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onyxoverride · 3 years

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Hopeless - Mikasa Ackerman x Reader

◙warnings: female reader. mutual pining. a sprinkle of sexuality struggles. fingering, eating pussy, face sitting. fluffy, wholesome. SMUT.

◙word count: 3.9k

◙summary: You like Mikasa but you’re struggling a bit to come to that realization, and now you struggle to confess. But confessing goes really well.

You didn't mean for it to go like this. You feel hopeless. It started with curious touches in the shower after grueling missions and massages after training, gentle caresses whenever she looked worried. You didn't even realize it started to be more until Jean started teasing you about liking her. You were confused but now you had to confront something about yourself that you never have before.

But if it's true… it makes sense. You never really showed much interest in the boys of the village and whenever one tried to flirt with you, you'd clap your hand on their back and compliment them, completely oblivious of their affections. And whenever girls would set flower crowns on your head it would make your heart flutter, and your best friend as a kid that let hands wander in the barn before dinner. You tucked it away deep within yourself. The memories and the mental struggles of trying to figure it out. Who has the time when you are trying to become a scout and kill titans and avoid being killed by said titans?

Did her sharing food with you and no one else mean something? Did her waiting to go to the showers with you mean anything? What about when you two trained with each other to the point of exhaustion, laying beside each other out of breath with the evening air trying its best to cool your heated skin. Yes, you worried for her yes, you cared but was it romantic?

You dig hard into your brain trying out different scenarios in your head trying to figure it out.

People go on dates, get food, and sometimes coffee, but you've done that with her before. Her favorite coffee is a lavender latte because she doesn't like the bitterness as much as you'd think, and lavender reminds her of Eren's mother, and she likes the apples from the stall closest to the alley by the inn because they're the juiciest and the vendor is the nicest old lady.

Well, people who date also hold hands, and you've done that before too, dragging her through the city on a momentary day off or after missions when things got particularly gorey even on missions riding in a carriage to your destination you'd grasp your hand around hers and squeeze to let her know that you are there and you are there for her.

She cared for you too. You know it, now, comparing what she did with everyone else to how she treats you. How she teased Sasha but gave you her leftover bread, how whenever Jean and Eren brawl she puts some sort of barrier between you and them just in case, even though she knows you know how to handle yourself. The little glances of confirmation that you are eating, you’re still there. When she helped you in the shower after hurting your leg on that one mission. The tension in the air was thick but it wasn’t exclusively sexual, intimate and intense as she helped you wash off the day’s grime and massage the soap around your shoulders and thighs. Circling soap around your thighs and hips and when she would help you stand she would ignore your shy demeanor for the sake of your comfort. Maybe that’s when you should have confronted this part of you but you’ve refused and pushed it away all this time why not some more? You’ve knocked it down every time it peaks its glaring head.

And then the dreams came.

What you've seen in the shower pieces itself together in unholy ways while you sleep. You still can feel her hands on your body from when she helped you. The interesting positions you would end up in while training with her fueled the dreams as well. The muscles she dutifully keeps up with straining for you, her calloused hands on your body, her grey eyes peeking at you from between your legs. Other Nights you would be on top of her, making her bite at her lips trying to keep her moans at bay. Almost every morning you can't look at her when you wake up because it's still so vivid. She'd paint mosaics in your skin with her tongue and you feel like you finally understand what those worshippers of the walls feel because you would do anything for her, worship her, keep all her secrets and demand her safety. You've had dreams like this before, one with Annie when you were training that terrified you more than Annie herself. Or those times when you stayed in an inn above a bar and the owner's daughter with brunette hair would flirt with you every chance she got.

But dreams of this intensity, this frequency? Never. It's disturbing your daily life and you are hopeless. Hopelessly head over heels with a woman you can only read into so much. She is not an open book but you've seen a few pages and it's enough to have you hooked on the series. This time you can't push it down, or away into the deepest wrinkles of your brain. Your attraction for her is branded into your temporal lobe burning through your skull and it's this close to being shown on your forehead. Now the food she shares, the concern she shows, you fear you're reading too deep into her actions. After she asks Eren if he's okay then it's you and no one else. Every time you speak with her it feels like the sun has hit your skin even when it's nighttime. Everybody else sees it, everybody else knows vaguely what is going on, except Eren and Mikasa it seems. Eren because he's too thick in the head to even understand what's going on between you and Mikasa and Mikasa because… well you don't know. Maybe she's gained Erens obliviousness over the years or maybe she just doesn't get whatever the fuck romance is or consists of or maybe she does get it but doesn't let on that she does. Jean had to get over his crush on Mikasa because at least he can see how she cared for you, which you feel bad for because he probably has a higher chance than you. There are nights where the trouble realizations you've pushed away come back to crush you during the deep hours of the night when you're supposed to be asleep. You are glad you can cry quietly those nights but sometimes you can't and that's when Sasha spares you words to curl at your side as you sob into her shoulder. You don't speak of it the next morning, neither of you do, and you blame the irritation of the white of your eyes on bad sleep and sometimes allergies if you're lucky.

When it comes for the time of one of the riskiest missions, worry stringing through the air and through everyone's veins, seeping into dreams of the following nights, your struggling sexuality starts to simmer down with the rise of realization that your friends and Mikasa have chances of not coming back alive. But you're realistic, you aren't as powerful as Mikasa and she's almost at the skill level of Levi. You might die never telling her, or confronting yourself, and you think that might be your only regret if you drop dead right in this moment. A night before the mission and Jean nudges you with a solemn expression. You already know what he's alluding to, so you just nod at him. You don't want to talk about it or speak it aloud in general. He just thinks you are hopeless at this point. If you talk about it aloud it feels like you would just jinx yourself and you convince yourself that's partially the reason why you haven't said anything yet.

You see her with her short cut hair, looking so firm but so worried. Probably for Eren, and everybody, and the possible results of said mission. The overbearing threat of death doesn't make for bright moods.

So you don't do it. You don't confess. You abandon your mental script for now of what you were going to say. You needed a spark to get the fire going. To gain the courage to pour your heart out and how can you get this spark in such damp air?

Jean and Sasha give you a pitiful look before they get on their horses because they just know. Again, you're hopeless. The air around you and Mikasa is painfully consistent, the same as before and you look like you haven't slept in years. Levi has already scolded you for looking like shit, you don't need them on your ass as well so they don't say anything.

You are glad the mission is coming to an exhausting end. Your closest friends aren't hurt besides sore muscles and scratches and most importantly, Mikasa is in good shape. It's amazing what near-death experiences can do, and finally, the spark you were waiting for has been found, you've found the flint and steel to create it. Now, to actually figure out where to start that fire.

Turns out your chance is the day after you get back from the previous mission. A celebration dying down in the dining hall, your friends stumbling around like happy drunks as they should. You aren't drunk but the drinks you have had throughout the night make your chest heat up and your only thought is "now or never." Mikasa, sitting outside, alone and strikingly sober, looks like a stone statue carved by the gods with her sleeves rolled of her button-up rolled to her elbows. It's chilly outside but comfortable on your warm skin and part of you fears to disturb her, as if you're disturbing an artist's focus on their painting or a baker with their bread and you would ruin the process.

But the continuous chant of "now or never" continues like a hymn and you can't ignore it, or push it down. Sitting next to her isn't the nerve-wracking part, it's when you look into her eyes and now most of your pre-made script is thrown out the window and your heart is stuck in your throat. There are already tears swimming at your eye line but you've waited long enough to do this, you've sat in your own puddle of woes long enough.

She regards you with a hum and a twitch of her thin eyebrow because she can see the glossiness in your eyes. You're a soldier goddamnit but this seems scarier than fighting titans or other humans.

"I need-" You choke for a moment but continue, "I need to tell you something and I need you to listen." At least the beginning of your mental script has come in handy but the middle becomes muddled in your emotion-filled brain. She's nodding and scooting closer which encourages you to at least keep speaking, "if this doesn't apply pretend I never said anything okay?" It is rhetorical and much more of a demand than a question but she nods with a simple "okay," as you continue.

"Do you have room in your heart to love me?" Why did you have to phrase it like that? There were so many more options you could have chosen from but you said this one. It makes her sound so cold-hearted, but at least you won't make her choose, if she has room in her heart to love you, you just hope you can fill it. She looks at you with your quivering lip, hands clenching the table harshly to keep you grounded.

Mikasa is deliberating in her head. She knew to an extent how far her affections stretch for you, further than where Eren stands for sure. She didn't need to debate her own attractions as you have, it became very simple. She likes who she likes, it doesn't matter what they look like, as long as she deems them good and starts to think of them romantically. Ever since seeing you in training, and fighting along your side against titans, seeing you care for your peers so sweetly, she's held a special place in her heart for you. She's heard you cry at night and it pulled at her heart, tempted her to slide into your bed and hold you, but Sasha did that instead. Mikasa has felt a bit hopeless this whole time but now- She's been biting at her lip this whole time and the light taste of iron pulls her back to reality because she needs to answer before your tears fall. Something quick, simple, and to the point-

"I do love you," her own lip shakes a bit. Admittedly, she's surprised that so much emotion is pulled between the two of you. She would daydream about you two laying in the grass, casually confessing and falling into each other so easily like you always have, during fighting or strategy planning. She rests her hand to the side of your face, thumb wiping the stray tears as you let out a relieved sob. Pulling you to her, resting her hand on the back of your head, and shoving your face into her neck, you accept willingly. Mikasa doesn't know how to comfort, but she hopes you can feel her trying. It looks like you've been struggling because this obviously isn't just the remnants of alcohol in your system and she wishes she could have helped you earlier. Wishes she did crawl into your bunk when you cried. She can't help but shed some tears, out of sympathy, out of a relief that maybe now you don't need to hurt anymore, and now she can actually participate in your affections for her instead of pining like she usually does.

Your tears sting your lips but it's nothing compared to the emotional euphoria you are feeling. A feeling you only could describe as FINALLY. She pulls you to her face, pressing her lips into yours and you never imagined your first kiss with Mikasa would be a teary one. She tastes like iron from her bitten lips and you are sure the tears sticking to your own sting. Your teeth clank together a few times, letting out a few breathless chuckles. Both of you barely have experience in this field, but you fall into the paces of caressing each other easily. Maybe you two shouldn't be touching each other like this, right now after you've confessed. You're still outside, anybody could see but she's dragging you to her room which seems only a few paces away. There really isn't time to think, you're still riding this emotional euphoric wave and so is she. Maybe if she took a moment to think and not just take you to her bed right away then she would stop but Mikasa doesn't actually want to think logically right now. She has pined silently long enough, maybe she deserves to give into this. These temptations with the little voice nagging at the back of her mind that "wouldn't she look so good bent over the table right now? What about you pulling her to sit between your thighs to-"

You two bump into a tipsy Sasha on the way but the look in Mikasa's eye makes her shut her mouth and get out of the way quickly. You can hear her scurry off and yell-whisper something to someone but that doesn't quite matter right now because the woman you've been craving since the start is pulling you to her bottom bunk bed to sit on top of her. That script you've forgotten definitely did not include this, but you aren't complaining.

She's grasping at your hips, groping at whatever she can to keep you close and you're doing your own damage. Digging your fingertips into her muscles and chest, rolling your hips into her thigh that rubs just the right spot along the seam of your pants. You aren't exactly being soft but based on her little moans and grunts in between your kisses you think that she probably likes your roughness. Though you do like her in a white button-up she looks better without it, granted she feels exposed but making it even is easy when you're so willing to be stripped by her. You can't help but wish you could touch her chest a little longer because her cheeks only darken more and more every time you tweak her nipples and suck dark maroon marks into her chest, her reactions are priceless. She's pulled you to her, chest to chest to suck at your neck, biting against your skin leaving a kiss after each nip that makes your skin hot. Eventually, she pushes you back to fall into the bed and yanks your pants off as quick as she could manage leaving your thighs to frame her shoulders, knees almost to your chest. It's highly humiliating, she's staring at you from between your legs, and the eye contact from earlier when you were confessing that you thought was nerve-wracking compares nothing to the look she's giving you now, glancing between your eyes and your cunt.

She's devouring you, liking stripes along your folds as you roll your hips into her mouth. The echoing of footsteps along wood makes you freeze and bite the back of your hand to your mouth to stay quiet but Mikasa doesn't stop. Her actions make your thighs clench around her head and she's gripping your thighs while she eats you out mercilessly. You're glad the footsteps leave, or at least you hope they have but your attention is solely on Mikasa and her fingers are working their way into you, twisting at all the right spots. You're both clumsy and inexperienced but everything just feels good, simply wonderful, both of you completely content with each other in this moment as you try to grip at her smooth hair. A climax slowly approaching like a steady march along your belly with her tongue flicking along your clit-

Regrettably, she pulls back, your slick covering her lips and chin, even her nose. She leans over you, brings your lips together once more and she tastes like you, so embarrassingly slick and almost flavorless but so undeniably you. Her fingers are still working inside you and her palm is rubbing against your clit messily, not as precise and erotic as her tongue but it still makes you clench around her nonetheless. It leaves you gasping, "Where-" another slick kiss, "where did you learn this-" one more. She pulls back to sit on her calves and sends you an almost smile, "I'm a woman too," as if that could satisfy the question but she continues, "touching myself to the thought of you gives me at least a bit of experience." Oh. Oh. She said that so bluntly and you bet she did it on purpose just to fluster you and it's succeeding.

But seriously, her fingers are making your eyes roll back in your head and she's hitting the most sensitive patches in your cunt that make your mind go fuzzy so you can't focus at all. She eats your moans and sweet little half pleas she's cut off with kisses and by the time your climax finally reaches you, you accidentally bite her lip as your walls clench around her fingers sporadically. Her lips were already raw with her nervous tick but with you biting, it feels different and entirely refreshing. There are tears clinging to your eyelashes left from your orgasm and she sits back to watch your chest heave and suck your cum off her fingers loudly.

Mikasa really is a devil, but who are you to not give in to her, to try to make her feel good as well? There's still adrenaline from your climax running through your veins so you'll use what's left to get her off, it's the least you could do. Part of it is entirely self-indulgent though, to watch her fall apart from your hands.

"Sit on my face," it shocks her a bit but she won't deny that this is something she wants to indulge herself in, so she sets her thighs on each side of your head with her hand braced against the bottom of the bunk above her. She has to tilt her head a bit awkwardly but she's a bit more focused on how you're spreading her wet cunt out and lapping at her clit to care. It's horribly loud because her cunts been drenched since she started kissing you. Her hands grasping at your sides to keep steady, muscles flexing and thighs shivering it all feels like too much. She curled her fingers like this, and maybe it's a universal trick because she tightens and gasps. Not loud, Mikasa never is but the soft mewls she lets out are worth the work, grinding down into your mouth. Flattening your tongue against her and your wrist is twisted in a weird way to keep thrusting into her, continuously curling, and she's so close to falling apart above you. Her hand grips the board of the bunk above her so hard it cracks and she falls apart on your tongue with a gasping groan and one last roll of her hips.

The realization that you're her arms, that she loves you back hovers over you again and it makes the night so much sweeter. But you both really need a shower and your eyes are already drooping, begging for some sleep.

When the rest of the girls finally make their way back to their beds they have to do a triple take of Mikasa's bed because both of you are intertwined with each other under the sheets, dead asleep with her hair still slightly damp from the shower. As much as Sasha wants to coo at you two she can't help but remember the scary look in Mikasa's eyes when they crashed earlier, so she lets the feeling of happiness for her friends wash over her silently. By the next morning, both of you are late for breakfast, and Jean is starting at the two of you as you both eat.

"So… you two finally find out you were in love with each other this whole time?" Mikasa flushes up to her ears and you freeze up like a deer in headlights. Silence.. until Sasha leans over and whispers all too loud, "They fucked. You could smell it in the room," and a spoon makes contact with her forehead almost making her blackout. Jean goes completely red and Eren stutters out incomprehensible sentences mostly involving "what's going on? What they're dating? You liked her? Mikasa why didn't you tell me-" No one feels like updating him so they just let him ramble. Connie is a bit red too, "so yall are actually dating?" It makes your heart beat faster than you expected. You love your friends you know they wouldn’t be ignorant or mean but still, the worry pulls in the back of your head.

Well, you two really didn't talk about dating after you confessed, and- well that part of the dynamic didn't really cross your mind until now. Mikasa grips your thigh under the table, "She's my girlfriend," she says so loud and clear you could hear it across the dining hall, laced with a bit of possessiveness. Just barely you can hear Levi scoff out a "They're hopeless."

You guess you are, but at least you are hopeless with her. And after all this time, your struggles are put to rest deep in the back of your mind to stay for good.

𝔱𝔥𝔞𝔫𝔨 𝔶𝔬𝔲 𝔣𝔬𝔯 𝔯𝔢𝔞𝔡𝔦𝔫𝔤, 𝔩𝔦𝔨𝔦𝔫𝔤, 𝔞𝔫𝔡 𝔯𝔢𝔟𝔩𝔬𝔤𝔤𝔦𝔫𝔤 <3

//: 𝖒𝖆𝖘𝖙𝖊𝖗𝖑𝖎𝖘𝖙

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theregoesmylurkerstatus · 3 years

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So... I have a lot of thoughts on the finale. I've deliberately kept my mouth shut, more or less, on the campaign overall because I'm a firm believer that you can't pass judgement -- at least not complete judgement -- on stories until they're over and done with.

Well, it's done! Kind of crazy. I've been watching Critical Role with almost insane consistency, viewing almost every single episode live, with maybe five-ish exceptions, since episode 19, and I've been blogging it for, what, two and a half years?

It's a weird feeling. It's been such a constant thing for me that I'm always gonna have love for it and remember with a lot of fondness.

...Which is in spite of the fact that I can now comfortably say I'm pretty eh on the ending. I know not being positive about something most of us have loved a lot for a very long time can sting a bit, but I personally think it also stings when people relentlessly crow over how good they think it is or want it to be, to the point where you feel you can't voice your absolutely valid upsets or dissatisfactions. So, here goes, if anyone's interested! I'd be curious to see other opinions, too!

I actually drafted a post talking about my overall frustrations with the campaign a whole two weeks ago, and then scrapped most of it when 140 blew me out of the water. I was really touched, and really happy. I hadn't expected it, but it shockingly felt right, you know?

Unfortunately 141 robbed me of most of that satisfaction and brought me right back to neutral.

The blanket statement you have to make, of course, is that you can’t criticise this as a DnD game, and you can’t be mad at the cast for playing it in a way they think is best for them. They’re the players, Matt’s the DM, and in the end it makes no sense for them to try to make themselves act how they think the audience wants them to, and I’m sure most of the audience wouldn’t like the result anyway.

That said, there is an audience. And that’s where I see this clash coming in. As a DnD game, as long as the players and DM have all enjoyed it and been satisfied, it’s a successful game! But for us, it’s not a DnD game. For us, we’re watching a story be written in real time through the medium of an RPG. And while as a DnD game you can’t fault it, as a piece of media, I completely get why the way things have gone has sat weirdly for a lot of people.

It's not satisfying to see so many character hooks dealt with so quickly or left as an offscreen "and then you do it." If they don't want to keep playing to dive into it, absolutely, but for us who have been watching this as a story with all these character elements get so built up, it's a huge anti-climax.

Which is a lot of what this campaign has been, really.

Oh, Nott’s cursed! But through a really cool character moment that problem is completely taken care of with no consequences we see. Yay, I want her to be Veth and that was an iconic move from Jester! Still, it kind of feels like this was built up to be a big problem and at the first success it was let go... Caleb's got a really intense frightening past he tries to hide, I wonder how the Mighty Nein will respond? Oh, they found out, but it's not a difficult revelation for anyone. Looks like it's easy for them to move past it and forgive. Yeah, that's healthiest for the characters, but huh, kinda undercuts it as a storyline or point of interest. Oooh, Avantika’s back! Ah, they’ve killed her and grabbed the eye again. I mean I don’t want them to die or for Uk’otoa to be free, but I’m starting to feel like that’s not much of a threat anyway. The Traveler’s been kidnapped! Nah he hasn’t, he tried to save Jester so he was let go with no further issue, and also he wasn’t actually in any danger anyway. Oh... Cool. So... Why should I care or be worried?

And these are just the biggest ones I remember being kind of let down by. I wanted to see them STRUGGLE for the successes to have meaning. To my view, threats of failure -- real failure -- really decreased the more the campaign went on, with a few exceptions.

Because don't get me wrong, we've definitely had struggles, and those have made for some of the best moments! Molly’s death, Yasha’s kidnapping, Yeza’s imprisonment. When failures that were threatened are allowed to occur, it’s far more gratifying when it’s followed by success, because you understand that that success was actually necessary. It shows us that what they do really means something.

Honestly, that's why the final battle really shut me up, because nothing makes you quite feel stakes and failure like having two PCs die, and having a resurrection ritual fail -- AND knowing that failure would be delivered on, had it not been for a seemingly miraculous roll of the dice to turn it around. One of the greatest failure's -- Molly's death -- made the success of his resurrection put a lot of my other issues to rest immediately, because to be honest? Molly's resurrection was the biggest success of the campaign, exactly because it was originally the biggest failure.

But this episode, we got to see the other side of making threats and successes feel disappointing -- when you get the impression that success was robbed from you. Again, their characters, their choices, but to have them roll an intervention to get Molly's soul, to convince Molly to come back with his own possessions they've so loved, after so long and so many struggles... only to apparently not get Molly at all?

Changed, of course. Memories, maybe he'd never get them back, though that seems inconsistent to how the initial resurrection was played and Matt's hints. It even makes sense that not having his memories and being a bit different, he might forge a new identity, but insisting Molly was a different person entirely after such a supposed hard won success to get Molly back, especially after what his death meant to the audience and potentially healing that old wound? It robs the narrative of a LOT of catharsis, at least for me and I know many others.

Trent, too, I'm very up and down on. He was so built up -- and what fun that build up had -- and I very much disagreed with the idea that the best story would be dealing with him offscreen.

It's true that you don’t need to explicitly address, confront, or explore every big aspect of character's story hooks and background ties for PCs to move past them and grow healthily. But that does not make it a satisfying viewing experience. People quietly healing in real life is healthy. People quietly healing in an explosive fantasy setting is frustrating for the audience.

What on earth is the point of a story if you don’t get to SEE THE ESTABLISHED CONFLICTS go anywhere? A lot of the characters got distant, quiet resolutions, if that, to everything we wanted to see.

Except, we did get to see Trent. It was a really fun, inventive battle, from opening to conclusion, but much like Travelercon, much like Nott's/Veth's problem with the hag, these were things that the audience in general wanted to see be really dug into and explored, and every single one of them got, in my opinion, quickly tidied up instead. Trent got beaten in the first and only proper battle they had with him, which, after all his build up, is pretty disappointing for a villain many of us wanted to see be a big deal. It really just felt like they were trying to tidy up to get on with the epilogue, which is not what a lot of us were looking for with Trent especially.

And that's how most of their endings felt to me. It didn't feel like any of them had reached a comfortable conclusion. Literally all of them, bar Veth and Caduceus, continued on their character journey threads, without each other and very quickly. Meeting Yasha's tribe and Vandran, Caleb finally openly debating changing time for his parents, Trent and Zeenoth's trials and the changing of the guard at the Assembly... All were things it would have been so fun to have all the PCs react to and explore together, and instead they were fleeting encounters in the latter half of a seven hour finale.

Is all this, from Molly not really coming back to Trent being a finale side plot to the Nein continuing on their individual journeys, potentially realistic to how these fantastical things might go down in real life? Sure! But that's not necessarily a good thing.

Stories THRIVE on conflict and resolution. That’s what makes them FUN! Conflict isn’t nearly so fun in real life and resolutions are often frustrating question marks, so no, past a certain point I don’t WANT stories to be realistic. I want stories to be SATISFYING.

And campaign 2 has fallen far short of the mark.

I haven’t spoken... Basically a word of this for most of the campaign, because as I said I’m a firm believer that you can’t necessarily judge something until it’s over, and because I ALSO firmly believe that being negative WHILE trying to enjoy something is counterproductive. I have had no interest in spoiling or naysaying the fun of the campaign for anyone, least of all myself.

But it's done now, and all I can say is... I really have had fun. I love the characters. I love their relationships. I’m pretty okay with where they’ve ended up. I’m not mad, really, and I’m still going to think of this campaign with a lot of affection. But it hasn’t been a satisfying story, even though for a week following episode 140 I thought, despite all the brushed over story threads, it might be.

So... to try and reclaim some of that satisfaction for myself, I might ignore some aspects of the finale proper. Namely Kingsley specifically. Taliesin's choice -- but to me, it's pretty clear that who we saw at the end of 140 was Molly, and the tags on my posts will reflect that, just as my 141 tags will be for both Kingsley and Molly, for clarity's sake. I personally want to believe Molly did come back, however others might want to interpret it. The victory in 140 that meant so much to me is hollow otherwise, and it just kind of hurts that we would lose Molly after everything. I was okay with him being dead -- I'm not so okay with his resurrection being stolen.

