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young-dumb-and-vaccinated · 3 years

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Cult Girl: Doctorate (Hannibal x Female!Reader) pt. 8

Cult girl and Hannibal go through an exhaustive list of potential adoptive couples.

@wisesandwichshark

Trigger warning: sexual harassment, christianity, discussion of pregnancy and family planning, adoption, murder and cannibalism

Step two: find an adoptive family.

Some would say your list of expectations for potential adoptive parents was too extensive. Impossible for any human to reach. But it was really just the bare minimum.

Regardless of if they were two men, two women, one of each, or a few people, the parents had to be trustworthy. It wasn't easy to earn Hannibal's trust, but he could recognize those who had the capacity to right away. It was a little instinct you had dubbed 'friend or food'.

On paper, the apostolic pastor and his wife of 19 years seemed like the perfect candidates. The adoption agency tried to push them on you, as they had a great track record with adopting from them prior. Three boys, all of which were honors students.

Hannibal insisted on a formal introduction, during which you could conduct a proper, though surreptitious, interview. It was an invitation to dinner.

He invited the couple into his office, where a pot of tea and an interrogation was waiting for them. Then there was you. Barely-pregnant little [F/N], feeling entirely safe so long as your fiancé was beside you.

"You're doing the right thing, y'know." The woman, who introduced herself as Mrs. Landon, said upon meeting you.

"How do you mean?" You asked, already knowing the answer.

"All god's life is precious." She said, placing a hand on your not-even-remotely-showing-yet stomach. "You're walking in obedience to the lord by giving this child a shot at life."

Strike one: bringing up religion unprompted. Strike two: touching me without asking first.

You wanted to swat her hand away, but remembered that patience was a virtue. She and her husband took a seat across from you.

"Y'know," The man began, his mannerisms eerily similar to those of his wife. "I don't usually begin with the god talk, but I think a higher power had to have been involved in the conception of this- well, our child. I'd like to think the good lord brought us together today."

Strike three: already believes he is entitled to my child. You're outta here.

"Don't flatter the adoption agency like that, Jacob." Hannibal chuckled, placing his teacup on the side table.

"I'm serious, Dr. Lecter." Jacob interjected. "Faith and I really do believe that god put us on this earth to prepare his smallest soldiers for the spiritual war."

You shot Hannibal a side glance that said 'can we please just eat them now?'.

The answer was no. Hannibal liked to play with his food.

"And your adult children have all moved out?" He asked.

"That's right." Jacob nodded. "We have plenty of room in our five-bedroom house for the new little slugger to run around in."

"And if it's a girl!" The wife interrupted. "We have enough closet space for all the denim maxi-skirts money could buy."

Strike four: arbitrarily genders the behavior of a nine-week-old embryo.

The man then returned the teacup to the table, not bothering to use the saucer and instead leaving a nasty ring of condensation on the polished mahogany.

"Okay." Hannibal huffed, resignedly rising from his seat. He pulled two hypodermic needles from his back pocket and carefully, subtly stuck them onto the couples' necks. They couldn't even scream.

The tacos al pastor that followed (after a few days of marinating, of course) were exquisite.

The next week brought a new couple to your doorstep. Frank and Angela, they were named. Their claim to fame was that their oldest son played football for one of those big southern party schools. Either Auburn or Alabama. There was hardly a difference.

You sat for what felt like hours listening to the man speak in unintelligible football babble, waiting for him to take a breath. Surprisingly, it was the mom who got him to finally shut up.

"Frank, please." She said with more frustration than this one situation even remotely warranted. Either she had enough intuition to know she was being tested, or she’d spent the last decade putting up with this. Possibly both. "You're boring our hosts to death."

"What? No way! She loves it!" Frank replied, then turned to you. Not to Hannibal, just you. “Aren’t you having a great time, sweetheart?”

Strike one: takes advantage of the female socialization to be passive and polite, allowing himself to take up the most space.

You shook your head. “I hate football.”

His wife looked quite pleased with herself.

“Angie, I just wanted her to know what good breeding her son is going to have.” He said, without a lick of irony or self-awareness. He eyed you up and down and licked his lips. “And it is mutual, I see.”

The room went quiet as everyone tried to determine whether he was serious or if it was just a fucked-up joke. The longer the silence lingered, the more you realized he wasn’t kidding. Angela looked like she wanted to crawl into a hole and die.

“I don’t know what the agency told you, Mr. Wyatt,” Hannibal said, trying not to grit his teeth. “She isn’t a surrogate. She’s already pregnant.”

Frank’s jaw hung dumbly open. “I thought you were looking for a sperm donor? I just-”

“No.” You cut him off, raising your hand and covering your face. “I don’t want to know what you thought.”

“Well, I would!” Angela interjected, righteous fury eclipsing what should have been crippling embarrassment. “What exactly did you think this was, Francis?”

“The file said that he was over fifty, so I just assumed--” Frank rationalized, his voice far too loud for the room. “Y’know? That she wanted a baby that wouldn’t come out all funny-looking?”

“You’re disgusting.” You blurted out.

“Francis Howard Wyatt,” Angela scolded as if she were talking to her son. “You are forty-eight and the only increasing part of your body is your blood pressure. Why on Earth would any woman choose you over her smart, handsome doctor fiancé?”

This made Hannibal sit up a little straighter. He wanted Francis on the butcher’s block yesterday, but he momentarily considered letting Angela live.

“They’re not married?” Frank whispered, or whatever the loud-aggressive-toxic-masculinity version of whispering was. He paused, as the dead hamster on the wheel powering his brain crept back to life. “That actually makes sense.”

Angela loudly smacked her hand against her face. “Dr. Lecter, Ms. [L/N], I am so sorry.”

“It’s quite alright, Mrs. Wyatt.” Hannibal stood up, readying the next batch of needles. “It just makes what I’m about to do easier.”

It took quite a bit of restraint to not make their deaths hurt, but he made up for it when it came time to carve. He had fun running his fittingly small penis through a meat grinder. Not with any intent to cook it, though. Just because.

Hannibal wanted to make Francis Wyatt into the least dignified meal imaginable. You quickly recalled going to a friend’s barbeque in Georgia and encountering a horrendously Southern delicacy known as Frito Pie. You proposed the idea to Hannibal, who, after reviling in abject horror at the notion of eating something out of a bag, agreed that it was the most fitting end. He could spare a few pounds of flesh to grind up and make into chili.

The third week brought yet another couple. They seemed smart enough to realize your invitation wasn't the friendly olive branch the others had interpreted it as. Their healthy skepticism was refreshing, to say the least. Then, you met them: Max and Archie.

"You'll have to forgive my partner's paranoia." Max said upon entering the house. He tugged playfully at Archie's hand. "We watched Get Out recently, so an invitation to the suburbs sounded some alarms in his sleep-deprived brain."

"I love that movie." You chimed in. "It reminds me of my family."

"Oh no." Archie's eyes widened in only half-pretend fear. He shot an I-told-you-so look in his partner's direction.

"But my favorite horror flick has to be Midsommar." You added. "My friends and I saw a midnight screening and we didn't sleep at all that night."

"But have you seen Hereditary?" Archie posited.

"Of course." You shrugged. "Aster is totally genius."

You made more than just polite conversation with the couple. Max, despite his young age, was a skilled data analyst and day trader. He attributed his success to the hard work of his immigrant parents. Archie was an environmental lawyer and land activist. He was also a bit of a thrill junkie, indulging in everything from scary movies to bungee jumping.

It didn't take long to realize that you wouldn't be eating them. They were far too pleasant of company to eat.

"So when is this baby planning to make its entrance?" Archie asked, gesturing to you. "You don’t look all that pregnant to me."

You put your hand over your slightly-protruding stomach. "Late August, I believe. If everything goes according to plan."

"You're not far along at all, aren’t you?" Max observed. "That gives us plenty of time to prove ourselves to you."

"Believe me." You put up your hand. "You're doing a great job so far."

“If you like horror stories, we might have to indulge you in the last two encounters we had.” Hannibal commented, leaning back comfortably in his chair. That was a good sign. “No blood was spilled, thank god. Would have ruined my carpets. But believe me when I tell you it came very close.”

The couple laughed along. Archie leaned in like he was about to tell a life-shattering secret. “You wouldn’t believe the hoops we had to jump through to even have the chance to adopt. And I don’t want to say that it’s because we’re an interracial gay couple, but...”

“Agencies aren’t exactly colorblind.” You finished, via his prompting.

“She gets it.” Archie pointed to you. “See, Maxie? She agrees with me.”

Max pushed his glasses up his nose. “I never said I disagreed.”

You spent the rest of the afternoon waiting for the conversation to take a sharp left turn off a cliff, but it didn’t happen. They were wonderful company; polite, intelligent and articulate. Exactly the kind of people you’d want to see taking care of your child.

You’d have to look for you next meal elsewhere.

#hannibal #hannibal x reader #hannibal x you #hannibal lecter x you #hannibal lecter x reader #hannibal lecter #hannibal nbc #cult girl #cult girl 2 #cult girl doctorate

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imaginefan · 3 years

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My Opinion

Campbell Eliot X Reader

Word Count: 715

Requested: Anon

Request: Reader was making jokes on how everyone being scared of Campbell cause she doesn’t get it, like if Campbell wanted to break free somewhere he would and he tends to corporate. Campbell gets irritated but then he realizes that reader she isnt making fun of him at it was more of everyone else and that she was actually complimenting him. Reader makes a remark saying something like here I thought you were smart but Campbell just laughs it off cause he finds her interesting. 1shot.

You jogged up the stairs of Allie house heading towards the master bedroom that they were all standing outside of "He's in there?" You asked and they nodded. "Sam just told us that he is a diagnosed Psychopath," Allie said and you nodded. "Uh-huh." You hummed as you walked over to the door and opened it, he looked up at you as you looked at him "he's handcuffed to a radiator, what harm can he do?" Allie pulled the door closed before answering. "He's dangerous." "Yes but that doesn't answer my question, why are you all so scared of him if he's handcuffed to a radiator!?" You asked again this time your voice was louder and they all seemed to flinch as if they were scared of him hearing you. "Alright whatever, what am I here for?" "I called you because you were pretty good at getting information from people back at school," Allie answered. "You want me to interrogate him?" You asked. "After you told me that he's a diagnosed Psychopath?" You asked. "You just said that he can't do anything." Allie reminded you and you looked at her and nodded. "Physically." You clarified "I thought that you understood that when I said that he was handcuffed to a radiator." "So what do you think that he's going to hurt your feelings?" Gordie asked. "Funny but no he's smart and it's unlikely that I'm going to get anything that you want to know about, everything that he tells me will be because he wants you to know it, he wants you to doubt each other, your easier to divide that way." You explained. "I need to know what happened." Allie pleaded. "How do you know that he knows? Dewey probably pulled a name out of the air and even if he was the one that planned something like that there's no way that he was there, I saw him leave with Elle that night and they didn't come back out of that house until the next morning." You explained. "How do you know that?" She asked. "Because I talk to Elle." You answered. "Please just talk to him." She pleaded one last time "see if the stories match up."

You walked into the bedroom and sat on the bed opposite Campbell after closing the door. "What do you want?" He asked as he looked at you. "Me? Nothing." You answered. "Then what are you doing in here?" Campbell asked. "Oh come on I just told them all that you're too smart to be interrogated please don't prove me wrong." You smirked as you leaned forward arms crossed over your legs. "You just told them that you're not a threat," Campbell argued. "Mmm I was merely bringing the fact that there you were still here to their attention, I've watched you and if you don't want something to happen or you don't want to be in a certain situation you find a way out of it." You explained. "And you know since your brother has confirmed that you were diagnosed psychopath it all makes a little more sense." "You're weird." Campbell finally said as he leaned back against the radiator. "Yeah, I guess I am." You shrugged, "Makes me a little more intuitive doesn't it. Now let's talk about this whole you made the plan thing." "I can’t prove something that never happened, I’ve never spoken to Dewey at least not that I can remember, anyway. I always thought that he was a fucking asshole. You already know everything that you want to know, it doesn’t matter what I say." He said and you stood up stretching as you walked over to the door. "Well, your right about that." You nodded as you walked over to the door and opened it. "What did he say?" Allie asked. "Nothing." You answered. "Nothing!?" Allie asked. "Look to be honest whether he said it or not that's not the problem, the problem is if and how you're going to punish it and he knows that." You shrugged as you walked towards the stairs. "Figure that out and then you'll have your answer." You answered.

Campbell heard you leaving but he didn’t know what to think, you were someone that he couldn’t account for and he didn’t like that.

*Part 2*

Requests and general question!

#society #the society #society imagine #society one shot #campbell eliot #campbell eliot imagine #campbell eliot one shot #reader insert #oneshot #one shot #imagine

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bnhayyy · 3 years

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Comforting Lies

Wordcount: 6.7k

Series Tag: Click

Ao3 Link: Click

Notes: I'm pretty sure that I already posted a version of this here, but I forgot to include the series tag, so you're getting another one for curation purposes.

Summary: Reiner Braun is a proud member of the Marleyan Junior Military. The warrior candidates he works with are devils. They are also weapons, curiosities, and maybe even his future subordinates. But they are not his friends.

Or;

In another world, Reiner is Marleyan on his mother's side. This does less to change his fate than one might expect.

"What are you doing?"

Reiner liked to watch the devils. He knew that he wasn't supposed to, but it was so easy with how close to Liberio's gate they lived, and he found that he couldn't resist the temptation. It wasn't like anything bad would come from it anyway. None of them could hurt him; there were soldiers all over the place, and even Eldians like them should know the trouble they would get into if they hurt a Marleyan. He was only catching a few quick looks anyway. It wasn't much, but if he was lucky, he thought he might be able to figure out how they worked, what it was that made them so horrible. Then he'd be able to handle them better when he finally turned eleven and was allowed to join the military in a year.

He didn't really care if any of the Eldian cadets caught him looking. It wasn't like any of them could do anything about it. That was why he didn't expect any of them to say anything either.

A tiny girl with ice-blue eyes proved him wrong, looking right at him and asking her question.

Reiner balked. Just for a second; just long enough to remember that this was a devil child he was talking to. Even though she probably wanted to hurt him, he was Marleyan and there was nothing she should do. When he remembered that, he grinned and said, "looking for your horns."

The girl blinked. "What." It should have been a question, but didn’t sound like one the way she said it. She probably wasn't very smart, then.

"Looking for your horns," Reiner repeated. He coaxed his expression into more of a sneer, since his mother wouldn't like it if she knew he was looking friendly toward these people. "You’re devils, right? So where are your horns? My mom says you should have them."

The girl balled her hand into a fist. She took a step forward and sent a burst of alarm exploding in Reiner's chest, driving him to take a stumbling step back before he even realized what was happening. It looked for all the world like she would take another, but before she could, an older boy stepped forward and placed a hand on her shoulder. The girl looked up at him for a few moments, then relaxed her posture. She was still scowling though. It was just pointed at the dirt now instead of him.

Reiner began to frown as his heart slowed down enough to let him think. Stupid. That girl looked like she couldn't be older than seven or eight - maybe even six, with how short she was - and one of the soldiers would have seen and stopped her if she actually tried to do anything. He couldn't let himself look like he was afraid of her!

He began to open his mouth. The girl flickered her gaze back up, expression darkening.

Reiner redirected his attention to the boy who still had a hand on her shoulder. "You need to keep her under control!" he snapped. "I could report you, you know."

The boy smiled sadly. "I'll keep that in mind," he said. "But if you don't mind me asking, what are you doing? I thought Marleyan kids weren't supposed to talk to warrior candidates."

Reiner's brow furrowed. Warrior candidates. He'd heard that term before - the warriors were supposed to be Eldians who weren't quite as bad as the rest of them. The devils with the ability to turn into actual monsters. Marley's living weapons. The term made his curiosity burn that much brighter, even though the devil boy was... not exactly wrong. He wasn't about to tell him that though, especially when there were so many questions that he suddenly wanted to ask.

Before he could say a single word, a gruff voice began to resonate from a short distance away. The soldiers meant to be escorting the devil children started looking at them a little more intensely - and casting unsure glances at him. Now that he looked at them, the other devils - warrior candidates - were shooting him nervous glances as well. Well, most of them were. Some kid standing next to an unusually tall boy was glaring at him outright. Reiner took note of it and made sure to glare right back.

The girl shrugged her comrade's shoulder off and marched over to them, while the boy glanced in the direction of the voice and murmured, "Magath."

When he looked back at Reiner, his smile was a little less sad and a little more anxious. "You might want to get out of here. Go on - I swear I won't tell anyone about what happened."

Reiner's attention jerked back to him. The glare stayed, now fueled by the urge to say that he didn't need an Eldian to keep secrets for him. However, the voice was getting closer and louder. He hoped that he wouldn't get in trouble. He didn't think he had any real reason to get in trouble, but... he didn't really want to find out.

With all of his questions still burning in the back of his mind, Reiner ran off. It irritated him that he didn't get the chance to learn anything useful, but... it wasn't like the warrior candidates didn't come through the area often enough. He would have other chances to figure out what made them tick.

It was only a few minutes later that he realized that he'd made a mistake. Just before he left, he had slipped up and given the devil boy an almost grateful look.

He'd have to do a better job of remembering his place next time. His mother would be so disappointed if she knew that he was being friendly with a devil.

***

Reiner did end up sneaking off to see the warrior candidates again. And again. And again. There were a few more close calls with the man he came to recognize as Commander Magath; on one memorable occasion, he even got chewed out over 'minding his own business.' He never tracked down his mother and told her what he had been doing though, so Reiner made the tenuous decision to push his luck and continue his observation of the devil children. That lead to a few more heart-racing interactions with the Commander, which eventually lead up to a gleeful realization: the Commander had decided to tolerate him. He wasn't making friends with them, interfering with their training, or doing anything illegal, so he wasn't going to get in trouble for interacting with the Eldians.

Their encounters were always short though. He wasn't allowed to follow them to training, and he certainly wasn't supposed to step foot in the internment zone, so he was limited to seeing them when they were coming or going. But those short encounters happened frequently and began to add up. In time, he even started to learn about a few of them as individuals. It hadn't been his goal, but... maybe it would be useful, someday.

The girl who'd spoken to him was Annie Leonhardt. She was mean, emotionless, and pretty much everything one might expect of a devil. It was a good thing that Marley had her under control - especially if they were actually considering giving her a titan.

Bertolt Hoover was the name of the tall boy who'd hovered over her when she backed down. He was spineless and meek, but seemed to know his place well and showed a willingness to obey that was good in an Eldian soldier. He'd mentioned that he was being considered for the largest of Marley's titans - the Colossal - and Reiner couldn't help but think that he was a good choice for it.

The other girl in the group, Pieck Finger, was hard to get a read on. She was distant and didn't talk to Reiner much, but he always got a sense that she was watching him. Sometimes, it made him wonder if she might be smarter than she seemed. It was an uncomfortable thought.

Porco Galliard was much easier to understand. He was rude, disrespectful, and grew far too comfortable behaving that way toward Reiner far too quickly. He would have reported him if it didn't mean that he might not get to see the warrior candidates anymore. So instead, he just threatened to report him, which always made Porco simmer and glare before backing off - at least until the next time he decided to act up.

It was almost difficult to believe that he was Marcel's younger brother. The boy who'd held Annie back when they first met, Marcel was... decent, for an Eldian. He behaved in a way that he thought wasn't supposed to be possible for Eldians. Truthfully, Reiner was inclined to suspect that his entire personality was an act for that very reason. It probably was. And if it wasn't... If it wasn't, then maybe he really was better than the rest of the Eldians. Maybe they would have been friends if Marcel was Marleyan.

But he wasn't, so they weren't. Reiner was just watching them because he would be enlisting in the military soon, and from there, he would become one of their best soldiers and climb to the very top of Marley's military. That meant he would be in charge of them one day. And even if these ones might be dead from that curse Marcel mentioned by then, it couldn't hurt to stay a step ahead.

***

Reiner joined the Marleyan Junior Military as soon as he turned eleven. He put his all into it, and even if he maybe wasn't quite as skilled as some of his compatriots, no one could say that they were more dedicated than him. That had to be why, when they were assigned units to train with a few months in, he was immediately selected to work with the warrior candidates. Even better, he was one of the only ones assigned to that unit.

Having his intuition pay off was a fantastic feeling. He wasn't in charge of the warrior cadets, not yet, but now there could be no denying that there would be one day. Thanks to his diligence and curiosity, he also knew them better than some of the grown soldiers who had been assigned to watch them much earlier, the ones who had gotten scared and kept their distance. He knew to expect ruthlessness from Annie long before he first saw her training. It didn't surprise him to see that Bertolt was prone to hesitation unless he had a firm command to drive him. The way Porco slipped up and acted wild sometimes only made him roll his eyes, Pieck's odd moments didn't catch him off guard, and he even knew better than to be shocked by Marcel acting all nice.

