#I LITERALLY DON'T HAVE THE WORDS TO PROPERLY EXPLAIN WHAT THIS IS MAKING ME FEEL

[aihoshiino]

chapter 161 thoughts

Chapters Since The 143 Kiss Happened And Went Entirely Unacknowledged And Unaddressed Count: 18

Aqua Hoshigan Status: For the future

Never has an OnK chapter gone from It's Hoshinover to We Are Oshi no Back quite as hard and fast as this one. I have issues with this chapter in terms of what it implies about the story's overall structure and the fact that it sort of ruins 153-4 by association but this chapter's back half is so fucking good and the chapter itself works so well in isolation that much like 153-4, I kind of uhhh don't care about the structural issues because the story's heart is, for the most part, not just intact but beating harder and more passionately than it has in a long time.

To get what I don't like out of the way, the story seems to have settled on Super Evil Serial Killer Mastermind Kamiki as his final form characterization with some helpful Tsukuyomi exposition to just straightforwardly Tell Us things the manga probably should have spent some of the last 70something chapters Showing Us about Hikaru. The basic idea of Hikaru being some sort of serial killer so dedicated to upholding Ai's legacy that he kills women with the potential to surpass her was more or less always where I expected his character to land and this settling of his character does at least preserve what I think is the most important thing: that he genuinely loved Ai and his bent towards villainy only came after her death.

What I don't love as much is that this chapter seems to continue leaning into Uber God Manipulator Mastermind Kamiki like last chapter. I already talked at length about my issues with this framing in my previous chapter review so all I'll reiterate here is that the story's attempt to frame Hikaru as being equally or even more culpable for the actions of Nino and Ryosuke fall entirely flat to me, especially when the manga itself does such a pisspoor job of actually explaining how or why Kamiki was able to control and/or predict their actions to the extent that he supposedly did. And ESPECIALLY especially given that Nino and Ryosuke seem to have already been dangerously obsessed with Ai by the time they approached him.

In general, Hikaru's character is honestly just so inconsistent at this point that making any sense of his actions feels fruitless. If I really dig into what's going on, I can infer that maybe he fell into the same trap as Aqua by overcompensating for his trauma-induced helplessness by becoming overly controlling and guess that his fucked up trauma response to Ai's death combined with those terrible words Kindaichi gave him at Airi's funeral lead him down he road he's traveling now. I can even extrapolate that Aqua showing him the DVD message in 153-4 pushed Hikaru to this extreme and now that he has nothing to lose, he's lashing out at his children too - though, it should be noted, that the manga still hasn't actually established what Hikaru's culpability is in Nino's attempt on Ruby's life, outside of Aqua saying "well you didn't use your psychic powers to perfectly predict nino's actions so it's on you".

But like - this is all stuff I'm having to infer and extrapolate and guess, reverse engineering logic from our end point in an attempt to create a stable foundation for this characterization. The manga has done such a poor job of properly establishing Hikaru both as an antagonistic force and as a consistent character that I feel like I'm trying to assemble a coherent image from two different puzzle sets with all the fucking corner pieces missing and that's with Crow Girl looking into the camera and Explaining Him to me.

And listen, I am a bitch who LOVES to infer things. One of my absolute favourite pieces of fiction of all time ever is Umineko no Naku Koro Ni, a mystery story that literally does not contain any straightforwardly explicit, textual confirmation of the culprit's identity or motives because it believes so strongly that you, the reader, are smart enough and empathetic enough to put in the time and effort necessary to understand it regardless and it deeply, deeply values being able to give you that experience. But OnK feels less like it's intentionally encouraging me to think hard and enjoy the process of putting my head and my heart to work - it feels like it's leaving its homework unfinished and letting the reader do the actual hard work of sewing up the internal logic.

I probably won't talk much more about Kamiki this chapter cos I'd just be saying all this shit over and over but I really just am struggling to understand from a perspective of authorial intent what the vibe is even supposed to be. Like I mentioned in a previous ask, if this is where Kamiki's arc is reaching its conclusion then it means that the Movie Arc was essentially a whole-ass waste of time in and out of universe. Blech. Hate that.

Also, before I move on, I don't want to leave this just implied - making Kamiki explicitly a CSA victim and then ending his arc on Aqua (and implicitly the narrative) dismissing him as being too broken/corrupted to be saved is a really major misstep that I think represents a huge black mark on OnK's handling of CSA as a topic. The idea of an eternal defilement or an unfixable core wrongness in the self is already something real life CSA victims struggle with in the process of unpacking their trauma and having our likable and supposedly morally superior protagonist espouse this unchallenged in a work as prominent and relevant as Oshi no Ko is irresponsible bordering on dangerous. It's incredibly disappointing that after all the care Aka and Mengo seemingly took in handling this topic that it was whiffed so badly at the last second.

ANYWAY!!! Now all the beef's been dealt with, we can cleanse our palettes and move onto everything else I liked which was… basically everything else in this chapter!

Admittedly, Aqua's overall arc is still suffering from us being kicked out of his head from like 123 onwards for no real apparent reason and while 150 was a welcome refresher on where he's at in this part of the story, it still feels a bit like the story is prioritizing preserving the surprise factor of its twists over making these surprises feel earned. Compare it to volume 1 - you are basically told exactly what is going to happen to Ai, especially in the manga when Saitou and Gotanda outright say as much - but her death is still incredibly impactful and upsetting. I think this chapter is very effective, but could've been a lot moreso if we'd spent more time in Aqua's head leading up to it.

THAT SAID… If the intention of keeping us out of his head was to recontextualize Aqua's behaviour across the past ten or so chapters in this new light, I don't hate it as much as I might have. I initially took issue with what felt like the story off-screening and not addressing the resolution to Aqua's suicidal ideation so whipping back around to prove that it was still very much present puts some particular Aqua moments over this past volume into a very different light. As some people pointed out, Aqua missing Kana's pitch - literally dropping the ball in responding to her feelings - and his wide-eyed look of alarm in 151 seemed very ominous omens for the success of her confession and that beat of him covering his face when Kana approves of his dream… very incheresting knowing Aqua was still struggling with 'love or revenge' at this point.

Most interesting of all to reconsider is Aqua breaking down in tears in Miyako's arms in 155 when she addresses him as her son for the first time. At the time it read like catharsis but now I can't help but wonder if this was Aqua grieving for something he desperately wants but thinks is out of his reach.

i do have to say though. i get the general vibe of this plan and think it works fine as the apex of aqua's self-sacrificial protectiveness for the people he loves but how is being the daughter of a serial killer somehow any less scandalous for her career than being the sister of someone who killed one dude. does aqua think they just won't notice that kamiki happens to be their biodad or something. wasn't that the whole point of the movie. goofy ass plan.

What really saves this whole scenario is the emotions at play, though. This really does feel like Aqua at his most Aqua in a really long while and this chapter has so much love and respect for his life as Aqua and the bonds he has formed as a result. The dreams Aqua lays out are so agonizingly simple, too - he wants to pursue the career he finds rewarding. He wants to date the girl he likes. He wants to accept Miyako as his mom and Himekawa as his brother and to make things right with Akane after hurting and using her. He wants to see Ruby achieve her dream and be there to support her when she does.

But Aqua's always considered his dreams impossible, hasn't he?

I fully admit; I got spoiled with the full page spread of Aqua stabbing himself way in advance of the chapter and initially hated it as a twist. But with the full chapter as context and the sheer weight of Aqua's longing to just fucking live and find joy, it's not just effective but absolutely gutwrenching. It is the synthesis of Aqua's series-long battle to choose love or revenge and it resonates perfectly because it has never been one or the other for him - Aqua's revenge has always been rooted in the fact that he loves others so wholly and completely and hates himself so utterly that he thinks sacrificing himself to preserve their futures is the only path for him to take. It's the culmination and final release of the suicidal ideation Aqua has been dealing with since he was four years old and like Ai's tragedy before him, there's a horrible sense that maybe there really was no other way this could've gone.

Aqua being the character who actually takes the knife also firmly cements him as Ai's narrative echo in the text which has me barkin and howlin because it's what I've been saying all this time. Not just that, but so many of Aqua's expressions in this chapter pointedly and deliberately echo Ai's after she was stabbed. Not just that, but Aqua's achingly simple dreams echo Ai's own heartrendingly simple regrets - all the two of them ever wanted was to be happy with the people they love.

This also reframes the story's prior establishment of Ruby as paralleling Ai and seems to place the twins in the position of echoing not Ai in her entirety but Ruby as 'Ai of B-Komachi' and Aqua as 'Ai Hoshino'. This was actually something I outlined in one of my very first meta posts on the series, but I think making it more specific to 'Ruby as Ai the idol' and 'Aqua as Ai the human', this actually gives Ruby's arc in relation to Ai a bit of breathing room. Don't get me wrong, everything I've said about her post-BH writing being underbaked and inconsistent is still the case, especially when it comes to how confused the story is on whether Ruby is her own idol or New And Improved Ai 2.0 but giving it less ground to cover helps in terms of her writing no longer being spread quite as thin.

Speaking of Ruby, that beat of her seeming to react or sense something is up the moment Aqua takes the stab. 'Something happened to my loved one far away and I just Feel It' is a trope I'm always a sucker for and I really dig it here.

"The public don't care about the truth, so let's tell them a lie" is such a crazy hard sentiment to go out on too. Holy fuck.

There go our boys…!!! Quite a few people predicted they might go over the edge when Aqua showed up in his Mephisto fit (Mefitsto) and I'm interested to see if we get any parallels to the ED's imagery in the next few chapters. Overall, though, I'm really excited for where things are going - I don't think Aqua will die, but I do have some theories about what might happen. I can't think of a more traditional misogi purification experience than the middle of the ocean in late December, after all…

No break next week! Woohoo! While the delay of episode 12 means we won't be getting them on the same day, that is the same week S2 of the anime will be concluding and Aka does like lining up his bombshells with the anime. So who knows what we'll see.

seriously tho aqua. everyone already knows kamiki is you and ruby's biodad. HOW IS THIS ANY BETTER THAN HER BEING THE DAUGHTER OF A SERIAL KILLER AS IT ALREADY STANDS

[stormyoceans]

https://twitter.com/i/status/1751272015116276218

Just some cute shit that will cheer you up.

ON MY GOD DAMN KNEES SLACK JAWED SHAKING OUT OF MY SKIN CRYING SHITTING YELLING AT THE TOP OF MY LUNGS FOAMING AT THE MOUTH THROWING UP BLOOD CLAWING MY FACE OFF EXPERIENCING THE ENTIRE RANGE OF HUMAN EMOTIONS OH MY FUCKING GOD OH MY GOD JESUS FUCKING CHRIST FUCKING SHIT JESUS FUCK GOD IN HEAVEN HOLY FUCKING SHIT

IN THE MASLOW'S HIERARCHY OF NEEDS AT THIS POINT HAVING JIMMYSEA AS PARENTS IN A NEW SERIES HAS BECOME A BASIC NEED JUST LIKE FOOD WATER AND SHELTER AND NOT TO BE DRAMATIC BUT IMMA BE HOLDING EVERY SINGLE EXEC IN GMMTV AT GUNPOINT UNTIL THEY AGREE TO GIVE THAT TO US

[squishytenya]

Hey Do you remeber your Tenya and Aizawa ask, with y/n Crying? What about some of the other casts like Katsuki or Ejiro?

if you dont mind please and thank you

They Make You Cry Headcanons

I lowkey had to search my own blog for this but I found it! thanks for the request <3

Pairings - Bakugou x gn!reader, Kirishima x gn!reader + Kaminari x gn!reader

Warnings - arguments, cursing, crying

Katsuki Bakugou

▹part of being in a relationship with Katsuki is dealing with his harsh personality. Even if he does calm down the older he gets, it's still probably not to the same extent of a normal human being.

▹he probably would be completely speechless the moment you started crying after an argument - straight up would not know how to respond to that.

▹his eyes would go wide and he would go to take a step towards you and then bring himself back, holding his arm to himself.

▹"hey... don't do that"

▹for all his faults Katsuki is, deep inside, a good person and he knows this is the kind of shit you lose relationships from and he really really doesn't want to lose you.

▹ but he does know he can be a bit much and he probably takes a while to come down from whatever he's feeling so he just kinda leaves for a few minutes

▹ he comes back with a cup of tea and perches gently on the bed next to you, avoiding eye contact

▹he would do his best to spit out an apology, but it's not something that would come naturally to him. Seeing your face crumple like it did is still replaying in his mind and he knows he has to fix this somehow - so he does his best to explain himself

▹eventually he would just stop rambling and take your hand in his, squeezing it gently.

▹"I'm sorry, I shouldn't have said that to you"

▹ he'd just sit by you, hand in his until you were ready to talk to him and talk over what had led to the argument in the first place and he really does take your words to heart about what upset you

▹he'd try to cut down on raising his voice and try to cut out teasing nicknames entirely, unless he knew you were okay with them already

▹a sweet guy really

Eijirou Kirishima

▹I cannot see Kiri upsetting you on purpose, even during an argument he isn't the type to yell or get super angry with you

▹him making you cry is most likely a complete accident on his part, or even him accidentally playing into an insecurity you have without properly thinking about it

▹when your relationship first started out, I think he probably didn't understand you might not be comfortable with the things he's comfortable with, especially during social situations

▹ also probably doesn't understand others might read his kindness as flirting, so when you two are invited to a hero party to socialise and he pretty much ignored you the whole night, he had no idea why you began tearing up on the way home

▹obviously, he's worried about why you're crying and what he did! and how he can fix it is at the forefront of his mind almost immediately after noticing

▹and when you explain it to him, he pretty much crumbles straight away - he is in disbelief that he made you feel that way

▹he falls over himself explaining that he didn't mean to make you feel that way, he was just overwhelmed by the pressure of hero society and got caught up

▹Kiri is very good at admitting when he is wrong, and puts a lot of effort into having healthy communication in his relationships - platonic or otherwise

▹pulls over the car literally just so he can hold both of your hands in his and make eye contact as he explains his actions, specifically so you understand he's being genuine

▹"I'd never do that to you on purpose, you're the most important person to me"

▹after your sniffles have subsided, he pulls you into a hug and promises never to do something like that again - and you bet he keeps his promise!!!

▹takes you to get food too, just as an extra apology and you sit in the car park eating ice cream together - he makes sure you're the center of his attention the entire time <3

Denki Kaminari

▹oh he's so stupid. he's so lovely, but so, so stupid.

▹honestly he probably says something insanely embarrassing in front of your friends and pays no attention to how that might make you feel, especially if you're close to these people

▹doesn't even notice when the room goes completely silent and nobody is talking but him, it takes one of his friends clearing their throat for him to notice your eyes filling with tears

▹in his defense, he does try to explain himself straight away and takes you into another room to have the conversation (at the very least) but it takes a little bit more explaining to him why his actions would upset you

▹doesn't really get it at first but you explaining, and your face as you cry, makes his heart hurt and he tries to rectify his actions as soon as he can

▹the first thing he thinks to do in that moment is bundle you up in his arms and rock the both of you back and forth to calm you down, which works a little more than you'd like to admit

▹runs his hands over your back, up and down, until your breathing evens out - does not give a shit about anyone outside of you two in that moment

▹once you've stopped crying, full on apology - hands and knees!

▹he seems genuinely heartbroken to have embarrassed you and takes full responsibility for what he did

▹ kicks everyone else out of the house and spends the rest of the evening making it up to you and reminding you of how important you are to him and just how sorry he is

I hope these were good! I haven't written in ages so this'll be the first comeback headcanons, hope you guys enjoyed it <3

[eyrieofsynapses]

why Aurora's art is genius

It's break for me, and I've been meaning to sit down and read the Aurora webcomic (https://comicaurora.com/, @comicaurora on Tumblr) for quite a bit. So I did that over the last few days.

And… y'know. I can't actually say "I should've read this earlier," because otherwise I would've been up at 2:30-3am when I had responsibilities in the morning and I couldn't have properly enjoyed it, but. Holy shit guys THIS COMIC.

I intended to just do a generalized "hello this is all the things I love about this story," and I wrote a paragraph or two about art style. …and then another. And another. And I realized I needed to actually reference things so I would stop being too vague. I was reading the comic on my tablet or phone, because I wanted to stay curled up in my chair, but I type at a big monitor and so I saw more details… aaaaaand it turned into its own giant-ass post.

