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whirlybirbs · 3 years

Note

you write loki so well i am not completely convinced you AREN'T mr. hiddleston himself

FROM THE VOID, WITH LOVE | the cartharsis of venus

summary: petal-mouthed promises and mingling breath. whispers in the dark. there’s something romantic about the never ending void, isn’t there?

pairing: loki / f!reader, referenced & implied sylvie / f!reader

a/n: this anon made me laugh. so, have some watch mojo presents top 10 loki/doc moments. this chapter’s gif is from @marvelheroes’s lovely set here.

[ MASTERPOST ]

It's been years since he's seen your face.

...How many now? Thirty, maybe? But, then again, time moves different on others worlds and he's spent far too much drowning in his own to admit he has lost count the ever-growing gap between your souls.

In truth — in horrible, gut-wrenching truth — he'd forgotten what your voice sounded like. It was something he had never thought possible. Surely, he would remember warm whispers of honey-sweet I love you's for all time? Surely, the sound of your laugh, as melodically whimsical as wedding-day church bells, would never escape his memory?

Your eyes, too. As he looks at you, he realizes those eyes are not the ones he loved. Different, but still you.

You.

His wife.

His beautiful, cunning, witty, wonderful wife. His bug, his love.

It's you.

He feels as if he's been gutted where he stands.

Loki, as he ushers you through the portal, can see this on his older counterpart's face. His own heart aches in a sympathetic sense — especially knowing now the isolation the man had wrought upon himself.

He didn't have the heart to ask about you then. He supposes now, gauging the older man's reaction, he will not have to.

The man watches you as you chirp at the teenagers on your heels, insisting they follow and keep up, but the urgency dies when you raise your head and meet his eyes.

You see the pain. And then, a glimmer of love.

It blooms as he takes a tentative step forward.

The portal behind you all closes with a swallowed gulp of green smoke; it spills out by your feet, and in the grass of the cold expanse of land, you stand.

"You're even more beautiful than I remember."

Your eyes soften.

When the man reaches out, you let him touch your face — and you frown at the heartbroken look he spares you. It only lasts a moment; and then, he's pulling back and away as if he's touched a flame.

...What color were her eyes, again?

Your Loki lingers over your shoulder.

As the older man turns and begins to lead the way, you turn to spare Loki a mournful look. Your eyes hold the weight of a thousand words — some curious, but mostly somber acceptance that this love-story of yours is a tragedy to some.

Loki touches your shoulder gently; his thumb follows the curve of your arm. His voice is quiet. "Come on."

You gesture for the two teenagers to follow — and catch a completely different sort of look between the two.

Loki catches the half-smirk you throw his way, and his eyes dart back to the two with feather-light amusement. He says nothing, only buries a smile deep as he tucks his chin and coughs. You nudge him with your shoulder as you walk. He nudges back.

"That was some show," you finally say, speaking over the bluster of cold wind that nips at your skin, "Seems like Loki's aren't in short supply."

It's the older one at the head of the pack that speaks. "Yes, well — that's what we do."

"Survive?" you ask, tilting your head.

"Lie. And cheat," he snaps as he moves along, "We cut the throat of every person we trust, and for what? Power? Glorious purpose? We simply cannot change."

"And every-time we do try to change, the TVA comes along," remarks the boy in the back angrily, finally letting down the alligator in his arms, "And sends us here to die!"

"We're broken. All of us. Forever."

"It's why we need to get out of here," Loki stresses, "To take down the TVA."

You blink. Concern washes over your features at the age old line — but Loki does not see it. Instead, he's intent on stopping the roving caravan in its tracks. You cross your arms.

"Nothing can change until the TVA is stopped."

"And you think you can do it?" asks the older Loki, turning to look at you both, "You trust this other version of us?"

"She's the only one I do trust," Loki insists, albeit gently, "Sylvie has been wronged by the TVA just like us. They orphaned her, they stole her Doctor. And even if I did not trust her, I trust her rage."

"That's the play, then?" you ask, leaning on your heels as you cock a hip; you're looking to him for guidance — for an honest line of communication, "To destroy the TVA?"

Loki's eyes turn to you as he inhales; his brows tighten in concern.

"I know—"

"You know," you speak over him, waving a hand as he closes his eyes, "You know why I'm hesitant—"

The eyes of the teenagers bounce between you.

"I don't... I don't want any of this. I want," he waves his hands, "I want the people in the TVA to know the truth."

"And what happens when there's a vacancy for King of Time?"

Loki's mouth snaps shut.

Your heart wanes. There’s a weighty moment that sits between the two of you, then. And as Loki swallows the catch in his throat and comes to realize he holds your judgement of his character in the highest esteem, he can only try to rationalize the lengths he’ll go — if not for you, then for himself.

For that scared little boy Mobius had so aptly called to action.

Quietly, you whisper.

"Please don't go where I can't follow."

And you push on. You have to — or else the hope that perhaps he has changed will strangle you in its roots. The seed is planted. You are keen to nurture it, but afraid of the trueness of its yield.

Loki, though, is ensnared in your orbit and suddenly desperate to prove the seduction of power no longer has a hold on his heart. It’s you, now, who plucks his heartstrings to moonlit sonatas — it’s you who has made a home of this once dark, icy place. Once, the walls of his heart were sick with something he believed to be infallible. It was glorious purpose.

He idea of betraying that, of betraying you? And then, losing you?

He sees what that would do to him. He sees it in the older version staring him down. If he lets himself feel it, for more than a moment, it stings. He pulls away from the thought like it burns.

“We,” he stresses as he steps forward to match your stride in a terribly boyish attempt at proving his point; but it works, and he notices the way you look at him as he speaks, “Won’t be going anywhere if we don’t find a way to kill Alioth.”

Your brows snap tight in confusion.

You don’t need to say a word — the young teen behind you, all lanky limbs and cherub-faced, beats you to it.

“Hold on,” she says, “Kill the big, cloud monster?”

“Precisely,” Loki breaths, placing his hands on his hips. He looks almost proud.

You pause beside his older counterpart and spare the man a questioning look. He seems to share your apprehension, and so does the younger version of Loki peeking over the God’s shoulder, shaking his head discreetly.

“Is that even possible?” you ask, squinting and finding your hands on your hips as well, “I mean, it’s a trans-temporal entity. It’s got no physical being.”

Loki blinks. He then look at his older self. “I thought you called it a shark.”

“Metaphorically.”

You blink at the older man.

Then, you turn to share a mistified (and frankly very doubtful) look with your teenage self.

“Right...”

Loki pinches the bridge of his nose. “Listen, we won’t know if we don’t try—”

“Or we die.”

You point at your teenage self, nodding along at her point. “Yea, or we die.”

“Or,” Loki sighs as he rolls his jaw and looks up to the sky, “Yes, fine, or we die — but, honestly at this point I think the benefits outweight the risks.”

You let out a long sigh.

“Approaching Alioth is a death sentence,” says the older man by your side, “We’ll get you three to it, but that’s as far as we’ll go.”

“Oh, I’m not with them—” pipes up the teenager, straggling over to your side as she offers the man a compliant little smile, “I have curfew, actually. So, y’know.”

You frown. “You sure about that?”

She shrugs. “Yea. I mean — if you destory the TVA, then you can come visit. Or maybe I come visit you. We’ll do a sleepover. Sorta like 13 Going on 30, but we’re two people.”

You laugh out loud, and each Loki smiles at it.

"Alright,” you say as you throw your arm over her shoulder, “So where to, gentlemen?”

The alligator at your feet hisses. You jump.

“He says it’s getting late,” translates the younger Loki, “And that we should move, find shelter, and hunker down for the night. And soon. I’d rather spare you ladies from the darker dangers that lurk about when it gets quiet out here.”

And so that’s what you do.

Time is awfully strange in this place — and while maybe the storm clouds overhead hide the sun or the moon from sight, you’re not even entirely sure either are even there. As you trek along, through wreckage and ruin, you find yourself always turning your eyes up to the sky.

The younger Loki seems to have fashioned some sort of anamoly alert system that tracks entry of objects in this realm — and each push and pull of the fabric of time rebounds onto the screen with a general direction of sorts.

Your teenage self seems pretty enarmored with the idea. And the boy behind it.

You find yourself watching the two of them; and the gentle smile that fleets onto your face is not lost on your own half.

As you wade through the tall grass, you pick apart a blade you’ve snagged, and pretend you’re no eavesdropping on their puppy-love laden chatter. You drop your head, hide your smile, and laugh quietly at the younger Loki’s attempts to lightheartedly rib your younger self over something stupid. She battles back with a toothy-smile and a laugh as bright as sunshine.

If he’s honest with himself, Loki finds it rather adorable.

His heart is soft at the sight of these two young souls, and as he ambles up beside you, he remembers the feeling of tumbling headfirst into something like a first crush. It’s lovely, really, and seeing it play out infront of him just reminds him of the woman just within reach.

He’s been in love before. Ever fleeting, always a fast burn.

But this? With you? It’s different.

The God shares a knowing look with you as the two teenagers giggle over something said — and behind you, a capybara and alligator trot along. An odd couple. But, you suppose so are you and Loki. A God and a scientist. It’s... endearing.

Your worlds slow down, if only for a moment. Somewhere, the love drone of a lovesong plays — and you beat it back with a bashful bat of lashes. Loki seems spurred by the sudden shyness that bleeds onto your face, and he chases it.

Ever the suitor, the prince offers up his own blade of grass; and when you meet his eyes with confusion, he urges you with a silent nudge of his chin. So, you take it. And, then, in your palm, the grass springs to life.

This magic is small, infantile, useless — but, by Odin’s beard, he’d do it his whole life if it meant seeing the smile on your face forevermore.

The blade swirls around in your palm, dancing and tumbling in ribbon-like motions. Then, the long blade begins to twist and knot and run around itself, and before you realize it, there’s a flower there in your hand. A blade of grass, contorted in a little daisy.

You smile up at him, and Loki soaks it up; he tries to remember the sight.

You nudge him with your shoulder as you walk, and you tenderling tuck that flower into the breast pocket of your blouse. Safe.

Loki nudges you back, smiling to himself.

Feeling as if... as if that gesture means something more.

And it does.

However, Loki and his reptile-self were very correct about it getting dark fast as you soon learn — and as the meager team of adventurers plod on, it eventually grows dark enough that you can hardly see a few feet infront of you.

It’s each Loki that remedies this problem.

Magic, once more, is gleaned from flicks of the wrist and emerald glows. This time, the lamps and lights procured emit a lighter blue light. You stay close to Loki’s side, tucked neatly against his chest as you both walk.

“I do believe this may be the best we find,” announces the oldest Loki when finally a small little home comes into view, “And let us hope no one else has had the same idea as us.”

As you, your younger self, the youngest Loki, and your mammalian and reptilian friends wait outside, the two older Loki’s move to check the building — only after your Loki hands you his lamp and procures his daggers.

“Stay here.”

It’s protective. An utterance of worry. You slide him a smile that oozes with recognition of the nature of the gesture — and you watch as the two check the one story home.

It’s sitting alone with little else around it but a dying garden and a single tire-swing hanging from a large, creaking tree. The wind cuts through you and as you shiver, the dead oak lets out a mournful cry. You pull your arms around you tigher, holding up the lamp. The younger two huddle closer.

“Come on,” comes the voice of the older man, “It’s clear.”

You bend to scoop up the capybara and climb the steps into the home.

It’s been gutted. By Alioth or by the habitants of this place beyond time, you’re not entirely sure. Little remains but peeling wallpaper and broken windows and faded places where photos once hung. This home was once lived in and loved in. Now, it’s but a ruin. A has-been, a now-haunt.

It makes you sad.

You gently place the capybara down, mirroring the young Loki with his friendly little gator, and squeeze your teenage self’s shoulder as she nervously meanders in. Loki has set a lamp on the ground in the center of the empty room — and the shadows dance on the walls.

“This is... terrifying.”

“It’s not exactly 89 Emerald Street,” you say as you sweep off some dust from the single table by the far wall, “But it’s only for the night. Settle in and get some rest.”

Loki is behind you. His hands are gentle on your shoulders. You turn and look up at him in the light.

“You should rest as well,” he says so quiet, you're sure you're the only one who hears it's softness. His words urge you on with warmth.

You, however, don't like the idea of sleep. Not with so much swirling in your heart. “What will you do?”

“I’ll take watch,” he breathes, nodding to the older Loki, “I’d rather not be taken by suprise by another band of Lokis, honestly. Not at this time of night.”

You reach and lay your hand over his own. “I’ll join you.”

Loki frowns. “You’re exhausted.”

“I have a lot on my mind,” you whisper gently, “I wouldn’t be able to sleep if I tried.”

Over your shoulder, the rest of them have already begun to settle in. Loki holds your stare for a moment, and then gives in. With a sigh, he drops his hands from his hips and nods.

For now, he opts on settling against the far wall. He can see everyone and the window and the door. Anyone traveling in this dark of night will need a light. He'll see them coming.

You settle down next to him. Your hips touch, and your knees knock. He’s warm, and you’re warm, and neither of you complain about the proximity.

The older Loki, in a chair in the center of the room, he pushed his legs out and crosses them at the ankles.

Then, with his eyes closed, he says one word:

“Brown.”

You and Loki blink up at him.

“Her eyes,” he continues, looking up at the cieling. Through the floors there’s a hole. Beyond that, there’s a hole in the roof. In any other place, the stars would wink down. But here, it’s only black. He clears his throat, and closes his eyes once more, “They were brown.”

Loki’s gaze falls.

Yours remains on the older Loki.

“...What was she like?” you ask quietly.

The two teenagers watch on from their reclined positions.

“She was the most breathtaking soul in the entire galaxy,” comes the slow, patient breath as if he’s been waiting to be asked this question for years now; and then, the near smile, and the shake of a head, “She was incompariable. She was as if the stars had handed her their beauty... She loved the stars. We would sit and watch them for hours on Sakaar. But, I could hardly ever take my eyes off of her.”

His voice wavers. It cracks. Your eyes are heavy with sadness.

“I loved her with fiber of my miserable being,” he continues, arms crossed, eyes closed, “And I curse Thanos every with every beat of my heart. Watching her die... half of my soul died that day, too.”

You reach, almost instinctively, for Loki’s hand. You find he was doing the same. Your Loki watches you with a blip of surprise, and runs his thumb across your knuckles. You can’t look away from the man’s grief.

Because you've seen it before.

In that older you, plucking apart a gauntlet in the dark of night, hellbent on finding the other half of her soul once more.

“Without her — I knew,” he finally opens his eyes, “I knew I was nothing without her. She made me better. She gave me purpose. Glorious or otherwise, it mattered not. It was... It was us. And... And so I went on. Alone. I hadn’t realized I’d forgotten the color of her eyes.”

“Brown,” you mutter quietly, squeezing Loki’s hand.

“Brown,” he confirms from across the room, his eyes wet with unfallen tears.

“I’m sorry.”

“You have nothing to apologize for, my love,” he mutters, tucking himself into his cape, “I am just grateful I was able to see your face once more.”

And then, a somber quiet melts between the moments. Soon, it’s slipped into a tired quiet, and as you sit there and think, the merry band of mirrored images has fallen into their own forms of sleep. It’s not a restful one, but it will do the trick for now. The light in the center of the room dims with a gentle pull of Loki’s hand through the air.

The shadows make your face look sad.

“Are you alright?” Loki asks quietly after a while, hand still in yours.

You heavy a long, tired sigh. Your voice is a whisper. "I think so. Are you?"

Loki looks down, rolls his jaw, and nods. "I think so."

You inhale. And you nod. You take your hand and his into your lap. “Promise?”

"Well," Loki leans his head back against the wall; his voice is low as to not disturb the others, "Losing you certainly put some things in perspective. But... I found you. And you're here. And that's all that truly matters, isn't it?"

You hum. You lean your own head back, head turned to watch him. "I guess so."

"What about you?" he asks, turning to look at you, "Do you promise you're alright?"

Your eyes flick from his. You sit up. Then, you tilt your head.

"I've just been thinking."

“Penny for your thoughts?” he asks, tilting his head in idle curiousity as you turn his hand over and trace the lines of his palm. The gesture stokes a fire in his gut. He can't remember the last time someone touched him so gently.

So tenderly.

You wet your lips. “I suppose I’m thinking about how... I don’t know. It’s like everytime I feel like I’ve finally got my footing in this mess... I get it pulled out from under me. I’m just... scrambling. Trying to... Trying to be okay.”

Loki nods slowly. His eyes flick across your face as he thinks.

You continue. “And — and I think I’m scared.”

His expression is soft. He urges you on with a gentle inquiry. “Of?”

“What happens when we pull back the curtain?” you ask quietly, turning your eyes up to him, “What happens when we find the devil in the details?”

“We kill him,” he answers easily.

“And then?”

“And then...” Loki’s mouth falls closed, realizing... well, he hadn’t really considered beyond that, “I don’t know. I... I don’t.”

“That’s what I’m afriad of,” you stress with the hairline crack in your composure growing, “I mean — what will we even do when it’s all said and done?”

Loki is quiet. He finds he doesn’t like the way this conversation feels. It looms over him — the sort of thing he hasn’t wanted to consider all this time. Will you stay by his side? Will the path this drags you both down allow this love?

Suddenly:

“Mobius showed me how I die.”

Loki’s heart, then, feels as if it’s been twisted straight from his chest. His fingers twitch — and he inhales sharply as he pulls his hand away. No, no he doesn’t like this conversation. His own death he can surmise and handle. But, not you. Not his you.

The light in the room flickers out.

It hides his face; and he’s half thankful for it.

“Why would he show you that?” it’s full of hurt.

You’re quiet for a while longer; and when you finally speak, your voice is rough. Quiet. A broken, little whisper in the dark. It bleeds it’s own dark light.

“I saw what happens when I lose you.”

Loki’s eyes slide shut. His nostrils flare. There’s bitterness on his tongue.

“He did it prove something, I think,” your voice shakes, “That... That it’s in our nature to do whatever we can to find one another, to be with one another.”

