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#but also I guess this goes to show it’s never been an equal/fair fight

boobachu · 2 years

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Thoughts on Sonic Mania Adventure?

I dislike the lack of voices, but in a tom & jerry sort of way, it's still good.

Even without the hype of wondering where it's going it's still something I love re-watching. Tho the characters seem more like modern takes on them than the '90s which breaks my brain.

I could MAYBE see American '90s Sonic being hype for a real challenge, but Tails would NEVER facepalm Sonic doing this, like this is Sonic Colors levels of bullshit!

but that barely matters cuz the climax was so good (then again that's literally the first thing I think of rofl)

Otherwise I do like how Sonic & Tails are here, it's less of a big brother little brother relationship and more equals, I guess as if they're in their '40s cuz 1991 was 30 years ago or whatever aunno

Ray barely ever had characterization so I have no real opinion beyond "heh I like him!"

His whole thing with Knuckles was very funny

Mighty seems like how I'd expect Mighty to behave, he protecc etcetera, they kinda seem real close which is interesting.

Metal Sonic is the absolute best, I love his fight with Mighty and the whole hostage situation and everything

THat and the climax was so good I fucking love how Robotnik was all

watching the boys come after him and then the next episode opens with a bwaaahhmmm weird fart noise I love the fart noise it's ominous

Also it's weird how this seems to take place after Sonic Forces but Encore mode seems to take place after Mania mode?

I think Sonic sent a Ruby clone to Forces and had no idea Forces exists and there's a clone running around maybe or maybe Sonic Mania Adventures is his dying dream before becoming nothing...

ANYWAY!

Metal Sonic goes super (and doesn't change colors? What, Mecha can do it but not him??????) and that's awesome I love the final clash it's so cool I fucking love the fight and then BUM BUM BUMMMM METAL GOT DAH MASTER EMER ROLL but then ohp they run out of budget and Knuckles stops the cartoon

I mean

Aunno

I guess that's it? Woulda been nice if these were in the actual game. I mean I guess Sonic Mania was $20... but Sonic Advance was $40 and that was more game than Mania ever could hope. So maybe it's a fair price aunno

Oh yeah you know what they should make a Sonic beat im up and the final boss if you got a four banger is super metal sonic and it's way hard and you need to wombo combo him it'd be awesome

Amy's shitscram episode was cute, I just wish she was in Sonic Mania! Like Plus shoulda added Ray, Mighty, Espio and Vector and I guess Charmy why not and Amy was in Mania Minus but aunno just BAD GAME GRRRR GRRRR RAWRF RARF ARF

Aunno they're good promo cartoons but I sort of feel like they'd mean more if the actual game had good animation. Like Night of the Werehog came out but Sonic Unleashed still had plenty of cutscenes y'know?

Maybe if they make Sonic Mania 2 it won't suck who knows but SMA is way past cool and I do hope they like... do more with this?

I guesss there's that 30th anniversary comic but...

Why was Bean a murderer? Like why were Bean & Bark working for Nack, but especially why was Bean just pure evil no reigns insane?

Nothing in the game shows this personality beyond "damn he's annoying" but by that logic EVERYONE should crave violence, aunno I hate it BEAN IS NICE DAMMIT LOOK AT HIM

Is that the face of a bloodthirsty bomber?

Anyways that's why I think Super Mario Bros 1993 is a really good movie and people need to stop being overcritical of media

#Sonic Mania Adventures

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ecoamerica · 23 days

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mycrofts-gunbrella · 3 years

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Caring is the Greatest Advantage- Part 3 (Mycroft Holmes x Reader)

AN- Thank you for the patience for this one! My little boy has been unwell so it has taken a little longer than I had hoped but here is the third instalment! It’s a little shorter than the others but that’s because I wanted to contain the angsty part in one chapter, the next ones will hopefully be longer..

This one is a little more angsty, a lot more emotional, but I’m quite happy with the outcome and I hope you are too! As usual, please let me know any thoughts/feedback! And enjoy!

Word Count: 2510

"Is it just me that finds Stephen Fry a bit.. sexy?" You spoke, watching the television as Young Ones' Scumbag College competed on University Challenge. "I don't know what it is about him. He's just.. got such a lovely voice, and he's so sodding clever and his CLOTHES- got much better looking with age, mind." Mycroft only hummed, neither agreeing nor disagreeing.

"Hmm.. He's not really my type." You laughed and petted his head fondly.

"You don't have to be gay to find another man attractive Myc." You mused. "Me and Greg talk about it all the time, though he fancies Hugh Laurie more, especially in Blackadder." You laughed, thinking back on the memory of Greg's fondness of George in the Blackadder Goes Forth series.

"I'm aware that sexuality and attraction are not the same, Y/N. I am comfortable enough in my own heterosexuality to appreciate another man's features. In fact, I very much agree with Gregory's view on Mr Laurie. Stephen, however, is not my type. The few people that did speak to me in University used to tell me I reminded them of him in the way I behaved but, and I quote, 'without even a lick of his humour, you miserable bastard.' Thus, I cannot look at him in that way." He laughed a little and you cleared your throat.

"Oh.. uh, yeah I guess that makes sense. Not the humour part though, you're actually hilarious and they missed out big time." You tried to avoid the point where you'd deemed Stephen Fry sexy in every way he was similar to the man who was laying in your lap, and just hoped he wouldn't bring that up.

"He definitely got the looks side of things though, particularly as General Melchett in Goes Forth, though I am not particularly fond of the facial hair." He screwed up his nose in distaste, you fighting every ounce of your control to not say he looked a bit cute. "And certainly didn't have the waistline that 21 year old Mycroft had."

"Speaking in the third person now, are we? Well, Mycroft, Y/N is comfortable enough in her friendship that Y/N thinks Mycroft can be sexy in his own ways too." You teased, partly embarrassed, but equally just trying any way to improve the man's confidence, even by a little. Mycroft choked a little on his own saliva and had to sit up to regain his own breath. Too far? "Sorry." He shook his head 'no' but didn't speak. In his moments of regaining his composure, Mycroft watched you. Processed in his head what you had said- 'was it a joke?', he couldn't read anything on you that would suggest that, though his eyes were glassy from the choking- watched as you panicked, then subsiding the panic to concern as you made sure he was okay. All these things, he thought, he didn't deserve. He took a deep breath and reached for the television remote, pausing the show and settling back on the other side of the sofa. It had to be done now. Done while his brain was allowing it, before he got attached... before he got attached even more. He couldn't keep pretending it was okay, keep accepting your compliments and your kindness, couldn't allow himself to go any further in his.. attraction?

It was always unspoken between the two of you- your not so subtle hints to Mycroft over the last few years hadn't got unnoticed, Mycroft would be lying to himself if he didn't admit that he felt the same way, though this was perhaps the most open you had been; he would always put it off, try to think of reasons why you shouldn't be more than whatever you are now- most of the time it circles back to work, your busy schedule at the Yard and his unpredictable working hours mostly, saying to himself that it would simply be pointless, that you wouldn't see each other. But he knew that was a lie- you see him as often as you can, even if it's just for an hour on lunch, and everyone knows he would do his best to move empires to have you over for dinner had it been a while, quite literally actually.

Then there was age, you were in your mid-to-late twenties, he in his forties, though that argument also fell flat after you had mentioned your last long term relationship had been with a man your elder, amongst many of your interests in celebrity males that you had mentioned being closer to his age than yours- and, on his behalf, it was usual for a Politician to walk into formal dinners with a younger woman on arm. In the end, it all went back to the real reason Mycroft put everything off, a reason he hated admitting to even himself. Mycroft was scared.

Having been the age he is with no sexual experience, no previous relationships, and not even many friendships, he was terrified he would humiliate himself and you would leave him completely. You were both adults, both clever, you both knew there was always 'something' there, but without you ever acting upon it, Mycroft decided to live his life keeping you as a friend rather than risk not having you at all. He felt guilty enough having you here anyway. He couldn't allow you to keep stroking his hair like that, or letting you sleep in his bed with him, hold him as he snored, when it was for completely other desires in his own mind, not without speaking to you. No, that wouldn't be fair- even if he didn't fully understand everything himself and was still incredibly scared. You needed to know the truth, about everything, and, if there were the slightest chance you'd forgive him, he had decided he couldn't wait any longer, couldn't put it off anymore, he wanted you to carry on doing those things, wanted to continue the nights you would stay in his bed. But Mycroft wanted it to change, he wanted to be able to start the night with a ghost of his hand on your hip, without waiting until you were asleep to bring himself to have that courage, to wake up next to you and not feel the awkward need to move so soon, just to stay a little longer. Christ, Mycroft wanted every cliché in the book with you, and it took him until yesterday to realise how much he wanted that, after nearly losing you. And he needed you to know, even if it risked it all.

"Y/N I-"

"I know, I'm sorry, I took it too far I was just messing about.. Not that I didn't mean it, I wasn't joking about you.. You are very attractive, but it was inappropriate.. I shouldn't have said it.. I just wanted to help.. though I don't think it did, might have made it worse, actually.. Didn't want to say anything and let you find out.. like that.. not that it matters.. because I AM happy JUST being your friend, over the moon, actually.. so I don't want you to think I ruined that... Because I know you don't feel.. like that.. and you're not saying anything which is scaring me a little because you're always talking.. Not that I don't like that.. I love you talking to me, you've got a lovely voice.. and.. and I'm going to shut up again.. sorry.. again.." You rambled, a lot, too much.. far too much. Mycroft tried to process everything, his eyes closing at every word. You were making this so much harder for him, admitting everything like that. Mycroft hunched forward in his position and braced his elbows on his knees, index and middle finger of each hand holding the weight of his head by his temples.

"No just.. Just stop talking for a moment." Mycroft snapped, cutting you off as your mouth opened to speak a little, the small jump back made his gaze soften. "Please." He spoke softer, apologetic. "I can't.. talk about that.. not yet. Not until you know.." You went to speak again but his head tilted, eyes containing a rare glaze of vulnerability, trying to stay in contact with your own but constantly dropping back to his lap- a silent plea to stay quiet, be patient and just give him a moment. And you did. Turning your body completely sideways, you crossed your legs on the sofa, hands resting folded in your lap as you encouraged him to continue with a brief nod of your head. "I fear if I don't tell you of yesterday's happenings in this very moment that I never shall, and that is far too selfish, even of me." He took a deep breath in. "But I just.. need a moment. A few, likely, throughout." You nodded your head again.

From there, Mycroft began to explain everything that had happened, told you of his sister, where she had taken him, Sherlock and John, what she spoke about, what she tried to get them to do. His voice cracked every so often, knuckles whitened as his fists clenches, creases formed in his trousers where he squeezed his hand on them, but you listened to every word and stayed silent- eyes welling with small tears. Mycroft spoke of the screen, told you of the snipers that were out there, targeting Ms Hudson and Molly. Your body stiffened as he added Lestrade to the list, feeling your throat tighten a little at the mere thought of losing Greg. Mycroft pressed on, told you about how Eurus tried to make Sherlock choose between him and John, told you how he'd tried to convince Sherlock to just shoot him, how Sherlock refused and threatened to shoot himself. His voice went breathless at the end of that, the idea of losing his brother so easily still fresh in his mind. You loosened your sitting position and leaned over, taking Mycroft's hand in your own and squeezing. He sighed again and closed his eyes.

"Please, don't." He whispered, trying to fold his hand into a fist to escape your embrace. You didn't let go and offered your other hand on his back in support as you watched a stray tear fall down his cheek. "I said don't!" He shouted, moving from your touch and standing up from the sofa, beginning to pace as his face contorted into more pain, another tear following the path of the last. You sat back, watched him, didn't take the anger to heart. "It was my fault! All of it!" He ran his hands through his hair and tugged, moving them after to wipe the droplets from his cheek.

"Myc it's ok-"

"It isn't okay Y/N! No part of any of this is even remotely close to okay!" He stilled now, posture going back rigid as he looked at you, eyes bloodshot and glassy. He told you of his Birthday present to Eurus- five unsupervised minutes with Moriarty- and started his pacing again. "A man died yesterday because of me. Sherlock, John, Greg, Ms Hudson, Molly. They all almost died yesterday. You almost... you almost died yesterday." His breath hitched again, lip softly quivering at the end of his words. You tensed a little and frowned, confused and urging him to elaborate. "They weren't the only people on the screens, not the only ones with a red dot on their heads, Y/N." Gaze avoiding you now, turned completely to face the wall rather than look at you at all- giving him a chance to compose himself, steadying his voice. "I saw you, you were happy, just dancing and making tea, but at any moment you could have... and it would have been my fault. And I know I should have told you yesterday, it was selfish of me using you the way that I have without letting you know everything. You could have been gone before I could tell you everything, before I could explain how I feel about you, and it all came rushing to me the moment I saw your face on that screen. I’m so sorry, for everything, for ignoring everything, for being the reason you almost-" The last thing Mycroft had expected was the feeling of arms around his waist, the feeling of a head resting between his shoulder blades, soaking the shirt with tears. You sniffed, holding onto him tighter as you cried into his back.

"It's okay Mycroft." You spoke, voice croaking from tears. "They're okay.. I'm okay. And you're going to be okay. I'm not going anywhere." The relief Mycroft felt from your words ran through his body as he slumped a little, left hand holding on to where yours joined on his stomach, his right lifting to his eyes where, in a very rare moment, he allowed himself to weep.

***

Neither of you were too sure on how long you stayed like that, Mycroft being held in your arms as he quietly cried into his hand, you into his back, but it was long enough that your feet were beginning to ache and Mycroft had become silent a short while ago. You attempted to loosen your grip but Mycroft quickly grabbed back at your hands, holding them to him again. You changed your tactic and instead circled round until your hands remained together on his back, you now at his front and you gave him one last squeeze before guiding him backwards to the sofa, taking your place next to him but keeping your arms around him.

"I'm sorry." His voice was broken, quieter than usual. You shook your head and fought the urge to cry again.

"Don't." You spoke, sliding a hand down to hold his own that rested on his thigh. "Don't apologise Myc. You didn't do anything on purpose, you were just trying to be a good person.. a good brother. We're both still alive. Sherlock, John, Greg, Ms Hudson, Molly, they're all fine, and I have no doubt that it was partly due to you that they are still okay- whatever the three of you did in there, it worked, and that's all that matters to me." Mycroft shifted, his eyes finding yours once more, scanning, searching, trying to find anything that showed you were lying, that you didn't trust him anymore, but he couldn't find anything.

"But I-" You placed a hand at the back of his neck and leaned forward slightly, your lips meeting his briefly for a few seconds before pulling back. It wasn't desperate, or longing, or out of lust- it was everything Mycroft needed. Everything that let him know that you weren't going anywhere, that you still wanted to be around him, to be with him. He relaxed but didn't speak, his hand beneath yours just turning to allow your fingers to lace together as he let out a breath he wasn't aware he was holding. You rested your head against his shoulder, smiling softly as you felt his own rest atop yours before falling into a comfortable silence.

#mycroft #Mycroft Holmes #bbc mycroft #bbc mycroft holmes #mycroft x reader #bbc sherlock #reader insert #mycroft holmes x reader #mycroft holmes x reader smut

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extravalgant · 2 years

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So, what are your headcanons on the origins of duel circles?

OOH IVE BEEN WAITING FOR THIS ONE....

while the dialogue in canon mentions duel circles, theyre usuallly in the context of game mechanics rather than something that npcs rarely acknowledge (other than in karamelle, where a side quest boss mentions he was waiting for you to 'cast your spells', something i also think supports my headcanon)

i think this piece of dialogue in particular is what made me start thinkin about the whole 'duel circle origins'

so.. this post might be a long one

— for some reason, i think there was no mentions of duel circles in the first world. rather - there wasn't one in the first place, and there was no "rules of magical combat" -- yet.

— it might have happened when the spiral came into being when the first world was subsequently destroyed.

— duel circles, in my opinion, were made specifically for equal opportunity in mind.

- what i mean by this is that i believe that many wizards and others with magical prowess had a lot of problems with "rogue spellcasting" and "illegal duels". illegal - in this case, being something that couldn't be controlled, that often flew under radars.

- ultimately what ends up happening is that lots of people get hurt. there's no equilibrium in street duels, where anything goes and bystanders and innocent people have a chance to get dragged into the fray.

- and so, duel circles were born.

— the duel circle was part of the first rules of ancient magical combat - it's an old rule. one that still holds up in present day. it's weak in some places - mainly to do with cheating, but it never had that in mind; only that both opponents on opposite ends get a fair chance at casting their spells without interference.

— also - i believe that the duel circle is a duel circle is because a circle is a "perfect" shape. all smooth, with no points. no ends. i think it fits into the idea of a cycle - creation, living, death.

— one thing about duel circles that never changes - that everyone follows it. ever wonder why npcs or enemies never just walk up and straight up shank the wizard? everyone in the spiral is bound to this magical rule of combat - that there is only fair play when it comes to dueling with magic. it is truly neutral.

— IM THINKING... it originated somewhere in avalon. no specific reason for it, other than the fact i was inspired by the druids that show up in the catacombs, the kind of role they play when it comes to the spiral, magic, and the magic trees they brought to ravenwood. perhaps they had brought the duel circle with it, therefore introducing it to the rest of the spiral?

- i guess another theory of mine is that raven + bartleby wove the spiral with this magical duel circle in mind. she had enough power to stop the titans, her children. perhaps she did it so that they would never have dominion over others ever again? that someone like us would be able to stop them given the need to?

— with this in mind, it's also interesting to see what a 'magical fight' looks outside of a duel circle. that being the pages we see when we first go through our trial as an understudy in mirage.

- i imagine things could get dirty very quick. with the magical duel circle came pips, power pips, etc. with this power unchecked, unbalanced as it is, it is no wonder that it caused a lot of strife.

— also - interestingly enough, not even the storm titan is something thats out of its jurisdiction. we fight with its trident, yes, but it is still bound to the will of the spiral, the will of the duel circle. the same thing happens when we fuse and make the divine paradox to fight the aeythr titan (i... am not sure if that and the storm titan are the same) but. the point still stands that while its weak in some aspects (mainly through cheats) it is still powerful magic.

so in summary

ORRR

— i imagine something like the duel circle would have lots of theories on it. that there is no "one theory" that works better than all the others, but it was fun to think about...!

also its a thing thats come up in my writings sometimes lol

#wizard101 #w101 #i love thinkin about stuff like this...#cus i just love worldbuilding in general #HOPE THAT HELPED ANON... INSPIRED U OR WHATNOT #love seeing what people come up with what theyre given #and a lot of u have been giving good content... 👁👁#long post.#ah... AHHH i need to answer the rest of my asks . sorry ive been so silent omg

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nocek · 3 years

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Don't spare us the long rant! We want to hear your thoughts!

Oh you are going to regret this ;P

So here goes my loooooooong angry rant about Taskmaster and also the Black Widow movie in general.

Let's start with my point of comparison. Captain America the Winter Soldier was a good movie. It's still in my top 3 Marvel movies as I'm sure is for many people. And statistically speaking everybody likes Bucky. He is like the most beloved side character right after Loki. I guess.

Anyway. My point is that Taskmaster and Winter Soldier have bit for bit the exact same building blocks: hypercompetent antagonist that is a serious threat to our hero who just can't win with in one on one combat. But then plot twist: our antagonist was just a victim and puppet without free will in hands of actual villain who is bland bureaucrat.

So why did Winter Soldier worked really really well and Taskmaster was just ehh.. ok?

Well the short answer is that catws was a much tighter movie that had clearer goal (and also that goal/theme was singular: good things get corrupted with time and sometimes you get to start over) compared to black widow which had to jump through too many hoops and still somehow managed it but it wasn't as graceful as it would be if they (as in executives) resigned from one or two hoops and flips and explosions.

And I'm omitting a BIG disadvantage of making a prequel movie about a character that they killed off in shitty way. Though that created one of extra hoops for them to jump through: quickly build up Yelena as a character.

And character build they did. Because srsly Yelena is awesome and I love her. BUT. That came at a price.

Lets compare to catws. The new character there is Sam (and kiiiiiiiinda also Natasha a bit but that's a topic for a different rant) who is nowhere near as well build as Yelena. At the beginning. Because he had time to be fleshed out and naturally grow in few different movies and then we got a deep dive in the Falcon and the Winter Soldier.

But Marvel can't give Yelena few movies because she will appear in Hawkguy an Hawkeye series and also Marvel is generally dividing their assets into: outer spaaaace, down to earth heros and magic stuff (aliens, androids and wizards ;P). But also they can only create so many things in a year.

So yeah. Yelena offtopic can be summarized that I love that we have her as we have her but it came at a cost of air time of the movie.

So comparing the movies again:

Catws had the theme of good things being corrupted with time. And the theme was underlined 3 times through Peggy, Bucky and then Shield/Hydra. Which are interconnected and also make nice scale from inner conflict of the main character to the outer conflict of the movie.

In Black Widow there is the topic of the past evil that never went away and is still taking away free will from people. And again we have it shown through 3 outlets: Yelena, Taskmaster and Black Widows. But there is also whole family subplot attached to Yelena and there is Red Room attached to Black Widows. So as you can see things are getting crowded. Which in turn make the theme a bit blurry.

I mean, sure, the Red Room should be the Shield equivalent. Even it could take smaller space because good Shield turns out to be evil Hydra is generally more time consuming to explain than Red Room bad. But still combining Red Room and Black Widows make things a bit crowded.

(There is a reason why the surprise subplot of there is more Winter Soldiers was in separate movie and was kinda handwaved and cut to minimum. But they couldn't do that here).

But it's time to stop my ranting about whole Black Widow movie and focus on comparing Taskmaster and Winter Soldier.

Because to be honest both are bare bones of character and more of an carte blanche in the movie. Both have barely any screen time yet there are colossal difference which stems out of:

first introduction: as I mentioned they are hypercompetent and unstoppable threat that you can't win with, you can only hope to run away (both done equally well)

programmable killing machine:

For Taskmaster we just get a scene with her watching other heroes fighting at the screen. For the sake of building up the mystery of character we think that "he" is just watching. Maybe learning or more likely just being creepy. The information about the chip and literal programming is given to us much later in the movie which makes this scene lose the power. idk how it will work on rewatch? Maybe better? Hopefully. right now there is too many new movies in cinemas to go for a rewatch and disney+ still isn't available here -.-

For Bucky we have literal torture scene. You just can't be more blunt than that. It also hammered the next point in.

there is human behind the mask:

Winter Soldier is introduced with full face mask which he gradually loses and then we have the big reveal of not only: that's a human but also that's a human our main hero cares about deeply.

With Taskmaster they fucked up it for chap plot twist. We are learning quite late that oh snap that's Antonia (that we don't really care about) and our main hero kinda feels guilty about her.

I think the big difference is what kind of character Steve and Nat are and also the way they reveal this secret. Steve actively recognizes Bucky by himself and is very openly shocked. Nat is passively told and shown that hey, this is Antonia. And there is no time in the movie for Nat (and for us) to be shocked because that's the 3rd act and we need time for explosions and stuff.

Besides, the problem is that all the big plot twist reveals are boring on rewatch (stil big props for Pacific Rim and giving us the monster reveal in like second minute of the movie, I will never not appreciate that).

Also on related shitty note. We the audience. Bucky is handsome and vulnerable and we can drool all over him (and oh man, we the fandom did a fair share of drooling). Antonia is disfigured and not sexualized in any way. Which I'm actually grateful for but there is no pretending that doesn't make a hell lot of difference. But that's a whole different, ugly and big topic I'm not remotely qualified to write about. I'm just angry ranting here.

they don't have free will:

For Winter Soldier we have amnesia + torture tropes which to be honest have been done over and over again and it shouldn't have worked as well as it worked. Bit it did. In context of Black Widow movie it worked because it was just one guy that actively broke through brainwashing with active help of the hero.

In Black Widow there is a lot of characters that are pasively "woken up" out of mind control over and over again by active protagonist. Unfortunately the repetition kinda cheapens it. Especially in comparison to main gut punch right in the feels scene in the other movie. Which is why it's not fair to compare the two.

So lets talk about lack of free will aspect itself. To be honest the mind control aspect in Black Widow was done really great from story perspective. Evil scientists perfected it to the point it being (bit handwavey but) completely impersonal but also completely dehumanizing to the subject. So I'm buying that it can be completely switched off in equally efficient and impersonal way. Even the way they explained it with Alexei the pig was great and terrifying... to a point. Because then kicked the main problem with this movie. Clearly some execs came and saw it and went whoa... that's too dark for pg13 blockbuster. Let's put some cheap jokes here. And it happens over and over again in this movie :S

humanizing flashback scene that ties them to main hero:

For Bucky, sure we had Captain America First Avenger but a movie needs to stand on it's own legs. That's why we have the flashback scene which shows us that Bucky cared about Steve. Leaving it at the narration in Smithsonian of "best friends since childhood" would be just telling us. And we needed to be shown and we needed a space for the "till the end of line" so it could come back and stab us right in the feels.

