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thecarnivorousmuffinmeta · 3 years

Note

What would a cw adaptation of Harry Potter look like?

Having not watched too many cw shows myself (I just hear about their nonsense), I phoned @therealvinelle who made the poor life choices of having watched much more of The Vampire Diaries than I have and watching any Supernatural.

The following is her beautiful response:

So for starters, we merge Snape and Tom's characters. This is because Snape isn't hot, and because Tom needs to be near the kids. Tom still looks like Tom Riddle, and he's a teacher who seduces Hermione. At no point are any thoughts about the fact that he's a teacher sleeping with a student had

Harry is a blond now, and he's also dating Hermione. A love triangle ensues, one where Tom will hover sexily but dangerously in empty classrooms and make vague threats that Hermione find very sexually arousing.

The love triangle is the focal point of this show.

Voldemort is Tom's evil alter ego, who killed Harry's parents over that prophecy. He wants to kill Harry as well, but it's not the season finale yet so he's not actually doing anything about it. Too busy seducing Hermione.

Instead he just does vaguely sinister things, like release a basilisk that Harry heroically saves Hermione from.

He every so often has charged conversations with McGonagall (Who has been aged down and is in her thirties. She's still considered ancient), implying they had an affair once.

Harry and Hermione piece together that Tom and Voldemort aRe ThE sAmE pErSoN.

(Piece together meaning that Dumbledore, who only appeared in the second half of the first season and the show never bothers to clarify what his job actually is, gets a focal episode where he tells them the story of Tom Riddle through flashbacks. Terrible flashback wigs and costumes galore.)

Tom will later, in season 3 where he goes full woobie and we learn that none of his evil deeds were ever his fault, reveal that there's more to the story. That orphanage he grew up in? It was a special school for muggle-borns where they trained a future wizarding militia. Tom was the only one who broke free of their oppressive regime. The other children... GREW UP TO BECOME THE ORDER OF THE PHOENIX.

But I'm skipping how season 1 ended. The answer is that Hermione disavowed Tom in the season 1 finale since he was evil, he was too sexy bad boy to care except subtle wigglings of his eyebrow told the captive Tomione-shipping audience that he did in fact care. Harmione shippers think they're all delusional. She then jumped into Harry's arms.

Which was poor decision making on her end, because in season 2 Harry joins the dark side. This lasts for half a season, mostly because the arc featured so much filler. Tom, who was imprisoned in season 1, becomes Hermione's supportive pen pal through this ordeal and she starts to wonder if maybe there's good in him after all.

Sirius Black is introduced, he's a lawyer living in the Muggle world and he was in love with Lily. We get a flashback showing us how sad Sirius was when she married James, and there is buildup for an arc where Harry's paternity will be questioned. This arc is scrapped, and Sirius is written out of the show altogether, never to be mentioned again.

Ginny gets pregnant by Neville. Neville dies tragically shortly afterwards, killed by Harry because Harry is a dark wizard now. This is actually the spinoff door episode to the new show the CW is trying to launch, "The Weasleys".

Neville's death has no real consequences, Harry returns to the light and is forgiven in time to become the child's godfather.

Oh, and can't believe I forgot: they've all been aged up to 17.

End of season 2, Tom escapes prison.

Season 3, we get the whole "DUMBLEDORE is the real villain!" arc. Tom killing Harry's parents in season 1 is forgotten, the show doesn't outright retcon it but it doesn't want the viewers to remember it either.

Hermione is once again in a love triangle, only this time Tom and Harry have both done bad things (but we'll only bring up the 2 bad things Harry did (killed Neville and said a mean thing to Hermione) and none of the 282985204592 bad things Tom did) so Hermione has a hard time.

Hermione also discovers that she's a uniquely powerful witch. She has the power to make windows shatter, candles flicker, and wind blow all about. Everyone is frightfully impressed with this.

Mid-season 3 finale, Dumbledore destroys Tom's body. It's terribly dramatic, but then turns out to only be a mild inconvenience as he is resurrected four episodes later. He's resurrected by Hermione's window shattering powering, she closed her eyes very intensely and bam, he's back.

We learn about the horcruxes, which by themselves are shockingly similar to the horcruxes of the original books. The big change, however, is that this Tom didn't know he had horcruxes, those evil bastards at the orphanage split his soul in the night through ominous rituals (another flashback here). He has no idea where this other half of his soul is.

Season finale, we learn that Hermione is in fact his horcrux. This is why they had so much in common (they don't have anything in common) and why she got through his bad boy persona (he hasn't been a bad boy since season 1!). They were soulmates this whole time!

Harry despairs in the face of this, and he and Hermione have a teary conversation where she confirms that yes, the Tomione shippers won.

He also has a pleasant conversation with Tom, as a bromance has bloomed between the two.

Alas. The episode ends on a cliffhanger, as the door flings open dramatically. Dumbledore walks in, bearing proof that Tom made an Unbreakable Vow to always serve the Order, a Vow that was obliviated from him. He drags Tom kicking and screaming away from a crying Hermione, the season ends with her resolve to find a way to save him.

(Sorry, I'm on a roll here)

Season 4, a year later. Harry and Hermione have been searching ever since Tom disappeared. They've become closer than ever, but apart from three or four moments of extreme sexual tension per episode, Hermione is Faithful™

News of Tom's terrorist actions as an Order member reach them with regular intervals. Hermione remains convinced that he's being forced to do all this and doesn't actually want to hurt anybody, Harry's not so sure.

They catch up to him in Minneapolis (did I mention this entire show takes place in the states? All the actors are American.) and he tells them to stop trying to save him. Hermione, devastated, takes this to mean he never loved her, he was only ever a psychopath playing with her feelings. She tells him as much, and Tom confirms, yeah, he's a cold-hearted son of a bitch (Harry's favorite insult for him).

They break up, and Hermione gets back with Harry. They return to their home city in North Dakota.

At the very end of that same episode, Tom is able to visit Harry for 15 seconds in the form of a specter and very dramatically tell him how he does love Hermione but he's not good for her, better to make a clean break, yada yada. DON'T LOOK FOR ME.

Harry agrees, sure no problem, he can do that. Just one noble bro to another.

Tom nods, thanks for having sex with my girl while I rot in hell, bro.

It is in this same season premier episode that the show introduces the Blacks. Remember Sirius Black? Yeah, this is sexy family.

They become instant fan favorites, and one of them is shipped with Tom (the fans now hate both Harry and Hermione).

Pandering as always, the show lets said character run into Tom. And it's not Bellatrix, oh no. It's Athena, a CW original Black. She's indistinguishable from the original Bellatrix and it's unclear why she's not just Bellatrix.

Tom is ordered to kill her, but they have a moment of truly intense eye contact so he only injures her (the killing curse doesn't exist in this show. Don't ask how Harry got his scar. No really, don't ask, the show never explained it). Shippers go wild.

Tom is eventually able to break free of the Unbreakable Vow through the power of true love (book fans are sobbing, this show gets nothing right), and he returns to Hermione, begs her to take him back. She rebuffs him, and he goes to get drunk at a bar. This is where Narcissa (aged down to 25) finds him. They have sex.

He has a brief fling with her, only to get into a more serious relationship with Athena. This leads to Hermione getting jealous.

We're now dealing with a love pentagon, of sorts. Harry and Tom love Hermione, Tom also loves Athena, Narcissa wants Harry but she has undeniable sexual chemistry with Tom.

The show descends into back-and-forth-ing, and does not get renewed.

The end.

POST SCRIPT:

The oddly popular side character that the CW never wanted to be popular at all and keeps having to make mysteriously vanish for half a season so that the plot(?) can avoid being derailed is Draco.

He's super competent but the show will never admit that.

Later, Athena plays this same role.

- @therealvinelle

#harry potter #harry potter meta #harry potter headcanon #cw #cw meta #meta #headcanon #opinion #vinelle #therealvinelle

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scorpionyx9621 · 3 years

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Do you think Jason Todd fandom is kinda toxic? Because it seems like NO MATTER what DC do, there'll always be complains. Forget the bad adaptation like Titans. Even Judd Winick cannot escape the criticism with how he potrayed Robin!Jason. They just never satisfied.

SORRY, IT TOOK ME SO LONG TO RESPOND TO THIS. I just moved from Washington D.C. to Seattle, which, for my non-American friends, that's 4442km away. And I DROVE THERE ALL BY MYSELF. And now I'm trying to find new work in a new city and trying to stay mentally healthy and positive. Life is exciting but hard and scary.

*sighs*

As someone who was a fandom elder with V*ltr*n. I've seen some of the worst when it comes to fandom behavior. I'm talking people baking food with shaving razors and trying to give them to the showrunners. I'm talking leaking major plot details and refusing to take it down unless they make their ship canon (I am looking at you, Kl*nce stans) For the most part, DC Comics has had a decades-long reputation of treating their fans like trash and not caring what they think so from what I've seen, we all just grumble and complain in our corners of the internet about how we don't like how X comic portrays Jason Todd.

The challenge with Jason Todd is that he's your clinical anti-hero, the batfamily's Draco in Leather Pants, he's a jerkass woobie, and on top of all of that, he's a Tumblr sexyman. It's a perfect storm for a very fun but frustrating character to be a fan of. It doesn't help that every writer decides to re-invent the wheel every time Jason comes up so his canon lore is confusing at best and inconsistent as a standard.

I guess starting with a general brief on who Jason is and what is uniform about him with every instance he's appeared in comics/media.

Grew up in a poor family in Gotham with a dad who was a petty-mid-level criminal, and a mother who dies of a drug overdose.

Survives on the street on his own by committing petty crimes and potentially even engaging in sexual acts to keep himself alive.

Is cornered by Batman and taken in after Dick Grayson quits/is fired

Becomes the second Robin, but is known for being the harsher, more brutal Robin.

Is killed by Joker after being tortured, but somehow comes back to life and regains senses through the Lazarus Pit

Resolves himself to be better than Batman by basically being Batman but kills people.

Where there has been a lot of conflict in the fandom is the fact that Jason Todd is not a character that is written consistently. DC Comics loves to go with the narrative that Jason was "bad from the start" and was the "bad robin" when, yes, he has trouble controlling his anger, but he also still is just as invested in seeing the best of Gotham City and trying to be a positive change for the world as any other DC Comics hero.

Where I get frustrated with the fandom is its ability to knit-pick every detail of a comic they don't like while completely disregarding everything that makes the comics great and worth it to read. My example being Urban Legends. To which most people had pretty mixed reactions to. I was critical of the comic at first but as it went along I ended up really liking it. I have a feeling DC Comics went to Chip Zdarsky and told him he had 6 issues to bring Jason back into the Bat Family, and honestly he didn't do a bad job. Did it feel rushed? Absolutely. I wish there was more development of Jason and Bruce's characters and their dynamic as a whole. However, where I see a lot of people being angry and upset with Urban Legends is that they feel Zdarsky needlessly wrote Jason as an incompetent fool who needs Bruce to save him.

Whether or not that was the intention of Zdarsky is up to debate. However, and this may be controversial, but I don't think he wrote Jason Todd out of character at all. For as fearsome, intimidating, and awesome as Red Hood is. Jason is a character who is absolutely driven by his emotions. Why do you think he donned the role of Red Hood? As a response to his anger towards The Joker for killing him, and towards Bruce for not taking action against The Joker and for seemingly replacing him so quickly after he died. Jason didn't care about being the murderous Robin Hood or for being the bloody hammer of justice against N*zi's and P*d*ph*les. He only cared originally about making The Joker and Bruce pay. It wasn't until he trained under the best assassins in the world and realized most of them were horrific criminals who trafficked children and were p*dos that Talia began to realize that the teachers that she sent Jason to train under started dying horrific and painful deaths.

The entire story of the Cheer story in Batman Urban Legends was started because it finally forced some consequences upon Jason. Tyler, aka Blue Hood's father was a drug dealer who gave his supply to his wife and kids. And when Tyler's father admitted he gave the drugs to Tyler, it immediately made him fall within the self-imposed philosophical kill-list of Jason Todd. And Jason, well, he proceeds to kill Tyler's father. When this happens, Jason is in shock. Tyler's dad fit the bill to easily and justifiably be killed by Jason. We've never seen Jason having to deal with the consequences of being a murderous vigilante on a micro-level. When Jason realizes what he's done in that he's murdered Tyler's dad, he's shocked. He tells Babs the truth. He does a rational thing because he's in shock. He doesn't know what to do, he never has had to face the consequences of his actions as Red Hood and now the gravity of befriending a child as a vigilante hero who kills people just set in when he killed the father of the same child he was just introduced to.

(Oh here's a little aside because it had to be said, Jason would not have been a good father or a good mentor to Tyler and absolutely should not have been his new Robin. Jason is a man who is in his early 20's (not saying men in their early 20's can't be good fathers at all) who is a brutal serial killer using the guise of a vigilante anti-hero to let him escape most of the law. the complications of having the man who murdered your father adopt you and make you his sidekick are way too numerous for me to explain in a long-winded already heavy Tumblr essay post. There's a reason why we don't advocate for a story where Joe Chill adopted Bruce Wayne or one where Tony Zucco took in Dick Grayson.)

The next biggest argument is that they feel that Jason is giving up his guns as a means to just be invited back into the Bat-Family. To which I will tell anyone who has that argument to go actually read Urban Legends. Already have and still have that argument? Please re-read it. Don't want to? That's okay, I will paste the images from the comic where Jason specifically says that he doesn't want to give up his weapons for Bruce and his real reasoning down below since the comic isn't exactly readily accessible.

Jason gave up the guns because he felt the gravity of what he had done and knows how it'll effect Tyler. Thankfully his mom is alive and in recovery. But Tyler doesn't have a father anymore. And Jason killed Tyler's father. It may have been in accordance to Jason's philosophy, but it was a case where it blurred the lines. Jason Todd isn't a black and white character, just very dark gray. He doesn't kill aimlessly like the Joker. If you are on Jason's list you probably have done something pretty horrific, and also just in general, being in his way or being a threat to him. Mind you, in early days of Red Hood and the Outlaws (Image below) Jason almost killed 10 innocent civilians in a town in Colorado all because they saw him kill a monster. That being said, Jason isn't aimless in his kills.

(Also can we just take a moment to appreciate Kenneth Rocafort's art? DC Comics said we need to rehabilitate Jason Todd's image and Kenneth Rocafort said hold my beer: It's so SO GOOD)

That being said, the key emphasis in the story of Cheer asides from trying to introduce Jason Todd back into the Bat Family and give an actual purpose for him being there, other than him just kind of being there ala Bowser every time he shows up for Go Kart racing, Tennis, Golf, Soccer, and the Olympic games when Mario invites him, is that Jason and Bruce ultimately both want the same thing. Jason wants to be welcomed back into the family and to be loved and appreciated. Bruce want's Jason back as his son and wants to love and protect Jason. Both of these visions are shown in the last chapter of Cheer while under the effect of the Cheer Gas. It's ultimately this love and appreciation they both have for each other that helps them overcome their challenge and win.

Jason Todd is a character who, just like Bruce, has been through so much pain and so much hate in his life. The two are meant to parallel each other. While Bruce chose to see the best in everyone, giving every rogue in his gallery the option to be helped and give them a second chance, hence why he never kills, Jason has a similar view on wanting to protect the public, but he understands that some crimes are so heinous they cannot be forgiven, or that some habitual criminals are due to stay habitual criminals, and need to be put down. But at the end of the day, the two of them both try to protect people in their own ways.

I am aware that through the writings of various DC Comics authors such as Scott Lobdell and Judd Winick, the two have had a very tumultuous relationship. And rightfully so, I am by no means saying that Scott Lobdell writing an arc where Bruce literally beats Jason to within an inch of his life in Red Hood and the Outlaws, nor Judd Winick's interpretation of Under the Red Hood where Bruce throws the Batarang at Jason's neck, slicing his throat and leaving him ambiguously for dead at the end of the comic is appropriate considering DC Comics seems to be trying everything they can to integrate Jason back into the family. That being said, a lot of these writings have shaped the narrative of Jason and Bruce's relationship and have an integral effect on the way the fandom views the two. It doesn't help that Zdarsky acknowledged Lobdell's life-beating of Jason by Bruce at the very end of Cheer by having Bruce give Jason his old outfit back as a means of mending the fence between the two of them. That does complicate a lot of things in terms of how they are viewed by the fandom and helps to cause an even greater divide between the two.