Kingsley will always be canon, but Molly is what I choose to acknowledge. I get if you don't like that take, and that's okay! I didn't care for canon's in the end. That's the good thing about storytelling, is that no one can stop you from making your own versions.

For the people who are hopefully hyped for campaign 3, heck yeah have fun! I’m on the fence. My investment, which... I think I can objectively say was pretty substantive as this blog will attest, doesn't feel rewarded, so I’m not convinced I can faithfully keep up for over three years all over again with a strong possibility that I will once again be left disappointed. It's been a huge chunk of my life, and... yeah!

I’ll take a break, probably, view (and liveblog, if people want!) campaign 1 when I’ve had a mental stretch and vacation, and then... I might start campaign 3. I definitely won’t be able to put the same time in it I did campaign 2 (my first love no matter what), knowing that it’s likely to not be so vindicated, in the end.

I swear I’m actually writing this in fairly good humour, but I totally get its always disappointing when the people you come to for fandom enjoyment just aren't sharing your fun. Honestly I’m half tempted to write all those frigging AUs I have sitting around! But I wanted to say my piece, and try and logically outline why this ending has been lacklustre for so many people, ultimately myself included.

Episode 140 felt right because it felt like a natural conclusion -- these disparate people coming together and finally being whole, finally soothing the hurt that MADE them so long ago. Episode 141 spat on that sentiment -- they all scattered to the winds, not as happy people to live out their dreams, but as confused people chasing up loose threads towards an unknown future, with the friend they thought returned still lost to them, ultimately.

It doesn't feel like the ending we should have gotten for the Mighty Nine, who were finally, finally all together. Until they weren't. So to me? I choose to acknowledge that they were, even if I have to force it to happen post-epilogue in my head.

#critical role #cr spoilers #c2e141 #c2e140 #ramblings #long post #first time i've used that tag but i figure people should be able to block this if they want to!#molly #kingsley #trent ikithon #the mighty nein

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longinglook · 2 years

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Hi! First I hope you're doing well! I'd like to start watching Enchante, but I saw a lot of bad reviews on different websites so I'd love to know your opinion about the serie since you like it? Honestly, most of the reviews I read seem very harsh so I'd like a more... nuanced opinion? If it doesn't bother you of course. Thank you! :)

Hello! I am doing really well thank you 😊😊 Thank you for asking about this, I am always happy to talk about Enchanté (and I am so sorry about how long this got!)

I disagree with most of the bad reviews because I feel like a lot of people simply didn't bother to get into the characters to understand their motivations. Despite the fact that the show has a plot which makes sense, I'd say Enchanté is mostly a character driven show, so if that's not your cup of tea you might not find it interesting.

Personally I tend to prefer character driven shows over plot driven ones so I really really loved it. Both Akk and Theo are extremely relatable and complex characters and their childhood friends to lovers relationship is very well done. The actors did an incredible job portraying the longing and repressed feelings for each other and the fears and doubts about trying to take a step forward. I guess a big reason why I loved the show is that I could completely understand their feelings since I've been in a similar position myself, so I was very happy to see them portrayed in such a realistic way.

I started the show expecting nothing, just to fill the bad buddy friday slot, and it caught my attention right away. It was very comforting to me because there's no bad angst or unnecessarily complicated misunderstandings which tend to frustrate me and put me off. Watching Akk and Theo grow closer and closer and be more and more obvious about their mutual feelings for each other was a delight. It was technically slow burn but it didn't feel like it because there was so much tension and closeness and domesticity right from the start that I never felt like things needed to hurry up between them.

That was the very biased part of the answer, now I'll try to be slightly more objective. I think it's hard to say whether a show is good or bad because we all like different things, but there's a few things that I'd like to highlight about Enchanté: the direction and photography are excellet, it is a very beautiful show to watch and a lot of care has been put in even the smallest details. There's no bl tropes, it feels like a light fun romantic comedy and the leads have incredible chemistry.

I had AkkTheo tunnel vision which means I sort of ignored most of the plot and side characters (which probably make up just a 10/20% of the show so it's not a big deal). The plot isn't the most creative or innovative, but I found it cute and fun. I get bored easily and it managed to keep me entertained the whole time.

I think the show handled the plot and pacing fine, it didn't feel like there were densely packed episodes or filler episodes with the exception of the finale. After watching the whole show I felt like a few important conversations were still missing and had been skipped but it might have been an issue with the number of episodes.

The reason why some people didn't enjoy this show is Theo, who I personally believe doesn't deserve any of the awful things people have been saying about him. Theo is a romantic dreamer who has probably read too many novels and sees life through rose colored glasses. He's a bit naive and silly and stubborn also due to the fact that he's been treated like a prince his whole life. He makes mistakes like we all do but they're not big mistakes and he apologizes for them. I really struggled with trying to understand why people hated on him so much since to me he seemed like a perfectly decent human who sometimes lets his feelings take over and messes up.

I strongly believe you should give it a chance because there is absolutely nothing wrong with the show itself and I'd rank AkkTheo in the top 5 of my favorite couples. It's mostly a matter of preferences and what you look for in a show/how much are you willing to try to understand characters that might make different choices from yours.

#ask #anonymous #enchante #this got so longx dihexbihsdbcjhedvcjh

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twdgg · 2 years

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hardhardcore kenny stans be like: i need to stop ignoring kennys flaws as a person and stop completely disregarding the way he treats the people around him as the world crumbling around him as a king who could do no wrong even though the previous statements were kinda the point of his character. we know he loves clem but he wasnt the most trustful person to leave her to regardless. hes super morally gray and thats what makes him so good hes an interesting person to see and it really shows what this type of situation can do to a man who loved his family but couldnt show it in the right way until it was too late and everyone around him is parting with him, leaving him to loathe by himself. its sad to see it but its true and realistic how the world influenced him, how it affected his opinions and how he thought about life. he himself acknowledges this when clementine shoots him in his fit of rage (that is reasonable at that time, but we all know it would only go downhill by then.) in that moment he was definitely scared, but he was just happy he got to see clem one last time and he apologized that she has to go through this. that she had to be there to witness his spiral into a ball of hatred, negativty and depression after losing his family. he found his peace in that one moment and it was probably his happily ever after

but i dont want to

#i LOVE LOVE LOVEEEE KENNY so much its insane #his flaws are why i love him and the fact people are loving him for the wrong reasons make me upset #stop removing his flaws and making him so one dimensional #i understand his frustration #but it doesnt give him an excuse. its not anyones around him fault its his own #the way the world was influnced him and his way of thinking #he made his own choices #i personally shot kenny and left jane #i wanted kenny to be out of his misery. it was his time #and i dont like jane #twdg #some people understandably dont like him because of the way the fandom treats him #but to me when kenny is such a high fav it makes me sad i love him not because he was the 'best guardian for clem after lee' (thats javi)#but because hes sad. tragic and interesting. because i love kenny so much i hated to see him die but it was for the best. for him #id rather him die like that then fucking die in a carcrash

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betawooper · 3 years

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rating every demon fight in kny bc i can

non-biased, completely objective rating (more or less) of every significant demon fight in kny based on a number of factors, including:

cleverness of fighting tactics

placement in the story’s timeline

integration of character backstories

cohesive themes between characters

etc

by non-biased and objective i mean i’m not skewing the rating if a death felt fair or whatever

everything past where the anime ended will be under a read more so anime onlys who havent watched mugen train, youre safe lol

oh and i reread the manga like 20+ times (reread the latter arcs at least 40 times, haha hyperfixations am i right?) so be rest assured im not pulling these ratings out of my ass

also ill randomly be bolding certain phrases just to improve readability

anyways let’s gooooo

VS NEZUKO

[Image Description: Manga panel of Kamado Tanjirou and Nezuko. Tanjirou is fending her off by putting the axe handle in her mouth, keeping her from eating him. End Image Description.]

10/10

i like how realistic it is, because yeah tanjirou would react the way to he did with zero fighting skills against a demon

very clear why tanjirou is fighting nezuko and shows a bit of worldbuilding on how normal people react to their family becoming demons

always nice to see worldbuilding

giyuu is the perfect example of a seasoned demon slayer who’s good at his job, and he juxtaposes tanjirou very well in that aspect

my only complaint is not directly in this fight itself but how nezuko is handled throughout the story as a whole

like bro, it is literally never explained why nezuko is different from demons

could have been easily explained if maybe her family’s ghosts like slapped her hand every time she wanted to eat a person but nope

she’s just built different lol

so yeah youll see future ratings get points docked off bc nezuko unlocks some secret power with no prior explanation other than she angy >:3

VS TEMPLE DEMON

[Image Description: Manga panel of a demon. The demon has a sharp-nailed hand over his neck and there are four text bubbles around him saying “But a wound like this... will heal in no time! See? The bleeding already stopped!” End Image Description.]

10/10

may be more forgettable compared to like rui but still good

tanjirou did exceptionally well in this fight and his ability to think on his feet is once again beautifully illustrated here (trapping this dude’s head against the tree trunk with the axe)

very clever

again, establishes more demon worldbuilding regarding regeneration and still being able to move without their head

and the demons burning in the sunlight thing since nezuko wasn’t able to show that

the ending where tanjirou hesitates to kill the demon also serves to show his sympathetic nature towards demons that will last throughout the entirety of the first 60-ish chapters

we’ll talk about what the hell happens to tanjirou after that

or not, it could honestly be its own post

VS HAND DEMON

[Image Description: Manga panel of a many-handed demon. He has six hands around him, three of them covering his mouth while he chuckles, two of them grabbing his cheeks, and one holding on to the top of his head. There are two text bubbles saying “That’s how many of Urokodaki’s students I have eaten! I’ve decided to kill all of his students!” End Image Description.]

10/10

ooooh probably the first big fight against a demon in the series

oh yeah not doing the two random demons tanjirou one shot in a single blow bc eh

anyways hand demon’s pretty goddamn scary, considering the fact that this is the 5th demon or whatever tanjirou has had to face so far

very nice way to show us how much tanjirou’s innate intuition and all his other random abilities (sense of smell, hard forehead) can come together and help him decapitate this guy

i liked the mini history with urokodaki this dude had and why he had beef with our favorite mentor figure, it establishes that urokodaki was in fact a super good demon slayer and its cool to see that actually shown

i also liked that small moment of compassion tanjirou gave this demon, staying consistent with tanjirou’s established kindness

the demon’s sad tale with killing his own brother very much humanizes him when all the reader has seen up to this point is that this guy is a monster who eats people

sets up the theme of demons just being humans but being victims of circumstance that unfortunately doesn’t hold up as well in arcs past mugen train

VS SWAMP DEMON

[Image Description: Manga panel of Kamado Tanjirou fighting off three horned demons as they appear from below. There is a spiky text bubble saying “Three of them!!!” End Image Description.]

10/10

not my most favorite fight but it still portrays everything alright and im not allowed to let my personal opinions mess with the rating so

i like how tanjirou mentioned the fact that he trained in conditions similar to the bog and explains how he pulled off the whirlpool form

using past experiences to aid him in the present, nice nice

tanjirou and nezuko dont quite work together very well but its yknow the first mission so ill chalk it up to simple inexperience

also the way the muzan curse thingie was hinted at here? fantastic way of showing that little bit of demon worldbuilding

...

oh god, it mentions nezuko being stronger than normal demons

ok its not a problem here per say since i can still suspend my disbelief, but later on it just becomes a glaring problem that gets worse over time

VS SUSAMARU AND YAHABA

[Image Description: Manga panels of Susamaru and Yahaba. The first one is a joyful Susamaru about to throw a temari ball. There is floating text saying “Is she one of Kibutsuji’s minions?!” The second image is an annoyed Yahaba, holding one of his eye-hands to cover himself. There are two text bubbles around him saying “My kimono got all dusty. Tch!” End Image Description.]

9/10

why dont these bitches have a good looking panel together dammit

anyways amazing entrance, the way yahaba used his hand eyes to track down tanjirou is really neat

the synergy yahaba and susamaru have is incredible, its awesome dude, they work extremely well together and it shows

tanjirou actually mixing his water breathing forms together is a god tier move and i absolutely love how he can show off his ability to think on his feet once again

establishing how yushiro’s bda works early on is really well done

establishing tamayo as a fugitive this early on is also super well done

not to get into spoiler territory but both these things pay off

how tamayo ended up defeating susamaru is literally awesome in so many ways

shows off both how smart she is by exploiting the muzan curse

and speaking of the muzan curse, we actually get to see what happens to demons who even say his name, back when it was hinted with the swamp demon

tamayo is amazing dude, and we get some real evidence of the horrible suffering demons go through if they even accidentally attempt to betray muzan :D

...

now heres what keeps this fight from being perfect

nezuko somehow grew stronger against susamaru’s temari

with no explanation

which could have been easily explained if tamayo was like “oh yeah the drug also boosts a demon’s strength temporarily”

but nope

god, i just dont like how gotouge handles nezuko’s power boosts throughout the series bc like i said before

no explanation is given anywhere

this is a huge issue, this isnt a pokemon game, you cant just kill demons and get exp at the end of every battle, level up, get some sweet stat bonuses and move on

(actually if gotouge established that this is how nezuko grew in power, than all my complaints about this would be gone, im not even joking)

anyways i get that nezuko is supposed to be “special” but thats too vague of a descriptor

how the hell is she special? ya gotta be more specific and stick with that explanation or that suspension of disbelief is going to disappear

VS TONGUE DEMON

[Image Description: Manga panel of a four-eyed demon with horns and a long tongue. He is crawling in an awkward position, one foot in front of his tilted head. There are two text bubbles around him saying “Heh, heh! I’ll slurpy slurp your brains out through you ear!” End Image Description.]

10/10

not much to say, showcases zenitsu’s true abilities really well

nicely done

VS HORNED DEMON

[Image Description: Manga panel of a big, single-horned demon. There are three text bubbles saying “You dodged! You’re awfully lively for a human! It’ll be a treat to carve away your flesh!” End Image Description.]

10/10

would have ignored this fight if not for the fact we havent seen inosuke fight before

it definitely shows how very fast-paced and wild inosuke is

no complaints here lol

VS KYOGAI

[Image Description: Manga panel of Kyogai, a demon with tsuzumi drums attached to his shoulders. There are four text bubbles around him saying “Why?! Why does everyone keep sneaking through my house? It’s so aggravating. It’s my prey! It’s my prey! Found in my territory!” End Image Description.]

10/10

establishes marechi blood pretty early on, once again expanding the worldbuilding of kny which is always cool

interesting terrain where it’s always shifting, tanjirou once again proves his ability to adapt really quickly by altering one of his forms to work with the turning room

(man, i wish the form mixing/form modification thing carried on throughout the rest of the story, but it really didnt which is just a shame)

the injuries tanjirou had prior to this mission actually affecting him was a nice touch

oh yeah, kyogai gives us more worldbuilding (which is always nice) regarding the 12 kizuki, and the aspect of him being cast out due to being weak shows a lot about muzan’s indifference towards his own demons if they arent strong

his backstory being a failed writer once again humanizes kyogai as a former human being and not just a monster

tanjirou shows his sympathy and compassion again by not stepping on his written work and complimenting his bda

well, tbh tanjirou’s actions kinda came out of nowhere but its a very minor thing and not enough to dock a point off, like it didnt affect the outcome of the fight that much if at all

(so if you see future battles where points are docked off for things not logically making sense, its bc whatever nonsensical concepts were integrated into the fight actually turned the tide of the battle and thats a big no-no)

very good fight and if you remember how kinda bad tanjirou was at accurately slicing the swamp demon, you can see that he’s already improved leaps and bounds

im so proud of him

VS MOTHER SPIDER DEMON

[Image Description: Manga panel of Kamado Tanjirou and the Mother Spider Demon. There is a light shining down from the top right on to the demon as Tanjirou slices her head off, rain following in his wake. There is floating text saying “Water Breathing: Fifth Form - Blessed Rain After the Drought!” around them. End Image Description.]

10/10

i mean does anyone disagree?

all the demon slayers getting their necks snapped by her threads was pretty horrific, probably more horrifying than anything else we have seen in the entire series if im gonna be honest

the death scene is probably the most beautiful one in the series

it reveals a water breathing form that we havent seen before thats the 5th form

as far as i know, no other breathing style has this merciful sword stroke so it shows a lot about the original water breather and what they might have been like

but enough about them, really the focus is on tanjirou bc this is like the best example by far of how kind and sympathetic he is to demons

dunno what else to say, its perfect

VS SON SPIDER DEMON

[Image Description: Manga panel of Agatsuma Zenitsu performing Thunder Breathing 1st Form: Sixfold on a spider-like demon. Zenitsu is crashing through the roof of a shed, and a zig-zag path is left behind. There are sound effects all over the panel, saying “Bam!” in large font. End Image Description.]

10/10

chose a picture without a huge spider on it bc i would like to not scare myself half to death

anyways extremely amazing fight, showcases zenitsu’s immense talent and skill, adapting the 1st form of thunder breathing to be a more versatile move

theres a moment where his backstory with kuwajima and kaigaku were revealed and his hidden insecurities are out in the open which is super nice and further develops a character weve only considered as comedic relief until now

the anime made the backstory scenes and the killing scene so much cooler

while there is no thematic connection between zenitsu and the demon, it really isnt necessary to keep this fight interesting

anyways another pretty much perfect fight

VS FATHER SPIDER DEMON

[Image Description: Manga panel of Kamado Tanjirou and Inosuke slashing at the Father Spider Demon. The demon has blocked Tanjirou’s sword with his arm, and Inosuke is slamming both his blades down on the demon’s other hand. End Image Description.]

10/10

again, not my most favorite fight but it does everything right

i do have to say it was excellent how gotouge hyped up the father spider demon to be the big bad, only just so the plot twist later takes the readers by surprise

nicely done

VS DAUGHTER SPIDER DEMON

[Image Description: Manga panel of Kochou Shinobu and the Daughter Spider Demon. Shinobu’s back is seen and her haori looks like a butterfly’s wings keeping her afloat as she holds her stinger blade out to the side. The demon looks surprised as blood gushes from her side, arm, shoulder, chest, neck, and forehead. There is floating text on the panel, saying “Insect Breathing - Butterfly Dance - Caprice!” End Image Description.]

10/10

first time weve seen shinobu and her fighting style

what i love most about this is how much it shows her true character, appearing as a carefree and naive individual so she seems underwhelming

then bam, reveals exactly how dangerous and uncaring she is of demons, listing out the specific ways she would torture the daughter spider demon in grotesque detail

her using poison to take demons by surprise is also super clever and brings back the worldbuilding established way earlier about wisteria being poisonous to demons

amazing integration of that concept

anyways this fight really encapsulates who shinobu is as a character and thats why it gets a perfect score

VS RUI

[Image Description: Manga panel of Rui holding his hand out directly towards the viewer. There are two text bubbles around him, saying “Give me your sister. If you hand her over quietly, I’ll spare your life.” End Image Description.]

8/10

not only is it a super scary fight but there is a deeper conflict between rui and tanjirou, what it means to be family

they are opposites in the sense that while tanjirou believes love is what makes a family, rui’s subconscious desperation for an unbreakable bond drives him to use fear to keep his “family” together

excellent juxtaposition of their values, and this is only further emphasized when rui expresses out loud what he was going to do to nezuko

i also like the symbolism regarding rui’s bda, how he uses threads or the “familial” bonds to cut up his fake family with it if they act out of turn or annoy him

super neat detail

alright what i dont like about this fight is nezuko (again)

mostly her unlocking her bda to turn the tide of the battle bc her mom was like “yo, wake up, your brother is going to be killed”

feels... forced ig

her bda in general is confusing and not consistent

man, i wish i could make a stronger argument for this but i do believe the problem stems from the fact that we dont ever know what nezuko is thinking, and what she thinks of tanjirou specifically

if she even cares for him as a sibling or if shes only going along with what her family is saying to her, things like that which would have been fixed if gotouge actually gave her thoughts some screen time

so the action feels pretty shallow

im also conflicted over tanjirou somehow remembering how dance of the fire god works

on one hand, hes using past information and applying it in the current setting so he doesnt die, which is understandable

but on the other hand, this was a teeny bit random?

i think what could have fixed this is if there was a scene in the beginning of the series where tanjirou was performing it himself, like practicing before he actually had to do it for new years

so that when the rui fight rolls around, it would have felt less like throwing dry spaghetti at a wall

but yeah

overall super good fight, giyuu ending up having to kill rui instead of tanjirou was super good in that tanjirou didnt become a pillar this early in the series and to show how strong giyuu is

there are some odd bits regarding the ultimate “beheading” of rui using nezuko and tanjirous supposed bonds but it doesnt kill the fight entirely so it deserves its pretty high score

***under read more is manga-only fights so beware***

VS ENMU

[Image Description: Manga panel of Enmu holding his hand out directly at the viewer, with a mouth on the back of it. There is floating text to the top right of Enmu that says “Whispers of Forced Unconscious Hypnosis!” End Image Description.]

9/10

id say this fight is definitely overshadowed by the dream stuff prior to this but its pretty good in its own right

enmu fusing with the train was kinda confusing, like when was it established that demons could fuse with objects?

this worldbuilding element doesnt even appear again so yeah thats why it loses a point

how the kmbk gang end up defeating enmu is pretty sweet though, tanjirou using dance of the fire god to sever the neck bone was really nice and shows that him using the breathing style in the rui fight wasnt a one time thing

while kyojuro’s role was smaller in this part, the next part makes up for it so i cant complain

anyways ye, almost perfect score but its pretty good

VS AKAZA (MUGEN TRAIN)

[Image Description: Manga panel of Akaza holding his hand out to the viewer’s left. There is a text bubble saying “Why don’t you become a demon?” End Image Description.]

10/10

this encounter is literally amazing okay?

after the crew kills the big bad, it seems like everything is fine

but plot twist, upper moon 3 appears out of nowhere

this is the first time the reader has seen an upper moon, let alone the 3rd/4th strongest demon in existence and the way gotouge handled this twist is fucking amazing

kyojuro’s death scene really shows just how human even the strongest pillars are against demons with incredible power

its just

amazing

VS OBI DEMON

[Image Description: Manga panels of the obi-like demon. The first image shows the obi hung in the air and strung over each other like decorations, with women-shaped patterns in its folds. The second image is Hashibira Inosuke fighting the Obi demon which now has lips and eyes. There is floating text in that panel saying “Breath of the Beast: Sixth Fang - Jagged Gnaw!!” End Image Description.]

10/10

on to red light district

this fight is admittedly super forgettable and not very interesting at least compared to the main fight with daki and gyutaro

but it wraps up the sub plot of the women and uzui’s wives going missing so it gets a perfect score for not messing that up

oh and it establishes the stretchy neck thing daki has going on which is very good

VS DAKI AND GYUTARO

[Image Description: Manga panel of Daki and Gyutaro. Daki is sitting on Gyutaro’s shoulders. There is a text bubble on the top right that says “The two of us are one, after all.” as well as floating text that reads “The power of the irregular siblings...!? Next issue lead color and the fight reaches its climax!!” End Image Description.]

8/10

love how this battle challenges tanjirou’s sympathy and kindness towards demons, just simply bc daki and gyutaro are horrible people

(too bad nothing came of this, which ill explain in the hantengu portion)

daki and gyutaro are very good villains and kept this fight super interesting from start to finish

uzui acting as a foil to gyutaro is nicely integrated and properly shown with how jealous gyutaro gets over seeing uzui’s perfect form and stature

tanjirou not only mixes forms but mixes breathing styles as well, which is so fucking awesome

(too bad it was only used like once throughout the entire series, its quite unfortunate)

the super high tension right after inosuke gets stabbed and tanjirou wakes up was expertly portrayed and handled, it felt like the kmbk gang and uzui were actually going to lose

super awesome

the tanjirou and gyutaro parallels are expertly portrayed, with how gyutaro taunts tanjirou over failing to protect his little sister, and the more visual thing where tanjirou imagined his own neck underneath his blade, that was super duper nice

the ending is extremely tense and emotionally gripping, gotouge did a really good job with that artistically too

the demon mark acquisition scene was surprisingly not frustrating, considering that it wasnt really explained prior to the battle

i do think it has to do with how it was explained later just exactly how they worked so its not just some random thing gotouge pulled out of their ass

so pretty good

what i dont like is nezuko and her full power demon form

first of all where the fuck did that come from? she just got angry and suddenly shes as powerful as an upper moon

how?

that doesnt make sense???

her extremely quick regeneration makes no sense

her ability to manipulate her blood’s properties makes no sense

and it doesnt even appear again so what was the point of that existing

none of this is even explained later which annoys me

that one part where tanjirou sings a lullaby to her to calm her down was alright ig but nezuko in this fight makes me extremely irritated and frustrated

just ugh

VS HANTENGU

[Image Description: Manga panel of Hantengu opening a shoji door. He is crawling inside, his hand in a gnarled, unnatural position. There is a text bubble saying “Eeeeeeek.” End Image Description.]