He was pretty sure that the warrior candidates couldn't surprise him anymore. However, everyone but Marcel seemed surprised to see him on that first day. He, of course, congratulated him on receiving his first assignment, with Berolt joining in soon after. Reiner thought that Pieck looked shocked and upset for a moment, but if she did, she managed to cover it up quickly. Annie was all glares whenever she saw him, just like before, and Porco - Porco looked like he wanted to hit something.

That also wasn't surprising. Porco was a problem in general.

Reiner had expected there to be consequences to suddenly spending so much more time around the warrior candidates - the biggest threat posed by his assignment. He reminded himself that Marcel's niceness was probably just an act, that Pieck was odd and untrustworthy, that Bertolt was probably the sort of spineless person who would abandon his comrades to save himself, and that Annie was a bad person who would doubtlessly kill him given the opportunity. All of it prepared him for facing them on a day-to-day basis. However, no amount of reminding himself that Porco was a disrespectful blowhard kept him from growing more and more upset by his behavior.

The feeling seemed to be mutual. Porco still deferred and stepped down when Reiner said something to remind him of his place, but he saw the way he twitched when he glared at him. They both wanted to sink their fists into one another (even if only one of them had a real reason too). But unfortunately, it wasn't allowed. And because it wasn't allowed, they didn't.

Until they reached a tipping point.

***

It wasn't often that Reiner was allowed to watch the warrior candidates on his own. He hadn’t expected to today either, but the older soldiers were all off talking about something, and it had been agreed that he was capable enough to be trusted to watch the Galliard brothers train on his own. Not that there was much actual training going on.

Reiner was standing leaning against the tree while Porco prattled at his brother. A quick glance to the side revealed that on the other side of the clearing, only eighty or so yards away, Annie was sparring with Pieck while Bertolt practiced his drills. But Porco? Porco was keeping his brother from actually doing anything productive by rambling on about how they were going to inherit their titans soon.

Marcel didn't even seem like he was enjoying it. He was smiling, but when Reiner looked at him a little closer, there was something almost pained in his expression. It was clear that he wanted to be doing someone else and was only talking with his brother because he was too dedicated to his nice act to tell him to shut up.

Reiner let out a little huff. Marcel glanced at him and offered a small smile, to which he rolled his eyes.

That got Porco's attention. He cast a glare his way, which Reiner returned whole-heartedly and without paying any attention to the almost-squirmy feeling that formed in his stomach at the flash of discomfort that crossed Marcel's face at the action.

"Anyway," Porco continued, loud and arrogant and infuriating, "when I get the Armored Titan-"

"-If," Reiner interrupted.

Porco froze. "What?" he asked. His voice was a little more growly than it usually was. It sent a buzz of angry triumph dancing over Reiner's skin.

"If you inherit the Armored Titan," Reiner said, stepping forward and away from the tree.

"Who else would get it!?" Porco snapped. "None of the candidates are a better fit than me. And you know what?" Porco took a step forward, a sneer forming on his face. "If you were one of us, I bet you wouldn't be better than me either."

Reiner's blood seemed to freeze. He didn't know if it was him being lumped in with the Eldians or the notion that a theoretical Eldian Reiner wouldn't perform as well as Porco, but something about what he said upset him far more than he would have liked. "Don't insult me, devil," he hissed.

And normally, that would be it. Normally, Porco would remember their respective statuses and step down.

But not today.

"I don't need to insult you!" he exclaimed. "You do a good job of that on your own! You're supposed to be a soldier, but you aren't half as good as me and the others! You're just a suck-up who's lucky enough to be Marleyan."

Marcel stepped forward, worry edging in on his features. "Porco, Reiner-"

"I am not!" Reiner cried, heedless of the attempted intervention. "I got this post because-"

"It's a bad post!" Porco spat. "None of the Marleyans want to work with the warriors! You only got it because you're a freak and were already bothering us all the time!"

Reiner's blood felt like it was moving again, but it was hotter and faster than it should be, rushing through him in time with the racing of his heart and pounding of his ears. "Well, maybe there's a reason no one wants to work with you," he spat, the words coming without him stopping to think about them. "Maybe you warriors are actually worse than the rest of the Eldians. And you're the worst of them, so what would that make you, Porco?"

Fury washed over Porco's face. Reiner took it as a victory and squinted at him, like he was trying to see the devil through the human form. Maybe he was. All that he knew at that moment was that he was glad that Porco was upset.

"Are you even loyal to Marley?" Reiner asked. "Or have you been an Eldian spy this whole time?"

He wasn't prepared for the fist that came flying at his nose. The Eldians weren't supposed to lash out at Marleyans; they were supposed to be too scared. They were supposed to know the risks. But apparently, Porco wasn't - not right now. He was angry enough to let his devil out, and that sent a jolt of raw terror flying through Reiner. However, it was also accompanied by memories of his training, the insistence that they couldn't allow the devils to think that they could get away with things like that, and the knowledge that no one else was around to help him right now.

It was up to him to remind Porco of his place and keep him from turning into a complete monster.

Porco punched him in the nose, and Reiner stumbled and fell to the ground, landing at the base of the tree. There, he hesitated for only a moment before he grabbed Porco's ankle and tugged. The devil immediately moved to lash out at him, but Reiner was quicker, landing a punch to his jaw. Porco let out a pained hiss, but recovered before Reiner could get another blow in and punched him in the stomach. While he was still winded, Porco grabbed Reiner's shoulders and pulled himself on top of him. Reiner immediately grabbed his shoulders and rolled to switch their position, only for Porco to do the same, sending them rolling through the clearing.

It devolved into chaos from there. They scrabbled on the ground in a mad haze of kicks and punches, heedless to Marcel's panicked cries and the alarmed gazes of the other warrior candidates. Reiner was rapidly growing sore, and Porco was doubtlessly the same, but the fury in his gaze indicated that he was no more willing to give up than Reiner himself was.

In total, the whole fight lasted for maybe thirty seconds. It was interrupted when one particularly rough roll ended in a sharp crack. A pained whimper involuntarily escaped Porco's throat, and Reiner froze, blinking dumbly at the boy now pinned beneath him. Slowly, his gaze slid down to Porco's left arm, to the odd angle that it was suddenly sticking out at.

Distantly, he heard Marcel curse. He dove down, and suddenly a hand was tucked under Reiner's arm and hauling him to his feet, the other dragging Porco up by his uninjured side.

"I'm sorry," Marcel babbled, although Reiner wasn't entirely sure who he was talking to. His gaze was still locked onto Porco. He was staring at his arm, and his face looked like it was starting to turn a little green. "I shouldn't have waited. I should have-"

Marcel was cut off by the sound of thunderous footsteps. Reiner felt his eyes widen. Porco started to look a little sicker, if that was at all possible.

Hands still holding firmly onto Porco and Reiner, Marcel slowly turned around the face the furious glare of Commander Magath.

"What happened," Magath demanded, his gaze locked firmly onto Marcel. It was just as well. Reiner suddenly wasn't sure that he would be able to speak around the lump in his throat.

Porco might be a particularly obnoxious Eldian, but looking at his broken arm, Reiner was suddenly all too aware that that was also a valuable warrior candidate. A valuable warrior cadet who Reiner, a more easily replaced Marleyan cadet, had just seriously injured.

"Sir," Marcel began. He automatically moved to salute, earning an accidental whimper from Porco when he jostled him in the process. Reiner cast the brothers a glance and numbly shrugged himself out of Marcel's grasp.

Marcel saluted and tried again. "Sir, Cadet Braun was being confrontational and upset Porco -" Reiner's heart began to sink. "- but Porco also showed a disappointing lack of restraint."

Reiner and Porco both snapped to gawk at Marcel, who continued on, undaunted.

"Porco rose to the bait when he shouldn't have and threw the first punch, so he should be considered responsible for his injuries."

"Is that so?" Magath rumbled.

Marcel nodded decisively. "Yes, sir. It is."

Porco looked like he was going to say something, and Reiner knew that he certainly wanted to. Before either of them could get a word in, Magath gave a heavy sigh. "Then so be it."

He turned his attention to Reiner, expression stern and unamused, but eyes heavy with some indescribable emotion. "Braun, you're dismissed. Go home for the day."

With that, Magath placed a steadying hand on Porco's back and lead him away at a pace that was no less brisk for it, Marcel quickly following after one last sad glance at Reiner.

And Reiner was left to walk home wondering what on earth had just happened and how he could explain the blood and bruises to his mother without freaking her out.

***

Reiner didn't face any serious consequences for the fight. He was removed from his posting and made to do unpleasant and tedious chores around the base for a week, but that was it.

Several of Marley's titans were passed on in the next few weeks. Annie was given the Female Titan and Bertolt the Colossal, Pieck received the Cart Titan, and naturally, Marcel got the Jaw. But Porco Galliard did not receive a titan. Rumor had it that the Armored Titan had not been passed on at all, that Marley wasn't satisfied with any of the other candidates and its current holder had more time left than the others, so they had decided to wait to find a better option.

All of it was probably because Marcel had chosen to defend Reiner over his own brother.

For the life of him, Reiner couldn't piece together why he had done it. It couldn't just be a devil thing. Both of the Galliard brothers being honored with a titan would only mean good things for them. Besides, even if his niceness was fake, Reiner had to admit that Marcel probably wasn't secretly harboring that level of resentment toward his brother. Even if Eldians didn't care about their family like Marleyans did, it just didn't seem like him. But why had he done it then? Had he somehow not realized that talking Porco down like that would endanger his chances of getting a titan? Alternatively, he had always seemed to tolerate Reiner more than the other warriors. It even seemed like he liked him at times. Was it possible that he liked him enough that his first impulse was to defend him over Porco?

None of it felt right. No matter what angle Reiner approached it from, it just didn't make sense.

No matter what angle he approached it from, he couldn't shake the feeling that he somehow owed Marcel.

***

The warriors were sent out to war on Marley’s behalf. Reiner stayed behind, since the Marleyan Junior Military didn’t actually participate in combat. They had to be at least sixteen for that.

Then, months upon months later, they returned. It wasn’t for long though. There was a mission in the works, and the warriors were going to be sent to the very worst place in the world.

***

"They're really sending you to the devil's island?"

"Yep." Marcel nodded as he spoke. His words seemed straightforward and focused. However, upon closer examination, it looked like there was a distant look in his eyes.

Reiner frowned, but didn't comment on it. Marcel was probably just nervous because he was being sent out in a few days. He might have been highly trained, but he supposed it made sense for him to be worried about this. He was going to Paradis, after all.

"Wow," Reiner murmured instead. "That's..." Scary. Daunting. Horrible. He wasn't allowed to know what the warrior's mission was yet, probably wouldn't until he'd started to rise through the ranks and they were long gone, but it must be important if it meant going to that hellish place. "An incredible honor," he settled on. "Marley must trust you a lot."

"I guess so," Marcel said.

"Do more than guess !" Reiner exclaimed. "If your mission is a success, that'll be..." His skin tingled as a thought occurred to him, one that he had known was theoretically possible, but never stopped to actually entertain in regards to the warrior candidates. "They might actually make you an honorary Marleyan."

"They might," Marcel admitted. Even if though he didn't sound especially convinced, the mere fact that he was acknowledging the possibility all but confirmed that he was right. Whatever the warriors were supposed to be doing on the devil's island, it was important. Important enough to determine if maybe one or two of the Eldian's weren't as bad of devils as the rest.

"Then you need to do well," Reiner asserted.

"Wow, Reiner," Marcel said, a smile tugging at his lips. The distant look in his eyes had been replaced by an almost-playful twinkle. "It almost sounds like you care."

"Don't be ridiculous," Reiner huffed. "It doesn't matter to me if you'd rather keep being treated like devils. But if you do become honorary Marleyans, it'll look good on my record."

"Of course," Marcel said. That tiny smile was still there.

Reiner grumbled wordlessly and glanced away. His gaze landed on the soldier helping him escort Marcel back to the gate. He hadn't been left alone with any of the warriors since the incident the year before, but the man seemed utterly unfocused and disinterested regardless. Good. It wouldn't be good for him to pay attention and catch Reiner being almost friendly with an Eldian. Because they weren't.

Reiner and Marcel weren't friends.

But... even if he'd never be the real thing, if Marcel was an honorary Marleyan, maybe they could be then.

Reiner cast an uneasy glance at Marcel as the gate to Liberio came into view. They weren't friends, but for some reason, Marcel had defended him when he broke his brother's arm. Because he had defended him, Reiner hadn't faced any serious punishment for something that could have gotten him kicked out of the military, while Porco had lost his chance to inherit the Armored Titan. It didn't make any sense. But even if it didn't make sense, even if Marcel was only an Eldian, Reiner owed him some level of gratitude for that. He knew that he did.

The warriors were going to be sent to the island in a few days. He probably wouldn't get another chance to see him until they returned.

Their escort wasn't paying much attention. He could thank him right now and it would probably be okay. It had to be now though. Soon they would be at the gate, and there would be more guards, and that wouldn't do at all.

"Marcel," Reiner began.

The boy who wasn't his friend looked at him, and the words got caught in his throat.

"Do a good job," were the words that ended up leaving his mouth.

Marcel gave him a small, sad smile. "Thanks, Reiner."

Reiner nodded, mouth dry.

A few minutes later, he turned around and left Marcel at the gate to Liberio.

He would thank him when he got back from the mission.

When that happened, maybe they could even be friends.

***

Marcel was dead.

Word had reached the mainland and spread like wildfire. The warriors had destroyed the first of the devil's walls, but the mission had not proceeded as smoothly as they'd hoped, and the Jaw Titan had been lost.

Marcel was dead.

He had been better than Bertolt, Annie, and Pieck - maybe even better than all three of them combined - and he was dead.

That didn't mean it was surprising. When he stopped and thought about it, he knew it wasn’t surprising. It had been a mission to Paradis, the devil's island, the worst place in the world. Even the most well-trained soldier would have had problems there. Even the most brutal and violent of the warriors. Someone as nice as Marcel? If something happened to one of the others, he would have thrown himself right in the line of fire to try and help them. That was just the kind of person he was.

And really, it didn't make any real difference to Reiner. There was upset in the military over the loss of one of the titans, and his mother was worried that neighboring countries might take this as a sign of weakness on Marley's part and try to take a stab at them, but nothing of the sort had happened so far. Reiner's day-to-day life continued as usual. The death of an Eldian on some distant island did nothing to change it.

They hadn't even been friends.

So why did he start crying whenever he thought about it for too long?

***

Marcel's death didn't mean that the world stopped spinning, even if Reiner's had slowed down a little more than he thought it would.

The military had instigated a new protocol. It was a blood test designed to check for... something or other. All levels of the military, from the top brass to the very newest recruits in the Marleyan Junior Military, were required to submit to it.

The gist of it was simple enough. They took a little of your blood, ran some tests, and you waited for them to return with your results.

Reiner just didn't expect how long he had to wait.

He didn't expect it when a soldier hurried into the waiting area, took him to a separate, barren little room with a table and a pair of chairs, and made him sit there.

He didn't understand why neither of the soldiers posted at the door would talk to him. He tried several times, but the only time he got a response was when one of them, an angry-looking man who had grit his jaw and formed a twitch in his eye, snapped, "be quiet, devil!"

Reiner flinched. However, alarm quickly gave way to confusion, causing his brows to furrow and his lips to twist into a frown. "But I'm not a devil," he said.

The other soldier elbowed the first one in the ribs, making him fall silent once again.

Reiner had no idea what was happening. However, there was no denying the sinking feeling in his stomach or the spark of fear in his chest.

Distantly, without rhyme or reason, a potentially treasonous thought occurred to him.

He should have thanked Marcel when he had the chance.

***

Reiner was confident that he'd been waiting for hours by the time Magath entered the room. He immediately pushed his chair back and shot up, only to falter when he noticed the look on the Commander's face. It was worn and haggard in a way that he'd never seen on him before. There was something pained in it, but also frustrated and angry, and Reiner couldn't figure out what it was supposed to mean for the life of him.

"Sit down, Braun," Magath grumbled.

Unthinkingly, Reiner obeyed.

Magath pulled out the chair at the other side of the table and sat down across from him. He didn't say or do anything else for a moment. He just sat there, staring at Reiner with eyes that were normally hard, but today just looked tired.

"You know, Braun," Magath finally began, voice brittle and stinging, "the reason I let you pester those kids so much is because I knew they'd have to work with assholes like you when they got older." He let out a huffing sound that was almost a laugh and lowered his voice as he grumbled, "just never imagined it would be like this."

Reiner swallowed down the lump that had formed in his throat. "Sir?"

Magath sighed. He closed his eyes, just for a moment, and when he opened them, they were back to being hard and cold. "The results of the blood test were conclusive. Reiner Braun, were you aware that you are half Eldian?"

Reiner's thoughts came to a screeching halt.

"What?" he asked. He must have heard wrong. Or maybe it was some sort of test. Or something had to be going on here, because there was no way, he wasn't- "I'm no Eldian !" he insisted.

Magath did not falter in the face of his protests. "The test says otherwise," he said.

"Then the test is wrong!" Reiner cried. "I'm not- my mother would never-" He gnashed his teeth and clenched his hands into fists at the thought of his family. An accusation like this could ruin them. Worse than ruin, because what Magath was saying- everyone knew that interbreeding with one of the devils was- "We are loyal Marleyans," he managed to get out.

Something sad flickered across Magath's expression for half a second, too quickly for Reiner to be certain that he'd seen it at all. "Your mother is Karina Braun," he acknowledged, "a Marleyan woman who has maintained a clean record thus far. But do you know who your father is, Reiner?"

It was a simple question, but one that made Reiner's heart falter, because.

No.

He had no idea who his father was. All his life, it had just been his mother, aunt, and uncle. The few times he brought the subject of his father up, his mother had quickly brushed it off, and he had been content enough to just let that be that. Suddenly, he wished that he hadn't.

He wanted to say that his father wasn't an Eldian, that his mother had never done anything like that, would never do something like that, but now that he stopped to think about it, he couldn't- he didn't-

"There's a reason you don't know," Magath said.

Reiner tried to speak, but a choked, wordless noise was all that came out.

His thoughts drifted back toward his mother. She had always told him to stay away from the internment zone and hadn't been very happy when he joined the Marleyan Junior Military. She'd said that she was proud of him, that he was a credit to Marley, but he had caught the flicker of fear in her eyes. Back then, he'd assumed that it was just because she was scared for his safety. Now he found himself wondering if it might be possible that-

No. His mother would never be involved with an Eldian like that. She would never put the whole family in danger. She would never lie like that, to him, to the family, to Marley. No, no, no.

"You're wrong," Reiner murmured. "I'm not a devil."

"We're not," Magath said. His voice sounded like steel, cold and unforgiving. Perfect for delivering a death sentence. After all, there were reasons you didn't meet anyone who was half Eldian, reasons beyond no one in their right mind wanting to be with a devil.

He didn't know if the realization showed on his face or they had already been approaching this inevitable point in their conversation, but Magath continued unrelentingly. "Fraternization between Marleyans and Eldians is a crime, and the typical sentence is the execution of both bloodlines." Reiner's stomach began to churn harder with every word. The stinging of his eyes informed him that tears had begun to gather there, but he couldn't bring himself to care. This was it. That blood test had found something beyond horrible - or maybe it didn't, but they thought it did, and now everyone was going to be-

"However."

With that word, the world stopped spinning.

"You have been a promising, loyal young soldier, and the country is currently facing some extenuating circumstances. So we have decided to make you an offer."

"An offer?" Reiner asked. His voice was much softer than weaker than it should have been. However, he couldn't manage anything better.

There it was again. Just for a second, there was a flicker of something unreadable to Magath's expression before he went back to cold stone. "The Jaw Titan has been lost, and it has been decided that backup will be sent to the island of Paradis to assist the warriors in their mission to reclaim the Founding Titan."

Reiner's heart stuttered. Why was he telling him this?

He knew why. Except he didn't, because it couldn't be. There was only one reason why Magath would tell him this stuff - if it was about to either become very relevant to him, or he wouldn't be alive to do anything with the information. But that was - no. No . The dots were there, but they didn't connect.

"The Armored Titan still doesn't have a successor," Magath continued, "and we are running out of time to find one." He paused to give Reiner a piercing look. "Despite your circumstances, it cannot be denied that you have shown promise and exceptional loyalty to Marley. Therefore, it had been decided that you may continue to live if you agree to inherit the Armored Titan and spend the rest of your life as a warrior in service to Marley. You will spend the next two years partaking in an enhanced training regime to get you caught up with the others. After that, you will be sent to Paradis island to locate the others and ensure that the mission continues to run smoothly."

"W-What if-" Reiner fumbled with the words, his dry mouth and heavy tongue not wanting to get them out. But he managed, eventually. "What if the titan serum doesn't work on me?"

