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theartofdreaming1 · 3 years

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Katniss, bravely stepping inbetween Gale and Thread (and his whip) - she’s so courageous and protective, she deserves the world 😭

As usual, my thoughts regarding this week’s prompts and (many) random thoughts on chapters 7-9 are below the cut. (Is it just me, or are my notes getting longer and longer with each and every post? I swear, this book is so meaty, we’ll soon reach the point where I have to type out the entire chapter, with my thoughts in the margins)

heart

“Gale is mine. I am his. Anything else in unthinkable.”

I think these words are a result of Katniss being so afraid of losing Gale that she’s kinda overcompensating; their relationship has been strained these past few months and they’d just had a row, separating from each other on bad terms - and the next time she sees him, he’s been whipped so bad that he’s lost consciousness and could be potentially dying from his wounds. Of course she’s so terrified of losing him, that she’s holding on as tightly as she can to him. It’s important to keep in mind how important their relationship is to her and we see that in her preceding thoughts: What a pair we were - fatherless, frightened, but fiercely commited, too, to keeping our families alive. Desperate, yet no longer alone after that day, because we’d found each other. I think of a hundred moments in the woods, lazy afternoons fishing, the day I taught him to swim, that time I twisted my knee and he carried me home. Mutually counting each other, watching each other’s backs, forcing each other to be brave. - Gale was the first person who was her equal, a kindred spirit, her partner. After Katniss had lost both of her parents when her father died and her mother succumbed to her depression - the people who were supposed to care for her and guide her through growing up - she was stuck with the role of sole provider and protector of her family at age eleven. She must have been so lonely all this time until she met this boy who understood what she was going through and they learned from each other and shouldered their burdens together, to take off some of the overwhelming pressure. Of course that relationship, of course Gale is important to her. But also now their relationship has become more fragile, after the Games they are in danger of growing apart - it’s got to be so terrifying to feel like the one proper, mutual relationship you’ve had seems to be slipping through your fingers. With everything that’s going on, her entire life as it is teetering on the razor’s edge (heck, the president himself has been threatening her and her family!), it’s no wonder that Katniss is craving that familiarity and safety that her relationship with Gale used to provide her with. And seeing Gale in this state just has her holding on to him more tightly than ever.

mind

Hmm, no big moment is coming to my mind right now; I think I’m always most impressed by the tiny moments that show how tenacious, resilient and fiercely kind humans can be - like Darius stepping forward to stop Gale’s cruel punishment, Leevy volunteering to tell Hazelle about Gale and promising to stay with the Hawthorne children, Madge bringing the morphling, Katniss pressing Darius’s hand in the Training Center, Twill taking Bonnie with her to flee to D13 and so on.

soul

I believe that Katniss was honestly surprised to learn that Gale had feelings for her; she had categorically shut down the idea of entering a romantic relationship for herself, so I don’t think she’d seriously consider anyone being romantically interested in her in return (that’s not how that works, of course, but I think that’s how she perceived the whole shtick). Their kiss threw her completely for a loop and if anything, she mostly saw it as something that contributed to the deterioration of their previous, easy and comfortable relationship.

Chapter 7

A mockingjay is a creature the Capitol never intended to exist. [...] They hadn’t anticipated its will to live. - In a way, the Capitol continues to make this mistake with the people living in the districts, too - underestimating their will to live (opposed to just surviving)

I look in his [Gale’s] eyes. His temper can’t quite mask the hurt, the sense of betrayal he feels at my engagement to Peeta. This will be my last chance, this meeting today, to not lose Gale forever. - Okay, we don’t know how much Katniss might be (incorrectly) presuming here, but the idea that Gale might feel betrayal because his best friend is being forced into an engagement pisses me off. It’s fine if he’s feeling jealous because she’s being paired off with Peeta when he wishes he could have a shot with her, but how in the world does this even rate as a betrayal?! A) It’s done against her will and B) Just because they’re friends doesn’t mean Katniss owes him anything when we’re talking about romantic feelings... Ugh 😒 Also, it’s quite noteworthy how insecure Katniss feels about their relationship - she’s constantly worried Gale will drop her and their friendship (waiting for Gale after the camera teams left after winning the Games: I’d begun to think that he’d given up on me in the weeks that had passed.- Ch. 2) and it doesn’t help that she’s been through that extreme, traumatic experience without him and they haven’t had much opportunity to spend a lot of time with each other (with the Victory Tour and Gale having to work so much) and when they do hang out, they don’t seem to really talk much, which doesn’t exactly help...

He [Gale] tosses the gloves on my lap. “Here. I don’t want your fiancé’s old gloves.” “He’s not my fiancé. That’s just part of the act. And these aren’t his gloves. They were Cinna’s,” I say. “Give them back, then, he says. - Gale can be so petty sometimes 🙄

While I talk, [...] [Gale] occupies himself with turning the food in the leather bag into a meal for us. Toasting bread and cheese, coring apples, placing chestnuts in the fire to roast. I watch his hands, his beautiful, capable fingers. Scarred, as mine were before the Captiol erased all marks from my skin, but strong and deft. [...] Hands I trust. - Oh boy, this moment really shows how these two are at cross purposes right now - Gale’s prepping the food as you would for a toasting (romantic connotation), while Katniss is oberserving his hands, thinking how their hands used to match (not anymore!) and basically wishing herself back into the time before the Games, when things were ‘simpler’/more clearly defined (and also platonic!); there is nothing romantic from her P.O.V. - it’s all about the friendship and trust

[Gale] steps in and I feel myself lifted off the ground. The room spins, and I have to lock my arms around Gale’s neck to brace myself. He’s laughing, happy. “Hey!” I protest, but I’m laughing, too. Gale sets me down but doesn’t release his hold on me. “Okay, let’s run away.” [...] “You’re sure?” I say. [...] “I’m sure. I’m completely, entirely, one hundred percent sure.” - Yeah, and I’m sure you’re not going to change your opinion in the next five minutes, Gale... In his defense, Gale didn’t know all the details, so in that regard it’s totally valid that he might decide to change his mind after having more input... It’s just that Katniss specifically asks him whether he’s sure and his reply is so full of conviction (100% sure!), only for him to do a complete 180 just a couple of minutes later; Gale’s very hot and cold, which makes for such a harsh contrast when compared to Peeta’s more measured reaction later in the chapter

He tilts his forehead down to rest against mine and pulls me closer. [...] I don’t try to move away. Why should I, anyway? His voice drops to a whisper. “I love you.” That’s why. - Oh man, Katniss just can’t catch a break 😞 Really not wise of Gale to drop the L-bomb here (after, what? a kiss they never talked about and little else... their communication is truly abysmal and it’s really damaging to their relationship, hurting the both of them)

“Gale, I can’t think about anyone that way now. All I can think about, every day, is how afraid I am. And there doesn’t seem to be room for anything else. If we could get somewhere safe, maybe I could be different. I don’t know.” I can see him swallowing his disappointment. “So, we’ll go. We’ll find out.” - I mean, honestly, I totally understand where Katniss is coming from - she doesn’t need a romantic interest, she needs a partner, which is why she’s been so eager to talk to her hunting partner, someone she’s used to rely on for survival and now he’s also confounding their relationship by introducing that romance-angle (as if it wasn’t bad enough that her relationship with Peeta got kind of messed up when that same angle was forced upon them prematurely)... Also, telling how Katniss thinks she’d have to be different to maybe even consider a romantic relationship with Gale - Katniss as she is right now just can’t see herself wanting to be with Gale romantically; it would require a change... I’ve got to give Gale credit for still going along with it, and trying to push past his disappointment, though

“My [Gale’s] mother is going to take some convincing.” [...] “Mine, too. I’ll just have to make her see reason. Take her for a long walk. Make sure she understands we won’t survive the alternative.” “She’ll understand. I watched a lot of the Games with her and Prim. She won’t say no to you,” says Gale. - That’s interesting, I wonder what exactly Gale means by that? That Mrs. Everdeen won’t say no to Katniss because she feels guilty that Katniss had to go through the Games or because watching her daughter compete in the Games really made her realize how messed up Panem is? Or that she’s more inclined to trust Katniss’s judgement after everything that has happened?

“Haymitch will be the real challenge.” “Haymitch?” Gale abandons the chestnuts. “You’re asking him to come with us?” “I have to, Gale. I can’t leave him and Peeta because they’d-” His scowl cuts me off. “What?” “I’m sorry. I didn’t realize how large our party was,” he snaps at me. - Gale doesn’t seem to have realized how close and important Peeta and Haymitch have become to Katniss... maybe because they never properly talked about this aspect of Katniss’s life (I swear, their shoddy communication must account for at least half of the damage their relationship has taken in these past few months alone)

“What if he [Peeta] decides to stay?” he [Gale] asks. I try to sound indifferent, but my voice cracks. “Then he stays.” “You’d leave him behind?” Gale asks. “To save Prim and my mother, yes,” I answer. “I mean, no! I’ll get him to come.” “And me, would you leave me?” Gale’s expression is rock hard now. - Boy, oh boy! I think Gale knows (like Peeta) that Katniss could never leave behind the people she cares about; then, he’s kind of gauging whether Peeta has already received the Katniss Everdeen Stamp of ‘Caring’ - and, as it turns out, he has! And then Gale ends up making it into a bit of competition by asking her whether she would leave him behind (or, alternately, her turning him down has him confused about the depth of their relationship, I dunno); not fun

“There’s an uprising in Eight?” he [Gale] says in a hushed voice. I try to backpedal. To defuse him, as I tried to defuse the districts. - Katniss is going to be about as successful as she’d been at defusing the districts, too - But here we have another example of Katniss trying to rein in Gale’s temper because she’s afraid he’s going to get himself in trouble (like when she decided not to tell him about Snow’s visit to her house because she was worried what he’d do with that information)... It’s really not great that she feels the need to censor herself so he won’t do something dangerous... Katniss knows first-hand how badly impulsive actions and decisions can be received in the Capitol - and she never even meant for a rebellion to happen!

“And it’s my fault, Gale. Because of what I did in the arena. If I had just killed myself with those berries, none of this would’ve happened. Peeta could have come home and lived, and everyone else would have been safe. too.” “Safe to do what?” he says in a gentler tone. “Starve? Work like slaves? Send their kids to the reaping? You haven’t hurt people - you’ve given them an opportunity. They just have to be brave enough to take it. - Katniss is taking all the responsibility upon herself again... Gale is right to point out that she was merely a catalyst, not the cause for the rebellion - the cause are the awful living conditions of the people in the districts

“Stop it! You don’t know what you’re saying. The Peacekeepers outside of Twelve, they’re not like Darius, or even Cray! The lives of district people - they mean less than nothing to them!” I say. “That’s why we have to join the fight!” he answers harshly. “No! we have to leave here before they kill us and a lot of other people, too!” [...] “You leave, then, I’d never go in a million years.” [...] “What about your family?” “What about the other families, Katniss? The ones who can’t run away?” - This discourse is so painful because they are both right - Katniss has seen more of the districts and how things are handled beyond the (relatively tame) confines of D12 and it’s fair that she wants to know that the people she cares about are safe from harm; Gale, of course, has a point commenting that not everyone has that opportunity and the only way to have a long-lasting, wide-spread improvement of their conditions is through rebelling against their oppressor - but that will inevitably come along with sacrifices and collateral damage and it’s easy to say that it will be worth it in the long run, but when those who are hurt/dead could end up being your loved ones, it’s definitely easier said than done

He throws Cinna’s gloves at my feet. “I changed my mind. I don’t want anything they made in the Capitol.” And he’s gone. I look down at the gloves. Anything they made in the Capitol? Was that directed at me? Does he think I am now just another product of the Capitol and therefore something untouchable? The unfairness of it all fills me with rage. But it’s mixed up with fear over what kind of crazy thing he might do next. - Gale getting rid of Cinna’s gloves just because they are from the Capitol is a prime example of this “us vs. them” mindset that he will be (worringly) fast to adopt - of course, perceiving the opposite side as “other” will make it easier to fight against them; however, it’s all too easy to lose sight of your opponent’s humanity when you think like that (think of how Gale has a hard time understanding Katniss’s distress upon seeing her prep team being treated so terribly/inhumanely in D13); Katniss feeling upset that Gale might perceive her as a product of the Capitol instead of its victim is understandable (and isn’t that exactly what the inhabitants of D13 are going to think of Peeta in MJ?) - and yet, she is still worried Gale could get himself into trouble with his impulsivity; she’s a good bean

”Going to town?” I ask. “Yes. I’m supposed to eat dinner with my family,” he [Peeta] says. - I’m tripping over the word ‘supposed’ here - it doesn’t sound like Peeta’s looking forward to hanging out with his fam, although it can’t be that often, since they’ve been away on Victory Tour and he is living alone (maybe the end of the chapter will give us another hint why that is 😒😒)... I can’t help but wonder whether these family dinners are mainly for public perception (in that case... it really is no wonder Peeta is so good at playing the cameras - poor guy had to fool the outside world his entire life) or because they are the only chance for Peeta to hang out with any of the members of his family he might actually want to spend some time with

“Peeta, if I asked you to run away from the district with me, would you?” Peeta takes my arm, bringing me to a stop. He doesn’t need to check my face to see if I’m serious. “Depends on why you’re asking.” President Snow wasn’t convinced by me. There’s an uprising in District Eight. We have to get out,” I say. “By ‘we’ do you mean just you and me? No. Who else would be going?” he asks. - Peeta doesn’t just blindly agree to Katniss’s proposal; he needs to know what’s going on first (he has been burnt before - no more secrets!) - and it’s a testament to how well he knows her that as soon as he’s asking whether she meant just the two of them, he corrects himself because knows that Katniss would never leave the ones she cares about behind

“What about Gale?” he says. “I don’t know. He might have other plans,” I say. Peeta shakes his head and gives me rueful smile. “I bet he does. Sure, Katniss, I’ll go.” I feel a slight twinge of hope. “You will?” “Yeah. But I don’t think for a minute you will,” he says. [...] “Then you don’t know me. Be ready. It could be any time.” - Telling how Peeta immediately agrees to the plan once he gathers that Gale won’t come - he knows that Katniss cares about Gale and could never leave him behind, ergo she’d never actually leave under these circumstances - he knows her so well. Also, Katniss’s reaction is like that of a petulant child, it’s kind of funny 😄

“Katniss, hold up.” [...] “I really will go, if you want me to. I just think we better talk it through with Haymitch. Make sure we won’t be making things worse for everyone.” - Ultimately, Peeta would follow Katniss to the ends of the earth - doesn’t mean that he can’t throw in a sensible suggestion in there as well 😉 (Also, in the next chapter we will see how Katniss, Gale, and Peeta might be a little too inexperienced/naive to be able to form accurate expectations of what is to come - Haymitch and his generation have a little more experience in that regard)

He raises his head. “What’s that?” [...] I haven’t noticed the strange noise coming from the square. A whistling, the sound of an impact, the intake of breath from a crowd. “Come on,” Peeta says, his face suddenly hard. I don’t know why. I can’t place the sound, even guess at the situation. But it means something bad to him. - Why does my sweet boy know what a whipping sounds like, Suzanne, huh?! Care to explain that? 😭

Peeta steps up on a crate against the wall of the sweetshop and offers me a hand while he scans the square. I’m halfway up when he suddenly blocks my way. “Get down. Get out of here!” He’s whispering, but his voice is harsh with insistence. - Peeta was offering his hand to help Katniss up the crate because they are a team (and he’s a gentleman)! It’s only when he recognizes who is receiving those lashes and realizes that Katniss will lose her shit once she knows, which could make the current situation even worse, that he urges her to leave, and he is not the only one to think that: - Voices hiss. “Get out of here, girl.” “Only make it worse.” What do you want to do? Get him killed?”

Chapter 8

It’s too late to stop the arm from descending, and I instinctively know I won’t have the power to block it. Instead I throw myself directly between the whip and Gale. I’ve flung out my arms to protext as much of his broken body as possible, so there’s nothing to deflect the lash. I take the full force of it across the left side of my face. - Katniss is so selfless; she knows that it’s either Gale getting hit again or a lash to her own face and she chooses the latter

“Hold it!” a voice barks. Haymitch appears and trips over a Peacekeeper lying on the ground. It’s Darius. [...] He’s knocked out but still breathing. What happened? Did he try to come to Gale’s aid before I got here? - Haymitch sure appeared quickly - I can easily imagine Peeta taking off immediately to get him (or send someone to bring him to the square) once he knew Katniss couldn’t be stopped; but if Haymitch had been at his house in Victor’s Village, there is no way he’d have made that quickly to the square... maybe he was already at the Hob and had gotten wind of the whole situation? Also, poor Darius! Wearing a uniform/being in some sort of position of power is no guarantee you won’t get punished as soon as you show the tiniest glimpse of compassion - in a place like Panem, nobody is safe from the caprice of the people in charge

I see a flicker of recognition in the eyes of the man with the whip. [...] it wouldn’t be easy to identify me as the victor of the last Hunger Games. Especially with half my face swelling up. But Haymitch has been showing up on television for years, and he’d be difficult to forget. - Getting Haymitch truly was the smartest move to make (which is why I’m pretty sure it was a move on Peeta’s part - he’d know how to use reminders of ‘appearances’ to ensure a punishment wouldn’t go ‘too far’, y’know 😢). But also - Thread must have lived under a flipping rock, to not being able to recognizes Katniss (her face must have been plastered all over the place during the Victory Tour, which just had concluded recently) - or he was just too in the heat of the moment, with someone opposing him, bleugh 😒

“He [Gale] was poaching. What business is it of hers, anyway?” says the man. “He’s her cousin.” Peeta’s got my other arm now, but gently. “And she’s my fiancée. So if you want to get to him, expect to go through both of us.” - I love how Peeta’s just laying it down as it is; his phrasing just sounds so factual, rather than provocative (although it is, of course); he really has a way with words - Maybe we’re it. The only three people in the district who could make a stand like this. Although it’s sure to be temporary. There will be repercussions. - Haymitch, Peeta, and Katniss working together as a team again! Also, a good example of the effect people with public influence can have

One [Peacekeeper], a woman named Purnia who eats regularly at Greasy Sae’s, steps forward stiffly. “I believe, for a first offense, the required number of lashes has been dispensed, sir. Unless your sentence is death, which we would carry out by firing squad.” “Is that the standard protocol here?” asks the Head Peacekeeper. “Yes, sir,” Purnia says, and several others nod in agreement. I’m sure none of them actually know because, in the Hob, the standard protocol for someone showing up with a wild turkey is for everybody to bid on the drumsticks. - It’s kinda nice to see the local Peacekeepers supporting Purnia’s claim to get this display to stop - this is the only way out of this situation where Thread’s authority is not openly challenged (and we know Thread doesn’t take well to having his authority challenged - see Darius)

There’s no stretcher, but the old woman at the clothing stall sells us the board that serves as her countertop. “Just don’t tell where you got it,” she says, packing up the rest of her goods quickly. Most of the square has emptied, fear getting the better of compassion. But after what happened, I can’t blame anyone. - It’s sad how that air of intimidation makes people want to mask their acts of compassion (and also says a lot about the precariousness of the existing living situations if that old lady is still selling that board - I’d never even consider exchanging money for that, but that’s probably my privileged situation showing here; Katniss brings up the theme of fear vs compassion - very fitting, since it seems to be her driving force (although, generally, her compassion wins out over her fear) and despite her assertion that fear appears to be getting the better of compassion we see a good amount of people reaching out to help, such as the following example:

Leevy, a girl who lives a few houses down from mine in the Seam, takes my arm. My mother kept her little brother alive last year when he caught the measles. “Need help getting back?” Her gray eyes are scared but determined. - The subtle suggestion here that Leevy might be further motivated to help out because Katniss’s mom helped her little brother is also an excellent example of how kindness breeds kindness

“Get some snow on that,” Haymitch orders over his shoulder. I scoop up a handful of snow and press it against my cheek, numbing a bit of the pain. - This moment reminded me of Peeta immediately reaching for some ice from that fruit tureen after Haymitch hit him on their way to the Games in THG (Ch. 4) - their different immediate reactions to getting hit in the face could simply be due to the fact that Katniss is a little too preoccupied worrying about Gale to think about her injury, of course, but I feel like you could also interpret them as examples for how much experience Katniss and Peeta have with being hit in the face, respectively...

Gale must have gone to Cray’s house, as he’s done a hundred times, knowing Cray pays well for a wild turkey. Instead he found the new Head Peacekeeper, a man they heard someone call Romulus Thread. No one knows what happened to Cray. He was buying white liquor in the Hob just this morning [...] but now he’s nowhere to be found. - As I’ve already mentioned regarding Darius, inhabiting some position of power does not guarantee you any safety in Panem (there is always someone more powerful who will treat their inferiors like garbage, if they feel like it)

By the time I showed up, he [Gale]’d been lashed at least forty times. He passed out around thirty. - Jesus 😨 poor Gale!

“What about Darius?” Peeta asks.“ After about twenty lashes, he stepped in, saying that was enough. Only he didn’t do it smart and official, like Purnia did. He grabbed Thread’s arm and Thread hit him in the head with the butt of the whip. Nothing good waiting for him,” says Bristel. - It’s so messed up how it is not enough to have someone who’d stand up and do something about a horrible situation - they have to do it the right way, or else they’re toast; there really shouldn’t have to be a smart way of doing the right thing

Snow begins, thick and wet, making visibility even more difficult. - (President) Snow is coming down hard on them, making it hard to see what’s up ahead

Ever so gently, she [Mrs. Everdeen] begins to clean the mutilated flesh on Gale’s back. I feel sick to the stomach, useless, the remaining snow dripping from my glove into a puddle on the floor. Peeta puts me in a chair and holds a cloth filled with fresh snow to my cheek. - Although she’s quite squeamish, Katniss stays as Gale gets treated (the force that holds the loved ones of the hurt/dying, just like when Peeta was being treated after their Games); meanwhile, Peeta is taking care of Katniss - there is so much care + love to be found in this moment

My mother has to save the strongest [painkillers] for the worst pain, but what is the worst pain? To me, it’s always the pain that is present. If I were in charge, those painkillers would be gone in a day because I have so little ability to watch suffering. - Honestly, same; I can’t stomach seeing other people suffer without feeling overwhelmed and feeling like crying... I don’t know how professionals do it

“Just give him the medicine!” I scream at her. [...] “Take her out,” says my mother. Haymitch and Peeta literally carry me from the room while I shout obscenities at her. They pin me down on a bed in one of the extra bedrooms until I stop fighting. - Oof. Poor Katniss! But yeah, it was the best call to remove her from the situation, Mrs. E. had to focus on what she was doing... Also, Haymitch and Peeta are the ones to get Katniss out of there and stay with her - these three take care of each other!

After a while, my mother comes in and treats my face. Then she holds my hand, stroking my arm, while Haymitch fills her in on what happened with Gale. “So it’s starting again?” she says. “Like before?” - Katniss’s mom has become a much more active and soothing presence in this book, I like it... Also, what does “again” mean? Does this imply there has been an attempted uprising in D12 that needed to be squashed before?

Cray would have been disliked, anyway, because of the uniform he wore, but it was his habit of luring starving young women into his bed for money that made him an object of loathing in the district. In really bad times, the hungriest would gather at his door at nightfall, vying for the chance to earn a few coins to feed their families by selling their bodies. Had I been older when my father died, I might have been among them. - Horrifying and absolutely disgusting 🤢 Those poor women! How desperate they must have been!

... when the doorbell rings, I shoot straight out of bed. [...] “They [the peacekeepers] can’t have him,” I say. “Might be you they’re after,” Haymitch reminds me. “Or you,” I say. “Not my house,” Haymitch points out. “But I’ll get the door.” “No, I’ll get it,” says my mother quietly. - Again, Mrs. Everdeen is taking the initiative! She was so watered down in the movies

[Madge] holds out a small, damp cardboard box to me. “Use these for your friend,” she says. I take off the lid of the box, revealing half a dozen vials of clear liquid. [...] “What is that stuff?” asks Peeta. “It’s from the Capitol. It’s called morphling,” my mother answers. “I didn’t even know Madge knew Gale,” says Peeta. “We used to sell her strawberries,” I say almost angrily. What am I angry about, though? Not that she has brought the medicine, surely. “She must have quite a taste for them,” says Haymitch. That’s what nettles me. It’s the implication that there’s something going on between Gale and Madge. And I don’t like it. “She’s my friend” is all I say. - I mean, Katniss could be mad because A) Gale had literally just told her he loved her a few hours ago and if there was something (reciprocated) going on between Gale and Madge, that would have been pretty shitty for both girls involved and also B) she is friends with both of them and it would be hurtful to learn that two of your closest friends had been seeing each other without telling you anything about it... also, she’s super upset over Gale getting so seriously hurt just after they’d had an argument, her feelings are all over the place

... I’m selfish. I’m a coward. I’m the kind of girl, who, when she might actually be of use, would run to stay alive and leave those who couldn’t follow to suffer and die. This is the girl Gale met in the woods today. No wonder I won the Games. No decent person ever does. You saved Peeta, I think weakly. But now I question even that. I knew good and well that my life back in District 12 would be unlivable if I let that boy die. - Yes, Katniss, you knew that your life back in D12 would have been unlivable if he died - but not because you feared that people would shun you; it was because you “couldn’t lose the boy with the bread” and because “if he dies, I’ll never go home, not really”... This is an excellent example of how distorted your memories can get when you are in a bad headspace at present

The berries. I realize the answer to who I am lies in that handful poisonous fruit. If I held them out to save Peeta because I knew I would be shunned if I came back without him, then I am despicable. If I held them out because I loved him, I am still self-centered, although forgivable. But if I held them out to defy the Capitol, I am someone of worth. - Katniss, you don’t have to be planning to overthrow a corrupt and cruel government to be someone of worth! You’re someone of worth just by being yourself! - The trouble is, I don’t know exactly what was going on inside me at that moment. - Frankly, very rarely are our motivations clearly defined by a single factor - or my professor would not have been able to teach an entire semester-long course on motivation psychology😉)

Chapter 9

Gale’s dead to the world, but his fingers are locked around mine. I smell fresh bread and turn my stiff neck to find Peeta looking down at me with such a sad expression. I get the sense that he’s been watching us awhile. “Go on up to bed, Katniss. I’ll look after him now,” he says. - Peeta! Must have been hard for him to see Katniss like this (and the underlying strength of Katniss and Gale’s relationship, when his relationship with Katniss is still not all that solidified), and yet he’s being such a good bean about it 😭

I give a strangled cry and wake with a start, sweating and shivering at once. Cradling my damaged cheek in my hand, I remind myself that it was not Clove but Thread who gave me this wound. I wish that Peeta were here to hold me, until I remember I’m not supposed to wish that anymore. I have chosen Gale and the rebellion, and a future with Peeta is the Capitol’s design, not mine. - Katniss, gurl... Maybe your instinctive desire to receive comfort from Peeta is trying to tell you something??!? Also, Katniss is forcing this strange dichotomous association of Gale = rebellion and Peeta = Capitol, when in just a bit, she’s clearly connecting Peeta to the rebellion as well (aside from the fact that Peeta was basically the first person to suggest to her that maybe a rebellion was necessary... just saying)

Fighting the Capitol assures their swift retaliation. I must accept that at any moment I can be arrested. [...] There might be torture. Mutliation. A bullet through the skull in the town square [...] I imagine these things and I’m terrified, but let’s face it: They’ve been lurking in the back of my brain, anyway. [...] I’m already a target. - Oh geez! Despite admitting that she’s terrified of what the Capitol is capable fo doing to her, Katniss is still pretty composed naming the possible horrors in store for her, which is just a heartbreaking reminder of how many terrible things she has already had to endure.🙁

Now comes the harder part. I have to face the fact that my family and friends might share this fate. Prim. I need only to think of Prim and all my resolve disintegrates. It’s my job to protect her. [...] I can’t let the Capitol hurt Prim. - 😭😭😭 Katniss has reached a point where she can put her own need for survival/physical intactness aside, but the thought of something awful happening to Prim stops her short (it’s so strange to think that, in a twisted way, it wasn’t the Capitol who’d ended up inflicting the final harm upon Prim...)

And then it hit’s me. They already have. They have killed her father in those wretched mines. They have sat by as she almost starved to death. [...] She has been hurt far worse than I had at the age of twelve. And even that pales in comparison with Rue’s life. [...] Prim... Rue... aren’t they the very reason I have to try to fight? Because what has been done to them is so wrong, so beyond justification, so evil that there is no choice? Because no one has the right to treat them as they have been treated? Yes. This is the thing to remember when fear threatens to swallow me up. What I am about to do, whatever any of us are forced to endure, it is for them. - All these things are very true and it’s also very fitting that the main motivation for Katniss would be to ensure a better future for the children of Panem (and to avenge the evils done to the people close to her heart... while Katniss of course can see the abstract bigger picture/reason for the rebellion, she always operates best when it comes to specific people/circumstances she has a deep, personal connection with)... But also: all these things apply to you, too, Katniss! Despite your tendency to feel responsible for everything and everyone, you’re still a child that had to grow up way too fast and had to endure way too much!

