his job, his girlfriend and his pride. Former detective Kim Hwiyoung had fucked up, after the system let one of the animals he took so much pride in chasing, walk free after murdering his whole family. Hwiyoung had lost it although it wasn’t the first time it happened, that they let a man live without consequence. But he’d almost jumped the accused in court, it had taken three officials to hold him back and then he’d been suspended.

Hwiyoung became angry, disobedient and to be honest, slightly violent. And after three reports for insubordination, a gunshot wound that kept him in the hospital for two weeks and his partner begging for another person—anyone really— to take Hwiyoung’s place, they gave him the boot.

Iseul left him when the underground fighting started. She couldn’t and didn’t have to put up with him. Yes, she loved him and she’d said so even as she left the promise ring he gifted her on their third anniversary on the kitchen table. No screaming, no fighting, nothing from either side.

Hwiyoung sometimes thought he should have fought. Or better yet, begged. Begged her not to leave him, promised that he would change and stop coming home with bloody knuckles, slashed eyebrows and busted lips. But he didn’t, because he knew he wouldn't keep the promise longer than a week.

–

“Not until you leave that,” you pressed. “Now.”

“I’ve already said no,” he ran two fingers through his black hair, something he did every time he was starting to get pissed. Opening the SUV’s door, he signaled inside. “You don’t want to be late.”

You didn’t want to be late, no. But you didn’t want him carrying a gun around not ever. It made you anxious and frankly, he wouldn’t need it. What exactly was he keeping you safe from? Nothing suspicious had happened to you before the car accident, so Hwiyoung’s presence was useless. It would have sufficed with a chauffeur, not a bodyguard.

You cringed to yourself the moment the thought crossed your mind.

Spoiled brat.

Not that you acted like that usually, but you knew it still would come across wrong.

Hwiyoung looked at you through the rearview mirror, like he’d guessed what you thought and agreed with you. So you looked away, emphasizing the scowl on your lips as he left the house’s garage.

“Oh, he’s so handsome!” your friend gushed, leaning over the mimosa on her side of the table one inch away from spilling it all over.

“Eh,” you replied, shrugging. You knew exactly what she was looking at, or who. Hwiyoung a few tables away, already on his fourth cup of coffee, looking around the restaurant and letting his gaze fall over the two of you exactly every two minutes. “I guess so.”

“You guess so?” Aya raised her eyebrows, grabbing the mimosa and sipping it. “Girl he’s literally—”

“Don’t, please.”

You’d heard it once, so you heard it a thousand times. Every place you went to, everyone spoke about how tall and handsome Hwiyoung had to watch your back, and that had to be some sort of lucky strike. Having to hang out with someone like that must be amazing.

Only it wasn’t. But it didn’t matter that you said Hwiyoung was bitter and lowkey rude, everyone in their right mind could overlook that, focusing only on the stray strand of black hair that fell in the middle of his forehead, his dark eyes and broad shoulders, his figure accentuated by the black suit he wore per your father’s orders.

“Fine,” Aya made a scene of capturing her lower lip as she pronounced the ‘f’. “But he is.”

A glare from you and a laugh on her part and Hwiyoung was back at staring at the two of you.

“Whatever, really.” you sipped your own mimosa, glad that since the weekend was approaching Hwiyoung and you could take a break from each other. Or as much a break that living in the same property allowed.

✳︎ ✳︎ ✳︎

Hwiyoung was back on Chanhee’s couch on Friday night. At least this time it wasn’t out of need, he just wanted to hang out with his friend. Okay, honestly he needed to hang out with his best friend.

“So,” Chanhee started, leaving a newly opened bottle of beer right next to the one Hwiyoung had just emptied. “Tough week at work?”

Hwiyoung groaned, his lips on the new brown bottle already.

“I’ll take that as a yes,”

“She’s a princess. It’s—” gross? exhausting? his only damned chance at getting back on his feet and that’s why he hated it?

But there was also the fact that he did think of you as a princess. All he’d done all week was follow you around brunch dates with noisy—and nosy— friends, shopping, public events where your main task was to smile and wave and pose for photographs next to your father.

At least now he had a house, or something like it. A one-bedroom-and-kitchen-mini-thing on the oh so prestigious y/ln realm. At least he had a salary which he got paid by the week, meaning he paid off his debt to Chanhee the moment he showed up at the apartment that night.

So yeah, after being a Homicides Detective he was taking care of a spoiled brat, Iseul wouldn’t talk to him and he still felt like he would go crazy from time to time. But at least he wasn’t sleeping on a couch anymore.

And the fighting had stopped. Although he didn’t want it to, it was a release every time he was in that filthy, illegal ring. But he couldn’t afford to go to work looking like he’d taken (and given) a beating.

“They’re the new royalty, that family,” Chani said plopping down next to him on the couch. “But at least you’re getting paid.”

Hwiyoung rolled his eyes. It was true, his boss was the soon to be king of the city and of course the daughter would be the princess. Both of them already believed themselves in that role, what could be different once it was made official? Senator y/ln had everyone in his pocket already.

“Not enough,” he said bitterly, gulping the beer down and suddenly really, really missing being in the ring, getting his hands dirty.

THE DINNER PARTY was going to take place at the Crown Hotel’s main ballroom. One of the last ones your dad offered as the campaign closing approached. Everything and anything to thank his team and supporters. And of course you had to attend. Because voters loved seeing a happy family and a faithful daughter supporting her father on his way to (even greater) success. So there you were on a warm Friday night, in a dress far more expensive than needed be, sitting next to your father while he spoke to whomever he deemed important to assure him a win in the election.

Your father was a good person, and he loved you, of course. Otherwise he wouldn’t have forced you to keep Hwiyoung by your side for two months now. Hwiyoung, who looked bored out of his mind as he stood in the corners of the room, switching positions with the rest of the security team every few minutes so they all could have a look around and probably not fall asleep on the post.

But your father was also ambitious and sometimes appearances mattered to him more than they should. And he didn’t care that sometimes instead of his daughter, you were his tool. Because young people could feel related to you, and you looked delighted in every picture the press took of you and the way you looked didn’t hurt either. It was a running joke—one you abhorred—that you were the visual attraction of the campaign, and that your father got requests for your hand in marriage very often.

You could only hope that his ambition didn’t cloud his judgment enough to actually sell his own daughter out.

“I think I should go home,” you whispered to your father, as the ballroom started to clear out. Only the very important people would remain behind and the politics discussions that would take place were not of your interest. Plus, you had to be up early the next day.

Your father squeezed your arm gently, thanking you for joining him before placing a kiss on your cheek. “Make sure Kim calls when you get home safely,”

You nodded. “Good luck.”

A signal from your father’s hand and Hwiyoung was on the move, ready to escort you back to the car. He didn’t say a word, but that wasn’t unusual. After two months on the job, you were used to him only speaking when necessary, his range going from ‘yes, miss’ ‘no, miss’ and ‘ok’.

You walked behind Hwiyoung to the underground parking lot, holding the lower part of your dress so as not to trip while the voices of your father’s team became more distorted with the distance. Arriving at the lobby, you were met by a crowd of photographers, the hotel’s security struggling to make them leave and stop disturbing the rest of the guests.

You smiled at them politely as Hwiyoung parted the crowd, lips curling when reporters got too close or too loud, shouting questions on what you were going to do if your father became the Governor, or how you were going to spend his (and the city’s) money. You made no reply, there had been worse things shouted at you and written about you in the papers. Including the exaggeration of the accident where they said you totaled the BMW, but didn’t care because daddy would buy you a new one in the blink of an eye.

Finally, you got rid of them as you took the elevator to the parking lot. Sighing you let yourself rest against the cool railing in the back of the cube, you were exhausted. Hwiyoung looked at you over his shoulder, his eyes becoming smaller as he took in your tiredness, he was judging you.

“Did I do something to offend you?” you questioned as he opened the door of the SUV. Your BMW was good as new now, but on nights like these you still used the SUVs for security reasons. “Hwiyoung?”

His eyes, lost somewhere behind you as he held the door open, focused on you. “Why would you ask that, miss?”

“Well, you seem to dislike me more than usual tonight. Did I do something to offend you on this fine, and extremely busy workday?” you made sure your words dripped sarcasm, and remained with your feet on the greasy parking lot floor.

“Is this fun for you? Provoking your employees?” Hwiyoung scowled.

“Only when my employees hate their job yet for some reason won’t quit.”

Hwiyoung was losing his patience, and it was very likely that, if he hadn't been interrupted by the car that was directing its headlights at the two of you, you would have kicked him out of the job. He bit the words threatening to spill back, squinting at the car to get a look at the driver, but it was impossible.

“Please get in,” he said then, not liking the way the lights were still focused on you.

“Fine.”

You’re both inside in ten seconds, Hwiyoung turned the car on, its own headlights making it impossible to distinguish the car that was watching you as it leaves the parking lot before you.

“I can tell that you hate me,” you were watching him through the rearview mirror, noticing his grip on the steering wheel tightening at your words. “Your mind was made up even before your first day in this job, and I guess mine is made up now. So just do your job and try not to look so fucking bitter to have me around.”

Hwiyoung didn’t talk back, biting the inside of his cheek hard enough to draw blood. The metallic taste was the only thing that kept him focused on the way to your house as he avoided meeting your penetrating gaze in the mirror.

“You’re spoiled,” he said after you had descended from the van and he’d shut the door with enough force to make the windows rumble. “You act like your life is difficult when all you have to do is smile and wave while looking pretty.”

“You’re right, I look damn good doing it,” you retorted, a dismissive gesture from your hand accompanying your words as you walked to the exit of the garage. “It’s kind of disappointing you couldn’t find a more original reason to hate me, Hwiyoung. I guess you’re as bright as they come.”

The insult stung, but he didn’t want to dig his grave deeper, so Hwiyoung gritted his teeth and stalked on the opposite direction you did, towards his stupid guest house.

IT WAS THE MONEY. It was obvious now, the reason Hwiyoung stayed under your father’s orders and in charge of your protection was the money. Once you realized that, it would be easier to deal with him, or so you thought.

“We’re not going to have this discussion again,” Hwiyoung warned the moment he noticed the way you were eyeing the gun on his side.

“Leave it,” you said all the same.

“No,”

You took a deep breath, looking at your watch. “I’ll double this week’s payment if you leave the gun today.”

Hwiyoung stopped to consider. Well, money was never enough. He could eventually use it to, what? Move away? Get a motorcycle? He wasn’t stupid enough to think money would bring Iseul back.

Iseul whom he missed most in the world and—

“Yes or no,” you stopped his train of thought in a second, making his attention return fully. “Simple question.”

“Fine,” Hwiyoung unfastened the holster tightened in the middle of his abdomen, before running back to his room to put it in the safe. All he would probably have to deal with were nosy reporters and your equally rich friends, he wouldn’t need the gun, and he was able to handle himself pretty well without it either way.

You were already inside the van when he came back, pressuring him to hurry up the moment he opened the driver’s door.

Hwiyoung took a deep breath. Maybe if he had enough money he wouldn’t move away. He would just quit, like you’d suggested the night at the hotel, a couple weeks back.

“Please follow the GPS route I sent to your cell,” you indicated, your mood completely shifted due the lack of argument. See, things could go peacefully with Hwiyoung if he just listened.

“Sure, miss.” he replied, not even bothering to stare at you from the mirror this time.

✳︎ ✳︎ ✳︎

You stared at Hwiyoung for a long moment once you got out of the car. The BMW obviously stood out in the street, but you knew it was safe to leave it there, you’d come here a hundred times before.

“What?” he asked, opening his jacket to show you once again he wasn’t carrying a weapon. Which, to be honest was a lie, he had a pocket knife on the inside of the jacket.

“Nothing. Let’s go,” you signaled the gray building down the street where you’d parked, making your way towards it without making sure Hwiyoung followed.

Hwiyoung looked around, already expecting the reporters around. He had figured since he saw the address on his phone that this was another one of your incredibly important PR stunts where the princess of the city needed to be accessible and a saint at the same time.

You glanced at him one last time before knocking on the door of the orphanage. Hwiyoung rolled his eyes behind you, if you asked him to take pictures of you himself…

“Oh, hi y/n!” a woman in her late forties chirped as soon as she opened the door, “It’s great to see you.”

“Hi,” you smiled gently at her too, “I’m sorry for taking so long to come back, I had a couple issues and… well, nevermind.”

“We still got everything you sent, thank you,” the woman squeezed your shoulder in a friendly gesture before fixing her eyes on your companion. “Hwang Narae,” she offered her hand.

Hwiyoung looked at you first but since you didn’t immediately say he was your employee, he took the woman’s hand. “Hwiyoung.”

A little girl popped her head from behind the woman’s legs, looking at Hwiyoung first since they were still shaking hands and then at you. “y/n!” her scream was piercing as she pushed both Narae and Hwiyoung out of the way to hug your legs.

“Hi Bora!”

Hwiyoung couldn’t help but frown as you lifted the small girl in your arms, her already speaking about everything you had missed in the month you hadn’t visited the place. Everyone seemed so familiar with you, it was strange. They all seemed to ignore your last name. He looked around again, expecting the reporters to come walking down the street already taking pictures before you disappeared inside. But they never came.

You spent the morning reading to kids who stared at him suspiciously, before whispering in your ear and asking who he was. Your answer every time being ‘a friend who watches my back’.

Hwiyoung stood back most of the time, only moving when a new volunteer arrived. He stared at them from afar and then returned his attention back to you as you let kids braid your hair and show you drawings.

“Would it bother you to read for them with me?” you asked, showing him a book with a couple of bears on the cover. “They want a boy in the boy voice, I am offended, to be honest.”

Hwiyoung suppressed a smile as the kids looked at the both of you. “Why don’t you ask another volunteer? I have to keep my attention on–”

You frowned, there was only one other male volunteer and he honestly gave you the creeps a lot of the time. But Narae said he was good at fixing broken things, that's why he kept coming. “It will take ten minutes, Hwiyoung. And I really don’t want to ask someone else.”

“Fine,” he eyed the kids and nodded. “Let’s do it.”

Hwiyoung and you read some stories to the kids, taking turns at making the voices. Hwiyoung was trying his best not to burst out laughing every time you exaggerated your voice and kids asked him several times to read his with more enthusiasm, but in the end it turned out well.

It was a brief moment as you closed the book and sent the kids to get ready for their lunch, that Hwiyoung thought you weren’t that bad. Everyone knew you and appreciated you, knowing you were there to help without looking for anything in return, not even publicity. You were still stuck-up, annoying and spoiled, but maybe not all of you was like that.

Narae approached quickly, a hand to her mouth while another volunteer led the kids to the dining room.

“What’s wrong?” Hwiyoung asked, noticing the tension in her demeanor.

