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#goes to show yet again that you don’t see these idols as humans
jayflrt · 2 years
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the korean age system shouldn’t be kicking you guys in the ass this much, and stop imposing your own country’s age laws on idols who have been growing up in south korea.
also if you’re in such a desperate need to write smut for a member who you’re “pretty sure isn’t a minor,” you definitely don’t respect the idols you’re supporting and you shouldn’t even be writing nsfw content if you’re not even taking the time to do your research on south korea’s age laws.
the fact that you would rather risk writing and sharing child p0rn over the internet instead of spending two minutes to look up a person’s age is a very clear indicator that you people are obsessed with smut at an unhealthy level.
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ggukkieland · 2 years
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📕BTS Fic Reads - 2022 June
Happy to share these fics read, reblogged, and commented on. I think June was a good collection and I might have read some of these fics at least twice over the years. Some of these have been in my drafts since 2020 😭 but I enjoyed reading again because I finally get to scream about these fics.
💌 Thank you to all the authors! I am, once again, amazed at the quality of fics and stories we get. I wish I can do more to show my appreciation. Lots of love!   💌
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Note: if link doesn’t work, click on author link and go to their masterlist
🥕 Ongoing - most recent chapter [as of date this list was posted]
🥕 Completed - drabbles | one shots | series
🥕 S - smut | F - fluff | A - angst
Mostly Mature, 18+ only please
I read different members, different genres so please take note of the tags, description per fic
Don’t forget to reblog/comment on author’s work, too 😊
[around 70 fics]
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🥕 [Ongoing Series]
↬ Seokjin
The Platonic Collection @joheunsaram - drabble series [10/?] | 33k+ | best friend au, turned fwb, idiots to lovers, childhood friends | s, a, f
Whims & Inconsistencies @hisunshiine - series [3/?] | 12k+ | victorian era, historical au, best friend’s brother au | a, s, f
↬ Yoongi
Better Than Sex @yoon-kooks - series [2/?] | 9.3k+ | producer au, producer!yoongi, producer!reader, studio neighbors | s, f
↬ Hoseok
Blood on the Dance Floor @btsqualityy - series [10/?] | 20.5k+ | choreographer!hoseok, established relationship, assistant choreographer!OC (Bora) who is obsessed with Hoseok, thriller, fatal attraction au | s, a, f
↬ Taehyung
Love: Undercover  @lolabangtan - series [1/?] | 7.6k | CEO AU, CEO!Reader turned Secretary, Office AU, fake identity, humor | f, a
True Love @jjkeverlast - series [3/?] | 8k+ | Our Beloved Summer au, exes au, enemies to lovers | f, a
↬ Jungkook
Devil that I Know @euphoricfilter - series [5/?] | 51.8k+ | strangers to lovers, supernatural au, historical au, demon!jungkook x human!reader | implied s, f, a
Gone @borahaerhy - series [8/?] | 33.1k+ | best friend au, to enemies to lovers, high school au, slow burn, childhood best friend, falling out, common friend Aria goes missing, mystery/some police drama involved in the story | a, f
Her @/jungk0oksthighs   - series [5/?] | 20.8k+ | best friend au, tattoo artist!jungkook, friends to lovers, unrequited (jungkook) | f, s
Hotter Than Hell @chateautae - series [3/5] | 85k+ | demon au, human!reader, supernatural au, fantasy, enemies to lovers, road trip, fallen demon au | a, f, s
Stay with Me @jungk0oksthighs​ - series [10/?] | 30.9k+ | exes au, co-parenting, divorce au, unplanned pregnancy, single dad!jungkook | a, s, f
Take Care of You @kookiecrumb​ - series [2/?] | 10.6k+ | housekeeper!reader, idol!jungkook, friends to lovers | f, s, a
The Prince with the Ugly Heart @daydreamindollie​ - series [15/?] | 108k+ | Beauty and the Beast AU, fantasy, royalty au, florist!reader, prince!jungkook, feat. taehyung as the little bro of OC, slow burn, magic au | f, a
The Things I Never Told You @angelguk​ - prequel drabbles [4/?]  +series [2/3] | 23.2k+ | best friend au, idiots to lovers, mutual pining, ANGSTY PINING | s, f, a
↬ Multi/OT7
Taehyung x Reader | Jungkook x Reader
And They Were Roommates @hoseok666​ - series [6/?] | 70.5k+ | strangers to lovers, enemies to lovers, friends to lovers, college au, tsundere!jungkook, slow burn, roommate au, unrequited love (jungkook who rejected her confession), unrequited (for taehyung but it hasn’t ended yet so let’s see 👀) | a, s
OT7
Cry Me a River @minniepetals​ - series [12/?] | 90k+ | poly au, mafia au, arranged marriage au | a, slight f
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↬ Themed Series
Public Enemy @explicit-tae - themed series [4/7] | 33.9k+ | mafia au, different OCs but one universe, related to one man/scenario Shin who recently passed away (cheater and had several girlfriends who are the different OCs in the stories), some yandere tendencies, manipulation from the mafia men, some OC played the game, some 🤷🏽‍♀️, shady bangtan | a, s
Jungkook - OC is the high school sweetheart of Shin, mafia boss!jungkook,  yandere tendencies (he’s been watching OC), appeared when Shin stood her up on a date
Jimin - camgirl au, student, art major!OC, mafia!Jimin, client!jimin, sex worker au, manipulative Jimin, club owner!jimin
Namjoon - detective!reader (the one investigating the case of Shin’s murder), detective!namjoon (but shady and part of the mafia group)
Taehyung - hitman!taehyung, OC is as crazy
Hoseok - established relationship (who doesn’t know about his job
Seokjin - doctor x intern!OC (also one of Shin’s girlfriends
Yoongi - sister of the detective (namjoon’s story) investigating what happened to her sister
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🥕 [Completed Fics/Series]
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A Dicking but with Feelings @mimithings97​ - drabble | 3k | established relationship (new), boyfriend au, humor | s
Give and Take @ddaenggtan - one shot + drabbles [Backseat Memories]  | 13.5k+ | humor, strangers to lovers, mechanic!namjoon, car repair shop owner namjoon, rich!namjoon (but not really the point of the story), boyfriend au for the drabbles, post-grad au | f, s
Moon Child @adonis-koo​ - one shot | 16k | part of the themed series Fright Fest, supernatural, werewolf au, a/b/o dynamics, soulmate themes, OC is an omega but underappreciated in her pack, alpha!namjoon is actually a gentle giant 🥺 | f, s
Scent of a Woman @sahmfanficbts - one shot | 10k | hybrid au, parfumerie au, boss-employee, slow burn, pining, leopard hybrid!namjoon, human!reader, social hierarchy themes (hybrids are superior species), rich au, hurt/comfort fic | a, f, s
The Take Home Test @versigny - one shot + drabble  | 11.3k | college au, fuckboy image, stranded/snowed in, sort of unrequited, armpit kink (this fic is famous for this! I swear it’s not going to be weird), established relationship (for the drabble) | s, f
Twisted @softlysugas​ - SMAU | completed, with written parts | CEO AU, humor, mixed bags scenarios, strangers to lovers, waitress!reader, enemies to lovers, tsundere!jungkook, rich au | f, s
Not so Silent Night @farfromsugafanfic​ - one shot | 3.3k | quarantine romance, neighbor au, slight enemies to lovers | f
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Every Year @another-army-spot​ - one shot | 15.6k | rich au, heirs (they’re both from high society), chef!seokjin, childhood friends, timing was never right | f, a, s
Headlines of the Next @prolixitae - one shot | 36k | thriller, action, mystery, crime au, coworkers au, exes au (they’re in good terms), detective au | a, s
Lacuna @magicalsalamander​ - one shot | 21k | childhood friends, bestfriend au, falling out, turned enemies to lovers, idiots to lovers,  law students/ lawyer au, werewolf au, slow burn, coworker au, mutual pining, soulmate au (themes) | f, a, s
Night Drive @minimonojoon​ - drabble | 3k | friends to lovers, wedding au, they’re the best man/maid of honor, they’re the best friends of the wedding couple trope | f (cute)
The IKEA Test @yoon-bug​ - one shot | 9.1k | established relationship, boyfriend au, lawyer!reader, kind of controlling OC (Seokjin is the dom in the sheets though), cute | s, f, slight a
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The Seven Year Itch @jimlingss - one shot | 5.2k | humor, established relationship, marriage au, husband au, divorce themes (but it’s not angsty! More of talks about divorce x 7-year itch) | f, tooth-rotting fluff
White Lily Support Group @army-author​ - one shot | 21.5k | hurt/comfort fic, christmas au, soulmate au (their soulmates are gone), first Christmas after a tragedy, friends to lovers, themes of healing, featuring taehyung (he’s a kid in this) | a, f
Blue Side @minyoongone - SMAU | ongoing (but the part it stopped feels complete) | humor, neighbor au, missent messages, mistaken identity, CEO AU, biker!yoongi, brokenhearted yoongi and OC who chatted thinking they were chatting with their exes, e2l vibes in the beginning | a, f
Carpool @leewriting​ - one shot | 17k | enemies to lovers, neighbor au, fighting over parking - became carpool mates, prank themes, bet dare themes | f, a
Unexpected Lovers @jjkeverlast - two shot [2/2] | 19.8k | artist!yoongi, fake dating of sorts, OC pretended Yoongi is her bf in a club but overheard by family friends, wedding au (bring the date), not clear why yoongi agreed to the fake dating but he went with it | f, s, a
What am I to You? @tayegi - one shot | 5.3k | idol au, established relationship, yoongi not so expressive with his feelings, OC feeling insecure, break up themes | a
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It’s You @94hixtape - one shot | 5.3k | roommate au, one night stand (of sorts), heartwarming | s, f
Washed Ashore @alilbihh​ - drabble | 3k | humor, pirates au, tooth-rotting fluff, enemies to lovers (enemy captains who make out behind closed doors) | f
Who’s the Boss @yoonpobs​ - one shot | 4.6k | boss-employee au, CEO au, assistant!reader, valentine’s day au, sort of enemies to lovers (one-sided on OC’s part), tooth-rotting fluff | f
Make it Right @smoochooks - two shot [2/2] | 40k | dancer!hoseok, drummer!hoseok, enemies to lovers, ballerina!reader, friends to lovers, idiots to lovers, slow burn, mutual pining, eventual established relationship, some LDR themes, punk meets ballet | f, a, s
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Control @jungblue​ - one shot | 5.6k | established relationship, boyfriend, humor,  blindfolds, lack of control for Jimin (femdom in the beginning), soft dom!jimin in the end | s, slight f
Gauche @taesthetes - drabble | 1.4k | college au, strangers to lovers, one night stand au, but this is the morning after drabble, clumsy OC, humor | f (really cute)
Now or Never @goldenjulychild​ - one shot | 26k | fwb au, summer road trips x heartbreaks/being free from unrequited love/angst, idiots to lovers too, artist jimin, college au | s, a, f
Oneirophrenia @bratkook - one shot | 10k | established relationship, break up au, songwriter/musician au, flashbacks/memory | a, f
Otherworldly - Coraline AU @sinning-on-a-sunday​ - series [3/3] | 42k | horror au, thriller, supernatural, coraline au, multiple universe (parallel universe but a dark version), established relationship (with the real Jimin) | a, s
The Secrets Trilogy @avveh - series [3/3] | 47.9k | coworker au, secret identity (nerd timid jimin but a BDSM dom), secret relationship | s, a, f
We’re Not Really Strangers + Hell-ish @jtrbluv​ - one shot + follow up one shot (can be read stand-alone) | 16.4k | humor, college, mutual pining, feat. the card game “we’re not really strangers”, confessions, established relationship for Part 2 | f, a
Would I Choose You @crystaljins - series [6/6] | 36k | action, humor, superhero au, side kick!reader, enemies to lovers, unrequited love themes, friends to lovers, roommate au, discrimination about superpowers | f, slight a
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Come Back Home @another-army-spot - series [3/3] | 27.4k | exes au, co-parenting, falling out, single dad au, single parent!reader, unplanned pregnancy, artist!taehyung, parenting au, college/graduating taehyung (they were teen parents), OC worked | a, s, f
Dick on the Go @jeonggukingdom​ - one shot | 20.7k | humor, crack fic, neighbor au, best friend au, childhood friends, bet dare themes, sex shop au | s, slight f
Farmer Boy, I Love You @strawberrynamjoon​ - one shot | 35k | small town vibes (really cute), slice of life, farm au (farming au), slow burn, slight enemies to lovers, neighbor au | f, s
Golden Lotus @flowerwrites06 - series [3/3] | 24.4k | gods au, god!taehyung, goddess!OC, fantasy, reincarnation themes | f, slight s
Imitation of Art @rmverse - one shot | 9.6k | artist/photographer taehyung, friends to lovers, mutual pining, really sensual and artistic vibes | f, s (also part of my previous reading list but I’ve never done a review so adding it now)
Little Blue Shop on the Main Street + The Red Room in the Back @thewanderingalis (deactivated) [ao3 links] - two-shot [2/2] | 13.6k | strangers to lovers, antique shop au, fuckboy image, college au, heartwarming, established relationship for part 2 | f, s
Petal @jiminiesfavouritecolourisblue​ - series [4/4] | 10.7k | mafia au, sort of starcrossed lovers, a bit of action, bittersweet situation, soulmate au, mutual pining, sort of childhood acquaintances (he’s always protecting her but would never talk to her) | a, f
Pulse @rohobi - series [11/11] | 84.7k | action (medical), medical drama, doctors au, exes au (sort of), fwb au, falling out, mutual pining, break up themes, reunion of some sort as coworkers, emergency scenarios (seriously this is like Grey’s Anatomy), single parent!reader, unplanned pregnancy, tsundere!reader, heartwarming really | a, f, s
Sonder @yslkook​ - one shot | 3.4k | exes au, mutual pining, exes who reunited, second chance au(?) | s, a
Moonstruck @jungkxook - one shot | 7.4k | werewolf au, arranged marriage, needed to marry to protect human!reader, mating, virgin!taehyung | s, f
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10 Things I Hate About You @leviackermanscleaningbuddy - one shot | 4.9k | long-standing enemies to lovers (rivals since they were kids), some confessions about (nice) stuff they did for each other (secretly), mutual pining, college au | f, implied s
A Night at the Mall @bunnybubae​ - one shot | 8.6k | best friend au, mutual pining, mall au, security guard!jungkook, sleepover of some sort (but make it the mall where Jungkook is assigned to guard the night 😅) | f, s
At the End of the Day @starshapedkookie​ - one shot | 13.3k | best friend au, vacation au, beach au, mutual pining, longing | f, s
Blight @kpopisthereasonihavenolife​ - series [12/12] | 87.9k | fantasy, action, a bit of hurt/comfort too, enemies to lovers, magic au, witch!reader, reluctant familiar!jungkook, dragon!jungkook, shifter au, school theme (school of magical beings), memory themes (one chapter Jungkook had memory loss) | f, a
Every Corner of my Mind @whatifyoulivelikethat - drabble | >3k | the one that got away, unrequited love (JK pining), sort of exes, reader left | a, f
Half a Cookie and the Shirt Stays Off @oreomonsterhunter​ - drabble | 1.4k | hurt/comfort fic, established relationship, boyfriend au, sort of LDR (he goes on tour), idol!jungkook, baking cookies shirtless (is this a warning lol) | f
Hellblazer @jungkookiebus - series [3/3] | 16.2k | supernatural, demon!jungkook, demon hunter au, constantine au, enemies to lovers (of some sort since OC hunts his likes), soldier au, angel au, plot twist/mystery | a, s, f
Officially Yours @personasintro​ - one shot | 4k | arranged marriage, fake dating/marriage, divorce au, friends to lovers | f
Past Midnight @tae-bebe​ - one shot | 10.5k | college au, strangers to lovers, friends to lovers, humor, meet cute (OC is his roommate’s friend who sleeps over sometimes and he tripped over her in their kitchen lol), music major!jungkook, a bit of surprise with OC’s background hmm, When Harry Met Sally vibes (their banter) | f
Rebound @yoongiofmine​ - series [3/3] | 14.7k | rock band au, strangers to lovers, rebound au | f, a, s
Red @taestefully-in-luv - series [3/3] | 44k | hurt/comfort, exes au, break up au, established relationship (some parts), unplanned pregnancy (yes, with the ex turned fwb), themes of grief, themes of second chances | a, f, s
Rubies are Red @btsmosphere​ - drabble | 3k | hurt/comfort, mafia, rivals, enemies to lovers, gender neutral | f, slight a
Sore Loser @haliiimede​ - one shot | 9.5k | gamer au, established relationship, streamer!jungkook, pro-gamer reader (valorant), bet dare themes, sub!jungkook | s, f
Switch Lanes @rmverse - one shot | 16.6k | strangers to lovers, college au, reader had unrequited feelings for taehyung (fwb), breakfast talks in coffee shop vibes, good guy + hottest f*ck formula | s, f
The Philosophy of Good Luck @kidguk - one shot | 7k | tattoo artist!jungkook, tattooed and pierced Koo, roommate au, meet cute (she got a tattoo of ‘his face’ without recalling why), tooth-rotting fluff | f, implied s
Keep Driving @ugh-yoongi - one shot | 6.8k | best friend au, road trip au, college au though they just graduated, mutual pining | f
Labs @bts-bay-bee - one shot | 3.4k | college au, uptight!reader, enemies to lovers, some degradation | s
The Snack Thief @astralkoo​ - one shot | 6.4k | neighbor au, snack thief!jungkook, noona!reader, sort of fwb-ish (some past hook ups), sub!jungkook | s
Until my Last Breath @iamjungkooked - one shot | 13.4k | werewolf au, human!reader, childhood friends, falling out of some sort | a, f, s
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Hoseok x Reader | Jimin x Reader
Two in One @here2bbtstrash​ - one shot | 12k | best friend au, OC thought JiHope are gay, threesome | s
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posted: 2022 July 16
link to other reading lists
other fic rec lists (by theme)
feel free to message me about fics! (leads to @ggukkiereads 🌷)
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2K notes · View notes
hyenahunt · 5 months
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Saga: Rivals - 21
Writer: Akira
Season: Winter
Characters: Jun, Hiyori, Seiya, Jin, Mika, Madara, Akiomi, Sora
Proofreading: 310mc (JP) & hyenahunt (ENG)
Translation: kotofucius
Akiomi: Ahaha… Oh, how I wish you'd told me that much sooner.
