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#it doesn’t help that I feel very alone in disliking the ship
pumpkinpie59 · 6 months
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while everyone likes to crap on leo/rai (for good reason) and on apritello for being cringe ig
i feel like one thing every 2012 ship has a problem with is pacing
yes i mean every ship
it’s clear that the 2012 writers don’t rlly know how to commit to romantic subplots so they either go the “they are super into each other right off the bat so there’s little build up” angle or the “will they won’t they,, but we’ll never show them actually get together” angle
i’m not saying these are atrociously bad or anything but it can be really annoying in the long run
apritello is the entire reason i got into 2012 when i was 11 lmao so it got stale for me when the show focuses less and less on their development since they didn’t want to commit to an actual subplot after the bigfoot fiasco. they both grow, sure, but it’s pushed to the background and we never see them talk about it. instead we get a kiss in a non-canon music video ://
dw apritello i still love you
with ramona, while it’s incredibly sweet how in love they are, the pacing of their first episode was ,,,, bad lol. the first time i watched it i was so underwhelmed i was like,,, this gets better?? right?? and it did but yeah i think that first episode for sure needed tweaking.
and more mona would’ve been great too. she needed some character exploration outside of her relationship with raph,, like having her talk more with the other characters her age (i would kill for april and mona content). i’m not saying she doesn’t have depth. she does. but a lot of it gets pushed to the background for her dynamic with raph.
they just didn’t even try with mikey and renet i’ll be real. they threw renet in there as a love interest and then kept making her and mikey kinda go in circles with their interest in each other. they’ll be cute and close in some scenes and then renet will act like she’s just humoring him while mikey kinda forgets about her when shini shows up.
i think renetangelo is cute to some extent (tho i do dislike 2012 mikey a bit so that doesn’t help) but time travel romances are automatically rlly hard to write well and since 2012’s romance writing is already messy, they weren’t going to do well. and renet herself is automatically more interesting when she’s not interacting with mikey. like her platonic dynamic with leo?? adorable. my favorite renet is 2003 and she’s not a love interest and she’s so charming!! renet is just a fun quirky friend of the turtles.
y’all know i love a lot of tmnt love interests so the fact that i prefer renet as a friend prolly says a lot about how she should be written gjdkdk
i don’t wanna talk about leo/rai much, but other than the glaringly bad i/ncest issue (both siblings and cousins), they just weren’t very good as a romantic dynamic either?
like yeah i’m biased bc lotus is the only leo love interest i will ever accept (and also leo/rai is gross lol)
but like ,,, with karai, leo saw her as an escape from being a leader so he can explore his rebellious streak. which is interesting! but unlike with lotus, leo was willing to betray her behind her back, and karai was willing to manipulate him to do what she wanted him to. but okay that’s getting off topic. back to the pacing,,
season 1 gets a pass for me since i actually love the pacing of season 1 alone (like honestly, after the cousin reveal, there wasn’t any romance up until season 2 from my memory,, and even before that after karai betrayed leo and the other brothers found out, leo wasn’t into her,, it was his brothers who were making fun of him), but afterwards, season 2 onward,the timing of leo/rai moments were always a slap in the face bc they were always. ALWAYS. right after they acknowledged her as family THRJEKSJDJDKSK
but yeah i think pacing is the worst problem of 2012 ships :p
obviously some other problems too, like sexism lol. but pacing is most glaring for me
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joondaya · 2 years
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bring back people disliking ships for the sake of disliking it because yall bring the most stupid takes to justify your disdain towards rina. like i promise you no one cares you don’t like rina but if you keep making the most stupid arguments of course people will put you in your place.
“i ship ricky with therapy” struggling mentally does not and should never stop anyone from seeking happiness and being in a relationship. that’s a very weird thing to say. no one in therapy is unworthy of love or incapable of reciprocating it.
“ricky has treated gina badly/does not deserve gina/made her cry” ricky has been the character who gave gina the most comfort and the one person she goes to when things get hard because they both believe they understand each other better anyone else could. he helped her open up to other people and is the reason people approached her because before that everyone thought she was scary and intimidating. ricky was the only person that said she didn’t intimidate him and assured her she wasn’t as scary as people portrayed her to be. he never treated gina with less than the respect she deserved. his only flaw was not understanding her confession and/or being confused as he had literally gotten into a relationship. only once has he ever brought up nini/his relationship himself after gina had helped him multiple times on her own volition and immediately gave her the space he thought she needed when she dismissed him.
“she deserves to be with a man that wants her” and then said man that “wants” her was ready to drop her after getting his ego bruised because a sophomore didn’t wanna date him. he saw how happy she was to hang out with him, and his course of action was not to cancel the plans for the night (so he could recollect his feelings) but to cancel indefinitely. because of course the appropriate reaction to a girl alone in an unfamiliar city with no family is to shut her out when you just learned that you might be the closest person she might think of as family. like yeah that’s the man that “wants” her. ricky had just gotten into a relationship when gina confessed to him (whether he understood that as a confession or not) so of course he wouldn’t drop it on the same day because he is not that bad guy yall desperately want him to be. he also had so much growth to do by himself and accept the changes in his life and be able to deal with them. he is finally in a headspace to accept the feelings he might have for gina. so unless s3 expresses not wanting to be with gina, you can’t say he doesn’t “want” her.
“rina is toxic” this is a mickey mouse ship not euphoria. ricky is not some evil mastermind whose only purpose is to make gina cry and make her life miserable. there’s a college aged man going out with a high school girl after calling her peers “kids” (carlos) and “too young” (ashlyn). if yall okay with that then rina is not the red flag yall forcing it to be.
“gina is ricky’s second choice” ricky has never made gina a second choice because he never started talking to gina as a replacement to nini or with the intent of ever being something more. it just happened. developing feelings for someone after a breakup does not make anyone a second choice. and during the time feelings were developing nini was not even mentioned. nini only became part of his life once again when gina left. she also initiated the almost kiss which made him realise he could go back to that stability and safeness he was seeking. he has never used gina as a replacement for nini, no matter how many times yall will try to spin that way. gina however was not even over ricky while she even considered ej. so according to your standards if anyone were to be second choice it would be ej.
the post got longer than i expected it to be but all i’m trying to say is that if you don’t ship something just say you don’t instead of making dumb and stupid paragraphs on something that some comprehension skills on these two characters, specially ricky, would’ve gotten you the answers you needed.
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stardustdiiving · 6 months
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From the ship ask! What's a pairing most people seem to like in Genshin that you don't?
(ship asks prompt)
MAN OKAY I honestly could answer this with a good third of popular Genshin ships…but none of these are really solid dislikes, it’s just me feeling specific about how I like to see it executed & finding the way the fandom handles it is either unsatisfying, or generates an environment that kinda stresses me out NJDNCNC
To narrow it down to one I feel matches the question best I think I’m gonna go with Kokomi/Sara. It’s not really an active dislike or anything I promise I’m genuinely chilling. *insane person voice* but see I am just very stressed out with the in universe geo-politics happening in the background of this Genshin impact ship
I MEAN THAT IN A VERY SILLY WAY. but also I do have a genuine elaboration on what i mean which is like…how do I say this.
I really like Watasumi Island and find their existence + circumstances as a nation really interesting, especially regarding their dynamic with the Shogunate—it’s like the one part of inazuman politics that really catches my interest. But see the way I took the way the Shogunate + Watasumi dynamic was being written was specifically that Watasumi is/was suffering from colonization/imperialism at the hands of the Shogunate. I don’t see them as equal enemies on opposing sides of a conflict I’m just kind of like. Oh my god the Shogunate tries to control their primary food sources + military and after the war u see like, Gorou helping smuggle medicine and food supplies to treat their wounded war veterans bc the Shogunate is imposing high taxes on them they can’t afford to pay. The Raiden Shogun slaughtered their deity who was kind of backed into a corner on trying to secure vital resources for his people and to this day his corpse is just sitting on her territory getting ravaged and mined for weapons !! That’s crazy! I like thinking Abt that!
While I think Inazuma suffered from the writers dropping the ball with a lot of things I am generally happy this dynamic is explored/acknowledged repeatedly and Watasumi at least to me doesn’t feel like it’s constantly written in a really meanspirited and shitty way you know. Like, in the medicine supply smuggling thing i mentioned — that’s a route in Heizhou’s hangout that ends in a conclusion that something may have severely hurt the vitality of Watasumi’s land and it’s ability to provide, but that doesn’t mean they won’t survive or all hope is lost, because theres people within Watasumi who care and embody that hope and vitality within themselves and are working hard to build stability and provide for everyone. Like idk that’s really cool and I genuinely found it a really nice narrative that really makes me root for Watasumi
But then we get to Sara & Kokomi and ppl just do not talk about this dynamic between both nations at all from what I see, despite it being really relevant to the characters and in theory the appeal of the ship? And I jusurjfucn I guess it confuses me a lot bc I remember, most recently for example on the TCG event, I was so confused seeing everyone post about their interactions for days about how it was cute they were engaging in card matches together and Sara wanted to be friends…and then I played the event myself and we get this scene where Kokomi is standing off starring out at sea alone, and she talks about how she doesn’t like how she can’t see Watasumi from here, and how that was especially agonizing to experience during the war, and then gets caught up in her memories of the war and talks about how a lot of her people are still recovering from the trauma of it, and how she’s participating in this event bc she’s anxious about wanting to build good relations between the Shogunate and Watasumi so her nation doesn’t suffer more in the future AND IM JUST…MAN
Like I do think I can see Sara & Kokomi being friends, Sara’s character feels like it’s the concept of “individual with genuinely good morals working in an oppressive system doesnt stop the damage the system causes” kind of deal BUT IDK…I get fandom experiences can very anecdotal and I’m sure there are shippers who handle this aspect of the ship but when at large it just feels like it’s filed down to a vague enemies to lovers + contrasting aesthetic girlfriends ship I guess it def leans more towards being one I’m not really into. I think it doesn’t help it strikes the specific fandom pet peeve I have where I sometimes feel ppl water down a lot of wlw ships down to just being surface level cute and I am a lesbian who likes very nuanced and complicated character dynamic exploration so I’m personally just like. Yeah idk I guess this seems rlly widely accepted fanon wise but I don’t rlly click with it at all djjcnfj while I could be interested in this dynamic being explored, just if I were doing my own take on it ik adding romantic tones wouldnt feel super necessary to make it feel more interesting to me personally yk x__x
I just feel very excitable about a lot of genshin things and Watasumi vs Shogunate related things hits that mark of interest for me…definitely not implying the shippers r doing something wrong by making silly lighthearted posts and being less interested in types of analysis I enjoy but I guess that’s the most popular ship I feel the least interested in I can think of?
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deathbypixelz · 1 year
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Hello! I saw the caption "night elf secession au go brr" and desperately want to know more. If you don't have a post somewhere I didn't see (sorry if I missed it) would you feel up to sharing at some point?
I don’t already have a full post about it anywhere because I’m constantly in the process of adding finer details. I made an “adjusted timeline” post on my deathbydarkelves sideblog a while ago, but that’s old by now and I’ve changed some things around. Even so, I will not lie, I have been WAITING for someone to ask me about it >:) so *cracks my knuckles* guess it’s time to make that post.
(GIGANTIC info dump incoming)
The basic things to know about this AU are 1.) Shadowlands never happens (my dislike of SL was actually what inspired me to make this AU in the first place), and 2.) the timeline is stretched out so things happen at a slightly more reasonable pace. In the canon timeline, all of the expansions (minus Dragonflight ofc) happen right after each other and each take place over 1-2 years, which is silly in my opinion. I did leave some of them alone length-wise, sometimes 1-2 years is fine, but almost all of the expansions now have a few years in between. Breathing room is good to have if you ask me. Oh also the N’Zoth/Azshara stuff doesn’t happen during the Fourth War, that’ll happen somewhere later down the line. But that’s not the main point…
Everything up until the middle/end of the Fourth War is pretty much the same, except for the aforementioned lengthening of the timeline. Teldrassil happens in 45 ADP, whereas in the game it’s 33 ADP, for example. So Teldrassil burns, the war happens in basically the same way it does in canon, and it ends with the mak’gora outside Orgrimmar (in 47 ADP). Then the actual changes begin.