It would prove that this was all one big misunderstanding. That he wasn't an Eldian and never had been, that his mother had never committed such a betrayal against Marley, that his family-

Magath smiled. There wasn't any joy in it, only a sort of grim certainty that was more condemning than anything he could have said. Reiner's heart dropped into his stomach.

"It will," Magath said. "However, your family will also be spared. They will be moved into the Eldian Internment Zone; the official story will be that they were transferred in from another camp."

"All of them?" Reiner asked, disbelieving. "Gabi's only three!"

Magath shot him a flat look. "I don't know if you realize this, Braun, but there are plenty of three-year-olds in the internment zone. None of them got to choose their family either."

Reiner faltered. Firstly because Magath almost sounded sympathetic to the Eldians when he said that, which was impossible. Secondly, because the words were starting to sink in. If Gabi was exiled to the Eldian Internment Zone, it would be because she was related to him. The fate of his entire family would be a punishment for being related to Reiner. Because he was...

Reiner brought a hand up to his mouth and squeezed his eyes shut. The tears were getting harder to hold back now, but it also felt a lot more important to hold them back. It didn't feel like he had any right to cry.

There wasn't time for him to have a breakdown anyway. Magath paused for a moment before continuing on to say, "if you accept the offer and perform well, you may be rewarded the status of Honorary Marleyan, and your family's status as Marleyan citizens may eventually be restored. If you decline, your family will be sentenced to execution and you will be sent to paradise."

There was another paused after that. Reiner wasn't looking at his expression, but when he started speaking again, his voice was impossibly softer and harder at the same time. "You can become a warrior and your family can live as fake Eldians, or you will become a titan and they will die as Marleyans. The choice is yours. But you need to decide now."

When he put it like that, it wasn't much of a decision at all.

Somewhere in the back of his mind, he wondered if this was how Marcel had felt the whole time.

The tears finally got their way and began to fall.

"Alright," Reiner croaked out. "I'll do it."

His family would live. And in return, he would become a devil.

#Reiner Braun #Marcel Galliard #annie leonhardt #attack on titan #snk #snk fic #my fic #my writing #unchanging destinations

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the-phoenix-heart · 4 years

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Sorting Hat Chats - BNHA

For those of you who don’t know, @sortinghatchats has a system for sorting people based off of primary houses, and secondary houses. You can find a run down of that here. Today I’m gonna be sorting eight My Hero Academia characters! Probably gonna be a sequel or two to this post. This one got super long...

(Manga spoilers and like two minor movie spoilers which are marked by “in the movie” so if you wanna skip those you can)

(Also get used to Lions because Hero Society tends to reward Lions with places in hero courses)

It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that IZUKU MIDORIYA is a true Lion. It also doesn’t take a genius to see that the guy who wants to do the All Might thing of saving people with a smile on his face seems to be very Badger-y. Izuku could be read as a Badger primary but I think that’s a model he took from All Might. Izuku has punched Bakugou in the face despite the fact that they were supposed to be working together because it felt like the right thing to do, he punched All Might later in that same episode because Bakugou’s inspiring words-well inspired him so much (Lion primaries are such suckers for passion filled words[Bakugou is the same way]), he is willing to break the law and fight a villain without permission or license to save Iida, he’s willing to break his fingers just so he can help Todoroki confront his issues with his father, even after he’s beaten down to the point of not being able to use his arms he can’t take a break he has to protect Bakugou in the Training campe, he’s willing to risk expulsion to save Bakugou after his kidnapping, etcetera etcetera.

He does however share All Might’s roaring Lion secondary. The first thing we see him doing in the series is standing up for a little kid who got beat up. He is also however modeling Bird, after his Lion Secondary was burned both literally and figuratively by Bakugou. When his trust in his instinctive charging head first into situations left he fell back on something that’ll help him, notebooking, studying, and absorbing as much information as he can. He’s good at it and uses it to bolster his Lion, but then you put Bakugou in danger and suddenly “My body just moved.” I think a lot about the Mid Term Exam Deku had with Bakugou. At the end he decides not to keep running despite how risky it is and punch his mentor and idol to save Bakugou. Also, I named numerous times he kept charging in and breaking his body in the previous section. All Might has said it before and he’ll probably say it again, when someone (usually Bakugou) is in trouble nothing can stop him from saving them.

FINE FINE FINE! I GIVE IN! I GAVE UP! I TRIED TO MAKE BAKUGOU LOOK LIKE A BIRDLION BUT HE’S NOT HE’S JUST NOT! BAKUGOU KATSUKI is a fucking Lion primary. A true Lion. I give up.

Y’know he sorta had the shape of a Bird primary, he sorta takes in information and makes conclusions out of it. Everyone is saying I have an awesome powerful quirk, therefore I’m just better than everyone else. Deku is quirkless, there for he is useless. And he followed these beliefs so hard that when they were proven wrong he was heartbroken, literally having a panic attack, he falls before he picks himself back up at the end of the day. That’s very Bird, and also very Ravendor. And we even see later that Bakugou still takes in information like that. He remembers Todoroki’s backstory when Todoroki says there are other ways to get through to kids and he let’s him take the lead.

(I might end up talking myself back into Bird primary)

But...It pains me to say it, I was wrong.

Bakugou’s whole thing is that he isn’t in heroism for saving people or making the world a better place, he wants to be a hero to prove he’s the best and strongest there is (in fact I argue that that is the only reason he wants to be a hero, if this world had professional Quirkastics where you show off your strength and quirk Bakugou wouldn’t want to be a hero). He goes after Deku in the first training session because he couldn’t think of doing anything else. He didn’t decide that, he felt it so strongly he had to act on it. He destroys part of the building in that exam because he’s feeling everything at like a thousand percent and he can’t think despite the fact that it’s a bad idea especially for him as the villain. He has to be talked into calming down and not going after the villains because they were after him and going after them would make him more of a target. The idea that in the Sports Festival his win wasn’t an actual win crushes him. He’s willing to lose the whole damn midterm because he doesn’t want to have to rely on Deku all based off feelings. Bakugou sometimes tries to act before he thinks and figure things out, but he usually doesn’t. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, the boy feels everything at 1,000,000% and tends to have some serious tunnel vision. And then there’s the movie, where he listens to Deku, not because he’s doing the Bird thing of taking in information, but because Deku’s words are so passionate and he’s so caught up in what Deku is saying.

And on why Bakugou is not a Snake primary. When you look at where primaries overlap, Bakugou’s primary is very intuitive, which means Lion or Badger (and he’s definitely not Badger), but it’s also very internal because he does not give a fuuuck about what people think, so Lion or Snake. But he’s not a Snake because throw fanon and out tell me, who is Bakugou actually loyal to? Deku? A lot of that seems to be because of One for All and not actually liking Deku. Kirishima? Maybe, but we don’t ever see him choose Kirishima over something else. Kirishima is his friend, but any house can have friends. All Might? Yeah he’s loyal to him, but he loves All Might, not Yagi Toshinori. He’s loyal to the symbol he saw as a child, a very Lion thing. Is he loyal to himself? He’d rather lose a tournament or a midterm than win any other way than what he wants.

I could go on about his primary. About how he doesn’t think critically about the situation when they’re ‘Saving the World With Love’ and just assumes that they’re all bad guys and need to be thrown in jail. But I won’t because this is long enough and I still have to talk about his damn secondary. Except I’m just gonna copy paste what I originally had written.

I got confused when I was looking at his secondary because he’s really smart and really good at strategy. He thinks at 10 million miles a minute. In Deku vs Kacchan 2 he literally does a double bluff, he knows that Deku will see him swinging with his right arm and think it’s a feint so he does a double bluff and just hits him. Stuff like that, him wearing down Kirishima and Tokoyami in to figure out their weaknesses he can exploit in the sports festival arc, finding out everything he can on Todoroki before his matches in the sports festival so he can get him to use his fire, amassing an array of special moves, and amassing more gadgets taking into account his own weaknesses to make himself stronger (and if we include the art from the fifth popularity poll where he is dressed head to toe in guns and looks more tank than man then that means even more weapons and gadgets). Even going as far back as the first episode/chapter he says that he took and aced the mock exams before the actual exam. That is shockingly prepared for someone who’s main trait at the beginning of the story is thinking he’s hot shit.

This evidence was enough to convince me that he was Bird Secondary who was modeling All Might’s Lion Secondary. I think it’s far more likely however, that he saw a Bird Secondary, maybe even Deku’s specific one. He does say in Deku v Kacchan 2 that he can absorb information to, and said “I can do that but better.” His real secondary is Lion however.

His first instinct when he finds out that Deku has a quirk now is to charge at him and demand he tell him what’s going on, he blasts off all the time literally into battles, he flat out refuses to lie even to save his ass, when he finds out that the villains are looking to kidnap him he just keeps fighting and fighting, he yells and lets you know exactly what he thinks about everything, and you can get him to do anything by saying he can’t do something. In terms of what is debatably canon, he sees Deku in the first movie and immediately blasts over to him to yell at him and question him, he doesn’t even question the fact that there are villains in the tower and jumps immediately into attacking them like it’s the most natural thing ever, in the second movie he jumps at the opportunity to attack something and is uninterested with everything else. My favorite example is the “Save the World With Love” special episode where Bakugou has the chance to not immediately charge and pull a more strategic move and straight up gets bored with it and bursts in to find a dead fake villain and doesn’t care about finding out who killed him because the villain is dead. The boy has a good Bird model but like hell he’s gonna let you forget that he is a Lion secondary first and foremost. He’ll straight up throw it away if that gets to boring for him.

(I think I’m gonna make a separate post for how Bakugou and Deku house sharing affects their relationship, also because this post is so long and tangenty already)

ALL MIGHT said he wanted to be the symbol of peace because the people needed one. All Might shoulders the burden and is willing to destroy himself so that the people can have peace of mind. His heartfelt loyal Badger primary mixed with his charging bursting Lion causes him to sacrifice himself time after time.

And he’s a Lion secondary, but that was obvious. United States of Smash.

TODOROKI SHOUTO is a healing ex-petrified Snake primary. His primary was burned at a very young age so he could possibly be an extremely burnt Badger primary but I doubt that. He does things because his friends are in trouble and he always goes off on his own to do things for himself. He’s the one who let’s a petty grudge get the better of him, and Deku has to yell at him to fucking get his head out of his ass (ah, Lion communication, don’t you love it?[oh yeah and Deku already told him to get his head out of his ass in the sports festival arc, because Todoroki still needs a lot of help]). After Deku’s speech to him he begins his healing process and it’s clear that he’s building himself a Snake community. As of now he’s got Deku, Bakugou, Iida, Momo, his mom, Fuyumi, Natsuo, and (possibly) Endeavor (ugh) in his community which seems like more than it is.

Todoroki is a Lion secondary, and a powerful one as well which means he can totally get away with charging into battle with boring attacks. Todoroki has met very few problems that he couldn’t just throw a wall of ice or fire at and call it a day. And even then the plan ends up being, I’m gonna stick my hand down this dudes throat and flash freeze/absolute zero him to the point where there’s six feet of ice shooting out of his mouth and HOW IS HE NOT DEAD?!

URARAKA OCHAKO is a Badger primary, who makes friends like it’s no trouble. I thought about putting her as a Snake primary because of her love for her parents and wanting to provide for them, but honestly I think that was too much of a reach. She’s a Badger, she does hero work because she wants to provide for her parents, but also because she wants to see people happy afterwards.

We have our first Badger and not Lion secondary with her as well. She almost always uses teams to win, combo moves on the fly are her bread (her first special move was a combo) and butter. When she’s alone she turns to using hardwork and pushing herself to her limits. Although during her fight with Bakugou she does show some Lion charging, which I think is a sign of the hero society enforcing its ideals on people (and also her copying Deku). “I’ll win and be just like Deku!” (Which I hate, way to take her battle away from herself) Still, she’s a Badger secondary first.

IIDA TENYA is feral, the boy is good at playing a Bird primary (it’s his model), but the boy is a strong Lion primary. Either that or he is a very stubborn Bird and vigilantism was totally justified in his truth, but I’m sticking with my guns on the Lion primary. His brother died and he feels that justice is deserved, so he goes to enact some vigilante justice, but then he gets schooled and also in trouble for doing the vigilante justice and he tells himself he can’t do that anymore. His Bird model was probably built to help him reign in his slightly unhinged Lion primary, and I suspect he might’ve gotten it from Tensei who seems to be Bird primary from what little we’ve seen of him. Tenya later also struggles with his Bird model when the gang wants to save Bakugou and he eventually goes with his gut.

(I suppose Iida could be read as Snake primary, but he seems like too much of an idealist to be a Snake)

Iida’s secondary is obviously Bird. He studies, he analyzes what he’s done wrong, he learns skills to help himself as a hero, he’s really good at it to. When planning his revenge on Stain he researches him and singles out his patterns, he finds the skills for heroism in the smallest things like learning how to cook, and he finds out Uraraka’s quirk and how it works so he can prepare against her. Boy is a strong Bird primary.

(The only time I would say maybe he’s not is that scene where he immediately punches Deku, but I think that’s just frustration, and if you wanna talk about the times he kicks at stuff-that’s hero society forcing people to preform Lion)

KIRISHIMA EIJIROU’S got a Lion primary almost as strong as Deku’s. He wants to rescue Bakugou no matter what during the kidnapping arc, when a Badger primary would probably be more content to let the pros handle it. When he was a kid he tried jumping in to fight a villain because he felt it was the right thing to do, he just didn’t because he was scared (he knew he should jump it because he felt that was the thing to do, but he was to scared to). He does things based on feelings, and saving Bakugou is the biggest example.

He’s also sporting a Lion secondary to boot which I don’t feel I really need to explain. He doesn’t plan, he mostly just attacks and takes hits, and he almost always jumps to help or save people (and if he doesn’t it’s because it’s in the past).

AIZAWA SHOUTA is a lovely double Bird and is the only character in this series that I’ve seen thus far without a hint of Lion. Aizawa decides whats right based on logic and as such his ideas are usually really outlandish, especially considering hero society. Who knew that things that are logical could be so out there. He only keeps the kids in class after the kidnapping incident only because All Might retired and he acknowledges they need more good heroes. Most of his other students he expelled he re-enrolled, as he logicked out that it would help them grow as heroes and give them a wake up call. It would also weed out the students who weren’t willing to put anymore work in after the setback of expulsion. Even as a kid we see he was much more cautious and didn’t just do things based off feelings. Now does that mean his logic is always sound? Well let’s just say that the most recent arc is not fun for me.

“It was a logical ruse~” I wouldn’t say this is a Snake manipulation but a Bird deciding yes that makes sense. Either way he collected skills in fighting and knowledge because of his quirk and it works well. I’d definitely say the becoming an underground hero is also another notch in his Bird secondary belt. He’s got a knife, caltrops apparently, a scarf he can control and grab people with, and cool ass goggles with eye drops in his pocket. He’s smart. I love him.

In Conclusion:

Izuku Midoriya - Lion primary who models All Might’s Badger primary/Lion secondary who models a Bird secondary to bolster his actual secondary

Katsuki Bakugou - Lion primary who feels everything at 1,000,000%/Lion secondary who models a Bird secondary to bolster his actual secondary

All Might - Badger primary/Lion secondary

Shouto Todoroki - previously petrified but healing Snake primary/Lion secondary

Ochako Uraraka - Badger primary/Badger secondary who models Deku’s specific Lion secondary

Tenya Iida - Lion primary who models a Bird primary/Bird secondary with slight Lion preformance

Eijirou Kirishima - Lion primary/Lion secondary

Shouta Aizawa - Bird primary/Bird secondary

(me throwing this out into the world, except I’m way less confident)

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redbeanboi · 4 years

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Guido Mista : ESTP [JJBA]

Excited to finally share this! One large bowl of mixed salad for the hungry beanie babies, as requested. :-)

As always—I’ll be looking at the Jungian cognitive functions.

And an extra big thank you to @string-bean-owo for helping me find some of these manga panels! :-)

Warning: Extended Spoilers ahead for JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure: Vento Aureo.

Functional Order: Se-Ti-Fe-Ni

Perceiving Functional Axis: Extroverted Sensing (Se) / Introverted Intuition (Ni)

Extroverted Sensing (Se)

Se is a perceiving function that relies on the five senses (touch, taste, sound, smell, sight) to interact with the environment. Se dominants like Mista prefer material, tangible things and don’t particularly like abstract ideas or concepts, as seen when Giorno first joins the gang and starts sharing his theories and strategies during enemy attacks (stuff that Mista cannot readily accept). Note Mista’s reactions to Giorno’s crazy hypothesis on the train:

Source: JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure, Ch. 489

Mista finds it difficult to trust what his eyes (and ears, etc.) can’t perceive, and it’s only after Trish proves Giorno’s “theory” that he accepts it. Tangible, physical proof and evidence are things that Se dominants rely on when it comes to making their own conclusions. He handles solid, physical or simply real world information better than vague hypotheticals (which is where you often see him and Giorno clash).

Se dominants also love novel thrills, material items and creature comforts, which is one of Mista’s defining traits. Mista loves experiencing the world through his five senses because of Se and loves cheese, wine, sleep and good looking people. Se is a very big contributor to ESTP’s love of food, sports/physical action and/or sex (or any physical activity really). ESTP’s (and other Se dominants like ESFP) constantly seek out fun, sensory experiences to stay happy.

Source: JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure, Ch. 508

Mista’s keen observation is yet another example of Se dominance; he’s quick on the uptake and uses his Se to process external stimuli. Whenever Mista gets into a fight, he takes mental note of his physical surroundings and uses his observations to make conclusions.

Source: JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure, Ch. 464

ESTP’s are very physical and quickly respond to environmental demands, which is why Mista is able to think quickly on his feet and go with the flow on many different occasions. Wow!

Introverted Thinking (Ti)

Ti is more of a subconscious function in ESTP’s, but it’s what fuels their drive to understand the world and master their skills/talents. Like other ESTP’s, Mista uses Ti to analyze and process the ideas that his Se creates based on past experiences or any knowledge he’s acquired in his life. Together, these functions serve as a logical framework to help Mista determine which ideas/decisions are logical and which aren’t. It’s essentially a problem solving tool.

Though he’s not the type to overthink things, there are often times when Mista has to use Ti to make important decisions—betraying the Boss and organization being one of them. Knowing that Bucciarati is smart and having known him for a decent amount of time, Mista’s come to learn Bucciarati’s pragmatism as fact, and as Mista points out, Bucciarati wouldn’t betray the organization if it was a losing fight. Having seen Bucciarati make smart decisions in the past is what ultimately convinces Mista to join the band of traitors. He doesn’t necessarily cite protecting Trish as his primary motivation for betraying Passione, like Narancia—I think Extroverted Feeling played some role in this decision though, even if it was subconsciously—and Mista pretty much tells it like it is: he’ll get “filthy, stinkin’ rich” once this is over.

Source: JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure, Ch. 523

This might be a sillier instance, but Mista’s theory on the tastiness (or lack thereof) of human flesh is another pretty good example of his Ti. He uses information he knows—”cats, lions, eagles, etc. are all carnivores and aren’t served in restaurants because the meat’s smelly, etc.”—to come to the conclusion that humans would taste pretty gross because they also eat meat!

Source: JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure, Ch. 590

Extroverted Feeling (Fe)

ESTP’s Fe is what ultimately drives them to use their keen observation and problem solving skills to help other people, as opposed to using these traits for purely selfish reasons. Mista is drawn to and strives to attain interpersonal peace, harmony and understanding (remember that he prefers to live a “simple life”), and I believe that this Fe is where his humanitarian side comes from. The most obvious example of his caring, compassionate side is his entire backstory.

Source: JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure, Ch. 508

Mista’s Fe kicked in as soon as he saw this woman getting beaten in the car and acted on it, and although he is analytical and does make logic-based decisions (i.e. his decision to join Bucciarati and betray the Boss), Extroverted Feeling often drives him to do the “right” thing, most especially in the spur of the moment. In this instance, it’s killing a bunch of trashy men.

In social environments, Fe works with Se and brings out Mista’s sillier, humorous side.

Source: JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure, Ch. 486

Source: JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure, Ch. 590

Of course, at the same time, while Mista is extroverted and lively, he’s also perfectly fine with just enjoying his teammates’ company and doesn’t always need to take over the conversation and is okay with just making his little side comments.

Source: JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure, Ch. 456

Source: JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure, Ch. 524

Of course, because Se is Mista’s dominant function, he usually shows his affection through action (rather than words) since it’s more comfortable for him; he’s not very good at explaining himself after the Rolling Stones incident, but Mista’s willingness to put himself into harm’s way to change Rolling Stones’ form is pretty indicative of the love and loyalty he has for Bucciarati.

Source: JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure, Ch. 594

Introverted Intuition (Ni)

I know it’s easy to make jokes that Mista always ends up full of lead because almost all of his ammo gets fired back at him, but Vento Aureo is full of instances that show just how good Mista is at pulling information his Se has stored away and using that information to prepare an attack on his enemy.