“Um, something happened— the car—”

Hwiyoung told you to wait inside while he ran out to the street. He could hear the alarm as he ran to the car, and for a moment, he really wished he had a gun. Someone had tried and practically succeeded to destroy your precious BMW. All the windows were broken, the windshield caved towards the inside and the headlights completely shattered. But not even that was the worst part.

The worst part was the word ‘WHORE’ keyed on the driver’s door.

IT WAS USELESS to try and convince your father that nothing was happening. Especially when Narae had called the police before you could advise her against it and Hwiyoung needed to call the rest of the security team to pick you up, and they had realized he didn’t have his gun.

So all hell broke loose in 20 minutes and it continued on to the evening, when your father losing his mind again, yelled at everyone on sight, taking a great amount of time on Hwiyoung himself.

“What if the freak had still been around huh?” your father’s hand came down on the table, hard enough to make you flinch, even as you listened from upstairs. But Hwiyoung didn’t even flinch, he had been on your father’s side of the table countless times before at his old job. He wasn’t easily intimidated. “You couldn’t have done anything to protect my daughter, because you thought it a good a idea to leave your fucking gun!”

You had explained it had been your idea the moment the rest of the security team realized Hwiyoung was unarmed. You didn’t want a gun around children, this wasn’t supposed to happen and Hwiyoung didn’t have to take the blame for anything.

But everyone refused to listen to you.

“I should fire you right now!” another hit on the table, “You can’t even do your job right!”

Hwiyoung remained silent. He had given his version too, saying you were absolutely right about not wanting a weapon in the orphanage and added that he had a pocket knife anyway, but it didn’t matter. According to everyone you could have gotten killed and he was useless.

“Get out of my sight,” your father finally lowered his voice, “I don’t have time to deal with you right now. But don’t get too comfortable, you might still be out of here by tomorrow.”

Hwiyoung nodded calmly, yet as he kept his hands inside his pockets, they turned into fists.

✳︎ ✳︎ ✳︎

HWIYOUNG TOOK THE hit directly to the jaw, his bare back hitting the dirt with a thud. One side of the crowd cheered while the other half booed, a few voices louder than the rest encouraged him to get up. They had bet a lot of money on him, and he was letting them down.

Spitting blood to the dirt, he got up. The guy, his nickname was ‘Brick’ or something like that, was already smiling in triumph. Hwiyoung inhaled sharply, shaking the remnants of his dizziness.

What did it matter if it looked like he’d taken a beating at this point? Mr. y/ln had said he could still be out of the house by the next morning. Which brought him back to the exact place he’d tried to escape in the past months: rock bottom.

No job.

He took a hit to the ribs, not without sinking his own fist in Brick’s stomach’s tender flesh.

No girlfriend.

He wasn’t an idiot, he knew money wouldn’t bring Iseul back. But the day he went to see her, when he needed to be reminded that Iseul was completely different from you, that he dealt with you to get back on his feet. To show Iseul he was coming back from whatever dark place he’d fallen and they could rebuild what was between them.

Hwiyoung never thought that it wouldn’t be Iseul who opened the apartment that they used to share, but an incredibly tall guy who stood there awkwardly as he looked at Hwiyoung in his work suit before Iseul came to the door and told Hwiyoung they couldn’t talk, not right then and apparently, not ever again.

Sweat dripped from his temple and covered the rest of his body by then. What did anything matter anymore? He slid away from the guy’s grip, turning around in the same fluid movement ready to meet him when he came back, his leg meeting Brick’s middle once again.

The crowd cheered for Hwiyoung again when he elbowed the guy in the back and booed when he got brought to the ground again as Brick hugged his legs, and he kicked and kicked, finally making contact with his knee onto this night’s enemy’s nose with a gruesome crack.

“You’re done!” The poor excuse of a referee this place had helped Brick up, blood, snot and tears already staining the rest of his face and down his bare chest.

Hwiyoung spat again, cracking his neck once he was back on his feet. His left eye was already swelling and he was sure the thing running down his temple wasn’t just sweat. But he’d won, he could afford a new week on Chani’s couch.

“I need my money,” he said, throwing his shirt on.

The guy, still attending to Brick’s broken nose, threw him a bunch of bills tied together by a rubber band. “You should go missing again if you’re going to play like this,” he spat.

Hwiyoung snorted. He wasn’t even the dirtiest player in the ring. “Or he should learn not to celebrate beforehand,” and anyway, he’d brought Hwiyoung to the ground dirty. Not that there were many rules in this fighting ring anyway.

“Get out of here,” the referee growled. It wasn’t just Hwiyoung that made him furious, he had to pay all of those who’d bet on him too.

“Gladly.”

YOU RAN OUT of the house as soon as you saw the lights on Hwiyoung’s guest house on. Although you were curious about where the hell he’d been all evening after the argument with your father, what was driving you to meet him was paying off your debt. And letting him know your father was not going to fire him, you had talked him down a few hours before, when he finally decided to listen to reason.

“I am telling you, dad,” you said, arms crossed above your chest. “It was not his fault. I did not want a gun around children, and I stand by it. When I go back to the orphanage he will be unarmed again.”

“You could have been seriously hurt,” your father didn’t raise his voice the way he’d done with Hwiyoung. Instead, he sounded exhausted. “And he wouldn’t have been able to do anything in case whoever did that to your car…”

“Dad, you didn’t hire him just because he could fire a gun, did you?”

To be honest, you had absolutely no idea what Hwiyoung used to do before he took this job. However, you knew your dad had seen something in him and whatever qualifications he had to hire him to take care of you, his precious daughter.

“No but—”

“It would be unfair if you fired him, I’m just saying.”

“He cannot put you in danger again—”

“No one could have known what was going to happen, please dad. I believe I need him now, okay? I will stop complaining about having a bodyguard if Hwiyoung can keep his job.” you were surprised by your own words, but you felt guilty about getting him fired when a big part of the trouble had been caused by your coercing.

Plus, what if the next bodyguard your father got you hated you more than Hwiyoung? You couldn’t go through the whole issue again. You had reached a certain level of understanding with Hwiyoung, you would rather keep it that way.

“Fine. But this is the last time.” your father agreed, pinching the bridge of his nose.

✳︎ ✳︎ ✳︎

You knocked on Hwiyoung’s door twice. Tapping your door against the entryway as you heard shuffling inside.

“What?” Hwiyoung opened the door, clearly expecting someone else.

“What the hell happened to you?” you gasped, pushing the door open before he could shut it on your face.

“Are you here to tell me I’m fired?” Hwiyoung asked, his gaze following you as you made your way to the small bathroom. Probably checking he hadn’t left bloodstains that wouldn’t come off.

“Shut up,” you said, opening the bathroom cabinet. “Who did that to you?”

“Myself,” Hwiyoung held the door open, “You know, firing someone doesn’t usually take long. You can get started now.”

“You’re not fired,” you scoffed, grabbing bandages and antiseptic, both packaged unopened. “Yet.”

Hwiyoung tried to smile with irony, but winced. “You know, I was about to go to bed so it would be great if—”

“Sit down Hwiyoung,” you said, getting out of the bathroom. “You’re going to get an infection or something. Where the hell were you?”

“I can do this myself,” he said, still standing by the doorway. “I do not need you to play nurse.”

“Were you going to do it?” you raised an eyebrow at him, “You would have started by now.”

“I can do it now.”

“You know what? I’d like to play nurse and fire you at the same time. Humor me.” you pointed at the kitchen chairs and Hwiyoung finally shut the door. It was clear you weren’t leaving.

“Who taught you to fight?” you kicked his leg softly, standing between them as he spread on the chair reluctantly.

Hwiyoung snorted, regretting it immediately as you dabbed a cotton ball against the cut on his forehead. “Are you seeing me? What makes you think I can fight?”

Dropping the cotton ball, you grabbed his hand. There was dried blood on his knuckles, indication that he’d gotten at least a few punches in.

“Lucky strikes,” he muttered, in a slight mocking tone. “We all have them.”

“Oh, so we should tell the police you got assaulted then?”

Hwiyoung took his hand back, like you’d burnt him. “No.”

“I have a feeling the other guy ended up worse, didn’t he?” you pointed at the knee of his pants, where Brick’s blood had dried up. “So you know how to fight.”

Hwiyoung rolled his eyes. “And?”

“And you’re going to teach me,” you moved on to clean the trail of blood from the corner of his mouth to his jaw.

This time, Hwiyoung laughed audibly, grabbing his ribs when pain shot through them.

“I’m not joking,” you poked his swollen cheekbone and he winced. “After today it’s clear I’m in danger. You’re keeping your job and this proves even more useful,”

“Seriously?” he questioned, although he wasn’t sure if he meant that he was keeping his job or that you really wanted to learn how to throw punches.

“You cannot go back to wherever you did this,” you warned, shaking your head. “Do you understand?”

“What makes you think I’ll accept to stay?”

You had walked away, opening the small fridge to try and find something he could put on his closing eye. “Because you still need the money, don’t you?”

Hwiyoung bit his tongue as you returned with a frozen package of vegetables he’d never gotten around to cook.

“Yes or no, simple question,” you said like you’d done hours prior.

“Yes.”

“Then it’s settled. Put this on and tomorrow, when everyone notices you look like shit, say you broke up a bar fight.”

“Of course, boss,” the fact that you helped him didn’t mean he’d lose his sarcasm.

You looked at the mess around the kitchen and shook your head. He could at least clean up after you had patched him.

“And take a shower, you stink.” you conveyed, scowling.

Hwiyoung watched you leave, holding the vegetables against his face. He didn’t notice the money you left on the kitchen table until the next morning, inside a white envelope with his name on it in your handwriting.

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theunreliablewriter · 3 years

Text

Unconditionally

Pairing: Natasha Romanoff x Fem!Reader

Warnings: Insinuation of panic attacks, Fear of loved one’s death, Mentions of killing, Mention of self-hatred, Very minor injuries, Cussing, Written at 3:00am, Google Translate: (moya serdtse = my heart)

Angst, Fluff

Word Count: 2k

Request: Hello. May I request a Natasha x reader fic with "I could see the worst parts of you and still think you are the most beautiful person I've met." ? Thanks.

Author’s Note: I am so bad at wrapping these fics up, and this is proof. Also, I always imagine as Nat having the Red Room’s serum like in the comics (especially after Black Widow). Thank you to anybody who reads! Please reblog, like, and comment! 💜

Overall, you had consistently viewed your life as nothing above average and, sometimes, maybe even a little dull. Of course, there were times of great fun, whether they were brought by something as minor as a new coffee shop opening up that turned out to become your new favorite, or as major as traveling to destinations you always wanted to go to.

But, during those moments in your life, no matter how wonderful they were, you couldn’t shake the feeling of longing. For what, specifically? You didn’t have a clue, despite how much you wracked your brain for an answer. The most you could come up with was a craving for more. Whatever the “more” was, though, you couldn’t figure out.

Never have you been one to believe a romantic relationship was necessary to feel whole, and you were whole; you were complete.

But, even the world’s greatest artist can look at their finished painting and wished it had turned out to be just a bit more colorful, can’t they? And there is nothing wrong with deciding to do something to add more color, is there?

No. Of course not.

And for you, you took the first step to making your life more colorful the day you asked the gorgeous red head, who looked as though she had been to hell and back, if she would like to go eat with you in a location that was not a nearly destroyed shawarma place.

Witnessing and surviving a literal alien attack was the only reason you were able to ask such a woman on a date. Your nerves were already far past spent and figured the day couldn’t get any worse, so you might as well go for it.

That day was two years ago, now. Since then, the famous Black Widow had added such a brightness—so many colors—to your life.

That feeling of longing for that unknown more vanished the night of your first date, and ever since, it began to fade from your memory entirely.

To her colleagues’ and, most of all, her surprise, your relationship with Natasha progressed rapidly.

The first month was an ongoing cycle of push and pull because the ex-assassin absolutely hated the idea of getting attached to you, but all the while, she simply couldn’t stay away from you.

She often joked about you having an undisclosed power that allowed you to have an effect on people’s emotions and desires. With time, though, she finally realized the reason she couldn’t stay away because she didn’t want to stay away.

And when Natasha removed herself from that state of denial, there was no turning back.

She fell, and when she did, she fell harder than she ever thought possible for not just her, but for anyone.

Of course, it was all the same for you, and you knew it would happen that first evening together. Just by the end of it, her looks became the least interesting thing about her.

She was the most hilarious person you had ever met. You loved how she could be the world’s most ruthless smart ass one second, but the kindest person the next. You had never experienced such admiration until you witnessed her bravery and desire to help others. The depth of her mind absolutely captivated you.

The list of qualities and details about her that made you fall hopeless in love with her was endless.

The only thing you wished you could change was how she hated so many parts of past—of herself.

Over the course of these couple years, especially after moving to Washington D.C. together, Natasha began to disclose some aspects about the life she had before joining S.H.I.E.L.D.

Everything she shared was always in the amount of small bits and pieces for you to add up. You knew she loathed talking about anything of this sort, but you knew that wasn’t the only reason why she shared so little.

To say it pained you to see the fear of judgment, of scaring you, of abandonment flood her eyes each and every time was beyond an understatement.

Natasha knew you loved her, but she didn’t know just how badly you wanted to love all of her, including, if not especially, the parts she hated.

How oblivious she was to that fact became fully apparent the day S.H.I.E.L.D fell.

With the exception of a single, blocked number phone call that lasted just long enough for her to tell you she couldn’t come home because the entire organization was compromised, you hadn’t heard from your girlfriend in days.

The only update you finally received came from a news channel’s broadcast, and all it did was enhance your endless worrying.

You knew Natasha and Steve, along with the man with robotic wings you hadn’t met, would be on the front lines against whoever it was with the mask and metal arm. You knew they would have to be the ones to bring down whatever group had overtaken S.H.I.E.L.D.

But, despite all of your fear and anxiety, you knew they could do it; you knew she could do it.

And you were right.

From your windows, you watched the three massive flying ships fall from the sky, indicating everyone who needed to be brought down had been successfully dealt with.

Now, you just had to wait for her to come home. Even though you knew she healed significantly faster than the vast majority of humans, you still had the first aid kit ready, just like you always did.

Hours upon hours passed without the familiar sound of the front door being unlocked.

Although you knew they had more than likely ditched them to ensure they couldn’t be tracked, you tried Natasha’s and Steve’s phones more times than you could count.

A point was reached where every tick of the clock, every unanswered call and text, worsened your already crippling panic.

The entirely of the night was spent sobbing and mentally pleading to whoever might have been listening. Only were those times interrupted by ones where you lost all control of your breathing.

Long after the sun had turned the dark sky into an obnoxiously bright shade of blue, you were nothing more than a motionless ball on the couch with tears still silently streaming from your eyes.

At some point in the midst of mindlessly watching the news for any mention of your girlfriend, you slipped into a heavy, dreamless sleep. It was the type that’s so deep it felt like no more than a few minutes had passed when you were startled awake.

