#he only realizes he’s starting to see him that way after he loses his duel w dream

[shinjisdone]

To Soften a Warrior’s Heart (Vinland Saga; Thorfinn; Part 10, Finale of S1)

In which you have joined Askeladd’s band…and grow closer to the Son of Thors. Though it is more difficult than anyone can could ever imagine…

[Headcanons of how it would be like to meet and crawl your way into Thorfinn’s heart (based on season 1; both platonic and romantic)]

Part 1 is here - meeting Thorfinn at the age of 14 and how he is at that age

Part 2 is here - meeting Thorfinn at the age of 16/17 + headcanons of growing closer (slightly following s1 story)

Part 3 is here - blooming friendship with Thorfinn (slightly following s1 story)

Part 4 is here - Thorfinn unwittingly opening his heart as he realizes he does not want you to die

Part 5.1 is here - sweet things Thorfinn would do for you (headcanons)

Part 5.2 is here - other sweet things Thorfinn would do for you (headcanons)

Part 6 is here - meeting Canute and becoming his guard - Thorfinn accepts your relationship and bond

Part 7 is here - Canute grieving over Ragnar and Thorkell catching up; Thorfinn leaves you alone for revenge

Part 8 is here - Thorfinn wins against Thorkell; Questioning your bond with Thorfinn

Part 9 is here - Meeting Leif and Thorfinn dueling Askeladd; Losing while Askeladd told him the truth of his constant losses

Tag list:

@luopenis , @jinsecho , @mitsureigen , @theknightssecrets

Mentions of murder, death, war, slave trade, harrasment against women and whatever awful things happened in the viking era. Only mentioned and used as examples. Mostly gender-neutral examples but female-leaning ones are there, too.]

[This part will specifically mention: Lost Thorfinn, you snapping, confrontation, crying and screaming, Thorfinn kinda losing it, depressive vibes, Thorfinn thinking about death, mentions of blood and snot, zombie Thorfinn, longing, abandonment]

It's Just Like A Burning Torch In A Storm, Like A Little Flower Blooming In A Home...

The weather has worsened as Askeladd predicted.

Even as it was past noon, the sky darkened in a warning as if it were the middle of the deadly night. Snowflakes that started out so lovely of how light they were, were now raining down like arrows and blurring the sight. You could barely see any light come from York and simply trotted after the footsteps your 'leaders' and 'liege' left behind.

You scoffed at the fear of the trails being hidden away by the upcoming storm at this pace, however. Dragging Thorfinn by his wrist would take forever until you'd find shelter.

You had told him to rest his broken arm in the sling but he let it swing with every little limp he managed after you. His good arm was just as lax and he barely let out any signs of pain of how utterly and crushingly tight you gripped his wrist as you dragged him after you. Hunched like a bell ringer, his pants and groans were as quiet as a mouse.

You bit your tongue. He barely paid any attention and just let you haul you around like a dog-

A thump. Thankfully you did not let your grip falter on him as he fell to his knees. Swallowing down a sigh, you turned around and tugged on his wrist. "C'mon. The snow is getting heavier."

Thorfinn hung his head.

"C'mon." You called out louder, tugging at him again. With a dreadfully slow pace, Thorfinn managed to lift one leg after another. After helping him up, you turned around to lead the way.

The same song all over again. The scenery did not seem to change, Askeladd and friends having vanished right under your nose. It felt like you were stranded on a place familiar yet far away. Freezing snowscapes weren't an ucommon sight and they surely were not with only Thorfinn as your company but this caving, this sharp chilliness that felt paralyzing as your heart seemed to give in the longer you dwelled here - as if this place was cursed - it was a first. It was all a first, daunting and frightening. Although, you doubted you could really pinpoint your feelings right now.

You let yourself sigh in frustration as Thorfinn fell once again. The crunching of the snow has become irritating and you snapped towards him. "Thorfinn. I know you can stand. You were running towards Askeladd just moments ago," You hoped it was 'just' moments ago, "Stand up already, don't have me haul you."

All you received was another groan. Another attempt but he kept on slipping. With a growl of your own you kneeled down to hold him under his arms. Heaving him with great effort, you almost slipped yourself as the blonde stayed limb, letting you lift him up with all your might. You felt like a mother with an grown man.

You scolded him again as he simply let himself lean on you once you were up on your feet - before pushing him away and giving him a good shake.

Still, he almsot tumbled down again.

"Thorfinn!" Yelling did not seem to effect him as well as his eyes, black and blue, narrow and swollen from the one-sided brawl, barely took in your figure. His brown eyes looked like they saw right through you, not even on eye level as he still did not walk straight, and it pissed you off.

Even breathing for air was painful, the sharp coldness of this barren, damned place wanting to cut into your lungs with each inhale as if taunting you, knowing that you rely on it now. Now, stuck in this forgotten land as the snow lies down on your shoulders. It's getting heavier and heavier, ringing in your ears as even they felt like falling off your head at any moment. They might as well. The biting wind, though gentle as it was, stealing any feeling you had in your bones.

Sniffing and swallowing your snot, you yanked at his arm again, swiftly turning around and trying to march after the fading footsteps as Thorfinn limped after.

The mere sound of crunching snapped the last strand of patience you so miraciously found within you and before the young man could completely slip again, he fell on his side instead as your fist collided with his face.

"You're a complete idiot!"

Thorfinn barely let out a sound. It made the fire within you rise.

"Askeladd was damn right! You're a moron! A godsforsaken fool! Idiot! Idiot, idiot, idiot!"

You stomped your foot, akin to a child, and Thorfinn wondered why you did not let him feel your ire instead, as he gazed up at you through lidded, swollen eyes. Though he did shakily gasp as you bent down and grabbed ahold of his shirt, holding him up to your level.

"The hell do you think you're doing here?! Huh?! What the hell are you doing here?! Answer me!" You threw him to the ground just as quickly. "You have people here that want you back to a home and you are crawling back to damn Askeladd out of all people! Vile, disgusting, bastard Askeladd!"

Your pants grew louder and louder, hands on your head, as they quickly snapped from brainless inhales to a growling, longing shriek - an animal squealing in pain.

"Do you have any idea - no, 'course you don't! You're a stupid mutt! You never think, never had any brains up there, did you?!" Piles of snow were thrown left and right, partly falling on Thorfinn, on his beaten body and face. He flinched at the contact. You kept on screeching. "You always end up like this. On the ground. Like a dog!" Again, you kicked snow his way, "When you could be somewhere else, somewhere far away that isn't here!"

You snapped your arm back to a direction you believed York was, distressed glare still on your friend, "What the hell was this Leif person talking about?! Iceland?! Helga and Ylva?! They're your family, aren't they?! You have family, Thorfinn, family that is alive and well and in Iceland and they want you back! They love you, Thorfinn!" Retreating your arm, you brought your hands back to your head, pulling on your hair, pulling on the last strand of sanity this man left you. Though you desperately were scowling, you wanted to scowl, your eyes were only wide. Wide and big, distress shining in them as tears welled up in the corners. A choked sob escaped you.

"Anyone would jump up in joy hearing that their family is still alive but you didn't give a damn about what that man had to say. He said he'd wait for you. Maybe he's still there."

The screeching softened the more you talked, misty-eyed as you gazed at anything but him. Lamenting to yourself at this predicament he found himself in. Thorfinn's own eyes widened as best as they could as he managed to sit up. A breathy gasp escaped him. He's never seen you like this.

"Do you have," Sobbing, you wiped your nose, "Any idea how lucky you are to have people in this world...that want you?"

The breathy gasp morphed into sharp inhales, greedily gulping in the painful air as Thorfinn kept staring and staring at you, wide-eyed and afraid. He barely could breath.

"You could be there...but you're not. So answer me when I ask you what the hell you are doing here."

Something...something he reckoned to be akin to ringing wormed its way in his ears alongside your sobs. He saw you hiding your eyes as tears fell down your face - but he wasn't sure, the heavy snow and his lidded eyes made it difficult to truly see you. Thorfinn was not certain if he stooped this low that he had begun seeing things.

Tilting his head down to the snow - his neck couldn't find any strength anymore - he startled at the face his father's dagger reflected. Swollen and broken...dark and bruised, blood and snot oozing out of his bent nose with one of his eye hardly visible and of course, barely able to see with it anyway. Maybe it wasn't the trick of the weather but just his swollen face.

He had seen this face time and time again.

It whined and fussed whenever he looked at it, leaving him no choice but to see its pain and its borderline stupidity. The blood coated on the blade as it cut the guards.

The broken arm that almost earned worse by Thorkell's duel.

The stomach that churned whenever he trotted away like a corpse out of sheer hunger. Looking for anything he could gnaw between his teeth.

The hand that held the torch to the woman's demise. The hair she groomed was soaked in blood later, he recalled.

All that gruesome work...all the murders and the guts on the floor, the stolen goods and impaled heads...all those errands.

It was all this ugly face that he sees.

He sucked in air only to let them out in a wail. He wailed and wailed, louder and louder, his voice cracking as his tongue was tied and not able to form any words. He stared at you as you kept on sobbing.

Thorfinn's scream pierced through the heavy snow and the deafening silence. The cold, the snow, the dark, thunderous sky was nothing compared to this might, to this pathetic pain. It was louder than anything else you'd ever heard, both from the people you've killed and their pleas for mercy, and from the amount of grief he so sparingly shared with you, here and there.

Wiping your tears, you grimaced. Even through this wail that teared your heart apart, you could not help but think back on Askeladd. Oh, how wretched he'd feel this sight would be.

It hurt even more that you'd even agree.

It's Just Like A Lighthouse In Your Hands, Like A Little Flag Flapping In The Sands...

Misty-eyed, you looked down on the mutt wreathing in the snow. In his beaten state he could no longer look down at his dagger, could not form any words of remorse, imploration or grief. It was animalistic braying, as Askeladd described, howling at a moon that won't ever rise. You observed for some more, drying your face completely before falling onto your knees before Thorfinn.

His brown eyes struggled to follow your movements but that did not bother you. Watching him twitch and turn, you scooted closer and opened your arms. Arms that felt to heavy to share any burden.

Your limbs were slow, so woefully slow and heavy as they wrapped around his hunched body. Even as you gently and gingerly pressed him against you, Thorfinn continued to cry out, seeming to not have even noticed your gesture. He seemed to only gulp back for air when the side of his head was pressed against your chest.

This cringing feeling only grew worse at the rapid speed of his heart pounding against you. It was akin a bird's panicked flappings as it tried to misguidedly escape the cage it's been put in. However, you still tried to focus on the lightening aspects. How his gasps ceased and he himself tried to take deep breaths. Your hand found the crown of his head, stroking his grimy hair.

Thorfinn jumped. These calm breaths of yours tickled his head, leaving him shuddering. Gazing into the empty, barren snowscape he pondered if - maybe if, as long as he's not mistaken - you had ever done something so comforting to him before. He thought of it to be comforting at least. The familiarity of it all left him stumped as well as equally frightened. He did not know what to make of it.

Were you always like this? You have never...embraced him like this before. Was it because of him? Did he put a distance between you? Were you hesitant, perhaps reluctant to offer him soothing solace such as this? Thorfinn did not know and he did not remember.

Letting out a confused groan, he ever so tediously turned his head and gazed up to you. Chin resting on your chest as he looked up at you like an intriguied animal.

You cringed slightly at the face before you. No longer stroking his hair, you grabbed a fistful of snow and gently rubbed it against his dark blue cheek. Thorfinn did not resist but only let out a soft croak of pain. Still, his eyes never left you. "I'm sorry. I made the bruise worse." You spoke under your breath. The snow dissolved and fell apart, leaving only your reddened palm to cup and carress his face. You hoped it would soothe the injury.

Wordlessly, you continued to graze the bruises on his face with your cold hand in an attempt to lighten the pain. The blonde, as beaten and silent as he was, fluttered his eyes close whenever your fingers touched the swollen lumps nearby. He'd croak and sigh at the lightest of touches, leaning on you on his knees and face tilted up to look at you. Wiping the blood under his nose caused him to sneeze and you ripped a handful of your cloak off, offering for him to sneeze into it.

"One more time. The blood might dry and clump up your nose." He did so as told, clumps of snot and blood pulled out of his nostrills. He sniffed, inhaling the air. You threw the blood-soaked cloth away. Wiping your hand, your brought it back up to press his head against you, hesitant, but deciding to squeeze him ever so gently. Your face grimaced but you did not want to let him know.

It was almost on command. How he let his head turn around again, his ear leaning against your chest to listen to your heartbeat. His own pounded against his chest, calmly yet alone. Lonely and longingly. Aside from it, he was empty. So, so empty he would have loved nothing more than to just lean against you and sleep. Sleep forever.

"...C'mon, Thorfinn. Let's get ourselves somewhere warm." Obeying your command once again, he looked back up at you with big eyes, before lifitng himself up. You tucked a few loose strands of unruly hair behind his ears before slinging the good arm around your shoulder, with your face close to one another, you marched back to York.

A Floating Moon...You Still Croon?

He still leaned against you, that fool.

It nearly made you smile how he almost snuggled. Yet it was just as pathetic. Pathetic and ironic like the sun that decided to bless you the moment you found York again. The snow below you all but melted away by its rays and left nothing but filthy, grimy roads. You prefered it over the slippery ice.

The town was rather crowded. Carts filled with many goods pulled by healthy, decorated horses and men with respectable blades passed by. The meeting is soon to begin, you believed.

Still, it only made you more hesitant to ask for any help. Anyone you turn to could be some high and mighty ruler of a region or worse, their vessels and guards. The many swinging scabbards at their hips did not ease your anxiety.

The side of the road it was. Better behind some stables in the shadows and out of the sight of the many servants. Thorfinn looked worse for wear and a youngling like you would definitely not be welcomed with open arms. Oh, how awfully right you were.

With another person's weight on your side, you accidentaly bumped into another. Praying they'd simply scoff or ignore you, you immediately bowed your head and apologized once they argued with you.