Also because we are ignoring previous movie Russos cleverly made us care about Winter Soldier because Steve cares about Winter Soldier. And we already know and like Steve so building up our main character gives us more mileage out of new bare bones character (because let's be honest, Winter Soldier is just that). Two birds one stone thing.

In Black Widow there is no such thing which IMHO is the main reason Taskmaster doesn't work. We just get information about cardboard cutout: insert cute little girl here (only told, not even shown actual cardboard) and all of the emotional connection to Natasha is: I know that my boss that I hate has a daughter, she got in the crossfire. Which means nobody cares.

All it would take is adding a short flashback scene. idk Dreykov is an asshole and doesn't care about Antonia but she is she cutest and most adorable little girl. She treats the Black Widows as older sisters. Hell if you want to make it more horrorish copy of the idea of Thor wanting to be a Valkyrie when he grows up or T'challa wanting to be a Dora Milaje. Little Antonia wants to be Black Widow when she grows up because they are badass and they are nice to her (and are also slightly confused by her) because she is nice to them and is only person that treats them as humans. Hell we could have short interaction between her and Nat. Just a smile between them would be enough.

You could get a lot of character buildup mileage out of such a short scene.

But it couldn't happen partially because the movie didn't have time for that but we didn't get that mostly because it would show us instead of telling that Nat killed a cute little innocent girl for her own personal gain. (well she thought she was destroying Red Room but mostly wanted to get away - vide she didn't check on Yelena or other widows. But I wouldn't hold that against her. It was put your oxygen mask first kind of situation. But still it would make her look bad)

Besides, that would take guts to actually show.

And technically they could have afforded to have that guts. That was last movie with Nat anyway. It would actually make this plotline about her feeling guilty about Dreykov's daughter and red in her ledger work. But well... It was last movie so they wanted to leave us with the most goodest and bleeding hartest and heartwarming mary sue version of Nat with just telling us without showing hey, she got dark past.

On the other hand if we had the rumored Endgame plotline of Nat running an orphanage. Damn that would tie to this plotline so well. We could tie the loose widows also. Dam we were robbed here I tell ya >.<

Ok I'm overdoing offtopic about Nat. Sorry

design

So yeah. Design wise Winter Soldier is like great. For Taskmaster, she sure looks cool but also kinda generic? If in 10 years you'd show me her and say it's antagonist from GI Joe or something I'll believe you :S (not touching the debate that in comics something something because unfortunately I don't know Taskmaster from comics. Although I hear that few recent ones were quite good so I'll check them out sooner or later)

snapping out of mind control

I mentioned before. It would be unfair and there is no point comparing main emotional scene of the movie versus means to an end that were repeated several times through a movie.

Natasha freeing Antonia even if she thought that Antonia will kill her because that would fair was great. What I'm annoyed is a cheap fakeout that went with that. It was just after the bombastic finale with explosions and all the cgi shit. Even without looking at the movie runtime it was obvious there will be no extra fight scene.

In catws it worked because the cgi pew pew extravaganza was a background noise and was part of a continuous fight. In BW helicarriers fell already, there was a second of dust settling and then Nat throws away the shield (uses that capsule). Tension just fell from highest place in a movie (quite literally lol), trying to rise it again for such a short moment just doesn't work.

But that's the general problem with Marvel movies. Bombastic CGI fest as grand finale that probably is "outsourced" and then actual director comes back and needs to end movie super quickly.

disappearing act at the end

So in catws there is mystery of what will Bucky do. We are given some hope since he dragged Steve out of river and visited the museum but thats all. I mean there is this annoying Marvel thing of skipping over the interesting ending of last movie and starting with next plot point. We were hoping for the grand roadtrip/hunt for Bucky but nope. We must run ahead with all the plotlines (same way I'm sure that the Spiderman is Peter Parker and he killed a guy thing will be already dealt with in the beginning of the next movie -.-) But that's bonus mini rant.

In BW they needed to wrap up to many plot lines too quickly so Antonia wakes up and that's all. We don't get a suggestion what she may do. The problem of the chip she still has installed is omitted. There is nothing. She just fucks off to lalaland with other Black Widows the end. Because we needed ending for Nat's actual family which was ok but also kinda rushed.

As I mentioned waaaay before (god, this rant is pretty long) too many hoops to jump through.

Which really sucks because if they added that one flashback scene just for Antonia and spared few more minutes for the overall ending it would work so much more better.

And I even know where they could have saved few minutes (besides the explosions thingies). The supply guy. One extra character in a movie with too many characters. In catws the supply problem (with wings) was solved with nbd shrug. If you wanted to show that Nat has her own web of contacts it should be more than one guy. IDK in Budapest there could be 10 second scene with neighbor saying hi nice to see you again we reinforced the walls after last time. In Norway we could see her visiting some special secret supply stash run by some rando before getting to the mobile home.

But oh she was on the run so that would be too many people. Then cut the people entirely. The shitty helicopter can be worked around with joke that I'm not on speaking terms with Stark rn and that's the best we can have on short notice.

Eh.. side rant again. Sorry.

So to wrap it up. I actually really would love to see what will happen with the loose Black Widows and Antonia because here they were really underdeveloped. And while widows were more of a group hero and we have Yelena as a representative so in a way it balances out but Taskmaster needed so little extra care to make her character so much better and I'm a tiiiiiiny bit salty about it.

#text post #long post #very long rant #black widow #black widow spoilers #black widow movie #black widow 2021 #taskmaster #antonia dreykov #i kinda doubt we will see her again #but one can hope #if anyone actually read through all of this congratz!#and thank you #let me hug you #(and I'm sorry it's so long)

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supercorp-hosie · 3 years

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My thoughts for Legacies 315:

1) for the Star Wars, I have no knowledge about it, I saw some parallels of characters after the episode, it seems accurate, but I still have no idea why Hope’s characters in it didn’t even have a backstory or name lmao. I’m just overall unfazed;

2) the background of the trio and Alaric! There are like so much to address and I don’t know how to fully share my thoughts in-depth organisedly. I’ll try;

3) facts first: so it’s canon that Lizzie’s mental problem is diagnosed at earliest 11, but specific time unknown;

4) Jed activated his curse earliest at 11, since Lizzie had a crush on him for two weeks. I mean who would’ve thought that, common headcannons seem to incline on Josie x Jed tho😂. That just doesn’t randomly cross my mind🤣. Anyway, it doesn’t deny that Jed and Josie could be a thing too, since the twins often have the tendency to crush on the same person? I’m feeling like 60% of the time? I mean they obviously have the same preferences for LI, bad girl or bad boy type, anyone? Rafael, Sebastian, Jed, Jade, Penelope, Hope, Finch. They kind of have this thing with new people to their lives, for Josie, Rafael, Finch, Jade(it’s arguable but I think people tend to have a whole new lens when reconnecting with a disappeared person in your life for years when you’re very young. The perspectives are not the same, like you’re meeting a new person especially you don’t really know them before);

5) especially Lizzie, she definitely has a thing for new people that seems like bad boy/girl. I emphasised on the new people here bc I don’t think ethan is exactly that type, it’s just how Lizzie imagine him to be in that AU. Raf, Sebastian, Ethan....(maybe Jed was new when she crushed on him too, who knows), more specifically, it’s Strangers to Lovers trope for her romance department, so she can imagine as much as she wants and have the wildest dreams (bgm intended). Maybe Josie’s it’s not as much like this considering we don’t know how Posie happened, and with Hope her crush is canon when she was 12, but we don’t know how long exactly the crush was and when did it started, I just have to count that not being new person into her life. But I do get that why Josie said Lizzie always get the boy/girl Josie crushed on too, mostly they have the same type and preferences. Though they can randomly blurt out characters that we all don’t even know as more solid examples.;

6) Alaric and the fact of him being quite an absent father since the twins were 11 is solid canon. I understand the need to care for Hope because the world can’t afford a tribrid went uncared for and went around killing people, but still, the different perspectives of Hope and Lizzie to Alaric are very sad. To think that your father would betray you for another child, is very sad, even for Lizzie, the more dramatic one. So I understand that Caroline wasn’t there for the twins either, another absent parent. About the mother figure being diminished here, I’ll address it in another point. What’s left for Lizzie? Josie.

7) So basically Josie had to handle herself and Lizzie’s all by her own? That’s very hard! My BFF is bipolar, we are not living together, but before, my whole situation [for being in love with her + her situation] had really been hard for me too. I couldn’t imagine what’s it’s really like for Josie. (Another point that I need to address is the real mental problem that Lizzie has) Sure Alaric might not always be absent, but the intensity of Lizzie’s perspective begs to differ. Josie had to understand what is Bipolar at a very young age; had to be there for Lizzie when she had her outburst; had to be the one constantly check on Lizzie whether she had taken her meds; had to digest the emotion impacts from Lizzie after the outburst; had to understand how Lizzie functioned when she was down. None of that are easy, and there’s no one there to ask of what Josie really feels. How Josie pent out? What does she need? Josie might feel the need to be not wanting things and always be good so that she can get the love from Alaric (I remember in season 1, Josie felt the need to lose the game to get on Alaric good side) . So she just started to suppress her voice and her needs, because Lizzie need them the most. Over time or years of suppressing in front of her dearest family, she most likely felt unneeded by her parents, and forgettable to her parents(the girl that’s so quiet that her parents forget about her, the girl that Penelope won’t fight for anymore). She needed to feel needed, so she just let Lizzie take all of her, from whom she felt needed the most. So all of these from Josie’s perspectives, it started a vicious cycle for the twins. And leads to how the twins dynamics and how Josie are in present days. But her problem was never solved, they just accumulated day by day, year by year, leaving the good and dark side from Josie being so separated and unbalanced. The inner turmoil is always there. These lead to the extreme polarity of Josie’s good and bad side. When she’s doing bad, Josie would be especially aggressive than she needed to be because that’s an instinct to compensate the lack of action before. After long suppression, once being released, the instinct would be stronger than usual and harder to get it under control. Under the influence of dark magic, Dark Josie felt like another personality inside Josie here to take over the whole Josie and protect their interests that true Josie are neglecting. Kind of like dissociative identity disorder but not really it?? It’s just an understanding that I’ve been wanting to express, but so hard to organise it, because it’s so complex. By this understanding, I do still think that Josie should still be held accountable for her actions, even when dark magic was influencing her, like even people with mental health illness should be instituted and lost their freedom. I just think that it’s not fair to think she’s straight up very evil and do nothing good for people. It’s not like she’s being dark for no reason at all. This just mean that the dog that doesn’t bark can be more harmful than people think. These doesn’t mean that when Josie goes dark, she doesn’t deserve any leniency at all while holding her accountable. (And it’s not like she’s not beating herself up for most of the things she had done) Oh and sure, Josie should do the healthy way of voicing out these needs and all, to encourage a healthy dynamics between them like she’s the only healthy one between them, but still the problem is, they both lack the environment and guidance to make a healthy working relationship between themselves. How could they know what is healthy when the environment was already lack thereof.

8) Reading Lizzie’s diaries is bad, I understand, because you literally need to understand what leads to what, to gain control when your life is a chaos, but still. It’s even worse when you have that need to confide in another person to get things out wrongly. (I was having a phone call during the diary sharing review, but this is what I vaguely get) a) Josie is confiding the contents very specifically to another person that Hope can somehow reconstruct a sequel to it? b) Josie chose the wrong place to confide it since when she gets emotional, people can probably hear what was shared. At least from what I guess I got, it isn’t stated that she spread it to the whole school nor it was spread to the whole, even if that’s the case, it may not be on purpose, and she chose the wrong person to confide in. Like about the reveal in 112, she made up that Hope talking bad about Lizzie to the whole school, but it doesn’t mean that she spread it nor the whole school actually knows. Another case is, even if the school knows, it could easily be known by any passerby to Lizzie outburst and spread in the school. From what we saw from 101, the kitchen is a public space, the utensils and cutleries breaking should be very alarming, and there are students with intensified senses in the school. By that fact itself, it doesn’t really help Lizzie in being discreet of her illness. Still, sharing your sister’s diaries after reading it is really bad. But I do get that, sometimes you really need to talk to someone that know some of the situation but don’t really know the person in question to recalibrate yourself. But that person have to be like the dead end of all school gossip but not close to Lizzie, so it can do no harm (because he/she/they literally have no use to talk to someone with all these, usually there’s this no name policy, but with Lizzie being her sister, it’s useless hiding, maybe) when you disclose something related to her pertaining your own issues. Josie should apologise for sharing Lizzie diaries, even if Hope was not meant to know that, despite her werewolf hearing. For the reading part, did we get the apology tho? I guess we had? If negative, apologies needed.;

9) From Lizzie perspective, we can see her does Josie wrong but didn’t apologise either. Like Lizzie being princess but Josie being her android, personalised valet? It just showed that during that period of time(specifically from when until when tho, that’s a question), after what Josie had been enduring, taking care of her, Lizzie thought of herself being princess but didn’t actually think Josie as her equal? Like how the Android was programmed to bow to Lizzie? That’s just the habit of the twins dynamic showing, also partly Josie mistake, but Josie does deserves to be perceived as more than that, even when she’s derogatory to herself, Lizzie should uphold that for her. Their dynamics is just sad because it’s not entirely the twins fault, it’s also due to the absent parents in the household, they didn’t know better, they can only depend on each other. They’re orphaned like Hope in a way when their parents are still present. Even though they have privileges as Alaric’s daughters, but that doesn’t help with their real situation. This is just a perfect example of how your family shaped you, but we can still fight to shape ourselves after the power that our parents have over us gradually diminished, like how they’re starting to shape themselves more now as they’re coming to age.

10) What really warms me from the Android situation, despite Josie feeling like she’s being degraded the whole time, a subject to Lizzie, is that from how Josie is the combination of two Androids, also shows that how Lizzie actually looked up to Josie. Maybe it’s not addressed, but I see that. For Lizzie, Josie can really do so much things for her, take care of her so closely that Lizzie can count Josie as her personal valet. Derogatory, yes, but that place is also very important to prince and princess, bc they can literally do nothing to take care of their daily lives themselves well, like Merlin for Arthur (I mean the actions, not the presumably romantic relationship). Without Merlin, Arthur life is a mess! And the knowledge for Android part, it means that in Lizzie’s mind, Josie actually is like the person who knows everything😂 usually that figure should be our parents😭, but for Lizzie, it’s Josie, like she knows the answer to all. It’s sad and warming at the same time. Just more appreciation will do! And the fact that the special sword that they’re finding the whole time was in Josie’s thigh, just show how the trust that Lizzie had in Josie, not even their parents can triumph it, because Josie was the one being there the whole time. So they really deserves each other despite all the shitty things they have done to each other.

11) about Lizzie mental illness, I was recommended a post informing people about how Legacies fucked up Lizzie’s illness. After my own research, I do agree with the OP, I think that Lizzie situation is more like borderline personality disorder rather than bipolar, but that doesn’t make the whole situation easy. I can provide the table I made the next time regarding that.

12) Hope being Lizzie’s villain is really fitting, lmao, the intensity of Alaric care for Hope is so much that even Lizzie thought that Alaric would betray the twins for Hope.

13) I like Hope’s look. Josie being the Android that malfunction sometimes is funny too, especially when Josie is angry the whole time, cuz it’s infuriating too🤣🤣

14) Hope and Josie during Lethan kiss is me. How they’re totally in the same team when Lizzie being like that? Hosie are both wary of their characters and backstory? Hosie rights. Hhhhhh, oh Hope might be jealous of Ethan😂 Hizzie rights.

15) Another Hizzie rights, Hope wrote a sequel to Lizzie fanfic. And..... is Hope officially a nerd too???? I can’t! Hhhhh but maybe not, or else Hope would have known who she was.

16) Lizzie says, maybe deep down I still feel that you’re the chosen one (IN HER OWN STORY)

17) Younger Hope kind of break my heart more. It’s so sad😭😭 how she’s in denial of their parents death, and blame it on herself.....no baby. How Hope just have to tell herself all that again. And about Hope being scavenger, I think it’s fitting too. Her life, like the twins, is in pieces too. She had to pick them up herself, and build a world where her heart and hope can rest safely, and that just make her not mad at Josie burning down her room gayer. She was so closed up to herself that her room is like another world for her. So forgiving Josie just because of her crush, is like Josie and her crush on Hope meant the world to her???? Hosie rights! Anyway, Josie still messed up with that.

18) Having Younger Hope saying those things to Josie, oh my heart! Josie is a protector for Hope! Hosie rights! And Hope knowing the truth to stop Lord Marshall! Malivore, and Josie just stop talking because she doesn’t want to encourage Hope to die😍😍 Younger Hope actually wants to be best friends with the twins!!!!

19) Hope literally just stop growing taller after 12/13 like I did, is fact! And I’m comforted by that, sorry not sorry, lmao!

20) For real I don’t understand why Hope is suddenly full tribrid at the end. When she fights with Malivore.

21) The gun fight and sword fight is so weird! It’s like the gunners don’t know how to shoot at all, like they’re in slow motion, difficultly level easy to the audience, it’s so fake. I’m for Hope being badass, but it seems like the show doesn’t know how to portray a good fight scene. The sword fight is like in slow motion. And if Hope is to combine magic with sword fighting, she should combine them more. I don’t feel she’s badass at all, cuz it’s literally level easy😑

22) Star Wars AU have brought up so many childhood unresolved for the trio to understand each other more and be a better team. I love them ended up being all supportive and the panda promise🤣🤣 I love that the twins just agree not to let Hope die like that. But they’re like promise that a little later than Cleo and Landon? My team Sowanby! Applause to Handon, but please don’t be together again! Strike three, no is no!

23) for MG, Jed, Kaleb, they really need to make up with each other, I’m glad that they finally made it. And Kaleb being jealous of Methan? Lmao! And MG didn’t even say Ethan name? I love Maleb bonding, and MG never left his man behind!! Another things is, what’s wrong with those boys fighting scenes? We saw them throwing valuables to distract the monster again?! What if the keys are damaged? How are you going to go home? Oh and Jed being useful!

24) Jed last name is Tien, 田/填 in Chinese, I’ve shared enough in my other post. But still WE DONT ACTUALLY HAVE JED FIRST NAME! Give us that!

25) Still, I don’t understand how the wendigo is not dead yet. And how come it’s defeated by fire this time??

26) I don’t quite actually know what’s happening with Dorian. Is he okay? I bet he is, so Emma is coming back, right? Based off what the conversation is? We need Emma, really.

27) regarding Emma, is the lack of mother figure that I want to address when stating the twins dynamic. I don’t actually know a lot from TVD or TO, I just happen to know some general things and snippets from edits. But I know Hayley’s words before she dies, like “I’m not going to teach my daughter it’s okay to let people she loves die” and paint art, have at least one epic love? But for real, in legacies, all I get for Hayley is 103, Josie paying her respects, but none other than that. It’s all Klaus. I believe that Hayley is an important figure to Hope too. But she’s not mentioned enough, it’s kind of erasing her impact on Hope?? Like Caroline too, we get her phone calls, the twins trip to Europe to treat their problems off-screen, the letter for Lizzie in 302, the recommendation for Lizzie to go to the witch retreat, but not vetted by Alaric.....yes she get all these and Jo Laughlin being there in 106 (I cried so hard). But still the mother figure is still being minimised. Like in Lizzie’s fanfic there’s never a place for Caroline? How surreal? It doesn’t make sense. (I understand the actress is just not returning). But still these doesn’t change the fact that the show is lacking a mother figure as a whole. Emma should be that.

28) Clarke!!! Like it’s predictable! But what’s unpredictable is that he went straight to shower🤣🤣🤣 I love his snarkiness! Clarke meeting Hope half naked! Holarke! Hhhhhh

I’m too tired, sharing this episodes thoughts is exhausting me. There must be something I left out, please feel free to remind me!

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ellestra · 3 years

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Time to burn

I have suspected TVA was evil from the beginning and the way they would punish people for braking the rules they had no way of knowing even existed was proof enough. If something as mundane as being late for work make you pruned it hardly seem fair. But back then it seemed like pruning was just death. It turns our it much more horrifying than that. The TVA just dumps them to trash - out of sight, out of mind - so they can eaten by a monster that sucks out the time of their bones leaving only ruins behind. Everyone they prune and all who are in the range of reset charge just fed to Alioth or cannibals or, I suppose, dying of hunger. They feed people to a monster to get rid of them. That's evil. That whole place is evil.

At least the ones like Ravonna Renslayer who know and still value status quo over the truth. She always knew what happens after pruning. She knew she was sending countless beings into horrific deaths. And even after she learns that Time Keepers are a lie and the whole building a paradise of that garbage heap is bunk she wants to bury the truth. Sure she wants to know what the TVA is really about and who created it but not to rock the organisation. She is in power here and she doesn't want to rock the boat. This system works for her so she wants to stop anyone from disrupting it. After all she's not the Variant being chased to death and that all that matters.

This is a contrast to other TVA agents who learn the truth. Even if she didn't know before Ravonna learnt for Hunter C-20 they were all Variants but she just buried it with her. But Hunter B-15 and Mobius react to the horrifying realisation that they've been lied to and have been used to abused others with wanting to make up for it. That's the difference between the good and evil. Unlike Ravonna they don't hide their crimes - they tries to atone for them. B-15 helps Sylvie and loki fight the Time Keepers and uncover how deep the lie goes. And Mobius tries to save as many of the very people he prosecuted before as he can. And most importantly he apologises. He apologises to Sylvie for his role in helping TVA hunt her.

Because even when you did something bad in error - because you were lied to and indoctrinated - the people you hurt are still hurt. This is the difference to someone like Grant Ward who hid behind excuses and blaming others and someone like Mobius and Loki himself. I've seen so many people just going on about how all Loki did was the fault of his upbringing and Odin and he's just hurt but he is still the one who did it. His childhood can be an explanation of the person he became but it's not a justification. Hurting people (from trying to kill Thor to all the people on Earth) was still on him. And we see in this series that he doesn't try to justify it so don't do it for him. This is the big part of the growth - taking responsibility.

I often complain about lack of accountability in Marvel stories - especially from superheroes themselves - and it was really nice to see the characters taking time to try to make up for their mistakes at least in the TV series.

It's nice that let us see both sides of it in Lokis. They are all burdened with such mistakes and we see how those who learnt nothing from it keep repeating the same mistakes even as that brings them closer to annihilation. Those who learnt from their mistakes get a chance to show their growth. Something TVA tried to take away from them. Another one of that organisation's crimes.

And it looks like each Loki got there in their own way proving that their improvement wasn't all that unlikely as there were many paths leading to it. Kid Loki killed his Thor and I'm pretty sure that was one of Loki pranks going wrong. We see it in our main Loki's face when he hears that. In many ways Loki has always been a lot like Nebula. For all the talk about killing the sibling it was always more about wanting to be noticed and appreciated as equal. The main thing about all those attempts to kill was that they were not supposed to succeed. How can you gloat to them if their dead? They just wanted to win. So I think the reason Kid Loki helps other Lokis is to have a replacement sibling for the one he lost. Someone to hang with and not try to kill. It turns out the killing wasn't really that fun.

I'm not sure what makes Alligator Loki care besides pool and wine but if I had to guess it's him having Kid Loki and willing to kill everyone in the room even looking at him the wrong way.

Even though the Classic Loki is prone to fatalism of their inability to change we can see that he already did. He hangs with the Kid and Alligator without betraying them so he can have the companionship he missed. He saves them when push comes to shove. And in the end he also saves Sylvie and main Loki and the day. He was the hero already. He just didn't believe in himself.

But the part that really made me irrationally upset is that Old Loki never got to reunite with his Thor. He blamed himself for all the bad things that happened and let Thor believe he died. And when he tried to reconnect TVA came. All I could think at that scene was Thor during the Infinity War and Endgame - completely devastated by that loss and never learning he isn't alone. Neither of them even knowing how much the other missed them. It makes me so angry.

This is TVA crime I cannot forgive. As Loki has said it the first episode and as Mobius promised to help with back then burn the whole place. Now Loki has given him that spark and it's time to burn it all down.

#loki #loki odinson #loki laufeyson #kid loki #classic loki #aligator loki #lokigator #sylvie laufeydottir #mobius #mobius m mobius #tva #ravonna renslayer #hunter b-15 #time variance authority #thor #thor odinson

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clonemando · 3 years

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Star Wars Fun in the Sun Submission

This fic was written for @starwarsfandomfests “Summer Fun in the Sun” event. This event was really fun to participate in and I’m glad I joined in. I was given @anaisonfire to write for and chose to write some fluffy Jangobi for you with some bonding between Jango and the clones and Obi-Wan and young Boba. I hope you enjoy!