SO. Enjoy a few thousand words of me nerding out about this insanely cool art style and how fucking gorgeous this comic is? (There are screenshots, I promise it isn't just a wall of text.) In my defense, I just spent two semesters in graphic design classes focusing on the Adobe Suite, so… I get to be a nerd about pretty things…???

All positive feedback btw! No downers here. <3

---

I cannot emphasize enough how much I love the beautiful, simple stylistic method of drawing characters and figures. It is absolutely stunning and effortless and utterly graceful—it is so hard to capture the sheer beauty and fluidity of the human form in such a fashion. Even a simple outline of a character feels dynamic! It's gorgeous!

Though I do have a love-hate relationship with this, because my artistic side looks at that lovely simplicity, goes "I CAN DO THAT!" and then I sit down and go to the paper and realize that no, in fact, I cannot do that yet, because that simplicity is born of a hell of a lot of practice and understanding of bodies and actually is really hard to do. It's a very developed style that only looks simple because the artist knows what they're doing. The human body is hard to pull off, and this comic does so beautifully and makes it look effortless.

Also: line weight line weight line weight. It's especially important in simplified shapes and figures like this, and hoo boy is it used excellently. It's especially apparent the newer the pages get—I love watching that improvement over time—but with simpler figures and lines, you get nice light lines to emphasize both smaller details, like in the draping of clothing and the curls of hair—which, hello, yes—and thicker lines to emphasize bigger and more important details and silhouettes. It's the sort of thing that's essential to most illustrations, but I wanted to make a note of it because it's so vital to this art style.

THE USE OF LAYER BLENDING MODES OH MY GODS. (...uhhh, apologies to the people who don't know what that means, it's a digital art program thing? This article explains it for beginners.)

Bear with me, I just finished my second Photoshop course, I spent months and months working on projects with this shit so I see the genius use of Screen and/or its siblings (of which there are many—if I say "Screen" here, assume I mean the entire umbrella of Screen blending modes and possibly Overlay) and go nuts, but seriously it's so clever and also fucking gorgeous:

Firstly: the use of screened-on sound effect words over an action? A "CRACK" written over a branch and then put on Screen in glowy green so that it's subtle enough that it doesn't disrupt the visual flow, but still sticks out enough to make itself heard? Little "scritches" that are transparent where they're laid on without outlines to emphasize the sound without disrupting the underlying image? FUCK YES. I haven't seen this done literally anywhere else—granted, I haven't read a massive amount of comics, but I've read enough—and it is so clever and I adore it. Examples:

Secondly: The beautiful lighting effects. The curling leaves, all the magic, the various glowing eyes, the fog, the way it's all so vividly colored but doesn't burn your eyeballs out—a balance that's way harder to achieve than you'd think—and the soft glows around them, eeeee it's so pretty so pretty SO PRETTY. Not sure if some of these are Outer/Inner Glow/Shadow layer effects or if it's entirely hand-drawn, but major kudos either way; I can see the beautiful use of blending modes and I SALUTE YOUR GENIUS.

I keep looking at some of this stuff and go "is that a layer effect or is it done by hand?" Because you can make some similar things with the Satin layer effect in Photoshop (I don't know if other programs have this? I'm gonna have to find out since I won't have access to PS for much longer ;-;) that resembles some of the swirly inner bits on some of the lit effects, but I'm not sure if it is that or not. Or you could mask over textures? There's... many ways to do it.

If done by hand: oh my gods the patience, how. If done with layer effects: really clever work that knows how to stop said effects from looking wonky, because ugh those things get temperamental. If done with a layer of texture that's been masked over: very, very good masking work. No matter the method, pretty shimmers and swirly bits inside the bigger pretty swirls!

Next: The way color contrast is used! I will never be over the glowy green-on-black Primordial Life vibes when Alinua gets dropped into that… unconscious space?? with Life, for example, and the sharp contrast of vines and crack and branches and leaves against pitch black is just visually stunning. The way the roots sink into the ground and the three-dimensional sensation of it is particularly badass here:

Friggin. How does this imply depth like that. HOW. IT'S SO FREAKING COOL.

A huge point here is also color language and use! Everybody has their own particular shade, generally matching their eyes, magic, and personality, and I adore how this is used to make it clear who's talking or who's doing an action. That was especially apparent to me with Dainix and Falst in the caves—their colors are both fairly warm, but quite distinct, and I love how this clarifies who's doing what in panels with a lot of action from both of them. There is a particular bit that stuck out to me, so I dug up the panels (see this page and the following one https://comicaurora.com/aurora/1-20-30/):

(Gods it looks even prettier now that I put it against a plain background. Also, appreciation to Falst for managing a bridal-carry midair, damn.)

The way that their colors MERGE here! And the immense attention to detail in doing so—Dainix is higher up than Falst is in the first panel, so Dainix's orange fades into Falst's orange at the base. The next panel has gold up top and orange on bottom; we can't really tell in that panel where each of them are, but that's carried over to the next panel—

—where we now see that Falst's position is raised above Dainix's due to the way he's carrying him. (Points for continuity!) And, of course, we see the little "huffs" flowing from orange to yellow over their heads (where Dainix's head is higher than Falst's) to merge the sound of their breathing, which is absurdly clever because it emphasizes to the viewer how we hear two sets of huffing overlaying each other, not one. Absolutely brilliant.

(A few other notes of appreciation to that panel: beautiful glows around them, the sparks, the jagged silhouette of the spider legs, the lovely colors that have no right to make the area around a spider corpse that pretty, the excellent texturing on the cave walls plus perspective, the way Falst's movements imply Dainix's hefty weight, the natural posing of the characters, their on-point expressions that convey exactly how fuckin terrifying everything is right now, the slight glows to their eyes, and also they're just handsome boys <3)

Next up: Rain!!!! So well done! It's subtle enough that it never ever disrupts the impact of the focal point, but evident enough you can tell! And more importantly: THE MIST OFF THE CHARACTERS. Rain does this irl, it has that little vapor that comes off you and makes that little misty effect that plays with lighting, it's so cool-looking and here it's used to such pretty effect!

One of the panel captions says something about it blurring out all the injuries on the characters but like THAT AIN'T TOO BIG OF A PROBLEM when it gets across the environmental vibes, and also that'd be how it would look in real life too so like… outside viewer's angle is the same as the characters', mostly? my point is: that's the environment!!! that's the vibes, that's the feel! It gets it across and it does so in the most pretty way possible!

And another thing re: rain, the use of it to establish perspective, particularly in panels like this—

—where we can tell we're looking down at Tynan due to the perspective on the rain and where it's pointing. Excellent. (Also, kudos for looking down and emphasizing how Tynan's losing his advantage—lovely use of visual storytelling.)

Additionally, the misting here:

We see it most heavily in the leftmost panel, where it's quite foggy as you would expect in a rainstorm, especially in an environment with a lot of heat, but it's also lightly powdered on in the following two panels and tends to follow light sources, which makes complete sense given how light bounces off particles in the air.

A major point of strength in these too is a thorough understanding of lighting, like rim lighting, the various hues and shades, and an intricate understanding of how light bounces off surfaces even when they're in shadow (we'll see a faint glow in spots where characters are half in shadow, but that's how it would work in real life, because of how light bounces around).

Bringing some of these points together: the fluidity of the lines in magic, and the way simple glowing lines are used to emphasize motion and the magic itself, is deeply clever. I'm basically pulling at random from panels and there's definitely even better examples, but here's one (see this page https://comicaurora.com/aurora/1-16-33/):

First panel, listed in numbers because these build on each other:

The tension of the lines in Tess's magic here. This works on a couple levels: first, the way she's holding her fists, as if she's pulling a rope taut.

The way there's one primary line, emphasizing the rope feeling, accompanied by smaller ones.

The additional lines starbursting around her hands, to indicate the energy crackling in her hands and how she's doing a good bit more than just holding it. (That combined with the fists suggests some tension to the magic, too.) Also the variations in brightness, a feature you'll find in actual lightning. :D Additional kudos for how the lightning sparks and breaks off the metal of the sword.

A handful of miscellaneous notes on the second panel:

The reflection of the flames in Erin's typically dark blue eyes (which bears a remarkable resemblance to Dainix, incidentally—almost a thematic sort of parallel given Erin's using the same magic Dainix specializes in?)

The flowing of fabric in the wind and associated variation in the lineart

The way Erin's tattoos interact with the fire he's pulling to his hand

The way the rain overlays some of the fainter areas of fire (attention! to! detail! hell yeah!)

I could go on. I won't because this is a lot of writing already.

Third panel gets paragraphs, not bullets:

Erin's giant-ass "FWOOM" of fire there, and the way the outline of the word is puffy-edged and gradated to feel almost three-dimensional, plus once again using Screen or a variation on it so that the stars show up in the background. All this against that stunning plume of fire, which ripples and sparks so gorgeously, and the ending "om" of the onomatopoeia is emphasized incredibly brightly against that, adding to the punch of it and making the plume feel even brighter.

Also, once again, rain helping establish perspective, especially in how it's very angular in the left side of the panel and then slowly becomes more like a point to the right to indicate it's falling directly down on the viewer. Add in the bright, beautiful glow effects, fainter but no less important black lines beneath them to emphasize the sky and smoke and the like, and the stunningly beautiful lighting and gradated glows surrounding Erin plus the lightning jagging up at him from below, and you get one hell of an impactful panel right there. (And there is definitely more in there I could break down, this is just a lot already.)

And in general: The colors in this? Incredible. The blues and purples and oranges and golds compliment so well, and it's all so rich.

Like, seriously, just throughout the whole comic, the use of gradients, blending modes, color balance and hues, all the things, all the things, it makes for the most beautiful effects and glows and such a rich environment. There's a very distinct style to this comic in its simplified backgrounds (which I recognize are done partly because it's way easier and also backgrounds are so time-consuming dear gods but lemme say this) and vivid, smoothly drawn characters; the simplicity lets them come to the front and gives room for those beautiful, richly saturated focal points, letting the stylized designs of the magic and characters shine. The use of distinct silhouettes is insanely good. Honestly, complex backgrounds might run the risk of making everything too visually busy in this case. It's just, augh, so GORGEOUS.

Another bit, take a look at this page (https://comicaurora.com/aurora/1-15-28/):

It's not quite as evident here as it is in the next page, but this one does some other fun things so I'm grabbing it. Points:

Once again, using different colors to represent different character actions. The "WHAM" of Kendal hitting the ground is caused by Dainix's force, so it's orange (and kudos for doubling the word over to add a shake effect). But we see blue layered underneath, which could be an environmental choice, but might also be because it's Kendal, whose color is blue.

And speaking off, take a look at the right-most panel on top, where Kendal grabs the spear: his motion is, again, illustrated in bright blue, versus the atmospheric screened-on orange lines that point toward him around the whole panel (I'm sure these have a name, I think they might be more of a manga thing though and the only experience I have in manga is reading a bit of Fullmetal Alchemist). Those lines emphasize the weight of the spear being shoved at him, and their color tells us Dainix is responsible for it.

One of my all-time favorite effects in this comic is the way cracks manifest across Dainix's body to represent when he starts to lose control; it is utterly gorgeous and wonderfully thematic. These are more evident in the page before and after this one, but you get a decent idea here. I love the way they glow softly, the way the fire juuuust flickers through at the start and then becomes more evident over time, and the cracks feel so realistic, like his skin is made of pottery. Additional points for how fire begins to creep into his hair.

A small detail that's generally consistent across the comic, but which I want to make note of here because you can see it pretty well: Kendal's eyes glow about the same as the jewel in his sword, mirroring his connection to said sword and calling back to how the jewel became Vash's eye temporarily and thus was once Kendal's eye. You can always see this connection (though there might be some spots where this also changes in a symbolic manner; I went through it quickly on the first time around, so I'll pay more attention when I inevitably reread this), where Kendal's always got that little shine of blue in his eyes the same as the jewel. It's a beautiful visual parallel that encourages the reader to subconsciously link them together, especially since the lines used to illustrate character movements typically mirror their eye color. It's an extension of Kendal.

Did I mention how ABSOLUTELY BEAUTIFUL the colors in this are?

Also, the mythological/legend-type scenes are illustrated in familiar style often used for that type of story, a simple and heavily symbolic two-dimensional cave-painting-like look. They are absolutely beautiful on many levels, employing simple, lovely gradients, slightly rougher and thicker lineart that is nonetheless smoothly beautiful, and working with clear silhouettes (a major strength of this art style, but also a strength in the comic overall). But in particular, I wanted to call attention to a particular thing (see this page https://comicaurora.com/aurora/1-12-4/):

The flowing symbolic lineart surrounding each character. This is actually quite consistent across characters—see also Life's typical lines and how they curl:

What's particularly interesting here is how these symbols are often similar, but not the same. Vash's lines are always smooth, clean curls, often playing off each other and echoing one another like ripples in a pond. You'd think they'd look too similar to Life's—but they don't. Life's curl like vines, and they remain connected; where one curve might echo another but exist entirely detached from each other in Vash's, Life's lines still remain wound together, because vines are continuous and don't float around. :P

Tahraim's are less continuous, often breaking up with significantly smaller bits and pieces floating around like—of course—sparks, and come to sharper points. These are also constants: we see the vines repeated over and over in Alinua's dreams of Life, and the echoing ripples of Vash are consistent wherever we encounter him. Kendal's dream of the ghost citizens of the city of Vash in the last few chapters is filled with these rippling, echoing patterns, to beautiful effect (https://comicaurora.com/aurora/1-20-14/):

They ripple and spiral, often in long, sinuous curves, with smooth elegance. It reminds me a great deal of images of space and sine waves and the like. This establishes a definite feel to these different characters and their magic. And the thing is, that's not something that had to be done—the colors are good at emphasizing who's who. But it was done, and it adds a whole other dimension to the story. Whenever you're in a deity's domain, you know whose it is no matter the color.

Regarding that shape language, I wanted to make another note, too—Vash is sometimes described as chaotic and doing what he likes, which is interesting to me, because smooth, elegant curves and the color blue aren't generally associated with chaos. So while Vash might behave like that on the surface, I'm guessing he's got a lot more going on underneath; he's probably much more intentional in his actions than you'd think at a glance, and he is certainly quite caring with his city. The other thing is that this suits Kendal perfectly. He's a paragon character; he is kind, virtuous, and self-sacrificing, and often we see him aiming to calm others and keep them safe. Blue is such a good color for him. There is… probably more to this, but I'm not deep enough in yet to say.

And here's the thing: I'm only scratching the surface. There is so much more here I'm not covering (color palettes! outfits! character design! environment! the deities! so much more!) and a lot more I can't cover, because I don't have the experience; this is me as a hobbyist artist who happened to take a couple design classes because I wanted to. The art style to this comic is so clever and creative and beautiful, though, I just had to go off about it. <3

...brownie points for getting all the way down here? Have a cookie.

[olderthannetfic]

Reading Comprehension – The Film Version

I was talking to someone a while back about the grammar of film editing and how they'd like to know more, but info isn't really available. This is one of my soapboxes. It floors me how simple a lot of this shit is to explain, yet even top film schools just assign In the Blink of an Eye and call it a day. Walter Murch is a great writer, and he has the film cred to back up his treatise on aesthetics, but can we really not manage at least a couple more books anybody cares about? (No, On Film Editing and that book of interviews with Murch don't... cut it.)

For all that film has supposedly been democratized, Youtube et al. are a wasteland for actual discussions of film grammar. Every Frame a Painting has some stuff. Lindsay Ellis has a couple of videos. But most educational film content is very much aimed at either the technical side of camera and editing or is waaaaay too obsessed with the screenplay. (I await the whiny-ass anons from last time who insist that their favorite youtubers discuss this all the time. Nah, dude. If they did, you'd have been willing to name names.)

It's an approach that's overly literal and overly verbal, which makes sense given that what reading comprehension we're taught is all focused on picking apart some essay or maybe a classic book.

Unfortunately, words aren't what define film: reaction shots are.

Having a command of film grammar matters for everything from detecting political propaganda to recognizing when Hollywood is like "Ohhh, but we gave them liiiines in the scriiipt" but the actual product they put out completely undercuts those characters, whether it's not even filming a single or stuffing them behind other characters in the group shots or being embarrassingly incapable of lighting dark skin properly or a host of other obnoxious shit.

Anyway, I made a couple of my own little attempts to put out some free educational materials about how film grammar works.