Loki’s heart hurts. It hammers angrily; is it anger? A sudden flare of anxiety runs through his limbs and his fingertips tingle. The God can’t help but knots his hands together and worry his palms.

“That’s cruel.”

“Is it?”

“Horribly,” Loki mutters pointedly, “I had the luxury of knowing I’d have you until my end—”

You reach in the dark, once more, and find his hands.

You’re words are slow. Purposeful. Honest.

“I’m beginning to understand it,” you whisper; horribly shy and wonderfully terrified, “How it all falls into place.”

Loki’s mouth snaps shut.

In the dark, he can hardly see your face.

But, he can make out the lines of a smile; he can see the bloom of affection, all for him — beautiful and warm and genuine. It makes him feel like a child again, unexperienced in the ways of true emotional honesty.

“Back at the TVA,” you whisper, leaning against him, “What were you going to tell me?”

The God inhales. He settles back against the wall. This time, it’s he who pulls your hands neatly into his lap. He fiddles with your palm. The touch is doting. Gentle. His fingertip traces the line of your ring finger.

“You told me,” he says slowly, “That we deserve to be happy.”

“We do,” you say, chin falling to his shoulder, “I meant it.”

“I was going to tell you,” Loki mutters shyly, “That you do make me happy.”

Your world stops.

Not in a screeching, horrible way. No. But, it is as if somewhere the crescendo of the sweetest love song you’ve ever heard has begun; that the strings have begun to waltz with the lovely hum of harps. Here, your heart is dipped in honey-sweet promise. You find the words coming from Loki’s lips pluck your heartstrings with terrifying capability. He could kill you with the way he speaks. It’s gentle. Quiet.

Honest.

“You make me feel... as if I am enough,” he continues as he thinks out every honest syllable, brows pulled tight, “You are far too kind to me.”

"That’s not true,” you say, pressing your nose to his arm as you shake your head, “I’ve been... mean. And I’ve judged you. I’ve — I’ve said things I didn’t mean.”

“My head wasn’t mine,” he says gently, rubbing your knuckles, “It was my father’s critiscm’s. My failure’s. My head belonged to all the things I believed I had to be. But, I’m beginning to understand that... That those things are nothing. Unattainable. And... A-And I don’t want to bring pain and suffering. I want to — I want to feel love. Friendship. Joy. All these things I’d considered so... useless to the very thing I had to possess.”

“Power is a seductive thing,” you mumble, “Its beauty blinds us.”

Loki's stare is strong. He speaks fast. “It holds nothing in comparison to you.”

Your heart stutters once more.

He says it with such conviction — and you swallow down a sudden burn of pure attraction; the sort you’ve been fending off since Lamentis-1. Since he began to grow softer, since he began to be more than just the Loki you knew.

You lift your eyes and your head and find he’s staring.

In the dark, your proximity feels closer. Like it’s only the two of you, breaths apart, talking — the sort of talking that feels like the sort lovers do.

You’d like to kiss him like lover’s do, you realize.

Yes, yes, you would.

"Do you mean that?” you breath as your eyes roam his face.

And then, in the dark, he whispers back.

“With all my heart.”

And though, maybe this isn’t how those beyond the Void wrote your story the first time, it’s just as perfect — it’s just as gentle, and honest, and true. In the dark of the Void, both of your souls have tangled in the inevtiable way.

You kiss him.

It’s awkward and graceless. It’s craned necks and sighs of surprise and tangled fingers — and in the dark, it bleeds gentle and honest and true, just as this love story of yours does.

This place is not sacred, but this? This kiss is. And when finally the God gives way, turning himself to anchor his hands to your face? When he cradles your jaw, when you find yourself halfway in his lap? When he pulls apart, takes a breath, and kisses you once more with all the feeling in the universe?

It’s sacred. Holy. Reverent. Everything you’ve ever wished for — and when he says your name so sweet, so gentle in the space between mingling mouths? You almost break apart; you find your fingers winding into the fabric of his shirt, right over his heart. You anchor yourself.

He presses on; because this moment is one he’s never known to be possible — he’s never known this color of young love; he’s only known the darker parts, the lonelier parts, the lies and the pretending. He’s known urges and falisies and jealousy. This is none of those. This is beautiful.

It’s you.

It’s from the Void, with love.

Your nose bumps his, and finally you pull away to steal a breath; your forehead rests against his — and you bite back a girlish laugh.

Loki can’t help but do the same. It’s quiet, smothered into your cheek as he dots a tender kiss there as well.

“Silvertongue,” you accuse with affection.

His thumb runs along your bottom lip.

“If this is what I gain from sweet, little honest truths?” Loki mutters, “I fear my reputation may be up for scrunity.”

You laugh. It’s ducked into his shoulder.

He promises himself, then, that he will do everything it takes to never forget the color of your eyes.

#from the void with love #WWWWOOOOOOOWWWW #loki x reader #loki x you #loki x ofc #loki x y/n #loki/you #loki/reader #loki/ofc #loki/y/n #loki #loki spoilers #loki laufeyson x reader #loki laufeyson x you #loki laufeyson imagine #marvel imagine #mcu imagine #loki series #loki series imagine

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a-cupof-jo · 3 years

Text

Pitcher’s Plate

Y/n loves baseball. Has since she was a child. After giving it up her freshman year, she never thought she would play competitively again. That is until baseball star and long time friend Jung Jaehyun needs her help.

High School Baseball Star!Jaehyun x childhoodfriend!reader

friends to lovers

Words: 2.9k

Warning(s): a few swear words, baseball inaccuracies

In through the nose.

Out through the mouth.

Elbow aligned.

Back Straight.

Don’t freeze up.

Just breath.

You wind up, adrenaline running through your veins.

You lunge forward and release.

You gasped as the sound went through the park. Jung Jaehyun had never been an idiot. Everyone knew that the school’s star pitcher was smart and quick on his feet. Usually, that knowledge was used more on the field and less in the classroom, but this time you weren’t sure as his bat clattered to the ground. His face twisted with pain as he held his arm to his chest. It’s broken.

That idiot blocked the baseball flying for his head with his arm.

Taeil, the assistant coach, jumped out of the ball pit and ran towards home plate as the umpire called for a time out. Your view of their conversation was blocked by none other than Kim Doyoung. The raven haired baseball captain quickly joined their conversation.

You gave up trying to see Jaehyun and looked out to see the other pitchers team gathered. Kim Mingyu is easily Jaehyun’s biggest rival. Ever since freshman year both Jaehyun and Mingyu had been starting pitchers for their respective schools. Your blood boiled as you saw the smug look laced across Mingyu’s face. Of course he did it on purpose. Bottom of the last inning, down 2 to 3, and our star pitcher, one of our last chances for winning, down and out. You were half way out of your seat when a hand grabbed your forearm.

“Go Jaehyun! You’ve got it.” you glared at Jungwoo and looked back at the park just in time to see Jaehyun throw a single finger jester at us. You thought you heard a couple of girls gasp. Their image of kind, calm star pitcher Jaehyun completely shattered. Doyoung shook his head in amusement. Jungwoo shrugged and tried to hold in his laughter. After knowing the three of them for over 11 years, you knew a little teasing would be fine, but concern slipped back to the front of your mind.

Jaehyun threw his good hand up at what Taeil said. Words spilled out of his mouth and Taeil pointed to the dugout. He continued speaking and threw his hand to first base.

“That idiot,” you muttered as he kicked his bat away and stalked to first base. You watched as Taeil and Doyoung exchanged a look. Taeil sighed and picked up Jaehyun’s bat making his way to the dugout.

Doyoung took his place at the batting mound. While he didn’t seem like the athletic type, Doyoung always surprised others. He wasn’t the best on the team, but he had a natural way of leading others and knew how to play in order to win. There were two people on the bases, Jaehyun and Mark. Doyoung just needed to hit it far enough to get Mark to score a run. They could tie up the game. You watched as Doyoung swung one strike, then a second. Miraculously, the third pitch connected with his bat and the ball was sent flying. The crowd yelled as the players shot across the bases. Mark hit home plate as Jaehyun came around third. The baseball flew back towards infield. Taeil yelled for Jaehyun to stop, but Jaehyun didn’t listen. He raced for home plate trying to beat the ball. Chaos sounded as Jaehyun slid forward and a ball hit the catcher’s mit.

“Safe,” the umpire called. The crowd went in an uproar, but you couldn’t look away from where Jaehyun lay his arm tucked between his chest and knees.

You stormed through the crowd. “Excuse me,” you heard an indignant scoff from behind you. Jungwoo was by your side. His tall frame looked over the crowd, leading you towards Jaehyun.

“Weren’t we amazing,” you hear Jaehyun crooned as you slip through a gap of people.

Jungwoo smiled and hugged Doyoung, “You were both spectacular."

"I don’t think that’s the word I would use,” Taeil greeted from behind the two. He frowned at Jaehyun. “I’m not happy with the fact that you went against what I suggested.”

“Like you just said,” Jaehyun grinned. “It was a suggestion."

Taeil frowned, “I don’t wanna be the one explaining to your father why you didn’t come off the field.” He nodded as Mr. Jung walked up to talk to the head coach. Taeil sighed as he walked towards the two.

“You know y/n,” Jungwoo spoke with a slight lith. “You should fill in for Jaehyun.” You stood still. The last time you had played competitively was freshman year. You had made it on the high schools varsity softball team as a pitcher. You guys had gone to state, but in the last game you froze. You couldn’t throw a pitch. The team had lost and you walked away from competitive baseball, permanently. You couldn’t join the boys team as a pitcher. Besides, the coach and the boys wouldn’t let you.

“No way in hell,” Doyoung stepped in. “Y/n cannot join the boys baseball team. Especially not as a pitcher."

You started to defend yourself, but Jungwoo had already called over Taeil.

"Taeil, don’t you think y/n would make a great pitcher in place of Jaehyun?”

Taeil stared at you for a second before nodding, “It would be a difficult transition to the men’s team, but y/n has the skill."

Doyoung grunted at Taeil’s words. He went to insert his 2 cents when a voice spoke. "Jaehyun,” Mr. Jung rested a hand on the shoulder of the uninjured arm. “Come on. We need to get that looked at as soon as possible.” Jaehyun’s face fell as he looked down at his arm.

“Hey, chin up,” you grin. “Now you can focus on other things, like your school work. I thought I heard Ms. Joy say something about some missing work from you."

Jaehyun shot a glowering look at you. You grinned and blew a kiss at him. He promptly grabbed it out of the air before throwing it to the ground a grin now on his face. You smiled back at him as he walked away. You turned back to your friends as a look passed between them.

"What?” You tilt your head.

“Nothing,” Jungwoo sang. He wrapped an arm around you before pointing at Doyoung. “We still on for tomorrow?"

Doyoung nodded as he walked away, "I’ll see you both tomorrow.” He turned to walk backwards, “10 am. Don’t be late.”

You loved the small ball park. As a kid, you, Doyoung, Jaehyun, and Jungwoo would come down on Saturdays and practice throwing, catching, and hitting. The tradition continued as you guys got older, eventually Jaehyun and Doyoung started to invite a few guys to play small scrimmages. Jungwoo walked next to you as you entered. Doyoung stood stretching his limbs. “You’re late.”

“Only by a few minutes,” you check your watch, seeing 10:07 flash across. Jaehyun sat on a bench nearby, his arm wrapped in a cast. “Hey, sunshine,” you sit next to him taking note of the splotchy skin and bags under his eyes. “Rough night? How’s the arm?”

“Fractured. Of course we couldn’t figure that out right away because my dad wanted to go to Urgent Care instead of the ER,” he sighed.

“Hey there’s nothing wrong with urgent care.”

He shook his head, “I’m not saying there is, but there is a problem when he gets lost, can’t find it, and refuses to use a GPS. I had to wait another hour and a half after the game to even see a doctor”

You cringe, “I’m sorry.” He gave you a sad smile. A sting came from your back and you yelped, “Hey!”

“Come on, we need our pitcher!” Doyoung stood at the home plate. You glared at him.

“I thought you didn’t want me as your pitcher,” you brought up the conversation from the night before. You wave as you notice Yuta and Winwin standing at two of the bases. It was nice to see some of the team out playing recreationally. “But, now you do? Make up your mind. Am I good or not?”

Doyoung ignored your malice, “You’re not a bad pitcher, y/n. You know that.” He watched you as you stood at the pitcher mound. “I just don’t want you on my team.”

You rolled your eyes. “Just because you’re the captain doesn’t mean you own the team.”

“Can we just play, please,” Jungwoo spoke up from the third base.

You grinned at him. Turning to Doyoung you adjusted your grip on the ball. You could easily strike him out with a few curve balls. It was your best pitch. You’d perfected it at a young age. Since your older brother, Taeyong, also played baseball he took it upon himself to teach you everything he knows, and you’re thankful for it. You knew he was never devoted to the sport like you are, but he had a natural talent for it. Before Jaehyun was the star, it was Taeyong. You loved your older brother. Expectations were high for you. Everyone thought that you were going to be the queen of softball. Between being best friends with Jaehyun and Doyoung, and having Taeyong as an older brother you knew you had to be the best. The pressure was too great and when push came to shove you broke. So, despite your gut telling you to become the next varsity pitcher, you decided not to. You pull your arm back before letting the ball fly. Strike one.

Crushes are weird things. You can never be certain the other person reciprocates your feelings. You also can’t be sure that it won’t ruin a friendship. You’ve known Jaehyun since he moved across the street from you when you were five. Through every period of life you’ve grown with him. When the summer after sophomore year started, so did another period of life. Jaehyun had always been a handsome kid, you’ve thought that your entire life, and the pictures you have from your childhood prove that. When you had entered high school, you noticed that other people also noticed Jaehyun’s looks. It didn’t bother you. Jaehyun could like whomever he wanted. Until, you realized that you also started noticing Jaehyun. Not only for his looks, but also for his kind heart. And how he always smelled so nice.

Why did he have to smell so nice? You tried not to breathe deeply as he stood close to you. “Show me how you pitch.”

“Why,” you broke out of your reverie. The two of you stood in the middle of the playing field after the scrimmage was over and everyone had gone home.

He shrugged, “I just want to show you something.” You frown before preparing to throw. “Stop,” he put his hand on your shoulder. “When you’re preparing to throw you need to make sure you keep your back straight,” he pulled back on your shoulder. “We can’t have you slouching like an old lady.”

“I thought you were trying to help.”

“I am,” he grinned. “Now show me what it looks like when you throw it.” You rock forward to throw it and he stops your arm before you release, “You need to keep your elbow in line with your body. Here,” he stepped up behind you and adjusted your arm. “You’re a great pitcher but your form is terrible. I guess Taeyong can only teach you so much.” he quieted.

“And what does my form have to do with anything,” you asked, standing up straight. “It doesn’t matter if I’m only playing recreationally.”

Jeahyun took a deep breath and stepped in front of you. “It matters because,” he looked you straight in the eye. “I want you to try out as the new pitcher.”

“Don’t you dare try out.”

“I’m having a great day. Thank you for asking.” You close your locker. Doyoung stood next to you.

Doyoung frowned, “I’m serious, y/n. Don’t try out today.”

“How did you even know that I was thinking about trying out today,” you crossed your arms. Doyoung shrugged but his eyes moved down the hall to where Jaehyun stood. “Don’t worry Doyoung I’m not trying to upstage you. I won’t be trying to get into your guys testosterone party.” You turned and walked to your next class. It was going to be a long day. Tryouts were after lunch, which was after this class. Even though you brought your gear you were still trying to decide if you actually wanted to join tryouts.

“I don’t get why he’s so adamant about me not trying out,” you confided in Jaehyun as both walked towards the lunch room. “I know that I can make it through.”

“He does too,” Jaehyun stopped as you opened your locker. “That’s what he’s afraid of. That you’ll actually make the team and then when it matters you’ll freeze.”

“So he doesn’t believe in me,” you turned. At Jaehyun’s hesitation, you felt yourself heat up. Slamming the door shut, you stormed to lunch. It doesn’t take you long to see him. His back was towards you as he conversed with Jungwoo. You saw a variety of emotions filter across his face. He pointed at you. Doyoung turned and stood as you approached him. “I can’t believe you! You think that I’ll freeze up.”

“Who told you?”

You rolled your eyes.

“I knew I shouldn’t have told Jaehyun.”

“So it’s true you think that I’m going to freeze up,” you felt tears sting your eyes. “Screw you, Kim Dongyoung. That happened once.” You turned on your heel slipping past Jaehyun. You rushed towards the locker room. You don’t need his approval. You’re going to tryout if not for anything more than to spit, Kim Dongyoung.

You looked up as you heard people walk in. The current team made their way through the room. Jaemin, the current relief pitcher, stopped as he spotted you, “You’re a girl.”

“What gave it away,” you spat. Jaehyun stood next to you grinning.

“Are you sure you want to be trying out for a guys team?” Jaemin raised his eyebrow.

You glared at him, “What are you insinuating.”

He raised his hands, “I’m just calling it like I see it.” He leaned forward, “And you look like you’re about to be eaten alive.”

You gulped slightly as he grinned and walked out of the room. “Don’t worry about him. All the guys are harmless.” You tried to give Jaehyun a confident grin, but you went so sure. Even Yuta and Winwin, whom you played with on the weekends, seemed intimidating right now. “Just go out and show ‘em what you got.” You stood and wiped your hands on your pants. Grabbing your mit you gave Jaehyun a small smile. He smiled back, “Good luck.”

You kept to yourself as you warm up. Taeil walked by and gave your shoulder a squeeze. “You’re going to do great. You’ve got the former pitcher vouching for. Coach values Jaehyun’s opinion.” You took a breath as confidence filled you.

You stopped as Jaemin moved in front of you, “I’m sorry but I was warming up here first.” You told him with as much authority as possible.

“I’m actually on the team,” he crossed his arms.

You started to tell him off when a voice called out, “Jaemin, come warm up with me!” you looked over to see a shorter tan boy you recognized as the second baseman wave him over. He smiled as he saw you look over at him. Jaemin frowned and stalked away.

