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farthngdr · 3 years

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Some Thoughts on “Dead to Rights” by Radio Company

First, if you are not a Cockles truther, you should probably look away. My tinhat is so tight it hurts. Surgical removal has been deemed too risky and would probably result in my demise.

The comments here are entirely mine, as are the assumptions incorporated into my lyrics analysis about real-life people and their relationships. No disrespect is intended. Please do not contact Jensen, Misha, or Danneel about anything you read below, or about anything Cockles-related, because there is absolutely no evidence for anything I am saying here, and their lives are essentially unknown to us.

Thank you.

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She said It all will change If not it all can wait It may die away Over time But I do believe It's better than being alive It's better than being alive It's better than being-

Bombs away Only just begun You want to be the one to say you love The rain-

fall

When all the while the angels call; The only way to see just how it comes to be Every day To know it all falls away.

You had me dead to rights Holding down my chain; You had me dead to rights I got out again; Never been the same.

Song composed by Jensen Ackles and Steve Carlson

No official statement has ever been made by the two songwriters as to who wrote the lyrics, who wrote the music, or if words and/or music were composed by both. I am proceeding on the assumption that Jensen wrote the lyrics. He has mentioned writing lyric ideas on notepads (as shown in the above photo), and so indeed he gives much thought to his lyric-writing process.

In another track from Vol. 2, “City Grown Willow,” a song clearly written by himself, he uses “chain” imagery. Clearly, the concept of the chain resonates for him, whether the chain belongs to his lover, in “City Grown Willow,” or, as in this song, the chain is attached to himself, with the other end being held by the “she” he refers to throughout this lyric.

In addition, a close examination of other tracks by Radio Company share similar lyrical hallmarks as “Dead to Rights”: the invocation of a “she” in “City Grown Willow,” who I maintain is the same “she” as the one here, namely Danneel; “bombs away,” a metaphor for his emotional relationship with the “bomb,” i.e., Misha, recalls “cannonball, rise and fall,” from Vol. 1; other similar MC metaphors are the “fire” from “Jump into the Fire,” and “he stokes the flames ‘cause he is amused by the glow,” from “City Grown Willow.” Other JA lyrical hallmarks can be identified here as well.

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“’Dead to rights’ means having overwhelming evidence of someone's guilt, having irrefutable proof that someone is responsible for something. The idiom ‘dead to rights’ came into use before the 1850s in the United States.”

“’Dead to rights’: In the act of committing an error or crime, red-handed. For example, ‘They caught the burglars dead to rights with the Oriental rugs.’ This phrase uses ‘to rights’ in the sense of ‘at once.’”

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The theme of guilt is embedded in these lyrics--the narrator, JA, is guilty of something, and he was “caught red-handed,” as it were, by someone, the “she” in the song--his wife. The “guilty” act was more, I believe, her intuiting/noticing that her husband was in love with another--early days, perhaps before much had occurred between the two men, but wives are smart, and they can sometimes intuit when their men are in love with another, even before the husbands know themselves.

“She said”---This song focuses on the fact that the narrator’s wife notices instantly--”at once”-- the “act” for which he feels guilty. And she voices it to him--she knows he is in love with another. And she also knows who.

Thus, the “dead to rights” reference--she knew right away when her husband fell in love, and that he either wants to, or already has begun, pursuing a romantic relationship with his love. She “caught him red-handed,” even though a “crime” has not literally occurred, and, most importantly, *she is not angry or judgmental*; rather, she is concerned.

She has thought about it before she confronts him with it. She is philosophical: “It all will change”--that is, this could be a momentary fancy, and if you follow through, everything will change in your life. “if not”--that is, if this is something lasting and substantial--then “it all can wait.” What’s the rush? Why not cool your jets and see if you still feel the same way in a few months? And know too, if you do pursue this, “It may die away over time.” So be careful. Don’t jump into the fire. You could get burned. I don’t want that for you.”

What is his response to her words? He acknowledges to her: “You are right.”

He concedes that everything she says is true. But he has thought about it too. A lot. And he realizes something: “But I do believe it’s better than being alive.” This cryptic line puzzled me initially. “What” is better than being alive? Then one day, after hearing the track a few times, it hit: If the relationship crashes and burns--if it does die, and his heart is destroyed in the flames and ash--then so be it. He has decided that being with this person, jumping into the abyss with him, which could result in his own metaphorical “death,” is exactly what he will do, because “dying” from the possible fallout of a disastrous love affair is preferable to the agony of continuing to live without him.

“You want to be the one to say you love the rain.....fall” --I love the pause here, putting the emphasis on the “fall,” conjuring up the act of falling in love; and also, the possibility of falling to one’s death. And of course, the biblical “fall”--we’re all fallen from grace. He is reminding her that it is she who always says she loves the rain--metaphorically, the rainy days, the times when things aren’t necessarily all sunshine and roses. She understands and accepts life’s gifts and risks. (And we learn in “City Grown Willow” that, in fact, “Her faith in love is better on sunny days.”)

“When all the while the angels call”--I cannot emphasize enough how unequivocally this imagery refers to MC. If I have to explain how many times J has called M an “angel”.....The point being, the angel calling him is impossible for him to ignore, and he just plain doesn’t want to. When an angel calls your name................you go.

“The only way to see just how it comes to be”--a typical Jensen cryptic line, when he wants to say something but doesn’t want to be too revealing, so he does so with the utmost vagueness, to the point where his meaning is almost impossible to decipher. That cryptic line, combined with the rest of the verse, “Every day/To know it all falls away,” strikes me like this: “The only way to know if I should do it or not, is just to do it.” And in the end, he philosophizes, everything falls away in any case--”even you and I will someday be parted.” The idea of mortality--of the limited span of time we inhabit this life--is heavy on his mind. And again, he has made his decision: His love is so deep, so compelling, that he is willing to risk everything--heart and soul--to be with the angel who is calling him.

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ADDENDUM TO MY POST:

Unless Steve Carlson has said publicly that he specifically wrote the *words* to City Grown Willow, I maintain steadfastly that Jensen composed the lyrics. It makes sense that Carlson had written the guitar piece itself, with its beautiful, cascading notes and striking chord progressions, which demonstrate his skill as an instrumentalist. It’s no accident that the recording itself features only Carlson’s playing, with no other instrumental accompaniment--probably exactly the way Jensen first heard it.

Jensen heard Steve play the piece, loved it, and proceeded to write words for it. When Carlson says he played this piece for Jensen and that he had written it years prior, I take that to mean that Jensen loved the sound of the guitar and wanted to work with it.--that the song had no words. The lyrics have the hallmarks of Jensen's writing style; the content fits his situation, with a female and 2 males as the protagonists; and HE is “the man from the mountains.” That’s not Carlson’s identity--that's a moniker Jensen deliberately chose for himself, as he makes clear in the music video.

If anyone can provide for me a direct quote from Carlson that he wrote the words, I will retract my statement. Until then, I hold my position.

#Cockles #Radio Company song #lyrics analysis is a love of mine #no offense is intended and I know nothing about anything #even cryptic lyrics can be deciphered #some people have tremendous grace and I love them #I will never as long as I live measure up to the greatness in these people's hearts

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wowsoboring · 3 years

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Deconstructing baseless Harry Potter arguments #1: Harmony Edition

There’s a very helpful account on instagram (this instagram page merely gathers toxic harmony shippers, they don’t ship Harmione or hate all Harmione shippers, please don’t send them hate, show them love and support) where you can essentially find stupid fucking bashers who make baseless arguments. I’m all for Harmione shippers, as long as they don’t denounce Romione, bash Ron and just peacefully co-exist. To my pleasure, such people are out there: they just dont seem to be seen as often as the ones that are not nice. Maybe all I see is the mean people and the majority is nice, but in this post, I am attacking those who make baseless claims and bash Ron/Romione/Hinny/Ginny. I don’t myself hate all Harmione shippers. On top of that, as a Romione/Ron fan, i do acknowledge Ron’s character flaws along with Hermione’s and I hold them on the same pedestal.

This is copied directly from my own instagram page, granger.weasley_ on ig.

Anyways let's get deconstructing

rebuttal:

Yeah okay mf; maybe don’t compare real-life relationships with fucking fictional ones. Your relationship going wrong has nothing to do with Ron/Hermione. It has everything to do with you and your ex: the *real life* people involved in it.

rebuttal:

The weird subreddits and discord servers also seem to have a lot of die-hard Harmione “non-canon” shippers. They bash Ron and Romione (along with Ginny and Hinny) with a burning passion without any objective sense of remorse. They ignore all the merits of Ron’s character and bash him to push their agenda. They can’t even do so much as fucking acknowledge any of Hermione’s character flaws but still somehow manage to fixate on that one time when 11 year old Ron just shit-talked one line while Hermione had just publicly humiliated him in front of the Charms class and practically shouted at him for doing the spell wrong just before. I personally don’t because Hermione was 11 too and wasn’t that good at social cues that early on, which is more than okay. Neither am I.

Only a few people in the Romione fandom bash Hermione. And it’s not like Harmione shippers (most, not all!) don’t bash Ron and Ginny remorselessly, right? The fucking hypocrisy.

If someone considers Ron as the best member of the trio, it is their own opinion and not a fact. I do that. If you consider Harry and Hermione as the best member of the trio or in the whole wizarding world, most people don’t give a flying fuck and probably won’t argue with you because it is simply an opinion. That will only happen when you pass that off as a fact.

Statistically speaking, most (not FUCKING all) Harmione moments are in the movies. The weird dance scene especially. The passionate kiss that happens in Ron’s vision, shit like that. Ron is pushed to the sidelines in the last set of movies while Harry and Hermione show each other endless love and support. “I’ll go with you”. The books on the other hand, describe Harry and Hermione as siblings multiple times, with very little Harmione references.

rebuttal:

So you don't want us to fixate on the large majority of Harmione shippers who do the exact same thing, just kissing Hermione's and Harry's ass and hating on Ron. However you will fixate on people who are most likely not EVEN bashing or hating but pointing out a few character flaws in Hermione in a fair and unbiased way. I would know, I'm a huge fan of Hermione as an individual character (in the books). The only criticism I've seen of Hermione to this day has not been bashing. In the comment section of my own fics (shameless plug) I've seen some Hermione bashing. On an ao3 comment section. And I've seen so damn fucking many people bashing Ron, Ginny, the Weasleys etc. and garner tens and thousands of upvotes on quora.

What does Ron even need excusing for? The running away incident and Krum. What does Hermione need excusing for? Canaries, contributing to Ron's insecurities by making him jealous through Cormac and Krum even though she didn't even like them (especially not Cormac, she fucking hated him). Ron wore a locket that literally highlighted his fatal flaw (insecurity) in an echo chamber. Harry kept getting annoyed when Ron wanted to check in on his family. Harry asked Ron to leave; Ron didn't say that shit in the books about Harry's parents being dead: that was plain shock value.

And sorry for repeating myself but I have seen quite a few Harmione shippers bash Ron and Ginny and excuse every single thing Harry and Hermione have done.

37 upvotes on this weird comment that makes no sense? Echo chamber alert! You know what us Romione/Ron fans all have in common? We have never experienced such an echo chamber. I made a pro Ron/Romione post on reddit and got a considerable amount of people who bashed Ron and Romione in the comments.

The amount of Hermione haters is very few compared to Ron bashers. Nobody hates Hermione for being independent, determined, etc. We dislike perfect movie Hermione who’s an unrealistic image of females and seems like some sort of agenda than a real woman. Most Romione shippers/Ron fans and book fans in general (except for you apparently) dislike movie Hermione and still are fans of realistic book Hermione. Most, not all. In general, we do not claim anyone who does the exact same thing to Harry and Hermione that these sorts of Harmione shippers do to Ron, Romione, Hinny and Ginny. I say this on the behalf of all Romione shippers and Ron fans.

Ron's not a bitchy lay-about drama causing loser. That's Steve Kloves's movie Ron. In the books Ron is realistic and simplistic and apologizes whenever he causes problems. He acts up substantially twice in a span of 7 years where he is also a hormone-fuelled teenager.

This is so contradictory and juxtaposed to the point of near delusion. First you talk about how Romione shippers bash Hermione and then you bash Ron as a Harmione shipper. Mate, fighting fire with fire will get you called a hypocrite. Fix yourself.

So the movies are fine when they work according to your agenda? And yes how dare he add such a (fake) chemistry fuelled moment between Harry and Hermione while defeating the entire purpose and groundwork for Romione, the sadness caused by Ron leaving and so many more things? Those Harmione moments you mention seem friendship -esque more than anything else.

Steve Kloves's moments ruined many things while just paying fan service to the Harmione fans he'd birthed through years in the course of 6 movies where he showed Ron as a, how you so eloquently describe it, lay - about drama causing bitchy loser, Harry as one dimensional and Hermione as a zero - dimensional Mary Sue who might as well be the main titular character. Obviously Harmione fans such as yourself don't see the problem with it as it fits your narrative

We do care about Harry and Hermione at large. Most Romione shippers rightfully bash Draco, Pansy, etc. not particularly Harry and Hermione, that's quite rare. Harry and Hermione can get along without Ron as friends. Ron and Harry can also get along without. Hermione as friend. So can Hermione and Ron without Harry as friends or more. I don't understand your point and how what you said is any different than Romione or Ronarry’s friendship.

Constant arguing is not what they do. They bicker, they apologize, and sometimes they just do it for the heck of it. They are argumentative teenager. Opposites attract doesn't work in the sense of fire and ice, it works in the case of Brownie and ice-cream. Ron is passionate, laid back and insecure. Hermione's passionate, a workaholic and not as insecure. Ron can help her get calm and composed and get her to give herself a break. Hermione can motivate Ron and re - enforce his confidence.

It wouldn't be step incest. Harry and Ginny do not regard each other as siblings. They do not look similar whatsoever. And a Harmione shipper also bashes Hinny and Ginny along with Ron and Romione? Checks out

" that fucked up Harmony" hahaha. What?

Are you literally going to date someone on the basis of what Harry Potter ships they prefer? That is so shallow end depraved. Your Harry Potter ship preferences should not be the groundwork for your dating life. Please understand that. Harry Potter is a fictional world which is not real. Hogwarts doesn't exist. Magic doesn't exist. I sound like a Dursley but that's what it is: a fictional realm with fictional character. I would personally not give a fuck if my best friend or significant other was a Harmione shipper. In the case of them being a Ron basher, I would ignore it as if it was just a minor inconvenience and something we wouldn't be discussing and that's how it should be with you. Fuck BuzzFeed, your opinion on what Harry Potter ship / character is your favorite says squat about your personality and relationship with others in a romantic or platonic context. But who cares? Live your life however you want. I'll be stoic.

It's not opposites attract rubbish or high school opposites attract. Ron and Hermione aren't polar opposites like I said, they are a bit different but similar too in many ways. They have a lot more in common than Harry and Hermione. Ron and Harry have the most in common. Both Ron and Hermione are passionate, loving, argumentative, caring, etc. Your argument lacks substance. It's biased trash. And what does “obhwf " mean?

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at the end of the day, i’m just an annoyed teenager. I try my best to be open-minded to people but only as long as they are too. I tried to use my brain more than my feelings for this post.

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yakumtsaki · 3 years

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Cyneswith rolls the want to dine out with her Methuselahian boy-toy and I’m hoping we can knock this love out during this date so we never have to see him again. Naturally the road to 20 simultaneous lovers is gonna have some duds, but did we really have to start with one?? Between Cyn’s gray hair turn on and Shajar’s fitness/fatness ones the chemistry mechanic is ruining my life this generation.

Yea that’s great, CADP, here’s an even more appropriate green face: 🤢🤢🤢

-I don’t get paid enough for this shit.

Random Waiter sweetie, I’m so sorry. I’m sorry we’re romancing this old bitch in front of you, oh my god.

Mercifully CADP wastes no time falling in love with Cyneswith after this public woohoo witnessed by every townie within a 20 mile radius, and the date is a stunning success:

LMAO. Watch Cyneswith become a pillar of the community thanks to publicly banging the elderly, she truly can do no wrong. No wonder she’s the only child Jojo acknowledges.

Beyond over for Don.

Cyneswith returns home in the glowing triumph of her platinum plumbob. She literally hasn’t even made it to the front door yet-

-and CADP calls to ask her out again! Man, these drama professors are relentless, remember how half-alien prof stalked Gunther? Did this guy even go home or is he calling us right from the diner where we left him?? Whatever the case, hardest ‘Stay Here’ ever pressed, grandpa.

-But I wanna go out with him again! 🌸

Yea well we don’t have time to be systematically dating these flops, Cyn, if you wanted in depth affairs you should have rolled a different LTW.

NICE. Another fine addition to our yard of wonders! We’re still not dating you, CADP, but when we’re throwing ragers on this thing, we’ll be thinking of you with some nostalgia and a lot of disgust.

With Cyneswith platinum for the foreseeable future, I take a look at how everyone else is doing to ensure there aren’t any aspiration failures lurking. Ti-Ning and Frances are ultra-loved up and doing great-

-Angel rolls the want to get engaged to Wulf as well as the want TO INVITE OVER GUNTHER AKA HER TEENAGE FLING FROM 30 YEARS AGO, FFS ANGEL-

-and Don.. well he’s seen better days. The sad ‘go on a date’ want is killing me, I’ve considered it a given so far that he’s endgame for Cyn but they haven’t been interacting much lately, we’ll see how it goes, it might legit be over him.

The semester ends and with it Sophie’s insane 0 studying A+ streak, which is understandable since she literally almost died. Proud of Wulf and Don for bringing their grades up since they were both doing terribly, Don especially was flirting with academic probation last semester. I guess once your gf is no longer distracting you because she’s too busy cheating on you, you start hitting the books.

It’s a new dawn, it’s a new day, it’s a new life.. and Sophie autonomously goes to gossip with Shajar!!! I was so shocked I unironically took a screenshot of the little action queue window, but whatever, it’s a big deal!

-Hey Shajar, you know who’s an even bigger turbocuck than you?? Ti-Ning! God I can’t stand that loser.

-Haha couldn’t agree more, Sophie! 🖤 Not like I’d agree with anything you say, I have my own personality and opinions and everything!! Why are we talking about him like he’s not right here? I’m not questioning you, just curious! 🖤

-It’s my new bullying tactic!

-It’s great!

-Congratulations on your ever-evolving bullying techniques, Sophie! 🖤

-Congratulations on idolizing me! Maybe you’re only a cuck and not a turbocuck after all.

AAAAAAA THEY’RE PLAYING RED HANDS OMG OMG IS THIS FINALLY GONNA HAPPEN????

-Haha great punch, Sophie! I actually felt the nerve damage as it happened!

-Thanks, ever since my post-workout coma I’m stronger than ever!

OMG THEY FINALLY BECAME FRIENDS. Bro I still cannot believe Cyneswith not only befriended Sophie first but is LITERALLY BFFS WITH HER. UN.REAL. ANYWAY there’s only so much blue balling I can take from these two, it’s time to find out if there’s something there once and for all. But first, we need a slight adjustment so let’s head to the nearest mirror..

-OH BROTHER.

In the name of love, Shaj, come on!

-So, Sophie.. As I’m sure you can see, I’m blonde now. And I had to sign a contract promising I won’t sue for how terrible it makes me look, so I’m legally blonde. Now that that’s out of the way..

-..it’s Ti-Ning trashing time!

GODDAMMIT SHAJAR NO. NO MORE TI-NING TRASHING, NO MORE USELESS PLATONIC INTERACTIONS, IT’S GO TIME. Check her out, and let the chips fall where they may!!!

F I N A L L Y I L N L A A L N L I Y L L A N I F

OK. SO NOW WE KNOW. What you do from now on is up to you, first and last time I’m intervening but these two were driving me insane.

-And so after careful consideration, it became clear that blonde is truly my color!

-Are you sure, Shaj? Because when I saw you upstairs you were sobbing and doing vomiting motions in front of the mirror.

-Aw Angel, that’s not a very nice thing to say! Don’t worry sis, I love your new look! In fact, I’m so proud of the way you look I want you right there next to me when I meet potential lovers! 💗

NOW THAT’S WHAT I LIKE TO SEE. I mean I wish I wasn’t seeing Shajar’s terrible blonde hair but Sophie’s blondeness turn on forced my hand. But the rest of this pic is what I like to see!

Despite recent developments, Sophie remains elusive af but I’m not butting in anymore, I’m returning to my go with the flow playstyle. So Sophie once again leaves us dick in hand and goes inside to.. you guessed it, socialize with Cyneswith. Shajar follows suit.. and..

....

................

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SHAJAR. YOU FINALLY STEPPED UP. I guess there’s only so much cucking from Cyneswith one person can take!!! If Sophie rejects this I’m literally gonna die-

-HELL YES OMG FINALLYYYYYYYYYYYYYY

CYNESWITH ARE YOU KIDDING ME. BRO. LITERALLY THE BIGGEST COCKBLOCK TO EVER LIVE

And Shajar is now in love with Sophie, whereas Sophie isn’t even best friends with her yet, oh Shaj.. Well whatever, you’ll get there (I hope). ACR gets right down to business, let’s ignore Sophie thinking of Cyneswith, istg..

Boy, that escalated quickly. I mean we literally went from first kiss ever to woohoo with 0 other interactions in between but after all those years of incelitude who can blame Shajar.

And it’s official!!! ❤️ I’ve been convinced these two belong together ever since they were teens but I was also convinced Gunther belonged with Melody/Daniel belonged with Brittany/Jojo belonged with Frances and we remember how all 3 of those went so only time will tell.

In the meantime let’s marvel at how uneven this burgeoning relationship is thanks to Shajar unilaterally obsessing over Sophie for half her teenhood. But she finally got her! An inspirational tale about never giving up on your dreams even when your dreams prefer your sister.

#gen 2 #ts2

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taeslovehandles · 3 years

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I never meant to target you and I'm sorry you felt that way. You properly tag everything and adhere to the "don't like, don't read" rule. I don't follow you nor you follow, because we simply don't vibe together and that's okay.