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[Read on my blog for the best viewing experience with Oi~ssu ♪]
Location: Reverse Live Stage
Time: Hours later. Reverse Live, at the start of the second day.
Jun: “♪~♪~♪”
“Lilith! The original heretic! The revolutionary who spoke against God’s deception when none dared to!”
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Hiyori: “Lilith! The mother of humanity, flung into the depths of Hell! How she screamed of love and sang of hope, no matter how far she fell!”
Seiya: “Lilith! That is who we are! Buried in the depths of history, we are the true idols, long forgotten by the world!”
Hiyori: “How long it has been! How I waited to meet you again! In the darkness, you were the only light I could see!”
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Seiya: “I love you! I’ve loved you since this world came to be!”
Jun: “Destiny split us apart, and yet, we’ve been brought together once more!”
Hiyori: “Never shall we part again! Your warmth is forever ours!”
Jun: “Now, let us embrace! Let us love together, even if the very world forbids it!”
Seiya: “We are Lilith! It is to love you that we’ve arrived…!”
“♪~♪~♪”
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Jin: …Ooh, how passionate. Or maybe over-the-top. Kinda like Valkyrie, actually.
Mika: Hey, you ain't ever gonna catch us sayin' love, love, love over an’ over like that! We’re passionate but artistic! Even if we’re speakin’ about love, we’d be a lot more subtle 'bout it.
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Madara: Hahaha. It does seem like a refined… or rather, popularized version of Valkyrie’s methods.
They’ve got extravagant production for their stage too, probably thanks to the big shots all wanting to suck up to Hidaka Seiya —
So, their melodramatic lines suit the atmosphere, actually.
But unlike Shu-san, they’re not drowning in their own world. Instead, they're opening it up to the public; they gaze into their audience’s eyes and actively pull them in.
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Akiomi: Lilith… I’d been wary of what tactics they might use, but they've been taking an unexpectedly materialistic and straight-forward approach.
They maximized the promotion, stage production, and everything else they could; and even shamelessly used Hidaka-daisenpai’s fame to call in an army of fans.
War is essentially about numbers. With everything so perfectly coordinated like this, well, there's no way to fight back through ordinary means.
Hidaka-daisenpai has truly made the most out of his advantage as an active, highly popular, professional idol.
He is on a completely different level from us, who finance our own small-scale concerts within the confines of an idol training school.
Even budget-wise, he definitely has one or two more zeros on us, I'm sure.
Madara: Hahaha. Especially when we as Ba-barrier don’t really have that much work, so we have no funds for battle, either…
We've turned our lack of cohesion into our selling point, making a novel show with each of our unique charms and gaining an upper hand that way.
In other words, we resort to clever schemes to put up a semblance of fight, so we’re at a disadvantage against planned head-on attacks.
Mika: …They’re so vulgar. I don’t reckon I like ‘em. They’re totally different from Valkyrie, 'kay?
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Sora: HaHa~♪ Yep, totally different!
Valkyrie paints a single color over and over until it reaches a density no one can reproduce —
But Lilith kinda takes a bucket of paint and goes “splash!” with it, I guess~?
…And by spilling that much paint, they erase all the other colours.
Jin: Ooh~… I thought I heard grumbling. Turns out it was the defeated Akiyan and his merry men.
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Akiomi: You're truly something… We're your good rivals and comrades from the same school, who have been supporting you this whole time both behind the scenes and out in the open — Is that any way to talk to us?
Madara: Hahaha. I’ve got no comeback since we did lose spectacularly last night!
Smashed to smithereens, in a most dramatic death! If Rain-bows are rainbows, then we must be fleeting fireworks!
Mika: Why're ya havin’ so much fun even though we lost, Mikejima-senpai?
Madara: Well, when the opponent did such a fine job in gaining the upper hand on us, the loss felt conversely exhilarating, see!
I quite enjoy defeat, actually! Especially when it’s the result of an all-out fight!
Mika: I can’t understand that feelin’…
Valkyrie an' Lilith are totally different, but fer some reason it jus' reminded me of the time when fine kicked us down.
Madara: Hmm. Their methods indeed resemble that of the former fine…
If there's a quantifiable way to win, then pouring all you possess will bring definite victory.
In the war last year, Eichi-san used all the lofty assets available to him to invent a game board that worked to his advantage.
Well, he was only making the most of his perks as a rich heir with money and authority… so it wasn’t exactly a low move.
Akiomi: Hmm. In this case, all participating units are new groups formed specifically for Project-Saga…
More often than not, it’s the audience’s first time seeing them.
As it’s hard to tell everyone apart at a glance, Lilith ends up standing out due to their expensive costume and production. Their lavish extravagance only makes them all the more eye-catching to the audience.
Not to mention, the famous Hidaka Seiya is in the group. That’s more than enough name and power.
Though yes, of course, these things don’t decide the entire value of an idol.
But under these circumstances, it becomes a challenge to even put up a fight. Without a good strategy on your side, they'll simply overpower you.
Madara: Wow, how ruthless! I guess miracles don’t happen all the time! Hahaha☆
Mika: Seriously, why d’ya look like yer havin' the time of yer life? I’m right frustrated, personally~ Unlike you, Mikejima-senpai, I ain't a fan of losing!
Madara: Alright! Let’s turn that frustration into motivation, then! We might’ve lost yesterday, but let's win today!
Liltih may have wiped the floor with us, but we're steadily winning against all the other units we’re up against! We still have a chance!
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Akiomi: That's right. The rule isn’t as simple as retiring with one defeat.
While we’re nowhere as active as Rain-bows, we're still one of the most senior players of Project-Saga —
As a result, we've amassed fans through all our activities. We won't lose so easily to newbie units.
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Sora: Yeah! Schemes and tricks are Sora's specialty~ Magic exists for the oppressed minority!
Even if the conformist majority closes in on us, we'll sidestep them and make a miracle happen!
Mika: Ahaha. Everyone in Ba-barrier's so tough an' dependable~ ♪
Jin: Haha. Who'd have thought you'd get along so well, Akiyan?
You’re definitely having fun being an idol, aren’tcha? Unlike me, you retired with regrets.
Akiomi: On the contrary, I have left my regrets behind.
We had accomplished our role with the success of Rainbow Stage, so we could’ve dispersed right then and there…
But that performance garnered us a good reputation, with many fans requesting that we continue…
And I thought we might come in handy someday, so I continued on with Ba-barrier.
Compared to the other Mentors out there, I am a level below them in terms of achievements, so I did have my reservations. But well, I’ve always been the shameless sort, anyway.
Jin: Really? You’re more competitive than shameless, in my opinion… The more people look down on you, the more you fight back to prove 'em wrong.
I’ve always admired that side of you since long ago.
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Akiomi: Ahaha… Oh, how I wish you'd told me that much sooner.
Jin. We are giving our all just to hold our current position; I do not believe we’ll have the leisure to protect you.
However, you are the main character of Project-Saga, so by all means, find a way out of this predicament with your own two hands.
Lilith may prove to be a much stronger opponent than we thought, but if it's you, then surely you'll be the one to win — I’ll say this even without anything to back it up, just as I did in the past.
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Jin: Thanks. I think having you there to always tell me that… was what helped me to hold out much longer than I would've on my own.
[ ☆ ]
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bookscandlesnbts · 7 months
Note
Why do these people NEED Jungkook to be a fuckboy so bad? It's so WEIRD. The "kpop idols can have whoever they want" is only used when talking about Jungkook, and it's not from today that people have this unhealthy, weird obsession with him being straight and wishing that he fucks every girl that he breathes next to, probably fucking y/n's, weirdos. I mean, the other day I saw a tweet that literally said Jungkook couldn't stand next to a woman, with the innuendo that he couldn't stand next to them without flirting or wanting to fuck. What the fuck is wrong with these people? Why can't they just leave him alone? Yes, sure, he grew up, he matured, but that doesn't change the fact that he IS a romantic, and that doesn't change just because the person has money and fame... Not everyone wants random hookups, regardless of fame and money, that's not what life is all about! And smoking and drinking have no correlation with sex or a "fuckboy lifestyle", it's just how some people like to relieve themselves from stress, or they just want to have a good time. God forbid!
Hi anon. I agree with you. I wish I knew why they need it so bad or maybe I don’t. I can’t comprehend people’s obsession with Jungkook as some hetero fuckboy. I definitely think they are a bunch of y/n weirdos that need to project that onto him so they feel like they could have a “chance” 🤢 if they ever met him. I really don’t think my asexuality is to blame for why this kind of behavior grosses me out so much, but maybe it is.
Acting like Jungkook can’t sit next to women is laughable. I mean, I have yet to see him have any sexual chemistry with a woman 🤣 they are really grasping at straws with that one.
Jungkook is a romantic. But it just goes to show that these people aren’t actually fans of his. They just probably watch thirst trap TikToks of him so they can have whatever mental image of him that they want. Because if they actually watched content and saw how he truly is, they would have a hard time keeping up their fantasy.
Smoking is huge in Korea. It’s an appetite suppressant, and skinny is extremely glorified there, so smoking equals less food (don’t even get me started). And their work culture is super toxic capitalism that glorifies working super long hours, so smoking allows for breaks and is a means to cope with stress. Alcohol consumption is huge there too not just celebs everyone. So yeah, there is no correlation. Plus, our little introvert likes to drink at home. I’m sure he goes out sometimes, but Jungkook seems to be a homebody like me. But sure, he’s meeting all these women at clubs and bars and hooking up way them in the name of “fuckboy lifestyle”. I’ll say it again, that I think his musical direction lately caused an uptick in these people. They are discovering him for the first time, seeing him hip thrusting on stage, singing hetero songs, and declaring that as who he is off stage too. Thus, fueling the y/ns that already existed in the fandom allowing them to be louder and even more annoying. I hate it, truly. Jungkook is really good about shutting people down, but there are always those that refuse to listen. Like those in my ask box saying that he never shut down rumors. 🙄 I haven’t seen another idol receive the same labeling as JK. As someone who is a true fan of his as a human being not just for his talent, it’s disheartening. I keep trying to see MS as a positive thing (probably so I can cope) if anything good can come out of it, can it please be that these weird people find something else to do and forget about the tannies come 2025? Thanks.
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ecargmura · 6 months
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Ron Kamonohashi: Deranged Detective Episode 10 Review - The Poisoned Latte
It’s crazy how there’s only three more episodes left! No, don’t leave me! I need a Season 2 this instant! There are rumors of a Season 2 floating by, actually. Some fans notice that this cour is called Part 1, so there could be multiple parts in the future. I’m keeping my fingers crossed. The story goes back to its one-off cases, which I don’t mind. This time, our main duo accidentally get entangled in a murder case at a cafe.
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It feels as if Ron and Toto are crime magnets at this point. Everywhere they go, they get roped into solving murder cases. Heck, this episode’s case, they didn’t even plan on it happening; it just happened out of the blue. Toto was at the cafe because he was going to take a quick break with Chikori while Ron just happened to be the barista working there. Is Ron stalking Toto at this point? Something similar happened during Episode 5 where he just showed up all of a sudden with hand puppets.
As a one-off case, this one is actually pretty interesting because Ron is once again suspected for murder, so Toto has to solve the case in front of Chikori; Ron still does help around, but Toto does the usual stuff like he always does. Unlike Episode 5, Toto isn’t seen as a doofus this time around. In fact, Ron even compliments that Toto’s deductions are getting better, to which I agree! Toto is improving as a detective! Compare this case to the cases before the Observatory case and you can see a difference! Toto contributed a lot to this case, but still relied on Ron, but not as much as before. Maybe there will be a day where Toto has to solve a case all by himself?
