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felassan · 3 years

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Dragon Age development insights and highlights from Bioware: Stories and Secrets from 25 Years of Game Development

Some really tasty factoids here.

Cut for length.

Dragon Age: Origins

The continent of Thedas was at one point going to be named Pelledia, a name initially floated by James Ohlen

“Qunari” was a temporary name that ended up unintentionally sticking, much like “Thedas”

Mary Kirby wrote the Landsmeet. To this day, nobody understands how it works, except possibly her. If she’s “really really drunk” she can explain how it works. There’s as many words in it as Sten’s entire conversations put together

Concept art for Thedosian art - as in in-world art - draws heavily on Renaissance-era portraiture, the Art Nouveau movement, religious styles and media like stained glass, and favorite pieces from the golden age of illustrations in the early 20th century

Andrastianism in-world (art-wise) is depicted in wildly different methods depending on who in-world made the art in question. “One religion, 3 different lenses”. There’s the Chantry take, the Orlesian take and the Fereldan take; each with its own different interpretations, different mediums and different stories

The stained glass images were drawn by Nick Thornborrow for DAI, to decorate religious spaces in that game “and beyond”

irl Viking art influenced Ferelden

Greek and Italian art influenced Orlais

The book also had other insights into and anecdotes from the development of DAO, but I’ve transcribed them recently as they’re essentially the stories DG has recently been relating on the awesome Summerfall Studios DAO playthrough Twitch streams. (On those streams he provides dev commentary while Liam Esler plays through DA. The ones with DG are currently once every two weeks. Check them out! Here’s a calendar where you can check when the next one is) Instead of repeating myself I’ll just provide the link to the first transcript. From there you can navigate to the subsequent parts. Note these streams are ongoing. At this point I will also point you to a related post which is cliff notes of the Dragon Age chapter in Jason Schreier’s book Blood Sweat and Pixels.

Dragon Age II

DAO had the longest development period in BioWare history. In contrast DA2 had the shortest

Initially DA2 was going to be an expansion to DAO. A few months in EA said “Yeah, expansions like these don’t sell very well, so let’s make it a sequel.” So it suddenly became DA2 and they had to make it even bigger, although they still only had 1.5 years of time in which to do this

Production of DA2 officially lasted only 9 months, and at the time the team was still supporting live content for DAO! They finished development that January after the design team crunched all the way through the holiday period that year. Then it went to cert 9 times

The limited time they had is why the story takes place mostly in and around 1 city, and over 7 years (so it was temporal, rather than over physical distance, because a more expansive world would have taken more irl time to make)

They had no time to review even the main plot. Mike Laidlaw pitched the idea of 3 stories taking place at different points in the PC’s life, tied together by Varric’s recollections of events. DG rolled with this and made 1 presentation on the idea. This presentation was then approved and off they went

As they were writing DG realized that there was going to be no oversight and that everything was going to be a ‘first draft’. “Because nobody had time.” He sat down with the writers and said “Look, here’s the conditions we’re working under. A lot of what we’re putting out is gonna be raw. We’re not going to get the editing we need. We’re not going to get the kind of iteration we need. So I’m going to trust you all to do your best work.”

Looking back, DG has mixed feelings on DA2. “A lot of corners were cut. The public perception was that it was smaller than DAO. That’s a sin on its own.”

Despite this he thinks DA2 has some of the best writing in the series, especially character-wise. The DA2 chars are his favorite

The pace with which production progressed may in some ways have helped. “When we do a lot of revision, we often file away [as in buff off] some of the good writing as well. Somehow DA2′s whirlwind process resulted in some really good writing”

The pace meant chars landed on the writers in various stages of completion. For example Isabela was fairly defined due to appearing in DAO. In contrast Varric at the start was just that single piece of widely-shown concept art

Varric was conceived as a storyteller not a fighter. His skills are talking and bullshitting. Hence the question became, so what does this guy do in combat? The direction was to make him as different as possible to Oghren, so not a warrior. He couldn’t be a dual-wielding rogue in order to differentiate him from Bela. But you can’t really picture this guy with a bow. “For a dwarf, it would probably be a crossbow. We didn’t have crossbows, or we only had crossbows for the darkspawn. And they were part of the models. We didn’t have a separate crossbow that was equip-able by the chars. They had to like, crop one off a darkspawn and remodel it. And that became Bianca” (quote: Mary Kirby)

“Dwarven mages are exceedingly rare.” [???]

If DAO was a classic fantasy painting, DA2 was a screenshot from a Kurosawa film or a northern Renaissance painting. (Here Matt Rhodes was commenting on art style)

John Epler: “In any one of our games, there’s a 95% chance that if you turn the camera away from what it’s looking at, you’ll see all kinds of janky stuff. The moment we know the camera is no longer facing someone, we no longer care what happens to them. We will teleport people around. We will jump people around. We will literally have someone walk off screen and then we will shift them 1000 meters down, because we’re fixing some bug.” John also talked about this camera stuff in a recent charity Twitch stream for Gamers For Groceries. There’s a writeup of that stream here

Designing Kirkwall pushed concept artists to the limits of visual storytelling, because it has a long history that they wanted to be present. It was once the hub of Tevinter’s slave empire, so it needed to look brutal and harsh, but it also then needed to feel reclaimed, evolved, and with elements of contemporary Free Marches culture

The initial plan was for DA titles to be distinguished by subtitles not numbers, so that each experience could stand on its own rather than feel like a sequel or continuation. (My note: New PCs in each entry make sense then when you consider this and other factoids we know like how DA is the story of the world not of any one PC). Later, DA2′s name was made DA2 in a bid to more clearly connect the game to its predecessor. For DAI they returned to the original naming convention. (My note: so I’d reckon they’d be continuing the subtitle naming convention for DA4)

DA2 was initially code-named “Nug Storm”, strictly internally

The Cancelled DA2 Expansion - Exalted March

This was a precursor to DAI

It was meant to bridge the gap between DA2 and DAI

It focused on the fallout from Kirkwall’s explosion, with Cory serving as the villain

Meredith’s red lyrium statue was basically going to infest Kirkwall and it would end up [with what would end up] the red templars taking over Kirkwall and essentially being Cory’s army

To stop him Hawke would have recruited various factions, including Bela’s Felicisima Armada and the Qunari at Estwatch, forcing Hawke to split loyalties and risk relationships in the process

It was meant to bring DA2′s story to an end and end in Varric’s death. DG was very happy with this because all of DA2 is Varric’s tale. The expansion was supposed to start at the moment Cassandra’s interrogation of him ended in the present. “And we finished off the story with Varric having this heroic death.” It tied things up and would have broken many fan hearts, something BioWare writers notoriously enjoy. But between a transition to the new Frostbite engine and the scope of DAI, the decision was made to cancel EM, work any hard-to-lose concepts into DAI, and in the process save Varric’s life. DG has talked about the Varric dying thing before

Concept art for EM explored new areas previously not depicted in the DA universe, with costumes that reflected next steps for familiar chars. Varric was going to war, what would he have worn? With Anders, if he survived DA2, the plan was to present a redeemed Warden

A char that vaguely resembled Sera in DAI was first concepted for EM. This fact was mentioned near this concept art (see the female elf) and this concept art of Bethany with the blond bob

The writers sketched out plans to end it with Hawke having the option to marry their LI. This included alternate ceremonies for party members like Bethany and Sebastian if the player opted not to wed. There was even a wedding dress made for Hawke. This asset made it into DAI (Sera and Cullen’s weddings in Trespasser). The dress can also be seen in DAI during an ambient NPC wedding after completing a chain of war table missions

The destruction of a Chantry was explored in concept art as it might have happened in EM. This idea ended up carrying over to the beginning of DAI. (My note: Lol, the idea that DA2 could have had 2 Chantries being destroyed in it 😆)

World of Thedas

Sheryl Chee and Mary Kirby started with “a disgusting little dish called fluffy mackerel pudding”. In the middle of DAO’s busy dev period one of them (they can’t remember who) found a recipe online for this, scanned in from a 70s cookbook. “I don’t understand why it was fluffy. Why would you want fluffy mackerel pudding?” MK says. “We loved it so much we included it in a DAO codex.”

This led them to create more food for Thedas, full recipes included, like a Fereldan turnip and barley stew from MK and SC’s Starkhaven fish and egg pie. The fish pie became Sebastian’s favorite. “To me it made sense for it to be fish pie because a lot of the Free Marches are on the coast”, SC says, “It was something that was popular in medieval times, so I thought, let’s make a fish pie! I looked at medieval recipes and I concocted a fish pie which I fed to my partner, and he was like ‘This is not terrible’”

For WoT the whole studio was asked to contribute family recipes which might have a place in Thedas. SC adapted these to fit in one Thedosian culture or another, including a beloved banana bread that localization producer Melanie Fleming would regularly bake to keep the DA team motivated. “Melanie’s banana bread got us through Inquisition”

DAI

It says part of DAI takes place in or near the border with Nevarra [???]

This game was aimed to be bigger than DA2 and even DAO in every conceivable way

The first hour had to do a lot of heavy lifting, tying together the events of DAO and DA2 while introducing a new PC, new followers etc in the aftermath of the big attack. DG rewrote it 7 times then Lukas Kristjanson did 2 more passes

DG: “Our problem is always that our endings are so important, but we leave them to last, when we have no time. I kept pushing on DAI: ‘Can we work on the ending now? Can we work on the ending now? Can we do it early on?’ Because I knew exactly what it was going to be. But despite the fact that it kept getting scheduled, whenever the schedule started falling behind, it kept getting pushed back... so, of course, it got left til last again.”

“The reveal of the story’s real antagonist, Solas, a follower until the end, when he betrayed the player”. “Solas’ story remains a main thread in Inquisition’s long-awaited follow-up” [these aren’t DG quotes, just bits of general text]

Over the course of development they had 8 full-time writers and 4 editors working on it. Other writers joined later to help wrangle what ended up being close to 1 million words of dialogue and unspoken text. While many teams moved to a more open concept style of work for DAI, the writers remained tucked away in their own room, a choice DG says was necessary, given how much they talked. All the talking had a purpose ofc as if someone hit a bump or wall in their writing they would open the problem up to the room

As writing on a project like DAI progresses, the writers grow punchier and weirder things make it into the game. This is especially the case towards the end of a project (they get tired, burned out)

Banter and codexes require less ‘buy-in’ (DG has talked about this concept a few times on the Twitch streams) from other designers. DG liked to leave banter for last as a reward because it was fun. Banter begins as lists of topics for 2 followers to discuss. These may progress over time or be one off exchanges. One banter script can balloon to well over 10k words. “The banter was always huge because we were always like, laughing, and really at that point, our fields of fucks were rather barren, so we would just do whatever”

The bog unicorn happened pretty much by accident. It was designed by Matt Rhodes and was one of his fav things to design. They needed horse variations and he had already designed an undead variant which was a bog mummy [bog body]. irl these are preserved in a much different way to traditional mummies. When someone dies in a bog their skin turns black and raisin-like. The examples we know of tend to have bright red hair for whatever reason. It’s a very striking look and MR wanted to do a horse version of this as he thought it’d be neat. 5 mins before the review meeting for it he had a big ‘Aha!’ moment, quickly looked up a rusty old Viking sword, and photoshopped it through its skull like that was how it died. “And I was like, ‘I just made a unicorn. Alright, in it goes!’” It got approved. “So we built the thing. It fit. It told a little story”

With the irl Inquisition longsword, one of the objects they tested its cleaving ability on was a plush version of Leliana’s nug Schmooples

The concept art team explored a wide variety of visuals for the Inquisitor’s signature mark. It needed to look powerful and raw but couldn’t look like a horrific wound. In some cases, as cool as the idea looked on paper, they just weren’t technically feasible, especially as they had to be able to fit on any number of different bodies

Bug report: “Endlessly spawning mounts! At one point during development, Inquisitors could summon a new horse every time they whistled, allowing them to amass a near infinite number of eager steeds that faithfully followed them across Thedas. “You could go charging across levels and they’d all gallop behind you,” Jen Cheverie says, “It was beautiful.” Trotting into town became an epic horse siege as a tidal wave of mounts enveloped the streets. Jen called it her Army of Ponies”

The giants came from DA Week, an internal period when devs can pursue different individual creative projects that in some way benefit DA. They also had a board game from one of these that they were going to put in but they didn’t have time. It’s referenced though. It was dwarven chess

Josie’s outfit is made of gold silk and patterned velvet, with leather at her waist. She carries “an ornate ledger” and she has “an ornamented collar sitting around her neck, finished by a brilliant red ruby, like a drop of Antivan wine in a sunbeam”

Iron Bull’s armor is leather. His loose pantaloons and leather boots give him agility to charge

On DAI in particular, concept artists took special care to make sure costumes would be realistic, at least in a practical ‘this obeys the laws of physics and textiles’ sense. “While on Inquisition, we thought about cosplay from a concept art perspective. Given how incredible a lot of [cosplays] are, I now am not worried about them. In fact in some cases in the future I want to throw them curveballs like, ‘All right, you clever bastards. Let’s see if you can do this!’”

2 geese that nested on the office building and had chicks were named Ganders and Arishonk (it wasn’t known who was the mom or the dad). Other possible names were Carver Honke, Bethany Honke, Urdnot Pecks, Quackwall, Cassandra Pentagoose, the Iron Bill, Shepbird, Garroose, Admiral Quackett, Scout Honking, HChick-47 and Darth Malgoose

Bug report: “The surprising adventures of Ser Noodles!” DAI was the first time the series had a mount feature, meaning this had a lot of bugs. A lot of the teams’ favorite bugs were to do with the mounts. There was a period of time where the Inquisitor’s horse seemed to lose all bone and muscle in its legs. They had a week or so where all quadruped legs were broken. It was a bit noticeable in things like nugs and other small beasties but the horse was insanely obvious. “The first time we summoned the horse [for this] and started running around, the entire QA exploration room just exploded with laughter.” Its legs flapped around like cooked fettucine, leading testers to lovingly nickname it Ser Noodles. At galloping speeds the legs almost looked like helicopter blades, especially when footage was set to classic pieces such as Wagner’s Flight of the Valkyries

For DAI the artists were asked questions like “What would Morrigan wear to a formal ball? Can Cassandra pull off a jaunty hat?”

On DAI storyboarding became the norm. John Epler: “Cinematic design for the longest time was the Wild West. It was ‘here’s a bunch of content, now do it however you want’, which resulted in some successes and some failures.” Storyboarding gave designers a consistent visual blueprint based on ideas from designers, writers and concept artists

Quote from a storyboard by Nick Thornborrow (the Inquisitor going into the party at the end of basegame sequence): “Until Corypheus revealed himself they could not see the single hand behind the chaos. A magister and a darkspawn combined. The ultimate evil. So evil. Eviler than puppy-killers and egg farts combined.”

A general note on concept art:

In the early stages of any project, before the concept artists are aware of any writing, they like to just draw what they think cool story moments could be. It’s not unusual for the team to then be inspired by these and fold them into the game as the project progresses

– From Bioware: Stories and Secrets from 25 Years of Game Development

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raggaraddy · 3 years

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Discipline- Hyung Line

How and why would Yandere Bangtan punish you?

Trigger warnings: Mentions of violence, mentions of abuse, descriptions of unhealthy relationships.

Alpha!Namjoon

You would find it hard to get Namjoon to react impulsively or rashly. There might be the odd look or feeling you get from him when you say or do something that he disapproves of, but he will never raise his voice or strike you. He is much too controlled for that.

However, that does not mean that your actions would not have repercussions. From the first day when he met you, he made sure to install a clear series of causes and effects. They came so gradually and his reasoning was so irrefutable that while the original you would have been disgusted at the idea of being treated like this, the you that Namjoon has crafted finds his rules and actions reasonable and necessary. They are set for your own well-being.

If you didn't eat well or drank too much, of course, Namjoon was going to scold you. He's just showing how much he cares.

You also need to be corrected when you're rude or disrespectful. Namjoon is an Alpha after all and he deserves your respect. A smart mouth, bad language, or disrespectful behaviour will earn you a time out to reflect on your choices.

And if you're bold enough to leave the house without him or without informing him, then he's made sure you know what consequences to expect. Sure, being bent over his lap like a petulant child is embarrassing, but Namjoon has shown you what kind of creatures exist in the world. It's your Mates' duty to remind you to be more mindful. Even If that means he covers you in bruises from time to time.

For every undesirable action, there exists a correction. All rules and guides are clear so you have no room to argue. If you happen to stumble into a grey area Namjoon will kindly explain your wrongdoing and inform you of the result should you re-offend. He always takes the time to make sure you fully see his reasoning as he would never want you to think he is unjust.

Although, there is one exception to this. Nobody touches you. No one makes any sort of advances towards you and you certainly do not reciprocate or tolerate those actions. That is absolute.

Like I said, he would never hit you out of rage. Another person however would not be so lucky. If you ever wanted to see the full extent of an Alpha's power, just blush or smile when that cute delivery boy asks for your number. Sure, he might lock you in a room and throw away the key, but seeing an Alpha shift in an open plan office is a once in a lifetime event.

King!Seokjin

This is a tricky one to answer because Seokjin isn't looking for a rhyme or reason to hurt you. He just will regardless of any behaviour.

If there are little failures or mistakes he will certainly utilize them for the chance to be extra cruel, however as mentioned, he doesn't need them as justification.

There is still plenty you could do to madden him. He is a King first and foremost and he will not tolerate any kind of disrespect or disobedience. Doing so would absolutely be an easy start to evoking his anger.

Jin is also not impetuous, everything he does, he does with purpose. So when he does hurt you in response to something you have done he can be truly poetic in the methods he chooses.

You dropped and smashed a cup? He'll use the pieces to cut you.

Did you interrupt him? He'll fill that mouth with one thing or another. Don't worry, he doesn't need you to speak anyway.

You did something as foolish as to refuse or fight him during one of your sessions? That's fine. The nearest servant will take your place. Let's see if you can endure their screams and cries, while he continually reminds them and you that their pain is your fault.

Assassin!Yoongi

How would he punish you? He has basically one method. Very simply, he would lock you away. He isn't looking to deal with any bullshit. So if you want to act up, fine. He'll just throw you in your room until he is ready to deal with you again. If you especially irritate him and he wants to make a point or really dissuade your behaviour from happening again he'll chain you in the basement. A two-meter chain, a toilet and a tap for water. With that and soundproof walls, he knows he'll have at least 2 weeks of quiet before you start to properly starve to death and he has to take you out.

Why would he punish you? That is less simple. His moods change too often for there to be any one answer.

You might have been too energetic, or maybe you weren't matching his excitement and it disappointed him. It could be that you were frustrating him by not participating and conversing when he wanted. Or maybe he was just feeling annoyed because he was hungry and tired.

Honestly, Yoongi doesn't know in the slightest what he wants, and while he doesn't truly expect you to be able to, he demands you anticipate his ever-shifting whims. He took you to be useful to him. So he sees it as your job to figure out what he wants, not his job to teach you.

Like when he told you he wanted you to be more proactive and initiate sex. That didn't mean that you could just choose any moment to come to him and offer to make the both of you feel good. No, it was important to wait until the exact moment Yoongi was also in the same temperament. And to make sure you approached him in the way he wanted. And to say the things he liked.

The only thing you can ever be sure of with Yoongi is that because you spend all your time trapped with only him, you will be locked away hating him while obsessing over ways to make him happy. Wishing you could be near him just to have some form of contact with another person.

On the rare occasions when you do see his true anger, it's good to keep in mind that he is a professional killer. He isn't phased with shooting you and leaving you to see if you survive.

Vampire!Hosoek

Like Jin, Hoseok is someone who revels in the pain and suffering of others. Hoseok however is less concerned with formality, obedience, or rules. Fight. Cry. Beg. Scream at him. Tell him how much you hate him, how much you wish he would die. He doesn't care. In fact, he enjoys it. It spurs him on.

There is nearly nothing you could do to truly anger him. Everything is a game for him, everything's fun. And you're his favourite toy. So when you fuck up, it's just another chance for him to play with you.

The only thing he is serious about, the only thing he is possessive of, is your blood. He has made it clear many, many times that that is his. His to drink and his to spill. Get so much as a papercut by yourself, or accidentally bite your tongue and he'll be utterly offended that you robbed him of something that should have been his. Not just the loss of blood either, but that he wasn't able to enjoy the sounds and faces you made as you injured yourself. And how dare you rob him of a moment that should have been his.

If any other person were to hurt you, purposefully or accidentally, or god forbid if any other Vampire tried to drink your blood.... well you would think Hoseok was downright gentle with you when you saw the things he did to them.

#yandere #yandere bts #yandere bangtan #yandere hoseok #yandere namjoon #yandere seokjin #yandere jin #yandere rm #yandere jhope #yandere yoongi #yandere suga #bangtan #bts #bts reactions

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sunlightwoo · 3 years

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Come Back Home

☀︎ pairing: hidden king!Sunwoo x queen!fem.reader

☀︎ genre: there’s fluff for a small part of this, but there is more angst because of the inspo that I got this idea from hehee. WARNING: there are mentions of blood, wounds, and killing in terms of it being a war and a major character death will happen in this.

☀︎ wc: 4.7k

☀︎ plot: The king that the people see in the kingdom that is ruled by him is not the true king, but rather someone else. However, when the life of the king that has been playing the role for his friend’s life is endangered at the stake of a war, what will Sunwoo choose when he knows that he’d have to come back home to you unscathed somehow?

☀︎ a/n: i’ve had this idea back when the music video dropped for Come Back Home by Oneus last july, and loved it as this plot has been collecting dust since then from the switching and changing characters to stopping the kingdom come series that this originally would’ve been for. however after watching the road to kingdom stages i thought that this was fitting after their mama stage too and decided to post it for Sunwoo. anyways happy sunwoo day and hope you guys enjoy this one!!

[ gina is listening to: Come Back Home - Oneus ] [ the spinoff ]

Here comes the king!, the familiar four words that he was used to hearing all the time when he looks over to the man that was walking towards the throne that was on the other side of the ballroom. He watches from a balcony up above, watching the grand man closely as he waited for today’s round of laws to pass by for today.

As though, he was the true king after all hiding in disguise.

His eyes are cast upon his companion, Juyeon who regally sits on his throne for him and connects a short gaze as he goes on with his day helping him out with more laws to go through and be signed. The reason for it; his own safety from the general public.

Ever since the early days of the previous king and queen’s announcement of the regal heir that was yet to take over their place when they passed, nobody knew who the individual was as it was kept a secret in fear that the enemies would use him as a leverage. It was up until he had turned the age of 18, a month after a war that his parents bravely fought in and died in honor of the kingdom that he had to step up and play the role of the king.

However, he couldn’t risk his own identity just yet because he knew that there were enemy lines speculating his friend’s true identity. Hence why he had never revealed his true identity as the king with the royal bloodline that ran in his name, nor had he acted like he was the king whenever he was in the castle since he disguised himself as the royal guard to keep an eye out on the front lines of the kingdom.

Until he had met you.

It was quite coincidental that you, the adopted sibling sister of a friend of Juyeon’s, had walked into the office one day to overhear their plans of making Juyeon play the role as the king until his time was done and you were the least to say shocked. Your reaction to finding your brother negotiating with the true king, Sunwoo, was rather confusing considering you had no other input towards the matter after being in the same room as the man that you had thought to be the royal guard.

Truth be told, you had always thought of him very highly from afar as you thought that for a person that had such high standards and sight in the kingdom, he was rather playful and had lots of charisma for someone that was raised as a king in secret. It took him three months since then to finally court you and eventually marry after having to somehow find a way to have you be Juyeon’s fake queen for the kingdom to rely on when they needed one.

All of the plans were perfectly planned to the brim and executed well, where Sunwoo was rather happy with where he was in the present today, even if he had to hide in secret like he was at the moment on a balcony. It wasn’t until hours later when Juyeon finishes that he looks out the window, noticing how the sun was already on the brink of sundown that he remembers today’s plans with you as he rushes to your bedroom almost immediately.

He makes it into your bedroom after knocking first, hearing a soft hum to allow him inside while he enters to see you sitting on your balcony with a smile on your face as you look at him. Sunwoo lets out a soft chuckle at your idea of a date for this evening as he walks over to where you were sitting on top of a blanket that you had prepared, a quiet picnic just for you two to enjoy.

“You seemed to have remembered about our date this time.” You say as he playfully rolls his eyes at your words and the raised eyebrow look that you were currently giving him.

