#I didn’t get to include this in the comic but I do feel like loneliness is maybe not quite the right word | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

hms-no-fun · 2 years

Note

I guess this is less a question than it is a critique?

I love godfeels in general and I do realise that it was a story about more than just being trans - it was a brilliant dissection of just how little thought Hussie actually put into how fucked up the powers he was giving to literal children and the things he wrote them as doing were, but there was one point that kind of irked me.

Specifically it was the bit where Dirk, who is (at least in as much as godfeels is concerned) kind of a metaphor for transphobia actually sort of has a point? Because there was that whole thing where June actually did kill most of her friends, topple a building and massacre a bunch of innocent people. Dirk's point that "John Egbert never did anything like this, it's only June that did something like this" is... irritatingly valid?

Once it's revealed that Dirk can somehow remember retconned timelines, his initial actions become irritatingly justifiable? At first his actions have less to do with transphobia and more with the "holy shit this previously quiet, agreeable person suddenly KILLED ALL HER FRIENDS."

Yes, Dirk's manner of confronting June about it is creepy as hell. Yes, Dirk's core motivation is incredibly egotistical and shitty - she's incredibly powerful and these recent changes in her life put that power even further outside Dirk's ability to control it. But a timeline verifiably exists wherein, under the influence of Trickster Mode, she kills a bunch of people including some of their mutual friends. Dirk, as much as I despise him, had a right to be concerned about that.

Real transphobia doesn't have a justification like that? And yes, eventually Dirk does slip into the standard transphobia motivation of "you are not the person I need you to be for my world to make sense in my head." Eventually it's all just trying to beat the world into the shape he wants it to be. But it didn't start that way, it started with June actually posing a threat to people he cared about, and it feels... unpleasant? To have some avenue for "well, actually, he had a point" like that.

you’ve got some real chutzpuh bringing this to me, kid. i respect that!

this is a quagmire i was very aware of while writing gf2 and that i’ve gotten some pushback for in the past, and i’ve always tried to respond to it earnestly and in good faith. but this is a really complicated question to get into for me, more complicated than you might realize, so there’s gonna be a lot of stuff here that might seem irrelevant or dismissive and i’m definitely gonna repeat myself more than once. just try to walk with me here and if you’re still unsatisfied by the end, my askbox remains open. just know in advance that this is a LONG one.

so, to start, a couple quibbles:

first, i don’t agree at all with the idea that andrew didn’t put much thought into how fucked up it was for baby teenagers to have godtier powers. i cannot think of a single arc in the main cast that doesn’t, on some level, involve the character in question realizing how traumatized they are by the heights of power and corruption they ascended to before even being old enough to vote. act 6 is fully half the comic and it’s practically an academic exegesis on just how fucked up it is for teens to have godtier powers. how else would you describe the post-juju quadruple dialogue between the Alphas on their death slabs but as an exhaustive deconstruction of the aftermath of sburb-related godtier trauma? you’ve got Dave’s decision to stop using time travel, Rose’s whole thing about communing with the horrorterrors, i mean shit Alternia as a whole is just “what if kids had superpowers and could kill each other would that be fucked up or what,” not to mention two of the most important conversations in homestuck proper (at least for me) are Jade’s discussion with alt-Calliope about the crushing loneliness of being a Space player, and its immediate followup in Jade’s conversation with Davepeta about the unmitigated freedom of being an anything player. that’s a lot of tension for one dog to process! just because characters never come out and explicitly say “wow, isn’t this fucked up” doesn’t mean the author is unaware of how fucked up it is. but also isn’t that literally Dave and Dirk’s last conversation before the end of act 6?

second, i want to challenge your read on where Dirk in gf2 started. yes, there’s an element of his attack on June that is “you are a danger to my friends,” but it cannot go unstated in any discussion of this work that at this point in the narrative Dirk is explicitly preparing for the events of the meat-timeline of the homestuck epilogues. which, you know, involved more than his fair share of below-board friend torture. this isn’t a trivial fact, as much of what occurs in gf3 is a result of godfeels not being the epilogues (hence the subtitle Divergence Syndrome). so we need to understand that, like June, his decisions are never motivated purely by altruism. yes, he’s worried about his friends, but specifically what he’s worried about is that they won’t experience the specific series of traumas that he thinks will make for a better story. just because WE don’t know that for sure until a bit later doesn’t change the fact that it’s true.

but these quibbles are largely surface-level and don’t, i think, get to the core of your criticism. what we’re really talking about here is interpretation, and i think more broadly we’re talking about media literacy-- which is NOT me suggesting that YOU SPECIFICALLY are in any sense illiterate! but rather that this particular line of criticism, i must admit, always comes across to me as woefully shortsighted. it’s a criticism filtered heavily through a post-tumblr lens, and i promise i don’t mean that entirely dismissively. it’s a lens i used for a very long time myself, and it still colors a lot of my approach (sometimes for better, sometimes for worse). so i’m coming to you now as someone who has grown out of that approach, and who genuinely wants to suggest an alternative. but i’m getting ahead of myself.

the chief disagreement i have with your criticism begins when you say that Dirk “is kind of a metaphor for transphobia.” you’re not wrong here, of course, but i think you’ve stopped at one circle inside a much larger venn diagram. Dirk is only kind of a metaphor for transphobia insofar as the entire cast of godfeels 2 is kind of a metaphor for transphobia. including the people who aren’t violently retaliatory!

what really motivated me to write gf2 in the first place was my dissatisfaction with the black & white morality tale quality of most conventionally popular transgender narratives. i identified with John Egbert the most of all the cast of homestuck, but when June hit critical mass in 2019 i really felt that a lot of the depictions i was seeing just... weren’t all that genuine to my experience. and look, i’m not saying there’s anything wrong with a “June comes out and is accepted by her friends and gets to have a nice time” fic. i’m glad they exist and i’ve read & enjoyed a fair few in my time! but that wasn’t the kind of story i wanted to write, because as a trans woman that just wasn’t my experience of coming out.

my experience of coming out was that no one was ever outright transphobic to me. my friends were initially very encouraging! but as time wore on it became clear to me that their surface level acceptance belied a deep almost metaphysical rift between us, an inability or unwillingness to understand what was actually going on with me. by the time a year had passed, we weren’t on speaking terms anymore and i blamed myself for all of it because those were the terms they couched our conversations in. they saw me as mentally unwell in ways that they insisted had nothing to do with my gender, and they said i needed to “get help” for reasons that had nothing to do with my gender. gender never even came up.

and the thing is, i have no doubt that’s what they genuinely believed. but the fact that it only came to a head the way it did after i came out is really hard for me to ignore, you know? this is why Rose’s “I just have some concerns” comes up over and over again-- a lot of trans people aren’t in the best place when they come out, so it’s easy for well-meaning friends to question whether this is genuine or if it’s just another part of their mental illness. i sometimes wonder how much my friends actually believed me when i told them i was trans, because i was so goddamn depressed and i’d had so many supposedly life-changing revelations in the past that led to absolutely fuckall. from their perspective, how was this different from any other time i swore up and down that i was on A Better Path?

now, obviously they were WRONG, and i wish they’d supported me better. but they also had full-time jobs, they had their own lives and mental health struggles to deal with. so i understand, you know? i’m still mad about it, and i can’t ever really forgive them for how much it hurt me, but i don’t hate them. and i certainly don’t think they’re transphobes. it’s just that most day-to-day transphobia isn’t a conservative saying “you’re not a real [gendered noun],” it’s little shit that no one but you even notices and if you try to bring it up, nine times out of ten you get told you’re just reading too much into things, you’re making everything about gender when it has nothing to do with gender, etcetera etcetera. but it all adds up for us, you know? that’s microaggressions innit

but this gets us to the real sticky part, the part you’ve probably been silently saying muttering “this is a copout you’re not ACTUALLY addressing my question” over: retaliatory violence. and here’s as good a place as any to say that if you haven’t watched my video about writing everything before gf2.3, i suggest giving it a watch as i discuss this topic pretty thoroughly there. i imagine i’ll be saying many of the same things now, just with a bit more perspective.

let’s start with mental illness.

i’m on medications for bipolar and adhd. i wasn’t always. in the years before i came out, i was a bitter, lonely, confused mess of a person. as a child and teen i had anger problems, i had violent fantasies, i felt a really deep desire to react to the smallest injustices delivered onto me by my bullies with cartoonishly over-the-top violence. not all or even most of these fantasies were justified. i was an edgelord teen who loved quentin tarantino movies, of course i was shitty. the friends i mentioned above, like i said, i do understand where they were coming from. they didn’t have access to my mind, they had their own lives to live, and just as they weren’t communicating with me, i wasn’t communicating with them. at the time i blamed myself for everything that was turning sour in our relationships, but i still had nightmares and fantasies where i’d scream in their faces for some kind of recognition or acknowledgement only to become outrageously violent when they failed to do so. i felt guilty for those fantasies, they reminded me of being 17 thinking to myself “man if i weren’t so anti-gun i’d make a really good school shooter.”

that’s a vile thought, right? that’s the kind of thing if someone said it to you out loud, you’d probably have a few concerns.

but i didn’t say it out loud. it was just a thought that popped into my head from time to time. what matters, what really matters in any material sense, is that i never even came close to acting on it. a thought isn’t real, an image of fake violence isn’t real, an unacted-upon desire to inflict violence isn’t real. fiction, too, is not real. and through my entire adult life, the only consistent outlet of any worth i’ve had has been fiction.

the question of how “acceptable” it is for traumatized people to process their trauma in fiction is, i must admit, rather obnoxiously contentious. i’ve seen ostensible leftists genuinely say without a hint of irony, “yeah, okay, fine, you have every right to explore your complicated feelings about [traumatic event] in fiction, but you shouldn’t post it anywhere.” so, what, people who have flawless, frictionless transitions are allowed good representation, but when a messy transition is depicted that’s just universally bad representation? if a queer character isn’t shown to be unambiguously good and correct, then that’s... that’s bad? why doesn’t it count when i say that i feel better when i read a story that reflects how fucked up my life is? why’s it gotta be that every story needs to be for everyone? why’s it gotta be that my story that i started writing for my own reasons with no expectation of getting paid for it, no expectation of any kind of substantial audience, ought to stand as an unimpeachable argument in favor of trans women’s infallibility? trans women aren’t infallible. charlotte clymer exists. caitlyn jenner exists. it flattens and diminishes the humanity of marginalized people to insist that it’s a flaw when a story doesn’t make it unambiguously clear that not all marginalized people are bad. it’s not my job as a trans woman to make sure you, the reader, know that not all trans women are bad. i assume that you know this. i assume that you can look at the circumstances of the narrative and understand that this has always been a speculative scifi story about a world that operates on very different rules than our world, about people who are capable of things that no one in our world is capable of.

you know how sometimes you’ll have a conversation with someone and they’ll say just the most catastrophically stupid shit, but as much as you WANT to roast them for it you know it’d be rude and unproductive? well what if you could roast that person, get it out of your system, and then retcon the whole exchange out of existence? as i’ve said in other answers, the horror of retcon is that it puts you in the driver’s seat of your own personal groundhog day, unlimited and consequence-free throughout time and space. i know this probably seems utterly irrelevant to the substance of your criticism, but to me it’s everything. the feels in godfeels have always been rooted in the dreadful existential weight of knowing that you could get away with doing absolutely anything you wanted with terrifying ease.

homestuck is a violent story. how many times do we see those teens get stabbed to death? so for me, as gf2 soared out of my hands and grew in scope, it felt obvious and natural to take that premise and combine it with the messiness of my own coming out. to explore gender and violence together. when i wrote the scene where Callie gives June her juju, i knew that i was stepping into REALLY dangerous territory, because June is transgender, and a trans person who kills her other queer friends for being above-average in their transphobia is bad transgender representation.

right?

i think that’s the core of what you’re driving at with your criticism-- that Dirk, the emergent antagonist of godfeels 2, the guy who’s essentially demanding that June detransition Or Else, has a point when he says that June is dangerous and can’t be trusted to have anyone else’s best interests at heart. you point out that, in real life, transphobes don’t have a point when they attack trans people, and that’s true. i agree with you.

the first thing i’ll say here that i think will drive you up the wall is that tried and true age-old canard: depiction isn’t endorsement. June Egbert is a character making choices; Dirk Strider is a character making choices. they have their reasons, some good, some bad, but i tried very hard not to make it so the narrative took a side as such. obviously to an extent that’s impossible when our perspective is so thoroughly fixed through June’s eyes, but i tried to show in Dirk’s narration (especially in his fight with Roxy) that he’s not a mustache-twirling villain over this. he’s a guy with a plan who doesn’t know how not to have that plan anymore when something essential to the plan changes. he has his own doubts about what he’s doing. in fact i think you could make a very compelling case that, from Dirk’s perspective, June and Terezi systematically turned all his friends against him for their own diabolical ends. and like, hey! arguably the realityquake is a direct result of June refusing to do what Dirk told her to do. that’s kind of fucked up, right? to which i say that nowhere did i ever promise that June would be The Good Guy of this story. no one who has that kind of power over others is ever ever ever simply The Good Guy.

the second thing i’ll say to this point is that growing up queer in this world is messy. i’ve already enumerated my mental unwellness, now let me add that many of my trans friends share a similar spread of ailments as well as a similarly messy upbringing. something we never really talk about, for i think pretty obvious reasons, is the fact that just by virtue of how awfully closeted queer people in general are treated, a lot of us do have really checkered pasts. to be clear this is by absolutely NO means a universal generalization, i’m not saying all or even most trans people are like this. but a number of us are. and i’ve gotten so many messages from trans people who read godfeels and felt seen by it, felt seen by the very problem you’ve astutely identified. what’s to be done with their testimony in this conversation? is it irrelevant? are they wrong? would you go to them and tell them, well, sure, i guess you can say that, but it’s still problematic and needs to be...

needs to be what? that’s what i’m really trying to understand now. what is it, exactly, that you want from me. if you’re saying the moral quandaries of gf2 need to be interrogated, yeah, i agree. you see something problematic in godfeels 2, and i agree with you that it’s problematic. i put it there on purpose. i thought a lot about that choice. i did it because my life has often been problematic, in ways both fair and unfair, and because most of those problems just don’t have easy answers. sometimes there are good guys and bad guys, sometimes someone is absolutely in the wrong. but a lot of times the reality is a lot greyer than that. and just because we’re seeing painful pushback against even the meagerist of trans rights on a global scale doesn’t mean that my depiction of a problematic trans woman is somehow immoral or counterproductive for “the trans community.” which i know is not what you said, but it’s hard for me not to jump to this conclusion when this is always where it leads. if i seem overly defensive it’s because i’ve had to field a version of this question SO many times over the years, and while you may think yourself disconnected from any wider critical perspective (i have no way of knowing this, obviously), i see an undeniable continuity in terms.

i put scare quotes around “the trans community” because there are plenty of trans communities where i have never felt particularly welcome. as a non-passing trans woman who leans butch, there are so many pillars of the lgbt spectrum that’d criticize or disavow me it makes my head spin. generally i’m okay with that. not every space is or should be for everyone, just the same as not every work of fiction is or should be for everyone. and i don’t want a fucking thing to do with transmed gender essentialist circles anyway.

godfeels is not for everyone. it is a story about violence, ignorance, trauma, guilt, and a whole charcuterie board of other messy emotions besides. i have never been interested in looking at a fictional character and saying “this is a purely bad thing in a cosmic sense that they’re doing,” because i just don’t find that interesting to write about. someone can choose to hurt a lot of people in an act of what could be accurately described as evil, but that person still CHOSE to do what they did. their actions made sense to them, even if they don’t make sense to us. even if they scare us. and i think it’s important to decry the actions of real people in the real world when innocent people get hurt. but fiction is not the real world. yes, obviously fiction effects reality in some ways- it shapes how we view the world, how we view each other. but so often in these conversations, there’s simply no sense of scale or severity. what negative social affect can be attributed to a homestuck fanfic written by a trans woman when huge swathes of the american populace are using fuckin marvel movies to justify escalating the war in ukraine? what about jk rowling weaponizing her gargantuan fanbase against trans people? i cannot fathom holding up even the truly vilest of fanfic as representative of some grave social ill or as setting back perception of a marginalized group with any kind of longterm conviction when we are surrounded on all sides by corporate propaganda that cynically puppets the corpse of the liberal lgbt movement to lend their worthless backwards trash an air of Progressive Clout. like i’m supposed to be impressed that there’s a trans person in the background of an otherwise pro-imperialist nightmare of bad CGI and rampant labor exploitation. did they employ trans people? did they get a trans person’s perspective on that character or on the narrative as a whole? did they even talk to any trans people? who gives a shit about depiction or representation, we could have a million trans characters in cinema and still be completely fucked as a demographic if those characters were all written by cis white men who think the feminine essence theory is good feminism. what i care about is whether or not trans people can stay fed and pay rent, and that includes trans people whose lives and stories don’t mesh with the popular narratives about trans people. if your politics involve telling problematic trans women to shut up, to hide their trauma, to get out of the limelight lest our enemies use us as ammunition in their war against all of us, then i’m sorry but you’re just a conservative censor doing the job of a GOP politician for free at absolutely no one’s behest and to everyone’s detriment including your own. when the conservatives come for queer people, they won’t care who among us is “respectable.” queerness itself is their enemy, and they’ll kill the based just as surely as they’ll kill the problematic.

and that’s where it really comes down for me, you understand? i’m totally aware of how soupy this moral dilemma is. i fucking wrote it! i think it’s an interesting tension to have to sit with a character who knows that even though they had (what at least felt like) a good reason, even though it literally hasn’t happened anymore, they still did something terrible that they regret and that they’ll remember for the rest of their life. the flashbacks we see in 2.3 of June going door to door to get folks on her side are explicitly framed by a recurring guilt and doubt that June feels at every step of the process. she knows that she fucked up with the retcon, and she knows she made everything worse by dangling Dirk over a volcano, but she doesn’t know how to talk this out, and Terezi just sort of assumes that their only option is a full-on combat scenario. also, man, once again no one questions Terezi’s role in this! the eponymous “good plan” of 2.3 is HERS. the only part of that plan that’s genuinely June’s is her choice to take Jade to fight Lord English, and it’s the part that ultimately saves the day.

Jade, of course, having had her own past meddled with retcon-ways by June’s own admission in gf1. so we have a June who in the past tried to intervene in someone else’s life to make it “better” from her perspective, now turning around and intervening in that same life for essentially the same reason. only this time she’s giving Jade a choice. or is she? does Jade have a choice? did I as the writer give her a choice?

again, you’re seeing the same thing i’m seeing. you’re seeing that June and Dirk both Made Some Points. you’re seeing that June is not a paragon of virtue even though she’s transgender. the difference is that you think your reaction is not the intended experience. yes, i say, it is problematic, it is uncomfortable, it is unpleasant. but problems exist to be solved, and i’m not the person who can give you the answers. if June isn’t a perfect trans woman, if she did in fact Do Some Things Wrong, then that just makes her human (which, as you’ll recall, was a question very much on June’s mind in gf1). i’m not interested in saying whether or not any of these events are Good or Bad in a cosmic or moral sense because, yet again, that’s just not interesting to me as a writer.

and this is what i mean when i say that you’re coming at this from a decidedly post-tumblr perspective, because again, you’re seeing what i’m seeing, but you’ve stopped at a smaller circle inside a larger venn diagram. this is not a story about how trans women are unambiguously good and correct at all times, it’s a story about lateral violence among queer friends who also happen to be unfathomably powerful gods. these are not normal 23 year olds! if we are to tell a story that even remotely attempts to explore the minutiae and consequence of what these characters are capable of, we simply cannot relegate ourselves to the realm of what is possible and/or acceptable in our reality. the whole point is that it’s not possible in our reality! it’s fiction! and the circumstance that June and Dirk find themselves in in gf2 does not resemble any real life circumstance that exists in the material world. yeah, transphobes in real life don’t have a point and they can get fucked. but if Dirk was like a texas neocon, if Rose was more explicitly TERFy, or if June hadn’t literally murdered her friends and then retconned it, would that be better for the story? like yeah, sure, a TERF would be an obvious villain, a texas neocon would be an obvious villain. despite all appearances i do in fact know how to write a trans character who is not hashtag problematic, i just don’t want to do that. i don’t want to write obvious villains. i don’t want to write obvious conflicts.

all of my favorite art sits balanced on a razor’s edge of some taboo or other, and stares you directly in the eyes and demands that you reckon with it for what it is. i like art that makes me uncomfortable, that pushes into weird difficult messy philosophical territory, because at least when it happens in fiction it doesn’t result in me becoming homeless. that’s the kind of fiction i want to write. and i know full well that we don’t live in an environment that is particularly friendly to that kind of fiction. right now everything in life feels like a mortal peril, all our rights as queer & working people are being slowly pulled back, our very bodies demonized, our youths tormented by cruel governments, so it’s natural i think to react to fiction flirting with this difficult territory in ambiguous terms the same way you would to this shit in real life. that’s the smaller circle in the bigger circle, get it? you’re correct in your acknowledgement of a problem, but the tumblr lens is one aggressively opposed to reading that problem in any terms other than outright dismissal and condemnation.

it’s a binaristic lens, you understand? it’s checking a work of art against an abstract scorecard on a pass-fail basis. and it leads to the elevation primarily of children’s media, which tends to be binaristic in its morals. and that’s not strictly bad! i love steven universe as much as the next gal. and it’s fine if someone doesn’t want to engage with more difficult media, i totally get it! sometimes i’m in the mood for garbage. i talk all kinds of shit about marvel movies but i fucking LOVE thor ragnarok. the thing is that when i talk shit about marvel movies i KNOW who i’m pushing back against and i know why. i can have my annoyances with writers, directors, actors, etc, but the real problem of the mcu is its ideology & its status as above all else a product for mass consumption, which is the problem of hollywood and the problem of america. virtually all american media is produced by a small handful of corporations who have unilateral control over what gets made and what doesn’t. the result is a media culture built around an ideology that TRIES SO HARD to make itself invisible because of course americans don’t want politics in their media. but the politics are there, because everything is political. and when every movie, tv show, and news broadcast tells you to be afraid of black people, to be afraid of trans women, to be afraid of russians, to be afraid of chinese, that gets us to now, that gets us to a culture that simply has not been given the tools to analyze media in any terms other than those dictated by the selfsame corporations that produce that media. so the tumblr lens, the social justice lens, it can identify a problem in a text but it always falls short when it tries to find a solution. and it falls short because it’s not materialist, it’s not based in any kind of class awareness or political dialectics. it’s not even really based in a particularly feminist politics! hell, the sjw keystone that is the bechdel test originates from a comic and artist that absolutely refuses the binaristic ideology that has led to its popularity.