But there are posts that are on the more "innocent" side that do represent fat people as a joke and it's like they don't even realize it because it's something so well ingrained in our fatphobic society.

For example, all the characters are having fun except the fat one or referring to someone as "twice his size" (like... If they want to say he's huge, they should just say it, not imply that there's a "right size" for someone to be).

I don't think authors should censor themselves, just acknowledge the role they play in how fat characters are perceived by the community they write for.

-🍓

First of all, since you obviously haven’t blocked me, you could have come to me via direct message. This is not a topic that needs to be brought out into the public eye even more than it already is. I have worked with anons before, I would have been the last person to reveal who you are. You could have made a trash account to message me in dm’s, but since you didn’t, I will reply to you here.

I want to make one thing clear. This will be my last response on the topic. If you do not like me as a member of the community please use the block button and filter me out, because I will stay. I have many friends here, and know that many people enjoy my content. Just because a small handful of people don’t appreciate dark themes in fiction, the contents of which they can easily protect themselves from, won’t make me falter.

Now, I want to debunk this ask because your ‘apology’ actually made me very upset.

I know you don’t mean it when you say you are sorry because you’re backpedaling on what you’ve told your friends and it really rubs me the wrong way. You could have owned up to your mistakes and apologized sincerely like others had but you continue to play victim and excuse your behaviour with tales of your own trauma, projecting your own insecurities onto my blog and thus hating me.

I know for a fact that you despise my blog, especially my writing, because you do not like how “obviously skinny people write about weight gain.”

Honey.

I couldn’t be any further from skinny.

I don’t mind sharing my actual weight, which has actually gotten worse due to COVID. I weigh 490lbs. I am morbidly obese. I have always been morbidly obese. For you to come and be “nitpicky” about a genre you don’t even enjoy? Why are you even reading my fics then?

The way I write about obese people, their struggles with literally everything… that comes from real life experience. I write this to share embarrassing and exhausting daily life tasks I personally struggle with.

A skinny person would never write some of the stuff I do, because they simply don’t know. They don’t know how scary it is to hear the line “we are going to a restaurant.” They don’t know how scary it is to go into that new restaurant, scan the chairs and think “Shit, am I gonna fit? Is the chair gonna creak? Is there enough space for the next table? What if I won’t fit?” A thin person doesn’t have to think this way.

And, let me tell you something else. Yes, I agree. The world is fatphobic.

In one of my recent posts I talked about movies and shows where they make fun of fat people because I hate it. Because it is REAL LIFE. And I am all for the body positivity movement and I do believe that all bodies are beautiful, because they are.

You do not know me personally.

And that leads to my next point. If you personally have issues with the phrase “twice my size”, then that is on you. And guess what? I cannot count how often I’ve heard lines like that my whole life.

“Oh wow two people would fit in one of your pant legs.”

“Wow, you are so fat, I could use your pants as a tent.”

So trust me, I know. I KNOW. But anon, this is the important part for me. Everyone processes trauma differently.

Inked ch3? Or literally any story I have written with a fat character being forced, insulted and talked down to like they’re dumb? That’s what I have been living with my entire life. Most of these stories, some obviously more extreme than how I had experienced them since it’s fiction, have been recordings of trauma I have went through.

My own dad force fed me. Forced me to eat food and gain weight. My first boyfriend was a feeder that manipulated me into gaining more weight and took measurements. Called me pig names and abused me. Hit me, manipulated me into having s** with him and then let all of his fantasies out on me.

I don’t make this shit up. I hate my brain for being so twisted now, that I actually find it hot and arousing. It’s weird. I know, but that’s how it is.

I’ve also never had friends in school. Not even kindergarten. Why? Because my “fat incased body could spread like a virus.” I was being bullied like JK was in Pondus.

I had hot water thrown at me, got glue put on my seats and hair, had my hair ripped out and even got a cigarette burn mark on my arm. Just because I was fat. Just because of how my body was shaped.

I was strangled and locked into a small locker for a night. I was almost killed for running away from my abusive dad from his car and had to listen to things like, “You are going to die when you are 30. No one will ever love you and your body.” That I have trust issues now and am paranoid about everything and everyone.

Those dark stories. I use those dark stories to try to work through my trauma. And yes, it may be absurd to you. It may disgust you, what I write. But sadly, most of it? Most of it really happened to me. To me and other people I’ve talked to as a friend or seen online. Most of what I write will be dark because the human species is made up of terrible creatures.

Fatphobia is an important topic, and I am happy the media has been slowly getting better about it, that people accept us more. But my writing is how I work with my trauma. If I can make fictional characters feel the same things I had to feel, that makes me feel better.

And I’m not hurting anyone with it. So how is it wrong?

I do not support any of this behaviour in real life. I never bullied anyone, I always try to speak up for my friends and tell people if they are being assholes. Because I hate them too and it makes me angry when good people get shit when they do nothing but breathe.

And how @pudgecuddles already said. I don't need you to advocate for body positivity and all that shit when you go out of your way to bully someone that may have experienced the same shit you have. I do not know you or what you went through in your life, but I am sorry. I’m sorry you feel like my stories aren’t okay to write, but this is how I work on my trauma and I need you to respect that.

I’ve said this before. We don’t have to be friends, or even talk to each other.

Just be neutral.

Block me. Filter me out. Pretend I don't exist. But, whatever you do, don’t make posts that call me out while making it obvious you’re talking about me, with the cover that you are advocating against fatphobia. That’s got a name. Cyber-bullying.

Have you hurt me with those posts? Yes you have, but I’ve never wanted bad blood. As you may have noticed, it wasn’t me that made a post. It was my good friend. Because I told her how exhausting it was and she knew about the posts back then.

I have a good idea of who you are.

I remember you.

But I kept my mouth shut. Because this community is my home and the last thing I wanted was for the people who like both of our types of content to feel like they have to choose sides.

In the end, we all rub one out to fat gay boys in a band. No user is better than the rest, and if there are topics you do not enjoy, there is a button for it. No need to drag everyone into it with posts. It’s exhausting and irritating.

Now, I do not accept your apology because you lied to me and I also do not feel like you meant it sincerely knowing what I know now after reading some dm’s. But I also won’t sit here and start shit.

This is my last post about this.

Please block me and enjoy the content you do like.

Nonetheless, I hope you have a nice day and a lovely weekend. Whatever you are experiencing or going through, I hope it gets better. Because even if you hate me personally for creating content you do not support, I’d say that I am a really friendly and nice person.

I do not believe that anyone deserves to be bullied like that and talked down in official posts. It happened before with a friend of mine and you probably remember that I did speak up about it.... But apparently no one learned from it. I really hope this time you do.

Insult me and shit talk me all you want in dm’s, but don’t do it publicly. No one deserves that kind of hate or passive aggressiveness. No one. Since you sound like someone that went through a lot of shit too, you should know better. You should know how it feels to be bullied and what damage it can cause.

I’m already depressed enough and I have bad lows. Let me write my erotica and just enjoy it? That’s all I want? I am a part of this community just like you were. You leaving because you did not like my content, is not my problem. If you cannot block me or ignore it and go so far as to read them and then rant about them negatively, what do you want me to do? I won’t leave the scene just because you don’t like me.

So, you either trash talk me in dm’s from now on so that I do not see it, or you block me. The latter of which would be the more mature thing to do. The more humane thing to do. Because talking behind someone’s back is just as bad.

Again, I don’t know why you felt like it was necessary to send me an ask with lies in it when I got screenshot proof of something else you have said/issues with, so don’t backpedal on me. I know Hun. I know already.

At least stick to what you said and actually apologize or, if you can’t, just block me.

But this ask? This ask just upset me.

Have a nice day.

p.s: The fact that this even needs to be talked about is so absurd and ridiculous to me. The whole thing is a petty party in my eyes that isn't even worth anyone's time? Do people on here really not have any other issues right now or am I in the wrong movie?

#taeslovehandle asks #do not use this post to cause your own drama #this is me answering honestly.#the topic about this ends here.#please respect this <3

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tearsofthemis · 4 years

Text

Tears of Themis : Chapter 2 “Unbearable Love“ Part 15

[Previous Part] | [Masterlist] | [Next Part]

youtube

▌Location- Crime Scene

(Jiang MingYue’s lie about the rooming arrangements combined with the strange position that Shen Xi was found in… tells me that the missing piece we needed to crack the case was about to be revealed.)

MC: “Even if the hallway was empty, people could come and go as they pleased through the connecting door! This means Li Zhou could have entered Shen Xi’s suite when no one was watching. Officer, when did Li Zhou check-in?”

Officer: “Last night, 7:00 PM.”

MC: “That’s to say, Li Zhou was already checked in by the time Jiang MingYue brought up the box of chocolates. He had time to poison the chocolates.”

Mo Yi: “You’re right. From my guess, Li Zhou and Shen Xi must be associated with one another.”

MC: “You’re so sure of it, is it because…”

~~~Analysis Begins~~~

[Select: Position of Shen Xi’s Body, Misplaced Phone]

MC: “Her cellphone! Last night when Shen Xi returned to her suite, no one entered or left it, but her phone was taken away by someone. The only one who could’ve done so was Li Zhou.”

Mo Yi: “Not only that, judging by the position she was found in and the fact that she was still dressed in formal wear… points that it’s likely she saw someone in the room. Otherwise, the first thing she would have done upon returning to her suite would have been to get changed and remove her makeup.”

MC: “Therefore, Shen Xi must have known Li Zhou.”

Mo Yi: “The fact that Li Zhou was staying right next door and has the connecting keys to her room in his possession, is no coincidence.”

~~~Analysis End~~~

MC: “Did Jiang MingYue intentionally plan the room arrangements so that Li Zhou would be next door to Shen Xi?! If so, then the lies that Jiang MingYue told in regards to the room bookings were told to cover up Li Zhou’s presence. Li Zhou and Shen Xi, what kind of relationship do they have… If Li Zhou wanted to talk to her, why couldn’t he just enter through the suite door?”

Mo Yi: “It’s not outlandish to assume that Shen Xi and Li Zhou would be involved with some kind of secret romantic relationship. Li Zhou avoided entering through the suite door to prevent being photographed by paparazzi and risk exposing his relationship, which would ultimately affect his career.”

MC: “That’s true. There’s a saying that fans will use, ‘when an idol dates, heads will roll’. There’s no way Li Zhou would publicly announce that he has a girlfriend.”

Mo Yi: “Jiang MingYue’s intention behind the room bookings was to facilitate Shen Xi and Li Zhou’s secret rendezvous. She lied to protect her boss and a famous actor’s privacy. Jiang MingYue would have never suspected that her boss’s lover could be the murderer. She, like Shen Xi, believed that this was part of Lu JingHe’s revenge plan.”

MC: “Truly, once you think about it, you can find a reasonable explanation through a sea of doubts.”

(As Mo Yi and I were discussing, another officer knocked on the door and let us know that we could interrogate the hotel manager on duty.)

Hotel Manager: “How long will this police investigation take? We’ve been receiving guest complaints all morning.”

MC: “As long as you cooperate in the investigation, I think the evidence gathering will end soon.”

Hotel Manager: “There goes my yearly bonus, I suppose. Go on and ask what you need from me.”

MC: “When did Jiang MingYue make the room bookings? At the time, were the connecting rooms to room 1817 and the executive suites on the 17th floor already booked?”

Hotel Manager: “Miss Shen and Miss Jiang’s rooms were booked under Venus Fashion’s name. But the room next to it, room 1817, was booked by Miss Jiang herself. We never could have known that Mr. Li Zhou would be staying with us. In regards to the executive suites on the 17th floor, 1718 and 1717, both rooms were vacant. No one booked it and no one stayed in it.”

MC: “Then the suites on the 17th floor, were they connected?”

Hotel Manager: “No. The rooms were renovated last year, and any connecting doors were removed for all suites under the 18th floor. If it goes according to plan, the connecting doors will be removed for suites from the 18th to the 30th floor starting next month.”

Mo Yi: “This confirms our previous suspicions, does it not? The rooming situation was premeditated, whether by Jiang MingYue or Shen Xi’s request, it was intentionally planned. The choice of staying on the 18th floor must have been because of the connected suites.”

(Mo Yi’s explanation could very well be concrete. I nodded as I thought of another key problem.)

MC: “There’s another question…”

[Select the Red Wine in Room 1818]

MC: “I saw Romanée Conti on the wine list, but I didn’t see the actual bottle. Does the hotel really offer this product?”

Hotel Manager: “Of course! It is an expensive wine, and I personally dealt with the request in celebration of Miss Shen’s accomplishments. The servers brought it in after making the room last night.”

MC: “Around what time did that happen?”

Hotel Manager: “It was almost 7 PM.”

Mo Yi: “7 PM? Then the banquet had already started…”

MC: “I saw that room 1817 was already cleaned this morning. Was a bottle of Romanée Conti found in that room?”

Hotel Manager: “No, there were no abnormalities when Mr. Li Zhou returned the room key.”

MC: “What about Jiang MingYue’s room? Was the bottle of wine discovered there?”

Hotel Manager: “Rooms 1713 and 1817 are regular rooms, therefore, Romanée Conti isn’t offered on their wine list.”

Officer: “The police have already searched Jiang MingYue’s hotel room and nothing suspicious was found.”

MC: (Where did that bottle of red wine disappear to?)

MC: “The door connecting rooms 1818 and 1817, is it normally locked? Is there only one set of keys?”

Hotel Manager: “Our hotel is considered a legacy of Stellis City; the connecting doors were built according to old safety standards. The door isn’t normally used, so we keep them locked for our guest’s safety and privacy. There were two sets of keys, one of which we keep at the front desk, and the other was given to Mr. Li Zhou.”

Mo Yi: “What was Li Zhou’s reasoning for wanting a set of keys?”

Hotel Manager: “Mr. Li Zhou asked us whether or not the rooms were connected at the time of his check-in. He says he was afraid of paparazzi or fans catching wind of his whereabouts and the connecting door was a liability. So he requested the set of keys kept at the front desk and took them. The keys to rooms 1818 and 1816 were also given to him.”

MC: “That excuse was so unfounded. If he was truly scared of the paparazzi finding him, he should have chosen to stay in a room without connecting doors. If the other person was determined to harass him and invade his privacy, they would have been able to do so if they picked the lock, right?”

(I tidied up the testimony. Even if there were a couple of murky things, there wasn’t anything else, at the time, that I needed to ask the hotel manager for.)

Officer: “The analysis report of the glass shards has been completed. After a search in the citizen database, the dried blood on the shard was determined to be left by Li Zhou.”

MC: “So Li Zhou has been in this room!”

Mo Yi: “The two of them were in this room. Judging by the shattered vase and the fact that he cut himself, they must have been arguing about something.”

Officer: “Shen Xi’s autopsy report has been completed as well, her fingernails have been torn. Compared with the marks left on the connecting door, Shen Xi’s nails must have broke when she was knocking on the door.”

MC: “Then what about the time of death? Was there anything that could shrink the window of opportunity?”

Officer: “No, the suspected time still falls between 9 PM and 2 AM. To add, forensics can confirm that Shen Xi’s death was caused by the consumption of poisoned liquor chocolates. Other than the minute amount of brandy in the liquor chocolates, Shen Xi did not drink last night. We performed mark analysis on the liquor chocolates as well. There were only Shen Xi’s fingerprints, and indentations made from some kind of silk material.”

MC: “Silk product? That’s to say, when the murderer was tampering with the chocolate, they were wearing silk gloves.”

Mo Yi: “Even if it’s not a fingerprint but a silk imprint, it’s still a clue. Officer, even if there is not enough evidence that points to the culprit being Li Zhou… we can confirm that he has an undeniable association with this case. I suggest that Li Zhou be detained as soon as possible. If he possesses key evidence on his person and we’re too late, he’ll be able to destroy it.”

Officer: “We have updated Captain Yan’s team, and they with the idea, but… we broke procedure by taking in Lu JingHe without proper documentation. If we breach protocol again by detaining Li Zhou…”

MC: “But if we wait for the documents to come through, it might be too late. Can’t we expedite the process?”

Mo Yi: “In the face of these rules you call protocol, does Yan’s team not know how to improvise?”

Officer: “That…”

MC: “Dr. Mo, the police must follow set procedures in the justice system. Because of Lu JingHe, the media already has their eyes on the police. If you add Li Zhou to the mix, the case will be blown out of proportion…”

Mo Yi: “I acknowledge the police’s hardship. I'm simply regretful that when one knows the path one must take to exit hardship, one is walled up by rules, a mere social construct. The road ahead stays in sight, but out of reach.”

Officer: “We don't know where Li Zhou went after he checked out of the hotel, we’ll have to check road surveillance to find out and that requires additional clearance. To do so isn’t difficult, but considering the amount of heat Captain Yan’s team is under…”

MC: “What can we do… I got it, I know where Li Zhou is!”

(Under Mo Yi and the officer’s watchful eyes, I took out my cell phone and dialed Cheng Cheng’s number. She’s a paralegal in our firm and is one of my juniors. She’s been with Themis for less than a year and she’s a die-hard star chaser.)

Cheng Cheng: “Sigh, it’s Sunday, why did you call me so early.”

MC: “Early? It’s literally lunchtime, Cheng Cheng!”

Cheng Cheng: “It’s early for me. I was binging dramas until the sun came up.”

MC: “Alright, it’s early, if you say it so. I'm calling about actual business, can you do me a favor?”

Cheng Cheng: “What is it?”

MC: “Can you help me check Li Zhou’s itinerary for today? See if he’s gone on set for a shoot or maybe at an event?”

Cheng Cheng: “Eh? Since when did you start following celebrity news, and to be Li Zhou’s stan on top of that. Stay on the line as I check. There’s a lot of fan apps that you can search to see your idol’s public itineraries.”

MC: “Then I’ll have to trouble you.”

Cheng Cheng: “Hm… Li Zhou might be out of the province for a shoot. There isn’t anything on the app for this week.”

MC: “But he was staying at the Manny Hotel last night.”

Cheng Cheng: “Then it must be his private itinerary. It's not right to expose stuff like that.”

MC: “Where can I find his current-day plans? Like where he is, right now…” Cheng Cheng: “Oi, why would you want to know something like that! It’s an invasion of privacy and it’s not allowed!”

MC: “It’s not like I want to do this, but Li Zhou is connected to the homicide I’m currently investigating. By the time the police find his whereabouts, it may be too late, so I might as well…Sigh, you know what I mean. I have no other options… So you can’t find out where he is?”

Cheng Cheng: “A homicide? My gosh! Then I… why don’t I help you ask my friends if they know any paparazzi or information dealers…”

MC: “Sorry about this, Cheng Cheng. If you could, please do. I’ve put you in a difficult situation.”

Cheng Cheng: “If it gets out that I was looking for private information, my reputation will be smeared in the fandom! Everyone will accuse me. If things go south, they’ll expose me as a sasaeng fan. You owe me big time.”

MC: “Alright, whatever you want as compensation. But don’t reveal the fact that it’s for a case.”

Cheng Cheng: “Of course I know that. Don’t worry and wait for my reply.”

(After the call dropped, I lifted my head to see the shocked expression on the officer’s face. Mo Yi was trying his best not to laugh as he shook his head.)

MC: “It was an emergency, I was at my wit’s end…”

Mo Yi: “Even if I interact with students daily, I’ve always approached the subject of star chasing as a psychological lecture topic. I thought that it was low, but now… perhaps I needed to broaden my horizons. I should not have held onto prejudice for any group of individuals.”

MC: “I’m not too knowledgeable either, it’s all Cheng Cheng…”

(Just then, Cheng Cheng’s message came through. She sure is speedy.)

(“I found it, Li Zhou is at Stellis Airport, his flight is outbound for 12:30 PM, he’s already through security checks.”)

MC: “Li Zhou’s at the airport. His flight takes off in an hour, he’ll be boarding the plane soon!”

Officer: “I’ll head over right away and stop him.”

(The officer ran out while dialing a number on his phone. He must have rushed to inform Yan Wei.)

Mo Yi: “From the looks of it, we’ll have lots of things to ask Jiang MingYue again. Before that, we’ll need to organize the clues we obtained, so… we need to obtain more evidence that pertains to Li Zhou in this room, otherwise, Jiang MingYue will be unlikely to open up to us again.”

MC: “Jiang MingYue still has a chance to commit the crime, but as it stands, her motives aren’t as clear. Unless…”

(A man and two women, the entertainment industry, a fashion house… my mind conjured up something in an attempt to explain it all, in the most logical way possible.)

MC: “Unless her, Li Zhou, and Shen Xi are in a love triangle…”

(Voicing something so gossipy was awkward, but when it comes to a formal investigation, nothing is impossible.)

Mo Yi: “You’re guessing that Jiang MingYue poisoned Shen Xi out of spite and that Li Zhou was simply arguing with Shen Xi and did not intend to kill her?”

MC: “I cannot dismiss the possibility.”

Mo Yi: “I believe that the culprit isn't Jiang MingYue and that it can only be Li Zhou.”

——-

[Previous Part] | [Masterlist] | [Next Part]

——-

《CREDIT》 Translator: Humi Editor: @cL QC: @hallowsivy 《未定事件簿》Tears of Themis is a 2020 Chinese otome game by 米哈游Mihoyo. All original credits go to 米哈游Mihoyo.