The golden yellow hues of the sun setting were perfectly reflecting against Sunwoo’s skin, you thought to yourself, as you admired how he looked at this hour. You weren’t sure how you had gotten lucky with having to marry the king, as you were once a noble woman that came from a family that wasn’t as well off as the other ones that you had known of. However you could recall that night when he was supposed to pick who he had wanted his queen to be, as though the flower festival of the week for him to get to know all the other women had been tossed to the side as he chose you that night.

“I was helping Juyeon wrap up the last of the laws that had to be seen out tonight. Have I kept you waiting long?” He asks sitting as you shook your head in response, smiling as he already found purchase in laying his head into your lap, curling his body up into a ball as you were finding yourself playing with his hair out of habit.

“Long enough for my stomach to grumble because I wanted to be nice and wait for you,” You grin and look down at him as he was already staring back up at you with a soft smile on his face, “But I guess I can make some exceptions for you, your majesty.”

For whatever reason it may be, whether it was the stars and fate or even the coincidences that you both were given, Sunwoo felt as though everything was perfect even if it may be a bit misfortunate on his end. Although he could not properly tell the world that you were his, he knew that he was still yours in moments like these when it was just you two and the golden hues of the sun that were setting on you both.

“I love you.”

His random confession of love takes you off guard while heat is already rushing to your cheeks as you look at him, looking into his lovestruck eyes that were boring right into your very own gently but deeply. You think that this must be what it was like to fall in love with your soulmate, feeling happy that Sunwoo was the one person that you could only want in this life and the next. However, it had caught you off guard because he was rather someone that showed his love language through touch instead of words of affirmation, which made you confused at the sudden confession.

“I love you too, my love. Why the sudden confession?” You say to him teasingly with an undertone of confusion, continuing to play with his hair as he lets out a soft breath while holding your hands that were now no longer playing with it.

“Moments like today makes me really want to tell you, rather than just showing you that I do since I don’t say it enough. I love you, Y/N, and I’d rearrange the stars and the universe into your eyes and heart if I could to show you that I do.” He says, leaving small kisses right on your knuckles until he reaches your ring finger and leaves a soft, but lingering kiss right on the ring that he had proposed to you with just about a year or two ago.

There was a warm feeling in your chest as his hand was still holding onto yours, as if you were to leave at any moment now but you felt like you were at home. With him you felt like you were continuously falling in love with him more than the last sunset, and with the warm golden hues that the sun was giving off at this time, you wouldn’t want to be anywhere else if it wasn’t with him by your side.

“Cheesy.” You mumbled jokingly and suddenly felt your weight being shifted to where you were now sitting in his lap, his arms wrapping around your waist securely as he rests his head on top of your shoulder so that you wouldn’t go anywhere.

“That may be true, but you love it anyways,” He says while grinning widely and you turned your head to give him the same look that you always gave him when he started to get greasy, up until he suddenly steals a kiss from your lips that made you blink from the spontaneous act.

“Come on, let’s finish up the food before it gets too cold and the sun leaves us alone in the dark.”

He was the gift that you never expected to receive in your life.

Today you felt as though there was a heavy feeling on your chest. You were currently sitting at the throne next to Juyeon, listening to your scribe explain to you what has been going on with the surrounding kingdoms around you both from the last few weeks and you could’ve sworn that you were going to give out from boredom right in that moment.

It was one of the rare occasions that you had to be seen with Juyeon, considering you had finished up your financial affairs with the ambassadors that came from those foreign kingdoms days ago after your picnic date with Sunwoo. However you weren’t sure what this could mean for the future of your own kingdom, considering the events of then did not exactly end up on completely good terms.

“Your majesties!”

The sound of the door being barged open to the chambers echoed as the person who had interrupted your meeting, not that you had minded, came in rushing in with hurried feet. You notice Juyeon rise to his feet with a stern look on his face and grabbed his wrist as it made him turn to look at you with a confused look, however you made a small notion for him to leave it as a gesture of boredom was passed onto him from the thoughts that were forming in your head.

Your eyes turn back to the individual rushing in and you noticed that it was one of your generals and good friends, Changmin, and you knew that he wouldn’t have arrived frantically if it weren’t an emergency. His eyes screamed urgency as he attempted to catch his breath and you were almost concerned for how crazed he had seemed, which meant that this was bad.

“King Hyunjin has declared war on us.” He breathes out and there was silence as your stomach churned at the words he had mentioned.

War.

You were almost certain that you had been allies with the kingdom that King Hyunjin had ruled, knowing that he had been a good friend of yours with the rest of the Hwang family. However, an unexpected war seemed almost conspired as you turned to look at Juyeon with a scared look on your face. He seems almost taken aback had he not composed himself from the sudden news, eyes looking off to a distance that you knew was a hidden balcony for Sunwoo to sit in and listen.

But there was no telling what the two could think of, because it was all so sudden.

“Did he say why, or have sent for someone that he wants to declare a war?” You say while standing up from where you were sitting, not caring about how improper you might’ve seen at the moment because of how fast your mind was already racing at the speed of light.

It wasn’t until he motions for you to go with him that you realize it must’ve been even more serious, and you could only assume the worst from the situation. Bidding a muttered excuse from Juyeon and the scribe, you head out of the royal chambers to head out and walk with Changmin towards your office quarters knowing that you could only get privacy there, even with the rambling inevitables that were making you spiral from how anxious you were progressively getting.

With the door shut behind you, you noticed that Sunwoo had already met you there as he stood in front of the chairs that were in front of your desk with his arms crossed in front of his chest. Both of you looked over towards where Changmin was still looking distressed and it wasn’t until he locked eyes with you that you knew why.

“He knows about Sunwoo’s true status, doesn’t he?” You whisper quietly and he nods in response, nervously looking between you both with so much stress that you could’ve sworn he would’ve exploded right then and there in front of you.

“He wants the war to happen in a week’s time.” Changmin whispered, and that was when the atmosphere fell into a deadly silent room, if it were even possible from how much tension that was also being put into it.

Sunwoo’s identity wasn’t meant to be exposed, which was why you felt a wave of emotions that included fear and betrayal from how someone would stoop so low that they would risk a king’s life for their own. You knew that, and there was also the acknowledgement of Sunwoo having the urge to leave as well knowing that his pride wouldn’t let him just sit back and let the war happen because of him.

However you had your reasons this time around for him to not leave, and you were adament on him not leaving, especially after Changmin mumbles to himself that he was going to dismiss himself after the loud silence engulfing the atmosphere.

“Sunwoo, you can’t go out there into the war, no matter how serious it may be.” You say, sternly looking at him the moment that Changmin shuts the door behind him while crossing your arms in front of your chest assertively.

“Y/N, I know you’re scared-”

“No, I mean it this time, Kim Sunwoo. At all costs, I’m not going to let you go out there and risk your life dying, when you could be safer here. What if going out there is a trap to get you to get into your coffin?” You retort and you could tell that he was thinking about it from how quiet he was being.

The war was due in a week’s time, and only time could tell what could happen in a span of a week because of everything. You blink for a second to realize that Sunwoo is walking up to you with a heavy heart in his hand, the same hand that cups your face momentarily before stroking your cheek for a moment and it took everything in you to not give into his warm and gentle touch. No matter how much you loved him, you still had to stand your ground and be selfish by telling him to not go.

“I won’t go, only because I love you.” He concludes, making your heart feel a bit at ease in the moment as you looked into his eyes for that clarity that he had meant it.

However it was in the time that he kisses you with the same amount of love and passionate that you were so used to feeling everyday that surpassed all the negative thoughts and placed them onto a shelf. He was here now, the kiss seemed to express, and you wanted to hold onto that grain of hope that was filling into your thoughts, but you could only wish that it were true until then.

“I love you too, idiot. Just stay here a little longer… with me.”

“Do you think she’d actually let me go?”

Sunwoo looks over to Changmin with a pained look on his face, one that expressed how dangerous the plan that they had in mind was going to be, but it had to be done. It had been three days into the war that King Hyunjin had declared onto your kingdom and it wasn’t until one of the soldiers that was a close friend of theirs, Jacob, had come back scathed to tell that Juyeon had been killed off after being ambushed during the first night full of snow.

“I don’t think we have a choice… He won’t stop killing our numbers, unless you’re there.” Changmin says as the written paper that was in Sunwoo’s hand felt heavier than earlier.

The written note that he recognized to be Hyunjin’s handwriting demanded that he should show up, along with the additional information that had passed on by Changmin that he had Juyeon at hostage in the snow. The thought of his friends’ lives being put on the line of life and death made him sick and guilty, knowing that this war was specifically targeted towards him and that he wouldn’t be able to do anything if he were to stay back and watched it all happen from the sidelines as he usually would.

“Give me an hour and I’ll meet you outside with my gear.” Sunwoo mumbles almost inaudibly, avoiding the eyes of his best friend with his head in his hands as he could hear him let out a hum in response, feet heading towards the door of Sunwoo’s office while leaving.

In that moment, he felt as though he had just been set up for inevitable death. There were hundreds of thoughts as to how betrayed he had felt about the fact that the war was happening, along with the mourning emotions that filled his heart because he knew that Juyeon might die because of him. However there was still you, who was still waiting for him to fall asleep with you in bed because it was nearly three in the morning.

He was fearful, scared of the fact that he would lose you in the end of all this.

He knew that you didn’t want him to go because he would leave you alone with a king to rule by your side, and that wasn’t seen to be fit for any kingdom whatsoever considering it would be considered unruly. Yet he also felt as though he had to go off and stop the war once and for all against Hyunjin, to find the real answer as to why he was so insistent on exposing Sunwoo’s status to the rest of the kingdom as it was.

The stuff that Sunwoo would’ve needed was just in the room next to his office with a letter that was ready to be addressed to you, everything already having been packed since the first day of war in case Juyeon had died, and he felt his chest grow heavy at the thought of it. He gets up from where he sits in his office to head over towards the room when he flickers on the light to see you standing next to all of his packed gear with the letter opened in your hand.

“You almost forgot something.” You mumbled quietly and tossed him a small item that was in your hand over towards him, and it was the sight of it that made his heart drop into his stomach as you were already on your way to leave the room.

“Love, wait-”

“When were you going to tell me that you were leaving, Sunwoo? Before or after I had found out that you took off the ring and left without another word?”

The ring that was in his hand was accompanied by the one that he had once placed on your hand, both small objects having such a large impact on how everything was going downhill from here and it was like he was caught red handed. You were beyond livid at the fact that he had taken off the ring in the first place when you had gotten up to get a drink of water, seeing as though a letter of his writing saying that he had to make things right had accompanied it, and you felt it get worse as your thoughts were everywhere because of the anger and hurt that you were ready to unleash onto him.

“I thought we trusted each other enough to the point where we could tell anything, Sunwoo, but you lied to me. You said you weren’t even going to leave, but here you are getting ready to go ahead and hurt yourself because you’re scared-”

“I’m not scared of anything-”

“Then let’s just skip our excuses and divorce, if you’re willing to give up your ring so fast.”

Tears had already been glossing in your eyes as the evident twisted pain in your heart was pounding loudly in your chest, your breath not even wavering in the slightest as you looked at him. In his eyes, he felt as though he had already been stabbed in the heart because of those three simple words, because he never would’ve thought that you would actually want to divorce him after everything that the two of you had gone through.

“You wouldn’t-”

“Then don’t leave me here alone without you,” Your voice cracked, tears finally streaming down your face as you could already feel yourself slowly breaking away from the fact that he was going to go anyways.

“If you leave right now, then don’t bother coming back home if you lived to see the light of day.”

Sunwoo wants to reach out to you, to wipe away the tears that were falling down the apples of your cheeks because of the pain that he had caused. He wants to tell you that he was going to make it home safely and that he promises to come home, but he couldn’t find it within himself to hold such an empty promise as he moves almost past you to hoist his bag over his shoulder and turns to look at you with a heartbroken expression on his face.

He takes in every inch of your face one last time, every curvature that he has kissed once in this lifetime and the eyes that he came to love every time that they looked at him with such love, outlasting the entire galaxy and universes that could possibly shine brighter than yours. With a heavy breath that brushes past his lips, he walks over to you with a shaky movement of his hands holding your cheeks with fragility, fear as he is scared for himself.

He knew was going to lose you to the universe in this life, and he doesn’t want you to be taken away from him.

With a final kiss against your lips, he lets out a final breath as he leaves while placing both rings into your hands as he closes the door behind him, blocking out the sobs that he was able to hear from you in the closed room that he just left. He meets with Changmin outside on his own stallion and leaves with him as the two went off into the wintery night to where the war was yet to be finished in this night of time.

He didn’t even say ‘I love you’, when he had left for good.

“Y/N, we need you to make an announcement today.” You hear Chanhee, one of your close friends say from behind you and there was a beat of silence as you were staring off past your window to look at the crowd of people gathered in front of the palace.

“He’s going to come home soon, I know it.” You muttered back, more toned to convince yourself that he was actually coming back as you hugged your stomach closely to yourself.

A week has gone by since he had left, you noted to yourself since then as you had been awake for endless nights waiting for the soldiers to come back home; at least someone to make sure that they were alive. You grew anxious as you fumbled with the necklace that was around your neck, a simple string with a wedding band attached to it as the growing fear of him actually not making it back home continued to settle in your stomach.

It was over, you remember hearing as the scribes from Hyunjin’s kingdom had come to say as you were on the edge waiting for any sign of life. However, nobody has come home as you could feel the tears prick at the corners of your eyes. He had to be alive, you tried to convince yourself as you turned to look at Chanhee, who had been giving you a solemn expression on his face with something in his hand.

“Y/N…”

The feeling of dread suddenly fills your heart as you noticed that the letter in his hand was addressed to you in a familiar handwriting, one that you never wanted to see once again. There was a sharp intake of a breath that you made, realizing what it must’ve been considering there were blood stains on it as you looked up at the latter with teary eyes.

“Changmin was the only survivor… He came back home last night when you slept, and wanted me to give you this.” Chanhee says, walking over towards you with caution as you glanced between both him and the letter.

He leaves you alone in the room with the letter in your hand, your own instincts debating on whether or not you should open it as you knew what this had meant. Your hands were shaky as the weight of the light parchment felt heavy in your own possession, not wanting to open the blood stained letter that can only mean one thing.

Sunwoo’s last words.

The moment that he had written them was one of the most unforgettable memories that he would definitely remember in his next life. The night that he had faced Hyunjin in the snow, the strength that he gathered from the anger of seeing his friends and soldier’s brave deaths because of him, he went down in pride and in pain knowing that he had used you as a way to unleash the last few moments of life and death between the war.

“It’s a shame that you won’t be able to see your beloved queen again, Kim. Maybe she’d be better if she were with me, wouldn’t it?” Hyunjin’s words taunt him just as Sunwoo finally paints his blood onto the snow, his breaths uneven as he finishes him off and looks at his lifeless eyes staring back at him.

“Never in a million years, will I ever lose to you again, Hwang.”

Sunwoo stumbles back to his tent, seeing Changmin already there healing and his friend was ready to treat his injuries when he shakes his head in response. Both Changmin and Sunwoo share a glance of unspoken words that were exchanged, until Sunwoo grabs a sheet of parchment and ink to write down everything that he had been meaning to say to you even if he was bleeding out on that winter morning.

“Sunwoo, you have to save your energy and let me-”

“I’m bleeding out too much, Changmin… Just let me do this and die in peace,” Sunwoo murmurs, already feeling his life being taken away from him as he grew weaker while ending his letter that was supposed to be addressed to you.

“Just make sure that she gets this.”

To you who has always been the golden highlight of my life, the hues of love and adoration in the confinements of the yellow sun to my dark shades of the moon…

I knew what I had forgotten that night., and I should’ve said it before leaving.

I’m not coming back home, my love… and I’m sorry.

We won, and I know that if I were to see light of day tomorrow, you would still let me in despite the fact that you probably hate me at the moment. But you have my ring and that’s all that matters, because only Changmin will come home, and I made him promise that he would take care of you no matter what.

You don’t need a king to prove that you are strong, Y/N, and I know that you are the greatest queen that this kingdom will be ruled under, because you are the strongest person that I’ve ever met in my life.

I don’t regret loving you, marrying you, spending all of our picnics in the hues of the golden sunset in secret, because I knew that I was yours, just like you knew that you were mine.

But don't miss me too much, please. For us.

And I knew what I forgot to say,

I love you.

We will meet again.

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hatterstan-shameblog · 3 years

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💫✨💕send this to ten bloggers you think are wonderful. keep the game going 💕✨

Have a nice day/night/dance battle with the peacocks! :D

Alright, since you are a) very cool and fun and b) you took the time to send such a lovely message, I’m going to give you a part of a fic series I started many moons ago and abandoned for other things

🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸

Hatter Has Definitely Kissed Every Executive At Least Once And This Is How It Went: Ann Edition

🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸

Rating: PG-13

Tags: Alcohol, shenanigans, everyone’s cutting loose, mild reluctance (but these people don’t turn down dares so y’know)

Summary: As a “team building” exercise, all of the Executives have met for a little get-together; and with alcohol and a rousing game of “truth or dare” involved, what could possibly go wrong?

“Ann,” Chisiya says, “truth or dare?”

Ann sighs. Her red-lacquered fingernails tap rhythmically against the green of a beer bottle, the glassy sound barely audible above the chatting of the half-drunk executives.

“I already told you, I’m not playing.”

“The fuck you aren’t,” Niragi snaps, grip on his rifle tightening as he downs another shot of vodka, “no skips, that’s the rule.”

“If I had to do it, you have to do it,” Keiichi offers mournfully, taking a sad sip of bourbon from a crystal-cut glass, “it’s only fair.”

Ann turns her attention towards Hatter. He’s taking a healthy swig from—ew, is that a bottle of peppermint schnapps? She wrinkles her nose in disgust as he raises his eyebrows in a suggestive arch.

“This is a terrible idea,” she tells him for the fourth time in the last hour, “and you should feel bad for making us do this.”

“Ann. Sweet, darling,” Hatter takes note of her unimpressed grimace, “angry Ann. This is all an exercise in trust. A way for all of us executives to bond.”

“And because he loves the drama,” Aguni adds.

“I really do,” Hatter says wistfully, “So, come on. One round and then you can go back to summoning demons or whatever you do in your little basement crypt.”

Ann sighs. Everyone is looking at her with expectant eyes. She finishes the rest of her beer and puts the empty bottle on the table.

“Fine,” she says, “One round, and then I’m leaving.”

“The ice queen giveth in,” Chisiya says, the corners of his mouth turning up onto a mischievous grin, “So, pick your poison. Truth...or dare?”

“Dare,” Ann says coolly, and the room erupts. Even Last Boss, who had been lurking in the corner until now, gasps. In a rare show of camaraderie, Niragi slaps Chisiya on the back and tells him to ‘give that bitch a good one.’

Imbeciles. All of them.

“Everyone gather ‘round the table,” Chisiya purrs—yes, purrs—as he looks her with a twinkle in his eye, “because this particular date involves each and every one of you.”

“Even me?” asks Last Boss.

“But of course,” Chisiya says, “we need everyone if we’re going to play...spin the bottle.”

Ann feels the blood drain from her face. Oh, this little blond twerp is despicable. He is evil and terrible and—

“No re-spins. No backing out. The kiss must last a minimum of five seconds, but it can go longer if you feel so inclined.”

“I won’t,” Ann answers curtly. There is not a person in this room she could ever want to kiss. (Except for Mira, but. Well. That’s a thought for another day.)

“I don’t know,” Niragi says with an exaggerated flick of his tongue, the silver piercing winking at her in a supposedly seductive manner, “once you get a taste of a real man, you might find yourself hooked.”

“Perhaps Niragi wouldn’t be so bad,” Mira muses with a serene smile, “his oral fixation is off-putting on the best of days, but it might translate well to a more intimate experience. That is, until he starts talking again. Then it’ll be terrible.”

Niragi’s face twists into a sharp scowl as he tries to sputter a comeback; drunkenness and embarrassment have apparently robbed him of his mental faculties, so he crosses his arms over his chest and pouts.

“Alright, let’s get this over with,” Ann says with a huff.

She places her empty beer bottle, label-side down, on the long wooden table. For the first time this evening, everyone is silent. Honestly, it’s kind of nice—it would be better if she didn’t have to end up kissing one of them, but, beggars can’t be choosers.

“You know,” Ann says, “there is a possibility it could land on me. Does that mean I don’t have to kiss anyone?”

“That means you get to choose,” Chisiya says, “which...well, that will most certainly add some spice to the night, wouldn’t it?”

“Very evil,” Aguni concludes with a nod, “I like it.”

Hm. Well, it was worth a shot.

With one final, annoyed sigh, Ann places her hand on the bottle and gives it a powerful spin. Maybe it’ll spin right off the table and shatter on the floor. She wouldn’t have to do anything weird, and then she could just go back to her room and take a long bath. Alone. The way the universe intended.

It’s impossible not to watch the bottle spin, light refracting off the glass and casting flickering spots of light around the room. It’s just a kiss. She’s kissed people before. Many people. At least two.

Friends kiss each other all the time. Not her friends, but other people and their friends. And these people aren’t really ‘friends,’ but they’re...acquaintances. Colleagues. Does that make it better or worse?

It’s slowing down now. With each passing second, her fate is being decided by the neck of the bottle. Mira, Last Boss, Keiichi—oh, God, please don’t let it be Keiichi, they have a meeting in the morning, that would be so awkward...

But, luckily, the bottle does not land on Keiichi. It does not land on Niragi, nor does it land on Chisiya. Last Boss has also been spared, as have Aguni and Mira. That leaves only one candidate...

“Oh, Ann,” Hatter says, clapping his hands together and looking entirely too pleased with this very strange turn of events, “I always knew there was something between us!”

The thing he’s talking about is tolerance—she tolerates him because it is both sensible and beneficial to be on his good side. He also, surprisingly enough, defers to her expertise on certain matters, which is more than can be said for her previous employers. They are friendly, certainly, but most certainly not friends.

And...lovers?

Out of the question.

But Fate (and a smug little blonde) have decided that they share a moment of passion. Could she have spun worse? Yes. Could she have spun better? Absolutely. 100%. Without a doubt.

But Ann is a woman of integrity. When she commits, she commits. And so, as she walks to the other side of the table, she keeps her spine straight and her head held high. She refuses to let these people see her falter.

“In addition to the parameters already given, I’d like to establish some rules of my own,” she says coolly, barely resisting the temptation to roll her eyes when he takes another gulp of alcohol. Yep, that’s definitely peppermint schnapps he has—she can tell by the stench of it, the way it’s sharpness burns at her eyes.

She’s always hated peppermint schnapps.

“Fine, fine,” Hatter says with a wave of his hand, “as long as you promise not to fall completely in love with me in the process.”

That gets a laugh from everyone—and even Ann considers cracking a smile at the thought of someone like her ever feeling something for someone like him.

“No tongue. No teeth. And,” Ann tell him firmly, “if you want to leave this room with your balls intact, I suggest you keep your hands to yourself.”

The group ooh’s at that. Ann doesn’t look at them. She keeps her gaze focused on the man in front of her, watching him intently for any signs of weakness.

All she gets is a smirk.

“I would expect nothing less of you, Ann,” he replies, “however, you’re more than welcome to put your hands anywhere on my person.”

He leans in slightly, almost as if he’s letting her in on a secret.

“I could even give you a few suggestions, if you like.”

What a perfectly hideous thing for him to say. It doesn’t help that he’s fluttering his eyelashes at her like some kind of lovestruck cartoon character.

It’s annoying.

He’s annoying.

With a roll of her eyes, Ann grabs Takeru by the silk of his obnoxious robe and crashes her mouth against his-- because she’ll be damned if he’s the one kissing her.

Five...

The group gasps-- Takeru included, the noise muffled by the seal of their lips as she kisses him fully and firmly.

Four...

And it’s...not as gross as it could be, but it’s still a very odd experience. His lips are soft enough, and his beard-moustache-whatever-the-fuck is scratchy in a way that is. Well, it’s interesting. Not good, but...interesting.

Three...

“This is fucking weird,” Niragi shouts, sounding very disgusted.

Two...

“It’s like watching my parents,” Last Boss adds, “when they were still trying to convince my sister and I they were still in love and weren’t going to get a divorce.”

One...

And done.

“Okay,” Ann says flatly as she pulls away and swallows a grimace at the sight of her favorite shade of lipstick on Takeru’s lips (and is actually a very nice compliment to his skin tone, frustratingly enough) “Can I go now.”

For good measure, she releases his robe with a disdainful flick of her fingers and subtly brushes her hands off on her shorts. It’s not enough to get the scent of peppermint schnapps and awkwardness off of her skin, but it can’t hurt.

