#i gotta yell!meta on that boy at some point i really do | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

moiraineswife · 7 years

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how about: HOGWARTS HOUSES for Stormlight Archive characters

dammit i am ALWAYS here for Hogwarts house headcanons. This is gonna be long bc, like, I take this sorting thing Seriously. But really, it’s just an excuse to do a bit of deep character meta and I am ALL ABOUT THAT SHIT. I got deeply carried away. I don’t even care. I’m not even a smidge sorry. I live for this. And I had a lot of thoughts/feelings abt the Stormlight characters.

Kaladin - Hufflepuff: Kaladin is a fucking hatstall, right. I can be tempted by all of them, and I think my impulse instinct says either Gryffindor, or perhaps Ravenclaw. But, actually, I think I want to put him in Hufflepuff? He definitely has some Gryffindor tendencies and motives, and I think there’s a decent-sized pinch of Ravenclaw in there, too, but his heart is all Puff to me. I think, at his core, Kaladin is using Ravenclaw/Gryffindor methods to fulfil his Hufflepuff ideals. He’s a protector. He’s very concerned with right, and wrong. He’s loyal af, too. And he cares. He cares so deeply and it kills me. And I just...I need badass Hufflepuff Kal, okay?

I don’t think Kaladin has ever wanted to be a great man. I don’t think he’s ever wanted to go down in history, or to be remembered. He rejects the title ‘Stormblessed’, he allows it, but he doesn’t thrive in it in the army, the army he joined so that his brother wouldn’t have to go to war alone.

I don’t even think Kaladin wants to be a hero.

I think he just wants to do what he feels is right. I think he just tries to be a good person.

He’s undoubtedly dedicated, and undoubtedly patient. I think he takes the most pride in nurturing things. He sees the potential in others, and I think he tries to give them ability to grow into it. He wants to save lives, and his preference for doing that is in being a surgeon.

He’s grown up watching his father be isolated from his community to an extent. He’s seen him receive no money, no glory, no praise, no real reward from others for helping and saving them. He won’t be remembered in history books. He doesn’t even really get thanked by the people he labours to help, not overtly, at least.

The biggest tension in Kal’s backstory is the decision he has to make between being a soldier, and being a healer. I think the motivation behind both of them remains the same: Kaladin the healer, Kaladin the soldier, Kaladin the slave: they all want to help people, they all want to save the lives of everyone they can.

And I think the decision that Kal finally makes, the choice to become a surgeon, highlights the Hufflepuff in him. He chooses the quiet path. He turns his back on the glory, the adventure, the heroism implicit in becoming a soldier. He rejects that life and he chooses one he’s seen for himself to be one of quiet servitude. He chooses to do his best every day, whether or not that’s ever recognised or praised.

He chooses the patient, quiet, unassuming path.The path that will require patience, and dedication, and hard-work. He gets forced down the path of being a soldier, and dragging up those old tensions and issues. But at the end of the day I think what matters is truly and purely just doing the right thing, helping people, regardless.

And I think, through everything, this is the core aspect of himself that he retains:

He gathers young soldiers to them, and protects them. He stops them dying in this battle, fully aware that they’ll likely die in the next one, or the one after, or the one after.

He tries to save the man in the slave wagon with a cough from death, even though he’s a slave, and will likely die when they reach their destination, or soon afterwards, anyway.

This is the man who looks at a group of slaves who’ve all literally been condemned to death and decides that he’s going to save them. He’s going to keep them alive. He’s going to heal their wounds, and save their lives, just so they can go back to running bridges and dying the next day anyway.

This is a man who continually picks and fights unwinnable battles not because it will gain him any glory, not because it’ll make him a hero, not because he’ll be remembered, not because he’s brave, but because it’s the goddamn right thing to do.

Shallan - Ravenclaw: Shallan is another tricky one (actually they kind of all are? None of them are super, instant clear-cut. Well, except maybe Adolin, but he’ll have his turn in a minute).

There’s a lot of Ravenclaw in there, naturally. Her thirst for knowledge, her creativity, her originality, her out-of-the-box thinking are all Ravenclaw.

But there’s a good bit of Slytherin in there too, I think. I always get stuck on characters who are just consumate, against-all-the-odds survivors. Who just grit their teeth and find their way to make it through any way they can just screams Slytherin to me. And Shallan has that survivor-tenacity in spades. Her Lightweaving lends itself towards Slytherin too, I think, the manipulation/cunning aspect of it.

I think, though, I’m going to go with Ravenclaw for Shallan. At her core I think is the desire to understand - whether that’s the world around her, the people in it, or even herself. She’s got that deep thirst for knowledge, her creativity. I think she’s mostly defined around those attributes. So she’s like, Ravenclaw motivations with Slytherin methods (and I always lean towards the motivations when sorting).

I also don’t think she wants to be the way her Slytherin side comes out. In a different life, I don’t think she’d have that same kind of cunning that she has. But I think she’s always going to be a budding scholar. She’s always going to be an artist. She’s always going to have that quirky, out-of-the-box way of looking at life. And I also think, given the choice, she’d choose Ravenclaw.

Jasnah- Slytherin: I think on the surface, Jasnah seems easy to sort. People just sort of impulse ‘Ravenclaw’ bc of the scholar in her and then move on. But I enjoy being contrary.

She’s kind of like the other side of Shallan’s coin, I feel. She’s got Ravenclaw and Slytherin in her, but in her case, I think the Slytherin traits present more strongly, I think they motivate her more, and I think they’re parts of her that she accepts, even prides, and encourages, where Shallan tries to suppress.

Jasnah is a scholar. Like Shallan she’s drawn to collect knowledge about all sorts of things. The difference with her, though, is the way in which she and Shallan see that knowledge. Shallan sees it as a treasure, as a thing worth pursuing purely for its own merit and value, she just wants the knowing for the knowledge’s sake.

Jasnah sees knowledge as a weapon. I’m pretty fully convinced of this, tbh. I think she looks at every piece of knowledge that she has, analyses it, evaluates it, and then wonders what she can do with it. History will help her understand the past, its people. Her current line of study is in the Parshendi, who assassinated her father, and then plunged them into war. Oh, and she’s also trying to prevent an apocalypse. She’s searching for knowledge, she’s searching for understanding, but she’s also searching for weakness.

I think there’s also a fair amount of ambition and drive in Jasnah. I don’t think you get to the level she is, and attain the amount of respect she has, as a scholar and a person, unless there’s some ambition in you.

I think Jasnah also...I think anything she does she wants to be the best at. I don’t think she’s capable of doing things by halves. If she’s doing something, she’s going to excel at it. She doesn’t do things casually, or idly, it’s not in her nature. If she does something, she dedicated, she’s driven, and she’s determined.

There’s also a decent bit of cunning in Jasnah. I think it gets sort of...underplayed/not considered too much because she’s so cool and rational about everything. And I think the word ‘cunning’ tends to make us think of selfishness, and self-serving. But Jasnah definitely is cunning. The opening of WoR shows that: she’s got bloody underground contacts with assassins, and she makes it clear she’s willing to use them. She also bribes them to not target her family/to warn her if there is a threat to someone she cares about which is...Genius.

The entire confrontation in the alley with the men she kills with her soulcaster is also pure cunning. She knew precisely what she intended to do. She lured those men to that spot, she manipulated them into thinking that they were harmless, and then she killed them. That’s all pure cunning, and it’s also pure Slytherin.

That scene I think summarises the core of Jasnah’s character for me tbh. It shows how she weaponises both her knowledge (of soulcasting, for one thing, but also about people), and her abilities. It’s an obvious, instant, display of her sense of morality. I think it hints at the survivor in her, a thread of her is unravelled in that scene, and it’s going to get tugged on and expanded out at a later date I’m sure of it. It’s also a demonstration of her cool, rational brand of cunning and manipulation.

Her being a heretic totally fits with this too. There’s that headstrong determination to know her own mind, and to practice it, regardless of how others feel about it. That idea of rule-breaking being a Slytherin trait is definitely at play here. Jasnah plays by no-one’s rules but Jasnah’s.

So. Yes. I will die by Slytherin!Jasnah tbh. Like u can fight me on this, I will fight u.

Alssooo I’m getting aware I’m wiffling even more than usual, so, to spare u all, the rest are going under a cut. Ur welcome.

Dalinar- Gryffindor: The exchange of Oathbringer is, I think, like the soulcaster scene with Jasnah, is one of the biggest character moments for Dalinar, and I think it argues the whole point point rather well:

Dalinar exchanges this iconic, unparalleled, incredible weapon, for the lives of a group of men most consider worthless.

Dalinar smiled, wrinkle lines extending from the corners ofhis eyes. “Coincidentally, that is the exact value of a Shardblade. So today,you and your men sacrificed to buy me twenty-six hundred priceless lives. Andall I had to repay you with was a single priceless sword. I call that abargain.”

I think this is totally and completely genuine. I think he really and truly means this. And I think that, in understanding that, you understand Dalinar. He’s The Blackthorn. He’s a powerful, iconic, incredible warrior. But this is why he fights. This is what he truly values. This is who he truly is; who he truly wants to be.

There are a lot of other things thrown in there too, his loyalty, his views on right and wrong, his striving to be not a great man, but a good one. And I think this is what’s at his core. He’s undoubtedly brave, undoubtedly courageous. He’s noble, and honourable. And this is what he calls honour. This what upholding his honour means. It means leaving no man behind. Valuing each and every single life. Saving them all. Protecting them all. That’s what gives him his courage, and his bravery, and his honour. That’s what he lives for.

Adolin- Gryffindor: I feel like Adolin is the only character who hasn’t given me a fucking headache in this post (what a good soul). The boy’s a Gryffindor. Honestly. All that boldness. All that bravery. All that courage. All that daring. He’s literally the poster-boy for Gryffindor house, bless him.

Adolin ‘Fight Me’ Kholin.

Really, though. Adolin is such a good, strong heroic character. His motto in life is ‘courage first, consequences later’. I think he does what needs to be done. I think he’s very principled, and has very strong convictions and ideas on what has to be done, and what doesn’t. (*cough* Sadeas *cough*)

And I think he has more than just battle courage (though he obviously has spades of that). But I think he also has the courage to stand up for what he believes in. The courage to stop and say ‘no’ when he thinks something is unfair. The courage to stand up to his superiors when he disagrees with them. The courage to take a stand and make his thoughts known. And I think he has the courage to know when to stop fighting, when to put down his blade, when to save a life, rather than taking one.

I also think, and this is perhaps straying into the bounds of headcanon land, but I think that Adolin is one of those people who understands what true courage is. I think he’s someone who can get to the point of complete and utter terror, and have the strength of will to grit his teeth and be get things done. He’s a good lion boy, and he’s doing his best.

Renarin-Gryffindor:

My beautiful little autistic sprout

In so many ways Renarin seems opposite to his brother and his father. They’re both shardbearers, both warriors. They’re both defined by their loud, bold bravery on the battlefield, at court, in pretty much everything they do. They’ve got big voices, and big personalities, and big hearts, and that’s all so very obvious.

I think Renarin lives in their shadows, almost. But I think that he’s just as brave as they are, and I actually think that kind of courage actually defines him? Renarin kind of strikes me as a Neville-like Gryffindor? No-one is really quite sure why he’s there. No-one really sees his courage, or his strength, least of all himself. But it’s there. It’s been there every moment of every day.

Renarin just has a quiet courage, and a quiet strength. He’s not got the big voice, or the big personality of his father or his big brother, but he’s definitely got the heart, and he’s definitely got the courage.

There’s always been a little bit of rebellion in Renarin. For years people have been nudging him, gently but firmly, towards the Ardents. They encourage him to settle down, to indulge in scholarly pursuits. They think that’s what he is, where he’ll be happier, where he’ll be more comfortable. And for all those years, Renarin has had the courage to say no.

And I think that does take courage. It takes courage not to do the easy thing, which is to simply give up, and meekly allow himself to take the easy road. Renarin isn’t a born warrior, isn’t a natural fighter. But he has the bravery and the strength to push back and say no, this isn’t who I am, this isn’t who I want to be, when people try to usher him towards the Ardents. It takes courage to maintain that rebellion, to keep saying no, this isn’t me, this isn’t what I want to be, especially when he doubts himself quite as much as anyone else. But he keeps going all the same.

Renarin, I think, is afraid. I think he’s afraid every day. It’s a quiet fear, to match his quiet strength, but it’s there. He’s insecure, and uncertain. He doesn’t quite know himself. He doesn’t fully know his place in the world. He’s a misfit. His brother and father are strong, gallant, heroic warriors and then there’s him. And I think it takes courage to be an outsider in that way. It takes courage to know, every day, that you don’t fit, that people whisper behind your back, that they feed your own insecurities. He’s not as good as his father or his brother, yet he’s always by their sides. He’s always there, in the limelight, where he’s expected to be, and he doesn’t allow himself to be hidden away, or to hide himself away. He has the courage to believe in himself. To believe, somewhere, deep down, in his value, in his potential. He has the courage to defy the whisperers and the gossips and the ones that say he’s not brave, not strong, not really anything.

He goes to Kaladin, and he asks to be a part of Bridge Four, and I don’t think people fully understand the courage that requires for him. Because this isn’t just him doing something a little bit odd, and more than a little bit against tradition and everyone’s expectations, which is brave in itself. This is him opening himself up for ridicule from pretty much every side. This is him isolating himself even more than he already is. This is him going against his father’s will. Going against tradition. Going against everything his status demands from him. But it’s also him going perhaps the one place he’ll fit even worse than the place he already does.

Dalinar and Adolin respect and, most importantly, accept Renarin. They go out of their way to understand him, (which I will likely yell abt at a later point bc yes, good, this is the kind of rep we need. But that is not a debate for here). But they’re his family. They love him, they’re used to him. They understand, if not completely, at least a heck of a lot better than anyone else, what happens when he stims, when he becomes overwhelmed/meltsdown. They understand how he communicates/how he processes things. They understand when he goes nonverbal and needs a little time to himself. They understand, and so they accept, they include.

And Renarin turns his back on that. He steps out of his comfort zone in the biggest way possible. He goes to this group of people and he asks to train with them. He’s the only lighteyes in a group of darkeyed former slaves. He’s outright mistrusted by some (looking at u Moash), and even if he’s respected by the others, he’s never accepted. They aren’t natural around him. They won’t talk around him, they act awkwardly and uncomfortably around him, they won’t fully include him, they think that he’s strange, and they don’t understand him or accept him.

He stands out in Bridge Four more than he will ever stand out anywhere. And he knows that this is what’s going to happen. He knows that he’s joining a group where he will be more different, and more of an outsider than anywhere he’s ever been in his life. He knows he won’t be accepted. He knows he’ll also likely be mocked and talked about by the nobility for mingling with the kinds of Bridge Four and reducing himself to their level.

But he does it anyway. He refuses to let the bridgemen’s attitudes dissuade him. He refuses to let himself be talked out of it. He goes back to them. he keeps going back. Despite their attitudes, despite not being included, despite being even more isolated, despite the disapproval and mistrust and dislike pouring in from every angle, he keeps going back.

And like, idk about u, but that screams ‘courage’ to me.

Oh and then there’s the whole ‘jumps into arena to defend my older brother against trained, skilled shardbearers bc ‘yolo’ kind of courage. He ticks that box, too. In case u were wondering.

Anyway, yes, give me smol, shy, awkward little Gryff Renarin. Who becomes a Gryffindor and everyone sniggers behind their hands and says he’s just trying to be his father/his brother, something he’ll never be. And he bears it all. Because somewhere inside he knows the truth. He knows that a part of him maybe does just want to be like his father and his brother. But a bigger part of him knows that, deep down, this is truly who he is, this is where he truly belongs. There’s potential in him, and he has the courage to chase it, even if no-one else does.

Okay the rest I either don’t have as strong Thoughts about, or I’m really not sure enough about them to put them in a certain place one way or the other. And also this is ridiculously long because I have 0 fucking self-control and also I am Tired*. So, in short, we’re going to cut things off here. If u made it this far: well done u, i don’t think i would have, god bless ur sweet soul.

*I 100% reserve the right to come back to the rest later and bore u all to death again with my intensive waffling.

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the-witches-you-couldnt-burn · 3 years

Text

It started with a whisper

I originally wrote ‘Like I did with you’ as a one-shot but people wanted a sequel. This turned out to be waaaaay longer than expected (4.7k word count). Inspired by Everybody Talks by Neon Trees. I hope you lot enjoy!

Ao3

(Also this is Mari’s new outfit, all credits go to the original artist)

————

Two teens stood upon the balcony of a large banquet hall, exposed to the midsummer night air. The sky was a lilac blanket that hung over the Parisian buildings, speckled with glowing stars. The moon, with it’s crescent smile, beamed down of the young couple.

Hey, baby, won't you look my way?

Marinette’s eyes were closed as she rested her head upon his shoulder, relaxing after the night’s rapid escalation. Tonight she had arrived at the ball with the intent to be there for her friends, but somehow she found herself within the arms of Gotham’s (and probably Paris’) Ice Prince. She had overheard his nickname from the Gotham students, one of which being Jon, who was in the middle of mocking the young Wayne. She had never considered that nickname as suitable; sure he was temperamental & had a tendency to snap, but icey to the core? No.

I can be your new addiction

Damian was calm. For the first time in his life he felt like he could take a breath. His exhale was carried off by a small gust of wind, the bush over hanging the stone railing rustled. With his inhale, the scent of Marinette’s perfume became present once more. Mixed with the crisp night’s air, her usual scent of pastries was mixed with what could only be described as ambrosia. His phone vibrated within his pocket, it was never on volume due to the potential risk it caused during his heroic activities.

