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marshmallowprotection · 4 months

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One thing I would have liked in the RAE is to see more of Yoosung's reaction right at the moment he learns the truth about Rika, give it more focus. At least I would have liked that scenario, I actually thought he would break down and not be willing to go through with the mission for a long time. But I admire how strong he is and how he doesn't take Rika's side or try to see or look for some possibility that she is not the cause of all this mess, but that doesn't make sense, everything is happening in front of his eyes and he must accept it...

I liked that maturity when he calls us on the phone and see that even though I said I was being sympathetic to Rika, Yoosung had his OWN feelings about it and couldn't agree with me at this point. I still think that pain is still inside him even after the Good Ending, you will never forget the person you once admired betraying you in the most horrible way, God I would give anything to see Yoosung in front of Rika and expressing his feelings towards her (like in VAE) his sadness, anger, disappointment!!! I love Yoosung and would love to be by his side and hold his hand and tell him it's ok to feel what he feels, let him cry if he needs to, if he feels angry let him express it freely, his feelings are as valid as anyone else's, I would be by his side to listen to him and hug him if he needs comfort.

It hurts but I know he will be able to move on, let him take all the time he needs to heal, RFA would be there for him too, and whether or not he forgives Rika is for him to decide... I will support what he thinks is best for him.

I hope I'm not the only one (I don't think so) who thinks that after this Rika and Yoosung's relationship will not be the same so I see it very difficult for them to get back together like before. I know I said I will support every decision he makes but if it's possible for him to decide to stay away from Rika I think it's for the best, for him and for Rika.

I'm looking forward to seeing more of Yoosung post RAE because of all this I've told you guys. (Well, honestly, all the post-RAE RFA moving forward with their lives taking care of their health).

Yoosung goes through so much in this game, I swear to God. I don't get to talk about him enough.

I do think he is one of the members who would be willing to contemplate a visit to her in prison once or twice. We do know that he has more or less come to the realization that his cousin is not the person he believed her to be, just in a different fashion from the way we see it play out in V Route.

In this situation, he can see her do things that are unforgivable to many, and I'm sure he swallows a lot of his feelings for the sake of those around him since he is the kind of guy who is considerate. He would be mindful of Saeran.

Why wouldn't he be mindful of somebody who just helped him realize that his family isn't who he thought it was? That doesn't make it any easier for him, but for a lot of people, if somebody does something irredeemable, you can make the decision to have nothing to do with them, but still deal with your feelings later on due to the severity of the situation you're in.

But, I do think for his peace, he would need to speak to her at least once just like he did in the other ending to fully comprehend all of his feelings, because he deserves the opportunity to put his heart out on the table and make sure he is heard.

He would want to know if his cousin ever cared about him and why she did what she did. Why would she go out of her way to hurt other people? Why wouldn't she tell anyone that she was struggling? Why wouldn't she be open and honest with him when he thought their relationship was closer than what it was? He has a lot of questions and pain that needs to be expressed.

You've said it yourself, a lot of those feelings are messy and complicated but they deserve to be felt. He deserves to say what he needs to say and feel what he needs to feel. She was his entire world for a few years, and he missed that sense of closeness they had as a family. She was his rock, and as much as he wants to go back, he knows he can never go back to what they had.

The answer may never satisfy him but I think he needs to hear it from her to find peace. Sometimes you need to hear the answer straight from that person's mouth, and it doesn't matter if the answer is satisfying or not, the only thing that matters is that you hear what their excuse is and you contemplate how you feel about everything after you know their side alongside everyone else's.

That's his family and she meant the world to him in the short time they were together. We don't know a lot about his family specifically, but I've always assumed his older sister is much older than he is, and he was an oopsie baby.

She was closer to his age as far as he could tell, she truly felt like the older sister he never had. Sure, we know a little bit about his real older sister, but I don't think the two of them have a close relationship and he always yearned for more of a relationship with her. He couldn't have that with her, but he did get it with his cousin, and that's why it was so easy to befriend Rika! She saw him when nobody else did and he is grateful for that fact to this day no matter what happened!

His mother likes to coddle him and I do believe she's on the older side of motherhood! He didn't have the opportunity to be close to most of his family, but he had a normal upbringing. He never had to worry about anything and he always had his needs met. He just didn't have the opportunity to be close to people in his family as much as he might have wanted to be, and that's why it was so easy for him to get close to Rika.

He was going into veterinary medicine to make sure nobody ever had to go through what she did over Sally, but as we can see, that wasn't his passion as much as baking is. Seeing him move on to something that makes him happier makes me happy for him.

Don't get me wrong, he loves animals, and more than anything he wants to make sure they are taken care of. But, to me, it always felt like he wasn't like his heart wasn’t all there. I’m not a Yoosung MC so don’t quote me on that, it’s just… throughout the game, I’ve seen him love the creation of food from start to finish. That felt like more of a passion when I watched him.

Of course, you don't have to make your career around something you're passionate about, you can do something else you love and keep that hobby on the side. I know he'll keep practicing his baking and cooking in his timeline, but I often wonder how things could have been different had he changed his major.

His love for animals isn't just for Rika, you know? But, Rika played a huge role in his choosing that path.I just know he has to be looking at it differently since he reflected in one timeline on it and decided to change course. If you could do that in one universe, it could happen in others.

Frankly, I think for the betterment of his health, and for Rika’s health as well, they do not continue to have contact. I think Rika needs to let go of the RFA and move on because it’s clear to me in the route that they’re moving on from her. The subject of V is a little more trouble, but Rika? I think that’s said and done with by what we see in the time jump.

I'm not sure what his decision will be in the end but I do hope that he has the opportunity to speak to her and find whatever peace he needs, because he always wants to talk to her even if it doesn't bring him any peace. In the end, it's his choice whether he wants to forgive her or not, and I hope he decides what feels right for him. I don't want him to let anything cloud his decision of what feels right for him.

#mod kait #ask #mystic messenger #anon #mysme #mysticmessenger #mm #yoosung kim #kim yoosung #character analysis

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sins-of-the-dragon · 2 months

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Two Sides of a Coin with No Edge - Anders and Fenris Parallels

A little analysis that isn't really that well organised right now but I have plenty of thoughts around how these two are opposite and yet so similar...

More beneath the cut~

Names - Anders never had a name, or he likely doesn’t remember it. What he uses is what was given to him. It has little to no meaning. Fenris gave up his name, and had it replaced with one with meaning. The meaning being almost derogatory, another form of ownership over his identity, but it’s one that eventually he could drop and take his original back when he meets Varania. He could...but no. He's not Leto any more, and can't be. That's lost. As lost as Anders' original name and who he might have been before the magic manifested.

Family - Anders has no way to ever know or track down his family. They're gone, all knowledge of them severed from him. (Unless this is covered in a book or comic I haven't got to yet). Fenris actually has a chance to reunite with his sister Varania, to know more about their mother too, but...he also can't. She's a mage, a symbol of everything he has learned to hate and fear from years of pain. How could he resume that connection?

Safety - Anders is being hunted. He’s always going to be hunted. The phylactery can track him, and if not he can likely be traced by what he’s done, where he goes. Even when the Wardens mean he can stop being pursued as an apostate, leaving them means getting chased down for that instead. Fenris is also being hunted. He has been for a long time…but once Danarius is gone, he’s free. He has an out.

Persecution - As a mage, Anders has always had that prejudice towards him. But in other ways he could blend in if he wanted to. He’s human, he could choose not to use magic once he has control over it and wear less obvious robes. He could potentially hide properly. Not that he would given who he is, but the option is there. Fenris will always be an elf, and his tattoos can’t be hidden. They’re going to mark him apart even from other elves. He was born in a place where not only was he going to be a second class citizen from day 1 as elves are across most of Thedas, but most of his people are enslaved too.

Control - Both of them have little control over the powers that are bound to them, even though both chose it. Fenris might not remember, but it is clear he made a decision to have the lyrium bound to him. Just like Anders chose to bring Justice into himself. They both show that emotions can bring out those abilities or that side of them. Fenris glows with his rage just as much as Justice comes to the fore when Anders is in a strong emotional state or faced with certain situations.

Emotions - They are also both highly emotional people. Anders shows more of the swings back and forth, with all kinds of emotions felt more strongly than most people - whether that is how quickly and deeply he falls in love, or how furious he becomes with injustice. His emotions are at the fore, strong, powerful, because that’s how he is, who he is. Fenris on the other hand struggles more purely with anger, frustration, and a very violent reaction to certain situations and people. He doesn’t allow himself to feel close to people easily because that might be a weakness someone can use against him. It takes him a lot to hold back from hurting Varania when he hears about his past, and he’s clearly still struggling with anger even after Danarius is gone.

Forgiveness - Both of them have a strong sense of justice, just aimed in different directions. Anders has felt the oppression of being a mage and everything that goes with that for most of his life. Fenris has felt the same but the source of that has been mages. Anders can’t forgive the Templars any more than Fenris can let go of his fear/hate of magic. They both know and eventually accept there can be good people on the other side, but it takes them a long time to get to that point. And neither can forgive the society that enabled their persecution.

They have so much in common but they can never see it, never truly reconcile. Anders sees someone who is determined to oppress his people, who only believes them to be dangerous and violent, who thinks the only way to prevent harm is to lock them all up and control them even if they’re innocent. Fenris sees someone who wants to unleash danger on the world, to let criminals and enslavers run wild and free to use people like him for their own power, who wants to set every mage free without supervision, inviting abominations to destroy everything good and precious in the world.

By design they can never see eye to eye, even the most determined therapist would concede they both have too much pain to reconcile as acquaintances.

Two sides of the same coin with no way to balance on the edge.

--- That's about all the thoughts I have in me for now~

#dragon age #fenris #anders #dragon age 2 #da2 #dragon age ii #DA thoughts #character analysis

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checkoutmybookshelf · 11 months

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For the Love of All That is Holy, Stop Calling Your Love Interest Stupid, Benedict!!!

Dearest Gentle Reader, I suppose if you play with fire, you do eventually get burned. This Author has finally been burned by a Bridgerton novel. --Lady Bookshelf's Society Papers, 7 June 2023

So uhh...yeah. We gotta talk about Benedict Bridgerton. And we gotta talk about what the actual hell happened between book and Netflix series, because I found the series before the book, and even knowing that the characterizations were different, this book was JARRINGLY different, and not gonna lie, I absolutely cannot stand book Benedict and I fully do not understand the Benophie appeal. Now that I've finished painting a target on my back, let's talk An Offer from a Gentleman.

*Content Warning: Discussions of attempted rape/sexual assault. As always, take care of you first in your choice of books and book reviews, and never ever feel shame about skipping over books or reviews that aren't healthy for you to engage with.*

Ok y'all, I have recipts for this one, because book Benedict was basically a "too aloof and edgelordy to give a damn" and he really, REALLY needed to stop telling Sophie she was stupid or thinking too much. He also was hideously high-handed about blackmailing, coercing, and passive aggressively manipulating Sophie into doing the closest possible thing he can make happen to what he wants. He can't hear the word "no." His art seems somehow less important to him than the bowl of rocks at the cottage.

Show Benedict is a sweetheart artist with a wicked sense of humor and a real damn good sense for his siblings' moods and needs. I like show Benedict. I was prepared to yeet book Benedict off a cliff.

So real quick before this descends into incoherent screeching, I just need to point out the section where Sophie leaves the Cavendar's house during a party that is SUPER not safe for her. The "male lead saves the female lead from getting raped" is not my favorite trope in the world, but I'm not here to shame anyone for rescue fantasies. What I am here to do is explainin why Benedict is the WORST POSSIBLE EXAMPLE of this trope. I'm just gonna go ahead and put the passage up here, for ease. This is Benedict's reaction to seeing Sophie is an objectively scary situation:

WHAT THE HELL IS THIS REACTION??? What is this "ugh, I guess I HAVE to step in, what a pain in the ass FOR ME" nonsense??? This is not allyship, this isn't even--as Benedict tepidly says--"having sisters," this is just "ugh, I guess I have to be a hero, how annoying."

If you're going to do the rescue trope, it kind of works better if your leading man gives a rat's ass. Like, give him a strong position on rape being bad. Give him a motivation. Give him something other than an eye roll and vague irritation that he has to do the thing! He's not even particularly T-ed off with the guys in this situation, it's just...and event. That he has to deal with. Like going to the DMV or something.

Can we PLEASE not do this. This is gross, it is bare minimum, and frankly? It's the least interesting version of this trope. I wasn't a Twilight girl, but the scene where Edward rescues Bella from implied gang rape was done better than this moist tissue of a scene purely because HE GIVES A RAT'S ASS ABOUT BELLA.

Bare freaking minimum, your romantic leads have to have strong feelings for each other. Those feelings can be positive or negative, depending on whether or not you're doing enemies to lovers, but the feelings have to EXIST. And when you're dealing with limited third omninscient narration, the character in who's head you are should probably have stronger emotions than *eye roll* to keep it interesting for the reader!! We know Sophie is already in love with Benedict at this point in the novel, but we aren't in Sophie's HEAD just now.

I'm basically out of coherent things to say about this book, so let's just go over key examples of other things in this book that made me rage. It's not every instance, but it's a selection of demonstrative examples.

Let's check the recipts:

And just WHAT is wrong with speaking like a woman, Benedict??? Is it maybe because you think they're somehow LESSER than men???

TAXING HER BRAIN, BENEDICT??? Let the woman think for her own damn self for five seconds!

LET. HER. THINK. FOR. HER. OWN. DAMN. SELF.

YOU SPENT THE WHOLE BOOK TELLING HER NOT TO THINK AND NOW YOU'RE MANSPLAINING CLASS TO HER??? SERIOUSLY???

Oh, yes, call her stupid. That's a GREAT way to get in any woman's skirts, Benedict. (Please excuse me while I scream incoherently into a pillow in rage.) Punch him again, Sophie.

Wow, so you do ONE DECENT THING and suddenly you own her life??? PUNCH HIM AGAIN, SOPHIE. And no, gentlemen, going "oh shit, I am actually being a huge dick here" and then DOING THE THING ANYWAY does not earn you any points.