We need someone to direct us and reassure us this is possible. And I don’t think I’m that person. I may have been a catalyst for rebellion, but a leader should be someone with conviction, and I’m barely a convert myself. Someone with unflinching courage, and I’m still working hard at finding mine. Someone with clear and persuasive words, and I’m so easily tongue-tied. Words. I think of words and I think of Peeta. - Katniss’s idea of a great leader for the rebellion is Peeta - interesting, isn’t it (she could have considered Gale, but no)? She makes a good point, though: it helps when a leader has plenty of charisma, and our boy has that in spades; he’s got a good set of morals, is not above joining in on the action/risking his own neck when the need arises and is very genuine and purposeful with his words and actions, which is inspiring... I think Katniss is severely underselling how courageous she is, though

He could move a crowd to action, I bet, if he chose to. Would find the things to say. But I’m sure the idea has never crossed his mind. - Why would you assume that, Katniss? Peeta’s literally the one to suggest to you that trying to placate the district might not be the right thing to do... Peeta’s not someone who’d stir up trouble just for the sake of stirring up trouble, sure; he’s much more deliberate about doing things the ‘right’ way, but he’s not generally opposed to challenging authorities (he’s literally the one to openly gift some of your winnings to another district!)

She knows what she’s doing, my mother. I feel a pang of remorse about yesterday, the awful things I yelled at her as Peeta and Haymitch dragged me from the kitchen. “I’m sorry. About screaming at you yesterday.” - It’s so sweet how Katniss feels sorry for yelling at her mom and apologizes to her; their relationship really has improved so much in this book - “I’ve heard worse,” she says. “You’ve seen how people are, when someone they love is in pain.” Someone they love. [...] Of course, I love Gale. But what kind of love does she mean? What do I mean when I say I love Gale? I don’t know. I did kiss him last night, in a moment when my emotions were running so high. But i’m sure he doesn’t remember it. Does he? I hope not. - Katniss is struggling to figure out in what way she loves Gale... She definitely doesn’t want him to remember their kiss because she knows it wouldn’t be fair to give him the hope that she might be able to return his romantic feelings when she is still in the dark about her own

... and I can’t really think about kissing when I’ve got a rebellion to incite. I give my head a little shake to clear it. “Where’s Peeta?” I say. - Lol, goes on to immediately mention the guy she’s been kissing these past few weeks (see, with Peeta you could actually have both: kissing and rebellion, Katniss - he’s the perfect man, isn’t he? 😉😋)

“He went home when he heard you stirring. Didn’t want to leave his house unattended during the storm,” says my mother. - Yeah, I don’t think Peeta left because of his house; I’m pretty sure he needed some time to himself after seeing Katniss and Gale this morning - he is the type of person who needs to be alone to work through his feelings when he’s feeling upset - “Did he get back all right?” [...] “Why don’t you give him a call and check?” she says. I go into the study, a room I’ve pretty much avoided since my meeting with President Snow, and dial Peeta’s number. After a few rings he answers. “Hey. I just wanted to make sure you got home,” I say. “Katniss. I live three houses away from you,” he says. “I know, but with the weather and all,” I say. “Well, I’m fine. Thank you for checking.” There’s a long pause. “How’s Gale?” - Aww, Katniss is worried about Peeta and gives him a call, although she hates being in the study 😊 Also, her calling him must have been at least of some reassurance to Peeta that she genuinely cares about him, in some way (though, he’s still clearly busy processing her relationship with Gale, since he’s asking about him as if he hadn’t seen that dude just a couple of minutes prior)

“Have you seen Haymitch today?” “I checked in on him. Dead drunk. But I built up his fire and left him some bread,” he says. “I wanted to talk to - to both of you.” I don’t dare add more, here on my phone, which is surely tapped. - Despite everything, Peeta still made sure to look after Haymitch! And I know, there is also the issue of their houses themselves potentially being bugged, but I couldn’t help imagining how they could easily avoid the whole phone-tapping thing simply by using a tin can telephone (they do live pretty close to each other, after all) 😂

“You don’t even have a phone,” I say. “Effie had that fixed,” he [Haymitch] says. “Do you know she asked me if I’d like to give you away? I told her the sooner the better.” “Haymitch.” I can hear the pleading creeping into my voice. “Katniss.” He mimics my tone. “It won’t work.” - Okay, but Haymitch mimicking Katniss’s tone reminds me so much of when Peeta mimicked her tone towards the end of their Games, when she was trying to persuade him to climb into a tree as a lookout while he was insistent she’d show him some plants to gather; these three, I swear! 😂 On a sad note, Haymitch is talking from experience here when he’s advising Katniss not to challenge the Capitol 🥺😢

Some streets away from the square, I see a blaze flare up. None of us has to say it. That can only be the Hob going up in smoke. I think of Greasy Sae, Ripper, all my friends who make their livings there. - Katniss considers the people from the Hob her friends - honestly, even if the Hawthornes, Everdeens, Peeta and Haymitch all had agreed to leave D12, I don’t think Katniss would have been able to go through with it - she cares too much about the people in D12 to have been able to leave them to their fate

“Well, I better go see how much rubbing alcohol the apothecary can spare.” He [Haymitch] trudges off across the square and I look at Peeta. “What’s he want that for?” Then I realize the answer. “We can’t let him drink it. He’ll kill himself, or at the very least go blind. I’ve got some white liquor put away at home.” “Me, too. Maybe that will hold him until Ripper finds a way to be back in business,” says Peeta. - Another instance of Katniss and Peeta being on the same wavelength, having taken precautions to help out Haymitch so he doesn’t have to go cold turkey again

We find Hazelle in her house, nursing a very sick Posy. I recognize the measles spots. “I couldn’t leave her,” she says. “I knew Gale’d be in the best possible hands.” - The second mention of someone having contracted the measles in D12 - Why the heck does the Capitol withhold measles vaccination from the people in the districts?! They’re inflicting unnecessary damage onto the very people they want to exploit... But I guess cruelty isn’t always about playing it smart and logical...

When we’re outside, I turn to Peeta. “You go on back. I want to walk by the Hob.” “I’ll go with you,” he says. “No. I’ve dragged you into enough trouble,” I tell him. “And avoiding a stroll by the Hob... that’s going to fix things for me?” He smiles and takes my hand. - They are a team, they stick together (and they are constantly holding hands, always physically linked to each other)😩💕 Also, Peeta pointing out the irrationality of Katniss’s train of thought to calm her down and stay with her reminds me of how he’s going to use logical reasoning to calm her down after the jabberjays in the Quarter Quell arena

We go back to the square. I buy some cakes from Peeta’s father while they exchange small talk about the weather. No one mentions the ugly tools of torture just yards from the front door. The last thing I notice as we leave the square is that I do not recognize even one of the Peacekeepers’ faces. - How weird is it that Peeta and his dad just talk about the weather?! Is this supposed to illustrate how in the Mellark family they just ignored the ugliness going on in their lives *cough cough* the abuse *cough cough* and just pretended that everything was fine, on a very superficial level? Also, it makes perfect sense that the Peacekeepers have been exchanged; the more time we spend with people, the more likely we are to like them - that won’t do if you want to have a ruthless authoritarian police force in the districts

As the days pass, things go from bad to worse. The mines stay shut for two weeks, and by that time half of District 12 is starving. The number of kids signing up for tesserae soars, but they often don’t receive their grain. Food shortages begin, and even those with money come away from stores empty-handed. [...] The eagerly awaited food promised for Parcel Day arrives spoiled and defiled by rodents. - This is just so awful and despicable 😞 Life in the districts was already horrible but now the government does not even honor the extortionary rules they themselves have set up! I can’t help but wonder if the lack of food could be traced back to rebellions in the food supplying districts and, to keep this from the inhabitants of the Capitol, the reduced amount of good food was (obviously) kept for the Capitolites, so that the bad food had to be sent to the districts, anyway... It just seems like such a breach of ‘honor’/etiquette on the Capitol’s part, I dunno... Or maybe Snow was just desperate to use any means necessary to stamp out any potential rebellions in the districts that he still had some control over...

Gale goes home with no more talk of rebellion between us. But I can’t help thinking that everything he sees will only strengthen his resolve to fight back. [...] Rory has signed up for tesserae, something Gale can’t even speak about - Poor, Gale! Poor Hawthornes :(

My fingers have all but decided to release the arrow when I see the object in the glove. It’s a small white circle of flat bread. More of a cracker, really. Gray and soggy around the edges. But an image is clearly stamped in the center of it. It’s my mockingjay. - It is so very telling that the true symbol of the rebellion combines something symbolic of Katniss (which also contains a nod to Rue) and something symbolic of Peeta (the bread/cracker!) The people in the districts have rightfully recognized the both of them as symbol of the rebellion; they have a truer vision of the matter than the more artifically/forcefully constructed symbol of rebellion that D13 /Coin will push - we will also see that when the people in D13 will view Peeta as a traitor, while the rebels Katniss will visit in D8 instead ask her about Peeta and assure her that they know he was speaking under duress

#thgagain #thg #katniss everdeen #hunger games #thg meta #peeta mellark #haymitch abernathy #gale hawthorne #my sketches and drawings #thg fanart #catching fire

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cosmiclatte28 · 3 years

Text

Casual Intimacy (Mark Lee x you)

a/n : it’s my soft hours I guess? I made this sweet Mark Lee imagine (well for me this is sweet. I want a boy like this... if you’re that kind of man dm me 😜)

fluff, no warning, no suggestive content but kisses, and just Mark being a wonderful man for you.

Happy Imagining Mark Lee as your s/o!

People often ask you how you can hold on to your “plain” relationship with your current boyfriend. You seriously do not like them bothering you about your relationship life, but you need to deal with it considering the fact that the man you are dating is the famous Mark Lee of NCT.

He is dorky in camera, and in real life too. You pray day and night to the angels to make sure Mark is not tripping on some random stone or bump a pole. Guess your prayer works, when you see Mark always smiling in front of the camera coping up and working so hard with his endless job.

You yourself work in a famous two Michelin restaurant in Seoul. You’re not going to lie, you met Mark lee on your duty. NCT was holding their debut birthday and you were appointed as the chef to cook for their meal that night. Apparently, Mark Lee was super fascinated by your dish and he requested you to come greet the team when your job in the kitchen is done. Your head cook lets you leave your station once desert is prepared and the plates coming into the washing room is clean.

That was five years ago, Mark Lee got love struck by your simple but attractive persona. His eyes couldn’t leave you as you answer their questions on the dishes and you congratulating them. They’re glad when they learn that you listened to their songs and followed their schedules, just that you don’t have much time to be like the other wonderful fans.

Mark Lee looked so intrigued on you and as you bow to them bidding goodbye, he just returned from the restroom. With his long legs trying to catch his other brothers, Mark happened to slip his number on a piece of tissue paper to your pocket and gave you a genuine smile plus a “thank you”.

You earned a good pay that night and even better, Mark Lee’s number.

Well, he isn’t your bias but come on who doesn’t have Mark Lee in their bias list? Want it or not, conscious or not, Mark Lee is always in the list. So, that night when you finish showering and eating a light midnight snack, you gave the number a shot.

You thought your message will never be replied, maybe Mark will have his phone in silent and only opened up messages from his contact list. You’re lucky when your notification bleeped and from that night both of you learn more about each other.

He kept your number under your name, plain business people say, you also thought maybe he wanted to call you for another dinner party. But the chats he had been sending was far from platonic business. It involves jokes, puns, memories of living in Canada (well you graduated from University of Toronto, but cooking is your passion), and even deeper like late night talks.

The relationship got deeper when Mark Lee called you one night, asking if he can meet you in the restaurant. He said he needed a good meal to write a song he was assigned for. You found no correlation between a good meal and writing a song, but believe it or not, Mark Lee came with one of the hottest selling song that month. Earning him a title of “King of Lyrics”

Since then, he called you again and again when he didn’t have the idea to write. You finally invited him over to your house when you got closer. Mark got to eat in your small dining table with a simple dish that was made with love and care that Mark said tasted better than any other dishes he ever had.

You laughed saying he is exaggerating, but Mark never exaggerates when he is with you.

“Be my girlfriend will you?” he one night asked after you teach him how to cook a proper egg. Despite him succeeding the challenge back in 2020, he still needs practice. He succeeded cooking eggs after knowing you for more than a year.

“Suddenly Mark? After you can make a perfect runny egg?” you giggle but nevertheless nodded your head.

His smile that night was even brighter than when he received any awards and praises. His eyes spark joys and emotions uncaptured by cameras. The world never knows how Mark’s true happy face looks like, but if his world is you, then the world knows!

For the first two year of dating, both of you are keeping it low. Dates happen in your house (your wage is enough to buy you a house). You always cook him foods, tried new dishes to him, earned a lot of complains on how the food is not “suitable for Korean tongue” which you always shrug off because he himself is a mix.

But thanks to his constant brave inputs, your dishes are perfectly blended and well known. News media and TV shows started to cast you in their weekend shows. You were offered a contract of a cooking show in a known broadcasting company.

Mark told you to go for it. He knew how happy you are about cooking, and his faith told him “if that is what was given for you, go for it.”

He was right. The internet loves you, they love your simple but tasty dishes. Your show was ranked the hottest that month, famous for helping college student eat a more delicious food.

NCT even did a special relay cam for it, each group were doing a challenge on following your recipes.

Mark was caught off guard on that live shooting day. His team consisted of him, Ten and Johnny.

And you may guess, things went wrong but in a chaotic fun way. When the three of them are together, they just speak in English and forgot all of the filters they should have.

Mark spilled his relationship when he accidentally said out loud “Of course I know how to do that, my girl has been teaching me that.” Mark boasted when Ten asked if Mark could make the egg benedict for their dish.

Johnny and Ten froze on screen, well the NCT members knew your relationship with Mark but they kept quiet. Mark realized what he has said was recorded and forever lives in the web. The comment section went wild and the fans are thrilled about the “mysterious girlfriend Mark has”.

He eventually spilled the truth on a press conference. You were there beside him when he faced the board director and when he sit in front of different mics and cameras flashes. No one knows but throughout the time, when your heart is beating faster than when you took your SAT and final tests, Mark Lee held on to your hand whenever you are answering a question directed to you.

The magazines are taking the favor of the rising topic, inviting you and Mark to take a photoshoot. When you were insecure about taking a picture with him (who has did countless shoots), he squeezed your arm when walking past you and gave a small proud smile as he went to change clothes while you start your personal shoot. No one saw that, but his quick reassuring squeeze boosted your confidence that day and the couple shoot was very nice! You could print that as your wedding pictures!

When the internet goes wild when they connect the theories and Instagram posts Mark and you both made (fans are the best in deciphering codes!), you now walk through the streets crowded by fans. All asking how is it like to date Mark, but not few also told you to screw off. One day when you both are going back to Canada for a winter break, the fans are crowding the way. You gulped when you have to walk pass them, but Mark looked so used to it. He just chuckled and landed a small hand on the back of your waist. With the manager hyung and bodyguard pushing to make way, you made it through the crowd with confident steps.

On the Christmas dinner, Mark was invited to your family dinner and vice versa. You had to attend their family lunch and to say you were nervous was an understatement.

“Mark, what if they don’t like me?” you asked on your bus ride to his house from the airport.

Mark laughed, he always laughed as his first respond, “Baby, it’s going to be okay. Trust me.”

You snorted, “You calling me baby is already suspicious, for three years we dated you “dude” me 70% of the time, “baby” was only like 10%”

He did the math, “Then what’s the remaining 20?%”

“You just call me “Bro” for the res of them.” You squeezed his cheek and planted a kiss there.

“I like it though, not too cheesy.”

He grew red. “Gosh I am having the Jaehyun syndrome. Why are my ears burning?!”

He was not 100% wrong, his parents were nice they grew fond of you especially when you helped his mother prepared lunch. Well you both arrived earlier and you decided to give a hand for the busy mom.

Mark sat next to you on dinner and when you were diving into a yummy Christmas pudding, his parents began asking you the “platonic questions asked to your partner”.

You almost chocked on your pudding when they asked “Are you seeing a future with Mark? Can you make our son happy and us too?”

You were not ready, you expected questions like where you work or where you live. They said “We can find all that answers in the internet, but not the answer to our question.”

Mark’s gentle kick from under the table by your side made you looked at him and he gave you that sincere smile only you have the privilege to see. He nodded slightly and shot his eyebrow to his parents side “Answer them… I am also curious of the answer.”

You grew red, it wasn’t the drink or anything, but his parent’s happy and relieved face when you nod your head and said “I am seeing a future with him, if I get both of your blessing.”

They love you and Mark was right. That night, you invited his family to join your dinner instead. The same question was asked from your parents to Mark and Mark was more than ready to marry you.

But your wedding bells did not chime that fast. He has his career and so do you, both of you just keep the stable relationship going on. Together facing the problems and obstacles in your relationship. Fights occur, bickering occur, threads of breaking up also happened once or twice… but both of you used that to build a stronger bond.

You always melt when Mark came home from a long day. After he showered and savored his dinner, he always ended up leaning on your shoulder in the big snuggle sofa both of you never regret buying. His head on your shoulder, his hand scribbling words to a paper and you whispering ideas to him which brought a big smile to his face.

Writing lyrics has been even easier for Mark, he blended your frustration with his, splattered some love words, and voila a masterpiece! People said his lyrics were relatable and both of you always keep it to yourself that “those happened in our life, no wonder it looked real.”

He always kissed you gently on your lips, tasting the faint cherry flavour of your lip balm. Mark’s lips tasted of medical lip balm, but you love it nonetheless.

You blinked and realized the flashing cameras in front of you. Oh right, someone from the hot magazine company is asking you a question.

‘Can you please repeat your question?” you asked politely to the lady holding out a mic.

She quickly nodded, “A lot of fans are wondering If you are still in a relationship with Mark. Mark was busy for the last months with projects and comebacks. And the interaction update from both of you are little to none. Fans suspected you were over with him, considering that Mark looked like he is the “plain” type in a relationship.”

You pressed a smile, hiding your urge to laugh out loud. Weren’t the fans always picturing Mark as their dream boyfriend? Why did they judge him as the plain boring type then?

You clear your throat and while looking through the crowds, you spot Mark Lee seated in the crowd with a mask and a hat, giving you a nod, and you turned your mic on.

“We’re still going strong; well I think love is not the type of grand gestures or explosive displays.” You started off and caught everyone’s attention.

“It’s made up of little things,” you felt your heart clench upon remembering all the small affections Mark always did to you. “It’s the little things Mark Lee did that say he is here, and he cared for me and that my life has intertwined so deeply into his that there was no need to think.” You take a pause to look at the audience.

Everyone looked impressed, but amongst them you catch one pair of gleaming proud eyes, the pair of eyes you’ve been waking up to for the last years, and the one you want to wake up to in the future years.

“It’s Mark’s casual intimacy that made us both stay strong and stronger.”

Applaud was heard through the room, you were holding your press conference because you were retreating from all the cooking shows and rumor has it you are going to marry Mark.

“Please pray for both of us, as we will be tying our bonds soon.” You leave the room after a bow and the man with mask and hat is already waiting for you outside the big crowded function hall.

His hand naturally makes its way to your waist and you never felt more sure to step into life with this man you love, Mark Lee.

“That was wonderful (y/n)~”

You smile, he did not dude you nor bro you nor baby you. “I love you Mark Lee,”

He leaned in for a peck behind the tinted black van window, “I love you most (y/n) Lee,” he winked and you rubbed your cheeks “Guess I have the Jaehyun syndrome now! Also I like it when you call me with that name.”

He quirked his eyebrow and smirked, “Don’t worry, you’ll be hearing that soon for the rest of your life.” He reached for your hand and kissed the knuckles.

“I met you thanks to your amazing handy work in cooking unforgettable dish.”

You rolled your eyes, “You were so amazed on my egg benedict Mark! How is that an unforgettable dish?”

He shrugged his shoulder, “I don’t know, something about you, cooking, and love made me this love struck and awfully amazed by simple things you did.”

the end

thanks for reading, put in comments for I’d love to interact with you on the story plot .. rant to me what you hate or like idc :D i want to talk with my readers! to thank you all for reading and spending some time here

omg i didn’t know if I made the right choice of making Mark Lee as this character, but I want it to be him.. I’ve been writing a lot of Jaehyun and Yuta fic and I guess Mark can be a refresher. Please let me know if someone else suits this better!

#mark lee x you #mark lee x y/n #mark lee x reader #mark x y/n #mark x you #mark x reader #mark lee #mark lee imagines #mark lee scenarios #mark lee oneshot #mark scenarios #mark lee fanfic #mark lee fluff #mark imagines #nct 127 imagines #nct 127 soft hours #nct fluff #mark fluff

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haleigh-sloth · 3 years

Note

Hi 🙋‍♀️ my friend thinks that Dabi is going to be put down(killed) and Endeavor will be the one who’s going to do it as an act of atone. I told her that it was a horrific take because that would be a horrible way to atone and two your essentially saying that Endeavor should re-kill the son he failed and basically killed by his actions of neglect/abuse as a parent which would not be a good path to take! I also stated that three villains are being set up to be saved. She still doesn’t believe me, and asked if I could get a better perspective. So I’m here begging 🙏🏻 🥺 for your input please? Your definitely a lot more perspective and have a better eye than I!

Hey! So I’m going to answer everything, but first ask your friend to provide evidence of this, and to also explain how any of that would be even remotely acceptable to portray in a story that is aimed toward a very large, young, impressionable audience, in which a portion has undoubtedly experienced abuse in their own lives. How would those people feel reading that? What kind of message does that send? Horikoshi isn’t like a writing genius or anything, but he is not THAT incompetent. I mean...do give him credit where it’s due. He’s been building up their redemptions for a long time and he’s already established that as the next narrative challenge for Shouto, Ochaco, and Midoriya. I’m not going to say anything about your friend’s way of thinking because I can’t tell by the way your ask is worded if she believes that’s how it SHOULD go (which is....not good) or if she just has no faith in the writing (which is understandable but I’m gonna try to relieve some of those anxieties). In order to remain polite and civil I’m gonna go with the ladder and assume she just has no faith in Horikoshi, which is understandable, but not necessary! I hope you’re comfortable because this is probably going to be longer than I am anticipating, but oh well.

Anyway, I’ll start with establishing what is deemed acceptable in the world of BNHA as far as killing goes.

*clears throat* It’s not fucking acceptable. Never was, never will be.

Look, please pinpoint to me where a pro-hero in the story has killed a villain and it was viewed as acceptable. And before you point at Hawks, I’m going to direct you here, here, and here. And there are so so SO many more posts I could find and link you to that explain my point further on that matter, but I won’t do that unless it’s asked of me. Regardless, Hawks murdering Twice was not acceptable, it was not portrayed as such, it was not viewed as such by the characters within the story. Therefore, it was not acceptable. And I’m fairly certain Hawks has a really rough road ahead of him because of his terrible choice, so prepare yourself for that. But where was I? Oh yeah, establishing whether or not it’s acceptable to kill:

I mean there are more, but I don’t have all the time in the world. Tell her to read the story from the beginning and pay attention to what the story is telling its readers ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Now, we’ve established that heroes in BNHA do NOT kill. That is not what being a hero means in THIS story. Now, what else is something important in BNHA that has repeatedly gotten focus?

Family.

To me personally, the most important callout to the importance of protecting your family is here:

He’s calling out all heroes, but he’s saying this in front of Endeavor. Important. Note that. There’s an entire subplot dedicated to the importance of portraying that putting your family first is the utmost responsibility of a parent. Outside of that subplot, we are shown the very dire consequences of what happens when parents abandon and reject their children.

Exhibit A: Toga

Exhibit B: Toya, or Dabi

Exhibit C: Tenko, or Tomura

These adults are the result of parents who failed their families.

Look, regardless of what people want to say the story is about: whether it’s about heroes vs. villains (it’s not), or about Midoriya graduating UA and becoming the number 1 hero (it’s not), or about Midoriya mastering his quirk (it’s not), there is no denying that BNHA is about heroes SAVING others and parents protecting their FAMILY.

Horikoshi made it a point to establish a clear difference between the adults and the children in BNHA. He also made a point to show ALL THREE VILLAINS’ origin stories and showed us that all it took was ONE BAD DAY when they were CHILDREN. There is literally a chapter titled “All it takes is one bad day” specifically to drill this into your head. Toga’s life went downhill after attacking that boy in middle school from suppressing her biological nature for so long. Toya’s life went downhill when his flames nearly killed him. Tenko’s life went downhill when his quirk activated and killed his whole family. All it took was one bad day in these children’s lives to completely ruin their futures and take any and every chance away from them at a normal life.

So with the strong focus on heroes saving people and parents failing their children, why why WHY would it ever be acceptable for Enji to KILL his SON? That not only repeats the first mistake made (Toya’s death), but also negates ALL of the narrative focuses of the entire story. I just...that’s a very very deep disconnect that I can’t force closed unless your friend chooses to look deeper than surface level reading. And it’s not just BNHA that has narrative themes and focuses throughout the story. That’s ANY story you read. Well, any good story at least. I’m not a writer by any means but even I know the basic rules of story telling:

Leave a message for your readers. Give your story a goal.

Otherwise it’s just words and pictures on paper that don’t mean anything.

So I gave you the basics of what BNHA is about, now I’ll give the specific moments that directly tell you that Toya, Toga, and Tomura are going to be saved and redeemed.

Toya:

Toga:

Tomura:

Now....does your friend really think these panels up here just mean nothing? Because that’s not how manga works. The panels have meaning, especially the ones given the most attention to drawing detail, the ones given the most space on a page. All of these were given their own big moments in their respective chapters. Toga is going to be saved by Ochaco, Toya is going to be saved by his baby brother, and Shigaraki is going to be saved by our main character Midoriya. It’s clear as day right there.

Now I want to take it back to the Todoroki family for just a bit once more. Their entire subplot revolves around reunification. That has been the established endgame since Shouto’s origin chapters. And honestly? You don’t even have to be smart to figure this out. Like when you see Rei in the hospital, you already assume that she’s going to get out and come home at some point within the story, making the family whole again. THEN you learn about Toya and you learn that he’s ALIVE after ten years of being presumed dead. You really think HE isn’t going to be brought home just like his mother was??? Fam, that is the established goal of the Todoroki Family Subplot. There is no denying this, it is there in the text, and it is not even a little bit subtle. Horikoshi is not subtle. At all. With anything. Ever.

However, no matter how much textual evidence we are given, there are still people living in denial because it’s either A. Not the direction they want, or B. They really just aren’t grasping the writing. Either way, the redemption set ups are there, whether they like it or not. At this point I’m convinced that the only way to shut villain-haters down is to wait til the last chapter has come out and the villains are fine, Toya is reunited with his family, Toga is alive and well and finds community with the other kids (at least that’s what I predict), and Shigaraki is alive and well and surrounded by people who care about him, a family if you will. Other than just waiting for that moment, idk what else it’s gonna take for the bad takes to stop.

Now here’s my reality check disclaimer:

Horikoshi could screw us all and just kill the villains off. But that would be bad writing and also ruin the ENTIRE STORY. And believe me I will bitch and bitch until I am six feet under and I will continue to bitch about it in whatever afterlife awaits me. But seriously..he won’t do that. Not to mention I have a million other reasons somewhat unrelated to the writing but more so to Horikoshi himself as to why I believe with all of my being that the three villains are going to get a happy ending, but that’s a different discussion for a different time. This post is already long as shit.

I hope your friend will look a little deeper at the story so she can enjoy it for what it is. The story has flaws, the Todoroki subplot is definitely a MESS right now because of the focus on Endeavor 🤢, but I believe it will clean itself up and be great in the end. The redemption arcs of the villains are the most interesting thing about BNHA and I know I speak for a lot of others and not just myself when I say this but, the villains are the only reason a LOT of people are still even invested in the story to begin with. If it weren’t for them? We’d all be ghost. So, do with that what you will. I hope this helps ease your anxieties a little bit and helps your friend understand what to pay attention to in the writing.

#LONG ASS POST #SORRY #bnha #bnha meta #bnha asks #boku no hero academia #todoroki touya #todoroki shouto #todoroki enji #todoroki rei #todofam #shigaraki tomura #shigaraki redemption #shimura tenko #toga himiko #league of villains #bnha league of villains #bnha lov #anonymous

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the-insomniac-emporium · 3 years

Note

thoughts on Bela///Donna?

What a lovely can of worms you've placed in my inbox, dear nonnie. I cannot wait to open it and lose followers (regardless of what I actually say).

Since this is, uh, a subject of some debate among RE8 fans, I will be inputting my thoughts on the idea of the ship (and the possible controversy), as opposed to doing HCs or something for it (which I recognize might be what you were asking for, despite the excessive /s).

This is all based on my playthroughs of the game, as well as what I've managed to double check on the fandom/wiki for it. I know that a lot of people who read fanfic for the game haven't actually played it, likely having been lured in by Tall Vampire Milf, and so I hope that some people will be open to a reminder of, like, canon vs fanon? I've mentioned in a previous post that there's a lot of details for RE8 that are not made clear, and I feel the need to reiterate that in this post. Capcom left a lot of stuff up to people's imaginations, or kind of just hinted at in game or in concept art.

