“Anything” - Chapter 4/?
Fandom: One Punch Man
Pairing: Saitama/Genos Rating: Explicit
Word count: 16k (so far)
Tags: Villain Saitama, Rape/Non-Con, Extremely Dubious Consent, Kidnapping, Coercion, Threats of Violence, Abusive Relationship, Oral Sex, Vaginal Sex, Dead Dove: Do Not Eat
-// //-
Chapter Teaser:
Saitama's arm held him, just the weight of it resting across Genos' body. His fingers lightly stroked along the lower part of Genos' chest, where his ribs would end if he were still human, where breastplate met torso and the edges of two metal pieces met with a soft and sensitive strip of black silicone in between.
Genos still couldn't hold his breath for long but he could be quieter, quieter, smothering everything down until only the rise and fall of his chest betrayed his need for every silent, jagged breath.
Just as quietly, Saitama tucked his face against the nape of Genos' neck, and squeezed him so gently and so carefully that as soon as the slight pressure eased away, Genos wondered if he'd only imagined it.
Read on AO3
21 notes
·
View notes
oh, my God. this episode is so intense. i think i'm still in a daze. but i'm trying my best to make sense of everything i understood from today's episode.
opening the episode with bernoulli's principle—all about two objects [people, in this context] coming together, colliding, because of the wind [in this context, attraction, love]—is such an amazing way of setting the tone of the episode. everything feels so bittersweet, hopeless and hopeful from the get-go.
sheng wang's sense of loneliness, jiang tian's nature of reluctance, all those things mingling together in this emotionally charged connection they've built, was so poignantly portrayed in this episode. somewhat, they're in a turbulent state—whether to stop the wind from blowing at them, so that they would no longer be close.
the scene where sheng wang was asking jiang tian to carry him, honestly, that is so painful. because i think, all sheng wang wanted at that moment was a connection—he wanted to hug jiang tian. he wanted to be close. he just wanted so much of jiang tian that he thought, maybe, if he asked jiang tian something silly, the latter would agree. he did. he would know, right? i guess that feeling of relief and happiness and love and acceptance dawned on him. and it was so overwhelming.
but what hurts me more is how jiang tian could only watch sheng wang's grip around his wrist. there was hesitance in his eyes. there was want. there was desire. but he couldn't. he didn't want to be close.
so sheng wang crossed the line again. the only way he could ever be this close to jiang tian was to make the first move.
and later, we finally knew that jiang tian has always been pushing people away. he didn't want that connection. he was afraid of hurting them—hurting himself.
and throughout the rest of the episode, uncle ding's "don't let jiang tian push you away," became a recurring motif. we saw sheng wang and jiang tian becoming close. we saw jiang tian openly showing that he cared (the express card was sheng wang's; jiang tian bought it for him). jiang tian standing up for sheng wang; believing in him.
and it all crumbled the moment jiang tian said, "i would stay [at school] later."
because it isn't because jiang tian didn't care about sheng wang. he cared. he cared so much. but jiang tian is afraid too. he's afraid of this connection. he's afraid of being close. because what will happen if they are closer? what will change between them? what will happen to them? isn't what they have right now are already good enough?
all of sheng wang's attempts at making jiang tian stay are in vain. "i couldn't make you stay."
when he said, "the more one tries, the more pathetic they look," somehow insinuates that sheng wang felt that he was pathetic for being the one who showed more effort—the one who wanted to be with jiang tian—the one who wanted to be close.
and sheng wang finally stated the real reason why he loathes bernoulli's principle, "it sounds like 'effort in vain'. and i hate that."
because he felt that everything he did—everything he shared with jiang tian—was only in vain.
62 notes
·
View notes
Locus and Lopez vs. dehumanization and seeing your own humanity through someone else
AKA 1.5k words worth of me trying to justify a random pairing I've been trying to sell people on for 5 years. Feat. a lot of my own introspection on both characters, CW for mentions of abuse.
It's kind of easy to assume that Locpez as a ship only exists because Locus is one of the few people who understands Lopez and one of even fewer who has had an actual (off-screen) conversation with him with full mutual fluency, especially since they interact directly, like, twice in canon (Objects In Space and the "Holy shit he's bilingual" scene from The Federal Army of Chorus). To be honest, that was my initial reason for shoving them together whenever I got into RVB and there was literally no content for them because no one was really considering them together in any capacity but a brief, funny passing interaction.
I do think language is an inherent motivator in their relationship with each other. It's a catalyst. Spanish, of course, is perhaps the most obvious thing they share--Locus being a Latino man and Lopez being the same in a convoluted and meta-racist metaphor. Beggars, choosers: anyone who knows how I operate knows I lean into reclaiming their depictions for my own brown person machinations. For Lopez it's the beauty of meeting someone who not only understands him, but isn't going to belittle him for the language he speaks or imply it'd be easier if he learned English. Locus will just listen to him talk and respond without commenting on the language barrier; Lopez isn't exotic or abnormal or "broken" for it, he just speaks Spanish, big deal, Locus speaks it too.