Carlos "Cougar" Alvarez: Human Exclamation Point is about how to make a character feel like a lead when they have no lines and like two seconds of screen time.

Aisha is the Object; Clay is the Subject is about how to make someone not a protagonist by training the camera on their butt all the damn time.

IDK why I was suddenly thinking about this this afternoon, but I was.

[nubisaureus]

when they get jealous and needy

how the genshin men show their jealousy over you

character(s): Cyno, Xiao, Kaeya

pairings(s): fem!reader x Cyno, Xiao, Kaeya (separately)

contents: uncertainty of feelings, smut, found family, angst, comfort

not proofread! im swamped with uni work so i might post less till next week, sorry <3

─────────────────── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ──────────────────

Cyno

he's absolutely chill most of the time, but there are some times he just gets jealous and insecure

you bet he's going to mark his territory: whether it is by putting his hand around your waist, pulling you close, whispering something in your ear while looking the other person dead in the eyes, his golden irises sending a silent warning

«And who's this, angel?» he asks, as he gets to your side

you better believe he's gonna get extra needy/rough when you two get in bed later

as he's balls deep in your pussy, he groans «you're mine, aren't you, angel?»

you struggle to answer. not because you don't know what to answer, but because you can't think properly, as he's relentlessly pounding into you, making you lose any semblance of rational thought

he stops, still inside of you.

«answer.» he commands now, making you squirm and whine for more.

«C-cyno..» you plead, incapable of uttering any other word than his name.

«yes?» his pupils dark and wide, much like the ones of a predator

«i am Cyno. that guy was just flirting with me because he can't stand you. he wants to make you angry because the matra once apprehended him due to his illegal schemes, and so he wants to take it out on you..» you utter those words, remembering the case that had shaken your Darshan from the inside out, before Cyno was even the general Mahamatra

as you finish speaking, he starts to pound into you again, making you scream his name, finally getting the release you were aching for

──────────────────────────────

Xiao

poor thing is still new to this having feelings for someone, so when he gets angry when another guy talks with you in a more friendly way, he doesn't know what to do with his feelings

so he goes to Zhongli, asking for advice (a/n yes, i believe in Zhongli as Xiao's found family, idc)

«Rex L-» «Just Zhongli.»

he looks down, biting his lip at the correction. it doesn't feel fair to him to call Rex Lapis as simply Zhongli, but he carries on, explaining his problem

«What you are experiencing is what mortals call "jealousy". While it is normal to have such a feeling when someone you don't like might be talking to her in a little too friendly manner, you must learn not to get overwhelmed by this feeling, as it only brings people apart and destroys relationships.»

he thinks long and hard about what Zhongli told him, and as you return to Wangshu Inn, you find him on the rooftop, deep in thought.

«I'm back, Xiao.» you say, catching his attention.

you are met by a dry reply, that makes you wonder what might be up with him

after a bit, he decides to confess, and you look at him, endearment in your eyes

«aw, love. you have no need to be jealous. i'm sorry you felt this way. whether adeptus or human, jealousy is a terrible feeling that no one wants to experience. but i can assure you that the only one i love is you, and no one else.»

he's got tears in his eyes

«are you sure?» you nod. «but..my karmic debt..» he averts his eyes, turning his back to you

you hug him from behind, resting your head on his shoulder

«my Vision protects me.»

he makes you promise to run away if he ever loses control over himself, and you reluctantly agree, even though you know that if that ever happened, you would fight for him until the bitter end.

──────────────────────────────

Kaeya

oh boi, you're in for a ride

he's literally the smoothest talker ever, he doesn't even need to get jealous

he's more of a showoff really, basically showing off his wonderful girlfriend

so it's more him making other people jealous, whether men or women, because, let's be honest, it's not like women are not jealous of you

«all alone here, kitten?» he comes up at you at Angel's Share, while Diluc rolls his eyes at his cheesiness

you flirt right back, twirling a strand of loose hair in your fingers, catching his attention

your hair and neck are his weak points, so you know exactly what you're doing

his eyes are fixated on you, as you let go of your hair, and go back to your drink, ignoring him

he comes up to you, whispering something in your ear

«let's put on a show» are the words that come to your ears, and you smile wickedly

you turn your head towards him, staring at his lips intensively

he's too close for comfort, and you can feel his cold breath on your skin, shivers appearing in response

as you're about to kiss, your lips inches from each other, a suave melody starts playing

you see one of the most renowned bard of Mondstadt, Venti, playing his lyre for the tavern

you get all excited, and stand up, your dress flitting around your figure

Kaeya gives you a puzzled look, but it soon transforms into an amused smile, as he joins you in dancing

you two dance together, the entire tavern mesmerized at the sight of you two

might also be because Kaeya was using his vision to create small snowflakes around both of you, those same snowflakes catching the light of the tavern, creating a reflective spectacle

you decide to tease him, grabbing him by the ring that holds his collar in place

he smiles smugly, as if to ask "what now?"

your faces get too close for comfort, both of you lost in the each other's eyes

suddenly a whiff of wind swirls around you, diffusing an irresistible aroma around you

who's gonna give in first? it's a battle of wits at this point

Kaeya does.

you don't even have the time to process it, that his lips are on yours, and his hands are on your waist, pulling you closer

that was one memorable night

what you didn't know is that your ex was standing in a corner of the tavern, a bewildered look in his eyes as he witnessed the whole scene

Kaeya is a fucking menace

[nejiverse]

YOU’RE HIRED!

Nagi Seishiro

In which you ‘interview’ your jobless boyfriend

cw: suggestive at the end, choki is the name of nagi’s pet cactus for those who don’t know, I’ll proofread this later lol

802 words

"Sei you really need to get a job", you plopped down next to him on the bed as he looked extremely focused on what ever game he was playing.

"Ehh? Sounds like a pain".

"Breathing is a pain for you love, at this point you're just gonna have to build a bridge and get over it", you spoke resting your head on his shoulder.

He frowned. "Building a bridge sounds like a pain too".

"...i meant that metaphorically, I don't actually expect you to build one", you didn't think you'd ever have to explain that...but here you were.

"Still a pain".

You were on the verge of banning that word from his vocabulary.

You let the room fall silent for a second before you quickly snatched his console away from him and crawled to the end of the bed.

Which unfortunately was unsuccessful because Nagi grabbed you by your leg.

"Stealing isn't nice y'know", he pouted while he put his hand out, expecting you to drop his console back into his hand.

"Oh like that time you stole my last chicken nugget?".

"Borrowed actually", he huffed.

You shook your head and stuffed his console down your shirt, showing your empty hands to him as if you've just done the most incredible magic trick.

"You need a life babe", it was true. All he did was wake up, play games, and go back to sleep. It was unhealthy.

"You are my life", he responded.

You laughed. "Nice try but that won't get your console back".

"Aw, damn".

You thought of an idea that'd entertain you but also would let you figure out if your boyfriend was equipped for a job...or if anyone would even consider employing him.

"Alright pretend i'm your potential employer, if you pass my interview you can have it back", you sat up and crossed your legs.

Nagi agreed, but only if you'd make it easy.

"So tell me a bit about yourself", you decided to skip introductions. There was no way anyone could flunk that, even your lazy boyfriend.

"Mmm my name is Nagi Seishiro, I like games and sleep", he blinked at you as you urged him to go on but he only shrugged his shoulders. "That's it".

You face palmed at his hopelessness. "Sei is that seriously what you're gonna tell your employer?!".

"Of course it is".

The fact that he was serious added to your worry for him but the show must go on.

"Why did you decide to apply for this job?".

Nagi placed a hand on his chin in thought. He already had his answer but it just added to the theatrics of it all in his opinion.

"I was forced to apply against my will by my girlfriend", he spoke.

"Seiii! Your employer will literally leave!", you shook his shoulders gently.

"I say good riddance".

"Okay one more question, and answer it properly!", you forewarned. He thought his answers were pretty proper though.

"Why should we hire you?".

"So my girlfriend'll stop bugging me about getting a job...do I get the job now?".

"Fuck no", you laughed, scooting closer to your disappointed boyfriend who laid back down with a sigh.

"If it makes you feel any better, A for effort", you laid your head on his chest. "You can just work from home or something".

"I can be a house husband", you looked up at him quizzically.

"Sei, sweetie, love of my life, you don't even do the small chores you have these days...I don't think that's possible", you patted his chest.

He grumbled under his breath, you really had zero faith in him but you were only being realistic.

"Alright then I can be a stay at home dad”.

You raised a brow. Nagi of all people as a father??. "For that you'd need actual kids. We've none of those".

You were taken aback when Nagi moved your head from his chest to the pillow and got on too of you, a hand at your head and the other on your waist. You blinked blankly. "Let's get to baby makin' then", he said it so casually, you were shocked…but not completely opposed to the idea.

“S-seriously?”, you averted your gaze to the side.

Nagi’s hand slithered up your top as he shook his head.

“Nah, I just realised I’d still have to do chores”, he took back his console and laid next to you, continuing his game. “Besides we’ve got a kid already”.

“We do?”.

“Yeah, Choki”.

Masterlist :)

a/n: more drafts..I’ve a biology exam in two days and I just came back from holidays 💀

[idyllic-affections]

hmm thinking about the recent trend with sibling xiao recs, what about if he has zhongli babysit one day? just some kind fatherly zhongli for the soul…

fatherly inclinations.

summary. zhongli takes on a fatherly role over xiao's younger sibling figure.

trigger & content warnings. brief references to implied violence.

tropes, pairings, fic length, & other notes. fluff. zhongli & reader, (implied) xiao & younger sibling!reader. 0.6k words. they/them pronouns used for reader.

author's thoughts. the way i had to literally dig this request out of my inbox..... it was all the way at the bottom....... the triple digits are getting closer every day LMAO but anyway. just know that if you have sent in a request, i promise you it does cross my mind every once in a while. anyways fatherly zhongli is very good for the soul!!!!! it is important to get your daily recommended dose of kind dad-like old man zhongli <3333

i believe zhongli has a number of fatherly traits to him, whether he realizes it or not... but of course, i also think he is aware of it.

he is—or more accurately, was—rex lapis, after all. surely it wasn't uncommon for him to be seen as a fatherly figure? the people of liyue looked up to him as one when he was a god, so it isn't like it's a new experience for him or anything.

he's used to it, but that doesn't mean he feels any less endeared by people who deem him as such! it happens often, but he never ceases to feel a parental warmth when it does happen. perhaps it has something to do with his more... dragon-like instincts.

whatever the case may be, he isn't at all bothered by being seen in such a familial way. in fact, he's quite fond of it.

so, inevitably, he would naturally take on that kind of role over his own beloved son's yaksha's younger sibling figure.

...though, as good of a father figure as he is, i think he would be a little bit of a boring person for those not interested in his lengthy history rambles.

but assuming xiao's sibling is interested, for the sake of this post—

he's happy to tell them about anything they'd like to know. if they have questions about liyue's history or about the times when the other yakshas were alive, he's completely alright with telling them his tales... excluding the more violent and grotesque details, of course.

(something tells me he wouldn't want to ruin their image of him, but... he's sure they know part of the truth. they don't say anything about it, so neither does he.)

i think zhongli has a handful of funny stories about xiao, which he totally tells the yaksha's little sibling about. he doesn't mean to embarrass the poor thing! it's more of a wistful, fond nostalgia thing for the ex-archon. now, cloud retainer or madame ping on the other hand...

well. their stories would certainly come with the intention of being teasing, but zhongli is not either of those people. he does it because he's just very fond of those times.

if they're interested in doing something or spending their time somewhere, zhongli will just borrow mora from childe to make it happen LMAO

he'll also take them out to eat with that mora and let them get whatever they'd like <3 it's not like it would put a huge dent in childe's savings, anyway, so it's fine.

(to be honest, childe would probably be especially happy to share if he knew zhongli was using it to spoil a kid. he's just that kind of guy, you know? it shouldn't come as a surprise, given that he has little siblings of his own.)

AND AND AND consider zhongli telling them about liyue's native plants and flowers... he'll explain their symbolisms, how those meanings have evolved over time, what conditions they need to grow properly, etc etc. if they made him a flower crown, he would proudly wear it btw.

he likes sharing information, you know? it's something of a love language.

he's seen so much. he knows so much.

why should he withhold that information, those thousands of years of wisdom, from the people he loves? the way he sees it, maybe one day the information he shares will be of use.

[name] may not be his child biologically or legally, but he sees them as one of his own all the same, just as he did the yakshas and just as he does to the one who remains.

and, you know, if they happen to fall asleep at the end of the day on his shoulder, i don't think he would mind. he'd just lean over, gently kiss them on the temple, adjust their posture so that they don't wake up sore, and kindly murmur with all the tenderness to be expected of a man such as himself, "sleep well, little one."

perhaps xiao comes to find them and take them home, or perhaps zhongli takes them.back to wangshu inn himself.

whatever the case may be, they will be returned home safely.

nothing will get to them with zhongli around.

please consider reblogging, it helps me out quite a lot!

[a-dauntless-daffodil]

fictional girls who should have been gay

Minnie Mouse and Daisy Duck, from the 2004 "Micky, Donald, Goofy: The Three Musketeers" animated movie.

The situation: GAY

Princess and lady-in-waiting. Is there anything more intimate and potentially gay than a girl and the girl who she specifically keeps around just to officially hang out with? I don't care I love it.

they are the most romantic thing in this movie

Their introduction scene is Minnie sighing over her future love (hypothetical and male and not necessarily royal) while blowing flower petals in Daisy's face

Daisy has reservations

but when Minnie is explaining True Love to her (while they hold hands and twirl around the room)

Minnie says she'll know her true love because she'll hear music (sentimental music is now playing) and they'll make her laugh- AND THEN DAISY LAUGHS

she starts saying that sounds silly...

but Minnie looks at her, and flutters her eyes at her...

and Daisy just MELTS. She clasps her hands over her heart and switches to sighing that that sounds lovely...

who drew and directed that and didn't notice how much it looks like Daisy just fell in love with Minnie. hey. I want to know

did they realize they could've had Daisy staring at something else?

a painting of young lovers. a couple passing by the window. even the sad bedraggled flower Minnie had been using for a game of he-loves-me-he-loves-me-not

(i cannot get over how the flower wilts the last time we see it, right after Minnie says "trust me Daisy, I'll know him, when I see him)

(I understand it's meant to be like, oh look the flower looks like Micky now she'll know him when she sees him- but it could also look like HER, Minnie is talking to Daisy about true love and knowing it when it's there but oh the IRONY if Daisy was in love with HER while she says that!!! With Minnie having no idea!!!!)

anyway

how about just not have Minnie flutter her eyelashes at Daisy like that

have HER not be looking at Daisy when she's talking about true love

anything. anything else would have worked better

Well apparently none of those options occurred to the film makers because these girls are supposed to be STRAIGHT somehow

(Minnie, princess of prolonged held eye contact)

(and Daisy, lady of keeps having to look away when Minnie is staring at her Like That)

Moments later, after a montage of Minnie strolling around the gardens dreaming of love (to the tune of a song about young love), an attempt on her life is thwarted by DAISY asking her to come over for a moment, moving Minnie out of the path of a falling safe meant to crush her

(by the way, holy heck it feels honestly scary. it just. DROPS)

The song lyric leading up to Daisy calling out for Minnie is "Your first your only love~! Love so-" (can't hear properly)

Minnie being willing to leave her daydreams of love for Daisy no questions asked is what saves her actual literal life I'm sorry but again why did they think having Daisy being the reason she lives was so important. This is a Micky Mouse cartoon legit just have Minnie stand up on her own and wander out of harm's way or get distracted by a flower or something but NOOOOO it's DAISY who unknowingly gets her out of danger, it's Minnie listening to her that saves her. ARGH IT COULD HAVE MEANT SO MUCH BUT

Minnie has actual whole conversations with Daisy. Actual. Talking. Sharing of thoughts and opinions. Chances to see their personalities and how they play off each other.

Princess Minnie, the slightly head in the clouds princess, and Daisy, grounded and a bit dry

Minnie: He loves me. He loves me… a lot. He loves me. He loves me even moooore. He loves me...

Daisy: Pardon me, Your Highness… (blows some free-floating petals off her face) you‘re, kinda mangling that flower.

like there's this set up for Minnie being rebellious enough to reject tradition and rules, being annoyed at them for cramping her style

Daisy: This, fantasy man- (the exasperation on those two words XD), d'you happen to know if he's royalty?

