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writing-funsies · 2 years

Note

Can I request headcanons or scenarios (whichever is fine) for Zoro, Luffy & Law (separate) the moment they realized "omg, I love them" and how they would react? Maybe a specific moment made it all click in their head. Side note: I recently found your blog and your writing is so comforting <3

notes: This is such a cute idea! I loved writing these! Thank you so much for the ask! And I hope you enjoy these <3

pairings: Zoro x reader, Luffy x reader, Law x reader

warnings: none

Zoro

if there was one thing you could always count on while traveling the Grand Line

it was the unprecedented weather

the Sunny had sailed right into an extreme thunderstorm

and you were having the time of your life

Zoro had watched as you jumped up

a bright look in your eyes

and sprinted onto the deck

he sipped on his sake

not particularly worried about your actions

at least, not until Chopper started freaking out

the doctor fussed about how you were going to get sick if you stayed in the rain for too long

and then Usopp made it worse by exclaiming that you'd get struck by lightning

which prompted Robin to make a comment

the swordsman made it his mission to get you back inside

only because he didn't want to listen to everyones' complaining

it totally had nothing to do with the fact that he was now worried about your safety

he stepped out of the warmth of the dining room

only to find you standing still with your eyes closed

head tilted up at the sky

your hair: soaked

your clothes: drenched

your smile: infectious

(hotel: Trivago)

Zoro couldn't help the way the corners of his lips tugged upward

oi, you're gonna catch a cold

you opened your eyes

dance with me

he looked away and did his best to put on an annoyed face

hoping it was enough to hide the blush that was creeping down his neck

this poor man would be so flustered by your words

that he'd momentarily forget why he had even gone outside

don't blame me when you get sick

he turned to go back in

but you gently grabbed onto his arm

whatever you were about to say was interrupted by lightning striking nearby

the following clap of thunder shook the ship

which caused you to let out the most sincere laugh he had ever heard

he couldn't help but stare

you looked up at him

that smile still etched on your face

did you see that?

asked as if there was any way he hadn't

but he doesn't respond

he just kept staring

your smile faltered a bit

what? is there something on my face?

he frowned before grabbing your arm and dragging you inside

later that night

he found himself unable to sleep

your laugh and that look on your face after the lightning were replaying in his mind

over

and over

and over again

he covered his face with his hands

hiding his blush

despite the fact that no one else was awake

he knew

in that moment

he knew that he'd give anything

just to make you smile at him like that

Luffy

this man was walking through town

his arms filled to the brim with as much meat and snacks as he could find

he wore a serious expression on his face

this was no time to be smiling or joking around

Luffy was on a mission

a very important mission

a mission to make his favorite person feel better

during the Straw Hats' last fight

you had gotten seriously injured

which meant Chopper had prescribed bed rest

a month's worth to be exact

for the first few days after the altercation

you had been in and out of consciousness

never awake for more than a few minutes at a time

Chopper made it clear you needed to be monitored closely until you became more stable

the doctor knew Luffy wouldn't do anything to harm you

but, given past events, he felt it would be best if the captain refrained from visiting until you were doing better

Luffy didn't like that idea at all

but he begrudgingly agreed to let you rest

now it was a week later

and from what the others had said

your condition had significantly improved

during the time that you were recovering

Luffy had found himself struggling to keep up his normal shenanigans

he wasn't as focused on fishing

or playing games

or talking

he spent a lot of his time sitting on the figurehead of the Sunny

just watching the ocean

and thinking over his adventures

he still ate enough food to feed a whole village

but he wasn't satisfied at the end of his meals

his friends were all around him

supporting him and each other

and enjoying life

but he couldn't stop himself from looking for you

he just wanted you back by his side

since you had joined his crew

he found that he had the most fun when you were with him

playing cards

stealing food

joking around

eating meat

even just sitting together

he missed your presence

meat always made him feel better

(and even if it wasn't doing as much this time)

he still thought it was worth a shot at taking you some

so there he was

arms stacked so high with food

that he couldn't see over it

Chopper was hesitant to let him into the infirmary

but he knew you had been missing Luffy as well

when the captain finally saw you

he dropped the food

and wrapped his arms around you as many times as he could

Luffy was a pretty simple guy

but he always understood his own feelings

from the first moment he was deprived of you

he knew

he didn't want to take this journey without you

he knew

he wanted you with him when he became King of the Pirates

he knew

that he loved you (as much as he loved meat)

Law

the Polar Tang had stopped at an island

and you were a part of the group that went into town to restock supplies

which meant that you would be gone for most of the day

Law didn't factor that into his schedule

so when he sat back to enjoy a few minutes of the near silence that had taken over his submarine

he felt unnerved

it was quiet

too quiet

everything was off

so he decided that some hot tea would calm his nerves

once it was done and cooled

he took a nice sip

and immediately spit it back into the cup

it didn't taste right

so he made another cup

and that one tasted even worse

an hour later

and the doctor was pissed

no matter how hard he tried

he just couldn't get it right

every cup he made tasted...wrong

something was missing

and the fact that he couldn't figure it out

put him in an extremely sour mood

the type of mood that leads to him cutting up anyone who bothers him

one of the crew members had walked into the kitchen

where his captain was glaring at the dozen or so cups of tea sitting on the counter

y/n really does make the best tea, huh

Law furrows his brow

what did they mean?

y/n?

yeah, they make it about this time every day, right?

he walked away

you couldn't be the only one who made tea for the whole crew

though, he did recall you bringing him a cup fairly often

he was becoming grumpier by the second

you had been a valuable addition to his team

and now that the fact had been thrown in his face

he couldn't stop thinking over all of the things you'd do

you helped Bepo

and encouraged him to take breaks

and assisted anyone who needed help with anything

you didn't seem to mind your chores

you were level-headed when faced with dangerous or stressful decisions

you fought like hell to make the choices that would keep the most people safe

and you had wormed your way into your captain's heart

Law had shut himself in his office

upset at the realization that he might feel a little bit more toward you than he had originally anticipated

that's when you threw open the door

a huge smile on your face

you greeted your captain and quickly started talking about all the things you had seen in town

the others piped in from time to time as they walked by

at the end of your story, you paused

having almost forgotten the present you had picked up for him

you pulled out a small coin from your pocket

and set it on his desk

Law's eyes jumped to the little piece of metal

before you could say anything

someone yelled your name

you turned to leave

what do you add to your tea?

you looked at him and smiled

just an extra dash of love

with that, you rushed to help your crewmates

he couldn't hide the redness that had exploded across his face

he picked up the coin and turned it over in his hand

that's when he knew for sure

he would cut down anyone who tried to hurt you

#one piece headcanons #one piece #one piece x y/n #one piece imagines #one piece x reader #straw hat pirates #straw hat luffy #monkey d luffy #luffy x reader #luffy x y/n #zoro #zoro x reader #roronoa zoro #trafalgar one piece #trafalgar d law x reader #trafalgar d water law

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eyndr-stories · 1 year

Text

To Be Alive (FNAF SB fanfic) C1 - Birthday Bash

In summary:

At long last, the thrilling continuation of 'To Be Human'! There are more shenanigans for Star and co to get up to, and new horrors to be subjected to! Not to mention, Eclipse is still at large and up to no good... As 'To Be Human' is a self contained stand-alone story, one could very well choose to leave the adventure as is! Considering there are some heavier themes in this one (biggest thing here being death, specifically) that's exactly what I would recommend you do if you like everything very much the way it ended in 'To Be Human'. This story is an exploration of a few ideas I wanted to work with left over from the first story, and a way to tie up some very minor loose ends, as well as a return to some characters and a world I had a lot of fun with.

Things To Know:

Reader insert! Y/N is not used and gender is not specified, though the reader does have a blorbo-appointed name (Star)

Non-specified relationships between reader and Sun & Moon, this can be read as pals, family, partners, whatever you like, totally up to your interpretation

Sun & Moon are separate bots and referred to with gender neutral pronouns

The reader and other characters are often in mortal peril! This world is full of Funky Creatures (other than you) and some of them attack and hurt several characters, including the reader character

Some blood and minor gore

Occasional swearing

Death

(as always, let me know if I should add anything!)

Ao3 link: Right here!

Chapter 1 | Chapter 2

C1 - Birthday Bash

It was a lovely day, as far as days go. They didn't go too far, at least for you. In your mind you knew the days were meant to be longer. There were also supposed to be seasons, but in your many days living here, the climate had stayed consistent. No winters to hibernate from, no spring time to usher in new growth after the cold. Some nights were colder than others, and Sun and Moon told you different parts of the planet were much different than others, rainforests and deserts and mountains and plains. You wanted to travel and see these places, maybe find more ruins and artifacts along the way, but travel between communities was dangerous, with the creatures you all shared the world with these days. And so the only traveling you really did was into town.

The long half-day walk between the shelter and the outer edge of town was more or less second nature to you at this point. Moon liked to remind you that the forest was still dangerous, and you shouldn't let the familiar become comfortable. You would argue that the comfort of being in your element, familiar with your surroundings, made you much better at keeping an eye out for danger and irregularities. Sun, meanwhile, was keeping an actual eye out while you and Moon bickered.

Sunshine warmed your skin between gaps in a pale green canopy. Dark purple dirt was loose and soft beneath your shoes, though still slightly soggy from last night's rain. You kicked a rock and smiled gratefully down at your shoes- you'd found them on your latest expedition down into the catacombs. They were definitely too big for your feet, but after stuffing some leaves in there they were just fine.

The three of you made it to the city in great time. Patchwork buildings came into sight as you stepped past the tree line. It was always fun to try and spot subtle changes and differences in the buildings, as bots repaired old structures and developed new ones.

You pulled up your hood and pocketed your hands as you reached the street, worn and cracked and packed full of weeds. The edge of town here was never busy, especially since the race track was off on the opposite side of the city, but you felt better with the hood anyways.

You started to walk ahead as the three of you made your way down familiar alleyways and along back walls.

"Don't go running off," Moon warned.

You stuck your tongue out at Moon. You debated running off briefly just to annoy them, but decided against it. You were starting to get another headache, and running around getting into trouble certainly wouldn't help that. You wanted to get to the repair shop anyways. Everyone there was always happy to see you. Bonnie and Freddy were always nice to you, and sometimes even let you help out around the shop with Chica.

Finally, the three of you made it to the repair shop. You knocked on the door as Moon and Sun caught up with you. Monty opened the door, and the three of you filed inside, familiar dim neon lights washing over you.

"Star!!"

You grinned wide as Bonnie and Freddy greeted you fondly. They were both behind the counter, where Foxy had laid out their latest haul. Chica and Roxy were hanging out here in the front room as well, having been in the middle of their own conversation when you'd walked in.

"There's my little buddy!" Monty grinned and poked you after shutting the door behind you.

You poked him back. "Hi!"

"How are the three of you? Was the walk into town alright?" Freddy asked.

"It was pleasantly uneventful," Moon replied. They were avoiding looking at Bonnie, who was avoiding them right back. It seemed the two of them had come to some sort of tentative 'you don't talk to me and I don’t talk to you and we'll just be polite in shared company' agreement.

"That's good to hear. There's been a few reports of wild animal attacks lately around this side of town, so be sure to stay safe. No wandering off alone or anything like that." Bonnie looked pointedly at you.

"Anyways." You pointedly did not meet Bonnie's gaze. "How are you all?"

"Things have been much the same since your last visit. All is still well! Roxy remains our top client, of course," Freddy said.

"This place remains to be the best in town." Roxy shrugged.

Bonnie folded his arms over the counter. "Even so, we're pretty far out of the way for you here. We sure do appreciate you coming by to see us, especially for just a check up."

"Yeah, well, I need to make sure I'm in good condition for my next race. You're all coming to watch me, right?" Roxy asked. She looked at Chica, despite directing the question towards everyone.

"Of course we will! You're our favorite racer, after all," Chica said with a wink. She turned her attention to you and Sun and Moon as Roxy's tail started to wag. "You three are just in time, we just finished up here for the day! You could come watch the race with us if you want!"

You'd only seen the last half of one race before, though you could remember it clearly and fondly. You'd had an absolute blast. "Yes yes yes yes yes!"

Sun smiled at you. "We'd love to, thank you!"

"So long as we stay out of sight," Moon said.

"On that note, still no word on Eclipse, I'm afraid," Foxy chimed in. "I've been keepin' an ear out for any news. Haven't heard a thing, but that doesn't mean they've left town just yet."

"Right. I still think it's safer to assume they're still looking for us." Moon sighed. "Thank you, Foxy."

"Not a problem, matey." Foxy gave Moon a salute with their hook.

"Forget about that fool. If Eclipse ever shows their stupid face around these parts again I'll take care of em." Monty threw a fist into his palm, the metal making a loud 'TONK' sound.

You gave Monty's arm an appreciative pat. You knew that if you ever saw Eclipse again, you'd be the one 'taking care' of them. There was no way you'd let them hurt Sun and Moon, or any of your friends for that matter.

"In other news," Sun started, setting a hand on your shoulder, "since its been roughly a year since Star's activation, that means its their birthday!"

"Birthday?? What's that?" Monty looked at you curiously.

"It's a human thing! Everyone gets a birthday. It's a celebration, once a year, every year, to celebrate the day you were born, and your continued life," you explained to everyone. "I'm not sure exactly how long its actually been, and I also wasn't exactly born, but being created in a lab is close enough."

"Aw, what a fun idea!!" Bonnie smiled. "I'm happy to celebrate our good friend Star coming into our lives."

"I agree!" Freddy laid his arm over Bonnie's shoulders. "You're a bright spot in all our lives, super-star." He smiled kindly at you.

"Thank you," you said quietly, unsure what to do with the kind words but enjoying them immensely none the less.

"How do humans usually celebrate birthdays?? Is there anything special we can do for ya?" Foxy asked.

"You usually just get all your friends together and have a good time, so we're already covered!" you said. "There's also supposed to be gifts and decorations and a cake, but its not strictly necessary."

"Oh! Well I don't know about decorations or cake, but…" Foxy pulled off their bag and rooted around inside for a moment.

You eyed them curiously and took a slow step closer.

"I found something lately in those old ruins south of here… reminded me a lot of you! So I thought I'd give it to ya next time I saw ya." Foxy finally pulled out a strange sort of device. It looked to be made of wood at first glance, but upon closer inspection it was definitely far too shiny to be real wood. It only took a moment for your brain to recognize the object, another strange factual 'memory' clicking into place.

Ukulele.

"It seems kind of strange, small and unassuming at first, but…" Foxy plucked a few strings. Three light little notes struck you right through the heart. "It's really quite wonderful, once you get to understanding it a bit better!"

"Ah??" You stared wide eyed at the instrument for a moment. You looked up at Foxy. Then back down. "Thank you! So much!!"

Foxy held the instrument out to you, beckoning for you to take it. You tentatively grabbed it and turned it over a few times, studying it. Your brain was pretty quick these days to feed you information on human stuff, though sometimes it still took you a while. The information was like old memories, sometimes a little too faded to be of much use, more dream-like than anything. They weren't even really memories, just really good copies of memories and stored thoughts and facts. Sometimes things felt like déjà vu, like you'd experienced something before, even though you definitely hadn't. (Déjà vu being another little 'memory' you'd acquired a while ago upon experiencing the weird sensation for the first time. You'd asked Sun and Moon about it, but gathered that robots didn't seem to experience the same thing.) You pieced together enough to figure out how to hold the instrument, and how the little pegs the wires were attached to worked. Usually, you could intuit the rest of anything you couldn't 'remember' fully.

You brushed a thumb over the strings, making all four strings sing at once. The notes were a little unorganized -out of tune- but the noise they made was downright magical. It was the feeling of something soft under your hand, but sound. It felt like you'd found something you didn't even know was missing. Some crucial part of you that you'd neglected and was now alive, woken by the sound of mismatched chords.

"Music," you murmured. "Oh. This is wonderful."

"I'm glad you like it!" Foxy grinned.

You hugged Foxy, who laughed lightly and pat your back.

“I’m not the only one who’s got a little something for ya, either!” Foxy looked at Monty.

Monty stiffened and shuffled his feet. “Oh, uh. No, actually, I don’t know…”

"You have something for me too??" You poked Monty excitedly.

Monty looked away, clearly embarrassed. "It's not as good as Foxy's thing…"

"I wouldn't rank gifts. I'm just happy to have gotten gifts in the first place. I'm sure whatever it is I'm going to love it!" you assured.

Monty hesitated. He glanced down at you, then sighed. "Well… alright. Here." He popped open a compartment on his arm and pulled out a small assortment of pens, as well as a funny little book.

Upon inspection, the pens were still full of ink, each a different color. And the book was full of blank paper, pages and pages of it, edges rough and torn and bound with clumsy hands but still threaded together securely. The pages were blank, except for the very first, where a very crude and simplistic doodle of two figures holding hands had been drawn with the words 'best friends' scrawled above them. One of the figures was green and twice as big as the other, who appeared to be smiling.

"From what I know about humans, you guys like to draw and color… Or at least, the ones in the catacombs did. So I thought… maybe you’d like to be able to draw. So I went out with Foxy and put this together," Monty explained.

You stared down at the notebook and pens, holding them carefully in your hands. You thought about the markings on the walls down in the catacombs, and you thought about all the things you could do and create with this. Just having somewhere to write down your thoughts was a wonder, you were constantly jealous of Sun and Moon and their inherent note databank stored right in their heads.

You threw your arms around Monty in a big hug. "This is amazing. Thank you, Monty."

Monty relaxed significantly as you hugged him. He pat your back. "You're welcome. Glad you like it."

"I love it!!" you assured. "This is awesome! I should have had a birthday ages ago."

Just then, Bonnie started beeping. "Oh! Sorry to interrupt," Bonnie said, quickly moving to sheepishly cover his ears with his hands. "I'm getting a transmission. Sounds like a general news broadcast."

The beeping sound was sort of grating and definitely not helping your growing headache any. Even so, you were curious to hear what was on the news. Usually Bonnie didn't beep like that unless it was important.

"Oh! It might be more updates from the scientist working on renewable energy," Freddy guessed, patting Bonnie's arm excitedly.

This had everyone's attention. Bonnie straightened his ears back up as everyone gathered around the counter. His ears adjusted slightly, positioning the concave dishes inside just so. A moment of static punched through his speaker, and quickly faded into clear words.

"Thank you for taking the time to interview with us today, I know you must be very busy," a high pitched voice said.

"Thank you for having me," a quieter voice replied.

"I wont take up too much of your time here so lets just get right into it," the higher pitched voice began. "We know you've been working on figuring out how to reconstruct renewable energy from human artifacts, machines that were once solar panels and wind turbines, to my understanding. My first question for you is, what kind of impact do you think your work will have on our society?"

"Oh, yes, good question. Well, I, like many others, am of the opinion that a society that ties its currency to a vital need is aught to be rife with corruption. Power generating bots have been withholding batteries from those in need solely for the hopes of gaining riches and services in return, with no care at all for the bots suffering from these actions. Since we all depend on energy to function, to live, that puts these bots in a position of incredible power over everyone else. Over time these issues have gotten worse as certain bots accumulate more power, abuse their status, and continue to harm the rest of us."

"You're a power producing bot yourself, are you not?" asked the high pitched voice.

"I am indeed. Which is why I've been afforded the privilege of being able to work in my field as I have. The work that I and other scientists do isn't cheap, the research and development alone is costly as it is, but also taking into account things like acquiring building materials, hiring bots to help you travel to research sites, even hiring other more specialized scientists to help develop tech, there's a lot of things that add up. Beyond batteries, having connections is a whole other necessity to the field. But I'm getting off track here. To answer your first question, the reason I got into society and corruption is that I believe my work could very well render these corrupt power generating bots obsolete. With the work I'm doing, coupled with the work already done by other scientists expanding battery capacity and efficiency, we could power entire cities of bots with an extremely reasonable amount of resources. We could have battery chargers lining the streets, free to use, powered by reconstructed renewable energy machines and, if they want, power generating bots as well. We're also looking into developing unobtrusive body mods, so bots anywhere could charge their own batteries on the go with no effort, so long as they're in the sunlight or someplace windy."

"Now wouldn't that be something? How much charge would you charge for such a mod?"

The quiet scientist was quick to reply. "These modifications wouldn't cost anything, of course. The goal we're working towards here, ultimately, is the betterment of society. Any scientist worth their title would agree, we do what we do in the name of all of us. We work towards self betterment, community, mutual respect, the pursuit of knowledge, all in the name of our fellow bot. With my work I'm of course hoping to contribute to the greater good here."

"I see, I see. That's all the time we have I'm afraid, we do appreciate you taking the time to talk with us, and for all of you listening in, don't forget to tune in to our regular program-"

Bonnie's ears twitched as he ended the broadcast. "Well isn't that exciting!"

You were grateful Bonnie had cut the closing rambling short, something about the one bot's high pitched voice had been really aggravating your headache.

"Yeah!! Hey, is that true? Does being a scientist really cost that much?" Chica asked.

Sun nodded. "It is. Moon and I wouldn't be able to do what we do if we weren't power generating bots."

"The thing about having connections was true as well. That's why we needed Eclipse as an investor. They provided connections and materials we didn't have the first clue how to get access to on our own," Moon said.

"That adds up. Of course you'd need networking help," Monty said with a teasing smile.

Moon shot him a glare.

"Can you imagine, getting a charge from the wind or the sun? My battery would fill up all on its own just while I'm racing!" Roxy said.

"Aye, imagine all the space I'd have in my pack for artifacts if I didn't have to lug around spare batteries with me on trips," Foxy mused.

"The new tech sure sounds exciting! It'd help out so many bots. No one would have to worry about running out of batteries anymore," Sun said.

"It'd take bots like Eclipse down a peg as well," Moon added.

"Good. Maybe we wouldn't even have to worry about them anymore," you said hopefully. You rubbed at your brow, trying to soothe your headache.

"How are you feeling, Star?" Freddy asked, noticing the motion.

"Oh, I'm alright, just a headache." You waved.

"Another one? You've been having those headaches for quite a while now," Bonnie noted, sounding concerned.

You noticed both Sun and Moon growing uncomfortably still beside you. Bonnie was right. Not only that, but the headaches had been getting worse, too.

You smiled and waved again, though your smile felt a little strained. "Oh yeah, I'm fine. I'm just dying."