a truly materialist critical analytic lens would understand that, like in activism, a diversity of tactics must be supported. you do not have to like the art made by every trans woman to understand that you have more in common with the most loathesome working class trans woman you’ve heard of than you do with anyone who has ever sat in a position of real political power in your lifetime. a materialist lens would understand that selling out the problematic in favor of the acceptable is the cutting off of one’s nose to spite their face. when you create an environment where the first thing an artist must consider is whether or not it tics all the right representational boxes, all you really do is put a chilling effect on subversive, difficult art. you don’t have to like subversive, difficult art. you don’t have to like that Dirk kind of has a point about June’s actions. but when you come to me with this criticism as though there’s anything i can do about it, as though i’ve somehow messed up, that doesn’t feel the same as other criticism to me. if you say “parts of chapter 8 are too long,” i can take that and use it as feedback in the future. if you say “i don’t like how little agency June had in gf3.1,” i can disagree and present my own case as to why lack of agency is such a persistent theme in godfeels, but i also understand that it’s a difficult story and that one can certainly get The Point while also not necessarily enjoying the experience. but when you say “this is bad because it looks bad in a real world political context,” i mean, god, what do i even DO with that? again, for the millionth time, you’re not telling me anything i don’t already know. i wrote it. i made you feel these emotions. i wanted you to feel these emotions. there is a reason i wanted you to feel these emotions. but they are, fundamentally, YOUR emotions, not mine. only you can understand them.

so sit with them. reflect on them. ask yourself why this part of the story makes you uncomfortable, why you feel compelled to read it the way you do. don’t worry, no one can read your mind. i mean it, anon. there’s no wrong answers here. what’s beautiful about fiction is that it lets us sit in uncomfortable, taboo emotions and events and situations without fear of retribution or judgment... unless, of course, you problematize the very existence of difficult art. unless you create an environment in which everyone is afraid to tell ambiguous stories of any stripe lest they be subject to a vicious harassment campaign. that’s the environment that ruthlessly attacked Isabel Fall over ‘i sexually identify as an attack helicopter.’ that’s an environment so shortsightedly, bloodthirstily fixated on whatever problematic thing they notice first that it is practically designed from the ground up to annihilate all outsider art and leave only the most corporate friendly pro-empire propaganda in its place.

to close out here (fucking finally lmao), you might say i’m putting words in your mouth here, but i’m just trying to follow your logic to its conclusion. if it is a strictly negative problem, a pure flaw in the work, that June can in some sense at least be partially blamed for the violence done to her, what do you suggest is the solution? in the event of a rewrite, what would you suggest i change? are you looking for an apology? an admission of guilt? maybe it’s something else, i don’t know. maybe you haven’t even thought that far ahead. i’m just asking you to understand that your criticism exists in a context that, whether you meant it this way or not, has a demonstrable chilling effect on the very art you claim to love. i get scared when i get criticism like this because it’s framed like an accusation. it’s framed like i did a crime, which implies the specter of punishment.

and trans women, as we know, are the favored whipping girls of social media harassment campaigns.

anyway, i hope that gives you a thing or two to chew on

#homestuck #godfeels #fiction affects reality #problematic characters #problematic media #materialist media analysis #lateral violence #writing advice #i guess #lmao #marvel cinematic universe #sarahposts

88 notes · View notes

flamingo-writes · 2 years

Text

Ch. 2: Things That We Remember [TASM!Peter Parker x Reader]

Keep You On My Side, Chapter 2: Things That We Remember

Andrew Garfield!Peter Parker x [Female] Reader

[Previous] [Next]

A/N: I swear to god, I am projecting myself way too much in this fic, I'm sorry hvunuifsd I also included characters from the different spiderman comics ;) and a few OC's of my own.

Summary: Peter comes to a realization that cleared his mind, as he found himself orbiting your general direction unconsciously. Weird feelings start to grow inside him, as well as recognizing his own loneliness due to his line of work. You on the other hand have mixed feelings, liking Peter sharp mindedness, and at the same time knowing that same sharp mind of his might be a threat to your secret.

Warnings: Mentions of sexual harassment, misogynistic behavior, vandalism and bullying. Nothing too descriptive. Throughout the entirety of the fanfic there's gonna be a ever present theme of abuse of power as well as punk ideologies.

Word Count: 7.6K

As Peter’s mind kept circling over and over Lauren’s text, his mind was still digesting her last text. ’ Loonie liked you ’. Something about her words was making his stomach twist and tickle in funny ways; he’d forgotten how it felt to be into someone.

‘ She did? ’ He typed without being able to think of anything else. As he stared at the blinking cursor waiting for his next word. He chuckled awkwardly feeling too self aware in the matter. He asked himself why was he behaving like a teenager with a crush on the most popular girl. It was lame, or so he thought.

“C’mon, Peter. It’s not that hard,” He told himself.

‘ She didn't seem too convinced ’ He typed next not too satisfied with his own reply but clicked the send button anyways.

‘ She liked you. Otherwise you wouldn't have lasted with us at the table. ’ A couple of laughing emojis followed Lauren’s last text, making Peter chuckle and stare at his screen dreamily.

‘ She's that crazy? ’

‘ You don't remember her at all, do you? ’ He frowned gently at her text, as he suddenly wondered if he had met you before. Sure, your face and something about you felt familiar, but he was sure he’d remember meeting someone like you. You didn’t really have a standard personality, whatever the hell that meant; nor your vibes felt like something he’d see every so often.

‘ I...should I? ’

' Omg Peter! She's my sister! '

His eyebrows frowned even more as he tried to remember. And then, the memories hit him like a train.

' Say whaaat? ' He replied.

That's why you felt oddly familiar, he thought. He'd seen you in the halls at school. Your hair looked different back then, but still had the same atmosphere. The atmosphere of some mysterious creature lying in wait.

' Yeah, she was two years below us '

As Peter continued remembering stances of seeing you in school, you were for the most part low profile. He did remember what your usual style for school was, band t-shirts, dark jeans, and he did remember hearing you every once in a while yelling, calling people out loudly for unfair or sexiest behavior.

He hummed and nodded his face as he remembered one time taking a pic of one the lockers with a big sticker that read ' Punk is not dead ' and remembered Lauren once mentioning that it was her sister's locker.

' Wait, wasn't your sister the crazy punk girl who messed with Flash's car after a party? '

Man, the Trashed Car Incident was a highly popular story in school. There was a party, which Peter missed for being patrolling the city, but he still heard all about it and saw the pictures. The house was full of crazy teenagers desperately getting drunk and touching each other. God knows how many souls could fit in that small house in the suburbs. However, by the time Flash wanted to leave and went back to his fancy Audi A3 just taken out of the agency, he saw it. The tires were flat, and in neon spray painting, it read: " For all my sister's being touched without their consent, and had their reputations trashed while yours got elevated. See what it's like to have something you care for be hammered " signed with the initials PRG .

Flash wasn't exactly the best guy. He'd seduce all the pretty girls. It's rumored he'd make bets with his friends about who got a specific girl to sleep with them first. In parties he'd get drunk and end up fooling around with any drunk girl standing next to him at the time. He never really forced himself on them. They'd never say no to Flash, but they wouldn't say yes either. Many of those girls got called sluts afterwards. And Flash would be praised. And it always followed the same cycle. Over and over again.

The signature PRG came from a nickname Flash had given you. You were in your freshman year, and Flash was a sophomore. He tried getting his way with you but found it hard to seduce you. And in his futile attempt, he'd given you the name Punk Rock Girl . It was a reference to a band you apparently liked. However, Flash completely ruined the song for you as you were ‘more interested in hanging out with the raccoons at the dumpster’ than going out with Flash, as rumors had it, you’d told him. After having rejected him a handful of times, Flash started spreading rumours about you, ruining your reputation in the process. But how little you cared was outstanding. Since you barely even reacted to said rumours, soon they stopped and people instead ignored them like you did. This pissed off Flash.

However, it wasn’t until you messed with his car, he truly developed a huge disliking of you. And since that event, Flash didn’t dare to mess with you any longer, as he’d seen the lengths you’d go to. And thus, having earned the title of Loonie.

‘ The one and only Punk Rock Girl. ’ Lauren replied.

‘ Can I ask how did she not get expelled? Everyone was saying she was gonna be kicked out, ’ He asked.

‘ Oof, she called him out on his behavior and did it so well the principal didn’t really have any good argument to expel her. Also because she defended her actions saying the car event happened outside the school grounds and therefore the school has no jurisdiction in the matter. And well, our mom is a lawyer, she backed up her statement ’

‘ Didn’t she get in trouble with your parents? ’

‘ Oh she did, but she said she’d do it again if it means helping other women from being taken advantage of and manipulated. She accepted the punishment our parents gave her. She paid for the damage of Flash’s car with her own savings, but she still told Flash she’d gladly trash his car again if she heard he was still being an asshole to women ’

‘ Wow… ’

‘ Exactly, wow ’

Ultimately, the principal had no option but to let you stay in school. Especially because he knew if you spoke out loud about this issue, it would put the school in a bad position in the public eye. Sure, you hated the fact that the principal didn't do anything to Flash, but at least he didn't kick you out either.

' Damn, I never knew much about all of it besides Punk Rock Girl hammering Flash’s car and almost getting expelled… ’ He typed next.

‘ Yeah, she told us not to spread the whole story ’ Peter frowned softly at her reply, as she raised an eyebrow, curious at your reasoning behind it.

‘ How come? ’

‘ She likes to keep her privacy ’

‘ A punk who won't stay silent about injustice yet likes to stay off the spotlight, huh? ’ Peter wrote.

‘ Punks are loud not because they care for the spotlight, but because they care for change, they want the truth to be heard and spread ideas that’ll benefit minorities. They don’t do it for fame and praise. They do it because if it’s not them, then things won’t change on their own ’ His eyes widened in surprise as he reread that a couple of times before replying.

‘ That’s beautiful ’ He texted.

‘ She wrote that line once for a paper ’ Peter hummed an affirmative as he nodded his head, thinking it did make sense if it was something you’d written. It did sound an awful lot like you, to be fair. He could say that with certainty without knowing he had read your writing before.

‘ I love her. She does help me a lot with the band ’ Lauren sent.

‘ That's nice of her ’ He replied as he kept thinking about you.

He kept texting Lauren until she told him she was heading to bed. And with that, they said their goodbyes. However, Peter’s mind kept going, thinking of the rumors people spread about you, and how they always seemed to be...out of character? People called you all sorts of awful things, although, when Peter thought about it, the only people you messed with were the popular kids, and it was never unjustified. So believing all the rumours about you being mean and a bully or doing weird stuff was hard. At least for Peter.

Despite not really paying much attention to you during school, he did remember thinking you were cool for standing up so fearlessly for those who needed it. You let people spread rumors about you without raising your voice, but as soon as you saw someone get bullied, you were the first one to throw punches and yell at the oppressor. Peter respected that. And he knew that and wished he had the chance of meeting you, although back then he was slightly intimidated by your reputation, he never really approached you.

Not until now at least. Although, to be fair, he didn't know it was the infamous Punk Rock Girl he had been talking to at the bar that night. And perhaps that lack of knowledge was what allowed him to calmly approach you. The fact that now he knew who you were made it all more exciting. He still couldn't pinpoint what he felt for you, but you sure sparked something within him. And if you in some way or another ever reciprocated, he'd be surprised with himself.

On the other hand, you kept frantically going around the fact that Peter had picked up on you being as reserved as apparently MJ was. It was a very tiny slip, but one that was picked up by someone. You thought you needed to be more careful. And kept replaying that scene in your head over and over again.

As you stood behind your desk, staring at a blank document with a blinking cursor, wanting to type down the spiral of thoughts you kept going through. Your two other roommates were asleep as it was late night. And you didn't hear your third roommate walk in, whistling and closing the door behind him.

Clueless as to how your roommate went to the kitchen, left something in the fridge and then walked towards you, still whistling and banging his head to the rhythm of the music playing in his headphones.

All while your head kept going around Peter. His sharp mind, working almost like a sixth sense of sorts. How did he so easily picked up on it? If you kept being so mysterious, he'd end up figuring out you were MJ. That was if you were gonna see him in the future. Why would you see him in the future? You hadn't seen him since your sister and him graduated high school, and a few random stops at the coffee shop you worked at, but he never seemed to notice you. Until now. Why now? The poetic melodic voice in your mind kept pointing fingers at the romantic idea of fate. But what else could be expected of a writer if not to exaggerate and turn memories into potential story tropes?

The unseen notification of your sister's last text was shining bright on your screen. Haunting you.

'Peter Parker is interested in you, did you know that? ;) '

Of course you knew that. You'd seen the way he behaved tonight. Trying to get to know you, giving you charming smiles and over all polite gestures. Which did appeal to you, but you knew better than to get closer. You meant what you told him about the trust issues. At least when it came to dating. After your first and last boyfriend had cheated on you with a girl you took class with, you knew you didn't want to go through something like that again.

"Can't sleep?" Your roommate said looking over your shoulder.

His voice suddenly intruding in your thought train pulled you so violently away from your trance you flinched and squealed. His first reaction was to giggle as he put his hand on your shoulder.

"Yo, calm down it's me" He said softly. "Sorry, didn't mean to scare you. Saw you on your computer and thought you'd probably been there for a while, so I brought you pizza" He said handing you a small plate with two thin slices.

"Ah–, thanks Miles" You sighed and looked at him, taking the plate off his hand. "No, it's fine, I was… spacing out"

"Yeah, I noticed," He chuckled and looked at your blank screen, raising an eyebrow and giggling.

"I didn't know we had pizza" You said staring at the plate, thinking you weren’t hungry, although you hadn’t eaten anything since lunch.

"We do now. Went out to have a couple of drinks with my uncle Aaron. We had pizza at the bar, and I remembered we didn't have anything back home. My uncle Aaron insisted on paying for the pizza, though" Miles explained with a soft smirk.

"Tell your uncle Aaron he rocks" You chuckled and took a bite of the pizza, moaning softly. “This is good…” You muttered to yourself.

"He knows he’s cool. You good, though? You seem stressed…" He said taking a spare chair next to your seat and looked at you.

Feeling the weight of your own eye bags, and slightly dissociated mind, you shook your head softly.

"I met a guy who's a big MJ fan" You replied as Miles clicked his tongue and hummed an affirmative.

"Ah, I see…another identity hound?” He said, giving you a knowing smirk as you nodded.

Normally, you could easily deflect these people you called Identity Hounds. More of them were paranoid people who believed all the rumours about MJ. Most rumours were created on your own in order to deflect them. Like MJ being a guy.

"Yeah, except this guy has a sharper mind that everyone I've come across before… " You said, biting the tip of your thumb, thinking.

"Oh, not good” Miles sighed as he leaned against the backrest.

"Hopefully I won't be seeing him soon nor often” You sighed, somewhat relieved by your own consolation. You had absolutely no idea if that was gonna be the case, but you still tried to cling to the idea of New York being a city big enough to not see him in a while.

Although, life had other plans

"I hope so, man.” Miles said leaning forward and resting a hand on your shoulder. “Anyways, I'm heading to bed. See ya tomorrow, Loon. Don’t stay up too late, yeah?" He said as he walked towards his room and you continued to stare at your blank document.

"Night, Miles…" You purred, not sure if he’d heard you or not.

It definitely took you a while to feel sleepy. And during that whole time, you remained staring at the blank screen with little to no success. It was hard to tell whether it was still 2 am or the clock already marked 3 by the time you went to bed. Your mind was still going in circles about the odd person Peter Parker was. He was oddly observant and far more sharper than most people. He was cute and charming, but the moment he started connecting dots no one had even seen in the first place, you decided it was going to be best to keep your distance.

The next morning, it wasn’t hard to ignore the alarm, and what felt like the first time in months, you actually stopped your alarm without snoozing. Sighing tiredly, as four, perhaps five, hours of sleep was all you got, although your mind still seemed to be all over the place. And without wasting much time, you went to the swimming pool, as per usual; however, this time, it wasn’t out of healthy habits you were trying to stick to, it was because you wanted to free your mind from the intrusive thoughts, even if it was just for an hour.

After leaving the pool, you headed to your job at a small coffee shop, where you’d spend the next 10 hours making coffee and warming up croissants for picky eaters. And if there was a bit of free time, you'd go to a small table not far from the wooden bar and you'd sit behind your laptop and work on your novel.

Any MJ writing you'd always keep it to the confines of your apartment. In case there were people with wandering eyes. And also by dividing your time between your writing and MJ's you actually managed to get things written for both authors.

The soft doorbell jingled as the door opened and closed. Your eyes looking up to the door as you felt your stomach turn cold.

'God, no…' You thought.

As you wondered what were the chances of Peter showing up here the very next day after you "met" him. You thought Murphy had a nasty sense of humor.

Getting up from your table, you went to the cash register as you cursed at every deity of chaos for putting you in such a situation. As you avoided looking at him, you acted as if you didn't know who was behind the bar.

"Good afternoon what can I–" You said looking up and feigning surprise as Peter also faked a surprised look and called your name.

"Hey, it's good to see you" He said, chuckling softly, as he thought his spidey sense kinda did tell him something was gonna happen, although nothing bad nor dangerous.

"Yeah. Also… odd… " You said, frowning softly. "I'd never seen you here before" You lied.

Peter chuckled awkwardly as he thought of how suspicious it was. But it had been a coincidence that he was there.

"I am taking pics for the paper I work at… And happened to be around here. I woke up late, got late to work and I actually forgot to have breakfast…" He chuckled awkwardly, however, every single word he said had been true.

"I see" You nodded, not sure if you believed him, though. But gave him the benefit of the doubt. "What can I get you, then?"

"Coffee, please!" He groaned dramatically. "The biggest cup you have"

"20 ounces?" You asked as you were ready to grab a paper cup for him, not being impressed by the amount of coffee as you’ve had people drink excessive amounts of coffee on a daily basis as you simply stared both amazed and worried.

"Wait no, that's too much…" He corrected immediately as he sighed and shyly pointed at the paper cup next to the largest one.

"Sixteen?" You asked as he nodded and you grabbed it.

"Yeah, better" He sighed.

"So, American coffee?"

As you were ready to write down his order, he spoke and said:

"A latte, instead. Changed my mind. Any kind of milk is fine" Nodding, you wrote down his instructions before turning to the screen pad and typed his order there.

Peter paid close attention to your features as you clicked a few options here and there, thinking you were quite beautiful, and how your face hadn’t really changed much since he graduated. At the same time, feeling slightly embarrassed at the fact that he hadn’t recognized you from school. He tried justifying it in the poor lighting and flashing lights from the bar. Although he knew it was a bullshit excuse. Perhaps he had been too busy between getting used to being Spiderman, losing his uncle Ben and then falling for Gwen to really notice your face, despite knowing what people said about you.

"Noted. Something else?" You said, breaking him from his thoughts.

"Oh, not sure. I don’t come here often…" He said looking at the desserts on the counter "What do you recommend?"

"The muffins are very good. We have butter, chocolate chips, blueberry… " You said gazing over the counter, feigning a lack of interest, although you knew far too well Peter caught your curiosity like very few things in life.

"Oh, blueberry, please"

You nodded as you charged him, handed him his change and proceeded to work on his coffee as he looked around nervously, feeling uncomfortable by the growing silence.

"You're the only one?" He said breaking the growing awkwardness, as you met his dark eyes and nodded.

"Barista, yes. At least for the time being… There are two people in the kitchen who make the sandwiches. A coworker should arrive in an hour or so…" You explained as you warmed up his muffin and finished his coffee. "Have a good day, Pete…" You said handing him his things. You exchanged stares before smiling politely at him.

"Hey, can I ask you something?" He asked curiously, staring at you straight in the eye as you felt oddly exposed and looked away shyly.

"Sure" Was everything you could reply as you started to feel nervous as to what could Peter possibly ask you.

"Why didn't you tell me we went to the same school or that you were Lauren's sister?" He said, genuinely concerned, a part of him still feeling guilty over not recognizing you in the first place.

"Mystery is fun. Besides I am a pretty private person… " Peter chuckled as he thought he should've expected that to be your answer.

"Yeah, we established that last night," Peter chuckled. "You Mysterious Writers are a very interesting species"

"It's almost an unconscious marketing technique" You added with a soft giggle as you wiggled your eyebrows at him playfully.

"Hey, it could help you sell once you publish your novel"

"I might give it an actual try" You added as you gazed over at your laptop with the open document as Peter followed your stare and nodding immediately knowing it was yours.

"Anyways, thanks…" He purred your name softly as he looked into your eyes, the text Lauren sent him circling his mind still. "So, see you around?"

"Yeah, I guess" You replied smiling back at him.

Peter turned around, feeling his heart racing all of a sudden. A cheeky smile on his cheeks as he knew where to find you. Although, right before he got any closer to the door, he stopped in his tracks and spun on his heels. And walking back to the bar, he met your eyes again as you squinted yours and smirked.

"Oh hey, before I go… Can I ask you for one last thing?" He said, his cheeky grin spreading through his cheeks making him look all too cute.

"Sure" You said with a pretty obvious suspicious tone making him laugh softly.

"I kinda meant what I said about seeing you around… I'd like to hang out sometime soon… if that's fine with you of course...I had fun last night" Something in his voice told you he was actually telling the truth as you looked at him, noticing the growing puppy look in his eyes.

"Have you've always been this persuasive?" You said rolling your eyes and returning the playful smirk, although yours had a more sassy tone to it.

"I prefer to use the word charming" He said, smiling proudly.

"Let me guess, you were a teacher's pet?" The weight of the marker in the pocket of your apron seemed to grow with every word you exchanged.

"I'm not gonna deny nor confirm anything" You laughed at his reply.

"You definitely were a teacher's pet. Dorky, polite, smart… You have the entire profile of a teacher’s pet" You said as you grabbed the marker and played idly with it in your fingers as Peter was paying close attention to your every move.

"Say teacher’s pet one more time…" He said in a playful threatening voice as his smirk spread across his face.

"Peter Parker, the teacher's pet" You teased as you stared at him and raised an eyebrow.