But more importantly, regardless of what game we're talking about, regardless of the conclusion I come to (and the one you come to) at the end of this post, I want to say that I absolutely understand the need/desire to have your own perspective/take on the characters from the game, as well as their dynamics. If a ship makes you uncomfortable because you see the characters as being family members, it's totally okay. Block the ship tag, or filter it out when you look through fandom stuff, don't follow people who post for it, etc, etc.

If you think of characters as being family-family (like, not just "we got married and are now a family" but, like, "we're siblings/parent and child") and still ship them? uh. sorry, bruv, maybe think of hitting that unfollow button. No, seriously, hit that unfollow button. This blog is anti-incest, thank you very much.

The last thing I'll say before putting it under a read-more (for both length and major RE8 spoilers) is that I recognize that I might have missed something, either in game or developers talking about things on social media, and so if you read through this and go "god, J, you're such a dumbass for forgetting *critical piece of media*" or even just "okay but have you seen *small but meaningful piece of media*?" please. Just. Please. Tell me. Link me to that shit. I WANT to know if I'm wrong. I've literally avoided talking about this for as long as I could in order to TRY and make sure I have all the context I need.

With that said, let's examine what context we are given for Alcina Dimitrescu, Bela Dimitrescu, Donna Beneviento, and their relations to each other. I will be leaving my personal thoughts on Bela///Donna at the very end of this, as somewhat of a conclusion, somewhat of just a "hey, this is what you technically asked me about".

Firstly, let me begin by explaining what I consider to be the 3 tiers of "canon"

In-Game/Direct: The highest, truest tier, the definitive canon. This is everything that takes place in game, excluding certain hallucination scenes (ex: Mia was not really in House Beneviento, but we can infer some things from what Donna made Ethan hallucinate about). Things either happen, or are directly stated by characters. There's some wiggle room for dialogue, as characters can lie, but overall we, as the audience, assume we are being told the truth. At the very least, games usually eventually make it clear when a character has been dishonest. Examples of Direct Canon include the following: Ethan is infected with the mold, Lady Dimitrescu drinks blood, Heisenberg wears sunglasses, Mother Miranda can shapeshift.

Concept Art/Developer's Notes/Indirect: Mid-tier and debatable, the "we think, but we're not sure" of canon. Resident Evil: Village contains lots of concept art that the players can browse through, all of which include notes from the developers about the game, characters, environments, and story. Sometimes the notes make something "direct", but oftentimes they do not specify whether the listed idea is still canon or if it was removed during development. This tier also includes information that is implied/can be inferred from tier 1 information, but is not directly stated. Examples of Indirect Canon include the following: Donna's mother died by suicide, Moreau was going to have his lover fused to his back, Duke was originally a fifth lord, Heisenberg was going to have a twin. As you can see, not all of the concept art ideas made it into the final version of the game, so it can be hard when some information seems like it might still be true (such as the matter of Donna's parents).

Fanon/"False": Sometimes collective ideas in a fandom become so widespread that people start interpreting them as actual canon. Sometimes it gets hard to remember what's just obscure lore and what's fanon. When we get a piece of fiction as overall vague as a lot of Resident Evil: Village is, there's bound to be some confusion over time. That's one of the main reasons I waited to talk about Bela////Donna until after I had recently replayed relevant sections of the game, as I wanted to remind myself of what we're actually told. Examples of False Canon are difficult to pinpoint, but might include things like: Hufflepuffs are good at finding things? The Avengers got along for awhile and all had their own rooms in the tower? There's a number scale for the danger level of ghosts in Danny Phantom?

For this post, I will be limiting the majority of my notes to the first two levels of canon, and will do my best to mark them as such. Now... let us... begin.

Alcina Dimitrescu:

Born no later than 1914, Alcina Dimitrescu was 44 years old when she was granted the Cadou by Mother Miranda. (1st Tier: Canon. Source: A note in the castle basement from a servant is dated 1958, and mentions both Alcina and her children. Secondly, Miranda's experiment notes state that Alcina was the 181st subject, and was given the Cadou at age 44. By doing math, we can then determine the earliest Alcina could have been born.)

Alcina refers to the other Lords as her family once without any disdain (when Ethan first arrives at the castle and is caught, Alcina says "you've escaped my little brother"). In a private journal (located near where she threw the infamous vanity) she insults the other Lords, and expresses anger that she is "treated like a sister to them". She argues with Heisenberg without any hesitation, and seems honest in her hatred of him (per Maggie Robertson's wunderbar performance). (1st Tier/2nd Tier: Canon with a sprinkle of interpretation for the last line)

Alcina openly refers to Bela, Cassandra, and Daniela as her daughters, and wrote in her experiment journal that she felt instantly connected to them (as mother and daughters). (1st Tier: Canon).

Bela Dimitrescu:

Likely born in the 1930's or 1940's, in order to be an adult by 1958 (the first dated appearance of the Dimitrescu daughters). (2nd Tier: Based on inference)

Dialogue shows that all three of the daughters do love their mother, and reinforces the bond Alcina's journal mentions. (1st Tier: Canon)

We are not given any information about how Bela feels about the other Lords, or even what she knows about them. Once can assume that she shares the ideas of her mother, either because Alcina tells her things directly, or because Bela (who is eager to please her mother) picks up on them over time. (2nd Tier: Based on inference)

Donna Beneviento:

No idea when she was born. If you've read one of my recent posts, then you know that it's almost entirely a matter of 2nd and 3rd tier canon.

Of the four lords, Donna seems to have the most story within the 2nd tier, and has very, very little in the 1st tier. Duke says she's somewhat isolated, and that her "playmates" never leave the house. Miranda's notes state that Donna is mentally ill, and the gardener's diary states/implies (bit of both) that Donna has severe social anxiety. (1st/2nd Tier: Mostly canon)

Supposedly, her parents committed suicide while she was still a child. This is indicated in concept art/the attached developer's notes. However, the only part that's also directly stated in game is that her parents (specifically her father) died while she was young. (1st/2nd Tier: Mostly canon)

While Donna only has one voice line in the game (and it's sad), Angie talks a fair bit. Angie seems to disapprove of the other Lords, or at the very least enjoys mocking them, as well as enjoys watching them fight with each other. As Angie is connected to Donna, and Donna has some level of control over her, one can assume that the two have similar (if not the same) opinions. (1st/2nd Tier: Mostly Canon)

Donna was adopted by Mother Miranda as an adult. It's unclear exactly how old Donna was, or what exactly Miranda did as her "mother", just that Donna was excited about it. (1st Tier: Canon)

Other Relevant Information:

Heisenberg refers to the other Lords as his siblings a minimum of 1 time. Similarly to Alcina, however, he openly insults them and seems to hate them. He just, you know, hates Mother Miranda the most. (1st Tier: Canon)

Mother Miranda does not actually give a shit about the four Lords, intended for them to die before the ceremony, and has been manipulating them for her own gain this entire time. Her notes and dialogue make it clear that she only cares about getting Eva back. Somehow mother of the year and worst mother ever. At the same time. (1st/2nd Tier: Mostly Canon)

It's unclear who treats Alcina "like a sister" to the other Lords. Were there cut lines of dialogue that cemented the idea of them being a "family"? Did Miranda call them a "family" as part of pretending she cared about them? I've done my best to dig around, but there's very little in game that treats them as a family of any sort.

As each Lord ruled their own section of the region, they don't have any mentions of interacting with each other outside of meetings with Mother Miranda. None of the notes for any Lord (and their relevant experiments) mention what the others are doing. In game, their environments are very separate, very well divided, though this is likely as much for gameplay as it is for story.

Conclusion:

I do not not believe there is enough in game evidence to suggest that Alcina and Donna consider themselves to be siblings. There's the possibility for a large age gap, Alcina was a fair bit older than Donna when she met Miranda, Donna is a social recluse whose closest bonds were with dead blood relatives and dolls, Alcina openly dislikes (if not hates) the other Lords, they seemingly lived very separate and distanced lives, and Mother Miranda does not enforce the idea of "family". Furthermore, the sheer contrast between how Alcina interacts with/speaks of the other Lords compared to how she interacts with/speaks of her daughters says a lot about her feelings. Even if Heisenberg takes the brunt of her anger, Alcina never once says anything remotely positive about anyone other than Miranda and her daughters.

As Alcina/Bela and Donna are not blood-relatives, the definition of what would count as "incest" does vary depending on who you ask. Personally, I do count non-blood relations as potentially incestuous. For example: Alcina "dating" one of her daughters would be incest, regardless of the fact that she's a mutated human and her daughters are weird swarms of flies.

Now, I do understand how popular the idea of the four Lords being a real, chaotic but still close family is. And as I mentioned above, it's totally valid to not like the Bela///Donna ship, whether it's because you think they're family or some other reason. I don't personally see them that way, even in my definitely-not-canon stories.

Do I personally ship Bela///Donna? Nope. Have I liked art for the ship? Admittedly yes, even if I thought some of it was, like, maiden x Bela because Donna didn't have her veil and I'm a DUMBASS who doesn't always remember to read tags. Would I ever write for it? Yeah, probably, assuming I didn't miss anything in game/that I don't eventually change my mind.

#*incredibly deep sigh*#*incoherent screaming*#it's 6 in the morning #i spent too long doing research #again feel free to send me links if you think I missed something #what do I even tag this as?#asks #anonymous #meta shit #i'm procrastinating on posting this because of anxiety #I'm worried 2 specific followers are going to unfollow me #and possibly one mutual #somebody just kill me already

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soyouareandrewdobson · 3 years

Text

…the ugly. SYAC: The Master Review 4

Last post I covered much of what I consider the good or passable strips of SYAC of the pre-Dobbear era. What I have admittedly not covered yet, were three certain characters of the strip that exist beside Dobson.

Persistent Pam

Curmudgeonly Carl

And… this guy I am not even sure has a name.

No, seriously. He shows up in like the 61th strip of the series for the first time and yet I never see his name mentioned once

All I know is that he is an accountant, who pities Dobson (for good reason)

And despite Dobson not liking alcohol, they regularly meet up in a bar as if they are some late 80s comedy duo

Funnily enough, he shows up way before Pam, who would have her premiere in these strips

And despite only showing up in a few strips after her premiere (mostly to make “fun” of overbearing and snarky commissioners I suppose…)

She actually managed something no other character or series by Dobson managed to get: A fanclub

Not that she would really be of any major importance afterwards.

As for Carl, he is supposed to be something like an antagonistic embodiment of Dobson’s “old” art teachers and people being stuck in old ways, who shows up for the following strips forming a sort of arc.

In addition, it is very obvious, that Carl is supposed to be a mockery of people flaming Dobson. Not helped by the fact that THIS character sheet of him made by Dobson assures us, that there were quite a few even less “endorsing” things he wanted to name the character.

Yet funnily enough, Carl turned into such a popular character with readers, Dobson was essentially “forced” to make him reappear in other strips. Not of the “classical” SYAC strips, but he showed up as the “antagonist” to Tenku in the storydriven multi pagers. Though even antagonist is a strong word, as he is essentially more of a jerkish art teacher and college advisor who is harsh on Tenku, but actually has his best interests in mind. To the point he even offers him to be his “harsher” art critic in the years till he enters college, because he wants to see him grow artistically.

However, Carl was also more of an “accident”. Cause when it came otherwise to tackling criticism or things that irked Dobson (and were not anime related) he would end up more or less creating strips that painted him in a manner where he would supposedly always look like “the better” compared to his opposition or mock it. Which is where a lot of the irk Dobson would earn over the years eventually comes from.

Now to be fair, I do not want to call every comic in that regard “strawmanning”, nor do I want to say that Dobson doesn’t have the right to also mock to a certain extend the mentality of certain “snobs” and so on. For example…

On one hand, I know there are people out there who think they are “special” by having the best tools at their disposal. When in reality you can achieve good results also with less expensive stuff. So mocking that sort of attitude is fine to me to some extend

BUT, when you also make down the line a comic like this…

… essentially making yourself come off as a “better” artist or person than others because you have “chosen” the better mass produced crap (btw, that is coming from someone who types this review on a Mac that runs Windows) , then the hypocrisy ends up to be rather strong with you.

Which is also essentially the biggest issue with the strips I am about to show. The hypocrisy of Andrew Dobson. And no, I do not mean the tumblr blog by that. I mean the simple fact, that the content of some of the soon to follow strips gets kinda muddled when you take into consideration some of the things real life Dobson had said and done either at the time or in the years to come. Well that and the way how he tries to mock issues people have with his work, not realizing how he is essentially just reassuring those “silly critics” in their opinions while making his flaws more obvious to people that may have been previously unaware of them.

But enough talk, let me just show you in quick succession examples to confirm said point.

Considering Dobson’s longterm disdain for DnD you have to wonder what the joke really is outside of him portraying DnD players as ugly nerds, supposedly too geeky even for him. Which is hilarious in hindsight as he would years later become a fan of TAZ among other things.

Less hypocritical but the set up is kinda flawed. Like, you are obviously at a convention trying to sell stuff. Why would some old dude not interested in “kids crap” be at the convention anyway? Is he just bringing someone there and just wants to go, but first needs time to belittle your life choices?

Rather hilarious in hindsight to me. Cause for someone claiming he has ideas that last for a life time and who seems rather distraught on the idea of others giving their input, he turned out to be so in need of ideas. Alex ze Pirate e.g. became from 2015 onward only defined by Dobson talking about the sexualities of his characters (and not even in comic as by that point it was discontinued, but rather in tweets and so on). Formera, which ran heavily on cheap shonen anime tropes ended up cancelled after two volumes, Cabin Rest was a failure after 20 strips, 2019 he relied primarily on cheap comics about Miraculous Ladybug and his understanding of certain genres is so bad, he can’t even think up the most basic ideas for a magical girl story.

Weirdly enough, that pitch of a garbage truck driver who fights crime? I think that could make for an enjoyable short story about a vigilante a la the Punisher or Sin-City.

The way Dobson perceives criticism, while also essentially giving a quick rundown how he appreciated criticism in his childhood way better than in adulthood. Yeah, because criticism by your parents as a kid was always VERY constructive. (looks back at certain drawings from own childhood) brrr. And sorry Dobson, but sometimes criticism by strangers is better than criticism from friends. Cause friends may mince their words. Plus people have over time given you quite some insightful criticism aside “U SUX” when it comes to comics. You were just never willing to listen

Hey Dobson, you hear that? That is the sound of your career, dying and no one caring.

Yeah, I think someone who made such “brilliant” comedy as in these comics, totally has the right not to listen to what seems to be solid theoretical advice.

BTW, that Talus comic… I swear to god the worst “joke” Dobson ever told.

Wow. You essentially make a point why you suck at drawing. While still not trying to change.

And as someone else once said: Don’t play with fire if you can’t deal with the heat, BLOCK-son!

This is not how I perceived your shit over the years. See, on one hand it is true that Alex ze Pirate e.g. has its own webpage to read the comic for free. HOWEVER most of his comics Dobson would hide from the start behind a paywall. The idea being that he would e.g. put a small reading sample of 10-15 pages up somewhere and then expect people to buy his comic for full price to get the rest. And you know, if you are e.g. a professionally published writer, that is fine. But when your average art output looks like THIS

And you expect people to pay more than 10 dollars for something that is only around 70 pages long while most people can get 200+ pages for the same amount of money that look like this…

You can frankly go and screw yourself.

On one hand I get that the joke is meant to be, that as an independent content creator you may find yourself in a weird spot where your “child friendly” work may be put in a palace between edgier stuff other creators sell at conventions. On the other hand, I find it rather insulting in hindsight, that self declared feminist Andrew Dobson portrays such competition as either psychopathic murderers or stereotypical cartoon bimbos. If modern day Dobson saw the same strip by any other person, he would be insulted on behalf of the female that she is portrayed as a bimbo, when she could also be a very smart and attractive woman who knows how to tell brave and sexy stories.

Also, I have read your “child friendly” stuff, Dobson. I would call Atea or Alex abusive bitches who like to bully orphans but child friendly? Not to forget that your work is so basic and shallow in depth, it’s like the someone tried to create a chimera out of some of the worst traits associated with Dora the Explorer, 80s toodler cartoons and the Fairly Oddparents.

I frankly hate this theory on comedy. It is true, a lot of comedy can be deprived from conflict, misunderstandings etc. Looney Tunes, Tom and Jerry and other cartoons as well as screwball comedies such as Rat Race can depend on it. Heck, one of my favorite comedians of all time is Christopher Titus, who based his entire career on the misery and absurdity of his life.

But comedy is not just defined by misery and conflict.

There are for example also the following theories when it comes to comedy…

And to get back e.g. to Titus, yes, he has build a lot of his comedy on the bad stuff that happened in his life. But he is also someone who in his comedy has build a lot of punchlines on the absurdity of certain situations he has been in life but which in a way have enriched his life positively.

What I am trying to say is, comedy (and entertainment in that regard) does not just have to be defined by misery. And all things considered Dobson, you could have really tried to also just make comics wherein either you or your characters are just happy with their situation in life.

For example, this page from an Owl House fancomic?

I think it holds more entertainment value than your “joke” right here, despite not even telling a joke.

Simply because as a page overall, it tries to convey a positive emotion. Which is more than I can say about the strip.

Because of a lack of different level of thickness regarding your lines, which would trick people into perceiving depth, the fact that the fill bucket and shade layers can only do so much to cover for the rather monochromatic dull nature of your comic, the fact that your characters are not really all that complex and look rather simplicstic even compared to stuff from a comic like this…

And that is just coming from the top of my head as someone who never studied art. If any reader has something to add, I am willing to listen

And considering you could in later years never keep up to any release schedule, which among other things resulted in only three SYAC strips in total being released in 2016, I say go fuck yourself. Not to forget that even some of the worst newspaper comic strips out there tend to actually find a decent following and good jokes eventually, otherwise they would not manage to stay popular for years, if not even decades.

As someone who has worked internships a lot in life, I just want to say fuck you in all our names. Glad to see you having just as much respect for interns than any other scumbag on the planet. Probably even less respect, cause you know, in some places interns tend to get paid.

Also, there is supposedly an entire real world story going on about Dobson having worked at his former university at the time the comic came out and Chaz is based on a fellow intern.

Things are unfortunately rather vague in that regard and only hold up by demonstrative evidence such as the name of Chaz showing up in certain pages of the university and Dobson’s internship being mentioned somewhere.

Well, would you look at that: People have different opinions on your stuff.

There are ways to draw memes funny and then there are ways to fail at them

You failed.

Funnily enough, that comic rings a lot truer to text than you expect. Considering how Dobson would often emulate certain aesthetics in his comics of shows that were rather passee by the time he published his stuff, plus how he will obsess over certain trends and games for years to come (like Skyrim or his Quiet Hate Boner) while also being unaware about current trends (how do you e.g. not have heard of My Hero Academia by 2018 at least once by accident?) Dobson has always been kinda late to the party. Missing the “zeitgeist” of nerd culture and as such never quite finding an audience.

Yeah, what Pam says. Not helped by the fact that yes, the floating eyebrows are real. Look at some earlier sketches or “professionally published” comics by his and you will see that each time characters get excited, their eyebrows will suddenly split into sets of three and float higher than Pennywise’s victims.

Ironically, that fits real life Dobson at the time and later on even more so than this comic version did. Sorry, but what am I supposed to call a person who has an hate boner on anime for years for superfluous reasons, made Danny and Spot a “gaming webcomic” deliberately to piss on non Nintendo fans and has admitted in some by now deleted youtube video, that he kept a list of usernames from an old forum just to remember even years later the people that were mean to him online?

Fuck both of you. I do not expect the Sixtin Chapel in the background, but something to filll up the empty space behind you is at times needed.

The comic here is actually called politics. … ironic how things changed once a certain reality show host turned president.

Jesus Christ. I am not even that much of a Transformers fan (Prime fan for life however) but even I know that this is not supposed to be what you design the head of a Transformer like. Not even if they ever produce the Transformers equivalent of Teen Titans Go.

Too bad you still can’t stand the heat, otherwise you wouldn’t have completely disappeared last year.

When you know you are in a no win situation, and still manage to choose an even dumber option to escape. I really don’t get it. I just think the Portal reference makes the comic dated and Dobsn’s attempt at a smug face looks so stupid. Like his cheeks are falling in and his mouth is about ready to get raped by a garden hose or something.

Yeah, considering Dobson’s later constant need for safe spaces and to be in control of a situation and the narrative, which led to so many blocks over the years… if you know anything about Dobson, how this comic becomes harsher in hindsight is rather self explanatory. I just want to say one thing: There is a difference between genuine agoraphobia and just wanting to be by yourself. And I think Dobson just prefers the later on average. Which is okay, but humans still need to interact with other human beings in one form or another, even just for the sake of keeping their mental health stable. Why do you think are so many people getting depressed in times of covid lockdowns, despite many having all sorts of technical gimmicks at their disposal to at least keep boredom at bay?

And by putting himself into a bubble like that, I think Dobson has deprived himself of some of the most basic human interaction, which was likely a severe factor in his mental degeneration over the last years.

It is still a valid suggestion! Just draw some cartoon characters or a nice fantasy scenario on a mural and earn yourself some bucks. Just be sure they are not by Disney or the Mouse will tear down the school!

… Just google up the words Andrew Dobson and Samus Aran commission by ED and you will see how this comic just further shows how much Dobson seems to actually be proud of being an unproductive asshole.

And by the way, I know that any form of artistic work takes time. Just writing these review posts takes a lot of time for me. But that doesn’t change the fact that people should post and create stuff in a timely fashion, especially when there are e.g. deadlines to hold up too. And by the way, Sloth’s don’t have fingers, they have claws!

And that is it.

Sorry if I missed anything folks, but I just saw how many pages in word this is already filling up, so I call quits for this part here right now. I think I made my point about how Dobson trying to badly deflect arguments people may make against his art and work ethics via jokes clear enough, while also showing some posts that are either harsher or hilarious in hindsight.

Next time we will however address one certain issue about our main character, that has been not directly addressed here. In the meantime, have a little fun video that shows hopefully how entertainment and a certain amount of comedy can be gained NOT via misery.

youtube

#adobsoncomic #Andrew Dobson #Tom Preston #comic #webcomics #syac #so...you are a cartoonist #review #master review

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sortasirius · 3 years

Text

Programing The Winter Soldier

Warnings: Graphic depictions of violence, heavy angst, this is seriously big sad hours

AN: This is so very sad and I definitely cried writing it lmao. I love Bucky Barnes so much.

Pairing: Steve/Bucky

Words: 3873

Read it on AO3 here

January 23, 1945

General,

Sgt. Barnes has undergone an initial mind wipe. Dr. Zola has succeeded in attaching the weapon to his shoulder. He has been put in the cryo-chamber as a test, and after some initial pain it looks as though it has worked.

We will begin reprogramming shortly.

Longing

Bucky wakes up in pain. His arm hurts. After a few moments of long, deep breaths where he decides he’s not, in fact, dead, he tries, experimentally, to move his fingers. To his relief, he finds he can, but something feels different, wrong. The clicking in his index finger, from where he had broken it when he was twelve defending Steve from some guy he had tried to fight in an alley after the creep had tried to grab at a woman on the street, was gone. The pain is gone there too, in fact he can’t feel anything below the burning where his shoulder meets something cold, something foreign.

He tries to look around, but it’s pitch black wherever he is. It’s also brutally fucking cold. He shivers violently, trying to get away from whatever cold metal is touching his skin, but no matter how far he leans, he can’t seem to get away from it.

Suddenly, without warning, fluorescent lights above him burst into life, and Bucky screws his eyes up against the sudden brightness. Blinking away the mild pain, he sees a man he vaguely recognizes coming toward him. He’s a shorter man, wearing round glasses…

Like another switch flipped, Bucky suddenly remembers this man, remembers a saw taken to the shattered remains of his arm, remembers being tied down, with a rag stuffed in his mouth to keep him from biting off his own tongue. He remembers the arm that doesn’t belong to him attached to his left side. He remembers throwing someone across the room as though he was weightless.

“Sergeant Barnes,” the man looks him up and down, ignoring the way Bucky shied openly away from his gaze, “Let us begin.”

They don’t release Bucky from the restraints while the doctor, Zola, measures him from head to toe, has him flex his new arm, takes his blood pressure and heart rate, checks him for infection. He only occasionally stops to speak to an assistant, who all keep their distance from Bucky, or say something in German to a soldier watching everything. He makes Bucky watch a grainy video of ever-changing shapes, and sticks him painfully with a needle whenever he tries to look away.

“Now Sergeant,” Zola addresses him after nearly an hour of poking and prodding, “Can you tell me a memory of yours?”

Bucky doesn’t even consider, just says the first thing that comes into his brain. Whatever this guy wants, it’s going to be easiest to just give it to him.

“Steve and I were walking along Rockaway beach two years ago. I remember it was nearly dusk, summer, we were watching the sunset and Steve brought some bread to feed the birds. I remember they were swarming us, you show them any kind of food and they all come swooping in. Steve kept laughing because they were trying to land on me. I remember the smile on his face and his eyes matched the water. It was the first time he really laughed since his mother had died. He told me later that he really needed that laugh.”

Zola looks at one of his assistants and gestures to the red book on the table next to him.

“First word: Longing.”

March 10, 1945

General,

We have had limited success reprogramming Barnes so far. Zola has been working extensively with him, and while we are now seeing less incidents of outward aggression to staff or soldiers, his rate of noncompliance has skyrocketed.

Please advise on any alternate methods we should attempt.

Rusted

Bucky tries not to think about his new normal, but the repetition of each day makes that difficult.

Each morning, he’s awoken by a prison alarm and the instantaneous switching on of all the lights in his cell, followed immediately by his first meal of the day served through a slot in the door. Steel door, reinforced, at least four feet thick. Even the new arm doesn’t make much of a dent in it, though he’s tried. God knows, he’s tried.

After breakfast he’s led to the combat cage where he meets with Zola, before being led through drills that he must comply with. Noncompliance leads to pain. Stepping out of line leads to pain. Not eating leads to pain. Not answering a question leads to pain. His whole life revolves around inflicting pain and trying not to get pain inflicted on him.

On bad days, when he’s been too slow or asked one too many questions, they wipe him before lunch. He wouldn’t wish it on his worst enemy. There is nothing else to say. It’s beyond unbearable.

On good days, they’d give him lunch and Zola would run his usual tests. Ask him about a memory, ask him about his family, his parents, his sister, his friends. For some reason, it always came back to Steve. Every time, no matter how Bucky tried to steer his brain away from him, it always came back to Steve.

This time he tells Zola about an old motorcycle they had rescued from the junkyard one summer. It was more scrap metal than anything, rusted out from the wind and the rain and the New York winter it had suffered through outdoors, but they had scraped together pennies from odd jobs and had gotten it to run again. It was a blast, to go zipping through the streets of Brooklyn in the dead of night, looking for trouble or whatever they could find, having to stop what felt like every ten minutes to fix some part that had fallen off or sprung a leak. A total hassle, but totally worth it.

After his tests, Zola would send him back to the unnamed soldier who was responsible for his physical activity, this time to put him against enemies. In the beginning, Bucky would refuse to fight them, but in his new quest of not putting himself through more pain if he could help it, he had started obeying the commands given to him, even if that meant using the strange attachment to his body that he hated looking at, that was welded to his skin, the burned and tortured flesh above it just a reminder that he used to be fully human.

After his second round of drills, they either send him to bed and give him dinner an hour later, or they put him in cryo. He longs for the cold metal of the room they keep him in on the nights when he goes to cryo.

It’s the same every single day.

Zola starts saying a new word to him: Rusted.

May 7, 1945

General,

After three weeks, Barnes’ hunger strike has ended. He can barely stand anymore, let alone lift the arm, but he is willing to eat. Zola has suggested that we put him back in cryo and get his weight up so he can at least stand. Your suggestion of a controlled shock each time he refused to eat worked perfectly, we always appreciate your input in the construction of our new weapon.

Seventeen

They let him out of cryo after what they tell him is four weeks. When he looks down at himself, he can’t see his ribs or the sharp definition of his hipbones anymore. They make sure he can stand, that he can punch, that he can shoot a gun. They work on the strength of the punch. Zola is angry that it’s been weakened.

The hunger strike was a stupid idea, it was too much like what Steve would have done, and Bucky would never be Steve, or be with Steve, no matter how much he would like to.

His body is littered with burn marks from the shocks they gave him when he wouldn’t eat, and Bucky winces at the memory of the pain, the memory of his body seizing up and being outside his control. He supposes he should be used to the out-of-control thing by now, but he isn’t, he can’t, because then he’d really have lost.

Bucky hates cryo, he hates cryo almost more than he hates the mind wipe, because at least when his mind was wiped he could still dream. They couldn’t control what he dreamed about, and they didn’t know what he dreamed about. Rather, they never asked him what he dreamed about, therefore they didn’t know.

Bucky thinks about his last dream, the one where he and Steve were on a beach somewhere. Not the Northeast, somewhere tropical, maybe California. They have their toes in the sand and Steve remarks that the sand is so hot here, how do people walk on sand this hot?

“Sergeant Barnes,” Zola breaks him out of his thoughts, “Tell me why you stopped eating.”

Bucky looks up at him, he’s so tired. He doesn’t want to fight anymore but he has to, the skinny little kid from Brooklyn with blue eyes and a blinding smile would want him to.