ACTUALLY SHE DOES KNOW WHAT SHE WANTS, BENEDICT, BECAUSE SHE IS A HUMAN PERSON WITH AGENCY!!!!!! AND SHE HAS SAID NO TO YOU LIKE FIFTEEN TIMES!!! Dear god, someone throw this man back in the lake and hold his head under.

FOR FUCKS SAKE-- *screams in impotent rage while channeling Beatrice's "would eat his heart in the marketplace" vibes*

So...I actually don't recommend this book. Don't read this one. Just enjoy show Benedict and we can all collectively pretend that the book didn't happen.

#julia quinn #an offer from a gentleman #benedict bridgerton #sophie beckett #bridgerton books #bridgerton netflix #romance novels #romance books #regency romance #books & libraries #books and reading #books and novels #book recommendations #books #benophie

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fereldandog · 1 year

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how fitting: the gauntlet makes them fight themselves, and at such horribly ironic time.

yrsa is paralysed. the apparition she's forced to raise her greatsword at first is dog, quickly lunging at the party. she swings, terrified even though she knows it's just part of the test and the mabari's dying whine isn't real. and then she has to face alistair, ghostly and ghastly, and she stumbles. the gauntlet's alistair looks so real, her alistair, the one she kissed just barely two nights ago at camp. but this alistair is so angry. of course he is. he should be. he has every right to hate her.

before she can even look at the other apparitions, before she can see her companion's reactions, a strong blow to the head overpowers her entirely. first it's her own blood that blinds her, spilling from the headwound, and then everything just goes dark anyway.

and to the real alistair's horror, it's their united apparitions that nearly kill her there and then. and all their companions turn their spirit-swords at him, their faces turned foul, hateful - their feet quickly stepping on his warden's unconscious body with zero regard. he always knew she'd die on his watch, no? he cuts the gauntlet-yrsa's head off, and throws up.

morrigan faces herself. when they were walking around haven, after days of travel, when she was at the brink of feeling some faint connection to these people, alistair jokingly brought up that she looks just like her mother. this threw her off balance and did not leave her head, just as the thoughts of those other morrigans that might live somewhere planted in her head by zevran's nonsensical rambling about her sisters. and so she's glad to kill the imposter. it looks like her but isn't her. she's one of the kind, and her life is her own. no one else's. she casts the most painful spells, even though she's sure the apparition can't feel pain.

and leliana plunges her dagger right into the heart of her own apparition, with a violent prayer on her lips. but she's not sure who she's killing. whether she's killing the cloister sister leliana, or marjolaine's sly bard leliana. but she kills her nonetheless, and feels the sting of tears in her eyes because she's not sure which part of her just died.

and when the apparitions are gone, they manage to wake yrsa, her head split open and her hands shaking. they're relieved she's alive, and proud to have defended her the very first time she fell on the battlefield.

but she's horrified.

of course she had to let them down, too, and she'd be dead if not for them. and by her own hand, no less, her own fault.

#dao #the grey warden is a brown bear #yrsa cousland #morrigan #leliana #alistair

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rphelperblog · 2 years

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Karen M. Mcmanus Quote Rp Meme

[Her books include- One of us is lying, One of us is next, Nothing more to tell,Cousins, and two can keep a secret]

'It concerns me you're avoiding a promise not to murder me.”

I solemnly swear not to murder you today or at any point in the future. Deal?'”

“I know what it's like to tell yourself a lie so often that it becomes the truth.”

“I have to figure out a way to live with that, and it won't be by not forgiving other people's mistakes.”

“Things'll get worse before they get better.”

“I want to kiss her more than I want air.”

“I guess we're almost friends now, or as friendly as you can get when you're not one hundred percent sure the other person isn't framing you for murder.”

“We could be surrounded by walking dead in the zombie apocalypse and she’d look for the bright side.”

“Holding on to resentment is like drinking poison and waiting for the other person to die.”

“These murder club meetings are becoming a regular thing. We need a new name, though.” “I don't know why it's so hard for people to admit that sometimes they're just assholes who screw up because they don't expect to get caught.”

“Unless one of us is lying. Which is always a possibility.”

“Good thing life is long and high school is short”

“love and hope and beauty still exist, even when things seem impossibly dark.”

You're doing better than me. I never stop thinking about kissing you.”

“She's a princess and you're a jock,and you're a brain. And you're a criminal. You're all walking teen-movie stereotypes.”

“I have a really strong feeling that on Wednesdays, they wear pink.”

“You find out who your real friends are when stuff like this happens. Turns out I didn’t have any…”

“I don’t understand why the world insists on stuffing kids into boxes we never asked for, and then gets mad when we won’t stay there.”

“Some people are too toxic to live. They just are.”

“Are we friends, or just a couple of people without better options?”

“We’re endgame”

“Sometimes, you don't know what you want until you see it.”

"He doesn't get to erase you from the world.”

“No matter how awful the rest of my life is, my hair still manages to look good.”

“You don’t think about what’s outside. Or who. Especially if she’s better off forgetting you exist.”

“It's not nerdy to care about fonts!”

“Welcome to life in a small town. You’re only as good as the best thing your family’s done. Or the worst.”

“You can be right in principle and still wrong in approach.”

“People who never get told no are so bad at hearing it.”

“Who do you want to be? The guy who goes along or the guy who stands up? This is the time to decide.”

“I just want to stay wrapped around him for as long as possible, fighting sleep and forgetting about the rest of the world.”

“Plenty of people get cheated on and don’t lose their minds. Take me, for example. I threw a vase at his head and moved on. That’s a normal reaction.”

"I don't need your commentary if you disagree, by the way."

“That's the kind of person you can get away with killing: someone everybody else wants dead.”

“People like to think they're open-minded, but if you toss a tired gender stereotype on their path they'll run with it every time.”

“We’re like the Kardashians, except without any money.”

“Nobody should be that good at so many different things. It doesn’t build character.”

“It means that we’ll wind up together eventually. It might take a year for us to sort everything out, or two, or ten. Whatever. But it’ll happen.”

No matter how much you care about someone, things change when they used to be around all the time an then suddenly, they're not.”

“If I'm not thinking about one shit storm, I have to think about another.”

“Everybody has secrets, that's nondebatable. The only question is whether you're keeping your own, or someone else's.”

“How do you make that choice? Between what you need and what you want?"

“She's a pain in my ass and I can't remember why I wanted to kiss her so badly a few minutes ago.”

“At this moment, I’ve never wanted to do anything as much as I want to grab his face and kiss every inch of it.”

“I’m the omniscient narrator”

“I thought you would look how you talk like a constipated gnome.”

that airhead homecoming princess turned badass ninja investigator,”

“I can’t stop thinking about how rare it is to have someone you can be completely real with, even when things get raw and uncomfortable and a little scary. Especially then.”

“Like we're some kind of hip high school murder club without a care in the world.”

“Because God, it's beautiful when that boy smiles.”

“Leave the past where it is”

“We all make mistakes, right? And almost never see the fallout coming.

“Silence falls as we get lost in our own regrets.”

“If you could be anyhwere in five years, doing anything at all, what would you pick?”

“Apparently if you’re going to bring someone in, you have to take someone out first.”

“The loneliness of that settles over my shoulders like a heavy blanket.”

“I wish he'd listen, because if anyone knows how badly you can screw up your life when you decide you're not good enough, it's me.”

“You gotta shoot your shot when it comes...Who knows if you'll get another chance?”

“Explore the magic of longhand writing. It's a lost art.”

“People get very angry when police officers are accused of a crime, but that anger is often displaced toward the accuser or the victim. The conflict between obedience to authority and personal conscience is well documented.”

“Which I realize is pretty uninspiring, but so is high school dating.”

“Come on, just for an hour till we finish the movie. You can meet my lizard"

“Everyone got secrets right? What really matters is how far you’ll go to protect them”

“In the interest of full disclosure, I stole baby Jesus, and it was definitely to mess with her.”

“Here's the thing about powerhouse people: you have no idea how much they take on until they can't do it anymore.”

“I used to think about that, sometimes, when I wondered what parts of her might still be alive.”

“but if years of reading true-crime books and watching Dateline have taught me anything, it’s this: it’s always the boyfriend.”

That's not a line. I have an actual lizard. A bearded dragon named Stan.”

“You're not perfect. So what? Welcome to the real world.”

“I think the two of them are the real deal. She‘s still the one he wants. She‘ll probably always be the one he wants”

“If I ever actively chose somebody instead of just letting myself get pulled into whatever orbit will have me.”

“Sorry your mom drove her car into a jewelry store while she was high on opioids and had to go to rehab for four months.”

“or maybe we’re finally figuring out that we haven’t been normal for years and it’s time to redefine the word.”

“Well, I'd like to try. If you want to. Not because we're thrown together in this weird situation and I think you're hot, altough I do. But because you're smart, and funny, and you do the right thing more often than you give yourself credit for. I like your horrible taste in movies and the way you never sugarcoat anything and the fact that you have an actual lizard. I'd be proud to be your girlfriend, even in a nonoffical capacity while we're, you know, being investigated for murder. Plus, I can't go more than a few minutes without wanting to kiss you, so - there's that.

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princesslocket · 1 year

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I can do the same and ask for lore >:3c gimme the power of friendship/relationships lore for Locket and the twst homies!!

You know... Even after asking the question I kind of have the same reaction sljhgioeshg

While Locket does have a good amount of connections with the students of NRC, I feel like she struggles a bit to maintain those relationships. Not because she doesn't care (sometimes she cares a little too much) but because she can get lost in her own world and forget to communicate with others unless they're right there in front of her.

Ramshackle & Staff

Grim: They're pretty good friends! Or at least Locket thinks so! Really she just enjoys following him along on whatever kind of adventure he wants to do- Honestly, she indulges him a little too much. Whether it be feeding him to his heart content or appeasing his whims.

Ghosts: Every now and then Locket will make the ghosts little ornaments and trinkets just to have. It's mostly her way of thanking them for their hospitality since she really doesn't know what else a ghost might like or have use for kshvjsnv

Sam: Locket finds his endless supply of items extremely fascinating. Like she can get super specific on what she wants and Sam will almost always have it somewhere (hidden) somewhere in his shop. She once spent an entire weekend in the shop reading one of her favorite comic series with him

Heartslabyul

Riddle: Views Locket as a menace (derogatory). She's always eating all the apple tarts and doesn't even share!!! (She does but it's always coincidentally when he's not around. I promise it's not on purpose). He'd throw her out the dorms if she wasn't so nice- Really it's a pain how well the two get along when they're in club together...

Ace: Her self appointed older brother! Locket just liked his vibes decided he was her unofficial older brother day (unbeknownst to Ace of courses). The two of them get along as well as anyone else would - And they both end up getting into tricky situations more often than not even when they're both being mindful of the other.

Cater: Before meeting Cater, Locket was seriously against having her picture taken/posted online for fear that someone from home might find her you know 'cause if tsum's could appear out of nowhere then surely her family could too, right? But after being shown what differences filters and editing could make to her own photos, she reluctantly started to warm up to magicams and the like. She STILL doesn't really like having her picture taken but Cater is always kind enough to put a sticker on her face, cropping her out, or just not the posting the picture to keep her mind at ease.

Trey: He probably views Locket as a little menace (affectionately). The only times she visits him are when she's hungry for apple tarts, which is quiet often. And while he make the tarts for her, he has to wonder what would become of their relationship if he suddenly stopped making her the tarts- He's considered teaching Locket how to make them herself multiple times but is afraid of what would come next...

Savanaclaw

Jack: Low-key headcanon he has a crush on Locket and isn't even aware of it yet himself. He's just has some conflicting feelings and chalks them up to strong friendship vibes uwu

Ruggie: Out of everyone here, Ruggie probably knows Locket the most. And totally not because she told him anything but because he found out while snooping through her belongs (during book 2) He's been real good at keeping her past life a secret and all and Locket's real thankful for that but every since he found out, she's kept a subtle distance between them. Very few have noticed this besides Ruggie, Leona, Ace, and Lilia.

Octavinelle

Jade: Has her order practically memorized at the Mostro Lounge. I like to think that when business is slow he'll join Locket at whichever booth she's settled at and ask what kinds of foods she enjoys because there's no way the girlie can survive on the same exact meal each and every day.

Scarabia

Kalim: Her partner in parties! These two could dance and sing all day and night if you let them! Locket's waited YEARS for someone to match her lively energy oh boy was she glad to have found Kalim! They plan all kinds of activities to do together when no one else wants to party. It's usually up to Jamil to keep them both in check from overdoing it-

Jamil: Locket is a little wary of him- Even though her time with Kalim has shown her just how smart and reliable Jamil is, she just can't shake the feeling that he probably knows more about her than he's letting on. Of course, since she has no proof of anything she's on much better terms with him than she is with Ruggie.

Pomefiore

Vil: In the beginning, Locket exclusively avoided him because he reminded her of her mother (not to mention his massive online presence) but after The National Arcane Academy Culture Fair, Locket quickly warmed up to him. She doesn't go out of her way to make her presence known to him nowadays but every now and then she'll send him some sweets to eat even if she knows he'll throw them away (he doesn't but she doesn't know that).

Rook: They're archery buddies uwu They first met when Locket was trying to reenact that one scene in Brave where Merida was firring off arrows as she rode through the land on Angus's back and Rook found it amusing how awful Locket's aim was so he helped fix her form on ground and then by horseback and they've been friends ever since! And yes, Locket does give Rook some sweets to eat too!

Epel: Locket's always been an apple lover so when she heard about Epel and his history with the fruit she knew they were going to be fast friends! She quickly found out however that apple talk wasn't exactly the best thing to base a friendship on. Luckily for her, the two where able to find other common interests such as their shared love for blastcyles and potion making.

Ignihyde

Ortho: For some odd reason Locket's always been good with little kids. Probably because she has a hard time saying no and they take advantage of it but with Ortho, she never has to worry about that. The kid is smart enough to know what limit he should and shouldn't push and makes sure Locket is having just as much fun as he is! The two of them have spent countless hours making up fantasy worlds for fictional characters to live in.