Maiev joins Tyrande to track down Sylvanas, and Malfurion takes Tyrande’s place as a temporary leader for the night elves (aided by Shandris). Then for 5 or 6 years, really not much happens. Things are… fine on Kalimdor. Mt. Hyjal sorta becomes the new population center for the night elves (and handful of worgen) who stayed, and rebuilding efforts are definitely underway. But they don’t have the resources or the ships to bring all the refugees back. A portal that could support that many people would be far too demanding and risky to use.
(Note: I changed how portals work slightly to make them less OP, and in a nutshell, you can only make portals at specific points on Azeroth, specifically where natural ley lines connect. If you want a bigger portal, or one independent from ley lines, you either need an outside power source (see: the Dark Portal) or you need to be on top of a gigantic web of interconnecting ley lines. Some places have more ley lines than others (example: Suramar). Also it takes a lot of a mage’s energy to keep a portal of any size open for very long. They opened portals to Stormwind during the burning of Teldrassil, but only because it was such a bad situation; portals that go across such a long distance are very unstable and very expensive to both conjure and maintain. They also could only create them in specific places, which is why they couldn't get nearly as many people out as they would've liked :c)
So, with no way to bring them back, the refugees have just got to stay in Stormwind City and Elwynn. It’s rough; very few of the night elves speak Human (I renamed Common because I don’t like the undertones with that name), and the Stormwind government is being pretty laissez-faire about the whole thing. They have to worry about helping Kul Tiras and Stromgarde so they can rebuild, after all :) Building new ships and collecting all the supplies for the months-long voyage to Kalimdor is too expensive, the government says. But it'll happen, definitely, don't worry. It'll definitely happen. Eventually.
So night elf-Alliance relations decay. Stormwindians are tired of having homeless elves on their streets, the elves are tired of being homeless. There’s he-said-she-said stories of humble, hard-working humans being robbed at night by elves on the brink of starvation, and there are she-said-he-said stories of humans setting fire to tents on the edges of their property to scare off humble, hard-working elves just trying to find a place to live. In not so many words: animosity grows. This isn’t out of the blue; historically (even in canon), the other races of the Alliance haven’t really done much for the night elves except for when they helped push the orcs out of Ashenvale all the way back during the Third War (which was 30 years ago at this point). They’ve really just used them for an extra source of soldiers. The “deterrence from Horde attack” benefit the night elves were promised back then was proven false with Teldrassil, and that’s not to speak of smaller skirmishes that had happened every now and then even before the Fourth War. If anything, being part of the Alliance made the night elves a target. Sylvanas burned Teldrassil to provoke the Alliance into a war (note: I am still working on her exact motivations, since I deleted the Jailer and that weird thing with Elune because um??? no?????). Logically, if they hadn’t been a part of the Alliance, they would’ve probably been left alone. And that’s the realization Tyrande comes to, after tracking Sylvanas down in Northrend — where she and her closest followers had decided to hide out until things calmed down — and killing her.
Then she and Maiev return from their 6 or 7 year-long journey, and Tyrande is outraged at the way her people have been treated. Malfurion had also been made aware in the intervening time, and he’d started showing the Alliance that even though he didn’t have as much executive power as Tyrande, he could still rock the boat as it were. After the requests he made directly of Anduin and other Alliance leaders to give the refugees at least, like, a little support were either half-fulfilled or not at all, he basically starts a mild trade war. This was a pretty controversial move even among the night elves, but there wasn’t much else he could do. But during the Long Vigil, the night elves had perfected the art of being self-sufficient, and it definitely hurt the Eastern Kingdoms more than it hurt them. So with that set into motion, and Tyrande’s mind made up, she returns to her place as High Priestess and diverts every available resource into finally bringing the refugees home. It’s a very slow process, and relations continue to decay as it happens. But eventually everyone who wants to go back to Kalimdor does. A portion of worgen stay, and even some night elves who had their own reasons. But the majority do go back.
Then, after negotiating borders with the (now much more diplomatic) Horde, Tyrande cuts off ties with the Alliance. Relations had been iffy at best ever since they joined — their alliance had been built on “enemy of my enemy”, after all — but the other nations showed their true colors during and after the Fourth War. The Alliance’s High King himself had failed to send troops to help reclaim Darkshore when he had very clearly shown he was more than willing to send soldiers to Arathi, Lordaeron, and Kul Tiras. And again, the whole “if we hadn’t been a part of the Alliance, Sylvanas wouldn’t have seen us as a target” thing. So, with Darkshore, Moonglade, Winterspring, Felwood, Mount Hyjal, most of Ashenvale, and portions of Stonetalon now within their control again, the night elves settle into another period of isolation. It’s not quite a second Long Vigil — there’s some trade/interaction with the draenei (due to proximity and shared trauma) and tauren (due to shared values) — but all in all, they’re on their own now. Relations with the Horde aren’t good per se, but both sides are willing to agree on a “if you don’t fuck with us, we won’t fuck with you” policy. They both want to avoid anything like Teldrassil ever happening again, and that’s ultimately what allows northern Kalimdor to exist in relative peace.
I don’t have quite so many details decided after this point, but I do still have a general idea. Dragonflight happens about ten or fifteen years-ish after the night elves secede, and since they’re still keeping an eye on the other factions and the world in general with magic, spies, and magic spies, they decide to send their own expedition to the Dragon Isles. They keep to their own, and any accidental interactions with Alliance adventurers are tense at best. We’ll have to see how this expansion plays out, but I intend on using the dragons (specifically the Aspects) to fix the sword in Silithus somehow. It’s definitely still a big problem, and it’s been causing climate change-like effects this entire time (unpredictable and extreme weather events globally) as well as its own unique, “fun” issues (weird tectonic anomalies, the elements are extremely agitated, and azerite is still a thing people fight over). I actually already had the “elements are cranky” idea before that was revealed to be a thing in Dragonflight, so I’m glad that lined up because that saves me some work lmao.
(Also just wanted to say that a lot of night elves see azerite as the reason for the Fourth War and, by extension, Teldrassil. They want absolutely nothing to do with it.)
I’m also considering putting a version of the N’Zoth and Azshara story around there, when the sword is removed, since I figure such a big disturbance to Azeroth would be enough to wake up an Old God. But that’s for later down the line and it depends on whether that would clutter the story too much or not. Either way, after whatever’s gonna happen in Dragonflight (or rather, how much of it I decide to keep) and after the sword is fixed, the night elves are gonna stick to their own unless there’s a dire need for them to leave Kalimdor. They’re tired, man. They need time to rebuild, and to heal.
However, I do have concepts for a little Alliance-night elf conflict that could crop up at some point. The Horde may have agreed to leave the night elves alone, but the Alliance are imperialists. And aren’t too happy that they were, in their eyes, betrayed by a long-time ally…
So yeah! That’s my night elf secession AU. It’s extremely self-indulgent and a lot of fun to explore for me. WoW really has not given the night elves a lot of opportunities to be the badass mysterious amazon nation they are in Warcraft III, so I wanted to bring that back while also preserving some of what WoW DID add to their story, because I really do think Teldrassil is such a good jumping-off point for a huge shift in the overall Warcraft narrative... as much as it hurts me and as much as I am genuinely incapable of watching the Warbringers: Sylvanas or Old Soldier cinematics anymore. Night elves have meant a lot to me for a very long time and stories of people going through hell and still coming out okay on the other side are my favorite stories, so I want to tell my own.
I’m also open to more questions about this AU, I have a lot of little things I changed both in regards to things like how magic works and minor lore changes, like how I made Teldrassil at least a couple thousand years old, as opposed to the 15 (or so) years it had existed in canon before it was burned. They only planted it after the Third War. You can check. It’s extremely stupid and everyone ignores that little detail so I will too <3
Anyway, thank you so much for asking, I’ve been dying to share all this and I didn’t realize that until you asked JHNDJSKJ
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soundcrusher · 11 months
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I shouldn't let Strawberry meet Morphia, and yet, here I am
This is the actual working titel. I couldn't come up with a better one. ^^'
As the titel says, this is a small story featuring @cuppajj's character Morphia and my gal Srawberry. (I know I said I would send you an early access, but I forgot. So, please, is something is off, tell me. I'll change it as soon as I can. ^^')
Either way, please enjoy!
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Strawberry looked down at the note her captain and the ship’s doctor gave her, before looking up at the building’s sign.
She still didn’t think it was needed, she could perform her assigned tasks perfectly! There wasn’t one task unfinished, despite her small moments of weakness. No, she always worked hard, she worked well, so why did her captain decide that it was better for her to come here? Without Moss nonetheless!
Not having her best friend with her only caused Strawberry to dislike this “new task” even more. But, it was the captain’s order, and she couldn’t really go against it. Not when she wanted to stay on the ship, not when she was threatened to be kicked off the ship, if she didn’t try to fix whatever causes her to react negatively whenever confronted with a ‘normal’ situation.
So, with a defeated sigh, she squared up her shoulders, put on the most confident front she could in the situation, and entered the practice through the front door. And despite the nice interior, calming colors and scent, Strawberry couldn’t help but feel trapped.
She didn’t want to be here, she didn’t feel like she should be here. This felt too much like a honeyed trap. A flower that only pretends to be one, until you get too close and it turns into a monster. It reminded her too much of when Billy and her sneaked into that weird facility to find out what happened to their hometown people. Everything looked normal back then too. Nothing shady. Nothing bad. Just an old abandoned building, but like a waiting monster, it snatched them when they least expected it. Killing Billy and turning her into this… this…
Strawberry could feel herself growing weak again, just like last time. So, she sat down. One hand clutching her mask, while the other rested over the spot where her spark was. Taking deep breaths, as she tried to stop her beating? Spinning? Racing? Whatever Cybertronians call it when their spark is acting up from too much fear. But it didn’t help. Not even when she took off her mask, something she hardly does when outside or without Moss.
But before her mind and spark could spiral deeper into the dark abyss of her mind, Strawberry’s attention was caught by someone coming closer. Someone she doesn’t know, and that alone plunged her back into the swirling mass of fear and memories. Pulling her deeper and deeper, while her spark started to spin wilder and wilder.
Leaving the poor femme feeling even weaker than when she sat down.
However, Strawberry's head was quick to snap up the second a bowl of sweets was being held underneath her nose. Pulling her away from the swirling abyss her mind has become and making her look up at the mech holding said bowl.
“Hello there, you must be my new patient.” The stranger said kindly. “Strawberry, if I am not mistaken. Your captain was very thorough when describing you.”
“He… He’s like that…” Muttered the femme doumbly. When her captain gave her the note and said to come here, she was already coming up with many scenarios on how this encounter could go. Back when she wasn’t this, when she was still Jane, she’s been in a similar situation. Similar, but not the same. The man she saw to talk about her problems wasn’t as brightly coloured or so very pink, he was a rather dull man. Grey clothing, sometimes black or white, but never pink. Or any other color.
That alone caused Strawberry to slowly relax. Maybe this wasn’t a trap. Maybe this was going to help her, even though she wasn’t sure how a Cybertronian could help someone like her. And yet, she still flinched back when the stranger shook his bowl a little bit.
“Would you like some sweets? They are quite delicious.” The strange mech said with a soft chuckle and charming smile. “And I must know. I taste-test them myself. I wouldn’t want my patients to take a piece, only to find it disgusting.”
Strawberry responded to that with a soft chuckle of her own, before she took one piece of candy and popped it into her mouth. Putting on her face mask afterwards. “W-well… I must say you have an ex-excellent taste when it c-comes to sweets, sir.”
“Thank you. Now, how about we take this conversation to one of my rooms. They are more comfortable than my waiting room.” He said and reached a hand out towards Strawberry. A hand, the femme took because she knew that her legs were still weak and her spark hadn't stopped spinning from the fear still dancing around her mind.
And if she was stumbling and still clutching the extended hand, when following the pink stranger, then neither of them said anything about it.
Only when they were in the mentioned room and Strawberry sat down on the berth, did her spinning spark calm down. And yet, she still held a hand over the part where her spark was, while the other rested on her knee. Hidden eyes never leaving the stranger as he moved around the room. Igniting incense and putting on calming holoprojections, before settling down himself.
“Wouldn’t you rather lay down? I promise you, the medical berth is very comfortable, Strawberry.”
“N-no. I would rather sit…”
“If that makes you feel more comfortable. Now you probably already know my name, but just in case, I am Morphia.” He said, waiting a moment for his newest patient to say something, but as she didn’t, he continued. “Your captain told me about your ‘moments’. Would you like to share your experience with them? Because all I have is what your captain told me.”