Regardless, I want to emphasize the fact that Jason Todd is a part of the family of his own accord. Yes, he's quite snarky and deadpan in almost every encounter. However, Jason is absolutely a part of the family and has been for a while of his own will. There's a great moment in Detective Comics that emphasizes this. Jason cares about his family because it is his found family. Yes, they may be warry about him and use him as a punching back and/or heckle him. At the end of the day, we're debating the family dynamics of a fictional playboy billionaire vigilante whose kleptomania took the form of adopting troubled children and turning them into vigilante heroes. Jason Todd wants a family that will love and support him. This is a key definition of his character at its most basic. This was proven during the events of Cheer and is being reenforced by DC Comics every time they get the opportunity to do so.

Now, none of this is to say that I hate Judd Winick. I do not, I don't like the fact that in all of his writings of Jason, he just writes him as a dangerous psychopath, and Winick himself admits to seeing Jason as nothing much more than a psychopath. Yet Winick is the one who the majority of the fandom clings to as the one true good writer of Jason Todd because 'Jason was competent, dangerous, smart' Listen, friends, Jason is all of that and I will never deny it. However, what I love about Jason isn't that he's dangerously smart of that writers either write him as angsty angry Tumblr sexyman bait or that they write him as an infantile man child with a gun. There's a large contention of this fandom that has an obsession with Jason Todd being this vigilante gunman who is hot and sexy and while I definitely get the appeal. It is very creepy and downright disturbing that all of you hyperfixate on his use of guns and ability to be a murderer. It is creepy and I'm not necessarily here for it.

What I love about Jason Todd is that despite all of the pain, all of the heartache, all of the betrayal, and bullying, and death, and anguish. Jason Todd is one of the most loving and supportive characters in all of DC Comics. Jason has been through so much in his life, but he still chooses to love. He still chooses to see the bright side in people. Yes, he takes a utilitarian approach and chooses to kill certain villains, but at the end of the day he wants to see a better world, and he wants to be loved. It takes so much courage and so much heart to learn to love again after one has been abused or traumatized. I would not blame Jason at all if he said fuck it and just went full solo and vigilante evil. He has every right to, but he still chooses to be with the Bat Family of his own accord. That's something that I see a lot of in myself. I have been through a lot of trauma and yet I try to be a better person myself in any way that I can. It is extremely admirable of Jason to allow love back into his heart when he really doesn't need to. He kills and he protects because he has this love of society. It may have been shaped by anger and hatred, but Jason has found his place amongst people who love him and value him. I think Ducra, from Red Hood and the Outlaws put it best in the image given below.

To end this tangent, I love Jason Todd and all of his sexy dangerousness, but it's far more than that. As much as Jason may be dangerous and snarky, he loves his family without a shadow of a doubt. I look up to Jason Todd because despite all of his pain and all of his trauma, he still choses to love. Jason Todd is a character who is someone I love because despite all of his flaws and having a very toxic fandom, he still serves as a character filled with so much heart and so much passion. I wish more writers would understand that. But for now I will live with what I have. Even though the fandom may be vocal about it's hatred for his characterization, I choose to love Jason regardless because he is a character who chooses love and acceptance regardless of his pain. Jason Todd is by no means a good person in any sense of the word. He has easily killed upwards of 100 people by now. He is a character who is flawed and complex but ultimately is one who powers forwards and finds love and heart in a place from so much pain and anguish. That is what I love about Jason Todd. After all, to quote a famous undead robot superhero, "What is grief, if not love persevering?" Jason Todd chooses to love despite all of the trauma and pain and grief. Yes, he is hardened in his exterior, but inside there is a man with a lot of love to give and someone who deserves the world in my eyes.

#Long post GOD #Jason Todd #Red Hood #Bat Family #Batman #red hood and the outlaws #RHATO #RH:O #Batman Urban Legends #Red Hood Lost Days #TW Voltron #TW Death #tw murder #TW Klance #Gotta love how i am pouring my heart out onto jason AND calling out the Voltron fandom #Regardless love Jason Todd people

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softspeirs · 3 years

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since tumblr ATE my ASK let's try this AGAIN. "I think you'd look cuter with me" and Chuckler, if you feel like branching out into Pacific boys.

A/N: I meant to have this posted for Unappreciated Characters Day when it was Chuckler’s turn, but alas. However! I rewatched a few of his scenes and hope feat. the ensemble I can get his voice right. Hope you enjoy!

The ship arrives at dawn, and the First Marines watch warily as the replacements come ashore.

It’s hard to see these kids as people and not as ghosts already, before they even know their names. There’s also an influx of nurses this time, and that perks everyone’s interest, although Chuckler and his buddies can’t really find it in them to get too excited.

They know they won’t be here long enough to meet anyone anyway.

“Just more names to learn,” Hoosier drawls, and Chuckler tilts his head, meeting his eyes.

“More training we have to sit through, you mean.”

“Cannon fodder.” Leckie murmurs, ever the defeatist.

“Well, don’t look now, fellas. But someone’s got their eye on us, and by us, I mean me--” Runner says, interrupted by Hoosier shoving him.

Chuckler follows his eye, and is surprised when he meets a familiar pair of green eyes in uniform. “I’ll be damned.”

His feet move almost without his permission. He never thought he’d see her again - at least not in this lifetime.

“-- over there, don’t worry about your bunk yet. We have to get set up in triage, and the hospital. Make it quick, ladies!” She’s saying, and he has to laugh to himself - she sounds exactly the same as she did when she was bossing around every kid on the playground, including him.

“Nurse? Need a hand?” He asks, and she whips around, eyes wide.

“Lew?”

“Ma’am.”

“Oh, shove off,” she says, laughing, and he can see the way she nearly launches herself at him, but she holds herself back. “I’d hug you, but I don’t feel like dealing with the rumors.”

“What are you doing here, huh?”

“Same as you. Doing my bit.”

Chuckler sees Runner and Hoosier approaching out of the corner of his eye, and rolls his eyes in anticipation of whatever bullshit they’re about to spew. It figures - no one can keep a girl a secret for too long around here.

“Who’s your friend?” Hoosier asks, his face a picture of innocence.

“She’s a friend of mine, not yours.”

“For what it’s worth, ma’am, I think you’d look cuter with me.” Runner says, before ducking away from Chuckler’s raised hand and glare.

“Don’t you two have somewhere to be?”

Her smile is exactly how he remembers it. For a minute, they’re not here. They’re back in Illinois, the midday sun highlighting her face. She tilts her head, considering him. “You okay, Lew? I mean-- are you… have you--”

“I’m alright. Been lucky.” He says honestly. “You just-- be careful, okay? We’re shipping out again soon.”

“You need to be more careful than me.” She says softly. In the distance, someone calls her name. “I have to go,” she says, almost mournfully. “Lew? I’ll-- I’ll try to find you later. Is that okay?”

“‘Course it is.” He says, grinning.

“There’s that smile.” She says, shaking her head. “Don’t lose that, Lew.”

He watches her go, her uniform crisp and unmarred by the horrors of this war, at least for now. He can only say a prayer that she gets out of here before too long.

#mercurygray #the pacific fanfiction #chuckler juergens x oc #lew juergens x oc #softspeirs the pacific fanfiction

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makeste · 4 years

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literally just a giant post of Bakugou faces.

today, 4/20 (actually it is very much still only 4/19 over here, but to heck with it, we’re getting an early start dammit), is Bakugou Katsuki’s birthday. and as someone who loves Bakugou and who also hasn’t found much worth rejoicing about in April 2020 in general, it’s important to me to celebrate the shit out of this day. but these are strange times and I am le tired, and so what my tired brain ended up arriving at was “just do a post about how much you love his stupid face.”

so these are my favorite Bakugou faces. I stopped after Kacchan vs. Deku because this post was already like 100k words (slight exaggeration) with like 40,000 faces (slight), and because this already took forever and the next 130-something chapters were only going to have about one fifth as many good faces compared to the first 120, even though there are some good ones there still to be sure. but anyway, so there are no spoilers here.

happy birthday Kacchan, and happy birthday to Kacchan’s angsty side profile with his hair covering his eyes.

why I like it: he scured.

lol but seriously. because up until this point he’s just been a complete asshole. even after he gets grabbed by sludgeman, he’s all “AS IF I’D LET THIS MUDMAN TAKE MY BODY FOR HIMSELF”, and he’s all feral-looking, and at first you’re like “eh he’ll be fine.” but then along comes this panel to serve as our narrator saying “he was not fine.” because he really is not. and on the page before this too, you can see how tired and desperate his struggles are starting to get. and absolutely no one is trying to help him. and he’s fighting, he’s straining, but he can’t. fucking. breathe.

and then this panel. and he’s just a kid. he looks so very, very young here, like this is the youngest he looks throughout the entire series except for in his flashbacks, and it’s because all the pride and bluster and anger are stripped away and he’s just a boy underneath it and he’s scared. “you looked like you needed saving.” exactly. exactly. and for Katsuki to actually ask for help is so rare. so you know that when he does ask (and he absolutely was begging for someone to come help him even though he couldn’t vocalize it. credit to Horikoshi for conveying all of that emotion in a single panel), he really, really needs it. thankfully there was one person watching who finally snapped himself out of that “a hero’s bound to come along soon” mindset that had everyone else gripped, and realized that he needed to be that hero.

why I like it: because he’s humiliated and fairly shaken up and also the most handsome he’s looked up until this point, but most of all he’s just chewing his lip and being all “god fucking dammit did fucking Deku really just save me, fuck my life, why is the universe fucking dumb.” like even after this hugely traumatizing experience, he’s incredibly resilient to the point where after he calms down, his lingering emotions are mainly just “smdh this is a new level of irritated even for me.” he is so brave and thickheaded and tough and absurdly, ridiculously petty jesus christ.

why I like it: like the old man said. his face just screams “I’m a rotten thief.”

there’s so much personality in this one expression. and then it’s juxtaposed against proto!Katsuki who I really desperately just want to punch in the face. just. my son my be a dick, but by god he’s an honest dick.

why I like it: baby?? cute baby??? mine?? my baby?!?

he’s just like. “I got it all figured out. gosh I’m so good at life.” that is the face of a child who has never encountered a single difficulty in his very young existence. everything is easy and he expects to be good at everything and he always is and he’s so, so pleased with himself. with a kid that little you really don’t want to go and shatter their dreams just yet, but maybe someone should have taken him down just a peg or two before it all got out of hand. alas. he was so cute that nobody wanted to and I can’t even blame them because he’s just that fucking cute, though.

why I like it: this is a very underrated panel which I think most people probably don’t even recall. it’s from chapter 11 just after he loses to Deku and Iida, and specifically right after Momo just completely lays into him and explains in vivid detail exactly how stupid every single one of his decisions was lmao. and it’s like he’s just had his eyes opened. he talks about her speech later, too, so it clearly had an impact.

there is no pride here at all. initially when I was reading this, I thought he was still shell-shocked. but looking back at it, and knowing what I do now about his unexpected willingness to accept criticism (something I certainly wouldn’t have expected during my first readthrough of this chapter), I think this is also a genuine “!” face as he realizes that she’s completely fucking right. YOU DONE GOOFED SON. but it’s okay because he learned from it!

also look how big his eyes are. when they get all wide like that. it’s so rare that I have to appreciate each and every time it happens. also he has no right to have such thick eyelashes. goddammit.

why I like it: because he’s strongest at his moment of weakness! because he’s upset but he learned from it! because he is such a strikingly human character with such complex emotions and there’s such a lovely mix of them on display here and that shit is my weakness! because this is when I signed the adoption papers (well, had them finalized after I initially obtained them after the “you looked like you needed saving” face in chapter 1, at least)!! because he always cries in front of Deku and doesn’t get embarrassed, but then he does get embarrassed if anyone else shows up! because his emotions around Deku are so raw and out of control! because the intensity of them is as compelling as it is confusing! but mostly because someone showing fierce determination while simultaneously showing intense vulnerability is basically the cheat code to unlocking my heart, and also the best thing anyone can ever draw in a shounen manga. thank you I’ll take infinity of them.

why I like it: because half of 1-A saw this face and instantly thought “fuck that’s hot” and then went “!! oh fuck me” but it was too late! that’s right kids. even knowing firsthand what a trashpile he can be, you’re still not immune to his charms. that confidence, though.

why I like it: the face of a boy who has just realized that holy shit, there are other people in his class. nothing gets past him. his reflexes are too fast.

why I like it: the slow motion (this is such a cool moment even if it’s at his expense lol), and the fact that this is such a weird and totally unique expression, and yet he somehow almost manages to make it look good. actually he does make it look good, let’s be real. of course, this was back when Horikoshi had more time to roll up his sleeves and really get into the art. look at all that shading goddamn.

why I like it: he cares!! he has feelings!! he has concern about someone other than him omfg whaaaaaat.

he’s so unsettled by what he just heard about Todoroki. the guy who was so strong and cool turned out to have an absolutely horrifying shounen protagonist past that he never let on about. honestly this scene is one of the reasons why I’m so strongly in favor of not interpreting Katsuki’s parents as abusive; because I just really like the character arc of him actually having a pretty good childhood, all things considered, but still having all these problems. because sometimes people actually do have everything going for them and yet they still screw up, because people are only human and sometimes you can fuck up (or be fucked up) even on easy mode! and if that happens it doesn’t mean you’re any more to blame, or more worthy of derision or scorn, or that you already had your chance so screw you, or any of that! anyway so that’s just such an interesting and relatively rare thing to explore and so I like it.

anyway. so just, the idea of him thinking of Todoroki as someone who had it made all his life, only to realize that’s not actually the case at all and that he’s actually the privileged one in comparison, just makes for a really great character-building moment. it’s a really big wake up call for him, especially given that he’s so often just wrapped up in himself and his own concerns still at this stage of the game. and it’s a moment that has a lasting impact on him and that he doesn’t forget, and it helps contribute to him starting to learn more empathy.

why I like it: my child is rabid please help.

but he’s so happy to have Ochako prove to be such an unexpectedly worthwhile opponent. she was sneaky and she nearly got him and he only just made it out by the skin of his teeth and fuck yes, that was awesome. he was really ready to throw down some more with her and it was gonna be the highlight of his fucking day. I just love seeing him acknowledge other people’s strength, because we know the value he places on being strong. so that’s a ton of respect from him, and Ochako fucking earned it, and this is just a great moment.

why I like it: just casually spittin facts and launching ships. nothing to see here move along.

why I like it: for everyone reblogging that one scene of shoujou!Bakugou from the anime over and over again, I just want to remind you all that as great as that scene is, we shouldn’t forget that in the manga he can be effortlessly handsome without even trying.

why I like it: as I said above.

why I like it: another one of the infamous “haah!?” faces. whenever he does these that one raised-eyebrow eye always goes so wide, and even though he’s trying to look like a pissed off thug it always makes him look surprisingly young instead.

also I’m not crazy for seriously wondering if Horikoshi’s art peaked all the way back in the sports festival arc though, right?? you honestly can’t find a bad panel even if you specifically go out and look for them.

why I like it: babyyyy.

