#are you really that blind to power dynamics (i did not say that bc......i for one am not that blind to power dynamics)

[prongsmydeer]

Ayesha Liveblogs Business Proposal S1

“Can you believe this ad? You can hardly tell what product they’re promoting.” As much as I am immediately wary of businessmen, I also do sometimes feel this emotion LOL if I have to sit through an ad I’d like to know what it’s for

I don’t yet know Fish Girl but I like her. It was the ponytail and labcoat moment. What can I say, I am easy

President Kang Tae-moo immediately putting poor Sung-hoon in the line of fire to be attacked with a cane by his grandfather

I love how comically evil Park Bribery Incorporated is. They cackle into the night over a box of money in a golf course 

I have not yet seen Min-woo but if these cutaway animations are any indication I think I will adore him:

“You think you’re the only smart one in the world.” said Tae-moo’s grandfather. “You’re just realizing that now?” replied Tae-moo, in what I’m sure isn’t foreshadowing of him immediately doing something stupid ASAP

You know, I think I like Grandpa Kang, he’s funny 

TKJHKJTHKJGHKJG. Min-woo. Who invites someone to a restaurant on their birthday when u are making a cake for SOMEONE ELSE’S BIRTHDAY. I feel like the cake mishap is kinda on you

“And even if I liked men, President Kang really isn’t my style.” 1) I love you Sung-hoon, 2) This is a very bisexual way to respond to this question why do u know ur type LMAO

Subpoint to this: I think Grandpa Kang would be chill if Tae-moo and Sung-hoon were dating. He’d be like, “Great! Marry him. This saves time for all of us.”

Poor Ha-ri, I feel u on the family that rarely puts in effort on ur birthday 

Omg is this ‘I need 800,000 won’ neighbour conflict the reason for what I assume will be a fake relationship between Ha-ri and Tae-moo?? Feels a little imbalanced, I hope it has Ouran High School Host Club energy LMAO 

Young-seo might be the sugar mama in this situation bc she’s paying Ha-ri to go on a blind date in her stead? I feel better about that LMAO

All the little cutaways and special effects in this show are very fun, there is no real reason why Young-seo needs to magically throw outfits onto Ha-ri like she’s Kirby after a power-up, but they decided to add it in anyway and I think that’s very powerful of them

For a guy so meticulous as Tae-moo, you’d think he’d google his dates

LMAO I love how convoluted this scheme has already gotten 30 minutes into the show. Why did Ha-ri not just run away after going to the bathroom. She did not need to come back to the table

Come to think of it. If she wanted to end it with a goodbye. She could’ve just faked a family emergency 

“The one on the left is Samantha and the one on the right is Rachel.” KJHJKGHGKJH THERE WERE SO MANY WAYS TO END THIS DATE ALTERNATIVE TO ‘UR MAKING MY TIDDIES SAD’

I love how many creative options Ha-ri has for getting rid of men though. This must be a pastime for her. Or she’s very quick on her feet. Either way, admirable 

Also. I don’t know if this is a cultural difference but like. What makes u think offering to have sex with a man will get rid of him. Have you met a cishet man

I assume, however, in Tae-moo’s case because he’s Mr. Smarty Trousers, he can tell she doesn’t want to be on the date and he’s gonna proposition fake dating, not knowing she’s not Young-seo

Oh my god. HE DOESN’T KNOW. And I think he secretly liked the date. THAT’S SO FUNNY

“To partners in crime?” “I’m so proud of you.” Ha-ri and Young-seo’s dynamic is perfect. No comments

I want Sung-hoon to find love. I know it’s early to suggest a throuple, but I think he should be in a throuple with Tae-moo and Ha-ri. Bye (bi).

“A regular employee will never run into the President at work,” said Young-seo, in what I assume is again immediate foreshadowing of Ha-ri running into Tae-moo at work 

HA:

LMAO at Tae-moo looking RIGHT AT a picture of Ha-ri and not noticing it’s the same woman he declared he was going to marry just bc she’s wearing glasses and has her hair up. Is he faceblind or does Ha-ri have Clark Kent Syndrome?

“With my face, body, impeccable manners and flawless personality, why would she say no?” Tae-moo said: I got self-esteem baybee <3 

“This goes for you too. Why don’t you get a girlfriend?” Awwww grandpa said I will hassle my honorary grandson Sung-hoon about his relationships too, equal opportunity meddling >:)

It didn’t take Sung-hoon long to find love I guess LOL

“We’re going to get married, so I should know all of your numbers.” JHGKHJGKH Tae-moo ur insane

Well, when Tae-moo decides he’s gonna do something, he commits

Ha-ri is also insane. WHO JUST JUMPS INTO RANDOM CARS!! THAT’S HOW U GET KIDNAPPED

“How do I look like [feathered bird-like dinosaur]?” “Just the overall vibe, especially the nose.” HAHAHAH SUNG-HOON COMING IN FOR THE KILL CASUALLY

Hahahaha this drunken scene has only reinforced my love for both Young-seo and Ha-ri

“Stop saying ‘female employees.’ They’re just employees. Don’t you know that’s sexist? And what, climb up the ladder? The only thing that’s climb is my blood pressure. So stop it, and get those invoices submitted.” I love Ha-ri’s boss Ms. Yeo

Maybe it says something about your personality that you think people would be interested in throwing shoes at your face, Tae-moo?????

WHY ARE YOU CHASING HER. THIS IS SO STUPID. However I love the immediate payoff of mentioning in the previous scene that he was a track and field star hahahahah

It’s a little incongruent with the whole façade of being this v pragmatic president to be chasing an employee wildly through the hallways. But it’s funny so I’ll give it to them

Also. Put your hair up and put on some glasses. He’ll never find you

I wasn’t expecting Tae-moo to actually catch up to her. But I like that every time he meets her in any capacity he’s like, ‘She’s bananas but honest and hardworking. <3 Delightful <3′

Bold of Tae-moo to describe Ha-ri as “the woman he almost married” when she flat-out rejected him and told him looked like a dinosaur

I love how Tae-moo invites himself into Sung-hoon’s apartment and cooks and cleans. Domestic. Maybe they are dating a little

With the added factor of the wig to the outfits and makeup, I guess it’s more of a Hannah Montana situation 

Gfjggfkjhgkjgh Young-seo really did just throw her friend to the wolves LOL

Tae-moo having a personal vendetta against Ha-ri the Fake Young-seo over being called a dinosaur. At least he’s consistent in his petty ego HAAHAHAH

Kang is calling Ha-ri in the middle of the night just because he got mad while watching a dinosaur documentary. Extremely unhinged. I love this for them

Tae-moo must love his grandfather a lot to go on ten blind dates in a row 

HAHAHAHAHAHA WE FINALLY ARRIVE AT THE FAKE DATING PLOT I UNDERSTOOD TO BE THE PREMISE OF THIS SHOW:

“You should thank Mr. Cha. He’s the reason we made up and got back together.” [Tae-moo blinking desperately at Sung-hoon for back-up.] “Yes sir. I tried very hard.” Sung-hoon proving he’s a ride or die homie

Fjfhkfhkfjhkf feels mean-spirited of Tae-moo to put tons of money on the line for someone he knows to be struggling. His motto is truly mansplain, manipulate, malewife

“Rich people are people too.” Grandpa Kang reinforcing to us all that rich people are tone deaf always 

Ohhh my god Ha-min walking in on Ha-ri and Tae-moo accidentally kissing jhgkjhgkg her brother doesn’t know what’s on the horizon

Why are they just chilling, lip to lip? PULL AWAY U DOOFS

Tae-moo fully blackmailed her into being his fake date. Like don’t get me wrong, if I look at other fake dating shows, they’ve also been a little bananas, but it’s worse here cause of the money thing. Eat the rich 

Also: If she signed that contract with her fake name it cannot possibly be legally binding LMAO

Silver lining: Tae-moo catching Ha-ri as she falls asleep and then tossing her at the car window bc he felt an emotion was very funny

“I won’t stop you from living on your own. But leave my credit card behind.” I guess Young-seo is going to have to get another job because only one couple in this show can pay each other to be in a relationship

“What kind of show makes the characters get together after just one kiss?” Enjoying the recurring background plot of their lives being followed exactly by what’s happening on TV

Excited and dreading seeing the Min-woo storyline and Ha-ri’s double life as Geum-hui the Fake Girlfriend collide 

Unclear if Young-seo gets to keep her job at her dad’s company?? But was absolutely certain this would be Sung-hoon’s apartment building so called that one LOL

Awwww poor Ha-ri finding out Min-woo is still in love with his ex. It’s sad girl hours 

Tae-moo pretending he didn’t hear her sobbing on the phone ahhhhh

Also. Girl. How did u get ur phone out of the gutter lmao

“Not her. Her.” Hahahaha Grandpa Kang realizing that Tae-moo likes flashy girls

“On top of that, you know that Tae-moo hates the rain? It was raining that day, and he still came.” I’m going to take Tae-moo’s stricken expression as evidence his parents were killed in the rain and so he has been planning to become Bitchy Batman ever since 

Fhfjkhfkfhkjfh Ha-ri truly drops her bag and belongings everywhere. Realistic. Subscribed. 

I feel solidarity with Sung-hoon and Young-seo over their mutual hatred of bugs

“You put Mr. Kang in a difficult position by sending somebody else on the blind date to fill in for you. So I just don’t think it would be right for me to get to know you personally.” Wow. Sung-hoon IS ride or die

This is the chillest concert I have ever seen. Seems more like a recital than a concert. This is smaller than my high school auditorium 

Min-woo said, unhelpfully: Just in case my comments get selected, I wanted to inform both the band and the audience that Ha-ri is single. <3 Please help this lonely woman <3 

“I don’t regret [falling for Min-woo], though. I was really happy for those seven years.” This is one of the most romantic things this show has said and it’s not even about the main couple LOL

There is something to this whole forced proximity thing like these two coming to understand each other’s sensitive spots a bit more... that’s very sweet

Tae-moo heard what I said about Min-woo and immediately took it as a challenge to be more romantic:

Why does Min-woo look so aghast? Is it bc Ha-ri no longer looks at him with love in her eyes kjghkghgkh

Between the ringtone and Min-woo and the eye bruise, Tae-moo is really having a lot of puzzle pieces thrown together in quick succession. Will his supposed high intellect piece together the truth about Ha-ri Montana? Tune in next episode

“We met when we were 20, so we’ve known each other for 7 years now.” “And you’ve been just friends this whole time?” That’s an inappropriate question to ask, Tae-moo kgjhkjghgjkg

Me: Maybe he’s connected the dots

The show: He didn’t connect shit

Gjlgkghgkjh the fact that Tae-moo and Sung-hoon have been besties literally since they were kids makes the fact they address each other so formally so funny. Imagine if in Boy Meets World, Cory called Shawn, “Mr. Hunter,” that’s the equivalent scenario

Weel weel weel, the ‘accidentally got us roped into a date’ shoe is on the other foot now, isn’t it Tae-moo and Sung-hoon Who Put Fake Anniversaries in their Calendars

Dfhkjghkghkgh Tae-moo counting the rings after Ha-ri missed his call bc he’s cool and chill and not catching feelings

Lmao @ Ha-ri making the absolute worst possible impression on Grandpa Kang while Tae-moo continues to look at every iteration of Ha-ri (both as herself and as Geum-hui) and go: <3 <3 <3 <3

Omgggggggggg they’re giving each other anniversary presents in the form of bruise ointment and fried chicken. I love this <3 

I’m not saying much bc I’m too enthralled in the anniversary date but I am convinced this Young-seo furniture designer neighbour is a stalker 

There was immediate payoff to this comment bc he is now delivering furniture to her unsolicited. Also gjkhkgjh at Sung-hoon becoming suspicious about this guy’s glasses bc he can tell time. He could just have a low prescription or wear them for fashion. Not everyone who wears glasses with relatively good vision is a liar and weirdo. (But this guy definitely is).

We cut back to Tae-moo falling wholeass in love:

Of the two, I don’t know that I was expecting Tae-moo to be the one who wears his heart on his sleeve but every single second of this date he is showing he cares and Ha-ri is internally going [Gabrielle Aplin voice] Please don’t say you love me 

It took him four full episodes and numerous occasions to look at her but Tae-moo has finally connected the dots about Ha-ri Montana by seeing her ID and seeing her chilling outside her house picking up his call

Tae-moo, stupid as hell: I cannot believe she fooled me twice

“She’s going to keep lying to me?” YOU BLACKMAILED HER INTO FAKE DATING U AND YOU’RE HER BOSS OF COURSE SHE’D LIE TO U, WHAT’S WRONG WITH U TAE-MOO

“I’m going to take my time to make her realize just how big of a mistake she’s made.” HEY! TAE-MOO! YOU LITERALLY MADE HER DATE YOU. UR JUST MAD CAUSE UR IN LOVE WITH HER. STOP BEING SO WEIRD AND MEAN

What Tae-moo did not account for in this stupid Ravioli Repetition Revenge is that if he looks directly at her he falls to pieces because he is in love with her. A problem of his own making 

Even if Min-woo and Ha-ri WERE dating it would be none of ur business bc ur her boss and fake boyfriend, Tae-moo. Get a grip, my love 

If he hates lying so much why is he forcing her to lie more by constantly putting her in positions that put her job at risk? EAT THE RICH!!!!!!!!!!!!!

If Sung-hoon isn’t saying it, I will. YOU ARE IN THE WRONG!!!!