Speaking of which, a new character shows up. Chikori Monki is a crime reporter who investigates impossible crimes and ones that are known to be hard to solve. Toto’s cases haven’t been reported to the public, yet she knows about them. Her love for detectives stem from being rescued by one when she got involved in a kidnapping case as a kid. As a character, Chicory’s cute. It’s nice to see a character who really respects and idolizes Toto for a change, even if her idea of him is actually incorrect. I did like how in the beginning, her idolizing Toto was more of a romanticization of detectives due to her past, but towards the end of the episode, she realizes that Toto is a hard working detective who is human, but her respect for him is still up there. It’s also a nice breath of fresh air to see a character who doesn’t like Ron for a change as Chikori finds Ron annoying. It’s like a total day and night difference with Amamiya who looks down on Toto but has a crush on Ron.
The three girls were a case of toxic friendship. Hayami, the culprit, killed Julie, the victim, because she hated the fact that she stole her boyfriend and that she was also jealous of her being the center of attention. Girl, if you hated her that much, maybe cut her out from your life? Did you really have to resort to murder to get back at her? The moral of this episode’s story is that the short-haired girl, Tamada, needs better friends, ones that care about each other without resorting to murder. I was so surprised when I saw the names of their voice actors in the credits. These three girls are voiced by Maaya Uchida (Julie), Yui Ishikawa (Hayami) and Sayaka Senbongi (Tamada). These three are popular voice actresses! I’m surprised that the director would cast them as minor characters here! Then again, the minor character voice casting have been crazy! I actually didn’t recognize their voices because they were using tones that were much different from their usual roles; it felt like they were using their normal voices.
I loved the comedy moments for this episode! The way Ron was all cool and suave while doing platypus latte art as Hayami mistook them for ducks was hilarious! I’ve never seen Ron that shocked. I theorize he was holding a grudge ever since, hence why he wanted Hayami to bash her head. Ron’s eccentric behavior around Chikori was hilarious too! He just wants a case, but it has been slow at the station! Ron needs money to get by, which is why he has so many jobs that could give Touya Kinomoto a run for his money. I think the beginning was also hilarious with the way the Floor of Indolence turns out to be removable and long.
Since the big observatory case has come to a close, and this case was only an episode long, what are they planning for the remaining three episodes? A three-parter to conclude this season? Three one-parters? I’m super curious. What are your thoughts on this episode?
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demonicintegrity · 2 years
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my 2 cents about the comments from will's former bandmates - i think they're legit and i'm sure those people were all truly hurt and mistreated by will. the thing is, a lot of his music (and his words outside of his music) have themes of like. being in the throes of mental illness and substance abuse and being a bad person, doing bad and harmful and wrong things that you regret. all these comments from others who knew him are from long enough ago to be part of that behavior from which he's clearly at least attempting to grow + change.
i also know he's spoken out before about the fact that he's hurt people in the past, and practically begged his fanbase not to idolize him as a perfect person that he clearly isn't. i think it's interesting that ppl who even praised this about him previously are ready to drop him after seeing the potential reality of those statements.
to clarify, i'm not a will wood fan and i basically agree with you + the last anon about all this (my knowledge comes from my brother + mom who are fans) and like. i'm inclined to believe all of these statements about him. i think everyone he's hurt in the past has a right to feel hurt, and angry, and resentful. but i also think will has a right to grow from the unhealthy person he used to be.
if anyone who has hurt me significantly showed signs of having changed for the better, i probably still wouldn't want them in my life and would continue to be hurt by their actions, but it'd be a good thing for them to change anyway but i'd want them to have a better life and be treated well by the people around them now.
anyway i'm withholding final judgement but i do think that when will said he's hurt people before and was a bad person, i was inclined to believe him. that's kind of the whole point of much of his music, and in the absence of any truly damning evidence of illegal behavior i think there's no reason yet to discard him as an artist aside from personal discomfort.
Yeah exactly that! And this goes back to a separate post half-inspired by this but also hey no one’s perfect or immune to stuff, especially messy unhealthy relationships, where you want even people who’ve wronged you to get better solely because you dont want further harm to be done. Even if you never forgive them. (you’re never obligated to.) People are going to be shit, especially when you have a cocktail of bad cards. And you want them to improve not just for their own sake, but for those around them who you do have more sympathy for. (And that goes for everyone, not just musicians you shouldn’t be idolizing to begin with.)
And if you go so far as to claim them a monster, placing them in this box of they’re Bad because They Intrinsically Are, you’re discrediting the human intent and flaws as well as context around that incident and that human capability of reflection and improving. Which doesn’t do that incident or the victim justice.
Which is why I’m on the fence about previous bandmates coming forward now (or maybe again, idk anything here. I’ve gotten in the habit of not knowing my musical interests outside of their music, for better or for worse) because while Will being an asshole X years proves he’s certainly capable of being the Bad Guy and it wouldn’t look out of character. I just don’t know if it’s only that version of past!Will capable of that or if it still extends to pre&during lockdown!Will. I genuinely don’t know and if I’m going to make a claim on Will’s character I’d like to know that first.
So while it’s worth keeping in mind because it does add extra context to Will’s character. We have know whether or not that has changed over the years and whether or not he’s genuine in his attempts to improve. And considering his apology in the thread was pretty solid about his part of the problem, and as you said he’s never been shy about the fact that’s he’s been the bad guy in the past, and if this Kitchen Floor Song is about this incident (or any other) it shows an incredible amount of remorse and owns up to the fact he was the bad guy and does take ownership of that. Because of all that I’m willing to give Will that benefit of the doubt here. Just as I gave Op the benefit of the doubt despite the flaws in their story presentation.
Especially since we don’t know his personal life so we can’t compare his life now to then. And i wouldn’t ask him to do that because he doesn’t owe anyone his personal life especially since people of status are under such scrutiny. Plus, the road to being a good person takes time and is rough. Especially if you’re managing addiction and a poor mental health. It takes a lot of time and effort to make peace with the fact that you did horrible shitty things and time to build up enough better deeds to have a chance of outweighing those.
(A bunch of his current fans have only know pandemic!Will. That is the Will they were introduced to and become familiar with. Is it fair to say to them and Will that hey, he was shit X years ago you need to see him as this right now always? I genuinely don’t know. I certainly wouldn’t like it if I met someone and a third party I haven’t met/spoken to in years was like “hey Integrity was kinda shit X years ago you need to factor that into your current idea of them in the present.” Because it ignores the context of X years ago and whatever incident and the development since then. It doesn’t change the fact that yea, I did some shit things. But it doesn’t mean I’m proud of them or am capable of that kinda stuff now. And if you’re going to bring that up in an accusatory way I’d like to be able to explain myself. Or maybe I’d just say it’s in the past and I’ve made up for it and leave it at that because I don’t have the energy to explain past!me.)
So yea. Reserving judgement on Will’s current character until I get more context around his current self. Which I might not get so who knows. And yeah as you said, because nothing outrageously criminal has happened to make a permanent stain on his character, I’m waiting for more context. It doesn’t excuse this or any other previous incident, he’s absolutely the bad guy at some/all fault there, I’m just saying it doesn’t properly color or contribute to judgment of his current self.
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obey-me-rot · 3 years
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You Shouldn't Be This Cool
A/N: Something purely self indulgent to kickstart this Obey Me writing blog. The idea mostly belongs to @warm-meelk because of how they drew their MC playing bass and then sprinkled in the fact that Levi would be the pianist and I just kinda...went from there q wq. And I also play bass so...all the more reason to write this!
Warnings: Levi trying to justify some of his more weird actions while MC seems to not only know...but enjoy the attention.
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Levi wasn’t a creep, he was passionate.
He was passionate about TSL, he was passionate about anime, he was passionate about his idol groups and he was even passionate about learning new skills in order to better evolve himself into an ultimate fan.
So what he did today was not because he was a creep!
It was because he was passionate.
“Can you play that for me again, Levi?”
The third born tucks his feet on his chair, sipping up the noodles of his second cup of ramen as he watches the video feed from this afternoon. He smiles as the camera zooms in on your fingers, each one plucking the string of your bass absentmindedly while you listen to the melody he had composed.
As a TSL fan, he was ‘in the know’ of most TSL fan events whether they were held in the Devildom or in the human world. If they were worth the trouble he would attend and if it seemed like it was just a repeat fan event for one he already attended then he would just get the merch from the safety and comfort of his room.
Yet a completely new fan event had popped up on his radar one day, an online one.
One that challenged each and every TSL fan to create a song dedicated to their favourite lord.
Levi doesn’t remember much after that announcement, all he remembers is knocking on your door at devil knows what hours of the morning and shoving the music sheets in your face while pleading for you to help him out.
Your musical talent wasn’t hidden in the House of Lamentation. While most of the brothers could boast about having pretty decent singing voices or being ‘okay’ at certain instruments, your ‘weapon’ of choice was perhaps the most random but also well fitted instrument for someone like you.
You played the bass.
If he wanted to get specific, you played the TCB1006 Ibanez electric bass. You had mentioned in passing when you and him had met up to start ‘jamming’ out and Levi had retained that fact along with his hundreds of other facts that had to do with your particular interests and likes.
Again, because he was passionate...about your friendship.
The camera zooms out to film both of you, a happy giggle taking him over as he saw just how chill you looked.
How unfair was it that out of all the instruments you could play, you had to play the one that just made you look even cooler?
You were laying in his tub while he sat on the very chair he was sitting on now, plucking strings seemingly at random but humming some bars and trying to fit them with his melody. Your feet were propped up on the edge and the soft brown color of the guitar meshed so well with the glowing blue lights of his room that he is so glad he picked this spot for his hidden camera because you looked ethereal.
“I still can’t believe you composed this. It’s pro-level.”
“H--Ha! Of course! This is nothing but a piece of cake for me! If it's about the Third Lord and Henry then I’m all over it!”
Eyes take in the way you sit up and position your bass higher, fingers having a better reach as you start to ‘slap’ the strings in order to create a more wavy and deeper sound.
“Okay...I think I got it. Can you play the melody from the beginning?”
Oh here it was.
Sitting up, Levi puts his cup noodle down and grabs the nearby music sheets, pen already in hand as his attention on you becomes laser focused.
The beat you play is, well, playful. It is a high contrast to his almost operatic piano melody and he could almost hear himself playing a bit slower as if wondering if you had even heard what he was playing
“Uh MC…?"
“Trust me.”
Levi bites his lip as he feels his heart skip a beat, not even having to look at the screen to see that he was blushing. His past self was so predictable…
Although wasn’t his present self all the more pathetic for reacting to your words a second time?
He’d rather not think about it too much.
Your purpose had come shining through the moment Levi started to really hear the notes you were playing. It was almost as if you were mimicking Henry’s character with the bass. Cool, collected and eager to learn more about the world he had been thrusted into, your bass managed to capture the curiosity of Henry’s while his piano clearly symbolized the shy but deadly Third Lord.
The bass would go high, the piano would go low but as the melody started to harmonize so did the way your playing did with his. It was if he was the Third Lord, shyly peeking at the way Henry interacted with the world around them…
Only to turn around and invite him to join along.
His eyes go up to the screen.
You looked so happy, your fingers plucking away as he continued playing along with you. Your eyes turn to look at him and he almost wants to punch his past self in the face for not looking back. The camera had been perfectly placed to capture the way you tilt your head as you stare at him, chuckling as he clearly gets far too into the music for his own good.
To miss such an exclusive UR moment from you, he should be ashamed of himself.
“Haha. Thank the devil I came up with this camera idea!”
Levi blinks as he looks around, coming face to face with his beloved Henry as the fish stares at him from his bowl.
“...don’t look at me like that, Henry…”
The fish blinks.
“I wasn’t doing it to be a creep! I just wanted to write down the notes MC played before I forgot them.”
Henry’s mouth opens and then closes.
“And see! I even missed such exclusive moments from them! Look!”
He pauses the video and turns the screen so his fish can take a better look.
“5:06. I even timestamped it. Right here, MC is smiling and looking at me so cutely that it would be almost a sin to not record it!”
His fingers tap a couple of keys as he goes back to another point of the video.
“3:58, they smile and do such a cool trick with their fingers that I didn’t even notice that they stick their tongue out whenever they get too into playing! Do you see that Henry?”
A couple more taps as he keeps the video playing, the goldfish swims close to the edge of the bowl.
“I missed so many great moments all because I was so lost in playing! And I just didn’t want to ask them if I could record them because then they might think I’m using the footage for some sort of weird purpose and I would never do something like that to them! My Henry is far too amazing for me to just watch them one time! I just wanted to make sure of the notes they were playing! This is all for passion--!”
“Levi?”
He stops talking as he looks back at the screen, Henry swimming away while Levi tuned into the video once again.
“Was that good? I don’t know why but having the bass go a bit higher as I mute the strings feels almost like--”
“Like a conversation! It’s like the instruments are talking!”
Okay maybe this camera idea wasn’t the greatest after all, that was such a stupid thing to say and if he could go back and just slap the words out of his very mouch, he would.
Yet once again, his MC showed just why they were at the top of their ‘favourites’ list.
“Yeah! Like a convo!”
The conversation dissolves into randomness as Levi sighs and looks down at his sheet music. He only got a few notes down. Devildom, what was the point of having perfect pitch if he didn’t use it all the time? He straightens his screen out as he grabs a pencil instead of a pen, knowing full well that if he wanted to get this done he would have to rely on listening to you play and not looking at the screen.
If he finished this quickly then he would be able to stare at yo--it...he would be able to stare at it the rest of the night.
He goes to rewind the video but stops when he notices the scenery has changed just a tiny bit. You were out of his bathtub and looking at his aquarium, tapping the wall twice as some of his other fishes came up to greet you.
They were already so accustomed to you that he was sure even Lotan would know who you were.
Your attention goes from his aquarium wall to his computer, looking at all of his figurines and other merch he proudly showed off. A few more steps to the right and you were looking at his bookshelf--
Only for your eyes to lock with his.
He rolls his chair back immediately, his heart dropping to his feet as you reach out to the camera and pluck it from its hiding place.
No. No no no nononononononono!
This was it. You were done with him. Levi didn’t have a lot of friends but he knew that this was probably a friendship ender. His pupils contract as he sees you look at the camera with a confused look, already guessing your thoughts before you could vocalize them.
This weirdo was filming me the entire time. And he was hiding the camera? Disgusting. I’ll make sure to never come by his place again. What an absolute creep.
“MC...I didn’t--”
His jaw clicks shut as small tears gather at the corners of his eyes, not yet falling down his cheeks as he sees you smile and wave at the camera.
What--?
“Levi. If you wanted to film you didn’t really have to hide it. I want something to remember this session too. Next time you can just ask~”
You wink and Levi can feel his heart going from the floor all the way to his throat.
“Oh and send me a text when you have the footage ready. We can watch it together.”
He lets out a breath he didn’t know he had been holding as you place the camera back before his voice rings out from the video, exclaiming about all the snacks he had brought. So that’s why he had found you standing up, and here he thought you were leaving…
Send you a text...the footage…?
His hands scramble to his phone as he quickly enters the passcode, blushing as he sees a new message from you.
“Mind if I come over again? I have a new bassline I want to show off.”
Levi puts the phone down slowly before getting up---
Only to immediately fall down, hands over his face as he curled up on the floor.
Of all the characters he thought he would be in a shoujo, the last one he thought he would end up as is the heroine.
Not that he was regretting it, this was perhaps the best outcome that had happened in his now not so miserable life.