Minnie: Does it matter?

Daisy, breathlessly: Well, as you know, someone of your, royal stature, needs to be courted by a gentleman of royal blood.

Minnie: What a royal pain.

It's supposed to be about getting with a commoner instead, but... HMM I WONDER WHAT OTHER SOCIAL EXPECTATIONS MINNIE COULD BREAK.

A gentleman of royal blood? Well what if it's not! A gentleman!!

Minnie: Daisy, I can't marry someone I'm not in love with.

Daisy: You want love? Buy a dog.

the delicious set up as Daisy as jaded and practical BUT moments later she can't help herself with Minnie, she can't ruin Minnie's little happy bubble, she can't keep pushing Minnie away from her dream

When Minnie gazes at her all warm and mushy, Daisy has to giggle and admit that the idea of a true love who makes you laugh is just Lovely, actually

she says, while staring back at Minnie

WRITERS I WANT TO TALK WITH YOU I JUST WANT TO CHAT

but anyway, they have a flow, a rapport, they play off each other and clearly care about each other and, meanwhile, M e a n w h i l e

meanwhile, nearly all the time Minnie spends "being in love" with Micky is done in silent daydream episodes where they float on clouds and stuff. They get a montage of vague cute stuff. It's a whole lot of Nothing. Very pretty! But nothing

They see each other and it's supposed to be love at first sight. Whee. I'd find it cute if Minnie didn't already have someone and Micky wasn't mostly focused on being a good Musketeer. What do they give each other? They hardly even TALK! At the end of the movie I still have no idea how they'd get through a simple conversation! As a crush sure it reads fine- but true love? Where? When????

MOMENTS after meeting and "falling for" Micky, Minnie is yelling at him and his friends, furious because they accidently attacked Daisy thinking she was a threat

wow good job showing us Minnie's priorities here. Good job showing us she cares about Daisy

good job not using that to let her and Micky like, talk, or anything

Daisy, meanwhile, spends the whole movie with 0% interest in Donald at all, nothing but burns and scorn, only getting with him in the last moments literally just because why not

As in that's honestly the reason the movie gives. Not that she likes him. Just. Why not.

my eye is twitching

MINNIE LOVES THE IDEA OF A FORBIDDON LOVE!

SHE SAYS, SHE SAYS-

Minnie: Our love is, forbidden?

Daisy: Bin-go~

Minnie: A forbidden love? How romantic...!

girl you've had 1 (ONE) interaction with "the little one" like props to you for liking a short king but hey, heeey, this is so not selling the love vibes ok

GUESS WHAT OTHER LOVE WOULD BE FORBIDDEN

HMM I WONDER

Minnie: Look, Daisy. Mickey and I have the same last name!

Daisy: Well, it must be destiny. Good thing destiny doesn’t control my love life.

(daisy being practical jaded or daisy using code for 'yeeeah, im prim and proper in everything else, but im going against the flow when it comes to romance)

Minnie: What do you mean?

Daisy: Well, look at me! If it did, I’d get stuck with Mister… (squawking and babbling)

Minnie & Daisy: (laughing together)

hey remember how Minnie laughed when Micky rolled a nat 0 trying to untie her and the narrator was like "Oh he made her laugh! It must be love!"

remember when Daisy makes Minnie laugh with a Donald Duck impersonation? While they were in bed together??

NARRATOR IF A LAUGH IS ALL IT TAKES THEN CHIME IN PLEASE

Do You Remember when Micky and co failed and Minnie was kidnapped by badguys and Micky had a moment of slump before getting his second wind? Was he motivated by thoughts of his True Love? Was he thinking of Minnie when he decided not to give up on saving her??

NO.

he was looking at his friends being sad.

He encourages himself thinking about how the captain of the guard chose him and his friends to be musketeers

No Mention Of Minnie At All, Aside From A Quest To Be Cleared

wow much love such devotion

The point of Micky's story is him wanting to be a Musketeer. The emotional climax is always between him and his two friends. THE ROMANCE IS SO WEIRD IT DOES NOTHING AND COMES FROM NOTHING AND GOES NOWHERE.

Minnie has no character growth no obstacles nothing to do. she was ready to throw tradition aside for the man of her dreams the moment we saw her-

IMAGINE the crunchiness if she had either a moment of "wait actually, i think he's cute but this isn't love" OR "hey wait all this time I've been dreaming of a guy maybe it's not a guy though? Tee hee let's destroy some more social norms!"

(don't for the love of all things bring up lines of succession this is alternate universe france in the 1600-1700's there is a Lot To Gloss Over Okay)

And Daisy is RIGHT THERE.

Not interested in guys! Sighing over Minnie! Staying with her throughout the whole movie because apparently you can't kidnap the princess without her lady in waiting!

RAAAGH. I know, I know Disney and gay don't mix, especially in 2004- but why why why why did they think Minnie had to be with Micky in this one? Why did they make the emptiest crush ever instead of just letting Minnie and Daisy chill up on the throne dais together? IM IN PAIN EVERY TIME I REWATCH THIS.

tldr: Daisy was in love with princess Minnie, and if Minnie had known she's the exact sort of rebel princess to just marry her lady-in-waiting like a boss

[crazy4myself]

No Harm List | Pt. 14

Word count: 5.5k ish

Warnings: explicit language, violence, sexual themes

Summary: You live in a city where crime runs rampant. One day, you save a young boy’s life, not knowing that he is the most powerful crime lord's heir. And you have just been put on the no harm list.

—------

A/N: Hiii lovelies I know it had been literal years since I’ve properly updated. To avoid confusion you may want to go back a few chapters to refresh; I recommend part 12. Also some of the next few chapters may look familiar bc I re-wrote them. But I think you will like this version much better :)

“Why did you avoid me after we kissed?” you asked again, your voice clear. You did not make yourself elaborate. You didn’t tell him how you’ve felt lost and helpless these weeks. And if you could take it back, you would. But if you were honest with yourself, no part of you really wanted to.

You just looked at him expectantly and watched him squirm in the silence. “Because.. I’m a coward,” he offered, looking down at his hands.

Your silence was loud in the air between you, pressuring him to keep talking, “I was scared because BTS has already put you in so much danger already. I mean, we're not even dating, and you were basically held hostage.”

“Don’t pin this on me.” you cut him off. You knew it was a valid point, but it wasn’t his only reason for not talking to you. “Whether or not I endanger myself to date you is a decision for us to make. Why did you avoid me?” you asked again.

“I was scared. I was scared it was an impulsive or pity kiss after being shot. I was scared you didn’t have feelings for me, so I avoided the rejection.”

You quirked a brow in disbelief. Oh, sure, he was scared of you rejecting him. “It’s true!” he insisted.

“And I don’t even know if I could date you,” he added, and you felt a part of your chest ache at the confession.

“I don’t know if I'm capable of dating with my lifestyle. It's not only a safety hazard, but I don't know if I’m capable of giving you any more of myself than I already have. I think about you all the time. And I love spending time with you. But our friendship, where we were before that kiss, it’s all I know how to give people.”

He turned to you, eyes searching your face for any signs of hurt or betrayal, but he couldn’t read your expression as you quietly whispered, “And what if I told you that’s enough?”

Jungkook parted his lips but was at a loss for words.

“I’ve never really dated,” you explained, “And I don't think I know how to. And school is so stressful, and the program is only going to get more complex. I’m not sure I have time to learn and figure out the ‘right’ way to do it.” You paused as you saw his eyebrows furrow in confusion, and you realized how contradictory you were sounding.

“I like you, Jungkook. I like what we have, and I liked kissing you. But before now, I didn’t think I could date you. Not because of the whole ‘gang’ thing. But because I think-” your voice cracked, “I think something in me broke when I lost Daewon. I never,” You paused to swallow.

“I will never let anyone in like that again because it hurt so bad when I lost her. And we weren’t even together romantically. So, imagine how bad it would hurt to lose a partner?” a hot tear rolled down your cheek, and Jungkook reached up to wipe it. You leaned into the comforting heat of his touch as his callused thumb rubbed soothingly on your cheek.

“What I’m trying to say is we both clearly have boundaries and walls. And we both suck at keeping the other out of some of them. So what if we loved eachother in whatever fucked up way we know how and at least reap the benefits of having shitty partners?” You offered with a hesitant smile.

“The benefits being?” Jungkook asked with a quirked brow.

Mischief glinted in your eyes as you smiled at him before lifting onto your knees and crawling towards him on the couch. Jungkook knew this conversation wasn’t over. He knew he should stop you and assure you that nothing about you was broken for being cautious about who you loved. He wanted to tell you that you were good and kind and would make an incredible partner in any capacity, and he was worried he wouldn’t deserve what you were willing to give. But his mind went blank as you inched so close that he could feel your breath against his face as you murmured, “I can think of a few.”

You moved confidently but still grazed your lips against his in the softest touch as if asking for permission.

Jungkook leaned forward, capturing you in the kiss and pulling you into his lap. It was just as hungry as last time, as if he had been waiting to taste you again. Jungkook felt his body come alight at the joy of feeling you pressed against him. His hands rubbed eagerly against your thighs before wandering up your sides, your arms, and your shoulders as he took all of you in.

The touch wasn’t as much for pleasure as it was a claiming. But still, you skin tingled in response. A trail of goosebumps rose in the wake of every brush of his callused hands.

Finally, you broke the kiss to catch your breath. Pressing your forehead against his, you both smiled like idiots as you took eachother in.

Jungkook leaned in to kiss you again, softer this time. As if the raw desperation passed, he would savor every second now that he had you. His hands were firmly on your waist, and his thumbs rubbed in a soothing motion, lower, and lower as they crept under the hem of your shirt.

You felt core core turning molten and couldn’t reflect back on the last time you had been with someone in this way.

Jungkook’s mouth was hot against your neck, trailing down from behind your ear lower and lower, looking for the spot that made-

You gasped and arched against him in pleasure, your chest pressing harder against his.

There it was, his mind thought in primal satisfaction, as he bit down right above your pulse point, making you writhe against him further. He had been replaying the sounds you made during your last kiss in his head an embarrassing number of nights he was alone. He wanted to map your body right now and learn every spot that made you sigh and moan for him. His hands had migrated further up your ribcage, your skin flushing hot beneath his touch as his thumbs swiped just below your bra.

He was about to reach around to unclasp it when a cough from the kitchen cut his ministrations short. You both turned in shock to see Yoongi placing an expresso pod in the coffee machine.

“J-Hope is in the garage you might wanna,” he waved his hand in the air in a vague gesture to separate. “Or don’t,” he said with a shrug, “I think his reaction would be funny.”

You were scrambling off Jungkook's lap and shoving a pillow between the two of you. Your lips were swollen and bruised from the kiss. You straightened your shirt, which was more rumpled from your earlier fight than anything, and placed a pillow between the two of you as if to protect your chastity with seconds to spare before the sound of Hoseok’s footsteps echoed from the garage. You locked eyes with him as soon as he made it in the entryway. You could feel the anger radiating off of him as he entered the room.

“What happened?” He demanded.

Jungkook calmed his breathing, grabbing the pillow barrier to instead place on his lap as he reminded himself that the bakery was attacked. Hoseok had no clue that Jungkook was just kissing his best friend and that he was not in danger.

“Hobi!” you were up in an instant, ignoring his foul temper as you wrapped your arms around him.

He caught your embrace effortlessly, his eyes tracking you and then noting Jungkook and his new emotional support pillow as he squeezed you tightly before letting you step back.

“Are you okay?” you both ask in unison before cracking a smile.

“I’m fine I just had to lay low. What happened at the bakery tonight?” Hoseok pushed.

Your smile faltered for a moment. “There was an ambush, they didn’t touch me. I can’t say the same for them, but they’ll be fine.” you started.

Hoseok’s brow rose at your implication, “You took out four of the Black Tips best men?” he asked. He didn’t sound disbelieving, he sounded… impressed and maybe a little proud.

“Only two, and I wouldn’t call them the best. Why are you here if you’re in hiding?” you asked, ignoring the way his approval warmed you chest. “And why were you in hiding? And when did you dye your hair?” you pushed. Reaching up to touch the murky black locks. It was obviously box-dyed and barely covered the bright red it was days earlier.

Hoseok smiled tight-lipped before moving to the couch, “I’ll tell my story if you promise to tell yours when Jin and RM get back.” He offered.

You refrained from pointing out that the reason you were at the Den in the first place was to do exactly that. You were too eager to get some answers from Hoseok. Who quickly filled you in on the details of the fake assassination attempt that ended in a not-so-fake assassination charge. That led to Hoseok and Yoongi hiding out in some shitty safe house an hour outside the city, living off Raman noodles and re-dying their hair to more subtle colors.

By time Hoseok had finished, the other members of BTS began filing in. Hoseok told you they had only been called out of hiding so Yoongi could manage the video footage of the bakery and nearby security cameras for the police department and insurance claims. Jin wanted to edit out any evidence of a gang-related interrogation, or else their relationship was going to get a lot more complicated with the local authorities.

But apparently, there was no need. Yoongi was fuming when he returned from his office, informing the others that while the security cameras were able to stream live footage to their system, the memory had been wiped from BTS’s computers.

He still had to cover their tracks of abducting the Black Tips on any city cameras. But otherwise the gang was relying on you as the sole witness to the night's events.

Well, you and the four Black Tip members who attacked you. The men were currently stored away in a safe house under the greenhouse on the Den’s property. But with the excessive exposure to Jimin’s smoke, there was a chance their memories would be unreliable, if not nonexistent.

Jimin couldn’t even estimate a wake time for the men due to the level of gas they inhaled. It could be days before anyone could get answers out of them.

When Jin and Jimin finally returned from filing their reports to the authorities, everyone settled in the living room to hear your account. You recalled the night's events as detailed as possible, telling them how the man in the suit tried to buy your loyalty from BTS and describing him to the best of your ability.

To your relief, they all listened quietly while you spoke, and when you were done, it was V who helped you fill in any gaps you may have missed by prompting you with questions. His presence was steady and soothing, and you realized he was giving you a glimpse of the spider at work. The others didn’t dare interrupt him or ask their own questions, they trusted him to gather every drop of information.

What did the man in the suite look like?

Did he ask about BTS’s current movements?

What ‘sins against the city’ did he want to hold BTS responsible for?

What information did he want you to report back?

You didn’t have any answers to half of those questions, confessing you spent most of your time stalling and trying to get the man to reveal why he was bribing you of all people. You were convinced at the time that the alarm had alerted BTS of your situation and that they would arrive at any minute. The thought of the man getting away didn’t seem like a possibility.

And a small part of you, despite promising yourself you owed BTS nothing outside of your contract, couldn’t help but feel like this oversight was a failure on your part. Somehow, you let the gang down.

Jin clarified that the alarm had been disabled along with the cameras hours prior to the break-in. It was by luck and V’s intel that they managed to get to you when you did.

“And isn't that a big fucking problem?” Hoseok growled, unable to stay quiet any longer.

He stepped forward, glaring in Jin and Jimin’s direction, “Do you realize how irresponsible it was to schedule her on a closing shift alone.” He accused.

“Hobi, it’s fine I worked late all the time at my last job,” you started trying to diffuse the situation.

Everyone in the room refrained from pointing out how well that had gone for you.

“No, it’s not fine. This isn’t like your other job. What if they tried to get information from her at that moment, and she had nothing to give? What if V didn’t call in time? There are a thousand different ways this could have gone wrong. She is not a member of this gang,” Hoseok snapped.

You flinched slightly at his tone.

“She doesn’t have the tattoo. Debt and favors aside, she should not be this deep in BTS’s affairs. She should not be alone in our businesses. That bakery is a cover for Jimin’s lab and loitering drug money. Why the hell would you think it okay to leave her alone there?” He continued.

Jin’s face was like a stone as Hoseok lectured him, not wanting his own emotions to invalidate his brothers. “You're right.” Jin agreed, and you could see the full weight of tonight's events take a toll on him as his shoulders sagged and he turned to you with guilt in his eyes.

“I’m so sorry I put you in danger, Ella. We will never let it happen again.” Jin promised his voice was soft but earnest.

“It sure as hell won’t because she’s not working for you anymore.” Hoseok snapped.

“That's not your call to make,” you argued.

Hoseok turned to you, frustration evident on his face, “Do not fight me on this. You know tonight was too dangerous.”

“She was the dangerous part of tonight. She was fine.” Jungkook pushed, standing next to you.