“Shit.” Notifications covered his screen, multiple tweets, Instagrams and Tiktoks in which he had been tagged in. But the alert came from his family’s private messaging chat. The whole thread was a shit storm, Grayson and Todd’s messages were completely capitalised (he learnt years ago this meant ‘to yell’ in writing form) and both had multiple ‘keyboard spasms’. Drake, like the thorough detective he is, had combed through the images and videos, investigating their validity. His honorary sisters had replied with ‘awwwww’(s) and ‘Omg we MUST meet this girl! I need to know how she tamed the demon!’. He could practically hear Brown’s shrill voice from across the ocean.

Hey, baby, what you gotta say?

No reply from his father or Alfred. The two of them were the only semblance of ‘normal’ paternal figures he had within his life, after the sham of a relationship he had previously held with his grandfather. Their silence unnerved him.

Marinette had noticed his attention had shifted to his phone, her own mobile was buzzing away within her baby pink purse. Messages, notifications of account tagging and comments galore. A sigh left her lips when she saw her parents seemed to be none the wiser. Good, she didn’t need to deal with future adoration for ‘The boy who swept our daughter off of her feet’ (or something along those lines).

Her cheeks regained some of the warmth they held before as she thought of her parent’s reaction. Scrolling through her Twitter she saw her friends had posted multiple images of the night’s events, majority being her shared dance.

Chloé Bourgeois @TheBestBourgeois

what kind of Disney shit is this? (Insert video of two teens dancing around an mostly empty dance floor.)

Alix Kubdel @Sk8trGirl

Replying to @TheBestBourgeois

I KNOW RIGHT?! THEY WERE FUCKING FLOATING!!!

All you're giving me is fiction

She was thankful that they hadn’t tagged her but she hadn’t been spared by others in attendance. Her post thread had blown up, thousands had commented and even more had viewed the evidence. There was no way she would come out of this unscathed.

“Has anyone been on Twitter today?” The blonde of the family asked as she walked into the dining room. Her eyes focused on her scrolling screen, brows furrowed in confusion. “Actually has anyone seen what’s happening on any of our socials?”

It was early in the afternoon and the family had recently returned home after a straining stakeout. The Joker had broken out of Arkham and the Batfam had to deal with his minions. Dick’s arm was in a sling (sprained from a grapple gone wrong), Jason was icing his hand, Alfred was stitching Bruce’s chest wounds while Tim and the girls escaped without severe injuries. All were still recuperating and finally able to recharge.

Alfred always enforced a strict ‘no devices at the dinner table’ rule; no matter how urgent it was, it could wait until after sustenance was consumed. Tim strongly opposed this, but there was no arguing with Agent A. This all surmises that probably no one had seen the crap storm on social media.

I'm a sorry sucker and this happens all the time

Bruce sighed, bringing his free arm up to rub his eyes. Tilting his head back to look at Steph, “Who was it this time?” Barbara quickly took out her phone to see what Stephanie was talking about, all the while glancing accusingly at Dick and Jason. Both of whom held up their arms (or in Dick’s case arm), declaring their innocence.

“It wasn’t fucking me!”

“Jason! Language!” Dick shot a glare at Jason and was met with one in return. “It wasn’t me either.”

“Then who-“ Bruce started before being cut off by his most rambunctious daughter.

I found out that everybody talks

Stephanie with a squeal, exclaimed that it was Damian. Visions of what the Wayne brat could have done flashed through the heads of everyone in the room. He had been sent overseas before the quarantines and lockdowns hit. During Damian’s first month in France he had been forced into online schooling and then finally when he got to go to in-person classes he hated it. Described the class as a kindergarten with petty and vindictive toddlers.

Had he broken someone’s arm? Was that person of such importance that it had spread over multiple social media platforms? France’s government had announced on June 15th, that teens were now being inoculated so him having COVID-19 was doubtful. Had he insulted the wrong person? Had he taken over the government? He certainly had the potential.

Everybody talks, everybody talks

What they saw stunned them, even Steph as she watched it for the 7th time. Damian Wayne was dancing. But not only that, he was dancing with a girl.

It started with a whisper

“What is this shit?”

No one verbally objected to Jason’s outburst but he was sent a harsh glare from Alfred, Dick and Bruce. Their focus soon returned to the images and videos before them. Babs’ and Steph’s phones were returned to them as the others ran to grab their own devices. They all met back at the table, comparing the posts and comparing their notes.

I can hear the chitchat

“There’s no way this can be real.”

“Jesus Tim,” Barbara rolls her eyes, “have you seen the amount of posts there are? You’d be an idiot to think otherwise.”

Take me to your love shack

“I’m with Tim, how do we know this isn’t some skit. I mean, Demon Spawn almost looks normal. That’s a matter of concern.” He almost dry heaved when he agreed with Tim. Damian couldn’t be capable of naturally exuding that amount of humanity unless there was something in it for him.

Mamas always gotta backtrack

“I was just saying Babs, that we should check the credibility of these images. For all we know they could be gorilla glued together and trying to get unstuck.” Tim cringed at his own reasoning, he really needed to either sleep (probably not going to happen anytime soon) or find his favourite coffee brand (which had been one of the first to vanish after the covid hoarders appeared).

When everybody talks back

Dick was too busy freaking out and spam messaging the youngest Wayne, to defend Damian’s humanity. The family saw this and followed suit, wanting to get information from the source.

Chat name: Alfred supremacy

BigBird: AHHHHHH DAMIAN!

BigBird: YOU LOOK SO CUTE!!!

BigBird: HAIFJDNDNFI

LittleWing: WTF HAPPENED DEMON SPAWN YOU LOOK ALMOST HUMAN

Babs: who knew the city of love would influence the brat

Blondie: they are so cuteeeeeee!

Blondie: We HAVE to meet her!

Silent-but-deadly: agreed.

Timbo: YO DEMON

Timbo: Apparently the videos are legit

Timbo: are you being blackmailed?

And it just devolved into more chaos from there, fueled by the fact that they saw Damian’s ‘Blood Son’ account appear online before vanishing once more. Dick shrieked, “I FOUND HER ACCOUNT!”

The family gathered around the eldest son, peering over his shoulder to view his iPhone 12max screen. They saw a young girl’s Instagram account. It was locked but they could see her profile pic, the girl had black hair and looked to be if Asian decent. They compared it to the videos but it was hard to see due to the hall’s lighting and the minimised facial features of the pfp. Alfred suggested that they search up her username and see who has tagged her, some might have other photos of her.

After research for awhile, the family began to get frustrated with lack of results.

Hey honey you could be my drug

You could be my new prescription

“Come on!” Jason complained, “What kind of teenage girl doesn’t post her life online?” He ignored the girls glares and went back to researching. How had the account by the name of ‘mariiiiinette’ to managed to prevent the entire Wayne clan from accessing it? Damn Instagram privacy settings. He groaned, dragging a hand down his face, “We are fucking stupid. Why don’t we just use the Bat-computer? It would be so much fucking easier.”

“It shouldn’t be used for civilian issues-“

Too much could be an overdose

“The girl could be a meta for all we know! We aren’t safe until we know who she is.” Jason points a finger at Tim, his paranoia flared up and even though he would never admit it, Jason would do anything to protect each member of his family (although Bruce is still debatable).

All this trash talk make me itching

Barbara and Tim took their usual positions as Oracle and Red Robin (who had been banned from patrol due to lack of sleep). The rest of the Batfam stood behind them either with arms crossed or still failing at researching.

Oh my my shit

“The account is owned by a girl called Marinette Dupian-Cheng. She is French-Chinese and her parents own a popular bakery. Also if it wasn’t already obvious, she goes to Collège Françoise Dupont, aka Damian’s French school.” Tim begun informing his nosy family, “But this account has been inactive for the past 6 months, which is strange due to her frequent posting schedule before hand. It seems she probably has a second account and this is her old one.”

Everybody talks, everybody talks

“Not only that,” Barbara interrupted. “There are unopened messages from other accounts that accuse her of being a bully. There is a whole Facebook page about this girl and how she has been hurting her old friends, but neither side seems reliable. The so called victims seem to be twisting the truth but there is barely any information about Marinette so we can’t disprove it either.”

“Read out some of the messages.” Bruce took a cup of coffee from Alfred and sipped it.

The main screen of the bat computer displayed a Facebook group with the banner picture being a photo of Marinette. “They are mostly complaints expected of teen girls when there is a girl they don’t like; ‘Marinette is such a know-it-all’, ‘She is constantly insulting Lila’s intelligence’. They go on to talk about how Marinette was briefly expelled from the Collège before being reinstated by the principle for a reason unknown to them.”

Everybody talks too much

“Her school reports up until this year were good. The newest one states, ‘While Marinette is a wonderful and bright student, I encourage her to settle her disagreements outside of class. This seems to only be a recent occurrence and I implore her to go to the guidance council if she is in need of help.’” A beat of silence echoes through the cave, Tim sighed. “Jason’s meta theory could be correct. She could have just recently started exhibiting her abilities and using them to get what she wants.”

“Bruce what do you want to do?”

“We’re going to Paris.”

She opened her eyes to the blaring morning light that streamed through the blinds. Her lashes still painted with mascara that refused to leave. She felt a pang of sorrow when she was removing her makeup and dress last night, she never wanted the night to end. She shuffled down the stairs to the kitchen, covering her mouth when she yawned. She greeted her mother as she entered the kitchen to get breakfast.

She glanced at her phone and there was the chaos that was started hours ago and it was still occurring. It was the weekend, she wouldn’t need to deal with her classmates until Monday. But she would still have to survive her parent’s interrogation. Out of the corner of her eye she caught her mother smirking at her.

Everybody talks

“Nadja told me some interesting news about last night.” Marinette held her breath, glaring at the toaster, willing it to hurry up so she could escape. “Well,” Sabine patted her shoulder before rubbing Mari’s back. “I know you didn’t want to go but I hope you had fun.”

With that she exited the kitchen, probably going to help her father in the bakery. The ravenette stared after her, eye widened in shock, jumping when the toaster went off. Buttering her toast she went over the conversation, her brows furrowed in confusion. She had expected a ‘When do I get to meet the oh so famous prince?’ or ‘Should I be expecting a new guest sometime in the near future?’ or at least a ‘Who was that young man, Bǎozàng (宝藏 it means treasure)?’ But she said nothing.

A small smile was plastered upon her face as she changed and went down to help her parents in the bakery. Her father didn’t say anything either, he gave her a knowing smile before continuing to kneed the dough. She sat at the the store front as the cashier whilst her parents were busy making ‘Paris’s Finest Pastries’.

Her musings slowly faded as she was brought back to reality by badly hushed whispers. Two young preteens were by the bread roll casing near the door. She had seen them come in before with their parents, the girls went to the prestigious international school over in the 16th arrondissement. The one with purple hair kept whispering to the brunette, both ‘subtly’ glancing towards her. Using her enhanced hearing she listened in on their conversation.

“That’s her, I swear that’s her in the video.”

The blonde’s face soured likes she sucked on a lemon. “No, it wasn’t good lighting there is no way he would dance with someone like her.”

Everybody talks

Marinette had tough skin but their words had an impact, only a small one due to her defence mechanism of repressing emotions. She stopped listening and went back to drawing in her sketchpad, she was in desperate need of a new school outfit.

The two girls eventually came up to the counter, goods in hand. Marinette rung up and bagged their items (paper because save the turtles sksksk) in a tired daze. A phone was shoved into her face, her eyes barely adjusted to view the screen before the blonde spoke.

“Is this your instagram?” She asked in a tone so snobbish that it should be illegal from a person her age. Marinette finally was able to view the screen that was barely an inch from her face. Her old Instagram ‘mariiiiinette’ was displayed on screen, she hesitantly nodded, gaze flicking back to the two in front of her.

The blonde’s nose scrunched up and the purple goth girl squealed in delight. They soon after left the store, their conversation had devolved into ‘See! I told you’ and ‘Yeah, yeah. You were right.’

Walking to school on Monday, she had finally come down from cloud nine. She still rode the tail end of her high as she rushed along her path to her campus, she wasn’t going to be late but she sure wasn’t going to be early. She had spent the better part of the weekend designing and sewing a brand new outfit. Her new look was composed of a black cropped singlet (L'amour gagne hemmed into it and it’s straps), paired matching peach plaid cropped overshirt and a-line miniskirt. Her hair was down, ballet flats were worn and her makeup was the usual with the added edition of a rose gold eyeshadow.

Even though her face was covered in a black and gold mask, she looked hot.

She reached the campus and the whispers started again, people were still buzzing from Friday night. Her classmates, the majority of her grade and the younger years seemed to gossiping before class about the formal’s events. She couldn’t spot any of her friends or the two Gotham transfers, so she was stuck listening the the chitchat. Why couldn’t she have been late like usual?

Damian had a fowl disposition and it showed in multiple icey glares (and that was before he even reached the collège). His family had made their appearance known in Paris at 1am Sunday morning. He could have used his dorm to escape but his family didn’t have the word ‘privacy’ within their vocabulary. He didn’t want to have to pay for a lock replacement due to his brothers’ (most likely Todd with Drake & Grayson laughing at him) lock picking habit.

The Ice Prince was back with full force. He had just been... influenced by all the other couples. Yes he did respect Dupain-Cheng and he appreciated her company & pleasant conversations. He would struggle to hide a small smile at the memory of the dance, even if he denied himself the happiness of normality, he felt content when reminiscing.

“Ooo the Ice Prince is here, did he have a fight with his princess or something?” The voice seemed to mock him.

“The Disney Magic is gone. The demon is back.”

Everybody talks

At the second jeer he shot a glare at the perpetrator. Jon held his hands up in an ‘I surrender manner’, laughing as he joined Damian at his side. The two entered the school’s large foyer and looked to see if any of the classes were open yet. Sadly they weren’t, before he was wrong and the his class was plain torture but this was truely hell.

He saw Dupain-Cheng sitting alone on the stairs, drawing within her sketchpad. He wondered how a girl like her, who always seemed to be involved in other’s lives (for the better) was ignoring all of the comments about her. She felt his focus centre on her, eyes flicking up to meet his, she provided him with a small wave before continuing to draw.

Jon nudged him with an elbow to his ribs and dragged him off to the side, into the boy’s locker rooms. Jon scowled at the door, “It’s a mad house out there. You’ve heard what some people are saying right?”

“Why would I care about these imbeciles?”

Jon jabbed Damian in the chest, causing the demon to stumble. Green eyes darted from blue eyes to the tan finger. “You care when lies hurt people you care about.”

The day began to rapidly decline once the two dance partners took their seats, next to each other. They had both been placed up the back of the class and them sitting together hadn’t been a problem until now apparently. She wasn’t even safe when the teacher started their lecture, whispers and glances were cast towards them. Once the two got to biology it was better, Ms Mendeleiev was a strict teacher and was able to control the class.

Everybody talks

But the recess came. When the bell rang she slowly started packing up her equipment, Alix and Max (who she shared biology with) waited for her; she watched as the Ice Prince left through the door. She knew she didn’t need to be concerned about her friends joining in with the gossiping, if anything they would dispel people and tell them to ‘Mind their own fucking business’ because this whole situations is ridiculous, utterly ridiculous.

She did receive some slight teasing from Alix about being a Disney princess, but Marinette quipped back about the skater’s fairytale story being ‘Pinknette, the Geek and the Beast’. The three met up with the other two of their group, they had just come from geography. Kim was complaining that Argentina was a state in America.

“That’s Arkansas you idiot!” Chloe shrieked, lightly hitting his arm with her white handbag. Max held his head in his hand as he approached, how had his tutoring sessions failed so badly?

Chloe turned to Marinette, a smile forming from her glare. The blonde examined the designer’s clothing, nodding. “You look like you are about to have a hot girl summer.”

Marinette’s face burned, the tips of her ears coated in red. Alix chuckled and nudged her shoulder.

Everybody talks

“Look at her, she is so desperate for his attention that she probably copied those designs.”

“Why do you think he danced with her anyways? Maybe she has something on him? I mean, she forces him to sit next to her in class, who knows what else she has done.”

What. The. Fuck.

Chloe glowered towards Lila’s posy. “We have a fucking seating plan, those cretins-“ She made a motion to storm over but was caught by the ravenette, looking back to Mari, her rage decreased from a boil to a simmer.

“No Chlo. It’s fine, it’s not worth it.”

Everybody talks... back

The group walked out to the school’s front steps, it was a mad house... a mad courtyard? Students sitting on the stairs, on the grass and standing around mingling, all of them now were staring at her. She held her backpack close to her chest (she had swapped her signature coin-bag purse for the pastel pink bag), pretending its a shield. Her friends circled around her becoming an obstacle to prevent their stares. If people were afraid of a scowling Kim then they don’t know the scorn of Chloe or Alix’s bite. And Max, sweet quiet Max.... you better hope he doesn’t have blackmail on you (he probably does), he can dismantle your life with a single anonymous post.

Rushed footsteps approached them. The group was broken apart by a rude Wayne boy, he swept Mari away from the school and the gossip crowds within. Her four friends shouted at him and he kept walking, shooting a glare at them in response. He kept pushing Marinette forward with a hand placed on the small of her back, her backpack was now swung over his other shoulder.

They ended up in her favourite alcove. She had brought him here with the other Gotham transfers for a native’s tour of Paris. It had always been her safe place to be creative.

It started with a whisper (everybody talks, everybody talks)

“My apologises for our rushed departure but you seemed to want to get out of their anyhow.” His gruff tone danced through the silence, his head still peaking around the corner; watching for any unwelcome guests.

“Thank you.” She whispered, her voice almost being carried off by the gentle wind. A genuine smile illustrated upon her face.

“We weren’t able to converse after the events of the other night. I would like to formally apologise once more for my actions causing this adverse reaction. If I had kn-“

“You don’t need to apologise!” She squeaked, hiding her eyes behind her fisted hand. Her shoulders curled inwards as she tried to make herself seem as small as possible, a side effect of her common use of her secondary miraculous form: Multimouse.