Diasomnia

Malleus: He's her literal favorite person to talk to when no one else is around. Partially because Malleus never pries into her life but also because he's got such a comforting aura. She makes it a point to invite him to any and all events, even if it's just to walk around campus, but is rarely ever taken up on the offer. On nights when the two of them are conversing outside, Locket will sometimes fall asleep to the sound of his voice. And when she wakes up, she's almost always tucked back in bed with a few fairy lights lingering by her window...

Silver: It was strange how they became friends- Whenever Locket would wander off looking for somewhere quiet to be (the library, the forest, Sam's shop, etc) Silver was always sleeping right there! Sometimes he'd wake up to her placing a sandwich by him as she was preparing to leave and sometimes he'd awake to no one at all but with her blazer wrapped around him- No matter what happened he'd always seek her out later on to return her jacket/repay her for her kindness.

Sebek: He scares her. Being in the same club and should have helped her come to understand his character a little more, but really, it's just confused her more on who he is as a person. Let's just say the two don't see eye to eye (literally with their height difference and all XD)

Lilia: He helps tutor Locket when she's having a particular hard time understanding a subject. He breaks it down for her in ways she can get without having to do mental gymnastics. And if it's late when they're done, he'll invite her back to the dorms for dinner or walk her back to the Ramshackle dorm. (I feel like he wants to adopt Locket but can't because he isn't sure how Silver would take it XD And yes I'm implying that I can low-key see a ship happening with her and Silver or her and Malleus)

#omp yes please #ozrockbitway #thank you for this #these were so much fun to think up #some of them have been in the back of my mind for a while now #it's nice to get them written out #might add some more later #like for charas I didn't include #idk #we'll see #locket cantu #locket talks #twisted wonderland #long post #gif

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moogey-likes-things · 2 years

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What about the animatronics reacting to their s/o saying "this came off" and is their prosthetic and they just reattach it like nothing

AHFNRGKJB! My First ask!, TYTYTY! Well, as the main four rock stars would be more socialized and likely to have seen people with prosthetics, their reactions would probably be the more tame/calm.

(HC 7)

Freddy - “Oh! Please, do be careful, Superstar! That is not something you would want to lose in the Pizzaplex!” He would be mildly concerned, mostly because he knows kids have sticky fingers and he doesn't want you to be inconvenienced in any way. Natural or not, he stills loves each and every part of you!

Roxy - “Don't do that in front of me...” She's a little bugged out by this. People aren't supposed to come apart. She gets it, really, but she prefers you in one piece. You could totally cause her to cringe if you held the prosthetic out to her, just like scaring someone with a fake spider! (pls don't be mean tho)

Chica – “I-Is that secure? Do you need first aid? Or Parts and services?” Chica is mostly concerned as to whether you require a repair of some sort, though she might not be sure exactly where to seek out help for you. She will be curious, wanting to know if it causes you discomfort, and happy when you reattach that part of yourself. After all, all of you is the best!

Monty – “Uh... P-Put that back...” Seeing it up close will short circuit him momentarily. It's not bad, he just wasn't ready for you to literally come apart in front of him. As soon as he's over the initial surprise of it, you'd better be ready for cheese ball jokes. Also, don't let him get the idea to use it as a golf club...

Bonnie - “Neat!” Bonnie doesn't freak out, or worry too much over you. Not unless you make it seem like a big or painful ordeal. He'll want to have a look, to get to know your and whatever uniqueness you have about you. He'll laugh and compare your parts, maybe offering a little care advice, or asking for some himself.

Now, the others in the place might have seen something at some point, but seeing it up close and having YOU be the one reattaching parts willy-nilly? LOL

Sun - “EEK! Don't disassemble yourself! Glitter glue isn't strong enough to hold you together!”

His initial move is to panic. Little ones don't usually have artificial limbs, and they certainly don't come apart in the daycare! When he finally gets that you're alright he'll ask you a thousand times to make sure, and beg for a warning before you go taking your limbs off again. Also, he may want to put stickers on you.

Moon - “Interesting...” His approach is calm, though inside he'll be analyzing, scanning, and researching. He'll want to know all about this part of you. How did it happen? Does it hurt? What can you feel? What if you lose it? Have you ever misplaced it? When you've answered all his questions and he is certain you are not in pain of any kind, he'll gladly hold you close. You might catch him touching the prosthetic absentmindedly.

#fnaf asks #fnaf hc #fnaf headcanons #fnaf freddy #fnaf bonnie #fnaf chica #fnaf roxy #fnaf monty #glamrock chica #glamrock freddy #glamrock bonnie #glamrck roxy #glamrock monty #fnaf sun #fnaf moon #fnaf sb #fnaf security breach #fnaf glamrock

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latte-fairytaekwoon · 3 years

Text

𝓐𝓾𝓻𝓸𝓻𝓪 𝓐𝓼𝔂𝓵𝓾𝓶: 𝓙𝓮𝓸𝓷𝓰 𝓨𝓾𝓷𝓱𝓸

𝚆𝚊𝚛𝚗𝚒𝚗𝚐𝚜: 𝙼𝚎𝚗𝚝𝚒𝚘𝚗𝚜 𝚘𝚏 𝚝𝚘𝚡𝚒𝚌 𝚛𝚎𝚕𝚊𝚝𝚒𝚘𝚗𝚜𝚑𝚒𝚙, 𝚢𝚊𝚗𝚍𝚎𝚛𝚎 𝚋𝚎𝚑𝚊𝚟𝚒𝚘𝚛, 𝚊𝚕𝚕𝚞𝚜𝚒𝚘𝚗𝚜 𝚝𝚘 𝚜𝚎𝚕𝚏 𝚑𝚊𝚛𝚖, 𝚜𝚞𝚒𝚌𝚒𝚍𝚊𝚕 𝚝𝚑𝚘𝚞𝚐𝚑𝚝𝚜 𝚊𝚗𝚍 𝚝𝚎𝚗𝚍𝚎𝚗𝚌𝚒𝚎𝚜, 𝚖𝚎𝚗𝚝𝚒𝚘𝚗𝚜 𝚘𝚏 𝚜𝚞𝚒𝚌𝚒𝚍𝚎, 𝚜𝚎𝚕𝚏 𝚍𝚎𝚐𝚛𝚊𝚍𝚊𝚝𝚒𝚘𝚗 𝚊𝚗𝚍 𝚘𝚝𝚑𝚎𝚛 𝚝𝚛𝚒𝚐𝚐𝚎𝚛𝚒𝚗𝚐 𝚝𝚘𝚙𝚒𝚌𝚜. 𝚁𝚎𝚊𝚍 𝚊𝚝 𝚢𝚘𝚞𝚛 𝚘𝚠𝚗 𝚍𝚒𝚜𝚌𝚛𝚎𝚝𝚒𝚘𝚗.

𝙿𝚊𝚒𝚛𝚒𝚗𝚐: 𝚈𝚊𝚗𝚍𝚎𝚛𝚎! 𝙹𝚎𝚘𝚗𝚐 𝚈𝚞𝚗𝚑𝚘 × 𝙿𝚜𝚢𝚌𝚑𝚘𝚕𝚘𝚐𝚒𝚜𝚝 𝚁𝚎𝚊𝚍𝚎𝚛 (𝙵𝚎𝚖𝚊𝚕𝚎)

𝚆𝚘𝚛𝚍 𝙲𝚘𝚞𝚗𝚝: 𝟹𝙺

𝙶𝚎𝚗𝚛𝚎: 𝙰𝚗𝚐𝚜𝚝, 𝚂𝚕𝚒𝚐𝚑𝚝 𝙵𝚕𝚞𝚏𝚏, 𝚈𝚊𝚗𝚍𝚎𝚛𝚎 𝙰𝚄

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I breathed out an airy and desolate sigh through my nose, obviously I unconsciously did it a little too loud as the raven haired male sitting across from me looked down at the floor.

"It was all my fault.....wasn't it?"

I looked up, the glasses sitting on my nose bridge tilting slightly that I had to push them back up so I could study his features, or should I say, his expressions. His eyelids never blinked once, his eyes were trained on the pattern of the carpet underneath him, but I knew his mind was elsewhere. I looked with pity at the bandages wrapped around his wrists, some of the edges stained with fresh blood. I gulped slightly, my stomach threatening to spill out my meager lunch of an apple and avocado toast slice from earlier. I could handle hearing patients tell and retell me about how they stabbed their parents to death, cut off their significant other's genitals because they were unloyal to them, even tackled a deranged lunatic that once tried to...... seduce me to put mildly.......

But to this day, I can't help but get dizzy when I treat or deal with patients who are self harming victims, because yes, they are victims. Victims of their own self loathing, guilt, and depressive state that isn't their fault. It just pains me so much to see them resort to such drastic measures...

But I'm also not stupid and know some, if not most only do it for attention or to manipulate others, and Yunho is a case not far from it. Which is why I was the one sent to deal with him. All the other psychologists would have fallen for his sad puppy eyes, good looks, well built physique and would have released him too early into the world. Not that he's dangerous and a threat to society, but he's not emotionally nor mentally stable to go deal with daily life yet. And I'm not a softie by any means even if I'm patient and meek doctor when necessary. But I'm objective and I seek deeper into the true person hiding behind the front they put in front of me.

"Do you believe it was your fault Yunho?" Usually one would get scolded for answering a question with a question, but I prefer this method in order to get my patients to reason and draw out their own conclusions......

And makes them pour out their true answers.

I watch Yunho ponder for a moment.

"It has to be- otherwise she wouldn't have...wouldn't have-"

He bites back a choked sob, teeth tightening and gritting against themselves as he fails to contain his tears. His hands cover his face as he begins to cry uncontrollably, desperate and heartwrenching wails resonating throughout the 4 walls keeping us company. Reaching for the purple plaid box on the coffee table between us, I take out a few tissues and stand up from my seat. Lightly tapping on his shoulder, I whisper a 'here' to him. He thanks me, but since he's crying too hard no sound comes out his throat. For the next few minutes, he's blowing out his runny nose, all red just like his eyes from crying too hard. He's sniffling while trying to control his previous hyperventilating session. I want to hug him or at least give him a pat in the back. But I can't, I can only sit back and try to imagine the agony he's probably going through, try to put myself in his shoes as I dive deep into the event that got him here in the first place:

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Coming back from a trip to the store, Yunho momentarily looks around confused when he heard his baby daughter crying. Quickly putting the bags on the kitchen counter, he makes his way over to the nursery that adjoined the main bedroom. Calling out for his wife, he receives no response as he walks down the hallway. He calls once more for her but stops midway as he opens the slightly ajar door. His heart stops beating and his veins run cold as he stares into the lifeless body of his beloved wife hanging in the room, feeling as if the oxygen is being ripped out from his lungs, suffocating slowly.

As if sensing his agitation, his daughter's cries from the other room grow louder, so much that they raise concern from their next door neighbor, a kind and sweet old lady who more than once has offered her help in watching over the child or help them out in any way she could. Typing in the passcode, she makes it there just in time to stop the tall male from inflicting more harm upon himself as he holds onto his wife's body in agony. Having been left with no choice, she immediately calls for an ambulance, who arrive there shortly and take him to a nearby hospital.

He was monitored 24/7 as he had a history of attempted suicide before. The nurses and doctors didn't want another episode to happen again, not wanting to leave a barely 1 year old fatherless as well as motherless. As an investigation went, police found a journal hidden deep between the mattresses on the bed. When they poured over the first pages, they knew there was much more to the story than just a doting husband who couldn't live without his wife, hence why he was relocated to the infamous asylum......

And a specialized woman was tasked to not only unmask the truth, but hopefully help a poor broken mind be put back together again.

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Hence why I'm here now, the folder I had read over and over again still on my lap. It honestly amazed me that I'd actually get to work on a case like this, and of course I took up the challenge of digging into a mind like Yunho's, not just to help him, but to leave a precedent for any other situations like this that came after.

"A precedent?" I remember the officer asking me.

"Yes. You'd be surprised just how common these types of toxic relationships there are in an everyday basis yet no one ever looks deeper because they're too focused treating a depressed person who's trying to kill themselves and don't focus on what they really are...."

Shutting the folder, I tucked it under my arm before turning on my heel.

"A manipulative individual who'll do anything to keep someone tied to them forever."

That's how I viewed Yunho, it's how I should be viewing him. At least until I could hopefully get him to change.

"How's......is my daughter ok?"

I let out a soft hum and nod as I scribbled something down on the notepad.

"She's fine. We're having someone take care of her in the meantime, don't worry."

Yunho let out a sigh of relief, fingers fidgeting against his thighs as he mustered up the courage to say something.

"Could I.....could I please see her?"

From the sad look in my eyes he could already tell the answer was negative.

"I'm sorry Yunho....I'm afraid until we see some improvement, we can't allow you to be reunited with her just yet."

I tried to keep my voice steady as I said that, bracing myself to possibly see him breakdown once more. He had already lost his wife and now learning that his only child was forced away from him could possibly send him spiraling down into another episode.

But Yunho instead took a deep breath and seemed calm.

"I understand.....it's ok..." I knew he was saying those last two words more to himself than to me.

Lifting his face up, he suddenly shocked me by looking so bright and rather happy.

"So I guess it's best if we begin right?"

Even to this day, I don't know whether I should have been delighted to have such a compliant patient.....

Or terrified.

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"Tell me Yunho, what was your first reaction when you saw your wife?"

A subtle hint of a smile curled at the corners of his lips.

"I thought she was the kindest and most caring person in the world, very pretty too. She just walked in and the room instantly lit up."

He was reminiscing about those times, I could tell. That fond look on his face was unmistakable.

"Do you believe you fell in love at first sight with her?"

His smile suddenly dissipated, eyebrows scrunching together as if recollecting memories from so long ago.

"I think.......I felt attracted to her.....but.....I don't think it was love?"

I could tell he felt conflicted with himself, but that's exactly what I wanted. I want him to question every feeling and sensation he felt at the moment so he could decide for himself if it was real or just a mere illusion he held. If he starts to second guess or question what he felt then he'd start reasoning and come to the conclusion that what he felt was wrong and mistaken. He'd see that his actions weren't justified.

"So when do you truly believe you fell in love with her?"

I stopped writing on my notepad and watched him close his eyes as he tried to pinpoint the exact time he felt whatever he thought was love.