“A deal’s a deal,” Chisiya concedes, his eternally mischievous smirk stretched across his cheeks, “And I must say, I didn’t expect you to fulfill your end of the bargain so...enthusiastically.”

“That’s because nobody can resist me,” Takeru gloats, bottle of alcohol back in his grip as if it had never truly left, “It’s not her fault I’m so delectable--”

“Detestable,” Ann corrects under her breath.

“--And, even though you’ll try to deny it,” Takeru continues, disregarding her comment, “both of us know that there’s a part of you that liked kissing me.”

“I liked the part when she stopped,” Mira chirps cheerfully, “In fact, I think we all did!”

“You have no idea,” Aguni murmurs solemnly into his drink, his eyes darting towards Takeru with an unimpressed look. That’s...hm, there’s clearly some kind of story there, although Ann isn’t sure she wants to know about it.

Everyone begins talking amongst themselves once again-- Niragi has offered to spin the bottle next, and there’s a small argument breaking out over whether or not the group should continue with their original game of ‘truth or dare’ or pivot to this new one.

And, Ann?

Ann doesn’t stick around to find out.

#writings and such #alice in borderland #alice in borderland netflix #hatter/ann #what a horrifically cursed tag #NOBODY IS SAFE y'all better watch out #ann rizuna #danma takeru #last boss #niragi suguru #takatora samura #aguni morizono #mira kano #chisiya shuntaro #keiichi kuzuryu #fun fact: this takes place before arisu shows up so that's why he's not here

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shihalyfie · 3 years

Text

The difference between Taichi and Daisuke

Because Taichi and Daisuke both fit a rough model of “the brash shounen protagonist”, and because Daisuke, as Taichi’s junior, is intended to invoke him in certain ways, it’s easy to pin Daisuke as just being a slightly derivative version of Taichi in a different context. In actuality, as much as there are similarities between the two, there are other ways in which they’re actually polar opposites!

Although 02 is a sequel to Adventure, 02 is a very different kind of story, one that prioritizes being about relationships instead of Adventure’s simple self-actualization. This means that the characters that are at the center of the narrative are very different because the way each of them grow has very much to do with the story each wanted to tell -- and what each wanted to portray in their respective groups.

The most important thing to understand about both Taichi and Daisuke is that their surface demeanors are extremely misleading.

I discussed in my earlier meta about Taichi that, in fact, a lot of Taichi’s behavior comes from the fact he’s too chill about things -- he’s very easygoing and initially doesn’t seem very argumentative. That emphasis is on initially, because, nevertheless, Taichi has a tendency to try and take charge and push the group to do ambitious things, and when confronted about his ideas maybe not being so great, he starts arguing about it. Adventure episode 7 has him say something pretty condescending to Yamato in the course of it, and it’s only the first in what’s going to be a lot of these incidents. If you want to confront Taichi, he will fight you back.

While it leads to a certain degree of conflict (especially with Yamato) in the earlier parts of the series, it also means that, from the very get-go, Taichi is someone who has no problem making decisions on the fly and getting everyone to go forward with him. It’s also especially important in light of the Adventure group having been a bunch of kids from separate circles tossed together thanks to the circumstances; his ability to make quick and firm decisions helps them come together when they otherwise wouldn’t be able to do things cohesively.

On the other hand, Daisuke, despite having an abrasive surface demeanor, is extremely deferential, and, well, kind of spends the early parts of 02 rather lacking in a spine (I say this with affection, I promise). Unlike Taichi, who often sometimes tried to push forward with whatever he wanted to do even if it was a bit on the dangerous side, Daisuke is so deferential to other people that, during these early episodes, he actually gets carried around by other people more than he can be said to pull others forward. It really doesn’t take much for everyone to override his opinions as long as they’re assertive enough.

Certainly, part of it is because Daisuke’s dealing with his seniors -- Daisuke is an extremely deferential person who’s craving validation, and so he looks up to his seniors and is constantly deferring to their judgment. But even the nine-year-old Iori is capable of getting Daisuke to shut down, just because Iori’s a very assertive person, and Daisuke shrinks so easily. Daisuke’s early-series tendency to lash out at others is largely very defensive, mainly because he’s lacking in validation and plays very poorly with how easily he feels threatened or how much he can’t tell whether he’s being made fun of. (Rather like an overly on-edge puppy, basically.)

But in any case, the important part is that as far as important decisions go, for this part of the series, Daisuke is not the one making them.

Still, what Taichi does have as a leader, he’s somewhat lacking in a certain other area: emotional sensitivity. A lot of his friction with others in the early parts of Adventure involves him stepping on someone’s toes (such as accidentally insulting someone with a well-intentioned but insensitive joke, or being callous with Koushirou’s computer), and when he’s confronted about it (usually by Yamato), actually gets defensive and starts fighting back about it, which leads to things like escalated conflicts with Taichi and Yamato violently punching each other out.

Even by the time of Our War Game!, Taichi is indicated to still have somewhat of a problem accepting responsibility for when he’s offended someone else or doing something wrong, and it’s pretty clearly a big reason he and Sora are still in a very bad fight during the events of the movie. Most of the time (at least during Adventure and Our War Game!), by the time Taichi’s realized he’s messed up, he’s already deep in hot water.

In comparison, initially brash as Daisuke can be, when things really come down to it, even the early episodes indicate that not only is he much more non-confrontational, he’s actually significantly more emotionally sensitive. In 02 episode 7 (one that’s still pretty high up in his phase of being rather too shallow when it comes to issues about Hikari), he does what even Our War Game! had indicated Taichi at being really bad at doing: immediately apologizes to Iori on the spot and takes back his statements that went over the line with Takeru. Even this early part of the series still has clear indications he’s more attuned to considering his friends’ feelings without being prompted to do so (in 02 episode 10, he immediately catches on that Miyako’s not feeling well, with nobody else having to point it out).

On top of that, as much as he has an occasional tendency to lash out angrily at people, unlike Taichi, Daisuke almost never resorts to ad hominem (insulting the other person directly); abrasive and argumentative as he may sometimes be, he isn’t the type to call people names or be condescending. This is a really important distinction that’s often overlooked (not only with fictional characters, but also often in real life in general); it’s the difference between “you’re stupid” (ad hominem) and “what you’re doing is stupid”. Daisuke very often does the latter because he’s defensive and quick to criticize, but it’s vanishingly rare he will ever go as far as to try invalidating a person, nor does he ever really look down on anyone; it’s an important key to understanding how he’s actually the type to support and respect others even despite his tendency to get argumentative.

Daisuke having the Digimentals of Courage and Friendship points him towards Taichi and Yamato, and it’s important to not neglect that latter part -- as much as Daisuke’s surface traits and character design beg you to think more of Taichi, Daisuke’s tendency to be more emotionally sensitive and constantly consider the feelings of his friends is much like Yamato’s, especially since Yamato also had a tendency to have a somewhat abrasive exterior but actually be emotionally passionate about those he cared about. As a result, Daisuke never, ever gets in a fight with anyone to remotely the same violent and anger-filled degree Taichi and Yamato would get in back in Adventure, because even when he gets kind of close in 02 episode 11, he ultimately ends up sidetracked by thinking seriously about what his seniors have to say about friendship and trying to figure out what Takeru’s feelings are that it defuses very quickly. In the end, Daisuke’s just too conscientious about other people’s feelings to let it get that far.

The first time Taichi is properly recognized as the Adventure group’s “leader” is in Adventure episode 28, and the word is used directly. Taichi even initially denies it, before everyone brings proof in the form of pointing out that he was the one capable of bringing them all together when they’d split apart, and Taichi later demonstrates his abilities as a leader himself when he properly delegates Koushirou as the one to solve the card puzzle. Everyone states that they trust him as the leader, and defer to his judgment in this situation; for the rest of the series, the group continues to acknowledge him as someone who eventually calls the shots and makes the major decisions over what the group will do next.

No equivalent to this scene exists in 02. In fact, Daisuke is not the leader of the 02 group in the same way Taichi is the leader of the Adventure group, and, to push it further, I would even go as far as saying that the 02 group does not have a leader at all.

Understanding why the 02 group doesn’t have a leader, or, more accurately, doesn’t really need one, has to do with the fact that the 02 group has a very different relationship with each other than the Adventure group does. Taichi was responsible for holding the entire Adventure group together and organizing them because they were liable to fall apart without someone as the lynchpin, but the 02 group started off as a social circle before they were a fighting group, and therefore will stick together as friends even if nobody’s holding them together per se. This leads to 02 episode 19 featuring them deciding to work independently to the point Daisuke gets left behind -- compare the equivalent episode in Adventure and how Taichi is treated, and it’s pretty clear Daisuke doesn’t actually have a very commanding role in the group. (You can think of it as an inverted version of the Adventure group’s relationship with socialization vs. fighting coordination; the Adventure group figured out how to fight together fairly quickly but fell apart as soon as Taichi was gone, whereas the 02 group is predisposed to hang out together as friends but takes much longer to learn to coordinate from a fighting perspective.)

Even after Daisuke starts to become more assertive, however, he still doesn’t always take an active role in terms of coordinating or calling the shots -- the most prominent example being the Giga House incident in 02 episodes 28-29, in which he doesn’t mind deferring to the others as they all strategize. It’s a huge contrast against the Adventure group (which was rather big and in need of someone to organize such disparate people) deferring to Taichi to make the final calls and to lay down the goals for them to follow, whereas Daisuke can make decisions or suggestions, but is much more liable to defer to his friends’ ideas or what they want to do if they happen to have any better suggestions. Daisuke doesn’t have the bird’s-eye tactician abilities Taichi has nor his natural charisma, but he shows all signs of being well aware of this; when the 02 group makes a major decision, it’s always one they make together, and although Daisuke eventually does gain a certain sense of independent will, he still puts extremely high value into what his friends think about the situation before going forward with it. As much as Daisuke was certainly the most influential in getting the group to reach out to Ken, it's ultimately the rest of the group that chooses to find their own way to reach out to him, each on their own terms -- Miyako in 02 episode 25, Hikari in 02 episode 32, Takeru in 02 episode 37, and Iori in 02 episode 38 -- and while Daisuke did originally have a clear intention to reach out to Ken regardless of what the others thought, he still very much did actively bid and hope for the others to get along with him in their own ways (see: 02 episode 30).

(This also has the side effect that, as much as Daisuke’s surface demeanor might suggest that everything would be a reckless disaster with him around, the fact that he takes his friends’ stances on the situation so heavily in regard means that he’s actually less likely to do something catastrophically stupid in a major situation, as long as his friends are sufficiently able to keep him in check.)

In the course of Adventure, the skill that Taichi begins to hone is “becoming a leader” in every sense of it -- organizing others, bringing them together, and learning to be ever so slightly less impulsive by thinking through his decisions a bit more instead of leaning on the first thing that comes to his head. The Adventure group, twice on the verge of falling apart, is ultimately brought back together under his lead, and it’s his charisma that allows all of them to trust him and what he wants to do.

It’s not hard to see why; he has qualities for it that come to him naturally, in that he treats people equally and without prejudice, and is a soccer captain-like tactician who is capable of taking a bird’s eye view of the situation and organizing things around them. As demonstrated in Adventure episodes 16 and 28, he’s good at delegating roles when people need suitable guidance.

Daisuke, on the other hand, has a very different specialty: emotional positivity and support. Once he starts shedding the defensive abrasiveness he’d had a tendency to fall into during the first half of the series, his true capacity for being a very pure-hearted, emotionally sensitive person who puts the well-being of his friends first and foremost before anything else comes through. This means he’s the member of the group who’s the most brimming with “positivity” and “the will to push forward”, especially over the course of the second half of 02 in which things are taking a larger and larger psychological toll on the group. Again, the 02 group doesn’t actually have a true “leader”, and many of those traits Taichi has that Daisuke lacks ultimately have to be substituted by some of the other members in the group, but Daisuke’s main skill is in “leading the charge” with emotional support -- and that’s why he ends up often being the one most proactively pulling them forward (and, on a meta level, is why he’s the main protagonist even if the story is arguably more about Ken).

Of course, Taichi and Daisuke do end up having traces of the others’ strengths -- Taichi ultimately comes around to being more emotionally sensitive and handling others maturely (especially in 02), while Daisuke receiving a proper support group and validation from his friends allows himself to show the assertiveness he’d struggled to show in the first half. But ultimately, their strengths are their own, and tailored very well to the dynamics of the particular groups they’re affiliated with.

Once eight years have passed since 02, we can now see this disparity in personality to the point it’s started having major differences in their future paths. Taichi’s in the middle of an existential crisis, drifting away from a lot of his friends and not sure what to do with his life, whereas not only is Daisuke cheerfully hanging out with his friends like 02 was only yesterday, he’s very clearly aware of what he wants to do with his life (after all, he’s had that very clear goal since he was in elementary school).

In regards to why Daisuke’s not having nearly as many problems with his career path: it’s because Daisuke’s satisfied with the low hanging fruit.

Daisuke has always admired Taichi ever since they were both tiny kids, and it’s easy to see why, given Daisuke’s deficiencies prior to the start of 02 -- being a natural leader, charismatic, and extremely assertive, Taichi very easily presented an ideal image of an idol for Daisuke to aspire to. Kizuna makes it clear that Daisuke is just as senior-adoring and Taichi-adoring as he was back in 02; he has a lot of faith in his seniors to be able to pull amazing and great things off.

Daisuke himself, meanwhile, is happy with only the idea of running a ramen shop, and is practically playing the whole thing by ear without thinking of it too hard. While Taichi hasn’t really said anything about the matter, it’s pretty easy to believe that there is no way in hell Taichi would be satisfied with something like that as a career; he’s always been the ambitious type who wants to do big things, and the fact he’s taking political science and economics at a major university (if it’s anything like the real uni, it’s not easy to get into!) indicates that, even if he doesn’t know exactly what, he certainly would rather do something bigger and more influential with his life.

But the drama CD provides a lot of insight into Daisuke’s current attitude regarding the whole ramen shop thing, and he’s rather grounded about it all, admitting that he doesn’t entirely know what he’s doing and being very quick to admit his own faults. I mentioned earlier that Daisuke is actually good at taking responsibility for his own failings, and it’s likely his lack of ambition stems from the fact that he simply doesn’t consider himself cut out for huge, amazing things to begin with. But that doesn’t matter to him, because he’s happy with simple things, and, more importantly, he’s happy as long as he can continue to support his friends -- and receive support from them in return. Said drama CD includes him relating a long narrative about how, after initially being unsure of what to do, he took all of the little pieces of information and suggestions he got from his friends extremely seriously, even when they didn’t think much of what they were doing or saying at the time -- in short, Daisuke’s life really does involve appreciating and loving his friends.

This is important to consider in light of the fact that the 02 group is cut out for a very different future from their seniors’ -- again, look at the difference between Taichi’s eventual future of “history-making diplomat” and Daisuke’s of “ramen shop owner”. Even when you take into account the whole success story of his shop becoming a chain (which, knowing him, may well have been by accident), as far as world-shattering impact goes, the most influence Daisuke is ever going to have with that career is in regards to food. But this ties into the fact that Daisuke really is that kind of person, someone who’s more community-oriented and sensitive about bringing happiness to the people around him more than he’s capable of aiming for the abstract, whereas Taichi is the kind of person who is much more ambitious and able to enact larger impact over more usually disparate groups of people, even if it means not necessarily having the same type of support group Daisuke has.

And, on a larger scale, it ties into the reason why 02 group is so easily tied at the hip despite their seniors so clearly drifting apart -- it’s baked into the difference between their dynamic and their seniors’ dynamic. The Adventure group is comprised of the kind of people who shoot for individual achievement and self-affirmation over all else, but the 02 group is somewhat dependent on each other for support. As I’ve said before in the relevant meta, this isn’t fundamentally a bad thing -- it ties more into how they choose to live and what they want to prioritize, and as far as the 02 group goes, Daisuke’s priority of mutually supporting his friends ties into the overall group’s priority of valuing their relationships to each other over necessarily shooting for high individual achievement, and finding their own happiness that way.

It’s also interesting to think about why Taichi has his goggles back by the beginning of the movie, meaning that, at some point, Daisuke gave them back to him and started wearing the orange sunglasses we see him with for its duration. Of course, Taichi having the goggles is for meta reasons, since there’s a lot of symbolism associated with Adventure itself and Taichi’s past association with it, as well as its own connection to his past...

But it’s also interesting to consider the fact that even as early as 2003, Daisuke was considering passing the goggles on to someone else. (They’ll eventually end up owned by his own son, but you can imagine the trail of who passed it to whom at what time for yourself.) The same drama CD track implies heavily that Daisuke initially wore his own pair of goggles specifically for the sake of emulating Taichi as “the person who had the power to protect everyone”. Taichi passing his own pair onto him was proof that Daisuke was now worthy of accepting that power and becoming capable of his own courage.

Yet by 2003, Daisuke already considered himself confident enough in said abilities to be willing to pass them onto someone else. You can imagine the circumstances of why he decided to give them back to Taichi for the time being (perhaps he noticed Taichi slipping into an existential crisis?), but the point is that while the goggles still have symbolic meaning, Daisuke’s capable of carving his own path and figuring out what he wants to do without needing to use the exact same thing Taichi did. Instead of chasing after someone else for it, he managed to find his own strengths within himself, and thus, ends up finding happiness in a very different way than Taichi does.

#digimon #digimon adventure #digimon adventure 02 #digimon adventure last evolution kizuna #kizuna spoilers #yagami taichi #motomiya daisuke #taichi yagami #daisuke motomiya #shihameta

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pokedashwarrior55 · 3 years

Text

ULTRA LONG TIME TWIN HEADCANNONS

@sippin-on-waterfalls your post is ready

From Pokedash and Purplefern

Ooooooookay here we go.

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-Krux perceives time slower than others so he is easily late to events (plus he gets distracted and way into projects so he can easily lose track of time, ironically) so he could end up missing a lot of Elemental Alliance meetings

-Acronix made sure he informed Krux it was time to go (whenever he remembers, anyway) otherwise he’d be uber late all the time. Good thing they always go together

-Acronix is super early all the time because of his powers and he and Griffon Turner’s grandfather got along really well

-All the same, between lack of attention span, focusing on other things, and not caring for the meetings in general, Krux and Acronix miss a LOT of meetings

-Before alliance meetings Wu is training little Morro and the Twins and the Master of Speed just waltz in the monastery doors an hour early

-Acronix teaches Morro some sick fighting moves (some rather underhanded)

-Krux advises him to never let people get away with harm cause you are the most important thing in your life. (Revenge!)

-Wu be like plz stop encouraging my kid into violence and dishonorable tactics.

-Krux brought refreshments to an EA party exactly once. It was pickled beet tea and nobody liked it. He took it very personally.

-Back during the war, the love triangle with Misako was actually a love rectangle. Krux had a crush on her too but he literally had no idea how to act on it so his part of the rectangle was staring at her longingly from afar and not saying anything.

-Yes Acronix teased him immensely about this. And tried to act as a wingman several times but Krux swore if he did he would murder him

-Pre-series, Misako would do work for the museum a lot, so she ended up working with Sanders Saunders quite often. Despite her relationship to Wu and Garmadon and their “history”, he did like working with her ok

-They both also worked with the Explorer’s Club a lot, and have equal disdain for Cecil Putnam and Clutch Powers

-Krux hates Cecil’s stuffy rules (even though he couldn’t show it while being Dr Saunders) and Clutch’s….everything

-Krux’s doctorate is real, and he has a doctorate in History and and Master’s degree in Museum Studies

-He’s the Curator of History at the museum, and the other curator is the curator of natural sciences

-Acronix is a big nicknames guy. He doesn’t usually call people by their actual names. Only the people he actually cares about or that he super hates.

-But he also generally despises nicknames given TO him. The only people allowed to call him Nix/Nixie are his brother and mother (and later Shannon).

-Krux only calls Acronix "Nix" if he's feeling particularly vulnerable/scared/etc (so like, when being the older twin isn't feeling that fun and he decides to ignore those 3 minutes and be more like the "younger" twin.) So this becomes a lot less as he becomes more arrogant.

-(Based on how he describes Dareth getting beat up by the Vermillion warrior) Krux likes watching wrestling. It’s a guilty pleasure of his

-And of course Acronix loves it once he learns about it, so the two watch it together

-Krux occasionally plays strategy board games. He tried to get Acronix into them but he found them boring.

-(Sometimes he’ll suck it up and play with him anyway, though.)

-Both are sass masters

-Both also like science

-But like completely different facets of science.

-Krux of course likes the more stable and earthy sciences. Biology and geology, ecology. Those elemental science that have always existed but we just haven’t yet understood them

-Krux is also a total history nerd. Things like paleontology and anthropology are also really interesting to him

-Yes he was a dinosaur kid. (Especially since dinosaurs had just started to be discovered back in his day.)

-Acronix of course likes advancement and the otherworldly sciences. Technology, Astronomy. Sure we build upon the discoveries of the past but what about creating something new for the future?

-Acronix does like bioengeneering since it is a new advancement but he knows saying so would make Krux grin with “I told you bio was cool” vibes

-Krux can engulf himself into his work or his schemes for days. As he is very patient.

-Acronix is less so. He sees time constantly moving forward so sitting idle to “Plan” seems a ridiculous waste of time.

-He jumps from activities quickly as the novelty of it wears off and he is always on a quest for what's new and what may work, not really what has been confirmed to work

-Krux of course sees this as a fool's errand. We need to respect the knowledge we have and use it and plan with it.

-But when they are in sync you should be SCARED

-Both thinking in the Present can make them in perfect harmony, Both in fighting and talking.

-Their different planning methods can help eachother get things done. So yes, when they work together you should be scared

-Krux can get really fixated on an idea, and get into major creative blocks. Acronix helps propose out of the box solutions that keep his ideas moving forwards that he wouldn’t have thought of himself.

-But as we see they can also be reeeeallly different and fight over the miniscule things.

-Krux lingers on Grudges easily as he physically cannot not put value to the events of the past.

-Acronix’s main grudge with the alliance came from his ego and arrogance, not his element. I think he feels very internally about wrongs to him in the moment but if he sees nothing really changed a couple of days later he loses interest in holding such a grudge easily

-Each of them have the ability to not be affected by the other’s powers

-Acronix has no patience to listen to anything he doesn’t want to hear. Back when he had his powers he COULD and WOULD just “skip” peoples’ dialogue if he got bored of it.

-Krux has a bad habit of “freezing” people if he feels like they’re interrupting him. Like, he will freeze people who are trying to get him to stop working on something while he’s trying to get something done, and then get back to them when he feels like it. Everyone has to work on his time. (Annoyingly, this does not affect his brother, which is why Acronix is the only one who can actually get him to stop working on his projects.)

-Whenever Krux & Acronix would hang out with Chen, Acronix loved messing with Clouse. Clouse reminds him of his brother, but even more stuffy and annoyed somehow, so he just has an instinctual urge to annoy him as much as possible.

-(Clouse does not appreciate this, but Master Chen says they’re “important” to his plan so Clouse just suffers quietly.)

-Acronix likes the Master of Speed, but also finds it annoying that he can resist his slo-mo powers by going really fast. (On the bright side, though, this does make him the closest thing to an equal he’ll get for a sparring partner, if Krux doesn’t want to train with him for whatever reason.)

-Because of his element, Sound is one of the rare people who doesn’t really mind Krux but REALLY dislikes Acronix. Acronix is just so loud all the time and it physically pains him because he is so sensitive to vibrations and volume. Krux is generally pretty quiet so doesn’t bug him as much.

-Acronix is an Entrepreneur (ESTP) and Krux is an Architect (INTJ)

-They have no Feeling whatsoever

-Otherwise, they are complete opposites

-Both of these personality types hate rules, regulations, and micromanaging restricting authority figures (hmm, wonder why they broke away from the alliance…)

-Acronix is arrogant in the way that he doesn’t care about his flaws, because obviously he is awesome and everyone else is just jelly, Krux is arrogant in the way that he hates people pointing out his flaws, because shut up he doesn’t have any

-Their mother is Polaris, they take after her physically

-Father is Kronos, they got their powers and ego from him

-Their father actively encouraged them to have immense pride in their element -- being the former master of time himself

-Ordered them the sweet matching armor

-He was a samurai back in his day, which is why the Twims wore samurai helmets.

-Between their two loving parents, the Twims were nearly spoiled

-Krux and Acronix grew up pretty rich, Kronos was pretty much high society and Polaris was too

-They went to a fairly fancy private school growing up

-But everyone there were snobs so they didn’t get along well with their classmates (what a surprise)

-Their parents died in a skirmish with Serpentine, leading the Twims to join the alliance full of vengeance.

