#pretty sure in a 1v1 they're close enough??? | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

vera-keller · 10 months

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pvt. jules here reporting for getting a ship duty, if you have time… hi

fall in pvt jules, my best friend, my pal, my homeboy, my rotten soldier, my sweet cheese, my good time boy, for whom i will always have time to write a ship. buckle up comrade let's do this shit

joe toye takes one look at you in basic training at camp toccoa, circa 1942 or so, and immediately decides you're the next best thing under the sun amidst those rolling swathes of georgian hills after the aforementioned sun itself. but on second thoughts the comparison might as well be nullified because he's never seen anyone or anything that lights up every room the way you do so maybe to him you're one and the same after all.

and it's far from the only dualism of yours that confuses and delights him. he doesn't understand how someone with your kind eyes and soft skin and healing hands can be such an unstoppable force to be reckoned with, his .45 and hawkins mine and two grenades and smoke grenade and gammon grenade and tnt et al immediately humbled by the way you stake your firm claim to who you are and what you're here for amidst a company of paratroopers two times your size while still managing to come out on top.

you might be an unstoppable force, but joe is far from an immovable object, especially when he finds himself genuinely impressed by someone, and he sure as hell is impressed by you. so when he gets his wings and summons a measure of courage, he asks whether you'd like a drink at the pub for celebratory purposes.

you say yes, because any man willing to 1v1 hitler with a pocket knife is a man who's good enough to buy you your shots for the night.

and when he sees you ordering those shots straight up before the sun's even down, he falls in love.

you're a born debater who spits perfect rhetoric and joe will readily meet you in discourse every time, but he's there because he likes hearing your voice ring out in challenge far more than he likes hearing his own in answer. and it's not like he's winning any of the arguments, not against you. you're far too good for that and he knows it. and you can tell he's there because he likes being in close proximity to you in moments where you rise up and defend something you're passionate about or dispute something you disagree with, because you turn into a woman made of fire then and, good god, he can't get enough of it. you tell me whether he's smug as hell in front of the other easy boys that you're his girl because i think the answer is pretty damn obvious.

he's a listener more than he is a talker and he claims that he's not an intellectual and in all fairness he is a simple and straightforward man with simple and straightforward motivations when it comes to you. he's curious about roman-era northern germanic territories and pre-christianity northern europe and judea during the first jewish-roman war because you're curious about them and because you're willing to share that curiosity with him, and he recognises it as a gift, and he cherishes it like a motherfucker. he doesn't know what "carolingian" means. he knows perfectly well however that he's swept off his feet by the sudden desire to kiss you when you immediately set down the work you have on hand and turn to face him with palpable excitement in your eyes as you begin to explain it to him.

so he begins to really think of ways to show his love in ways that are also meaningful to you. he's a romantic through and through, having fallen first and fallen harder, and he's a lot more considerate about these gestures of love than one who does not know him as intimately as you do might initially imagine him to be. who would have guessed that ssgt joseph toye, the toughest man of the toughest company of the toughest regiment of the airborne corps, is quite the sentimental type who'll get you a bunch of wildflowers in the mountains of berchtesgaden and avert his gaze when he hands a bunch of them to you like they're not flowers he spent the better half of the morning picking out but a mere box of k rations? sir this man is a simp and though he's a little shy about it sometimes, he wears it as well as he wears that heart on his sleeve when it comes to matters concerning you, tough guy reputation be damned. to joe, if any man manages to find fortune smiling upon him so ardently that he might land you and still doesn't go out of his way to treat you right, then that man isn't worth shit.

chivalric as he is moved to be with you sometimes, he doesn't descend to baby you. fuck that. he knows what you're capable of. please see below diagram 1.1 for reference:

the comebacks that come out of your mouth and the fire in your beautiful beautiful eyes would have him go cold if they were ever aimed at him, but they never are. in fact, there's nothing he loves more than to watch you banter with the others and occasionally put someone in their place because that shit's funny as fuck. you're icepick-sharp, but that doesn't make you any less emotional or empathetic, and the bigger your emotions are around him the more he loves you. you're his ride or die, all or nothing just like he is, and just as he didn't hesitate to tell george luz that he met the woman he's going to marry when he first saw you before even learning your name, he doesn't hesitate now to think that you just might be the love of his life. perhaps some part of him is riddled with private anxiety that he doesn't deserve you, which is why he'll go out of his way to overcompensate, especially after bastogne, after he loses his leg, after he realises he's struggling to hold down a job without you fighting for it on his behalf. but you look him the eyes and run your thumb over his cheek as you hold his face in your hands and tell him with utmost sincerity that there's no one for you but him and him alone, and he swears in that moment he'll spend the rest of his life honouring you if for nothing else than for those words alone.