Find it on AO3 Here

The sound of the waves lapping at the sand of the beach and the feeling of warm sunlight against his bare skin had Obi-Wan almost dozing in his chair. It had been so long since he could just relax like this and soak in the beauty and sensations of a place instead of worrying about an attack but the war was finally over. A lucky break had come from Fox who had nearly faceplanted onto the council room floor in a combination of his haste to speak with them and complete exhaustion. He had overheard a conversation between Dooku and Palpatine revealing his plans and had recorded it on his helmet cam, giving the Jedi evidence against the now exposed Sith Lord. Dechipping started as soon as they located what it was Palpatine was talking about and within the month, the head had been cut off the snake. Without Palpatine’s funding, a lot of previously Separatist worlds returned to the Republic begging for another chance. Dooku was backed into a corner and he knew it, so he had willingly turned himself into the Jedi council, giving up information on Grievous that led to his capture and the droid army’s shutdown. Things still weren’t perfect. The flaws of the Republic were more obvious than ever. The corruption ran deeper than before. The Clones still didn’t have the rights they deserved.

“What has you frowning like that, cyare? We’re supposed to be on vacation.” Jango’s voice interrupted the downward turn his thoughts had taken and his lips turned up in a warm smile.

“Just thinking about the mess we are not supposed to be thinking about while here. The usual.” He said and Jango snorted when Obi-Wan looked over to soak in the sight of him. Despite seeing his face repeated a million times in the war, none looked quite as handsome as Jango’s own scarred appearance to him.

“That’s fair enough. I keep worrying about Boba.” Jango admitted looking out over where the 212th and 501st were all playing volleyball or splashing in the water or laying in chairs like Jango and Obi-Wan just soaking in the sun. Obi-Wan sighed. Boba was another issue they would have to figure out a solution to. Well, not Boba himself, but how to integrate him into the rest of the family.

“Where is he now?” Obi-Wan asked when he didn’t see the boy in question.

“Inside the hotel room moping. I left him some books to read that I thought he might like so hopefully he’s curled up with one of those at least. I wish I knew how to make it better. I suppose just time with the mind healers for all of us. Watching who he thought was me get their head cut off is not the sort of trauma that goes away in a few months.” Jango murmured rubbing his face and Obi-Wan reached out to squeeze his hand.

“I have to admit it was a big shock to all of us when Dooku revealed you were alive and that the person Mace killed had been one of the clones he had kept personally for purposes such as that. I’m just glad that you survived and that Boba had been able to be located and reunited with you.” He said seriously. Jango nodded.

“If Aurra weren’t already dead I’d kill her again for poisoning him to think I’d want him risking his life that way. I just want him happy and healthy.” He said, squeezing Obi-Wan’s hand back. The relationship that had somehow started between them, since Jango was recovered from where he had been imprisoned and had started helping fight for the clones and clean up the mess that he helped make, was the biggest surprise of all. Obi-Wan had always assumed that Jango was a cold heartless person to have made all the clones and treated them so indifferently, however he had realized that the opposite was in fact true. Jango cared greatly for the clones but he had been just as much a prisoner in Palpatine and Dooku’s schemes as they had and he had distanced himself to protect them from being targeted due to Dooku thinking he might use them against him. Finding out Jango had also been implanted with a rudimentary version of the chip also explained a few things and allowed him to be pardoned for the attempted hit on Padme. Of course, a lot of it was still on Jango’s shoulders and he was doing all he could to rectify his actions. Somehow in all the working together to help the clones, Obi-Wan and Jango had become close enough to the point that even Boba and Anakin had been calling them a couple behind their backs. Now they really were.

“Vacations don’t work well when we just lay around and let ourselves worry about things. How about we go join in on the death ball game the boys are playing instead?” He offered and Jango chuckled, kissing his cheek.

“That sounds like a great idea. Just don’t complain when my team crushes you.” He said getting up and waving over at Cody.

“Wait a minute! Cody is my commander! He’s going to be on my team!” Obi-Wan quickly hopped up to follow and get integrated into the teams. Obi-Wan ended up on Rex’s team while Jango had cockily gained Cody’s choice, Cody giving Obi-Wan a fake-apologetic smirk.

“You can’t even hold onto your lightsaber and you expect me to think you can keep a ball?” He teased with a lot of clones’ ‘ooo’s surrounding them.

“Oh it’s on now, my dear, you’ve made a grave mistake.” Obi-Wan had said, moving to huddle with his team. In the end, due to a non-Force use rule, the teams were evenly matched and the game never really got far in either team’s favor. They were all just having fun wrestling a ball from each other and trying to get it to the opposite team’s goal. Eventually, they all decided to split the difference and go change in Anakin’s room so he had to deal with all the sand instead of the losing team’s when they broke for lunch.

Jango managed to convince Boba to come out and join them for the meal and Obi-Wan smiled as the boy enthusiastically told his father about something he had been reading about snails. Seeing the difference in the way he acted when he had thought he lost his father compared to now was a shock. With Jango’s love and support, it was like looking at two different people. Although, the older bitter Boba was still in there and came out around the clones as shown when Cody sat beside Obi-Wan and started to chat causing Boba to quiet and withdraw.

“Can I go to the tide pools and look for the snails once we’re finished here, buir?” Boba asked and Jango nodded.

“Of course. Just be careful.” He agreed and Obi-Wan perked up at the perfect opportunity to try to bond a little with the boy.

“If you don’t mind, I’d love to come with you Boba. There are lots of little creatures there I’d like to see. Plus those bioluminescent snails sound really fascinating.” He said making sure to show he was listening to what Boba was saying by repeating some back.

“I guess it wouldn’t be bad to have you along. You can probably use your Force thingy to find them more easily.” Boba agreed after a moment of thought and Obi didn’t bother correcting him that the Force didn’t work that way. They quickly finished up the last of their meal and Boba led Obi-Wan towards the rocky area where the tide pools resided. Jango had declined in joining them with a knowing look at his Jedi and made an excuse of needing to call and check in on some work.

“Do you like ocean animals a lot, Boba?” He asked, trying to start a conversation to which the boy shrugged.

“I like all animals. There are so many planets with so many different ways for them to evolve and so many little differences even in species that are mostly the same. It’s cool to see what new things I can find out on each planet my buir and I visit. He used to make it a game we’d play together.” He admitted kicking a rock to splash into one of the little pools of water.

“Jango loves you a lot. You know that him helping the other clones doesn’t change his feelings about you, right?” Obi-Wan asked him and Boba grunted.

“I didn’t invite you to have you try to pick around in my brain. Now get to using your Jetii magics to find me some glowing snails or go back to making dopey looks at my dad and let me do my thing.” He grumbled and Obi-Wan rolled his eyes but did his best to feel around them to try to see if he could connect to any of the animals and figure out where the snails could be if they were even there at all.

While sensing the creature’s minds he felt them all diving deeper from what he figured was fear of the two humans encroaching on their homes however suddenly there was a faint rumbling and he gasped when Boba went barreling right into his stomach knocking him back into one of the ponds just in time to keep him from falling into a hole that opened up under where his feet had been.

Boba groaned as they both picked themselves up, equally soaked. “Dang it. Buir specifically told me not to fall in, now he’s going to laugh at me,” he whined.

“Thank you. I’m not even sure what just happened.” Obi-Wan confessed glad he had been in beachwear already, unlike Boba who was trying to wring out his t-shirt without removing it now.

“The rocks here aren’t round and solid like on most beaches. They’re flat and shift around with the tides as well like plates. It was in the book. The change in temperature at different points in the day causes the water currents to shift and then they move. I saw the fish diving and the rock around it start to move. I might not fully like you but my dad does, so letting you get trapped in a hole and drown seemed like the wrong move.” Boba said, stuffing his hands in the pockets of his shorts awkwardly.

“Well, I appreciate it nonetheless. It seems your extra reading saved my life.” He said with a chuckle, stroking his beard out of habit. “It would have been a shame to live through a whole war only to die to a little water and rock.” He said and Boba snorted but relaxed.

“The great Jedi General Obi-Wan Kenobi done-in by a change in tide while on vacation does sound like a great holonet headline.” He teased and they both continued their search for sea snails a little more carefully, eventually catching a few in a bucket to bring back and show Jango and the clones. Things weren’t perfect, but as Obi-Wan curled close to Jango’s warm chest that night, he found he was okay with that.

#Star wars summer fun in the sun #Star Wars #Jangobi #Jango Fett #Obi-Wan #Young Boba Fett #Marshal Commander Cody #The Clone Wars #Fandom Event #Fanfic #Fluff #my writing

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demetriandelibinaryboyfriends · 3 years

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Hello! So, something that always intrigued me is the concept of “reverse aus,” and I’ve been thinking about that in the context of Cobra Kai for a while now. How do you think it would go down if Demetri was the one to get roped into Cobra Kai? Obviously, I don’t think he would be as into as Eli canonically was (probably due to it becoming a special interest for him), but I’d be curious to hear your take on it. Would Eli end up going to Miyagi-Do like canon Demetri did, or would Demetri and Eli sort of become the new Evil Karate Husbands™️? And possibly, how do you think Demetri and Johnny’s dynamic would go? (I’m just going to awkwardly add that this is cc-tinslebee, coming to you live from my main blog because I don’t think Tumblr let’s sideblogs send asks-)

So this is actually the SECOND ask I’ve gotten about this scenario--Cherry sent in another one!--so I figured I’d give it a stab. Took me a while to work out how I think it would go and how everything would play out different if Demetri and Eli’s roles were reversed, but I’m pretty happy with how it turned out. I tried to make it more interesting than just “Demetri does all the stuff Eli does and Eli does all the stuff Demetri does.”

Also I lowkey LOVE the idea of Evil Karate Husbands and even though that isn’t the direction this particular AU goes in, I might do a divergent spin-off AU to explore that too??? Because man...the thought of Miguel desperately trying to save his two best friends who have fallen to the dark side...*cries*

Fair warning that this AU is gonna get dark as shit--I fully belive things would’ve gotten equally fucked up between them in a role reverse AU, just, ah...in slightly different ways. A lot of this will not be Happy Times later on, much like their canon relationship XD

OKAY TIME FOR PAIN, LET’S GOOOO

Longboi post so be warned!!!

Season 1

After getting his ass handed to him--for trying to stick up for Eli, no less--Demetri was pissed. Why the hell was he paying some guy to beat him up for daining to have a problem with him bullying his best friend? Going home in a rage, he nearly texted Miguel to tell him he was quitting--but something stopped him just before he hit Send.

He remembered the look on Eli’s face just after Kyler shoved him away. He remembered seeing Eli stiffen when Kyler grabbed him by the chin, practically feeling the terror emanate from his friend’s body. He remembered how completely and infuriatingly helpless he felt.

It certainly wasn’t the first time something like that had happened. But maybe if Miguel was onto something--maybe if karate really could protect him and Eli from the bullies--it could be the last.

Mr. Lawrence (or Sensei Lawrence, as he obnoxiously insisted on being called) hardly let up on bullying Eli. Even at Eli’s request not to call him “Lip” and the pleading of his star student Miguel Diaz himself, the man only seemed to crack down harder--in some sort of twisted effort to “toughen Eli up,” Demetri guessed. Demetri defended Eli every single time, not mincing any words mouthing off at Sensei Lawrence. It got Demetri punched in the face, flipped on the mat, saddled with much harder drills than the rest of the class, but he didn’t give a shit. He wasn’t about to let anyone treat Eli like that, no matter what pain he had to endure for it.

Johnny, meanwhile, is immensely annoyed by this obnoxious, sarcastic kid who just can’t stop running his mouth--but working him twice as hard as the rest of the class is proving to be fruitless in shutting him up. But, Johnny’s finding, Demetri constantly antagonizing him doesn’t have to be a hindrance. Anger like that can be weaponized--the more he provokes Demetri, the more he insults and belittles that Eli kid he’s so attached to, the harder Demetri punches. The quicker he moves when he fights. The stronger he kicks. Johnny sometimes comes home after training covered in nasty bruises, almost entirely from sparring Demetri--they’re enough to make Carmen and Rosa Diaz worry he’s getting jumped on the way home.

One day Johnny takes his ribbing of Eli just a little too far, hoping to get an especially vicious reaction out of Demetri. Eli, pushed to the end of his rope, runs out of the dojo, barely holding back tears. Demetri starts to go after him, but Miguel puts a hand on his arm and stops him, saying they can both check up on him later.

When Demetri finds Eli after practice, Eli’s sobbing. “I can’t do this anymore, Deme. No matter what you say to him, he just keeps picking on me. It never stops.” Demetri winces, because Eli isn’t wrong--Sensei Lawrence really hasn’t stopped bullying Eli at all, and while Demetri was busy letting himself get riled up by it, he didn’t actually think to see how it was affecting Eli. “Well, I know it sucks now, and Mr. Lawrence is a huge asshole, but we’re learning to be tough,” Demetri reasons. “We’re learning to be intimidating. A few more months here, and the bullies will never touch us again! Just like Miguel!” And Eli just scowls, uncharacteristically angry for his timid self, and says “Well, it’s not worth it if I have to feel like shit the whole time! If every time I step in here I get everything about me picked apart, over and over again! I’m done with this, Demetri.”

And just like that, Eli is out of the dojo. Demetri can’t help but be disappointed--he’d looked forward to them training together, and seeing Eli become a badass, fearless fighter who could hand Kyler’s ass to him after all those fucked up things he said to Eli. And to make matters worse, Sensei Lawrence doesn’t stop using Eli as fuel to rip out Demetri’s rage long after Eli’s gone. “Oooh, Loudmouth, feeling sad today? Missing Lip the Quitter?” “You keep throwing punches like that, and you could get beat up by that loser with the fucked lip you were so enamored with. Although knowing you, you’d let him win anyways.” And Demetri can’t help but hate the man, but damn, if it doesn’t feel good to land an especially good hit on him, or jab him in the thigh with a powerful kick.

But things aren’t bad--Demetri still has Miguel, and their new friend Aisha. Eli still hangs out with them outside of practice, and indulges Demetri in his ever-increasing ramblings about martial arts, no matter how nervous and uncomfortable karate tends to make Eli. If Demetri likes it that much, maybe he should make an effort to show interest in it. The four of them crash Yasmine’s birthday party, and Demetri even finds himself smooth-talking them into getting alcohol with his newfound confidence. After all, if he can land punches faster than a snake can strike, how difficult can it be to weasel his way into getting a little beer?

Meanwhile Moon, feeling understandably unfulfilled in her popular clique, takes an interest in the Cool New Karate Gang in town, and after apologizing to Aisha at the beach rager, the two strike up a friendship. She comes to hang out with their group more and more, and Eli finds her surprisingly easy to talk to. Moon constantly makes an effort to include him when the others get to wrapped up talking about karate, and he appreciates her kindness and sincerity. It’s odd, really, how easy it is to have a conversation with her, considering how nervous he tends to get around her. But Eli doesn’t think too much about it.

When it comes time for the tournament, Moon and Eli go together to support their friends. Eli finds his gaze flickering back and forth between Moon and Demetri, lingering on each of them longer than he would care to admit--and he can’t quite explain why. Something about Moon’s wide, excited smile, the smell of cherry shampoo in her hair...but also Demetri’s smug, triumphant smirk when he pulls off an especially impressive move, the way his wiry arm muscles ripple when he fights. They’re both just so...captivating.

Demetri, for his part, is ruthless. Much more so than Eli has ever seen him be. He’s always been sarcastic and cynical, but resigned to his fate--at the tournament, Demetri lashes out in vicious ways the old Demetri would never have had the courage to pull off. He talks shit to the other contestants far beyond what’s considered “sportsmanlike”--and Eli can tell he’s not holding back, with the theatrical body language channeling every awful thing he’s saying.

Demetri fights like lightning--he weaves and maneuvers and strikes at breakneck speed, a limber, flashing form hitting all across his opponent’s bodies before they have any idea what’s happening. He dodges hits and jumps aside like he has some cosmic sense of when and where they’re coming. And it scares Eli, seeing a viciousness and relentlessness in Demetri that he’s never encountered before--but somehow, he finds, he just can’t look away.

Season 2

After the tournament, Demetri’s life has never been better. At the summer’s start, he’s still riding the high of the Cobra Kai tournament win. He didn’t take home the trophy, but suffice to say he got much farther than anyone believed a scrawny, lanky nerd ever would, and he is incredibly smug about it. He realizes, at the end of the day, he’s gotten what he always wanted after all--the bullies don’t come near him and Eli at all, and he can rest easy, knowing Eli is finally safe. However, he’s so busy embracing his new skills that at times, he almost forgets that was ever even an issue. His newfound fighting prowess has caught the attention of Yasmine, of all people--maybe someone who can throw kicks that good isn’t as much of a loser as she originally thought.

She finds out after her family’s plans to go to France for the summer fall through, and she finally patches things up with Moon after their fallout at the beach party. Moon can’t stop gushing about how amazing Demetri was at the tournament--both she and her new friend Eli (who Yasmine definitely thinks seems like a weirdo, but hey--maybe if Moon thinks he’s worth her time, he can’t be that much of a loser) were so impressed with him. Interest piqued, Yasmine joins their little but ever-growing group. She finds herself quickly drawn in by Demetri’s ever-growing confidence, intelligence, and surprisingly enjoyable (if somewhat annoying) sense of humor, and before long, the two are dating.

Yasmine and Aisha are...cool. Kind of. Yasmine doesn’t quite apologize, and the two aren’t friends by any stretch of imagination, but they tolerate each other, and Yasmine refrains from making awful comments and picking on Aisha in front of their friends. Aisha, for her part, does her best not to lash out or be mean to Yasmine either, keeping the peace mainly for Demetri’s and Moon’s sakes.

Meanwhile, it would take an idiot not to notice the rather starstruck looks Eli’s been shooting in Moon’s direction. Moon, for her part, is either entirely oblivious or simply doesn’t even think to consider a shy, timid, nerdy kid as a romantic option, even if she does consider him a friend.

Oddly, Demetri finds himself extremely bothered by Eli’s doe-eyed crush on Moon. He really can’t place why--he has a girlfriend already, so it really shouldn’t bug him so much that Eli is finally growing noticably interested in girls too, now that they tend to be in closer proximity. And it’s not even like Moon seems to be at all interested in reciprocating. Maybe, he figures, it’s the fact that Moon never would have even looked their way if it weren’t for the fact that he and Miguel and Aisha were the “Cool Karate Gang.” The same karate gang, of course, that Eli quit. That Eli didn’t have it in him to fully be a part of. And yet here he is, reaping the benefits still.

Interestingly, Yasmine also seems bothered by Eli’s affections for her friend. Demetri feels her stiffen beside him and sees her shooting disapproving looks whenever she catches Eli staring at Moon. Demetri isn’t sure why she seems to take issue with this too--perhaps she thinks Moon is too good for Eli, and her friend deserves better than a shy, awkward nerd.

Something about this mindset very much rubs Demetri the wrong way, but he pushes the feeling aside. Maybe he should count his blessings instead of being so inwardly critical of his girlfriend. After all, not everyone gets to date the hottest girl in school.

The day of Valley Fest arrives, and Yasmine goes to support her boyfriend. Moon and Eli tag along, eager to support their friends as well. Caught up in the thrill of the blaring music, the bright, flashing lights, the audience cheering, Demetri feels a wave of pride as he looks at his little group of friends that came for him, yelling and whooping and jumping up and down. For some reason, he finds his gaze drawn specifically to Eli, wearing a grin bigger than Demetri’s seen in months and eyes absolutely glowing.

Suddenly Demetri feels an overpowering urge to wrap Eli up in this world he’s fallen in love with, immerse him entirely in the karate that’s made Demetri feel so much more happy and free in the past several months. Grinning, he strides forward and reaches down, using the absurd upper body strength he’s built up since he’s started karate to yank Eli up onto the stage. He hands his best friend a wooden board and steps back, racing forward and snapping it in half with a jumping roundhouse kick. For a few seconds, Eli can do nothing but stare at the broken board, something shifting inside of him.

After that, Eli decides maybe it’s time to give karate another go. Something about the way Demetri positively shone onstage--how genuinely happy all of it seemed to make him--makes him thing it can’t be so bad, even if he does get taunted for his lip again.

He stops by the dojo the following week, gathering up every ounce of courage he has to ask that mean blonde man how he goes about joining the dojo again. He’s hoping against hope that maybe, after all these months of teaching students and a tournament win under his belt, the edge of his pathetic cruelty will at least have been taken off.

No such luck. Upon seeing Eli walk into the dojo, Johnny greets him with “Hey, Lip is back! Real world not treat you as nicely as you thought?” The two are, regrettably, completely alone in the dojo. Eli sucks in his breath--Demetri isn’t around, so if anyone is going to defend him, it’ll have to be him himself.

“Could you please not call me that?” His voice shakes as he says it, but nonetheless, he finishes the statement. It occurs to him that not once in his (admittedly brief) stay in Cobra Kai did he simply...request that Sensei Lawrence not call him Lip. Demetri’s approach was always to get angry about it, go off on the sensei about how wrong it was to mock someone’s appearance, but Eli himself had never been the one to make a case for Sensei Lawrence to treat him better.

It hardly helped. Sensei Lawrence just claimed that if he didn’t want him to call him Lip, he shouldn’t have a freaky lip, and then went on to claim whoever did his cleft lip surgery must have done an awful job. Eli attempted to move away from the topic, but Sensei Lawrence didn’t let up. “It’s hard to when it’s right in front of me. Hard to believe Demetri was so willing to defend you like some knight in shining armor or some shit. You’re pathetic.” Having heard enough, Eli storms out, anger overtaking him. How could he have been so stupid, to think this was going to go any better? Why did he think that just because this man had been willing to help Miguel and Demetri (who were normal) become badass meant he would extend the same treatment to the freak with the lip scar?

Eli calls Demetri in tears. “I don’t know how you can train with someone like him,” Eli spits out. “He’s a shit person, Demetri. I--I don’t know what you and Miguel are thinking. It’s like he gets some kind of...I don’t know, sadistic pleasure out of bullying people. He’s not any better than the people he claims he’s trying to help you fight.”

Demetri, to his horror, reacts only with scorn, scoffing and rolling his eyes. “God, all this drama because he was mean about your lip again? Jesus christ, grow a backbone, Eli. I hate to say it, but I think Mr. Lawrence was right--if you can’t even handle someone making some insensitive comments about your scar, how are you going to handle an elbow to the teeth? Or any training more intensive than a slap on the wrist, anyway?”

Eli can do nothing but just stare at him through the screen. Demetri, the one person who he has always been able to count on to not comment on his scar, the one person who has always comforted him or talked him through it when he cried, is brushing him completely off--being an asshole about the one thing Eli was certain he never would be. Why is Demetri, of all people, not taking his side on this?

All Eli knows for sure is that he doesn’t like this new version of Demetri one bit. What happened to the best friend who was always willing to fight for him, no matter what it took? Now, he seems more concerned with looking cool and tough and upkeeping some kind of ridiculous reputation than Eli’s own well-being.

Over the next few days, a rage he didn’t know he even had in him bubbles up inside Eli. He decides if Demetri’s going to play dirty, so is he. And maybe, if Eli plays his cards right, the old Demetri will come back.

Despite his long-standing frustration with the way adults treat him--delicately, condescendingly, like a Thing of Pity--Eli figures he can get some use out of it for once. If this is the only way they’re going to see him regardless, he might as well use it to his advantage. And so he goes crying to his mom, who he knows for a fact other adults talk about being a “valued member of the community” and probably has some influence and some strings she can pull. He bawls to her about how his best friend has turned into an unrecognizable jerk, all because he’s training with a middle-aged man with the mindset of a high school bully who has no issue verbally abusing his students. Sure enough, discussions are had with the Neighborhood Committee, phone calls are placed, and Eli overhears his mother vowing to shut down that degenerate karate place if it’s the last thing she ever does.

Meanwhile, back at the dojo, Kreese makes an announcement. The elderly, intimidating man has recently teamed up with Johnny to teach--and he gives Demetri the creeps, if he’s honest, but he seems to know his stuff when it comes to karate, so Demetri goes along with this new addition to the sensei roster. However, when Johnny goes off to visit his high school friends and leaves the kids alone with the new Sensei, Demetri can’t help but feel uneasy.

“Now, the dojo’s been getting some concerned phone calls,” Kreese says, arms crossed and expression difficult to read. He doesn’t seem to be angry--if anything, he looks faintly amused. “Parents of the local teenagers are worried. They think Cobra Kai is full of bullies. Think our methods are...abusive, even. They want to shut us down.” Worried murmurs start to echo around the room, but Kreese silences them as he goes on. “Oh, don’t worry. It won’t be a problem. I have my ways of talking people down. We know better, anyhow. They’re just...intimidated by us, because we’ve honed skills here they couldn’t even dream of having. But nonetheless...” Kreese smirks in a way that makes Demetri feels ever-so-slightly unnerved. “If you run into one of your little peers whining to your parents about getting rid of us, well...show them Cobra Kai can’t be messed with so easily.”

And suddenly Demetri’s seething, because he knows exactly who made sure those phone calls got made.