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makeste · 3 years

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“but I thought about how I needed to say this”

a.k.a. yet another meta dissection of The Apology. I actually wrote most of this up on Friday night based on the original Japanese (@pikahlua has an excellent translation up here, and I also used @hanashimas’ translations as a reference as well), but I wanted to wait until the official release, though that turned out to be a mixed bag to say the least lol.

I would also recommend reading @pikahlua and @class1akids’ breakdowns of this scene (here and here, respectively), because they are excellent, and because if any scene deserves to have as many meta breakdowns written about it as possible, it’s this one.

anyway so here goes.

Caleb did a more accurate job with this than the fanscan, even if he did try his best to take us out of the seriousness of the moment by throwing in that swiss cheese line lol. anyway so there are two things I want to talk about here. the first is the line about Izuku not remembering, which I thought was a nice touch. of course he doesn’t remember what Kacchan said back then. he wasn’t exactly in the soundest emotional state after seeing one of the people he cares about most taking a near-fatal blow that was meant for him. I’d be shocked if he remembers anything about the aftermath (including the way he flew into a mindless rage afterwards) right up until the point when he entered the OFA Interstellar Party Void with Tomura. anyway, so I thought that was a nice callback.

and speaking of emotional states, the other thing I wanted to talk about is the part that Caleb got right which the fan scanlation didn’t. “but I had more to say.” in other words, “stop trying to win on your own” wasn’t just a one-liner; it was meant to be the beginning of a much longer speech. “there were other things that I needed to say.”

like, can we just stop and talk about that for a second. because basically what this means is that in that instant, when Kacchan pushed Deku out of the way and got impaled, his one and only thought was that he needed to apologize to Deku. his life was presumably flashing before his eyes, he had no idea if he was going to survive or not, and the only thing on his mind was how urgently he needed to make things right with his former childhood friend.

moving on!

so I have a confession to make, which is that I am relieved to see Katsuki describing this as the reason why he bullied Deku, as opposed to Horikoshi trying to retcon it into some sort of “secretly he was just trying to protect him and keep him out of harm’s way because he was worried” thing, which ngl would not have gelled very well with me. the thing is that I’m really not a fan of the whole “Kacchan Did Nothing Wrong” mentality that some fans seem to have. like, I have seen all sorts of convoluted attempts to find excuses for Katsuki’s shitty behavior, but in my view those attempts undermine what I love about his character in the first place. Katsuki is such a great character specifically because he is not perfect. his redemption arc is so compelling because he was such a giant asshole at the start. he was completely at fault, and he acknowledges this, and takes full responsibility for it. and that is fucking fantastic.

his arc is so great because it doesn’t rely on garnering sympathy by giving him a Tragic Past, or by trying to foist the blame for his behavior over on someone else. it’s an arc that acknowledges that redemption isn’t something you achieve by making people feel sorry for you; it’s something you have to earn by actively working to change and do better. and by forgoing the “misunderstood/tragic past” route, Horikoshi is making a statement that anyone can go down the wrong path, but that more importantly, anyone can also choose at any time to turn away from said path. there is only one requirement for doing so, and that is realizing that you’ve done wrong, and deciding that you want to change.

anyway, so in chapter 284 Kacchan of course had that whole speech about Deku not taking himself into account, and mentioned how that made him want to keep his distance. and a good chunk of fandom took this to mean that Katsuki’s bullying was actually a misguided response to Deku’s reckless tendencies -- sort of an “if I show him how weak and powerless he really is, I can get him to accept the reality that he’s quirkless, and that being a hero will just get him hurt or killed” type of thing. and I won’t lie, for a good while I was wondering myself if Horikoshi was really going to go down that route. and like I said, I am honestly relieved that he didn’t. not only for the reasons stated in the previous paragraph, but also because the message that would have sent -- that there are certain circumstances in which bullying can almost be excused because the bully had Good Intentions and was just trying to save the other person from themselves, and so it Wasn’t That Bad, Actually -- is all kinds of fucked up to say the least. so yeah, I’m glad we ended up steering well clear of that.

(ETA: this post was long enough already so I edited out the 3 additional paragraphs I originally wrote analyzing the dialogue from 284. but just to be clear, I’m not trying to imply that Kacchan worrying about Deku’s recklessness is a retconned thing that Horikoshi only threw into the story recently, because there are multiple instances throughout the story where he clearly is worried and in total denial of it. but I firmly believe those feelings are not what led to the bullying. they’re two separate things. Kacchan worrying about Deku is what prompts him to yell at him in chapter 1 when Deku comes to save him. but it’s not what incited him to burn his notebook and taunt him earlier in that same chapter. that action had a much meaner and more selfish motivation behind it, and I’m glad Horikoshi didn’t try to change it up last minute, because it wouldn’t have felt right.)

thankfully as of this chapter I think we can safely cross that out as a possibility, as we’re given the true explanation straight from Katsuki himself. and the truth is that he bullied Deku out of insecurity and jealousy and fear and intolerance. there was nothing noble about it. there were no good intentions concealed in his actions. there are no justifications given, no excuses offered, and no mitigating circumstances to be considered, other than the fact (which neither he nor Horikoshi bring up) that he was and is still a child, and that children make mistakes.

it’s an explanation that challenges many of fandom’s ideas on who is and isn’t eligible to be redeemed. there is no Ozai in Katsuki’s backstory. there’s no great tragedy that he spent a lifetime trying to rise above. the only villain in Katsuki’s story is Katsuki himself. the only darkness that he has to overcome is his own. and it’s challenging, because I think many people believe the only way someone can be redeemed for doing bad things is if bad things happen to them in return. but what Horikoshi is saying here is that that’s not the case. bad doesn’t erase bad. and the one and only way to truly earn redemption is by doing good.

and that’s what makes this such a phenomenal scene for me. by not shying away from Katsuki’s flaws and failings, and having him take full responsibility for them, Horikoshi keeps the apology from being self-serving, and underscores the true depth of Katsuki’s character development. the level of self-awareness he has here is something most people can only dream of. which is very fitting, as that’s perhaps the most important takeaway from his character arc -- that it’s only by acknowledging your own weaknesses and flaws that you can learn to overcome them and reach your full potential.

one last thing to point out here, which is that in the panel where Katsuki finally acknowledges his terrible treatment of Deku, Deku is not even visible. instead, Horikoshi drew the panel from a perspective that makes it appear that Katsuki is addressing this particular line not just to Deku, but to all of his classmates.

again, he shows him taking full responsibility and admitting his wrongdoings in front of the people whose opinions and approval he cares about most. and just to clarify in case there’s any confusion from Caleb’s translation, Kacchan’s wording makes it very clear that he wasn’t just “mean” to Deku, but that he full-on bullied him (he uses the same verb -- “ijimeru” (苛める) -- that he did back in chapter 284). there’s no attempt to downplay his actions here.

moving on now, this chapter also reaffirmed another thing about Deku and Kacchan’s relationship which I was glad to see revisited -- Kacchan’s unwavering belief in Deku’s ability. this is one of those paradoxical things about their relationship which I’ve always been fascinated by, but which is also kind of hard to explain, because I don’t want it to come off like I’m trying to put a positive spin on something which was unequivocally awful. like, please don’t think I’m trying to say that Katsuki’s bullying of Deku was in any way a good thing. but that being said, there’s also a strange irony at play here, which is that Katsuki’s jealousy and insecurity also betray the fact that even at his very worst, he never once underestimated Deku. he has always believed in Deku’s strength, even when that strength pissed him off and made him afraid and uneasy.

no one else -- not All Might, or even Deku’s own mom -- believed from the get-go that Deku could become a hero. but Katsuki never once counted him out, even when he was calling him a pebble in his shoe. he confesses here that even though he “tried to act superior by rejecting [Deku]”, in truth he was never able to shake the feeling that Deku was above him. long before he ever understood the concept of “win to save”, he knew instinctively that there was a strength in Deku’s heart that couldn’t be measured, and which had the potential to surpass even his own strength. and I’ve always felt that this was so important, because it’s the one aspect of their early relationship that hinted that on some level, however subconscious, Katsuki held the same type of faith in Deku that Deku always held in him. it was one of the few things that hinted at there being a possible path towards reconciliation one day. and it paved the way for the most important shift in their relationship to date, when Katsuki finally realized who Deku got his quirk from, and responded not with resentment or spite, but with acceptance.

moving on, I also really love the way we see them portrayed at the different stages of their childhood throughout this speech, and how it perfectly lines up with the dialogue. from small children (when Katsuki talks about his insecurities first manifesting), to middle schoolers (when he talks about the bullying), to high schoolers (when he talks about the past year and everything he’s learned at U.A.). Horikoshi really didn’t have to go that hard, but he did, and that’s why we love him.

and then we finally get to That Part.

where do I even start with this there are so many things omg.

the bow. this is the one and only time Katsuki has ever bowed to anyone of his own volition as far as I recall. and this absolutely is a bow, just to be clear, even though his form is straight-up garbage (very Kacchan-esque, with his feet and arms spaced apart because he’s still a punk after all). this is Kacchan showing more humility and respect than he’s ever shown to anyone else in his entire life.

regarding “Izuku”, I actually have mixed feelings about this to tell the truth. I think it was a good call here because it was incredibly effective in setting the tone and showing just how serious Kacchan is. however if he continues to use “Izuku” rather than “Deku” from here on out, that would give the impression in hindsight that all his past usage of “Deku” really was meant as an insult, which would undermine some of my favorite scenes. I would really like to believe that since DvK2 or thereabouts, Kacchan has (mostly) been using “Deku (affectionate)” rather than “Deku (useless loser)”, lol. but if he switches to the “nicer” name on a permanent basis following his apology, it implies that the previous nickname was indeed being used cruelly. and so honestly I hope this was just a one-time thing, because I do think that in Katsuki’s mind, the name “Deku” hasn’t been meant as a slight to him for a long time now.

“my truth/this is what I truly feel” -- the word Katsuki uses in Japanese is honne (本音), and if you’re familiar with the concept of honne/tatemae, that’s the same “honne” he’s talking about here. it means that he’s casting aside all of his walls and facades and expressing what he truly feels. and of course, one of the fascinating things about Katsuki’s character is that he’s the exact opposite of most people in that he chooses to put his meanness on full display to the public, and ironically it’s the kindest parts of himself which he tends to keep the most carefully guarded and hidden away. this also means that while his rage and anger are very often insincere and put on just for show, those relatively few occasions where he lets his humanity truly shine through are pretty much 100% genuine, as is the case with this one here.

and Deku’s face says it all when it comes to how powerful those moments can be as a result.

and this, right here, is why it wasn’t enough for Katsuki to atone solely through his actions, and why he needed to actually say the words as well. it’s not that the words are more important; obviously the actions are far and away the most important part, and carry far more meaning. but the reason why Katsuki needed to say the words as well is simply because Izuku needed to hear them. needed to, and deserved to, because this is one of the most important people in the world to him.

and so he deserves to know that the relationship isn’t just one-sided, and that he is just as important to Kacchan as Kacchan is to him. he deserves to know that Kacchan understands how horribly he treated him, and that he’s sorry for it. and he deserves to know that Kacchan, without any expectation of it changing their relationship -- meaning that he will continue to feel this way regardless of what Izuku says or does from here on out -- cares about him. now more than ever, with AFO out there doing everything in his power to make Izuku feel as alone as possible, this is something that he really, really needed to hear.

so this part has some interesting wordplay which neither Caleb’s translation nor the fan scanlation was really able to get across. basically, in the Japanese version, when Katsuki talks about “those ideals”, Horikoshi uses the kanji for “ideal”, but pronounces it as “All Might.” obviously the meaning of this isn’t too hard to decipher, as we all know how much both boys admire All Might. to them, he absolutely is synonymous with the Ideal. so this is a way of showing that respect they both have towards him, even as Katsuki goes on to point out the one fatal flaw that All Might was never able to overcome.

and speaking of interesting wording, as others have noted, at this point in his speech Katsuki switches from “temee” (which he was using earlier during the “your strengths and my weaknesses” part) to “omae” (“omae” being a less insulting word for “you”, though still very manly and tough-sounding), which is definitely a big deal. though fwiw this is not the first time he’s used “omae” for Deku (he switches to it briefly right after DvK2, when he tells Deku “you had the strongest guy lay the groundwork for you -- don’t lose”, and then later when they’re walking back to the dorms and he says he’ll learn and get stronger by watching everyone around him just like Deku did). it’s definitely a good choice on Horikoshi’s part though, as it makes this last part of the speech sound more earnest and sincere.

just a quick note, he does indeed use a plural pronoun here, as in “the obstacles that you can’t overcome, we will overcome.” but as @pikahlua pointed out, the “we” here is ambiguous -- it could either mean “we” as in class 1-A -- “we will overcome them for you” -- OR it could mean “we” as in all of them -- class 1-A and Deku. “we will overcome them together.” idk about you, but I know which one gets my vote.

anyway, and so this is the line that finally wins Deku over and allows him to let go of his fears, however briefly. what I love about this is Kacchan’s utter conviction. one thing that Caleb’s translation doesn’t quite get across is Kacchan’s use of the word morenaku -- “without exception” -- when he talks about how they’re going to save everyone and win. it echoes that same sentiment he showed back during the Joint Training arc -- that it’s not a perfect victory unless they save everyone. every last person. and he explicitly lists Deku among their number, just so there can be no doubt.

and Deku’s response to this (or at least his thoughts, since he’s not really able to get many words out) pretty much brings everything full circle here.

he acknowledges that everyone else has gotten ahead of him. which is especially meaningful given who he’s standing directly across from. because for most of the series, as we all well know, it’s been Kacchan who was woefully lagging behind Deku in the character growth department. but now Deku himself is acknowledging that not only has Kacchan finally caught up at last, but that he and the others have surpassed him. which is only temporary, I should add, as I have zero doubt that Deku will catch up again soon. but the fact remains that just as Deku’s rapid increase in strength and skill left Kacchan scrambling to keep up earlier in the series, Kacchan’s extraordinary character development has now left Deku in that same position. as All Might once put it, “when he’s starting at level one, and you’re already at level 50, it’s only natural that you’ll be growing at different rates.”

and what’s so wonderful about this though is that the two of them are finally approaching that point where they’ve both caught up to each other and are finally starting to level out. Deku is a full-on badass, and Kacchan is out here talk-no-jutsuing with the best of them. the two of them have been chasing and chasing after each other this entire time, and now they’re finally just about ready to meet in the middle at long last, with each of them fully embodying both of those two crucial aspects -- win, and save.

just about. because Deku still needs some help catching up. but seeing as help has already been offered -- and accepted -- I can’t imagine it will be very long now, and I can’t wait to see him finally overcoming those fears and doubts with his friends by his side. it’s going to be such a powerful moment.

and last but not least,

or, as I prefer,

you had one job, Caleb. flkjsdlk.

but at least this provides a good opportunity to note that unlike the “we’ll help you handle it” line earlier in the speech, here the phrasing is left up to interpretation, as he doesn’t use a pronoun. so it could be “we know”, or, as the fan scanlation put it, “I know.” or it could be both. regardless, it’s good stuff.

anyway, and so Deku passes out, and in the process Horikoshi gives us one last parting metaphor, just in case anyone still thinks Kacchan is all talk because they haven’t been paying attention for the past 322 chapters (more likely than you think). once again, Katsuki’s actions speak louder than his words (even his nice words) ever could: he is literally there to catch Deku when he falls.

so that’s it! my sincere thanks to anyone who actually read through all of my endless ramblings about this scene which I have been waiting for since day one. props to Horikoshi for taking on an impossibly difficult task, and pulling it off with all of the emotion and care and nuance that I’ve come to expect from his writing. imo he delivered on every single level with the exception of the aftermath, which I don’t consider to have actually happened yet. Deku’s part of this is definitely a “to be continued.” but yeah, as far as Kacchan’s part goes, 10/10. so fucking proud of this kid.

#bnha 322 #bakugou katsuki #midoriya izuku #bakudeku #bnha meta #bakugou meta #deku meta #bnha #boku no hero academia #bnha spoilers #mha spoilers #bnha manga spoilers #makeste reads bnha

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transgenderteensurvivalguide · 3 years

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“Elliot Page doesn’t remember exactly how long he had been asking.

But he does remember the acute feeling of triumph when, around age 9, he was finally allowed to cut his hair short. “I felt like a boy,” Page says. “I wanted to be a boy. I would ask my mom if I could be someday.” Growing up in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Page visualized himself as a boy in imaginary games, freed from the discomfort of how other people saw him: as a girl. After the haircut, strangers finally started perceiving him the way he saw himself, and it felt both right and exciting.

The joy was short-lived. Months later, Page got his first break, landing a part as a daughter in a Canadian mining family in the TV movie Pit Pony. He wore a wig for the film, and when Pit Pony became a TV show, he grew his hair out again. “I became a professional actor at the age of 10,” Page says. And pursuing that passion came with a difficult compromise. “Of course I had to look a certain way.”

We are speaking in late February. It is the first interview Page, 34, has given since disclosing in December that he is transgender, in a heartfelt letter posted to Instagram, and he is crying before I have even uttered a question. “Sorry, I’m going to be emotional, but that’s cool, right?” he says, smiling through his tears.

It’s hard for him to talk about the days that led up to that disclosure. When I ask how he was feeling, he looks away, his neck exposed by a new short haircut. After a pause, he presses his hand to his heart and closes his eyes. “This feeling of true excitement and deep gratitude to have made it to this point in my life,” he says, “mixed with a lot of fear and anxiety.”

It’s not hard to understand why a trans person would be dealing with conflicting feelings in this moment. Increased social acceptance has led to more young people describing themselves as trans—1.8% of Gen Z compared with 0.2% of boomers, according to a recent Gallup poll—yet this has fueled conservatives who are stoking fears about a “transgender craze.” President Joe Biden has restored the right of transgender military members to serve openly, and in Hollywood, trans people have never had more meaningful time onscreen. Meanwhile, J.K. Rowling is leveraging her cultural capital to oppose transgender equality in the name of feminism, and lawmakers are arguing in the halls of Congress over the validity of gender identities. “Sex has become a political football in the culture wars,” says Chase Strangio, deputy director for transgender justice at the ACLU.

(Full article with photos continued under the “read more”)

And so Page—who charmed America as a precocious pregnant teenager in Juno, constructed dreamscapes in Inception and now stars in Netflix’s hit superhero show The Umbrella Academy, the third season of which he’s filming in Toronto—expected that his news would be met with both applause and vitriol. “What I was anticipating was a lot of support and love and a massive amount of hatred and transphobia,” says Page. “That’s essentially what happened.” What he did not anticipate was just how big this story would be. Page’s announcement, which made him one of the most famous out trans people in the world, started trending on Twitter in more than 20 countries. He gained more than 400,000 new followers on Instagram on that day alone. Thousands of articles were published. Likes and shares reached the millions. Right-wing podcasters readied their rhetoric about “women in men’s locker rooms.” Casting directors reached out to Page’s manager saying it would be an honor to cast Page in their next big movie.

So, it was a lot. Over the course of two conversations, Page will say that understanding himself in all the specifics remains a work in progress. Fathoming one’s gender, an identity innate and performed, personal and social, fixed and evolving, is complicated enough without being under a spotlight that never seems to turn off. But having arrived at a critical juncture, Page feels a deep sense of responsibility to share his truth. “Extremely influential people are spreading these myths and damaging rhetoric—every day you’re seeing our existence debated,” Page says. “Transgender people are so very real.”

That role in Pit Pony led to other productions and eventually, when Page was 16, to a film called Mouth to Mouth. Playing a young anarchist, Page had a chance to cut his hair again. This time, he shaved it off completely. The kids at his high school teased him, but in photos he has posted from that time on social media he looks at ease. Page’s head was still shaved when he mailed in an audition tape for the 2005 thriller Hard Candy. The people in charge of casting asked him to audition again in a wig. Soon, the hair was back.

Page’s tour de force performance in Hard Candy led, two years later, to Juno, a low-budget indie film that brought Page Oscar, BAFTA and Golden Globe nominations and sudden megafame. The actor, then 21, struggled with the stresses of that ascension. The endless primping, red carpets and magazine spreads were all agonizing reminders of the disconnect between how the world saw Page and who he knew himself to be. “I just never recognized myself,” Page says. “For a long time I could not even look at a photo of myself.” It was difficult to watch the movies too, especially ones in which he played more feminine roles.

Page loved making movies, but he also felt alienated by Hollywood and its standards. Alia Shawkat, a close friend and co-star in 2009’s Whip It,describes all the attention from Juno as scarring. “He had a really hard time with the press and expectations,” Shawkat says. “‘Put this on! And look this way! And this is sexy!’”

By the time he appeared in blockbusters like X-Men: The Last Stand and Inception, Page was suffering from depression, anxiety and panic attacks. He didn’t know, he says, “how to explain to people that even though [I was] an actor, just putting on a T-shirt cut for a woman would make me so unwell.” Shawkat recalls Page’s struggles with clothes. “I’d be like, ‘Hey, look at all these nice outfits you’re getting,’ and he would say, ‘It’s not me. It feels like a costume,’” she says. Page tried to convince himself that he was fine, that someone who was fortunate enough to have made it shouldn’t have complaints. But he felt exhausted by the work required to “just exist,” and thought more than once about quitting acting.

In 2014, Page came out as gay, despite feeling for years that “being out was impossible” given his career. (Gender identity and sexual orientation are, of course, distinct, but one queer identity can coexist with another.) In an emotional speech at a Human Rights Campaign conference, Page talked about being part of an industry “that places crushing standards” on actors and viewers alike. “There are pervasive stereotypes about masculinity and femininity that define how we’re all supposed to act, dress and speak,” Page went on. “And they serve no one.”

The actor started wearing suits on the red carpet. He found love, marrying choreographer Emma Portner in 2018. He asserted more agency in his career, producing his own films with LGBTQ leads like Freeheld and My Days of Mercy. And he made a masculine wardrobe a condition of taking roles. Yet the daily discord was becoming unbearable. “The difference in how I felt before coming out as gay to after was massive,” says Page. “But did the discomfort in my body ever go away? No, no, no, no.”

In part, it was the isolation forced by the pandemic that brought to a head Page’s wrestling with gender. (Page and Portner separated last summer, and the two divorced in early 2021. “We’ve remained close friends,” Page says.) “I had a lot of time on my own to really focus on things that I think, in so many ways, unconsciously, I was avoiding,” he says. He was inspired by trailblazing trans icons like Janet Mock and Laverne Cox, who found success in Hollywood while living authentically. Trans writers helped him understand his feelings; Page saw himself reflected in P. Carl’s memoir Becoming a Man. Eventually “shame and discomfort” gave way to revelation. “I was finally able to embrace being transgender,” Page says, “and letting myself fully become who I am.”