I fucking knew furniture guy was a stalker. Gross. Hate it. Unnecessary

Also kind of bad vibes that he would give her an award for her work and use it to trap her. Eat the rich x3

“Why are they doing this? They never invited our family members before this.” It’s because your fake boyfriend is coocoo bananas 

You know. If I saw my family dressed in a wig and heavy makeup trying to hide from eyeline. I’d let it go. None of my business 

Hard to tell how much of that was a dream sequence lmao

“Why am I worried about that woman?” [Grandpa, through narration] “Look at him. It’s because he likes her.” I hope Grandpa Kang mockingly narrates Tae-moo for the rest of the show

Tae-moo 🤝 Young-seo 

Expressing their romantic feelings by being as annoying as possible

“I’m Shin Ha-ri. Shin Ha-ri is Shin Geum-hui.” It took Ha-ri one (1) drunken admission and mumbled apology for her to stop every cog in Tae-moo’s unhinged little brain all at once:

“There’s no way I have feelings for Shin Ha-ri,” said Tae-moo, after searching all night for her to make sure she got home safe, releasing her from his ridiculous contract to make her life easier, and literally fleeing the country so he did not have to keep looking at her

The English switches always take me off-guard but what’s most funny about this New York scene is that Tae-moo quite obviously has more of an American accent to his English than either of the white people (who are presumably Korean by nationality) do 

“Are you sorry for being so petty and messing with me because it hurt your pride when I’m not even interested in you?” I love a good romantic hallucination that calls you out for your mistakes LMAO

Well. Furniture stalker finally had his reveal. Yikes. I hope she is able to press charges

Sung-hoon took this opportunity to say: Tae-moo is not the only Business Boy who did track and field! WATCH ME RUNNNNN and catch this creep 

Time for Tae-moo to prove that this ride or die relationship with Sung-hoon is reciprocal!! Go get your boy

“You’ve managed to make this far without getting caught. But unfortunately, you ran into me.” Tae-moo has been waiting his whole life for this Feminist Batman moment 

“Well, who wouldn’t be upset in a situation like this?” said Tae-moo. “Yeah!” replied Sung-hoon, which, while true, is also definitely a product of the fact this secret perv footage thing happened to two women they have feelings for

“Didn’t you hear me? I’ve developed feelings for Ms. Shin.” Surprisingly self-aware for Tae-moo, what a quick turnaround 

I really appreciate how the show emphasized how stupid Tae-moo is for wanting to confess his feelings and ask her out without at all considering that she is and has been his employee this entire time 

I can’t wait to see Tae-moo start to try to be a normal person. Also I guess they’re finally going to start addressing all the loose threads around Min-woo

Min-woo, if you are in love with Ha-ri, as your sad faces when she mentions dating imply, WHY ARE YOU NOT DATING HER

Tae-moo asking to meet Ha-ri outside of work bc he likes her is a blatant misuse of authority but I’ll allow it because I think it’s going to be cute

But honestly, and I hate to say it: Same energy as that guy at my uni who said he was going to hold a debate club meeting but only invited one of the club members so he could trick her into a date. Cishet men do be like this

As much as I really dislike the plotline, I appreciate that they are addressing the actual trauma that Young-seo would experience after being the victim of sex crime 

LOL @ Ha-ri’s coworkers immediately showing up at this theatre. Love that we’ve progressed from fake dating to secret dating

Tae-moo missing the whole event is Karmic Justice both for the False Pretenses Date and for being so snippy with Ha-ri about leading a double life earlier. THE CRAWLING OUT OF A SPACE TO GO UNNOTICED BY COLLEAGUES IS ON THE OTHER FOOT

Sung-hoon proving chivalry is not dead by ramming against the broken bathroom door so Young-seo could pee

“What excuse should I use to call her next?” HOW ABOUT U TALK TO HER LIKE A PERSON TAE-MOO U WEIRDO

“Come to your senses. You’re here for work!” said Ha-ri, proving she was the only one in this relationship who had any concept of work-life separation lmao

“She would be very touched if you told her that you called me here.” “It would be tasteless if I bragged about it.” Awwww if Tae-moo just uses all of these “work meetings” to do very sweet things for Ha-ri in secret just to make her happy then I will forgive him for 63% of his craziness 

Turns out even Sung-hoon has limits to his chivalry:

Tae-moo ending the simultaneous double date by having a rain-induced panic attack and abandoning his lover on the road

Let it never be said that Tae-moo doesn’t double down on his shenanigan's. Immediately after finding her again he decided to volunteer as her fake boyfriend even though he is her real boss and their last conversation was him demanding she get out of the car in the rain, at an isolated bus stop, at night. Perhaps peak unhinged for Tae-moo

It’s definitely peak unhinged. Tae-moo must never have been in a relationship in his life he is acting like he is OBSESSED with Ha-ri it’s a bit much

Also. Announcing he is the President with NO regard for the position that puts her in as someone who 1) has received an award in his name and 2) is an employee that people may look down on for supposedly sleeping her way upwards. #JustRichManThings

You know. I’m pretty sure they didn’t actually have sex but. This broken heart is on Sung-hoon for not thinking about how someone who has recently been victimized would respond to waking up in a strange apartment with hazy memories

Min-woo really wants to have his Yu-ra and emotional affair with Ha-ri too like I know why Tae-moo is being So Much (it’s a character flaw) but your girlfriend is literally right there!!! Chill out or break-up

We’re finally getting Sung-hoon’s perspective about how all of this has been going down:

How many sad businessmen does it take to change a lightbulb

Also is the implication that Young-seo and Sung-hoon DID have sex while she was drunk because if so. Eughhhhhh don’t like that

Falling in love has really tanked Tae-moo’s ability to take a meeting lmao every single one he cancels or spends the whole time thinking about Ha-ri

“If you reject me, I’ll ask you out again and again. Until you finally like me back. So you need to brace yourself.” This is not a flex it is a red flag something that should be documented in case u need to file a restraining order 🚩🚩🚩🚩🚩🚩🚩🚩🚩🚩🚩🚩🚩

Ha-ri said: Red is my favourite colour, how romantic 🌹

I’m sure the decision to makeout at a work event with a filming crew around will not immediately blow up in their faces:

Tae-moo to Sung-hoon after being kissed one (1) time: I now believe in love so take some vacation time bestie <3

“Are my lips some kind of column for you to crash into?” Tae-moo said: IT’S DTR TIME HA-RI

Hahahaha the more fun kind of blackmail where Tae-moo only makes Ha-ri go to activities he knows she’ll enjoy

I cannot BELIEVE that Tae-moo is playing River Flows in You lmao. What in the Twilight soundtrack

“There may be some things I don’t do, but there’s nothing I can’t do.” 1) Love this mentality for Young-seo 2) I anticipate her food being terrible lmao

Tae-moo said: The way to a woman’s heart is telling her she has to have fun with you forever in penance for her kissing crimes

What both Sung-hoon and Tae-moo are demonstrating with the hiking and bumper cars is that their love language is quality time/including their lover in their interests

I’m sure as pay-off for Young-seo trashtalking Tae-moo, he will be the one to get them out of this dangerous mountain excursion

LMAO finally Tae-moo’s exploitative contract has come back to bite him in the ass also Min-woo why the FUCK are you rifling through Ha-ri’s drawers get some help dude

“If you don’t have the money, pay it back with a kiss.” Min-woo must be reading this as some version of escorting vs. what it actually is, which is Ha-ri and Tae-moo’s fucked up little version of foreplay

Ha-ri playing dodgeball with a broken wrist to win a date with a man already in love with her while Tae-moo is being forced into yet another date. Both sides of this relationship aren’t doing well atm

Hoo boy on Sung-hoon going on a “date” with Young-seo’s cousin

“I’ll pay you back for that kiss with a kiss.” They decided to be emotionally forthright and then made out on a bridge. Good for them

They’re hitting their relationship’s honeymoon phase, I think:

Young-seo’s Yikes Cousin Yu-jeong announcing she’s dating someone as if Sung-Hoon hadn’t full ass told her had a girlfriend and wasn’t interested in dating her. I knew this subplot would happen but it’s still annoying to watch 

God. Young-seo inadvertently encouraging her cousin to go after her boyfriend. What a mess

“And I also think it’s about time we got married.” Yu-ra and Min-woo BOTH seem to know he’s in love with Ha-ri at this point I don’t know why they don’t just break up

Also Min-woo has had SEVEN YEARS to act on his feelings. Was he concerned about losing a friend? It’ll certainly be hard to maintain his friendships if he two-times them, emotionally or physically

LMAO @ SUNG-HOON AND TAE-MOO BOTH COWERING BEHIND EACH OTHER IN THIS SCENE BUT FOR DIFFERENT REASONS:

[Text message sent to group chat] “You’re being harsh, babe. Do you think I copied it? You made me look bad in front of Ms. Kim.” Ongoing subplot that I have yet to mention: Mr. Gye and Ms. Yeo, the two older/supervisory members of Ha-ri’s team, have been background dating for like a few eps also in a semi-secret way and now that’s finally coming up as well

No one in this company cares about office power dynamics LOL

Kay I had to stop watching for a few days because this scene of Grandpa Kang YET AGAIN finding Ha-ri locked in the bathroom was too much for me but we back

“But why is a woman in the men’s bathroom?” “She must be in here by mistake. If you do this, she’ll be too embarrassed to come out. You should go to another bathroom.” This is the most rational thing Tae-moo has said over the course of this whole show and he says it with unbridled panic bc he KNOWS his girlfriend is in that stall lmao

There was absolutely no reason for Grandpa Kang to insist she be the one to come out. If I were here I would stonewall him. Bathroom filibuster. I’m never fucking leaving

I love how Tae-moo has only half a brain cell and chooses to think with his heart. What possible rationale does he have for crashing the Food Research Team Dinner LOL

“I love bomb shots.” HAHAHAH Tae-moo looks so happy and relaxed. He’s like ‘See, baby, I fit in!’ hahahaha

In other updates, Sung-hoon tried to introduce Young-seo to his nun mother and, predictably, Cousin Yu-jeong brought the whole event to a crashing halt 

“Do you know what’s most infuriating? It’s how you ignored me and blindly did as Kang Tae-moo said. Are you that family’s servant?” There are a couple of flaws with this, despite the fact that Sung-hoon is clearly in the wrong for lying. 1) Tae-moo is like family to him, so of course he wants to help him out and 2) He does work for them, so yeah, there are blurred lines and 3) He’s known Tae-moo for like.... his whole life. You’ve known each other for what, a few months? Romantic love or no, of course he protects the more established bond. All of this can be summarized by “bros over hoes,” but I digress

“I want to be loved by the person you love the most too.” Ha-ri is SO GOOD at romance. I am also a little in love with her, Tae-moo

GJfigjjfdhkjghkgh loving Ms. Kim catching Ha-ri and Tae-moo covert holding hands LOL

I also appreciate Tae-moo’s hair arc. The lovey-dovey messy bangs are doing a lot for me

[Forced laughter] “I should get going too.” “Yes, it’s late, so you should.” “Yes, goodbye!” [Continued forced laughter on exit] For two people who have been deceiving Grandpa Kang for nine episodes, Tae-moo and Ha-ri act like they’ve never told a lie in their lives

“I’ll introduce her to you soon.” I really look forward to Tae-moo and Ha-ri trying to explain even HALF of what the fuck they’ve been up to together 

The friendships in this show really are delightful:

Awwww Sung-hoon and Tae-moo orphanage backstory is getting me. Young-seo bonding with nun mum. Their little brothers and sister there. Call me sentimental but I love a cliché

Side note: It’s really drawing my attention that Sung-hoon isn’t wearing his glasses. Wasn’t that his entire reason for suspecting the Furniture Stalker that he could see without glasses? What, you’re the only man in this city who can wear contacts? 

“One day, we’ll be able to tell each other about these things. Once we get closer with time.” YOUNG-SEO COMING IN WITH THE ROMANCEEEEEE. The women of this show have wooed me

Tae-moo’s “Thank you for accepting my feelings,” and “When you feel ready, let’s tell him,” are also up there in what has been a very swoon-worthy episode so far

Insane that while Ha-min has embezzled chicken funds and disappeared now the two couples are just having a double date running the restaurant LMAO

Tae-moo and Young-seo are finally bridging the divide between them LOL that’s growth 

[Ha-ri, laughing] “Of course I don’t want to watch [Tae-moo changing his clothes]. Go to Ha-min’s room--” [Tae-moo, sincerely] “No, I’ll show you.” TAE-MOO PLS

HAHAHAHA I culturally relate to being a grownass woman who outright refuses to explain her dating life to her relatives. Western TV could never LMAO

Tae-moo is SO happy to be in Ha-ri’s room. He’s living his dream

“He’s very kind and gentle,” said Sung-hoon to Ha-ri’s parents, as if Tae-moo had not tricked their daughter into signing a contract to fake date him with untenable financial penalties and then subsequently tried to punish her for being dishonest with him mere episodes ago

It makes me laugh that Ha-ri is still calling her boyfriend “President Kang” even as he is hiding in her cupboards 

The physical comedy of Sung-hoon, Young-seo and Ha-ri trying to sneak Tae-moo out is killing me

The Boyfriend Boss is out of the bag for brother. Bet you can’t say that five times fast

“Go buy yourself some clothes, brother-in-law.” HAHAHA Tae-moo has one act of service in his love language repertoire and it’s giving people money

Also his smile at being called brother-in-law was VERY CUTE

Lmao @ Tae-moo’s instinct when Sung-hoon is drunk crying about his girlfriend being to film it for future blackmail. He really did say mansplain, manipulate, malewife

Young-seo’s dad can mind his own damn business. Firstly, Sung-hoon is a key role in the company and presumably is quite rich himself by merit of that. Secondly, she doesn’t live with you!! You leave her be, Scrooge McFuck 

“Can you please get out of Min-woo’s life?” We circle back to Min-woo whenever people are feeling too happy

They really wanted Yu-ra to have no redeeming qualities. That she dated him initially out of spite, cheated on him, and then is blaming Ha-ri for the fact Min-woo doesn’t feel the same about her? You should maybe get some therapy Yu-ra

“Now that I’ve seen how you act, I can understand why Yu-ra’s acting that way.” I MEAN. I FEEL LIKE THEY’RE BOTH BAD PARTNERS, HA-RI

WAHHHHHHHHHH Tae-moo being able to focus on Ha-ri instead of his rain-induced panic attack :’)))))))))))) They’re working through it together ahhhhhhhhh

The callback to the rainy day story she made-up when they were fake dating. STOPPPPPPPPPPP

The way she makes sure to distract him from the rain by going into the flower shop to delay going outside or sitting beside him and rambling about work when the rain gets heavy. I love Ha-ri. I can’t handle it, it’s too sweet 

The way that they brought back the campy little animations to crumble the bouquet in Ha-ri’s hands. I knew this was coming. Damn u Second to Last Episodes of Asian Dramas 

“Stop seeing Tae-moo. I don’t think you want to be in a situation that other people may misinterpret.” Honestly. Even if you interpreted it correctly, I don’t think it would leave you with the best impression

Tae-moo said: If I cannot be with Ha-ri, I will waste away inside the Go Food building like Businessman Midas with only his Golden Kimchi Ravioli for company

I wasn’t expecting Tae-moo’s Batman origin story to affect me as much as it did, but Tae-moo and Ha-ri crying together while acknowledging that the accident was not Tae-moo’s fault really got me