You took a deep breath as Taeil called you over. Stepping up to the mound you looked over to see Jaehyun sitting in the stands. Taeil stood ready to track your ball speed. You paused as you watched Jaehyun give you the sign to throw a four seam fastball. You gave him a confused look to which he re-signed a four seam fastball. Maybe he thought that pitch was better than your curveball. In this moment, you had to trust. You adjusted your grip on the ball.

Straight back.

Elbow aligned.

Lunge and release.

The ball thudded against the catcher, Kun’s glove.

Taeil stared down at the number. “83 mph.”

That’s fast. That’s really fast. You knew that you had a fast pitch but to be at the top of the average for high school guys.

Shit.

You are damn fine.

Your heart hammered as you walked through the room. The tension was different. After the coach called you last night, you knew that you had to wait to tell your parents. Jaehyun already knew. You couldn’t tell Jungwoo. You weren’t sure if Doyoung knew. The two of you hadn’t spoken a word to each other since the afternoon before. After today, you weren’t sure the two of you would ever be friends again.

You stepped into the light and walked towards the group of boys that stood facing Taeil and the coach. Taeil smiled as he saw you approach. “Okay team, I’m sure you all are anxious to know who your new pitcher for the rest of the season will be,” Taeil glanced down at the clipboard in his hands. “We saw a lot of promising talent yesterday, but had to make a decision. So in addition to Jaemin I would like to introduce the new pitcher. Please make her feel welcome,” he gestured to you. You felt frozen as all eyes turned toward you. “Y/n y/l/n.”

*Reposted from previos blog*

Tag list: @qianinterprises @stayctday

#nct senarios #jaehyun scenarios #nct 127 scenarios #ficscafe #k-flixnet #jaehyun x reader #jaehyun fluff #Nct fluff

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sequinsmile-x · 3 years

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If Tomorrow Starts Without Me - Chapter 10

I cannot believe we are at the last chapter. I have no words to express how much I appreciate all the love for this story, for the version of Aaron and Emily that are in it, and the family I have created for them here.

It means...so, so much. Rating: Mature (smut in this chapter)

Words: 5.2k

You can read over on a03, or below the cut

Please let me know what you think <3

April 1993

Emily hated these events. How false everyone was - plastic smiles and lies scattered around the room in a way that made her skin crawl. She always had an escape route, a place of solace she could find when her mother was getting too much for her.

This particular event was always held in the same hotel, and so her hiding spot was always the same. A small, windowless conference room just down the corridor from the ballroom. Her mother had never found it, or her, so she cursed when she heard the door opening only 20 minutes after she had snuck off.

She sighs as she turns around, ready to tell off whoever had disturbed her only for her to come face to face with Aaron. “Oh, hi. What are you doing here?”

“I came to find you.” He answers as he clicks the door closed behind him. “I’m off duty now. And you promised me a dance if I remember correctly? Something about it being the perfect thing to piss off your mother.” His smile disappears when she doesn’t return it, discomfort clearly laced throughout her body. “Are you ok?”

Emily tilts her head slightly at him, unsure how honest she could be. Since they had gone for drinks together and he had told her about his ex, who she had since learned was called Haley, things had changed between them. They had always been friendly, but it had now taken a turn into flirting. Long glances at each other in the hallways of her mother’s home, lingering touches that definitely were not appropriate. There was something about Aaron that she trusted, something that made her want to be around him.

“I hate these things. My mother parades me around like I’m a thing to show off to society.” She scrunches her nose at the idea of it and looks at the floor. “All those men out there looking at me like I’m some prize to be won.”

He’d noticed it. The way the men in the room had watched her as she walked around with her mother, his blood boiling he saw slightly wandering hands as she was pulled into another dance she clearly didn’t want to be a part of. Aaron didn’t question exactly why it bothered him so much, not wanting to pick at that thread and unravel the friendship he had built with Emily in the time they had known each other. Spending time with her already meant more to him than it probably should.

“You deserve better than that.” He says, frowning in a way that makes her smile. She reaches for him on some kind of instinct, not even realising she's doing it until her finger traces the frown line between his eyebrows. Emily smiles at him, and takes in the genuine concern on his face. He cared about her and expected nothing in return, and she couldn’t remember the last time someone made her feel so safe.

So she bridges the gap between them and kisses him, and she would spend the rest of her life claiming he kissed her first.

For a moment he’s still, and she's worried she has read it wrong. That the subtle moments between them over the past few weeks since she’d dragged him to a bar against his will had all been in her head.

Then he kisses her back, his lips pressing back into hers as his hand moves to the back of her head, tangling in her hair to hold her close.

Emily pulls away from him, hiking her dress up so she can sit on the table. She drags him closer, spreading her legs so he could stand between them and she kisses him again.

Aaron pushes one of the thin straps of her dress off her shoulder, following the material with his lips. A soft sigh escapes her and it seems to bring him out of it, and he pulls back from her. He cups her cheek with his hand, running a thumb over her swollen bottom lip.

“Are you sure?”

“Yes.” She replies before kissing him again, her teeth clashing with his with the force of it. His hands are all over her then, pushing her dress the rest of the way up her thighs. He bites her lip as he pushes her underwear to one side and she gasps into his mouth.

He takes her apart with his fingers first, covering her mouth gently with his spare hand as she cries out, worried they would attract attention from anyone walking past. Emily kisses him harshly then, shaking hands pulling at his belt buckle whilst she wraps her legs around his waist.

“Em, wait.” He murmurs against her lips, gasping as she grabs him, pulling him further into the cradle of her hips.

“If you ask me if I’m sure again, I’ll kill you.” She laughs, pressing a kiss to his dimpled cheek, wrapping a leg around him tighter to encourage him further.

As he enters her they both gasp, and she wretches her mouth from his to rest her forehead against his, her eyes closed as she adjusts. “Move, Aaron. Please fucking move.”

He complies, gently at first but goes harder, faster each time she begs him for it. She breaks apart around him, and nods into his shoulder at his unasked question, feeling him fall over the edge inside of her only moments later.

She leans her forehead against his, breathing heavily as her heart rate returns to normal.

“I’m sorry.” He says as he kisses her.

“What are you apologising for?” She asks, kissing him again, trying to regain her breath but finding herself unable to stop touching him

“You deserved better than that.” He says, echoing his earlier words of how other men had treated her.

“It was pretty good from my point of view. Excellent even” She says, biting her lip as she looks at him, wrapping her arms around the back of his neck. “But, if you think you can do better...we could always go to mine?”

Aaron doesn’t miss the tentative nature of her question, the way she seems nervous for the first time since she had kissed him.

“Won’t your mother miss you?”

She shakes her head. “No. And, if you remember, I have just moved into my own place. No interruptions.” She leans forward and kisses him. “At all.” Another kiss.

He grins against her lips. “Then lead the way.”

Aaron knows he would follow her anywhere. ______________________

Emily calls him 20 minutes after JJ, her name flashing on his phone screen making him immediately feel better. Relief floods through his body as he abandons packing the bag on the bed so he can answer his phone.

“I’m okay.” She says as a greeting, although she doesn’t sound it. He’s known and loved her long enough to know when she's in pain, even when he can’t actually see her. Aaron can hear the sound of the buzz of an emergency room around her.

“Em. The car you were in was hit by a truck. You’re not okay.”

She chuckles slightly, the sound dying on her lips, and then winces. “Fine, I’m not okay.” She admits. “My entire body hurts, but you don’t have to come here. I’ll be home as soon as we recapture him.”

“I don’t know what you mean.” He says, feigning innocence.

“I know you’re already packing a bag and thinking of a way to get the kids to my parents, despite the fact that it’s midnight.”

His eyes drift to the bag on the bed, hurriedly packed with things he hadn’t even really thought about as he shoved them in. She has known and loved him just as long as he has done the same for her, so it shouldn’t surprise him that she knows this would be his instinct, but it does.

Aaron thinks he could be married to her for 100 years and still be surprised by her. Amelia cries out, despite him only just getting her settled back into bed.

“Is she ok?” Emily asks, sounding weary.

“She’s fine, Em. Just missing you I think.” He sighs. The separation anxiety was bad on both sides, Amelia was just the right age for it. Crying out any time Emily wasn’t in the same room as her, having spent her entire life with her mother just within reach. He knew Emily was struggling too. She had gotten used to being around the kids all the time, and when she left for work only a couple of days ago it felt very reminiscent of her first day back after having Theo and Amelia. Torn between her family and her job, knowing both were important parts of who she was.

Aaron hated that her first case back had ended up like this, with her hurt and too far away for him to see her. To check she was really okay. It felt like a taste of how she must have felt when he was in hospital, leaving him behind and not having any way of knowing how he was.

“I miss her too. All of you.”

“We’ll be here when you get back.” ______________________

She realises she should have expected it the moment she sees him standing on the tarmac as she gets off the jet. He was never going to leave it, to let her make her own way home despite her assurances before they took off that Derek was going to drop her home.

Emily can’t hide the wince that escapes her as she walks down the steps of the jet to the ground, the pain vibrating through her aching body, stiff from a long flight and a lack of movement.

She tries to smile as she approaches him. She wants to reassure him that despite her appearance, the black eye, the massive bandage on her arm and how slowly she was moving that she really was ok. The concerned look on his face tells her that she has failed, and he gently traces the bruise below her eye with the pad of his thumb.

“Sweetheart.” Aaron says as he wraps his arms around her, loosening his grip when she stiffens in his embrace.

Emily presses her forehead into his shoulder. “Hell of a first case back.”

He pulls back from her, and sees Derek standing behind her with her go-bag in his hand. “Let’s go home, the kids are excited to see you.”

Aaron grabs her bag from Derek and throws a grateful nod to the team, knowing that they would have looked after her in his absence. He guides her over to their car and tries to help her in, but she bats his hands away, claiming she doesn’t need help.

He says nothing when he has to help her clip her seatbelt into place, the pain in her upper body too much for her to do it herself. ______________________

Theo runs into her so quickly when they get back to the apartment that they don’t have time to remind him to be gentle. He recoils quickly when she can’t control her reaction, the yelp of pain that escapes her as her son wraps his arms around her at full force.

“It’s ok, Theo. I promise.” She says, hoping he doesn’t pick up on the breathlessness in her voice. “You just need to be careful, okay.”

He nods. “I’m sorry, Mommy. I didn’t mean to hurt you.”

“Oh sweetheart.” She tugs him back into her, hand cupping the back of his head. “You could never hurt me, ok?”

She leads them over to the couch so she could sit down, and Theo immediately sits next to her, fingers tracing over the large white bandage on her arm. “Did the bad guy hurt you?”

Emily smiles softly at him. “Yes, sweetie. The bad guy hurt me.”

He looks concerned as he reaches for the bruise on her eye, fingers less gently than Aaron’s had been earlier and she manages to suppress a wince. “Was it George?”

Emily’s smile falters at that, and she pulls her son into her as best she can, hugging him close. “No, baby. George can’t hurt any of us anymore, remember? Daddy made sure of that.”

She feels Theo nod against her and she sighs. There were moments when she would love to bring George Foyet back just to kill him again herself. Whenever Theo mentioned him, fear colouring his face, she felt the hatred burning for the man throughout her entire body.

“Someone heard that Mommy was home.”

Emily looks up to see Aaron holding Amelia in his arms, the little girl scrambling to get into her arms. She winces as she takes her, the strain on her upper body unavoidable.

“Hi sweet girl.” She holds her daughter against her chest and the little girl immediately melts into her embrace.

Jack appears next, his concern all over his face as he looks at her. The moment he registers the bandage on her arm and her black eye apparent. “I’m fine, Jack.” She says before he could ask. “I promise.”

He nods, hands dug into his jeans pockets. “I’m glad.” He clears his throat. “I was thinking we could get pizza for dinner?”

Emily smiles widely at him. “Sounds great.”

______________________

Aaron puts Amelia to bed, and observes Theo brushing his teeth at Emily’s request. When he’s done Emily isn’t in the living room like he was when he had left her.

He seeks her out like he always has, knows her well enough to know her hiding spots even in this temporary apartment they found themselves living in. She is exactly where he thought she would be, looking out of the large window in the dining room that overlooked DC. It reminded him so much of the first place they’d lived together, before the desperation that came with wanting to build their family, everything that followed with Haley and then Foyet. The place where he had learnt just how much he needed her.

“Em?” He speaks gently, knowing she is still on edge from everything that’s happened recently. She jumps anyway, and he doesn’t miss the wince that follows. Her whole body still sore from the car accident she’d been in, the pain of it only beaten by the guilt she felt for not being able to save the detective she had been travelling with.

She turns to look at him, visible relief on her face when they lock eyes. She tries and fails to smile at him before turning back to look out the picture window. “Did Amelia go down ok?”

“She’s out like a light.” He walks towards her, gentle as he wraps his arms around her from behind. She leans back into him and allows him to take some of her weight. The easiness that had always been present in their physical affection had returned. His initial hesitance around her was gone as quickly as it had appeared. He was always touching her now, reassurance that she was there next to her, and he wasn’t going to open his eyes to find that this had all been some kind of cruel dream.

“Good. She’s been having trouble lately. I think it’s all the change.” She speaks absentmindedly, her thoughts clearly elsewhere.

He presses a kiss into her temple. “Want to talk about it?”

“Yes.” She says, swallowing against the lump in her throat. “But I don’t know where to start.”

He leads her to the couch and curls up behind her, gently dragging her aching body into the safety of his arms. Emily leans into him and hugs his arm across her chest, seeking comfort that only he could provide her.

“One of the men he killed today was home with his wife and son.” She says quietly the words of Dan Otley’s wife floating around her head like dust in the morning sun.

I was always afraid to believe it, you know? Because then it can be taken away.

“He was right there with his family and then…he just wasn’t.”

Aaron closes his eyes and presses a kiss to her temple. He knew what she was thinking, what fears would be tearing at the edges of her nerves. “Em, we’re all here. We made it.”

It had become a mantra of sorts. Something they’d say as they coaxed each other out of nightmares where they hadn’t been so lucky. Dreams where Aaron woke with the feeling of her blood on his hands seeming so real it would take her an age to calm him down, the only solution often being pulling his head to her chest. The sound of her heartbeat was the only thing that could assure him she was ok.

She’d see them all dead. Her husband and her children were stolen from her by a man she had never personally met. Emily would wake with tears already on her cheeks, shaking hands reaching for him as he held her fiercely. Reassuring words pressed into her skin as he stroked her hair.

“I know.” She replies softly. “But Theo still isn’t sleeping through the night. Jack is as angry as he was when Haley died. You and I are both a mess.” She half laughs, half cries. “The only one who is vaguely ok is Amelia and that’s because she doesn’t understand.”

Aaron carefully moves her so he can look at her. He tucks some of her hair behind her ear, letting his thumb trail down her cheek.

“Sweetheart, we’ll get there. All of us. It will just take some time - which we have plenty of.” She nods at him, but her eyes still betray how unsure she is. How terrified she is that she could lose everything. “What can I do to help?”

Emily smiles at him and cups his cheek. “You’re already doing it. I wouldn’t say no to a bath though.”

He guides her to the ensuite off of their room and runs a bath for her. Aaron can’t help the concerned look on his face when she slowly strips off her clothes, the black bruises left by the car crash all over her body.

“I’d say it looks worse than it is.” She quips. “But it feels pretty fucking terrible.”

He helps her into the tub. He doesn’t join her, in fear of hurting her, but he kneels on the ground next to her, fingers tangled through hers before he helps her wash the horror of a day she’d had away from her skin.

When they climb into bed and he lays as far away from her as possible she gives him a reproachful look. “Get the hell over here, Aaron.”

He wraps her in his arms, and he runs his fingers up and down her back. When she wakes in the middle of the night, images of watching a man get strangled in front of her replaying in her head, Aaron keeps his hold on her.

Just like he always would. ______________________

They go house hunting and it is every bit as painful as Emily remembers it being the first time around. Every property they are shown has something missing, something that just doesn’t sit right with them. Memories of their old house, the place they had planned to call home forever, haunting them at every turn.

Then they find it. A beautiful house in Arlington that ticks all of their boxes and more. The hardwood floors and white walls create a feeling of a new beginning. Enough bedrooms for the kids to have one each and one left over for a shared home office for Aaron and Emily.

Emily falls in love with the porch swing, memories of teaching Jack spanish flooding through her as the real estate agent raves about the wrap-around porch.

They sign the deeds that afternoon. ______________________

Aaron quickly realised that moving house while you had children was significantly harder than when you didn’t. He remembered when they bought their first house. How they slowly unpacked everything in between rounds of sex, christening every room they could. Many of them more than once.

This time they had no such luxury. Jack was moody, but helped distract Theo as the team helped them carry boxes into the house.

Amelia refused to be put down or held by anyone other than either of her parents. Pitching a fit as soon as she was passed to somebody else. Which is how Aaron found himself standing in his new kitchen, his daughter on his hip, as he unboxed their crockery one-handed.

The baby clearly felt as if she wasn’t being paid enough attention, because she slapped her hand to his cheek, her fingers digging into his dimples.

He huffed out a laugh. “Amelia, sweetheart, please be gentle with Daddy’s face. Your Mommy quite likes it.”

“Dada.”

He stops, almost drops the plate he had in his hand before he is able to put it down on the kitchen island. He looks at Amelia who is staring right at him.

“Did you just say, dada?”

“Dada.”

Aaron kisses the side of her head before leaving the kitchen in a rush, in a desperate attempt to find his wife. “Emily?”

“Aaron?” Her breathless reply comes back from the floor above, and he hears her racing down the stairs. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing, but-”

“Jesus, Aaron.” She admonishes him, sighing. “Can you maybe not scare the shit out of me next time by shouting like the house was on fire?”

“Emily.” He says, stopping her before she could rant any further. She purses her lips and stands in front of him, hands on her hips. He turns his attention back to Amelia and bounces her on his hip slightly. “Amelia, who is this?” He asks, pointing at himself.

It takes a moment, and he briefly thinks he imagined it, but then he hears her sweet little voice again. “Dada.”

Aaron looks at Emily, and sees how tears immediately spring to her eyes. She steps towards them and hugs him, kissing Amelia as she does so. “What a clever girl you are.” ______________________

Emily misses the first time Amelia walks. It happened when she was away on a case. It hurts when Aaron tells her over the phone, a burning sensation in her chest as she fails to accept she missed such a pivotal moment in her daughter's life.