“Sorry,” Natasha apologized softly about the sound the door made from being opened too hard. “I thought you would be at-“

Her words stopped when you practically fell into her embrace.

You were so numb you hadn’t even felt yourself rise from the couch and walk towards her. Only now that her arms were tightly wrapped around it did you come back to your body.

“Why didn’t you tell me?!” you sobbed into the crook of her neck.

Her already stiff body went rigid. Shame was dripping from her voice as she told you, “I’m so sorry, (Y/N). I never wanted you know those things. I’m sorry this was the way you had to find out what sort of person I truly am.”

You pulled back just enough to look at her; you were sure your confusion was shown in how your brows scrunched above your bloodshot, wet eyes. “What are you talking about?”

“What are you talking about?”

“How if you weren’t going to come home, you could have at least called to tell me you weren’t…” you trailed off, unable to get your hoarse vocal cords to form the final word. “…to tell me you were okay.”

Natasha’s mouth curved into a deep frown, as yours quivered with urge to cry again.

Before she had the chance to speak, you went on to ask, “Why didn’t you come home?”

Her hold around you and her guilt-filled gaze fell all at once. The loss of contact after such a horrific time was nearly painful. “I didn’t think you would want me here anymore.”

No matter how broken a heart is, it can still be broken more and more. How yours felt after hearing her say such a thing was proof.

“What are you talking about, Nat? When would I ever not want you here?”

Hesitantly, she asked you, “Have you not been online?”

“No, I haven’t been online,” you answered in frustration. “What could be so important that you’re asking this now?”

“Everything,” Natasha said, her head falling further than it already had. “Everything is on there. Everything from of how I was trained to my KGB mission reports to names of people I killed and how I did it… In order to expose the truth about S.H.I.E.L.D, I had to expose the truth about myself as well.”

You took in a few breaths in another attempt to calm your nerves at least a fraction. With still trembling hands, you held her perfect, bruised face and made her look at you.

“Nothing you leaked is your truth. I know your truth,” you said to her. “I wish you would acknowledge you were forced. You were forcibly trained; you were forced to carry out those missions; you were forced to making those kills.”

“It doesn’t matter because I’m still the one who did it. And if-whenever you see everything, you are not going to want me.” Water pooled in her eyes, as her voice cracked just before she finished.

“You’re wrong,” you insisted. “I could see the worst parts of you and still think you are the most beautiful person I’ve met.”

“How can you be so sure?”

“Because I love you, and when I say that—every time I have said that—I mean I love you unconditionally.”

The final syllable just barely made it out of your sore throat before her plush lips attached to yours.

Her strong arms pulled your body flush against hers, as your fingers tangled in her smooth hair, ensuring the passionate, searing kiss continued.

You weren’t sure how long it lasted; all you knew was whenever it ended, neither of you were willing to separate in any other way.

“I was so afraid, Nat,” you shared. “I-I thought you…had been taken from me.”

“Never, moye serdtse. I’m sorry I let my self-doubt put you through this. But, know the only way you will ever get rid of me is if you do it yourself. Otherwise, I’m here; I’ll always be here.”

“Promise?” You didn’t care the question made you sound like a little kid.

“I promise.”

After a second, lingering kiss, you released each other long enough to move into your shared bedroom.

Natasha let you tend to each of her bruises, scratches, and marks, even though you both knew it was unnecessary. She would never pass up an opportunity for you to care for her—something she silently craved for the entirety of her life.

When you both settled in the bed, she couldn’t control her smile from you wrapping yourself around her like a vine.

“I love you so much,” Natasha said softly, her featherlight kisses on your forehead adding to the heaviness of your still-puffy eyelids.

“And I love you, all of you.”

The words echoed in her head as you nuzzled your face into her neck.

You loved her. All of her. And she believed you, despite knowing she would probably never understand how someone like you could feel such devotion to someone like her.

Despite her own exhaustion, Natasha did not fall asleep within the next few minutes like you did. Instead, she watched you intently.

Her mind was much too preoccupied with memories of the years she believed she would never find love. All she could wonder was how she would have reacted if someone had told her there would come a day where she was not only loved and in love, but was to a level so deep, it could only be described as unconditional.

| Masterlist |

#natasha romanoff x reader #natasha romanoff #natasha romanoff x y/n #natasha romanoff x you #natasha romanoff fanfiction #natasha romanoff imagine #natasha romanoff fluff #marvel #black widow #natasha romanoff fanfic #natasha x you #mcu #black widow imagine #black widow x reader #yelena belova x reader #yelena belova fanfiction

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13eyond13 · 3 years

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i am fascinated by L. like you, i agree that he shows compassion or at the very least tries to be human. his 'please be careful', his 'well, we don't want any one of us to die,' the fact that he has money aside for his coworkers AND their families, the fact that when he disagrees with soichiro on his yotsuba methods he doesn't kick them out, he lets them use freely the headquarters that he built for all of them. my question is... coming in another ask because it's long, lol

Yes, I think he's definitely not wishing harm on anyone helpful involved in this case. And though he maybe keeps an emotional distance from most of the people involved, and sometimes struggles to relate to them or to not get overly bossy and sour with them, I think he really does care about their safety and appreciate their help. I really like those moments where he's a bit gentler and worried and thoughtful toward others like that too, I think it adds some interesting nuance and character depth.

-I think the fact that Light was often outpacing L and managing to get things done under his name while still keeping things pretty morally sound was both impressive and disturbing to L in many ways. I've never been extremely interested in trying to determine "which character is the most intelligent one of all" in this cast, because I feel like intelligence is such a multi-faceted thing that is pretty difficult to measure in an objective kind of way. So I don't often spend much time contemplating which of the two of them is definitely the "smarter" one, I suppose? I think that L and Light were set up to seem pretty equal in terms of their wits and skills, but that L was definitely struggling with his confidence and his energy levels in this arc. He was also at odds with a team that wasn't always happy with his extreme methods or his leadership, and plagued with confusion about Light's entire personality suddenly going through what seemed to be a massive change. Light was definitely hyper-motivated to catch Kira, and to therefore prove himself useful and innocent all at once. He was also younger and more idealistic and optimistic in general, so possibly just had a bit of extra vim and vigour which occasionally gave him a bit of an advantage over L. This was no doubt a pretty stressful and confusing period in L's life as well as Light's.

-I've made a post about L calling Misa a friend already that I'll reblog, but I think that in that scene he was making an ironic throwback reference to his "first ever friend" joke with Light.

Yeah, I think he actually often does his best to be pretty straight-forward with everybody about himself, while simultaneously giving as little as possible about himself away. It's not even "manipulative" of him to do that so much as just cautious and wise most of the time, I would say. And it's not like it's automatically unkind to want to be picky about who you hang out with, or to keep a distinct separation between your personal and professional life with your coworkers. I think that most of the task force still appreciated L for his boldness and his cautionary measures and his investigative talents at the end of the day, though I'm sure he wasn't always super easy to work with or to befriend or understand.

#l lawliet #light yagami #ask #anon #meta #lmeta #mangameta #p

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sondheimfam · 3 years

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I think I might just be an idiot but could you explain to me why every Sondheim Stan on this website hates girlboss company with a fiery passion? Not defensive or righty just genuinely curious

well, to put it shortly, it’s complicated. see, company is inherently a poor choice for gender bending because of its messages and themes. yes, company is a musical about marriage and loneliness, but to leave it at just those things would be a discredit to the show’s whole scope. company is, at its core, a commentary on a very certain kind of upper middle class, heteronormative, white, urban society. through the character of robert, the audience is led to a place where the absurdities of their world are spotlighted. this method relies on the audience carrying a pre-established set of social norms and then laughing at them (or wincing at them). part of company’s endurance is its ability to be continually relevant as time passes, certain expectations and understandings remain the same.

this is going to get really long. if any other blog members (or anyone else) want to add anything, go ahead and reblog this post! more under the cut.

it’s easy to think that switching the gender of the main character from male to female would modernize company’s content, but actually that just complicates things further and not in a good way. bobby is transformed into bobbie without any consideration of how that would actually change the show’s complete narrative. bobbie’s resulting characterization ends up feeling unnatural. director marianne elliott attempts to resolve that by throwing an additional thread about bobbie’s relationship problems stemming from concerns about her “biological clock” (being childless at 35? heresy!). making a primary female character’s primary conflict related to childbearing only makes the characterization more convoluted and reductive.

in addition to just issues surrounding bobbie, there are issues with gender bending the rest of the cast while also holding onto a heteronormative narrative for its lead. i’m not sure if you’ve watched the bootleg of 2020 company but the other gender issues are also a total bust. the only couple which retains the original dynamic for its pair is sarah and harry. for peter & susan and david & jenny the roles in the relationships are switched. this makes for really strange and unnatural feeling scenes. david & jenny’s scene suffers the worst from this since a domineering wife and passive husband does not offer the same (sad) commentary that the reverse does.

making paul & amy into paul & jamie is cute but ultimately feels like performative woke points since amy being a woman feeling anxiety over being pressured into marriage is integral to the original company’s storyline. watching amy overcome her anxiety about committing to a relationship marks a turning point in robert’s self reflection, although amy’s specific anxiety and expression of it is distinctly cis feminine.

here’s one i don’t have a lot of explanation for: to keep bobbie straight, instead of propositioning bobbie herself, joanne offers bobbie her husband larry which both doesn’t make sense at all and is more than a little concerning.

i feel like i’m using too many words here so in short: the boyfriends aren’t fun at all. unlike the girlfriends, they all come off a bit strange in a bad way. male april is an idiot, male kathy makes no sense, and male marta seems like a male feminist mansplainer.

BASICALLY, the actual attempts to gender bend the show are done extremely badly and the result is a show that feels messy and directionless slapped with a big fat label of “look! i’m woke now!” ignoring that the original company is already extremely progressive in its criticisms.

separate from those issues, even if the changes had been made with the most thoughtful of care, the pacing of 2020 company is abysmal. the scenes are rushed through, as if they can’t even trust the audience to pay attention when people aren’t singing. the actors try their best, but they aren’t given any time to make interesting choices or convey... well, anything?

a lot of us love company deeply and were excited to see it brought back to broadway again. however, 2020 company ended up being more than disappointing, it completely threw up a middle finger to everything the original show stood for and everyone who loved it. hope this could explain some of our issues with it. if you want to read more (somehow), this is the review that i wrote right after watching 2020 company for the first time last year. it’s pretty dated but does go into more depth with my issues with the characterization.

if you want to speedrun hating 2020 company just listen to this song from the 2018 london cast album (the same production before it transferred to broadway)

i’ll take “it’s larry loser!!!″ over “you dirty feminist!!!” any day!

#i knew this was going to be a long post and well #i had to cut myself short!!!#whaddahell #asks #admin fosca #one man pr team right here <3 #company musical

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fannishcodex · 3 years

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So I love @revasnaslan 's Where One Fell Verse, a SPOP AU. :D (Will add a link to the fic series in a comment or reblog below after remembering that tumblr sometimes has issues with embedded links, I think.)

Like, I really love it a lot, it borders on self-conscious "am I being too much, will this for some reason bother the fic writer??" And really, I’ve realized, no way, it won’t, especially since I write fic too and know I would be delighted if my fic got that reaction; but I think this may be more part of my self-consciousness and shyness. In any case, my affection for these fics is on hyperfixation level. I'm in the WOF Verse fandom. It's a thing I've been thinking about in some way since I found it late last year via @cirusthecitrus, it's one of the things that cheers me up these days. I struggle to articulate my pleasure with this fic, but I want to try to do it more.

This fic is a wonderfully character-driven story.

Fic spoilers under the cut, so recommend reading Where One Fell (fic 1) and Everything But A Door (fic 2) before this--and also, just, this fic has my deepest rec and everyone should check it out:

But, another different note first, even more self-conscious on my part: me writing about this fic more feels long overdue, but I really do struggle to sometimes articulate even my positive feelings about a thing because I want to get it across well--but I'm trying to more just spill it out now instead of trying to refine it more; and just also other things have been...a lot, there's been a lot (good and less good) that's pulled my attention in other directions too. So, long overdue, I wish I could've done more earlier, but I still just want to...gush about the fic; but I get self-conscious and worry about, like, "I don't want to end up pestering/pressuring and asking for immediate gratification for a new chapter/I don't want to guilt-trip for an update especially since I feel like I understand because I write fic too and I write slow and it's hard"...but I still want to gush about WOF verse, especially since it's like any other story I enjoy. I like gushing about the stories I enjoy.

So, again, this fic is wonderfully character-driven, which I love.

I'll bring up some canon for obvious reasons, but mostly in terms of contrast. One of the ways WOF Verse felt refreshing and drew me in was that after SPOP canon--well, in some ways SPOP canon feels like a wasted ensemble show; like many other things SPOP doesn't pull off, it doesn't pull off an ensemble show (especially when it ends up sidelining a bunch of characters that should've been prioritized more instead of a very mishandled character), and it kinda feels like it ends up having too many characters/like it starts feeling like too many characters if some are sort of just there and not really used (and I have my thoughts on who should've been prioritized, but that's another post; though granted I think my interest in this fic really indicates some of the characters I would've prioritized more).

So, I enjoyed how WOF Verse focuses on a smaller cast, giving them more attention and exploring them more. The general summary of the fic immediately drew me in, because I'm a sucker for family themes and dysfunctional families and familial love getting messy and complicated in fiction, and I hadn't realized I needed clone Hordak and his genetic template/progenitor Horde Prime shifted to them being literally brothers, plus the added twist of having Horde Prime actually care for his brother, but Prime's become thoroughly twisted in how he shows that affection and protectiveness--didn't know I needed that until I found this fic. And oh do I enjoy how this fic opened up the original '80s She-Ra/MOTU up to me more, because I just thought "wow, Hec-Tor Kur is a good made-up alt name/'real-ish' name with a last name for Hordak in this AU, and Anillis Kur just sounds cool and it just feels like it fits as an alt name/real name for Horde Prime when he's not always using that title," and I thought making them literally blood brothers was just a neat twist on them being clone and genetic template/progenitor. But nope, apparently Hec-Tor Kur and Anillis Kur are their real alt names from the original '80s canon which also heavily implies they're brothers, and that's really cool. (And I think it would've been really interesting if spop/the latest reboot had actually just explored that more, explored them more as brothers and siblings.)

Again, WOF is very character-driven, and I love that. And I enjoy how this feels like it also fits the story and world of the fic, which involves Anillis Kur/Horde Prime going into Extremely Overprotective Brother Mode and confining his sickly younger brother Hec-Tor (Hordak) to the Velvet Glove because he's that paranoid about anything happening to his brother due to a lot of family trauma that happened before Hec-Tor was even born/when he was just a baby (and baby Hec-Tor himself almost succumbing to illness and dying did not help with Anillis's issues), not to mention that controlling; so much of the fic so far is in a closed world, it adds to the hyper focus on the characters in that closed world. I appreciate how at times the fic really does have this claustrophobic feeling. I like how it sometimes makes me think of like a one-setting/limited setting play on a multi-chapter scale.