This led to a series of decisions. One was asking the world to call him by a different name, Elliot, which he says he’s always liked. Page has a tattoo that says E.P. PHONE HOME, a reference to a movie about a young boy with that name. “I loved E.T. when I was a kid and always wanted to look like the boys in the movies, right?” he says. The other decision was to use different pronouns—for the record, both he/him and they/them are fine. (When I ask if he has a preference on pronouns for the purposes of this story, Page says, “He/him is great.”)

A day before we first speak, Page will talk to his mom about this interview and she will tell him, “I’m just so proud of my son.” He grows emotional relating this and tries to explain that his mom, the daughter of a minister, who was born in the 1950s, was always trying to do what she thought was best for her child, even if that meant encouraging young Page to act like a girl. “She wants me to be who I am and supports me fully,” Page says. “It is a testament to how people really change.”

Another decision was to get top surgery. Page volunteers this information early in our conversation; at the time he posted his disclosure on Instagram, he was recovering in Toronto. Like many trans people, Page emphasizes being trans isn’t all about surgery. For some people, it’s unnecessary. For others, it’s unaffordable. For the wider world, the media’s focus on it has sensationalized transgender bodies, inviting invasive and inappropriate questions. But Page describes surgery as something that, for him, has made it possible to finally recognize himself when he looks in the mirror, providing catharsis he’s been waiting for since the “total hell” of puberty. “It has completely transformed my life,” he says. So much of his energy was spent on being uncomfortable in his body, he says. Now he has that energy back.

For the transgender community at large, visibility does not automatically lead to acceptance. Around the globe, transgender people deal disproportionately with violence and discrimination. Anti-trans hate crimes are on the rise in the U.K. along with increasingly transphobic rhetoric in newspapers and tabloids. In the U.S., in addition to the perennial challenges trans people face with issues like poverty and homelessness, a flurry of bills in state legislatures would make it a crime to provide transition-related medical care to trans youth. And crass old jokes are still in circulation. When Biden lifted the ban on open service for transgender troops, Saturday Night Live’s Michael Che did a bit on Weekend Update about the policy being called “don’t ask, don’t tuck.”

Page says coming out as trans was “selfish” on one level: “It’s for me. I want to live and be who I am.” But he also felt a moral imperative to do so, given the times. Human identity is complicated and mysterious, but politics insists on fitting everything into boxes. In today’s culture wars, simplistic beliefs about gender—e.g., chromosomes = destiny—are so widespread and so deep-seated that many people who hold those beliefs don’t feel compelled to consider whether they might be incomplete or prejudiced. On Feb. 24, after a passionate debate on legislation that would ban discrimination against LGBTQ people, Representative Marie Newman, an Illinois Democrat, proudly displayed the pride flag in support of her daughter, who is trans. Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, a Georgia Republican, responded by hanging a poster outside her office that read: There are TWO genders: MALE & FEMALE.

The next day Dr. Rachel Levine, who stands to become the first openly transgender federal official confirmed by the Senate, endured a tirade from Senator Rand Paul about “genital mutilation” during her confirmation hearing. My second conversation with Page happens shortly after this. He brings it up almost immediately, and seems both heartbroken and determined. He wants to emphasize that top surgery, for him, was “not only life-changing but lifesaving.” He implores people to educate themselves about trans lives, to learn how crucial medical care can be, to understand that lack of access to it is one of the many reasons that an estimated 41% of transgender people have attempted suicide, according to one survey.

Page has been in the political trenches for a while, having leaned into progressive activism after coming out as queer in 2014. For two seasons, he and best friend Ian Daniel filmed Gaycation, a Viceland series that explored LGBTQ culture around the world and, at one point, showed Page grilling Senator Ted Cruz at the Iowa State Fair about discrimination against queer people. In 2019, Page made a documentary called There’s Something in the Water, which explores environmental hardships experienced by communities of color in Nova Scotia, with $350,000 of his own money. That activism extends to his own industry: in 2017, he published a Facebook post that, among other things, accused director Brett Ratner of forcibly outing him as gay on the set of an X-Men movie. (A representative for Ratner did not respond to a request for comment.)

As a trans person who is white, wealthy and famous, Page has a unique kind of privilege, and with it an opportunity to advocate for those with less. According to the U.S. Trans Survey, a large-scale report from 2015, transgender people of color are more likely to experience unemployment, harassment by police and refusals of medical care. Nearly half of all Black respondents reported being denied equal treatment, verbally harassed and/or physically attacked in the past year. Trans people as a group fare much worse on such stats than the general population. “My privilege has allowed me to have resources to get through and to be where I am today,” Page says, “and of course I want to use that privilege and platform to help in the ways I can.”

Since his disclosure, Page has been mostly quiet on social media. One exception has been to tweet on behalf of the ACLU, which is in the midst of fighting anti-trans bills and laws around the country, including those that ban transgender girls and women from participating in sports. Mississippi Governor Tate Reeves says he will sign such a bill in the name of “protect[ing] young girls.” Page played competitive soccer and vividly recalls the agony of being told he would have to play on the girls’ team once he aged out of mixed-gender squads. After an appeal, Page was allowed to play with the boys for an additional year. Today, several bills list genitalia as a requirement for deciding who plays on which team. “I would have been in that position as a kid,” Page says. “It’s horrific.”

All this advocacy is unlikely to make life easier. “You can’t enter into certain spaces as a public trans person,” says the ACLU’s Strangio, “without being prepared to spend some percentage of your life being threatened and harassed.” Yet, while he seems overwhelmed at times, Page is also eager. Many of the political attacks on trans people—whether it is a mandate that bathroom use be determined by birth sex, a blanket ban on medical interventions for trans kids or the suggestion that trans men are simply wayward women beguiled by male privilege—carry the same subtext: that trans people are mistaken about who they are. “We know who we are,” Page says. “People cling to these firm ideas [about gender] because it makes people feel safe. But if we could just celebrate all the wonderful complexities of people, the world would be such a better place.”

Even if Page weren’t vocal, his public presence would communicate something powerful. That is in part because of what Paisley Currah, a professor of political science at Brooklyn College, calls “visibility gaps.” Historically, trans women have been more visible, in culture and in Hollywood, than trans men. There are many explanations: Our culture is obsessed with femininity. Men’s bodies are less policed and scrutinized. Patriarchal people tend to get more emotional about who is considered to be in the same category as their daughters. “And a lot of trans men don’t stand out as trans,” says Currah, who is a trans man himself. “I think we’ve taken up less of the public’s attention because masculinity is sort of the norm.”

During our interviews, Page will repeatedly refer to himself as a “transgender guy.” He also calls himself nonbinary and queer, but for him, transmasculinity is at the center of the conversation right now. “It’s a complicated journey,” he says, “and an ongoing process.”

While the visibility gap means that trans men have been spared some of the hate endured by trans women, it has also meant that people like Page have had fewer models. “There were no examples,” Page says of growing up in Halifax in the 1990s. There are many queer people who have felt “that how they feel deep inside isn’t a real thing because they never saw it reflected back to them,” says Tiq Milan, an activist, author and transgender man. Page offers a reflection: “They can see that and say, ‘You know what, that’s who I am too,’” Milan says. When there aren’t examples, he says, “people make monsters of us.”

For decades, that was something Hollywood did. As detailed in the 2020 Netflix documentary Disclosure, transgender people have been portrayed onscreen as villainous and deceitful, tragic subplots or the butt of jokes. In a sign of just how far the industry has come—spurred on by productions like Pose and trailblazers like Mock—Netflix offered to change the credits on The Umbrella Academy the same day that its star posted his statement on social media. Now when an episode ends, the first words viewers see are “Elliot Page.”

Today, there are many out trans and nonbinary actors, directors and producers. Storylines involving trans people are more common, more respectful. Sometimes that aspect of identity is even incidental, rather than the crux of a morality tale. And yet Hollywood can still seem a frightening place for LGBTQ people to come out. “It’s an industry that says, ‘Don’t do that,’” says director Silas Howard, who got his break on Amazon’s show Transparent, which made efforts to hire transgender crew members. “I wouldn’t have been hired if they didn’t have a trans initiative,” Howard says. “I’m always aware of that.”

So what will it mean for Page’s career? While Page has appeared in many projects, he also faced challenges landing female leads because he didn’t fit Hollywood’s narrow mold. Since Page’s Instagram post, his team is seeing more activity than they have in years. Many of the offers coming in—to direct, to produce, to act—are trans-related, but there are also some “dude roles.”

Downtime in quarantine helped Page accept his gender identity. “I was finally able to embrace being transgender,” he says.

Page was attracted to the role of Vanya in The Umbrella Academy because—in the first season, released in 2019—Vanya is crushed by self-loathing, believing herself to be the only ordinary sibling in an extraordinary family. The character can barely summon the courage to move through the world. “I related to how much Vanya was closed off,” Page says. Now on set filming the third season, co-workers have seen a change in the actor. “It seems like there’s a tremendous weight off his shoulders, a feeling of comfort,” says showrunner Steve Blackman. “There’s a lightness, a lot more smiling.” For Page, returning to set has been validating, if awkward at times. Yes, people accidentally use the wrong pronouns—“It’s going to be an adjustment,” Page says—but co-workers also see and acknowledge him.

The debate over whether cisgender people, who have repeatedly collected awards for playing trans characters, should continue to do so has largely been settled. However, trans actors have rarely been considered for cisgender parts. Whatever challenges might lie ahead, Page seems exuberant about playing a new spectrum of roles. “I’m really excited to act, now that I’m fully who I am, in this body,” Page says. “No matter the challenges and difficult moments of this, nothing amounts to getting to feel how I feel now.”

This includes having short hair again. During our interview, Page keeps rearranging strands on his forehead. It took a long time for him to return to the barber’s chair and ask to cut it short, but he got there. And how did that haircut feel?

Page tears up again, then smiles. “I just could not have enjoyed it more,” he says.”

#suicide m #transphobia m #Elliot Page #transgender #representation #celebrities #actors #tv #movies #rep #trans #transmasculine #nonbinary #queer #long post

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darthzero22 · 3 years

Text

Taking care of you

Crosshair x Neutral Reader

In the mission you ended up with a shot in the right foot, nothing serious, but it was hard to walk. All day you were mostly sitting and hoped that the next day your foot would be better.

You woke up an hour before the time everyone usually wakes up, you confirmed it with your holopad that you had on a metal box next to your bed because you were using it as a nightstand. The first thing that came with waking up was the little stabbing pain in your foot, and you were already cursing it in your head. The worst thing is that because of the position in which you slept, in order to make your foot as comfortable as possible, your right leg fell asleep causing you to barely move it. You definitely started the day in the best possible way, and that was sarcasm.

Well, there was one good thing about your horrible awakening and that was to see Crosshair sleeping next to you, and he looked so peaceful that it was a great comfort to you. He was lying on his side, facing you, and so you could see his face in more detail. You weren't going to wake him up, of course not. In those moments you thought about how damn attractive he was and you gently caress his face.

Thanks to one of those caresses Crosshair begins to move a little, as if he was waking up, in fact he first mumbles in his sleep and then wrinkles his nose. In spite of that he doesn't wake up, he was still sleeping, and maybe it was because the little caresses that you were giving him were relaxing for him.

You straighten your back, then hiss when you feel pain in your foot again, as you moved your leg a little in an attempt to wake it up. At least the pain was bearable, unlike yesterday. You wanted to get up to reach your datapad that you clumsily left on the table last night, and you were about to move out of bed. Unfortunately your foot didn't cooperate at all and so when you put it against the floor, the pain got worse and this time you didn't hiss, you groaned. You tried to be as quiet as possible, but Crosshair heard you and that's why he woke up.

“What…?” he sees you sitting with your injured foot on top of the bed and a grimace of pain on your face. “Y/N”

Crosshair had straightened his back to stand next to you and see you better. You could tell by the look on your face that your foot was making your morning difficult, and so he moves closer to you to rest his hand on your right leg and start stroking it in an attempt to reassure you.

“Hey, Cross… I'm sorry, I didn't mean to wake you”

“That doesn't matter now. What did you do now?”

“I was clumsy and... I put my foot on the floor”

Crosshair sighs, he was going to tell you something, but first he gives you a kiss on your temple, something that relaxes you more.

“Even with an injured foot you are still stubborn”, he said.

“Well, I guess I learned that from this squad” you laugh lightly and close your eyes tightly from the pain. “The worst thing... is that my leg fell asleep, I can't feel it completely”

“Is that so?” he squeezes your right thigh in a gently way.

“I barely felt that, so yeah.... My leg is numb. I just need to lose a toe and with that I will win a bad luck award”

What you said made Crosshair laugh without opening his mouth, but then he shakes his head slightly.

“I know I exaggerated a little…” you start to say.

“Just a little?”

“It's just... I know I was a little clumsy on the mission, but I think I got the message when I got shot in the foot by a damn droid”

You sigh and lean to the side to lean on Crosshair, specifically your head on his shoulder. You rub your face against it a little, as if you were a cat giving affection.

“And I know Tech said it would take a few days for my foot to recover...”

“All the more reason for you not to be stubborn. If you want to go back to doing the missions, worry about your foot”

“I know… Are you upset because I woke you up?”

“No, I'm not. I'm worried actually”

“Sorry for worrying you then”

“That's what I get for loving you” he rests his chin on your head.

“And that's bad for you, right?” you joked and then smile.

“Well, you said it, not me”

You knew he was playing along with your joke, so you give him a gentle tap on his chest.

“Now seriously speaking, I don't want to be a nuisance to anyone, least of all you”

“Don’t start”

“I want to start trying to walk and not sit in a chair all the time. Yesterday I didn't do anything useful for the team, but today I want to do at least something”

“Are you serious? You got the shot yesterday, Y/N. If you don't want to rest for you, fine, but do it for me then”

You'd do anything for Crosshair, so you pull away from his shoulder and look at him to nod your head. He squeezes your right thigh again and this time you did feel it, so it meant that your leg was no longer numb.

“Oh, I felt that” you said.

“That's progress”

“And now comes the tingling in the leg.... Damn it!”

You look sideways at Crosshair and see that he had a smirk on his face.

“Don't make fun of me!”

“Me? I would never do that” he said, acting a voice of indignation.

“Oh, right. I totally believe you, dummy” you said with sarcasm, and with affection. “You know what's even funnier? I have to go to the bathroom”

Crosshair's smile disappeared when he heard you say that and now you're the one smiling.

“That means...”

“I need help to get there, your help” you rest your index finger on his chest and then bring it up to give him a playful poke on the nose with it.

Crosshair wrinkles his nose and then sighs in annoyance, then you see him get off the bed.

“Let's do it quickly” he said, and he offers you both hands to help you up.

“Oh, I'll take my time” you put a smirk.

“Why did I open my mouth?”

You grab his hands and with his help you get up from the bed, avoiding placing your right foot on the floor at first, and once you are standing you slowly place it on the floor. You hiss a little, but it was a slight pain thankfully. Now leaning on him, you walk to the bathroom and manage to get there without a problem. He waits for you outside, hoping nothing happens to you inside.

“Everything all right in there?” he asked.

“Yeah, yeah. Everything is fine”

You take a few moments in the bathroom and when you're done you open the door, but you gently rest a hand on Crosshair's chest to stop him when he tried to help you.

“Y/N”

“I want to try, Cross”

Crosshair, unsure, nods his head and lets you walk alone to the room, but he followed closely behind in case you stumbled or lost your balance. Since the ship used to be a mess at times, you trip over a small box, but Crosshair caught you just in time, and he was never so fast in his life.

“Wow! Where did that box come from?” you asked with your two hands on his chest, since you were so close to his body.

“I don’t know. But I'm going to kill Wrecker. I told him to clean up this mess” he had one hand on your back and the other on your waist.

“You know he doesn't listen to you” you smile.

“Now he will listen to me”

“Hey, relax, Cross. Nothing happened to me and luckily I didn't hit my right foot”

“Are you sure you're okay?”

“I am now” you give him a kiss on the corner of his lips.

You slowly separate from him to start walking again and he follows close behind, now resting a hand on your back. As you sat up in your bed, you see Crosshair leave the room for a moment to return with what appeared to be an injection, it was the same type as the one Tech gave you to relieve your pain yesterday.

“Hey, are you sure… that's necessary?” you get a little nervous.

“Although you can walk decently, I'm not going to risk it. Tech told me to give you this in case I can see that your foot is giving you a lot of trouble”

“I… Fine, fine”

“Don't move”

Before you knew it, he gave you that injection and you complain because it hurt just a little. You knew that with that your pain would be more acceptable, and in a way you liked watching Crosshair take care of you. He was always so serious, so disinterested in most things that seeing him like that made you feel lucky to have him.

“See? It wasn't that bad” he said.

“Yeah… Actually, you were more careful than Tech”

“Because it's you”

You get out of bed, so Crosshair raises an eyebrow, and you move a little closer to hug him, resting your face on his shoulder.

“Did you get out of bed just to hug me?”

“Yes” you were smiling.

“It wasn't necessary"

“It is for me. I may have been unlucky yesterday and today in terms of my foot, but I'm actually very lucky and it's because I have you”

“You are more sentimental every day, or does this hug have another intention?”

“... No. What makes you think that?“

"I don't know, maybe because you have your hands resting on my ass?”

Indeed in the hug you had both your hands resting on Crosshair's butt.

“Hey, you did the same thing before when you caught me from falling to the floor. And you thought you were subtle” you said.

“Ha. Who said I wanted to be subtle?”

Crosshair's eyes widen for a moment when you give his ass a squeeze, and he clearly blushes. You break away with an amused smile and chuckle a little at the look on his face.

“I'm not subtle either" you said.

“Uh-huh. You are worse than me” he runs a hand over his butt, since you gave it a hard squeeze.

“I learned from the best"

You were about to sit on the bed again, but Crosshair stopped you by grabbing your waist and forces you closer to him to finally kiss you. You obviously reciprocate and rest your hands on his shoulders. Your foot luckily didn't hurt at all, so you continued kissing him, and you smile in the middle of the kiss when you feel his hands now resting on your butt.

“Never change, Cross” you told him after breaking away from the kiss.

“Very well. But don't regret saying that later” he smiles.

You laugh and kiss him again. When you break away from the kiss to catch your breath, you force Crosshair to lie on his back on the bed, and you climb on top of him so that you can kiss again, now with more passion.

#crosshair x reader #crosshair x you #crosshair bad batch #crosshair the bad batch #tbb crosshair x reader #tbb crosshair #tbb crosshair x you #tbb #the bad batch #clone force 99 #crosshair x y/n

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evierena · 3 years

Text

The Brothers eavesdropping to MC accidentally confessing their undying love for them. Part 1.

INTRO

MC was having their monthly catch-up call with their best friend in the Human Realm. At first, their friend could not believe the situation MC was living, but after a few calls they had finally come to accept the whole "I was summoned to Hell, but it's called Devildom, and now I have to live with 7 hot demon brothers and they are actually kinda nice" situation (yeah, Levi would be proud of my naming skills). Anyhow, during this specific call MC was filling in their friend with the latest update on their newfound feelings for one of the brothers, not knowing that said brother was actually outside their room, eavesdropping! And then, their friend asks "What is it about him that you love so much?"

What did MC respond? How did that brother react and what did he do with that information? Well, let's see...

Lucifer

- He was doing his nightly rounds, making sure everyone was in their room, and when he passed by your door he caught your laughter and he stopped for a second, just to absorb the sound and allow himself to relax a little. Then, out of the blue, he heard you saying: "I think I'm in love with him".

- Well, that was unexpected. He would never admit to anyone the way his heart skipped a beat for a moment there, and absolutely will never let you know that those simple words could stir such feelings within him.

- And then, with his demon senses, he heard another voice coming from your room. "Why? What is it about Lucifer that you love so much?"

- Now, for him, the world completely stopped moving, he put all of his demon hearing to work and capture every little sound around him, even his heart stopped and his blood froze in his veins to allow more silence around him.

- "He takes so much pride in his family, you know? In his position as the protector of his brothers and as the right hand of Diavolo, at first I thought that was it" you said, unaware of the petrified demon outside your door. "But now, I've come to love not just that. I love all the sides Lucifer has shown me, vulnerable, sick, angry, sad, stressed even murderous. He makes me feel motivated to be better, to strive for more, and I feel so proud knowing he trusts me that much. I just love him"

- After that, Lucifer's heart started beating like crazy in his chest, his blood running rampant through his body, and almost all reason escaped his mind. Almost.

- He managed to compose himself but he couldn't help the smug grin remaining in his face.

- Lucifer went back to his room after hearing your accidental confession, although he couldn't sleep thinking about his next move.

- For the following days he started to ampp up his game. He was always smiling at you, asking you to be by his side a little longer each time, lingering gloveless touches everywhere, he wanted to feel you and for you to feel him.

- You thought you were going crazy for sure, you didn't want to put your hopes up, but you couldn't help the throbbing sensation he provoked everytime he came a little closer a little longer, the flirty remarks, the intense stare and the knowing smile everytime you met his ruby gaze.

- So, finally, you went to his room in the night, determined to confess. And before all the courage you managed to gather escaped, you didn't even wait for him to completely open his door before spilling your heart out.

- "Lucifer, I'm in love with you!" you said closing your eyes, afraid of his reaction.

- But he lifted your chin to face him properly and you were welcomed with a smug smile and "I know" from his lips before he stole your breath in a deep heated kiss.

- In conclusion; after knowing you loved him, Lucifer intoxicated your mind with him until you confessed directly, so he could rely his own feelings to you.

Mammon

- It's a bad habit of his to just barge into your room without announcing himself, however, after so many times of you begging for him to just say something before entering, he finally remembered.

- So, he stopped himself on his tracks before doing exactly that, and that was all it took for him to hear your conversation with your best friend.

- "You are a moronsexual, I'm telling you"

- The heck is that?

- Mammon was completely confused, who was a moronsexual? What is a moronsexual? Is that something he could sell? Now, he is interested and waiting for your answer.

- "Shut it, don't call him a moron, 'kay? Besides, I don't see any problem with being in love with Mammon"

- Whoa, whaaaat? Who is in love with Mammon?... Wait, no, Who wouldn't be in love with THE Great Mammon, right?