he wears the trinkets for luck you give him. he lets you read his moon sign and starts spreading his newly acquired knowledge of astrology and horoscopes through his platoon like the gospel or a pyramid scheme. he'll go to hell and back for you. you never question anything when you're with him; he leaves no room for doubt. you know that you'll always have his love to keep. oh, how lucky he is.

bonus:

perhaps if he graduated from harvard, david webster thinks, he might have the right words to describe you. he'd call it song of songs part two. he'd call it she walks in beauty the sequel. he'd call it shall i compare jules to a summer's day because she's the loveliest and most temperate and her complexion will never fade because it's been burned in my memory. but he didn't graduate from harvard. silly him.

so instead he observes you and memorises you like a frustrated artist might memorise a muse he knows his hands aren't quite deft enough yet to capture and let alone to replicate. he likes literature in no small part because of the aesthetics of literary form. he likes you in no small part because reading your features and expressions and body language reminds him of reading his favourite books back when he was a student. the same kind of appreciation applies.

he likes that he can drop a reference to something literary or philosophical and theological and your eyes are the first to flicker with either recognition or interest. he likes that you have a thirst for knowledge as unquenchable as his own. above all, he likes that your formidable intellect – that which he might compare to the intellect of penelopeia, queen of ithaca, or "grey-eyed athene", if he ever feels inclined toward a smidge of pretentiousness just to get your attention – comes hand in hand with your compassion. he likes that, amidst the chaos and acridity of war, you're a real person through and through. you challenge concepts you don't believe in. you do not blindly follow ideas and notions that you haven't deconstructed and put back together so that they convince you of their integrity. you speak up. he'll be your sounding board and your devil's advocate if you'll let him.

web doesn't have many close friends in his platoon so he 100% waits for you outside the barracks or mess hall or whatnot at toccoa, and later the house in which you're billeted in aldbourne, so he can walk with you to various places. though he vaguely reminds you of a lost puppy sometimes, the way he follows you around seemingly without realising it, it doesn't bother you in the slightest. after all, he's perfect to call upon if you have errands to run over the weekends off-base and he'll gladly use his pass to accompany you for them. time spent with him is never dull for a moment because conversation flows between the two of you like water. david is never out of things to say to you. likewise, he's never out of patience to listen. he's thoughtful. he likes different ways of looking at the world. to afford the privilege of looking at the world through your eyes by engaging you in meaningful conversation is perhaps the greatest intimacy known to him.

david webster is a curious man. he notices things like tiny variations in your makeup from day one to day two and he never fails to throw in a compliment or a reference to it in conversation as though it's the most natural thing in the world, a casual "i like your eyeshadow today, did you do something different?" or a "your lip colour really suits you by the way" paired with a small smile that's only a quarter sheepish and three quarters charming in the way only his smiles can be.

and he notices other things too, your hobbies, your hyperfixations, your hopes, your dreams, your tendency to stay up too late just as he does when burdened with something. if he were born a century later he'd be a devotee of that one chuck palahniuk quote, "your handwriting, the way you walk, which china pattern you choose. it’s all giving you away. everything you do shows your hand. everything is a self-portrait. everything is a diary." he wants to get to know you by spending as much time with you as possible and learning as many of these little details about you as he can, because you're endlessly and unfathomably interesting to him and he wants to be able to love you without falling into the all too available trap of romanticising you for what you are not. he wants to love you for what you are. and he's so gentle and patient and longsuffering about it that you let him in.

in eindhoven he watches you interact with the little dutch boy he gave chocolate to. dutch is your native language after all, and he can barely understand what you're saying to him but he sees the boy's face light up and he sees the way he warms to you and he finds himself warming to you more than he has before. the earnest look on your face has his heart straining in his chest.

in haguenau, david webster starts writing you love letters. he saves them in his breast pocket close to where his heart is, and the little private poetic gesture is for himself only to indulge in. and even after the company arrives in austria he takes a long time to confess any of this to you, because for all his academic understanding of romance, he genuinely struggles with verbalising his feelings. your intellect is your weapon. his intellect is his shield. he feels safest in the realm of abstracts and hypotheticals. he doesn't like being exposed and raw and vulnerable. he gets tongue-tied. his courage falters. but you're the opposite. to him you've never been short of upfront, and he sees that in you, and he admires that about you. you bring out the impulsive side of him. every passing day it stirs him a little more.

he might not have the right words to describe you, but perhaps he'd be able to talk about his feelings more if he loved you less. maybe it was never about his education. maybe it's as simple as seeing in you a kindred spirit whose companionship he wants for all the foreseeable future.

when the war is over, web asks you what your plans for the future are. you know it's his way of telling you he wants very much to be in them. so you ask him directly whether that's what he means. and you understand him so well. how could he ever say no?