“I chose to dance with you, you don’t need to apologise for my own actions.” He stared at her with confusion. He had taken the blame so she wouldn’t need to do so herself; but she had taken it anyways. He had given her an out. Why does she always take the blame, even for things out of her control?

“But if I hadn’t danced with you then you wouldn’t have been the focus of the entire school.”

Marinette stepped forward, her eyes hardened and blazing. “Damian Friday night I went there out of obligation to my friends, I didn’t want to be there. But dancing with you? That was the highlight of my week, probably my month too. I enjoyed our time together.” Her face softened, lips twitched downwards ever so slightly. “I don’t regret anything about that night, but do you?”

He was bad at comfort. Everyone in his family avoided him when they were in need, he plainly didn’t know what to do. She wasn’t visibly upset but he sensed that she is disappointed that he apparently didn’t share the same opinion of the night. The only thing he regretted about that night was letting Jon call him a coward, but then again if he didn’t he never would have danced with Dupa- Marinette.

He picked up her clenched hand, the tension in her body alleviated at his embrace. He remembered how Grayson would apologise to Kor’i or how his father interacted with Ms Kyle. He brought their hands up and placed a kiss upon her knuckles.

And that was when I kissed her (everybody talks, everybody talks)

“I do not regret anything either—“ he cleared his throat, “In fact, I’d appreciate if we would be able to interact more, especially outside of that cesspit.”

Was he...?

It didn’t matter.

She smiled the same dazzling smile she gave him at the dance. She nodded while laughing, “I’d love that.”

Everybody talks

The two stay talking, hidden within their secret alcove for the rest of the day. She texted her parents to say she was with a friend and would be back later that night. Damian didn’t bother texting his family, Marinette knew he had to be back soon due to his dorm’s curfew.

The sun was setting at they walked back together, he did the gentlemanly thing and dropped her off at her bakery door. She could see her mother behind the register inconspicuously looking over at the two of them. Damian’s lips quirked upwards, she was satisfied with his kinda-smile.

He walked back, hands in pockets and a neutral expression upon his face instead of a scowl. He reached his door and took his keys, he found that it was already open. Damn.

His family was splayed out within his two roomed dorm. Todd and Drake were fighting over a place to sit on his bed, whilst his father sat at his desk, watching the commotion. The three of them turned to him as he enter the room, they were the only family members able to attend on short notice; Cain had a ballet audition, Gordon & Brown had concert tickets for tomorrow, Grayson had to take care of Mar’i while Kor’i was on Tamaran and Alfred stayed to ensure no one died during their night time activities.

“We need to talk Damian.” His father stood, leaning onto the desk chair. “The school called and said you had an unexcused absence for half the day. Where were you Damian?”

Damian stared into his father’s eyes. He was fifteen, almost an adult, but was treated like he was ten again.

“I was with a friend.”

“Probably the girl from the dance. Marinette, right?” Todd mocked him. Damian snapped his head in the direction of his bed, glaring at both his brothers.

“That’s what I want to talk about with you Damian. Now I don’t know her personally but from what we’ve discovered through our investigation we have some concerns. What’s happened Damian?”

The youngest Wayne’s glare shifted off of his brothers to the floor, and then finally to his father; his family sitting in wait for his answer. Straightening his posture, his shoulders clicked as he rolled then back. His statement’s tone was sure and steady, “Everybody talks father.”

Everybody talks... back

#maribat #marinette x damian #mlb x dc #batfam salt #batfam is concerned #Daminette #the aftermath of ‘Like I did with you’#everybody talks by neon trees #max kante has blackmail and will use it #Alix will bite if provoked #dc x mlb #damian wayne x marinette dupain cheng #Marinette Dupain-Cheng is a meta?#supportive Dupain-Cheng parents ❤️

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olivia-anderson-fanfic · 3 years

Text

Into The Unknown, Part 2

First

Interdimensional travel? Awful. Don’t try it at home. It’s a lot like how one would imagine getting sucked up a straw: you get squished and pulled until you come out the other side a goopy mess.

Speaking of goopy messes: Tim keeled over and threw up.

He ignored the yelling right next to him because, honestly, he couldn’t even bring himself to look up at the moment. The bright light of this world -- apparently it was daytime here, ew -- hurt his eyes even through his sunglasses and he really didn’t want to move from where he had curled up in what seemed to be grass.

But, eventually, he did. He pushed himself up onto his knees and squinted over at her.

Ladybug had detransformed at some point and was now wearing an old t-shirt and some sweats… and she was apparently fighting off a baby. Damian kicked, screamed, and wiggled in her hold as she tried her hardest to trap him in the blanket again.

“... how are you losing to a baby?”

She sent a glare at him and then mumbled a curse as a tiny fist connected with her face and Damian wriggled away from her.

“Let me think about that, Red. What could go wrong if I, a meta used to fighting other metas, tried to use force against a human child?”

Okay, yeah. It was probably for the best that she hadn’t tried anything.

Oddly enough, when Tim walked over and replaced Marinette, Damian started behaving immediately.

He frowned, tipping his head to the side confusedly. He picked up his younger brother and stood up. “Why’d he start freaking out?”

She did the exact opposite of standing up, opting to spread out in the grass and glare at the sky. “I don’t know. He just started freaking out when I tried to put the watch around his neck.”

“Weird,” he mumbled.

“Yeah.”

He took the time to look around properly for once. They were in a park but it must have been a weekday because there was hardly anyone around. The only people that had paid them any mind were a group of teenagers -- probably ditching, he thought -- that were staring at them with wide eyes.

Tim glanced at a street sign to make sure the common language was English before sending them a glare. “It’s rude to stare, y’know.”

The teenagers quickly looked down at their phones. Tim knew better than to believe that they were actually paying attention, they had the same posture that a lot of lookouts did, but whatever. No one would believe them, anyways.

He gave her a few more minutes before he adjusted his hold on Damian and offered a hand up.

Ladybug took it with a faint smile and he pulled her to her feet. She grabbed their discarded suitcase and they started walking aimlessly.

“Okay, we’re here… but we still need a cover.”

“Um… you’re the one that’s good at hacking, right?”

He nodded. Damian reached a hand out of the blanket and began touching his hair. He was too busy wondering what to do to really mind.

“Great. How about… we’re the kid’s siblings?”

“We can pass as his parents. I mean, it’d be a teen pregnancy but it wouldn’t be bad,” said Tim. “We still had him at eighteen-ish.”

She shook her head. “He’s darker than both of us, it wouldn’t make sense. Maybe I had him with some… darker guy and now you’re my boyfriend? No, that feels racist for some reason. I’m his half-sister, our parents died, and you’re my boyfriend.”

Tim frowned. “Why am I always the boyfriend? He’s my brother.”

“Well, frankly, you look nothing like him. He and I, at least, have similar noses.”

He scowled. It made sense but it still annoyed him. “Fine. I’m your husband, though. I want to have at least some rights.”

She rolled her eyes. “Sure. Guess that’s good for tax benefits, too. Better get me a cute ring.”

“Okay, but the diamond is going to be fake.”

“Cheapskate.”

“Cheskae,” Damian said, yanking Tim’s hair like the little shit he was.

“See, he agrees,” Ladybug said with a victorious grin.

They went up to a hotel (Red Robin had tried to talk her into a five-star one but she managed to bring it down to a two-star when showing him the cost) and tried to reserve a room.

“May I have a name for the reservation?” The nice lady at the front counter said, smiling at them.

Red Robin glanced up from where he was awkwardly bouncing with the baby in his arms to shoot her A Look. It was unfortunate that she had no clue what the look meant. She considered the question for a moment before eventually saying:

“Dupain-Cheng.”

Red Robin relaxed a little so she was pretty sure she had gotten it right.

She hesitantly took the baby from him -- the kid had apparently forgotten about his earlier freakout because he was just as weirdly still as he had been back in Gotham -- so he could pay.

The moment they got into the hotel room she fell back in the bed. The baby squirmed a little on her stomach to get comfortable before joining her in her laziness.

Red Robin sighed and sat next to them, resting his head in his hands. “Okay. We’re going to need supplies for him. Do you want to do a supply run or should I?”

She shrugged a little, much to the baby’s dismay. Have you ever had a baby babble angrily at you? It’s very cute.

“You’re so helpful. Thanks, Ladybug.”

“No problem,” she said as if she couldn’t hear the blatant sarcasm in his tone. Then she pushed herself up to squint at him, the baby sliding down to her lap smoothly. “Wait, are we still going to be using codenames?”

He frowned. “Obviously.”

“... for fifteen years?”

“Obviously.”

She rolled her eyes. “Great, so when we take the kid back we’re going to explain to him that, on top of all the adjustment of moving to a different dimension, he needs to now use a different name for you, and messing up isn’t an option. Also, I feel like people are going to question two random people called ‘Red Robin’ and ‘Ladybug’ at some point.”

Red Robin frowned, clearly thinking hard, and then nodded slightly. He removed his glasses and looked at her with an awkward smile. “This is Damian, I’m Tim.”

She raised her eyebrows because he was looking at her expectantly and she really didn’t know what he wanted from her. “Uh… am I supposed to know you?”

“I mean… kinda?”

She squinted at him for a while before shrugging. “That one guy? Timothy --.”

“Yep!”

“-- Chalamet?”

He looked oddly hurt now. “You think I look like Timothy Chalamet?”

“I mean you both have the same sickly Victorian boy look about you.”

“... for the sake of our fake marriage I’m going to pretend that you didn’t say that. I’m Tim Drake.” She still didn’t show any hint of recognition (probably because she didn’t recognize him) so he groaned and motioned to Damian. “This is Damian Wayne.”

“Wayne? Like Waynetech?”

“There you go,” he said.

She grinned at him. “It’s not my fault you made me guess.”

He huffed a little. “Alright, fine, then who are you, then?”

“Marinette Dupain-Cheng.”

“... who’s that?”

“A nobody. Like secret identities should be,” she said, giving him a smug look.

He rolled his eyes. “I feel like this is going to be a long fifteen years.”

“Shouldn’t have dragged me into your mess, now you gotta deal with the consequences.”

He stuck his tongue out at her. She returned it. So did the baby.

It was decided that Marinette should be the one to go on a supply run since Tim needed to start making identities for them.

… it would be a lot easier if there wasn’t a baby crawling all over him. She’d better get a crib while she was out because he didn’t know if he could deal with a baby smashing the keys for much longer.

“Dami -- no, stop, I -- I swear to god -- you’re a baby okay I can literally just drop you and you would -- please stop --,” Tim cut off his irritated rambling when Damian nearly got them on a good few government watchlists by smashing the keys at the wrong time.

Fed up, he grabbed the kid and set him on the ground. It’ll probably be fine. He only needed to do a few quick things, anyways.

He was shocked to find that there was a version of him in this world. The idea of a Tim who didn’t do vigilante-work was foreign to him. He had apparently stayed with his parents and was now working towards a business degree. This dimension’s Tim wasn’t nearly as famous as he was and the three of them had landed in Texas so it was unlikely that he would be recognized but he would prefer not using the name if he didn’t have to. Just to be safe.

Damian didn’t exist, as far as he could tell, but Bruce Wayne did and he was still famous so it wouldn’t be a good idea to use his last name either.

There was a version of Marinette, too, but she was currently in France helping her parents run their bakery. Very little chance of her getting recognized.

So, he decided to use her last name for all of them. Quick and easy. He’d have to tell her that he changed her birthplace to New Jersey when she got back to the hotel but he doubted she’d have much of a problem with that.

… oh. His phone was ringing. Apparently he could tell her now.

He picked up and wedged it between his ear and his shoulder as he worked at finding them a few social security numbers to… ‘borrow’.

“Yeah?”

“How big is the baby?”

Tim blinked a few times. “... baby sized?”

“No. Like… what size diaper do you think he would use?”

He scoffed. “Do I look like I would know the diaper sizes?”

“Do I look like I do? Just… how old do you think he is?”

Tim looked over the edge of the bed to where Damian was currently shaking Kaalki like she was a maraca. Kaalki, for her part, only looked vaguely annoyed as she bounced around in his tiny baby fists.

“I dunno. Like… a year-ish? Just buy one of everything we can see what fits.”

“Fucking hell I forgot you were rich. You said a year? I’m using that.”

He rolled his eyes. “Okay -- OH SHIT DAMIAN NO!”

He tumbled out of bed and raced over to Damian before he could stick his finger in a socket. He didn’t really know if that was enough to get shocked but this was not the way to find out.

Damian was apparently very annoyed about him foiling his attempt at dying because he squirmed around in his grip and yelled incomprehensibly. Tim ignored the baby fists trying to knock his teeth out -- his teeth had faced far worse before -- and scooted across the ground to his phone.

“-- to god, Tim, what happened if you don’t answer I will run over there --.”

“It’s fine. Just get… you know the things that cover electrical sockets? Make sure to get some of those,” he said, tipping his head back to rest against the bed so he could kind of relax despite the ball of anger in his arms.

Marinette groaned. “Fuck, you can’t just scare me like that.”

“Yeah, you were the one that suffered the most during that.”

She scoffed but he swore he could hear a tiny laugh hidden under her mumbled ‘shut up’.

He smiled a little.

She didn’t hang up, probably expecting to ask him something else soon, so he listened in idly as he tried to calm Damian down enough to start working again.

She mumbled to herself while she looked for things. Some of the speech was normal but most of it was pretty much as incomprehensible as Damian’s babbling (admittedly, it probably didn’t help that he was only half paying attention).

“... tty trai… now?... oh... alright… oh, great, does she work here?” She murmured to herself. Then, louder: “Hey, lady --!”

“We’re in Texas,” he reminded her. “People are expected to be more polite down here.”

He was too late. Someone started yelling on Marinette’s end and, if the tiny sigh of annoyance was anything to go off of, it wasn’t her.

The yelling lasted approximately five minutes before someone intervened.

He heard her speak in rapid Spanish to the employee and, to his surprise, he could actually understand every word of them talking shit about the lady who had screamed at her. He didn’t know what to think of this outside of pulling the phone away from his mouth so he could try and roll an r. He was delighted to find that he had gained that ability as well. He continued rolling his tongue.

Damian stopped his squirming and gave Tim a confused look… and then he started to giggle. He twisted around in Tim’s lap and started trying to mimic the sound.