Eli, for all his timidness, is notoriously smart. Demetri knows this intimately. He’d hardly put it past Eli to be this cunning, to manipulate the pitying adults around him to get what he wants.

When the Cobra Kai kids take a trip to the mall later that day, Demetri knows exactly where Eli will be. Every Wednesday, a new issue of Dungeon Lord comes out--they used to go get it together, but since getting into karate, Demetri hasn’t been keeping up. Demetri would figure someone like Eli wouldn’t have the balls to go out in public alone, if not for the fact that he knew how invested Eli was in the current plot.

And so Demetri heads to the comic book store, a group of reluctant Cobra Kai “pledges” in tow. Maybe it’s a bit sadistic, but he likes having someone to be able to boss around--it feels nice to be at the top of the food chain for once. Lord knows it’s the first time that’s happened. And if he isn’t going to milk that tournament win for all it’s worth, then what even is the point?

When Demetri arrives, Eli turns to look at him in confusion. “What are you doing here?” he says, lip curling slightly. “I figured you were too tough for this kind of stuff now.”

Demetri just scoffs and crosses his arms. “Well, Mr. Kreese said the dojo’s been getting some calls from weepy parents concerned we’re bullying their poor kids. Saying our Senseis must be some evil, abusive monsters twisting and corrupting the neighborhood teenagers. So I think you know exactly why I’m here.”

Eli just looks at him with a doe-eyed innocence that makes his blood boil. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

Demetri advances on him, eyes flashing. “Don’t bullshit me, Eli. I know you’ve been meddling.”

To his surprise, Eli looks up to meet his gaze evenly, pretense of naiveté completely gone. “And what if I have? I don’t like the influence they’re having on you.”

Well, Demetri doesn’t know what that’s supposed to mean, but he doesn’t like it. “What is it about Cobra Kai that’s got you in such a tiffy, huh? You’re jealous I found a way to fight back and actually protect us? You don’t like that I’m not a pathetic loser you can look down your nose at anymore?”

Eli just looks at him in bewilderment. “Jesus, no, that’s not it at all, dude. Just...do you even hear yourself? You’ve turned into such an asshole since you started all that karate shit. It’s like I don’t even know you anymore. You walk around thinking you’re hot shit and everyone has to bow down to you all because your dojo won some stupid tournament. Well, news flash, Demetri--nobody cares.”

The callous way Eli, of all people, says it can’t help but throw him off. Is that really what his best friend thinks about him now--that he’s just some arrogant prick strutting around flaunting his success?

And then Demetri remembers how he got here--what it was that pushed him to be such a hard-assed fighter in the first place--and he feels a wave of venom coarse through him so powerful that he nearly chokes on it. Before he knows it he’s grabbing Eli by the shoulders and shoving him up against the wall.

“You fucking ungrateful brat,” he spits out, his words poison. “I did it all for you, you know. Everything I did was so that I could finally protect you. And this is how you thank me? After I’ve been getting my ass kicked over and over again so you wouldn’t have to worry about bullies anymore?”

Eli is surprisingly unfazed. “And where was I when you were learning to be such a good protector, Demetri? Getting shit on as a tool to motivate you? Nobody bothering to check how I felt about that? A real good bodyguard you turned out to be.”

“And yet Kyler and his little posse haven’t bothered you once. Who do you think that’s thanks to?”

“Miguel too. You don’t get all the credit. And anyhow, not like it matters when your Senseis would just as soon take the same cheap shots.”

Demetri just curls his lip. “Don’t get mad at me because you were too weak to survive Cobra Kai. Because...what, a middle-aged karate teacher hurt your feelings? I’d like to see how you go about taking a real fist to the jaw.”

Demetri raises a fist as if to demonstrate. Eli flinches, anger and defiance suddenly completely gone as his eyes widen in horror.

“You’d actually hurt me?” he asks softly.

Demetri slowly lowers his fist, realizing the answer as soon as he sees the terrified look in his friend’s eyes.

“Consider this your warning, Eli,” he spits out, with as much venom as he can manage. “Don’t mess around with Cobra Kai, or things are going to get ugly.” He smirks--a little sadistically, he has to admit. “You saw the tournament. Well...you’d better believe that’s the least of what I can do.”

When a downtrodden Eli shows up at Daniel LaRusso’s front door, timidly requesting to learn karate, far be it from Daniel to turn away a new student. Eli’s sob story about how he’s being bullied and threatened by his best friend only makes the new sensei more determined to take him under his wing--Daniel is no stranger to bullying, after all.

The next time Cobra Kai goes on an outing to the mall, Demetri catches Eli in the food court, eating with Samantha LaRusso and that kid whose ass he kicked at the tournament--Robby Keene, was his name? Mr. Lawrence’s kid. This seems...odd. How would Eli have met them?

An unexpected wave of jealousy rips through him. How did shy little Eli manage to make other friends? Let alone with an ex popular girl, of all people. Nonetheless, he figures this might be a good time to make sure his ex-friend isn’t trying to start any more shit with Cobra Kai.

He catches Eli in the deli line, sliding up behind him and purring, “Oh, I hope you haven’t been poking your nose where it doesn’t belong, have you, Eli?”

Eli turns and glares at him with a venom Demetri didn’t know the other boy had in him. “Why, Demetri? Scared your precious Cobra Kai is going to lose all its coolness cred if it gets out how shitty you all are?”

Demetri seethes with anger again, and before he knows it, he’s shoving Eli out of the line and ramming him up against one of the pillars on the edge of the food court. The crowd of eaters around them “Oooooh”s, but Demetri ignores them. He raises a fist again, fully prepared to follow through this time. “I’d watch your mouth, if I were you.”

Eli just curls his lip, more defiant than Demetri’s ever seen him. “You don’t scare me, Demetri. I know who you really are.”

The Cobra Kai pledges start to loom behind them, ready to provide Demetri with backup if needed. Eli notices and scoffs. “Wow, siccing your goons on me too? Way to set up a fair fight, Demetri. You’re so badass.”

Struck by a sudden desire to prove him wrong, Demetri socks Eli in the jaw before he can think better of it. He pauses afterwards, momentarily shaken by what he’s done.

To his dismay, Eli’s horrified shock is short lived before he laughs darkly. “Well, you’re not the only one who knows karate now. I joined Miyagi-Do.”

Demetri just scoffs. Ah yes, a little karate training and Eli, of all people, is going to kick some major ass. “All right then. Let’s see what you got.” He takes a step back, allowing Eli to try and get a hit in.

When the fight breaks out in full force, it’s vicious. Eli throws the first hit, but it’s weak--he’s out of practice since abandoning Cobra Kai. Demetri has him on the ground in seconds, throwing punches and kicks with a speed and rage he had no idea he had. Eli barely has time to get up before he’s getting his ass handed to him.

What Demetri doesn’t count on is Eli’s new dojomates coming to his rescue, getting the smaller boy behind them and executing a near-perfect synchronized fighting routine. Even with his lackeys helping him, Demetri is completely annihilated--nearly unconscious on the food court floor within minutes. The last thing he sees before he passes out is Eli staring down at him, blue eyes wide with horror.

When word of the incident at the mall gets back to Moon, shit hits the fan--to put it lightly. Yasmine is with Moon when she confronts Demetri, but she doesn’t say anything--just stands glaring with her arms crossed while Moon goes off at him. “How could you treat Eli like that? He’s your friend!”

“Not anymore.” Demetri curls his lip. “He joined Miyagi-Do. He’s made it pretty clear where his loyalties lie now, and it’s not with me.”

“Who cares about Miyagi-Do?” She retorts. “He’s still your friend! Our friend! And I don’t like the way you’re bullying him.”

Demetri scoffs. “Don’t you get it? He’s just a pathetic nerd who can’t handle the fact that I’m cooler than him now. All he wants to do is drag me down to his level again, I guarantee it.”

Moon’s gaze is more poisonous than he’s ever seen it. She turns to Yasmine. “Tell him, Yas,” she says, her tone dangerously quiet.

Yasmine sighs. She says--with notable hesitation, Demetri notices--“If you don’t stop bullying Eli, we’re through.”

Thrown off, Demetri laughs harshly. “What do you care? You don’t even like Eli! I see those...disgusted looks you shoot in his direction, when you think we won’t notice.”

Yasmine bites her lip. “That doesn’t matter. Moon is my best friend. If she’s not okay with this whole...thing, then neither am I.”

“You’re not fucking serious. You’re dumping me because your bleeding-hearted friend told you I wasn’t being nice enough to a guy you can’t stand?”

Yasmine pauses, but ultimately stands her ground. “I’m sorry, but if it’s between you and Moon, it’s going to be Moon. So her word goes. So either stop with this whole stupid feud with Eli, or we’re finished.”

“I...” Demetri can only stare at her, shocked. He never could have imagined getting this ultimatum...and yet here he is.

He must have hesitated a second too long, because Moon grabs Yasmine’s arm and starts to pull her away. “I think that’s all the answer we need,” Moon hisses.

“Wait!” he called helplessly after them. Yasmine turns around once as she walks away, but only to spit “It’s over!” over her shoulder. As if for good measure.

Kreese finds Demetri circling a punching bag in the back of the dojo, spinning around it and throwing kicks and punches faster than cobra strikes. Seizing his opportunity, he advances. “What’s wrong, son?”

Demetri turns, tensing. He’s still wary of the man, but to hell with it--it’s not like he has anyone else to talk to. “Fight broke out with Miyagi-Do, and we lost. Pathetic, I know. Please don’t rub it in.”

“Cheer up.” Kreese smirks. “The fight isn’t over until you say it is.”

Demetri just sighs. “No use going in for a rematch. They’re strong. I couldn’t take them again on my own.”

Kreese’s smirk widens. “You’re a smart kid. There are other ways to fight back, you know. You don’t always have to beat them into the ground.”

As he leaves, Demetri lets that sink in.

Well, Demetri is nothing if not tech-savvy. May as well make some use of that Yelp Elite status. He spends hours setting up dozens of sock puppet accounts, programming them to post terrible review after terrible review blasting everything he can think of about Miyagi-Do. The encouragement of violence in youth (Eli had technically punched first, hadn’t he?). The weak, subpar fighting style that broke down as soon as it was challenged by serious fighters. The pretentious, culture-appropriating sensei. Daniel LaRacist indeed.

During the Coyote Creek excursion, Demetri finds himself pitted against Miguel, fighting in the world’s most intense game of what essentially boils down to Capture the Flag. Demetri, about to get the better of Miguel, finds that he can’t help but gloat about his little online attack. Can’t be long before a one-star dojo goes out of business.

When Miguel seems to take issue with it, saying the whole thing is mean-spirited and over the top, Demetri can’t help but scoff. Miyagi-Do has been plenty clear in declaring war--their little battalion at the mall proved that. Demetri wishes Miguel wasn’t still too caught up in pining over Sam LaRusso to realize that.

Miguel, meanwhile, decides this dojo war of sorts is getting out of hand. It turns out Demetri isn’t the only tech-savvy student in Cobra Kai--Miguel designed their website, after all. With a little bit of basic internet coding and some rudimentary hacking, he manages to access the sock puppet accounts Demetri made and take the bad reviews down. He even goes so far as to go over to the Miyagi-Do dojo and personally apologize for how Cobra Kai has been acting, telling Robby Keene that he found out who blasted the bad reviews and took them all down. “We’re not all assholes.”

Come Moon’s end-of-summer party, Demetri is surprised to get an invitation. He hasn’t seen her or Yasmine since they both chewed him out, and Yasmine ended things. But perhaps this is a show of good faith. Maybe Moon wants to be friends again--and maybe that means Yasmine’s come to her senses too, and might be willing to talk things out.

Moon welcomes him when he arrives, previous animosity gone for the moment. “Hey, thank you for inviting me. I’m...sorry,” he starts. “Of how we left things off. I was an ass to you and Yas.” “It’s alright,” Moon replies cheerily. “I invited you because...well, I’m hoping that before school starts, we can stop all the fighting and be friends again.”

His heart sinks as he sees Sam LaRusso lead a stream of kids through the door, Eli trailing at the end, and he realizes exactly what she means. The Miyagi-Dos are here.

He sits forlornly on a couch with Mitch and Aisha, thinking about how much worse this night just got. He brightens, however, when he sees a shock of blonde hair at the door not long after. So Yasmine came after all.

Moon grins in delight, calling over to her. Taking a breath, Demetri stands up and approaches the two girls, determined to smooth things over with them both.

He’s not surprised to see Yasmine make a beeline for Moon, not noticing him for the moment. What he isn’t expecting is for Moon to sweep Yasmine into her arms, kissing her full on the mouth.

Demetri stops in his tracks. The girls turn to him a few seconds later, seeming to notice him for the first time. They look at him expectantly, as though waiting for him to finish walking over to them. Or say something, and not just stand there gawking stupidly.

“Uh...are you two...um...like...uh...” All he can do is shuffle closer and gesture abstractly, not able to find words. Yasmine blushes and looks away, while Moon tucks a hair behind her ear, her smile strained.

“Yeah. It’s new,” she admits, laughing nervously. “We’re, um...”

“Girlfriends?” Yasmine offers, looking up and smiling at Moon with uncharacteristic shyness. Demetri can’t help but bristle--shyness she never showed him.

Well, far be it from him to be judgmental. Even if Yasmine broke his damn heart just now, Moon is still his friend. He gives them a strained smile. “That’s...that’s great! Happy for you two. No shame in uh...trying out something like that.”

Demetri excuses himself and sulks back to the now-empty couch, mind racing as he sits down. Is that why Moon was trying to encourage Yasmine to break up with him? Was it even about Eli at all? Did Moon just want Yasmine for herself? It seemed unlike Moon, but who could say?

And Yasmine...had she always wanted Moon, too? Is that why she seethed every time she saw Eli shooting lovestruck glances at her friend?

...had she even ever liked Demetri at all, or was he just a cover-up for the fact that she was...lesbian? How was someone as feminine and fashionable as Yasmine a lesbian, anyways? All the lesbians Demetri saw on tv cut their hair boyishly short and had about 5 nose rings and walked around in leather jackets and combat boots.

His thoughts are interrupted by the last sweatered boy he wants to see taking a seat at the other side of the couch, glancing nervously at him with darting eyes. What did Eli want? And why was he so nervous? He’d been unduly bold as of late.

“You seen the new Doctor Who trailer?” Eli mutters.

Something about the nonchalant way he says it--like this is the olden days, when Demetri always felt like shit about himself and had no one who tolerated him but Eli--makes Demetri’s blood boil. He scoffs. “I have better things to do than watch nerd crap like that.”

A short silence. “Capaldi regenerated,” Eli offers finally. “I know you weren’t big on 12.”

No more Capaldi? Demetri turns to look at Eli, interest suddenly piqued.

“What’s the new doctor like?” he asks before he can stop himself.

Eli grins. “She’s a badass.”

“She?” Demetri finds himself grinning back. “How progressive of them. Welcome to the 21st century, Doctor Who.”

A sudden giggling catches his attention, and Demetri looks to where Yasmine and Moon are sharing a chair across the room, tangled up in each other’s arms and trading soft kisses like they don’t have a care in the world. He tenses.

Eli seems to sense his discomfort, and sighs. “Hey, I’m sorry, man. If it helps at all, I liked Moon a lot, too.”

Demetri just scoffs. “Yeah, but I guess it doesn’t matter now. They just have to be gay, right?”

Eli gives him a strange look. Demetri shuffles uncomfortably, realizing what he’s probably thinking about. The...incident, 4 years ago. Demetri glares at him, hoping to banish the thought before it arrives. None of that meant anything--they were just dumb kids. Dumb kids doing dumb shit that didn’t matter.

“I don’t know, I mean...if they’re happy together, shouldn’t we just be happy for them?”

Eli reaches out and squeezes his shoulder, and Demetri hesitates. Their special touch. Eli still remembers, even after everything that’s happened.

For a moment he’s overcome with longing, wishing things with Eli could just go back to how they used to be. Back when he knew no matter what hell he went through at school, Eli would always be there to pick him back up again. But then it sinks in what Eli’s really trying to say.

Be happy for them. What a bunch of Miyagi-Do bullshit. Just accept his sad little lot in life, just like he used to do. Go back to nerdy little Eli at the bottom of the food chain, doomed to spend the rest of his youth admiring pretty girls from a vast distance.

He never wants that to be him again.

“Oh, fuck you, Eli,” he spits, grabbing Eli’s hand and yanking it off of his shoulder. Eli freezes, looking like he’s just been slapped.

“What, so I’m supposed to do like you, moping and pining and hoping a pretty girl will look my way if I wish hard enough and just sucking it up when she doesn’t? Well, I’ve had plenty enough of that--I’ve been on the top. And I’m going to be on the top again. But you? You’ll always be pathetic--you and your entire sorry excuse for a dojo.”

He gets up and walks away, bristling with an anger he can’t even fully place anymore.

As Eli watches Demetri go, he realizes he’s finally had enough. Demetri doesn’t want to patch things up? He just wants to keep being an arrogant shithead? Fine. But Eli’s not about to take his prodding and insults anymore.

Eli makes his way over to Moon--still his friend, despite the unreciprocated feelings--and Yasmine, strikes up a conversation with them. Yasmine, he notices, is being notably nicer to him--probably at Moon’s request. They get to talking about sexualities, and Eli accidentally lets a little something slip about Demetri.

When they were 12 years old, they had kissed. It was Eli who suggested they practiced kissing, to get ready for all the girls they would inevitably date. However, a bit of choice wording and it sounded like Demetri had planted one on Eli out of nowhere...and Eli, of course, hadn’t liked it one bit, because he was totally straight. “You can’t tell anyone, though,” he pleaded the girls, big sad eyes every bit as convincing as he had hoped. “Demetri doesn’t want it to get out that he’s...you know. Gay. He’s worried it’ll ruin his reputation.”

Moon nods sincerely, but Eli can tell from the almost imperceptible smirk on Yasmine’s face that she has other plans. If there’s one thing he’s learned about Demetri’s ex over the last few months, it’s that even trying to be a better person, she can’t resist a good bit of juicy gossip.

And from what Eli gathers...two girls dating? No problem, as long as they’re hot and popular. At least creepy guys can fetishize it. But guys liking other guys? Now that...Eli has a feeling that won’t go over well.

As soon as Eli excuses himself, Yasmine gets to work. A few whispers at the snack table when Moon isn’t looking, and news of Demetri’s supposed orientation spread like wildfire.

Demetri, meanwhile, is determined to prove Eli wrong. So what if Yas doesn’t want him anymore (or never did, the mean voice in his head keeps prodding)? He’ll find another hot girl to have on his arm. He’s a top Cobra Kai fighter, after all--it’s not like it’ll be difficult.

He saunters over to a group of girls, leaning up against the wall in what he thinks has to be a very suave way. “Hey ladies,” he says. “Name’s Demetri. I’m sure you’ve heard about me--seasoned Cobra Kai fighter, finalist in the All-Valley tournament. But no need to be intimidated--if any of you beautiful ladies ever need a hand with anything, I’ll--”

“Take it off of the nearest dick to help us out?” one of the girls cuts him off. They all break out in snickers. “No thanks.”

Demetri freezes. Why would they think...?

Then he realizes there’s only one person who could have made them think he was into that sort of thing.

He tenses. “I don’t know what you’ve heard, but--”

“We’ve heard all we need to,” another girl says, eyeing him up in disgust. “Not interested in getting it on with someone who’s probably had his cock up another guy’s ass, to be blunt. Gross.” Before Demetri can say another word, the girls are gone, turning and slinking hurriedly off into the crowd.

Every time Demetri tries his luck with another girl, he gets similar rebuffs. And every time, he seethes a little more. Fucking figured--timid little Eli couldn’t take the fact that Demetri had worked up the confidence to win over a girl and he hadn’t, so he had to ruin Demetri’s chances with every other girl so he’d feel better.

Besides, Demetri remembers that day from 4 years ago. He remembers that Eli was just as into...all the stuff they did.

Unfortunately, before Demetri has a chance to go over and confront Eli about the whole business, the cops show up. He’ll just have to wait until school, he figures.

Meanwhile, word gets back to Sam that Miguel showed up at her door, apologizing and promising he took all the bad reviews down--apparently Robby didn’t relay any of this to her. When Miguel admits to Demetri about the drunken kiss, Demetri chuckles, slapping him on the back. “My man! Trying to build up a whole harem here, are we?”

Miguel sighs, looking sullen. “I cheated, dude. That’s shitty.”

And then comes the PA announcement. Tory Nichols is starting shit, and Demetri can’t pretend he’s not intrigued to see where this goes.

As soon as the fight breaks out, Demetri is overcome with adrenaline. He whips through the crowd, spinning and throwing kicks and punches like explosive flashes. All he can think of is Eli, Eli, little Eli...oh, when he finds him, there’s going to be hell to pay.

And it doesn’t take long--of course Eli is the one who tries to pull a teacher in to stop the fight. The fucking wimp.

When Eli makes a run for it, Demetri can’t help but smirk when he leads him straight to the computer lab. How very typical, for someone whose hero is Steve Jobs. He grins, something frighteningly sadistic bubbling up inside of him.

For a second it almost scares him, how badly he wants to drive his foot into Eli’s chest.

“Little Eli Moskowitz!” he taunts, before he can stop himself. “Cowering away in the computer lab, just like the little nerd he is. Can’t hide forever, outer. I know damn well what you told them about me.”

He tries door after door, continuing in a singsong voice as he goes. “Oh dear me, what would they say if they knew you enjoyed it too, Eli? Well, I guess they won’t believe me now. But I know. I know you’re no better than me.”

Ever since they were kids, Demetri has been the speedier one. They used to race across the playground at recess, pretending to be Quicksilver and the Flash, but Demetri always came out ahead. Long, gangly legs tended to do that. So when Eli turns to see Demetri in the doorway, and he makes a run for it, he doesn’t get far.

Demetri grabs Eli around the waist and throws him against the wall, whipping kicks and hits into his stomach and thighs faster than he can block. Demetri hardly notices the bruises forming, or the bleeding cuts.

It’s then that Eli does something Demetri doesn’t expect--flips the script, as it were. As Demetri reaches out to strike again, Eli surges forward and grabs him by the shoulders, flipping him around and pinning him against the wall. Maybe Miyagi-Do specializes in defense, but they still taught him how to throw a good hit or two. He throws defense to the wayside and starts raining punches down on Demetri--sloppy, uncoordinated, but something the “Strike First” Cobra Kai student is entirely unprepared to defend.

When his chest is stinging and his head throbbing, Demetri can’t take anymore. Eli was a lot more...well, powerful than he expected. At his first opportunity, he turns and books it. Maybe this isn’t a fight he can win after all.

Eli doesn’t chase. As angry as he still is at Demetri, he can’t stop thinking about the mars and bruises and cuts that appeared across Demetri’s face and skin as he punched him, mirroring his own, and he feels sick. He can’t hurt Demetri anymore, no matter what Demetri thinks of him now.

Demetri just makes it to the staircase when he sees Miguel motionless on the floor, Robby Keene looking over the railing. Sam LaRusson hovering over him. He runs to Miguel’s side, world crumbling around him.

Turns out he showed mercy, just like Mr. Lawrence always said to. And look where it got him. When John Kreese offers him a place in a new Cobra Kai, determined to make the Miyagi-Dos pay for hurting Miguel, Demetri isn’t about to say no.

In his grief, it seems like the only option.

Season 3

On the first day back at school, Mitch is quick to remind Demetri that there are other girls in the world besides Yasmine. Surely it won’t be too hard to work his charms on some of the freshmen--after all, word about that little incident with Eli when they were 12 can’t have gotten across the entire school, can it?

“Well, hello, ladies!” he purrs to a passing group, leaning against the wall in the most nonchalant way possible. “Welcome to West Valley High. I know freshman year can be intimidating, high school classes and new people and all, but if you ever need help with anything, I’m--”

“--the scrawny little gay kid who ran his pussy ass away from the world’s easiest fight?” one of the girls finishes scornfully. “Yeah, we know.”

As they walk away, he notices one shoot a flirty smile at a passing Eli, surrounded by his squad of Miyagi-Do losers. “Ooooh, you’re famous now, E!” he hears Chris say, and his blood boils all over again.

Ah. So everyone knew about Eli’s little triumph.

Mitch saunters over, and Demetri follows his lead. “Got something to say?!” he snaps.

Demetri’s eyes lock with Eli’s, and he glowers down at him. Eli’s face is tight, expression almost...sad.

Not like he’d expect anything less from that little crybaby.

“Oh, little Eli,” he chides. “I’d like to see you try and hide behind security.”

“I don’t need to,” Eli mutters, not breaking eye contact.

“Everything all right here?”

At the sound of the counselor’s voice, Eli does something unexpectedly bold. He sidles up to Demetri’s side and presses into it, throwing an arm around his shoulder. “No, Counselor Blatt, we’re all friends here!” he says, offering that shy little Eli smile that made every adult in a nearby vicinity go mad with protectiveness.