“Stay out of this!” You and Hoseok snapped in unison.

Jungkook’s face puckered like he tasted something sour, but he sat back on the couch's arm.

“Tonight, you were lucky that man wanted you alive. He could change his mind at any point why can’t you see the danger in that.”

“I'm bound by contract to keep working off my debt,” you argued as you turned to RM for backup.

RM crossed his arms, taking in you and Hoseok as he contemplated his response.

“Blood debt runs deeper than civil law,” Hoseok said before his leader could voice his opinion. And a tense stillness fell across the room.

“Have you forgotten she’s on the No Harm List? That we are supposed to be willing to die for her.” he pushed. The whole gang's demeanor changed at the reminder Jimin downcast his gaze as his shame sank into his gut.

“I don’t want that,” you pushed, horrified, “Take me off the list I don’t - I did not ever want that.”

“Daewon, please, why won’t you let me protect you!”

The room fell quiet as his sister's name echoed through the room.

Your chest ached as understanding settled in, “Oh, Hobie,” you sighed.

“We’ll take a vote,” RM ordered, unable to stand another minute of this fighting. “We have damage control to take care of, and everyone is tired. We meet first thing, and we will decide as a team what we should do about Ella.”

Hoseok’s smile was mirthless at his boss’s half-ass attempt to placate him. “See you bright in early,” he said with a salute before turning for the garage.

You stared after your best friend, hesitant to follow him. “And do I get a say in that decision?” you asked RM softly.

RM sighed, “Your opinion will be considered when we vote. You will have full control over how we go about re-negotiating your contract if it comes to it.”

Assuming that was the best you could get, you sighed, eyes flicking over to Yoongi who flanked RM’s left, his arms crossed and his expression stoic.

“I guess I’ll go catch up with Hobi,” you offered hesitantly, not knowing what to do. Yoongi met your eyes but said nothing. Taking Yoongi’s silence as his answer, you squeezed Jungkook’s hand in a silent farewell before you followed Hoseok to the garage.

Hoseok kept his eyes forward as you approached his vehicle. He was sitting in his Porsche the engine purred a soft accompaniment to the rhythmic thump of his music.

“Can I catch a ride?” you asked, already settling into the passenger's seat and buckling before he could give an empty “Sure.” in response.

You didn’t ask where he was taking you as he sped out of the Den’s parking lot and into the streets of the seventh ward. His options were limited if he was still a wanted man, and you figured you would end up at your apartment by the end of the night.

“We need to pick up another box of hair dye. Whoever did yours did a shitty job,” you said, reaching to run your fingers through his hair.

The unique thing about your friendship with Hoseok was you two were forced to mourn together when you were getting close. Meaning you both had a talent for ignoring the elephant in the room and settling into a normal life where you talked around the big issue.

It wasn’t always healthy to ignore your problems like that. But for you and Hoseok, it worked. After big changes like this, you both had a habit of turning off your feelings for a while and giving each other space and time to process instead of forcing each other to talk about an issue before you were ready.

It’s what you did with Daewon’s death. It’s what he did for you when you first found out about BTS.

So tonight, you could make space for him. The two of you could go through the rest of the night without talking about the bakery or BTS at all if he didn’t want to.

You glanced out the window, realizing what street he was turning on.

“We’re going to see Dae?” you asked, surprised as he pulled to the side of the road outside the city’s botanical garden. The gardens were closed, which was no surprise considering it was close to one in the morning. But that was never a problem in the past.

“We didn’t visit her on her anniversary this year,” Hoseok said simply.

You both visited separately, though you wouldn’t point it out. At the time of Dae’s anniversary, you were still giving him the silent treatment for lying to you about BTS. You had visited Daewon’s grave on your own and saw that it had already been cleaned, and her favorite flowers decorated the small plot, meaning Hoseok had already beat you there.

At the time, you had felt guilty for the relief you felt in your chest. Visiting her that day came with the fear that you and Hoseok would cross paths before you were ready to face him. And you think Dae would have been disappointed to see the two of you arguing on top of her grave.

Because of that, neither of you had gone through with your tradition of robbing the botanical gardens.

Your freshmen year of college was filled with many adventures since moving to Alcor was still a novel experience, but it also came with many nights of being homesick. While Gautier was technically a territory of Kros, the country Alcor resides in, the cultures were very different. And the climate was shockingly different in the cold and wet port city where the smell of sea salt was on the breeze, you missed the clean and fresh scent of blooming heathers and rosemary in the spring, and the taste of sweet figs right off the tree in the summer time.

One night, when you were suffering from a rather nasty bout of homesickness, Daewon took you to the botanical gardens and taught you how to break in at night. At the back of the property, a mighty magnolia tree bloomed outside the garden's fence. It was almost too easy to scale the tree’s sturdy branches and dismount on the other side of the garden. The fences were lined with countless bamboo trellises fortified with different vine plants, making for an easy escape anywhere inside the garden.

You remember how your heart fluttered the first night the two of you broke in. You had to make an effort to hold in your nervous giggle as you scaled the magnolia tree and landed on the mossy lawn of the prehistoric trail, which was lined with ZZ plants and ferns with curling fronds. Sneaking your way through the trail and across the lawn of irsis leads you past the desert exhibit and to a greenhouse that honored the terrain of the eastern colony you called home.

The air was warm but much dryer thanks to the special ventilation system, but despite the heavy humidity missing from the air, the small shrub like plants thrived in the rocky soil, filling the air with the fragrant and aromatic scent of rosemary, lavender, and heathers.

You remember how a knot built in the back of your throat as you ran your fingers over the woody rosemary bush, taking in the earthy pine-like scent. Dae sat with you and listened to you go on about your childhood home for hours.

The giant rosemary bushes that were planted around your house were a staple in your kitchen and bathroom growing up. Your mother was always placing sprigs in her hair products, using it as her own perfume.

You told her the story of how your dad always tried to recreate your mother's french toast recipe on your birthday, but he always forgot to sweeten it so it just tasted like egg bread.

You told her stories of how your father courted your stepmom and how you watched them fall in love again, and build a new family together. One you didn’t fit into as snuggly, not for lack of love in your home, but because you were so much older than your siblings and you had your own dreams and life you were ready to find in Alcor.

Dae held you when you cried, then jokingly played the national anthem to Gautier on her cell phone. You guys laughed and danced around the greenhouse as she struggled to keep up with the lyrics.

The memory brought warmth to your chest years later, just like all the other memories with Daewon. But beneath the warmth, a sharp ache still lingered. Daewon wasn’t perfect by any means; she had a temper like her brother, and she could brood like no other.

But she was good. Daewon was good and fun and she loved so fiercely and encouraged and celebrated her friends. She was the type of person to buy you an ice cream after you failed a test and a cake if you passed.

She was the first person to encourage and support you in your adult life, even in scandalous situations like bringing you a spare set of clothes to the frat house so your walk of shame was a bit less shameful the next morning.

“God I miss her,” you sighed as you approached the magnolia.

“Me too. Every day.” Hoseok agreed quietly as he watched you scale the branches.

He was a worry wort and always made you go first in case you slipped.

“Did Daeown ever know? About BTS?” you asked curiously as both climbed higher in the magnolia tree.

“She knew some of it, like selling the spare car parts, and she could obviously guess some more once I got the tattoo, but she didn’t know everything.” He offered as you reached the branch just past the tall fence that protected the gardens.

‘She didn’t know I shot people,’ she could almost hear Hoseok say.

You ducked low as you approached the branch that led into the garden. Grabbing onto the limb above you to balance yourself, you carefully made your way forward as the branch dipped under your weight.

“Careful,” Hoseok warned.

“Whatever,” you said, rolling your eyes as you let go of the limb stabling you, tightening your core as you jumped from the tree. It was less than a 5-foot drop, but you kept your knees bent as you landed, feeling the impact reverberate back into your legs. You hissed as the pins and needles feeling swarmed the balls of your feet.

“You gotta tuck and roll,” Hosek laughed as you wattled out of his way.

You watched as he lowered himself on the branch the muscles in his body tensed before he sprung forward, extending his legs with his knees still slightly bent.

You sometimes forget the athleticism Hoseok hones in his body. You take for granted how smooth and precise his movements are. It was something you still couldn't quite replicate when you trained with Jungkook. But as you admired your friend, you wondered if he was responsible for training Jungkook to master his own smooth agility.

As his feet touched the ground, he pushed his momentum forward, curling into a ball and rolling across the grass.

“Ow fuck!” he exclaimed as he backrolled over a raised root of a nearby tree.

“And that's why I don’t tuck and roll,” you teased, walking towards him, the ach in your legs nearly forgotten.

You wandered out of the exhibit and towards the iris lawn. Dae’s favorite flowers were blue irises. She used to always pick a few of the flowers any time they visited the garden and keep a vase of them in the dorm room.

“You know they’re bulbed plants one day, we can go to the store and get our own,” Hoseok suggested.

“It’s not the same she says they smell better when they’re picked from the garden here,” you insisted.

“It’s not like she’ll be smelling these,” Hoseok grumbled under his breath but obliged when you held out your hand for his pocket knife.

The theft was quick and efficient. You cut loose five of the flower's long stems and returned back to the fence. Taking care that the flowers were unharmed as you shimmied up one of the trellises.

You were both back in the car within 15 minutes and driving down the road to her grave. The visit was a quiet one. Not tearful like in years past, and for a moment as the two of you kneeled and placed the flowers against the tombstone, you didn’t know if either of you were going to speak at all.

“Do you think you’ll ever leave the city,” Hoseok asked quietly.

You looked at him, startled, “You know my dream is to be a travel doctor,” you replied.

“Is that still your dream?” He asked.

You were quiet for a moment, your eyes searching his face for any indication of where he was going with this.

“Y/N, you were determined once. Focused. You lived and sacrificed for that dream and would never jeopardize it. And lately, you’ve-” You closed your eyes as you caught on to his intentions.

“Continued to sacrifice for it,” you interrupted him, “everything I’ve done, the debt I have isn’t so I can play gangster. It’s so I can finish school. The moment I graduate and the moment I pay off my debt, I’m leaving the city.” You assured.

“You could leave now,” he urged.

“Take a residency somewhere I know your grades are good enough for that accelerated program.”

“I can’t run out on my debt. They will find me.” You hissed.

“They won’t. Jungkook will pull RM off your trail, and they can’t send me after you. I would go with you. You’re the only family I have.” Hoseok pushed his voice urgent, “Things are getting bad. There’s a turf war brewing, and the Black Tips aren’t working alone. I don’t think that man who came after you tonight is from the west side. If power players from the East are involved, this whole city will go to shit. This isn’t a petty fight; people will die. The inner circle and whoever is affiliated with them will have a target on their back.”

“What about Yoongi?” You asked.

Your question was double-sided. You knew about Hoseok’s feelings for him and his unwillingness to move on from him over the years. Hoseok was always privet with the gang side of his life, but even before you knew of BTS, you knew of Yoongi and the web of feelings he carried with him. And you also knew of the second's ability to track down and find anyone. If RM wanted either of you dead, Yoongi would find you in a heartbeat and probably had the skill set to dispose of you himself, too.

Hoseok's eyes downcast “He would let us go.”

“You’re expecting a lot of loyalty from someone you plan to betray.” You pushed.

“You’re putting up a hard fight for someone who claims they don’t have a real reason to stay,” he pressed back.

You looked away from your best friend. The man who treated you like his own sister from the beginning. Who was ready to give everything up and run to make sure you were safe.

Why weren’t you willing to give up your fraction of this world in return?

“Perhaps things are more complicated than I give myself credit for. I kissed Jungkook, and I can’t just leave until I figure that out.” You admitted embarrassed. You braced yourself for the teasing or the anger. But Hoseok's face was calm as he responded his eyes ernst and urgent.

“I fucked Yoongi,” Hoseok countered. “If I don’t leave now. I never will.”

A/N: I haven’t updated in so long I totally forgot how tags and formatting work on this post. Hopefully it finds the intended audience… let me know if you read and enjoyed it!!! Xoxox

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[slayfics]

//Hi, nee-san~ Can I request a Mui X Reader where Mui gets angry at reader for overworking from studying— literally staying up all night or barely getting sleep at all.

Totally not me looking for some comfort due to my situation.

Thank you, please take your time with it! 💕💙

Muichiro gets upset when you don’t take care of yourself.

Modern AU

Your eyes blurred as you tried to continue reading your study materials. The letters seemed to start to dance around on the paper as your eyes followed them in a trance desperately trying to make sense of them.

Chasing after the letters with your eyes slowly they began to fade until there was nothing on the paper at all.

THUD-

"Ow!" You exclaimed, picking your head up off the desk. A piece of paper stuck to your forehead gently fell and floated back down to the desk. Crap, you just knocked out... literally.

Muichiro swiftly charged into the room to see what the loud sound was. He was met with the sight of you rubbing your forehead.

"Are you ok?!" He exclaimed.

"Yeah I'm fine, just fell asleep and hit my head on the desk I guess," You laughed trying to cover up your embarrassment.

"Are you fucking serious?" He said furry rising in his eyes.

You winced at Muichiro's words. "Yeah, I've just been up all night studying," you tried to explain.

"You were up all last night studying too," He said with the same furious expression. "How have you still not learned how to take care of yourself?!"

Your eyes became misty at his words. It wasn't your fault you had so much material to cover. Your studies were extremely taxing this time around, and the lack of sleep was pushing your emotions to their breaking point.

Seeing your defeated demeanor Muichiro let out a sigh, "I'll be right back," he said and left the room, the fury in his eyes fading away.

You rubbed your eyes trying to banish the forming tears away. You just wanted to sleep so badly, but you couldn't let yourself fall behind on your studies.

Muichiro came back into the room with a cloth and a bag of ice. He wrapped the bag of ice in the cloth and placed it on your forehead.

"You don't want that swell up do you," He said giggling slightly trying to lighten the mood.

"I don't think I hit my head that hard," You protested.

"I heard it from three rooms away with the door closed and the TV on. You hit it pretty hard," He stated matter-of-factly.

"Oh..." was all you could muster to say for yourself.

Sitting across from you Muichiro moved closer to rest his elbow on the desk as he held the ice pack to your head.

"I know how much your studies mean to you, believe me, I do. But, could you stop for a second to think about how much you mean to me," He said, fixing his gaze on you intently.

"What?" You asked almost breathless by his sudden intensity.

"It kills me to see you beating yourself up so much over this. Your health should come first. You need to eat, sleep, and self-care properly before your brain can absorb any new information," He replied.

"I don't have that luxury Muichiro. My studies don't allow for that much time, things have to be cut out, and recently that's been sleeping. It means so much to me that you're concerned for me, but can't you see this is about my future," You explained.

"This is about my future too," He retorted.

"What are you talking about?" You weren't sure if it was because of the delirium from lack of sleep but you had no idea what Muichiro was saying.

"You. You're my future you know. You mean everything to me and I want to make sure you're happy and healthy," He spoke earnestly.

You felt your cheeks blush at his words. You had been dating Muichiro for a while now but you had no idea his feelings for you ran so deeply.

"Do you understand now?" He asked, his eyes full of a kindness that you wanted so badly to get lost in.

You nodded feebly feeling a lump in your throat from his affection.

"Good, now please for me- let's get some rest. I'll tuck you in, make sure you're comfortable, and I promise to wake you up on time for your classes," He pleaded.

Muichiro tossed the ice pack into the trash and laid the washcloth out to dry. Making his way over to your shared bed he pulled down the covers and motioned for you to come in. You followed him climbing into the bed feeling your muscles want to collapse almost instantly.

You had forgotten how soft your bed was and you couldn't remember the last time you came to sleep next to Muichiro due to the all-nighters you had been pulling.

Muichiro wrapped his arms around you and pulled you close, "I missed holding you close to me," he whispered.

Thank you Skye! It was lovely to finally get a request from you! I hope this fic provides you comfort during your studies. Most of all I hope you listen to Mui and get some damn sleep! Take care of yourself please or tsundere Slay is gonna smack ya~

Tags~

@aeolia18 @yandere-kou @sakurasunkiss @hashiroses @plvuii @snowmist-hashira

[nyxcharliechaos]

so me and @lemonking00 decided to make a tier list...but it's what neurodivergency/mental illness the cast of Hazbin/Helluva have

Explanations/are they medicated?/extra details or thoughts below because this will be a long post if I don't

ADHD- Millie: unmedicated, she just doesn't like it

Vox: medicated but OH BOY DOES HE FORGET, man will go 3 days without it before remembering then he's medicated for 4 days and they he's out of his ADHD medication! and it's ALWAYS when the pharmacy runs out and won't have it in for a few days

Bee: unmedicated she doesn't care she's just having fun

Clara: she's just here because LK said Odette was autistic and we wanted an ADHD/Autism sibling dynamic, I was going to skip them because we don't know much about either, she's properly medicated, Carmilla makes sure she takes her medication

Autism- Vaggie: we're all in agreement on this right?