He tried to hide his smile as the two of them kept making r sounds at each other. He didn’t think he’d succeeded at keeping his face relatively neutral, but he didn’t really mind.

~~~~~

@nathleigh @peachmuses @unoriginalmess

#made a complex story with distinct arcs and heist vibes #and then released a story about two idiots raising a kid #and somehow i was surprised that people liked the second one better #i know im good at fluff its just really draining to do it all the time #but i rely so much on feedback at this point for serotonin that now I'm doing both #idk what ill do when school starts up tbh #into the unknown #maribat #timari #timmari #timinette #shutterbug #ladybug #tim drake #red robin #marinette dupain cheng

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mittensmorgul · 4 years

Text

As Above, So Below

I’m still trying to pinpoint exactly why the focus on “heaven is fixed and actually a paradise now!” is just so deeply unsatisfying to me. And I think I need to preface this with a bit of backstory about me, because I think that gives the rest of this essay some relevant context.

I know this isn’t relevant to my main point here, but this is a metatextual and thematically identical example of the exact thing I’m gonna lay out, because context is always helpful. So please forgive this seemingly irrelevant detour, because I promise it will be relevant by the end.

(plus, would it really be an Essay By Mittens™ without at least one baffling tangent? no, it would not!)

Tangent time!

I think everyone that follows me knows how skeptical I was... or should I say how WARY I was of the way Eileen was returned to the narrative this season. We were warned in the PREVIOUS EPISODE how much Chuck was attempting to interfere in their lives. I was accused of some very nasty things, of hating the ship, or hating the character of Eileen, or of hating Sam and not wanting them to be happy. No amount of pointing at obvious warning signs in the text, no amount of yelling about Sam’s God Wound or the absolute klaxon warning that the wound had become “quiet” and his Chuck-O-Vision Nightmares had apparently stopped seemed to matter. I was declared “wrong” and told to shut up.

And then 15.09 happened, and basically everything I’d been wary of was shown to be what actually happened, but there were still unresolved issues. Eileen doubted her own feelings and walked away. She doubted what was actually real. And at the time, I said many times that I would be thrilled to see those issues resolved by the end of the season, and for her to truly know that what she’d felt growing between her and Sam was real. And by the end of the season, despite my personal horror at her previous situation (and having that personal horror compounded by the fandom literally gaslighting me and attempting to bully me into ignoring this basic actual plot detail of this specific growth process which... in the context of what my personal objection was to accepting her return at face value in the first place having been personal trauma associated with gaslighting and manipulation...) by the time 15.18 aired, I was 100% convinced that Sam and Eileen had fully chosen each other, and felt the traumatic pain Sam suffered during that text conversation with her during the snap. She NEEDED to come back, because she had been set up to be part of Sam’s Win. They were clearly each other’s future.

The show literally put in all the work to make even *me* feel this to be True and Right and Good. And then after that point we never even hear Eileen’s name again. We never were told that she was even returned at the end of 15.19. Sam, who had been so entirely devastated by her disappearance in the previous episode that he couldn’t even process it was apparently hit with an amnesia hammer and just... never even thought about her again through a long greyscale life with a blurry baby Dean factory vaguely in the background of a single scene of his life. I can’t credit or justify how after an entire year invested in making us all truly care about Sam and Eileen and the happiness they found in each other if only the cosmos would allow them to choose each other in the end would just... erase all of that in the series finale.

Which brings me to the second tangent, which is specifically about *me,* and how I feel about the cosmic order in the television show Supernatural. Because I feel a lot about it. Probably more than most people ever did. And this is also important to understanding the main underlying point I need to make here.

Something I’ve been most looking forward to, for YEARS, about Supernatural eventually ending someday was writing a book, or a thesis, or even just organizing and compiling all my observations into a cohesive narrative specifically about the cosmology of the Supernatural universe. I’ve been cobbling together my observations and realizations about the nature of heaven, hell, purgatory, the empty, the alternate universes we’ve seen, and yes, even the cosmic function of the mundane level of the story as told by events that transpired on Earth. So of everyone watching this dumb show for the last 15 years, I don’t actually know anyone who cared more that I did about finding a satisfactory resolution and transformation of every plane of existence-- the mortal world AND the “afterlife realms” we’ve experienced on this show. And in the wake of the finale, I feel cheated out of that. Because in the end, it wasn’t about the triumph of free will and a flip of the script, it was just more of the same.

And now that I have those two preliminaries out of the way, I’ll finally get to the point. :’D

(hooray, it didn’t even take 1k words to get there for once!)

The “main stage” of Supernatural has always been Earth. It’s always been “Humanity.” At the very start, we meet two men whose lives had always been dictated to them by higher powers. At first, that “higher power” was their father who raised them in his vengeance mission, who trained them to hunt the supernatural. It was the inciting incident of the entire series, after all, their realization that forces outside of their control had irrevocably altered the course of their lives. It had forever torn down what they’d trusted in family, in personal safety, and would become something they couldn’t outrun or fight back against for long before another wave of cosmic discord would settle over them once more.

We watched this story play out in ever increasing spheres of cosmic significance, until Gabriel laid it out on the table for them in the simplest possible terms (in 5.08).

GABRIEL: You do not know my family. What you guys call the apocalypse, I used to call Sunday dinner. That's why there's no stopping this, because this isn't about a war. It's about two brothers that loved each other and betrayed each other. You'd think you'd be able to relate. SAM: What are you talking about? GABRIEL: You sorry sons of bitches. Why do you think you two are the vessels? Think about it. Michael, the big brother, loyal to an absent father, and Lucifer, the little brother, rebellious of Daddy's plan. You were born to this, boys. It's your destiny! It was always you! As it is in heaven, so it must be on earth. One brother has to kill the other. DEAN: What the hell are you saying? GABRIEL: Why do you think I've always taken such an interest in you? Because from the moment Dad flipped on the lights around here, we knew it was all gonna end with you. Always. A long pause. SAM and DEAN look down, then at each other. DEAN: No. That's not gonna happen. GABRIEL: I'm sorry. But it is. GABRIEL sighs. GABRIEL: Guys. I wish this were a TV show. Easy answers, endings wrapped up in a bow...but this is real, and it's gonna end bloody for all of us. That's just how it's gotta be. ***

And isn’t that all even 1000x more painfully ironic that it all still happened even 10 years later? It was always going to end with them. And lol, “I wish this were a TV show” because if it was then it wouldn’t have to end bloody.

But this… was a Major Acknowledgement that the meta level of this story was consistent, and was telling us something important. It demonstrated that the Cosmic Structure Itself was the cause for Sam and Dean’s “destiny” in this story. But that’s not what the point of this story has ever been.

Nobody (including me, who is literally obsessed with this aspect of the story) has ever invested themselves in the narrative of Supernatural because they cared about the fate of the cosmic order over and above the fate of the characters who had committed to overthrowing it all, to “tearing up the pages” and writing their own destinies. I mean, we became invested because Sam, Dean, and Cas as characters took us by the hand and invited us to come along with them as they battled against fate for the good of EARTH and HUMANITY.

And certainly, Heaven being a horrific sort of eternal replay of the “highlights” of individual souls greatest hits, where free will didn’t apply as everyone was just boxed away into their individual holodecks to serve as some sort of giant Heaven Battery powering the furtherance of this narrative, this “cosmic order” that had become so powerful it dictated the events and manipulated the lives of people who still existed in the ostensible realm of free will and human life on Earth… that couldn’t stand in the end. But what the narrative (and people I’ve seen attempting to justify the finale as narratively sensible) seems to have forgotten was that all of that was Chuck’s construct to begin with. That without Chuck holding his kingdom in Heaven together, the walls of all those soul cubicles ceased to even be relevant.

After spending their entire lives to this point constantly fighting their way to the absolute pinnacle of the As Above, So Below narrative and pulling the plug on the original creator himself, Humanity should’ve triumphed. And I’d argue that it DID, through Jack restoring the missing essential “humanity” to the divine condition. And, silly me, I thought they’d achieved the promise of “paradise” heralded by Jack’s birth at last, and truly “flipped the entire script of the narrative.”

Ever since they thwarted the original apocalypse, I had hope that they would continue to achieve the same result right up the ladder. Metatron trying to fill the role of Chuck Junior hit his own narrative wall in TFW, while Dean’s battle with the Mark of Cain, and Cain telling him he was “living my life in reverse” and would succumb to destiny by killing his loved ones in the “reverse order” to Cain’s own path to downfall cemented this for me. Dean not only failed to kill any of his loved ones (you didn’t kill your own brother. why?), he SAVED them. He didn’t fulfil the prophecy in reverse, he subverted it. He UNMADE it.

Perhaps I was thinking on too grand a scale, that the ultimate inversion wouldn’t be “God is overthrown and replaced by more of the same,” but “God is overthrown and the entire order of the universe is restructured from the bottom up rather than the top down.

I’d hoped against hope that the conclusion of the narrative would be “As below, so above,” with the fundamental power of human love becoming the new foundation of the cosmic order. It never even occurred to me that “taking back the narrative to rewrite it for ourselves” was not the ultimate goal of Team Free Will, or the ultimate expression of their biggest win.

This whole “well heaven really needed to be rebuilt, there was still work to be done!” seems… irrelevant to me if they’d truly won free of the cosmic narrative. The entire structure of the universe-- including Heaven and Hell-- should’ve defaulted to the paradise state that Jack was literally born to bring to fruition. Wasn’t that the point of his entire role in the story, ultimately?

And if that wasn’t the case in the end, why did we never learn the fate of Hell? Was it just… irrelevant and unchanged after this? Or just… abandoned as a concept entirely? It’s just strange to me to put such a focus on heaven being the sole sphere of import in the end that it undercuts the essential humanity of the narrative for me.

The story itself had kept Heaven on a back burner for years, only occasionally mentioning that the structure of the place was falling further and further into disrepair with a dwindling force of angels struggling to keep the walls in place at all, that it seems like it could’ve been an afterthought at the end of the series rather than a focus so large it required the death of both main characters to make sure we all understood that Heaven Had Changed Now. Because TFW had never been fighting to make Heaven right. They’d been fighting to save the world itself, for humanity to all have a chance to live their lives as their own.

And we didn’t need to see that in the final hope they might get their own lives on Earth to explore. In the end, the fundamental narrative that Life On Earth was dictated by the cosmic structure of creation was never fully subverted. And for me, that’s the main reason I just… can’t accept the finale. It wasn’t a victory of free will and humanity, in the end it was just more of the same.

I appreciate the attempts to take the essential bones of the story we did get and apply a different polish to the surface of the skeleton, but to me it still feels like we’re looking at completely different beasts in the end. Like… to me this was as jarring a revelation as those drawing of modern animals reimagined as dinosaurs entirely based on their skeletons. Like, all along the narrative told me I was looking at a swan. They told me this skeleton they’re building out from is definitely a swan, without a doubt. I know what a swan looks like-- a graceful feather-covered bird with magnificent wings. I trusted that in the end it would be at least remotely swan-looking. And then the finale ended up looking like this

and I just don’t even know where everything went so wrong. Or maybe all along I just assumed they actually knew what a swan looked like, but weren’t sure they could actually pull it off and settled for whatever the heck this is instead. Either way, I’m actually kinda grateful to the finale for being so entirely disappointing on every level, because otherwise I probably would’ve tried to adopt the monstrosity of it anyway. And I’m really, really glad I don’t have to.

#spn 15.20 #spn cosmology #heaven hell purgatory and the empty #and this is why no amount of narrative defense of the finale is capable of making me feel any better about it #i admit i thought too big... but it was all right there in the narrative to see #oh well at least all i have to do to hold on to my grandest notion of the universe is throw out the finale :'D

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soundsaboutrighttumblr · 4 years

Text

WBL meta

We best love: fighting Mr. 2nd episode 2:

Some first, non-exhaustive meta thoughts and reactions to episode 2, about doors left open and overprotective dramatic men, Shu Yi’s relative level-headedness and stuff that finally seems to get rolling

Last ep’s ending scene again without music was powerful. It’s even more clear like this how even though he submits in words, the control over the scene goes over to Shi De once more, so of course Shu Yi has to angrily nope out, because yeah, too close to where it hurts.

I like Zhe Yu’s dominance, it brings drive and direction to scenes and development. Also, the petty quasi passive aggressiveness, that in discussing it aloud in Shu Yi’s presence in the car isn’t all that passive actually? Very delightful, especially together with Bing Wei’s gentle care.

There in the car is the first sign in this ep that Shu Yi can actually step back from his emotions and assert a situation correctly and with honesty, which is why he apologizes. He makes us forget he can do that, and it might be one of the main points of this episode and hopefully what’s to come? That the men in Shu Yi’s life underestimate that ability in him and in their intentions to protect him or take care of him overlook that he has this capability. Because Dad, Shide? Your asses are pretty dramatic, too, and this ep shows that Shu Yi can be the relatively clear-headed calm one, if he needs to, chooses to. You are all underestimating him, and not seeing all that he is and can be yet. I mean yeah, he has a track record, but the fact that he has to remind people in his job even all the time that he knows what he is doing, that he WILL take responsibility, even though he gets emotional? I just wonder what amazing things giving him some credit and trust on that in the future will bring.

I did like that stalker-Shi De overheard that convo again, because it stubbed the ‘lead him on then break his heart’ plot in the bud in the best way, it accelerated things and Shi De’s break down, but it didn’t take time from them in unnecessary side arcs? I like that, even though it really felt a bit convenient, but then again… I’ll take it happily.

That typing scene? Where you just wanna yell at them TALK? Man, so close. That must be one heroic promise. I am only being half-sarcastic here. They do have their reasons and intentions, just to show again where it can drive people? The crescendo, the anti-climax? Well done scene.

Still forcing it all down, Shi De, your words, the alcohol in Shou Yi’s bar… That physically hurt, the way he forced it down, so much of it, though you could tell he could barely keep it down.

I really, really look forward to knowing more about Doc’s and Technical Chief’s story. Thank you for that music vid in the meantime.

Workaholic responsible self-distracting Shu Yi and… Hiiii? You gotta be kidding me. Okay, let’s do this.

That scene: I believe the door stays open out of dramaturgical choice. I will never excuse any overbearing, boundary crossing behaviors, and that obviously is what’s happening here, Shi De, and that will be your thing to work on, maybe Dad’s too, but. The door left open, and the calm demeanor that Shu Yi displays, to me showcase that to some extent Shu Yi chooses to stay in that situation, because he wants answers. Because he CAN choose to stay in that situation, because if he really wanted out he could flare up his anger again, kick some more nuts and leave. I realize this is a difficult argument in a sensitive issue. It’s what I make of it, though. Like I said, unhealthy but powerful things are happening here, but a lot of what they are doing right now is unhealthy, and it is shown to be so I believe, which is important, and it will be their job to realize, question and overcome this.

So yeah, Shu Yi totally kneed Shi De in the nuts as a warning at around 23:41.

That river of regret and tears then that switch to the defensive -You are messing with me- again, but still taking it all on your shoulders as a regret and outcome of your decisions, letting him see you struggle with the weight of it all but still not sharing it? That’s a lot to put on Shu Yi, only you don’t, but you do? What a scene, those tears falling onto Shu Yi, yes, Shi De putting his weight on Shu Yi literally, then taking it away again, then throwing it in some more with a plead of emotion, oh boy.

That shushing and the holding Shu Yi’s questioning mouth shut? Powerful and wrong and powerful.

Yeah, it hurts and it feels far from right, as it is meant to I believe, but still the moment Shu Yi kisses back? We still want them to be inevitable, right. I do. Just learn and grow, and I’ll love you from over here.

Yes, that was on hell of a breakdown, but as far as character development and tension and release is concerned we’re still in that crescendo.

Maybe the reason that this ep doesn’t leave me all that devastated is the ending, because ooops, something slipped there, Dad, and finally, finally things will have to give, with the truth and those misunderstanding and the scheming and those heroic promises.

So yeah, Dad will have to realize that Shu Yi must be free to live a life of his own with his own choices, a quite common struggle for protective parents, and Shi De will have to learn that Shu Yi needs to have agency in this relationship too, for when you are equal, you will realize Shu Yi actually IS strong enough to hold you, once you let him, Shi De.

#wbl #meta #we best love #we best love: fighting mr. 2nd #episode 2 #spoilers #reaction

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trashcatsnark · 3 years

Note

Oh, let me continue the subject of the jealousy of these two. You're saying that Johnny isn't the type to hold back when it comes to emotions. And it really is. But... there is a moment in the game when V talks about his exes or about stupid compliments in a conversation with River. And Johnny doesn't say anything. I would write it off as a scenario move, so as not to shift the focus from the River. But this isn't the only time Johnny ignores events in this quest line. See the second question

Part 2 for context: So... I continue. Do you remember the moment when you watched brain damage and lost consciousness, when you and River were searching for clues about the mayor's murder? Johnny never ignored the moments when V passed out. Here River comes to the rescue, and you would think that he knows that there is someone to help and nothing to worry about ...But in similar situations with Judy and Panam, he would appear and deliver his moralizing remarks or make snide comments. 🤔

Personally, I do believe this is sort of a meta issue. I’ve talked about it a little bit before in a general post; how given his characterization, Johnny does not in my opinion talk as much as he should. In a more comedic example, I mentioned how could anyone honestly look me in the eye and say that Johnny wouldn’t have a comment on the guy with the exploding penis implant???? Like Johnny is majorly characterized as a guy who can’t leave well enough alone and always has something to say; yet theres a fairly large percentage of gigs and missions and moments where you’d think Johnny would have something to say and he doesn’t. There’s also times where lines are blatantly reused and in a jarring way.