And of course, I like the specific characters getting this sort of hyper focus, and WOF makes me enjoy them even more. I love Hordak, his character, his voice, his design, etc. Horde Prime also has such a cool design and again that same cool voice, I adore Keston John's voice acting and his range in it. Canon S5 doesn't give him enough internal depth or character though, and ultimately makes him too much of just an obstacle and symbol/too much of a plot device in the show and a wasted opportunity for a more interesting character. That becomes even more apparent in contrast to WOF Verse, because Anillis Kur/Horde Prime is so much more interesting!!! Like Anillis/WOF!Prime is so much more interesting, it makes me realize how canon Prime is lacking in character/interest.

Ohman, this Prime. Prime has a great design and a great voice, and WOF has an interesting personality to match those elements in quality. There's so much fascinating contrast with him in WOF, and it makes him feel like a more unsettling villain. We've seen him care, and so it feels more frightening when he turns more aggressive and ruthless and cold. WOF's opening scene really effectively sets that contrast with him; it starts with him exhausted but having a really sweet moment with a very young Hec-Tor, and then not long after that when Hec-Tor's asleep in his arms it's a very unsettling mood whiplash with how Anillis coldly treats the clone attendant; it's even very effectively distilled and crystalized even further with the image of Anillis holding a sleeping Hec-Tor in his arms while glaring daggers at the clone attendant, that contrast of love and threat. Like, definitely a character that can do Both and I love that. And contrast adds layers to Anillis, it renders him in even more emotional dimensions, he can be multiple things at once.

And I rather love that he's far less...touchy, with everyone; it more finally struck me that he's rarely negatively touched anyone until a pivotal scene, and it being a rarity made the scene pack more of a punch, and then I looked back and realized he just doesn't do that often, there's another earlier scene that also feels shocking because it's another rare use of explicit touch, his touch is more targeted--he doesn't need to constantly do it to feel threatening at all, and is in fact much more threatening and unsettling without it. (I literally had to pause some instances because I was nervous about what Anillis would do next.) It's so fascinating to watch Anillis steadily grow worse and to watch Hec-Tor gradually have the dawning realization of what Anillis is really doing and the truth of his situation. It's interesting to see Hec-Tor gradually realizing that what he's lived with his whole life and what has felt normal isn't a good thing, it's not acceptable.

And I really do like that familial love is such a motivating factor for Anillis, and that it's something that feeds into a lot of his ruthlessness and villainy; and it feels like something I still don't see enough in fiction. And it just feels more believable, more consistent. Anillis acts horribly, is abusive, but it still feels like what he does is out of love for his brother and he really is blind to what he's actually doing to his brother, that it's the opposite of what he wants, it's not protecting him like he believes. I like that level of character believability/consistency, and part of that also involves how it's overall framed, and it's still framed as pretty terrifying; Anillis cares about his brother, but his methods are twisted.

And my gut feeling does...well, feel connections between canon and this AU--and that may be obvious as source material and fic based on it, but I mean--it's as if canon were the very rough first sketch/draft, and WOF is the fully realized version of the character, plus the change of shifting his brotherly status into a brother that actually does care but goes about it in a horribly twisted way. WOF takes parts and pieces and little details from canon and fleshes them out into something more fully dimensional and more interesting. Like the trace of canon Prime's collection with plants/other things and even arguably the imagery at the end with his ship the Velvet Glove becoming a tree feel connected to a more fleshed out version in WOF where Anillis keeps a garden. And there's so much meaning that can be pulled from his garden--it's another reflection of his controlling behavior with the way he controls/manages the garden; on the flip side, it feels like it further reflects the contrast/dichotomy in his character, as gardens can still have positive connotations too--it can reflect the potential Anillis had (may still have?) for genuine good/for genuinely nurturing care. And it also does more explicitly point to Anillis's affection for family since his late father had kept a garden too and Anillis's own garden on the Velvet Glove still has his father's plants. There's so much done with Anillis's garden.

And with his backstory and the contrast in his character, just his...everything, I also want to know more about Anillis, I'm curious for even more of his backstory, even going more into "why are you like this?" Like this is a genuinely fascinating, charismatic, threatening, multi-faceted antagonist right here.

And I can go on about Anillis, but I love Hec-Tor/Hordak in this too. I love Hordak, and I enjoy how this still feels so much like Hordak, but with a different life; I feel like there are commonalities that remain from canon within him combined with differences based on the AU he's in and the different experiences he's lived with. Like, there's such an interesting detail with Hec-Tor's growing anger issues that remind me of Hordak--it's there, but different because of their different lives, Hec-Tor's developing because of his isolation but still quieter, simmering, because his brother only has his best interests at heart, he shouldn't act like this... And then it’s so nice to see Hec-Tor be even more talkative about SCIENCE because he does have more space to be a bit more open about his passions in this AU/different life situation. And it's all like another AU I didn't realize I wanted until I saw it--I really dig seeing Hordak/Hec-Tor as a baby, as a little kid, getting to have a childhood and get to have more typical developmental stages and to have more familial experiences, albeit twisted ones. And I love how the story has shifted to Hec-Tor more, love his POV and following him on his journey.

And the clones! The clones are great in WOF and give me feels too. I love how more of them are focused on as individuals, and that we get to see more of their characters and glimpse their differing views. And when Etherian characters join in, they're as well written and interesting too (the Entrapdak is so good). I just like WOF's cast, and the line-up plucked from canon and how they adjust to the AU; this ensemble just feels better, and it's utilized and treated better than canon.

And the worldbuilding with Anillis & Hec-Tor’s race and the clones and their world is so good and seamlessly interwoven with story and character, enhancing the whole thing even more and making things even more interesting.

I just...really love these characters and this story. They have a lot of heart and intrigue.

(Disclaimer: I definitely ended up having trouble figuring out tags for this. Especially since I think only the first five tags actually show up at first? And I think last I checked tumblr freaks out over dashes within a tag so while “hec-tor kur” probably fits better, I don’t think tumblr can handle that for some reason so just going with “hordak,” which also really still just fits.)

#fic rec #spop #anillis kur #hordak #horde prime #not a reblog #where one fell

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greenninjagal-blog · 3 years

Text

Trouble

Hi yeah its me, and look I’m already back with a new fic for the new year :D cherish this moment I don’t think i will have have this turn around so quick again. For the TSS Fanworks Secret Santa Exchange because I was a pinch hitter :DD @nerdywriterhaven I hope you enjoy!

Summary: Patton has a thing about boardgames and Virgil has a thing about Logan. Together they figure it out.

Word Count: 7900

Quick Taglist: @alias290 @chelsvans @coyboi300 @dante-reblogs @dwbh888 @glitchybina @faithfulcat111 @felicianoromano @harrypotternerdprincess @holliberries @jemthebookworm @killerfangirl3 @mrbubbajones @musical-nerd18 @nonasficcollection @stricken-with-clairvoyancy @the-sunshine-dims @themagicheartmailman @themultishipperchild @thenaiads @treasureofpriam @vianadraws @welovelogansanders

Read on Ao3 || My General Writing Masterlist

Patton shows up at Virgil’s dorm room just slightly after six pm on a Tuesday with two thermoses of soup that are still warm to the touch, a halloween tupperware of chocolate chip cookies that had been passed between him and Virgil so many times that Patton really doesn’t remember whose it was originally, his laptop, phone, the chargers for both, and the board game Trouble.

Virgil, predictably, shuts the door in his face the second he sees the game box hidden under all the other things in his arms. Patton also thinks that Virgil tells him to go away, but it’s muddled by the door.

Instead he shuffles all the supplies to his left arm and knee, and knocks again on his door just below the leftover tape from the nametag that his RA keeps putting up and Virgil keeps ripping down because he doesn’t want anyone knowing where he sleeps. His knuckles hum with the rap, datatata dat dat! And he smiles even when there’s the sound of something being thrown at the door from that side.

Patton chooses not to hear it because he’s a good friend and an even more stubborn houseguest.

The door a little bit down the hall opens up with the usual fanfare of someone who is running late to a night class-- which of course is the charm of Roman Prince. He looks nice, as usual, and Patton even thinks that if he hadn’t been wearing two different colored shoes, no one would even know that he had probably just woken up from a nap. The music of his room blares out into the hall with a rap song Patton thinks is Hip With the Kids these days, but Patton himself can’t make out any of the actual words.

All the much better because he’s pretty sure it’s Remus’s music and Remus likes his songs like he likes just about everything else: dirty, scandalous, and offensive. Not that Patton is good friends with either of the Prince siblings, but he’s heard the rumors floating around about both. Roman smiles at him, with glittering white teeth and dimples and soft warm brown eyes that could have been made of melted chocolate.

“Oh! What a spectre!” Roman says, seeming to forget that he’s on the way to a class at the sight of Patton standing at Virgil’s door. “Tell me, angel, what brings a glorious sight such as you to our dorm buildings on this amazing day?”

Virgil’s door swings back open before Patton can answer and Virgil hisses from the darkness, the way he’s usually prone to do whenever Roman or Remus or their blatant disregard for the rules about music volume at two AM is brought up.

He looks not much better from the glimpse Patton got before the door was closed in his face earlier: he’s still pale to the point of looking sickly and dressed in the same clothes as yesterday, with his eye shadow smeared and his hair not brushed at all. There’s a red imprint on the side of his face that Patton thinks matches a crease in his blankets or pillows from where he probably tried to suffocate himself on and off all day between anxiously texting Patton all about “the absolute worst day of my entire life and no I’m not even exaggerating this time Pat”.

“Hi Virgil!” Patton says, as Virgil reaches forward and to take a thermos and the tupperware from his arms and glare unbidenedly at Roman. “I brought dinner!”

“I hate you,” Virgil says, and does not mean because he loves Patton’s Broccoli Cheddar Cheer Up Soup and he’s been in need of cheering up since Patton had seen his messages at noon on his way to his second class of the day.

Roman gasps like he’s offended on behalf of Patton who is not offended as much as endeared to his best friend of several years. “Virgil! How could you act so callus towards a beautiful muse such as this?”

“Get lost, Princey,” Virgil tells him firmly, grumpily, Virgil-ly. “He came here specifically to make a pun about my pain.”

“I do it with love,” Patton adds. “And I brought cookies to make up for it.”

Roman looks like he doesn’t know what to do with that information and Virgil doesn’t give him time to find out because he kinda hates Roman-- although Patton always tells him that “hate” is a strong word and Virgil always says he means it anyway. Patton supposes that if he, too, had hallmates that played music louder than life up to the early hours of the mornings during Finals Week, and then cranked it higher when he knocked on the door to ask them to stop, he might also strongly dislike them.

Virgil ushers Patton into the dark room and then kicks the door closed while Patton is waving goodbye at Roman.

It takes a moment for his eyes to adjust to the light level: Virgil was certainly making use of those thick blackout curtains! It made the whole room look like it was three AM, rather than six PM! There are blobs of stuff all around the room, piles of clothes and blankets that Virgil prefers to have on the floor rather than put somewhere where he’s not going to trip over it in the middle of the night, but Patton supposes that’s just how Virgil’s always been.

“If someone breaks in, they’re gonna trip over this shit and I will be out of here long before they can get back up,” Virgil had said the first time Patton had suggested maybe, possibly cleaning something until they found the floor.

The desk where Virgil did his school work is empty and the textbooks and computer that normally covered it are all on the ground like a massacre from what Patton can make out. Virgil shuffles through the room and ends up turning on the purple lava lamp that Patton got him three years ago so that they could at least see each other and the faux-floor, and even then he doesn’t look happy at needing that much. The elevated bed had the blankets ripped up from it and turned into a nest with Virgil’s phone light peeking out from the depths like some underwater cave with a sea monster in it waiting for an unsuspecting diver.

“Remind me, how you got into this building?” Virgil says, tiredly as he pries open the cookie container. “It requires a key and last time I checked, you don’t have one of those, Pat.”

“As if a key would stop me from checking on you!” Patton replies. He plops himself on a pile of clothes and clears away another spot for Virgil to collapse next to him, so that Virgil can’t exactly escape. “Now, what is this about Logan again? You were being kinda vague and world-ending-y again. ”

Virgil lets out a moan around the cookie he shoved in his mouth and drops to the floor next to Patton, to munch angrily or just upsetly without actually offering an answer, because he’s Virgil and he’s allergic to talking about things that upset him. Patton sets down his other thermos, his laptop, and his own phone to make room for the game between them.

“Must we?” Virgil asks as Patton sets up the board with a practiced hand. Even in the near darkness of the room he knows exactly what he’s doing, and could probably figure it out with no light at all.

“Of course!” Patton says. “You sounded like you were in Trouble.”

“ Sorry to disappoint.”

“It’s rather Risk -y of you to be self deprecating while within hugging distance.”

Virgil doesn’t say anything for a moment, just swallows the bite of his cookie and stares at the colored pieces in front of him. The board game is well worn and well loved-- one of the first ones Patton had ever gotten and one of the first ones he ever convinced Virgil to play with him. Although “convinced” is a strong word for how Patton had just been staring at the board numbly with red rimmed eyes when his father had asked Virgil to come over and try to coax him into eating something, anything, please .

They’d lost three pieces of the red team and one of the yellow and two of the green, but that’s okay because Patton generally played blue and Virgil had custom ordered four purple pieces for just the two of them a few years ago.

Carefully, placatingly, Virgil reaches a hand forward and pops the dice bubble for his number. He gets a four.

Patton gets a five.

“How many times have we played this one, Pat?” Virgil asks, in a voice much softer than before. In the faded purple light and the shadows, it’s hard to see the number on the die, and harder to see exactly what Virgil is thinking about with his eyes hidden like that. His nails are bitten down to the quick, ruining the black nail polish he spent an hour applying last weekend over their shared Biology notes.

Patton shrugs as he reaches forward to take his turn and pops the bubble. Honestly he didn’t think he could calculate the answer if Virgil pressed: this was their go-to game, this was his go-to pun, this is what they did even when the world was falling apart at the seams. It was easier to focus on moving playing pieces a couple pegs than it was to focus on the sound of a heart monitor or raspy breathing or bony pale fingers that shook when they tried to hold anything.

It was easier to find a way to win when the instructions were so clear, and the rules were so fair, and the consequences of losing were just having to put the game back in the box.

Virgil doesn’t say anything more and Patton doesn’t force him to, although he desperately wants to. He wants to reach out and catch Virgil’s hands in his own, he wants to give him a squeeze, he wants to wipe away the tear tracks in his makeup and he wants to tell Virgil that whatever it is, Patton will be there for him.

He wants Virgil to look at a game for once and have fun.

But the only sound in the room is the popper when they roll the die back and forth.

Patton gets the six first. He moves his second leftmost piece to the start and hits it again for a three.