Alastor: I know he's a sociopath but we've been joking he's autistic for a bit lol

Lucifer: his special interest is clearly ducks, yes he's canonically depressed but the autism is winnning

Sir Pentious: ok so everyone I know agrees with his so, mans got that autistic rizz

Vortex: ...ngl we just wanted him to be the ASD to Bee's ADHD being the ADHD/autism couple dynamic

Millie's dad: as stated by LK "he just seems autistic" and then explained farmers give off autistic energy, LK's the autistic redneck friend so I'll trust him on that

Lute: ...I have no explanation she just seems autistic, and like a homophobic homosexual

Zestial: so initially we put him in the group therapist tier but the autism won so we moved him

Odette: explanation for why she's here above

AuDHD (written as AUDI relating to a series of inside jokes but long story short half our friend group is AuDHD and one of said friends used to have an AUDI)- -Blitz special interest in horses, bad at emotions, he's not medicated, he should be on several medications, he's not on any of them

Charlie: ok hear me out, we all agree on the ADHD yes, but her dads got that tism ok, she would to. she is medicated, and Vaggie reminds her, but it's a gamble whether or not she'll take her medication even with a reminder

Cherri Bomb: ...bombs and just look at here that's my explanation for why she's here, no she's not medicated, there's other drugs, no it's not the same thing she doesn't care

Velvette: she's better about taking her medication than Vox is but she still forgets, always seems to run out around the same time as Vox...when they don't have the medication...being Valentino during that is great/j the two will lock the doors and make him deal with their unmedicated asses till the pharmacy has the medication again

Fizz: I don't think I need to explain why he's here, he's not medicated, he doesn't like the feeling and he likes himself better unmedicated, and Ozzie loves him either way so fuck getting his ADHD medication

Adam: simple explanation, ADHD and Autism is hereditary, so it had to come from somewhere and in the words of LK "it wasn't Eve, idk how but she's neurotypical", Adam doesn't believe people when they tell him he's AuDHD, so no he's not medicated

Emily: I'm not explaining myself, she is medicated and does take her ADHD medication on the daily, Sera will remind her and if she forgets after that Sera will just give her the medication

Depression- (depresso expresso because funny) Stolas: literally cannon, and while also Autistic unlike Lucifer the Autism is not winning

Octavia: I would be too if my family was that much of a mess

Barbie Wire: just fucking, look, no I'm not explaining this

Sera: (just makes gesture like, look at this bitch)

Twamatised- (referencing a joke in Gravity Falls) neither of these need explanations fucking look at the two that are here!

OCD- Moxxie: we actually added this catagory for him, he's just got those vibes

Niffty: I swear I remeber reading something on an old ZP era sketch dump saying she had slight OCD, I might be misremembering, probably, but got those vibes

Group Therapist- (fun fact this was initially a Husk only category but a lot more characters belonged in it then we thought) Husk: (points to episode 4) and yes depresso expresso as well but, I made this category for him so

Razzle & Dazzle, Fat Nuggets, Keekee, and the Egg Bois: all are here for similar reasons they're (basically) pets that bring joy and improve peoples mental states

Ozzie: I don't think I need to explain this one, since it's basically cannon

Rosie: ok so all the overlord are autistic (minus Vox), but they go to the category that takes priority and she's seen being a person you go to for advice so, this is just cannon

Carmilla: quote from LK "mom", that's why she's here, again all overlords are autistic (except Vox)

NDP- (narcissistic personality disorder) Verosika: we actually added this category for her so

Striker: ok this one's debatable but he definitely has a personality disorder of some sort

Valentino (KYS) was added just for Val to tell him to die

BITCH was added for reasons obvious if you look at the characters, no headcannons here we just wanted to call out these characters for being bitches

[thorraborinn]

hello there! today i came across a claim that sort of baffled me. someone said that they believed the historical norse heathens viewed their own myths literally. i was under the impression that the vast majority of sources we have are christian sources, so it seems pretty hard to back that up. is there any actual basis for this claim? thanks in advance for your time!

Sorry for the delay, I've been real busy lately and haven't been home much. Even after making you wait I'm still going to give a copout answer.

I think the most basic actual answer is that it's doubtful that someone has a strong basis to make that claim, and the same would probably go for someone claiming they didn't take things literally. I think we just don't know, and most likely, it was mixed-up bits of both literal and non-literal belief, and which parts were literal and which parts weren't varied from person to person. We have no reason so suppose that there was any compulsion to believe things in any particular way.

About Christians being the interlocutors of a lot of mythology, this is really a whole separate question. On one hand there's the question of whether they took their myths literally, and on the other is entirely different question about whether or not we can know what those myths were. Source criticism in Norse mythology is a pretty complicated topic but the academic consensus is definitely that there are things we can know for sure about Norse myth, and a lot more that we can make arguments for. For instance the myth of Thor fishing for Miðgarðsormr is attested many times, not only by Snorri but by pagan skálds and in art. Myths of the Pagan North by Christopher Abram is a good work about source criticism in Norse mythology.

Though this raises another point, because the myth of Thor fishing is not always the same. Just like how we have a myth of Thor's hammer being made by dwarves, and a reference to a different myth where it came out of the sea. Most likely, medieval Norse people were encountering contradictory information in different performances of myth all the time. So while that leaves room for at least some literal belief, it couldn't be a rigid, all-encompassing systematic treatment of all myth as literal. We have good reason to believe they changed myths on purpose and that it wasn't just memory errors.

I know you're really asking whether this one person has any grounds for their statement, and I've already answered that I don't think they do. But this is an interesting thought so I'm going to keep poking at it. I'm not sure that I'm really prepared to discuss this properly, but my feeling is that this is somehow the wrong question. I don't know how to explain this with reference to myth, so I'm going to make a digression, and hope that you get the vibe of what I'm getting at by analogy. Edward Burnett Tylor (1832–1917) described animism in terms of beliefs, "belief in spiritual beings," i.e. a belief that everything (or at least many things) has a soul or spirit. But this is entirely contradicted by later anthropology. Here's an except from Pantheologies by Mary Jane Rubenstein, p. 93:

their animacy is not a matter of belief but rather of relation; to affirm that this tree, that river, or the-bear-looking-at-me is a person is to affirm its capacity to interact with me—and mine with it. As Tim Ingold phrases the matter, “we are dealing here not with a way of believing about the world, but with a condition of living in it.”

In other words, "belief" doesn't even really play into it, whether or not you "believe" in the bear staring you down is nonsensical, and if you can be in relation with a tree then the same goes for that relationality; "believing" in it is totally irrelevant or at least secondary. Myths are of course very different and we can't do a direct comparison here, but I have a feeling that the discussion of literal versus nonliteral would be just as secondary to whatever kind of value the myths had.

One last thing I want to point out is that they obviously had the capacity to interpret things through allegory and metaphor because they did that frequently. This is most obvious in dream interpretations in the sagas. Those dreams usually convey true, prophetic information, but it has to be interpreted by wise people who are skilled at symbolic interpretation. I they ever did this with myths, I'm not aware of any trace they left of that, but we can at least be sure that there was nothing about the medieval Norse mind that confined it to literalism.

For multiple reasons this is not an actual answer but it's basically obligatory to mention that some sagas, especially legendary or chivalric sagas, were referred to in Old Norse as lygisögur, literally 'lie-sagas' (though not pejoratively and probably best translated just as 'fictional sagas'). We know this mostly because Sverrir Sigurðsson was a big fan of lygisögur. But this comes from way too late a date to be useful for your question.

[ikamigami]

THE CYCLE OF TRAUMA

In this post I'll try to explain how Sun is trapped in a cycle of trauma and I'll try to answer the question whether he can escape it or not and how he can escape it if it's possible.

I think that I know the answer to why Sun is often pushed aside and doesn't even feel like MC in Sun and Moon Show sometimes.. it's because the show is telling two stories.

One story is the one that we see. The one which follows mostly what happens with Moon because Moon does more things than Sun. Sun is doing his own things in the background. Or he's a gag character in most of funny lore episodes. This story is the surface level of watching it and seeing the obvious parallels between events.

It's not a bad way to engage with the show but it's more like watching MCU - easy story to follow with foreshadowing, payoffs and parallels.

But there's also a second story.. a story hidden in details and subtle hints and lines which are echoes of the past events.. and the main character of this story is Sun who is a traumatised victim of abuse.

This is more deep reading of events in the show - we could say it's meta interpretation of it.

I'm not going to lie to you that I found it weird and a bit repulsive how awfully Sun is treated as a victim of abuse.. because his trauma was never addressed properly - Sun could never talk openly about what happened to him and no one even helped him with that.. sometimes they didn't even want to listen to him..

I didn't want to accept that Sun healed off-screen or just even got better off-screen because of how much he went through and things like that just don't magically disappear.. all this trauma couldn't just disappear.. especially if Sun never had a break. His life is traumatising event after traumatising event after traumatising event..

"Stop! How can you say that Sun didn't have a break when he literally did while Solar and Moon took care of everything?" you're probably asking this right now. And my answer is: yes, you're right, Sun literally had a break. Literally - a surface level of watching show.. a story that we see..? You probably don't know what I'm trying to say. But this is exactly why I'm making this post.

Today's episode helped me realize that what's happening right now is just another face of Sun's trauma.

Moon is not only acting similarly to Old Moon but he even tried to guilt-trip Sun and he minimized his trauma by mocking it which was the exact same thing Old Moon was doing during their fights.

Moon even said that only after two years Sun was able to grow a spine to stand up to Moon.. doesn't it sound familiar?

Old Moon said during one of their fights that Sun shouldn't apologize for yelling at him because he shouldn't apologize for having a spine.. hmm.. it's obvious parallel yet it's a reverse one.

Old Moon was trying to make Sun stand up for himself in abusive way.

Now Moon is trying to squash Sun's confidence by laughing at Sun's efforts of trying to stand up for himself which essentially mocks Sun's trauma.

And later when I was watching mgafs episode it dawned on me. Sun went to Monty for help when Moon is dangerous.. doesn't it sound familiar?

The last time Sun went to Monty for help was when kill code reactivated in Old Moon.. but before that Sun went to Monty for help when Lunar was pretending to be Old Moon and they couldn't switch places.

But who told Sun to go to Monty for help if situation with Moon would be too much to handle for Sun? Old Moon.

It seems that Old Moon's words still have an impact on Sun.

But there's more.. Sun locked Moon in a cell just like Old Moon did to him a year ago. Sun decided to use shocks to keep Moon from doing something stupid and harming himself.

It really seems that Sun was influenced by Old Moon's actions.

But also the only helpful thing that Sun knows is talking to Earth because Earth was the one who helped him back then.. so if Earth's words didn't help Moon what else can?

Old Moon never listened to Sun and now Moon also doesn't listen to him. So what left?

He went to Monty for help but it turned out that Monty can't help. Monty's words don't work anymore with Moon like they used to with Old Moon. Monty and Foxy's only solution is to forcefully snap Moon out of it by endangering Sun at expense of Bloodmoon's life cause who cares about Bloodmoon..

So the only answer is violence. But if you think about it Sun's life is filled with violence to the brim. Old Moon used to solve their every problem with violence. New Moon also tried to solve their every problem by killing whoever he deemed an enemy.

Sun tried to talk with Eclipse but it didn't work. The only thing that left was to expell him from his head which was a death of OG Eclipse.

He tried to warn Bloodmoon. It didn't work and he killed them in self-defence.

He tried to listen to V2 Eclipse (Eclipse with the star) but Eclipse could only threaten them and told them to kill Lunar. So the only thing that left was to push Eclipse through the portal and Moon killed him.

He tried to talk to New Bloodmoon but it didn't work either and the only thing that left once again was violence.

He convinced Moon to help Ruin which turned out to be Solar's and trillions of others' lives doom. So what left? They had to lock Ruin but it created more problems - Molten trying to kill him and now Ruin is once again working with Bloodmoon and we can only imagine that they're up to no good. So they'd most definitely have to use violence.

Sun tried to resolve things differently. He tried to help. But none of this worked. His help only made things worse. And everyone's answer seem to be only violence.. violence violence violence violence violence violence violence..

So it's not surprising at all that Sun is doing what Old Moon taught him. Even if it isn't what Sun wants. And the worse thing is that now others are trying to force him to make a decision that will have an impact on everything. It'll either work and things will get better or it won't and everything will get worse.

You may say that Sun has Earth and Lunar as a support. But while it is true that he still has them they already expressed that they don't want to help. And let's be honest, neither Earth nor Lunar did much to help Sun with his trauma. They aknowledged it but that's it. Lunar never talked about it with Sun. And the only thing Earth did was apologizing to Sun for making him sad by mentioning Old Moon's death because she knows how hard it is for him.

But it isn't what Sun needs. He needs help. You may say "why he doesn't talk to them about his trauma?" The thing is he tried. But when he needed help the most - after Old Moon's death - they told him to move on or Moon straight up yelled at him for just simply mentioning Old Moon.

So it's not surprising that Sun doesn't try to open up about it anymore. Because he learned that it's better not to do that. And that's why he thinks that his issues are less important than others' problems. Because no one cared to help him. But because Sun knows that they love him so there's only one reason why they didn't help him. And this reason is that his issues aren't that much of a big deal. Why should he bother others with his issues when others don't seem to care that much? They probably don't care that much because these issues aren't real problems.. I bet that this is what Sun thinks about that.

Let's get back to the main topic of this post. Sun is trapped in a cycle of trauma. From the beginning of his existence the only thing he knows is trauma. First with Old Moon who abused him physically, mentally and emotionally. Later Old Moon promised to change yet he left Eclipse in Sun's head which created another trauma for Sun and Old Moon didn't stop being abusive. Later when they thought that they defeated Eclipse another problem appeared - Bloodmoon. But it wasn't enough because it turned out that there's new Eclipse who activated Old Moon's kill code reopening Sun's trauma.

Eventually Sun's already poor mental state worsened even more and he experienced psychotic episode. And what others did at that time? They abandoned Sun and because he was too detached from reality he wasn't able to stop himself. And in such state he did things that he regrets. But even if he regrets them he can't do anything about it. He has to live with consequences of his actions even if he wasn't at fault for neither Old Moon's nor Lunar's death. But it only deepened his trauma.

At that point Sun thought that the only solution is to die hoping for fresh start like Moon had. Hence why he decided to be conduit for star's power and tried to sacrifice himself. Thankfully he survived and Eclipse was gone. Things seemed to get better. Unfortunately Sun's family didn't help him with his trauma at that time. Even if it was the best time to adress his issues considering that he was still suicidal back then.

Though Ruin already was a threat. After all he kidnapped Sun and the way Moon dealt with it wasn't the best - reminding Sun of his trauma once again. Yet back then Ruin's threat seemed so distant. Until he decided to bring Bloodmoon back. And also Solar's appearing disrupted dynamics in the family regardless of this being unintentional. Then Ruin blew up the Daycare and Sun and Moon were sent to Ruin's dimension.

And even if later things seemed to get better once again it wasn't long before Bloodmoon completely mauled Earth's body and they had to deal with them and also Stitchwraith threatened that if they'll try to interfere he will do worse things then simply kidnapping Earth.

At that time Sun seemed very distanced from everyone. He had serious memory issues and he wasn't answering any messages and calls. It didn't seem good.

And then Eclipse returned once again. And we all of a sudden found out that Sun was feeling great until Eclipse's return.. it doesn't add up.

And later Sun decided to leave everything to Moon and Solar to deal with while he was spending time alone in their house, drinking wine and relaxing with his cats.. and he seemingly got better. He just needed a break.

It doesn't make much sense when you consider everything Sun went through. Yes, on surface level Sun seems to be doing much better and break helped him.. but is it actually true?