Like, I could be wrong, but I think they reuse him saying “There it is” with both V getting Nibbles and a man committing suicide in a gig. Like?????

Meta wise, I do think it’s partially a fear of over incorporating Johnny to the point players found him annoying. Because even now, some people find him irritating and wish he’d talk less. So, that could be a factor. The idea of not sidelining love interests is a factor of course. While, he has commentary through out each love interests questlines. He always does mostly bugger off during the romantic lead up and the actual kiss then sex. Because well, it might be a bit of a buzzkill and if you’re trying to get laid and Methed Out Future Keanu Reeves is yelling at you from the corner of the room. I mean, it’d probably enhance my experience but some people aren’t into that.

As for why stuff like, him ignoring V getting zapped by the braindance in River’s quest. I’ve always thought that was ooc. Like, short of potentially the bd having fried him up for a bit, kinda like the emp blast does when V and Panam take down the AV. But overall, over and over again, Johnny is shown to be the first one there when V gets hurt. Even if its to yell at them for going into the toxic water or he waits a beat to appear once Panam is done looking over V.

And that could be because they potentially again wanted to give more attention to River or... and I always hate to get into this sort of discourse, cause I know it aggravates some people. It was an oversight, something not caught, something not thought of, just because to be fair...River has the least polished questline of the love interests. The male love interests in general imo were sidelined more. But, River A) has the least amount of quests to build up to his romance, B) is the most easily missable love interest since he’s not even required to meet for the secret ending the way Kerry is. and C) this could just be my own personal experience, maybe cyberpunk 2077 provides unique bugs for everyone, but his quests are the buggiest for me.

And to be perfectly clear, this is not me being a dick to River. Do, I think some aspects of his character are kinda tone deaf, sure, but I like River. I think he’s a sweetheart, who’s usually pretty stiff, but has his cuter jokey moments and is a puppy dog underneath. I love doing his quests because they’re truly very emotional, being able to help his family. Like, being able to save Randy is one of the best feelings in the game to me, knowing you saved him and so many other young boys. That’s why it honestly breaks my heart to see how little polish and attention his quests were given. From the calls glitching, him not staying on comms in the first quest, Johnny in my game doesn’t even give the dialogue warning my V about River wanting to sleep with her, like it just does not show up for me, The cobbled together family photo. The weird pacing of the romance that goes from 0 to a 100. Randy’s face glitches and clips through the mask when you’re saving him. Like the concept, the investigation, the intense stakes, and the emotional impact of his quest are all so good; but CDPR just did not in my opinion take enough time with it.

So, maybe they didn’t bother to script and put Johnny in that scene despite it being something he’d most definitely pop in for; cause they just didn’t take their time with it like they could have/should have.

And in regard to Johnny in universe and talking; while like I said he’s more upfront and direct with his anger and side comments that he uses to hide his real feelings. I do think, especially if its post oils field convo, a part of him tries desperately to bite his tongue and just sit with his feelings if he think its best for V. In the more love dovey romance moment with River, I could see him being like, “okay, V wants this, as much as it pisses me off, V deserves to have some good in their life” and tries to hold back and be good and then five seconds later “CANT BELIEVE YOU’RE GONNA MAKE ME FUCK A COP” cause he can only behave for so long.

And I do wanna note; I am by no means consider myself a Johnny Silverhand expert. I’ve said this before, his characterization and just him as a person can be very messy, very all over the place, and contradictory at times. He can try to kill V and then the next day pop up to chat with them in a diner and be like “why aren’t you happy to see me?????? you still mad?????? its been a whole ass 5 hrs since I told you to kill yourself and bashed your head into a window, gotta learn to let shit go dude.” So, sometimes I worry I’m making him ooc, but its fun nontheless, so.

#cyberpunk 2077 #cp2077 #cyberpunk 2077 spoilers #johnny silverhand #silverv #kinda???? i spent a lot of time complaining about how they did river's quest dirty so #not tagging him though cause uhhhhhhh me no wanty discourse #idk if i said anything discoursable but just in case #orly-view

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currentfandomkick · 5 years

Text

Miraculous Team and Batboys-Akuma Attack

okay, giving the update spamming a break.

Marinette flew through the city, sensing where the corrupted butterfly’s power landed. She swung into a home with a broken window—likely where the akuma fled.

She froze when she saw scraps of bread, cheese, snacks and other food items scattered in the area. It didn’t make any sense—where was the akuma?

Queen Bee made it next, landing beside her. “What do you think happened?”

Marinette frowned, looking around. This was ground zero, someone’s house, and no one was left…

“I’m not sure…” Marinette opened her yo-yo’s comm while Queen Bee left to check the area. “Chat, are you there?”

“Of course m’lady. Any akuma sightings on your end?”

“No, and no one to ask what happened… do you think this is another Collector or Pixelator?”

“Maybe? Any clues?”

“Just a lot of scraps and a broken window.”

“Ladybug! We have a witness!” Queen Bee yelled as she landed. “They said some kid was turning people into food with some wand.”

Marinette froze as she processed that. It wasn’t the first time hunger transformed an akuma—they had one that ate everything in sight called Kirby before. He was… an interesting akuma, and wasn’t in a good place. He was in a better home now, and they needed the Bee and Horse to finish him. Queen Bee and Pegasus was needed big time then, and she was glad they had one permanently now but…

“Hold on,” Marinette turned back to Chat on her yo-yo. “Chat? Call the Guardian, we’ll need Monkey, Fox and Pegasus for this one—Tiger on standby.”

“You got it m’lady, Chat out!”

With the call ended, Marinette put together what happened to the victims and swore.

“Queenie, patrol now, stick to the rooftops and don’t draw attention. Contact me and Chat when you find them, and do not engage. I need you to not get hit for this plan to work.”

Queen Bee nodded, quick to leave.

Marinette took to the rooftop as she waited for either Queen Bee or Chat to contact her. She wasn’t expecting Wonder Woman and Batman’s sons to make contact first.

“What the hell is going on!” Red Robin sounded… panicked?

“Ladybug, are you certain you are not in need of further assistance?” Wonder Woman asked, eyes moving about nervously.

“Let me guess, someone got hit by the beam and ended up food?”

“I know I say I’m a snack, but I don’t want to literally be a snack,” Nightwing panicked while looking behind him. “Red Hood got hit before I could stop him.”

Was it bad she wanted it to be Robin that got hit? “I’ll fix it with the Cure after my team handles this. I’m waiting for the three I sent for to get back to me, and Bee to give me their current location—unless the akuma is still there?”

“Long gone,” Red Robin confirmed. “It was headed toward one of the restaurants by the Paris Grande Hotel that helps.”

“Of course—I swear Hawkmoth just picks landmarks and tourist locations for fun at this point. He’s clearly never lived here otherwise.”

“What!”

“Nothing, my team has it under control. Keep your team out of our battles—we have magic protections, you don’t.”

“But!”

“I apologize Ladybug, I did not think—”

Marinette pinched her brow as another call came in.

“Wonder Woman, while the thought is appreciated, I have to go now.”

She ended the call, to see Queen Bee’s icon. “They’re by the Tower”

“Of course. Forward to Chat, I’m on my way. We’ll be having some old friends join.”

“Our friends or the batbrats.”

“Our friends.”

Queen Bee hummed as she cut out, probably to catch Chat and the others up.

Marinette made it there without being seen. It felt wrong but there have been worse battles before. She landed by Queen Bee with ease, and waited for Pegasus to bring the group over.

The akuma was a small child from what she could see, and held tight to… that wasn’t a wand. That was a switch. She felt a bit sick at what it meant, and suddenly felt less horrified for the first victims.

“As requested,” Chat gestured to the portal. “One Renard Rogue.”

Nathaniel stepped out, a bit twitchy but otherwise ready. She was glad she picked him for this—he proved with Evillustrator he could work well with magic. As a civilian he is the right type of creative to keep someone distracted with a story or something flashy. (Alya was more...hands on, Nathaniel kept his distance, which... is better for a fox).Just what they’d need for the akuma.

“One Monkey.”

Kim came out with a nervous grin—they both knew he was good but that he needed to really have good aim for when his weapon hit.

“Our Pegasus will be joining us shortly, as he and the Guardian are talking Tigresse from bolting here and running in head first… again.”

Marinette wished Alya would stop that, on some level. On the other, its why she and Roaar get along so well. Bravery goes hand-in-hand with impulsivity.

“Okay, now if I’m right about this, the akuma should be hard to get unless we follow the plan.” She waited for everyone’s attention.

“I want Renard to distract first and foremost with Chat protecting him. Monkey, when I give the signal, hit them with Uproar. While they’re distracted I need Queen Bee to hit them with Venom, if it’s a tricky shot we need Pegaus to get her close. If that fails, Tigress is released onto the scene and we all know that should throw the kid and Hawkmoth off their game. Chat and I will use our powers if all else fails but…”

Marinette glanced over at the child.

“I’d rather be able to find out what happened and help them with the police and CPS after this.”

The group nodded while Nathaniel began to play.

Pegasus raised an eyebrow when he made it. “What’d I miss?”

“You’re on standby on location. If things get hairy, either drop Queen Bee off next to the akuma, or get Tigresse here.”

Pegasus nodded, making sure to have a clear vantage point.

Marinette didn’t check what the mirage was, only waiting for the child to go to the location Renard crafted.

Once the child was no longer throwing our beams, Kim used Uproar. A simple ball this time—to both his and Marinette’s relief. Kim pitched it quick as the Illusion disintegrated.

“No fair!” The child screamed when their powers were shooting off at random. Things weren’t turning as they should, left in some strange in between state.

Marinette nodded at Queen Bee and Pegasus.

“Voyage.”

Queen Bee murmured “Venom,” Before running into the portal. She hit the kid quick.

Marinette and Chat came down then, looking over the frozen child.

“Its okay,” Marinette soothed as she looked them over. They were scared and Hawkmoth was--god she hates that man. He’s hurting them.

“Here M’lady,” Chat handed her the switch with a leery eye.

Marinette snapped the switch and the corrupted butterfly escaped. “No more evildoing for you little akuma!” she snapped it up in her yo-yo before releasing a white butterfly. “Bye-bye little butterfly.”

Marinette gestured for Chat to keep the kid busy while she summoned her Lucky Charm and used the Cure. She made sure to catch the reverse ladybugs and catch them in her yo-yo. No need to let people remember their traumatic death.

“Chaton, I’ll be back in a bit.”

“Understood M’lady, I’ll keep our little buddy company.”

Marinette nodded, quick to grab the miraculous boxes guarded by Queen Bee, ever faithful to Ladybug and the rules for remaining a permanent holder—no looking into the temporary holders, but collect the miraculous for her and Chat when they couldn’t.

“Roaar should still be the Guardian. You can meet him when he says you’re ready, until then, I’ll take these guys home. Thank you for watching them.”

“Hmpf, as if I’d ever betray your trust.” Queen Bee softened then. “Thank you again for giving me another chance.”

Marinette eased up. “You earned your second chance as a civilian with what you’ve done for your classmates, like protecting a certain model from a liar. That was enough for me with the fact that you’ve always been a good hero in the mask. I’m glad you’ve grown outside of it, just don’t backslide.”

Queen Bee nodded while her miraculous beeped. “Gotta go, Can you cover patrol for me and Chat tonight?”

“I—Yes! You can count on me!”

Marinette smiled at that. “Great, bug out!”

Marinette swung to a safe place to de-transform and put the miraculous boxes in her backpack. While Tikki ate, Marinette made her way to Fu’s.

“Do you think those boys will calm down now?”

“Mmh, they should. If not…”

Marinette knew that meant the kwami would take matters into their own hands. And she didn’t like the idea of the Justice League attacking in retaliation.

Once the miraculous were back with Fu, Marinette transformed to deal with whatever nonsense the Justice League had in store for her.

“…he’s not a hot dog anymore.” Nightwing said

“Yep.” Marinette did her best not to look too insulted.

“Ladybug, if I may—“

“I am not answering questions when I have a victim to look after. The child was likely being starved and beaten for god knows what, and I need to ensure their permanent removal from their current household and placement into a safe location. Battles are off limits for non-magic users here—every meta and professional fighter in the city knows this. I see you didn’t check the basic legal work with civilian aides here.”

That seemed to get Nightwing to sit up a bit straighter. “We’re heroes too.”

Wonder Woman interrupted for her. “This is Order business, all non-members are civilians in your teachings, yes?”

Marinette glared as she nodded. “Unless you’re powered by a tiny god, stay out of the battles. We have enough people getting akumatized in their sleep from nightmares, I’d rather not add any Leaguers—as I said many times before you were sent.”

That caused Nightwing to wince. “We were not informed of any of this. My apologies—I’ll inform my brothers and try to keep them out of your hair.”

“See that you do,” Wayzz added over her shoulder. “I am not above letting my siblings wreck havoc to make a point.”

“Wayzz,” Marinette warned. “I can handle this, please keep Roaar from breaking out again and giving people the idea that they should join future battles. Again.”

Wayzz flew off.

Marinette rubbed her forehead. “I need to go. I have police to handle, a child to remove from monsters, and I can’t do my homework or essays or any of my other civilian life things until all that is handled.”

Nightwing signed off. Wonder Woman was concerned, Marinette could feel it.

“Yes Wonder Woman?”

“I did not mean to add to your stress.”

“I know.” It didn’t mean she didn’t.

“Perhaps I could have one of the bats help with tending to victims for you, to give you some more free time to tend to your civilian side.” That would be nice but…

“Unless they’re familiar with healthy coping mechanisms for traumatized children, I’m going to have to turn you down.”

“Are we counting vigilantism as a healthy coping mechanism?”

Marinette raised an eyebrow. That was too much to unpack at the moment.

“I will send Nightwing to help speak with the child—he is good with children, and has been in such situations himself.”

Marinette took a deep breath. “He can cover the 11 to 6 watch, by then the kid should have a place to stay.”

Wonder Woman smiled at her.

Marinette relayed the message to Chat before speaking to the police and explaining what she saw. Marinette and Chat kept the child far away from the others in the house, and far from hearing whatever ‘justifications’ they had.

The pair didn’t think about leaving until the child was fast asleep, sure to wake up again later. They knew another city’s hero would be there then to help them out.

Nightwing approached them slowly.

“If you even think about—“

“I won’t.”

Marinette eyed the hero.

“I promise, just, how are they holding up?”

“They go by Syd. Somehow they got it in their head that making mistakes means no meals. Pretty sure dyslexic and they’ve been failing spelling tests.”

Nightwing winced. “Any allergies or…”

Chat raised an eyebrow. “None.”

“Good. I’ll be back.”

Chat petted the kid’s hair while leaning against Marinette. “M’lady?”

“Yes Chaton?” Marinette waited for him to continue.

“I… is…”

She waited for him to find his words.

“Is it okay for Father to…”

“To…”

“…restrict access to food at home.”

Marinette stilled a bit. She knew it wasn’t good with Gabriel but…

“May I ask how?”

“No more than 900 calories a day.”

“Chaton.”

Chat winced, waiting for something. “I am going to kick your father’s ass.”

Nightwing paused at the door, not that Marinette knew he was there.

“No one, and I mean no one, should have that---that’s abuse chaton, especially if what you said about not being allowed to see anyone outside of a list your father approved of, or that you have to make appointments to talk to him weeks in advance. I just… That man is toast.”

“I, it’s not that bad m’lady…”

“Chat, I am getting you out of there, okay? I know who your civilian side is. I just need a plan.”

Nightwing knocked before entering.

“Here, I figured light veggie pizza, fries and a hot chocolate should help. I know they need to take it slow, but this should work for small bit for the night. You two get some rest, okay?”

Nightwing sent a text to the others: Chat in bad home. Bug is working on something—might get magic siblings if B finds out and Wonder Woman doesn’t beat him to punch.

That’s all i got for this installment.

Next Time: I’m thinking about (for damian’s POV) having Damian be watching Marinette do her routine, and freezing when he hears her ‘blackmail’ someone over the phone as “He’s not staying there if i have anything to say, and if it makes you feel better, you’re stealing the face of his brand, you know, if basic decency isn’t enough” (to felix, probably) and decides Marinette is a dangerous person to watch out for, and better to keep an eye on as she’s probably doing something wreckless.

followed by Batboys having a meeting about their role after Damian gets back, with Nightwing updating them on the fact that the kids didn’t even want them there in the first place, and it sounds like the JL is twisting their arm on this more than they thought, the combat ban, and you know, the fact that one of the heroes is in an abusive situation, so. They need a Plot to keep the kid holding destruction somewhere safe without letting out their identities, and giving the miraculous team breathing room.

And quick poll: Nightwing meets Marinette when she’s almost mugged on a delivery before Dick meets her,OR Dick meets her at a gymnastics place where she’s helping a ten year old Manon with stretches before going off to practice a routine on bars with an instructor that knews the Flying Graysons and invited Dick over to show him the place, OR Dick meets Marinette while getting Tim’s order and almost dies when he finds out Marinette calls him ‘zombie’ before sending Damian a message that his classmate is his new favorite person, and may be his sister soon if Dick and Tim have anything to say about it.

Jason meets her a little later as Gina (his favorite traveling biker granny who adopted him) needs to Appear first, and i like her crashing in at random, berating Jason for taking forever to call her back and then demanding he meet his brother/uncle and his family Right Now Or So Help Her and him being too scared to argue.

Sound Good?

@worlds-tiniest-spook-pastry @littleredrobinhoodlum @northernbluetongue @kceedraws @pirats-pizzacanninibles @theatreandcomicfreak @daminett4life @catthhay @weird-pale-blonde-person @amayakans @chocolatecatstheron @tired-butterfly @multplelifes @yin-390 @area51qt

#maribat #daminette idea au #team miraculous and batboys #my writing

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theshinsun · 4 years

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Heyyy! Since you wanted more and it's fun to read 🤩 💭✏️☕

💭 - any ideas for a possible wip?

oh, so many. for every one story or chapter I get published I’ve always got at least three or four others I’m noodling with in the background... right now it’s closer to seven or eight because I’m just desperately trying to finish ANR, so everything else has kind of been put on the back burner ‘til it’s done.

one thing I’ve always wanted to do is an aokaga lifeguard AU, they say write what you know and the idea of these guys being super competitive about saves and putting X’s on their visors like my coworkers did whenever they made one is really funny to me... plus the inherent homoerotic tension of being wet and shirtless all the time I mean...

I’ve also always wanted to take a crack at a lawyer AU. I don’t know much about the actual day to day life of an attorney or how a real court system works, but the image of angry aokaga yelling and flirting in suits is just so good to me.

for something I’m actually working on right now, I’ve got an aokuro time-travel fic in the works based on the song “The Night We Met” by Lord Huron. i have it set to be about 5 chapters long and it’s super meta, but I don’t want to post it until I have it at least halfway done. the gist is Aomine gets sent back to relive his time at Teiko, and gains a new appreciation for his friends and maybe some realizations about Kuroko that he didn’t have before.

✏️ - favorite part about writing:

I love when I get into a flow and the ideas just keep coming and the image in my head is so clear and sharp that I can hear the character voices and I just know what’s going to happen next... my fingers are flying on the keyboard with no hesitation, there’s music playing but it’s fueling and not distracting and I’m just grinding through paragraphs one after the other... it’s kind of rare nowadays to get into that zone, but when I do it’s so exhilarating, I spend a lot of my time lately chasing that feeling.

☕ - favorite passage:

hoo boy, of all time? that’s gonna be tough, lemme think...

you know what I think it’s gotta be this part from ANR:

[“Now I see where Yui gets that face from.”

Daiki frowns, “What face?”

“That face,” Kagami says, still grinning as he points at him. “Your face. It’s exactly the same.”

Daiki huffs, even as he attempts to arrange his expression into something less admittedly childish, “Nice to know you think I look exactly like a two year old girl,” he says, lifting his bag to swing it over his shoulder. “She takes more after her mom, though.”

“Bullshit, she looks just like you.”

Daiki stops, letting the strap hang loosely from his hand as he looks at him, because he sounds completely serious, and it’s surprising. He’s always looked at Yui and seen Satsuki, since the day she was born... he never considered how she might look like him, even to someone like Kagami.

“Yeah?” he says, and it comes out softer than he expected, almost fragile in his mouth as Kagami leans in, ever so slightly.

“Yeah,” Kagami murmurs, with eyes like magnets, fixated on Daiki’s own. “She’s beautiful, you know…”

Daiki forgets to breathe for a second, holding that steady gaze like he can’t let go.

“I know,” he rasps, heart pounding wildly in his chest as Kagami smirks and comes in even closer, his eyes already starting to fall shut, and God, he’s right fucking there… ]

— Ain’t No Rest (chapter 7)

I know I’ve talked about this fic a lot already, but hear me out okay, this part... this part!! it’s simultaneously a lead-in to the first kiss between the boys and an important character moment for both of them, and in my opinion it’s one of my best uses of dialogue for storytelling, hands-down.

the attention Kagami’s been paying to Yui even after just meeting her, Aomine’s surprise at how much that simple observation means to him, and the fact that although Kagami doesn’t say it directly, we know he’s calling Aomine beautiful too, and so does he... it’s just *chef’s kiss* I’m really happy with how this moment turned out.

#shin speaks #thanks so much for sending more!!#this turned out long bc i got carried away lolol at least you said it's enjoyable to read #anr #aomine daiki #kagami taiga #knb #single dad au #ain't no rest #idk if i'll ever get tired of bringing up bits of this fic and talking about them #please discuss with me i crave validation and feedback #for any of my fics really i super appreciate the show of interest thank you thank youuu #<33 #writer woes #answered #aokaga

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twilightknight17 · 4 years

Text

Forgetting to buy more SP patches before taking on the final boss was probably a mistake.

Forgetting to sell the items I can’t take into NG+ for cash that I can take into NG+ was probably a mistake.

Forgetting to get Arsene out of Lockdown so that I can record his awesome new stats for NG+ was probably a mistake.

In my defense, I was really excited. I wonder if the game will let me make a side trip while I’m out...buying flowers. Because that is what it has come to.

Buying flowers.

Shinya is a terrible brat and wasn’t in Akihabara at ALL until the day before the deadline. Thanks, Shinya. There goes my max confidants. Blugh. At least I got some other things done. Got the award for the maid cafe, so I don’t have to go back except once to open the Twins field trip. I still suck at batting even with third eye. But I am a champ at fishing, it only took me like five trips to the fishing pond to catch the Guardian! I could have done it in less if I’d figured out how to manage my bait properly sooner.

Smile, Akira, we’re awesome! ...still not even halfway to enough fish points for the award, though. :/

I am also awesome at the crane game in Akihabara, and by that I mean I am persistent and have enough yen that it doesn’t matter how many tries it takes.

Ryuji truly knows the way to my heart. <3 I missed two episodes of Featherman; one I forgot to check the TV, and the other I was laughing so hard at the title that I forgot to write it down. But I know where they are, so it’s something else for NG+. ^_^

So I romanced Sumire, and I’m...slightly off-put. Only slightly. Not because of her, but once again, because of the writing. Sumire is cute, but the game is singling her out as “special” again.

She is the only one who confesses to you, and you explicitly have the option to turn her down, rather than the implications of a confession that you can shoot down indirectly (Haru’s, Makoto’s, Futaba’s), or the absolute fucking galaxy-brain leap of logic that is Ann’s dialogue choices. X’D

If you ignore that, though, they’re stupidly cute. Akira’s a little shit, as usual. Sumire asks you to “look at her”, based on her whole confidant thing of realizing that having someone you care about watching you makes you want to do better.

And so Akira looks.

And looks closer.

Dorks. XDDD

They’re sweet. Not my favorite romance route; that still goes to Haru. I think in the end I still prefer Akira adding another member to his army of younger siblings. He’s gotta be better than Yu. XDDD

So I got Kasumi’s rank 10 and literally the next day was February 2nd, and I spent the afternoon getting her third-tier persona. So I didn’t even get to see...Vanadis? in battle. Vanadis matches a little too well to Arsene for my tastes, and Ella is pretty, but I’m not sure how I feel about it looking kind of bride-ish when Maruki’s running around in a wedding tux.

Anyway...what do we do the night before the meeting that will decide everything?

We make curry and we pretend everything isn’t about to go to hell.

So, Maruki. Let’s chat.

Does no one die in your world? Or move away? What if someone’s dream is to move abroad, and someone else’s dream is for that person to stay with them forever? If what we saw in your Palace is any indication, both of them would be tortured into accepting new dreams where they wouldn’t hurt each other. Dreams that you deemed acceptable. And that’s why you’re wrong.

So you’re giving up your happiness to make sure everyone else is happy? Why can’t you just use your powers to make her remember you, without the trauma? Are you not all-powerful?

Or are you running away from the person that reminds you how helpless you used to be? You’re not moving on, you’re dwelling, and using it as an excuse to be terrible. For all of your kindness, you know Akira is a threat. And benevolent or not, you’re being manipulative. You’re using Goro against him. You’re hoping that he makes the decision you didn’t, and chooses the person he cares about over the reality he wants.

Every time he says something like this, I feel exactly the way he says he didn’t want me to. Newsflash, asshole, that’s exactly what it seems like. If we break your reality, you’re heavily implying he won’t be here afterwards. And you’re gambling that it will be too much pain for Akira to bear, because you know how important they are to each other.

Goro, meanwhile, is both perfectly determined and perfectly stupid.

“Don’t tell me you think dangling my life before us is going to have any impact on our decision.”

Goro. Honey. Do you really think he cares so little that he wouldn’t hesitate for just a moment?

Akira practically throws the calling card at Maruki before he leaves, which I think sums up his feelings pretty well.

I appreciate that Morgana understands that this is something between them.

Goro doesn’t want to be controlled or manipulated ever again. Which... I get it. He’s never had a chance to have full control of his own life. But that doesn’t mean Akira isn’t going to be upset by the idea of him dying. Again.

Two out of three dialogue options are basically “hang on one fucking second, your life matters to me.”

“Don’t oversimplify this.”

“Oh, but it IS simple. Do you think I’d be happy with this? Being shown mercy now of all times? I don’t want to be pitied-- this isn’t something I’m debating with you! Your indecisiveness is essentially a betrayal of my wishes.”

It’s not pity, you stubborn, idiot boy. ...and I hate that you see it as a betrayal.

Maruki is...very confident. And very kind. And part of the reason he upsets me is because he isn’t wrong, in many cases. But he uses that to justify imposing his will on everyone.

And being kind doesn’t mean that you are free from sin. You can be kind and still be manipulative. And selfish. In the end, that’s what separates him and Akira. Akira, despite all of his hesitation, refuses to be selfish. Even when he has every right to be. He will not hurt someone else to prevent himself from being hurt.

He will not hurt Goro by refusing to fight Maruki, even if it will rip his own heart to pieces.

Oh, I like you. At first glance, the silhouette was very similar to one of Mordred’s original pieces of concept art, though, and I was ready to Yell before I looked closer. XD

And so, at 11:30pm, having completely forgotten the several things I needed to have done before the meeting with Maruki, we head in to steal the Treasure.

This man needs to stop. How dare he know how much I love Cool Stairs?

I find it very concerning that the core of Eden is a writhing mess of tentacles. The metaphorical worm in the apple? X’D We were so close to getting Nyarlathotep, but Azathoth is suitably intimidating. And I appreciate that he’s using the same concepts as the Thieves: his will to rebel against what he sees as an unfair reality, and removing his mask to summon his distorted persona. Thanks for validating all of my headcanon meta about Adachi and Palaces all in one go.

But...

I can’t do this. What the fuck are you wearing?

At least Azathoth is cool.

Somehow I managed to bring exactly the right team to get consistent four-person baton passes for the whole first round. That one was about half an hour.

...the second round was an hour and fifteen minutes because holy shit this thing was a tank and had entirely too many arms and really needed to stop healing.

The torch is very pretty, at least.

And then before we can completely book it out of there, he steals the torch back and literally forces his second awakening so he can keep going. And at that point...what is he even hoping to accomplish? What is he going to do? Are you really willing to kill us to maintain this illusion?

The answer is apparently yes because it was a surprisingly poetic battle as each teammate in turn got a chance to fling themselves in the way and stop it from crushing Joker to death with it’s big giant hand.

And THEN he goes even further and validates some canon meta and me all at once by fusing with his own persona in a continuing last-ditch effort to... I really think he’s trying to kill us. I think he’s that far gone. Or at least his persona is. Because after the fusion, it’s specifically called “Adam Kadmon”, not Maruki. The persona is in control. It’s canon that if you try to summon something stronger than you, it can overtake and possess you. I know Maruki seemed to willingly give up control, but it’s also possible that forcing his second awakening like that left him with a persona that was entirely too strong for him.

(Nevermind that him being that strong in the first place is kind of ridiculous. That’s a discussion for after the final credits. I’m just hyped that someone fusing with their persona was a thing that actually happened!)

He’s so big. Where’s Satanael so I can fuse with him and we can have a megazord fight in Collapsing Ideal Tokyo? XD

The kids up the Holy Shit Quotient by a mile by catching the giant fist all together so that Joker can deal the final blow.

And what a final blow it is.

I really like this, because I don’t know if it was deliberate, but I read it as a callback to Daybreakers. Which came out before the game, iirc, so the first real piece of content. It’s just on a bigger, grander scale.

Everything comes full-circle in the end.

I really like the Mona helicopter. XD I just wish it was a little bigger, because poor Goro squished into the bottom. And poor Akira not managing to make it into the helicopter.

And this asshole WILL NOT STAY DOWN.

What is the point of punching it out on top of the collapsing Palace? Are you trying to kill us both? Do you just want to keep going until neither of us can stand? Dude.

And of course Akira won’t let him die. I think the upsetting thing about this, though, is really that you don’t get the chance to say a proper goodbye to Goro. Or anyone, really, but mostly Goro. The Palace crumbles, Akira wakes up in jail, the Thieves wake up the next morning after fighting all night, and Goro is...gone.

At least the Thieves seem properly sad this time. Even if it’s only for one scene.

Lavenza calls it “ironic” that “your wish for other’s happiness prevailed over your own.” I just call it unfair. Once again, hasn’t he done enough? At least he was only technically in jail for nine days from his perspective, but that must have been a whiplash of an adjustment.

Out of jail, Sojiro acknowledges he was Terrible at the beginning of the year, it’s 2:30am, time to do Valentines and then go to bed before the final walkaround.

And then Valentines passes. I spent it with Sumire. They’re cute.

And then it was February 15th and all the rest of the girls gave me chocolate?? It was just a constant ambush of being given chocolate all day?

And then it was March 3rd, and the Thieves are all splitting up and moving away? Are we sure this isn’t Scramble’s timeline? I get it, narratively, they’re taking the opportunities to move forward that Maruki’s reality would have denied them, but it still hurts.

And then it was March 13th and I still can’t save and now it’s 3am and apparently we get to play out White Day and Sojiro is giving me advice for the perfect date because captain idiot here forgot to plan anything and what heckin’ restaurant is getting this flustered that just mentioning Sojiro’s name is enough to get a table when they’re fully booked and---

Now it’s the 14th and I have to go buy flowers for my dinner date and I have finally been given control and saved and I am free.

Now next time I play I have to see if I can go sell my leftover items, because I’ve got a couple-hundred-thousand yen worth, and also rescue Arsene from prison. X’D

More thoughts on Maruki and everything after I see the ending, most likely.

#Li plays P5R #long post #the Longest Post #2.5 hour boss fight O_o #last time I spent that long on a boss it made me so mad I put the game in question down for six months

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maxortecho · 5 years

Text

Confessions - 1x01

For today’s Echo appreciation, I thought I’d use the theme of confessions and kick off a meta series following Liz’s S1 journey towards Max.

Liz has been closed off and emotionally drifting for the past 10 years. She doesn’t connect. Once she hits Roswell though, she’s met with a shock to the system in the shape of Max Evans. Max emotionally blindsides Liz throughout S1. She likes to see herself as a rational person separate from her emotions, but she struggles to rationalise Max. Bit by bit, Liz finds herself becoming tethered to a connection and to her feelings again. Ultimately, Liz’s S1 romantic arc builds to her confessing these feelings to herself, to Max, and to Rosa.

So let’s start with episode 1!

The Crashdown

The first episode opens with Liz spitting fire at an unknown cop for pulling her over at an ICE checkpoint. Except, well—turns out it’s Max Evans. Her anger subsides, her voice softens, and she’s suddenly remembering him smiling at her in high school. The thing is, Max is still the cop who pulled her over. Liz is shocked to see him, sure, but I think it’s her automatic association of goodness and safety with her memory of Max that has her combativeness and suspicion evaporating on the spot.

Then Sheriff Valenti comes over. Liz’s walls immediately go back up.

Liz: “Are you going to breathalyze me, or?”

Later, at the diner, Max causes the same shocked and breathless reaction.

I still find it cute that Liz spends a good thirty seconds speechless and staring at Max wide-eyed while he’s talking to her. She seems more stunned than she was the first time--he was in full uniform and a strange context there; here, he’s lost the hat and the jacket, and he’s in familiar territory at the diner and her family home.

Max is only dropping in to let Liz know her left front running light is broken, and then he promptly turns to leave in the middle of her staring. Liz flounders and mirrors his spin, walking in the other direction--

(to where, honey? the window? lmao)

--before making a split-second decision to dive headfirst into that familiarity sparking between them.

Liz: “You want a milkshake?”

Liz doesn’t get time to rationalise in these initial moments. She stays in that vulnerable space during their diner discussion, tries drawing Max there with her (”You wanted to be a writer. So why did you join the force?”). Max references Rosa’s death and Liz visibly closes herself off. This is the first time she does so in reaction to Max--which is fitting, considering what happens next.

In the OG Roswell, Liz actually gets shot in the stomach. But Liz gets shot in the heart in RNM. I definitely think RNM upped the drama and the symbolism here. Max and his family’s betrayal has lead to Liz dying by the heart. It’s time for him to start fixing his mistakes or Liz is gone forever. Eight minutes into the series, Max literally and symbolically restarts Liz’s heart.

Big Sisters

After Liz is shot and Max tells her it didn’t happen, Liz decides she’s going to confront him. But directly before she does, Liz visits Rosa’s roadside grave. Liz doesn’t have a memory here that is specifically about Rosa. Instead, she has a memory where she talks to Rosa about Max. When I first watched this, I found it a strange choice for introducing Rosa. But!

I now view this Liz/Rosa conversation as representing Liz’s conflicting perspectives about Max. Flashback Liz is all heart and driven by emotions: “Maybe I don’t want to miss Max Evans”.

Flashback Rosa is arguing to think with her head and not her emotions, and pushing the ‘cage around your heart’ narrative that Liz adopts after Rosa’s death: “He’s already in the rearview mirror, trust me”.

Liz’s memory at Rosa’s roadside grave feels like she’s seeking out her big sister’s advice. What’s interesting is that Liz already knows Max is lying to her and she has suspicions he’s hiding something bigger—and yet an emotional plea is her first plan of action. The rational, scientific plan (what we are consistently told is characteristic of Liz) is her back-up plan when it comes to Max.

So Liz finds Max and gives him a milkshake. She reveals some personal information in an attempt to appeal to his goodness and sense of right. She can trust Max to tell her the truth. All he needs is a push. A secret for a secret, right?

Liz: “Can you keep a secret? My mother is mentally ill. My sister Rosa too. I was always afraid I’d end up like them. Hallucinating. You know I thought I was shot?”

Except Max doesn’t meet her halfway. He denies she was shot. Max changes his mind when Liz becomes more upset, but he gets interrupted by Michael exploding a car’s windows. Liz leaves the conversation without answers. She takes Max’s straw instead.

Even though Liz has fallen onto her rational plan, how does she follow up the Max interaction? With another big sister. She seeks out Maria and The Wild Pony. The next step of Liz’s rational plan should be checking out Max’s DNA. But Liz doesn’t do that yet. Instead, Liz actually follows the next step of her emotional plan failing: girl’s gotta eat her proverbial bucket of ice cream before she can move on. Liz tells Maria that she thought she felt a spark with Max, but now she just feels like an idiot after getting the cold shoulder from him.

Liz finds that switching off her emotional reaction towards Max--and transitioning into a rational scientist about him--isn’t coming easily to her for some reason. Strange. That usually works. I don’t think this is an influence of the psychic bond either; Liz has the same problem in the beginning of 1x03. She’s there to gather data about Max but has to visibly shake off her emotional reaction and the pull towards him.

By the time the handprint turns up and Liz checks his DNA, Liz is ready to confront Max again. Except Max has already decided he’s ready to share his secret. Like their first scene at the ICE checkpoint, all of Liz’s fire evaporates on the spot.

The Desert

This whole episode, Liz has been trying to get some vulnerability and honesty out of Max. And boy does she get it. Max flays himself open in the desert for Liz—his identity, his feelings, his memories—and the amount he’s giving her blows Liz and her reservations away. HER FACE JOURNEY, Y’ALL.

Liz: “Max... Why me?”

Max: “Do you remember the first time we met?”

Liz: “I feel like I’ve just always known you.”

I ache at this line. This idea of Max embedded in Liz’s history and a piece of her identity. Max associated with familiarity and home, despite him literally being an extra-terrestrial figure. She isn’t bothered nor put off him by him being an alien. He’s still just Max Evans to her. (And, okay, for Max who simply wants to be the guy from Roswell, who feels scared of being extraordinary, I find this really sweet.) Max can show her his memories and how he feels about her (why her), but he’ll have to touch her.

Liz: “Okay. Do um… do whatever you want.”