"One night....one of our friends was feeling down in spirits. I witnessed how caring she was towards them...kindly reassuring them that they were loved, that they mattered. I vividly remember her kind eyes and loving smile as she comforted them. Then it hit me that she was that kind of person. Selfless, caring, doting, would sacrifice anything for her friends and family...... it was hard for anyone not to fall in love with her."

He turned his hand over, studying the wedding ring that he still wore to this day, the engravings of their initials being his prime interest.

"And at that moment I knew I had to have her. I couldn't let anyone else have her. I wanted her.... that love, compassion, empathy..her confidence and strong nature, I wanted-"

He stopped mid sentence and his eyes wizened in horror as he came to the realization I had foreseen long ago. He looked up at me, meeting my unwavering eyes that held no emotion at that moment.

"She had all the qualities I had always lacked in."

I took my glasses off and nodded.

"And I unconsciously wanted them for myself.... but the only way I could have them was...through her?" He seemed sickened with himself.

"Not exactly Yunho. You could have learnt to love yourself and raise your self esteem." I quickly scribbled my observation down.

"But I didn't. Instead I caged her up and slowly tore her down."

I couldn't help but let out an involuntary smile as he drew out that conclusion.

"Glad to know you've accepted that fact, even if it took several months for you to understand."

Shutting the notepad, I lifted myself up from my chair, straightening my blouse. Yunho followed suit.

"Is our session over?" He was always so polite, always escorting me out and holding the door open for me, which other doctors would have adamantly refused, too scared to come close to their patients. But not me. I let them have certain liberties at times.

"Not yet Yunho. As you've made remarkable progress, I got permission for you to see someone."

He was momentarily confused for a split second. Poor thing probably thought it was one of the nurses coming in to give him some new medication to take, which he hated with a passion. Stepping outside for a brief moment, I happily took the young baby in my arms, the little girl already used to seeing me as I always went to go see her after being with Yunho for a few hours. When I came back inside he had his back turned to me, once again staring off into nowhere. The light gurgled babbles the baby emitted caught his attention immediately. He whipped his head around so fast I thought he'd break his neck for a second. He teared up as the child began squealing in excitement as she recognized her father right away.

"Oh my-" He choked up with tears that he couldn't finish his sentence.

I calmly walked over to him, lightly bouncing the baby in my arms. Yunho hesitantly reached his hands out.

"Can I..?" He had such a hopeful glint in his eyes.

I didn't answer, I merely held his daughter out to him. As soon as she felt his embrace, she latched onto him as if he was one of the teddy bears she often slept with. Perhaps he was one.

No....he is one.

In my time of spending time with Yunho, I've come to strongly believe he is a sweet and tender individual. And judging by the way the little girl feels safe in his arms, I do believe he is capable of being truly loved.....

If he learns how to properly love not just someone else, but himself too.

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Stepping out of my car, I quickly grab the small pink bag on the passenger seat before locking it. Treading through the small patch of green grass, I ring the doorbell and wait for one of the occupants to open up for me. No surprise, I'm greeted by the same raven haired male I met nearly 3 years ago. He looks delighted to see me.

"Y/N. Hi!"

I wave at him, a small but genuine smile on my features.

"Hi Yunho. Did I come at a bad time?" I notice the apron covered in flour and leftover egg on it.

"Oh no not at all. Please come in."

Moving aside to let me pass, my nose catches the scent of baked goods filling the air. I can distinctly recognize the hints of lavender and french vanilla, an odd but surprisingly tasty combination. I spot out of the corner of my eye a little head peeking out from the kitchen, curious to know who had come to pay them a visit. Letting out a squeal, she quickly ran over to attach herself on my leg.

"Y/N!"

I chuckled and lightly run my fingers through her hair which was longer than the last time I saw it.

"Hi Jina, I see you've been baking something." We both chuckle as I scraped off some cake batter that had gotten on the tip of her button nose.

"Me and dad are making cupcakes for my friend's birthday party tomorrow." She explained.

"Wow that's a really nice gesture. I bet they'll turn out delicious."

Remembering that I was short on time and that I had one last task to carry out, I pull out the bag I had hidden behind my back and hand it to her.

"It's for you."

Her eyes began to sparkle so much they could rival all the stars in the galaxy. After thanking me like 20 thousand times, she plopped her tiny body on the couch to tear into the contents inside it. I shake my head before taking out a small paper from inside my trench coat.

"And this is for you."

Taking the slip from my fingers, Yunho opens it up and scans what it says. He seems confused for a moment, not fully understanding what it means. He looks to me once more, probably for the last time, asking for an explanation.

"It's your official release from the institution. No more drop in visits, no more eyes on you 24/7, and soon you won't have to continue with the prescribed medication, although when that happens they will send someone once in a while to check up and make sure you're ok without them."

Yunho nods but it is a rather sad and pained nod.

"So this means you won't be seeing us any longer?"

I inhale deeply and nod.

"This was a temporary thing until you got better Yunho. After all....I was only the doctor assigned to you."

It hurt me to say that as much as it probably hurt him, as much as it'd hurt Jina to know I wouldn't be coming back anymore.

"Can't we at least be friends?"

I hated seeing those puppy eyes of him practically beg me, signature trait he passed on to his daughter.

"That would be completely unprofessional of my part Yunho. I deeply cherish and treasure all the time we spent together and I'm beyond happy and satisfied that you've come so far since the start of our journey..."

I sighed deeply.

"But every journey has an end." He finished my sentence.

Extending his hand out to me, I took it and gave it a firm shake.

"I'm really going to miss you." He admitted.

"Me too. Me too."

Going over to the momentarily forgotten 4 year old, she let out an 'oof' when she suddenly found herself cooped up in my embrace.

"Take care of yourself and of your dad ok?"

I kissed the top of her head, her grinning face not registering that this might be the last time she ever saw me. Yunho walked me out the door and even escorted me all the way to my car. Always the gentleman, he held the door open for me. Before I could even get one foot inside, I felt a large hand grip my wrist. Turning to him, I was flustered when he suddenly pulled me close to him.

"Please don't leave. I need you....I..."

He looked conflicted with himself as he tried to finish his words. Taking a deep breath, he confessed:

"I love you."

My heart sank. He said the 3 words I hoped he'd never direct at me. Mainly because I was scared as he was. Don't get me wrong, Yunho is a wonderful man, and he truly deserves to be loved....

But am I certain that he has finally learned to love? Or is it because he feels he needs me?........

Only one way to find out.

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wickedpact · 3 years

Text

A ranking of all the TTT stories in order of how much I liked them.

(Oh god this is so long)

1 My Mother's Axe

BABY ANDYYYYYYYYYYYY. Honestly this one had the trifecta of developing a character's motivations, developing a character's backstory, & developing their personality. The story starting out with Andy teaching Nile to use the axe was so charming and fun, and you could feel that chemistry they had in Opening Fire, the way they teased and bickered with each other so naturally. I loved the wedge between them on the subject of the axe, how Nile was perhaps a little too young to understand Andy's feelings about whether or not its the 'same' axe. I also love how the axe is obviously the symbol of the franchise and hugely important, but you never get a sense of exactly how important it is to Andy until you read the story.

I love the entire Ship of Theseus theme, and how it feels so natural that for Andy she has to get attached to the idea of things rather than the things themselves because she'll always outlive the things themselves-- the axe is symbolically her mom's axe, even if physically it isn't. And I love how she clearly clings to that concept so tightly. "This is the labrys she held in her hands...." IT GETS ME.

And the fact that this sense of BELONGING, of FAMILY, of CULTURE is so important to Andy that she clings to it (figuratively and literally) with both hands. And of course it's important to her, she spent so long alone that the woman doesn't even remember her birth name. That axe (or the idea of that axe) is all she has left of her mother and that family/culture she was born into.

PLUS on that note I love how Andy doesn't remember if her mom was her actual biological mother, but it doesn't matter to her. This woman was her mother in all the ways that counted. And how her mom BETRAYED AND KILLED Andy but Andy loved her so much that she avenged her and carried her axe for thousands of years. THOUSANDS OF YEARS!!!!!!

I also loved how the story transcends the timeline of the whole franchise and seeing Andy through the years. Loved seeing her with the varying squads and with varying axes. Also baby Andy was so cute. It was cool seeing her so young. like holy fuck. Andromache The Scythian, Immortal Warrior (but smol). Love that.

Also I think this one is one of the few ttt stories that doesn't suffer from length problems.

tldr: goddammit greg you've done it again.

2 Zanzibar and Other Harbors

Zanzibar my beloved. I've said before, but it's downright comedic how little regard there was for Joe and Nicky's character designs in this story. The same person who does the colors for the regular comic did the colors for this one too, and you can tell, every panel of this story was Beautiful.

Ik there was A Lot of criticism of this one (lmao @ how the fandom had no idea what was to come) but I thought a lot of The Discourse was a bit dramatic. I did think Nicky came off as a little oblivious to Joe's feelings in this story, but I've said before, I honestly think that was a 'tone not translating' thing. It felt like Nicky was nagging Joe for [checks notes] saving innocent people, but Joe was so amused by Nicky's complaints I really do think it was supposed to come off as teasing.

Plus I know the 'Joe running off into danger and Nicky reluctantly following' dynamic wasn't popular (I'm a pretty meh on it meself) but I did love how Joe's impulsiveness (if you want to call it that) was interpreted as heroism and not hot-hotheadedness. All of the examples Nicky and Joe talked about included Joe explicitly saving people. (and it also took A Lot for the nazi to actually provoke Joe).

I also feel like their characterization here was closest to the movie canon-- the bit where they hear the woman scream and Joe goes running in to save her while Nicky swoops in on Joe's heels to comfort her while Joe and the nazi were fighting reminds me of the train car scene. Joe had suggested First that they go find Nile because she needed to be protected, and Nicky later added that Nile probably also needed emotional support. Similar reactions.

But it was So Good, the themes of queer community and the enduring nature of queer culture are Not themes you see in media that often and it was such a delight how it was done. Also it's one of the few more modern TTT stories that has a completely valid excuse for taking place when it did. Chef's kiss.

3 Passchendaele

I love the Duality between seeing baby Andy and then seeing Mama Andy in the very next issue. This story doesn't have a ton of meat to it, but the entire concept of Andy adopting a war orphan straight off the battlefield PLUCKS MY TENDER LITTLE HEARTSTRINGS, and I think it's especially poignant for comic!Andy. I think most people wouldn't think twice about movie!Andy doing something like that but comic Andy is so hardened and almost cruel sometimes, and seeing that even for her the world hasn't beaten all of the compassion from her yet is SO!!!!!!! this woman contains MULTITUDES okay, she's violent and angry and tired and Done but she's also so kind and compassionate and THE STRENGTH OF HER!!!!! Also the idea of her and Yitzhak co-raising a kid together is so damn cute. It was #mysterious pre-Yitzhak-story but now it's cute. holy fuck. It's cute.

& the headbonk panel of her and Zeus lives in my heart. anyways.

4 Many Happy Returns

I Know people weren't thrilled about Booker being in this one, but I've developed a pet-peeve about that: this story was *not* booker-centric. Booker only exists in this story to the extent required to explain the importance of the gesture Nile makes towards him. If there was a story about Booker making some grand gesture of kindness to Nile no one would be saying it was Nile-centric. bc it wouldn't be! Booker exists in this story to explore Nile's kindness, its not about him. I saw that a couple times and it bothered me. anyways.

AAAAAAAAAA I loved this one, the art was beautiful, I loved how Andy Nile and Booker were drawn (like their comic selves but.. more looking like actual people). I loved Andy and Nile's Bants, how Andy wanted to jump right in and Do Violence but Nile was basically telling her to hold her horses.

I feel like I'm just repeating the post I made on this story a few days ago, but I LOVED how Nile's plan revolves not around violence or Cool Mercenary Skills but on Nile's own life skills (as she canonly did a lot of minimum wage job-hopping before the marines in comics canon). Her plan used her skills, not the skills of an immortal warrior, and HER SKILLS were in fact more useful for the situation! lov to see Nile's resourcefulness and planning skills.

AND HOW NILE WAS PROBABLY WATCHING BOOKER??? it's so Much bc 1.) nile knew booker A SINGLE DAY and yet he made such an impression on her emotionally that she had to keep an eye on him and 2.) she said in the movie she wanted Booker to get off free with an apology. Yes she's a member of the team but that doesn't mean she's necessarily going to follow orders like a good little soldier. I also love how she convinced Andy to go along with it. her HEART, her KINDNESS, her THOUGHTFULNESS, UGH.

5 The Bear

Honestly I have like no negative things to say about this one other than a.) character design issues which is less about the story itself and is more of a 'tog comic in general' criticism and b.) too short, but it was supposed to be a tease, so.

But I loved Yitzhak, I wasn't expecting to really like him at all but like I said in my other post, he tickled me. I love characters who are Kind™, especially if they have little reason to be so given their backgrounds. Chef's kiss. Lov him.

6 Bonsai Shokunin

I know this one was a little controversial bc of the outsider POV but whenever I see people upset about that they never point out that the Outsider Guy (the samurai) existed as a reflection on Noriko. His ideas are explained in the text to develop hers. The whole story follows how she gave mercy to a scared young man and in response he murdered Noriko, repeatedly! Who gave him the right to inflict such pain and suffering on the world? In his opinion, the lack of response from the gods was his permission. And for Noriko-- over and over again she dies and suffers because she gave mercy, which lines up with her ideas in FM about how it's their fate to rule mortals and if they don't align with that plan/fate/whatever then they suffer. It shows some background to those ideas and how they developed in her mind outside of Ocean Madness™. Additionally, his idea of 'the Gods have done nothing to strike me down so it's fine if I do these things' kind of explains how Noriko may justify her own morally corrupt actions-- she's died so many times and it's never stuck. Maybe if she did die any of those times, or while she was in the water, maybe that would've been a sign she was doing something right, or at least doing something normal. But she hasn't died. Fate isn't done with Noriko yet. And maybe there's a reason for that. In her mind, it's just not a very pleasant reason, is all.