Peter chuckled and pretended to be offended, dramatically stepping back and placing a hand over his chest. He was also surprised at the fact that you did know his full name, making him even more ashamed of not having recognized you.

"I'll play along as long as I can get your number" He answered as he got closer to the bar again.

"Now, that's manipulation" You said squinting your eyes and frowning, however your cheeky smile was still there, hypnotizing Peter.

"It's only manipulation if it works… is it… working?" Peter said with a smirk.

"I'm not gonna deny nor confirm anything" You said as you grabbed a napkin and wrote down your number and doodled a small frog next to it out of habit and handed it to him. "I don't like how persuasive you are, Parker" You chuckled.

"Too much power, huh?" He said, his smile leaning towards one side of his face.

He called your name one last time. Before gently waving and thanking you for the napkin as he left hopping happily with long strides as you chuckled and rolled your eyes.

Your mind lingered on him. He was smart, and witty, oddly straightforward with his flirting, but damn, was he charming. It was hard to resist. You wondered if that's why Gwen Stacy had fallen for him. She was incredibly centered, smart and focused in her studies. Many guys tried getting in her pants and she'd epically rejected them. But not Peter. He was smart. And so quick to make a comeback or jokes. That was hot. Although, something about how quick he was to think scared you a bit. How long would it take him to figure out you were MJ? And if he did, what would you do next?

If he were to find out, you'd have no other chance but to keep him around, and get him to keep the secret. But you still didn't know Peter good enough to know how trustworthy he was. How good was he at keeping secrets? You barely knew anything about the guy other than he'd usually use his skateboard inside school, take pics for the school paper and events, date Gwen and that he was a huge science nerd. Not enough information to properly form an opinion.

"Who was that?" Your friend Kylie said as she walked out of the kitchen. “I saw you two giggling and chatting…”

“Some guy who used to go to school with me” You replied, thinking.

“He’s cute” She said looking at you with curious eyes, wanting to see your reaction and what you had to say on the matter.

“Yeah. And very smart. And that’s a big problem…” You purred looking at her. “In less of an hour he made a comment about how MJ and I are similar…” You whispered.

“Oh, shit…That’s bad…” She muttered her eyes now opening in surprise.

“Yeah”

“Hey, another question, did you bring the pizza last night? I grabbed a slice for lunch today…” You noticed immediately Kylie had changed the topic in an attempt to distract you from Peter. She knew how people bringing up MJ’s identity made you tense almost as a reflex, and was trying to get your mind off of it.

“It was Miles” You said, snapping out a bit from your thought spiral as you looked at Kylie, her bottle green hair still felt weird to you as she’d dyed her hair just two days ago. “Well, to be precise, his uncle Aaron…Aaron bought us pizza” You said chuckling softly.

“Oh, Aaron is so sweet. I swear, he’s like the father of all of us renting that apartment…” Kylie said, dramatically resting her hand on her chest as you chuckled.

The day went by, and eventually your other roommate made it to the coffee place for his shift. Helping you out making coffee while Kylie and another cook worked in the kitchen. Shortly after, your shift was done; however you stayed the afternoon at the coffee shop working on your draft, your mind every once in a while wandering back to Peter as you'd take a few notes in another document as a personal essay in order to get those thoughts off your mind and be able to keep writing.

'Last night I felt almost as if my soul had returned to my body. I saw that familiar red and blue flash swinging past the corner, and I was more than glad to see he was back. Our friendly neighborhood Spiderman is back, doing what he does best.

I am saddened to say that that's how the usual Spiderman cycle goes. He goes missing, people realize how much we need him, he comes back, people are kind, then media start manipulating information, making him look bad, people forget everything he's done for us… Rinse and repeat.

Not me. I could never forget all the things he's done for us. For me. And I hope most people are like me in this sense.

Whoever wears the mask, I hope you get to read this. And if that's the case, I hope you're doing well. I want to thank you for everything you've done. And for everything you'll do in the future. You're far more valuable to the city than what people give you credit for. Please remember this.

It's good to have the friendly neighborhood Spiderman back'

On Monday, the office of The Daily Bogle was a raging ruckus again. Jameson was throwing his tantrum about never working with MJ again, making it pretty clear that he disliked the idea that the writer that brought more attention to the paper was a Spiderman supporter, something Jameson wasn't. He even went the extra mile to have an article for tomorrow's paper about the return of Spiderman and the possible bad impact it might have in New York.

"Leeds!" Jameson shouted.

"Sir!" Ned flinched softly as he stood up from his chair.

"Write that bastard an email telling him we don't want to work with him ever again, and while you're there, tell him to go screw himself, I don't like vigilante supporters"

"I-I… sir…" Ned nodded and sat back in his seat.

Peter frowned, annoyed by the latest request his neurotic boss had just ordered. Not only because that meant losing contact with MJ altogether, he now didn't have any chance. He sighed deeply as Gloria and Ned exchanged looks and Peter got up from his seat holding his camera.

"Parker! Where do you think you're going?" Jameson barked.

"Take some pictures for the paper" He sighed annoyed.

"Don't take too long. Make sure to eat in the meantime, you'll be using your lunch break to get those pics ready for printing. Bring decaf coffee, I asked Angela to buy more but she didn't bring it!"

Peter rolled his eyes and left. Feeling frustrated, he headed towards your workplace hoping to see a familiar face that'll bring him comfort.

Truth was, Peter didn't keep any friends. How could he? He felt his secret identity might be a danger to whoever was close to him. And normally kept people at a distance.

However, something was drawing him towards you. Perhaps the desire to have someone to go to when he wanted to vent about his day and get his mind off his burdens, like people normally did with friends. That and the fact that you simply caught his attention. You were smart and laid back despite the present mystery surrounding you. And the way your eyes focused on him with the same intrigue as his, it was hard for him not to meet your gaze and get lost in it. It was something he'd forgotten how it felt like.

He stopped behind the glass door, as he asked himself what exactly was he doing there. Peter didn't know for sure. Your silhouette moving back and forth behind the coffee bar along with another guy as you exchanged words and laughs together, the line getting shorter as you two worked together. A gentle smile spread through his face, not noticing how creepy he looked staring as you cluelessly worked not really noticing due to the rush hour of people getting coffee.

As you registered orders and wrote down instructions on paper cups, you heard the bell jingling softly as you sighed thinking how rush hour couldn't get any busier. However, you kept working, begging for that last person to be the last customer for the next half an hour at least.

Which turned out to be true. As you kept taking orders, you didn't hear the doorbell ring any further. As the line got shorter and shorter, you could only feel more and more relieved with every passing customer as you had been taking orders nonstop for an hour now. You weren’t paying attention to who was in line, mostly taking note of how many people were left.

Finally, as your rearview got a glimpse of the last customer left, you handed Andy, your coworker and roommate, a paper cup with the instructions written down. As you turned back to the pad on the cash register, your lips moved on their own, greeting automatically.

“Good morning, welcome to the Coffee Pot, what can I–” You stopped as you looked up holding your marker ready to write down orders as you met Peter’s stare, your heart skipping a beat and your mind suddenly turning blank as you weren’t expecting him. Three days in a row, you thought. “Peter?” You asked surprised as you chuckled awkwardly. “I’m seeing you a lot lately, huh?” You said with a sarcastic tone.

“Not stalking, I swear” Peter added with a gentle laugh. “I’m running away from my work for a while. My boss is driving me insane” Peter explained, slightly nervous as he knew how odd it was that for two days straight, he’d gone to your workplace unannounced. He sighed softly, slightly defeated. “I’m not having the best day, and wanted to go someplace where I can get my mind off of it”

His voice got lower and sounded genuine, as you could pick up on the annoyance in his voice. You pushed your lips together as your eyebrows lifted, feeling sorry for him, despite not knowing what truly was happening to him. You simply felt sympathy and knew how not having a good day felt like, as well as the urge to get your mind off your work for a while. You nodded and grabbed a paper cup and wrote down the coffee he’d asked you for the day before as you still remembered his order.

“I hope you want what you ordered yesterday” You said chuckling, trying to comfort him.

“You remember what I had yesterday?” He replied, his face changing as a smirk spread through his lips.

“I’ve got a good memory” You replied as you handed Andy the paper cup and grabbed a blueberry muffin.

“Oh, no, please” He said, sighing your name softly. “I’ve only got cash for the coffee…” He said.

“The muffin’s on me, Pete” You said handing him the muffin in a small paper bag.

“Oh come on” He whined.

“I’m serious. You’re having a bad day, and I wanna help turn it around” The gentle smile you gave Peter left him breathless for a second as he forgot for a moment why he was even in a bad mood to begin with. He clicked his tongue and grabbed the paper bag from you.

“When you put it that way, it is hard to say no” He said as he handed you a bill. “Let me repay you sometime”

“I did a random act of kindness, Peter. Not a favor. You don’t owe me anything” You said with a confident tone, trying to get him to stop insisting.

“Random act of kindness, huh? Okay, as a random act of kindness, I’ll take you out someday to a churro cart close to Rafferty Triangle…” He said as he looked at you with playful eyes and a soft smile.

“Peter…” You sighed, your voice getting lower.

“There’s this Puerto Rican lady who has a churro cart, they’re great! They’re stuffed with nutella and–”

“Stop using my phrases against me” You cut him off with a soft giggle as you realized which kind of person Peter was. And he was the kind of person who somehow felt obligated to return favors or compensate others.

“Why?” He laughed.

“Copyright? I don’t know…” You chuckled knowing it hadn’t been your best comeback.

“No, not gonna buy that one” He teased. “Let me do something nice for you someday”

Truth was, Peter was now grasping at any chance he had to spend time with you. Any little excuse to get to see you or talk to you drew him in. Something about you was so fascinating to him, he needed to take any chance to be with you.

“I mean, you already are. You are consuming in the place I work at” You said as you looked around. Very briefly locking stares with your coworker Andy, as he gave you a knowing stare, noticing the flirting going both ways with the two of you.

“You know what I mean,” Peter added.

“I do…” Andy handed you Peter’s coffee as you handed it to him, since Peter was still by the cash register. He grabbed the paper cup, his fingers brushing yours and he intentionally lingered there. Noticing how you intentionally remained there holding his cup for a few seconds, his hand next to yours before letting go. Something that lasted far too long, burning each other’s skin as you both wondered what exactly was happening and how exactly you felt about the other.

“Thanks…” He said as he met your stare briefly before looking away shyly.

“You’re leaving already?” You asked softly as you thought he’d stay longer. You wanted him to stay longer.

“You see, I have to, quote-unquote work…” He chuckled.

“I see…” You sighed slightly disappointed, but without anything to say. “You mentioned working at a paper, can I ask which one?”

“The Daily Bogle” Something in his answer made your gentle look suddenly turned bitter.

“You work there?” You asked, your voice coming out a lot more sour than intended. ‘No offence, but I kinda hate that paper…” You chuckled awkwardly, however, you didn’t want to hide your discomfort in the matter.

“Not the best place, but puts bread on the table” Peter sighed, as you could tell from his reply he wasn’t exactly happy to work there.

“You’re a photographer there?” You asked as bit by bit you began connecting dots.

“Yeah…”

“I see” You said looking away, suddenly too deep in your thoughts as you remembered a couple of things you’d heard about The Daily Bogle and remembering each and every article you’ve read there that made you dislike it. “Wait, so you’re the guy who takes pics of Spiderman?” You asked curiously as you’d heard there was only one photographer in New York who managed to get pics of Spiderman.

“So people say” Peter said, suddenly getting on guard as he thought you were quick to realize it.

“Do you like him?” You asked, your voice turning serious, as you knew you were being straightforward right now, but now that this information about Peter had come out, you thought it was important to know where he stood, before making any more progress. What he replied now would define what you thought of him and how close you wanted him to be.

“Spiderman? I think he’s a swell guy” He replied, shrugging it off, making it seem like he didn’t think much on the matter.

“Then why would you do that to him?” You asked, your vice cutting as your gaze suddenly turned sharper as Peter knew what you meant and sighed deeply.

“Look, he doesn’t care” He replied, trying to divert the tension.

“How do you know?” You asked, as Peter met your stare and felt like he was staring at the fearless girl who trashed Flash’s car without remorse, suddenly feeling slightly intimidated, as if he were walking on thin ice.

“I do” He replied, knowing he couldn’t let his voice falter.

“You know him” You concluded, making it clear that it wasn’t a question, as Peter didn’t know how to reply to such a direct statement. He shrugged.

You chuckled bitterly as you looked away, as you took a deep breath, feeling slightly betrayed by how sweet and gentle he looked, and yet he worked for the paper who specialized in calling Spiderman a form of criminal. The Spiderman you always defended through MJ’s signature, since you were oddly related to the masked hero. Standing up and helping those in need because those at the top won’t do it themselves. You knew the parasocial relationship was a big stretch, but it was oddly comforting to know there were people like you. And the scale with which Spiderman did it, risking his life so selflessly. You admired that.

“Peter, so far I’ve enjoyed interacting with you, please don’t ruin it…” You sighed as you met his stare briefly, noticing the way his dark brown eyes softened with guilt.

“What are you…” He said, trying to mask his growing anxiety with an awkward chuckle.

“Spiderman has saved me a couple of times in the past, and I’m immensely grateful to the guy…I really dislike the things The Bogle has to say about him…” You replied, your voice easing as you could tell Peter didn’t feel exactly proud of The Bogle’s actions.

“I’m in a complicated position…” Peter sighed looking away, as he didn’t know what to say to make the situation better.

“Yeah. Because surviving in New York is hard, isn’t it?” You spat, as you closed your eyes and took a deep breath, knowing you were getting too worked up too fast.

“I’ve tried looking for other jobs…And I’m still in the Bogle because it’s a stable income. Well, it is stable when my editor isn’t threatening me…” He murmured.

“What?” You questioned not liking his wording. “What do you mean?”

“I’ve tried stopping giving him Spiderman pictures, because…you’ve read what he says about Spiderman, and he’s threatened me to kick me out. And I can’t give myself the luxury of not having a job, not even for a couple of days.. my tenant is ready to kick me out even if I’m five minutes late paying rent…”

You looked at him amazed as your mouth fell open and suddenly all the anger you were feeling now canalized on someone else. You hummed a scoff as you looked away and Peter looked back at you. He saw you run a hand through your face and hair as you looked at him, your eyes now considerably softer as they met his.

“I’m sorry” You replied in a low voice. “I didn’t mean to…get mad at you… ”

“Well, I can’t blame you for getting mad at me for helping sabotage Spiderman” Peter said, snickering softly at the irony that he was Spiderman and he worked for the asshole who’s favorite hobby was to talk shit about him.

“Why don’t you try freelance?” You asked him.

“How exactly? I…” He stopped himself as he took a deep breath and looked at you. “You’re gonna think I’m pathetic, but I don’t know anyone…I suck at meeting people and maintaining friendships. And as far as I’m concerned, Freelance depends a lot on contacts…”

For Peter it was hard, impossibly hard to keep people close. For starters, he was a naturally lone wolf, however, after taking Spiderman’s identity, and after what Gwen’s father had told him, he knew it was best for everyone if he remained a lone wolf. He still carried the guilt and responsibility of Gwen’s death on his shoulders, only further proving his point that he was better left alone. But he’d be lying if he said he was fine on his one. Truth was, his life felt terribly lonely at times, and his escape was to get this mind busy either at work, or by putting on the red and blue suit. He avoided his loneliness by staying busy, but on bad days, it was hard to run away from it.

And yet, he found himself orbiting your general direction. Regardless of the nature of his feelings for you, he also longed for a friend. Someone to rely on when he felt overwhelmed. Like he’d done today. He felt fed up with Jameson’s bullshit and found himself going to your workplace. To see you, to talk to you, to get his mind off his burdens a bit. And even talking about how unhappy he was in The Bogle felt awfully relieving.

“Let me help you. I know a thing or two about freelance…” You said, immediately regretting your words, as you knew you couldn’t teach him what you knew without giving away you were MJ.

“What?” Peter’s gaze changed as you broke him apart from his thought train and took a 180° change on his look, now gazing at you curiously.

“My cousin is getting married in a couple of months, I’m gonna ask her if she has a photographer yet…” You said. “How does that sound?”

“Really?” He coughed. “I-I…don’t have a lot of fancy equipment…”

“One of my roommates took a class on photography in college and he has some equipment he had to buy. I don’t think he’s gonna mind if we borrow them for an afternoon…” You said, shrugging, as you knew Miles wouldn’t really mind in the first place, plus he was going as your plus one for the wedding.

“I…Sure…Please!” He chuckled, getting weirdly excited as his new found happiness somehow permeated to you and you looked away, feeling suddenly too shy to look at him.