I still don’t get how anyone could watch this scene and not get that he was way more upset than he was actually angry. he looks like he’s about to cry honestly.

why I like it: MY PRECIOUS SON’S ANGELIC SLEEPING FACE. all tuckered out. he’s had a hard day.

but seriously when you smooth out all of the >:O it is amazing how young he actually looks though. this one panel is shaded in such a way that you can see that he still has baby fat in his cheeks!! he’s just a little boy! HE IS A LITTLE CHILD LIKE THE REST OF THEM AND YOU MADE HIM PARTICIPATE IN THESE HUNGER GAMES AND HE KICKED ASS AND THEN GOT SAD AND YOU MADE HIM SLEEP AND CHAINED HIM TO A POST WHEN HE WOKE UP ANGRY AND TRYING TO BITE PEOPLE. anyways what a whirlwind of events huh.

why I like it: this child is literally trembling. he has been shaken to his very core. also for real though how did Jeanist even do that. anyways great internship or greatest internship.

why I like it: this is from chapter 60, right after he basically declares war on Deku and says he’ll crush him during final exams. then he turns around and is just like AND LET’S NOT FORGET THIS ASSHOLE HERE!!! and his eyes are practically bulging out and Todoroki just has his trademark “!!!” totally blank stare. this panel fully kills me guys.

why I like it: how was he THE CUTEST CHILD WHO EVER LIVED?? look at his little fists?! I can’t even deal with this???

why I like it: I actually like this one even more than the more iconic “the strongest heroes always win in the end” panel right below it, because in this panel you can more clearly see that he was crying quite a lot (he was only six!!), but it seems to me that it was more because of the unfairness of it than because he was hurt. even though he was hurt. but these jerks bumped into him and then acted like it was his fault, and it was two against one and he was much younger than them and IT’S JUST ROUGH YOU GUYS! LIFE IS HARD WHEN YOU’RE SIX! but he’s a little tough guy though so he scrubs the tears away in this very clumsy and boyish fashion because HE WON ANYWAY SO TAKE THAT! he is so little but already so determined.

why I like it: his eyes are just so intense all the time. even when it’s not an intense moment at all. also the dot shading here is so cool.

why I like it: okay so technically it’s the back of his head and not his face. but I feel like the fact that Kacchan was twitching and flinching and shaking too doesn’t get enough attention in this scene. he and Todo were both wigging out here and I love it. during the third light novel he also gets freaked out by the whole Disney Channel “we were telling a ghost story but now it seems like the story has come to life” plot that goes on at one point, just fyi. Kacchan is absolutely that kid who will refuse to watch scary movies just because “they’re dumb” and definitely NOT because he is scared, how fucking dare you sir.

why I like it: because this is the first of many scenes in this arc and the next arc in which he is freaking out but doing an excellent job of covering it up with his natural ferocity. he and Shouto have just come across one of their classmates’ arms lying in the middle of the path being chewed on by a villain in a straitjacket. his first reaction is to ask Shouto which of their classmates had been out on the path in front of them. he has immediately put two and two together, and he is immediately ready to throw hands with this dude, rules or no rules. but you can see the shading over his eyes though, and I think that -- along with the sweat visible on his face -- is a huge indicator of how horrifying this actually is to him.

why I like it: because this blank “processing...” expression that he sometimes gets when a lot of people are talking at once and he’s not really sure but he is pretty sure that he doesn’t like where this is heading, is my favorite.

why I like it: because even now it’s still ambiguous just what exactly was the prevailing emotion in these eyes and this expression, and the prevailing sentiment behind the “stay back.” I happen to think it was fear! not the same overwhelming, helpless fear as the 14-year-old who was caught up in the sludge, but a very on-edge, controlled-panic fear of a 16-year-old who’s trying to remain in control because he’s a hero in training now. and I think the “stay back” is the “stay back” of a boy who knows the look in that other boy’s eyes, and knows that it’s no use this time. it’s not protective, and it’s not hostile or defensive either. it’s just... resigned. don’t do it, Deku. that could have been the last thing he ever said to him, and it was measured and brave even through his fear and I love him so much.

why I like it: this is one which has to be viewed in juxtaposition with the panel immediately above it lol. Tomura looks like he could literally stare a man to death with those crazy eyes, and Kacchan is comparison just looks so ridiculously young and small and out of his league. but he doesn’t crack. but his eyes are super wide and even the shadows underneath them are stressed almost to their breaking point. like I’m screwed I’m screwed I’m so goddamn fucking screwed oh shit. my baby, guh. this was such a fucking scary experience though for real??

why I like it: same deal as above lol. this whole situation just keeps getting worse and worse, and here he’s just probing for more information while simultaneously trying to buy himself more time to think of a miracle plan. there really isn’t much chance of him getting out of here unscathed at this point (or at least there wouldn’t have been if the heroes hadn’t shown up), but I don’t think he’s letting himself think about that yet. but I’m sure it’s there at the back of his mind all the same.

why I like it: this is my favorite Bakugou face ever. SO MANY EMOTIONS. All Might came to save him! his hero!! he beat the bad guys (or so they think for that brief moment anyway) and it’s all okay now! he was alone but now he’s not anymore and All Might is there! and he is relieved, and he actually lets his guard down to show it for just a split second! his lip is trembling! I don’t think he even realizes for a moment, and then he does, and he immediately goes all tough guy again and the moment is gone! but while it’s there! it’s so much! I have never so badly wanted to hug a fictional character in my life.

why I like it: don’t you think this person could one day inspire thousands of others. do you see this courage in those eyes. the way he pushes past fear and panic and fatigue. don’t think, don’t doubt. just win.

why I like it: by now you have probably detected a pattern of me liking all of the Kamino faces because he was going through so many emotions that for once the walls just couldn’t keep up. he always looks so much younger when he’s not making >: faces. everything just smooths out. I also like that Horikoshi never makes his expressions symmetrical; he almost always has one eye wider than the other, eyebrows doing different things, stuff like that.

also this is when he sees All Might’s true form for the first time, and you can just see it hit him like a punch to the gut. All Might weakened; All Might weakened because of him; All Might might lose (!?!); All Might might die???? Katsuki’s entire world is falling apart in an instant, and in this moment he’s just a little boy.

why I like it: it beginsss. the angstening.

he’s not even resisting the hand guiding him. none of his usual unruliness or general aura of barely-checked rage. he just looks tired. and completely lost in his own thoughts. which as we now know were not good. I cannot fucking believe we had to wait another 25 chapters after this to finally get this kid a damn hug.

why I like it: because Bakugou Mitsuki is fulfilling my (and dating sim!Momo’s) lifelong dream of ruffling Bakugou Katsuki’s (spiky yet fluffy!!) hair. and all he can do is just chew his lip and halfheartedly glare at her all “mooooooOOOOmmm.” he doesn’t even really look pissed off here (because it’s hard to be mad when someone is talking about how worried they were about you and how relieved they are that you’re safe now, especially when that someone is your mom who isn’t normally the type to be so open about this kind of stuff at all), just begrudgingly grumpy. and I swear to god his bottom lip is made of fucking rubber the way he moves it around, just look at it.

why I like it: those eyelashes though!?!? [grabs Katsuki by the shoulders and shakes him roughly] WHY ARE YOUR EYES SO PRETTY.

why I like it: this is right after he found out he flunked the license exam, and you can see how upset he is. obviously we now know that shortly thereafter he went and had a complete meltdown. and buddy if you keep grinding your teeth like that, your dentist is also going to have a meltdown.

and yet again Horikoshi manages to strike this uncanny balance between making him look pissed off and making him look like he’s trying very, very hard not to cry. he just failed, again. it’s like the whole world is screaming at him over and over again that he’s not hero material at all.

why I like it: because he drags Deku out to the middle of nowhere and is all “I know you have All Might’s power and we’re gonna fight”, and Deku protests, and you expect Kacchan’s reaction to be just about anything other than what it actually is. this is as close to pleading as Katsuki is ever going to get. he may not be drowning in sludge but he is still desperate.

why I like it: this may be the best Katsuki that Horikoshi has ever drawn.

why I like it: super ultra mega unpopular opinion: I like this panel even more than THE PANEL!! that follows shortly after it. I am a sucker for when Horikoshi does this thing where he shows Katsuki’s face from a side profile, and his eyes are covered by his hair so you can’t see his full expression, but you know it is something vulnerable because he only ever does this when Katsuki is trying to hide his vulnerability. I could make a whole separate post just about these hair-covering-eyes faces lol. but out of all of them this is my absolute favorite. I can hear Okamoto’s voice acting in my head just looking at it.

why I like it: because it is THE PANEL. he finally broke completely; he let the walls fall away; he couldn’t hide it any longer. he’s so unbelievably torn up about this; he hates himself for it and feels like a failure; he’s lost and doesn’t have the faintest idea how to find his path again. he ended the Symbol of Peace. he was weak and wrong, and Deku was strong and right, and he can’t even hate Deku for it anymore, he just wants to understand what it is that he keeps doing wrong, why it is that he keeps failing.

why I like it: it’s, uuuuuh, angst.

lol it’s funny because at the beginning of the series, it was always Deku who was always crying at the drop of a hat. and to be fair this is still true. but Katsuki also cries way more than I would ever expect a rival character in a shounen manga to cry. and specifically he has cried every single time he’s had a dramatic and overly emotional altercation like this with Deku (and that’s three separate times now). is it because he’s always felt like he has less to hide around Deku? or because his Deku Emotions are so much more intense and volatile than his other emotions? at any rate, whatever it is, if this happens one more time (and I guarantee you it will too because A Certain Someone still hasn’t officially made an apology yet) he will officially lose all authority to ever call Deku out for being a crybaby again. meanwhile poor All Might will just be beside himself. I’m sorry dude, both of your children are just like this, you just gotta deal with it and accept their feelings.

why I like it: HE FINALLY GOT HIS HUG, BLESS.

and more hair covering his eyes! and chewing of the lip! and his head is bowed so much here, he fully allowed himself to be pulled into this hug and to accept this gesture of comfort for once in his life, just for a moment! after everything he was feeling, everything he was beating himself up over, All Might comes and tells him it’s not your fault. and there’s still so much guilt there, but he needs to hear this so badly that he accepts it all the same. meanwhile he is also CRYING AGAIN!? because this was the chapter where Horikoshi said “I am going to put all of the angst and cathartic conflict resolution into a single fight and it’s going to be the best thing ever” and it really was. do you even understand how much I love this. do you??

why I like it: OH GOSH I FORGOT ABOUT THIS, THIS IS MY OTHER FAVORITE KATSUKI HAIR-COVERING-EYES PANEL.

oh no. he’s ruffling his own spiky fluffy hair. he’s tired and he’s beat up (and whose fault is that lmao) and he’s learning all kinds of new things about himself today. he’s got basically nothing left in the tank, but for the first time in ages he has his path laid out in front of him again and he knows the way to start moving forward. he has been absolved of his guilt, the guilt which was eating a hole away inside of him. and all of a sudden he realizes -- it occurs to him -- hey, All Might finally admitted it, he really did give his power to Deku. but it’s still a secret though, isn’t it? it’s important, isn’t it? and so he tells them, hey, look, I get it, I won’t say anything, you don’t have to worry. it’s partially gratitude -- he owes so much to All Might and it’s ridiculous, that’s a fucking debt right there, and this is the least and only thing he can offer right now in return -- and it’s partially just... the right thing to do. like, common sense. honorable and shit. and it’s not like it’s a big deal or anything. but just, let them know.

I love his side profile so much and I love his hair and his ear and the scuffs on his face and his beaten up hand and his hunched up shoulders and him being soft and trying not to show how soft he’s being and he is precious.

BONUS:

HAPPY BIRTHDAY MY HANDS IN POCKETS GRUMPY TRIANGLE EYES ROVING FERAL HOG SON, I LOVE YOU.

#bnha #boku no hero academia #bakugou katsuki #makeste reads bnha #HEAVEN #MUST BE MISSIN' AN ANGEL #MISSIN' ONE ANGELLLL CHILDDDD #[camera pans over to the feral toddler digging through trash while I sigh in fondness]#bnha meta #bakugou meta

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g-perla · 4 years

Text

The ACOTAR Series is a Romantic/Gothic Horror Stage and Only Nesta Got the Memo

Not even SJM knows what’s going on.

Ok, this is going to seem off the rails but bear with me.

So I'm a big fan of Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë (top 5 books and all that jazz) and I was thinking about it because it deals with themes of the Other and the supernatural, Nature as Character, the overlap of the animalistic and human, blurring of established binaries...fun, Romantic shit like that. Interestingly, this overlaps with how SJM illustrates her world and characters a lot of the time, hence why I was considering it while working on my Nesta project. I’ve mentioned before that Nesta really gives me Byronic heroine vibes and that’s a character construct of precisely this literary tradition.

I started thinking about Heathcliff and Cathy and how they're ridiculously extra and just feel the most intense emotions towards each other but also towards literally everything (nothing half-assed ever, this is a Romantic novel after all). I then remembered how so many people ship them, but like in earnest, in a totally aspirational way. It's not a #cursed ship to them at all. It's...romantic to them not Romantic. I even read often that people quote it at their weddings, specifically the infamous "two souls" quote.

Then I had an epiphany. I was like "wait, what if SJM is one of those people?? What if she has the energy of a Cathy/Heathcliff earnest shipper and that's why all her ships are messy??" Because if that is the case, my friends, oh boy oh boy would it explain so much. I will post some sections from Wuthering Heights:

Doesn’t the acotar series seem like a 1/50 dilution of that energy?? And that is barely a taste of all the spiciness this book has to offer. To illustrate further: SJM gave us the F/eysand suicide pact and the near-death battlefield Nessian scene. One is certainly more outlandish than the other, but both are the result of intense emotions. To that Emily Brontë raises the following: Heathcliff asking the sexton to dig up Cathy’s grave to see what’s up because her ghost has been haunting him since he personally dug up her grave 18 years prior and she has been haunting him ever since. He later demands to be buried in the same exact grave when he dies so they can decompose together. They both married other people though which only adds to the mess. (I am not lying to you the Romantic tradition really gave us these gems lmao. As an aside, Mary Shelley was also a writer of the Romantic tradition and she confessed her love to husband Percy Bysshe Shelley on her mother’s grave. Her mother was liberal feminist icon Mary Wollstonecraft by the way which only makes this even more amazing. Additionally, biographers believe that the Shelleys also had sex there. Talk about Romantic 😉.)

Then I had ANOTHER thought! (Dangerous)

If we read the series from the point of view of just another YA high fantasy things might get a bit boring because the world-building is honestly lazy and the magic system is pretty soft, which isn’t a pre-requisite in high fantasy (The Lord of the Rings has a soft magic system) but it's not the norm and it doesn't pay off in this series. Not to mention that the plot is pretty lackluster and derivative. To add to that the romantic and sexual relationships are questionable in their healthiness and consequently are the source of much argument in the fandom.

But, dear reader, if we think about the ACOTAR series as being a sort of thematic and ideological 21st century YA homage to the Romantic tradition of the 19th century (within which Gothic Horror also lives), things get REALLY, REALLY SPICY.

No longer do we just have a romance fantasy with messy, hyper-emotional, animalistic characters who constantly partake in morally grey situations rife with dubious dynamics. No longer does plot really matter. No longer do we require quasi-scientific descriptions of the world and the magical system. No! All that matters now are the characters and the mood. Now we have potential! Add a lot of Nature ambiance: expanses of dark woods, great mountains, the unknowable and sublime energy of the ocean, a violent rainstorm/hurricane/tsunami, an impending snowstorm whose intensity reflects the growing emotional intensity of the characters as the story goes along (I’m looking at you impending snowstorm in acofas that curiously matches the growing complexity of Nesta’s emotional state). Blur the lines between any imaginable category: life and death, human and animal, known and unknown, Self and Other, beautiful and monstrous, good and evil, masculine and feminine, the list goes on. Most importantly make your readers uncomfortable by frustrating their desires to sort things into easy binary categories and don’t apologise for making them question their assumptions about the world, morality, gender, and any other kind of previously constructed Order.

Basically write the story with Dionysus-in-a-Greek-tragedy energy and bring to us mere mortals artful Chaos.

Once that is done we can have a literal Romantic/Gothic Horror story. The Acotar series could have been this unapologetically, with the added element of being told through the eyes of the "Cathy" character instead of through the lens of a third person getting second-hand accounts about what went on. This whole series is honestly enough of a chaotic mess of Byronic-like heroes and heroines and cursed familial relationships that it could have been that. That alone is peak entertainment. The problem, however, and the main reason why I can’t really say that this series truly delivered this wackiness is that SJM committed the act of not fully committing to the bit (very un-Romantic of her, I know). Now, I am not saying that SJM actually intended this. I’m just saying it really could have accidentally been this genius with some tweaks. Unfortunately, she made the crucial mistake of trying to justify too much, trying to make things too neat, too tidy, too sensical (in other words: the reason we really can’t have nice things).