There were things I was kind of meh about tho. I did kind of wish we saw something of Noriko and the team, or smth explaining the way she was before her dip in the pool-- personality, likes dislikes, etc. but it wasn't bad or anything. It was super vague tho, I had to read it a few times before I got what it was going for. Liked the art. Liked the bonsai metaphor. And of course I Respect the decision to use the 1300s (1200s? I don't remember off the top of my head) rather than using the last 200 years.

7 Strong Medicine

Honestly looking back, this one made me kind of sad because both this one and Bonsai Shokunin explored character's ideas on Fate and The Divine and how that intersects with immortality and I totally thought that theme would be continued, especially with Love Letters. But Then It Wasn't™.

Admittedly.... I had to re-read this one to remember most of it. I liked Booker's ideas on God, 'The conductor of the symphony just may not be very good at his trade' but the plot itself was kind of forgettable. Some fuckin cowboys try to kill a doctor (their second) because he couldn't save their sickly brother. Book tries to stop them, gets killed, and then comes back and kills them all before they get the doctor. Alright. I liked the artstyle because the characters were ugly in a similar way that leandro's are, but way more bearable.

I love the Irony of Booker concluding that there is no such thing as fate or destiny and nothing has meaning, AS HE UNKNOWINGLY SAVES MERRICK'S GRANDFATHER FROM BEING KILLED. Booker getting fucked over by life/god/destiny yet again. It also kind of explains about where the fuck hell Merrick's interest in immortal mercenaries even came from.

I originally had this one a lot higher and then I thought about it and moved it down like two spots.

8 Never Gets Old

I liked seeing Booker interact with his kid. And we got a name for the kid! Philippe was a little bitch though, he was a little obnoxious. I liked how Booker was so thrilled to experience a restaurant with his kid (and since we know he was there before, it can be assumed he went with all of his kids and yet he was so charmed each time). It fits with his line to Nicky in the moon landing story about how you don't appreciate beautiful things 'unless you have someone to share them with'. It was charming to see Booker interact with his kid, and to see him so happy. Also lmao @ Booker's big fat Ye Olde Crush on Andy.

However at the same time it was like.. of all the things to write about,,, I guess? Booker's Night Out...... alright. Especially since Book had so many stories.

I don't know, it was alright. The old man killing him really came out of nowhere, (but the 'Salut, asshole!' panel was funny tho).

9 How To Make a Ghost Town

I've hit a point where talking about these stories has gotten less fun. I liked this one but I felt like Achilles getting lynched was not really necessary for a story that was already tragic (a story that already involved Achilles doing a lot of suffering at the hand of bigots). When we first got the blurb for this story I thought it would be about Andy returning to the squad and making friends with Booker after losing Achilles and them butting heads on the idea of family and when to cut off ties. So a little bit of my underwhelmedness about this one might be just my expectations being different.

Honestly I was pretty interested in Andy and Achilles' relationship and I would've liked to see more of them-- like, what was their dynamic like? What did they love about each other?

But anyways Andy leaving and Achilles getting killed anyways feels so pointlessly tragic (which I suppose is the point..... I don't like tragedies) she left to save him and yet people killed him anyway. Meh.

I did love the bits about Andy wanting to have a domestic life (Andy and her multitudes again) and the little detail about how she buried her axe near the road but he buried his guns under his bed-- he was an escaped slave, he never had the luxury of assuredness like Andy did. It was a sad story.

10 Lacus Solitudinis

'You put this one above love letters crim??? how could you???' easy, lmao.

There was stuff in this one I liked. But to talk about stuff I didn't like: (I'll keep it brief, I know ragging on this story has been done time and time again)

UH, setting aside the 6 year cold shoulder between Joe and Nicky, I thought their chosen method of conflict resolution was... bad at best. Nicky's inability to talk about his feelings was also annoying, especially since the entire point of this story is a fight Joe and Nicky had, and yet we don't get both sides to the story, which is...... important? That fact is especially annoying bc in the absence of Nicky explaining his side of the story, it's absolutely a possible (and admittedly probably unintentional) interpretation of the text that we do get that Joe routinely resolves conflict between him and Nicky by simply cutting Nicky out of his life entirely until Nicky just. caves? Even if it takes years?

WHICH i could get into that interpretation and how fucked up i find it. but im not going to. out of restraint.

I don't know, I think there are a lot of interesting ways to go about this conflict but 'Nicky wants to kill a guy and Joe refuses to acknowledge his existence until he stops because he thinks Nicky is too much of a Good Boy to get his hands dirty like that' ('I wont watch as the world turns his (...) compassion into something ugly'. ) wasn't.. how I would've done it. (I mean you know Joe doesn't give a shit about what Nicky is doing in a moral way, because Joe doesn't even care or mention that Booker is killing those cops too. Joe only cares because he doesn't like the idea of Nicky changing in a way he finds undesirable.)

admittedly I've said before, I do like the emphasis Joe's reaction puts on Nicky's kindness. Joe has a complete inability to cope with Nicky simply Not Being Kind. It speaks to the steadiness of Nicky's compassion all those years. but still that fact doesn't make it the conflict feel worth it

hm. I said I would be brief and I wasn't.

oh well. basically I thought there was interesting conflict potential there but it wasn't done the way I would've liked, and the way it was done leaves a lot of disturbing (and again probably unintended) interpretations to lie.

What I did like? Andy and Joe having that pessimist/optimist dynamic. Joe nerding out about science. Andy not being impressed by The Achievements Of Man. I loved Booker needling at Nicky about his outdated slang and also trying to give him Older Brother advice practically in the same breath. I loved Booker giving The Worst relationship advice ever and Nicky being like 'I Will Not Do That, Ever, Thanks.' the family vibes were so good. The Joenicky vibes left a lot to be desired tho.

11 Love Letters

I talked about my problems with Nicky in this story (and Lacus Solitudinis). I don't know, the story isn't bad but I do hold a little bit of a grudge towards it because its very existence begs the existence of a solo Joe story and we didn't get one. If we never got this story, then we could happily count Lacus Solitudinis and Zanzibar as The Joenicky Stories™ and move on with our lives. sigh.

I remember when we first got the blurb for this story I was really curious about why Nicky specifically + the setting, and the answer kind of feels like 'the author had an idea for a story like this and saw ttt as a good enough place to utilize that idea'. Plus I was really underwhelmed by the Romantic Sentiment in the letter. If you look at it line-by-line, the majority of the letter is actually Nicky talking about how lonely and disturbed he is, rather than actual,, yknow,,, Romantic Sentiment. I mean, compare the van speech and this letter and this letter is just kind of meh in comparison. I liked nicky calling joe wise! and I liked the brief sun/moon metaphor! and otherwise it was eh. It didn't even have cute squad banter, which is why Lacus Solitudinis is above this one.

12 An Old Soul

Nun orgy. Nun orgy?????? Nun orgy.......

The whole story felt like a setup to have a nun orgy. Why did Booker have abs? Why did they do that to Andy's nose? ?????? the art was good at least.

nun orgy.

#tales through time spoilers #obviously #long post #seriously dont open that read more unless youre committed to scrolling past all these Words

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novemango · 2 years

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8, 14, and 22 for the DE asks?

8: What is your favourite line from the game?

"After the world, the pale. After the pale, the world again."

Paired with "After life, death. After death, life again", this line *really* immersed me into the worldbuilding of Disco Elysium. I kind of fell in love with Dolores Dei for a bit there, it was such a beautiful sentiment. And it's completely grounded in the specific mechanics of DE's world; we don't have a real-life equivalent for the pale, or isolas (I mean, I guess there's the ocean and outer space, but the existential horror of the pale is *something else*). When I saw that line...I could see how Dolorianism became a whole-ass religion. It's so goddamn hopeful (and in the context of DE's world, it's *real*, it's *true*, there is something beyond the pale).

Plus, it's not tinged with the sinister aspects of the Moralintern/Moralism. Though...hm, I guess you could say it's linked to colonialism? Going to other isolas, imposing the Occidental's hegemony on them...I think there's a difference between exploration/scientific discovery and imperialism, though. Whatever connotations it has, religious/imperialist or not, I remember sitting there for a few minutes in silence after seeing that line on my screen. Raw-ass line! Makes me better understand Kim's attachment to Moralism.

14: What was the moment that touched you most while playing?

Honestly, when Kim and Harry disarm The Pigs/Marianne LePlante peacefully (and learn about her more from the Hardy Boys). I have a relative who...has similar symptoms, a similar background. I'm glad that the game treated her sympathetically. I...I'd like to imagine that if my relative got into a situation with the police, that they'd also recognize that she's troubled, not evil, not deserving of violence. That's a lot to expect out of the real-life police, but...yeah.

22:

HOO BOY this one is hard. I feel I don't completely know myself, that my self-perception is several degrees off from reality. But I'll try!

I guess first off my FSY stats are trash, I've always known I'm slow, have low stamina, have low tolerance for pain, not strong at all, definitely on the sickly side. I was picked last every time in P.E. in high school and in middle school! This never changed no matter how hard I tried! My MOT isn't that much better...I'm not sure whether I'm best in PSY or INT. Maybe equal?

If I had to give a full breakdown of my DE stats...I used this link https://copomatic.vercel.app/#stats as a guide, though I deviated a bit:

INT: Good

Logic — 5

Encyclopedia — 5

Rhetoric — 6

Drama — 3

Conceptualization — 7

Visual Calculus — 1

I can see, but I can't interpret what I see for shit. All the footstep analysis and crime scene reconstruction that Harry does in-game is completely beyond me. I like to think I can talk good and that I have a healthy artistic sensibility (I mean, I want to do creative writing in some capacity after I graduate, so I better have some understanding of art and literature).

PSY: Good

Volition — 3

Inland Empire — 7

Empathy — 5

Authority — 2

Esprit de Corps — 1

Suggestion — 4

If I remember the game correctly, Inland Empire is the intuition/imagination skill? Definitely my "signature skill" in real life, then.

I have little interest in bossing people around and I don't understand cops, so those would be my worst skills.

FSY: Poor

Endurance — 2

Pain Threshold — 1

Physical Instrument — 1

Electrochemistry — 3

Shivers — 2

Half-Light — 4

Half-Light is the skill that makes you paranoid, yeah? I find myself often in a constant state of anxiety, so my Half-Light should be pretty "good" (it's honestly one of the skills that fucks you up the most if you raise it too high).

MOT: Poor

Hand-Eye Coordination — 1 if we're talking real-life catching objects, 4 if we're talking viddy games

Perception — 2

Reaction Speed — again, 1 if real life, 4 if in video games

Savoir Faire — 2

Interfacing — 3

Composure — 3

does playing piano well help my interfacing score?

Thanks so much for the ask! I had fun answering these!

#disco elysium #ask games

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fortunatelycolorfulgay · 3 years

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Is it just me or is being like "proper" rivals with someone just seem weird? Cause like to be a rival with someone, BY DEFINITION, it means you're trying to beat them. Meaning you care of what they think and if they win. Now here's my point, I can understand wanting to beat another team, but a singular person seems weird. Cause I would not be able to care enough about what one singular person thinks to be competitive towards them. Like if you hate someone that's a strong feeling, and I know what's like to hate someone, but the person I hate, I just try to avoid cause they make me angry. So like there has to be some other emotion and motive to want to beat someone, if they are sworn rival to the point where you are both competing but are also both civil? Like to me having an intense rivalry with a singular person requires deep emotional components that isn't just hate. Idk. Just me? Maybe that's why I like rivals to lover's so much? Like the passion in the rivalry just at one point goes from negative/neutral to positive? Bruh idk. I feel like this is especially apparent when they show rival reactions to each other in anime. So such intense emotions? That in some cases have no real reason to exist? Like I kinda get bkdk rivalry. But like yeah they say they "hate" each other, but like, I get why Baku might hate deku, cause he makes Baku feel inferior, but like it's been shown that deku has never held Kacchan accountable for what he did in middle school, and yea Baku can be kind of a dick but if doesn't hate for bullying what does he hate him for??? I'm so confused. And kagehina, Hinata "hates" Kags cause he beat him in his first and last middle school tournament/game. But like. What reason does Kags have to "hate" Hinata? He wasted time not actually getting better at volleyball???? What? Bruh I'm confused

Sorry for the rant. Just something I thought myself last night and I have no friends who actually have watched bnha or Haikyuu! My sister is in the fandom of bnha, but she hasn't read the manga or seen the show. She wants to read the manga before watching the show, but hasn't actually bought any of the books. Lol. But yea. She also doesn't ship bkdk. Whereas I do.

Edit: so I asked my mom about it, and she has a degree in psychology and was therapist for while, and she says that rivals to lovers is in fact a real possibility because of the reasons I've stated above, that rivalry isn't driven by competitiveness alone. She said this "most competitiveness is there because of some internal factors[such as subconscious emotions] rather than the person or object of competition itself" my point was that rivalries require a lot of passion, and that passion can be positive or negative, and sometimes positive but percieved as negative and vise versa. But that negative passion can transform and morph into positive which can result in a relationship, whether be platonic or romantic. But yea that's my point.

Edit #2: I've now watched she-ra and my point has been proven. The whole reason Catradora became enemies/rivals is because Catra loves Adora and Adora loves Catra but Adora left and so Catra was hurt. And they fought and there were misunderstandings. Its so easy for one kind of strong emotion to turn to something else, or for it to cause an equally strong negative version of the emotion. Just because they were fighting never meant they stopped loving each other, but they were at odds due to personal filters and feelings. They fought to hurt each other cause they felt like they had to. Truly they never wanted to fight each other. Catra was just hurting because of Adoras actions and didn't know how to handle it so she blamed Adora and thought that to get rid of that pain was hurt Adora the same way she hurt her, or to get rid of the person that cause the pain. Honestly. Enemies to lovers/rivals to lovers, isn't as far out or bizarre as it seems. Like, yes. In a lot of real life situations enemies to lovers and rivals to lovers would probably end badly, and that's fine. Catra and Adora ended pretty badly at first. I mean Catra tried to actively destroy reality and kill Adora. And some people, can't recover from fights like that. I mean obviously in real life someone isn't gonna try and blow up the world if they end a Relationship badly(whether be platonic or not) but you get my point. The thing about characters is that if you want, you can always have them have a happy ending. Or you can give them a tragic ending. Cause they are fictional. But you know. That's just my opinion

#rivals #anime #bkdk #kagehina #rivals to lovers #emotions are wack #am i overthinking this?#probably #catradora

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twh-news · 3 years

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'Loki' Star Sophia Di Martino on the Season 1 Finale, Working With Jonathan Majors and What She Knows About Season 2

[Editor's note: The following contains spoilers through the Season 1 finale of Loki, "For All Time. Always."]