Yu-ra REALLY needs some therapy. What the fuck. Ha-ri has been decent ALL THE WAY THROUGH and she just decides to make up shit for the whole internet to see about this fake love triangle!!! HA-RI HAS CLEARLY SHOWN THAT MIN-WOO HAS MISSED HIS CHANCE

Well. At least Tae-moo will be confronted with the inevitable implosion that follows all of his unhinged dating-his-employee antics. It’s really a lesson to be learned 

“I won’t tell him, for Sung-hoon’s sake.” Cousin Yu-jeong does not believe in bros over hoes (or sisters over misters)

“Let’s not talk badly about something we know nothing about. Also, Ms. Shin is way prettier than you.” Mr. Gye said Team 1 is Ha-ri Support Squad no matter how rough our work situation is <3 

Young-seo spent her month’s salary on preventing Ha-ri’s parents from hearing about the rumours. Great friends all around <3 

Meanwhile, Tae-moo and Sung-hoon have circled back to people thinking THEY’RE in a relationship. I think Tae-moo should be allowed to be mean if he does it by flirting with Sung-hoon. It tickles me:

I cannot BELIEVE that 1) Tae-moo continues to be short-sighted about how this affects Ha-ri’s career and 2) He was gonna propose by payphone. Not even half a braincell on this day, my love

“But once people find out you’re dating, do you think she’ll be able to come to work? The employees will gossip about it. You might be fine, but she’s just an employee.” UNBELIEVABLE. GRANDPA KANG HAS TO SPELL IT OUT FOR HIM!! TAE-MOO!! STEP OUTSIDE OF YOUR OWN EXPERIENCES

The other shoe finally dropped on Tae-moo being in the loop about their supposed scandal. But I love that he’s doubled down on defending Ha-ri and didn’t believe for a second the rumour that she had two-timed him 

“There he comes! The handsome young owner!” “You must’ve been mistaken. That’s my daughter’s coworker.” HAHAHAHAH I fullass forgot that Tae-moo already met Ha-ri’s parents under the fake name of Mr. Gye. Oh my god 

“If love is a crime, then yes, I’m a criminal. But resign? I can’t resign, sir!!” HAHAHA GRANDPA KANG DESERVES HAVING TO JUGGLE THESE BATSHIT TWENTYSOMETHINGS 

“I’ll explain everything later! Mother and Father.” HAHAHAHAHA I KNEW HA-RI’S PARENTS WERE GONNA BE LIKE ‘WHAT THE HELL AREN’T YOU 40?!’ BUT IT’S STILL FUNNY

Point of clarification if for some reason you’ve gotten this far in the liveblog and haven’t seen the show: Tae-moo’s not 40. He merely cosplays as 40something-year-old in his spare time

“I know how stubborn and arrogant I’ve been. But I don’t want to be on bad terms with my only daughter anymore.” Well damn, an unexpected turnaround from Young-seo’s dad

Everyone on this show is coocoo bananas. Ha-ri and Tae-moo at least have the reasoning of wanting to protect each other from rumours/scandal and having been fake dating prior to their real dating. You two have only been together a month. What’s your excuse for getting married!!!!!

I say this. And Tae-moo proposed to Ha-ri after one (1) date without even knowing her real name. So. We arrive again at coocoo bananas

Ha-ri coming down the N Seoul Tower while Tae-moo goes up so they meet halfway is poetic cinema 

Thank you for ending this episode much more kindly than it started:

Well, Young-seo’s dad’s turnaround lasted all of 10 minutes, I guess

HAHAHAHA @ Ha-ri and Tae-moo immediately getting caught on their walk of shame 

“Ha-ri is the first woman I’ve met who is a joy to be around and always makes me laugh.” Tae-moo <3

Loving everyone finally being able to hang out honestly ahhhh <3 

Also Tae-moo constantly telling people he fell in love at first sight while we as the audience know that Ha-ri spent that time trying to get rid of him and anthropomorphizing her tiddies which go by the name of Samantha and Rachel. LOL

“You were with Ms. Shin or whatever, right?” Power move for Grandpa Kang to call Ha-ri this as if you had not met her at length a number of times lmao

“Ha-ri, when I get back from my trip, do you think we could go back to being close friends like before?” Min-woo said when the going gets tough, the tough sell their restaurant and go to Europe

“Do you think you can you do anything without the privilege that my name has given you?” “Actually, I think I can. I’ll prove it to you. That I’ll be just fine, without using your name.” <3 <3 <3 Young-seo, love of my life 

Ghkjghkghkgh Ha-ri being defensive about just having regular work conversations with Tae-moo while Tae-moo is like ‘where have we landed on cuddling in the stairwell?’

It’s clear that Tae-moo’s penchant for theatre is an inherited trait considering Grandpa Kang’s hospital antics 

Young-seo immediately sharing her emotions about cutting ties with her dad and Sung-hoon offering to invest in Young-seo’s start-up!! The communication has improved leaps and bounds 

“Wait, isn’t she supposed to be taking care of me? Where is she?” Hahahaha Ha-ri has won over Grandpa Kang in one (1) hospital visit. They are now doing a sing-a-long to music shows 

I like that they’ve found an opportunity to drop her K-Pop history into this show LOL

“You’ve always been like a mountain to us. So please be healthy and stay that way, Grandfather.” “Being sick is kind of nice. I never thought I would hear you call me that.” SUNG-HOON <33333333333333

I thought this episode was going suspiciously well so it’s fitting that we’ve arrived at the Long Distance Parting at the Playground

I am generally not for time-skips if used to change character motives but I am ABSOLUTELY for time-skips if they are to show everyone getting advancement in their career goals and romantic endeavours and generally softening over time. I can’t wait to see all the married couples and reunion

“What if they get a divorce?” AHA, MS. YEO IS NOW MRS. GYE

Love that Sung-hoon’s ultimate form is househusband. Good for him

The campy little animations make their final triumphant return via taxi sign:

Title reference (affectionate): Young-seo = Business, Tae-moo = Proposal 

[worms-i-think]

Artem’s Personal Story, Chapter 4.

I decided to be a geek and write down all my thoughts in a notebook before compiling them here :) HEAVY spoiler warning as I will just say everything that happens as it plays out. I should also mention that this chapter deserves a strong content warning for in-depth discussions of suicide and predatory behavior toward minors.

04-01.

Kimberly!! She’s got a voice and Artie’s got a voice (again)! So glad Suwabe Junichi’s back—he is comfort food to my ears.

Talking about blind dates ‘again’ before even saying hello implies she’s insistent about this lmao—Kimberly strikes me as the type to demand grandkids.

& Artem also sighs upon seeing her caller ID but smiles ‘wryly’ aww lol

(Insert the TVTropes page for ‘Shipper on Deck’.) This short convo implies that they talk frequently—they didn’t even say hellos or goodbyes.

Kiki calling the intern ‘puppy boy’—PLEASE tell me she nicknames everybody like this ♡♡!!

Ah yes. Average business partners who call each other at night and cook each other food and share cozy car rides to work. Artem might as well kiss her on the forehead before heading into his office and insist that’s professional too.

^ because he wants to KissHerOnTheMouth bc they are InLove

Man, poor puppy boy intern. First his boss gets all icy jealous and now his roommate is dead? Tough day at the office

04-02.

What’s with Artem’s secret desk drawer full of letters? Does he keep thank-you notes from previous clients?

This is the second case of ‘smiles wryly’ he’s had. This is a common symptom of being in proximity to loved ones.

Due to his closeness to the elderly of Stellis, Artem now embodies the spirit of every insistent yet caring grandmother upon hearing a rumbling stomach.

Of course he likes the atmosphere of family restaurants. He’s half reassuring dad and half abandoned child. The man was made for family.

I’m sorry the wording of ‘falling from height incident’ was so bad 💀

04-04.

Dear Lord, I get distracted by the superficial aspects of this game so often that I always forget about its content. Again, warnings stand and will only get worse from here on out.

Every mention of Professor Hume brings me pain. Urgently awaiting more info 💔

They changed her name from Yuline to Lynnette after like 1 sentence or something?? MHY please hire me to revise your scripts…please.

^ Oh my god the guilt gets worse. Oh my god this story hurts me.

04-05.

Calls someone Mr. Lambert and the text box says Director Yang…

04-06.

Stats in the hospital LMAO WHATTT that was so sudden!! This hill is a safety hazard, lawyers get on that ASAP 🤣

(Artem is going to absolutely baby her in the incoming month) of course he’s acting like a worried mom LOL

‘Ah man, your arm got a boo boo…a lil ouchy ouch…welp, better live with me ♡!’ He says ‘let me take care of you’ as if it’s normal hehheee

04-07.

^ (sob)

His voice is so…hopeful and excited…

^ this situation is beauty incarnate

Rosa, ma’am, you can’t just enter rooms in someone’s house in your pjs. This could’ve ended up much more awkward than it was.

^ AHHHH THE SLEEPY VOICE IM DECEASED ba-dum-ba-dum-ba-dum (typical coworker things ♡)

How much of him really believes that all of his loved ones will eventually leave? Is this coming from the realist in him or the neglected child he was?

04-09.

husbandandwifehusbandandwifehusbandandwife

Dude NOOOO HIS MOMMM Why did they skip over Kimberly and Rosa’s first convo? I’d love to see Kimberly be like ‘who is this woman in my son’s home this morning 🤨’

HAND over the baby photos

‘thought marriage was arranged by the country’ —Artem, did your parents show no affection to each other when you grew up?? :((

(Artem frantically stuffing love letters into their grave) iconic

04-10.

Holy crap she’s a predator.

And comparing colleagues to a literal teacher/student dynamic involving a teenager? Like, yes I agree that Artem and Rosa have a bit of a power dynamic going on considering he was her supervisor previously and is a more well known figure, but that’s much different than this situation considering:

1) they would both be consenting adults in their twenties IF they WERE in a relationship, and

2) he’s her coworker, not an educator in charge of a child.

No way don’t tell me this dude is a predator too?? Just burn down the school, there are too many creeps in the building 😵

The way Rosa says ‘let’s go home’ and home is his house,, my heart

04-11.

^ oh my god.

04-13.

Could someone cut this tension with a knife?? It’s getting too much for me

Artem looked that girl in the face and told her she has daddy issues 💀

And at the end of this chapter…scene 🎬. Anniversary confessions could just happen here—this is basically a confession already.

04-14.

^ this is crazy I’m ~uncomfy~

(Any notes I’m taking now are getting shorter and shorter bc I’m too invested in the story)

04-15.

This chapter can’t even be described in bullet points, so just read it for yourself and you’ll understand why I’m fangirling like an 11 yr old. They are both fully aware of each others’ feelings and acknowledge them without saying it plainly, which I feel is very fitting for them as characters. They’re savoring the feeling of liking someone and waiting for the perfect moment to let it out. Artem even told her “I’ll wait for you” in reference to a confession, which… If there was any reason I started his playlist with J’s Lullaby, it was this. The two of them may be slow-burning to the point of frustration, but hey, at least they realize there’s a flame here after such a long time.

I must mention though: Rosa stealing the book and Artem saying it belongs to a ‘friend’…perfection.

-

Anyway, this has been my obligatory brain vomit! Goodbye :o)

[tiredassmage]

heehoohee, my time iS COME, @eorzeashan​ tagged me for FFXIV ocs but in SWTOR (no apology needed, I do love me some tags, lol) and... conveniently, I have a head start, of sorts, on this because I have already transplanted several of my XIV ocs into SWTOR, lol.

Also the amount of times I’ve threatened to government assign my friends WoLs a SWTOR class bc I’m nothing if glutton about this silly space dress up simulator, I mean rpg is... Well, it’s worked on one of them as far as actually bringing them over, hehehe.

Long post with pictures incoming because I LOVE showing off my pixel idiots.

Astor is my XIV main, on Sage since Endwalker dropped and I fell in loovvveeee, and previously a White Mage and then Astrologian from ARR-SHB and SHB-EW, respectively. Also I made him look way more fierce than average in this screen akdfnalkdsfs (I’ve been major slacking on XIV), don’t let that determined slanted eyebrow fool you, he’s a fucking softie who lets his unicorn eat his flowerbeds with no more repercussions than the 500th disappointed father sigh she’s heard in the last week.

And I take him everywhere. Astor isn’t exclusively a XIV character, but rather an OC that’s stuck with me out of high school for something like... six years, I think? Going on seven? Astor’s always been a mage and, particularly, a healer of notable prowess; he adapted rather readily to being a Jedi Consular. I’d love to say badumtsss, he’s a Jedi Sage, but I did try it originally and just couldn’t jive with it, so “Astserses” (his SWTOR counterpart) is a Shadow/Sentinel. Because I’m a little a lot into the saberstaff that can be swapped for dual wielding sabers aesthetic and also trying to beat the Gemini Captain and that hell room of droids on Iokath was a BITCH when I was a baby Shadow who probably didn’t understand half of what would have helped me along.

Also because I’m a big scaredy cat for some reason about doing group content on SWTOR when I have done on-level extremes for XIV with no problem I don’t know, okay? I’m here for the silly space opera adventures, not to overly invest in learning job mechanics again, I think.

Next be Shay! Who’s a DRK/DRG/RPR in XIV and my original Sith Inquisitor in XIV! Shay’s entire arc as a character revolves around coming from a family that never really gave him the time of day; he spends a lot of his time avoiding relationships with others because of a series of heartbreaks and betrayals that mold him into a snappy, lone-wolf kind of bastard. The one thing he prided himself on was combat prowess. Even accompanying Airi (@fatewalker-phoenix fame) in their adventures as the Warriors of Light, Shay never really applies the title to himself; he’s the help. The get your hands bloody muscle, so she didn’t have to. I’ve toyed also with the idea of doing a Sith Warrior run for him bc the whole light/dark destiny dynamic is also incredibly his alley, but the raw power and rags to riches run of Inquisitor better suits his story. IIRC I just mirrored his Marauder into Sentinel.

He’s kind of overdramatic about being an angry bastard nobody should trust, tbh, so like... the drama of Inquisitor. I might yet have to revisit the Warrior thoughts though. He’d be interesting to pair with Vette.

Theo is my Rogue/Machinist I really need to get the hell out of HW afterstory already, but HW is SO LONG for me, anYWAY. The most recent of my transitions, Theo StarWar edition is a Smuggler currently on Mercenary because I really wanted 2 guns, but didn’t care for gunslinger and I seriously Cannot keep playing Operatives/Scoundrels, I just. I so would. I absolutely would. But stars, I need to do this variety thing.