At the mention of her ‘moment’, Strawberry tensed up. Of course, he would tell Morphia about it. It’s why she’s here after all, but how could she explain what they were and caused them, without revealing too much about who she was? And who assured her that Morphia wouldn’t tell her secret to her captain? That would be the worst, because Strawberry was sure that her captain would send her off to some kind of research facility. And then she would be back right where she escaped from all those years ago, with the only difference that there were no humans experimenting on her, but Cybertronians instead.
“It’s… nothing. Just moments of weakness whenever my mind is… overtaken by what happened on earth…” Muttered the femme quietly, as her spark started to spin again.
“Earth.Your captain mentioned that you have some bad memories about the planet and its inhabitants. Something to do with an abduction and scientists?”
“I… can’t remember what they did. It’s blurry most of the time. As if I’m trying to look through rain, or something… But I can’t remember what happened before, only what came after.” That was a lie. Strawberry could remember what happened before she became this, but she couldn’t tell Morphia that. She couldn’t tell anyone who wasn’t a friend, but it seemed like the therapist? (Maybe psychologist? Strawberry couldn’t tell if it was the same as on earth.) caught on. Or maybe, Strawberry was reading too much into it. Her spark was starting to spin like crazy again.
“Are you sure? Sometimes, we can remember traumatic moments, but we choose not to do so.” Morphia said with an understanding smile. “But you don’t have to remember now. How about we talk about your friends. Your captain also mentioned them.”
“My… my friends…” Strawberry repeated, surprised by Morphia changing the topic to one easier for her. She was expecting him to continue with the reason why she was here, not allow her to talk about something positive in her life. Her past therapist didn’t do that. “My friend… Moss and Law Construct… I… I met Moss as we were exploring a building. It was overgrown and… and I accidentally touched something. Turns out that something was a someone.” Strawberry couldn’t help herself, she had to chuckle at the memory. Never in her life would she have imagined to find one of her dearest friends like that. And that’s exactly what she told the mech in front of her. Growing quiet after it for the sole reason of not knowing how to continue. She doesn’t know anything else about Moss, nor does she know enough about Law Construct that she could talk about him.
“Are you happy with them?”
“They’re… they’re the best… especially after I lost my friend… It hasn’t been the same without him. I miss him, each day and… and… I don’t want to lose my new friends.” The femme’s voice grew quieter with each word until they came out as nothing more than a whisper. She never wanted to speak those thoughts out, it made them feel more real than they should. Or, perhaps, it made her realize the loss she’s been running away from all those years. Billy, then her life, her home, her planet, the chance of ever returning as herself, it was all gone, and Strawberry only now realized how tired she has become of running.
“My captain, he sent me here to get fixed. But what they did on earth, it can never be fixed. So, running it is. But… But I…”
“But you have grown tired of running.” Offered Morphia, and Strawberry could only nod. “But running is not good. It will only wear you down, until it’s too late.” He said, before getting up and walking over to the berth. Sitting down next to the femme and placing one hand on her back, rubbing comforting circles, after making sure that his patient was okay with the gesture.
“So… you will fix me?”
“I can’t fix you, not the way you and your captain might think I can. This is work intended for two. I can help you get better, to work through your troubles and your ‘moments’, but that’s all.” Those words caused Strawberry to be quiet for a while. Clutching the spot where her spark was, as she thought about Morphia’s words. He was right, she knows that.
“Then, when do we begin?”
“Next time. For now, we will stop the session here. I would suggest doing something that makes you happy now. Get your mind in a better place.”
“I…” Strawberry started, before nodding. She did promise Law Construct a small movie night with some old earthen criminal flicks. Maybe that will help her take her mind off things for now, until it is time to come back.
And so, she stood up and followed the pink mech out of the room. Saying her goodbyes and thanking Morphia for his time, before bowing her head slightly and leaving. Spark calmer than before.
Although, as she left, Strawberry completely missed the strange glint in Morphia’s eyes.
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cancerian-woman · 2 years
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This is probably the most AU asked you could get:
If Gia survived, how do you think her character would have faired from S3 to S5? Do you think she'd have a bond with Hope, and if so, how? Do you think she'd trust any of the Mikaelsons (Klaus the royal exception)?
my darling gia…okay nice ask but let’s go. Warning this is a long one. A good part of this becomes very anti TO just for a warning.
The way I would’ve continued Gia’s storyline is following through with her connecting with the vampires/continuing to fight/ being a leader on her own. Get into more intimate moments with Elijah. Invest in their romance! Invest in her friendships! (Josh for example or anyone of Marcel’s friends.) Let her open up about her past. Give her the same treatment Camille had. Gia could’ve made more connections with more witches since Josephine just loved her. Gia in fact was the version of that “good vampire” but wanted to get her hands dirty. She’s respectable, patient didn’t mind fighting. If it was for a reason. Those are likable qualities. I could see witches being drawn to her for that. Gia stayed in her lane unless it effected someone she cared about. We needed to see more vampires who felt positive about their transition. Not to say that those who were unhappy about turning was bad. We just didn’t see many sides of characters who wanted to turn. Now onto s3 where we meet the Strix. I’d say Gia would originally be a bit biased at first not seeing their side of things since she’s loyal to Marcel/Elijah. But would slowly change her perspectives She wouldn’t allow Marcel to get invovled with the Strix alone. She’d be in the action as much as possible. But keeping that friendship and caring quality in mind she’d become friends with Davina by proximity to Marcel. Insert Freya/Elijah sacrificing Davina/Marcel’s death that alone would be enough to push Gia away from Elijah completely. She’d stand by her friends side and Marcel’s when it’s time to go against the Mikaelson’s. S4 & s5 i can see those as seasons Elijah has to work to get her back. She’d most likely would want Elijah to own up to his behavior past and/or present. I don’t agree with the way TO handled Kolvina for example so Gia would want to know about that rough past(red door plot) Elijah had. So she can accept all sides of him. I think Kolvina is a fault for both characters considering Davina just doesn’t believe anything on Kol’s darkness. Now back to allowing Gia to open up more about her past. We could see glimpses of her home life. What really turned her into this harder exterior on the outside? Why is she so adamant about being loyal to people? Let us meet her family or anyone from the past that made her the way she was. We know her mom died but what about her dad? Hell, how did her mom die? Why does she hate her step father? Is there siblings involved? Give her that story. Write that story. It can be told you just have to care to tell that story and given Plec, Carina, Dries…etc all have a disdain/racism for woman of color you see we were never going to get that. Tvdu’s flaw (well one of them) is creating characters and not pushing the lore they started with.
As for Hope and Gia connecting deeply. This varies on if Hayley stops looking down on Gia and treats her like a person. Sure, TO didn’t go for the explicit “women dislike each other because of a man” thing but Hayley did subtlety look down on Gia simply because she had a building relationship with Elijah. Gia was never the aggressor towards Hayley. She offered her protection/help to Hope out of loyalty to Elijah/Marcel. Haylijahs tend to do this with ALL of Elijah’s women of color ships. They paint the opposing woman as villainous for being upset with Elijah from the past or for having romantic feelings for Elijah. You can check out wiki pages for Celeste/Aya/Gia and there’s people in the comments being spiteful because those women were with Elijah. It’s never an actual reason to dislike them. It’s a common trend with Mikaelson fans that if said Mikaelson dislike a character their fandom will as well. Ex: Tyler, Finn, Marcel etc.. Celeste/Aya/Gia suffered a similar fate and let Haylijahs tell it none of those women truly mattered to Elijah. But, as I said earlier if Gia is treated fairly by Hayley I can see something blossoming outside of Gia protecting Hope. Maybe, it’s a similar relationship to the one Camille could’ve had for Hope. TO written characters to be willing to protect/defend Hope but not enough (for me personally) on her parents becoming people that someone would actually want to help. They relied a lot on alliances with people which again wouldn’t be an issue if Klayley were written better.
I can see Gia building bonds with Davina/Rebekah. Her and Kol would have an interesting banter. So yeah after it’s been some time she’d be more trusting to them depending on how they treat her. Maybe this is where Freya/Klaus relationships could come in. It’s up in the air. It’s just the way they wrote the Mikaelson’s to be so co-dependent you kind of have to get in good with them all to date one so. Hopefully, this answers your question.
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raging-violets · 8 months
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Odaiba Day 2023: OC Introduction - Noémie Nishidake
o after the news that the Digimon Movies 1 Collection was coming out, my fixation on Digimon came RUSHING back! And every year I say I’m going to have something ready for Odaiba Day, and every year I fall short. But not this year! This year I have something! It is kind of just a dump of facts, but now my focus is to really get it all together into a cohesive idea/story.
-Rhuben
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Name: Noémie Nishidake
FC: Auriana, Lolirock
Nationality: French-Japanese
Likes: Ice cream, sushi, bread, perfume
Dislikes: The dark, Silence, Obnoxious people, Chess
Positives: Principled, Compassion, Attentive
Negatives: Wary, Self-Dependent, Blunt
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Background: Has always followed the idea that children should “be seen, not heard” as it was impressed upon her. Her mother lives alone in France, while Noémie lives with her father in Japan; her parents deciding to live apart due to her father’s passion for his job. Noémie’s father is a public relations specialist with the government, trying to help keep Digimon instances a secret. Her father was part of the team that helped plan the “terrorist” story that the city released to the news. Koromon and Parrotmon’s attack was the catalyst for the Nishidake’s moving out of Japan in the first place. With the moves, and two cultures to learn, Noémie has learned to eat her feelings; both metaphorically and with food. She is a rule follower and does what is expected of her, which makes it harder for her to make decisions when she needs to. Despite her friends/the DigiDestined around her, she tries not to show that she’s very lonely. Tells the truth without sugar-coating it.
Fears: Being forgotten, Weakness, Isolation  
Goals: Freedom, Respect
Ship: Tai Kamiya
Digivice: Grey, black/lilac when activated; D3 is lilac/black
Crest: Justice (Crescent moon with fleur de lis)
Digi-Egg: Loyalty, Virtue
Item: Compass
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Family: Only child. Related to Izzy? (Still haven’t figured this part out yet, with Izzy’s adoption background and the hair color, I’ve considered them being related.) While both her mother and father instill in Noémie the importance of presenting yourself as a respectable member of society, it’s the pressure of doing everything “right” that makes her as blunt as she can be; albeit all with a smile. Due to her father working a lot, he doesn’t pay a lot of attention to Noémie, or so she feels. He only works a lot to keep her safe with the growing revelation of Digimon and the Digital World. With his role in the public relations field, Noémie’s father often crosses paths/works with Matt’s dad at the at TV station to learn and discuss more about Digimon.
Digimon: Frimon
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hachimitsuotu · 6 months
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Fic Reading Meme-Thing
(yeah, cause i read so much fanfic, right? lol)
rules:
How much do these tropes affect your decision to click on a fic? (Tag one other person.)
-10 -> very dissuaded
0 -> don’t care either way
+10 -> very enticed
Nope -> if it’s a hard no and you’d never click on a fic with that tag or or you even have the tag blocked or you’d insta click out of the fic if it wasn’t tagged. Bonus points for explaining the rating and whether it’s conditional.
I’m tagging @hydrangeatattoo (if you want to do this!).
My answers below:
Age gap
Depends on the pairing, but it’s usually a 0. Like one where Character A is in her twenties and Character B is his late thirties, I genuinely don’t care; it’s not smth I seek out to read, either.
However, characters that are like, 13 paired up with a 35 year old is definitely a hard Nope.
Codependency
3…? I guess? The number tends to go higher if it’s a pairing I like - fucked up, or not.
Obsession/Possessiveness, jealousy
7, but not like, violent possessiveness.
I like a little tease when Character A doesn’t realize they have feelings for Character B until they see someone hitting on Character A. Then it’s “oh shit, i like them” lol.
Obsession/possessiveness is fun for ships that are horribly fucked up, too.
Opposites (grumpy/sunshine etc)
-7.
I don’t mind Genki Girl/Boy with calm/level-headed/shy character, but ships where one’s a fucking stick in the mud and another is oh-so-happy? Can’t stand it. It’s why I never fell into ships like Fel//ixAn//nette (F//E3//H) and strongly disliked De//zel//Rose (T//oZ).
Enemies to lovers, Enemies with benefits
8, but moreso in AU settings.
Don’t really care for Enemies with benefits though, so 0 for that one.
Friends with benefits
4.