Since her introduction at the end of Episode 2, Sophia Di Martino's depiction of Sylvie, the female variant of Loki introduced midway through her campaign of vengeance against the TVA, has been a defining aspect of Disney+'s Loki. And, as we learned in the season finale, the story of Loki isn't over yet — though what's in store is pretty nebulous, following Sylvie's betrayal of Loki (Tom Hiddleston) after what was their first and what might be their last kiss.

In a one-on-one conversation with Di Martino via Zoom, Collider asked about working with Jonathan Majors in his MCU debut, what it was like having both fight scenes and more romantic scenes with Hiddleston, and of course what the conversations around Season 2 have been like.

Collider: To start off, when did you have a sense that there would be a second season of Loki?

DI MARTINO: I mean, there'd been rumors for a while, but I still haven't heard officially if it's happening, like officially, officially. I only know what I know through reading the news. And I know, because you guys know, because of the tag at the end of Episode 6.

I was going to say, that feels like a pretty official thing, but it doesn't sound like anyone has shown up at your doorstep with paperwork.

DI MARTINO: No, nothing. Nothing like that.

Now, does that mean that when you watched it, were you given a full script of the sixth episode?

DI MARTINO: Yes. We got one episode at a time. So I wasn't given Episode 6 until like midway through shooting Episode 5.

So in that situation, what was your initial reaction to reading, especially like the last, say, 10 pages or so.

DI MARTINO: Just like, holy crap. This is massive. How exciting. Woof. And then also, "who's going to play He Who Remains, I need to know because it's such an amazing part and such incredible speeches he has. I wanted to imagine who would play him, but I couldn't have ever imagined the way Jonathan would have done it. So brilliant.

In terms of working with Jonathon Majors, what was that experience like? Just because I feel like he brought such a different energy to the role than I think anyone would have ever expected.

DI MARTINO: Yeah. He just exploded onto that set with so much energy and nothing like we could ever have imagined. It was a lot of fun and he was brilliant. You know, people were saying this is going to be something really special, whispering behind the camera. He was so eccentric and fun and kind of terrifying. Very easy for Tom and I to just sit and listen to him for a few days. Very entertaining.

Yeah. In rewatching the episode, it's still so striking to me the way that, after Sylvie stabs him, he makes barely any noise.

DI MARTINO: Because he knows that it's a possibility, I think. So maybe he's had a long time to sort of imagine every scenario. Yeah. It's kind of creepy, isn't it? The way he does that.

When you were breaking down the script for Episode 6, were you talking about Kang the Conqueror? Were you talking about the comic book backstory there?

DI MARTINO: I don't remember talking about the comic book backstory of Episode 6. But you know, to be honest, it was all very quick. Especially with Episode 6, we got the script pretty late in the day. So there wasn't that much mining to be done, to be honest. I'm not sure about Jonathan's experience, but for me, it was sort of pretty late in the day, just in the case of learning my lines and trying to make sure I didn't mess that up.

Of course — and it makes sense in terms of where your character is coming from.

DI MARTINO: Exactly. So I just need to know at that point, I just need to know what's going on for Sylvie.

In that case, in your head, what was going on for Sylvie in those scenes?

DI MARTINO: Oh my goodness. So much. I mean, so much happens in like 30 seconds. Doesn't it?

Definitely. But even before the final sequences, it's very dialogue-heavy and there's a lot of listening. In playing that, what was important for you?

DI MARTINO: To really listen and to really take on board what he was saying to us at that point, and then to choose not to believe him. For Sylvie, she's just on a revenge mission from the minute she walks into that building, she knows that she wants to kill someone. When they're in the elevator with him, she's already taking swipes at him. She just wants to get him with her machete. And I think she's just so laser-focused on that goal, that he could have said anything to her and her priority wouldn't have changed.

So you don't think there was ever a moment in that whole sequence where Sylvie was tempted, not tempted by the possibilities presented, but tempted to believe him?

DI MARTINO: I think there's a moment that he really pushes Sylvie's buttons when he's talking about you have been on a long journey and it's been really tough for you, hasn't it? And you can't trust anyone. You think you can trust him. And he starts playing mind games with them, playing them off against each other. And I think at that point, he plants a seed of doubt in her mind about Loki, but I think her mission to want to kill him doesn't change. She's absolutely married to that idea. And that feeling is so strong that she chooses it over Loki in the end.

From your perspective, where does that come from?

DI MARTINO: Just revenge. Like having her life taken away from her, her life ruined, spending her whole life on the run, this sort of anger. And if you want to think of it in these terms, her "glorious purpose." I went there.

I don't think you got to say those words during the show, so I'm glad you got this moment now.

DI MARTINO: Yeah. I'm saying it as much as I can now.

Later in the episode, this wasn't the first time you had a fight sequence with Tom Hiddleston, but did it feel different from the episodes you shot earlier?

DI MARTINO: Yeah, it did. This scene was far more emotive. There was a lot more going on for both of them. It was the breakup scene. It was the fight that you have when you are leaving someone. And it's so painful because you care about this person, but you just can't be with them for whatever reason. And that's how that felt.

Which is so interesting because of course what happens at the end of it is that there's a kiss and it's given the whole big Hollywood romantic music treatment.

DI MARTINO: Yeah. I mean, but that often happens when you're splitting up with someone, doesn't it? Just one last time, a sweet goodbye. It's kind of like a goodbye kiss in a way.

Of course. But it was also, unless I'm missing something, the first kiss.

DI MARTINO: Yeah. It was. And it had been building up for a long, long time. I think it was ultimately a goodbye kiss and a clap away for Sylvie to physically turn him around so she could get hold of that TemPad and zap him back to the TVA.

Yeah, of course. In terms of that, in general, I feel like there's a temptation to just kind of look at the Loki and Sylvie relationship as a straightforward romance, which of course it is very much not. From your perspective, what was it about that you worked hard to lean into.

DI MARTINO: I think it's about sort of self-love and acceptance as well as being a romance story. And for Sylvie, she's sort of shedding everything she doesn't need before she gets to He Who Remains so she can kill him. She gets rid of her cape, she gets rid of her horns. She ultimately gets rid of Loki. It's just not serving her in that moment. And it's so cold to think of it that way. But I think that's what was happening. That and the fact that she wanted him to be safe. So, she's kind of saving him by pushing him through that time door as well.

And if you're going to think of it as like an exploration of self-acceptance and self-love, that's also interesting because she showed sort-of, I don't know, getting rid of a part of herself that isn't serving her anymore at the same time as keeping it safe.

It's really interesting to hear you talk about it that way, because it makes me think about how the one thing that came out, especially I think in Episode 5, is the idea that knowing Sylvie made Loki a better person in some fundamental ways. And I'm wondering about the opposite of that. What did knowing Loki mean for Sylvie?

DI MARTINO: I think it's slightly different for Sylvie. I don't know if he's made her a better person. I don't know if she's allowed herself to change yet. Loki's been quite brave and he's changed. He's a changed person by the end of that series. Sylvie is still hell-bent on her mission and she still chooses it over caring about someone else. So maybe she's yet to make that change.

So in talking about the scene like it's a breakup... Season 1 ends with the characters being very separated and of course, Season 2 is very much a nebulous thing at the moment, but people break up all the time and get back together. In your head, do you see there being still some sort of future for the characters as a couple?

DI MARTINO: It would definitely be fun to see them in the same room together again, wouldn't it? I'm fascinated. Yeah. After that, I'm fascinated to see what Loki has to say to Sylvie after doing that to him. Who knows? Never say never. I'm really excited to see what they come up with because it could go in so many different directions, but surely they have to come face to face again at some point.

It's like that awkward party after you've broken up with someone and you see them again. And that first conversation, whether it's in public or not, it's sorts of awful, but such a relief once it's been done.

Something that's been kind of a topic of discussion when it comes to talking about romance on screen is a quality that a lot of leading men have — for lack of a better term, the ability to give their love interest a Look. I've consulted with others and we feel like Tom Hiddleston has the look or has the ability to deliver the look. And I'm curious what it's like to be on the other side of it.

DI MARTINO: Tom's a very charming man and he could definitely make people go weak at the knees by just giving them a look. My reaction to that is always to sort of make a joke and run away. So there was probably a lot of that on set, breaking the tension by being a goofball.

I just had to react as Sylvie. And Sylvie's got these walls up. She doesn't let anyone in and that includes Loki. So sure there's a sort of, oh, this person is not as I thought they were. I'm warming to them. But Sylvie's not an easy nut to crack.

Is it fun getting to play that kind of strength?

DI MARTINO: Yeah. It's awesome because when her defenses do come down and she's vulnerable, it's really interesting. And you start to see all of the stuff that's buried underneath and that's what makes her a great character to play.

So, how do you feel about there being a second season? Do you feel like if there hadn't been a second season, you would have gotten the closure you wanted to from the story?

DI MARTINO: Probably not. I want to know what happens just like everyone else. I'm super excited and I just can't wait to see which direction they're going because it could be infinite directions.

Do you have a sense that there might've been different aspects to it, had COVID not been an issue?

DI MARTINO: I think COVID actually probably made it a lot better. We had a five months hiatus and Kate and the producers and writers worked a lot on episodes five and six during that time. And as far as I've heard, a lot changed for the better. They could rewatch what we'd already shot and just carry on working on the scripts and developing them. So I think it was great to have that time actually, as awful in most ways it was, that was the silver lining of it.

Very. Yeah. So looking forward, I imagine if there's a second season, you're on board if you get asked.

DI MARTINO: Hopefully. Hope so.

By the way, I was really excited to see the story about how your costume was designed to allow you to breastfeed during shooting. That seems like it was a really special detail.

DI MARTINO: Yeah, really, really. I'm just so grateful that that happened. It made my life so much easier and it was important to me that I carried on doing that. So it was just the little things and it's just saved a lot of time. Practically, it was a godsend.

Of course. So looking forward, what's next for you?

DI MARTINO: Lots of interviews. Lots of being able to talk about episode six finally, and then, who knows? An infinite possibility. So yeah, I'm excited to see what happens and to see people's reactions to the series because people are still catching up. People are still watching and rewatching it and probably go on.

Yeah. I mean, I imagine that you're going to be cosplayed at various conventions over the next several decades probably.

DI MARTINO: Do you think? That blows my mind.

I mean, cosplaying has a long legacy to it.

DI MARTINO: It's so cool. The way that people are already making Sylvie horns and crafting them from scratch and spraying them. And there's one woman that's just sewn a whole suit together and it looks exactly like my costume. It's so impressive, the love and attention people put into it.

Are you getting an action figure?

DI MARTINO: I don't know. Hopefully. What would I do with it? Maybe I could use it as a cake topper. Who knows? But that would be a very cool thing to have, wouldn't it?

#loki #loki series #sophia di martino #sylvie #interview #article #collider #spoilers #loki series spoilers #loki spoilers

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casmybelovedass · 4 years

Text

The Destiel Folder: Season 10

[Season 4; Season 5; Season 6; Season 7; Season 8; Season 9]

Episode 1:

Cas is slowly dying, practically naked, in a bed, and the first thing he says when talking about Dean is "I miss him" (6:35), with a soft smile. "Why would he just disappear?"

... I'm sorry but If Cas Were A Woman, this would look like a scene from a movie or something, where the wife talks to a friend over the phone about her missing husband. JUST SAYING

Crowley: "The girl seemed nice. Slightly damaged. I could see the old you falling for that." (9:29) uhm... who else is "nice and slightly" damaged? I don't know... CASTIEL??!!!

So... these two men (actors Todd Mann and Brad Mann) we see with the DemonGang, are real life twins (9:14).

At (27:18), Crowley states him and Dean did "extroardinary things to triplets" ... and, well, the only twins with a possible other sibling we see are... them

And this is not the first time we hear about Dean doing "things to triplets" with a buddy of his (15x07)... and the first time he was NOT a demon... so, there's that. And triplets don't necessarily mean "all females"

Cas, while talking about the good things that come with choices, mentions "hope, love, dreams" (39:06), and Hannah points out that "those are human things". Human things...

Cas is talking about his own personal experiences with creating chaos, so those are the things he felt after rebelling for... Dean... WOW. ICWAW, it would totally be read it as a reference to Dean. A romantic one. Fight me

Episode 2:

Cas is dying, just got back from a fight that left him wounded, doesn't have enough power to heal himself, is on a mission to restore Heaven, and once again he chooses to go save Dean (9:35), and the way rage builds in his eyes when learning Dean has become a demon. Look at this shit

I might be crazy, but this feels like a touching metaphor to me:

"I think you don't know what you want. Tell me, Dean. What are you? A demon? [...] Maybe you're human. [...] Why don't you do us all a great, big favor... and pick a bloody side!" (22:22)

METAPHOR

Episode 3:

We are reminded that, even tho in terrible conditions, on the verge of death, Cas is willing to risk it all to save Dean, and is devastated by the thought of Dean not making it (4:47 - 5:17)

This is so funny to me, I'm sorry, but Cas is so visibly uncomfortable with Hannah touching him, it's hilarious (15:58)

"I've been around humans for long enough to see how easily distractions occur. Emotions, feelings... They're dangerous temptations." (22:32) like rebelling against your own kind, destroying your home, falling... all for a human?

"I'm trying to keep our priorities clear." Moments earlier, Cas listed "Getting to Dean" (22:17) before anything else. In fact, Hannah says "I am very clear of my priorities... and yours." = Dean (23:00)

Cas is not sure whether the cure will kill Dean or not, and in any case, he wraps his arms around him, and softly says "It's over... Dean it's over." (35:40) as if hushing him to sleep, in what could have been their last moments together... wow. Think about this ICWAW

"Well, I can see his point. Only humans can feel real joy, but... also such profound pain. This is easier." (36:17) Look at the way Sam is looking at Cas looking at Dean

BITCH OKAY!!