Virgil stares his blue piece on the board for a long moment, without blinking. His hands lie limply in his lap and the tub of cookies sits at his knee. The purple light makes his eyes glisten sweetly, wetly, sadly, with a resignation that Patton knows and wishes he doesn’t. The lump in his throat swells up.

“Virgil?”

Virgil blinks. And then blinks again.

“Why should I even bother at this point?” he asks. He runs a hand up to his hair and tugs at the locks.

“Virgil, this is the opening of the game,” Patton says. “You can’t give up alrea--”

“But it’s not like I’m going to win,” Virgil says and Patton sucks in a breath sharply.

Oh. It was one of those days.

Patton thinks that he should have been expecting this; it had been a decent amount of time since Virgil last had refused to finish a game, and Patton had almost thought that maybe they had kicked those thoughts for good! That through sheer willpower and perseverance and proof to the contrary, they might have managed to rework how Virgil approached a challenge. That at one point Virgil might laugh and smile even when he wasn’t in the lead--

And yet, Patton’s sitting with one piece three spaces ahead of Virgil and Virgil is ready to call it quits. The game had just started. Patton had only been sitting in the room for a total of five minutes. Virgil hadn’t talked for more than a couple sentences.

It’s one of those days, except that Patton doesn’t think that it’s ever been this bad before, because usually they at least made it to the one piece around the board in Trouble , through to one check in Chess , through to one hotel being built in Monopoly , or one train ticket completed in Ticket to Ride .

“This is a sign, isn’t it?” Virgil continues. “I’m just being stupid even considering it. Of course I am. I always am. Nevermind, I don’t want to do this today Pat. Thanks for the soup and the cookies and I’m sorry that I made you walk all the way--”

Patton reaches out and snags Virgil’s arm before he can get all the way off the ground. The board nudges to the side dislodging several pieces into the surrounding void, but Patton thinks that he can replace a hundred playing pieces.

He cannot replace his best friend.

Virgil’s skin is cold, even though the room was comfortably warm, and he’s soft to the touch-- which is never what Patton expects when he gets those lightning quick hugs, when Virgil rests his head on his shoulder during movie nights, when they go shopping and there are crowds that make Virgil want to run for the hills and only Patton’s hand in his keeps him grounded there. Virgil is soft despite the jagged persona he puts on to drive away other people, and he hasn’t gotten any sort of touch in a while because he shuts up the moment that Patton’s own warmth floods over him.

The room holds the silence for an eternity: Virgil frozen halfway up from the ground, and Patton latching on to him like he can pluck all the reasons Virgil is upset out of his mind through osmosis. The lava lamp makes him look unreal, makes the silence ring louder, makes the lump in Patton’s throat grow larger.

“Virgil,” Patton says, “please.”

Please tell me what I can do. Please allow me to help. Please let me in.

“It’s stupid,” Virgil says.

Patton wants to laugh, because nothing that ever hurts Virgil has ever been stupid. “I don’t think so, kiddo.”

Virgil bites his lip and inhales with all of his chest.

“You didn’t go to any classes today. You’ve been crying. You’re still wearing yesterday’s clothes.” Patton says. “Something happened. And it can’t possibly be stupid because nothing that affects you like this is can be anything less than something huge.”

Patton feels Virgil’s hand curl into a fist like he can hide his shaking when Patton is right there .

“Do you remember Logan Ackroyd,” Virgil says. “The senior a year older than us who I had Sociology with last year?”

The same Logan who took extra notes for when Virgil missed class and emailed them to him. The same Logan who offered Virgil a granola bar when he overheard that Virgil had missed lunch. The same Logan who helped Virgil break into the auditorium after school hours to search for his missing earbuds.

The same Logan who has eyes more knowledgeable than the entire galaxy, who wears a tie to class, who smells like coffee beans and pen ink and looks like he’d give really good, safe hugs.

The same Logan who Patton has never once met, but feels like he knows intimately thanks to Virgil’s starstruck rambles.

Logan must be something great and amazing. Patton has known that for a year now, from watching the months slip away and suddenly the ghost of Logan joins them on every outing, summoned by the blush over Virgil’s ears and the soft smile on his lips and the way that Virgil steadfastly won’t meet Patton’s eyes like it will prevent Patton from noticing the way that the senior is always on Virgil’s mind. Logan is kind. Logan is smart. Logan has a new book every day. Logan has a voice like the ocean waves.

Logan, Patton thinks, should have been more careful if he caused Virgil this much distress. Because there are things that Patton would do for Virgil that not even a cold blooded killer would consider doing.

“Yeah,” Patton says, with a smile soft and dumb and innocent. “You guys have Analytical Science together this year, right?”

Virgil lets go of his lip, and breathes out a breath that sounds like more relief than Patton is supposed to hear. “Yeah. Yeah. He, uh… yeah.” Virgil shifts back down, shifts so that he’s on his knees and Patton is right next to him, and they’re still touching and that warmth is stronger than the shadows made by the blobs in the lava lamp.

“Janus… Janus asked him out yesterday,” Virgil says, using his other hand to pluck at a thread in his jeans.

Oh. Patton doesn’t think cookies and soup were enough.

And golly, Patton doesn’t think Logan is as smart as Virgil is always saying he is either, because if he said yes in front of Virgil, he must have been the stupidest person on the planet.

Virgil is quiet, dismissible, a shadow in his own skin even on his best days. But he is not un-noticeable.

He carries an aura around himself that storms and thunders and promises danger to those that get too close. His laughter is a threat first and a comfort second. His smile is a knife blade that even Patton sometimes wonders if he might find in his back one day. Virgil was someone that you noticed and you stayed the fudge away from.

Unless you were Patton, who hadn’t been afraid of Death from the moment he watched his mother cough up blood over the cards to CandyLand, watched his mother turn into a real-life game of Operation, watched her breathing get ragged and her fingers struggle to hold playing cards between them.

Logan hadn’t been scared away by Virgil’s thunder, and somehow he had weathered the storm that Virgil put up to protect himself and lived securely in the eye of the hurricane. And somehow he hadn’t noticed, hadn’t cared, had taken advantage of Virgil’s softening heart just to shatter it.

“He didn’t…” Virgil says. “Janus… he didn’t really mean it. I don’t think. It might have been a joke because they’re friends but Logan told everyone that he would only consider dating someone who could… could…”

“Could what?”

Virgil’s eyes flick down to the Trouble game board, to the pieces lost in chaos of the floor, to the box they hadn’t needed except for transport. Patton feels his heart thud in his chest before he crawls up his throat and he tastes it in his mouth along with the remains of the raw cookie dough he licked off the spoon while cleaning up.

Virgil’s words come back to him in whispers. But it’s not like I’m going to win. This is a sign, isn’t it? I’m just being stupid even considering it.

“Someone who could….” Patton says, “beat him in a boardgame?”

Virgil yanks the thread on his jeans sharply and nods without meeting Patton’s eyes. “I told you it was stupid.”

“Virgil,” Patton says. “This is great! We’ve been playing games together for years! You can beat--”

“That’s the thing!” Virgil says with his shoulders curling up to his ears and burying him in layers of excess fabric. “Pat, I can’t even beat you in a board game and I know all your strategies!”

“I don’t think that Trouble actually has any strategies. It’s really luck of the roll--”

Virgil peeks out of his hood enough to give Patton a miserable glare. “When was the last time I won against you, Pat? Be honest.”

Patton purses his lips. “I don’t think that’s fair, kiddo. I’ve been playing games since I was able to understand the rules--”

“You don’t even remember, do you.”

“It was Dominos and you won by twenty points.”

“Nice try, but you purposely miscounted and you actually won by two.” Virgil reaches out for another cookie and offers it to Patton without making any move to pull his other hand from Patton’s hold.

“You would have a lot more wins if you didn’t insist on not finishing games sometimes!” Patton says. “You never know the ending of a game until you play it out!”

“I could tell you that Logan was going to beat Janus in Chess the moment the opening moves were made,” Virgil counters. “He won in twelve moves and then the next game in six.”

Patton opens his mouth, but Virgil shoves the cookie in before he can actually say anything.

“And God Rest Remy’s soul because Logan obliterated him in Trivia Pursuit.” Virgil continues, “He turned Roman to mincemeat over Scrabble, and not only beat Remus in Poker, but won one hundred dollars off him too. I also watched him win in Othello against some kid he tutored in Calc, a game of Mancala with an art kid who was doing it for clout, and Stratego which he won before I finished reading the fuuuuuudging rules and made his opponent cry over it.”

Patton swallows down a bite of cookie that he didn’t not chew well enough because he feels it tear up his esophagus as it goes. Virgil politely ignores him dying for a second and offers him his own thermos of soup to help it down, before remembering that he’s supposed to be brooding and staring at Patton for too long makes him soft.

“Not to make a pun here, but no dice; I legitimately cannot beat Logan,” Virgil says. “He’s just… so good. At everything. What is the point in humiliating myself with this? Even if I find a game so obscure that he’s never heard of it and doesn’t have a strategy built for it, just going up to him and putting the board between us is like-- that’s telling him that I’ve had this massive stupid crush on him for ages and what if he doesn’t even like me? What if I win and then he has to date me because he said so but he actually hates me? What if--”

Patton coughs so hard he thinks he might have dislodged his own lung, which is fine!! Because at least it got Virgil to snap back to him and table his panicky spiral for later.

“Weren’t you,” Patton croaks, “Weren’t you already going to confess to him? You bought the chocolate kisses and you sent me pictures of them in your bag right before class last week.”

Patton can’t see Virgil’s ears because of his hood but he knows that they’re glowing red from the way that Virgil can’t meet his eyes again.

“I just….I did but then he….” Virgil nudges a pile of questionably clean band t-shirts with his socked foot. “He said he wasn’t interested because class was starting and I still don’t know if he meant an actual kiss or a Hershey kiss because he had to leave class early to pick up his kid brother from his middle school because he was sick with a fever and then I was too mortified to bring it back up-- See Pat, I can’t even come up with a creative way to tell Logan that I wanna listen to him ramble about jellyfish immortality and play with his hair or tell him that I wanna know what the flavor of his chapstick is-- which, by the way, I did say to him and he told me was cake batter and that I could find it at the corner drugstore because he thought I was looking for recommendations-- There is no way to subtly tell him that I want to date him.”

“Then maybe… don’t be subtle?” Patton suggests, and then points at the game between them. “Boardgame?”

Virgil scowls at the game like it had personally offended him. “But I can’t beat him. And if I lose and by some miracle he still wants to be seen with me, then he’d be breaking the very rules he set up and everyone else who lost is going to be pissed at both of us and I can’t do that to Logan.”

Patton bites back the then don’t lose that he wants to say. It seems so obvious to him. He doesn’t really see why Virgil doesn’t think he can win one single game. There isn’t even a rule that says Virgil can’t come back and play again-- which isn’t that the point of games? That you can play them for a little while, pack them up, and then come back to them later? That you sit down with friends-maybe-more and you play and have fun ?

Not for the first time, and not for the last time, Patton wonders why Virgil ever played games with him at all. He knows the first time was pity because he found Patton sitting on the floor of his bedroom with Trouble on the ground in front of him and staring at it numbly because he had cried all the tears out of himself already at the hospital, at the funeral, at the everything that had come after that he couldn’t remember. The first time it had been to get Patton to react because he had been so lost, but every time after that Virgil had made the conscious decision to pick up the pieces.

Even if sometimes he had put them back down halfway through and Patton hadn’t figured out how to convince him that the point isn’t to win as much as it is to have fun.

Virgil twists his wrist loosely in Patton’s grip so that he’s holding Patton back, his cold fingers somehow feeling comforting rather than startling. Patton has always loved that about him, although he’s never sure how that works. The coolness of his touch is familiar, but the vulnerability of Virgil reaching out is something newer, something special, something fragile and Virgil holds onto him like he’s expecting Patton to let go at any moment and Patton steadfastly refuses to let him drift off. Patton squeezes his wrist gently, lightly, softly.

I’m here. I’m not leaving. We’re in this together.

“I think that Logan can make decisions for himself,” Patton says with words so featherlight they barely move the air. “Remember the dominos? Any player can choose to lose, whether it be miscounting or it be refusing to finish the game in the end. But if you never even offer to play with him… Logan can’t make that choice, Virgil.”

Virgil holds his gaze for a moment, two, three, and there’s something in his eyes that shies away from the glow of the light, something slippery and weak and scared. Something that Patton is afraid to put a name to, lest it disappear from him forever.

Something that causes Virgil to squeeze his wrist back.

Together. Us. We’ve got this.

“So what game do you want to play with Logan?” Patton asks. “We can go look at my collection if you want? I loaned out Backgammon to a girl in my Shakespearean class, but other than that I have the usuals with me.”

Virgil takes a deep breath. “Can we…” He says. “Do it tomorrow? I don’t want…” He squeezes Patton’s wrist again and Patton can fill in the rest of the blanks with his own interpretations. He is, after all, fluent in Virgilese, as much as Virgil is fluent in Pattonish.

“Yeah, yeah,” Patton says and shifts through the piles of clothes that act as cushions so he’s right next to Virgil, pressing their shoulders together, leaning his head on Virgil’s collarbone, and reaching around him for another cookie. Virgil moves the tub between them and then pulls the Trouble game board in front of that.

He hesitates for another moment-- they’re missing two of Patton’s blue pieces to the floor, and one of Virgil’s purples to a pile of sweatshirts-- but the fact that Virgil drops forward and presses the bubble to roll the die makes Patton’s chest warm.

He gets a six, and then a four and that thing in his eyes seems to grow just a bit stronger.

That is, of course, when the rap music from next door starts up loud enough to shake the entire room and Patton wonders if Logan would still be up for playing a game with Virgil when he’s incarcerated for second degree murder.

Patton, at least, gets a hug out of it, when he tackles Virgil to the ground before he can get to the door, and he manages to coax Virgil back to their area, back to the floor, back to the game, and then later into the blanket-fort-and-movie-night that they watch with one earbud each and their foreheads pressed together late into the night.

***

Patton’s mother developed lung cancer when he was seven. He remembers it in vague flashes: the blood, the shakiness, her fall to the floor because they had never had any sign of it happening until it was too late to do much about it. He was told it was because his maternal grandparents both smoked a lot when she was growing up and she spent the weekends helping them around the house still.

The doctors said she had a year. She got eighteen months.

He barely remembers her face from his own memories anymore, all of them blurred and twisted by the passage of time that he almost got swept away in entirely. Her picture still hangs around the house, though, and he guesses he’s lucky in that regard. He liked how he could see her every time he passed by the stairs, even after his dad remarried and he had grown up and the telemarketers stopped calling the house to tell her that there was an interesting charge on the credit card she didn’t have anymore.