The pain eases when Jack texts her a video of the moment. The footage shows Amelia taking unsure steps between Theo and Aaron, the joy on her husband's face outweighing any upset she felt.

When she gets home two days later her amazing, loving husband recreates it for her. He makes her stand in the same hallway from the video and he asks Theo to stand a few paces away from him and Amelia before he sets the little girl on the floor.

Emily watches as Amelia toddles slowly back and forth between Theo and Aaron, Jack recording it on his cell phone, soft laughs coming from all of them. For the first time since that morning, when she walked into their old house and found a bullet hole in the wall and Aaron’s blood on the floor, she truly believed everything was going to be fine. That they had made it.

“Sweetheart?” She looks up to see Aaron standing at her side, Amelia in his arms, giggling to herself. “You ok?”

Emily nods and diverts her attention to their daughter who was now reaching out for her. She pulls Amelia into her arms and presses a kiss to the side of her head, her emotions getting the better of her as she thinks about her baby girl walking, and how grateful she was that they got to celebrate that moment as a family.

Aaron notices, as he always does, and he pulls Emily into a hug, holding her and their daughter in his embrace. He kisses Emily’s forehead and places a hand on Amelia’s back. “My girls.” He murmurs into his wife's hairline.

“Dad, gross.” Jack exclaims, making Emily laugh loudly as she leant further into Aaron.

“Yeah, Aaron. Gross.” ______________________

Emily wakes up first for once. She quickly gets out of bed and presses a kiss to Aaron’s cheek as she sneaks out of their room. She smiles when she enters Amelia’s room to see the little girl already awake, standing in her crib and reaching out for her mother.

“Morning, sweet girl.” She lifts the baby up and into her arms, pressing a series of kisses into her dark hair as she takes a seat in the chair in the corner of the room. “Happy birthday.”

“Mama.” Amelia settles in Emily’s arms, seemingly content to have an early morning snuggle with her mother. Her hand tangles in Emily’s hair as she talks to herself.

Emily runs her hand gently up and down her daughters back, content to have some rare one on one time with her. “I can’t believe it’s been a year.”

She still remembers the fear she felt that morning, walking into the bathroom to have her waters break a month early. Amelia making a dramatic entrance into the world that ended up being almost a prophecy for the year they would have.

“Is this a girls-only gathering or can anyone join?”

Emily looks up to see her husband standing at the door of the nursery, smiling at the two of them together. “What do you think, Amelia?” She whispers to the baby, pressing a kiss to the side of her head. “We can make an exception for Daddy, huh?”

“Dada!” Amelia squeals, making Emily roll her eyes good naturedly while she mutters something about favouritism under her breath.

Aaron walks into the room and sits on the arm of the chair, and he presses a kiss to the side of each of their heads. “Happy birthday, sweetie.” He says as he kisses Amelia again.

Emily rests her head against his side. “What time is everyone arriving?”

“Not until this afternoon.” He lifts Amelia into his arms as he reaches for her, and stands up to place her on his hip. “So we can have a nice easy morning.”

A crash from outside the room happens almost simultaneously. “Theo.” Jack’s voice shouts out afterwards, frustration laced through his tone.

Emily laughs. “Since when did easy mornings exist in this house?” ______________________

When the party winds down that evening, the birthday girl is exhausted. The celebrations lasted well past her bedtime, and she passed out in her mothers arms for the last hour of it. Emily shifts Amelia in her arms as she walks upstairs to put her to bed, letting Aaron say goodbye to the rest of their guests.

She quickly changes her daughter into her pajamas, expertly doing it without waking her, and she lays her in the crib before kissing her gently, whispering how much she loves her against her forehead. Emily grabs the baby monitor as she leaves the room, softly closing the door behind her.

Emily checks in on Theo to see he was already asleep, the excitement of the day having worn him out. She sits on the edge of his bed and tucks him in a little tighter and she makes sure Archie is secure in his arms. She kisses him and gets up to leave.

“Love you, Mommy.”

She smiles and kisses his cheek again. “Love you too, sweet boy.”

As she walks down the stairs she passes Jack, who was heading up to his bedroom.

“Don’t stay up too late, Jack.”

He doesn’t stop as he walks past her, clearly already running late for when he told his friends he’d be online. “I won't, I promise. Love you, Emily.”

“Love you too.”

She goes in search of her husband and spots that the front door is slightly ajar. She finds him sat on the porch swing, a blanket half around him and a glass of wine in each of his hands. Emily smiles as she joins him, curling up into his side in the cold February evening, pulling the blanket around them both as she takes a glass from him and settles her cheek on his shoulder.

“Today was nice.” She says softly, snuggling into his side.

“It was.” He replies, taking a sip of his wine. “I can’t believe she’s a year old. So much has happened since then.”

She hums, turning her face to press a kiss to his neck. “I love you.”

“I love you too, Em.” He replies automatically.

She pulls back from him to look at him, her eyes searching for something he couldn’t quite place. “I know I say it a lot, but I really do love you. You know that right?” She whispers, the cold air she breathes out almost louder than the words themselves.

“Of course I do.” He frowns, pulls her impossibly closer, wrapping the blanket tighter around them both.

“I mean it Aaron,” she pulls away so she can look at him, cups his cheeks in her chilled hands. “I love you so much it’s almost ridiculous. I can feel it with every part of me. When we were apart…” Her voice falters like it always does when they talk about it, a wound still too fresh to not be painful even after the two months that had passed since they were reunited. “When we were apart I realised how much I need you. I had a glimpse of my life without you in it and I hated it.”

“Em.” He places his hands over hers on his cheeks, brings them down to his lap and tries to seep some warmth into them. “What’s brought all this on?”

She sniffs. “I don’t really know. I just keep thinking that this time last year Amelia was born, and it was scary as hell. And we had no idea what was coming. That Foyet would attack you in our home, that he’d try to kill our kids. Now everything is great again.” She wipes a tear from her cheek. “And despite the new house and everything I still feel like I’m waiting for the next thing to go wrong.”

“Em, sweetheart.” He stops her, leans her forehead on hers. “I can’t tell you nothing awful will happen to us again, that we’ve had our share. Because if that’s how it worked we’d have hit our limit with what happened with Haley.”

She nods against him, closes her eyes to stop more tears from falling. “I know.”

“What I can tell you is that whatever happens, whatever tomorrow, or a week or a year from now brings, we can face it together. Okay?”

She pulls back, looks at him with tears in her eyes and sees just how sure he looks. How resolute he is in what he is saying, and she believes him. “Okay.”

He kisses her, like he has a thousand times before, and pulls her into a hug. “I love you so much, Emily. More than I did yesterday, less than I will tomorrow.”

She snorts out a laugh before muffling it into his shoulder, aware all the kids were in the house asleep. “That was so fucking corny.” She presses her forehead into his neck. “I love you.”

“I love you too.” ______________________

I don't care what tomorrow brings, as long as I have you. - Molly Harper

#hotchniss #hotchniss fan fic #hotchniss fanfiction #aaron hotchner #emily prentiss #aaron hotchner x emily prentiss #au fanfiction #CM fan fiction #ITSWM #WTB Universe #i'm going to go cry now #cannot believe it's done

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salty-ironstrange-shipper · 3 years

Note

Could you maybe post a long-ass list of good ironstrange fics because at this point, there's nothing else to do and you seem like you have great taste

puppets on a string

Summary: Stephen Strange is a villain. But a hot one.

Words: 103,206 (incomplete)

This fic is courtesy of our very own @funkylittlebidiot, so definitely give it a read!

Find a Way (to break the fall)

Summary: Stephen didn't think about it anymore. It had been buried deep beneath all the other shit he'd had to live through in the last couple of years and it didn't impact his day to day life in any way whatsoever. Until the day it does.

Words: 2,170

This one is short, but emotional and impactful. Warning for discussions of past rape/non-con.

The Brands We Carry

Summary: Tony Stark is almost thirteen years old when he gets ready to settle down to bed one early-early-morning and happens to look in the mirror on his childhood wall and catches sight of a circular brand on the skin above his heart.

“About fucking time,” Tony mutters, and goes to sleep without bothering to tell anybody he just cussed out a baby that’s only just crying its way into its new life somewhere on the planet.

The date is February 17, 1983. Happy birthday, whoever you are. Took you long enough.

Or: Tony Stark and Stephen Strange are soulmates. You'd think that would mean they would be perfect for each other right from the start, but it turns out that their soulbond is a long path of mutual distrust, dislike, and miscommunication. Just their luck.

Words: 10,497

I love a good soulmate au, and this is a good soulmate au. Very interesting look at both characters and also what happens if someone’s soulmate has a not insignificant age gap (though they only meet in person for the first time as adults)

A Crown of Thorn and Shadows

Summary: Anthony Stark, King of Blood and Darkness, ruler of the Unseelie court, did not expect to find Prince Stephen Strange of the Seelie chained up in his torture chamber, cold iron being driven into his hands. Stephen Strange, a Seelie healer, never dreamed of finding himself in the court of nightmares, being cared for by the king that the Seelie called a monster. They must work together to find the traitors in two Faerie courts that have not spoken in over six hundred years and reclaim Stephen's memories before the courts descend into war once more.

Words: 58,465

Wonderful fantasy au, great worldbuilding and relationship buildup. Lots of fun.

Villain Stephen Strange and His Obsession with Tony Stark

Summary: Just a bunch of prompty oneshots that are partially based but 100% inspired by Tumblr IronStrange Posts. Rated T-M

Words: 1,029

Do I even have to explain it? This is just fun.

Ten times outta nine, I’m a hand grenade

Summary: Though neither remembered that night, it turns out that Tony Stark and Stephen Strange had first encountered each other years earlier. Unfortunately, that might end up destroying the universe.

Words: 419,141

This is a loooooooooong boi. But oh, it’s a good one. Stephen and Tony basically go back in time, change the universe, and fall in love. It’s everything you could want from them. Complete with romance, angst, drama, and humor.

Where Severus Snape is hot, not a stalker, and somehow gets the girl

Summary: And then, as if he wasn’t already the most embarrassing estranged biological dad ever, Tony stopped in his tracks, raised his sunglasses (because of course he would wear sunglasses inside a lecture hall in April), and gave Professor Strange the most blatant, sustained once-over in the history of fuckboyness.

Then he put down his glasses, shot a winning smile at the teacher, and said, “Well, I’m Tony Stark, of course.”Or: Peter Parker is sick and wants to cut his Neuroscience class. Tony just wants to help (and maybe date his son's hot teacher). Stephen Strange just wants to give his lecture in peace.

Words: 2,387

Stephen is a college professor. Peter is his student. Tony is having too much fun with this.

You Remind Me of a Man

Summary: Tony Stark cannot stand the overly opinionated and egotistical Dr. Strange and the feeling is extremely mutual.

Words: 44,788

Perfect no-powers au for them. They’re assholes who fall in love and see another side to each other. It’s amazing, 10/10 would recommend.

I am here

Summary: There’s a technical reason Stephen must surrender the Time Stone to save Tony’s life. It has to be done, and that’s enough for him to do it. But just in case, the universe decides to give him a personal reason as well.

Words: 11,708

This one is so soft. Basically, while looking through time, Stephen keeps showing up in the past at various points throughout Tony’s life. And then they fall in love! Good for them.

T For Tony

Summary: Your soul mark is the first letter of your soulmate's name. Stephen has an 'A'. But he's in love with Tony. Cue anxiety, jealousy, angst.

Words: 2,794

They’re so stupid in this fic. It’s great. It took them so much effort to remember Anthony starts with an A. (I still think this fic should’ve been titled A For Tony, but I didn’t write it, so)

something taken, something new

Summary: The ChronicConnection implement and app allows a person that lives with chronic or illness-induced pain to transfer their burden temporarily to a willing loved one. Tony and Stephen sign up as beta testers.

Words: 14,541.

I must’ve recced this a thousand times ..... AND I’LL DO IT AGAIN. THIS FIC IS THE PERFECT MIXTURE OF SOFT AND ANGST AND IF YOU DON’T READ IT, YOU’RE WRONG.

15 Million

Summary: For every alternate reality there were ten thousand alternate realities from that. And from those ten thousand more. And then ten thousand more off each of those. And so it goes.

The Avengers win once. There’s ten thousand versions of it.

Stephen Strange doesn’t know what to make of the fact that Tony Stark seems to be *his* victory.

Words: 2,755

Obligatory “Stephen looks through 15 million possible futures and falls in love with Tony in the process fic”. Can’t have a fic rec list without it.

Hero Swap AU

Summary: It's a boring day for the Avengers until Tony Stark attacks.

Words: 17,391.

Just pure, fun crack.

Only a Matter of Time

Summary: Captured by aliens, mistaken for a mating pair, Tony and Stephen find themselves having the universe’s most awkward honeymoon.

Words: 6,056.

Smut. Good smut, though.

Sunrise in Exile

Summary: Tony does the math and realizes their best chance to save the universe is by... not confronting Thanos on his own turf.

So he steals a wizard and a spider and a space ship. And he runs.

(Three humans and an A.I in space, the alien friendships they make along the way, and discovering how science and magic might coexist in a universe where they can be one and the same.)

Words: 352,079 (incomplete, has not been updated in a while)

A long fic set during Infinity War where they just ... run away to space. And it’s great.

Rewriting Icarus

Summary: Stephen and Tony, from the beginning to the end and beyond.

Words: 23,504

Pre-powers AU, except they fall in love then get powers. Sad, angsty, beautiful.

variations on a theme

Summary: Stephen sees into millions of possibilities and finds only one where they win, but he never expected to end up falling in love with Tony Stark in almost every single one of them.

Words: 5,134

Another Stephen looks through the possible futures and falls in love with Tony? ... Guess you can’t have just one.

Five’s A Party

Summary: It's an orgy fic, I'm not sure what else to say

Words: 2,639

... Not much I can add to that. Magic smut.

A Lapse in Judgement

Summary: Stephen, the newly minted Sorcerer Supreme, is strong, powerful, and in control of his life in every micromanaged detail, because failure to do so could result in (another) cataclysmic event within the universe. He is. But then Stephen accepts an off-handed offer to spar from Tony Stark – a man who is Stephen’s non-magical equal, a man who Stephen barely sees outside of bi-weekly meetings and the few and far between fight against a villain – and Stark discovers Stephen’s biggest weakness, his most hateful secret that is a deeply fundamental part of Stephen’s psyche.

Except instead of judgement, and horror, and disgust, Stark meets him halfway, and a lapse in judgement turns into a possibility that could change their lives forever.

Words: 22,694

This is the first of a series which was just updated (haven’t finished reading the new part yet, looking forward to it) and is just a really good, surprisingly soft and emotional BDSM series/fic.

Ironstrange Fics and Ironstrange Cinematic Universe

Oh, how did these get here?

Yes, I’m reccing my own work. I’ve written 29 fics and 377,132 words for this ship, I think I’m entitled.

Ironstrange Fics is a collection of every ironstrange fic I’ve written, short, long, sweet, angst, and everything in between. Ironstrange Cinematic Universe (itself responsible for 49% of those 377k words) is my ironstrange rewrite of the MCU specifically. Please read, enjoy, and leave comments, I’m not updating any fics for a couple of weeks and I need the validation.

#long post #very long post #asks #incorrect-ironstrange #ironstrange #fic recs #fanfiction #ironstrange fanfiction #my fanfiction #Anonymous

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heinzpilsnergonewild · 3 years

Text

Vegeta’s Character Analysis Looooooooooong Read

Oh my, what can I say? I just really love to write long essays in a language that isn’t even native to me, lol.

Well, nobody’s perfect, I guess. ... Were you expecting a Cell joke here? I may not be perfect, but that doesn't mean I have to be that predictable.

Ahem, anyway.

This isn't exactly a psychological analysis of the character - more like, hmm, a storytelling analysis. Or something in between, really.

You may not find anything fundamentally new in this text, but I definitely had fun writing it, haha.

It's mostly amateur. I have a useless psychology degree, but not a literature one.

My classic rant about vegebul fics is included, of course.

Summary: proper psychological analysis requires a single continuous personality, which Vegeta simply doesn’t have.

The more I think about Vegeta, the more I come to the conclusion that he is only pretending to be a consistently evolving character.

In fact, he's a bit like 10 different characters in one, which abruptly replace each other (and that's without considering the difference caused by the voice actors’ approach and the changes in his looks). Essentially, Vegeta's a collection of disparate images, arbitrarily lined up by Toriyama and hastily glued together. And the beginning of this line is so far from the end of it that these two extreme images cannot be perceived as belonging to the same person. Well, because human psychology just doesn't work that way.

(Not that Vegeta is unique in this respect – it’s a common feature of characters in long stories that authors compose as they write. Still, his case is quite extreme and interesting as example.)

I mean, take Vegeta in the Saiyan or the Namek arc. He's a complete psychopath. He clearly doesn’t suffer at heart from the unnecessary violence (as, for example, Guts from Berserk). His behavior looks like something natural for him, not an unhealthy defensive reaction. He enjoys it, he smiles happily, killing and torturing weak innocent people. And such a degree of psychopathy is not something that can be healed by a couple of deep personality crises or years of peaceful family life. Vegeta's redemption arc works through strong emotional impact and forgetfulness of the audience, but makes very little sense when viewed in retrospect.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Perhaps the biggest, hmm, splitting of the personality occurred with Vegeta right after the Namek arc. Toriyama had already made a small retcon of the character’s motives before (to include Vegeta in the context of the Freeza army after the Saiyan arc), but it didn't feel that drastic.

You see, until Vegeta was invited to Bulma’s house…..

(Gosh, Toriyama, you could’ve done it more subtly, really. Vegeta killed Yamcha, threatened to kill Bulma, gutted Zarbon in front of her eyes, slaughtered an entire Namekian village... Oh well.)