SAM KNOWS

POSSIBILE future Empty reference "real joy"

Cas already stated he misses being human, but knows how fragile they are in both body and spirit:

Castiel really wants to be with Dean. For real. But maybe he thinks (see season 9) him being an angel is an obstacle to their feelings.

Only by being human he can truly be happy (MMMMMMHH SEASON 15), but isn't sure he could handle the pain that comes with it. A possible rejection, the thought of Dean dying, him leaving Dean... MMMMHHHHH

"You look terrible." [...] "Well, you, on the other hand, you... *checks out Cas* Looking good." (39:09) full homo right there. Also parallel with Ketch in 13x18 ("You don't look good." "Yeah, well, you're not my type, either.")

The way they are looking at each other here... man.

Cas is so happy to have Dean back, and Dean looks hurt about Cas leaving so soon.

"So... so, you're back?" "At least temporarily." (39:27) bitch, you know that's not what he ment.

In all of this, Cas is trying to make Dean feel better about the whole situation (DAT SMILE 40:18), and Dean replies with "I'm glad you're back, man.", basically no-homoing himself...

Cas starts walking out of the room, but stops and turns back [insert concerned husband here] (40:27), and Dean has that hopeful look in his eyes, like Cas is going to stay, and the hurtful look comes back as soon as Cas is gone

Episode 4:

"On your knees!" "Wow, I'm awfully flattered-" (34:33) SASSY BI DEAN IS THE DEAN WE DESERVE

Episode 5:

Fucking kill me NOW!!! Dean's reaction to Destiel is PRICELESS!! And even before he learns what that is, he just looks at the girls playing him and Cas and... freezes for a moment (13:18) And the eyebrow raise thingy at (13:34)... what's going on in your brain, Dean?

I'd like to point out that the Italian translation for "You can't spell 'subtext' without S-E-X" is, for once, AMAZING:

"It's just that... their bond is so strong it has subtext of a... sexual nature."

THANK YOU ITALIAN DUB! JUST THIS ONCE, THANK YOU! (13:43)

Also at (9:44) Dean immediately reacts to the implication of Wincest subtext, shutting it down and telling the girls to take a step back, but with Destiel he is like... alright

... this is so fucking cute, (25:54) Dean adjusts the girl playing Cas' tie so that it's messed up like the real Cas'. ADORABLE

SAM SHIPS IT (13:57) and is teasing the SHIT out of Dean, who reacts like someone being teased about their crush. Just saying (14:08 - 14:52) [AND THIS HAPPENS IN FRONT OF A PINK-BLUE WALL]

"I know I have expressed some differences of opinion regarding this version of Supernatural." (26:44) ... oookay meta? *turns to "Cas"* "And I want you to put as much sub into that text as you possibly can." ... oKAY?!

Episode 7:

Cas being extremely uncomfortable with women is too fucking funny to me (5:03 - 12:51)

Episode 9:

(15:13) Alright, so, this is a date... what now? Anyway, nice bi flannel, Dean. And the little sweet smiles you two are giving each other? So fucking precious (16:01)

"I ain't exactly a role model." "That's not true." (16:07) how Dean looks at Cas right after that? BABIES!

"How are you, Dean?" "Fine." "*I-call-bullshit look*" "I'm great!" "No, you're not." (16:18) #MARRIED

As Cas is choke-holding a guy, Dean, clearly amused (almost proudly), says "I'd do what he says." (22:17) Like that time with Raphael in 5x03, Dean likes it when Cas gets rough

Episode 10:

Shut the fuck up and marry each other already so you can finally actually BE the old married couple™️ you ALREADY ARE (22:17)

This is the "My husband is so FUCKING STUPID" look (22:30)

"I was hoping you might reach out to her." "... Me? I'm probably the last person she'd want to hear from." [...] "All I know... is she won't talk to me." (23:03) #MARRIED, PARENTS, PERIODT

Shut the fuck up. Cas is the dad trying to figure out technology (23:36) "I'll text you her number. I like texting. Emotions!" DAD

Cas worries about Dean like a wife would with an alcoholic husband

Of all the things Dean could be MAD about at Metateon... the first thing he can think of is him stealing Cas' grace (31:33) (okay, maybe he is going in chronological order but STILL)

Episode 11:

[I AM SO SO SO SORRY BUT DEAN USED THE ALIAS "PRESLEY" (18:55) I AM NOT OKAY]

Episode 14:

Have this deleted scene: Castiel and Crowley bitching over Dean, and Crowley calling Dean Cas' boyfriend

This is some hell of a goodbye-eye-love-making scene (26:57)

Cain compares himself to Dean... and CAS TO HIS WIFE COLLETTE [PARALLELS]

"You're living my life in reverse [...]

First you'd kill Crowley. You'd get it done, no remorse. (Cain had been killing his descendants, for whom he didn't care much)

And then you'd kill the angel, Castiel. Now, that one... that, I suspect, would hurt something awful. [And than Sam is Able, bla bla...]"

AM I WRONG?! YOU'RE GONNA LOOK AT ME AND TELL ME THAT I'M WRONG??!!!

Dean gives the First Blade to Cas... oKAY (37:10)

Worried brother-in-laws (41:27)

Episode 16:

This is such a good source of hidden meanings scene! Dean starts his "confession" as a scam. Everything he says at first is to attract the spirit.

He starts talking about seeing lots of women, not being able to control himself, and being sick of it. Then the real confession begins...

Dean feels he's going to die soon, and fears not death itself, but what he would be missing from his life.

"There's things... people, feelings that I... I would experience differently than I had before. Or even for the first time." (25:28) and the priest believes Dean is talking about love.

Well... "people, feelings"... who could he be referring to? Does Dean want love all of a sudden? People he wants to experience for the first time... uhmmmm... Is Dean opening up to his attraction to MEN??!! Or one angel in particular?

ICWAW we would guess Dean was talking about Cas

"Who mixes their blood and bones into paint? No woman has ever done that for me." (39:19) UHM- Dean, what about

6x20 "He has bled, died bla bla bla for us",

7x21 "I'm always happy to bleed for the Winchesters" or

9x22 "You just gave up an entire army for one guy"

ICWAW we would ALL roll our eyes at this statement and scream CAS

THE GUY BLED, LOST HIS HOME, REBELLED, DIED FOR YOU!! HE REBUILT YOU PIECE BY PIECE FROM HELL- SAVED YOU DOZENS OF TIMES!!!

Episode 17:

About saving Dean from the Mark: "We won't- (free Metatron)" "Yes, you will... because you're desperate." (9:44) Hannah knows. Let's remark that

"All I'm getting from you is... colours." (14:26) bitch he is a walking 🌈PRIDE FLAG🏳️‍🌈

Notice how, when we get a Sam-Cas centred episode, we don't get the same interactions with Dean-Cas? Why this?

Dean is always ready to call Cas a "brother", but the only one true bromance here is Sam and Cas'. There are no longing stares, no weird sexual filled dialogue nor tension, NO LONGING STARES

Facts, my people. Facts

Episode 18:

"You killed my friend." "Oh, pff, Dean is fine, mostly. Can't you get past that?" "Never." (12:39)

Charlie being excited about meeting Dean's famous boyfriend is WHOLESOME (37:34)

To have Cas back, 100%, safe and sound, is a win for Dean (38:58) and the face Cas makes after Dean hits him with another no-homo "It's good to have you back, pal." is "UHH not this again". Charlie already ships it

Episode 20:

A #MARRIED couple and their daughter. NO ARGUMENTS VALID (7:06)

Look at how they enter the motel (16:22)

OH MY GOOOOOD!!! #PARENTS coming back home from shopping!! THE HAND ON THE SHOULDER!!! Also

"Happy birthday. I got it at the Hot Topical" DAD

Dean: "Imma head back over there." Cas: "I'm coming with you." Claire: "I'm coming with you too." (17:24) #FAMILY

A fucking family comedy about a dad confronting the daughter's boyfriend and the other dad scolding him:

"What did you do to him?" "I didn't lay a hand on him!" "Dean, that isn't exactly true." "... Well, I didn't kill the guy." (17:14)

Surprisingly enough, this is not the first nor last time Dean acts like a dad to a lost child (AND TWO OF THESE TIMES THE KID IS SOMEHOW RELATED TO CAS) (21:54)

Episode 22:

C: "Claire, you are not going out there. [...] It's too dangerous. I can't let anything happen to you." D: "Claire, you're not going." C: "You're not either, Dean." D: "What?" (19:29)

#FAMILY DON'T TALK TO ME!

"No fighting. [...] Both of you." AAAAAA

This doesn't fucking matter, but Dean just said "... for the ladies. Or the fellas. I don't judge." (36:23)

Cas' speech to Dean... wow. "So if there's even a small chance that we can save you... I won't let you walk out of this room." (39:20)

I hate this scene. (40:11)

Dean is overwhelmed by Charlie's death, Sam and Cas' betrayal, the Mark changing him and all the other shit.

The Mark is taking over, and Dean can't (and won't) help it. Cas knows it. He doesn't want to hurt Dean. He is not even resisting. Doesn't put up a fight.

And just like Colette with Cain, Castiel only asks Dean one thing: "Stop." (40:38) [9x11]

Parallel to 8x07:

The only thing that stops Cas from killing Dean, is him begging, clutching onto his sleeve.

"Dean... please..." (41:08) Cas pleading Dean, clutching to his arm, makes him resist the urge to kill him.

Episode 23:

You can find gifs and the script of some deleted (destiel) scenes in this post by @charlie-minion

As the Mark eats Dean... he starts feeling guilt for the people he hurt... first on the list: Cas (14:54)

(This gif is not mine)

Well... what a season.

[Season 11>>]

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juviaafullbuster · 4 years

Text

FORGIVING HIM

Genre: Angst and fluff

Relationship: Gruvia

Summary: Gray is determined to apologize to Juvia and win her back after realizing what he has done and what he is losing.

A/N:

This is the second part to my story "Breaking her" which I wrote for Gruvia week. Its dedicated to @amrentheangel since it was supposed to be a one-shot but she asked for another part. Hope you like it, let me know what you think :)

Here is part 1 if you're interested:

https://juviaafullbuster.tumblr.com/post/614669804097470464/breaking-her

*************************************************

A few weeks had passed since the group had returned back to Magnolia. The whole guild was working hard on rebuilding the guild hall. It filled Gray with pride, seeing that things didn't change between the guild members and everyone was putting their all into it. Fairy Tail still meant a lot to every single one of them. If only every thing could go back to the way it was..

He looked around for the water mage that would usually be hiding somewhere near, trying to get closer to him, but he couldn't find her. He hasn't been able to for the past days. He wasn't sure whether she was gone on a mission or just locking herself up in her dorm. He knew one thing for sure though. She was avoiding him ever since their last conversation. Thinking back, he could still hear her words clearly. Every single one she threw at him.

You only saved her to break her heart all over again.

It was a stab to his heart. Every damn word. The more she talked, the more he broke inside. But he deserved it. He deserved to hear it, deserved to feel the pain. If he was honest with himself, he never deserved Juvia in his life in the first place. She was always too good for him.

It's over. Juvia is done.

He could see the hurt in her eyes, the way she was holding back her tears and forcing her chin up, trying not to show weakness. She had reminded him of the Juvia he met that day on the roof. The phantom lord Juvia. Cold, calculating, distant.. He remembered that day like it was yesterday. It was were everything had started. He was amazed by her power, admittedly a little freaked out too. But that wasn't what stuck in his memory the most. It was her fall. The way she just accepted it. She didn't scream nor did she try to hold onto something. She just kept falling, empty eyes looking into the sky. She was ready to leave, ready to lose her life. It was a quick reaction, but he had caught her by her wrist and pulled her up. And somehow he had broken the curse that had been following her. They both sat on the roof, still drenched from the rain that had been pouring over them just minutes ago. It was gone now. He let Juvia see the clear sky for the first time. That day, it changed her completely. He had saved her. At least that's what Juvia always told him.

You brought the rain back, Gray.

It was the words she had last said to him, before parting ways. The words that kept coming up in his head, showing him how much he had messed up and how badly he had truly hurt her. Juvia had left after, not seeing the way he broke down, how he couldn't hold it back anymore. The tears kept flowing and his heart was aching. He was praying to wake up, praying that it was all a bad dream, that it would be over soon and he would see his Juvia again, the one with the brightest smile and the purest heart. But it never happened. Juvia was gone and he was left alone.

The days kept passing and no matter how hopeful he woke up, reality would always catch up to him very quickly. He still didn't see Juvia anywhere around and the worry was eating away at him. He missed her. He missed her smile, the way she would greet him, the way she called out his name. He missed it all, every little thing about her. His thoughts had kept him up all night and after a lot of turning and tossing, he had finally made a decision. He would fix this and win her back, no matter what. Juvia was his girl and he wasn't going to just give up so easily. Gray had truly messed up this time, he was aware of that. But he will do anything to make it up to her. That was a promise.

Gray walked up to Gajeel, determination in his steps. If anyone knew where the water mage was, it would be her best friend.

"Hey Gajeel, you got a minute?"

"Look what we have here. If it isn't the stripper."

"Gajeel, be nice.." Levy gave him a pointed look, able to feel the tension between the two boys.

"You don't happen to know where Juvia is?"

"So now you care?"

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"Nothing. I can't help you so go bother someone else."

"Seriously?" Gray was growing impatient. He needed to know where Juvia was, the sooner the better. This iron head over here was no help whatsoever. Why did he bother asking him in the first place?

"Look, I really need to talk to her. It's very important."

"You plan on fixing things?"

Gajeel didn't show it openly, but he had a good heart. Gray being one who doesn't like to show his emotions either, knew that. And he knew that Gajeel would do anything for Juvia, despite always calling her the annoying rain woman. They were best friends after all.

"Juvia went on a mission."

"With who?"

"By herself. She insisted on going alone."

The way Gajeel said that didn't sit well with Gray at all. And by the way the dragon slayer was looking at him, he wasn't too fond of it either.