“Okay…are you free on Thursday? After 5?” You asked him as the voice at the back of your head started panicking as you had a few days to think how the hell were you going to solve this. You needed a plan to fix this without having to involve your little secret. And soon, an idea sparked in your head. You were going to need Aaron Davis’ help.

~~~~~~~~

Thank you so much for reading! Likes and comments are very well appreciated!

Taglist (open): If you'd like to be added to the tag list, let me know!

@abibliophobiaa @andrewgarfield2022 @edgycatx @lendeluxe @darlingbravebelle @lauraneedstochill @tagakalat @jenoslo

#tasm x reader #tasm peter x reader #tasm imagine #tasm fanfiction #tasm peter parker #tasm!spiderman x reader #tasm!peter x you #tasm!peter imagine #tasm!peter fluff #tasm!peter fanfiction #spiderman imagine #the amazing spiderman imagine #kyoms

69 notes · View notes

captnjacksparrow · 3 years

Note

Hey. So when do you think Sasuke realised his true feelings for Naruto? I feel like he knew since part one itself, in some way at least. He was aware of something. When Sasuke tells Naruto his body moved on its own, I feel like there were seeds of realisation or at least a trigger point. In Shippuden, he always seems like he is fully aware of his depth of feelings for Naruto, he gets super emotional because of it. The fact that he is driven to ask Naruto again and again about his feelings, and is disappointed except for chapter 698 proves that he knew this feeling was somehow different, and he wanted understanding from Naruto, maybe to validate his own feelings, since he is equally inexperienced if not oblivious like Naruto.

He knows deep down that Naruto is special to him, he adores Naruto privately, he had since before the genin days. At the end of vote 1, I think he realises it fully, his true feelings for Naruto. What do you think?

Wonderful Ask, Anon!!! 😍😍😍.

[[Lengthy Post ahead]]

WHEN DID SASUKE REALIZED HIS TRUE FEELINGS FOR NARUTO?

I am damn sure, like 100%, the moment he realized his true feelings is when he thought he was going to die and recollected all the memories he shared with Naruto (including the Accidental Kiss and Roasting Sakura for insulting Naruto) for one Last Time in the Land of the Waves Arc.

You might be thinking now, "What makes you so sure?"

Well, Kishimoto just hammered into our faces in many plotlines.

How is this panel has to do anything with Sasuke?, You may ask.

The answer is here.

"You will realize what you are, as death comes to embrace you".

Itachi, no matter how cold he acted before Sasuke in that battle, he simply couldn't keep up his Evil Brother act at the final moment of his death.

He just smiled. That is who Itachi really was and always will be for Sasuke.

Again, you may ask, 'All this happens much later in the series, Kishi might've had a different mindset back when he was drawing part 1'.

You are right. But Kishi's mindset was the same all the time. He even established this 'True face before Death' theme very strongly in Land of the Waves arc itself.

This is who Zabuza really was. He didn't treat Haku like a Tool. Infact, his final words were, "I wanted to go the same place as you".

Kakashi made sure to convey this message to Haku in the War Arc, when he fought with the Edo Tensei'ed Haku and Zabuza.

And there are many characters who died in this series. Almost all of them projects their true feelings before their death. Just rewind the deaths of Nagato, Yahiko, Konan, Obito, Madara. You might've noticed that there won't be any lies. For Example, Obito. When he died for the first time, he was really thinking about Kakashi and Rin. He even said, ‘I wish I could’ve spent more time with them’. That’s who Obito really was. He was convinced with that Tsukuyomi plan because he wanted to live in a dream world where Rin and Kakashi will be with him happily.

So, a person, at their final moment thinks only about all their memories shared with that 'precious' person signifies only one thing. That person must have unconditionally loved the one they thought about.

Sasuke realized that he loves Naruto at that moment and he had no regrets because he smiled before falling into Naruto's lap.

And I always wondered, 'Why did Sasuke thought only about Naruto? Didn't he have any other good memories other than the ones he shared with Naruto?'.

Well, this goes way back when he was just 8, right after the Massacre. Yes, the chapter 698 confession. But I am not going to attach all the panels here as I will go in-depth about it later in this post.

However, there are three panels that provides the general gist of what Sasuke felt about Naruto, the whole time.

Happiness:

Whenever Sasuke watches Naruto, he reminded him of his family and it made Sasuke 'felt relieved' or 'feel warm and fuzzy'. Simply put, Naruto's presence made him happy.

And did Sasuke ever felt relieved?

Yes, he did!!

This above scene happens sometime after the massacre and yet, somehow Naruto could make him smile even in that distressful situation.

And this is one recurring feeling which Sasuke experience whenever he comes in contact with Naruto. After the Massacre, somehow Naruto became his source of happiness or relief. This panel right after massacre, that smile before his ‘supposed’ death, on seeing the Great Naruto Bridge with a relaxed smile, VoTE2 smile.....

Sasuke smiled at all these scenes and you know the reason why!!!

Weakness:

This is exactly opposite from how he felt earlier. And this conflicting thoughts are what Sasuke was battling in his mind throughout Part 1 and Part 2 until Chapter 697. He liked Naruto's presence. But, For him, the very thought of bonding with him made him feel weak.

According to Sasuke, the stronger he bonds with someone the more he has to worry about losing them and the very thought of losing them will put him in a precarious position which is considered as a weakness. And Sasuke doesn’t want to experience this again.

Meaning, Sasuke doesn’t want to feel the pain of loss over someone, ever again. He wants to be the person who don’t care about anyone.

Did Sasuke ever expose his weakness?

Yes he did!!!

This is his absolute display of weakness and this is what he always wanted to avoid. The very thought of something is going to happen to Naruto made him do something that put him under immense pain.

Yes, In his mind, he doesn’t want to care about anyone’s loss. But his body doesn’t seem to listen to him. And that’s why his body moved on it’s own.

God!!! This made me cry!!!!

Pain:

Now, this feeling Sasuke had towards Naruto was very evident in the War Arc. That one time he sensed Naruto’s Chakra in Konoha and asked Orochimaru to hurry up. Also when Naruto was bawling after seeing countless shinobi’s deaths, Sasuke’s reaction changed from ‘I don’t care 😶’ to ‘How dare you😠’, I consider all these moments where Sasuke was bothered about Naruto . But since, I want to focus only on Pre- Land of the Waves moments, I’m not going to add those moments here.

Did Sasuke felt pain in Part 1?

Of course, he did!!!

Well, I always consider this scene as something ‘very personal’ for Sasuke.

In this post, I’ve written about how chapter 3 is masked by the ‘Accidental Kiss’ as a comical facade but when you analyze it deeply you will find that Naruto and Sasuke’s rivalry thing goes long back, even before the series started.

After hearing Pinky’s insensitive comment, what Sasuke did here was completely extreme. He was just giving her a ‘Murder Stare’ which was way too extreme for Naruto, if he was just a teammate. When in reality, Naruto was not just his teammate. That’s why I think Sasuke was bothered by this insensitive comment and roasted her because he knew Naruto was suffering from this loneliness ever since he saw him when he was 8. And when someone made fun of his loneliness, Sasuke just couldn’t keep quiet.

Isn’t this some form of feeling pain of the person you care about and standing up for them?

This is another scene which I don’t have to go in detail about.

On my first watch, I always wondered, ‘Why Sasuke was making exceptions for Naruto? They just know for a very few days and yet why was he giving his lunch and standing up for him, which he doesn’t have to in the first place? It’s just 2 episodes in and Sasuke has already made 4 exceptions, why was he doing this?’

But after watching Episode 478, I came to the realization that Sasuke did all these because he knew about Naruto before the series even started.

It’s funny that before this scene, Sasuke was giving his long-ass serious speech to Pinky about how he is an avenger, he was crying at that time, he wants to get stronger than someone and wants to kill him, he can’t waste his time here..... And yet when he saw Naruto suffering from Hunger, he just gave his lunch without minding the consequences. (Ninja Career says Hello!!!!)

Now, Let’s get back to my previous question I posed here,

Why did Sasuke thought only about Naruto in his final moments? Didn't he have any other good memories other than the ones he shared with Naruto?

The answer is, ‘Sasuke always felt any one of the three extreme emotions such as Happiness, Weakness, Pain in the presence of Naruto. And all these 3 extremities are not something you feel for everyone unless that person shares your blood or the person you love unconditionally. Sasuke, at this point has no one that shares his blood plus the only blood relation left was the one he wants to kill. And since Sasuke thinks he is going to die, he doesn’t mind thinking about his happiest moments with the person he considers as ‘precious’ , because somehow Sasuke considers Naruto as ‘His Person’ or you can say ‘a part of himself’’

And that’s why I think Sasuke realized his true feelings just when he was about to die.

At the end of vote 1, I think he realizes it fully, his true feelings for Naruto.

I had this same thought before, anon!!! But after multiple re-watches, I realized something else. You cannot realize your true feelings and say a painful ‘Good Bye’ at the same time.

Realizing true feelings works only in two ways,

You either say a ‘Good Bye’ to someone. After leaving that person you may realize you miss that person and eventually you may come to term with your feelings.

You already have a strong feeling established in your heart and say a painful ‘Good Bye’. And VoTE 1 belongs to this category.

Simply put, Break ups and Love realization cannot happen simultaneously.

And that’s why Sasuke casually said, “To me, you’ve become my closest friend” without any hesitation. Because he already knew it otherwise obtaining Mangekyou Sharingan (MS) will not be possible if you don’t have such a strong feelings established already.

That whole battle started off as a way to obtain MS but then it changed into his desperate attempt to cut off his bond with Naruto to become stronger and only killing him can sever it because it’s such a strong one. It’s not a bond that will be severed by saying a simple, ‘Thank you’.

At this moment, Sasuke must be realizing he simply cannot cut off this bond and he is again making an exception by letting this one weakness to exist and embracing it by being closer to him for one final time.

And this is one of the hauntingly brilliant way of conveying A Connection indirectly. And the best part is... this scene is not accidental. We know Sasuke felt stinging pain in his arms and knelt down & coughed up blood. How did he end up straight above Naruto’s face?

It’s because Sasuke simply wanted to convey his unbroken bond with Naruto by deliberately leaning towards his face. Rain falls on Sasuke and all those droplets passes through Sasuke’s face and falls upon Naruto’s face or it is very possible that Sasuke might by crying and his tears might be touching his face, but either way, it creates a Connection which he couldn’t able to cut off. In the fillers, Sasuke’s sweat drop falls on Naruto. It’s almost similar to how at the end of chapter 698, both of their blood connects together to form a connection. Which means only death can separate their connection.

That’s why I feel that this is the moment where he is painfully saying his Good Bye for one last time, it pains him immensely because he already knows that leaving his ‘precious’ person who became a part of himself is not very easy added to that he hurt him so much during the battle. And for this reason, Sasuke felt ‘leaving Naruto is like ripping off half of his body’.

He knows deep down that Naruto is special to him, he adores Naruto privately, he had since before the genin days. What do you think?

Sasuke always fights this inner battle within himself. Mind Vs Heart & Body.

His mind says, ‘No more Bonds. Just stay alone. That will save you a lot of pain’.

His body says, ‘Create Bonds. Feel Relieved’.

When Sasuke met Naruto near the lake pier, His body wins the battle and that’s why he smiled back at him despite the trauma he went through few days earlier. This is when Naruto became special to him.

When Sasuke attempted to make friendship with Naruto. His body wins the battle and that’s why he offered food, trained along with him.

When Sasuke died for Naruto by casting away his dreams, his body moved on its own.

At the beginning of VoTE1 battle, his mind said, ‘Leave Naruto. Pursue your dreams by treading in a darker path by filling your heart with hatred’. His body said, ‘Be with Naruto. Achieve your goals by filling your heart with Love’.

By the end of VoTE1, Sasuke came to the conclusion that he really couldn’t sever his bond with Naruto, no matter how hard he tried. That’s why his body moved on its own and ended up straight above Naruto’s face for one last time. Carrying all the heart break of a painful breakup, Sasuke treads towards the darker path. For the very first time, Sasuke’s mind won the inner battle. And he was extremely saddened by it.

Throughout Shippuden, Sasuke mostly listened to his mind and whenever he does, he was seen pushing Naruto away like leaving with Orochimaru, ramming chidori through Naruto’s Shadow Clone when pursuing Itachi, promising to kill Naruto before Attacking Konoha, wanting to fight with Naruto in VoTE2.

But whenever he followed his heart, you can see scenes like Sasuke occupying Naruto’s personal space in Orochimaru hideout, Sasuke smiling at Great Naruto Bridge, asking Obito about Kyuubi (Naruto) when he joined Akatsuki, stopping his rampage on seeing Naruto’s eyes under The Bridge, asking Obito to wait and listened to Naruto under the Bridge, sensing Naruto’s chakra in Konoha and getting concerned about it, prioritize saving Naruto over everyone in the War Arc, switching off Sharingan at the last moment. These are all the moment where Sasuke’s heart was winning over his mind.

And finally at the end of VoTE2, Sasuke happily claimed, ‘I lost’, meaning, his mind which always asked him to cut the bond with Naruto lost to his Heart and Body which always wanted him to be with Naruto. And when Sasuke felt that he was unconditionally loved by Naruto who was willing to share his pain, Sasuke cried happily and finally sealed his Bond with Naruto.

But anyways, I still get this question, why do Sasuke had to battle his feelings for Naruto like a lover? And why Naruto had to act all Tsundere towards Sasuke for most of the Part 1 if only they are friends!!! Like Shikamaru was never shown to be acting tsundere towards Chouji or Naruto. Or Obito was never shown to battle his feelings towards Kakashi!!! Itachi was never shown to be obsessed about Sasuke all the time. Or Hashirama was never obsessed about Tobirama either. Like we were shown many fraternal bonds, friendly bonds throughout the series. And yet why none of those bonds fits for Naruto and Sasuke?

Well, this post is not the right place to cover these questions and I am simply going to leave it at that.

Sasuke realized it very early and that’s why he decided to push Naruto away by the end of Part 1. Whereas Naruto truly realized his feelings at the end of Part 1 and decided to put himself close with Sasuke in Part 2 and finally confessed in VoTE2 that, ‘Remember, you once gave me your food during the Bell Test? It’s because you simply can’t tolerate to watch me suffer before your eyes.... I also feel the same way about you.. I simply cannot see you suffer alone when you were willing to give your body to Orochimaru... It just hurt me a lot inside’.

They finally realize the feelings they had for each other is a love in a broader sense which cannot be labelled under a certain term (it may include a father, a mother, a friend, a lover too) and we can call them as Pure Soulmates, where one cannot live without the other, where one cannot bear to see the other one suffer and they always wanted to be standing next to each other sharing their happiness and pain in their hearts.

#sasunaru #sasunarusasu #narusasu #sns #naruto #sasuke #they are the eternal soulmates #naruto analysis #meta post #when did sasuke realize his feelings for naruto

262 notes · View notes

stop-breaking-my-heart-telltale · 3 years

Text

I’m sorry, but can I just go on a little rant about the Louis, clouis, and the Clem comic...?

I didn’t really talk about Louis in my overall review of the comic because I wanted that to be more contained to the content shown on the pages, Clementine’s relationship with AJ, and her as a character.... but the more I think about these comics and Louis, the more frustrated I become thinking about what Clementine abandoning everyone would do to him.

[... okay it’s not little anymore since I guess I can never just do anything simple when it comes to Louis, sorry my bad]

So, no surprise, we all know the comic’s bullshit by now. Clementine leaving everything and everyone behind because she’s not happy is dumb, AJ just letting her go is dumb, and Clem going to the mountains on crutches and a peg leg to find this so-called happiness is dumb.

Now that we’ve established it’s dumb, I wanna talk about Louis because I got a lot of built up feelings about how bullshit this storyline is with how Clementine would not only abandon AJ, but also abandon Louis.

Because let me tell you..... his heart would be broken beyond repair and I need to talk about why.

Sigh.... so.... muh boy.

Before he met Clementine, Louis was this laidback, irresponsible, but caring and musical person who kept his head down to avoid conflict and never looked at the future. He was the kind of person who took things one day at a time, saw survival as a day-to-day task, and said that the future doesn’t exist, there’s only today. You get the point, he was never too concerned with things because they always seemed to work out, and if they didn’t, then that sucks and that’s why we should appreciate every day while we have it.

Louis is shown to be charismatic and friendly, he spends his free time playing piano and card games, but no one really takes him seriously. Not even Marlon, his best friend for 8+ years. While he doesn’t seem to be on bad terms with anyone [including Aasim, they just act like people who disagree with the other’s point of view and have had the same argument many times, but that doesn’t mean they hate each other, y’know?] he also doesn’t appear super close with anyone outside of Marlon and possibly Violet, but even then.

Marlon’s shown to have little faith in him with the way he talks about if Louis will even show up to hunt. He has a controlling grip on Louis that’s prominent during the confrontation scene when he uses intimidation to try to convince Louis to not interfere. Oh, and there’s the fact that Marlon’s been lying to Louis for the past year about the twins and then continued to lie to his face about what really happened to Brody... which isn’t great when you consider how Louis was the only one who had blind faith in him as a leader and, according to Marlon, was the only one who couldn’t see how pathetic he always was.

Violet, while having a few more nicer moments with him than Marlon, still invalidates him and his feelings several times throughout the first half of the game which makes me wonder how close they ever were, or at least if Violet ever considered him a close friend to begin with. And no, a small monologue in the dorms doesn’t make everything better or confirm they were brotp the whole time... especially when once they’re on the boat, Louis might as well not exist because Violet can’t be bothered to acknowledge what happened to him or inquire about how he’s doing. I guess she just didn’t have time react while standing in her cell for several unbothered minutes-- no wait, it’s she already reacted off screen. Right. Good writing is good.

What I’m getting at here is that even though Louis is surrounded by people who he genuinely cares about, there is an argument to be made that he’s a lonely person. Hell, he’s aware of his loneliness when he says that no one hears past his music and jokes. I mean, how many nights do you think he spent by himself playing the piano because no one wanted to hear it? Are they like Violet and crack jokes about how he doesn’t have actual talent? Probably, given that someone literally carved “you suck at playing” onto the side of the damn piano.

Oh, and let’s touch on that backstory of his. Louis grew up wealthy with two parents who loved him and each other, and they gave him anything he wanted except singing lessons. Louis says he wanted to be a real musician. But I guess his father didn’t like that idea and told him no, with the [as Louis puts it] dumb dad lesson of, “You get to be happy, or you get to be rich, can’t be both.” ...which is interesting given that Louis and his family were stupid rich but also.... were they not happy? well, that doesn’t make sense because little Louis knew that if he broke up their marriage, they would be hurt.

So yeah, Louis was so upset that his father continually refused to let him take singing lessons that he broke into the man’s credit cards and faked an affair, which led to his parents divorcing... and then he spit his father’s words back in his face.

Then they dumped him at Ericson. And the walkers came.

There’s so much to unpack from the story he tells that it could be it’s own analysis, but basically.... Louis is aware of why what he did was fucked up, and he carries it with him every day.

He regrets what he did, chews himself out for being such a “vindictive fuckhead” [and the amount of force used in that line tells you a lot, like how it’s not the first time he’s chastised himself like this] and he admits that he doesn’t even know the person he’s talking about. Yet, he still sees himself as bad, saying that they [I assume the staff] told him and the other kids they’re bad people. I don’t doubt that Louis internalized that which played a huge role in the confidence and self-esteem issues he has during tfs.

Anyway, I’ll come back to this later, but when you take that amount of guilt and regret, and mix it with the fact that they dropped him off at this school that was supposed to make him better.... then the walkers came and those teachers, staff, and headmaster? Gone. Left a bunch of kids to fend for themselves, with the exception of Ms. Martin [but given how she looks when we find her I doubt she lasted that long] and I cannot imagine how horrifying that was for all of them. The dead are up eating people, and if you die you become one of them... and the people you thought you could rely on just fucking left you to die at this school.

Every kid in that school has trauma and abandonment issues from before and after the world went to shit, every last one, and Louis isn’t the exception here. Over the years, a lot of kids died and they’ve all seen horrible shit. They all knew they were never going to see their families again, and as far as we know, no one came to get their kids at the beginning. They had to find ways of coping while trying to survive, and all they had left was each other.

Louis copes with music and games and jokes. He’s built up this persona where it seems like he’s unaffected by the comments the others make, that the death and suffering he’s gone through is in the past, that he is confident and open to those around him.

But then Clementine and AJ show up, and Louis grows close with both of them. They had immediate chemistry upon first meeting, he was the one who looked after AJ since it seems like everyone else saw him as a little terror, and he went out of his way to be kind and make them comfortable.

When they go hunting with him, Louis and Clementine have a moment after taking care of the walker where they lower their guards a bit-- Louis gives her more in-depth reasons for his views of survival, and going off her expression, it gets to her and makes her think.... but they’ve know each other a day and he’s not quick to infodump his life story or let her in, so he cuts the conversation short.

Then we have the Marlon confrontation scene that I have gone over so many times in the past. I won’t dillydally with it too long but..... Clementine appeals to Louis, who curls in on himself because of the control Marlon has on him. He wants to help, and hell, he knows this is wrong but he’s so used to not getting involved that he gets defensive.... plus, he’s known Clementine for two days, and he’s known Marlon for 8+ years.... he wants to believe Marlon but you can tell he doesn’t want this, either. It takes Clementine talking to him to give him courage to stand between her and Marlon’s gun and it’s a lot.

AJ shoots Marlon and everything goes to shit, and Louis is a goddamn mess. His best friend was murderer right in front of him, so add that to the trauma list, and he’s overwhelmed with all these feelings that again.... they keep getting invalidated by Violet because “Marlon was a liar and murderer, therefore you shouldn’t feel bad about his death. Get over yourself, Louis, you can be such a shithead sometimes.”

Oh yeah Vi, I guess he should care more about two people he’s known for a total of two days rather than for the safety of the people [including you] he’s grown up with and cared about for 8+ years.... makes sense.

So yeah, little to no support during this time. Alone again.

And just because I have to make this clear so no one gets a hair up their ass-- both Louis and Violet are wrong here. Kicking them out isn’t the solution, but neither is acting like AJ was right to commit murder just because it was Marlon.

But plots gotta plot, so they get voted out and you can see that Louis is conflicted about the whole thing. He wants them gone, but at the same time, he knows what kicking them out means. You can see it on his face that he’s not okay with kicking them out. He’s hurting when he’s there in the dorms telling them how the vote went... he literally doesn’t know what else to do. He just knows that everything hurts, Clem and AJ caused it, and he wants the pain to stop. He even tries to justify it to himself by figuring that they’ve done this before so they’ll be fine. Not a great thing to say, Lou.

Anyway, we know the story, Clem and AJ come back and Louis once again sees the consequences of acting out of pain.... AJ is shot because Louis was hurt and he made a bad decision that he’s gotta live with.... something that he’s done before, and this affirms to him that he’s bad. He wishes he could take it back, and goes as far as to admit that to Clementine during the archery scene.