1/10

swordsmith village

this fight can go fuck itself /j

no but seriously it has so many problems that it would be shorter to name its redeeming qualities (which ill do later)

first off, the nezuko full power form thing again

i hate it so much with a passion

again, where did her ability to regenerate instantly even come from???? this is never explained, ever

and why did she cut herself on tanjirou’s sword anyway

did she somehow know that it was going to turn red if she burned it?

gotouge what the fuck, there is literally no reason why nezuko would do that and we cant even read her mind to see her thought process

gotouge hates nezuko, i swear

remember when i said uzui is meant to be a foil to gyutaro in the rld fight? its pretty obvious that those two are opposites, it was nicely done

... what the hell does mitsuri’s insecurities about strength have to do with whatever the fuck hantengu has going on (which is basically nothing)?

so no meaningful connection between mitsuri and hantengu

theres no meaningful connection between tanjirou and hantengu other than tanjirou getting pissed off for like the second time

also tanjirou’s thing with being kind and sympathetic to demons was entirely dropped at this point

but instead of it leading up to a corruption arc of some sorts, it just doesnt

like honestly if something actually came of that anger he exhibited in this arc and from red light district from this point forward story-wise, i would have counted this as an amazing writing decision

but it literally doesnt so who cares

(god, i really start to hate what happened to his character after this )

and genya’s revealed motivation also doesnt fit at all with hantengu’s thing, he’s not a foil, not a parallel, nothing, there is nothing

tanjirou being the catharsis for development for mitsuri and muichirou, who he has only talked to like twice

theres definitely a better way to handle those two’s developments without his help

like gotouge, you have a big cast of characters, use them lol

i want to kick hantengu in the face for being boring as fuck (at least his clones have cool looking weapons)

doesnt even have a proper backstory, just a single spread of him being blamed for shit as a human

like... thats it? this is upper moon 4 what the hell

theres no clever form mixing here at all (regarding tanjirou) which probably would have helped with foreshadowing the 13th form for dance of the fire god/sun breathing better

also gotouge established that as tanjirou’s thing and now he doesnt do that stuff anymore which sucks

oh hey remember when tanjirou actually learned how to do zenitsu’s speed boost thing?

if you didnt, i dont blame you bc it literally doesnt appear again, ever

you could argue that he adapted it into his “waltz flash” technique or whatever the fuck that is but the way it was integrated into this fight was like throwing dry spaghetti at a wall

which is just a shame bc its meant to be representative of how tanjirou and zenitsu are good pals but the way it was utilized is forgettable as hell

i absolutely loathe the crimson blade concept as a whole and im mentioning this now bc its going to come into play why future instances where this goddamn thing comes up again causes points to be lost

its inconsistent as fuck ill tell you that

at least some yoriichi stuff appeared here and not shoved into the final battle with everything else

so the yoriichi stuff later didnt come out of absolute nowhere

genya and mitsuri’s unique fighting styles expand the kny worldbuilding just a little more which is always nice

tanjirou got a cool sword out of this which would have been cooler if him and yoriichi had a deeper connection that was actually explored

but we didnt get shit so whatever

other people getting demon marks being revealed here is also okay so that again, the final battle isnt filled with absolutely everyone getting their marks at once

demon marks have their own slew of problems but its not as bad as the fucking crimson sword shit

god i hate the crimson sword shit

...

dude this section needs a tldr, even i cant sit and read through my shit

TL;DR - this fight sucks and crimson swords are bullshit (more on this later)

VS GYOKKO

[Image Description: Manga panel of Tokitou Muichirou and Gyokko. Muichirou is looking to the left while Gyokko is looking to the right, both with their backs to each other. There are mist clouds billowing in the foreground and background, as well as a slash mark going across Gyokko’s neck. End Image Description.]

7/10

this fight suffers from the same lack of cohesive themes through characters like the hantengu battle bc the antagonist is given nothing

but its better

we havent actually seen mui fight before so theres no consistencies that the reader has to keep track of for now

and there arent like 10 characters in the fight so this fight gets a lot of points just for being a lot more coherent

i do like that this fight shows just how good mui is that he can defeat an upper moon by himself

mui’s backstory is neat

gyokko’s bda is very interesting too

... thats pretty much it lol

ye, anyways not the best fight but not the worst fight either

VS KAIGAKU

[Image Description: Manga panel of Kaigaku holding the hilt of his blade with one hand. There is two text bubbles around him, saying “...As usual, you’re still shabby. It’s been a while, Zenitsu.” End Image Description.]

9/10

alright on to final battle arc

theres some good fights and then some really sucky ones, but this one was pretty incredible and very emotionally charged

theres a clear reason why zenitsu and kaigaku are battling each other (kai betrayed the corps and inadvertantly caused the only parental figure in zenitsu’s life to die, and zenitsu is rightfully pissed off about that)

the visual yin-yang symbolism is awesome too

zenitsu winning due to using the 7th form he created himself (which i have reason to believe was inspired by tanjirou) was the perfect ending to the fight, really couldnt ask for anything better and is a perfect example of how much of an effect tanjirou has had on zenitsu

the 7th form is what tanjirou’s waltz flash should have been lol

what keeps this fight from being absolutely perfect is lack of development prior to this conflict

(since the final battle arc is basically a culmination of all the hinted developments through the series, im going to actually factor in how much and how well these conflicts were foreshadowed)

anyways if we had actually seen zenitsu, kaigaku, and kuwajima actually interacting with each other and showing how they were essentially a family (not just through flashbacks), it would have made zenitsu placing the responsibility of killing kai onto himself a lot more tragic

but like, apart from brief flashbacks where zenitsu actually met kaigaku off screen and that one thing all the way back in natagumo where both kuwajima and kai were introduced, thats pretty much it in terms of thunder family development

so yeah its underdeveloped for sure

also one random thought, i personally think zenitsu should have gotten his demon mark in this fight, it would have been cool to see

VS AKAZA (INFINITY FORTRESS)

[Image Description: Manga panel of Akaza’s face. There are two text bubbles around him, saying “Okay, let’s get started. It’s time for the feast.” There is also floating text saying “The inspection of the strong has begun...” as well as a simple box on the lower left, denoting its the end of chapter 147. End Image Description.]

6/10

oh god please dont hate me for this

ill list the good things first how about that

this conflict was foreshadowed perfectly in mugen train, you bet the readers were expecting a tanjirou vs akaza battle after the death of kyojuro and gotouge delivered

akaza’s power is shown extremely well with how many close calls tanjirou and giyuu had while fighting him

akaza eventually giving up on his own volition was really nice and fit into the context of the battle very very well, like sure tanjirou and giyuu wouldnt understand why he gave up but us readers do know

akaza is a really good character and a good villain

now notice how im only mentioning akaza and not giyuu or tanjirou in the good aspects

bc those two are eh

no form mixing at all from either tanjirou and giyuu

i know i said form mixing was kind of tanjirou’s thing but you’d think giyuu would have gotten more creative with his moves once akaza said that he was getting predictable

(well he said he “ran out of water breathing forms” but same thing)

so its kinda bland lol

speaking of giyuu, his whole thing with his insecurities of being weak wasnt handled well (it was sort of immediately brushed off in pillar training, and its unclear what part of his character arc he was in)

like sure him announcing that he’s going to protect tanjirou is cool but it feels like he was haphazardly dropped into the tanjirou and akaza conflict

isnt he supposed to be both their foils? that wasnt really explored that well in this fight and theres no deep meaning behind him even being here just analyzing what he did in it

he could have been handled better or even given more focus is what im saying

the anatta state came out of nowhere, im sorry okay? just bc inosuke like barely hinted at not being able to sense grandma hisa bc she had no fighting spirit and tanjurou magically taught his son how to achieve this state doesnt mean it was properly integrated into the fight

if the anatta state was actually explored prior to this battle, i would have given it a pass but it just feels like a cheap and poorly developed trick to get around akaza’s technique development (which is overpowered as fuck might i add)

gotouge should have just given akaza a plausible weakness to his technique development instead, especially since they dont use or even mention the anatta state after this

the transparent world shit makes no sense but ill elaborate on that in the koku battle analysis

oh and this thing doesnt affect the score but why wasnt there a “yoriichi visage overlapping” moment when tanjirou was fighting akaza? hes an upper moon, he should have gotten those visions but he didnt

for some reason

anyways this battle was alright and has good set up but the middle and end parts didnt hold up as well bc random concepts were thrown at us without prior explanation or development

VS DOUMA

[Image Description: Manga panel of Douma licking Shinobu’s butterfly pin. There are two text bubbles around him saying “Anyway, tonight is a good night. Such fine feasts keep showing up one after another.” End Image Description.]

9/10

damn, such an amazing fight

the build up to this was properly foreshadowed

shinobu finally showing her true anger after hiding it for so long is amazing

douma is a super interesting character and fantastic villain

shinobu showing off her true power and determination against douma was sooooo nice

shinobu’s poisonous body plan is so clever and so interesting

if i was to rate the shinobu part of the fight alone, it would have gotten a 10/10 no question

the reason why its knocked down a point is because of the kanao and inosuke part

dont get me wrong, the way kanao is able to hold her own against douma by herself is pretty cool, how shes meant to parallel douma with their similar struggles surrounding human emotions and demonstrate how she has grown as a person, how she regains the ability to cry

that shit is cool, inosuke also getting in touch with his emotions after learning what happened to his mom was super neat as well

however

bc this battle takes place in the final arc with everything else, there wasnt proper build up regarding many things, the kotoha reveal especially

so inosuke feels kinda forced into the kanao shinobu and douma conflict, similar to how giyuu felt forced into the tanjirou and akaza conflict

its quite unfortunate bc if the kotoha stuff was actually explored prior to the confrontation, this “forced” feeling would have disappeared

i know some people have suggested that the douma fight should have just been its own arc, and i very much agree, it would have certainly helped fix this problem regarding inosuke and kotoha

last random thought, i wish shinobu, kanao, and inosuke got their demon marks

VS KOKUSHIBOU

[Image Description: Manga panel of Kokushibou looking directly at the viewer, holding the hilt of his blade as if he’s going to pull it out. There are text boxes around him saying “This... is Upper Moon One... He’s so different compared to the other Upper Moons. He looks so dignified and majestic.” The text boxes are narrated by Tokitou Muichirou. End Image Description.]

5/10

this fight is... mediocre

at least theres a more tangible connection between muichirou and kokushibou

even though that was handled kinda poorly

tbh there really was no point to revealing that mui is koku’s descendant like at all, it just had no significant bearing to the plot of the fight

sanemi’s backstory being here is... okay ig?

idk the whole shinazugawa conflict has fundamental problems that i just cant think of any other place to put it without changing the entirety of canon

the marechi blood concept coming back was nice though

genya is there

him getting his bda was cool and helped turn the tide of the battle in a satisfying way (before kicking the bucket but thats not the focus here)

gyomei is a hollow husk of a character who barely got anything at all

but his fighting style is extremely cool and conveys his immense power very well

oh and him and sanemi are amazing at working together, like better than giyuu and tanjirou, and better than kanao and inosuke

theyre that good yet pretty much nobody acknowledges it which is sad

koku himself is pretty interesting and pretty tragic, very nice villain

but everyone together?

gonna be honest but this is such a random collection of characters, there was basically no foreshadowing that these four were going to go up again kokushibou, they are not that connected very well

i know there was this one post that focused on the theme of family that was common in all 5 characters in the fight but its just not enough

it would have been more cohesive if gotouge emphasized gyomei, mui, sanemi, and genya being like different aspects of yoriichi coming together to kill kokushibou hundreds of years after yoriichi failed to kill him

lmao its not like the 4 of them defeated koku with the power of family or friendship, they just smacked him over and over with a flail, shot him with magical bullets, and stabbed a crimson sword into his abdomen

wouldnt have been too hard to switch over to koku’s pov and go “damn these bitches are like my stupid brother”

...

speaking of crimson swords

i fucking hate the crimson sword concept oh my god can i complain about it now? im gonna complain about it now

unlike demon marks, the crimson blades werent even given any proper conditions, you just hold the stupid thing hard enough and it somehow imbues it with magical properties with no logic behind those properties

what part of crimson swords completely destroys a demon’s body in an instant? even muzan didnt go through that process when he was almost killed by yoriichi so where in the goddamn fuck did it come from

it could be explained bc the sword was left in the same spot for a long time but this tactic doesnt even appear again in a meaningful way (didnt kill muzan when tanjirou and giyuu held the sword together) so what the fuck was the point of having this even exist

its so underdeveloped and confusing and i hate it

the transparent world stuff is also confusing as shit and its pretty much never explained how they work aside from the vague “close your mind” advice, like why did it exist, it did nothing to help the present day demon slayers

its just so... poorly integrated

yeah anyways this is around the same rating as the akaza fight but a little worse bc there wasnt that strong set up beforehand

VS KOKUSHIBOU (SENGOKU ERA)

[Image Description: Manga panel of a bag getting ripped open, pieces of a wooden flute tumbling out. End Image Description.]

10/10

easily 10/10

this fight shows the tragedy of kokushibou giving in to his envy and hatred, when yoriichi cries over seeing his own family commit terrible attrocities against the people he wanted to protect

and yoriichi dies, now carrying the fact that he couldnt even save his own brother from the influence of muzan on his conscious forever

what a sad ending for yoriichi

and after koku angrily slashes apart yoriichi’s corpse, having him find and keep the flute he gave to him when they were kids to the present day gives him a small shred of humanity in the midst of his monstrous anger

VS NAKIME

[Image Description: Manga panels of Nakime. The first one shows a low quality version of her playing her biwa. The second one is a close up of her eye. There are spiky text bubbles saying “It’s Upper Rank... 4!” End Image Description.]

0/10

no nakime backstory

not even a goddamn fight

forgettable

useless

VS MUZAN

[Image Description: Manga panel of Kibutsuji Muzan in his white-haired, mouth-covered form. There are text bubbles around him saying “Not a single one was of use to me. I will crush the demon hunters tonight. I’ll massacre them all right now.” End Image Description.]

1/10

._.

i have many complaints but ill try my best to not make this another hantengu rant section lol

first off, obanai deserved better

im serious, this poor dude was forgotten until pretty much the end when we finally get a backstory out of him

and then he died

what a waste of a potentially amazing character

mitsuri getting taken out early was ehhh

pretty sure someone else made a post about her supposedly being extremely strong but she was nerfed in this battle which i agree with

literally none of the pillars work together very well, like remember how i praised sanemi and gyomei for being super coordinated? lmao that doesnt exist anymore

you could say this is caused by desperation though and you wouldnt be wrong, its just boring to sit through

that causes issues bc this now basically requires the crimson sword and transparent world concepts to be there to spice things up

but in this fight, they do nothing in the long run (except for tanjirou using the crimson sword at the very very end)

youve already heard me talk about why those two things are super shittily integrated and i cant be bothered repeating myself so moving on

kanao, inosuke, and zenitsu

they... exist? they didnt do much tbh, which i guess is the point but like, now its boring again

nezuko could have been used as a potential way to raise the stakes and make things interesting again (like “ah shit, muzan might actually be unkillable if he gets nezuko but its okay bc shes not here- oh fuck shes here this is not good”)

but nothing came of her running off except confirmation that she became human again so whatever

uzui and shinjuro are useless, why werent they at the fight?

like they could have followed nezuko and contributed to the battle even a little but they just didnt and now theres literally no point to them appearing in this arc at all

wasted potential

tanjirou

i wish him going absolutely apeshit had actual substance behind it, like it being a part of his character arc or something

i remember having this one theory that he had a corruption arc (due to dropping his kindness thing towards demons) and i wanted this to be true so badly

but it doesnt exist

not with how the series ended

god

the only thing that saves this fight from being complete trash is tamayo’s poison thing being amazingly executed

and the part where everyone got blasted away, losing limbs and shit, that made things a little more interesting again

but thats it

VS MUZAN (SENGOKU ERA)

[Image Description: Manga panels of Kibutsuji Muzan, Tamayo, and Tsugikuni Yoriichi. The first one has Muzan and Tamayo, while the second one has Yoriichi pulling out his sword. There are text boxes saying “And the moment I met him, I understood that I was born into this world to defeat this man.” End Image Description.]

9/10

finally something good again

while short, that’s just the nature of all of yoriichi’s battles with demons

anyways pretty nice, theres a clear reason why this battle exists (shows the scenario that made the original breather get super close to defeating muzan in detail)

adding tamayo here was a nice touch

my only complaint is that it seemed extremely coincidental that yoriichi somehow developed a breathing style specifically countering muzan’s multiple organs without even knowing prior that he had all those brains and hearts floating around freely in his body

like thats kind of ridiculous, even for yoriichi whos supposed to be “blessed by the gods”

could just be me though

VS TANJIROU

[Image Description: Manga panels of Kamado Tanjirou in his demon form. The first image has his eyes closed. The second image has his eyes opened and the tumor on his face almost completely faded. There are text boxes around him saying “You will destroy the demon hunters in my stead.” End Image Description.]

1/10

hoo boy

ok first off, demon tanjirou lasted for 2 chapters

thats it

2 chapters

so thats already a problem

i am aware its meant to parallel the beginning of the series but also its ridiculous how completely vague and rushed this entire thing was

nezuko doesnt do shit through not just this battle but this entire arc which i already explained so not gonna go into it further

kanao magically having a demon cure on her made very little sense

the scene where tanjirou leaves muzan in purgatory is pretty but if you look at it in the context of everything else, its ambiguous and confusing

(if someone could explain it and see how it connects to the original theme of “demons just being victims of circumstance,” i would love to hear it)

actually you know what makes me so mad about this “fight” as a whole? there was so much potential to do more with this concept

and im not talking about him escaping and nezuko becoming a demon slayer roleswap au (even though its a pretty cool concept)

him becoming a demon could have been a metaphor for his lost kindness and sympathy towards demons halfway through the series

it could have been a punishment for letting his anger towards muzan cloud his judgement

it could have symbolized literally anything about him losing his humanity as he got stronger

but those three things are just scenarios from my head, they dont exist in this series just based off of what weve seen from these two chapters

its disappointing

the only thing keeping this from getting a 0 is the one part where inosuke couldnt chop off tanjirou’s head bc he cared about him too much

that at least shows inosuke had grown as a character

everything else is just meaningless and convoluted garbage and “convoluted” is not what you should be aiming for if this is supposed to be the ending of your series

IN SUMMARY

early kny is very good, later kny is questionable and the ending is just a mess of wasted potential and disappointment

i get why gotouge had to have the transparent world ability, crimson blade ability, and the demon marks appear before they all appeared on yoriichi but theyre all just so underdeveloped and terribly handled in the battles they are used, it makes me want to kick a wall

like lmao, i could literally think of so many ways they could have been properly integrated, hell, im even writing a whole goddamn rewrite using my ideas for these three things (link to that is in my pinned)

just, god

if you want to debate over these ratings, my ask box is open ig? idk

#kny #kimetsu no yaiba #kny meta #demon slayer #my writing #long post

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skullsandwineglasses · 3 years

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Remembrance of Things Past - Eps 1-10 Impression/Rant

Not really a first impressions post since there are only 2 episodes left, but as I’m waiting on the last few episodes, I thought I’d rant a bit about the drama here.

First of all, I agree with everything that AvenueX said in her review of the first 6 episodes. Her review is what prompted me to start the drama. I needed a realistic slice of life drama to balance out the idol drama that is You Are My Glory (which I’m also waiting on for new episodes), and ROTP seemed to fit bill. ROTP is just so good.

I binged ROTP in 3 days. It could have been 2 days, but I started it at 2am on a Wednesday night, so I didn’t get very far the first night. Each episode is about 75 minutes long, so almost the equivalent of 2 regular lengthed episodes, but not quite.

I cried during the first two episodes. The character development is just phenomenal. You really feel for Jing Jing’s character even though you’ve only seen her character for an hour. There are little moments throughout the drama that made me tear up too, like when the girls were celebrating Nan Jia jie’s 36th birthday and I got emotional over how close their bond is, or moments when the girls reflected on their aging parents and how we often take our parents for granted.

Plot pacing and structure

The plot is tight and well-paced, and each girl’s storyline is interwoven well. Sometimes they’d cut between simultaneous scenes between the girls to compare and contrast what they’re each going through. For instance, when Xu Yan is having an argument with her boyfriend, the drama will also cut and flip back and forth to Qiao Xi Chen going through problems at her workplace. When Xu Yan makes up with her boyfriend, the drama cuts to QXC and Nan Jia being romantically pursued by Jian Yi Fan and Ou Yang. It’s interesting to see how their lives mirror and differ from each other.

Because the storylines between the girls are so interwoven and keep flipping back and forth between each other, it makes it hard to skip scenes because you can’t just skip an entire segment or else you’ll miss something important in all 3 storylines. I can see that this might be a little annoying if you have a preference for one of the girls and want to skip someone else’s storyline. But I actually like seeing all 3 of their stories play out, so I’m not bothered by it.

Another aspect about the plot’s structure that I appreciate is how they use the mystery behind Jing Jing’s suicide as a throughline for the drama. Up until episode 8ish(?), each episode ends with a question about Jing Jing’s life prior to her suicide and the next episode opens with the girls trying to find an answer or a clue to it. The girls and we the audience learn more and more about Jing Jing with each episode. However, episodes 9 and 10 deviate from the structure a bit and so the drama has recently been less and less focused on Jing Jing’s story, especially after they found out that she had depression. The drama seems to imply that her depression due to the stress of living in Beijing was the main factor that led to her suicide, while the successive unfortunate events that happened on her birthday was the trigger.

Characters

I like all the main characters in the drama, albeit some a little more than others, which I’ll explain. I think the 3 male love interests are a little too perfect though, and so I guess this slice of life drama is actually a little idealistic after all.

Xu Yan - My least favourite of the four girls. She’s materialistic, but not as spoiled as I though she would be. But it does annoy me how she keeps picking fights with Shen Zi Chang, when he’s just trying his best. He’s so tolerant and patient with her. He apologizes, they make up, and then the cycle repeats. It’s just a very unhealthy relationship, and I’m tried of seeing them fight and make up.

EDIT: So, I started writing this review when I had only watched up until episode 9, but now that I’ve finished episode 10, um, wtf?? Xu Yan made a bad choice and got scammed of all her money, her friends try to comfort her, loan her money, and tell her not to repress her emotions like Jing Jing. And then she just lashes out at them saying they have no right to comfort her because they were the ones who caused Jing Jing’s death. Xu Yan starts off blaming QXC for not knowing that Jing Jing had a crush on her boyfriend, and then she blames Nan Jia for being a bad older cousin. She blames both of them for being ignorant of Jing Jing’s depression and only caring about themselves. QXC (rightfully) retorts back than Xu Yan knew all along that Jing Jing had a crush on her boyfriend, and yet Xu Yan never told anyone, so she’s just as guilty as all of them. Honestly, I was sympathetic towards Xu Yan before, but she was just so ungrateful and entitled in that scene. What right does she have pointing fingers and assigning guilt to people? And to weaponize Jing Jing’s death against them? That’s just cruel. The argument between them in that scene at the end of episode 10 just felt so random and out of place. All of a sudden, Xu Yan points out all of these problems she has with QXC and Nan Jia, when all they’ve ever done is pamper her. Also, you can’t blame QXC for dating Lin Rui even if Jing Jing liked him first, and not to mention that QXC wasn’t even aware. QXC might not have even chosen to date Lin Rui if she had known. But it happens all the time between friends where your friend might date someone you like. All’s fair in love and war, and there’s no first come first serve rule when it comes to dating.

Jing Jing - She becomes more complex as you learn more about her. She puts her friends first and is fiercely supportive and protective of them. We get a glimpse of how far she’s willing to go for them she pulls a butcher knife from the kitchen and points it at QXC’s debt collectors in the first episode. Her friends see her as being really open, expressive, and bubbly. She’s the first one they each go to whenever they need help with a problem or want to show off an achievement. But in reality, she’s really secretive. She hides her feelings to keep her friends happy, and when they slowly uncover her secrets, she becomes less and less recognizable to them, as though she’s been living a double life all along.

At the end of episode 10, Jing Jing is described as the “hole in the tree” that everyone goes to to share their secrets, but they forget that she’s also a person with her own secrets to share, and she’s not just a tree hole to serve others. Can we blame the friends for not paying enough attention to Jing Jing and only using her for emotional support? Yes and no. It’s complicated. We should always do more to try to care for others and to be more attentive to them, but at the same time, it’s impossible to completely know a person. I purposely hide parts of my life from my friends because I don’t want them worrying or judging or commenting. So I would never expect them to be able to figure it out, and neither do I want them to figure it out. I think it’s interesting that the drama is exploring the friends’ self-imposed guilt, but I don’t agree that Xu Yan should be the one to point it out them and to be Jing Jing’s spokesperson. Xu Yan positions herself as Jing Jing’s heroic and righteous advocator, when really Xu Yan is the most problematic person out of the three remaining friends.