Theo is the kind of character that lives rent-free in my walls. He’s chaotic. He’s “back at it again at the Krispy Kreme” energy. Smuggler is literally perfect. Deceptively, Theo was also rather smart. He spent several years studying various magical techniques after an injury blinded him in his left eye. One of his favorite ways to be a Nuisance is to switch fluently and without batting an eye between Lominsan Rogue’s Guild-speak to discussing aetheric relations in nearly perfect scholarly lingo. He’s just as likely to talk circles around his enemies as knife them.

Kres as his SWTOR counterpart is maybe a bit more blunt and slightly more impatient about the whole ordeal, but he would, in fact, still claim he could charm the horns off a Krayt Dragon. And I’d about believe him.

Which just leaves my bunboy Bas of my semi-main XIV characters that I haven’t actually taken over to SWTOR, but I also haven’t done a lot with XIV Bas to begin with. He’s primarily a SAM/RPR, but I think I picked up BRD on him, too bc I prefer ranged DPS in XIV. (Ironically I tend to prefer melee in SWTOR, it seems.) His story, in brief, is a former Dalmascan who was conscripted into the Imperial forces and eventually staged a bloody escape and prison break of several other prisoners he’d been held with before he made his way to Eorzea with somewhat disgraced and lost Garlean soldier Peregrine (again @fatewalker-phoenix​ fame) in-tow whom he’d eventually form an unexpected and odd, hard to describe friendship, almost mentor-ish relationship with.

Both of them suffer from identity crises, tbh. My strongest arguments would probably be Guardian Jedi Knight or an Operative Bounty Hunter. (I need a full on blade wielding tech class, SWTOR. Gimme.) Probably stronger favoring for Jedi Knight because of the whole crisis of place and purpose and destiny thing, but Bas did fashion himself as something of a Bounty Hunter between the prison break and falling in as an adventurer in Eorzea, so. It’d fit maybe aesthetics-wise, but less certain about the story part.

[ecosine]

sylvas and kairii 69 teehee

thank u! i put under cut bc its long eheh

69. how would they describe their party members?

sylvas

aeon: sylvas was intimidated by aeon at first but found out how nice he was very quickly :) he considers them a friend although they don’t know eachother too too well yet, and intends to get to know him better (although realistically, under the pretense of research)

echo: scary not because he thinks she’s going to hurt or betray him or anything, but because she’s hard for him to read. he hasn’t met anyone who just says exactly what they’re thinking the way she does before, and he can never tell if it’s genuine or not. 

áine: he just met her recently but already very much enjoys how laid-back they’ve been around him. another person who he was intimidated by at first but wants to get to know better! also making friends with her so fast was essential for his confidence after a series of intense social nerfs

ymira: right off the bat sylvas probably felt most welcomed by ymira! she’s kind of helping him understand that you don’t have to fake being nice all the time around friends lol. also thinks her flower game is so so epic and that she has a lot of swag.

thyme: sylvas also thinks thyme has a lot of swag. he holds a lot of importance in physical comforts like a comfy bed and a warm meal, so thymes cooking has made him feel very happy and welcomed. tho he thinks she is a little eccentric he feels a weird urge to get his approval

uo: babies first friend! uo makes him feel very safe and protected.i think there is a lot more to their dynamic than sylvas realizes; uo is so enigmatic as is its right and sylvas feels the need to understand everything about its motivations just to satisfy his own curiosity- which is academic in nature and therefore carries its own set of repercussions lol.

kairii

aelwyd: a friend that she wants to see survive. genuinely respects that aelwyd acts in self interest and is a little, just a little scared of her, only because they know she’s got a really powerful boss and know better than to mess around when it comes to that. trusts her to tell them the truth when it really matters. does not intend to get any more on her bad side than he already is.

aria: aria rubbed her the wrong way at first but i think became really loyal to her really quickly. she was a friend. no matter how suspicious she acted at the end of the day she helped the party and did her best to make them comfortable. he feels like he failed her hugely.

blank: kai also has a lot of respect for blank because they really empathize with them and know they’re capable of taking care of their self even if they don’t know who they are. genuinely terrified of the implication of having to come to blows with them because they know in their heart they can’t hurt him. blank knows some of the parts of kairii that she thinks are gross, and they still respect her, which he can’t really process.

chini: kai owes everything she knows about herself to chini. she’s more than a friend but they both know relationships don’t start this way. the thought of coming here and exposing them to this kind of mercenary work irked them enough and now he has, again, failed her hugely. she’s still chini, but they’re a different chini and it’s scary. :(

ira: ira is kind and genuine and makes kairii feel safe. to him she’s kind of like a little sunbeam and the fact that she has come so close to ceasing to exist over this is enough 2 make kairii start raging. she also looks up to her for sure, because she hasn’t really had a good role model in a long time 

stras: stras is complicated to kairii. she’s coming to terms with the fact that they possess the same blind devotion and it’s almost unsettling. it wasnt until recently he realized that if they had met under different circumstances they probably would have been fast friends. they respect stras enough to be honest with him and are mad relieved that at least someone else has similar priorities.

[bitch-butter]

Directors cut thing on my story 😘

oh my god...🖤 you mean this story??

~ so much rambling down below ~

o b v i the inception for it was All You talking about myriad activities involving fingers, as one does, but my first instinct is always to take it to a place of webgott because they effectively live inside of me like my head is an apple and they're a worm slowly eating me alive. but the idea was also Very much suited to The AU, and I hadn't written any baberoe since down comes the night, so I took the plunge so to speak.

the thing about writing them in down comes the night is it was still sort of challenging, even though they're barely in it, because I find people either travel blind when it comes to baberoe or they show up with Many expectations, and I'm not really very good at writing to what people necessarily expect because I'm an insufferable contrarian at heart. so what I love the most about The AU is getting to come to a ship that (though I don't Know them as well as I know webgott) I think I'm pretty familiar with, but get to see them as somewhat removed from the expectations I was holding myself to writing them in another fic. that isn't to say it was Easy bc it was not, partially because it was a prompt from a friend, but also because their dynamic was incredibly new so I literally did some stretches (i.e. notes/exercises) and limbered up enough to try and get my hands on them, which was helped along by...

Sometimes when they’re together it’s like his head takes his heart by both shoulders and shakes his entire spirit back and forth yelling: you’re going too fast, you’re going too fucking fast. It can be a helpful brace, that little bit of bone-rattling doubt. Not of Babe. Never. Fucking again, he’s going too fast. He can’t help it that he’s never felt this for anyone else before, this weightless, incandescent, homecoming feeling he gets when he catches sight of Babe’s hair, a flick of his wrist like blades in the light, his smile, his smile, and all that lives inside of it. Maybe they’re going fast emotionally, but that should be allowed, shouldn’t it? If two guys move faster than the speed of light emotionally with each other but nobody is around to hear it does it make a sound? That second drink might have been a mistake.

the fact that Gene had a really accessible energy to me. dropping into him in a sense I got a lot of tension, but not any sort of rigidity, which created a really interesting tightrope of emotion that he moved across. because I hadn't worked with them really I could have chosen either of them, but I was drawn to the idea that both Babe and Gene are already fully immersed in not just the idea of each other but in realizing the sort of capital r Relationship they want with each other, and yet I got the sense that Gene was more push and pull about it solely because up until this point he hadn't had that kind of attraction to someone before. I see him in many combinations of humans but none really containing much substance, so to then be in a position where he's having Real feelings of connection, partnership, affection etc. it is understandably a little foreign to him. so there's that constant Yes No Yes No with him, because he's head over ass but he's flexing a completely new muscle for himself that he kind of needed Babe to bring out to begin with.

(a mentioned but unexplored tension at play is also the tension of Ari energy and Taylor energy, as they are both intensely powerful but they each trade and pass between each other in their themes, especially at the time the fic takes place, and I think that element adds to a specific rhythm.)

which obviously isn't to say there's any less happening internally with Babe, because he's having a battle of his own on the inside, but the sort of slow reveal of how they work and the story of the night I thought had a little more vicarious pleasure when taken in on the side of a guy who really would have just been happy to have a cocktail and spoon that night.

“Just surprised. Surprised at both of us.” Babe looked back to him with a gentle furrow in his brow. “Why surprised?” “I don’t think anyone has ever said that to me before,” Gene admitted, searching down through his own life, sex dotted all through it like stars in the sky, fucking legion, and tries to think of anything that can match what he and Babe have had in their beginning. “Never had to.” Mouth bunching at one corner, Babe took the words in with a slow nod. “I don’t think anyone has ever let me say it before, so.” It makes him pull Babe in close, leaning down so he can wrap his arms over his shoulders and kiss into the red shine of his hair in the dim kitchen light. “At least we’re in this together, huh?”

at least in my mind Babe entered into the night Knowing what he wanted to ask for, so everything on his side is leading up to the conversation they ultimately have. and on the surface obviously it's Just a conversation about phalanges but Because they've been taking things incredibly slow it's a statement for him to turn around and say he's going to take it there. which is a favorite trope of mine, I admit, when a truth gets brazenly spoken after being denied/rejected for so long, so obvi I had to shoehorn it here a little bit. because, again, Babe hasn't had a Relationship of this manner before, and has had a past where he was pretty disrespected and not really seen as being a Whole Person (as opposed to a Hole Person lol). so now being in a position with Gene where he's being recognized as a human with singular wants and needs and he's actually experiencing being Heard, it allows him the mobility to control the speed of their intimacy in a way. though it is mutual, I think Gene gives a lot of the power over to Babe at least in this way because not only are they still learning each other but he sees something in Babe's strength and his openness that is sort of humbling to him. so it made the most sense to me that not only should it be Gene's pov but Babe should be the one to ask.

you know I loved writing it, I love talking about it, and now I love writing baberoe (particularly spooky baberoe 🌙🖤)

(also, a Lot of this was written in my journal by the pool because I will admit you caught me at a vulnerable moment on vaca so I just spent days at the beach writing and it was truly heaven, I wrote most of this, I wrote the end of Rivers, I wrote like three prompts, I think I'm supposed to just live on vacation. so this fic is married in my mind to being incredibly relaxed, and feeling dreamy and warm and free of stress lol)

thx babe ~

[namimikan]

damn, immortals really do have a problem where they really can’t their SO falling in love with anyone but them, and some ways it makes sense? i still feel like fengjiu of eternal love of dream accidentally! is maybe the best way to handle immortal/mortal heartbreak and commit to the bit. even when it broke her own heart.

bc literally all jiuchen had to do was stay away! let ling xi endure the trial by herself. but he says it himself. he was motivated by jealousy to visit her in the mortal realm. he couldn’t bear to be ‘forgotten’, never mind that for 18 years, that’s exactly what happened. so what he really means, then, is that he couldn’t stand to watch her fall in love with someone else.

-- which is interesting why jiuchen did stay away from jing xiu when he was blind and lin mo was deaf. but the second lin mo regains her hearing, jiuchen is there. he didn’t risk anything. no chance in case lin mo did eventually fall for jing xiu.

but i guess. on a plot related note, if you wanted jiuchen to stay away... what was jiuchen supposed to do in the meantime? i’m sure the writers could have come up with something, but he can’t advance the plot that much, ig.

like on reflection i do dislike AOL xu feng for being like i’m going to isolate jin mi so her chances of meeting with men is near zero and then essentially reincarnate as a mortal along side with her, and then use them falling in love in the mortal realm as justification to sleep together when the ordeal is over.

so. xianxia issues. maybe. it’s better to be mortal/mortal with either backstory of immortal/immortal or main story, bc i know there’s power dynamics at play with immortal/mortal, but i still want to see a version where it works out okay!!!!

so in some ways, truly incredible that TMOPB was like. ye hua isn’t going to appear for the first 14 episodes! we’re going to make you think that it’s mo yuan as the ML. but on the other hand. dang, sometimes i do wish it was mo yuan/bai qian endgame, but would it have been much better? idk.

[jostenneil]

riza hawkeye or jessie chambers for the ask game?

so thank you for sending this bc i realized i haven't read a lot about jesse outside of wally's flash run and i started reading her appearances chronologically last night, she's so adorable! i'll do riza tho since i'm more familiar with her lol

from this ask meme

i feel like if people focus on marrying riza and roy off then they kinda miss the point of their characters. both of them not just going into the military but also eventually coming out of the war know that there is no forgiveness and happiness for them bc they don't deserve it. neither of them is looking for an idealized ending for themselves. their focus is solely on doing whatever it takes to atone for the atrocities they were forced to commit and, if need be, paying for those atrocities permanently with their life. there's a lot about fma's sociopolitical views that's flawed, obv, but i do think people need to understand why arakawa never made getting roy and riza into a marriage a goal. it was never supposed to be one in light of their sins

i think a part of understanding the dynamic between roy and riza is that roy's idealism gives way to riza's. like i have kinda gone over this in another post but if you really think about it riza is in a sense deluded by roy's vision. she's so desperate to atone for the horrors of what she did in ishval that she latches onto his vision and commits herself to supporting it and in the process she kinda becomes blind to the things that roy is doing in the name of that vision and how he is steadily becoming exactly what her father warned about: a man with unrestrained power and vice. so while riza certainly pledges to shoot roy if he ever strays from his path, i think you also have to account for the fact that for a long time, she's blind to the fact that he's straying from it. that scene in the tunnels is a culmination of that development rather than just a one-off

i know i keep talking about roy and riza but i feel like her character development is so tied to what she's doing with him that it's hard not to lol. but another unpopular opinion i suppose, and one that i have talked about before. while i do think riza steadily blinded herself to what roy was becoming over the course of the series, i also believe that what happened in the caves was a serious wakeup call and that arakawa only didn't have riza actually kill roy bc she needed to use him as one of the final sacrifices. but realistically i think riza would have killed roy. ig that's not necessarily a straight laced answer to this meme bc it's about how to write characters properly and this is more of a plot point thing but ig what i mean to say is i don't think riza would actually have been that soft or hesitant, and i think it's impt to establish that she does have lines in mind that shouldn't be crossed, and those are more impt than however much she believes in roy

all this being said, i do think roy is more of a stubborn idealist than riza is. and despite what we were shown of post-canon in the end, i feel like what happened with the promised day and roy and just. everything in the series would have seriously shaken her and i think she would have quit the military and sought out a more meaningful way of atonement, realistically. like roy is kinda single minded in that he thinks he can change the system but riza is only looking for a way to place her self disgust and grief and i think once she ventured outside of that scope that she would realize there are a lot more ways of atoning that reside outside of perpetuating the military rule system

[meduseld]

When did Nick realize that he loves his daughter outside of being a forever tie to Ziggy? was there a moment or did it happen gradually?