He still wakes up sometimes with his heart beating in his ears and his eyes blinded with tears and his lungs refusing to cooperate because of nightmares about forgetting her entirely, of seeing her stand up to call out to his dad, of seeing her cough out blood and then fall to the floor right in front of him as his dad is running down the stairs. He still wakes up and feels his heart aching where she might have once been if everything had gone just a little bit different. He still wakes up and wishes that he could go back to sleep because at least in his dreams she’s still there waiting with a deck of cards and a smile that says, “Alright, Buster, don’t think I’m going to go easy on you this time!”

Usually those types of days he labels as “Bad Ones”, and he finds it harder to crawl from under his blankets to do pretty much anything.

Virgil knows immediately when he sees Patton staring at his black laptop screen that it’s a Bad One.

Patton loves that he knows not to ask, hates that Virgil can read him so easily, wants to cry because it’s been so long and shouldn’t the edges of that pain have gone away by now? He wants to pull Virgil’s purple comforter back over them and drift back off into the blissful warmth while pretending that the idea of a game right now didn’t make his hands shake.

She hadn’t left Patton specifically a lot of things, but the things that she had left him had been boardgames. Things that she had collected over the years and kept on a shelf in the study for them to play after work and school: Candyland, Trouble, Snakes and Ladders. She had a whole shelf for him when he got to an age where he could understand more complex concepts: Ticket to Ride, Pandemic, Mysterium, Star Realms, Settlers of Catan.

After she was gone… Patton had stared at that shelf and wondered if she had ever thought that maybe she wouldn’t get a chance to play some of them with him.

He wonders how many of them he could have beat her at, how many of them she might let him win in, how many of them they would love to play together and how many of them they would both play through once and then wrinkle their noses at because it wasn’t what they thought it was going to be.

He wonders and maybe it’s a bit too much because he’s stomach is rolling nauseously and he thinks that if he has to look at a game he’ll actually throw up this time.

Virgil doesn’t say anything, even as he gets up and Patton remains buried under too many blankets and the alarm on his phone goes off again for his morning class. The darkness is safe and warm and Patton thinks he understands why Virgil likes it so much as he closes his eyes and tries not to think of a woman who is long gone and in the ground.

“Breakfast?” Virgil whispers at some point.

“Cookies,” Patton mumbles back.

Virgil had carted a hand through his curls and then the door to the room had opened closed and locked behind him. Patton thinks that was nice of him-- to lock the door like he was protecting anyone from coming in and stealing his valuables even though Patton was there. Or maybe since Patton was there? Patton presses his head into a pillow that smells vaguely like chocolate cherries and black licorice and other things that screamed Virgil, and thinks that Virgil might consider Patton a valuable that needs to be protected and kept safe.

Sometime later Patton wakes up with Virgil lying beside him, headphones on and typing on his computer with one hand while dragging fingers through Patton’s curls with the other. It’s impressive of him by itself, but not nearly as impressive as the fact that Virgil’s hood is down and the blackout curtains are parted enough to bring in a decent amount of light.

Virgil blinks at him and removes one earmuff. “I read that flowers need sunlight to grow,” he says in lieu of explaining the rays of light cascading into the room over the two of them.

Patton wants to laugh, and thinks he might if it were any other day and not this one. He settles for a somewhat bent smile and Virgil reaches to somewhere he can’t see and brings back a muffin from the Campus Cafe.

“Chocolate Chip,” he says. “Which is like a cookie, but better because it’s a muffin and I said so.”

Patton can’t really tell if the tears that prick in his eyes are from the lingering sadness or the softness of just a simple gesture from his best friend. Maybe it’s both. Maybe it’s neither.

It’s a muffin, not something he should be crying over, and he repeats it even as he takes a bite from the top and Virgil pretends like he doesn’t see Patton scrubbing his cheeks as he chews. It’s a muffin, but Virgil got it just for him and Virgil came right back here and sat with him so he wouldn’t wake up alone and sad and and and--

And if Patton liked anyone romantically like that(™) he thinks he would have fallen straight into love with Virgil.

“Did you miss class?” Patton whispers.

Virgil shrugs. “Nothing important. I sent an email to my teachers saying that I wasn’t feeling too good and didn’t want to risk accidentally spreading anything to anyone, which already helps because I didn’t go to class yesterday and I’ve already turned in all my work for the week for most of my classes. Besides, you were here and I didn’t want to just leave you all alone-- what if Roman started playing his Disney compilations at 160 decibels again?”

“You like Disney, though.”

“I also like my hearing and my best friend,” Virgil says like it’s nothing, like it’s obvious, like it shouldn’t be making Patton tear up again because Virgil is just so nice.

“I’m sorry,” Patton whispers.

Virgil moves his computer and jostles around on the bed until they’re lying side-by-side even though the bed was definitely not made for two persons. He presses his head to Patton’s, and he’s cool and soft and safe.

Together. We got this.

“Your mom?” He asks.

Patton nods, with a lump in his throat that makes all the words he wants to say crumble to ashes on his tongue. “Sorry.”

“You don’t need to apologize, Pat,” Virgil says.

“But… Logan…”

“He’s not going anywhere,” Virgil says. “And, full offense, but no boy is going to be more important to me than you regardless of how fuuuuuuunkily hot he is. Funkily, yeah, sure, that’s a word that I definitely was going to say right there.”

Patton feels the laugh build up in his chest, against all the odds in the world, and it tastes like chocolate when it rolls out of his mouth.

Virgil bumps his shoulder, and grins. “Look, I’m trying here. Cursing is in my nature!”

“Thank you,” Patton says. For everything.

“No prob, Bob,” Virgil says. I would do it all all over again and never change a thing.

“I’m not Bob! I’m Pat!”

Virgil’s laugh is like the sun breaking through the clouds after a rainstorm, like a rainbow cascading through the sky, like being caught after a fall. Patton gets the energy to smile back when he hears it and that alone nearly makes him want to cry again.

Patton twists the blanket under him between his fingers and takes a deep breath. “Did you…” He says before pausing to swallow back the taste of his own stomach acids he’s not sure is entirely imaginary. “Did you pick a game? For Logan?”

Virgil’s nose twitches, which means the answer is a sound no. “It’s not that important right now. You’re not feeling up to--”

“ Vir -gil,” Patton says and Virgil’s nose twitches again.

They share a look for another minute, two, three, before Virgil exhales and looks away.

“Fine, fine,” he says. “I didn’t pick out a game yet. I actually saw him in the Cafe earlier with Janus and he waved, though, which was awesome until I waved back and forgot to look where I was going and walked straight into a glass door. At this point it’s going to be a miracle if Logan doesn’t laugh in my face when I ask him to play anything with me.”

“He won’t laugh at you,” Patton says and Virgil slides his arms up and crosses them so he can bury his chin in them like he doesn’t believe Patton at all. “From what you’ve told me, Logan is really nice isn’t he? And the other day didn’t you say that he went on a rant about Pluto being a planet? I think that’s just as silly as you walking into a door.”

Virgil hums to show he’s listening, even if he isn’t taking the words to heart as much as letting them filter through his ears. Patton licks the last of the chocolate muffin from his fingertips and blinks away the urge to hide away from the rest of the world when he spies the box for Trouble on the ground next to Virgil’s desk trash can.

Virgil follows his gaze to the box and he purses his lips, although Patton isn’t sure if its from the fact that he’s remembering that neither of them won last night, or if he’s thinking about odds of beating Logan again or if he, too, is thinking about ghostly fingers trying so hard to move playing pieces that they can no longer touch.

Patton rolls over and stares at Virgil’s ceiling instead, counting his breaths until he feels like the static between his ears isn’t going to overwhelm him.

“What game do you want to play?” Patton asks.

“I won’t win.”

“I didn’t ask what game you wanted to win,” Patton points out. “What game do you want to play against Logan?”

Virgil is quiet, but he sighs so heavily that Patton can see his bangs flutter out of the corner of his eyes.

“This is going to sound stupid,” Virgil says, and again Patton remembers that nothing Virgil ever says has ever once been stupid. “But I don’t want to play against him at all.”

Patton frowns, rolling his head to the side to take in Virgil’s gaze that is already looking at him. His dark eyes are there and the something in them that Patton doesn’t want to put a name to is there again, shining just like the rays of light between Virgil’s blinds.

“I mean I want to play a game with Logan, just not against Logan. It’s stupid, okay? I was just thinking about the cooperative games back at your house that we used to play with your dad and step mom-- you know like the Unlock , Escape-room-in-a-box games? Or maybe Flashpoint? Or Forbidden Island? I was just thinking how shit I am at making my own decisions in Pandemic and Logan is really good at strategy so I bet that working together we’d be able to beat any game.”

Patton breathes deeply, sharply, and tries to ignore the piercing pain in his chest at the mention of the games. Virgil winces like he wants to take the words right back out of the air and hide them somewhere where neither of them have to face them at all.

“I don’t…” Virgil says, “I don’t want to play against him and lose. I’d rather play with him and win. Again: it’s stupid.”

Patton closes his eyes, and sees the shelf his mom left him full of boardgames she picked out long before he was past chewing on building blocks, of him at eleven years old finally getting the courage to drag a kitchen chair to the case and pick out a game while Virgil stood by to make sure he didn’t fall and to remind him that it was okay if he didn’t didn’t feel strong enough to try, of the two of them sitting at the kitchen table with the game directions between them that don’t really make any sense because it there’s no directions on how to attack each other when his dad comes home early and freezes at the sight

He might not remember his mother’s face outside of photographs he doesn’t remember being taken, but he remembers clearly the softness of his father’s expression when he dropped into the seat next to them and asked if they knew how to play this one yet.

“It’s a cooperative game,” his dad said, with a voice shaking and eyes wet. “That means we all work together to get to the goal at the end. Each player is going to have a different superpower-ability-thing that they can do that will make it easier for us to win as a team.”

So no, Patton doesn’t think that it’s stupid at all. It’s hard to do things by themselves, it’s scary, it’s difficult, it’s frustrating. That’s why when Virgil is texting him that the world is ending because of a boy, Patton will always show up at his dorm with soup and cookies and a game for them to play together instead of telling him that he’s being dramatic and silly. That’s why when Patton is missing a woman who hasn’t been in his life for twelve years now, Virgil will always stay with him to remind him that he’s going to get through it, instead of telling him to suck it up.

It’s much easier to win when they’re on the same side.

And Virgil has only ever had fun when playing games that he wins, hasn’t he?

“Why don’t you?” Patton asks suddenly.

Virgil must have nodded off because he jerks suddenly when Patton speaks up, “huh?”

“Why don’t you play a cooperative game?” Patton asks. “What did Logan say specifically about the whole dating thing?”

Virgil rubs an eye and squints at him tiredly. “I told you, he said he would only date someone who beats him at a game. I don’t--”

“Did he say beats him, or beats the game with him?”

“Neither?” Virgil says. “He literally said to Janus very loudly, “I will only consider someone a viable romantic partner if they can win in a game with me.””

“In a game with me,” Patton repeats. “ In a game with me. Not in a game against me!”

It takes Virgil a long, breathless moment to comprehend it, but it’s clear the moment it hits him. Virgil jerks so hard that he tumbles off the bed entirely and to the ground in a fumbling of long limbs, blankets, dubiously cleaned clothes, and his computer-headphones combo. Patton yelps and leans over to check on him but Virgil doesn’t even look like he noticed.

“Holy Shit,” He says, “holy shit, Pat.”

“Language.”

“ HOLY SHIT!” Virgil yells, and then he laughs and covers his mouth like he’s trying to bottle up the sound. “Patton! Patton! He didn’t say against!”

Virgil’s eyes sparkle, the light through the window makes his dark hair shine and just looking at him Patton thinks he’s never once seen him so happy before, so delighted, so excited.

So full of hope.

The next thing he knows is that he’s sitting up and Virgil is wrapped around him in a hug so tight, so soft, so cool and wonderful that those pesky tears come right back to his eyes. Virgil hugs like he’s unafraid of anything for just this endless moment, like he’s never been unsure of physical touch before, like he’s done it a million times before and Patton shouldn’t feel his breath catch in his lungs lest he shatter this dream with an exhale.

He’s standing at the eye of the storm that is Virgil, and he’s never felt so safe before in his life.

“Thank you,” Virgil whispers, “I, uh, I’m sorry for the sudden hug--”

And then, of course, Remus’s music comes back with a vengeance that rattles the ceiling tiles overhead and makes Virgil hiss and break the hug. Patton thinks that he could forgive it, if it weren’t for the unmistakable sound Disney’s Mulan soundtrack also ringing in the air, like it was trying to be heard over the rap music. Dust sprinkles from the tiles overhead.

“I’m going to kill them both,” Virgil vows, but Patton is quicker. He lunges forward before he even knows what he’s doing and coils around Virgil as tightly as he can, and just hugs him, his best friend, the guy who’s always been there for him, and who deserved all the happiness that he could get.

“Pat?” Virgil says.

“If Logan doesn’t treat you right I’m going to make sure no one finds his body,” Patton says.

And Virgil’s laughter makes it sound like he doesn’t quite believe Patton, but that’s okay. Virgil is still looking for reasons to play a game if not to win, and Patton is still trying to find a game that makes him smile, and together they’re going to figure out how to get Virgil to win with Logan.

But for now the hug is good, and the company is nice, and they have the game Trouble packed away ready for the next time they want to play.

#sanders sides #board gaming #platonic moxiety #Analogical #Logan is the hottest side confirmed #Because everyone wants to date him #(Except Pat)#Me the author: what the fuck is hurt comfort #tw: cancer #I just like board games okay #maybe a little too much #I kNew YoU WeRe TrOuBlE WhEn YoU wAlKeD IN #virgil is a disaster gay #Patton really awesome #Hugs? Hugs.

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incorrectfmaquotes · 3 years

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Hey, I love your blog! I'm sorry to bother you but I was just wondering if you got my submissions and if you've approved of them and will post them?

(Long Post; press ‘j’ to skip past if on desktop)

Hello! Thank you for loving the blog! I did get your submissions, and they have been approved. I will post them, but with the way I run this blog, the earliest one of your submissions would show up would be mid-February at this point.

(And now a little behind-the-scenes look if you want a more in-depth explanation for why that is, or if you’re just curious.)

How that works is that I like to fill the queue all the way up to the max (which is 300 posts) with quotes and other fma posts all at once when it is a few days from running out. I press the ‘shuffle’ button a couple times to thoroughly scramble the order in which I have entered the posts, so there is a better mix between new original incquotes, new submitted incquotes, old reblogged incquotes, and other fma posts. I set up the queue to post 3 times a day, so that gives me the next 100 days to make new incquotes and find other fma posts and receive submissions, and I put all of that in the drafts. Hopefully, by the end of the 100 days, I have over 300 new posts waiting in the drafts.

The last time I filled up the queue was a couple days before last Halloween, so the submissions that have been posting in that time were submitted before the last week of October.

I do apologize for how long it takes to see your submissions. I have thought about maybe changing the timeline in which I post submissions, but because no one else has brought it up before, I thought it was something that only I had some issue with and therefore, not worth changing.