Eli’s arm is tight around his neck--like a chokehold. But, Demetri notices after a few moments, it’s shaking--the grip almost frantic. Like he’s scared of when he’ll have to let go.

Odd.

Demetri turns, and his and Eli’s eyes lock. He tries to give the shorter boy the most intense, seething glare he can under his forced smile, but Eli returns the look with equal intensity. Demetri jostles his backpack his backpack and thumps him on the chest, feeling an odd compulsion to touch his old friend right back.

Maybe he missed feeling Eli’s body underneath him. But that wasn’t a thought he could afford to spend a lot of brainpower on right now. “Yeah!” he says. Of course we’re still friends! Of course you didn’t fuck up my love life and humiliate me to the entire school because you couldn’t handle the fact that I was getting some and you weren’t!

When the counselor chides them about having somewhere to be, Eli just nods, murmuring, “Yeah, of course, Counselor Blatt. Sorry.”

As Eli pulls away, he pats Demetri’s shoulder a couple times. Small, almost imperceptible, but there.

Demetri can’t tell if it’s serious--if Eli still cares--or if it’s just a cruel mockery of their old touch. He’s not sure he wants to know.

When Demetri runs into Samantha LaRusso in the hospital and she insists she wants to help, he hardly expects a whole fucking fundraiser gleefully using Miguel as their poster child. As though the Miyagi-Dos weren’t the ones who put him in the hospital in the first place. When he catches a glimpse of the carwash while driving Mitch to practice, he decides he’s going to do something about it.

Beating up the kid is an easy fight, getting the money with Mitch and the others a sinch. Maybe at some point he would’ve felt bad for this--pummeling some short kid and then taking his charity money. But all he can think of is Miguel, his best friend, lying in a white gown and hooked up to wires. Because of this kid and his stupid “peaceful” dojo.

Peaceful, Demetri’s ass.

When Demetri walks into the cafeteria the following Monday, he’s not sure what he expects to see at Yasmine and Moon’s table, the place where he would be sitting, under different circumstances--but it definitely is not Eli Moskowitz with his hair dyed bright blue and spiked up. Miyagi-Do blue. Apparently all that coolness cred he felt he got from “scaring” Demetri off in the school brawl has gotten to his head, and he’s playing out his new “badassery” up to 11. He’s showing something to Yasmine and Moon, and they’re smiling and giggling. Yasmine, of all people, is smiling at nerdy little Eli’s antics.

Demetri squints, and sees that Eli’s showing the two girls a comic book--he recognizes the copy. It’s Eli’s limited edition Captain Marvel comic book, signed by Kelly Sue DeConnick herself. Demetri remembers standing in line with him at a con to get it a few years back--he’s pretty protective of the thing.

And now he’s using it to impress girls? Because apparently Yasmine and Moon are into that kind of thing? Oh, but of course Yasmine couldn’t be into nerd shit when DEMETRI was dating her, could she?

And those gooey eyes Moon is giving Eli, her little giggles--Demetri doesn’t like them one bit. What, now Eli’s worth her affections--now that his “nerdiness” is cool? Aren’t she and Yasmine a stupid item, anyways?

Deciding he’s going to put a stop to this, Demetri saunters over, lunch tray clutched so hard his knuckles are turning white. Before the group can react to his presence, Demetri picks up his chocolate milk carton and dumps it all over Eli’s stupid blue hair, making sure to get plenty on the rare comic book in front of him.

“Oh, I hope that wasn’t important, was it Eli?” he taunts, voice thick with mock sympathy. “That sure would be a shame.”

Eli turns to look at him, eyes wide with heartbroken shock. For a moment, the anger doesn’t set in.

“I had to wait in line 5 hours to get that,” he says quietly. “You know that.”

“Sure do.” Demetri smirks. “And it took all of 5 seconds to completely ruin. How tragic.”

Eli tenses, eyes darting around for a couple seconds. Demetri starts to walk away, his point made, when he feels an iron grip on his wrist. He turns to see Eli smirking at him, clutching his arm with more force than he ever thought possible from the once-timid boy.

“Careful there, Demetri,” Eli sneers. “Coming all the way across the cafeteria to bother me when you’ve got your cool Cobra Kai friends to hang out with? People might think you’re a little...obsessed with me.” Yasmine and Moon snicker, and Demetri bristles as he realizes the implication.

“Although I shouldn’t be surprised since you love obsessing over other boys, don’t you?” Eli goes on, like his point isn’t clear enough. “Y’know, I feel bad for Yasmine. I mean, any idiot could tell she used you as a beard, but I had no idea it was a mutual thing.”

Demetri tenses, willing himself not to lose his cool. “Really letting that little victory get to your head, aren’t you, Eli? Honestly, I was going easy on you. Now I know not to next time.”

It’s at that moment that Sam LaRusso decides to show up, sliding up next to Eli and glowering up at Demetri. “There won’t be a next time if I have anything to say about it,” she retorts.

Demetri can’t help but scoff. Of course Sam LaRusso would be all too eager to defend her little pet nerd now, even though she was all too happy to laugh at him with her mean girl friends a year ago. “I’m not scared of you,” he says. “Like you’d start any fight daddy couldn’t bail you out of. Or that doesn’t end with your ex boyfriend getting thrown over a railing because you couldn’t keep your hands to yourself.”

It’s a low blow, but Demetri doesn’t care. It’s hard not to look at this girl and see part of the reason Miguel might never be able to walk again.

Sam LaRusso shoves him just as the godawful counselor is sauntering over, but to hell with it--maybe Demetri could spin this to his advantage.

“She hit me, Counselor Blatt!” he cries out, pointing at Sam. “Attacked and physically assaulted me, completely unprovoked!”

“That’s not true,” Eli mumbles, eyes darting. Flawlessly slipping back into the poor little Eli role in a way that never fails to make Demetri seethe. “It wasn’t unprovoked. He started all this by destroying my limited-edition comic book for no reason.”

Demetri puts on his most convincing remorseful face and sighs. “Look, that was an accident. I just tripped while I was walking and my milk spilled. Anyhow, if your book’s that valuable, you probably shouldn’t bring it into a school cafeteria where people are more than likely going to spill food on it.”

He’d like to see the dumb counselor argue with that.

“Look, I don’t want excuses. I just want you all to respect each other.”

“Oh, absolutely.” Demetri turns to give Eli a forced smile. “Nothing but 100% respect in this environment going forward, I assure you. Sorry if we caused any problems.”

Please, just anything to make her leave.

With one last warning to Sam LaRusso, the counselor is gone. Demetri turns to the two Miyagi-Dos and smirks.

“To hell with respect,” he sneers. “Your lot hardly deserve it.”

It doesn’t surprise Demetri when Eli and his little gang of Miyagi-Do losers decide to start shit in gym class. What he isn’t expecting is for Eli and his stupid blue hair to start running next to him--right after he’s tried and failed to catch Yasmine’s attention after scoring a goal.

He’s been thinking about her all morning--was Eli right about her? Did she only use him as a cover-up?

...would no one ever want to date him for him?

Well, maybe if he won Yasmine back, he could disprove that. If Moon was going to be hanging off of Eli’s arm before too long, chances were her and Yasmine’s relationship’s days were numbered.

Whatever Eli is about to say, Demetri can already tell it’s not going to help.

And it doesn’t. “Wow, Demetri. Few guys are so bad in a relationship that they manage to turn their girlfriend gay. I hope you feel accomplished.”

Demetri balls his fists. “Say that again. I dare you.”

“You really did have a good thing going with her,” Eli sighed, voice laced with condescending pity. “It’s a shame she decided she could do better than some belligerent Cobra Kai douchebag.”

And then suddenly Eli lunges for him and tackles him, knocking him to the ground just as easily as Demetri once did to Eli at the mall.

Not that it ended up mattering all that much--Demetri was able to talk the Cobra Kai’s way out of trouble in the principal’s office, just as he so often could. Nonetheless, it seemed Eli was hardly turning out to be as much of a pushover as he thought.

When Mitch and the guys invited Demetri to go to Golf N Stuff--fuck around for a bit, cause some mayhem--he wasn’t about to say no. The thrill took over, running around, snatching tickets and prizes away, throwing them in the trash--he almost felt as powerful as Kyler must have, all those months ago when he tossed the lesser kids’ backpacks in the garbage. Is this how it felt, to be on top? To have everyone else too scared to mess with you?

Because Demetri loved it.

What he wasn’t counting on was Sam LaRusso and her little posse arriving to confront them in the laser tag arena--including Eli, face hardened and ready to fight.

Things seemed to be going pretty poorly--that was, until Tory Nichols and the backup arrived. That reduced Sam LaRusso to a sniveling mess, and finally it looked like this would be an easy finish.

Demetri found himself only stalling for a second when the way cleared for him to go at Eli. Something about the sudden terror on the other boy’s face made him hesitate, but not for long. Eli threw a weak punch, and Demetri quickly flipped him onto the ground, pulling his arm up behind him.

“No, please, stop, Deme, stop! It’s me!”

Deme...

Eli’s old nickname for him.

Demetri pauses, and suddenly he feels sick. Deme...Eli’s nickname. Eli.

Wasn’t all of this for Eli? To protect Eli?

And now here he was, about to hurt him. The one thing he swore he was going to stop everyone else from doing.

And then comes the goading cries from Tory, Mitch, and the others. Do it! Finish him! He deserves it!

He deserves it.

And then Demetri remembers what happened to Miguel when he didn’t take his chance to finish the fight with Robby Keene. Suddenly Demetri’s running out of the end of a hallway again, seeing Miguel’s motionless body lying on the stairs, and the rage and horror and mind-numbing devastation hit him all over again.

“Demetri, finish him!”

In a split second, Demetri makes his decision. Eli’s arm snaps in half.

All it takes is one terrible, pained scream from Eli for Demetri’s entire world to come crashing down on him. What the fuck did he just do?

He can’t even hear the other Cobras, gleefully congratulating him and sneering at the “pussy” on the floor. All he can hear are Eli’s pained sobs.

He’d seen Eli cry before, but never like this. Never thanks to him.

When everyone congratulates him next practice, Demetri barely hears. He’s just numb. All he can see is Eli, curled up and crying on the dirty cement floor. When Tory tells him she didn’t think he was going to do it, all he can manage out is that Miyagi-Do had it coming for hurting Miguel.

And as if his week can’t get any worse, here come Kyler and his goons sauntering into the dojo like they own the damn place. Demetri does his best to convince Mr. Kreese this is by no means a wise idea, but the sensei will not hear of it.

When Kyler and Brucks realize who he is, it only makes Demetri more livid. “Oh shit, it’s the yogurt backpack kid! Lip’s little friend! I thought he moved away!” When a fighting ring is formed, giving the new recruits a chance to “earn their spot,” Demetri is all too ready for combat.

He’s horrified at how quickly Brucks takes down Mitch, how quickly his friend is ushered out the door. It was bad enough to see Bert go, but this...this is different.

He can’t remember the last time he’s felt more alone.

When Kyler steps forward, looking for an opponent, Demetri volunteers before anyone else can. Mr. Kreese shoots him a surprised look, but he doesn’t care. This fucko has been making his life hell for years--he can already tell this is going to be therapeutic.

Demetri doesn’t hold back. The fight has barely started before Kyler’s had enough. A few fast hits and his lip’s already bloody, and he’s backing away. “No...please stop...”

And suddenly Demetri’s back in the library, on that afternoon that seems like an eternity ago, watching Kyler grip Eli by the throat. Hearing him sneer “who would ever want to kiss THAT shit?” like Eli was the most disgusting thing he’d ever seen. Feeling absolutely powerless, hand clutching the back of a chair as he burned with rage that had nowhere to go.

Well, he wasn’t powerless now.

And before he knows it Demetri has Kyler pinned to the ground, landing punch after punch to his face. Because, he realizes, at the end of the day, who gives a fuck if Eli’s on the other side?

That’s still his Eli, even after everything. The same Eli he stood by for over 10 years, the same Eli who he wished so long that he could protect from everything, the same Eli who felt like he had to constantly hide a tiny red line on his face because his peers collectively decided--for no good reason at all--that it was ugly.

And maybe he couldn’t make those people hurt the way he wanted to then, but right now...well, he could hurt at least one. And that was enough.

He doesn’t stop until Kyler is practically pulverized and his hands are drenched in blood. After throwing his last punch, he smirks, leaning down to whisper into Kyler’s ear.

“Now who’d want to kiss THAT shit? That’s right, asshole--I remember.”

Demetri kicks Kyler’s limp form as he walks away. He shoots Brucks a glare as he falls back in line--just for good measure.

When Miguel comes back to school, Demetri’s one of the first to greet him at the door. “Cobra Kai’s still going strong! It’s going to be great to have you back!” He’s a little confused as to why Miguel seems so hesitant, but he doesn’t worry too much about it--they can sort through all that later.

Miguel’s certainly taken aback by the clunky cast he sees on Eli’s arm when he runs into him in the hall--but perhaps even moreso by the fact that he has both shamelessly dyed his hair blue and spiked it up in a mohawk and is currently walking the school hallways with Moon on his (unbroken) arm. As it turns out, once word got back to Moon that Yasmine was the one who had shamelessly whispered around the school about Demetri being gay, she had broken things off with her. And, with his new “coolness” upgrade, she’d taken quite a liking to Eli.

Not like she had any way of knowing he’d been planning on Yasmine’s cruel gossip, after all.

But the cast, Miguel quickly learns, has a much darker backstory than anything he could have expected.

He wastes no time confronting Demetri about it in the lunchroom. “I heard what happened with Eli. How could you do that?”

Demetri’s stomach clutches. He scowls, determined not to show his discomfort.

“Wow!” He scoffs. “We go to all the trouble of getting payback on those assholes for getting you thrown over that railing, and this is the thanks we get?”

Miguel shakes his head, horrified. “Dude, who cares what dojo Eli’s in? He’s our friend! And in any case, it’s not his fault what happened to me. What the hell were you thinking?”

I don’t know. I don’t know. Demetri’s face hardens. He can only imagine how angry Mr. Kreese would be with him if he caught him showing any kind of weakness. Any kind of second-guessing.

But he can’t help it. Glimpsing Eli in that cast for the first time...

“Look, the Miyagi-Dos were the ones who picked a fight with us,” Demetri retorts. “We just had to do what we had to so they’d back off and leave us alone. We had to finish the fight.”

Miguel pauses, looking pained. “This isn’t...this isn’t you, Demetri. You’re letting Kreese get in your head. He’s trying to manipulate you, get you to...obsess over revenge so you’ll hurt people. But I know you, and I know you don’t want to. Eli, or anyone else.”

Demetri clenches his fists. “What would you know about how I feel about Eli?”

“Look, I can’t claim I know what’s going on between you two,” Miguel amends. “But you have to believe me--Kreese is dangerous. He’s using you. He doesn’t care about you, Demetri. Just...come to Sensei Lawrence’s new dojo. Please. Things can be like they used to. You don’t have to be in this...this war.”

This gives Demetri pause. “He...made a new dojo?”

Okay, so he’s still not Mr. Lawrence’s biggest fan--the man is an asshole at the best of times. But to be able to train with Miguel again...to be able to be badass without being expected to be some soldier...

He can’t finish speaking before Brucks’s voice rings out through the cafeteria. “Look everyone, Lip’s got a dick in his hand!”

Demetri looks up to see Eli being held by the cast, eyes darting around as the entire cafeteria bursts into laughter. Involuntarily, Demetri bristles.

And there it is again, that feeling of being the helpless kid in the library as Eli’s taunted. And even after all this time...he still hates it.

Miguel turns to him, shaking his head. “So these are your friends now? I thought you were better than that.”

And just like that, Miguel’s gone. Gone from the Cobra Kai table, gone from Demetri’s life.

It makes him wonder if he’s making a huge mistake. But he knows he can’t back out now--not when he’s this far in. Who would even want to take him back? Probably not Miguel and Mr. Lawrence--despite what Miguel said, Demetri knows there’s no way he’s going to forgive him so easily for hurting their other friend. And certainly not Eli.

What makes it even worse is seeing Eli later that day, curled up against some lockers with Moon. Moon is tracing over his cast in colored sharpie, slowly transforming the dick pic into a beautiful landscape and night sky. Eli is bragging about how the arm-breaking didn’t hurt that bad.

Demetri remembers when that soft little smile was reserved only for him, and a pit starts to form in his stomach.

Well, no use bitching. You did this to yourself.

It seems like the world is out to just make Demetri’s existence in Cobra Kai as shitty as possible these days. Mitch and Bert are gone, Miguel isn’t coming back, Brucks is being a royal douchebag like always, and perhaps worst of all, Robby Keene shows up at the dojo. Demetri tries his damndest to appeal to Mr. Kreese about how outrageous this is--this is the kid who paralyzed Miguel in the fucking first place, what’s the point of dojo-wide revenge if they just take in the main culprit like an old buddy? But of course Mr. Kreese spouts some nonsense about how they need all the help they can get for the All-Valley, and sometimes you have to be allies with people you aren’t the biggest fans of, blah blah blah. To make matters worse, Tory--not a friend exactly, but probably the closest thing Demetri’s got to one left--is getting far too chummy with Robby for Demetri’s taste.

Maybe Demetri’s insane, but it seems like more and more ridiculous shit is being handwaved in the name of...what? Winning a karate tournament? Getting revenge for a kid who’s already recovered, and doesn’t even seem to want it?

When word gets back to Cobra Kai that Miyagi-Do and Eagle Fang are teaming up, Kreese sends the students on a special mission: Show the other dojos that even with their combined forces, they’re no match for Cobra Kai. It seems like a waste of time to Demetri--why antagonize other dojos just minding their business? It’s not like there was anything worth fighting for in this dumb war anymore, considering Miguel was on his feet again (literally AND figuratively). Nonetheless, Demetri finds he’s itching for a good fight--it’s been way too long since he’s charged into a full-fledged battle.

Maybe this will help him get it out of his system, if nothing else.

When the fight breaks out at the LaRussos, it doesn’t take long for Demetri to be overtaken by the thrill of it. Just like he was at the school fight. Just like he was at the tournament. He’s zipping through the house, landing kicks and punches left and right. And it feels good. With everything having been so awful lately, he can’t remember the last time he’s felt more alive.

And then he lands a fierce kick, and Brucks chest-bumps him. “Hell yeah! kick some ass! Dumb losers never had a chance.”

Brucks. The same kid who laughed when he saw Eli starting to cry about the comments he made on his lip. The same kid claiming Kyler tossing his backpack into a yogurt-filled trash can was “brute.” And now here he was trying to be buddy-buddy with him.

Everything comes crashing down on Demetri at once.

Miguel’s speech, saying Kreese is manipulating him. Saying Kreese doesn’t care about him. Kreese cherry-picking what does and doesn’t count as vengeance--hurting Eli, someone who had nothing to do with Miguel’s fall, does, but teaming up with the kid responsible for said fall apparently does not. Demetri’s friends being booted from Cobra Kai one by one, just for not being strong enough.

The sound of Eli’s screams and sobs in a dark laser tag room.

Miguel was right, wasn’t he? Kreese never cared about getting payback for him. He only cared about starting a war for his own sadistic pleasures.

Demetri hears grunting and whimpering, and he looks up to see two of the other Cobras kneeing Eli in the chest over and over. Pinning him into an arm bar.

“Yo, ‘Mete!” one calls out. “Free shot!”

Eli looks up, gaze full of fear and pain. Bright blue irises glinting with welling tears.

Once upon a time, Demetri made a promise to himself that he would stick with karate, aggravating as it may be, so he would never have to see that look on Eli’s face again. It’s time, he figures, that he finally made good on that.

His face contorts into a snarl, and he runs to Eli. Eli closes his eyes and scrunches his face, bracing for a pain that never comes.

Demetri kicks one Cobra to the wayside and smashes the other into a glass table with perhaps more force and adrenaline than he’s used all night.

When he turns to Eli, the other boy backs away, eyes still wide with terror. Demetri feels sick to his stomach, and the tears come before he can stop them.

“God, Eli, I’m so sorry,” he splutters. “I’m so fucking sorry, for everything. I don’t know what I was thinking, and it was all so fucked up, and--”

“Demetri.”

“--I’ll never hurt you like that again, but if you don’t want anything to do with me now, I totally understand, and--”

“Demetri.”

“--I was so awful to you, and I didn’t listen to you, and I should’ve been there for you, and I’m such a piece of shit friend and--”

“DEMETRI!”

Finally Eli raises his voice enough that Demetri pauses. “...yeah, Eli?”

“Please stop talking. I forgive you. Now are you going to shut up and help me finish this?” He raises a hand, as if to initiate their old handshake. An olive branch.

Demetri grins so wide he thinks his face is going to break, and he grips Eli’s hand like a lifeline. Something to finally pull him out of the darkness. “Yeah.”

They’re a lethal fighting team. Between Demetri landing speedy hits and Eli protecting him and shielding them both with his bulked-up form (where did he get all that muscle? Demetri wonders), they dispatch half the Cobras in minutes. Whatever rush Demetri was feeling fighting when he first got here is nothing compared to fighting with Eli.

When they stop the fight between Tory and Sam, Tory wastes no time voicing her disdain for the ex-Cobras. “You’d better watch your back,” she spits at Demetri, and he feels a chill run through him. Turns out this girl is terrifying when she’s not fighting on your side.

Eli intercepts her as she leaves, staring her down defiantly in a very un-Eli-like manner. “You’d better watch yours,” he growls. “Touch him, and I’ll end you.”

Demetri glances over in surprise. When did Eli get so bold?

Well...he thinks he could grow to like it.

Season 4 (because fuck it)

Demetri is hardly expecting Mr. LaRusso and Mr. Lawrence to forgive him, never mind let him into their new dojo. But life has a lot of pleasant surprises in store for him, it seems, after the shitshow it recently put him through. It’s also possible Eli (and maybe Miguel too) but in a good word for him.

Demetri can’t stop apologizing to Eli. Seemingly every day, he finds a new thing to apologize for. Eli gets aggravated with it before long, having to reassure Demetri at least 50 separate times that he forgives him for everything. Nonetheless, Demetri refuses to stop--because he’ll never stop being sorry.

Or trying to find new ways to make it up to Eli. Going easy on him during sparring. Buying him lunch after practice. Helping him perfect some of the most badass Cobra moves.

Things end between Eli and Moon. Eli can’t fully elaborate on why--he just tells Demetri something didn’t feel quite right. The spark died out, like Demetri’s adrenaline rush slowly seeping away toward the end of a fight. That, and, Demetri gathers, something seems to have been distracting Eli from his girlfriend as of late.

Most likely the approaching, high stakes All-Valley. Karate is Serious Business, as they’ve both embraced now.

Rumor has it Yasmine and Moon are trying again, Yasmine realizing for seemingly the first time how awful she’s really been and making an effort to be better. Moon makes her want to be better--more than Demetri ever did, he realizes. And maybe that’s okay--he and Yasmine probably just weren’t right for each other.

Then one day, after yet another one of Demetri’s long-winded apologies, Eli offers something other than an exasperated. “It’s okay. Seriously.” There’s a pause before Eli quietly says “I’m sorry too.”

“For what?” Demetri blurts out, baffled. Everything Eli’s done has paled in comparison to his own atrocities.

“For outing you,” Eli says simply. “That was fucked. And it wasn’t my place, even if I was mad at you.”

“It’s all right.” Demetri shrugs. “You were right, anyways.”

Eli gives him a strange look. “I was?”

“Yeah, I mean...” Demetri laughs dryly. “I don’t...like girls. I pretended I did, because I felt like I was supposed to. That’s what people expect you to do when you’re a top athlete and all that. But dating Yasmine, chasing other girls, it always felt...empty. Like I was just acting out a role in a play or something. And at the end of the day, I think...” He pauses. “I think I was always looking at you.”

Because the last few months have made him realize something. Training with Eli, teaching Eli how to protect himself, watching Eli step up and defend him from the mistrusting stares and the scornful whispers...

Just how much of the person he’s become is thanks to wanting to protect Eli. The fact that that was always how all this started.

“I love you,” he blurts out, before he can stop himself. “I know I did a shitty job of showing it, and I know you were with Moon and you’re not like that, but I need you to know, and I understand if you don’t feel--”

Eli cuts him off with a fierce kiss, pinning him up against the dojo wall with unexpected aggressiveness.

When Eli pulls away, he’s smiling softly. The same smile he gave Moon in the hall as she drew on his cast--the smile that’s once again all Demetri’s.

“I love you too,” he murmurs. “Why do you think I broke up with Moon? Every time I was with her...I couldn’t stop wishing it was you. She’ll never know me like you do.”

And Kreese had better look out because Miyagi Fang’s next big power couple is a force to be reckoned with--the snarky, frighteningly fast-attacking ex-Cobra, and the buff, blue-mohawked Miyagi-Do with more inner peace than anyone would expect.