We can assume that Mista’s dealt with a lot of other stand users at this point, especially since he knows the basics about Long-Range and Close-Range stands and keeps this info in mind when he’s looking for Sale.

Source: JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure, Ch. 464

The White Album arc is my favorite to refer to when it comes to identifying Mista’s strengths as a member of Bucciarati’s team (also a good display of his Ni, both in its healthy and destructive forms).

Ni is sort of Mista’s “achilles heel,” since it’s undoubtedly his weaker function; it’s not nearly as strong as his Se and Ti, which Mista utilizes and relies on more. That being said, Ni helps Mista to pull from every single corner of his noggin and gets him to hone in on the evidence pulled from his Se. And from there, he looks for patterns in the information Ni gathers or just skips the thought process altogether and just predicts what might happen next (which you see when he kind of just jumps the gun—no pun intended).

Mista’s good at keeping calm during moments of crisis and usually thinks things through, enabling him to make important deductions in life or death scenarios. “Obviously this weird enemy has to breathe somehow! I can attack from there!”

Sources: JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure, Ch. 512 (above) and Ch. 514 (below)

At the same time, this Ni is a little dangerous when it gives Mista the idea that it’s alright to just “do first and think later”... and that’s usually when he forgoes thinking altogether.

Source: JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure, Ch. 512

Cue the ricocheting bullets.

And it happens again during the Rolling Stones arc when Mista decides to jump outside of the apartment building with Rolling Stones—even though he doesn’t exactly know what will follow. He makes this decision without having thought it through carefully and it’s only after he falls (and survives) that Mista realizes he can’t change Rolling Stones, and in a sense, cannot change fate (oOoo).

Source: JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure, Ch. 594

_____

A/N: This was super fun !!! Mista’s probably one of my favorite characters of all time, and I really think he embodies the ESTP type. At this moment in time, I haven’t gotten an Enneagram post for him planned in the near future, but I’ve typed him as a 7w8 if that helps. hope you enjoyed reading this !

#fictional character mbti #jjba mbti #vento aureo #guido mista #estp #man i love writing informal essays #:-D #stan MISTA #metas #?#does this count as a meta #idk

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noddytheornithopod · 3 years

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Okay, now that I’ve gotten all the Bad Batch controversies out of the way... I can finally talk about the actual damn episode properly.

Like I said on my whitewashing post, overall I liked it, but I am kinda hesitant for reasons I explained there. I now want to focus on the actual story itself on its terms, and see how I feel about that. Apologies if I jump all over the place.

Probably my biggest issue narrative wise was that I felt some of the stuff around Crosshair was a bit contrived. Like, I was fine with him going full GOOD SOLDIERS FOLLOW ORDERS and all that, my issue is that I feel like the others took a while to realise he was following Order 66. Like, Tech even says he can’t be certain their mutations entirely screwed up their programming, with the camera even cutting to Crosshair. And like, before that Crosshair is berating Hunter for letting Caleb escape. When Tech said what he did, I feel like Hunter should’ve probably said something like “that must be why Crosshair tried to kill the Jedi”. Granted, it probably would’ve then led to questions like why Crosshair’s genetics let his chip work and not the others (something that isn’t answered, but it’s not something I felt that needed to, different genetics affect things in different ways we can’t always predict), but like, when they’re on Onderon and Crosshair’s like “yeah let’s shoot literal child refugees”, I feel like they shouldn’t have just conflicted with him, they should’ve outright wondered if he was falling for his programming. It doesn’t break the episode for me and I guess they probably just assumed Crosshair was being his usual dickish self, but I guess that also is a reminder that this is the second time we’ve seen him, so we don’t know if he’d normally be up for killing innocents if a mission requires it (since TBB are still given missions, their thing is they just do them the wrong way). It’s just like, you’d think at least Tech would make some comment about it. As Saw said, he’s supposed to be the smart one lol.

On the topic of inhibitor chips, I was surprised that Crosshair’s was only partly working. I guess it’s because he still had a level of personality to him? The more you know, I guess.

I do think the Bad Batch work better here as many have said, I guess probably because they’re the focus of the story so they have more room to show who they are and nuances to that. My favourite is probably Tech, I tend to gravitate to the nerd characters in things. Shame he has to look so fucking white for being a clone of a brown man though. :/ Kinda like Wrecker too, even with the issues HE has too. Great, even in my main comments my issues with them are popping up. :v

On that note... I do appreciate the idea behind the Bad Batch, being clones who turned out different and it’s about accepting and embracing your differences. It’s just in execution, it’s a bit of a mixed bag. Like, it could be a commentary on things like ableism, but thing is, these characters are basically superpowered (if people weren’t fixated on bashing women they don’t like and were equal in their vitriol, you could EASILY call the Bad Batch a bunch of Gary Stus). It’s one of those things where a sci-fi/fantasy allegory is well intentioned but because of things that don’t apply to our reality, the allegory kinda falls apart. Like yes, “be nice to people different to you” is one thing, but it does lowkey feel a bit like “they’re judged because they’re better than everyone else, those stinkin regs are just jealous”. Well no jealousy is shown in the episode, in fact a normal clone calls them defects... which is weird because even if yes TECHNICALLY they are, they’re basically presented as turning out different, but those differences are things that are beneficial to them, and not impairments. I guess I feel like the message would be stronger if they actually had major weaknesses, aka why they’re “defective”, but their strengths are something they excel at so much they’re allowed to serve (which I GUESS was the idea, but we don’t know what made them defective originally and what got their mutations enhanced). And yes, you can infer things like Wrecker being “dumb” (which has its own issues, and even then he’s still competent enough on a battlefield, honestly he might even be more just impatient and impulsive and thus can’t sit still to learn more complex things), but yeah. It’s kind of a mixed message here, I appreciate what they’re going for, but like many fictional allegories, it kinda falls apart and it’s also presented in a very individualistic way.

Okay let me say something positive: AZI-3 IS BACK! I assume he got memory wiped so he wouldn’t have any memory of Fives, but I really liked him in the Order 66 arc of The Clone Wars so I was happy to see him again. Well, until he was hit with that stun blast. I hope he’s okay and able to be repaired!

Echo’s attack with his probe arm thing is pretty cool. It was also cool seeing how he was integrating into the Bad Batch. I also theorised he was most likely to be immune to the inhibitor chip out of the group, because while I felt the Kaminoans wouldn’t overlook inhibitor chips in even mutated clones (they do explain that they kept them around because they were always successful at what they do despite their unorthodox tactics), I had a feeling that the Techno Union putting all those cybernetics in his head maybe screwed with or even removed the chips. Get the poor guy some skin colour though.

I have also seen some people bring up the potential issue of ableism with Echo given he’s an amputee with prosthetics, but I don’t have much to comment on in that regard. But yeah, using disabled bodies for shock value and it being seen as a measure of humanity like in The Bad Batch arc of TCW is a trope I could really do without.

I’m liking Omega so far. She’s definitely got a different vibe to other kid characters we’ve gotten in these shows, probably because she was raised on Kamino. Also appreciate that her voice actor is New Zealander too (she’s not Maori which would’ve been the ideal, but was born to Indonesian Chinese parents). Her curiosity makes a lot of sense, she’s not just mischievous because kid. Was nice to see Hunter open up to her too.

I’m intrigued to see where they take Crosshair. IDK why his genetics allowed his chip to still work, but it’s nice to see at least one of the Bad Batch follow Order 66. I guess they decided against it for more (as much as I’d liked to have seen it) because Order 66 doesn’t just make clones decide to kill Jedi, it basically removes any level of humanity and personality they may have developed and makes them basically stormtroopers. That, and well they want our heroes of the show to be the Bad Batch, and that can’t work if they’re now the goody two shoes batch.

On the topic of Crosshair, my favourite scene in the episode was actually when Omega talks to him. She tries to empathise with him, and whether she’s just naturally intuitive or is Force sensitive in some way, she can tell that Crosshair despite everything seems to be struggling, and it’s ultimately beyond his control that he’s like this now. And then he’s off to get his chip working at full capacity and is now a full on Imperial, RIP.

Also yeah, I’m on team “Omega is Force sensitive”. It’s possible she just has some heightened abilities because she’s an enhanced clone, but the way they framed her firing the blaster especially just screamed Force sensitivity to me.

On the topic of inhibitor chips, Crosshair proves that it’s possible to make them stronger, so it does potentially mean that if members of the Bad Batch are captured, their chips could be dialed up to make them loyal Imperials. I guess one could also wonder if they could be slow for the effects to come into play for some of them, so some maybe slowly turn later on? I doubt they will go that route because they probably want to keep all our heroes around, but it’s something, especially if they eventually conclude they have to remove their chips to be safe.

Seeing Saw in the first episode was surprising but also pretty cool, especially with how the model is transitioning from his Clone Wars appearance into Forrest Whittaker. Love how he sees right through Palpatine’s bullshit, especially when he makes that jab at Tech that seems to be a bit of a blow to his ego, lol. Some have wondered why he’s so chill here, but you have to remember this is early days Saw. He’s still cautious, but he’s not paranoid and overly violent. The way some of those refugees reacted to the clones does make it seem like there’s already Imperial forces occupying Onderon (well, they’re literally out in the forest at a camp). Mainly bring that up because I have to wonder how much time has passed, and how quickly Imperial forces showed up to Onderon.

Seeing Tarkin be a dick is always glorious. He just goes everywhere and KNOWS he’s in charge, lol. It was also interesting how even if he’s feeling like he’s ready to abandon clone forces, he sees potential with Clone Force 99 if they can follow Imperial doctrine.

The Kaminoans also seem distrustful of the Empire, not because they’re against it but because they want to keep their current deal. Maybe if Tarkin heard them out the Empire would have a better army, lol. Taun We from AOTC even cameoes. I do wonder what’s eventually going to happen though, given the clones are obviously abandoned in the end, I wonder how the Kaminoans are going to take it.

Also, Nala Se is back. Yeah, THAT Nala Se. Wonder what she’s doing with Omega as her medical assistant, lol. Oh yeah, she also stopped the doors and let the Bad Batch escape. I have no idea what she’s planning, but I feel like she’s being shady, given not only the Fives stuff but also because despite having a fondness for Omega she does seem like she’s very controlling of her (after all, she’s just property to her), hence why Omega wants to get out and be with the Bad Batch.

Okay, I think that’s everything I wanted to say? But yeah, have a lot of reservations, but still curious to see where this goes despite that.

#tbb spoilers #sw spoilers #the bad batch #star wars

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milleniaoffamily · 4 years

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“Are you good guys or bad guys?”: An Analysis

I’d like to take a moment and talk about how important the response to “Are you good guys or bad guys?” is. The fleeting look Joe has as he says “Depends on the century” and Nicky’s shift in posture as he affirms that “We do what we think is right,” IS EVERYTHING. Booker’s physicality, too. The whole interaction is incredibly telling.

TL;DR: Nile is powerful and smart and it’s shown in a subtler way, and the group helps her to not feel powerless by giving her the lead of the conversation. Joe admits to their mistakes and expresses the regret they all feel, and in doing so proves that they’re good people - not ‘good guys’. Booker knows himself and trusts his family enough just listen and support them. Nicky’s line is as much for the rest of the family as it is for Nile. They’re good people and despite the difficulty what they do is for the others around them.

First off, Nile’s posture and expression as she asks the question: it’s guarded but not accusatory or afraid. Her arms are crossed in front of her as she leans on them. Her shoulders aren’t hunched or tight but by the way she’s leaning you can tell that she’s cautious. Her eyebrows are raised and her tone is just prodding, not angry or rejecting. She’s feeling out the situation she’s found herself in and getting her bearings without immediately alienating herself from the group that may have the answers she needs. This question and the way she asks it is incredibly intuitively intelligent and immediately restates to the audience that she’s intelligent and powerful in a subtler way. The fact that she’s the one initiating the conversation gives her power, especially with the almost casual way she asks. The fact that they let her have that power, too, says that they know how to make her feel more in control in that moment and want her to. I like to think it’s because they remember how isolated and powerless they had felt and don’t want her to have to feel the same way.

Joe glances to the side at Nicky with an expression that reads to me as almost regretful. “Depends on the century,” As Joe and Nicky usually are, it’s incredibly honest. I especially like this part of the exchange because it opens up more of their history in a beautifully human, subtle way. There have been times that, looking back, they were on the wrong side of history. There have been times that they tried and failed. There have been times that they didn’t have all the information and made the wrong choice - and even worse times that they had the right information and still made the wrong choice. (And I want to explore those times and I may or may not write a one-shot fic about it). It’s a small, quick moment but it shows how the weight of those mistakes hang on him and on them all. I believe this answer helps her to be able to trust them more. Any heroic fool can claim to be the ‘good guys’, but they’re willing to admit that they’re not perfect and they’re not always good. In this small moment Joe and the team show humility, earnestness, and a sense of morality. In saying they aren’t always the good guys they’re proving that they are good people.

Booker shifts and takes a bite. His posture and physicality are casual and open and he looks to Nicky and Joe to answer. He understands that what she most likely needs isn’t what he would say with any kind of honesty. I like to think that Booker is self-aware in his Nihilism. He cares enough to know when it’s his turn to listen and support and he trusts them more than enough to let them take over.

Nicky follows up with “We do what we think is right.” It’s as much for Nile as it is for Joe and Booker and himself. Nobody likes to think about the bad things they’ve done in the past - especially if lives are at stake. It’s reassuring to the whole room - despite the mistakes they’ve made and the people they’ve lost, they truly do what they think is right. That’s all a person can do. He moves from a more closed-off, crossed-arms posture to an open and inviting one. His posture and expression are engaging and you can tell that it means a lot to him. Their sense of morality is part of what makes them who they are and one of the roles that he takes more than once throughout the movie is making sure they remember that no matter the hardship, what they’re doing is with the good of the people around them in mind. That what they’re doing is worth fighting for. They they are worth fighting for.

It’s only an exchange of three lines but they hold so much weight and that’s part of why I love this movie so much. Every small movement and offhanded word hold meaning. It’s beautiful.

Rant over.

#the old guard #analysis #yusuf al kaysani #nicolo di genova #Joe #Nicky #Booker #sebastian le livre #nile freeman #I love this movie #Sorry for the long post

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capricornus-rex · 4 years

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Stronger Than Blood (5)

Chapter 5: New Recruit | Cal Kestis x Reader

Requested by Anon

Summary: Meeting another Force-sensitive was one thing, but having them related to one of the most formidable known duelers was a whole other story to tell. While being stranded in another planet after barely escaping the Haxion Brood, Cal crosses paths with someone who’s at a crossroads with their own identity and lineage

Also tagging @ayamenimthiriel

Also posted in AO3

Tags: Force-User! Reader, Force-Sensitive Reader, Sith-Related! Reader

Chapters: 1 – 2 – 3 | Previous: Part 4 | Next: Part 6 | Masterlist

5 of ?

The view of the city in the distance was new yet nostalgic to you.

You can’t remember the last time you saw the city in this point of view.

Both of you dismounted the speeders, you spotted Cal’s slightly troubled look, probably on what to do with these speeders.

“We can keep it, you know. It’s not like we’ll have someone to return it to anyway,” you casually suggested.

“The Mantis doesn’t exactly have a compartment for speeders,”

“Oh, that’s right,” you grumbled, somewhat disappointed that these were the bigger type of speeders, not the compact ones that can be brought along in ships.

With the Mantis up close, you had to step back to emphasize its size—the dorsal fin did its job is making it look bigger—and you told yourself it was a beautiful ship, past the damages of course.

Cal sighed in frustration, putting his hands on his waist as he strode towards the Mantis. He was replied with a smug chuckle from you, he turned around to see that the exact part was resting in your grasp, held up in mid-air for him to see.

“You sure about that?” you chirped.

His mouth was left agape, one corner of his mouth curling up in an impressed smile, and strode back to you. His memory brings him back to the moment where that strong energy wave—which he had no doubt was the Force—that imploded from you; meanwhile, you were there with the casual façade, failing to mask the fact that you revealed your true nature compulsively minutes ago.

Cal thought it was wise not to bring it up yet.

Later. He thought.

“Wait, what about the other parts? The suspension coil? The landing gear ligament?”

You chuckled again, you unfurled your poncho to reveal a bag slung across your back. “Well, it’s a funny coincidence I had the foresight to bring a bag with everything in it—or maybe that’s just the errand girl in me with the habit of bringing a bag anywhere, all thanks to Tundu.”

“Huh, smart girl,”

A part of Cal guessed that the Force may have guided you, in one way or another, to have such a foresight; but he didn’t doubt your habit and intuition altogether. It’s just with the way you demonstrated such raw power, he was beginning to think of all the possibilities that had to do with you and the Force.

“Oh, I guess I should let you meet my crew,”

Suddenly, your visage shifted from the perky, confident mechanic to a shying violet. Meeting new people was a bit difficult for you, especially with your nature and capabilities, and being attached to people you’re interacting with was a struggling balance between fear and desire. You tried to relax, thought of the things you could and would say to them, and what things you should try to keep from them for the time being.

The Mantis’s ramp unfolded and Cal beckoned you when the incline still hasn’t touched the soil. You followed him into the interior of the ship. It was cramped, the space could be half of a smuggler’s freighter, but the sight of the plants made you smile, it’s not every day you see a ship with flowers as decorations. You continued to survey the interior as Cal searched for his crewmates. On your left, you found the holotable and tried to guess the planets that were flashed on the hologram from the center of the ship—where you stand. To the other side, you found the galley and lounge, where the terrarium is.

You approached the potted red flower across the lounge table, your fingers felt for the petals—they ran smooth against the satin-like texture and you nestled it over your fingertips.

“Cere, Greez! This is [y/n], she’s gonna be our extra set of hands in patching up the Mantis,”

“Well now, I hope he didn’t cause you any trouble to hire you,” Cere added.

“Not really,” you shake your head while you spoke in a casual, melodic tone.

Oh lady, if only you knew. You screamed in your head while flashing a friendly but awkwardly smile, the same as Cal.

Greez didn’t mean to offend, but he pointed out your age and that you’re practically as young as Cal, he actually expected someone older.

“Oh, don’t get me wrong, I mean well. But I just don’t think you know the gravity of the damage you’re gonna have to fix—along with us fixing the ship too, of course,”

As a rebuttal, you squinted your eyes and slowly nodded. The desire to prove this stout, gray creature wrong burned hot in your bloodstreams—in a healthier and better way, compared to the bloodlust you had earlier.

“Yeah, I’ve dealt with enough ships to know what I’m doing. I think I can make it work,” you pursed your lips, hinting the confidence of your craft. “Just lend me some power tools, I guess?”

“We have a trunk of it that you can use,”

“Great,” you grinned. You clapped your hands. “So, where do I start?”

Having left with no choice, Greez finally caved to having a young mechanic as their extra set of helping hands. He made himself feel better by grumbling consolations under his breath as he marched to the storage compartment to fetch the tools.

He stopped in his tracks and wagged his two pointer fingers in your direction, but mostly towards you, “Do not put a scratch on her.”

“Not even a hairline,” you jokingly raised your hands in a surrendering position as you assured him.

“Okay good,” he murmured and continued to the storage.

It didn’t take long for Greez to come back out from the storage while carrying the trunk of tools. He split up the jobs for each part of the ship, he volunteered to replace the landing gear ligament and suspension coil while you were told to work on the hyperdrive compressor—and Greez personally asked Cal to keep an eye on you while he helps you.

“Don’t worry, Captain, I’ll be careful with your beauty here,”

“Yeah, she’s a beauty alright! And I hope you don’t make her ugly,”

“Wouldn’t dream of it,”

Just from the smell, you went ahead into the engine room, scaling down the thin ladder over the banister to find the damaged hyperdrive compressor. The smoke may have cleared but the odor of the cooked machinery was still harsh on the nose. From your bag, you fished out a protective mask and goggles and put them on before beginning your work.

Cal was jumping between checking on you and helping Greez, but mostly he spent his time doing the latter—since the Lateron couldn’t reach certain parts of the landing gear. You wagered the entire service would last for a few hours—given the patchwork and then the testing, and the possible redo of the repairs in case anything goes wrong—but this didn’t make you flinch not one bit. Tundu taught you well enough to know more than what goes in and out of a ship. This was the last favor that you could do to honor his name.

As you worked, your mind dwelled on what could have happened to him, the reality that he might be dead minutes after you fled was a hard pill to swallow. The sparks that spewed out of the broken compressor as you tore it off reminded you of the blinding blaster projectiles that ricocheted back and forth in the store. You tighten your grip every once in a while whenever the sensation of the Force swirls across the nerves of your palm and fingers. Only now did it sink into you that Cal witnessed you wield it—in the same way someone you once knew did.

“Hey, [y/n]?” the call of your name made you flinch. You pull away your mask and goggles to acknowledge Cal. “We’re almost done with the landing gear. Do you need some help with that?”