I’ve unfortunately fallen out of explicit content and I blame that on my current fandom and seeing 85% my fave’s fics just being nothing but PwP stuff. They’re not even ships I like either, so that don’t help.
I don’t mind FwB and when it has an actual plot to it, it can be done well. I’ll read it if it’s FwB with a ship I absolutely love, but that in itself is very rare.
Sex to feelings
Idk, 5?? 8 or 9.
Isn’t this kinda the same as FwB? Edit: No, this is apparently not the same thing. I like when smut has complicated feelings instead of just "they fucked/pwp". Not that pwp is bad or anything, but you get the point...
Fake dating/relationship
4.
One of the most memorable fics I read was based on this premise (kinda), and holy hell, it was a blast. But generally, it's not something I'll seek out. Like anything else: Done right, it’s great. It can be a comedy, and then it can get super angsty when one of them DOES start having feelings for the other… Though I think some ships fit this better than others.
I’ve wanted to try my hand at writing it, ngl…
Friends to lovers
10.
Most of my ships are this, so if I rated it 0, I’d be lying.
Found Family
6.
Used to like it a lot more, but seeing this term thrown around everywhere soured my opinion on it. I think nowadays ppl just label anything "Found Family" if it's a group of characters they like.
Hurt/Comfort
OVER 9,000
My go-to for fic reading, but also the one I’m extremely picky about.
I back out really quick if the fic is hurt/comfort but the characters aren’t acting IC.
Hurt/Comfort is easy to write for and one that fic writers will immediately jump into cause EMOTION, but if it’s not checking off things on my metaphorical checklist, it can swiftly dive into a -10.
Poly, open relationships
-10.
I really don’t like polyships. I make one (1) exception for Judith x Flynn x Estelle, but if I see smth tagged with a poly ship, it’s a hard pass. I like PAIRings, NOT TRIOS.
Mistaken/hidden identity
8.
That fic I mentioned earlier is this and fake dating all in one. Unfortunately, it can often fall into cliché “the liar revealed” trope, so that alone can make or break the fic for me. That said, I'm more likely to seek out a mistaken/hidden identity fic over a "fake dating" one.
Monsterfucking
Nope.
Absolutely not my thing. And NO, Sidon does NOT count! …Not that I read shippy stuff with Sidon anyway, cause his familial relationships are >>>> his romantic ones (opinion).
Pregnancy
Nope.
Pregnancy’s not fun irl, so I don’t want to read a fic about it either.
Second Chance
6.
Depends on the ship, but sure. I think some pairings work out better after they’ve had some time apart.
Slowburn:
9.
I prefer to write it, but I like slowburn even when it’s enemies -> friends/allies. It’s better (imo) when the two characters slowly, “slowly come to trust one another as friends” instead of “slowly falling in love”.
Love Triangle
-10.
Had enough of this when I was reading Twilight saga in high school. …Oh please, don’t act like you at least didn’t read the first book.
Love Triangles are right down there with poly: I don’t like them. In fact, I dislike love triangles even more. They’re a YA poison.
Soulmates
Nope. Nope, nope.
I hate this trope. I find myself rolling my eyes when I see it requested. The only time where I somewhat liked it was in XC//3, and that’s because of the whole reincarnation thing… But just cause someone is reincarnated does not mean they have to have a soulmate.
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captnjacksparrow · 2 years
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I just finished bleach for the first time (ik im almost 2 decades behind, leave me alone) I couldn’t help but compare Ichigo and Orihime relationship to NH and SS.
Now just a little disclaimer: I don’t ship Ichigo and Orihime. Their chemistry just doesn’t do it for me, but I do think, due to the writing and their role in each other’s plots, they were meant to be endgame and also deserve to be endgame.
And while I don’t really enjoy their relationship (it’s just a tad bit too boring and cliché for my taste) I do appreciate how real and natural the relationship came to be. You can really tell that they were a couple that was planned from the start due to how much they both love and respect one another, even before romantic emotions were involved. A round of applause for the author of Bleach bc even though I don’t find Ichigo and Orihime and interesting ship, I still completely understand it and see how understanding and natural the two of them getting together was. This was all due to the time and effort the author put into their individual character developments as well as their romantic development. Also, I would like to point out that Orihime’s role as Ichigo’s love interest never overshadowed or consumed her character or ultimate role in the plot, something which I took as a breath of fresh air considering the genre and time period the anime/manga was created in.
Now, how does this relate to the two main Naruto/Boruto ships? Well, either NH or SS have the foundation, natural feel, or logic that the main end game couple in Bleach have. Which I find very interesting considering they are 2/3 of the Big 3, thus meaning they have similar external influences by either fan bases, time period, society, etc.
Both NH and SS do not have canon development arcs which show a healthy and natural growth from friends to lovers or strangers to lovers. Both male leads on the ships never tend to show much care or respect towards their lovers, before or after they become romantically involved. And to top it all off…people can’t even say that while they don’t like the ships, they can understand why the author would make them endgame like a majority of Bleach fans can say. I hate NH and SS, it just doesn’t make any sense character wise, canon wise, or dynamic wise. Especially SS. Like maybe NH can get away with their “romance” being somewhat involved in canon instead of a spin off novel considering Hinata’s (weird, creepy, misguided obsession) stalking and apparent “crush” on Naruto. But that never developed further until her literally cousin had to die….? And for what? Literally doesn’t make sense.
The author even had to create a whole ass MOVIE in order to make some sense of NH and force Naruto into seeing Hinata in a romantic light bc they whole pain situation was dodgy and so out of character for him. Plus he turned around and used Hinata’s confession to relate it back to him and sasuke’s bond.
Oh and don’t even get me started on SS. I’m just going to say that Sasuke and Sakura have been married for 12 year and yet, they’ve never kissed, Sasuke was travelling the whole time of their marriage and never once tried to make contact with Sakura and their daughter, they went on one date which lasted 2 minutes, Once finally entering the village after a consecutive 12 year mission went to visit Naruto first, only wrote to Naruto on his journeys (and Kakashi but considering Kakashi was the Hokage at the time {aka sasuke’s boss} that was kind of a necessity), and has basically stated that SS’s only real connection or “bond” is due to their daughter.
To conclude, it was strange to watch healthy, well planned and intended romantic relationships develop between the main characters of bleach and have such a calm fandom to discuss it with in a respectful manner (with fans that either like or dislike the ship) than compare that experience with the shit hole that is NH and SS. Because for some reason, NH stans and SS stans can’t see how dissatisfying and unnatural their ships are, or address certain issues within their ships when the facts and evidence are spoon fed to them. With the Bleach fandom, they’re still a good sense of realism and comprehension, even with ship discourse containing opposing ships (e.g. Ichigo x Orihime vs Ichigo x Rukia).
NH and SS fans could never!
Heh... I haven't watched a single episode from Bleach. But I got to know through one of my mutuals who said that it's one of the Big Three. They also said the same thing like you said, word for word... with some variation... 
“You can really tell that they were a couple that was planned from the start due to how much they both love and respect one another, even before romantic emotions were involved. A round of applause for the author of Bleach bc even though I don’t find Ichigo and Orihime and interesting ship, I still completely understand it and see how understanding and natural the two of them getting together was.”
This!!!
My friend said, While it’s an undeniable fact that Ichigo and Rukia shared more scenes... And had every bit of potential to develop into a Canon Ship.. We simply can’t invalidate Ichigo and Orihime ship as romantic... It’s not like it popped out of nowhere... My friend was a Non-Shipper by the way... 
So, I actually went and had a look at the IchiRuki and IchiHime tags here in Tumblr. It was surprisingly.... Quiet (???). And not much toxicity or even vulgarity to be honest. Both the Fandoms are at the most, catty towards each other but that's about it. They argue as to Who has more moments... Who is Best... Who means more to Ichigo and all that. It's kind of interesting to see their Arguments even though I don't know anything about their ship Dynamics.
Whereas NH and SS (???). Hmmmph. Nothing to say at all.
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lowlylux · 8 months
Text
I am a Sinner (You are a Saint)
Chapter Six | Reconciliations Ship: HeiKazuScara
Rating: E
Status: In Progress
Word Count: 4.5k
Description:
“You shall be cast out of the heavenly realm indefinitely.”
Kunikuzushi feels arms grab his own as he is forced to his feet. He struggles, keeping his eyes on his mother only. “Mother! Don’t let them do this!” The guards continue to drag him away, even if it is a struggle. “Mother!” He knows the gate to the human realm is growing closer to him. The more time passes, the less chance he has to escape. But the divine never back out of their decisions…never. He looks to his mother one last time, hoping that she at least looks at him. But her gaze refuses to meet his own.
When he is finally cast out, the air rushing past his entire body, he could only visualize his mother’s pained expression.
He has never felt so alone…
Ao3 Link
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Heizou doesn’t remember when he fell asleep.  One moment he was practically  crying into Scaramouche's side, the reality of the fight with Kazuha setting in, and the next he awoke covered in something warm.  Upon closer inspection, he realizes that the warmth is from none other than Scaramouche, in particular his wings.  Heizou glances at the angel, realizing immediately that the soft breaths he is producing is due to the fact that he’s asleep.
Heizou…he really doesn’t want to move.  Scaramouche looks so peaceful like this, his eyes closed tightly, mumbling something under his breath.  He moves closer to Heizou, making the man realize that the angel has been cuddling him this entire time, a face that makes his face go warm.  The sudden knowledge about the current position he is in makes him overly aware of the situation.  He can’t help but focus on the fact that Scaramouche is pressed against him, almost nuzzling his face into Heizou’s hair.  
It is absolutely mesmerizing, the way Scaramouche is able to sleep so soundly, the way he is able to look so peaceful.  Since Heizou has known him, Scaramouche has always looked as if he had things bothering him.  Of course, that would make sense, given all he has gone through.  But the sudden shock of seeing him look so calm is something that Heizou cannot stop focusing on.
So, Heizou just stares at Scaramouche, admittedly in a very creepy manner.  Although, he will never verbally admit that.  Even in the future, Heizou cannot imagine himself admitting that he watched Scaramouche as he slept.  But, it’s not like he can imagine how a conversation like that would go anyways.
But he feels guilty.  It feels as if he’s crossing a line, watching the angel like this. He definitely shouldn’t be watching Scaramouche.  He shouldn’t be observing how his chest moves in a steady manner.  He shouldn’t find the fact that Scaramouche’s nose is twitching as his face scrunches up.  Heizou has no clue what he’s dreaming about, and he doesn’t know if he wants to.  The way Scaramouche is looking more and more uncomfortable, curling into Heizou even more, he can only assume Scaramouche is having a nightmare.
Heizou, without even realizing it, reaches out and brushes hair out of Scaramouche’s face.  He doesn’t even know what possessed him to do so, he just assumed Scaramouche was getting uncomfortable with the amount of strands that had been brushing his face in his sleep.  He didn’t expect Scaramouche’s eyes to open right after though. 
Scaramouche just stares at him, confused laced in his features.  Heizou offers an awkward smile, as if that is any way to apologize for waking him up.  “Morning Angel,” Heizou says, wishing to break the silence.
It’s almost like at that moment Scaramouche realized the situation, shooting up as if he were caught in something scandalous.  He visibly moves away from Heizou, an action that Heizou notices and immediately dislikes.  But, he’s not going to admit that out loud, not when Scaramouche looks so panicked.
So, Heizou does what is most logical for him.  After clearing his voice, since he just noticed that it was deeper than normal due to just waking up, Heizou attempts to gesture toward Scaramouche.  Of course, it is not very reassuring, but Heizou cannot really help that fact. “Are…you okay?”
Scaramouche silently nods, but it’s jerky and just far too quick to be genuine in any sort of manner.  Heizou doesn’t comment on it.
Luckily, neither party has to say much of anything when the front door opens abruptly.  Heizouks heart skips as he turns toward the door, ready to see Kazuha and just apologize for everything.  But when he just sees Beidou and Ningguang, his heart sinks faster than it did last night.
Ningguang smiles, glancing at Scaramouche for a moment before setting her sights on Heizou.  “How have you been?”
Heizou really doesn’t want to talk about it, and he’s sure his body language portrays that perfectly.  He grabs his pillow, sinking his face into it in a feeble attempt to hide his expression from the woman.  Ningguang is a therapist, and a mighty good one at that.  Somehow, she is able to know the deeper meanings and feelings of everyone she talks to, so he would much rather attempt to avoid her scrutiny for now.