- Mammon pressed his ear against your door, thinking he could hear better that way, but really it just suffocated the noise, and then he remembered he could just tuned his hearing. He was also beet red by that moment, internally thanking that none of his brothers could see him like that, he would never hear the end of it.

- "But, really MC, what do you love about Mammon?"

- Mammon catched his breath abruptly, remaining as still as possible.

- "Well, I love him because he's Mammon, and that means that I'll never be bored with him, and that he'll always be there for me when I need him, that I can trust him with my soul and he would never let me down. I love him because he is so generous even when he pretends he isn't, he is so sweet and cute but also really cool, and he is a total tsundere but he has opened himself to me, and everything about him is so complex and simple at the same time, I just... I love Mammon"

- You, my sweet MC, have officially broke Mammon.

- All of his blood was in his face, his heart was going rampant, his mind absorbed your words but couldn't understand what they meant, he was both ecstatic and terrified.

- And since he stopped functioning, he didn't realize you were walking towards the door until you opened up to stumble upon a teary eyed, flushed and very embarrassed Avatar of Greed.

- You knew he listened, there was no other motive to his state.

- Mammon stared at you intensely, deeply and loving and your face blushed as furiously as his. You finished the call with your best friend in stuttered, barely comprehensible words, and started fidgeting under Mammon's gaze.

- "Mammie?"

- You see, his brain wasn't aware that he was staring at you like that, he was just marvelling at how beautiful and precious you were. He was remembering all of your conversations; the way you always stood up for him, how you were always smiling at him, and that you never degraded him at all. And when you said his name he snapped back to reality.

- Then, in a both usual and unusual Mammon way, he launched himself at your arms in a very tight hug. Like you were his lifeline, and let's be honest, maybe you were, but he was yours just as much.

- "I love ya' MC" he muttered next to your ears, causing you to hold onto him even more.

- "I love you more, Mammie"

- "Nah, I love ya' much much more"

- And now you were in a duel to see who loved the other more, that eventually led to admit that you both loved each other and that was enough.

- You both spend that night in your bed, simply enjoying the other's warmth, pouring your love to your heart's content.

- And if you ever think that he will be separated from you ever again, you are terribly mistaken.

- Not that you minded, tho.

- In conclusion; Mammon would not wait another second away from you after hearing that you also love him as much as he loves you.

Leviathan

- Boy was going over to your room, to invite you play a new game he had just bought. As always, he had to take a second before knocking on your door to convince himself he wasn't being annoying.

- Then he listened to your rambling.

- "I feel so lightheaded when I'm with him, and I can't stop replaying everything on my mind when I'm alone, and I'm afraid he'll notice and be weirded out that a normie like me is head over heels for him"

- OMFF (oh my f***** father) what is this?? Is this like that time in "I accidentally eavesdropped on my normie best friend and discovered they're in love with me, how can I confess to them without being creepy?" (Ok, Levi would not be proud of my naming skills) no, no, no, waaaait, this could not be possibly be about him. Oh, no, you couldn't have possibly fallen for a yucky Otaku shut-in like him, there's no way... Right?

- "So, tell me, MC, what is it about this Leviathan that you love so much?"

- He was already sweating and trembling, but his heart definitely stopped for a concerning amount of time. If he wasn't a demon, he would most likely had already passed out right there and then.

- "I love how passionate he is, and how he always respects my privacy and he waits until I'm ready to talk, he doesn't pressure me into nothing, he gives me my space, I love how he can talk about what he likes so earnestly. I love that sparkle in his eyes when he's winning a difficult game and his razor focus when he is being really challenged by something. I feel so happy with Levi and I just want to make him see himself through my eyes so he could just stop belittle himself".

- Leviathan.exe has died. That's it.

- He literally passed out the moment those words came out of your mouth, so you heard a loud thud right outside and you found Levi face first on the floor.

- Nervousness is short to what you felt during the agonizing time he took to actually give any signs of being alive.

- When Levi woke up he didn't understand why was he laying in the floor of your room, but the moment his memories came flooding back he stand up and try to run away, his face a blushing mess.

- And as much as you wanted to stop him and apologize, you let him go, because he was clearly not ready for that conversation.

- So, a week passed and everyday you tried to contact him to no avail. Until you were finally done with playing hide and seek, you marched firmly (only in your mind 'coz you were shaking like a leaf) to his room and practically forced yourself in.

- The conversation went as you would think, stuttering, muttering, blushing messes both of you while confessing face to face your feelings for the other.

- And finally, after reassuring him, that yes, this is real, and yes you do love him, him, Leviathan, Avatar of Envy, not one of his brothers or anyone else but just HIM, he accepted your love.

- Levi gathered all of his very little confidence and went for a slight hug.

- In conclusion; this snek boy needs time, and a lot of reassurance to accept the truth and realize it's not a dream, you also love him.

Satan

- He was trying to retrieve one of the books he had lend you to study for your classes, but just before knocking on your door, he thought to himself to better do it tomorrow, it was already late and you were probably getting ready to sleep.

- That is, until he heard your giggling on the other side.

- "But, tell me, what is it about Wrath that you love so much?"

- Satan was confused and intrigued, what's this conversation about? Obviously, something about him, so he's going to listen.

- "First of, he is not Wrath, I mean Satan is the Avatar of Wrath, but he is not just Wrath, at all. He is so much more than that, he is his own person with his own feelings and thoughts, even more so than we are, because he has lived for thousands of years. He knows so much about a lot of things that are completely beyond my comprehension, but he always manages to make them reachable for my limited mind. I love how he can go from being a pain in Lucifer's ass to a soft and doting cat dad, the way he loses himself into compelling detective novels. I got it bad for him"

- Satan was speechless. His brows raised almost up until his hairline.

- He felt a pleasant warmth spreading through his body, did you really thought of him that way?

- Oh, boy, was he blushing, he even brought a hand to his face to cover from any non existent prying eyes.

- He heard you shuffling around in your room, so he decided to retreat to his own, already planning his confession as he was walking away in the hallway.

- That night, Satan wrote you a poem, an essay and a ode to you. He tried to portray his feelings, but he also felt something was missing and he cracked his head all night searching for it. He redid everything over and over again, looking for more beautiful, deeper words to describe the extent to his love for you.

- However, Satan fell asleep on top of all the manuscripts and drabbles of his "failures", and the next morning guess who was asked to go and fetch the blond demon for breakfast?

- Ok, could've been anyone, but for the sake of this HC, it was you, ok?

- So, you went, and knocked, and waited, and called for him, and knocked again, but nothing. So you enter through his surprisingly unlocked door, and found him sound asleep. And it was such an endearing sight, you just couldn't force yourself to disturb him.

- However, you did tried to cover him with a blanket from his bed and obviously (this is also for the sake of this HC) he woke up at the feeling of foreign touch.

- When he saw you, it clicked on him the thing he was missing for his confession.

- Eye contact.

- Satan jumped to his feet, held your hands, and declared his love for you with a deep blush in his cheeks, a little stuttering in his words, but so much honesty and passion in his green eyes, you were lost.

- In conclusion, Satan would try to make a romantic confession but he would ultimately just convey his feelings in a heart melting, brain wrecking monologue, you can't do nothing but love him even more.

If there's any grammar or spelling mistake I apologize, english is not my first language, and I would appreciated if you could kindly point it out for me so I can get better

Thank you for reading.

Atte. Evie

A/N: Part 2 is up! If you want to be tagged in it just ask me & I'll be delighted to.

Have a wonderful day/night and stay safe!

Tag list:

@anonymous-hq

#obey me shall we date #obey me headcanons #obey me lucifer #obey me mammon #obey me leviathan #obey me satan #lucifer x mc #mammon x mc #mammon simp #leviathan x mc #satan x mc #obey me fluff

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hexpea · 2 years

Text

Ch. 14 - Separate

⚠MILD NSFW BELOW⚠

When you got home, you immediately shut yourself in your bedroom - just wanting to separate yourself as much as possible. You didn't buy Gojo's lame excuse for one minute.

You knew exactly what he said, but whether or not it was a spur of the moment thing you couldn't decide. Instead, you wanted to go with the benefit of the doubt: he was just so overwhelmed by good sex that that was all he could think to say. He doesn't love me, he loves my pussy, you thought simply - as funny as that sounded. Even if that was the truth, your truth, you couldn't help but replay it in your mind involuntarily. It sounded so good and made your heart and your body come alive. Each night, you struggled to fall asleep - only able to do so after touching yourself to the thought even though you felt so guilty and wrong. He'd never be able to settle down, he doesn't want that, you tried to convince yourself. Plus I have Nanami, who...as Gojo said...really is Mr. Perfect.

Meanwhile, Gojo was having quite the breakdown in his bedroom. He had his knees to his chest as he sat against a pillow, the TV glow the only thing in the room. Tears streamed down his cheeks as he recalled that moment in the car as well as many of the moments he shared with Geto. He didn't want to let him go, he couldn't. Loving someone else meant just that for him. Sex meant nothing to him ever since he lost Geto, but you...you changed that. He hadn't felt anything like what he had felt with Geto until that first night. Though it had been a true one night stand, he couldn't deny the sparks.

With time, things fell back into their normal routine again. You spent your weekday time at work, came home and went your separate ways. On the weekend, you'd each go to your own bar or club to keep out of one another's business. You and Gojo were on good terms and not getting on one another's nerves. It was as if that night in the car never happened. You had continued seeing Nanami for small dates and really started to get to know one another. You weren't "going steady" just yet, but things were starting to get a bit serious. Gojo, however, stayed Gojo and brought home new partners every few days, especially on weekends. Your apartment hunt was going well, too. You had been on a few tours and you settled between two different options. Ultimately, you were ready to sign a lease.

"So, where are you gonna' go tonight?" You asked from the kitchen while happily pouring yourself a glass of wine before getting ready for your outing. You were the only reason Gojo kept any form of alcohol in the flat.

"I don't think anywhere tonight," Gojo sighed from the sofa, clicking through channels on the television. "We added two new first years to the bunch recently, making the big total three!" He exclaimed sarcastically. "One of them's Sukuna's vessel, so that's a good time. It's been a long day, so I just want to relax into the weekend."

"Oh," you were shocked to hear such a thing coming from him. He'd always just been ready to party or go somewhere he could find someone he could bring home. "You know what?" You put the bottle down after finishing your pour. "I'll join you! It's been a minute since we've had some time to just relax on a weekend."

"Cool. Pizza?" He wondered, looking over at you with his arms draped over the back of the couch.

"Hell yeah," you grinned while carefully walking over with your tall glass.

Gojo ordered the pizza while you stole the remote and found something to watch. When the food arrived, you enjoyed good food and good conversation with him. When you weren't at each other's throats whether it be angrily or sexually, he was actually good company. You figured your time sleeping together was over - though you had thought that after the second time at that one restaurant - and that once you moved out you'd be able to remain friends.

"Oh yeah," you remembered, talking through a bite of pizza - the cheese specifically extending from your lips as if it were infinite. "I forgot to mention," the cheese successfully detached and slapped your chin, "I found an apartment! I'm scheduled to sign the lease on Monday." You sucked the cheese up and gave a cough as it almost went down your throat.

Gojo, too, began coughing on what he was chewing all thanks to your sudden news. "Wow, okay..."

"So, if you don't mind helping me move..." you trailed off. "All of my stuff's in storage, along with the furniture from my dad... I'll have to wait for it to be shipped from Kyoto, but then we'll be able to settle things."

"Sounds good," Gojo said simply, trying to hide his disdain. It's your fault, Gojo, you wanted her out. He mentally scolded himself, but he knew where he had to stand for his own mental pact.

As you took your last sips of the wine that you poured, your phone began to ring. You quickly set the glass down and answered right away, seeing that it was surprisingly Nanami.

"Hey," you blushed as you answered. Gojo sat still with a blank stare at the television. He couldn't hear your conversation, but knew exactly who it was by how you reacted. "Tonight? Right now? Well, I already ate but... Oh, that works! Okay!" You quickly hopped off the couch. "See you soon!"

"What's happening?" Gojo asked, smiling up at you as he enjoyed your excitement.

"Nanami's coming to pick me up in an hour," you said giddily while standing in the middle of the living room floor. "We're going out for dessert!"

"That's boring," Gojo smirked, "you made it out to be this over the top thing."

"Well...we've been talking a lot and we might make it official!" You squealed happily.

"Oh, that explains it," he finally gave a genuine smile, his tone its usual happy self. He had gotten fairly used to covering his emotions, especially because of what had happened over the past year.

"I've gotta' go get ready!" You nearly sprinted to your room.

You had been in quite a rush, hurrying to get ready in such a short time. It had sped by and you were still getting ready when Nanami arrived, Gojo answering the door instead of you. Nanami's small smile turned into a deep-set frown upon seeing his face.

"You here for Y/N?" He asked with his usual cocky grin while stepping aside so Nanami could enter.

"Why else would I be here?" Nanami sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose.

"Right, right...well look at you," Gojo looked him up and down, "all fancy...and no weird ass glasses!" He pointed at his face to which Nanami had to swat away.

"Enough," Nanami commanded in a cold, irritated tone.

"What? It's a compliment, take it!" Gojo shoved his hands in his pockets as you came on, leaning over while slipping on your last shoe.

"Hi, I'm here!" You smiled, finally being able to put your foot down and walked over to Nanami - lacing your arms around his neck.

"Hi," Nanami greeted lowly as you came back to look at him. You pressed a lingering kiss on his lips as Gojo stood by, that smile he had now gone as he patiently waited. "Ready to go?" He asked when you finally parted.

"Yeah, let's!" You grabbed his hand and began strolling out into the hallway. "Don't wait up, Gojo!"

"I won't," he said in a fake tone, slamming the door lazily after you had gone.

Gojo wasn't about to sit up and mope for the rest of the night. As soon as the door had shut he found a girl in his long list of contacts and called her up. After he finished the call, his eye caught the wine bottle you had left on the counter. It had been years since he touched the stuff, never being one for the taste and because he was a lightweight. He had the strangest urge to drink it just as he did the night Geto died. He was able to avoid it then, but the piled up stress was getting to him. And he did just that, gripping the bottle by the neck and downing it. The minute his partner arrived he wasted no time getting her to the bedroom. The two easily slipping around one another as the alcohol began to course through his veins.

"C'mon...take it out," the woman breathlessly begged while straddling him in her underwear. Gojo, too, was in his underwear as he sat underneath her.

"Yeah," he sighed with a fake smile on his face, hand reaching through the opening of his boxer briefs. The one problem: he couldn't get it up. He was completely soft.

"You okay?" She asked, seeing how he obviously was still soft. He had slowly began jerking himself, that perking it up a little. "You called me over here and you're not even horny?"

"I am, just give me a minute," he gave her an angry look from under the blindfold he still wore. He figured his lack of readiness was due to the alcohol that had made him start to see double.

Meanwhile, you sat a table with Nanami finishing your dessert - the waiter bringing a check over. The conversation had been pleasant though you felt like something was off. You could have sworn based off of previous exchanges that Nanami would have asked you to be his, but he had yet to ask.

"Y/N," Nanami started as he pulled out his wallet and set a few bills on the table. "I don't really know how to say this." He sighed, shoving the leather into his back pocket.

"Say...what?" Your voice dropped and so did your heart, right into your stomach. This doesn't sound good.

"I think we should stop seeing each other," he flattened his lips together and folded his hands on the tabletop.

"W-why? Things were going so well..." you mumbled, feeling your eyes start to fill with tears. It felt so embarrassing for this to be happening in the middle of a public place.

"They are..." Nanami reassured you quickly, "I just...don't seem to have it in me. You're very sweet and beautiful, truly, but I'm just...either not feeling it or just not ready."

"Oh," that was all you could say. You had to believe it, no way would Nanami be the type to cheat and dump you for someone else.

Nanami dropped you off outside of the flat and you ascended alone, holding back your tears as you got on the elevator and navigated throughout the building. It almost became too much as you slid the key card into its slot, eyes watering so badly that you could barely see the slot to begin with. As you entered, everything was still and dark. You flipped on the light switch only to begin to hear the subtle sighs coming from Gojo's bedroom. At least one of us got some tonight...

You defeatedly entered your bedroom and took everything off, slipping on something more comfortable. You allowed your emotions to show through, mind overwhelmed with the past several months, and let the tears freefall onto your cheeks. You found a position under your covers, silently crying in the dark while tightly clutching yourself. He didn't mean much to you yet, but the fact that you had recently lost your father added onto the stress of not feeling good enough. You thought that maybe if you had gotten into the profession, technique or no technique, you could've been there to save him.

The fact that you had to deal with listening to some random woman orgasming all over Gojo's dick didn't help matters. It simply made you jealous and horny on top of the sadness. You simply felt like a complete mess as your hands found their way into your bottoms with tears still falling onto your pillow. As much as you hated doing this, you allowed her sighs to guide your hand. Gojo was uncharacteristically quiet, only her high-pitched whines building over time. It went on for quite some time, too, eventually just stopping without any particular sign of climax. Unable to reach your own high, you just gave up and got out of bed to clean your hands - waiting until you heard the proper amount of door shutting and leaving first.

When you finished up, you found Gojo sitting on the sofa watching television with a bored look on his face, no blindfold - his bangs falling in his face as he frowned.

"You okay?" You asked, coming out with your arms crossed tight to hide your body.

"Yeah, just having a rough night," Gojo looked over at you with a sweet smile. "My dumbass decided to finish your wine. I should've known better."

"You actually decided to drink?" you gave a single laugh and walked a bit closer, just coming around to join him on the sofa.

"I do sometimes," Gojo pouted with a playful look on his face, "it just never ends well for me. I'm still feeling it."

"Sounds like you were really going at it in there, though," you used your head to motion back toward the bedroom.

"Oh," he rolled his eyes, "that. That wasn't as good as it probably sounded. Probably good for her, not so much me."

"Really?" You tried to hold back some laughter.

"Yeah, couldn't get it up and then when I finally could I couldn't even cum," he laughed at himself as your cheeks puffed out while holding back. "Go ahead, you can laugh. It's funny." He leaned toward you as he teased, you could smell the alcohol on his breath.

You finally let go, letting out the loudest laughter you had in a while. "Wow, that made me feel a lot better."

"Better? Dinner not go so good?" Gojo asked as you came down from your outburst.

You bit your bottom lip, not wanting to give a truthful answer. For some reason, you didn't want to feel defeated in front of Gojo - as if he'd tease you for being surprised for dumped by the most uptight sorcerer. "It wasn't what I expected," you answered semi-truthfully.

"I guess I could've guessed since you didn't bring him home," he smirked, looking at you without moving his head. "Guess it went pretty bad then if he didn't want to fuck you," he turned his head as you sat sadly next to him, "because I'd fuck you even if I were mad at you." The serious look in his eyes jolted your heart to life, you began to feel nervous.

"Is that supposed to be a compliment?" You scoffed, sitting up a bit straighter to cope with your sudden excitement.

"Up to you," he leaned toward you, still clearly feeling the effects of what he drank - which you knew to be not very much considering what was left in the bottle.

"Gojo," you leaned away but he kept coming closer until he was practically crawling over your body. "What are you doing?" You chuckled placing a hand on his chest as he hovered over you, his pupils small. You, too, certainly weren't completely denying of him.

"What do you want me to do?" He asked with a devilish smirk, the same smirk you recalled from your first few ventures. For a moment, he looked like the Gojo you first met. You were completely melted from his seduction, those blue eyes intensifying his stare. He leaned forward to your neck, feeling his tongue and his teeth begin to nip and suck at your flesh - his chest almost on your chest, his pelvis now brushing against your own. You still weren't pushing him away, debating on what would be the best option. You knew you shouldn't, you knew deep down what was happening - why you kept coming back to him for more...you just couldn't admit it.

"Fuck me..." you whimpered as the bumps on you skin rose, your back arching so your chest pushed to his.

"Hmm?" He came up to look at your lewd face, already blushing expectantly through low eyelids.

"Please...fuck me," you requested desperately, craning your neck so he'd come down once again.

36 notes · View notes

cobaincreates · 3 years

Text

touch

warnings: freshly served smut :), oral (male receiving), 18+

count: 4k+

this is part one & wow i really did that. taglist is totally open by the way! let me know what you think!

— — —

what the hell was it about veins sticking out of an arm that had you nearly drooling? they shouldn’t be so attractive, yet here you were in a deep trance thinking about licking the prominent flexing of them in a specific forearm. you supposed it was your brain sending a slew of chemicals through your body, making your heartbeat spread from your chest to your fingertips. the longer you stared at the tiny mounds, the quicker the thrum of your heart spread to your center. science wasn’t really your strong suit, so you didn’t dare try to knit pick the core reason you were feeling a little (very) hot (and bothered).

if you could push down with the pad of your thumb at the peak of the vein, you’d most likely be grossed out, but it’d be intriguing to see it bloom back to its original place. you’d feel the warmth underneath the buttery skin, maybe even feel the pulse of a heartbeat. god, what you’d give to just—

“y/n?”

you jerked, eyelids fluttering as you processed where you were and why sarah was holding a large bowl out to you. the contents were leafy greens with pops of orange and yellow peppers. a few cherry tomatoes poked from under the blanket of lettuce. right, you thought, dinner. on the cameron’s boat. where you’d been for the past seven hours.

“you okay?” she asked slowly as your hands moved to life to take the bowl from her.

“mhm,” you hummed and picked out a good amount of salad to have. you then placed the tongs back in the bowl and held it across the table. catching sight of those veins from earlier, you swallowed thickly and flicked your eyes to a very interesting pepper.

“thanks.” sarah’s brother said as he lifted the weight from your hands. you swallowed again and sat up straight as the sounds of silverware scooping from dishes continued. once everyone had what they wanted and a conversation had started, you dove into your salad like it was your last meal on earth.

you stole a few glances directly across from you, your eyes skimming over rafe’s skin under his light blue t-shirt. it wasn’t helping that he was moving, making the veins pop more whenever he used his muscles in his forearm. you busied yourself with your food and nearly choked when rafe caught your glance. you thought you were being sly and not obvious in your stare, but you caught a glimpse of that tiny little curve at the corner of his mouth as he chewed.

you’d known the camerons for some time now, thanks to your parents mingling once you moved to the island. you had sparked an instant joy to having sarah cameron as one of your best friends and you loved her so much that it hurt even worse when you finally met her older, very infamous brother. it was like you’d been struck by lightning. you were left with a sensation you couldn’t quite put your finger on. sometimes it felt like the jolts of electricity whenever you caught his eye.

you weren’t in love. you knew that much. you were just very, very attracted to rafe. a perfect example would be your ridiculous obsession with the veins in his arms. god, why were they so addicting?