#ships by victoria #mutuals: jules

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nemesis-is-my-middle-name · 1 year

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Arezu thinks that because they're both wardens and wearing Clan uniforms that she and Ingo more similar to each other than they are to the other two. She is sadly very mistaken. Actually, does she even know that Ingo isn't native? Sure he's the weirdest person in Hisui, including the protag, with weird clothes and turns of phrase, but that's easily handwaved as prophet bullshit. Unless the Pearl Clan kinda rolled him out like, "hi, thank you all for coming, this is Ingo, he's our newest warden and... drumroll please... a prophet of Sinnoh who fell from the sky onto our lands! Boom our Sinnoh is clearly the correct one since they blessed us with him and not you, suck it haters." But yes, Arezu is really the only one on this trip who actually cares about their god, aside from maybe Lilligant and the protag. Even Sneasler, a noble descended from Sinnoh's champions, is just here because that's where her dude and the entertainment are. Ingo and Cyllene are most definitely in the "not my god" camp.

Yes, oh my god, and now I also can't help but think that in OoP she was pretty bummed out that she was tasked with keeping Rei out of the fray when Emmet turned out to be a really good battler who made that fight look awesome lol. Wait, okay okay, so we know that when you fight Ingo with his own team he says part of Emmet's pre-multi battle lines. What if, were he to battle against another person with Sneasler as either his ace or a 1v1, he did part of Emmet's pre-super double battle lines instead? Telling them to give it their all, because if a battle is not serious, it is not fun.

Well, my thinking re: catching pokemon to break the frenzy, was because when you catch an alpha pokemon in the game it's completely chill afterward. Fighting them to a k.o. might work too, since part of breaking the nobles' frenzy is wearing them down enough for the bags of comfort food to actually work their magic, but if the option is fight or catch, catching is probably easier in most cases because it won't completely exhaust their pokemon. And also catching in pokeballs is really the only thing I could think of that could be even vaguely vaccine-esque that'd also work with arceus sending a teenager from the future to fix things, especially if we keep the seek out all pokemon mandate. Maybe arceus gives the protag the ability to like, imbue pokeballs with a bit of their power or something, idk.

If battling can break the frenzy if they're knocked out, then the best case scenario would be for Lilligant to frenzy first, because should the others somehow not be able to stand up to her, Sneasler would be on her level and also super effective against her. The frenzy would give Lilligant an extra boost, so it likely couldn't just be Sneasler though. If battling on its own doesn't work and the nobles have to be caught somehow... well that might cause problems with the clans, for one thing.

LOL YEAH... sorry arezu you might have been right if you were paired with Literally Any Other Warden but nope you got the weirdo one instead. and HMM that's a good question... lol you know what would be funny is if the other wardens don't really know not bc ingo intentionally didn't tell them but bc he. didn't realize it was news. like everyone in the pearl clan knew immediately bc they were There when he got there, but the diamond clan wardens? everybody just forgot to update them on it. but that might not be super believable either... it might be like ounce of prevention's adaman, where she knows he's not native bc that's fairly obvious just from talking to him but didn't realize he was from The Sky. or maybe not idk!

wkwjhwjh YEAH she mighta been huh. and. OOOOH... aaaa man that little bit of trivia still hurts my heart so much and this spin on it is SO good... yes yes i love it. also the fact that he presumably remembers the multis lines in canon bc he would have been hearing those semi-daily when they battled together, but if the super doubles lines are also so close to hand then that means he's also heard those really frequently, maybe bc they spar battle each other in different formats a lot too which is already a hc of mine and YEAH. I LIKE IT

no no yeah i think the reasoning for this au works i was just saying that it's kind of. a goofy decision on the part of canon to make that work shksjhskjh. i think to make the "seek out all pokemon" thing more plot relevant it's actually a very elegant solution!! and ooh "imbuing pokeballs with divine power" is a cool thing... then i wonder if instead of balms, it works functionally the same way but you're hucking blessed pokeballs at them instead? hmm

ooh yeah, maybe sneasler's battling to keep her attention and wear her out, and then the protag is busy lining up a throw? but YEAH problems with the clans is a fair point... although lilligant's warden would be there to sign off on it so maybe that would give them some legitimacy? idk

#the nemesis speaks #the nemesis answers #anonymous #origin visions au

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willel · 1 year

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The "Main Character"

I realize belatedly this might be a controversial post, but it's not meant to be. I'm writing this to express how I think about things and why. Why I theorize about some things but not so much others.