…Ahem, anyway, right up to Bulma's invitation, Vegeta looked to me like a character who, hmm, has a life of his own? I mean, you have always felt that his motives and behavior were generated by the bizarre social system, not related to the little world of Goku and his friends. Simply put, Vegeta was a natural product of the big space civilization, an organic part of it. His whole personality was formed by it, all his plans, motivation and ambitions were associated with it. And although in the Saiyan arc, he gave the impression of an independent entrepreneurial chief at the head of a small hierarchy, in the Namek arc it was revealed that Vegeta is actually far from independent. He lost his throne and his people, he was in slavery to the tyrant all his life, and wants to take power for himself. So, his social background and the motives caused by it post factum get much more complex. But in short, Vegeta wanted a highest possible position in the hierarchy he knew. In this way, he was… social? His belonging to the Saiyan race was only a small (although important) part of the overall picture. Because the Saiyans were dead, but the Freeza Empire was alive.

But when Toriyama realized Vegeta's popularity and decided to keep him in the story after Namek, it came as a blow to the character's personality. Apparently, the author simply couldn't come up with an elegant way that could keep the character in all its complexity around, and therefore did a very clumsy thing. He roughly cut Vegeta out of his social context and almost forcibly glued him to the main character group like a poorly done appliqué. But although you see rough edges and glue drips, the story moves on rapidly, distracting you with Freeza and Future Trunks, and you don't stop to think about what happened. This is how, almost imperceptibly, Toriyama changed Vegeta's motives (and, consequently, the basis of his personality). Yes, Vegeta's saiyan pride was also significant part of his character previously, but when it became his sole and central motivation after Namek, you feel like a very big and important piece of him has been arbitrarily cut off. This wouldn't have happened if Toriyama had followed the logic of previously established social motives, rather than his desire to make Vegeta a convenient figure. Now, bound hand and foot by the author, the character is forced to behave as the plot requires.

Still, all this can be justified by the fact that Vegeta experienced a deep emotional shock as a result of death, which forced him to rethink his life priorities and wait for Goku (especially in the manga, where he just lived with Bulma for a whole year after Namek, without even trying to use dragonballs) ... And then he waited for the androids (despite the final death of Freeza and his father, which was an excellent chance to try to take over the decapitated empire). Anyway, this rationalization doesn't negate the fact that the character, as a result, has lost a significant part of the fire that he demonstrated in the Namek arc. His new energy, the energy of obsession with surpassing Goku, turns him into a new character – bitter, marginalized and focused on training.

(Ironically, the very splitting that made him a less attractive character in my eyes allowed vegebul to take place. After all, imagining the romantic relationship of the nice Bulma and Vegeta at the height of his villainous ambition is really difficult. That just would be a psychologically implausible story.)

In the Android and Cell arcs, after brief glimpses of the SSJ superiority, Toriyama turned Vegeta into a plot tool, whose personality flaws he could use to spoil the situation favorable for the heroes. As a result, Vegeta continued to be an angry and unhappy character who has lost most of his charisma, but on top of that, he also started to be really annoying. ... Still, also kinda amusing thanks to his truly impressive inability to draw obvious conclusions from the ego bruises he gets.

(If you ask me, the character's biggest contribution to the Cell arc was to ignore the existence of condoms, lol. Although strictly speaking even it was an achievement of Future Vegeta (RIP). But seriously, Vegeta's relationship with Trunks turned out to be one of the few things that I was really interested in about this part of the story.)

And then there was Goku’s death and the 7-year-gap. ... At the end of which Vegeta still didn't look like a happy man who has found his place in the world. Even though he had seven whole years (and a spaceship) to change something. I mean, this is the case when it'd be logical to expect changes in the character, but for some reason they didn't really happen (or they did, but veeery quietly and unstable). I mean, Vegeta trains with Trunks, yes. And he's married to Bulma now, apparently (which we learn only at the end of the arc though). And he hasn’t killed himself yet, which means that he sees some meaning in his existence. Hurray, I guess?.. The problem is that when we first see Vegeta after the timeskip, he keeps walking around with such a sullen expression, as if Goku had died just yesterday. (Remember Vegeta in the Saiyan arc? He smiled quite often. For the wrong reasons, but hey.) Basically, Toriyama tried to sit on two chairs at the same time here - 1) keep Vegeta as recognizable as possible (because he hasn't decided what to do with him yet) and 2) keep him around (which doesn't make sense for the character if he hasn't undergone significant changes during the timeskip). And the result of this hesitant approach is an undesirable effect - it feels as if Vegeta hasn't built a new life for himself all these years, but only waited for Goku to return.

As if the man is unable to evolve without Goku's influence. Until Kakarot does or says something, or is just around, everyone else in Vegeta's life and his own reflection has little or no meaning. Old social ambitions? His wife and child? New insights gained from life on Earth? Pffft. Goku is able to destroy the seven years’ worth progress (no matter how small it may seem) in one day, and at the same time, one fight with him is enough for Vegeta's character development to jump forward explosively. It sounds like a solid ground for shipping, but In fact it’s just a direct consequence of the author's poorly chosen narrative structure.

The thing is, Toriyama tend to avoid romance and slices of life, and shows Vegeta's personality mainly through fights and their consequences. And at the time Goku just turned out to be the only significant character for Vegeta, the fight against whom could be used as an excuse to develop the character in front of the audience. Well, Toriyama couldn't get Vegeta to fight Bulma or himself, you know.

I believe that the plot structure chosen by the author (rapidly changing action events immediately after a long timeskip) is not a very good basis for a redemption arc. For a good redemption, a character had to have screen time during which small changes accumulate gradually, between the big points. And Vegeta simply didn't have it. Besides, the scheme by which Vegeta develops is really messy. Because at first, Toriyama kinda froze his development at the neutral point (thereby partially devaluing the influence of Vegeta's family on him). Then in one moment, the author abruptly reversed even this the-end-of-the-Cell-arc development with Majin Vegeta (this time completely devaluing the family factor, because the betrayal was Vegeta’s conscious decision). God, how I hated the Majin Vegeta idea. And in the next scene, the author made a quick retcon, which gave the family’s influence the status of a ground for Vegeta’s personal growth again for no apparent reason. It's as if a huge bundle of family values was post factum squeezed into the character in defiance of everything that we just saw with our own eyes. This is a complete narrative mess.

But... oddly enough, Vegeta's redemption still manages to work, and work spectacularly. My guess is that it's because by that time the audience is already SO sick of Vegeta, frozen in his bitter anti-heroism, that it desperately wants the author to finally do something new with the miserable guy. Well, at least get him out of his misery. So people are willing to accept it in any possible form.

... And the author chose the form of a powerful emotional catharsis. The explosion was legendary, haha.

I don't even know if this is a good reason to call Toriyama a genius (after all, he found a very clever way out of a difficult situation, in which he found himself thanks to his own bad decisions.)

The only thing I'm sure of is that despite everything I was very sad because of Vegeta's death. I didn't even realize that I had become emotionally attached to this asshole until he made such a spectacular exit, lol. As if something had broken inside of me, and all the analyticity of my mind couldn’t prevent it. I was surprised when I found myself crying really hard - usually my emotions don't reach this level due to fictional stories. (Well, maybe it was due to the fact that my own father was dying of cancer at that time, and the moment just triggered my emotions. ... Oops, it seems a little too personal, doesn't it? Well, at the end of the day, this fact is an integral part of my unique dbz experience. Come to think of it, in dbz, fathers die regularly).

But while this scene greatly affects emotions and forces a new viewer (or reader) to truly reconsider their attitude towards the character for the first time, the absence of a neat gradual movement towards this moment weakens its influence somewhat.

At this point, Vegeta’s character splits once again (perhaps the last time within DBZ). You simply cease to understand who this man really is and who he was before.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Now, when I look at all the images of Vegeta in general, I come to the conclusion that I like this character the most in the first two arcs and in the end of the last arc. Two directly opposite moral poles.

(Funny enough, because my initial reaction to Vegeta and Nappa was annoyance: "Well hello, the next stereotypical villains who like to chat and laugh maliciously instead of simply killing their victims." (Still, against the background of Freeza, Vegeta turned out to be a much lesser evil in every sense, haha). You see, usually I'm not a person who likes villains. Basically, I only distinguish such characters from others as a result of romance or redemption. It’s only after that I begin to see aesthetics in their villainous charisma as well.)

And now, in retrospective, I believe that at the beginning of the story Vegeta is at the maximum of his vitality and charisma. Especially compared to his ever-crisis moody version (who supposedly lives happily with a loving family). In the Saiyan arc, he's objectively the most powerful character (Freeza didn’t even exist in Toriyama's head at the time). Vegeta is domineering, playful and unpredictable, but most importantly - his self-confidence is fully justified. Oh well, it was good while it lasted. He's really in control. These are, if I may say so, quite exciting qualities in a man, haha. Even if he looks like an evil dwarf in stupid armor and bullies some weaklings. I'd even say his demeanor in the Saiyan arc (especially with the voice of early Horikawa) is suspiciously easy to translate into a sexual context (well, until he loses control and gets hysterical, lol).

The Namek arc, placing Vegeta in a broader context, somewhat spoiled his original image (after all the big words, it turned out that he was running errands for Freeza all this time), but gave him a more interesting background and a strong drive. He had ambitions and a socially significant goal, and he actively and passionately fought for them against a clearly superior enemy. In addition, his inability to defeat Freeza by brute force forced him to use his brains from time to time, and not just pull another power up out of his ass, as is now traditionally done in DragonBall. (Needless to say, I consider high intelligence to be one of the most attractive traits). All this made his position in the plot as interesting as possible. He literally sparkled with energy.

Well, we know what happened next. Brain Death, an eternal chase after Goku, and an off-screen family life on a backwater planet that Vegeta is supposedly happy with. Until he suddenly became a really beautiful character without a proper justification for this (well, at least the explosion was spectacular). Really, I like the general concept of redemption, and yet... the way Toriyama portrays it in the story just doesn't work convincingly enough for me.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Another point I’d like to cover in this already too long essay ahhh I'm a monster is Vegeta’s personality in fanfiction.

Reproducing (?) Vegeta is a bit like playing with a lego set - his personality and behavior is always the result of a conscious reconstruction, which is based around a specific point on the long contradictory line. Depending on which end of the spectrum the chosen point is, the author is forced to shade facts related to the opposite end, or to give new context to Vegeta's past (or future) actions. It's always noticeable when the author extends the later, sympathetic Vegeta's image to an earlier segment of the story. Apparently, it's possible to kill the person who raised you (with an evil smile on your face) just because the situation was too stressful lol. Likewise, when the authors allow Vegeta to remain a charismatic psychopath, the story wouldn't work without ignoring some parts of the later canon.

(And, of course, there is always a "medium" type of Vegeta - Vegeta from the 3-year-gap, whose personality is almost entirely based on anime fillers. Yay, here comes the promised vegebul rant

Honestly, I'm pretty tired of this "gravity room exploded again woman grrr" type of Vegeta.

Because if you take the manga, we have no idea how Vegeta actually behaved with Bulma and her parents, what his training regimen was, and what he did in his free time besides unprotected sex. People elevate his rudeness and irrational self-torturing to the absolute because of all these filler patterns, but this is just one of the possible versions of the events and the character's behavior during this time (albeit partly canonical). But... there are also alternatives. There are smart Vegeta, curious Vegeta, civilized Vegeta. Honestly - I don't think Bulma would've married him later if there was nothing in his personality that’d make communication with him enjoyable. I mean, she's a rich modern woman, she doesn't need a husband just for convenience and Vegeta is a marginal freeloader anyway. And if we subtract good looks (which people often attribute to Vegeta) from the equation, then the idea that he has no interest in anything other than training and cannot maintain an interesting conversation becomes completely unconvincing. Toriyama clearly didn't attach much importance to the fact of their marriage, and generally avoided romantic scenes as if they were on fire (and, perhaps, did the right thing), but these two just had to be capable of adequate and mutually pleasant personal interaction in order to take this step.

In general, Toriyama's lack of attention to most aspects of the characters' lives other than fighting and training, on the one hand, can be considered a drawback of DBZ, but on the other, it creates a lot of room for fans' imagination. But not everyone uses it. Most authors generally repeat the same tropes over and over again and don't try to look at the three-year-gap from a new angle, although the canon provides all the possibilities for this. Because of this, fics in this genre often seem boring. But in fact, it's not the setting itself that is boring, but only dusty formulas in the heads of the authors.)

Ahem, so where were we?.. Oh yes.

Actually, Vegeta's inconsistency is a very handy character trait for the authors, as it minimizes the chance of accidental OOC. Indeed, it's quite difficult to make someone to behave out of character if he has many different canon versions of himself, lol. On the other hand, this leads to the fact that the character seems to... kinda disintegrate. You never see his whole face, because he simply doesn't have it. As a result, Vegeta turns into a mosaic that must be reassembled each time. And I keep staring at this crazy kaleidoscope like an idiot.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Well, that's... quite a lot of contradictions in my relationship to Vegeta, haha. Still, life without contradictions would be somewhat boring, I guess.

Thanks for your attention I suppose?..... lol, as if someone really got to this point

The End.

P.S. 1: The antisocial version of Vegeta who doesn't understand stupid human rituals and hates crowds, but puts up with it for the sake of his family is my spirit animal, haha. This is just so damn relatable to my autistic personality. Maybe I'm an alien myself.

P.S. 2: Actually, my favorite dbz character is Piccolo. Yep.

#vegeta #it's really long #3260 words kind of long

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duketectivecomics · 4 years

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You might've answered this already and I just didn't find it, but one thing that always perplexed me about Duke was how old he was in comparison to the other Batkids. It's obvious he's younger than Dick and Babs, and I pretty sure he's younger than Jason and Cass, and older than Damian, but I cannot tell if he's meant to be Tim and Steph's ages, younger, or older. Could you help me?

You’re all kinds of good here, anon!!! I answered a similar ask abt the Order of Adoption but didn’t dive into specific ages on that post BECAUSE well they didn’t ask lmaooo but ALSO:

Comic ages are very fluid usually! While Years™️ might pass in the canon proper, or while time seems to slow to a crawl, having a character’s age outright stated is something that occurs very rarely for most characters, if at all!

Because it’s always much easier to have a floating age range to work and play around in! It’s easier to keep a character Perpetually 12 or 16 or 25 or mid-40s or- you get the idea. SO, with that in mind. Let’s do our Best to Break Down What Age Duke Might Be Currently A N D how it might interact with the Other Batkids!

(Warning for a Very Long Post, lots of issue citations, and a LOT of comics terminology regarding specific runs/events/continunity. I’m gonna try to keep it as clear/concise as possible ofc but plz keep these things in mind! If you’re not at least marginally familiar with Bat-Comics, you might find yourself feeling a little lost here!)

So from the Zero Year arc we see a common Trend that plays out pretty consistently with Batfam comics: a Life-Changing Event Occuring while the protag is Young™️.

(Batman (2011) #30)

With how Duke is drawn in these particular issues, and given the trends of the past, I’d place him in the 8-12 range. The historic precedent being ofc that that is the same range that canon usually places both Bruce and Dick at for their Tragedies™; the more benign reason being that he... just very much Looks to be drawn in that Range. He’s very clearly an Older/Prepubescent child here.

Fast Forward to his Next Appearance in the Endgame arc and-

(Batman (2011) #37)

He’s definitely older! He’s wiser! And he’s giving Batman a fistbump lmao. Again, no strict age given here BUT, since they condensed each Robin to a Year or Two tops with Bruce (its n52 and its fucked up is what it is), we can assume it’s been at least 4-5 since Zero Year (which would mean if we go off the age range I proposed for that year, then theoretically he could be anywhere from 12-16 here, and I think that tracks pretty well. Not Perfectly and Certainly Not so well with Pre52 continuity ofc, but I’ll talk about that later!)

In We Are Robin, while its not stated Directly In The Text, it IS given as an Informational Tidbit that Duke is 16 (specifically this can be found at the end of issue #4)! (Sweet sweet canon confirmation FINALLY)

We know that WAR takes place Fairly Soon after Endgame (almost immediately, give or take a month or two given that Duke’s been placed in a few foster homes at this point and has racked up Quite A File) now, again id like to remind y’all that while this is a NICE starting point to have, keep in mind that comics are fluid and this may be retconned slightly/ignored in later stories bc Keeping Duke 16-ish is in DC’s Best Interest at the moment. (Having Relatable Teen Characters afterall is a Good Marketing strategy™️. And the longer they can Keep them Young, the Better)

With that in mind let’s take a moment to Highlight the fact that Duke and Damian have crossed paths at this point AND the storylines that have occurred during this year that were meant to be in conjunction with one another!

Because Prior to Endgame, Damian had Died! And just a year (in real, meat-space time) before We Are Robin, he was resurrected and had begun his “Year of Atonement” in the Robin: Son of Batman maxiseries. Midway through both this series and WAR (and, we can assume, midway thru this “Year” for Damian) the Robin War begins/ends and we see at least one major Moment between these two boys who will soon call one another brothers:

(Robin War #2)

Given that R:SoB is followed up VERY quickly by Teen Titans Rebirth (in which Damian celebrates his 13th birthday), we can conclude that Damian would be 12 during this time (well, 12 and 1/2 to play it safe lmao). That being said, this Confirms about a 4yr gap between Duke and Damian! (One Batkid down at least! but he’s the key to the others so put a pin in him!)

As We Are Robin draws to its conclusion, DC was releasing another arc that would eventually flow into the Rebirth Era, by the end of which, Bruce would approach Duke with an Idea (which involves Bruce becoming Dukes temporary guardian & as he states Many Times “Trying Something New” with Duke).

And thus the Rebirth Era begins, and Duke began his Year of training (most directly encapsulated by the Cursed Wheel arc in the All-Star Batman run:

(All-Star Batman #1 (back-up story))

Bruce introduces Duke to a training regimen that Alfred has named “the Cursed Wheel”. It encompasses all the training Bruce and the other bats have undergone and condenses it down into color-coordinated segments that will take Duke a Year to Complete.

It can be assumed that by the End of this Year Duke will somehow miraculously still be 16, despite, again, an entire ass year passing.