“what are you girls up to tonight?” rose, sarah’s stepmother, questioned from beside you. you chewed the food in your mouth, not quite tasting it as you waited for sarah to answer. you honestly had no idea what you planned to do during your sleepover.

“probably junk food and rom-coms.” sarah answered easily.

you were fine with the suggestion; it was usually what you two did during sleepovers. sometimes you’d sneak out to meet your friends at the boneyard, but it had been months since the last kegger and you weren’t exactly fond of the memory. maybe sarah would ditch you for a secret rendezvous with john b again, which would leave you in her room all by yourself. you could imagine yourself spread out on her floor, listening for soft shuffles in the hallway, and looking for rafe to come through the door. you shifted in your seat, coming back to reality on the cameron boat.

“when are we heading back?” wheezie asked, looking at ward at the head of the table.

“are we boring you?” rafe asked, causing your attention to shift from the youngest cameron to the oldest. and sexiest.

“i have plans tonight and to be honest, i'd much rather be anywhere but here.”

“you weren’t dragged on the boat. you had a choice to come just like any of us.” sarah said.

you looked at her then gauged wheezie’s reaction. she just sighed and sank into her seat. you pushed around a few noodles from the pasta salad rose had made earlier this morning.

“we’ll head out as soon as everyone is done.” ward said, reaching over to pat wheezie on the back of the hand.

sarah, wheezie, rafe, and you were on cleanup duty while ward prepped the boat to head back to tannyhill. you stacked all the dishes and brought them over to sarah at the sink in the makeshift kitchen. wheezie was on drying duty, leaving rafe to take care of the leftovers and cover all of the dishes back up. you watched for a moment as he picked up one of the dishes that was nearly empty and threw the rest out in the trash. you held your hands out for it to bring to sarah and he smiled at you.

“rafe!” you looked up at the sound of ward’s voice floating from above then over at rafe. “come up here please!”

rafe brushed his hands off on his thighs and moved around the table. “can you cover the rest?”

“sure.” you nodded and reached across the table for the pasta salad. a hot warmth appeared on your waist as rafe brushed past you, his hand touching your skin. you swallowed as the contact sent a whole heatwave through you and watched his back as he walked out onto the lower deck, his shirt brightening under the sun. going back to covering the food up, you turned around to bring them to rose who brought over the cooler. just as you did, you realized that rafe touching you had no correlation between needing to get by. he had perfectly enough space to do so in the dining area and kitchen. nothing was blocking his way.

—

“i'm really upset that i didn’t get to witness rob lowe in the 80s in person. like, really upset.” sarah whined with her hands over her eyes.

“he had no right with that hair and that stupid earring.” you said, arms crossed with a pout on your face.

“and that jumpsuit!” you both cried in unison then laughed loudly. st. elmo’s fire had been a whirlwind of emotions, strictly from rob lowe’s appearance. it just wasn’t fair to be born so late.

“okay,” sarah said as she snuggled further under her covers. “i'm exhausted.”

“no follow up with the outsiders?”

“say hi to rob lowe for me. night.” she said and turned onto her side with her back to you. the tv was still rolling the credits before you stopped it and got out of her bed to change the discs. you weren’t ready to sleep just yet. maybe seeing dally would coax you to dream of greased up characters played by actors who were now twice your age.

given that it was only eleven, it was too early for sarah to be going to sleep. usually she was all for staying up until three and munching on popcorn or playing a board game with dice. you knew she was only falling asleep early because john b had texted her about an early morning date he wanted to take her on. it was so disgustingly cute how quickly she wanted to sleep after reading his words. so while she fell asleep, you tried to focus on ponyboy and his dyed blonde locks instead of the veiny-armed off-limits cameron across the hall.

obviously, you failed. by the time it was nearing two and you already turned the tv off, you still weren’t tired. the ceiling wasn’t moving closer to you or providing any interesting details as you continued to stare up at it. your heart beat rhythmically throughout your body as you thought about the instance of rafe touching you today. you closed your eyes and felt his warm hand on your waist again, but then you felt it moving all over you. sarah made a small noise in her sleep as rafe’s hand was gliding over your stomach.

your eyes opened, his hand disappearing, and a huff leaving your lips. you looked toward sarah’s door, shut tight and separating you from her family, from her brother. you covered your eyes and rolled away from your sleeping best friend. you peeked through your fingers, looking where you last placed your phone and debating on sending an innocent text. maybe you could pretend you meant to send it to someone else. but maybe rafe would find it weird since you didn’t have a texting history with him. no, it would be too obvious.

rubbing your face, you sighed again and sat up. you needed a drink of water. the glass that sat beside you was empty from earlier and you and sarah had exhausted all the stashed drinks from your earlier preparations.

closing her door quietly behind you so you wouldn’t wake her, or anyone for that matter, you breathed a little easier and found your way to the stairs. about three steps down, you noticed a faint light from the ground floor, but you guessed it was a nightlight just in case anyone like you came down, looking for a snack or drink.

the tiled floor was crisply cold under your feet, sending a shiver up your bare legs and eliciting goosebumps on all exposed skin. you wound your arms across your chest for some semblance of warmth.

the chill you felt two seconds ago reappeared as you entered the large kitchen and found the source of the light coming from the fridge. it wasn’t a nightlight like you thought.

rafe stood there illuminated by the light, very shirtless and sweatpants hanging very low on his hips. you swallowed as you watched him munching on something.

“hey,” you whispered quietly so you wouldn’t scare him.

he looked over, stopping mid-bite. “hey. you okay?”

“yeah. just came to get some water.” you held the glass up as proof and stepped carefully to the sink installed in the island. rafe had a slew of condiments spread out on the countertop and you glanced over them curiously as you filled the glass. he had made himself a sandwich, the other half not in his hand sitting on a plate beside you. just as you turned the water off, his hand appeared and slid the plate over.

“you hungry?”

turning slightly and placing your hip against the island, you knew you needed something to lean on from the way he looked right now. as if you hadn’t just been thinking about him upstairs, it all came rushing back.

“don’t you want it?” you asked, taking a shaky sip from the glass.

rafe shook his head and swallowed his next bite. “i'd rather you eat it if you’re hungry.”

you looked away from him and picked up the sandwich, taking a small bite. rafe reached into the fridge and pulled out the pasta salad. fishing for a fork from the silverware drawer beside you, he leaned his elbows on the island and pierced a few noodles. you looked away from the muscles in his shoulders and took another bite in silence.

“it was nice having you on the boat today.” rafe said without prompt. you stopped chewing as you gauged his expression. “did you have fun?”

it was difficult to answer when he was looking at you as if you looked stunning in a tank top and sleep shorts. it was two in the morning. you should’ve been sleeping. but your heart leapt at his question.

“i did.” you nodded once you swallowed the next bite. you then thought about his hand on your waist and felt those shivers all over again like someone had opened a door behind you, letting the wintriest winter air in.

you decided on one more bite even though you weren’t hungry at all and now you were feeling rather nauseous with the way your stomach was rolling and leaping and doing all kinds of things. all the while, your heart started to beat louder in your chest. your fingers pulsed. rafe pushed off the counter, trapping the fork in between his lips to hold as he closed the container and put it back in the fridge. it was darker once he closed it, taking away any light so you couldn’t watch him as closely.

but once your eyes adjusted, you watched rafe come closer. you pressed yourself up against the counter, knowing that he needed to get to the sink when he took the fork from his mouth. you picked up your glass, taking a generous gulp. the water failed to distract you as rafe’s hand appeared on your hip, his chest brushing against you as he put the fork in the sink. your skin was totally exposed to his since your tank top had ridden up. you let out a shaky breath into the glass, your eyes closing momentarily until his hand disappeared and he stood next to you.

“why do you keep doing that?” you asked, your voice shaking a bit but you hoped he didn’t notice.

“doing what?” he busied himself with cleaning up the countertop. you stared at his back as he opened the fridge again.

“touching me.” you said. he turned to grab the packaged cheese, opening the drawer to drop it into. it annoyed you that he wasn’t paying attention or giving you all of his attention. “you’re either doing it just because or you’re trying to tell me something.”

rafe closed the fridge and gave you a questioning look. “you don’t touch people, rafe,” you clarified.

“how are you so sure?”

you wanted to groan about him playing dumb with you. why couldn’t he just tell you?

“because i've known you for a while now, at least i think i do, and i've never once seen you touch someone else.” rafe picked up the dish with your half the sandwich on it and tossed it into the trash. you stepped back so he could reach into the sink to leave the plate there. “so, what is it?”

“isn’t it obvious?” he questioned, frustrating you even further. you were getting confused, getting off track of trying to figure him out. you wanted to pull at your hair. why did he have to be mysterious all of the sudden?

“what do you want from me?” you questioned, hoping you’d get to the bottom of it. sure, you had ideas of what his answer would be, but you weren’t going to do anything until he told you himself.

your mouth nearly dropped open when he took your glass and downed a long sip. becoming angry, you reached up and took the glass from him, splashing a bit of water on his face from the sudden movement. he held in a laugh, water still in his mouth.

the grin fell from his face as you wedged yourself between him and the countertop. you knew you’d only done it out of frustration from his lack of answer. he was driving you crazy. rafe stared down at you, moving his hips away from yours very noticeably while his hands found your waist for extra measure. you looked at him almost daringly, trying to egg him on.

when he stayed put on his decision not to say much, you found your hands appearing over top of his. they were warm on your waist and under your palms. the hammer of your pulse started to feel like a cartoon character was taking a mallet and whacking as fast as they could to your insides.

you couldn’t describe how it felt touching rafe’s forearms finally after stressing over them hours earlier. if you had stayed a little while longer, you might have felt his own pulse through the vein. instead, you wanted to learn the contours of his biceps all the way up to his shoulders.

“this would be a lot easier if you just told me what you wanted.” you whispered like you’d done when you first walked into the kitchen.

rafe’s fingers dug a little deeper into your skin and his hips hovered over yours like they weren’t even there. you swallowed thickly and watched your fingers run down his chest, his torso that flexed faintly you thought you missed it like missing a sunset change color. rafe stayed still even as you traced his jutting hipbone down into his sweats. you lifted your eyes to his, finding his lips parted and slick. you licked at your own, watching his eyes never leave your face as you felt him through the fabric of his pants. he let out a shaky breath. his hips moved ever so slightly.

you stroked him once, painstakingly slow from the soft lift of his eyebrows. his eyes nearly slipped closed when his forehead sank to yours. it was as if he was so weak, he couldn’t stand to be touched. it made the mallet in your chest hammer harder.

the second time you stroked over him, tightening your grip a little, rafe let out a noise and shook his head softly against yours.

“what?” you prompted.

rafe removed a hand from your waist to catch your wrist. “not here.” he squeezed out and pulled away reluctantly before tugging you along.

you watched his back, taking in a few shaky breaths. you focused on controlling your breathing as he opened one of the french doors that led out onto the wrap-around porch. the air was cooler than the one you just shared with rafe. it was refreshing as it helped you relax. you heard a few chirps of the insects and the bloats from a few frogs somewhere closer to the marsh.

rafe led you over to the patio furniture. he sat down in one of rose’s white wicker chairs, creaking under his weight. he tried to pull you with him but wasn’t expecting you to sink down to your knees in front of him. he sat up in confusion, his hands resting on your shoulders as he watched you reach for his sweatpants. you needed them to come off, or at least be pulled down. you needed to taste him.

rafe’s hands slipped from your shoulders as he leaned back so you could tug his pants down. you bit your lip rather harshly as the sight of him. the whacking continued and sounded louder in your ears. you wanted to cry out of joy and laugh ridiculously at the vein running up the underside of him. you had to swallow to control the salivating, like a kid anticipating chocolate cake for breakfast.

the moon wasn’t even out, but you could see rafe’s arousal on his tip. you reached for it, wrapping your hand around him like a blanket. rafe heaved a breath.

“is this what you wanted?” you asked him, running your thumb over him and collecting the warm liquid.

rafe groaned. “oh, fuck. yes.”

you rubbed his thigh as your other hand moved over him slowly. the hairs tickled under your palm as you brought it all the way up and settled over his hip. you rubbed your thumb over him again, eyeing that vein that seemed to be taunting you now. rising higher on your knees, you looked up at rafe’s expectant and waiting gaze.

“tell me, rafe.”

you drew your lips between your teeth, waiting patiently for him to speak. he looked down at you between his legs and held back a moan as your hand moved over him. “i want you to suck my dick. fuck,” he panted in anticipation. “i want those pretty lips wrapped around me. please.”

you breathed in deeply with excitement, careful not to show it so you didn’t blow your cover of how badly you’d been wanting to do this. would he think it was ridiculous?

lowering your face closer, you dragged your hand to the base of him and pressed a kiss to his tip. you coated your lips with his arousal and wondered if he was coming undone at the seams. what did you look like, between his knees, on your own? you saw his hands reaching to grip the armrests at the precise moment you stuck your tongue out, finally tasting him. it was an innocent lick, probably showcasing just how anxious you were to have him in your mouth. but once you had that initial first taste, you were gone.

“oh, fuck.” he repeated, his chest heaving. you licked him again then traveled down the length of him in open-mouthed kisses. feeling that vein against your lips sent a large wave of shivers to your core. you hummed in delight to yourself without realizing until rafe’s hand appeared over yours on his hip. catching his eye at the right moment, you tilted your head upright, flattened your tongue on the underside of him, and licked all the way up that delicious vein. rafe’s face screwed up in agony, but you weren’t even done yet.

taking his tip between your lips, you applied the slightest bit of pressure. you swirled your tongue, moving your hand around him at the same time. “shit,” he said as his hips flinched off the chair in return, rutting into your mouth further. his fingers appeared at the side of your head, pushing into your hair. “fuck, baby, keep going.”

you did as he said, closing your eyes and willing yourself not to choke. you were unsuccessful as you gagged and recoiled off of him.

“go slow,” he coaxed and loosened his hold on your hair. your cheeks began to burn from the embarrassment. rafe rubbed soothingly into your scalp. you tried to relax; you didn’t want to stop now just because you couldn’t take all of him. you breathed through your nose and concentrated on taking him slowly. you took a little past his tip, sucking your lips around him. the second time, you took a little more and licked back up that vein.

“good girl,” he praised, reminding you that he was there and that you were doing okay. the phrase alone sent ripples down your spine.

minutes later with rafe’s grip on your hair not hurting anymore, he rutted his hips and pushed himself into your mouth. you took him, quite surprised at your ability to do so, but it felt good.

“y/n, i'm gonna come.” he gasped. the new opportunity had you rolling with determination as you moved your mouth over him. he groaned louder and for the first time, you thought about his sleeping family inside. god, what if you were caught? what if someone had already heard everything?

the possibility edged you on to go faster, to make rafe explode into your mouth. you then thought about tasting him, all of him, about how you’d have him in your system. it seemed weird almost, but you didn’t care as you listened to him coming undone beneath you and felt his fingers in your hair. he swore left and right just before you made your own noise, surprised, when he finally did come undone. he spilled into your mouth, coating your tongue. you slowed your movements over him, helping him through his high as his chest heaved.

you sank back onto your legs once you parted from him. you licked your lips, swallowing, and wiped the corner of your mouth. it was almost criminal the way you had the dark to hide your grin, like it was an accomplice. you looked up at rafe still lounged in the chair and felt another heatwave at the sight of him glistening in his lap. what you wouldn’t give to have another go.

“fuck.” he sighed to himself once he caught his breath. “where are you going?”

you looked down at him when you stood, adjusting your shorts. when you saw how he was looking up at you, you wanted to do everything you could to just crawl into his lap and stay there, to have the sun never come up. instead, you knew tomorrow had to come. “to bed. i'm tired.”

for a second, you pleaded with the universe to have him ask you to sleep with him. you wanted to walk upstairs hand-in-hand and close yourselves in his bedroom. you wanted to lay down under his covers, to have him touch you until the sun came up. but you knew you couldn’t risk that all in one night. you could wait, only if he wanted to.

⭐️taglist of beauties & babes!⭐️

@tovvaa @fttayla @dontjinx-it @moniamaybank @drewstarkeygf @cheshirecat107 @jjmaybankzz @obxcunt @honeyyhemmings @dvakat @macey730 @twinklelilstarkey @disrecpectful @prettylilwolf-blog @jjcanloveme

#rafe cameron #rafe cameron x reader #outer banks #rafe cameron imagine #rafe cameron smut #rafe cameron oneshot #rafe cameron obx #rafe cameron x fem!reader

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nonbinary-ghost · 4 years

Text

A Conversation Between Vessel and Wyrm

So, I know I’ve never posted my writing here before but this scene has been playing in my head for days and I just need to share it. The premise is based on @chipper-smol ‘s shitlordAU where Ghost somehow goes back it time to when they and the Pure Vessel were kids, and decide to absolutely torment their Father in between finding a way to kill the Radiance. It’s such a fantastic AU rife with opportunities for both humor and angst. Anyone who reads this should totally check out chipper’s work!

(This turned out longer than expected: ~2700 words, so the rest is under the Keep Reading tab)

Ghost leaned back and tilted their head to the side, observing their painting with a critical eye. The corridor in which they worked was dark, but the barest glow of the occasional lumifly that flitted about the palace halls provided just enough light for Ghost to be able to make out the dark lines of ink they had scrawled across the white wall. They nodded to themself in approval. The painting, while quite sloppy, could at least be recognized as the Pale King with monstrously exaggerated teeth and a grotesque tongue. They rubbed their chin thoughtfully, unwittingly getting some of the black ink on their mask, as they pondered if there was something more they could add to the painting to make it even less flattering.

Their current prank was one outside of Ghost’s typical inclinations. Until the Queen had begun to teach Ghost to write, they never held much interest for anything to do with a brush and ink. They had found Sheo’s art beautiful or interesting certainly, and they marveled at the skill with which the retired nailmaster could wield a brush – but such things never appealed to Ghost. There had been so much they needed to do at the time that learning about art seemed unnecessary. But now that they were learning to write, Ghost realized that art could be used to communicate just as much as words, and the motions of painting were somewhat easier for them than the neat script they were attempting to master. Sheo hadn’t lied when he said the strokes of a brush were not unlike the strokes of a nail, and Ghost had found they enjoyed the act of creating something that others could see and understand.

This particular painting was not their best, but it wasn’t intended to be. It was intended to stir up the Knights and bother the Pale King, to prove yet again that Ghost could think and feel – and to illustrate how they felt about the King.

Ghost didn’t notice the approaching bug until the shadow eclipsed the faint lumifly light they were using to paint by. Ghost froze as the shadow slipped over them. Their shoulders tensed as they prepared for the cold hand of a Kingsmould to grip the collar of their cloak, or a loud scolding from Dryya. When neither came, Ghost dared a hesitant glance over their shoulder. Shock rang through them like a stag-bell when they found not a Kingsmould, nor one of the Five Knights behind them.

It was the Pale King.

Ghost went ridged, half prepared to bolt and debating if doing so was worth the effort. Their painting was meant to be discovered after all, and it would never have been any question by whose hands the crude caricature had been created. But the King’s gaze focused not on the guilty Vessel standing before him. Rather, he appeared to be studying Ghost’s painting, his secondary hands clasped behind his back and while his primary ones rested in the wide sleeves of his robe. The Pale King’s unusually calm demeanor unnerved Ghost and they slowly turned to face the Wyrm, their hand almost instinctively reaching for the reassuring hilt of a nail that was no longer there.

“A remarkable likeness.” When not raised in anger the Pale King’s voice was almost as melodious as the White Lady’s. Ghost cocked their head enough to glance between their painting and the King in disbelief. The painting, while recognizable as the King by the crown-like horns, was by no means a “remarkable likeness” to the actual subject. Ghost had deliberately made the painting as messy and obnoxious as possible. Perhaps sensing Ghost’s disbelief, the King unclasped a secondary hand from behind his back and raised it toward the painting.

“I imagine that this is how you must see me,” he murmured. “I cannot truthfully say it is all that far from accurate.”

Before Ghost could process the meaning of the King’s words, the Pale Wyrm finally turned his gaze on them. The weight of that unwavering attention felt like a heavy pressure against Ghost’s shell and they found themself tensing, feeling as if the Pale King was staring right into them. It was unusual for the King to actually look at Ghost without some other distraction dividing his attention – distractions Ghost typically crafted – and they weren’t certain they liked the scrutiny of the King’s abrupt interest in them. Despite the fact that Ghost now stood taller than the King, they felt suddenly small.

“Vessel-“ he began, but stopped before the word fully left his mouth. He gave an almost imperceptible shake of his head. “Ghost. If I may have a word with you somewhere more comfortable?”

So startled by the Pale King’s use of their name and the phrasing of the request as a question rather than an order, Ghost found themself nodding yes without really considering the consequences. They followed the Wyrm with their thoughts swimming. This was not the kind of response they had come to expect from the King – anger, yes, shouting, almost certainly. But this calm, quiet passivity left Ghost uneasy and they struggled not to fiddle with the hem of their cloak as they walked behind the King, following him down corridor after corridor. As they walked, Ghost began to notice that the pale white light that the king always seemed to give off was much fainter than they remembered. Perhaps the Wyrm was suppressing the glow to avoid disturbing any sleeping bugs whose rooms they passed.

With a final turn the two of them entered a veranda that overlooked a vast garden glowing bright with thousands of lumiflies – no doubt one of the Queen’s creations, though Ghost didn’t recall ever coming to this particular garden with their mother. The King gracefully lifted himself up to sit upon the short wall that separated the tiled veranda from the garden, his wings flaring slightly to aid his balance. Ghost stared, uncertain of what to do. They were fine with breaking formalities for the sake of rebellion, but at the moment the King was adhering to no formalities for Ghost to go against. It made them feel strangely directionless. They fidgeted. They didn’t like this feeling. The King lifted a secondary hand to gesture to the space beside him, keeping his primary hands nestled in the sleeves of his robes.

“Would you care to sit with me?”

Ghost rocked forward to oblige but halted before even taking a step, instead crossing their arms over their chest and staring at the Pale King expectantly. While they could not fathom what all of this was about, they could clearly sense there was something specific the King wanted to say. Ghost waited and the King sighed, turning his head to look out over the garden.

“It has come to my attention that you have begun spending some time with the Pure Vessel.”