“Oh, I…” you stammered. “I’m okay on my own. Thanks for checking.”

“You sure?”

“Yeah,”

“Well, call me if you need anything,”

You nodded, promptly wearing back your protective gear and continued with your work. As you swiftly turned your back against him, Cal didn’t actually leave the room, he only took a step back and made a sound against the metal floor. He knew that he shouldn’t disturb you, but the skirmish back at the store significantly intrigued him. He timed the apparent moment where you would pause from welding, he sucked air and said your name again.

“I… um… Is it okay if we talk later—after all this?”

Your eyebrows slightly pulled and softly nodded; you sensed the thought that bothered him, a part of you already knows what he wanted to talk about but you dismissed the thought. You continued your work anyway.

The new compressor fits like a glove. You scaled over the railing and left the room to look for Greez and Cal. They just entered the ship almost at the same time as you left the engine room, Cal met your eyes while he wipes the black oil from his one, bare hand.

“The compressor’s fit now,” you gestured at the engine room with you thumb over your shoulder. “Next thing to do is test her out.”

“Alrighty then! As soon as we get off this moon, the better! I’ll fire her up,” the Lateron captain waddled towards the cockpit, wiping the sweat off of his brow with his jacket sleeve.

Cal walked up to you, hurriedly tucking his wiping rag into the back pocket of his pants.

“So, I know this is gonna sound weird or very abrupt—or both—but, there’s something I wanted to ask you,” he stammered. “It’s about that… thing back in the city. You know, starting off with the part at Melgu’s shack.”

I knew it. You thought to yourself, but you didn’t say it in spite. You simply saw it coming.

“About that, I—”

“Oi, c’mere, you two!”

You were cut off by Greez summoning the two of you to get to the cockpit. You lightly tapped his chest, your knuckles knocking against the leather armor, as you walked ahead of him to the front; he rolled his eyes and promised himself to bring it up again later.

Upon stepping into the cockpit, you were met with screens from all sides—front, left, and right. They all flashed so continuously that they almost looked like starlight if you squint your eyes. Greez pointed to the monitor on the upper dashboard, where your eyes followed.

“Is that what I think it is?”

“The new compressor is still trying to integrate with the ship’s main power grid,” you explained.

“Yeah, that’s right, I knew that,” the captain shrugged.

Greez checked the monitors again, he looked at the same screen where the diagnostics of the hyperdrive compressor reflected. It was now blinking green, the computer flashed the details of the compressor’s status.

“Well, one thing’s for sure, the Mantis likes the new toy,”

You smiled to yourself. Satisfied with a job well done.

“How long until we take off safely with the new compressor, captain?” Cere interjected.

“I’m prepping her up already, approximately twenty minutes,” Greez replied.

Cal stole a glimpse of you, still smiling to celebrate your successful handiwork on the Mantis, but he watched that smile melt away and you turn back without even looking at him. He caught up to you in the lounge, collecting your bag and cloak that you dumped onto the sofa.

“Wait,”

You erected from your hunched posture to the sound of your name.

“Where will you go?”

You exhaled bitterly, thinking of the right words while planning your new life at the same time.

“I got nowhere else to go. This was the only home I’ve ever known, ” you cracked, fiddling with the cracked leather of your mechanic’s gloves. You dug your nails into the chipping material to fight back tears—remembering that you’ve lost your home to that Quarren scumbag and his men. No use in going back to your original home planet either.

“Why not stay with us?”

You jerk your head to Cal, startled by the sudden offer.

“We could use a good mechanic like you,” he added.

Color flushed and burned your cheeks. You averted your gaze from Cal to your things and pretended to rummage your bag for things you might haven’t packed yet.

Look at yourself, you bumbling mess! You scolded yourself as you blindly pawed through your bag. Quit the bag act—he’s not buying it!

“I… I’d love to stay but…”

“But?” Cal hummed.

He’s got you there, you don’t have a follow up for that. When he sensed that you were worried about warming up to his crewmates, he assured you that they know you mean well—your heart skipped a beat for various reasons, both good and bad—and it wouldn’t hurt to have an extra in the headcount.

“You’re really sure?”

“Of course,” Cere politely and warmly cuts in, even though the question was for Cal. “We take Cal’s word on it, but you have to earn our trust.”

“I have no problem with that,” even though you technically do, with your capability as a Force-sensitive, they’re bound to know sooner or later—you’re already mentally planning it in your mind when to tell them, or at least prepare yourself once they bring it up.

You actually enjoyed the warmth that this crew exuded, even with all their eyes on you, not once did it feel like they’re harshly piercing into your soul—rather, it felt like they were hugging you with their gazes. It was so nice, too nice in fact that it almost made you tear up. With a hopeful, deep breath, you shake your hand on it and joined the crew.

“Welcome aboard, [y/n]!” Cal beamed as he returned your handshake. At this point, you didn’t care anymore if he saw the pink hue burning in your cheeks.

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kabane52 · 3 years

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An Introduction to Christian Faith: God’s Existence and Identity

This is a draft of something which may or may not, after many revisions, become part of a full-length apologetic introduction to Christianity. I’ve written it at my leisure in bursts. I figured it was probably worth it to upload it here. My intention is to unfold the central concepts in the Christian interpretation of the world while making a positive case for thinking that it is indeed the most plausible interpretation of Reality.

God’s Existence

How many numbers are there? You know the answer: there are an infinite number of numbers. No matter how high you count, you can always add one. Very well- perhaps you can tell me where in space I can find this infinite set and how I might see and hear it. Immediately one recognizes the folly of such a request: no number can be seen or described in spatial terms. And what would a world with different mathematical rules look like? What if two plus two came to five? Again, one almost instantly perceives the impossibility of the proposed circumstance. Numbers aren’t the sort of thing which could be other than they are. So we have on our hands a sort of thing which cannot be seen, heard, or felt. It cannot be located in space or remembered in time. They cannot be limited or changed, but are what they are by utter necessity and with perfect certainty- to prove a numerical proposition is not a game of probabilities.

At this point, I hope you have begun to see what many philosophers, theologians, and even scientists have seen. We are not simply considering numbers – we are describing the classical attributes of God- One who is infinite, incorporeal, timeless, and is who He is by necessity- that is to say, He does not change. The similarities don’t end here. Without numbers, one could not live one’s life- nearly everything one does presupposes them in one way or another. One’s day is measured in discrete units of time. One eats a certain number of meals and walks a certain number of steps. One has a certain amount of money, and that money can purchase a certain number of goods. The moon is a particular number of miles away, and its position relative to the earth correlates with the oceanic tides in a mathematically regular way. In other words, nothing makes sense without numbers.

This is the classical conception of the divine nature as well.

Among orthodox Christians, Jews, and Muslims, God is not best understood as a discrete being which is just one of many things on our list of “things that exist.” It is not that we all agree that people, plants, and planets exist, but theists add another being on top of them. What theists believe everything else is, at its most basic level, is a derivative of God. People, plants, and planets only exist within God and depend in their natures and relationships on those qualities which exist infinitely and perfectly in the mind of God. God’s existence is like the existence of numbers: they are present in all things and are presupposed in every word spoken about anything. This is why it is false to say that believers have a burden of proof from which the unbeliever is free. Both the believer and unbeliever make a positive claim. The unbeliever sees the cosmos as self-perpetuating and existing in and of itself. The believer sees the cosmos as perpetuated and sustained at every moment by the infinite God, existing not of itself but contingently- it doesn’t have to exist. It is not a matter of one person making a positive claim for which another sees no evidence. Either option demands a positive claim about reality.

The connection between numbers and God runs deeper. Indeed, it should be obvious that my description of God does not allow numbers to simply exist alongside Him. God is infinite and suffuses all things. Numbers exist because of that infinity- they exist as ideas perfectly and timelessly present in the mind of God. And it is with this recognition that the mathematical structure of the world begins to make intuitive sense. Everything we know about the universe indicates that it does not have to exist. It’s perfectly conceivable to imagine a situation where nothing existed at all. After all, if the universe needed to exist, everything about it would need to exist. Otherwise, we have only pushed the question one step backwards- if there is anything in the world that doesn’t need to be the way it is, one must explain how it came to be the way that it is. But the fact that things change proves this idea to be false. If the universe must exist and must exist in the exact way it exists, then nothing about it could change- that would be as ludicrous as saying that two plus two might as well be seventy-three. This possibility presses the question upon every thinking person: why is there a world which might not be or which might exist differently?

So we have a world- a world which is only intelligible through timeless, spaceless, infinite numbers- which does not have to exist. Obviously, these numbers cannot cause it to be the way it is- or else it would exist just as necessarily as the numbers themselves do, since numbers cannot change. This is why philosophers of the great monotheistic traditions have always held God to be the only conceivable explanation for the world’s existence. Unlike numbers (when considered in themselves), God is personal. It is only a personal being who could make choices one way or another. If the world does not need to exist, why does it? The natural answer is that its existence was chosen by One who had the capacity to choose- and that demands that the One be personal, for only persons can make choices. Numbers are ideas, and ideas exist only in minds. Since there is an infinity of numbers, the only mind “large enough” to hold them is an infinite Mind.

What all of this adds up to is the reality that basic, simple truths which we assume in our day to day lives end up demanding- when their proper meaning is reflected upon carefully- that God in the classical sense is a real being. Or, put more precisely, He is Being itself, the Existent One in whom all other existent things find their source and continued reality.

That is God in the classical sense.

What Hath Abraham’s God to do with Aristotle’s?

“But why”, some ask, “should I think that this ‘God of the philosophers’ has anything at all to do with religious conceptions of God?” After all, there were and are believers in God who are entirely nonreligious- not by an inconsistency, but by their system of thought. Even if one takes the infinite God described above as the ground of all being, what possible reason would we have to expect that he has any interest in a creature like man? Next to Infinity, it is sometimes suggested, we are essentially nothing at all- and it is foolish to expect an infinite being to have any concern for us. To provide a sound answer to this argument, one must first recognize that it is less an argument and more an intuition. An argument is predicated upon a logically valid inference, whether that inference is deductively certain or inductively probable. But what is the inference being suggested above, and how does it follow? The key premises of this implied argument are left unstated. For example, there is the unstated assumption that the kind of interest one being is expected to show to another is proportional to their relative size, strength, or intelligence. Yet, upon what basis do we make this assumption? When the strong disregard or bully the weak, we do not regard this as praiseworthy. Man nearly always takes such a tendency as a defect. By the same token, the wiser and more intelligent are almost always expected to use their gifts for the good of all, whether intelligent or not.

Christians hold this outlook to have its basis in what is really good and right. And since perfect goodness and justice is an essential component of nearly all religious conceptions of God, it would be circular to argue against this concept by assuming what it denies. That the God of Christianity is intimately concerned with those who before Him are as nothing is not an argument against Christian theism, but one of its great emphases.

I believe, however, we can go even further than this. Not only is the philosophical concept of God compatible with the Christian notion of God, we have excellent grounds to expect that this God has something to say to mankind. The real surprise, I suggest, would not be if the Infinite spoke to the human creature, but if He did not. Consider what we have just done. We have surveyed a series of logical deductions which ought to tell us something about the nature of Reality. Human beings have been doing this kind of thing for millennia. When the physicist wishes to express precisely the relationships that stars have with each other, he does so with a series of mathematical equations. If he wants to express the behavior of subatomic particles, he again does so with a series of mathematical equations. It is true that man is very small in spatial terms when considered relative to the universe as a whole- and contrary to the popular myth, so did the ancient Greeks. But in another sense, the mind of man expands to the size of the whole cosmos. Try to teach a fish cosmology or the laws of logic. The task wouldn’t be hard- it would be impossible. You could take the smartest fish to have ever lived and give him the best lessons anyone had ever taught. You could give him these lessons every day for one-hundred thousand years. On the last day, the fish would be no closer to understanding differential equations on the day you started.

Why is this? It’s because the difference between the human mind and that of a fish isn’t about degrees of competence. It would be a category error to say that we are “one-hundred” times smarter than a fish and “thirty times” as smart as a dog. The kinds of intelligence are as different from one another as seeing is different from hearing. Trying to teach the fish cosmology is like trying to train the human eye to hear birdsong. It cannot be done because the capacity to reason is not reducible to brainpower or practice. To reason is not to have a cleverer mind than a fish, but a different sort of mind. Think about it this way. When we spoke about numbers above, you understood that I wasn’t talking about a number of something. I wasn’t talking about an infinite number of stars, or five-thousand chairs, or two arms. We experience numbers in a concrete way when they describe particular things. But to say I own two television sets is not to say that I own the number two. You understood what I meant when I spoke of the number itself as an abstract category of being with its own qualities, a being which creates the possibility for its concrete realization in particular things without creating the necessity of it.

The same principle applies to countless other subjects. When you look into heaven after dawn, what do you see? A blue sky, a golden sun, and red birds. We experience sensibly blue, gold, and red as they exist as properties of beings which exist concretely. But we all know that isn’t the end of the story- to see a red cardinal is not to see redness itself. Having experienced something which is red, we can contemplate the idea of red in itself. Red in itself is an idea – it is something which exists as a concept in the mind. Or, as Plato would say, it is a form. This distinction is why there are pure mathematicians and not just mathematical physicists. Pure mathematicians study numbers solely according to their properties as ideas. There are more numbers than there are particles in the universe. Numbers make things what they are, but before they describe anything in particular, they exist formally, in mind. Pure mathematics comes before mathematical physics and is- by its very nature- infinitely more vast than mathematical physics.

Mathematics describes the qualities which make countless things what they are. We can only make sense of the world because we have the capacity to assess and understand things not merely as expressed to our senses but also in themselves as ideal forms or abstractions. So far as we know, human beings are the only beings in the universe who can do this. And this has everything to do with how we might expect God to relate to humankind. You see, the “God of the philosophers” described above is the One who contemplates all truths- every number, being what it is, has always existed in His Mind- that’s why there are numbers in the first place. All colors we can see- and countless colors we have never seen and lack words for- are subjects of His divine thought, known completely and wholly according to their particular set of qualities. According to what we’ve argued above, He made the universe by making something which did not have to exist and which exists with a sophisticated set of qualities, mathematical relationships, and behaviors drawn from the infinite wellspring of qualities that could be made into specific stuff.

And among all the creatures that we know anything about, we’re the only one who can make sense of those mathematical relationships. We can write out beautiful mathematics that not only describes the way the world is, but the way the world could have been. Our senses perceive ten chairs and two tables: our reason draws from this the idea of the numbers ten and two. Wholly apart from the chairs and tables, we reason that ten is the result of adding two and eight.

In other words- and this is of immense importance- humankind has capacities and qualities which make it – relatively or absolutely- unique among the countless physical beings- animal, plant, star, moon- that we have studied.[1] But we do share this unique set of qualities with one more Being- the very God whose existence and properties were deduced above by philosophical reasoning.

The God of the philosophers, therefore, shares a great deal with man that He does not share with any other physical being of which we are aware. We exist in a peculiar likeness to God. The Bible describes this peculiar relationship as man’s being fashioned in the “Image of God.” But I emphasize here that the fact of this likeness requires no special appeal to scripture. It can be known simply by reflection on certain aspects of philosophy. Does this prove that God has communicated with man (in a way other than man experiencing the existence of things)? Does it prove He has anything special to say to man? No, it doesn’t prove it in the sense of making it a perfect, logically necessary inference. But it does give us very good reason to expect that the God about whose existence we have learned from philosophy is and has been interested in a special relationship with the human family. The universe which He thought up and knows perfectly- the universe which He is even now holding in existence- contains a very unique creature who can think God’s thoughts after Him and, like God, fashion things into new sorts of existence.

If one had learned of this sort of God for the first time, the most reasonable question he would immediately turn to is whether this God with whom we share so much has ever talked to us. It’s possible that He never has, but it would certainly be a great surprise given the special status we have in relation to Him. Now let us say that this person had never learned about the traditions and thought-systems of the human race, and was considering these questions for the first time. Having asked = whether God had communicated with the human race, and having some reason to expect that He had, he discovers that more than half of the human population declares that an infinite and all-sovereign being who both made and sustains the world had spoken to human beings and made Himself known. When the inquirer finds that such an enormous portion of the human population speaks of this God, he will have very strong reasons to give the memory of that revelation the most serious consideration. After all, if God wished to communicate with the human race and did so, one might expect such revelation to have had some success. That the God of Abraham is the subject of devotion for half the human race – in light of the expectations of God derived from philosophical reasoning- makes Him the likeliest candidate (all things being equal) for that God as He has been made known by direct commerce with the human race.

None of this proves that God talked to the human race. Nor does it prove that if God did talk to man, He did so as the God of Abraham. But if God exists and has made Himself known to the human race, we would very much expect something like the situation in which we find ourselves- with the real revelation being the most famous of all stories told of His self-disclosure.[2]

God in Christianity

But Christians say a great deal more about God. Religious monotheists say that God is all-good. Most say- when the word is properly defined- that God is all-loving. But thinking through these attributes reveals that we really aren’t saying anything very distinct from what has already been said about the infinity of God’s existence. To say that a thing is “good” is to say that it is how it ought to be. And a thing has be-ing because it has been given it from God. Naturally, then, God is all-good, for the way in which we use the word “goodness” refers to its being what it is supposed to be- being which it has at every moment from God. To say that God is all-loving is to take us into the next major point: the cardinal emphasis of Christian theism. God is Trinity, One as well as Three.

Christianity has always been recognized as a bit odd for its profession of God in Trinity. Many critics have summarily dismissed it as an obvious contradiction. Even ancient Greek “pagans” such as Porphyry criticized its apparent waffling on monotheism. At face value, these arguments seem extremely plausible - I just made the claim above that two plus two must always be four, and could never be any different. How then can I make the claim that one plus one plus one equals One? The answer is simple: I would never think of making such a ridiculous claim, and nor would theologically educated Christians. The theology of the Trinity has never entailed anything like this. To say that God exists in Trinity is indeed to say that He is both One and Three, but His Oneness and Threeness are not meant in the same sense. God is One as well as Three, but He is Three in a different way than He is One.

Recall that everything which exists does so by participation- in one mode or another – in God. The cosmos does not exist alongside God, but “in God” insofar as it is perpetually sustained by the free activity of its Creator. The redness of the finest ruby and the green of the most precious emerald exists in these particular things because these qualities have existed in the mind of God from all time- He who contemplates all perfections and has in Himself all possibilities. In other words, He could have created any world that He wanted. Moreover, since we see that the world does not have to exist, but is in a state of flux and development[3]. Putting these realities together leads us to the obvious conclusion that God did not need to make a world, but is fully and perfectly Himself even apart from any possible world He fashions. No quality in creation can have its ultimate source in the creature.

But here we come to a serious difficulty. For the very feature which permits there to be a world in the first place is the fundamental relation between things. God is not identical to the cosmos, but is constantly in creative dialogue with the cosmos. When we look at the structure of the world, we find that mutuality and complementarity is arguably its most pervasive feature. A galaxy finds its proper context in the larger galactic cluster, but the galactic cluster depends on that galaxy in granting it its unique qualities. I, as a distinct subject, am in the world- the world is my home, my dwelling place, the necessary context for my life as a distinct human creature. And yet the world is also in me- I am made up of “world-stuff” which I take in and process from foods. I live in a water-drenched world just as water makes up a large part of my body. My relationship with the cosmos around me is one of constant mutuality, exchange, and dialogue. I make the world what it is, the world makes me what I am. Examples could easily be multiplied: it is only in light of the past that the present is the present. And it is only in light of the present that the future is the future. Each aspect of time makes the other two aspects what they are, and each is made what it is by the other two aspects of time.

This structure- mutuality, dialogue, interplay, and relation – lies near the heart of what it means for anything to exist. And yet, for the simple monotheist, it is relation which is precisely what does not exist prior to the creation of the world. God, being God, is only One, and lacks another subject with whom He is related. This leads to the conclusion that God and cosmos mutually necessitate each other- and there were indeed many in the classical metaphysical tradition who took that path. But this path is, in the end, just as dead as naturalism. The change and flux and development which defines our world is exactly what cannot exist if it is in a mutually necessary relationship with God. For God’s existence is as necessary as that of numbers- He can no more not exist than can two equal three. And if God, being what He is, produces the creation as a necessary result, then the cosmos is equally necessary- and thus equally changeless. Perhaps one might counter that the existence of the cosmos is necessary but its particular qualities fluctuate. This simply will not do- necessity is not something which can merely be predicated of a thing without reason. If the cosmos is necessary, it is only because qualities internal to the definition of “cosmos” render its existence intrinsically necessary. Any contingent quality is as good, philosophically speaking, as a contingent cosmos.