SOME RANDOM SIDENOTES ABOUT THIS BECAUSE I DIDN’T FEEL LIKE PUTTING THIS ALL IN THE TAGS

~I’m sorry if anyone is OOC in this--I know Johnny is kind of a fuck, but he genuinely WAS pretty crappy to Eli at first and who knows if he would’ve treated him any better if he didn’t “flip the script”??? ~Dark/Evil Demetri is so fun but also so awful to write--I hope you like him being an absolute fuck because the Corruption Arc is REAL ~Yes, I DO in fact fully believe Demetri would go on a crazed revenge quest just like Eli/Hawk did out of his grief for Miguel--the boy absolutely loves Miguel and arguably would want vengeance as much as Eli if their roles were swapped!!! Because Demetri cares about Miguel SO FUCKING MUCH even if it’s not as obvious as it is with Eli but that’s a rant for another post ~I included YasMoon because fuck it, I thought it’d be interesting. That and, unlike the Cobra Kai writers, I am not at all afraid of what conservative audiences will say, so I am not afraid to make things as gay as possible. ~There’s a good chance I swapped Kyler and Brucks’ places near the end solely so I could have Demetri beat the fuck out of Kyler because I just really need that ~Yes, even without formally becoming “Hawk,” Eli could learn how to be a conniving manipulative little shit if he wanted to be. Look at some of the shit he pulls with the counselor in canon Season 3!!! Boy sure as hell knows how to play the victim. ~Honestly not sure if being outed as gay is better or worse than being outed as a bed-wetter, but I had to think of something that would pack the same kind of emotional punch. In Eli’s feeble defense, the West Valley High kids don’t seem like the types to be like...especially violent against queer kids (otherwise NO WAY would Moon and Piper have been able to be that open about their relationship), they’d just be assholes about it. So Eli wasn’t putting Demetri in legit danger here so much as just opening him up to a lot of ridicule. Which is still fucked, but hey, I DID warn you this would be kind of fucked up XD ~Maybe short, concise apologies work for Eli, bUT NOT FOR DEMETRI THE RAMBLER ~Dark Demetri chasing Eli through the school like a goddamn serial killer = 10/10 gave myself a big Spook writing ~Yes, Eli does still have (and always had) his “Hawk” traits, even without the formal “transformation.” I just think his “Hawk” side would be a little more subtle and subdued if he were in Miyagi-Do, but it’s still there for sure.

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edie-k · 3 years

Text

Living Legend (R/Hr, PG-13)

Title: Living Legend

Summary: Harry confronts his legacy as The Boy Who Blocked

Pairing: Ron/Hermione

Rating: PG-13

Disclaimer: Not mine; just having some not for profit fun.

So, based off discussion of this awesome piece of art shared on the Romione Discord, I wrote this fic. It started as very tongue in cheek idea and ended with some heart.

Harry entered the crowded pub and glanced around. He’d been held up almost an hour completing paperwork at the Ministry so he expected he was the last one to arrive. It didn’t take long for him to focus on the boisterous group in the back and he made his way towards the table with a grin.

“Hey, there he is!” said George, with a raise of his glass and assorted greetings joined in from the rest of the group.

“Oi, thank God, you’re here Harry,” said Seamus. “These two,” he said, gesturing at Ron and Hermione, “are getting gross.”

Hermione gave an indignant snort and Ron glared at Seamus but he was smirking. Harry laughed as he dropped into the empty seat next to Ginny and gave her a kiss on the cheek. He glanced around the table at the crew - George, Angelina, and Luna were already seated at the other end and Dean was plopping down on the other side of Ron, next to Parvati. There was still an empty seat with a half drank glass in front of it and glancing around the room, he spotted Neville at the bar. He gratefully accepted the mug his girlfriend had slid in front of him. “And what do you expect me to do about the two of them?” he asked, as he took a swig of his drink.

“Break out some of that cockblocking magic you’re famous for,” said Seamus. The entire table burst into laughter. Harry was so shocked that he momentarily choked.

“Honestly Seamus!” said Hermione, although she looked much more amused by the comment than Harry would have expected.

“What in Merlin’s name are you talking about?” Harry asked.

“Do you not know what cockblocking is? The term seems pretty self explanatory but it’s when-”

“I know what it means, Seamus,” growled Harry.”I just don’t know what you mean.”

“I believe that’s his colorful way of talking about the fact that you were the main obstacle preventing Ron from progressing beyond friends with Hermione,” suggested Dean.

“Uh, in the name of gender equality, he was also the main obstacle preventing Hermione from making a move on Ron,” said Parvati. Dean tipped his drink in her direction in agreement.

“Human birth control, if you will,” suggested George.

“The opposite of an aphrodisiac for the two of them, if that’s a thing,” said Ginny. Harry gapped at her, startled by her comment.

“It is, it’s called an anaphrodisiac,” Hermione supplied.

“Oh, that’s interesting. What things are considered anaphrodisiac?” asked Angelina.

“Alcohol, right?” said Dean.

“Not in my experience,” said Seamus, wagging his eyebrows.

“That’s not what Cara Johnson told Padma,” said Parvati.

“Alcohol and tobacco and some other elements that go into pain relieving medications and potions. There was also recently a study around licorice of all things.”

“Red or black?” asked Neville, who had just returned from the bar with a fresh pitcher.

“Hmm,” said George thoughtfully. “Licorice wands but droopy. There’s a Wheeze in there somewhere.”

“Dabberblimps are also said to have an impact on sexual desire but I think that’s more due to the smell,” said Luna.

“No, wait! Wait, wait, wait, wait,” said Harry, completely aghast. “Are you all saying it took Ron and Hermione two years to get together and it was my fault?”

“Look, Harry, no one should be saying you were the main obstacle in it. Hermione and I certainly could have done more to rise above it,” said Ron in what he thought was a consoling tone.

“Honestly, everyone at this table could have done more,” said Neville, gesturing to the group who nodded in agreement.

“But it is fair to say that Harry carries most of the blame,” said Seamus.

“Outside of Ron and I,” Hermione clarified.

“This is unbelievable,” said Harry.

“Look, Hermione and I have talked about it and there’s no hard feelings. It all worked out in the end.”

“You’ve talked about this?!” Ron shrugged. “Hermione,” Harry turned to his friend with a pleading tone. “You are the most rational person I know. You can’t seriously agree with this?”

“I pluck up the courage to ask Ron out and you created as much noise as possible and practically threw a bowl across the room before I could clarify it was a date.”

“It was awkward!”

“Are you saying we’ve never done anything awkward for your sake?” Ron chuckled.

“No but… come on, it was obvious that was a date!”

“I told you I thought she asked me as a friend and you never said anything!”

“Wait,” said Angelina. “Harry, there was a misunderstanding between them that you knew about and you didn’t say anything to clear it up?”

“It was awkward!”

“Not only that,” said Hermione. “I asked him why Ron was angry with me so I could fix it and he knew why but he didn’t tell me.”

“It… was awkward,” said Harry weakly. “And! And! The reason Ron was angry with you was ridiculous. You had snogged Krum two year ago. I didn’t want to make him look stupid.”

“Yeah,” said Ron dryly. “You really kept me from looking like an idiot in sixth year. Cheers.”

“I’m sorry,” Parvati said, shaking her head in disbelief. “Are you saying that if you had one awkward conversation, we would have avoided the entire debacle that was Lavender and Ron?”

“Yes,” said Hermione.

“Pretty much,” said Ron.

Parvati turned to Harry. “Potter, there are hours, days, WEEKS of my life that I will never get back that I spent dealing with that nightmare.”

“What, do you think it was a picnic for me?!”

“No! That makes it worse!” cried Parvati.

“Well, what was I supposed to do?” exploded Harry. “Just go up to Hermione and say, ‘Ron is jealous as hell that you kissed Victor Krum You should go talk to him and get this sorted before Slughorn’s party’?”

“YES!” shouted the entire table.

Harry noticed that Ginny had joined the chorus and rounded on her. “What about you? You could have stepped in just as well as I could have!”

“I was mad at Ron and for good reason!” she retorted. “But yes, I could have done more. I’ll admit, part of it was that up until the point that you kissed me, I was a little worried that you were doing it because you had a thing for Hermione. I was worried that if I helped get the two of them together, you would totally spiral.”

“I thought that was why you were doing it too,” said Dean.

“You did?” said Ginny with a smile. “You never told me that. I guess we were pretty compatible back then.”

“Hey! Am I not getting dealt enough blows?” said Harry indignantly and the table laughed.

“Harry was never interested in Hermione,” said Luna with a tone of declaring the matter settled. “I did suspect he fancied Ron though.”

“Wha- okay, Luna, no,” Harry sputtered. “So I’m apparently responsible for the dumbest fight the two of you ever had but-”

“Not responsible for the fight but you showed a lack of accountability in resolving it,” clarified Hermione.

“Fine. So why didn’t you get together after Ron and Lavender broke up? You didn’t kiss until the final battle. How was that my fault?”

“Didn’t Ron tell us Harry tried to break up that kiss too with some sort of snide comment?” George said to Angelina.

“Snide comment?” Harry asked disbelievingly. “I reminded them that there was a war going on. THERE WAS LITERALLY A WAR GOING ON!”

“It was coming to a natural conclusion,” Hermione said, rolling her eyes.

“So that was really the first time you two kissed?” asked Dean. “Because when we uh, met up that spring, it seemed like something was going on.”

“Well, we certainly made some progress to understanding we were on the same page,” said Hermione. “But things were complicated.”

“It was miserable and it really would have been pretty awkward to start something with Harry around all the time,” said Ron.

“Good call,” said George. “After tonight, I think we all know that Harry’s boggart takes the form of awkward interactions.”

“At the point we found Dean and Luna, we both knew it was inevitable but we also had to finish helping Harry,” said Hermione.

“Plus, you want to talk cockblock? Harry has nothing on Griphook,” said Ron. Dean nodded sagely and Hermione wrinkled her nose in agreement.

“Finished helping me? You weren’t picking up my dry cleaning, we were saving the world!”

“Harry, you are taking this way too personally,” said Hermione. “We don’t think you were truly trying to keep us apart but your desire to stay out of our relationship and your mild self-absorption caused a lot of complications.”

“I don’t know why someone would take being called self absorbed personally,” George remarked and Ginny snorted.

“Hermione, you don’t get it. You’re letting him off the hook too easily because you’re a woman. A man does not prevent a friend from getting laid. It’s basically an Unbreakable Vow that’s entrenched in our DNA,” said Seamus.

“Ugh,” scoffed Parvati. “I honestly don’t know why we hang out with you.”

“No, really,” insisted Seamus. “Take tonight as an example. Dean and Neville. You two are solid mates, yeah?” Both men nodded. “Right, so Dean goes up to the bar to get a new pitcher. Who comes up to wait on him but Hannah Abbott. Suddenly, Neville needs a glass of water. And what happens next?”

Neville turned red. “I uh, I went up to the bar to ask Hannah for a glass while she was waiting on Dean.”

“And as soon as Neville appears and starts talking to Hannah, I gave him a nudge and say ‘I have to hit the head. Can you bring that back to the table?’”

Harry scoffed. “How does you sticking Neville with the tab help him?”

“You never did read that book I gave you, did you?” said Ron, incredulously.

“I didn’t take a piss, I came back to the table so Neville could chat up Hannah. And?”

Neville gave an embarrassed smile. “I’m taking her out tomorrow,” he admitted.

“Ha!” Seamus punched the air triumphantly. “One friend getting another friend laid. It’s beautiful.”

“It’s a first date,” Neville protested. “We’re not going to-”

“We’ll work on it,” Seamus assured him.

“Ron’s never tried to get me laid!” Harry shouted desperately. This comment was met with general revulsion.

“Whoa! Come on,” said Dean, his face contorted.

“That’s his sister,” said Neville.

“For fuck’s sake man,” said Seamus disgustedly. The idea that Seamus was disgusted with him made Harry even more defensive.

“Hermione is like my sister!” insisted Harry.

“To be fair to Ron and it pains me to do so,” said Ginny. “Ron really only got in our way that one time after we broke up and as pissed as I was at the time, I think it came from a genuinely good place.”

“And I had no idea you liked Ginny until you snogged her right in front of me!” said Ron.

“You never said anything about Hermione until we were in the woods!’

“Oh, Harry, really?” said Ginny with pity. “I don’t think that’s the way to go.��

“Yeah, okay, but - hey, what about that one time with Cho?” Harry said accusingly to Ron.

“I called Cho out for being a bandwagon fan one time when I was 15 and now I’m doomed to a life of interrupted shags,” Ron appealed to the room.

“You’re together now,” said Harry weakly.

“Despite your best efforts,” joked George.

“And yet you haven’t relinquished your title as The Boy Who Blocked,” said Ron.

“You do have extraordinarily bad timing,” said Hermione.

“Back to Seamus’s original point, you two are pretty gross.”

“I’m sorry, are you saying that I still am-”

“In a much more literal sense now,” said Ron. Hermione gave him a playful smack on the chest.

“Give me an example!” Harry insisted heatedly.

Ron and Hermione exchanged a look that was familiar to Harry but he didn’t recognize. “Harry, it really isn’t a big deal,” said Hermione reassuringly.

“Well, last weekend, right?” said George. “At Shell Cottage for Fleur’s birthday. You wanted to get Ron so he could try those beignets Gabrielle brought and we told you they would be back soon but you insisted on walking down the beach and…”

“Yeah, and I found them past the alcove and - wait,” Harry stopped suddenly. “Is that why you were-?” Harry made a gesture too vague to interpret but Hermione squirmed in her chair and Ron inhaled sharply.

Harry’s jaw dropped. “And last month when Ginny and I were over to listen to the Cannons’ match and you were so weird when I came in the kitchen to see why the snacks were taking so long…and Thursday? Hermione is that why you…” He trailed off as Hermione bit her lip and looked away while Ron rubbed the back of his neck.

“Oh my God,” said Harry incredulously.

“Harry, we’re so sorry if we made you uncomfortable,” said Hermione, sounding sincere for the first time all night.

“Oh my God!” Harry repeated louder, this time, disgusted.

“We were making up for lost time, which you have a part in,” Ron pointed out.

“Oh my God,” Harry said a third time, his tone full of realization.

“Are you okay Harry?” asked Ginny gently.

“Yeah, yeah,” he said distractedly. A quiet set over the group within the roaring pub.

“So Neville,” said Angelina in a voice full of forced cheer. “Where are you taking Hannah tomorrow?”

“Oh, you should take her to this great new place in Hogsmeade. Padma and I had lunch there last week and the dinner menu looks amazing,” Parvati said.

Harry looked glumly at his drink, barely noticing the glances his two best friends were exchanging.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

“Harry?” came a familiar voice from the fireplace.

It was the next morning. Ginny was off to practice and would be staying the evening with her team, as she did the day prior to every match. The standing tradition was that on these days, he had lunch with Ron and Hermione. As much as he loved Ginny and knew that Ron and Hermione did too, he liked having time as just the three of them.

But he had cancelled this morning, citing a hangover and crossed his fingers that Ron would be able to persuade Hermione to leave him be.

No such luck.

He heard a whoosh, followed by a second. “Harry?”

He sighed. “In here,” he called quietly from his armchair. Both of his friends popped around the corner. “Couldn’t hold her off?”

Ron sank into the chair across from him, threw his legs on the ottoman and grinned. “Actually, I didn’t even try.”

Hermione tapped Ron’s feet and he scooted them over to give her enough room to sit on the ottoman. “Harry, why are you avoiding us?”

“‘m not,” he mumbled. “Just drank too much last night.”

“You got there after everyone else so you missed the first two rounds of shots Seamus forced on us and I only saw you refill your glass once.”

Harry shrugged. “I had a couple drinks when I got home.”

“Look, we didn’t mean to upset you. Like Hermione said, we had a few before you got there and we were just having a go,” said Ron.

“Yeah but it was true,” said Harry sullenly.

“Well,” said Hermione, flattening her skirt nervously. “Yes, all of those things happened. But it was a long time ago. We’ve been together almost three years now. And we were certainly exaggerating a bit to have some fun. So there’s nothing for you to be upset about.”

Harry straightened up in his chair. “You don’t get it! Since I started at Hogwarts, you two have been the most important people in my life and you still are, plus Gin and Teddy. And you cared about me and you two always tried to do what you thought was going to help me and be best for me and last night I realized...I didn’t do that for you!”

“Harry, you know that’s not true!” said Hermione.

“Yes it is! I thought about how Cho and I couldn’t even look at each other anymore and I didn’t want that to happen to you two. It was always best when it was the three of us and I didn’t want anything to mess that. You were right, I was so self absorbed!”

“Harry,” said Ron, rolling his eyes.

“Of course you were,” said Hermione dismissively.

“Okay, now I am regretting letting you come over here,” said Ron.

“We all were!” she said, rolling her eyes. “Harry, Ron and I were so wrapped up in our own drama sixth year that we didn’t realize the depth of your fixation with Malfoy until you had practically murdered him!”

“Well, whose fault is that? There would have been no drama had I said something! And all our friends think I didn’t say something because I was in love with Hermione. I mean, you must have thought that too,” Harry said miserably, gesturing to Ron.

“I never really thought you were interested in Hermione but I was terrified Hermione would fall for you,” said Ron.

“What’s wrong with me that you didn’t think Harry would be interested?” said Hermione in a teasing tone that was clearly meant to lighten the mood, flicking Ron’s foot.

“Absolutely nothing. This git doesn’t know what he’s missing, thank God.”

Harry ignored them. “Had we cleared that up the year before, we could have avoided a few devastating weeks during the hunt, yeah?”

“Harry, there’s no way I’m letting you take responsibility for what the Horcrux said or for me leaving you two,” Ron said.

“We’re certainly not re-litigating any of that,” said Hermione. She turned and looked at Ron. “But when we were talking about all of this at home last night, we both agreed that once we were on the run, we made conscious decisions to not start anything until the war was complete.”

Ron nodded. “It’s true, I felt the same.”

“Great, I did it again,” Harry moaned. “You two were worried about me instead of enjoying your evening.”

“Harry, we still enjoyed our evening-”

“Twice,” interrupted Ron.

“But you’re our friend and we are always going to worry about you,” Hermione finished, paying Ron no mind. “It actually made me realize that we maybe could have had a relationship and taken care of you.”

Harry groaned.

“Harry, you took care of us too,” Ron said. “I mean, in the end, you didn’t want Hermione and I to stop being friends because you knew that would make us just as miserable as you. And you weren’t wrong. And I don’t know, maybe this was all just the way it was supposed to be. Maybe Hermione and I are better because we got all the petty shit out before we were together. Maybe the three of us are better friends because we focused on that for so long. So we’re okay, if you’re okay.”

Harry sat silently for a moment. “I’m going to try to be better about the .. you know, blocking. But seriously, I know we have a bit of a don’t ask, don’t tell on the subject but you could have clued me in,” Harry complained to Ron.

“Fair enough,” laughed Ron.

“Or you could not shag at parties.”

“Just… if you suddenly don’t see us, wait at least 10 minutes before you come and look for us,” suggested Hermione.

“Oi! 10 minutes?” said Ron, offended.

“Harry,” Hermione sighed. “It is apparently very important for you to know that Ron satisfies me sexually.”

“I assumed that once I figured out you were willing to do that for him there on Thursday,” Harry said.

Hermione blushed. “You’re making that sound much worse than it was. And you keep biting your tongue!” she finished, pulling her legs up and shifting back so she was sitting in the chair next to Ron.

“I didn’t say anything!” Ron said, although he looked very pleased with himself. “Now, can we please go get lunch?”

“All right, you two figure out where to eat. Give me 10 minutes and we’ll go,” Harry laughed, standing up from his chair.

“Harry, have you learned nothing? Make it 20,” said Ron.

#ROMIONE #fanfiction #fanfic #hp fanfic #romione fanfic #ron x hermione #ron weasley #hermione granger #trio friendship

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angeltrapz · 3 years

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oosdkk dude im sorry ur mood dropped too.. i hope u feel better soon <3 but like i wld love 2 hear more abt ur thoughts on Art in general bc Boy Is He Interesting, and also a lil more abt Daniel coming out as nonbinary to his dad (whether he knows Eric is trans or not at that moment skjdfhdskf)! + if ur feelin it just more abt Mallick in general ESP cuz we agree that Brit doesn't make it thru V

djhfjdks thank u sm <3

okay Art first. I genuinely wonder abt him so much, something in specific I think abt is that aside frm Amanda (+ Eric, obviously, but talkin abt disciples) Art is one of the only trap victims EVER 2 be tested twice and it’s like... what’s that abt? Why? as u’ve said b4 it rly depends on how you personally view his character: whether he’s a disciple or not. fr me, both options are equally plausible, n honestly I don’t rly confine myself to either; it sorta depends on what I’m feeling/writing. if we’re talking abt art being a disciple, then the Spinecutter not going off (one of my BIGGEST questions) makes total sense, as Hoffman’s side of the trap was never set up to work either, + Jigsaw disciples have a history (aside from Lawrence) of appearing as victims in other tests/traps. if he were not just another pawn and was in fact a disciple himself, then the Spinecutter was never meant to go off - it was there just to make Eric think it COULD go off/make it look convincing to outsiders. which brings me to ANOTHER question: what does Art know abt Eric? does he know anything? what does he think of Eric?

(lil side note: if Art is a disciple, then I kinda wonder if it’s a lil bit of a Hoffman + Lawrence situation where Hoffman didn’t know abt Art either? just bc he looks so shocked when he sees Art’s face fully fr the first time... that could’ve just been acting on Hoffman’s part but IDK. food fr thought)

personally, I feel like Art probably does know a lil bit abt Eric - at the very least, he’d know tht Eric had been previously tested + failed by John’s rules, but then I feel that he wld also know Eric didn’t rly have a chance in his second test. that is why Art trying so fucking hard to keep Eric alive is interesting 2 me: what is his motivation 2 do that? like he’s been told Eric’s basically just there to get Rigg to participate, he doesn’t have any personal obligation or anything like that. sure, the aim is to keep Eric alive + see if Rigg can pass his “test,” but nobody said anything about grabbing a man you barely know around his ankles to keep him frm hanging himself w a noose made of chains. nobody said anything abt speaking to him so softly, not even raising your voice beyond saying “hey,” and asking him do you understand? when you tell him to keep still and prevent him frm killing his counterpart (which, if Art is a disciple, he knows it won’t, but he still speaks to Eric so softly, so compassionately, doesn’t he?)

nobody said anything abt grabbing him around the waist and steadying him again after being punched by said man. but Art does that. he stabilizes Eric’s feet on the ice as best he can and he keeps his hips straight and he basically says “look, we’re all stuck here, you need to keep it together ‘til that clock counts down if you want us to live, but I’m giving you a choice,” and he presses the gun w the single bullet into Eric’s hands and tells him it’s up to him. nobody said Art had to care but he does, I think, and it’s just like. he really didn’t have to keep Eric alive over the course of Rigg’s test. he didn’t. but he did and I just,, where does it come from? why does he care? this is even going beyond the fact that we’ve talked abt them being together after their test in a scenario where they both survive - I just think that Art at his core is a very stubborn but very compassionate person, whether he wants 2 be or not. like he HAS to know that kind of involvement cld prove to be extremely detrimental but he cares. I feel like that says a lot abt him (even if he does call Eric an asshole a couple times while doing it,,).

plus I also just. I think his reason for being tested (as it seems to be in most cases) is extremely flimsy. he was doing his job. he’s a LAWYER. often times it has nothing 2 do w personal feelings; they’re there to do their job and sometimes, unfortunately, that is defending possibly reprehensible people (in cases like Rex’s & Ivan’s). + John was already upset w him regarding their argument abt the urban renewal group so like it just feels So Very Petty, y’know?? even in the scenario where he IS a disciple, testing him twice seems entirely like John having a personal vendetta against him. Amanda is the only other person to be tested twice aside from Eric, so like. what. is that abt Mr. Kramer.

like I’ve said b4 in dms one could argue that Art is grey morally, bc we never rly see anything of him outside of flashbacks + acting as a test controller in IV, esp given that he... rly doesn’t seem too bothered abt it all? which is fair. but I also feel like the concern he shows towards Eric is smth to be considered as well.