“When I was seventeen my family couldn’t afford food for the week,” the words pour out of him of their own volition, and he’s too tired to stop them, “Dad was out of work, we were desperate. Steve and his mom brought over dinner and made us keep the leftovers. It was a pot roast, best thing I’ve ever eaten.”

“You didn’t answer my question.”

“I don’t want to be a weapon. I don’t want to be your weapon.”

Zola leans back and considers him. A smile spreads across his face.

“What you want doesn’t matter. It never did.”

Bucky wants to hit him with the weapon on his left. He wants it more than anything. But he can’t. He’s not allowed. He really just is a lapdog for them now.

Zola adds a word the next day: Seventeen.

June 15, 1945

General,

It has been noted recently that Barnes is unwilling to lash out or attack any combatants that fit the following profile: blond, blue eyes, male. Zola has insisted this weakness is an asset in his reprogramming and that it will not last. We have brought in two soldiers that match this profile at Zola’s request, I will report any findings.

Daybreak

He’s not Steve, Bucky tells himself over and over as the handsome blond solider smiles at him when he brings him his dinner. They open the door now, just so Bucky can see the man clearly, just so he can see his smile and the slight edge to his light blue eyes. They’re lighter than Steve’s but something in Bucky simply doesn’t care anymore. The eyes were wrong but they were something he could cling to. The hair was just a shade too dark but it reminded him of a different time. The smile was just a little too wide, but he remembered one that was a little softer, a little more slanted.

“I remember watching the sun rise in Germany during the war,” Bucky tells Zola blankly in their meeting that day, so used to the stab of the needle in his skin that he doesn’t even feel it, “Steve told me his favorite time of day was this early in the morning, right at daybreak. He told me that before, too, before he was Captain America, but we got to just sit quietly and watch it, watch the colors. I don’t remember them.”

“Very good,” Zola stands, beckoning to the blond solider to take Bucky to his next assignment.

Bucky walks along silently, head held high as he approaches the cage, where a larger soldier is waiting for him, outfitted head to toe in combat gear. Shouldn’t be a problem.

“Soldat,” Zola stares through the bars of the combat cage minutes later, where Bucky has paused, fist raised above the quivering man in front of him, “Don’t hesitate, you wouldn’t want to disappoint your audience.”

Bucky looks over to Zola, the blond soldier who smiled at him the night before is watching.

Zola’s right, he can’t disappoint him.

“New word,” Zola mutters as Bucky straightens up, shaking his hand to get rid of the red on the metal knuckles, “Daybreak.”

July 4, 1945

General,

Barnes had an unfortunate breakthrough during today’s training. He seemed to remember something from prior to his fall and was unable to complete the mission set in front of him. I am becoming frustrated with Zola, he insists that this is all part of the process, that to break a man down there will be moments of pure weakness, but Barnes is looking less and less like the man we thought he was.

Furnace

Steve is the only thing he thinks of when he has a clear mind anymore.

He doesn’t remember little details of his memory anymore, but he remembers Steve. He doesn’t remember his birthday, but he knows when Steve’s is. He doesn’t remember the smell of spring in Central Park, but he remembers the way Steve wore newspapers in his shoes. No matter what, he knows Steve.

Zola knows this, he uses it against him. Every day, the talks get longer, the punishments get more painful, and the amount of times he’s wiped go up.

“Tell me a memory,” it feels like Zola’s asked this a thousand times now.

“Steve’s furnace in his building broke last winter. We had him over for two weeks until the landlord could be bothered to fix it. Mom loves him so much, she would have him around all the time if he’d let her. He always thinks he can do everything himself.”

“You speak of him as if he’s here. Why?”

“I don’t know.”

That’s the truth.

Zola adds Furnace to the list of Bucky’s words. He can feel himself slipping away every time they’re uttered.

August 12, 1945

General,

Thank you for your visit last week. Your insight into our project is much appreciated. I agree that we must continue to press on, we have no put so much man power and energy into the project it would be a shame to shut it down now. Zola believes that we are close to a breakthrough, despite occasional noncompliance by Barnes.

Nine

It’s starting to get harder and harder to fight against the constant onslaught of change they were forcing on his mind.

He can’t dream anymore, so the cryo chamber at least lets him rest, because the only dreams he has are dark and shadowy. He’s losing his already tenuous grip on himself, his memories becoming indistinct, with only a few bright spots left to cling to in his mind.

“Tell me a memory.”

It takes him a second to think of one. He cowers as Zola stands over him.

“When I was nine we went on a field trip to the Met. Steve made me read all the little cards next to the paintings, even though it made us lag behind everyone else.”

“Do you still think of him?”

Always.

“No.”

“Good. Add Nine.”

September 1, 1945

General,

Zola chose to move forward with giving Barnes the news of Steve Rogers’ death last week. So far, it has proven an excellent tactic in breaking his resolve. After an initial disruption in his usual pattern of behavior (consisting of a violent outburst that left his entire holding cell destroyed followed by a complete emotional collapse), Barnes has been much more compliant in the process.

I believe we may be close to a breakthrough.

Benign

Bucky has been unmade, strand by strand, bit by bit, atom by atom, he has been unmade and put back together for the purposes of following orders, of being a human weapon of mass destruction. There has been so much pain in his unmaking, so much unrelenting physical and mental pain from being ripped apart and put back together over and over and over again.

And yet, none of that pain was like the pain of knowing that Steve Rogers was dead.

Bucky would take it all over again, spend a thousand lifetimes in this room, in the cell, in the combat cage, in the cryo chamber, having his mind wiped like a problem on a chalkboard just so he could unlearn that Steve was dead.

Zola is the one that tells him. He shows him a newspaper in English, then Russian, then German, all with the same headline: Captain America Dead!

Bucky feels like a feather caught in a windstorm, torn to shreds by the whipping downdraft of mother nature’s power, by the power of his own grief.

Bucky knows better than to move while Zola is in the room, but the second that he leaves, the rage, red, blind, hot, overtakes him, and he uses the weapon attached to him, which has become a part of him, to destroy everything he can. The metal table, reinforced with steel, comes apart like wet paper in his hand. He destroys the sink, leaving nothing but powdered ceramic and plumbing hookups behind. He gouges marks into the walls with his fingers, he slams his arm onto the floor. And then? He collapses in the middle of the cold metal room with his cold metal arm, just a cold metal soldier who’s lost the only reason he wanted to get out of here, to stay who he was.

“Come on Buck, we don’t have to do this.”

“When was the last time we snuck into a Dodgers game? It’ll be fun, I promise.”

Steve rolls his eyes, pausing as they waited to cross the street to cough into his jacket. Bucky, almost subconsciously pats his jacket pockets. Good, he’s got an extra one of Steve’s inhalers in case it’s a bad night for his asthma.

“Come on Steve,” Bucky nudges his shoulder as they approach the stadium, “I know it’s been hard recently, but hey, at least we have baseball.”

Steve laughs at that, and gives Bucky an almost radiant smile. Whatever it was, it makes Bucky feel like he has the sun in his chest.

“You know, if I didn’t know any better, I’d say this was a date,” Steve jokes as they sneak in behind an older couple, heading up to their favorite spot to watch the game.

“Who says it isn’t?” Bucky is glad his face is hidden in shadow as they make their way up the stairs of the stadium to the very back row, “But don’t think I’m gonna buy you a hotdog or anything.”

“Come on, what kind of girl pays for her own hotdog?” Steve winks at him, and Bucky can’t hide his wide smile at the words that settle themselves right in the middle of his beating heart.

“Soldat. Stand up,” Zola’s voice comes through the speaker, and Bucky can’t comply, he tries, but he’s crushed by the weight of the loss of Steve Rogers, the only person that could pull him out of this, that could undo the work of HYDRA that had been inflicted on his mind and body.

He hears the stomping of boots outside the door, but he still can’t stand, he still can’t make himself be the good lapdog he’s supposed to be. He’s broken, empty, unusable, unloveable.

“Steve,” Bucky gasps, not even thinking about fighting as the soldiers pull him up to standing.

Zola’s voice comes over the little speaker they have in the room, the one that Bucky couldn’t reach to rip to pieces.

“Next word: Benign”

October 29, 1945

General,

Zola had a long conversation with Barnes today. The loss of Steve Rogers is still affecting him. Zola tells me he has a plan, that our work is almost finished.

Homecoming

They take him to the combat cage again. There’s someone waiting for him.

“We have a test for you today,” Zola swings the door open, and he sees that it’s the blond soldier who reminds him of Steve, tied up and bound and already bloody.

Bucky takes a step forward, staring at the terrified man. He feels something, he can’t identify what it is.

“Tell me a memory.”

Bucky doesn’t take his eyes off of the soldier as he speaks.

“When Steve brought us back from the HYDRA base, they called it our homecoming. I wasn’t used to him yet, him being taller than me, being okay with being the center of attention. I wasn’t used to him being different. But sometimes I saw flashes of the old Steve, when he looked at me, when he was drawing on a scrap of a napkin, when he made a joke that everyone laughed at. And then, sometimes I thought he forgot about me. He didn’t need me anymore.”

He looks down at the soldier.

“Kill him, soldat,” Zola tells him, “You don’t need him. You never did.”

The cowering blond soldier might as well be Steve, Bucky can’t tell the difference anymore. He snaps his neck anyway, pretending that he doesn’t feel the shattered remains of his heart split just a little bit more.

“New word: Homecoming.”

December 15, 1945

General,

Only a few more weeks I believe, Barnes has become more and more compliant, completing missions with ease and without hesitation. We put him in front of a live target yesterday, the man captured at the border three weeks ago. Barnes did not even seem to hear his pleas, even though we have been assured he can hear and understand them.

One

He kills easily now. He does it without thinking.

“Tell me a memory.”

“I don’t have one.”

“Good. Add One.”

January 23, 1946

General,

Congratulations. The asset is ready to begin service.

Freight Car

The Winter Solider does not hesitate. He does not disobey orders. He pulls the trigger as easy as breathing. He’s a ghost story, a legend, the new fist of HYDRA.

Zola speaks to him, he answers. A soldier speaks to him, he answers.

“There is one last word to add,” Zola tells him, walking around where he stands, straight, like a steel rod. He’s more metal than man now, anyway, “Tell me about the day you fell.”

“I ziplined onto a freight car. I took out the targets. I fell. I was found by HYDRA.”

Steve was there. He tried to save me. We joked about Coney Island. I miss him, I wish I was with him. I wish I had died when I fell. I wish I could just be Bucky. I don’t want to be a weapon, I just want to be Bucky.

“Very good, soldat. Final word: Freight Car.”

As each word is read, Bucky departs his mind, taken over by The Winter Solider. Each word takes away a layer of memory, a layer of who he was, who he had fought so hard to stay. Now it doesn’t take weeks of time, or months, to unmake him. All it takes is ten words, ten words that connect him completely to Bucky Barnes, yet somehow, ten words that remove him altogether.

Zola finishes the list. Bucky Barnes is long, long gone.

“Ready to comply.”

#stucky #my writing #stucky fanfic #mcu #not spn

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thetomorrowshow · 3 years

Text

Slower Than Words Ch. 26

First - Previous - Next

Me, writing this chapter: I am going to create a situation that is so awkward,

cw: food

~SHARON~

welcomes you

Remus eyed the sign suspiciously as he drove past. It was set low in the ground, as if it had sunk a bit over time. It didn’t look familiar at all—none of this did. Did he have the wrong place?

Patton shifted a bit in the seat beside him, looking around with interest. They’d reached their destination, after all. Remus couldn’t help but doubt himself. There were other Sharons in the country, after all. Maybe they’d just gone to the wrong one.

Something about this city called to him, sure. But that didn’t mean anything—the cult had called to him too. Remus’s instincts weren’t the best.

He was roused from his thoughts when Patton softly tapped his shoulder. They were passing a grocery store—Save A Lot. It was time for lunch, wasn’t it?

Remus pulled left into the parking lot of the store, which was fairly empty for midday Friday. Only three cars, and a fourth pulling in at the same time as them. Remus parked in between two of the other cars there (mostly because he could) and hopped out, taking a moment to stretch before entering the store. Patton got out too, walking around to the driver’s side while Remus continued to reach toward the sky.

Patton led the way, holding the door open for Remus, who looked up as the bell jingled. An older man waved from behind the counter. A shopper milled about in the nearest aisle. Classic rock played quietly in the background. It was nice, in a weird way. Very peaceful. Very easy.

Pat headed for the bathroom and Remus watched him for a second, before turning down one of the aisles at random. They probably needed some fruit or something. He followed the aisle through to the small produce section on the other side of the store. Another employee leaned against the meat counter on the other side of the section, eyes glued to his phone. Remus froze and stared at him, waiting to be told that he wasn’t allowed back here. Nothing happened.

Remus fully exited the aisle and checked out the fruit. Oranges, apples, different apples, a handful of pineapples. The oranges were the cheapest, and Patton needed citrus too. There was a vitamin in citrus, right? Vitamin D? C?

Whatever it was, he was pretty sure that Patty needed it. He needed every vitamin, actually. Remus picked up an orange, about to pull a plastic bag from the roll.

“Oh my gosh. No way!”

Remus dropped the orange, spinning on his heel and straightening up. His heartrate spiked, breathing quickened, and he stood at attention, keeping his eyes on the linoleum floor.

“Remus?”

He chanced a quick look up, forcing his eyes almost immediately back down. He saw . . . a woman. Young, probably about his age. Tall. A shopping basket over her arm (probably why he hadn’t heard her coming. No squeaky wheels). Smiling. She was completely unfamiliar, but by now the watery reflection of the lights on the floor had gotten into his head where he was. In a grocery store. In his hometown. Not back there.

With effort, Remus wrenched his head up, meeting the woman’s eyes. “H-hey,” he said, clearing his throat. “What’s up?”

“So it is you!” The woman laughed a little. “I haven’t seen you in years. How’re your parents?”

This woman knew him. So he had definitely lived here. But this wasn’t a very big city, and if she knew him, then she had to have known his family, right? Why would she have to ask him how they were? Had they moved away? Cold clutched at his heart as he considered that option. They can’t have. He can’t have lost them before he even found them.

“I-I dunno, just got in town. Haven’t even dropped by yet.”

The woman nodded. “Where do you live now?”

“Other side of the country,” Remus hedged, “Desert-y place.”

“Oh, I grew up in Arizona,” the woman said, almost commiseratingly. “So hot. There were days that I’d just go stick my head in the freezer.”

Remus laughed nervously. “Yep, wish—wish I coulda done that.”

“Mhm. Really, I haven’t seen you since—gosh, since we graduated! You didn’t even come to the graduation itself, I heard that you skipped town practically the day after school got out.”

Okay, someone he’d gone to high school with. Remus remembered being sorta close with the other kids on the soccer teams, but he mostly hung out with the stoner kids to annoy his parents. He couldn’t see how he would know this chick. Maybe they’d been lab partners? Or maybe she’d been someone he hung out with?

The woman seemed to be casting around for something to say, her eyes eventually falling on his face. “Wow, that mustache has really filled out, huh?”

Remus’s hand flew up to smooth it unconsciously. “Yep, this is a couple years’ hard work,” he boasted. The woman chuckled.

“No offense, but it used to be this terrible shrimpy little thing,” she said. “I remember prom night when you picked me up you were all grumpy because your mom made you shave it off. You didn’t even talk to me until we got there!”

Oh shoot.

Oh no.

This was an old girlfriend.

Remus hadn’t dated anyone in years. He’d tried for a while, those first months in the cult. But the gals weren’t interested and the guys were too scared, so he’d given up. He hadn’t really minded it, honestly—he had dated all through high school, but looking back he only did it to make his parents mad. They didn’t want him steady dating until he was an adult, and definitely didn’t want him dating dudes and stoners, so he had done both over and over again between the ages of thirteen and eighteen.

Now, though?

Maybe it was just the cult stuff talking, but Remus wasn’t interested in a partner. The romance part sounded cute (he’d never admit it, but part of him really wanted to curl up with his partner and watch a romcom, teasing each other lightly), but the rest of it sounded like way too much of a hassle. He didn’t have the time, not when he was carrying the load of three different people’s trauma. And while he had a feeling that the commitment might help ground him, he just wasn’t interested in the rest of it. If that made sense. Heck, this was his own head and it didn’t really make sense.

Anyways, he remembered this woman, just a little. Not much about her, or how well they worked together, or if they had truly been in love. He mostly remembered that he had left without breaking up with her, without even telling her goodbye.

“Yeah, I was a terrible kid,” he said, secretly waiting for her to agree with him. Instead she shrugged.

“Sure, you were always hanging out with weird people,” she replied, “but you were very kind. I definitely don’t think we were meant for each other, but I had fun with you.” She winked and Remus almost physically recoiled. He didn’t like when people winked.

A hand tapped his elbow and Remus jolted, turning his head. Patton was there, smirking a little bit.

The woman’s eyes traveled between them, clearly trying to figure out their relationship. “Boyfriends . . . ?”

“Kidnapper and victim,” Remus said, turning back to her fully and smiling toothily. He felt a little bit more in control now. She barely seemed uncomfortable, instead sharing her own smile.

“Right. Well, tell your parents I said hi,” she said, waving slightly. Remus noticed the ring on her wedding finger, but before he could ask, she answered.

“D’you remember Claire, from the swim team?”

Remus opened his mouth to lie, but she continued to talk.

“Well, after you left, she comforted me and helped me decide what I wanted to do for the rest of my life, and the answer turned out to be her!” the woman laughed at her own joke, and Remus laughed along, not quite sure why. It was obviously a practiced line, and he didn’t really find it funny either.

The woman reached out and patted him on the shoulder, a warm look in her eyes. “Seriously, it was great to see you. Everyone was really worried about you, we thought you’d died in some ditch. Take care!” And with that, she was turning down another aisle, quickly out of sight.

“Who was that?” Patton asked as soon as Remus turned to him. The smirk was gone, his eyes now wary.

“A friend from when I was a kid,” Remus signed distractedly, looking at the oranges again. He grabbed two, then a third one just in case and led the way back to the cash registers. On the way he snagged a package of beef jerky, grimacing at the price.

That was the weirdest encounter he’d had, probably ever. At least it was proof that they were in the right place.

“No clue where we are,” Remus sang under his breath, checking the street signs as they passed a church. The area looked vaguely familiar, so that had to mean something, right? Apparently not, because after the grocery store experience, everything looked familiar. He pulled to stop in front of a stop sign, patting Logan’s car as it groaned. For a moment, he let his eyes close and his head rest on the steering wheel.

Patton tapped his arm, waiting for him to look. “Trust your instincts,” he signed, finger-spelling the last word. He smiled softly at Remus, then turned back to the window, pulling the patched hoodie closer around his shoulders. Remus took a deep breath. He could do this. He’d survived a cult. He’d saved a whole kid from the same cult. He was awesome.

Remus took his foot off the brake, letting the car carry him from street to street, waiting for something to happen. If this didn’t work, then he’d go street by street, knocking on every door until he found his parents and brother.

Then, as he turned right in a somewhat busy intersection, his hands spasmed. Muscle memory took over, and he turned right again onto a smaller street. Memories of driving this road far too fast in the darkness of late nights and early morning flooded his mind, overlapping and playing simultaneously. In the memories, he followed this street through, then turned left at the end of it.

So he did, his arms turning the wheel almost without conscious input. Another two turns, and he was Euclid Ave, a street name that made his heart jump into his throat. Just two houses down, there it was.

150 Euclid Ave.

Suddenly, the home phone number was on the tip of his tongue—he’d memorized them together. He recalled his parents, sitting on the sofa, clapping for a miniature version of him reciting the full address and phone number.

He stared at the house so hard stars appeared in his vision, surprised to feel almost nothing. It was familiar of course, just like everything else, but it was also . . . normal. It almost felt like he’d never left. Or like he’d gone back in time, back to when this was right. Back to when this was who he was.

“Home?” Patton asked out loud, the middle of the word slurring a little. Remus’s eyes misted a little bit.

“Yeah,” he managed. “Home.”

Knock-knock-knock.

Remus rocked back onto his heels, shooting a reassuring smile to Patton. He could do this. No sounds came from inside the house, but there were two cars in the driveway, so someone had to be home. Hopefully both were his parents, then he could see everyone together.

But his brother could drive now, right?

They were five years apart. When he’d left, his brother had been in middle school. Now he was probably in college. If he was away at school, he wouldn’t be home right now, would he?

Remus knocked again.

Now there was sound from inside, the creaking of footsteps on floorboards, the running water. Adrenaline suddenly pumped through his veins, and the wild thought of running back to the car crossed his mind. He could get out before they ever knew he was here, just leave and nothing would change.

Did he want it to change?

Click-click. The door unlocked.

Swung open.

Remus composed his face the best he could, trying to smile and look as normal as possible. He could do this. He could do this.

He looked up.

A face, lined, clean-shaven, framed with close-cut dark hair that was greying at the ends. A face that Remus saw from the stage of a talent show, sitting in the audience, smiling and clapping along with his clarinet rendition of Jingle Bells.

The shoulders were broader than Remus ever thought his own would be, proved otherwise by time. Remus saw the shoulders from the closet of his parents’ room, where occasionally on Sunday afternoons the boy was allowed to try on suit coats that swallowed him completely.

The left hand had a simple silver band, one that Remus could see resting on the aluminum foil ring holder he’d made in class as a Father’s Day present. He’d always been afraid that it would catch his fingers when they played the hand stacking game.

Remus’s eyes traveled back up the arm, the shoulder, the neck, the face, back to the eyes. Blue, almost grey, a color that neither he nor his brother had inherited.

“Hey dad,” he croaked. “I'm home.”

The eyes widened.

Taglist: @enragedbees @gotta-love-alejandra @bunny222 @basiic-emo @patt0n-sanders @rosiepupper @fangirlgeekandfreak @dn-fan21 @that2000skid @remy-the-lemon-berry @itsadastraperaspera @xionbean @sanderssides-angst @hell-yea-we-gay-tonight @maybedefinitely404 @broken-pencils @thewhimsicallibrarytech @doomllily @hereissananxiousmess @judyismydog @arodynamic-enby @at-that-one-nerd @therapysides @awkwardandanxiousfander @thekitchenpan @im-an-anxious-wreck @larkiaquail @anteonnix @fantasticfander21

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cno-inbminor · 4 years

Text

adsentio

a/n: for some reason, i got the idea of prince!akaashi stuck in my head. mildly inspired by the swan princess.

wc: ~2.1k

genre: arranged marriage!au, royalty!au, emerging feelings. fluff mainly? idek, it’s word vomit

royalty!au: adsentio (pt. 1) | bonus letters (pt. 1.5) | the masque (pt. 2)

Prince Akaashi likes to believe he’s a smart cookie, even if he’s only seven. Then again, his parents aren’t exactly the most subtle people on the planet, and he believes it’s quite obvious as to what they’re planning. In fact, not only is he aware, but the whole castle is as well. Hell, even 90% of the citizens in the kingdom are fully aware of what’s to be expected. He strongly dislikes it, and he wishes it didn’t loom over him every summer.

Ever since the summer of the year he turned five, Princess (y/n) of the West Kingdom would show up for two months to make his life miserable. To be fair, it wasn’t exactly your fault, as you were very much forced into this arrangement as he was, but it was easier to blame you. He’d rather just play fight with Bokuto all summer rather than try to include a girl. It’s not because you’re capable of kicking his butt.

That is absolutely not the case here.

His mother, the queen, is scrambling to get all the preparations done in time for (y/n)’s arrival. Akaashi almost rolls his eyes when he spots her rearranging a bouquet of roses in the dining hall. Unfortunately, she spots him from the corner of her eye and beckons him over with a frantic hand. Never one to deny a parent, he quickly jogs over to her.

“Oh darling, would you be a doll and check in on your father? He needs to be dressed properly for the West Kingdom’s arrival. Tell him to wear that cyan blue shirt of his, it’s much more flattering.”

“Do we need to be so overboard like this again? They’ve already been here twice, it’s not like they don’t know us.”

“For reasons you don’t know, they’re extra special to us. Aren’t you excited to see (y/n) again? You two got along so well last summer!”

Akaashi wrinkles his nose in distaste. “It feels like I just saw her yesterday. Bokuto and I just wanna play by ourselves.”

“Nonsense, dear. Now go check on your father, please,” His mother implores before scurrying off to another bouquet of flowers.

It’s so obvious, he thinks to himself as he jogs towards his parents’ chambers. Did they really need this alliance with the West Kingdom? Would they be that much more powerful together? “In due time, you’ll understand,” his parents always said. Akaashi was starting to become tired of hearing those words.

Why is it so hard to just tell him now as to why they want him to marry Princess (y/n)?

“You know why I’m here, right?” (Y/n) asks him one evening. They’re sixteen now – Akaashi counts that this is your twelfth time at the castle. You call the castle your second home, as he once heard you tell your assigned handmaiden, the same lady who attends to you every summer. Somehow, the statement strikes a chord within him – his initial childish annoyance at your presence had long disappeared and been replaced with something akin to defeat. There was very little chance that they could run from this, but in the late nights, Akaashi found himself believing that if there were someone to be betrothed to, (y/n) wasn’t so bad.

“What do you mean?” He replies, slowly turning a page in his book. You both found that one way to quickly pass the time was to raid the royal library. At first, it was custom to read your respective books at opposite ends of the castle. Yet as time passed, you found yourselves meeting closer and closer towards the middle. If desired, the servants could find you two either together in the library, in an empty ballroom by the massive windows, or on the balcony in the summer sun. Most times, Bokuto, Akaashi’s most loyal friend, was with you as well. Reading wasn’t necessarily one of his top hobbies, but he’d rather be with friends than alone wondering around the castle.

This time, the two of you have taken refuge by a fireplace, a terrible thunderstorm casting a chill over the building. Bokuto is conveniently off doing his own thing.

“The reason why I’m here every summer.”

Akaashi casts his best exasperated look towards you, but it goes unnoticed as you refuse to look away from your book. “I’ve known since I was six.”

You sigh and gently shut your novel closed, one finger stuck between the pages to keep your place. With the grace of an angel (Akaashi thinks), you pick yourself up from the lounge chair and drift over to the couch he’s sitting on. Because he’s sitting upright towards the end closest to the fire, there’s more than enough space for you to sit and stretch your legs across the cushions. In fact, you do just that, settling for leaning your back against Akaashi’s strong side profile, his arm supporting most of your weight. Without meaning to, Akaashi finds himself adjusting his sitting position for your comfort. He feels your body tremble slightly and a small wave of concern washes over him.

“Should I ask one of the servants to bring a blanket for you?”

“That won’t be necessary. But thank you for your concern, your highness.”

“You don’t have to address me as so.”

“My apologies, it’s a force of habit.”

“Hmm.”

Akaashi has long given up on reading the words before him. Your question repeats in his head like a broken record.

“Doesn’t it frustrate you?” You whisper, interrupting his thoughts. “Doesn’t it anger you that since my birth, you’ve been forced into a game that you have no choice but to play?”

Akaashi hesitates. This topic has never been broached before, and he’s not sure how to address it.

“I’ll admit it was more frustrating in the beginning. Nobody enjoys being told what to do, especially when you’re little. But I learned to just accept it. In fact, to call it a game would assume that there is a losing side. From what I’ve studied, both of our kingdoms would benefit from this merger. What’s the loss?”

“Our freedom and choice,” you bite out, yet refusing to look at him. You’ve also given up on reading, yet you don’t want to arouse suspicion that this conversation is happening. If a servant were to hear, rumors would fly around the castle like a plague. “I think it’s only human that I want to experience love the way ordinary people do. We don’t even get a say.”

“What about both of our parents? They were arranged yet they love each other.”

“Simple, they got lucky.”

“Then would you rather run away and find another man to fall in love with?”

“More than that, I just want to experience life beyond the castle walls. My position is different from yours.”

“How so?”

You purse your lips, pausing. “Your Highness, what do you think would happen to you if I were to disappear, or god forbid, die?”

Akaashi’s eyes widen in bewilderment. “Why would you ask that?”

“You just need to answer my question.”

“Well,” he ponders. “I…believe I’d be somewhat sad. We would mourn the loss, surely.”

For the first time this summer, he hears a genuine chuckle from you. “I’m honored by your sentiment, your highness. I’m asking more of what you think would politically happen to you.”

Akaashi’s cheeks flush with embarrassment. “I guess…politically I’d be okay. Mother would be devastated, but I guess they’d find me another match. The merger with your kingdom would’ve been our strongest move, but it could still happen since we’re already on such good speaking terms. Supposedly there are other princesses waiting for a chance, and a merger could result from that as well.”

“What a humble braggart you are, your highness,” you tease.

“That’s not what I meant—”

“I know. But in all seriousness,” you switch to a more solemn tone. “The point is, you’d be okay. As you so nicely put it, you have women lining up to be with you.”

“Aren’t men lining up to be with you as well?”

“It’s not the same, Your Highness. As a princess, I’m brought up to constantly prove my worth to others. More importantly, I’m raised to prove my worth as a wife and a queen. We’re left to care for the children we must bear, we must keep our noses a reasonable distance away from kingdom business. If this engagement were to break, many outsiders would automatically assume that I was deemed unworthy of you, that I must’ve wrapped myself in some horrible scandal.”