"Hey, hey, hey! What do you think you're doing? Bumping into me, eh? Causing an accident only to rob me from my goods, eh? I know that trick." One approached while you stepped back with Thorfinn in tow, head hanging low. You shake your head, trying to explain that it was indeed a mere accident-

"Don't pull that on me. Look at you, beaten and cold. You two must be poor beggars. C'mere, we know what to do with lot like you." As soon as you were cornered and one pulled his arm back for a punch, Thorfinn snapped his arm forward and shoved the man out of the way. He shrieked, alerting the others. "Hey, now-!" The second one grabbed your shoulder, however, he was swiftly kicked off, legs sweeped under his and falling into the manure below. Thorfinn let out something of an scoff despite his unreadable gaze.

Just as your friend was ready to bash the third man out of the trio, you made a run for it. There was no time to scold Thorfinn - you couldn't afford to earn the anger of some ruler's servant!

A mere barn was found and you snuck Thorfinn to the back behind a few bundles of hay. That certainly was close...but you didn't have the strength to berate him any more.

Instead, you tended to him some more, the best that you could as beggars. The man wasn't nearly wrong. Even now Thorfinn only let out a few hums at each action and touch, nodding meekly at each of your words. It was pitiful and equally heartbreaking.

Only to you though, it seemed.

You gently placed your hand to his forehead and sighed in relieve when not detecting a fever. It didn't appear that he had any symptoms either.

The blonde just leaned into your touch, tired.

You tucked a few unruly locks away. "I have to fetch something...I'll be right back." You snapped up only to be tugged down abruptly. Widened eyes looked down to find Thorfinn grabbing your wrist, stopping you and pulling you down. His swollen lips parted for air and eyes were still unreadable. Lying a hand on his, you tried to offer a smile, "I'll be right back, it won't take long. Just stay here and don't move from your spot."

The grip on your wrist was tight enough that you had to shake it off and leave before he could jump after you.

You missed the way his hand reached for your vanishing figure.

The port was even busier, making your heart race.

It was a mystery to you how you managed to find the short, unassuming man within the crowd of bellowing merchants and sailing boats but there he was, staring at you with wide, big eyes. He blinked a few times; Not quite certain if he should even be speaking to you - with that glare you were offering him.

"I don't know any details," You began, "But I have a request. I'll do what it takes for you to accept it." The man let out a nervous, brief chortle before taking a step forward. His hand scratched the back of his neck. The best he could was bear a crooked grin. "Now, hold on, little one. You, ah," He hesitated, blinked and took a breath, "I saw you with Thorfinn the other day. You are a friend of his, no?"

The man did not miss the way you avoided his gaze.

"And you are a relative of his, right? Uncle...Leif, it was?"

The merchant laughed and his nervous tone quickly shifted to a carefree one. It startled you yet that did not stop him from explaining his situation.

That was all nice and dandy...but you did not have time to listen to old tales.

"Listen, I know where he is. I'll take you to him but for that...you have to take him back to Iceland."

Leif could not deny that your request intriguided him. After all, just like Thorfinn you seemed to be a viking despite being his friend. He never had a viking ask him for a favour.

"I'll do whatever it takes to get him there. I'll personally drag him to your boat if I must, beat him black and blue and throw him into it." Again, Leif waved his hands and hoped his awkward laughter would ease the tension...and make you realize how dramatic your solutions were. It was not neccessary, he'd say, all that was needed was a good talk and listening to each other. To follow one's heart...and he's sure Thorfinn would choose the right answer.

That was enough for you to consider it a deal. Hurrying the older man, you were suddenly stopped as he tapped your shoulder. "I wanted to thank you, young one."

Raising a brow, it only made Leif grin.

"Thank you for being a friend to Thorfinn. He used to be such a sweet and hopeful kid...but now, he'd been through hell. I don't know all of the details but I am certain his life would have been more miserable if it weren't for you. Thank you for always staying by his side."

He continued to speak. You listened attentively, your eyes widened and fearing to tear up yet again at these kind words of this kind man.

Thorfinn could count himself lucky to have people who love him.

Listen To Me, Cleave Your Way Again, Again...

The floor was cold but thank the gods not as cold as the snow outside.

Lonely droplets of water fell down one after another and another and another; Like a melody to the puddle below. Thorfinn would have liked to thank to be alone right now. Alone and with not another soul as his company, as the trio of men chased after him and handed him over to the town's guards. With no resistance, he let himself be thrown into the dungeon.

But he could not find any gratitude in his empty heart to any gods right now.

You weren't back. You said you would be but when he looked up to the shadows hovering over him, he was met with three disgusting grins and not your smile. Bitter, bewitching, bland - it did not matter, he just needed to see your smile again.

You...held him. As if he deserved it.

You deserve to be looked for right now but he could not find any strength nor vigor to get up and escape, as easily as he was capable of it. All his head was filled of where questions on your whereabouts as his heart yearned for your presence.

A guard called out to him, speaking of an visitor. His first thought was you and how you returned to him. As best as he could, he crooked his neck and uttered your name.

Yet you weren't back still. There, sitting on the ground with the brightest smile he could muster was the man who used to tell him stories as a child. He prepared himself before he spoke. "Thorfinn. I've been told of an rowdy beggar being locked up. My gut feeling told me that might have been you, my boy."

Thorfinn sighed in disappointment and laid back down.

Leif licked his lips, taking a deep breath. "...You told me how you suffered for the past eleven years since we lost you, Thorfinn. You spoke of how I wouldn't understand, and I might not, and how...you couldn't find any peace within you as long as that man was still alive."

"...That...has nothing to do with you."

Nevertheless, the man persisted, believing it to be of concern to him. The fighting, the wars, the pain - and of how he swore it to himself to bring an end to it all by bringing him home.

A home filled with warmth and people. Of stories, some true and some silly, of food and water. Of no fear for your life and your future. A place where there was love.

"I swore an oath, you know? To myself and to Thors...that I would bring you back to Iceland. Bringing you back home where you belong, Thorfinn. That is the honor I want to uphold and the least I owe to Thors."

At the utter of his father's name, Thorfinn found the fortitude to sit up. Leif's grin was even more radiant than he remembered as a child. "So, Thorfinn...let us go back home. To Iceland!"

"Home...?"

Home...how tempting that word was. How it rolled off his tongue like stenching poison.

Home...after all this time? Why? Why would he, why should he?

Could he even?

"My boy, you said it yourself!" Leif scooted closer, his grin rivaling the sun, his eyes shining like a jewel. "So we can go to Vinland!"

Thorfinn could barely catch his breath, his empty chest that barely could hold his caving heart now rising. Rising, as he remembered the tale of old times.

A land far in the west, beyond the ocean...a land so warm and fruitful and so far away that no slave drives nor wars could reach it...

"Thors wished to go there, too...and I am sure - no, certain! Certain that if he was still alve, he would have loved nothing more than to travel to Vinland!"

Thorfinn hung his head. Was he...even allowed to hear such things, let alone do them? Take action?

"Home...and Vinland..."

Not being able to hold off his quivering smile, Leif dusted himself off as he got up on his feet. He walked slightly to the end of the bars. "And if you allowed it too, Thorfinn...I invited another companion to join us."

Now standing near the end, Leif opened his palm. Squinting his eyes, Thorfinn made out an hesitant, shaking hand peeking out from behind the wall and gingerly taking Leif's own outstretching one. He gladly wrapped his fingers around it, while the other shyly wrapped theirs around him, after a good while.

Following him, behind the wall your figure appeared - and the young blonde wasted no time to jump to his knees. You turned to him, looking down with a bittersweet smile. Thank the gods, he could see your smile that he so wished for.

Voice shaking with disbelief he called out your name.

"You gave me an heart attack."

My, did you tell him of how he did give you an heart attack when you returned to the spot with Leif and found him to be gone. Of how you told the man that he must be arrested and locked up, like the idiot that he was, and that he'd best be bribed free. Leif took the initiative and kindly asked you to wait.

Grey eyes glanced between the two of you and Leif let out a sigh of relieve, his hands on his hips. Even in this odd, ridicilous and hopeful situation that you wanted nothing more than to put your faith into, you approached the bars and looked down at your friend with the sweetest smile you could muster.

"After all this...could you take me to Vinland?"

Listen To Me, Sail Away Again, Again...A Misty Moon

I'm Missing You...

For the first time since today, you could feel the breeze.

No longer was it biting or howling but simply soothing.

This road, dirty and muddy and the chants of the people going their merry way felt like a dream.

Stepping inside Leif's humble, little boat felt like a dream.

The mention of other possibly kind merchants joining as Thorfinn held your hand - it was wonderful. Once he was out, he embraced you tight, not saying a word. He worsened his broken arm with the never-ending squeeze he gave you and definitely smeared snot and blood on your neck when he buried his head in there, but you did not dare to complain. Your arms wrapped around his body, silently grateful to have him back.

In this mess that you were and the mess that you are, you felt like the luckiest person alive. You, bewtiched by the bliss, did not complain as Thorfinn let go of your hand.

He was as quiet as a mouse, anyway. You let him ponder, you let him pout to himself. But what you could not let happen was him vanishing once again.

As he did on that snowy hill to fight Thorkell.

"Thorfinn!" Yours and Leif's scream aligning with a bird's shriek. The man just got this little boy back and now you were running off as well, searching for him. He thought he finally found Vinland. Finally could honor his own oath and quench this sadness in his heart.

It was all for nothing.

The searching, the bribing, the empty promises on his behalf...your fighting, your murders, tending his wounds and holding him in your heart. All for nothing.

Yells echoed within the meeting hall. You caught a glimpse of brown and yellow make a sharp turn for it. "Thorfinn!" Yet as men tried to flee the hall, you only struggled to get inside, hearing Thorfinn's screams for Askeladd.

He seemed to have gotten in as his figure vanished from your sight and you hardly could hear him. The yelling and screaming ceased - what had happened in there?

"Thorfinn! Thorfinn, come back! Please!"

Not a reply, not a bellow of utter agony either. It was only you, screeching out his name, screeching out to be let go as the many servants and guards dragged you out. Pulling on your cloak, pulling on your hair, your arms, your face.

"Thorfinn!"

You could not see beyond the crowd. It was eerie to not hear anything from him. Now you wished he hadn't been so quiet.

"...What...? You, are dying? You...?"

The men reckoned you to be a beggar, wondering what you are doing here. Breaking into the king's meeting.

"...Don't be so foolish...and stop this nonsense. I give you my life...but...what will you do with your life...after you've taken mine...?"

Your screaming only convinced them of your madness. A mere, hysterical beggar breaking into the king's murder.

"Thorfinn!"

"...Will you take your friend with you...? Or will you do as I did to Björn...you should go, Thorfinn. Go far, far away from here. Somewhere that isn't here..."

You shall be taken away. Hysterical but maybe useful.

"Damn it, come back! Go back to Iceland, Thorfinn! GO BACK TO ICELAND!"

Iceland is not a fruitful or promising land...you shall be useful somewhere else. Somewhere that isn't here.

"...Go, Son of Thors...become a true warrior..."

Do Good, To Be Good...Do Good, To Be Good...You're Not Alone...

For the first time today, you felt the agony that dwelled within your heart, boiling there, wating for this moment.

The faces of the people, the mud of the road pressed into your face, the cuffs on your hands. It was a true nightmare.

Ripped away from the second Thorfinn let go of your hand and did not return to you. You still missed his silhouette. It was gone the moment you were hauled out of the place and thrown into the sea.

Thorfinn did not even answer your cires.

No one would now to a slave.

#vinland saga #vinland saga x reader #thorfinn #thorfinn karlsefni #thorfinn x reader #vinland saga headcanons #thorfinn headcanons #thorfinn karlsefni x reader #gender neutral imagine #vinland saga imagine #thorfinn imagine #thorfinn x you #prince canute #canute #askeladd #thorkell #thorkell the tall #AAAAAAAAAA #AAAAAA #IDK WHAT TO DO NOW #OMG i really struggled with this one #too...hngh...long #too much...dialouge #man i died there #JUST LIKE ASKELADD HAH #anyway things arent gonna get any sweller #i just i #idk #thorfinn just...made me lose my mind #TSAWH

[pencil-peach]

Thinking about Guel and Suletta's Final Duel

When I first watched it, it was a little confusing.

If you take it straight as Guel says, what he's saying here doesn't really make any sense. Guel has no reason to stand in the way between Miorine and Suletta at this point.

He does sincerely care about Miorine now, but not romantically, and he also knows that he can't do anything to help her out of her despair.

He's already confessed to Suletta and was incredibly understanding when he was rejected, so it's not as if he's trying to step between them.

So this battle is clearly not about Miorine at all. So then, what is it about?

It's about Guel needing to prove to himself if he was ever a match for Suletta Mercury.

(More under the cut awooo ahwOOOOooo!)

It's never something that's outright stated, and it's something that you can easily miss if you aren't paying attention, but Guel and Suletta are Rivals in this series.

They have the most onscreen fights with each other. Their rivalry is one of the consistent undercurrents of the series, but the problem is that not a single one of their fights was EVER on even ground.

In their first match, Suletta was piloting a Gundam vs. Guel's Dilanza. The deck was stacked so heavily in Suletta's favor that it might as well not have even been a fight.

Their rematch was similarly cheated on Guel's end. His father rigged the sprinklers to go off, robbing suletta of her lasers. He wasn't even piloting the Darilbalde for half of the fight because it was being autopiloted for him. (And this is something he's clearly upset about)

And their third match was completely and utterly rigged from the start. It wasn't a test of skill between them at all. Aerial REBUILD Permet Score 7/8 was nigh undefeatable by any normal mobile suit, and so the only way to ensure Suletta would lose was to shut Aerial down.

So even after all this time, and all of their fights, Guel still doesn't know. He still doesn't know which of them is truly stronger. And that's what this duel is about.