There’s one story that takes place mid-year in All-Star Batman, and the Cursed Wheel is meant to be capped off by Duke’s first Official Day as the Signal (in the titular Batman & the Signal ofc) BUT, near as I can tell after this story, Dukes age is not brought up again. So until they DO bring it up either in Batman & the Outsiders or whatever future run Duke becomes involved in, we can assume DC will be working with the idea that he’s meant to be in that 16-18 range from here on out (ie still a minor).

But, dear anon, you might be saying “okay, that’s cool, but how does that relate to my question abt how he falls in with the other Bats?” You’ll have to be a little patient with me here, but I think I may have cracked the code!

Keep in mind I’m gonna be addressing both the Post-Crisis to Flashpoint Continuity (ie mid-80s to 2010 in comics history) and the N52-slash-Rebirth Era (2010-Today). Its generally agreed by fandom and DC alike that these points of rebooting &/or Major Events constitute the era of “Modern” comics, and that everything from the 80s-on might more or less be canon on some level, even if not All of it is.

(Plus, most of fandom usually likes to borrow elements from both eras and much more rarely from stories before it, SO-)

Lets do a quick rundown of how everyone who’s Closer to Duke’s Age, Relates to each other first, age-wise:

Given that Jason was 15 when he died, in A Lonely Place of Dying its established that Bruce had become increasingly reckless since his death, and by the end of the story, Tim has stepped in to fill Robin’s shoes (he states that he’s 13 during this story btw). Pretty soon after, Stephanie Brown is introduced & established to be about a year older than Tim (wish I could pin-point a specific issue BUT, i unfortunately haven’t read any Tim OR Steph-involved comics that predate No Man’s Land... Besides the aforementioned Lonely Place and Young Justice technically, but im working on remedying that soon!)

NOW, during the No Man’s Land event, Cassandra is introduced, and pretty soon into her Batgirl run, its revealed that she’s around the same age as Jason (or at least how old he Would Have Been, had he not died.) Now, given that Jay has an August bday and Cass has a January one, fandom sometimes likes to play around with the idea of one being older than the other (OR even speculating/placing them in an AU as twins/siblings, given that Lady Shiva (Cass’ mom) was a Possible Candidate to be Jason’s biological mother but that’s a Whole Other Thing i wont get into here.)

The point being, Cass, in this era of comics, IS slightly older than Tim and Steph. At Tim’s start as Robin, their ages could either line up like: Tim-13, Steph-14, Cass-15 (being a few months ‘behind’ Jay), then Jason at 15/16 (depending on how soon Tim filled the role after Jay died in April) OR Jason-15/16, Cass-16/17 (in this case she’d be a few months ‘ahead’ now instead)

So brief detour to talk New 52, however! Because Tim, Steph & Cass all got switched around from where DC originally left them prior to the reboot! Now I haven’t read much of them in this era, other than Batman & Robin: Eternal, so my Understanding of their current ages is Spotty at Best. The general consensus seems to be that while before N52, Stephanie had been attending her first year of College (& doing VERY WELL i might add), with the reboot she was set back a few years alongside Tim to a vague Late-Teen state (so 16-18-ish, instead of a Very Clearly Established 18/19). Cass is probably the worst off for this reboot, given that B&R:E basically constitutes her new origin for the new continuity, and does nothing to confirm her age (all I really know is that she’s a Vague Late-Teen too... Probably? Maybe?), given how much they infantilize her, and subsequently how fandom in turn has taken to infantilizing her too, theres a semi-popular fanon that places her Younger that Tim and Steph. And I, for one, propose that we ignore that bc its Weak Sauce my dudes.

Some fans chose to ignore N52 continuity due to this vagueness, and will stick to the ages established before the N52/Rebirth reboots. But its something to keep in mind regardless bc we’re all obviously going to pull from what’s most familiar to us!

But WHERE could we place Duke with regards to them, then? Because them being “Late Teens” is certainly much too vague to work with!

This is Where Damian is the key!

Because Damian is one of those rare exceptions to the Reboot Rule. His story flowed almost seamlessly over from before to after. While he was made a Robin at the age of 10, he continued to grow and learn even after the universe was being rewritten to suit the whims of DC editorial.

If we choose to ignore how everyone else’s ages and origins were swapped around, and stick with the growth that was presented before the reboot, then we can draw some interesting conclusions!

Firstly, though Stephanie also had Died and subsequently Returned, she hadn’t lost much, if any time, from the Ordeal. At the start of her Batgirl run, she is enrolled at a Gotham university and making headway with a more firm foot in the Batfamily (even to the point that she and Damian spend a few issues bonding. At this point in time, Damian is definitely 11, and again, Steph can be assumed to be 18/19 during the course of her run. We’ll assume 18 for clarity’s sake.)

So, then when Damian is 11, now our line up is as Follows:

Dami - 11, Steph - 18, Tim - 17, Cass 19-21 (the range depending again, if you subscribe to Cass being either older/younger than Jason).

WHICH MEANS, If during Robin War Damian is 12 (and a half) THEN We’ve got an age line-up that Potentially looks Like This:

Dami -12(and 1/2), Duke - 16, Tim - 18, Steph - 19, Cass - 20-22 (And Obvsly Jason, Babs & Dick at their varying Older Ages than everyone here)

and im just now realizing i Didnt include Harper in this line-up, but thats bc she’d also throw a big wrench in all this. I’d personally throw her in with being Steph’s age, but I’m pretty sure she was supposed to be either that, or between Steph and Cass (again, since its N52, i believe Cass was/is assumed to be Younger than Steph, but that contradicts the assumed following of pre52 canon that we have for the above line-up, obvsly, and so we ignore that lmao)

All this to say, however, that canon and fandom is what you make of it, and if you want to wiggle these ages around a little, you’re more than allowed! God Knows i usually like to skew the Tim-Steph-Cass age group to be a tad older than this in my own fic writing, and I like to have Duke start as a Robin at 14/15 instead of 16, but that’s just bc I like the dynamic potential it could bring with them being Definitively Older that him, and thus in a more secure place to be Mentoring him right alongside Bruce & the others.

But you might see these age ranges and want to do something Different (say, making Tim, Steph, Cass, & Duke all the Same Age at 17 instead! And that very well tracks with how current comics kinda looks right now!) and you’re absolutely valid to do so! Because again, comic character’s ages are meant to be fluid, not fixed!

And at the end of the day, its all about wanting to see these teen heroes kick serious ass haha

#duke thomas #guest starring:#batfamily #damian wayne #tim drake #stephanie brown #cassandra cain #randywrites #randys meta #meta #asked and answered #anonymous asks #this was A LOT and i tried to throw some humor where i could #but uhhhh yeah!!! i hope this helps anon!!!#also just realizing its TWO AM WHERE DID THE TIME GO #ah well. Worth It

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connieswriting · 4 years

Text

Drunk words are sober thoughts// Fred Weasley

Paring: Fred Weasley x Reader

Request: @yeethoess: “hello, could you do prompts 15 and 36 with fred weasley please”

@chocok22: “Can I please get number 34 with Fred Weasley?”

@rommylove: “Hey could I request 7, 10 and, 20 with Fred Weasley.”

A/N: I am very aware I’ve been lacking, but I haven’t been very inspired lately. However I made myself write this one cus ya know, today is Fred’s birthday :). If you want to request you can, and please do, I write for more characters except Fred lmao, just go ahead and request it! Or message me for anything idc I’ve been very bored lately :) please enjoy this crap I produced in a few hours.

“We won!” Fred screamed, hosting you up in his arms. “I can’t believe we actually won!” He continued, blissfully laughing before putting you down and pulling you into a tight hug.

“Woah there, big guy. I know you’re excited but you’re suffocating me.” You laughed, playfully punching him in his back.

“I’m sorry, love. I just cannot believe we actually won the Quidditch Cup. Charlie is going to be so delighted.” He continued pulling back, his hands resting on your face.

It had been the last match, Gryffindor against Slytherin, and after an intense couple of hours, Harry had managed to catch the Golden Snitch, resulting in his team winning the Quidditch Cup for the first time since Charlie Weasley had attended the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.

“Oi, you two, stop flirting over there, we have a party to attend to.” You heard from your left turning to face a smiling George who had just finished ruffling Harry’s hair.

You felt a pair of arms rest around both yours and Fred’s shoulders, pushing you forwards and off the station. “He’s right. We ought to celebrate finally winning the Cup. This feels like a dream; on my final year too! And McGonagall thought my training schedule was horrendous.” Oliver Wood’s voice rang in your ears as he pushed himself forward to congratulate the rest of the team.

“Your training schedule was horrendous; we were training more than all of the other teams combined!” Fred shouted after his team’s captain who was already too deep im embraces from his house’s members to hear the twin’s protests. “I barely had time to study this year and this is his reaction?” Fred sighed as you both continued walking towards the Gryffindor common room.

“As if you would study even if you had had the time.” You laughed just as you entered the castle, following the many Gryffindor students who kept joyfully chanting their way to the party.

“Oh, so you’re just so keen on personally attacking me now?” He chimes, bumping his shoulder into yours. “You aren’t exactly wrong, but those training schedules meant I couldn’t spend as much time as I wanted to with you, this year, and we both know just how heartbroken you were when you found out you weren’t able to spend all those wonderful afternoons, cuddling up with me.” He smirked at you, earning a smack on his head.

“Sometimes I wonder why I decided to be friends with such a pretentious idiot in the first place.” You smiled as you finally reached the Fat Lady portrait that secured the entrance to the common room. From behind it, you could already hear the celebrations that were occurring, imagining all the food, the drinks and the decorations that had been put up for this wonderful occasion.

“That’s no way to talk about Georgie. I know his intelligence isn’t his forte, but he’s not that pretentious, you know? Scurvy Cup.” Fred stated as the painting moved forward and the Fat Lady disappeared behind it with a heartfelt ‘Don’t have too much fun’.

Before you could respond to the redhead’s comment, Fred had already been shoved away from you and into a group of giggling girls, all of them intrigued on how he had such strength to make the Bulger hit the Slytherins’ brooms with such intensity. You were used to this by now, although there were many perks of befriending the Weasley twins, there was also the slight disadvantage of how social and outgoing they were which meant you were more often than not pushed away from them, since so many people, specially girls, wanted to be with them as well. You couldn’t blame them, there was something so alluring about Fred and George’s personality that sometimes you were shocked how the whole school wasn’t in love with them both.

“Don’t look so gloomy, (Y/N). Our house just won the Quidditch Cup for the first time in several years.” Lavender Brown giggled, shoving a cup in your hands. “Have a drink. You look so off-putting just standing there, doing nothing at all.”

“Don’t you have something a bit... stronger?” you questioned, eyeing the pumpkin juice in the cup you were holding.

“I might just have a few shots. Someone from seventh year was able to get a few bottles of Firewhiskey, if you’re interested.” The girl explained as you both made your way to the drink’s table. “I don’t know if they hid it better so the younger ones don’t get drunk on it, but Dean said it was under the... Aha!” Lavender exclaimed producing a single bottle of the so desired alcohol. “I’ll pour it for you since I know how you can get when there’s Firewhiskey and Fred Weasley off with some girls involved.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about. Besides I won’t get drunk, don’t worry; we still have a ton of homework and I’m sure McGonagall is going to make us a ‘surprise visit’ tomorrow to see just how much we have destroyed the common room.” You stated just as your friend finished filling up the bottom of a cup, offering it to you. “Thank you.” You smiled, bringing the cup to your lips, the fiery taste immediately warming up your mouth. “It has been a long day, I needed this.”

Lavender rolled her eyes, safely hiding the bottle again, making sure none of the younger students were looking. “You are so dramatic. The game wasn’t even that long. Now come on, you can’t enjoy a party if you aren’t even dancing.”

It wasn’t long before the both of you joined the rest of your friends, dancing actively just as the alcohol seemed to be starting to kick in. Lavender was partially right- you did drink an awful lot every time there was a party such as this one, but you were always able to hold yourself back from getting actually drunk. You drank enough to feel slightly buzzed, but never enough so you couldn’t remember anything the morning after.

However, today was different. The overly-touchy couple dancing next to you seemed to push you to keep drinking. You knew you shouldn’t feel this way, he was just your friend and he was more than welcome to be with other girls, after all you didn’t own him, nobody did. Yet, every time it look like you weren’t bothered by their proximity anymore, Fred’s loud whisper in the girl’s ear that prompted her obnoxious laugh would make your cup reach your lips almost immediately after. You knew you weren’t just buzzed anymore, your thoughts already becoming more and more incoherent, but you couldn’t stop, you wouldn’t stop. If it meant you wouldn’t be as bothered by his hands slowly sliding down her back as her hands rummaged through his whole body, if it meant those images would be less defined than they were supposed to be, then it was fine by you.

“How about we go for a walk?” Lavender abruptly asked, turning your face towards the door. “I think it’s a bit stuffy in here, we should get some air.” She continued quickly, already pulling your arm.

“Lav, why would we do that when it’s already way past our curfew. That would be absolutely-“ as you turned your head to meet your friend’s eyes, the reason for her unusual request caught yours. Their faces, pressed together, their lips moving rapidly, hungrily, his hand on her hips, pushing her towards him, her hand in his hair, pulling it savagely.

You didn’t even have time to process how Lavender knew you were so infatuated by Fred to the point that this scenery would hurt you deeply. Sure she had made jokes about how you two should be dating but you never actually took any of those seriously. You didn’t even think about the possibility that others might know as well, something you so deeply wished to keep as a secret, in fear it would ruin your friendship with the boy. You felt tears starting to prick in your eyes, pushing through the crowd and out of the common room. Why were you even so upset? Fred didn’t owe you anything, he was you friend and nothing more, that had been made very clear, specially tonight. You made your way to the Astronomy Tower, carefully passing by a lecturing Bloody Baron and a remorseful looking Peeves, so as not to bring yourself any unwanted attention.

When you reached the top, you sat down, looking up at the stars. Ever since you were little, looking at the stars would always help you calm down, see the bigger picture, they would always make you feel better.

“You know, these stars are nothing compared to the ones I’ve seen in your eyes.” The booming voice startled you, but you didn’t need to turn around to know to whom that voice belonged to. “Why did you run away like that, we were in the middle of a celebrating my big win.” Fred smiled taking a seat besides you.

“Oh, right, what a big win it was.” You spat, scooting away from him. The Firewhiskey you had previously drank seemed to be giving you some unnecessary confidence. “Why don’t you go back to your big win. I’m sure she is missing your lips so much.”

“Love, are you jealous?” Fred laughed, closing the gap between you two once more.

“So now you’re aware of my feelings? All this time I’ve been in love with you but only now are you realising I may have feelings too?” The alcohol was doing quite a number on you as it took you a moment to process your own words. “Did I just say that out loud?” You grimaced, getting up from your spot, and ready to once again run away. Many could argue running away from your problems wasn’t the key to solving them, but you would beg to differ, since in this case it seemed like it was the only solution.

“You did, (Y/N), and honestly can’t say I’m surprised after the way you acted tonight.” Fred grinned, pulling himself up and in between your body and the door, far too quickly for your own liking, preventing you from escaping this disastrous conversation. “I guess since we are giving this whole honestly thing a try, I should do it was well: I did kiss that girl back there but I couldn’t stop picturing you in my arms your hands on my hair, your lips on mine. I was doing it so much that I even ended up moaning your name. I guess you can assume she wasn’t too happy about it, but who would be, imagine getting the chance to kiss me, the most gorgeous specimen there is, just to realise I’m not thinking about you at all.

You stared at him, disbelief prominent in your features. “Right sorry, point is, that is when I saw you running away to this place, and obviously I had to follow you to make sure you weren’t getting into to trouble... At least not without me. Nice spot by the way. Gorgeous view, calm and quite, it’s honestly splendid.”

“I’m sorry, you did what?!” Had he actually called out your name in the middle of making out with another girl? Had he actually pictured you, in her place, with him? You felt your legs give under your weight, as you slid back onto the floor. “You like me as well?” You questioned, hopefully.

“I never said that...” he started, but you quickly interrupted.

“Just admit that I’m right.” You breathed, forcing him to sit down in front of you. “Please?”

“(Y/N), I don’t like you...” He explained, kneeling next to you. “I love you, have loved you since our first year actually. The moment you got really angry at me and Georgie for pulling a prank on you so you pulled one back, I just knew you were the one for me.” He continued, resting his hands on your face. “I’m just admired someone as smart as you took so long to figure that out.”

“You were the one loudly making out with someone else at the party, not me.” You argumentes, leaning towards him.

“Fair enough, but in my defense, I was so strongly convinced someone like you couldn’t possibly like me back that I was trying my best to get you out of my head, thus my many, unfortunate, shared kisses with that girl. Wait, was it really that loud?” He asked making you smile. “Why I ever made such an idiotic decision, I will never know.” His features mimicked yours, as he sat next to you resting his arm on your shoulders. “You know you’ve made me very self conscious of my own kissing abilities, right?”

You jolted yourself up, capturing his lips in yours as the both of you moved in sync, his hands resting on your hips, yours on his neck. “Loud but magnificent.” You laughed, sitting back in your original position, your head resting in his shoulder.

“Mm, if I knew you kissed like that, I wouldn’t have even let you out of my side for a second, tonight.” Fred hummed appreciatively.

It had been fairly quick until you felt your body become progressively more tired to the point you could barely hold in your yawning.

“It’s okay to sleep, love.” You heard Fred’s voice besides you. “You did drink quite a lot tonight, don’t think I didn’t notice. I’ll just carry you back to the dorm, don’t worry.”

“But you can’t get inside my room, remember?” You lazily stated, feeling your eyes close once more.

“I guess you’ll be lucky enough to sleep with me tonight.” He lightly laughed at his own comment, taking your hand in his, admiring how well the both of them fit together. “(Y/N)?” He questioned once he noticed the lack of response from your side. “Are you still awake?”

Yet, once again, you didn’t respond, the alcohol completely taking control over your body, making you fall asleep almost instantly after reminding Fred of the difficulty in entering your dorm room. The boy just shook his head, a smile playing in his lips, trying to picture back the moment you had first confessed your feelings to him. Winning the Quidditch Cup and getting the girl he had longed for so long, in the same day? This was surely a day he would remember very fondly for years to come, and he could hardly wait to share the news with his twin brother.