+ YESS NONBINARY DANIEL I know I’ve mentioned it b4 but for reference, I read Daniel as masc nonbinary (he/they)! so I feel like Daniel wld b pretty comfortable w his identity, he’s never rly had a reason not to be (it’s rly anyone’s guess here tho bc we never see Eric + Daniel + Kate... as a family unit, for obvious reasons), so I feel like he’s vry chill abt it? and in the scenario where Eric survives n is dating Adam, I feel like Daniel wld talk 2 him abt it first (Adam is an adult they quickly come to trust + he’s vocal abt being trans himself so there’s that added layer of understanding - other than his mom maybe Adam might b the first person they come out 2). they’re just kinda like “so I wanna tell my dad I’m nonbinary but like I’ve literally never thought abt coming out what do I do” and Adam’s just like. Aha. bc he knows Eric is Also Trans so like, he doesn’t tell Daniel that bc it’s not his info to share, but he’s definitely like “oh it’ll totally be fine. trust me you have no reason to worry” so Daniel’s just like Okay. I Got This

+ I know I mentioned this in dms but Daniel wld absolutely wear those floral ripped hem skirts over jeans, so I feel like on one of his visits to his dad’s, he just. wears that combined w a completely random niche graphic tee he bought when shopping w Adam (I adore this hc n I am Holding Onto It) n is just like. not super open abt it bc he doesn’t know what to expect? he just kinda waits fr Eric to comment on it but when he doesn’t, Daniel gets nervous n is like “do I look okay?” and Eric’s rly chill abt it, like “yeah! it looks vry cool, vry alternative.” n like Daniel is relieved, of course, but also he’s just like God Pls Say Something so he just comes out w it like “okay this is not working. I’m nonbinary.”

and he’s COMPLETELY SHOCKED when Eric is just like “oh why didn’t u say so? do u have a different name u wanna go by? is Daniel still okay?” bc he wasn’t sure how much Eric knew, so he’s just like “uh no Daniel is still good, he/they pronouns though” and Eric’s just like alright cool but internally Daniel’s just like ??????

n THAT is when Eric asks him 2 come sit out on th front steps w him n is just like. “I don’t think I ever told u this but I’m trans. I transitioned during training in my early 20s” n Daniel is nodding while internally he’s like Adam I’m gonna throttle u. he worked himself up fr NOTHING. he just kinda laughs abt it and Eric is like “are u good?” ‘cause he’s a lil worried but then Daniel just smiles and is like “yeah I’m fine! just realizing I had nothing 2 be worried abt” and it’s a rly good moment fr them. they sit out there together talking abt their experiences for quite a while n at some point Adam steps outside 2 find them deep in conversation + he just smiles n goes back inside bc he cares abt them both so much and seeing them talk like that makes him so 💞💞 (Eric is SO PROUD u can see it on his face)

ohhh gosh Mallick,,, I spend a lot of time thinking abt him actually. he’s just one of those characters I feel vry connected to (me 🤝 Mallick: Ambiguous Disorder 💕) n one I got surprisingly attached to? hello (he IS one of my f/os)

I feel like Mallick is a very lonely person at his core. the way he sort of clings to Brit (w out the whole like. adrenaline of being in very very real danger w ppl trying to kill u SEVERAL TIMES) somewhat confirms this fr me. this is someone who has no reason to look out fr him, no reason to keep protecting him when their fellow captives hit him over th head w a club or attempt to push him into a bathtub to ELECTROCUTE him, but she keeps doing it and he’s just. in awe of it a little bit? ‘cause she could just let Charles knock him tf out or let Luba push him in but she fights for him, some1 she has no obligation to n met fr the first time literally when they woke up.

the moment they share b4 they stick their arms into the saws to activate the 10 Pints of Sacrifice is so very vulnerable and maybe even a little tender. yes he calls her a monster, yes she calls him one back, neither of them deny it. it’s an admission and an acceptance. they’re monsters, sure, fine, okay. but they are monsters and they are in this together. Brit tells Mallick it’s okay when he says he can’t do this alone. she says okay, okay, it’s okay, we’ll go together. and they help each other secure their tourniquets and they stick their hands in together bc it’s the two of them, literally hand in hand, fighting for their lives n for each other n they’re in so so much pain but they are doing it TOGETHER. I lose it thinking abt it!!! they even have a head bonk moment!!! I very much feel like it has some cinematic parallels to Adam & Lawrence’s moment in SAW 2004!!!!

+ as u mentioned, we both share the thought that Brit likely died since she wasn’t present at Bobby’s meetings, and. I want to touch on how fucking despondent and lost Mallick looks when we see him again in 3D. lights on but no one’s home. I feel like for Mallick, losing Brit was losing the first chance at a real connection he’s had in god knows how long - and for him, that’s just very shattering. he’s been thru hell, he’s watched three people die right in front of him, he sawed his ARM IN HALF, n the person he went through all of that with didn’t make it. but he did. and I feel like for Mallick that’s just like... he doesn’t understand it. but he feels even lonelier than he ever has b4 because the One Person who was there w him thru it all, the one person who could ever possibly understand what happened that night, is gone.

the Mallick we see in V would NEVER sit down n willingly listen to Bobby Dagen’s bullshit abt loving yr scars n taking pride in the fact u survived. he wld hate that man with a passion n I am very much sure of this. the fact that he’s sitting in that chair looking numb and glassy-eyed and silent? Mallick is trying to find some1 to connect to, find a place where maybe he belongs. trying to fill that hole that losing Brit made. why else wld he be sitting there, listening to someone he would ordinarily tell to shove his self-love bullshit up his ass? he’s lost. he’s just trying to keep his head above water and find a way to shore even though everything in him is fighting not to. he’s adrift without her.

+ ALTERNATIVELY, bc the reality of that is just. crushing n maybe not where I needed 2 go, in the scenario where Brit survived + just doesn’t want to put up w Bobby’s bullshit, I imagine them to actually move in together after a lil bit of time getting 2 know each other better w out the pressure of “oh god we’re gonna die.” she kinda helps him build up a sense of self-worth bc GOD it’s practically non-existent n thinking abt possible reasons why makes me sad. she’s definitely just like “no, you do deserve to be cared for and you deserve help when you need it, you deserve good things n to be happy.” she just kinds shuts it down while still making sure to talk 2 him abt WHY he feels that way (she’s not dismissing, but she’s trying to nip it in th bud) n Mallick is just like. huh. bc no one’s really done that fr him before. but it rly does end up helping in the long run, even if it is a very slow pace toward actually getting 2 a place where he recognizes his own worth + realizes he deserves all the things he wants Brit 2 have too. they’re there for each other thru thick n thin and if they made it thru their game, they can make it thru anything.

#saw #art #daniel #eric #adam #mallick #brit #thank u so much I rly appreciated this #n it helped me get my mind off things a little #I'm rly glad my ask helped u too!!! mutual support hours #long post #thoughts separated by dashes bc I had Way More than I thought I did oops #asks

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project-sour-grapes · 3 years

Text

My Precious Entitled Career

Despite my “success,” I've come to the realization that how I approach everything is wrong.

I am a professional in tech and an artist. My friends call me patient and hardworking beyond what is expected. In high school, I was one of those never-crack-a-book honors students with a fancy scholarship. However, when I look inward, all of these good fruits seem like an accident.

I was recently let go from a tech company that your average zoomer would know the name of. There was a conflict around compensation that played out over a week or two that escalated into my being terminated. While the decisions I made were kosher with my contract and were built upon advice from other professionals who had been in my shoes, I now consider my approach to be a failure. It's important to note that I don't regret standing up for myself, as that lesson was overdue for separate reasons. However, my mindset throughout the conflict did not serve me any good and I've now seen the severity of my entitlement and self importance through a magnifying glass.

I could detail you the statistics on median pay for my job, my old company, my state, etc. I could state why the situation seemed unjust and why I felt underappreciated and fooled. Maybe it was unfair on paper, and maybe I had the right to be angry, depending on who you ask. But I don't care anymore.

Time has been plentiful for my unemployed self. I have spent it ruminating, walking, and listening to audiobooks, one of which is Ego is the Enemy by Ryan Holiday. In one chapter, Holiday details Jackie Robinson's struggles as a black man trying to play professional baseball. If anything was fair on paper, it would have been Jackie Robinson fighting back against the racists (which he did and was arrested for when he was younger). But as a professional, he was encouraged by others to ignore racism and just beat them in games. And he did. He didn’t fight anybody anymore, even though he would have been right to and those idiots would have deserved it. Being a famous baseball player and fully grown adult yet being treated like a non-human or a child is the peak of unfair. But Holiday’s book’s point is that looking past unfairness towards the mission is sometimes necessary to accomplish it.

I'm not saying my life struggle compares to Jackie Robinson's. In fact, that is exactly what I'm not saying. My "unfair" situations pale in comparison to his. He climbed Everest and I'm over here upset about an ant hill. And in some sense, I made that ant hill myself. I mean that if he can experience literal crimes and keep his head up, then I need to shut my damn mouth.

What is the correct approach to my work then? Let's rewind a bit. Full disclosure, my old approach to my life's work was this:

I am going to work myself to death for you, and if you don't give me the world in return, that is a moral failure.

Isn't that a biting statement? There is the entitlement out in the open. I'm not proud to have thought this way at all, and I'm sorry to all of you have had to put up with this mindset from me. But there it is.

Now. Where do we go from here? Well, during my unemployed ruminations over the past few weeks, I came across Dr. Alok Kanojia's (AKA HealthyGamerGG on Youtube) video on motivation, fairness, and how we're not entitled to anything. He talked about how, since life is unfair and unpredictable, we are not entitled to the results of our actions. We don't automatically have the right to the outcome of an action. We only have the actions themselves. Studying doesn’t entitle us to an A+. We are only entitled to the studying itself. That’s the way of the universe. In my old job, I prioritized work above all else. I forewent classes that I ended up failing or dropping. I begged to work overtime. I was, in the words of multiple others, "kicking ass." Then I decided I was entitled to something because of it. And I got angry when that was not satisfied. That is where I went wrong. It is true that I was promised a few things that did not come to fruition. Maybe it was morally acceptable to be angry about unfulfilled promises. But like I said, I’m done caring about that. That's not what it is about anymore.

What is it about is action. All we have in life is our actions. The more I think about what I value, the more I see the emphasis on action.

When we say to live in the present instead of the past or future, we're talking about action, since the present is the only time action can happen

When we roll our eyes at the person who says "I'm the idea guy," we're valuing action

The concept "Show, don't tell" works, because it is about action

Giving your soul to a job/person/thing who didn't even ask for it, then holding out your hand and saying "Gimme" is not about action. It is focused on outcome. Maybe it’s not fair that we can’t expect equal rewards in return for our work all the time. And on paper, it really is. Give X, get X. Seems fair and logical. But for me, for that to be the starting place and the motivation for my work no longer serves me. I’m not saying fairness isn’t a worthy goal or that it is bad. Fairness can be the outcome of a good mission. But it is not required to complete the mission. And it’s not going to be the sole motivator for my decisions, because life is grey and humans can’t always deliver on promises, through no fault of their own. What I'm not going to do anymore is throw my hands up and say, "Sorry, this is unfair so I quit.”

Where this leaves me is that I'm reconsidering my career--not only how I approach the work but the field I chose entirely. In the past, I tried to do biomedical research, but I failed. I have also enrolled and unenrolled in many an EMT class and have taken and failed Biology, Chemistry, and Physics classes repeatedly. This was all because of a hazy dream of being a doctor that has sat in the back of my mind every day.

I kept trying out this doctor dream, but I would always hit a tiny snag, exaggerate it, and give up. I have gone through about 10 multi-month cycles of this for years. And guess what the snags were:

That professor gave me a B+ instead of an A on a single exam. Pre-med education is inherently unfair, and I'm not putting up with this.

I have to study this bio concept that I probably won't even use if I become a real doctor. That's a waste of my time, so I'd rather fail/drop than learn it.

Doctors have to get up at 5am? That goes against science on sleep schedules, so I'm not going to do it.

How pissy and entitled? Who thinks like that? Me, apparently--or who I hope to be "old me."

How did I get so caught up in what is fair or unfair that I lost sight of the forest for the trees? News flash, self... everything is unfair! Gym is always packed? Unfair. Fighting cancer? Unfair. Some idiot who cares less than you do got picked for the job? Unfair. Hell, the unfairness of life is half the reason why we even get up in the morning. Name a career that isn’t about taking an unfair situation and turning it into a better one. (If you can, maybe don’t do that career.) We do stuff as humans, because it’s unfair. Or the alternative, not doing it, would be unfair. If doctors threw up their hands because disease is unfair, we’d still be fighting polio. I wouldn’t make it one second in caveman times with my old attitude. The hungry lions staring at my caveman camp don’t care what I think is fair.

So here's the mission. We are going to look unfair things in the face and still do them. Despite their unfairness. Despite the fear that something will take more than it gives. Despite the brain saying, "This is inefficient, so let's not do it at all." In fact, it's because of their unfairness that we will do them. Then we can leave them better off for someone else. Or do them better the next time. I am calling this Project Sour Grapes. It starts right now.

#sourgrapes

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violetwolfraven · 3 years

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Hey! I have a couple requests from the prompt thing but imma send them in separately. 46 for Sprace (the having to tell Jack about their relationship one) in canon era please? I love Jack as everyone's older brother it is literally the best thing ever. Maybe he realizes Race keeps going over to Brooklyn and then is super worried and overthinking what he's doing over there so they end up having to explain? Thank you!

Tentatively trying this cause I’m not sure if my writing senses are back yet so if it comes out shitty I apologize.

I’ve actually done this exact prompt twice already with 2 other angles! So here goes Jack finding out about sprace, take 3.

Tw: anxiety.

...

Jack wasn’t stupid, and though running a borough and a union wasn’t exactly easy, he wasn’t so busy that he didn’t notice when one of his kids went missing.

There was a reason Jack was never first in line at the distribution center, and it wasn’t (only) so that Weasel and the Delanceys were already good and annoyed, courtesy of his friends, by the time he got up there.

It was mostly because the extra time from being a few back in the line was good for taking a headcount, making sure everyone who’d left the Lodging House was still there before anyone left to go to their selling spots. Making sure the older boys that were assigned Littles to look after had those Littles with them. Checking for limps or coughs that he hadn’t had time to notice on the way out the door.

It was the same when he checked around every night, making sure everyone was in their beds and checking on anyone who’d seemed sad that day. It was taking care of his friends, because Jack was the oldest and God knew nobody else was taking care of them.

Hell, he called them friends, but they were really more like family. The only family he remembered besides a few vague memories of a mother who’d died when he was young and a father who’d never exactly been a good one. And some of them had been around longer than others, but...

The ones who’d been around the longest, who’d showed up around the same time, when Jack was 7 and they were 6 and 5, respectively, were Crutchie and Race. His brothers even more than the others were. His most trusted friends. His seconds who would one day take over Manhattan when he left.

Jack had been watching over them the longest, so of course he still paid special attention to those two, keeping them close and safe. Even if they could take care of themselves and there were others who objectively needed him more, of course Jack still noticed when they had bad days. He did know them better than practically anyone, after all.

So of course he noticed when one of them started acting weird.

Race always sold in Brooklyn. He had since they were like... 11 and 9, ever since he struck up that deal with a girl who let him sell at Sheepshead. And he always made so much that nobody could tell him to come back and sell in Manhattan.

He always came home right after selling hours ended. And even though Brooklyn was a rougher neighborhood, he always came home safe.

Which was why it was so weird how he turned 15 and a few months later he just suddenly stopped coming home right after selling time, barely making it back before dark, some nights.

And yeah, wanting to take some space and time away from home was a normal teenage thing to do, as far as Jack knew—he’d never gotten the option to do that, being in charge of keeping his kids alive since he was 14—but he was starting to worry that something was seriously wrong, with how Race came back flustered and clearly hiding something.

Then the strike happened, and...

Well, if Race came back late before, it was nothing compared to how he started coming home after dark, barely before midnight, or even staying in Brooklyn overnight, a couple times.

Jack was preoccupied with the rest of the borough, with Katherine as they got caught up in the euphoria of the action and then Sarah as he tried to rebound from getting dumped and then Davey as he finally figured out his own heart, but he still wasn’t so distracted that he didn’t notice one of his seconds staying out all night.

Race wouldn’t tell him why, no matter how much he tried to seem reassuring and supportive of whatever it was. It was like he didn’t trust Jack anymore.

And... and that was fair. Jack had let him down during the strike by making him feel abandoned and betrayed—making all his kids feel that way—but it had seemed to blow over with the others after he explained that he didn’t scab for the money, so why not with Race? What was different that would make him not trust Jack when the others did?

The fear kept creeping in that whatever it was was going to make Race switch boroughs. He was spending an awful lot of time in Brooklyn, and he was hiding something from Jack for practically the first time since they’d met.

Davey told him not to worry, told him it wasn’t as serious as that, but Jack knew Race better.

And plus, Crutchie was worried, too. He told Jack that one night on the fire escape, after they watched Race ‘sneak’ into the house late for the 5th time that month. That it was weird he was spending so much time in Brooklyn and wouldn’t tell either of them why.

What was equally weird was how Albert usually wasn’t considered trustworthy as a secret keeper and yet he wouldn’t tell this one of Race’s despite the fact that he clearly knew. That meant that Race really wanted it kept a secret. It was suspicious.

Which was why Jack was doing something he didn’t do that often; doing something after Davey specifically told him it was a bad idea and not to do it.

The thing was, when a kid who was essentially your little brother kept coming home late, acting distant, and wouldn’t tell you why, you had to take steps. Which was why Jack was following Race to Brooklyn today, from enough of a distance that he hadn’t noticed yet.

He was heading to Sheepshead like he always did, and as Jack watched him throughout the day, he was just selling like any other newsie and placing bets like... well, like Race.

It seemed like there was no reason why he would be staying out late, so why was he..?

By a few hours to the end of the day he’d sold most of his papers already, so it wasn’t exactly a surprise that he was heading under the stands for a break, but...

It started to get suspicious after he’d stayed down there for 20 minutes.

Naturally, Jack’s anxieties popped up again, wondering what if he’s hurt and he’s hiding it what if he’s in trouble what if he’s talking to a Brooklyn kid about switching boroughs and he snuck down to where he knew Race usually hung out, staying quiet as he could and feeling stupid but still also feeling the need to go keep following.

Given that he trusted Race despite his insecurities, Jack wasn’t sure what he was expecting to find.

But whatever he was expecting, it definitely was not Race sitting against a stable wall, holding hands and trading lazy, carefree kisses with the King of Brooklyn like they didn’t care about the law or the summer heat or... anything.

It clearly wasn’t the first time and everything made sense now.

Neither of them noticed Jack was standing there, which was partially shocking and partially just... Jack didn’t know what. He had no idea what was going on right now and shock was all he was feeling.

He cleared his throat, “So...”

Race and Spot jumped, and one of them yelped as they shoved apart, getting to their feet.

“Jack?”

Race’s voice was an octave higher than usual. Spot had put himself between the two of them, which was... kind of odd to realize he was that protective, but good? Jack was still so confused.

But he knew Race looked scared, and as much as he was trying to hide it, so did Spot. He couldn’t have that.

“Whoa,” Jack put his hands up, “I ain’t tellin’ nobody. Don’t worry.”

“Yeah, cause if ya did, I’d tell everybody ‘bout you and Mouth,” Spot shot back.

“Spot, back off,” Race muttered under his breath, and Jack tried to swallow his panic. He didn’t know how Spot had found out about him and Davey, but it didn’t seem like a good thing that he knew.

Yeah... he really should have listened when Davey told him not to follow Race.

But shockingly, it looked like Spot was backing off. Like he was relaxing under the touch of Race’s hand on his shoulder. That only made Jack feel a little better, but he guessed Spot did have a reason to be defensive. If Jack outed him, it would probably get him killed.

It was dangerous to be queer, period, and it was even more dangerous when you were running the bloodiest borough in New York. And that meant it was dangerous for Race, too, but...

This did explain why he’d been spending so much time over here.

The three of them had already been standing in silence way too long when Race sighed, moving in front of Spot and making eye contact with Jack.

“I’m almost 16, Jack,” he said firmly, “I can do what I want and I don’t care if ya don’t approve. So if you’s got a problem with—“

“No,” Jack said quickly, “No, I... can we head back to Manhattan? Talk on the way?”

Spot tensed up, and the look he and Race exchanged was clearly a question and reassurance. A ‘do you want me to fight for you?’ and ‘no, I can handle this.’

Jack knew those kinds of looks because he’d exchanged similar ones with Davey plenty of times, even before they got together officially.

It was weird to think that if Race had started staying out late because of this, that meant he’d had a fella longer than Jack had, but that was something to have a crisis over another day.

When he turned back to Jack, he nodded, squeezing Spot’s hand before walking over, leading the way back towards home.

They didn’t start talking until they were on the bridge.

“How long?”

Race shrugged, not meeting Jack’s eyes, “A couple months before the strike, we’s had a fight that ended in us makin’ out. So... dependin’ on how ya look at it, since then?”

“What do ya mean, ‘dependin’ on how ya look at it?’”

“Well, at first, it was just physical. Y’know, makin’ out and not talkin’ about it? Then we finally had a real talk right after the strike and got on the same page ‘bout what we wanted and now it’s... more than that.”

As weird as it was to think about, Jack could tell by his tone what he meant by ‘more than that.’

It hurt that Race hadn’t told him, and more that he and Spot were putting themselves in danger just by being together, but...

“You love him, don’t ya?” he asked slowly.

Race tensed up for a second, then stopped walking, leaning against the edge of the bridge and staring out at the water.

“What’d ya say if I did?”

Jack hated the traces of fear the younger boy was trying to hide. He never wanted to make one of his feel that way.

Sure, he didn’t like the idea of Race being in danger, or of anyone being in a position to hurt him, but he and Spot were... well, now that Jack was thinking about it, they made sense in an abstract kind of way. Race could destroy someone in a battle of wits as fast as Spot could in a physical fight. They were both tough and both leaders, though in different ways. Spot hadn’t joined the strike right away out of concern for Brooklyn’s kids. Race had helped start it out of concern for Manhattan’s.

Jack had to admit, even if no one could know about them, they were a hell of a power couple.

“He treats ya right, yeah?” he asked quietly, “And you’s bein’ careful—not gettin’ caught?”

Race nodded, “Yeah, of course. Hotshot knows—Brooklyn’s second—he covers for us if needed. And Spot’d never hurt me. Even when we was just friends, let alone now.”

“Albert knows, too, don’t he?”

“Uh...yeah. And Romeo figured out I was sweet on someone and wouldn’t leave me alone until I told him who it was, so he knows. And Kath walked in on us once.”

Aside from the fact that Jack could not believe Katherine didn’t tell him...

“Maybe you’s shouldn’t make out where people can walk in on ya.”

Race laughed, “That might be smart.”

He got serious again a little too quickly to be as fine as he was pretending be. Jack walking in on them before he was ready to tell had clearly shaken him.

Jack now felt pretty stupid for following him over here. He should‘ve listened to Davey.

“I thought you was thinkin’ about switchin’ boroughs.”

“What? No,” Race said quickly, a little too defensively, “Manhattan’s my home. My family. I wouldn’t just leave. I’m supposed to take over someday—with Crutchie, I mean. I’d never just abandon that.”

“I know,” Jack said, trying to reassure him, “I didn’t think it was you runnin’ from responsibility. I know you’re stronger than me, Racer. I thought... I thought it was cause... cause of me. Cause I let ya down in the strike.”

“Jack...”

He seemed to be struggling for words, but every second where he didn’t say anything made Jack feel worse.

“It was scary,” he admitted finally, “Yeah. I was runnin’ Manhattan alone all sudden-like and that was scary. I didn’t even have Crutchie, and Davey was tryin’ to help but he didn’t know what he was doing. It wasn’t like you always told me it’d be like when I ended up in command and I didn’t understand why—you always seemed like the one who’d stand by the rest of us no matter what. You promised you wouldn’t just leave with no warnin’.”

Jack felt terrible for that. He knew, firsthand, how hard it was having to take a command he never asked for with no warning. He’d had to take over the borough when he was 14, after his mentor died.

He’d never wanted that for Race or Crutchie. He’d always told himself that if he ever actually went to Santa Fe, he wouldn’t leave them hanging like that. He’d give them at least a couple weeks to prepare, ideally transition authority gradually so he could be sure they were ready and they’d be able to take care of the others.

Jack took a deep breath, “I’m so sorry, Racer.”

“There was about to be a ‘but.’”

“Oh. Okay. Go ahead.”

“But,” Race said, “Jack, yeah, you scared me, but... ya told me that night. You did it for Davey. Why’d ya think I actually got the others to help?”

“Cause you knew we needed to win the strike quick before we all starved?” Jack asked, “And Kath’s article was the best chance?”

He shook his head, “No. It was cause blood be damned, you’re my big brother. You’s been there protectin’ me and Crutchie and the others since we was Littles. I already wanted to believe ya had a good reason. I didn’t trust you a ton just then, but I wanted to. And once you explained... I got it. I get it. Cause I’d do the same thing for Spot if I had to.”

By implying that what he and Spot had was like what Jack and Davey had...

Race knew how hard it was for Jack to let down his guard. So he knew what a big deal it was that he did with Davey. He knew they had a connection even beyond the connection Jack had with any of the others.

Jack was glad he’d found that. Someone he could understand and connect with. Even if the idea of it kind of made him uncomfortable.

“I know Spot and me don’t always get along,” he admitted, “But I trust your judgement and I know you can take care of yourself, so... I’m happy for ya, Racer.”

Race smiled a little, “Thanks.”

“Plus,” Jack bumped him gently as they started walking again, “I saw the way he looks at ya. Most people would kill to have someone they love look at them like that.”