Which is essentially the point of this meta where I descend into incoherent yelling. Liz will say in 1x04 that she keeps a cage around her heart. But here, Liz doesn’t even hesitate to give him full access to it. Max made himself vulnerable for her, so she’s comfortable fully reciprocating. Liz entered Roswell wary and closed off, but a few days later she’s 100% on board for weird, unknown, psychic alien bonding with Max. Damn. Over and over, we are shown that Max Evans is an exception to Liz’s rules.

Max refuses to kiss Liz after, thinking he’s interacting with a Liz mirroring his own feelings back at him. Liz doesn’t seem to agree. Instead of arguing the point though, she leaves it at “Fine. I’ll kiss you [when the handprint fades].” (His delightfully scandalised reaction? Chef kiss!) She can prove him wrong later, if he won’t believe her right now. I do think Liz reflects Max here in some kind of feelings loop--but at the same time, she knows she’s also experiencing this purely, as her own source of feelings.

While I’m here, if Max believes Liz is reflecting his feelings, then what does Max believe he’s feeling because of Liz? Does he consider that possibility? Is he feeling any doubt or fear? And if he is, is that Liz or him?

The Reunion

Hmm, reunion indeed.

Liz says she can’t connect. But she does.

Liz says she doesn’t dance in Roswell anymore. But she does. And she drags Max along with her.

Oh, I’m sensing a theme for Liz here.

#roswell new mexico #echo3days2019 #liz x max #liz ortecho #max evans #meta #confessions #echo #s1 #1x01 #ep: pilot

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the1northlanderprincess · 5 years

Text

Where I stand

**Disclaimer: Whenever I feel incredibly passionate about something, it tends to manifest in an almost physical way, especially when I’m anticipating something fun but won’t be able to get it for a while. It starts with excitement, but soon turns into doubt, then to a building anger, and finally, I feel as if I’m going to cry. That’s how I feel about certain Reylo things right now. I want it so badly, and I feel really good about it, and we won’t get any payoff until December (maybe the final trailer in October will offer some insight with some real looks at Kylo and some dialogue). As I have no one to talk to about my reylo love in the flesh, writing down stuff kind of makes me feel a little better.**

All right, folks, I’ve been holding it in too long and I’ve gotta speak my piece. I don’t like the notion nor the footage making it appear that Kylo and Rey are outright fighting. I hate it. Now that I got that off my chest, let me explain why I can’t get excited about it. And I’m an OG Reylo.

First of all, I don’t believe that they hold any real antagonism over the other, at least, not Kylo. When we look back at everything happening from the throne room to the end, we see an array of emotions from him. Yes, he gets frustrated at Rey for still believing in her ideologies, and then later tries to disarm her. Think what about that for a moment. He has his saber on him, and he’s trying to take away her only weapon. Is he planning on fighting her if he’s able to get it? Several reylos suggest that he was trying to keep her from leaving. I agree. I think he just wanted to maybe have a longer, angry conversation with her (which I would have loved to see; It would have been the perfect time to have it then).

Anyway, so then Kylo has a meltdown on Crait. Not pretty. After the Resistance retreat, the bond opens and we see the expression on Kylo’s face that we can’t get over.That would have been another good time to like yell at her, but he doesn’t. He just stares at her with a silent plea. Rey is like, too bad, and shuts the Falcon door. He bows his head. Boy knows he screwed up. Let me repeat that: HE. KNOWS.

Therefore, it is my belief that Kylo is going to spend some time offscreensville right before TROS trying to find Rey, make things right somehow. Remember the FoD set that was on the shelves for only a very short time? The box said something about Kylo “pursuing Rey across the galaxy”. It’s not out of the realm of possibility that those dolls were pulled off the shelves because they were “spoilery”.

We know now that the bond is still open and working. Does this mean they were communicating during the presumed time jump? If so, that would be the dream to see on the opening scrawl, but it probably wouldn’t be anything important. That would be a total cop-out. Maybe it opens and Rey just decides not to say anything and Kylo tries and fails to get a word in.

I am of the mindset that Kylo is not on the Death Star to fight Rey. He has his saber ignited, but that seems to be on automatic when someone sees the other has theirs ignited. But as most of us have already pointed out, he’s just walking up to her. Like he doesn’t have a care in the world. And she’s waiting for him. Either they planned this, or they felt through the bond that the other was going to be there.

So what is the overall point of this whole convoluted mess of words? Kylo is NOT going to truly fight Rey. There looks to be in that fight times where he could cause bodily injury with her openness. But he doesn’t go for it. Why? Because he is not there for this. The bond allows him to know what Rey is feeling; that she is upset. And he is going to do whatever he can to convince her that he is NOT her real enemy. He will never purposefully do anything to cause her harm. Hopefully, if most of these leaks that have seemingly come to fruition, that will mean he will have “reconciled his feelings of love” for Rey (and honestly, I’m not sure that is the right term to go with, since the definition seems to indicate it’s trying to restore friendly relations between two parties, or coexist in harmony, unless it’s Kylo making that agreement with himself i.e. Ben, which would be super meta, but I digress) and that by the time they meet on the Death Star, he will have known that his love for her is real, and will not let anything get in the way of it. He’s going to proactively seek it out and protect it.

#reylo meta #reylo fam #tros spoilers #tros speculation

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bi-lullaby · 5 years

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I loved your last rankings so much that I'm sending you another fun (?!) challenge! How would you rate all these male GA characters from your favorite to least favorite, no ties allowed? :) Alex, Derek, Richard, Mark, Owen, Jackson, Burke, George, Andrew, Linc and Ben? Good luck, and as always, feel free to include your reasons why because I love your answers!

Ohhh boy you give me life with those asks! Here we go:

1 - As no surprise to anyone: Alex. My baby had the best character development I’ve ever seen, really, brcaus ewhile it was huge, it was also paced and believable and stabilished and non-linear. He was a huge asshole with a concealed heart of gold in season one. In season 15, he’s a golden boy with a concealed asshole side, and the growth/diminishment of those sides weren’t always inversely proportionate, but adjusted to what each characteristic was brought out more by his surroundings/worked more on by himself. Also, he’s the person that has stuck with mer for the longest and through the most, which would put him in a high place in this list even if he wasn’t my favorite on his own. I also adore how, thematically, he’s so moved by the women in his life (bot just the romantic i terests while we are at it) for the betterment of himself and hsi ways. It’s not like Owen’s “I’ll need her to take care of me emptionally and shape herself to my desires so I can be in a good place, it’s recognizing those positive influences in his life and trying to emulate them/work with them/learn from them. Also about his theme, itms less the worn-out “guy is validated in being an asshole bc he had a tough life” and more “guy learns that his tough life doesn’t mean he gotta act like an asshole”. I love this character so much, ugh.

2 - Ben. A freaking Disney prince would be a sleeazy douche in comparison. I was so weirded out when Shobda decided to give so much focus to this random-ass character, then I was really turned off by his storyline with the cutting people open and all that (not necessarily because I thought he was wrong, I just felt the storyline was handled awkwardly and made him sound pelutant and irresponsible instead of a promissing, if stubborn, future surgeon. I’ve yet to watch Station 19, but this angel with a scalpel and a fire hose for wings deserves his own goddamn spin-off, for sure.

3 - My baby Andrew. Yeah, he is not that developed, has been inconsistent, his change from “freaking out over Maggie being his boss” to “marvellung at Meredith’s every movie even though she’s kinda even more his boss because she owns the hospital” was... A B R U P T. But I really enjoy this new Andrew - as a side note: I could not care less for him during the whole Sam storyline, he seemed like a toned down Jonhy Bravo - He’s smart and sweet and funny and worships Mer like the Wonder Woman she is. His relationships with Arizona, Amelia, Jo, Carina and now Alex need more screentime because they’re great (or have the potential to be so). He’s competent and brilliant and selfless (dropping the charges on Alex even if he was completely in the right, taking the blame for mer now) and so tender (his absolute gentleness in peds, taking care of Amy after the operation, being a moody, emotive boy because he lost his love instead of a macho men...). The future holds great things for him, and I’m excited to watch them unfold!

4 - Not on your list but I love: Tom. Boy is he nice. As I was figuring out this order, I realized he reminds me a lot of my favorite character (Dean Winchester) - or at least what I think Dean would be if he was older, richer and lived without the Supernatural World and so many traumas. His talk to April was so moving and I felt it really helped. He doesn’t stand on a moral high horse: He does what he thinks is right and damned be judgment. He’s empathetic, he’s romantic, he treats Teddy RIGHT. He deserves to have his own storyline and be more developed and show us kore of his awesomeness.

5 - Jackson. As I said in my ships rating answer, I’ve only started to care for him recently, but I really do care. He’s not a character I’d, like, write fic about, or long rants and meta, but I love his sibling-esque relationship with Mer and his relationship with Maggie and the way he connects with his mom and how this spoiled, immature transfer with something to prove became a respected, innovative surgeon and father who’s secure of himself and ready to explore different paths and ways and worldviews. I just wish him, and the Grey’s fandom, would be less defensive about the callout of his privileged life. Like. I’ve seen people write paragraphs upon paragraphs about how Maggie was a bitch for calling him privileged. And he is (for his hoards upon hoards of money growing up). That’s not too hard a concept to grasp. Plus, it’d be nice if he could treat Maggie as less of a consolation prize/second chance. Just because faith (or lack thereof) was a source of tension in his previous marriage, and he feels like changing that would have made everything better, doesn’t mean the same applies to his current relationship, or that Maggie is the one who should change -he learned, learned, and is back in square one seeing only his side of it - I really hope this season treats him more kindly and gives him happiness and peace!

6 - Richard. I love him for his parental-and-ish relationships, specially to Maggie, Mer and Jackson, but to Bailey and Callie too. That’s my favorite aspect of him, watching those gives me a nice, warm feeling in my tummy and puts a smile on my face. There’s some aspects of him I find either boring or unpleasant, and I think it’s kinda annoying how him retiring has been a theme/conflict since, like, season one, and fast-foward ten years and he’s basically an entity at the hospital. Like? What? Was the point? You’ve waisted my time? For nothing? But he’s a solid, reliable character you can’t really hate and who brings more good than bad to the show by far. As a side note: one day I will yell at him for his treatment of Maggie after she talked about HER OWN HISTORY and he basically called her a mistake (although he apologized pretty soon and she forgave him so so will I).

7 - Mark. He was great and all that, but never sparked that love some characters did. I was sad when he died, I loved his scenes and relationships, I just am not invested in him. Plus the immaturity in his relationship with Lexie pisses me off a bit, as does his “man whore” personality.

8 - Link. Genuinely love him, he’s been nothing but sweet and kind and fun and helpful this entire time! I cheered for Merlink sooooo much imat first, and I really wish their friendship will be developed! Him and Jo are everything I never knew I needed. He has no arguable flaws besides being so sculped it freaks me out a little bit, but he isn’t higher up in my rank because there isn’t much material for that yet, but expect a climb as he becomes more and more regular.

9 - Burke. He was kinda sweet and did a good thing for Cristina (the hospital). He was also manipulative and arrogant and voundary-crossing in their relationship. I might like him better if it was bot for Burktina, but we will never know.

10 - Owen. Toxic as fuck, annoying, controlling, disgusting. Those are all things that very much apply to Owen in a lot of situations. Screaming at Cristina for “murdering their baby”? YIKES. Big no no. He was not suited for romantic relationships at all and I wish the show would realize that and allow him that space and breathing time without being stuck in a complicated relationship with loads of baggage or a love triangle. Because that’s my whole thing about him: I believe he has room for growth. His relationship with April is pretty amazing, he was always so considerate and gentle with her, all the time, and I want to see more of that bond. He loves kids and can be really good with them, he has a lot of things to work out with the traumas of his father’s death + war + his sister’s story. Why not focus on that? Why not show him growing and processing and bettering himself and living up to the potential he has? I feel like they gave the all the wrong romantic storylines to the character who’s otherwise really good and that’s such a shame because I really enjoyed him at first. Lets see what happens from now on, and if he gets a dose of tv’s “heterosexual love and a nuclear biological family solve everything!” medicine or if this is a turning point for him.

11 - Derek. He never really had any appeal to me. Not his face, not his personality, not his storylines or plot points pr the actor. That’s reason enough for him to rank low, but I also think he had some really bad traits. He was arrogant and condescending and had a God complex and was sexist and pushy and just not great for the people around him. Exploiting Amy’s addiction being outed to steal surgeries? Refusing to give Mer credit on their clinic trial? Putting ultimatums on his girlfriend that she either has to be ready for a full, committed relationship or end things, then call her a slut when she sleeps with other guys after they broke up? Cheating on Addison after deciding to work things out? Stringing mer and addie along? Not saying he was married in the first place? Pushing Mer’s boundaries after she was clearly uncomfortable with having slept with her boss? Refusing to have an inch of empathy for Mer’s action regarding the trial despite her complicated history with the people she was trying to help (who were her friends, actually?)? Telling his depressed girlfriend that she should be concerned the happiest part of his day was flirting with another girl from the bar? Ratting out on Richard to the board because he wanted the spot? Not acknowledging Mer’s trauma after the shooting? Kissing nurse Rose while building the dream house? Kissing his student while being married in NY? Pushing his wife to move and saying his career was more important than his after he had compromised on letting her shine? All things that, isolated, can even be understood on context and “everyone makes mistakes”, but that when put together, make it pretty clear it’s a pattern of someone with very little regard to the people around him. Was he a good surgeon? Yeah. Great father as well. He also had some interesting relationships and iconic scenes, truly, I can recognize that. I hurt for the people he loved and left behind (and I genuinely think he loved them and meant well), but he himself I don’t miss at all.

12 - I think George is the clearest contrast between how old greys handled matters of sexism and gender and sexuality and how it does now. He was such a sleazy nice guy at times, it is unbearable to me. And he ranks lower than Derek because A) His relationships also bored me while Derek’s could pique my interest at times, B) There’s no talk about his mistakes. Remember when he (in his own words) took advantage of Meredith being on a terrible, delicate, vulnerable place (still hiding her mother’s Alzheimer’s and seeing a person be blown to pieces and being dumped by who she thought was the one and being rejected by her father for the second time after seeing him for the first time in tweenty years) and, knowing that she was not interested in him, pursued her, then after she started crying because of the literal pile of shit she was having to carry around (and still trying to preserve his feelings), got mad at her and everyone sided with him? It baffled younger me to bits that what Mer had “done” was so terrible, it has not stoped bafflinn me in the years that have passed since. Can you imagine any of the girls crying during sex because they’re so overwhelmed and feel like that’s a mistake, and the guy freaks out on them and they’re instantly ostracized by the narrative and characters? That’s essentially criticizing her for the right of saying no, of stopping when she doesn’t want to continue, of not giving away her time and feels just because a goofy guy who is her friend feels entitled to them. That’s the word: entitled. He literally says he “saw her first”. How’s that not Nice Guy 101? I would understand his ego being bruised, but the guilt tripping and the bitching and the fact none of that is treated as a fucking creepy thing? Yikes. Also how he treated Callie, who deserved so, so much better. And even Olivia who was perfectly lovely and did nothing wrong besides having sex with more than one guy without breaking either of their trusts because she wasn’t in a relationship with any of them. Did he do some good things? Sure did! Joey’s surgery costs being cut, helping Bailey give birth, some of his interactions with patients were really sweet, and he died giving his life for someone else. It’s just that consequence-less sexism and entitlement that never gets adressed and gets treated as not only valid, but right, that makes him go rom unappealing to downright hated for me. Better left in the past where people can misplacedly idolize him!

Thank you so much for asking, I love those thought-inspiring asks! <3

#thank you so much #theofficestan #greys anatomy #greys #grey’s anatomy #me #answered #asks #rank

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what-ever-happened-to-chip · 3 years

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Part 4: Junkie

*insert story and whole memory montage of joni and jesse's life* (I'm writing it now, but to make it complete I would have to write a lot more so i'll slowly add in some shit about it to maybe inspire the mood)

For now,

HOLY SHIT, where was I? Christian? I need a cigarette, what's wrong with my body? Who am I? "Hello Gray" A ghostly smile was plastered on Christian's pale face. "Gray.....yes I'm...Gray? What did you just do to me? Where's Jesse?" "I gave you Joni's memories and of course to see a memory the way it really was perceived, you had to had to have lived it. You just lived Joni's entire life. And in tandum, her mind is melded with her brother's so you just indeed lived Jesse's life to. They're minds melded when they were about 14 so you saw them at the same time then. However once you 'became' Jesse as well you saw all his memories too. Quite the anamoly indeed." I couldn't think straight...or I could. I felt invaded, however I had let this parasite in. No..not parasite, but my mind did not only feel like mine. I felt like 3 people. "You're fucked up, i gotta go..." I knocked the chair over getting up and bee lined to the door. "Oh, but you'll be back" he warned with a sordid grin. Nothing around me looked new, but it's as if I had 3 perspectives of it, but they weren't separate. I was all of us. I was we. But I was only myself still. I understood Joni now and I wish I didn't. What was I thinking? I paced around looking at everyone with shifty eyes and desperately needing an escape? I'd never felt so trapped, but yet apathetic, but not -errr i don't know what i think. They think that. She thinks that. I think....jesus christ. What the fuck is wrong with me, i need something....I