It will be under the read more since I imagine it will end up getting a little long. That's said, let's get started. 👍

I suppose I should start by saying, this is meant to be an ensemble cast. Season 1 balanced everyone out the most, but as the seasons have progressive added more and more people, they've had to hone their focus on some characters more than others.

In this fandom, almost entirely because of shipping wars in my opinion, the fandom has began arguing who is the "main character" between Will and El.

Based on the definition of "ensemble cast", neither of these individuals are main characters or they're BOTH main characters along with everyone else.

But if you take the show itself into consideration so far, I think it's pretty clear that El is at least the main protagonist of the entire cast and no one else comes close. It's not even due to screen time or anything like that, it's based purely on her relationship with the "end goal" of each season and how each season ends based on her actions.

In season 1 she leads to Hopper and Joyce finding Will and she destroys the Demogorgon, putting an end to the seasonal threat.

In season 2, she's the one who closes the gate, putting an end to the seasonal threat.

Season 3 sticks out more than the others, but in the end, she's the one that stalls Billy in the final moments long enough for the Mind Flesher to get got.

In season 4, similarly to season 3, she's the one that holds Vecna in place long enough to at least partially save Max and to keep him trapped in his mind so he can get flamed.

As someone who makes theories for fun and tries to predict what the next season might be, this actually makes it kind of difficult to create theories about El. Inevitably, her role will be the "end the season". She's the "final weapon". In fact, she's the ONLY weapon. If the fight comes down to a 1v1, El vs a supernatural threat, she's the one that's going to take it out.

Which leads to my second point. It doesn't matter who the "main character" is because El's status as the final boss killer only works thanks to the efforts of the other characters.

It's much easier to imagine "What will so-and-so do that will enviably help El defeat the final boss? What if so-and-so does this, allowing El to get to the final boss? How will so-and-so trick the bad guy so that El can get them?"

And you see, that is why coming up with theories for one character in particular so so easy and fun! I'm sure you know who that other character is, right? It's William Byers.

Similarly to El, Will is the only other character in the entire series that is tied to the supernatural threat and there's nothing anyone can do about it. You know how Brenner and the lab constantly comes crawling back into El's life to ruin her day? Well, that's how the Upside Down is for Will.

In every season thus far (except season 4), Will is the deciding figure that tells the characters and the audience that something fucked up is happening. In season 1, his disappearance set off the entire plot for our main characters, leading them to El in the first place.

In season 2, the link he's been trying to ignore for an entire year comes back with a vengeance, once again wrapping everyone up in a supernatural affair (while El is none the wiser)

In season 3 though it takes him a while to admit it, he's the first one to whiff something stinky going on around them.

Much like El, Will has no choice but to be involved. He has no choice but to help. He has no choice but to play some kind of role.

This is why I often insist Will and El are technically the "main characters". To me, everything has been leading to this.

"What can Will do that will help El succeed in the final battle of all battles".

It seems to me that whatever Will has going on is the key El has needed all this time to rid them both of the curse of the Upside Down and Henry Creel. There's something only the two of them can do together that will finally cut the link to all their trauma. There's something that sets them apart from the rest.

It's so fun to imagine what Will will be able to do that will inevitably help El defeat Vecna. What can Will and El do together to finally put an end to all of this. What can Will do to finally repay the person who has saved his life countless times? Can you see where I am coming from when I put forth these "Will has powers" essays? How Will is also a protagonist in this story with every reason to participate in the final battle?

They're both the main protagonists in this story. They've both been personally afflicted by this evil (Max too). Their lives especially rely on the outcome of this conflict.

So when people bring up the argument "Who is the main character", my response is really, "What does that matter? El has always relied on others to be victorious, as it should be."

I want the result of this story not to be "El is a superhero, therefore, she should be able to do this alone." I want it to reinforce, "El is a traumatized girl with all this responsibility placed on her. She shouldn't HAVE to do this alone, she has so many people who love her now who can help her."

For Will, I want it to be, "I don't have to let my fears hold me back anymore. Even if I don't fight with my fists, I too can be strong. I can fight. I can stand up for myself and the people I care about."

OK RAMBLING DONE. Just some wandering thoughts before taking my lunch break. Carry on. 👽

#stranger things #will byers #el hopper #willel #me rambling #imo it's really not that controversial but I know it is now for some people #they've backed up too far in their corners and now can't see anything but what they want to see #and it's usually not for the benefit of the characters they claim to love either #it's because their fear for their ships #on both sides #I think first and foremost #people need to separate the ship from the supernatural plot #they aren't related #that might help this fandom out a lot actually

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