《 VOICE ACTORS 》 Mo Yi | Jiang GuangTao: https://weibo.com/jiangguangtao Lu JingHe | Yang Tianxiang: https://weibo.com/u/1745507755 Yan Wei: https://weibo.com/lengquanyeyue Jiang MingYue | V17-Vila: https://weibo.com/u/7360408881

#tears of themis #weiding shijian bu #otome #tears of themis translations #未定事件簿 #weiding shijian bu translations #tears of themis mo yi #weiding shijian bu mo yi #莫弈

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sainadazai · 3 years

Text

When your crush is angry all the time

Ch.4

I wanna be an intern too, you ragedy ann looking ass hoe 😠

Y/n pov

°•○●○•°•○●○•°

All goes well when you are ignorant is what my dear best friend would say to me now, as I sit in the very back of the class unfocused on how our teacher is introducing an activity I have no chance of participating in. All I knew was that when Mr. Aizawa walked up to the board and wrote names of people getting offers, I wasn't one of them. Not that I expected to be, considering I wasn't in the sports festival, let alone the school at all back then.

However, I did notice a small inconsistency in the order of the most offers. I was pretty sure that boom boom had gotten first place in the festival, him being there is what convinced me to transfer, but his name was actually second on the board.

Todoroki had taken the place of first as far as offers were concerned. Todoroki the nice boy who I used to meet when I snuck away from my fucking prison cell. Call me privileged for complaining about living in a mansion All my life, but I much prefer being here. With common folk. They ground me.

I peeked up from my phone at the red and white head of hair in front of me, he didn't seem all that fazed. Although maybe it was just the lack of seeing his face that made me believe he couldn't care less about all but one of those offers. Still, his business is his, and my business is the new Ao3 update on my favorite chrollo lucilfer fanfiction. What a babe.

I decided that the class as of right now would be of no importance to me, considering I will have no offers, and bakugou-the reason I came here- hates me like I'm a piece of gum stuck under his shoe. Through that conclusion I allowed myself to dissolve into the world of hxh and forget about how boring this world is.

Could my power beat Killua or go in a fight? I mean, it doesn't enhance my strength like they did trying to get into Killua's house so physically they must be stronger.

"Y/n! Is there something you would like to share with the class?"

Mr.Aizawas voice seemed almost shot at me as my gaze rose from my phone in my lap to meet him at the front of the room. He looked displeased to say the least. Well good for him, im displeased too, I might not be able to beat a fucking twelve year old in combat.

"Huh?"

"You were grumbling, what's so important you had to tell us, hm?"

I thought it through for a second- just kidding, I never think anything through.

"Oh, well I wasn't sure if I could beat Gon in a fight, but I'm not coming to the realization that if Chrollo is my boyfriend, I shouldn't have to fight anyone at all. I can just be a pretty face in the backgrounds and then after he wins for me i'll suck his-"

"Enough, y/n." Mr.Aizawa no longer held a tired looking face, his eyes were wide and an uncomfortable cringed was set on his face. As I peered at the rest of the class many also had shocked eyes, but unlike our teacher, held faint blushes.

Minus midoriya, his face was completely red and his eyes void of life. I must've killed him, huh.

"Wait!"

In an attempt to regain some dignity, I tried to correct myself.

"I would....not suck his-?"

"Don't even say it, shitty princess !"

"Woah bakugou, you spoke to me on purpose!?"

"Shut up!"

"Hey, how come you call me princess, you like me or something?"

He growled at that, neither of us paying mind to the fact that everyone in the class was either dead from nosebleeds or extremely uncomfortable and staring at us.

"Its cuz you act fucking entitled like a princess"

"I'll be your pillow princes-"

"Enough!" A robotic-like hand sliced the air in front of me. The voice sounded firm, almost more teacher-like than our teacher's voice. I followed my gaze up the hand, not failing to notice how as I drew up the guy's arm his muscles only seemed to get bigger and bigger and- iida?

"Oh class rep-"

"Y/n this vulgar language and border-line harassment needs to cease immediately. I will not tolerante overtly sexual language and acts in this class-"

As he was speaking I noticed something ironic about the situation. If everyone here didn't like sexual jokes or banter, how were they so flustered at comments that objectively should be unknown to them.

"How did you know what I meant, iida?" I rasped in a low sultry voice, allowing my fingers to dance up his arm starting at the wrist in front of my face.

I heard a few chuckles from, who I would say are the only two people enjoying this situation: kaminari and...stinky mineta. Iida's face grew more red than previously and the arms in front of me began shaking.

"Mr.Aizawa it seems I've disarmed the robot. Is there a restart button or something?" I question with a serious face using the search as an excuse to wonder my eyes all over his body. Perverted? Yes. Rightfully attracted to this giant hunk of a nerd. Yes ×10.

"No, there is not." Todoroki, who was in front of me, finally turned around to address me. I guess he was unfazed by my words. Looks like someone here can be cool. Whether he is okay because he is more comfortable with sexual jokes, or because he has yet to pick up on them, its nice that somebody in here can still function. Otherwise, I'd feel like a nuisance.

"Y/n I'm not really sure how to- let's just say to have detention with your m- midnight. Detention. Yeah." Aizawa publicly convinced himself of my punishment?

"Okay"

"Now, back to this, even if you didn't get any offers ALL of you will have an internship"

And so went on the class, kids chose their hero names, not me though. I wasn't even sure I wanted to be a hero at all, this was just a little less boring and sad than the way I lived before. This school had people who laughed in joy, not just to mask the pain. That was the real benefit, not being a hero, or being strong. Likely no one here realized that there were many places where none of this joy was possible.

Some of the kids in class gave me suggestions for a hero name, but I didn't like them anyway. They lacked personality, and while I have many adjectives to describe my personality, my life, none of them are all that heroic.

"Dark element"

"Girl who will die if her quirk doesnt like its environment"

See, I'm not the best at this. Even bakugan names had some sense to it...well no. I'd say we're about the same, but still. Ugh.

~timeskip~

Bakugou pov 😠

She came up with no hero names. Fucking entitled brat. Everyone at this lunch table seems to have no problem with the fact that she is here, just happy to have another pair of tits to stare at like perverts. Their gross. I bet she doesn't even want to be a hero, she sure as hell doesn't act like it. We don't even know what her whole quirk is. Ive seen her do that plant shit a couple times, fucking with flowers or whatever. Still, there's more to it. Something we don't know, at least. Cuz in the middle of class she gets up and whispers to Aizawa and he just lets her go. Where the fuck does she go?

Interrupts class, got into the school because her moms a teacher, won't use her quirk. What a nuisance, I can't believe she is not expelled yet. Plus those bullshit sex jokes are so shitty. She is obviously faking something when she does them. Not like midnight, who always at least seems like she means that gross shit.

"Hey, who did you guys choose for your internship? I haven't chosen yet."

"The number three hero guy," I spoke, knowing I'm the only person here who already chose.

"Really? Best jeanist! That's so cool, but are you sure that for you bakugou?" Shitty hair raised a shitty brow at me.

"What the hell is that supposed to mean!?"

"Just that he seems pretty...uptight..for you?" Dunceface added, but he spoke like it was a question. Of course he is the hero for me, he is the highest ranting hero on my list. If I wanna be number one, I gotta train with the best.

If I go to his agency I'm sure there will be a lot more action, since he is so high ranking. Then i'll get some real experience kicking villain ass, well, other than the USJ.

"Of course he is the right option!"

"Woahhh~"

Shit. It's her voice. I honestly should applaud her for using it less often around me but, how can one small girl be so goddamn annoying. I don't even know what she has to say and I already wish she would just put a sock in it. How can someone so entitled like her, probably never had to lift a finger, walk over here and talk like she has something to say.

"You're working with the best jeanist! So cool, one time he saved me from a group of rapist guys, it was awesome with all these strings everywhere and I could only see half of his face. Oh and he had goofy hair too!"

Oh. I didn't really know how to respond to the girl who looked so excited about almost being violated. Another thing wrong with her? I looked back at the other people at the table to see if they knew how to respond to something like that.

Dunceface was frozen, tape arms were frozen, shitty hair was frozen, and alíen eyes were looking like a lost puppy and trying not to cry.

It didnt seem like the shutty princess was exactly understanding how what she just yelled was making things weird. She just stood there expectantly. She kinda looked like she thought being raped was something that must happen to everyone. Did she think that? Wouldn't put it past her weird ass.

"Uhm...anyways, i'm sure you'll do awesome, he likes to put boys in tight jeans. Wish I could intern too, I'd love to see that boom boom~" she winked.

A perverted joke...and then she had the audacity to wink at me.

"You wish you could see me in tight jeans, shitty extra!"

"I know...thats what a I just said." She dead panned, blinking a couple times at me.

"Tch, screw you!"

"I would-"

"Can it, i don't wanna hear your shitty voice anymore"

The girl stopped herself after my words, pushing all her hair behind her head, except for the two blond stands in the front.

(You don't have to acknowledge these if you don't want, but I made it so that they change color depending on what element your using and I thought it was hot*if you have short hair, then you just got a lil nishinoya type thing 🥰)

Lifted her obnoxious hands that moved around while she talked and made a zipper-like motion over her lips. Then she just stood there looking at me. I really wanted to just let her stand there and go back to eating. Ignore her completely and let her hope fizzle out and die or something like that.

Yet here I am, still looking at her. Silently. Wishing she made a stupid joke so that I could stop flickering between those images I'd seen of her dancing. How even though ballet is a princess fucking dance, the pictures felt nice. Like if I was watching it live I would probably be unable to criticize it. That pissed me off, because I want to hate everything about her, but I can't hate those photos. Where she looks like she is flying, without any need for a quirk.

I see her in that weird gown, and now, in the UA uniform. I see her looking respectable, formal, and serious. Then I see her stupid little smirk as she takes pride in being able to shut up for more than a minute.

"Why are you still standing there?"

Instead of answering, she took her hand up again, made a pinch with her fingers and unzipped her mouth.

"I was enjoying the look in your eyes."she smiled.

The look in my eyes? Could she tell I was seeing two different people? What the hell does that even mean? Even said it without that shitty flirt voice. Like she meant it.

"You tryna make fun of me?"I stood up from the table to get in her face.

"Not right now, maybe later, I gotta do something." She smiled sincerely at me, for a second as she walked away, I forgot about how this conversation started. What a wierd fucking girl. I'll never respect her as a hero. Tch. (Yes, its canon he tchs even in his thoughts)

3rd person POV

Y/n briskly walked out of the cafeteria with a new goal in mind. She would come to remember how maybe being oblivious was a benefit in some ways, but for now, she had a clear plan .

"Mr.Aizawa, let me do an internship."

"You weren't in the festival, I can't just hand you to a hero who has no idea what you can do, y/n."

"Well, you know what I can do, right?"

"No. I'm not doing internships. Stop asking."

"That's not what I meant! You can just tell them, or I could, it's not that hard to explain. Just say i'm all- powerful or some play on words like 'she's got all the right elements' hehe, see how i mimicked your voice there?" Y/n grinned like a child. She was proud of herself.

"No. Still not happening."

"I wanna be an intern too, you raggedy ann looking ass hoe"

"Y/n, it doesn't make sense, insulting me to get what you want?"

"Maybe it doesn't, but I bet you feel real insecure about your hair right now."

"You already have detention, what more do you want!"

"An internship, I wanna do one with kamui Woods, I have a good reason, too. As far as my quirk control, i'm the weakest with earth, the aspect that allows me to grow and manipulate plants and stuff. That's why I've only been using that part of it all month. Im trying to get her up to speed so I can start using all four at once. He is like a tres guy, right? He manipulates earth all day long. He could teach me a lot, and that aspect of my quirk would suit his well. Please!?!?!?"

If the girl had just asked again in a normal way, his answer would have been the same. However Aizawa was taken aback to hear how much thought she put into this. From the stories of the teachers lounge, he came to understand her big life goal, was to rely fully on a rich man or woman, and do nothing at all forever. Just to try and forget about the terrible life she was destined to have because of that quirk.

This side of her was something he could not even her mother had seen, and it prompted him to speak those words she wanted to hear so badly.

"Fine."

#bakugou x you #bakugou x reader #bakusquad #mha bakugou #bakugou katsuki #bakugou fluff #mha fanfiction #mha fluff

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rainhadaenerys · 4 years

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Post season 8 fix-it headcanon/Jonerys fanfic outline

For Daenerys Resurrection Week, Day 1: Resurrection and forgiveness

A long time ago I commented here that I had written an outline for a post season 8 fix-it fanfic. And I did write some things, mostly about the political situation in the story, and character's motivations. As far as actually coming up with a proper story and proper scenes though, I didn't really go very far. And to be honest I really don't feel like writing fics, I'd rather spend my energy on metas. But I wanted to share my headcanon anyway.

To start, my headcanon is canon-compliant. I appreciate fix-it AUs, but I have a problem with them because I always feel the need to acknowledge canon. So I acknowledge everything that happened in season 8. But in my headcanon, I completely absolve Dany of everything. Instead, I tend to think Bran warged into Dany and made her burn King's Landing, urged by Sansa. So yeah, this is not for Stark fans. My headcanon is pretty much anti everyone but Dany and Jon. (By the way, if anyone has seen any fic with this premise, and that follows season 8 canon, can you please tell me? I don't know why, but it seems no one has thought of this so far? Or maybe I just haven't seen it, since I don't read a lot of fanfic, but I would appreciate reading a fic like this)

Ok, but now you're probably thinking, but why would Bran do this? Why would Sansa tell him to do this? Isn't it OOC? That's where my complete reinterpretation of Bran and Sansa's characters start. I'm sorry I had to vilify them, but I see no other way to completely absolve Dany.

First, Bran: When Bran had met Bloodraven, Bloodraven had hoped that by teaching Bran his abilities, he would have someone to help him look into the past and find an easier way to defeat the Night King. Probably, the children of the forest told him about something (like, maybe, some hidden magical artifact), but they didn’t know where this magical artifact was. So Bloodraven thought having another person with the Three Eyed Raven’s powers would help defeat the Night King. Bran followed Bloodraven’s instructions faithfully, but in the end, he didn’t find anything that would help, and that’s why he was useless in the War for the Dawn. The reason why the Night King was going after Bran was because the Night King knew Bran had the powers to find out his secret and destroy him easily (ie, without a battle). But Bran wasn’t able to do this in the end.

But Bran’s journey to become the three eyed raven wasn’t meaningless to the story. As Jojen once warned Bran, if he spent too much time inside the mind of a wolf, he would lose himself. And this is what happened. Bran spent most of his time warging on ravens, wolves, trees, trying to find the answer. He had seen in his future visions that the Night King would be defeated, so he wasn’t much worried about that (which explains his calm behavior when the Night King came to kill him), but he didn’t know exactly how, he thought he would be the one to do it, so he worked tirelessly and warged tirelessly (btw, Bran’s future visions are more flawed. He can look into the past easily if he knows what to look for, but the future isn’t as clear and it changes constantly, it is based on possibilities). Bloodraven had time to adapt before he spent most of his time warging. Bran didn’t have that time, because the need was urgent, so the time spent warging animals and trees made him start losing his humanity, in the sense that he stopped caring, and stopped having as much empathy. He loved his family to some extent, and he still had some sense of self preservation, but he had almost no empathy left for others.

Now, let's talk about Sansa. Sansa, during her journey, became a hardened woman. Unlike book Sansa, who keeps her kindness, show!Sansa has absorbed the lessons her abusers taught her: don’t trust anyone, look out only for yourself, take any advantage you can manage. This is what Sansa has been doing for quite some time. She doesn’t tell the truth about who killed Lysa Arryn, and the reason for this isn’t that she’s afraid of Littlefinger and sees no other choice. No. Sansa has entirely embraced Littlefinger and his plans. She later resents him for selling her to the Boltons, but this experience just leaves her more traumatized. So Sansa becomes a different person: her trauma makes her look out only for herself. She had always wished for power (since season 1 she wanted to be queen), and this hasn't changed, but now, it's also tied with her traumas: she wants power as a way for her to feel in control after lacking agency for so long.

So here's how I would interpret Sansa's actions since she escaped the Boltons. In season 6, when Littlefinger reminds Sansa that Jon is a threat to her, and only her half brother, Sansa starts plotting against him. She secretly corresponds with Littlefinger, and doesn’t tell Jon about the Vale army. She does this for different reasons: she thought that by doing this, Jon and Rickon had more chance to die, and she could become queen without Jon there to threaten her power. She also wanted to be seen as the hero of the battle, the one that saved them at the last minute, so she could have more chances of becoming queen. Not only that, but she didn’t want the Wildlings in the North and saw them as expendable. They were only a tool to her. She wanted to use them to get her lands and titles back, and used the fact that Jon saved them to try to convince Jon that they should fight (Sansa does say in season 6 that the Wildlings should fight for Winterfell because they owe Jon their lives). So she saw them as expendable tools to get Winterfell back, but she also didn’t care that they would die because she withheld information about the Vale army: the less foreign savages in the North, the better. When she doesn’t get her position of Queen in the North, she starts undermining Jon deliberately. Jon asks her to stop, but she continues doing it. When Bran returns, she offers Bran the position of Lord of Winterfell, and is relieved that he doesn’t want it. When the lords talk about putting her in Jon’s place, she doesn’t reprimand them. In her conflict with Arya, she was indeed going to kill Arya. After all, she sends Brienne away after Littlefinger reminds her that Brienne is sworn to protect both her and Arya. She only doesn’t kill Arya because she goes to Bran and learns that Littlefinger was manipulating her, and she realizes that Littlefinger is a bigger threat than Arya. She was fine in keeping Littlefinger as an ally before, she didn’t care about all the horrible things he did, but she realizes that keeping him alive would be more dangerous than advantageous. So she makes a sham trial to kill him, while also omitting her involvement in Littlefinger’s schemes in the Vale and the fact that she knew about them.

So by the time Dany gets to Winterfell, Sansa is a person that only cares about her position and privileges. When she hears Dany talking about her reforms in favor of the smallfolk, she is scandalized. Unlike book!Sansa, show!Sansa never lived as a bastard, and keeps her classism. Sansa is against Dany not because of pettiness or stupid distrust, but because she feels her power threatened, and because she thinks Dany is a tyrant for wanting to take away the privileges of the nobility. So Sansa tries to undermine Dany in every way she can: publicly telling Dany that she and her armies aren’t welcome; badmouthing Dany while Dany is fighting for her. When Sansa sees Dany giving Storm’s End to Gendry, she hates seeing it because she thinks giving Storm’s End to a bastard is an absurd (after all, she was usurped by her bastard brother) and also because if the Northern Lords see Dany’s generosity, they might not be so against her, especially after Dany fought for them. Finally, Sansa betrays the oath she swore to Jon in the godswood, telling Tyrion Jon’s secret, not necessarily because she wants Jon to be king, but because she wants to overthrow Dany. And she knows that if her plans succeeds, Dany will end up dead and no longer a threat. She doesn’t care that this could spark a civil war and that innocents could die. She doesn't care that she's plotting the death of a woman that just saved her. She only wants to retain her power, and she wouldn’t be allowed to do that if Dany actually “broke the wheel”. She continues not to care about anyone but herself by humiliating Edmure when he speaks (because she wants herself to be queen), and when Tyrion suggests Bran, she undermines him as well: first saying that Bran can’t rule because he doesn’t want it and can’t have children, and later by asking for independence, knowing that asking for independence would just lead to political instability and possibly war, but not caring about it, because she wants to be queen. So these are Sansa’s motivations.

So how would the idea of Bran warging into Dany work? Well, Bran has future visions. He doesn't choose to have them, they happen to him, and they are uncertain. But as we did see twice, Bran saw a dragon flying over King's Landing, and he saw the throne room destroyed. He later tells people in the Dragonpit that he knew he was going to be king. This implies that he didn't just have a vision of a dragon over King's Landing, but that he also had more detailed visions of what would happen later. He also tells Jon that Jon was "exactly where he has supposed to be", which implies that he knew Jon would kill Dany. So Bran knew many things: knew a dragon would fly over King's Landing, knew the throne room would be destroyed, knew Jon would kill Dany (meaning that he probably knew Dany was going to be responsible for the destruction), and knew the political ramifications of all that (he was going to be king). I think that, despite the fact his visions of the future are not as exact as visions of the past and present, every evidence seems to point out that Bran knew Dany would destroy King's Landing. So I choose to believe that he saw Dany, at the back of a dragon, burning everything, and all the subsequent events that happened with it.

So maybe, Bran started looking into the future and saw Dany becoming more and more depressed. He thought this would make her burn King's Landing. And he has seen how much Sansa craves power, and he still has some loyalty to his family. So he really has no interest in preventing an outcome that gets his family on top, and given that he has lost much of his empathy due to too much time warging on animais and trees, he doesn't really try to do anything to prevent the burning of King's Landing. He doesn't warn Dany or Jon. He tells Jon the truth about his parentage even though he knows that the truth would cause chaos. And so on.

At some point, he tells Sansa what's going to happen. And Sansa also does nothing to prevent it, and instead, wants to make it happen (like when she tells the truth of Jon's parentage). She takes Bran's visions of Dany burning King's Landing as a confirmation of her bias against Dany, which makes her feel righteous in her actions. And she wants House Stark on top, so she doesn't really stop to think that maybe, just maybe, she should be trying to prevent this from happening.

So when Dany marchs south, and attacks King's Landing, Bran watches over things to see what's happening, and Sansa waits by his side for him to tell her the news. But as time passes, nothing happens. Dany is not burning King's Landing as they expected. She is only attacking the soldiers, and is close to winning without bloodshed (This did, in fact, happen in the show. Dany never attacks any civilians before the bells, she only attacks military targets). Sansa starts to get anxious. Sansa was already expecting that she would become queen, and she becomes nervous when this possibility starts to be threatened. Then, when King's Landing surrenders, Sansa gets more desperate, and asks Bran to do something, telling him that they shouldn't allow Dany to stay in power. Bran, dispassionate as he is about everything and not really caring about people, tells Sansa that the possibility of warging into Dany exists. Sansa asks Bran to do it. He asks if she is certain, and in the desperation of the moment, Sansa says yes. So for Sansa, this was about seeing the power that she craved slipping through her fingers once again. For Bran, he was simply doing what Sansa wanted. He didn't particularly care about becoming King, but he didn't really have much empathy for the people of King's Landing, so to him it didn't matter.