Akaashi hums and stares into the fire. “I suppose that it’s rather unfortunate. I wish I had realized that sooner.”

“Your self-awareness speaks volumes. I usually wouldn’t admit this to you, but I know you’ll be a great king when it’s your time. Your people already love you, and they will only continue to love you more.”

“That’s very kind of you, Princess.”

“I only speak honestly. There’s no need to sugarcoat my words around you.”

Somehow, Akaashi finds that very comforting. Perhaps as someone in his position, he would consider honesty and wisdom to be valuable. Just because he’s destined to be king someday, doesn’t mean he would always make the right decisions. He would appreciate having you by his side in his decision-making.

“If this happens,” Akaashi finds himself speaking, also not one for beating around the bush. “I can promise now that I’ll try to change that. Even if we end up never loving each other, I’ll do my best to ensure that you never feel confined to such a role. As my w-wife,” he stumbles over the word. “I would want your input. You have a good head on you, and I’m sure you have valuable wisdom that I will need in due time.”

“Somehow, that’s the most romantic thing a man has ever said to me,” you say. He can hear the smile in your voice, his own small one forming on his face. When you move off the couch, his body immediately misses the warmth of your body pressed against his. After you’re done dusting yourself off, you begin to curtsy. He knows that this means you’re retiring for the night, but he’d rather you not leave right now.

“Wait,” he calls out, reaching for the hand not holding your book. You stay silent as Akaashi delicately holds your hand, then breaking out into a slight blush when he lays a soft kiss on the back of your hand, eyes never breaking contact with yours. He’s never been more princely to you than this moment – though his mother had made him do this on every first day you arrive at the castle, it never held so much meaning. This was of his own doing, his own volition, and that spoke volumes to you. He was trying to make this work in his own special way.

You don’t miss the way his thumb ghosts over your knuckles before releasing your hand, although the movement seems hesitant and troubled. “Good night, Princess,” he bids quietly, eyes looking back at the ignored book in his lap. Your heart beats with adrenaline, the chemical fueling you to step closer to him and bend down to place a kiss on his cheek. Akaashi does his best to not look surprised, but he knows that he has failed when he hears the sound of your gentle laugh.

“Good night, Keiji.”

The prince concludes right then and there that he has never heard anything more beautiful.

When you return to your chambers the next night, it’s hard to miss the most beautiful glass vase you’ve seen that’s sitting on your dresser. Inside stands a half-bloomed peony, a flower you recognize from the castle gardens. The petals have a tender shade of a light blush pink – if the flower-arranging lessons taught you anything, they stood for romance, compassion, and bashfulness. A neatly folded cardstock with your name stands demurely by the vase. The handwriting is strikingly familiar, and you can’t help but smile at the words neatly written inside.

To my future queen.

As you bring the flower to your nose and inhale the sweet scent, you begin to think that perhaps, you and Akaashi might just be lucky enough for love.

feel free to send requests for this au!

#haikyu #haikyuu #haikyuu!!#akaashi fluff #akaashi haikyuu #akaashi keiji #haikyu fluff #haikyuu fluff #akaashi imagine #akaashi x reader #akaashi x you #akaashi keiji x reader #akaashi keiji x you #adsentio #akaashi scenarios #keiji #akaashi #got a little..preachy? idk #so sorry!

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kbstories · 4 years

Text

impression//expression

“It’s not like Kirishima had come all this way to U.A. to immediately break the promise he made to himself upon arrival.

It’s just that Bakugou is as feral as they come, and the moment Kirishima recognizes it’s fear he felt crawling up his spine that day, he makes it his personal mission to face it head-on until it’s gone.”

(Or: Being friends with Bakugou Katsuki is anything but a linear experience. Kirishima Eijirou would have it no other way.)

Tags: Kirishima POV, Developing Friendships, First Impressions, Slice of Life, Character Study

No additional content warnings apply. Chapter 2. Chapter 3. Chapter 4. Chapter 5. Chapter 6. Chapter 7. Chapter 8. Chapter 9.

***

Kirishima Eijirou had stared at the grin on Bakugou’s face when he pulled the pin in his gauntlet and thought: Holy shit, this guy is insane.

Over multiple screens, a good chunk of Ground β went up in a blast so strong the floor trembled with its aftershocks even here, miles away. Concrete and steel and glass were incinerated in a gust of fire and debris until all that was left was Midoriya’s crumpled form amidst plumes of smoke and Bakugou standing tall in the ruins.

The cameras shorted out once, twice before the image stabilized; the transmission remained silent. There was no sound needed to see how Bakugou’s grin got an edge sharper in the wake of the explosion.

Insane and absolutely deadly.

It wasn’t Kirishima’s first impression of him, per se. Certainly he’d had some sort of reaction to the only name ranked above his own after the Entrance Exams and the total sum of zero rescue points listed beside it. He can even remember the twinge of something in his chest after seeing that infamous quirk in action on day one – be it awe or envy or plain curiosity, that innocent question of How does it work, though? that accompanies most encounters with a new power.

Still: In those first few days, when Kirishima thinks of Bakugou Katsuki, he thinks of the mad glint in his eyes as he went above and beyond in his attempt to murder their classmate (or seriously maim him, at the very least).

In hindsight, having him play the villain was perhaps less coincidence and more fate, given the optics of what could reasonably be described as a shitshow. And, okay, Kirishima knows it’s not exactly fair to judge someone based solely on fleeting observations. His parents taught him better than that. Crimson Riot showed him better than that. It’s not like Kirishima had come all this way to U.A. to immediately break the promise he made to himself upon arrival.

It’s just that Bakugou is as feral as they come, and the moment Kirishima recognizes it’s fear he felt crawling up his spine that day he makes it his personal mission to face it head-on until it’s gone.

Endure and overcome, just like any other obstacle looming over the difficult path ahead. Kirishima smiles around the pencil he’s chewing on as Aizawa drones on, eyes trained on the uniquely tense set of shoulders across the room.

Yeah. Bakugou won’t even stand a chance.

It takes many cold shoulders, rebuffed lunch invitations and countless glares – and a villainous intervention Kirishima could’ve honestly lived without – for a rough voice to say:

“You there. Shark Teeth.”

The sun is starting to peek into the room as it hangs low and lazy in the sky. Class 1-A has just been released into a well-deserved weekend: Kirishima is very much aware his mothers want him home as fast as possible after what happened at U.S.J., and he’s throwing his things into his bag at peak velocity. Only after a tap on his shoulder and a subtle nod from Sero does he register it’s him Bakugou is talking to.

Perhaps ‘growling at’ would be a better description, but… semantics. Kirishima throws the guy a look and a smile over his shoulder either way, “Hey! What’s up, man?”, and given Bakugou’s eyes only narrow a little, he’s about 70% sure he’s not done something to land on his shit list.

Yet.

All Bakugou does is direct a decidedly less neutral look towards Sero, who jolts and stumbles over a quick “Um. Gotta– Yup, okay, bye!” before he books it out the classroom. Kirishima watches him go with some bemusement and a muttered “Dude”, not that Bakugou reacts to it in any way.

“Spar with me”, Bakugou says instead – demands, really – and Kirishima feels his brows tick upwards before he can stop himself, hands pausing in his quest to cram his notepad next to his books without wrinkling its cover page too badly.

“Uh. Like, right now? ‘Cause I can’t. Well, I could but I’m about to miss my train as is and I’d have to tell my–”

A slow blink, and even that is threatening when it’s coming from Bakugou. “No, asshole. This weekend, or something. I don’t care.”

Oh. Kirishima blinks. Something about Bakugou approaching him out of his own free will must be causing a substantial lag between different areas of his brain because– Oh.

“Wait. You wanna hang out?”

Maybe he could’ve hidden the clear surprise in his voice a bit better, that emphasis on you that sort of slipped in there without him really wanting it to. Kirishima’s heart sinks at the twitch to Bakugou’s brow that pretty much guarantees whatever he actually meant to say is forever lost to the ire perpetually simmering in that red gaze.

Well, it was nice knowing what going to U.A. is like. At least none of his classmates are present to see Kirishima’s inevitable – if incredibly untimely – demise.

Then Bakugou… rolls his eyes, exhales a harsh tch for good measure. “Whatever.” He shoves his bag further up his shoulder and, without a glance back, walks out the room–

Oh no, you don’t.

Out of all foolish thoughts it’s that one that shoots through Kirishima’s head before he grabs his stuff and goes after him. Bakugou somehow manages to maintain that no-fucks-given air to his gait despite how fast he walks, and Kirishima falls into a light jog to close the gap.

“It’s a great idea, man. Can’t have us going soft over the weekend! Plus Ultra, just like All Might said, right?”

Bakugou gives him a withering glance of a side-eye for his trouble. Kirishima notes the distinct lack of explode-y manslaughter, though, and allows himself to settle right into Bakugou’s pace.

“Besides, it’s been like a week and we’re already having villains crashing our lessons. I mean, we showed ‘em what’s what and all, but still! Some extra training can’t hurt.”

It’s not like Kirishima minds being the one to carry a conversation yet the fact that he hasn’t been told to shut up is… something? Not enough for Kirishima to point out, it’s just a thing he notices, just something, so he keeps talking. Past U.A.’s gates, down the stairs and onto the busy sidewalk they go, and Bakugou’s hands never leave the pockets of his pants as he marches past clusters of people in an unflinching line.

Head held high, eyes dead ahead. Cutting through the crowd with his presence alone, and in his wake Kirishima follows.

The afternoon light is hitting that glow-y hue that paints even the most mundane of things in shades of gold when Kirishima realizes they’re headed to the train station. He draws up short, slows his step in the split-second it takes to ask himself if the other even takes the train home or–

Bakugou’s eyes are on him, “What?”, that one word barked so impatiently Kirishima throws the thought right out the metaphorical window and keeps walking.

“Nothing!” A flash of his home screen proves: Five minutes left. They’re making good time. Which, actually– “So what time were you thinking for our sparring sesh? I’m good whenever, unless it’s super late at night. Overprotective parents, you know how it is.”

That gets a huff out of Bakugou. That, and a gesture that’s sort of a grab, sort of a wave that has Kirishima a little stumped until Bakugou sighs gruffly. “Your phone, dumbass.”

“Oh, sure! Here.”

The device changes hands. Kirishima contemplates feeling embarrassed about the obvious crack that takes up half the screen; he’d designed his hero costume without his delicate tech in mind, and with the whirlwind of starting and then surviving week one of the new school year, he hasn’t been able to spare a minute to get neither the phone fixed nor the costume amended.

Bakugou doesn’t comment on it – in fact, he pulls his sleeve down to hold the thing as if to cushion it, and when he taps the screen it’s with his knuckles. Before Kirishima can ask, the pre-installed voice control AI chirps its distinct jingle and Bakugou tells it to make a new contact, rattling off a long string of numbers.

Even before the AI has confirmed the input, Kirishima is catching the phone chucked rather carelessly at his head. “There”, Bakugou says, starting to climb the stairs to the tracks two steps at a time.

Kirishima doesn’t have much time to process any of that before the telltale rattling of an incoming train sounds above them. “Oh shit”, he breathes, hurrying onto the platform and to the closest door just in time to see the last passenger get out. Once inside, he pumps his fist.

“Hell yeah! Dude, we–”

The person next to him, who is not Bakugou, looks rather startled. What the…? Kirishima turns a full 360 degrees before a knock just inches from his face startles him and he meets Bakugou’s smirk, firmly on the other side of the window.

Not a moment later, the train starts pulling away. Kirishima presses close to the thick, faintly scratched glass to watch Bakugou turn and walk right back where they came from. His hand is raised, the light catching white and glinting on something in his hand.

A phone. Oh, right!

Kirishima swipes across an image of Crimson Riot’s iconic pose to unlock and reads Bakugou Katsuki, having left the tab open in his haste. First things first: With a soft snort and a few swift taps, the name is changed before Kirishima hits the speech bubble icon next to it.

Baku💣💥

bro what the hell (sent 17:14)

but thanks (sent 17:14)

it’s kirishima btw (sent 17:15)

just text me the details whenever 💪🏻 (sent 17:15)

He watches the tick next to his messages turn blue almost immediately and waits. One station passes, then two. By the third Kirishima is sure he’s been left on read and laughs, shaking his head. Of course.

The rest of his way home is spent assuring Sero he has not, in fact, exited life in a flurry of explosions as well as letting his moms know he’ll be home in a few. The next time Kirishima checks his phone is between brushing his teeth and climbing into bed, two unread messages waiting for him.

Baku💣💥

[link] (received 19:35)

6AM tomorrow, don’t be fucking late (received 19:35)

The link leads to a location which his phone matches to a quirk-friendly gym pretty close to the U.A. grounds. Kirishima scrolls through a few images of the facilities with some interest before his brain registers–

6AM. On a Saturday.

Baku💣💥

/dude/ (sent 22:08)

srsly?? (sent 22:09)

😩😩 (sent 22:19)

f @ my sleep schedule but ok (sent 22:25)

Minutes later, Kirishima stares at the near-painful sight of an alarm set to 5AM before he sighs and flops face-down into his pillow. The things he does in the name of friendship.

>>Chapter 2

#my hero academia #boku no hero academia #bnha #mha #kiribaku #kirishima eijirou #bakugou katsuki #bnha fanfiction #this is just kiri and baku existing inbetween canon events tbh #this fic is also on AO3!!#my stuff

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alottamoney · 3 years

Note

This is very frustrating because you can't be messaged.Nevertheless I would like to share something very serious with you. These are strictly speculation. Firstly I would like to clear my position with Taekook.Long story short: I believe them.

Quite recently I stumbled upon a theory about Taekook's coming out process that seemed very logical to me.The summary of the theory is, the art that BTS has been releasing from the beginning,or from 2015-16 to be exact, have been quite evidently inspired by Taekook's journey from discovering themselves, to then losing themselves, to then finally be able to find their happiness and true-self with each other.From Stigma, to DNA,to FAKE LOVE.A lot of BTS songs are talking about a hurtful love filled with sadness.Also, the kind of songs Taekook listens to and covered from the beginning traces that journey from sadness to happiness.From the official songs,Singularity, The truth untold,Heartbeat,House of Cards,Whalien,Make it Right to name a few.It's justified to assume that BANGPD supports them and love them.But if it is so then why the separation from time to time?According to this theory it is to prepare the ARMY very slowly to getting used to Vkook.We have seen since 2017 taekook is used to promote the Album the most,to hype it up,and once the Album's released,it's the watchful eyes again.BangPd was very supportive of Jkwon,a kpop idol who likes drag.But he also told him that you cannot throw a stone into a still lake and expect everyone to be fine with it.It will take a long time to get the water to settle down.What bangpd is doing with Taekook is he is engineering a very long process of getting people used to the message of acceptance through messaging of their album,love myself,be yourself.He is creating a generation that is used to these ideas so that when that stone lands,there will be no ripple.

Now nitpicking time.Tae and BangPD share a mutual dislike for each other.It's not a secret.Because Tae made it obviously clear on many occasions. Everyone in the kpop world knows it.Starting from Taekook's relationship, V was being portrayed as a non-essential member.Idk if it was a coincidence,but taekook is the king of coincidence and the timing somehow matches.It got to the point where he had only 1/2 lines in a song. If you know Tae's journey, you would know and I'm not gonna elaborate the extent to which it was bad.I also get the feeling he doesn't like Kookie's personality(he doesn't respect him) because he has a psychological need for Tae built in him.The golden Child of BTS.If BangPD is supporting Taekook and engineering their smooth coming out,and taekook are in on it,then why do they seem displeased when separation happens?It has happened so many times that there is no other option to consider than them being unhappy with the situation.

My pessimism will take over from this point.It's about money in the end.I personally believe BangPD supports lgbt.Before elaborating on my point I want to present someone else's viewpoint who I had a discussion with.They are even more pessimistic than me.A bit hilarious too.According to them if BangPD really supported Lgbt he would not try to corner Tae like that.It's an unwritten code among lgbt that you hold each other's relationship up despite your personal things.According to them BangPD used all these messages for marketing purposes and used Taekook and the members as a gimmick for it.That's why he was okay with Jikook but not taekook.Tae did not like jikook happening on stage to the extent it was happening but it was given a free pass in the name of it being just a job.According to this person,an lgbt supporting person would never do something like that to a lgbt relationship.Scary stuff.

Now my elaboration : BangPD is not necessarily protecting Taekook or BTS,he is protecting his investment. He wants to engineer a smooth path for their coming out but only under his term?I know before military it's unthinkable and even after that, my opinion is Taekook are not the declaring in a statement type couple.They prove by actions,not by words.That's why I am a bit confused as to what pd's thoughts are regarding Taekook future.All I know is that Tae does not like it when someone instructs him how to behave in his own relationship.He's been throwing middle fingers left and right to whoever can see.If they are not on the same page with Pd's plan for them,then....what?On a sidenote: I am sure JJK and KTH1 mixtapes are getting delayed due to profit sharing issues.You just know they are going to break every record out there.V said in 2019 that his mixtapes were ready for release that year,and he wanted to see how ARMY react to it and then he uttered something very interesting"It's going to be delayed anyway"..then he laughed in the brattiest way possible at the staffs while spoiling 😂 BH couldn't get that sweet sweet money from "Sweet Night".Going back to my previous point,it really seems like everything is connected to money.Does BANGPD want a situation where if Taekook have to come out,whether by accident or something else,he can be there to take advantage of the situation?Like saying he supported them all along,and the money will come in as support for them pours in.Idk how that will a viable situation.For one, Tae will consider eating poison before agreeing to letting PD use his personal relationship for circus,and it's fair to assume BangPD knows it.Then what about the possibility that PD really is like a strict parent,who wants the best for his children even though his methods are torture.Did he think taekook not being a couple was in their best interest?Taekook's interest/BTS' interest?Like I said, I personally believe pd supports lgbt.He doesn't like Tae's personality,his rebellious streak.I could be wrong but would his personal dislike move him to create tough situation for taekook even though he supports lgbt.It seems unlikely because wouldn't it create unhealthy environment within the group,pd must have known this.Or did he think it's just a teenage romance,one push and it will break easily.All of these possibilities because all I have gotten that TK are not happy when their relationship is micromanaged.

Now there's Lisa in JK's Vlive correcting his steps in Euphoria.Guess we are all delulu at this point.I really think that was Lisa though.Don't ask.I'm sorry for this long ask.Please share with me what you think.

Hi anon, I'm happy that you shared your views on Taekook. My opinion on this topic might be disappointing but I'll share anyway.

First, I don't have a coming out theory because I don't think any BTS member would willingly reveal any sort of romantic relationship because of the fan frenzy around them.

I don't analyze MVs, lyrics, and such because these things involve a lot of input from a lot of people: producers, composers, lyricists, designers, stylists, choreographers, etc. It's much more than just BTS sharing personal stories and trying to find clues about the members' private lives from them is a pointless venture according to me. The covers and song recommendations made by Tae and Jungkook in the earlier years, like you pointed out, have more weightage in this regard.

About Bang and his relationship with Tae and Jungkook: I think there is a large gap between fandom perception and what has actually been shown. While I don’t think Tae is Bang’s bias, I also don’t think he dislikes him or is out to sabotage him. It is even possible that him “favoring” Jungkook does not extend beyond his potential marketability. He seems indifferent for the most part to them as individuals. Assuming Tae and Jungkook are in a relationship, I agree that maybe Bang did not take it seriously until he had to. He could also have done a lot more damage than just separate them on screen or cut them out of content so I don’t think he micromanages them outside work (or may he tried and Tae and Jungkook are just that inseparable🤷🏻‍♀️). He might even consider it beneficial, not in a direct financial manner but in that it makes them easier to control and monitor- two less NDAs to worry about. It doesn’t help that Tae and Jungkook are also very erratic in a way that can’t be attributed to company micromanagement. That could explain some inconsistencies, they’re also figuring it out (and they’re a bit dramatic about it in my opinion).

Jokwon hasn't said anything about his sexuality explicitly, I don't know if this counts as an example of Bang's support of the LGBTQ community but he seems open-minded enough and he hasn't said or done anything homophobic. Tae and Jungkook though are part of his biggest cash cow so, while he might not be homophobic it's not a stretch to assume he has different standards for them vs Jokwon who isn't signed to his label. About using the members and Jikook as a gimmick, I think that is simultaneously complicated but also not that deep and it’s probably a separate discussion; in short, I don’t think Bang is thinking farther than taking advantage of and promoting a popular (easier?) ship but it seems to have affected the relationship of the members involved (Disclaimer: I don’t think that all permutations and combinations of relationships between the members have a possibility of being “real”. I don’t think it’s an everyone loves everyone situation.)

Will Bang or the company try to take the credit if Taekook are outed by accident? The way they act, I feel like they are pretty confident that no such thing will happen. In the very minute chance that it does, I think they'll wash their hands of Taekook and let them fend for themselves. I don’t think they’ve done the groundwork to benefit from such a situation nor do I think they are making it easy for Taekook. The narratives put forth in In The Soop and other content do the opposite of cushioning the blow. There’s no overall consistency and it’s really hard to predict how such things will play out, so I don’t know if they have any plans centered around Taekook right now much less back when they discovered that Taekook might not be typical bandmates.

I'm not sure what you meant by that last paragraph but why Lisa?

#taekook #vkook #ask me questions #bts taehyung #bts jungkook

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stoplookingatmeblog · 3 years

Text

twenty-one

It was around that time that all my friends went to work in different chapters of what you can call ‘the filming industry’. P-G shot beer adverts which used some kinds of robotics to get the right shot, flip the bottle right, and then slept with this girl who offered him a paid internship in managing pretty much everything on sets of a bunch of movies, ads and whatnot. My own mother, finally getting out of the convenient but unemancipated housewife life, got a job in supervising the shoot - making sure the costumes were right, the scenography, all that stuff. It was pretty much, you could call it, the time of Life On Set Then - everywhere you went, ads, movies, Netflix series, all of it wrapped up in fake police ‘do not cross’ kind of tape, horses and knights from our beer-bottles riding the streets, and the catering busses with food that was (mother told me) ‘absolute horeshit’. Whatever. The time was of living in a reality created for money, by money, with money, because of money, giant heaps of money, distributed unequally (of course) to all my student friends who didn’t even need the money except for that feel of ‘life on their own’.

I didn’t have a job. Before not working, I worked a couple of cafes, restaurants and the like. That was the vibe. I hated it. Each time I began working in one of these places, I ended up sleeping with someone (first time a guy, and then a girl or woman that was honestly too old for me) and that I hoped marked the end of relationship with gastronomy for me. So I didn’t work, deciding not to decide what to do next, not putting myself on the road to one kind of future or another. I didn’t want life to go anywhere directed. I thought about writing but then I thought about the seriousness and stiffness of writing, whether or not it’s a purely natural act, all that, and decided on trying to squeeze the last drops of childhood (it was adolescence, but adolescence is really a final sigh of childhood) and live what was left of the kid-life to the fullest.

I was twenty-one years old.

A group of friends convinced me to go with them surfing (on my parents’ money), to Victoria, a place which location doesn’t really matter, except that I thought, and still do, that the spot is an actual a piece of heaven on earth. A nearly imaginary point on the increasingly smaller map of this melting planet. My age, too, was melting away like icecream - not having a job and surfing in Victoria, like a teenage pimple, some place that popped up and presented itself in its complete and vulgar form and purpose that you initially didn’t believe and then wept after at that airport because you could never come back. It was an actual speck of heaven on the map.

Even though everyone was younger than us - four of us, me, P-G, J, and Stone (the last one, a tired intellectual I could never get tired of, except you could see he was really both bored and exhausted by being born and living as himself. And his nickname surprisingly not derived from the astronomical amounts of weed he smoked but his actual god-given surname (which he thought of changing, because of his father) - even though everyone who came to Victoria was younger than us by something like three or four years, we surprisingly didn’t have trouble at least getting along, and at most sleeping with girls there. It was even more grand in that way, even if absolutely not true, when you saw yourself in their eyes as someone older and somehow experienced, who somehow kept going on, and somehow knew what was going on. The same lie made most of us, (excluding me, as I mentioned) get a job around that time. In movies and advertisements, with no creative input or control, but like actors that nobody knew about, playing their own invented parts backstage.

I was twenty-one years old and completely aware of both how small and how big that was. I knew about the kinds of things I probably should be doing and that’s why I sometimes did them, for a minute putting my feet into that creek too, but most of the time staying at the bank and just watching. I knew what being twenty-one meant, so I decided to sit back and watch it.

My friends all surfed a lot, which would normally bother me because I did it only for the first week of our month-long stay, but quickly dropped it and decided to stay at the beach and read, and drink and look at some really beautiful girls who passed me by, and for once enjoy that stranger-life. By the second week, after seeing in a restaurant a shirt with a ‘SeXsurfing ‘00’ inscription on it (‘00 being the year we were born, which made us inspect our parents’ lifelines to check for the possibility that at that time some of them were in Victoria), and in the twenty-one-year-old drunk epiphanius inspiration, all four of us decided that we would lead the ‘SeXsurfing ‘21’ lifestyle, not thinking about the ‘42 and the ‘63 and all that shit.

I wasn’t the most successful one when it came to girls, but I can say that the stories I had with them were the most absurd and worthy of telling. Even though it was J who (and he too asked himself why in the world that was) was able to talk with someone new every evening, somehow perhaps betraying my unwanted by nonetheless existing monogamous attachment, I slept with only one girl over the course of the last week, picking her up (or perhaps her picking me up) through a conversation about our shared borderline-sociopathic or rebellious outlook on reality. That was very twenty-one.

Our first meeting (like every meeting since) was going to one of the three tourist shops on the beach and stealing something. And that too was very twenty-one. We were rich enough (our parents were) and far away from home enough to do all that. And we were both young and beautiful enough to want a mugshot we could keep from an arrest by a Victoria Police County Jail or whatever it might have been called. We were never caught but we did steal something every day, and then get drunk in the evening, and then fuck in the night. While my friends had these singular, although beautiful, encounters I would drunkenly burst into the closed restaurant with my temporary girl-friend, steal absolutely vile icecream from the fridge, and then play chess with her on the hotel rooftop at four AM.

The four of us were twenty-one years old and born in the year 2000 which in the same way made sense - our lives were easy to calculate, clearly-definededly started, and even if they had to end with no thing coming back or being repeated, the twenty-one points we scored didn’t mean anything except the joyride and experiment, and meaningless game that it was. We were taking our shot at living, taking our shot at playing, and even when we didn’t win, it still didn’t mean anything. We lived on our parents’ money, or on advertisement money, or cafe-sleep-with-someone-there-and-then-leave-because-you-don’t-need-money money, all of it a mystification, but that those twenty-one years led to nothing we suddenly did not care.

Well, and then being woken up by the police, although surprisingly not because of the icecream dream but for the crime of sleeping in a hammock on the dunes which (I learned) was territory of both the military and part of some natural park.

What made me go home with something in the end were the conversations we had at that time, and in particular the conversations with Stone. Like me, Stone had a feeling of injustice done to him by his family, not having a real father and hanging down on the tired gray hair of our housewife mothers and all, and it made us connect on a level we didn’t with either P-G or J, who were most often busy surfing or thinking about the jobs they had or would one day have, and the girls they met that weren’t my girls so I didn’t care that much.

Stone kept affirming that both of us (although him in particular) were in possession of superior intelligence, which I instinctively tried to discourage him from saying (because I didn’t like sucking my own dick like that), but nonetheless accepted as at least potentially or partially true. In my case, it was not intelligence that me connect with Stone but some kind of a shared understanding of what was going on, that we were twenty-one and what that meant, like a filthy two-pigeon flock of pigeons flying above the waves, knowing the fact of the creature swimming underneath the surface. I thought, and still do, it had to do largely with coming from an unhappy or non-existent family, which really makes you understand that all you do, with even the most meaningful and beautiful things, is just this game that you play but holds no particular meaning beyond it. That and that love, no matter how beautiful or true, can slip away from you like shit.

‘It is completely lonely’, he said one night as we chugged down the bottles of beer drunk rich kids left behind running away from the police - bottles half-empty to me and I think half-full for him, but I still haven’t quite figured that one out, ‘Because you never really see things the way the rest of them do, and each conversation almost the same, you begin to think the only way to be is to be alone’

I agreed. I usually did, being aware that he was slightly more intelligent than me.

‘Back when I was in the Institute, they told me I would have problems with getting out of relationships with people what other people get from other people because what I want is to be understood and that is problematic when you think you want it but also think it’s impossible to ever understand anything’

I too thought you could never understand anything, but had a sense he perhaps only said it to keep me on the same page. Stone chugged down another half-full beer and kept talking. I stayed silent, in part because I would probably say the same things he did.

‘When I was seventeen and worked in a factory, I gained a sort of awareness of how my life would look like’

‘What kind of a factory?’, I asked

‘A cake factory, I would work in the hot section and pull out cakes out of the oven and then fill some of them with cherry, and some of them with apple-cinnamon. And then, because I was seventeen and my work was fundamentally illegal you could say, they’d let me work in the cold section in the night, and I applied sugar coating on these doughnuts, you know’

‘Yeah’

‘And then wrap them up in plastic covering, you know’

‘Yeah, yeah’

‘when the coating was dry, and send them to another section of the factory. And so over and over.’