And if you are still concerned about having quotes approved, well, here are some things that have made me reject submissions, or change them, or just keep them in my inbox because I don’t know what to do with them:

Biggest No-No: Absolutely no quotes that support pedophilic or incestual ships! This is the one I have made sure to put down in the submissions page. It says before the submission box that even if you did not intend for it to be romantic, if it can conceivably be perceived that way and tagged as a pedophilic or incestual ship by someone reblogging, then I will alter it in a way that would make it more not like that, like adding another character. I feel incredibly guilty changing someone else’s submissions though, especially in this case, because they are clearly going for a wholesome platonic, familial vibe. Unfortunately, what ends up happening sometimes is that some of those submissions just end up sitting in my inbox longer as I wrestle with that guilt and how to potentially change it.

Offensive shock humor/humor rooted in bigotry. Not too long ago, I had to delete multiple submissions with humor based in transphobia and sexual violence. It was incredibly disheartening to receive, and I am not gonna force anyone else to read them or anything like that. I rarely get this type of stuff, which I am grateful for.

Quotes that are graphically NSFW, especially if they involve the teenage characters. These are INCREDIBLY uncomfortable for me to read. I’m usually fine with posting some dirty humor, but either the lines are too blurred with these submissions, or they are just waaayyy too inappropriate out the gate. I have actually posted some of these because I thought that maybe I was having an overreaction to these quotes, maybe I’m being too prudish, maybe they actually are that funny to more people. I don’t know if others are having the same reaction to them that I do, but they usually end up being some of the least popular quotes, so I’m probably just gonna reject them now. I will admit, there are a few quotes that I had posted in the very early days of this blog that are more NSFW than I would think to make now. I’m honestly surprised that I did make those, I think I was just excited to find more quotes for this blog, my mind has changed now.

Quotes that I have already done before. Even if you have submitted it with different characters, chances are that I’m still gonna delete it unless it is really different. If you happen to submit a quote that I have not posted yet, but I do have it waiting in my queue or drafts, I won’t add the submission. I know this is harder to check for anyone submitting, especially because this blog has almost 5,000 posts, but yeah, this is just one of the things that make me reject a submission.

More specifically, do not send me that quote from Brooklyn 99 where Jake accidentally calls Holt “Dad”. This is, without a doubt, the quote I keep getting sent the most. At one point, I had 7 submissions of it from different people in my inbox all at once before I deleted them. I still get submissions of it that I delete on sight at this point. Y’all. That is one of this blog’s earliest quotes. I’m pretty sure it’s within the first 100 posts. It’s already been done. Please stop sending me this quote.

I don’t think you were expecting such a hefty response, but I hope you have the necessary information.

#dyingroses #rosie speaks #asks answered #the reason why I only have the first bullet point as a guideline in the submissions #is because it has been the longest recurring issue #the other issues besides the last bullet point #have only appeared this year #i might make a separate post with these things that arent attached to an ask

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mistressmaker · 3 years

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Do's and Dont's of Old Farm House Basements

For some people, basements are pretty scary and I do not blame people who feel that way. They come with a completely different set of problems than just having a crawl space, especially when your house is 120 years old like mine.

Let's talk about what a good foundation looks like.

For anyone who wants to embark on their own home renovation journey and is about to buy a house, these tips will be essential for making good decisions and when to run like hell. Maybe you already own a house, some of these tips will still be helpful to you. Keep reading for all this good info, but don't forget to follow me for more DIY crafting and house renovation projects as well as tons of useful info!

Don't buy a house with concave basement walls

This is a run like hell moment. If your foundation looks like it's pushing in or pushing out, that's a really expensive job to fix it, like thousands of dollars. Generally, this is caused by hydrostatic pressure build up which pushes in on the walls.

Do ignore efflorescence - it's not mold

The picture above is actually from my own basement. That white patch you see? Efflorescence. It's a build up of minerals from water that seeps through the porous sandstone. It's not harmful, but it does indicate that some water redirection could be done around the foundation. However, sandstone will inevitably always absorb moisture so this isn't going away soon, but it's not harmful so it. shouldn't scare you off.

Do check the grout between the stones.

Old field stone foundations like mine will need to be repointed. You will want to stick your fingers between the stones and pick at the grout to see how much of it is loose. If it's really bad, there will already be gaps between many of the stones. This is not the end of the world, but it does affect the structural integrity of the house. I paid a mason to come in and repoint my foundation from the interior, as well as my chimneys for $1,800. They also painted the stone to help will humidity issues caused from the porous sandstone. It's also a pretty easy and cheap job to do yourself if you have the time!

Don't plan on finishing the basement how it is

Did you know that prior to the 90's, no basement was every designed to be 'finished'? That means, if you really want to finish your basement, updated drainage around the base and exterior needs to happen before. Depending on the age and materials used to construct your basement, cost wise it might not be feasible to properly finish your basement. Let's say you skip that step and finish. it anyway. You run the risk of any items in your basement being destroyed either by high amounts of humidity, which causes mold, or through a flood. Even if your property has never flooded, you should always expect the worst. My cousin bought a house with a semi-finished basement that had never flooded. It took one torrential downpour that flooded the entire city for his belongings to all be destroyed.

Do inspect the condition of the joists.

Your joist generally sit on your foundation wall and run to a main beam, or to another foundation wall. In old homes like my own, it was not uncommon to notch the joists so that they would sit nicely on the foundation or in the beam. This was used in lieu of the braces/brackets we use today. The issue with this is that it decreased the effective depth of the joist since the underside is unsupported. In areas of the house that have heavy objects, or load bearing walls, one can observe these joists start to split at the notching point. It's not the end of the world, but you should plan on lifting the joist with a bottle jack, putting in a brace with nails (NOT screws! They do not have the sheer strength!). This increases the strength of your joist significantly and will prevent further cracking!

The other thing you will want to check is how level the joists are. My house is very unlevel compared to new builds, but not unreasonably so. The decreased strength and long joist runs have caused bowing in my joists. I've just made sure they're fully supported moving forward while I level out the house so they have the strength to hold new additions!

Don't buy a house with many massive holes through joists and the sill plate

The picture above is once again from my own basement after a repair had been made (Yes, I used screws in the brackets, I have to go back with nails and fix it... I blame my dad 🙃). The plumber who put in the stack behind the new wood, just decided to cut off a joist and leave it completely unsupported. I can't believe anyone in their right mind would just leave a joist unsupported like that... Don't do that. But behind the stack, is part of my sill plate, which is pretty well irreparable at his point because of all the holes cut into it for pipe. For small pipe or electric, cutting a hole in the bottom 1/4ish of a joist or sill plate is fine, but making large holes destroys the structural integrity of your home. That's because it's the depth of the wood that gives the strength to hold up your home. These are repairable, so it's not the end of the world, but it does take some knowledge and time. Epoxy, sistering, and scabbing are all methods used to repair joists and sill plates. However, I would run if you see any major house sagging or other noticeable problems caused through this type of damage.

Don't buy a house with abundant moisture problems

Moisture causes mold, but the mold shouldn't scare you, even if it's black mold, as long as you can control the moisture. One, mold does not have to be black to send out mycotoxins so black mold isn't the only enemy. Two, mold is harmless with insufficient moisture. Mold needs a food source, like wood or drywall paper, plus water to grow. The truth is, mold is always present in every home whether you like it or not. Whether it's active is another thing. My house is over 100 years old, IT HAS MOLD. All that mold is super inactive because no water is leaking and I have a dehumidifier in my basement. So am I going to spend thousands of dollars to clean it up? Hell no. I'm going to invest in keeping my house dry and the mold won't affect the air quality. However, you shouldn't invest in a house that's going to be difficult to keep dry. My house is on top of a hill so I just have normal porous sandstone humidity issues which are pretty well controllable.

I feel like I covered some really important topics that are important to evaluating basement and foundation quality. I probably missed somethings, but I feel like these are the topics I've come across the most making improvements to my basement foundation and/or made me swear at the previous owners for doing really dumb things.

Have questions that I didn't answer here?

Hit that reblog button and type in your question! I'm sure someone else would find it equally as helpful.

Have your own helpful tips?

Pleaser add to this post! Reblog and add your useful information. Let's make basements less scary!!!

#old houses #renovations #diy #remodeling #basement #foundation #farm house #foundation repair #crafts and hobbies #structural repair #repairs #house

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oydan · 3 years

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Title: Content

Pairing: Levi Ackerman x OC

Warning: Mentions of depression and symptoms, violence, dealing with death, curse words.

Disclaimer: I do not own any of the characters let alone the entirety of Attack on Titan. I only own the OC characters mentioned. The credit to the artists if anyone is interested is in the link above along with the character description of the OC featured.

A/N: This one will kind of go a little bit more in depth into their story and why they're still not together. To clarify Levi loves Mel a great deal and simply wants what's best for her in the end. Just because you may feel depressed or sad you still are deserving of love. Just because they aren't together it doesn't mean he deems her unworthy he just doesn't want their love to be based off a savior complex. He wants her genuine love and shows her in the ways he's able to in fleeting moments like this that he is in love with her and is present when she needs him. He's waiting for her until she's ready to be present and take control of her life. This imagine is actually very close to my heart because it was inspired by my own battle with depression. Everything mentioned is similar to what I had gone through and how I tried to hide my pain from my loved ones similar to Mel. How my own boyfriend played a part in my life and came to me in the right moment to be my support during my battle. I hope you all like it. Also if you are suffering through your own battle I urge you to get help. It's good to talk to a good friend or family member you trust, but if you are able to get help from a professional please do. Trust me it's so freeing. Love you all out there reading this. Also my DM's are open if you don't have someone like that in your life. Love yourself.

Please support me by liking, commenting, and/or reblogging my work, please. I follow back everyone that follows me so add me!

Masterlist

The sound of a welding tool was all Levi could hear as he made his way inside the familiar workshop. He was already accustomed to all the junk lying around on the work tables carrying piles of 3D gears and rifles. Any other person would be fascinated with the unique looking gadgets and the steel rods that would be used for the next round of titans they would capture, but Levi spent so much time in this place that he ignored them to get to the individual that made it.

“Mel!” The loud sound of metal forming together stops as the said person turns around with a welding mask on her face. “Oh what’s going on Levi, you need something?”

Sighing, slightly annoyed the girl forgot about the important day Levi proceeds to say, “Eren’s trial is today. You’re supposed to be there with the rest of us.” Finally she pulls her mask up along with the protective goggles she always wore. “Oh that was today huh? Well I trust you and Erwin to get the job done. I still got these restraining weapons to finish up before the next expedition. Those bastards in the capital have been stingy with the gadgets I’ve been making and I can only get so much done in time.” In all honesty she hated continuing working so close under the crown, but the nobles were all aware that she had obtained the same talent for the trade that her father passed on to her so she was practically forced to continue her job. Erwin was able to keep her under the command of the Survey Corps due to her importance on the team, but it meant she would have to work double the amount in order to appease the orders from the capital.

Levi, having known her for the last couple years, saw the fatigue begin to show in the dark circles under her eyes. She had grown a habit of drinking coffee mixed in sage to keep herself awake for the long hours she was needed. Looking on to the work station he could see the familiar red mug that she always used while working. “You should still be there Erwin says it’s not set into stone just yet.” She lets out her own sigh before the blonde takes her protective gear off. “Alright I’ll head over with you. Can you wait for me to take a shower? Unless of course you want to join me.” His fellow captain often teased him by flirting with him which always left him flustered and today seeing the slight sign of sweat sliding from her neck down to the valley of her breasts made it even worse for him. The top few buttons of her blouse were opened so he had the privilege of seeing the descend to the unknown that he had been secretly yearning for. He looks away to stop the growing feelings, but Mel didn’t stop there. Walking over to him to wrap her arms around his neck had forced him to look down at the beautiful woman in front of him. His heart was pounding against his chest while her own filled with butterflies looking at the man up close. She had planned to tease him more with his obvious staring but she had lost all thoughts in her mind and allowed herself to give in to this feeling for just a moment more.

The couple knew that if they wanted to pursue a relationship they could without any issues, but they knew what was stopping them was their duties. It wasn’t like Erwin was opposed to the relationship, in fact he wanted his friends to finally give into their feelings for each other. It was the duty that Mel had held towards her father to avenge his death. Similar to Erwin, Mel couldn’t find it in herself to give up proving that her father was the one in the right. She put herself in danger on the field and had been infiltrating the crown to take them a part which was its own dangerous task. Levi respected her wishes though and even helped in every way possible in hopes that maybe once she completed her goals she would be able to walk away from it all. Levi followed Erwin as a loyal comrade, but he would leave the Corps in a heartbeat if she had asked him to run away with her. Although that seemed to be far from what she wanted to do. In fact what stopped them from being together was how loyal she was to the idea that she would sacrifice everything if it meant getting her revenge. She put her life on the line even when it wasn’t needed. She was careless with her own life and he felt as though she didn’t have the will to live. Despite her happy persona she put up for everyone Levi had come to realize that over the years she was filled with guilt and pain over the people she sacrificed, and was nowhere near proving her father’s innocence or even getting rid of all the titans. She had been drowning in her pain and even though Levi held on to her he knew that she’ll never be able to truly love him until she found her own will to live. He could easily fight the world in her place, but he also knew that in the end he couldn’t be her savior. It wasn’t healthy for her and she never would feel fulfilled if he did it that way. So even though he loved her and would stand by her side no matter what he would have to feel content standing by her for now.

With that being said he kisses her head softly before softly telling her, “We need to go soon. Go shower.” Walking out of the workshop he leaves the blonde behind once again. She knew that she had been slipping slowly in the abyss for some time, but it was similar to drowning. She could see the light in the distance with all her friends and comrades waiting for her, but the ghosts of her past pulled her deeper into the gallows. She would break free for some time to catch her breath but it was an ongoing cycle.

When she was with Levi it would go away for some time but it was still there as time went on. Levi was her breath of air but she yearned for the weight to be taken away so she was able to swim on her own. There were times she had no care for her own life. It felt like an out of body experience she couldn’t control. For so long her will fight didn’t come from anything admirable like for the good of humanity. It came from the will to fight for her own friends she held close to her. Her will came from her hopes to overthrow the crown to stop this madness. It was never for her herself. It was a good anchor for some time but she would think about what would come after she got what she wanted? It scared her but then she would look at Levi and perhaps she saw a future. A future where they would live together in peace away from the pain and guilt. Be married and have kids. For some time she questioned if that would make her happy and make her demons go away. However her guilt from her father’s death held her captive. She would reach for Levi for a fleeting moment to ease the pain, but he knew her too well. She couldn’t use the love and respect to make herself feel better. In fact she didn’t really think it would make her feel better so she never chased after him. She promised she wouldn’t until she was ready to give him everything in her heart.