Also, after seeing how the friends interact, they don’t feel narcissistic. Yes, they each readily vent about their problems to each other, but they also ask about the other person. It’s not one-sided. Xu Yan talks about her problems with her boyfriend, but she also asks and cares about what’s happening in QXC’s life and vice versa. Nan Jia is more mature and is busy with her business, but she always takes the time and effort to help her friends. All of their conversations are reciprocal and they are genuinely interested in each other’s lives. So, I don’t think they have a major communication problem or that they don’t care or that they’re ignorant. Which again, makes Xu Yan’s accusations in episode 10 feel even more unfair.

Ji Nan Jia - Jing Jing’s cousin and also the oldest of the three girls (about a decade older). Sassy, witty, unapologetic, confident. She’s who you’d think of when you imagine a successful, independent, career-driven woman. She’s extremely annoyed by her mother’s nagging to get married. But she herself is trying to figure out whether she actually wants to find someone to settle down with or if she just wants to beat her biological clock and have children while she still can. She’s pursued by Ou Yang, ten years her junior, and he’s absolutely enamoured with her. He seems to be unconditionally in love with her, which is what I meant when I said that the male leads in this drama seem too perfect and idealistic. But I like Ou Yang though. He’s adorable.

Qiao Xi Chen - The main character of the four main characters. Like Nan Jia, she’s also quite sassy. In some ways, she’s like a younger version of Nan Jia. QXC is also very career driven and competitive. She’s confident and believes in her abilities, but she also gets easily overwhelmed and emotional (like when her stress and nervousness prevented her from being able to give her proposal presentation and she ran out of the room. I’ve definitely felt that way before my committee meetings). QXC is a character you can self-insert as because she represents the everyday employee who struggles with the long commute to work and tries to stand out and make a name for herself in the company. QXC is also extremely paranoid, which is understandable when you’re a woman living alone in the city. I know what it’s like to have to briskly walk home late at night and constantly having to look over your shoulder to make sure no one’s following you, or having to check your hotel room before you change, or having to make it seem like you’re not the only one living in your apartment. QXC is smart, logical, helps people when she can, but is also reasonably selfish when she needs to protect herself, like when her co-workers try to take advantage of her or throw her under the bus. She’s a character everyone can relate to.

She and Jian Yi Fan also make such a cute pairing. I love all their interactions. I love how Jian Yi Fan can’t help but smile when he’s with her, but he tries hard to clamp it down. I love how QXC is aware of her own attraction and easily admits to to Xu Yan that she does have feelings for him instead of beating around the bush. And I especially love the awkward but adorable confession scene in episode 8. Such great banter and play on words (”你是什麼意思” “沒意思” “你對我是不是有意思?”). The drama did a great job of depicting the frustration of trying to guess whether someone likes you when they seem to be sending mixed signals. A lot of dramas that don’t focus on romance seem to do a better job of showing romance than idol dramas that focus on nothing but romance. I grew up with TVB dramas, and in most of them, romance is usually secondary to the main plot, but I always loved the romances in those dramas.

Like Ou Yang, JYF is such an idealistic love interest. He’s so supportive of and attentive to QXC. I haven’t watched too many slice of life dramas, but To Dear Myself and My Best Friend’s Story both had flawed (and sometimes even irredeemable) male love interests. This drama’s rose-coloured glasses definitely reduces the amount of performative angst, but it also makes the drama a little less realistic. The men in Jing Jing’s life aren’t villainized either even when you expected them to be sinister. I think the most antagonistic character is Lin Rui, but even he’s made to be sympathetic. In fact, nearly all the characters in the drama are sympathetic characters because many of the choices they made were forced because of the situation they found themselves in, and what they did was an act of self-preservation. And so, you can’t hate them or blame them.

Acting and Dialogue

I mean, what’s there to say? The acting and dialogue just sucks you right in. I love it so much. The characters are so animated and charming because of how well the actors delivered their lines. I’m not a mandarin speaker (I’m a cantonese speaker but learned mandarin afterwards), but even I was able to notice the colloquialism and slangs and idiosyncratic ticks in speech that made the dialogue feel so real and alive. The actors had great comedic timing, and when they cried, you could feel how vulnerable they are.

Lastly, I also like the little “life lessons” they include at the end of the drama where there’d be a voiceover by one of the actresses and they’d muse about life. One of my favourite musings when when they talked about what it means to have a sense of security. For some people, having a sense of security is about having a certain amount of money in your bank account, or having someone waiting for you to come home, but a sense of security isn’t something tangible or physical that you can achieve or possess. It’s a belief. It’s a belief that you’re able to face any problem and that life will go on. It’s a belief that the one that you love will be faithful and supportive. It’s a type of belief that allows you to be confident to face uncertainty. And thus, a sense of security is something that only you can give yourself. I really like that little food for thought because it’s a great reminder to be self-dependent and to not rely on external gratification. Que sera sera. What will be will be. Don’t get too hung over on failure and don’t let stress dominate your life.

Note: Watching this at the same time as You Are My Glory is extremely humbling. YAMG is an idol drama, and so they make the romance look so easy. Heck, idol dramas make being a protagonist easy. The protagonist is destined to stand out from the crowd. It’s easy to be noticed. It’s easy to cause a change in the status quo. But ROTP is a reminder that we’re all practically nobodies in the big city. It feels impossible to make an impression when there are millions of other people living almost the same life as you are. There’s nothing special about you, and it’s hard to find meaning and purpose. Obviously, the drama shows that even when it feels like you’re trying to swim upstream in a big city, we each have a life worth living. We may feel insignificant in the grand scheme of things, but to our friends and family, we’re their world and they’re ours. I think it was Camus who said that we should find meaning in the face of absurdity. Live in spite of how absurd and meaningless things feels. Anyway, this drama gives you a lot to think about, even though I don’t really like the melodrama they’ve recently added to drag the plot (*cough cough* that explosive argument scene at the end of episode 10 that I keep ranting about). You’d think that a 12-episode drama wouldn’t have filler, and yet here we are.

#我在他乡挺好的 #remembrance of things past #cdrama #zhou yu tong #bai yu fan #cdrama review #jolin jin #ren su xi

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jalapeno-princess · 4 years

Text

Eternal Love

(LOOK AT HIS NECK VEINS UGH)

Vampire Mark X Reader

Word Count: 10.1K

Genre: Fluff, a bit of angst and badly written smut (honestly my smut just keeps getting worse I’m so sorry)

Warnings: Intended for 18+ audience; rough, dominant sex, oral (female receiving), light choking, thigh riding, doggy style, missionary, biting, fingering, orgasm denial

Summary: Hot, steamy and angry sex with vampire Mark (with some flashbacks I hope it doesn’t confuse y’all honestly this story is all over the place please bare with me)

A/N: Hey guys! So an anon requested dominant Mark and I had another idea of how I wanted to write about a dom Mark but I’ve been wanting to write about vampire Mark for a while now so here you go anon I hope you enjoy it!

“I can feel you staring you know? You’re not exactly subtle my love.”

The laugh that fell from your boyfriend’s lips made your entire chest warm and you wouldn’t be surprised if your cheeks were as pink as the roses the older boy stole for you from your next door neighbor’s garden right before he made his way in to your bedroom through the window. Anything Mark did never failed to make you smile like an idiot. You decided his laughter was your favorite sound the first time you heard it almost three years ago in your junior biology class in high school.

Although he tried to present himself to his surroundings as a very shy and introverted individual, his extremely adorable, contagious and high-pitched laugh that fell from his lips whenever he was with his friends convinced you otherwise. From that day on, you knew you wanted to be the reason behind that beautiful sound and you wanted nothing more than to witness his pure happiness every single day.

“I wasn’t trying to be. You’re breathtakingly beautiful and I’m madly in love with you. It’s only natural for me to look at you baby. Now hurry up with studying, you’ve been at it for almost four hours now. I need love too.” You couldn’t help but release a soft giggle at the sight of his cute little frown before returning back to your notes.

“Well I’m sorry not all of us have been around for thousands of years and attended God knows how many schools throughout your entire life to know every single answer to any question. Midterms are coming up here soon and I don’t want a repeat of last semester. You and I both know how upset I was having to settle for that D in psychology.” He gave you a knowing look before playfully wiggling his brows at you.

“Well maybe you need another D in order to take your mind off of your education for a little bit. Preferably buried inside of you. Mine in particular. Don’t look at me like that y/n. You haven’t let me touch you in almost an entire week because of these stupid tests. You know you have nothing to worry about right? You’re smarter than you think you are babe. I know college is rough, but take it from someone whose attended over 200 colleges, it only gets worse the closer you get to graduation. Hang in there princess, you got me every step of the way. Now, before I go fucking crazy, can I please get a little taste? I can smell you from over here. Your scent alone is driving me to the brink of insanity, you smell so fucking good and I already know you taste even better.”

If someone were to tell you a couple of years ago that you would be dating a vampire, you would’ve laughed in their face; but here you were, head over heels in love with the so called “forbidden, mystical creature” you called your boyfriend. When you first developed feelings and showed interest in Mark, he was quick to avoid you and even went through great lengths of ignoring you in order to prevent the two you from getting involved with one another.

A few months after the two of you began your relationship, Mark explained to you that he treated you so coldly because he didn’t want you falling for him. He was a monster, a beast, an abomination. There was no way he’d allow himself to get in to a relationship or associate with a human he’d end up developing feelings for. Not only was he afraid of hurting you; it was obvious that he could never control himself around you. But because he knew deep down that a relationship with a human would never last. Humans live all the way up to 100 if they are lucky but vampires stay the same age for eternity.

Mark knew you were going to be someone very important in his life when your scent practically slapped him in the face as he walked in to the lab on the fateful day you both met and ever since you and Mark were assigned to be lab partners, you’ve been attached to the hip ever since. It didn’t take long for you to discover your boyfriend’s secret. For starters, his skin was paler than most people and his touch was cold as ice. Being the clumsy person you are, there was one day you were about to leave class and failed to notice that the rug in front of the door was uneven. You were expecting to stumble flat on your face but the fall never came. In fact, not only did Mark practically yank at your wrist to keep you from falling, but you were soon pulled in to his chest and the entire situation made your head spin.

You didn’t fail to notice how abnormally strong he was. Sure, a couple of your friends were in weight lifting and you knew it wasn’t unusual for someone as broad and fit as Mark to have such a firm and solid grip, but it just didn’t feel right to you for some reason. His strength felt bionic. What also sparked your curiosity was the fact that his eye color was always changing. Although it was normal for people to wear different colored contacts, Mark’s eyes were constantly being switched almost every single day to the point where you didn’t even know what his natural eye color was.

The last straw that practically answered your questing for you, was the one night you found yourself walking home and it felt as if someone was following you. To say you felt scared out of your mind was an understatement. You were staying at the library late that night to study for your finals at the time but you didn’t know just how late it was. You knew you should’ve reached out to your parents to pick you up, but your school was only 10 minutes away from your house and you didn’t think much of walking by yourself so late in the night.

Now you were regretting your independent personality and decided to walk a little faster in order to let whoever know that you were aware of their presence. You were just a few steps away from your house when you heard a painful cry of an older man and it was then that you saw him on the ground with his arm being twisted behind his back. When you saw the person who was attacking him, it was as if your soul left your body.

There was your science partner, the sweetest human being who would never hurt a fly with the most darkest shade of red in his eyes. You didn’t hesitate to run as fast as you could no matter how badly you wanted to make sure that Mark was okay, it was obvious he could take care of himself. You didn’t want to see what Mark was going to do to the older man and what he could possibly do to you.

Once you made it in to your house, you released the longest breath of relief and took a couple of minutes to process what had just happened. When you made your way up in to your room, you flopped on to your bed and began to hyperventilate. It was so much for you to take in. How did Mark know that guy was following you? Was he watching over you from afar? What exactly was he? Your body wouldn’t allow you to fall asleep, no matter how hard you tried.

The night’s events haunted your mind and you tried your best to push it to the back of your mind but you weren’t able to. Mark wasn’t human, that you knew was true. His pale white skin, icy cold to the touch. His almost superhuman like abilities; how fast he ran in track and p.e.; it wasn’t normal. You also picked up on how he never ate. At lunch, he always had a tray of food but it went untouched every single time. And his red eyes, the way he looked at you right before you made a run for it felt demonic.

The realist in you knew exactly what he was, but you wanted him to tell you himself before jumping to conclusions. The next day, he was quick in finding where you were. You didn’t even take three steps on to campus before he came up to you with a blank look on his face.

“We need to talk. Now.” You didn’t say anything and just followed him to his car, allowing him to take you anywhere he wanted to. When the two of you made your way in to his truck, you thought he was going to drive off to a more secluded area but he didn’t even turn on the car. The two of you sat in silence, the tension in the air was so thick you could cut it with a knife. You didn’t dare look at him, but you could feel him staring, the feeling was intense.

“Why were you walking home by yourself so late at night? Are you crazy? You could’ve died—“

“How did you know where I was? Were you following me?” You finally turned to look up at him in curiosity and shivered when you saw how tightly his jaw was clenched.

“That’s not the point here y/n, you need to be more careful. What if I wasn’t there huh? You have no idea what that man could’ve done to you.” You released a soft sigh, too afraid to speak up against him and upset him even more than he clearly already was.

“Mark.” He knew what was coming. Mark was completely aware that you weren’t stupid. What happened last night was the cherry on top of all the information you were gathering about the mysterious boy and it wasn’t too long before your curiosity got the best of you.

“What did you do to the man? Is he dead?” The silence that filled up his car answered your question and you could feel your nerves building up the longer he didn’t say anything.

“Y/n—“

“Tell me the truth Mark. I stayed up all night thinking about this. You—you’re not human are you?”

“No. You’re a smart girl, I’m sure you put all the clues together, so just say it. What do you think I am y/n?” Your breath was shaky; but for some reason, you weren’t afraid. Deep down you knew Mark wouldn’t hurt you.

“A vampire. You’re a vampire.”

“Bingo. There’s nothing for you to be afraid about though, I would never do anything to hurt you. I’m sure you have a lot of questions in that pretty little head of yours, so did you maybe wanna get out of here and I can tell you everything you’re probably dying to know?”

You found yourself nodding in agreement and he took that time to pull out of the parking lot and drove farther and farther away from your school. The drive to wherever he was taking you was quiet. He turned on the radio for what you felt was to kill the awkward atmosphere but you couldn’t help but overthink everything.

“Stop that.” You looked over at him and his focus was on the road but he was quick to reach out for your wrist and intertwined your hands together. Your breath hitched all but softly at the sudden skin ship, it wasn’t like you weren’t familiar with him so it didn’t feel all too unusual. It only made things harder for you because you were slowly developing feelings for him.

“I’ll tell you everything once we park so stop overthinking. I’m going to tell you right now, I can hear your thoughts so I’ll try my best not to take advantage of you and your mind.” Once Mark parked his truck, he got out of the car and helped you out not letting go of your hand. He led you down a path and before you knew it, there was a beautiful lake surrounding the two of you.

“Now, to answer all of your questions. Yes, I am a vampire. The group of guys I hang out with, all vampires—well—except for BamBam and Yugyeom. They’re werewolves but there’s no beef between werewolves and vampires like the fake shit you’ve probably seen in movies. Yes, I was following you; but it’s not what you think. I’m not some creepy, obsessed stalker. I just so happened to be up on a roof when I saw you walking and then I saw that asshole begin to walk a little too close behind you. I also sensed the pocket knife in his hand and his thoughts were so disgusting and vile. He got what he deserved y/n. And no, I don’t kill people for a living. I didn’t kill him to suck his blood, so you can get rid of any “bloodsucker” thoughts. We don’t take blood from humans, well—we do. But not directly from humans. I only kill in situations like last night. My friends and I, we kill those who are a threat to the community. That fucker had the audacity to beg for his life knowing he was seconds away from taking yours. I don’t know what I’d do if something were to happen to you.” You could feel your heart rate increase at his sweet words and the gentle caress of his thumb on your wrist made you smile softly.

“I like you y/n, I’ve had a crush on you for a while but I’m sure you know why I haven’t done anything about it. People like you and I, we’d never work out. We’re from two different worlds. But I can’t help myself. Tell me to leave you alone and I will. I know it’s what’s best for you, that’s why I’m giving you an out. However, I know you want me as much as I want you—ow! Just because I’m practically dead doesn’t mean that didn’t hurt. Just because I said I’ll try and stop reading your thoughts doesn’t mean I’ll ignore the ones I’m involved in. The ball is in your court y/n. I’ll do whatever you want me to.”

With the way he was holding your hand so perfectly, like it was meant to fit with yours and how he was looking at you so tenderly made your heart flutter. You didn’t care if he was different. You didn’t care that he was a so called “beast” and the fact that he could kill people. He was still the same old cheesy and goofy Mark that you knew him to be. Knowing that he was a vampire didn’t change the way you felt about him and to be quite honest, it was quite the turn on.

You knew Mark had cat like reflexes, but you had to stifle a laugh as he jolted when you attached your lips to his. There were so many times in class where you would daydream about how it would feel like kissing those soft lips of his and now that you knew, you wouldn’t be able to get enough. But wait, did he know that you would doze off thinking about what it would be having his lips on yours?

“Yes. I found it quite cute actually. I don’t know if it’s because I liked you too, but your thoughts are extremely loud babe. Ooooh, I like the sound of that. Babe. I’ve never been in a relationship before, so please be patient with me and let me know if you need for me to slow down or if I need to increase the speed of our relationship. That was amazing by the way. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t find myself wondering what you tasted like every so often. You’re a sight for sore eyes y/n. So, so beautiful. I’ve been around for thousands of years. I’ve travelled a lot, lived in many different places and you’re the first girl whose ever caught my attention. You’re wonderful you know that? Incredibly smart, hardworking, exceptionally talented, a little bit clumsy and very kind-hearted. I’ll take good care of you baby, I promise.”

From that day on, Mark became your shadow. He introduced you to all of his friends and they were all very friendly and accepting of your relationship. They were actually all in shock to hear that Mark found someone. Throughout their many years on this earth, the six of them all had their fair share of girlfriends, flings and one night stands. Mark however, never seemed interested in anybody. In fact, they felt that’s why he was such a hard ass because in BamBam’s words, “he’s never gotten some”. But Mark knew, even from the time he was turned in to a vampire that something was always missing in his life.

He tried a few times to look for love, hell, he even went along with Jackson’s advice and having a casual fuck buddy but Mark wasn’t in to that. When he was still a human, he was quite the romantic. He loved the idea of love and he has always wanted to experience falling in love with someone. But when his life was cut too short at the young age of 24 years old, he didn’t get to experience any kind of relationship other than the puppy love ones he had back in high school. When your relationship had started, all of that changed.

You were all Mark knew and wanted to know. He was very good with learning every single thing about you. Your likes, dislikes, your favorite food, favorite color, the tv shows you would binge watch on Netflix, where you went to school, what your mother’s maiden name was; he wanted to know it all. Since you were your boyfriend’s first actual girlfriend, you understood why he was so overprotective and clingy and he’s apologized for it many times, but you were very understanding when it came to his actions and you knew he only had your best interest in mind. Not only was he your boyfriend, but he was your best friend. You would always confide in him with all of your self doubts, worries, problems and insecurities. He was also your personal chef, teacher and doctor.

Since he’s been around for so long, he’s learned quite a bit of things and he’s observed people enough to know how to make an amazing filet mignon and to be able to tell you what the pain in your left abdomen was. You also learned quite a bit about him. There was one night in particular that the truth came out.

You never wanted to ask Mark about his past just in case it brought him back to bad times, but you couldn’t help but wonder both why and how he became a vampire. The two of you were currently up on the roof of your house stargazing when he placed a soft kiss on your hair and the words came flowing from his mouth like a river. His death was an accident.

Mark and two of his friends; Jaebum and Jinyoung were coming home from a party that night when a huge freight truck hit all three of them causing their car to flip upside down. The last thing Mark remembered was seeing Jaebum and Jinyoung being pulled from out of the car by what he thought was a lady in her mid-thirty’s and when she went to take him out of his side of the car, everything went pitch black after that. He woke up the next morning, which was actually almost a month later feeling extremely weird and loopy. He also felt like he was dying of thirst.

When he saw his two friends sitting on a couch waiting for what he assumed to be his awakening, he released a breath of relief to which the two boys practically jumped on him in excitement. It was also in that moment that Jinyoung and Jaebum alongside of the woman who they introduced to Mark as Nina thoroughly explained to the eldest boy that he died that night of the accident and he was now a vampire. It was quite the information for Mark to take in. In fact, Mark took it the hardest. Your boyfriend had a huge family that he loved with all of his heart. He was also the biggest momma’s boy, so he was heartbroken at the thought of how his mother must’ve taken his death.

The more he went in to depth about his entire history from how amazing his life was up until his untimely death and the many years he’s lived before meeting you, you felt overwhelmed yet somewhat special knowing he trusted you with something so important to him. Although Mark was considered to be a killer and even a demon in some eyes, to you he was your entire world. He may have been intimidating to others but you knew he was quite fragile and very delicate. You made a promise to yourself that you would do anything and everything in your power to make sure he was well taken care of and to give him the world he deserved and more.

“Fine, I’ll take a little break. You’re insatiable Tuan. Get over here you horndog.” Mark practically leaped over to your desk and hoisted you up against his waist, wrapping your legs around his hips and attacking your neck with gentle kisses. Your boyfriend was very compassionate and considerate whenever it came to you. He was pretty insecure about being a virgin and because he was ten times stronger than most humans, he was afraid of not knowing what to do and hurting you.

Your first time together was the most interesting and the most adorable sexual experience you’ve ever had. He kept asking you if you were okay, if he was doing things correctly, if your moans were that of pain or of pleasure and the poor thing didn’t seem to enjoy it because he was worried the entire time. However, all the times the two of you were intimate after that were mind blowing. Mark took the time to learn your body. Where to touch to drive you insane, what positions made you moan the loudest, the kind of kinks you were in to. He was also very vocal when it came to what he liked and you could confidently admit that your sex life was indescribable and otherworldly.

“Do whatever you want to me baby, I’m all yours.” He gave you his award winning smile before roughly attacking your lips with his. He laid you all but gently on your bed and ran his hands alongside your shoulders and down to your arms. His breathy moans vibrates against your lips and the sensation went straight to your core. As the two of you made out, you were so focused on molding your lips with Mark’s and doing your best to keep up with his pace that you didn’t notice his hands making their way to your clothes yet very soaking pussy until you felt one of his fingers drag against your underwear painstakingly slow.

Since it’s been a week since the two of you have made love, you knew Mark wasn’t going to go easy on you. He was going to take his time, teasing and edging you and you were too excited at the idea of dominant Mark to even care about having to beg him as the night went on.

“So fucking wet. You’re soaking baby. Tell me who caused this? Fucking tell me y/n!” You couldn’t help the urge to want to tease him knowing how much he hated being submissive if it was his turn to be dominant. You and your boyfriend would take turns leading your love making sessions. As much as Mark loved being rough and dominant, he found it extremely sexy whenever you would degrade him and make him earn his orgasm. He wasn’t afraid to admit he was a switch. He had fun loving on your body and giving you what you desired as much as he did receiving so it didn’t matter what went down during sex. All that mattered to him was that you were having a good time.

“You Mark. Always you. Only you. Ah fuck—“ he didn’t give you any time to prepare before shoving two digits in to your entrance. He decided to toy with you and left his fingers buried deep in your cunt without doing anything. It was pure torture. One of your favorite body parts on Mark was his long, pretty fingers. He knew exactly how to bring you to sheer ecstasy with his fingers alone.

“You know what I want from you. My fingers don’t move until you beg my dirty, filthy little girl. Now ask me.” From an outsider’s view, Mark was such a gentle boyfriend that served you the world on a silver platter which was ultimately true. He treated you as if you were an angel and in his eyes, you were. He still had a hard time understanding why you’ve stayed with him for so long when you clearly deserved better. Someone with an actual heartbeat. Someone you could relate to. Someone who wasn’t frowned upon for being a monster. He was trying his best to work on being insecure because you would always reassure him that you wanted nobody but him but it was only nature for him to have such a low self esteem.

“Please Mark. I need you to fuck me with your pretty little fingers. Touch me, please. I need you to move, your fingers feel so good. I’ll do anything—ahhh—faster—go faster.” Finally, to your delight Mark began to pump his fingers inside of you at a rough and consistent pace. You reached for your pillow so that you could hide your face in it and drown out the moans and screams you were sure would fall out of your mouth pretty soon but Mark was quick to yank the pillow away before you could do anything.