"Oh there you are Gray, please come join us. Lana's observations have led us to discuss, why Jenn has a special hatred for our dear Yuna here." I stared at him too long and forced myselves through the motions of sitting down. "I don't believe Jenn hates me, she's much too kind for that. I know when people are in love they want to protect it and the rejection of feeling your love might be not completely genuine hurts very deeply. I don't want to make her feel that way" "Indeed so Yuna, however I think you just proved my argument right. Jenn wishes you were a bitch so she could hate you, but you make it rather impossible." Marcus grinned at her, was he flirting? I've never noticed flirting from a girl's perspective before. It made me uncomfortable. "Yeah, but you never answered why she wants to hate Yuna, I just don't get it!" lana said confused even though she had more information than anymore. "Shall you be the tie breaker Gray?" 6 sets of eyes all gazed over at him with anticipation. "Uhh...what am I voting on?" "We tryna figure out if that Jenn girl is a THOT or not!" Buddy clapped his big hands together, silently laughing at his own opinion. "Yeah me, Marcus, and obv Yuna don't think she is a bad person just.....yknow confused, but, Buddy, Rikku, and Jesse think she's a cunt... I mean bad person. yeah." I stared at Jesse and wanted to agree with him. At first glance it felt as if I was looking at a reflection. I also wanted to forgive woman? What? I guess I like Jenn....but is she a bitch? I can't stop thinking of calling her my chicka....what the fuck? What do I think. I thought I was confused before. Why do they care what I think of all times? "Oh my god! I told you that he had a crush on Jenn! See Yunie! they should totally date, he LIKES her" The room instantly grew quiet as loud stomps dominated the room. "Who the fuck has a crush on Jenn?" He scanned the room with murderous eyes. He stared at Marcus suspiciously longer than anyone, but landed on Gray. "Uhh hey man you got that hit you owe me...you....fucker?" Why was I saying the insult like a question. I have no idea how I talk. "You best stay the fuck away from her if you don't want me to kill your unborn children" That hit my chest heart, it hurt so deeply, yet I knew he had made that joke every day this week and it just meant kicking me in the nuts. The crotch. I had never once felt ashamed of having a penis, not once in my life, until now. But i didn't think that. She did. OR he. I was was having a very hard time finding deciding what 'I' thought. "Not if I do it first!" I yelled out impulsively. Is that what Jesse would say? That's so lame. Laughter burst out throught the room. I felt even more shame and wanted to say another self depricating joke just to get through it. I also wanted a drink reaaaaaally bad. Aiden looked even more suspicious at me. "Fuck you guys I got better shit to do" and with that I scurried away. As days went by I knew I was Gray again. I couldn't tell Joni what I did and she seemed none the wiser of my quiet acceptance of her. Jesse seemed more suspicious, but I knew now that his jokes most of the time were desperate paranoia to be in touch. I thought he was just a joker, but the new found knowledge I had made that simplification of him impossible. Like the lonely intimacy junkie I was I couldn't help it, but to want to see more lives now. Once again I was in the same position in Christians room, this time I sat across from him knee to knee with my palms up. He suggested since he had seen everyone's life that I should start with Yuna. How it felt to have to send Tidus for the 'greater good'. It seemed nice to think about it in a positive way and I was right. When I came back from Yuna's memories I had known pain, loss, and sorrow, but no matter what I had enjoyed everyone moment of life. She truly cherished every experience and every chance she had to be alive. She looked back on all her memories fondly because she got to live them. I was fine feeling the glow of Yuna's mind, but as with any high it wore off and I wanted more. Our sessions became more or less weekly as I let him shape me around the perspective of the comrades around me. Things got darker with Zack, but the integrity I felt and pride in my position made it all worth it. SOLDIER was my (his) life, yet it betrayed, used, and lied to him. It didn't matter what the organization had become SOLDIER was a code he took and vowed to keep to the end. To protect and serve mankind. To be a hero. I felt similarities in Rinoa's fighting spirit and the belief I had in myself with all her decisions. She really did like herself. She would think she was wrong for almost a split second and quickly decide she was right. It wasn't even her fault she had that big of an ego, she was taught to, yet despite it she rebelled for what she thought was right. Roxas proved to be more lonely, the loss of identity and the questioning of your own reality. With is, I saw Sora's too. The metaness of seeing memories through memories was not lost on me and added to a long state of confusion, when I became Gray again. The adventures of Zidane's rogue lifestyle, let me explore the world, feel things deeply, enjoy any piece of life you had, yet have the heart to mourn for important things and fight for truth. I now knew the appeal of cocaine for a performer. Marcus for the entirety of his life was utterly and completely pleased with himself. He hardly ever felt lonely, scared, or unsure, not in any existential way. The guy didn't even mind being dope sick, he reveled in the extremes of being in a human. He truly did believe Aiden was the most fascinating person he had ever met. He died almost as an inside joke to himself. Christian and I exchanged out quick goodbyes and spoke briefly of perhaps the next person he will show me. I left in a good mood. I safely made it out the door...or so I thought. Aiden burst out from down the hall and grabbed my arm and leaned in close to my face. He stared into my eyes long and hard in a way that made me feel terribly vulnerable. "So you went and saw Christian today?" "What do you mean? I mean yeah...I was looking for you man, back off what the fuck do you care?" "I think your a fucking idiot, but your life" "You hang out with him all the time so who are you to talk?" "yeah but what I do with bitch boy is a whole fucking other game to what you're trying to get off on. Dont' you see?! He'll give you sum chumps memories, all fun and games, but then he'll get bored. And by then you're probably hooked so he can stick his greasy fingers in you head and do whatever he wants. I'm sure he gave you Yuna's huh? How was being the happiest person ever? Or Aang? I bet that zen buddhist shit was real comforable. but just wait and then he'll give you something shitty ones like Tidus's. Ever thought about what a schitzophernic's brain looks like? Well i'll tell you what, it looks the same. From his point of view his life looked just as normal's as any fucker as boring as Jerry's" "Jerry?" "The dude my mom fucked. Oh you'll find out soon the way you're going. But you know what? When you get to be Gray again and know that you just lived the life of a crazy dude and no one believed you even though he or YOU knew you weren't crazy. Well jokes on you, turns out you were. You'll never forget understanding that fucker. Or maybe Gaara might be a blast. 12 years of complete anguish and loneliness, the pain, the need...the need....." He closed his eyes and started rocking back and forth, grabbing at his hair and scratching his temples. He was starting to sound pretty nuts, which didn't bother me usually, but this time I was terrified. Terrified, because for the first time since i've known the guy his paranoid, weirdo, bullshit that I always wrote off as crazy, was now starting to make sense to me. "I dont' give a fuck if you fuck up your life holding hands with faggot boy, but I won't have you get in the way of mine. You think Christian's a saint? A fucking weird, but thoughtful guy that helps you understand your friends and gets Aiden get his memories he forgot back?" The more he started saying his own name like it was a strangers, the tenseness in the atmosphere grew. I wanted him to stop talking, I didn't want him to do anything to risk what I wanted to keep doing, but if he disillusioned me how could I continue? " Yeah fucking right. Sure he'll give him back his memories (the him being Aiden himself), but not after he jumbles a bunch of random people's realites in there with them and have me guess which ones are mine. But I don't have to guess, I know the ones that are mine. Because they are the worst thing some one could ever do. If any of those good memories were mine, I wouldn't have forgotten them." Maybe Joni was wrong, if he goes through that every day he must be trying to make things right. Forgetting might be easier, but he takes the bad to have the good. "But if I see everyone's memories. I did everything. Meaning I did nothing. I don't know what bad things I did, so how's any of it my fault. Anyone's memory looks the same as mine. Aiden's memories are his fault. I didn't do them. All i know is what I know. Nothing. Everything. I'm no one but who I want to be. I just want one thing. But i can't have that one memory, I need all of them or else I am what I did. And I won't be him. I won't." Holy shit Joni was right, he's totally checked out. Pretending he isn't his own reality. I pondered about how delusional Jenn was about him. Was that her naturally or did Christian doctor her mind for the benefit of his friend. She's alive right so it doesn't matter he killed her? That's insane. It's all fucked up. I never wanted to think about these things in so much detail. "I got it dude, i'm done" He smiled for a second than decided to take the more stoic route and with dead eyes mutterred, "It will never be done" With that he pulled his jacket tight to his body as if giving himself a hug and stormed off.

#cheeseskittles

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jyushimatsu-falls-in-love · 7 years

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s2ep10: a little respect

♪ So-o-oul, I hear you call-iiiiiing Oh baby, pleeeease... Give a little respe-ect, toooooo meeeeee! ♪ - “A Little Respect” by Erasure, which seems to be this week’s theme song :P

[SPOILERS UNDER THE CUT!]

The first of this week’s three skits is “Karamatsu and Brothers”, which I know nearly everyone was looking forward to. After all, Kara’s the fan favorite both here and in the Japanese fandom, where recently he’s won the top spot in a recent magazine’s favorite characters poll; does it live up to everyone’s standards?!

The skit opens with Totty asking Choro to buy him a soda, which Choro refuses to do in a very aggressive manner. I like how Totty described Choro here - “You act like an honor student, but you’re really just a delinquent!”; it succinctly summarizes Choro’s character well enough :P

Luckily for Totty, Kara comes to the rescue and offers to buy his soda for him! And after Totty gets his soda, he calls Kara “nice” and “reliable”, which makes Kara feel very happy and sparkly :P

Then everyone else starts asking Kara to do things for them: Starting with Oso, who asks Kara to do his chores in his stead; then Jyushi asks the same thing, then Ichi, then all of a sudden everyone except Choro is asking Kara to do something for him. And Kara says yes, he’ll do them! He’ll do anything his brothers ask him, they can rely on him!!

At this point Choro steps in, and scolds the others for putting so much on Kara. He even scolds Kara a bit for not standing up for himself. Honestly these little moments of Choro stepping in for his family members’ sakes (approaching Matsuzo about his problem in S2Ep4, now telling the others to lay off Kara in this ep.) are very nice; he really can be a good son and brother, after all ;v; And to the other brothers’ credit, they do feel bad for piling so much on Kara after realizing it - but then Kara protests and assures them no, it’s okay, he likes it when the brothers ask him to do stuff, it’s perfectly fine!! And with that assurance, the others go back to treating him like a work horse :P

Later, up on the rooftop, Kara confesses to Choro the truth - he actually hates it when the others ask him to do so much for them, so much that he could either die or kill them. When asked about why can’t just say “no” to them, Kara puts on the cool act and says that it’s because he’s such a nice guy~ But Choro quickly gets that the real reason Kara can’t say “no” is because beneath the painful guy act, he’s really just a timid wimp who can’t stand up for himself :P

Honesty Tidbit # 1: I never thought I’d actually say this, but... Kara’s situation was oddly relatable to me in some aspects. My family members - especially my sister - ask me to do things for them, get things for them, etc. all the time. And even when I don’t want to do them, I do them anyway orz (The difference between me and Kara is that unlike him, I usually complain first before doing them :P) To be fair, since I’m a NEET and no one else is, I guess it makes sense that I’m asked to do things for everyone while they’re doing work or resting from work. But still, it’s annoying...

Honesty Tidbit # 2: I can already see the annoying part of the fandom latching onto the fact that Kara’s a bit of a pushover and using that to further push the “pwecious sad woobie” fanon interpretation orz I’m really not looking forward to it...

So Choro tries to be a good brother again and offers to help Kara practice saying “no” to his brothers. However, he ends up getting sidetracked haha :P I find it interesting that Kara actually can’t recognize Choro’s caricatures of the others, even with each one’s more obvious attributes (”horse races” and “boobs” for Oso, “cats” and “killing you all” for Ichi, “baseball” and “BOEH” for Jyushi) mentioned. It makes me wonder, does Kara view and identify his brothers differently from how Choro (and the audience) does? If that’s the case, then how does he view and identify them? ...Or maybe Choro’s caricatures just too exaggerated for him haha

In the end, though, they go and tell the brothers Kara’s true feelings on the matter. And in a very nice moment, the brothers actually backed off once they knew that Kara didn’t actually like being asked what to do (they even said, “Why didn’t you tell us that you wanted us to stop?”), recognized that they really did keep asking him because they knew he wouldn’t say no, and sincerely apologized for it and promised not to do it anymore. Despite what fanon tends to say, the brothers really do care for Kara after all. I’m very glad that’s the case ;v;

...and then the others proceed to make Choro take Kara’s place as the errand boy :P Choro angrily protests, asks for Kara’s help... and Kara refuses and leaves him to fend for himself with a “Good luck~” PFFFFFFFFFFFFFF. Of all times for Kara to decide to say “no”... I guess no good deed goes unpunished when your name’s Matsuno Choromatsu :P

This was a good skit! A good Choro, good Suiriku interaction, the brothers proving fanon wrong... What’s not to love? :’)

The second skit, “New Employee Totoko”, is exactly what it says on the tin - in an office AU, Totoko is the newly hired employee, with Totty being her superior. The skit is already interesting to me because of Totty having the role of the boss/leader/department head in this skit; he doesn’t usually take on these roles IIRC. It fits the ambitious side of his personality though, so I’m not complaining :) He’s also taking his job really seriously in this skit, and certainly acts like how you’d expect a boss/leader/department head to act. It ends up making him a pretty good tsukkomi to Totoko’s antics :P

Speaking of Totoko, she was pretty neat here too! For one thing, her hairstyle as a newbie employee is really nice ;v; It’s her first day working in Akatsuka Tradings, but already she’s causing problems for her superior - first off, she won’t come over when Totty calls her over to his desk. Her excuse is that nobody told her that that’s what she had to do, so she didn’t do it :P Then Totty gives her a document to work on, which he tells her should be finished before lunch - but she doesn’t finish it at all by then, her excuse being that she hasn’t used the programs before, hasn’t done this sort of computing before, etc. Totty ends up having to do the work himself. Then, since Totty did her work for her, Totoko ended up spending her office time updating her social media and sleeping on the job... Again she uses her inexperience as an excuse... Yeah, Totoko’s not exactly the ideal employee for anyone working as a department head :P

I wonder if I can say that I’d be like Totoko if I were in an office setting? :P Again I’m a NEET so I don’t have any job experience... But if my memories of school, college, the two-week internship I had when I was in college, etc. are anything to go by, I know I’d be utterly useless when left to my devices and would always have to ask for help and instructions before I could be set on doing anything orz That, and I get distracted easily, I lose motivation easily, I stay up late... Yeah, Totoko is rather relatable here as well and I’m not proud to admit it orz

Totty ends up having to give Totoko a stern talking to, saying that since she’s new he’ll do his best to help her, but she’s still gotta put in the work herself. They agree to work hard, their conversation ends on a good note, Totty shows off his own version of Kara’s bishie eyes...

...and at the end of the day, Totoko quits her job :P Though Totty begs her to stay, and after his begging she says she’ll stay and even starts saying these cheesy, so-cliche-that-they’re-clearly-bullshit lines about how she’ll do a good job from now on... And then she ditches her job without saying goodbye :P Totty’s very upset about this. Ichiko and Jyushiko (?!) showing up and proving to be better employees doesn’t really help matters either, and it proves at the end that Totty won’t accept “uggos” and wants to work with a cute girl like Yowai-kun :P Ah, classic Totty

And finally, the last skit, “Dubbingmatsu-san”. A couple of unknown people who do unknown work in the Osomatsu-san anime enter a lavishly decorated room filled with food, comfy sofas, and pretty girls in bikinis. What’s all this for? It’s to receive the sextuplets, who are coming in to dub the anime of course! The sextuplets enter wearing various things to conceal their identities to the public - each one increasingly ridiculous than the last - and after a few minutes’ rest, they start to read and practice their lines before they start recording. And during practice, it never seems to be good enough...!!

It becomes clear that this skit actually isn’t about the boys at all - it’s a meta piece about their seiyuu, with the boys kinda-sorta acting as the main six seiyuu’s avatars instead of being themselves. Or at least, that’s how I like to think of this skit :P There are references to seiyuu having to take care of their voices - the boys have humidifiers with them to keep their vocal chords working, and even have back-up surgery implants for their throats in case the worst happens!

And then the boys start practicing their lines and beating themselves up for not meeting their own high standards - the part I really lost it was when Totty yelled, “What did I go study abroad for?!”, which is a reference to Miyu Irino going abroad earlier this year to pursue his theatre studies. It makes me wonder now if the stuff the others were saying while they were beating themselves up were references to their own seiyuu themselves?? Meanwhile Ichi’s/Jun’s just practicing his stabbing skills. Good job Ichi/Jun Also can we please exploit Miyu Irino’s English skills in S2 already

Then recording’s about to begin - with the boys completely naked of course, can’t risk any clothes ruffling making any noise! - and after some chants, they start dubbing over the provided images. And apparently, they’re so good that they can ad-lib and almost change the script entirely, and it’d be okay! They didn’t even need to do any retakes - the boys/seiyuu are just that good!! They’re professionals!!!

It’s interesting to see Ososan’s (fictionalized and exaggerated for comedy’s sake) take on the recording process of anime. It certainly matches up with some of the things I remember reading in interviews with the seiyuu before. In the end, this skit is a silly and irreverent but affectionate love letter to the guys who bring our loveable six same shitheads to life. I can’t help but wonder how Sakurai/Nakamura/Kamiya/Fukuyama/Ono/Irino all felt while recording this skit. Were they embarrassed? Happy? A little proud? I hope someone asks about that skit either in an interview or in a post-Cour 1 commentary reel, like last season’s.

Finally recording ends, and the boys head home - each going home with a hefty sum of yen in one hand, a pretty bikini girl on one arm, and in each one’s personal private helicopter. I... am pretty sure this bit is an exaggeration, there’s no way anyone would actually go home in a private helicopter unless they’re that stinkin’ rich and famous :P But hey, the boys did a good job, they’re happy, the anime staff is happy, we get a quality anime because of everyone’s hard work, therefore everyone’s happy.

“Who would’ve thought such professionals were behind those shitty episodes that air on TV?” “Makes you respect them even more.”

So in conclusion, thank you to Sakurai & Nakamura & Kamiya & Fukuyama & Ono & Irino (& don’t forget Suzumura & Kokuryu & Endo & Saito & Ueda & Tobita & Inoue & Kujira & Yamashita &...) for everything that you do for this shitty anime!! \( ; v ; )/ It wouldn’t be the same without you, thank you for your hard work! ♥♥♥♥♥♥

All in all, this week’s episode was pretty great! I enjoyed it thoroughly and was invested all throughout. I think my favorites would be a tie between “Karamatsu and Brother” (surprisingly!) and “Dubbingmatsu-san” - on one hand, we have solid Suiriku and brotherly care on many sides; on the other we have meta and a silly but sweet nod to the professionals who make the anime come to life. But even “New Employee Totoko” is solid for the roles the characters play alone! So yes, all in all, this week was a good week, and I’m greatly looking forward to next week’s fare ^^

I’m actually really, really excited for next week because - HORROR(HOUSE)MATSU!!! While I’m not really big on the horror genre as a whole, I like the idea of throwing out favorite NEETs into scary situations. And a haunted house is perfect for it >:) The title is “Chibita’s Revenge”, so Chibita's definitely gonna have some sort of hand in all of the spooky shenanigans... Does he have friends on the other side?! :0

Aaaaah, next Matsu Monday can’t come soon enough! ♥

#Spoilers #Matsu spoilers #Matsu S2 spoilers #Season 2 #Random thoughts with Nature #Nature talks about S2 #I'm still not back from hiatus btw #but these reviews are fun and I'll keep doing 'em

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