If we look at it deeper through lense of a story of very traumatised victim of abuse.. it seems that this was Sun's another attempt at breaking the cycle of trauma. The first attempt was sacrificing himself. Second was to try and avoid getting engaged with anything. After all when he tried to help everything got worse. So he naturally tried to do the opposite.. which turned out even worse.

Solar died because of Ruin's plan and he wouldn't be able to do it if it wasn't for Sun convincing Moon to help him. Moon is now losing his mind because of Solar's death and like Sun said he wishes that he said more to Moon when he had mental breakdown. And now Moon is acting worse than Old Moon and Sun is basically reliving his trauma. Sun is trying his best to keep his family together but is he actually able to do that?

You may think that he is.. but when you consider Sun's mental state - depressive psychosis and delusions centered around guilt and unworthiness making Sun feel like he's the one who is bad.. it doesn't seem likely.

You can disagree with me but there's plenty of evidence that support my claim. Also Moon told Sun that he has a little bit of Eclipse in him still.. and not so long ago Eclipse told Sun that he would make a good Eclipse when this is exactly what Sun was afraid of a year ago. And Lunar back then told him that he's acting exactly like Eclipse.

I'm pretty sure that it's affecting Sun. As much as he tries to say otherwise. That Moon's words doesn't have any impact on him anymore. It's not true. After all, we can still see how much Old Moon's words affected him.

Having all of this in mind, I wouldn't be surprised if Sun ended up blaming himself for what happened. Also considering that things will get worse soon. After all, Taurus is after Lunar and he'll either execute them immediately or put them to test.. which probably won't be anything nice. And Earth is hiding that she's friends with Eclipse and she trusts him more than her family because she tells Eclipse things that she wouldn't say to them. And who knows what Ruin and BM will do. And lastly.. Sun will find out soon that Dazzle is victim of July 16th incident. It doesn't look too good for him.

Even if Sun keeps going for his family. Will he be able to take more of this?

I don't think so. Because why then showrunners didn't let things to get better even if a bit? Why everything seems to get worse?

But is there a way for Sun to escape the cycle of trauma? He tried to sacrifice himself which even if it'd ended with him being dead he still would do something good, right? He'd protect his family. He tried to distance himself from everything to not make things worse with his help. But it ended up making everything even worse. So is there any option left for Sun to break the cycle?

Yes, the help of others. Unfortunately it doesn't seem likely. Even now when Sun is clearly suffering he still chose not to talk about his own feelings but focused on Moon. Even when he's hurting so much that Monty and Foxy found Sun crouching outside Monty's house. Yet he didn't say anything. And what they did to help him? They told him that he needs to make a decision that he isn't capable to make in the state he is right now.

But what about Earth and Lunar? Like I said Lunar will have a much more concerning problem soon enough. And when Sun will find out about Earth's secret.. I doubt he'll trust her to talk about his own issues. You may say that he can change his mind about Eclipse. Maybe normally he could but not now. Not when he's reliving his trauma and his mental state is threatening to worsen. Sun isn't in any condition to deal with his own issues with Eclipse unless Eclipse will surprisingly not insult Sun and will be able to convince him that he wants to help. But Sun isn't in the right state of mind to deal with it, to rethink everything between the two of them and try to forget about trauma Eclipse caused him and his family.

And when Sun will learn the truth about Dazzle.. I wouldn't be surprised if it'll be a final straw for him.

So what else left? How can break the cycle? The answer is he can't. He could with a help of his family but it really seems not to be an option.

Though there's one thing that will stop the cycle of trauma once and for all. And it's death. You may say that Sun already tried to do that. Yes but also no. Back then Sun thought that he'll be lucky if he get reset and if not he'll at least sacrifice himself to protect his family.

But what about now? There's a plan to put Sun in dangerous situation that will cause Sun harm in order to snap Moon out of the state he's in. But if it won't work Moon will kill Bloodmoon and then I doubt that he'll stop at that. And then what?

This plan is messed up because no one can be sure if it'll work and there are very high chances that Moon's mental state will worsen either way. I bet that Sun will try to help no matter what.

Edit: I forgot to mention that Foxy wanted Sun to decide when he'll say enough is enough and he let them kill Moon which isn't an option for Sun - imagine keep going with this in mind that the life of your brother depends on your decision.

But when things will get worse will he be able to keep going? After all he wasn't able to help anyone, to stop anyone, to comfort anyone.. he tried everything yet things only got worse. And because of Sun's mental issues I'm pretty sure that he'll blame himself for everything. So even if Sun will still have Earth and Lunar (maybe).. can he be sure that his decisions won't end up harming the rest of his family?

I wouldn't be surprised if Sun will consider taking his own life as an answer to how stop this madness. If he thinks that all of this is his fault and he even expressed that himself that he was wondering if it'd be better if Moon and him never separated.. and even if Sun went to dimension where they separated but Eclipse never happened and they seem to have happy lives. That Moon didn't help Sun that much and even if he said that deep down Moon still cares.. now Sun learned that it isn't true. Sun can't handle this anymore.

Sun's mental state seems to be not good but considering what is about to happen it'll only get worse. I doubt that Sun will be able to think it through and stop himself from doing it while everything around him is collapsing and he thinks that it's all because of him..

I won't say that he'll succeed because there's high chance that someone will stop him or even if he'll attempt it he may end up heavily injured or in a coma and not dead dead.

But seeing how showrunners keep making things harder and worse for Sun and knowing that Davis wanted to include topic of suicide but previously received backlash for that though it seems that the issue either got resolved or they decided to implement it anyway it seems highly likely that Sun may try to kill himself.

I'm not saying that he'll do that but this is just my hypothesis based on the analysis of events in the show and meta analysis of Sun's character and that his character represents a story of traumatised victim of abuse. I'd rather have them addressing it even if it'd mean that Sun will attempt suicide then them completely ignoring it showing viewers that "screw victims of abuse".

We may argue about whether VAs are doing good job with portraying this things in the show but I don't want to immediately say that there's no hope and that they just don't care about the fact that they made Sun to be a victim of abuse.

I'm trying to be positive about this and I hope that Sun's trauma eventually will be addressed. I'm trying to trust the process. Maybe I'm a fool for doing so but whatever. I don't care about it.

[charlie-lec-stories]

Fangio 2.0 // CL16

Pairing: Charles Leclerc / Original Female Character

Summary: Charles finds himself worried about the crazy frenzy around his girlfriend who just got a seat in F1, but this feeling that was constantly minimized by her is going to become more than justified when a threat is made.

Warnings: Kidnapping, stalking, misogyny, drugs, obsessive behavior, descriptions of violence.

Author’s Note: This is a story I totally forgot about but that it's fucking amazing. Some time ago I read that the Argentinian driver, Fangio, was kidnapped before the Cuban Grand Prix and the story was inspired by that. It's crazy, but Fangio said that his captors treated him "very well" and he was dropped off unharmed at the Argentinian Embassy 29 hours after being captured. Based on that, this story is less happy, but I thought it would be interesting to work on male obsession with female celebrities. Rate: +16 (descriptions of violence)

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"¡La puta madre, pero qué boluda!" (Motherfucker, what an idiot!). Charles heard his girlfriend's voice coming from the bathroom, making him look away from his phone. He understood Spanish very well, still, he had no idea what she said. Her tone made it clear to him that she was cursing, but he was starting to believe that Argentinians had a language of their own, because it was really hard for him to understand it. He had never heard of anyone with as many variations of curse words and complicated slang as his girlfriend. Most of what she said couldn't even be translated properly or made no sense when taken literally. Her soft footsteps grew in volume as she walked closer to the living room, where he sat comfortably on the couch. She stood in front of him with her best puppy eyes, showing him his bottle of Tom Ford cologne. It was expensive, he wanted to wince, but her accent was really cute when she apologized. "Amor, I'm so sorry. I broke your perfume".

"It's okay, mon amour, don't worry". He gave up easily and she smiled, sitting on his lap.

"I'll buy you a new one. I promise". He chuckled. She earned a quarter of his salary, he wasn't going to make her pay for a new one.

"You don't have to, it's really expensive". He said softly bumping her nose with his.

"No, no. I broke it, Charlie. I have to replace it". She noticed that he was looking at her with pity. "It can't be that expensive, right?".

"Well... it's around 300 dollars the small bottle". She moved back a little, her eyes wide open.

"Ehh! ¿Qué rompimo'?". Charles laughed loudly, he already understood what that phrase meant, she said that on a date before, when he took her to an expensive restaurant in Monaco and she was horrified with the prices on the menu. She had just signed with Alfa Tauri, after winning the F2 championship. She explained to him that the phrase was an Argentinian saying and it meant that something was overpriced, he loved it when she explained things to him. They had been dating for quite some time, first introduced by Arthur, his younger brother, after they shared a podium in F3. He asked her out, she said yes and two weeks later everyone knew they were dating. That was two years ago. Now, Red Bull was interested in her, they wanted to see how well she did with Alfa Tauri before moving her to the main team, as Max Verstappen's teammate. "Shit, I'm not paying that for a perfume. Can I compensate the damage with a great quickie pre-press? It's the best I can offer". She fixed her position on his lap, sneaking her arms around his neck and pressing her body to his, he just chuckled.

"That would be more than enough".

Running kind of late after what ended up not being a quickie, they made their way to the paddock. It was Monaco Grand Prix and Charles was tense, he wanted to finally win his home race. Y/N took his hand in hers and he pulled her close firmly while they walked, waving at the fans and press that had gathered at the entrance, but keeping their distance for security mesures. Having been a couple for long, people were interested on how they would deal with racing each other and their relationship. The press was constantly nagging them and trying to steer some drama. However, the biggest problem wasn't the press but the fans. Charles' fans were mostly women and never did more that call Y/N names from time to time, mostly at the beginning of their relationship. On the other hand, her fans were not only women but also men, and they were a lot more obsessive. It was like people was crazier around her, screamed louder, and crushed harder on her, like she was a goddess. Charles could understand why people loved her so much, he loved her endlessly himself, but he was worried about the level of obsession around his girl. People were always pulling weird stunts to get close to her, trying to touch her and crying when they got to see her. She was like a pop star, cameras and people running after her all the time. It was strange that something like that happened on her first ever season in F1, but Alfa Tauri was more than happy with the amount of attention that she brought to them. Her natural appeal to people got her and the team a lot of sponsors and the PR team wanted to exploit her public image to the maximum. They appointed her a security team and exposed her as much as they could. Nonetheless, Charles kept worrying, he was way wealthier than her and had been on the spotlight for longer, but he had never felt in danger because of it. There were threats agains her, people saying that they were going to kill her so no one else could have her, men sending letters describing everything they'll do to her, and other disgusting things. He did feel scared for her but security assured them that they would handle that.

"Good morning, you two!". Megan, Y/N's PR officer, greeted them once they made the security check at the paddock's entrance. She smiled and they mirrored the gesture.

"Good morning, Meg. How are you?". Y/N gripped Charles' hand again as he watched Marc, Y/N's bodyguard, talk with the paddock's security. Marc followed them around wherever they went to, and Charles was grateful for that, he did a great job keeping Y/N safe. The man was almost 2 meters tall, which already would make anyone feel safe, but what Charles liked the most about Marc was how detail orientated he was. Marc's operations were amazing and never failed, he could always move them out of a place without exposing them or putting them in any danger and kept a close eye on stalkers and threats. Talking with the paddock's security was something that Marc did everyday to keep them in the loop of what was needed to ensure Y/N and Charles safety. While the other two women talked, Charles noticed that Marc was frowning, the tall man wasn't exactly rainbows and sunshine, but he was a pretty amicable guy who was usually in a good mood.

"Che, amor" (Hey, love). Y/N pulled at Charles' hand to catch his attention. "Is everything alright? You look kinda pale”.

“Marc is frowning”. Charles answered without looking at her. “I think something’s wrong”.

“Well, he’s approaching us... We’ll see”. She was frowning herself as she watched her bodyguard walk towards them.

“Miss Y/N, for security reasons we’ll cancel press today”. Marc said with a steady and calm voice. It helped Y/N relax a bit, but not Charles.

“What do you mean security reasons?”. The monegasque asked anxiously.

“There’s been a threat which we decided to take seriously, it involves the press rounds. It was specifically against Miss Y/N, it doesn’t suppose any risk to you, Mr. Charles, but I suggested your team to follow the same security plan just in case”. Charles and Y/N looked at each other, then at Megan.

“I’ll make a statement, don’t worry”. The PR official answer with a sigh.

“Please, let’s go inside to discuss the security mesures we took for this situation”. Still holding hands, maybe a little tighter than before, the two drivers walked inside Alfa Tauri’s hospitality right in front of Marc.

The security team explained to them what they had to do: stay mostly indoors, don’t approach unknown people and areas, evade groups of people and use the buddy system to never be alone. Monaco police was aware of the situation and were working with them to let the two drivers rest assure that they’ll find the source of the threat. Charles spent the day glued to Y/N’s side, he even waited for her outside the bathroom, scared of something happening and not being able to help. Their teams arranged for their practices to be simultaneously to make their security teams’ job easier. They finished their practices together and went straight back to their apartment. Even there, Charles was unable to relax, he stayed close to his girlfriend, following her around the apartment as if something could come out of a closet a take her. He had this bad feeling inside his chest, he wasn’t sure if it was Marc’s weary behavior or the fact that they should have found the source by now and they haven’t, but something inside him told Charles that this was bad. Y/N reassured him that everything would be alright, that she wasn’t scared and that he shouldn’t be scared either. They cuddled in bed for the rest of the afternoon, then had dinner and went back to bed. Charles hugged her close, tightly wrapped her in his arms, as if she would disappear at any second.

When Charles woke up the next morning, his girlfriend wasn’t in his arms where he left her, instead he found her side of the bed empty. Alarmed and suddenly hyperaware, he got up and searched the apartment calling her name, but she was nowhere to be found. In the kitchen, on the island, he found a note: “Good morning, Amor. Walter texted, they found the source and everything’s fine. Wanted to wake you up but you needed the sleep. I’ll be back in 20 to have breakfast together. Te amooo”. Walter was Marc’s replacement for night shifts, he worked from 8 PM to 8 AM. Charles looked at the time, it was 7:48, so Walter and Y/N should be getting back any time soon for Walter and Marc to exchange their duty position. He still couldn’t shake the feeling that something was wrong, but he tried to calm himself down and don’t overthink it. She would be back in a few minutes and they’ll have breakfast and go to the paddock. He jumped at the sudden knock on his front door.

“Amour, did you forget your keys again?”. He asked as he walked to the door, but it wasn’t his girlfriend on the other side of it.

“Mr. Charles, is Miss Y/N here?”. Marc asked him, worried.

“No. She’s out with Walter. Left a note saying that you guys found the source and everything’s fine. She should be back any moment now”. Charles felt the cold rush going down his spine.

“We haven’t found the source yet. You need to come with me, now. Walter is not answering his intercom”. Marc forced Charles out of the apartment, not even caring that he was just in joggers and slippers, he barely got time to grab a hoodie from the living room before he was dragged outside. On the street, Monaco police was waiting for their signal to enter the apartment and check it. He saw a few officers walk inside as he was taken to a black SUV, where other officers were waiting to escort him to the police station.

Charles sat anxiously at the station, he was offered some clothes to change into and he felt kind of uncomfortable with the police training outfit, it itched and was too warm. Or maybe he was the one warm and itchy from stress. They had him sitting there, without information and at any other situation he would’ve been screaming and throwing things around until someone kept him in the loop. But now, scared and confused, he couldn’t even remember how to speak, his mind working on a mix between English, French, Italian and Argentinian Spanish, unable to form a coherent thought. He was paralyzed, he didn’t know where his girlfriend was, if she was okay, if he would ever see her again. The wet dots on the blue police pants let him know that he had been crying for who knows how long. His head hurt, he could feel the pulse of his heart on his right lobe and a tingling sensation that went from his ear to his eye. The stress was eating him alive. There were a few officers that looked at him with pity, feeling sorry for him and kind of surprised for his vulnerability. He was a hero in Monaco, his smile was plastered everywhere, it was impossible for the Monegasques to picture him like this, so broken. He was sobbing uncontrollably, with his knees to his chest, his hair messy and hands shaky. It had been two hours since they took him there and he never stopped crying once.

“Charles!”. He looked up from his knees and found a lot of familiar faces. His mother and brothers, his best friends Pierre and Joris and Y/N’s closest friends Carlos and Max. Carlos had been the one to call his name sprinting towards him. “Mate, what happened? They told us Y/N is missing!”