“If you’re going to act like this, I’m only going to make things harder for you. What happened to my good little girl from a week ago? Didn’t I give you everything you asked for because you were behaving so well? I guess my fingers alone aren’t good enough for my sweet angel are they? I guess I just have to eat you out don’t I? You spoiled brat. Can’t be one of the other, I always have to do both. I won’t lie and say I don’t want this though. I’ve been wanting to suck on this sweet pussy since the last time I had my face between your thighs. Now sing for me y/n. Let everyone in this apartment structure know whose fucking you good.”

He stole one more kiss from the corner of your lips and yanked his fingers out of you, earning himself a frustrated whimper. He slowly made his way down your body, showing love to each an every one of your body parts. The two of you had sex many times for you to know that Mark was obsessed with your breasts. Which is why you weren’t surprised when you felt him unclasp your bra and watched as he flung it across the room before returning his attention to your bare chest.

“I don’t understand why you humans waste your money and time wearing this useless things. You look so much better without it. Why do you own so many bras when my hands are free of charge y/n—stop it I’m being real here—hit me one more time and I promise you you’re going to miss your final because you won’t be able to walk for the rest of the week.”

You rolled your eyes at his words but you knew he was telling the truth. If Mark was upset, got jealous or the two of you had an argument, he would take all his anger out on you during sex. There were times were you found bruises and one too many love bites somewhere on your body from how rough your boyfriend could be and you even had to call in sick from both work and school in order to rest. Dominant, wild and experimental Mark was your favorite Mark and the fact that he was so built along with knowing he was a dangerous creature was so erotic and sexual to you. He was an animal both in the streets and in the sheets and it was a huge turn on for you.

As soon as you felt his mouth against one of your mounds, your eyes rolled to the back of your head. It always felt so good. He began licking and sucking on your nipple, bringing it between his fangs while massaging and toying with your other nipple. Your hands made their way in to his hair, tugging ever so gently while you moaned all but quietly against his neck at how good it felt. Breast play was one of your favorite kinks and Mark knew exactly how to take care of your beautiful mounds.

“So—so good. Your teeth—your fingers—fuck. Please don’t stop baby.” He pulled away and gave you a cheeky smile.

“I love your tits y/n. So big, so pretty and all mine. I love sucking on these so much and hearing the effect it has on you makes me so fucking hard.”

Mark continued his ministrations digging and kneading your flesh all the while flicking your nipple with his tongue. Feeling him moan and grunt against your breast made the knot in your stomach only tighten and as much as you loved the feeling of him giving attention to your chest, you craved more.

“Mark.” He hummed in curiosity before pulling away to see what you wanted.

“Yes princess?”

“As much as I love breast play, I need more. You either eat me or ram yourself inside of me. Now.” You knew you messed up trying to tell him what to do especially when he made it aware that he was going to wreck you tonight.

“Tsk tsk tsk. If only you continued to follow what I had planned for us tonight. I was going to go easy on you because I know how hard you’ve been studying and all, but now—now I feel like you deserve a little punishment. You’re going to get yourself off you hear me? Sit on my thigh and find your release on your own.”

You felt so desperate when the whine fell from your mouth and you gave him the most adorable frown in attempts to get what you wanted but you knew it wasn’t going to work. Then you began to pound at his chest in frustration but he grabbed both your wrist and pinned them up above your head.

“That’s strike two y/n. Such the naughty girl tonight. Should I tie you up and jack myself off in front of you? Will that get you to finally do as I ask?”

You shook your head and left a soft kiss at the juncture of his neck. “I’m sorry baby, I’ll be good. I promise.” He snickered at how needy you were acting and you mentally cursed him for having fun with this.

“I heard that.”

You rolled your eyes and made your way on to his lap. He was currently wearing a pair of black skinny jeans and you know from past experience exactly what riding his thigh was like while he worse the harsh material but if this was the only way you could find release, then you’d take what you could get. You sat on one of his thighs while wrapping your arms around his neck and began to grind yourself against him. His jeans were rough against your clit, but the friction between your soaking core and his pants were driving you insane. He brought his hands down to your ass and helped guide you back and forth along his thigh all the while kneading and roughly slapping your cheeks.

You reconnected your lips with his, roughy crashing them together and brought his bottom lip between your teeth. With every grind against his thigh and feeling your clit graze against his jeans with every gyration of your hips made you moan angrily against his mouth. His grip was tight against your hips and you could feel his pants tighten. The sight of his growing erection brought you even closer to your orgasm. You fastened your pace and practically began bouncing against him.

“You’re close aren’t you?” You nodded in agreement and to your dismay, he lifted you off of his lap. You didn’t care if he degraded you anymore at this point, you needed to cum or you were going to lose your mind.

“Mark, why the fuck did you stop? I was so close! I was doing what you told me to do and fucking your thigh you asshole. Do I not get to come at all tonight?”

He grinned; the fucker grinned and as much as you loved how he was acting, you were so close to fingering yourself.

“Look at the mess you made. Shit y/n, my pants are immersed in your juices. Don’t worry baby, you did so well. I just—feeling you soak my pants, hearing those pretty moans of yours, feeling you rub against my thigh and seeing your facial reactions made me so fucking hard. I need to be inside of you. But before I do that, lie down. Let me take care of you baby.”

Finally, he was going to give you what you’ve been waiting for all night. There was a voice in the back of your mind telling you that there had to be a catch and that there was a chance he was going to deny your orgasm once again, but you weren’t going to say anything to provoke him. When he found his place in between your thighs, he began to lick and suck on your thighs while leaving wet and sloppy kisses amongst the both of them.

Although Mark loved leaving hickeys on your neck and chest to show people that your bed was spoken for, he enjoyed leaving love bites on the inside of your thighs and knowing that he was the only one who got to see them. “You smell so good y/n and your pussy is glistening. Fuck, I’m going to devour you.”

He licked a long slit at your entrance before taking your clit in between his teeth. Absentmindedly, you reached forward and tugged gently on his curly locks as he began lapping and slurping up your juices. Since Mark didn’t eat actual food, he would always make a joke about your pussy being his favorite meal, but with the way he would eat you out like a man starved, you knew he was telling the truth.

You and Mark were very generous to one another whenever it came to giving each other head and as much as you enjoyed giving head, especially because Mark would praise you for blowing both his dick and his mind, you preferred receiving just a little bit more. Your boyfriend continued to suck and run his tongue back and forth against your sensitive nub causing you to let out a pleasurable shriek. Feeling him moan and hum against your core made your grip on his hair tighten.

“M—mmm—Mark—fuck—so good, you’re always so good to me baby. I love you—so so much—ho—holy shit.” He smiled up at you and you had a hard time understanding how someone could make something so naughty look so adorable. Seeing his pretty teeth grin at you all the while your essence was all over his lips made your eyes roll to the back of your head. He was so fucking beautiful. Your love confession led your boyfriend to bring back both of his fingers in to your cunt and began pumping at an extremely rough and fast pace all the while returning his tongue between your folds.

The feeling of him licking and slurping up all your juices while he flicked at your nub and brought your clit between his fingers, rolling it and pinching it with his calloused fingers was all too much for you to take in and after what felt like forever, you found yourself seeing white as you came all over his tongue.

“You taste so good baby and you’re so fucking tight. Your pussy was practically rejecting my fingers, I can’t wait to have you wrapped against my cock. How are you feeling though? Tired? Need to take a break?” You shook your head in disagreement and softly pecked his nose. It always amazed you that Mark could go from animalistic and practically driving you on the bridge of insanity to the worried and nervous boyfriend you knew and loved with your entire being.

“I’m fine, more than fine. I love the feeling of your fangs biting down of my thighs and grazing against my clit, I don’t know why but they’re so fucking sexy to me. I want to return the favor.” Right as you were about to lower yourself to your knees, Mark shook his head and pulled you again from his belt.

“Mark what are you doing? I want to suck you off baby—“ his laughter filled the entire room while he placed a chaste kiss on your forehead.

“You’re such a needy cock slut, always wanting my dick in your mouth. Fuck, you’re so sexy you know that? I can’t wait to be balls deep inside of this pretty pussy. As much as I want your mouth wrapped around me and to fuck your throat, we’re going to have to save that for next time. My dick is practically standing at attention and needs to feel you wrapped around it. You’re going to bounce on my dick like the professional cow girl you are, I’m going to fuck you doggy style in to this mattress and then we’re going to finish off in missionary. I love watching your breathtakingly beautiful face while you come. Let me make love to my baby.”

He took off his jeans and almost ripped his shirt in half because of how badly he wanted you right then and there. Mark took his spot on your bed and crossed his arms behind your back. The smile he was sending you made your heart warm. One thing you loved during sex, no matter how passionate and rough it could get was that Mark would always smile adorably at you with his pearly white teeth.

“God, I’m so in love with you y/n. I can’t wait to spend the rest of my life with you.” Every time he brought up the future, you always felt so excited. You wanted nothing more to settle down with the devastatingly handsome man lying down in front of you. You even dreamt about starting a family and having little versions of the both of you running around the house but you knew there was no way that could happen. He wasn’t physically able to have kids and it upset you because from the time you were a little girl, you’ve always dreamt about having a big family and Mark would tell you he wanted it to. But wouldn’t people find it weird that as you age, your boyfriend didn’t? And you hated the thought of spending the rest of your life and having kids with anyone other than Mark.

Your boyfriend was quick to notice your sudden mood change and he release an exhausted sigh as he heard what you were thinking. The two of you have had this conversation before many times and it was always this topic that led to most of your fights.

“I’m only going to get older and uglier one day while you stay young, handsome and fit. Everyone is going to wonder why such a handsome young man is wasting his time with an old hag and I wouldn’t blame you if you were to leave. I just don’t see why you can’t change me—“ the growl that came from the back of his throat caused the hairs on the back of your neck to rise.

A few months in to your relationship, you began growing curious about how it would be like to become a vampire. Hearing Mark’s and his friend’s stories about their lives as vampires were very intriguing. However, when you brought up the idea of giving up your human life in order to spend the rest of eternity with your boyfriend, he was quick to shut that shit down. You’ve never seen him so angry before. He couldn’t blame you for being curious, but there was no way in hell he was going to let you do that.

“You can’t be serious y/n—why would you even want to make such a stupid decision? What makes you think I’m ever going to allow you to do such a stupid—I can’t even think right now. No, there’s no way. You don’t even know what you’re asking for. Fuck that.”

The tears were hot against your cheeks as they fell. You knew there was a huge chance he’d say no, but you didn’t think he would be so mean about it. The only reason why you’d want to become a vampire was because you wanted to spend your entirety with him. If you were to die one day, he’d still be on earth for many more centuries. You didn’t want to be without him. That’s all you were worried about and it hurt you to see that he wasn’t on the same page.

“I do know what I’m asking for. I’m asking to spend the rest of my life with the man that I love but I guess that’s wrong of me and asking for too much. I’m sorry for thinking about what’s going to happen to us one day Mark. I’m going die one day, did you forget that? There’s no way we can be together forever because forever doesn’t exist for me Mark. I’m going to die one day and you’re going to have to find another woman to love—“ seeing you cry, especially knowing that he was the reason for your tears made Mark feel like such an asshole. He didn’t think about it like that. He just knew that he hated being a vampire. If he had the choice, he’d still be a human.

He wishes every single day that he could’ve experienced what it felt like to have kids, to graduate from college, to travel the world alongside of his family, to get married, buy a house with the person that he loved. But he can’t even do simple things like that and he’ll never know how it feels. He doesn’t want you to have your life practically stripped away from you because of his selfish needs. Mark has thought about that on multiple occasions. Jinyoung even brought the subject up to him once and he almost got socked in the face for it.

You told him how you were so excited to experience motherhood and he knew you couldn’t do that as a vampire. He wanted you for the rest of his life. The idea of you marrying someone else and starting a family with someone who wasn’t him sent a painful and gut wrenching feeling to his stomach. Before you could continue your sentence, you were being pulled in to his embrace and he wrapped one of his hands around the back of your neck as he placed the other one in your hair.

“I’m never going to find another woman to love and it’s because you are my person. You are the only person I love and the only person I’m ever going to love you understand me? I love you with every fiber of my pathetic being and every non-existent beat with this lifeless heart of mine. I hate being a vampire y/n. I hate it with a passion. I have to watch people I become close to die. I constantly have to travel so it doesn’t seem weird that I’ve been 24 years old my entire life. I don’t eat, I don’t feel pain like humans do, I can’t have kids; I can’t give you everything you want baby and that’s why I refuse to do that to you. People talk so much shit about us, how we’re destined for hell and how we kill innocent people when it’s not the truth.”

He paced back and forth across the room before taking his place back next to you on the bed before bringing you on top of his lap. “The day you die is the day I’ll die too. I’m never going to live without you. I don’t care how old you get, I’m always going to think you’re the most ethereal human being to exist. Even with white hair and wrinkles, you’re still going to be exceptionally beautiful my love. You know, as much as I wish I never died and that I never became what I am, I know everything happens for a reason and you are that reason. If this never happened to me, I would have never met you. I don’t think I would’ve been this in love with someone to the point where I’m willing to give up anything and everything to be with that person. To be with you. I’m sorry for making you cry baby. I’d want you to change for the same reasons you want to, but no. I couldn’t do that to you. I could never live with myself knowing that I turned you in to a monster. I love you more than you will ever know y/n. Now let me show you just how much.”

You let a hysterical snicker fall from your lips as you recalled that memory and Mark was quick to get up from his comfortable position on your bed. “Please don’t start y/n. We went over this already. I don’t know what else to do or say to get it in to that stubborn mind of yours that this life is not what you want! Will you please listen to me? Just this once? I’m never going to allow you to become a vampire. Ever. This conversation is over.”

When Mark got mad, he would get real mad. You weren’t sure if it was a vampire thing or because he was always short tempered, but whenever the two of you would argue, he would raise his voice and sometimes throw things around but he was trying to work on his anger in fear of scaring you. You felt a pang of sadness hit your chest, why did you always have to ruin things? Everything was going so well. You just had to hit him where you knew he was sensitive and now there was a huge amount of animosity in the air.

“I’ve ruined things didn’t I? I’m sorry Mark. I should go back to studying—“ your boyfriend was quick to reach at your waist and brought you back to your previous position, as if what just went down between the two of you didn’t happen at all.

“No, you didn’t ruin anything baby. I should be the one apologizing. I didn’t mean to yell at you, it’s just a touchy subject. I know where you’re coming from, I just wish you could understand where I’m coming from too. And there’s no way I’m letting you return to your studies while I’m still hard as a rock. Come on baby, ride me like the professional cowgirl I know you to be.”

You gave him a sad smile before placing a chaste kiss on the corner of his mouth and finding your spot on top of his lap. You playfully began to trace his hardened member through his underwear earning yourself a pleasuring hiss. Mark was quick to hide his face in the crook of your neck as you released him from his restraints. You brought your thumb up to the head and ran it along his slit and around the tip, swiping up the precum and you made sure to pull your boyfriend out of his hiding place so that he could watch as you seductively brought his cum in to your mouth. Seeing his eyes roll to the back of his head made you giggle, you loved the effect you had on him.

“Mmm, are you sure I can’t suck the life out of you babe—“

“Y/n if you know what’s best for you you’ll shut up and sit down on top of this dick right now.” A breathy moan fell from your lips at his hoarse and raspy voice and you found yourself lining his cock at your entrance. As soon as you sank down on him, the two of you whined in unison at how it felt. No matter how many times you and Mark have had sex in the three years of being together, you never got used to the stretch. Your boyfriend in more or less words was extremely well endowed. He knew to give you a few moments to get used to how it felt having him inside of you, so he waited for you to move even if he was slowly losing his resolve.

“Baby, you okay?” You nodded against his chest and left a soft kiss there.

“You can move Mark, I’m fine. I need it too.” He didn’t waste any time thrusting inside of you while you began meeting him halfway, bouncing against him at a rapid pace. You wrapped your arms against his neck with his hands gripping tightly on your hips. Countless swears and flustered grunts fell from Mark’s lips every time you crashed on top of his lap. The sounds of your ass clapping against his pelvis echoed throughout the room along with both of your content sighs and countless moans of pleasure.

“Fuck y/n, you feel so fucking good—so wet and so fucking tight. You’re taking me so well. Your breasts look so pretty like this, you’re so beautiful.” You gave him a tired smile, although you were on top your boyfriend was the definition of a power bottom. He met each and every bounce with a thrust, his cock gliding deliciously against your velvety walls. You felt his fangs graze against your neck and you knew exactly what he was going to do.

Biting you and sometimes even sucking on your blood was a force of habit of your boyfriend’s. The first time he did it, it was an accident and he was horrified by what he did, especially because he was addicted to the taste of your blood and couldn’t find it in himself to stop. It was overwhelming. Even if you knew Mark didn’t drink blood straight from a human, it was only natural for him to get hooked on any sort of blood if he had the opportunity. You were no different; in fact, he’s never been so addicted to someone’s blood before.

For some odd reason, it turned you on and you didn’t understand why. Maybe because it established his dominance or because it wasn’t something you were used to, but you let him know he could bite you whenever he wanted to. As soon as he sank his teeth in to your neck, the moan that fell from your lips was embarrassingly loud. He didn’t spend too much time loving on your neck because he didn’t want you passing out, but you could feel your orgasm building the longer he kept his fangs in the juncture of your nape.

“You’re close aren’t you baby? I am too, but I don’t want to come like this. I wanna hit it from the back, can you get off me real quick?” You did as you were told, mainly because doggy style was one of your favorite positions. Mark would hit you deeper in this position and could reach further inside of you. He took no time lining himself up at your entrance and turned your face so that he could connect your lips together. As soon as he entered you, he shoved your head in to your pillow and began plunging himself in and out of you like his life depended on it.

To your surprise, he slapped both of your ass cheeks all the while bringing you closer to him. Your breasts began to jiggle with every thrust and you couldn’t help the muffled screams that came every time his pelvis kissed your cervix. The air was extremely thick and your room wreaked of sex.

“Faster Mark—please go faster. It feels—feels so good. Harder baby—mmm—“ To your delight, he did exactly as he was told. He wrapped his fingers around your neck, making sure not to grip all too tight but just enough to drive you to the brink of insanity. His cock continued grazing against your clit while hitting as deep as he could go. Before you knew it, he was filling you up to the hilt with his warm, creamy liquid and you did your best to milk him of all that he had.

“Come on baby, let go. Come for me.” Not too long after his release, you were chasing your own. Mark gave you a few moments to catch your breath before flipping you on your back and flopping himself on top of you. Your sticky bodies immersed in sweat and your arousal practically clung together. The older boy grinned softly when he felt your heart race against his chest.

“Can you handle one more round my love? I want to make slow, sensual love to you. You don’t have to do a thing, just sit back and enjoy the ride.”

He intertwined your hands together and brought them up on either side of your head. Once he felt like you were ready for him, he started to leave wet, sloppy kisses all around your face and down your nape, hovering over your love bite from when he sank his teeth in your neck. Since Mark was aware the two of you were going to continue your love making session, he had yet to clean you up. Therefore, the excess cum that was left over was used as lubricant and it made it easier for him to slip inside of your already drenched pussy.

He could sense that you were tired, the two of you have been going at this for almost two hours and you were already exhausted from all the all nighters you’ve been pulling, so he didn’t want to tire you out entirely. He lifted your chin up so that you were making eye contact with him so that he could look at you as he fucked you. Eye contact was a huge part of sex, Mark loved looking at you while ramming himself inside of you. Something about it was so erotic yet extremely romantic. When he finally found himself balls deep inside of you, he slowly bottomed in and out of you. He continued his slow pace but practically slammed himself in your core each and every time he pulled out. Seeing him smile adoringly at you while he was drilling himself inside of you made your cheeks warm.

“Baby. I—love—you—so—fucking—much y/n. I can’t even fathom it in to words.” He confessed his love for you with each and every thrust and before you knew it, the both of you were coming together for the second time that night. Once you both reached your ends, he lowered himself on top of you and the two of you stayed like that for a few moments just basking in one another’s presence. He ran his fingers through your hair while you dragged your fingers along his back, tracing over some of the scratches you absentmindedly left while he was fucking you so good.

“I’m gonna go start us up a bath, I’ll be right back.” With one more kiss on your temple, he left you alone with your thoughts. You were exhausted beyond belief. It was always like that whenever it was Mark’s turn to be dominant. The pleasurable soreness between your thighs only made you crave having him inside of you again but you knew you needed to take a break. When you felt his presence at the side of your bed, you tried your best to turn and face him but your thighs were jelly at this point. Mark’s adorable high pitch laugh engulfed your room when he came to the realization that he did exactly what he said he was going to do and wrecked your pussy beyond words.

He picked you up bridal style and led you to your bathroom, stepping inside of the tub and carefully sitting down with you on his lap. Your body melded perfectly with his and his arms wrapped protectively around your waist as he placed his chin on your shoulder.

“I didn’t hurt you too badly did I?” You shook your head in disagreement before tracing patterns on his thigh.

“No, it was wonderful as always. You always take such good care of me. It was a nice little breather from my studies.”

He hummed gently against your skin, the vibration made your heart flutter. “I should make it a thing where you get rewarded every time you do well in school. Like, for every A you get on your report card this semester, I’ll eat you out for an hour.” You rolled your eyes, already knowing that Mark would eat you out whether or not you got good grades. The two of you sat in the tub in silence, the only noise you could hear was the sound of a candle flickering but you liked it like that.

“I like listening to your heartbeat. Especially when it increases, like when you see me, when you get drunk off your ass and say a little too much, or when I’m rearranging your guts. Yeah, I think it beats the fastest when I’m blowing your back out—I’m really glad I don’t feel pain or develop bruises. I’m sure people would give me weird looks if they were to see how many marks you leave on me from the numerous times you hit me—hit me one more time y/n and I’m going to take you right here and right now. I’m sure your boss hates me from how many times you had to call in sick because of how rough I can be.”

He nipped and sucked just below your earlobe and whispered sweet nothings while playing with your fingers. It was in moments like these where you grew selfish, your conversation from earlier replayed again in your mind and you knew Mark could hear your thoughts by the way he released a frustrated sigh. To think, the two of you almost didn’t end up having sex because you had to be vocal about your selfish desires in wanting to become a vampire.

“I still would’ve fucked you even if the argument progressed. Y/n, I’m serious. It’s you and me forever, that’s all you need to know. There’s so much to this life that you wouldn’t be able to understand nor get used to. Please baby, trust me on this okay? There were so many times I wished Nina just let me die that night but then again, I would’ve never met you, the best thing that’s ever happened to me. I meant what I said in the beginning of our relationship baby, I’m not going anywhere. You’re stuck with me. I’ve been on this earth for so fucking long and I’m not kidding when I say these last three years have been the best three years of my entire life and it’s all because of you. I don’t know what I did to deserve you, but I’ll spend the rest of my life proving to you that God made the right choice in making you mine. I never believed in soulmates before, but now I know that you and I are each other’s—God—I hate how cheesy I became since we dated. But it doesn’t matter, you make me want to be cheesy.”

You snickered. “You’re such a lame boyfriend.”

“Yeah, but I’m your lame boyfriend—that’s it. We’re getting out of here and I want you face down and ass up on the bed, I’m going to impale you with my stake—hahaha—that was a good one I’m a fucking comedic genius.”

#got7 imagines #got7 smut #got7 #mark tuan got7 #mark tuan smut

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spookyboywhump · 3 years

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Here’s the WIP I’d been talking about earlier, now Complete.

Castor has been mentioned and usually I like to give a few current pieces before I get into who the whumpee was before, but right now, here’s where Castor’s story begins, before he was, well, Castor

CW: Kidnapping, needle mention, drugging, nonsexual nudity, dehumanization

***

Julio took a deep breath as he stepped outside, enjoying the cool night air. It was half past midnight and he’d finally finished his shift at the corner store, he was looking forward to getting home and relaxing. He only lived five minutes away, and while he didn’t exactly live in the safest area, he wasn’t worried, as he’d made the walk countless times before without incident. He kept his hands shoved in his pockets as he walked, his mind occupied with thoughts of getting home and collapsing into bed.

If he’d been paying better attention to his surroundings, if he’d been more aware, maybe he would’ve noticed the car before it pulled up in front of him just as he was about to cross the street. Maybe he would’ve run, maybe he would’ve acted quicker, he’d always thought he’d rely on his fight or flight instinct in a situation like this, but instead he froze.

He reacted too slowly, two people had already jumped out of the car before he realized he should run. He’d only gotten a few steps away before he was grabbed, jerked back by the hood of his jacket and passed to the other person. An arm snaked around his torso, dragging him closer, and a hand clamped over his mouth. He was being pulled backwards, towards the car, and still he struggled, clawing at the hands holding him and trying to drag his feet as much as possible, trying desperately to get free, shouting and yelling for help even though his attempts were muffled.