-Acronix has a battle scar from being grazed by an anacondrai sword on his left pec cause I said so

-Also a lot of misc snake bit scars and a burn scar from that one time (Ray’s got a bad temper and Acronix likes pressing people’s buttons, so that went super well)

-Acronix super cares about his looks so has a ton of, like, haircare and beauty products. Krux has a single bottle of 3-in-1 and a bar of soap and says that that’s sufficient.

-Back in the day Acronix had a bunch of oils and whatever for his hair, and when he’s in the present he’s got a bunch of fancy shampoos and such. He’s definitely the vain one of the two twins

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A collection of Neurodivergent Twims HCs

-Acronix has ADHD and Krux is autisitc

-Acronix is early, but only to things he remembers. He often forgets dates. And Krux will get involved with something else, and has a warped sense of time. Together, the two miss a lot of EM meetings

-And when they’re at them, neither of them are good at conversations. Acronix talks a mile a minute and doesn’t let anyone get a word in edgewise. Krux either doesn’t talk to anyone or similarly dominates conversation and doesn’t let anyone else talk.

-The two also get sent on solo missions alot

-They don’t focus well in a group setting (Acronix generally ignoring the plan for what he prioritizes as the better option and krux simply not being popular with the others and only really battling well beside his brother)

-They are generally strong enough to protect a village by themselves

-The other EM work better with them out of the way since they are “annoying” and no one really likes their arrogance, pride, or entire personhood

-They seem to be happier working only together than with the whole group

-Once during a group charge on a collection of Serpentine races Acronix notices a horde heading in a different direction and follows them impulsive

-All of these things together make them especially unpopular with the other EMs

-Especially with the Master of Ice, who considers their actions disrespectful and often scolds them on their behavior

-Krux and Acronix can BOTH get hyperfixated on things they are interested in, and can also forget to eat and sleep.

-Acronix struggles with insomnia a lot because his brain doesn’t shut up. Luckily his brother never really sleeps either. They spend a lot of long nights talking about nonsense

-Acronix tries to use time skip powers to not waste time while sleeping. He skips the night, but he still didn’t get sleep. He crashes after a few days of this and Krux tells him that he’s a moron

-Acronix has a fidget spinner, which he got for the memes but ended up finding unironically helpful, and gives Krux a fidget cube (which Krux reluctantly accepts and actually does use pretty often.)

-Before learning what a fidget spinner was he would flip his phone a lot. It was both an easily accessible stim and assurance he knew where it was cause he tended to leave things around at random.

-Krux used nail-biting as a stim, mostly because it can appear pretty neurotypical

-Acronix is “annoying” around the ninja during his lil redemption arc, but instead of reacting like the elemental masters, the Ninja actually do research and come to an understanding (especially Zane, who is perceptive, understanding, and has an instantaneous link to the internet).

-Altogether he’s a little surprised when they actually put effort into tolerating and understanding his differences. Huh. How’s bout that?

-Jay is also pretty understanding, he’s got a lot of nd cousins and has ADHD himself so it’s kinda just *shrugs*

-Modern dyes and preservatives really trigger Acronix’s ADHD to be even worse than usual.

-Zane picks up on this, and like the mother hen that he is starts to put in a special effort to keep dyes away from Acronix (or to keep Acronix away from dyes, as the case may be)

-Jay has a similar problem with dyes (which Edna let the Ninja know about, thanks a lot ma ) so Zane works double time to keep them both away from dyes

-Makes special dishes that are “ADHD safe”

-Neither appreciate it (well Jay does but will complain openly at every chance he gets)

-Acronix got into a lot of trouble with their dad when he was a kid, because he just couldn’t pay attention

-Has bursts of anger a lot, oftentimes this happens during things like parties or pre-meeting conversations. (which easily leads to him getting a label of “aggressive” or “hotheaded” by the EMs)

-DEFINITELY struggles with Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria

-Ninjago history is Krux’s special interest

-Krux freezes people around him when he needs a sec to destim

-Krux is pretty high-functioning, but is on the borderline. He's high-functioning enough to be aware of himself and mask, but not enough to avoid things like shut/melt downs

-Acronix is fiercely protective of his brother whenever he shuts down. Messing with Krux while he's like that (whether the antagonist is aware or not) is a one way ticket to his wrath as well as physical punishment.

-Whenever things got too intense at a meeting/party type thing, Acronix would ditch and sneak them both out whenever Krux was heading towards a shut down. Being the awesome supportive twin that he is, he learned to pick up on the signs of one and was certain to prevent them pretty much whenever possible.

-Acronix failed in his efforts only once (he was kind of sick that day and wasn’t at the top of his game to be keeping a watchful eye on his bro), and Krux kind of ended up time freezing a few of the EMs in the process. It was something the elemental masters (or Krux himself) did not soon forget or forgive.

-He'll go nonverbal sometimes, to the minor aggravation of the alliance. Sign language isn't a thing yet so anyone trying to understand him when he's like this are pretty much reliant on Acronix and his twin sense to translate.

-When their parents died Krux went nonverbal for a little over a month.

-Krux was pretty delayed in learning to speak, he didn’t say his first word until he was 3 ¼

-Even during his redemption arc, Acronix does not tell the Ninja about Krux's autism, from a built in fear that the knowledge would be used against him in possible future battles. (Also because he knows Krux wouldn't want them to know.)

-Krux doesn't just hate phones because “ugh technology”, he also just hates talking on the phone because it’s super difficult

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OK there are way more that we have but... did you know there is actually a word limit on Tumblr? Heh heh... If you want more Twim goodness you can read our extensive fanfic collection... or maybe we’ll make a part two (That’ll probably consist of Home life pre-war stuff, post-canon AU junk, Vermillion family nonsense, and more random stuff)

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leona-florianova · 3 years

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Can I get a rundown of the Locked Tomb Trilogy? I know I could read a summary on Google, but like, wanna hear it from someone corporeal

*googles the definition of "corporeal"* aw shoot and this is the thing i strive against...

Yeah anyway... so far I have only read Gideon the ninth and Harrow the ninth and there might be more but im not sure whats going on cause im not entirely invested in the fandom and whenever anything new from the series conveniently appears for free i will read it.

I dunno how to summarize the series without too many spoilers + im incredibly bad at puting thoughts together..

so im just gonna say that...first and second book are VERY DIFFERENT...and there is no point in summarizing the second one really if you havent read the first...

Gideon the Ninth is about a butch sword wielding lesbian jock (Gideon), who lived her whole life cloistered on a horrible death cultist space station on some terribly moribund planet (that might or might not be ex Pluto) and would like to leave... The only other teenager on the whole planet is a 17 year old nun necromancer supreme (the reverend daughter Harrowhark) And they hate each other with passion so very very much...for REASONS.

One day Harrowhark is asked to participate in some event that might result in saving the planet from its total moribundnes moribundussness...

N its required of her to bring a bodyguard, but because stuff happened with her original bodyguard, she has to do with Gideon, who lacks any manners whatsoever.

Anyway... the event is a fun treasure hunt inside an abandoned floating city... with murder mystery peppered in for extra tension

There is like 15 or how many other participants... Both necromancers and their bodyguards from... 7? other planets.. i cant count.. just bunch of people... And nobody really knows whats the point of the whole event, but there is definitelly something fucked up going on....

.....

...

Oh yeah and there is some wlw stuff.. which is cool but cause i rarely pay attention to relationshippy stuff I was more interested in the whole clusterfuck of fantasy/scifi laws and worlbuilding this series has going on...

in this universe:

- Necromancer is an umbrella term for person able to shape either body or soul... With no regard to laws of physiscs as we know it.

- The more sickly n moribund the necromancer is the stronger they are... or if more death n decay happended around them... So I imagine they all look kinda sh*t.

- One thing that took some getting used to while reading was the... use of recent expressions used in memes... Which is initially weird considering the scifi setting.. but hey... we also sometimes use whole sentences from classical literature, right? :y

- I dunno whats the general idea of how the characters n settings look cause I havent really looked at the cover art nor looked much at other fanart..

But I like to imagine its all very... both baroque and goth(ic) n still very sci-fi/fantasy... combination of the aesthetics of Darksouls and Event Horizon... art of Juan Giménez, H. R. Giger and Jan Blažej Santini (the author of the ossuary in Sedlec..)..and bunch of others

wow this is quite long...

anyway its interesting read

#also highly recommend if you like characters that are just..the worst #gideon the ninth #the locked tomb #thoughts #text post #long post #damn i cant think #like at all #my head is stuffed cuz im ill zzzz #their space ships work on power of death and shitty electronics just think about that...thats metal af #spoiler alert the treasure is the relationship with bodyguards the necromancers made along the way

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joezworld · 3 years

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📁

Specifically, any headcanons of the Sodor Engines interacting with the internet, or the internet in general?

For some reason, I’d imagine that podcasts and the like are popular among vehicles in general.

That is a question that I've been working on for some time - because I'm workshopping my own Tornado headcanon (and boy oh boy does she use the internet a lot) - but I have some ideas for the Sodor engines as well:

Henry is probably the most "plugged in" engine on the island, weirdly enough. One of his drivers gave him an iPod back in the early 2000s, and kindly preloaded it with a bunch of torrented music.

BTW, that works because all the engines are now equipped with automatic train warning systems, and the little on-board computer has a USB port - as a nice side effect it allows music players to work with the engines in the same way as bone-conducting headphones do. The computer also acts as some kind of computer interface, which I am not going to explain how that works because Jesus Christ I don’t know how it does either.

Henry has managed to upgrade his iPod a few times since thanks to hand-me-down units from NWR staff, so he eventually got his buffers on a wifi-enabled iPod Touch and now downloads new music from the station wifi. He does listen to podcasts, but as every other engine will tell you, you could show Henry ten thousand new and exciting songs from the best artists in the world, and his top ten played songs are still going to be Genesis, Phil Collins, and Yes. Bear considers it a win that he managed to convince Henry to regularly listen to Rush after a mere twenty years of convincing.

Mavis and Daisy listen to a very interesting program called The News, because as stated elsewhere, they invest a shitload of money and need to be on top of things. Thomas and Percy wish that Daisy would use headphones or something similar to that, instead of listening to Bloomberg TV at loud volumes in the middle of the night. Toby frankly doesn’t mind, as it’s very nice to be kept up-to-date on the outside world.

In a move that surprises no-one, Bill and Ben have a podcast where they talk about whatever they think about at that moment - usually horse-racing, investing, and clay mining. As such, they have a wide audience, almost none of whom know that they’re that Bill and Ben, as their podcast is audio-only.

In an also unsurprising move, Edward and BoCo have been made very much aware that Bill and Ben have a podcast, but are still unsure as to what the hell a podcast is, despite being frequent guests on it.

Of the main line diesels, only Bear has shown any real interest in the internet, and was immediately put in charge of the Amazon Alexa when a unit was installed in the diesel shed. He also has an iPod that he got for Christmas a few years back. (The NWR has a very good personal electronics recycling program called give it to Henry, he’ll make use it.)

Bear does listen to podcasts as well as music, but his choices are so insufferably boring that even Henry refuses to listen to them. (I don’t really listen to podcasts - despite making one - so insert the most boring podcast you can think of here.)

As for other internet uses...

Gordon is very up-to-date on the newest social media trends - somehow - but only really cares when he is involved. He won’t admit it, but he’s been trying to figure out how to work a camera/selfie stick for some time so he can start up his own Instagram account. So far he has been unsuccessful, but one day he will manage it.

James has had an ongoing feud with his own Wikipedia page for about a decade now. The article sourced most of its information about his construction off of some out-of-print book about the L&Y. The book in question is accurate about James’ class, but not James himself - as he was a prototype engine. There’s no other primary sources available, so the very dedicated Wikipedia mod who created the page won’t change it - no matter how much James complains that he was there! He knows what happened!

Every now and again a TTTE fan blog/tumblr will make a post about hypothetical “ships” of the Sodor engines. Most of the time it’s shipping the core characters like Gordon and Henry, much to Gordon’s bafflement and Henry’s amusement!

Only one blog (a ttte fan tumblr by the curious name of @mean-scarlet-deceiver ) has gotten it right. Henry actually reached out to congratulate this blogger, but was unfortunately mistaken for a very dedicated roleplay account.

James is very annoyed by these blogs, as they have never once correctly guessed who he is “shipped” with! He has tried several times to be seen in public with Delta, but these events have never gone as planned - the “best” instance is when Edward rolled by at exactly the wrong moment, leading to months of speculation that JamesxEdward was the ship to look out for!

Thomas, being a generally oblivious sort of engine, was totally unaware of the online fan community around the TV show until he started getting actively harassed by vloggers and Instagrammers in the early 2010s. He’s fine with it now, but it was a deeply unusual experience for most of 2012.

Toby has developed an unexpectedly popular following on social media following his collab with Stormzy. His official twitter is huge now, with over a million followers, even if he has no idea what to do with it. He posts rarely, but usually manages to make an incredible post when he does.

No-one is sure who told Oliver what a “fan-production” is, but if you manage to get ahold of him for any period of time and ask him nicely, he will lend his voice to your TTTE fan-project, so long as it isn’t about [INSERT TERRIBLE SOCIAL/POLITICAL VIEW(S) HERE]. This means that he has 100% voiced dramatic readings of NSFW Fanfics before, which is always an absolute riot to spring on people unannounced.

There is a series of slice-of-life TTTE fanfics on Ao3 that have been written with such accuracy and innate railway knowledge that people are sure it was written by a Sodor engine, but nobody knows which one.

The Culdee Fell Railway has very active Instagram, Twitter and YouTube accounts, with all of the engines and coaches showing up regularly. It’s about the closest any of the railways on Sodor have come to what those outside the UK would call “normal locomotive social media”.

The Skarloey Railway has social media accounts too, but they don’t really feature the engines in any meaningful way, instead being used as a normal service announcements page.

The SR is a real working railway that doesn’t rely on tourism money as much as the others do, so they get a bit of a pass here.

The Arlesdale Railway has Twitter and YouTube, which didn’t usually get a lot of hits until 2020, when Ivan and Amanda Farrier started badgering the staff to make some videos just to alleviate some boredom. So far the most popular videos on the channel are a front-mounted camera video of the entire line slow-tv style, Bert explaining how steam engines work, and a video of Mike complaining about Justin Bieber for a solid half-hour.

That’s about it as far as Sodor goes, but before we’re done, I want to take a moment to talk about Tornado, because I have some fun ideas for her...

First of all, we need to establish that Tornado is very young. Her construction only started in late 90′s, and she was steamed to life in 2000, putting her firmly into the “Zoomer” category. Add in the fact that she was built by a bunch of old men who didn’t really know how to treat a new engine, and she was raised much more like a human than a locomotive - I’ll get to this much more in the proper Tornado Headcanon post, but what this means here is that when social media started being a thing in the mid-to-late 2000′s, the people at the A1 Trust decided that they needed a young person to run things like Twitter, Facebook, and Myspace... and, well, Tornado was the youngest person in the trust by a large margin.

I should state here that in the rest of the world, locomotives are on the internet at roughly the same level as humans are, so there’s plenty of equipment to connect a phone/computer/camera to an engine - being English, the A1 Trust didn’t know how common it was, but they managed to get it up and running just the same.

So Tornado has very quickly become attuned to the internet, just like any other teenager would. (yes, let’s let that settle into our minds for a moment - Tornado is barely old enough to drink in the US!) Quite naturally that means that she knows social media inside and out, and is actually quite a proficient social media manager for the trust, managing all of their social pages. More than one person who has complained about the trust on twitter has unknowingly been complaining to Tornado herself!

“On the internet, nobody knows that you’re a dog Engine”.

Tornado has her own personal social media accounts too, but most/all of the time she gets mistaken for a very dedicated role-player, as the general perception of British Locomotives is that they don’t tweet. This has resulted in some amazing reactions from podcast hosts (because, as you might expect, Tornado is very knowledgeable about steam traction in the 21st century, and tweets about it often, so train podcasts want to talk to her) when she gets invited onto video calls, turns on her webcam, and is met with screams from people who suddenly realize that her profile picture is accurate.

By far the best instance of this is when she was invited onto a video call with a railfan podcast. She was at the NRM at the time and managed to convince them to let her use their Skype setup. A wide-angle lens was needed because she was on the turntable in the Great Hall, so that podcast quickly got sidetracked when her webcam was turned on and revealed Tornado, with Mallard, Evening Star, City of Truro, and Green Arrow visible behind her. Whatever the original topic was quickly got thrown out in favor of a 2-hour Q&A with some of the most famous engines in the UK.

#ask response #the internet #ttte thomas #ttte toby #ttte bill and ben #ttte gordon #ttte daisy #ttte mavis #ttte henry #ttte bear #ttte oliver #tornado #nrm #trains using the internet #ttte #sodor #sodor shenangians #the formatting on this one is super fucked up and i can't figure out how to fix it - sorry

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thevibraniumveterans · 3 years

Text

I'M STARTING WITH THE MAN IN THE MIRROR...

I'm asking him to change his ways And no message could have been any clearer If you want to make the world a better place Take a look at yourself, and then make a change

A couple of points to make.

1. Loki and identity

According to head writer Michael Waldron, "in a series that, to me, is ultimately about self-love, self-reflection, and forgiving yourself, it just felt right that that would be Loki's first real love story."

Loki learning to love himself, reflecting on who he really is as a person, and forgiving his past misdeeds, is the ultimate character growth, something that the TVA was hell-bent on preventing because it did not line up with how they saw Loki to be. Loki seeing himself in his mirror and realizing that he needs to change? Yeah. That's the big thing going on here.

According to Tom Hiddleston, "I don't think Loki's relationship with himself has been very healthy. Trying to accept those aspects of himself, which he's been on the run from, was a way of thinking about that in a really interesting way."

Think about how Loki praised Sylvie for being amazing because she's been running rings around the TVA. Again, it's a metaphor, because Loki has never in his entire life, honestly praised himself and talked about himself in a good and honest way. I will talk about how Sylvie is Loki's mirror and metaphor later, because this is important. It's also the reason why I started this post off with the chorus of Michael Jackson's "Man in the Mirror". It's relevant, okay?

According to director Kate Herron, "The whole show is about identity. It's about him, and he is on a very different path, and he is on a different journey." And it is! It's kind of how the saying goes, when one reaches rock bottom, there's nowhere to go but up, right?

2. "Love is a dagger."

Terrible metaphor it may be, according to Tom Hiddleston of what Loki says to Sylvie in Ep3, "They were having a talk about love and trusting other people, and not being able to either love or trust for whatever reason." The dagger, then, would represent "Loki's experience of love, I suppose. He certainly feels like it's not been something he's been close to. It has been some sort of illusion that he has trusted and been let down by."

(https://www.marvel.com/articles/tv-shows/loki-love-is-a-dagger-sylvie)

3. "Love is… uh, something I might have to have another drink to think about."

Interestingly enough, I've had several thoughts on the relationship dynamic between Loki and Sylvie.

Yes, Mobius did describe it as "Two Variants of the same being, especially you, forming this kind of sick, twisted, romantic relationship", but even I'm having opinions that would start to contradict each other.

At first I went around saying that the dynamic between Loki and Sylvie are strictly platonic, and I pointed out that to me, the Nexus Event might've been honesty and truth, because according to the "Sacred Timeline", those are two things that nobody associates with Loki, and the fact that in that short amount of time, Loki realizing that he needs to be honest with himself throws the entirety of TVA into disarray. It's a chance for Loki to be honest with himself and really come to terms with who he is as a person.

Now where does Sylvie fit into all of this?

In my opinion, even from Episode 3, I saw Sylvie as a mirror, Loki's perfect metaphor. Why do I say this? Remember in Ep2 when she told Loki, "If anyone's anyone, you're me"?

I had jokingly thought to myself that Loki was just about to tell Sylvie how he feels about her and himself (because Loki talking about his feelings is rare, as he himself said, “this is new to me”), but then I thought a little deeper and went, “hmm, this doesn’t have to be taken in a romantic way at all, Sylvie is not a love interest (because to me that’s just weird, no offense, unless the circumstances were super different, under which I think it might’ve been okay then and depending on the situation, but not here in these circumstances) it’s just Loki admitting what kind of a person he is, and if he can be better, it’s just Loki figuring himself out.” (I'll talk about why I have conflicting thoughts later.)

Even Tom Hiddleston, in a recent interview with ComicBook.com, had specifically stated about his character: "It will be interesting to see what happened when Loki can't talk his way out of a situation, as is his dominant strategy in most encounters. I am most excited for fans to see what happens to Loki when he has nowhere left to run, when he can't delude himself anymore." That last bit with Sylvie? Yeah, Loki coming to terms with himself, being honest, not being able to delude himself anymore. He had nowhere left to run.

I know I did say that at first I did not see Loki and Sylvie as having any romantic tension between them, but please, hear me out first.

According to Classical Mythology, PSYCHE is "a personification of the soul", which is exactly what Sylvie is to Loki. It would make the "if anyone's anyone, you're me" comment make way more sense. Remember how I said Sylvie is Loki's mirror? Loki getting this close to talking about his (what I see as non-romantic) feelings about himself, how he sees his own person, talking about himself in an emotional way, really admitting to his mirror that reflects the deepest parts of himself who he really was, and then just STOPPED before he could do so was so heartbreaking.

I had said that he was not gonna tell her he loved her because that’s so messed up (I get that narcissism is loving yourself but Sylvie is NOT Loki, nor is Loki Sylvie, they’re two different individuals), but Loki was just about to reveal his true feelings, his real emotions that he’s been trying to hide from himself all along. Loki can no longer run away (remember this comment from one of the interviews?), from himself, his emotions, there’s nowhere for him to run, it was time to be honest with himself.

Somewhere I made a comment that went like this:

Loki finally finding a connection with someone who is so much like him, yet so much unlike him is rare. ("Sylvie's not Loki. Sylvie is Sylvie" and "while they're the same, they're not the same" - Hiddleston / "She is him, but she's not him." - Herron) In that Loki has always been alone, and everything that he did was a cry for help that he never received, while Sylvie had been alone for so many years she's had to rely on herself to survive.

It makes sense then, that both Loki and Sylvie see themselves in each other ("I see a scheme, and in that scheme I see myself" from Ep2) and acknowledge that they are both lonely survivors who made it through so much, that they had each other for even that short amount of time.

That connection they had, that emotional attachment that they came to share, was not romantic in any way. (I'll get to why I’m conflicted about this, and why I may come to be okay with it, in a bit.) I read somewhere that the Nexus Event was not as Mobius described it, but was that Loki finally knowing that he'll never be alone, that he's honest with himself, which is something that goes against the TVA's dictates. THAT's the Nexus Event!

According to the TVA and Ravonna, Loki can't be caring! He can't change from being a homicidal maniac! He can't change! But we know Loki can. Loki himself knows that he can change. This knowledge and acceptance was enough to cause the damn Nexus Event, because the Timekeepers did not decree it! Even in Ep1, Loki declared that he would not let the TVA dictate how his story ends. It's clear that Loki's story is nt over yet.

Two lonely survivors find each other, so it's not surprising that Loki himself was THIS close to finally admitting the truth about himself, admitting and being honest with himself... until Ravonna pruned him.

Ravonna has always been pro-TVA and anti-Loki, so it's not surprising that earlier when she was speaking to Mobius, he's like, "Loki can change" but she's like "no because the TVA said so", so therefore when she hears that Loki is finally being honest with himself (through almost revealing his feelings to Sylvie), Ravonna cannot take it and obliterates him herself. According to her, which says that according to the TVA, Loki having an honest and real change of heart is the real Nexus Event and as such, must be prevented.

Now, about love, I guess, new to Loki as it may be.

(Talking points from https://www.marvel.com/articles/tv-shows/loki-sylvie-in-love)

Here's where I think I can explain why though I'm not 100% on board with Loki being romantically involved with Sylvie I might warm up to the idea, the possibility of them being kind of a thing. I'm a little divided on it myself, but here goes.

First and foremost, here's something that head writer Michael Waldron says about the possibility of a romance: "That was one of the cruxes of my pitch [for the series], that there was going to be a love story. We went back and forth for a little bit about, like do we really want to have this guy fall in love with another version of himself? Is that too crazy?" Maybe, maybe not.