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recurring-polynya · 3 years
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Once again, I am thinking about the dubious claim that people make from time to time that Renji would have gotten better character development in the TYBW arc if Byakuya had died. The thing is, though, that Renji did get excellent character development in this arc, particularly with respect to his relationship to Byakuya, it was just very subtle and I want to talk about it.
So, the first thing I want to point out is that the captain-lieutenant relationships is one of the major themes of the TYBW. A lot of this is sort of weird and awkward, but this is perfect, actually, because captain-lieutenant relationships are, for the most part, weird and clunky and awkward. Take for example, the part that I always make fun of, where the captains are told not to go to bankai, and Hitsugaya, Komamura, Byakuya and Soi Fon immediately go to bankai-- but they all do this on the assumption that they are luring their opponent into a trap to see how this works, and that their lieutenant will somehow ??defeat them anyway?? (well, except Soi Fon who seems to think she can one-shot her Quincy). There’s Sasakibe’s funeral, where we find out that Yamamoto cared far more for him than we ever imagined. Kyouraku returns Nanao’s zanpakutou to her and stands behind her as she defeats an opponent he can't. Iba carries Komamura’s body off of the battlefield as he loses the last of his humanity. Isane struggles to keep her head above her grief because that’s the burden Unohana left her with. Rose avenging Kira. Hitsugaya and Matsumoto fighting and (sort of) dying together. The Zaraki-Yachiru thing. The Mayuri-Nemu thing. Momo and Shinji actually got to have a relatively normal one, which they each deserved, but at least they got to have normal one together. Anyway, that could be an entire essay, but as usual, I only want to talk about Renji and Byakuya.
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Renji’s introduction as a character happens in stages. Initially, he sort of appears to be Byakuya’s sidekick-- he's here to do the dirty work during Rukia’s arrest, while Byakuya stands by and calls the shots, but even early on, it’s clear that Renji’s a little hung up on Byakuya. He’s trying to impress him, and gets more embarrassed and self-conscious as things go progressively pear-shaped. When Byakuya finally enters the action, Renji’s thought bubbles reveal that he’s watched Byakuya for a long time, that he knows all his moves. When we get the Renji backstory reveal a few issues later, we learn that Renji’s goal is to defeat Byakuya, which he seems to feel is necessary to seeing Rukia again, even though there has never been any sort of causal link revealed between these two things. Don’t get me wrong, if Young Academy Renji had tried to continue to be friends with Rukia, I think Byakuya would have kicked him out on his ass, but it’s clear that a lot of Renji’s hang-ups are internal-- he doesn’t want to face Rukia again until he can stand against Byakuya. I think the origin of this is that he simply wants what’s best for Rukia, and he can’t stomach the idea of asking her to leave her rich, noble family for him, unless, of course, he’s somehow better than Byakuya in some dimension, and the only thing Renji’s ever considered himself good at is fighting.
Even more interesting is that he’s chosen to go about this by... studying the man’s every move and becoming his lieutenant. But for as much energy as Renji has put into learning Byakuya’s favorite combat moves, he doesn’t actually know anything about him as a person. He’s shocked when Rukia predicts that Byakuya won’t lift a finger to help her, and then horrified when this actually comes to pass. A few chapters later, as he’s running Hinamori through, Aizen comments that “Adoration is the state furthest from understanding.” I would probably classify Renji’s feelings towards Byakuya more as admiration or idolization, rather than adoration, but I think this statement is also very true of Renji and Byakuya’s relationship. Unlike poor Momo, Renji gets a little more time and opportunity to do something with this information. With a little Ichigo-forced soul searching, he realizes that he’s not going to come out the hero of this story no matter what, but if he doesn’t do something, Rukia’s not going to come out of this story at all, and even if he’s not really ready, he’s spent 40 years trying to figure out how to beat Kuchiki Byakuya, let’s hope all that was good for something.
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The Byakuya-Renji fight has no direct impact on the events of the Soul Society Arc. It makes Byakuya show up to Rukia’s execution 5 minutes late and without his scarf. Renji gets healed, so it really doesn’t matter all that much to him, either. You could argue that they both wasted a bunch of energy (that they could have used to fight Aizen later) but it’s primarily a character-driven moment of them both drawing lines in the sand about where they stand, vis a vis Rukia. Byakuya wins this fight, and he wins it handily, but he’s wrong, as he comes to realize a few issues later, when Ichigo kicks his ass and tells him he’s a bad brother, a lesson that Byakuya will take to heart for the rest of the manga. Byakuya claims that the difference between Renji and himself is class, but the real difference between is the heart, and in the long run, Renji is the real victor of this fight.
The hospital scene is an interesting footnote to this. Byakuya defeated Renji, but Byakuya was the asshole and everyone knows it. There’s an expectation that perhaps Renji will quit or perhaps Renji will give him an earful and perhaps even Rukia will choose to leave the family, either to go to the Living World or to be with Renji (and Byakuya would deserve this), but instead, both Renji and Rukia give Byakuya another chance, which is not, I think, a place Renji ever expected to be.
Rukia and Byakuya building up a sibling relationship after this is fairly straightforward (although I’m sure it had its weird moments), but Byakuya and Renji now have this profoundly awkward relationship where Byakuya is obviously in charge, but he sort of depends on Renji as a personal compass because he’s shit at dealing with people and he doesn’t want to screw stuff up with Rukia again. Take for example, the part of the Hueco Mundo arc where Orihime is kidnapped and Rukia and Renji desert their posts to come help rescue her. Kubo takes to the panel-space to tell us that Byakuya has tacitly approved this. As a clan head and a captain, a person who is entrenched in the hierarchy of Soul Society, Byakuya couldn’t possibly go to Hueco Mundo-- but he can turn a blind eye while his sister and lieutenant scurry out through the Kuchiki family senkaimon. Renji, for his part, tried to go to Hueco Mundo through official channels and got shot down. We don’t know what Renji would have done if Byakuya had explicitly forbidden him from going, but it doesn’t matter-- Byakuya enabled Renji to follow his heart here, because Byakuya can’t. Rukia would have gone to Hueco Mundo regardless. She cares about Byakuya, but she doesn’t depend on him for validation the way Renji does.
I said this was going to be about the TYBW, so let’s get to that. Early in the arc, we’re shown several scenes where it’s clear that Byakuya respects and values Renji as a lieutenant, but he’s also pretty damn patronizing to him. Renji is the first one to engage As Nodt, and when Byakuya shows up, he acts surprised that Renji hasn’t taken him out yet, but then proceeds to take over the fight (real, “stand back, fives, an eleven has arrived” energy). After Byakuya then loses his bankai like a doofus, Renji wants to take point so that Byakuya can figure out As Nodt’s attack and Byakuya won’t let him... and then proceeds to get thrashed.
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This has to be one of the most emotionally charged fights in Bleach. Byakuya is losing, and Renji jumps in, absolutely incensed that As Nodt would use Senbonzakura against Byakuya. Renji isn’t doing great, but he’s not doing terrible when Byakuya gets up and tries to help Renji, even though he’s a big bloody mess. As Nodt reacts by shredding Byakuya into chunks, and Renji just loses it, and if Mask de Masculine hadn’t shown up and kicked him halfway across the Seireitei, I daresay Renji would have killed himself trying to take down As Nodt.
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This is where I usually make the point that if Byakuya had died to here, it would have broken Renji into little pieces, but that’s not today’s essay. Instead, everyone goes to the Royal Realm, and by virtue of the fact that Byakuya is injured worse than everyone else, Renji has to go forward without him or his approval.
In typical Renji fashion, the thing that motivates Renji here is not glory or heroism, but the desire to accompany Ichigo, the need to be with his friends in their times of trial. In fact his companionship here is absolutely essential-- at Hikifune’s, Ichigo expresses deep doubts that he’s doing the right thing, and Renji reminds himself that if he wants to protect others, he has to take care of himself first.
At Nimaiya’s however, Renji and Ichigo are split up because they must follow their own paths. The other extremely interesting thing that happens here is that Renji’s sword is reforged. Byakuya shattered one of Hihio Zabimaru’s joints the very first time Renji used them in combat. Renji brushed it off at the time, saying that he could get by without it. Even though Byakuya has long been his motivating force and his mentor, he’s also been held back by his connection to him. And at this point, it’s gone.
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I really wish we got to see where Renji and Rukia meet up again, but we don’t. Unlike with Ichigo, though, Rukia doesn’t seem to need anything from Renji. They travel together, fight together as equals, wear matching outfits, like you do. Oh. Wait. After all this time, in the 493 chapters between Needless Emotions and Blue Stripes, Renji can finally see himself as an equal to Rukia. They get. bankai. Together.
I want to emphasize that it’s not really anything about Rukia herself that allowed Renji to make bankai, it’s the fact that he’s finally managed to move past the feeling that he’s not enough. Defeating Byakuya would not actually have solved this problem, and having Byakuya dying in front of him wouldn’t have either. Renji gets criticized for losing a lot of his fights, but that’s such a key to his character. He’s not always the strongest, he doesn’t always win, but he keeps fighting for what he cares about. He struggles with his need for approval, for external validation, but Renji is at his best when he doesn’t have time to think about that, when he’s just fighting by his friends’ sides against impossible odds, doing what he knows in his heart is right.
I think people tend to make a little more than is strictly necessary of the line where he tells Mask that he’s “a villain”, I think he’s most just making fun of Mask’s own self-aggrandizement. On another level, though, this is just Renji being at ease with himself. Byakuya typically enters a fight bloviating about the honor of Soul Society and “how dare you raise your sword against me, the 28th Head of the Kuchiki” and even Ikkaku had the whole deal about telling people your name before you kill them, but Renji is more like “you beat up my friends, so I’m gonna break your face,” like there’s no ego in it, just you’re there, and he’s there, and then you’re lying on the ground and he’s taking a nap somewhere. This is so different than the insecure, posturing young man he was at the start of this series and I love this growth for him.
Even after he eventually meets up with Byakuya again, something has changed about their dynamic. The group gets split up and rejoined two or three times, and Renji and Rukia always stay together while Byakuya ends up fighting alongside others, Hisagi and later Hitsugaya and Zaraki. This is cemented in their last scene together, where Rukia and Renji try to stay with Byakuya and he sends them off to fight with Ichigo by saying “your help is not needed here.” In some ways, it’s an echo of Byakuya sending them off to Hueco Mundo, but in other ways, it’s acknowledging that they are their own people, not just an extension of him.
Hitsugaya follows it up with this:
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There’s more here than meets the eye, though-- Byakuya and Renji have maintained a pretty strict superior-subordinate relationship, because that’s the easiest way for them to make sense of the world, but the fact is, they do care about each other and are important to one another.
I know there would be a certain narrative satisfaction in seeing Renji make captain at the end-- he’s one of the hardest working people in Bleach, and it frankly seems weird to see Iba get the haori when he doesn’t. But Renji has never wanted to be a captain. Renji becoming captain would, in some ways, be a failure. He spends years pre-canon chasing rank and prestige because that’s what he thinks will make him worthy, and it didn’t. Instead, he found worth in being himself, in loving his friends and being there for them, in learning things from Byakuya and teaching him things in return. Renji doesn’t need to be Byakuya’s lieutenant anymore, he just does it because he likes it. It makes him happy. What better character development is there than that?
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strawberrystar7 · 3 years
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The Miraculous Fandom can be misogynistic. And I can prove it. Just look at the different characters.
Also: Please read this until the end.
Luka vs Kagami:
Kagami is straight-up being hated for no reason just because she's an alternative love interest for Adrien while Luka is literally being loved even tho he is an alternative love interest for Marinette. And why is that? It's not because Kagami is less interesting of a character. If anything she's even more interesting than Luka is if you consider her background. I get it most people think Luka is more likable than Kagami but the only reason why Luka is loved while Kagami is hated is that Kagami is female and Luka is male. The majority of the fandom consists of teenage girls. They find him attractive and sexualize him. So the only reason for this is literally because they find him attractive.
I bet with you if Kagami was a dominant, powerful and independent male everyone would call her "hot" and everyone would love her. But she isn't she's a female so everyone calls her a "bitch" and "Cacagami" just because she's a damn love interest.
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Lukanette vs Adrigami:
Kagami is being hated because apparently, she is a bad girlfriend. But if anyone was a bad girlfriend/boyfriend in that relationship it's Adrien. In that world, Adrien and Cat Noir are seen as two different people but we know better. We know that Adrien and Cat Noir are the same person. He had been in a romantic relationship with Kagami yet he STILL went on to flirt with Ladybug and danced romantically under the moonlight with Marinette. Adrien was NOT being faithful towards Kagami. Even if you don't count the New York Special he had STILL been flirting with Ladybug as Cat Noir.
Marinette is being called out for being a bad girlfriend towards Luka because she is using him to get over Adrien but Adrien is never being called out for what he did to Kagami! Not only did he use her to get over Ladybug but he also kept flirting with Ladybug while he was in that relationship.
And why is that? Because again: Adrien is male and most of the fandom consists of teenage girls who sexualize him. So the only reason is that Adrien is hot.
Again people say Luka deserved better but Kagami deserved what Adrien did to her. And why is that? Because Luka is a hot male.
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Kagami vs Cat Noir:
The fandom hates Kagami for not letting go of Adrien but they also love Cat Noir for not letting Ladybug go.
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Adrien/Cat Noir vs Marinette/Ladybug:
The fandom hates Marinette for being a stalker but Cat Noir is straight-up harassing Ladybug. Yet no one calls him out for that.
Every once in a while, Adrien crosses a line. Despite the show's attempts to frame his crush on Ladybug as sweet and endearing, he sometimes exhibits obsessive, borderline stalker-ish attitudes and behaviors.
He repeatedly professes his love for Ladybug as Cat Noir, time and time again. He is forcing her to endlessly rebuff his affections. He literally sometimes does this in the middle of their battles against supervillains. There's even that part in the episode Animan when he tries to stealthily smell her without her noticing.
There also is this part in Frozer when he didn't want to work with Ladybug because she didn't accept his advances. He also sometimes tries to force kisses on Ladybug, Prime Queen is an example of that. Heck, there even is this one part where he tries to kiss the Ladybug Sentimonster.
The fandom hates Marinette for trying to kiss Adrien's wax statue but they don't say anything about Cat Noir trying to kiss a Sentimonster. The fandom hates Marinette for smelling Adrien's pillows but they love Cat Noir for trying to smell Ladybug in Animan. They hate her for having Adrien's schedule and a lot of pictures of him but they love Adrien for doing that. And I bet with you if Adrien was able to get Ladybug's schedule he would get it.
I have seen someone calling Adrien out for having those Ladybug and Cat Noir dolls he uses for who knows what. Those toxic Adrien/Cat Noir simps literally tried to counter that with Marinette having those Ladybug, Cat Noir, LadyWifi, Evillustrator and Rogercop dolls. Like what? Those are two completely seperate things. Marinette has them for her babysitting duties. Adrien has those for who knows what. Probably to imagine himself kissing with Ladybug. Marinette has those to play with children like Manon. Now tell me where is this not misogynistic?
The Fandom hates Ladybug for rejecting Cat Noir but they are happy when Cat Noir rejected Marinette because it showed he's loyal towards Ladybug. Where is the difference here? Ladybug is rejecting Cat Noir because she is in love with Adrien. She doesn't owe Cat Noir to love him back just like how Adrien/Cat Noir doesn't owe Marinette to love her back.