He was forcibly shoved into the car, the door slamming shut as the person who’d been holding him got in after him, the other person getting into the driver’s seat. His first instinct was to try and get out through the other side but he was roughly pulled back by his arm, still struggling as his arms were yanked behind him, bound at the wrists with a zip tie.

“Please-Please let- let me go!” He begged. “I don’t-I don’t have much money but you can have it! My wallet is in my back pocket, just take it and let me go!”

“Could you shut him up?” The driver said, sounding irritated.

“P-Please,” He tried again, frantically as he knew he didn’t have much time now. He couldn’t see what the person holding him had been doing, he didn’t know what he expected, but his hair was grabbed and his head yanked to the side. Something pinched his neck, he realized it must’ve been a needle, which just caused him to panic more.

He kept trying to plead with them, but his words began to slur together, whatever he’d been injected with was acting quickly, and after only a few moments he found his eyes falling shut, despite his best efforts to resist.

***

He woke up exhausted, confused, and seemingly blindfolded, as he couldn’t see anything when he opened his eyes. He tried to move but his wrists were still tied behind his back, and struggling just caused the zip tie to dig painfully into his skin. He was vaguely aware of the fact that he wasn’t alone, he could hear movement, hear other people breathing, and after a short while, he heard a voice, along with footsteps approaching him.

“This is the last one?” A feminine voice asked, sounding unimpressed.

“Yep, just caught a couple of hours ago.” He recognized this voice, as his memories of the night came back, he knew this was the person who’d been driving the car. As he started to remember things, he was starting to get more scared, more panicked, and against his better judgement, he chose to open his mouth.

“W-where am I?” He stammered. “Please- L-Let me go!” He cried.

“There he goes again. He tried that when we first picked him up too.” The driver said.

“Gag him, please, I don’t want to hear a word from him. Get him to his feet while you’re at it.” She ordered. He hadn’t realized how close the other person was until a cloth was roughly shoved between his teeth, tied tightly behind his head. Once that was secure, he was pulled to his feet. The movement made him nauseous, he was still slightly unsteady but able to stand on his own at least. He flinched when he felt hands on him, poking and prodding, lifting his shirt up, he felt as though he were being examined like an object.

“What do you think, will he do?” The person asked.

“Yes, I think so. Get him ready please? And get rid of that zip tie, there’s no good in selling damaged merchandise.” She said.

“Hmm?!”He tried to speak before remembering it was useless, and he seemed to just go ignored.

“Yes ma’am, he’ll be ready in time.” The person holding him said, and he listened to her walk away. He had about a thousand questions he couldn’t ask, and though he wanted to struggle or fight or run, he was still weak, his attempts were useless, he was dragged off to who knows where and he had no choice but to follow.

His heart was pounding in his chest, he wished he could’ve asked where he was or what exactly he was here for, or why him of all people. He desperately wanted to struggle or attempt to escape, but he was too scared of what would happen if he were caught. While he’d been drugged, he hadn’t been hurt yet, and he didn’t want to find out how willing they were to do so.

Once he was where he wanted, his wrists were briefly grabbed, the person speaking up again.

“I’m going to untie your hands now. Either you cooperate and I let you undress yourself, or you struggle and I’ll have to cut your clothes off, understand?”

“Mmhmm…”

“Good. Don’t touch the gag, don’t touch the blindfold, just do as I say.” They said sternly. The zip tie was cut and his hands were freed, for a moment he just rubbed at the stinging marks on his wrists. “Go ahead and undress.” He knew it was likely his only chance to try and escape but he decided against it for the sake of staying unharmed, hoping he was making the right decision. He kicked off his old, worn down shoes and his socks, and with shaking hands he removed his jacket, his shirt, then his pants, and he was grateful he wasn’t told to remove anything more. “Hold out your hands.” The person ordered, and he did as he was told, almost flinching when leather cuffs were secured around his wrists, the chain between them short enough to not allow much movement.

He was grabbed by the shoulder and being led away again, he assumed back to where he was before. He was forced to his knees again and told to wait patiently, to sit still and be quiet. He could manage that much at least. He knew there were people on either side of him, he wondered if they were in the same situation as him, wondered how they were staying so calm when he felt like his heart was going to jump out of his chest. Aside from the occasional whine or whimper, it was quiet between him in the others, he assumed they were either gagged or smarter than him, waiting anxiously for… something. He still wasn’t sure what.

After some time, he heard more footsteps, and voices this time. There were several people, who came and went. Sometimes they’d stop in front of him, sometimes they’d touch him, as though inspecting him. He jerked away once, only to be slapped for doing so, teaching him very quickly not to move. One asked how much he would cost, the words made him sick, but they ultimately chose to pass on him, which was a small relief. Realistically, he didn’t think he’d be let go if he were sold, but he still found himself hoping for it, just praying for a way out of there.

It was a woman who seemed to show the most interest in him. By now whoever had been on either side of him had been sold, he heard it mentioned he was one of the last left, and just as he was thinking he’d get lucky, this woman showed up. She held his face in her hands, taking her time to inspect him.

“Does he fight? Is he any trouble?” She asked.

“He tried to run, but don’t they all? Other than that, he just seems to have a problem with talking too much.”

“Hmm, nothing I couldn’t train out of him.” She said. “I’ll take him, bring some clothes for him please?” She said politely, and as the person walked off, she reached up and pulled away the blindfold. He squinted against the light, finally getting a look at this person, a dark haired woman with pale blue eyes. She smiled at him, despite the fact he wasn’t doing a great job of hiding how scared he really was. She looked nice, and for a moment, he really had hope that this wouldn’t be entirely terrible, a thought that quickly disappeared as she reached a hand up to ruffle his dark hair and said, “You’re going to make such a pretty puppy for me.”

#whump #my writing #my oc's #Castor #tho i used his Person Name here #he was Julio :D #kidnapping #dehumanization #nonsexual nudity #needle mention #drugging

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aprito · 3 years

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hello <3 since i got these asks at the same time i decided to combine my thoughts on them in this post. yet another annoying sjw essay from yours truly on this blog

before i get into these i think i need to preface why im like. i guess overly hyperfocused on a certain unproblematic base (same age au / platonic canon) for them and avoid the ped0philic content like the plague lol

tw for pedophilia ment, rape ment if that makes you squicky. ALSO THIS IS LONG AND RAMBLY

as i’ve mentioned a couple times already, ive been into the ship since i was 12, back when it was very very common to not only post untagged (nsfw) canonverse content of the two in writing and in drawing but also non con and the like, so you can imagine how bad my first impression online was. thinking back on it ...as a child i found it disturbing but didnt really register how problematic it really was?? (i know, but i also lived in the middle of nowhere and had no one explain this to me)

skip to 2014 aka me coming back to naruto at 17ish and i had kinda become hyper aware of the fact that there was an increasing amount of people online who had come forward with explaining how fictional problematic content, mostly pedophilia, had been used to groom them into starting relationships with adullts. it was also a time where a lot of people didnt believe these victims, not registering how common it was for minors to be online friends with adults who had no boundaries and no qualms exposing them such content. not gonna get into my personal life here but i was lucky to not having gone through this myself. like... it kinda was my first time truly realising how fiction can EASILY be used to manipulate others irl (and yes i will not argue this, if you dont think fictional media can form and manipulate people’s opinions on attitudes, countries, cultures and virtues, pick up a book about the effects of propaganda media at least once please)

i, being young, still liking the dynamic but not really the romance, would point this out here and there in the fandom and get into fights with grown adults in their mid 20s who assumed i automatically hated the ship(s) and tried to restrict their freedom of speech or whatever, heard everything from the “age of consent doesnt exist in naruto” to the “sasori looks like a child what does it matter” despite people clearly playing on him being older and experienced. it made me so upset that people were just consuming all this content uncritically and exposing children to it tbh?? not really just sos but a lot of minor/adult ships in naruto in general. and thats where i sat down and thought, i do not want to be a grown adult talking down to children that point out how unsafe the fandom is. theyre absolutely right in drawing these boundaries and calling out adults who defend the uncritical consumption and creation of this content. i do not want to consume or create content that predators could use to groom minors, and i absolutely do want to let younger people in fandom know that i am respecting their comfort zones and want them to have a safe and fun experience. after all, naruto is not an adult show and i think a lot of people forget that!!!! i am not perfect in that regard but its something that i, at the age of 23, am very passionate about and strive towards to.

and i guess thats where same age au was born for me and i have been sticking to it ever since.

so finally we can move to the first question

aside from the fact that we both dont like canon sos, i dont think it would work out even if i wasnt prejudiced to it anyways. in all honesty, 35 year old canon sasori is not a redeemable character to me, given the fact that he’s easily amongst the cruelest villains in naruto (torturing and killing and taxiderming people for his own fun personal gain, never for a goal that served anyone but himself. how do you redeem having over 300 corpses in your backpack that you felt absolutely no remorse for killing). sasori was legit one of the only cruel villains that didnt had someone else pull the strings, which sends a clear message on kishi’s part, who absolutely loves to redeem villains LOL.

being that old, he obviously had already been very manifested in what he believed in, even if it was shakey, to the point where the first crack in that world view (sakura and chiyo protecting each other) immediately had him give up on his life all together. that, in my opinion, is not a man who’s going to know what healthy relationships would look like, regardless of it being romantic or not. 35 year old sasori to me has the same appeal as an expired can of tuna and he’s probably very happy 6 feet under. he’s supposed to be a failed gaara in that sense that he had no one to look out for him and therefore was never going to experience anything but a bad ending in life. its fine that hes dead honestly, it wraps up his short character development the best IMO.

adding to that, seriously, sakura was obviously interested in knowing why he was that way, and called him out for being seriously fucked in the head, but it’s weird to me that people assume she had any interest in actively rehabilitating him, let alone starting a serious romantic relationship with him. sakura who’s not only very, uhm, immature and straight forward when it comes to her romantic viewpoints also, as a big bootlicker, wouldnt soil her standing in the village by starting anything with a disgraced and far too gone criminal like sasori. shipping that version of sasori with sakura intimately is still going to set her up for a huge power imbalance that would be difficult to handle imo, even if she was the one in the fight ultimately exerting her power over him. i would still look at it and think damn she deserves better than having to play therapist for man like that lol.

additionally, even if you ignored all of this, you cant really ignore that sasori had already known her as a child, and that had been his first and most impactful impression of her. i dont think that sasori would look at 35 year old sakura and see her as a grown woman and not the little green girl she was in the fight. plus, you easily fall into predatory comparison territory between the “childish” and “womanly” and i have seen way too often in fic just being boiled down to her now being fuckable. a lot of of ships do this and i would just like to remind yall thats it not normal for adults to want to start relationships with children they have seen grown up or known as a child when they themselves were fully grown adults. therefore, maybe if sakura hadnt met sasori before it would be less of a problem? but that also obviously defeats the point of the dynamic and the reason he died in the first place. so yeah, it sounds kind of doomed especially if you were to make it romantic.

WHICH BRINGS ME TO THE SECOND QUESTION

let me preface this that im not fundamentally against age gaps, even if im not super interested in it. after all, colorblind had a 5 yr age gap (with sakura being 21), even if, say, i wrote similar fics today i probably would make it smaller lol. i think it can be handled well if both parties have enough life experience to deal with it, and the author is cautious of where the age gap starts, i think a 10+ year age gap would be fine in a scenario where the younger party (i guess sakura) was at least 25-27ish, meaning she has completed most of her most formative life stages and probably had been in relationships before, meaning she would be able to handle it without having to fear a huge power imbalance. the older the younger party is the less the age gap is going to matter tbh .TsukiHoshino and AngelOfDeath10 both handle age gaps in their fics really well imo, so i do not mind reading about them.

unfortunately, a lot of people in this fandom think making sakura barely "”””legal””””” (18, not even 20 which is hilarious to me because the source material is obviously japanese) because they both cannot stand her being past her “prime years” of being young fertile and fuckable to much older men as well as thinking a 20 year old is automatically old enough to handle that type of relationship. ive seen a lot of unironic takes that believe it will absolve them of callout posts if they throw around age of consent and “shes 18 now suckers!!!” enough lmfao. absolutely hilarious. aging a minor up without aging the adult down seriously reeks of predatory “cant wait until youre 18″ narratives and thats why i find it similarly disturbing as straight up pedo shipping.

ultimately, sasosaku is and will always be a inherently problematic ship in canon, which is why i think it should always be handled a little more responsibly in fandom spaces, ignoring or outright excusing the main problem factor, which is sasori, isnt going to convince anyone that the dynamic in itself is well written and interesting enough to explore in aus, like giving sasori the redemption most of us wanted him to have by aging him down to a point in time where he was still realistically going to allow being positively influenced, similar to gaara.

so really, what i think is well handled age gap and how most people handle age gap in the naruto fandom are two different worlds at times lol

tl;dr

canon shippers have never been anything but gross when i was younger and i didnt wanna be like that, even if youre “smart”enough to differenate, actual creeps dont really care and might use your content to blur the lines, sasori isnt rly redeemable so romantic canonverse realistically wouldnt make much sense and is still iffy, age gaps are fine if they are handled well, but given that the dynamic doesnt really need the age gap to still work im not that invested on making that an essential part of my shipping experience.

thank you for reading and hope this makes sense!

#nonitxt #meta #another hot take from me #but seriously if you're offended over these #unfollow me lol idc #defending predatory content is not a hill im gonna die on in this life

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stardustryewriting · 3 years

Text

A Learning Process (1)

AO3 Link: here

Synopsis: Bakugou isn’t exactly in touch with all of his feelings. Kirishima usually doesn’t mind. At least not, until Bakugou starts to get weird around him.

Part 2 3 4 5

Observational Learning

Contrary to popular belief, Bakugou didn’t mind his class all that much. He had called them ‘extras’ a lot, when school had begun, but that was mostly because he was really bad at remembering people’s names. All in all, they were a decent bunch, some of them really strong, some of them aiming really high and all of them very determined. He could appreciate that, at least.

What he couldn’t appreciate, however, was their tendency to get involved in all kinds of gossip. Or, to be more exact, how loud they tended to be, when they found a particularly interesting piece of gossip. Getting mixed up in other people’s business was their thing. But being obnoxiously loud about it and basically screaming their findings to each other in the classroom, got him involved too. And he hated being involved in anybody’s business.

People told him - quite often actually - he eluded an aura that made him unapproachable. That he always seems like he was going to snap and scream at someone. That really, people only asked him for help, when every other possible choice was eliminated prior. Which was mostly bullshit, of course. Kirishima asked for his help all the time, without ever being scared of him. And he only really snapped when people got on his nerves for too long. Or when Deku was involved, which was the same thing really. Deku just got on his nerves a lot faster than other people. Still his ‘aura of unapproachable’ kept him from being involved in most of his classmates shenanigans.

Most, being the key word.

No matter how much he scowled, how much he glared or how annoyed the undertone in his voice got when he told them that ‘No, he did not care at all. He doesn’t give a rats ass about it.’ , none of this helped against Kirishima’s sunshine declaration of ‘They are finally, officially together’. Because, of course Kirishima doesn’t care about Bakugou’s obvious bad mood and his blatant disinterest on the topic. He never did. It was one of the main reasons why they were as good friends as they were. It was also annoying Bakugou to no end, at that moment.

“And who cares?”, he grunted, throwing his shoes up on the table and looking out of the window to drive to point home. And really, it spoke for the general mood in the class right now, that Iida didn’t even try to reprimand him for that. Usually this would be the start of an argument on being proper and respectful. An argument that both Kirishima and Deku would try to keep on the down low, by trying to mediate between the two. But right now, Iida’s attention was all taken by trying to calm the ruckus and getting everyone to sit down, before Aizawa would come in to start homeroom. For once, Bakugou could agree with Iida, even if he would never say it out loud. They were too damn noisy.

“You can’t be serious!”, Kirishima exclaimed and even without looking, Bakugou could tell that there was a big smile on his lips, “Todoroki and Midoriya danced around their feelings forever. This is a big development!”

“It’s two dudes kissing! No need to make a spectacle out of it!”, he retorted, shooting Kirishima a look which he hoped conveyed just how done he was with this. Ever since these two had shown up holding hands that morning, it was the only thing on everyone's mind. And after Todoroki had stated, in a very blunt way that only Todoroki could do, that yes they kissed, the whole class just exploded with euphoria. As if it was their personal accomplishment. Which it wasn’t, Bakugou wouldn’t even call it much of an accomplishment at all. It would have happened eventually, anyways.

“Well it was a long time coming!”, Kirishima argued back like it was his personal mission to make Bakugou see just how important this was, “You could at least be happy for your friends.”

“They’re not my friends!”, Bakugou argued instantly, before Kirishima got some other weird ideas in his head. Hell would be frozen over, before he called Deku his friend. He was just about to tell that to the dumbass next to him, when the classroom door opened, revealing Aizawa.

The man looked way too tired and done for a Tuesday morning, but today Bakugou resonated with that on a deeply personal level. He too wished that this entire week was over already, in hopes the waves of euphoria from the ‘news’ will have died down by next week. Realistically, he knew the chances were slim. He refused to think about that. Aizawa somehow managed to get all of the class to their seats and be quiet with just one look, so really Bakugou was mostly grateful for him that morning.

That gratefulness lasted exactly two minutes, before Aizawa announced another field-trip-turned-training-exercise. At least he had a month to mentally prepare himself for that.

__________________

That fact that he would need to prepare for that field more than just mentally, didn’t hit him until lunch break. And to be fair, he wasn’t really thinking about it then, either. He was actually just about to take a bite out of the Onigiri from his bento (that he had made himself and no, he wouldn’t make one for anyone else, no matter how much they begged), when Kirishima interrupted his peace yet again.

Bakugou couldn’t say he liked that tendency.

“Shit guys, does anyone have bug spray?”, he asked, mouth full with his sandwich, which honestly irked Bakugou even more than the question itself. Had no one ever taught this guy basic table manners? The answer was apparently no, no one ever bothered. Or maybe it just was a thing in their group, because both Kaminari and Sero also had their mouths full, when they exclaimed that no, there was no bug spray to have between them. Which was a stupid thing to be that aggrevated about.

“What do you need bug spray for anyway?”, Bakugou mumbled, after swallowing and he could already feel himself getting annoyed. What a stupid discussion to have over lunch, really.

“The training camp?”, Kaminari stated, his voice getting higher at the end, even though it clearly wasn’t phrased as a question, “I can’t have the mosquitos eat me up again. I swear, I’m just too damn cute.”

“Questionable”, Jirou said, wholly unimpressed by Kaminari getting mad at her and instead just opting to continue eating quietly. When she even got to their table, Bakugou had no idea.

“He is not completely wrong tho”, Kirishima said and Bakugou could see Kaminari in the background puffing out his chest and raising his chin, proudly. As if the idiot had any justification for being proud. He just stated a simple fact. “We do need bug spray for the mosquitos.” Kaminari visibly deflated at that. Bakugou, on the other hand, could feel his anger rising. Did that idiot really think Kirishima would agree that he was cute?

“Just go shopping then”, he said, just wanting to end this damn discussion. It wasn’t even useful, with the answer lying so obviously within reach. They all just liked to make a big fuss out of nothing. Exactly like that same morning.

“Can’t”, came a chorus of answers from all around their table with various excuses. Jirou had study sessions with Yaoyorozu. Kaminari booked the training hall, surprising everyone. Bakugou didn’t really care.

“I have time. Want me to get something for you guys?”, Kirishima volunteered starting what was possibly the worst verbal onslaught happening that day. Which said something, considering the ruckus these idiots had made that morning. Kirishima dealt with it very patiently tho, writing down who needed what. Which proved that Kirishima was way more organised than Bakugou would have given him credit for.

“Do you have anything planned this afternoon?”, Kirishima asked, with a strange undertone to his voice, that Bakugou couldn’t quite place. He could however think of where this question was headed. And he was quick to shut it down.

“I’m not going shopping with you!”

“Aw, c’mon man. This’ll be fun”, Kirishima argued, shooting Bakugou his best open-mouthed smile, presenting all of his teeth. If he thought that would sway Bakugou’s decision, he would need to think again. No way would Bakugou cave that easily.

“Find someone else.” And then to signal that this talk was really, completely over, Bakugou took another bite of his food. Kirishima just winked at him, unbothered by Bakugou being the way he is and instead turned around in his chair to face the table behind them. Oh no.

“Hey, Midoriya”, he shouted, which was unnecessary, because Deku was two arm lengths away at best, “where did you buy that super good bug spray again? You know the one you had for the last training camp.”

“That was Uraraka’s. She bought it at the mall. I don’t know the name of the shop, but I can show it to you. Are you free this afternoon?”, Deku answered, ever the helpful idiot that he was. Well, at least Kirishima found his shopping buddy. And Bakugou could be at peace.

“Sure am, thanks. Meet in front of the store at 3:30? I’ll bring Bakugou.”

No, he sure as hell wouldn’t. Bakugou was quick to voice that.

__________________

The question ‘How the hell did I get talked into this?’ went through Bakugou’s mind approximately a thousand times, between leaving the dorms and arriving at the shopping center. Which was impressive, because the way had only taken them fifteen minutes.

Fifteen minutes that Kirishima had filled with bright chatter, either blissfully oblivious to Bakugou’s mood or willingly ignoring it. He would regret this for sure. Bakugou would make him regret it. Later. For now, he was content to just listen to Kirishima chatter about anything and everything that came to his mind. It wasn’t the best use of his time, but it wasn’t the worst either. Not that he would ever admit that.

And so, while Kirishima’s chatter became a pleasant buzz in the back of his mind and Bakugou was starting to think about what he would need for their next training camp, he felt himself being more calm than he had been the entire day. Which wasn’t hard, not with the day he had, but it was still nice.

It was promptly taken from him.

Crossing the last traffic light separating them from the shopping center, where Deku was already waiting for them, he saw something. Something that made him want to turn around and go home again. To hell with Kirishima not wanting to go alone, that was no reason why he should subject himself to what will essentially be an afternoon of torture. There was no way Bakugou would just accept this like it was nothing.

Deku brought his fucking boyfriend.

“Midoriya, Todoroki”, Kirishima shouted happily, being way more enthusiastic than he had any right to. He sped up, holding up one of his arms to wave at them, which Deku promptly returned just as enthusiastic. Todoroki gave a way more timid wave and Bakugou decided he wouldn’t bother at all. No need to fake friendliness. Or that he wanted to be there.

“Kirishima, It’s good to see you”, Deku greeted, as if they hadn’t just spent hours at school together and Bakugou felt like punching something again. Why did he always feel to need to use those overly polite yet completely unnecessary phrases? Why couldn’t the idiot just be normal.

“We just saw them at school”, Todoroki pointed out and Bakugou would have nodded to agree with him, but he had his pride. No way he was going to openly agree with Deku’s boyfriend on anything. Even if it was criticizing Deku. So while Deku explained to his socially stunted boyfriend what a polite phrase was, which somehow developed into a discussion about whether or not those were time wasting ( Yes, they are, Bakugou wanted to shout, but that would be admitting to listening in on their conversations.), Bakugou started one last try to get away from all of this before it became even more of a waste of time.

“Hey Kirishima”, he addressed the boy, who looked at Deku and Todoroki with something close to a fond smile, “have fun third-wheeling on their date. I’m going home.” And with that he turned his back, hoping to get out before Kirishima could make an argument against it. A futile hope, really.

“No, come on, Bakugou”, Kirishima said in a voice that sounded an awful lot like begging, so much so, that it made Bakugou stop midstep, “I didn’t know he would bring Todoroki. Please don’t leave me alone, I don’t wanna be a third wheel.”

“And how am I supposed to help that?”

“Simple”, Kirishima, who walked around so he could face him again, smiled at him like he was the fucking sun himself, “You stay here with me, so I don’t feel left out all the time.”

“And why would I do that?”, Bakugou inquired, feeling how he got closer and closer to yelling out his frustrations. It was Kirishima’s stupid idea to go shopping with Deku, so Kirishima should be the one dealing with all of the consequences. By himself. He had no right to involve Bakugou in this.

“Because we’re friends?”, Kirishima argued, but Bakugou could tell by the way he winced at himself, that he wasn’t convinced by his own argument. He shouldn’t be. Since when did friendship mean having to subject himself to the drama that Kirishima essentially brought over himself. Old Bakugou would have laughed at him and went on his way.

But old Bakugou wasn’t really hero material. Old Bakugou also wasn’t Kirishima’s friend.

“Fine”, Bakugou grunted and Kirishima’s lit up immediately, “but you owe me.”

“Sure.” Kirishima smiled easily leading him back to where Deku and Todoroki were waiting for them, obviously finished with whatever they were doing. At least Deku had the decency to look ashamed and apologize for getting off-track (wasting their time, if you asked Bakugou). Kirishima waved the apology away and they finally got started shopping. Bakugou couldn’t shake the feeling that this was gonna be a long afternoon.