I could end this here, lamenting the potential of what SJM had set-up for us were it not for one element, one gift:

Nesta

OHOHOHO DO THINGS GET GOOD HERE SO BUCKLE UP

Most of the characters refuse to fully commit to the bit in their desire to satisfy modern sensibilities, by which I of course mean they want ridiculous things like political power, to conquer lands, to be a Girl Boss, to get married, have kids, celebrate holidays, converse about mundane things, be relatable, etc. You know, pretty pedestrian stuff that only requires a bit of genetic luck, a sprinkle of energy, and the right circumstances within the world of Acotar. I would like to reiterate the beginning of this paragraph: most of the characters.

Let’s say you’re stubborn and you decide to still read the series through the lens of the Romantic/Gothic tradition, what happens then?

The most hilarious thing (for the Nesta stans that is. The antis would probably hate this)

Nesta, based on what we know about her through Feyre and the limited amount of other scenes, is the only character who really takes the performance seriously. She's the only one that SJM hasn't managed to confine through justification. Nesta just shows up and simply refuses to make sense (her POWER what a queen 👑). She is endlessly fascinating because she just exists in her world on her terms, established categories be damned, and in this manner she frustrates not only the sensibilities of the characters in the stories but those of the reader as well. This double duty is, I suggest, the result of the other characters not fully inhabiting the nebulous world of Romantic characters and thus being a little too plausible and understandable even if they are not justifiable.

Ok, you may say, but I relate so much to Nesta. I do understand her. I don’t justify all of her actions, but I understand where she is coming from. (You’re not alone, friend. I like to think these things too. Alas, we are but plebs).

To that I reply; Nesta does things, certainly, and we can spend hours trying to explain through extrapolation, educated guesses, and personal experience why she did those things, but the fact is we really don't know why. We are never explicitly told. Our insight into who she is and her motivations comes predominantly from the understanding of her youngest sister and from our own interpretation of the actions she takes. I must make clear that our own interpretations are rooted in pre-established assumptions about what is sensical and orderly in our own world and in our own lives. We cannot interpret with the tools available to us that which may be, by definition, unfathomable. It is simply paradoxical. Nesta, as we currently know her, is a construct derived from a limited number of scenes and our interpretations and projections of these scenes. Even the scenes where we get third person narration don’t explicitly tell us her motivations and her logic. For all we know there really is no comprehensible reason for her actions and that is endlessly amusing to me in how utterly Romantic it is. Acosf may and likely will change this of course, but as it stands, Nesta is a whole Romantic character. Her divisiveness in fandom and in the narrative could be due in part to her refusal to fit the discrete categories available in her world and ours.

Isn’t that wonderful?

To illustrate this a bit more I will share some details SJM gives us about her/ elements she sets up that fit in with the characteristics of the Romantic tradition (these are not exhaustive by any means):

The absolute pettiness (and extra-ness) of being so angry at her father’s inaction that she is willing to starve to death to see if he does something.

How in Acowae she is described as shifting between emotions as if she were changing clothes and feeling everything too strongly (probably to the point of destruction)

She is constantly being compared to animals, even when she is still human. Granted, SJM compares everyone to animals, but that strengthens the blurring of lines between usually discrete categories. It is still most powerful when used as a comparison when she is human because it dehumanises Nesta.

Often, SJM describes her characters as forces. Forces of nature, for example. Acofas is full of details like this in relation to Nesta. There is a storm brewing leading up to the solstice party and it is in full swing when she arrives at the townhouse. The language used there suggests that Nesta herself may be the storm (against the onslaught of Nesta). It really adds to the Maleficent energy tbh.

She is often associated with death post her transformation

She is Other even to Others. She was Made like Elain, Feyre, and Amren in a sense, but the process of her specific transformation differentiates her greatly from the others. As it is, she doesn’t fit in anywhere

Her intense attachment to her femininity and its expression are at odds with the ideas and assumptions about the performance of womanhood and a woman’s role in her world and even in ours. She is unapologetically feminine in her physical presentation, but her character, her thoughts, and possibly even desires transgress the unwritten rules of acceptable femininity (unfortunately there still are abject expressions of femininity in our ‘”progressive” mileux

She displays in many of her actions a disrespect towards authority and to the status quo. This is particularly notable when her intensely polarised sense of right and wrong is aggravated.

Her self-destructiveness. This is referred to most strongly in Acofas, but I would say she was remarkably blasé about self-preservation in Acowar as well

She is described as intelligent, cunning, ruthless, attractive, and prone to debilitating extremes of emotionality. All of these are characteristics of Byronic heroes, a subtype of the Romantic hero

Here are a bunch of quotes that touch on many of the elements that I have discussed above:

“I looked at my sister, really looked at her, at this woman who couldn’t stomach the sycophants who now surrounded her, who had never spent a day in the forest but had gone into wolf territory...Who had shrouded the loss of our Mother, then our downfall, because the anger had been a lifeline, the cruelty a release. But she had cared--beneath it she had cared, and perhaps loved more fiercely than I could comprehend, more deeply and loyally.”

--Acotar, emphasis mine, note the strong emotions. This is a recurring element for Nesta.

“Cassian’s face went almost feral. A wolf who had been circling a doe...Only to find a mountain cat wearing its hide instead.”

--Acomaf, animal comparison

“Nesta is different from most people,” I explained. “She comes across as rigid and vicious, but I think it’s a wall. A shield--like the ones Rhys has in his mind.” “Against what?” “Feeling. I think Nesta feels everything--sees too much; sees and feels it all. And she burns with it. Keeping that wall up helps from being overwhelmed, from caring too greatly.”

--Acomaf, emphasis mine

“I knew that she was different [...] Nesta was different [...] as if the Cauldron in making her...had been forced to give more than it wanted. As if Nesta had fought after she went under, and had decided that if she was to be dragged into hell, she was taking the Cauldron with her.”

--Acomaf, Nesta had her own plans for the Cauldron what a queen

“Something great and terrible.”

--Acowar, referring to her eyes. Oooh, spooky Nesta 👻

“The day she was changed, she...I felt something different with her [...] like looking at a house cat and suddenly finding a panther standing there instead.”

--Acowar, a two in one here: difference + animal comparison. Boy does SJM really go heavy when establishing Nesta as Other.

“‘Not in flesh, not in the thing that prowls beneath our skin and bones...’ Amren’s remarkable eyes narrowed. ‘But...I see the kernel, girl.’ Amren nodded, more to herself than anyone. ‘You did not fit--the mold that they shoved you into. The path you were born upon and forced to walk. You tried, and yet you did not, could not fit. And then the path changed.’ A little nod. ‘I know--what it is to be that way. I remember it, long ago as it was.’

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’“

--Acowar, show don’t tell gets thrown out the window here, but it is useful for the present purposes

“What if I tell you that the rock and darkness and sea beyond whispered to me, Lord of Bloodshed? How they shuddered in fear, on that island across the sea. How they trembled when she emerged. She took something--something precious. She ripped it out with her teeth. What did you wake that day in Hybern, Prince of Bastards?

What came out was not what went in [...] How lovely she is, new as a fawn and yet ancient as the sea. How she calls to you. A queen as my sister once was. Terrible and proud; beautiful as a winter’s sunrise.”

--Acowar, who knew rocks, darkness, and the sea were such gossips, but look how many connections to nature! To be compared to the sea, a significant example of the sublime, is peak Romanticism. If any of you have read Moby Dick, think about what the ocean and the white whale might have represented there and how that might relate to Nesta.

“I think the power is death--death made flesh.”

--Acowar, Feyre referring to the possible nature of Nesta’s power. Alluding to her powers possibly being related to death is quite significant because that is something most of us cannot comprehend, nor can most of the characters. For Nesta, a “reborn” but very much living character to have death associated with her is a strong blurring of the lines. The case of her being labelled a witch is similarly significant as it solidifies the elements of the supernatural while simultaneously comparing her to pretty much the only exclusively female-coded monster in western pop culture. I will touch more on this when I do my study of Nesta through the framework of Barbara Creed’s Monstrous Feminine.

“I am not like the others.”

--Acowar, we love a self-aware queen.

“Nesta took in his broken body, the pain in Cassian’s eyes, and angled her head.

The movement was not human.

Not fae.

Purely animal.

Purely predator.”

--Acowar

There are a lot more details and quotes that support this interpretation, but I didn’t write them all down in my archived notes. This post is obscenely long, however, so even though there is more to be said, I’ll leave it for another day. If you made it this far you really are an MVP and probably love Nesta to a concerning degree like me. Please rest your eyes if you’re actually reading this 😂

I’d love to read about any other takes and thoughts that might have come to your minds after reading this monstrosity,

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anangelicday-mrwolf · 3 years

Text

Wolfsbane : Noblesse Fanfic (post-ending)

(previous chapter)

Chapter 65 – What I Truly Must Do

“Sir?”

Takio adjusted his gaze into the direction that Yuigi’s eyes and voice were headed to.

A white-haired man dressed in a hospital gown wordlessly gave them an acknowledging look, right after which he returned to his play-meerkat stance.

The course of his action was as swift as a lightning, enough to convince some spectators, if there were to be more besides the two visitors, that he was a man who knew nothing of manners.

Hence Takio and Yuigi mimicked his behavior out of curiosity, and understanding lit across their faces.

They happened to be standing in the area within the KSA infirmary, at the corridor with the wall partially made of glass for bystanders and passersby to observe what is taking place inside.

And Tao was tending to several civilians sent to KSA on the other side of the wall.

Takio and Yuigi were in the middle of their search for the rest of the RK, to discuss how they should wrap up the calamity at Seoul.

Since they were unaware that Rael had a small business with Yuhyung in the ICU, they sought Tao.

They have found him, only to remain immobile in their places.

It was not because Tao was putting up a show of “how-to-make-a-back-and-forth-marathon-in-a-hospital,” doing nearly as thrice as much work than others, checking up on patients and assigning drugs and orchestrating treatments.

Their eyes were locked upon a child.

Back when the gas launched by Tao finally put an end to the disaster at Seoul, the 3rd Elder was lying flat on the earth as an aftermath.

But he was more concerned about the well-being of the bodies around him, and on the other hand he pled that they send the fastest among them to the site he had in mind.

Not long after, Rael retrieved from the coordinates he provided a girl and a woman the former addressed as her mom, whose blood pressures were being measured by Tao.

“If it does not concern you, may I ask what is your relation to that girl?”

Asked Takio, who remembered how the 3rd Elder was visibly relieved after he was shipped to KSA, to witness that Rael performed his commission to perfection.

Could they be a family?

Yuigi was also waiting, her question tugging at her nerves.

“If the relation you speak of is a biological type, I assure you that me, that girl, and her mother does not share any sort of genetic bond.”

“...Really? Then why would you ask me – ask Rael to prioritize that girl and her mother in collection?”

“...I owe that kid a debt.”

“A debt...?”

“...If I were give you the details...”

At then 3rd Elder’s lips emitted a poof that was most certainly meant to be a smirk, making Takio and Yuigi wonder what in the world could the man be planning to tell them.

“I’d say that kid is my master in shopping.”

Two pairs of eyes, one cyan and one light olive, rippled with confusion at the series of words that they deemed impossible to hear from 3rd Elder, whether it is a jest or not.

Their confusion grew harder as they ascertained that his claim was as unfeigned as it could be.

The 3rd Elder was wearing a smile deriving from his heart as he regarded the kid.

He was truly grateful that she was safe.

And he was truly abominating himself for what the girl and her mother had to go through.

*****

By the time Frankenstein took to his mouth the wolfsbane tonic that he changed the components of, the 3rd Elder was sprinting out of his island, wrenching himself by force from the purgatory of his heart.

Snapping at himself that a bowl of water once toppled is no longer worthy of carrying, he did not cease until he joined Helga in Seoul.

It’d be preferable to have our enemies learn that you are now with us as late as possible. So for now, I must ask you to stay here. We’d appreciate it if you could back us up when you determine it is necessary.

After the brief briefing, 3rd Elder assumed his position on top of a building not very far from KSA.

When the cataclysm Helga mentioned broke in the city, he observed everything from where he was standing.

During the briefing, he was told that everything was simply one of very small steps that will help them unlock the new beginning of the Union.

In fact, that was what he had been lecturing himself even before the briefing.

‘But why...? Just why would I feel this way...?’

Ever since his lodging at Frankenstein’s island, he had been tormented by sense of loss and melancholy stasis that he could not fathom the end to.

He had given his all to the Union, for mankind’s evolution and growth, and ultimately for mankind’s peace and welfare.

Union has been his alpha and omega, the commanding key in his every steps and choices and words and actions.

Alas, now nobody could ever promise that Union will have a future to look up to.

Instead he had accustomed himself to the ordinary life that had been perfusing into his days and nights; however, he chose to shake himself off from such life to finally lend a hand to the rise of Union back to heaven.

But why?

He knew that some sacrifices are a must, as he and Helga intended to critically sabotage the force that must be gone for Union’s revival.

Besides, he had hundreds of experiences in watching, apprehending, administering, and forgetting such sacrifices during his time at the Union.

Nonetheless, he could feel his heart moaning as he took in how civilians erratically deformed and disfigured were spraying and spreading blood about them.

He had to fight an iron-hard urge to abandon his post, against which he miraculously managed to prevail as victorious.

‘Don’t you dare. Now there’s no going back. You can only go forward. You must.’

The man hammered his lips with his teeth, forceful enough to draw blood, and even shut his eyes tight, until a horror-stricken voice shrill enough to rend anybody’s heart menacingly pierced his eardrums.

His eyes snapped open at the suggestion from the voice that its owner was no older than ten.

When the breath that was stuck in his throat restarted its circulation, he had already hopped onto the street into a sprint.

Soon enough he could lock on the origin of the shriek, and his heart twisted as if it were struck by a meteor.

“Mommy...! Mommy...!!!”

A girl was dripping tears at how her mother, as loving as any mother would be just a moment ago, was growling at her.

As much as she was shuddering in terror, her natural-born affinity to the center of her world forbid her from refuge.

Nevertheless, a parent who lost her abilities to tell her daughter from her foes revealed her sharpened teeth and lunged towards her.

At the same time, 3rd Elder hollered at the top of his lungs.

“NOOOO!!!”

Instantly his eyes flashed, keeping his power just about right to keep the woman fixed on the ground.

Yet his power was far too great for a puny girl to take, and she fell to her feet, to safely stumble onto her savior who had dashed right away to her side.

And his eyes started during the course of his anxious, hurried inspection.

‘You...?!’

Fate could be cruel at the most unappreciated moment, thought 3rd Elder, who was too hasty just before to study the profile of the girl.

The girl was his little helping hand.

The girl who taught him how to use a self-checkout machine, on the day when he first met Helga in this country – the day when he was almost drowned in the questions about the Union, Union’s purpose, and Union’s future as he stood in the middle of ordinary people busy with their ordinary lives.

The girl whose face was marred with tears, shocked beyond her sanity that her mother got very close to ripping her head from her shoulders.

The girl who was nearly made victim to the bloodshed that none other than 3rd Elder himself was part of.

‘She knows nothing about my world... She has nothing to do with my world. She has done nothing wrong. And because of me, this girl...!’

The man’s head drooped, boneless, until a cacophony from humans attempting to maul him hit his senses.

Pushing them away with a single glance, 3rd Elder could at last take in the view surrounding him.

A wife and a husband were chomping on each other’s limbs, tramping over the bag of fried chicken that was supposed to serve as their late-night snack.

One of the duo of students on their way home had his shoulder bitten by his friend, who was equally spilling blood from his arm nailed with a row of teeth.

A group of young men , strangers to each other, were scrambled into a ball of flesh and blood.

They were all innocent people, who should have had no business at all with what 3rd Elder and Helga had planned.