Dany doesn't really realize what's happening. She is in a very emotionally fragile state, and she is already feeling certain things like anger and despair. This makes her vulnerable to Bran. A person with the mental strength to resist Bran’s warging could have done it, but Dany couldn't. So when we see Dany shaking her head in episode 8x5, before she starts burning King's Landing, it's because she was fighting against Bran's invasion, but in the end she couldn't resist it. So everything we see from that moment in episode 8x5 until Dany's death, Dany is only vaguely aware of the things she is doing, but is actually being controlled by Bran. And Bran is doing everything to make sure the outcome Sansa desired (Dany's death) happens: after Dany's attack, Bran makes her land with Drogon and makes her give Grey Worm the order to kill the Lannister soldiers that surrendered. He makes the speech about world domination. And Bran's warging is also the explanation why Dany acted so weird in the last episode. It's also the reason Dany didn't have anyone to protect her when Jon came to kill her: Bran made her give orders to her soldiers to leave her alone, and to let Jon come in without taking his weapons. When Jon stabs Dany, it's when Bran finally leaves her mind, and it's the first moment of full awareness she has since Bran warged her. So the betrayal and heartbreak she feels is even worse. She wakes from a trance and sees the man she loves killing her.

Now, you might wonder, why did Bran and Sansa have to go to such extreme lengths? Why didn't they warg a random soldier to do the job and kill Dany, instead of making her burn thousands of innocents to make Jon kill her? Expecting that Jon would make the decision to kill Dany is risky, because he could decide not to do it, and Bran and Sansa's plan would fall apart. But the problem is: they didn't simply want Dany to die. They wanted to destroy her reputation, to make sure that none of her followers could seize power. If Dany simply died, the throne would go to Jon, and measures to break the wheel could still happen. Sansa didn't want this to happen, she didn’t want to lose her privileges, she wanted the herself in power and Dany's forces neutralized. By warging into Dany, they could destroy Dany's reputation, make Tyrion and Jon kill her and destroy their own chances of seizing power, and destroy the chance that Dany's allies could seize power instead of her. With Dany burning King's Landing, Bran and Sansa could spin the narrative that Dany is a radical extremist, and that her wish to make reforms is what made her a tyrant. And so on. So this is why none of them thought of warging someone and making them kill Dany, or warging Dany and making her kill herself. (Besides, I headcanon that warging someone is easier if the person is in a fragile mental state, so maybe trying to warg someone else wouldn't work).

So this is my headcanon to explain Dany burning King's Landing. From this point, everything happens as in the show: Bran and Sansa get their crowns, Arya sails west of Westeros (and dies in a storm because I have no creativity to think of a story for her and I started to hate her show self anyway), Tyrion becomes Hand and Jon is exiled. Drogon obviously, takes Dany to Volantis to resurrect her.

In exile, Jon is miserable. On the one hand, he tells himself he did the right thing. After all, Dany seemed intent on "liberating" more cities, and could maybe kill his family. And regardless of whether she would burn more cities or not, or kill his family or not, he thinks that anyone who would burn innocents for no reason and call it "necessary" shouldn't rule.

On the other hand, Jon blames himself for all the ways he failed Dany. He thinks that he was so caught up in his own angst about his parentage, about how he and Dany were related, that he didn't notice how much she was hurting. So while Jon tells himself he did the right thing in killing her, he also blames himself for not comforting her, for disregarding her fears about the dangers of his parentage coming out and telling the secret to his family, for not standing up more for her. He wonders if he only could have comforted her, then maybe she wouldn’t have ended up like that. He also starts to doubt his decision to kill her: if Dany did what she did because she became mad with grief, then maybe he could have helped her come to her senses. Maybe he didn't have to kill her. Maybe he could have helped her heal. So I headcanon that Jon would be really hard on himself and start to hate himself for killing Dany. (By the way, it's also important to consider Jon's state of mind when he kills Dany. I'm sure seeing thousands of innocents burned by dragonfire must be pretty traumatic, and would push him to decide that killing Dany was necessary).

But not only Jon blames himself, he also starts to blame his family for what they did to Dany. He starts to hate Sansa for conspiring against her (and almost leading to Dany's death, since Sansa telling the truth made Varys try to poison Dany). He blames his family for being so cold to Dany, for using her for her resources and then discarding her, and thinks about how things could have gone differently if they hadn't done these things. And at some point, Jon will remember Bran's cryptic line about him being "exactly where he was supposed to be", and start to get suspicious that Bran knew what Dany would do, and that Bran knew Jon would end up killing her, and did nothing to prevent it. But Jon will brush off these suspicions by thinking that "his family would never do this to him".

Meanwhile, Dany will, obviously, be resurrected. Drogon will take her body to Volantis, but since he is an animal, it's not like he knows what to do with it. So he will rest with her body and mourn her somewhere in Volantis, and some slaves will find him. Said slaves will recognize Dany. They have never seen her, of course, but seeing a silver haired woman and a black dragon, it's not difficult to guess who she is. And they will also mourn her, of course. Dany was a hope to many slaves. These slaves also hoped that Dany would come to save them, so seeing the dragon queen dead is the death of those dreams. They try to get to Drogon, and Drogon, slowly, comes to trust them to get near Dany. They bring a red priestess to where Dany's body is to make the rites usually done for the dead and honor the dragon queen. They don't really tell this to anyone, because they don't want her body to be found and desecrated by slave masters. So the ceremony is done in secret. But something they didn't expect happens: as the priestess gives her the last kiss, Dany is resurrected.

Oh, and as soon as Dany is resurrected, something terrible already happens: she has a miscarriage. Dany had found out she was pregnant very recently, and didn't have time to tell Jon. But since he killed her, the baby died, and didn't come back when she was resurrected. (I don't have the link right now, but I remember reading GRRM say that people who return from the dead are those who feel a strong sense of purpose, and I think a fetus wouldn't have that, so I don't think the baby would be resurrected)

Well, with all of this, Dany is incredibly traumatized. She doesn't know she was being warged by Bran, and she feels guilty for what she thinks she did to King's Landing. She has lost another child, she has lost her hope for the future, the love of her life has killed her. So she falls into depression, and starts to live hidden in Volantis (the red priestess that resurrected her helps her with a spell to prevent Bran from using his powers to see her). She has given up on the idea of helping people. And she doesn’t want to fly on Drogon anymore, because she has horrible flashbacks of what she did to King’s Landing, and because she doesn’t trust herself with a weapon as powerful as Drogon.

But after some time, Dany will start coming back to her former self. She’ll see the suffering of the slaves in Volantis, she will hear the news about Volantis going to war against the cities of Dragon’s Bay in order to re-enslave everyone, and she will hear about how some of the Dothraki have come back to their old ways and are enslaving again, and she’ll decide that she needs to do something about it. This is when she decides to ride Drogon again.

*by the way, here’s a parenthesis about the political situation in Essos*

Volantis has slavery, and is preparing for war against Meereen and Astapor. Meereen and Astapor are still strong and anti-slavery, because Dany left former slaves in the government, and she also left military forces to avoid her new governments being overthrown (like what happened the first time in Astapor, so Dany learned from her mistakes). Daario is still loyal to Dany, because he really loved her (and also because the Meereenese government is paying him to protect the city, so he really has no reason to turn on them). In Yunkai, however, Dany had wanted to do the same thing she did in Astapor (kill all the masters), but Tyrion convinced her not to do it, opting for only cutting the throats of two of the Yunkish leaders. This means that even though Yunkai is being watched by Dany’s army in the region, and they don’t openly sell slaves anymore (lest they provoke a war against Astapor in Meereen, which would be bad now that Yunkai is weakened), the Yunkish leaders are still conspiring to bring back slavery, but this time, instead of funding the Sons of the Harpy (once again, they’re not doing this anymore because Astapor and Meereen are aware that they were the culprits, and the resurgence of the Sons of the Harpy would mean war as well), they are secretly negotiating with Volantis, asking for help (since the end of slavery in Dragon’s Bay meant that the price of slaves went up, and Volantis’ economy was suffering because of this).

Meanwhile, some of the Dothraki returned to Essos. Of the ones that returned, some Dothraki believed in Dany, meaning that they didn’t return to the old ways and some even have hope that she will return, since she’s the Stallion that Mounts the World. While others have made up their own khalasars, and started enslaving and raiding again (even selling slaves to Volantis and other slave cities that remained). These khalasars that returned to the old ways are allied with Volantis.

I don’t really have a headcanon for cities like Pentos, Myr, Tyrosh, Lys and others. I don’t know if they will still have slavery or not. The show doesn’t really mention it as far as I remember, so it could go either way.

*end of parenthesis about Essos*

So Dany starts by seeking for her khalasar, the ones that are in Essos. Some of the Dothraki (the ones that didn’t go back to their old ways and didn’t go back to being slavers) eagerly accept her back. Together with them, Dany starts again her army, and they end up defeating those other khalasars that started enslaving again. So once again, Dany unites the khalasars in Essos. But there are still some Dothraki left in Westeros, so Dany hasn’t reunited all khalasars yet.

After uniting the khalasars in Essos, stopping them from engaging in slavery, and stopping them from selling slaves to Volantis and other cities, at some point, Dany will reunite with the Unsullied. Together with her new khalasar, the Unsullied, and Drogon, Dany will start a war against the slave cities that remain in Essos. She will liberate Volantis and many other cities. She will go back to Slaver’s Bay and destroy the counter-revolutionary movement in Yunkai. She will reunite with Daario too, and things will happen between them, because I ship Dany and Daario, and also because I think Dany deserves to have some physical and emotional comfort before she reunites with Jon.

So with all that Dany is doing in Essos, news of Dany’s resurrection will reach Westeros, and they will greatly worry Bran, Tyrion and Sansa.

*And here’s another parenthesis, about the political situation in Westeros*

Tyrion is now theoretically Lord of Casterly Rock, but the Lannisters of Lannisport are opposing him (and unfortunately, ableism is a part of it). Tyrion has support from some of them, with whom he had a good relationship in the past, but not from most of them (and that fact the he killed Tywin is obviously another reason why many would oppose him). However, most of the Lannisport Lannisters start to die or disappear mysteriously - through suicide, through murder, or simply disappearing. This isn’t Tyrion’s doing, though. He doesn’t know why this is happening, but in the end, only his allies survived, and Tyrion starts to get a better hold on the Westerlands. (What is actually happening is that Bran has spies/ravens and is ordering the killing of those he views as opposition. He does this because he sees no other choice, because the situation in the Six Kingdoms is very chaotic)

In the Reach, Bronn is now lord, which is pissing off many lords (they think it’s an absurd that a sellsword was given Highgarden when many of the Reach families had better claims to it). He has the support of the Tarlys, because Sam’s family wants to support the new regime. But the region is in a chaos. Many lords are rebelling, the smallfolk are rebelling because Bronn is greedy and exploits them, and doesn’t give them justice (They aren’t necessarily hungry, because it’s the Reach. But Bronn is trying to indulge some lords to gain their alliance and be able to contend against the lords that are against him, so he let’s them do whatever they want with the smallfolk and offers the smallfolk no protection). Outlaw groups start to form to fight against Bronn and his allies, but he answers with brutality to those who oppose him or that try to ask him for anything better for the smallfolk. Bronn keeps his own sellsword army, that he rewards greatly to help him stop the smallfolk from claiming for more rights (and spending so much money on sellswords gains Bronn the enmities of some lords and smallfolk). Some of the Unsullied didn’t go to Naath (only Grey Worm’s closest friends went), and stayed in the Reach, and they help the outlaw groups.

The new prince of Dorne doesn’t have any allegiance to Bran. As soon as things calm down, he declares for Independence, given that King Bran gave independence to his own sister. He stops paying tributes, and Bran sends troops (composed of soldiers from the Crownlands, the Westerlands, Riverlands and the Stormlands) against them. The prince of Dorne answers, ready to fight for his independence. Bran brutally crushes his opposition.

Yara and the Ironborn want independence. Yara also resents the Starks for killing Dany, and also for making her brother die for them. She has taken back the Iron Islands from Euron in season 8, but now, without Dany’s support and the fear of dragons, some of the Ironborn don’t want a woman as their queen, and they want to go back to the old ways as Euron promised (while Yara, still loyal to Dany, has decided to uphold her ideals, decreeing that there should be no more raiding and raping). So the Iron Islands declare independence, but they are divided. Yara still has more support (since many of Euron’s supporters died in Dany’s attack to King’s Landing), but the few that don’t follow her start to raid the Riverlands, Westerlands and the North.

Edmure is a good lord, but the Riverlands have suffered greatly from the wars and the winter. When he tries to ask the Iron Throne for help to feed his people, the Iron Throne doesn’t send much. His niece Sansa is not going to help either (as she has her own concerns with food and can’t share), and Edmure starts go get disillusioned with the new regime and with his own family, who won’t help him, and who will also make his people fight in another war (against Dorne), while his people are being attacked by the Ironborn. And he doesn’t forget how Sansa humiliated him at the Dragonpit.

Gendry is loyal to the Starks, but only because he knew Arya and Jon. With both of them gone, his loyalty to King Bran is weak. He cares more about his own smallfolk. Gendry was a lowborn bastard after all, so he wants to do everything he can for them. But with time, he sees that the new regime is not interested in helping the smallfolk, just like they weren’t interested in listening to Sam’s idea of democracy. His loyalty also starts to waver. He also has problems with some lords from the Stormlands that don’t like that some bastard is now in charge, but it’s less than Bronn, since Gendry is indeed trying to be a good lord, and he is indeed Robert Baratheon’s son (he was recognized as such by Stannis Baratheon, and later by Daenerys Targaryen, so now it’s common knowledge).

The North also suffered with the War for the Dawn and the winter. Sansa is regarded as a competent lady by the Northern lords, but she has no love in the North. The Northern Lords kinda just got stuck with her. Sansa had stored grain in Winterfell to feed the castle and her armies, but that only means that the smallfolk in other parts of the North had to give up part of their harvest to send to Winterfell, and now, with the Winter, they are starving. To quell discontentment, Sansa tries bringing food from White Harbour, and Bran also sends her food. The fact that Bran is sending food to his sister for lower prices than usually done when trading with other foreign lands makes the lords of the Six Kingdoms angry. Bran stops sending so much food, so Sansa starts demanding more tributes from White Harbour. This angers Lord Manderly more and more, and Lord Manderly decides to demand for independence. Sansa had publicly complained many times about Dany being a tyrant for not giving her independence, so he uses the same argument Sansa used in the Dragonpit: White Harbour had suffered too much: they had sent their troops to fight the Night King alongside the Starks, but not only that, they had been the ones that most contributed to feeding the North. Because of this, he thinks he deserves independence, just like Sansa argued that she deserved independence from the Seven Kingdoms. He argues that what Sansa did created a precedent for independence, and that it would be tyranny if she refused to give it to him. Sansa is outraged, and sends her troops to make Lord Manderly bend the knee and force him to send food again.

The Vale will stay loyal to the Starks to the end, since they have mostly been left alone, and are not having as much problems with food (they weren’t very affected by wars, and their land is fertile). Nepotism also helps, because Bran won’t demand too much from his family. Edmure, also Bran’s family, was asking for help, but Tyrion advised that Lord Royce, the regent of the Vale and Sweetrobin’s advisor, was a proud man and their most loyal ally, and that angering him and making him send food to the Riverlands would be bad for them (Tyrion was wrong, as always).

By the way, winter isn’t over. Book speculation often said that the Others were the cause of the long winter, but in the show, we saw that there was snow in King’s Landing even after the White Walkers were defeated. So here, we’ll accept the fact that the seasons being long is just a normal thing for their world. After they kill Dany, Westeros goes through a few months of “false spring”, but winter returns stronger than ever after that. Crops die, hunger spreads through the land.

So basically, everything is chaos.

*end of the parenthesis about Westeros*

So with the chaos that is happening in Westeros, and the news of Dany’s return, Bran, Tyrion and Sansa start to get nervous. They pardon Jon, and Sansa sends men after Jon to bring him back from beyond the Wall, because she believes having Jon in Winterfell could serve as a shield in case Dany attacks (she thinks Dany might still love him, or that Jon might be able to negotiate with her. In a last case scenario, she could deliver Jon to Dany to make Dany leave her alone), and also, because she feels lonely, since her entire family left her.

Jon comes back to Winterfell. At some point, he overhears a conversation between Sansa and Maester Wolkan. Maester Wolkan was in the room when Sansa asked Bran to warg into Dany, and he knows the truth. Sansa sworn him to secrecy, but now, he comes to her with news of Dany’s resurrection, and asks Sansa if Dany would want revenge for Bran having warged into her. Sansa answers that she is not sure that Daenerys has memories or if she is aware that she was being warged, and if Daenerys doesn’t remember, she might not seek revenge.

So when Jon overhears this conversation, he learns that Daenerys was innocent, and that she is alive. He is horrified by what his family did, and also feels guilty for not believing in Daenerys, for having trusted his family and dismissed Dany’s fears, and so on. There’s a lot of angst. Jon then pretends he didn’t hear Sansa’s conversation, and pretends that everything is ok. He runs away from Winterfell in the middle of the night, without warning, with the intention of going to Dany.

From this moment on, I’m not really sure of what happens. I like the idea of Jon spending some time in the South, helping outlaw groups in the Reach, and learning about his brother’s tyranny. On the other hand, I don’t know how Jon could escape being seen by Bran’s ravens. So maybe Jon simply takes a ship and goes to Essos. But before he manages to take his ship, I still like to think that he talks with the smallfolk and hears what has been happening in Westeros (since he didn’t hear anything about it when he was exiled beyond the Wall).

Jon and Dany eventually reunite. Jon is brought to her in her war camp (because Dany is still at war with the slavers in Essos). While on the one hand Dany feels angry at Jon for killing her, for not supporting her and for giving up on her, on the other hand, she feels ashamed of what she did in King’s Landing and thinks she deserved to die (after all, Dany herself would have killed a person that burned innocents for no reason). So she accepts to meet Jon, but only with her guards around her, because while she still loves Jon, she is also afraid of him. Dany doesn’t have any intention of getting revenge against Jon, since she feels guilty about what she did. She is curious about what could possibly be the reason for Jon to look for her again, and thinks that he wants to kill her in the name of his family.

Jon is still very confused and tormented, and while a part of him believes that Dany is innocent, another part of him doesn’t want to believe that his siblings would have been capable of doing such an atrocity. So when he and Dany talk, he starts by asking her why she did what she did to King’s Landing. Dany answers that she doesn’t really know. That before she realized, she was doing it, like she couldn’t control herself. She tells Jon that her memories of King’s Landing almost don’t feel real, and that she is ashamed of what she did. This convinces Jon that Dany is indeed innocent, and he tells her the truth.

And this causes a lot of angst, of course. Initially, it makes Dany angry that he didn’t believe in her innocence and that he gave up on her so easily. She accuses him of having betrayed her, of having abandoned her. She also tells Jon that she was pregnant, and that because he killed her, he also killed their child (and this of course, makes Jon feel even more guilty). But with time, the anger passes, and she starts to see Jon as another victim of his family’s machinations (unlike Jon, who was hesitant in believing the worst of his siblings, Dany has a very low opinion of the Starks).

So Dany forgives Jon. They don’t return to their romantic relationship, but consider each other friends. And Jon starts to help her in her fight against slavery in Essos. This makes them content, since neither of them wants to ever return to Westeros. But unfortunately for them, news of Dany’s resurrection have started to reach more people, and lords from Westeros come to her to ask for her help in deposing Bran and the lords loyal to him. Listening to all the things that are happening in Westeros and how much the people are suffering only angers Dany. And it angers Jon as well. So they make plans to return to Westeros. Dany leaves a big part of her army of Unsullied and Dothraki in Essos, so that they could keep on with their fight against the masters. She returns to Westeros mostly with the army of their Westerosi allies (and her dragon, of course).

Dany has in mind a new political system, with a council of noblemen and a council of the smallfolk, so she negotiates with her allies with this in mind, making it clear that if they want to support her claim, they also have to support her reforms She has decided that she won’t hesitate to use force against the lords who don’t accept her reforms.

*another parenthesis*

Since I said I didn’t really have everything figured out, here are some alternatives to the things that I just described:

Maybe the reason Jon went back to Winterfell wasn’t because Sansa called him, but because when Jon was beyond the Wall, he saw that the White Walkers weren’t entirely gone. So maybe, what makes Dany return to Westeros isn’t that she wants revenge or because the lords are asking her to return, but because of the White Walkers. This would leave her conflicted, because the last time she tried to help those people she was betrayed and killed.

Or maybe Dany’s motivation to return to Westeros are just that she wants revenge. In this case, maybe she won’t even accept the alliance with the Lords, because she wants to change things for the common people. Or maybe she makes alliances with lesser lords promising them more political influence and that lesser lords would have as much sway as high lords in her new system (as well as smallfolk would also have more power).

*end of parenthesis*

Whatever Dany’s motivations for returning to Westeros are, she returns to Westeros, takes back the throne, and takes revenge. Dany is no longer the trusting soft person she was when she first went to Westeros. She comes with fire and blood, uses force when she needs to. Bran dies, because he is way too powerful for Dany to keep alive and trust that he won’t warg or spy on anyone again. As for Sansa and Tyrion, I could see different endgames: they could be exiled, imprisoned and kept as hostages, or Dany could kill them both for treason: Sansa because she revealed Jon’s parentage against Jon and Dany’s wishes, and also because of her part in the plan to make Bran warg into Dany; and Tyrion for telling what Sansa told him to Varys without Dany’s permission, which led Varys to try to poison Dany, and Dany could have died due to Tyrion’s actions; though I could see Dany being more lenient towards Tyrion than Sansa, since Sansa’s crimes are more grave. But I don’t see Dany ever accepting him as an advisor again.