__________________

He was right, of course.

Todoroki and Deku continued to flirt incessantly. Bakugou had a burning pain in his eyes from rolling them too much and a new record in fake-gagging. Kirishima always reprimanded him for the last one. The idiots in question seemed painfully oblivious to their flirting, which made it that much more irritating. They promised they would stop everytime and then they just continued. Bakugou was about ready to scream the entire mall down.

Kirishima took it all way too lightly, in his opinion. He smiled at them gleefully and he even had the audacity to defend them, when Bakugou complained. Don’t you think it’s nice to be that in love? No, he didn’t. It’s annoying to be that in love as Kirishima put it. Could you even be in love after not even 24 hours of dating? Fat fucking chance.

“Get me some food, before I blast this entire mall down”, Bakugou grunted out, eying Kirishima dangerously. He wouldn’t actually do it, but if a threat got him some distraction, he wasn’t above using it.

“Sure thing”, Kirishima agreed, asking for preferences, before he went off. Deku accompanied him - not without making heart-eyes at Todoroki and only reluctantly letting go of his hand - and Bakugou didn’t even fight the urge to roll his eyes. Damn nerd being dramatic. Todoroki shot a knowing smile his way that only angered him more.

“What are you smirking about?”, Bakugou asked, very clearly hearing the annoyed undertone in his voice that failed to deter Todoroki. Like it always did.

“I don’t know. I just like the double date.”

“THE WHAT?”, Bakugou screamed, turning several heads towards them, none of which he cared about. What did the half-n-half-bastard just call this? He was sure he must have misheard. That, or Deku’s boyfriend had a very urgent death wish. One that Bakugou wouldn’t mind granting him, right now.

“Double date. Isn’t that what you call it, when two couples spend time with each other?” He had a death wish, Bakugou determined. There was no way he was really that dense. Out of the corner of his eyes, he could see Deku and Kirishima running towards them. They better be there fast, or there would be a real fight between him and that bastard.

“This is not a double date”, he gritted out, looking at Todoroki, daring him to disagree. Unfortunately, Kirishima was there faster than he expected, Deku on his heels. This was a disaster waiting to happen.

“Guys, what’s wrong, you’re making a scene”, Kirishima whisper-shouted when he arrived looking between them, as if he could get the answer from that. Instead of answering Kirishima - or focusing on his boyfriend like he had the entire goddamn afternoon - Todoroki decided to continue his chat with Bakugou.

"It feels like a double date to me", Todoroki said, ever the blunt one and Bakugou felt himself slowly losing it. Actually, not so slowly.

“What?”, Kirishima questioned, clearly caught off-guard.

“Shoto!”, Deku exclaimed at the same time, cheeks red and trying to get his boyfriend to pay attention to him again. Probably to dissolve the tension building between him and Bakugou. Bakugou for his part was ready to fight the bastard seriously.

“That’s not it at all! Bakugou and I aren’t dating”, Kirishima hurried to explain, putting himself between Bakugou and Todoroki while doing it, “We’re just friends. Nothing more to it.”

And that struck something deep within Bakugou. Something unpleasant, that he already hated, despite experiencing it for the first time. It was weird, nothing out of the ordinary happened - despite Todoroki’s absurd claim of course. Still he could feel his insides twisting, like someone plunged a knife in his gut. Instinctively he looked down to check, but saw nothing but his shirt. Weird.

He heard Deku and Kirishima try to explain the situation to Todoroki, but it was off. As if they were far away, instead of standing right in front of him. He caught a glance of Kirishima awkwardly rubbing his neck, while talking, Bakugou could see his mouth move, but he couldn’t make out the words. Like something was covering his ears. Kirishima smiled and his stomach twisted again.

He felt like he was getting sick.

“I’m out”, he said, not bothering whether or not they could hear him and then he swiftly moved. He needed air, to clear his head. And he needed to investigate their weird feeling in his stomach. That apparently correlated with Kirishima. Which could mean a lot of things.

It could mean anything, he tried to tell himself, while he made his way outside as fast as possible without his explosions accelerating him. He didn’t have the clear head to use them for that purpose right now.

It could mean anything, he told himself, when he heard Kirishima calling after him, a concerned undertone in his voice, that made Bakugou want to turn around. He wanted to snap, that he could take care of himself. He wanted to bathe in the knowledge that Kirishima cared for him.

It could mean anything, he insisted, when he finally made it outside and his feet automatically dragged him to the station. He took a deep breath, that helped exactly zero percent in the quest to clear his head and then he fiddled with his phone. He desperately needed the distraction.

It could mean anything , he reminded himself later that night, after Kirishima had dropped off his forgotten shopping bags and asked if he felt alright. Bakugou told a half-lie about an upset stomach and Kirishima offered to make tea. Which he declined, because he could take care of himself, thank you very much.

Kirishima had brought up some tea anyways, paired with some bread because it was safer not to risk upsetting his stomach anymore. Then he told Bakugou to just knock on his wall if he needed anything else, like the considerate idiot he was. He gave him a big smile before he left, one which twisted Bakugou’s stomach again, but it was also accompanied by a squeezing feeling in his chest this time. And Bakugou wasn’t an idiot, he knew these signs, when he saw them.

It could mean you have a crush, a traitorous voice in his mind whispered. Bakugou hated himself, for how much he actually considered the possibility.

#mha #bnha #bakugou katsuki #kirishima eijirou #kiribaku #shoto todoroki #midoriya #midoriya izuku #side tododeku

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thanksjro · 4 years

Text

Dark Cybertron Chapter 1: Welcome to Comic Event Hell

You know what readers love? When the stories they’ve gotten invested in over the course of a couple years get interrupted for some pseudo-crossover bullshit.

And you know what writers love? When the story they’ve been crafting over the course of a couple years get interrupted for some pseudo-crossover bullshit.

Did I say love?

Because I didn’t mean it.

“Dark Cybertron” was penned by John Barber and James Roberts, with collaboration with comic writer and artist Phil Jimenez, and was published from early November, 2013 to late March, 2014. Atilio Rojo, James Raiz, and Livio Ramondelli did the art, each responsible for scenes in specific locations, with Robert Gill filling in as needed. Alex Milne, Andrew Griffith, and Brendan Cahill would also contribute pencils to the first issue and the back half of the series. It was a celebration of the 30th anniversary of the franchise, and the second birthday of Phase Two... which went on for over four months, but never mind that!

Both "Dark Cybertron” and its preliminary materials were made to go alongside the Transformers: Generations toy-line, each issue being included as a toy pack-in with whatever character was being featured… or, at least, that was the plan. Sometimes it didn’t work out. Regardless, this storyline was created to sell toys directly, as opposed to the MTMTE/RID series being made to sell toys more through the power of suggestion. It’s a small distinction, but important, because it will help explain any lack of soul one may perceive while they read “Dark Cybertron”.

“But Hannz!” you cry out, reaching to grab me by the throat and shake me like a rag doll, because to you I’m merely a faceless voice on the internet. “Surely by calling this specific storyline soulless, you’re completely ignoring the very nature of this franchise that you’re almost uncomfortably invested in!”

To which I’ll say this: look, I’m pretty realistic about where my giant space robots came from; Transformers as a franchise would not exist the way it does without Ronald Reagan introducing the Free Market to literal children and fucking up how we interact with media for the rest of time. There is no ethical consumption under capitalism, and that rings especially true when I’ve got a Spinister on my bookshelf staring me down as I write this, that was likely made out of plastics which either involved blood oil or unethical labor practices, if not both.

However!

The choices of a company to have their comic license holders to cook up an entire plot that derails what they’ve already got planned out for toy tie-in comics is a completely different animal than what IDW had had going on up to this point. Phase Two had been about exploring different ideas that hadn’t been able to be explored during the war, and seeing what happens when you take away a third of the logline for Transformers G1 as a whole. Being a part of a brand of toys was almost inconsequential to how the stories were being told; even the Spotlights, which were also toy tie-in comics, had plenty of charm to them, if only because there weren’t quite as many constraints placed on the writers, and they were stand-alone issues.

Of course, being tie-in comics isn’t the only reason that “Dark Cybertron” is a bit of a slog, considering everything IDW itself was trying to get done within this storyline, but we’ll cover the publishing company’s/Simon Furman’s/Transformers’ tumultuous relationship with the concept of gender identity and expression later on, when it becomes relevant to the story proper. This point also ties into the interesting origin of Windblade, who we’ll meet in a few issues, and what happens when you let your fanbase have a taste of power and forget that people might like to see themselves represented in the media they consume.

“Dark Cybertron” is what ended up making me stop reading MTMTE the first time I tried it in 2015. A big part of it was because it forced the reader to need so much information from RID and even events prior to Phase Two, it wasn’t very fun to try to parse what was going on, on top of the writing beginning to flag because of obvious constraints to what Barber and Roberts could actually do, both within their deadlines and the rules put in place by their higher ups for the event.

“Dark Cybertron” is the result of the sort of executive meddling that kills reader enjoyment by requiring writers to cram their two worlds together as quickly as possible, without the option to go for nuance because there simply isn’t time. The reason we have four separate artists for the front half of this story is because Milne and Griffith didn’t have time to draw both their current workload and “Dark Cybertron” at the same time... but sales probably went up due to the nature of how the story was published, so I’m sure they didn’t really see a problem with it.

That’s a general “they”, not a Milne and Griffith “they”.

In short, we’ve got license contract obligations, fan-poll obligations, and gender stuff fighting for space within the next 12 issues, which will be published in the span of roughly four months. Things are probably going to be a little bloated and sloppy.

Regardless of any of these points, this is what we’ve got. It’s not like it’s all bad- “Dark Cybertron” has the benefit of being written by two people who had been working closely before it had even been conceptualized. Barber was the senior editor for MTMTE, and IDW as a whole until he left in 2016. It also isn’t a proper crossover- y’know, where two completely separate titles get mashed together for a bit. MTMTE and RID exist in the same universe, just have their own things going on, so a decent amount of things still carry over without you needing to have read every single thing in both. The writing, while not quite up to par with pieces that had more creative freedom and breathing room between scenes, is still recognizable as being Barber and Roberts’. Their voices are still here, they’re just strained under the weight of everything that has to be said inside of 12 issues.

With all THAT out of the way, let’s dive in to Dark Dawn: Dark Cybertron Chapter 1.

We get a quick rundown of the most basic information you’ll need for this entire story to make sense, as we reintroduce the fact that Shockwave is an ecoterrorist with more agendas than a daily planner factory on meth, and also that he grows magic crystals. I don’t care what he says, the Ores are fucking space-magic. If you don’t want to read through all of RID for everything else, please see Robots in Disguise (2012), #1-22- A Recap, For Reference Purposes. We also get a quick rundown of the Lost Lighters’ deal, as Swerve potentially has a meta-episode.

Be careful what you fucking wish for, bucko.

Our story proper starts with a flashback to the shittiest road trip Cyclonus ever went on, as the Ark 1 finds itself at the edge of a mysterious portal. This is likely why he wasn’t super thrilled when the portal to Luna 1 showed up- portals are probably a touchy subject for him.

Jhiaxus doesn’t know what this portal is- surely this means that science has failed us, and it’s time to call in the religious crowd to try and suss out what’s going on here.

It’s moments like this that make me wonder what exactly happened in the Dead Universe that made Cyclonus’ cheek meat just pack up and leave.

Now, we know that Cyclonus is correct here, because we as readers have more knowledge than the characters at this point, but Jhiaxus tries to write off this theory as hogwash, because he is a man of rationality and science. This is a slight removal from his character in the present, whose most notable traits seem to be a lack of ethics and screaming.

Everyone here seems to be slightly different from their current iterations, actually; Galvatron doesn’t say a word as he steps between Jhiaxus and Cyclonus, only using his body to communicate that the scientist might want to back off. Cyclonus himself is certainly the wordiest we’ve ever seen him to be, droning on through his actual thought process before he comes to a conclusion on what exactly they’ve found. Compare this to the Cyclonus of today, who only deigns to grace everyone with his voice if they outright threaten him, have something he wants, or are Tailgate. If he were to ever pull this verbal meandering on board the Lost Light, people would probably assume he’s having a stroke.

Nova Prime- you remember him, don’t you?- gives not a fuck about the Dead Universe, only what it means for him personally. And what it means for him is more locations to subjugate, because he is cartoonishly evil. His character is the least removed from his present-day iteration out of everyone. He tells the crew they’ll be getting a little closer, only for the portal to do the work for them, by way of dark energy tentacles.

Wow, the pilot for the Ark 1 really is just straight-up named Butt, isn’t he? And what the fuck is that face you’re making, Cyclonus? Are you- oh my god, are you emoting? Oh my god, he’s emoting.

As the Ark 1 is pulled to its doom, Jhiaxus makes a quick phone call to Shockwave to tell him he’s his favorite, and to keep up the good work.

In the present, Shockwave reflects on just how friggin’ long this whole ordeal has taken. Fortunately, Waspinator and the Titan are almost here, and he can hardly wait.

Not, uh, that he’s got emotions or anything. It’s been established that he doesn’t have those anymore. Is impatience an emotion? Does that count?

Shockwave seems like he’d be really frustrating to write for.

Anyway, the Titan shows up, the Ore inside him and the Ore in the underground Crystal City combine, and the Titan starts screaming because everything hurts. Shockwave’s about as thrilled as he can be about the situation, given his lack of emotions.

Above Crystal City, we finally get back to that nonsense about the early sunrise, as someone- maybe Starscream, given the color of the narration box- waxes poetic on the planet of Cybertron, wartorn and wild in its rebirth, ruled by paranoia that has nothing to bounce off of, and so creates its own walls.

Then we get a detailed shot of Rattrap’s mug, and the moment is broken.

Rattrap’s character is a lot of fun in everything he gets tossed into, but you’re a goddamn liar if you think he’s pretty to look at. You are lying to yourself, and I won’t apologize for saying it.

Starscream walks out of his room in his hot new body, feeling fine and ready to take on the world. We’ll check in on him later in the day to see how that positive mentality is working out for him.

So, the sun hasn’t moved, and it’s way too early for the sun to even be up right now. That’s weird. Because I guess he didn’t know how the sun works, Starscream’s only just realized that this is perhaps a problem. He does some computer work and realizes that this is indeed a very bad thing, and asks that Rattrap call the Autobots. Not the ones who fucked off into the wilderness, the other ones. The gay, space ones.

Up in space, Orion Pax and his pals have found themselves in dire straits, the collapsing Gorlam Prime sucking their ship back down as the Death Ore consumes everything.

That’s not how engines work! And I think it really says something about the “Prelude” issues that I completely forgot why Wheelie was down an arm for a solid five seconds.

It turns out that Orion was the narrator the entire time, which I should have known- since when is the once and future Optimus Prime not the primary voice in any media he appears in?

It’s looking rough for the fellas, but luckily we’ve got to get the plot rolling, so the Lost Light VZZZZTs into existence and picks up the Skyroller to place it gently into its belly.

Orion isn’t exactly jazzed about the fact that Rodimus didn’t listen to what he told him, not even bothering to thank the guy for saving his life. I say y’all keep going on your Thunderclash Quest and leave this ungrateful loser behind. No space yachting for you, Orion.

The rest of the Pax Posse enter the Lost Light proper, and Hardhead reveals that he nearly joined the Quest, before he saw who all would be coming with, while Garnak has a tearful reunion with Rodimus. The fact that he’s calling him Sir- which I don’t recall him doing in Transformers (2009), at least not in a way that seems reminiscent of an unfortunate Antebellum Period Romance- feels rather weird, but I’m glad someone’s fucking happy to see Rodimus at least. Ultra Magnus asks Orion if he’ll be assuming command of the vessel, as Rodimus tries not to look horrified by the thought alone, but fortunately Orion’s not going to pull his “I’m Optimus Prime and I Can Do What I Want” Card just yet.

Smash cut to the bridge, as Rodimus tries to make himself sound competent, when Starscream calls. Orion doesn’t like that Starscream has their number, Perceptor almost reveals the fact that this ship technically doesn’t belong to a faction, likely due to being purchased after the war, and Cyclonus gets brought in for his professional opinion.

As it turns out, that early sunrise isn’t a sunrise at all, but a portal to the Dead Universe. This is a problem, because the Dead Universe really sucks, and you don’t want to go there, especially if you enjoy being alive. Orion seems more concerned about the fact that Starscream is ruling the planet, and Bumblebee is nowhere to be found.

Speaking of Bumblebee, he and all his camp buddies are psyching themselves up for a confrontation.

Swoop, please, this is hardly the time for crudeness.

The Dinobots, sick of Bumblebee’s dithering about, decide they’re going to fight the fucking sun and gear up. Prowl, though generally disliking their brand of problem-solving, does share his begrudging respect of their can-do attitude.

Their can-do attitude over fighting the fucking sun.

Then an earthquake happens and the ground rips open to reveal that Titan that Waspinator showed up with.

Shockwave takes over the narration at this point, and we get artsy, as we see events that haven’t transpired yet over musings on the nature of... time? Maybe? It would be in line with Roberts’ go-to topics, but honestly the whole thing’s kind of vague so I couldn’t give you a solid answer. Shockwave gets awfully introspective for a guy who shouldn’t care, I know that much. The point is, he is inevitable and is super good at logic and science.

Also, Nova Prime and Galvatron are back, which is cool, I guess. Not sure where Galvatron had gotten to exactly after the events of “Chaos”, but he’s back now, so it doesn’t matter too terribly much. Shockwave serves them, which we’ll probably get an explanation for at some point.

God, you can practically taste the desperation to pin all these plot points together before the entire thing implodes on itself.

#transformers #jro #dark cybertron #issue 1 #maccadam #Hannzreads #overthinking about robots #incoming analysis #text post #long post #comic script writing

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flyonthewallmedstudent · 3 years

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Watching House as a Physician. Season 2 Episode 3. Infectious diseases & Respiratory.

Welcome to another episode of medicine done badly. I’ve been watching House on Amazon prime. Got the subscription during the pandemic, as like everyone else, I’ve garnered an online shopping habit now.

Alright. In the opening scene a young roof worker falls off the roof presumably due to acute shortness of breath. i.e. trouble breathing. (why do we use the term shortness of breath? it’s the english version of the greek term dyspnoea - the actual preferred language of Western doctors. Fuck do I know why we like Greek and Latin so much. Moving on.) Then cut to Dr. Cuddy examining him in the back of the ambulance.

This would never happen in real life. Yes you can be on the scene and handover to the paramedics or EMT when they arrive as a doctor. But they would take over. I personally wouldn’t have the balls to look after a patient in a different environment, different resources and field I’m not familiar with. You can have field Emergency docs - but requires different training.

Also, ethically, you’re not meant to treat family or friends. Dr. Cuddy later in the episode gets a bit emotionally involved - this is why we don’t treat people close to us. We lose objectivity. We make mistakes. And you see later see Cuddy do some pretty bad ones.

I feel like much of this episode is not really IM. THere’s less differential diagnoses being made. More side tracks into trauma, emergency, intensive care or vascular surgery.

Anyhoo. Trauma and emergency would manage the fall and post fall traumatic injuries. And the trauma protocol was either not shown or completely off in this episode. Surgeons don’t seem to exist in House, at least not very much. Similarly, no other doctors exist except surgeons in Grey’s anatomy. Also you can’t clear a C Spine clinically, which is what Dr. Cuddy does in the back of the ambulance. You’d need a CT first and clearance both radiological (by a radiologist) and a clinician.

Aaaanddd, you can’t just listen to the chest and go no pneumothorax (air in lung or collapsed lung) - yes it’s reassuring, but again you’d need imaging to confirm this, given how serious a condition this is. It is realistic to consider in the setting of a fall, particularly if there are rib fractures that can puncture the lung.

Once the more critical injuries are managed, we would look after the IM side to things.

So. Finally.. differential diagnoses.

Takes what seems and feels like days before they finally sit down and go through differentials. Really not much on that white board. Dark fingers, broken ribs, fever and lung infiltrates. Time line’s not clear on when he developed the fever.

Presenting complaint isn’t really addressed. It could be: - Dyspnoea, leading to the fall, he’s requiring O2 via nasal prongs, which suggests that he’s hypoxic (this is definitely odd in a young guy who’s normally very physical fit if he works as labourer). so much to unpack here, but they never get into this well. Post fall, Cuddy notices his ring and pinky finger becoming dusky, which becomes very central in this episode. Very few things would cause this. pains me that they do no differentials on a white board for this alone.

Then a lot of throwing around medical terms.

PTT prolonged and Fibrinogen off. These are markers of your coagulation pathway and signs that you’re not forming the clots the way you should if you have an injury. DIC is also thrown around. What is DIC? Disseminated intravascular coagulopathy. Certainly severe sepsis and trauma can cause this and lead to severe bleeding. It will throw off your coagulation pathways (things that stop bleeding). It’s not common. I’ve treated it once, while I was rotating in ICU, it is not standard ward medicine practice. Standard therapy is fresh frozen plasma (FFP) and even large metropolitan hospitals only have a limited supply. It’s a huge concern for surgery and post-op (as you patient will just not stop bleeding after you cut them open, and if not treated, potentially bleed to death). Cuddy mentions ARDS. Acute respiratory distress syndrome, it could be a complication, but it’s not a cause. Again, falls more into the realm of critical care (a la ICU). However, patient had SOB prior to the fall. Finally HOuse makes the observation. of “what if he was sick before he had his run in with gravity...” Everyone jumps to Pneumonia. And this is where it gets confusing. If he was unwell, the minute he entered the emergency department with a fever and hypoxia, they would have worked him up for any garden variety pneumonia, bacterial or viral. Cultures would have been sent and imaging. Any young hypoxic patient would prompt a closer look at the chest. And no one waits that long to start antibiotics - “sepsis kills” is a slogan often used around hospitals. You have to initiate empirical therapy within 30 mins, to reduce mortality and morbiditiy.

Ordering an Echocardiogram (USS of the Heart) also makes no sense in the context of a lung infection. I would order one, but not to look at the lungs.

Then there’s the most unrealistic thing about this series. Doctors breaking into patient homes.

It is however, a good way to showcase social history. It’d be boring to watch a doctor ask the patient outright about their living situation etc, but it’s far more interesting to see exactly how they live. We try as much as possible to illustrate to each other and ourselves what the living environment and working environment of our patients are like.

In the context of infection, a good social history can point out exposure. As they exemplify by showing dead rodents and mould. This leads to 2 further differentials: Rat bite fever (caused by streptobacillus, something you’d see in the US, but probably not anywhere else), it’s an unrealistic differential in general. And the 2nd is aspergillosis. Okay.. So aspergillus is a mould commonly found in our environment. In fact it’s everywhere around us.

THere’s few times when it’s an issue. It is a concern in respiratory syndromes like asthma or bronchiectasis. And also as an opportunistic infection in immunocompromised individuals. in the context of asthma, it’s not so much the aspergillus itself that causes issue, it’s our body’s over reaction. It’s a hypersensitivity issue that causes inflammation in the lungs or a pneumonitis. We even gave it a name. Allergic bronchopulmonary aspergillosis. It’s still badness, but it doesn’t happen that quickly. We also have specific tests for this, which were obviously not considered in this episode of medicine done badly. In the immunocompromised host (steroid therapy in transplant patients or those on chemo, etc.), you can get the invasive mould as an opportunistic infection. I don’t really understand why they think it would be the case here. Also, killing the bug with heavy duty anti fungals will only give more issues rather than do anything. They start him on amphotericin. this is not standard practice. And now it flips to why amphotericin is not standard practice or first line treatment for invasive aspergillosis. The patient has now become anuric (not making any urine). (First line drug by the way is voraconazole, superior efficacy in trials with a lower mortality rate and ADRs) Also, note that they have just jumped straight to dire renal failure from the amphotericin. No work up. That said, heavy drugs like amphotericin are often a cause, but It’s often temporary with the appropriate supportive measures (stop insulting agents, give hydration, monitor fluid balance), reversible, even if you require temporary dialysis or haemofiltration. Anyways, would get into AKI another day, that’s a whole other post in and of itself. Then his hand is apparently “dying.” There’s pain on light touch, but it’s not a cold, pulseless limb. Or discoloured. doesn’t add up. This now enters vascular surgeon territory. Again. It’s interesting that there’s never any referrals to any other teams. If he has good circulation, I would imagine they would try to save the hand and consider other differentials.

The only time I can think of an emergency amputation in this situation is necrotising fascitiis. That’s the only thing that would occur that rapidly AND necessitate losing tissue or limb. With a young person who’s this ill, there’s often multiple subspecialties involved by this point. I’m also surprised he’s not in ICU.

Then there’s a buncha filler scenes of the cast of house getting emotional. Ho my god, they’ve taken the hand of a young 20 something physical labourer. Indeed, this is badness. Unlike House, we actually are trained to always consider how a patient’s illness impacts their activities of daily living and livelihood.