You see, as you know, Sylvie is a version of Loki, but is not Loki. Mobius describes them as "Two Variants of the same being." Director Kate Herron notes, however, saying of Sylvie about Loki that "she is him, but she's not him. They've had such different life experiences." Tom Hiddleston chimes in with "Sylvie's not Loki. Sylvie is Sylvie. I think he realizes, and she realizes, that while they're the same, they're not the same."

But what about the love story?

Mobius concludes through context clues that Loki is "an incredible seismic narcissist! You fell for yourself!" He taunts Loki, "You like her! Does she like you?"

Here's where it gets interesting. Loki had reassured Sylvie that people like them don't die so easily, they survive. He had praised her for running circles around the TVA, calling her amazing (again, another metaphor, but I think I've covered that), after which she had placed her hand on Loki's arm. Notice his reaction - he looks down at where her hand had made contact with his arm, shifts in a way that suggests his surprise. He's like, 'Is this warmth I'm feeling? I've never felt someone's gentle touch before. I think she cares for me, is that even possible for someone like me?'

He looks up at her, and though his story differs from Sylvie's, he recognizes that though he may have suffered, she had been physically on the run her entire life, whereas Loki had been mentally and metaphorically on the run from himself. We see from the look on his face that though Loki and Sylvie had spent less than 12 hours in each other's presence, he's come to respect her and her courage to do what he could never have. "You're amazing," he says.

Michael Waldron continues, "The look that they share, that moment, [it started as] a blossoming friendship. Then for the first time, they both feel that twinge of, ‘Oh, could this be something more? What is this I'm feeling?’ These are two beings of pure chaos that are the same person falling in love with one another. That's a straight-up and down branch, and exactly the sort of thing that would terrify the TVA."

Sylvie's not sure if she's got any sort of feelings for Loki, but she does ask if he's okay after they reach the golden elevators that would take them to the Timekeepers. Anyway, after the time loop punishment on Asgard, during which Lady Sif tells him, "You deserve to be alone and you always will be", Loki realizes that he's scared of being alone. He hopes that there might be someone out there with whom he can connect on a deeper level.

Director Kate Herron points out, "Who's a better match for Loki than himself?" Or Sylvie, for that matter. But because "but she's not him. They've had such different life experiences," it would make so much sense and would totally be in character for Loki to connect with someone he sees himself in, again, metaphorically speaking.

This is the ultimate journey of "self-love, self-reflection, and forgiving yourself", as Waldron puts it, so for Loki to come to terms that he might possibly love Sylvie is a metaphor for accepting himself as he truly is, not what or who he projects himself to be. It's about being kind to himself, because as he reflects on this new feeling about Sylvie, he's also reflecting upon himself and whether or not he can keep running from his emotions, as Tom Hiddleston says. The answer is no, he cannot run any longer from his acknowledgment that he's got feelings for Sylvie than he can run from his own realizations about himself. He forgives Sylvie as a metaphorical way of forgiving himself for his past misdeeds, like admitting that cutting off Sif's hair was not funny at all. It would make sense then, according to Waldron, that "that would be Loki's first real love story." Not a story about a narcissist, but a story of identity and self-acceptance and honesty.

The fact that Loki and Sylvie are two COMPLETELY different people who are so dissimilar except for the fact that they're two lonely survivors, could possibly result in them having a relationship.

Hear me out on why.

You know how Loki had said to Sylvie at the end, "this is new to me"? He means that he has never before known how to express love and care because he's never received any of either. For all of his life, he had been treated badly by all except perhaps his mother, but as in Ep3, he agrees that though he's had courtships before, none of those relationships, none of it included any type of love that felt tangentially real to him. Loki doesn't know what real love is... until Sylvie comes along. She does not make him know what love is, because he comes to terms to his feelings all on his own.

Tom Hiddleston says, "When Loki meets Sylvie, he's inspired solely by curiosity." Herron adds, about the relationship, "It was just about giving it the space to breathe and digging into it in a way that felt earned." And I think that I might come to accept that it is earned, in some way.

Two lonely survivors who quite literally run into each other, who recognize each other for who they really are, who accept each other and themselves, and who can finally be truthful and honest with themselves and each other. It's not always a game of checkers or chess. Sometimes, it's a maze of metaphors and mirrors.

I understand that this relationship between Sylvie and Loki is controversial for some, cute for others. If I hadn't already made myself clear, I was never really against the pairing, just that I was never 100% sure I'd board that train myself. I was initially of the opinion that their dynamic was strictly platonic, but because I'm open to different interpretations, I decided to have a look at why people saw the relationship between Loki and Sylvie as a beautiful one.

The conclusion I came to, is that there definitely is more than one interpretation of Loki and Sylvie's dynamic, and that I'm okay with both. We've got two episodes left, so I'm curious to see how Sylvie and Loki's dynamic plays itself out.

Ultimately, this story is about Loki.

Loki has to start with the man in the mirror. The person he metaphorically sees himself in is Sylvie, his perfect mirror, and he's asking himself to change his ways. No message, no relationship, no reflection, no realization, no feeling could have been any clearer. So, if Loki wants to be a better person, which we know he can and will be, he will take a look at himself in his mirror and make that change.

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yostresswritinggirl · 3 years

Text

Scholars’ Chit Chat Prologue Submission

XXX

Cyno x Reader (Platonic, possibly romantic in the future)

*Lore dump warning

*Spoilers for all the Archon Quests and speculations of Teyvat

*Really it’s all serious talk

XXX

This is basically how you and Cyno met

XXX

The libraries of Sumeru are quiet, like how they’re suppose to be.

It is a new semester after all, the freshmen are still getting a grasp of the large campus, though Cyno does guess that soon enough they will be awed of this place.

Walking among the tall shelves, he tries to locate the section he had been researching on, but a voice calls out to him, breaking his concentration.

“Hey, you ever thought of why were you given a Vision?”

He turns to the source of the voice, only to see you there, sitting on top of one of the book shelves as your legs dangled from it.

“I would say that it is a question worth discovering with my entire life.”

“Huh, to think that you would answer so naturally… Wouldn’t one first ask who I am or ask why would I want to know that?”

“Because, first, I know who you are and second, those who come to this place seek knowledge.”

“Oh, so I had become the talk of school despite me being here for the first day?”

“Indeed, you were known as one who had declared to not take part in any sort of Mysticism studies yet aim to unveil the mysteries of this world. They called you naive yet you had earned the highest scholarship obtainable. It’s kind of hard to not let such news spread out.”

“Well, there are certainly advantages and disadvantages with this commotion, but that’s not my main focus anyways.”

“And may I ask what that would be?”

“To search for answers to fulfil my contract with the God of Wisdom.”

“Contract?”he questions, not capable of following your conversation, you slyly smiled at this.

“Unfortunately, this upcoming topic requires a fee to unlock~ I don’t mind sharing my findings to others, but when it comes to something as rare as words from an archon….”

“You get the idea, a price is required for everything after all.”

“…”

Cyno stared at you as if you were pulling his leg, but his reaction made you smirk even more.

“Oh, I won’t be asking for much, something like… Your name, perhaps?”

Suddenly realising that he hadn’t introduced himself yet and was reminded in such a playful matter, Cyno couldn’t help but let out an embarrassed chuckle.

“My apologies, I forgot to introduce myself. I’m Cyno, a pleasure to meet you.”

“Hmm… You know that one’s name is important, right? Names hold power, not necessary the one given by your parents but the one that defines your soul. There are quite a few stories mentioning that giving your name to someone is the same as giving a part of their soul to them.”

The male however lets out a laugh at your advice.

“Thanks for the warning, I’ll keep that on mind.”

“It was nothing, and to the end of my bargain, yes…’ you began as you jumped off the shelf, landing right in front of him. “Well, it’s more like a bet than a contract if I’m being honest.”

“Which is?”

“To find out the truth behind Khaen-riah’s fall, or more specifically, the reason behind the alchemist Gold’s fall, before I graduate.”

“?!”

The kingdom that had technology and Mysticism developed greatly even without an archon, then was destroyed five hundred years ago.

Not much is known about Khaen-riah, and yet...

Cyno, was shocked, no, shocked isn’t enough to describe how he’s feeling.

“That’s... nearly impossible, isn’t it? Just what sort of offer did he gave you to tip the scales-”

“If I succeeded, he would answer me anything I want to know about.”

“A-Anything?”

“That’s right~”

...

“What happens... If you fail?”

Everything comes with a price, as you had said.

“Then my life would be in his hands, for him to decide my fate.”

Despite only knowing you for not long, Cyno cannot believe what you had risked.

“Are you out of your mind?! What would you possibly want to know that you’re willing to-”

“To understand the laws of this world.” You answered one a simple matter.

“It has been so long that the human race had been existing and yet none of us came close in finding the truth of the world...”

“Or perhaps someone did, and they failed to tell anyone?”

“Even Khaen-riah itself is advance with Alchemy, history tells us that their greatest alchemist Gold fell and became quite a threat... But why...?”

“...”

“What I’m trying to say is that we’re too trusting towards the gods cause we’re told to do so since we were born, you know what I had learnt after being tricked once? Doubt everything when you first see it, question it’s existence and see if you can use another point of view to perceive it.”

“Why do you doubt the gods?”

“That’s because I believe in humanity’s wisdom. I believe that even without the gods, humanity can still take care of themselves as fine.”

“If you need to rely on someone else in order to live, then what’s the meaning of living in the first place?”

“This is... quite a lot...” Cyno mumbled.

“It is a lot to take in, I agree.” You nodded as you leaned against a shelf.

“Our senior Lisa left this place after mere two years and went to Mondstadt to be a librarian despite her being a genius the Academia hasn’t seen for 200 years... Is it because she saw something that nobody else realised?”

“So what you’re saying is... There’s more to the bigger picture?” Cyno guessed as you snapped your fingers. “Bingo.”

“But that being said, questioning the gods is the same thing as raging treason against this world... “ Cyno pointed out with worry. “Are you sure this is what you want?”

“Indeed, *I’m trying to understand the rules of this chess game, so that humanity, the supposed audience of this game gets the chance to participate in it.”

“And if we can win this chess game or not, is entirely up to our legacy...”

“You have too much belief in humanity... Or should I say you have no intention of losing in the first place?”Cyno predicted with a sigh.

“Hm, seeing that you’re being so interested in our bet, perhaps you would like to become my partner in crime?”

Hearing this, Cyno finally realised that he was tricked at the point when he answered your question about his Vision.

“So that was what you were going after for all along, huh?”

“Haha, yup~ I mean, our archon didn’t state anything about not able to team up with others, so why not?”

“Able to ask anything from the God of Wisdom himself, what else more can a scholar wish for?”

Cyno understand that your words are trying to lure him, but in truth, who can give up this opportunity?

“I mean, even if we fail, I’m the only one who would lose anything so it really sounds like a pretty good deal to me~”

“And would you mind me asking for a warrant from you for the time I would be spending on this?”Cyno requested, surprising you for a bit.

“Well, how about my name? You’ve heard about me but haven’t known that yet, correct? With a part of our souls in each other’s hands, no one can run off easily, don’t you think so?”

“Alright I accept the of your con-”

“It’s a promise, not a contract.”

Cyno pauses at your sudden seriousness, he then takes notice of the frown on your face.

“...”

“You want this partnership to be built on trust and not just a piece of paper?” He guessed.

You softly nodded, trying not to meet him in the eyes.

But there’s no way that he would accept that, you two only just met after all-

“Then I promise, that I will be your partner in crime upon this bet against the Dendro Archon.”

Wha-?!

Cyno offers you a small smile. “Everyone has their own reasons, I too wish that I can understand you better within these few years... That is if you wish, of course.”

I’m glad.

“Yeah, likewise, Cyno.”

“I also by offering my name, promise that we will find out the laws of this world and allow humanity to earn the chance to be a part of this chess game.”

“My name is-“

XXX

*The chess game is referencing The Feynman Lectures on Physics, it is also referenced from Honkai Impact 3rd (another game of MiHoYo) Honkai Quest event by the character Delta, it is possible that it works as well for the world of Teyvat.

(One way that's kind of a fun analogy to try to get some idea of what we're doing here to try to understand nature is to imagine that the gods are playing some great game like chess. Let's say a chess game. And you don't know the rules of the game, but you're allowed to look at the board from time to time, in a little corner, perhaps. And from these observations, you try to figure out what the rules are of the game, what [are] the rules of the pieces moving.

You might discover after a bit, for example, that when there's only one bishop around on the board, that the bishop maintains its color. Later on you might discover the law for the bishop is that it moves on a diagonal, which would explain the law that you understood before, that it maintains its color. And that would be analogous we discover one law and later find a deeper understanding of it.

Ah, then things can happen--everything's going good, you've got all the laws, it looks very good--and then all of a sudden some strange phenomenon occurs in some corner, so you begin to investigate that, to look for it. It's castling--something you didn't expect.)

And welp, Exiled, mind me adding this?

-To their future child(ren)

And this is how your parents met//slap

With the Gnosis shaped as chess pieces and with MiHoYo’s other games referencing this...

Well theories will be theories until they’re truly revealed.

Until then Snowdrop’s gonna freak out on what the heck I just wrote

There will be continuations... Just please don’t look forward to it... OwO

Oh I do NOT mind AT ALL, Snowdrop. CONTINUE. This series looks so freakin cool and refreshing even!

#exiled community #genshin impact x reader #Cyno x reader #Snowdrop anon #exile.flower #exile.pocketwatch #Good shit #gender neutral #submission

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sunflowersteves · 4 years

Text

bloody & bruised || one night

Mob!Bucky Barnes x Boxer!Reader

𝒄𝒉. 𝒔𝒖𝒎𝒎𝒂𝒓𝒚: You were hoping that you never had to see the mob boss ever again after a one night stand. However, he just so happens to attend your boxing match. It’s only a coincidence, right?

author’s note: woot chapter 3!! god i really love this series, the reader is such a badass! sorry for taking so long, I hope you all enjoy this chapter!

warnings: blood, gore, swearing, making out, tiny bit of fluff

previous chapter // series m.list // m.list

“You know, you could just let it go.”

Bucky rolled his eyes at Steve who was sitting across from him at the table. Bucky had organized a meeting with his most trusted friends: Sam, Natasha, and Steve. They were supposed to be talking about who stole their last shipments but the conversation had shifted towards the one night stand he had a month ago.

“Let it go? She walked out on me, not the other way around. I won’t let her get away with that.”

Bucky pursed his lips as Sam’s smirk never died. He could only stare at his boss and long time friend with a dashing smirk. Bucky couldn’t help but roll his eyes again at his friends. They didn’t understand, he couldn’t let one woman ruin his empire.

Although, if Bucky was being completely honest with himself, he couldn’t stop thinking about you. He couldn’t stop thinking about your laughter after a bottle of whiskey, or your bruised knuckles, or your eyes.

Fuck—your eyes were glorious. The way they dazzled when he talked about nothing in particular or your eyes dilated when his lips met your neck. The way your eyes lit up when you talked about boxing. His heart thumped against his chest like never before.

One night.

One goddamn amazing fucking night.

One night was all it took for Bucky to be completely and utterly taken with you. His stomach churned when he thought about the sweet sounds you made that night.

He was also quite impressed with you. Since the first day you met, you never took any of his shit. Nobody has ever done that before — not even the friends he calls family. You didn’t want anything to do with him on the subway and you didn’t fight for him in the ring, which a lot of people do because of their fear.

But you never gave in, not once.

He couldn’t get you out of his head and it was driving him up the damn wall. When he saw that you had left him there in an empty bed, his heart was crushed into little pieces. Never had anyone ever left him alone in a cold bed. He was always the one to leave first or kick them out.

You were annoyingly headstrong, dumbly naive, stupidly beautiful, and bucky fucking hated it. He hated that all he could think about was your soft skin. He hated that all he could think about was your eyes staring back at him. He hated it so fucking because he isn’t supposed to have these feelings.

He’s the big bad mob boss of Brooklyn. He’s a cold stone killer who gets off on crime. He shouldn’t feel the things he’s feeling with you.

“You like her.” Sam just continued to smirk at his friend. Bucky’s heart thudded in his chest more rapidly at the idea. He did like you. He liked you a lot. For the whole month, he couldn’t get you out of his head.

“You’re being ridiculous. I don’t like her.” Sam’s eyebrows shot up in surprise. Normally, Barnes was a cocky little shit and paraded on and on about the women he’s been with. This was the first time he’d ever denied it.

You were different. You rubbed him the wrong way, in every way, but he couldn’t help but think about you.

“Damn, you like like her. You’ve got it bad.” Natasha took a sip of her beer, her right eyebrow was slightly raised. Sam and Steve continued to relentlessly tease and prod him for being infatuated with some girl.

But Natasha knew it was more than that. She saw the little smile he had when they teased him. She saw that he fidgeted a bit and a blush crept up his neck every single time he thought about you.

It looked as if Bucky Barnes, the baddest man in all of Brooklyn, had found love at first sight.

“Shouldn’t we be on the topic of who's stealing my shipments, Wilson?”

Stupid. Punch. Fucking. Punch. Barnes. Punch.

Your knuckles throbbed against your skin, you could feel them bruising already. You couldn’t get that stupid mobster out of your head. For the past month, you’ve done nothing but try to avoid him.

You’d see his bodyguards in front of Carol’s gym so you would use the back door. Sometimes you’d see his car waiting outside or Bucky himself would be standing outside but you’d use the side entrance instead.

It’s not that you didn’t want to see him. You honestly did, that burning desire had settled right into your stomach. However, you didn’t want to get tangled in shit you shouldn’t be tangled in. You needed to focus on your career and boxing career, not some mobster that you can’t seem to get out of your head.

“If Carol knows you’re here, practicing before a match, she’ll kill you.”

A sigh leaves your mouth as you look to see Shuri leaning on one of the other punch bags that was rooted in the ground. You looked down to see your knuckles somewhat bloody—stinging slightly.

“I know. I’m just stressed.”

Shuri grabbed an ice pack from out of the freezer from the corner of the room and handed it over. You pressed them against your knuckles and relished in the cool feeling it gave on your slightly swollen knuckles.

“Thinking about a certain mobster?”

Her eyes twinkled with tease, and she sat on the wooden bench next to the punching bags. Another sigh left your lips and you nodded, walking over to sit next to her on the bench.

“I don’t know, Shuri. It’s like my brain is in spirals every time I think about him. I think about how hard he laughed when I told a story that night. I think about kissing his lips and looking into those damn eyes—those damn blue eyes rarely leave my head.”

She looked at you with sorrow-filled eyes. She opened her arms and you leaned into her touch, resting yourself on her lap. You were lucky to have a friend like her.

“What’s stopping you?”

She moved her thumb up and down your arm in a soothing motion. You close your eyes, letting your emotions settle deep inside within your heart.

“I don’t know anything about him. And I certainly don’t know the things that he’s done but I imagine it’s not all good things.”

You paused, lifting yourself off of Shuri’s lap to look at her fully. You needed to know what the hell was going on with you. You’ve never acted this way around any of your other partners. Bucky made you want to rip your hair out of your head in frustration but also made you want to make love to him on a rainy day.

“But it feels like we’re… I don’t know. It’s stupid-”

“Soulmates?” She inquired, then laughed at the bewildered expression on your face. She knew you didn’t mean soulmates, but she also knew you did mean that too. There was something different about Bucky that made your heart soar.

“Not to that level but, yeah. It’s like we’re meant to be together.”

The idea of soulmates almost makes you want to laugh but maybe it was another cliche like ‘love at first sight.’ Whatever it was, you wanted to get to the bottom of it. You wanted to be near him, to be with him.

“All I know is, you’ve never been this way with a guy.” She looked at the time and sat up, gesturing that the two of you need to run to the stadium before it’s too late.

“C’mon, I want you to come test out my new project.”

Some of Carol’s assistants make sure that your gloves are secure on your hands. Gamora is preparing you for the tournament. You nod at whatever she’s saying but it’s hard to pay attention from all the screaming in the crowd.

You lock eyes with your opponent, Hope Van Dyne. She looks at you with a raised eyebrow but you can’t help but form a little smile. Even though boxing culture likes to pin women against each other, you were never one to follow those rules. All of you were just doing what you loved.

She still has her eyebrows raised, but she cracks a small smile back at you.

You break the contact and look across the stadium. Thousands of people were gathered for this event, and they were cheering like no tomorrow in your presence. Your eyes scan the crowd and you see Shuri and her brother waving at you. You smile back and give a little wave.

However, your whole body freezes as you recognize a face in the crowd. You see Steve’s blonde hair stricken itself in the vast majority of the crowd. He was walking down to the front row which means that if he’s here-

Your eyes trail down to where he was heading and you lock eyes with that fucking mobster, Bucky. His gray ocean eyes were staring right back at yours and you couldn’t look away. You didn’t want to look away.

A smirk settled right on his face, and man, did you want to kiss— uh, punch. Yeah, you wanted to punch him right in those pretty pink lips.

Your attention is diverted as the ringleader lifts the rope and comes inside the ring. Carol is yelling at you, giving you as much advice as she can before the match starts.

You find yourself nodding at whatever she’s saying before your eyes flicker over to Bucky’s again—you tell yourself it’s just for safe measure. He winks back at you, that damn smug smirk still resting on his lips.

“Round One!” the number girl walks around, your eyes locking with Hope’s. The ring girl moves out of the way, the referee stands nearby—watching your every move. You dance around each other for a while, testing and teasing one another.

Hope makes the first swing, which you immediately dodge. You watch as she curses slightly, sweat dripping down her chin. Your gloves started to feel heavy already, despite being used to them.

The heavy sweat on your body didn’t help, you needed to focus. This time, you made the first move. You almost got her too, the uppercut just barely missing her jaw. Her smirk was prominent, which just made you grimace. You hear Carol’s advice ring through your head, so you relax your shoulders and close your eyes.

Immediately, out of nowhere you snap your eyes open and swing to your right. Your glove landed right in the middle of her rib cage. She stumbled back with a gasp leaving her lips, and you watched as her eyes narrowed slightly towards you.

But what you didn’t see coming was the uppercut she gave right back, her glove hitting you square in the jaw. This has dazed you quite a bit, some blood squirting out of your mouthguard. You stumble backward, landing on your knees. You can faintly hear the referee call out so you stumble back up, not letting him count another number.

The two of you dance for a while again—dodging and blocking one another. Round after round, punching and dodging which all the more made you tired. Your jaw was hit three times, she knew that was a weakness. Her rib cage was hit three times, you knew her right foot had a weakness.

The referee looked at the two of you before starting the match again, Carol and Gamora shouting at you—trying to become louder than the crowd. You lock eyes with Hope again, a smirk coming up to her face again as she tries to hit you with another uppercut.

Luckily, you saw this one coming so you quickly grab it and put her in a hold. One punch—two—three—and she shoves you off of her, the referee yelling at the crowd while the crowd yells back at him.

You felt slightly dizzy from the shove but you knew she was worse, she just got three punches to the gut. In a sudden flash, Hope latches onto you and traps you in around her. She’s got you completely stuck, and she delivers the same blows except for one, only enduring two punches before you shove her off.

You rest your hands on your knees for a second, trying to steady yourself and you watch as Hope tries to do the same. Your body feels limp from the hours of dancing around each other and the punches you endured from her.

The crowd was practically on the edge of their seat as they watched the two of you stand there and regain your composure. You close your eyes slightly, breathe in and out to calm yourself down. Your mouthguard was red at this point—the taste of copper was overwhelming.

Your eyes snap open in a flash and you run up to her, striking a punch that hit straight into her chest. God, she was really good. You knew professional boxing would be hard but holy fuck this was the hardest match you had ever faced.

The wind was knocked out of her, the referee yelling to the crowd while the crowd cheered back. She was knocked back on her feet, body slamming into the cushioned ring. It almost felt silent, your ears ringing like no tomorrow as you stared wide-eyed at your opponent.

The referee bent down, counting to ten, and watched her closely to see if she was able to stand. Her eyes were closed shut and you almost felt sick to your stomach. You didn’t mean to knock her out.

The referee completes his counting, her team running over to her. The ref walks up to you and holds your arm up in the air—your smile as bright as it can be.

You did it. Your first professional match. And you won.

You sat on one of the benches in the locker room, a cold town wrapped around your neck. You inspected your knuckles, the pressure of hitting and the glove had made them ache and bleed. Your jaw had a large bruise, it started to swell already.

You were inspecting your injuries in the locker mirrors when you saw the all too familiar mob boss waltz right in.

“Well, well, well, if it isn’t the boxing champion.”

You just rolled your eyes, a string of curses leave your mouth as you disinfect your knuckles. They stung pretty goddamn bad.

“You know, doll, last month-” he watches you fiddle with the bandage, another string of curses leave your mouth from not being able to hold it down.