Ghost didn’t move. So what if they had? Pure was not some hollow thing, no matter how much they pretended to be in order to appease their Father. Ghost knew the Knights went to great lengths to keep the two siblings away from each other, but that didn’t mean Ghost didn’t seek Pure out from time to time. When they were alone, Pure sometimes even relaxed a little, and showed sparks of interest in the language of hand-signs Ghost was crafting with the Queen. Their meetings were few and far between, as Pure’s life was strictly regimented and Pure would never go against something they were told to do, but their meetings had been occurring with more frequency after the sparing match Ghost had instigated.

“This cannot be permitted.”

Indignation sparked through Ghost and they clenched their hands against their folded arms. The Pale King let out a long breath and turned on the wall to face them, his expression unreadable.

“I must admit, was wrong about you.”

Ghost stared, their anger faltering somewhat. Making their hands into fists, Ghost held them up in front of their chest with their thumbs pointed toward themself. With a quick twist of their right fist, Ghost pointed their right thumb upwards. The motion meant “how” – in what way was the King wrong about them. Ghost wasn’t sure if the King knew any of the signs they used with their Mother, but it was what they had. The King at least continued as if he understood the motion.

“You were never hollow – only a fool would watch your mayhem and attempt to claim otherwise. For a time, I have ridiculed myself for allowing you to remain here with the Pure Vessel. I believed you should have been removed.”

The King’s gaze had shifted down to stare at his primary hands resting in his lap. Ghost could see, now, that they were stained a dark black that stood out starkly against his silver robes. A black so deep and bottomless it looked like it would leech the light out of the room around it. A black so similar to the void of which Ghost was made … Ghost went cold as they suddenly comprehended what the Pale King was implying – that they should have been killed. Discarded into the abyss. The King shifted and Ghost dropped into a defensive stance as their whole body trembled with sudden fear, once again reaching for the hilt of a nail that was no longer there. But the King only lifted his head to meet Ghost’s eyes.

“It was wrong of me to believe that.” He paused only long enough to take a deep breath before continuing. “You are a sentient being, very full of life and will, with a personality all your own. To believe that I have any right to take that from you is a crime against everything I have built Hollownest around. And to see the way my Root adores you … how could I ever take you away from her?”

The raw honesty in the Pale King’s voice made Ghost hesitantly stand from the half crouch they’d fallen into. He…cared? He cared that Ghost could feel? Enough so for it to stay his hand in killing them, when he’d never hesitated with all of their lost kin in the abyss far below? Why? Was it because he knew without a doubt that Ghost was not hollow, and could not delude himself into thinking otherwise as he had with the others? Or was it because the Queen had taken a liking to Ghost and going against her wishes would cause strife between them? Ghost almost didn’t hear the King’s next words, but at the mention of Pure their attention was quickly pulled back to the Pale King.

“But the Pure Vessel is a different matter. It has a purpose – one whose success or failure will determine the fate of every bug in Hollownest.” The tentative hope spurred by the King’s acknowledgment of Ghost’s sentience vanished as the King continued to speak, and unease began to worm its way through Ghost’s chest. “You are not hollow, of this there is no doubt, but the Pure Vessel must remain as such if it is to succeed. The more you are around it, the more likely it is to begin to feel. If it sees the leniency with which you are treated, it may begin to develop a will of its own, and all of the sacrifices made to protect this kingdom will have been for naught. You must stay away from the Pure Vessel to preserve that hollowness for which it was created.”

Rage thundered through Ghost at the King’s words and they sharply signed “You are wrong”. Pure had never been hollow. The King’s plan had already failed, doomed from the very beginning, and Ghost refused to let their sibling go through that suffering again. That was the whole reason they were here – to stop the radiance before their sibling was sacrificed, before Hollownest fell to ruin. The King blinked at the venom in Ghost’s movements as their hands flittered through the signs for disgust, for being too late, for refusal. They were too angry to keep the motions smooth and they shook as that fiery emotion pounded through them. Even if the King could not understand all of the motions, the message was clear: They refused to stay away from Pure.

The Pale King’s brow pinched in anger and his wings flared slightly.

“There is no other way to keep Hollownest safe,” he rumbled, his voice tight with controlled anger, but Ghost shook their head. The King’s hands clenched into fists. “We have tried everything else. Without something to contain the Radiance and Her infection, Hollownest will fall and every bug in the Kingdom will be corrupted. I cannot doom the entirety of my people to an existence of mindless misery for the sake of any one bug. If you continue to interfere with the Pure Vessel, you will condemn everyone in Hollownest to a living death. Surely you must understand this! I know you are not blind – you have been outside of the palace, you have almost certainly seen those the Radiance has already corrupted.”

The Pale King had no idea just how much suffering Ghost had seen at the hands of the Radiance’s infection. The memory of Pure’s eyes filled with the yellow light of the Radiance swam up and Ghost recoiled as they remembered the wretched agony in their sibling’s motions as they turned their nail on themself, trying to cut the infection away. No. The King could not possibly understand just how much Ghost knew about the pain the spreading infection caused. They shook their head, feeling oddly ill as they clenched their trembling hands into fists at their sides in their sign for “I’m done speaking to you”. They turned sharply and moved to leave the veranda.

“If there was any other way, I swear to you I would take it,” the Pale King whispered to Ghost’s back, his voice soft with some kind of emotion. Regret? “But I cannot See any other path that will slow the Infection’s spread.”

Ghost straightened, spinning to meet the King’s gaze with a furious glare. Of course he could not know of any other way. He was looking at this problem from a completely different angle than Ghost. He was trying to find a way to slow the infection, to contain it, while simultaneously trapping and starving the Radiance in a Vessel of Void. He could See no way to remove the infection at its source. Ghost realized that while the Pale King had a measure of Foresight, his Sight must be limited to the scope of the knowledge he already possessed. He did not know of the Seer, of the Dreamnail, of Godseeker. He could not fight the Radiance directly, not without a way to enter Dream and face the enraged Goddess, and so he was attempting to defeat her in this roundabout manner. Did he know his doomed plan would ultimately fail, but believe it to be the only way to buy his people time?

“You are wrong,” Ghost signed, pointing at the king and lifting their thumb and pinky in a gesture under their chin. They then closed their fist and pointed their thumb to the side before using both hands to imitate the sides of a path: “There is another way.”

The King’s brow furrowed and he shook his head.

“I do not understand.”

Ghost opened and closed their fists at their sides in frustration. Even if the King could understand their signs, Ghost did not have the gestures for the ideas they would need in order to convey their plan to the Pale King. Their anger cooled somewhat, shifting to a steady burn in the pit of their being rather than the all-consuming fury that had raged through them not moments before, and they realized that if they could find a way to explain their plan to the King, he might help them find the Seer. If he knew there was another way, would he help them do it?

“I don’t have the words to explain,” Ghost signed by drawing a finger over their throat. They held up their index fingers a little ways apart, then made an ‘L’ with their right hand, pressing their thumb into their raised left palm and twisting their right hand so the ‘L’ was upside down: “I will tell you later.”

They did not wait for the king to respond before turning and storming out of the veranda, their mind ablaze.

The Pale King could not See that there was another way.

So Ghost would make him See.

#hollow knight #Ghost hk #Pale King HK #my writing #this ended up more serious than intended but it was sooooo much fun to write

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i-mybrunettelady · 2 years

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I don't feel like asking anything specific but I felt like sending an ask. Ren appreciation hour? :3

Ren appreciation hour it is! For your trouble, here's Inquisition!Ren I perfected today and that I absolutely love

Secondly, I wanna talk about names, because names are important and I wanna start by writing this:

Abaddon is formless, but she sees him anyway, blessed by him as she is. He lingers there, a curious gaze set on her, studying her face, her perfected face, a face that has felt like home for years but one she wasn't born with.

"What is your name?" he asks, patiently. The world can wait, it would seem - the god of secrets wants to know what is the name of an insignificant human woman.

Strangely enough, she isn't nervous, nor does she feel defensive. You can't lie to the god of secrets. Instead, she embraces the unique chance of total and complete honesty and replies, "I believe some people are meant to have more than one name."

Vera and Renira are two separate people. Ren doesn't identify as Vera, in the crudest possible sense of that word, anymore. When referring to Vera, she talks about someone who she is close to, who she knew intimately, but she doesn't talk about herself.

Instead, and it's taken her years to figure this out, through the fog of one hell of an identity crisis, Vera doesn't have a future and Renira doesn't have a past. Strictly, legally speaking, Vera Bellenne-Svetovid is dead, she even has a grave, and the formative years of Renira Sulver, a young child indeed born in Triskell Quay, are unknown to anyone after the Sulver family moved out there more than 20 years ago (truth is that she too is dead, and Ren knows this.)

Ren sees this as her giving a new life to two dead girls - one who borrowed her body and one who borrowed her name - and who gave way to a totally separate individual from each of them. She doesn't talk about her childhood, except for few fabricated memories (a "brother, mother and father she doesn't keep in contact with anymore") because she doesn't have any. To her closest people, she references Vera, but never says, "I was Vera and this happened to me." She speaks as if Vera told her all of this and that's how it feels. She's angry at Kryta on Vera's behalf because there is no Vera to be angry at it anymore.

The past may be Vera's, but the future is safe in Ren's hands and she will not squander it. (There's also a thing about Ren considering Vera to be the only person she can't ever disappoint in life simply because of this.)

And a fun fact to leave you with - her codename for the Elona harem undercover job was Reem, which means red in Elonian and is a nickname her gf calls her by still <3

#gw2 #gw/dai #renira sulver #nero's artsy corner #a pro-tip for you guys #when something feels off on a character's face always think the nose is the suspect #because the way nose looks can seriously fuck up how you view the whole face #i spent an embarrassing amount of time trying to figure out what was wrong #and it was the NOSE #which is ironic on ren because she has had multiple nosejobs #but yeah. a lil pro tip.#enjoy my fancy lesbeeb

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sapphire374 · 3 years

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Soy Sol: Chapter 11 (The Cut that Burrows Deep)

Wattpad Link

Ch.1 / Ch.2 / Ch.3 / Ch.4 / Ch.5 / Ch.6 / Ch.7 / Ch.8 / Ch.9 / Ch. 10 / Ch.12 / Ch.13 / Ch.14 / Ch.15 / Ch.16 / Ch.17

Ámbar feels like every step she takes, the more she can feel her heartbeat. It’s like she’s carrying it in her arms with nothing to guard it, out in the open alone. She opens the cold rusted handle of the entrance to the restaurant. There she is, her biological mom trembling while drinking a glass of water. Ámbar sums up all the courage inside her and takes the chance to approach her. When she grabs the seat in front of her, Sylvania can’t help but stare in shock. “Wow Ámbar, you truly have grown.” Ámbar may have brought all her walls down for the people she loves, but she puts them back up with this stranger.

“You can’t say that since you were never there for me. That’s no fair,” Ámbar chided. Sylvania chokes up and avoids eye contact. “Look Ámbar, I now know after everything that has happened the big mistake I made, but at the time it felt like the best option for you. I was young and didn’t have the means nor felt ready to take care of a child. I thought Sharon would’ve been a better parental figure instead of a young girl like myself. I later on regretted it and that’s something I shall have to carry with me for the rest of my life.”

Ámbar grips onto her purse trying very hard to hold back all her tears. She wonders why did this lady chose Sharon specifically and why did Sharon try to keep it a secret for so long? “I understand you were young, but I know that’s not the whole story because I have memories being in a different house that was NOT Benson Mansion. You saw me, you knew me, and didn’t like me enough to keep me,” Ámbar rebuked. Sylvania is showing tears now, she’s choking up with every word as her hand trembles just to take a sip of water. “It wasn’t like that at all Ámbar. I tried, I really did try to see if I was capable of taking care of a child. I noticed my arms weren’t so comforting for you. Sometimes when you love someone, so much, you have to let them go because you care,” Sylvania responded. Ámbar doesn’t know whether to believe what she’s saying or not. She wishes she can get out of these tornadoes of lies that always come chasing her. She’s sick of it all. She wants the truth. Is that too much to ask for?

Silence crowds the room, they’re breathing the same air but can’t even look at each other. Sylvania speaks up again. “I know this feels hard to believe but why do you think I came back? It was for that reason, I thought Sharon would be a better parent than me and would take great care of you. I realized I was sadly wrong.”

“Sharon? Of all people? What made you think that a woman who put a place on fire because she was jealous of her own sister would be a perfect parent for a child? Do you know she never showed me affection or love? I had to learn it all on my own. She only showed any signs of care when she needed me part of her plan that only benefitted her. You left me to a person who only cares about themselves,” Ámbar fumed.

“It wasn’t like that at all. I had no idea about her being the cause of the Benson fire and she had already adopted you before that even happened. When I met her, she was a kind woman, I was friends with Lili from work, so I had already knew the family. I assumed that Sharon had a good heart just like Lili, even though she was seemingly different. The whole time I would interact with her, she was always nice and seemed to really want a child because she always felt alone. It all just felt fitting.” Ámbar is trying to put together all the puzzle pieces in her head with Sylvania’s story. Part of her doesn’t believe it but…. It does kind of make sense. For her it justifies nothing even though she has hope.

Before she gets up from her seat, she leaves a wad of cash. “Ámbar where are you going? We haven’t even ordered yet?” Sylvania asks. “I’m not feeling hungry anymore, here’s some money for dinner.” Ámbar heads out the door with no remnants behind other than the tears that fall to the floor.

Jam and Roller

“Eyyy amigo I’m so happy for the release of your new music video!” Gastón exclaims to Matteo. They’re both drinking smoothies while watching the Youtube countdown from Matteo’s phone. These are the special moments Matteo loves to share with Gastón since he’s always been his pal for the longest. He also loves sharing it with Luna too, but they sadly haven’t hit it off as well for a while. Matteo is hoping Gastón’s plan will work for the upcoming days.

Simón heads to their tables with a fresh batch of popcorn. “Wow, how exciting! It’s even more special since you get to enjoy it here at the Jam and Roller with us!” Simón states. Matteo grins but it slowly fades when he sees Luna walk into the cafeteria and completely ignoring him. “What happened?” Simón asks when he sees Matteo’s vivid expression abruptly change. “No nothing, I just wish I got to share this moment with another person too.” When Simón turns his head and sees who Matteo is staring at, he realizes what Matteo meant.

Nina pulls out her purse and hands her phone to Luna. “I know you’re trying to pretend you don’t care but you do. Watch the video, it’ll get rid of all your curiosities.” Luna shakes her head in disapproval. “Nina, the least I want to do is watch a music video of the one I love flirting with a girl who has a huge crush on him as well. They’re practically soulmates, meant for each other,” Luna exaggerates. “Oh c’mon, I know it’s complicated, but you know that’s not true. If you’re not going to do it for him, then do it for yourself. You deserve to see why he arrived late to your date.” Luna glares at Nina and decides to take the phone.

Once the music video is out, everyone begins to cheer for Matteo. Luna sits even more depressed seeing at the ‘amazing’ chemistry Matteo and Viviana had in the music video. She can’t help but doubt herself even more when all the comments from his fans say they ship him with Viviana. “Nina, I’m not feeling so good. I think I’ll just head home.” Nina nods and Luna begins to get up from her chair and head out. Matteo notices and follows her out.

“Luna! Luna, wait up! I need to tell you something,” Matteo yells out. “Matteo not now, I’m not in the mood. Congratulations of your video, it was very nice. I just don’t feel so good okay.” Matteo catches up to her and stands in front. “Look Luna, I don’t know if you’ll listen to me now but please go to tomorrow’s concert I’m having. My manager is having me make a concert to promote the single, but it wouldn’t be the same without you. Please Luna. You never miss any of my concerts,” Matteo begs. Luna gradually smiles. “Really? You still want me there?”

“Of course, I do Luna.” Luna now can’t help but blush. “Matteo, of course I’ll go. Even though I’m still a little upset at you calling me jealous, standing me up on our date, and not believing or listening to me, I still care. Since you want me there, I’ll be there.” Matteo is surprised by Luna’s comment and begins to graciously smile too. It was a moment for them, they hadn’t had one like this in a long time. It felt needed.

Nico is in the rink sitting on one of the chairs, he seems to be working on something since he has his notebook open with his pen. Jim enters and sees him alone. “Hey there, what are you working on?” Jim asks. “Oh just a few verses, I’m trying to get ahead on the Roller Band song for the competition, but nothing seems to come into mind,” Nico says. Jim heads to the seat beside him. She sits down and carefully glances over his blank page. “Oh yeah you do seem to be having some trouble,” Jim chuckles. “If you’d like I can help, I’m use to writing songs with Yam.” Nico turns and faces Jim, “Yes of course. I need all the help I can get; it’s been a while for me since I got to write a song with the Roller Band.” They both laugh together and get working on the song.

Jazmín dashes to Delfi holding a small slip of paper. “You won’t believe what just happened?” Delfi carefully places her books into her locker after seeing Jazmín rush to her. “Is it something new for the Fundom or for your blog, Ja Jazmin?” Delfi predicts. “Nope, you’re very far off. Look at this,” Jazmín hands Delfi the note. The more she reads it, the more her eyes grow like a flower blooming in the season, keeps opening. She’s in plain shock as Jazmín nods from her amusement. “Right! I have a secret admirer!! I have to post about this on my blog!” Jazmín frantically grabs her phone from her pocket but right when she’s about to film, Delfi stops her. “No Jazmín, this is something special. Honestly, I think this is something you should keep for yourself, every celebrity likes to keep their personal life separate from their work life,” Delfi advises. Jazmín thinks for a second and says, “Nahhh I’ll still post it, plus this can even help us discover who the anonymous writer is!”

The Restaurant

Yam is wearing her golden shimmery dress that Jim helped her pick out. She’s very anxious about her date with Ramiro, she wants it to go out perfect since this was something she had been dreaming of for a while. He puts down the menu and slips his hand under hers to her surprise. He gives her a shy smile. “I had been dreaming of this for a while. Before, I would always try to move on, but I just couldn’t. My mind just couldn’t forget about you,” Ramiro admits. Yam begins to tear up. “I felt the same way for so long but never said anything worried you didn’t feel the same way. I’m so happy about this moment. I don’t care how long I had to wait, it was totally worth it.”

Throughout the whole night, Yam and Ramiro shared college stories and even old memories of each other. How Yam never stopped writing songs about him and how Ramiro would skate imagining about her. Everything went smooth till dessert came. A random man with a suit and tie approached their table and faces Yam. “You look familiar, are you Yamila Sanchez from that Ja Jazmin blog?” Yam stays startled and stutters, “uhhh yes why?” The man quickly pulls a card out of his pocket. “Hillside Records, I’m the owner. I would like to set up a meeting with you for a chance at a record deal.” Yam immediately glares at Ramiro for a response. He shows his approval and gestures for Yam to respond. “Yes I would love to!” Yam exclaims. “Great! I’m available tomorrow at 5 pm. There is one important detail I have to tell you,” the man says. “Yes, what is it,” Yam asks. “The record company is not in Buenos Aires. It’s in California.” He proceeds to hand her the card. “Think about it, I’ll see you tomorrow.” He leaves and Yam shows her disappointment to Ramiro, she couldn’t believe how such an exciting offer can turn to something so depressing. If she took this offer, that means she would have to leave her family, her friends, and her chance at being with Ramiro.

“Look I know this is hard to think about but just follow your heart. If this is something you truly want go for it, I can wait longer,” Ramiro grabs her hand and holds it. “I don’t know what to say. I never knew me pursuing a music career would mean I have to leave everything and everyone I love,” Yam gradually lets her tears fall onto her glittery dress.

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bigskydreaming · 3 years

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what are dick's love languages?

Y'know, I do think a lot of the usual suspects do apply here, like he is a tactile person, he does like verbal affirmation of feelings, both giving and receiving.....but one that I see as fairly unique to him, is like, I think trust is one of his love languages in a way that's a little tricky to explain but makes total sense in my head, lol.

I THINK I've written a whole post about that already, it was one where we were talking about Dick having/needing flaws and I was going on about how narrative flaws don't have to be inherently negative, they just need to sow conflict, and one of the examples I raised was that I feel like trust is one of Dick's love languages, and so back in the early years with Bruce, the fact that Bruce seemed to trust Dick so completely, not just in the usual senses but also trust IN Dick to be capable of the things Dick did as Robin, much like his parents had put their faith in him from a very young age, that he was capable of doing all the things he ultimately came to be capable of on the trapeze....like I think that sort of total and complete trust goes hand in hand for Dick, because for as long as he can remember, that and unconditional love were a packaged deal. He never had one without the other, so they were kinda one and the same.

And initially with Bruce, this just got reinforced albeit without either of them realizing it, because Bruce might not have been quick to say I love you or hug Dick, but he demonstrated the same total faith in Dick and what he was capable of that Dick had received from his parents, BUT very rarely anyone else in life, like a marked difference from the way people outside of his two family units treated him. And for a long time, this WORKED for them, but the problem in never realizing what trust meant to each of them and how it could be so similar but yet so different, like.....the problem was, as long as Dick HAD that kinda unconditional faith in him that Bruce showed early on, he didn't NEED the verbal or physical affirmations of affection as much. He had this at least, and it said 'I love you and trust you' in a language Dick unconsciously understood.' But then seemingly take that trust AWAY, such as when Bruce fired him and seemingly had no faith in Dick's skills or competence after years of putting total trust in them, like....even though the issue was never that Bruce stopped loving OR trusting Dick, WITHOUT the verbal and physical cues as to how Bruce felt about Dick, and without the reassurance of longer lasting ties than just his original wardship, suddenly to Dick it might have looked like Bruce literally just DIDN'T care anymore, that for whatever reason, he'd lost Bruce's faith in him, and his love at the same time.

And meanwhile from Bruce's side of things, the issue was always just his fear of losing Dick and letting his own trauma and issues get the best of him and come between them.....BUT in addition, like, assuming trust works as one of Dick's love languages, then for years it'd been quietly existing as a stand-in for all the other more usual displays of affection. But if Bruce didn't realize the significance of Dick knowing that he had someone's total trust or at least faith IN him, not necessarily like that he was right about everything, it isn't like an oh I think this kid never makes a mistake thing, its more a I fully believe that you're capable of overcoming this issue before you and every other one after it kinda thing....

Like, if Bruce never had reason to fully grasp just how much the trust inherent in their partnership as Batman and Robin like, made UP for the lack of other plainly evident displays of how he felt, so that Dick didn't need those things from him that much as long as he had THIS, instead.....