By the way, credit to him for his apology to her. It’s rare in these games that Clem gets a genuine apology from someone who hurt her and doesn’t turn around to repeat the hurtful behavior, y’know? Plus, I can think of plenty of characters who owed Clem an apology in the past or if they did apologize, it was half-assed.

You can feel how conflicted he is with this whole thing-- learning who Marlon really was and what he did, feeling something for Clementine before everything went down and not knowing how to handle those feelings afterward, caring about AJ and understanding why he thought shooting was the best choice but still hurting that his friend is dead....

And the thing is.... Louis forgives her for so much, as she does him, and through all of that bullshit, they manage to develop that strong connection that turns romantic. Louis lets himself be fully vulnerable with her and is honest about his feelings, how she listened when no one else did and seeing him for more than just the persona he put on.

This works on Clementine’s side, too. Clementine has been through her own fair share of bullshit-- trauma, abandonment, loss, injury, you name it. She’s made mistakes, done terrible things, and has been in enough groups to know that romance usually ends in heartbreak.... and yet, she’s willing to open herself up to Louis and admit she feels a lot for him.

Is it a little rushed? Yep. Could it have been handled better? Of course, most things this season could’ve, but what we got was pretty good.

So Clementine and Louis are romantically involved now, the raiders attack, and she saves him... and boy does Louis feel guilty about that one, too. He feels bad enough that he questions why she would pick him because he can’t fathom his life being worth saving over another’s. He doesn’t see himself as useful, and even though Clementine is literally his girlfriend at this point, his self-esteem is so all over the place that he can’t understand why she would have him at her side.

And when Clementine tells him that he’s too important to her, he’s too baffled to even give a response. He looks at her in disbelief like he wasn’t expecting her to say that. But this shows that at the beginning of their relationship, he still doubts himself, and through her working with him, he begins to build up that strength in himself.

He becomes brave enough to share what got him sent to the school with her, and he plays Don’t Be Afraid for everyone at the party and like.... for once, everyone is listening to him. Really listening to him. They’re not talking shit about his musical skills, they’re not ignoring him or the feelings he’s putting into the song, they’re sitting there with him and I just..... if you watch him, you can see that his eyes get pretty glossy throughout the song. The moment meant something to everyone.

There’s also the fact that Clementine asked him to come with her and AJ onto the boat, and to be the one in charge of the bomb... that’s a huge responsibly and he feels the pressure of that. He starts to panic a bit about if he can do it, because what if he fucks up? What if he gets them caught and makes everything worse? What if something happens to Clementine and he can’t do anything about it?

She’s there to reassure him that she believes in him, and that he can do this. They’re going to get everyone back, and he needs to focus... then he asks her to slap him which why would you? that’s dumb, so Clementine smooches him instead and like.... he physically relaxes into her because he’s comfortable and trusts her in this situation.

Also, he loves her and cares about this mission enough to cover himself and his fancy jacket in walker guts.... sure, he complains while doing so but how else is he gonna cope with rubbing rotten guts on himself to blend in with a herd of walkers?

Skipping ahead so that we’re not here all day, I wanna talk about the walk back to the school because it’s one of the most important clouis moments in the game and a huge reason that solidifies why the comic is bullshit.

Louis went off on his own to go out and find them. He didn’t know where they would be, he just knew that he had to go out and find them after making sure everyone was okay back at the school because he couldn’t bare the thought that he had lost them. And the way the AJ gets so excited to see him? and the group hug??

At this point, Louis has grown so much as a character. With Clementine by his side to support him, he’s grown stronger and more reliable. Remember how he never thought about the future? Well, now he is because his relationship with Clementine has given him a reason to long for a future. He talks about building this imaginary house with her, one he knows they can’t physically build... but it’s his way of saying we can build a home together, that he wants a future with her and AJ and everyone else. It’s such a personal conversation that flows so easy between them. Louis is more comfortable talking to her about things from his past, which is something he didn’t want to do back in ep1.

He confides in her how he’s feeling after he shot and killed Dorian, he tells her that having a home means protecting it and I just.... it’s so good, okay? And from Clementine’s side, you can feel how at ease she is with him, too. Just the way she smiles at him as they’re walking? like he’s the cutest thing and she’s so happy to have him with her?

But then we gotta deal with Minerva’s crazy ass on the bridge and well, AJ shoots Tenn and Louis is having flashbacks to Marlon and it’s not great. That’s a whole thing, and he ends up separated from them while escaping.

We don’t get to see Louis’ reaction to Clementine getting bit and losing her leg since I guess that puts a damper on the overly happy ending. But, going off of what we know about him and what I’ve explained [which isn’t even all of it, this isn’t a full Louis character analysis. if it was, it would be much longer and in multiple parts... believe it or not, I’m trying to not make this too long and only sorta failing...] we can get an idea of how he would react.

Um, to say he was upset is an understatement.

Because remember, he had no time to think and climbed over the fence, thinking he could get them to climb over and they could get away, but it didn’t work. He ended up leaving them in order to save himself since walkers were closing in on him.

But you know that he’d blame himself for the bite. A lot of, “if I had just stayed” and “I should’ve climbed back over, I should’ve stayed with you.” I’m sure there were points where it looked like Clem wouldn’t make it and I can’t imagine how much hurt he went through watching her suffer and heal from losing a leg like that.

Not only that, but knowing that AJ was the one to do it? And him thinking about what Clem’s death would do to AJ after all this? There isn’t a doubt in my mind that Louis would take care of AJ if she died. He cares about AJ, and he loves Clementine, so he be there for both of them, even if he’s still hurting from Tenn’s death.

However, Clementine didn’t die. She survived the bite and amputation, and when we flashforward, she and Louis are still happily together. Louis is right there next to her at dinner, and he’s the one to help her with her crutches. He’s there to go over future plans to meet the traveling caravan, and Clementine wants him to be the one to go.

Oh, and Louis once again forgives AJ for shooting Tenn, claiming that he understands that AJ saw something that he couldn’t. Like with Marlon, he’s not happy Tenn’s dead but he can see why AJ did it to save his life.

I just..... happy ending. Clementine and Louis are together and she’s truly happy to have found a home for her and AJ with him at Ericson.

....But then the comic thought it would be fun to say “nah.”

The comic isn’t canon, I’m still insulted that it would ever consider itself as such, but even so I can’t help but feel so frustrated about how this would destroy Louis.

He finally found someone he would consider his best friend, not just his girlfriend. She saw past that funny man persona and he trusted her enough to let her past this wall he built around himself. He let himself become vulnerable around her, he named his song after her. Their initials are carved into his piano with a heart surrounding them. He loved her.

Clementine left him feeling loved, something he probably hasn’t truly felt since he was a little boy with his parents before their divorce. She loved him even after hearing his past because she knew that wasn’t him anymore, and she helped him build the confidence he needed to step up. Because of Clementine, Louis wants to enjoy every day while also looking at the future. He isn’t lonely anymore, he has her and AJ. He’s truly happy.

So to tell me that Louis would wake up one morning only to have AJ tell him that Clementine’s gone, she�� been planning an escape without telling anyone because she wasn’t happy...? I’m sorry, but if you think that wouldn’t leave Louis absolutely devastated, then you know nothing about him as a character.

This idea is just.... look, Louis is perceptive. That’s a big part of his character, he’s perceptive of those around him. If Clementine was showing signs of being unhappy or depression, he would see it. He would notice a change. He would be able to tell if something was off, and he would ask her about it. Louis is the type of person to ask you what you need. What can he do to help? What do you need to feel better? And if you don’t know, it’s okay, he’ll help you figure it out in any way possible.

Plus, the comic suggests that there are times where she went off on her own but came back [probably doing her escape prep ugh] and you expect me to believe that Louis wouldn’t notice that or wonder what she’s doing? Wouldn’t sense that something’s going on?

After she’s gone, he’s going to blame himself for not being enough. He couldn’t make her happy and he was a fool to think he ever could. AJ lost the only family he’s known since he was born because Louis couldn’t help her, couldn’t do anything to stop her from leaving.

And for him to realize that she didn’t love him? Clementine, the girl he thought the world of because of how strong and confident and in-charge she was, because she saw him for who he was..... she left him, abandoned him... and she couldn’t even be bothered with a goodbye.... that says that she didn’t care all that much about him in the end.

You KNOW that he would think he had this coming, too. How could the universe allow him to fall in love and be happy with someone who loved him back after what he did to his parents? He would feel so heartbroken that he would see this as some sort of karma for breaking up his parents happy marriage as a kid years before he ever met Clementine and before the apocalypse.

I fucking can’t.... I don’t have the words to fully explain how much I hate this. Louis wouldn’t be okay afterward, and I doubt he’d ever fully recover. I wasn’t joking when I mentioned before that Louis would stop playing piano. How could he sit there and play when I he can see is their initials and remember the night she confessed to him? When he named his song after her? Clementine left and took the music with her because Louis wouldn’t have it in him... something that he used to cope would be ruined and that’s just.... it’s fucking awful.

Not only that, but now he has AJ who I assume is hurting just as much [though the comics inaccurately assume he would just let Clem go sooo... yeah] and he would be the only one Louis would really talk to about it, but then again.... what if AJ doesn’t wanna talk about it? What if AJ starts to act out and things just become terrible and Louis is just too overwhelmed?

I just.... UGH. That’s how I feel. UGH.

Clementine from the comic? Not her. She would never fucking do this to Louis, AJ, or anyone else at Ericson, and you would know that if you played the tfs.

Sigh.... sorry, I just needed to get this all out. I haven’t seen anyone talk about how Clem leaving would affect Louis and I’ve gotten some asks/come across some posts about Louis that have left me incredibly annoyed.... well, I was annoyed before because of the comics, so my annoyances with those things were only heightened. So yeah... I wanted to talk about Louis’ character in hopes of explaining why he would be so hurt if this comic was canon.

Which it’s not. So it’s fine.

How are we all feelin’ at this point, by the way? I know I’m not the only one still annoyed with the comic, so I hope y’all are doin’ okay. Hope you’re stayin’ chill and thinking about your faves to help cope with this mess hahaha

#twdg louis #twdg clementine #twdg clouis #twdg aj #twdg marlon #twdg violet #clouis #twdg #sometimes i just need to talk about louis okay #one day i'll do a full character analysis that goes over everything #but today isn't that day #long post

156 notes · View notes

kiseiakhun · 3 years

Note

So where's the HalGuyKyle essay? 👀

Okay okay okay

This got long so I'm going to just

So the thing about them is that they each build on a part of something that the other two lack when they're in a relationship together. Kyle and Hal are too indirect - Hal's not one for talking things out, and I can think of at least three examples of Kyle just happy to float along in relationships even when he KNOWS there are issues. Guy is a metaphorical battering ram of honesty. He won't let you hide things. He's indelicate, and he hates secrets, and you know exactly where you stand with him. Kyle and Hal can dance in circles forever, but Guy will plow through that circle. More than just forcing them to confront their truths, Guy is a force of motion. He's something that keeps moving forward, not letting the other two fall into stagnation, and I think Kyle and Hal would both be attracted to how solid he finds himself, how he's unflinching in his conviction. Guy knows who he is, while Kyle and Hal (especially Hal) go through like three identity crises a year. I wouldn't call him simple, but being with him is uncomplicated. It's not always easy, sure, but no matter what, he's devoted, he's sure of himself, he's sure of who they are. Guy is like a scaffold, or a guiding light. He's solid and dependable. You always know what you're getting.

Meanwhile, Guy and Kyle together feels like. They feel like the most stable twosome of the group, but maybe I'm biased because I'm still fresh off of binging all the guykyle fics lmao. They're devoted to each other - remember how Guy went red because Kyle died? That moment lives in my head forever. But I don't think Kyle can really... get the full complexity of Guy in the way that Hal can. And it's not through lack of trying, or deliberate ignorance (though Kyle does have a habit of putting his partners on pedestals), but simply just. Not from being there. Hal and Guy have such a long history together. They're the ones who've seen each other at their worst. I haven't gotten to the point where I see a lot of Kyle and Guy's dynamic together in the comics, but they seem to lift each other up. They seem to bring out the best versions of each other, but sometimes that's not what you need. And I think Hal has an easier time of seeing all of Guy, of knowing all he is. The interesting thing about Guy is that he seems to know the people around him - of how and why they act, their motivations, the things that drive them - better than he knows himself. And it's interesting because Hal doesn't tend to focus a lot on others, either, but he does have an intrinsic knowledge of Guy. They're similar enough that Hal barely has to try in order to Perceive him, but they differ in that Hal actually does introspection. So he's aware of how his own brain works, he overthinks his own motivations and what drives him it's that parallax induced trauma to the point of landing on an ouroboros of recursive thought loops. He Knows Guy, much as he wishes he didn't sometimes, and it can be refreshing to be around someone who you don't have to be perfect around. Kyle is just... so good. He makes everyone want to be good. When you're around him, you want to be the good person he knows you are.

And I could write ANOTHER essay on how Kyle and Hal were written to be complete opposites of each other, but the circumstances of them becoming a lantern were so similar. They both started off completely alone. There was no one to guide them at the start of their careers, no one to help them. Hal was the first, at least the first in earth, yes Alan was technically the first but he didn't have the corps so I'm not including him in this count. And when Kyle was GL, there were no corps. They were gone. They were completely destroyed. Kyle was the only lantern for a DECADE. Well, a decade in real time so like, probably two years in universe. And I don't think anyone else quite understands that particular type of loneliness. Even when the corps were back, Kyle and Hal are the ones who are like. Idk if exceptional is the right word but they keep getting singled out? Like Hal as the spectre, white lantern Kyle, etc. It's that sense of belonging yet not belonging all at once, and they both feel like the other is too good for them and it's like how by being on opposite sides of a spectrum, you're closer to each other than the folks in the middle. They don't seem like they should get each other, but they DO. When one of them says "I give up," the other one is there, telling him no, and holding out his hand. Kyle brought Hal BACK FROM THE DEAD and Hal brought Kyle back from parallax!! They SHARED THE SAME MIND. If Hal and Guy see and acknowledge the dark, ugly parts of each other, Kyle and Hal have metaphorically touched hearts. They've seen each others soul and they deem it worthy. Adding Hal to Guykyle is like adding salt to taffy. It adds depth to something that's already good. I guess this metaphor only works if you like saltwater taffy.

AND while I love halguy, they're as liable to break bones as they are to make out. They've both internalized different aspects of toxic masculinity and they seem like the most volatile combination. When they're good, they're great, but when they're not good they're BAD. They're terrible. Hal went to the school of internalizing your feelings until they all burst forth in a terrible flood like a tsunami that destroys everything (Parallax) (a trait he also unfortunately passed down to Roy, both of them spiral HARD), and Guy has an unnerving habit of taking the energy you give him and then amplifying it. Usually by making it worse. Fortunately for them, Kyle is a diplomat. He walks into a gun fight and he convinces them to put down the guns, and idk how he does it because he's also impetuous and short tempered and sort of an asshole tbh but SOMEHOW HE DOES IT. If anyone can make Hal and Guy get along, it's him. Also lbr, he sees Hal and Guy getting testy and snapping at each other and he goes 👀 and tries to insert himself in the middle and redirect their anger to something more fun. He's attracted to passionate people, and Hal and Guy are brimming with passion. He's also so horny, and Hal and Guy are. Like. Just look at them.

#i didnt mean to write an actual essay but here we are #i wanted to do a meme response idk what happened #hal jordan #guy gardner #Kyle Rayner #halguy #halkyle #guykyle #halguykyle #meta #asks #supericelight

62 notes · View notes

helianthus-tarot · 3 years

Note

Hi Julian ! I wonder if you have advice for my problem, sooo i've been working on myself since a lot of years, even started a therapy and i finaly love myself and feel good alone i don't feel like i need anyone buuut i thought by being independant and gaining confidence i would give up on the idea of love but it's still here. I've never dated anyone in my life (im 23) not interested in one night stand stuff but idk i can't stop myself from daydreaming about love, jump on love based pac idk if it sound like an hopeless lover lmao (ye im pisces venus) but im haunted by this and at the same time i never find anyone who i resonate with so i don't really know what to do i tried to lower my standard but ew i made everything worse.. i feel a bit stupid for waiting/believing in soulmate while everything around me is showing me it doesn't exist lol

Im ok being alone but at the same time im not very hype by the idea of being in this loneliness for the rest of my life 😬 - ♓♀️

It's good that you are working on yourself and that you have made progress. I'm sure that's hard to do.

Independence ≠ Not wanting love

“I thought by being independent and gaining confidence I would give up on the idea of love but it's still here.”

What makes you think so? Being independent and gaining confidence have nothing to do with not wanting love connections. They are not the opposite of each other, they can coexist.

Independence is basically the ability to make decisions for yourself, to steer your life however you want, to not over-rely on people for sustenance at the cost of your individuality, etc. Confidence is the conviction we have when we do/choose something. How do these mean not wanting love?

Social connection is a basic human need. Wanting to be in a love connection is one of the ways to satisfy that need. Which is perfectly fine, it does not and will not reduce people's ability to self-govern.

“I feel a bit stupid for waiting/believing in soulmate while everything around me is showing me it doesn't exist.”

Idk about soulmate, but strong romantic love does exist. But it may not exist for everyone, because some people died before experiencing it. It doesn't mean those who don't experience it are flawed in any way. That's the reality we have to live with. Although a strong romantic love may not exist for everyone; if you want to know whether it’s there for you or not, you need to try.

...

Being confident

I think it sounds like this:

I recognize that I want a love connection. I also recognize that I can be okay with being alone until I meet the person I want to settle down with. In the meantime, I will take actions to form connections and to find the love I want. If it doesn't happen, I may feel sad about it, but at the end of the day, I know I'll be okay.

Working on yourself includes accepting who you are. And you want a love connection. You are trying to force yourself to not want it. Check with your therapist as to why you do this. Be careful to not make ‘independence’ as a tool to run away from something else.

...

Things you can try to find love

You said you didn’t know what to do. Things you can try:

Be yourself: The old but true advice. You need to take actions that are aligned with your passion, your highest good etc. Working on yourself and choosing what makes you you, will lead you to people who are similar to you. You can daydream about a love connection, but live your life at the same time.

Be intentional: If you go to random place, you will find random people who will have a random level of compatibility with you. Be intentional. If you want someone who likes anime; go to comic conventions, be active in the community, etc.

Be open to all kinds of love: Be kind to everyone you meet, get to know them, ask about their day. Make yourself familiar to people, that’s how they remember you. Who knows maybe they know someone who knows someone who is compatible with you. The key is, you need to be interested in people without expecting anything in return.

...

Regarding standards

We deserve to ask for something that we are willing to give back. So if we are loyal, we deserve to ask for someone who is loyal. If we are hardworking, we deserve someone who matches our effort.

For something that we can’t do but we want our partner to be able to do, either we need to reconsider it OR we need to be ready to negotiate and compromise.

Your standard for physical attractiveness needs to be realistic. Find someone on your level, someone whose smile you like, etc. Not everyone is Jessica Alba.

“I want a soulmate” is vague, what’s vague will not lead to results. So break it down into defined and easy to measure qualities. “I want someone who is loyal”, “I want someone I can communicate easily with”.

If we still want to stick by our high “I want to marry a millionaire” kind of standard, then we need to be ready for the possibility that we might not find anyone. You can have that standard, nobody is stopping you, it might happen who knows; but that’s the risk you need to take.

#love #romantic connection #soulmate #life advice #other asks #other topics #23 is hella young #you have years ahead of you

52 notes · View notes

thewritingstar · 3 years

Text

The Sun Sets With You

Pairing: Blossutch

Fandom: Powerpuff Girls

Rating: T

Word count: 6k

Warnings: Major Character Death.

Note: I am so excited to finish this fic! Thank you so much to @creativecilla for commissioning time and time again. She asked for a sad and angsty fic so I hope I delivered! (She also asked for a happy fic so dont worry that's coming soon)

Don't worry there will be a little bonus after this so don't come for my throat too hard.

Anyways, I hope that you enjoy this because I had the time of my life writing it while crying.

Thanks for reading <3

(the italicized is flashbacks just in case ya confused :)

✼　 ҉　 ҉　 ҉　 ҉　 ҉　 ҉　 ҉　✼

“Your love is like a sunset, the longer I wait, it slowly fades into the sea, making a beautiful distraction, As loneliness and despair creep from behind like the shadow of the night.” -Albion Gremory

✼　 ҉　 ҉　 ҉　 ҉　 ҉　 ҉　 ҉　✼

The gate waits patiently for her to cross. It's black and shiny as if it were polished just for her. She has been here for almost an hour and yet she hasn't moved an inch. The bouquet of flowers she spent just as long picking out are starting to get annoyed by her lack of movement and although they don’t have a voice or emotions, she can tell they are growing weary too.

She doesn’t understand. Why couldn’t she simply walk forward and make this easy? She was a trained assassin, a spy at the very core where nothing could challenge her except for this field of grass. Grass that is bright green and thriving yet underneath its healthy roots, is a minefield of bodies. It's odd to think about. The care and water used to make sure that the green is at its brightest and the stone looks nice but in reality, it won’t matter.

Nothing matters anymore.

Her grip tightens on the poor flowers. A frail red ribbon holds them together instead of being wrapped in her ginger hair where it belongs. The last time she wore it was the day...it's been a while.

The cemetery has a familiar feel to it. She’s been here before. She has been here many times and has even memorized the grounds. However, this time is much more...intimate. A much more personal experience.

It was never personal because in her line of work, this was normal and happened often. You would come into the office and hear about the poor sucker that got shot, stabbed or blown to bits, grab a hopefully fresh cup of coffee and make sure that you don’t end up the same as them. It was all a part of the job to join the unavoidable circle of life.

Before it was just people whose identities changed day in and day out to avoid this particular outcome. To avoid becoming worm food and having fresh flowers at the bottom of your name. Death never meant anything to her but an end we all have to face. It never meant to stop and think about your life because she didn’t have one to live.