With two hands throbbing and swollen, it was kind of hard to put a bandage on them. He kneels down, so he’s right in front of you. He gently takes your hand and you watch with an awe stricken face as he delicately wraps the bandaid on the pads of your knuckles.

You look up from the wound and stare into his eyes—noticing that he was already looking at you. Your eyes flickered back and forth between his, those blue eyes were captivating. It was like he was sucking you into a deep void of just him.

Your mouth was quick, blurting out the sentence that kept running through your head, “want to get out of here?”

He smiled like never before, eyes sparkling—teasing almost. This naturally made you become flustered, you started to fiddle with your hands as he continued to not say a word.

Finally, he speaks with that smirk etched across his face, “only if you promise you won’t leave in the morning.”

He took you to his car, which surprised you when it was him that actually drove instead of one of his lackeys. You get into the passenger seat, and he immediately drives off, heading to his mansion.

When you arrived, you noticed that no guards or his friends were around. You assumed there were at least some guards but maybe they were told to try and be hidden. His mansion was large, with gold and yellows fluttering across the walls.

You walk over to the coffee table and pick up a bottle of wine, pour some for yourself and Bucky. He walks over and takes the glass from you, his lips pressed into that dashing smirk. Yeah, you were definitely going to have fun with him.

For the rest of the night, the two of you become quite busy running and dancing around the big house. It was relaxing to be around each other and just be yourselves, you could tell that Bucky was enjoying your company too.

You giggled, swaying your fourth glass of wine in your hand, while Bucky laughed at your demeanor. Bucky walked over and pressed something on his phone, resulting in some jazz playing throughout the house.

Prior to the wine and jazz, you had talked for hours about whatever was related to the conversation. You laughed together and teased one another, enjoying the other’s presence.

His large hands went to rest on your hips, the two of you drunkenly swaying about in his large living room. Your arms were wrapped around his neck and your head was buried in the crook of his neck. He pulled you even closer by securing his hands around your hips.

You lift your head and stare at the mob boss in front of you, trying to memorize every detail of his chestnut hair or the structure of his nose. Bucky moved his hands, so they rested on your cheek, his heart was beating a mile a minute and his stomach was flip flopping at the beauty of yourself.

He didn’t know what this feeling was, but he liked it. Oh, did he really like it. He started to lean in while your eyes fluttered closed, his lips placing themselves on yours. His lips were soft and wet, tongue tasted like wine. Your hands immediately went into fists on his chest, your mouths moving in sync and enveloping each other with passionate promises.

His hands worked their way down your figure, trying to touch every square inch of your body. You tasted oh so sweet, like cherry lip balm and crystal red wine. You were running out of breath but you didn’t care. Your lips were locked, tongues exploring, hands shaking, and you weren’t about to let this go.

Deep down you knew you shouldn’t be here with him. You knew it was a terrible idea. But, you couldn’t stop, you didn’t want to stop. You wanted to touch his lips, tracing your fingers around his face. You wanted to dance like this on nights where you knew you’d be alone together. You wanted to bake cookies with him but let it result in a food fight.

You didn’t want this night to end.

He quickly separated from the kiss and before you could protest, his forehead rested on top of yours. His smile only got wider at the sound of your laughter, his hands coming up to rest on your cheeks again.

Bucky creased his eyebrows in confusion at the buzz that started in his pocket. He told Nat, Sam, and Steve to leave him alone for the night because you were here. He then looked down at his phone, and all he could feel was the dread in the pit of his stomach.

Unknown Number: Pretty girl you got there, isn’t it?

Unknown Number: It would be a shame if somebody killed her.

next chapter

marvel: @harrysthiccthighss @fandomsandxfiles @rebekahdawkins

bucky barnes: @harrysthiccthighss @rebekahdawkins

bloody & bruised: @xoasalxo @raven-rust @widowbite-legit

permanent taglist: @captainchrisstan @angstysebfan @teenagereadersciencenerd @rebekahdawkins @hailmary-yramliah

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zenosanalytic · 3 years

Text

Growing Up is Hard; It’s Hard and Nobody Understands

So I noticed netflix has Neon Genesis Evangelion up last week and started watching it front to back for the first time ever(this happens to have coincided with me being in a down-mood for your edification, dear readers u_u), finished it today, REALLY liked it, and I wanted to try my hand at explaining what the hell is even going on in NGE cuz it actl seemed super-clear to me(a person who has been consuming NGE analysis and post-NGE media for literally 25 years) u_u

Surface Plot; Or NERV: What the Hell Is It?

I’ll try to make this as brief as possible: An organization of super-wealthy individuals calling itself Seele(looking this up, it means soul in german) wants to possess the power of God. The final third or so of the series is clear on this; it’s all about power. Ikari Yui, a geneticist, is recruited by this organization, and her husband Gendo(having taken her name which says a LOT given typical Japanese practice) comes with her. In seeking out this power, they discover a hollow sphere underneath Antarctica(”The White Moon”), send an expedition there under the guise of the UN, encounter an entity with this power which they label an “Angel”, and do SOMETHING which prompts it to explode the continent flooding the earth and killing half the population(that Gendo left beforehand implies this may have been intentional, or that a bad outcome to Seele’s approach was easy to predict, tho in typical Gendo fashion, his is the only ass he cared to save).

Afterwards Seele blame the scientists for this outcome and send Gendo on a salvage mission which recovers both remains of the Angel, now dubbed “Adam”, and a device they dub “the spear of Longinus”. Seele creates Gehirn to study these remains for practical use; they clone “Adam” and dub the result Evas(Eves). Having cloned them, they now need a way to use and control them as the Evas are non-responsive. They hit on the idea of injecting people into them via the Entry Plug system, presumably to act as a brain. The first person to try this, Ikari Yui, was absorbed by the Eva(Unit 01); the second(Soryu Kyoko Zeppelin; Asuka’s mother) was partially psychologically absorbed by Unit 02, psychologically and mentally injured by this, institutionalized, abandoned by her shit USian husband Langley who remarried to her LEAD DOCTOR, and eventual kills herself in a hanging which Asuka either is the first to discover or, given her memories of promising to die with her/begging her not to do it, was present for. An important thing to note about this: Shinji and Asuka’s ability to sync with their Evas comes from the fact that their mothers are PART of their Eva’s identity, and all of their classmates are potential pilot-candidates. The implication here is that Seele KNEW this happened when you put adults into an Angel, and they KEPT DOING IT ANYWAY to create more pilots, but there’s no confirmation of that in series.

After the attempt at human adult control fails, Gendo combines Yui’s DNA with Adam’s and creates Rei. At the same time he is doing this another team, under Akagi Naoko, is developing Magi, a biomechanical computer for simulating the human mind(again: certain implication to this re: Evas though the series never says anything). Naoko is romantically interested in Gendo, and they start getting together(Gendo’s too much of an asshole to be said to date, I think). After Rei, a toddler, tells her Gendo calls her an “old woman” in private, not realizing this is insulting, Naoko kills her, then kills herself out of shame over having MURDERED A CHILD, and Gehirn is folded into a new organization, NERV, which Gendo is put in charge of. Rei forms the basis of the second attempt at controlling the Evas; child-pilots.

How they use Rei for this I’m not exactly sure. It could be because Rei is cloned from Yui(she easily syncs with Unit 01 before Shinji bonds with it completely), or because she’s part Angel via her Adam element(Kaworu says Angels merge with one another easily and naturally), or it could be they did something with Rei I’s corpse and Unit 00(I dont see how as it seems to require a LIVE pilot). Regardless, she is raised to be the pilot for 00, the prototype. MUCH later, when the rest of the Angels finally decide to come looking for Adam, Shinji is called in, and after his success Asuka(who like Rei and unlike Shinji has been training to pilot her whole life) is called to Nerv headquarters(under Japan, in the “Black Moon”; a second spherical hollow where they found another Angel they call Lilith) too.

Regardless the child-pilots are only a step in Nerv and Seele’s plans, as Rei is ALSO the template for the Dummy Plug system, the final step in complete control of Eva units. To put it simply, the Dummy Plugs are Rei-clones without her personality or memories, and will just do whatever the heck they’re ordered to. At least once during the series(and I’d argue two, possibly three times) Rei dies and is replaced by one of these clones through some process, which involves what looks like a pre 00 Eva’s spine and probably a Magi-like backup, which transfers her personality and memories into the new body.

So what is Nerv? Well it’s hard to say EXACTLY because Gendo is in some sort of conflict with Seele(and I want to keep my watches of End of Evangelion out of this post; to focus entirely on JUST NGE itself) and Nerv IS Gendo, but as the series states repeatedly it’s an attempt to control the future of humanity by controlling what they call “the power of god” which, given that it’s what most distinguishes the “Angels”, is the AT, or “Absolute Terror”, Field. What is the AT Field? It’s a field that can make or unmake any kind of matter or energy from basically nothing, and it also seems to have a strong tie to what you could call the Ego; to desires and sense-of-self. An AT Field gets stronger when the person generating it is experiencing powerful emotions; Confidence, sure, but also Fear, Abandonment, the Will to Live, and Anger.

That last bit is very important. Why? Strong AT Field effects require a powerful emotional motivation in the pilot combined with high sync-rates with the Eva(basically a lobotomized Angel-clone) generating the Field. The three pilots we meet, the Strongest candidates, are all exceedingly traumatized people, and Gendo is the direct cause of the trauma of two of them. At no point in the series is Gendo ever a good father to Shinji, he is CONSTANTLY unreasonable, neglectful, and cruel to him; he’s kinder to Rei but at the same time her loneliness, the state of her “home”, and her lack of self worth shows that he rarely interacts with her outside of missions or explains what’s going on beyond bald facts; and he COMPLETELY ignores Asuka, a deeply lonely child with a history of abandonment and close brushes with death; he even delegates bumping her from the program. This point is important because it’s important to recognize that Gendo is a bad dad on PURPOSE; that he instrumentalizes his bad dadness to traumatize Shinji(and Rei and Asuka, though sadly the series doesn’t focus on them enough for us to see much) as much as he can, because he thinks that trauma, that emotional instability and anger, MAKES SHINJI A MORE USEFUL PILOT; ie lets him generate more powerful AT Fields. This is never said clearly, but it’s clearly what’s going on as forcing Unit 01(and thus Shinji) into awful, heartbreaking, life-threatening situations is vital to his plan. Gendo’s a piece of shit, and I want ppl to recognize just HOW BIG a piece of shit he is, because I feel this powerfully.

And for what? For Power. To be “God”. To get the highest numbers. To generate the MOST Invincible Invincibility Shield. For Ridiculous, Absurd, Childish reasons. For, you know, the same reasons rich and powerful people do all the fucked up shit they do in the real world where giant magic robots thankfully DONT exist.

And how do they plan to do this? Through “Human Instrumentation”, which will literally kill everyone by turning them all into goo.

Metaplot; Or “SHINJI! Don’t Get in that Robot!!”

So, maybe this is just because(as said previously) I’ve been reading NGE Analysis and consuming media which NGE heavily inspired for ~25 years, but I think it’s old hat at this point to note that Neon Genesis Evangelion is ALSO an allegory for becoming an adult, centered on Shinji. However, it’s just really SO on the nose in this, so PERFECT as such a narrative, that I want to run through it real quick. Also: A Cruel Angel’s Thesis is basically a thesis-statement for this series; please check out the lyrics.

So Shinji is living under the guardianship of a teacher(yup: this series even takes a swing at how our society uses schools to warehouse kids so their parents can waste their lives producing “Value” instead of raising them), when the shitty dad that abandoned him decides he has a use for him after all and calls him up.

On meeting with a child he has not seen SINCE HE WAS A TODDLER LITERALLY ABANDONED HIM ON THE STREET WHEN HIS MOTHER DIED he immediately ambushes him with the command that he get in a huge body(that he grow up) to do what? Whatever Gendo tells him to, but specifically: commit acts of violence for Gendo and Seele’s profit. He tells him this will protect people; meanwhile doing it destroys those peoples’ literal homes. The rest of the series is a series of monotonous, incomprehensible “Tests” judging his, and his peers, worthiness for approval and affection on the basis of how well they can use those giant bodies to do what Gendo tells them(so: capitalist work), punctuated by unpredictable, brutal, traumatizing, and physically dangerous events(so: capitalist work). Every friend, and the one lover, he meets, he is placed in unnecessary, destructive competition with and, when they are male, forced to attack and(in the case of the one lover, Kaworu) kill them; this last comment on homophobia is so stark and obvs I don’t even feel like you can CALL it subtext, even IF it plays out over mostly a single episode(honestly this plotline should have been given more time). And all the time they’re doing this, they must ALSO continue going to school and maintaining the front that they’re happy smiley Heroes, completely normal and not traumatized at all, and Nerv and the government that lets them run this city is a great and wonderful organization. Is this not what becoming an adult, over your teens and 20s, feels like?

And then there’s Seele and Nerv. Able to move state governments as they wish, Seele CAUSED Second Impact(Global Warming). By not returning Adam’s remains, they’re CAUSING the Angel attacks on Nerv meant to retrieve them(the threat of Human extinction). The Angels eventually begin trying to communicate and Nerv’s response? Destroy them before they can; blow up the Evas(and their pilots) if they succeed. And to top it all off Seele and Nerv are actually trying to CAUSE the very extinction(Third Impact) they claim to be preventing! Seele and Nerv are just SUCH good metaphors for capitalism in our modern day.

The transwoman reading of Shinji also seems pretty dang strong to me, though I’ll only deal with it shallowly. Shinji is the only “male” of all the pilots. Outside of command and security, most Nerv staff are women. Being an Eva pilot, being Nerv staff, is marked as “feminine”, and Shinji is an Eva pilot; is a Nerv staffer. The body he gets into, Unit 01, acts as a metaphor for the large, imposing, masculine body he’s expected to have as an adult “man”, yet it’s also spiritually his mom -feminine- and his ability to use it is tied DIRECTLY with his ability to “Sync” with that spirit; with his ease and comfort being feminine. Even at the level of mere aesthetics, Shinji’s plugsuit makes him appear to have breasts! Going a bit deeper, he initially relates to the women around him by relating to their gender. He’s most at ease with Rei because of the personality traits she shares with him which, we know from his gender-policing of Misato from earlier in the series, are traits he considers feminine(ie: he doesn’t feel like Misato has them, so he thinks she’s being a woman “wrong” and gets oddly offended by this in a way that really feels more about him than her). Asuka is constantly expressing her frustration with him for not “being a man”, ie, for being “feminine” in her eyes, and he isn’t really bothered by it(her calling him an idiot seems to stick much more firmly). Misato and Shinji establish a modus vevendi when she accepts him as he is, allowing him to do the household chores and to cook; he’s comfortable and happy when accepted into roles his culture considers feminine, while most of the series is him bucking AGAINST the masculinity forced on him by Nerv, his father, and others. Again: this is a very surface-level engagement with the subject, but even at that shallow level I feel like the case for reading Shinji as a transwoman is pretty solid.

Dislikes

It’s not a perfect series by any means of course.

There’s allot of dialogue that’s pure 90s nonsense, though the series mostly includes it only to shoot it down.

Like I said above, I don’t think Rei and Asuka really get the time or attention they deserve. In general the series treatment of women is ...Weird... especially around the issue of sex. It’s really strange; in many ways it’s far better than most anime(spcl from that period) on this. Women are ACTUAL PEOPLE with psychology, opinions, and pasts; they’re allowed to have emotions of their own, and struggles, and to be damn competent; they are independent and their own selves rather than accessories or “prizes” to men. But on the issue of feminine sexuality it just gets suddenly so weird in this very particular old-school misogynist way. Like: it treats women’s attraction and reactions TO relationships as something devoid of and impenetrable to reason, without belittling the emotions(the desire and hurt) behind those reactions. That’s the only way I can describe it, and it’s so strange to see something that is both so insulting and sympathetic at once. Oh, and the Akagis in particular are done super-dirty for seemingly no reason I can see, tho I can guess, and Akagi Ritsuki is CLEARLY a lesbian(possibly bi lesbian) and also Rose Lalonde(srsl; her Deal should have been an unrequited, unspoken crush on Misato. They openly dealt with queerness re: Kaworu and Shinji they could have done it here too).

The Kaworu storyline should have been a series of episodes or even developed from the start with him as another pilot(maybe replace Toji with him), though they’d have to tone down his weirdness, at least at the start. A deeper dive on Shinji’s sexuality(honestly his attraction to Kaworu is SO much more immediate and believable than anything we see with him and Asuka, which there is basically nothing of beyond the ep where they had to do choreography for a fight, and that’s not developed on) would have really been appreciated, and having Kaworu be a bigger part of the series would have facilitated that.

Also honestly the whole series feels a bit rushed? Spcl the second half. Like I said: I haven’t done any followup reading lately, but I remember there being some budget problems or something, so maybe that’s the cause. Ironically it might actl also be why it’s as GOOD as it is; having to keep it short forces you to write concise and lean, and that’s probably why its themes and message are so clear. But, I’d have liked more rambling for character development, and more time spent on seeing Rei and Asuka react to the stresses we saw Shinji face(also they never really get moments to shine like he does; another negative common to the medium and genre). Asuka in particular, as a Japanese German with a USian temperament abandoned by her parents, already an outsider in SO many ways, coming to live in an entirely different culture where she’s even MORE of an outsider; forced to live with people(Misato and Shinji) she finds it impossible to relate to or connect with; who has literally NO ONE beside a single adult guardian who totally blows her off THE WHOLE SERIES after delivering her; PLUS her awful past: there’s just SO MUCH material I’d have loved to see explored more slowly and with greater depth, detail, and sympathy even if what IS there already is pretty powerful and effecting. She’s SUCH a good Vriska(so I’d also have loved to see her break more shit too >:>)

Conclusion

So Anyway: I really liked this series. It had its problems, there are things I’d have liked to see, but it absolutely deserves the reputation it has. I might write more about this, I might do a watch through INCLUDING End of Evangelion(which actl makes much more sense having watched the series, though having done so makes Shinji’s masturbation scene comPLETELY out of left-field like where the hell did THAT come from); we’ll see.

#Neon Genesis Evangelion #The Dreaded Animes #zA Reviews #zA Opinions

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idkwhoiamanymorebutwtf · 4 years

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How Mervana shows Louie’s response to trauma.

I made a super short post basically saying “Hey I like how Mervana highlights Louie’s trauma and it’s effects on him” and people seemed interested in hearing more about it so here’s that post.

Now, it’s no secret (generally) that Louie really hates adventures. That’s obvious throughout the show, up to the most recent season. He never seems to want to go on adventures, always objecting to them or not going or changing his mind and wanting to go back half way through. The show never fails to remind us that he hates them. What’s more, the show never fails to remind us exactly why Louie hates adventures. In Glomtales he was actually happy to be missing the adventure at first, commenting “Well, at least I can skip out on another insanely dangerous adventure”. Something that only changed when he realized they were going somewhere not only safe but actually fun, something very rare. In The Golden Armory Of Cornelius Coot he rocks back and forth trying to convince himself of why the adventure was worth it, clearly extremely distressed. “Do not laugh in the face of my danger” he shouted when Dewey starting giggling. Later in that episode he basically sobbed out “I wanna go home”. In Challenge Of The Senior Woodchuck he says “I’m cold and terrified, this sure seems like an adventure to me.”

Most of the family isn’t actually affected by the constant stress and danger they’re put in. Huey, Dewey, Webby, Della, and Scrooge all find it incredibly exciting, Donald used to once upon a time and he stopped adventuring after it stopped being that. Nobody else has really gone through what Louie has. He isn’t built for adventuring. He’s been kidnapped, physically and mentally hurt, almost killed. Constantly. According to an article I read, “Trauma results from an event, series of events, or set of circumstances that is experienced by an individual as physically or emotionally harmful or threatening and that can have lasting adverse effects on the individual’s functioning and physical, social, emotional well-being.” and well, that absolutely fits the bill here. Below i’m going to put some symptoms of trauma that are in line with what we’ve seen from Louie throughout the show

Anger, irritability, mood swings

Anxiety and fear

Guilt, shame, self-blame

Withdrawing from others

Feeling sad or hopeless

Feeling disconnected or numb

Fatigue

Being startled easily

Edginess and agitation

Extreme alertness; always on the lookout for warnings of potential danger

Detachment from other people and emotions

Emotional numbing

Suspicion

Throughout the show there are many instances of Louie’s trauma being very obvious to anybody paying attention. However I think the episode Mervana actually showcased the effects outside of just Louie being visibly distressed over actively being in danger. Other episodes have shown his symptoms, obviously. His anxiety and fear are always on during at adventure and when they aren’t he’s shockingly, almost unusually numb to the situation. He’s almost always very fatigued (although the line between what’s fatigue and what’s just ‘laziness’ is a bit blurred), and he’s almost always a bit too hostile towards others. But Mervana showed a really direct ‘cause and effect’ type relationship with the things they’ve been through and his behavior throughout that episode.

Starting off the episode, we can see Louie seems very detached. He’s texting throughout Huey and Scrooge’s monologues. As I said earlier, when it comes to adventuring he’s always either in fight or flight mode or he’s completely detached, maybe offering occasional dull but volatile remarks here and there. Eventually Louie makes a comment about how “Now there’s two people putting us in constant danger” before sitting like this for the next minute or so

The other’s are mid conversation but he just kinda sits there blankly for a while before turning to make another remark. “Yeah, I definitely can’t wait to find a bunch of lost undersea monsters who definitely won’t have a dark secret that almost gets us killed”. And it’s important to recognize that Louie isn’t just being a pessimist here. He may not be in panic mode at the moment because he tends to emotionally detach himself until it’s time for his fight or flight responses to kick in (likely a way to cope with the constant anxiety that seems to follow him) but he’s still got a very good point because they are put in constant danger and this episode really, truly, is no different. Webby even asks “Why do you always have to assume the worst?” to which Louie pulls out his running list of the times they’ve been offered as a sacrifice. He’s almost died countless times. He’s watched his brother’s and sister almost die countless times. No, not countless, he’s counting. He’s literally keeping count of the number of traumatic experiences he’s gone through, which is at least one hundred and twenty. And that’s just the amount of sacrifices, which is to say nothing about kidnappings or non sacrifice related straight up murder attempts.

Let me just say, though, that his suspicious nature, while completely natural due to his past traumatic experiences, and while somewhat grounded in reality because they did end up in danger during this episode, wasn’t completely accurate. Most of the Mervanan’s were genuinely good people but Louie immediately assumed they were going to hurt him and his family. He was on edge. He was immediately suspicious, even before he met them, even before he was given reason to be suspicious. The only person who read into things as deeply as he did was Beakley, who’s a secret agent. She will have been trained to be suspicious and pick up on small signs that something isn’t right, but Louie wasn’t. Louie was just on edge and suspicious of everything because those are big signs of trauma. He was right that something wrong was going on, but it wasn’t observational skills on his part as shown by the fact that he was sure they’d be put in danger before they ever met the Mervanan’s.

A few times this episode we see the flip from Louie being on edge and suspicious to him actually genuinely being put in danger. And you can see clear as day that he gets no satisfaction out of it. Everyone else is usually proud or energized. Excited to fight, smug when they win or get away. It’s not the same for Louie.

And you can see there’s a difference even between Beakley’s suspicions based on genuine observation and valid doubt when compared to Louie’s which are based in the fact that he’s a traumatized individual who’s had his brain rewired in a way that makes him suspicious to an unhealthy degree. “You have no idea weather or not they’re going to feed us to their monster king?” Beakley asked The Harp. She was suspicious because she knows how the world works and realized something was wrong (because something was wrong) but she was rational about it. They didn’t have solid evidence, she didn’t know for sure. But Louie immediately replied by saying “they definitely are” which isn’t a rational thought process when he really, truly had no evidence to believe so other than his deepseeded instinct to trust nobody.

And when Beakley admitted that she didn’t trust the Mervanan’s either there was very little smugness in the way he handled it. Louie didn’t insist as hard as he did that something was wrong and that you can’t trust anybody just to prove a point to Webby. Immediately he interrupted Beakley and Webby’s situation by jumping in with “We need to get the harp down to the Mervanan’s or we’re all going to die!” Louie was truly in panic mode throughout this episode. He wasn’t just being a pessimist trying to crush Webby’s bright optimistic hope, he was trying to protect his family. When he first set off to find the harp he said “I’m going to find the harp before we all get sacrificed”. Then when he was debating weather or not to tell Webby the truth he pointed out that “If she doesn’t (find out the truth) she’ll be fish food!”. Then when he’s trying to move the harp down to the other’s his biggest concern is “Gotta save family”. It’s not just pessimism, it’s fear and suspicion, which are very different things.