Their final duel is also the only one between them that's on truly even ground. You can even see this with how they change the duel vow

It's just the two of them. No fathers to cheat for them, no ghost robot sisters to rely on, not even any mobile suits this time. A pure, untainted one on one fight. And the result of this duel will finally reveal the truth of which of them is stronger.

And well...

It was a foregone conclusion.

So why did Guel mention Miorine? Well, I think it's because when its for Miorine's sake, Suletta will not hold back. Every time the two of them have fought, Miorine was always the reason Suletta was fighting to begin with. Guel knows that if it's for her, Suletta will go all out. (And...also because he's dramatic....)

This was never an official duel, they aren't at the school, and at this point in the story, the rules regarding dueling have been completely shattered in terms of their importance to the narrative. They're just silly school rules, after all.

Even if Guel had won, I doubt he would've stood in her way. This was entirely for his own sake.

But what I truly love about this scene is that Guel was never going to win.

Suletta at this point in the story has become completely self actualized. She's broken free from the grip her mother has held on her for her entire life, she's finally living for herself, choosing for herself. She's come to terms with the mistakes she has made and is choosing to move forward for the sake of never repeating them. She's reaching out to Miorine, the woman who broke her heart, because she still deeply cares for her. She has come into her own completely and totally.

Guel, similarly, has made his own personal journey. He's put aside his pride, realized what running really means, has faced some of the very worst horrors of war and has similarly chosen to move forward for the protection of the things he holds dear. Without the strict hand of his father, he too, has learned to choose for himself.

But there's still something he's running from. Someone he doesn't realize that he's left behind.

Lauda. He's still running from Lauda. He still hasn't reached Suletta because there's still something weighing him down.

In his rush to keep moving forward, he completely shut Lauda out. Because he's still afraid to face him. He thought he was protecting him by bearing his sin all on his own, but all he's done is left Lauda alone in his grief, and until he faces that, he will never catch up with Suletta.

(Did you notice that the reason Guel lost this final duel was because he lunged forward without thinking?)

(It's his greatest flaw, after all.)

What a fool he was, to think he could ever best Suletta Mercury.

#guel jeturk #gundam the witch from mercury #g witch #suletta mercury

[the-obnoxious-sibling]

How do you think it’s most possible way of shuggy getting together rn? How could cross guild react to that info? I think shanks would lost mihawks respect so fast

hm... the thing is, i think buggy is still pretty angry with shanks. and shanks… well, he's acting less passively than he used to, but that seems to be in service of a long established goal; idk if that change in behavior extends to interpersonal stuff. it's hard to picture either of them taking the necessary first step to even see each other again, let alone get together.

so let's have chance take that first step for them.

the easiest way to make it happen is through their common goal: the one piece. there are only so many different paths to take to get there, and at some point all of them will intersect. whether it's finding that burn-scarred man, or the second-to-last island, or on laugh tale itself, at some point the paths merge, and if the timing works out, they can reunite.

now, that reunion probably starts messy—especially if buggy’s been stewing over why shanks is going after the one piece now, when he refused all those years ago—but i think, regardless of the content of the conversation, seeing buggy again sparks an idea in shanks. after all this time apart, to run into each other twice in as many years, both times connected to their captain’s legacy? (his son, and then his treasure?) it almost feels fated. like captain roger is pushing them together…

and so, on something like a whim, shanks’ plans change, just a little. pursuing the one piece and buggy simultaneously could be tricky, if they weren’t all heading the same direction. but since they are, it’s trivial to arrange to run into him again, to have gifts on hand, compliments prepared, an afternoon to kill.

buggy takes a while to pick up on what’s happening. at first he thinks shanks is trying to distract him, to trick him into losing sight of his goal… then, as the old longing wells up inside him like high tide, as he realizes how much he wants it to be real, he thinks shanks knows, and he’s being mocked.

i don’t know what it is that makes him see shanks is being sincere. it would be very funny if mihawk or crocodile was the one to make him face facts, but i can’t quite figure out why or how it would happen that way.

suffice to say, he realizes, has a little freakout, and the next time shanks just so happens to be at the same port as buggy they have it out. there’s shouting, buggy’s body falls apart in a rage, more shouting, a very frustrated love confession, kissing, more shouting, more kissing. very messy, but ultimately a happy resolution.

and this is either a completely private conversation or happening in front of both of their crews and one of big news morgans’ reporter-photographers. i’m also 50-50 on whether they come out of the conversation as allies in the one piece hunt or more competitive about it than ever.

either way, mihawk and crocodile have been a reluctant, unwilling captive audience to buggy’s side of things, so the get-together does not take them by surprise. i think crocodile is pretty fed up with all of it—he doesn’t give a shit about the one piece or shanks, why is so much of his time being occupied by one or both of them—and mihawk is just… drinking more. he lost most of his respect for shanks a while ago, when he first connected the dots between the old friend shanks used to reminisce about when he got too drunk after a duel and buggy. this is just… new lows being discovered, lol.

#asked and answered #one piece #shuggy #*shuggy reconciliation #*endgame speculation #…technically #cross guild #i guess they are present

[humaudrey]

How about a Descendants AU where instead of VKs being brought to Auradon, Ben, Audrey, Chad, Lonnie, Jane, and maybe a few other AKs are forced to stay on Isle of the Lost for a month (under secret protection and surveillance of course) after their parents believe “they have it too easy” and are “ungrateful for everything their parents had sacrificed and worked for”. Under a disguise, they must learn how blend in and survive, all while avoiding the two most powerful rival gangs, the Core Four and the Sea Three.

The AKs find it uncannily comfortable on the Isle as the month starts. 

Audrey, with the help of the Evil Queen’s daughter, slowly learns that beauty isn’t skin deep and can be found in even the cruelest and darkest of places (and even exchange a few beauty tips). 

Chad befriends the only person on the Isle who hadn’t robbed him blind or threatened to hurt him yet. An adorable little girl, Drizella’s daughter to be specific. At first, he uses her to get around on the Isle, and manipulates her into doing his bidding but he slowly begins changes for the better as he sees the similarities between her and his mother before she had her happy ever after come true. 

An arrogant Lonnie challenges Gaston’s son into a duel, being the captain of R.O.A.R back home, only to lose miserably. She then secretly watches the Sea Three and the rest of the crew spar (“he had to cheat, my mom’s Mulan!”) until he invites her to spar with them, learning a few more techniques that she’d never learn back home, especially dual wielding. 

Jane, more depressed than ever that she can’t even secretly use magic against her mother’s will anymore, somehow befriends the sneaky daughter of Dr. Facilier, and she introduces Jane to her own version of magic, sleight of hand magic that is. She even teaches Jane how to pick-pocket, and she loves the thrill of it all. Jane never had the chance to take risks, and she had never felt so alive when she had stole Jafar’s son beanie right off of him. 

Ben, in the meanwhile, enjoys the laid back, carefree lifestyle (once he’s fully adjusted, it takes him the longest, Audrey being the second longest) and somehow manages to “ally” with both gangs after he stops a fight between the daughter of Maleficent against the daughter of Ursula, the leaders. With his help, they both realize that deep down they have the same goal: to make their mothers proud for once. He notices just how awful both of the girls and the rest of the Isle has it (no thanks to his father) and secretly vows to the others to release them from this prison once the month is over or he’d stay on the Isle too until they were guaranteed their freedom as well.

Cue other AKs like Doug, Jordan, and Ally who sneak on the Isle to kidnap Ben to bring him back and everyone else is PISSED.

The VKs team up to try and find a way off the Isle while holding the rest of the AKs hostage once their true identities come to light and Ben has to go back for his friends.

ALL OF HIS FRIENDS.

#descendants 2 #descendants #descendants fic #descendants au #au #ben florian #lonnie descendants #chad charming #audrey descendants #jane descendants #completely different from the second fic idea that I had #had this in my drafts for years im not writing this #cleaning out my drafts

[bthump]

In terms of plot/characterization, what purpose do you think the gay water fight/Griffith’s naked speech after serve? I love reading it through a queer lens as much as anybody but wondering how Miura may have intended it?

In my head it’s both a demonstration of Griffith’s childlike side and like, baring himself before Guts as this perfect looking/idealized being saying he’s going to get his kingdom…but then the nakedness makes it weirdly vulnerable too…? Would love to hear your thoughts!!

I agree that there's a vulnerability to Griffith, and his child-like side is v deliberate imo.

I actually take it as a parallel to the flashback with Griffith and Casca in the river after Gennon, in that Griffith is physically naked and emotionally open, very humanized, in both scenes before closing back up with a reaffirmation of his dream. The river scene is like a sad and depressing and more revealing reprise, in a way, where it becomes very clear that Griffith's dream obsession is a defense mechanism, rather than a genuine belief.

In the waterfight scene Griffith and Guts connect in a playful way, as two children who don't get to act like children very often. And imo it's an interesting affirmation of their true equality deep down, despite appearances/social status/dreams: Griffith just won a duel to keep Guts as a soldier, but now Guts wins a "duel" in the waterfight. He even calls them even after dumping the last bucket of water over Griffith's head. It's also nicely symbolic for Guts choosing to stay, rather than feeling forced by a duel.

I think the point is mainly to show how they're compatible as friends, and that one big reason Griffith likes Guts is because Guts treats him pretty irreverently (up until the Promrose Hall speech), in a way no one else we see really does. He plays with him, wins the water fight when Griffith isn't expecting it, and questions why Griffith saved his life in the raid the night before. This dynamic feels like a good starting point for Guts ignoring Griffith's orders and Griffith planning around him instead of keeping him in line like Casca wants him to do, Griffith asking Guts to assassinate people for him instead of ordering him to, Guts trying to visit Griffith after Zodd injures him because "who gives a damn about social status?" before being stopped by Casca, etc.

Griffith shuts down Guts' question by claiming he only saved Guts' life because he's a good soldier, and then moves onto his grandiose speech about his dream, and imo that's an emotional distancing tactic. Something Griffith probably isn't really aware he's doing, but it's a way for him to subconsciously protect himself from the realization that Guts is more important to him than his dream, by denying that he saved Guts for any reason except that it serves his dream.

It basically helps set up Griffith's image while sowing seeds that belie that image - Griffith is dedicated to a dream, Griffith is impressive and noble and Guts will die when Griffith chooses but not before then, yadda yadda yadda. That's the image. But the reality underneath is Griffith inviting a blushing Guts to bathe with him while naked lol, starting a waterfight with him and losing, and essentially being a 15 year old kid with a crush. Or wait, you said aside from the homoeroticism lol. I'll describe it as being a 15 year old kid who needs a friend who doesn't treat him like an idol, but doesn't know that's what he needs yet, and can't quite conceive of how friendship works because he's too obsessed with his dream.

So yeah basically Griffith acting like an ordinary human kid who wants a friend with Guts, then closing himself off and making it all about the dream when Guts basically calls him out on risking his life to save him. This dichotemy that Judeau describes at the start of the chapter, illustrated, and just begun to be explained:

He's a child who has to act like an adult, a kid with a little too much wisdom, a good guy who becomes a villain because he talks himself into believing he is.

As for Guts, I think this scene demonstrates a big part of why Guts chooses to stay with the Hawks. He doesn't stay just because Griffith beat him in a fight - after this scene he spends a while reflecting and wondering if he should stay, and decides that he wants to.

So for Guts it's the feeling of making friends including Griffith, having Griffith's trust as a soldier, and having Griffith save his life. This chapter is the turning point where Guts decides he's found a place, at least "for now," and it's no coincidence that the main focus of this chapter is Guts bonding with Griffith.

All that said, I don't think the waterfight can really be divorced from homoeroticism honestly. Like it just seems disingenuous to ignore it when it comes to moments like this:

I do definitely think there's an extent to which Miura intended the homoeroticism, and intended to imply that Guts and Griffith at the very least have the potential to connect romantically, whether that's something Miura would've imagined for them in an AU where nothing goes wrong, or whether it would always be unrealized potential that simply adds to the intensity and complexity of their relationship. It's a safe bet to assume the latter I suppose, but either way, it's there, and Miura has discussed homoeroticism in the context of Griffith and androgynous characters in general, at least.

So I do think another important aspect of the scene is to show a spark of physical attraction between them. But yeah tbf it's not the most relevant aspect thematically, it's more like some extra flavour that colours Guts and Griffith's relationship. Everything about them still makes technical sense as a platonic friendship. Just not quite as much thematically satisfying sense lol.

And lastly I have a longer take on this scene in the second part of this essay if you're interested, but this is the gist of it. Thanks for asking, it's good to have an excuse to discuss the scene by itself rather than having my take on it stuck buried in a super long essay lol.

#ask #a #b #scene: waterfight #character: guts #character: griffith #theme: dreams #theme: relationships as personal growth #theme: homoeroticism #theme: equality #theme: kid's toy #white-winter-hymnals

[korranguyen]

Let's talk about Azula & Ozai’s psychological abuse for a second. (Part 1)

Quick recap: I recently had the opportunity to visit the Writer's Guild of America (WGA). It was so fascinating to see how scripts are written, better understand the explicit motivations of certain characters and scenes, and the way the quality of an episode translates from pre-production to air time. I already have a lot of thoughts on the scripts I got my hands on (mostly Avatar) that I'll be unrolling, and I'm hoping to return to gather some thoughts on BoJack Horseman (I ran out of time within the opening times of the library because apparently 7 hours is not enough).

There was a lot of work on the ATLA writing team’s part that I found admirable and a lot that I found... less so. I will address both in time (as this post will)—but I want to start with the worst thing I found.

(S3E20, Sozin’s Comet: Avatar Aang, written by Mike DiMartino & Bryan Konietzko)

The ensnared Azula thrashes like a feral animal, breathing fire in desperation. Katara helps Zuko stand and they walk over to where Azula is tethered.

As Katara and Zuko watch with pained faces, Azula finally snaps, going from feral animal to bumbling crazy person.