What do you want her to do? Accept his advances and play with his feelings? Because that is what she would be doing if she would accept his advances. She would be doing what she did to Luka. After all, she is in love with Adrien. Yes, Adrien and Cat Noir are the same person but she doesn't know that. And yes, I know Marinette was in love with Luka. Truth, Gang of Secrets, and even earlier Episodes showed us that much. The same goes for Adrien and Kagami. They showed us Adrien was in love with Kagami. But that isn't the point. Even if both of them were in love with Luka and Kagami it doesn't change they had been using them. Yet only Marinette is being bashed for that. Even Kagami is being bashed for her relationship with Adrien even tho that had not been her fault. Adrien was the one who had been unfaithful. But again no one called him out because he is a hot male.
Do you really want Ladybug to do to Cat Noir what Marinette and Adrien did to Luka and Kagami? At least she's being honest with him and telling him straight up that she is not interested.
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Don't you guys find it weird how only the female characters are being called out and trash-talked? The point I am trying to make is that a large part of the fandom is being misogynistic. The male characters are being loved but the female characters are being hated. And the only reason for that is because the majority thinks the males are hot.
People keep calling out Marinette and Kagami for "being in love with the perfect side of Adrien" or idolizing him yet they are doing exactly the same thing they have accused those characters of. They are literally idolizing Adrien/Cat Noir and Luka (and possibly other male characters).
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Yes, Marinette HAS her flaws but SO DOES everyone else. Also, a show with main characters without flaws would be extremely boring to watch. That aside, EVERYONE has flaws EVEN Adrien/Cat Noir. People seem to forget that these characters are teenagers.
The human brain isn't fully developed until 25 years of age. Everything is there except for the frontal cortex, which is the last thing to mature. An immature frontal cortex explains the spectrum of teenage behaviors: it's what makes adolescents adolescent.
The rational part of a teen's brain isn't fully developed and won't be until age 25. Adults think with the prefrontal cortex, the brain's rational part. This is the part of the brain that responds to situations with good judgment and an awareness of long-term consequences.
So of course the characters in MLB act accordingly.
Humans ARE NOT perfect. They are flawed. We all can agree that Marinette's crush on Adrien IS unhealthy but did you ever come to think that Cat Noir's crush on Ladybug IS ALSO unhealthy?
I probably could find even more proof that Adrien's crush on Ladybug isn't as healthy as people think but that's not the point I'm trying to make.
The point I'm trying to make is that a large part of the fandom (not the entire fandom) is being misogynistic.
People see Marinette as this creepy stalker while Adrien is perfect and could never do a mistake. People are literally criticizing Marinette for thinking he's perfect while they do the same. And the only reason for this is because they sexualize him and the other male characters.
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What I also do not understand is this "Cat Noir is way better than Adrien" nonsense. Like why? That makes zero sense. Those two are the same characters.
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Don't get me wrong. I do not hate Luka or Adrien. Luka is an amazing guy and Adrien is literally a cinnamon roll. Those two are amazing but I can't stand all the hate Marinette and Kagami are getting.
And I know not all Cat Noir/Adrien fans/simps are like that but a lot of them are. And I think not all of them are even aware of this.
I also know that a large part of the fandom isn't even aware that this is happening. So I thought I should make people aware that this happens.
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I don't even know if "misogynistic" is the right word for this or if I should have used "sexist" but I hope what I am trying to say came across. Because this really is a problem the fandom does have.
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ohmycenchaheart · 3 years
Text
What started out as a headcanon, ended up becoming, well, this.. Cha Young is overcome with a strong sense of déjà vu as she strolls around the upscale men’s clothing store, waiting as her boyfriend gets fitted for his new Booralro suit.
Honestly now, the man is quite rich, not to mention has a good number of gold bars to his name, and yet he wants her to buy him his new suit. All because of a stupid bet they made during one of their makgeolli nights. Okay, so she may have somewhat grudgingly admitted that even the simplest, most basic pasta made by him, Spaghetti Aglio e Olio in this case, tasted better than the one Chef Toto served at Arno. She had tried to reason her way out — it was probably the wine he paired the pasta with that enhanced the taste. Alas, the soft moan that escaped her, as flavours of garlic, parsley and olive oil exploded in her mouth in the first bite itself, was enough to have Vincenzo smirk in victory like the insufferable git he can be when he wins. And that had been that.
They should have stuck to their old finger flick bets, she muses as she walks past a glass display of cuff links and tie pins. Except finger flicks weren’t just finger flicks anymore. Sometimes, they were soft kisses on the forehead, and sometimes, a little something more. It wasn’t something either of them minded; in fact, these bets often became playful excuses. But one day, in a silly fit of competitiveness, Cha Young had declared they up the stakes. And that’s how she finds herself in this fancy store once again, the same one where she’d bought him his suit and pen after their first court victory together, waiting as Vincenzo tries on yet another suit. In hindsight, she should’ve suggested the loser buy bungeoppang instead. Oh well..
“It’s for the party next week,” he’d insisted, at which Cha Young had merely scoffed. The man would do anything for a new Booralro suit. But it was a party she was looking forward to, a fancy one at the Italian Embassy to which her partner had snagged invites. And she had treated herself to a new dress using the same excuse, so it was a bit hypocritical of her, wasn’t it?
She walks over to the corner that houses a display of silk ties, all meticulously organised by colour, prints and size, where a light blue paisley tie catches her eye, and she asks one of the store attendants to take it out of the display for her. She can't remember if she’s ever seen him wear a paisley tie before, but the tie is beautiful. It’s soft and the print delicate, but it’s the colour that catches her fancy. It’s a light greyish blue, a colour she knows would go well with either of the three suits he’s shortlisted. But more importantly, and she won’t admit this to him, well not yet at least, the colour is almost the same shade of the dress she bought. She’d always found the idea of couples matching their outfits amusing, however, in that moment she’s willing to concede that there’s something sweet about it after all.
“Byeonhosa-nim, ” Vincenzo calls out to her as he steps out of the fitting room, closely followed by the store attendant who had been assisting him with the fitting. Cha Young tries not to roll her eyes at the employee who trails after her boyfriend with a starstruck look akin to the one adoring fans have upon meeting their favourite idol. “How’s this one,” he asks as he adjusts the cuffs of his suit.
She walks over to him, first running her hands over his shoulders and then smoothing the lapels of his jacket. Stepping back, she gives him a once over, and ignoring the fluttering in her heart, replies as nonchalantly as she can, “I think it should do the trick.” When the store attendant enthusiastically gushes about how good the suit looks on Vincenzo, Cha Young graces him with a glare that is enough to remind him that he needs to go and look after the other non-existent visitors in the store.
Finally without an audience, she holds up the tie with a slight flourish and asks, “what do you think?”
For a moment, she’s worried that perhaps the tie doesn’t match up to his high standards. The man does have impeccable taste, and is quite fussy about his clothing. Her little moment of doubt vanishes when Vincenzo smiles. “Yeppeuda.” It’s pretty.
“Here, let me,” she says as she closes the gap between them and reaches out to do up the top buttons of his shirt (a pity, really, because she loves it when he leaves his collar unbuttoned), smirking at the way Vincenzo gulps when her fingers are at the collar of his shirt. Besotted man that he is, he lowers his head in submission so that she can place the tie around his neck.
“Have you ever done this before?”
“A couple of times..”
When he raises his eyebrows, Cha Young realises what he might have misunderstood it as.
“For Abeoji,” she sheepishly clarifies. What she doesn’t tell him is that she would always loop the tie around her neck first, tie it, loosen it and then hand it over to her father. She had never tied a tie for someone on their person this way.
She adjusts the length of the tie (she thinks she’s got the length right), crosses the wider end over the thinner one, then passes it from the back the other side and then.. Damn it, what do you do next? Cross it over from the other side? Loop it all over again? She tries to remember the next step, forehead scrunched up in concentration, trying to jog her memory. It doesn’t help that Vincenzo’s cologne serves as a distraction. Feeling his gaze on her, she looks up.
“What are you looking at?”
You. “Your tie tying. I’m trying to figure out what knot you’re going to go for. Say, Byeonhosa-nim, are you sure you know what you’re doing?”
“Yah! I’m just.. trying to recollect. It’s been a while since I’ve done this.”
“Ahh.”
“…”
“Pass the wide end through the gap between the tie and the collar, and take it to the right side. That’ll be your left.”
“Mhmm. Like this?” “Yes. Now wrap the wide end across the thinner end, and then pull the wide end through the gap between the tie and collar like before. But don’t pull it too tightly. See that loop on top of the knot? You’ll need to—“
Before he can finish, she’s already sliding the wide end of the tie through the said loop, and pulling it tight.
“Yes, yes, I know. Now hold still, let me just adjust this.”
As she goes about making the final adjustments to the tie, pulling it tighter and fixing it into place, an old memory flashes in Cha Young’s mind — one of her mother tying a tie for her father in a similar manner, and Hong Yu Chan looking down at his wife with an adoring smile, very much like how Vincenzo is looking at her in this moment. She never understood why her mother did that, or why her father let her when he was perfectly capable of doing it himself, or why the late lawyer pretty much gave up wearing a tie (unless it was absolutely necessary) after the death of his wife.. but now she gets it.
“There, all done.”
She turns around, so that both her and Vincenzo are facing a full-length gilded mirror, and he can review her handiwork.
“That’s not a bad Half-Windsor, you know.. especially for your first try”
“A what now?”
“The knot. It’s called a Half-Windsor. It’s the one I usually go for. Either that, or a Four-in-hand..”
“Ooh. Are you giving me a crash course in tie knots now?”
“Well, it never hurts to know about different knots, you know. They can come very handy,” he adds suggestively, to which he promptly gets smacked in the shoulder with a “Yah!”
“I do think the length’s a bit off though. It needs to be longer. You’re going to need some practice, Byeonhosa-nim. I guess you’ll just have to do this for me a few more times again,” he tells her, smiling at her reflection in the mirror.
As they stand there in front of the mirror, their reflected gazes locked on each other, both of them all smiles, Cha Young thinks there’s something so intimate about moments like these, and it leaves her feeling warm.
Still looking at her in the mirror, Vincenzo leans down a little, an arm going around her waist, and whispers in her ear, “Interesting choice of colour, by the way,” and ohhh he knows. He knows why she picked this particular tie. Their reflections show his smile getting wider as her eyes widen in surprise.
A second later, Cha Young turns in her place, and gently tugging on his tie, pulls Vincenzo down to her and places a soft kiss where his neck meets his jaw. Satisfied with his flustered expression, she innocently smiles at him.
“I think you look very handsome, Jagiya. Now, I’m going to go pay for this. But you’re buying me lunch, so hurry..” And as she skips towards the billing counter, she leaves a besotted fool in her wake, who stares at her in a manner that can only be described as the human equivalent of the heart eyes emoji. What a pair of lovestruck idiots these two make..
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nightswithkookmin · 3 years
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I saw this question n i really want to know yout pov . JK is a troll and he's using both JM and Tae. Lets see. JK wears a purple and green shirt the other day. Purple and green earrings during Muster and purple and green bracelets. But then he says Purple goes best with Yellow and wears matching clothes with JM. He grabs Tae away from Jin, but then grabs JM from people. So is he purposely being a fan service troll or is he stringing them both along? I don't think he knows what or who he wants anymore. he's just enjoying the attention from Vmin.
JK IS STRINGING VMIN ALONG??? I 👁👄👁
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I feel like I've answered this Ask before.
I think the problem with such rhetorics for me is, it strips Jimin and Tae completely off their self agencies and reduces them to a bunch of fabled dickmatised pick me hyungs waiting on a patriarchal head with a self acclaimed big dick who then is Jungkook to choose between them to move the plot.
If that is true, then I recommend Vmin go and love themselves or better yet fuck eachother to liberate themselves from this mental hebetude.
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Photo: Two pathetic dick whipped men comforting each other over a piece of dick
What at all makes y'all think that Jimin who have categorically stated he doesn't share his friends, would be ok sharing his boyfriend with his bestfriend and soulmate?
Didn't you hear BTS, Suga complain that Tae's friends are like unicorns and that he talks about them alot but none of them have seen those friends ever in one of the team building run episodes they did recently?
What makes y'all think a man who tries to keep his intimate friendship groups separate and compartmentalized from his work friendship groups- what makes you think he would be ok dating a bandmate in the first place much less share his partner with another bandmate?
Y'all make it make sense to me please.
Y'all create this rhetoric of V and Jimin so in love with their Maknae they would allow this goofy ass gen z to play them like booboo the fool. But frankly I think none of them would shed a tear over a piece of dick. I'm sorry but I just don't see them that way.
Jk barely has the reins on Jimin, how he's gone manage Tae and all these other idols yall ship him with on top🤣
Jimin is slippery than y'all think he is. He'll be gone before JK makes up his mind chilee. And if he won't go, I and JK's mom will carry him kicking and screaming cos we love us some self confident self respecting Park Jimin.
May be I'm gay but I don't think dicks are all that great for two full grown adults like Tae and Jimin to sob over. The misogyny of it all!
Now this whole fan service troll bit however...
I think I have said a couple times that Jikook, Jk especially do intentionally troll us from time to time with certain things he does with Jimin- the tissue thingy he did with JM, the pinkie ring thingy, the bottle thingy and certain "fan service" interactions with Jimin and certain members, blowing Jin a kiss and making sure it was captured etc.
It's all part of his persona I suppose and I think it's cute frankly. I just know he laughs his butt off at certain edits and analysis we throw out there. He does. Lmho.
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Photo: Jimin and Jungkook watching shipper armys be clowns
Lmho.
Do I think he trolls us from time to time? Yes. Sometimes we catch on, sometimes it flies over our heads completely. I guess we need to pray for the spirit of discernment to be able to clock these moments cos 👁👄👁
That however doesn't take away from that he has genuine interest in his relationship with any of these men. It in no way invalidates what he has with Jimin. Or Jin. Or Tae because like I said, his right to be a fuxkboy is contingent on the self worth and agencies of these autonomous human beings with brain and self determination.
He can be a fuxkboy just not in Jimin's space. I would fight him otherwise 🤺
Jungkook is not a fuck boy. He values the people he loves- y'all uWu and akekeke when he shows loyalty and commitment in caring for Army's health and often praise him for how thoughtful and empathetic he is but then somehow y'all imagine the exact opposite of him in his private life. That he is a community penis who doesn't care about hurting his boyfriend, someone he claims he loves and goes ahead and falls in love with his bestfriend anyway.
Worse, those two besties obsequiously wait on him to choose between them.... why?????
Now, I don't think it's fair for OP to opine on the aesthetics Jungkook gravitates towards in this way. It feels like they are stripping Jk off his agency and self determination and reducing him to a caricature who exists solely for a ship and thus everything he does is interpreted from a ship lens. I think that's a low blow.
BTS have said their looks and style are often curated by staff- they have stylists for a reason you know? Granted, these stylists often make sure Jikook or other pairs are matching clothes or wearing complimentary outfits or hairstyles most times- like JM says, there is a reason for that.
And yes, sometimes they do make their own decisions as to what they want to wear and how they want to look- because again, agency. We've seen it and the stylists have said so themselves.