‘So, what does your life look like because of that, do you think?’

‘I don’t know…’, he took a puff from one of the cigarette butts we found that night in the ashtray, ‘... I guess working in the factory was a kind of almost psychedelic experience that really made me aware what my attitude towards suicide is. You’re young, and you step into that thing, and you do those things because you want to, you don’t need to. Well, you might need to but the need is still your choice, it isn’t honed into your life like… Like I recognised at some point that each cake I filled with the stuffing or coated was an expression of the same kind of thing I did when I smoked weed (a lot), or drunk (a lot) or had sex. That, ultimately, I would never be able to not think about it.’

‘I mean, I think the position we are in - if I understand you correctly - of being relatively well-off - I mean our parents - would make you unable to really plunge into anything that you’re doing, right? Because you ultimately don’t have to do anything, like, really, like here, you always sort of treat it as a game’

‘Not even a game’, he said, and the sun was already slowly creeping up the mountain in front of the shop where we were sitting, ‘But just not a challenge. Because of our intellect, both yours and mine, the only challenge you really face is whether to continue being or not, and the rest is just, you know, stuffing these cakes. But that decision, you know The Myth of The Sisyphus?’

I did.

‘Yeah, so that decision you have to and always will have to make fundamentally alone. And so either go and work - work in any kind of way and do those things and hand them over to others to complete them and you don’t really ask questions (but we can’t do that, neither you nor I) or you step out of the factory and face the living sun, like you’re definitely going to feel after we leave this place, and decide whether you’re more happy alone or with others, or whether you want to keep on handing things to others or not, and all that.’

‘I mean this is the reason I think people shouldn’t have children - I’ve written a piece about it, you should definitely read it - because it’s kind of like juggling with a hot potato and handing it to someone else, so that they have to confront these questions, instead of you, but what you really do is give up.’

At that point I don’t think I understood his cake factory metaphor or didn’t want to believe that I did in the fear that it wasn’t very profound.

‘So what do you think you’d like to actually do?, if you could pick anything at all?’

‘I don’t know’, again inhaling another cigarette butt and handing one to me. And the sun almost rolled its own boulderous weight to the top of the mountain. ‘I think I would like to have a family, especially since meeting May (he was the only one of out SeXsurfing quartet with a girlfriend), I started thinking that maybe I can, and I’m recognising this, give someone something that my father never gave me, hoping to do it right this time’

‘Yeah, I mean that’s literally the ending of my book - have I told you already I’ve written a book? - that the main character thinks he can do it right this time and he of course fucks it up, but I don’t know if I still think that. You know, life is sometimes surprising.’

‘Exactly’, he exalted the smoke, and the sun, previously rolling up the mountain to sunrise, seemed to have fallen back again to the bottom of the mountain, and began its journey anew.

‘I mean, when I was seventeen I worked in a factory…’

‘What kind of a factory?’

‘A psychedelic cake factory’

‘What does that mean?’

‘I worked in this factory and I worked in the hot section and my job was to take the cakes out of the oven and then pump them full of acid, or pot, or sex, or anything you could get your hands on. I guess it was illegal, but then again I was seventeen so my work was all fundamentally illegal.’

‘Where did the cakes later go?’

‘Later? Well in the factory I sent them to another section that I never really saw, but later later to homes, parties, rich people who really wanted to try the kind of stuff their kids were taking, I guess’, he chuckled, ‘It’s interesting, I wonder if my father ever tried one. Maybe in some alternative universe or something. Maybe he ate it and became like me, and dropped everything and went to work in a factory and in that reality they stuffed the cakes with shit like cherry and coated them with sugar, you know, maybe that was the right reality, and later he dropped that job, and went outside of the factory, and made the choice and threw himself under a bus or something.’

‘The right reality.

Maybe.’

Lou from the restaurant (the SeXsufring tshirt we found was in that restaurant) was the kind of man you’d always want to be. We travelled to him for dinner hitchhiking from the beach, in twos, usually P-G and J, and then me and Stone, around seven, or all together if we could sit in the trunk of the car when we travelled in one of the rich-kid rented cabrios, and you would feel the day (same day, every day) a winding road under our feet (like gods, treading on forever) cutting through the mountains and the sunset rolling his boulder somewhere and when you finished eating you’d lie down on the warm good night asphalt with a can and listen to music on one of our phones and wait for someone to take you back to the beach.

But gods that we were, Lou from the restaurant was the kind of man you’d always want to be. It was always a show, too. He would come by people’s tables (our table in particular, because he knew and we knew), this enormous older man dressed in a white sweaty shirt with eyes that looked blind but saw everything, and told us stories about all that he knew, which was pretty much the town, and the town hall, and the restaurant, and everything. And the girls also came there to eat, and everyone too. And everyone knew Lou from the restaurant.

I always ordered things I could not afford because P-G and J were always happy to lend me money, so I ate octopuses and steaks, and everything was everything you’d ever want to eat. There were half-blind, strangely-speckled cats that roamed under the tables, not even expecting guests’ dinner cat-food enjoying the company, like we did, and there were kid cats and mother cats and they would fight on the backdrop of the white-painted summer trees, and some girls would say the cats’ were really poor and imply their lives were wretched and miserable to which I would reply with something like natural selection and they would say that’s a horrible thing to say and then all of us would bite into the steaks that Lou brought us.

After P-G asked him to tell us his version of the legends we heard of from the girls, about his old restaurant, and how someone ruined it and how the paradise moved from Victoria to this new town (I don’t know the name, but it was simply Lou’s town), and it seemed like god himself was telling us the story, dusting it off, driving away the spiders and the snakes, an old book or a chapter in a book that everyone on the beach talked about but it seemed nobody actually heard. Except the four of us.

‘Well so you know I’m really electrician’, he began, ‘but at one moment I tell my wife - let’s build restaurant. So I go to the town hall, here’, and he pointed to a building not ten meters away, ‘and the auction close at 12, I go in at 11:56 and the price is 12000 and I go in and say 60000. So I get the restaurant and everyone crazy and angry at me but I have it.’, I cut out the portion of the steak and chewed on it orgasmically. Everything Lou cooked was good as hell. ‘So I build restaurant…’

‘But not here, right, on the beach?’, P-G, who heard most versions of the story interrupted

‘Yes, the beach. So I build restaurant and first year I make so much money I put it in…’, his broken eyes and mad half-blind english were both looking for the word, ‘like bags, plastic bags, trash bags, and it is so much I count it then in winter, because I have no time in summer. So it is good, so much money, going great. And then in year two thousand and… two thousand just, maybe, I go away for holiday and they call me “your restaurant is destroyed”, I say “no you’re kidding me”, and they say “no, no, they burn restaurant down, come back”. So I come back, and true, the restaurant is destroyed, and you cannot build it again because the law that was there changed so you cannot build now.’, as he was telling the story, Lou’s eyes stayed monotonously bland, bright and staring somewhere beyond. A true restaurateur, he never stopped looking at what was going on at the other tables so at that point he stood up, saying ‘I finish the story in moment’, and went to take care of something in the kitchen.

Then when he finally came back, he said:

‘So where was I now tell me.’

‘Your restaurant was burned down when you were out of the country’, I reminded him

‘Yes. So I move here and build new restaurant, and it is small but people come like before and they even fight for to eat, and they ask “you finished already, let us eat”, and my restaurant again now is doing well, very well, and people come, and still I don’t have space, but people come’

‘And is it going better or worse than in the previous location?’, P-G asked

‘No, there there was more money but here is good. Very good.’, he waved his grubby big hand at all the tables packed with people, girls, others like us. And he laughed with his tongue flying up and down in his mouth in a way some people find repulsive, but to us it was Lou from the restaurant, and Lou from the restaurant could honestly laugh in whichever goddamn way he pleased.

‘Ok, I’m sorry but I have to go again, the people’, he pointed to the kitchen, ‘don’t know what they do’

Our twenty-one year old quartet replied ‘of course, of course’, in unison and for a while we sat there chewing our steaks, and fish and octopus, and another steak, silently, only saying a couple of words of admiration for Lou from the restaurant, the man you’d always want to be.

‘There are snakes and scorpions here’, P-G told me one time we went to the more rocky part of the dunes near where our tent was pitched. ‘So we have to be super careful, especially during the day. In the night they sleep in their wretched little caves or among the rocks, they won’t bother us in our sleep.’

But they will bother us when we’re awake, or when we think we are, but are someplace else, like Lou from the restaurant who went for holidays. You stop paying attention to what is slithering or crawling in the sand and one time as you are looking for a nice and fresh cigarette butt lost in the sand, BAM, and you are dead, like that (Lou’s grubby old hand falling down on the wooden table with a thud).

We were twenty-one years young and on holidays from either a job in advertising or not yet having a job in advertising, and there were girls and waves, and sand, and scorpions, and it was all a joyride so we didn’t really think about that. Well, to be honest, not much could go wrong - another day, like groundhog day, would be more or less the same, always better and better and better. And the shrinking, melting map - warmer and warmer and warmer.

The worst that could happen, we knew, was the police coming in and chasing us away from the dunes (because it was both military grounds and a national park at the same time). But that wasn’t that bad, after all, it was police in paradise, and we felt so much love for them as we did for the scorpios and the snakes and it was just impossible for them to not love us back.

Well, hen one day it happened. It was after I woke up with her, for the first time in two weeks sleeping in an actual bed, but more importantly for the first time in perhaps a year sleeping with a warm body next to my heart, next to me, in my hands, falling asleep with my lip still in her teeth. I woke up in the morning and having the bare level of awareness of my state, that I must stink and will not be fun to be around in the morning (although the fresh air made hangovers impossible - what can I say, it was paradise), I decided to go back to the our camp on the dunes and sleep off the night in a hammock I usually inhabited.

There were usually some locals (working in restaurants and the shops I stole flip-flops from) who like devils crawled out in the night and tried to party with the twenty-one year old us, drinking our booze and smoking our smokes, so when the white-poloed guy woke me up like bad sunrise saying ‘Police, wake up, police’, in sly english and a broken smile, my instinctive reaction was to reply with a classic ‘Shut the fuck up, you’re not police’, but after seeing one of them who definitely was police, with a uniform and gun and all, I complied with their request for my ID and let them write me a pink slip of paper demanding a fine so astronomic that none of them could not possibly believe I’d actually pay it. A younger policeman (also not uniformed) asked me what happened to my neck and, explaining a bruise that could only look like a love bite (and indeed it was), I replied that I was bitten by a wild animal (and indeed I was). He said that with that bruise-like love bite and a half-unbuttoned shirt I looked like a ‘star, rock star, you know’, and we both laughed, and I decided none of it was that bad after all. He looked like a ‘star, rock star, you know’, as well, slightly unfashionable but at the same time completely incredible in bluish sunglasses, a pink polo shirt and slightly silver but naturally black hair. In Victoria, the snake, too, was quite handsome, and what he ruined, at the end of the day, was only an hour of my sleep.

I met Lou from the restaurant - he saw some creature, and its wretched work, destroying his restaurant, but his bright, half-blind, all-seeing eyes burned with nothing but love. And mine, slowly but surely, started to shimmer with it too. The days, or the same day, grew brighter and brighter, and the nights drunker and drunker and the driving drunk on the beach got faster and faster, and more and more people fitting into one car, with no winding-road end in sight.

There was no hangover in Victoria, but going anywhere in the morning was especially difficult, as if the gravitational force doubled, or thriced, or quadrupled.

Stone, who had an admirable ability to make contact with any kind of an alien species of a person (that I really envied), found himself one night in a conversation with a russian maths student (the Russian started university well before the usual age, he was like 17), and when the next day we asked what the two talked about Stone only said ‘I think we are a week away from merging the theory of relativity with quantum mechanics. But give me another bottle and it will be one day.’

The Russian, Stone told us, was one of the ‘exceptionally intelligent’ ones (which Stone, had the habit of identifying and cataloguing into his set of people ‘worth talking to’). The Russian was younger than us - perhaps sixteen or seventeen, as I mentioned which really gave everything he said an additional benefit of seemingly prodigy-like, but also made Stone wonder whether he was a kind of a father-figure to the exceptionally intelligent maths student, that considering leading Stone to the two days later declaration that it was undoable, stemming from Stone’s own desire to redeem his father’s abusive absence et cetera et cetera.

The Russian was so socially inept, that even I was doing quite well (it was not superior intelligence, that barred me from connecting with others, as Stone asserted). A prodigy, the Russian spoke not just maths and Einstein, but quite good english, french (from my limited knowledge I could confirm also quite good), spanish and bulgarian (which I had absolutely no idea about but he sounded possessed and speaking in tongues when he presented his abilities to us). He could play giftedly most instruments you could think of, but playing, he said, never really excited him. He was one of those kids who know and can do so much they would really rather not do it at all.

Because of our groups’ incidental and unexpected but intense interactions with girls, the Russian treated us with an unjustified reverence, but it was not any kind of envy, with a mind like that you don’t really envy anything except being able to rest from what’s in your head and for once have a good night’s sleep. There is a scene in the movie Beautiful Mind where the main character, a schizophrenic, lays out to a girl he likes, very systematically, astrophysically like, why she should sleep with him. I bet that’s what the Russian would do too in the future.

There is another scene in a movie - Interstellar where a group of astronauts looking for humanity’s potential new home (the map contracting, the world getting small since the year ‘00, now twenty-one, then ‘42 then ‘63, warmer and warmer and warmer), the group of astronauts lands on a planet, of constant, unending sea, sees in the distance what they think is the great mountains of a new found land. After a couple of minutes of advancing towards the mountains, Matthew Mcconaughey says in hollywood style ‘these are not mountains. These are waves’ and the four astronauts have to flee the slowly approaching catastrophic demise of the wave, which, due to a fucked-up gravity on the planet, rose to that catastrophic height.

At six AM, after one of the exceptionally drunk nights, with the sun already in full swing, and the alcoholic gravity fucked-up in their heads, Stone and J went to catch a wave bigger than at any time of the day.

While I was sleeping off the night in the hammock, with God knows what dreams, or maybe even no dreams at all, and P-G tossing and turning in the tent, and Stone and J surfing the morning wave, the Russian sat solemnly and alone on the sunrise beach and looked up at the starless sky, wiped clean by one gigantic white star which at that point (he knew, we didn’t know) was so big and close to the contracting map that it sucked out some of the time and some of the space from the air, making the tide rise more than at any time of the day. He knew why that was and we didn’t know but we were looking at the same thing, the earth getting warmer and warmer and warmer, and the wave growing higher and higher and

And we would sometimes go away from Victoria, to a nearby town where the waves were always bigger and we marvelled at how they whip-cracked, splash-fell and rocked against the concrete-lined shore and drowned the air underneath with all their might, worked it into white foam. He knew and we didn’t, and while we lay down with girls looking into the stars and talking about constellations (only to then laugh about how drunk and absurd it is to think three stars can possibly represent the shape of a great bear or big dipper or any kind of stupid shit like that), The Russian tried to crack the code written in the stars. Looking for a new home for us. The four of us walked the shore and wondered about the origin of colorful pebbles spat out by the lapping magnificent waves, and he could probably tell us everything about each of them, trace lines from each falling star to each stone we cast mindlessly into the sea.

He could explain the shifting realities when the morning came, and why, at seventeen, you have to do certain things and not the others, and now, too, why we did all those things, why we worked in psychedelic factories and sung our hearts out to the bass of the speaker. Why we ran after girls beach-length and back, why we hitchhiked to Lou’s restaurant, why we came to Victoria in the first place, why we had jobs in advertising, why we were twenty-one, but Stone was right about one thing - the Russian was ‘fundamentally alone’

There is another scene in Interstellar, the next one after the giant wave, where Matthew Mcconaughey comes back to the spaceship waiting in the orbit of a water-mountain-these-are-not-mountains planet, discovers that time, tied with an invisible string to the fucked-up gravity) passes differently on the surface of the planet, in its orbit, and in general completely differently back on the contracting earth’s map where he left his children. How old were at the time he left in that movie - I can’t remember, let’s say twenty-one. Having spent only half an hour on the surface, he now plays the received messages from back home and sees his children’s lifetimes growing older and older and older and finally sees them surpassing them in age. He breaks down in tears and I suppose you could say he, too, was ‘fundamentally alone’

The Russian, Stone told us, was taught privately by a tutor who’s line of mathematical origin could be traced all the way to Gauss or someone. He could speak Einstein, french and spanish, and although his tongue got tied in human conversations, one day, as we drank beer on a small patch of grass in front of the local hotel, he proclaimed there was something very important we wanted to tell us. Concluding that the Russian was most definitely possessed by something (you could tell when he spoke bulgarian), we all decided listening would do no harm but at worst would be so incredible that we would not believe it.

‘You guys are now young and strong and you surf and all, but seriously, you have to do sports’, he began, ‘I don’t mean just any sport but something that really puts weight on your muscles. Like rowing or pumping on the bench, you have to train and now prepare for the rest of your life. And cardio, too, it will save you from heart disease and such.’ - and you can imagine mine, our surprise and feeling of absurdity that a being like that was uttering sentences such as these at that moment.

And that was it, the only normal set of words he ever uttered in front of us, which in his mouth was not normal at all - this man, trained by Gauss himself, had one recommendation to us and it was to do sports because it will help us to stay healthy in the future.

In space, the state of weightlessness makes the unused muscles grow weak, and the astronauts have to use the special gym machines installed on their spaceship so that their bodies don’t entropy, and heart is a muscle, too, I think, and I wondered, briefly, after what the Russian told us, if it too can die with no gravity. And it seems that time is a muscle too. It contracts and then it unfolds, it squeezes and releases and lets you breathe and suffocates, and ultimately things seem neither good nor bad but just what they ended up being. Time can definitely die away and fall from you like a dead leaf. Or it can end up a pretty stone under the feet of a giant wave. You don’t feel how it squeezes and unfolds, how it lays you down in a warm bed in the arms of someone you didn’t ever know but who reminds you of everything.

Matthew Mcconaughey - seeing messages from the future, past, present, now, never, always, and breaking down into tears, his heart breaking from weightlessness.

I was twenty one and I knew what it meant.

And in a year I would be twenty two, and in another year twenty three, and in three years twenty four. And the astrology girls, going with us skinny dipping in the midnight water, they will disappear somewhere under the waves and start slowly fading away from our lives like an unused muscle.

J loved quoting this one scene from Matthew Mcconaughey's first movie:

‘You know what I love most about college girls? I get older - they stay the sameeeee age’

And each time he said it, he laughed with the greatest, purest laughter you could find on this now planet.

‘And I got caught one time’

‘For what?’

‘Well, maybe two, but only one time involved the police. Second time. And that was me trying to steal an album, well, it was called Steal This Album’ - I was lying, although I did also steal that album, but having trouble with the police was for an attempted theft of headphones though that didn’t sound as sexy. And for some reason which made me feel real good I was flirting with the most beautiful girl under the good sun by us recounting our thefts both real or invented.

We both quickly settled that we had some borderline immoral thread running through our veins but drew the line at actually killing someone. We were rich and young enough to say those things and be all sexy about it. We knew we didn’t have to steal but arranged we should do it together and some point (‘ok, why not tomorrow?’) and it was beer first, and then flip flops the next and then another day a pink swimming mattress from the backseat of some rich and young and abandoned rented cabrio. And we took it swimming, drunkenly in the night. Rich and young, and full of stars.

We stepped into the calm sea, small waves, shallow, and took off our clothes, most of them, and took our pink stolen mattress against the waves, her covering small breasts with only her hands, our sociopathic personalities meeting somewhere under ridiculous notions of astrology. We kissed, and that was that.

The mattress lay once again abandoned (has someone left the rented cabrio just as we left the shore?) where our friends would say it was ridiculous to steal it. We only stopped kissing when she said we have to look for the damn pink abandoned thing (apparently it was rented by one of her friends) after which we dived deep into the shallow sea.

I remembered all those things other than sex best. The kiss in the sea. The conversation about stealing shit, the hand covering breasts. And after sex, the interruptions of it by my taking sips from a big bottle of booze, and playing chess on the rooftop of the place we stole from.

‘And I got caught one time’

‘For what?’

‘Stealing mattresses, and flip flops, and beer, but it was good, the time I did treated me well’

‘How long were you in for?’

‘Hmm I don’t know, around eight decades’

‘Woah, how old were you when you got caught?’

‘Like, twenty-one’

‘Shit, but you say it was good?’

‘Yeah. It was good life’

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robotslenderman · 3 years

Text

Kids argue to understand. Adults don’t.

Kids: I wish I could tell you that this is something all adults in their 20s figure out once they become adults, but that’s just not the case. We’re too busy living our lives to revolve our thinking around the occasional teenager we run into and what might be going through their heads. Sorry.

Anyway a realisation I came to today is that I was arguing with what I thought was a complete moron on Reddit that I started to think was a kid. I pointed it out to the other exasperated people who were telling this person “What the fuck is wrong with you” and when I did, they went, “Hey, I didn’t think about that, you might actually be right.”

And then I broke down why I thought they were a kid, and I thought it would be useful for both kids and adults so I’m rewriting it here.

It basically boils down to the title -- kids argue in order to understand and ask questions. Adults argue to convince and educate. Arguing with a kid will teach them, but it will not teach an adult.

So at first glance it’s hard to tell the difference between an adult that doesn’t give a shit what you’re thinking and a kid who genuinely does and is operating in good faith.

Kids do not have the social skills to ask questions in a way that adults understand is in good faith. No, kids, this doesn’t mean you get off scot-free, because you gotta sit down and learn them if you want to engage with adults and have them take you seriously; this is not a skill you will magically develop once you hit 18 and it’s on you to work on it.

But us adults can also learn to spot kids on the internet and then change how we interact with them and encourage them to develop those skills. Again, the onus isn’t on us, we’re not their parents. But a bit of gentle advice can’t hurt.

So how can you tell if the person who’s arguing with you is a(/nother) kid?

Let’s say someone who’s either a potential idiot or an actual kid who doesn’t know better tells you “jet fuel can’t burn hot enough to melt steel beams.”

So you tell them they’re wrong and why.

And they keep fucking arguing with you.

An adult operating from bad faith will make more statements than questions, and will do so in defence of other statements they have made. “No, jet fuel CAN’T burn hot enough, here are links from several dodgy and obviously uncredible websites.”

An adult operating in good faith, on the other hand, will concede your point. “Huh, that evidence looks solid” or “you put it in a way I didn’t consider” or even “that looks good, but I still have questions.” (<--- Kids, pay attention, this is what you should be striving to do when engaging with people online.)

A kid, on the other hand, will often not acknowledge when an adult has refuted their claim; the adult has proven the kid’s point as wrong, so the kid will often simply no longer defend it. Kids are trained to simply nod and shut the fuck up when an adult has adequately corrected them, and have not yet internalised how important it is to validate that the other person’s view is a solid one. So if a kid thinks you have a point, they’ll do what they do in real life -- drop the matter. (Kids, when you are engaging with people online, you don’t want to do this. You have to show adults you are listening, we will not magically know, especially online when we might think we’re engaging with another adult or can’t see your body language of you nodding in agreement as you read.)

Okay, so you’ve given them your evidence, and the person on the other end of the screen thinks it’s potentially but still has questions before they actually accept what you say. How does a kid VS an adult usually ask you to elaborate, or asks questions?

Kids will keep on fucking arguing. They don’t have the social skills yet -- they’ll just argue. Again, when a kid argues they’re trying to understand, but if the other person thinks this person is an adult, they will take it as the kid not listening because when adults argue, it’s to convince and educate. An adult will see this argument as an attempt to tell the adult they are wrong, not the sincere, good-faith attempt it usually is to better understand the adult.

So what does an adult do when they have questions? They just fucking ask. But unlike a kid, they know how to ask so as to reassure the person they’re talking to that they are genuinely interested in what they have to say.

The way they do it is the key, here -- an adult knows how to word it in such a way as to get across the good faith attempt.

Kid: “But jet fuel burns at X temperature, and steel melts at Y temperature.”

What another kid will hear: “Huh, I thought jet fuel burns at X temperature. If that’s the case, then it couldn’t melt steel because steel melts at Y temperature. So if what you’re saying is true, what would have to be going on to allow the fire to get hot enough to melt steel?”

What the adult hears: “This person thinks jet fuel can only burn at X temperature, and therefore think my argument is wrong and they will not listen to me because they think I’m wrong and therefore not worth listening to.”

Then we have:

Adult operating in bad faith: “But jet fuel burns at X temperature, and steel melts at Y temperature.”

What another adult hears: “This person thinks jet fuel can only burn at X temperature, and therefore think my argument is wrong and they will not listen to me because they think I’m wrong and therefore not worth listening to.”

What a kid hears: “Huh, I thought jet fuel burns at X temperature. If that’s the case, then it couldn’t melt steel because steel melts at Y temperature. So if what you’re saying is true, what would have to be going on to allow the fire to get hot enough to melt steel?”

And then we have:

Adult operating in good faith: “Huh, I thought jet fuel burns at X temperature. If that’s the case, then it couldn’t melt steel because steel melts at Y temperature. So if what you’re saying is true, what would have to be going on to allow the fire to get hot enough to melt steel?”

What the adult hears: Exactly what they said. They have acknowledged that they’re struggling to reconcile how this works, and are asking you to clarify.

What the kid hears: Exactly what they said. They have acknowledged that they’re struggling to reconcile how this works, and are asking you to clarify.

And this is why there’s such friction between adults and teenagers. Teenagers see the way they’re communicating as genuine attempts to understand, whereas adults just see it as insulting their intelligence.

And it’s so easy for kids to go “well they’re adults and have better social skills, they should know better!”

Except a lot of the time we don’t know better because this is shit we just absorbed from adulting and weren’t actively taught (because one of the first things you learn as an adult is that if you want to learn things, it’s your job to learn it), and when we do, we often don’t give enough of a shit to sit down and talk you through this, because it’s not our fucking job and we have other shit to do. The truth is, we don’t care you’re mad at us for not acting like your parent, and we actually find it rather creepy. Like, really creepy and inappropriate. Dude!! Boundaries!!

And honestly it just links back to how fucked up the education system is that kids grow up actively thinking that it’s every adult’s duty to bestow knowledge upon them regardless of what they want to do. And you can be mad at us adults for making that system, but the truth is that 99.9% of us didn’t have any input and continue to have no input and are too busy living our own damn lives anyway to overhaul something that teaches you things you’ll unlearn in a few years once you’re out of it anyway.

#Dusty has opinions #long post #this essay brought to you by: Vyvanse #I always write my essays in the morning Jesus when will I be FREE #I've written like THREE this morning ugh #I've been awake for four hours and nothing but ESSAYS #generational commentary

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flightfoot · 4 years

Text

Divergent Points: ML Salt - Marinette vs. Saltinette: Chameleon Edition

AO3/FFN

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

Marinette struggled against her copy’s grip, finally forcing her way free - but it was too late.

Instead of a grassy park they stood in a black void, seemingly floating on nothing.

Her heart stopped.

If they weren’t with her-!

“What did you DO to them?!”

‘Marinette’ stared back coldly. “Why do you care so much? It took Adrien literally seeing that you were Ladybug for him to figure out that he supposedly ‘loved’ you. He let Lila and Chloe get away with their actions instead of exposing Lila and controlling Chloe. Alya had the nerve - the NERVE! - to say that we might be jealous of Lila. And she said to check her sources BUT DIDN’T DO SO HERSELF. And Nino - well, he specifically hasn’t done much, but the whole class - except Adrien I guess, but that makes him not exposing Lila even WORSE - fell under Lila’s spell including him, and he didn’t stop the rest of the class from treating you like crap!”

...Huh?

What the hell?

Most of it was just a bad spin on what’d happened, but some of that was entirely false.

“What do you mean about Alya checking sources? And Nino and Alya didn’t fall in line with Lila! Not after she came back to class at least.”

Her copy snorted. “Oh right. You’re not from that universe, so you wouldn’t know.”

“That universe?”

Did she mean one of these manufactured worlds?

“The universe you come from is an offshoot, a reflection, of the Source universe. It separated off when your friends learned each other’s secret identities and has been steadily diverging ever since. In the Source universe, Lila’s return went a little differently.”

She conjured up a screen, showing Marinette arriving late in school one day to find the seating arrangement changed, but…

This wasn’t right.

“Why did so many people move?”

‘Marinette’ put a hand to her lips. “You’ll see.”

Marinette looked at Alya questioningly. “At the back? Why? What's going on?”

Nino leaned over, answering her. “Well since she's got a hearing issue, there's no way she can sit at the back of the class, right? Which means she needed a place up in the front.”

Which was when Alya took over, “So to make it work Ivan sat next to Mylene, Nate sat next to Alix, besides she came up with the idea of moving Nino here, so now we get to spend more time together.”

No wonder Alya’d agreed to it; it gave everyone what they wanted seemingly, besides possibly Marinette. Being at the back of the class wasn’t the end of the world by any means, but not getting to be with her friends would’ve sucked.