‘This is for the sake of mankind’s evolution and growth, and ultimately for peace and welfare...? This is the inevitable gateway to Union’s return, future, and purpose...?’

The white-haired elder recounted what Helga guaranteed him.

At the same time, he beheld the catastrophe no different from what he had familiarized himself with at Union, or perhaps worse, considering how these were all ordinary people.

And slowly his head began to turn sideways.

Once.

Twice.

And again and again.

‘No... This is wrong!’

Finally the realization of what he had unleashed upon Seoul – in reality, what he had been endeavoring to ignore – crushed upon his shoulders.

Unconscious of what he was doing, 3rd Elder held his head low, to gaze at the girl who was still listless in his arms.

He also held in his eyes a tiny lollipop she was clutching in her fingers even now, probably a gift from her mother.

A sight that pushed a cloud of heat and moisture to the corners of his eyes.

A child perfectly aged to fool around, have fun, and gorge herself on a bunch of sweets was caught in a night of horror like nothing else.

All because of him.

‘This isn’t what I wanted...! I...!’

This isn’t what you wanted?

Don’t play innocent. You’re the one who brought this upon her.

The voice within him yelled into his head, as if it were waiting for the moment, and 3rd Elder’s entire body shook in dreadful tremor.

‘What have I done...?!’

He almost lost his breath, nearly swept away in the tsunami of regret; however, he persevered like never before to still and keep himself standing.

Sealing his lips, shedding blood as the result of his ruthless mincing, he started to move.

He stacked all the modified humans in the largest crossroads, and he ran into Yuigi in the middle, seemingly trying her best to find an exit from this situation, and they shared what they knew, before he handed her a spare communicator he had.

He did not forget to pick up the girl and her mother, to safely tuck them away from the rest.

When he managed to reach Tao and learn his plan, he did not wait to urge him to do it, despite Tao’s warning that he could lose his power.

He figured it is a must-have sacrifice.

In fact, he did not care if he were to lose his powers.

His powers were what represented him as the elder of the Union.

They were the most powerful, essentially the only connection he had to the Union.

Yet here he was, willing to lose – no, willing to give up on his powers.

For he knew they were not what truly mattered.

‘How I wish I learned sooner what truly matters... What Union truly had to do... What I truly must do.’

Which was why he did not regret at all that he might lose his powers.

Which was why he accepted it as natural as the sun rising from the east.

Which was what he was ready to do in order to pay for what he had done, if it could be paid for.

Feeling how his heart was being steeled in wholeness, somewhere between guilt and relief, 3rd Elder smiled until Tao’s missile landed.

*****

Knock, knock.

Tao drummed the glass Takio and Yuigi were also looking into.

In notice of the sound, 3rd Elder scrubbed the smile off his face, to whom Tao waved his hand in invitation.

“What is it?”

“Someone’s looking for you, sir.”

I don’t think there is anyone who would require my presence, thought 3rd Elder as he followed Tao, and he flinched upon reaching his destination.

“Mister!”

The girl jumped off her bed and threw her arms around his waist, not giving any hint whether her recognition is based upon their encounter at the market or from her vague memory about her savior.

The man froze, unresponsive, feeling too guilty to show any welcoming gesture, and the girl rummaged her pocket.

“Here!”

From the girl’s pocket was revealed a lollipop, the one that she was holding during the disaster at Seoul, and 3rd Elder’s eyes momentarily bulged in surprise.

“...Is this for me?”

“Yeah! Mr. Handsome over there (At then 3rd Elder’s hesitant, unconvinced eyes shifted towards Tao very shortly, who was smirking in glory and pride) told me that you took away the bad stuff in me and my mom! So you can have it!”

He knew she would otherwise hate to give away a single treat, given her age.

He knew he should thank her at once, but he spoke of something else, completely barred from innocence in the presence of the girl.

“Are you sure you want to give this to me?”

“I’m okay! I can ask my mommy to buy me new one!”

Exclaimed the girl, until her face grew a shade closer to a frown.

“So I want to get out of hospital fast. I want to go have picnic with mommy. And buy candies.”

Her spectator’s lips were ironed taut at an instant, as he stared at how the girl pouted with her cheeks puffed up.

However, he soon placed his hand on her head and beamed at her.

“Don’t worry. You’ll soon get to do that.”

“Really? You promise?!”

“Promise. I promise you.”

You will get to do what you want to. What you have to.

You will get to enjoy your ordinary life, as you should.

“Luckily, the kid is practically clean of the effect of the gas, probably because she is not completely grown up. Of course, I’m keeping my eyes on her just in case. No need to worry.”

Quoted Tao for the 3rd Elder, as they walked away from the girl and her mother.

“By the way... I’m hoping to run more thorough tests on you. I know you went through the most basic ones, but you need to go through ‘check-ups’ check-ups to figure out how much damage that gas caused upon...”

“Sure.”

Tao and Takio and Yuigi, who were waiting for them to finish, gaped at the 3rd Elder, their eyes wide open, for they expected him to decline at least once, genuinely or not.

“Uh... Sure. Why not?”

“And make it happen ASAP, please.”

“Uh... Yeah. Sure thing. But why did you suddenly change your mind?”

“...Let’s just say there’s something I must do, before I die.”

The three listeners silently flipped but said nothing, seeing how he was so very blasé for a person who was expecting death.

They could only tail him with teetering steps, as he led the way to the lab.

And thus things were projected and progressed in order, and by the time the examinations and treatments were complete on people sent to KSA and hospitals under association with KSA, the one person they had been waiting for finally made his comeback.

At last Frankenstein returned to Korea.

(next chapter)

This chapter shows the process through which 3rd Elder changed his mind and sided with the RK, as he has been getting familiarized with ordinary life and starting to question Union’s purpose and existence. Like I mentioned in my previous chapters, in the early seasons Noblesse focused on the value of ordinary life, so I wanted to highlight this through 3rd Elder and his characterization in this fic. Now his story has been almost wrapped up, and I have a few more stories to unravel for this fic. I’ll do my best until the final chapter, and thanks for staying with me so far! :)

#korean webcomic #korean webtoon #fanfic #noblesse #frankenstein #lunark #frankensteinxlunark #lunarkxfrankenstein #wolfsbane #Mr.Wolf #AnAngelicDay

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moonlight--cafe · 3 years

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{GENRE} ~ Hurt, AU, Slight Angst, Childhood Memories

{SYNOPSIS} ~ Where Jongho discovers an old photograph that leads him to a forgotten friend.

{WORD COUNT} ~ 1.8k+

{AUTHORS NOTE} ~ Hi loves! I’m leaving for my Christmas Vacation next week and will try and post a handful of things before I leave. I’ll still post ships but they may take longer since I’ll be leaving my laptop behind, in the mean time I wanted to post this. This was written for my birthday twin Jongho for the Atiny writing competition, it wasn’t posted anywhere besides the KQ forum. But alas this is finally seeing the day of light on this blog, this was the first thing I wrote after a year long writers block and this is basically what encouraged me to post more. I hope you like this and if you want to request anything (x reader or solo members like this) feel free to, this includes, headcanons, scenarios, mtl’s and any other pieces of writing. I won’t write smut at this stage but will possibly consider it in the future. P.S Apologies for the basic title, I had a catchier title but I didn’t write it down and it’s pretty much forgotten so Jongho’s Wanderings will have to do xoxo

“I was too young to know how to reach out to my lost friend. Where am I now? Where should I go?”

The egg yolk sun poured through Jongho’s blinds, its warmth causing him to stir. Despite his own reluctance to leave his bed he rose, reaching for his red coat lazily shrugging it on. He intended to make a quick dash out of his room but came to an abrupt stop when he heard something shatter from beneath him. Jongho huffed out a loud sigh as he knelt down brushing the glass aside, ignoring the slight sting of the glass jabbing into his fingers. Wiping the small droplets of blood on his coat he looked down at the weathered photograph. It depicted two young children, both wearing cheap pirate costumes and large gap-toothed smiles. Reaching for his backpack he pocketed the photograph between the pages of his speckled composition notebook. He had found the piece of hidden memory stuck to the bottom of a patchworked cardboard box, he recognized himself immediately but the other child remained a question mark up until this day.

Usually Jongho would have taken the most direct path to the track he trained at, however, his need for silence overweighed the need for getting there quicker. He instead decided to take a route that Yeosang had shown him, the shy, dreamer of the group had claimed that this was one of the few places where you could actually see the stars. Not that Jongho would know he was usually asleep during the ungodly hours that Yeosang was out exploring. Prompted by the eery silence Jongho’s mind wandered back to the days he remembered spending with that boy, each one happier than the last. The sudden realisation that he hadn’t felt the same happiness that he had felt back then left a sour taste in his mouth. It was as if when the question mark was erased it took all of his happiness with it.

Though he was only seven years old, Jongho had felt that he was smarter and stronger than all of the adults he knew. The only way he felt disadvantaged was when he stood next to the messy haired boy who was all knees and elbows. Even though he was a month younger the boy towered over Jongho. Both boys stood against a brick wall as they watched the other children play. They had tried everything in the playground at least two times and their excitement was replaced with exhaustion. It was clear that they were both half asleep when his friend spoke up. “You got taller Jongho.” “How can you tell if you’re taller than me?” His friend turned to him a smile blooming on his freckled face, “I can tell because you were here” he said pointing to a place just above his elbow “And now you’re here.” He spoke excitedly as he pointed to a place that was half an inch above where he previously pointed. Jongho’s eyes lit up as a cheeky grin formed on his face, “I told you! I’m going be taller than you, just wait and see.” “I have an idea! Why don’t I mark your height here? We can measure you until you’re taller than me”. Not waiting for the shorter boy to respond he ran back over to the playground picking up a stub of chalk and returned. “Up against the wall partner! Not like that, put your hands down dummy” Jongho put his hands down, fidgeting with them out of embarrassment. Reaching over he drew a line above Jongho’s head and scrawled his name next to it. Both of them moved away from the wall admiring the line and crooked writing like it was a piece of art. Hearing the familiar call of the friend’s mother the two said their goodbyes. His mother let out a chuckle at the first words he spoke to her, not hello but an excited “I’m taller! I grew this much.” Jongho brought his tiny hands up to illustrate his statement, it was very exaggerated but his mother just smiled, glad that Jongho had a good day.

Ignoring the harsh rays Jongho shed his jacket and placed it to the side with his belongings, running in his attire was strange but completely justified. He wasn’t going to spend the whole day running, he had other plans and was willing to put up with the slight discomfort he felt. Following one more initial stretch Jongho crouched into a starting position, counting under his breath:

One

Two

And Jongho was off, not bothering to count to three he was always ahead of the game. On the few occasions where someone was present to witness him run, they were caught off guard. Jongho would just burst into a harsh sprint, no one could predict when he was going to make his first move. His heart thumped in his chest mimicking his powerful steps, he ran like a man who had been running his whole entire life. In many ways that was true, no matter how hard he tried to find the truth part of him wanted to move on. He wanted the boy to remain a memory, but he couldn’t bring himself to destroy the photograph. A stray tear streaked down his face; leaving the tear there he continued running only wiping it after he had circled the track two more times. The usual satisfaction he felt after a successful run was replaced with a vile combination of anger and frustration. With a clouded mind Jongho quickly made his way to the bag. When his fingers brushed the withered edges of the photograph his throat tightened. He had approached his mother directly, yet he still wasn’t able to get an answer, even she had forgotten the boy’s name. Jongho had it in his hands, he could have easily crumpled it up throwing it as far as his eyes could see, but he didn’t.

Yesterday they were astronauts, today they were pirates and tomorrow the duo would be superheroes. Jongho stood proudly, chest poking out as he stood at the wheel as his shipmate scanned the seas trying his hardest to spot land. This wasn’t too hard thanks to his height, “Avast Jongho, I see land!” Jongho put his hand to his looking in the same direction as the other, his eyes lit up “I think, I think I can see it!”. Both of the boys bounced around the deck excitedly, rejoicing at their discovery. Returning to the wheel Jongho spun it at a furious speed, when docked at the sandy shores of the island the boys slid down the slide. The boys moved over to the pirate themed cake, Jongho thought he’d be taller than his friend by the time he turned eight. As disappointing as that was Jongho had still had one of the best days of his life, it was a dream he didn’t want to wake up from. Jongho pulled the taller boy over to him “You blow out four and I blow out four, we can both make a wish.” A wave of happiness washed over the boy, “Really? You’re the best Jongho!” And with that they both made a wish. Jongho prided himself in keeping secrets, no matter how many people pestered the boy he still refused to tell anyone what the wish was. The boy actually managed to keep his wish a secret for most of his life, it wasn’t until he had come to learn that wishes didn’t always come true that he said his wish out loud.

“I wish this day could last forever…” Jongho placed the photograph back into his backpack “What a joke”. Wiping away the mixture of sweat and tears Jongho pulled his jacket back on and made his way east to the basketball court. When Jongho had arrived, he was immediately given a whistle and told to sit on the bench and supervise the children. If it was his choice, he would have gladly taken a more active role. He didn’t care what it was as long as he was able to preoccupy is mind. The sound of the whistle blowing combined with the rhythmic thud of the basketballs nearly lulled Jongho to sleep, instead of sleeping he fell into a deep line of thought as he remembered a day that he had tried his hardest to forget.

Contrary to popular belief superheroes did in fact cry, this was something Jongho had discovered the hard way. His cape fell limply on his shoulder as he bawled his eyes out on the floor near the front door. His family had made several attempts to get the boy to stop crying, but nothing they did could completely dry up the stream of tears that fell down his face. “H-h-he said we were going to be superheroes today; I want to be a hero today.” Jongho’s voice was coarse and sore, no matter how many times he had asked to see his friend, they refused to take him. Jongho didn’t even need his family to take him to see the other boy, he could go there by himself if only he knew where to find him. The only thing he was told was that ‘He was going away for a long time and had asked Jongho not to cry for him.’ Those words did nothing to ease his sorrows, he was a defeated hero who was struck down by the people he thought he could outsmart and outrun.

Jongho rested his head in his hands, trying to trick everyone into thinking that he was tired and nothing more. The evening sun had just started to set when the last whistle had blown for the day, the coach immediately dismissed the kids who ran as soon as they were free to go. Jongho beat the burly man to the chase “Don’t worry I can pack every thing away, I’m dropping by to see Mingi so I can give him the keys”. Knowing that he couldn’t sway Jongho, the coach tossed the keys to Jongho thanking him for his help.

“I was too young to reach out to my lost friend. Where am I now? Where should I go?” Jongho was always so sure of himself, but here he sat, mind riddled with questions. He was too young to do anything back then, but he was old enough now so why hadn’t he tried harder? He was lost in a sea of orange rubber with no way out. Jongho could hear footsteps approaching him, figuring it was the coach who had forgotten to tell him something. Composing himself Jongho looked up, his blood running cold. Standing before him was a messy haired boy who was all elbows and knees. Jongho rubbed his eyes in disbelief, words failing to leave his mouth. “Jongho, you’ve gotten taller.”

Jongho smiled at the words of the boy in front of him, “It’s good to have you back buddy.” On that day, amidst the sea of orange Jongho looked at the boy who wore a black coat and a matching fedora. Somehow the sands of time had reversed, bringing him back to the question mark he was searching for.

#ateez #kpop fic #atiny writing competition #jongho #choi jongho #ateez fic #illusion-ships writes #jongho fanfic #sentimental #angst #au #atiny

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laws-yellow-submarine · 4 years

Text

A Special Kind of Magic

I know it’s literally the last day for One Piece of Summer stuff, and I’m one of the people hosting it, but I really wanted to write this and it fits and it’s within the deadline soooo here ya go lmfao I have a lot of writing I wanna get done this week, and I feel pretty good about this, so I’m hoping that confidence and drive continues! @doctorgerth feel free to add this to your masterlist if you’d like!

Characters: Zoro/OC (Hazel, and it’s really more hinted at lol)

Word count: 1440

Might actually consider adding this into Together With Fruit at some point if I feel it fits well enough, but otherwise it’s considered non-canon to the fic; timeline placement would be post Arlong Park, pre-Loguetown!