#fred weasley imagine #fanfic #fantastic beasts and where to find them #ron weasly imagine #hp #harry potter imagine #weasley wizard wheezes #charlie weasley #ginny weasley #fred weasley #fanfiction #hp fanfic #bill weasley #harry potter x reader #fred x reader #fred weasley x reader #george weasley imagine #writing prompt #draco fanfiction

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aprito · 3 years

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

so finally we can move to the first question

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

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

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

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

WHICH BRINGS ME TO THE SECOND QUESTION

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

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

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

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

tl;dr

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

thank you for reading and hope this makes sense!

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

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victory-red · 3 years

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why tōya being the oldest todoroki sibling makes no (or very little) sense.

Warning: Manga spoilers. Long post ahead - big paragraphs, lots of reading, and at least one (1) rabbit trail.

So I know this is old news, but I’ve been meaning to make a post about it for a little while now. I know a lot of people already headcanoned that Tōya was the oldest Todoroki sibling even before it was officially confirmed, but it just never really made sense to me, particularly in regard to Enji’s timeline. And then, after Chapter 291 came out, it made even less sense.

(A couple of quick disclaimers, before I continue: I’m not trying to pass anything off as fact. My conclusions are simply opinions based on observations I’ve made. I’ll also note that there are definitely gaps in what information we do officially have, so there is still a chance that what seems to me like a fairly significant plothole will eventually be explained.)

I’ll start with Enji - more specifically, his current confirmed age in relation to Fuyumi’s, who is the oldest Todoroki sibling whose age we do officially know. As of the current manga arc, Enji is 46 years old, and Fuyumi is 23. Since Enji’s birthday is in early August and Fuyumi’s in early December, that means that Enji was a little over 23 years old when he and Rei had Fuyumi.

From what we know of Enji’s history and personality, that seems like a reasonable age for him to have started having kids. He said in Ch. 165 that he became Number Two at age 20, at which point he immediately realized that he wasn’t ever going to be able to surpass All Might on his own. He said that it was because of this realization that he passed the torch (no pun intended) to Shōto. But, Shōto wouldn’t be born until a decade later. So, it makes sense to me that this would be the point that Enji decided it would be best to instead try having a child that could surpass All Might. In other words, it makes sense that this would be the catalyst that led to Shōto’s birth.

The most recent information we got regarding Enji and Rei’s relationship in Ch. 291 seems to be just a bit conflicting with how Shōto had described things back in Ch. 31 - unlike Shōto’s account, Ch. 291 sort of implied that Enji did care for Rei to some capacity, at least early in their marriage. (How he’s been portrayed in flashbacks recently is actually very conflicting with flashbacks from earlier chapters, and even with his entire personality in earlier chapters. But I won’t get into that - we’ll just make the assumption that Shōto’s story was biased, because it probably was.)

Since he essentially bought Rei’s family off, it only makes sense that he would have to grow to care for her over a period of time - you know, maybe like a year or two. I’m not sure how long the entire Quirk Marriage process took, but factoring in the 9 or so months Rei had to carry Fuyumi before she was born, it makes sense that after Enji’s realization upon attaining the Number Two title, the entire process of creating the plan of having hyper-powerful children, finding a suitable partner, buying her family off, marrying her, and having their first child would take anywhere between two to three years. That would mean that he was 20 when the process started, 22 when Rei got pregnant, and 23 when Fuyumi was born. Boom.

(Frankly, even that timeframe seems a bit compressed to me, but since Enji’s and Fuyumi’s ages are both canonically set in stone, I have no choice but to work with it.)

Tōya canonically being older than Fuyumi begins to screw a lot with the timeline - especially taking into consideration what the implied age gap between them is. I unfortunately can’t find where (or if) this is explicitly stated in the manga, but the wiki says that most Quirks develop around the age of 4. Now, it’s entirely possible that Tōya was born with his Quirk, but given Rei’s constitution, I highly suspect that there would have been severe complications with both her pregnancy and Tōya’s birth. It also makes sense that if he had developed his Quirk at an exceptionally young age, there would have been some note made of it. But since neither of those things are mentioned to have happened, we’ll just assume he was between 3 and 4½ years old when his Quirk manifested.

I don’t know how long afterward it took for Enji and Rei to decide to have another baby, but I can’t imagine that the decision took any longer than several months. I’ll be conservative and say that they decided no longer than a few months after Tōya’s Quirk developed, because remember - Enji literally, canonically cannot be any older than 23 when Fuyumi was born. Jumping 9 months forward from that time, Tōya would most likely have been between 4 and 5 years old when Fuyumi was born.

Now I will note that in the top panel, Tōya looks to me to be between 4 and 6 years old, which was presented as being before Fuyumi’s birth. But in the lower one, where he’s crawling over to look at baby Fuyumi (or at least I think that’s what’s happening? It’s a bit dark to tell for certain), he looks a lot younger - in fact, he doesn’t even look to have the white streak in his hair yet. But given how it’s explained that Enji and Rei even came to the decision to have Fuyumi at all, it doesn’t make a whole lot of sense contextually. But, I’ll let it be and just assume that the manga didn’t present those panels chronologically. It could also be the zoomed-out view that makes Tōya seem smaller. Either way, I’m overanalyzing, and that’s sort of off-topic, anyway.

Okay, I think that’s all the setup I need to finally get to the meat of my argument, which I will start with this: If Tōya is anywhere between 4 and 5 years older than Fuyumi, that means that Enji was anywhere between 18 and 19 years old when Tōya was born.

In any other situation, that might make sense, but here’s the thing: it’s already been established, or at least very heavily implied, that Enji didn’t even consider the possibility of having children to surpass All Might until he attained his Number Two status, which as I’ve already mentioned happened when he was 20. Even if Tōya was only 3 years older than Fuyumi, which doesn’t make much sense because he would then have had to develop his Quirk at age 2 or younger, that still would mean that he was conceived before Enji even became Number Two.

If that doesn’t make sense to you, think of it this way: If Enji was between 18 and 20 years old when Tōya was born, that would mean that Tōya would have been conceived when Enji was 17 at the youngest - still a student, unless he graduated early. Regardless, that also implies he would have had to create his elaborate plan to beat All Might, as well as find and marry Rei, before he even graduated secondary school. Given what information we have from canon, that just does not make any semblance of sense.

As compelling that argument alone may or may not be, there are others to support it as well. Let’s consider what that implies for the age gaps between Tōya and the other Todoroki siblings. If he’s 3-5 years older than Fuyumi, that means he’s roughly 7-9 years older than Natsuo and 10-12 years older than Shōto. That would mean, if Shōto were between 5 and 6 years old in the following panels, Tōya would be anywhere between 15 and 18 years old. Fuyumi would be between 10 and 13, and Natsuo would be between 8 and 11.

While I understand that Tōya inherited Rei’s slight constitution, puberty usually begins for boys around 12 or 13 years old (although to my understanding it often starts later in Asian boys), so Tōya would likely have already begun to go through his growth spurt by this age. Even assuming that Natsuo had started going through his own growth spurt, Tōya still has 7-9 years on him - so the chances that Natsuo had this much height and mass on him are pretty slim. I might be able to buy Tōya being 15 years old in those panels, but I find even that a bit of a stretch.

And finally, let’s talk about how old Tōya was when he “died.”

Assuming that the second panel is the most recent (halfway decent) photo the Todorokis have of Tōya before his “death,” I’m inclined to agree with the people who have pointed out that his clothes resembled a junior high school uniform, similar to what Midoriya and Bakugō were seen wearing in the story’s earliest chapters and episodes. Junior high school in Japan is attended by students between the ages of 12 and 15, roughly - so it’s safe to assume that Tōya was no older than 15 years old when he “died.” However, I will note that given how Horikoshi draws most of the 15-year-old male characters in the story, he does look younger than that to me. I am keeping in mind that Tōya was mentioned to have had a slight build - even as Dabi, he still does - so there is the possibility that my conclusions there aren’t accurate.

If Tōya was 12 when he “died,” Shōto would probably not have any memories of him at all - at the time of his “death,” he would have been anywhere between 2 years old and a newborn. It’s implied in the manga and the anime that Tōya disappeared sometime after Rei burned Shōto’s face, which undoubtedly happened after Enji had begun to train him - so, likely well after he had turned 5. In the somewhat unlikely event that his face was burned while he was still 5 years old, Tōya would have been between 15 and 18 years old, as mentioned above. If it had happened when Shōto was 7, he would have been between 17 and 20, and so on. Going with the junior high school uniform theory, which honestly seems rather plausible, he essentially cannot have “died” after age 15 - so, more than likely, he would have been gone before Shōto even began his training. Obviously, this is disproven by the soccer panel in Ch. 39.

Honestly, I don’t know how else to say it - no matter how I angle it, it just does not make sense to me, canonically, that Tōya is the eldest Todoroki sibling. There’s a lot of information stacked up against it, and though I’ve mulled over it for a bit now, I can’t actually think of a scenario in which it actually is a logical conclusion.

TL;DR: Tōya being the oldest Todoroki doesn’t make sense in light of information we have regarding Enji’s timeline as well as previous images we’ve seen in the manga and anime.

#bnha #mha #touya todoroki #dabi #boku no hero academia #my hero academia #todoroki family #meta #v.txt

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prettywordsyouleft · 4 years

Text

Forsaken | Part 14

Summary: As one of the Forsaken, Jinyoung had no right to covet anything as his own. When he stumbles across you standing in the middle of the village he had plundered, the memories of old make him risk it all, clutching at the past in hopes for a better future.

Pairing: Park Jinyoung x reader

Genre: warrior au / star crossed lovers / angst / romance

Warnings: death, kidnapping, cursing, a myriad of emotions - this is a really sad love story. In this particular part, there is a detailed battle scene resulting in injuries and fatalities.

Index: Prologue | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15

“They’re going to live.”

It didn’t matter how much you voiced your statement, even you were struggling to believe in it now. You had managed to escape, though there was no slowing down for some time. The air was tense, the sacrifice given for the six of you to get away from Argo and his men hung over the heads of everyone. Dusk arrived and the decision to continue onto the docks throughout the night meant there was no time to rest and recover.

You knew Mark was sporting a minor injury from combat and yet he continued as if it didn’t bother him. Perhaps it didn’t. And yet, you worried about him joining Jackson in his evident pain. Jackson travelled in and out of consciousness, letting out whines and grunts sporadically.

The plan to leave the base hadn’t seemed this grim, even when everyone had spoken about it in depth. You felt ridiculous for being so naïve. The past two days had felt more like two years in length and the waves of emotions had truly taken their toll on you.

“Rest,” Jinyoung said into your ear but you shook your head stubbornly. His arm that hadn’t shifted from around your middle curled further into you, pulling you back into his armoured torso.

You fought his instruction and sat back up, fingering the dark strands of the horse’s mane instead. “I’m staying awake.”

“Don’t resist rest when you need it.”

“No one else is resting.”

“We’re used to this,” Jinyoung refuted and you heaved a troubled breath.

“I’m not. I’m not used to this at all.”

“I know and that’s why you need to rest so you can face tomorrow as best as you can.”

“Why? When Mark’s injured and acting like it’s fine to be.”

The fellow rider glanced at the pair of you and then winced. “It’s not my first injury, Y/N. It’s just a light cut, I’ll be fine.”

“Until you’re not and then it’ll be you in the cart next to Jackson!”

“Y/N,” Jinyoung growled warningly and you tore your gaze from Mark’s stunned expression and down to the hairs you were holding within your hands. Your tears fell upon your fingers, soaking the strands. The man behind you softened at your spilling emotions, sighing heavily. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry, it’s not your fault I’m not cut out for this.”

“I don’t want you to be accustomed to any of this.”

“I’m no help to any of you. I couldn’t do anything when they surrounded us and now we have no idea if BamBam and Yugyeom are-”

“He was the spy.”

You nodded sadly. “I knew already. Jackson spoke of his suspicions.”

“And yet you are worried about him? We wouldn’t be in this mess with Argo hunting us down if it weren’t for him sharing information over the radio.”

“Of course! He risked his life for us to get this far. He could be hurt or…”

“He could be dead,” Jinyoung finished your statement. “He would have died with no regrets then.”

“I don’t want him to be gone from this world!” you admitted tearfully. “He was too young to have completed everything he was destined to.”

“Life isn’t so clear cut for us, you know that. We’re lucky to even make it to adults. Most Forsaken don’t live that long.”

“It’s all so cruel.”

Jinyoung held you more tightly. “We have each other, we have a life ahead of us that we can live in gratitude for the choices the others made for us to have this. Let’s not think so horribly anymore, hm?”

“You sound like me,” you mentioned with a watery chuckle. “It’s me who is always looking for the brighter side to everything.”

“Well, I’ve got to start trying now too.”

“Why?”

Pressing his lips to your crown, Jinyoung nestled his head into your neck. “Because I’m no longer a warrior. Just a man in love who wants to settle down with his family away from all of this.”

You smiled. “I love you, Jinyoung.”

“I love you even more, Y/N.”

You had been lulled into slumber in the early hours of the morning, the continuous movement of the horse rocking you back and forth and easing your concerns. However, you were woken with a jolt, Youngjae’s scream echoing within your mind.

Eyes now wide, you looked ahead to see the horse and cart sliding on the path dangerously, the majestic animal falling to the ground with a groan.

There laid an arrow in its chest.

“We’re under attack!” Jaebum cried as another arrow hurtled towards your convoy from the east. Jinyoung’s horse came to a stop and you leapt out of his grip, running towards the cart now on its side.

Youngjae was cradling Jackson’s head in his arms. “Is he okay?!”

“I’ll check!” you exclaimed, your hands shaking as you reached to search for a pulse. You nodded rapidly when you found it. “He’s still with us!”

Your attention turned to the new battle in front of you. It was a much smaller group, some twenty men with a battered and bloodied leader riding towards you all. Jinyoung dismounted his horse and pulled out his sword, swinging away any arrows that came his way. Mark and Jaebum brought down four attackers before running out of arrows themselves, reaching for alternative protection.

“You bother me greatly, cat.”

“Still alive, are we? I didn’t know dogs had multiple lives as well,” Jinyoung grunted, his face contorted in a deadly manner. You had never seen him look this dark and it worried you when he smiled wickedly.

The trained warrior in Jinyoung wouldn’t back down no matter what happened next.

Glancing at Youngjae and then back to Jackson, you clamped your eyes shut. You heard nothing of the pre-fight banter that occurred or the roars from Mark and Jaebum as they charged forward. You didn’t pay any mind to Youngjae crying out for clarification of what he should do.

You cleared your mind of everything, searching deep within. You faced your timid self, looking at her determinedly. She shook her head. “I cannot do this.”

“You can.”

“This is the end for us, isn’t it?” your inner voice questioned with fear. Reaching out for her, you jostled her around.

“Snap out of it, we can do this together.”

“Why are you so sure of yourself? Argo has lived. That means all those who tried to stop him have failed. The men before you are exhausted and injured. You’re just a noblemen’s daughter. That’s all.”

“I am more than that,” you voiced calmly. “I can be more than that.”

“I’m scared.”

“I need you to help me. I need you to try.”

Slowly opening your eyes with renewed clarity, you turned to Youngjae panicking beside you and put your dagger in his hand. “Protect Jackson.”

“What are you planning to do?!” he enquired desperately as you reached into the crumpled supplies for Jackson’s sheathed sword. Pulling it out, you gripped at the hilt and stood up, immediately aware of the fight coming your way. Swinging the weapon as best as you could, the blade connected with flesh. You allowed only the slightest tremble to make its way through you as you thrust the weapon at the man to ensure he wouldn’t reach Youngjae and Jackson before you continued forward.

You knew you weren’t the tidiest, but with your senses heightened, you were able to swing when you needed to attack and duck when you needed to back off. Your presence wasn’t lost on the others and Jaebum instantly flanked your side, his gaze unfaltering from the battle.

“Don’t be rash, Y/N. Only attack who comes your way.”

“Jackson cannot defend himself, I’m merely here in his place!” you exclaimed, spinning around and jabbing out fruitlessly at an enemy. Refocusing, you managed to connect with him a second time, not without him knocking your sword out of your grip in the process. You cried and this alerted Jinyoung, the man swiftly clashing swords with Argo whilst backing up towards you.

“I can do this!” you stated loudly at him, ducking at the attacker’s approach again and reaching for your discarded weapon, elbowing the man viciously. You sliced at his arm before spinning around again, striking him in his back.

“Y/N!” Youngjae screamed and you moved back now that your attacker had relented, trying to reach the cart before the enemy did.

It was too late, he aimed his sword right through the small gap of armour and into Jackson’s abdomen, Youngjae managing to make the man drop to his knees with the dagger and you swung at him and killed him on the spot.

Dropping the weapon, you pushed your hands under the amour to put pressure on the wound as Youngjae loosened the protective layer off. “He’s losing too much blood!”

“Where’s Jaebum’s kit?!”

“Y/N! They’re still coming our way! Go! I need you to give me time.”

If your clarity before had given you the drive to step forward, anguish only made you more ruthless. Your swings were more desperate yet precise, and you managed to keep the attackers away from the cart. Brushing aside the tears, uncaring of the blood you streaked over your face from doing so, you glanced back at Youngjae before running forward. There was no relent in their onslaught, the others fighting endlessly. Jinyoung was battling between Argo and his men who tried to take him down and you attempted your best to get closer to the activity, hoping to take some of the heat off of Jinyoung.

But you weren’t made to be a fighter.

Hot tears ran down your face when a man thrust his sword at your thigh, causing you to drop to the ground in pain with a cry. Before you faced further injury, Mark leapt around and took off their head in a single swing, kicking away another that came at your back. He looked at you and then back at the cart, trying to decide where you needed to be.

“I can do this!” you continued to exclaim, taking Mark’s hand and using the sword to get yourself up. Finding an inner strength you hadn’t believed possible to garner until this moment, you continued despite the searing pain.

However, you tired more easily than the men did, and once again you were knocked off your feet, this time by Argo himself.

“You are a cunning little witch. I should have taken your head off before you had the chance to speak.”