I find the general population assumes that we practice medicine in a vacuum, we merely treat the clinical illness and ignore everything else. They imagine that we all must be like house.

Actually we try to put things in perspective as much as possible and knowing our limitations in this area, we often enlist the help of friends - physiotherapists, occupational therapists and social workers. They never exist on TV or on the movies. Ever. Unless it’s to portray how terrible it is to be a social worker. From time to time in this episode, Cuddy laments that being chief of medicine is too administrative and she hasn’t been a doctor in years. That also doesn’t happen in real life. If you’re chief you’re still a doctor. You have admin shit to do deal with yes, but you still practice. It’s like being chief resident, in all the TV shows with one of these, you still seem them working as residents, be it scrubs or grey’s anatomy.

Back to the differential. They finally get to endocarditis. Culture negative to be precise. That indeed would explain the bilateral dusky fingers that led to unnecessary amputation. Septic emboli.

Going to stop here, more out of exhaustion now. I’ve created quite a lengthy post. Happy to reblog thoughts on culture negative endocarditis on request later. This is a worthy topic to study up on for students or residents. At least review Duke’s criteria and think about your clinical features like Roth Spots and Janeway lesions or Ouch Osler’s nodes.

The ending is also a far fetched connection to make, but is one that we would consider. In fact, we would ask in detail every time from day one - have you had any exposure to animals. It’s very rare to see someone so young be that sick out of the blue when you’re immunocompetent and have no underlying predisposing conditions. If there’s no focal source, then we would even ask about injectable recreational drugs, exotic travels, sexual health.

Most of the time, patients that sick are honest to their doctors.

But what about..

Frankly, much as we lie as humans, when our lives our on the line, we’re generally pretty honest (sometimes too honest) with the people we want to save us.

Any patient who is young and comes to hospital requiring inpatient admission, they’d be investigated by subspecialties with expertise in certain areas such as infectious disease. The dept of infectious disease would either be home team, or all over this patient as they special in the realm of both common and rare infectious diseases, culture negative endocarditis would have been considered before a hand amputation.

The term, “department of diagnostic medicine is laughable,” particularly when they consider it the only department in the world in the show.

In actuality, it’s a department that is universal and exists everywhere. it’s Internal medicine. Dr. Vivek Murthy, the next surgeon general (and also the last one under Obama) is an internal medicine physician. Ken Jeong of Community and the Hangover fame is also a physician of internal medicine.

Beginning to get the sense that most episodes are going to end with a diagnosis that is either infectious disease, rheumatology or haematology. But generally those tend to be most interesting and give the most plot twists or meaty differentials V.s. a stroke or acute myocardial infarction is fairly straightforward to diagnose.

This is a very twisty episode in all the wrong directions.

Dyspnoea is a very common presenting complaint. There’s a properly done approach to this in the podcast by the Curbsiders by the way.

#medblrs #medblr

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wxsuthorn · 4 years

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a sort of organised analysis of The Gifted characters

pt. 1: Pang

(this analysis includes episodes 1-13 of season one and 1-7 of season two, so it probably isn’t completely accurate, but i tried my best. also please excuse grammar or spelling errors that i might’ve made cuz i write these late at night when my creativity sparks lmao)

Characteristics and qualities in the beginning of season 1

Even in the very first episode, Pang already showed some idealistic qualities. He always thought that the school system wasn’t fair, and he always tried doing the right thing (or what he thought was the right thing). His idealism wasn’t as extreme in the very beginning of the show, since he wasn’t as confident in his abilities. He probably didn’t have much interest in changing the school system when he (and the people around him) saw him as a dumb kid from classroom 8. Getting into the Gifted Program was what affected his idealism to the point where it became a fault.

Before he discovered his potential, he was most likely very confused about his “academic rank”. He was in classroom 8, yet he was in the Gifted Program... but he hadn’t found his potential yet. I can imagine him questioning his worth and how significant he really was; he was also one of the first kids in the gifted class to outwardly express how they felt about the unfair treatment of the ordinary students compared to the gifted students. This was probably because he got to experience both ends of the unequal treatment, unlike the rest of his gifted classmates.

In terms of intelligence, Pang is street smart. In episode one he thought of a distraction to not get caught stealing the test. He also used the egg drop parachute to save his phone. He is innovative and can create ideas and identify problems. In episode one (again), he noticed that Wave was sweating and seemed weak. He also noticed Ohm’s bloody nose and Mon moving a locker full of weights. He was aware of shit... but he’s not very aware of other people’s feelings... at least not fully.

Pang’s friendship with Nac hits different after the pangwave fight but anyways... Pang knew that he didn’t use the cheat sheet, and he couldn’t tell Nac anything about the Gifted Program, so he probably didn’t fully understand why Nac was so upset when he technically did nothing wrong. Nac even said he wasn’t upset that Pang was in the Gifted Program. I think that’s why Pang never talked it out with him and just kinda exploded at him. Even though he may see himself as empathetic, it’s really just him being idealistic. He mistakes his ideals about equality for empathy, when, in fact, those are two separate things. When it comes to individual people, I don’t think he’s very good at understanding them thoroughly enough. Nac’s reasons for being upset with Pang are realistic and valid. He’s in class 1, Pang’s in class 8, yet Pang was the one who got into the Gifted Program. Nac gave Pang a cheat sheet, and even though Pang denies using it, he couldn’t really believe that he got in with the grades he has. And on top of that, Pang doesn’t even tell him what happens in the class. Nac feels used and excluded, but Pang wasn’t paying attention to that. He ended up blaming the unfair system, which was just a factor of the conflict, but never took a moment to look at what he himself could’ve done to help the conflict, or even what he might’ve done wrong. but issokay cuz pang is a smol bean and i love him

Characteristics and qualities in the middle - the end of season 1

Lets talk about Pang discovering his potential in episode 6. He first noticed it when he told Nac to bang his head on a metal bar. This wasn’t the first time he used his potential on Nac, though. In the first episode he used it on him and said something like “don’t talk to me ever again”, and so Nac didn’t communicate with again him until episode 6. This was when Pang used his potential on him saying “why can’t we just talk it out?” and Nac was finally able to communicate his frustration. Nac was blaming Pang for shit he didn’t do and it was unreasonable, according to Pang, but Nac didn’t know the full story. If you look at the way Nac sees things: Pang is in the Gifted Program, Pang used me to get into the program (because there’s no way he just got in without using my cheat sheet), I got punished when Wave provoked me and Pang tried playing hero, as if he was some perfect angel. Pang has new friends, he has no use for me anymore, I don’t need him either, I find new friends, Pang suddenly joins in, everything goes haywire, my anger and frustration towards him explodes, and he just ignores what I’m feeling and tells me that I’m wrong and that I’m an asshole. Like I did something wrong, and he’s perfectly innocent. Lmao Nac is salty af. And he has a good reason to be. Pang doesn’t understand Nac’s thinking, and on top of that, he makes almost no effort to understand. His beliefs blind him into thinking he’s done no wrong.

Now lets talk about his actual potential, and how it affects him. His ego and self esteem rises, but Pang doesn’t notice it. It’s explained in the end of season 1 that the reason Pang lost is because he wanted to do everything on his own because he thought that only he was able to defeat the director. His ideals and his ego are very closely connected. Pang teams up with Wave because he thinks that Wave will be the most useful to stop Director Supot. Now, I don’t think Pang doesn’t care about his friends, but his actions are neglectful. When Pang teams up with Wave, he tells none of his other friends about what he’s doing. He doesn’t tell Namtaan or Ohm, literally his two closest friends, and convinces himself that he’s doing it to protect them. News flash, he isn’t. He’s trying to be a hero. His ego rapidly increasing might be because of how he was constantly ridiculed when he was in classroom 8, and suddenly he gets this power that makes him “superior” to ordinary people. Another possibility is that his ego was already big, but we he only showed it/applied it when he was trying to take down Director Supot.

Now lets talk about the season 1 finale: Pang becomes aware of his ego through the director foiling his plan and humiliating him. This is a big part of his development as a character. Ofc in season 2 he still has a problem with neglecting and doing things solo, but he become a little more aware, and for 2 whole year’s he’s able to somewhat-effectively lead the gifted gang in their fight against the anti-gifted.

Characteristics and qualities in season two (up until episode 7)

Lets discuss: Ms Darin. aka ms loser. Remember in the beginning of episode 7 where he trusted her cuz of what she said and he noticed her actions (oop remember this trait from before? he’s aware of shit!), but it turned out it was all lies. He eventually got back on track after Third showed him the truth, and was smart enough not to trust Ms. Darin after that. I wanna guess that the reason he started trusting Ms. Darin so easily (other than what she said and did) is because he was in distress from failing Korn and Time. He needed some support, and he wouldn’t let his friends support him because “im a hero blah blah blah i dont wanna worry my friends they dont need to help me with my burdens cuz i can do it on my own :D” season 1 Pang type shit. Ms. Darin was an adult who seemed trustworthy enough, plus Director Supot was gone, and he was the main antagonist in season 1, so isn’t everything only gonna get better now that he’s gone? Plus when Grace said that he sounds like the adults lksdjlkjslfjjsdf THAT HIT ME.

Now I wanna talk about him with Chanon. I’m praying that Chanon is pure and not corrupted because if he is he might’ve used Pang and might do so in the future too... but let’s not focus on that. Pang finally has a mentor-figure in his life that he looks up. Someone to balance out his ego and show him that he can’t do everything on his own. yeah that’s all i have to say about that.

Punn. “You’re done, Pang.” Yeah lets talk about that because holy mcnuggets. Punn knows Pang well enough to know how intensely idealistic and passionate he is. Once the director is gone, Punn is like, bitch u got nothing else to obsess over MOVE ON. He’s basically saying Pang’s existence was so heavily tied with fixing the school system that when eveything’s fixed, he’ll be “done.” It’s similar to Five from the Umbrella Academy, where his whole life was set on fixing the apocalypse that he felt that life had no meaning without an apocalypse to prevent.

Now let’s talk about PangWave... I truly believe that Pang sees Wave as his equal, as his friend, and as a person whom he cares for deeply. His ego and idealism, topped with all the stress he’s going through (by himself), are dangerous towards his relationships. Wave feels used by Pang, and explains how Pang only comes to him when he needs his help, and avoids him when he disagrees with what Pang thinks. Pang is so fixated on his ideals and beliefs that he will do anything to make sure they become a reality. He’s obsessed, and it’s sooooo bad for his relationships with others. It shows that even on Namtaan’s bday, he can only think about “doing the right thing”, because that’s his number 1 priority. PANG JUST GIVE URSELF A BREAK PLEASE TAKE A METAL HEALTH DAY JUST SLKJFLSDKJJD MEDITATE OR SMTH.

I could type for several hours longer but I think this is enough word vomit for this post.

Summary

- VERY IDEALISTIC !!!! TO A FAULT

- He has somewhat of an inflated ego, but uses his ideals and beliefs to cover it up and convince himself that he is a “good person”

- He overworks his brain by never thinking of himself or other people’s emotions and focuses on his idealistic goals and his idealistic goals ONLY.

- He’s very aware of the things’s around him, and is street smart, but he’s not as aware when it comes to other people’s feelings and thoughts.

- He cares for his friends, but his extreme idealism ends up hurting them, and in turn hurting himself and further encouraging him to self-isolate.

- Independent, but this is mostly due to him thinking that he can handle problems on his own and he doesn’t want to get others involved.

- He is becoming more aware of his wrong actions, hence him apologising to Wave about going after Korn without him, but not enough to actually prevent these wrong actions.

- didn’t talk about this much but GUILT!!! I can tell that he feels immense guilt (especially in the latest episodes) whenever one of his friends get hurt and he’s very involved in what got them hurt. However, when it comes to hurting people emotionally, his guilt is tricky to read. At least for me it is lmao. Cuz he doesn’t always fully understand his friends’ feelings because he can’t always admit that he’s done something wrong, but with the recent pangwave fight he definitely felt some type of guilt there. Or maybe it was frustration? idk skjdflajsdfl someone else step in on this one pls

- He needs rest and a mental break. And some therapy maybe? Like please can one caring adult help this poor child.

- His character is actually pretty consistent wow the writing in this show is great.

- a cute boi who needs a hug. Preferably from Wave and/or Ohm.

#the gifted graduation #tgg #tgg spoilers #the gifted #the gifted series #nanon korapat #pangwave #the gifted pang #character analysis #pang character analysis #the gifted character analysis

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halothenthehorns · 3 years

Text

All in the Family

Chapter 1: The Accident...

It is recommended, though by no means a must if you know the Marauders history enough to be reading fanfiction about them, you read We Were first. The first five chapters are slightly AU to the continuity of this fic, but the grand point and especially the final chapter are key to the beginning of this fic as you get plopped in the middle. Link is below or you can find it in my profile.

Before you get started; Warnings include- Explicit Wolfstar (Remus/Sirius), and on the whole a rather flimsy premise that I honestly created to indulge myself because I didn't let myself do it the first time. A lot less logically based and a lot more I just felt like having fun with this one. It's not to say I'll let this degenerate into tropes and one note things, but there's going to be even less reading of the books involved, as in literally they're just interacting around the story with only passing mentions of what's going on in there. If you want a much more grounded basis and more 'realistic' approach to a reading series, I put my heart and every cell of my mind into The Life that Never Lived, PDF's upon request. I'm pretty sure this one grew from my funny bone that I broke when I was seven.

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The dungeons where Potions were held had always felt like the most oblique part of the castle, and Sirius had been in every corner of it to claim as such. It wasn't entirely the fault of the dark stone walls, sweltering hot air from the many flames, or the often unexplained fumes. The feeling seemed to seep up straight from the cold stone floor no matter how many fires were lit, as if the wooden stool itself were trying to pin them all with the unknown.

Sirius had never been more grateful for a Potions class to be over, and that was really saying something. It was the last one of this bleeding school semester, and if he had to spend one more day glaring at a cauldron and somehow inexplicably turning it the wrong color one more time without the usual helpful hint from Peter telling him why, he was going to chuck every last drop of it in Slughorn's face for constantly telling him he'd figure it out!

He'd never packed up his bag faster, even managing to multitask by muttering under his breath how stupid all this was. He was the first person to make it to the door, but collided with someone even less pleasant to see than the three people he'd most been avoiding lately. He cursed loudly, earning several dirty looks as the rest of the class was now passing. His bag had ripped upon stumbling into his little brother and smashed to the ground, sending his things flying and managing to spray him with ink.

Regulus hesitated in the doorway, muttering a quick, "sorry Sirius."

"Oh, it knows my name," Sirius growled under his breath, though his tone was far less hateful than usual, considering this was the first time he'd had a proper conversation with someone in nearly three weeks. His little brother was hardly his first choice, given his proud Slytherin status and being two years younger didn't remotely have them coming near each other most days, a fact he was usually grateful for.

"Yes, he does," Regulus' scowl looked remarkably close to Sirius', the two put side by side at once was rather eerie. His tone though was even more friendly than Sirius', which wasn't all that hard as he tried to explain his abrupt appearance. "I ah, I came sprinting down here to see if I could catch Slughorn, ask him if I could pick up an extra credit assignment."

Sirius straightened with his stuff still half strewn around, but again that pull for someone to talk to seemed greater, especially as he glanced back and saw who hadn't left yet, so he responded no matter how unenthusiastically. "Yeah, what you struggling with?" While tapping his bag and mending the tear, slowly bending down to pick each item back up while he absently listened. Regulus even began to help him while he explained in short, precise sentences like he was practicing for the teacher.

Frank Longbottom and Alice Smith slipped in past the two Black brothers at the doorway and found the room mostly empty, and they shared an exasperated look as they wondered if they'd just walked in on Slughorn telling this group off again. They were early for their next class after all, but the teacher was nowhere in sight. They did get a full view of what started quite an interesting journey.

James was hanging by Evans' cauldron, trying to chat happily with her, but mostly waiting for Sirius to leave first. He could hardly stand to look at him these days, let alone pass by him in such a restricted place, yet the wanker had struck up a conversation with Regulus of all people, someone he'd hardly spoken a whole sentence to in the past five years, but no, he'd chosen now! Probably just waiting for them to walk past first, like this was all still some game to him.

Remus and Peter were hovering on edge right beside him, Remus fidgeting with what was left of his cauldron on the desk while Evans was trying to pack hers up and being hampered by James staying in her way. "Won't you at least consider coming? It's our last game of the season! What if you're my good luck charm, you've always been the best at those! Do you really want to be the reason Gryffindor loses?"

"They've gotten on just fine without me there the past years," Lily snipped. She never knew why she even bothered responding to him half the time, but considering it no more discouraged him than ignoring him, at least this way she got to vent.

She tried to sidestep past him, James once again stepped into her way, and the two collided with each other, their hands accidentally slipping into her cauldron Remus had just mistakenly dumped his own potion into.

Whatever the concoction the two mixed together created upended the entire world.

At first though, nothing really changed. There was no marvelous flash of light, no force of nature that showed everyone outside of this room had vanished. Lily simply made a gagging noise as she pulled her hand out of the vat and glared furiously at the oddly pale teen, pulling her wand out at once with her less dominant hand she hadn't tried to catch herself with and banish the gunk off while hissing at him, "You are so lucky I turned that in already Lupin! What the hell did you even create? I've never seen this before," she finished with a critical eye at the now steaming mess, that vanished before their eyes.

"Wow Remus, you should do that more often, really makes cleanup easier," Peter chuckled while Remus looked rather concerned.

"I, err, I'll admit, I really screwed up my potion worse than usual. I think I added three things I actually wasn't supposed to, so you've got me."

James just flung the mess from his hand, which also vanished before it had even landed on anyone, and glanced back hopefully like he'd thought his source for this mess had left already.

He hadn't.

His face was turned in their general direction, like he'd been trying to subtly glance over and hope for the same, but now he was looking right through James. That wasn't uncommon lately, but the stunned look of confusion on his face was enough James grudgingly turned his head the other way to see what.

Back on the lip of the cauldron, was a slim red book with a golden one on the spine. It was just sitting there, like Evans had left it on purpose, but it certainly hadn't been a second ago.

Lily took his distraction as a chance to bolt from the room, Regulus gave his brother an awkward wave goodbye and went back out towards Slughorn's office since he'd clearly missed him, and Alice and Frank tried to casually step back out as well. Even being a year above those four had not left them oblivious to their fight. The whole school was aware of the fact the four Marauders had not been seen together in quite some time, and neither of them particularly felt like putting their nose into why.

James was still frowning in confusion at the odd title stamped across, which simply read Harry Potter Year One.

"Err, did either of you-" James looked at the two as if in some kind of explanation, but both gave a mystified shake to their head. James couldn't help it, he still looked automatically towards his best mate, and then he caught himself and realized they were the only four left. Sirius' eyes had still been locked in on the odd object, really ridiculous his mind supplied as James had no relatives named Harry, and wondered if this was some odd attempt at a prank?

Sirius didn't stick around to care, completely forgetting the rest of his things, he turned on his heel and finally exited as well, when they all heard a shriek.

As one, the four bolted up to the Entrance Hall, Alice and Frank right behind them as they hadn't wandered off far, to see Lily standing in the middle and stamping her foot in frustration upon seeing them. "Damn, I thought someone would have reacted to that."

"Err, Evans," James began in concern as if for her health.

"Where is everybody!" She demanded while gesturing to the Great Hall where there should have been a packed lunch crowd. Nobody was in there, and now that they were listening for it, the din of a castle filled with people, was deadly silent all around them.

As if given a signal, everyone began shouting all at once, sure the ruckus would cause someone to appear, but the only other arrival was Regulus coming up from the stairs as well, looking at all of them with great concern. "Geez, you lots shouting usually has a much greater audience."

"Thank you Regulus for that helpful insert!" Sirius snapped.

Regulus ignored that and seemed to look around himself and really acknowledge his own words, before realization slammed into him as well as he whispered, "What's going on?"

"We'd all like to know that," Frank put his hands up in frustration, this was what he and his girlfriend got for getting to class early.

"This is ridiculous," Lily seethed, stomping up towards the stairs. She was intending to barge into every crevice of this place and find someone other than these idiots to deal with. She didn't know what the school was playing at, but it wasn't funny.

Alice and Frank followed her as they still considered her the least craziest compared to the others.

Sirius still couldn't bring himself to look at the other three and bolted out onto the grounds for an exit, and Regulus couldn't think of anything better to do but follow him.

James waited until they were back alone before nodding to Peter, who pulled the Marauder's Map back out and cast the charm to activate it. On cue, the magical ink appeared, spreading through the tattered paper, but only revealing eight names instead of the several hundreds it normally housed.

"What the bloody hell?" Remus demanded, snatching it away as if sure somehow Peter had cast it wrong. He deactivated it and retried five times before looking up in exasperation, to see James flipping through the book. "Of all times, you chose now to pursue one of those!" Remus demanded.

"Remus, what the bloody hell was in that potion," James whispered to him.

Remus looked at him askance. "I told you I don't know, I was, well I-" it was hard to admit how thoroughly distracted he'd been, even more than usual in his potions classes. His past two attempts had been utter messes as well. Somehow without Sirius by his side and being a constant distraction, he'd found a way to blow up his more recent attempts, so he'd been rather proud this one had only changed the wrong color seven times. "What's your point?"

"This," James waved it around, his face still looking somehow detached as if he had no clue what he was really saying, "it's-" he broke off, and Remus huffed in exasperation as he snatched it away.

"Yes James, it has words, glory look at that they're even strung together with sentences! What's the big-" he stopped abruptly at what he saw quite clearly had Prongs so thrown off. Remus could feel it now, this book was giving off as if the most powerful magic to exist, certainly that he'd ever been around.

"This isn't, there's no way-" he tried to protest what his eyes weren't changing.

"What?" Peter demanded in exasperation of the two.

"That's from the future." James stated coolly.

Peter laughed, realized neither was pulling his leg, and then yanked the book to him as well.

"It, it's a joke or-" he tried to say, but it was the exact same to his eyes as well.

"Remus, what the bloody hell did you mix with Lily's Profligare potion?" James asked again like he'd have another answer!

"I, I told you, I have no clue!" Remus insisted, his heart restricting painfully in his chest.

"Why aren't their words in the rest of this book?" Peter asked curiously. There were an easy three hundred pages to this thing, but only the first sentence was visible. The rest was blank.

"Put that down," Remus suddenly yelped, slapping it away from him. It thudded to the ground and even skidded a few feet while Wormtail looked offended.

"Merlin Remus, James was holding it for a whole five minutes and he didn't explode."

"Let's prioritize for a minute," James insisted. "Ignore that thing and figure out where everyone is, maybe show that to Dumbledore-"

"That might be a problem, as there's no one else here!" Remus snarled.

"Well I'll say one thing, Evans sure can make one good banishing potion," Regulus commented as he stepped back into the Entrance Hall minus Sirius.

The question burst out of James before he could consider doing otherwise, "where's your better half?"

Regulus scowled hatefully, hesitated, but still answered, "still wandering the damn grounds, think he said something about checking the bottom of the lake. I don't know what you lot are fighting about, but for him to be saying that even as a joke really is something."

James flinched with the first spot of guilt he'd felt, and Remus looked away as if he hadn't even heard. Peter took the opportunity to shove the map back out of sight before he twisted his fingers together and just deciding to ignore that as well and said, "We might as well go find the other three and show at least them. Something Dark is going on around here, perhaps we shouldn't go wandering off."

"Oh that's nice, just leave him out on the grounds by himself then if that's what you're thinking," Regulus muttered as his two friends seemed to agree and took off up the stairs, Peter having to jog to keep up.

They found them already up to the second floor, and with every empty room they'd opened, they'd become increasingly more panicked. This just wasn't natural! Even during the holidays you were likely to run across someone by now! A ghost even! What was left of the Marauders caught up to them, and Lily's near hysterics weren't helped with their answer to this.

"Just come back downstairs!" James was trying to put his hands up in a comforting, surrendering gesture to the vivid redhead who hadn't stopped shouting for a solid minute, so her face was as bright as her hair. "We found something you lot really should see!"

It took a bit more persuading and Frank and Alice agreeing first before Lily conceded searching every room wasn't helping.

They went back downstairs and saw Sirius had rejoined his little brother, and the two were frozen in place over what had already been discovered with the book still open on the ground for all to see.

"You wanted to show me a book!" Lily demanded as she looked murderously at Potter. "How is that helping to find out what happened!"

"Just look at it," Potter insisted.

Without touching it, she went to where it had fallen on the floor, and then she too along with Frank and Alice saw.

Scrawled across the top was the title The Boy Who Lived, which meant nothing to anyone so their eyes skipped down to below that, which was just under the date 1981. Six years from now.

#Harry Potter #fanfiction #reading the books #James Potter #Lily Potter #Regulus Black #Sirius Black #Peter Pettigrew #Remus Lupin #Frank Longbottom #Alice Smith #all in the family

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