“I… I don’t know”. He started crying again. He wanted to be strong and composed, but he just couldn’t. He needed her back. His mother walked to him and wrapped her arms around him, whispering some comfort in French. The commotion brought Marc out of the Sergeant’s office, making everyone look at him. His face serious and hard and he was gripping some papers quite tightly.

“We found Walter. But not Y/N”. He informed them. “He’s unconscious and he’s been taken to the hospital”.

“What happened? Where did you find him?”. Max asked what everyone wanted to know.

“He was on an ally 15 blocks away from the apartment. He was beaten and thrown out of his own car”. Marc explained. Charles cried some more, he wasn’t even sure he had any more tears in him to shred. “We are hoping to get more information once he wakes up”.

“What about the cameras?”. Pierre asked after a moment of silence.

“That’s another thing we need to talk about”. Marc walked closer to Charles. “We have a few pictures of a few possible suspects and some footage from the security cameras. We need you to look at it”.

“Okay”. Charles answered with his voice hoarse. Marc called an officer, who handled Charles a laptop, no one wanting him to move, too scared of him collapsing.

The video was hard to watch. There was a delivery boy, standing at the door, ringing their bell and waiting. The video had sound, and he could be heard. He told her that he was from the pharmacy, that the perfume she ordered was there. He could hear his girlfriend telling him that she didn’t ordered it. The kid told her that a woman called Kristine Weller was the one who ordered it, Kristine was her assistant. Convinced that her assistant had ordered it for her, she told the boy that she’ll be down in a minute. The perfume, the fucking Tom Ford perfume. He saw her open the door, fully dressed to go on a run, and talk to the boy. She paid him a generous tip and took the bag with the perfume. Then, after saying good bye, she walked towards Walter’s car, parked on the other side of the street. The cameras didn’t cover what happened, but a few seconds later, the car could be seen going north. The next video showed the car again, from behind, and it was shaking. Then the driver’s door opened and an unconscious Walter was thrown out, the face of the person who attacked him was slightly uncovered, but not enough for an identification without something to compare it with. On the video it could be seen that Y/N was on the back seat, kicking at the window of the left back door. There was no sound so it couldn’t be heard what they were saying. The officer closed the laptop. Marc looked at Charles, who kept as quiet as he was before.

“We believe that the children’s lock was on and she couldn’t open the door, so she started kicking the window, trying to break it”. Marc explained. “The perpetrator used the perfume as bait and got lucky with her plan of going for a run. We know that he sent a text from Walter’s work phone, telling her that the source was found. She told Walter that she was going to go for a jog, without knowing it, she gave the man 20 minutes ahead of us with that plan”.

“She always runs to relieve stress”. Charles said softly.

“The source bounces from country to country, this person knows about technology. We checked your computers, they were both hacked. He’s been watching you, studying you and your routines”. Charles stopped crying for a moment and looked at Marc, confused. “He probably heard your conversations and used the camera to watch you. He had access to your calendars and emails, everything".

“He knew about the perfume”. Charles got a few glances and decided to explain. “She broke my perfume yesterday. She wanted to buy me a new one”.

“We checked with Kristine and the pharmacy, she wasn’t the one that brought the perfume, but Y/N’s card was used to pay. We believe he may have done it through her computer. She told Kristine that she’ll buy one for you as a surprise, after she told you she wasn’t buying it”. Charles felt sick, he felt like it was all his fault somehow. “He ordered it as Kristine, payed with Y/N’s card and sent the text from Walter’s phone to make sure that she’ll walk out of the apartment. The threat was to keep us busy. It specifically targeted her in the paddock, keeping our focus there and away from your home. He planned this, for quite some time, he was just waiting for the right moment to put his plan to work”.

"Has him asked for a ransom?". Arthur looked at Charles when he asked, who just shook his head.

"I don't think he will". Marc informed them. "The threat suggests that he's obsessed with her. Even thought it was to keep us occupied, he wrote it and we can analyze it. He seems to believe that he loves her and she belongs with him".

"I'm never seen her again. He's going to kill her". Charles cried out.

"No, no". The bodyguard comforted him quickly. "This is actually an opportunity to get her back. If she follows her obsessive fan training, she'll be safe. He won't hurt her because he needs her to love him back".

"Obsessive fan training?". Joris asked.

"When we noticed that a lot of people were showing obsession tendencies, we gave her a training on how to deal with that behavior if she ever crossed paths with someone like that".

"So you thought something like this would happen?". Max was getting angrier.

"No, not a kidnap, but we expected some unfriendly encounter with a stalker at some point. We taught her to be nice and do what she was asked, to be affectionate with the perp and how to look for ways to escape the situation. We also told her how to save the situation if she failed an escape to buy herself some time". Everyone stayed silent, unsure on how to take the information. "She's a smart woman, she'll get us the time we need to find her".

Two days. Two days and no new leads, he couldn't recognize anyone from the pictures that Marc showed him at the station. Charles couldn't eat nor sleep. The Grand Prix was cancelled and Ferrari gave him a paid leave until the situation was finally handled and he could get back. He stayed with Joris and Arthur at Joris' apartment, since his own was a crime scene. Walter was still unconscious and unable to give them information. Charles felt like he was losing his mind. He missed her so much. He felt empty without her, like everything lacked meaning. He didn't want to race, or talk or even listen to music. He couldn't close his eyes without seeing her, her eyes close and face relaxed, like the last time he saw her three nights ago and that sight made him miss her more. He needed her to sleep properly, to breath, to live. Joris tried to force him to eat, Arthur too, but he just couldn't. Whatever he ate, he threw it all up later. For the third day, Walter woke up. He gave a description of the assailant and Marc looked at their database to find possible matches. No one was. Another dead end. Charles was losing his patience and the fact that he hasn't eaten in three days wasn't helping. He finally fainted on the fifth day and was taken to the hospital. He was connected to an IV to give him some vitamins and nutrients. He felt weak and broken.

Seven days was too long, but the time of a whole week without Y/N sadly arrived. Charles had spent the last two days at the hospital and was discharged once his last tests results were alright. Lorenzo, his older brother, picked him up, ready to take him to his house instead of Joris' to see if he could help his younger brother get better. Everyone was losing hope in finding her, dead or alive, and they were trying to prepare Charles for the worst. At the hospital, Lorenzo took Charles' arm and started guiding him to the exit, when a nurse stopped them around the ER area.

"Charles!". She called out. "I don't know if you remember me-"

"Yes, I do". Charles cut her off and gave her a small smile. "You are the nurse that help Y/N when she cut her hand last Christmas". It happened last year, they were celebrating and drank a little too much. They went back home and while making out in the kitchen, they knocked off a glass, she cut her hand trying to clean it up, even though he told her not to. They spent the whole time at the hospital arguing and the nurses were watching. It seemed like they were on the verge of breaking up but then she cursed at him in Spanish and he laughed. She joined him and the problem was solve. The nurses found cute and pretty funny how they went from fighting to laughing in a second. But they were like that, they just couldn't stay mad at each other for too long.

"I just wanted to tell you that I'm really sorry for what you are going through and that I hope that Y/N can be found safe and sound". She smiled at him and Charles nodded his head. "We all could see that you both love each other so much".

"Thank you". He didn't expect his voice to be so broken. "We do, I do. I love her so much". Lorenzo could see he was breaking down again so he asked for some support.

"Maybe we just need to sit down for a moment. Is there anywhere quiet where we could go?". She nodded her head.

"Yes, of course, follow me. You can sit for a while in the nurses' casino". They followed her and made sure that Charles was away from the public eye. They sat him down and the nurse helped him steady his breathing. She stayed with them until she was called. "I have to go, but my colleague, Jean, will be around. Okay, just tell him if you need anything". She walked out and spoke to a tall blond guy who was outside. Charles could hear her telling him to offer them some water. The guy entered the room and Charles could feel a cold sensation through his body, the hair at the back of his neck going up and goosebumps all over his arms. That face, he knew that face.

"I know you". Charles told him in a whisper. Jean looked at him with a smile. "You were here when my girlfriend cut her hand". But he knew him from somewhere else, he just couldn't pinpoint from where. Charles could see a hint of disgust in Jean's eyes for a moment, but it went away just as fast as it came.

"I don't remember, sir, but if it was a Wednesday, Friday or Saturday, I was probably here".

"It was a Friday". Charles informed him and the other just nodded his head.

"I think I remember now. You were fighting. It was Christmas. Such a shame for girl to spend the holiday in an ER box". There was this teasing tone in his voice, Charles didn't like it. Lorenzo followed the conversation, sensing that something wasn't alright. The nurse looked pretty familiar to him too. "Well, I'll leave this here for you". Jean placed a bottle of water on the table and walked out of the room.

"It's him". Charles said softly. "Call Marc".

"I'm sure it's him!" Charles repeated exasperated once he was at Lorenzo's apartment, his grip on his phone a little too hard. "He was there when Y/N cut her hand. He looked at her a lot, I remember that I got kind of jealous. I was drunk but I remember him. And I'm sure that his face is in the video". Marc wasn't sure, but it was their only lead, so he went with it.

"I'll check it out".

It took them a few hours to gather everything they could about Jean Laurent. He was a smart man, a nurse, but he was formerly a militar operative, specialized in informatics. He had a dishonored discharge for stalking a fellow soldier, she refused to press charged in exchange of him leaving the military. He became a nurse and worked as such since then. He was openly passionate about F1 and had made a few comments against Charles. He followed Y/N on all social networks he liked all of her pictures and posts. He had what was needed to be a suspect. When they compared the footage of the camera with his picture, it looked similar. Marc then showed the picture to Walker, who recognized him quickly and that gave them enough to get a search warrant. The operation was smooth and fast. Jean understood pretty easily the he didn't had the upper hand and gave up. Inside his home, they found Y/N handcuffed and with the same clothes she had when he took her. She was pale and drugged and they took her to the hospital where she was stabilized. Jean confessed that he always loved her and hated Charles, and when he saw them arguing on Christmas he decided to hack into their computers to "protect her". To him, Charles didn't deserve her and didn't treat her right. With some time, he became addicted to watch her everyday until watching wasn't enough, he then moved into a new path and decided to take her. At the hospital, the doctors confirmed that she was well fed and hydrated, she didn't have any injuries more that the bruises from the handcuffs. She wasn't sexually assaulted and she assured them that he didn't try it either. Toxicology confirmed that she was indeed drugged, and Jean told them that he did it then he had to go to work, to make sure that she was "calmed" and "relaxed" when he wasn't around. Once everything was sorted out at the hospital, they let Charles see her.

"Mon Amour!" (My love!). He called her when he saw her. She was mess, but the smile she gave him when she looked at him lightened up her eyes. He hugged her tight, feeling like he was alive again. "Je t'aime tellement" (I love you so much). He repeated in her ear over and over again.

"Yo también te amo, Charlie" (I love you too, Charlie). They stayed like that for a few minutes, just enjoying being close to each other again. "I was so scared, all I could do was think of you and how to find you". She said once she broke the hug. He grabbed her face and kissed her softly.

"It's okay, we're together now. You're safe". She nodded her head and smiled at him. He left out sigh of content and peace now that he had her back, safe and sound. They went to Lorenzo's apartment once she was discharged from the hospital. She seemed to be dealing well with the situation. She assured Charles that her captor never hit her, assaulted her or even yelled at her, but she saw just how violent he could be when he attacked Walker, who she thought was dead. She was relieved when she found out that he was alive. Public statements were made and a few more weeks of recovery were given to both of them before going back to the races.

They got their apartment back a week after she was rescued. Sitting on their couch, cuddled up under a blanket, they talked softly about how they were dealing with the situation. They both came to the conclusion that therapy was needed and that they will not shy away from this, they wanted to get better, to feel better and to heal. Charles also decided that he wanted to get married, he knew that he wanted to spend the rest of his life with her, but he choose to wait until she was feeling like herself again. He knew that she was going to say yes, they had been ready for marriage for a long time, he just had to ask. And he will. It took them a few month to find some sort of normalcy, but they found it by the end of the year, after a lot of therapy and relaying on each other. One windy day of December, almost a year after they crossed paths with Jean for the first time, Charles found Y/N looking at painting of Fangio they had hanging on their living room. Sneaking his arms around her waist and resting his chin on her shoulder, he looked at the painting too, trying to find out what was so interesting about it.

"Did you know that Fangio was kidnapped in Cuba?". She asked in a whisper, turning around in his arms to face him.

"No, I didn't". He pecked her lips, then her jaw and went down to her neck. He wasn't trying to start anything, he just wanted her to feel loved.

"If you had a nickel for every time an Argentinian F1 driver was kidnapped, you'd have two nickels. Which isn't a lot, but it's weird that it happened twice". And with that joke, he knew she was back. He saw the yes in her eyes, so he asked:

"Will you marry me?".

•••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••

Shoot out to my Argentinian ex who was a walking slang dictionary. God, that boy was hard to understand, and we both spoke the same language.

[bonny-kookoo]

Yoongi: 𝐑𝐞𝐝 𝐇𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐬 (5)

In which he feels like this could be all he's ever wanted after all.

Tags/Warnings: Vampire!Yoongi, Human!Reader, mentions of 'being high' (drug usage in a way), friends to lovers, blood (duh), red haired Yoongi, Listen I am Jungkook focused but I will put Vampire Yoongi on the menu and you'll better finish your plate

Additional Chapter Warnings: cuddly Yoongi??? Part 2, we're moving guys buckle your seat belts

Chapter Length: short/mid

A/N: Surprise bitch

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He chuckles simply watching you hurry as you crawl underneath the blankets, dramatically sighing when you're finally bundled up underneath them.

"Can you turn off the heat?" You ask from your spot on the bed up in the designated spot inside the RV.

"Aren't you cold?" He wonders up at you, though he does turn it off before he checks if the door is locked.

"Yeah but I also don't sleep well when it's too warm.." you mumble sleepily, yawning as he slowly makes his way up and into bed as well, making sure to adjust the blankets around your side before he slips under as well. "Yoongi?" You ask, and he nods, hums a reply.

He really can't get tired of you saying his name.

You always say it so.. careful. Careful not in the way of being fearful or hesitant- but more like it's something important. Like he's something important to you.

"Is it okay if I hug you tonight?" You wonder quietly, and he chuckles.

"I thought we already talked about cuddling?" He tells you, reminds you of your earlier moment together, watching the fire outside while holding each other. But you're worried. What if he still misunderstood what you were trying to tell him simply because you're not able to properly put it into words?

"But that was then.. I mean, now." You explain yourself, and he nods.

"Are you gonna ask for permission every time you're gonna want to cuddle?" He wonders, and you look at him sheepishly.

"Maybe? I don't know. What if you don't want to cuddle?" You ask, and he shrugs, watching you in the darkness of the RV.

"Then I'll tell you." He says. "I promise I'll always be honest. There will be times when we just don't want to be around each other, and that doesn't need a reason. It'll still be fine, I'll still love you no less than now." He explains honestly, and you nod.

He's talking about love.

One thing you always appreciated about Yoongi was his blunt honesty. He never sugar-coated things to make them seem like something else. He always made sure to be upfront and clear with you. It helped you tremendously and subsequently also led to you valuing his thoughts and opinions more than anyone else's. Yoongi always says it how it is, and for him to talk about love- well, it's a big deal.

"Yoongi..?" You ask after a moment again- and he thinks you're gonna ask to cuddle again, so he chuckles and puts his phone away, turns off the last light and moves closer to you to hold you against his chest. "Pssst, yoong-"

"I am literally cuddling you right now-" he laughs.

"-did you mean it?" You ask, and he stops at that.

"Mean what?" He wonders quietly, unsure what you actually mean.

"You said you 'won't love me less than you love me now'. You know." You mumble against his chest.

"Hmhm." He nods, closing his eyes. "Now sleep."

"Can you say it?" You ask, and he groans lowly, squeezing you closer stubbornly.

"No, sleep, I'm tired." He denies, and you whine.

"But Yoongi-!" You whine his name against him.

"Sleep, why do I have to say it? You know it already, now hush you big baby!" He scolds, glad the lights are all off so you can't see how red he's probably in the face from shyness.

"...well I love you." You huff, settling with your legs around his, and it grows quiet at that, except for the soft sounds of nature outside the Van you're sleeping in.

And yoongis soft, whispered 'love you too' that he grants you.

...

"I heard that-"

"Shut up and sleep."