So that’s what they did. An ongoing cycle that was repeated. Amelia gathered her thoughts and went into the separate bathroom area she installed to wash herself and dressed into her uniform afterwards so they could head straight to the trial for the boy.

She held a special interest in the boy’s key and the basement beyond the walls. Preparing for the expedition they would need to take probably wouldn’t be possible for a while though. The Military Police were doing everything possible to get in their way going as far as to kill the boy. Mel really could care less about the boy. His eyes held a certain animosity towards the titans which was good to an extent, but her gut was telling her to run away while she could. She ignored it though since Erwin had argued he would be the savior they’ve needed. Perhaps he would but to what degree? Could she take more guilt than what she already had?

The blonde looks into the mirror in front of her and puts her wavy mop into a high ponytail. Practicing her smile she would have to put on in front of others until she had enough. With a sigh she pulls herself together to continue her performance. Adding a hop in her step she walks out of the workshop locking it up and turning on her heel to meet up with Levi who was waiting for her. “Alright let’s head out.”

Levi saw the smile on her face and turned away without a word. The couple walked side by side to their destination with other cadets greeting them along the way. The courtroom was grand and Mel wouldn’t expect any less. They take their spots beside Erwin already preparing themselves for the boy on trial.

“For now let me speak. You should only step in when the time seems fit.” Already understanding what the calculating meant the pair nods in understanding. Mel’s eyes catch Nile Dok’s where they stand looking at one another. At one point Mel admired the commander since he was one of Erwin’s classmates that used to visit her before she decided to join as well. Seeing him wear the crest of the Military Police disgusted her for she saw them all as dogs. They were worse than corrupt, they were infested with leeches and he was no different in her eyes. Her eyes scan the rest of the opposing side and see normal citizens probably from the inner wall that would be affected by the change of power. It disgusted her to see these people. It reminded her of why she didn’t want to go in the first place despite her curiosity of Eren. She wanted to look beyond his rough exterior. She wouldn’t let his death weigh on her too heavily if it came to that in the end, but if they were allowed to keep custody of him she would do her best to care for the kid.

The doors open and the room grows quiet seeing the teenager stand there looking confused at first until he realizes where he is. The two Military Police members guide him to the center of the room where he would be chained to a steel pole.

Once he is secured, Darius Zackley comes into the courtroom and takes a seat at the head. “Well then, let us begin. Erin Jaeger, yes? You are a soldier sworn to sacrifice your life for the public good. Correct?”

“Yes sir.”

“This is an exceptional situation. This tribunal will be held under military, not civilian, law. The final decision rests entirely in my hands. Your fate will be decided here. Do you have any objections?”

Mel questioned this entire situation. Even if he did object what good would that do? It would just make it easier for the public to turn on him by the way they presented the case. “No sir.” ‘Good. He’s not as big of a block head as I thought.’

“I appreciate your perception. I will be direct. As expected concealing your existence has proven impossible. We must make your existence public in some form, or a threat to humanity other than titans may arise. What I decide today is which force will have custody of you. The Military Police? Or the Survey Corps? Then I ask the Military Police for their proposal.” Darius finally concluded his speech signaling the true start of the trial.

“Yes sir. I, the commander of the Military Police, Nile Dok, will present my proposal. After a thorough investigation of Eren’s body, we believe he should be eliminated immediately. It’s certainly true that his titan power overcame our previous peril. However, now his existence threatens to spark a civil war. So we ask him to die for humanity’s sake, leaving behind all the information he can.” Mel wasn’t surprised by the coward in front of her. The trio had prepared themselves for this but the priest speaking up was a show in its own right. “There is no need for that! He is an invasive pest! He has deceived the walls that embody God’s wisdom. He must be killed at once!”

“Priest Nick, order please.” Darius speaks up before he begins to preach nonsense to the crowd. “We’ll hear from the Survey Corps proposal next.”

“Yes sir. I, 13th commander of the Survey Corps, Erwin Smith, will present my proposal. We would welcome Eren as an official member of our forces, and use his power to retake back Wall Maria. That is all.” Everyone in the courtroom was surprised by the simplicity of his proposal aside from his comrades that knew or expected as much from their commander. “That’s all?”

“Yes sir. With his power we can retake Wall Maria. We believe it is clear what our priorities should be.”

“I see. And where do you plan to begin this mission? Pixis, the Trost wall has been completely sealed, correct?”

“Yeah. It can never be opened again.” Mel begged to differ but she stayed quiet as ordered.

“We would like to set out from Karanes, in the east. From there we will proceed to Zhiganshina. We will determine the route as we go.”

“Wait a minute! Shouldn’t we seal all the wall gates once and for all? The Colossal titan can only destroy the gates. If we can strengthen them we don’t need to endure further attacks.” This would be the cause of more tension in the room as another citizen speaks up. “Shut up, merchant dog! With that titan’s power we can return to Wall Maria!”

“We can no longer indulge in your delusions of grandeur!”

Levi had enough already of the merchant and finally spoke up. “You talk a lot, pig. Where is your proof that the titans will wait while we seal the gates?”

Hesitant he turns to look at the blonde next to him like the others. “We have great minds like Amelia. We could easily seal the gates w-“ Levi cut him off before he could continue on. “The “we” you speak of are only those you wish to protect, your “friends” who help line your pockets. The people who starve because there isn’t enough land to sow don’t even figure into the thoughts of you pigs.” Levi knew better than anyone the trick of merchants living underground. He could recall all the land dwellers that he used to steal from that was dealing in suspicious activities.

“We just thought that we could survive by sealing the wall gates-“

“Silence! Impious traitor. Mere humans altering Wall Rose, walls that were a gift from God? Can you truly see those walls? God’s work far beyond human capabilities, and not understand?” Mel could feel the sheer annoyance come off her fellow Survey comrades. She didn’t blame them, she felt the same way watching the two idiots argue over walls until Darius bangs his hand on the podium to put order back in the court. “Silence. You may have your personal philosophies and opinions elsewhere. Jaeger, I wish to confirm something. Can you continue to serve as a soldier, using your titan powers to benefit humanity?” The automatic answer came instantly, “Yes sir I can!”

“But the report on Trost’s defense says this..‘Immediately after turning into a titan he swung his fist at Mikasa Ackerman.’ Is Mikasa Ackerman present?”

“Yes, that’s me.” Eyes turn to the young girl with short black hair. “You are Ackerman? Is it true that, as a titan, Jaeger attacked you?”

The other members took note of her hesitancy but it would be understandable considering the report came from another officer. “Yes, it’s true.” The room filled with gasps of shock and fake tears from the priests desperately trying to keep others away from the walls. “I knew it, he's just another titan.”

“But on two previous occasions, Eren saved my life in his titan form. The first time, mere seconds before a titan would have had me in his grasps, he stood between us protecting me. The second time, he saved Armin and me from an HE shell. I would like these facts to be considered as well.”

“I object. I believe these comments are greatly colored by her personal feelings.” Nile speaks up.

“There are no personal feelings being added into those two statements. It’s evidence being added to the matter at hand. Unless you are so opposed to justice to a fellow military member you won’t allow all the facts to be stated for the floor?” Mel challenges the man before he speaks more nonsense. They were well aware of the past of Erin after doing their own research.

“Of course not but then that means we must include both sides. At an early age, Mikasa Ackerman lost her parents and was taken in by the Jaeger household. Our investigation has also revealed a surprising fact about the underlying events. At the age of nine, Eren Jaeger and Mikasa Ackerman killed three robbers who tried to kidnap her. Even if it was self defense, I must question their fundamental humanity. Is it right to entrust humanity’s fate, resources, and lives to him?”

This starts a turn in the court that seems hard to calculate how to overturn the public opinion. However, Mel wanted to laugh at the stupidity of sheep and cowards in her vision when one accuses Mikasa as a titan as well. “So is she! Do we know that she’s a human?”

“That’s right! Just to be safe, we should dissect her.”

Madness ran rampant through the courtroom but this was Eren’s own test that will really tell if he’s the savior they’ve been looking for. Mel was prepared to step in but Erwin’s signal to stay back was enough for her to sit back and watch the show. She wanted to laugh but they would probably assume she was a titan too.

“Wait! I may be a monster, but she has nothing to do with it! Nothing at all!” Eren yells towards the crowd.

“We can’t trust that!”

“It’s true!”

“If you’re covering for her, it means she’s one of you!”

“No!” Everyone grows quiet in shock. “ I mean you are wrong but you’re simply coming up with theories that fit whatever it suits you to think.” The opposition was shocked at the young boy calling out their act and Mel smiled finally hearing his words. “What did you say?”

“Besides, all of you people you’ve never even seen a titan! What are you so afraid of? What is the point of those with the means and power do not fight? If you’re afraid to fight for survival, then help me! You cowards! Just shut up and bet everything you have on me!” He strains himself pulling at the chains holding him back. Everyone was captivated but the one person who had been moved was Mel. She didn’t believe the boy was anything more than a hot head and perhaps he was an idiot, but he spouted word for word everything that she thought and felt. Carrying the weight of the world on her shoulders was her duty and her punishment for her being unable to get anywhere different than where she stood when she first joined the military. Yet this boy despite his age was willing to carry the weight that dragged her down. He reminded her of herself when she first lost her father. For a moment, she saw someone worth protecting. “Weapons ready!” Nile begins to panic.

“Yes sir!” A gun was being loaded but Mel had already heard enough. Once Levi read the situation and saw Mel give her approval he had already jumped over the gate separating them from the center, to land a solid kick to the boy’s face shocking everyone. They could see one of his teeth being kicked out of his mouth in the process before he continues his assault on the kid. Mel and Erwin stood in the same place looking on at the vicious attack. Erwin had already known that this would all be needed in order to sway everyone’s opinion. There was no denying that if everyone was so concerned about their safety because of this boy then the best way to convince them was to show them. Mel didn’t want to go this far at first thinking they could learn enough about his body on their own and go to the Wall Maria little by little as they normally do to discover the basement. Erwin was hoping Eren’s conviction would finally get to the woman once he was faced with the Police Force. He played his cards right now that she was on board as well to put their faith in Eren.

“This is a personal opinion. But I believe pain to be the best way to train someone. What you need is to be trained like a dog, not a man. It’s easier to kick you while you’re kneeling, too.” Levi continued to stomp at Eren until Nile spoke, “Wait, Levi…”

“What is it?”

“That’s dangerous. What if he gets angry and turns into a titan?”

“What are you talking about? Aren’t you going to dissect him? When he turned into a titan last time he killed 20 other titans before collapsing. If he is an enemy, his intelligence makes him a more formidable foe. Still no match for me, of course. But what will you do? Anyone persecuting him should also consider that fact. Do you really think you can kill him?” Levi had stopped his assault on the boy who was now laying slack held up by the chains.

“Sir I have a proposal.” Erwin spoke and everyone questioned the sanity of the man who didn’t look the least bit phased at the beating. “What is it?”

“The details of Eren’s titan power remain uncertain. Making it dangerous. Thus, I propose to have Captain Levi take responsibility for Eren’s control and embark on an expedition outside the walls. “

“With Eren in tow?” Darius questions back to the blonde commander wondering what his intentions would be exactly with Eren.

“Yes sir. Based on the expedition's results I’d like to judge whether Eren can control his titan power and whether he is a boon or bane of humanity.”

“Control Eren Jaeger...can you do it Levi?” Looking at the condition of Eren now it would be proof enough. “I’m certain I can kill him. The only problem is I doubt I can do any less.” Levi looked over to the pair waiting for him and saw the approval gleam in each pair of eyes. Mel in particular was looking at him with a happy look on her face already planning what they would do with the boy. She had no doubts they would have any problems with the boy, but she kept the gut feeling she had about him in the back of her mind.

“Then my decision is made. He will be with the Survey Corps.” Everyone in the opposition tried to rebuttal but it was met on deaf ears as the general walked out. With a grin on her face Mel ordered the Military Police to hand over the keys for Eren and once receiving them unlocked the cuffs from wrists. “Come on kid let’s get you checked out.” Putting his arm over her shoulder to help him walk past all the menacing stares without giving them the time of day, Erwin and Levi followed after them.

Helping him sit down on the couch in the room Hange and Mike walked into the waiting room. Hange had a first aid kit with her to help take care of the wounds that Levi had made on him. While she quickly got to work on the poor boy she commented on the entire encounter, “That was really terrible. It hurts right?”

“A little.” Eren responds to the obvious question. Mel chuckles amused at his response. “No need to be a tough guy kid. Levi is a strong little shit for as small as he is.”

“Tch, shut up brat.” Levi rolls his eyes while the blonde laughs at him. “So, how does it hurt?” Hange asks another one of her weird questions catching Eren off guard, but everyone in the room knew it was just the start. Before it continues on Erwin decides to step into the conversation. “I’m sorry, but thanks to that we had you turned over to us.”

“Yes sir.” Eren could tell that was the case when they took him straight to this room to care for his wounds. Despite knowing that though it didn’t stop the fear he felt in the presence of the raven haired man. “The pain you endured allowed me to play my cards at the right movement. You have my respect.” Once Eren heard those words come from the commander he had looked up to for so long, he was overwhelmed with emotions. “Eren, I look forward to working with you.” Startled by his idol he quickly grasps the hand Erwin held out for him.

Levi tired from the long day they all had, he throws himself onto the couch beside Eren making the boy flinch in fear for a second. “Hey Eren.”

“Yes sir?”

“Do you resent me?”

At first Eren hesitates before giving his full thoughts on the beating he had just received. “N-no. I understand why it was necessary.”

“That’s good.” Levi looked pleased with himself making both Hange and Mel annoyed with his attitude of the whole situation. “But you took it a little far. You lost a tooth. Here.” Presenting him with the said tooth Mel looks at it in the handkerchief it was wrapped in. “Don’t pick that up, it's creepy.” Both ignored him. “Huh. I don’t know if we could put that back in, but I could make you a tooth.” She was a master of many trades, but she was positive she could make a fake tooth to replace the old one.

“Even this is an important sample.”

“Eren, it’s still better than getting dissected by people like Hange, right?”

“I’m not like them. I wouldn’t kill him.” It was comical seeing the look of slight fear and disturbed on the boy’s face. “Hey Eren. Let me see the inside of your mouth.” While he did open his mouth Hange saw something strange making Mel lean down to see for herself what made the mad scientist startle. “Oh shit well look at that it grew back.” The rest of the men looked over surprised hearing the news while Hange stayed where she was observing the strange phenomena. “Looks like you’re Hange’s new test subject Eren.” Mel laughs still pretty close to his face; he looks away with a red tint on his cheeks. ‘He’s still very much just a kid’ Amelia thinks to herself. She was fond of Eren already and it seems the boy felt the same in some way. “Hey brat what’s with the blush?” Levi speaks up, making the kid panic at being caught blushing.

All she could do was laugh at this exchange. Perhaps it wouldn’t be too bad having an addition to their group.

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