“You see?” ‘Marinette’ hissed. “They didn’t care. So long as everyone got to spend time with their partners or friends, you being left alone didn’t matter. She didn’t even seem to consider your feelings, just assuming you’d be okay with it!”

Well… she wasn’t totally wrong. But-

“Someone would’ve had to sit alone.”

“But why did it have to be YOU?”

She sighed. It didn’t have to be her. It could’ve been anyone with the way so much of the classroom had been reshuffled. But everyone else had at least conceivably had the chance to provide input, while she-

“Because I was the one who was late. Everything needed to be reshuffled by the time Lila arrived so she’d have a place to sit.

Would I have preferred if someone had volunteered to give up their seat with their friend instead? Yes. But they have as much right to sit with the people they want as I do.”

‘Marinette’ growled at her. “This is US we’re talking about though! Not THEM!”

Seriously?

“What difference does that make?”

“We deserve better!”

She waved her hand, causing the scene to continue playing. “Maybe the rest of this will persuade you of their horribleness, of their utter irredeemability.”

“Who is this ‘she’?” Marinette asked.

Just then Ms. Bustier entered the classroom, a familiar - and unwelcome - figure behind her.

“Good morning, students. I'm sure you've all heard by now, but Lila's home from her trip to Achu and she's back in school with us again.”

“Yippee,” Marinette muttered.

“Hi everyone!” Lila waved at the rest of the class.

“Hi Lila!” the class greeted her back.

“Oh, a seat in the front row! You all remembered my hearing issue! You're such sweethearts, all of you.”

“Those gullible IDIOTS actually believed her!” ‘Marinette’ seethed. “No paperwork. No questioning of her needs. She just says she has a hearing issue and everyone rushes to accommodate her. They should’ve demanded to see documentation before making you move! Should have viewed any request with suspicion and treated her like the LYING FRAUD SHE IS!”

Ok now THAT was a step too far. She could see being incensed at the time, knowing she was almost certainly faking it, but from an outside perspective?

“Demanding proof of a disability in order to justify such a small accommodation? I know she was faking, but… they didn’t. What if she HAD been telling the truth?”

“But she wasn’t!”

“They didn’t know that.”

“Well they should have!”

“Would you demand every student have paperwork on the first day back to class?”

“Just for Lila.”

“That’s not how this works.”

‘Marinette’ glared at her, playing the video again.

“You have a hearing problem, Lila?” Marinette asked suspiciously, arms crossed.

“Yes, I suffer from tinnitus, a constant ringing in my left ear. I've had it ever since the sound of an airplane engine burst my eardrum on the runaway when I was saving Jagged Stone's lost kitten.”

“Isn’t Jagged Stone’s pet a crocodile?”

“Now it is, yes. But he had a kitten until he found out he was allergic to it.”

Lila turned towards Adrien. “The best part is, since you're such an excellent student, Adrien, you'll be able to help me catch up with all the schoolwork I missed while I was traveling with my parents. Would you do that for me?”

Ugh. She hated the subtle manipulation Lila used on Adrien there. Just ‘assuming’ he’d help her, acting like it was a given, and only then ‘asking’? Not leaving much room for him to say no.

Her lies were mediocre, but her manipulation worked.

“Sure, Lila”, Adrien agreed.

Marinette turned to Miss Bustier. “Miss Bustier, why do I have to sit in the back now?”

“Do you have any trouble hearing or seeing, Marinette?”

“Uh, I… I…”

She winced. It must’ve sucked being put on the spot like that. But she had a point.

“You see! Even Miss Bustier’s targeting you!”

“She had to send someone to the back,” Marinette pointed out tiredly. “And they probably wouldn’t have been happy about it either.”

Adrien stood up. “My eyesight and hearing are good. I'll sit in the back of the class and you two can sit up front. I don't mind.”

She perked up. Seriously? Adrien would willingly volunteer to separate from his friends, from some of the little time he had with them, just in order to help her?

Her heart warmed at the thought. She’d never ask Adrien to do that, wouldn’t want to be responsible for decreasing what little opportunity he had to spend time with his friends, but it was still sweet.

“No!” Marinette and Lila both shouted.

Adrien looked at them, seeming taken aback.

Ah. So he hadn’t picked up on the true cause of their conflict. His solution would’ve worked fine if the cause of their disagreement was really about seating position. But it wasn’t.

It was about who got to sit near Adrien, and in her own case, near Alya as well.

Lila looked down sadly. “My return is causing so much trouble, maybe I should have just stayed on the other side of the world. If Marinette has an issue too, then I should be the one to go and sit in the back. It's okay.”

Really laying it on thick huh? But if she hadn’t known about Lila’s penchant for lying already, she would’ve thought she was sincere.

The class glaring at her after Lila’s sad statement hurt, but she could see why they did. Making a fellow classmate feel bad for no apparent reason wasn’t looked well upon. It must’ve seemed pretty odd to her classmates that she’d be so adamant about this; from what they knew of her, it didn’t fit.

The on-screen Marinette started some damage control.

“I don't actually have any trouble seeing or hearing. I mean…”

“Good, so there's no problem then. You sit here, Lila, Adrien, you stay where you are and, Marinette, you sit in the back row.”

Marinette trudged to her new seat, away from her friends.

“They ABANDONED you! Abandoned us! Isolated us! All for that snake Lila. They cared more about making sure that this new girl wasn’t going to be at a disadvantage because of a supposed disability than about our feelings! How DARE they!”

“...that really doesn’t sound so flattering out loud you know.”

‘Marinette’ growled at her. “Oh that’s not the end of it. Just look at what happened at lunch! Alya wasn’t the one going after Lila in the Source universe; YOU were, and without backup!”

A group of Marinette’s classmates gathered around Lila, bringing her food.

“That’s for you Lila!”

“Thank you, you’re so sweet!”

“Here’s your appetizer Lila!”

“And I’ve got your main course!”

“I’ll fetch your dessert!”

Lila looked around at everyone bringing her food. “I’m sorry I can’t carry my own tray. It’s almost impossible with this sprained wrist.”

Marinette rolled her eyes. Well so far it was pretty much the same as in her own universe. She was glad her classmates were so kind and helpful to someone supposedly in need, but it was really grating to see Lila take advantage of them like that.

Kim reached between herself and Alya for some food. “Sorry,”

Marinette looked at Alya and Nino. “Lila's totally lying. She made up that whole tinnitus story just so she could sit next to Adrien, and her sprained wrist's completely bogus, too.”

Alya just seemed confused. “I don't get it, Marinette. You barely know Lila. Why all the hate?”

Funny to see Alya defending Lila considering she hated her more than anyone in their own universe, but with her not knowing Lila was a liar? It made sense. It really looked like she was out to get Lila for no apparent reason.

“Fine, I'll tell you everything.” Marinetted dragged Alya and Nino to a separate table, away from the others. “You remember Lila when she first came to school right after the summer break? She was only here for one day and then she left on that 'round-the-world trip. Everyone was captivated by her. Something just felt off to me. So I followed her.”

...Oooh.

Well THAT certainly wasn’t going to convince them she was on the up-and-up with her motives.

She’d had better reasons for following them in reality of course, with needing to retrieve the Miraculous Grimoire and with Lila lying about her personally, saying she was friends with Ladybug, but leaving out those details?

It really did sound like she was out to get Lila for reasons that weren’t all that rational.

And with Lila flirting with Adrien and Alya already knowing that she could go a little overboard regarding him…

Somehow she didn’t think this would end with Alya and Nino agreeing with her.

“What?!” Alya and Nino replied, shocked.

“She lies with every breath!”

Nino frowned. “Wait. You eavesdropped on Lila and Adrien? That's not cool.”

Alya took a more analytical approach. “A good reporter always verifies her sources. Can you prove she doesn't actually know Ladybug?”

She winced. Following someone and eavesdropping on them in order to dig up dirt on them based on no actual evidence? Definitely didn’t sound great.

At least Alya was still willing to listen so long as she could provide evidence to back up her assertion. She didn’t dismiss her claims out of hand.

Unfortunately she couldn’t give that evidence, not right then at least.

Though she could always appear as Ladybug and tell Alya what went down between her and Lila. Maybe use the excuse that she happened by the bakery and Marinette told her everything? Wouldn’t be the first time she’d used her civilian identity to set up a meeting between her superhero identity and Alya.

‘Marinette’ turned to her, grinning triumphantly. “See? SEE?! She insisted on us providing evidence, on verifying our sources, but didn’t do that with Lila when she posted her interview before! She’s a hypocrite and a bad reporter by her own admission.”

That was a little much. Yes Alya should have checked before posting that interview and what she was saying here didn’t match up to her actions before, but that went too far.

“Alya just got a little carried away that time. It happens, especially with wanting it to be true so badly.”

“But she’s a HYPOCRITE! And she used that hypocrisy against US! How can you be okay with being friends with her?!”

“She only asked to make sure my statement - or well, that Marinette’s statement I guess - was based on facts and not an assumption. You seriously think it’s worth breaking a friendship over?”

“I think it’s worth destroying all her relationships and future prospects over. Seriously, what reporter insists on checking sources and then doesn’t check with her own source?! She should be exiled from the industry forever, her reputation in tatters, harassed nonstop on the streets and on the web and she’d DESERVE IT!”

“...She’s fourteen. Also what planet are you living on and do all reporters there adhere to that standard? Because that’s definitely not true of all news organizations here. Retractions exist for a reason.”

“And every adult in her life can see her for the fraud she is and get her arrested for her violent and cruel actions toward us!”

“When does THAT happen?!”

“Right here! She asked to check our sources! She didn’t believe us without question!”

“And that means she’s violent?!”

“It means that she’s a horrible, abusive enough person that she might as well be!”

...Where did this thought progression even come from. Like, seriously.

Marinette stuttered, not sure how to answer Alya’s question without exposing her identity. “Well I–uh… I… I… Okay! You want proof she's lying?” She balled up a nearby napkin. “Hey Lila! You forgot your napkin!” and threw it at her.

Lila caught it with her ‘sprained’ hand.

Marinette pointed at Lila and loudly declared “Ha, ha! See that? It's obvious she doesn't have a sprained wrist.”

The class gasped, turning to look at Lila in dismay.

Lila promptly dropped the napkin, clutching her hand. “Uh, ow! Once when I was in India, I witnessed someone getting their eye gouged out by the corner of a napkin. If I hadn't caught it, this napkin could've injured Max. I didn't have a choice. Ow!”

Well that had to be the stupidest lie she’d told yet. Max was even wearing glasses, it couldn’t have gotten to his eyes even if that WAS true!

“See?! That proved conclusively that Lila was lying, and they STILL ate up her lies!”

She tried to think of a nice way to phrase this. “That was… definitely dumb, but… well even without that excuse, it wouldn’t prove much. She said her wrist was sprained, not paralyzed, her being able to move it is normal, and catching something thrown at you is just a reflex.”

“But they had the gall to get upset at us afterwards!”

Max looked at Lila in awe. “Lila, you saved my eye! You sacrificed yourself for me.”

“Why wouldn't I, Max? Ouch. You're my friend.”

Sabrina spoke up. “We'll take you to the nurse's office.”

Mylene looked over towards Marinette. “Are you proud of yourself?”

Kim took over. “Lila's in even more pain now, all because of you.”

But Lila spoke up, supposedly in Marinette’s defense. “No, no, don't blame Marinette. She was just trying to give me a napkin. Right, Marinette?”

Marinette just stomped away, gritting her teeth and growling.

“See? SEE?! They turned on us!”

She grimaced. “Yeah, but-”

“YES!” ‘Marinette’ shouted triumphantly. “They’re terrible people just waiting for an opportunity to pounce, to mob us at the slightest sign of noncompliance, to shame us for merely trying to get to the TRUTH! We’ve been with them longer, we’ve helped them so much, and they’d dare take LILA’S side?! They should know that if I do something to hurt someone, OBVIOUSLY they deserve it.”

She did not sound like this. The way her counterpart onscreen acted made sense in the heat of the moment with already being riled up from Lila’s previous actions, but with what her classmates had been privy to?

No.

They were guilty of being gullible, that much was true.

But with what they saw of her feud with Lila?

She wouldn’t be happy either if she saw someone, even a friend she knew well who was usually kind and compassionate, targeting a new girl who said they had disabilities.

Attempting to publicly ‘expose’ such a girl for supposedly faking them as well as for lying about other things to make herself seem more impressive? If she wasn’t doing it in a blatantly harmful way? Would seem like overkill, like it would have a lot more potential to cause more harm than it would prevent, even if the accuser was right.

Maybe she would’ve approached differently, taking aside the accuser if they were a friend of hers. Ask them more about what was really going on since that behavior wouldn’t fit what she knew of them.

Which looking at it, was pretty much what Alya actually did regarding her beef with Lila; asking her why she hated Lila so much if she barely knew her.

She just couldn’t give Alya a good answer without exposing her secret identity.

Alya and Nino at least didn’t join in with the scolding afterwards. Probably too shocked at what went down. It must’ve been really confusing from their perspective, seeing her lash out like that at someone who from all appearances seemed conciliatory.

“It would’ve been nice for me if they’d backed me up. If they’d just known I had to have a good reason, even if I couldn’t prove it.

But it’s not something I’d expect. I’m not infallible, and I wouldn’t want them to target someone on my behalf on just my word that they were bad without backing it up. What if I was the new girl and someone did the same thing to me? Someone who’d been there longer, who was better established, who was popular and even friendly with most other people?”

‘Marinette’ scoffed. “Then a bunch of your new classmates would perceive your inherent worth and crush that bully like the insect they were! Our skill, our strength shines through and while some fools might not perceive it or try to control us for their own sakes, enough of them would see what a shining star we are that they’d fall all over themselves to hang on our every word!”

Yeesh. She really didn’t have much sense of outside perspectives, huh?

Or humility.

Or the world outside herself as a whole.

“You know you sound a lot like Chloe?”

“Good! Chloe can see our REAL worth.”

Maybe that was why her doppelganger liked Chloe so much. They shared a similar attitude.

“You know none of this is convincing me that everyone else’s treatment in those other worlds is remotely justified, right?

‘Marinette’ glared. “I don’t know why not. This is bad enough. But if you really want to see more… well. Lila threatened you in the bathroom in this universe, and unlike in yours, it was JUST us by ourselves. An akuma even threatened us, but we managed to ward it away.

More importantly for this though, Adrien tried to talk to Lila.”

Adrien ran into Lila. “Hey Lila.”

Lila immediately started jabbering at him. “Adrien, we'll have to figure when you're gonna help me catch up on all the schoolwork I missed. I also heard you play piano, my uncle's the great pianist Chuch Boroughchuck. He wanted to teach me when I was little, but I had to stop playing because of arthritis. But when my wrist gets better, I'd love for you to give me some lessons.”

Marinette’s eyes rolled so hard she was surprised they didn’t fall out of the back of her head. That might’ve worked with everyone else, but Adrien knew for a fact that the whole ‘pretending to be related to famous and influential people’ thing was a trick she pulled to lure people in. And she KNEW he knew that. And yet she still thought it’d work? Points for confidence she guessed.

Adrien was having none of it, though he wasn’t being confrontational about it either. “Lila, I'm perfectly happy being friends with you, and I'll gladly help you catch on your schoolwork, but please don't lie to me like you did last time with Ladybug.”

“Ladybug’s the liar.”

“I'm not judging you, Lila, but instead of making friends you're going to turn everyone against you. You can tell me if there's something bothering you. I can help. But you need to be honest with me.”

She smiled. It wouldn’t work with Lila - whatever her issues were, they were too deep for just reaching out a hand in kindness and understanding to work, there needed to be something more - but she admired that he tried. His kindness and understanding, his willingness to reach out were part of the reason she’d fallen in love with him after all.

The first day she met him - well, met him as a civilian - she’d jumped to conclusions and accused him of something he didn’t do, not letting him explain. But still, he didn’t get upset at her. He just caught up with her later, explaining as sincerely as he could that he didn’t do it, even showing a vulnerable piece of himself to her, telling her how he’d never had friends before, how new it was to him.

In that moment when she’d caught a glimpse of his heart, he’d captured her own.

Lila didn’t take it well. “Are you trying to be some superhero lecturing me just like Ladybug did? Well thanks, but no thanks. Ugh.” She stormed off.

Adrien called after her. “I'm still here if you need help catching up with your schoolwork!”

“Ugh! He was NICE to her. He should’ve called her out for her stunts, for her persecution of us. He should’ve torn her to shreds!”

“Did he even realize she was targeting us? He only saw that bit at the beginning with the seat rearrangement and with how surprised he looked when offering to move to the back instead didn’t work, I don’t think he figured out the true cause of conflict.”

“He should have at least been filled with righteous fury about her lies, same as us! But he lets her get away with them instead!”

She frowned. “Let her get away with them? He asked her not to lie anymore and encouraged her not to.”

“But he didn’t publicly tear her down and expose her in front of everyone!”

“He’s not that sort of person, especially when he doesn’t even know she’s intentionally malicious. It sounds like he honestly just thinks she needs friends.”

‘Marinette’ muttered a bit and fast-forwarded.

The class gathered around Lila again, listening to her tales.

“Of course Ladybug saved my life. She never misses an opportunity to rescue her best friends.”

“Didn't your tinnitus give you vertigo when you went up the Eiffel Tower?” Max asked her inquiringly.

At least Max was asking questions.

“Oh no. Ladybug knows me so well that she brought me an earplug to stick in my right ear.”

Watching from several meters away, Marinette perked up “Right ear?! Did she say right ear?! This morning she said that the ringing was in her left ear! I've got her this time!”

Same as what went down in her own universe then, except she said it instead of Alya.

And judging by Adrien’s expression, his response was likely to be similar.

“Are you going to tell everyone?”

Yep. She figured as much.

Marinette seemed baffled. “'Course I am. Lila is—”

“A liar. Yes, I know. But do you really think exposing her will make things better? If you humiliate her, she'll just be hurt more. Making a bad guy suffer has never turned them into a good guy.”

Not that different from her own universe, but there, she could say his way of thinking was understandable but flawed, considering what he went through with his father. It was just flawed in trying to apply that same mindset to the Lila situation.

Here, she wasn’t sure she could even say it was flawed from what he knew of the situation. He didn’t know she was an active threat, and while she’d told some tall tales and taken advantage of people’s kindness, inconveniencing them, she hadn’t actively, obviously hurt someone that he’d be aware of. In her own universe she'd been afraid of Lila making outlandish promises that hurt people greatly when they fell through, but that never actually came to fruition. She made up stories for prestige, but not much more than that. They were keeping an eye on that situation though, or at least, Alya and Nino were.

Lila continued spinning her lies. “Ladybug and I are like two peas in a pod!”

“So we just stand by and let her lie?”

“As long as you and I both know the truth, does it really matter?”

Marinette turned back to look at Lila and smiled, expression softening. “You're right, maybe it's not such a big deal.”

‘Marinette’ paused the video, her face stormy. “He sided with HER, with just letting her bully and terrorize and even STOPPED US FROM STOPPING HER! HE WAS ACTUALLY OKAY WITH LETTING HER CONTINUE HURTING US AND THE PEOPLE AROUND HER! HE’S THE REASON SHE’S ALLOWED TO RUN FREE! HE HAS THE TOOLS TO STOP HER AND DIDN’T DO IT AND DIDN’T EVEN STEP OUT OF THE WAY AND LET US TRY TO PUBLICLY HUMILIATE AND SHAME HER AGAIN! HIS NEGLIGENCE MAKES HIM RESPONSIBLE FOR ALL THE HARM SHE COULD CAUSE!”

“I don’t think pointing out the inconsistency with the tinnitus would’ve worked considering how she’s deflected and explained every other inconsistency. It’d probably just made us look bad like in the lunchroom. Plus… well, he still just thinks we’re upset because she’s a liar. He doesn’t know she threatened us. He doesn’t know she’s dangerous.”

She frowned to herself. “And that second bit… what’re you talking about? I mean, I guess maybe if he recounted his first run-in with Lila and my going off on her, MAYBE that’d make people think twice about trusting her, but… that doesn’t mean he’s responsible for what she does. He’s not her keeper. He barely even knows her.”

“BUT HE COULD’VE WEAKENED HER INFLUENCE! HE COULD’VE TOLD EVERYONE THAT LADYBUG WASN’T HER FRIEND AND THAT SHE’S A LIAR!”

Well he could’ve, but-

“And because he didn’t, it makes HIM responsible for everything she does after that, for everything she MIGHT do!”

“...So let me get this straight. Because he didn’t expose her as lying about being Ladybug’s best friend, that means he’s responsible for what she does?”

“Exactly!”

“That still would’ve been a ‘he said, she said’ situation, though with both Adrien and I saying the same thing, I GUESS it would’ve lent more weight to it, but… it still wouldn’t prove we were right, and she could’ve said we misunderstood. We’d both know that was BS, but it’s not like we could prove it.

Plus, if we’re talking about people who had the potential to expose Lila by calling her out on her Ladybug lie, do you know who could’ve ALSO done that? Me. Which I did back when I first met her. It didn’t go well. But I could still do it AGAIN, just transforming later and telling everyone that I’d heard she was lying about my being her friend, and incontrovertibly prove that she’s a fraud. Adrien doing it by talking about what I said would just give her room to wiggle out of it. Ultimately if I really wanted and needed to disprove that she’s my friend, I’M the best one to do that, not Adrien.”

“But it’s his job, it’s EVERYONE’S job to be thinking only of our needs and wants and desires at all points in time, to help and support us and just know that anything we want to do is right no matter what! HE JUST ABANDONED US AND LEFT US OUT TO DRYYYYYY!”

“...Really?”

“Yes!”

Somehow she doubted it.

Also, WOW was her doppelganger narcissistic. Don’t get her wrong, she needed love and support and to be listened to as much as anyone, but the world didn’t revolve around her.

That was fine. She had plenty of people who cared about her. Her parents. Her friends. Her partner. If they knew she needed it, they were there for her. She may not be literally their only consideration in life, but she was high up on their priority lists.

Everyone filed into the classroom, Marinette taking her new seat at the back of the class.

Adrien gazed up at her, giving her a fond, loving smile.

Oh.

Oh she was gonna die.

That LOOK, that SMILE…

He may not have known she was Ladybug. May not have known he loved her romantically.

But with that look? His heart always knew.

He walked up the stairs over to Marinette, who was still in the back row.

“Good for you for taking the high road, Marinette. Hey, it's pretty cool back here.”

He sat down next to her, Marinette grinning at him and giggling.

“Oh he’s congratulating us on taking the HIGH ROAD, after he EMOTIONALLY BLACKMAILED US INTO IT?! THAT SELF-RIGHTEOUS PRICK! Oh no, I won’t go HIGH. Let’s see how low and dirty I can go. Turnabout’s fair play, and with how awful, how mean, how malicious and cruel everyone was to us, EVERYTHING IS FAIR PLAY.”

...Had her copy watched the same thing play out that she did?

Seriously, what the hell?

Or maybe she just wanted to hurt everyone else so badly she didn’t care how flimsy the justification was.

Whatever.

Turning back to the screen, she had to smile.

In her universe Alya’d arranged it so she and Adrien would sit next to each other.

Here? Adrien just decided that he wouldn’t leave her alone on his own. That he wanted to be with her, to keep her company, to make sure she wasn’t isolated.

She might’ve refused his offer to move before, but that hadn’t stopped him from trying to find some way to make the situation better for her, to keep her from being lonely and isolated like he was for so long.

The teacher called several students names, including Marinette’s, but she was so zoned out from her fantasies and anxieties about her and Adrien getting to spend more time together she didn’t notice.

Eventually, Adrien got her attention.

“Marinette, Miss Bustier's called your name three times already.”

“Oh…” she grinned anxiously, giving out a nervous giggle.

“Looks like you have trouble hearing after all, Marinette. Why don't you come sit up here in the front row next to Lila?” Miss Bustier told her.

So the reason Miss Bustier moved the seats definitely had to do with accessibility then; if a student had trouble hearing, she wanted them closer to help with that even if they hadn’t expressed that need. She was serious in the beginning then when asking her whether she had trouble hearing, it wasn’t some sort of gotcha but a sincere question, and one that prompted her to rethink the seating arrangement when it appeared she did in fact need to be closer to the front of the classroom.

Sucked for that Marinette though, getting to be right next to Adrien and then having it ripped away a minute later.

Marinette trudged dejectedly to the front of the class.

Before she could make it there, Lila raised her hand. “Miss Bustier, this is incredible. My tinnitus, I don't feel it anymore. It's gone. it's a miracle. It must be Ladybug's doing, I can sit in the back now.”

“That is so STUPID! Miss Bustier should be fired and the rest of the class should be ashamed of themselves for believing something as dumb as that.”

“...Lila’s told some dumb lies, but that isn’t one of them. They don’t know exactly how Ladybug’s magic works. Heck, even I don’t know everything about it. It’s not totally crazy to think that after purifying her, it might’ve cured her tinnitus as well.”

Marinette sat in the front, staring down sadly.

Alya put up her hand. “Excuse me, Miss Bustier, can I go and sit next to Marinette? Nino and I can't stop chatting it up.”

Miss Bustier nodded.

Alya slipped into the seat next to Marinette. “You didn't think I'd let my BFF sit all by herself, did you?”

“BUT SHE DID! FOR! AN! ENTIRE! CLASS! SESSION!”

“I think she realized between how upset I was at the cafeteria and my body language as I walked down to the front that this was REALLY getting to me. She may not have thought about it when the seats were first rearranged.”

Her heart warmed. Alya tended to have a one-track mind, to go full steam ahead and not fully realize the consequences.

But if she realized there was a problem, that someone was hurting and needed help? She’d change course.

Alya had defended her against Chloe on her first day of school, knowing nothing but that she needed help, needed comfort, needed support.

And here she was again, doing what she could to give her that support as best she knew how.

Adrien put up his hand. “Excuse me Miss Bustier, can I move, too, please? I'd like to sit next to Nino again.” She smiled, affirming that he could.

Adrien stood up and walked to the front. “Sorry Lila, he's my best friend.”

That started a chain reaction, with everyone asking for their old seats back and the class going back to how it was - except for Lila, who stayed in the back.

The screen turned black.

“So everything went back to the way it was at the end?”

‘Marinette’ glared at her. “Yes, but everything everyone else did was so AWFUL, so UNFORGIVABLE that it doesn’t matter. THE SEATS MAY BE BACK TO NORMAL, BUT MY PAIN LIVES ON!”

Eyes narrowing, her double marched over to her, getting up in her face. “I don’t get it. Why don’t you share my hatred of them? My disdain? You saw what they did.”

She just sighed.

“Looking at it, that day wasn’t great for that version of me. It would’ve hurt, knowing I had a good reason to dislike Lila, even to hate her, and everyone else just seeing me lashing out at her for no good reason, not knowing that she’d targeted me on purpose. Especially with Lila’s threat and dealing with that alone. I can see why that version of me would be so frustrated with her, especially having to watch her lie, KNOWING she’s lying, with only Adrien knowing about it!

It would’ve been stressful. But at the end of the day? Adrien tried to make things easier. Alya asked to change seats since she saw I needed the company. And no one held any of that against me - well, besides Lila I’m guessing.

Maybe some things could’ve been better. But I’m not unhappy with how things turned out - especially since my friends supported me in their own ways, even if it didn’t involve lashing out against a threat that they didn’t even KNOW was a real threat.”

She felt a weird sense of peace. This whole time part of her had been nagging and nagging, wondering what could possibly have pushed this being over the edge, what could have caused her to hate Alya, to hate Adrien, to hate so many other people she cared about in her life. To want to hurt and warp them to persuade others to hate them as well. Wondered whether it was the sort of event that could have warped herself even remotely like her doppelganger was.

Seeing the events she pointed to as the reasons to hate them? Knowing what justifications she used?

She would not, could not become like this false self. This facade built from self-righteousness, arrogance, and complete self-centeredness.

She wouldn’t pretend that she didn’t possess any of those qualities at all - most people had some, that was healthy to an extent.

But she’d never go as far, have them be as unchecked as in her doppelganger.

Her friends had already seen that, had believed it in full.

And she did as well.

“If this is your trump card? It’s not going to work. Show me as many other scenes as you like. Try to tell me I should hate and despise my friends, should want to hurt them as much as you want.

I will NEVER be like you.

So either we can do this again and again, over and over, as many times as it takes for you to give up.

Or you can let me and my friends go.”

Her imposter gave her a hard look. It didn’t do much to intimidate her. Basically the only facial expressions she seemed to have were ‘anger and disgust, mostly related to supposedly being wronged somehow’ and ‘joy over getting to see other people hurt’, so she’d rather the former than the latter.

She held her gaze for what could’ve been two minutes or two hours, time stretching out between them.

At last, ‘Marinette’ shook her head. “You’re making a mistake. They’ll hurt you. Try to break you. Won’t give you what you deserve.”

“It’s not about what I ‘deserve’. It’s about what I need.

Maybe our relationships will get messy. Maybe we’ll have fights. Maybe we’ll make mistakes and get hurt.

But that’s a risk I’m willing to take.

Because they’re worth fighting for.”

‘Marinette’ raised her hand, not breaking eye contact.

And snapped her fingers.

The world exploded.

Went black.

And then there was nothing at all.