You smirked. “And you’re an absolute fool.”

“Bold words for a warrior now kneeling before me.”

“At least you see me as someone formidable to label as such,” you mentioned tiredly, blinking slowly when the man disappeared. You knew the swift shadow moving in front of you belonged to Jinyoung.

“Do not touch her!”

“Why, worried you won’t be able to keep her alive, boy? Look at her, she’s already done for. We could stop this here. You could join me and we could lead a new army.”

A clashing of swords showed Jinyoung’s response. They battled it out some more and another man jumped at Jinyoung, causing him to pause with Argo to fight him off. It was a cheap tactic and you watched in horror as Argo knocked Jinyoung down to the ground, putting his boot on top of his shoulder, grinding his toe right into him.

The wail was deafening.

“Not so powerful now, are you, kitty cat?” Argo motioned victoriously, pointing his sword at Jinyoung’s throat.

He resisted the man as best as he could but Jinyoung knew he was trapped, his gaze falling to yours. You shook your head, pleading with Jinyoung to regain that harshness to his expression that he held before. You scrambled to your feet, limping your way through the chaos towards them.

Jinyoung was losing hope.

“Good, you can watch me slay the man you love from this world. Or should I kill you first and then him? Decisions, decisions.”

You noticed how tied up both Mark and Jaebum were still, their injuries now slowing them some.

It seemed as if there was no way out.

You wouldn’t give up yet. Repositioning Jackson’s sword, you held it out at Argo. “Get off him.”

“You don’t scare me, poppet.”

“I SAID GET OFF!” you screamed, stunning all that were in the vicinity.

“Y/N,” Jinyoung said, gasping when Argo moved his foot closer to his throat. You barely tore your eyes away from the assailant to glance at Jinyoung before glaring again at Argo.

“Remember what… I said when I taught… you to fight?”

Your mind slipped back to your first lesson with a sword.

“Jinyoung, I’m not a killer.”

“I do not want to make you one but there may come a time where you need to choose to fight. What will you do if someone cuts me down?”

Gripping the sword more tightly, you looked at your situation and then at Jinyoung. He nodded. Driving Jackson’s sword directly into the foot oppressing Jinyoung’s ability to fight back, you burst into tears, knowing you had gone far enough to rest the soil underneath Jinyoung’s shoulder as well. Jinyoung smiled encouragingly despite instantly paling, whilst Argo screamed in pain and lost his footing. Argo’s sword dropped onto Jinyoung and he reached for it, immediately embedding it in his side.

And before you could move any further, a bloodied figure came into view, reaching down and sliced at Argo’s neck, his gurgles soon ceasing as the life left him.

You glanced up at Youngjae who had put an end to the tyrant before turning back to Jinyoung, his breathing coming to a halt then as well.

“No!” you wailed, cradling his limp head in your lap. “You can’t leave me. Not yet! Please stay with me!”

_________________

Part 15 (Final)

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greatworldwar2 · 4 years

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• Siegfried Line

The Siegfried Line, known in German as the Westwall, was a German defensive line built during the 1930s opposite the French Maginot Line.

The official name for German defensive line construction program before and during the Second World War that collectively came to be known as the "Westwall" (and "Siegfried Line" in English) changed several times during the late 1930s reflecting areas in progress. Border Watch program (pioneering program) for the most advanced positions, Limes Program, Aachen-Saar Program, Western Air Defense Zone, Geldern Emplacement between Brüggen and Kleve. These programs were all pushed forward with the highest priority, putting a concentrated demand on available resources. The origin of the name "Westwall" is unknown, but it appeared in popular use from the middle of 1939; there is a record of Hitler sending an Order of the Day to the soldiers and the workers at the "Westwall" on May 20th, 1939.

The Border Watch program was a series of small bunkers with 50 cm (20 in) thick walls were set up with three embrasures towards the front. Sleeping accommodations were hammocks. In exposed positions, similar small bunkers were erected with small round armoured "lookout" sections on the roofs. The programme was carried out by the Border Watch (Grenzwacht), a small military troop activated in the Rhineland immediately after the region was re-militarised by Germany after having been de-militarised following the First World War. The Limes Program began in 1938 following an order by Hitler to strengthen fortifications on the western German border. Limes refers to the former borders of the Roman Empire; the cover story for the programme was that it was an archaeological study. Its Type 10 bunkers were more strongly constructed than the earlier border fortifications. These had 1.5 m (4 ft 11 in) thick ceilings and walls. A total of 3,471 were built along the entire length of the Siegfried Line. They featured a central room or shelter for 10-12 men with a stepped embrasure facing backwards and a combat section 50 cm (20 in) higher. This elevated section had embrasures at the front and sides for machine guns. The Aachen-Saar program bunkers were similar to those of the Limes programme: Type 107 double MG casemates with concrete walls up to 3.5 m (11 ft) thick. One difference was that there were no embrasures at the front, only at the sides of the bunkers. Embrasures were only built at the front in special cases and were then protected with heavy metal doors. This construction phase included the towns of Aachen and Saarbrücken. The Western Air Defence Zone continued parallel to the two other lines toward the east, and consisted mainly of concrete Flak foundations. Scattered MG42 and MG34 emplacements added additional defence against both air and land targets. Flak turrets were designed to force enemy planes to fly higher, thus decreasing the accuracy of their bombing. The Geldern Emplacement lengthened the Siegfried Line northwards as far as Kleve on the Rhine, and was built after the start of the Second World War. The Siegfried Line originally ended in the north near Brüggen in the Viersen district. The primary constructions were unarmed dugouts, but their extremely strong concrete design afforded excellent protection to the occupants. For camouflage they were often built near farms.

Standard construction elements such as large Regelbau bunkers, smaller concrete "pillboxes", and "dragon's teeth" anti-tank obstacles were built as part of each construction phase, sometimes by the thousands. Frequently vertical steel rods would be interspersed between the teeth. This standardisation was the most effective use of scarce raw materials, transport and workers, but proved an ineffective tank barrier as US bulldozer tanks simply pushed dirt bridges over these devices. "Dragon's teeth" were blocks of reinforced concrete stand in several rows on a single foundation. There are two typical sorts of barrier: Type 1938 with four rows of teeth getting higher toward the back, and Type 1939 with five rows of such teeth. Many other irregular lines of teeth were also built. Another design of tank obstacle, known as the Czech hedgehog, was made by welding together several bars of steel in such a way that any tank rolling over it would get stuck and possibly damaged. If the contour of the land allowed it, water-filled ditches were dug instead of tank traps. Examples of this kind of defence are those north of Aachen near Geilenkirchen. The early fortifications were mostly built by private firms, but the private sector was unable to provide the number of workers needed for the programs that followed; this gap was filled by the Todt Organisation. With this organisation's help, huge numbers of forced labourers up to 500,000 at a time worked on the Siegfried Line. Transport of materials and workers from all across Germany was managed by the Deutsche Reichsbahn railway company, which took advantage of the well-developed strategic railway lines built on Germany's western border in World War I. Working conditions were highly dangerous. For example, the most primitive means had to be used to handle and assemble extremely heavy armour plating, weighing up to 66 short tons.

The Siegfried Line at the start of the Second World War had serious weaknesses. German General Alfred Jodl said after the war that it was "little better than a building site in 1939", and when Field Marshal Gerd von Rundstedt inspected the line, the weak construction and insufficient weapons caused him to laugh. Despite France's declaration of war on Germany at the beginning of the Second World War, there was no major combat at the Siegfried Line at the start of the campaign in the west, except for a minor offensive by the French. Instead, both sides remained stuck in the so-called Phoney War, where neither side attacked the other and both stayed in their safe positions. The Reich Ministry of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda drew foreign attention to the unfinished Westwall, in several instances showcasing incomplete or test positions to portray the project finished and ready for action. During the Battle of France, French forces made minor attacks against some parts of the line, but the majority was left untested. When the campaign finished, transportable weapons and materials were removed from the Siegfried Line and used in other places such as the Atlantic Wall defences. The concrete sections were left in place in the countryside and soon became completely unfit for defense.

With the D-Day landings in Normandy on June 6th, 1944, war in the west broke out once more. On August 24th, 1944, Hitler gave a directive for renewed construction on the Siegfried Line. 20,000 forced labourers and members of the Reichsarbeitsdienst (Reich Labour Service), most of whom were 14–16-year-old boys, attempted to re-equip the line for defence purposes. Local people were also called in to carry out this kind of work, mostly building anti-tank ditches. Even during construction, it was becoming clear that the bunkers could not withstand the newly developed armour-piercing weapons. In August 1944, the first clashes took place on the Siegfried Line; the section of the line where most fighting took place was the Hürtgenwald (Hürtgen Forest) area in the Eifel, 20 km (12 mi) southeast of Aachen. The Aachen Gap was the logical route into Germany's Rhineland and a main industrial area, and was therefore where the Germans concentrated their defence. The Americans committed an estimated 120,000 troops plus reinforcements to the Battle of Hürtgen Forest. After the Battle of Hürtgen Forest, the Battle of the Bulge began, starting in the area south of the Hürtgenwald, between Monschau and the Luxembourgish town of Echternach. This offensive was a last-ditch attempt by the Germans to reverse the course of the war in the West. German loss of life and material was severe and the effort failed. There were serious clashes along other parts of the Siegfried Line and soldiers in many bunkers refused to surrender, often fighting to the death. By early 1945 the last Siegfried Line bunkers had fallen at the Saar and Hunsrück. The British 21st Army Group also attacked the Siegfried Line. This Army Group included American formations and the resulting fighting brought total American losses to approximately 68,000. In addition, the First Army incurred over 50,000 non-battle casualties and the Ninth Army over 20,000. This brings the overall cost of the Siegfried Line Campaign, in American personnel, close to 140,000.

German propaganda, both at home and abroad, repeatedly portrayed the Westwall during its construction as an unbreachable bulwark. At the start of the war, the opposing troops remained behind their own defence lines. As a morale booster for British troops marching off to France, the Siegfried Line was the subject of a popular song: "We're Going to Hang out the Washing on the Siegfried Line". When asked about the Siegfried Line, General George S. Patton reportedly said "Fixed fortifications are monuments to man's stupidity." During the postwar period, many sections of the Siegfried Line were removed using explosives. In North Rhine Westphalia, about thirty bunkers still remain; most of the rest were either destroyed with explosives or covered with earth. Tank traps still exist in many areas; in the Eifel, they run over several kilometres. Since 1997, with the motto "The value of the unpleasant as a memorial" , an effort has been made to preserve the remains of the Siegfried Line as a historical monument. This was intended to stop reactionary fascist groups from using the Siegfried Line for propaganda purposes. Nature conservationists consider the remains of the Siegfried Line valuable as a chain of biotopes where, thanks to its size, rare animals and plants can take refuge and reproduce. This effect is magnified because the concrete ruins cannot be used for agricultural or forestry purposes.

#second world war #world war ii #military history #wwii #history #german history #fortification #german engineering #siegfried line #world war 2 #battle of the bulge

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kim-lexie · 3 years

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start-up

unfortunately all good dramas must come to an end, and this drama was truly a dream. i fell in love with the characters and the premise of this one, and i am saddened to say goodbye to this cast of characters.

i have also posted the nonsense that is a week-by-week to enjoy here if you wish. anyways, here we go...a drama review!

plot synopsis.

‘start up’ follows the story of a group of 20-somethings as they journey to curate their own start up business. it specifically emphasizes the story of dalmi, her past and the letters she shared with jipyeong. jipyeong, an orphan that dalmi’s grandmother, mrs. choi took under her wing. jipyeong wrote dalmi letters that truly allowed her to overcome a tough time. years after these letters, dalmi is determined to find her ‘dosan’ the name that jipyeong and mrs. choi used to sign the letters. to protect their secret they find the real dosan to meet dalmi to portray a successful start up business man. and that is where our story begins to become tangled. and one knows how a good tangled story ensues as per the k-drama fashion...

my thoughts. *spoiler alert*

dalmi, this girl is a queen. i love her determination and drive to get what she wants. i wish she wouldn’t cut herself short, but by the end you can see the growth that is undeniable. we love character development! i love how impacted she was by her dad, and that she never questioned her choice to stay in korea with her father. i loved their family’s relationship, it was precious and mutually supporting one another was an environment that allowed dalmi to believe in all the dreams she held in her heart. mrs. choi truly raised her to be confident in herself no matter her circumstances.

jipyeong (to be referenced as hjp as well) my man. this man stole my heart. his backstory with mrs. choi was beautiful and i think he had the most character development in this drama. from how he acted at the start, to when they reconnected later, mrs. choi extended grace and never wavered in her love and support for jipyeong. it was endearing and heart breaking, because hjp had never experienced that from a family of his own until he was accepted by mrs. choi. i think this grace and mutual understanding was especially prominent when dosan and dalmi greeted mrs. choi at her new shop in one of the last episodes, after dosan had returned from america. as soon as she greeted them she knew that her jipyeong would be lonely and went straight for him to comfort him and support him in his grief. his character was honest, and unwavering once he found his goal. honestly, in everything else in the drama he faced he was determined and goal oriented however, when it came to dalmi he always second guessed himself. he was always so sure of his business but when it came to the close relationships around him he always questioned his worth. this would be his tragic downfall. but this is where we find a new jipyeong at the end of the drama and we appreciate character development. *insert slow clap for our hjp*

dosan this man, honestly nam joohyuk was the reason i was initially interested in this drama. i love him and i was surprised when i found that he was not my favorite character. dosan was always unsure of himself and those around him, he immediately latched on to dalmi when he found her because of that confidence she radiated (can’t blame him because eventually he found that in himself). i wish he had been honest with her. so i know it is typically k-drama fashion to start a relationship based on a lie, still i am never happy when it happens in my drama. seriously by the end of this drama i was totally team hjp and i seriously cannot help but think back to the fact that if hjp had been honest at the beginning he may have ended up with dalmi. like come on. my heart is too fragile for this nonsense. i do appreciate that dosan, right after reading her letters ran straight after her without wavering. but if he loved her authenticity from the letters, why did he not give her the same benefit by being up front with her?

the samsan tech crew. i loved this trio. they were ICONIC. chulsan a precious bean and i loved the relationship we got to see between chulsan and saha. i loved how their relationship developed and she totally fell head over heels for this man with his coding and caring self. because i clearly did not get the happy ending i wanted for dalmi and hjp, at least this ship went off sailing. i also came to love yongsan’s character, he seemed fishy at first when they went to sandbox however it quickly came to light why it was so. i loved that through all of this there was character development and accepting the things that you can’t change and wanted to change the things you had control over.

sandbox, a place where dreams came to be birthed and reach their unlimited potential. i loved that it all started with sun-hak the ceo of sandbox who was inspired by dalmi’s father’s story about wanting to protect his daughter when she was learning to swing, and he put sand down so she wouldn’t be afraid of falling. it was so perfect, and that is exactly what sandbox became for them, a place for these small companies to get their footing to grow. i love the relationship that sunhak had with jipyeong and how they supported these young businesses.

this makes an interesting juxtaposition for injae’s company, (injae is dalmi’s sister) to come in next to. nature morning is run by injae’s step-father, a man who abuses start ups and exploits young talent for profit. this sets the stage for injae to want to be set free and create her own business, because as long as she is under his family name she truly cannot make a name for herself. as she leaves she is overcomes multiple difficulties that her father’s company places in front of her, but the queen that she is takes them in stride and in the end becomes the company to beat.

it was interesting to see how everyone came to be at sandbox. everyone with something to prove. and how once they were at sandbox all these crazy moments led them to their ultimate goal. their journey was not conventional but it made them stronger to overcome those moments when their company was split (frick you alex), and they had to come back together.

to take a moment that three year time gap was something. i loved that dalmi grew and became more confident as her role as a ceo to get the job done. sisters were working together and growing their companies. i also held out so much hope because jipyeong was starting to get his act together and was becoming confident in himself and his intentions towards dalmi. even going over to their house playing go-stop and making banchan with the family, tears because he never had this in his life. but you know dosan was going to show up right at that moment he was going to say something...anyways, i love that dosan kept his promise and worked on not only the app for mrs. choi but the car because of the dream they birthed before the boys left for the states. and i knew the moment our dalmi walked hours in the woods to get to dosan that it was over for my ship and it twas going to sink.

the app! oh my goodness. i love that this was their first idea for the company to help those who are unable to see. and i love that dosan was inspired by mrs. choi after overhearing her diagnosis. it was so sad to see how her vision declined throughout the show. but i am happy to see that their app was able to help her through this difficult journey.

the smart car was such a moment. a dream they had in the top of the rooftop office led to a company that was bigger than any of them. truly incredible. literally so proud of our boys for their work and dedication to their dream to better the world. loved it.

i seriously appreciated the ending of the drama and how they recapped all the moments they couldn’t fit into the few moments we had left. the living through photos we saw how they all kept their promises to each other. from dosan proposing to dalmi, chulsan and saha announcing their relationship, and even chulsan shaving his head. it was precious to see them all on this journey. i loved how we had them all going to the share holders meeting and injae and jipyeong walking in stride with them! also appreciate a full circle moment for hjp, when he sponsors a new start up connecting orphans with sponsors to help them in the difficult transition where hjp found himself with mrs. choi. (side note: i love the hint that the man who founded the start up had the same voice as young-sil, the smart device that grew on hjp throughout the drama.) (also, totally stand behind that one tweet i saw that said that the writers totally missed a major power couple moment for injae and jipyeong. because my dude and queen deserve to be happy to the fullest.)

i hope everyone enjoyed this drama as much as i did because it is definitely up there on my list of favorites from this year. i would rate it a 9.5 out of 10.

the ost.

‘future’ by non other than red velvet slays. i have this not only on my k-drama playlist but my monthly playlist. this is a bop. it is incredible, and they out did themselves with this one.

‘running’ by gaho. that montage song that had all the moments they worked so hard in fast forward. ahhhh

‘my dear love’ by suzy. her voice so angelic. and we thank our busy queen for making time to sing for the ost as well as star in the drama.

‘blue bird’ by ailee. and ‘dream’ by jamie. ballad favorites.

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