I think it was both, and it's not the moment anybody else thought it was. Everyone thought it was the moment that he held Ripley, when she was a week or so old, at the house with the blinds drawn and Ziggy exhausted just watching them. But while that was kind of a huge moment, he still saw her in awe as a tie to Ziggy. As something they made together. Not like, an individual human. And then as he kept coming back, he didn't notice it was happening for him, because in his experience parents only care for kids in what they mean for the parents (that is to say, his dad saw him as The Heir To The Legacy and Will as a Spare and their mom didn't see much of anything at all, locked in a dream world bc Joseph was uh, how do you say, severely emotionally and psychologically abusive).

But when Nick comes over and sees Ziggy with the baby and wow, that's a whole person! With a personality! That's wild. But when it actually happens, when it hits him like "o fuck this is my bb girl and i love her" it was when Ripley was around 2 years old, so walking mostly under her own power. He came home and Ripley got up with that sort of parade/marching style kids have that that age (like huge knee pumps and swaying bc they are figuring that shit out still) to go right at him bc Nick! She loves Nick! In the totally pure and uncomplicated way a toddler does bc she has no more context and Nick scoops her up totally shaken like: holy shit tho. He can't remember ever feeling that for his dad, and really doubts Joseph had much to do with them until they were like 5 and speaking and walking and all that bc Sheriff Joseph Goode was hardly going to be around a baby much less care for it, that's women's work, babies are gross and loud and don't talk much less show him due respect and call him sir.

And that moment shakes Nick, his daughter openly being like "ilu" and not fearing him at all despite what he is, bc wow, he just feels like wrapping her up and not letting her go and letting her stay like this just stoked about the world that is so shiny and new to her. Which does lay a lot of groundwork for later tension as she grows. But yes, given that, and how Nick spent the day with Ripley as Connor was being born bc Ziggy and Nana were kinda occupied with that, he did love Connor from the start, and it was easier to be sweeter with her. Which also sets a lot of their dynamic later on.

[t00thpasteface]

What is your favourite npc from each tes game you've played? Just curious

HMMM. hmmmmmm. hm.

alright so to get the very obvious answers out of the way i'll be disqualifying major plot-important npc's, like almalexia, lucien, etc. bc i feel like those are boring answers.

morrowind: i really liked mehra milo!! she was super interesting and really raised the stakes, and made the main plot feel less like bootleg tolkien magic prophecy nonsense and more like 1984 With Elves, which i LOVED. in wacky fantasy settings i love characters that don't really have any extraordinary powers of their own or grand designs on the future, but still help the protag to the best of their limited ability because it's the right thing to do. that's exciting!!

oblivion: oh my god, glarthir. fucking HILARIOUS. i only played oblivion a few years back so obviously i never got to experience that old-time feel of no wikis/walkthroughs for it specifically, but i did glarthir's quest totally blind with no spoilers and had a blast. he's an excellent microcosm of the very particular weirdness that makes oblivion so special and charming.

skyrim: ARGIS!! my first husband and true love out of all the possible spouses. skyrim was my first tes game, and when i played it in 2012 i was just barely 15 and still blissfully stuck in the closet... i had also just watched 2011 avengers at a friend's house, and totally latched onto mcu thor as The Ideal Man against which all others would be (impossibly) judged. y'know, #justcomphetthings. ANYWAY, argis was like a manifestation of that... i just picked the housecarl that looked like thor. over the past decade i've remade that first oc, minnie the moocher, like three or four times and married her to argis each time. i don't care if it's not gay OR that argis isn't a popular husbando!! i'm just really really invested in the dynamic between minnie and argis and i only want the best for both of them 🥺

eso: it's a tie between quen and walks-softly. what can i say, i loved the thieves guild dlc!! everyone in that guild was fantastic but these two are just the best. quen is sooo precious and sweet and MUST be protected at all times, and as for walks-softly, you know i'm always a sucker for dandies of delicate constitutions. both of them seem wildly incompatible with what you'd expect from a thieves guild, and yet they totally worked, both as individual characters and as cohesive parts of the broader narrative. AND their backstory quests were A+++ so fun to play and seriously tugged at my heartstrings!!

[wetalkedaboutthisshinji]

More Jojolion Long ass texts

TOTAL SPOLERS TO THE LAST CHAPTER

I just have lots of thoughts about recent Jojolion revelations.

It took me a while but I think I´m finally at peace with the fact that the Calamity Arc was 90% sure the climactic Jojolion arc and that Tooru is Part 8´s entrance to the Jojo Big Bad Gallery TM, a supervillain group truly on the level of the Disney Villains. I´m only half joking lol.

It hurts bc I was (and still am) a strong believer on Big Bad Kaato. I LOVED the idea of a female Big Bad, especially one that gray and I was very curious about seeing her stand in a Stand Battle.I love evil ladies and that blinded me  I don´t even think Araki chickened out or anything, but that Big Bad Kaato clearly was never the idea for the story he had. Still, Kaato´s scenes, while too short, were damm cool, and Space Truckin´is a damm cool stand, but I still wish we had seen it more. I wonder if it could be used offensively? It at least can trap people from a distance, which is very useful. Im so angry bc its power was sooooo good for some JJBA weird moves, but alas.

One thing I love about Jojolion is that it completely goes against the normal tropes of a shonen/seinen battle manga in that most of the characters are just....people. It really is a Twin Peaks TM plot with more fighting. With the exception of the Rock Humans and Jousuke most of the characters are, like, some guy from town, at worst kinda shady and mean. We have housewives, a model, a divorcee, local businessowners, some doctors and an oddly viscious agriculture university student. Of couse Part 4, which Jojolion mirrors, had some of that, but IMO you really get more of a sense of normalcy on Jojolion, maybe bc Araki changed his way of writing a lot, maybe because Jojolion is more of an ensemble story, maybe because it´s less episodic. So you take these randos and give them superpowers and involve them in fights against supernatural beings and I think that´s part of the reason why the fights are so quick and to the point. Characters like Mitsuba or Kaato are really just normal people that happen to have stands so it makes sense for them not to do the whole strategic Stand Battle. And it bought us some awesome moments. Looking back maybe there were a bit too many “this character looked helpless but NO” but damm if it didn´t hype me up when reading it.

So, yeah, Kaato had her role, did her thing, and got Kei’d. And she was never evil, but rather, like Jobin, more morally gray and she died a martyr. And I wish both had more to do, but the part is long and Araki clearly wanted it to be a 3-way conflict with a clearer villain.....

evil twink Tooru.

Ngl I was at first really against Tooru and wanted him to be just a big antagonist and not THE big bad. After I calmed down and reread some past chapters I feel much more appreciative. I like how he really has a different dynamic, being a "mistery villain" but in a different way to Pucci or Diavolo. He really looks harmless and Araki clearly worked HARD with the misdirections. Theres a reason there were some fools (like me) still arguing against him being tbe antagonist. I checked his intro again back on the Doctor Wu fight and I really like how totally whatever the scene is the first time around. He absolutely could have been a minor character. Rereading it the whole thing is SO ominous AND everything Tooru says has a double meaning. I also like that his oddness can be chalked up to being a romantic rival to Jousuke, which threw off lots of folk (likeAs for WOU I'm also starting to like the fight more and more. The power over causality def is on the same level as power over time or space and I like how the characters are forced to think of loopholes and try out different ways to hurt him, playing with his "kill list" and such. I also like that WOU has limitations and that the Dr. and Tooru have to work with them to be deadlier, which makes them both so much smarter. I KINDA dislike how at the end he turned out to be so stupidly poweful that only Go Beyond can hurt him, which is not the worst Deus Ex Machina (Jousuke had to "figure" out his own stand --thats kinda symbolic for someone with duch a complex identity) but its a bit cheap for a 20+ fight.

Of course the real insanity is how unique of a stand WOU is. I dont think we had ever seen a stand this autonomous and smart? In my opinion thats what makes the fight so unique and Tooru so powerful. Its only balanced stat-wise in that neither Tooru or his stand buddy looks particularly powerful offensive or defensive wise in a conventional fight. Not that they needed it. Cant help but wonder how the hell could they add Tooru as a fighter if theres another JJBA fighting game. Maybe a double fighter?

Finally you gotta love the Magritte (hope im spelling it right) references with the doctor. Araki clearly was having fun and it added some "classic art" thing to the part. Kaato's attack and all of calamity also looked great, if we ever see Jojolion animated Im sure it will be a feast for the eyes.

Ofc maybe all this bs means nothing if Araki does pull a 180° next chapter. But thats the Jojo experience.

If anyone´s interested in this, how do you feel Tooru and WOU stack up against the other Jojo Big Bads?

[indigosprite]

Chrome Callout post.

relax this is just my love hate relationship with chromes writing and potential. spoiler, it ends with all the love... hate is only in the middle. 

My absolute favorite thing in fanfics is Chromes characterization. Like we all know Chrome is completely aware that Mukuro and co need a reoccurring dose of Valium and a therapist willing to do illegal things in order to lower their sadistic points to ”kind of disturbing but tolerable”. Or at least we hope she does even though she proves to us again and again that she’s not phased by it in the slightest and might actually be just as bad. TYL and she’s still running around helping them do god knows what. She follows them on this massacre pridefully, she “believes in” them ( its sweet actually. They’re what she thinks of when Mukuro asks what she believes in and makes a young kokuyo gang.)

In fanfics when people write her to be a double edge sword it’s hilarious, and it should’ve been the character depicted in the Anime and manga instead. But I guess if she hadn’t been the quiet, breathy & compliant 14 year old people wouldn’t have morphed her into the fanon I enjoy now. Here’s some stuff i love and HC abt Chrome  and the things I absolutely hated.  

1. When she actually speaks not just when spoken to. She voices her concerns although she has no intent of not doing what’s asked of her. Who knew she could speak and still be the obedient gang member Mukuro trusts her to be. And when she does this it’s funny. She is the conscience he buries underneath disgust and amusement for chaos, but that’s not her entire character. She’s not reduced to the mom friend either because of this, she’s too passive on the matter. She indulges/Enables it just the same as Chikusa or Ken, although she knows better meanwhile the thought never occurs to them. To summarize :

she’s Brian

2. She’s unhinged and the best part is nobody knows even though it’s blatantly obvious. She may not have the same bloodlust or violent disposition as her peers but there are other ways to showcase this. To Allow Mukuro the leader of this little fearsome Five-some to possess you whenever he feels like and witness whatever horrors he decides to inflict upon someone that day means she’s accepting of literally everything he does. She never resists or expresses distaste/fear for him or anything he does. We assume she would in some capacity because she was depicted as this wide eyed innocent girl trying her best to repay the man that got her to join a gang under the guise of a found family. She quite literally signed up for guts n glory. She knew this and never had second thoughts. Mind you she doesn’t share the same hatred for the mafia as the boys, theirs is blind hatred regardless of who you are. Hers is through them, they are her looking glass rightfully so, so if they say it then their word is law. I’m not sure about you but I would definitely be mindful of the girl who was raised semi normal and willingly turned into a killer for Mukuro of all people. They’re killing adults not shaking them up, they aren’t Tsuna and his friends they finish the job when necessary. The body count is unimaginable. She is just as loyal as Ken and Chikusa and would probably strike you where you stand for speaking ill of him. (She wouldn’t but would definitely be opposed to whatever you’re saying, unless it’s name calling. He takes no offense to that and welcomes it in fact.)

3. The fact that she’s a person apart from Mukuro (physically speaking.) and the Vongola team at all is a blessing in few fics. Although she was made to stand in for Mukuro, when he is released it’s not necessary hence him pushing her to be apart from him and his duties. He did this in the future as well when he possessed Guidio Greco no longer using chrome which lets us know she was successful in becoming a useful comrade and not just a vessel and vongola stand in. She had to otherwise he would’ve left her alone whether she was keeping his Vongola ring warm or not. She is just as aloof as Hibari, always off with her own people only engaging when it’s asked of her. I adore when people keep that in mind and don’t lump her with following behind the vongola as if she were one of them. She shows up for them when asked but her main focus is ultimately committing felonies with Ken and Chikusa per Mukuro’s orders. let her be with the kokuyo gang and let her contribute in the way she’s meant to as a fighter. figure her out give her something cool 

 ik that’s hard considering what we got in the manga. warning things i hate ahead 

what we got in the Anime and Manga: 

so we know Chromes entire purpose was to be Rokudo Mukuro’s stand in, while holding the Vongola ring he soon takes back she is just the girl that is able to get him to come fight their battles when necessary. The Anime and Manga rarely let Chrome fend for herself. We all knew he was coming the second it got serious. By giving chrome that ring she ended up being the one thing to keep him loyal to his contract with being their guardian. If she’s in danger he comes and saves her, the Vongola put her in danger because he will show up and do his job it’s like a rat trap. She is not meant to be a Vongola guardian but more like a Mukuro whistle. They never openly admit it but in the show they will expect/ask her to do things that her track record doesn’t imply she can do and just silently expect Mukuro to show up like always. SKSJDWDN they’ll be like “oh yeah call the girl who passed out and all her organs disappeared I believe in her to do this job even though i’ve never seen her make it to the end of a fight ever not worried at all” sksksjjd They never actually expect chrome to do a job they expect her to go there and manage to get Mukuro to come out and play and we should acknowledge it was just an unspoken thing.  Now I know that despite what I just implied about her not being that great a fighter but just good enough there are two comments made in all 400 chapters that are supposed to negate this.  

Mammon says her illusions are powerful just not enough to fool him , and reborn says she could turn the tide if she were to fight against Mukuro but with confidence, these mean nothing to me because amano throws in so many useless comments like this and then fails to develop it further to make it believable.  and she made powerful characters make note of this so it would be non negotiable and we would just take it at face value because its them but hello ?? ofc we want to see it just like we had to see Tsuna grow before we even considered taking him seriously. hell Dino got a quicker rise to his title than chrome bc its that easy to say oh he can come into his own when needed they just never meant to do it for chrome. 

it’s so irritating when they try to say she’s powerful or could be but give no actual footing for anyone to take those comments seriously when they make her pass out for thirty chapters after doing the bare minimum.

let chrome win on her own not just start strong then step out of the way then have some character say “no really she could be powerful we aren’t going to show you though” .  

when she helped them sneak in the base on her own and even makes those illusions of them fighting we should have gotten more of that!!! 

literally every character is fighting the funeral wreaths and chrome is running in the woods out of breath...even Lambo got to fight. 

you made her sit out of the rep battle to focus on making organs like that wasn’t something she already accomplished in the future and suddenly can’t do anymore ?.....