Later on we see that Louie’s ideals don’t fully match up with his behavior either. “The king turned himself into a monster, but you’re not him. You built a society based on truth, and the truth is you don’t need Mervana to be good.” before turning to Webby and telling her “Somebody once told me that you have to look for the best in people and not assume the worst” and honestly, I don’t feel like this is abnormal thinking for him. Believe it or not, Louie is the kind of person to believe in other’s positive traits. He does very often see the good in people and obviously on a level of principal alone he doesn’t think all people are bad.

However principals and logic are often overcome by the brain’s natural response to trauma. And those natural responses often aren’t as idealistic as “anyone can be good and you shouldn’t assume the worst in people”. Fear and anger and anxiety. Seeing danger everywhere. Always being on guard. They’re not something you can control. No matter how much you believe people can be good that instinctive urge to trust nobody spurred on by trauma is often much stronger. Especially when you’re not getting any professional help and have someone to protect. Even if Louie wanted to believe in people (and I think he does), his survival instincts are stronger than that. Even if he didn’t care about his own safety, he has a family who are too dumb to care about their own so he has to do that for them.

Overall a LOT of Louie’s storyline during Mervana was obviously highlighting his response to the trauma he’s had to deal with over the course of the show. And sadly I don’t think he’ll stop having these reactions anytime soon because it takes more than just knowing people can be good to deal with changes to your brain’s chemical makeup.

#ducktales #louie duck

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alpacaparkaseok · 3 years

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7 Secrets Drabbles

The one where the boys freak out

(Requested by anon)

This is a drabble based off of my main series “7 Secrets”. If you would like to read the whole story (which I think you should but I’m kinda biased) then check out my m.list. It’s now completed!

Premise: All of the boys reactions/events of the night when they find out that they have soulmates. This is low-key a longer drabble than I was expecting, but I really wanted to give everyone a chance to shine in it! Also, if you want to see how this all got started, I would recommend checking out my drabble entitled, “The one where Jungkook finds out” because that hooligan started this entire mess. I just picked up where his left off basically. Ok, happy reading! Please drop a like or comment if you enjoyed, it means a lot!

Genre: Soulmate au

Warnings: some anxiety but overall happy feelings :)

Word Count: 5.5k

By the time Jungkook has makes it to the conference room, he’s running into Jin and Hoseok. All three of them burst out into questions simultaneously.

“What is all of this about?” Jin exclaims.

“Are you alright? Have you been crying?” Hoseok puts his hands on Jungkook’s shoulders, steering him into the conference room so that they can speak privately.

“Have you told any of the others?” Jungkook promptly ignores both of their questions, opening his laptop on the table. His head is still spinning from his phone call with Namjoon; the leader of the group was silent for a long time on the phone before he made a muffled excuse to cut the call.

Jin sits and then stands, starting to pace. Hoseok watches both of them with wide eyes.

“No, I haven’t. Just Hobi - but what do you mean by soulmates?” There’s a frantic tone in Jin’s voice as he struggles to remain calm.

“Hyung,” Jungkook nods to Hobi, “Can you call up Tae and Jimin? Tell them to clear their plans for the rest of the night.”

“Jungkook!” Jin stops, eyes growing ever wider. “Just tell us what’s going on!” His chest rises with shallow breaths, and the maknae finally gives in.

“Sorry- I...wow.” Jungkook settles down into his chair with a thump, running a hand through his hair. Tears prick at his eyes again as the weight of his discovery careens into him for the third time in less than thirty minutes.

Hobi is on the phone with Jimin, Taehyung is apparently with him. “I think Jungkook just...found something out about our soulmates? Well...yeah, I know. None of us knew. No, but I think we’re going to figure it out right now. Just sit tight, ok? We’ll be back soon. Is Yoongi there? Tell him, too. Ok. Bye.”

Silence falls into the room, but Jin feels that if there’s another second of silence he’s going to actually combust. With deadly restraint, he whispers out his request for what feels like the tenth time that night.

“Jungkookie, please.”

His hyung’s quiet plea is what finally clears the fog enough for Jungkook to begin quietly explaining. He explains how he just wanted to help Ji-hoon by editing the episode, but he quickly found out that it wasn’t their own episode. He has to pause to take some stabling breaths when he explains how he just knew that the girl on the screen was irrevocably connected to him.

“I believe you, but…” Hoseok has definitely been the most composed throughout the story, Jin’s breathing patterns have become sporadic as he clenches and unclenches his jaw. “How can you be sure?”

So Jungkook explains how the girl waved to the camera and addressed him by name. How there was another girl who was very clearly Suga’s intended.

“They’re obviously aware that they’re being filmed. She seemed used to it.” Jungkook leans forward, eyebrows furrowing as he struggles with an explanation. “It’s hard to explain, but...I just know that she’s…” Jungkook looks up pleadingly at his hyungs, the sincerity in his eyes enough to make Hoseok hesitate.

“C-can,” Jin stumbles over his words as he clears his throat. “Can you show us?” All Jungkook can do is nod as he brings the file up on his laptop. Both boys crowd around the small screen as Jungkook scrubs forward to where he left off.

“See, she’s studying that campus map like nobody’s business,” Jungkook’s laugh rattles out of his chest. “She’s starting up the university. But this was a while ago...so I guess now she’s got the hang of it.”

Hoseok wraps an arm around Jungkook’s shoulders, a curious grin on his face as he watches another girl enter the frame.

“Is that Yoongi’s…?” Jungkook nods at Hobi’s question. “Do you think we all have soulmates? What if it’s just you two?”

Jin looks up at Hobi’s unexpected query. The probability of all seven of them having a soulmate is extremely slim, but it’s a thought that leaves Jin’s stomach dropping to his toes.

Jungkook shakes his head, immediately rejecting the idea. “I bet we all do, hyung. Just keep watching…”

Jungkook skips forward a couple of minutes until another girl enters the frame. She’s small and looks like she’s in a rush, her perfectly styled hair framing her grinning face.

“Morning!” She trills, grabbing a drink from the fridge. The other two girls grunt in response.

“How much do you want to bet she’s Jimin’s soulmate?” Jungkook pipes up. The other two boys only smile, already knowing deep down that it’s no use betting on it. She definitely is.

“Minsuh, don’t forget to breathe.” Jungkook’s soulmate looks up from her map long enough to shoot the other girl a knowing smile.

“That’s her name!” Jungkook shouts, jumping up from his seat and accidentally elbowing Jin in the ribs.

“Watch it!” Jin shouts, but he can’t help but laugh at the look of pure elation on Jungkook’s face.

“Minsuh...I should’ve known.” Jungkook speaks reverently of his soulmate, looking adoringly at the screen where she’s returned to her studying.

“Where are you, where are you…” Jin mutters under his breath as he settles down into Jungkook’s vacated chair. Jungkook doesn’t mind, opting to grab his phone and dial a number. He hesitates for a moment, looking at his hyungs.

“I’m going to call Mr. Bang…” Jungkook looks at them like he’s challenging them to stop him; it’s a look they rarely see from the youngest.

Jin just nods, not even bothering to look up at him. “Good. I’ve taught you well.”

Jungkook wanders to the far side of the room while Hobi and Jin continue watching. There’s a shout of elation when another girl enters the frame.

“There! Right there!” Jin yells, pointing at the screen as though Hobi’s eyes weren’t already glued to it.

“Did you two want a ride to campus?” A beautiful young woman stumbles into the kitchen, eyes half-closed. She’s an odd contradiction; she’s fully dressed for the day, but she’s clearly still half-asleep.

“Oooh, yes please.” Yoongi’s soulmates blows the other girl a kiss. “Kyung-soon, if I didn’t know any better I’d say you’re a woman after my own heart.”

Jin falls back against his seat, a heavy sigh working its way through his system. He’s clenching his jaw again, and Hobi gives him a pat on the back.

“You alright?” His friend asks.

Jin nods his head, then shakes it. “Jungkook, did he answer?” When Jungkook shakes his head, Jin fishes his phone out of his pocket. Keeping his eyes glued to Kyung-soon, who’s in the middle of a sleepy yawn, he puts his phone up to his ear.

After a couple of rings, Bang Si Hyuk answers the phone with concern in his tone. It’s not very often that he receives multiple calls from BTS in one day. Something must be seriously wrong if he wasn’t even able to return Jungkook’s call before Jin was ringing him.

“Seokjin! Is everything alright? I just missed a call from Jungkook.”

Jin has to put some effort into unclenching his jaw enough to speak properly. Both boys watch on in awe; it’s a rare occasion indeed to see the oldest in such a state.

“I have a soulmate.”

It’s not a question. The silence stretches on the other side of the phone before Mr. Bang speaks up.

“How do you know that?”

“I don’t care where you are or what you’re doing right now,” Jin says, his tone threatening. “I deserve - we all deserve an explanation.” His voice breaks a bit, but he manages to keep himself together.

“Yeah, you’re right. I’m so sorry, you weren’t supposed to find out yet-”

“I’m heading home now, and I want a full explanation ready for them by the time I get there. Got it?”

When Mr. Bang agrees, Jin tosses his phone, running his hands over his face. Hoseok sighs along with him, still watching the screen. Both boys know that he’s looking for his soulmate who has yet to appear.

When nobody else comes into the frame, Jungkook gently nudges the older. Hoseok hardly responds, but manages to give him a pleasant smile.

“Hyung...we should get home. The others are waiting for us.” Jungkook looks a little afraid of what the older boy might answer, but Hoseok nods, closing the laptop.

“Sure, let’s go.”

“Are you alright?” Jin asks, knowing full well that Hobi is great at hiding his feelings. Hoseok just shrugs, making his way to the exit. With a knowing glance shared between the eldest and the youngest, they head home to where their bandmates anxiously await them.

↔

Min Yoongi was having a fairly normal day when he made it home. Most of the boys had a separate apartment, but they all shared the tendency to stay over at the main apartment on the weekdays. So when Yoongi went inside and saw Taehyung and Jimin watching some show on TV, he simply said hello and headed up to his room.

He had barely set his things down and laid down when a shout from downstairs had him jolting up and out the door.

Jimin’s voice could be heard all throughout the large apartment. “What? What is that supposed to mean? H-how do you know?”

Taehyung was listening in beside Jimin, his mouth wide open as he took in the new information.

“What’s going on?” Yoongi asks. Neither boy answers him.

“Yeah, he’s here. Hurry!” With that, Jimin hangs up the phone and turns his face up to Yoongi, who’s halfway down the stairs at this point.

“Anybody gonna answer me?” Yoongi asks again. Jimin shakes his head as though trying to come to his senses, and the look on his face makes Yoongi’s blood run cold. What happened?

“Tell him,” Tae nudges his best friend. Jimin opens his mouth to speak, but a half-hearted sob is all that breaks through.

Now Yoongi is really worried.

“What’s going on! Who was on the phone? Is everyone alright?” Yoongi prattles off as he descends the rest of the stairs. Taehyung finally does him the kindness of answering him.

“Everyone is fine. Hobi hyung called, he said something about soulmates? I didn’t catch it all, but he’ll be back soon to tell us more...I think.”

Where Jimin looks like he’s about to throw up, Tae is beaming. Yoongi doesn’t know who to look at, but he realizes that he may have bigger problems once he begins to process Tae’s words.

“Soulmates?” Yoongi mumbles out. He walks right past them and onto the balcony, the other two following him. He’s leaning against the railing and looking out past the trees as though he could see all the way to wherever his prospective soulmate might be.

Taehyung settles in beside him, a soft chuckle leaving his lips. He’s the only one who appears to be in such high spirits, but it makes sense. Taehyung was born to love and be loved.

At least, that’s what Jimin has always thought.

Jimin finds himself clutching the railing for dear life, his heart pounding as he replays the conversation over and over again in his mind. Hoseok didn’t sound all that certain about anything, and Jimin isn’t sure whether he should laugh about possibly having a soulmate or dissolve into a puddle of tears right there as the possibility of coming so close only to have misheard or have some miscommunication get his hopes up.

Whatever it is, Jimin knows more than ever that he is going to fight. If his soulmate is out there, he’s not going to go another second without knowing them. Seeing them, holding them. While so many things have gone right in his life, this is one thing that has never quite aligned for him.

Love has always been hard. Maybe this is why.

Jimin excuses himself from the balcony, listening as his two friends mumble out a befuddled conversation.

“I always wondered…” Taehyung muses. Yoongi still has his mouth wide open as though trying to inhale as much oxygen he possibly can.

“Really? I never really thought about it.”

Their voices fade out as Jimin clambers his way inside the house, finally shutting the door shut behind him as he falls to his knees in the guest bathroom on the main floor. Turning the faucet on to drown out the sounds of his sobs that have finally broken through, he hovers over the toilet unsure if he’s about to cry his weight in tears or throw up his lunch.

“Please be real, please be real…”

Nearly forty five minutes later Taehyung quietly unlocks the door from the outside to find a sight he hasn’t seen in a couple of years. Anxiety is no stranger to any of them, and Jimin used to struggle with it a lot in their younger days.

Jimin lays curled up on the floor, his head in his hands. He’s so lost in his head, mumbling out something that sounds like, please love me, please love me.

Taehyung crouches down on the floor beside his best friend, his self-proclaimed soulmate. He knows better than anyone that in times like these it’s best to just have someone there to catch your tears.

“Jiminie,” he mumbles, pulling him into a tight hug. It looks like Jimin is just about out of tears although his eyes are still red-rimmed. “C’mon, they’re home.”

↔

Namjoon had to cut his call with Jungkook because he didn’t want to frighten the maknae. He’s well aware of just how much the youngest looks up to him, and he was about to lose his mind.

So after Jungkook calls Namjoon with panic and sobs going on about soulmates, Namjoon sits there in silence before he says that he has someone coming but he’ll call him later. A couple of texts exchanged with Jin and Namjoon can breathe easy knowing that Jin and Hoseok will help to sort this out.

For the first time in a long time, the constant weight he feels on his shoulders from being the leader of one of the biggest and fastest growing bands in the world lightens a little. Then Namjoon does something that he hasn’t done in a long time.

He turns off his computer, and powers off all his equipment. His scribbled notebook is closed and put off to the side, and he cuts the music he was listening to last of all.

For the first time in what feels like years, Namjoon sits alone in his studio in complete silence.

And he just breathes.

At first the breaths are choppy and labored as adrenaline courses through his veins. He gets up from his chair and walks to the window, resting his forehead against it as he observes the city. At last, he closes his eyes and lets everything wash over him.

Soulmate.

The idea of soulmates has always made sense to him from a primitive standpoint. There’s a reason that soulmates have become less and less common through the ages. Back in the day, it made sense for soulmate bonds to occur often. It ensured the survival of the community or family line.

Now soulmates are quite rare. Not rare enough that they’ve been entirely dismissed, but only about 3% of the world’s population can claim having a significant other that fits them like a glove.

Namjoon had long come to the conclusion that having a soulmate could be more of an option. If he were to fall in love with someone, then he would choose them. They could become his soulmate, and he their’s.

And yet...somehow he’s able to breathe easier in the past five minutes since the likelihood of him having a soulmate has increased tenfold. Deep down he must have known that it would never be as simple as just choosing to fit with somebody. Deep down he’d always known that the chances of him finding someone who understood him in all his strange habits and needs were slim to none.

But now, as Kim Namjoon watches people wandering around the Bighit building and staring up at it in awe, he releases a breath and a smile.

For the first time in his life, Namjoon believes with all his heart that everything is going to be alright.

↔

“Guys?” Jungkook shouts as soon as he enters the house. Yoongi appears, his eyes wide. Hoseok and Jin follow behind Jungkook, Jin furrowing his brows as he reads something on his phone.

“Alright, everyone in the living room,” Jin instructs. Everyone heads there immediately, Taehyung pulling a shocked-looking Jimin behind him.

There’s an air of expectancy as Jin stands in front of everyone. His ears a little red from having everyone’s undivided attention.

“Where’s Namjoon?” Jimin croaks out. His voice sounds raw, but he looks better than before.

Jin looks back down at his phone. “He said he'll be home soon but to start without him. I forwarded him the email anyways.”

“Email?” Yoongi asks, clearly the most confused out of everyone present. Jin nods, diving in.

“Let me try to get through this...basically Jungkookie found a video that has our soulmates in it, and he was freaking out-”

“I wasn’t freaking out!”

Hoseok laughs at Jungkook, his tense expression loosening up a little. He was still itching to watch the full episode, he was a little miffed that he’d seen nearly everyone’s soulmate except for his own.

“Shhh. Anyways, we called Mr. Bang and this is the email he sent to me. Ready?” When he’s met with several head nods around the room, Jin takes a deep breath and begins to read. It’s hard for his eyes to swim past the image of his soulmate which is now permanently printed into his brain to see the words on the screen, but he manages to do it.

“‘You will all remember that you were tested about 3 ½ years ago, going through the standard procedures in soulmate testing. You will also recall that you never received your results.’”

A wave of grunts echo around the room, Jungkook in particular looking quite livid. Jin continues on, goosebumps rising on his arms as he realizes that all this time he’s had a soulmate been none the wiser.

“‘Within the span of six months we had received your results - all of which returned positive - and located all seven of your soulmates. I wish there had been a better way to do this, but I as well as the rest of the Bighit staff felt that it would be best for both parties to continue on in their lives. All seven girls have done just that; pursuing education, careers, and preparing themselves to deal with the stress that comes as a result of living in the spotlight.’”

It’s Yoongi who speaks up, the expression on his face even more confused than before. “Wait, so you mean to say that they’ve been hiding them from us for three years?” Jin just shrugs, getting back to the email with the beginnings of an excited smile.

“‘We will discuss the matter of your meeting tomorrow, for now I have attached an episode of the documentary our team is working to refine and edit for your viewing. Please bring any questions you have to our meeting tomorrow. Thank you.’”

It’s silent for a moment as Jin examines the attachment before projecting it onto the TV. Taehyung leaps up from his seat to turn the lights off, settling back down beside Jimin with his trademark boxy smile.

Hoseok doesn’t dare to blink as he watches the screen, Yoongi’s skeptical expression beside him doing little to ease his nerves. Although the email just stated that all of them have soulmates, he still is waiting to find out that he doesn’t. That somehow, out of all of them, he’s the only one who will have to go on soulmate-less.

Hoseok made it a goal at the beginning of the year to find love. Looking back he realizes that it was a silly goal- you don’t just stumble upon love when you’re locked up in a studio 24/7. The only thing he’d managed to stumble upon throughout this year is deep-set disappointment that is gradually becoming more difficult to hide from his brothers.

However, right before his eyes is the promise of something more. His heart only truly allows itself to actually beat when a chipper young woman crosses the screen, her title card telling him the only two things he needs to know at the moment.

First, her name is Himari. Her title card appears as she tries - and fails - to flip a pancake. Her pout that dissolves into a laugh goes straight to his heart.

Second, Jung Hoseok has a soulmate. Somewhere, somehow, fate decided to give him a chance. Somewhere along the way it saw just how much he’s been dying for someone to love and it gave him an opportunity.

But what if she doesn’t want this?

Hoseok wouldn’t say he has many destructive habits, but he is guilty of at least one. He doubts himself. It’s something that he keeps locked away and so far down into his heart that it’s fairly easy to ignore most of the time. It’s only when he is halfway through pure joy that he realizes that while fate may be acting kind toward him, Himari may not feel the same way.

Hoseok is happy that Taehyung turned the lights off, because he hates it when the rest of the group sees him cry.

↔

Jin has decided that if Jungkook squeezes his hand any harder, it may fall off.

Even though the two of them have already seen who their soulmates are, they turn into kids in a candy shop the second they appear on screen.

Kyung-soon is the most beautiful person Jin has ever laid on, and he has a sneaking suspicion that he would think the same whether or not she was his soulmate. But there’s so much more going on in Jin’s mind when watches as his soulmate assists Jimin’s (who he thinks is named Aera but he’s scared to ask because if he gets it wrong Jimin may well claw his eyes out judging from the boy’s intense stare), and he realizes immediately that Kyung-soon may be beautiful, but above all else she seems kind.

She seems like she knows what she’s doing, and wants to do it in the kindest, most uplifting way possible.

Jin admitted to himself a long time ago that as long as he ended up with someone kind, he’d be happy. As long as he ended up with someone who would be content snuggling up at home and playing with the pets, he would be beyond grateful.

There've been a long of unexpected surprises in Jin’s life; BTS being one of the most prominent. So, while Jin may not have set out into the world in search of a soulmate that he could love and gift fuzzy socks and ridiculously expensive sunglasses to, he knows that he’s going to.

Kyung-soon won’t know what hit her.

↔

Jungkook eventually gets up to pop some popcorn. He’s definitely in the binging kind of mood, especially as Mr. Bang keeps sending them episode after episode. They still haven’t finished the first one, but he already knows that they’re going to be up late tonight.

He’s trying to hurry as fast as he can when he hears Minsuh’s voice cut through the audio when Yoongi comes in to assist him. One look at his hyung and Jungkook already knows what he’s thinking.

“Overwhelmed?” Jungkook asks.

Yoongi leans against the counter, nodding. “I had to come in here for a second...it feels like my heart is actually going to burst if I see Seohyun for one more second.” Jungkook raises his eyebrows, not expecting such a candid response from the elder. Yoongi looks like he’s speaking to himself, his eyes have a far-away look to them.

“Happy, though?”

Yoongi nods emphatically. “Yeah, happy. Really happy. She’s hilarious, isn’t she?” Jungkook nods along, not bothering to tell Yoongi that he hasn’t really been paying much attention to anyone other than Minsuh. He only knows for sure who Jin’s soulmate is, and that’s because he was sitting right next to him and every time Kyung-soon came on screen he mumbled what was either a prayer or a plea under his breath.

The popcorn beeps, and Jungkook throws it into a bowl before hurrying back. Yoongi hangs back a little while longer, clutching his chest. He has to take a moment to breathe and bring down his heart rate before heading back. He’s brought a bottle of water with him, which he hands off to Hobi without a second glance.

There’s no need to tell his friend that he knows he was crying. His reasons are his own. If he’s honest, Yoongi felt a little like crying, but that was because he was laughing so hard with Jimin as their soulmates attempted a rendition of Yoongi’s rapping part in “Spring Day” and completely botched it.

Even though his heart is practically beating out of his chest, Yoongi must admit that he’s more than happy with who his soulmate is. She’s hilarious, but also extremely hardworking. She’s back in school pursuing her second degree.

Easing back into his seat with a grin already growing, Yoongi sighs. It’ll all work out just fine, he thinks.

↔

Namjoon races up the stairs to his apartment, confused when he sees that most of the lights are off. Aren’t they all supposed to be home by now?

It had taken a bit of inner convincing for him to leave the peace of his studio and venture home. Along the way he’d read the email Mr. Bang sent out, and nearly started to watch the video. He decided against it, though. He didn’t want the driver to have to pull the car over if Namjoon started hyperventilating or something.

If he was being honest with himself, he didn’t think he’d have the energy or strength to go up the stairs to his apartment if he started the video right then. He’d probably just end up sitting at the bottom of the staircase all night, watching his soulmate.

Taking one last deep breath, Namjoon opens up the door to the apartment and trudges inside. It smells like popcorn, but that’s not the only thing that hits him as he kicks his shoes off and makes his way to the living room.

The boys are watching the documentary. The sounds of female voices pull Namjoon closer as though in a trance, and he wonders for a brief moment if one of those voices belongs to his soulmate.

He’s just rounding the corner and about to say something to let everyone know that he’s home when he hears a voice say, “say goodbye to Namjoon!” Then he sees the TV.

More specifically, he sees her.

There’s a girl, and she’s just turning around to wave at the camera. There’s a smile on her face that reeks of sarcasm, but in her eyes it’s clear to see that she’s a bit sad. She’s waving, and there’s a flurry of hands in the room that wave back.

Namjoon gives a little wave that turns into him reaching out for her like a lost child. He watches with bated breath as she walks away, taking his heart with him. He wants to scream at the camera, tell whoever is manning it to follow her. Don’t let her get away, because Namjoon just got here and she’s leaving.

Namjoon walks forward on unsteady feet, reminding himself to breathe. The boys notice him, and Jimin tells Taehyung to scoot as Namjoon settles down. He notices Taehyung’s huge smile immediately, the sight easing the panic that was rising as he watched his soulmate walk away.

“You look happy.”

↔

Namjoon is the first to suggest they start from the beginning.