Then of course he'd by extension, just, totally miss that a huge part of the divide between him and Dick was that WITHOUT Bruce knowing to make up for the lack of plainly evident trust between them and compensate for the shake-up there with OTHER kinds of reassurance as to how he felt about him, Dick wasn't JUST reacting to the idea that Bruce no longer trusted his capabilities as Robin and then Nightwing. That it actually went much deeper for him, in ways Dick probably himself has never fully verbalized. That it shook the very foundations of their relationship, and Dick’s confidence that they even HAD one, because the entire relationship had pretty much from the start been ROOTED in that foundational bedrock that was Bruce’s seemingly complete and total faith in Dick and what he was capable of, so reminiscent of what he’d had with his parents, and the first hint he’d had of anything LIKE that with anyone since them, or even the first spark of hope that he ever COULD have something similar to that again. And which again, he DID for a time have.....and he never truly lost it, its just having not prioritized growing other support pillars for their relationship that didn’t revolve around the Batman and Robin partnership, too much of their relationship had rested on that partnership’s existence, had basically NEEDED it, to shore up the gaps in other aspects of their relationship.

And I argue that you can see other instances of this pattern with other characters as well. Like, in complete reversal of Bruce not realizing the disconnect between he and Dick because of their differing love languages, it could easily be posited that this was a problem with Dick and Tim after the Robin thing as well. Because see, if Dick was trying to learn from Bruce's mistakes specifically, to project himself into Tim's shoes and use what Dick knew from his OWN past experiences....Dick would have run into the exact same problem as Bruce, just from the opposite angle. Because see, for as long as Dick has known Tim, he's made supreme efforts to show Tim that he sees him and appreciates him OUTSIDE of Robin just as much as in the mask. He's always made a point to hammer home that his brotherhood with Tim may have originated with Robin, but it was never conditional on it, and in contrast to how reserved Bruce often is with him, Dick made SURE to express his affection for Tim in all kinds of plainly evident ways, for as long as he'd known him.

So then, see, if Dick on some instinctive level pairs unconditional love and trust on equal footing, like he never really has one without the other because all the people he loves are people he trusts with his life, literally, and vice versa.....by the same token that had him once upon a time fear that Bruce no longer loved him, because it seemed Bruce no longer trusted Dick, and in Dick's eyes you couldn't truly have one without the other......THEN the reverse of that, in order to try and make sure that his siblings always KNOW that Dick loves and values them.....Dick tried to always make sure that was a priority.....BUT neglected to consider that love/trust aren't as innately interchangeable for other people as it is for him.

So on a gut level, it might have never really even OCCURRED to him that Tim might see that as Dick no longer trusting in his overall capabilities (even if Dick didn't believe him about Bruce, believing IN someone doesn't actually mean you have to think they're right about every single thought or idea they have, and just because Dick had doubts about that doesn't mean those ever translated for HIM as doubts IN Tim, the person, the brother, what he was capable of, his overall capabilities and competence and heroism).

But like, you see what I mean? Bruce underestimated the impact that seemingly no longer having Bruce's full trust would have on Dick, and not knowing to buttress that shift in their dynamic with compensating displays of his feelings in other love languages that Dick recognized.....he also made Dick doubt he still loved him.

In contrast, and likely in his very attempt TO avoid repeating the same mistake, as HE saw it from HIS eyes....Dick always made sure to express his love for Tim at every possible opportunity.....and so BECAUSE he was so consistent in expressing his feelings there, HE failed to buttress the shift in his dynamic with TIM, and didn't prioritize showing Tim he still trusted him and had faith in him in other ways....because by virtue of how closely Dick links love and trust, it would totally make sense in his mind that well, how could Tim NOT think Dick still has total faith in him, when he had all this evidence that Dick loved and valued him REGARDLESS of Robin and always had? Why would not being Robin take away that trust, when Dick had always made sure to reinforce his faith in Robin with verbal affirmations of loving his little brother?

But like, even though I think his first parents were always affectionate with Dick in a variety of ways, I do think it all goes back to that root, like, FAITH that you have to show in a kid, make a kid BELIEVES he has, on every single level.....in order to learn to do the things Dick did from a very early age. Flying was a family thing, only family could do it, and thus flying, and all the trust that went into making it possible, into helping each other achieve it as a GROUP.....like, it all added up to love, in Dick's experience. There'd never been any NEED for him TO separate the one from the other and mark a distinction. And even when he ended up in Gotham, he and Bruce had issues connecting at first, with them only really gelling once Dick became Robin....at which point, this is when Dick probably started to BELIEVE he could trust this man when he said he cared about him....because he wouldn't be so willing to put his full faith in Dick and what he was capable of, when everyone else Dick encountered had nothing but doubts to show him.....like, in Dick's eyes, Bruce couldn't possibly put the trust he had in their partnership of Batman and Robin if he DIDN'T care, right? Because that's a family thing. That's what that level of intimate trust and faith in each other MEANS, to Dick.

And then when that seemingly went away, Dick floundered, because it ALL seemingly went away at once....you take away the one, you can't possibly still keep the other, that's not how it works. Which is why its so important to him to always make sure everyone else in his family knows just how he feels about them, with words and actions, because that way the heartache he'd felt when he was younger and doubting his place in Bruce's heart would never repeat with them, hopefully....because as long as Dick was showing them his affection at every opportunity, how could they doubt his total trust in them, his family, at the same time?

Anyway, like I said, I definitely think I wrote a whole post about it before so I'm gonna go and try and find that instead of getting into all that here for a second time. Because that's definitely not what I already did. Nope, this was just me making a quick summary of my thoughts on this matter as a placeholder while I went hunting around for that other post that I can reblog so that I don't have to expound on this idea in depth a second time. Since that would be silly of me. So I obviously did not do that. Yeah. So.....anyway.....

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itsclydebitches · 3 years

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RWBY Recaps: Volume 8 “Creation”

Happy Saturday, everyone! Oh man, oh man, oh man. I think I'll need to steer clear of the general RWBY tags this week, simply because I know the sort of responses I'll see to this episode. From smug celebration at Ironwood's downfall, to bad takes about what makes us human, this episode is a petri dish of sensitive material handled insensitively.

Let’s unpack it, shall we?

We open on an action that feels like a summery of the last three volumes: a grimm attacks an airship from the front, no doubt killing its pilot, while the other grimm conveniently ignore our heroes, no masking in sight. The group looks a little sad at the destruction around them, but ultimately ignore it because they have bigger, heroic things to do. I could write a whole, additional essay on how the huntsmen code — to protect the people — has been warped and abandoned by our protagonists in their effort to do what they think is right. It's a tale that might have been compelling if only RT knew they were writing it.

We get a shot of Atlas drones unloading the bomb before one is taken out, presumably by Qrow and Robyn. Segueing to Ironwood and the Ace Ops, they're waiting for Penny to arrive, the former carrying a massive gun presumably capable of capturing her. Despite the horror we saw on their faces last episode at the realization that Ironwood would kill Marrow for speaking up, it seems that now the Ace Ops are entirely in agreement with these measures. A week ago the implication was that they fell back in line out of fear, but now Harriet talks passionately about "putting down" the group if they were stupid enough to accompany Penny. "The General gave his terms." Vine sighs at this, but doesn't actively disagree. He's just "retracing the steps that led us here."

So, congratulations on introducing four new characters, not bothering to develop any of them, killing one off while ignoring Qrow's hand in that, and having the other three become all, "Yeah! Mass murder is a perfect solution!" off screen. Marrow is the only one with something resembling development and, as covered in these recaps, that's been pretty badly executed too.

Ironwood sends them to deal with Robyn and Qrow after Winter reappears to "assist" him. That gets quotation marks because most viewers at this point have realized that she's who our two birbs spotted in the elevator. Winter isn't on Ironwood's side anymore, she's just skillfully clearing the field for the final attack. Indeed, we get a moment where she hesitantly brings up the bomb and Ironwood responds that he hopes she's not going to try and talk him out of it. No. Winter doesn't think that's possible. This was her final attempt at peace.

One of the reasons why I think I'll stick to my own blog for a while is because the fandom has a tendency to paint broad personality traits as evil when applied to some characters, yet simultaneously heroic when applied to others, when really it's about how that those traits are used. What I mean is, I've seen a lot of Ironwood critical posts that emphasize how stubborn he is. He thinks he's right and he won't back down. He wont listen to others. He's going through with this plan and if anyone tries to stop him? That's their mistake. Totally evil, right? Except, this is the exact same behavior Ruby displays, particularly in Volumes 6 and 7. She was stubborn about stealing from Argus and continuing the fight to the point where it endangered her and her teammates, to say nothing of the rest of the city. She refused to listen to Qrow, or Ironwood, or the Ace Ops, loudly announcing that she was right about, well, everything. If they didn't agree with her, the options were to leave the group entirely, or fight her. The actual difference here is that the writers have taken Ironwood to an extreme, one that's incredibly easy to understand as bad because it is bad: bombing Mantle has no defense. Ruby pulls the exact same nonsense, it's just not to that same extreme and her actions are followed by scenes that are meant to make us forgive her: a sad look because she didn't mean to get a city attacked by a leviathan grimm, a cry on the staircase because she didn't mean to risk the lives of an entire kingdom... even though she did. Ironwood is the bad guy because he's been written to take specific, OOC actions like shooting unarmed kids. He's not the bad guy because when other characters go, "Don't do this" his response is, "I have to." Because that's been Ruby's motto ever since she "had" to use the Lamp to rip Ozpin’s life story away. RWBY introduced those extreme actions of shooting the youngest in the group (for no reason) and threatening to bomb a city (for no reason) or shooting a councilman (for no reason) because when you remove those you've got a man who looks exactly like our hero. Ironwood's arc has been peppered with these confusing, unpersuasive actions because if you just keep the story as him stubbornly keeping to a plan he thinks will save the world, you're left with the reminder that all Ruby has done lately is stubbornly keep to plans she thinks will save the world. This moment with Winter just highlights how ill thought out Ironwood's descent has been because he does everything Ruby does... with a few, tacked on, “and randomly shoots people!” moments to ensure we understand that he’s definitely evil. No comparison to our heroes here, folks!

Ironwood is a bad guy now. That’s certain, but he was made that way so the story never had to grapple with the question of what that means for Ruby if we really start condemning things like lying, secrets, stubbornness, or endangering others for the greater good. Well then damn, if we strip away the hypocrisy then she might not be a good person after all. Or the people she’s simplistically labeled as bad might not be the devils Ruby claims they are.

But that’s a level of nuance RWBY would rather pretend doesn’t exist.

All of which is highlighted by Ironwood’s reaction to "Penny." He sighs and sags over the gun, immediately putting it aside. With his hand on her shoulder, Ironwood tells her she's "done the right thing." Precisely the same way Ruby would lower Crescent Rose and give someone a smile when they decided to fall in line with her.

Which, of course, is the moment when Emerald reveals herself, dispelling the Penny illusion and revealing Team JNPR The Second behind her. She gives a quip about it feeling "weird" to do the right thing before disappearing.

From there the action picks up fast. I really enjoyed this battle simply from a choreography and energy standpoint. It gets the blood pumping, Ironwood's hand-to-hand is spectacular — especially that moment against Ren — and the group actually displays teamwork for the first time in what feels like forever, all of them needed to land a hit on Ironwood. As always, out of the context of the rest of the show it feels and looks great. My primary issue is that we get this fantastic fight against Ironwood. Not Salem, not Cinder, not Watts (like last volume when Ironwood was still a hero), not even Emerald as a means of transitioning from murderous villain to the group's best bud. No, what's arguably the best action sequence in the volume thus far goes to beating up the guy they betrayed from the start. There's no catharsis for me here, only frustration as we watch Ironwood stand in shock as Winter powers up Nora — who's fine now, I guess — and she slams her hammer into his face.

It never should have come to this and when a good character is done so dirty, their downfall doesn't evoke the emotions the writers are looking for. Watching Ironwood fall doesn't generate feelings of victory, or even tragedy at a course of events others were powerless to stop. It's just frustration at watching years worth of bad writing, sprinkled with fantastic ideas that never go anywhere.

Oscar gets a few hits in, Ironwood snatches his cane, and just as he's about to throw a punch, Winter arrives with the most dramatic sword slash I've ever seen.

Ironwood's aura breaks and he falls, unconscious. We cut to an image of a droid's head separated from its body, one of Robyn's arrows through its skull. That doesn't have meaning or anything.

I suppose I should be grateful they didn't rip Ironwood's arm away during the fight, or outright kill him, though I'm still expecting him to die before the end of the volume.

Hmm. Wouldn't that be something? If after Salem's arrival, freezing cold, a Hound attack, grimm soup, a giant whale, a massive army, and a hack ending in self-destruction, the one character who actually dies is Ironwood.

It's looking more and more likely.

Honestly, beyond all the obvious, what's so frustrating about this fight is that characters are only now using their impressive abilities to their fullest. Emerald creates an entire fantasy of what's happening and then straight up disappears, but she only does a half-assed version of that when fighting against Penny. (And really, she put more effort into helping the heroes she just joined over Cinder, the woman she's been obsessed with since the start?) Marrow refuses to use "Stay" against a group they wanted to peacefully arrest because that's just too horrible an act, I guess, but he'll do it on his own teammates the second Qrow and Robyn don’t want to fight.

This is what I mean when I say the rules of the world bend to assist the protagonists in absurd ways. It's not nearly as egregious as Amity suddenly being up and running, but the fact that characters become substantially more powerful while fighting for the protagonists than they do against them is still a significant problem.

So Ironwood is down and out. As much as I hated watching that and didn't necessarily want more, am I the only one who felt like it was... a bit lackluster? I mean, the action was great, yes, but relatively short. There was no dialogue, such as another delve into the moral questions that led to this fight in the first place. There certainly wasn’t any hesitance against fighting a former ally. (Again, we’re meant to believe that the Ace Ops won because they just couldn’t bear to fight the group seriously, but every former ally here is capable of wailing on Ironwood without a single pause or pained look?) Ironwood just skillfully blocks for a while, is blindsided by Winter's betrayal, and then falls unconscious. Given that we learn he and Jacques will be evacuated after the rest of the kingdom, it's possible he'll escape somehow and we'll get a fight 2.0, but if not that feels like a rather tame end to the guy forced into the antagonist seat. Plus, what was the point of having Qrow frothing at the mouth to kill him this whole volume? I never wanted that to happen, I'm glad it hasn't, but I'm nevertheless left to ask why we bothered with that eleven episode side plot if we were going to erase it with one sentence from Robyn about Qrow being better than this. If that's all it took, let them work through Qrow's irrational anger while sitting around in a cell.

Winter tells the group to move onto "phase two" which is when we're treated to a flashback. We return to the ending of the last episode, with Ruby realizing that opening the vault is an option. Jaune, all smiles, goes, "We never considered using what's inside!"

This is what I mean about no consequences! This is what I mean about it all being a meaningless circle that ends with undeserved praise for the group! We started this horror show with Ironwood going, "We don't have a plan to protect the people, so I'm going to take what people we do have to safety" and the group going, "We don't have a plan either, but we're going to stop you implementing your plan because it's not perfect, risking a kingdom's worth of lives in the process." Now, the group has used two plans, one of which two characters knew about at the start and another they could have devised with the information they had. Oscar and Ozpin's, "We have an all powerful magical blast in our cane" and the group's "What if we used the Staff for something other than raising Atlas?" are both things that could have come up in the office debate. These were both always on the table! Instead, Ruby grew furious over the mere thought of cutting their losses, betrayed Ironwood again, attacked his people, denounced him to the world, and then two days later goes, "Oh wait! We could do something now that we could have easily done before if we hadn't made a needless enemy!"

Everyone realizes how much worse they made things, right? Turning against Ironwood, bringing everyone left in Mantle directly under Atlas, sitting around while an army was devoured, drawing it out until Penny was hacked... all of it would have been avoided if the group had thought and discussed things for a few minutes, not jumping straight to violently resisting what Ironwood came up with first. "We never considered..." Ruby says. Yeah, you didn't, except that's not something to smile about. The group made the situation a thousand times worse with their reaction when they could have just magically evacuated the kingdom from the start. “Maybe we could use it to save Penny and get everyone in Atlas and Mantle back to safety." Nothing has changed! They had this ability the whole time! Nothing about the last twelve episodes led them here, they just randomly thought of it after RT had padded the volume with needless drama. Considering that they're heading to Vacuo now, we could have just made this the finale of Volume 7 instead: big fight with Ironwood, revelation, get everyone evacuated while Salem attacks, leave her behind, then Volume 8 begins in Vacuo with the group knowing Salem is out there looking for them. This entire volume has been pointless. What did they accomplish?

Oscar got kidnapped and beat up, Nora was scarred, Ruby and Yang realized horrible things about Summer, and the whole world is panicking about a witch. Good things are... Ren and Ruby unlocked some semblance stuff? Weiss loves her brother again after he proved himself useful to her? Great work, team.

So this one moment makes everything they've done up to this point useless and, of course, once thought up the plan goes off without a hitch. Note that the summary of this episode says, "It's risky, dangerous, and nearly impossible — but it's the only plan they've got." Nearly impossible? That's a whole lot of talk for a plan that was implemented perfectly.

There is, admittedly, one snag, but one that is likewise made meaningless just seconds later. We'll get to that.

We see Winter call Weiss who also smiles at hearing from her sister. Obviously interactions like the group's with Emerald are the bigger concern, but it's still an issue that no one reacts as they should to people reappearing in their lives. Rather, RWBY continually confuses audience knowledge with character knowledge. We know Winter is on their side now, but Weiss hasn't a clue. Last she saw, she and Winter were agreeing to head down different paths. She has no reason to think her sister isn't loyal to Ironwood, so why isn't the group treating this call with suspicion? What if it's Ironwood trying to mess with them through a presumably safe party? I swear to god, with any consistency in the story this group would be dead ten times over because their decisions are so stupid. Oscar decides to believe in the guy currently beating him to a pulp, the group decides to trust a villain over a flawed ally, and now they see Ironwood’s second calling and are like, “Great, big sister Winter is checking in!” There’s a difference between a hopeful story filled with second chances and characters whose reliance on the narrative bending to assist them makes them come across as insanely naive.

None of which even touches on characters forgetting that other characters are presumably dead. Ironwood shot Oscar off the edge of Atlas, but doesn't react to learning he was kidnapped, or when he shows up to the fight. Thanks to Marrow's comment, Winter thinks YJOR have perished in the whale, but also has no reaction to them appearing to help with this plan. Absolutely nothing is followed up on.

We then get a flashback within the flashback (fun) of Winter — shock — not arresting Marrow. It's precisely as I assumed, with Marrow angrily asking why she hit him and Winter responding with, “Because you were about to get killed if I didn’t do something!” As I said last recap, I feel like I should let the marginalized groups lead this discussion, but I do want to add that no matter how well intentioned — or strategic, as I mentioned last time — the imagery itself is still harmful. No matter the context, we were still left with white woman Winter putting her knee on black man Marrow's back to arrest him, and it’s an image that everyone in the U.S. should be familiar with the horror of. Far more of a problem than the (presumed) ignorance of this scene is, I think, the choice to make Winter entirely unrepentant. I think some of this discomfort could have been alleviated if RT had written Winter as apologetic, contrite that it came to that and asking Marrow to understand that she only did it as a means of assisting him. Asking his forgiveness. Instead, we get this

So what, the only emotion we have room for is gratitude that Winter beat him up? Yikes.

As a lighter side note, I find the animation here unintentionally hilarious. Winter's assistive device makes her shoulders look too high, making this gesture more, "Woman exaggeratedly pouts about not getting ice cream for dinner" and less, "Woman sternly closes off during a disagreement about saving lives and betraying their general." Gotta find our humor where we can, right?

What's intentional, but far less funny, is the needless animation to show us that, yes, Marrow is peering at Winter calling Weiss. Oh, the shenanigans.

The elevator opens where Qrow and Robyn spot them. "Speaking of help," Winter says, as if she has any reason to believe Qrow didn't kill Clover. He and Robyn lower their weapons a bit, as if they have any reason to believe Winter and Marrow aren't still loyal to Ironwood. Would it really be so hard to have Winter immediately throw up her hands in the face of their almost-attack, blurting that she's not their enemy and needs their help, please listen? Again, RWBY can't remember which characters know what, let alone what their motivations and reactions should be.

We then enter the third part of the flashback where everyone piles into the Schnee dining room and discusses doing the things they could have done from the start. I'm metaphorically banging my head against that table. In RWBY's favor though, we also get a long shot of Jaune continuing to boost Penny’s aura.

Though it's only one of many issues, just the other day I asked, "Hey, why has Jaune always needed to hold onto the person he's assisting, but now suddenly he can touch Penny once and the boost remains?" It still doesn't explain why he was letting go before/why him needing to boost her continuously didn't put a hard time limit on their plan — not that Mantle's hour limit meant a thing — but at least they're showing more of that here.

Oscar notes that Atlas has enough gravity dust that it won't fall immediately when they use the Relic, but they will have to move fast to ensure no one is underneath. Yeah, like all the civilians you put there. He also cautions that the Staff isn't a "magic wand" that they can just wave to make all their problems go away... even though that's precisely what they're going to do. Ozpin gets some lines that aren't apologies or followed by attacks — hallelujah! — about how the Staff's spirit is a "character" and requires that you be able to precisely explain anything you want him to make. Blueprints, examples, a firm knowledge of how this will be accomplished — all of it is required to actually get what you're after. That's a cool limitation. It's just too bad we didn't know about it episodes ago, forcing our heroes to find ways to meet those requirements. Instead, they already have everything ready to go the moment they learn about it: Penny has her own schematics and Whitley apparently has knowledge of the entire kingdom after sending some ships out. Normally I'd go, "Really?" but I'm still just struck by how much good he's done compared to everyone else in this room. Your show is seriously broken when the side character the writers didn't even want the audience to like until a few episodes ago is more active, mature, and sensible than the heroes.

From there we see the group implementing the plan. They fly up through the hole Oscar left, straight to the vault. Penny opens it without any trouble and Ruby uses her speed to grab the Relic and stop time, halting her self-termination. I do like that combination of skill and their knowledge of how this magic works. That felt like a smart move. What's interesting though is that the Relic appears to stop time in the entire kingdom. We see people in Mantle and Atlas slowing to a halt too. I assume no one remembers that happening after time restarts, otherwise people would be freaked out by suddenly being frozen in place.