AZULA: (WILD SCREAMS INTO PATHETIC BUMBLING AND CRYING)

(Emphasis is mine)

There’s a lot to unpack here—the way Bryke never sympathize with Azula’s pain and trauma here or even attempt to POV her internal dialogue for a sentence, the way their comparisons dehumanize her tragically human emotions, how the descriptions “feral animal” and “bumbling crazy person” are misogynistic, ableist, and horrific as fuck. But keep this all on hold as we take a step back and talk about Ozai.

One of the effects of reading Avatar scripts vs. watching the show was getting to read Zuko's confrontation with Ozai in DOBS line-by-line and recognize the psychological abuse patterns Ozai exhibits. For the most part, the audience sees Ozai’s physical abuse through the lens of Zuko's most traumatic experience—getting dueled, burned, and banished at thirteen for speaking out of turn—but we seldom get to see the ways Ozai works at Zuko psychologically  because of how little the two directly interact during the runtime of the show.

We get a hint of it here:

And can fill in the blanks based on how abysmal Zuko's self-image is. But, with the help of the direct script, Zuko’s confrontation with his father alone can tell us a lot about Ozai’s psychology—and the psychology of the environment Zuko and Azula were raised in.

Because of how it applies to The Abuse Event™, we already know that Ozai tends to threaten Zuko into submission. Ozai’s actions assert that “respect” is “do exactly what I say, no questions asked”, that Ozai (as their father) must be given “respect” or dangerous consequences lie on the horizon, and that any semblance of approval or positive affirmation can only be earned by being “respectful” and being “good enough” to live up to his exceeding expectations (more on this later):

“You will learn respect, and suffering will be your teacher.”

We see him employ the same style of direct intimidation at the start of Zuko’s confrontation:

ZUKO: In fact, he’s probably leading this very invasion — he could be on his way here right now.

FIRELORD OZAI: (ENRAGED SCREAM) Get out! Get out of my sight right now if you know what’s good for you.

Zuko doesn’t flinch.

ZUKO: That’s another thing — I’m not taking orders from you anymore.

Ozai gets up and moves toward Zuko aggressively.

OZAI: You will obey me, or this defiant breath will be your last…

Quick tangent; can I mention how gratifying that three-word stage direction is? Zuko doesn’t flinch. After his father’s enraged scream. And it’s equally gratifying to see Ozai’s temper rise for the first time as he realizes his threats have lost their grip.

After all, what abusers hate most is losing their control.

Anyway—let’s see what else we pick apart about Ozai’s behavior from this conversation. He cuts down on Zuko’s character in an effort to diminish him into doing exactly he wants:

FIRELORD OZAI: Coward! You think you’re brave enough to face me, but you’ll only do it during the eclipse. If you have any real courage you’ll stick around until the Sun comes out.”

And he sneers at Zuko’s sentiment about “peace and kindness” by deriding his brother:

FIRELORD OZAI: (LAUGHS DERISIVELY) Your uncle has gotten to you, hasn’t he?

ZUKO: Yes.

Zuko smiles.

ZUKO (cont’d): He has.

FIRELORD OZAI: (SCOWLS)

FIRELORD OZAI: Oh, that’s just beautiful, maybe he can pass down to you the ways of tea and failure.

So, Ozai does a couple of significant things in this last bit. For one, we see that he freely throws negative shade at other people and generally looks down upon others; these are tendencies we have seen both his children parrot at different times in the show. But he’s employing another narcissistic abuse tactic here—by speaking ill of Iroh and cutting down on his character, Ozai is trying to degrade Zuko’s trust in his uncle and thereby isolate Zuko from his support system. We can presume he’s done this countless times before because we have already seen his tactic work its magic. Earlier in the series, Zuko has little respect for Iroh despite being highly esteemed, and calls his uncle shallow, mistrustful, fat, and lazy countless times. He especially denigrates Iroh when he is trying to justify upholding his father’s demands over Iroh’s genuine advice. However, Zuko knows better now than to listen to his father’s persuasion, and we see Ozai’s true intentions when he scowls wordlessly at Zuko.

I don’t doubt that he has ridiculed others in his childrens’ lives in the exact same way—particularly Ursa. Perhaps this is why Azula’s relationship with her mother was as complicated as it was, or why she gravitated towards Ozai’s parenting and adopted her father’s views of their family well before her mother’s disappearance. And we know he speaks of Zuko in this way, because we have direct evidence of Ozai telling his other child that Zuko is a failure (and also commanding her on a task in the same breath—there is no mistaking the underlying threat behind this introductory scene).

And then finally, when all of these tactics cease to work—when he feels his control slipping—he jabs at Zuko’s deepest attachments to regain control over him via emotional blackmail. And relishes in getting to do so.

Zuko doesn’t turn around, he starts WALKING AWAY. The Firelord EASES back into his chair — he is confident in his next tactic.

FIRELORD OZAI: Don’t you want to know what happened to your mother?

I don’t doubt that Ozai has used these same tactics on his other child, Azula, to get her exactly where he wants her to be. Even if he was more prone to flattering Azula or she was more capable of living to his demands, she still lives under the exact same danger of conditional love that her brother had earlier in the season, and is likely terrified of the consequences of losing that approval (which is why she throws her “Avatar-slayer” title onto Zuko). And even if Azula never “had it as bad”, kids pick up on things and even if it isn’t you, there is always the fear that it could be.

Now, about Azula. (Click here)

#zuko #azula #atla #atla azula #tw: childhood trauma #atla ozai #avatar #atla meta #writing/criticism #anti bryke

[mun-of-orchid-and-friends]

In deciding to try and draw the warden I inadvertently created new characters 😅 they still don't have names but let me introduce you to my Warden, blind illager, and half blind villager...

Under the cut to save room

I wanted to put my own spin on the Warden because I've noticed a few artists who do very well renditions of them... In the end I went with a default dragon style, sort of, for the warden... If you had seen my older artwork (I mean MUCH OLDER) then you would notice that I have a particular style when it comes to drawing animals 😑

Not too good but not too terrible either more of meh...

But I didn't want him to be left alone, so I thought it'd be neat for him to take in a blind illager as a pet... Where as she thinks he is the pet (language barrier 🚧)...

Then as usual, I had to add a half blind villager into the mix... Again, the warden adopts him too as a pet where the Villager thinks the opposite. The Villager thinks he basically is caring for two blind beings...

They still technically don't have names but they do have a bit of backstory;

The warden shares his territory with his older brother, who is the dominant one. Eventually, when he adopts the blind illager his brother forces him to make a choice; get rid of his new pet or leave the territory... It's obvious he chooses the ladder to keep his pet. Eventually the warden and his new pet come across another similar to her kind except somewhat different. He starts to think that maybe he can adopt both of them as his pets and then he could show others that hurry up that would be so bad... Maybe eventually he can come across one that can speak the language of his pets and maybe he can learn from them how to communicate... Maybe one day~

++++++++

The blind illager was not always blind. She did have poor vision when she was able to see, but in a duel with another Evoker... He blinded her purposely for his plans. After being blinded she understood what his plan was and ran through the cave system close by the mansion, blind and scared, to get away from it all. She ended up coming across the warden's territory and the warden himself took it like him to her... She then wondered if she could tame it and make it a loyal Ally, or in the very least a loyal pet. From the warden she learned that her blindness was not really a weakness but something that she could easily overcome. When she comes across a stubborn villager she realizes that he still has his vision, if only half of it. However she doesn't fully know he's a villager (until he tells her) as not being able to see and they're kind being too similar other than a few features, she thinks of him as another Ally, although a stubborn one, an additional Ally nonetheless... She starts to fall for him until he finally admits that he is a villager, and now she is torn from what she was raised to pillage from them to getting to know one. She keeps the feelings to herself until she can sort it out...

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

The Villager lost part of his eyesight in his early years of mining after running into some skeletons. In his current age he is the foreman of the mining team but due to a freak accident ends up losing his team and getting lost. Believing that the survivors have pretty much claimed him dead, he decided that if he ever made it out he would let them know that he was alive and well. During his job he takes safety very seriously, trying to teach the younger generation of new minors to always be on the lookout. Eventually he came across the blind illager and the warden... believing that they need his assistance to get out. In reality it was the other way around, he needed them....

#new MC OCs #new minecraft ocs #minecraft warden #minecraft villager #minecraft illager #just some fun

[blorbo-adoption-poll]

Adoption poll preliminary match 11

Chazz Princeton (Yu-Gi-Oh! GX)

Ciel Phantomhive (Black Butler)

Killua Zoldyck (Hunter x Hunter)

Only two will move on

Propaganda under the cut

Chazz Princeton (Yu-Gi-Oh! GX) Propaganda

Going into parental situation first, he has neither Mother Nor Father and lives with his adult older brothers. They are horrendously rich and the respective "Rulers" of the political and financial world, wanting Chazz to be the Ruler of the dueling world so the Princeton family can achieve world domination, Chazz is the only one out of them that actually knows how to play and I cannot stress enough how utterly important this Card Game is In-Universe. His attitude reflects his social standing well, he looks down on other people and cards, behaving haughty and arrogant, acting as the rival and antagonist for the first few episodes. He starts off using very powerful cards with high Attack and such, being in possesion of them through his wealth. It doesn't take very long to realize that he isn't exactly as confident as he presents himself.

His brothers are undoubtedly emotionally abusive, plainly seen in how they interact with him whenever they're present, pressuring him to the extent that losing horrifies him so much he resorts to throwing someones cards into the ocean to cheat a win, crying and talking to himself in a bathroom before a Duel and simply straight up taking a boat and running away to the North Pole. He ends up disowned anyway.

His favouring of powerful cards turns out to be from his brothers as well as they before a Duel that they decide to broadcast by the way, try to give him an incredibly powerful deck, thinking he wouldn't win otherwise, they make winning a necessity to him. At this point he refuses, wanting to win using his own deck, the cards he got at North Academy, the school he ended up at when he fled.

When Chazz loses one of them grabs him by the front of his shirt and lifts him up though it is unclear wether they are generally physically abusive.

Eventually he ends up beating one of them who's playing the Deck he refused to use in a Duel with monsters that all have an incredibly low attack.

Plus, their dub names are Slade and Jagger, no one called that should be allowed to raise anyone.

Chazz is all around an incredibly great character. He's angry all the time, he is haunted by the worlds most annoying freaks that love him so much, he rallies an audience behind him with ease and the chant of "Chazz It Up", he does not wash his clothes at all and they smell so bad. He wrote a poem once.

I fail to bring justice for the Chazz, but he is simply a little jackass with a horrendous family situation.

(Also he was disowned after the duel)

Ciel Phantomhive (Black Butler) Propaganda

he's tormented and the entire story feels precluded by his eventual death because his soul is already sold to a demon at the start of the series. this guy is like 13 or something and he is fated to have his soul taken from him. which i personally see as a nice metaphorical parallel to the "default" response to severe traumas being eventual death and doom. staying alive is an active struggle and work of will. i propose we kill the demon he's indebted to and give this kid a safe comfortable place to start recovering from everything he's been though. please

Killua Zoldyck (Hunter x Hunter) Propaganda

Boy does not deserve to be with his abusive assassin family so I shall take him in as my own.

#tournament poll #adoption poll #chazz princeton #yugioh #yugioh gx #ciel phantomhive #black butler #killua zoldyck #hunter x hunter

[spaghettiwench]

Lucy as the Golden Blade AU headcanons because the comic I did for it a little bit ago started gaining some traction. Please enjoy some of the thoughts I had while drawing it:

-Lucy joins up with Fittes after the Screaming Staircase and becomes the apprentice of the Golden Blade after Penelope realizes how strong of a Listener she is.

-Lucy leaves for Fittes in part because she wants to keep her promise to Norrie in becoming one of the best agents in the business and in part because she doesn’t want to lose a team that she truly cares about all over again.

-She refuses to wear the Fittes uniform but finds herself wearing gray more often than not (sometimes she’ll wear splashes of blue because she really likes the color)

-Gale pushes her to her breaking point when it comes to both rapier skills and her psychic abilities, making her incredibly powerful and skilled with a blade by the time she crosses paths with Lockwood and co again.

-Lucy and Gale do not like each other in the slightest. Gale is annoyed that he gets stuck training some snot nosed brat and Lucy is pissed because no matter how hard she works she is never up to his standards. Nonetheless he trains her and she shows up every single day because she would never give him the satisfaction of thinking that she’s hiding from him or not up to the challenge.

-I like to think she volunteers for jobs where she might be able to run into George and Lockwood again. Not because they’re friends (of course not they’re sworn enemies at best) but because she likes to bait them.

-Also she finds that Lockwood is a fantastic sparring partner and keeps a detailed count on who wins what battles. She keeps a tally in the inner cover of one of her sketchbooks.

-The night at Winkmans warehouse both Gale and Lucy were in attendance but only Lucy ends up catching up with Lockwood and dueling him. Lucy holds that over Gale's head for months, accusing him of losing his touch because of his cripplingly old age. He never fails to remind her that even though she caught Lockwood she didn’t manage to actually beat him.

-She uses that point as a reason to push herself even harder at rapier practice, she’s determined not to be bested by him again.

-Lucy will never admit it but she looks forward to her confrontations with the small agency. Going out of her way to keep up with their cases in the papers and magazines. Deep down she likes them and remembers their friendship from when she first arrived in London. Secretly she believes she owes them for being a stepping stone in her success, and she never stops feeling guilty for leaving them behind in the way that she did.

-The more she crosses paths with Lockwood and George the more she starts to regret abandoning them for Fittes.

SPOILERS FOR HOLLOW BOY/CREEPING SHADOW/EMPTY GRAVE PAST THIS POINT

-Lucy meets up with Lockwood and co again when they go and visit Chelsea for the mass haunting. Fittes even has her working on the case so she gets lumped in with Kipps and his team.

-The chase at the parade is basically the same except instead of Lockwood and Lucy helping each other out they’re determined to see who can catch up to the attacker first. It ends with them pulling out the rapiers by the river, almost coming to blows before they’re found by other people.