How you interpret these clothing choices is totally up to you. But do not judge them for the interpretation you give to these choices they make. Sometimes they wear stuff cos they like it. It may coincidentally be your faves favorite color- it don't mean they were trying to imply subtext.
Sometimes too, they do that to actively feed a ship agenda- like Vmin and their soulmate agenda or Jikook and their I am you you are me agenda or even Sope or Namjin.
It behooves you to discern and to be able to discern the intent behind such decisions and choices. And when you do, understand it's only speculation.
I think Jungkook knows who and what he wants. You corny for saying he don't. So cheesy. Lmho.
He has shown that again and again y'all just wanna act blind. Jimin is not confused between Jungkook and Tae. JK is not confused between Tae and Jimin- for the simple fact, they each bring something different to the table.
He can have a boyfriend and have a partner in crime. Just as Jimin can have him and have a bestie he calls soulmate. Jungkook is also, a complex human being with complex emotions. He is capable of having different emotional depths and connections that don't at all necessarily mean he is fucking them all or wants to fuck them all. Hell is wrong witchu?!
Perhaps, rather than brush Jimin and Tae as occupying the same spot in JK's heart and wants, try and understand what each mean to him because trust me they don't mean the same thing to him at all.
Personally, I think Jimin is the love of his life. Period. Tae is his childhood bestie whom he grew apart from and have in recent times rekindled that friendship. He is not fucking Tae and he doesn't want to fuxk him. We DO
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I'm calling Jesus on y'all cos the things yall be imagining in this fandom is hell worthy🤧
Besides, Jk is not at the center of VminKook. Jimin is. Vmin are not vying for Jk's affections, but Tae Kook are vying for JMs you coconut head 🙃
Tae: Jimin I like you the most
Y'all: 🥥🥥🥥🥥🥥
This man don confessed his whole chest on his feelings for JM on national television and yet yall gonna act obtuse.
When Tae wanted to fix his relationship with JK he said it to y'all's hearing in Soop. When he wanted to confess his feelings about Jimin he did that too. He is not hiding his feelings for Jk or Jimin for yall to concoct these elaborate theories about him and JK.
If I master black magic, I will turn y'all into coconuts so your insides can match your outsides😫
FREE JK
Signed,
GOLDY
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youwontlikethisblog · 3 years
Text
The Art of Subtlety in YSBTLF
Now I have yet to really talk about Betty and her development. Currently I'm on the episode where Betty goes to the bank to secure a loan through Terra Moda and it got me thinking.
Slowly we've been seeing the change from Armando's behavior towards her. Now it's been very subtle. One of my favorite scenes that display's the subtlety of his behavior is when Betty and him are being driven around by Don Hermes.
Right as they are leaving the building where they went to sign some documents to start the process of Terra Moda seizing Eco Moda Betty and Armando are talking.
She often jokes about her ugliness and as a person who in society has been outcaste by the mere fact I'm fat, I get that. We don't use it as a way to downplay our worth, better yet to find the humor in something that hurts us deeply. This is something Betty does often. Usually Armando agrees or goes along with it. The scene however caught my attention because after Betty jokes that she didn't get hired due to her ugliness she laughs and walks away and Armando stays behind and nods slightly, as if understanding that her ugliness could cause that BUT we then hear Don Hermes lovingly say "My beautiful daughter, did everything go well?" and Armando's face lights up. He sports a slight smile and stares at Betty as she laughs and tells her dad that everything went well.
The more I watch this show the more I realize that we see a lot of contrast between Betty and Armando's personal lives. While Betty's parents are very present in her life, constantly at the fore front of her ethics and morals as well as there to keep her grounded and realistic, though at times one can assume over baring and over protective, her parents love her deeply and you can tell. They treat her as their most precious possession.
However Armando's parents are a different story. His father always expects the worst of him, his mother coddles him but with conditions. His parents are only ever shown or involved when it comes to the company and/or his relationship with Marcela. Often when they do talk it's always about the company or again the relationship he's in with Marcela. It never goes more than that. We don't see them interact outside of that which causes that parental relationship to seem cold and distant. Kind of like a trophy child. Not really there to celebrate or show love when times are bad. Just there when things are on their terms. They show more interest in Daniel, Marcela, and Beatriz than they do to Armando and even then it's not saying much. In shorter terms, they suck.
So this scene in particular is one of my favorites for that reason. We see Armando, who at first was annoyed and being all pipirs nice to then engaging in conversation, joking, and letting his guard down and that's the thing. Often we see Armando with his guard up but around Betty slowly we begin to see him let his guard down.
Now in particular the reason why I bring this up is because from the get go I've always been interested in the complexities that Armando's character offers, but Betty is this different story. While Armando is complex in dark ways, Betty is complex is light ways. Her complexities aren't a form of harm rather a form of self preservation but still seeing the best in people, while Armando's complexities are in self preservation at the cost of others.
They both struggle in a sense with self worth. While Betty's self worth is rooted in her image and the way society treats her due to her not being societies beauty standers, Armando's self worth struggles are deeply rooted in his person's worth. Meaning that he doesn't find himself worthy as a human if he isn't succeeding, which makes him extremely arrogant. Betty's insecurities make her extremely humble and though being humble isn't a bad thing when there is no balance, her self worth is to the ground and due to this she allows people to step all over her and she often is a people pleaser because of this.
She lets people push her around and doesn't stand her ground when people are rude to her about her appearance. She does when it comes to her work but not as person and because of this she begins to idolize Armando because, unlike everyone before, he sees her as a person, when it comes to work.
This draws the lines, clean and crisp lines.
At work Armando defends her. He defends his decision to hire her. He defends her degrees and her experiences as an economist. This means a lot to her, because as mentioned before, she wasn't getting hired due to her "ugliness" and here comes a man that looks past that and hires her over the pretty one. We understand Betty's crush. We understand why she begins to idolize him even though he shows really crappy behavior at times.
First he constantly yells at her, laughs behind her back, allows his best friend to secretly see her as if she were this attraction in the tent of strange and ugly phenomena at the circus. To then being subtly annoyed when certain people mock her and make fun of her, though this gets him half points because he still allows his best friend to do this.
To end my analysis of Armando's behavior towards Betty up to this point I'll say that as this continues Armando begins to soften up towards her and while no one else picks up on it, Betty does. Which feeds her idolization of him.
Up to this point of the show Betty has been unconditional, even when she has needed to set aside her true feelings for him, she places his before her own. With Claudia, instead of ruining his night she stayed in the room all night long to which later we see Armando feel guilty over it but he gets no gold stars over that. That was a dick move.
Betty constantly shows loyalty, unconditionality, support, and most of all, team work. When he fails she always places herself to take the blame with him. She doesn't let him feel alone in his failures. Betty truly shows to love him. As a friend, as her boss, and as a girl who idolizes him and this moves him because to this point Armando hasn't had that. His parents do not show him unconditionality. His fiancé shows no team work or support and his best friend... he sucks. He is a terrible friend. Here is this girl who gives him all of this and for what? She doesn't ask for anything in return except to work for him. That's why we see the subtle change in him and Betty deserved that and more.
When they went to that cocktail with RagTela, where Armando started to hit on Ms. Colombia, I forgot her name, Betty doesn't seem jealous or hurt by that. In fact she seems unbothered and stayed in her lane, once again the lines being crisp and clean. However later on, when Betty tells Armando that they've got a meeting with Macro Textil and she sees Armando's face light up and ask how he looks, we see a subtle change, jealousy. She showed some of that with Claudia but Armando probably interpreted that as Betty being frustrated that due to that she had to sleep in the office that night. Here he doesn't pick up on it. She laughs dry only to cover her tracks and gets the man his cologne and throughout their meeting with Macro she shows to be a good wing-woman, minding her business of course.
Now let me skip some scenes. They're trying to negotiate a payment plan with Macro Textil. At this point what Armando has said isn't very convincing and Betty steps in, our bright Betty manages to say stuff that makes them think over their offer. At this point Armando has had all eyes on Ms. Colombia but he turns to watch her, with a slight smile on his face, a brief second of staring at her lips and completely absorbed into what Betty is saying and doing.
Now I want to bring us back to the main scene of this post. Betty sitting across her old boss. We have seen two scenes of her old boss and her interact before. Not only to drive the plot, but I believe to show the difference between a boss who was fond of Betty, after all he did say he was happy and pleased to help her with Terra Moda after being her boss for two years and a boss who is... more than fond of her but confused about it(to be fair Armando is so stupid when it comes to feelings the dude isn't even aware he's got them to begin with.) Betty's behavior is respectful and friendly towards her old boss. You can tell she's comfortable talking to him and so on and her old boss is the same. He's respectful and friendly towards her.
Why do I think this is important to the plot of the story?
It got me thinking. When I was working I got pretty close to my manager. He was married and older than me and we got along great. We talked, we joked, we had work discussions and we'd talk about life and stuff. However it was always very respectful and friendly, like a boss and their employee. My manager was very gentleman like. He didn't let me carry heavy stuff(As a fat woman I'm not used to that lol) however the line was there, Boundaries were there. Obviously we didn't have conversations that were too personal or even that personal at all. I could see Betty and her ex-boss being the same. A simple boss to employee friendship but if I had a... ship of sorts with my boss like Betty does with Armando my sensors of red flags would be blaring.
Think about your greatest friendship with one of your bosses. It's respectful and friendly but you don't cross lines, right?
Now I keep comparing their behavior to my manager's and mine.
That is why they show us, unlike with all the other Banks Betty has talked to, their interactions. To show a clear and distinct line of work related ships. Her ex-boss is truly fond of her but he doesn't cross boundaries and neither does Betty.
My ex-manager was respectful and we talked like an older brother and younger sister would. That was our work dynamic.
Betty's behavior has always been respectful and friendly towards Armando. Their work dynamic has been that she's the smart one and he's the pretty one and it works for them.
Betty's emotions start to blur when Armando's behavior towards her starts to blur. We go from seeing back to back scenes that show separate life styles and personal lives to having them blend in and once their personal lives begin to blend in so do their work lives.
During this day, before Betty goes to talk to her old boss, we are shown the scene when she tells him that Macro Textil was on their way to sign a contract with them that very day. Armando is between Betty and Mario and he talks to Betty. Constantly saying "Betty we did it!" and things along those lines but after each sentence he goes to Mario and repeats the same thing up until he goes to hug Betty.
[EDIT: This allows us to view Armando's personal dilema. Your brain often blurts the first thing that comes to mind and seeing as Armando isn't that bright when emotions are involved, he blurts out the first thing that comes to mind and that is Betty. His first thought is to talk to Betty, to celebrate with her (since she is the reason why that business deal is even happening) but he is prioritizing her, picking up on it and then going to his best friend to celebrate it as well. It shows us subtly the change in him.]
He doesn't even do that to his best friend. Once again, the lines blur. Armando is the first person in this work related relationship to blur the lines and Betty follows suit.
Yes, the hug was work related. Yes he was excited over the fact they could release the new fashion collection they'd been working on BUT he hadn't done that for other deals that they had managed. He didn't do that with the first collection he launched. He's hugged her, up to this point, two other times. Once after the meeting with Daniel where Betty gave him lessons on economics and later when Betty was crying.
This is their third hug. I'm not reading into that hug but what follows before and after.
As I said when writing we're told to keep what drives the plot, character development, and overall story; everything else is thrown out the window. So these subtle changes, behaviors, and quirks we begin to see coming from Betty's interactions with Armando explain why it was so easy for her to be manipulated by this man. They are important because they are meant to show us what is okay and what is not. What is normal and what is not and in small ways their work dynamic begins to shift and the first person to do that is Armando.
because he didn't feed the illusion of love when that sinister plan was created, he fed it when he started to get confused about her. When he started to blur the lines.
Betty didn't just idolatrized him because he defended her work. She did it because he fed her feelings towards him. When Betty showed loyalty he showed to be more fond of her. He went from constantly yelling at her, being indifferent towards her, to trying to watch his tone and temper. When Betty showed unconditionality he showed kindness. When Betty showed support he showed loyalty and little by little we begin to see these two blur the line between personal and work.
The changes are really subtle that they fly over your head but when you pay attention to the actual story and not the romance you can tell when they start and that is one reason why I love this novela because very much like real life these changes are subtle.
Betty's love was really subtle and you can pick up on when she starts to fall in love, whereas with Armando his change goes from being so subtle that you're confused yourself to it being so bam in your face you can't deny it.
In any aspect their relationship begins to blur during these episodes and the clear contrast of that is with seeing Betty interact with her old Boss at the bank.
In the future episodes this theory is proven right when we no longer get clear cuts of scenes that show the difference between their personal lives better yet we get a very muddy and blurry view of their personal and work lives.
Betty's moral, ethics, and emotions begin to change when Armando begins to change. Up to this point Betty has been consistent with her morality, though close to stumbling her father has been there to keep her on the right path. She has been the sweet and loving person she's always been but her character has been consistent up to this point and it's important to note that and why everything that happens after this is the way it is because as an audience we have been warn over and over again and so have these characters but just like in real life we don't always pay attention to the subtle changes until their domino effect starts to make too much impact.
also sorry if this doesn't make any sense it's currently 6:40 am and I've been writing this since like four lol.
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newsies-of-corona · 4 years
Text
Varian & Affirmation
Analysis:
And we’ve got another one, folks! This one hit hard for me for sure. Just the way that the show set it up...it’s incredible. So without any further adieu...
“Well, shall we get started?”
Motives
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So I’m just going to come right out and say it: Varian is selfish in Season 1. The whole way through. (Now don’t leave yet! If you know me you know how much of a fan I am of this complex alchemist and this is not a hate post by all means!)
But yes. Throughout the whole of Season 1, Varian has a very self-centered mindset that’s hard to pick up on at first, but it’s there. Here’s some dialogue examples:
“I am sure that I, Varian, can unlock the mystery of your hair with the power of science!”
“Hey Flynn Rider? Wanna come with?”
“It doesn’t matter. The truth is all I really wanted to do was impress you, I thought that if I showed you what I was capable of you might see something in me.”
“Actually he’d probably be impressed. At least I hope he’d be impressed.”
Most of these quotes sound perfectly innocent, and they are! But it’s the motives behind them that make them more self-centered. Varian’s main goal, his life blood practically, is affirmation. He yearns to be adored and recognized for his achievements. It’s a perfectly normal and human want. I myself struggle with this all the time. But when it’s the only thing that you strive for? The only thing that makes you happy? It effects everything that you say and do. If you dig deep into these quotes, you can see what he’s really craving.
By discovering the mystery of Rapunzel’s hair, Varian gets credit and especially admiration. By showing his idol his inventions, he’s expecting Eugene to tell him what a genius he is or how amazed he is that this fourteen year old kid could build all this. The third one is just wanting Cassandra to recognize him since he looks up to her, and went to great lengths to impress her. Even when he helped her, it was still because he wanted to impress her and get her to help him in return. Throughout that episode he’s trying so hard to get her to compliment his work. In three of these examples, he gets the adoration he asked for. But that’s the problem: he asked for it. Eugene and Cass essentially tell him the same thing, “you’re a great, smart kid with good intentions.” And both times he responds more...despondently. For Cass it’s “thanks for saying that.” For Eugene it’s just looking at him sadly because this wasn’t what he wanted to hear. In essence: it isn’t enough.