Jonerys will reconcile and rule. There might be some conflict with Jon because he doesn’t want to see his family die (which is why there could be the possibility of keeping Sansa alive but as a prisoner), but in the end they get back together, marry and have children. Dany creates a new government in which both smallfolk and lords can have representatives and create laws, and she creates laws that limit the powers of the lords and stops them from abusing the smallfolk. She could also give some autonomy to each of the kingdoms: she doesn’t fully give them independence, but this greater autonomy helps quell the growing wishes for independence from each of the kingdoms.

So that’s my post season 8 headcanon. Dany was entirely innocent, the Starks were the villains, and Bran warged into Dany. Btw, if anyone wants to use this headcanon to actually write a fic, feel free to do so. Just please tell me because I’d love to read it.

#daenerys resurrection week #daenerys targaryen #jonerys #headcanons #fanfic #drw day 1

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edwardslostalchemy · 4 years

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Explain the difference between endevour and Bakugou’s Behavior when it comes to treating others how they do. Thanks (:D)

This is tough because I’m so biased to believe they are both abusive. And I really just want to tell you with the Pam from the Office meme that they’re the same person. But I know that’s not entirely true. Both of these characters have inflicted damage to other characters.

However, I acknowledge that Katsuki is still a teenager and I am holding out for hope that Horikoshi gives him proper development, that he can regret his actions, have a good redemption arc, apologize to Izuku, and be a better character.

Endeavor is just. A monster. Because through more than 20 years, he never stopped to think that MAYBE just MAYBE he was hurting PEOPLE, and the people were his FAMILY, his WIFE, his CHILDREN. He hurt FIVE people. He didn’t even see them as people to begin with, just a means to an end. He didn’t even see Shouto as a child, he saw him as his ‘masterpiece’, an extension of himself, the perfect tool to use for his ambition. He saw his three older children as failures and neglected them, pushing them aside and separating Shouto from his siblings because he ‘lived in a different world from the one they lived in’. It is heavily implied and suggested that he has beat his wife and even on screen, the sounds that were made were obviously of him hitting her and she falls to the ground. And the way Shouto reacts, with a horrified expression while calling for his mother, is more than enough proof that that’s what happened in that one instant. He drove her to madness, so much so that she ended up maiming her youngest child, someone who had no fault in any of what was going on, but ended up on the receiving end of her meltdown, unfortunately. And what did Endeavor do? He put her in a mental hospital because she ‘hurt his masterpiece’. Not even ‘because she hurt my son/child’ or ‘because she needs help’. Because he hurt his masterpiece. His tool. We still don’t know what happened to Touya, but we do know that Endeavor had a hand in killing him, which is horrifying and so so terrible. How…how do you just. Move on from that? It’s no wonder Natsuo hates him so much. It’s no wonder Shouto has so many mixed feelings and doesn’t know what to feel. It’s no wonder Rei is so scared of him and doesn’t want to see him even if it’s been more than 10 years since she’s been there. Even Fuyumi has admitted that she feels the same way as Natsuo and Shouto.

This is different from Katsuki. He didn’t do any of this and I really hope he never does. It would be unfortunate and sad. He has been compared to Endeavor, though, in terms of behavior, by All Might. However, he still hurt Izuku. He’s called him useless, he’s called him scum and has said he is like a pebble and like an insect he can crush if I remember correctly; he’s used his quirk on him to hurt him, and just by what we saw from the first episode, it says a lot about what he did. As little kids, he and his friends beat up Izuku. And then fast forward to middle school, he’s still bothering and hurting him. It’s quite exaggerated if I’m being honest, but still, Izuku is pushed against the wall and Katsuki stands over him threateningly. Their teacher doesn’t even do anything to stop it. After classes end, he burns Izuku’s notebook and tosses it out of the window and then tells him to kill himself. After the entrance exam for UA and they both get accepted, he pushes Izuku against a secluded wall and threatens him to not go to UA. He used so much of his quirk during the battle trial that All Might warned him not to use it or else he’d kill Izuku. And his response was that he wouldn’t get killed as long as he dodged. He still threatened him during their first semester and hit him in the face during their final exam. We don’t get to see throughout the years the extend of the bullying, just glimpses of how Katsuki tells Izuku his quirk will never be as good as his, he would leave him behind, he’d push him down; but we get to see the aftermath and Izuku does not think of himself as worthy. He has self-esteem issues, he flinches whenever he is approached by Katsuki, although this is improving because he hasn’t been stepping back recently. Katsuki can’t attack Izuku anymore because Aizawa can stop him. It’s not because he felt bad. It’s because a teacher with the means to do it finally stepped in and went ‘nope’. Aizawa doesn’t reprimand him, but he stops him. Izuku is getting better at fighting back. Katsuki can’t push him around anymore. But it doesn’t mean he’s stopped yelling at him or has stopped hurting him. He still stabs him on the head to shut him up. He’s very disrespectful when it comes to OFA meetings (and really he’s disrespectful all the time). But the thing is that now, currently in the manga, he doesn’t have that chance to attack Izuku anymore. Which is GOOD. I still see his behavior as abusive because bullies are abusive. They still hurt people mentally, physically, and/or emotionally.

The difference is that nobody was there to stop Endeavor, but someone was there to stop Katsuki. Endeavor took a hell of a long time to realize that what he did was not right and evaluated that his reasons for doing what he did were not really….I guess enough. Or wrong. Perhaps I’m not interpreting that scene correctly, where he is fighting High End and he’s thinking “that’s the reason….the reason…” and it pans over Rei, Natsuo, Fuyumi, and Shouto. Endeavor is an ADULT who should have better judgement and better sense in treating people like people. He’s a certified Hero, but only acts heroically publicly. With his family? Not even close. He did it because he believed this was the best option for reaching his goal. But it was not an ethical option. Katsuki did what he did because his ego was inflated and people would tell him he was the best and his quirk was amazing, even by Izuku. Katsuki is a KID. And I really hope he gets better development. I really hope he stops hurting Izuku and starts treating him like a person and like a friend. (And I say this for Izuku’s sake, not his.)

Now as far as how these two characters treat other people.

They’re both arrogant and proud, but they’re executed differently. Endeavor is arrogant in that he doesn’t want to join other heroes because he ‘is a very busy man’, as we saw when detective Tsukauchi requested his help to rescue Katsuki from the League of Villains. He also complained that All Might was getting the spotlight and not him. Why did he have to stay where he was when All Might was rushing into action? I am trying to translate this word to English, but what comes up is despot. He abuses power and oppresses others, most notably his family. However, because of his status, he is still rude and selfish with other people. His interactions with All Might are so tense. All Might goes to say hi and he’s like “is that it?” and walks away. And then he tells him how Shouto will beat him. It’s disgusting how he talks about Shouto as if he were a tool and not his son, and also he says ‘that’s why I made him’ as if Shouto is only worth being something to use instead of someone to cherish, i.e. a child. He’s beginning to atone, which is good. It leaves a bad taste in my mouth because I cannot stand abusers and I myself have dealt with someone who is awful. Not on this level of asshole, but he’s still an asshole. Anyway, back to him. He allows Natsuo to tell him what he’s thinking, which is GOOD. This is something I like because he didn’t shut Natsuo down and Natsuo was able to speak what was on his mind. Fuyumi is probably the person he has….I don’t want to use the word fondness….that implies that he cares about her, and honestly, I still want to believe that despite his abusive nature, he can at least spare some care for his daughter. I don’t know what word to use, but he lets her have dinners and convinces him to bring his interns over. He’s also trying to show Shouto that he can be a better hero, one he can be proud of. And I understand that this is part of his atonement, but it does not arouse sympathy out of me. His interaction with Hawks is interesting. He’s rude and impatient and wants for him to get to the point. However, he did not blow up when Hawks gave him a major burn on live television. Although, in later chapters, he lets Hawks give him information and it’s good he allowed this because it was so crucial.

Katsuki is different from Endeavor in that he does blow up on people. His personality is, you guessed it, explosive. And I understand that goes with his character. Endeavor is fiery…he is fierce… Shouto is warm and cold. Izuku is full of energy he cannot contain, bouncing off walls verbally and physically. So it makes sense that Katsuki is explosive. However, he yells and threatens and tells people to die. I’ve read a post explaining that him telling people to die is a common thing to say in Japan amongst kids. Perhaps if handled differently for Katsuki, it would be funny when it’s meant to be funny. But anyway, let’s go with his explosive nature. He blows up. He loses his cool so easily and is provoked instantly. He treats people like dirt, not gonna lie. I want to believe he’s getting better. But I can’t see it. It’s so hard for me to see it. Blowing up on people that see him as a friend, blowing up on Izuku, blowing up on his classmates. Constantly telling Shouto they are NOT friends even though Shouto thinks they are. I see he has not yelled at Momo, which is good, because if he were to do it, I would be out for blood. He’s not horrible to Kirishima, and he’s getting better? Like that bit where Kirishima was insecure and he told him he was strong, that was nice. I wish he would be that way with other people, too. The way he wanted to fight all the kids during the provisional license remedial course was something. And that line he said to the leader of the kids felt hollow, but at least he stopped yelling at the kids. He’s also not 100% insensitive, because he at least listened to Shouto when he said there’s other ways of reaching out to children that DON’T involve violence, and he thought back to when Shouto told Izuku about how he was abused. He is learning to cooperate, which is something I appreciate, although he is not perfect, as we saw when he joined the 1A band (thanks Sero). I would like for him to realize, though, that his behavior needs improvement. Or at least he needs to stop yelling at everyone and should direct this anger towards villains.

So really Katsuki doesn’t give a damn about public image, but Endeavor does. Still, both are rude and brash and flaunt their power in front of other people. Endeavor literally does this simply by having his fire mask, mustache, and beard all the time when he is out.

I hope this is enough/satisfactory for you, anon. I tried to stay objective, but again that was difficult given how much I hate both characters. If anyone wants to add on, feel free because I’m sure I missed something, but this is what I was able to put together.

#uhhh idk how to even tag this but i will go with these #anti bakugou #anti endeavor #anonymous #asks #bc im not praising them im pointing out how they treat people #and it's not good treatment #cw abuse #cw domestic abuse #cw child abuse #cw bullying #Anonymous #bnha character analysis #i guess #bnha spoilers

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nikibogwater · 3 years

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Niki Blethers about The Mandalorian S2: ep 7

Spoilers below the cut!

*inhale*

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

DANK FERRIK THIS WAS THE EPISODE I HAVE BEEN WAITING FOR HOLY CRUDMUFFINS

I said last week that the series has been struggling to hold my interest this season. I haven’t been super active in the fandom, and I was just overall a lot less invested in the characters/plot than I was for season 1. I was never quite able to pinpoint exactly why until this episode.

The reason I started losing interest in the show was because the show had started losing interest in Din. For several episodes, the plot was mainly focused around finding the Jedi, learning about the Force, uncovering all these Imperial baddies. The show was always at its most interesting to me when the typical Star Wars stuff took a back seat to Din’s personal story, and this season was not letting that happen as often as I would’ve liked.

But with “The Believer,” everything is solidly fixed on Din and his personal goal: get his son back. It also takes a good hard look at Din’s Creed and the Way of his tribe, which is a unique and interesting aspect of Star Wars lore that I’ve been slavering to learn more about.

I’ve seen a lot of people saying they want Din to abandon his religion, take off his helmet and be “free” or whatever, and while I understand that there are definitely religious sects out there that champion very toxic and damaging ideas, Din’s Way never felt either of those things to me. It is centered on personal sacrifice for the protection of your tribe and your honor, but at no point was it ever implied that Din was forced into this, or that he regrets swearing the Creed. He even says that nothing bad happens to you if you break the Creed--you just can’t ever take it up again once you’ve made that choice. “Sanctuary” implied that there are times when he is tempted to leave it behind and live “normally,” but he chooses to resist that urge of his own volition, because he believes in the importance of what he’s doing.

There has been a lot of helmet-removal foreshadowing in this season, and I was starting to get very concerned about the direction the writers were going in regards to Din’s Creed. I am absolutely 100% completely biased as a religious person myself, so this probably isn’t an objective viewpoint, but I think as long as your beliefs do not require you to intentionally harm other people (either physically or emotionally), it should be socially acceptable for people to believe whatever they choose. To practice any traditions they like, even if they seem weird and restrictive, as long as they are doing it by their own choice. I know this is hard for a lot of people to believe (especially in this country) but many people find a somewhat ironic sense of fulfilment in making personal sacrifices for a higher ideal. And DIn has been shown to take comfort from his Creed and the identity it gives him, and has never expressed anything more than passing wistfulness at the thought of living differently--not bitterness or resentment, simply a “Oh. Yes, that would be nice. But I’m still sticking to my guns here.”

So with all that being said...Holy crap, I love how this episode forced him to break his creed and sacrifice his identity. The show has hammered it into our heads since day one: Din’s most valued part of himself, the thing that he loves enough to die for, is his identity as a Mandalorian and follower of the Way. Din taking off his helmet was not an act of rebellion--it was truly a sacrifice, the greatest sacrifice he could ever make. Din has been shown to be pretty nonchalant about dying, but losing who he is, the code that has shaped him and guided his life--to him, that is so much worse than death. And before Grogu, I don’t think there was anyone or anything that could make him willingly give it up.

Also MAJOR Kudos to Pedro Pascal for his acting in that whole scene. The guy has already been a god of the recording booth throughout this entire series, but his physical performance during this pivotal moment in Din’s arc was just 👌👌👌 Every swallow, every muscle twitch, every eye movement was clearly very intentional, and even though Din was forced to keep a straight face and pretend this was perfectly normal, the small subtleties of Pascal’s acting clearly communicated that Din was breaking inside.

ALSO HI, HELLO, WHILE WE’RE ON THE TOPIC OF CHARACTER GROWTH, THREE CHEERS FOR MY BOI MAYFELD

You know, my mother pointed out, the first time she watched “The Prisoner,” that Mayfeld wasn’t quite on the same level of malice as the other antagonists. She picked up that there was a spark of morality somewhere in him. I didn’t think much of it other than “oh cool, different flavors of Evil in the villain squad” but hot DANG they really were teasing his redemption arc from the get-go.

Also Mayfeld being his snarky, irritating self, spewing about the faulty logistics of a religion he doesn’t actually know anything about, trying to goad Din into showing his face, was such a perfect backdrop to his reaction to Din removing his helmet. Like, just seeing him realize what Din’s creed means to him, seeing this cold-hearted bastard have genuine compassion and jump in to help out his bro--just, tres magnifique.

Din and Mayfeld were obviously the stand-out characters here, everybody else was just kind of there, but that was fine. I like that Din and Cara have a few moments of silent communication, where they just look at each other intently, and nobody goes “Alright, break it up lovebirds.” Yes. Please normalize platonic relationships being just as emotionally intense and full of trust as romantic ones.

I still don’t understand why Boba Fett and Fennec are so dead-set on helping Din, but I’m totally okay if they all come out of this as Found Family. Please give me Din bickering with his sassy assassin sister while Boba yells from the front seat “WILL YOU KIDS SHUT UP, I’M TRYING TO FLY, HERE.”

Also Fennec and Cara are Sharpshooting Sisters now, and no, you cannot change my mind, they are BFFs and they probably get into bar fights together and talk about guns.

Finally, let’s talk about the final scene (the one that broke me). “You may think you have some idea of what you are in possession of, but you do not. Soon, he will be back with me. He means more to me than you will ever know.” EXCUSE ME FOR JUST A SECOND

*screams in Found Family*

So, everything about Din’s threat message to Gideon is perfect. Not only is he forcefully reversing their roles so that now Din is the hunter and Gideon is the prey, but he alters Gideon’s own words in order to communicate something really important. Din doesn’t say “Soon, he will be mine.” He doesn’t think of Grogu as an asset to be possessed. Grogu is only his in the sense that Din needs to protect and nurture him, but no one owns the child.

Also AAAAAAAAAH DIN STRAIGHT-UP PUBLICLY ACKNOWLEDGING THAT HE LOVES HIS SON, I AM FREAKING OUT, IT’S EVERYTHING I WANTED

I am pumped for the conclusion to this season now. I don’t think I’ve been this excited for a new episode in...ever. “The Believer” gets a solid 10/10 from Niki, if for no other reason than because it actually made me want to read Mandalorian fics again. Ahhhh I feel my passion for this series returning to me...it is Well and Good.

#niki rambles #star wars #the mandalorian #semi review #i loved this ep so much

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elmidol · 4 years

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Thoughts on Ben, Kylo, Bendemption

[I have seen other similar posts and decided to do one of my own. These are solely my views and are not meant to sway anyone. I’m posting this publicly so I’m open to civil disagreement]

Let’s start with ‘Ben’. In ‘The Rise of Kylo Ren’ comics, Kylo states that he never liked the name. He from an early age chose the name Kylo for himself. The name Ben came with it a set of expectations and ideas that he felt he would never live up to. Some preordained destiny he did not want from the Light; likewise, the Dark (via Palpatine/Snoke/Vader/etc) had its own claim on him. So from an early age he felt torn apart and wished to forge his own identity and destiny.

This, for me, influences how I feel about some of his relationships in the sequel trilogy (and companion pieces). We have Leia commenting on bringing their son back. She refers to him as Kylo. But there is not an exact differentiation. She accepts him as the same person. Acknowledges certain monstrous deeds such as when he commits patricide. Leia does refer to him as Ben, namely in her thoughts, and something I noticed is that she is often thinking of him as a child. She thinks of his past self or what he could have been. It’s this dance between accepting him as he is no matter what he did. Her loving him.

Despite this love, Kylo feels that he cannot go back to her. He says as much in TFA. In TLJ we see him hesitate to kill her but at the end when he is Supreme Leader of the First Order, he aims to destroy the entire Resistance, her included. Leia has a mother’s love for Kylo but admittedly clings onto this idea of who he should be. In TROS we see her will pass into him. I struggled with this because it did, for me, erase him. It was not a merging of torn self by being embraced in love.

This is where I’m going to jump into his relationship with Han, the man he viewed as a disappointment of a father. I do believe that Han loved his son, however he’s someone I struggle to like. In the Aftermath trilogy we have him, aware that Leia is pregnant, going off on a mission. Viewing fatherhood as being tethered down. He is resentful of the Force, of the connection Leia has with Ben. The comments of too much Vader in him. Not once, from what I can remember although my memory is flawed at times, does Han accept Kylo as his son. In TROS when Kylo reiterates that “Your son is dead” Han makes a point to say “Kylo Ren is dead. My son is alive.”

For me, it would have been more impactful for Han to say “My son was never dead” because Kylo IS his son. Kylo and Ben, those are names of the same person. This is a man who has felt so torn apart, who admitted as much time and again. There are negative parts of ourselves that, yes, we need to grow ‘away’ from. Kylo’s fear of not being accepted for who he is if he did not live up to an idea, though, felt confirmed in this moment.

This, too, translates into how I view Rey’s interactions with Kylo (or Ben). I do not personally view their interactions as romantic because I do not feel Rey moved to meet Kylo halfway either. “I wanted to take Ben’s hand” when Ben is only an idea. It’s only one part of who this man is. This is her rejecting him. They were not ready to meet halfway. Both of them were an all-or-nothing (abandon your found family and let them die/join up with the Resistance though you’ve been terrified to see your mother again).

Obviously take this with a grain of salt. I understand why the ship is appealing to some. I don’t view it canonically romantic, you can if you want. I have other, very personal reasons, and that’s all just going to detract from what I’m working to write. I am reiterating the lack of romantic context (for me) though the sentiments about rejection work from a romantic or platonic standpoint.

The ‘bendemption’ thing is something that I have very mixed feelings on. Many of the negative feelings are because of everything outlined in the relationships portion where it seems to revolve around Kylo becoming the vessel for an idea or ideas others have of who he should be. @kylorengarbagedump made a statement of Tai being most correct in Kylo being able to just be, and that is basically my standpoint as well. It’s not about Kylo rejecting Kylo. I think part of it is, yes, Kylo embracing the ‘Ben’ part of himself. The part he perceives as being weak, that is, not the idea(s) instead of the person.

While Palpatine/Snoke sort of groomed Kylo into the position he obtained in the Dark, Kylo suspected this. TROS confirmed that Kylo suspected it. He felt Vader was his grandfather instead of Anakin. He made many of these choices as an adult. He wanted power. I do feel that it would be true to his character to abandon some of the First Order ideology since I don’t think he was ever in agreement with much of it. I will forever remain confused as to why he did not kill Palpatine then and there. Then when he next confronted Palpatine it was as a conduit for Leia’s will.

Adam Driver stating that Kylo had nothing to be redeemed for is not synonymous with Kylo Ren has nothing to grow from/past. It’s part of character development and his road of self-discovery. I do not personally like ‘bendemption’ because I feel it ignores Kylo. It ignores the core of this man’s inner conflict of wanting his own path to the point he created his own name.

I feel that the ending dynamics between Kylo and Rey, again however you want to view them, would have been more empowering had Rey referred to him as Kylo. This ‘Ben’ erased all of those struggles we saw onscreen. I felt nothing watching him die at the end of TROS because he had already died at that point to me. Plus every resolution he had with a character ended in death already--Han, Luke, Leia, Snoke, Palapatine, the Knights of Ren, hell even Rey. The “reemergence” of Ben was very symbolic of death for me, and thus “bendemption” is synonymous with that for me as well.

#bendemption #kylo ren #ben solo #just thoughts #not bashing any differing opinions

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mamusings · 3 years

Text

Having let the 15 x 18 percolate I started to watch again s23 and ep 1-6 of 15. Basically everything available. I'd gotten tired of feeling toyed with and feeling gaslit when trying to get confirmation from reviews for what I felt I was seeing. Ita very rarely in the dialogue but just in the eye lines and symbolically sometimes in the parallel plots.

Anyway: season 14 is a joy really. The beothere have grown up. I had been dishing the endless desperate loop of I d die for you wearing thin. Sam is basically cooked. A leader in the best sense (using his intelligence and his empathy). Dean accepts it even tho it's a bit new to him not being the boss. (The dialogue on chief)

We get that recognition more explicitly here that I found in my reviews of the early seasons that these are 2 very different men but now they have a degree of comfort and space in that that eluded them. They allow each other to be.