-Lucy goes with Kipps to Aickmeres and it ends up playing out the same exact way. Lucy gets teamed up with Holly, the two argue, Lucy ends up saving Holly before herself and falling down into the old prison. She still sees Lockwood as the Fetch and he still comes down after her. So when he offers her a job, to come back to Lockwood and Co, to be part of a real team again, she has to refuse. It breaks both of their hearts when she does it.

-Okay this is where I start to deviate from cannon a bit more so bare with me

-Lucy has no idea that Fittes and Rotwell are opening spirit gates, at the end of the black winter is when Penelope finally trusts her enough to let her in on the secret

-Lucy is obviously horrified by the idea and runs away. She has nowhere else to go other than to the one place she knows is safe. The only place that might offer to take her in, and runs off to Portland Row.

-Of course they take her in and after the Creeping Shadow case she officially becomes the newest member of Lockwood and Co.

-Absolutely flips her shit when the skull starts talking to her when she first moves in

#lockwood and co #lockwood & co #lucy carlyle #anthony lockwood #george karim #george cubbins #holly munro #quill kipps #the empty grave #the hollow boy #the creeping shadow #the screaming staircase #the whispering skull #the golden blade

[izosdualpistols]

Zoro and The Smile He "Lost"

If I hear another fan say "Zoro lost his smile" I might actually explode and combust into flames.

I'm convinced most OP fans are either illiterate, in denial, or a mix of both. I am speaking from experience as I have argued with the "Yamato is not trans" bros.

It sometimes have me thinking that they've never read shit and just saw clips off tiktok.

OKAY. Zoro.

The man who has gaslit the entire fandom into thinking three sword style is cool - HEY! Don't run to comment something about this yet. You know full well biting down on a sword is ridiculous and if you did that in real life you'd get a fat disapproval from your fiancé's father.

That aside, I have to put it out here that Zoro is not the "I hate the world and I will slash everything" edgelord the majority of the no-brainer OP fandom takes him to be.

He's more than that and I'm here to prove it to you all.

-

It physically hurts to type this out but here is the wicked statement many fans believe to be true:

"Zoro would kill a crew member under Luffy's order."

This is where we point and laugh.

What I feel like most fans fail to understand is that Zoro is not some mindless minion that would do everything Luffy tells him to do.

Yes, Luffy is his captain, but that doesn't take away the right for Zoro to think for himself. He is able to speak and mind and lay out his opinions.

This is evident in Water 7 during the scene when Zoro finds out that Usopp wants to rejoin the crew after that harsh duel between him and Luffy.

His whole speech about "respect" was not there just for show. It gave us one of Zoro's beliefs and solidified his character even more.

-

Assuming we have that out of the way, it's time we finally get to the main topic. The topic that had me stressing ever since the discovery of it.

"Zoro lost his smile"

Don't get me wrong - I'm not encouraging emotionless jock boy Zoro. Never. But the term "lost his smile" is just so... off putting?

Zoro didn't lose his smile. He never did. Yes, we see more of his smirks and flashy evil grins than big laughs and soft smiles, but that doesn't mean he went Yaeger mode and is plotting to nuke 80% of the population.

No, no, no. Zoro is none of that!

Trust me when I say he's not gone emotionless. If we're talking about absence of emotions, we should be more worried about Sanji as a matter of fact.

Many people say he has started to be less expressive ever since his duel with Mihawk at the Baratie, so we'll start from there.

Through the duel's outcome, he comes to realize and experience for himself that the gap between his current self and the greatest swordsman is beyond far.

Not only was this a declaration of his loyalty for Luffy, but also a promise to his captain and himself.

He has set his goals straight and is now training everyday just to get even an inch closer to that title as the greatest swordsman.

He has set those standards for himself so he can have a clearer visualization of his end goal.

So when he lost to Kuma in Sabaody, not only did he break his promise, he has once again realized that gap between him and the New World. That is why he gets on his knees and begs Mihawk to train him.

The crew's separation had a big impact on Zoro, and so did the news of Ace's death (Once again realizing he wasn't strong enough back in Sabaody). So for 2 whole years, he has trained to get stronger - kicking his standards up a notch.

This flat out tells us why he delivered this line below:

"Get a grip", "This is just the beginning of New World"

Out of context, it sounds like an asshole thing to say. But if we take the reason why was so upset over Luffy letting his guard down around Ceasar (and losing once), they are words of concern in a way.

Zoro does not want the Sabaody incident to happen again. Being helpless under an opponent is the last thing Zoro wants. With this, we learn that he is not willing to let those 2 years go to waste.

His obsession with strength comes from his ambition - and his ambition is tied to Luffy's.

Zoro is a treasured member of the Straw Hats. Meaning he is aboard Sunny, under his captain, and sharing Luffy's dream. He's onboard it all.

We also get a little bit of insight on Zoro's character through Sanji, who says:

And he is absolutely correct. But Zoro is tough on himself for his ambition. He is pushing himself to be a man worthy of being the King of Pirates's right hand man.

Thus, realizing the importance his ambition and Luffy's ambition holds, this is the way Zoro becomes stronger. We are seeing Zoro, as one of the main fighters, stabilize the crew like the pillar he is - not going "emotionless" or "losing his smile" at that.

-

What a lovely post about Zoro I made. I just stated the obvious but SOME people just don't get it you know.. I am fending off any hardcore Zoro fanboys so get behind me.

#one piece #zoro #roronoa zoro #water 7 #punk hazard

[therosefrontier]

@badthingshappenbingo

Title: It Doesn't Take Much (to Cover Up Small Cuts)

Fandom: Twisted Wonderland

Prompt: Lacerations

Characters: Cater (main POV), Trey (gets a brief POV), Riddle

Placement: canon present, somewhere in the middle of the school year well after Book 1 territory, no time in particular

Word Count: 5625

(crossposted to AO3)

+++

It didn’t take long after Cater started his freshman year at NRC to learn that his school had just a slight bit of a fighting problem. Despite all of the school’s rules (and all of Heartslabyul’s), people still had a habit of getting testy with each other, the freshies especially. It was just par for the course, probably. The school was full of strong mages with big egos to match, and sometimes, they resolved their problems in a school-sanctioned way, like a duel (which was still technically fighting) or a sports game like Spelldrive, but at other times, people just kind of went off the rails.

Cater was usually pretty good at staying out of it when there was trouble, or skillfully ignoring it when other people were mad at him, and he was also pretty good at shoving his own opinions and wants out the window to make peace and keep everyone happy, so he never really got into any fights himself (unless he counted Riddle’s overblot…or Leona’s). However, he was the guy to go to when angry people needed to talk things out. All he had to do with disarm them with some lighthearted words and make them realize that fighting just wasn’t worth it. He had to do this a surprisingly high number of times last year, both when mediating between two people having your average everyday argument and when talking down his dormmates from going to war with Riddle. Sometimes, they’d be having an argument because they’d be tossing blame over some infraction on each other out of fear of Riddle, and admittedly, Cater would oftentimes slickly throw the fear of their housewarden right back at them, letting them know that he’d be totes mad if they got into a fight, which was way more mad than he would be over them eating a hamburger on the wrong day of the week or something.

Things were different now, though, so with Heartslabyul on their rocky way to putting all the drama behind them, Cater would try not to use the fear-of-Riddle tactic quite so often, even if it was sometimes still applicable. Riddle was doing way better and Cater wanted to respect that. That said, he wasn’t afraid of Riddle losing it on their dormmates over a few random Queen of Hearts rules, but he would absolutely be red-face-mad if he caught his dorm members in a brawl.

So basically, as much as he really would love to have Riddle or Trey with him right now for backup, Cater figured the best play for today would be to just resolve this problem on his own, nice and easy, no fireworks necessary. Whatever was going on exactly.

“Come on, this way!”

Then again, Bura did sound kind of panicked, so maybe Cater had a few fireworks in store for him once he saw the damage. When Bura found him in the lounge, Cater got only a few reassuring words in before his dormmate grabbed his hand and started emphatically leading the way. However, he was also a freshman, so he might just be freaked out just over seeing his dormmates fight at all. The brawlers in question were also freshmen, which meant that their magical ability was probably not that strong yet, so really, how bad could it be? 

Bad. Very bad. He was absolutely fooling himself when he let himself believe that it wouldn’t be.

“Cater-senpai, there you are! Micah’s lost it! You have to do something!”

“We can’t get in even if we try! My fire spells are useless!”

“Are you kidding!? Micah almost stabbed me! I’m not going anywhere near whatever they’re doing in there! Cater, is Trey around?”

“Micah and Seven are going to kill each other!”

Yeah, very bad. “Whoa, whoa, slow down. What happened?” Cater asked, trying to keep calm as he surveyed the complete and utter mess that was their dorm’s rose garden—which is to say, the garden looked like it belonged in Diasomnia, not Heartslabyul. An absurdly high wall of haphazardly crisscrossed thorny vines dotted with dark-colored roses stood in between him and the two students who were fighting, and the vines were moving. Their ends swayed this way and that like kelp in the ocean, and Cater had a feeling that trying to get near them would not be a fun time. Although he couldn’t see the fight, he could definitely hear it—the distinct clamor of spells getting traded back and forth, and also, even on this side of the wall, there was debris everywhere.

Yeah, no smoothing this one over. Riddle was going to flip.

“Micah unlocked his signature spell just a few days ago,” Bura explained, his voice still shaking. “He called it, uh, Cut the Deck, or something? It’s the thorn wall thing! That’s him! He used it to divide the space between him and Seven and the rest of us! It’s just…it wasn’t nearly this big when he did it before…”

“It wasn’t?” Cater echoed, his voice hitching with a small beat of panic. He couldn’t help but think that this could be the beginnings of an overblot if he was showing some insane display of magic…it wouldn’t be the first time that happened in this garden. Even now his traitor mind would not stop flashing back to the day it happened to Riddle, when he uprooted half the rosebushes and raised them into the sky like projectiles without breaking a sweat, with Cater stuck standing there for a second with his heart stopped in panic, wanting to run but knowing he wouldn’t, realizing just how badly this could go, the reality sinking in that Riddle might even die…

At least then, Cater wasn’t alone. Right now, there was no banking on help from these guys who called him here; they were way too freaked out. Cater had to just go in there and handle it himself. He told himself that it would be fine. This probably wasn’t an overblot; at least, not yet it wasn’t. It was just a couple of freshies in an argument, one of them fresh off of discovering his signature spell (which would be really cool, if he didn’t have to be the one to, well, deal with it).

“I mean…no worries! Cay-Cay’s got this!” he assured with a smile. “Everyone just stay back, okay? Keep as far away as you can. Wouldn’t want to get in the crossfire of all that, right?”

The underclassmen assembled there didn’t object in the slightest. “O-Okay. Be careful!”

Yeah, let them get to safety. While they ran, Cater shot a quick text to Trey and Riddle, knowing that things could get dicey. He knew that they weren’t exactly in the dorm right now, so he wasn’t going to delay this waiting for them, but he’d let them know so they could do damage control once they were free to come back.

>>>Hey guys!! no rush but two freshies are fighting in the dorm garden and it’s totes a mess in here lol. im gonna break it up now. catch u later! bye~!

Alright, time to do things. So much for his lazy afternoon. With a heavy sigh, Cater cast a protective shield around himself and got closer. As expected, the thorns shot towards him when he did, as if they were trying to push him back. He was curious about how the spell worked. Were the thorns directly connected to the spell, or was it mirroring the rose garden? Or was it transforming the bushes, even? Well, whatever. They could figure that out later. Right now, he tentatively cast fire magic towards the wall, noticing how it did burn, but new vines grew instantly in its place. Looked like he was just going to have to sweep a wide area, throwing a lot of power into the spell at once, and then dash in while he could.

Lucky for him, that worked. Next up, talking down the freshies.

“I CAN’T BELIEVE YOU! You blame me for everything!”

“Well I’m not the one DESTROYING THE DAMN GARDEN! Who cares about the color of the roses now!?”

Oh boy, this was going to be fun. “Hey!” Cater dodged the splash of a water spell and shouted towards the two brawlers to get their attention. “Hold up!”

“Wha—Cater-senpai!?” Micah’s eyes went wide, and he stopped for a second.

“Haha, in the flesh! Soo…wanna talk about what’s up? Because everyone out there is getting worried about you guys, you know.”

“He started it!” Micah shot an accusatory finger towards Seven. “He was messing up our job on purpose, and now half the roses are green, for crying out loud! I’ve had enough of him!”

“I’m trying! You’re the one who keeps flying off the handle! You making me nervous is what’s messing me up! What are you, the housewarden!?”

“It’s not my fault! You’re just always like this! Even back home you kept getting me in trouble! Like back in Ms. Vira’s class when—”

“You’re really going to keep bringing up what happened in the SIXTH GRADE!?”

Oh. Oh no. They knew each other. “Hey, hey, don’t worry about it, ‘kay? If you need to learn how to paint the roses, Cay-Cay’s got you covered!”

“Who cares about that!?” Micah spat back. “I’m not stopping until he apologizes!”

“As if! You’re the one who keeps turning everything into a fight!”

“Stop blaming me for your problems! I’m sick of it!”

Well, there was one attempt failed. Cross that one off the list. Cater took in a silent deep breath. “Alright, we’ll start with that, then!” he spoke to them both, making sure to stay both calm and upbeat. He knew he wasn’t going to get anywhere by getting upset at them or acting panicked at all. “You guys obviously got some stuff you need to talk about, right? So, let’s talk!”

“Tsk, I have nothing to say to him!” Micah shot back, but Cater stayed unfazed.

“Well, for starters, what do you want Seven to apologize for?” He got the picture of what just happened a little bit already, but it tended to help to get someone to talk through everything in their own words.

“For ruining my life on purpose, that’s what!”

“Whoops, that’s a little bit vague, don’t you think?” Cater interjected before a very offended Seven could shoot back. “It’s super cool that you two knew each other in middle school, but how about let’s just start with what happened right now? Were you trying to paint the roses together?”

“Yeah, we were supposed to change them half red and half white today,” Seven explained. “Us and our other two roommates. Only problem is, we’re kind of both bad at the color-changing spell. I was trying to help Micah with his part, but he got upset when I did it wrong.”