"I don't know what kind of mission it is, she didn't really say much. She's been pretty distant lately, avoiding almost everyone and staying silent on every trip. But going alone on a mission is a new one, even for that crazy woman."

It really was a new one. Even back in her Phantom Lord days, Juvia wasn't one to work alone. So heading out on a mission all by herself definelty was a warning sign that shouldn't be ignored. The worries Gray had kept growing. But there was nothing he could do now besides waiting for her to come back and praying that it wouldn't be too late.

The sun had set already when Juvia arrived back in Magnolia. The job had taken longer than expected, but she had finished it successfully. Although she had to admit that it wasn't the best idea to go by herself because it made everything much harder and also gave her too much time to think and that wasn't doing her any good lately.

Juvia approached Fairy Hills, desperately longing for a hot shower and her bed but stopped in her tracks when she saw a certain someone sitting on the bench in front of the building. It had been days since she last saw him and weeks since she last talked to him. He looked like a mess. There were bags under his eyes that indicated that he hadn't slept in a week. His hair was messy, like he had run his hand through it several times. Despite that, he still looked handsome, the most beautiful man Juvia laid eyes on. She considered turning around and walking away, but he spotted her before she had time to react, his dark eyes locking with hers and paralyzing her on the spot.

"Juvia!"

She couldn't avoid him forever, she was aware of that. She was angry, sad and hurt.. but she missed him. She missed him so much. Taking a deep breath, she prepared herself for the conversation that she could no longer postpone.

He had already stood up in a rush and was now standing in front of her. For a moment, they both stood in silence, looking at each other before Juvia nervously averted her gaze, looking anywhere but at the man in front of her. She couldn't bring herself to look him in the eye and opted for keeping her head low, eyes focusing on her shoes.

Gray wasn't sure where to start. There was so much he needed to say and yet no words came out. He wanted to punch himself. He had prepared for that moment so many times for the past weeks, overthinking every sentence and training in front of the mirror and now that he finally had a chance, he was messing it up. He needed to get it together. He scratched the back of his head, before taking a deep breath and deciding that he should, in Elfmans words, be a man.

"Juvia, I- I missed you." Gray wasn't going to hold back on his emotions. He promised he was going to be honest with her and he was going to keep this one at least. Juvia didn't give him an answer, but she didn't try to leave either so he took that as a sign to continue.

"Listen, I've been thinking about every thing, about what happened, what I did and what you said and.. I understand it. I understand why you feel this way, why you avoid me, maybe even hate me. You have every right to be angry with me. I messed up.."

Juvia wanted to interrupt him. I don't hate you. I could never hate you. But she bit her tongue. She had to stay strong, she couldn't just run back into his arms and pretend everything was good, not yet at least. Although that was exactly what she wanted to do.

"Juvia, I am truly sorry. I have done a lot of things in my life I'm not exactly proud of, things I regret. But leaving you, hurting you, that is the one thing I regret the most, one thing that will haunt me for the rest of my life. My excuses for leaving you don't matter, what I did was simply wrong. I should have never left you all by yourself, without a word. You have been on my mind the entire time. I wanted to come back so many times, to check on you, but I didn't. I was a coward and I don't deserve you."

Taking a deep breath, Gray put his hands on Juvias shoulder. When the water mage finally looked up, it broke his heart all over again. The tears were running down her cheeks and she looked so hurt, so broken. But he couldn't stop yet, couldn't comfort her, he had to finish first and see where things would go from there.

"But I am selfish. I'm too selfish to let you go, to let you move on. I will do whatever it takes to earn your forgiveness. I won't give up. I need you, Juvia. I need you by my side. Not seeing you this past weeks, it drove me crazy. I didn't realize how attached I had become to you, how big your role in my life had become. You broke the ice around me, pulled me from a darkness I wasn't aware I was in. You always used to say that I'm your hero, that I saved you. But it's not true. You are the one that saved me. I can't let go of you, Juvia. You are my world and I need you. I'm sorry I didn't give you an answer sooner. I'm sorry you had to get hurt for me to realize how stupid I am. I was being a coward. I'm not good enough for you, but I promise to do better, become a man worthy of you. I'll do whatever it takes. Because I think-"

Gray took a step closer and put his hand on Juvias cheek, wiping away a tear that was rolling down. He took her hand in his, bringing it up to his face and placed a kiss on the inside of her wrist.

"I think I love you. No, that's not right. I don't just think so, I'm sure. I'm in love with you. I can't stay away from you because I'm better when I'm with you. You make me happy, the way I feel when I'm with you.. it's different. It's good. I- I love you, Juvia."

He wasn't holding back anymore. If there was anyone he'd pour his heart to, it is Juvia. And no matter how she'd react, he won't regret being honest with her. For a moment neither of them said anything, just gazing into each other's eyes. His heart was hammering against his chest and Gray was sure Juvia could hear his heartbeat.

"Juvia missed you so much."

Juvia was done trying to be strong, trying to hold back. Gray had told her everything she wanted to hear and more. He was honest and showed her a side of him noone else was allowed to see, his vulnerable side. The tears were now falling like water falls and Juvia practically threw herself at Gray, hugging him tightly and burying her face in his chest. She had missed this so much, his scent, his warmth, him. She felt his arms coming around her and pulling her even closer. Gray leaned his head on hers. And after so long she felt like she was finally home.

"Please don't leave Juvia ever again."

"I won't, I promise you."

"Good. You know, Juvia wanted this for so long, but.. I thought you didn't want me."

"I do, I want you. Only you."

They stayed like this for a while, just enjoying each others presence before Gray let her out of his embrace, instead putting his hands on her waist and leaning his forehead on hers.

"Juvia."

"Hm?"

"Can I kiss you?"

"Juvia was wondering what you were waiting for.."

Gray flashed her a breathtaking smile before leaning in and finally locking his lips with hers. The kiss was slow and careful, like he was testing the water first, but they both melted into it soon and the kiss became deeper instantly. It was as if they were pouring every emotion they felt now and for the past weeks into it, the ache, the longing. Juvias arms went around his neck and Gray pulled her even closer, not leaving any space between their bodies. They didn't stop kissing until they were forced to, both being out of breath. Even then, they stayed close to each other, neither willing to let go.

"You know, your lips are very soft. I could kiss them all day."

Juvia giggled and give him a quick peek on the lips, teasing him. "Juvia wouldn't mind that."

Gray was grinning like a child that just got candy. He didn't remember ever being this happy. He finally had her back, Juvia was by his side again and this time, she knew how he was feeling. There was nothing more to hide. Juvia was his, just as much as he was hers and there was nothing in this world that would make him let go of her ever again. He had meant every word he said, he'd prove himself to her and become a better man. For her, he'd do anything.

"Juvia, I love you. I really do."

"Juvia loves you too, Graysama."

#fairy tail #gray x juvia #gruvia #juvia lockser #gray fullbuster #fairy tail juvia #ft juvia #fairy tail gray #ft gray #fairy tail gruvia #back to writing

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kitkatopinions · 3 years

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To be fair heroes overcoming great odds isn't unheard of and I don't expect Salem to literally win outright and end the show this volume (now THAT would be unexpected). However, that doesn't mean they can build up Salem like this and then have her fail while causing minimal no name casualties. I really wanted her to kill off at least 1/4 of the named cast. That would show the survivors though she might have been defeated, there were serious consequences to their screw ups and Salem is dangerous.

I absolutely agree with this.

Let’s look at the Fall of Beacon as an example of how the heroes overcame great odds and the bad guys didn’t win outright, but there were still plenty of casualties, the losses were significant, and the main characters had things they needed to learn from. Not only were the main cast dealing with hordes of Grimm and all the villains that have been established so far at once, the city was also overrun with Grimm, the White Fang was attacking, and the Atlas robots that were meant to protect everyone got hacked and turned against people, and then a massive and clearly very powerful Grimm got released as well, while Cinder claimed the second half of the Fall Maiden powers. These were massively hard to beat odds. And funnily enough, many of the problems got taken out without much victory from the main characters. Roman was eaten by a bird and the crashing ship cut off the signal to the Atlas robots, Blake was running from Adam and he just didn’t chase her, Cinder and the dragon Grimm were both taken out by Ruby discovering her silver eyes, which were a suddenly introduced magic power.

There are two things that made the Fall of Beacon still much more significant than the battle at Atlas. Number one is effort. Everyone was desperate and scrambling to help, everyone was seen fighting off Grimm and the Atlas robots throughout the whole of the Fall, everyone ended the battle exhausted or wounded. The only people who were making quips were the longtime hunters and inner circle members who had seen all kinds of battle before like Qrow, and only in moments of temporary reprieve. Before Roman got swallowed by a bird, Ruby had spent time fighting him and Neo in an effort to stop him from shooting down other ships. It doesn’t feel like she did nothing to earn a victory, because she was distracting Roman and trying to save people and clearly was fighting as hard as she could. Roman even being out of the cockpit in order to be eaten was a direct result of Ruby’s actions. Blake escaping didn’t feel like Adam just let her go without a fight because they did have a fight, Blake put in a lot of work for it. When Blake ran away and Adam didn’t go after her, it didn’t feel like Blake did nothing to earn it because she fought him for a time despite her trauma, pushed down the pain of her injury, and used cleverness to get some distance between them. The second thing that made the Fall of Beacon still feel more significant than Atlas was loss. They were in a situation where it was impossible to save everything and everyone, and the writing reflected that. Ironwood lost a lot of resources, the school had to shut down, there was a ton of property damage, but those are all smaller stakes. What really hit was the injuries and the deaths. Penny’s death started the whole thing, and whether or not she’s back now, she literally was dismembered on screen, leading the audience to be shocked, emotional, sad, and to know this is serious. In the fight against Adam, Yang lost her arm, which was something that her character dealt with the fallout of for the next three seasons. Roman was a villain, but Roman died as a causality to the Grimm despite being on Cinder’s side, which proved just how dangerous the Grimm were to everyone and that no character was safe. We didn’t see many civilians die, but it was obvious that they had to have died.

And then there was Cinder and the dragon Grimm. Ruby triggered her silver eyes for the first time accidentally and took out Cinder and the dragon Grimm at once without even meaning to or fighting Cinder at all. But it still felt earned and significant. Partly because Ruby didn’t know she could do this, so it wasn’t a ‘why didn’t you just use this earlier?’ moment, it wasn’t a ‘so you’ve been sitting on this power for what reason?’ moment. Partly because it came at a cost and directly after the loss of Pyrrha, another emotional loss for both the characters and the fanbase - and a main character. When I was watching this scene, I wasn’t worried about small details because a main character had just had an on-screen death! And Ruby’s emotional reaction, freezing for a second and then screaming Pyrrha’s name was impactful. The cost of Ruby acquiring this new sudden power was Pyrrha’s death, so it didn’t feel unearned for Ruby to use it. And then it clearly took a lot of her, the consequence of acquiring her power was passing out for at least days, likely weeks. The other reason why this scene in particular didn’t feel like a deus ex machina was because it didn’t solve the problems before they could start. They already lost Penny, they already lost Pyrrha, they already lost Ozpin, Yang already lost her arm, Blake already had her trauma reignited and felt like she had to run, the city had already been over-run, civilians had died, the school had already fallen. Ruby’s silver eyes stopped Cinder from continuing and stopped the largest and most dangerous Grimm in its tracks, but it wasn’t a fix. They triumphed, technically. They had stopped Cinder for the moment, taken out the largest Grimm, saved a lot of people, stopped the Atlas robots... But there was still massive cost.

Of course, it doesn’t have to even be that big. Although I’d have preferred it, the kingdom doesn’t have to fall, the school doesn’t have to go down, no main characters need to die. I can’t think of a good example in RWBY, but let’s talk about a part in the Lord of the Rings movies, Helms Deep. The people of Rohan holed up in a fortress to try and outlast the armies of orcs attacking them, but they had already lost a strong number of (nameless, characterless) fighters. So they started pulling mostly nameless and characterless children and elderly men from the civilians to fight to save their people (yes, it’s incredibly stupid that there were able bodied adult women literally asking to fight that aren’t allowed, but we’re not talking about that.) Our hero, Aragorn got in a fight with Legolas where they made it very clear that they both knew that all of these kids and elderly people would die and that if they fought, they’d likely die too. A group of elves came to join in their desperate last stand, and during the large fight, a side character elf from the last movie died brutally, on screen, while Aragorn yelled and fought to try to get to him and held him in his arms as he passed away. Later on, we saw very few live soldiers trying to barricade what seemed to be the last door between the Orcs and the civilians hiding in the caves. The king, Théoden, seemed to have lost all hope, but Aragorn talked him into trying to make one last stand to give the civilians a chance to escape and Theoden clearly thought they were riding to their deaths. Gandalf arrived conveniently just in time with an army of more Rohan soldiers (previously exiled) and turned the tide of the battle. The people of Rohan survived, Rohan itself survived and could start recovering, none of the (very capable of fighting) women or children younger than seemingly thirteen were lost, none of our main characters died or even seemed to obtain severe injuries, and not too long after that, Rohan threw a party. The only named character we know we lost was a side character who we didn’t have a lot of time to get attached to. But this still seemed like a well earned and hard fought victory, where the stakes had been incredibly high.

The Battle at Atlas is completely empty. We didn’t lose anyone other than Hazel, who was killed by his own boss (iirc.) Three of our four main protagonists spent episodes sitting around doing nothing. JRY interjected quips and fun times into even serious moments (like Oscar being kidnapped by the Hound.) The only losses we received were nameless and characterless soldiers that the writing clearly doesn’t want us to really feel for. Ruby’s silver eyes haven’t come at a cost for seasons and have just been an easy way to get rid of Grimm before they can do much damage, which is exactly what happens with the Hound. Ironwood, a villain, is the one who keeps Salem back for episodes, and then Oz just pulls a sudden power out of nowhere to get rid of the whale and temporarily remove Salem from the picture with very little effort and zero consequences. No civilians die, no main characters die, everyone is fine, only Nora is even injured and she still seems mostly fine and like she’s already well on her way to recovery. It’s so disappointing, really. They gave us endless stakes and then had next to nothing come of it. I honestly don’t know if their writing could get any sloppier.

#rwde

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