This question- that of the relationship of One to Many, of unity to plenitude, of identity to diversity- has been the subject of philosophical reflection at least since the period of classical antiquity. Conventional approaches can usually be classified as reductionist or nominalist. Reductionists emphasize the unity inherent in the world, interpreting distinctions in things as variant manifestations of what is really a single primordial element. This was a popular approach among the pre-Socratics, though different philosophers argued for different “primordial elements”- some thought all things were ultimately a variation on fire, others thought all things were reducible to water, and so on. The other approach, that of nominalism, tends to emphasize distinction and diversity as the ultimate principle of being. In this approach, different things are different from each other on an ultimate level, without being qualified by an underlying unity. If one sees two yellow flowers, the nominalist would argue that there is no single quality known as “yellowness” really manifest in two different flowers. Instead, the two objects are irreducibly different in each of their particulars. The yellowness of one is utterly different than the yellowness of the other.

It is not my intention to explore the history of this question in great detail, and the positions I have summarized above have been articulated with far more precision and subtlety than can be done justice to in a few paragraphs. My intent is rather to call your attention to the existence of the question. Surely, a cogent interpretation of the world demands that we do justice both to unity and distinction without abandoning either. And if it is true, as argued above, that God is the ultimate source and ground of all being, all creatures having their source in ideas in the divine Intellect, then the one and the many must have some basis in the life of God Himself.

This is the philosophical backdrop for the Christian doctrine of the Trinity. Far from reflecting the incoherence and triviality that some think characteristic of theology (i.e. “how many angels can dance on the head of a pin”), the theology of the Trinity turns out to have deep relevance to the most ancient metaphysical conundrums and ubiquitous features of the world and daily existence.

[1] How do we distinguish a creature with these capacities from one without them? How do we know, in other words, that this isn’t true for a bumblebee or rosebush? Well, there are two answers. First, the capacity to apprehend qualities in themselves and not merely particular things having those qualities is expressed in complex language. Take the word “blue.” The formation of the linguistic sign (or token) is made out of four letters in the English alphabet, one syllable when said aloud. But this is not at all the same thing as giving the meaning of the word. There is a quality, visual sensation which we experience when looking at the sky on a cloudless day or on certain sorts of flowers- and it is that quality which is the meaning of the word. The word itself is a symbol pointing to that which is symbolized, and the capacity to make that distinction between the nature of the word’s formation and the actual meaning of the word constitutes the essential character of rationality and language . Language separates the rational and the irrational because it requires on the part of both speaker and hearer a capacity to see the universal concepts being pointed to by the form of a word. If I write the same word twice on a piece of paper, those two instances are in one sense utterly different from each other: they are separated in space, they were written at different moments in time, and the material which makes up the physical markings is not the same. If all we knew were particulars and not universals, there would be no way that one could begin to understand the reality that two instances of one symbol point towards an identical concept.

But there’s a second aspect to this answer. Perhaps, one might argue, the bumblebee and rosebush do have this very linguistic and communicative capacity, but the mode in which it is realized is so profoundly different than ours that we do not recognize it as such. Even if this is not likely, I confess that it is possible. What are we left with? Well, since we are dealing with the claim of a likeness between the God of the philosophers and the rational, speaking creature, it is important to notice the kind of likeness that it is. The likeness is precisely the capacity to be communicative, to engage in mutual understanding through the contemplation of identical forms. And so even if we hold that all creatures embody a kind of rational will and capacity to reason, this would lead us all the more to expect a divine initiative in facilitating the dialogue which, after all, is the purpose of communication. It would merely be that the audience of prophetic revelation would include, in its own way, the bumblebee and rosebush. In the end, then I think we find ourselves in the same place.

[2] Some might think that this is sleight of hand- surely it’s not sensible to lump Christianity, Judaism, and Islam together in this context when the very same author is about to insist that Christianity alone provides the proper description of divine realities. Here is why I disagree- countless naturalists speak as if they hold about Christianity only what the Christian holds about other religious traditions. That is, the Christian holds that all religious traditions besides his own are without rational grounds, and the naturalist merely adds the Christian tradition to the list of those without basis. This is a profound mis-statement of the actual point of contrast. The Christian does not hold that Islam and Judaism are without basis in the way the naturalist means.

Both Judaism and Islam exist because of their concrete, historical relationship to what orthodox Christians believe is an authentic and historical revelation of the one true God. The Jewish tradition would not exist were it not for God’s call of Abraham, His revelation on Sinai, and His prophetic messengers. Islam would never have existed without all of these events and the ministry of the historical Jesus of Nazareth. In different ways, Islam and Judaism have transmitted certain misinterpretations of these revelations. But if we are speaking of how to explain the religious landscape, the naturalist and Christian share almost nothing in common. For the naturalist, the Abrahamic traditions are the result of chance historical circumstances and human self-delusion. For the Christian, the Abrahamic traditions are the result of a lengthy sequence of self-disclosures by the true God- to which was added on the tail end certain traditions of misinterpretation and/or rejection.

I hasten to add that this is also true by a different historical medium for the non-Abrahamic traditions. Even the crudest paganism cannot be explained except with reference to circumstances involving the activity of God, and it is a rare thing indeed to discover some tribe who has no trace of belief in One being, standing above the other divinities of the celestial commonwealth, set apart by its unique sovereignty and principal or sole role in creating the world. Indeed, the belief in a Creator God set apart sui generis from all other beings called “gods” is a very common feature of religious traditions all over the world, and such is the expectation on a Christian description of Reality where the forefathers of the entire human race had commerce with the God of Heaven. See Winfried Corduan, In the Beginning God, Concepts of God in Africa etc.

[3] As we discussed above, a thing which has to exist cannot change- or else the qualities making it what it is are passing in and out of existence, intensifying or fading, and so on.

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taexual · 5 years

Text

Disciplined / Wonho x Reader

The newest addition to Hoseok’s team proves himself to be reckless when he breaks Hoseok’s rule and starts a conversation with you only to discover that you weren’t going to be his damsel in distress.

pairing: mafia au! – lee hoseok x reader

warnings: some mentions of death, strong language, some sexual themes

words: 5.1k

ANON REQUEST: Monsta x Mafia AU! Where Wonho is at a business meeting and leaves his men at home to take care of his girlfriend, but a new(er) recruit hits on her?

He always said it wouldn’t take long and that he’d be back within an hour. That was never true – you were lucky if you’d see Hoseok again the same night after he’d left for a meeting – but you still believed him every time he said goodbye to you by the door. In your defense, Hoseok’s charming smile and the affection in his eyes would have made anyone fall for his words in a heartbeat.

“I’d really rather wait for you alone,” you whispered against his chest as he hugged you goodbye, seemingly unphased by the three men he’d brought into the house before leaving.

“They’re here to look after you,” Hoseok said, clutching you very firmly. He always seemed to squeeze you tighter right before he let you go, so you knew he was going to leave in the next few seconds. “They’ll make sure nothing happens to you while I’m out.”

“Nothing ever happens to me,” you insisted, fighting a useless battle. Changing his mind was about as likely as you getting killed while these men were in your house. “And I’m sure they’d rather be somewhere else anyway.”

“I don’t really care about that, to be honest, sweetheart,” he said, pulling away from you – just like you’d expected – and bringing his hand through your hair. “They work for me and I need them to be here tonight. That’s all.”

“You could really just give me a gun and teach me how to defend myself instead,” you mumbled.

Hoseok smiled and shook his head. You knew his reasons for his constant need to have you protected and you knew every explanation that made sense of his paranoia. He’d watched his father’s peers turn on him and kill his wife – Hoseok was already smart enough to know that leaving a person completely defenseless was bound to bring bad luck but he didn’t do anything to remind his father that his job constantly put his wife in danger – and, although he wasn’t particularly close to the woman, her death had still left a deep scar in his mind.

A scar that, evidently, was not deep enough, because Hoseok made the exact same mistake his father had made, only three years later. He had left his best friend’s house for five minutes to check up on what appeared to be the sound of gunshots coming from the outside, and then, upon returning back into the house, discovered nothing but a bloody room and a dead body of someone whom he once considered to be his own family.

So, yes, you knew Hoseok wasn’t purposefully keeping you locked up – he was only trying to keep you safe in any way he knew how – but you still did not agree with his methods. And how could you? You did not share his experiences. You’ve never watched two people die because of something that could have been avoided so easily. You’ve never blamed yourself for not being there to protect them and, if all attempts to save them failed, not taking the bullet, too.

“The day I see you with a gun,” Hoseok said, his hand on your cheek, “is the day I’m laying on my deathbed, yeah? Let me and my men do the dirty work. You focus on yourself.”

Although life with Hoseok had completely flipped your world upside down, there were a few things that he insisted stayed the same – your hobbies, your job, and your education. You may have seen enough blood to last you a lifetime, but in spite of all of that, Hoseok still tried to keep your life as normal as possible. Not to mention, even though he belonged to the Mafia, Hoseok had a deep hatred for guns – the losses he’d experienced had contributed to that, of course – and refused to allow you to keep one, which, truth be told, made you feel a lot more normal. At least, you wouldn’t have to fire any weapons and your only crime would be falling in love with a notorious criminal.

Hoseok never understood your apprehension about his choice to have his men protect you. He knew you never got to know them simply because Hoseok had forbidden them to talk to you but he wasn’t trying to get you to bond with his Mafia members. He was looking after you – like he should have looked after all those people before – and this was the only way he could show you that he cared. However, as caring as he was, he also had a certain possessiveness in him that attracted you most of the time, but managed to piss you off just as much.

“You’re treating me like a baby,” you told him.

“Yes,” he replied, ignoring the complaining in your voice and pressing a gentle kiss to your forehead. “You’re my baby.”

You tried to groan – the look in his eyes making your heart flutter more than the pet name – and crossed your arms over your chest. “Just be home soon, okay? I’m done with my thesis, I literally have nothing else to do in this house now.”

“I’ll be back as soon as possible,” he promised. “Gotta keep my girl entertained, right?”

And with a quick wink your way, Hoseok was out of the door.

Sighing at his departure, you turned around with the intention of heading to your bedroom upstairs – you already knew better than to try to have a conversation with Henry and Jay who stood by the door; all of your previous attempts have been fruitless – but then you heard someone chuckle.

Stopping suddenly, you looked around. The sound was by no means unusual, but you were surprised to hear one of Hoseok’s men show an actual emotion while you were around.

“He really keeps you locked up in here, doesn’t he?” someone said and you turned your head towards the corner of the kitchen where one of Hoseok’s men had been standing.

You haven’t seen him before and, even though you weren’t exceptional at remembering everyone’s face, you could tell that he had to be one of the newer additions to Hoseok’s army.

“Not really,” you said, intrigued because not a single one of your guards had dared to talk to you before. “I could leave if I wanted to.”

“And we would, of course, have to go with you,” the guy replied, a smile not leaving his lips.

You squinted your eyes, unsure if you should approach him or just carry on with what you’d planned to do – which was nothing – because you knew the guy had strict orders not to talk to you and yet there he was, ignoring them. If you encouraged him, he could very much lose this job – and his life, too.

“Yes,” you ended up saying. Maybe you thought the risk was worth it; talking to someone was so much better than spending your night staring at the ceiling, after all. “But that doesn’t mean I can’t go wherever I want to go. I just happen to have a bunch of obnoxiously quiet men following me around. No offense.”

You’d addressed the two men by the door but they, of course, remained quiet. The only signs that they were alive and weren’t, in fact, some sort of advanced robots, were the warning looks they’d given the member of their team that had addressed you.

“And do you like that?” the guy pressed. He obviously had a lot of courage and you feared he was going to waste it all on this conversation that he wasn’t supposed to be having. “Do you seriously don’t mind this lack of freedom?”

Crossing your arms over your chest in a defensive manner, you leaned against the door, leading into the kitchen. You didn’t dare to enter the room and approach the guy just yet.

“I do mind it sometimes,” you replied honestly. “But I love Hoseok and that’s the price I have to pay if I want to be with him.”

“Is it worth it?”

You didn’t even hesitate. “Yes.”

“Hmm,” the guy smirked. “Sounds like he’s got you whipped.”

You didn’t like the way he made it sound. The way he spoke about your relationship was as if Hoseok owned you and did whatever he wanted with you. As if you never had any right to say anything. And while you knew your life choices were somewhat limited, Hoseok had never made you feel chained. He’s never stripped you off of your ability to make decisions for yourself unless he knew better.

And, actually, there were many things that Hoseok knew better, one of which being the ability to recognize when he was stepping over the line. He backtracked if he realized he was starting to control you in a way that suffocated you. He apologized if he said something demeaning. And he always made sure you were comfortable with the decisions he’s had to make on behalf of you.

Although you’ve tried to fight him every night, not wanting to have his men babysit you, you’ve also allowed Hoseok to convince you that this was the right decision. You knew how much your agreement meant to him. Had you said no and really pressed on the issue, Hoseok would find a different solution – he’d remove his men from your house, but then take you with him to the meeting instead, or do something else that still allowed him to keep an eye on you – but he would never physically lock you up inside of the house against your will. That just wasn’t him.

“I may be whipped for him,” you started to say, “but it’s certainly not because I listen to what he tells me. Contrary to what you might think, I’m actually capable of recognizing real danger. I know what could happen if I was left here alone.”

“Yeah, but what are the chances of something happening?” the guy continued. “I mean, no offense, you’re really beautiful, but stalking people takes time, you know what I mean? I’m sure there’s no one lurking outside of your windows at night, waiting to kill you. And if there is, then Hoseok would know, wouldn’t he? He has a gift of… ah, extraordinary intuition.”

“That’s a nice way to call him paranoid,” you said, watching the guy chuckle. “You really don’t know much about Hoseok’s life, do you? You’re new, right?”

“I am, yeah,” he replied. “I just joined late last year. I’m a quiet guy under normal circumstances – I guess that’s why Hoseok trusted me enough to bring me into his house – but I couldn’t help but say something to you. See, I’ve never really seen the partners of the guys from the Mafia before. I’ve never seen the way they interact with their loved-ones.”

“Well, get used to seeing that, then,” you said. “Since you’re a member now, too.”

“Right,” he nodded. “I don’t think I’m the kind of member that those other guys are.”

You glanced over your shoulder at Henry and Jay, positioned in the hallway, still standing there as stoic as ever. Their serious, unmoving facial expressions could have given the Terracotta warriors the shivers. Actually, you would have thought they had turned into stone as well but you could still notice glimpses of concern on their faces whenever you replied to something their member had said.

“Yes, I don’t think you are, either,” you said, turning back to face the guy in front of you. “We shouldn’t be having a conversation.”

“And yet we are,” he said, smiling as though the consequences of tonight did not matter to him in the slightest.

You frowned. “What’s your name?”

“They call me Yuto here.”

“Okay. Do you have a death wish, Yuto?”

He laughed. “No, not at the moment. Why? Are you saying the penalty for talking to the girlfriends of the men from the Mafia is death?”

“Actually, I don’t know,” you said. “No one was ever brave enough to address one before.”

You’d entered the kitchen – you couldn’t help it, something about this brave stranger interested you despite his obviously negative attitude towards your relationship – and approached the jug of water on the counter next to where Yuto was standing.

He smiled as he watched you pour yourself a glass but did not say anything, waiting for you to continue the conversation instead. You knew you shouldn’t have – you could just imagine how much danger you were putting him in just by being in the same room as him when he was given instructions to pretend as though you didn’t exist unless you were dying – but you still did.

“Do you think it’s possible,” you started to say in between sips, “that Hoseok put you here as a challenge?”

“A challenge?” Yuto asked. “No. Why do you say that?”

You put the empty glass back down on the counter and sat down on the bar stool by the kitchen island, opposite to where he was standing.

“Well, you’re a new recruit,” you said. “These men in the hallway? They’ve been with me since Hoseok and I started to date three years ago. There were a few other guys but I never found out what happened to them – both of them were Hoseok’s long-time friends, too. And now there you are, a brand new addition to his team. The reason why Hoseok brought you into his house can’t be because you’re quiet.”

“No?” Yuto was smiling even wider now. He hadn’t expected you to be so witty and smart but, needless to say, he did not regret starting a conversation with you at all. “So, you’re saying Hoseok is testing me by bringing me around you?”

You shrugged your shoulders. “Why not?”

“Well, what’s the test? Is he going to fake an attack on you to see what I’d do?”

“No, I think it’s simpler than that,” you said. “Maybe he just wanted to see if you’d follow his orders. Obviously, you don’t.”

His glittering eyes let you know that instead of being scared – like any sane human would have been – Yuto was actually excited. For a moment, you weren’t sure if it was Hoseok challenging him, or if it was the other way around.

“That’s right,” Yuto said. “I have a hard time sticking to the rules. Maybe that’s why I joined the Mafia.”

“There’s got to be some sort of order even among criminals,” you pointed out.

“Has there, really?” he questioned and then leaned back when you raised your eyebrows at his question, “you could say I’m a bit of an anarchist.”

“Huh,” you shuffled on the stool, throwing one of your legs over the other one in search of a more comfortable position – and not failing to notice the way his eyes followed your every move. “So, you’re here to show Hoseok he can’t control you, then?”

“I’m not showing Hoseok anything,” Yuto replied, his confidence captivating your attention. “All that I do is a favor to him. He doesn’t own me. I don’t work for him.”

This surprised you. “No?”

“No,” Yuto confirmed. “I work with him.”

You weren’t exactly sure how to respond to that because you had a feeling Hoseok wouldn’t approve of this attitude. There was a strict hierarchy in his team and Hoseok was on top. No one’s ever challenged his authority before – not openly, at least – and if they had, well, then there had to be a reason why you’ve never heard of them.

“Perhaps you should keep quiet about it,” you suggested, starting to feel uncomfortable. Although you could agree with Yuto’s point of view, you didn’t think now was the right time to challenge the system that had existed in the Mafia for decades. “Or better yet, find a different occupation. You’re young. You don’t have to be in the Mafia.”

If you had to choose one reason to explain how the Mafia managed to achieve so much – Hoseok had ties everywhere, it was impossible for anyone in an important government position to do anything without him finding out – then you’d say it was because of the authority of a leading figure. There would never be a successful underground criminal syndicate if someone didn’t lead it.

Chaos was easy to kill – the police would catch one member and he’d spill the truth about the rest in an instant – while order was not.

“You’re young, too,” Yuto countered. “You don’t have to spend the rest of your life hiding in Hoseok’s shadow because he’s afraid to show you to the world. You don’t have to live in a cage like you’re his own personal little bird.”

“That’s not at all what life with Hoseok is like,” you replied, feeling the way your muscles tensed up after his words. “I already told you, I could leave if I wanted to.”

“Could you, really?” he scrunched his nose in doubt. “How many ex-girlfriends of the Mafia members do you know? Frankly, I don’t think that category exists. Not in this world, at least.”

You squinted your eyes at him.

“So, let me see,” you said. “You’re saying I don’t have to live with Hoseok because he’s keeping me locked up. But you’re also saying I’ll die if I leave this so-called cage. Sounds to me like you’re painting my life in very pathetic colors.”

“Not at all.”

“Really? Then the only to outcomes of my life, according to you, aren’t to either submit to Hoseok completely, or to die?”

“No,” he said.

“What else is there?” you questioned.

“You could run away.”

“Run a—wow,” you laughed at the absurdity. “I thought you were brave but now I just think you’re not smart enough to realize what you’ve gotten yourself into here. Even if I didn’t love Hoseok with all of my heart, do you really consider me stupid enough to try to run away from him?”

“Maybe you couldn’t do it on your own,” Yuto said, shrugging his shoulders, “but if you had the right people helping you—”

“Whoa, alright, let’s stop this conversation right here,” you said, standing up from the stool. “I don’t want to hear you say that you’re the Knight in Shining Armor that’s come to get me out of a castle guarded by a dragon, yeah? Because, like I’ve already told you, at least, three times, I’m in love with Hoseok. I don’t want to leave and if I did want to, I certainly wouldn’t need an action movie worthy plan to escape.”

Yuto looked like he heard you – a smile was his response to your words – but he was not convinced. Although he could see where you were coming from – even if he’s never been in love – he was still certain that your relationship with Hoseok wasn’t something that you deserved. And even if it wasn’t Yuto’s original plan to play an almighty hero in the story of your life – he wasn’t lying when he said he’s never met a girlfriend of a Mafia member before – he still thought you needed help.

“Okay,” he said, not pushing his opinion because he knew your defenses were too high up now. “Sorry if I crossed the line.”

You nodded, turning away. “Okay. Let’s just—let’s pretend like we never talked, alright? That’ll save us both some energy. I’ll head to my—”

“You don’t want Hoseok to know you talked to me?” Yuto asked, cutting you off.

“No,” you replied. “I don’t want him to know you talked to me. I’m allowed to do whatever I want – it’s you who’s not allowed to reply to me. If anyone’s the little bird, trapped in a cage, in this situation, it’s you, Yuto.”

He was still smiling but you could see the way he’d clenched his jaw. Perhaps you’ve gotten to him now. You’d have said something else but you decided not to waste your time. Yuto had thought it was Hoseok who was treating you like his property but, really, Hoseok was the one who saw you as a human being, while Yuto only looked at you as a girl who needed saving.