Chrome finally makes one fighting decision and its to make a mist forcefield that’s dangerous but hell yeah we think she will finally pull through with something powerful and prove herself and then they have mukuro come in a panel later saying “your flames are far too weak to do that I will make it better and help you not die” BYE  that was a perfect time to have her come in to her own seeing as she was powerful and confident enough to initiate it in the first place. 

breaking the barrier daemon spade makes * chefs kiss * give me more 

 when they’re not blindly robbing chrome of character development  she’s just getting kidnapped, passing out  or helping them with small things like making a fake Yamamoto for a party or sneaking in the base with illusions to disguise them. Hello she’s training under mukuro right ??? why did we ever get to see her get stronger each fight and have them say ‘she’s learning quick” instead. 

enough abt what we got, back to what I’ve managed to make out of the scraps we were given..

4. Mukuro is the only one who reassures that she actually is a fighter and she eventually grows to be a good one bc of this and you should write about that dynamic and why it exists more. this one is long.

 the whole dynamic I was referring to exploring is the one where Mukuro and chrome are meant to be equals. He meets this girl whose been neglected and left for dead, another kid messed up by adults neglectful selfish behavior. she willingly follows the boy who is plagued by the same demons and made a small group dedicated to getting revenge for it.  Mukuro & Chrome know they’re two sides of the same coin. he is anger and she is acceptance. He probably finds it amusing she isn’t as angry as them wants to draw it out of her  where as chrome wants to pull out the peace that comes with moving on once you’re in a better place. the girl is so happy to not be near her mom and grateful for this little family while the boys are quite literally holding a grudge against the world.  and like none of them even see it the way she does but she wants them to.  Mukuro and chrome didn’t go through the same things but it doesn’t matter to either of them because its the same story, nobody loved or valued them enough to protect them. In the end chrome will learn to be angry abt things that happen and use that to find a will to fight for something and Mukuro will learn to be at peace because they’re not in that lab anymore and those people are gone from their life. as fighters they’re so important to each others balance Mukuro’s rage cannot be left to be so blind and hers unattended and i know it’s supposed to be Tsuna that cleans his soul but i think chrome definitely plays a more active role in that.  I think he sees a better him in her, he makes her his second gives her his name because she’s the good he knows he can never fully be. she posses a peace he’s not hopeful enough to believe he can achieve or want and ultimately it will make her far more capable of the change he wants. in believing this it means he also believes she will be just as powerful as him with the right training. he’s literally training his demise and her name is Chrome. he wont take over a (mafia) world he wants her to save.  we all know he’s like annoyingly stupid when it comes to showing his emotions, he rather pretend he’s sending you to die when he’s quite literally ushering you to what he thinks is safe and sacrificing himself. so I can totally see him being like  “okay Tsuna might really change the mafia and I want to see that but I've already dug my own grave here's a better newer me that will be way easier to accept than me turning over a new leaf 40 dead families later.” 

5. in the future Hibari is much more happy to help and be around because he knows what a powerful fighter Tsuna turns out to be, i think this is the exact same reason why he goes and helps chrome save herself. Kyoya knows and possibly even respects future chrome enough to save her when she’s at her weakest which he usually detests. Chrome grows to be much more in the future and that’s exactly why he even gives this sick chrome a push. everyone likes to think it’s a Mukuro thing for him but what if it actually is a chrome thing. in the show he’s never been present to witness her show any kind of power so we can only assume that at some point he saw her in action. 

  6. it’s implied in the future that Mukuro fights alongside her, he views her as more than just a vessel and doesn’t baby her in the slightest when he pushes her to become her own being. I won’t call it respect per say but he doesn’t look at her as a doll even though that’s the part she played for him. He still trains her the way he eventually does Fran. We all know he just wants Mini Mukuros to aid him in his endeavors but the fact that he chooses her says a lot about how she’s meant to be viewed. He also chooses a nine year old brat with an apple hat but hey he must see something everyone else doesn’t until he’s done with them seeing as Fran was kidnapped by the freaking Varia once Mukuro’s teachings were for the most part implemented. “Oh you learned under Mukuro ? We can’t have Mukuro you need to join us immediately” (I’ve just realized Mukuro gave the vongola their strongest mist guardians all while claiming to hate them. Funny man). imagine how powerful Chrome gets, even better when Mukuro is actually there in the flesh to teach her where as Fran got some illusionary version of him. WRITE ABOUT IT. 

7. for the love of god give that girl her own fighting style. yamamoto has his sword gokudera is literally baby genius ryohei is a boxer and hibari has like the most random weapon ever. go crazy. i love it when chrome isn’t pulling a trident from her bag. because she’s not mukuro anymore. she’s a reticent mist guardian, compliment that.  Mukuros trident has his own history with him. give her some history of her own.    

in my fic Chrome uses a scythe and tears through reality with it. 

reason:  because she is a grim reaper in her own right. she rose from the dead and is showing up to collect the souls of the wicked. a silent but fearsome person. 

her style ? :  personally I like to believe chrome dabbles in profiling, hear me out. Her parents were neglectful and in turn she really has little experience with relationships in general, i think her curiosity would lead her to constantly study peoples relationships and behaviors and see how they affect her target. aka she fights by showing up getting in your head and haunting you with your own past because even if they see through it damn what a nasty wound or insecurity to bring up in the form of a hell loop illusion. this also ties into her being Mukuro 2.0 he’s known to just be eerily in the know of everything going on even when he’s not there. this would be a great way of her matching that aspect of him and possibly surpassing it.  

[theunconcernedembalmer]

what’s the issue with elisop? is it just bc you hc aesop as ace? im so concerned by seeing ppl adamantly opposed to mlm/wlw ships but im also genuinely curious about why you dislike it and other lgbt ships so much lol

hmm. that is a strong accusation, n i find it just a bit odd. are you new here? or perhaps you are taking personal offense at my dislike towards a favourite ship of yours and using the lgbt argument as moral high ground?

whatever the case may be, i thank you for asking. if u r truly looking for an answer, its below the cut n it is very very long. mind u these are all my personal opinions n i am in no way policing how others enjoy ships. just in case this wasnt clear; i dont wish to start discourse on this blog, especially since my takes are probably... unpopular.

firstly i would like to address the “disliking lgbt ships” bit, because this has very strong implications in itself. i have nothing against lgbt ships. i enjoy them, even. if the two characters have chemistry between each other, i ship it. however, the moment characterization is broken for the sake of romance, i lose interest. this is generally my stance on ships in general, n this applies for both straight n lgbt ships. 

the ships themselves are fine. however, i do have issues with the ship dynamics, so ill let u in on that.

i want to touch on mlm ships in particular; i believe u are familiar with the top/bottom dynamic that is rampant in these kinds of ships? (i wont deny that this dynamic can be found in other types of ships, but for arguments sake i will be focusing on gay ships because i feel that this occurs more commonly here) its such a popular dynamic that is prone to stripping the personality from one if not both characters, only for them to be reduced to being dominant/submissive. for a character to be pigeonholed into a stereotypical category based on... preferred sexual positions? its just downright insulting, never mind the larger more problematic implications of it. top/bottom is not indicative of someones personality, by the way. flattening multi dimensional characters into these stereotypes is so so so insulting.

unfortunately this is The Most Popular portrayal of just about any gay ship around. ive seen it being used everywhere in so many fandoms n it just about becomes apparent to me that ppl come to stories looking for a Ship. not the stories, nor the characters, just a ship. while id like to say theres nothing wrong with that, keep in mind not everyone is just looking for 2 characters that look pretty next to each other. if i ship something, i see interesting n meaningful interactions between 2 characters, which is so often not the case once u bring in the top/bottom dynamic. why is it so popular? because somehow this is what ppl like from a gay ship n hence it sells. ppl want the drama, characterizations be damned. ppl want to see the big kiss that happens in the end, n maybe the sexy parts that come after. characterizations be damned.

so u can say im a little wary of gay ships when they cross my feed. hell, as a joseph aesop shipper i see this trope everywhere n im pretty disappointed as well. small tangent but i feel like this is the reason why zh0ngli n ch1lde is so popular in g3nshin. i try to see the appeal, i really do, but after a long while of analyzing their respective characters i dont think they have as much chemistry as ppl think they do. dont even get me started on how incredibly ooc they make either of these very interesting n unique characters in ship portrayals. all because of the top/bottom dynamic that ppl want to see. i say this for that particular ship, but this is pretty much the case for a lot of ships out there, n the latter part is painfully true even when the 2 characters do have potential between each other. ill say it again im disgusted by the blatant disrespect to the characterizations if all ppl ever want is 2 pretty puppets to mush lips together. cos thats what theyre essentially reduced to this way.

n its so obvious to see when an artist subscribes to this rhetoric, because u can so clearly see it in the way they draw their characters. the “top” generally has sharper features to go with their “dominating personality”, while the “bottom” has disturbingly softer, feminine, dare i say sometimes child like features “to submit”. n thats where the uwu soft gay trope comes from, i believe. which, in case u still dont know, i hate with a burning passion.

so again for ppl with impaired reading comprehension, im fine with ships, including lgbt ones, but the moment u break characterization for the sake of the ship, im not that okay with it. u want to do it for a short crack comic? fine. but if thats the only way ur portraying the 2 characters then im immediately wary of ur content. ill still look at it cos usually the art is really good, but im very very wary. so im not “adamantly opposed”, just very critical of how the ships are being portrayed. if other ppl want to enjoy their ships like that, sure. just dont expect me to join in on something i dont agree on.

.

now id like to address not shipping “because i hc aesop as ace”. for ppl who are new to the blog (hello there), im an ace in a romantic relationship, so thats definitely not the reason i dont ship elisop. its more of being in a relationship has largely shaped my views towards romance as a whole. even before i met my boyfriend, i hated the romance genre in stories n media. most of it comes off as incredibly forced, especially those love triangles they seem to love putting into teen novels. thats one reason why i stopped reading when i was younger, but i digress.

did i partake in shipping when i was younger? i did. for a gay ship too (if anyone really wants to know, its kurotsukki from haikyuu. at least this was one that i can remember, i was mostly working on my 20 odd ocs for the longest time). i also used to write little short romance ficlets that i never posted anywhere cos i hated (n still do hate) my writing. but writing romance when u dont have experience was really just a way of projecting n probably a way of coping for myself, not that i knew at that time. but after i actually started a relationship with my boyfriend (whom i love n cherish a lot thank u very much), i began to see how much all these have skewed my views towards romance n have actually done some harm to our relationship. the bullshit that the general media feeds u constantly doesnt help in the slightest either.

quick topic shift to elisop in particular (about time, right?). i already stated that i only ship characters if i sense chemistry between the two personalities, n if u have seen the part where i dont ship elisop then u must have seen how agonized i am over not being able to have a concrete personality for eli. that is the main problem i have with elisop: eli does not feel like a solid character to me. n that is a huge problem, because if he doesnt have any defining characteristics besides being mild n nice, then he can be whoever i want him to be. (i have done this in my exorcist comics, i will admit this. n the fact that i can just do that... it really does not sit well with me personally.)

n that is dangerous.

back to young me doing lil ship things. i think its also pretty safe to say when u really do ship 2 characters, chances are u kinda really relate very very hard to at least one of them. that very quickly can turn into projecting, n shipping therefore is not “exploring the relationship between 2 characters” n it becomes “my preferred dating simulator 101″. of course this isnt always the case, but at least it was for me, n subconsciously it might be for lots of ppl too. n since this is ur mental playground, u call the shots, n there is no consequences if u slightly (or even entirely) alter one or both personalities to fit ur desired narrative. n u wouldnt even notice or know, cos ur blind to ur own biasness.

we bring our perceived notions into real life, im sure u know that. so when ur partner does not become that perfect knight in shining armour, or when they get upset at things that u do (which is a very normal thing by the way), n u think (very subconsciously), That isnt what my otp would do, something is wrong here (nothing is wrong, actually its just ur skewed perception of a stable romantic relationship). why wouldnt ur otp do this? because u are both halves of ur otps, there is no hidden secrets between them (apart from the pining part but thats irrelevant), n again they have been altered to fit ur preferred narrative. 

a real relationship requires a lot of communication between parties, because newsflash, liking someone doesnt mean that u have to like every single thing they do, they will make mistakes n it will hurt u, n guess what, the reverse is also true. if u do go with absoutely anything that they would do with 0 objections whatsoever, ur not crushing on someone, ur idolizing them, n that power imbalance is detrimental to a relationship. these things are not obvious to ppl, especially when the whole climate is hell bent on getting into romantic relationships by a certain age or some bullshit. communication is key n is pretty much the only way to solve relationship issues, because the other person has a lot that u r not seeing n vice versa. as similar as 2 ppl can be, i doubt u can have 100% the same thoughts on all things. i dont make the rules.

so in ur mental playground u focus on the fluffy parts, maybe there is communication, but rarely is there any meaningful conflict. thats unrealistic, n if u bring that mindset to an actual relationship, thats not going to end well. i say meaningful conflict, because yes, generally u shouldnt have conflicts with ur significant other. but inevitably when ur with each other for long enough, u will realize that there are habits that u must change in order to be with the other person. habits that are harmful to the other person directly, or harmful habits towards yourself that indirectly harm the other person. these are meaningful in a sense that if left alone, it will manifest into larger problems that will harm u, the other person n the relationship as a whole. its meaningful to the relationship.

all these is made even worse if ur neurodivergent. maladaptive coping practices, self sabotaging behaviours, inherent disabilities. all these must be adjusted n addressed. im so incredibly thankful for my boyfriend for being incredibly patient with me when working all these out, n it has not been easy for me to work on myself n all my problems, n im still not done working on them. this aspect is often not explored in romance in general (or properly), n there is a very good chance i would have still been stuck in the unhealthy mindset of “this isnt like my otp, maybe we’re not meant to be”. because loving someone is a choice. no one is made for each other, it is a conscious choice made between 2 ppl to make things work. this is how arranged marriages work, i am told, n i do see the appeal, not that it actually does appeal to me culturally.