“H-Hey! That’s not what happened at all! You’re the one who couldn’t do the damn spell!” Micah insisted. “It’s just…can you just slow down, for just a minute? For once?”

“Ergh…fine,” Seven huffed, and Cater felt a tiny bit at relief. Maybe now they’ll simmer down. “I get it. I’m figuring this out too. But you’ve been acting weird all week, you know that? What’s your deal?”

“H-Hey, don’t throw this back on me! I’m just trying to do everything right. With…school and stuff. And I could do better if only you didn’t keep messing up tasks and making me look bad!”

“HEY! I’m not making you look bad! You’re doing that on your own! I was helping, remember!?”

“NO YOU WEREN’T! You were mocking me! You never listen to a single word I say!”

“WHAT!? That’s not true at all!”

“Hey, hey, no need to get worked up, ‘kay?” Cater interjected quickly with an easy smile, trying to tone them back down since Micah and Seven were getting red-faced again. “The roses aren’t that big of a deal. Point is that you learn, alright? Believe me, just about everyone has problems starting out. No need to start a fight over it!”

“No need?” Micah echoed, his eyes narrowing even harder, his seething even stronger. Cater got a bad, bad feeling in the pit of his stomach. This wasn’t working. For a moment, he thought he had a bit of progress, but that wasn’t the case. He failed to say the right thing…

“’No need to start a fight,’ is that it!?” Micah repeated again, magic gathering in his hands once more. “You’re all the same—ALL OF YOU! Everything that happens, I’m just supposed to take it! Is that how this works!? Don’t start a fight, they said. It’s not a big deal. Well, it’s a big deal to me, okay!? Why can’t anyone just listen to me, just once!?”

“Micah-chan…”

“JUST GET OUT OF HERE! CUT THE DECK!”

In an instant, a wall of thorns shot up between them.

Cater jumped back quickly, eyes shooting open as wide as saucers as he narrowed avoided getting slashed by the briars. He noticed now how the spell really did seem to be shaping the garden around them, using the bushes as well as the debris as a starting point for the wall. He could probably make the wall out of other things, too. Cater was sure he’d get a chance to learn soon enough…but of course, that spell was only going to be bad news for him—for all of them, actually.

Micah was making a bubble around himself, rapidly creating walls by the second, yelling incomprehensibly all the while. Regretfully, Cater realized that words might not be enough to get through to him, at this point. He was going to have to use magic just to get him to stop. He looked back to see Seven backing off, looking scared and suddenly lacking the fire he had a minute ago, and he decided that this was his chance to get him out of here.

Cater split himself and sent a copy after Seven, who told him that they had to leave, and Seven didn’t argue. They ran off, and Micah noticed.

“HEY! GET BACK HERE, YOU—”

Cater stopped him in his tracks, throwing up a defensive shield through midair to block the bolts of void magic he tried to send towards Seven and Cater #2. His expression was grim now as Micah turned his attention on him. Cater tensed up, looking at the freshie’s face and half-expecting streams of blot like tears to be falling from his eyes, but gratefully, that wasn’t the case. He was probably accumulating a ton of blot right now, but he wasn’t in an overblot…yet.

Cater split himself again and went after him from either side. He was attacked by thorns the entire time—they seemed to reach for him wherever he turned, and also, Micah wouldn’t stop using his spell to get him away.

“CUT THE DECK!”

Cater winced as the thorns shot up and made quick, shallow cuts through skin. He jumped back and felt hot blood drip down his forearms that he held up to protect his face. He had to do something…

“Micah!” he yelled. “You’re going to hurt yourself! Please, you gotta—”

“Stop it! You don’t know how I feel! You…you would NEVER know…”

Thorny vines kept flying this way and that. It was impossible to dodge and block it all. When Cater threw up a shield around himself, more vines sprung up from the ground beneath him. He kept considering using strong magic to fight back, but he would never deescalate this like that. At least, he didn’t think that would work, right? He couldn’t risk making this about him, which is what would happen if he started fighting back seriously…

“MICAH!” Cater, or rather, a likeness of Cater, got through the bubble, allowed to do so by the real Cater using fire continuously to make a path for him. He reached in and grabbed the freshman’s wrists with a very mild stun spell, even to make him drop everything for just a moment, even as he wriggled out of his grasp.

“Y-You…you…”

“It’s okay that you’re mad,” the other Cater said, the original providing mental prompts. “It’s tough to feel overlooked. I don’t know what happened in the past, and you don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to, but when I said we could talk, I meant it, okay? I’m not going to hurt you. I won’t talk over you, either. So, let’s just take a moment to breathe, alright?”

+++

The rose garden was an absolute mess.

Trey let out a long sigh as he dutifully surveyed the damage, noting the torn-apart rosebushes and heavy debris littering the upturned grass and dirt. Believe it or not, this wasn’t the first time something like this has happened in this garden, although it may be one of the worse episodes. Sometimes, the chaos would be an accident courtesy of mage students still learning magic, and other times, it would be a fight. Things would get heated between the students, and unsurprisingly, the roses would be quick to become collateral damage. Like today.

(At least, this didn’t hold a candle to the state of the garden after Riddle’s overblot…)

The two freshmen who got in the fight had been retrieved and were being quickly escorted by Riddle to the infirmary, who definitely was irate and had an earful for both of them, and a couple other upperclassmen were asked to tag along and help. Riddle asked Trey to check on things here, and specifically, to check on Cater.

Cater, who at this moment was nowhere to be seen.

“Where’s Cater?” Trey asked one of the freshman onlookers, one of the roommates of the two who had been in the fight, who still looked very shaken up but lingered around the area anyways. There were a lot of people watching, actually, but they kept a very large distance as if nervous. Actually…no, it probably wasn’t nervousness at all, at this point. They likely were just curious but didn’t want to get saddled with the cleanup work…

“U-Uh, I don’t know, he—”

“He’s right here!”

Trey turned around quickly to see Cater running to them from around the corner, looking perfectly fine and flashing his signature peace sign with a smile. “Thanks for coming, Trey! I’m guessing Riddle took care of the rest?”

“Y-Yes…” Trey answered with hesitation. “He’s taking them to the infirmary. Is everything alright with you?”

“Yep! This was a mess, for sure, but at least they’re both fine. Well, mostly. I’m just exhausted, so, I’ll head back to the dorm in a minute. You can take care of everything from here, right?”

“I can.” Trey gave a short nod, frowning.

“Alright, good to hear! I’ll see you later, Trey!” Cater waved before running off again, and Trey watched him silently, a bad feeling settling into the pit of his stomach for one simple reason.

That wasn’t Cater.

“Ugh, he’s not going to help with the cleanup at all, is he?” the freshman groaned with a sour expression. “Can’t believe he just left you in the dust like that, Clover-senpai…”

“It’s fine,” he said evenly. “Cater had to deal with a lot on his own already, and also, there’s no need to fix everything right away. Once they’re recovered, we’ll get Micah and Seven to do most of the work.” Of course, Trey could see himself playing chaperone in his future, as they couldn’t just leave the freshmen alone with this task when they didn’t know what they were doing, but none of that was important right now. “You can go back to the dorm, or wherever you were going to go next. There’s nothing to see here, for now.”

The freshman hurried off, after that. Trey took a deep breath and walked further into the rose garden, sliding himself out of sight of the crowd as he carefully stepped over the debris.

Cater’s copies were nearly identical to himself in appearance, so much so that many people could never tell the difference. Trey didn’t know the difference at the beginning, either, but now, it was hardly even a challenge—all he had to do was look at his eyes. The eyes of the clones had a hollowness to them that was unmistakable, albeit hard to put in words. To put it simply, they were empty. Dead, even. Trey has heard it said that the eyes were the ‘window to the soul,’ and he couldn’t say he knew any concrete scientific basis for that, but the simple eminence of an aura probably had something to do with it, so it would follow that one could tell whether the aura was present or not. Cater being linked to the copies of himself meant that they probably had some ‘aura’ present, but it likely wouldn’t be nearly as strong as it was with the original.

(Trey never said this observation out loud, but sometimes, he really wondered if he should, because it hurt when other people didn’t know. People called Cater shallow and superficial behind his back and in the same breath mention how ‘cold’ and ‘dead inside’ he looks all the time. Trey knew they were talking about the clones and didn’t know it…but then again, Trey would be a liar to say that the real Cater never looked almost the same way.)

Trey didn’t know why Cater tried to pose a clone as himself and insist that he was fine, only tired. Was it just that he had already left for his room to rest, so he sent a clone to do the running for him? It could easily be simply that, but Trey wanted to talk to him in person, if only to get his side of the story on what happened in full (and also, to make sure he was actually okay). Trey would look in Cater’s room next, but first, he would check around the garden, just to see if he was still here. He then remembered belatedly that calling him was an option, so he pulled out his phone while continuing to search.

Cater answered on the third ring.

“Hey, Trey…what’s up? Is everything alright over there?”

Oh no. No, no. Trey’s breath quickened. Cater’s voice sounded shaky. Tired, yes, but there was pain in there too, Trey was sure of it. He instinctively hurried up his efforts, running through the twists and turns of the maze-like garden to try to find him as soon as he could. “Cater! Are you alright? Where are you?”

“I’m…I’m fine, really.”

“Cater. Where are you?”

“I’m…” Cater hesitated, and Trey felt simultaneous a sense of dread and of pain at the realization. Cater didn’t want him there. He was trying to throw him off, and here Trey was, looking for him anyways. Was Trey overstepping? Would his presence do more harm than good? “I’m in the garden,” he said. “Uh, north side, near the yellow daisy plot. I’m in the bushes. I just…well…”

“Okay. Hang on.”

Trey found him not long after that. He was sitting hidden within an enclave of bushes, like he said, leaning back against the rocks, and…

And he looked terrible. Trey’s breath skipped for a bit when he got there, and Cater smiled back up him despite looking like he had been plunged through a pit of thorns, dragged back up, and pushed back down again. There were cuts all over his body, from head to toe: a gash on his cheek, a tear through his right arm that ripped through his dorm uniform jacket, numerous small lines crisscrossing both of his hands, holes and slices through his legs. It was a bloody mess from more lacerations than Trey could count at first glance, some of them deep enough to still be bleeding, and they had no discernible pattern in themselves, but the leaves and thorns sticking into his clothes gave a good indication as to what was the cause. Trey already got a brief picture of what happened with that fight…if he were to guess, this was the work of Micah’s newfound unique magic.

“Cater…”

“It looks worse than it is, really!” Cater blurted out quickly, his energy a good sign, but there was still a very distinct strain to his voice. Perhaps, some of the hoarseness was just due to breathing in all that dust and bits of grass, but still, it didn’t sound good. “I…healed myself a little bit, but I’m kind of on empty. I used my UM a ton just now, and…well, it takes a lot of juice out of me, you know…”

Trey was by his side in an instant, using a healing spell of his own to help mend the wounds, if only on a surface level. “We need to get you to the infirmary,” Trey decided. “But Cater, why didn’t you head there for yourself already? Why hide here?”

“I just…wanted some time to fix myself up first,” Cater admitted, sounding embarrassed as he said it. “It’s not really a big deal, though—just a bunch of small cuts. Getting scraped by thorns is not exactly an infirmary-worthy injury, you know?”

“If it was just a few scratches, yes, but this is all over, and some of them look really deep,” Trey pointed out, brows furrowed in concern. “Besides that, you’re bleeding. It’s worth a look by a professional. Look, I’ll take you there. Riddle already has the freshmen taken care of.”

“R-Right, thanks…” Cater still seemed hesitant, and Trey wasn’t sure what to do.

“Is something else wrong?”

“No, no! It’s just…please don’t make a big deal out of this, okay? It’s fine. I don’t want Riddle to freak out, or anyone else. I mean, Riddle’s probably mad enough as is…”

“It’ll be fine,” Trey assured, not certain what else to say besides that. “It’s not like Riddle would be upset at you. You know that, right? Just…Cater, why didn’t you tell me you were out here? Why strain yourself to make another clone…?” Maybe Trey was asking too many questions. Maybe he should just focus on healing and not be prying into his intentions. Or maybe…

“I…I don’t know. But…thanks for coming anyways, Trey.” Cater managed a weak smile.

With a heavy weight in his chest and also a bit of relief, as well, Trey gave a tired smile back.

+++

Cater didn’t know why he didn’t want them to see him like this. Maybe he was just too tired, or too nervous in a general sense. He also couldn’t think straight. His whole body felt like it was on fire, and his energy felt like it was being constantly wretched out of him with a siphon. Trey’s healing definitely helped, but he still felt like a limp noodle the moment he tried to stand up. So, Trey helped him, and eventually, he changed tactics and started carrying him instead, which was a little embarrassing, but he was grateful for it, too, especially since he was only getting more and more tired…

At some point, he conked out completely. He’s not sure when that happened, but he must have been out for a while, because when he woke up, he was on a bed in the infirmary, fully situated and comfortable with the doctors not even in the room at the moment being, but with the sensation of fresh bandages covering large patches of skin all over, his arms and hands especially. Besides that, he had been changed into a whole hospital gown in place of his torn-up and bloodied dorm uniform. He must have been a little worse off than he thought…

“Cater!” Riddle was in front of his face in an instant. “Are you alright!?”

Cater smiled up at the red-haired housewarden anxiously hovering over the side of his bed. “Yep, feeling great!” he said, and it was partially true, too. He felt way better now than he did earlier; he was just a little out of it still.

“Are you sure about that?” Trey countered weakly, shaking his head with a tired smile. “You had me a little worried when you passed out like that.”

“Yeah…sorry about that.”