“Did you at least get some sleep?” She asks, but Heizou is still refusing to look at her.
“He did.”
Heizou’s ears perk up at Scaramouche’s voice, a fact that makes him want to internally kick himself.  He can’t have those types of reactions around Ningguang, as she would most definitely attempt to analyze it and attempt to make incorrect conclusions.
“Well then I don’t need to know anything more,” Ningguang says, causing Heizou to lift his head and just stare at her.  “As long as you’re taking care of yourself, what is going on is none of my business.  Now,” the woman has a mischievous glint in her eye, smiling a bit too wide, “do you want some donuts?”
Heizou may not be doing the greatest mentally, but who is he to deny homemade donuts?
●•·•●
Kazuha feels creepy, staring at his house, watching his family through the windows like a stalker.  The moment he left, he regretted it.  But, if one thing can describe him, it’s stubbornness.  Maybe he’s not the most stubborn in the world, especially when it comes to grudges, but this is something he can’t bring himself to face.
Honestly, he feels like he is acting like a stalker.  But, can one be a stalker when they’re looking into the windows of their own home?  Kazuha doesn’t quite know the answer to that.  
Heizou looks like he hasn’t slept, although Kazuha is sure he did at some point.  His eyes are sunken, clearly from crying, and Kazuha feels guilty over it.  He’s not an idiot, he knows the reason why Heizou looks like this.  Although, Kazuha doubts he looks much better.  
He already feels a headache coming on, something that happens when he doesn’t have a good night sleep.  Pain spreads behind his eyes, the rising sun causing him to squint.  Normally, at this point, he would go to sleep, but he can’t exactly do that when staying outside.
Oh, he regrets forgetting his keys when he left.  Not because he wanted to really leave, more he wishes he could have slept in his car.  It’s cold, and it’s not like he dressed for it.  It’s not unbearable to the point where it threatens his health, but it’s still cold.
He just wishes he could go and see Heizou, but he can’t.  Something is stopping him, and he cannot even pinpoint exactly what.  Is it embarrassment?  Maybe.  Perhaps he’s still mad at Heizou?  He doesn’t even know if he ever was mad at him.  All of this is just far too confusing for him.  Too much happened at once and now he’s just stuck with the broken pieces that once was a normal life…well, as normal as living with an angel can be.  Even if Scaramouche has only been in his life for a short time, he is definitely part of the new normal.  But, Kazuha can’t even pinpoint exactly what is normal anymore.
Lost in thought, he doesn’t notice the person beside him until they let out a very loud, particularly exaggerated breath.  Glancing to the side, he almost sinks into the ground beneath him when he realizes that it is Ningguang.  She smiles at him, offering him comfort that he so desperately craves.  “Hey there.”
“I thought you were inside.”
“I was,” Ningguang says, keeping an eye on him, “but I noticed you outside, so I thought it would be good to check in.”
Kazuha shifts uncomfortably at her words, even if nothing she has said is out of place or awkward.  “How’s Heizou?”  It’s almost predictable, the fact that he cares for Heizou’s well being, and asking before he can even talk about his feelings about the situation.
Ningguang doesn’t seem surprised over his question, mostly due to her knowing exactly what he is like.  “Heizou seems fine…a tad bit exhausted but overall he is okay for now.  Your little angel friend made sure of it.”
“Scara?”
“Oh so that’s his name,” Ningguang jokes, her eyes sparkling.  “He seemed a bit scared of me though, can’t imagine why.”
“I think it has to do with you being a witch, he can sense them I think.”  Kazuha says, glancing at Ningguang.  The woman looks shocked, and at least Kazuha can understand why this time around.  “You didn’t think I knew?”
“I…didn’t actually,” Ningguang shamefully admits.  “Beidou asked I keep it from you so I didn’t even think about the possibility of you actually finding out.  Speaking of,” she starts, fully looking at him now, “how on earth did you find out?”
“Two years ago, Heizou got drunk off his ass on Christmas.  You gave him a vial of something and he was out like a light.” Kazuha says, smiling at the memory.  “He didn’t finish all of it so I brought it to a couple places because I thought it would be useful.  Got clued in when some of the ingredients were names of things I expect to hear about in Macbeth.”
“You should talk to Heizou about being a detective.”
“Me?  No, I could never,” Kazuha says at once, finding his gaze going back to Heizou.  The man is currently baking, flour on his apron and slightly covering his nose.  It’s absolutely adorable.  “Why’d you come out here?”
“I needed the fresh air.”
“Are you sure you didn’t want to act like a therapist?” Kazuha jokes, even if he knows what the true answer is.
“Your insurance still covers that?”
“You’re still using the insurance joke?”
Ningguang responds with a calm smile, attempting to keep Kazuha calm and actually being quite successful in the process.  “Okay, but seriously, I wanted to check in.  Heizou has people in there to support him, yet you’re out here alone.  The logical next action would be checking on you.”
“I’m tired,” Kazuha admits, letting out a sigh in the process.  Honestly, it feels as if his joints are screaming at him after he has spent practically an entire night in the same position.  His eyes are burning, but he blinks away the feeling.  “I wanna go home.”
“Then go home.”
Kazuha almost immediately shakes his head.  “I can’t…” He wants to, he really does.  But it just doesn’t seem to be something he can really do.
“Why?” Ningguang asks, keeping her gaze away from Kazuha.  
He knows what she’s doing.  Passively questioning his actions so that he has to actually think about what he’s doing.  Unfortunately, it does seem to work.  “Because I can’t face him.  He looked so hurt when I left…I don’t want to hurt him like that again.”
“He’ll be more hurt if you just avoid talking to him.”
“How do I even do that?” Kazuha asks, looking to Ningguang, hoping she provides an answer.  But of course, she can’t.  He knows that only he can make a decision, no matter how hard it is to make.  He is the one in charge of his future, and his decisions are his and his alone.  One can guide him, of course, but in the end, it’s up to him to pick up the pieces and fix his life.
Ningguang stands up silently, extending her hand out to Kazuha.  “While I can’t tell you what to do, I can give you some advice.”
“Oh?”
She smiles softly, keeping her gaze steady on Kazuha.  “Just walk through the front door and talk to him.”
Kazuha pauses for a moment, the possibilities running through his head before he nods, taking Ningguang’s hand and allowing himself to stand finally.  It’s been hours and he can confidently say that he’s ready to talk to Heizou.
●•·•●
Scaramouche keeps nervously glancing at the front door.  The moment that woman entered the home, everything was telling him to be cautious.  But, When Heizou seemed calm if not otherwise uncomfortable with the woman’s staring, Scaramouche quickly realized it was due to her being a witch.  Beidou told him that she was one, obviously, but with him being slightly flustered, any warning was quickly forgotten.
The woman, who he realized is named Ningguang, seemed to find the fact that he is uncomfortable amusing.  It’s not like he’s hidden his wings, so he shouldn’t be surprised.  However, based on the energy she is releasing, he definitely thinks that she would be able to discern that he is not human even if he looked like it.
Witches like that terrify him.  Angels and demons can easily overpower most other creatures, but the moment a witch comes into the mix, everything becomes unpredictable.  Due to the sheer will of humans controlling things they cannot contain, they have discovered magic that most are unable to shake fully.  Obviously, it depends on how much power a witch has.  Diluc definitely could use spells like that and succeed, but Ningguang is just on another level.  Perhaps it’s her age, but Scaramouche cannot completely figure it out.
When Ningguang left the house, it felt like he could finally breathe again, like the pressure on his windpipe finally letting go and allowing him to take gasps of much needed air.  Obviously, he couldn’t visibly have any change in reaction.  He doesn’t want to concern Heizou, and while Beidou seems nice, he doesn’t quite trust her yet to show vulnerability.
But when she comes back, her power isn’t what takes away his breath.  In front of her is Kazuha and he looks absolutely awful.  His hair is disheveled, clearly in need of a wash and brush.  He has eyebags that are deep and dark, indicating that he hasn’t slept.  But what’s worse is that he looks nervous.  His hands fidget as he clearly attempts to clear his nerves.
Kazuha looks scared, and Scaramouche doesn’t like it.
Heizou doesn’t notice his boyfriend at first, instead trying and failing to make a cake mix, the flour shooting up and hitting him in the face.  He sneezes and groans slightly at the poor luck, only pausing when he hears the snort coming from Kazuha.  Heizou turns toward the door, eyes wide when he sees Kazuha for the first time in hours.
Scaramouche doesn’t even think he blinked, instead it seemed like Heizou teleported.  The man practically leaps at his boyfriend, encasing him into a tension-filled hug.  “I’m so sorry,” is the first thing Heizou says.
And, due to his words, Kazuha breaks.  He doesn’t sob, but Scaramouche sees tears well up in his eyes before the human buries his face in Heizou’s shoulder.  “I’m sorry.”
“Hey,” Heizou says, pushing Kazuha away slightly so he can look him in the eye, “I’m the one who fucked up.”
“I’m the one who overreacted.”
“You didn’t-“
“Heizou,” Kazuha starts, attempting to smile at his boyfriend in a manner that makes Scaramouche’s stomach churn.  Not that he dislikes them being all lovey with each other, but not a huge fan over the fact that those two were fighting over something so meaningless in the grand scheme of things.  “You were doing your job.  It’s not your responsibility to keep me in mind when you’re working.”
“And you being my partner means I should think about you,” Heizou says, making a valid point.  “I intentionally kept information from you because I knew that it would impact you.  I didn’t want to mess up Christmas…or us.”
“You couldn’t mess us up if you tried.”  Kazuha is smiling at this point, quickly getting Heizou to do the same.  Scaramouche stares at the two, his eyes going over their closeness and how in the moment, they only seem to see the other.  In that moment, only Heizou and Kazuha exist, all others simply background in their lives.  Somehow, it brings a sour taste to Scaramouche’s mouth as he thinks of the fact that he is unable to experience the same things.  He shakes those feelings away as fast as he can after he realizes what his subconscious is telling him.  “Heizou, I love you.”
“I love you too,” Heizou says, pressing his lips to Kazuha’s forehead.  The blond closes his eyes, clearly savoring the moment.  “Let’s get you to bed, yeah?”
Kazuha’s eyes snap open, his expression turning into one that merely shows how surprised he is.  “No, I can help with the cooking!”
“I can finish it up,” Beidou pipes in, leaning on a doorframe with her arms crossed.  Ningguang is standing next to her, and neither party is hiding the fact that they were watching the two boys make up.  “Trust me, you both need the sleep.  So go, take a nap before one of you collapses and breaks a bone.”
Heizou stares at Beidou for a moment, clearly uncomfortable with the idea.  “Are you sure?”
Beidou just nods.  “Go.”  The boys don’t wait for her to retract her offer, instead tiredly pulling each other up the stairs, disappearing into the second floor.  Once the sound of a door closing softly is heard, Scaramouche feels as if he can breathe again.  “So, assuming you can’t cook, right?”
Scaramouche looks at Beidou with a mixture of disbelief and confusion.  “Excuse me?”
“You haven’t had enough time to really know how to cook,” Beidou says in a way that portrays the idea like it’s the most obvious thing ever.  “Unless you have an amazing talent, I think it’d be best for you to go get some sleep too.”
“Angels don’t need sleep.”
“What Beidou is trying to say,” Ningguang starts, putting a hand on her wife’s arm, visibly squeezing it, “is that she would rather you hang around the living room and avoid the kitchen if you can.  We don’t want to make a mess.”
Ah, that’s it then.  Scaramouche doesn’t take offense of course, although he does feel a little bit useless in this scenario.  The truth is, he doesn’t know how to cook, and he doesn’t plan to learn any time soon.  How would he even go about that?  Ask Kazuha to teach him?  That is an absolutely preposterous idea, and Scaramouche wants nothing to do with it.
He sinks into the sofa, not really knowing what to do with his time.  He can’t get the laptop, it’s dead.  Using the television might wake up Heizou and Kazuha, and he really doesn’t want to do that.  So, he is left with the action of imagining scenarios in his head, which is quite boring with nothing to do with them.
Luckily, he’s not stuck like that for long, the doorbell ringing causing him to snap back to reality.  He doesn’t want Beidou or Ningguang to get the door, especially if the women are cooking right now.  He doesn’t want it to be more of a bother for them.  Scaramouche swings open the door, ready to scold whoever rang the doorbell, only for his voice to be caught in his throat.