“Bang PD just sent us the whole first season! Let’s start from the beginning.” He hardly waits for an answer before jumping up to switch episodes. He had been a bit sulky anyways since he hardly got a chance to see his soulmate before she was out of the episode.

Nobody protests as Namjoon sets everything up, Jimin taking the opportunity to rush off to the bathroom. Taehyung gets up to go after him, but he’s assured that it’s just a bathroom break. Taehyung doesn’t look convinced until he realizes that Jimin seems much happier now.

He’s still chuckling to himself as he runs out of the room, no doubt replaying something from the episode in his mind.

Jungkook pops even more popcorn, Jin leaving to help him carry all the bowls. Yoongi starts up a hushed conversation with Hoseok, who still looks a little uncertain.

Namjoon is tapping his foot impatiently by the time everyone makes it back, and hardly anyone gets a chance to settle down before he begins the episode.

The first thing the boys notice is the date that pops up at the bottom of the screen. It’s overlooking a familiar place: Jeju Island.

“Wow, three years. What were we doing three years ago?” Jungkook muses aloud before shoving popcorn into his mouth. Nobody bothers to answer, each one thinking the same thing: three years is too long.

This episode has no opening credits with title cards, it instead jumps to a familiar office where Bang Si Hyuk sits behind his desk with his glasses pushed up on his nose.

“Hello Bangtan! If you’re watching this, then you probably know about your soulmates. The following episodes are part of an ongoing documentary that we have been creating in tandem with your soulmates in order for each of you to get to adjust to your new situation. I’m not sure when exactly the time will be right to show you this, but I hope that you are all in good health and high spirits when this documentary finds you. Enjoy!”

One by one, each girl sits in front of a camera. They all have varying degrees of concern or awkwardness; but they look happy.

One by one, they introduce themselves.

One by one, each boy sits up as his soulmates comes onto the screen. The girls look a little younger here, and there’s also the overwhelming nervousness that is rolling off of them. The only one that doesn’t appear to be swimming in doubt and general anxiety is Hoseok’s soulmate, Himari.

“How are you feeling?” The cameraman asks. Himari looks down at her hands, a smile that’s enough to have Hoseok burying his doubt deep down as he leans forward to get a better look.

“Happy.” She states as she twiddles her thumbs. “Just happy.”

Yoongi gives Hoseok’s shoulder a squeeze as he lets out a shaky breath.

Maybe it’ll all work out after all.

Watching as his soulmate’s smile fades and is replaced by another fidgety but smiling girl, he makes himself a promise. Himari should always have a reason to smile, and soulmate or not, he will never stand in the way of that.

↔

It’s well into the middle of the night by the time the boys turn off the documentary, but by this point they’ve learned that Himari and Beth have begun the prank war to end all prank wars. What they haven’t learned yet is that Ichika actually orchestrated the whole thing.

That won’t be revealed to them until episode 15.

Jin stands up, stretching before pointing to Hoseok and Namjoon. “You two have got your work cut out for you.” With that he heads up to his room, Hoseok following suit. The other boys sit in silence for a while longer before someone speaks up.

“So…” Jungkook says, looking around the room.

“Should we watch another one?” Taehyung finishes his sentence.

It’s a unanimous decision, and the five of them spend the rest of the night watching their soulmates. Eventually Hobi comes back down, only to fall asleep on the couch as he listens to Himari and Ichika’s Japanese lesson.

By the time Jin heads back down the stairs the following morning he huffs a laugh at the sight before him.

All six boys lay in various positions throughout the room, completely passed out. Only Namjoon remains awake, but he’s staring up at his phone rewatching an episode with his earbuds in and looking like a zombie.

Jin shakes his head, heading outside for a run. The morning sun greets him cheerfully, and Jin can’t help but smile. It’s a good morning.

He’ll never tell anyone, but he was up all night as well. Up all night calling different staff members and pestering Bang PD until he was given a satisfactory answer.

Soon. He’ll meet her soon.

And then he can finally give her all the fuzzy socks and scarves and the cute hat he was up all night buying for her online in between phone calls.

Kim Seokjin begins a steady jog, completely unable to wipe the grin off his face. Hoping the sentiment will be received somewhere on the other side of Seoul, Kim Seokjin wishes his soulmate a good morning.

taglist: @mae-musicbitch @heartblackerthancoffee @agustneeds @eusticenatalie @taylorroe3

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thebibliomancer · 3 years

Text

Essential Avengers: Avengers #233: The Annihilation Gambit!

July, 1983

“Up against... the BARRIER!”

Pretty cool cover!

So here’s the thing. This is a crossover with Fantastic Four. John Byrne even gets a credit for breakdowns and co-plotting.

I’m not going to completely cover the related FF issues but I’ll dip into the relevant parts of them.

For example, let’s discuss Fantastic Four #254 which coincided with the ending of Avengers #232. The thing with the fleeing crowd that didn’t know what they were fleeing and the invisible wall She-Hulk bonked off of? What’s the deal with that?

Allow me to summarize.

The Fantastic Four went off to explore the Negative Zone and had a series of weird and silly adventures. They left Alicia behind to babysit Franklin but Annihilus popped out of the portal and took them captive. This happened back in #251 so he’s had the run of the place for a while!

He’s been making modifications to the Negative Zone Access Portal and adapting the generators. For whatever reason, switching the machine on sends out potent fear waves which causes everyone to flee the area of the Baxter Building. There scene where She-Hulk and Wasp see the fleeing crowd and bonks off an invisible wall repeats.

And that’s all you need to know! Annihilus is messing around, potent fear waves, invisible wall, Avengers!

Now let’s get to the Avengers part of this crossover.

The Avengers issue of Avengers starts with Captain Marvel booking it over New York musing about what an eventful day she’s had as a full-fledged Avenger.

What with having to rescue President Reagan after he was taken hostage by soggy swamp men. Then Eros (Starfox) showed up and insisted on joining. Then Monica, Starfox, and Thor went off to catch Plantman who engineered the presidential hostage thing. All of that in only six hours!

Monica Marvel Rambeau is on her way to the mansion to give her report when she too bonks into something.

Captain Marvel: “It was as if I bounced off some sort of invisible wall! But that doesn’t make sense!”

Yeah, it really doesn’t!

As Monica herself points out, the wall is invisible ie light is going through it. So her light form should be able to go through it too!

Its a very selective invisible wall, apparently. And it gives her a weird ominous feel to touch.

But she’s not going to let sleeping walls lie and decides to try different energy forms to see if anything can get through.

Annnnnnd. Radios, cosmic rays, electricity, infrared, x-rays, and even gamma rays can’t get through. Although, Monica has the feeling that the wall gave a bit under the gamma, but not enough to matter.

Monica detours around the wall and heads back towards her original destination. AVENGERS MANSION!

When Monica arrives, cool team leader Janet the Wasp van Dyne is talking with the police. Obviously the police aren’t equipped to deal with an invisible dome.

At the least, though, Jan uses the NYPD data-link to figure out where the giant dome is centered.

Also, Wasp has another new outfit. This is the same day.

But its pretty snazzy black and purple so I won’t complain.

Monica tells Jan that Big Trouble is brewing and Jan is basically like ‘oh god now what’ but thankfully Monica and Jan are on the same case.

MEANWHILE, Steve Rogers’ modest Brooklyn Heights apartment. Where Steve Rogers is not having a conversation about his feelings with his girlfriend Bernie Rosenthal because his feelings are classified!

Steve Rogers: “In a way. It’s Avengers business!”

I’d mock this but what has Steve bummed and pacing like a caged bear is that Tony Stark, his good pal who he’ll never Civil War with, has quit the Avengers, gave Iron Man up to someone else, and is trying to drink himself to unconsciousness.

Which is very concerning! But also something you can’t really share the full details of without revealing a lot of secrets that aren’t yours to reveal! I feel like you could at least say ‘I think my friend is an alcoholic but won’t accept my help’ without spilling secrets but shrug.

At least Steve is open with Bernie. Yeah, she knows he’s Captain America!

Truly, the man is a role model. Not just as a superhero but also on dating.

Steve gets a BZZZT on his snazzy cool radio wristwatch, possibly the coolest thing to wear on one’s wrist ha ha don’t think about Avengers wearing Apple Watches.

Anyway, Jan updates Steve on the invisible - and expanding - dome. And that weirdly, there doesn’t seem to be anyone trapped inside because everyone ran away from it because its inexplicably spooky.

So Steve rushes off to Save The Day, stripping mid-run because that’s the kind of casualness and comfort you can have in a relationship where you’re open and honest.

See how Steve didn’t have to make up a half-assed excuse? Maybe think about that, Spider-Man. You’re not in this scene but maybe think about it.

Meanwhile again, the Baxter Building.

Where thankfully for people not reading Fantastic Four, we get an echoed scene where Annihilus motive rants at captive audience Alicia Masters.

Basically, Annihilus is feeling very bummed that Blastaar stole his Cosmic Control Rod in Marvel Two-in-One #75. For one thing, it really tied his whole outfit together. For another, without it, Annihilus isn’t immortal and he’s freaking out about dying. And not dying eventually, he’s apparently got Doom-level messed up face now from how he’s degrading.

So really the only real way to come to terms with mortality is to destroy two whole universes so you don’t die alone.

Annihilus broke Reed’s Negative Zone Access Portal and used its power core to power his own impenetrable NULL-FIELD. Which I guess is the invisible dome.

Annihilus: “How wonderfully ironic -- that a device which once produced a gateway between two universes should provide the power to utterly destroy them!”

I’m missing some middle steps here but basically invisible dome -> ??? -> destruction of the Negative Zone and the, uh, Positive Zone.

A MEEP MEEP from a computer which may be a roadrunner gets Annihilus’ attention and he sees to his shock that She-Hulk has planted her feet and is trying to bodily hold the dome back.

It’s not working but its slowing it almost imperceptibly and even that’s supposed to be impossible.

Annihilus: “What manner of creature is this?!”

I’d guess gamma-powered She-Hulk is having a tiny bit of luck against the dome for the same reason that Captain Marvel did when she tried gamma radiation.

Wasp, Captain America, and Captain Marvel show up to help She-Hulk.

She-Hulk tells the other Avengers that the invisible dome keeps “oozing over everything inanimate” but that she(-Hulk) can’t stop it.

Cap suggests using his shield despite the risk of losing it inside the dome.

Because, when Captain America uses his mighty shield, all who oppose his shield must yield. So maybe he’s onto something.

She-Hulk plants the shield in the ground in the path of the dome.

So good news/bad news.

The dome doesn’t swallow up the shield. But the dome just pushes the shield, carving a little furrow in the ground.

That cracks me up a little, I will not lie.

I don’t know why Cap’s super cool shield is exempt from getting schlorped up by the null-field but now they have a good idea where it is without having to bonk!

Speaking of bonk, Thor and Starfox come to join the party and Starfox runs right into the invisible wall.

Hee hee hee.

He also drops right into She-Hulk’s arms and they have a mutual banter moment.

She-Hulk: “Hmm! I’ve never had anyone fall for me like this before!”

Starfox: “I assure you it was totally unplanned... but rarely have I fallen into such open and inviting arms!”

If I recall correctly, they do hook up at one point and then years later She-Hulk beats seven kinds of shit out of him when the question arises of whether his powers influenced her into it.

At least Starfox is receptive and she’s not stalking Ben Grimm.

Anyway, Thor tries his hand at busting the null-field by shooting a bunch of lightning at it. Even though Captain Marvel tells him she already tried electricity.

Thor gotta Thor though.

And when the field stands firm against all the lightning, he gets pissed and hurls his hammer into it.

Mjolnir flies into the field, loses steam, and just pitches gently to Earth.

Bit confusing. I wonder why Cap’s shield can’t go through the dome but Mjolnir can.

BY THE WAY, THEY LEFT CAP’S SHIELD JAMMED AGAINST THE DOME.

They don’t comment on it but you can see it still gouging up the pavement. I guess they’re using it to mark where the dome is?

Amazing.

Anyway, Thor marvels at how Mjolnir left no mark on the invisible barrier and how its not returning to his hand like it should. Clearly there’s some weird property of the barrier interfering with Mjolnir.

Cap points out yeah thats interesting but isn’t there something that happens if you have Mjolnir out of hand for too long?

So Thor runs away and turns into Normal Doctor Donald Blake in an alleyway where nobody can see it happen.

Again: amazing.

Thor is basically out of the story because Normal Doctor Donald Blake can’t do anything to affect the barrier and he can’t get Mjolnir back while its up. So he’s just going to be twiddling his thumbs.

MEANWHILE, at Cross Technological Enterprises.

Hawkeye tries to cajole inventor Jorge to build some contraption for him but the man protests that he designed it in his spare time but if he builds a working model on staff, CTE will own the invention.

Unless someone approves a sub-contractor waiver that will let him keep the rights but who would do such a thing for him??

Hawkeye decides that as head of security he’ll do such a thing. I don’t know if head of security has any kind of sway like that but I imagine that won’t stop Hawkeye from insisting that he does.

Then Hawkeye hears about the Avengers dealing with the dome thing and gets sad that he can’t be out there with them.

Hawkeye: “Blast it, I oughta be out there with the rest of the Avengers! But, as long as my leg’s in a cast, I’m a liability to ‘em... until I prove otherwise!”

Maybe focus on letting your leg heal!

I don’t know what nonsense you’re brewing up and I know that months is forever in comic book time but maybe just take the time and let your leg heal up!

Back over at the Avengers, Cap and Wasp now justify to the others why Thor took off. Claiming that they sent him on a scouting mission. Captain Marvel objects that scouting is her specialty, what with the lightspeed dash, so Cap claims that brute force isn’t helping so its more important to have Captain Marvel’s versatility here.

Leading She-Hulk to snark that brute force not working doesn’t give her a lot to do.

Starfox has become instantly bored with the plot because he’s here for adventure dangit, so he wanders off to go flirt with an EMT.

Because Starfox.

A Quinjet arrives, because Wasp has put her true superpower to work.

The power of NETWORKING!

Aka, she placed a call to Vision and Scarlet Witch and they just showed up to help.

Wasp explains the situation and Vision decides he’s going to intangible through the field.

Vision: “Interesting. It does have an oddly unsettling ‘feel’ to it!”

Then he walks through and instantly collapses face first into the asphalt.

The Avengers’ bumbling attempts to deal with the null field are almost farcical really.

Scarlet Witch is alarmed by her robot husband faceplanting so tries to use her plot-resolving probability powers on the invisible barrier but to no avail.

OH NO HER DOES ANYTHING POWER DID NOTHING!

She bangs on the invisible wall yelling Vision’s name but Cap tells her “that won’t do any good!”

True but c’mon. Her robot husband just collapsed. Have some understanding.

Although I wonder what’s going on here.

The field goes over inanimate objects but doesn’t let Cap’s shield through. Mjolnir and Vision can go through it (although Vision does the intangible) but lose power shortly after entering.

Then again it is called a “null-field.” It probably does whatever it wants.

I’m just wondering whether Vision counts as an inanimate object or not. He’s very animate but he’s not strictly speaking biologically speaking alive.

Meanwhile, in the Baxter Building, Annihilus is laughing up a storm at the Avengers’ silly hijinxes. But mostly in the ‘they thought they could stop me’ sense.

Annihilus: “Lesser beings such as these are helpless before the genius of Annihilus! They do not deserve to live -- just as I do not deserve to die! I curse the fates which have robbed me of my rightful immortality! But even though life slowly ebbs from the dissipated body within my exo-skeletal armor, still shall I be Annihilus... still shall I be He-Who-Annihilates!”

And he pulls the Big Dramatic Lever.

Outside, Starfox is still flirting with the paramedic while she asks whether he should be helping the other Avengers?

Starfox: -squishes her face- “Alas, I am not a full Avenger. I am but a trainee, at the others’ beck and call! If they want me, they will call.”

And then he tries to make out but she’s distracted by the Baxter Building suddenly glowing with an awesome power.

And Starfox freaks out. He freaks out so much that he realizes that now is not the time for making out. That’s how alarming things suddenly are!

Paramedic: “Brighter than the moon... glowing like there’s no tomorrow...”

Starfox: “I fear your choice of words is most apt!”

And then he wanders back on over to the Avengers to tell them how messed up everything is.

Something occurs to me.

The Avengers don’t really have a Smart Guy TM currently. Tony left them in the lurch in that regard. And they tried to recruit Hulk again (apparently in Incredible Hulk #285).

Cap(tain America), Captain Marvel, Wasp, She-Hulk, and Thor are great. But they’re not people who can look at a thing and instantly jump to a correct conclusion about which technobabble will keep things from bad.

I think... Starfox may have become the Smart Guy TM of the team by default because he does have advanced space learning even though I’m pretty sure he napped through advanced space learning science class.

My god, the state of things.

Anyway, Starfox directs the Avengers’ attention over to the Baxter Building. Within the invisible field, there’s a second glowing field. And based on Starfox’s brains, the invisible field is a null-field (yes, that’s true) which cancels out all energy within, except at its focal point. Uh, sure. I think if all energy was cancelled out, we’d see way wilder effects but sure.

The glowing field is positive energy. And when the glow meets the invisible, it will cause the universe to merge with the Negative Zone AND THEN DESTROY THEM BOTH.

See, this is something that’s known on Titan. They just study ways to destroy everything apparently, nbd.

Starfox even mentions that his brother Thanos knows about this but “not even my brother Thanos was mad enough to test it!”

I dunno. I feel like Thanos is exactly mad enough to do that. I also feel like Starfox doesn’t know his brother was well as he thinks. So, yeah.

Hence, they’re all doomed. I mean, unless there was some way to penetrate the null-field BUT WAIT, Starfox says, didn’t Captain Marvel feel the field give slightly under gamma radiation? THEN THERE STILL MAY BE HOPE!

Yeah... Yeah. Starfox is the Avengers’ Smart Guy now. God.

Its like a reverse-Beast. He came to be a smart guy but the Avengers’ had plenty of those so decided to be the fun guy.

Starfox came out just to have a good time and he has to use his space brains to save reality.

(Also, its because of Same Face but Starfox even looks like Reed while he’s transitioning from doomsaying to figuring out the whole thing just by panicking and explaining things)

So after the Avengers do some calculations and preparations, Captain Marvel blasts off into space!

Cap(tain America) estimates that they only have twenty minutes and that a lot can go wrong.

Then a giant shouty bug man appears in the sky to shout.

Annihilus: “PEOPLE OF EARTH -- HEAR NOW THE WORDS OF ANNIHILUS! YOU ARE HELPLESS BEFORE ME! I AM YOUR DEATH!”

“The destruction of all that lives has ever been my goal -- but never have I had the means to kill so many! The time of universal death is at hand! I see among you those who are known as the Avengers... those who you would call heroes! Hah! They cannot save you! They are as helpless as the accursed Fantastic Four!”

“There is no hope for anyone this day! This is the day that Annihilus dies! And as I die, I shall reach out and I shall shake the very foundations of two universes! AND ALL SHALL PERISH WITH ME!”

Not gonna lie.

That’s a damn good villain speech.

You’ve got the villain head in front of an apocalyptic pink sky. You’ve got evil gloating. You’ve even got some dunks thrown at the superheroes because you just know that average civilians will be like ‘the Avengers will save us!’

Pretty good rant, Annihilus.

“Meanwhile, in the vacuum of space, the lightform of Captain Marvel has already flashed beyond the orbit of the moon”

Amazing.

Simply amazing.

Captain Marvel nyooms past the moon and traverses 93-million miles to go to the sun.

Which, even at lightspeed, takes over eight minutes.

A helpful reminder that even the ability to go as fast as light doesn’t necessarily mean you can get everywhere instantly. Cosmic distances are vast.

Captain Marvel nyooms around the sun, so close that even in the form of a light, she can feel the Sun’s gravity.

This is all some great stuff.

Then, Captain Marvel melds with a coherent light beam fired from solar satellite Starcore-One and transforms it and herself into a gamma ray laser beam NYOOMING right at Earth.

Blasting through the null-field just in time to interrupt more of Annihilus’ villain ranting.

Annihilus: “Prepare to make your final accounting, mortals! These are your last wretched moments of... eh?”

And then with a SKRAKATA SKRAKATA BOOM, the null field and positive energy fields are neutralized.

She-Hulk who was casually leaning on an invisible wall FLUMPS to the ground.

Wasp assembles the Avengers still milling about and tells them to move on the Baxter Building since Annihilus might still have tricks up his sleeve.

With the null field gone, the terrified crowds of onlookers are now just confused onlookers and want to get back to what they were doing before they started panicking.

Normal Doctor Donald Blake has to reach through the crowd of legs to grab Mjolnir so he can become Thor and rejoin the Avengers.

Y’know, before someone starts pondering why they haven’t seen him in a while.

Scarlet Witch notices sudden Thor and since everyone else ran off without paying any mind to Vision (geez, what the hell, the Avengers? He’s your good pal chum!) she begs Thor to help.

Scarlet Witch: “Thank heavens, you’ve returned! The Vision was injured somehow by that null-field! I... I can’t find any vital signs! His synthetic body is too different for the paramedics to do anything! Help us! Please -- !”

Thor slings Vision over shoulder exactly like you’d expect a buff Norse god to do and reassures Wanda that they’ll find someone to revive Vision.

At the Baxter Building, the Avengers very courteously go in through the front door because there’s just a lot of defensive systems that may or may not be active. And anyway, Wasp has a key to the special elevator.

Apparently, Wasp is such good friends with Sue Storm that she was given one of those special lasers incorporated into her new costume that opens the elevator doors.

I’ll have to check with my friend who liveblogs Fantastic Four to see if Jan shows up much. Because Sue has shown up a couple times in Avengers to build the idea that she and Wasp are good friends after their cool brunch but I haven’t heard of the reverse.

When the Avengers get to the 34th floor to confront Annihilus, they find that it’s been taken care of off in Fantastic Four.

The caption tells me for the full story to see that issue #256 and for once, I will.

(Interestingly, while Byrne got a co-plotter credit on this Avengers issue, Stern doesn’t get the same in the corresponding FF issue which really suggests who the driving force of the story was.)

Over in FF #256, the FF are stranded in the Negative Zone for reasons but have also noticed the null-field and positive field thing going on. Reed works to limit the effects of the fields merging to only the Baxter Building instead of the whole universe, which will also help the FF return home. He also hopes that someone on the Earth side of things “an Avenger perhaps” is also taking action.

Which, yeah. Captain Marvel’s whole thing where she launched herself at the Baxter Building from the Sun.

While she’s doing that, the thing that Reed is doing starts shorting out the circuity that Annihilus is using.

Then, Captain Marvel’s appearance causes the console Annihilus is working at to explode in his face, destroying his life-support armor.

Annihilus tries to activate the ‘destroy the universe’ thing manually but because of Reed’s machinations, the Fantastic Four get pulled back into the universe and Annihilus gets booted into the Negative Zone.

Its implied that Annihilus dies here but ha ha ha no he’s going to show up again without explaining how he survived. What a dick.

The Fantastic Four pop back into the Baxter building with the colors in their outfits changed because of technobabble. Reed instantly accosts Captain Marvel for being someone he doesn’t recognize but Thing tells him who she is and defuses things.

Thing runs off to take Alicia to the hospital, Sue runs off to look for Franklin, and Reed and Human Torch put out all the fires.

And that’s where the books sync up so back over to Avengers.

The Avengers meet up with the FF and compare notes and Reed starts trying to technobabble explain the change in uniforms when Wanda interrupts and asks someone to help Vision.

Reed examines Vision and comes up with some good news.

Vision is, more or less, okay. When he entered the null-field it drained his energy and disrupted his synapses but there shouldn’t be any permanent damage. The robot coma is Vision basically fixing himself up but Reed could speed up the process and help him recover faster.

And then Sue comes in with an unconscious Franklin.

Everyone drops everything to immediately rush off to the hospital, leaving Wanda and coma-Vision alone.

I mean. Kinda rude. Its entirely fair for Reed and Sue to run off. Its their son. And Johnny flies ahead to alert the emergency ward. But does the situation really need Starfox, Captain America and She-Hulk?

(The FF issue actually shows that Captain Marvel stuck around. She barely knows Wanda and Vision and she’s actually being courteous to them. Geez.)

I’ll give Thor a pass because he can turn into a Perfectly Normal Doctor. But really? Everyone is just leaving Wanda alone? Just like they left Vision just passed out in the street?

The Avengers are being dicks to Vision and Wanda today!

Follow @essential-avengers and like and reblog perhaps. Because I wouldn’t leave Vision lying passed out in the street and I haven’t even been his friend for years. Just saying.

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