Which brings me to my predictions. Sam may be cooked but Dean isnt. Hes still not worked out who he is and how to have what he wants (cas basically).

So is Dean in love with Cas. Absolutely, i think this has been shown in subtext much more clearly than is Cas in love with Dean (I mean romantically/sexually). With Cas we see loyalty, devotion and affection. For an angel what does love mean? I was never quite sure. Does he want an actual relationship with Dean?

Dean's easier hes clearly incredibly attracted excited fascinated by cas in the initial phase. Then you get the affection, the liking, protectiveness. High point purgatory. Also devotedness.

In later seasons we get heartbroken widower and the co-parents/husbands. Plus their fights start to look more like a bickering couple that anything else.

So I am absolutely convinced that Dean is in love with cas.

But how aware is Dean of how he feels? I think hes so scared if being rejected by cas he can barely admit this to himself. Its telling Michael doesnt know how Dean feels about Cas. Theres lots of gay couples in the background by s23 early e15. I'd say it's an indicator Dean knows hed like to be with cas. Theres been no on screen hook ups for Dean (although there are references). But what we get now is acknowledging that a large part of Dean's flirting is social behaviour rather than sexual intent. It's nice, its charming but he doesnt mean it. (Pamela). So at some level Dean knows he wants to be together with Cas. He knows what he has with Cas. (Telling John he has a family - ok that goes wider than Cas but in my view early spn is Dean trying to grown beyond his father having the white picket fence and the girl always felt like something Dean felt he should want rather than something he really did want. The relationship with lisa is framed with lots of doing the chores and proper manly chores at that)

But I do think Dean knows how he feels. We are back to him having dialogue with Sam (Jess even comes up) with that typical early destiel trope of shots of Dean where I think the implication is that Dean is thinking about the same subject matter in relation to cas.

Sam knows but I think the malak box incident re Dean shows us that Sam knows when not to push Dean. He offers opportunities to open up but he doesnt push his brother. Like I said they get each other better now. It's not like when john dies and sam is pushing and pushing for a conversation. Now as cas and Dean's relationship falls apart we get a lot of pained reaction shots from sam. Just like we sometimes get the oh just kiss already smirk in earlier seasons. Sam doesn't understand why this relationship doesnt progress but he respects both cas and dean and doesnt meddle. I think when dean comes our Sam will be pivotal support.

What's interesting is that e15 as far as I have seen it seems to mirror early spn. Dean is mirroring his father. Obsessed with revenge at all costs. Neglecting love and relationships. The brothers are regressing into their old.relationship patterns under stress of mary dying with Dean taking up his rage filled leadership.role again. But the wierd thing is the endless we dont have a choice. Its tfw they have choice, they are all about choice. In fact Cas is choice embodied. He shouldn't have choice but he does. And over the seasons since the soul consumption he has grown remarkably in handling choices. To the extent that at the end of s14 he no longer refers to Dean's choice making on Jack. That's happened before with Kelly but then it was more ambiguous cos it got Cas dead. Then it was faith, he believes I Jack. With the malak box and Jack its ethics. Cas has grown up. Right through s14 its striking how wise he is, how he draws on experience and knowledge to counsel those around him.

I think there is a sharing of power, of burden, to come. The narrative of we shoulder all this so everyone.else can live the cute life we cant will be transformed. Basically buffy final season.

Cas professing his love for Dean. And by preparing what he wants is something he cant have I think is a totally non ambiguous profession of romantic and sexual love. He has friendship with Dean, he has family. What cas thinks he cant have is more that that. So without the fear of rejection Dean's wall can come down. I'm not sure how aware he is of what he feels because Dean can ne a dumbass, but he definitely feels it. Sam knows and will help once Dean opens up. That will take a while because Dean doesnt open up easily.

And finally a comment on the crying which oddly isnt in many of the fan vids. I think jensen is a great actor when it comes to emotional crying scenes. But we should appreciate that so far we have had weeping - tear tracks slowly with big exposition or dealing with grief wiping at his eyes. Or the meltdown, high octane crying very distressed generally life or death shit with Sam and a lot of emotion. We have never seen Dean crying into his hands like that. Curled up, despairing. I think that's another indicator that Dean absolutely knows how he feels about cas.

One final thing. Cas will be back, we wont have Dean at the end of spn with6the person he loves. Either in this world.or another its gonna happen.

Another thing I suspect is that we see with jack that while cas is the great reliable advice parent he cant bond as quickly emotionally as Dean. Its Dean who, when hes minded has the talent of emotional connection in a way cas and sam dont. The fishing expedition shows us that. Dean has the most trou ped connection to Jack, hes hated him wanted him dead. But hes also the one who gets the sunlit upland of fishing. Same as cas is the one who loves unconditionally when Mary is killed. He hugs jack. So when dean is ready to love cas publicly i think it wont be a huge thing of awkward shuffling feet. It'll be Dean doing what hes good at, loving people, but doing it with cas.

Ok I've only watched til episode 6. Gonna avoid spoilers from noe on and cross my fingers. Cant wait to watch it all.

#spn #supernatural #destiel #deancas

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sad-af1121 · 5 years

Text

It’s You: Part 1

Summary: In which your date doesn’t go well and you meet a stranger who makes you forget all about it with his witty charm. But no numbers or names are exchanged between you two, leaving you both hopeless yet love crazed, never to find one another. Or so you think. Modern AU | Requested by Anon | Pairings: Bucky Barnes x CurlyHaired! Reader Word Count: 3k Warnings: language, sexual remarks, full-on fluff and comedy

A/N: This story actually happened to a close friend of mine and I couldn’t get over how cute it was bc now they’re married! | Thanking @isaxhorror for giving this a look through! Feedback is welcomed 💜

“Fucking jerk,” you annoyingly muttered under your breath, marching out of the posh restaurant where you left your asshole of a date behind.

Something about tonight gave you hope that you’d have a nice time out, however, your gut instinct was totally off. Not only was your Tinder date an hour late to dinner, but was disgustingly taken aback by the way you looked, pressing that you didn’t look the same as you did in your profile picture. The only difference was your hair for crying out loud!

Naturally, you had bouncy, long voluminous curls and sometimes, you liked to straighten them for a new look. Unfortunately, your date didn’t like that fact and claimed you had scammed him into a date. The rage that boiled deep inside you was the least of his worries because when he asked if the curtain matches the drapes down under, you happily splashed a cold glass of water into his face, before gracefully walking out of the room with your middle finger in the air.

A mischievous grin twitched at the corners of your lips as you recalled what happened a few minutes ago and you couldn't help but giggle. Now, that part was pretty amusing and you had to give yourself credit for that.

“Glad to see someone’s having a better night than I am.”

A deep, gravelly voice that was smooth and soft like a harmony of angels lured you back into reality, causing you to turn your attention towards the source. There stood a tall, well-built man whose features were crafted by the goddess of beauty herself. His ice blue orbs captivated every one of your senses, causing a hitch in your breath. Your own eyes scanned his, searching for his intentions, but they were soft, holding a kindness that was rare nowadays.

“I’m sorry?” you tilted your head, smirking and shaking away the trance-like state you were in. This time, you watched his lips curl into a lop-sided grin while he took a moment to timidly look to the ground then back to your eyes as a lock of his chestnut brown hair fell in front of his face.

“I enjoyed what you did back there, almost choked on my drink. But the guy deserved it though,” He chuckled, allowing his tongue to glide over his lips, and what lips he had.

Again, you felt the air vanish from your lungs, making it even harder to respond to the godly handsome man before you. Heat rose to your cheeks and you decided to giggle, a response from a mixture of anxiety and nervousness.

“Uh, yeah he did. Basically called my curls wild so,” you instinctively twirled a piece of your hair around your finger before letting it fall on your shoulder. The man scoffed, pushing his hair back as he looked up into the night sky.

“Unbelievable,” he breathed, bringing his gaze back to you. “Clearly he doesn’t see how beautiful they are.” His sweet, honey-suckled tone made your knees weak and you felt your heart thud a little faster as it swelled, the heat rising back to your face.

You scanned him once more, squinting amusingly to see what game he was playing. “Thank you, but what makes you say that?” Crossing your arms over your chest, you cocked your head to the side.

“Well,” he trailed off, ”for starters, they’re natural. I mean c’mon, some girls would die for those curls. Just end up burning their fingers when they try with a curler.” He snorted, causing you to laugh with him. Your laughter alone made the man grin a little wider, the beautiful sound stringing at his heart like a melodious tune.

“You’ve got a point,” you agreed, mentally walking down memory lane since you have had women would come up to you to either touch your hair or ask what ethnicity you were. It was flattering from time to time, but not all the time, “But what else makes them beautiful?”

“They always smell good and I mean better than girls with straight hair. Guessin’ it’s the products you gotta put in your curls to stay that bouncy and full. Oh, and my third reasoning is,“ he mocked, grinning because, at this point, he was pulling your leg and somehow knew you were going to ask to tell you more, “Because they’re just sexy. Girls who aren’t afraid of their curls show confidence, and you, doll, are radiating with it.”

Your mouth silently dropped then morphed into a smile because he was right, his sudden urge of confidence surprising you. Most men would say sexual innuendos regarding your curls but not him.

“W-wow, thanks,” was all you could say to that, tucking a strand of your hair behind your ear when the night breeze decided to make its presence, welcoming itself inside your hair and bringing it to life. And if it wasn’t for your hair flowing in every direction, you’d be struggling to put together letters to form words, then sentences; a constant battle you figured you were having whilst in the presence of this man. What could you possibly say after that? You knew your head was in the right place, but your body acted on its own accord and it left you wondering why. Why was a stranger like him having this effect on you?

There was something in the way he carried himself and you couldn’t put your finger on it. You found his energy to be addicting, longing for more and not in a sexual sense. It was more so in drowning in his presence and him overall. You couldn’t recall a time where someone made you feel this vulnerable yet awoke like he did.

“Jeez, where are my manners… I’m sorry if I made you uncomfortable. That was not my intention.” His brows furrowed while he smiled apologetically, placing a hand on his chest.

You were yet again, pulled out from your thoughts, instantly shake your head to his words, “Oh no! It’s okay, I really appreciate the compliment. Makes me feel better about this thing,” you blew out a laugh, touching your curls. The man laughed with you, nodding as he understood. Hearing his laughter brought a brighter smile across your face and it made you bite your lip in content.

“Well, I should be going, it’s getting kinda late. ‘N you should get home safely too, Miss. It was nice talkin’ to ya.”

“Miss?” What happened to “doll”?

Before you could get a chance to ask for his name or number, he was already walking away from you and you wanted to beat yourself for not opening your mouth sooner. Shouting after him would make things awkward, plus you were standing in the middle of a sidewalk and didn’t want to expose any personal information publicly anyhow.

Pouting, you hailed a cab and looked back to see if the odd man would meet your eyes but luck wasn’t on your side because he was gone. Maybe your gut was right after all because you wanted to see that man again. Even if that meant going on another horrible date, just to see if he’s there to whisk you away like he did tonight.

***

“You said what now?”

“Ugh! Sam, you’re not making this any easier on me! I think I scared her away.” Bucky groaned, grabbing the couch cushion and burying his face in it. Ever since he came back from the bar, he couldn’t get you off of his mind and it was driving him crazy. The only way he could have some mental relief was if he shared the story with his roommates but he may be regretting it.

“Nah, man. I’m trying to understand how you weren’t able to get her name or phone number when you were flirting with her. You were on a roll too!” Sam threw his hands in the air as he got up from his seat. Steve, on the other hand, wasn’t judging Bucky as much as Sam was.

“Look, see if you can get her number or name from the lady at the reservation desk. Just say you found her glasses or something and would love to give it back.” Steve suggested, placing a hand on his friend’s knee.

“That ain’t gonna work, man! You see how fancy that place is; they’re not gonna give out information like that to just anyone.” Sam clarified, shooting down Bucky’s chance to ever find you.

“She probably thinks I’ve got some weird hair kink or somethin’. Ugh, why does this happen to me!” Bucky whined, shoving his face deep into the pillow. His friends exchange looks before sighing in unison.

“I mean you do man-”

“I think what Sam and I are trying to say is that you’re just overthinking about this, Buck. From what you told me, she sounded like she was having a better time with you than she was with her date.” Steve acknowledged. “We can ask Stark to call the restaurant and get her number that way if you’d like?”

Bucky sighed, removing the pillow from his face and tossing it to the side, his shoulders slumped with defeat. “No, it’s enough that we work for his dad. The least amount of favors we ask him, the less we owe him things, aka paperwork.” He dreaded, before rubbing away the exhaustion from his eyes. It’s been a year since Bucky’s dated anyone and it’s like his mind and body forgot what it was like.

Tonight was the first of what he thought would be many dates yet the girl never showed up, prompting Bucky to have a couple drinks at the bar. If he hadn’t turned around from his seat, then Bucky would have never seen you walk in. The room itself became empty, vacant of any soul other than his and yours. It was the most breathtaking view he had ever come across. Describing it was difficult but the closest comparison Bucky thought of was the moment the sun settled along the waters, painting the sky in colors of purples and oranges. So vibrant and alive that it leaves you frozen in time, never wanting the moment to end.

Bucky Barnes wasn’t for one to believe in love at first sight, yet there he was, picturing his entire life with you, a mere stranger. Perhaps the art of love was recognizing a soul loved in a past life and falling in love with them again.

***

Staring out the window of your apartment, you nursed a mug of coffee, the warmth and aroma comforting your senses. Events from earlier rewind in your head, each time breaking a smile across your face. It felt like a dream, or a scene from a movie because you couldn’t believe how perfect it was, how he was.

But each time you’ve thought about the man, it brought sadness too. If only you could go back in time and ask for his name, that’s all you would have needed, because at least he would have known yours.

“What’s with the frown, Y/N?” Wanda asked, pushing back your damp hair as she tried to read your face.

Jerking just slightly, you turn away from the window to see your friends standing around you. Their expressions filled with worry and amusement but quickly diminishes when you huffed out a laugh. “When did you guys get back?”

“Just now,” Clint said, kicking off his shoes and throwing his body onto the couch before groaning in satisfaction. “I’ve been aching to get home and relax my feet. Thanks to these two, I had another workout carrying their bags.”

“Is that a complaint I hear, Clint?” Nat raised a brow with a smirk and looked over at Wanda who eagerly smiled with the red-head.

“Ah, fuck!” Clint groaned, burying his face in his hands. “I hate your stupid betting games,” he mumbled.

“If they’re so stupid, why do you play with us?” Wanda added, crossing her arms.

“Because he’s the one who starts them,” you snorted and walked away from the window, throwing a balled-up piece of paper at Clint’s head.

“Are we gonna ignore the fact that she was frowning?” Clint brought up, shielding his head from possibly another assault but soon realizing there wasn’t going to be one.

“Yes, for now,” Nat assured, “You owe me 50 bucks aaand I get to pick out a movie for Sunday too.”

“That wasn’t part of the bet!”

As the two bickered on, Wanda gently tapped your shoulder, scooting closer from her spot on the couch. “Why were you frowning earlier? Was the date bad?”

You chuckled, nodding “Yeah. An hour late, cocky attitude and piss poor manners. But I got to splash water on his face before I left so... I'm happy.”

“Oh my god, you did good! He deserved way more than water, but good!” Wanda giggled, linking her arm with yours.

“Yeah. But then I met this guy outside the restaurant,” you smiled brightly, “A total hottie and he had manners! He saw what happened and I guess he came to check up on me when I left. Or maybe he was already there and I hadn’t noticed…” you trailed off with uncertainty, overthinking about your encounter with the man.

“Did you get lost in your thoughts like you usually do?” Wanda smiled, her eagerness to hear more about the mystery man bottling inside her.

Sighing, you lean your back against the cushions, “I suppose I did, but when I told him my awful date made crude remarks about my curls, he said they were beautiful. And said I wear my curls with confidence and he could see that. Said it was sexy.”

Natasha, Clint, and Wanda could see the smile growing back on your face, the three eyeing in curiosity which left the room quiet. You hadn’t noticed your cheeks changed in color, the blood flooding your skin.

“Y/N,” Natasha said softly, rounding the coffee table to sit in front of you while Clint sat up, keeping his eyes on your expression. “Are you in loooove?” She teased, poking your stomach.

“What!” you blinked, dread flooding your every sense as you smacked her hands away.

“You sure, Nat? She gives that same look when she sees miniature cakes,” Clint snorted before yelping in pain by your smack to his arm. “I was only kidding, Jesus Christ.”

“Come on, Y/N. Are you crushing hard on this mystery man? Please tell us more,” she requested with joy bubbling inside her.

Placed in an awkward position you scoffed, “N-no! I don’t even know the guy, let alone know his name! How could I be in love? You guys are insane.” It was a mixture of embarrassment and guilt. You weren’t exactly sure if you were in love or fond of the man’s simple affection towards you. But then again, you’d give and do anything to see him once more. Around him, you felt like you were on top of the world, soaring through the skies, that nothing else mattered except you and him.

Getting up from the couch, you stomped your way into the kitchen, placing your mug into the sink to avoid any more of their pestering questions and assumptions. However, that didn't stop Clint from chasing after you, a smirk lacing his mischievous features.

“Hey, we’re not judgin’ ya if you have a crush. It’s just kind of weird, ya know? We don’t usually see you like this.”

He had a point. You weren’t the kind to fall so easily for someone you just met. Nevertheless, you had your reasons why this man felt different than any other person you came across.

Maybe I’m thinking too much into this.

“Besides that point! Don’t forget you have another date tomorrow,” Clint added as you turned to look at him with furrowed brows and confusion.

“What are you talking about?”

“When you couldn’t get Wanda to say ‘moist’ within 24 hours, remember the bet?” He reminded with a sigh, wondering how you’re able to keep up with your busy work schedule but not remember small things like this.

Taking a minute to collect your thoughts, you remembered exactly what he was referring to, groaning in frustration that you forgot about the stupid wager. Clint had owed a friend from work so you had to go on a date with that friend’s friend. As complicated as it sounded, you had to hold up your end.

“Ugh, fine yes. I remember. When is it again?” you asked, crossing your arms over your chest, wanting this night to be over already.

“Tomorrow night, missy.”

“Ew, a blind date set up by Clint; what could go wrong?” Nat snickered, high fiving with Wanda who also couldn’t stop herself from laughing.

“Please, after this date, no more. I’m quite capable of finding people to mingle with on my own,” you stressed.

“Fine, fair enough. I’ll drive you there.” Clint stated, pulling out his phone to look at his calendar.

With that, you left the kitchen and went straight to your room to finally relax your body and mind. Today was draining enough and now, you couldn’t get rid of your nerves for tomorrow. You hated blind dates but you had to woman up and just do the thing, whether or not you wanted to. As you stepped out from your robe and changed into a t-shirt and shorts, you heard your phone chime on your bed. Adjusting your waistband, you stepped closer to your phone screen to get a better look, squinting at the brightly lit screen.

Clint: “Btw, his name is James ;) ”

PART 2

___________

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naturecpw · 3 years

Photo

Birders’ Tweets Are Causing an Online Flap

Sharing photos and location details of rare bird sightings is boosting the birdwatching community. But some worry that the exposure threatens the animals.

The moment when David Barrett spotted the snowy owl through the fence at one of Central Park’s baseball fields last week, he knew this was going to be an event. Barrett, an experienced birder and the force behind the wildly popular Twitter account Manhattan Bird Alert, immediately understood just how rare a sighting this was: A snowy owl hasn’t graced New York City since 1890. These owls live in the Arctic but are more nomadic in the winters, sometimes flying into Canada and the Northeast, but rarely as far south as New York City.

Barrett also knew this was exactly the kind of bird that was likely to draw a crowd. “I knew going into it this would be big,” he says. Not only was this the first sighting in any New Yorker’s lifetime, but the snowy owl is a species that is likely to get non-birders excited, too. The prospect of attracting so many people to the bird’s location weighed on him as he rushed home to tweet it out to @BirdCentralPark’s more than 40,000 followers.

But tweet he did.

“I run an information service,” Barrett says of his Twitter feed. “A bird in a public park is fair game for my tweets. A rare bird is something that people want to know about, so it’s my responsibility to get the information out. If I don’t do it, someone else will.”

Twitter and other bird-sighting sites like eBird have given a boost to the birding community in recent years. The sites have made celebrities out of a few lucky ducks (and owls and hawks), species that appeal to the less ornithologically-inclined among us. They’ve made birding accessible to newcomers and given avid bird watchers a space to share photos, tips, and exciting discoveries, helping many people to find not just a hobby, but a community. “We just see each other by user names to start, and then we bump into each other out birding and we make that connection,” says Ken Elkins, community conservation manager for Audubon CT and Audubon NY. Online, your age, experience, or background don’t matter, he says: “You can be part of the conversation.”

And Twitter accounts have helped rally bird rescuers. The Wild Bird Fund (WBF), a bird rehabilitation center in Manhattan, often tweets out calls for help, including the location of birds in need, to their more than 9,000 followers. “It is a resource because it's fast and people get it right away, and that’s a big boon versus email or anything we’d post on our website,” says Rita McMahon, WBF’s cofounder and director.

But not everyone in the birding community is thrilled about the idea of focusing the attention of the internet on a bird that’s not in need, and is likely to draw a flock of admirers. Crowds can make birds uneasy and affect their normal behavior. Birds may perceive all those humans as predators or competition for food. Sometimes it’s hard to know exactly how all those leering people with cameras, jockeying for position or slowly inching forward for a better look, are changing the bird’s behavior.

McMahon does not approve of accounts like Manhattan Bird Alert and worries about how the crowds of gawkers are affecting the animals. She isn’t supportive of the Twitter accounts that draw them. “I’d like them to stop,” she says. She points to the example of some owls that used to nest near Shakespeare Garden in Central Park. As their popularity grew, the eager public began to cut away the trees to get a better view. Because of all the attention, owls don’t go there anymore.