“Scara!” Childe yells out, and Scaramouche is sure the demon would raise his arms in excitement if he didn’t have them full of presents.  “Present delivery, as requested!”
“You were supposed to sneak them in,” Scaramouche manages to hiss out, his eyes glancing back to the doorway, “not invite a group of people.”
“It’s only Zhongli and Diluc though.”
“That’s still a group of people Childe-“
“Anyways,” Childe interrupts, clearly not a fan of just standing around in idle chit chat like this, “where can I drop these off?”
“Sofa.”
Childe just nods happily, running inside so that he can place down the wrapped items.  Scaramouche feels awkward, being left with Diluc and Zhongli.  Diluc seems like a genuinely decent guy, he’s just fairly quiet.  If it wasn’t for the fact that Scaramouche doesn’t know him very well, he’d be considered great company.  However, Scaramouche definitely knows Zhongli.
Archangel Zhongli is one of the most powerful beings in the angelic realm.  Honestly, it is quite surprising that he would even have a relationship with a demon in the first place.  One wrong informant could end in him losing his grace, and that would be devastating for practically everyone.
“Kunikuzushi…” Zhongli trails off, eyeing him as if he didn’t know what to say in particular.  “It’s nice to see you again.”
“Likewise,” Scaramouche practically hisses out.  Obviously, he won’t be rude just due to his former superior not knowing his new name, but that doesn’t mean he likes hearing his old one, especially after trying so hard to distance himself from it.  
Diluc shifts uncomfortably, an action that isn’t ignored or missed by Scaramouche’s watchful gaze.  When Diluc notices this, he just coughs in response, clearing his throat while staring at Scaramouche in the process.  “We’re not the only ones here.”
Zhongli lets out a sigh, sending Scaramouche a look that he can’t quite decipher.  “We were hoping to tell you at a better time.”  The other angel steps to the side, revealing a new sight that just makes Scaramouche’s heart plummet. His breath stills as he stares, not even daring to make a move.
“Mother?”
His mother stands there, an indecipherable expression clear on her face.  Her wings are nowhere to be seen, making her look almost human.  Considering the fact that she has done away with her tunic and instead is wearing some human clothing, that is not all that surprising.  But her eyes give her away.  Purple eyes that look as if they could electrify you on the spot.  And they are looking at Scaramouche.
“Well!  I got the presents-“ Childe says happily, cutting himself off when he notices that Baal has been revealed.  “Oh…” he visibly glances at Zhongli, sending him a look as if he were annoyed with him.  “Didn’t we agree on waiting?”
“I did, I waited sixty seconds after you left.”
Childe lets out an audible sigh, walking up to Zhongli.  He lifts one hand and proceeds to lightly yank at the angel’s hair.  “You’re an ass, you know that.”
“So I’ve been told.”
Childe smiles at that, even chuckling a bit as he shakes his head.  However, he still turns around after a moment, jokingly putting his hands on his hips.  “Well, I do think it might be best if we go inside then, yeah?”
Scaramouche’s brows furrow at that statement.  “Inside?”
“Frankly, I don’t want to stick around for any conversation with your mom,” Childe says as if it is the most obvious thing in the world.  “So, Zhongli, Diluc, and I will go inside and help those nice two women with whatever they’re making in the kitchen.”
“Be careful, one of them is-“
“A witch, I could tell,” Childe mutters, his tone of voice going into more of a tone that Scaramouche doesn’t quite understand.  However, Childe seems to notice his change in demeanor, slapping a smile on his face almost immediately.  “But, it’s nice you worried about me!”
“I-“ Scaramouche starts, but Childe is already pulling his two partners inside, closing the door at once, “wasn’t.”  The sudden realization that he is alone with his mother is almost suffocating.  It’s not like she is visibly terrifying, but he cannot help himself.  The memories of his fall just play in his head, over and over, and he just is completely unable to shake them.  “What do you want?”
“I wanted to see you,” she says, her voice ever so calm.  It’s always something he has disliked about her.  She never raises her voice at him, never even looking like she is angry at him.  Yet somehow, he can still understand how she actually feels about him.  “I was worried about you Kunikuzushi.”
“Scaramouche.”
She stares at him in shock, “what?”
“My name,” he clarifies, keeping his face neutral.  “My name is Scaramouche.”
She lets out a breath before deciding to speak once more.  “Fine, I was worried about you, Scaramouche.”
“But why?”
Baal stares at him as if he had grown two horns and started to yell profanities at god himself.  “You’re my child, am I not allowed to be worried about you?  For all I knew, you could have been starving somewhere.  How was I supposed to know you would have safe lodging already?”
“You wouldn’t have needed to worry if you would have stuck up for me at the trial.”
“I am an archangel, I cannot just let my feelings overrun my senses like that.” She says, not stopping whatsoever.  “You threatened the safety of the angelic realm.  You caused chaos, and could have potentially created a catastrophic event if you were not dealt with.”
“But I was telling the truth!” Scaramouche insists, stepping closer to her.  “There is something going on, something connected to the demonic realm.  If you would just investigate-“
“The archangels knew of what you were talking about prior to your trial.”
Scaramouche’s eyes widen at her words, his entire body freezing just like that.  It almost feels as if he cannot speak, the words sticking to his tongue and making him just stare at his mother in shock.  “You knew.”  
It’s almost like his mother realized her mistake, but she does not back down easily, not this time.  “Yes, we knew.  But the fact is-“
“You all told me I was crazy!” Scaramouche snaps, raising his voice.  “Everything that happened could have been easily avoided if you all would have just acted!  I was cast out of the only home I knew because some power hungry old angels couldn’t get off their lazy fucking asses and just stop the demonic realm.  What do you all expect?  They’ll just stop with the humans?”
“I-“
“Because they won’t.”  Scaramouche was already stressed before this meeting, but he is much worse now.  “Whatever is going on won’t stop until there is nothing but the demonic realm.  If you all are too stupid to realize that, I regret living with you all for so many years.”
All of the pain that he has gone through, could have easily been avoided.  He feels his breathing go ragged, his vision blurring as the memories and what-if scenarios play through his head.  However, he is still able to notice when a hand is placed on his shoulder.  He jumps back, glaring at his mother.  Scaramouche takes a breath before walking back toward the door.  “I don’t want to see you again.”
He doesn’t wait for a response.
When Scaramouche enters his home once more, he just slides down the door, not really knowing what to do.  Of course he hears the humming from the kitchen, along with the excited chatter of Childe who seems to be in a very energetic conversation with Beidou.  But, he can’t bring himself to stand, let alone see where the other two have run off.
He doesn’t even have the energy to really greet Heizou, not until the human meets him on the floor.  “Everything okay?”
Scaramouche stares at him for a moment, noticing that even an hour’s nap with Kazuha has made him look much healthier.  But, that is pushed to the back of his mind as he tries to go through what just happened.  After a few seconds, he shakes his head.  
And, when Heizou opens his arms, beckoning him into a comforting hug, who is he to refuse it?
05 << >> 07
Masterlist
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trollcafe · 2 years
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Heavy
Word Count: 1720 Brief: Leonra finds the one person he returned to the Fleet for. Obsidian is @/cherrytrolls.  Google Docs || Part 1
Your name is Leo Monark, and you hate being touched by strangers. 
When you heard a knock at the door, panic instantly rushed your system again. You shouted a weak one moment! and scrambled to throw on a clean shirt. You left your cane by the bedside for the moment, though you instantly regretted that when you opened the door. No words were said. Just arms thrown around you, pulling you close. But, the panic subsided, and relief came next. 
Archai Monark, slightly smaller than you remembered him, had patiently awaited your arrival. Chai might not have remembered your dislike for being touched, but then again, Chai wasn’t a stranger, was he? No, he was Deepbite’s better half. The force of Chai’s weight was enough to make you stumble backwards, though he managed to catch you both. 
“Oh goodness, are you alright?” He looked up at you with concern in his eye, helping you steady yourself. A small nod is all you can respond with for the time being. You hold onto his arm quietly as you pull him into the room. Bless Chai’s poor heart, you weren’t quite there enough yet to talk much. After all, you were about to have another panic attack over being in space again! That alone was too much to process. You didn’t have the words to tell him you were using him as a balance to grab the cane. 
Your cane in your hand brought relief. It was grounding. Maybe it was the rather abused sword it hid, maybe it was the subtle reminder of your kismesis who helped you design it. Regardless, it brought comfort and clarity. 
“My apologies,” you finally say, voice gritty from sleep, “I wasn’t expecting anyone, yet. I would’ve dressed…nicer.” You motion towards the sweatpants you slept in. You realized you had thrown on a graphic tee your kismesis got you as a joke, and felt incredibly stupid. You looked like a rat. No, you looked like Bruuno. 
“Nicer?” Chai laughs, though his concern is still present. He doesn’t mention the cane but you notice he continues to glance at it, “Do you need a minute?” 
You nod. It doesn’t take you long to throw on cleaner clothes, from there Chai insisted on taking you around. You let him hold your hand as he guided you through the ship. He was mostly quiet, as if expecting you to speak. Even with your moirail you were never the chatty type. You only really rambled when Shiloh was around. You missed her. She loved hearing you talk about statistical impossibilities. 
Chai’s hand in your own was comforting. With one simple action, you felt infinitely less alone. Your brightest memory of Chai was when he lost his eye. You were young, barely a teenager, and had been sent on your first “mission” alone. You returned terrified, though you couldn’t remember why, mostly likely from a failure. You only remembered Deepbite’s glare boring holes into your soul, and the sound of Archai’s hand as he slapped your ancestor. Most would’ve died from even considering such a thing. It was one of the few times you remembered anyone standing up for you. But oh, if only you knew. All of the days of bickering spent over your wellbeing. Your thoughts are scattered as Chai squeezes your hand with a smile. You think he asked if you wanted coffee, so you simply nod. He guides you towards a larger clearing. The two of you walk slow, still feeling spaced out and gazing into the distance. A voice rings out above the ambient sounds of the ship, and forces your attention to it.
Your name is Obsidian, and your ship is being repaired. 
So, in the meantime, you were stationed on the ship of your matesprit. A good opportunity for a break, if anyone asked you. Sure, you could’ve gone anywhere, or even taken a real break, but where would you go? Besides, there was, supposedly, a very important visitor. 
When you had mentioned it to Juleus, he dismissed it. Just Archai, if you count him as important. Maybe you did, but as passionate as Chai was, you had a slight feeling that wasn’t the important visitor you caught wind of. 
What you were doing beforehand wasn’t important. You had been walking somewhere, of course, but the importance of whatever you had been doing instantly disappeared as you entered into one of the larger walking spaces. You froze in your tracks. 
“...Leo-?” 
Something lights up in your chest as he snaps his head to look at you. You don’t see a grown man, with weathered eyes and scarred face. You see the wriggler you had helped raise. You see the wriggler who looked up at you like you created the stars. The wriggler who was inspired by you, who inspired you. Who, for a brief period, made you feel like you had a purpose. You waste no time closing the space between you and him, barely registering just how tall he had gotten. 
The cane clatters to the floor. You lift the fuchsia off his feet, as you had done when he was younger. Had he been smaller, you might’ve swung him around. But instead, you set him back on his feet. The silence is almost as heavy as your hold on him. You can feel his heart racing as he sinks further into your arms. 
Leonra held onto you as if his life depended on it. And, to be honest, you did the same. You were relieved, and overjoyed, and so concerned. There was so much to say, so much to ask. But first, the hug had to end. What a scary thought. You had to let him go. You felt as if letting him free from your grasp would be a mistake, as if he’d never come back. You’d done it once and you didn’t want to go it again. 
Your name is Leonra Monark, and you are not a machine. 
You heard your name in a familiar voice, and immediately sobered up. For a moment, you were worried you were just hearing things. Machines don’t hear things. Your eyes dart around the clearing before freezing on him. 
He looked as if he hadn’t aged a day. He was just a bright, just as tired. Even his smile was the same. A sight for sour eyes. You didn’t say anything in response. The second your eyes locked, he closed the spaces between you. Your cane fell to the ground, forgotten, as Obsidian threw his arms around you. 
In that instant, the ship was no longer your enemy. You weren’t as afraid anymore. At its root, the only reason you even agreed to work with your ancestor again was to see Obsidian. You didn’t realize that until you achieved just that. Archai picked your cane up from the ground as Obsidian lifted you off your feet. Quite the feat for someone shorter than you, though you’d never complain. You were quiet as you held onto him. Your words were gone again, but you were overwhelmed with relief and happiness. 