There was no glory waiting for her back home as she finished another mission. There was no dream to achieve because she plagued those of her mind years ago. Warmth and desire from others could not be tolerated. It was dangerous to have anyone close to you but hurt even more when they were gone.

Her dreams had been swept into the night and burned like a fallen star. They were meant for rare quiet days where she could close her eyes and have a glimpse of another chance at life and then it would be over and she couldn’t allow anyone to hold her back. But just as there are dreams, nightmares will surface too.

This was a nightmare only for her eyes. It was common for members of their work to come and pay respects if they got time but for this, she asked that she would be the first. And only then was anyone else allowed.

The months that ate away at her aching heart caused her to be the opposite. She said she had gone, said her dues and the rest followed. Her lies now corrupted her normal life, if you could even call it normal.

So she became the last person and perhaps that's for the best. Even in death, she keeps him waiting. But unlike the other times, he couldn’t leave or say anything about it. The silence of the coffin was enough for her to know that she might get the last words like always but she doesn’t want them.

She would rather keep her words to herself, her mouth stapled shut than utter the last words. She also knew that he would rather listen to her all day than have a moment of silence.

So here she is. A little black dress that poofs out gently at the bottom just above her knees. It was the same dress she had worn on their mission in Italy years ago. It had ended up on the hotel bathroom floor much sooner than expected, however this time the smell of sandalwood and pine had been washed out.

She feels like a housewife ready to see her lost husband coming back from the war in the form of a corpse. The only difference is her vision won’t include the golden bands. Her thumb grazes her ring finger feeling nothing but bare skin and it pains her to think that she was so close. So close to a dream.

She inhales and exhales. Her ability to control her emotions is unlike anyone else. If she chooses to be a stone wall, then nothing will make her crumble. For years she had seen bloodshed and violence. Encountered dangerous people and never once had a hard time sleeping.

Steps take her closer and she feels herself start to decay brick by brick.

Every breath comes out colder and slower and she doesn’t have to look to know she's right in front of it because all the oxygen surrounding her has left and replaced with a frosted void she's grown used to over these past few months.

“Hello.” Her voice is firm and polite.

Formal. She’s too formal and she can practically feel him rolling in his grave to tell her to die it down. Die it down. She hums at that thought and complies with the request that wasn’t even asked but she knows him.

Her feet slip out of her heels, the ones he had bought randomly. The ones she had danced in as he spun her slowly. Her toes feel the dew on the grass. She hates the feeling, her exposed skin starts to itch and irritate her but that just reminds her of her beating heart. So she forces herself to rest on her knees but keeps her eyes shut. Bravery was never something she lacked.

But being brave with her vulnerable emotions had never come easy.

“Just open them.” She scolds herself. No one is around but she feels like the entire world is staring at her.

This isn't work.

This isn’t a mission.

This is him.

Slowly her eyes flutter open to reveal the truth she tried to conceal. The wall inside of her has fallen. There's a suffocating way about this all. She's a woman of logic, a see it before believe it kind-of-person. It's a crumbling mess that turns her into ruins.

And that's when it hits her.

Like the fall of Rome, there are no survivors. There is no happy ending here. Everything leads to Rome...everything leads to heartbreak eventually.

Tears overwhelm everything else. Blossom Utonium has cried for a fallen coworker but never once had she had to grieve and take in the burden of her heart growing dark and heavy.

Her fingers clench the soil. She didn’t want to cry. Didn’t want to sob, not at the risk of seeming weak, but to actually force herself to come to terms with it. To see it written in stone as literal as it comes.

Butch Jojo is dead.

There’s no other way to put it. No soft angle to come at. No lessening the blow because she was there and saw it with her own eyes. No one had to tell her because she relieved it every time her eyes closed.

How was she supposed to go on? He was the piece of her puzzle that fit so neatly and perfectly. She didn’t realize that the picture became indecipherable the moment he was removed. She clawed at that table trying to put back all the pieces. Trying to figure out where they all go but she's left with segments that don’t seem to fit any longer.

He was her sun and moon, the day and night and every other cliche slapped onto an overpriced Hallmark card. He was it all, and now he is gone. Gone too soon and she barely had him in the first place.

The gravestone itself is simple. It's the only one on the lot that isn't decorated by a three foot high statue or a giant cross. It's as basic as they come yet the man it was for was far from it. There was no luxury of filling the coffin with a body. So every bit of him was taken physically and metaphorically from her.

His name is in an elegant cursive and his birth name. Something most people didn’t know. Usually spies and assassins change up their name to make their identity untraceable. She had known him as many different names, but Butch was the only one who she cared about. The only one to ever make her feel like herself.

Her fingers hover above the engraving before setting on the coldness and tracing it with the tip of her index finger. It takes her breath away like an old candle finally burning out.

She wonders if a cruel joke is being played on her as she stares at the curls of the cursive. It was the same font she had chosen for their makeshift wedding invitations the moment she realized that he was the one. Of course he would have had comic sans or some heavy metal font on his tombstone if he was given the chance just to spite everything and everyone.

She's sure that this was already made far before his death. In fact, she's convinced that everyone already has a grave with their name stored somewhere in the back for fast and easy access. Hers is probably waiting and collecting dust.

“Hi.” She utters, less formal than the first time and that felt like ages ago. “For the first time, I’m speechless.” She confesses. “I’m not quite sure what to say.”

For days she sat underneath her flickering desk light writing a speech for a funeral that no one would attend.

The words never came into place even though she deemed herself a thoughtful writer. But what do you say when the person who gave you a reason to speak is gone? Was there anything worth uttering when she couldn’t bring herself to do it?

But she wrote. She wrote everything she had felt and ended with a flood of pages on her desk. Pens with tired ink cartridges littered her desk and endless chicken scratched papers were tossed away. It needed to be thoughtful and inviting but in reality, it just needed to be the words she never said.

The moment she finished writing them, she threw them into a box to never see the light of day. But when she finally had the courage to come and pay her respects, she became drawn to them. Her mind fought with her hands to take them even if she decided to keep them in her purse.

Her purse opens and she takes out a few pages. The ones that made her heart ache the most and that are decorated with stains of dried tears. She clears her throat. “The first time I met you, I thought nothing of it. It was in front of the coffee maker at work, you had just joined our firm and you walked by, glanced at me and then you were gone into the other room. That was it. That's what we were meant to be. A simple meeting of the eyes and then we don’t interact again.”

✼　 ҉　 ҉　 ҉　 ҉　 ҉　 ҉　 ҉　✼

The coffee drips way too slow, she thinks. A state of the art facility full of lasers, guns and cars and they couldn’t be bothered to get something just slightly better. The mug finishes filling just in time for her patience to run out. She grabs it and turns to look out towards the rows of cubicles that make it seem like a simple office.

Instead of a bored coworker looking tired at a computer, she's met with green eyes and an emotionless face. For a second she saw his lips turn into a smirk. It's quick. A match striking the box with a flame igniting on impact. And then it’s dropped in water and out just as fast. He's gone by the time she blinks next and even though it was nothing, those eyes fueled a fire she wasn’t sure she had.

✼　 ҉　 ҉　 ҉　 ҉　 ҉　 ҉　 ҉　✼

“But then I kept seeing more and more of you.”

✼　 ҉　 ҉　 ҉　 ҉　 ҉　 ҉　 ҉　✼

“You clean up nice.” Blossom turned to see a guy. She recognized him from last week, a new transfer who she only caught a glance at. He was in a highly expensive tux and was adjusting the equally priced watch on his wrist.

“I assume you must be my new partner.” She said as she mentally analyzed him slowly. Slicked black hair, looks as if he goes to the gym quite often, hands looks steady for a firearm. Green. Forest green eyes.

He smiled. “Must be.”

“You can call me Amanda.” Her fake name suited her fine as she checked the time. “I hope that you read over the files of our mission.”

“I tend to skim and wing it.” He winked and that irked her. “Matts fine for the evening.”

Blossom, or Amanda for now, kept her eyes from rolling and walked to him and wrapped her arm around his. “You might be my husband for this mission but if you fuck up, you better be thankful this isn’t legally bounded.” She finished with a flutter of her eyelashes and a smile before pulling him along.

She didn’t get too far before he pulled her back and her bright pink eyes met deep green ones closely. “I take my job very seriously. But I wouldn’t dream of making you mad at me. But on the other hand, I admire strong women.”

She didn’t know why she didn’t smack him in the face. Usually every partner who has tried to flirt or mess with her learned the hard way that is a no no. Yet, even after moments of knowing him, there was something genuine about him that she couldn’t quite understand but became interested in.

“Glad to see we are on the same page Matt.”

“Of course Amanda.” Butch replied and held out his hand. “After you.”

✼　 ҉　 ҉　 ҉　 ҉　 ҉　 ҉　 ҉　✼

The trees nearby moved in the breeze without a care in the world. They had nothing to care for except for their leaves changing in the fall and losing them in the winter. But leaves always came back, they always blossomed and started a new life and were the same tree no matter how many times the seasons passed.

She wondered if those trees ever felt heartbreak or if it was easier to lose something when you know it will come back to you with time. She envied those trees. Envied the way that they can continue their lives just growing and flourishing and it felt like her leaves were turning to dust as she was being cut down.

From her purse she pulled out a thermos and two plastic cups. She nestled one into the ground as she poured the wine into the cup and then one into hers.

“I never cared for this brand of wine before I met you.” She smiled softly and took a sip. “Never cared for a lot of things. Yet this was your favorite and everytime we had a mission, I could always find you relaxing with a glass. I guess it became an acquired taste over time. You became my taste.”

✼　 ҉　 ҉　 ҉　 ҉　 ҉　 ҉　 ҉　✼

“Care for a glass?” He asked her as she sat in front of the fireplace.

Due to them working together for more than a year, the agency decided that personal rooms weren’t necessary and if anyone were to see them leave together and follow, it would fit with their stories.

Blossom looked up from the book she just pulled out. A dissatisfying glare focused on the bottle in his hand. “No thanks, that stuff is garbage.”

Butch, or well, Sebastian for the evening, scoffed. “Garbage?” He exclaimed dramatically. “This is some of the finest wine in the world.”

“I’ve had better.”

“It's from Italy!”

“I prefer local or even cheap box wine to that.” Blossom scanned her book.

Butch only huffed again but still proceeded to pour two glasses and joined her on the floor.

“I said I didn’t want any.”

“I think you just haven’t had it with the right company.” He smirked and offered her the glass.

She rolled her eyes and took the glass, her book forgotten now. Blossom brought the glass to her lips, took a sip and tried her best to hold back a grimace. “It's fine.”

He only shook his head and drank his own glass, the small smile on his lips never leaving. “Butch.”

She turned the glass in her hand then glanced at him. “What?”

“Butch. That's my name, my real name.”

Her heart started beating quicker. “Why are you telling me this? You shouldn’t be.”

It was a common understanding. You might know the face of your partner or colleagues but a name and identity was off the table. The only thing anyone needed to track down someone was a name. And the moment it's out there, you can start counting your days.

Butch shurgged and downed the rest of his wine. “Not sure. Never told anyone before. Well anyone who I didn't know beforehand. But there's something about you. I don’t think you fully trust me. I get it of course. I don’t trust people at all.”

“So why tell me?” She questioned.

His eyes met hers. Seriousness washed across his face and any hint of amusement was gone. “I have no one in my life who knows me as Butch anymore. Only myself and my thoughts. And after years in this shit business-you’re the only partner I’ve had that I trust with my life.”

Her fingers tighten around the stem of the glass. Her poor heart is beating much faster; she's sure he can hear it. She’s never had a partner like him. Never met a person who she blindly trusted like this.

“Blossom.” She blurts out. “My name is Blossom.”

And that smirk returns and his eyes soften. She's seen him kill a man before and yet he looks so incredibly soft and honest.

“That's a pretty unique name.”

“My father told me it was because of cherry blossom trees.” She smiles at the memory. She reaches and takes the brown contact from her eyes. Her main defying feature that no one but the higher ups knew about.

Her eyelashes flutter as she places them in the contacts case. She looks back at Butch and prepares for the intergation look.

It never comes.

Instead he's looking at her as if she's the most interesting thing in the world. Pastel pink eyes greet his own and he's taken back and tries to keep these emotions down.

“Its weird I know-

“You’re the most gorgeous woman I’ve ever met.” He interrupts. “And I swear I’m not drunk.

That flicker resurfaced. The match struck the box but the flame was held much longer this time. Her reaction surprised the both of them as she laughed and her smile reached her eyes, something they haven’t done naturally in years.

She controlled her laugh and hummed bringing the glass to her lips and taking another sip. It wasn’t as bad as the first. “And you are very-”

“Charming? Irresistible?”

“Interesting.” She finished.

The bottle poured more wine into his glass and he tapped it to hers. “I’ll take it for now.” He winked.

✼　 ҉　 ҉　 ҉　 ҉　 ҉　 ҉　 ҉　✼

Her glass is empty now. She pours the glass for him into the soil, hoping to give him one last taste of what he loved.

“Over the years I forgot myself, you have to.” Blossom tells him. “I forgot my passions and hobbies. The simple pleasures of life were taken from me when I joined this path.”

The books on her shelf at home had collected dust over the years. The pages stuck as the days passed but only recently did she find herself opening them, even to just a random page and basking in the tiny shred of warmth it gave her.

“I felt those pleasures rise with you. Even buying a simple candle because you said you liked the scent brought me a joy I hadn’t noticed was missing. I was missing everything in life because I didn’t have a light to guide me.”

She bites her lips hoping to stop another sob. How many tears can a person shed in a short amount of time? When do they stop and allow the body to rest?

“That first time you kissed me.” Her voice cracks. “That's when I started believing that life could be more than what we were conditioned to do.”

✼　 ҉　 ҉　 ҉　 ҉　 ҉　 ҉　 ҉　✼

Her feet ached. Her heels were in her hands and she was tired from another successful work day. After six months of locating and sniffing out an underground drug market, they finally caught the group of men.

She glanced at her shoes and dress, irritated that the blood ruined another perfectly good outfit. She wanted to just get into her room, take a bath and pass out on her bed and to not be distrubed for at least seventy two hours.

She got to her hotel door and started to search for her key.

“Oh shit.” She grumbled. Her purse was nowhere in sight.

“Here.”

Blossom turned to see Butch holding the desginer bag.

A sigh of relief left her lips as she took it and fished out the key card. He leaned against the wall, clearly tired and wanting to rest like her. Two years they had been partners. The longest partnership she’s had and she wasn’t complaining. Usually they shared a room on missions but they had separate rooms this time.

“Tired?” She glanced at him.

“No, I'm fully awake.” He said sarcastically. “I feel like I got hit by a freight train.”

“I’m sure those guys thought they did too when you punched them.” Her door clicked open but she didn’t move.

“Oh please, you did most of the heavy lifting. I mean who takes down a giant dude with a high kick in heels.” He was practically beaming with pride from the memory. “Badass stuff Bloss.”

She was sure there was a blush on her cheeks. Shaking those thoughts from her head she smiled and opened the door. “Goodnight Butch.”

“Night.”

…

“Isn’t this the part where you walk into your room?” He raises a bow that is answering the silent question she asked.

She straightens her back. “Shouldn’t you be walking to yours?”

He moves closer to her. Brushing the hair on her shoulders off and there's a buzz throughout her as his fingers graze her shoulders.

He's closer now. Their lips only inches apart and although her body is killing her and aching, she can’t help but let her mind wander.

“I prefer the view right here.” He says in almost a whisper that makes the hairs on the back of her neck stand. “And possibly even the taste.”

His lips press against hers. They have kissed many times in front of people on missions but it's never been like this. Never a sign that everything she had been feeling, wanting could be hers for the taking.

It's not fast and heated. It's slow as if he's testing out the waters that he can glady swim in. It's a sign that they know they shouldn’t be doing this but for once, she's playing by a different set of rules.

They break apart. The kiss wasn’t very long but the sparks linger and scorch through her body. She's afraid to look at him now. Afraid that rejection and everything she had told herself not to want, can’t be hers. The ground should just swallow her whole now.

She feels a hand softly touch her cheek and she looks up at him. This look on his face, she can't describe it. She can see the gears turning in his head, wondering if this was a mistake just as she thought.

But rejection never comes. He doesn’t pull or push away.

Instead his lips turn slightly up. “I know we fight for the greater good, but I’m starting to think I have a different purpose.”

“What?” She questions.

“You.”

✼　 ҉　 ҉　 ҉　 ҉　 ҉　 ҉　 ҉　✼

She could have sworn it's only been a few minutes but the sky’s blue had morphed into a dusty pink. A wonderful sunset that she is surprised she can still find beauty in. She knows she’ll have to leave soon. She is afraid that when she does, she might not come back.

One of the final happy moments with him was weeks before his death. Five years they had known each other and it was all washed down the drain.

Her head turns towards the sky as she basks in the sunset. “I hope that wherever you are there are still skies like these.”

✼　 ҉　 ҉　 ҉　 ҉　 ҉　 ҉　 ҉　✼

Sunsets in Hawaii were much better in person than any photo could capture.

“Another successful mission.” Blossom giggles as she takes a sip of her mai tai. Her feet are swaying above the water and the breeze flows through her hair. She hasn’t remembered being this peaceful but she could get used to it.

“Yeah.” Butch says as he downs his drink.

Five years she's known him. Every action and mannerism he's done is burned in her memory. It's the most priceless information she has, the most important because it's all hers.

He seems calm, she admits. But something is on his mind. He's not thriving in the glory of another mission or running around crazy and jumping into the ocean like the days before. He seems to be in deep thought. Something she's not quite sure she likes.

The horizon catches her eyes. “The sky is pretty.” She adds.

“Runaway with me.”

The movement of the waves stops. The breeze halts and her eyes widen.

“What?” She turns towards him. “Runaway?”

He nods. “Runaway from this place and all its madness. We could get married, travel the world, anything you want.” He took her hand. “I don’t care where we go. I just want to be with you.”

“With me?” She's practically speechless.

Butch cracks a smile. “Only you. Imagine this.” He scoots closer to her and wraps his arm around her shoulder. “A house on private property, hell maybe even a beachfront. You have your own little library and I’ll even get you a nice espresso machine. A garden with all the flowers you could imagine and even a baby grand piano since I know how much you love to play.”

The images flood her mind. “That sounds lovely.”

“And you wanna know the best part?” He asks.

She nods her head. “Tell me.”

“I would get to wake up each morning with you in my arms.” He smirks and kisses her softly.

“That would be the best part.” She hums against his lips. Her stomach then drops. “But we can’t.”

“Three good reasons.”

She tried to think. How could she leave the agency she's been in since she was a kid? How could she throw everything away? These feelings she had were all muddled into a mess that she didn’t know how to get out of. That vision he told her sounded like a dream.

That's what this was. A dream. Something she wasn’t allowed to have. But she wanted it.

Butch sighed. “I guess it's easier for me cause I’m selfish.” He smiled softly at her and tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. “Whatever choice you make, as long as I can still be by your side, is fine by me.”

✼　 ҉　 ҉　 ҉　 ҉　 ҉　 ҉　 ҉　✼

Blossom looks at the notes in her hands then back to the stone.

“I’m sorry Butch.” She cries and crumples them. Tears overwhelm her once again but she doesn’t wipe them or try to stop it. She is a dam that's been holding it all for too long. Holding her emotions for years and she was tired.

“Everyone told me to come here to get closure, but I don't want that. I want to feel the emptiness and shallowness. I want to cry myself to sleep and wish I could hold you again. It's torturous and cruel to think like that but it means that it was real. And that it was mine. This-” She beats her fingers against her chest, against her heart. “This is yours.”

“I am sorry Butch. I vowed to never let my heart act over my head. And that is something I regret deeply. You were right. You always have been. You wanted me without hesitation and I’m sorry I was guarded. But I swear when I was with you I wasn’t.”

The laughter and joy he brought her. She felt like she was breathing for the first time around him and even in the most serious situations there was still an element of peace.

“I had hoped that I would never have to say this. Never had to face this reality because it's too painful. I tried to deny it all, even though I watched it happen. Maybe if I had never let myself be charmed by you, I could avoid all these feelings but we both know that you were just so-’ She bites a laugh. “Irresistible.”

Her voice got louder as her sobs grew. “Every single moment was worth it. Your eyes and your smile. The way you knew what I was thinking even though no one else could ever know. I treated it like our job but the truth is, I wanted you to figure me out so I could finally tell myself it's okay to be happy. That's what you were Butch. My happiness.”

✼　 ҉　 ҉　 ҉　 ҉　 ҉　 ҉　 ҉　✼

This can’t be happening, she thought. Never in her entire career had she been kidnapped and captured. She was careful and guarded but they got the best of them this time.

The gag in her mouth was doing its job and her wrists were bound behind her back. The cold chill ran up her spine as she watched the men drag him in front of her. He was a few feet away and his face was covered in blood and bruises.

“Only one of you makes it out alive.” The man said.

She tried to pull against the restraints but felt the cool metal touch the back of her head.

“No moving sweetheart.” She heard behind her.

She watched as they removed Butch’s gag and he choked on the air before his hair was pulled and he was forced to look at her.

Those dark green eyes met with frightened brown but he knew that below the color was a brilliance of magenta that he adored.

He should be scared and terrified. And he was. But looking at her even in this state, he felt a sense of happiness wash over him. Everything he never thought he could have was right there in front of him.

Tears fell from her eyes as she watched the man stab him in the stomach. The knife plunged into his flesh and Butch let out a horrifc cry as she screamed into the gag.

“Dying words buddy?” The man laughed as he pulled out a gun and held it up to head.

Even through the pain shooting through his body, he looked at her with tears in his eyes.

His lips turned into a smile, even with blood coating his teeth. “Blossom-” He coughed.

No.

Please No!

She wanted to scream and tell him that she takes it all back. She wanted her dress and the ring. She wanted their own house and a piano where she could play for him.

Everything. She wanted everything.

She wanted him.

“I love you.” He says.

BAM!

✼　 ҉　 ҉　 ҉　 ҉　 ҉　 ҉　 ҉　✼

Her breath catches in her throat as she sees it. The blood and the life leaving his eyes. It replays and she tries to stop the memory.

“Could you ever forgive me?” She sobs. “Forgive me for not telling you?”

Her hand presses against the gravestone. She's not sure what she's hoping for but it's cold.

“You said it moments before your death and I couldn’t even let you die with that. Yet through that you smiled at me. You fucking smiled as death was taking you faster than I could realize because you knew. I couldn’t say it. No matter how much I wanted to tell you, I was afraid that the moment I did, this would happen. I wasn’t prepared to lose you. I wasn’t ready to face a life where I would spend every waking moment wondering if waking up next to you was truly real or a dream.”

Anger rises in her. Anger at the world and the men who killed him. Angry at the agency who turned the other eye when he died. There was nothing for her there anymore. She realized it way too late that she was robbed of everything from this life. Robbed of having him because she was afraid.