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

(A/N) It was really important to me that even with Saltinette being the villain here, that she NOT be harmed. It'd feel too much like taking my frustration out on Marinette herself. Though I DID consider having Marinette punch Saltinette as an "affirmation of self" sort of thing, but decided against it.

But uh... yeah. Really breaking down Chameleon salt, when looking at the episode that spawned it, most of it doesn't really hold up very well. The whole "Adrien's responsible for Lila getting away with her lies" thing especially bothers me, since well. Marinette's far better able to take her down for her lies about her friendship with well, herself, and with easily being able to come up with excuses for why she's interfering, with saying that it's dangerous for a civilian to claim affiliation with her. Never really understood why she DIDN'T take Alya aside and tell her that at least, besides "plot convenience".

Most of Marinette's actions during Chameleon make sense considering what she knows at the time, and even her more overzealous actions are understandable with how ticked off she is (and for good reason). But to an outside observer who doesn't know everything she does? Not so much.

#divergent points #ml fanfic #Miraculous ladybug #ml fandom salt #fandom salt #marinette dupain cheng

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allmidaddies · 3 years

Text

woke up in 6.

Having Mat beside you felt like home. You couldn’t remember the last time you felt this at peace. At least since before you moved to Nashville. But, you were trying not to think about that.

What you were focusing on instead was Mat’s hand resting heavily on your thigh, having found the exposed skin where there was a slit in the silk material. He kept tracing his thumb back and forth, sending chills along your spine with each stroke. And you couldn’t help but lean into him, fingers curled around his bicep as you rested your chin on his shoulder.

For a moment it was like nothing had changed. Like you were still staying in your old bedroom in your parents house and Mat was blowing up your phone, asking you to take a night drive with him.

“....and you’re not even listening to me anymore,” Mat chuckled, the sound breaking you from your trance. You had been busy staring at him, the way the sunlight was cast over him and his eyes looked like pools of honey.

“Sorry,” you smiled sheepishly, “I missed your voice.”

Mat thought he might just die right there. The look on your face and hearing you speak those words to him sent him into a spiral. How could you love him so badly and still not be with him?

“I asked you how you like your new job,” Mat said, a smile on his lips. That smile, though, faded as he watched your expression drop.

“I don’t really want to talk about work, Mat,” you said quietly. It wasn’t that your new job was bad, it just...it was the thing that was in the way. It was the big, clunky, awkward elephant in the room and even when you weren’t talking about it you couldn’t avoid it. So talking about it would only make it worse.

Mat draped his arm around your shoulder, giving you a gentle squeeze,

“Okay. We don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to.”

You nodded, resting your head against his chest. You hoped the ceremony would start soon, that way you didn’t have to sit in silence with Mat for too long.

Years of friendship had allowed you to be comfortable without speaking to each other but today you didn’t want that. Because you knew what he was thinking. And he knew what you were thinking.

Thankfully the music started playing shortly after you cut the conversation short. You sat up and Mat let his arm fall to rest on the back of your chair, but his thumb still rubbed mindless circles on your bare shoulder.

Your mind traveled back to the night of Jasmine’s wedding and the night you made the pact with Mat. After the last few months you had nearly forgotten that you had agreed to that. It seemed as though once you confessed your love for each other, that was it.

You still intended on keeping your promise. And surely Mat did too. He had flown across the country to keep this promise, what would he do to keep that one?

You shifted your gaze to look at him. If he felt your eyes on him he didn’t move, his attention remained on the bride and groom at the altar. The expression on his face had your heart melting.

The thing about Mat was that he looked at everyone like he was a little bit in love with them. You wondered what it looked like when he was looking at you.

Wordlessly you leaned forward and pressed a kiss against his jaw bone before returning your focus on the altar. Mat barely had time to react before you were no longer staring at him. A smile spread across his face and he squeezed your thigh where his hand rested.

Mat had felt your eyes on him but he was so lost in a daydream that he hardly registered it until your lips were brushing against his skin.

It would be a summer wedding. Late in August. You always said you wanted to get married at a vineyard and Mat couldn’t exactly argue that a winery was an ideal location for a wedding. There was one not far from Coquitlam and he knew that the boys would have no problem flying out for the occasion.

It would probably be pretty small. While Mat knew a lot of people he liked to keep his life private and you were not one to enjoy being the center of attention. He would let you pick out the flowers but he would certainly come along to help because he could already hear you chastising him for not giving any input.

Mat would be happy if all you did was go down to the courthouse but he knew that you wanted a ceremony. And you deserved it. You had been there through everything with him, never letting him slip away from his roots even amongst all the craziness.

There would never be another person who could be for him what you were. Mat knew he'd wait forever for you. If it took months or years for you to get to him, he would wait.

You hardly left Mat’s side all night. Not that he would have let you if you tried. You were stuck together like glue. And Jasmine made sure to point it out to you any chance she got.

“So what are you going to do?” She asked, settling herself into the empty seat beside you. Mat was stuck in conversation with Ryan about golf when all he had really gotten up for was to congratulate him on the wedding. You giggled to yourself as you took another sip of wine.

“Hello?” Jasmine laughed, waving her hand in front of your face.

“Sorry,” you smiled as you turned to look at her, “What did you say?”

Jasmine opened her mouth to repeat her question but the look on your face stopped her. You were so happy. Happy to be back home. Happy to be with your friends. Happy to be with Mat. It was a completely different version of you than the one she had seen in Nashville. She couldn’t ask you about the future with Mat now. She couldn’t take away this moment from you.

“Nothing,” she shook her head, “Just a stupid joke.”

You hummed, looking back at Mat once again. He had ditched his suit jacket almost two hours ago now, his tie stuffed in the breast pocket. As the night went on it seemed more and more buttons of his dress shirt came undone. Not that you were opposed. The silver chain around his neck caught the light every time he turned his shoulders towards you again as he shifted in conversation.

“And when we have our wedding,” Mat grinned, his fingers moving to hold the chain that you had given him all those years ago, “This can be your something borrowed.”

You burst out laughing, hardly able to take Mat seriously.

“It wouldn’t really go with my dress though, would it?” You raised your brows at him, watching as he thought about it for a moment.

“You could always stick it somewhere else,” he smirked over at you, “Somewhere only I would find it.”

“Mathew!” You shrieked, launching a pillow at him that he dodged and sent back your direction.

While you took the pact you had made to heart, it seemed so silly whenever the two of you talked about it out loud. Which didn’t happen often since you still hadn’t told anyone about it.

Mat unclasped the chain and set it on his bedside table before rifling through his drawers for swim shorts. You were taking the boat out and he was afraid he would lose the necklace in the water if he didn’t take it off.

“I’m pretty sure with your big head you don’t have to worry about losing it,” you teased, ruffling his hair with your foot from where you laid out on his bed, already dressed in your bikini.

“I don’t have a big head,” Mat rolled his eyes, smacking your foot away.

“Mmm,” you hummed, “Maybe not physically.”

Mat’s jaw dropped as he tossed his t-shirt to the side,

“Are you implying that I have a big ego?”

“Would certainly be bigger if I weren’t around to humble you as often as I do,” you laughed, cackling when Mat tackled you on the bed, his hands finding your sides to start tickling you.

“You humble me too much for me to even get an ounce of an ego,” Mat said, halting his attack for a moment, now that he was hovering over you. His hips rested heavily between your legs and beneath the thin material of his shorts you could feel his length pressing against your core.

How easy it would be to take this a step further, you thought to yourself. His lips were just inches from yours. You could lean in so easily and just-

“Are you guys ready yet?” Liana’s voice came from the hall and Mat scrambled off of you while you rolled off the bed before she opened the door.

“Give me two minutes,” Mat groaned, shooing her away. You ducked your head, slipping out the door behind her.

You laughed to yourself at the memory. It felt like so long ago you had sat on the porch, the night before Jasmine’s wedding, and made that pact with him.

One of the flower girls made her way over to Mat where he was stuck in conversation with Ryan’s elderly aunt. You could read her lips as she tugged on his suit jacket,

“Mr. Barzal?”

Mat was cut off mid sentence but there was a smile on his face as he crouched down to be eye level with her.She had a shy smile on her face as she leaned over and whispered in his ear.

Your heart was swelling in your chest as his smile grew wider, speaking back to her with something you couldn’t make out. She nodded and clasped her hands together in front of her chest.

Mat lifted his head to look at you. The look of adoration on your face as you watched the two of them had him wanting to give you a little girl of your own.

He turned back to the flower girl and extended his hand towards her, letting her lead him to the dance floor.

You were so lost in watching him spin her around on his feet that the rest of the room faded away for the next few minutes and it wasn’t until a gasp left Jasmine’s mouth that you found yourself back on earth.

“Oh my god,” she breathed, looking past your shoulder towards the bar. You furrowed your brows and turned to figure out what had her wide eyed and panic struck.

“Oh my god,” you echoed as your eyes fell on the person you last expected to see at the wedding.

Lauren. Mat’s high school girlfriend. They were together senior year of high school up until they mysteriously broke up after a rough patch in their relationship. Nobody ever really knew what happened and Mat hated talking about it so eventually people stopped asking.

You and Lauren had never had any bad blood. Everyone expected the two of you to hate each other, given that you were Mat’s best friend and she was his girlfriend but you liked Lauren. When they broke up you were probably the most confused out of everybody. But, Mat wouldn’t ever dish the details on what really happened that night she had shown up on his front porch just a few days before prom.

In fact he hadn’t even been the one to tell you that they broke up. Jasmine had called you the morning of the dance as you were getting ready and spilled all the details she knew. You remember being confused, completely blindsided by the breakup and immediately calling Mat. Who said nothing.

You didn’t really see Lauren again after that. There were a few occasions where she would be at bonfires during the summer but her and Mat were always cordial and she greeted you with a hug every time. So, the mystery remained.

And now it had been years since you had seen her and with all of the other emotions in your mind you had a thought you hadn’t had in a while.

Would Mat replace you the way he replaced Lauren?

After their breakup Mat had been at his most promiscuous. You tried to pretend it hadn’t bothered you but that summer it seemed as though every time you saw him he had new hickeys and a new girl blowing up his phone. It wasn’t until his season picked back up and you were off at college that he finally chilled out.

Since then he had remained pretty mellow. Most of it was because girls were less inclined to come up to him whenever you were at the bars with him and he pretty much refused to go out without you.

However, seeing her was like a blast from the past and you found yourself gripping the table for stability until your knuckles turned white.

You turned your attention back to the dance floor, the feeling of anxiety washing away as you watched Mat and the flower girl sway amongst the crowd. You rested your elbows on the table, a smile stuck on your face.

“Well yeah but if you’re thinking kids and stuff you don’t want to wait too long,” Mat said.

“Oh so we’d have kids in this deal?” You teased.

“I want kids,” Mat was leaning forward now, elbows on his knees, “And I know you want kids.”

“Mat you can’t be serious about this,” you laughed airly. Mat cracked a smile but it didn’t reach his eyes,

“It’s just a back up plan. I’m not saying you’re not going to find the one somewhere down the road, but if we find ourselves in the same situation in the next ten years then why not?”

“You’re my security?” You smiled softly, feeling your heart swell just a little bit.

“Yeah,” Mat grinned, “I’ll be your security. Besides, I wouldn’t mind putting a baby in you. I think you’re going to be an awesome mom.”

“This seat taken?” Lauren’s voice brought you back to reality. She was standing beside the empty chair next to you and for the first time you realized Jasmine had slipped off in search of her husband.

“Go ahead,” you smiled as she settled herself in the seat.

“So I heard you’re in Nashville now,” she said. You nodded, shifting your body so you weren’t turned away from her.

“Yeah, it’s been a few weeks now. I’ve honestly lost count,” you laughed softly.

“Do you like it? I’ve never been but I’ve heard a lot of good things.”

You paused for a moment, wetting your lips with your tongue,

“Yeah. It’s nice.”

Lauren searched your face for a second, like Mat had earlier when you avoided his question,

“It’s a long way from home though, eh?”

Subconsciously you let your gaze travel back to Mat, his laugh ringing in your ears even from across the room.

“Yeah,” you sighed.

Lauren looked at you and then back out on the dancefloor where Mat was letting the flower girl guide him across the floor in clumsy steps.

“He’s a great guy,” she said quietly. You glanced over at her,

“Yeah. He really is.”

Lauren smiled at you,

“You know when we broke up I thought he was finally going to stop being a completely lovesick idiot and ask you out, but it looks like he still just as stupid as he was four years ago.”

You furrowed your brows, sitting back in your chair.

Lauren laughed, shaking her head,

“I guess he never told you the real reason we broke up.”

You shook your head, stealing a glance at him once again. He had that boyish grin on his face, once perfectly styled hair falling over his forehead as he kneeled down to give the flower girl a hug before she bounded off towards her parents once again.

When he straightened back up his eyes fell on you, his smile only widening when he realized you were already looking at him.

“We broke up because I asked him if he had feelings for you….and he couldn’t say no.”

You nearly got whiplash as you turned to look at her, conflicting emotions in your expression as you stared at her,

“What?”

Your words came out in a breath, barely a whisper. Mat was weaving through the chairs to get to you but you needed Lauren to tell you everything.

“It was after their last game of the season and we were both there and I saw the way he was looking at you that night and I knew that he had never and would never look at me that way. And as hurt as I was that I had wasted my time on someone who didn’t love me back the way I loved them, I knew that you guys were made for each other.”

Your heart was beating out of your chest, your mind racing with every emotion you could feel. Of course you knew Mat loved you now but you hadn’t ever known how long he had loved you for.

“I’m so sorry,” you said, your voice cracking as you spoke.

“No!” Lauren’s hand came to rest on your shoulder, “It’s not your fault. And I’m not mad or upset, even then. You guys are perfect for each other. Just know that I’m rooting for you guys. Seriously.”

Mat’s cologne finally reached you and Lauren stood up, excusing herself with a smile and a pat on Mat’s shoulder. You barely even glanced at him as you pushed your chair back and made a beeline for the back door.

“Where are you going?” Mat asked, confusion all over his expression as he followed after you. Nobody seemed to notice the two of you take off, Mat just a few feet behind you as you skipped across the stone path that led down to the dock.

The sun was beginning to set and the string lights around the yard turned on, giving you the light you needed to reach your destination. The first few stars were reflecting off of the still lake like it was glass and you had an overwhelming urge to disrupt its peace.

“Y/N! Wait!” Mat called after you. You finally reached the boardwalk and stopped, your breath a little uneven.

“What did Lauren say to you?” Mat asked, his fingers catching your elbow in a touch that was soft.

“Nothing,” you sighed, shaking your head.

“What did she say?” Mat asked again.

“Nothing,” you repeated, “Well….not nothing but-”

“I don’t know why she would feel the need to come back after four years and stir up drama-” Mat began to ramble, his own panic setting in as he tried to figure out what it was that made you so upset.

“Mat stop,” you said, grabbing his arm to silence him. He looked at you, concern set in his pretty features.

“Four years, Mat,” you whispered, “Four years you’ve had feelings for me and you didn’t say anything.”

“Wha-”

“Lauren told me why you guys really broke up,” you said, “And you never confessed to me until this summer. We could have had everything Mat.”

Tears were welling in your eyes again as you looked up at him.

“We could have been together all this time and I would have never even thought to move to Nashville and I never would have had to make the decision to leave you and I wouldn’t know what it would be like to be without you but because you never told me the truth I have to spend every night alone in a city that I can’t even call home!” You cried.

It was taking every ounce of self control that you had left to keep your voice down, not wanting to disrupt the wedding reception that was still happening in the main house.

“I know,” Mat said, running his fingers through his hair, “I know that I should have said something the minute I knew but I was more afraid of losing your friendship. You are the best thing that’s ever happened to me and I couldn’t risk losing you.”

“I know that that should make me feel better, Mat but it doesn’t. Because look at where it got us,” you said, wiping at your tears.

“Well what about you?” Mat asked, his voice wavering, “You never said anything either.”

You stared down at your hands. He was right. The only time you confessed your feelings to him was the night of his 18th birthday but he was dead asleep on the couch in your basement, unaware.

“I don’t have an answer for that,” you muttered. Mat chuckled, stepping closer to you and wrapping his arms around you,

“Listen, pretty girl, we’re going to be okay. Even though we’re a few hundred miles apart, we’re going to be okay. Soon we’ll be together. And we’ll always have our pact.”

You laughed, the sound muffled by his shirt.

“You made the choice to move to Nashville and that’s okay. It’s a valid choice. If it makes you happy then I’m happy for you, okay? Being apart is just going to take some getting used to, yeah?” Mat said, rubbing circles on your back, his hand warm against your bare skin.

You nodded. But were you happy in Nashville? It was a question that you had avoided asking yourself, afraid of the answer you might uncover.

“And fuck I know we didn’t really talk about it but you’re my girl, okay? I know that we’re not together right now but there’s nobody else for me. And I know, I know, that we’re going to end up together eventually. One day the stars are gonna align for us and everything is going to work itself out. Okay? Can you hold on for me?”

Mat was looking at you with so much sincerity and love in his eyes that you had no choice but to believe him.

“I’m all yours, Mathew Barzal.”

Mat cupped your face in his hands, bringing your lips to his. You curled your fingers around his dress shirt, pulling your bodies together as close as you could get. Mat let his hands drop to your waist, and lower still as he held you against him.

“Mat,” you whispered, pulling back just enough to speak.

“Hmm?”

“Boat house?”

Mat looked back over his shoulder to the shed just to the left of the dock. His eyes met yours again, a look of desperation and mischief dancing through them.

“Boat house.”

He took your hand in his and led you back across the dock towards the shed.

A few glances over his shoulder just to check nobody was watching or following, just to be safe, before he pushed open the door to the small shack.

It was a dirt floor with one window on the opposite wall from the door. To the sides were stacks of inflatables and wake boards, along with fishing rods and various other water sport gear. The only light that illuminated the space was the setting sun that was coming in through the window and the lights from the main house.

“Well...there are definitely less romantic places to have sex,” you muttered, trying not to catch your heels on the netting that was strewn across the floor. Mat chuckled as he shut the door behind you. As soon as it was in place he was catching your waist and bringing you back into him again,

“You look so gorgeous right now.”

“Right after I’ve cried?” You teased. Mat rolled his eyes,

“Yes. You look beautiful when you’re sad, and emotional, and stressed, and when you’re happy, and at peace, and when you’re laughing-”

“Okay, okay,” you giggled, “I get it.”

“Do you? Because I can keep going,” Mat grinned.

“Right now I kind of want you to get going on other things,” you hummed, dragging your nails over his exposed chest.

“Let me show you just how much I’ve missed you,” Mat said, his voice low.

Mat bumped his nose against yours before crashing your lips together. He was quick to tangle his tongue with yours, moving you back towards the wall so you could have something for leverage.

You stumbled back against the fishing poles, nearly knocking them down like dominos before Mat caught your waist.

“Easy, pretty girl,” he said softly. Your fingers curled around his dress shirt, one for stability and two to keep him close to you.

“Mat,” you whispered, brushing his hair off of his forehead. Mat met your gaze, his eyes searching yours for answers. For his next move.

“What?”

“Please fuck me,” you said. Mat didn’t have to be told twice. He pushed you back against the wall, pressing his lips against yours as you fumbled with the remaining buttons of his shirt. Once you had it fully open you ran your palm across the smooth skin of his chest before looping your hand around the back of his neck. Mat dragged the material of your dress up your legs and over your hips, fingers dancing across your lace panties.

“You’re so wet baby,” Mat murmured against your lips, grinning to himself when your body shuddered at the feeling of him running his fingers over your covered pussy.

“Mat,” you whined. He pressed his lips against yours again, hands only leaving your waist so that he could undo his belt and push his trousers and boxers down just enough so he could free his hard length.

“Think you can keep quiet for me?” Mat asked, nodding back towards the house where guests were still mingling. There was a faint sound of chatter and music but all you could hear was the sound of blood rushing in your ears and Mat’s ragged breathing mixed with yours.

“Yes, yes,” you nodded eagerly, stroking him gently with your free hand. Mat’s eyes fluttered for a moment, begging to shut but he snapped himself back into reality. If the two of you had more time he would have sunk to his knees right there and hooked your leg over his shoulders so he could get a taste. But dirt on his pants wouldn’t exactly fair well in keeping this a secret.

So instead, Mat hooked his long fingers around the flimsy material of your panties and pulled them to the side. You gasped at the feeling of him spreading your wetness around.

“Fuck baby I want a taste so bad,” he hummed, slipping two fingers inside of you. Your grip on him tightened,

“Don’t tease Mat,” you frowned. Mat lifted his eyes to yours again, a coy smile on his lips.

“Why not?”

“Mat,” you tried to sound stern but he was curling his fingers at just the right angle. You could barely keep your breath even.

“Feel good babygirl?” He asked. You nodded, biting down on your bottom lip to stay quiet.

“You want me to fill you up, eh?” Mat asked, leaning into you again so his lips brushed over yours.

“Yes Mat, please, please fuck me,” you begged. Mat obliged, pulling his fingers from your soaked pussy and tapping your lips so you would take them in your mouth. Just as you swirled your tongue around the tips, eyes heavy on him, Mat slipped into you.

“Ohmygod,” you moaned, eyes rolling back as you spoke with your mouth full. Mat pulled his fingers from your lips and gripped your jaw, catching your lips with his.

With each stroke you dug your nails into his chest harder, trying to steady yourself as he thrust into you. There were surely going to be bruises on your shoulder blades from the wall and on your hips from how hard Mat was holding you. But you were so overcome with pleasure you didn’t even feel the pain in the moment. And even if you did you wouldn’t care.

Mat knew exactly how to take care of your body. He hooked one leg up around his hip, giving himself the best angle for both of you.

“Fuck, you’re so tight,” he groaned, burying his face in your neck. His teeth grazed the sensitive skin and sucked along your collarbones. You weren’t sure if he was leaving marks but if he did everyone would be able to see them. Just one more thing that didn’t matter. Nothing mattered more than having him there with you.

“Mat I’m so close,” you panted, trying to find anything to hold onto.

“Yeah baby?” Mat said, lifting his head to rest his forehead against yours. His hand dropped to your clit, rubbing hard and fast. A string of profanities left your mouth as your head dropped back, fingers tangled in his hair as you pulled him into you. Mat was pressing sloppy kisses along your exposed neck, chasing both of your highs.

“I’m cumming, I’m cumming,” you gasped, pussy clenching around Mat’s hard cock as you came. Your body fell limp against the wall and Mat wrapped one arm around your back to steady you, thrusting a few more times as he finished.

He pulled out slowly, catching the cum that dripped out on his fingers and licking them clean. You whimpered softly as he brushed over your sensitive clit.

“Sorry baby,” he murmured, pressing his lips against your forehead. Mat moved your panties back into place and let your dress fall down over your hips again before adjusting himself.

“They’re all gonna know,” you said, running your fingers through Mat’s hair. It had been perfectly styled and now it was obvious he, or someone, had been running their fingers through it. Mat ghosted his fingers over your neck, tracing the marks he had left,

“Maybe. But every single person in there is drunk off their ass so I doubt they will care.”

You couldn’t help but laugh, leaning up on your tiptoes to press a kiss against his lips.

“What do you say we just get out of here?” Mat asked, chasing your lips.

“Yeah?”

“I just need to grab my jacket,” Mat said, “And maybe I can stay the night if you’ll let me.”

You smiled, melting into him,

“Please.”

Mat smiled,

“Okay, come on pretty girl. Let’s get you home.”

What was supposed to be a quick round of goodbyes resulted in three more glasses of wine each and you and Mat finally dragging your drunk asses into an Uber at the end of the night. And you couldn’t seem to keep your hands to yourself.

Fucking him in the boat house had only spurred you on and with his dress shirt still half unbuttoned you were itching to get him completely naked underneath you.

His mind wasn’t far off from yours either. Mat kept his hand high on your thigh, beneath the material of your dress. With each bump in the road his fingers traveled closer and closer to where you wanted and needed him most.

By the time you got back to your house you were practically dragging him behind you. It took everything in you to stay quiet as you kicked off your shoes by the door before leading him up to your room.

Lucky for you your parents were already sound asleep given the late hour and your room was on the opposite side of the house from them. Still though, you were whispering at Mat to stay quiet through drunken giggles as he pulled his belt off and tossed it across the room. It hit your closet door, clattering loudly in the silent house.

“Shh,” you hissed, clamping a hand over Mat’s mouth as he fought back laughter.

“I’m trying,” he said, words muffled by your hand.

“Try harder,” you said.

“Then let me keep my mouth occupied,” he smirked, his fingers finding the zipper of your dress and tugging it down. The smooth material fell away from you, leaving you in just your panties in front of him.

“Oh lord,” Mat sighed, drinking in the sight of you. He should have expected you weren’t wearing a bra, if the way your nipples had been showing through the thin fabric in the chilly, late summer air had been any indication.

“Well come on superstar,” you smiled, walking backwards towards the bed. Mat’s feet were carrying him to you before he even had time to think about his next move.

The back of your knees hit the mattress and before you collapsed Mat caught your waist and laid you down against the pillows. He spread your legs apart,

“I bet you taste just as sweet as I remember.”

You whined softly, attempting to grind your hips up against his hand as he brushed over your center.

“I’m taking my time with you this round,” Mat murmured, pushing his pants to the floor. He was straining against his boxers but he wasn’t thinking about that right then. He licked his lips, climbing onto the bed. Your eyes fluttered shut as he settled himself between your thighs, his calloused hands rough against your soft skin.

Painfully slow he dragged your panties down your legs, the cool air of your bedroom hitting your dripping heat.

“So pretty,” he hummed. His lips were gentle against the inside of your thighs, slowly making their way to your pussy. The anticipation had your entire body buzzing and you just needed him to get there.

And when he finally did make contact with your heat, licking a bold stripe up your slit, you found yourself falling into euphoric bliss. Time stopped, and everything seemed to look like stars.

Each touch of his hand and tongue had your body on fire, aching for him. Your heart had been aching for him for a long time but tonight there was a different type of desire flooding through your veins.

By the time he collapsed on the bed beside you, chest glistening in the moonlight, you were both breathless and exhausted. All you could do was curl into him, tugging the thin bed sheet over your naked bodies.

You didn’t even care if your parents found his shoes by the door in the morning. Just one more night with him before you were back on a flight to Nashville was all that you wanted.

Come morning, only a few short hours later, you were filled with dread once again. Mat’s words from the night before were still heavy in your mind and you knew that he meant every single one of them. However, it didn’t make the goodbye hurt any less than it had the first time. In fact, it hurt more. Because now you knew what it was like to be without him.

But he asked you to hold on, so you would. Anything for him.

Ever since Mat had returned to his place in Brooklyn he tried to stay busy. Between training camp and the upcoming pre-season games he had a lot on his mind during the day. It was the quiet time in the evening that remained the hardest. And so Mat did what he did best. Distract himself.

Almost every night he was hanging out with the guys in order to shut out the feelings of loneliness. Tonight was no different as he had some of them over to watch the football game. Even though he didn’t even like football.

Which Tito had been sure to point out to him.

Everyone knew why he was suddenly inviting them over for Sunday night football but nobody was brave enough to bring up the subject.

They all missed you too. It wasn’t the same without you around. While many nights they had gagged amongst themselves over the blatantly obvious flirting that you and Mat would engage in, they missed it.

You were a part of the Islanders’ family and always would be. Mat couldn’t imagine playing games and not seeing you up in the stands.

He leaned back on the couch, his beer half drunk on the coffee table as Anders shouted at the TV. Anders and Marty were really the only ones who were semi invested in the game happening but Derick and Pager were rooting for the other team just to start an argument. Tito stayed mostly quiet in the corner, an eye on his best friend as he worked on his own beer.

Every few minutes Mat would let out a heavy sigh and he tried to play it off like it was the game but the truth was he wasn’t giving an ounce of attention to the screen in front of him. He had his nose buried in his phone, watching your instagram story over and over again.

You had gone out to dinner with some co-workers in Nashville and while he was happy to see that you were having a good time, given that you hadn’t divulged anything about work at the wedding, it made him miss you.

He had been feeling this ever since he had been back in Brooklyn at the end of summer but now after having just seen you it weighed far more heavily. You should be sitting on the couch beside him, rolling your eyes at Pager’s jokes right along with everyone else. But you weren’t. And Mat didn’t think he would ever be over it.

Mindlessly he reached for his chain, needing something to hold onto as the wave of missing you crashed over him. Mat dipped his fingers beneath the material of his hoodie, searching for the cool metal. His brows furrowed when he was met with just skin. He reached around to the back of his neck, trying to feel for the clasp at the back but he was met with nothing.

“Fuck,” he cursed to himself, sitting up suddenly, catching the attention of the boys. He ran his fingers through his hair trying to think of when he had it last.

It wasn’t like he ever took it off. It was the best gift you had ever given him and even when you were standing right beside him it was nice to have a piece of you close to his heart. And he just had to go and lose it.

“Barz what are you doing?” Tito asked as Mat felt for the chain once again. There was a look of panic on his face and the guys exchanged glances, all rightfully confused.

“Nobody fucking move,” Mat said, standing up, his heart beating against his ribcage,

“I lost it.”

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