Wouldn't that have been cool though? The group often takes a while to use the Relics, either deciding what they need, or watching Jinn's information, so what if you had a population that blinks and suddenly, from their perspective, half an hour has passed? How long might Ozpin have sat on his knees after Jinn told him he wasn't able to defeat Salem? How long was that space frozen? We could have had a world built around rumors and fairy tales. Not the random stories Ozpin brings up to make a point and that we never hear about again, but tiny details that foreshadow these revelations. A Beacon where the kids tell each other spooky stories of people suddenly losing time, once a whole day. The wives, sisters, daughters, and nieces who disappear, or wake up one day with horrifying, unnatural powers. We see magic influence the world around it, but we've seen very little of the world reacting to that influence. The one time I can think of is Blake reading a book about "a man with two souls," the fiction clearly inspired by knowledge of Ozpin. And indeed, it felt great to recognize that as a significant detail and then be proven right years later as the lore was revealed. We could have gotten so much more of that if RWBY was better planned out.

I'm getting off track though. As time stops we see a series of images: Ironwood being led to a cell with Jacques, Penny succumbing to her hack, Team JNPR The Second preparing to contact the kingdom about what's going on. Then everyone is distracted by the giant, blue, buff Ambrosius who comes out of the Staff.

...there's a lot of innuendo in that last statement lol. At least RWBY is committed to the crazy design they chose? I was never particularly comfortable with the image of characters gaping up at a giant, naked woman in chains, so it's nice to balance that a bit with an equally giant, naked dude in chains.

From here things get confusing. In all honesty, I'm not sure if this is another moment where RWBY is trying to pass off a retcon as the group being brilliant, or if I, as an individual, simply didn't follow the logic. I won't bother to rehash the slow, meandering way that Ruby reveals their plan — that certainly didn't help with the clarity. Not in an episode where we didn’t even know these rules ahead of time — but it boils down to this:

The moment they have Ambrosius create something new Atlas will start to fall. Two of his creations can't exist at the same time.

He needs clear instructions about what he's making in order to create it.

The group has brought him Penny's schematics so that he understands how she's built.

They want, specifically, "a new version of her... using her exact robot parts."

They can't just create an exact duplicate of Penny because that would carry the virus with it.

They can't create an exact duplicate without the virus because that Penny would cease to exist as soon as they used Ambrosius to make an evacuation plan instead.

So they essentially want Ambrosius to create a new Penny by removing all the robot parts from the Penny that currently exists, carrying the virus with them, and leaving only the human parts of Penny behind: her aura/soul. Then, the purely robot version is destroyed when Ambrosius creates something new.

Except... this new Penny, this human Penny, still needed a human body. That's what Ambrosius created and that's the snag I don't understand. They want a version of Penny that's just her aura, just her soul, but that soul still needs something to be housed in. Ambrosius himself notes that. At first I thought the group would just have some wisp-like version of Penny they'd have to find a new body for — perhaps leading to a new one for Ozpin too — but she's just... given a human body when he takes the technology away, something she absolutely didn't have before. That is Ambrosius' creation. That is what should have disappeared along with the removed parts of Penny, leaving only her soul — what Ambrosius didn't touch — behind. Instead, the plot oh so conveniently has Penny get a new body for free and it's untouched as they move onto the next task.

Ruby drops a casual line about Ambrosius not being able to kill, or destroy, or something, which I think is meant to be the justification here. The rule (which, again, we JUST learned) about not killing anyone supersedes the rule of two creations not allowed to exist, allowing Penny to stick around. But even if that’s true, it’s a load of bull. What, does the magic think no one in an entire city might die if the floating mechanism is removed and it plummets to the ground? Ambrosius didn’t say, “Sorry, can’t stop floating Atlas because thousands of people are still here and they’ll die if I create something new,” but we’re supposed to believe the group skated by on, “Sorry, can’t destroy the last creation like everything else because there’s a single person still using that body and she’ll die if I create something new”?

Seriously, did I miss something? Or is this another, "Amity is ready because the group needs it" situation? The rule of creations ceasing to exist is bent because the group needs to have their friend around. Ambrosius is certainly enthusiastically complimentary, saying how "smart" the group is and that they've "done their homework," but I'm not so sure. It feels like a moment where the show is (once again) insistent that the group is far more talented and brilliant than their actions actually imply. It's only the rules of the world twisting and turning that allows for their success. To say nothing of how the episode dropped all these rules on the viewer in a ten minute info dump, ensuring we didn’t have any time to think about them before the deed was done.

It doesn't add up for me and honestly, even putting that aside? I hate this. I absolutely despise it. Look, if it turns out this really does make sense then props to the group for coming up with that plan. Our snag aside, the rest is a legitimately well thought out wish. I don't have a problem with the execution so much as the message. I've been saying since Volume 7 that RWBY has done Penny a disservice in terms of her "real girl" narrative. Whereas before we had a firm message that you don't need "squishy guts" to be human, to be real, Volume 8 continued to carry us further and further into the idea that it is necessary. That Penny's body is entirely inhuman, something to hate, but at least her soul is human and good. That's what the virus arc taught us: your terrible, technological body might be betraying you, but hold onto the parts of you that are really human. I hated that too, but I never thought RWBY would go this far. They made Penny fully human and went, “THIS is the version that always should have existed.”

And this isn't just me reading into the implications. It's right there in the text. Blake says that they're looking for “Penny, the girl who’s always been there underneath." Meaning, underneath the metal. The girl exists trapped in the robot body. Yang holds up her arm and says that the metal is only "extra," it's not really who you are.

That gets into two perspectives on disability that RWBY just doesn't have the nuance for: what's an integral and celebratory part of one person's existence can be seen as something separate and discomforting to another. Though there are many people with disabilities who would happily cure themselves with a magic Staff if given the chance, there are just as many who say no, this is a part of my identity. I don't want to change, I just want the world to accommodate my existence. However, RWBY takes a hard stance here, saying that any metal in your body is intrinsically bad. We didn’t use to have this take, but now the show has embraced it. Blake says the real Penny is trapped in there. Yang's words implies that she'd get rid of this "extra" bit of her if possible. Mercury with his metal legs is the enemy. Ironwood with half his metal body is the enemy. Whereas once difference was truly accepted, now it's shunned and fixed whenever possible. Those who can't be fixed, like Yang, must simply deal with the lot they've been dealt, reassuring themselves that the metal isn't really them. But Penny? Penny they can fix.

So they do and the very first thing Penny does is hug Ruby, exclaiming, “Do hugs always make you feel this warm inside? Wow. More!” and proceeds to hug all the others.

What's the underlying message there? Penny didn't understand hugs before this moment. She never experienced the "warmth" of them while an android, despite the fact that here warmth is entirely metaphorical and has nothing to do with a literally cold body. RWBY really went and said that the "real girl” android was never actually real at all — not as real as she could be — because it's only when she's given "squishy guts" that she understands the true happiness of a hug.

Wow.

I mean seriously, wow.

Never-mind that, you know, we've seen that happiness and warmth since she was first introduced.

RWBY is really rewriting all the core themes introduced in Volumes 1-3 and it sucks. The show is absolutely the worse for it.

To say nothing of all the other disservices to Penny's character here. There's all this buildup about whether she'll still be the same Penny once the wish is complete, but of course she is. We wouldn't want to have Penny struggle when she becomes something other than what she's always been, would we? After all, it took Yang an entire volume to work through the shock of a metal arm, but taking away a metal body for a human one is in no way traumatic. Having a normal, human body is intrinsically a good thing! Of course Penny accepts it with nothing but smiles. Becoming human is celebratory, but becoming more machine is a horror.

She gets to watch her body self-destruct, glitching out and collapsing in front of her. But again, nothing to unpack there that can't be covered with a hand over her mouth.

There's no discussion of whether Penny still has the Maiden powers, or whether a wish like that would mess with the transfer in any way. How did the group know this action wouldn't register as a clear-cut death, forcing the power out of her and into someone new? Obviously they couldn’t know, but no one even thought to bring it up?

And the entire time they're formulating their evacuation plan, there's no talk of whether these portals will appear before everyone currently alive in the kingdom. I mean, if they do then Ironwood and Jacques can just waltz through and escape into Vacuo. If they don’t, then Maria and Pietro don't necessarily have a way out. We still don't know if they're stuck floating in Amity, or if Amity crashed, or if they made their way back to Mantle or Atlas. More importantly, the characters don't know. I have no problem with RWBY keeping that a surprise until the finale, but I absolutely take issue with Pietro's daughter walking through a portal, seemingly not to care whether her father is going to make it out too.

It's been the same with Qrow and his nieces' relationships. The show is good at insisting that these families love each other because they hug and smile while on screen together, but when shit is actually going down, none of them care about pesky things like disappearances, arrests, or “The last time I saw you, you were with an old woman on a damaged station after a villain attack, potentially stranded in deadly cold if life support failed.”

So yeah, this entire arc with Penny has been a disaster. From throwing away her framing subplot, to giving her a virus that did absolutely nothing, to giving her the Maiden powers which she's also done nothing with, to erasing her android status for a “She's really human now” message, Penny has been done dirty by the show these last two volumes. Not nearly to the extent Ironwood has, but still. At this point I wish they'd just kept her dead dead. Why do I want her back when that resurrection produces no reaction, her conflicts lead nowhere, and one of the core things that made Penny Penny has now been magically erased?

I've been saying for weeks that killing Penny off and keeping Penny around each had serious downsides attached, yet I never expected RWBY to do BOTH.

Also, I'm warding off any, "But Pinocchio was made into a real boy too" defenses. RWBY is not Pinocchio. Penny is not Pinocchio. I thought the allusion was going to be the Pinocchio inspired girl heading into the whale, not the show forcing the exact plotline — down to a blue, magical creature — onto a character whose entire journey has been about accepting herself as an android. Congratulations, RT. You just obliterated years of work.

Again, if you'd like an example of how to do this far better:

As Penny's character falls apart, Atlas shakes, alerting Jaune and the other that a new wish has been granted. Jaune pecks at the screen and realizes "That did, uh, something…?” but doesn’t realize that there's a giant, red "LIVE" up in the corner.

Jaune tries to warn the entire kingdom about their plan, but what he actually says is

“Atlas is falling, but — !”

And then the communications cut out.

Watts, perhaps?

Our heroes are really good at saying things that make large populaces panic, huh? This is the one (1) snag in their "impossible" plan, but as said above, it doesn't amount to anything. We get a shot of Nora, horrified at the thought of kingdom-wide communications being down, but literally seconds later Team RWBY has made portals appear that everyone can walk through. So... why do we care about communications? More importantly, why does the show try to make us care? So much time is spent getting the viewer invested in problems that never come to mean anything.

Including the problem of Salem herself.

Because the group successfully creates that evacuation plan. This is it. Everyone is leaving while Salem still reforms.

Yang asks if they can use the vaults themselves as a single point for everyone to go to and Ambrosius agrees. So everyone is going to pile into the Vacuo vault that can only be opened by an unknown Maiden? They're going to put an entire kingdom's worth of people, including their enemies, into the vault where the Relic of Destruction is? Yeah, that's great. Prior to this — like if this had been the plan at the end of Volume 7 — I would have 100% agreed that these risks are better than death by Salem/grimm/cold. Now though, Oscar as axed Salem for an unknown length of time, the cold is having no impact on the civilians outside, and the grimm only attack background military personnel that supposedly no one cares about. They couldn't have spent another few minutes (especially with time stopped!) to figure out a means of getting to Vacuo that doesn't involve revealing and providing access to the location of a super secret vault? To say nothing of what they're going to do if Salem wakes up and snags one of those portals for herself. Two kingdoms for the price of one!

But that's what they're going with. Weiss gives Ambrosius a schematic of the kingdom, I guess, and he makes branching pathways appear with numerous portals for everyone to step through. They'll enter through one and, when they exit another, will be in Vacuo. Easy peasy, right? Especially since Ambrosius doesn't seem to have any limitations about how often his power is used. Is it three creations every 100 years like Jinn? We're not told, at least not to my recollection. However, I was expecting there to be a waiting period, that they'd fix Penny, go to evacuate the kingdom, and learn that sorry, I can't make another creation just yet. It feels like the sort of shit move these beings would pull — "Don't cry to me when it's not what you wanted" — it would have been another commentary on the group's insistence on putting friends over the people's safety (like demanding the Ace Ops not bomb the whale because of Oscar), and crucially, would have kept the action in Atlas. Isn't that what this volume is? The battle for and potential destruction of the Kingdom of Atlas? We have two episodes left and, unless something unexpected happens, we're moving that action to Vacuo. Why?

Meanwhile, Penny's corpse is just chilling in the background 😬

While all this is going on, Winter reassures Jacques that he and Ironwood will be evacuated too, though she makes it clear saving him was Weiss' idea. It checks out, considering Weiss is the one who turned her father's arrest into a joke last volume. Winter still takes his abuse seriously.

The group prepares to leave with a celebratory, "We did it!" from Weiss. I'm still banging my head against that dining room table. Before they can pass through the portal though, Ambrosius leaves them with one, dire warning: "Do not fall."

In any other story a line like that is a neon sign announcing to the audience that someone will absolutely fall, and maybe they will, but RWBY has dodged consequences so often I wouldn't be surprised if this was merely another way to string us along. Remember all the hype surrounding Salem? The cold combined with her army and magic? How she was going to decimate Atlas and leave our group broken in a Fall 2.0?

I mean, we still have two episodes left. Forty minutes of content. Salem might still decimate them, especially since something has to happen in the finale. But god, it's a problem that we've come this far without a payoff. Salem randomly decided not to attack anyone, was stopped by a weapon added in solely for this purpose, and now the whole kingdom is being evacuated with a plan the group could have used at the start. This volume really is meaningless.

“We go to vacuo and hope we’ve thought of everything” they say as the camera zooms in on Cinder's smiling face. For the second week in a row.

Bingo time!

Winter betrayed Ironwood, the group used the Staff of Creation, and I'm axing Maria on behalf of Pietro. You can't have the guy's daughter become human — after he was killing himself to give her his aura?? — and magically walk to Vacuo, not knowing if he's even survived since she last saw him, and expect me to think he hasn't been forgotten. Same with Maria. Has the group mentioned her since Amity cut out, notably for reasons they couldn’t explain? Of course not. Did they care to find out what happened? Of course not. I have no doubt they'll both re-appear in the next two episodes, Pietro crying over how perfect his girl is now and Maria congratulating the group on their actions, but we're still marking it.

This is the ugliest thing I’ve ever created, I hope you all are enjoying it :D

Another week, another couple feet added to the hole we’re digging. I know I keep saying I have no idea what's going to happen next... but I have no idea what's going to happen next. A Vacuo ending was not in the cards, not outside of them miraculously showing up in ships. Maybe they have been on their way to Atlas (somehow...) and will arrive precisely when everyone has left! Anything is possible at this point.

See you next Saturday, everyone. Hold on until then lol. 💜

#rwby #rwby spoilers #rwby volume 8 #mymetas #rwby recaps #rwby creation

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fu-yao · 3 years

Text

#showyourprocess

From planning to posting, share your process for making creative content!

To continue supporting content makers, this tag game is meant to show the entire process of making creative content: this can be for any creation.

RULES — When your work is tagged, show the process of its creation from planning to posting, then tag 5 people with a specific link to one of their creative works you’d like to see the process of. Use the tag #showyourprocess so we can find yours!

Thank you so much for tagging me @lan-xichens, I’ll try my best to explain how I made this set from start to finish hehe ♡ and also a big thank you to @suibianjie @highwarlockkareena @nyx4 @aheartfullofjolllly and you as well Kris for putting this all together! Content creators get a lot less recognition than they deserve for all the time they put into their content, so getting everyone to see the (sometimes excessive) process we all go through to put our content in our blog, I hope it creates a positive change!! 💖

1. Planning

The set in question was actually requested by someone so they could celebrate their friend’s birthday! At first I wasn’t entirely sure if I was going to be able to finish it on time (college is very hectic right now) but I was able to finish it three days before the deadline which was may 1st! ^-^

The first thing I did was decide what characters I wanted to use in the set, I first reached out to the person who requested the set if there were certain characters they wanted me to use but they said they didn’t know enough to really give me any directives outside of the quote. I decided, since the quote is applicable to the entirety of the show, that I would try to put in as many characters as possible.

Thus, of course, came the hunting for scenes. Those of you in the net discord surely know I came into the content help channel a few times to ask for certain scenes here and there, and eventually I had to download an additional 10 episodes to the back then 20 or so episodes I had in my CQL episodes folder.

As you can see I have 30 random episodes of CQL downloaded (slowly but surely getting to the point where I have all 50 episodes downloaded) and I think I ended up using scenes out of at least 20 of those episodes.

I planned out beforehand what characters I would use per gif. I knew obviously I would start out with Wangxian, them being the main characters of the show, and then would work my way down the list. The second gif consists of Nie Huaisang, Nie Mingjue, Jin Zixuan, Jiang Yanli, Wen Qing, and Wen Ning. They’re all family pairings, two being siblings and one being a married couple. The next gifset consists of the Yi City characters, then the fourth gif consists of the juniors, and the final gif has Jin Guangyao, Mianmian, Jiang Cheng, and Lan Xichen in it.

I have to admit though that when I had made the first four gifs I’d forgotten who I would put in the last gif and the when I thought about it the first time around I could only think of Lan Qiren and the very cursed Yaoyang ship 😭 it was only at dinner time that same day that I remembered I hadn’t put Jiang Cheng in my gifset yet and that’s when I thought of the other characters as well.

I had already made my first two gifs when I went to check Hanyi’s blog for layout inspo and eventually I decided I wanted to try a triangle-ish layout, which I doodled below. I eventually ended up changing the layout of the last gif in the final design. It was also the first time I would work with a triangle-ish layout so I was a bit nervous as I was scared it wasn’t going to work out...

2. Creating

I use Avisynth 2.5 and Adobe Photoshop 2021 (the paid version, unfortunately, I need it for school except I didn’t need it this year but I wanted it so I paid for it with my own money ouch) to make my gifsets! I always start out with trimming down all the scenes I’m going to use into three to five second videos and putting them through Avisynth. This time around I did it separately for each gif I made, simply because I needed so many scenes. I would include a screenshot of my “gif vids” and “temp” folders but I’ve already deleted all the videos, which is what I usually do immediately after a set is posted.

I’ll try my best explaining this gif by gif since each one had a different layout!

2.1 Wangxian

I think I had up to five different designs of this gif 😭 it started out with the gif on the left originally being more centered and the quote right smack in the center but somehow it felt a bit too... empty? I changed up the design and pulled the gif over to the right and put the two closeups on the left, the exact opposite of the gif I eventually ended up with. I switched things around one more time and saved the gif as you can see it right now, except I didn’t include the lines yet. It was only as I finished up my fourth gif that I decided this gif needed lines as well so I added them ^-^

2.2 Nie Huaisang, Nie Mingjue, Jin Zixuan, Jiang Yanli, Wen Qing, and Wen Ning

I got the inspiration for the font layout on this gif from this Wenzhou post! I hadn’t tried it before and when I did for this gif I was very happy with the way it turned out :D I wanted to portray that life is a pile of good and bad things, as the quote says, in CQL by mirroring these happy scenes side by side with the sad scenes

2.3 Yi CIty

My first time working with the triangle layout!! Putting in the lines and making sure they would line up with the second gif took me the longest of all actually 😭 I think once I got the line on the left in I just copy pasted it and flipped it horizontally so I didn’t have to fiddle around with angling it anymore :’) my original idea was to get a happy Song Lan scene and a sad A-Qing scene, but when I stumbled upon this A-Qing scene in ep38 I just had to put it in there because her smile is so precious 🥺 Xue Yang and Xiao Xingchen in the center are also supposed to be mirrored, with Xue Yang embodying the “bad things” and Xiao Xingchen the “good things” ! I also think the Yi City characters fit this part of the quote very well!!

2.4 The Juniors

Ah yes, the junior quartet!! :D I had this planned out from the very beginning, that I would include happy versus sad juniors in the “vice versa” part of the quote, and I think it worked out quite well! My first idea was to put the “vice versa” completely in the special font and have it typed out over the gifs like I did with the “vice” but as I typed out the “versa” I realized it had one letter too much to be able to do that 😭😭 it took me a while to come up with how I would position the “but” and “versa” and after some moving around I decided to just place them the way I did in the final gif! For the font, I duplicated the “vice” and added a stroke to the duplicate, then I changed the fill setting to 0% so I could slightly drag the duplicate away from the original layer to create the effect that’s in the gif — also, finding a scene in which Jin Ling smiles is really difficult.... he barely even smiles in the scene I ended up using :(

2.5 Jin Guangyao, Mianmian, Jiang Cheng, and Lan Xichen

The final gif!! I feel like this might come a little across as “I promise I didn’t forget these characters” because they’re a very odd quadruplet to put together, but they were the most important characters left to put in the set! I was thinking of putting Nie Mingjue in here together with Jin Guangyao and Lan Xichen, but I did feel he fit more with his brother up in the second gif. Mei @mylastbraincql cheered me on making this gif for which I was very grateful :D <3 the layout came to be after I googled “how to evenly split a rectangle in four” because I didn’t want a repeat layout in the set (*/∇＼*)

2.6 Coloring

For the coloring I pretty much did all of the tweaking on the first gif and then copy pasted all of it onto the second, third, fourth, and fifth gif. This is usually the way I go about my coloring, I will always edit certain gifs if necessary but I don’t think I had to change the coloring much on any of these gifs? Maybe I added in a curve layer here and there, but nothing major! This is really one of my preferred coloring styles, even though I try to step outside of my comfort zones with other sets ^-^

3. Posting

I will always upload sets into my drafts and edit the caption in there as well, clicking on “preview post” a couple times to check everything looks good on my blog as well, before I post a set. However, this time, since there was a deadline and I finished before the deadline, I put this set in the queue so it would automatically post on the 1st of may! Knowing myself, I would’ve forgotten to do so </3

Whew that was... a lot 😭 did it make any sense? Probably not, but it was fun to ramble （ ´∀｀）

I’ll tag

@blinkplnk with this set !

@wuxien with this set !

@wendashanren with this set !

@wanyinxichen with this set !

@yibobibo with this set !

@mylastbraincql with this set !

@sugarbabywenkexing with this set !

@yiling-recesses with this set !

@jiancheng with this set !

Please feel totally free to ignore this if you’ve already been tagged and don’t want to do it again!! <3

#showyourprocess #tag game #this got so long i'm sorry ;-;#very curious to see everyone else's processes!!#thank you for the tag kris <3

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