And the last quote obviously represents the affirmation he craves the most, his father’s, and the one that he doesn’t get.
Even slight comments like “I build it myself,” “of my own design,” and “wanna see my new invention?” all have the underlying motive of craving affirmation from his peers. It’s not necessarily a bad thing, but since Varian often has tunnel-vision and can’t see the consequences of his actions, it quickly becomes an issue. Especially in the case of, of course, the black rocks.
Taking it Too Far
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We find out that Varian discovered the rocks in Great Expotations. Rapunzel inadvertently tasked him with figuring out how to get rid of them, and in his mind he needed to. To impress her and possibly all of Corona. So he ran tests and got reprimanded by his dad probably more than once. But this is the biggest thing he could ever do: rescue his village and the kingdom and make his dad proud in the process. That’s why he wanted to come with him and hopefully talk to the king. Yes, in this case he actually wants to help his village, he’s not heartless and he cares a lot, but he’s predominantly focusing on the rewards that will come after he figured it out.
Of course we know his plans go awry again, but he never stops focusing on his goal of making his dad proud of him. Seriously...NEVER.
Taking it WAY Too Far
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Enter: Villain Arc. Suddenly his need to be adored and affirmed flips upside down. He doesn’t want compliments anymore, he wants people to fear him, respect him, and listen to him.
Examples:
“I have asked for help and have been ignored, I will not be ignored any longer!”
“I tried asking for help in a civil manner but was denied by everyone in Corona. So, unfortunately, this is my only remaining recourse.”
“I’ll make them hear me...”
I touched on this in my Confidence analysis, but Varian never loses his drive. And his want to be revered, consumes him. Even when he goes to prison, he joins Andrew and takes over Corona to be feared. But he soon realizes, it’s still not enough. His want for revenge doesn’t satisfy him or make him happy, it just makes him feel worse as the weight of what he’s done gradually crashes down on him.
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By the time Rapunzel comes back, it’s all an act. He’s not craving adoration anymore. He just wants a way out of this cycle of disappointment that isn’t getting him anywhere. You can tell from the lines, too.
“Me? No, not really.”
“So that no one will forget they turned their back on my father!”
“I took their queen prisoner! I threatened their princess! I helped these guys take over their kingdom!”
Now the first one is small, but it actually shows a lot of development (even if he says it in a rather dorky way) because he’s not taking credit for something or taking the “fear” that he wanted so badly. The second one just sounds like a threat but it’s not “they turned their backs on me,” like it was in season 1. It’s back to his father, and it’s, in a way, humbling Varian by taking himself out of the picture. And of course the last one is the most evident: he’s listing his faults and realizing he doesn’t deserve the adoration he used to crave so much.
Making it Right
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During Varian’s redemption...we see these thoughts really come to light.
“All I ever wanted was for my father to be proud. But if he were free from the amber now, and saw everything I’ve done, well he’d be ashamed.”
This is his turning point. This is where he owns up to how warped and twisted his mindset was and makes an effort to fix it with Rapunzel. Not for himself; not for the glory, but because it’s the right thing to do. He knows he messed up with the Quirineon, and he’s literally willing to die to make up for his mistakes. This is a direct contrast to his previous statement: “I will make you proud of me, dad. If it’s the last thing I ever do.”
Because if he dies fixing his mistakes, he doesn’t expect any kind of praise. He’d leave a legacy of horrible deeds that would never make his dad proud; but he’d be saving Corona and that’s all that matters. Of course he doesn’t actually die, thank goodness, and Rapunzel saves Corona instead, but he’s learned something from this whole experience. And one thing he especially didn’t expect was for Rapunzel to keep her promise after everything. And even when his dad finally says those words...they were supposed to mean everything, but they don’t. It still isn’t enough. Especially not after everything that’s happened. I touched on this in another analysis as well, but he feels like he doesn’t deserve those words.
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From this point, Varian has a whole new outlook on life, not dependent on gaining recognition. He’s still the cocky, confident alchemist we know and love, but he shows off his inventions because he’s proud of them, and that’s enough. He saves Corona from the red rocks because he genuinely wants to help his kingdom, he doesn’t have any underlying motives whatsoever. He helps with the Demanitus Scroll because he wants to help Rapunzel figure everything out. And at the end he helps defeat Zhan Tiri because he knows he can help, and he genuinely wants to. (And here’s where I get emotional.)
Varian doesn’t once ask for compliments or a “thank you” throughout season 3, yet that’s exactly what he gets. After all of those years of seeking and yearning for adoration, he finally gets it when he doesn’t need it anymore.
In every selfless thing he does for Corona, he gets a reward in some way. When he rescues the kingdom from black rocks, he didn’t ask for anything in return, yet his reputation was restored. When he agreed to help with the scroll, he actually got to work in Demanitus’ Lab, someone he’s admired forever. And when he helps with the portal, he gets to go see Demanitus’ tomb and I mean...
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that’s the happiest we’ve ever seen him. And it isn’t just the big things either, it’s the little ones. The way that Rapunzel calls him “a genius,” when he doesn’t ask for it or allude to it in any way. The “good job, buddy,” that Eugene tells him after he fixes up the balloon. And every time he’s complimented, he stays humble. He even responds one time with “just doing my part.”
And at the very end of his arc, after all of that selfless work he did for Corona out of the goodness of his own heart, he’s given his very own title of “Royal Engineer.” An official position in the kingdom that people truly look up to and respect.
Conclusion
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This is honestly one the most well-done character arcs I’ve ever seen, because it’s absolute poetic justice. At the beginning, Varian is so focused on his own need of affirmation that he forgets everything else, and jeopardizes himself on multiple occasions. Especially when his motives become warped. But when he finally sets his pride and his own ambitions aside and realizes he’s already enough, that’s when he gets the respect and adoration that he had always wanted. And that my friends...is CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT.
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itsclydebitches · 3 years
Note
Hey Clyde, did you check out Wonder Egg Priority at all? The first ep is super promising, but the series as a whole is one of those real fascinating disasters from a story and a production standpoint that might be up your alley as a thing to pick apart haha.
I’d warn that it’s also reeeeal offensive and this generally gets worse as it goes though.
Hi, Phoenix! How are you and Cube doing?
Okay, I hadn't watched Wonder Egg Priority when I received your ask this morning. Now I have. In a fit of intense curiosity I settled down for a rare binge session and tore through all twelve episodes + OVA in a single sitting. It is now nearly 3:00am as I write this because I, oh so clearly, make fantastic life choices.
A question for you: what did I just watch?
The rest is going under a read more partly for spoilers, but more-so because WEP—and the summary I'm about to give, because I feel like I need to try and explain this to tumblr's faceless void for my own, dwindling sanity—comes with about every trigger warning under the sun. Seriously, if you are triggered by anything that we might think of as a "standard" trigger (meaning, not unique to you and your own experiences), best to proceed with caution.
Right! What the ever loving fuck happened in this show? Well, let's work through this chronologically. Two genius, frat boy brothers (I get their names mixed up so I'm not even gonna bother) are locked in their apartment and closely monitored because of Super Secret Science Research. Even though, I think, they're the ones who created this company. Not important! What is important is that they're bored enough to create an AI for funsies, thinking of her as their daughter and letting her name herself Frill. Frill is the perfect, cutesy, also genius child who has a habit of popping her lips — which the camera focuses on in an incredibly creepy fashion. One day Brother #1 (the hot one) falls in love with a random woman we know nothing about and Frill gets jealous.
"Jealous in a general sense?" you ask, thinking this show is in any way normal. "Like, just of her Dad giving attention to someone else?"
"No," I respond, patting your hand. "Jealous because she's in love with him." Which, beyond the subject matter itself, comes completely out of nowhere. Frill has a line about what you'd do if some woman stole your husband away. I, fool that I was, briefly considered that these two guys were lovers, not brothers. Oh no. They're brothers. Frill just considers Dad #1 to be her "husband."
So, in true evil AI fashion, she murders the wife, leaving only her newly born child behind. Who is a daughter.
Uh oh.
Dad #1 locks Frill in a coffin-esque hole in the basement and goes on with his life. Things are great! Until years later when the daughter reveals that she has fallen in love with her uncle (Dad #2 to Frill). She knows (somehow??) that both her dad and her uncle loved her mom, so if the loser uncle will just wait a few years he can marry her instead! He brushes her off, but the next day she’s found dead of an apparent suicide.
Realizing that this was somehow Frill’s doing, he marches down to the basement and confronts the murderous child they’ve had locked up for years. She’s now surrounded by screens in, again, true creep AI fashion. How did she get all this while she was locked up? Oh, just the three bug girls she created as friends prior to killing the wife. They’re devoted slaves, I guess. So the uncle says enough of this insanity and seemingly sets Frill on fire.
OH and Frill’s subtitled dialogue also puts “uncle” in quotation marks, implying that the daughter was always Dad #2’s??
Anyway, both brothers are now super obsessed with death and claim that they think Frill has had a hand in lots of girls’ suicides, even now after her own death. This is brought into question later when it’s revealed that they might have just concocted this scheme to try and bring back their daughter. I’m really not sure. Regardless, they use hand-wavey science to create eggs that I guess contain the souls of young girls who have committed suicide, then they sucker in other young girls who have lost people to suicide to try and rescue their loved ones in a dream world, saving others along the way. A tomboyish girl, Momoe, lost a classmate who admitted to loving her, but who Momoe rejected. Rika, a former junior idol, used and rejected an overweight fan only to learn later that she’d starved herself to death. Neiru, the 14yo president of some science company (yup) was attacked by her sister before she jumped off a bridge. Finally Ai, our protagonist, is a victim of bullying who managed to make friends with a single girl, Koito, who then jumped from their school building for unknown reasons. They’re all given the chance to bring these individuals back to life, provided they protect other victims of suicide by defeating the monstrous traumas that drove them to that act in the first place.
And you know what? That concept was great. However, the execution ranges from “Okay, that was pretty good for an anime. Kudos there” to “That’s the most offensive thing I’ve seen in my life.” Needless to say, unpacking all the battles they fight would take a lot more than this already absurd summary. Basically, if you can think of something horrible to happen to young girls (and one trans guy whose existence in that egg undermines the whole message of the episode), there’s an attempt to tackle it here.
During all this the four girls become friends and Ai works through her suspicions about Mr. Sawaki, a teacher at her school. What’s going on with Mr. Sawaki? Uh… everything! He’s somehow connected to Koito’s death, he’s dating Ai’s mom, and Ai apparently loves him too because her friends say so, even though this is never actually addressed and she barely interacts with him. It’s all quite the complication.
In time though the girls complete their “mission” of bringing their loved ones back to life. Rika and Momoe manage it first, only to find that Frill’s bug-girl lackeys have arrived to kill them. Why? Because that’s what Frill does, I guess. Momoe’s crocodile familiar (cute animals the girls were gifted to help them fight) takes a killing blow for her and the bug-lady then proceeds to carve up his corpse and force feed it to Momoe. Fantastic!! Building off of that, the next bug-lady who Rika encounters kills her turtle too, following in the footsteps of her bug-sister by, presumably, forcing her to eat parts of its head. Ai refuses to sacrifice her familiar to stay alive, but luckily the suicide she was protecting turns out to be herself from a parallel universe (that's a thing now!) and she takes the killing blow herself, which is done by pulling out the eye she’s sensitive about (she has heterochromia.) So parallel Ai passes on (again?) and the three girls don’t work through this trauma at all, instead becoming more traumatized through the realization that the loved ones they brought back no longer remember them. They’re alive, but the relationship they all had with them is dead.
It’s about this point that the main storyline wraps up and I’m relieved that there’s an OVA to finish things off. Surely they can somehow bring this all together in 45 minutes.
…25 minutes of that OVA is recap.
So with only about 20 minutes left, we learn that Neiru, the only one to not complete her mission yet, has mysteriously gone missing. It turns out she was an AI/clone/something all along, made to replace her sister and, presumably, that’s what caused the whole stabbing-suicide incident. She successfully brings her sister back, but stays behind in the dream world because Frill promises her she can become human. How is Frill here when she’s dead? How will Neiru become human? Isn’t Frill the “temptation of death” or whatever? There are no answers. A flashback finally reveals that Koito was having a relationship with a teacher at another school, he committed suicide, she transferred, she tried the same thing with Mr. Sawaki, he kept refusing her advances, and finally while threatening suicide to get his attention, she accidentally fell.
(So why was she in the suicide egg if it was an accident??)
Except, all this information comes through Mr. Sawaki himself, there’s a whole subplot about whether he’s really a villain, or if Ai is just making him into one, and this show might as well be titled How Much Pedophilia Can We Put into One Anime? So make of that what you will.
A dead character randomly shows up, but it's fine because she's actually just a version from a parallel world. How did she get here? Why is she here? Lol, it's cute that you think these are answered.
Rika, the character who cuts and almost committed suicide halfway through the show, breaks down saying how much she misses her dead loved ones, right after her friends refused to let her go on another mission that would surely end in her death and… that’s it. That’s all we get about her.
Momoe too, though she’s hopefully just vibing somewhere with that longed-for boyfriend.
Ai transfers schools and then one day randomly remembers that she loves Neiru and rushes back to start cracking eggs again because that will? Somehow?? Let her see Neiru???
When I say there are too many unanswered questions to possibly list here I really, really mean it.
Finally, in a personal attack on me, the protagonist with a name that is literally AI is not in any way an artificial intelligence.
And that’s it! Congratulations, you now “understand” WEP. And see, the funny thing is that the off-the-rails, bat-shit crazy aspects kind of catch you off guard? Yeah, the first episode is fantastic. In fact, I think I got through about six episodes thinking that this was a solid, if at times really messed up anime, but I was willing to shrug off a lot of stuff due solely to the amount of sensitive material they were attempting to cover (which is always quite difficult to do). Probably the only reason I was able to binge so fast was because the first half of the series was so engaging. The characters are charming. The animation is GORGEOUS. There's actually a ton of good here that is also worth yelling about. But then the plot comes in like a freight train and I was left staring dumbfounded at my screen as more and more insanity kept happening. Having watched the "explanations" I am now more confused about the show I just saw.
Phoenix, if you’ve bothered to read this rambling, 3:00am rant: thank you. I think? Idk if I should actually be thanking you or cursing you for tuning me into this, but it was definitely an experience, that’s for sure lol.
I'm off to bed now RIP the chance of having normal dreams ✌️
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codedredalert · 3 years
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O’ Death [One Piece, Law] -- oneshot
Law-centric character study || 1157 words
The first time Law dies, he is ten and the world ends in fire.
(Written for the OP Tarot Project Death card.)
Death Upright: Necessary endings, illness, change, letting go, transition, rebirth. Reversed: Living unaware, resistance to change, delayed endings.
Warnings: canon-typical violence, character death, chronic terminal illness and pain
(On Ao3) 
===/\===
.
          I. Faith
The first time Law dies, he is ten and the world ends in fire.
Somewhere between the rain of explosives and artillery, the marines in uniform dragging bodies into the street, and numbing horror, some part of Law is mortally wounded. It's a small part, and it goes into shock as Law buries himself under the crushing weight of bodies being carted out of the city to be burned.