“Hmph, I can’t believe the nerve of those freshmen!” Riddle seethed. “To think they would so brazenly attack you just for attempting to speak with them…”

“N-No, it’s not like that, really!” Cater insisted. “I wasn’t ‘attacked,’ per se, just caught in the crossfire, is all! Agh, it’s embarrassing, really. To think I would get knocked out by a freshie. Well, in my defense, I was kind of holding back on purpose, so there’s that, but… Yeah, anyways, where are they now?” Riddle was talking about them as if they weren’t here, but surely…

“They’re asleep,” Riddle answered, gesturing to the other side of the room. “I won’t wake them up now, but, well.” He huffed out a sharp sigh. “I apologize for not being there sooner. ‘Off with Your Head’ would have stopped Micah more quickly, surely…”

“Yeah, no worries. It’s on me for not deescalating things better,” he confessed.

“Hmph. It’s on you for not instilling more urgency in your text, that’s what,” Riddle countered, looking sour about it but dropping it. “Anyways, I’m glad you’re feeling better, if only marginally. Is there anything you need?”

“No thanks,” he said quickly, but then he changed his mind. “Uh, maybe water.”

Trey and Riddle stayed with him for a while. Cater wasn’t keeping track of the time, really. He told them the full story of what happened, all the while wishing he had a better story to tell. He should have been able to talk them down. He shouldn’t have let himself get hurt so bad. Even now, he felt worried, because he did get to talk to Micah, in the end, but…it was obvious he was going through a lot. He was tired and frustrated, and it wasn’t just because of Seven. It was because of his family, because of other ‘friends’ back home, because a whole bunch of unresolved feelings from the past, and he was at his breaking point. He felt like he could never get away from being blamed for every little thing, and so, he blamed Seven for landing him in situations that made him look bad. Even now that he was away from home, he was still being hounded by his parents, who were asking questions about what he was doing and had done without ever really hearing the answer.

(It was no reason to fly off at the handle, but Cater knew that it had to be tough, feeling alone in a crowd like that. Never being heard, never feeling secure enough to say anything in the first place. It was hard, coming to that realization that you were on your own and having to beat down the jealousy monster towards those people who weren’t. So, you just tried to put on a brave face, tried to prove to everyone that there was nothing wrong with you, not now, not ever…)

Cater didn’t know what all was going on, actually—it was a wonder Micah trusted him enough to tell him what little he did share, much less the whole thing—but he did know that it had literally next to nothing to do about those roses. It was never that simple, was it?

He didn’t share the details of what Micah said out of respect for privacy, but Trey and Riddle got the picture well enough. Cater then slid out of that topic as slickly as he could. He wanted to talk about anything else, and so, he somehow managed to bring up breakfast and ask enough questions about pancake preparation to get Trey on a cooking rant, to which Riddle also had opinions.

“Recipes are so aggravatingly vague in this manner,” Riddle vented just a little. “I would like to know the texture of the pancake I will be receiving, but I rarely get that unless ‘fluffy’ is in the pancake’s title, and in that case, I don’t know what ‘fluffy’ is supposed to mean, exactly. I’ve been trying new recipes ever since my time in the Culinary Crucible, but I don’t know if I’m making progress…”

“Ha, well, I’m always up for giving lessons, if you need it!” Trey offered, as he often would.

“Thank you, but I would like to learn this without adding to your workload.”

“You could also stop by more often to watch!” Cater suggested. “I like to join Trey sometimes to help out a little. It’s super relaxing!”

“That’s because you usually just sit at the bar and watch,” Trey pointed out lightheartedly. “You just stay for the food.”

“Ack, got me there!” And then Trey would use his signature spell on the samples, whenever Cater asked, so he could get just a few sweets turned savory, or Trey would make one of those special waffles with the nuts… “It’s just so much fun seeing you cook, you know!” He just liked to be there without a reason, sometimes. To just talk about things or slip into comfortable silence just as easily.

He kind of liked that about this right now, just being here. Not trying to accomplish anything for once. He was still dizzy, though. He also shouldn’t keep Riddle and Trey from their work or whatever else they had planned for today. Again, he really didn’t want to make a big deal of this… That said, awkward as it may be, he was kind of glad they came anyways.

#bad things happen bingo #prompt fic #twisted wonderland #cater diamond #nrc has just a smidge of a fighting problem #cater needs to talk about his feelings #when you're the unofficial third in command so now everyone expects you to deal with stuff #dealing with injury via magic firestorm #just another tuesday at nrc

[black-velvet-lady]

Reboot/Avatar comparison Pt 3

Link to Part 1

Link to Part 2

Enzo Matrix VS Zuko: The Scar

First a preface: I am tired and I’ll go over everything else later

Ah Matrix and Zuko, the faces that launched a thousand sexual awakenings. That’s not a joke that’s a fact. Either way its just the first thing they have in common.

I suppose I should start with the defining moment of what put them on the brooding scarred eyed protagonist path. For Zuko its the Episode the Storm, and we all know what happens in the Storm:

Gentle doe eyed pre-teen Zuko wants to get into the war chamber and his kind uncle lets him in under the promise that he keeps his big mouth shut or he’ll get in trouble. Zuko can’t help but open his mouth and he gets in trouble, ends up being sent to duel his dad and he begs forgiveness for the transgression.

And Iroh turns away cause he can’t watch.

Matrix requires a bit of wind up.

Unlike Zuko who’s whole defining moment is built up on a flashback that is told from an observer Matrix’s defining moment was over the course of 4 episodes. So this does give Matrix more to work off of. The arch is season 3 episodes 1 through to 4. To Mend and Defend, Between a Raccoon and a Hard Place, Firewall and Game Over.

Season 2 ended with Enzo the pre-teen of twelve to thirteen being given the guardian protocol by Bob and left as sole guardian after Megabyte threw him into the Web. Enzo takes up the position of guardian and to prove that they truly removed some of the kid’s gloves, even though our hero is now a kid, here’s the charred mangled corpse of Hexadecimal.

You’re welcome. This is episode 1 of season 3 by the way, we’re about to tumble down a rabbit hole. I am a glutton for punishment though so...

Dot, Enzo’s adult sister, doesn’t feel right leaving her little brother as the defender of the system, she quickly comes to the realization that the other citizens of Mainframe are not too confident about their defender being a kid either so she attempts to boost his confidence and support him. She still is protective of him though, after losing Bob, Enzo is the last member of her family. She has to be told as the command dot comm of the system she needs to remain in the principal office to monitor the situation with Megabyte.

With Enzo being used as a rally point, and Dot as the general they eventually manage to seal Megabyte behind a firewall. This was the only feasible way of dealing with the issue as Enzo was truly incapable of standing up to him one on one.

And just as Enzo was really starting to get skilled at winning games and containing Viruses a game dropped that he couldn’t win.

Immortal Konflict, a reference to fighting games like Soul Caliber, Street Fighter, and most importantly Mortal Kombat. The User in this game was Zaytan, a demon looking guy with goat legs flaming wings and a sword hand.

They even give him a finisher where he crushes the opponent’s skull in his hand. They even have the sounds played over AndrAIa’s horrified face.

So Enzo has to fight this guy. He’s even wining for a bit then the User gets frustrated and takes a swipe Enzo was not prepared for. Unlike when Zuko gets injured though, you see this. In all the gory detail.

Enzo on his last legs looks up at his immanent death, reaches over to his icon to switch it to game sprite mode to save his life. Then looks up in horror as gruesome demise descends upon him.

And Dot in the command centre unaware of her brother’s fate scrambles to get things prepared to bring him back.

The system voice says the user wins and the music falls away. Dot tenses up tightening as the news hits her. The camera holds on the subtle expressions of sorrow and dread that hit the mainframers as they all one by one look to Dot. And Dot once again is faced with the fact that she couldn’t protect the people closest to her.

Enzo meanwhile survived in game sprite mode and he resolved himself to change. To do away with the pathetic kid that couldn’t defend his dog,

His people

or even himself

And in spite of all that he still manages to do something Zuko never really did.

He self analysized.

His hatred is what drove him on, consuming him and turning him into the very mirror of the Virus that terrorized him. Self-interest leads him putting himself and his interests first draging his girlfriend and dog through the life and death scenarioes of the games facing injury or worse. Shame led him to removing the parts of himself he thought were weak, the very parts his hero Bob and his sister Dot knew him for. He wasn’t the weak defenseless little boy he once was, but what he is now, is not something to be proud of.

The tale of Zuko’s scar is deliberately meant to invoke sympathy and compassion for this brooding, aggressive teenager that reacts in violent manners to achieve his ends. Matrix’s turn though is that of a kid growing into a role before being spiked back into the earth before coming back with hellfire and brimstone.

#Reboot avatar comparison #enzo matrix #enzo reboot #reboot #Zuko ATLA #Zuko #Avatar The Last Airbender #atla #zuko avatar

[blueeyeswhitegarden]

Long time no see. Hope you've been doing alright, and that the new year is going well for you. There's something that's I've been thinking about, and that's the fandom's opinion on Leo Akaba. As you already know, he ain't a popular figure, even for the villains. The main issues people have with him are his motives, his actions that led to Z-arc getting revived, and he was easily forgiven. Now, all of these are understandable, but I think people might be getting bias with this one, and not the

-reasonable kind. Although I'm not properly educated on the Yu-Gi-Oh! Franchise as I would like to be yet, from what I've seen in other posts, is that yeah ARC-V might've dropped the ball with Leo, but he's still a good villain and that other YGO enemies had much more stupid "redemption" arcs than he did. It's not just with Leo and the villains. I'm starting to notice that whatever problems the fandom has with ARC-V, they're present in the other shows and are either just as bad or way worse.

Hi there. I'm doing fine. I hope that you've had a good start to the new year too. I knew that Leo Akaba wasn't one of the more popular villains and I was aware of some of the issues people had with him, but I'm a bit surprised that there were issues with his motives. Leo's motivations were perfectly fine. For most of the series, he was kept in the shadows. He, and by extension Academia, were a looming threat to the four dimensions, so you could still feel his presence even if he wasn't on screen that often. Finding out that he wasn't after power like I had assumed he was doing for years, but instead was trying to restore his daughter and the original world changed everything. He was a father lashing out in grief for his lost child. He wanted to restore what was lost by any means necessary. His desire to reunite with Ray arguably made him sympathetic, but the show never justified his actions. Reiji called him out multiple times during their duel that he was a bigger threat to the peace among the four dimensions than Zarc was, which was true. His actions were what led to Zarc's revival in the first place since without the Dimensional War, I don't think that the Dragon Boys would have been able to merge together. It was also extremely satisfying to see Reiji call Leo out, especially when some fans still thought that he was secretly evil or that he would team up with his father to fight against Yuya. That was one of Reiji's best moments in the series.

This motivation made Leo far more interesting than I thought he would be. It also explained why he had no problem attacking other Dimensions or brainwashing children for his personal army. He didn't see any of these dimensions or any of the people, including his own wife and son, as being real because they weren't from the original world. But from the audience's perspective, we couldn't agree with him since by this point, we had seen multiple characters from different dimensions. We had seen their different personalities and connections form to where we couldn't just dismiss them like he could just because they weren't from the original world. It also made sense in-universe for this reveal to happen this late in the series when Leo was the only survivor of the original world and would be the only one with memories of it.

I remember people being annoyed with how he basically had Yuri become a mini-Zarc, but I thought that was kind of the point. Leo was so focused on reviving Ray that nothing else mattered. He was too busy chasing after the ghost of his daughter that he didn't see the Bracelet girls as anything more than pieces of Ray. He didn't realize that Ray needed a vessel much like Zarc did to revive despite creating such advanced technology.

Now I didn't get the impression that he was easily forgiven exactly. Even Reiji letting go of his anger was less about forgiving his father and more like not being consumed by anger. He saved him after losing to Zarc, but I didn't think that meant he was forgiven either. Shun choosing to not punch Leo after he explained how wrong he was to take the Bracelet Girls away didn't mean that he was forgiven either. It would have been satisfying to see as the audience, but from Shun's perspective, he didn't do it because he didn't think that there would be a point to it if Yuto and Ruri were gone forever, which they weren't. Despite being with the cast in the finale, I don't see everyone, especially Reiji and Yuzu, happily interacting with Leo post canon is what I'm saying here. While Leo may not have gotten as much punishment for his actions as fans wanted, he still ultimately didn't really get anything either. Despite all of his efforts to revive Ray, he didn't get any semblance of closure or reunion with her. Ray was revived and helped to save the world again alongside Yuzu and Reira, but she was gone again afterwards. Abandoning his new family, carding countless innocent people and creating an army in Academia gave him exactly nothing in the end. All it did was make him nearly cause another universe destruction event and I think that was the wake up call he needed to finally understand that he was in the wrong. Honestly, Leo my second favorite Arc V villain next to Zarc himself.

Now forgiveness/redemption can be a difficult topic within fandom space in general, not just for Yu-Gi-Oh!, but I do think that the franchise have forgiven other villains for worse behavior. Marik attempted to murder Yugi and his friends multiple times before he was possessed. Yubel was a possessive and dangerous spirit even before the Light of Destruction affected them and despite being at least partly responsible for everything bad that happened during season three, they still effectively got what they wanted by merging with Judai. As a side note, I still think that Yubel is one of the most overrated villains of the franchise. Not one of the worst by any means, but I think that they're put on a bit too high of a pedestal. In term of father figures, I think both Dr. Faker and Revolver's father were much worse since their actions were glossed over, if not retconed entirely. At least Arc V didn't justify Leo's actions or try to downplay his actions like they did for those two. Not every Yu-Gi-Oh! series have the same problems, but plenty of issues some fans have with Arc V can be found in other series too.

#Arc V #Leo #Asks #Pendulum Answer

[writing-nebula]

Someone Else (Swapped Destinies)

Something wasn't right.

He'd spent years learning to tell when something was wrong, when a place was too loud or too quiet, when to avoid people and when it was okay to approach them, when he had too much attention. He knew when something was wrong, unsafe.

But this wasn't wrong, exactly. Just… different.

He didn't like it.

It had started the day after he finished the puzzle, and because of that he'd originally attributed it to sleep deprivation- it had been 4 am when he finally finished it, after all- but it was now the next day, and the strange feeling of something different had persisted.