You held onto Obsidian as if he would disappear in an instant. He smelled the same, somehow. His hug felt the same too. It brought forth an overwhelming nostalgia, almost enough to get you choked up. You’d be alright if the universe caved in that instant, because you felt right again. You weren’t alone out here. You had Archai and Obsidian. You wouldn’t get stuck on this damn ship. This was a mission you would survive, because you weren’t fighting on your own now. The reassuring thoughts flood your mind as you press your face further into his shoulder. You never wanted to let him go. You couldn’t let him go. Why did your damn leg have to hurt? Why couldn’t you stay here forever? Why did the moment have to end? 
After what felt like meer seconds and an eternity all at once, you finally let Obsidian go. Or, you tried to for a second, but he didn’t seem quite done yet. The hug lasted a few heartbeats longer before you were able to stand upright and retrieve your cane back from Chai. Obsidian moved his hands to your arms, as if he too feared you were just a figment of his imagination, as if you’d vanish the second he let go. 
“Back in the Fleet so soon?” Obsidian’s face showed his concern as he spoke. He never stopped smiling. Sweeps later, and the man still couldn’t stop smiling. 
“...I never said goodbye.” Your words were catching in your throat again, barely able to choke out that much. That obviously wasn’t a very clear answer. 
There was so much you wanted to say. Look, Obi, my hair’s longer than yours. I’m not a machine, Obi, I can love now. I have a matesprit. I have a moirail, and a kismesis. They love me, and I love them. My brother is alive, Obi, he’s nothing like Deepbite Alternia is home now, and I don’t hate it. I build prosthetics for a living.  Look at my matesprit, look at my moirail, look at my kismesis. Look at the life I’ve built off this ship. I’m happy now. I’m not a machine, Obi. I like puzzles, and swordfighting, and reading about physics. I helped raise a wriggler named Shiloh. Are you proud of me, Obi? 
But that was far too much to say right then. 
“....we were about to grab coffee,” you start, smiling slightly, “..can you come?” 
“Absolutely.” 
As you follow the other seadwellers, you feel at ease. You weren’t alone. Just knowing they were on the ship with you was reassuring enough. You would get through this. You would make it out of this alive. You would walk down the docks and return to your moirail’s side, and you would be alive. More than that, you would be fine. You could do this. You will do this. 
Of course, this newfound confidence does little to convince you to let go of Obsidian’s sleeve. It was a silly habit you picked up in your youth, though the violet didn’t mind. If anything, one could say he found it just as reassuring as you did. 
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suchafuckingweirdo · 1 year
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i feel like i’ve come full circle:
at first i stopped using tumblr bc of the guideline-change and relocated my fandom activities to twitter, then two years ago to tiktok and now back to tumblr. for one bc the guidelines changed again, but also somehow tumblr feels like the least toxic social media platform at the moment?! how tf did that happen?
i’m really tempted to just delete twitter all together.. i’ve always known that twitter is an absolute hellhole, but lately it’s getting a little to personal for my liking? or well maybe not, maybe it’s just getting to much (mind you, i haven’t really been using twitter a lot for the last two years).
please excuse the formatting btw, i would say that i’m just not used to it anymore, but i have been and probably will always remain a professional lurker. and you know why? bc social media scares me. the only platform i post on at all is instagram (which honestly i’m just using like you’re supposed to use facebook, for friends and well not so much family and stalking purposes), but that’s also not what i would call an online presence. i rarely comment under youtube videos or tiktoks and when my favorite fanfic writer was “canceled” on twitter i didn’t message them, when i really should have.
i feel like we should absolutely keep critiquing celebrities and keep on calling them out, when they do something wrong, bc it can have a positive impact (ex. the ableist lizzo lyric, which she’s changed shortly after it was brought to her attention)
and i even think it’s fine to dm fanfic authors if you recognize racist/sexist/ableist etc. troupes in their work, but what i don’t understand is fucking bullying them? sending them death threats? wtf is wrong with you? people make mistakes and that’s that. yes a lot of ff writers use beta readers but they are also not trained sensitivity readers just friends and they won’t catch everything. writing fanfiction is a hobby, so of course fanfic writers don’t have the resources published writers do! and im not even saying, that you have to accept it, when there are problematic things in fanfiction (or well maybe i am), but you can always stop reading, if messaging the creator doesn’t help. people have to understand that fanfiction writers don’t have that big of a platform?! they aren’t celebrities! they don’t have a pr team, they are just people with a hobby.
back to social media, kinda: i also really dislike how the tiktok fandom changed how i feel about fandom. is sounds very cryptic, but let me explain: the tiktok fandom spaces (i’m talking about the marauders fandom specifically, but also just general ao3 fanfiction discourse) is so fucking entitled. people demand long, unproblematic, high-quality fics and therefore compare different fics. if that was is, it would even be alright, but putting the FREE work of author’s that you just didn’t enjoy down, this is where i draw a line. just. don’t. read. it. for fuck’s sake! i’ve been reading fanfiction (and when i was younger also writing fanfiction) for 10+ years now and i’ve read/seen soooo much questionable content over the years. some of it i enjoyed even though it was kinda bad. and i’m not saying this to flex, just to put into perspective that in all these years i’ve never onec thought: i should go bully this author bc they wrote about self-harm in their fic and didn’t tag (this is a hypothetical example, well…that also definitely happened to me but that’s not the point). and i also remember that back in the days when i was still in the 1D and BTS fandom (don’t come for me, this post is already to long and i don’t want to discuss irl shipping rn) it absolutely was a thing that there were viral fics within the fandom, but fanfiction, which wasn’t well received was just left alone? i mean fuck i’m pretty sure that “house of cards” is still one of the most popular taekook fics on ao3 and that one was messed up af (it’s a mafia au so, what else would you expect?). and the reason why i stopped reading BTS fanfiction is not that i stopped liking the band or that i changed my mind on reading real-people-fics, it was bc two of my favorite authors got bullied off of twitter. so i guess history really keeps repeating itself. is there always some sort of toxicity tipping-point or something?
my last point i’ll keep short and simple: real. people. can’t. queerbait. you. queerbaiting is a media analysis specific term. harry styles’ marketing team might be catering towards a queer audience, but harry himself doesn’t own anyone his sexuality. it’s his private life! he’s been in the public eye since he was a teenager and idk why this is so hard to understand: just don’t fucking bully teenagers? they have it hard enough. and in case this wasn’t obvious from the tags, what originally “inspired” me to write the post was kit connor (from heartstoppers) being forced to come out on twitter. it should always be your own decision when and if to come out. and it’s ok not to realize you’re queer until later on life. hell, i didn’t know i was genderqueer until like 2 years ago and i just started coming out a couple of month ago. i guess the last part wasn’t short at all, but oh well, if that wasn’t obvious i’m fucking pissed!!
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telemna-hyelle · 2 years
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Okay!
So I said I’d write down my thoughts from my recent playing of Twilight Princess.
This post is going to be about Midna.
I don’t believe I’ve made it a secret that Midna is not my favorite LOZ character. To the point that I’m afraid that I’ve gotten a little...resentful...at times about her overwhelming popularity when my favorite companion character gets repeatedly slammed fi my precious baby you deserve so much better.
This kinda surprised me because one of my favorite (and I mean favorite) tropes is redemption and redemption arcs.
I suppose part of my issues is that most of my time playing TP came after I started my playthrough of SS, so I came from Fi to Midna. I came from someone polite, very helpful, with a set up and storyline that made me emotional and invested, to... a very mean person. 
Midna is rude, unpleasant, unhelpful and abrasive about being unhelpful, and all sorts of nasty things that put me off. She smacks you and insults you, takes advantage of your misfortune and treats you like a dog at first. She’s uncaring about the fate of Hyrule. Her role as a companion character felt... hollow outside of jumping to things as Wolf Link. Her helpfulness is vastly inferior to the likes of Fi, and heck, even Navi is more readily available with useful information and tips. 
Midna, on the other hand, will say ‘yeah i don’t know the solution but you’re an idiot for not knowing it yourself’ which made me screech in rage and (briefly) imagine chucking something at her. 
This is, of course, my own impressions, which were slightly tainted by what I knew of her from beforehand (which didn’t particularly impress me) and my knowledge that most people tend to ship her with Link. Which... man I’ve seen people do some really amazing stuff with the ship, and I’ll admit the banter is fun to write, but I personally don’t really see it at all in game--at least not from Link’s side. I’ll believe Midna had a crush on him but that’s as far as I’ll go. So I’ll admit that I did enter a game with a bias but the way she acts in the game is what truly made me dislike her. 
As I continued to play, however, I did began to notice changes in her demeanor. Bits that showed that she was beginning to change. And I really enjoyed that--as said, I love me that redemption juice. But just because I love the story arc doesn’t necessarily mean I’ll love the character. My opinion was sort of improved but I’m still rather eh about her, and I can’t really see that changing. But I smile and cheer every time I see Midna beginning to act kindly and more altruistically, showing worry for people who have no importance to her at all. I still remember how I got confused when Colin got kidnapped by King Bulblin about which way I needed to go, so I asked Midna if she had any advice--and her concern for Colin warmed my heart. 
Just two days ago, I finished the Lakebed Temple. First, Midna apologizes for dragging us all over the place, one more subtle indicator of her slowly changing heart. Then, Zant showed up. Midna defied him and suffered greatly for it.
Now, I’d been anticipating this bit for a while. I’d heard about how it made people feel, and had high expectations. But at first... I didn’t feel particularly emotionally invested. I didn’t feel much of a sense of urgency at first. I mean, I felt a little bad for Midna because that looked uncomfortable, but I knew she was gonna be fine in the end. I guess part of it was that I was expecting the game to make me feel stressed and urgent--maybe a time limit, or making the path through Hyrule Field more difficult to navigate and populated with more dangers than some random monsters. 
When I compared it to the emotions I felt at the stealth portion of the Eldin Volcano in SS, where I nearly stayed up until four a.m. because I was desperate to find Fi as soon as possible, and couldn’t stand the thought of leaving her stranded and abandoned and alone, I... was underwhelmed.
At first. 
As I kept playing, I started to notice a strange sound. I was appreciating the haunting combination of the truly beautiful melody and the rain, and then I heard the raspy, breathing sound. 
“Holy Crap,” I thought, “that’s eerie. Poor Midna.”
Then, you head into castle town and the water system underneath, and suddenly the sound of the rain is gone. Midna’s raspy, weakened breathing grows louder, echoing in the stone passageways. It pokes at the nerves, making me constantly aware that Midna isn’t sitting confidently on my back as always, but is limply draped across it, white and wounded and dying. 
I started getting a bit of that feeling of urgency I’d heard so much about.
And then you leave the tunnels and emerge onto the roof of Hyrule Castle--and all of a sudden I realized I couldn’t hear Midna breathing anymore. 
I panicked. 
I yelped and quickly talked to her, breathing out a huge sigh of relief when she answered me (weakly) and I realized she was still breathing, only the rain was drowning out most of the sound. 
However, I was feeling that urgency now. I spent the rest of my time running across the roofs listening closely to her breathing and keeping a running string of talk up irl, telling her to ‘Hold on’ and ‘We’re almost there’ and ‘you’re gonna be all right’. 
And then we get to Zelda. 
And while I knew this was coming in some fashion though without the details, it’s revealed that Midna’s whole purpose in coming here wasn’t to save her life at all. 
She was completely willing and ready to die... her urgency was in order to arrive before Zelda in time to plead with her, partly to protect both her people and Hyrule, but almost entirely for Link’s sake. And when Zelda ends up saving her life, Midna--who started out as a selfish character only concerned with herself and her people. I got emotional. I completely agreed with Zelda’s decision to save Midna. I, who earlier in the game would have happily chuckled Midna into Death Mountain, wanted her to live.
She’s still not my favorite character. I still generally feel ‘eh’ about her, and I doubt that’ll change. 
But I have to give credit where credit is due, and this game is amazing. It’s design and story pulled emotions from me that I didn’t expect at all, about a character that at the beginning I actively disliked. 
The story of this game--and the game itself, is a masterpiece, and Midna’s character arc is one of the brightest gems in it’s crown. 