special mention to the kurotsukki ship, cos from there i found a very, very good fic that explored their relationship before n after getting together, n it actually showed aspects of this problem in the incredibly slow burn of (at that time) 20+ chapters. it was just one fic (n a very good one at that, i believe it was called Leviticus), but it had a lesson i never thought i needed to learn, n learn it i did, with a lot of help from my dear. 

this is also probably the reason why i dont really want to delve too much into romance now. i know its a lot of work, n everything (mostly) that the media feeds u is really false advertising, but ppl eat that shit up n so it remains one of the most popular genres to date. im just very wary that if i do start on a romantic story, i want to be able to show it in a way like that fic did, the truths of relationships, because i dont want to make something that sells, i want to make something that meaningful to me, if a little indulgent. n that also includes being very careful in how the respective characterizations will change in a relationship. almost too careful now that i think about it, but its not something that i mind. i was never one for romance from the start, n now im very careful about shipping because of what happened to me persoanlly.

okay enough about me, lets talk about aesop. in any au u put the character in, the essence of the character must remain despite the change in environment. so lets say we have ur typical modern au. dead mom, check. shitty mentor doing illegal stuff? also check. autistic boy with social anxiety? we’re good to go. all these have implications on aesop as a character, n while ppl are aware of this, again the way they go about portraying it can go, in my personal opinion, very wrong. ppl who immediately woobify aesop completely because he has autism annoy me. ppl who reduce him to uwu soft boi cos he has social anxiety do not know how the disorder really works n as someone who has that i hate it to the core. ppl who do all these for the sake of ship have lost my respect. its insulting.

remember the top/bottom dynamic? not that elisop is completely free from that (even if i dont know much about eli, to put him in either one of those stereotypes feels very insulting to his character. i wont even say anything about doing it to aesop its so upsetting), but its not entirely made up of either. but now i want to introduce another trope i am very wary of, which is “i can fix him”. im sure u guys have seen the meme going around poking fun at this trope (for those who havent, its along the lines of “u can fix him? well i can be his worst nightmare”) n no doubt yall would have seen it n gotten sick of it in some forced hetero romantic bullshit. we have one damsel in distress with a saviour that solves all their problems just by existing n being romo with each other.

remember “my preferred dating simulator 101″? this is not mutually exclusive n from my point of view this is dangerously close to this trope. lets be real, if it was actually a thing that all ur deep rooted trauma magically disappears if someone were to waltz into ur life, we would want it. definitely. no painfully dissecting ur own problems n constantly facing them head on. real life states that this is not the case, but it will not stop us from dreaming. n so this trope is born n lives n will go on.

(finally) pulling aesop n eli into this, at least in my mind, u have one severely traumatized boy with lots of issues n u have this. nice mild guy who can be anything u want him to be. i hope u can see where im going with this, n thats the direction i see some elisop heading towards (i dont read a lot of elisop to be fair). if u came from my eli character talk, i mentioned that it is incredibly one sided. this is exactly what im talking about.

putting it all together in case u havent already, aesop is the damsel in distress, whose problems magically disappear because of elis godly kindness n little to no work on improving himself, n they lived happily n gayly ever after.

can u tell how much that does not appeal to me. 

never mind the butchering of character that inevitably happens somewhere somehow, the unrealistically perfect themes n implications of this trope makes me so viscerally uncomfortable. this is, of course, due to personal reasons, n i definitely see the appeal of this dynamic because i would probably have been interested in this once upon a time as well. but as i am now, with everything i have explained up there n everything i have been through, i would politely rather not.

n its difficult to think of another dynamic, because of how little i know about eli apart from him being this saint, which easily makes him a candidate for being aesops trauma panacea. never mind aesop rarely, if ever, does anything for eli as a character in return, n its so damaging to buy into this rhetoric, where a person like this who would solve all ur issues no strings attached exists somewhere in the world. they really dont. a relationship has to be mutually benefitting, or it will be draining n disastrous. maybe u say, Oh its nice to imagine it once in a while. n yeah, i agree, except once in a while is a little difficult to keep track of n that is sort of what happened to me. id rather stay as far away as possible from this kind of unrealistic fantasy, i just got this shit sorted out with myself n my boyfriend.

i have some other reasons, but theyre more personally problematic, so i wont go into them here. but this is mostly n generally why i do not ship elisop romantically. if u do, u do u, and have fun, but again dont expect me to join u. thank u for coming to my ted talk, this took a lot longer than expected.

[normal-thoughts-official]

you talk a lot about magnus and camille dynamic and how they started and all that great meta content that you know i love but here's a question that idk if you ever got: how long do you think they were together? bc i can't think of a specific timeline and personally i love the one you talked abt at some point how she was pretty much right after asmododo or something like that, so he went from one type of abuse into another... but how long was he there? was camille with him for 20 years? 80? 130? any theories?

ugh that's a complicated one because i don't really have an answer for that and i think about it often as well

altho i think you got confused about her being right after asmodeus, i definitely don't think she was. i mentioned it my post about the timeline to say that magnus COULDN'T have been born close to the 1800s because that would make it asmodeus and camille way too close and that can't be the case because it would imply camille is basically the only person he dated before alec doajsdoaj and we know that's not true cuz there's also other ppl like george and etc. it was more a point in favor of "early to mid 1600s" for his birth date

anyway! let's go through this. i mentioned in another post that i think he got together with camille right after george, and that i think george died around the middle of the US civil war, which lasted from 1861 to 1865. so let's say they got together around 1863. now, we have a few pieces of information:

magnus mentioned that he hadn't been with anyone for "almost a century" when talking to alec. i know i think magnus is time blind but he can't be TOO off here. that was in 2016 so that would make their breakup date be a little after 1916 if magnus remembers correctly

literally the only thing about the timeline in that time period that i can remember is that one picture there was in his file of magnus surrounded by girls at a party, which looked to be in the 20s to me. since camille was an abusive asshole probably sabotaging his every chance to meet people, that couldn't have been when they were together. so i'd say 1920 is like, the limit for when they could have broken up. it's up to you whether or not you think magnus would be jumping into his party animal role immediately after the breakup or if it would take some time for him to heal; personally i think both make sense (i think she made a huge number on him so it would make sense for him to take a while to get back to that kind of thing; on the other hand, a lot of people turn straight to being party animals after breaking up abusive relationships, especially because for so long abusers have kept them from doing anything fun. so both work imo) so it's up to you

conclusion: they broke up in 1920 at the latest, so the max you could go for is 80 years, if you go with a timeline where camille was right after george (george can't be after camille because magnus has had no relationships after camille, but there could have been a bigger gap between george and camille than i personally hc). it could still be less tho, because we literally have NO information whatsoever on what happened between 1861 and 1920. even if you go with "they broke up and magnus immediately went full party animal" (which is perfectly valid), it's also entirely possible that this happened in say, 1901 and that pic just happened to be from the 20s, years later. but i also don't think it could have been a lot earlier than 1901 because magnus said almost a century, implying less than a century between the year they broke up and 2016. and while i do think that any immortal would lose track of time after a while and mingle years and decades together, nevermind adhd time blind icon magnus bane, if they had broken up in, say, 1880, magnus would remember that over a century has passed, if anything because so much has changed since then. so i think for him to say that the breakup should have happened in the 20th century at least

so that's the analysis from what we've seen in the show. personal opinion! i think 80 years makes sense, but is a bit much. it makes sense because there does seem to be a pretty obvious gap in magnus' file from the 1860s to the 1920s and then it goes back to having many pictures of him, and that "disappearance" makes sense in the context of him being in an abusive relationship (which limits your interactions and going outs by a lot). it does seem to be a bit much because magnus is at max 400, so, if they had been together 80 years, that would have been 20% of magnus' life spent with camille. or 1/5. added with all the time with asmodeus, it seems to be... a bit much dioadsoaijd and like look i'm not judging, i know abusive relationships can last many years and decades even for mortals, nevermind immortals, but i just don't like the idea of it lasting this long personally, especially because i think it makes him getting with alec seem actually a bit soon considering how long the abusive relationship lasted, and that's ignoring asmodeus' abuse on top of it

so personally, i like it morenif its around 40-50 years. i think it makes sense. it would mean the breakup was sometime around the 1910s, and while, okay, there is a gap in his file that seems to only end in the 20s, we must not forget an important fact: shadowhunters are stupid. so i actually think it makes sense that like, magnus emerges from his abusive relationship and is still getting back on his feet, and shadowhunters just don't care. like who is that guy? oh some warlock, no one's heard of him since like the 1860s lol. whatever happened to him? who cares. anyway, we love racism

and then around a decade later it turns out that magnus is healing enough to be a pain in their ass; say, that is when he becomes HWoB, or simply that they are reminded of how powerful magnus actually is once he is back in activity, and so they go back to like, investigating him and updating his file. so the file gap could be explained in that case. it also actually makes more sense that it would take shadowhunters a while to pay attention to him again, and since magnus was healing from an abusive relationship, the time it would take for him to draw their attention might well be around a decade

and with 40-50 years of an abusive relationship that would mean magnus has spent 10-12% of his life with camille; which is a LOT of time (for comparison: my first abusive relationship lasted a little over a year and i was 16 at the time; that makes it have lasted around 6% of my life at the time, and it did a HUGE number on me, taking me almost 3 years to have a relationship again), but not quite as much as a full 20%. not just that, but him taking "almost a century" (it would actually make it be a little over a century in this timeline, but again, magnus is immortal and time blind, so give him a break) to get with anyone again makes sense. that would be around double the time he's spent with her before he heals enough to be with someone else. that tracks, because abuse fucks you up fast and unfuckening yourself up takes longer. magnus isn't even fully unfucked up (which is okay, he doesn't have to be), but for him to be ready to take such huge steps as he is taking with alec, i think around double the time he's spent with her spent on healing makes sense

(again, i'm mostly going off my own experiences here; my abusive relationship lasted almost a year and a half, my next relationship was almost three years after the breakup. so almost perfectly double the time before i was ready to have another relationship. and again, i know recovery isn't the same for everyone and a lot of factors go into this, but i just think a timeline where he's been with her for 80 years and then gets with alec less than 100 afterwards is a bit too fast)

i still think 40 years is kind of a very long time to be in an abusive relationship and like holy shit i cant even imagine, but also i mean, mortals have abusive relationships that last that long and to an immortal itd feel like less time, and it does seem to be what best fits the timeline, so

and yeah i think those are my thoughts dadsajdsa

LAST MINUTE EDIT BEFORE THIS IS PUBLISHED CUZ IM NOT REDOING THE WHOLE THING: i got an anon today saying that magnus said something about not having seen camille in 130 years (link) which i didnt/dont really remember but i trust that theyre right and im wrong because i dont remember a lot of shit from this show. 130 years before 2016 would be 1886, meaning that if they broke up at that time and got together right after george's death as i personally hc, that's a 20-year relationship. that sounds like it fits the timeline as much as any other to me, and like i said in that ask, i think it makes sense that magnus would play it down to alec by saying "almost a century" instead of how long it's really been cuz it's a bit too vulnerable, and plus, we know one of the ways he protects himself is by not letting people pinpoint exactly some important dates from his past, particularly his birthday and etc

and okay i know that 20 years together, then 130 years recovering is a huge difference, but also i think with twenty years together as opposed to my comparatively short abusive relationship the scars of abuse would deepen a lot and quicker, so maybe it makes sense that it would take a longer time to feel confident enough to get to dating again. plus, like i said, there's no real math to be had in that process, everyone is different, has their own history and recovery process and etc so it's not like there is a deadline. so actually scratch everything i said above im going with this timeline. the one thing that doesn't track with that is the gap in his file but also like i said shadowhunters are stupid, so. yeah 20 years together is probably closer to it

in the end its kind of a relief cuz i was like "holy shit 40 years is so LONG" so... yeah udndidn

[zontiky]

okay so i tried to save this ask as a draft and it got deleted because tumblr is just such a functional website like that <3 but the prompt was “the hargreeves as ghosts in the apocalypse with five” or something like that i’m going to scream

this is SUPER long so i’m putting it under the cut hfkjsd

pre-five: the hargreeves siblings are dead. wait i feel a drabble coming on ooh

The Hargreeves siblings are dead.

Ben isn’t very aware of this at first. He’s been dead since 2006 -- he’s quite used to it, by now. What he is aware of, first, is light. Blinding white light. And Vanya, in the middle of it. He doesn’t close his eyes because he can’t feel pain, but if he could he thinks she would have made him blind. There’s light, and heat, and power, and then he closes his eyes anyway because the ceiling is collapsing around him and it’s instinctual.

When he opens them again he sees ash. Ash -- and Klaus.

He’s gotten used to Klaus, too. Klaus has a memorable sort of face; even if he didn’t, Ben has seen it every single day for almost twenty years. He doesn’t know if it’s actually been twenty years, for him. He doesn’t know how time moves for ghosts. Klaus has assured him it moves the same as it does for the living. Ben isn’t sure Klaus, stoned out of his mind, bleeding sluggishly from his arm, knew what he was talking about.

Anyway.

Klaus.

He’s wearing the coat he’s been flaunting around for the past week. His shirt is see-through, with little stars on it, like a pale imitation of the sky. Ben remembers his pants had laces on them, he’s sure they did not a minute ago, before the brightness that threatened to wipe out his very soul -- his soul is all he has left, really. His gaze drifts down anyway, to check.

Yes. Klaus’ pants have laces up the sides.

“No,” Ben says. Klaus is laying in a heap on the ground, his fingers curled like his tendons have been cut.

His lips feel numb because they always feel numb. Because Ben can’t feel at all. He takes a step. “No,” he says again, louder, surer. “No!”

Klaus looks up at him. His makeup is smudged, like it tends to be. His lips are bitten raw, like they tend to be. His hair is a mess, like it tends to be, and like it will be, always, because Klaus isn’t breathing.

Klaus is lying in a heap on the ground. Klaus is standing above his own body. Klaus is reaching for Ben like he’s hoping to touch him for the first time in years. Just when Klaus’ cold, dead, fingers brush his face, a voice from behind says, so quietly, dripping with disbelief: “Ben?”

Ben shuts his eyes and wishes desperately he could cry.

He feels a hand on his shoulder, for the first time in so, so long, but he also doesn’t feel it at all. He feels-but-doesn’t-feel someone turn him around, until they are saying, “Ben? Ben!” and he has no choice but to open his eyes and face the music.

Diego is gripping his shoulders like he is a dying man and Ben is the answer. Behind him, Luther and Allison watch them, stunned silent. Allison’s hands are pressed to her mouth. She looks like she wants to cry. 