Logically, he knew that whatever it was had to be related to the puzzle somehow, and so the way to stop it would be to just take it off.

…But when he'd put it on for the first time, it had felt so… normal.

The added weight should've thrown him off or at least been somewhat uncomfortable- but it wasn't.

Having something so large against his chest should've been obtrusive, getting in the way all the time- but it wasn't.

It felt like he'd been wearing it for years instead of barely two days, and for that reason alone, Seto couldn't bring himself to take it off. Things were so rarely familiar and not bad at the same time, he was reluctant to lose the feeling, even if it was also strange. 

He went to school, and it was the same as it always was. People talking about him behind his back, people talking about Yugi Muto even though he wasn't even in class today, half the students trying to secretly play duel monsters during class.

Joey Wheeler was being a constant bother as usual, trying to speak to him in every class they shared, following him in the hallways, challenging him to a duel every chance he got. As if beating him would be any kind of challenge, Wheeler couldn't duel his way out of a paper bag. 

But ever since he'd discovered that Seto used Blue-Eyes, he'd been practically begging for a chance to see it in action, no matter how many times he was refused. It was honestly becoming less irritating and more pathetic the longer it went on. 

At least it was getting easier to ignore. He had to give up eventually.

Finally, the last bell rang, and Seto was on autopilot as he stood up and briskly made his way through the halls, going through the mental list of strange things he'd noticed since he put on the puzzle. 

I've gotten incredibly brief dizzy spells, but there are quite a few other things that could be causing those. There's the strange familiarity with it, I still don't have an answer for that… Sometimes I feel as if someone is standing over my shoulder, but it isn't causing me any added anxiety, which makes that difficult to figure out as well. Perhaps I should ask Mokuba if he's-

"Seto?"

His brother's voice startled him out of his thoughts, and Seto blinked as he took in his surroundings, surprised to find himself by the gate already- he must've been more lost in his head than he realized.

Mokuba was looking at him with a worried little frown, so he tried to relax somewhat, nodding for them to start walking and just waiting for Mokuba to be ready. 

"Seto, you've been acting weird lately," Mokuba started purposefully, about two minutes into their walk home. "For a couple days now, ever since you finished that puzzle."

"Have I?" Seto questioned, genuinely curious what he'd noticed.

Maybe I should take the puzzle off, if it's been causing such obvious symptoms…

His brother nodded firmly and pulled a notepad from his bag, flipping to a specific page and scanning over a list of things before nodding.

"I've noticed times where you'll stop speaking in the middle of a sentence, look confused for a few seconds, then start talking again like you never stopped," he started reading off, "I've seen you stop walking and look around like you didn't know where you were, only seeming to recognize the place after a few seconds. Seven times I've seen you stumble out of nowhere, six times you've hit your head trying to look in somewhere you know you have to bend over for, and there have been… Fourteen times that you've reached for something and misjudged the distance, usually resulting in you knocking said thing over- and that's just from yesterday and this morning." Mokuba looked up at him again as he paused, his frown deeper this time. 

…Alright, now he could understand why Mokuba was worried. He'd noticed that he'd been a bit more clumsy, but hadn't chalked it up to anything serious- except apparently it was happening a lot more than he realized.

How could I just not notice these things happening? Have I been zoning out that often?

"And just now, in the courtyard!" Mokuba continued when Seto didn't reply, "you're always going on about how much that boy Joey annoys you, and you want him to leave you alone- but then today you exchange numbers with him out of nowhere! What's up with that?"

Seto stopped dead in his tracks, every thought process halting at once when he heard those words.

I didn't do that. I wouldn't do that, he's been nothing but a pest, I'd be happy to never hear that stupid accent again-

He fumbled to pull out his phone, barely hearing Mokuba still talking next to him, hardly even breathing as he navigated to his contacts-

I wouldn't exchange numbers with him, I would never-

But the name Joey Wheeler stared back at him, attached to a number he'd definitely never seen before.

"....I didn't do that," he mumbled to himself, blinking rapidly like that would somehow change what he was seeing, but the name and number remained, like they were silently taunting him. 

I didn't do that.

Seto shook his head sharply and shoved his phone back in his pocket, moving forward again without even acknowledging Mokuba.

But Mokuba saw it happen, this isn’t a case of Wheeler stealing my phone- not that he would've ever had the chance.

He saw it happen, but I have absolutely no memory of it happening- and I wouldn't have done it.

Without thinking, he reached up to grab the rope the puzzle was attached to- and he nearly froze up all over again.

…If I didn't do it, that means someone else did.

What the hell have I gotten myself into? 

#yugioh #yugioh dm #yugioh au #seto kaiba #joey wheeler #mokuba kaiba #yami yugi #my writing

[swiftletinthecloud]

Alchemy of Souls: Episodes 13-14

Picking up where we left off last week with Uk x Naksu/Mu Deok hug 🥺😍 The way that it’s a hug with Uk just completely wrapping himself around Naksu/Mu Deok to comfort her when she needed it ❤️

The way that Uk uses what he found out about the yin-yang jade to call on Go Won to be his savior 😆

Uk stepping in front of Naksu/Mu Deok to block her from Jin Mu’s view 😍

Jin Mu and the fake Queen not underestimating Uk but still underestimating him. Lol. although we’re going down a tricky path here with them trying to figure out why Uk changed and for whom so they can potentially use that person against him

Crown Prince Go Won not being an idiot and starting to suspect Jin Mu bc he noticed that “intruder” Uk had no sword but “innocent” Jin Mu did!

Uk taking Naksu/Mu Deok’s statement that she can not bear it if he dies as a reply to his love confession and more meaningful than her “I missed you”! Side note tho - him realizing this but then starts to have doubts AGAIN when he sees her smiling with Yul is annoying. Like seriously did we not have this insecurity last week as well? How can you be so confident and then so insecure at the same time! Uk better not have doubts again next week too after ending the ep 14 confident after realizing Naksu/Mu Deok had tried to keep him with her instead of going to his room/ Heo Yun Ok and got back her half of the yin yang jade

The way Naksu/Mu Deok got them out of Jin Mu’s place by begging them not to let Songrim take Uk bc they will severely punish him had me in stitches 🤣🤣🤣

Pls I’m so over Yul’s romantic scenes and him as a love rival. Go Won’s scenes are just better and he’s at least a more entertaining love rival even if he knows he has no chance against Uk for Mu Deok’s affections. Yul had like a summer of friendship and longing but since she’s been back, he said himself: the only person in Naksu/Mu Deok’s mind is Uk so get over yourself, Yul. The more ppl try to separate them, the more Uk and Naksu/Mu Deok will fight to be by each other’s side (unless Naksu/Mu Deok tried to be a Noble Idiot and leaves Uk to protect him. Don’t think she will do that. It’s not in her character but the way she was thinking that if she’s found out it would put Uk in danger have me a little worry)

I’m here for all the Master Lee - Uk scenes and Uk actually getting advices and cared for by a father-ish figure. Pls hopefully this won’t change or Master Lee turning out to be bad or something with his reveal of being a soul shifter at the end of episode 14

The Master Lee - Kim Do Ju - Park Jin love triangle! And Uk’s delivery of it to Master Lee and Park Jin is hilarious 😆 I’m really rooting for Master Lee here if he doesn’t turn out to be some evil manipulative mastermind. 🤞

In all seriousness I was not expecting Uk to lose his last duel even if it was against Yul. Especially with the emphasis on Uk finally being able to master Chisu before the duel. I mean I get why Uk didn’t since it might have been a bit cliché and the audience expecting it for him to defy expectations and win like he did in his duel with Go Won and the writers might have wanted to go against expectations but I still wanted Uk to win 😩

The fact that Naksu/Mu Deok searched night and day in the muddy water for her jade pendant 🥺🥺 Girl might not have said “I love you” verbally to him but she’s so in love with Uk. And then her running to him to show Uk she has her pendant again 🥺❤️ and her actually showing him the pendant after initially hiding it when she saw him laughing with Heo Yun Ok as a reply to his kiss 🥺 Also side note here that’s similar to the side note about Uk above. Like Naksu/Mu Deok, how can you doubt Uk’s romantic interest in you and said he doesn’t see you as a woman when he literally have just confessed a few days ago? I hope that after the kiss and pendant scene they’re now on the same page romantically and stop doubting each other’s interests.

Everyone wondering how Jin Mu plan on tricking the Jin Gate with the fake Jin Bu Yeon, I guess now we know how. I really just want a deserving amount of time spent to explore or a spin off of Jin Cho Yeon and Park Dang Gu being happy and exploring their characters. Like we can go so much deeper with Cho Yeon that we only see glimpses of sometimes of how she’s dealing with an absent father (who is now home but just using her and not really caring for her well-being ), a neglectful critical mother who only cares for her other daughter, and the shadow of her missing big sister. Same with Dang Gu who is so caring to those close to him (Cho Yeon, Yul, Uk, Mu Deok) but have only been used so far for comedic effect for the most part. And he’s heir to Songrim yet no one has been shown to take him seriously and he seems to also be in Yul’s shadow even with his uncle. Park Jin had involved Yul in the whole soul shifter business first over Dang Gu.

Ju Wol and the ferry guy both warn Naksu/Mu Deok that So Yi is dangerous and we know her presence can’t mean anything good for Naksu/Mu Deok, but I hope they defy expectations and team up at some point to go against Jin Mu, a man that used/is using them both.

I hate that Uk and now Naksu/Mu Deok have been forced into promising to do something for another party (Heo Yeom and Seo Yul) without them actually knowing what they promised to do.

Based on these two episodes I don’t think Naksu/Mu Deok will ever run wild bc if Master Lee is really also a soul shifter, we have a precedent of soul shifters being normal and not running wild or petrifying. Also if the ice stone is what keeps soul shifters from running wild then she’s also safe being in Mu Deok/ Bu Yeon’s body. Based on last week’s episode, it was implied that the ice stone was used to bring baby Bu Yeon back to life and maybe that causing her to sense energy and control the sky’s energy. And from what we see with Eunuch Kim, if the ice stone is removed, then the being goes back to being dead so that means the ice stone used to bring Bu Yeon back still has to be in her and that’s what’s keeping Naksu/Mu Deok from running wild since she already has the ice stone. And also there can be multiple ice stones maybe?

I get why Heo Yun Ok is introduced now as a way to get Master Lee and in turn Uk to the palace and led up to that reveal by Master Lee but that’s like so paper thin and she still so unnecessary/ wasted.

Looking forward to next week where Uk and Naksu/Mu Deok can tell everyone to shove it and fight to be by each other’s side.

#liveblogging #alchemy of souls #kdrama #naksu #jang uk #ship: my lake gyeongcheondaeho #mu deok #jin mu #go won #kim do ju #jin bu yeon #park dang gu #so yi #heo yeom #jin cho yeon #seo yul #park jin #master lee

[sixstepsaway]

Can't believe it occured to me only now that, of all the time he had to speak his mind plainly in the 3 days Edward spends moping in Stede's rooms, Izzy decides to do it only right after he called for Lucius to vent with, not for him! I'd bet my rear a thousand times over that nothing like that had ever happened before and he was so very afraid of losing his place by his side then, even more than when he thought Stede was the problem. If Lucius becomes his confidant, he'd be no longer of use 😨

God, yes.

When you think about it, the entire of season 1 is Ed unwittingly replacing Izzy with Stede and not realizing the effect that might have on Izzy!

Ed and Izzy have been companions, working side-by-side together for what's implied to be years, possibly even decades. And then Stede Bonnet shows up, and Stede is not even a good captain, and Ed is all, "Oh yeah, call me Ed, and we'll be co-captains!"

Like... in the context of the romance and the show, this is great and I love it, but from Izzy's point of view this is mind-numbingly baffling and probably quite insulting. Stede didn't even replace him as first mate, he jumped right over that rung on the ladder and became Ed's co-captain.

Ed says, "I need you here," and offers Izzy his own ship once Stede dies, but he doesn't kill Stede, and ends up co-captaining with Stede (and yes, the co-captain conversation doesn't happen until Izzy has already left the ship, but they're already showing being co-captains, and Ed has already repeatedly put Stede in charge of everyone and everything, so even without Izzy being privy to that explicit conversation, the context is very evident), and when Izzy challenges Stede to a duel and loses, the fact is that Ed probably could have overridden the rules of the duel as captain and had Izzy stay aboard.

But he didn't.

Because by then, he'd replaced all of Izzy's functions and place in his life with Stede, and Stede gets even more than Izzy ever did!

I'm gonna do a separate post about the timeline of the show because it's senseless and I want to pull some kind of logic from it, but Ed says in 1x09 that "These past few weeks have been the most fun I've had in ages, years, maybe ever," and he means the time he spent with Stede. If we take that at face value and forget how many full moons we've had on the show, it means that in, what, 2 weeks? Ed had totally replaced Izzy with Stede and changed his mind from "I need you here" to letting Izzy row off into the sunset in a dinghy.

But when Ed comes back at the end of 1x09, he says, "Izzy, I'll take tea in my room," both effectively putting Izzy back where he belongs and stopping them all from throwing Izzy into the ocean (which, he did not have to do, really. He could have said, "Lucius, when you're done with that, bring tea to my room," and that would've been implicit permission to yeet Izzy overboard).

So when a while later, Ed tells Izzy to have Lucius sent in, and confides in and talks to Lucius...

Yeah, I imagine Izzy lost his god damn mind about that because, frankly speaking, the odds of Izzy yet again being replaced are, at this point, pretty high, and it makes perfect sense he would see it that way.

I've also seen people suggest that Izzy can read and write (and I implicitly suggested it in my own semi-joke post that Jim and Stede's voiceovers are both their diary entries, in whatever capacity, and that implies that Izzy's voiceover at the start of 1x06 is also a diary entry), which would make the odds of Lucius being a replacement right hand even higher.

I think I'd blow up too.

#izzy hands #izzy hands meta #ofmd #ofmd meta #our flag means death #edward teach #ask #anonymous