“I’m going to go,” you said after he didn’t reply to you, but right as you headed out of the kitchen and towards the staircase, Yuto grabbed your hand.

“Wait,” he’d stopped you, pushing a piece of paper into your palm as he held onto your wrist. “Keep this in case you change your mind and realize that you can always start a new life.”

Almost angered at his bold move – and his audacity to still talk to you about the same thing even though you’ve told him you’d never even consider leaving Hoseok – you stopped and were about to toss the note he’d given you into the trash, but then the door of the house opened, distracting you.

“They fucking canceled on me,” Hoseok was saying as he threw the door open. He had his phone by his ear and did not notice your surprised eyes, watching him from the kitchen. “I got into my car, drove to their quarters, even fucking texted them three times to check, and they—”

He stopped once his eyes finally landed on you. Although, it wasn’t really you he was looking at – his gaze was too focused on Yuto’s hand still firmly on your wrist.

Barely a second passed after Hoseok clocked the close proximity of you and his newest recruit, and he’d already hung up his phone and took one quick step towards the kitchen until he was standing right in front of you.

“Was there an accident?” he demanded in a cold, serious voice. “Did something happen?”

“Hoseok—”

“Hold on for a moment, sweetheart,” he cut you off, his eyes on Yuto. “I’m trying to find out what reason could explain his hands on you. I’m only assuming he was trying to stop you from leaving which, of course, means that he’d been talking to you and then refused to allow you to end the conversation by leaving the room.”

“I wasn’t—” Yuto started to say but chose to let go of you before he continued, “I wasn’t refusing anything. I had some things I wanted to say to her.”

“Were those things a warning, perhaps?” Hoseok questioned. You had a feeling that the flames in his eyes weren’t caused by Yuto’s hand on yours but rather by your obviously uncomfortable and even angry expression that he’d seen as soon as he entered the house. “Were you trying to tell her not to leave the room because there was a bomb in the house? Were you warning her about a sniper that’s been aiming at her from outside?”

If Yuto was scared or worried, he didn’t show it. “No.”

“Well then why, for the sake of all hell, did you think it was a good idea to manhandle my girlfriend after you’ve been specifically told not to say a single word to her?”

“I don’t think you’re treating her fairly by locking her up here and not allowing her to talk to anyone,” was Yuto’s overly confident response.

It made Hoseok sneer. “Oh, she can talk to anyone she wants. She has more friends than I could count, but this isn’t about her. Your job here was to stay put and make sure nothing happened to her. That’s it.”

“Hoseok, it’s fine,” you said, feeling the need to interrupt – and potentially save Yuto’s life – despite not agreeing with the young boy’s point of view. “I was the one who started the conversation.”

Your boyfriend turned to look at you with the same warm smile he’d used on you before he left, a huge contrast to the way he’d looked at Yuto before.

“None of us deserve you and your heart, my love,” Hoseok said. “But I know you’re lying. I’ve had you protected since the day we met and not once did you dare to start a conversation with my men. Especially not after you found out they weren’t allowed to talk to you.”

You lowered your head, looking away. Hoseok didn’t blame you for trying to take the heat off of Yuto – perhaps, a part of him knew that you didn’t object against Yuto talking to you because it was nice to finally talk to someone that was staying in your house – but he thought your attempt was quite useless. He’s already decided what he was going to do. In fact, he’s had this decision ready even before he left the house.

“Let’s go,” Hoseok said, turning his head to give the other two men in the hallway a nod. “You’ll take him back, yeah? I’ll join in a few hours.”

“Of course,” one of the men said, entering the kitchen and, surprisingly, giving Yuto a chance to cooperate. “Come on, we’re heading out.”

“What are you going to do?” you dared to ask as you watched Hoseok’s newest recruit walk himself out without even a glance your way – thank God for that. “Will you kill him?”

Hoseok may have hated guns but he was no stranger to violence. He had chosen to keep the majority of what he did under wraps but he wasn’t deliberately hiding his work from you. He protected you from the worst of it, but you still caught glimpses over the years.

“Not yet,” was his response to your question as his men escorted Yuto out of your house – although, really, it looked like the three of them left together amicably and if it weren’t for the sudden yelp of pain you heard as soon as the door of your house closed, you would have thought this was going to blow over peacefully. “I’m a firm believer in second-chances. He did do his job, at the end of the day. He just didn’t listen to the orders that were given to him. We’ll teach him how to listen.”

You bit your lip, almost afraid to imagine his methods of teaching, and Hoseok – after noticing your awkward expression – wrapped an arm around your shoulders.

“Please tell me this won’t traumatize you and scare you off from my men,” he said. “We still have to attend that dinner next week.”

“Dinners are fine, I get to talk to the other girls during dinners,” you replied, sighing. “But it’s not me you’re scaring off from your men. It’s the other way around. They’re afraid to even look at me.”

“Good,” Hoseok said, smiling teasingly as he did not see what the problem was. “Do you really need other men looking at you? Am I not enough?”

His playful tone made you raise your eyebrows in surprise. You’d heard him swear when he returned home and you’ve seen the lightning in his eyes when he talked to Yuto, so, obviously, you weren’t expecting him to tease you about this in such a relaxed way.

“No, you’re enough,” you replied. “But you’re away a lot and—”

“Oh, so you need someone for when I’m away?”

“No. I only need you,” you said. “I always need only you.”

“Yeah?” Hoseok’s hand slid from your shoulders to your waist as he brought your body closer to his, a smirk still decorating his features. “Can you prove that to me, baby?”

“Hmm,” you replied to the teasing grin on his face with one on your own as his playful mood brushed off on you. “How do you want me to prove it? Would my words work?”

“They would,” he said, his eyes burning into yours with the utmost love and adoration. “But I’m sure you’ve already shown your love for me with your words when that useless son of a bitch bothered you, haven’t you?”

“I…” you pulled away from him a little. “Were you—?”

“—listening?” he guessed and then shook his head. “No. I’m not paranoid enough to listen to what’s going on here when I’m away. But I had a feeling Yuto would say something to you. He was far too quiet in every meeting that I’ve seen him in. The quiet ones are always the ones plotting something.”

“Why’d you bring him here, then?” you asked, suddenly confused, “if you knew he was going to—oh,” it hit you in the middle of a sentence. Your speculations about Hoseok’s true intentions were somewhat correct, after all. “You were trying to get him to disobey, weren’t you? You knew he was going to stand up to you and you were waiting for exactly that.”

“Maybe,” Hoseok replied, his eyes falling to your lips. “I also wanted him to meet my girlfriend and realize that she could kick his ass just as well as I could if he tried anything with her.”

“So, was it all for laughs?”

“Most of it,” he admitted. “I knew Henry and Jay were more than enough to protect you and I needed a way to teach Yuto a lesson. I couldn’t exactly teach him some discipline just because I was suspicious he was going to rebel, could I? I had to wait until he actually did something that went against my orders.”

“So… was there even a meeting tonight?” you asked, unsure if you were impressed or angry at him for playing you while he tricked Yuto. “Or did you just—”

“Oh, who cares now?” he cut you off, his impatience finally resurfacing as he got tired of you asking him questions you already knew all the answers to, when he could have been watching you undress for him. “I’m back now. I’m all yours for the next few hours before I have to go back and actually deal with this. We’ll talk about this then, yeah?”

“You mean we’re postponing the conversation?”

“Mmhmm,” he hummed, leaning in closer until his lips were hovering over your neck. “Unless you’d rather hear me explain how I schemed to get this poor disobedient young man beaten up, instead of letting me kiss you everywhere you want.”

“I would—you’re beating him up?!” you asked, almost dizzy from his close proximity and the feeling of his breath washing off on your neck. You still tried desperately to keep your mind working.

“No, I’m not going to touch him personally,” Hoseok replied, finally pressing his lips to the sensitive skin right below your ear. “I’ll just ask him some questions, talk to him a bit… nothing big.”

“Oh,” you exhaled, barely acknowledging what he’d said, too focused on the feeling of his lips moving down your neck. “You’re very distracting, do you know that?”

“I hope I am,” he pulled away from you – the coldness of the room immediately hitting the wet trail his kisses had left on your neck – and leaned his forehead against yours instead as he watched you try to catch your breath. “Because, if I’m not mistaken, I believe you were going to prove something to me, hmm?”

“I can’t seem to remember.”

He chuckled, the feeling of his chest vibrating against yours sending sparks of electricity all throughout your body.

“I believe you’ve told me you only needed me,” he said, his voice suddenly much lower. “So, let me refresh your memory, baby, so you’d forget all about the other men. And then you can prove to me how much you love me.”

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clarasfm · 4 years

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–––––– hey CLARA SLOANE , welcome to dillon university . has anyone ever told you you’re ADDISON RAE ’s twin ? no ? well okay , i heard you are NINETEEN & a SOPHOMORE at the university . we hope ATHLETIC TRAINING isn’t kicking your ass too much , especially since you’re the FOOTBALL TEAM’S DEFENSIVE COORDINATOR’S DAUGHTER / STUDENT ATHLETIC TRAINER . see you at the next game, SLOANE & cis female + she/her .

CLICK HERE FOR A CUTE TRIP TO CLARA’S PINTEREST !!

HELLO , FRIENDS ! i’m b and this is my idiot child clara . a handful & the epitome of chaotic good , if you will . under the cut you’ll find a little more about who she is !! i’m super excited to get started , so if you wanna plot feel free to come find me at local sad girl#9956 or like and i’ll come to you to figure out if IMs or discord works better!! –––––––

background.

clara leigh sloane was born in small town, louisiana to a family that lived and breathed sports. her grandpa coached college football in the sec for years, ending his career with a national championship team that included his son, clara’s father. that was the same year clara’s older brother was born, the spitting image of her father and the sloane family’s pride & joy. it was then that, choosing coaching over a professional career for the sake of his son. five years later, clara came along.

her parents were college sweethearts, and they really thought they wanted the same things. one kid couldn’t save their marriage... two kids didn’t do the trick either, and when clara was five, her mother packed her things and left, never to be heard from again.

they were a happy little trio, though! traveling every now and then for the sake of dad’s job as a high school football coach. he had quite a few national championship titles under his belt at the high school level, all of which clara watched from the sidelines.

she grew up very interested in everything her dad and brother were doing. curious in general, honestly, but this began her love of sports. specifically: football and hockey. football, from her father. hockey, from her brother.

she and her brother were just far enough apart in age to never have to cross each others paths too much, but everyone who knew cameron–– clara’s brother–– knew her as little sloane. she never minded it, just as she never minded drowning in one of his old hockey jerseys from the sidelines and learning to skate with him also on the ice. he was .. her favorite person, honestly. and he didn’t mind his kid sister being around either.

life was relatively smooth sailing. never rich, but never going hungry. never short on love in the sloane household, and never boring with two kids that had crazy colorful personalities. like these two were just.. . . goofballs and they played off of each other’s energy like it was nothing. comedians of family thanksgiving. choreographed living room routine. idiots, rly

when she was about 13, her dad got into coaching at the college level, taking a small school to a national championship before being hired by the university of michigan to turn their football program around.

he was given two years, and he couldn’t manage it, despite coming close. around the same time cameron got a full ride to dillon for hockey, their father got hired as the defensive coordinator at dillon. thus, the whole family picked up and moved to texas.

when she was a senior in high school, and cameron was a junior in college, cam was involved in a car accident that left him brain dead. after days in the hospital and exhausting resources, clara and her father said their goodbyes and he was gone. u know that scene in if i stay?? where the grandpa is like it’s okay.. you can leave go if you have to?? p much . .. that. clara held his hand until she was dragged away

there’s a bit of a grey cloud that hangs over the sloane family since. his room hasn’t been touched. his car sits under a tarp in a shed behind the house. their father doesn’t talk about it, never did, so clara just kinda navigated that grief alone. she’s... fINE REALLY SHE’S perfectly fine

but incapable of leaving dillon, it seems, as she chose to go there to stay close to her dad and to be close to cameron

she’s always loved the sidelines and has a very stem-wired brain, so she’s going for athletic training to be an athletic trainer... of course akjdhfa in hopes of working for the nfl or the nhl... or maybe med school to be an actual team-hired doctor

personality.

like i said!! the epitome of chaotic good. she’s got big sunshine energy and big idiot energy. to give you some references from pop culture: sheryl yoast from remember the titans, harper from set it up, fucking ace from nancy drew, annabeth chase from percy jackson and fuckin honestly?? sophie turner just in general

very much ‘do no harm but take no shit’

a lot of her friendships are very surface level because she’s got this way about her that’s very optimistic, very fun, very sunshine and that’s kind of what people expect of her, so she doesn’t really let anyone see anything different than that. very few people get close to her, but those people?? she’d do anything for ... .. . lowkey she soft

stubborn! and! competitive! put them together and you have someone who hates not being immediately perfect at something. she gets frustrated with herself very very easily

very opinionated and does not hesitate to stand up for herself or others. this can kinda come off as a bit know it all sometimes, or like she’s incredibly sure of herself. she’s not. in fact, she’s.... not her own biggest fan. her older brother was golden, and losing him made her an only child in some sorts. that pressure to be perfect was now on her, and her strained relationship with her father certainly didn’t help that. nowadays he seems to be more interested in his work and getting to a head coaching spot at another university than anything else.

humor as a defense mechanism! sarcasm to deflect! this girl does it all!

mild adhd & clear generalized anxiety disorder which does not help with the way she gets frustrated with herself becaaauuusssee...

she is intuitive as hell! she’s good at people! and problem solving! but being book smart comes a bit harder. she doesn’t struggle with school, but it isn’t a cake walk either. she’s needed help before, and she’ll probably need it again

kinda like a golden retriever in human form

a bit of an old soul meaning she’s really on her late 80s, early 90s shit

hopelessly optimistic about seeing the best in people, also kind of hopelessly romantic thanks to 80s films

literally never knows what’s going on but is hopeful she’ll figure it out eventually!

night owl af

there’s a scene in nancy drew where ace fully drinks a bottle of what could be water! but could also be poison! just to prove a point in the quickest way possible. that... sums clara up pretty well. stupid but for the greater good usually!!!

has never backed down from a dare

has a dog named maverick yes bc of top gun that she loves more than herself

wrinkles her nose when she hears something she doesn’t like bc the bitch wears her emotions on her face and cannot lie foR SHIT

was a competitive gymnast for A WHILE . . . but tore her acl and was like nOPE no not for me i’m good no thank you! but still works out like a freak bc she likes feeling strong :\

very invested in the games even though she’s supposed to be keeping a professional air about her. also a student athletic trainer for the hockey team when that season is under way

would rather die than listen to any country music that came out after 2003 or toby keith like she may be a southern gal but TASTE SHE HAS TASTE

y’all know lena from scooby doo zombie island??? a lil more subtle and you’ve got clara’s southern louisiana accent woof

stress bakes but not... well

big fan of busted sneakers

soft girl but don’t tell anyone.... no one can know

OKAY THAT’S IT THAT’S ALL

#friday:intro #luv me luv me say that u luv me #but like sing that in the justin bieber circa MY WORLD era voice pls

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tessatechaitea · 4 years

Text

The Invisibles #1

If I had to pretend to know anything about art, I'd say this cover represents how pop culture can kill. Or will blow your mind. Or feels dangerous but it's actually pretty safe because the pin is still in the grenade.

What the fuck do I know about art and why the fuck am I assuming this comic book is going to be about art anyway?! Just because Grant Morrison wrote it and I happen to think Grant Morrison has written some pretty smart comic books? Well, I'm pretty sure he's written some huge fucking turds too! It's just that I haven't read any of them that I remember. Apparently I've read a few issues of this but I don't really remember it. I don't like to tell people that I don't remember it when they talk about how great it was because that's admitting that 22 year old me wasn't a discerning critic of his entertainment. At least I also can't remember the truly garbage comic books I was reading in 1994 as well! So it's possible I read this and thought, "I'm so smart because I understand what's happening!" Now I'm terrified to read it because I'm absolutely certain I'll think, "What the hell is going on in this comic book? I'm such a stupid asshole!" Oh boy. This comic book is forty pages long. Get ready for a review that explicates the first fifteen pages thoroughly while also digressing twelve separate times before quickly summarizing the last twenty-five pages so I can go play some Apex.

I can't say for certain this is a shot at Ann Nocenti but, thankfully, I can say it's definitely not a shot at me!

This guy is Elfayed. He's retrieved a mummified scarab from the desert believing it might be a sign for the mysterious bald man with too many face piercings and the endeavor he's currently on. Which is a mystery because Grant Morrison isn't going to let the reader understand the comic book on the first page! Sheesh! The second page doesn't help explain things but it does place the word "synchronicity" burning in my brain like a buzzing, blinking neon sign.

Get it? Mummified beetle. Dead Beatles. Boy throwing a Molotov cocktail. Pop culture and violence. I think I intuitively understand this comic book so 70% of the rest of what I say will be dick jokes.

The kid throwing the explosive is one of three members of a gang called the Croxteth Posse. Every youth in Britain joins a gang no matter how stupid and lame they are. It just proves how hard they are even if they never throw one Molotov cocktail or ever even get their genitals touched. The gang members run off into the night, past some "King Mob" graffiti which will be important later, yelling, "We are the boys! We are the boys!" Is that a thing lame youth gangs in London did in the 80s and 90s? Because I remember Lister and his posse saying that shit about being the boys of the Dwarf when they thought they were acting hard on some adventure that probably involved Lister fucking a future version of himself. The Croxteth gang are from Liverpool because Croxteth is a suburb of Liverpool. It shows how imaginative these youths are. I bet there are at least fifty different Croxteth Posses bumbling about at night destroying things. The bald guys name is Gideon (and possibly King Mob. Unless the antagonist is King Mob. I should probably keep reading to find out) and he's both young and old at the same time. He's probably some kind of spirit of the zeitgeist or something, Grant Morrison's Jenny Sparks. He's looking for a new recruit for his own gang since something happened to John-A-Dreams. He might have just died of old age because Gideon's other acquaintance, Edith, is now 95 years old and sulking in her mortality. He wants her to contact somebody named Tom to let him know he thinks he found their new recruit. I think it's probably the anarchist kid because I know how stories work. I'm starting to think maybe The Invisibles are a bit like the Upright Citizens Brigade. Their only enemy is the status quo. Their only friend is chaos. Except there will be less skits with people wearing giant papier-mâché cat heads and more ultra-violence. The arsonist kid's name is McGowan and he's smarter than he acts, according to his teacher who gives him the old "you're not fulfilling your potential and your friends are just dragging you down" speech. But what kind of an anarchist would McGowan be if he gave a shit about what his teacher thinks of him? Oh, that's right! He'd be a good anarchist if he really gave a shit and a bad anarchist if he didn't give a shit but he let the teacher's words affect him anyway. That's how anarchy works, right? The problem with anarchy is that it needs a few rules to make it work well but you can't enforce any rules or else you're not living an anarchic lifestyle. Here's my definition of anarchy from Places & Predators, my roller playing game: a philosophy where anybody can do anything they want without worrying about some stupid guard putting an axe in their head. But they have to worry about everyone else putting an axe in their head all the time because there are no guards. I should probably read The Dispossessed by Ursula K. Le Guin instead of all these stupid Han Solo and Lando Calrissian adventure books.

Oh, well McGowan's mother withholds love and affection and blames him for all the ills in her life. I suppose I can now forgive him for torching the school library, right?

McGowan heads out to sit in the cold and watch John Lennon have a conversation with Stuart Sutcliffe. They joke about being dead and it's funny because they are dead. Stuart even says he wants to die young which is doubly funny because he does. Ha ha! McGowan doesn't laugh because maybe he doesn't find gallows humor funny. But some weird creature that speaks some German does laugh. He's all, "Ha ha! They're going to die young! Oh ho ho! Such jolly fun! Now join with me, you dumb kid." He also says some German stuff that I can't make sense of because I don't speak German and I don't want to ask the Non-Certified Spouse what it means. I could use Google but I'm being extra lazy right now. McGowan tells the weird German tourist to fuck off because he doesn't care about anything. But you know what kind of people actually care a lot about everything? The kind who need to tell everybody that they don't care about anything. Only people whose feelings are super hurt say stuff like that. And maybe serial killers. Later McGowan decides to prove he doesn't care by suggesting he and his friends blow up the school. Not because he cares how they think they know everything and they want him to be just like them and all adults lack affection and sincerity. No, he just wants to blow it up because he doesn't give a shit about nothing, man. The scene switches to the bald guy who might be King Mob on an LSD trip. It's nothing like taking LSD but I'll pretend it's all metaphor and analogy and spiritual nonsense. In his trip, he sees a gigantic head of John Lennon. Mostly because the whole trip was to summon this head. It's a double page spread of psychedelic images and nonsense mixed with Beatles lyrics and album titles. Strange that Morrison fails to translate an acid trip involving The Beatles when The Beatles themselves have a song that I think most feels like and describes an acid trip. No, it's not "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds"; it's "Strawberry Fields." If I had to state what my favorite Beatles song was right now, I'd say "Strawberry Fields" even though Magical Mystery Tour might be my least favorite (later) album (although now that I type it, I remember it contained "Penny Lane" and "The Fool on the Hill" and "All You Need is Love" and I guess I was wrong about Magical Mystery Tour being my least favorite album). I added the later because their early pop shit doesn't really resonate with me. I don't think I appreciate their music until after they've met Doctor Robert. Just listened to "Strawberry Fields" and now I'm crying. Fucking great song. While trying to burn down the school, McGowan is caught be his teacher. He gives his teacher a brutal beating and then answers a question he refused to answer in class, just to show he's both smart and violent.