And Vanya. Little Vanya, painted white. Her head is hung as her shoulders shake with the weight of the destruction she has so inevitably caused. (Ben would say he always knew she was destined for great things -- but he can’t, because he didn’t.) (Nobody ever said great things had to be good.)

The Hargreeves siblings are dead. Their bodies are strewn across what is left of their childhood home, smouldering and burning, and Ben is very aware of that fact.

righto anyway. so they have an emotional reunion but its also kind of bitter? id have to actually write this for it to make sense so lets skip it for now lol

five shows up

he cannot see them obviously bc theyre all ghosts

god if i did write this it would be such a monster of a fic and would take me like 2 years to finish i already know fhkjdsk

somehow ?? they manage to influence the world around them maybe? idk maybe now that klaus is dead hes sober

or maybe hes high for all eternity?

for the purposes of this au lets say he died sober or in the late stages of withdrawal, and bc ghosts cant feel pain in action hes sober

so EVENTUALLY they figure out how to corporealize bc klaus is like blam wham ghost powers

asdlfk that sounds so stupid im sorry

he would say that tho imho,,, it sounds like something hed say,,,

if i DID write this it would be alternating povs also,,,

ok so out of all of them klaus and ben have the most experience homeless

and while being stuck in an apocalypse is not at all the same thing as being homeless it does help to have some knowledge

five doesnt eat the twinkie!! good for him

dammit okay. theres 2 options we can take here. in the comics five couldnt get back bc he fucked up his math and spent 15 years doing the wrong thing, but if u apply that here, with 6 other ppl checking his work this could be avoided and they end up skipping the whole assassin shtick and just hopping straight back to 2019, ready to prevent the apocalypse

OR five still gets hired for the commission but the sibs are tagging along

i think bc five isnt completely alone in this au unfortunately dolores doesnt exist :((

for each other the 2 paths tho theres also options?? bc they (ghosts) can go back in time and inhabit their past selves bodies? OR they could just,,, cease to exist

IM JUST NOW REALIZING HOW MANY PATHS THIS COULD TAKE,, AAH FUCK

okay gonna split this into parts. this is gonna be so long brace yourselves.

1) they go back in time because math checking and the ghosts swap out for their past selves

after multiple years of being stuck in an apocalypse together i think they would learn to get along with each other. like at least a little bit

which would make it easier for them to prevent the apocalypse

bc theyd:

trust each other more

already know abt the apocalypse and not have to wait for five to grace them all with his knowledge

are working as a team from the very beginning

have open lines of communication

yeah uh. so there

vanya is also already aware of her powers so the whole harold goading her into turning against her family and snapping to wipe out all life on earth thing? yeah that doesnt happen

oh and harold wouldn’t know how to do that in the first place because klaus wouldn’t throw out reggie’s journal! this solves so many problems wtf

there’s still commission issues bc they (and by they i mean five) are on the commission’s radar

so there’s still dope fight scenes sdlkfd pinky promise

okay idk. they stop the apocalypse and everything is okay the end hfkjd

2) they fix the math but only five can go back and the ghosts cease to exist

this is just sad! it would be sad okay! im sad! lets move on

subset of the past one: ben CAN go back with five because he was already dead and time travel affects them differently or something idk

aaaaaa

five & ben dynamic duo would be dope as shit BUT five would not be able to see him... so they use klaus as a middleman fjsdsfd

is there 2 bens? is one ben deleted in favor of the time-traveling ben? i dont know! i dont know my brain is melting

either way shit is happening yall!! obviously klaus is clued in, directly or indirectly it doesnt matter but he is on board the ‘don’t let the entire world end in flames’ train

3) they join the commission and then when five goes back in time they all go back

this is fun because now five is a highly trained assassin who is also lowkey a complete marshmallow for his siblings and once again TEAMWORK WOO

basically the first path but now five has a gun fhsdjk

4) they join the commission but five has to leave them behind and they cease to exist

five with a gun but hes sad now

i didnt go into how much losing his siblings would suck in the prev path but like. it would suck so much. he’s already lost them once if you think about it when he time traveled the first time and yeah he found the adult ghost versions but,, its different

and now suddenly hes stuck with these strange adult versions of the people he knows and he KNOWS them but also he doesnt? at all? they dont have all the years of shared experiences together? and theyre all grown up from the first ‘set’ of siblings he had which for five was like 40+ years ago??

SCREAMS

i have losing my mind disease (self-diagnosed)

subset: five has to leave them behind but they still exist because the commission is out-of-time kind of? idk but they’re still floating around somewhere and come back to impact the plot later or something

yeah idk. literally just wrote them down bc i didnt want them to die^2 hfkjwehd

subset: they still exist but instead of being just Somewhere they’re specifically at the assassination of JFK onwards because thats where five left them and they either go on ghosting and make an appearance in s2 OR they cease because them-wise they havent died yet but that doesnt make sense because ghosts can time travel so nevermind

i dont have the brain energy left to explore this one aaaa

okay jesus christ i think that’s all

I DON’T KNOW. i don’t know. i might write some more of this because honestly it is a very fine flavor of angst + hurt/comfort <3

[desertdragon]

I just woke up and had thoughts about my Yugiri and Hien confrontation idea

They would argue their points both for and against tearing down the concept of a State, their concepts on Gods and Primals, their concepts of Loyalty and where it crosses into blind faith and what purpose blind faith serves and on and on, until it devolves into neither side budging and it's really either you think people should be subjugated under centralized government for the pros and cons it brings, or you think people should live in communities that don't progress into States and remain connected to one another while managing their own problems etc.

It boils down to him throwing in her face that to his view she's abandoning Doma for some ass (Vaste), and that she's proven in the end to just be a woman after all rather than his unquestioning servant, and Yugiri's like this is the most insulting and hurtful thing anyone has ever said to her, and the conversation breaks down completely- they just gonna have to box, because the fact that he can't see her POV and definition of what Doma can be once it threatens his power and He feels betrayed enough to insult her personhood (a personhood she's only recently accepted) and her loved ones? The fact that they were friends for years is the only reason she doesn't outright kill him imo

I feel like she'd still be partly conflicted while fighting him, ultimately stabbing him in a non vital spot to stop it, but the shock of realizing what she's just done physically to the man who was raised to be her friend, her master, and her god, it's enough to keep her from escaping and she's then tattooed with a prisoner mark and declared a national traitor- before she of course escapes bc she's their CIA person...she knows literally everything about the Kienkan lol

I feel like Hien was willing to defend Doma in Stormblood partly because it's what he was taught and on some level brainwashed into with nationalism, to have unquestioning loyalty to the Doman statehood and his birthright to rule; his choice between leaving Doma be or reclamation was only a choice because the Garlean statehood had conquered it, and if the people wished then he gladly would have (and in the end, he did) taken up the position of ruler to uphold the ancient classes and systems before colonization without hesitation

It's never even a question in his mind on the Morality, Function, and Purpose of the very concept of having a ruler never mind what it means to have a Doman ruler to still preside over Doman people, if he has a people to rule he will rule them and that's his destiny, his preordained authority to oversee and be ahead of others, this remains true even after he has retaken the homeland- he doesn't reevaluate what State and Ruler mean as ideas and if they have a right to exist, he simply becomes the State and Ruler

So I don't think it's a far stretch to say the very foundations of the power dynamic within his and Yugiri's friendship were flawed and imbalanced from the start- not so much when they were children as he was still being trained into these ideas, but absolutely as they grew up; therefore for Yugiri, who is ultimately his tool, his servant at the end of the day so long as he chooses to uphold Doman class divisions, leadership, and practices, to suggest that the state AND the world are better off having no borders and a Doma not united under his destined birthright as pretext for centralized government- that's like his right hand telling him the sky is purple, that's like telling him everything he knows is a lie and he's not good enough to come out the other side of it all- instead of trying to understand the wisdom in that view he rejects it to cling to power, power he desperately fought to hold on to in the first place

Yugiri being a woman just adds even more complication given what we know about Yotsuyuu and how sex workers and wives/daughters were treated like property to be moved, bought, traded, and sold if it was deemed necessary and that they were acting out from the Doman expectation of womanhood, there's that level of misogyny ever present and waiting to swing down, and that generational issue doesn't go away at the snap of a finger or can be shoved aside like the game would have you believe

When all is said and done and should the Doman people decide the universe changing events Vaste has caused are enough to overthrow all Statehood, should Hien find himself cast adrift, I think he would seek out Yugiri again to pour out his feelings, admit his tomfoolery, admit his bigotry- the whole deal, and then ask her to kill him in ritual suicide because of the disgrace he's gone through and his own guilt/foolishness, but Yugiri is not the same person anymore and spares him, but he must vow never to start some shit again and try rebuilding a Doman state

Cuz it's like, killing him is too easy, killing isn't really who she is anymore, and killing Hien to remove his shame is a concept that self cannibalizes and prevents growth and acceptance of yourself as a person- to kill him would be to perpetuate the exploitative and redundant cycle that brought them the Doma they knew in the first place, basically it's better to let you sit in what you've done and reflect than be given an easy escape and an easy answer

[seijorhi]

asks :)

i love the post fic bundle of asks 🥺

WHO WAS THE SOULMATE???? ASDFHFHJFKFLF DID YOU MENTION IT? DID I MISS IT? The rolling coaster of emotions was too much sooo I think I might have missed it????

but if it was not mentioned, i'd like to think that it might be iwa or the other guys or gahhh, what if it was a rival????? I believe nothing would push Tooru to the extremes than learning that you're tied to his rival... 😳

Good job again, Rhi! Honestly these soulmate aus are my favorite!!! 💕

ahhh thank you so much!!! 

and no, i didn’t actually mention who the reader’s soulmate was. i was initially going to write the fic a little more in line with what the asks said and have the reader overhear oikawa talking about it on the phone with iwa, and he’d say the name of her soulmate. it could have been anyone, but me being the whore that i am wanted it to be one of the characters, and considering that oikawa was never going to let the reader just wander off back to japan, i figured that the best possible choice for her to potentially meet her ‘soulmate’ would be when oikawa took him home with her back to japan for the olympics - and with the tight hold he has over her, the only people who could potentially come into contact with her, through iwa of course, would be the olympic team.

kags and ushiwaka were too obvious - plus the reader would have likely met them at some point during her life and while the bond wouldn’t have done anything too crazy, she might have felt something (plus i think oiks would have rubbed off on her a little too much - she wouldn’t hate them like he does, but romance? nah)

which then made me think, if you take those two out of the equation - who on the team would piss oikawa off the most to know was the reader’s soulmate... 

there’s just something about that setter pride, right? 

sorry for rambling 👀

I already knew I'd love ani soulmate au you write, but it still amazed me. It was wonderful! 😭🤧 

you guys are too nice to me!! i’m glad you liked it bby!  💕

I loved your Oikawa soulmate fic! Did Iwa lie about the name on Oikawa? Or are there mismatches with soulmates and she is Oikawa's soulmate, he's just not hers?

Wait so does that mean that oikawa has no name on his wrist, he met his soulmate but doesn't care for them, or he has our name on his wrist but it's not actually "our" name it's just somebody who shares our name? Sorry I'm way to slow on this

Love your latest story! But I’m confused if her name was on his skin or not?

i’m answering these three together because they’re all kinda similar. so the name on oikawa’s arm - his soulmate - is definitely the reader’s. it’s a mismatch. basically it was my kind of interpretation of a yandere’s obsessive love - for oikawa, she’s it, the only one he’ll ever truly love, the one person he can’t live without, but even before the reveal of her mark, he’s already very manipulative and controlling towards the reader. he isolates her from everybody else but him and his friends, makes her rely on him because he needs her, not the other way around. it’s not the worst thing in the world, but the power imbalance is huge. whereas the reader’s soulmate would be the one person who would let her shine - help her grow and love her for who she is without trying to steal her away from the world. it’s not that oikawa doesn’t love the reader, or that the reader doesn’t love him, but her soulmate is the one person who would love her the right way, if that makes sense?

NOOOOOO my heart is breaking into a million pieces and oikawa's not even my fav he doesn't even make top ten but holy FUCK this fic is for SURE in my alltime top ten. u just have a way of writing him that makes my heart ache like i still cant reread home like i read it when u first released it n i have not been able to reread it again bc i cant handle strong emotions but like...this fic is the opposite i cant STOP reading it thank u thank u thank u ily sm for gifting us this fic 🥺

bby!!! you are in fact the sweetest? i love you?? pls come collect your kisses??

home is one of my all time faves ngl, and this kinda has similar vibes i guess, but maybe in reverse - home is all about the anguish of falling for somebody who hurt you because of the things they’ve done, and always is about the pain of still loving somebody despite the fact that they’ve hurt you. anyway, thank you sm, this message honestly made my day!

Ahhhhhh! That Oikawa x blind reader! Oh my heart. Soft insecure Oikawa 😭😭😭

he’s awful in this, but dontcha just feel a little bad for the guy? (low key wanna give him a hug for treating him so meanly in this - but he does kinda deserve it too)

now that i see u on my feed, imma read ur fics again hihihihi LIEK I READ IT FOR 10x ALREADT

💕💕💕💕the sheer dedication?? ily anon

uh.. hello.. the chubby seijoh manager.. i.. love it so much is it rude to ask for more?

the full fic will be out... eventually 👀

how do miya twins from breaking point/meet the parents react to overprotective dad (or not even really that overprotective just actually a good parent lol)? I think it’s a really interesting dynamic and obstacle for yanderes because so often everyone else seems fooled or mia leaving the reader really vulnerable. Honestly I wish I could just talk to you all day about your fics beyond being HOT they are also so intriguing and you’re just an incredible story teller!!!!

first of all how dare you make me all soft and mushy?!!?! this was v sweet anon, thank you

BUT i honestly think they’d both kinda write the dad off. if they managed to bully the reader into being in a ‘relationship’ with them, osamu might try to get in his good graces, maybe offer to cook dinner or something just to smooth things over - because it is somewhat implied that even though he despises the twins, if his daughter wants them around, he’d bite his tongue for her sake. atsumu would be the ass that deliberately tries to rile him up, seeing just how far he can get away with touching you, how many sly innuendos can he slip past your dear old dad before he snaps.

but eventually, whether you gave into them or not, they’d try to push you away from your family, isolate you. for one, they don’t want anybody in your life telling you that they’re not good for you when they’re your soulmates. also because they really don’t want anyone else in your life period. why would you need anybody else when you have them?