“I don't get it. How did you make me want that so bad? How you took my heart and made it beat faster than ever before. You told me to be selfish so here it is. I want you. I want you back and alive so that I can go and buy that white dress. I want everything you said.”

The anger bubbling shifts. It lingers but she takes a deep breath. It won’t help her to be angry or to bring him back. That sorrow takes its hold over her again. It's sad but calming as she tries to reason with herself that he is gone. She knows closure won’t come but she's okay with that.

“But that's not the reality anymore. I can’t change the past but I won’t change the future either. I am deeply and madly in love with you Butch. You gave me a glimpse of what a normal and fulfilling life could be and I thank you for that. Thank you for giving me slices of happiness and making me feel like I was worth loving.”

She reaches into her purse one last time and pulls out a letter and a box. “I resigned and I bought myself a ring.” She opens it and slips on the silver band with a small opal. “It's silly I know, not even a wedding ring. I hope you don’t mind. I stole one of the gems from your watch to make it.” She cries.

“They took all your stuff you know.” Her hands quiver as she stares at her ring. “They took every part of you like it was nothing, like you didn’t exist at all. The watch was all I could get.”

The sun is now setting and the breeze picks up. She's not cold anymore, and can't feel anything.

“They’ll kill me, I'm sure of it. That's what happens when you leave. And when they do, I better see you on the other side. A place where we can watch the sunset and have our little home. A place where this emptiness inside me can be whole again. I just want a place where I can love you.”

The glasses and letters go back into her purse. The flowers lay with her ribbon at the base as she stands and dusts off her dress.

She finally wipes her tears and forces a wonderful soft smile. “You were the most charming and wonderful man I have ever had the honor of working with. But most importantly, you were proof that dreams could come true.”

She touches the stone one last time. Feels the coolness but it's not as frightening. She's not afraid anymore. Blossom takes a step back and her eyes dance over his name one last time. She slips on her heels and grabs her purse.

“Goodbye my love.” She says and makes her way across the grass to the black gate.

✼　 ҉　 ҉　 ҉　 ҉　 ҉　 ҉　 ҉　✼

I hope you enjoyed!

#blossutch #blossom x butch #ppg fic #angst #blossutch fic #thewritingstar

17 notes · View notes

arowrimo · 3 years

Text

AroWriMo 2021 Roundup

Here is the compilation of all 48 works submitted to AroWriMo 2021!

We have a lot of variety this year - short stories, poetry, non-fiction, a play, song lyrics, a zine, flash fiction and some novel/novellas! Check out the impressive writing collected here and support the writers themselves - links to their other sites/accounts are included where possible. Give them a look/follow, and share the works you really enjoy!

Thanks to all who submitted and shared for a wonderful AroWriMo 2021, and I look forward to doing it again in 2022!

Play/Script

Leaving: A (very) Unfinished Stage Play by charcharcharace (blogspot)

Post, direct link (blogspot) Summary: A fractured personal narrative on entering and leaving an unhealthy relationship and the pain of being aromantic without that knowledge. Word Count: 1200 Theme: Humanity Language: English Genre: Personal CW: Depression, manipulation, unhealthy romantic relationship, processing self-blame

Novels/Novellas

Syrinxian Diamond: Chapter One by charcharcharace (blogspot)

Post, Direct link (blogspot) Summary: After a heist gone wrong, our hero is caught up in an interdimensional prophecy that just may bring them answers to the questions they don't know how to put into words, a feeling of difference, of not feeling right acting how they're supposed to act - but what other way is there to be? Follow our hero through desert ruins, the Wild West, a royal ball, and of course, a midnight trip to the library. Word Count: 2539 Prompt: Hope Theme: Fantasy, Ancient World Language: English Genre: Portal Fantasy, Heist CW: Unsupportive sibling, chapter one features the absence of knowledge of aromanticism, and doesn't feature aromanticism directly.

Oh, the truth shall set you free by @amanita-cynth

Summary: “I know exactly four things about Alway.” She said wryly. “She’s 23, a genius, she keeps at least three feet between her and other people at all times, and she can root out the truth like nobody else.” Of course, coming from another profiler, such an assessment carried a lot of weight. Eden Alway, the newest member of an FBI profiling unit, is odd even by their standards. But as they begin to pry more into her life and struggle with some of what they find, her past is racing to catch up with her and drag them into the storm that was her life. Featuring misunderstandings, odd behaviour, the constant problems of amatonormativity, and a rapidly escalating series of bizarre problems that they are in no way qualified for but definitely isn’t magic. Word Count: 11000 Prompt: Non-romantic Relationships, Self-reliance Theme: Fantasy Language: English Genre: Crime, portal fantasy CW: Romance, Violence, Gore, amatonormativity, religious imagery, mild body horror later on, currently a WIP

Lyrics

Embers by @clad-in-sunshine (Wordpress, Twitter)

Post, Direct link (tumblr), Direct link (wordpress) Summary: I’m terrible at picking titles. But I have been enjoying writing songs, and this is one I wrote for AroWriMo and the Valentines theme of ‘Love, Romance and Friendship’ at my local folk club. The middle part is entirely uninteresting to me, so this is more about love and friendship than anything else, and the various forms that can take. The tune is called 'Midnight on The Water'. Word Count: 479 Prompt: Non-romantic Relationships, Self-reliance Language: English Genre: Singer/songwriter, Folk

Games/Interactive Media

Superheroes Inc. by charcharcharace (blogspot)

Post, Direct link (blogspot) Summary: It's time for your first day as the Supervising Hero Response Manager at Superhero Incorporated, the largest collection of super heroes on the US West Coast. It's a big step up from your last job managing a team of five up-and-comers out of Chicago to supervising a nearly a hundred teams. Your priority, of course, is choosing which of the 12 big league heroes to have Shadow teleport to high crisis events. Word Count: 3000 Prompt: Future Theme: Sci-Fi Language: English Genre: Sci-Fi CW: Death, Bigotry

Comics/Zine

My Aro Heart: A Zine by charcharcharace (blogspot)

Post, Direct link (blogspot) Summary: A short zine about loving the aro community. Word Count: 50 Language: English Genre: Zine CW: Love (non-romantic)

Flash Fiction

#3 by @fuckin-fudge-nutter

Post link, Direct link (google docs) Word Count: 304 Prompt: Future Theme: Defying Expectations Language: English Genre: Realistic Fiction CW: Mild internalized arophobia

A Moth And No Flames by @voidpunk.kenku on Instagram

Post, Direct link (toyhou.se) Word Count: 337 Category: Flash Fiction Prompt: Hope Language: English Genre: gaslamp fantasy CW: insects

Future by 27twinsister on Ao3

Post, Direct link (Ao3) Summary: Hikari would be alone forever. He liked that idea. The note contains my headcanons for Hikari and what the words mean. Word Count: 146 Prompt: Future Language: English Fandom: Ressha Sentai ToQger, Nonomura Hikari Genre: Character study CW: None

Loveless by 27twinsister on Ao3

Post, Direct link (Ao3) Summary: Takeru and Akari love each other (not like that, this is genfic). Mentions “ love potions or something” in one line. The note contains my headcanons for Takeru and what the words mean. Word Count: 231 Prompt: Romo/loveless Language: English Fandom: Kamen Rider Ghost Genre: Fantasy/Supernatural, hurt/comfort CW: None given

Music by 27twinsister

Post, direct link (Ao3) Summary: Shinnosuke didn’t like silence. He liked being in an environment with other people, or with background noise. That only caused a bit of trouble at home once he lived with Kiriko. Word Count: 223 Category: Flash Fiction Prompt: Music Language: English Fandom: Kamen Rider Drive Genre: Character study CW: None

Freedom by 27twinsister

Post, direct link (Ao3) Summary: Eiji likes his freedom. The note contains my headcanons for Eiji and what the words mean. Word Count: 140 Category: Flash Fiction Prompt: Freedom Language: English Fandom: Kamen Rider OOO Genre: Character study CW: None

Mirror by 27twinsister

Post, direct link (Ao3) Summary: Tsukasa doesn’t dwell in any world. He just stays for as long as he needs. The note contains my headcanons for Tsukasa and what the words mean. Word Count: 223 Category: Flash Fiction Prompt: Music Language: English Fandom: Kamen Rider Decade Genre: Character study CW: None

Hope by 27twinsister

Post, Direct link (Ao3) Summary: Haruto is nervous about coming out. Word Count: 150 Category: Flash Fiction Prompt: Hope Language: English Fandom: Kamen Rider Wizard Genre: Character study CW: None

Self-Reliance by 27twinsister (Ao3)

Post, direct link (Ao3) Summary: Tsubasa likes to be alone. The note contains my headcanons for Tsubasa and what the words mean. Word Count: 161 Prompt: Self-reliance Language: English Fandom: Mahou Sentai Magiranger Genre: Character study CW: None

Non-Romantic Relationships by 27twinsister (Ao3)

Post, Direct link (Ao3) Summary: Jiro doesn’t know if his relationship with Yuki is romantic. But it’s special to him. The note contains my headcanons for Jiro and what the words mean Word Count: 209 Prompt: Non-Romantic Relationships Language: English Fandom: Dogengers Genre: Character study CW: Romance mention

Non-fiction

Thursday Thoughts: AroWriMo Week 1: Romo/Loveless & Future by @sophieakatz

Post, Direct link Word Count: 562 Prompt: Romo/Loveless, Future Language: English CW: Romance mention

The Future Is Arospec by aceofarrows

Post, Direct link Summary: This blog post talks about the nature of romantic attraction, why getting rid of amatonormativity is a worthwhile project, and how arospec people can help bring this about by getting involved in political activism and queer liberation. Word Count: 800 Category: Non-fiction Prompt: Romo/loveless, Future Language: English CW: None

Freedom and Music by @nzcienif

Post, direct link Word Count: 488 Prompt: Freedom, Music Theme: Defying Expectations Language: English Genre: Non Fiction CW: None Link: https://nzcienif.tumblr.com/post/642572547990421504/arowrimo-week-2-freedom-and-music Promo: https://nzcienif.tumblr.com/

The Demand for Freedom to Be Oneself by @graces-of-luck

Post, direct link Word Count: 363 Prompt: Freedom Theme: Defying Expectations Language: English Genre: Narrative CW: None

Thursday Thoughts: AroWriMo Week 2: Freedom & Music by @sophieakatz

Post, direct link Word Count: 647 Prompt: Freedom, Music Language: English Genre: Non Fiction CW: None

Defying expectations by @aallotarenunelma

Post, direct link Word Count: 986 Prompt: Hope, Mirror Theme: Defying Expectations Language: English Genre: Essay CW: Romance, Amatonormativity

Aro Visions and Hopes by @penandquillcafe ( @aroacechillzone )

Post, Direct link Word Count: 729 Prompt: Hope, Mirror Language: English Genre: Nonfiction CW: amatonormativity, arophobia, loneliness (metaphor)

Thursday Thoughts: AroWriMo Week 3: Hope & Mirror by @sophieakatz

Post, Direct link Word count: 201 Prompt: Hope, Mirror Language: English Genre: Non-fiction CW: Romance mention, Sex mention

Relationship Anarchy and Hugs by charcharcharace (blogspot)

Post, Direct link (blogspot) Summary: Applying relationship anarchy to family relationships and hugs. Word Count: 522 Prompt: Non-romantic Relationships Theme: Defying Expectations Language: English Genre: Non-Fiction CW: consent issues, boundary breaking

Thursday Thoughts: AroWriMo Week 4: Non-Romantic Relationships & Self-Reliance by @sophieakatz

Post, Direct link (tumblr) Word Count: Prompt: Non-romantic Relationships, Self-reliance Language: English Genre: Non-fiction CW: Romance mention

Poetry

Untitled by @brilliantsnafu

Post, Direct link Word Count: 38 Prompt: Romo/loveless, Future Language: English Genre: Nonfiction CW: Bigotry, arophobia; amatonormativity

Little Boxes by anon

Post, Direct link (Google docs) Word Count: 456 Prompt: Freedom Theme: Choosing to be Yourself Language: English Genre: Poem/non-fiction

To My Dear and Loving... by @writingthingsilike

Post, Direct link (tumblr) Summary: A poem about being aromantic but still wanting a life partner Word Count: 165 Prompt: Non-romantic Relationships Theme: Choosing to be Yourself Language: English Genre: Non-fiction CW: None

AroAce by Catolica (Ao3)

Post, Direct link (Ao3) Word Count: 254 Language: English CW: Choose not to use warnings

icarus' stone by @franzimaya (@witchreyna on Twitter)

Post, direct link Word Count: 199 Prompt: Freedom Theme: Choosing to be Yourself Language: English Genre: Poetry CW: Grief

The End of the Rouse Family Tree by @turnovers-and-coke (@arbys-chocolate-turnover, Wattpad)

Post, Direct link Word Count: 144 Prompt: Mirror Theme: Choosing to be Yourself Language: English Genre: poetry CW: None

Care, uncoupled by @graces-of-luck

Post, Direct link (tumblr) Word Count: 149 Prompt: Non-romantic Relationships Theme: Humanity Language: English Genre: Free Verse CW: Romance

Human = ( X - Y ) / Z by charcharcharace (blogspot)

Post, Direct link (blogspot) Summary: A poem about human essentialism Word Count: 129 Theme: Humanity Language: English Genre: Poetry CW: Mentions of essentialism and touches on dehumanizing ideas

Short Stories

Chasing Shadows by @secret-arrow-man

Post, Direct link Summary: A questioning aro discusses relationship problems with an old friend. Word Count: 660 Theme: Choosing to be Yourself Language: English Genre: Fiction CW: Romance, Alcohol mention

My Valentine by @bimboztown on twitter

Post, Direct link (Google docs) Word Count: 305 Category: Short Stories Theme: Choosing to be Yourself Language: English Genre: Coming of Age CW: Suicide attempt mention

Made on the Shore by @clad-in-sunshine

Post, Direct link Summary: Cora had never had much interest in people, and had chosen to live alone on the shore for years by this point. When a ship sails close, she has to deal with both her interest in it and the Captain’s interest in her. Based on the song ‘Fair Maid on The Shore’. Word Count: 2129 Prompt: Romo/loveless, Future Theme: Choosing to be Yourself Language: English Genre: Fiction, Ambiguous historical fiction CW: Romance, Guns, Alcohol

What is given by @amanita-cynth (Ao3)

Post, direct link Summary: A short exploration of a woman helping a traumatised, adopted girl come to terms with her newfound freedom. Word Count: 5645 Category: Short Stories Prompt: Freedom, Music Theme: Choosing to be Yourself Language: English Genre: Mildly Science Fiction CW: mentions of human experimentation

Lady in the Mirror by @amanita-cynth (Ao3)

Post, direct link (Ao3) Summary: Everyone knows the story of the lady in the mirror. How she picks those she appears to is unknown. What she offers and why it is offered is similarly a mystery; those few that have interacted with her and speak of it are reluctant to share details. Maybe that is why the stories are so well-known, so far-travelled. The mystery calls to people and they want to believe they can solve it. Word Count: 1799 Prompt: Hope, Mirror Theme: Choosing to be Yourself Language: English Genre: Fantasy CW: None

Lights, Camera, Aro! by charcharcharace (blogspot)

Post, Direct link (blogspot) Summary: An aromantic actress is conflicted over how to engage with a romantically coded improv challenge. Word Count: 1885 Theme: Choosing to be Yourself Language: English Genre: Literary CW: a ghost, pressure.

Dark secret love by @aallotarenunelma

Post, Direct link (part a), Direct link (part b) Summary: What if an aspec Wicked Lawless Love MC was paired with the incubus Sascha? Word Count: 6941 Language: English Fandom: Wicked Lawless Love (Lovestruck app), Sascha Orosco x MC (Suna) Genre: Fantasy CW: Death, Romance, Sexual content

Thought That Cupid Shot Me With Love But It Was Only An Aro by @entity9silvergen (Ao3, FF.net)

Post, Direct link (Tumblr), Direct link (Ao3) Summary: Soulmates were supposed to be the other half of your soul. Your one true love. Ino always dreamed of finding her soulmate. Sai never wanted one. Still, they cared for each other so they were going to make it work. Somehow.

Word Count: 10000 Prompt: Romo/loveless, Future Language: English Fandom: Naruto. Characters: Sai, Ino, Shikamaru, Choji, Naruto, Sakura, Sasuke, Kakashi Genre: Friendship/ Relationships CW: Mentioned Canon Death, Minor Aphobia

Mosaic by @entity9silvergen (Ao3, FF.net)

Post, Direct link (tumblr), Direct link (Ao3) Summary: We are just mosaics of everyone we love and that mosaic shows everyone we love how beautiful they are. Bean doesn’t think she can love like everyone else but maybe that’s okay. Word Count: 2000 Language: English Fandom: Disenchantment. Characters: Bean Genre: Friendship, Self-Reflection CW: Internalized arophobia, some self-deprecation, sex mention, drug mention, mention of canon interspecies relationships in fantasy setting Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29230041 Promo: entity9silvergen on Ao3, FFN, and tumblr

We Dance To Fast Music by @entity9silvergen (Ao3, FF.net)

Post, direct link (tumblr), direct link (Ao3) Summary: Zuko didn’t like to dance. Neither did Mai. But Ty Lee did and they’d do it for her. Fortunately for them, Ty Lee cared about how they felt and wanted to show them just how wonderful music could be. All Zuko and Mai knew were slow dances, the things of ballrooms and romance. Ty Lee only knew the dances of friendship, freedom, and fun. Word Count: 8000 Prompt: Freedom, Music Language: English Fandom: Avatar The Last Airbender. Characters: Zuko, Mai, Ty Lee, Sokka, Suki, Aang, Katara, Toph Genre: Friendship CW: None

Oblique by @entity9silvergen (Ao3, FF.net)

Post, Direct link (Ao3) Summary: Unable to experience romantic attraction, Remus feels incomplete. Unable to feel sexual attraction, Roman feels less than. Maybe as the King, they decide, they will feel whole again. Their partners and friends, however, know this isn’t the solution and seek to help them realize there’s nothing broken about them before it’s too late. Word Count: 12000 Prompt: Mirror Theme: None Language: English Fandom: Sanders Sides. Characters: Logan, Patton, Roman, Virgil, Nate, Remy, Emile, Seth, Toby, Janus, Remus, Unnamed Orange Side, Romulus, Dragon Witch Genre: Friendship, Hurt/ Comfort CW: Romance, Sexual content, Violence

He Is Mild And He Is Meek by @entity9silvergen (Ao3, FFN)

Post, Direct link (Ao3) Summary: He is mild and he is meek, he is Momo and he is what I seek. Suki always wanted three things in life. One was to become a professional soccer player. The second was to live in a cute apartment filled with succulents. The third was to get a cat. Momo probably wasn’t anyone’s first pick as a pet but Suki was determined to get this cat to love her as much as she loved him. If only he’d accept he had a home now. Word Count: 6500 Prompt: Non-romantic Relationships Language: English Fandom: Avatar the Last Airbender. Characters: Suki, Momo, Sokka, Aang Genre: Friendship, Hurt/ Comfort CW: Mention of sex, non-excessive swearing

sick of all those love songs (sing to me about my friend on the moon). by nwhrs

Post, Direct link (Ao3) Summary: Johnny has always tried to follow the game, Ten has always stood out like a sore thumb, Chenle has always been quite vocal about himself, and Jisung really has absolutely no idea just what is going on (or does he?). And this is just a little part of their story. Word Count: 16413 Prompt: Non-romantic Relationships Theme: Choosing to be Yourself Language: English Fandom: NCT // Park Jisung, Zhong Chen Le, Chittaphon Leechaiyapornkul | Ten, Suh Youngho | Johnny Genre: Slice of Life CW: Romance, Discussions of romance & amatonormativity

he loves you (he loves you not) by @ternaryflower53

Summary: "Who's your companion?" the man asks. "This is Jango," he says, not adding his last name. They have a false one, a name Jango sometimes uses in undercover missions when he doesn’t want to risk being recognized as the Mand’alor’s son, but better if they can avoid using it. "He's my husband." The man frowns down at his datapad, then looks up to study Jango. "I wasn't expecting you to come with a partner, Master Jedi." or, jangobi fake dating au, but make it aromantic. Word Count: 6270 Prompt: Non-romantic Relationships Language: English Fandom: Star Wars Prequel Trilogy (Obi-Wan Kenobi, Jango Fett) Genre: Fanfic CW: Romance, fake/pretend relationship, request to be in a romantic relationship that gets shut down

#AroWriMo 2021 Works #Roundup #Aro #Aromantic #Arospec #Writing #Writblr

43 notes · View notes

hadesisqueer · 4 years

Text

I'm bored so now I'm going to talk about Weiss and the Bees (mostly Yang). And there's nothing you can do about it.

When it comes to Freezerburn, I mostly like them as best friends (I'm more of a Whiterose/Bumbleby girl) but I would also really like them as a couple if that were the case, and totally understand why people ship them. Same thing happens with Monochrome, and Ladybug (INTERACT FOR FUCK'S SAKE). I'm gonna be talking about this as friendship.

Okay, but really, do you guys ever think about how Weiss had no fucking idea about what was happening at the camp when Yang found her?

(Honestly the only RWBY thing I haven't gotten my hands on is the manga and the anthologies -I've read the comics, the books, etc- because I couldn't find them, so correct me if I'm wrong lmao).

The thing is, back at Beacon, Yang and Weiss weren't really close. They were both closer to Ruby and Blake (though Weiss spent half of her time in the first volume butting heads with those two). They were teammates, yes, they got along (and sometimes argued too lol) and they cared for each other, but they still didn't have the same relationship. Like, Blake and Yang were partners and Beauty and the Beast and all that so of course they were going to be close. Same with Ruby and Weiss -partners, and you've read Snow White and Rose Red, they're probably supposed to be a representation from that tale as well-. Ruby and Yang are sisters so it's pretty obvious that they're close. I don't even have to talk about these two. And during the first volumes, Blake and Weiss were both, let's say, foils of each other, coming from very different places and yet having so much in common. One privileged, ignorant human, the other a misguided faunus. Both alienated by their abusers into thinking like them. Both from important families in their societies; one of the families is loving and caring, the other one is fucked up. Both came to Beacon basically running away from their abusers. Both had a complicated past with the White Fang. And of course, both of them had to deal with a broken legacy; Weiss is still dealing with it. They were both, literally, Black and White, and really understood each other. So yeah, their interactions during the series were always really nice to watch, because they really understand each other in those terms (that's why I loved that scene with Blake holding her hand showing support in volume 7).

Now, before volume five, Yang and Weiss never really had an important scene together. Yes, there was that cute scene after that fight against FNKI, the jokes and arguing and of course the legendary “what's that supposed to mean” in vol 3 (she shipped Bumbleby since Beacon fight me lol). But never really meaningful, not like the Bumbleby talk in Burning the Candle, or Weiss being kinder to Ruby and becoming friends, or- you know what I mean. They cared for each other, but the thing is, they didn't see each other as more than the rich girl and the funny girl/great older sister. I don't think Weiss even knew about Raven (again, correct me if I'm wrong, no mangas) before all that stuff. I assume Ruby talked to her about Summer and her loss, but did she know that Summer wasn't Yang's biological mother?

Because of that, I'm still finding this incredibly funny and yet so sad at the same time. Because, imagine being Weiss. You've just been kidnapped, and you're trying to escape. And then you see one of your teammates, your friend that you haven't seen in a year and you never thought you'd ever see again, right there, and she tells you that you're both going to Ruby (she immediately includes you). Not only that, she also tells you that the woman who kidnapped you is her freaking mother. Like. What the fuck. Again, maybe Ruby told her (if she did, I doubt she included the bandit part lmao), but if she didn't, Weiss probably was like “wait what do you mean isn't your mom dead? What the hell is going on?”

But well, she hugs Yang. Because (and I think people tend to forget it) the last time she saw Yang, she was incredibly injured. She had lost her fucking arm, and was probably still unconscious by the time Weiss was taken by her father (no one can tell me that if that bitch hadn't taken her, she wouldn't have stayed in Patch with them and Tai wouldn't have adopted her), meaning that she probably didn't even get to say goodbye to her, just like she couldn't say goodbye to Ruby. And now she's reunited with Yang, and apparently Raven is taking them to Ruby (who is also with JNR, some of her best old friends at Beacon) and she's just so happy because she didn't think that would happen. She really considers RBY her family. And also, again, the last time she'd seen Yang she was really hurt, so seeing her being okay was really a relief to her.

Except she wasn't okay, and she notices as soon as they start talking to Raven. Because, if Weiss really didn't know about Raven, she's just found out that Yang had been abandoned by her own mother. She literally sees how Yang loses control of herself (she flinches, which is another sign of Jackass' abuse) and how the poor girl even asks why Raven left her. She really notices how Yang is not okay at all. Yang isn't behaving the same way she did at Beacon; she's seen her down or furious, but never like that. It's been a year since she last saw her. A lot happened to her. And maybe, she also realizes that she'd never known Yang as well as she thought. Because, again, Yang was the cool older sister, the hot party girl that punches stuff and makes jokes. What else was there to know? Well, there it is. Not only has she been through hell since the Fall of Beacon, with the whole losing an arm and PTSD thing; Weiss also finds out that Yang had some serious abandonment issues and a fear of loneliness she'd never known about. The whole time at Beacon, she'd just been assuming about Yang. Just as Yang had clearly been assuming about Weiss as well.

Then there's a little calm in chapter 7 and for a while, it all seems fine; RWY and JNR are all messing with each other, remembering good times as they eat and laugh, catching up. For a while it felt like they never left Beacon and it just probably felt great, all of them being together. Yang seems fine. And next chapter, when the two of them and Ruby are just sitting and enjoying coffee and talking about how great it is being together again, it all seems fine too. And then Weiss and Ruby mention Blake and that's when Yang snaps.