"Hazel! Look at this!"

Hazel blinked at the sheet being shoved in her face, taking a step back to see it clearer. Luffy continued waving it through the air, his enthusiasm getting in the way of any common sense he may have (and there was very little to begin with). "Well stop waving it around, you noodle, and let me see it!"

"Fireworks!" The boy said instead, pulling the advertisement away to beam at her with wide, excited eyes. "We have to go! CanweCanweCanweCanwe-!"

"Alright!" Hazel shouted, though there was laughter in her voice. "I'd double check with Nami first, though. The way the wind's been blowing has me nervous."

Luffy nodded, taking back off through the galley door to find their navigator. Hazel watched him go with a smile on her face before turning back to her notebook, sucking her cheek between her teeth as she stared at the page. Two hours and the sentence had yet to write itself.

She heaved a great sigh, sliding her hands down her face and pouting at the wall. Maybe a fireworks show was just what she needed.

Nami gave them the all clear about two hours before sundown, and the pirates excitedly decided to make a picnic out of it. This meant they needed to pick up extra supplies. They split the job evenly: Nami and Usopp would procure a picnic blanket, sparklers, and find the perfect spot on the beach to watch the fireworks from. Sanji and Luffy would find food and plan the meal (much to the cook's dismay as he watched the navigator turn away with a wink). That left Hazel and Zoro with the most important task: booze.

"Don't get more than we need, and stay close to the beach! I'm not missing the fireworks just because we had to come looking for you two!"

The pair merely rolled their eyes at the girl's scolding. "Just don't move the ship this time and we'll be fine," the swordsman whined, already squinting against the verbal lashing Nami gave him.

"That has never happened! Just - don't get lost!" And she turned away, grabbing Usopp by his overalls, and stomped down the street.

"What's her problem?" Zoro asked, scratching his ear as the two walked away. Hazel laughed and shook her head, grabbing him by the elbow in an effort to lead him to the nearest bar.

"She just worries," she said, enjoying the pink in his cheeks at that notion. "Come on, let's hurry so we don't miss anything!"

Unfortunately for them, it appeared everyone in town had also decided on a picnic. The first three bars they went to were already sold out of their extra stock, and were either unable or unwilling to part with more. They wove their way through the town, getting farther and farther from the Going Merry. By the time they found someone with booze to sell, the two were on the complete other side of town.

"There you kids go!" The barkeep said, loading three full crates of beer into Zoro's arms. "It's a good thing you brought this strong fella along, huh Missy?"

Annoyed, Hazel took all three crates from Zoro, turning her nose up as she walked out the door without another word. "Alright, you've made your point," the swordsman said as he joined her outside. "Hand 'em over."

"No. My pride's at stake."

"You can't even see over them…"

Sure enough, the top of the pile reached just over her head, and to the passerby she probably looked like a walking box with purple curls. "Whatever! I don't need to see, I know exactly where we are!"

"Then lead the way."

He followed her down the street, the crowd parting for three beer crates on legs; they curved around building after building, until finally Hazel came to a stop and said: "We're back! See? Easy!"

"Uhh Hazel? Where are we?" The violet-haired woman peeked her head around her cargo, blinking in surprise when instead of a sheep figurehead and the smiling faces of her brother and crew, she saw only trees.

"Hey, who moved the dock?!"

"I told you to let me carry it. I should've led."

"You don't get to criticize me about getting lost!" She scolded, setting the boxes down to get a better look at her surroundings. It was beginning to get dark; the fireworks would be starting soon.

Nami was going to kill them.

"Ok, this is fine, we'll be fine…" Hazel muttered, spinning in all directions. Zoro stood back, waiting to step in if she started to spiral. Just as he thought she might lose it, the woman suddenly stopped, pointed in the direction she was facing, picked up the crates, and yelled: "This way!"

"Do you actually know which way you're going?" Zoro asked as he scrambled after her.

"Nope!" She answered cheerily. "But if we go this way, we may see something that'll help us figure out where we are!"

Before long the ground tilted beneath them, indicating a hill; Hazel declared this was perfect, as higher ground would give them a bird's eye view. Zoro only grunted, ready to get back to the ship and take a nap.

When they reached the summit, Hazel set the crates down and stretched out her arms. Her eyes scanned the sea below, turning in a circle as she looked for any signs of their ship. She felt Zoro step up beside her, his tanned skin brushing lightly against hers as he stepped just a little too close.

"Anything?" She shook her head.

"Nothing," Hazel groaned, biting her cheek as she pouted. Just then they heard a loud BOOM! and the night sky lit up in a shower of colorful sparks. They had a perfect view, high enough that the buildings couldn't block anything out.

As another cannon went off, Zoro sat on the ground, pulling Hazel from her awe when she heard the clinking of glass bottles. "What are you doing?"

"Why waste good booze?" The swordsman answered, offering her a bottle. She shook her head politely, preferring to stay sober until they found their way back, and she sat beside him as he began to drink.

The cliff continued to light up under the colorful fireworks display, while the pair watched in comfortable silence. Hazel glanced at her companion, mesmerized by the way the lights danced across his face.

There's a sense of magic one finds only in the clearest parts of the forest, when you find yourself free of society's expectations. It's a magic that touches your soul, reveals the deepest parts of yourself; and if you're not ready to receive it, you won't even know it happened.

As the fireworks built into a finale, that magic poked a curious finger into the pirates' hearts. Their eyes met, breaths held, and as the sparks danced across the night sky, so too they danced between the people sitting in that clearing. But, alas, they weren't ready, and as soon as the magic peeked its head in, it pulled right back out again. The fireworks disappeared, leaving behind a smattering of stars and confusion through the smoky haze left behind. The swordsman and the record-keeper stood, dusted themselves off, and strode towards the cliff's edge to once again look for their crew.

"Hey, wait! I think I see the docks!"

As the crowds left the beach behind, the wooden edge of the docks came into view. Hazel couldn't see much from where she stood besides the end of a pier, but at least they had a direction!

"How in the hell did you finish that whole crate? We weren't even here that long!" Zoro shrugged, smirking as he picked up each crate; she didn't even have the heart to scold him. Instead, she looped her arm in his, guiding him in the direction of the pier, grinning despite his protests.

She heard Nami's scolding long before she actually saw her, giving the girl a quick apology before heading inside the galley. Hazel smiled apologetically at Zoro as she left him to the navigator's wrath, and was surprised to find him softly smiling back. Shaking her head, she continued inside, padding over to the table.

Her notebook was still propped open, page just as empty as she'd left it; but this time when she picked up her pen, she found no resistance. Her hand moved across the page so quickly, you'd think she'd catch fire.

Though she hadn't been ready for the clearing's gift, it seemed she'd been left something magical after all, even if she didn't yet realize it.

#monkey d. hazel #roronoa zoro #zoro x oc #one piece of summer #summer writing challenge #together with fruit #twf

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rwby-nwbe · 4 years

Text

Just Finished RWBY Volume 2...

...and HOLY HECK IT GOT BETTER.

[Warning: Spoilers for Volume 2 and Long Post.]

New antagonists! More huntsman action! More characters and interactions! And the fights, tho. THE FIGHTS!

*Ahem* Okay, clearly I just need to start from the beginning...

Episode 1

We start the new season by being reintroduced to our new antagonists, Emerald Sustrai and Mercury Black. They may be villains, but they're also obviously teens (Mercury radiates prick energy) and they're dynamic is entertaining. Also, RIP Tukson, he seemed like a nice dude...

We then cut back to Team RWBY and JNPR, who are apparently on break at the moment. It's also nice to see Sun again, and we also get to meet Neptune. Anyways, someone throws a pie in Weiss face, and you know what that means...

FOOD FIGHT!!!

Seriously, THESE KIDS ARE CRAZY. Ruby can apparently surf on lunch trays! Weiss used ketchup and a freakin' swordfish like Myrtenaster! Blake used baguettes and a sausage link like Gambol Shroud! Freakin' YANG was punching things with TURKEY! JAUNE... threw a melon, that was cool; nice to see that he's losing the noodleness of his body. NORA RIPPED OUT A PIPE, STUFFED IT TO A MELON, AND CALLED IT MAGNHILD! Note to self: never challenge Pyrrha to a fight near a vending machine (or anytime, really). Ren can kick WATERMELONS, and fight with LEEKS. HOW CAN THEY EVEN DIGEST ALL THAT FOOD!?

RIP Neptune's hair though, I hear grape is hard to wash out...

Then we cut back to the White Fang and Torchwick, who are then met with Mercury, Emerald, and later the great Cinder Fall herself. I'll admit, Mercury's funny but a jerk, and Emerald... I'm pretty sure I was mentally screaming "YOU'RE BEING MANIPULATED" when I saw her and Cinder. First she doesn't give Emerald a hug, then she tells her to not think and just obey? RED FLAGS. RED FLAGS EVERYWHERE.

Oh, speaking of Cinder, while she does radiate boss energy, I'm glad that I don't personally like her. I don't know what it is, but it might be the fact that she's treating everyone else like her pawns (and considering she used a chess piece later in this volume, I wouldn't be surprised). I mean, good villain, but like any good villain, I want her to get roasted, though that might not work given her Semblance.

Also, Roman Torchwick, you beautiful jerk, never change. I love ya, but I also love seeing you get dragged, which is what Emerald did to you at the end of this. Yep, I'm on board for this season!

Also, the new opening. I thought nothing could top "This Will Be The Day." I was wrong. Haven't listened to all of it yet, but "Time To Say Goodbye" SLAPS.

Episode 2

So, several things. There's board games, insert Yu-Gi-Oh reference here... Yang has too much power. Also, if I remember the lingo right, then this is also the episode where the White Rose shippers got crumbs, the White Knight shippers were once again denied, and where the Iceberg shippers were born (while the rest of us were titling our heads in confusion with Jaune). Jaune continues to be a social dork (what's with the blonde boys blowing Blake's secret? Don't think I've forgotten about Sun...). Blake is being consumed with the burden of RESPONSIBILITY. I feel that Blake. Oh, and the ending...

Why do out villains have to be clever enough to infiltrate the actual school!? And Weiss' "We're doomed." I hope that's not secret foreshadowing...

Episode 3

Jaune fails yet again at wooing Weiss (at least Yang comforts him at the end), and the gang begins their espionage. We meet Penny again, Weiss deals with her past, albeit briefly, and Penny... oh boy. She's hiding something, and the hiccups make it obvious. What could it possibly- oh...

Episode 4

Most of us had our suspicions, what with Penny's awkward demeanor and ludicrous super strength, but yep, she's a robot! Aw, get yourself a real one like Ruby. Oh, and Neptune's useless with Yang around. Speaking of, HEY, good to see you again, Junior! So Blake and Sun intercept the White Fang rally and... oh fudge they got giant robots. BAIL! We also get to see Neptune's weapon and Sun's semblance (before they nope off the road and leave the rest of the fighting to RWBY, while they go off and get ramen, the jerks...). Also, nice to see that they have team attack names (I believe some of them double as ship names), and this is where we get to meet the Ice Cream Queen Neopolitan (not to be confused with the now officially dubbed Ice Queen Weiss Schnee. If even the villains are calling you that, then congrats, you have a new title)! Neo then proceeds to give them the slip, and I personally believe that Yang only disliked Weiss' pun because it highlighted her failure.

C'mon Yang, at least she's TRYING!

Episode 5

Pyrrha is a combat queen. 'Nuff said. Suck it, CRDL.

Oh no. Mercury is both a smart aleck AND smart. This will not end well.

Blake, take a break. No, seriously, working yourself to death just because you think you can doesn't mean you should. You will only feel worse. TAKE A BREAK.

Well Jaune, mission failed. You'll get her next time.

Pyrrha Nikos. Sweetie. We're talking about Jaune Arc here. He's not gonna get the hints you're dropping unless that "hint" is a full blown irrefutable confession so obvious that even he can't screw it up. I know you want to help him because you like him (and yes, even like like him), but it's clear Weiss isn't interested, at least not now. Capitalize on that!

And our villain group continues to be dastardly. *Chuckles* We're in danger.

Episode 6

The dance draws near, and it seems that both Blake AND Jaune could use a pep talk!

Poor Blake. It appears your faunus trait makes you more cat-like than just the ears.

Also, poor Ren. He just wants a nice bath, but alas, the power of bromance.

Oof, tough love from Yang. Pretty good flashback, though. Also, Pyrrha, your selfless nature will be your undoing, listen to Nora.

...oh God, if I'm saying "listen to Nora" when the world isn't ending, we might ACTUALLY be in danger.

Aw, the dance looks fun. Poor Jaune, tho. Don't worry, at least Yang, Blake, and Sun are having a good time (and this is the part where I realize I'm becoming a SunnyBee shipper, crap). Poor Ruby, having to wear heels. Don't worry, Ozpin will keep you company.

Oh crap, the villain kids are here! What are you up to!?

Episode 7

This one gets the runner up for my favorite episode. Alternatively, I give it the title "Team Leaders Know What's Up."

Jaune, you may be a dumbass, but you're the rare "Surprisingly Competent Dumbass With A Heart Of Gold," and you get my respect for that. Being socially awkward with Ruby? Comedy gold. Putting things into perspective for Neptune? Props, my dude. Comforting Pyrrha? Friendship goals (even though it should be more than friendship goals, but hey, you put on the dress, I'll give you that). Nice dance moves, by the way, JNPR.

As for Ruby... drinking Jaune's punch? Iconic. Noticing Cinder sneaking away? Nice. Fighting her in heels of all things? You, my dear red reaper, are on another level. A shame that Ironwood couldn't get there faster and that Cinder had to bail, but oh well.

Also: Penny continues to be heckin' adorable. I will never NOT stan.

Episode 8

HEAR YE, HEAR YE, THE NOBLE DOG ZWEI HAS GRACED US WITH HIS ADORABLE PRESENCE. Tremble before his ability to fit in boxes and melt Weiss' heart. Oh, and RWBY gets exposed to Ozpin, but surprise! Even Ozpin doesn't have to play by the rules! Though that could get him in trouble with Ironwood later...

Why does this show keep showing me characters that I want to get to know better in record time!? Team CFVY looks so interesting, and it's nice to see Velvet again! Ooh, I hope we see them more later...

Also, Professor Oobleck, I know we saw a bit of you in Volume 1, and I wish we got to know you better. You seem delightful.

Episode 9

Okay, my previous statement of DOCTOR Oobleck still stands. I love this chaotic fast man.

He's both funny AND deep! His reaction to Zwei? Comedy gold! Him picking apart RWBY's motives and the Grimm? Disturbingly thought provoking, but enjoyable. Also, Ruby, you're great, but you're not entirely a genius, you're just a little bit lucky.

In conclusion: there are a lot of characters to stan in RWBY. Dr. Oobleck is one of them.

Episode 10

We learn about WBY's motivations, now excuse me while I go crying in the club right now.

OH NO, RUBY GOT KIDNAPPED! AND SHE DOESN'T HAVE HER SCYTHE! FRICK, it's a mindset kind of deal! Without her scythe, she thinks she's useless! Oh, and Roman's there too, that's not good.

...that is REALLY not good, Oobleck! Get down there, all of you! Wait, is your thermos... your WEAPON!? HOW THE FU-

(Sidenote, I looked up the name, since most weapons have them and I'm impatient for them getting name dropped. "Antiquity's Roast," eh? Fitting...)

Episode 11

So... this episode.

Poor Ruby. She failed to fight back, she almost ran away but then it turns out Melodic Cudgel is also a GRAPPLING HOOK. Thank god Yang and company finally busted their way in.

...why are Roman and the White Fang going kamikaze with those train car bombs? Oh right, the Grimm. Crap, that ain't good.

Ah, Oobleck. You may have accidentally repeated Ruby's line, but a swig of your thermos/club/flamethrower and then using it to bat Zwei into a cannonball of death redeemed you!

So Neo's back. She's skilled, sassy, has something going on with her eyes... Oh boy, Yang's getting outclassed by a pipsqueak. That's gotta suck.