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misa-ndry · 1 year
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hello, recently went back on tumblr due to boys planet brain rot and stumbled upon your posts, i 100% agree on the haobin points, those boys have played the game far better than any other person on an mnet survival show i’ve ever watched. they seem like amazing boys with crazy amounts of talent and their synced desires to go into teaching previously already does enough to make them likeable imo but the curation of their images alone and together, watching all of that come to fruition with p01 and p02 is kind of amazing to watch.
I did want to ask more about the zhanghao and keita point though, while i do see the bitterness slightly with keita and over me and how it is very clear the chinese boys are a clique (absolutely no hate esp given the shit chinese trainees get from mnet editing) but i genuinely haven’t felt any animosity between the 2 of them…ever. yes keita may be a little bitter (as he should and has every right to be) but it feels more towards the stage rather than the members (while sometimes it may appear misdirected) it doesn’t help that poor keita wears his heart on his sleeve (literally since treasure box) their minimal other interactions in the latest episodes like zhanghao speaking japanese in his elimination speech and keita saying he taught him that or keita calling jeonghyeon over for zhanghao after he was already in switch give me the impression that they’re still kinda close but we just don’t rly get to see it anymore :”) in my opinion it doesn’t rly seem to me like one dislikes the other (zhanghao or keita) it makes sense if they grew less close due to keita getting kicked out of switch and that probably took a hit to their friendship but i don’t see it carrying forward in the future. they’ve appeared to get along just fine the previous episodes esp during ktl and i think they’ll recover from this bump. (this may all just be wishful thinking and me hoping everyone is secretly besties :”””))
hao is an introvert and if i’m honest he isn’t really shown hanging out with many people aside from shanbin, kuanjui and the yuehuaz (seungeon BARELY ) so it’s rly hard to gauge how close all of them are / their relationships, it feels like every dorm vlog is me getting surprised at new trainees interacting w one another like woongki and seowon disturbing him in bed. same w keita honestly aside from him w jongwoo it feels like mnet is adamant in not showing his interactions with the rest of top9. he mentioned before that his closest friend is probably matthew but i barely see them on the same screen if ever. i don’t really know where i’m going w this but i just wanted to give my two cents and hear more about your opinions because i love over analysing survival shows and your opinions are well articulated which i really appreciate! tldr: mnet sucks and had some weird obsession with g + k grp ships and will barely show the other g groupies being friends which is ironic given they were so dead set on the g k rivalry initially
yes yes yes. honestly I agree with everything you're saying!!
haobin really stays winning. I really hope that zhang hao will be p02 in the final although we might get yujin or even taerae because of the live votes weight - but hao is popular in korea too and I think he's got a shot. it'd be the perfect ending. shanbin for p01 of course. I suspect that mnet asked zhang hao to thank hanbin for the tutting part, but if he thought of it himself that's pretty clever, either way he's doing great, they really are doing great and I think they're both going to go really, really far.
I also agree on keita x zhang hao friendship still going strong (or at least going!) for the reasons you've stated. god was I relieved when keita said he taught zhang hao that with a bright smile on his face. Tumblr theory; DISPROVEN! thank fuck. I also think the chinese clique is closer to Jay than I thought. The argument for them not being close with him would be picking him as the raccoon (after jeonghyeon), but that could easily be because they know him less than they know each other, so it would be harder for them to tell if jay was lying. another argument is ricky not looking at jay during the same scene when jay was screaming out but.. thats a split second... the argument for them actually being close is a lot stronger: when Chen Kuanjui held Jay's hands and Jay said "I wish you could have gone to the finale with me". Thank GOD they showed that or I could have drawn the wrong conclusion because of the aforementioned reasons. I think they aren't a closed off clique, just three besties who hang with other people as well~
It's frustrating to me that mnet picks and choose who they want to show be friends. I pause the episode everytime Keita is on screen to locate him and then rewatch all his parts 3x times, and I keep trying to figure out who he is friends with. Especially within the top 9, since I wanna know if he will debut with friends.
I don't think we've ever had a keita x shanbin interaction?? and I'm SO curious about how their relationship is. jiwoong barely gets any screen time to begin with, but he seems to really like keita, he always looks happy around him. taerae and keita are definitely close after switch, and I think they were probably friends before then too. otherwise wouldn't keitas joke about taeraes big mouth have been rude? yujin and keita are close; keita is shown complimenting yujin a lot (istg half of Keita's screentime is him gushing about yujin) + yujin drew on Keita's arm. when I first saw the bts video where it happened I didn't even realize it was keita since it was grainy dorm footage. I don't think we've had a keita x gyuvin interaction. and as we know he is besties w Matthew and im dying to see their friendship! Matthew please please debut!
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redleavesinthewind · 2 years
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proper pirates have tattoos
written for day 1 of @demonlandline’s celebration. HAPPY BIRTHDAY TYLAR!!✨ and so many congrats on the 2k milestone!
prompts: tattoos, transformation, yellow
before the crew sets sail to follow blackbeard, stede gets a tattoo
read below or on ao3 (720 words) / the other day 1 / day 2 / day 3 / day 4
The sun is setting, painting the sea pink. There’s a stripe of yellow, just where the ocean meets the horizon, and that’s where Stede keeps his gaze as the needle pricks at his arm over and over again. He tries to come up with a good description for the sensation, and concludes that it feels the way scraping a chalkboard sounds. It is unpleasant and takes more time than he anticipated, and Stede would very much like it to be over now.
He grips Oluwande’s hand tighter. “Why did I let you convince me to get a tattoo?”
Oluwande looks unimpressed. “Captain… this was your idea.”
“Why would I decide to get a tattoo? I dislike pain very much.”
At that, Oluwande raises an eyebrow in amusement, then he shakes his head. “I tried to warn you. You didn’t listen. Talked about how proper pirates have tattoos.”
“Well, they do.”Stede closes his eyes and tries to ease his grip around Oluwande’s hand at least a little bit. He doesn’t want to crush it. It works until the needle pricks at a delicate part on the underside of Stede’s arm, and he can’t help but yelp.
“Be careful!” Stede cries out, and the tattoo artist looks at him even more unimpressed than Oluwande did. Stede goes back to watching the yellow in the sky. For a few seconds, there is peace.
“I found us a ship!”
Pete barges in, at the same time as Roach stumbles through the door. “I got us stocked up on supplies, but there’s nowhere to put them.”
Stede looks between the two for a moment, waits for them to come to the conclusion. When they don’t, he sighs. “Well? Put the supplies in the new ship Black Pete found for us.”
Roach nods, the movement a bit more frantic than it has to be. “Right ahead, Captain.”
He doesn’t leave yet though, as this is the moment Buttons decides to show up, a new seagull—Olivia he said her name was—perched on his head.
“What’s our course, Capt’n?” He asks, wide eyes looking down at where Stede is sitting.
“We need to follow Ed, so his course is our course. Do we know where he is at the moment?” Stede looks at Oluwande, as if the man has all the answers. He doesn’t.
“Do we really want to follow Blackbeard?” Wee John asks from where he’s been hovering in the corner with the Swede all this time, scrolling through the pages of the tattoo artist’s sketchbooks.
“The man marooned us on a tiny island.” Roach adds.
“Yes! We have to follow Blackbeard!” Pete yells right over him. “Lucius is still on that ship!”
“And so is Jim. I’m not leaving them behind.” This time it’s Oluwande who grips at Stede’s hand, looking for support.
“We are not leaving anyone behind.” Stede hisses through the pain. “Not Lucius, or Jim, or Frenchie. Not Ed. I understand what he did was… well, unforgivable. But it also doesn’t sound like him.”
“Marooning a whole crew when he’s tired of them doesn’t sound like Blackbeard?” Pete asks, in a way that suggests that this exactly sounds like something Blackbeard would do. He’s not wrong.
Stede sighs, then mumbles. “It doesn’t sound like Ed.”
Oluwande is the only one who hears him. Louder, Stede orders. “Everyone, ask around town if they heard anything about Ed—Blackbeard, and ready the ship.”
Slowly, everyone disperses, even Oluwande, after he looks at Stede with a question in his eyes, and the Captain nods. When he is alone with the tattoo artist again, he looks back out of the window. It is dark now, the sun has set. There is no yellow stripe between the horizon and the ocean anymore.
“It’s done.” The artist says, voice gruff. Stede thanks him and pays for the tattoo, then he leaves the stuffy room. He expected to feel different, now that he has a tattoo. Expected it to transform him into a proper pirate. But part of him always knew, that particular transformation requires more action than just getting a tattoo. But he is ready. He forces a smile. This is going to be an adventure. One look at the black outline of the candied melon silk moth on his arm, and his smile turns real.
***
✨tagging people from my taglist that i know are also into ofmd (tell me if you only wanna be tagged for spn stuff, and as always, ask to be added/removed)
@classycoffeecat @goiwantamuffin @emeraldcas @hellericarus
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durotoswrites · 2 years
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This is the other part of the anon ask for character breakdowns.  This time, we’re featuring Archeologist Carter!
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How I feel about this character:
As I mentioned in the Grant ask, I haven’t gotten past the first year of AWL yet, so I have yet to interact with Carter in-game.  I’ve seen screencaps, but most of my experience with Carter is from HMDS and HMDS Cute.  This is actually the first Harvest Moon Carter I was acquainted with, and I always thought it was odd you could phone the church in HMDS to remove curses and a different Carter would answer the line.  Technically you had two Carters in one game, hehe.
Carter has always struck me as incredibly focused on his work at the dig, to the point of obsession.  He’s a very hard worker, but despite that, he does enjoy the fresh air outside of the dig.  I never really think of him having many other interests outside of his studies and looking into finding out more about his ancestors.  Because of this, I feel like he falls a little flat.  He doesn’t spend much time outside of the dig, and when he is anywhere else, he seems to be focused either on work or how much he hates Flora’s cooking.  Oh, yeah, and getting his energy from the sun…  
All the people I ship romantically with this character
I honestly don’t really ship Carter with anyone because I feel like he’s basically married to his work.  There are other characters who have this, like Doctor Trent, but I can see Trent as more receptive to others’ emotions.  I feel that with a little more development for Carter, he could be someone you could count on.
Farmer x Carter: Because the main character is basically a blank slate, he could work as a good partner for the player.  The only problem is that he needs to find some more hobbies.  I mean, I appreciate that he’s a hard worker - and I think that meshes well if you play as a hardworking farmer.  The problem is that he tends to treat the MC like an assistant.  I think if he was written with some more development, he could be a good partner.  I guess this is an instance where fanfic comes into play, haha.
Flora x Carter: Again, if he was able to see her as more than an assistant, I think things would work better.  Their communication isn’t the greatest.  I get the impression he has a sensitive stomach and her serving spicy foods makes him feel sick.  If he just spelled that out for her and she was more willing to listen, or if he could, you know, cook for once, things would go better.  They do have an odd love scene in AWL that I saw online where it’s clear they have some sort of feelings for each other.  I just feel like it was portrayed in a really awkward way.  Then again, I feel like both Carter and Flora are kinda awkward in their own ways, hehe.
My non-romantic OTP for this character
I could see Carter becoming friends with the locals at the bar when stops by for a drink.  Honestly, I see Muffy and Griffin being friends with the whole town.  I feel like Carter values his alone time, and he’s okay with having a smaller network of friends.
My unpopular opinion about this character
I don’t think he’s a very popular character, so probably most of these opinions aren’t too wild.  Firstly, Carter’s age doesn’t bother me at all, and I think his design looks fine.  I thought of him as “sooo old” when I was a kid, but now that I’m older, I appreciate that there were older characters available to marry.  However, I think he could use some more development to become a better marriage candidate.  I don’t feel like they added enough to him in HMDS to make him a valid marriage choice.  With Cody and Daryl, I felt like there were far more interesting characters to marry.
I don’t dislike Carter, but I feel like he doesn’t have a good sense of other people’s feelings.  It doesn’t help that Flora is also stubborn in her own ways.  Them as a couple is a little concerning because I feel like they don’t communicate that well as they’re currently written.
One thing I wish would happen / had happened with this character in canon.
I really wish that Carter was given more of a chance to grow more in personality.  His heart events with Flora fall a little flat for me, as do the ones with the MC.  I’d like to see him with a passion for more than just one thing.  I guess he likes taking in the sunlight, but have him practice Tai-Chi or something for variety.  I’d love some more scenes with Carter at the bar that are more than just him getting drunk.  I want to see him interacting with Griffin and Muffy in a friendly manner.
Thank you so much for the ask!  Have a good one! ^-^
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