Weiss loves RBY with all her heart, and it's clear that Ruby and her would accept Blake back without blinking if she came back. Which is why they're both surprised for a second when they see Yang react like that -Blake was her partner, after all, they were the closest, so why doesn't she want her back? Again “What's that supposed to mean?”

But after the whole Raven thing, Weiss clearly understood one thing: that Yang hated being abandoned, and in Yang's eyes, Blake had left her just like Raven did. Weiss knows what it feels like to be alone, so she gets that. But Weiss also understood that Blake hadn't left her just like Raven, because she saw Blake reaching for Yang's hand, apologizing as she cried. She knows Blake didn't leave them because she wanted to be alone; in her eyes, she was the one to blame for what happened to Yang. So she left, because Blake would rather have Yang and the rest being safe and hating her for leaving than anything like that happening again because she stayed. She was wrong, of course, but Weiss understood. And a part of Weiss herself knows what being abused and running away feels like as well.

Which is why the conversation in V5C8 is just so perfect. Because of the fact that she understands both of them, she's able to get through Yang, make her finally open up, and help her understand Blake's perspective too. Weiss was just the perfect person to do that.

I know we make a lot of jokes about Weiss being the Bumbleby wingwoman, but it exactly isn't a joke; Weiss really is the “wingwoman”. Whether you see it in a romantic way or not, that conversation was crucial in Blake and Yang's relationship, and Yang accepting Blake back too. And in romantic terms, I'm pretty sure that Weiss realized that Yang really had serious feelings for Blake because, well, Weiss isn't dumb. I think that conversation and All That Matters made it pretty obvious for anyone who wasn't in denial. I still laugh at people who are still in denial. I mean, c'mon, you don't have to ship it but at this point, thinking they're just friends is kinda dumb.

I love Weiss.

#yang xiao long #weiss schnee #blake belladonna #bumbleby #ruby rose #team rwby #i'm bored #bmblb

119 notes · View notes

joshnekuu · 3 years

Text

Okay I'm having a Lot of feelings after the final episode of the anime so I'm just gonna dump it all here I guess??

There were a lot of details from the final act of the game that they either changed or left out entirely, and while a lot of the changes I wound up enjoying in their own right, I still feel sad that the original aspects from the game didn't get in because I feel like it subtly changes the tone/vibe of the ending in the game?

I was disappointed that the whole element of Megumi snatching Neku's friends, and then Joshua showing up and getting snatched as well, wasn't incorporated into the anime. I always really loved that part, with Josh just walking through the door and getting snatched up, and smirking, not giving us any time to really process the fact that 'holy shit Josh is back!' before being thrown into boss battle hell. I was also sad that Josh and Megumi didn't get to have their conversation before Megumi faded away, it felt rather harsh to just have him die without getting to exchange those final words with the Composer like in the game.

But... I did really like Neku and Josh's reunion, Neku being so genuinely happy to see him, not realizing what's going on. The way the whole scene was framed, Joshua's movements, Neku's expressions, it was all really good (and painful) to see animated in full, and it was still really impactful to me and gave me feelings... Also a small detail but I love how the animated the guns coming into existence? That was a cool detail that will be really fun to incorporate into fics, I think.

I'm also torn on the showdown. While I was watching it, seeing Neku drop his gun and smile at Josh as he said 'I'll trust you' and holding out his hand... It definitely hurt my heart!!! Seeing that was a lot and gave me a lot of feelings, it felt like something I would expect to see more in a fanfic or a comic or something, but not in a bad way by any means. It was very fulfilling in that way, seeing that moment of Neku making himself completely vulnerable, accepting what was about to come with a smile in spite of the pain because he does trust Josh in spite of everything.

But... at the same time, it kind of changes how that scene felt in the game. Neku's silence throughout the whole thing, his dropping the gun, the impact hits a bit different I think. We don't know exactly what's going on in his head. We just know that he can't do it. He can't bring himself to shoot Joshua. I guess the big difference to me was that in the show it was more overtly a case of Neku choosing to trust Joshua, where in the game is feels more implied, with there also being the tones of not being able to bring himself to kill his friend. And I guess I still prefer the game version more? I loved seeing Neku smile as he accepts his loss, as he tells Josh he'll trust him, but there's something a bit more raw about Neku shakily lowering the gun in silence, only to be shot anyway, knowing what's going to happen but not being able to do the one thing that would save him and his friends and Shibuya. The tension of that scene is still so good... I'm a bit sad the anime wasn't able to capture that in the same way, even if I still enjoyed that moment a lot.

The proper ending also gave me a lot of conflicting feelings. Obviously seeing Neku reunite with his friends was great! I loved it, I loved seeing Shiki (even if they still won't show us her eyes, cowards), and seeing them actually get to walk around and spend time together, seeing that Sota and Nao have been brought back to life too (a headcanon I always had, ty anime for making it real) really warmed my heart ;o; But... they didn't include Neku's final speech!! I was really disappointed about that :/ I suppose that you could argue that you don't really need it, especially in the anime where they already kind of drove home the themes of trust and friendship in this episode, but like... the final monologue really just drives home and cements the themes of the game. Opening up to others, broadening your view and opinions, connecting to others in spite of differences and growing because of it. The whole aspect of how difficult the game was for Neku, but how he learned and grew from it, how he's gained things from it he wouldn't give up even if it was a painful experience too. The 'I can't forgive you, but I trust you' line!!! Asking Josh if he'll come to Hachiko! Not having that whole part there was probably the biggest disappointment I had with this episode.

I also didn't enjoy the exchange with Josh and Mr. H. While it was nice to see them talking more, and I definitely get that they didn't have any other way to fit in some of the info and motivations from the Secret Reports to give more context to Mr. H's actions, part of what makes the Secret Ending what it is is it's briefness? Joshua's silence as he watches Neku and friends, flying off without a word when Mr. H tries to bring up that he seems lonely and that it's Neku and friends' world... The tension between them after Mr. H's choices, the implications of Josh's loneliness and showing that he too sees Neku as a friend and wishes he could join them... The anime's ending just really messed with the feeling of it all.

But...... the headphones with angel wings graffiti ;;;;;;;;; That was so fucking sweet and touching aaaaah ;;

So yeah... I'm very torn! I feel like they left out a lot of important stuff from the game that while subtle really makes an impact, but at the same time the stuff they added was also really nice. I guess overall, as an ending for the anime, it was really good! But as a reflection of the game's ending, it didn't quite do it for me..

Overall though, I did really enjoy the anime, and I'm still so amazed that we even got this. Now I will wait with baited breath for July 27th....

#twewy anime #twewy anime spoilers #twewy spoilers #twewy

10 notes · View notes

itbe-jess · 3 years

Text

Masklophobia: Chapter 6

Karl's Paradise- 02x04: My Webby Valentine

Now onto the 4th episode of the 2nd season. It's a... ...god damn Valentine's Day special. As you can tell by the title. Anyways, let's dive right in, shall we?

The episode begins with that hillbilly lizard, who's at the start of every episode, taking a nap by the "Welcome to the Paradise" sign. He then awakens, yawns, then a cartoon bee flew into his mouth. He choked for a while, then eventually spat it out. Next, the show pans to the Paradise town, festive in Valentine's Day decorations. We witness a lot of heteronormativity coming from the stock puppet characters. After that, we cut to the Paradise Critters.

More random puppet characters are fishing by the lake, when Fins popped up, holding a bouquet of roses, saying "HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY! *Chuckles*" The fisher puppets come to take a closer look at the roses, and sniff them, but then water had sprayed out. She laughed, then presented them with real roses as a "No hard feelings" apology.

Cut to Junior; He was in school, where his classmates were having a card exchange. A female student (named Shirley) was two seats away from him. Shirley was a dog puppet, with pigtail like ears, and she appeared to be checking Junior out. Ughhhh, forced romance on eight year-olds. She stared at Junior as she watched him sort through his box of cards, just carelessly shuffling and making himself a mess. The mammoth stopped as he picked something up: Chocolate candies with a card attached. Shirley seemed to be fullfilled, implying that it came from her. Unfortunately, Junior crumbled up the card, tossed it aside, then ate the candies. Shirley was left heartbroken. "Boys..."

We then now cut to the Happy Belly Diner. Yum-Yum was placing a bunch of Valentines Day treats, including a punch bowl, on the counter. Barkstone and Saxxo stared in awe. Mama LongLegs was in the background, hovering over a bowl of soup. Back to Yum-Yum, she said that King Karl had chosen her to be the caterer for this year's Valentine's Day ballroom party. She let Saxxo have a sample of one of them. After trying one, he commented with glee.

"Mmm, mmm mmm! This some hearty, heart filled goodness right here, Yums! Although... Maybe ah should try another batch-"

"Don't you dare, honey! These are for the Lovers Ball! But... ...if you're still hungry, I whipped you up a special Valentine gift."

Yum-Yum presented Saxxo with a small gift box. Inside the box were Valentine's Day sugar cookies, shaped like hearts.

"Aw, mama, this awfully SWEET of you. Wish ah had the time to make you somethin'."

"No need for that. Just keep up with them soothin', jim-dandy melodies."

"Oh! Perhaps ah can treat you to a personal, live performance. You gonna dig this tune! Ah wrote it specially for the Lovers Ball!"

"Interesting. Do you have a name for it?" Asked Barkstone.

"Yes indeedy, man! It's called 'Gonna Take Super Sticky Glue To Keep Me Close To You!'"

While Saxxo played some smooth jazz on his saxophone, the next segment transitioned. It was a beautiful, pencil drawn animation, with a harp score, about a cupid helping a sad, lonely boy cheer up by hooking him up with a girl. ... Apparently, romance is the key to find happiness. Good animation. Bad message.

We're back to the Happy Belly Diner scene, except it's filmed from the outside, with Van Goose coming up. Before she enters the diner, she ran into Mama LongLegs coming out.

"Hahppy Vahlentine's day, Meess LahngLegs!"

"Ohhhh, *Stomps foot down* bah humbug!"

The spider storms away angrily, leaving Van Goose confused. As she entered, Saxxo stops and greets the bird.

"Ees eet just me, or ees LahngLegs up een seex ahrms?"

"Mm. It ain't just you, babeh. She has been quiet around this room, sittin' all by herself while lookin' so gloom." Said Saxxo.

"I'll say. She ordered herself some soup, and told me to hold the fly." Said Yum-Yum.

"Fortunately, there is a basis behind this tale. The poor lady arachnid is faced with another lonely episode on the most romantic day of the year! The day where she once believed she had a chance to find the love she's been yearning for, but now accepted the fact that it would just turn out the same dull way as always. Well, it's not her fault for being so unattractive." Said Barkstone.

Saxxo and Yum-Yum both smacked the blue dog for that last statement. The four fell into a discussion on how they wanted to cheer Mama LongLegs up. Barkstone suggested that they let her be. Yum-Yum suggested that they find a man for her, who won't be repulsed by her looks. (Maybe a literal blind date) Saxxo suggested they each give her a gift to make her feel better. Suddenly, a lightbulb appeared over Van Goose's head, indicating that she had an idea.

We pan to the outside of LongLegs's cottage, then inside of her cottage, where we find her knitting webs. She made herself a sweater, complained about how ugly it looked, then dealt with the fact that she might as well wear an ugly sweater, since she would never catch true love anyways. The doorbell rang. LongLegs threw her sweater on the floor, then marched angrily to answer the door.

"Can't a lady go through an emotional state in peace?!"

Nobody was there. Well, something was there. On her doorstep, there was a basket, which contents were a bouquet of flowers, a heart shaped box, and an envelope sealed off with a heart sticker. She took the basket inside. The flowers were an assortment of different colors and varieties, and smelled like a breezy garden. Inside the box were chocolate covered grasshoppers. They looked yummy, and tasted like they came from an expensive candy store. The letter was a romantic poem.

"Each passing day and each passing night, I wish I could keep you in my sight. With your stellar talent, I knew you had broke the mold. All six arms of yours I wish to hold. Let's reprise Miss Muffet, add in a little twist. Whereas instead of running away, it ends with a kiss. You are the spice providing the flavor. I'd like to meet you sometime later. With love... ...your secret admirer."

Mama LongLegs was so delighted, she began to break into song. I am not gonna recite it for you. It's pretty forgettable. Anyways, it was about her wondering what her secret admirer is like. Is he tall, short, fair, or dark? Is he slender, or a brawny champ? Is he an elegant duke, or a wild bad boy? Throughout the song, we are taken into her cartoon visualizations. She imagined her man to be another spider of some sort. Marvel Comics' Spider-Man was deemed the "brawny champ" of the song.

"I don't know what he is, or what he looks like. All I know is that I finally found someone who admires me deeply. Wait, 'I'd like to meet you sometime later.' *Happily squeals* Ohhh boy! Ohhh girl! I betcha he'll be there at the Lovers Ball! Oh, but what shall I wear? I can't be seen in this old thing on a special night like this! How's my breath?! My hair is way too uptight!"

Meanwhile, watching from the window outside;

"'I'd like to meet you sahmetime lahtair?' ees zat whaht we wahnted hare to believe?!" Van Goose snapped.

"I'm sorry, babeh. Ah was runnin' low on time to tell a rhyme, so ah improvised. Is that a crime?" Saxxo replied.

"What if we just tell her that the Lovers Ball is probably not the time her secret admirer had in mind?" Asked Yum-Yum.

"Because zen she'd question us on how we knew zat hare secret ahdmeerair wahnted to meet hare sahmetime lahtair. eet just gives eet ahll ahway."

"You have a good point. What do we do now?"

Unfortunately for Barkstone, he had plans.

"I'd love to help you untangle out of this WEB, but I have to get ready for the Lovers Ball tonight. I have a date with a purebred Maltese!"

The magician dog disappeared in a puff of smoke. The three other Critters coughed, and started fanning away the smoke.

"Why, I don't believe him! There's only five hours away till the ball, and he just gave us the bum's rush! Boy am I surprised he managed to land himself a date."

Yum-Yum's complaint gave Van Goose a new idea.

"I sink I cahme up weeth a new nahtion!"

"Sink is right. We sure sunk."

"No, Saxxo, no! Sink! Sink! Idea! I mean I've gaht a new plahn!"

"New plan? Well, why didn't ya say so? Lay it on us!"

"You see: LahngLegs ees hahpeeng fahr hare secret ahdmeerair to be ze perfect mahn, right? Hut whaht eef we try to cahnveence hare zat he's naht whaht she'd expect?"

Yum-Yum and Saxxo liked the plan, and they slapped both of Van Goose's wings a high-five. We cut to the next skit, where it's a humorous cartoon that tells the tale about animals "expressing their love" in different ways than humans. I'm pretty sure that's what animals do before they mate. Of course, kid shows shouldn't let kiddies know that the animals fuck.

Now we're down to the LabRat segment. Same opening with the eerie enterance and organ music, blah blah blah. Pan to LabRat. It appears he is working on one of those chemical setups. I don't know science, sorry. All the chemicals are then transferred into this cologne bottle, then the rat seals it. Eger appears, and he has a potted flower on his head for no reason.

"Hello, master!"

"Why hi, Eger. How has- Eger, you have a potted flower on your head."

"Ohhhhh, that's funny! So do I! Anyways; Happy Valentine's Day, master!"

Eger gives LabRat a Valentine card, where it said "You blinded me with science."

"Awwwwww, Eger, you shouldn't have. Really."

"So, what did you get me?"

LabRat panicked for a moment, and searched around his labcoat to find something. He then pointed to a fake distraction so that Eger would turn his head. LabRat grabbed the potted flower, and gave it to him.

"It's lovely! Now I have a match for the one on my head! So, what have you been cooking up, master?"

"Oh, it's a device that will put an end to all loneliness."

"An ever-lasting pet rock?"

"No! Even better! *Turns the bottle around to reveal the labled name* A love potion!"

"Love potion? Love potion, master?"

"Yes, love potion! By just applying a small dose of this highly concentrated pheromone, the scent will lure in the love of your life!"

"Master, I don't think it's a good idea to force love on someone like that. Love takes time."

"Love takes forever. (Or in my highschool case, love takes never)"

"But master, it doesn't sound right! Love is too precious to mess with! A girl has a life of her own, you know? Why not just use the basic steps to winning the female species?"

Damn, this is probably the only time Eger had some decent sense. Also, I'm gonna pretend I didn't hear the term "female species." Eger then brought out a presentation board with all the steps.

"Try being nice to her, like she were a person like you. Talk to each other to find out what you like in one another. Give her some pretty flowers. Then that's it! You don't need no stinkin' love potion."

"You have pointed out some very good details, Eger. But with my pride, the heck with it! I need a date to the Lovers Ball!"

Dismissing Eger's advice, LabRat told his assistant to stand by the door. He dabbed himself with the love potion, only at his arms and behind one of his ears. Then he told Eger to release the test subjects. Eger opened the door, to let in a couple of female puppet characters. If they were standing outside of the cellar this whole time, how come we didn't see them in the segment's intro? LabRat freshened his breath with breath spray and he put on a bowtie.

One of them approached the rat. Instead of giving him affection, she slapped him across the face. Another one came over, and stomped on his foot. The third one pushed him over. Finally, they all joined together for a good rat beating. Can't say he didn't deserve it. When they were done, the ladies exited the cellar in disgust. We pan to LabRat lying belly down on the floor. Eger hovered over him. When LabRat asked Eger to help him up, he just hit him on the snout.

"Bad master!"

Eger left to join the ladies, leaving LabRat alone in his lab. Groaning in pain, the rat picked himself up, using the nearby counter for support.

"Ya know, I've truly learned something from all of this."

You may think he has learned his lesson on not to probe a woman's feelings, but no, he decided to relabel his new invention as "hate potion."

The last animated skit of the episode, we watch yet another lovely animation (stop motion) about candy hearts forming the word "Valentine," then into a beating heart. We then transition to the night scene, outside of the Lovers Ball. Pan to inside, everyone is having a ball. Dancing with their partners, eating, drinking punch. Saxxo was performing on stage. Slouch was the security, but currently sleeping on the job.

Barkstone was wearing a black tuxedo, Yum-Yum wore a skirt and some jewerly, Saxxo wore a sequin suit, Van Goose wore a white tuxedo top, and Mama LongLegs had a red dress, pearl necklace, and her hair tied in a ponytail. Speaking of Mama LongLegs, she was sitting at a table for two, all by herself. Van Goose was at the buffet table, getting herself some punch, while watching the poor spider await for her Prince Charming. A pig puppet approached her table.

"Is this seat taken, ma'am?"

"Yes!"

"By who?"

"My dreamboat, that's who!"

"Where is he?"

"He'll be here, eventually!"

"Has he arrived yet?"

"No, but he will!"

"Mind if I warm up this chair for him while you wait?"

"TO THE MOON, PORKCHOPS!"

Mama LongLegs raised her voice, causing the pig to scurry. Van Goose went over to Yum-Yum, who brought over another tray of hors d'oeuvres, and told her to act now. The bear came up to LongLegs' table, helping herself to a seat. LongLegs was confused at first, because she was expecting a man.

"Hey, LongLegs. How have you been, hun?"

"Ahhh, I've been doing fabulous now that I've found love on this day to celebrate! Heeheehee. Now please get out of that chair before he gets here and thinks I gave his seat away."

"Oh, you met someone? I'm very happy for you! What's this fella like?"

"Well, we didn't exactly met, but we're expecting to meet here, at the Lovers Ball. He implied it in the letter he sent me. *Gives letter to Yum-Yum* Along with some chocolate covered grasshoppers and fragrant flowers. Now, may you pardon yourself-"

"*Pretends to read note* Oh my goodness. Uh-uh, oh my goodness. Tsk tsk tsk."

"What is it?"

"Hun, I think I recognize this handwriting. I don't know his name in particular, but I do know who this came from. This dude dropped by the Happy Belly Diner a few weeks back. Gracious, I've never seen such a messy eater in my life. He slurps his stew, shoves his entire plate clean in one bite, and digs his face, literally, into his dessert. Talk about animal manners. Messy, messy, messy."

"Ooooooohhh, sounds like he has the appetite of a real predator! I like that in guys."

Well, that failed nicely. After being politely asked to move from the chair one last time, Yum-Yum excused herself. She then broke the news to Van Goose, on how LongLegs was excited to know that there's someone who eats more disgustingly than her. Van Goose decided to ask Saxxo next. Meanwhile, Yum-Yum found a sad, lonely old man. ...dog. Drowning his sorrows in punch.

"You seem under the weather there, Barkstone."

"Well don't rain on my parade."

"Had trouble with your date?"

"Like that's any of your business!"

"Okay-"

"She left me for this feeble, puny little Chihuahua. I'll never understand women."

Elsewhere, Saxxo was playing the tune he showed us earlier in the episode. Suddenly, Van Goose called him from behind the red curtains. The show still had to go on, so Saxxo put someone else in his place. A rabbit puppet that played the spoons. Saxxo went behind the red curtains, then came out covered in roller bandages, and walked with a cane. King Karl witnessed the whole affair, which got him to be suspicious. The tiger limped as fast as he could to Mama LongLegs.

"Oh jeez, Saxxo! What happened to you?!"

"That fella... Your secret admirer... Earlier that day, Ah was just all cool, playin' mah music to go, when ah bumped into HIM! He a bad dude! I'm not talkin' bout the good kind of bad!"

"HE did this to you?"

"Uh-huh. I wanted to pass by, and forget the whole thang ever happened, but this man got issues! He battered me to a pulp, and was well aware that ah was uncapable of defending myself. Look at dis body and say otherwise!"

"Golly! He must be such a strong, sturdy hunk! (I think I'm in love!)"

"What about me?!"

"Well, you did bump into him without saying 'excuse me.'"

That plan backfired as well. The only option left was to tell Mama LongLegs the truth. Before Van Goose got to say anything to LongLegs, Barkstone made a dramatic entrance with a puff of smoke. He was now sitting in that chair, wearing a ridiculous spider costume, and a false mustace.

"Sorry I'm late, madam! My limo needed repair. Might I introduce myself: I am John George Henry Lewis Raphael III! Owner of the largest oil company in the Paradise, and The First National Kidney Donor Bank!"

Van Goose tugged Barkstone by his false mustace and whispered into his ear.

"Bahrkstahne, whaht ahre you doing?"

"Helping out, of course. You owe me big time in this, by the way."

The dog continued to chat with LongLegs. You couldn't tell by her face, but her tone showed that she wasn't falling for it. ...and ready to kill.

"My, you sure are lovely on this fine night! Did anyone ever tell you that you look better in the dark lighting?"

"Barkstone... ...what is this?"

King Karl appeared and asked "Yes, what is this," but in a lighthearted manner. After Van Goose painfully tore off the false mustace from Barkstone's face, she explained everything. Since LongLegs' bad mood and losing hope in Valentine's Day, Van Goose decided to make up a fake admirer so that LongLegs knows that she is loved. Barkstone provided the flowers (magically), Yum-Yum made the chocolate covered grasshoppers, and Saxxo wrote the poem. Van Goose guided them.

She also explained that they never intented to have this secret admirer meet Mama LongLegs, but had no choice because Saxxo got carried away in the rhymes. King Karl lectured the four Critters. He told them that it's never okay to fool somebody's feelings, and quotes that love is too delicate to mess with. There are many alternatives to making your friends happy, especially on Valentine's Day. Van Goose timidly stepped up to Mama LongLegs, and apologized for all that has happened.

"We're ahll equally sahrry, LahngLegs. We just wahnted to mahke you hahppy, ahnd breeng your speerit een Vahlentine's Day bahck, because we cahre fahr you. We nevair meant to breeng such hahrm."

Mama LongLegs hesitated for a moment.

"As much as I want to be mad at you, it's just impossible knowing I have friends who love me so much. I guess the best Valentine a woman can ever have is her own friends."

Van Goose and Mama LongLegs hugged things out. The others joined in too, even Barkstone, only because the moment was too heartwarming to ignore. Before the episode ends for good, and the credits roll, it's Paradise Fun-Time, which Van Goose shows us how to make crafty Valentine's Day cards. Seems more relevant than any of the hacks from 5-Minute Crafts. Catch you later, loves!

#The Banana Splits Movie #remake #horror #Masklophobia #original characters

11 notes · View notes