McMahon says that while the WBF uses Twitter for rescue calls, the organization never shares where it releases rehabilitated birds, even if they are very rare or popular species. “I don’t want that rare bird being surrounded by people!” she says. “We want it to be in peace. It does not need birders.”

Elkins says that Audubon CT has limited the number of owl sightings they’ve shared publicly, and that he often chooses not to post about some of his sightings if he thinks the bird is in a vulnerable position or if the ensuing popularity might cause a problem. “There have been some sensitive owls that I have found that I might just share with one other person,” he says. He might even avoid hanging around too long with his camera so he doesn’t attract passersby who will ask about what he’s looking at. “I don’t want people to linger around a bird that’s trying to hide for the day in its roost site,” he says.

Manhattan Bird Alert has grown considerably since Barrett first started it in 2013. In the beginning, the alerts were targeted to serious birders and would just share the species and location of the animal. Barrett also automated a system that would retweet others in the birding community who tagged the account. He chose Twitter because it was fast, easy to use, and didn’t require people to join a special group or even to have an account to see the content. He racked up a few thousand followers.

Then, in 2018, The New York Times featured Barrett in an article about young people getting interested in birding. The account’s following got a boost, growing to around 10,000 people. Later that year, the Mandarin duck arrived. The brightly colored duck, a denizen of East Asia, spent several months hanging out around a Central Park pond, attracting huge crowds and the nickname “hot duck.” Manhattan Bird Alert, which had announced the bird’s presence, suddenly became an international sensation. Barrett was interviewed by international media outlets and his Twitter followership swelled even more.

The account has continued to grow since, especially as many New Yorkers are turning to birding as one of the last pandemic-safe recreational activities left in the city. As the handle’s celebrity has grown, Barrett’s goals for the account have changed too. “I’ve realized I was fortunate to have something that suddenly appealed to so many people,” he says. “I wanted to do my best to make it the best I could make it.”

He’s gotten rid of the automation and now focuses on finding good photos and videos to share. He’s also given more space to popular species like owls, which appeal to a larger audience, than to species that might only get the most devoted birders excited. Barrett says he thinks about the account nearly every waking minute. He also runs accounts for bird sightings in Brooklyn, the Bronx, and Queens and Long Island, although those are significantly less popular than his Manhattan account. “I’ve become the nexus of birding information,” he says.

That said, Barrett did take extra care before and after broadcasting the snowy owl’s presence. First, he noticed that the bird was hanging out in the middle of a baseball field and was protected by a fairly substantial metal fence that would help keep crowds at bay. Next, he alerted the city’s Urban Park Rangers so they could prepare for the crowd. And he tweeted out warnings for people not to crowd the owl or get too close. “I figured quite a few people unfamiliar with owls would be coming by. I wanted to make it clear to people that it would be improper to break the rules of the park to get a better view,” Barrett says.

Even though he has some reservations about sharing the locations of rare birds, Elkins acknowledges that a snowy owl in Central Park is something of a special case. “Central Park is so extremely public that somebody else is going to find it,” Elkins says. “There are enough other birders that the bird is not going to live a life of secrecy.”

Still, he warns watchers to err on the side of caution: Don’t stay too long, or spook the bird into flying. Definitely don’t feed it. Think about the specific environment the bird is in before sharing its location: Is it nesting? Is it safe in a high tree branch, or is it in a vulnerable position where it will be hard to for it to escape a crowd’s prying eyes? He recommends that newly-minted birders consult Audubon’s ethical bird photography guide and ask their more experienced counterparts before sharing a particularly exciting find.

As for Barrett, he thinks the flap over sharing bird locations online is misguided. “People who focus on the ethics of owl watching are misleading other people about what the real issues are in conservation,” he says. He points out that while thousands of birds die every year from collisions with buildings, habitat loss, and cat predation, very few—if any—have died from overexcited bird watchers. “There are real issues in conservation that should be addressed,” he says. “I think it’s important to keep things in perspective.”

https://www.wired.com/story/birders-tweets-are-causing-an-online-flap/?utm_source=pocket-newtab

#Birders #birdwatching

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recurring-polynya · 4 years

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Bollywood Review Time!

Today, I am going to talk about Om Shanty Om, a very good movie that was Not For Me.

Let me back up. People recommend stuff to me a lot and I try to watch it and talk about it, and I always feel bad when I don’t like it. This one was recommended to me by my friend @serene-faerie I want to make it very clear that you, reader, may like this film very much! It was a strange perfect storm of Things I Don’t Care For, and I actually rather enjoyed the experience of picking apart what I didn’t like about from what I did, because honestly, I am always interested in the ways stories are told and what stories say about themselves.

Cut for spoilers and also length

First off the bat-- this is not a film for the Bollywood beginner. It’s sort of a meta-narrative, with a ton of cameos from famous stars and jokes about Bollywood tropes and directors and such. There’s a ten-minute dance number in the middle that’s just famous people showing up to get down and everybody cheers every time someone new rolls in. I have only actually seen a handful of Bollywood films, mostly made after this one (it was made in 2007), and I could tell that there were a ton of gags and references that flew over my head. I got the sense, both from watching it, and from reading reviews, that this was all very well done and funny, I just didn’t have the proper frame of reference to appreciate it.

The main character, Om, is played by Shah Rukh Khan, an incredibly famous Bollywood star whom I had never heard of before watching this film. In the beginning, Om is a somewhat-bumbling movie extra, dreaming of stardom, flipping his hair, and falling in love with a beautiful starlet on a billboard. I… was not taken in by his charms. I feel like I really missed out by not knowing who Shah Rukh Khan was ahead of time. That was sort of an interesting thought to me-- that a famous actor brings the good will of all his previous roles to a movie with him, and that it was very interesting to me to watch a film stripped of that context. I was literally shocked when halfway through the film, he rips off his shirt and had killer abs, I was absolutely not expecting it.

The deal of the movie is that, through a series of coincidences, Om meets Shanti, the actress of his dreams (from the billboard). She is played by Deepika Padukone, who I fell for immediately. She is gorgeous and had a ton of charisma. This movie seems like it’s going to be a love story, but it really isn’t. Shanti is charmed by Om’s sweetness, but she’s already in a doomed secret marriage with a scumbag director, Mukesh, who ends up murdering her when she wants him to publicly acknowledge her, which is kinda time sensitive, because she is pregnant. Mukesh had planned to have her star in a lavish movie spectacle called Om Shanti Om, but when she forces his hand, he burns the set down with her locked inside. Om witnesses all this; he tries to save her and dies in the process.

Om happens to die in the same hospital where a famous director’s child is being born, and he is reincarnated as the baby, and grows up to have the life he always wanted-- that of a Bollywood superstar. His name is still Om, but his nickname is O.K., so I am going to call him that to distinguish between 1977 Om and 2007 Om. He meets Mukesh again who is now a super-successful Hollywood producer. O.K. gets all the memories of his past life back, and decides to Get Revenge by proposing to do a remake of Om Shanti Om. He finds a wanna-be actress, Sandy, who looks exactly like Shanti, and has her haunt the set in order to make Mukesh think he is going crazy (and maybe also confess? It’s not a terribly clear-cut plan). You might think that Sandy is the reincarnation of Shanti, but Shanti’s ghost shows up in the grand finale of the film, so I guess she wasn’t?? You also might expect O.K. and Sandy to have some romantic feelings, but they really don’t, and in fact, O.K. is actually pretty mean to Sandy, even though she is extremely sweet and I don’t see how anyone could possibly be mean to her.

The movie is lush. The costumes are elaborate, the sets are lavish, the dance numbers are many and long. There is not a single scene without an off-screen fan to dramatically tousle the actors’ hair. I actually rather liked the last act of the movie where they were gaslighting Mukesh and it was over-the-top, scenery-chewing, Hamlet--play-with-in-a-play madness. A chandelier falls on someone. A lot of the end doesn’t even make a lot of sense or exist in any sort of linear time, cutting between the film-within-a-film and dance numbers and what’s “really happening” and I really had no problem with any of this. I actually really liked the amount of meta that was happening and the breakdown of boundaries, and I found the end to be reasonably satisfying.

So what didn’t I like about it?

The entire film relies on you being charmed by Om and I did not care for him. We all have this set of trope personality types that we enjoy and fall for, and “young person who dreams of making it big on the stage/screen” is a huge swipe left for me. Give me a stolid second-in-command who has been stationed at an ice wall for 30 years to protect his homeland. A incredibly tired dude muttering “fuck” as he wades into a swamp to fight a bog zombie, because who else is gonna? My dude turn-ons include duty and self-sacrifice and really good posture. I couldn’t watch Naruto because everyone spouted off about “their dreams” too much, and I thought Om should have cut his losses and gotten a real job. I am who I am.

There’s a weird fine line between “meta,” that is, stories about storytelling and presentation and media, and movies about being in love with making movies. I like the former a lot and I do not care for the latter one bit. I did stage crew for a high school production of 42nd Street and I have a very distinct memory of thinking “this is a play about putting on a play. Why on earth would anyone who is not an actor want to watch this?” I also hate books where the main character is a writer (yes, Stephen King, this is a call-out). I also hate biopics about musicians and actors. I honestly do not care about the craft, and the “magic of cinema” has never been a thing I have found remotely compelling.

What I love about reincarnation storylines is the period where the characters recognize the feelings and memories that are tied to their previous lives-- where they see someone and can feel their old emotions for this person, but without knowing why. This is where I live. I eat this with a spoon. I want this to prolong the emotional burn, because the characters don't know what are their own feelings and what comes from their past lives, and that there are conflicts that must be resolved for both lifetimes. Alternatively, you can also use a reincarnation storyline to skip the emotional burn entirely, by just having the character “get all their memories back in one fell swoop.” This is… the opposite of what I want. This is what Om Shanty Om does. I felt deeply cheated.

Relatedly, the entire theme of the movie was "When you want something badly, the whole universe conspires to give to you", a sentiment I wholeheartedly disagree with. I love stories about the conflict between agency and destiny, I think this is a really meaty subject, but once again, the movie used it as an excuse to let the characters sit back and do nothing and have a solution to their problems drop into their laps. I am sure you could make an argument for the charm of this viewpoint, but it is not for me.

I like dance numbers all right, but they are not why I watch Bollywood films. This movie is over two hours long and a lot of it was dance numbers. I was very tired of dance numbers by the end. That being said, the titular song was a bop and I had it stuck in my head for days. “Disco of Distress” was my second favorite.

I do not really feel a lot of nostalgia for the late 1970s, which is when the first half of the film takes place. If noisy patterns and kitsch and big winks and goofy hair is your period aesthetic, you will enjoy this part a lot!

Here’s what I did like!

Sunglasses. There were so many good sunnies in this film. So many. A parade of excellent shades.

Deepika Padukone. She is so adorable, for one, and she charmed me in every way that Shah Rukh Khan did not. I loved her both as the melancholy starlet Shanti and the doofy, gum-chewing Sandy, and also the Angry Revenge Ghost at the end. I would say this movie is 75% Om and 25% Shanti, and I would have liked it a lot better if it were the other way around. Sandy had basically no agency whatsoever; the second half of the plot was basically about O.K. getting revenge on Mukush... mostly for himself? I liked that the first half of the movie didn’t make Shanti fall in love with the puppy-like Om just because he was devoted to her, but it would have been a nice reversal if the jaded O.K. had softened toward Sandy more in the second act, and that there had been a bit of a love story to temper the revenge plot.

The idea of the plot. The plot described in words is very cool to me, and there was a period of about 3 minutes in the film when O.K. recognizes Om’s mother when I got real excited about where this was going, and then I realized it wasn’t going where I wanted and was sad again. I think I might have liked it better if the movie started out with O.K. and revealed Om’s story slowly, through flashback, but nothing about this movie catered to my narrative aesthetic, so I eventually gave up with ways of trying to fix it.

Anyway, as I said, I can definitely see how someone could love this movie! If you are a big Bollywood buff and you love dance numbers and silliness and Shah Rukh Khan, I would recommend it in a second! It was strangely almost tailor-made to hit some of my pet peeves, and I was mad because I wanted to like it more than I did.

That’s my review! @serene-faerie I hope you still love me even though I didn’t like your movie. I am always trying to expand my movie knowledge and I learned a lot watching this one, and I don’t regret watching it, even though it wasn’t my fave.

#bollywood #om shanti om #reincarnation stories

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ronninoir · 3 years

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Can I Steal You For A Second Chapter 36

Summary: Adrien is forced to participate in a new dating show, but becomes more excited when Ladybug says she’ll participate as her civilian self.

AKA: AU where Adrien doesn’t know Marinette, the superheroes are 22 and Gabriel is mean and ruthless but not Hawkmoth.

Read on AO3

Start from the beginning Chp 1 on AO3

Welcome to the end everybody!!

Six Months Later

Marinette was walking home from the grocery store when her phone rang. Checking out the caller ID, she quickly answered.

“Papa! I already told you that we’ll be at your house promptly at 5:30 tonight!” Marinette sighed into the phone as her father went off, just reminding Marinette of the precautions her and Adrien needed to take as they traveled throughout the city. Marinette hummed and replied generally where needed, knowing her Papa was just going to continue on.

Marinette was fully aware of the precautions she needed to take, her whole family been dealing with crazy fans and excited viewers for almost six weeks now. Someone had made the connection between Marinette and the Dupain-Cheng Bakery soon after the first episode premiered. Business had been booming, and crazy fans would find Marinette in the street, pledging their loyalty to her and some even saying she needed to find a better person than Adrien. Marinette had been able to connect with all of the girls involved in the show through social media except Lila, who refused to acknowledge any of them. The other girls, especially the ones who made it far like Juliette, and Lucie, had been dealing with similar situations in their hometowns as well.

Thankfully, Adrien was steadily by her side, even if they couldn’t be in public together. After the first incident with people surrounding her on the street, Marinette had broken down crying in their apartment, and Adrien had built her up and talked with her about similar experiences he had been through, as well as what to do about it in the future. Marinette had been cheating slightly, travelling more as Ladybug than she had in her daily life before the show.

Hometowns were airing tonight, and with that meant even more press for the Dupain-Cheng Bakery and even more attention on Marinette. Adrien and Marinette always had dinner before the Bachelor shows started airing because her parents wanted to know everything that went down that week before they watched the edited version, and so there wouldn’t be any surprises for them.

“Papa, I promise that Adrien and I will be careful, I really have to go now, I’m almost to the apartment.” Marinette and her father said their goodbyes before she ended the phone call. The doorman, who smiled sweetly and tipped his hat at her as she neared, opened the door for her and she quickly rushed into the elevator and up to her floor.

Living with Adrien was a dream. They just fit so well into each other’s lives and it made the transition to living together easy. Adrien had just finished converting the extra bedroom into a design space/office for the two to share, and it was perfect and convenient. Adrien had been forced to work from home since the show started airing, only leaving the apartment for important business meetings that never took place at Gabriel’s offices. Too many people knew where to find Adrien on a daily basis, so Adrien’s security team thought it was too dangerous to go to that building. And Marinette was inclined to agree.

If Marinette had it bad, Adrien had it worse. There were adoring fans, begging him to consider them, angry fans, demanding to know why their favorites went home, and even the crazy ones, wanting to just be near him and breathe the same air as him, but those were no different from his model days, just older than before. Adrien never let them bother him, and he has also taken to travelling more as Chat Noir, who at the moment seemed less famous than his alter ego, and was able to get from place to place safely.

As Marinette unlocked their door, she felt herself relax. No one had found their apartment yet, but Marinette had a feeling it was just a matter of time. Thankfully, she knew that all of the locations for shooting, unless specifically chosen for brand purposes, were kept secret and edited out of the show. Which meant that no one could find the mansion, nor more importantly, the apartment she was currently in.

“Adrien?” she called as she placed her keys in the bowl by the door, the one grocery bag she had on the counter next to it, and hung her coat up on the rack. She was just slipping her shoes off as she heard footsteps approach, and a smile spread across her face.

“Welcome home, beautiful,” Adrien said as he pulled her into a hug. She relaxed into the embrace and a feeling of home settled over her. It didn’t matter where she lived, if Adrien was by her side, she would be home.

“How was your day?” Marinette asked, moving to unpack the groceries and put them away. Adrien followed her into the kitchen, not really letting go of her waist.

“Ugh it was long. Who knew rebranding would be so crazy difficult! The paperwork is horrible, as well as the physical part of rebranding.”

“It would be easier if you weren’t doing the rebranding in secret, and your father wasn’t causing so much trouble about it.”

Adrien finally let go of Marinette and plopped down on a stool that was positioned at the end of the counter. “You think he would just accept the fact that this was happening and move on. He’s not going to involve a courtroom because he knows they would side with me. But it’s not like I’m changing the brand dramatically! It’s going from ‘Gabriel’ to ‘Agreste!’ It’s still his name! It just makes more sense that when we’re running the company we aren’t running a company named after someone who retired unpeacefully.” Adrien groaned again as he ran his hand along his face. “I’m sorry, I probably sound like a broken record. We’ve had this conversation before. Tell me about your day.”

Marinette smiled and gently placed her hand on top of Adrien’s. “I will happily listen to the events of your day every day, even if that means I get to hear the same stuff. Whatever bothers you I want to hear about it every time.” Adrien smiled and flipped his hand over to give hers a squeeze. “Anyway, you asked about my day. Well, Papa called me twice today, determined to make sure I didn’t forget what time we are supposed to be at their house. I think he’s nervous about what this episode is going to do to the bakery.”

“If it’s anything like what’s happening to Gabriel’s, he should be pleased with the results.” Business had been booming since the show aired. Everyone was dying to wear whatever the beautiful girls that were fighting for Adrien’s heart were wearing.

“He figures as much, he’s just worried about the extra workload that it’s going to put on them. They’ve already hired three new employees just to brace themselves for the impact.”

“They sound very well prepared though, and that’s half the battle.”

“That’s what I’ve been telling them!” Marinette interjected exasperatedly.

There was a pause where Marinette, still thinking about her parents, had zoned out into her own world. “Is that all that happened in your day today, love?” Adrien asked sweetly, squeezing her hand gently.

She snapped out of her daze and blushed. “No! Today was good. We started working on the new designs for the spring and I’m really excited. Especially considering my name will actually be on those designs since I’ll have publicly begun working at Gabriel by then.” Marinette paused once more, racking her brain for anything else that had happened today when she nearly jumped out of her skin with excitement. “Oh my gosh! I completely forgot to tell you! I saw my wedding dress this morning before work!”

Adrien beamed and his eyes glazed over like he did every time he was proud of her. “How amazing was it?”

“Oh, Adrien, it’s everything I ever dreamed it would be! I know I designed it and everything, but I was blown away when I actually got to see it in person. Maman and Alya both cried too.”

“And you’re sure you won’t let me see even the designs for this amazing piece of art you created?” A playful tone had colored his voice and Marinette felt her heartbeat quicken.

“You know the rules. No peeking until the day of the wedding, as I’m walking down the aisle.”

“Not even if I gave you a little something in return?” Adrien purred as a smirk spread across his face. He leaned towards her, and Marinette almost forgot how to breathe. She loved this man with every fiber of her being, and yet he would do something seductive like that and she would pause, thinking, Is this real? Does he really love me as much as I love him? And he showed her all the time, through his actions and words alike, that he really did.

Their lips met in a rough way and Marinette felt the fire in her gut heat up in response to Adrien. She leaned in closer, parting their lips and deepening the kiss. He wrapped his arms around her waist and pulled her even closer than they had been a moment before. Marinette’s hands were tangling themselves in Adrien’s hair and she was just about to ask to take this to the bedroom when her phone rang.

The two jumped apart and Marinette quickly answered, trying to keep her heart rate down and her breathing steady.

“Hey Alya, what’s up?”

“We’re still invited tonight, correct? Because if I calculated correctly, I’m in this episode, which makes it automatically the best,” Alya asked, the city loud in the background of the call.

“Of course. You know that if Adrien doesn’t see Nino at least once a week, he’ll keel over and die of heartbreak.” Marinette joked. Both her and Alya laughed as Adrien let out a defensive, “Hey!” which caused the two girls to laugh even more.

“Oh well, we can’t let Sunshine’s heart break.” Alya responded, specifically using the nickname that she knew Adrien hated. Alya claimed that between Adrien’s bright blonde hair and his constant positive disposition that he was more sunshine than human. Marinette found it very appropriate, however, Adrien thought it was too high of a compliment to be applied to him, the black cat and essence of bad luck. He never argued with Alya though, just rolled his eyes and let it be, like he did right then, causing Marinette to giggle once more.

“I’ll text you as we leave my parent’s house and we’ll meet you guys here. The doorman should let you guys in the building, he’s used to seeing you two by now.”

Alya agreed, and the two girls said their goodbyes. Marinette put her phone on the counter after checking the time. “That call was very well timed, we really should be heading out. If we’re late, I think my Papa might pop his top.”

Adrien sighed as well and went to straighten his hair that Marinette had just messed up, “This having to be at places on a timely manner really is ruining my love life,” to which Marinette just laughed.

----------------------------------------------------

The week after Hometowns was aired, Adrien was summoned to a television studio to do a live question and answer episode of the show called “Women Tell All.” All of the girls are invited back, except for Lucie and Marinette, to talk about various things that happened on the show and get the opinions of everyone after having watched it all back on their TVs.

Marinette was grateful Adrien had asked her to come with him. She wanted to see Hanna and Juliette so badly it physically hurt her. The producers had demanded that no one get together or see each other in person until this show, in order to keep the tensions and relationships fresh, even if it was filmed six months before.

She was wearing a casual outfit, and felt very out of place with everyone’s fancy cocktail party dresses. But she knew that the only people who would see her are the other contestants and the backstage crew that passed her hiding spot. She watched the whole thing on a television backstage, and was able to watch Chris Harrison interview and ask the girls what the viewers wanted to know.