Does every faunus (baring Blake, Sun, etc.) hate the SDC? Seriously Weiss, what did your father DO!?

Roman, do not get flirty with Blake. Junior tried something similar with Yang way back in the Yellow Trailer, and he got socked in the face. You deserve that kick in the head.

Oh look, Yang's mom is here! Nice, now Neo can't kill her (don't you dare, you little ice cream, I swear...). Oh. OH. That's a big sword. Yeah, ya better run, Neo. You ain't winnin' this fight. Great, now I want to know what Yang's mom's deal is. Figures she just warped away afterwards...

And now the Grimm are above ground. Yeah, seems like a good time for the season finale.

Episode 12

Now THIS is my favorite episode.

Look at that, Jaune's getting good instincts! And it's nice that Team JNPR was able to help RWBY. Also nice that Jaune can actually kill a Grimm now. Good job, man. You earned Pyrrha's smile of approval.

As much as I'm wary of the antagonist trio, I'll admit, they can fight good. Especially Emerald, her guns are sick. Why am I warming up to her so fast? What is this magic!?

...CFVY. CFVY. WHY ARE Y'ALL SO BADASS? Seriously, Yatsuhashi's carying an entire sword and a half. Fox just pulled a Ren and caused a Grimm to explode. Coco... God, Coco- WHY DOES RUBY HAVE SO MANY QUEENS, FOR CRYING OUT LOUD!?

"You just destroyed my favorite clothing store. Prepare to die."

I-FREAKING-CONIC!

And she just murders Grimm with a BRIEFCASE. That turns into a GATTLING GUN. BECAUSE OF COURSE IT'S ALSO A GUN. (BTW, Gianduja is a really cool name for it.)

And now I want to know Velvet's weapon! It doesn't look like much now, but apparently it took a semester to build. And we know that Velvet can fight based on what we saw with her and Fox, so how does she ADD to that!?

THAT TRACK IN THE BACKGROUND, TOO! "CAFFEINE~" HELL YEAH!!!

Ooh, Port and Oobleck teamup! Oh no... THE GLYNDA IS MAD PEOPLE. I REPEAT, THE GLYNDA IS MAD! SHE HAS NO PATIENCE FOR YOUR GRIMM BS!!!

Welp, Roman got handled, though I doubt it's for long... Yay, RWBY finally gets a break! Oh boy, trouble brewing between Ozpin and Ironwood, that ain't good.

...bull man's back. Uh, guys, Adam's back! And he's helping the bad guys! THIS IS REALLY NOT GOOD.

...oh, so your name is Raven? And that's what you look like under the mask. There's the resemblance... Oh boy, where have you been all of Yang's life?

...

So all in all, Volume 2 was even better than Volume 1, in my opinion. It's like they took the first volume and amped it up to 11. Longer runtimes, great comedy, great action sequences, great CHARACTERS. It's just a complete trip! 10/10, would ride again. Welp, it's getting late, so I can't immediately start Volume 3. But what Volume 2 gave us is good enough to tide me over.

...I am so glad I started this series. Well, this is goodbye for now. Cheers, internet!

-Mathewton, the RWBY Newbie (22 March 2020)

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toast-the-unknowing · 4 years

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Lmaoooooo “when I grow up I’m going to have so much amnesia” pls just post whatever you’ve written over the last ten years I am so INTRIGUED

Well, the subject line is a Futurama quote, I can’t take credit for that, alas.

I am fond of several of the jokes in that story, but at the end of the day, it’s a mystery and I wrote 20k words of it without ever deciding what the answer to the mystery is. The odds I’ll ever bother figuring it out now are slim, especially since I look back and realize...you know...I’ve become a much better writer than I was 10 years ago and most of those 20k words aren’t great.

But some of them I like! So what the hell, why not, here’s some of my favorite bits from a Star Trek 2009 fic that will probably never otherwise see the light of day:

The whole thing with Kirk and Spock losing their memories on the same away trip is funny for a total of three seconds before it becomes utterly terrifying.

Okay, maybe there's about five minutes of Hikaru making himself sick trying to hold in laughter at the stunned stupid look on Kirk's face as he steps onto the bridge, the way that Spock mutters "what an ingenious invention" after they're beamed back to the Enterprise, but hey, Hikaru's only human. And now so is Kirk, stripped of that cockiness that comes from knowing he's survived all kinds of crazy shit that he shouldn't have, and so is Spock in a way, since he seems to have forgotten all his Vulcan mind-master training along with everything else.

And that thought is what wipes the smirk off Hikaru's face and has him exchanging sideways glances with Chekov, because they're right on the edge of Klingon space, Kang had sworn eternal vengeance against the entire crew the last time they'd seen him, and without Kirk's impossible ability to get them out of everything he gets them into, Hikaru doesn't like their odds of escaping a skirmish unharmed.

McCoy skips right over the part where anything about the situation is amusing and even skips over the "utterly terrifying" part and opts straight for angry yelling before the doors of the turbolift have finished opening to allow him onto the bridge.

"What the devil are you playing at now, Jim?" McCoy demands, striding up to Kirk and waving a tricorder at him that he can't possibly be reading, since he's too busy venting at Kirk's face to look at the machine.

The effect of this is apparently lost on the amnesiac Kirk, who looks over his shoulder trying to figure out who McCoy is talking to.

Right. No one told the Captain his name was Jim.

"We're doomed," Chekov whispers to Hikaru, who wholeheartedly agrees.

"More tests?" Hikaru asks Chapel. Hikaru hopes he sounds world-weary but in all likelihood he just sounds like a kid whining about not wanting to go to the dentist's. At least when he was a kid his parents would give him some candy to make the whole experience more bearable.

"You've failed them all so far," Chapel tells him.

"Doesn't being healthy count as passing?"

"Not in his Sickbay." She gestures over her shoulder at McCoy, who is ranting to the nurses that he washes his hands of Hikaru, complete with actually physically washing his hands, because McCoy has no concept of subtlety.

Maybe it was just the terrible psychological burden of working too long under McCoy that had made her a sadist. Hikaru had helped the med staff repair and restock Sickbay after a disastrous encounter with Romulans, and after two days of McCoy's crazy-eyes drilling into the back of his skull, he hadn't felt terribly generous toward his fellow sentient beings. Kirk, who always had to be perverse and do the opposite of what a normal person would do, had been invigorated by the experience and set some kind of mountain-climbing record on the next planet they stopped at.

McCoy must be having a field day, wherever he is; nothing makes him happier than a legitimate reason to be unhappy.

He winces and walks over to answer the door, to find Chekov's curly head bouncing around with an upbeat energy that makes Hikaru feel a thousand years old.

"What?" he asks. "Communicator doesn't work?"

"You didn't answer," Chekov points out, which is probably correct. Hikaru hadn't been aware of anything, much less the chirp of a communicator.

"You know," he tells Chekov, stepping back into his room so he can change into a fresh uniform, "when someone is annoyed with you, telling them how it's their fault doesn't make them like you any better. It just makes them more annoyed."

Chekov blinks big, hurt eyes at him. "You are annoyed with me?"

Hikaru just sighs and lets it go. "So what do I need to be told so badly?" he asks, slipping on a new pair of pants and pulling his shirt off. "I'm guessing that if it were good news, it could wait."

"We have Klingons," Chekov tells him, completely matter-of-fact, and Hikaru is never going to share with anyone, least of all Chekov, the fact that his immediate response to this was to think Russians really are that stoic.

His next thought is that he has to get to the bridge, now, so he sets off at a run with Chekov following along behind.

His third thought, that he never did finish getting dressed, takes its own sweet time occurring to him, specifically waiting until the doors to the Bridge open and Uhura looks at him, blinks her eyes at a momentary loss for words, and then smirks.

In retrospect, it will feel pretty good to have made Uhura happy about something in the middle of this whole clusterfuck. At the time, Hikaru just wonders how bad it could really be to eject himself out the nearest airlock.

"Had a disagreement with your uniform, Mr. Sulu?" Uhura asks. "Or have your just decided that today is a good day for swashbuckling?"

Hikaru plays it cool, because there are only so many options available for you when you show up to battle without a shirt on, and because there's an appreciative look in the eyes of more than one person on the Bridge that reminds him that his shirtlessness is not, in and of itself, anything to be ashamed about. "I wanted to be on hand as soon as possible to help with the situation, sir," he tells her, voice completely smooth. He falls into a formal at-ease position that draws the muscles in his chest tight, causing someone to whistle lowly.

The Acting Captain is actively fighting back laughter at this point; Uhura is going to give him shit about this for the rest of his natural life, but then again, Klingons, so Hikaru can't begrudge her trying to make the most of it now in case the rest of his natural life is only another ten minutes. "Mr. Chekov, please restrain your dramatics in the future," she tells him, and the ensign takes on a look of righteous outrage that is decades older than his face. "Perhaps you could have communicated to Mr. Sulu that another second or two's delay would not have been fatal."

"I thought it obvious, sir," Chekov says, primly. "No Russian would charge into battle in such a state of unpreparedness."

"Because they'd freeze to death on a summer's day," Hikaru mutters.

"How?" Uhura asks, with that same fake innocent tone she uses when she's trying to convince everyone at the table that she's got a shit hand, and dammit, Hikaru has fallen for that bluff too many times. After which he was often divested of an article of clothing, oddly enough, so the whole thing is starting to feel really familiar.

Kang is even willing to deal with someone who isn't Kirk, as long as Kirk is there to have accusations and insults hurled at him, which is some kind of horrible metaphor for command but Hikaru is still trying to force his jaws together and doesn't quite appreciate the many, many cosmic jokes that are unfurling in front of him.

Every single person on the bridge of the Enterprise who still has a brain freezes and darts their eyes to the view screen at the exact same second. Later that simultaneity would make Hikaru wonder why the hell the dancing had been so uncoordinated in the crew's performance of Pirates of Penzance, since clearly they are all psychically linked to each other. Or perhaps psychic connections require substantial motivational force. Few things are more substantial or more motivating than enraged Klingons, and – as every eyeball except two immediately takes in – they have one hell of an enraged Klingon on their hands.

"WHAT CHARADE IS THIS," Kang demands, spitting out 'charade' like it's the dirtiest word he knows. Apparently Klingon honor doesn't have much time for theater. Hikaru wonders what Klingons do for embarrassing social bonding in lieu of Pirates of Penzance.

"Oh, good, so we can tell them that we aren't responsible, they'll listen to that and act reasonable," McCoy mutters, before jabbing Kirk with something on the pretense of getting more brainwave readings. McCoy has been dragging Kirk around the ship with him all morning for reasons as yet unexplained. Hikaru's torn on thinking it's to cause more havoc, since every little thing that happens inspires a thousand pointless questions from the deposed captain, and thinking it's so he can stab at Kirk like some stress relief toy. It doesn't seem to be working, but modern science has not yet found a conduit big enough to channel McCoy's stress, so that would be asking a bit much to ask from a guy who needed help going to the bathroom earlier. (Hikaru made Chekov do it. That's what ensigns are for, right?)

Chapel had proclaimed the whole thing hogwash and said she would get around to it when she had a minute, and implied that that minute was going to be a long time coming, because apparently that attitude was handed down with command of Sickbay like the crown of a hereditary monarch.

Besides, there's the Klingons to consider, and even Scotty can't make hooch so strong it wipes out the memories of people on other ships. Probably. Hikaru will ask him about it when his memory is back, and they will write a paper together, "A Transwarp Theory of Moonshine", and it will ruin both of their chances of ever advancing up the command chain, which would probably suit Scotty just fine and would be the best thing to ever happen to Hikaru if it means he never has to deal with a mess like this again.

"When we get to the point where we're recruiting untested specialists from alternate dimensions to solve the problem, just leave me brainless," Chapel scoffs. "I don't want to know."

Hikaru scribbles a note to himself. Evil clones running the Enterprise becomes Plan Y; stealing versions of themselves from other dimensions becomes Plan Z. He thinks they have a better chance of un-fixing the teleporter to make clones again than of making it pull people from other dimensions.

Chekov bounds down the hall at him – speaking of teenagers – and apparently the gloom is rolling off Hikaru thick enough to strike down an enthusiastic ensign at fifty paces, because the spring goes right out of Chekov's step when Hikaru looks at him. His faces turns somber and he tugs on his uniform shirt like he's worried about wrinkles. Or maybe he just remembered that this is a catastrophe in the making and a little gravity is called for.

He nearly takes it too far, though, going for a salute and Hikaru thinks that if Chekov salutes him right now he will actually go insane. He intercepts Chekov's arm on the way up and drops it back down like its covered in nettles. Chekov looks a little confused about how to proceed from here, but hell, the kid's always telling them he's a genius, let him figure something out.

He picks up Chapel like a leech; when he refuses to stop in Sickbay she just attaches herself to him and starts talking every bit as rapidly as Hikaru is walking. He can't tell how she's breathing. Maybe she isn't. Hikaru feels a little bit like he isn't breathing, either, or that might just be his flair for the dramatic.

He gets distracted, too, by the nurse who is accompanying Chapel, holding several PADDS and a medical tricorder and struggling to hold it all and drop nothing and keep up on her rather short legs. Maybe they could slow down for her, but hell, Chapel's her boss and isn't worried.

Hikaru can't remember the nurse's name. That's a panicky moment, but no, it's just that she's new. Should he ask her name, he wonders, or would that be rude? As the captain, however temporary or inglorious the title may be, he should know everyone on the crew already.

At least the crew is making that easier on him by shrinking.

"Stress is every bit a real, medical problem, particularly among young men in high-pressure situations who think they're immortal." This comes with a side order of meaningful look.

"I assure you, Nurse, I am well-aware of my failings."

"And I'm seeing drastically heightened stress all over the ship. Heart rate, blood pressure, shaking, forgetfulness -- not amnesia -- emotional outbursts -- "

"Maybe the crew doesn't like having medical personnel hovering all around them." Hikaru jumps as the short nurse waves her tricorder over him, presumably getting a reading of his own heart rate, blood pressure, and emotional outbursts. "I'm open to any suggestions about how to lower the crew's stress levels, up to and including Ensign Chekov going door to door singing Russian lullabies."

"I'll put that down as Plan Z," Chapel says, and holy shit, can she read his mind? He makes himself think profusely repentant thoughts for his attitude the last two days and also for that time he sneaked a look at her hand at poker, just in case. Also, he probably shouldn't play poker with Chapel anymore, honest or otherwise, if she can read his mind.

That, that right there, is apparently what Chapel looks like when she is truly outraged and not just annoyed or sarcastic or feeling superior, which is a valuable piece of information and Hikaru files it away in the very sincere and fervent hope that he never sees it again.

"You know, just, some people," the Acting Captain of the Federation Starship Enterprise mumbles into his shoulder.

"How did we get here?" Hikaru mutters. He's barely even realized he's spoken, so it's doubly alarming when Chekov jumps up and grabs his shoulders, shakes them violently.

"Sulu, no, you cannot have amnesia, too," the kid starts babbling. Why is it that his accent gets easier to understand when he's worked up? Shouldn't it be the other way around? Unless, hang on, has the kid been faking his accent this whole time? "Then I will have to take command of the Enterprise and while that is a thing I have dreamed of doing, it is no good to me if no one is around to admire."

#not a fic #my work #Anonymous

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ofieugogyshz · 4 years

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F/O list

It has occurred to me that maybe I need a post version so I can link back to it for mobile.... So here's a basic copyedit of the desktop page. I apologize for the blown up icons. I have tried different ways to make this post and alas, it will only show up blown up. ....no wonder everyone is making carrds or other outside pages

Main F/O forever and ever is Lance from Pokemon.

It’s been about… 18 years??? long time. A very long time. And only recently has TPC/Game Freak been feeding us Lance fans some very good content. bless pokemon masters. His tags are #my champion, #notes from my champion, #notes from my husband, #notes to my champion, #notes to my husband, among a handful of others. Because we've been together for so long, I'm not comfortable sharing him, but it doesn't mean I won't interact! It'll just feel weird seeing shippy stuff with others ._.;

I have some familial f/os, though the idol kids are more like “best girl/best boy” and I don’t have an self-insert or interactions with them, to be honest. But I’ll proudly post about them and gush over how precious they are.