McGowan's arrested and Hugh Laurie sentences him to hard juvenile labor.

I was speaking of acid earlier and I'd like to recommend the documentary on Netflix called Have a Good Trip, especially to people who have never done acid. It's enlightening. You might think that my favorite part was one of the crazier bits about hallucinations or one of the stories about how something odd always happens when on acid (it totally does) but I think my favorite bit is when the musician from Bikini Kill, Kathleen Hanna, tells the story about how acid made her realize that you didn't have to cross the street along the legs of the two triangles comprising the square intersection but can just cross along the hypotenuse. It's not that the idea is mind blowing or even close to an "A-ha!" shower thought; it's just that's the kind of mundane thought that seems like a fucking magic revelation when you're on acid. It's the epitome of the acid experience. LSD makes the mundane profound which is way more exciting than you might think. If you've never done acid, you might have fucked off to the comment section just now to point out that the universe is a wonderful and magical and profound place even without acid. And I fucking agree. But LSD makes everything profound. Every single thing you see or think combines with the fabric of the universe and it all becomes staring at the stars and wondering how it all fucking fits together. But you don't need space or infinity or philosophy; you just need LSD, a stapler, a bottle of water, and a Jack Kirby comic book from the early 70s. Dane McGowan is sentenced to ten weeks in a juvenile facility called Harmony House. It's where violent teenage boys aren't taught to stop being violent; it's where they're taught to use their violence to benefit the government! At least that's my guess. I like to pretend I know what's happening in the comic book as I write the review and then later I delete the wrong assumptions I made and replace them with lies to make me look like a Grandmaster Comic Book Reviewer! Actually, that last sentence was a lie. Normally if I get something wrong, I just write "Oops!" later and then tell readers to forget the terrible mistake I made.

This is the plot to every young adult dystopian book ever written: "Society says conformity is good. But one young spunky individual with weird hair won't submit and will save the world!"

Sometimes I feel the only people touched by stories about the individual refusing to be a sheep of the status quo are people who tend to be sheep of the status quo. To rely identify with the hero in one of these stories, the reader needs to have though of themselves as part of the status quo and felt the need to participate in some activity that would prove that they weren't. Instead of, you know, just being themselves and never actually giving their place in society a second thought. I find odd people who are inspired by a story that tells the reader to be themselves. How is that inspiring unless you never really knew that was an option? And how could you fucking not know it?! But then again, Heathers is one of my all-time favorite movies and I suppose that's got a similar message about being oneself. But it also has murder and some seriously great lines of dialogue and Christian Slater blowing himself to bits.

Oh, remember where I mentioned this comic book was basically screaming "synchronicity" at me and that I understood it on an instinctual level after page two? Grandmaster Comic Book Reader!

The leader of The Invisibles (man, I wish the comic book would just tell me that the bald guy with piercings is actually King Mob already) decides to infiltrate Harmony House to make sure their soon-to-be new recruit, McGowan, is doing okay. I'm sure he'll find he's fine because he's not buying into the whole "be a soldier of the status quo" bullshit being fed to the young boys at the institution. It's easy to be against a Headmaster who thinks arguments like "Liberals love freedom but do they want people to be so free that they can steal their VCRs." But will he be able to stand up against the techno-brainwashing and the influence of the mystical creature running things from behind the scenes?! Probably but only with help from the Upright Citizens Brigade. I mean The Invisibles.

It's surreal that this is the way we thought of controlling the populace in the 90s: turn them into content sheep without any anger or frustration. And yet the exact opposite of that is true: control them by making them angry and frustrated at as many lies and half-truths as you can.

The big twist reveal isn't that the boys' brains are cut up and messed with; it's that the boys genitals are removed as well. Yeesh! Now I'm angry and frustrated! I'm totally against this Harmony House bullshit. Is this actually happening red states?! Horrific! King Mob (yes, they finally reveal that's the bald guy's name) rescues Dane from Harmony House while shooting a bunch of people (including the Headmaster) and blowing the building to bits. It's a good thing we learned the real antagonist was some dick-eating creature called the King of Chains. Dane McGowan isn't ready to join The Invisibles which King Mob was ready for. He had a tarot reading earlier that said the kid was going to have to be put through the wringer first. So he leaves the kid in London and disappears, just so we all know why they're called The Invisibles. I guess Batman is a member? The Invisibles #1 Rating: B+. This issue was forty pages long and it felt like it used every page to move the story along. It's insane that that's one of the greatest compliments I can give a comic book. Way too many writers just fill their scripts with nonsense because they don't have a real plan for their story. I know everybody espouses the idea that a good comic book story should teach the reader something new about the character. But unless learning that Superman can punch something harder than he previously thought he could, or Batman is super resilient and can take a ton of punishment for five issues before rising to the occasion through pure force of will, most comic book writers really don't put a lot of thought into themes. Sure, sure. This sort of feels like the mystic super hero version of Catcher in the Rye which might be why I stopped purchasing it after six issues. Although it's just as likely that I stopped purchasing it at six issues because my infrequent visits to the comic book store made me miss Issue #7 and I just gave up on it. It's not bad and it's put together well and as a young 48 year old who thinks the man can go fuck himself, I'm totally into it's message about being a unique individual! Anarchy rules!

#The Invisibles #Grant Morrison #Steve Yeowell

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crossroadsimagine · 5 years

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1/3🦑Can I request a matchup with a guy from Naruto? I’m 5’10, with dark brown skin, full lips, a curvy body (thick thighs, big boobs💀😭) and a big, beautiful, smile (so I’m told.) I am an INFJ. My personality is sassy, witty, funny, opinionated, extremely intuitive (I predict things with great accuracy), observant (I pick up on things quickly), empathetic (I can understand people on a very intimate level, no matter what they’ve done), passionate (I get really loud when I’m excited lol),

☰ Matched with Shikamaru

Shikamaru takes an interest in you pretty quickly because you do pique his curiosity and he will want to learn more about you, but also won’t rush things and will prefer to develop a strong friendship with you first. But he also won’t wait too long to ask you out because he won’t want to cross over to the point that you just see him as a friend, but also needs to let a friendship develop because he will want to be comfortable around you and trust you and want you to feel the same with him.

When he does go to ask you out it will be a few weeks or months after meeting you and he is rather calm and relaxed about it but slightly awkward or nervous where you might wonder what’s wrong, but he will do his best to act normal and will ask you out after doing something together like getting home after a mission, after having lunch together or just walking you home.

He’ll ask you out in a pretty straight forward manner and really is relieved when you agree to go out with him, he just won’t want to come across as worried or nervous. Once the two of you do begin dating, he is extremely loyal, honest, affectionate and dedicated to you, he can even go out of his way to make you happy or try to cheer you up.

You do tend to be pretty sassy, witty and opinionated which he really does love because he likes to be challenged a bit, he doesn’t like to argue but he does like to debate and discuss different topics. He is fairly open to affection but doesn’t press PDA unless he knows that’s something you like, or at least something you aren’t uncomfortable with but even then, he’ll keep things fairly subtle.

He’s fine with hugs, holding hands or if you like clinging to him, hugging his arm etc. he won’t mind any of that, but he usually will not kiss you in public or in front of others especially not on the lips.

He is very understanding and comforting and you did have a very rough past and because of that you do have trust issues, low self-confidence, anxiety and depression. But it’s okay he’ll be there for you no matter what happens, or what you’ve been through he will help you however he can, all you have to do is tell him or explain what he can do to help.

But he’ll do whatever he can to help cheer you up and be there for you, he really is surprisingly comforting both with his words and physically and encourages you to talk to him and vent your problems and frustrations, but won’t force you to open up or talk about things you aren’t ready to yet. You can really worry that no one will ever truly love you, while Shikamaru knows he can’t relieve your worries over night he’s understanding and does whatever he can to help make you feel better and prove to you that he really does love you and he will never stop loving you even if he has to tell you how much he loves you every day for the rest of his life.

He shows a pretty passive interest in what you like and what your hobbies are because he won’t want to seem overly interesting to the extent that it seems like faking an interest. But he will ask questions or show a bit of curiosity if he sees you doing something you like, such as seeing you drawing, reading, writing or anything like this, but casual questions like asking what you are reading or drawing.

You are really hard working while he can be far more on the lazy side, that doesn’t mean he won’t do things or work when he needs to, but dislikes working all the time or constantly being busy. He doesn’t even care for high active or energetic activities such as sports or doing things like hiking, not only will he get bored of these things rather quickly but he’ll get tired relatively easily and it’s not that he’s physically out of shape because he is physically fit and perfectly capable but can flat out refuse to do things for too long and fake being worn out or tired.

You can also be pretty sensitive though you truly have a big heart and have a bright outlook on life, which he can be kind of negative at times but he’s realistic and he will not sugar coat things if he feels like something is a bad idea or like something won’t turn out well. He is protective over you and not just when it comes to physical fights or battles but even when it comes to criticism or negative comments from others.

He generally doesn’t get very physical or aggressive unless he absolutely has to, he can usually turn someone away or calm a situation down by simply talking things out or making a witty or sarcastic comment.

Over all he is very caring and considerate even though at times he can pretend he doesn’t at times, sometimes just to get a reaction from you but he really does love you more than you will ever know but he’s not afraid to tell you and show you how much he loves you. He is there for you through thick and thin and will have your back through anything and everything, pulling you back to your feet any time you get knocked down and comforting and supporting you through any problems and will always be at your side no matter what.

☰ Headcanons between the two of you

■ You are really intuitive and can predict things rather easily and you are really observant as well, which he is too and that means that it is really hard for either of you to hide anything from the other because both of you can notice that the other is hiding something relatively easily even if it’s something positive like a surprise party.

■ He likes to make you happy and can do whatever it takes to make you happy which means he is rather comfortable with anything you want, if you a particular gift he’ll get it for you, if you want to move in together he’s ready, if you want to get a pet he’s fine with it. He is really rather easy going in most regards.

■ He doesn’t shower you with praise but when he does compliment you, he really means it and that makes his compliments come out as sounding very genuine, which he does really mean his compliments when he tells you how nice you look, how smart you are, how beautiful you are etc.

■ Is affectionate with you and has a tendency to hug you from behind, pull you onto his lap or into his arms on a couch or in bed, he likes lazy days and can be completely content lazing about in bed all day with you, hugging, cuddling and kissing.

☰ Other Possible Matches

◐ Darui

He is very caring, dedicated and affectionate with you and while he isn’t crazy about PDA, he can instigate it a little at times at least to some extent such as hugging or holding hands, but generally won’t push things much further especially if he feels like you can be easily embarrassed.

He is far more affectionate with you when the two of you are alone at home, he is also very encouraging and supportive to anything you want to do or achieve in like. This also makes him very open to taking you different places or new places for dates, he’ll even like traveling with you to new towns or cities particularly for vacations or trips with you.

◐ Kakashi

He is really laid back, loving and a great listener and really tends to be very attentive with you as well, he can occasionally seem a bit uncaring or even as though he isn’t listening when you are talking but he is always far more attentive than you think and can remember a lot about you.

He doesn’t really like PDA but adores being affectionate and loving with you when the two of you are alone, hugging and cuddling with you often. He can have a lazy side and likes to stay home and have relaxing dates with you but also isn’t opposed to traveling or going new places with you, after all he really does like to make you happy.

#Naruto #Naruto match up #Match up #Match ups #Kakashi #Hatake Kakashi #Shikamaru #Shikamaru Nara #Darui

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monsta-sextories · 5 years

Text

Poolside- 10

Son Hyunwoo

word count: 1868

🎧 Notion- Tash Sultana

You’re dressed in a typical looking summer dress. It’s a pale yellow that compliments the new tone of your skin from all those days out in the sun. It feels like summer is nearing the end, even though it’s not. Just the good part… the best part. You look at your hair in the mirror, your mother will probably comment on needing a trim but that’s okay. Your nails could use a manicure, sure. None of that had mattered these last weeks.

You check your phone once again for the time and decide to leave it behind in your bedroom. As you make your way down the steps you avoid looking in the direction of the small library- your sanctuary. Your temple of hope… and the dreams that had been blooming just a few days ago. It makes your stomach uneasy.

You make your way through the quiet house and notice a few people finishing up the last bit of work. Looking for the smallest details to be buffed. It makes you sigh, and it feels like your body gets ten pounds heavier.

Down the hallways and to the large front doors, you walk and shed the last bits of memories. The last bit of feeling you had left. Its easier to abandon it.

Your parents should be here any moment. So you open the front door, leave it open, wide open. And you sit down in the entry way, resting your head against the door frame. A few moments go by unbothered. You suppose it will be a nice welcoming gesture when they’re chauffeured up the drive way. They will see you waiting for them and they might be surprised… but they won’t notice the left over tears lining your face. Or maybe they will… and in their self absorption they will surely mistake it for happiness to see them… relief to have them back. Something absurd.

So when the gates open, and you see the black recognizable car sail up the drive, you allow the tears to fall one by one, quietly and secretly before wiping them away and picking yourself up.

…

Dinner that night is treated like a celebration, or a gift. Your parents have Betsy prepare dinner and they talk and talk about their brief travels. You notice the glow of your mother’s skin, but there’s something unnatural about it, especially in comparison to your father’s. You assume she didn’t spend nearly as much time out in the sun as the tan would lead you to believe, but instead had a spray tan applied to fit in on whatever beach she had visited. You can see her now- large brimmed hat, sunglasses, drink in hand as she sits somewhere shaded fanning herself from the “terrible heat.”

Despite that, she has sweeter stories to tell than your father who seems to be unhappy about the entirety of the whole vacation.

The patio was swept and hosed down and you insisted on eating outside tonight. It was your idea to suggest Betsy make extra food for everyone else to be able to enjoy. This meant of course, Hyunwoo, Betsy, George, and whoever stuck around this late could relax a bit and take a second to suck up to your parents for their generosity and mention how nice it was to have them back.

“So,” your mother began noticing the way your eyes would drift in the direction of the guest house waiting your Hyunwoo to appear. “How has Hyunwoo liked his stay so far?”

Her honey voice and narrowed eyes were a mere insinuation, but not a direct one.

“I think he says how much he appreciates it at least three times a day. He doesn’t think he deserves it, but I personally believe I’ve never seen the yard look better.”

Your father nods in approval and your mother’s lips purse just enough to hide her accusatory smile.

“He has a gift,” your father grunts, but there’s something dismissive about it.

“Its nice that he’s about your age. I’m sure that helped, having someone to talk to while we were away.” In contrast to her demeanor she was snake like, intuitive, and quick to judge.

“Yeah, I believe he might almost consider me a friend,” you say hoping that Betsy delivers the food soon. You take a sip of your wine glass, swirling it around out of boredom but also anticipation. Hyunwoo surely will stop by, if anything to say hello.

“I think he’s very attractive,” your mother goads with a lift in her brows. Your father looks at her approvingly.

“Don’t you start,” he huffs.

Just before the conversation can progress you watch as Betsy carries out a roasting pan with a steaming chicken, browned and seasoned. Your mouth waters at the sight alone, but the smell is strong full of flavor.

“Betsy this is absolutely amazing!” your mother coos as she places it on the table and begins to cut it. You’re so distracted that you don’t notice the quiet footsteps approach behind you until Betsy speaks.

“Ah, Hyunwoo, why don’t you help be bring out the rest of the dishes.”

You turn your head to see him wearing a short sleeve button down, clean and neat. His khaki shorts wrinkle free as if he had planned to impress tonight.

“I’ll help too,” you say jumping to your feet. He briefly glances in your direction.

“Nice to see you again, hope you enjoyed your trip,” Hyunwoo says with a smile directed at your parents. Your mom looks at him with a wide grin, and your father responds pleasantly reaching out a hand to shake.

“Ah, we wont get into it just yet. But, my, the work you’ve done out here is absolutely spectacular.”

You don’t wait to hear the rest, but instead make your way into the kitchen and wait for Hyunwoo to follow. When he steps inside, expression softening from the praise, he looks at you.

“That’s a nice dress,” is all he says.

“Thank you,” you say nervously as you pick up a dish off of the counter. You don’t move until he’s there as well doing the same.

“You look nice as well,” you say. Because he does. He always does.

He responds with a curt smile and takes his dish and begins to walk away, you hesitate, wanting to say something, but he’s already strides ahead of you.

…

Dinner goes smoothly. Hyunwoo sits across form you next to your father, and you notice how your mother watches each time you look in his direction. They talk, hyunwoo politely listening with brief interjections of agreement or questions. Your father rants about business, and the economy. Your mother sits quietly, eating… occasionally rolling her eyes and only speaking up when she disagrees with your father.

You aren’t paying close attention to notice when exactly it gets brought up, but you notice the moment both of your parents eyes land on you.

“Cooking? She can’t cook” you hear your father snort.

“Where did you learn to cook?” your mother asks looking at you in amazement.

You look at them both, over to Betsy and then back at Hyunwoo.

“Uh, I’ve watched Betsy,” you say with a shrug.

“It was delicious,” Hyunwoo compliments casually, with a slight awkward smile. The shock on your parents face is annoying to say the least, and Hyunwoo must pick up on it because he gracefully switches their attention towards the hedges, asking for their opinions on the additional height.

Afterwards you notice a slight apologetic look from Hyunwoo, and a rather distrustful one from your mother, as if whatever suspicions she had have been proved true.

Not long after, the conversation begins to slow and Hyunwoo is first to excuse himself. Its not too much later that its just you sitting across from your parents with a pit in your gut as you cant manage to finish your plate.

“So, you’re a cook now?” your mother begins, “that doesn’t sound like you.”

You look up at her, noticing the way your father seems to mimic her curiosity.

“I got bored, like you anticipated,” you answer raising an eyebrow.

“Hyunwoo seems to enjoy it,” she says with a slight challenge.

“He’s just being polite,” you say tightening your jaw just a bit.

“That he is,” your mother says a bit softly. “he’s a very nice young man.”

Your father looks over at her, a question on his face.

“What’s your point?” you ask trying to remain amicable.

Your mom shrugs, “there isn’t one. Just an observation.”

“His parents also aren’t millionaires, and he didn’t graduate from an Ivy League school. I’m sure you’ve already observed that.” You let a bit of bitterness leak into your words, and your father is first to respond.

“What does that matter to us?” He says, showcasing his offense.

You only roll your eyes, and your mom keeps quiet for a moment.

“He’s a very nice young man,” your other says with a sigh. It sounds like realization, it gives you a weird sliver of hope. Like maybe… they really do think he’s great.

“And it is too bad he’s less fortunate than us, but we can’t continue to pity him,” your mother adds. The words strike fire in you, because… pity? She thinks this is all for pity?

Your father nods in agreement. “yes, dear, I enjoy his work but cooking for him? Cleaning out a guest house? the… charges on your credit card?”

Your throat tightens. You forgot about the purchases you made at all of the male clothing stores…

“That’s not.. its not… not like that…” you stammer out.

“So what is it like then?” your mother asks with a serious expression.

“you said it yourself,” you say shyly, “he’s just a really great… worker.”

You finish the words the safest way possible. The only way you know how to. the only way that would make sense.

“Yes and we pay him for that. It’s unprofessional to give him special treatment just because you might fancy his appearance,” your father says with a roll of his eyes

“its not about his appearance,” you say quickly, “i… I enjoy his company. We get along.”

“You don’t have anything in common,” your mother charges immediately.

“Well, I’d like to!” you say with a quick flare of your temper. “He’s hardworking, smart, funny, kind… he’s… he’s-“

“what are you saying?” your father interjects, face red.

You think for a moment… you try to relax. You remind yourself it doesn’t have to go there, nothing good will come of this. But, instead you remember all the time you spent together. all the feelings that you had suppressed out of fear, and here they were face to face ready to fight.

“I’m saying, I think….” You look at both of your parents mustering the confidence you have. Its then you notice Betsy peeking out of the back door. Her eyes are wide, mouth open… but you can see the excitement in her surprise. She’s been listening, and she gives you a look of amazement , which is enough to push the last sentence out.

“I’m saying I think I’d like to start seeing him.”

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