As the show began filming, Marinette almost felt more like an outsider rather than a participant in the show. The audience was lively and excited to hear what everyone had to say. Chris started out by interviewing Adrien, asking him about the journey, the ups, the downs, the bloopers, everything. It was exciting to see Adrien relax with Chris and play up certain things to the audience. He was a hit.

Then, Chris brought out all of the girls except for Juliette, who would have her own grand entrance, and Lucie, who wasn’t present. The conversation got heated, especially when the topic of where most of the drama stemmed from came up and all fingers pointed to Lila. Lila, who was paid by the broadcasting station to show up, was there and was the center of almost all of the discussion, as Chris (and truthfully, the viewers) were dying to know what in the world was going through that girl’s head for most of the show. Lila tried to deny all of her involvement in the drama, but a good number of girls, Hanna in the lead, stood up for Marinette, which warmed her heart. It was nice knowing that even after winning, these girls still cared enough for her to defend her on live television.

After Chris reigned in the chaos that Lila had caused, once again, among the girls, they brought out Juliette and asked her about the heartbreaking goodbye that Adrien had given her after Fantasy Suites. Juliette was awesome and Marinette yearned to give her a hug, especially when she teared up remembering how much it hurt to watch that back and have people tell her they wanted her to win. Eventually they brought Adrien back out and he talked with Juliette for the first time since that break up. Juliette handled it like a pro, and Adrien was as gentlemanly as ever.

Finally, Chris was signing off and telling everyone to tune in next week for the dramatic finale and a special live episode called “After the Final Rose,” where all the secrets will be revealed. Marinette had to pause, freaked out that in a week she would be going public about her relationship with Adrien. And on such a grand stage. She heard one of the producers say that they were viewed in every city in France, most of Italy, Germany, and England as well as scattered broadcast throughout the rest of Europe. It was an impressively scary number to consider.

Marinette was broken out of her trance by an all-too-familiar squeal.

“Marinette!”

She whipped around to see both Hanna and Juliette standing together, both looking ecstatic to see her. She let out a squeal of her own and collided with the two of them.

“Oh my gosh I’ve missed you guys so much!” Marinette squealed into Juliette’s shoulder. The girls laughed and echoed her sentiment. As they pulled away, Hanna grabbed her left hand and brought it close to her face.

“Ooooh he did a wonderful job!” Hanna announced, pulled back to show Juliette. Marinette blushed slightly.

“Damn, I would have married him for that ring alone.” Juliette said in a mock serious tone, shooting Marinette a wink, who let out a giggle.

“Just because it isn’t big and magnificent doesn’t mean that it isn’t beautiful. Plus, the two of us know better than anyone else, Marinette isn’t marrying Adrien for his money, and that here is obvious,” Hanna added with a wink.

“Hey!” Marinette protested, cradling her left hand against her chest. “I think it’s perfect.”

The two girls laughed and pulled her in for another hug. “Of course, you do, sweetie, because you’re smitten, that’s just who you are,” Juliette teased with a child-like pat on the head. Marinette giggled against them once more before they dragged her out of her hiding spot and onto the staging area, where the rest of the girls (minus Lila) were waiting. They all cheered for Marinette as she walked out and she blushed an even deeper red than before. They took turns admiring the ring, giving their congratulations and just reminding each other how amazing it is to be together once more.

“Oh, this won’t be the last time you see each other,” Marinette announced over the general chatter, after Alice sighed about how they would never see each other again. After a dramatic pause, Marinette continued, “You’re all invited to our wedding, of course!” The girls laughed and squealed and made plans to meet up at a later time to prepare for the upcoming event.

----------------------------------------------------

Nearly a week later, the day before the “After the Final Rose” special, Marinette was sitting at a coffee shop, mid-morning, sketching absentmindedly in her notebook. She was so engrossed in her work, that she didn’t even notice when someone had walked up beside her until they spoke.

“Beautiful work, as always.” Marinette startled a little, almost spilling her coffee on the design. She whipped her head to find the person she was waiting on.

“Lucie, glad you could make it,” Marinette replied as she closed her sketchbook, hoping to prevent any more almost-spills.

“Of course,” Lucie sat across from her and there was a beat of awkward silence before she spoke again. “I’ve been meaning to thank you.”

“For what?”

“For... reaching out. I was struggling a lot with what happened, and talking real with you made it better.”

“Lucie,” Marinette started, smiling sweetly and gently placing her hand on Lucie’s. “The worst part of the aftermath of the show was knowing how much pain you had to be feeling. I know you felt strongly for Adrien, as much as I did, and I couldn’t imagine what you were going through.” Marinette paused, making sure Lucie was actually listening to her. She wanted her friend to know she meant it.

“Well, I appreciate it. A lot.” Lucie gave her a small smile, and Marinette gave her hand a gentle squeeze and then reached to take another sip of her coffee.

“I would have wanted the same, so it only felt fair.” Lucie gave another sad smile and nodded. Marinette took that as a good sign. “Are you ready for tomorrow?”

Lucie’s head dropped, but she let out a sigh and met Marinette’s eyes. “I am. I know it’s going to be hard, but seeing Adrien again will be nice, and it’ll be good to have everything out in the open once again.”

Marinette nodded, “I feel that. It’ll be good to not be holding in any more secrets.” Except for the other major secret I’ve been hiding almost my whole life. Marinette sighed, rubbing her face with her left hand as her eyes slipped closed. She heard a gasp and her eyes flew open. Glancing down at that hand, she realized that she had forgotten to take off her engagement ring before she left for this public outing. Her cheeks reddened and she quickly slipped it off.

“Is that it?” Lucie asked, snapping out of her funk in a blink of an eye. Marinette nodded and handed the ring over for a closer inspection. “Damn.”

“What?” Marinette asked, slightly alarmed by her reaction.

“It really has been you this whole time.”

“What do you mean?” Marinette whispered, severely confused as Lucie passed the ring back to her and she slipped it into her pocket.

“Watching the show has opened my eyes to the way that Adrien’s relationships existed outside of the bubble I had created for myself. I was beginning to see it, but the ring... that is hard to refute.”

“I—I still don’t get it,” Marinette stuttered, her cheeks turned red with the implication that was inevitably coming.

“You two are truly sole mates, aren’t you? He’s a completely different person with you, and it’s amazing to see how much more he opened up with you than with the others. Something clicked early on with the two of you, and truthfully, none of the rest of us stood a chance.”

“Now that’s not true—”

“No, Marinette, I’m not upset. It—I actually have some closure now that I didn’t before. Adrien tried very hard to truly consider his options, but he found his person. My aunt says that some American sitcom called that ‘finding your lobster.’ I don’t really get it, but she says it with such reverence that it must be what you two did. I respect that. It’s going to make interacting with Adrien tomorrow that much easier.” Lucie nodded like that was the end of the discussion, but Marinette was still trying to process what happened.

“What—wait so you aren’t upset? What just happened here?”

Lucie gave the first genuine smile of the meeting, “I found my peace.”

There was a thoughtful silence as Marinette tried to figure out what to do next. The original reason for their meeting popped into her head and she shook her head to clear it.

“Lucie, there was actually a very good reason for me to meet you here, that didn’t involve you finding peace, although I’m glad that happened, it’s going to make this next part much easier.” Marinette stopped, scrutinizing Lucie’s face to see how she would react. When no alarming emotion appeared, Marinette continued.

“What do you know about Gabriel?”

“Adrien’s father or the company?”

“Both.”

“Not much. The company is popular here in France and other places around the world, chic, and a little pricey. The man is stoic and doesn’t talk much.”

Marinette almost snorted at that last comment but continued on. “What if I told you that your aunt and Gabriel Agreste have had recent business contact?”

Lucie’s jaw dropped, but she recovered quickly, “I would say you’re crazy. My aunt would never be considering doing business with a random French fashion line, no matter how popular. She’s firm on her designs and styles, which are very different from Gabriel’s.”

Marinette felt a sly smile creep across her face as the perfect plan clicked together in her head. “Oh, do I have a story for you.”

Hours later, after eventually having lunch with Lucie as well, Marinette ran home to talk to Adrien. As usual, he was sitting in the kitchen, doing paperwork while eating a sandwich. When she burst through the door, he almost jumped out of his seat.

“Marinette! What are you doing home? Did something happen?”

“Adrien, I figured out how to fix the company’s legal problems with your father and get him off our backs.”

Adrien blanched, “Oh this I have to hear.”

----------------------------------------------------

“Are you sure you want to do this?” Marinette asked, hesitation ringing in her voice. Adrien took a deep breath but nodded. “It’s not too late, just keep that in mind.”

Adrien pulled Marinette closer, wrapping his arms around her waist and resting his chin on the top of her head. “I think this is the only option we have going forward. It’ll be easier though, with Lucie on our side.”

“She deserved to know. I’m just grateful she took it so well.”

“Mr. Agreste,” a stagehand interrupted and both Adrien and Marinette looked up. “We’re on air in 60.”

“Thanks,” Adrien responded while reluctantly letting go of his fiancée. She straightened his tie and smoothed out his suit as he heard Chris Harrison address the waiting crowd.

“Well, after tonight the secret is out. You will publicly be my fiancée.”

Marinette sighed, “I can’t wait.” She grabbed his head and pulled her down to her level in order for their lips to meet. From somewhere onstage, he heard a crew member countdown from ten and he reluctantly broke off the kiss and turned to face the door he was expected to walk through after being introduced.

“I’m Chris Harrison, and welcome to After the Final Rose Live TV special. Tonight is a night none of us will soon forget. Just prior to the show, we received late-breaking news from Adrien regarding his relationship with Marinette.” The crowd ooohed but Adrien had to try not to laugh at Marinette’s eye roll.

“Yes, because so much has happened between getting engaged and still being engaged.”

Adrien let out a breathy giggle, “It’s just to build the tension.”

“And Lucie, how has her life been after a tearful goodbye almost eight weeks ago. And if that’s not enough, we have an exciting surprise for you, yes you, the viewers.” The crowd broke out in cheers for that. After a beat, Chris continued, “So, where to start tonight? How about the man himself—Adrien Agreste!”

Adrien walked on to the cheers of the crowd. He smiled and waved good naturedly and played along exactly as he was supposed to.

“Adrien,” Chris reached out his hand to shake, which Adrien took.

“Long time no see, Chris.” the crowd laughed as Adrien sat down on the love seat across from him.

“Yes, it does feel like it’s been a while. But tell me, how does it feel, now that the whole world has seen it all?”

“Oh my,” Adrien sighed, “It’s so nice. Marinette and I have been hiding and secretly being together since I proposed and it is just so nice to know that I can walk down the street holding her hand without it making the papers.”

“Well I wouldn’t go that far—” Chris joked, and Adrien couldn’t help but laugh too. Marinette’s and his lives would never be without the press.

“You’re right, that’s more of a pipe dream.”

“Speaking of that proposal, oh my it was amazing.” Adrien was slightly taken aback by the applause that followed, and blushed against his will. “What are your emotions right now, after watching that play out on the screen last night?”

“Honestly, I’ve never been more in love with Marinette than I am right now. Getting to watch the show, our entire love story, played back was such a treat and allowed me to appreciate everything that Marinette went through even more. She is so strong and I meant everything I said and more.” The crowd awed, but Adrien just beamed. He could talk about Marinette for a lifetime.

“Wow, that was beautiful, Adrien. Are you always such a poet?”

Adrien let out a hearty chuckle, “What can I say, Marinette just brings out the best in me.” Another round of awes and applause.

“That’s sweet. I hate to burst your happy bubble, but let’s talk about Lucie.” There was a sudden hush among the crowd. Adrien made sure his expression turned solemn as well. “That was one of the tougher moments of the show, to say goodbye to her.”

“Yeah it really was. After those last dates, I spent some time thinking. I had two amazing girls, who are both beautiful and full of life and both could add such amazing things to my life after the show, but my heart had already made up my mind. I hated having to say goodbye to Lucie, but it just had to be done.”

“When was the last time you had felt emotions like that?”

Adrien paused, trying to remember what he had been feeling. All he can remember is the happiness that was finally proposing to Marinette. He would be expected to be sad, so he played along with it. “The last time I had felt that kind of heartbreak was on the first anniversary of my mother passing. This was a very similar hurt, but for this one I felt like I couldn’t break down and cry. I was the one doing the heart-breaking, so I tried to stay strong for Lucie.”

“But afterwards, did it hit you? That you had just let an amazing woman get away?”

“In a way. Those first couple of days, I would have moments of just pause. I would think about how she was doing and just hoping that she could still be that amazing person that I had the opportunity to meet so long ago.”

“As I’m sure you know, Lucie is backstage right now. Do you have any idea what you’re going to say to her?”

Oh, I have a whole script, “Not really. I’m hoping the words will come when I see her again.”

“Well on that note, please welcome Lucie!” Chris stood and Adrien followed suit as the crowd cheered for Lucie. She looked stunning, as ever and she smiled when she saw Adrien, which made him smile in return. She gave Adrien a hug and then sat down next to him.

“Welcome, Lucie. How are you feeling?”

“Honestly, Chris, I’ve been better. This is a lot to take in, but I’m doing okay considering.”

“What’s it like seeing Adrien again?”

“It’s easier than I thought it was going to be. I haven’t seen Adrien since that last day. I’ve been watching the episodes, and that last one was hard to see. I’ve mostly just wondered what happened between us.”

Adrien made eye contact with Chris, who gave him a small nod, which he took as a go ahead to answer her. “I wish I had a reason for you, I really do. You are an amazing girl, and we got along so well. But in the end, I fell in love with Marinette and I knew I wanted to spend the rest of my life with her and there just wasn’t anything I could do after that. I hated having to say goodbye to you, especially without a proper answer, but I’m hoping we can still be on good terms.”

“It’s hard to be upset with someone as genuine as you, Adrien. I appreciate you sticking with your heart, and being honest with me here. That’s all I’ve ever asked of you, and I respect your decision. I’ve found my peace, and having watched the whole season back, I’m genuinely happy for you and Marinette.” The crowd applauded once more, and Adrien almost wanted to applaud himself. That had been very well said.

“Lucie, tell us how hard was it to watch all of the different moments you shared with Adrien on TV?”

Lucie laughed, “Funny that you would ask, my family actually was much more upset about the ending than I was. I treasure all of those moments where I got to see the real Adrien and even our last day, where we said goodbye, it was easier knowing that at least the girl he ended up with is amazing. She deserves my utmost respect, and I know that if the roles were reversed, she would have done the same for me.”

“Wait—wait. Back up. You said your family took the breakup harder than you?” Chris asked, shock easily read on his face.

Lucie laughed once more, “Yeah can you believe it? My parents adored Adrien and were already planning on taking him on our next family vacation and my aunt had even planned a trip for Adrien to come visit her in America. She had bought the plane ticket and everything.” Lucie laughed once more, and Adrien couldn’t help but blush.

“Wow, your family was dedicated.”

“Oh, that’s an understatement. I actually recently found out by accident that my aunt, who owns a fashion company in America, had actually been having secret business meetings with Gabriel Agreste. Apparently, when I won and Adrien and I became engaged, they were going to start a partnership and move towards merging the companies. So, as you can imagine, my breakup with Adrien threw a little snag in their plans.”

The entire studio audience broke into whispers and Chris’s jaw dropped. “Are you—are you serious? How in the world did you find that out?”

“Someone close to my aunt’s company approached me with their sympathies, and let slip about the deal going through.”

“Adrien did you know about this?”

“No, I had no idea.” He paused for a second and could feel his Father’s fury building from across the studio. “But, now that I think about it, it makes sense.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“Well, my Father had always seemed to prefer Lucie over Marinette, or any of the girls for that matter. I never understood why. Right at the end, he encouraged me to propose to Lucie, and I just assumed it was because of her knowledge in the fashion industry. We both have been working in the business side of that world and on paper, she was the best fit for my life. I never would have thought that there was anything more.”

“Well, thank you Lucie, for joining us.” Chris said, rather abruptly.

Lucie looked slightly taken aback, but her smile returned quick enough that Adrien thought he was the only one to catch it. “Thank you for having me, this is exactly what I needed.”

Chris turned toward the camera, “You heard it here, Bachelor Nation. We’ll be right back with Adrien, and his new fiancée, Marinette!” The crowd cheered, but Adrien didn’t hear it, as Chris had leaned forward, turning away from the camera and whispered, “Adrien you are required offstage now.” Lucie and Adrien exchanged a look and as soon as time was called, they both went backstage, gathering Marinette on the way.

Gabriel was in a back room, sitting. Adrien couldn’t read his mood and approached him like he would a wild animal, slowly.

“You wanted to see me?”

“What have you done?” Gabriel hissed in response.

“Father—”

“Shut up! You got your little bitch, it wasn’t enough just to stop there? The company, I understand it was going to be yours soon enough anyway, but my credibility? My dignity? How did she find out?”

Lucie stepped forward and for what appeared to be the first time, Gabriel realized there were other people in the room. “You will not talk to Adrien right now. What you did was sick and conniving and despicable. How my aunt could have ever agreed to do business with you is beyond me. But as a mostly impartial outsider, if you don’t step down and get out of Adrien’s way, you won’t have a company to pass on. We may have done some damage, but we did the right thing. You cheated the system and you lost anyway. Just admit defeat, or we can go out and do even more. Marinette told me stories, and I know what else you’ve done. In my opinion you are getting off easy.” And with that, Lucie turned on her heel and stormed out.

Marinette stared baffled after her and, with a quick glance at Adrien, she handed him the file she had been holding and followed her out of the room.

Adrien stood before his Father, who for the first time in Adrien’s life looked disheveled, and felt nothing for this man. He was upset that he had given so much of his time and love to this statue who couldn’t even recognize when he’d been defeated. “Sign these papers. We’re changing the name. We’re changing the way things are done. And more importantly. we’re accepting Marinette with open arms. She is my Emile, and if for some ungodly reason I lose her before we’ve lived a full life, I hope I don’t ever become as loveless and as cold as you.”

Adrien left the papers on the table and followed the girls out the door.

He found them right off of the stage, where they could still hear the commercials coming through. Adrien opened his mouth to say something, but was interrupted by Lucie.

“I am so sorry, Adrien. I don’t know what came over me. I just got so fired up for everything he had done to you and to me and to this show. I bubbled over and I hope it didn’t do too much damage.”

Adrien couldn’t help but smile. “You were perfect. I think you got through him better than I ever could. Thank you for your kind words and for being so amazing about this.” Lucie attacked him with a hug and Adrien felt his heart swell.

“I hope I can find something like you two have,” Lucie announced when they broke apart.

“You will,” Marinette said, stepping up and giving Lucie a hug as well.

A loud voice called from onstage, effectively breaking up their huddle, “Ten seconds to live!”

“Please stay in touch!” Adrien called to Lucie as he was herded onto the set. She nodded and turned once again towards Marinette as Adrien plopped down onto the love seat. This second half should be easier.

----------------------------------------------------

“Welcome back Bachelor Nation! It has been a whirlwind of a night. We’ve checked in with our Bachelor, we’ve checked in with Lucie, and we’ve checked in with France’s hottest couple, Marinette and Adrien, but what is the big surprise? Let’s find out.”

“Marinette, Adrien, all of those in the studio audience and the viewers at home all around Europe have been on pins and needles—scratch that even I’ve been on pins and needles waiting to know what this big surprise is. Will you please tell us already!”

Adrien and Marinette laughed, “Okay okay, we’ll tell you.”

“So, as you all know,” Marinette started, “Adrien and I are getting married.” Cheers from the studio audience. “And you know that Adrien and I love each other and are just ready to start living our lives together.”

“And with that being said, we want to tell you that we are indeed getting married—” Adrien paused for dramatic effect.

“In a month!” The two said together. The crowd went wild.

“And the best part is,” Marinette shouted over the glee, “everyone’s invited!” The crowd went crazy again, and it took Chris a couple of minutes to calm it all down.

“How does that work, exactly?” Chris asked, once everyone could hear again.

“Our wedding is going to be aired, live on television!” Adrien announced. He sounded as giddy as a child on Christmas.

“All of the viewers have been a part of our love story for so long, we wanted to make sure no one got left out. The ceremony will be filmed with exclusive behind the scenes features that you wouldn’t be able to see in person and the reception will be aired as well! All of the girls will be there and my best gal, Alya is going to be my witness!”

“Well what a surprise that is!” Chris said amongst the cheers that would never end. “Congratulations, you two! Everyone is invited to a Bachelor Wedding, a month from today. We’ll release more info as the time draws near. Have a great night, Bachelor Nation!” The cheers and excitement of the crowd continued, even as the credits began to roll.

“Are you really watching that again?” A voice said from behind her, causing Alya to jump.

“Ahh! Nino! Don’t sneak up on me like that!” Alya screamed as she clutched her heart and collapsed deeper into the couch.

“Babe, I’ve been in the house the whole time. At least I waited until the end to judge your 73rd watching of that episode. I learned my lesson.”

Alya flinched slightly, remembering how much she had yelled at Nino the last time he interrupted her mid-episode. “I said I was sorry.” All she got in return was a non-committal hum. “Look, our Marinette found the love of her life and we got to experience it with her the whole time, and then again as we watched the episodes. It’s beautiful, I love to be reminded of their true love.”

Nino just snorted. “More like you love you being on national television.”

“Hey now! They are starting to show our season in America as well, so it’s actually international television.” Nino just rolled his eyes.

“Whatever you say, babe. But if you don’t go get ready now, we’re going to miss the rehearsal dinner, and I heard a rumor there may be cameras there too.”

Nino had never seen Alya get ready so quickly.

~~~

This is the LAST CHAPTER and then the Epilogue! Hope you all enjoyed this story! We just wanted to say thanks for coming along with us!

There is an idea we have for a sequel, so let us know if you would like that to happen!!

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