“You mean like how Davey looks at you?” Race asked cheekily, bumping him back.

Jack smiled, mostly to himself. Davey was going to enjoy saying ‘I told you so’ when Jack told him he was right that he shouldn’t have worried.

...wait. Davey had seemed 100% sure that Race was fine. And he knew how dumb the younger boy could be, so it was unlikely it was because he trusted Race’s judgement.

“Wait, does Davey know?”

“Uh...” Race laughed awkwardly, “He mighta caught me sneakin’ back into the Lodgin’ House a couple weeks ago. And he gave me that look—y’know the one—where he looks all disappointed? He asked where I was and I panicked and said I was with Spot, so... I didn’t exactly tell him, but he probably guessed?”

“Yeah, cause he ain’t a dumbass.”

It was a little surprising that he hadn’t told Jack even if it was just a guess, but...

“I asked him not to tell ya,” Race admitted, “Or Crutchie. Cause I didn’t know how you’d react. That probably... also clued him in.”

“Oh, Crutchie’s gonna wanna scare the shit out of Spottie boy when he finds out.”

Race laughed kind of nervously, the smile fading from his face pretty quick.

“I ain’t gonna tell him if you don’t want me to,” Jack added quickly, “And he’ll be fine with it when he does find out. He knows you’s can take care of yourself, same as me. He’ll still wanna give Spot a shovel talk, though. Matter of fact, so do I.”

“Well, I knows Spot can handle a shovel talk.”

He was still hesitating, and Jack was tempted to ask what he was so afraid to say.

They were almost back to the Lodging House by the time he did.

“You’s really okay with this?” he asked, “Me and Spot? You ain’t gonna freak out?”

Jack threw an arm around his little brother, “Race, long as you’re happy, I’m happy.”

#newsies #sprace #javid #jack kelly #racetrack higgins #spot conlon #crutchie morris #davey jacobs #anxiety tw #violet’s writing

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snowpeawritings · 4 years

Note

Hi, I would like to request a Ren/Akira story where the reader got caught up in the palace transfer thing with PT and unlocks her persona after being told she will never be able to be as strong or of use like the others. Thanks and I really love you work!

yessss always wanted to write an awakening scene!

Reader is female

CW (CONTENT WARNING): Swearing

You wanted to change this rotten world for the better but you were a pacifist.

Your parents raised you to never fight violence with violence, lest it would continue this toxic cycle that will never end. As much as you hated the fact that you can’t do anything to change things physically, just being there emotionally is enough for you. As such, you weren’t easily the most picked on. No one disliked you, but no one particularly liked you.

And you were fine with that.

With the coming of the transfer student, students and teachers were already giving him shit. You knew Kamoshida's… actions in order to become the school’s fan favorite. It honestly pissed you off to no end, having a scumbag like him walk like he owns the place, but you really couldn’t stand up to him and his adoring fans. All you could do whenever the transfer student (you believed his name was Kurusu?) is getting ostracised from the school is giving him your time and becoming his first friend.

And you were fine with that.

Turns out he wasn’t the delinquent everyone made him out to be. He just wanted to have his normal future back and a normal high school life. While you could never grant him that wish, you’ll be his support when people weigh him down. Even the threat of expulsion of him, Ryuji and Mishima would keep him up, you would always be there. Even if there’s nothing more you could do than offer half-empty words.

And you were fine with that.

When news of Kamoshida’s confession spread, you really didn’t know what to think. The calling card that was posted across the school bulletin made you believe these ‘thieves’ but it was a far stretch. You were still Akira’s friend whom he hangs out with from time to time but you never knew that he was friends with Ryuji and Ann. Then the circle grew to Mishima, to a student from Kosei High, to Makoto Niijima–

And you were fine with being outside of his circle.

He certainly looked happier when he was with them. While he rarely smiles, you could see that glint of life in his dark eyes whenever Ryuji makes a corny joke and Ann has to smack him upside the head or when he says something witty that just encompasses how much of a dork he is. He even went so far as to try to serenade his cat when the feline clearly did not want to be held[1] (who knew he had such a great voice?).

He did smile when you were hanging out with him, but you never seen him truly look happy with you. For some reason, you were fine with that.

Akira still tries to hang out with you. You could tell when his eyes winced at his own disappointment when he rejected you spending some time with him. His circle of friends were his top priority as he always goes out with them seemingly every day. As much as you wanted to respect his private life, you yourself had to guess just where the heck they kept going, especially when they were a fairly big group.

You didn’t want to follow them but to be fair, it was sheer coincidence that you were there when the entire world shifted. And no, it wasn’t because you wanted to follow Ryuji because he still hasn’t paid his debt to you to buy that entire pack of Black Thunder chocolate.

The dilapidated and destroyed train station is what you saw when you opened your eyes. You were sure this was the station that you wait for your train but never in complete chaos like this. Honestly, the place isn’t what made you scream. What you screamed was when the weird-looking cat in front of you transformed into a van in front of a group of equally weird-looking people.

When the fellow in the black coat whipped his head, you knew those dark eyes anywhere.

“It’s you!?” You screeched, your voice echoing across the tunnel endlessly. “Y-You mean… this entire time, the Phantom Thieves were you guys!?”

The girl in red who you were sure was Ann waved her hands rapidly. “No, _______! We’re not—”

Her eyes widened in surprise at her mistake before slapping her gloved hands over her mouth. “Wait, no! I mean—”

The blonde boy beside her, Ryuji, stomped his foot at Ann’s glaring mistake. “Great way to eff it up, Panther! Now she knows who we are now!”

The way that ‘Panther’ had smacked Ryuji upside the head proved your hunch right; the ragtag group of vigilante thieves that steal hearts were also your own classmates.

“I mean…” You said shakily, trying to diffuse the fight between Ryuji and Ann. “It’s pretty obvious from your voice and hair. But seriously, w-where are we? What is this place?”

The comment about them being obvious was ignored for now. Instead, the brunette you knew to be Makoto stepped in and explained everything to an extent: the Metaverse, them being the Phantom Thieves of Heart, and a magical cat.

“But please, please keep this a secret.” Makoto-or Queen- pleaded with you. “Our entire work would be gone if you tell anyone else what we do.”

You waved your hand to calm her down. “I’ll keep this a secret, don’t worry. Besides, no one talks to me so it’s all good.”

You looked over to Morgana, the cat bus that seemed to regard you with what you guessed was slight interest. “So… how do you guys normally get out of here?”

Akira-or Joker-answered you. “There’s this app on our phones that lets us go in and out of the Metaverse. And right now, I’m getting you out of here.”

As much as you wanted to stay and see how they do their job, you nodded in agreement with him. He stepped close to you, phone in his hand as his finger hovered over an eerily-looking red eye.

“I promise,” He whispered to you, his breath fanning against your ear which made you shiver, “I’ll explain everything to you once we’re done here.”

Him being so close has your heart churning. And you were fine with that.

But the fleeting moment ended when you heard the sound of metal clanging against each other before Joker had been sent flying from you. Just a second he was standing so close to you. Now, he was sprawled on the floor, Queen healing him as the rest of the Thieves huddled together to protect their leader.

The being that attacked Joker looked like someone from Buddhist lore; its fists crackled with lightning before hurling a large bolt of thunder towards the group. The resounding clap of thunder soon followed, electrocuting everyone who and especially the severely weakened Joker. It was only Skull who was still standing but even he looked like he was about to faint from how everyone couldn’t stand up.

“Th-The hell!?” Skull gasped out, shakily bringing out an iron bat before sizing up the figure. “Where the hell did you come from!?”

Mona groaned out from his spot. “Don’t bother fighting it, Skull! He landed a critical hit on us!”

“Get ______ out of here!” Joker gasped out, his hands inching for his mask. “I’ll hold him back for you two to escape!”

His voice brought you some clarity. The gravity of the situation had just sunk in and right now, you didn’t know whether you wanted to collapse, vomit or both. The rest of the thieves were still trying to stand up in the face of the enemy but with it raising its fists, you don’t think they could dodge it in time.

With Skull quivering, with Joker yelling, and with you panicking, you had to move. You had to move you had to move you had TO MOVE–

“And what is this?”

The next moment you blinked, you were standing in front of the large figure with the Phantom Thieves behind you. The blood pumping in your ears muffled your hearing, the sounds you could only make out were your rapidly beating heart and the booming voice of the Buddhist deity.

“Quite a brave one to stand up to me,” he said to you, “you’ll be the first to die.”

You swallowed in your bile. “I… I can still hurt you, you know!”

He slowly moved down his fists and crossed his arms below his chest. “And what good will come out of it? Your comrades are down–”

Your ears cleared for a bit, only to hear the group’s desperate shouts for you to move.

“This one is still shaking–”

Skull was already heaving at this point.

“And you can do nothing about it.”

You can do nothing about it.

That’s always been your entire schtick. You can do nothing about it. You said you wanted to change the world for the better but you were just a teenager who has some social problems. You were always the last choice when all of the good ones are used up. You were always the one in the sidelines–

“And are you fine with that?”

A sharp pain, resounding across your head before battering against your brain like a ram.

“Are you fine sticking to the sidelines, only watching others change while you stay frozen?”

Your hands grasped your head, your saliva mixed with some bile dripping down on the ground as your head pounded. Nothing could be heard except the voice in your head and it felt so goddamn right.

“Nothing will change if you yourself won’t follow through with it. You’re only continuing this tireless cycle that you wanted to desperately break. And you’re fine with that?”

“I’m not…” You growled out. The pain was unbearable but it only fueled your spite you kept hidden all this time. Within your rising rage, you barely registered getting Skull’s bat.

With a roar, you ran towards the beast, raising the bat before smashing the side of his face. “I’m not going to stand still anymore!”

The voice chuckled. “Good. That anger coupled with my power… no one can stop us.”

“I am thou, thou art I… become the winds of change that fuels the rebellion inside people’s hearts! Show them the anger that you swallowed all this time!”

A red mask lined with gold adorned your face, the feather on the left temple danced wildly with the winds blowing from you.

As your fingers gripped the mask, your lips quirked into a smirk. “Sing your heart out… De Beauvoir!”

Everything blew back; the beast, the rest of the thieves, and your self-loathing. The navy blue that adorned your body whipped around from the wind, the coattails behind you gave the appearance of wings ready to take flight. From your hip, you grabbed your sabre and flourished it before pointing the tip at the beast.

The thieves behind you stared in awe at you and the feminine figure appearing behind you. Her ball gown danced about, showing the white petticoat underneath as a pale red veil covered her flowing locks.

“What awesome power…!” Mona breathed out. “I knew there was something special about her!”

De Beauvoir’s face was covered with a masquerade ball mask, a golden band that stretched across the upper part of her face in order to highlight the rage that was building in her azure eyes. Her painted lips parted, and a single note rang out that slowly transitioned into a vibrato as a pale green light shined on the group.

“A healing spell?” Queen questioned, her strength slowly getting back as she stood up.

Yusuke-or Fox-who had been silent since your arrival, gasped at your transformation. “Such form… I never expected her to have this much power.”

“Sorry for blowing you all away.” You called out to the group, your eyes narrowing at the beast. “But with me and De Beauvoir, allow us to thank you for granting us this power!”

You felt movement beside as you turned your eyes to see Joker smirking at you. His dark eyes shone with that same glint of life when you realized that he finally gave that look to you.

“Don’t run away now.” He jested.

You scoffed but your smirk still stayed. “Same to you!”

—————————-

[1] OKOK this was hella inspired by Xander Mobus and Robbie Daymond singing together and im sO ATTACKED BY XANDER!!!!

AND THE THING OF HIM SERENADING MORGANA IS FROM THIS

#requests #scenario #persona #persona 5 imagines #persona 5 #akira kurusu #akira kurusu x reader #akira kurusu imagines #x f!reader #x female!reader #pastelblogsposts

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gringolet · 4 years

Note

hi why do you ship gawain with lancelot? not trying to start shit im just curious

God so this is a true fact but I’ve been thinking about them since sophomore year of high school (i'm a college sophomore now) so this is going to be lengthy and involved. But i think Lancelot and Gawain have a really interesting dynamic as well as a lot of support in text which i think makes them compelling.

In a lot of ways they are equals in a way neither of them is with anyone else-- they are, in the vulgate at least, the two best knights in the world, the two arthur trusts most and who are famous even among other good knights. Its almost isolating, that level of renown, and you see that Lancelot in particular is uncomfortable with it, though they both at times have stories of trying to escape their own names. Of course they would understand each other in a way no one else could.

Despite the fact that Lancelot quite literally steals his place as number one, gawain is never resentful of this, never upset to lose to lancelot. In fact he seems very happy to sing his praises to anyone he meets, like in Lancelot and the Hart with the White Foot, where he says of lancelot that “He is the best knight alive in the entire world, and moreover the most handsome.”

In the stanzaic morte, he tells elaine of shallot that

“Such a leman as thou hast one,

In all this world ne be no mo.

There is no lady of flesh ne bone

In this worlde so thrive or thro,

Though her herte were steel or stone,

That might her love holde him fro.”

Or, translated,

Such a love as you have,

there’s no better in the world.

There is no lady of flesh or bone,

In this world so lucky or stubborn

Though her heart were steel or stone,

She could stop it from loving him.’

In the vulgate hes constantly running after lancelot, happy to play sidekick as long as it means lancelot's company. He pretty infamously says this about lancelot:

Then Sir Gawain thought a little, like a man who believed he would never be well again. “If God were to grant me my health,” he said, “I’d immediately wish to be the most beautiful maiden in the world, happy and healthy, on condition that he would love me above all others, all his life and mine.”

I think this is really interesting because its not a devotion gawain shows to anyone else outside of his family. Hes oddly protective of lancelot, considering he can very well fend for himself usually. In the dutch hart, he literally tracks down and kills a man who hurt lancelot, before tying his body to his horse and dragging it around like achilles. He also rescues and heals him in morien, gets the whole court in a tizzy looking for him after a battle with galehaut where he spends a year searching, drags lancelots poor cousins all over looking for him after a tournament, freaks out when he goes missing in the hart (: “He lamented more grievously than anyone ever will, or had ever done before, because he thought he had lost Lancelot, the daring knight.”) like jesus gawain calm down.

He explicitly forsakes his devotion and duty to the country in favour of lancelot; in morien, hes called to take his place as king because arthur is gone, and he refuses in favour of, you guessed it, running after lancelot. In chretien it is said that

“Now I will tell you the truth, and you must not think I lie, that Gawain would not wish to be chosen king, unless he had Lancelot with him. “

And he lies to arthurs face multiple times in the vulgate and morte to hide lancelot's various crimes.

Speaking of crimes, theyre both uh, well. Literal serial killers. And you know its good to have hobbies in common in a relationship. No but seriously they represent a lot of the darker parts of knighthood. From lancelots bit with the proud knight in kotc to gawains… what can be only described as massacres in the dutch texts. They both have very odd relationships with death, with gawain so familiar with it by being surrounded by violence from a young age that it no longer affects him, while lancelot is almost the opposite-- its very distant to him.

I think thats another reason i like them; theyre similar in a lot of ways but in just as many they are opposites. Gawains whole deal is being charming, manipulative, educated and good with words. Lancelot is in contrast, especially in chretien and the vulgate, at his most inept in social situations. You note that in the hart, its gawain that has to talk him out of the marriage he accidentally agreed to (“ But he does not at this time wish to marry you-- you must understand...”) etc. while gawain is centered at court in a web of political alliances, lancelot is a fair unknown, who can and does disappear for years and generally avoid court when he can. I think they work well as a team because of this.

Lancelot certainly think so, at least in the morien: Quoth Sir Lancelot: "By the Lord who made me, and who shall be Doom's-man at the last day, come what may thereof, since Sir Gawain rideth hence 'tis not I will bide behind!”

He isnt as quotable outside of one specific scene ill get to later, and most of what he does say is in aside to himself, like the lengthy speech he gives in knight of the cart while debating to himself why gawain has failed to rescue him, and if this means gawain doesn’t love him (“He ought indeed to receive your aid whom you used to love so devotedly! For my part I may truly say that there is no lodging place or retreat on either side of the sea, where I would not have searched for you at least seven or ten years before finding you, if I knew you to be in prison. But why do I thus torment myself? You do not care for me even enough to take this trouble.”) trust me it goes on like this for quite a while.

On a side note, i think its a bit reminiscent of a scene from the vulgate where gawain thinks that lancelot is in love with elaine of shallot--

“That night he thought a lot about Lancelot and said to himself that he would not have thought that Lancelot would have aspired to leave his heart in any place that was not nobler and more honourable than all others. ‘And yet,’ he said, ‘I cannot really blame him if he loves this girl… (he goes on in debate with himself)...

That night Sir Gawain slept very little, because he was thinking of the girl and Lancelot,”

the morte specifically calls gawain the man lancelot loves most in the world, according to a prophecy of merlins. Then, the kicker: he kills gawains brothers on accident, gawain swears to kill him in revenge, and lancelot…. Refuses to kill gawain, or even to renounce love for him. When asked about the fight, he says:

“I do not know what the outcome will be, but I do know that if I were the winner and ought to cut off his head, I should not be able to kill him for all the world, because I think he is too noble. Moreover, he is the man, out of all those in the world that have meant anything to me, that I have most loved, and still do,”

Gawain forgives him on his deathbed and writes a letter, the entirety of which i implore you to read. He begs lancelot’s forgiveness and for him to return from france and see gawains tomb, “for all the love that was betwixt us”

I think you could interpret this as a very passionate friendship, certainly, but i am gay and so i think they are too. Not only because of the texts but because of the fact that their dynamic is fun and interesting and they work well together.

Oh, and if anyone was wondering why i call them remarkable, here is another quote from the vulgate, following the first fight with gawain:

‘It is certainly remarkable of you,’ said King Bors, ‘to love him so deeply when he hates you mortally.’

‘Find it remarkable if you wish,’ replied Lancelot, ‘but he will never be able to hate me so much that I stop loving him.’

#arthuriana #gawain #lancelot #remarkable #long post #sorry i went insane on this ask #i just think.i just. i just.#Anonymous

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windbournefree · 3 years

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AARON SORKIN'S "WOMAN PROBLEM" AND THE NEWSROOM

After binging on The Newsroom (and loving it) created by Aaron Sorkin I got to thinking about his reputed "woman problem" when some YouTube commenter described all the female characters on the show as "twits." That's a characterization I strongly disagree with, and will show why, but also can't shake the intuitive sense that his portrayal is rightly controversial. By that I mean it is right that it should be a matter of discussion, not that it is necessarily wrong. The people holding the discussion need to decide that for themselves.

First the bald facts. Women in this drama hold power: Leona founded and still owns the company, Mackenzie is the Executive Producer of the network's flagship news program with a male second-in-command and many male staff, Sloan is the acknowledged smartest person in the company with far more lucrative prospects awaiting her should she choose them, Maggie is promoted instantly from a personal aide to an associate producer by a woman despite her youth and inexperience. Women are in leadership roles with real power that they do exercise.

In their relationships to men, the women in The Newsroom engage in give and take.

Mackenzie may look at Will like a doe-eyed schoolgirl at times but she's in love with him and is self-recriminating about previous behaviors. She isn't like that with any other male characters. Even with Will she frequently takes charge and makes him follow her direction, which he does. Mac exercises real power in her relationship with Will from episode one on. When Will doles out his "punishments" she only takes them to the degree that she believes she should. She holds the power at any time to say, "That's enough!" which she does in regards to the engagement ring. When she does that he realizes he's gone too far and changes his behavior.

Maggie coddles Don in most of the scenes we see of them and breaks up with him mostly in scenes we don't see. I'd venture to guess that the early breakups happen because the relationship has no room for her passion and she gets tired of soothing his ego to make things work. In contrast, Maggie's drawn to Jim because he awakens and allows room for her passion. Most employees who confront and yell at their bosses as much as she does with Jim would be suspended and/or fired. He lets her get away with it to a degree because he recognizes that that same passion drives her to become an excellent journalist. And because he likes her. Both are true. Every once in awhile he has to reprimand her in public to assert authority over his team or it gives permission to his other staff to behave the same way. Maggie is no shrinking violet. She is strong and self-directed and refuses to allow a man to control her. Most of her errors come from inexperience and human frailty. None of them occur because she's a woman.

Sloan clearly wears the pants in her relationship to Don which, to his surprise, he doesn't mind. Ever once in awhile, though, they switch roles or just relate as equals. Don goes from dating the young intern who part of him wants to dominate to dating the highly intelligent, self-directed professional who no man can dominate and becomes a better version of himself as a result. Sloan's errors in her first broadcast about Fukushima occur not because she is scared by Will as a man but because she's scared by him as respected professional. His gender doesn't matter to her. When Charlie yells at her about it she tells him strongly, "Do not call me 'girl,' sir!" And that's to the head of the News Division.

Leona clearly rules the roost and fights with Charlie as an equal or as a subordinate, never as a superior. They fight the way old friends do.

In no respect are women as a class portrayed as inferior or subordinate to the power of men. So why do I get that intuitive itch that there's something old-fashioned about Sorkin's writing on gender relations?

I think it's that some of the male characters in The Newsroom tend to be the carriers of logic and reasoning while the female characters tend to be the carriers of emotional expression. This isn't always true: Sloan is highly logical (while also passionate) and Charlie is highly emotional (while also reasonable) and Neal carries both in balance. It's certainly true, however, of the Jim & Maggie relationship which is intended as a reflection of the older Will & Mackenzie one. Remember how, in episode one, Mackenzie points out Maggie to Jim and tells him that she's a younger version of her before she grew into herself and got hotter with age? And why has Jim long been Mackenzie's choice for supervising producer? Could it be because he reminds her of Will? I think so. I also think it's fair to assume that Sorkin does not intend for that rational/emotional dichotomy to typify all gender relations since he gives us alternate examples. More likely it's because Sorkin is a brainy guy who prefers an emotionally expressive woman to bring balance into his life. When he writes romance it comes out of who he is, what he likes. That's how he connects to the material at a feeling level. Some viewers may prefer a flip on those traditional associations and the Don & Sloan relationship may have been his attempt to provide that. It's not where Sorkin feels at his strongest or most natural, though, so he writes what he knows.

There ARE problems with The Newsroom, though, that I think if addressed would have reduced criticism. In no way should bosses be allowed to date subordinates over whose careers they have an influence. The producers decide what stories are aired. The career of a journalist rises and falls with the number and quality of stories they get aired. Dating a subordinate in this environment is a breach of ethics and most professional workplace standards. To be fair, Maggie was first an intern then a personal aide and only became an associate producer (journalist) as Don was on his way out so it wasn't a total breach; definitely in the gray area, though. The sexual tension between Jim and Maggie, obvious to everyone (as Sloan pointed out in the finale), often broke out into open conflict. Mackenzie should have addressed this conflict as their supervisor but instead encouraged it. As Jim points out it was Mac's idea for him to get together with Maggie in the first place. Again, it was Mac's advice to Jim to "gather ye rosebuds while ye may" that led to his and Maggie's first kiss and then Jim deciding this was wrong. Mackenzie's regrets about her relationship with Will colored her judgment and led her to offer advice that may have been okay coming from a friend but was inappropriate coming from a supervisor. She could have been rightly disciplined or even fired by HR if found out. Jim does decide that he can't date a subordinate however he feels but Mac should have intervened and threatened to move one of them out if they couldn't handle the tension in a professional manner. In the series finale Jim offers the Supervising Producer position to the woman he's in love with. How is that not an HR violation? How would Maggie's career not be dogged by rumors of "sleeping her way to the top" if she accepts it?

The other thing is the way emotional conflicts between several of the characters break out into office wide battles. Talk about an unsafe working environment! I can't see how the entire management staff wasn't fired on an almost weekly basis. And when Mackenzie commends Maggie for her loyalty by saying she wouldn't complain to HR if her hair was on fire I cringed. Is that the message you want to send out in a #MeToo world?

Aaron Sorkin says he likes to write "very romantically, very idealistically." The chaos in the newsroom is intended for laughs, not to be taken as a serious reflection of a workplace. The characters are flawed and frequently do not do what they should. The lack of HR supervision is even mentioned by a character in season one so there's awareness that liberties are being taken. I don't think there's an inherent woman problem here, just a production not as sensitive as it might be to the struggles women face in the workplace. There are good reasons why "no dating" policies are in place, why it's unprofessional to carry your personal life into the workplace. Workplace comedies routinely feature HR nightmares for the sake of laughs: Brooklyn 99 is a good example. We don't take them seriously. It's the sheer intelligence of The Newsroom and the realistic setting that may make the comedy part seem more serious than it is. Personally I see the show as a kind of joyful fantasy; Sports Night without the canned laughter. If you can separate the fantastic from the realistic I think you'll find that The Newsroom is actually very empowering for women.

#the newsroom #mackenzie mchale #will x mac #maggie jordan #jim harper #aaron sorkin #women in tv

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