Speaking of the kids, here are MINE. I love these kids so much and they mean so much to me and bring me so much joy to see and light and I can't even begin to words how important they all are towards my happiness, so you'll just have to look in their tags and see.

Otoya is my most precious idol son, i love him so much, i have so many pins and an itabag for him. pls do not harm the sunshine or i will not like you. at all. eiichi. His tag is "my idol son"

Rin is also my most precious idol girl! She’s super energetic and ADHD and basically her and Otoya are practically the same person. Both super sunshiny idol kids who brighten my day! Her tag is "nyan daughter"

Nozomi is actually more like a little sister to me, even though she’s the Big Sister of the group! She likes to tease the others sometimes, but she’ll also offer advice to the group when its needed, and guided μ’s together from the shadow. She also reads tarot! Her tag is getting changed from “nozo daughter” to “nozo sister”.

Mari! I just vibe with her. Also the whole pretends everything is okay and tries to be super cheery and obnoxiously shiny. Plus, we both like metal. I love her and I feel for her okay??? Her tag is "shiny daughter"

Hanamaru too! she was the first aqours girl i liked, bc we’re both bookworms, and then she fell out as mari fell in (and the anime reduced her to zuramaru and *judges yoshiko*), but she’s fallen back in the more i see of her in the mobile game and in general! and i realize that we both aren’t the fit type but if she can do all the idol stuff then maybe one day I can too!! i forgot her tag, it might have been "zura daughter" or "book daughter"

I love all these girls and Rin and Mari tend to be the top two bestest girls. as a result of them being the high energy cheerful type, I’m anticipating that Ai will be my best Nijigasaki girl. so far, yes. Her tag is "aidol daughter".

Caulifla and Cabba are my saiyan kids but honestly i forget about cabba a lot whenever i try to list my son(s). their tag is “my saiyan children”, as i cba to make separate tags for them when I don’t come across posts of them as much anymore

I’m sure there’s others that I’m forgetting, but those are the main ones. I also sometimes reblog my friends’ fave llsif girls under “#tomato niece” “#rice niece” “#rubesty niece” “#buubuu niece” and "#mermaid niece". I’ll add links later . I also group the girls and otoya under the tag “my idol children”

There’s also my Pokemon family to consider, as I’ve come to realize that it’s more than just my husband!

This is my bratty stepson, Silver. He’s more Lance’s kid than mine. We snark at each other a lot, and there’s not much a “push come to shove” level of care between the two of us so much as “Lance would be disappointed in us if we let anything happen to the other”. But he’s grown a lot since Lance took him under his cape wing, and has become much better liked, even at the Dragon Clan. His tag is “Tsundere Stepson”

My cousin-in-law on Lance’s side, Clair. She doesn’t like me, like, at all. It wasn’t until our mid-twenties that she started to calm down on the major dislike she held for me. She felt it unfair that I wasn’t being held up to the same standards that Lance expects from her, and held it against me, though she’d never openly say why. Just a simple “I don’t like her!”, followed up by her searching for excuses when asked why. We still aren’t friends, and aren’t the first person the other would turn to, but we can tolerate being around each other. She’ll only do favors for/with me if Lance is the person asking her to help. Her tag is “Tsundere Cousin”

Miss Honey, from SwSh’s Isle of Armor! She’s so amazing, so pretty, and SUCH A GOOD MOM. She helps take care of the Dojo and its students, she used to be the CEO of a trading firm, AND she will kick your ass. She also helps the students’ mental/emotional health, she’s just so caring and kind and SUCH A GOOD MOM. did i mention she’s a good mom? because she’s my mom. Her tag is “Kickass Mom”

Cynthia is a friend!!! I’d say from.... was it 16 that DP came out stateside? Anyhoo she’s a very lovely person, can be pretty wise, definitely a fellow ADHDer, we get along about myths and can hyperfixate on those a lot, and she’s a good role model/big sister-type friend! She’s very helpful to those that ask for or need her assistance. also she shipped me and lance and stuck her nose into helping move that along but that’s another topic for another day . She doesn’t have a unique tag yet; it’s currently “cynthia tag tbd”

Lastly.... Moving out of Pokemon and onto the last member of my familial f/os

Say hello to my Grandpa Nevin. He is an old dragon and an outlier and should not be counted a very wise old man. He has so much wisdom and importance to me (and Chise) that I don’t think I would have enjoyed the series or cried as much as I have without him. He’s so very very wise and important. I don’t know what else to say, man. He’s just says important things that hit right to the heart. A different outlook on things, a way to make you rethink. His nickname for me would be something like “Teller of Tales” or something that alludes to me being a writer. He doesn’t have a tag yet.

Uncategorized: sometimes boogiepop is here and I’m not entirely sure why beyond “I strongly feel a connection to it”. Please behold the original cosmic enbity:

Anyways, that’s all! Thanks for getting through this list!

#fo list #fos

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grilledcheeseandguavajelly · 4 years

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D, A, J, O, T, V, N for the ask game? 🌻

Hi you beautiful angel, you!! Thank you for the ask!! I’m going to answer these for A Devil’s Hunger since it’s my only real, big kid, multi chapter fic for AHS :P I hope that’s okay!!

D: Is there a song or playlist to associate with A Devil’s Hunger?

Listen. I can’t write if there isn’t music on. And when I write A Devil’s Hunger I usually (read as “every chapter except this next chapter I’m about to post”) listen to the Cursed Child soundtrack. I know it probably sounds stupid, but it’s a really good soundtrack?? And it’s so soft and magical and parts of it are intense and I don’t know why but it’s the absolute perfect thing to get me into the mindset of this Venable.

That being said, this next chapter coming up I just couldn’t settle on something I liked while listening to that music. So! Believe it or not I actually listened to Brianna Fogden’s “spoops” playlist on Spotify. It’s a little bit more intense but still magical in that kind of “dark magic, creepy Halloween” way, and it was setting Venable exactly where I wanted her in my head. So. Yeah. It’s a good playlist, I would highly recommend.

A: How did you come up with the title to A Devil’s Hunger?

The title is actually taken from a piece of a song called “Bottom of the River” by Delta Rae. I love the song, and again, it really just... it hit exactly how this specific Venable lives in my head. I liked the lyric and I thought it fit the fic in multiple ways (most of which we haven't gotten to yet but it’s okay we’ll get there, I can only write so fast but we’ll get there) and, I don’t know... I just thought it worked! Most of my fic titles are lines from songs. With the exception of “’No’ Is A Four Letter Word”, that one was just... Well, kind of self explanatory when you read the fic! And also “She Wants Revenge, She Gets Revenge, She Bleeds Revenge”, that one was taken from the episode titles... and you know how I feel about Sally and blood ;)

J: Write or describe an alternative ending to A Devil’s Hunger.

Alright, so that’s not going to happen because you guys don’t know how it ends yet ;) And honestly, I don’t think I would rewrite the ending to this fic because I like it just the way it is!! So... I’ll pick a different one! Let’s go with “Dig Your Grave” — Okay. Let me just say that I love the ending to this one. The ending was actually the line that prompted the entire fic. BUT. If I’m being forced to describe an alternate ending to a fic, it would be this one and I would make it super unnecessarily angsty and Sally would be so excited to come back and see her Cordelia and go and live life, never alone again, her warm, loving Cordelia waiting to welcome her back to the real world with open arms. But something would go wrong and Cordelia would accidentally put some of her energy into the resurgence spell and it would get jumbled and she would only remember the bits of Sally that were hellish, the nightmare that haunted the hallways of a demonic hotel. If she remembered her at all. (And I would like to take this moment to apologize to Sally McKenna for even considering putting her through that kind of loss. I’m SORRY.)

O: How do you begin a story--with the plot, or the characters?

Haha. Oh goodness. Honestly usually with a line. Something short like a phrase or a description or a piece of dialogue will pop into my head and my brain will be like “omg this fits (insert character here) so perfectly I have to write it” and then I figure the plot out! So I guess... both? Maybe? It varies, but I’m going to say both :)

T: Any fandom tropes you can’t stand?

Oh my gosh, yes. There are a few that really make me itch, but specifically the one where like nothing happens or two characters have just met and go on one date and then confess their love for each other. OR any fic where there's a flat out proposal scene. No no. I just... I think there's a way to do it that works, but overall I’m against it because I like my ships angsty and I loveeee a slow burn

V: If you could write a sequel (or prequel) to any fic out there not written by yourself, which would you choose?

OH WOW this is a good question. Oh so many. I’m the kind of person that reads a fic and it sticks with me and I think about it WAY more than I should. But if I had to pick one... I would die to write a sequel (or I guess another part) to “Forget about me, Darling” by @deliasbabe. Listen. You listen to me. I read this fic days ago and I STILL cry every time I think about it. I’m not exaggerating. Yesterday I broke down in the car while I was sitting in traffic. It hurts too much and it’s too beautiful and I wouldn’t do it justice but if I could just write another chapter and push some sort of happiness into this story, I just… I need it to be happy. I need it I need it I need it. UGH. See now I’m crying again.

N: Is there a fic you wish someone else would write (or finish) for you?

Listen. I’m always here for Venable content. And I love the way certain people write her and I would give an arm or a leg for more of that. As far as finishing goes... She’s going to hate me for saying this but I wish @shineestark would at least look over the fic she requested from me because I can’t do Billie and Audrey the justice they deserve and she writes them SO WELL. But she requested it, so alas.

#asks #ask me anything #asks and replies #asks and answers

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pumpkinpaix · 5 years

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You do realize that not allowing Wei Ying the ability to just freely be a bottom, and hell, even a little feminine is being problematic in itself, right? Acting like either of those are shameful things for a man to be, just because he's in a relationship with another man, is gross. Acting like they absolutely HAVE to switch to fit some standard that women or non gay men feel the need to hold them to is not being politically correct. It verges closer to being fetishizing. Not trying to be mean js

hello anon! i assume you’re referring to this post of mine (and potentially also the linked post within? though that one is more specifically about translation, so maybe not).

if so, i have to admit I’m… a little confused? i’m not sure where i said or implied any of the things you’re talking about, but i still want to address your accusations thoughtfully since they’re important things to consider.

if it wasn’t clear, i was only trying to explain my personal discomfort with assigning a fixed sexual role to wei ying (though this goes both ways—i would have said the same thing about lwj had the question been reversed) due to its complicated position within a larger cultural context. i say in that post that I don’t have this problem with a ship like crowley/aziraphale from good omens specifically because saying “aziraphale is a top” (or “crowley is a bottom”) simply isn’t as politically charged as saying that about wei ying or lwj because of how each ship relates to the source material and the cultural context that surrounds them.

good omens, while not a perfect show (i’m going showverse specifically bc i haven’t read the book in a long long while), makes a lot of concerted effort to be queer-friendly and is clear about its queer-friendly intentions, both publicly stated by the creative team and shown through its narrative choices. i’m generally familiar with current queer theory in the west, and i feel safer and freer to headcanon and write whatever i want because i’m not as concerned about the political statement my personal thoughts and choices re: a fictional character is going to make in relation to canon.

mdzs/the untamed is not that. we can argue about it all day, but i can’t in good faith really imagine either was written or made with real queer people in mind, given what i understand about queer rights on the chinese mainland, and also specifically about how queer people (mostly mlm) are portrayed in genres like BL. so i, personally, feel that i want to be careful about how i position myself with regards to that. if i decide wei ying only bottoms, like is implied in the mdzs novel, how does that read? what, if anything, am i implying about real mlm? regardless of my intentions, i don’t think i can escape all the cultural baggage that comes with it. the personal is political, as they say. alas!

does that mean that i think wei ying HAS to switch? no!! but by that same token, i don’t think he HAS to bottom either! what i want is to promote more respectful diversity in the way a character like him can be portrayed or headcanoned when the original text is so thoughtlessly restrictive, so that maybe in the future i would feel fine about writing/headcanoning him as anything i want without getting bogged down with all of this. that’s the dream, are you kidding me?? respectful portrayal of a bisexual chinese character that i personally love??? of course i have intense personal stake in that lmao, how could i NOT. on that note, regarding your first point, i can’t “dis/allow” wei ying anything because wei ying is, again, a fictional character who has no agency and whom i cannot personally ask about his preferences. none of this has anything to do with respecting him—only how our treatment of him impacts real people.

i never meant to imply that being a bottom is shameful—i meant that when a mlm character is LIMITED to being a bottom BECAUSE of preconceived, heteronormative notions about mlm relationships by content creators, that is uncomfortable. neither bottoming nor being feminine should be considered shameful, of course not, but we don’t live in a perfectly equitable world, and historically, those are traits that are associated with shame by larger societal forces—my point is that we don’t interact with media in a vacuum. even if i’m not saying “bottoming/effeminacy is shameful”, someone is. because that previous ask was focused on wei ying and bottoming, i understand why you might think that because my stance on it wasn’t unequivocally positive/validating, it sounded like i was implying it was shameful because that’s what we’ve all been primed to assume. if i rewrote the response to that ask, only this time talking about lan wangji being pigeonholed as a top, would that have made my stance more obvious? because again, it goes both ways.

you say that i’m trying to fit mlm into a standard that i, as a non-mlm, am imposing upon them, but i really have no idea where you’re seeing that in what i’ve written. if you still think i’m doing that, then i want to state here that that is the furthest thing from my intentions.

the top/bottom dichotomy that exists in mdzs is just an expression of a larger trend that sees and fetishizes mlm as defined by their sexual roles, especially asian mlm (looking at you, seme/uke terminology). i cannot see it as existing divorced from that. what i really want, more than anything, is for this to not even be a conversation i feel like i have to engage with every time it comes up. it sucks that queer people’s identities and private sexual choices are politicized!! i, too, just want to live!!! i don’t want to feel like i have to endlessly, carefully debate mlm’s sex positions as a political statement, but i also don’t think that i can stay silent as a bi woman(?) while they’re used and disrespected for others’ gratification. they’re my siblings too.

here’s the thing: i like bottom wei ying! I love feminine wei ying! i want to read fic containing both of those aspects! i want to write fic like that! in fact, i probably will! is everything i make and say going to be perfectly unproblematic? of course not! everything is problematic because everything is nuanced and everything is complicated. all i can do is try my best to make sure what makes me happy isn’t at the cost of someone else’s human respect.

so, i hope that makes my position more clear? i’m not trying to say that everyone has to do exactly as i do, or think exactly as i think. i just want to encourage more complex, critical engagement with media because i think interrogating why and how we like what we like helps us grow. i get that sometimes we just want to enjoy things, and that’s okay! i get it, it’s exhausting!! feel free to block me and never interact with another one of my posts again if they make you too angry. i love mdzs, and i love the untamed just. so much!! i haven’t felt so overwhelmingly moved by a piece of media in a while, and i happen to express my love by…. well, doing things like this, which i’m FULLY aware is not everyone’s cup of tea. (sometimes, it isn’t mine either!)

i just want to end by saying that i’m certainly not trying to outright condemn anyone with these posts. this is largely prompted by my own personal, discomfited reaction to comments i’ve received on my fic/things i’ve seen tossed around by the fandom at large. i absolutely don’t think any of the people making those comments are bad people (i mean it!!), but that doesn’t mean i can’t still feel conflicted about it to the point where I feel i need to address it. i can’t police the way someone else enjoys their content, and i’m really not interested in trying. i’m trying to control the way I engage with and present myself to fandom. haha, as wei ying said, to live my whole life with a clear conscience. that’s all i can do.

EDIT 16 APR 2020: My views have changed since I wrote this post. I will not delete this post because it reflects my views at the time it was posted about 7 months ago, but I now feel very differently about the issues discussed here. Hopefully, my views are more nuanced and carefully considered in the present, but you know! Please keep that in mind when you read this.

#mdzs #the untamed #i... really did it again huh #comin at u hot with 1.3k words of... something #mine #mymeta #again idk if this counts as meta but it's the only tag i got for it #meta #Anonymous #asks and replies

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