His parents' son and sister's brother dies. He is carted away with a nameless heap of his country's people. The part of Law that is light, love, and innocence goes with them to the grave.
That he still breathes is of no account.
.
===/\===
.
          II. Flesh
The second is a slow death, from when Law is nine-and-a-half to twelve-and-nine-months.
Amber Lead hurts.
It's noticeable in the lungs first, in the hacking cough, and the sensation of never getting enough air no matter how many rasping breaths he might struggle to take. It goes for the intestines next, sitting heavy and painful in his gut, making even the thought of food unrealistic. By the time it takes to his skin, hard patches which crack and ooze blood and plasma…
Everything hurts, all the time.
Law's days are numbered. He counts them, three years from his parents' last hushed argument about his dying sister and himself.
Some days are better. Some days are worse. Some days, dying is scary, but living just hurts  so much.
Hate keeps him going.
Hate straps scavenged explosives to his small chest with patchy-white hands.
"Let me join you," Hate says to Donquixote Doflamingo with Law's failing lungs. "I want to see the world burn."
.
===/\===
.
          III. Heart
Law's third death is a surprise, but that is the risk of walking around with your heart in someone else's body.
Humans are social creatures. So, despite everything, it's rejection that hurts the most.
He'd overcome the impossible, escaped the fall of Flevance, fought through overwhelming grief and weakness, scraped together enough willpower and supplies to get to Spider Miles—and the Donquixote inner circle scattered away from him, screaming.
Disgust. Avoidance. The desire to eliminate him like vermin.
Again and again it happens, at every hospital Corazón stupidly,  ignorantly, drags him to. Law is subjected to fear and rejection time and time again.
It chips away at the pale shadow that had roused itself in the ashes of his burning city. He barely has the energy to be bitter, he  wants  to be bitter, to rage and rail and protest "I lived! I lived, and this is what I got."
But he's tired and everything hurts and he's twelve and he's dying and he's dead—he just hasn't stopped bleeding yet.
"You poor boy," whispers Corazón, thinking Law sound asleep. Law isn't, not truly—he hasn't slept properly in years. The strangled breaths, the twisted gut and the cracked skin don't allow it. "You poor boy."
And Corazón wept.
With his back to the man, Law feels tears fall upon his head. The heat and salt of them were alive, deeply human, and a remedy for great wrongs. Corazón swept the hate out, replaced it with the soft mortal thought of "I'm small and I'm scared and I don't deserve to die."
The tears he'd thought long-dried well up in his eyes and Law wept too.
From that point on, Corazón is Cora-san, and Law is a boy who deserves to live.
        (I love you.)
        (You are free.)
Cora-san dies in his place to make it true.
.
===/\===
.
          IV. Fear
Law's fourth death is by his own hand.
He learns his lesson—everyone around him dies. He hadn't learned well enough from Flevance, but the lesson had been repeated in Cora-san and well. . . he didn't fancy a third time.
He sends his people far away with every provision he can make for his failure. They're holding him back, he tells himself. So he looks his oldest, dearest, closest friends in the eyes and tells them to go ahead to Zou. That he'd meet them there soon. He doesn't tell them what he's going to do—Bepo, Shachi, and Penguin corner him to ask, but he's foul-tempered from stress and fear, and stubborn enough that they let the matter drop. He refuses to risk them, so he bundles up everything worth living for and banishes it, watches the Tang sink slowly below sunset-dyed waters for maybe the last time. He stands on the shore replaying the sight to burn it into memory long after they're gone.
"It's for the best," he argues at the yawning blank landscape of the winter half of Punk Hazard. He knows exactly what—who—he is up against, and preparing for death is only prudent. His exhaustion and selfish desire to hide with them in the Tang forever just isn't realistic. It doesn't matter how he feels. This way he can't be tempted to cowardice, to run into the waiting arms of those who love him and just . . . live.
He has a debt, a  duty, and he's already made Cora-san wait for so long.
It doesn't matter how he feels.
When the marines come knocking, when Monet reveals that she has been one of Doflamingo's all along, when his careful contingencies start collapsing around him, and allying with Straw Hat constantly feels like the dream where he misses the step on a staircase and  falls—
Law goes through the whole thing half-numb, smirking or scowling to hide his racing heart and whirling panic.  
Dressrosa is the end of everything, one way or another. Law is terrified but he can't show it, not with the Straw Hats watching him for direction and the slightest indication that he'd betray them.
Despite Law's best efforts, Doflamingo cuts through Law's plans, unloads a round of lead bullets into Law's chest in a mocking parody of Cora-san's murder. Somehow, deep in his heart, Law expected this. Law has run all the possibilities and permutations, failure is very real. It's  Doflamingo, after all. And Law is only Law.
But Straw Hat—impossible, aggravating, miracle-working Straw Hat—charges straight ahead. He causes pirates and kings to argue for the privilege of killing Doflamingo. It's bizarre, to have an entire crowd believe Doflamingo so easily killed—like he isn't a beast of mythos, the closest thing to invincible, the idol god of Law's desperate youth.
In the midst of the rabble, Law finally manages a fragile belief in what he's been trying to convince himself of for thirteen years:
          He is not infallible.  
          All men must die.  
          All men must die, and Doflamingo is only mortal.  
In that moment, Law decides, against all logic and reason, to bet everything on Straw Hat.
.
.
.
.
Impossibly, they win.
High above the rising dust of Dressrosa's ruins, Straw Hat defeats Doflamingo. Law picks Straw Hat from the sky and Doflamingo's dominion dissolves along with his birdcage.
It's over, everybody lives—
.
.
                        —and Law is  free.
.
.
===/END\===
(On Ao3)  ( patreon ) ( kofi ) ( paypal )
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The boys, GN!MC, and the cat
Based off my previous post, about MC and their very buff and not-so-catlike-cat. I’ve been reading fushigi neko and creepy cat so if that gives you a rough idea!
Scenario - WARNING LONG
MC is new to the demon world and they have a pet cat. MC introduces the cat to the boys and it suddenly goes on two legs and flexes it’s very buff arms? How do the boys react to this bizarre scene, and how are they with the cat in general?
Lucifer
When he sees the cat jump out of your bag, he first thinks oh, great, a pet to take care of, but then he thinks what the fuck.
Did your cat just get up on two legs, and grow muscles, and a six pack? And one second, did you just say you weren’t afraid because this was your protector?
He’s one of the first to recover from the initial shock. He thinks your cat is cursed or magical or something at first, but you keep denying that, saying this is just how cats are.
He has a poker face with the cat and tries to generally avoid it, until some demon who was picking on you got thrown into a wall by your cat. He has to deal with the aftermath, and your cat just looks at him with a poker face and it’s beady eyes and meows.
He is now seriously concerned what is wrong with your cat to be able to demolish a demon. He tries to bring up that this cat is far from normal again, but you keep insisting that your cat is average, and that most cats can do this.
You bring this cat to his office one afternoon and ask him to cat sit, since you’ll be going out for a bit, and everyone else is busy. He tries to say no, but your cat covers his mouth with a paw and you leave.
He’s staring at your cat for a long time, unable to focus on his work because your cat is organising his desk and pouring itself a cup of tea.
He actually becomes fine with your cat after it plays some classic music and quietly reads a favourite book of Lucifer’s in a corner. He forgets your cat is an actual cat for a bit.
But the more you leave your cat in the care of Lucifer, the more he’s just like alright, this cat isn’t so bad. He’s still more of a dog person.
Mammon
He’s just freaked out PERIOD. He will never let himself be alone with this cat.
He avoids it like the plague, won’t go near it. Wont let you leave him alone with it.
He just is so intimidated. Especially since the cat is working out?? Baking?? Reading?? Doing your homework? He does not approach.
Leviathan
This is just like I picked up a stray cat but they ended up being a super strong alien who vowed to protect me in exchange for saving them while they were suffering!!
Levi is actually pretty fine with it, you may think he freaks out or something, but he does like cats, and he has raised giant animals and weird ones himself.
He teaches your cat how to play video games, and has him as his main player two. He wants your cat to learn about TSL, and tells him the whole lore, your cat just sits there in Levi’s room nodding and occasionally meowing.
Your cat ending up sewing an idol outfit for themselves to wear when him and Levi watch idol videos together.
Levi is really happy to have someone to listen to him, and better yet, it’s not a physical person so he’s not as nervous, he probably spends more time with your cat than you do at this point.
Satan
KITT- oh. alright. Can he uh,, pet it?
He’s just really confused because you’re calling it a cat, it has the face of a cat, ears, whiskers, and a tail, but?? Its on two feet and majorly buff.
He still wants to pet it, he knows human cats aren’t all like that, and wants to know what is up. You insist that it’s normal, but he ends up getting you to tell him the life story of your cat.
You tell him while you’re in his room with your cat, when your cat goes unbuff and starts purring, feeling that you’re safe.
Satan immediately is like,,, can I pet,, I wanna,,, so cute,,, kitty. Aaaaaaaaaa, internal freak out. So it can be insanely fluffy and cute.
Satan gets along so well with your cat, they drink coffee together in the morning, your cat knocks on his door and asks (meows) to borrow a book from him, and sits on his lap as Satan pets him.
Asmodeus
Excuse me MC what the FUCK is that. Is he seeing what everyone else is seeing?
He is VERY wary of this abomination and refuses to be near it. It really saddens you because you want them to get along.
One night he’s freaking out because he has a pimple, so your cat comes to the rescue with an SOS beauty package.
You mention it’s the same routine your cat puts on you, with the cream and the products. Asmo freaked out at first, but calmed down a bit since he really wanted the pimple gone.
The next day it is completely clear and his skin is RADIANT. He nervously approached you to ask for the products but you tell him to talk to your cat, since you only do as he says, you don’t actually know the stuff.
He ends up asking your cat, begrudgingly, and turns out your cat can go unbuff, and was happy to help.
10/10 Asmo loves your cat now. He’s so squishy and fluffy, doesn’t shed fur, and even knows about beauty routines. Your cat is now his bff.
Beelzebub
It takes him a second but he just thinks human cats are like that.
After watching everyone freak out he realises human cats aren’t like that. But you’re insisting it’s completely normal.
He believes you and your cat, so he’s rather okay with it. He’s more of a dog person but your cat is really chill.
Your cat has dinner duty one night and allowed Beel to taste test the food, and even showed Beel his secret recipes.
Beel is instantly very fond of your cat, and then your cat joins him for work outs. He mentions working out later in front of you and your cat meows and you mention he wants to join in.
Your cat and Beel are now bench pressing a few hundred together every other day. Completely forgets that not all cats are like your’s.
Belphegor
The first time they met your cat came out of the window and punched him in the face.
Belphie tried to kill you and your cat found out, and was ready to kick his ass. You had to deescalate it because your cat broke out of Beel’s grip and was ready to punch Belphie again.
Belphie was annoyed when someone punched him and then saw your fucking cat. He has decided to shut the fuck up.
Belphie is intimidated. That thing is NOT normal, so why is everyone acting like it’s an everyday thing??
It takes awhile to calm your cat down. Belphie has to apologise to both your cat and you. Sincerely.
Your cat takes your hand and walks you away from Belphie. Belphie does not want to live with it but has no choice.
Is VERY scared when you suddenly leave your cat alone with him for a little bit. Your cat stays in incredibly buff form and sits across the room staring holes into Belphie while Belphie is trying to sleep.
He will never be comfortable near your cat, and your cat is constantly in buff form around him. He is NOT a fan of mr kitty.
Diavolo
Excuse me what. He stares for a second and laughs and says what a cool cat. He’s slightly concerned though, because he feels genuinely no magical energy from the cat,, so what is up with it?
He listens to you say you just found him on the side of the road and have been raising him since. That’s very nice of you, but are you not a little concerned?
To be fair, if he met a muscular cat like your’s on the side of the road, he too, would pet it or raise it.
Is pleasantly surprised when he watches your cat help students in RAD, holding open doors, carrying textbooks, and he even waters the flowers in the front of the school.
Very delighted when you leave your cat in Barb’s care for awhile, because he gets to watch your cat from up close, and even gets to eat some of the famous cookies it bakes.
He ends up really fond of your cat, inviting your cat to dinners and asking your cat opinions on minor things. You have a proud parent moment watching the two of them interact.
Barbatos
Your cat is incredibly buff and has a six pack,, right... The stoic butler has a poker face, but he has a brain freeze for a few seconds. He’s the quickest to come back to his senses.
He has never seen anything like this before, and thinks someone must have put a spell on this cat or something, but hears you say it’s normal.
He knows human cats can’t be like that, right? What do you mean you just found him on the side of the road and he just acted like this?? Shouldn’t you have some sense of concern?
He starts to notice that your cat is quite similar to him. Your cat cooks, bakes, and even takes care of you. Just like how he takes care of Diavolo. Apart of him hates that but another part of his respects that your cat cares for you.
When you go on a trip with the brothers you leave your cat in his care, saying you’ll be gone for a week, and that you’ll call him every night.
Well, he didn’t really have to take care of the cat. The cat kept out of his arms after the two arrived in the kitchen. Barbatos was finishing off his baking, and the cat was helping him clean the kitchen equipment.
The cat ended up helping him frost the cake, while wearing a small apron from his care package, and set it aside to cool off.
Barbatos ends up being really fine with the cat, since your cat is really well mannered and helpful. It’s a little freaky at first, but it’s no big deal.
Solomon
Ah yes, and incredibly buff cat. That seems.. abnormal. Interesting, especially since there’s no magical power coming from it.
He wants to figure out what’s wrong with it, so he invites you to purgatory hall under the guise of some humans enjoying themselves and eating cookies.
You arrived with an apron and your cat got his apron on. You said your cat wants to bake the cookies together, so you brought the ingredients rather than cookies themselves.
Since he’s such a great baker, he guesses questioning your cat can wait for later. Is actually really amused to see how great of a baker your cat is.
At the end of the day, he ends up taking cooking and baking lessons from your cat, and your cat is encouraging him to do his best at cooking.
He gets along super well with your cat at the end of it. Is delighted to spend time with Satan and you reading books wnd talking about cats with your cat.
Simeon
Haha cat go buff. Simeon 100% has accidental chaotic energy. He is taken aback but then is fine.
Finds your cat to be pretty cute, and is smiling from how your cat wants to protect you and how you cat sees you as a precious child to protect.
Is 100% delighted to have your cat come to purgatory hall one day with a basket of baked goods, and let’s him in.
He doesn’t understand cat talk so your cat writes down a letter saying he baked some cookies and came for a visit, just wanting to know more about them.
Simeon shares his celestial realm stories and Lucifer stories, and your cat becomes a great tea time friend of his, your cat sharing stories of you.
Luke
Is very freaked out and is nearly like Mammon until your cat stops being buff.
He is fine if your cat isn’t buff, but gets intimidated if he’s buff.
You get asked by Luke to bake some cookies with him at Purgatory Halls, so you bring your cat and he’s wearing a small apron.
Luke things it’s really cute and is awing until your cat gets up and starts baking as well. Don’t worry, your cat has gloves.
He’s watching your cat who uses expert techniques to do it quickly yet efficiently. Maybe your cat isn’t that bad.
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