For Locus, it leans more toward reminding him of who he used to be when he was a simpler and kinder person. His culture seems like a forgone part of himself in many ways, but even if only because he's so distant from his humanity that he doesn't remember HOW to embrace his culture, or what the point of cultural pride even is. Lopez is like, reverse culture shock for him, where Locus is very familiar with Spanish as a language--grew up with it, learned it young, whatever, he canonically understands it and given he's Latino it's easy to assume it could be his native language--but has divorced himself from it so much to be malleable to his abusers that hearing someone speak it so unabashedly feels new. It's the lack of it that makes it so foreign, but it's so ingrained into him that it's easy for him to just slip back into it.
And Lopez being so stubbornly proud of what he is plays into that language dynamic, yes--now that there's someone who will listen and not judge, he has room to be adamant and own his monolingualism, and having someone as aggressively, straightforwardly prideful as Lopez forces Locus to recognize the beauty in the language too--but it applies on a grander scale, which is what I suppose the point of this post is: Locus and Lopez don't just share Spanish, but also histories of abuse and dehumanization, of being overlooked as living, thinking things in favor of taking advantage of their skills. And the results of this abuse manifest differently in both of them, but they're alike in just enough ways that their differences stimulate each other into bettering themselves and reflecting on what makes them, dramatic pause, human.
Some of Lopez and Locus's defining personality traits to me are their shared low empathy (forcibly learned on both of their parts) and the way they feel so alien in any group they're a part of. They're people with a lot of potential who don't care how others see them (at their worst, especially in Locus's case), but are limited by someone who only sees them for their usefulness (Sarge, Felix) and doesn't truly see them as a person. Lopez may be a Red, but they don't really care about anything he says, so he's just a wrench to them. Locus has Felix, but he doesn't recognize that Felix has one-sided power over him and is keeping him on a short leash; he's a shield and a weapon. They're tools, they don't have feelings, and if they realize as much it's a fault in their programming, they can and have to be steered back into place.
They're reflective of each other in this way. However, they're not identical in disposition: Locus resigns very easily to what he's told to be. He had more hope once, made attempts to be humanitarian, but was swiftly taught that kindness is suicide and that the point is to survive, no matter the cost. It was easy for Felix to take advantage of him by saying they needed each other when Locus was at his worst, because having kindness ripped out of him gave Locus little else to rely on but his hands. Locus has no room for questions, because a rulebook is absolute. It takes a reminder of what he used to be to make him falter, but even when Santa is showing him one of the inciting incidents of his "soldier" mindset, Locus can't stop himself from resigning to the mindlessness that Felix and the UNSC have already taught him.
Lopez feels trapped and is hyper-aware of it. He'll listen, but only because there's nothing else in the world for him. He's subservient but not in the same way Locus is, because he's angry about his situation: he knows it's not fair, but what can he fucking do about it? He was made to be Red Team's mechanic, and every word he says falls on deaf ears. He carries this self-awareness like a shield, like a threat: he could do something, but there's no point because his nature as a robot defines him. All he has is a sharp tongue and his hands, and the Reds only need one of those things from him. He revels in being able to complain and reminds himself that he's meant for something greater, but he's so fatalistic that he won't take action.
The balance comes from this anger. They're so alike in how they see the world and how much life has mistreated them, but they don't fully understand each other despite it. Locus sees Lopez as privileged for having a team because Locus has never had people to belong with, but he doesn't understand that Red Team isn't a safe place for Lopez. Lopez thinks Locus is misguided for letting himself believe he could ever be reduced to a mindless weapon, because Lopez has only ever been an object and Locus can't comprehend what that's really like. They see each other for their imperfections first and foremost and it frustrates them mutually: "You could've fixed this sooner, you could've escaped the grief, why didn't you try?"
It's this back-and-forth that they both need in order to reflect on themselves. They're harsh people who don't want to be coddled and admonished, but they're not making forward motion on their own because they're both stubborn and tend to decathect before they even recognize they CAN feel. They refuse to see themselves as human, but they can only see the humanity in each other, and they're both so alike that it could make them hypocrites. For a robot, Lopez's anger is so potent that it's alive: Locus sees more feeling in him than he's ever felt in his own life. Locus wants to be a weapon so bad, but he doesn't realize an object doesn't have heart the way he does, doesn't mourn the years it spent under someone's thumb, doesn't want to fix itself.
They're both brutally honest and they both need brutal honesty. They get along WELL by nature of being as similar as they are, but they argue so much because they want to understand each other and don't realize they already do. They're mapping details of their reflections. It's great: Locus is so hurt that he can only see the damage he causes, Lopez is difficult to hurt and notoriously good at fixing things. Lopez wants true accountability and retribution and Locus has cultivated complicity and guilt to perfection.
After Felix, Locus needs room to command his own life and put others in place when they overstep his boundaries, but he's scared of becoming Felix, so he also needs an anchor to keep him grounded in reality and reasonable. Lopez has never had real control over his own life before and would kill to have the power to make small choices and do as he wants, but he's a very private person who also needs a lot of space to work. They balance each other out and know the other's limits so well that they can easily go "You're hurting yourself and I'm not going to let you get away with it."
It's about understanding yourself through someone else and vice versa. Realizing that you share so much that if they deserve good, you do too. Reclaiming pain, experiencing freedom, finding support. They will deconstruct each other to the metal and muscles and rebuild one another over and over again, and they'll never get it perfectly right, but they're both going to learn more and more as they go. Flawless navigation of a road you've driven a million times, forward and back, potholes and all.
29 notes
·
View notes